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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:44:44 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:44:44 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14520-0.txt b/14520-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c3f479 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10246 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14520 *** + +[Illustration: THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTION +UPON POSSIBLE PURSUIT. _Frontispiece. Page 33_] + +MAVERICKS + +BY + +WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE + +AUTHOR OF + +WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, BUCKY O'CONNOR, A TEXAS RANGER, ETC. + + +ILLUSTRATIONS BY + +CLARENCE ROWE + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + +1911 STREET & SMITH + +1912 G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + "In vain men tell us time can alter + Old loves, or make old memories falter." + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. PHYLLIS 9 + + II. THE NESTER 18 + + III. CAUGHT RED-HANDED 28 + + IV. "I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?" 43 + + V. AN AIDER AND ABETTOR 53 + + VI. A GOOD FRIEND 76 + + VII. A SHOT FROM AMBUSH 84 + + VIII. MISS GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN 103 + + IX. PUNISHMENT 117 + + X. INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY 126 + + XI. TOM DIXON 144 + + XII. THE ESCAPE 157 + + XIII. A MISTAKE 168 + + XIV. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 183 + + XV. THE BRAND BLOTTER 200 + + XVI. A WATERSPOUT 214 + + XVII. THE HOLD-UP 226 + +XVIII. BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS 233 + + XIX. THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS 241 + + XX. YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES 253 + + XXI. BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI 263 + + XXII. SURRENDER 276 + +XXIII. AT THE RODEO 289 + + XXIV. MISSING 296 + + XXV. LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY 304 + + XXVI. THE MAN HUNT 323 + +XXVII. THE ROUND-UP 329 + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + PAGE + +The rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon possible pursuit. _Frontispiece_ 33 + +She drew back as if he had struck her, all the +sparkling eagerness driven from her face. 110 + +"Drop that gun!" 205 + +They grappled in silence save for the heavy panting +that evidenced the tension of their efforts. 340 + + + +MAVERICKS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PHYLLIS + + +Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which +wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land +waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind +the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as +the minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail from +the Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in a +voice young and glad. + + "My love has breath o' roses, + O' roses, o' roses, + And cheeks like summer posies + All fresh with morning dew," + +floated the words to her across the sunlit open. + +If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen, +silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm in +her eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit. +They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front of +her and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest. + +"Don't see me, do you?" he asked, smiling. + +Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response. + +"Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon." + +"And you don't think you see much then?" he suggested lightly. + +She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of her +straight figure and the flash of her dark eyes. + +"Mad at me, Phyl?" Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle he +leaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing. + +The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, still +creeping antlike toward the hills. + + "My love has breath o' roses, + O' roses, o' roses," + +he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came. + +It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky good +looks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back a +rebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple. + +"Somebody's acting right foolish," he continued jauntily. "It was all in +fun, and in a game at that." + +"I wasn't playing," he heard, though the profile did not turn in the +least toward him. + +"Well, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower." + +"I don't play kissing games any more," she informed him with dignity. + +"Sho, Phyl! I told you 'twas only in fun," he justified himself. "A kiss +ain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl that +ever was kissed." + +She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of his +boldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks of +the boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a critic +might have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouth +lacked firmness. + +"So I've been told," she answered tartly. + +"Jealous?" + +"No," she exploded. + +Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein. + +"You don't need to depend on hearing," he said, moving toward her. + +"What do you mean?" she flared. + +"You remember well enough--at the social down to Peterson's." + +"We were children then--or I was." + +"And you're not a kid now?" + +"No, I'm not." + +"Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish things +and now you have become a woman." + +Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand. + +"After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't +it?" he bantered. + +"Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon," she flashed fiercely. + +Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she +was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what +dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the +home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still +slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would +awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on +the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid +rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks, +the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her +words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that +struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a +masculine impulse he did not analyse. + +"So you won't be friends?" + +If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness +easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way. + +"No, I won't." And she gave him her profile again. + +"Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about," he +said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward +him. + +With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him from her. + +Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgot +his expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childish +petulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which his +vanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bare +insult. + +"How dare you!" she gasped. + +Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threw +herself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him. +Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillows +where she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for this +insult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eat +dirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again--never so +long as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southern +blood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she did +not once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or to +her brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And it +was in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interfere +with her external duties. + +As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the +bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a +kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began +streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had +already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the +waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official +cage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Noches +on the stage. + +From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into the +dining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing through +the window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grown +youngster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing hands +from the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery window +was raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and that +of Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently torn +from a notebook. + +"This here is for you, Phyl," he explained. + +She pushed it back. "I'm too busy to read it." + +"It's from Tom," he further volunteered. + +"Is it?" + +She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it +across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the +fragments through the window to the floor. + +"Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?" she coolly asked +the next in line over the tow head of Bud. + +The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through the +open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smothered +curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did not +look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she had +seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon, +a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down the +mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his return +journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it, +she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certain +they would not forget to "rub it in" when next they met Master Tom. She +promised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to the +cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage station +for their mail, to teach that young man his place. + +"I'll take a dollar's worth of two's." + +Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had +inherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the +sheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of +sardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle. + +"Any mail for Buck Weaver?" + +"No," she answered promptly without looking. + +"Sure?" + +"Yes." + +"Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?" + +Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her, +for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He had +no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his +insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She +had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against +wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate +lawlessness. + +"I know my business, sir." + +Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim +Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of +extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he +felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter, +hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and +slipped an arm into that of her father. + +"This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver," he was saying. "It's +been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin' +you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh." + +"Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's +reason a-plenty for me," Weaver told him contemptuously. + +"But not for me, seh. When you come into my house----" + +"I didn't come into your house." + +"Why--why----" + +"Father!" implored the girl. "It's a government post-office. He has a +right here as long as he behaves." + +"H'm!" the old fire-eater snorted. "I'd be obliged just the same, Mr. +Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck." + +"Dad!" the girl begged. + +He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. "Now don't you worry, +honey. There ain't going to be any trouble--leastways none of my making. +I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin' down +whilst anybody tromples on me neither." + +"He wouldn't try to do that here," Phyllis reminded him. + +Weaver laughed in grim irony. "I'm surely much obliged to you for +protecting me." And to the father he added carelessly: "Keep your shirt +on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I +reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail." + +With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious to +the last virile inch of him. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE NESTER + + +With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office +to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself while +waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat for +many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted. +For at this store the Malpais country bought its ammunition, its +tobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its opinions had sifted +down to convictions. From this common meeting ground the gossip of +Cattleland was scattered far and wide. + +Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was the +owner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle company in that +country. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he had +begun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place +then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his +own ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacable +daring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Those +that survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only the +settlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the big +man of the district, dominating its social, business, and political +activities. + +"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he asked +curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle. + +"That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nester +homesteaded there," old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobacco +with a noncommittal air. + +"Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwaters +of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be a +mighty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly. + +The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either small +cattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on the +business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated +so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Most +of them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they did +not usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joined +hand with him. + +"You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped." + +The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was in +the common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny +leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of +course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an +untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows. +He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther, +reckless and yet wary. + +"We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill," Buck told him. + +"If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out," Healy +replied. + +Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable to +roll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteaders +had taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most of +these were honest men, others suspected rustlers. But Buck's fiat had +not sufficed to keep them out. They had held stoutly to their own +and--he suspected--a good deal more than their own. Calves had been +branded secretly and cows killed or driven away. + +"Go to it, Brill," Weaver jeered. "I'm wishing you all the luck in the +world." + +He touched his pony with the spur and swept up the road in a cloud of +white dust. + +Not till he had disappeared did conversation renew itself languidly, for +Seven Mile Ranch was lying under the lethargy of a summery sun. + +"I expect Buck's got the right of it," volunteered a brawny youth known +as Slim. "All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of big +outfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious. +There's sure money in being a nester." + +Despite the soft drawl of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as did +the others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustling +must be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. The +thieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairly +outwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven across +the line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established +ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners +faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once +or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader +of the outlaws had saved the men by the most daring strategy. + +Healy, until lately foreman of the Twin Star outfit, had organized the +ranchmen as a protective association. In this he had represented Weaver, +himself not popular enough to coƶperate with the other ranchmen. Once +Brill had led the pursuit of the rustlers and had come back furious from +a long futile chase. For among the cattle being driven across to Sonora +were five belonging to him. + +Other charges also lay against the hill outlaws. A stage had been robbed +with a gold shipment from the Diamond Nugget mine. A cattleman had been +held up and relieved of two thousand dollars, just taken as part payment +for a sale of beef steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while trying +to arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks. + +Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, and +lowered his voice to a whisper. "Boys, this thing has got to stop. I've +sent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he can. +Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got." + +Yeager nodded. "Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep. as +a cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he coming?" + +"He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a couple +of weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to drop +everything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job till +he finishes it right," Healy promised. + +"Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stop +this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin' +around till we're stole blind," assented Slim. + +"It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies have +been hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to him +to clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call on +you." + +"Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill," nodded one +little fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising from +the Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. "What's the name of +this new nester, Jim?" + +Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with a +big double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast, +the voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsetto +scarce above a whisper. + +"Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller," +he said. + +"What's he look like?" + +"You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail this +way." + +The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source a +rider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up in +front of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle and +glanced around. + +"Evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly. + +Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his greeting. But +the lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not be doubted. +The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand resting on his +hip and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed gaze travel from +one to another, understood perfectly what those expressionless eyes of +stone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of light derision, +trailed debonairly into the store. + +"Any mail for Larrabie Keller?" he inquired of the postmistress. + +The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look. +When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant a +flash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb health +had painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pink +pushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetized +his gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyes +that had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushed +indignantly and withdrew from the window. + +Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned to +the porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter. +His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes were +focused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility. + +He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group, a +lad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look of +pride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guess +that they were brother and sister, very likely twins, though he found in +the boy's expression a sulky impatience lacking in hers. Perhaps the lad +needed the discipline that life hammers into those who want to be a law +unto themselves. + +With an insolence extremely boyish, the lad turned to Healy. "I'm for +running out a few of these nesters. We've got more than we can use, I +reckon. The range is overstocked now--both with them and cows. Come a +bad year and half of our cattle will starve." + +There was a moment of surcharged silence. Phil Sanderson had voiced the +growing feeling of them all, but he had flung it out as a stark +challenge before the time was ripe. It was one thing to resent the +coming of settlers; it was quite another to set themselves openly +against the law that allowed these men to homestead the natural parks in +the hills. + +Brill Healy laughed. "The fat's in the fire now, sure enough. Just the +same, I back your play, Phil." + +He turned recklessly to the man in the doorway. "You may tell your +friends up on Bear Creek that we own this range and mean to hold it. We +don't aim to let our cattle be starved, and we don't aim to lie down +before rustlers. Understand?" + +The nester smiled, but there was no gayety in his eyes. They met those +of the cattleman with a grip of steel, and measured strength with him. +Each knew the other would go the limit before Keller made quiet answer: + +"I think so." + +And with that he dismissed the subject and his unfriendly audience. With +perfect ease, he read his letter, pocketed it, and whistled softly as he +impassively took stock of the scenery. Apparently he had wiped Public +Opinion from his map, and was interested only in the panorama before +him. + +Seven Mile Ranch lay rooted at the desert terminus among the foothills, +a gateway between the mountains and the Malpais Plain. Below was a +shimmering stretch of sand and cactus tortured beneath a blazing sun. +Into that caldron with its furnace-cracked floor the sun had poured +itself torridly for countless eons. It was a Sahara of mirage and +desolation and death. + +To the left was a flat-topped mesa eroded to fantastic mockery of some +bastioned fort. In the round-topped hills behind it was Noches, fifty +miles away. Beyond lay the tangle of hills, rising to the saw-toothed +range now painted with orange and mauve and a hint of deepening purple. +For dusk was already slipping down over the peaks. + +"Mail's been open half an hour, boys," Phyllis announced through the +open window. + +They dropped in to the store, as noisy as schoolboys, but withal +deferential. It was clear the young postmistress reigned a queen among +the younger ones, but a queen that deigned to friendship with her +subjects. Some of them called her Miss Sanderson, one or two of them +Phyllie. + +Among these last was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with her +indeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handed +to each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed to +embarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greeted +with gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back to +them, they seemed all one happy family--and himself a rank outsider. He +trailed down the steps and swung himself to the saddle. As he loped away +the sound of her warm, clear laughter floated after him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CAUGHT RED-HANDED + + +From a cleft in the hills two riders emerged, following a little gulch +to the point where it widened into a draw. The alkali dust of Arizona +lay thick upon their broad-brimmed Stetsons and every inch of exposed +surface, but through the gray coating bloomed the freshness of youth. It +rang from their voices, was apparent in the modelling and carriage of +their figures. The young man was sinewy and hard as nails, the girl +supple and wiry, of a slender grace, straight-backed as an Indian in the +saddle. + +Just where the draw dipped down into the grassy park they drew rein an +instant. Faint and far a sound drifted to them. Somebody down in the +park had fired a rifle. + +"I don't agree with you, Phil," the girl said, picking up the thread of +their conversation where they had dropped it some minutes earlier. "The +nesters have as much right here as we have. They come here to settle, +and they take up government land. Why shouldn't they?" + +"Because we got here first," he retorted impatiently. "Because our +cattle and sheep have been feeding on the land they are fencing. +Because they close the water holes and the creeks and claim they are +theirs. It means the end of the open range. That's what it means." + +"Of course that's what it means. We'll have to adapt ourselves to it. +You talk foolishness when you make threats to drive out the nesters. +That is the sort of thing Buck Weaver has been trying to do. It's +absurd. The law is back of them. You would only come to trouble, and if +you did succeed others would take their places." + +"And rustle our cattle," he added sullenly. + +"It isn't proved they are the rustlers. You haven't a shred of evidence. +Perhaps they are, but you should prove it before you make the charge." + +"If they aren't, who is?" he flared up. + +"I don't know. But whoever it is will be caught and punished some day. +There is no doubt at all about that." + +"You talk a heap of foolishness, Phyl," he answered resentfully. "My +notion is they never will be caught. What makes you so sure they will?" + +They had been riding down the draw, and at this moment Phyllis looked +up, to see a rider silhouetted against the sky line on the ridge above. + +"Oh, you Brill!" she cried, with a wave of her quirt. + +The man turned, saw them, and rode slowly down. He nodded, after the +fashion of the range, first to the girl, and then to her brother. + +"Morning," he nodded. "Headed for Mesa? Here, too." + +He fell in with them and rode beside the girl. Presently they topped a +little hillock, and looked down into the park. It had about the area of +a mile, and was perhaps twice as long as broad. Wooded spurs ran down +from the hills into it here and there, and through the meadow leaped a +silvery stream. + +"Hello! Wonder where that smoke comes from?" + +It was Healy that spoke. He pointed to a faint cloud rising from a +distance. Even before he began to speak, however, Phyllis had her field +glasses out, and was adjusting them to her eyes. + +"There's a fire there and a man standing over it," she presently +announced. "There's something else there, too. I can't make it +out--something lying down." + +The men glanced at each other, and in the meeting of their eyes some +intelligence passed between them. It was as if the younger accused and +the older sullenly denied. + +"Lemme have the glasses," Phil said to his sister almost roughly. + +Healy glanced at Phil swiftly, covertly, as the latter adjusted the +glasses. "She's right about the fire and the man. I can see as much with +my naked eyes," he cut in. + +The boy looked long, lowered the glasses, and met his friend's eye with +a kind of shamefaced hesitation. But apparently he gathered reassurance +from the quiet steadiness with which the other's gaze met him. He handed +the glasses to Healy. When the latter lowered them his face was grave. +"There's a man and a fire and a cow and a calf. When these four things +meet up together, what does it mean?" + +"Branding!" cried the girl. + +"That's right--branding. And when the cow is dead what does it mean?" +Brill asked, his eyes full on Phil. + +"Rustling!" she breathed again. + +"You've said it, Phyl. We've got one of them at last," he cried +jubilantly. + +Phil, hanging between doubt and suspicion and shame, brightened at the +enthusiasm of the other. + +"Right you are, Brill. We'll solve this mystery once for all." + +Healy, unstrapping the case in which lay his rifle, shot a question at +the boy. "Armed, Phil?" + +The lad nodded. "I brought my six-gun for rattlesnakes." + +"Are you going to--to----" cried Phyllis, the color gone from her face. + +"We're going to capture him alive if we can, Phyl. You're to wait right +here till we come back. You may hear shooting. Don't let that worry you. +We've got the drop on him, or will have. Nobody is going to get hurt if +he acts sensible," Healy reassured. + +"Don't you move from here. You stay right where you are," her brother +ordered sharply. + +"Yes," she said, and was aware that her throat was suddenly parched. +"You'll be careful, won't you, Phil?" + +"Sure," he called back, as he put his horse at a canter to follow his +friend up the draw. + +The sound of the hoofs died away, and she was alone. That they were +going to circle in and out among the tangle of hills until they were +opposite the miscreant, she knew, but in spite of Brill's promise she +had a heart of water. With trembling fingers she raised the glasses +again, and focused them on that point which was to be the centre of the +drama. + +The man was moving about now, quite unconscious of the danger that +menaced him. What she looked at was the great crime of Cattleland. All +her life she had been taught to hold it in horror. But now something +human in her was deeper than her detestation of the cowardly and awful +thing this man had just done. She wanted to cry out to him a warning, +and did in a faint, ineffective voice that carried not a tenth of the +distance between them. + +She had promised to remain where she was, but her tense interest in what +was doing drew her forward in spite of herself. She rode along the ridge +that bordered the park, at first slowly and then quicker as the impulse +grew in her to be in at the finish. + +The climax came. She saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his +pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang +out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the +saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged into a +wash and disappeared. + +What inspired her she could never tell. Perhaps it was her indignation +at the thing he had done, perhaps her anger at that mocking wave of the +hand with which he had vanished. She wheeled her horse, and put it at a +canter down the nearest draw so as to try to intercept him at right +angles. Her heart beat fast with excitement, but she was conscious of no +fear. + +Before she had covered half the distance, she knew she was going to be +too late to cut off his retreat. Faintly, she heard the rhythm of hoofs +striking the rocky bottom of the draw. Abruptly they ceased. Wondering +what that could mean, she found her answer presently. For the pounding +of the galloping broncho had renewed itself, and closer. The man was +riding up the gulch toward her. He had turned into its mesquite-laced +entrance for a hiding place. Phyllis drew rein, and waited quietly to +confront him, but with a pulse that hammered the moments for her. + +A white-stockinged roan, plowing a way through heavy sand, labored into +view round the bend, its rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon the possible pursuit. Not until he was almost upon her +did the man turn. With a startled exclamation at sight of the motionless +figure, he pulled up sharply. It was the nester, Keller. + +"You," she cried. + +"Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily. + +His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow. +White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile. + +"So you are a--rustler," she told him scornfully. + +"I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter +irony. + +She saw something else, a deepening stain that soaked slowly down his +shirt sleeve. + +"You are wounded." + +"Am I?" + +"Aren't you?" + +"Come to think of it, I believe I am," he laughed shortly. + +"Badly?" + +"I haven't got the doctor's report yet." There was a gleam of whimsical +gayety in his eyes as he added: "I was going to find him when I had the +good luck to meet up with you." + +He was a hunted miscreant, wounded, riding for his life as a hurt wolf +dodges to shake off the pursuit, but strangely enough her gallant heart +thrilled to the indomitable pluck of him. Never had she seen a man who +looked more the vagabond enthroned. His crisp bronze curls and his +superb shoulders were bathed in the sunpour. Not once, since his eyes +had fallen on her, had he looked back to see if his hunters had picked +up the lost trail. He was as much at ease as if his whole thought at +meeting her were the pleasure of the encounter. + +"Can you ride?" she demanded. + +"I can stick on a hawss if it's plumb gentle. Leastways I've been trying +to for twenty years," he drawled. + +Her impatient gesture waved his flippancy aside. "I mean, are you too +much hurt to ride? I'm not going to leave you here like a wounded +coyote. Can you follow me if I lead the way?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +She turned. He followed her obediently, but with a ghost of a smile +still flickering on his face. + +"Am I your prisoner, Miss Sanderson?" he presently wanted to know. + +"I'm not thinking of prisoners just now," she answered shortly, with an +anxious backward glance. + +Presently she pulled up and wheeled her horse, so that when he halted +they sat facing each other. + +"Let me see your arm," she ordered. + +Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It +was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye. + +"This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other." + +"Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness. + +Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist +gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a +clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble +except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked +pretty bad. + +"A plumb scratch," he explained. + +She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then +pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this +she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy. + +"Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy." + +"It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded +jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again. + +There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you +tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud. +"Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering." + +"Exactly." + +He let his cool eyes rest on her with a hint of amusement. "And what +were you thinking of doing with me now, ma'am?" + +"I'm going to take you up to Jim Yeager's mine. He is doing his +assessment work now, and he'll look out for you for a day or two." + +"Look out for me in a locked room?" he wanted to know casually. + +"I didn't say so. It isn't my business to arrest criminals," she told +him icily. + +His eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?" + +"I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills +alone. That is all." + +"Jim Yeager is your friend?" + +"Yes." + +"And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?" + +"He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently. + +"Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss +Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much." + +He checked his pony and bowed. + +"Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed. + +"Up Bear Creek." + +"It's twenty miles. You can't do it." + +"Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the +handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony. + +"You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!" + +He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance. + +"I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her +pride. + +"Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend. +I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he +drawled. + +At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I +_like_ you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel +friendly when I hate you?" + +"Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came +back with his easy smile. + +"You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I +can't let you go alone." + +"You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss +Sanderson." + +With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he +heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious, +both at him and at herself. + +"Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it +yet," he said innocently. + +"I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one +that will take charge of you," she choked. + +"It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged, ma'am, but you're overestimating +the effect of this pill your friend injected into me." + +"Still, I'm going. I won't have your death on my hands," she told him +defiantly. + +"Sho! I ain't aimin' to pass over the divide on account of a scratch +like this. There's no danger but what I can look out for myself." + +She waited in silence for him to start, looking straight ahead of her. + +He tried in vain to argue her out of it. She had nothing to say, and he +saw she was obstinately determined to carry her point. + +Finally, with a little chuckle at her stubbornness, he gave in and +turned round. + +"All right. Yeager's it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to +me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she +disdained to answer. + +Yeager saw them from afar, and recognized the girl. + +"Hello, Phyllis!" he shouted down. "With you in a minute." + +The girl slipped to the ground, and climbed the steep trail to meet him. +Her crisp "Wait here," flung over her shoulder with the slightest turn +of the head, kept Keller in the saddle. + +Halfway up she and the man met. The one waiting below could not hear +what they said, but he could tell she was explaining the situation to +Yeager. The latter nodded from time to time, protested, was vehemently +overruled, and seemed to leave the matter with her. Together they +retraced their way. Young Yeager, in flannel shirt and half-leg miner's +boots, was a splendid specimen of bronzed Arizona. His level gaze judged +the man on horseback, approved him, and met him eye to eye. + +"Better light, Mr. Keller. If you come in we'll have a look at your arm. +An accident like that is a mighty awkward thing to happen to a man on +the trail. It's right fortunate Miss Sanderson found you so soon after +it happened." + +The nester knew a surge of triumph in his blood, but it did not show in +the impassive face which he turned upon his host. + +"It was right fortunate for me," he said, swinging from the saddle. +Incidentally he was wondering what story had been narrated to Yeager, +but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so +careless when he's got a gun in his hand." + +"You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is +liable to go off and hit somebody any time if he ain't careful. You're +in big luck you didn't shoot yourself up a heap worse." + +Yeager led the way to his cabin, and offered Phyllis the single chair he +boasted, and the nester a seat on the bed. Sitting beside him, he +examined the wound and washed it. + +"Comes to being an invalid I'm a false alarm," Keller said +apologetically. "I didn't want to come, but Miss Sanderson would bring +me." + +"She was dead right, too. Time you had ridden twenty miles through the +hot sun with that wound you would have been in a raging fever." + +"One way and another I'm quite in her debt." + +"That's so," agreed Yeager, intent on his work. + +She refused to meet the nester's smile. "Fiddlesticks! You talk mighty +foolish, Jim. I wouldn't go away and leave a wounded dog if I could help +it." + +"Suppose the dog were a sheep-killer?" Keller asked with his engaging, +impudent smile. + +A dust cloud rose from her skirt under a stroke of the restless quirt. +"I'd do my best for it and let it settle with the law afterward." + +"Even if it were a wolf caught in a trap?" + +"I should put it out of its pain. No matter how much I detested it, I +wouldn't leave it there to suffer." + +"I'm quite sure you wouldn't," the wounded man agreed. + +Yeager looked from one to the other, not quite catching the drift of the +underlying meaning. Another thing puzzled him, too. But, like most men +of the unfenced Southwest, Yeager had a large capacity for silence. Now +he attended strictly to his business, without mentioning what he had +noticed. + +The wound dressed, Phyllis rose to leave. "You'll be down for your mail +to-morrow, Jim," she suggested, as she sauntered toward the door. + +"Sure. I'll let you know how our patient is getting along." + +"Oh, he's yours. I don't want any of the credit," she returned +carelessly. + +Then, the words scarce off her lips, she gave a little cry of alarm, and +stepped quickly back into the room. What she had seen had sapped the +color from her face. Yeager started forward, but she waved him back. + +"It's Phil and Brill Healy. You've got to hide us, Jim," she told him +tensely. + +The nester began to grin. He always did when he faced a difficulty +apparently insurmountable. Also his fingers slid toward the butt of his +revolver. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?" + + +Jim swept the cabin with a gesture. "Where can I hide you? Anyhow, there +are the horses in plain sight." + +Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered. + +At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung +its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained +handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack. + +"Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your +assessment work, remember. And whatever I say, don't give me away." + +Yeager nodded. He had manoeuvred the wounded arm through the coat sleeve +and was straightening out the shoulders. The nester's eyes were shining +with excitement. Alone of the three, he was enjoying himself. + +"Remember now. Don't talk too much. Let me run this," the girl +cautioned, and with that she stepped to the door, caught sight of her +brother with a glad little cry of apparent relief, and ran swiftly to +him. + +"Oh, Phil!" she almost sobbed, and the stress of her emotion was genuine +enough, even if she dissembled as to the cause. + +The boy patted her dark hair gently. They were twins, without other near +relatives except their father, and the tie between them was close. + +"What is it, Phyllie? Why didn't you stay where we left you?" + +"I was afraid for you. And I rode a little nearer. Then he came straight +toward me--and I rode away. I could hear him crashing through the +mesquite. When I reached the trail of Jim's mine, I followed it, for I +knew he would be here." + +"Sure. Course she was scared. What woman wouldn't be? We oughtn't both +to have left her. But there wasn't one chance in a thousand of his +stumbling on the very spot where she was," said Healy. + +Phil gentled her with a caressing hand. "It's all right now, sis. Did +you happen to see the fellow at all?" + +"Yes. At a distance." + +"I don't suppose you would know him," Healy said. + +She gave a strained little laugh. "I didn't wait to get a description of +him. Didn't you boys recognize him?" + +After Phil's answer she breathed freer. "We did not get near enough, +though Brill got two shots at him as he pulled out. He was going +hell-for-leather and Brill missed both times." He lowered his voice and +asked angrily: "What's _he_ doing here?" + +For Keller had followed Yeager from the cabin and was standing in the +doorway with his hands in his pockets. He wore no hat, and had the +manner of one very much at home. + +"He's helping Jim with his assessment work," she answered in the same +low tone. "It's too bad you lost the rustler. He must have broken for +the hills." + +Healy's eyes had narrowed to slits. Now he murmured a question: "What +about this man Keller? Was he here when you came, Phyl?" + +The girl turned to Yeager, who had sauntered up. "Didn't you say he came +this morning, Jim?" + +Yeager's eyes were like a stone wall. "Yep. This mo'ning. I needed some +husky guy to help me, so I got him." + +"Funny you had to get a fellow from Bear Creek to help you, Jim." + +"Are you looking for a job, Brill?" + +"No. Why?" + +"Because I ain't noticed any stampede this way among the boys to preempt +this job. I take a man where I can find him, Brill, and I don't ask you +to O.K. him." + +"I see you don't, Jim. The boys aren't going to like it very well, +though." + +"Then they know what they can do about it," Yeager answered evenly, +level eyes steadily on those of his critic. + +"What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil. + +Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been +about eight." + +"Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a +whisper. + +"What man?" Jim asked. + +"We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a +shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil +exclaimed. + +"How long ago was this?" asked Yeager. + +"About an hour since we first saw him. Beats all how he ever made his +getaway. We were right after him when he gave us the slip." + +"Oh, he gave you the slip, did he?" + +"Dropped into some hole and pulled it in after him. These hills are +built for hide and seek, looks like." + +"Notice the color of his horse?" + +"It was a roan, Jim. Something like that nester's." Phil nodded toward +the animal Keller had ridden. + +All eyes focused hard on the horse with the white stockings. + +"What brand was he putting on the calf? That'll tell you who the man +was." + +Phil and Healy looked at each other, and the latter laughed. "That's one +on us. We didn't stay to look, but got right out for Mr. Rustler." + +"Did he kill the cow?" + +Phil nodded. + +"Then you'll find the calf still hanging around there unless he had a +pal to drive it away." + +"That's right. We'll go back now and look. Ready, Phyl?" + +"Yes." She stepped to her horse, and swung to the saddle. + +Meanwhile Healy rode forward to the cabin. Through narrowed lids he +looked down at the man standing in the doorway. "Give that message to +your friends?" he demanded insolently. + +There are men who have to look at each other only once to know that +there is born between them a perpetual hostility. Each of these men had +felt it at the first shock of meeting eyes. They would feel it again as +often as they looked at each other. + +"No," the nester answered. + +"Why not?" + +"I didn't care to. You may carry your own messages." + +"When I do I'll carry them with a gun." + +"Interesting if true." Keller's gaze passed derisively over him and +dismissed the man. + +"And I hope when I come I'll meet Mr. Keller first." + +The nester's attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed +to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona. + +Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the +trail with his broncho on the buck. + +Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a +frosty eye. + +"I've got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller," he said. + +"Unload 'em." + +Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on +the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it. + +"In the first place, I'll announce myself. I don't hold with rustlers or +waddies. I'm a white man. That being understood, I want to know where +we're at." + +"Meaning?" + +"Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up +accidental. Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me. You ain't +that kind of a durn fool. Would you mind handing me a dipper of water? +Thanks." Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back +into the pail. "I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand. +Your gun is on your right side. Then how in Mexico, you being +right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself _in the right arm below +the elbow?_" + +Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information. "Quite a Sherlock +Holmes, ain't you?" + +"Hell, no! I got eyes in my head, though. Moreover, that bullet went in +at right angles to your arm. How did you make out to do that?" + +"Sleight of hand," suggested the other. + +"No powder marks, either. And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a +revolver." + +"Anything more?" + +"Some. That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn't over and above +clear to me then. I _savez_ it now. She hates you like p'ison, but +she's too tender-hearted to give you up. Ain't that it?" + +"That's it." + +"She lied for you to me. She lied again to Phil. So did I. Oh, we didn't +lie in words, but it's the same thing. Now, I wouldn't lie to save my +own skin. Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?" + +"I'm a rustler and a thief, am I?" + +"Ain't you?" + +"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?" + +Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, "No." + +"Then I won't say it." + +The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled +at him. "Mr. Keller, you're a newcomer here. I wonder if you know what +the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now." + +"I can guess." + +"Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn't be worth a plugged +quarter." + +"Why didn't you tell?" + +Yeager brought his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl +Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I +ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father +has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should +I throw down my friends to save a rustler caught in the act?" + +"You've already tried and convicted me, I see." + +"The facts convict you, seh." + +"Your understanding of the facts, I reckon you mean." + +"I haven't noticed that you're giving me any chance to understand them +different," Yeager cut back dryly. + +The nester took from his pocket a little pearl-handled knife, picked up +a potato from a basket beside him, and began to whittle on it absently. +He looked across the table at the man sitting on the bed, and debated a +question in his mind. Was it best to confess the whole truth? Or should +he keep his own counsel? + +"I see you've got Miss Sanderson's knife. Did you forget to return it?" +Yeager made comment. + +For just an instant Keller's eye confessed amazement. "Miss Sanderson's +knife! Why--how did you know it was hers?" he asked, gathering himself +together lamely. + +"I ought to know, seeing as I gave it to her for a Christmas present. +Sent to Denver for that knife, I did. Best lady's knife in the market, +I'm told. Made in Sheffield, England." + +"Ye-es. It's sure a good knife. I'll ce'tainly return it next time I see +her." + +"Funny she ever let you get away with it. She's some particular who she +lends that knife to," Jim said proudly. + +Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his +pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had +told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a +possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in +trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others +into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson--surely not this +impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes. +Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would. + +"I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he +said gently. + +"Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for +yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You +may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for +Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know." + +"That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife." + +Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If +you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back." + +"Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler." + +"Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to +find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AN AIDER AND ABETTOR + + +Having come to an understanding, Yeager and Keller wasted no time or +temper in acrimony. Both of them belonged to that big outdoors West +which plays the game to the limit without littleness. They were in +hostile camps, but that did not prevent them from holding amiable +conversation on the common topics of Cattleland. Only one of these they +avoided by mutual consent. Neither of them had anything to say about +rustling. + +Together they ate and smoked and slept, and in the morning after +breakfast they saddled and set out for Seven Mile. A man might have +traveled far without seeing finer specimens of the frontier, any more +competent, self-restrained, or fitter for emergency. They rode with +straight back and loose seat, breaking long silences with occasional +drawling comment. For in the cow country strong men talk only when they +have something to say. + +The stage had just left when they reached Seven Mile, and Public Opinion +was seated on the porch as per custom. It regarded Keller with a stony, +expressionless hostility. Yeager with frank disapprobation. + +Just before swinging from the saddle, Jim turned to the nester. "I'm +giving you an hour, seh. After that, I'm going to speak my little piece +to the boys." + +"Thank you. An hour will be plenty," Keller answered, and passed into +the store, apparently oblivious of the silent observation focused upon +him. + +Phyllis, busy unwrapping a package of papers, glanced up to see his +curly head in the stamp window. + +"Anything for L. Keller?" he wanted to know, after he had unburdened +himself of a friendly "Mornin', Miss Sanderson." + +Her impulse was to ask him how his wound was, but she repressed it +sternly. She took the letters from the K pigeonhole and found two for +him. + +"Thank you, I'm feeling fine," he laughed, gathering up his mail. + +"I didn't ask you how you were feeling," she answered, turning coldly to +her newspapers. + +"I thought mebbe you'd want to know about my punctured tire." + +"It's very good of you to relieve my anxiety." + +"Let me relieve it some more, Miss Sanderson. Here's the knife you +lost." + +She glanced up carelessly at the pearl-handled knife he pushed through +the window. "I didn't know it was lost." + +"Well, now you know it's found. When do you remember seeing it last, +ma'am?" + +"I lent it to a friend two days ago." + +"Oh, to a friend--two days ago." + +His eyes were on her so steadily that the girl was aware of some +significance he gave to the fact, some hidden meaning that escaped her. + +"What friend did you say, Miss Sanderson?" + +He asked it casually, but his question irritated her. + +"I didn't say, sir." + +"That's so. You didn't." + +"Where did you get it?" she demanded. + +He grinned. "I'll tell you that if you'll tell me who you lent it to." + +Her curt answer reminded him that he was in her eyes a convicted +criminal. "It's of no importance, sir." + +"That's what you think, Miss Sanderson." + +She sorted the newspapers in the bundle, and began to slip them into the +private boxes where they belonged. Presently, however, her curiosity +demanded satisfaction. Without looking at him, she volunteered +information. + +"But there's no mystery about it. Phil borrowed the knife to fix a +stirrup leather, and forgot to give it back to me." + +"Your brother?" + +"Yes." + +He was taken aback. There was nothing for it but a white lie. "I found +it near Yeager's mine yesterday. I reckon he must have dropped it on his +way there." + +"I don't see anything very mysterious about that," she said frostily. + +She looked so definitely unaware of him as she worked that he fell back +from the window and passed out to the porch. He had found out more than +he wanted to know. + +Jim Yeager's drawling voice came to him, gentle and low as usual, but +with an edge to it. "I been discoverin' I'm some unpopular to-day, +Brill. Malpais has been expressin' its opinion right plain. You've +arrived in time to chirp in with a 'Me, too.'" + +Healy had evidently just ridden up, for he was still in the saddle. He +relaxed into one of the easy attitudes used by men of the plains to rest +themselves without dismounting. + +"You know my sentiments, Jim," he replied, not unamiably. + +"Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel +awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when +Keller touched him on the shoulder. + +"I'd like to see you for a moment, Mr. Yeager, if you can give me the +time," he said. + +Healy took in the nester with an eye of jade. "Your twin brother wants +you, Jim. Run along with him. Don't mind us." + +"I won't, Brill." + +The young man rose, and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. At +the corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under the +shade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowed +himself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him that +seemed to ally him further with the enemy. + +"Here I am, Mr. Keller. What can I do for you?" + +"You're a friend of Miss Sanderson. You would stand between her and +trouble?" the other demanded abruptly. + +"I expect." + +"Then find out for me what Phil Sanderson did with the knife his sister +lent him two days ago. Find out whether he lent it to anybody, and, if +so, who." + +"What for?" + +It had come to a show-down, and the other tabled his cards. + +"I found that knife yesterday mo'ning. It was lying beside the dead cow +in the park where your friends happened on me. I reckon the rustlers +must have heard me coming and drove the calf away just before I arrived. +In his hurry one of them forgot that knife. If you'll tell me the man +who had it in his pocket yesterday when he left-home, I'll tell you who +one of the Malpais rustlers is." + +Jim considered this, his gaze upon the far-away range. When he brought +it back to Keller, he was smiling incredulously. + +"I hear you say so, seh. But what a man with, a halter round his neck +says don't go far before a court." + +"I expected you to say about that." + +"Then I haven't disappointed you." He continued presently, with cold +hostility: "That story you cooked up is about the only one you could +spring. What surprises me is that a man with as good a head as yours +took twenty-four hours to figure out your explanation. I want to tell +you, too, that it don't make any hit with me that you're trying to throw +the blame on a boy I've known all my life." + +"Who happens to be a brother of Miss Sanderson," Keller let himself +suggest. + +Yeager flushed. "That ain't the point." + +"The point is that I'm trying to clear this boy, and I want your help." + +"Looks to me like you want to clear yourself." + +"If I prove to you that I'm not a rustler, will you padlock your tongue +and help me clear young Sanderson?" + +"I sure will--if you prove it to my satisfaction." + +Keller drew from his pocket the two letters he had just received. "Read +these." + +When he had read, Yeager handed them back, and offered his hand. "That +clears you, seh. Truth is, I never was satisfied you was a rustler. My +mind was satisfied; but, durn it, you didn't _look_ like a waddy. It's +lucky I hadn't spoke to the boys yet." + +"I want to keep this quiet," the Bear Creek settler explained. + +"Sure. I'm a clam, and at your service, seh." + +"Then find out the truth about the knife." + +Yeager's eye chiselled into that of Keller. "Mind, I ain't going to help +you bring trouble to Phyllie, and I ain't going to stand by and see it, +either." + +The other smiled. "I don't ask it of you. What I want is to clear the +boy." + +"Good enough," agreed Yeager, and led the way back. + +Before they had yet reached the house, a figure dropped from the foliage +of the live oak under which they had been standing, and rolled like a +ball from the fence into the deep dust of the corral. It picked itself +up in a gray cloud, from which shone as a nucleus a black face with +beady eyes and flashing-white teeth. Swiftly it scampered across the +paddock, disappeared into the rear of the stable, and reappeared at the +front door. + +"Here you, 'Rastus, where you been?" demanded the wrangler. "Didn't I +tell you to clean Miss Phyl's trap? I've wore my lungs out hollering for +you. Now, you git to work, or I'll wear you to a frazzle." + +'Rastus, general alias for his baptismal name of George Washington +Abraham Lincoln Randolph, grinned and ducked, shot out of the stable +like a streak of light, and appeared ten seconds later in the kitchen +presided over by his rotund mother, Becky. + +His abrupt entrance disturbed the maternal after-dinner nap. From the +rocking-chair where she sat Becky rolled affronted eyes at him. + +"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebenty +times seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?" + +"I wanter see Miss Phyl." + +"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool +away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable, +where you belong." + +'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that +part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky +stared after him in amazement. + +"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped. + +Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the +store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room +finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was +sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her +"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes. + +She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham +Lincoln Randolph?" + +"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live +oak at the corral." + +"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash----" + +"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream it +nerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they call +Keller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler, +and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler." + +"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazing +indignation. + +"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by the +dead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil." + +"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot blood +of Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted to +strike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he had +given to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person she +could best use for her instrument. + +Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender young +amazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in the +dusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this young +woman of many moods. + +"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus." + +The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused. + +"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the door +had closed on him. + +The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his own +tracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but----" + +"We have," she broke in. + +"I can't see it. According to Jim Yeager----" + +"Jim lied. I asked him to." + +"You--what?" + +"I asked him to say that this man had come there to work for him. Jim +was not to blame." + +"But--why?" + +She threw out a gesture of self-contempt. "Why did I do it? I don't +know. Because he was wounded, I suppose." + +"Wounded! Then I did hit him?" + +"Yes. In the arm--a flesh wound. I met him riding through the mesquite. +After I had tied up his wound, I took him to Jim's." + +His eyes narrowed slightly. "So you tied up his wound?" + +"Yes," she answered defiantly, her head up. + +"That tender heart of yours," he murmured, with almost a sneer. + +"Yes. I'm a fool." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well." + +"And he pays me back by trying to throw it on Phil. Hunt him down, +Brill. Bring him to me. I'll tell all I know against him," she cried +vindictively. + +"I'll get him, Phyl," he promised, and the sound of his laughter was not +pleasant. "I'll get him for you, or find out why." + +"Think of him trying to put it on Phil, and after I stood by him and +kept his secret. Isn't that the worst ever?" the girl flamed. + +"He rode away not five minutes ago as big as coffee on that ugly roan of +his with the white stockings; knew what we thought about him, but didn't +pay any more attention to us than as if we were bumps on a log." + +Healy strode out to the porch, told his story, and within five minutes +had organized his posse and appointed a rendezvous for two hours later +at Seven Mile. + +At the appointed time his men were on hand, six of them, armed with +rifles and revolvers, ready for grim business. + +From her window Phyllis saw them ride away, and persuaded herself that +she was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooter +who had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as the +hours passed she was beset by a consuming anxiety. What more likely +than that he would resist! If so, there could be only one end. She +could not keep her thoughts from those seven men whom she had sent +against the one. + +There was nobody to whom she could talk about it, for Phil and her +father were away at Noches. Restless as a caged panther, she twice had +her horse brought to the door, and rode into the hills to meet her +posse. But she could not be sure which way they would come, and after +venturing a short distance she would return for fear they might arrive +in her absence. Night had fallen over the country, and the stars were +out long before she got back the second time. Nine--ten--eleven o'clock +struck, and still no sign of those for whom she waited. + +At last they came, their prisoner riding in the midst, bareheaded and +with his hands tied. + +"I've got him, Phyl!" Healy cried in a voice that told the girl he was +riding on a wave of triumph. + +"I see you have." + +Nevertheless she looked not at the victor, but at the vanquished, and +never had she seen a man who looked more master of his fate than this +one. He was smiling down at her whimsically, and she saw they had not +taken him without a struggle. The marks of it were on them and on him. +Healy's cheek bone was laid open in a nasty cut, and Slim had a +handkerchief tied round his head. + +As for Keller, his shirt was in ribbons and dyed with the stains of +blood from the wound that had broken out again in the battle. The hair +on the left side of his head was clotted with dried blood, and his +cheeks were covered with it. Both eyes were blacked, and hands and face +were scratched badly. But his mien was as jaunty, his smile as gallant, +as if he had come at the head of a conquering army. + +"Good evenin', Miss Sanderson," he bowed ironically. + +She looked at him, and turned away without answering. She heard Healy +curse softly and knew why. This man contrived somehow to rob him of his +triumph. + +"You are none of you hurt, Brill?" the girl asked in a low voice. + +"No. He fought like a wild cat, but we took him by surprise. He had only +his bare fists." + +"How about him? Is he hurt?" + +"I don't know--or care," the man answered sullenly. + +"But he must be looked to." + +"I don't know why. It ain't my fault we had to beat him up." + +"I didn't say it _was_ your fault, Brill," she answered gently. "But any +one can see he has lost a lot of blood, and his wounds are full of dust. +They must be washed. I want him brought into the house. Aunt Becky and I +will look after him." + +"No need of that. Slim will fix him up." + +She shook her head. "No, Brill." + +His eyes gave way first, but his surrender came with a bad grace. + +"All right, Phyl. But he's going to be covered by a gun all the time. +I'm not taking chances on him." + +"Then have him taken into my den. I'll wake Aunt Becky and we'll be +there in a few minutes." + +When Phyllis arrived with Aunt Becky she found the nester sitting on the +lounge, Healy opposite him with a revolver close to his hand. The +prisoner's arms had been freed. His sardonic smile still twitched at the +corners of his mouth. + +"You've ce'tainly begun your practice on a disreputable patient, Doctor +Sanderson. I haven't had time to comb my hair since that little sĆ©ance +with your friends. We sure did have a sociable time. They're all good +mixers." He looked into the long glass opposite, laughed at sight of his +swollen face, then rattled into a misquotation of some verses he +remembered: + + "There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine; + For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May." + +"Put the water and things down on that table, Becky," her mistress told +her, ignoring the man's blithe folly. + +"I'm giving you lots of chances to do the Good Samaritan act," he +continued. "Honest, I hate to be so much trouble. You'll have to blame +Mr. Healy. He's the responsible party for these little accidents of +mine." + +"I'm going to be responsible for one more," the stockman told him +darkly. + +"I understand your intentions are good, but I've noticed that sometimes +expectation outruns performance," his prisoner came back promptly. + +"Not this time, I think." + +Phyllis understood that Brill was threatening the nester and that the +latter was defying him lightly, but what either meant precisely she did +not know. She proceeded to business without a word except the necessary +directions to Becky. Not until the arm was dressed and the wound on the +head washed and bandaged did she address Keller. + +"I'll send you a powder that will help you get to sleep. The doctor left +it here for Phil, and he did not need it," she said. + +"Mebbe I won't need it, either." Keller laughed hardily, at his enemy it +seemed to the girl, and with some hint of a sinister understanding +between them from which she was excluded. "Thanks just the same, for +that and for everything else you've done for me." + +Phyllis said "Good night" stiffly, and followed the old negress out. She +went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and +it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of. +Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms +across the sill. + +Two men met beneath her window. + +"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other. + +While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slim +spoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that, +it won't take us long." + +"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily. + +There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course." + +"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do." + +"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game." + +"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it." + +"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for +his life." + +They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing +red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid. +They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had +been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While +the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed +subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently. + +What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in +the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no +matter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed the +rustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He had +known while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him to +death, and he had not even reproached her. + +Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it were +possible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course he +was guarded. + +She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed along +it to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside. +She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have him +outdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or they +might have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. If +the latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe place +under lock and key. + +Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted the +house at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranch +riders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creeping +close to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. In +front of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almost +upon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle. + +"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply. + +It was Tom Dixon. + +Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you are +guarding the prisoner." + +"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her. + +"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably can +now. I suppose I was nervous." + +"No wonder. But you may sleep, all right. He won't trouble you any. I'll +guarantee that," he promised largely. "Oh, Phyl!" + +She had turned to go, but she stopped at his call. "Well?" + +"Don't you be mad at me. I was only fooling the other day. Course I +hadn't ought to have got gay. But a fellow makes a break once in a +while." + +Under the stress of her deeper anxiety she had forgotten all about her +tiff with him. It had seemed important at the time, but since then Tom +and his affairs had been relegated to second place in her mind. He was +only a boy, full of the vanity that was a part of him. Somehow, her +anger against him was all burnt out. + +"If you never will again, Tom," she conceded. + +"I'll be good," he smiled, meaning that he would be good as long as he +must. + +"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm. + +She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once inside +she fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hung +a key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from there +noiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way without +a light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked. +This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storing +supplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went to +another stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight or +nine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole, +fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door. + +The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the door +creaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like a +trip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store. + +"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone. + +"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered. + +"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside." + +She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and +presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till +they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the +knots before she remembered a swifter way. + +"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case where +pocketknives were kept. + +Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free. + +He rose and stretched his cramped limbs. + +"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs. +Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute, +and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand. + +The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fence +of the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said. + +"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded. + +"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on my +head. Now, go." + +"Not till I know why you betrayed me." + +"_You_ can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because you +are what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager this +afternoon. Why don't you go?" + +"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?" + +"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself." + +"Did Yeager tell you that?" + +"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there is +still a chance." + +"I'm not going--not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what I +said." + +A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his hand +still on the handle, aware that there were others in the room. + +"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror. + +"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie." + +Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed. + +"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caught +unexpectedly. "It's--it's Phil," she pretended to pretend. + +"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before he +went out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don't +forget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as a +clam till you say the word." + +With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girl +turned on Keller. + +"There! You see. They may catch you any moment." + +"Will you ask Yeager?" + +"Yes, if you'll go." + +"All right. I'll go." + +Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him from +his feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers, +soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheek +when she had stooped over him. The drag of sex was upon him and had set +him trembling strangely. + +"Why don't you go?" she cried softly. + +He snatched himself away. + +But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides. +Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands in +his, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swing +of the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyes +by the faint light that sifted through the window upon her. + +"What--what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding her +in waves. + +"Why are you saving me, girl?" + +"I--don't know. I've told you why." + +"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while you +think me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?" + +He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. It +told her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happened +she could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, his +kiss tingling through her blood like wine. + +She thrust him from her--and he was gone. + +She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with +excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now +her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for +this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed +his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it +untied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded the +sentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay the +open road, the hills, and safety. + +A cry rang out in the stillness--and another. A shot, the beat of +running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly +become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her +face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination +conjured--a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a +huddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A GOOD FRIEND + + +How long she remained there Phyllis did not know. Fear drummed at her +heart. She was sick with apprehension. At last her very terror drove her +out to learn the worst. She walked round to the front of the house and +saw a light in the store. Swiftly she ran across and up the steps to the +porch. Three men were inside examining the empty chair by the light of a +lantern one held in his hand. + +"Did--did he get away?" the girl faltered. + +The men turned. One of them was Slim. He held in his hand pieces of the +slashed rope and the open pocket-knife that had freed the prisoner. + +"Looks like it," Slim answered. "With some help from a friend. Now, I +wonder who that useful friend was and how in time he got in here?" + +Her eyes betrayed her. Just for an instant they swept to the cellar +door, to make sure it was still shut. But that one glance was enough. +Slim, about to speak, changed his mind, and stared at her with parted +lips. She saw suspicion grow in his face and resolve itself to +certainty, helped to decision by the telltale color dyeing her cheeks. + +"Does the cellar stairway from the store connect with the kitchen +cellar, Phyllie?" he asked. + +"Ye-es." + +He nodded, then laughed without mirth. "I reckon I can tell you, boys, +who Mr. Keller's friend in need is." + +"Who? I'd like right well to know." Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had +just come in and was listening. + +Phyllis turned and faced him. "I was that friend, Brill." + +"You!" He stared at her in astonishment. "You! Why, it was you sent me +out to run him down." + +"I didn't tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?" + +"I guess there's a lot between him and you that you didn't tell me," he +jeered. + +Slim grinned, not at all maliciously. "I reckon that's right. I don't +need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the +kitchen." + +"He was just going," she protested. + +"Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate." + +"Go ahead, Slim. I'm only a girl. You and Brill say what you like," she +flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her +hands. + +"Only don't say it out loud," cautioned a new voice. Jim Yeager was at +the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy. + +"I say what I think, Jim," Brill retorted promptly. + +"And you think?" + +Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter. "I think things ain't +right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape +twice." + +"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis. + +"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone. + +"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no +better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed." + +The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir," +she murmured with mock humility. + +"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked. + +"He sure has--clean as a whistle." + +"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more +a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an +innocent man." + +"Prove it," cried Healy. + +Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to +take my word for it." + +"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his +father announced promptly. + +Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager, +Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing +with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter." + +"I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I've got to trust my own eyes before +your indorsement," Healy sneered. + +"That's your privilege, Brill." + +"I reckon Jim knows what he's talking about," said Yeager, Senior, with +intent to conciliate. + +"Of course I know you're right friendly with him, Jim. There's nobody +more competent to pass an opinion on him. Like enough you know all about +his affairs," conceded Healy with polite malice. + +The two young men were looking at each other steadily. They never had +been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that. Rival +leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their +rivalry to a flame. Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted. + +"I expect I know more about them than you do, Brill." + +"Sure you do. Ain't he just got through being your guest? Didn't he come +visiting you in a hurry? Didn't you tie up his wound? And when Phil and +I came asking questions didn't you antedate his arrival about six hours? +I'm not denying you know all about him. What I'm wondering is why you +didn't tell all you knew. Of course, I understand they are your +reasons, though, not mine." + +"You've said it. They're my reasons." + +"I ain't saying they are not good reasons. Whyfor should a man round on +his friend?" + +The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right +proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go +right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't +known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter. +They're so durned teachable to-day maybe you can get them to swallow +that with the rest." + +With which parting shot he followed Phyllis out of the store. She turned +on him at the top of the porch steps leading to the house. + +"Did he tell you that Phil was the rustler?" + +"You mean did Keller tell me?" he said, surprised. + +"Yes. 'Rastus was in the live oak and heard all you said." + +"No. He didn't tell me that. We neither of us think it was Phil. It +couldn't be, for he was riding with you at the time. But he found your +knife there by the dead cow. Now, how did it come there? You let Phil +have the knife. Had he lent his knife to some one?" + +"I don't know." She went on, after a momentary hesitation: "Are you +quite sure, Jim, that he really found the knife there?" + +"He said so. I believe him." + +She sighed softly, as if she would have liked to feel as sure. "The +reason I spoke of it was that I accused him of trying to throw the blame +on Phil, and he told me to ask you about it." + +Jim shook his head. "Nothing to it. If you want my opinion, Keller is +white clear enough. He wouldn't try a trick like that." + +The girl's face lit, and she held out an impulsive hand. "Anyhow, you're +a good friend, Jim." + +"I've been that ever since you was knee high to a duck, Phyl." + +"Yes--yes, you have. The best I've got, next to Phil and Dad." Her heart +just now was very warm to him. + +"Don't you reckon maybe a good friend might make a good--something +else." + +She gasped. "Oh, Jim! You don't mean----" + +"Yep. That's what I do mean. Course I'm not good enough. I know that." + +"Good. You're the best ever. It isn't that. Only I don't like you that +way." + +"Maybe you might some day." + +She shook her head slowly. "I wish I could, Jim. But I never will." + +"Is there--someone else, Phyl?" + +If it had been light enough he could have seen a wave of color sweep her +face. + +"No. Of course there isn't. How could there be? I'm only a girl." + +"It ain't Brill then?" + +"No. It's--it isn't anybody." She carried the war, womanlike, into his +camp. "And I don't believe you care for me--that way. It's just a +fancy." + +"One I've had two years, little girl." + +"Oh, I'm sorry. I _do_ like you, better than any one else. You know +that, dear old Jim." + +He smiled wistfully. "If you didn't like me so well I reckon I'd have a +better chance. Well, I mustn't keep you here. Good night." + +Her ringers were lost in his big fist. "Good night, Jim." And again she +added, "I'm so sorry." + +"Don't you be. It's all right with me, Phyl. I just thought I'd mention +it. You never can tell, though I most knew how it would be. _Buenos +noches, nina._" + +He released her hand, and without once looking back strode to his horse, +swung to the saddle, and rode into the night. + +She carried into the house with her a memory of his cheerful smile. It +had been meant as a reassurance to her. It told her he would get over +it, and she knew he would. For he was no puling schoolboy, but a man, +game to the core. + +The face of another man rose before her, saturnine and engaging and +debonair. With the picture came wave on wave of shame. He was a detected +villain, and she had let him kiss her. But beneath the self-scorn was +something new, something that stung her blood, that left her flushed and +tingling with her first experience of sex relations. + +A week ago she had not yet emerged fully from the chrysalis of +childhood. But in the Southland flowers ripen fast. Adolescence steals +hard upon the heels of infancy. Nature was pushing her relentlessly +toward a womanhood for which her splendid vitality and unschooled +impulses but scantily safeguarded her. The lank, shy innocence of the +fawn still wrapped her, but in the heart of this frank daughter of the +desert had been born a poignant shyness, a vague, delightful trembling +that marked a change. A quality which had lain banked in her nature like +a fire since childhood now threw forth its first flame of heat. At +sunset she had been still treading the primrose path of youth; at +sunrise she had entered upon the world-old heritage of her sex. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A SHOT FROM AMBUSH + + +From the valley there drifted up a breeze-swept sound. The rider on the +rock-rim trail above, shifting in his saddle to one of the easy, +careless attitudes of the habitual horseman, recognized it as a rifle +shot. + +Presently, from a hidden wash rose little balloon-like puffs of smoke, +followed by a faint, far popping, as if somebody had touched off a bunch +of firecrackers. Men on horseback, dwarfed by distance to pygmy size, +clambered to the bank--now one and then another firing into the mesquite +that ran like a broad tongue from the roll of hills into the valley. + +"Looks like something's broke loose," the young man drawled aloud. "The +band's sure playing a right lively tune this glad mo'ning." + +Save for one or two farewell shots, the firing ceased. The riders had +disappeared into the chaparral. + +The rider did not need to be told that this was a man hunt, destined +perhaps to be one of a hundred unwritten desert tragedies. Some subtle +instinct in him differentiated between these hurried shots and those +born of the casual exuberance of the cow-puncher at play. He had a +reason for taking an interest in it--an interest that was more than +casual. + +Skirting the rim of the saucer-shaped valley, he rode forward warily, +came at length to a caƱon that ran like a sword cleft into the hills, +and descended cautiously by a cattle trail, its scarred slope. + +Through the defile ran a mountain stream, splashing over and round +boulders in its swift fall. + +"I reckon we'll slide down, Keno, and work out close to the fire zone," +the rider said to his horse, as they began to slither down the +precipitous slope, starting rubble at every motion. + +Man and horse were both of the frontier, fit to the minute for any call +that might be made on them. The broncho was a roan, with muscles of +elastic leather, sure-footed as a mountain goat. Its master--a slim, +brown man, of medium height, well knit and muscular--looked on the +world, quietly and often humorously, with shrewd gray eyes. + +As he reached the bottom of the gulch, his glance fell upon another +rider--a woman. She crossed the stream hurriedly, her pony flinging +water at every step, and cantered up toward him. + +Her glance was once and again over her shoulder, so that it was not +until she was almost upon him that she saw the young man among the +cottonwoods, and drew her pony to an instant halt. The rifle that had +been lying across her saddle leaped halfway to her shoulder, covering +him instantly. + +"_Buenos dios, senorita._ Are you going for to shoot my head off?" he +drawled. + +"The rustler!" she cried. + +"The alleged rustler, Miss Sanderson," he corrected gently. + +"Let me past," she panted. + +He observed that her eyes mirrored terror of the scene she had just +left. + +"It's you that has got the drop on me, isn't it?" he suggested. + +The rifle went back to the saddle. Instantly the girl was in motion +again, flying up the caƱon past the white-stockinged roan, her pony's +hindquarters gathered to take the sheep trail like those of a wild cat. + +Keller gazed after her. As she disappeared, he took off his hat, bowed +elaborately, and remarked to himself, in his low, soft drawl: + +"Good mo'ning, ma'am. See you again one of these days, mebbe, when you +ain't in such a hurry." + +But though he appeared to take the adventure whimsically his mind was +busy with its meaning. She was in danger, and he must save her. So much +he knew at least. + +He had scarcely turned the head of his horse toward the mouth of the +caƱon when the pursuit drove headlong into sight. Galloping men pounded +up the arroyo, and came to halt at his sharp summons. Already Keller +and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed +the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun. + +"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted +to know amiably. + +The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm +bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large, +heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born +leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed. + +"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive, +he's ours." He gave crisp orders. + +"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock. + +For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded +man had whipped up a rifle and fired. + +Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too +many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail. +You see, it's loaded with buckshot." + +One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such +audacity as this was new to him. + +"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned +amusing," growled his leader. + +"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful +guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have." + +"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets +through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice, +just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the +other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get +him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here." + +"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row +about?" the cornered man wanted to know. + +"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you +didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make +your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman." + +"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a +stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?" + +"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply. + +"Douglas." + +"What doing here?" + +"Homesteading." + +"Name?" + +"Keller." + +"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to +shoot me. That's what you are." + +"No." + +"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of +us. If you're not the man, where is he?" + +"I haven't got him in my vest pocket." + +"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants." + +"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so +as to know him." + +"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit. + +"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher. + +"Well, then?" + +"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rustler who broke away from +us two weeks ago," Curly spoke out. + +"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out +between set teeth. + +"By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin +added. + +Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be +assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch, +riding a roan horse. He could swear that only one person had come in +before these pursuers--and that one was a woman on a roan. Her +frightened eyes, the fear that showed in every motion, her hurried +flight, all contributed to the same inevitable conclusion. It was +difficult to believe it, but impossible to deny. This wild, sylvan +creature, with the shy, wonderful eyes, had lain in ambush to kill her +father's enemy, and was flying from the vengeance on her heels. + +His lips were sealed. Even if he were not under heavy obligations to her +he could no more save himself at the expense of this brown sylph than he +could have testified against his own mother. + +"All right. If you feel lucky, come on. You'll get me, of course, but it +may prove right expensive," he said quietly. + +"That's all right. We're footing our end of the bill," Pesky retorted. + +By this time, he and Weaver had dismounted, and were sheltered behind +rocks. Already bullets were beginning to spit back and forth, though the +flankers had not yet got into action. + +"Durn his hide, I hate like sin to puncture it," Pesky told his boss. "I +tell you we're making a mistake, Buck. This fellow's a pure--he ain't +any hired killer. You can tie to that." + +"He's the man that pumped a bullet into my arm from ambush. That's +enough for me," the cattleman swore. + +"No use being revengeful, especially if it happens he ain't the man. By +his say-so, that's a shotgun he's carrying. Loaded with buckshot, he +claims. What hit you was a bullet from a Winchester, or some such gun. +Mighty easy to prove whether he's lying." + +"We'll be able to prove it afterward, all right." + +"What's the matter with proving it now? I don't stand for any murder +business myself. I'm going to find out what's what." + +The cow-puncher tied the red bandanna from his neck round the end of his +revolver, and shoved it above the rock in front of him. + +"Flag of truce!" he shouted. + +"All right. Come right along. Better leave your gun behind," Keller +called back. + +Pesky waddled forward--a short, thick-set, bow-legged man in chaps, +spurs, flannel shirt, and white sombrero. When he took off this last, as +he did now, it revealed a head bald as a billiard ball. + +"How're they coming?" he inquired genially of the besieged man, as he +rounded the rock barricade. + +Larrabie's steel eyes relaxed to a hint of a friendly smile. He knew +this type of man like a brother. + +"Fine and dandy here. Hope you're well yourself, seh." + +"Tol'able. Buck's up on his ear, o' course. Can't blame him, can you? +Most any man would, with that kind of a pill sent to his address so +sudden by special delivery. Wasn't that some inconsiderate of you, Mr. +Keller?" + +"I thought I explained it was another party did that." + +Pesky rolled a cigarette and lit it. + +"Right sure of that, are you? Wouldn't mind my taking a look at that gun +of yours? You see, if it happens to be what you said it was, that +kinder lets you out." + +Keller handed over the gun promptly. The cow-puncher broke it, extracted +a shell, and with his knife picked out the wad. Into his palm rolled a +dozen buckshot. + +"Good enough! I told Buck he was barking up the wrong tree. Now, I'll go +back and have a powwow with him. I reckon you'll be willing to surrender +on guarantee of a square deal?" + +"Sure--that's all I ask. I never met your friend--didn't know who he was +from Adam. I ain't got any option to shoot all the red-haided men I +meet. No, sir! You've followed a cross trail." + +"Looks like. Still, it's blamed funny." Pesky scratched his shining +poll, and looked shrewdly at the other. "We certainly ran Mr. +Bushwhacker into the caƱon. I'd swear to that. We was right on his +heels, though we couldn't see him very well. But he either come in here +or a hole in the ground swallowed him." + +He waited tentatively for an answer, but none came other than the +white-toothed smile that met him blandly. + +"I reckon you know more than you aim to tell, Mr. Keller," continued +Pesky. "Don't you figure it's up to you, if we let you out of this +thing, to whack up any information you've got? The kind of reptile that +kills from ambush don't deserve any consideration." + +Half an hour ago, the other would have agreed with him. The man that +shot his enemy from cover was a coyote--nothing less. But about that +brown slip of a creature, who had for three minutes crossed his orbit, +he wanted to reserve judgment. + +"I expect I haven't got a thing to tell you that would help any," he +drawled, his eye full on that of the cowpuncher. + +Pesky threw away his cigarette. "All right. You're the doctor. I'll +amble back, and report to the boss." + +He did so, with the result that a truce was arranged. + +Keller gave up his post of vantage, and came forward to surrender. + +Weaver met him with a hard, wintry eye. "Understand, I don't concede +your innocence. You're my prisoner, and, by God, if I get any more proof +of your guilt, you've got to stand the gaff." + +The other nodded quietly, meeting him eye to eye. Nor did his gaze fall, +though the big cattleman was the most masterful man on the range. Keller +was as easy and unperturbed as when he had been holding half a dozen +irate men at bay. + +"No kick coming here. But, if it's just the same to you, I'll ask you to +get the proof first and hang me afterward." + +"If you're homesteading, where's your place?" + +"Back in the hills, close to the headwaters of Salt Creek." + +"Huh! You'll make that good before I get through with you. And I want +to tell you this, too, Mr. Keller. It doesn't make any hit with me that +you're one of those thieving nesters. Moreover, there's another charge +against you. In the Malpais country we hang rustlers. The boys claim to +have you cinched. We'll see." + +"Who's that with Curly?" Pesky called out. "By Moses, it's a woman!" + +"It is the Sanderson girl," Weaver said in surprise. + +Keller swung round as if worked by a spring. The cow-puncher had told +the truth. Curly's companion was not only a woman, but _the_ woman--the +same slim, tanned creature who had flashed past him on a wild race for +safety, only a few minutes earlier. + +All eyes were focused upon her. Weaver waited for her to speak. Instead, +Curly took up the word. He was smiling broadly, quite unaware of the +mine he was firing. + +"I found this young lady up on the rock rim. Since we were rounding up, +I thought I'd bring her down." + +"Good enough. Miss Sanderson, you've been where you could see if anyone +passed into the caƱon. How about it? Anybody go up in last ten minutes?" + +Phyllis moistened her dry lips and looked at the prisoner. "No," she +answered reluctantly. + +Weaver wheeled on Keller, his eyes hard as jade. "That ties the rope +round your neck, my man." + +"No," Phyllis cried. "He didn't do it." + +The cattleman's stone wall eyes were on her now. + +"Didn't? How do you know he didn't?" + +"Because I--I passed him here as I rode up a few minutes ago." + +"So you rode up a few minutes ago." Buck's lids narrowed. "And he was +here, was he? Ever meet Mr. Keller before?" + +"Yes." + +"When? Speak up. Mind, no lying." + +This, struck the first spark of spirit from her. The deep eyes flashed. +"I'm not in the habit of lying, sir." + +"Then answer my question." + +"I've met him at the office when he came for his mail. And the boys +arrested him by mistake for a rustler. I saw him when they brought him +in." + +"By mistake. How do you know it was by mistake?" + +"It was I accused him. But I did it because I was angry at him." + +"You accused an innocent man of rustling because you were sore at him. +You're ce'tainly a pleasant young lady, Miss Sanderson." + +Her look flashed defiance at him, but she said nothing. In her slim +erectness was a touch of feminine ferocity that gave him another idea. + +"So you just rode into the caƱon, did you?" + +"Yes." + +"Meet up with anybody in the valley before you came in?" + +"No." + +His eyes were like steel drills. They never left her. "Quite sure?" + +"Yes." + +"What were you doing there?" + +She had no answer ready. Her wild look went round in search of a friend +in this circle of enemies. They found him in the man who was a prisoner. +His steadfast eyes told her to have no fear. + +"Did you hear what I said?" demanded Weaver. + +"I was--riding." + +"Alone?" + +The answer came so slowly that it was barely audible. "Yes." + +"Riding in Antelope Valley?" + +"Yes." + +"Let me see that gun." Weaver held out his hand for the rifle. + +Phyllis looked at him and tried to fight against his domination; then +slowly she handed him the rifle. He broke and examined it. From the +chamber he extracted an empty shell. + +Grim as a hanging judge, his look chiselled into her. + +"I expect the lead that was in here is in my arm. Isn't that right?" + +"I--I don't know." + +"Who does, then? Either you shot me or you know who did." + +Her gaze evaded his, but was forced at last to the meeting. + +"I did it." + +She was looking at him steadily now. Since the thing must be faced, she +had braced herself to it. It was amazing what defiant pluck shone out of +her soft eyes. This man of iron saw it, and, seeing, admired hugely the +gameness that dwelt in her slim body. But none of his admiration showed +in the hard, weather-beaten face. + +"So they make bushwhackers out of even the girls among your rustling, +sheep-herding outfit!" he taunted. + +"My people are not rustlers. They have a right to be on earth, even if +you don't want them there." + +"I'll show them what rights they have got in this part of the country +before I get through with them. But that ain't the point now. What I +want to know is how they came to send a girl to do their dirty killing +for them." + +"They didn't send me. I just saw you, and--and shot on an impulse. Your +men have clubbed and poisoned our sheep. They wounded one of our +herders, and beat his brother when they caught him unarmed. They have +done a hundred mean and brutal things. You are at the bottom of it all; +and when I saw you riding there, looking like the lord of all the earth, +I just----" + +"Well?" + +"Couldn't help--what I did." + +"You're a nicely brought up young woman--about as savage as the rest of +your wolf breed," jeered Weaver. + +Yet he exulted in her--in the impulse of ferocity that had made her +strike swiftly, regardless of risk to herself, at the man who had +hounded and harried her kin to the feud that was now raging. Her shy, +untamed beauty would not itself have attracted him; but in combination +with her fierce courage it made to him an appeal which he conceded +grudgingly. + +"What in Heaven's name brought you back after you had once got away?" +Weaver asked. + +The girl looked at Keller without answering. + +"I reckon I can tell you that, seh," explained that young man. "She +figured you would jump on me as the guilty party. It got on her +conscience that she had left an innocent man to stand for it. I +shouldn't wonder but she got to seeing a picture of you-all hanging me +or shooting me up. So she came back to own up, if she saw you had caught +me." + +Weaver nodded. "That's the way I figure it, too. Gamest thing I ever saw +a woman do," he said in an undertone to Keller, with whom he was now +standing a little apart. + +The latter agreed. "Never saw the beat of it. She's scared stiff, too. +Makes it all the pluckier. What will you do with her?" + +"Take her along with me back to the ranch." + +"I wouldn't do that," said the young man quickly. + +"Wouldn't you?" Weaver's hard gaze went over him haughtily. "When I want +your advice, I'll ask you for it, young man. You're in luck to get off +scot-free yourself. That ought to content you for one day." + +"But what are you going to do with her? Surely not have her imprisoned +for attacking you?" + +"I'll do as I dashed please, and don't you forget it, Mr. Keller. Better +mind your own business, if you've got any." + +With which Buck Weaver turned on his heel, and swung slowly to the +saddle. His arm was paining him a great deal, but he gave no sign of it. +He expected his men to game it out when they ran into bad luck, and he +was stoic enough to set them an example without making any complaints. + +The little group of riders turned down the trail, passed through the +gateway that led to the valley below, and wound down among the +cow-backed hills toward the ranch roofs, which gleamed in the distance. +They were the houses of the Twin Star outfit, the big concern owned by +Buck Weaver, whose cattle fed literally upon a thousand hills. + +It suited Buck's ironic humor to ride beside the girl who had just +attempted his life. He bore her no resentment. Had the offender been a +man, Buck would have snuffed out his life with as little remorse as he +would a guttering candle. But her sex and her youth, and some quality of +charm in her, had altered the equation. He meant to show her who was +master, but he would choose a different method. + +What sport to tame the spirit of this wild desert beauty until she +should come like one of her own sheep dogs at his beck and call! He had +never yet met the woman he could not dominate. This one, too, would know +a good many new emotions before she rejoined her tribe in the hills. + +He swung from the saddle at the ranch plaza, and greeted her with a deep +bow that mocked her. + +"Welcome, Miss Sanderson, to the best the Twin Star outfit has to offer. +I hope you will enjoy your visit, which is going to be a long one." + +To a Mexican woman, who had come out to the porch in answer to his call, +he delivered the girl, charging her duty in two quick sentences of +Spanish. The woman nodded her understanding, and led Phyllis inside. + +Weaver noticed with delight that his captive's eye met his steadily, +with the defiant fierceness of some hunted wild thing. Here was a woman +worth taming, even though she was still a girl in years. His exultant +eye, returning from the last glimpse of the lissom figure as it +disappeared, met the gaze of Keller. That young man was watching him +with an odd look of challenge on his usually impassive face. + +The cattleman felt the spur of a new antagonism stirring his blood. +There was something almost like a sneer on his lips as he spoke: + +"Sorry to lose your company, Mr. Keller. But if you're homesteading, of +course, we'll have to let you go back to the hills right away. Couldn't +think of keeping you from that spring plowing that's waiting to be +done." + +"You're putting up a different line of talk from what you did. How about +that charge of rustling against me, Mr. Weaver? Don't you want to hold +me while you investigate it?" + +"No, I reckon not. Your lady friend gives you a clean bill of health. +She may or may not be lying. I'm not so sure myself. But without her the +case against you falls." + +Keller knew himself dismissed cavalierly, and, much as he would have +liked to stay, he could find no further excuse to urge. He could hardly +invite himself to be either the guest or the prisoner of a man who did +not want him. + +"Just as you say," he nodded, and turned carelessly to his pony. + +Yet he was quite sure it would not be as Weaver said if he could help +it. He meant to take a hand in the game, no matter what the other might +decree. But for the present he acquiesced in the inevitable. Weaver was +technically within his rights in holding her until he had communicated +with the sheriff. A generous foe might not have stood out for his pound +of flesh, but Buck was as hard as nails. As for the reputation of the +girl, it was safe at the Twin Star ranch. Buck's sister, a maiden lady +of uncertain years, was on hand to play chaperone. + +Larrabie swung to the saddle. His horse's hoofs were presently flinging +dirt toward the Twin Star as he loped up to the hills. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MISS-GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN + + +Time had been when the range was large enough for all, when every man's +cattle might graze at will from horizon to horizon. But with the push of +settlement to the frontier had come a change. The feeding ground became +overstocked. One outfit elbowed another, and lines began to be drawn +between the runs of different owners. Water holes were seized and +fenced, with or without due process of law. + +With the establishment of forest reserves a new policy dominated the +government. Sanderson had been one of the first to avail himself of it +by leasing the public demesne for his stock. Later, learning that the +mountain parks were to be thrown open as a pasturage for sheep, he had +bought three thousand and driven them up, having first arranged terms +with the forestry service. + +Buck Weaver, fighting the government reserve policy with all his might, +resented fiercely the attitude of Sanderson. A sharp, bitter quarrel had +resulted, and had left a smoldering bad feeling that flamed at times +into open warfare. Upon the wholesome Malpais country had fallen the +bitterness of a sheep and cattle feud. + +The riders of the Twin Star outfit had thrice raided the Sanderson +flocks. Lambing sheep had been run cruelly. One herd had been clubbed +over a precipice, another decimated with poison. In return, the herders +shot and hamstrung Twin Star cows. A herder was held up and beaten by +cowboys. Next week a vaquero galloped home to the Twin Star ranch with a +bullet through his leg. This was the situation at the time when the +owner of the big ranch brought Phyllis a prisoner to its hospitality. + +Nothing could have been more pat to his liking. He was, in large +measure, the force behind the law in San Miguel county. The sheriff whom +he had elected to office would be conveniently deaf to any illegality +there might be in his holding the girl, would if necessary give him an +order to hold her there until further notice. The attempt to assassinate +him would serve as excuse enough for a proceeding even more highhanded +than this. Her relatives could scarce appeal to the law, since the law +would then step in and send her to the penitentiary. He could use her +position as a hostage to force her stiff-necked father to come to terms. + +But it was characteristic of the man that his reason for keeping her +was, after all, less the advantage he might gain by it than the pleasure +he found in tormenting her and her family. To this instinct of the +jungle beast was added the interest she had inspired in him. Untaught of +life she was, no doubt, a child of the desert, in some ways primitive as +Eve; but he perceived in her the capacity for deep feeling, for passion, +for that kind of fierce, dauntless endurance it is given some women to +possess. + +Miss Weaver took charge of the comfort of her guest. Her manner showed +severe disapproval of this girl so lost to the feelings of her sex as to +have attempted murder. That she was young and pretty made matters worse. +Alice Weaver always had worshipped her brother, by the law of opposites +perhaps. She was as drab and respectable as Boston. All her tastes ran +to humdrum monotony. But turbulent, lawless Buck, the brother whom she +had brought up after the death of their mother, held her heart in the +hollow of his hard, careless hand. + +"Have you had everything you wish?" she would ask Phyllis in a frigid +voice. + +"I want to be taken home." + +"You should have thought of that before you did the dreadful thing you +did." + +"You are holding me here a prisoner, then?" + +"An involuntary guest, my brother puts it. Until the sheriff can make +other arrangements." + +"You have no right to do it without notifying my father. He is at Noches +with my brother." + +"Mr. Weaver will do as he thinks best about that." The spinster shut +her lips tight and walked from the room. + +Supper was brought to Phyllis by the Mexican woman. In spite of her +indignation she ate and slept well. Nor did her appetite appear impaired +next morning, when she breakfasted in her bedroom. Noon found her +promoted to the family dining room. Weaver carried his arm in a sling, +but made no reference to the fact. He attempted conversation, but +Phyllis withdrew into herself and had nothing more friendly than a plain +"No" or "Yes" for him. His sister was presently called away to arrange +some household difficulty. At once Phyllis attacked the big man lounging +in his chair at his ease. + +"I want to go home. I've got to be at the schoolhouse to-morrow +morning," she announced. + +"It won't hurt you any to miss a few days' schooling, my dear. You'll +learn more here than you will there, anyhow," he assured her pleasantly. +Buck was cracking two walnuts in the palm of his hand and let his lazy +smile drift her way only casually. + +She stamped her foot. "I tell you I'm the teacher. It is necessary I +should be there." + +"You a schoolmarm!" he repeated, in surprise. "How old are you?" + +Her dress was scarcely below her shoe tops. She still had the slimness +of immature girlhood, the adorable shy daring of some uncaptured wood +nymph. + +"Does that matter to you, sir?" + +"How old?" he reiterated. + +"Going-on-eighteen," she answered--not because she wanted to, but +because somehow she must. There was something compelling about this +man's will. She would have resisted it had she not wanted to gain her +point about going home. + +"So you teach the kids their A B C's, do you? And you just out of them +yourself! How many scholars have you?" + +"Fourteen." + +"And they all love teacher, of course. Would you take me for a scholar, +Miss Going-On-Eighteen?" + +"No!" she flamed. + +"You'd find me right teachable. And I would promise to love you, too." + +Color came and went in her face beneath the brow. How dared he mock her +so! It humiliated and embarrassed and angered her. + +"Are you going to let me go back to my school?" she demanded. + +"I reckon your school will have to get along without you for a few days. +Your fourteen scholars will keep right on loving you, I expect. 'To +memory dear, though far from eye.' Or, if you like, I'll send my boys up +into the hills, and round up the whole fourteen here for you. Then +school can keep right here in the house. How about that? Ain't that a +good notion, Miss Going-On-Eighteen?" + +She could stand his ironic mockery no longer. She faced him, fearless as +a tiger: "You villain!" + +With that, turning on her heel, she passed swiftly into her little +bedroom, and slammed the door. He heard the key turn in the lock. + +"She's sure got some devil in her," he laughed appreciatively, and he +cracked another walnut. + +Already he had struck the steel of her quality. She would be his +prisoner because she must, but the "no compromise" flag was nailed to +her masthead. + +"I wonder why you are so fond of me?" he mused aloud next day when he +found her as unresponsive to his advances as a block of wood. + +He was lying in the sand at her feet, his splendid body relaxed full +length at supple ease. Leaning on an elbow, he had been watching her for +some time. + +Her gaze was on the distant line of hills; on her face that far-away +expression which told him that he was not on the map for her. Used as he +was to impressing himself upon the imagination of women, this stung his +vanity sharply. He liked better the times when her passion flamed out at +him. + +Now he lost his sardonic mockery in a flash of anger. + +"Do you hear me? I asked you a question." + +She brought her head round until her eyes rested upon him. + +"Will you ask it again, please? I wasn't listening." + +"I want to know what makes you hate me so," he demanded roughly. + +"Do I hate you?" + +He laughed irritably. "What else do you call it? You won't hardly eat at +the same table with me. Last night you wouldn't come down to supper. +Same way this morning. If I sit down near you, soon you find an excuse +to leave. When I speak, you don't answer." + +"You are my jailer, not my friend." + +"I might be both." + +"No, thank you!" + +She said it with such quick, instinctive certainty that he ground his +teeth in resentment. He was the kind of man that always wanted what he +could not get. He began to covet this girl mightily, even while he told +himself that he was a fool for his pains. What was she but an untaught, +country schoolgirl? It would be a strange irony of fate if Buck Weaver +should fall in love with a sheepman's daughter. + +"Many people would go far to get my friendship," he told her. + +Quietly she looked at him. "The friends of my people are my friends. +Their enemies are mine." + +"Yet you said you didn't hate me." + +"I thought I did, but I find I don't." + +"Not worth hating, I suppose?" + +She neither corrected nor rejected his explanation. + +He touched his wounded arm as he went on: "If you don't hate me, why +this compliment to me? I reckon good, genuine hate sent that bullet." + +The girl colored, but after a moment's hesitation answered: + +"Once I shot a coyote when I saw it making ready to pounce on one of our +lambs. I did not hate that coyote." + +"Thank you," he told her ironically. + +Her gaze went back to the mountains. She had always had a capacity for +silence. But it was as extraordinary to her as to him how, in the past +few days, she had sloughed the shy timidity of a mountain girl and found +the enduring courage of womanhood. Her wits, too, had taken on the edge +of maturity. He found that her tongue could strike swiftly and sharply. +She was learning to defend herself in all the ways women have acquired +by inheritance. + +Weaver's jaw set like a vise. Getting to his feet, he looked down at her +with the hard, relentless eyes that had made his name a terror. + +"Good enough, Miss Phyllis Sanderson. You've chosen your way. I'll +choose mine. You've got to learn that I'm master here; and, by God, I'll +teach it to you. Before I get through with you, young woman, you'll +come running when I snap my fingers. From to-day things will be +different. You'll eat your meals with us and not in your room. You'll +speak when you're spoken to. Set yourself up against me, and I'll bring +you to your knees fast enough. There's no law on the Twin Star Ranch but +Buck Weaver's will." + +He strode away, almost herculean in figure, and every inch of him +forceful. She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same +time, so wilful and so masterful. Before he was out of her sight, she +got an instance of his recklessness. + +A Mexican vaquero was driving some horses into a corral. His master +strode up to him, and dragged him from the saddle. + +"Didn't I tell you to take the colts down to the long pasture?" + +"_Si, seƱor,_" answered the trembling native. + +Weaver's great fist rose and fell once. The Mexican sank limply down. +Without another glance at him, the cattleman flung him aside, and strode +to the house. + +As the owner of the Twin Star had said, so it was. Thereafter Phyllis +sat at the table with him and his sister, while Josephine, the Mexican +woman, waited upon them. The girl came and went at his bidding. But she +held herself with such a quiet aloofness that his victory was a barren +one. + +"Do you want to go home?" he taunted her one morning, while at +breakfast. + +"Is it likely I would want to stay here?" she retorted. + +"Why not? What have you to complain of? Aren't you treated well?" + +"Yes." + +"What, then? Are you afraid?" + +"No!" she answered, with a flash of her fine eyes. + +"That's good, because you've got to stay here--or go to the pen. You may +take your choice." + +"You're very generous. I suppose you don't expect to keep me here +always," she said scornfully. + +"Until my arm gets well. Since you wounded it you ought to nurse it." + +"Which I am not doing, even while I am here." + +"Anyhow it soothes the temper of the invalid to have you around." He +grinned satirically. + +"So I judge, from the effects." + +"Meaning that I'm always in a rage when I leave you?" + +"I notice your men are marked up a good deal these days." + +"I'll tell them to thank you for it," he flung back. + +Two days later, he scored on her hard for the first time. She came down +to breakfast just as two of the Twin Star riders brought a boy into the +hall. + +She flew instantly into his arms, thereby embarrassing him vastly. + +"Phil! How did you come here?" + +Her brother nodded toward Curly and Pesky. "They found me outside and +got the drop on me." + +"You were here looking for me?" + +"Yes. Just got back from Noches. Dad is still there. He don't know." + +"But--what are they going to do with you?" + +"What would you suggest, Miss Phyllis?" a voice behind her gibed. + +The speaker was Weaver. He filled the doorway of the dining room +triumphantly. She had had no fears for herself; he would see if she had +none for her brother. + +The boy whirled on the ranchman like a tiger whelp. "I don't care what +you do. Go ahead and do your worst." + +Weaver looked him over negligently, much as he might watch a struggling +calf. To him the boy was not an enemy--merely a tool which he could use +for his own ends. Phyllis, watching anxiously the hard, expressionless +face, felt that it was cruel as fate. She knew that somehow she would be +made to suffer through her love for her brother. + +"You daren't touch him. He's done nothing," she cried. + +"He shot at one of my riders. I can't have dangerous characters around. +I'm a peaceable man, me," grinned Buck. + +"You didn't, Phil," his sister reproached. + +"Sure I did. He tried to take my gun from me," the boy explained hotly. + +"Take him out to the bunk house, boys. I'll attend to him later," +nodded Buck, turning away indifferently. + +Stung to fury by the cavalier manner of his enemy, the boy leaped at him +like a wild cat. Weaver whirled round again, caught him by the shoulder +with his great hand, and shook him as if he had been a puppy. When he +dropped him, he nodded again to his men, who dragged out the struggling +boy. + +Phyllis stood straight as an arrow, but white to the lips. "What are you +going to do to him?" she asked. + +"How would a good chapping do, to start with? That is always good for an +unlicked cub." + +"Don't!" she implored. + +"But, my dear, why not--since it's for his good?" + +Passion unleashed leaped from her. "You coward!" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm right desolated to have your bad +opinion. But you say it almost as if you did hate me. That's a +compliment, you know. You didn't hate the coyote, you mentioned." + +Her eyes flamed. "Hate you! If wishes could kill, you would be a +thousand times dead!" + +"You disappoint me, my dear. I expected more than wishes from you. +There's a loaded revolver in that table drawer. It's yours, any time you +want it," he derided. + +"Don't tempt me!" she cried wildly. "If you lay a hand on Phil, I'll use +it--I surely will." + +His eyes shone with delight. "I wonder. By Jove, I've a mind to flog +the colt and see. I'll do it." + +The passion sank in her as suddenly as it had risen. "No--you mustn't! +You don't know him--or us. We are from the South." + +"That settles it. I will," he exulted. "You have called me a coward. +Would a coward do this, and defy your whole crew to its revenge?" + +"Would a brave man break the pride of a high-spirited boy for such a +mean motive?" she countered. + +"His pride will have to look out for itself. He took his chance of it +when he tried to assault me. What he'll get is only what's coming to +him." + +"Please don't! I'll--I'll be different to you. Take it out on me," she +begged. + +He laughed harshly. "Do you suppose I'm such a fool as not to know that +the way to take it out on you is to take it out of him?" + +She had come nearer, a step at a time. Now she threw her hand out in a +gesture of abandon. + +"Be generous! Don't punish me that way. Something dreadful will come of +it." + +She broke down and struggled with her tears. He watched her for a moment +without speaking. + +"Good enough. I'll be generous and let you pay his debt for him, if you +want to do it." + +Her eyes were glad with the swift joy that leaped into them. + +"That is good of you! And how shall I pay?" she cried. + +"With a kiss." + +She drew back as if he had struck her, all the sparkling eagerness +driven from her face. + +"Oh!" she moaned. + +"Just one kiss--I don't ask anything more. Give me that, and I'll turn +him loose. Honor bright." + +He held her startled gaze as a snake holds that of a fascinated bird. + +"Choose," he told her, in his masterful way. + +Her imagination conceived a vision of her young brother being tortured +by this man. She had not the least doubt that he would do what he said, +and probably would think the boy got only what he deserved. + +"Take it," she told him, and waited. + +Perhaps he might have spared her had it not been for the look of deep +contempt that bit into his vanity. + +He kissed her full on the lips. + +Instantly she woke to life, struck him on the cheek with her little, +brown fist, and, with a sob of woe, turned and ran from the room. + +Weaver cursed himself in a fury of anger. He felt himself to be a hound +because of the thing he had done, and he hated the instinct in him that +drove him to master her. He had insulted and trampled on her. Yet he +knew in his heart that he would have killed another man for doing it. + +[Illustration: SHE DREW BACK AS IF HE HAD STRUCK HER, ALL THE SPARKLING +EAGERNESS DRIVEN FROM HER FACE. _Page 116_] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PUNISHMENT + + +The cattleman strode into the bunk house, where young Sanderson sat +sulkily on a bed under the persuasion of Curly's rifle. + +"Have this boy's horse saddled and brought around, Curly." + +"You're the doctor," answered the cowboy promptly, and forthwith +vanished outdoors to obey instructions. + +Phil looked sullenly at his captor, and waited for him to begin. One of +his hands was under the pillow of the cot upon which he sat. His fingers +circled the butt of a revolver he had found there, where one of the +riders had chanced to leave it that morning. + +"I'm going to turn you loose to go home to the hills," Weaver told him. + +"And my sister?" + +"She stays here." + +"Then so do I." + +"That's up to you. There's no law against camping on the plains--that +is, out of range of the Twin Star." + +"What are you going to do with her?" the boy demanded ominously. + +"If you ask no questions, I'll tell you no lies." + +"You'll let her go home with me--that's what you'll do," cried Phil. + +"I reckon not. You've got a license to feel lucky you're going +yourself." + +"By God, I say you shall!" + +The cattleman's eyes took on their stony, snake-like look. His hand did +not move by so much as an inch toward the scabbarded revolver at his +side. + +"All right. Come a-shooting. I see you've got a gun under that pillow." + +The weapon leaped into sight. "You're right I have! I'll drill you full +of holes as soon as wink." + +Weaver laughed contemptuously. "Begin pumping, son." + +"I'm going to take my sister home with me. You'll give orders to your +men to that effect." + +"Guess again." + +"I tell you I'll shoot your hide full of holes if you don't!" cried the +excited boy. + +"Oh, no, you won't." + +Buck Weaver was flirting with death, and he knew it. The very breath of +it fanned his cheek. During that moment he lived gloriously; for he was +a man who revelled in his sensations. He laughed into the very muzzle of +the six-shooter that covered him. + +"Quit your play acting, boy," he jeered. + +"I give you one more chance before I blow out your brains." + +The cattleman put his unwounded hand into his trousers pocket and +lounged forward, thrusting his smiling face against the cold rim of the +blue barrel. + +"I reckon you'll scatter proper what few brains I've got." + +With a curse, the boy flung the weapon down on the bed. He could not +possibly kill a man so willing as this. To draw guns with him, and +chance the issue, would have suited young Sanderson exactly. But this +way would be no less than murder. + +"You devil!" he cried, with a boyish sob. + +Weaver picked up the revolver, and examined it. "Mighty careless of Ned +to leave it lying around this way," he commented absently, as if unaware +of the other's rage. "You never can tell when a gun is going to get into +the wrong hands." + +"What are you letting me go for? You've got a reason. What is it?" Phil +demanded. + +Weaver looked at him through narrowed, daredevil eyes. "The ransom price +has been paid," he explained. + +"Paid! Who paid it?" + +"Miss Phyllis Sanderson." + +"Phyllis?" repeated the boy incredulously. "But she had no money." + +"Did I say she paid it in money?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"She asked me to set you free. I named my price, and she agreed." + +"What was your price?" the boy asked hoarsely. + +"A kiss." + +At that, Phil struck him full in the sardonic, mocking face. Blood +crimsoned the lips that had been crushed against the strong, white +teeth. + +"Again," said Weaver. + +The brown fist went back and shot forward like a piston rod. This time +it left an ugly gash over the cheek bone. + +"Much obliged. Once more." + +The young man balanced himself carefully, and struck hard and true +between the eyes. + +A third, a fourth, and a fifth time Phil lashed out at the disfigured, +grinning face. + +"Let's make it an even half dozen," the cattleman suggested. + +But Phil had had enough of it. This was too much like butchery. His +passion had spent itself. He struck, but with no force behind the blow. + +Weaver went to the washstand, dashed some water on his face, and pressed +a towel against the raw wounds. He flung the red-soaked towel aside just +as Curly cantered up on Sanderson's horse. The cow-puncher stared at his +boss in amazement, opened his lips to speak, and thought better of it. +He looked at Phil, whose knuckles were badly barked and bleeding. + +Curly had seen his master marked up before, but on such occasions the +other man was a sight for the gods to wonder at. Now Weaver was the +spectacle, and the other was untouched. In view of Buck's reputation as +a rough-and-tumble fighter, this seemed no less than a miracle. Curly +departed with the wonder unexplained, for Weaver dismissed him with a +nod. + +"Like to see your sister before you go?" the cattleman asked curtly of +Phil, over his shoulder. + +"Yes." + +Buck led the way across the plaza to the house, and clapped his hands in +the hall. Josephine answered the summons. + +"Tell Miss Sanderson that her brother would like to see her." + +The woman vanished up the stairway, and the two men waited in silence. +Presently Phyllis stood in the door. Her eyes ignored Weaver, and were +only for her brother. Her first glance told her that all was well so far +as he was concerned, even though it also let her know that the boy was +anxious. + +"Phil!" she breathed. + +"So you bought my freedom for me, did you?" the boy said, his voice +trembling. + +Phyllis answered in the clearest of low voices. "Yes. Did he tell you?" + +"You oughtn't to have done it. I'll have no such bargains made. +Understand that!" cried her brother, emotion in his high tones. + +"I couldn't help it, Phil. I did it for the best. You don't know." + +"I know that you're to keep out of this. I'll fight my own battles. In +our family the girls don't sell kisses. Remember that." + +Phyl hung her head. She felt herself disgraced, but she knew that she +would do it again in like circumstances. + +Weaver broke in roughly: "You young fool! She's worth a dozen of you, +who haven't sense enough to _sabe_ her kind." + +The girl glanced at him involuntarily. At sight of his swollen and +beaten face, she started. Her gaze clung to him, eyes wild and +fluttering with apprehension. + +"I've been taking a massage treatment," he explained. + +Phyllis looked at her brother, then back at the ranchman. The thing was +beyond comprehension. Ten minutes ago, this ferocious Hercules had left +her, sound and unscratched. Now he returned with a face beaten and +almost beyond recognition from bloodstains. + +"What--what is it?" The appeal was to her brother. + +"He let me beat him," Phil explained. + +"Let you beat him! Why?" + +"I don't know." + +What the boy said was true, yet it was something less than the truth. He +was dimly aware that this man knew himself to have violated the code, +and that he had submitted to punishment because of the violation. + +"Tell me," Phyllis commanded. + +Phil told her in three sentences. She looked at Weaver with eyes that +saw him in a new light. He still sneered, but behind the mask she got +for the first time a glimpse of another man. Only dimly she divined him; +but what she visioned was half devil and half hero, capable of things +great as well as of deeds despicable. + +"I'm not going to leave you here in this house," young Sanderson told +her. "I'll not go. If you stay, I stay." + +She shook her head. "No, Phil--you must go. I'm all right here--as safe +as I would be at home. You know, he has a right to send me to prison if +he wants to. I suppose he is holding me as a hostage against our friends +in the hills." + +The boy accepted her decree under protest. He did not know what else to +do. Decision comes only with age, and he could hit on no policy that +would answer. Reluctantly he gave way. + +"If you so much as touch her, you'll die for it," he gulped at Weaver, +in a sudden boyish passion. "We'll shoot you down like a dog." + +"Or a coyote," suggested Buck, with a swift glance at Phyllis. "It seems +to be a family habit. I'm much obliged to you." + +Phyl was in her brother's arms, frankly in tears. + +It was all very well to tell him to go; it was quite another thing to +let him go without a good cry at losing him. + +"Just say the word, and I'll see it out with you, sis," he told her. + +"No, no! I want you to go. I wouldn't have you stay. Tell the boys it's +all right, and don't let them do anything rash." + +Sanderson clenched his teeth, and looked at Weaver. "Oh, they'll do +nothing rash. Now they know you're here, they won't do a thing but sit +down and be happy, I expect." + +The twins whispered together for a minute, then the boy kissed her, put +her from him suddenly, and strode away. From the door he called back two +words at the cattleman. + +"Don't forget." + +With that, he was gone. Yet a moment, and they heard the clatter of his +horse's hoofs. + +"Why did you tell him?" Phyllis asked. "It will only anger them. Now +they will seek vengeance on you." + +The man shrugged his shoulders. "Search me. Perhaps I wanted to prove to +myself that a man may be a mean bully, and not all coyote. Perhaps I +wanted to get under his hide. Who knows?" + +She knew, in part. He had treated her abominably, and wanted blindly to +pay for it in the first way that came to his mind. Half savage as he +sometimes was, that way had been to stand up to personal punishment, to +invite retaliation from his enemies. + +"You must have your face looked to. Shall I call Josephine?" + +"No," he answered harshly. + +"I think I will. We can help it, I'm sure." + +That "we" saved the day. He let her call the Mexican woman, and order +warm water, towels, dressings, and adhesive plaster. It seemed to him +more than a fancy that there was healing in the cool, soft fingers which +washed his face and adjusted the bandages. His eyes, usually so hard, +held now the dumb hunger one sees in those of a faithful dog. They +searched hers for something which he knew he would never find in them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY + + +A man lay on the top of Flat Rock, stretched at supple ease. By his side +was a carbine; in his hand a pair of field glasses. These last had been +trained upon Twin Star Ranch for some time, but were now focused upon a +pair of approaching riders. At the edge of the young willow grove the +two dismounted and came forward leisurely. + +"Looks like the mountains are coming to Mahomet this trip," the watcher +told himself. + +One figure was that of a girl--a brown, light-stepping nymph, upon whom +the checkered sunlight filtered through the leaves. The other was a +finely built man, strong as an ox, but with the sap of youth still in +his blood and the spring of it in his step, in spite of his nearly +twoscore years. He stopped at the foot of Flat Rock, and turned to his +companion. + +"I've been wondering why you went riding with me yesterday and again +to-day, Miss Phyllis. I reckon I've hit on the reason." + +"I like to ride." + +"Yes, but I expect you don't like to ride with me so awful much." + +"Yet you see I do," answered the girl with her swift, shy smile. + +"And the reason is that you know I would be riding, anyway. You don't +want any of your people from the hills to use me as a mark. With you +along, they couldn't do it." + +"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to +send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred. + +He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled +significantly. + +She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him. + +"And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He +grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion +tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does +her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a +dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?" + +"Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them." + +"You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not +for the sake of the coyote." + +"I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said +that. Please!" + +"All right--I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that +hurts." + +"I don't think it." + +"You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't +dodge. You know you think I'm a bully." + +"I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing. + +"Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the +story?" + +"No. I'll listen, if you will tell me." + +Weaver shook his head. "No--I guess that wouldn't be playing fair. +You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to +that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me--most of +it, at least--I sure enough deserve." + +"I wonder," she mused, smiling at him. + +Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom +Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in +bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide +her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk +of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed +heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even +though, at the same time, it terrified her. + +Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give +me the same certificate of character. And I reckon they ain't so far +out, either," he added grimly. + +"Perhaps they are all right, and yet all wrong too." + +He looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?" + +"Maybe they don't see the other side of you" said Phyllis gently. + +"How do you know there's another side?" + +"I don't know how, but I do." + +"I reckon it must be a right puny one." + +"It has a good deal to fight against, hasn't it?" + +"You're right it has. There's a devil in me that gets up on its hind +legs and strangles what little good it finds. But it certainly beats me +how you know so much that goes on inside a sweep like me." + +"You forget. I'm not very good myself. You know my temper runs away with +me, too." + +"You blessed lamb!" she heard him say under his breath; and the way he +said it made the exclamation half a groan. + +For her naive confession emphasized the gulf between them. Yet it +pleased him mightily that she linked herself with him as a fellow +wrongdoer. + +"I suppose you've been wondering why your people have made no attempt to +rescue you," he said presently; for he saw her eyes were turned toward +the hills beyond which lay her home. + +"I'm glad they haven't, because it must have made trouble; but I _am_ +surprised," she confessed. + +"They have tried it--twice," he told her. "First time was Saturday +morning, just before daylight. We trapped them as they were coming +through the Box CaƱon. I knew they would come down that way, because it +was the nearest; so I was ready for them." + +"And what happened?" Her dilated eyes were like those of a stricken doe. + +"Nothing that time. I let them see I had them caught. They couldn't go +forward or back. They laid down their arms, and took the back trail. +There was no other way to escape being massacred." + +"And the second time?" + +Buck hesitated. "There was shooting that time. It was last night. My +riders outnumbered them and had cover. We drove them back." + +"Anybody hurt?" cried Phyllis. + +"One of them fell. But he got up and ran limping to his horse, I figured +he wasn't hurt badly." + +"Was he--could you tell--" She leaned against the rock wall for support. + +"No--I didn't know him. He was a young fellow. But you may be sure he +wasn't hit mortally. I know, because I shot him myself." + +"You!" She drew back in a sudden sick horror of him. + +"Why not?" he answered doggedly. "They were shooting at me--aiming to +kill, too. I shot low on purpose, when I might have killed him." + +"Oh, I must go home--I must go home!" she moaned. + +"I've got the sheriff's orders to hold you pending an investigation. +What harm does it do you to stay here a while?" he asked doggedly. + +"Don't you see? When my father hears of it he will be furious. I made +Phil promise not to tell him. But he'll hear when he comes back. And +then--there will be trouble. He'll drag me from you, or he'll die +trying. He's that kind of man." + +A pebble rolled down the face of the wall against which she leaned. +Weaver looked up quickly--to find himself covered by a carbine. + +"Hands up, seh! No--don't reach for a gun." + +"So it's you, Mr. Keller! Homesteading up there, I presume?" + +"In a way of speaking. You remember I asked you a question." + +"And I told you to go to Halifax." + +"Well, I came back to answer the question myself. You're going to turn +the young lady loose." + +"If you say so." Weaver's voice carried an inflection of sarcasm. + +"That's what I say. Miss Sanderson, will you kindly unbuckle that belt +and round up the weapons of war? Good enough! I'll drift down that way +now myself." + +Keller lowered himself from Flat Rock, keeping his prisoner covered as +carefully as he could the while. But, though Keller came down the steep +bluff with infinite pains, the rough going offered a chance of escape to +one so reckless as Weaver, of which he made not the least attempt to +avail himself. Instead, he smiled cynically and waited with his hand in +the air, as bidden. Keller, coming forward with both eyes on his +prisoner, slipped on a loose boulder that rolled beneath his foot, +stumbled, and fell, almost at the feet of the cattleman. He got up as +swiftly as a cat. Weaver and his derisive grin were in exactly the same +position. + +Keller lowered his carbine instantly. This plainly was no case for the +coercion of arms. + +"We'll cut out the gun play," he said. "Better rest the hand that's +reaching for the sky. I expect hostilities are over." + +"You certainly had me scared stiff," Weaver mocked. + +From the first roll of the pebble that had announced the presence of a +third party, Phyl had experienced surprise after surprise. She had +expected to see one of the Seven Mile boys or her brother instead of +Keller--had looked with a quaking heart for the cattleman to fling back +the swift challenge of a bullet. His tame surrender had amazed her, +especially when Keller's fall had given him a chance to seize the +carbine. His drawling, sarcastic badinage pointed to the same +conclusion. Evidently he had no desire to resist. Behind this must be +some purpose which she could not fathom. + +"Elected yourself chaperon of the young lady, have you, Mr. Keller?" +Buck asked pleasantly. + +The young man smiled at the girl before he answered. "You've been +losing too much time on the job, Mr. Weaver. Subject to her approval, I +got a notion I'd take her back home." + +"Best place for her," assented Weaver promptly. "I've been thinking for +a day or two that she ought to get back to those school kids of hers. +But I'm going to take her there myself." + +"Yourself!" Phyllis spoke up in quick surprise. + +"Why not?" The cattleman smiled. + +"Do you mean with your band of thugs?" + +"No, ma'am. You and I will be enough." + +The suggestion was of a piece with his usual audacity. The girl knew +that he would be quite capable of riding with her into the hills, where +he had a score of bitter, passionate enemies, and of affronting them, if +the notion should come into his head, even in their stronghold. Within +twenty-four hours he had shot one of them; yet he would go among them +with his jaunty, mocking smile and that hateful confidence of his. + +"You would not be safe. They might kill you." + +"Would that gratify you?" + +"Yes!" she cried passionately. + +He bowed. "Anything to give pleasure to a lady." + +"No--you can't go! I won't go with you. I wouldn't be responsible for +what might happen." + +"What might happen--another family impulse?" + +"You know as well as I do--after what you've done. And there's bad blood +between you already. Besides, you are so reckless, so intemperate in +what you say and do." + +"All right. If you won't go with me, I'll go alone," he said. + +She appealed to Keller to support her, but the latter shook his head. + +"No use. A wilful man must have his way. If he says he's going, I reckon +he'll go. But whyfor should I be euchred out of my ride. Let me go along +to keep the peace." + +Her eyes thanked him. "If you are sure you can spare the time." + +"Don't incommode yourself, if you're in a hurry. We won't miss you." +Weaver's cold stare more than hinted that three would be a crowd. + +The younger man ignored him cheerfully. "Time to burn, Miss Sanderson." + +"You don't want to let that spring plowing suffer," the cattleman +suggested ironically. + +"That's so. Glad you mentioned it. I'll try to pick up some one to do it +at the store," returned the optimist. + +"Seems to me there are a pair of us, Mr. Keller, who may not be welcome +at Seven Mile. Last time you were down there, weren't you the guest of +some willing lads who were arranging a little party for you?" + +"Mr. Weaver," reproached Phyllis, flushing. + +But the reference did not embarrass the nester in the least. He laughed +hardily, meeting his rival eye to eye. "The boys did have notions, but +I expect maybe they have got over them." + +"Nothing like being hopeful. Now I'd back my show against yours every +day in the week." + +The girl handed his revolver back to Weaver, after first asking a +question of the homesteader with her eyes. + +"Oh, I get my hardware back, do I?" Buck grinned. + +Keller brought his horse round from back of Flat Rock, where it had been +picketed. They started at once, cutting across the plain to a flat +butte, which thrust itself out from the hills into the valley. Two hours +of steady travel brought them to the butte, behind which lay Seven Mile +ranch. + +At the first glimpse of the roofs shining in the golden sunlight Phyllis +gave a cry of delight. + +"Home again. I wonder whether Father's here." + +"I wonder," echoed Weaver grimly. + +"That little fellow riding into the corral is one of my scholars," she +told them. + +"One of the fourteen that loves you, Miss Going-On-Eighteen. My, +there'll be joy in Israel over the lost that is found. I reckon by +to-morrow you'll be teaching the young idea how to shoot." He glanced +down at his bandaged arm with a malicious grin. + +Phyllis looked at him without speaking. It was Keller who made +application of the remark. + +"There are others here beside her pupils. Some of them are right quick +and straight on the shoot, Mr. Weaver. Now you've seen Miss Sanderson +home, there's still time to make your getaway without trouble. How about +hitting the trail while travelling is good, seh?" + +"What's the matter with you taking your own advice, Keller?" + +"I don't figure the need is pressing in my case. Different with you." + +"I told you I would back my chances against yours. Well, I'm standing +pat on that." + +"The road will be open to me to-morrow. I wonder will it be open to you +then." + +"My friend, who elected you guardeen to Buck Weaver?" drawled the big +man carelessly. + +"I wish you would go," Phyllis pleaded, plainly troubled over his +obstinacy. + +"Me, I always hated to disoblige a lady," Buck admitted. + +"Then go," she cried eagerly. + +"But I hate still more to go back on my word. So I'll stay." + +There was nothing more to be said. They rode forward to the ranch. +'Rastus, at the stables, raised a shout and broke for the store on the +run. + +"Hyer's Miss Phyl done come home." + +At his call light-stepping dusty men poured from the building like seeds +from a squeezed orange. There was a rush for the girl. She was lifted +from her saddle and carried in triumph to the porch. Jim Sanderson came +running from the cellar in the rear and buried her in his arms. + +She broke down and began to cry a little. "Oh, Dad--Dad, I'm so glad to +be home." + +The old Confederate veteran was close to tears himself. + +"Honey, I jes' got back from town. Phil, he done wrong not letting me +know. I come pretty nigh giving that boy the bud. Wait till I meet up +with Buck Weaver. It's him or me for suah this time." + +"No, Dad, no! You must let me explain. I've been quite safe, and it's +all over now. Everything is all right." + +"Is it?" Sanderson laughed harshly. + +"The sheriff telephoned him to keep me, but you see he brought me home." + +"Brought you home?" The sheepman's black eyes lifted quickly and met +those of his enemy. + +"So you're there, Buck Weaver. I reckon you and I will settle accounts." + +Phil and Tom Dixon had quietly circled round so as to cut off Weaver's +retreat in case he attempted one. + +"He's got the rustler with him," Tom Dixon cried quickly. + +"Goddlemighty, so he has. We'll make a clean sweep," the Southerner +cried, his eyes blazing. + +"Then you'll destroy the man who was ready to give his life for mine," +his daughter said quietly. + +"What's that? How's that, Phyllie?" + +"It's a long story. I want you to hear it all. But not here." + +Her voice fell. A sudden memory had come to her of one thing at least +that she could not tell even to him--the story of that moment when she +had lain in the arms of the nester with his heart beating against her +breast. + +The old man caught her by the shoulder, holding her at arm's length, +while the deep eyes under his shaggy, grizzled brows pierced her. + +"What have you got to tell me, gyurl? Out with it!" + +But on the heels of his imperative demand came reassurance. A tide of +color poured into her face, but her eyes met his quietly. They let him +understand, more certainly than words, that all was well with his ewe +lamb. Putting her gently to one side, he strode toward his enemy. + +"What are you doing here, Buck Weaver?" + +The cattleman swept the circle of lowering faces, and laughed +contemptuously. "A man might think I wasn't welcome if he didn't know +better." + +"Oh, you're welcome--I reckon nobody on earth is more welcome right +now," retorted Sanderson grimly. "We were starting right out after you, +seh. But seeing you're here it saves trouble. Better 'light, you and +your friend, both." + +The declining sun flashed on three weapons that already covered the +cattleman. He looked easily from one to another, without the least +concern, and swung lightly from his horse. + +"Much obliged. Glad to accept your hospitality. But about this young man +here--he's not exactly a friend of mine--a mere pick-up acquaintance, in +fact. You mustn't accept him on my say-so. Of course, you know _I'm_ all +right, but I can't guarantee _him_," Buck drawled, with magnificent +effrontery. + +Phyllis spoke up unexpectedly. "_I_ can." + +Keller looked at her gratefully. It was not that he cared so much for +the certificate of character as for the friendly spirit that prompted +it. "That's right kind of you," he nodded. + +"We haven't heard yet what you are doing here, Buck Weaver," old Jim +Sanderson said, holding the cattleman with a hard and hostile eye. "And +after you've explained that, there are a few other things to make +clear." + +"Such as----" suggested the plainsman. + +"Such as keeping my daughter a captive and insulting her while she was +in your house," the father retorted promptly. + +"I held her captive because it was my right. She admitted shooting me. +Would you expect me to turn her loose, and thank her right politely for +it? I want to tell you that some folks would be right grateful because I +didn't send her to the penitentiary." + +"You couldn't send her there. No jury in Arizona would convict--even if +she were guilty," Tom Dixon broke out. + +"That's a frozen fact about the Arizona jury," the cattleman agreed, +with a swift, careless look at the boy. "Just the same, I had a license +to hold her. About the insult--well, I've got nothing to say. Nothing +except this, that I wouldn't be wearing these decorations"--he touched +the scars on his face--"if I didn't agree with you that nobody but a +sweep would have done it." + +"Everybody unanimous on that point, I reckon," said Jim Yeager promptly. + +Phyllis had been speaking to her father in a low voice. The old man +listened with no great patience, but finally nodded a concession to her +importunity. + +"We'll waive the matter of the insult just now. How about that boy you +shot up? Looks like you're a fool to come drilling in here, with him +still lying there on his bed." + +"He took his fighting chance. You ain't kicking because I played out the +game the way you-all started to play it? If you are, I'll have to say I +might have expected a sheep herder to look at it that way," Weaver +retorted insolently. + +The old man took a grip on his rising wrath. "No--we're not kicking, any +more than you've got a right to kick when we settle accounts with you." + +"As we're liable to do right shortly, now we've got you," said Dixon, +vindictively. + +"All right--go ahead with the indictment," Weaver acquiesced quietly, +ignoring the boy. + +"Keep still, Tom," Sanderson ordered, and went on with his grievance. +"You try to run this valley as if you were God Almighty. By your way of +it, a man has to come with hat in hand to ask you if he may take up land +here. The United States says we may homestead, but Buck Weaver says we +shan't. Uncle Sam says we may lease land to run sheep. Buck Weaver has +another notion of it. We're to take orders from him. If we don't he +clubs our sheep and drives off our cattle." + +"Cattle were here first," retorted Weaver. "The range is overstocked, +and they've got a prior right. Nesters in the hills here are making +money by rustling Twin Star calves. That's another thing." + +"Some of them. You'll not find any rustled calves with the Seven Mile +brand on them. And we don't recognize any prior right. We came here +legally. We intend to stay. Every time your riders club a bunch of our +sheep, we'll even up on Twin Star cattle. You take my daughter captive; +I hold you prisoner." + +"You'll be in luck if you get away from here with a whole skin," broke +out Phil. "You came here to please yourself, but you'll stay to please +us." + +"So?" Buck smiled urbanely. He was staying because he wanted to, though +they never guessed it. + +"Unbuckle his gun belt, Tom," ordered the old man. + +"Save you the trouble." Weaver unbuckled the belt and tossed it, +revolver and all, to Yeager. + +"Now, Mr. Weaver, we'll adjourn to the house." + +"Anything to oblige." + +"What about Mr. Keller?" Phyllis asked, in a low voice, of her father. + +The old man's keen, hard eyes surveyed the stranger. "Who is he? What do +you know about him?" + +As shortly as she could, she told what she knew of Keller, and how he +had rescued her from captivity. + +Her father strode forward and shook hands with the young man. + +"Make yourself at home, seh. We'll be glad to have you stay with us as +long as you can. What you have done for my daughter puts us +everlastingly in your debt." + +"Not worth mentioning. And, to be fair, I think Weaver was going to +bring her home, anyhow." + +"The way the story reached me, he didn't mention it until you had the +drop on him," answered Sanderson dryly. + +"That's right," nodded the cattleman ironically, from the porch. "You're +the curly-haired hero, Keller, and I'm the red-headed villain of this +play. You want to beware of the miscreant, Miss Sanderson, or he'll sure +do you a meanness." + +Tom Dixon eyed him frostily. "I expect you'll not do her any meanness, +Buck Weaver. From now on, you'll go one way and she'll go another. +You'll be strangers." + +"You don't say!" Buck answered, looking him over derisively, as he +passed into the house. "You're crowing loud for your size. And don't you +bet heavy on that proposition, my friend." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +TOM DIXON + + +With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls +came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay +soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint +for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that +has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to +harness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds, +who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waiting +buggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road. + +The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells--to meet the eyes of +a young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in a +good-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. It +was not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten that +one meets daily. + +"Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air of +cheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt. + +Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone--all but little Jimmie +Tryon. He rides home with me." + +"Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back," +complained the man. + +"Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank and +direct as that of a boy. + +But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way. +You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out. + +"Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly. + +"What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way ever +since----" + +He broke off. + +A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?" + +"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver." + +"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly +broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid +this. Must we thrash it out?" + +"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I +reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with +you." + +A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes +refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were +just children." + +"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?" + +"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she +pleaded. + +"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle, +and came toward her eagerly. "I love you--always have since I was +knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these +days." + +She held up a hand to keep him back. "No--we're not. I know now that +you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you." + +"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted. + +She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy +had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace. +She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother. + +"No, Tom--let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me +be just a friend." + +"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put +off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got +a right to know, and I'm going to know." + +"Yes, you have a right--but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I +didn't know my own mind then, and I do now." + +"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily. + +She was silent. + +"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!" + +"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart," +she told him gently. + +"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I +shot Weaver?" + +"You shot him from ambush." + +"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw +him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't +lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to +shoot, and I shot before----" + +"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning, +even if it was right to shoot at all--which, of course, it wasn't." + +"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a +mistake?" + +"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than +that. I can't tell you just what I mean." + +"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience. + +"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain." + +"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame +his eyes could not meet hers. + +"No--I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least +resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you +ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't +possibly marry you after that." + +The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling with +vexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness of +that scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bear +the brunt of what he had done. + +"You told me to go, and now you blame me for doing what you said," he +complained bitterly. + +She realized the weakness of his defense--that he had saved himself at +the expense of the girl he claimed to love, simply because she had +offered herself as a sacrifice in his place. She thought of another man, +who, at the risk of his life, had held back the half dozen pursuers just +to give a better chance to a girl he had not known a week. She thought +of the cattleman who had ridden gayly into this valley of enemies, +because he loved her, and was willing to face any punishment for the +wrong he had done her. Her brother, too, pointed the same moral. He had +defied the enemy, though he had been in his power. Not one of them would +have done what Tom Dixon, in his panic terror, had allowed himself to +do. But they were men, all of them--men of that stark courage that +clings to self-respect rather than to life. This youth had met the acid +test, and had failed in the assay. She had no anger toward him--only a +kindly pity, and a touch of contempt which she could not help. + +"No--I don't blame you, Tom," she told him, very kindly. "But I can't +marry you. I couldn't if you explained till Christmas. That is final. +Now let us be friends." + +She held out her hand. He looked at it through the tears of +mortification that were in his eyes, dashed it aside with an oath, swung +to the saddle, and galloped down the road. + +Phyllis gave a wistful sigh. Tears filmed her eyes. He was her first +lover, had given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the third +grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him +go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she +experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a +form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now +to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and +not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch +girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals +when she was not handy to receive them. + +"Was Tom Dixon mean to you, teacher?" + +Little five-year-old Jimmie Tryon was standing before her, feet apart, +fists knotted, and brow furrowed. She swooped upon her champion and +snatched him up for a kiss. + +"Nobody has been mean to teacher, Jimmie, you dear little kiddikins," +she cried. "It's all right, honey. Tom thinks it isn't, but before long +he'll know it is." + +"Who'll tell him?" Jimmie wanted to know anxiously. + +"Some nice girl, little curiosity box. I don't know who yet, but it will +be one of two or three I could name," she laughed. + +She harnessed the horse and hitched it to the trap in which Jimmie and +she came to school. But before she had gathered up the reins to start, +another young man strolled upon the scene. + +This one was walking and carried a rifle. + +At sight of him a glow began to burn through her dark cheeks. They had +not been alone together before since that moment when the stress of +their emotion had swept them to a meeting of warm lips and warm bodies +that had startled her by the electric pulsing of her blood. + +Her eyes could not hold to his. Shame dragged the lashes down. + +With him it was not shame. The male in him rode triumphant because he +had moved a girl to the deeps of her nature. But something in him, some +saving sense of embarrassment, of reverence for the purity and innocence +he sensed in her, made him shrink from pressing the victory. His mind +cast about for a commonplace with which to meet her. + +He held up as a trophy of his prowess two cottontails. "Who says I can't +shoot?" he wanted to know boisterously. + +"Where did you buy them?" she scoffed, faintly trying for sauciness. + +"That's a fine reward for honest virtue, after I tramped five miles to +get them for your supper," protested Keller. + +She recovered her composure quickly, as women will. + +"If they are for my supper, we'll have to ask him to ride home with +us--won't we, Jimmie? It would never do to have them reach the ranch too +late," she said, making room for Keller in the seat beside her. + +It was after she had driven several hundred yards that he said, with a +smile: "I met a young man on horseback as I was coming up. He went by me +like a streak of light. Looked like he found this a right mournful +world. You had ought to scatter sunshine and not gloom, Miss Phyllis." + +"Am I scattering gloom?" she asked demurely. + +"Not right now," he laughed. "But looks like you have been." + +She flicked a fly from the flank of her horse before she answered: "Some +people are so noticing." + +"It was hanging right heavy on him. Had the look of a man who had lost +his last friend," the young man observed meditatively. + +"Dear me! How pathetic!" + +"Yes--he sure looked like he'd rejoice to plug another cattleman. I +'most arranged to send for Buck Weaver again," said Keller calmly. + +Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that you +say?" + +"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again." + +"Yes, but you said too----" + +"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story of +yours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you was +riding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from +'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt a +mouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on a +blind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover." + +"He isn't a coyote," she objected. + +Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew how +to respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man who +would shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bear +the blame of his wrongdoing. "No--I reckon coyote is too big a name for +him," he admitted. + +"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It was +natural he should feel a grudge." + +"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. How +come you to let him do it?" + +"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun go +up, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he had +fired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazy +with fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide in +the big rocks, while I cut across toward the caƱon. The men saw me, and +gave chase." + +"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, with +emphasis. + +Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Of +course they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was that +somebody was riding through the chaparral." + +"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chance +to save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Keller +put the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a vent +to his feelings. + +Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of a +man game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not even +a friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could. + +"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I need +them to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty." + +"He stood by her, too," she answered, trying to keep the matter +impersonal. + +"Perhaps he wanted to make her his friend," Larrabie suggested. + +"There is no perhaps about his success," she said quietly, her gaze just +beyond the ears of her horse. The young man dared now to look at her--a +child of the sun despite her duskiness. Eagerly he awaited the deep, +lustrous eyes that would presently sweep round upon him, big and dark +and sparkling. When she turned her head, they were full of that new +womanly dignity that yet did not obscure the shy innocence. + +"Look!" Jimmie Tryon pointed suddenly to the figure of a man +disappearing from the road into the mesquite two hundred yards in front +of them. + +"That's odd. I reckon you'd better wait here, and let me investigate a +few," suggested Keller. + +"Be careful," she said anxiously. + +"It's all right. Don't worry," the young man assured her. + +He got down from the trap and dived into the underbrush, rifle in hand. +The two in the buggy waited a long time. No sound came to them from the +cactus-covered waste to indicate what was happening. When Phyllis' watch +told her that he had been gone ten minutes, a cheerful hail came from +the road in front. + +"All right. Come on." + +But it was far from all right. Keller had with him an old Mexican +herder, called Manuel Quito--a man in the employ of her father. A +bandanna was tied round his shoulder, and it was soaked with +bloodstains. He told his story with many shrugs and much excited +gesticulation. He and Jesus Menendez had been herding on Lone Pine when +riders of the Twin Star outfit had descended upon them and attacked the +sheep. He and Menendez had elected to fight, and Jesus had been shot +down; he himself had barely escaped with his life--and that not without +a wound. The cow-punchers had followed him, and continued to fire at +him, but he had succeeded in escaping. Yes--he felt sure that Menendez +was dead. Even if he had not been dead at first, they would have killed +him. + +Keller consulted Miss Sanderson silently. He knew that she was thinking +the thought that was in his own mind. It would never do to let this +story reach her father and her brother, while Buck Weaver was still in +their power. Inflamed as they already were against him, they would +surely do in hot blood that which they would repent later. Somehow, +Keller and she must hold back the news until they could contrive a way +to free the cattleman. + +"Best leave Manuel at the Tryon place till morning. They will look out +for him as well as you can. That will give us twelve hours to work +before they hear what has happened." + +"But what about poor Jesus, lying out there alone?" + +"We'll get Bob Tryon to drive out. But you needn't worry about Jesus. If +they found him still living, the Twin Star boys will attend to him just +as kindly as we could. Cowboys have tender hearts, even though they go +off at half cock." + +They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under the +care of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silence +until morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to be +no reason why he should not do well. + +It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He was +confined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of the +riders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if a +better chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended upon +the possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, while +Phyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner. + +The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. One +thing was sure--if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemies +before the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, his +chance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood of +the South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strike +first and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swift +blow would be a deadly one. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE ESCAPE + +For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch +by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her +bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one. + +In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along +the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened +one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a +trip hammer. + +Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in +the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal. +Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence. + +But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the +dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so +often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To +judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged. + +The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner +and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the +moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom +stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into +the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what +cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite +on the other side of the road. + +Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key +to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it +behind her. + +"Where are you?" her young voice breathed. + +"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?" + +She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you +tied?" + +"Yes--hands and feet." + +A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a +few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the +door opened and a head was thrust in. + +"What's the row, Tom?" + +Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing +began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about." + +But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the +fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched. + +"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the +cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows. + +They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged +from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the +cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting. + +"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her. + +She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He +would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in +his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers. + +"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as +not to arouse suspicion." + +"But tell me--what does it mean?" demanded Buck. + +"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave +this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost." + +With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an +apparition of terror to learn what was wrong. + +She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log +cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing, +and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions. + +"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of +excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp. +Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over. +This moment she chose for her entrance. + +"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the +doorway. + +"He's got away--we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously. + +"But--how?" + +"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By +God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore. + +Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and +coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too, +fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?" + +"Nothing--except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools," +snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner--that's what's the matter." + +Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought +you kept him guarded." + +"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil. + +"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly. + +"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a +meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers +answered that the prisoner was safe so far. + +"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm. +"Sounded like a battle--and when we got there not a soul could be found. +Beats me how they got away so slick." + +Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to +be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she +had been told to do. + +She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head +quickly when she entered. + +"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity," +he began. + +"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one +of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man +as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a +neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves +on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid--we were +both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller +slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to +draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail +above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all." + +"But what am I to do here?" + +"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go, +the chances are they would have caught you again." + +"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?" + +"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the +sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to +escape the law that has been written?" + +"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life." + +"I don't want blood on the hands of my people." + +"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his +old sneer. + +She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor +Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a +punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict +it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them." + +"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a +wolfish Amalekite. Come--the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the +reapers." + +He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended +to block the way. + +"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when +the news comes." + +"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his +derisive smile. + +"You do nothing but mock--at your own death, at that of others. But you +shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little +wildly. + +"If you put it that way----" + +"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend +to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back +to them out of spite or dare-deviltry." + +"Just as you say." + +"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all +our lives are planned for your amusement." + +"I wish yours were planned----" He pulled himself up short. "You're +right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in +your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do." + +"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you. +You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and +you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance +for you to get away." + +"But I'll be driving you out," he protested. + +"I'm going to sleep with Anna--the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs. +Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the +door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else +knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear." + +"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a +low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the +decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is +that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of +this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a +chance to prove them." + +She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And +with that she left him to himself. + +Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but +they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her, +and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism +to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly. + +The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her +again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to +find her in the passage with a tray of food. + +"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot--just what +happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys +are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry. +Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the +tray on the table. + +Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up +her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great +fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her +hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the +passage and down the back stairs. + +He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as +silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and +charm, was not--could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the +road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him. + +How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray +morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his +absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance. + +He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the +threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him. + +"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked. + +The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not +think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming +accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She +let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology. + +"It's Phil, isn't it?" + +There was no way out of it. "No--it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll +explain," said Buck Weaver. + +Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the +stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young +mistress. + +"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost." + +"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room." + +"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply. + +"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought--oh, I don't +know what I thought." + +Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very +curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in +everybody's business. + +"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly. + +"I don't think. I saw him." + +"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of +gentle scorn. + +"No--he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure." + +"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go +and see myself. You stay here." + +She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I +wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now, +when everybody is excited over the escape of that man." + +"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl +maintained obstinately. + +"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me." + +Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from +Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had +been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she +eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she +could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to +her to save the man in her room. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A MISTAKE + + +At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the +sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The +Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they +could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made +an end of him. + +Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of +the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go +to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate +might have in store. + +When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to +leave. + +She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there, +rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after +the breakfast. + +"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a +sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away." + +"I promise," he told her. + +She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face +was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it. + +"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read, +without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see." + +"Oh, I hope not--I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You _will_ be +careful, won't you?" + +"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me." + +Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front +door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins. + +"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens----" + +"But it won't. Why should it?" + +"Anna knows. She blundered upon him." + +"Will she keep it quiet?" + +"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the +boys." + +"All right," he nodded. + +"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said +piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so. + +He shook his head. "No--you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will +be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going +to be on the job all day." + +"You're so good!" + +"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the +dust robe, without looking at her. + +But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of +hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in +her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence +and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed +himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing +him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver--and never to +his disadvantage. + +He talked with a drawl. He walked and rode with an air of languid ease. +But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so +gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force +in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good +humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he +had won her. But the touch of affection in his manner never suggested +weakness. + +From the porch Tom Dixon watched her departure sullenly. Since he could +not have her, he let himself grow jealous of the man who perhaps could. +And because he was what he was--a small man, full of vanity and +conceit--he must needs make parade of himself with another girl in the +role of conquering squire. Larrabie smiled as the young fellow went off +for a walk in obviously confidential talk with Anna Allan, but he +learned soon that it was no smiling matter. + +Half an hour later, the girl came flying back along the trail the two +had taken. Catching sight of Keller, she ran across to him, plainly +quivering with excitement and fluttering with fears. + +"Oh, Mr. Keller--I've done it now! I didn't think----I thought--" + +"Take it easy," soothed the young man, with one of his winning smiles. +"Now, what is it you have done?" Already his eyes had picked out Dixon +returning, not quite so impetuously, along the trail. + +"I told him about the man in Phyllis' room." + +Larrabie's eyes narrowed and grew steely. "Yes?" + +"I told him--I don't know why, but I never could keep a secret. I made +him promise not to tell. But he is going to tell the boys. There he +comes now. And I told Phyllis I wouldn't tell!" Anna began to cry, +miserably aware that she had made a mess of things. + +"I just begged him not to tell--and he had promised. But he says it's +his duty, and he's going to do it. Oh, Mr. Keller--if Mr. Weaver is +there they will hurt him, and I'll be to blame." + +"Yes, you will be," he told her bluntly. "But we may save him yet--if +you can go about your business and keep your mouth shut." + +"Oh, I will--I will," she promised eagerly. "I'll not say a word--not to +anybody." + +"See that you don't. Now, run along home. I'm going to have a quiet +little talk with that young man. Maybe I can persuade him to change his +mind," he said grimly. + +"Please--if you could. I don't want to start any trouble." + +Larrabie grinned, without taking his eyes from the man coming down the +trail. It was usually some good-natured idiot, with a predisposition to +gabbling, that made most of the trouble in the world. + +"Well, you be a good girl and padlock your tongue. If you do, I'll fix +it up with Tom," he promised. + +He sauntered forward toward the path. Dixon, full of his news, was +hurrying to the ranch. He was eager to tell it to the Sandersons, +because he wanted to reinstate himself in their good graces. For, though +neither of them knew he had fired the shot that wounded Weaver, he had +observed a distinct coolness toward him for his desertion of Phyllis in +her time of need. It had been all very well for him to explain that he +had thought it best to hurry home to get help. The fact remained that he +had run away and left her alone. + +Now he was for pushing past Keller with a curt nod, but the latter +stopped him with a lift of the hand. + +"What's your sweat?" + +"Want to see me, do you?" + +Keller nodded easily. + +"All right. Unload your mind. I can't give you but a minute." + +"Press of business on to-day?" + +"It's _my_ business." + +"I'm going to make it mine." + +"What do you mean?" came the quick, suspicious retort. + +"Let's walk back up the trail and talk it over." + +"No." + +"Yes." + +Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won. + +"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly. + +"We can, but we won't." + +"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail." + +"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man--a +brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes. + +Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did +not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about +this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour +without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he +stopped. + +"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed, +attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession. + +"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the +American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope--no, +sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused +aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch. + +Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn +foolishness?" + +"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and +me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a +thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His +voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his +eyes that showed him prepared for any move. + +So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral +Keller nailed him in a dozen strides. + +"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business +to keep me here." + +"I'm doing it for pleasure, say." + +The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and +twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. +Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of +his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and +stepped back. + +"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that +gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed. + +"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take +a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver." + +"What--what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told +you that lie." + +He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the +face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to +pay for it. + +"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's +been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand +the gaff for you. Now it's due." + +"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said +that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize----" + +"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take +it." + +Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his +opponent by twenty pounds--a husky, well-built fellow; but he was +entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten +man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he +took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as +did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from +the marrow out. + +Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight +in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But +now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing +blows. + +Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see +nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed +out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left, +came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one +hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to +clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an +uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man. + +"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned. + +"Sure of that?" + +"You've pretty near killed me." + +Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to +that apology now, my friend." + +With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I +didn't mean--I hadn't ought to have said----" + +Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know +better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on +the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a +fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother. +It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But +when you said she lied to me, that's another matter." + +For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not +leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story +would be kept secret. + +"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they +would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover. +'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly. + +"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly. + +"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" +Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil +and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for +leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done +the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more +than talk. + +"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about +it, and hear the particulars." + +"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know, +she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his +feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief. + +"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully. +"You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my +little spiel." + +"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can +see. I'd rather they didn't know." + +"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where +Buck is right now." + +Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not +persuaded. + +"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them +both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?" + +Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though +his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one. + +"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly. + +"No--I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie. + +The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll +close-herd both stories, then." + +"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry. +Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied." + +But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but +mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so. +If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could +not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against +submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole +story of the thrashing would be bound to come out. + +"I can't go down looking like this," he growled. + +"Do you have to go down?" + +"Have to get my horse, don't I?" + +"I'll bring it to you." + +"And say nothing about--what has happened?" + +"I don't care to talk of it any more than you do. I'll be a clam." + +"All right--I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed +tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms. + +Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of +Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be +depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse, +tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the +wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had +to come down and saddle the latter's mount. + +He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before +he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks +the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others +in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat +stamp. + +This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding +foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a +deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now +its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung +again to the saddle, and continued on his way. + +The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not hear him coming +as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand +something that clicked. + +Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like +tempered steel. + +"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I +reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty." + +Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked +up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from +him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun, +ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?" + +"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this +one, to save you trouble." + +He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of +the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his +side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie. + +For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with +him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that +indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve +to pit himself against such a man as this. + +"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're +trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly. + +"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is +between us two. It won't go any further." + +Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen +out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked +its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a +leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the +hill and disappeared. + +Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of +one who lives much alone. + +"There's a _nice_ young man--yellow clear through. Queer thing she could +ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good +looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely +he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against +the acid test, then." + +His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice +plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks. + +"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself +till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a +dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering. +Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind +hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is +headed for the pen mighty fast." + +He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION + + +Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him +pass the time. + +This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect +something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed +prints on the walls--cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs +were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To +the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such +frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were +circumscribed by the purse limitation. + +Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse +by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr +Song." + + I know by the stir of the branches, + The way she went; + And at times I can see where a stem + Of the grass is bent. + She's the secret and light of my life, + She allures to elude; + But I follow the spell of her beauty, + Whatever the mood. + +"Knows what he's talking about--some poet, that fellow," Buck cried +aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into +words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost +in his discovery. + +It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a +gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It +was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke. +Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose +tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind. +From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza. + +"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No +risk at all, looks to me." + +With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close +to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being +seen. + +The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed, +and went back to reading. + +The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was +upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on +another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco +into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again +puffing in pleasant serenity. + +Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar. + +Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his +mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was +that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole +through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had +plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of +the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he +must have been up in a balloon. + +The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his +pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray +cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat +had reached the powder. + +By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along +the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob, +the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices. + +"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin. + +The fat was surely in the fire now. + +Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door +was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply. + +Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old +Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher +known as Cuffs. All of them were armed. + +"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked. + +"So you're here, are you?" spoke up Phil. + +"That's right. I'm here, sure enough." + +"How long you been here?" + +"Been hanging round the place ever since my escape. You kept so close a +watch I couldn't make my getaway. Some time the other side of noon I +drifted in here, figuring some of you would drive me from cover by +accident during the day if I stayed out in the chaparral. This room +looked handy, so I made myself right at home and locked the door. I hate +to shoot up a lady's boudoir, but looks like that's what I've done." + +"You durn fool! Who were you shooting at?" Phil asked contemptuously. + +But his father stepped forward, and with a certain austere dignity, more +menacing than threats, took the words out of the mouth of his son. + +"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil." + +Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the +imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission +in a lady's room," he admitted humorously. + +A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had +been running. It was Keller. + +That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw +him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition, +and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for +him last night. + +"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly. + +They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old +sheepman waved his hand toward a chair. + +"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the +mantel. + +He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had +already condemned him to death. The quiet repression they imposed on +themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to +another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil +were unusually tall men--as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of +shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men, +but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose. + +"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay. + +"Made up your mind, have you?" + +"Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus +Menendez." + +"A bad break, that--and me a prisoner here. Some of the boys had been +out on the range a week. I reckon they didn't know I was the rat in your +trap." + +"So much the worse for you." + +"Looks like," Weaver nodded. Then he added, almost carelessly: "I expect +there wouldn't be any use mentioning the law to you? It's here to +punish the man that shot Menendez." + +"Not a bit of use. You own the sheriff and half the juries in this +county. Besides, we've got the man right here that is responsible for +the killing of poor Jesus." + +"Oh! If you look at it that way, of course----" + +"That's the way to look at it I don't blame your riders any more than I +blame the guns they fired. _You_ did that killing." + +"Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles +away." + +"That makes no difference." + +"Seems to me it makes some," suggested Keller, speaking for the first +time. "His riders may have acted contrary to orders. He surely did not +give any specific orders in this case." + +"His actions for months past have been orders enough," said Cuffs. + +"You'd better investigate before you take action," Larrabie urged. + +"We've done all the investigating we're going to do. This man has set +himself up like a czar. I'm not going through the list of it all, but he +has more than reached the limit months ago. He's passed it now. He's got +to die, by gum," the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars. + +"We all have to do that. Just when does my time come?" Weaver asked. + +"Now," cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath. + +Phil swallowed hard. He had grown white beneath the tan. The thing they +were about to do seemed awful to him. + +"Good God! You're not going to murder him, are you?" protested Larrabie. + +"He murdered poor Jesus Menendez, didn't he?" + +"You mean you're going to shoot him down in cold blood?" + +"What's the matter with hanging?" Slim asked brutally. + +"No," spoke up Keller quickly. + +The old man nodded agreement. "No--they didn't hang Menendez." + +"Your sheep herder died--if he died at all, and we have no proof of +it--with a gun in his hands," Larrabie said. + +"That's right," admitted Phil quickly. "That's right. We got to give him +a chance." + +"What sort of a chance would you like to give him?" Sanderson asked of +the boy. + +"Let him fight for his life. Give him a gun, and me one. We'll settle +this for good and all." + +The eyes of the old Confederate gleamed, though he negatived the idea +promptly. + +"That wouldn't be a square deal, Phil. He's our prisoner, and he has +killed one of our men. It wouldn't be right for one of us to meet him on +even terms." + +"Give me a gun, and I'll meet all of you!" cried Weaver, eyes gleaming. + +"By God, you're on! That's a sporting proposition," Sanderson retorted +promptly. "Lets us out, too. I don't fancy killing in cold blood, +myself. Of course we'll get you, but you'll have a run for your money +first, by gum." + +"Maybe you'll get me, and maybe you won't. Is this little vendetta to be +settled with revolvers, or rifles?" + +"Make it rifles," Phil suggested quickly. + +There was always a chance that, if the battle were fought at long range, +the cattleman might reach the hill caƱons in safety. + +Keller was helpless. He lived in a man's world, where each one fought +for his own head and took his own fighting chance. Weaver had proposed +an adjustment of the difficulty, and his enemies had accepted his offer. +Even if the Sandersons would have tolerated further interference, the +cattleman would not. + +Moreover Keller's hands were tied as to taking sides. He could not fight +by the side of the owner of the Twin Star Ranch against the father and +brother of Phyllis. There was only one thing to do, and that offered +little hope. He slipped quietly from the room and from the house, swung +to the back of a horse he found saddled in the place and galloped wildly +down the road toward the schoolhouse. + +Phyllis had much influence over her father. If she could reach the +scene in time, she might prevent the duel. + +His pony went up and down the hills as in a moving-picture play. + +Meanwhile terms of battle were arranged at once, without haggling on +either side. Weaver was to have a repeating Winchester and a belt full +of cartridges, the others such weapons as they chose. The duel was to +start with two hundred and fifty yards separating the combatants, but +this distance could be increased or diminished at will. Such cover as +was to be found might be used. + +"Whatever's right suits me," the cattleman said. "I can't say more than +that you are doing handsomely by me. I reckon I'll make that declaration +to some of your help, if you don't mind." + +The horse wrangler and the Mexican waiter were sent for, and to them the +owner of the place explained what was about to occur. Their eyes stuck +out, and their chins dropped, but neither of the two had anything to +say. + +"We're telling you boys so you may know it's all right. I proposed this +thing. If I'm shot, nobody is to blame but myself. Understand?" Weaver +drove the idea home. + +The wrangler got out an automatic "Sure," and Manuel an amazed "_Si, +senor_," upon which they were promptly retired from the scene. + +Having prepared and tested their weapons, the parties to the difficulty +repaired to the pasture. + +"I'd like to try out this gun, if you don't mind. It's a new +proposition to me," the cattleman said. + +"Go to it," nodded Slim, seating himself tailor-fashion on the ground +and rolling a cigarette. He was a black, bilious-tempered fellow, but +this particular kind of gameness appealed to him. + +Weaver glanced around, threw the rifle to his shoulder, and fired +immediately. A chicken, one hundred and fifty yards away, fell over. + +"Accidents will happen," suggested Slim. + +"That accident happened through the neck, you'll find," Weaver retorted +calmly. + +"Betcher." + +Buck dropped another rooster. + +"You ain't happy unless you're killing something of ours," Slim grinned. +"Well, if you're satisfied with your gun, we'll go ahead and see how +good you are on humans." + +They measured the distance, and Sanderson called: "Are you ready?" + +"I reckon," came back the answer. + +The father gave the signal--the explosion of a revolver. Even as it +flashed, Buck doubled up like a jack rabbit and leaped for the shelter +of a live oak, some thirty yards distant. Four rifles spoke almost at +the same instant, so that between the first and the last not a second +intervened. One of them cracked a second time. But the runner did not +stop until he reached the tree and dropped behind its spreading roots. + +"Hunt cover, boys!" the father gave orders. "Don't any of you expose +yourself. We'll have to outflank him, but we'll take our time about it." + +He got this out in staccato jerks, the last part of it not until all +were for the moment safe. The strange thing was that Weaver had not +fired once as they scurried for shelter, even though Phil's foot had +caught in a root and held him prisoner for an instant while he freed it. +But as they began circling round him carefully, he fired--first at one +of them and then at another. His shooting was close, but not one of them +was hit. Recalling the incident of the chickens, this seemed odd. In +Slim's phrasing, he did not seem to be so good on "humans." + +Behind his live oak, Buck was so well protected that only a chance shot +could reach him before his enemies should outflank him. How long that +would have taken nobody ever found out; for an intervention occurred in +the form of a flying Diana, on horseback, taking the low fence like a +huntress. + +It was Phyllis, hatless, her hair flying loose--a picture long to be +remembered. Straight as an arrow she rode for Weaver, flung herself from +the saddle, and ran forward to him, waving her handkerchief as a signal +to her people to cease firing. + +"Thank God, I'm in time!" she cried, her voice deep with feeling. Then, +womanlike, she leaned against the tree, and gave way to the emotion that +had been pent within her. + +Buck patted her shoulders with awkward tenderness. + +"Don't you! Don't you!" he implored. + +Her collapse lasted only a short time. She dried her tears, and stilled +her sobs. "I must see my father," she said. + +The old man was already hurrying forward, and as he ran he called to his +boys not to shoot. Phyl would not move a single step of the way to meet +him, lest they take advantage of her absence to keep up the firing. + +"How under heaven did you get here?" Buck asked her. + +"Mr. Keller came to meet me. I took his horse, and he is bringing the +buggy. I heard firing, so I cut straight across," she explained. + +"You shouldn't have come. You might have been hit." + +She wrung her hands in distress. "It's terrible--terrible! Why will you +do such things--you and them?" she finished, forgetting the careful +grammar that becomes a schoolmarm. + +Buck might have told her--but he did not--that he had carefully avoided +hitting any of her people; that he had determined not to do so even if +he should pay for his forbearance with his life. What he did say was an +apologetic explanation, which explained nothing. + +"We were settling a difference of opinion in the old Arizona way, Miss +Phyl." + +"In what way? By murdering my father?" she asked sharply. + +"He's covering ground right lively for a dead one," Buck said dryly. + +"I'm speaking of your intentions. You can't deny you would have done +it." + +"Anyhow, I haven't denied it." + +Sanderson, almost breathless, reached them, caught the girl by the +shoulders, and shook her angrily. + +"What do you mean by it? What are you doing here? Goddlemighty, girl! +Are you stark mad?" + +"No, but I think all you people are." + +"You'll march home to your room, and stay there till I come." + +"No, father."' + +"Yes, I say!" + +"I must see you--alone." + +"You can see me afterward. We'll do no talking till this business is +finished." + +"Why do you talk so? It won't be finished--it can't," she moaned. + +"We'll attend to this without your help, my girl." + +"You don't understand." Her voice fell to the lowest murmur. "He came +here for me." + +"For you-all?" + +"Oh, don't you see? He brought me back here because he--cared for me." A +tide of shame flushed her cheeks. Surely no girl had ever been so +cruelly circumstanced that she must tell such things before a lover, +who had not declared himself explicitly. + +"Cared for you? As a wolf does for a lamb!" + +"At first, maybe--but not afterward. Don't you see he was sorry? +Everything shows that." + +"And to show that he was sorry, he had poor Jesus Menendez killed!" + +"No--he didn't know about that till I told him." + +"Till _you_ told him?" + +"Yes. When I freed him and took him to my room." + +"So you freed him--_and took him to your room?_" She had never heard her +father speak in such a voice, so full at once of anger and incredulous +horror. + +"Don't look at me like that, father! Don't you see--can't you see----Oh, +why are you so cruel to me?" She buried her face in her forearm against +the rock. + +Her father caught her arm so savagely that a spasm of pain shot through +her. "None of that! Give me the truth. Now--this instant!" + +Anger at his injustice welled up in her. "You've had the truth. I knew +of the attack on the sheep camp--heard of it on the way home from +school, from Manuel. Do you think I've lived with you eighteen years for +nothing? I knew what you would do, and I tried to save you from +yourself. There was no place where he would be safe but in my room. I +took him there, and slept with Anna. I did right. I would do it again." + +"Slept with Anna, did you?" + +She felt again that furious tide of blood sweep into her face. "Yes. +From the time of the shooting." + +"Goddlemighty, gyurl, I wisht you'd keep out of my business." + +"And let you do murder?" + +"Why did you save him? Because you love him?" demanded Sanderson +fiercely. + +"Because I love _you_. But you're too blind to see it." + +"And him--do you love him? Answer me!" + +"No!" she flamed. "But if I did, I would be loving a man. He wouldn't +take odds of five to one against an enemy." + +Her father's great black eyes chiselled into hers. "Are you lying to me, +girl?" + +Weaver spoke out quietly. "I expect _I_ can answer that, Mr. Sanderson. +Your daughter has given me to understand that I'm about as mean a thing +as God ever made." + +But Phyl was beyond caution now. Her resentment against her father, for +that he had forced her to drag out the secret things of her heart and +speak of them in the presence of the man concerned, boiled into +words--quick, eager, full of passion. + +"I take it all back then--every word of it!" she cried. "You are +braver, kinder, more generous to me than my own people--more chivalrous. +You would have gone to your death without telling them that I took you +to my room. But my own father, who has known me all my life, insults me +grossly." + +"I was wrong," Sanderson admitted uneasily. + +Keller climbed the pasture fence, and came running up at the same time +as Phil and Slim. + +"Menendez is alive!" he cried. "He is at the Twin Star Ranch. The boys +there are taking care of him, and the doctor says he will pull through." + +"Who told you?" + +"Bob Tryon. I met him not five minutes ago. He is on his way here." + +This put a new face on things. If Menendez were still alive, Weaver +could be held to await developments. Moreover, since the sheep herder +was a prisoner at the Twin Star Ranch, retaliation would follow any +measures taken against the cattleman. + +Phyllis gave a glad little cry. "Then it's all right now." + +Weaver's face crinkled to a leathery grin. "Mighty unfortunate--ain't +it, boys? Puts a kind of a kink in our plans for the little +entertainment we were figuring on pulling off. But maybe you've a notion +of still going on with it." + +"If we don't, it won't be on your account, seh, I don't reckon," +Sanderson answered reluctantly. + +But though he would not admit it, the old man was beginning to admire +this big fellow, who could afford to miss his enemies on purpose even in +the midst of a deadly duel. He was coming to a grudging sense of quality +in Weaver. The cattleman might be many things that were evil, but +undeniably he possessed also those qualities which on the frontier count +for more than civilized virtues. He was game to the core. And he knew +how to keep his mouth shut at the right time, no matter what it was +going to cost him. On the whole Buck Weaver would stand the acid test, +the old soldier was coming to think. And because he did not want to +believe any good of his enemy, old Jim Sanderson, when he was alone in +the corral with the horses or on a hillside driving his sheep, would +shake his gnarled fist impotently and swear fluently until his +surcharged feelings were relieved. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE BRAND BLOTTER + + +Two riders followed the trail to Yeager's Spur--one a man, brown and +forceful; the other a girl, with sunshine in her dancing eyes and a +voice full of the lilt of laughter. What they might come to be to each +other both were already speculating about, though neither knew as yet. +They were the best of friends--good comrades, save when chance eyes said +unguardedly too much. For the girl that sufficed, but it was not enough +for the man. He knew that he had found the one woman he wanted for his +wife. But Phyllis only wondered, let her thoughts rove over many things. +For instance, why queer throbs and sudden shyness swept her soft young +body. She liked Larrabie Keller--oh, so much!--but her untutored heart +could not quite tell her whether she loved him. His eyes drilled into +her electric pulsations whenever they met hers. The youth in him called +to the youth in her. She admired him. He stirred her imagination, and +yet--and yet---- + +They rode through a valley of gold and russet, all warm with yellow +sunlight. In front of them, the Spur projected from the hill ridge into +the mountain park. + +"Then I think you're a cow-puncher looking for a job, but not very +anxious to find one," she was hazarding, answering a question. + +"No. That leaves you one more guess." + +"That forces me to believe that you are what you say you are," she +mocked; "just a plain, prosaic homesteader." + +She had often considered in her mind what business might be his, that +could wait while he lingered week after week and rode trail with the +cowboys; but it had not been the part of hospitality to ask questions of +her friend. This might seem to imply a doubt, and of doubt she had none. +To-day, he himself had broached the subject. Having brought it up, he +now dropped it for the time. + +He had shaded his eyes, and was gazing at something that held his +attention--a little curl of smoke, rising from the wash in front of +them. + +"What is it?" she asked, impatient that his mind could so easily be +diverted from her. + +"That is what I'm going to find out. Stay here!" + +Rifle in hand, Keller slipped forward through the brush. His imperative +"Stay here!" annoyed her just a little. She uncased her rifle, dropped +from the saddle as he had done, and followed him through the cacti. Her +stealthy advance did not take her far before she came to the wash. + +There Keller was standing, crouched like a panther ready for the +spring, quite motionless and silent--watching now the bushes that +fringed the edge of the wash, and now the smoke spiral rising faintly +from the embers of a fire. + +Slowly the man's tenseness relaxed. Evidently he had made up his mind +that death did not lurk in the bushes, for he slid down into the wash +and stepped across to the fire. Phyllis started to follow him, but at +the first sound of slipping rubble her friend had her covered. + +"I told you not to come," he reproached, lowering his rifle as soon as +he recognized her. + +"But I wanted to come. What is it? Why are you so serious?" + +His eyes were busy making an inventory of the situation, his mind, too, +was concentrated on the thing before him. + +"Do you think it is rustlers? Is that what you mean?" she asked quickly. + +"Wait a minute and I'll tell you what I think." He finished making his +observations and returned to her. "First, I'll tell you something else, +something that nobody in the neighborhood knows but you and Jim Yeager. +I belong to the ranger force. Lieutenant O'Connor sent me here to clean +up this rustling that has been going on for several years." + +"And a lot of the boys thought you were a rustler yourself," she +commented. + +"So did one or two of the young ladies," he smiled. "But that is not the +business before this meeting. Because I'm trained to it I notice things +you wouldn't. For instance, I saw a man the other day with a horse whose +hind hoof left a trail like that." + +He pointed to one, and then another track in the soft sand. "Maybe that +might be a coincidence, but the owner of that horse had a habit of +squirting tobacco juice on clean rocks--like that--and that." + +"That doesn't prove he has been rustling." + +"No; but the signs here show he has been branding, and Buck Weaver ran +across these same marks left by a waddy who surely was making free with +a Twin Star calf." + +"How long has he been gone?" + +"There were two of them, and they've been gone about twenty minutes." + +"How do you know?" + +He pointed to a stain of tobacco juice still moist. + +"Who is he?" she asked. + +He knew her stanch loyalty to her friends, and Tom Dixon had been a +friend till very lately. He hesitated; then, without answering, made a +second thorough examination of the whole ground. + +"Come--if we have any luck, I'll show him to you," he said, returning to +her. "But you must do just as I say--must be under my orders." + +"I will," she promised. + +Forthwith, they started. After they had ridden in silence for some +distance, covering ground fast, they drew to a walk. + +"You know by the trail for where they were heading," she suggested in a +voice that was a question. + +"I guessed." + +Presently, at the entrance to a little caƱon, Keller swung down and +examined the ground carefully, seemed satisfied, and rode with her into +the gully. But she noticed that now he went cautiously, eyes narrowed +and wary, with the hard face and the look of a coiled spring she had +seen on him before. Her heart drummed with excitement. She was not +afraid, but she was fearfully alive. + +At the other entrance to the caƱon, Larrabie was down again for another +examination. What he seemed to find gave him pleasure. + +"They've separated," he told Phyllis. "We'll give our attention to the +gentleman with the calf, and let his friend go, to-day." + +They swung sharply to the north, taking a precipitous trail of shale +that Phyllis judged to be a short cut. It was rough going, but their +mountain ponies were good for anything less than a perpendicular wall. +They clambered up and down like cats, as sure-footed as wild goats. + +At the summit of the ridge, Keller pointed out something in the valley +below--a rider on horseback, driving a calf. + +"There goes Mr. Waddy, as big as coffee." + +"He's going to swing round the point. You mean to drop down the hill and +cut him off?" + +[Illustration: "DROP THAT GUN!" _Page 205_] + +"That's the plan. Better do no more talking after we pass that live +oak. See that little wash? We'll drop into it, and hide among the +cottonwoods." + +The rustler was pushing along hurriedly, driving the calf at a trot, +half the time twisted in the saddle, with anxious eyes to the rear. +Revolvers and a rifle garnished him, but quite plainly they gave him no +sense of safety. + +When the summons came to him to "Drop that gun!" it was only a +confirmation of his fears. Yet he jumped as a boy jumps under the +unexpected cut of a cane. + +The rifle went clattering to the stony trail. Without being ordered to +do so, the hands of the waddy were thrust skyward. + +"Why, it's Tom Dixon! We've made a mistake," Phyllis discovered; and +moved forward from her hiding place. + +"We've made no mistake. I told you I'd show you the rustler, and I've +shown him to you," Keller answered, as he too stepped forward. And to +Tom, whose hands dropped at sight of Phyllis: "Better keep them reaching +till I get those guns. That's right. Now, you may 'light." + +"What's got into you?" demanded Dixon, his teeth still chattering. +"Holding up a man for nothing. Take away that gun you got bent on me!" + +"You're under arrest for rustling, seh," the cattle detective told him +sternly. + +"Prove it. Prove it!" Dixon swung from the saddle, and faced the other +doggedly. + +"That calf you're driving now is rustled. You branded it less than two +hours ago in Spring Valley, right by the three cottonwoods below the +trail to Yeager's Spur." + +"How do you know?" cried the startled youth. And on the heels of that: +"It's a lie!" He was getting a better grip on his courage. He spat +defiantly a splash of tobacco juice on a flat pebble which his eye +found. "No such thing! This calf was a maverick. Ask Phyl. She'll tell +you I'm no rustler." + +Phyllis said nothing. Her gaze was very steadily on Tom. + +Keller pointed to the evidence which the hoof of the horse had printed +on the trail, and to that which the man had written on the pebble. "We +found both these signs once before. They were left by one of the +rustlers operating in this vicinity. That time it was a Twin Star brand +you blotted. You've done a poor job, for I can see there has been +another brand there. Your partner left you with the cow at the entrance +to the caƱon. Caught red-handed as you have been driving the calf to +your place, you'll find all this aggregates evidence enough to send you +to the penitentiary. Buck Weaver will attend to that." + +"It's a conspiracy. You and him mean to railroad me through," Tom +charged sullenly. "I tell you, Phyllis knows I'm no rustler." + +"I've known you were one ever since the day you wanted to go back and +tell where Weaver was hidden. You and your pony scattered the evidence +around then, just as you're doing here," the ranger answered. + +"You've got it cooked up to put me through," Dixon insisted desperately. +"You want to get me out of the way, so you'll have a clear track with +Phyl. Think I don't _sabe_ your game?" + +The angry color sucked into Keller's face beneath the tan. He avoided +looking at Phyllis. "We'll not discuss that, seh. But I can say that +kind of talk won't help buy you anything." + +The girl looked at Dixon in silent contempt. She was very angry, so that +for the moment her embarrassment was swamped. But she did not choose to +dignify his spleen by replying to it. + +There was no iron in Dixon's make-up. When he saw that this attack had +reacted against him, he tried whining. + +"Honest, you're wrong about this calf, Mr. Keller. I don't say, mind +you, it ain't a rustled calf. It may be; but I don't know it if it is. +Maybe the rustlers were scared off just before I happened on it." + +"We'll see how a jury looks at that. You're going to get the chance to +tell that story to one, I expect," Larrabie remarked dryly. + +"Pass it up this time, and I'll get out of the country," the youth +promised. + +"Take care! Whatever you say will be used against you." + +"Suppose I did rustle one of Buck Weaver's calves--mind, I don't say I +did--but say I did? Didn't he bust my father up in business? Ain't he +aiming to do the same by your folks, Phyl?" He was almost ready to cry. + +The girl turned her head aside, and spoke in a low voice to Keller. She +was greatly angered and disgusted at Tom; but she had been his friend, +and on this occasion there had been some justification for him in the +wrong the cattleman had done his family. + +"Do you have to report him and have him prosecuted?" + +"I'm paid to stop the rustling that has been going on," answered Keller, +in the same undertone. + +"He won't do it again. He has had his scare. It will last him a +lifetime." Even while she promised it for him, it was not without +contempt for the poor-spirited craven who could be so easily driven from +his evil ways. If a man must do wrong, let it be boldly--as Buck Weaver +did it. + +"Yes, but his pals haven't had theirs." + +"But you don't know them." + +"I can guess one man in it with him. We've got to root the thing out." + +"Why not serve warning on him by Tom? Then they would both clear out." + +Dixon divined that she was pleading for him, and edged in another word +for himself. "Whatever wrong I've done I've been driven to. There's been +an older man to lead me into it, too." + +"You mean Red Hughes?" Keller said sharply. + +Tom hesitated. He had not got to the point of betraying his accomplice. +"I ain't saying who I mean. Nor, for that matter, I ain't admitting I've +done any particular wrong--no more than other young fellows." + +Keller brought him sharply to time. "You've used your last wet blanket. +I've got the evidence that will put you behind the bars. Miss Phyllis +wants me to let you off. I can't do it unless you make a clean breast of +it. You'll either come through with what I want to know, and do as I +say, or you'll have to stand the gaff." + +"What do you want to know?" + +"How many pals had you in this rustling?" + +"You said you would use against me anything I said." + +"I say now I'll use it _for_ you if you tell the truth and meet my +conditions." + +"What are your conditions?" + +"Never mind. You'll learn them later. Answer my question. How many?" + +"One"--very sullenly. + +"Red Hughes?" + +"That's the one thing I can't tell you," the lad cried. "Don't you see I +can't?" + +"It's the one thing I don't need to know. I've got Red cinched about as +tight as you, my boy. How long has this been going on?" + +The information came from Dixon as reluctantly as a tight cork comes +from a bottle. "Nearly a year." + +Sharp, incisive questions followed, one after another; and at the end of +the quiz Tom was pumped nearly dry. Those who heard his confession +listened to the story of how and why he had first started rustling--the +tale of each exploit, the location of the mountain cache where the +calves had been driven, even the name of the Mexican buyer who once had +come across the line to receive a bunch of stolen cattle. + +Keller laid down his conditions. "You'll go to Red _muy pronto_, and +tell him he's got thirty-six hours to get across the line. He and you +will go to Sonora, and you'll stay there. We've got you dead to rights. +Show up in this country again, and you'll both go to Yuma. Understand?" + +Tom understood well enough. He writhed under it, but he was up against +the need of surrender. Sullenly he waited until the other had laid down +the law, then asked for his weapons. Keller emptied the chambers of the +cartridges, and returned the revolvers, looking also to the magazine of +the rifle before he handed it back. Without a word, without even a nod +or a glance, Dixon rode out of the gulch. + +The eyes of the remaining two met, and became tangled at once. Hastily +both pairs withdrew. + +"We'll have to drive the calf back, won't we?" said Phyllis, seizing on +the first irrelevant thing that occurred to say. + +"Yes--as far as Tryon's." + +Presently she said: "Do you think they will leave the country?" + +"No." + +Her glance swept him in surprise. "Then--why did you let him go so +easily?" + +He smiled. "Didn't you ask me to let him off?" + +"Yes; but----" How could she explain that by lapsing from his duty so far, +even at her request, he had disappointed her! + +"No, ma'am! I'm a false alarm. It wasn't out of gallantry I unroped him. +Shall I tell you why it was? I kept naming Red as his partner. But +Hughes ain't in this. He has been in Sonora for a year. When Tom goes +back all worried and tells what has happened to him, the gentleman who +is the brains for the outfit is going to be right pleased I'm following +a false trail. That's liable to make him more careless. If we had had +the evidence to cinch Dixon it would have been different. But a roan +calf is a roan calf. I don't expect the owner could swear to it, even if +we knew who he was. So I made my little play and let him go." + +"And I thought all the time you were doing it for me," she laughed, and +on the heels of it made her little confession: "And I was blaming you +for giving way." + +"I'll know now that the way to please you is not to do what you want me +to do." + +"You know a lot about girls, don't you?" she mocked. + +"Me, I'm a wiz," he agreed with her derision. + +Keller spoke absently, considering whether this might be the propitious +moment to try his luck. They had been comrades together in an adventure +well concluded. Both were thinking of what Dixon had said. It seemed to +Larrabie that it would be a wonderful thing if they might ride back +through the warm sunlight with this new miracle of her love in his life. +It was at the meeting of their fingers, when he gave her the bridle, +that he spoke. + +"I've got to say it, Miss Phyllis. I've got to know where I stand." + +She understood him of course. The touch of their eyes had warmed her +even before he began. But "Stand how?" she repeated feebly. + +"With you. I love you! We both know that. What about you? Could you care +for me? Do you?" + +Her shy, deep eyes met his fairly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I +do, and then sometimes I think I don't--that way." + +The touch of affection that made his face occasionally tender as a +woman's, lit his warm smile. + +"Couldn't you make that first sometimes always, don't you reckon, +Phyllis?" + +"Ah! If I knew! But I don't--truly, I don't. I--I want to care," she +confessed, with divine shyness. + +"That's good listening. Couldn't you go ahead on those times you do, +honey?" + +"No!" She drew back from his advance. "No--give me time. I'm--I'm not +sure--I'm not at all sure. I can't explain, but----" + +"Can't decide between me and another man?" he suggested, by way of a +joke, to lighten her objection. + +Then, in a flash, he knew that by accident he had hit the truth. The +startled look of doubt in her eyes told him. Perhaps she had not known +it herself before, but his words had clarified her mind. There was +another man in the running--one not to be thrust aside easily. + +Phyllis' first impulse was to be alone. She turned her face away and +busied herself with a stirrup leather. + +"Don't say anything more now--please. I'm such a little goose! I don't +know--yet. Won't you wait and--forget it till--say, till next week?" + +He promised to wait, but he did not promise to forget it. As they rode +home, he made cheerful talk on many subjects; but the one in both their +minds was that which had been banned. Every silence was full charged +with it. Its suppression ran like quicksilver through every spoken +sentence. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A WATERSPOUT + + +Almost imperceptibly, Buck Weaver's relation to his jailers changed. It +was still understood that their interests differed, but the personal +bitterness was largely gone. He went riding occasionally with the boys, +rather as a guest than as a prisoner. + +At any time he might have escaped, but for a tacit understanding that he +would stay until Menendez was strong enough to be sent home from the +Twin Star. + +One pleasure, however, was denied him. He saw nothing of Phyllis, save +for a distant glimpse or two when she was starting to school or +returning from a ride with Larrabie Keller. He knew that her father and +her brother were studiously eliminating him, so far as she was +concerned. Certain events had been of a nature to induce whispered +gossip. Fortunately, such gossip had been nipped in the bud. They +intended that there should be no revival of it. + +Weaver had sent word to the riders of the Twin Star that there was to be +nothing doing in the matter of the feud until his return. + +He had at the same time ordered from them a change of linen, a box of +his favorite cigars, and certain papers to be found in his desk. These +in due time were delivered by Jesus Menendez in person, together with a +note from the ranch. + + TWIN STAR RANCH, Tuesday Morning. + + DERE BUCK: You've sure got us up in the air. The boys was figurring + some on rounding up the whole Seven Mile outfit in a big drive, but + looks like you got other notions. Wise us if you want the + cooperation of + + PESKY and the other boys. + +With a smile, Weaver showed it to Phil. "Shall I send word to the boys +to start on the round-up?" + +"It won't be necessary. You don't need their cooperation. Fact is, now +Menendez is back, you're free to go. 'Rastus is getting your horse right +now." + +The cattleman realized instantly that he did not want to go. Business +affairs at home pressed for his attention, but he felt extremely +reluctant to pull out and leave the field in possession of Larrabie +Keller, even temporarily. He could not, however, very well say so. + +"Good enough," he said brusquely. "Before I go, we'd better settle the +matter of the range. Send for your father, and I'll make him a +proposition that looks fair to me." + +When Sanderson arrived, he found the cattleman with a map of the county +spread before him upon the table. With a pencil he divided the range in +a zigzag, twisting line. + +"How about that? I'll take all on the valley side. You take what is in +the hills and the parks." + +Sanderson looked at him in astonishment. "That's all we've been +contending for!" + +Buck nodded. "Since you get what you want, you ought to be satisfied," +he said gruffly. "Of course, there will have to be some give-and-take +about this. My cattle will cross the line. So will yours. That can't be +helped. I've worked out this problem of the range feed pretty +thoroughly. My territory will feed just about as many as yours. Each +year we can arrange together to keep the number of cattle down." + +Under his shaggy brows, Sanderson looked at him in perplexity. The +proposition was more than generous. It meant that Weaver would have to +sell off about a thousand head of cattle, while the hill-men, on the +other hand, could increase their holdings. + +"What about sheep?" the old man asked bluntly. + +Buck's stony gaze met his steadily. "I'm going to leave those sheep on +your conscience, Mr. Sanderson. You'll have to settle that matter for +yourself." + +"You mean you'll not stand in the way, if I want to keep them?" + +"That's what I mean. It's up to you." + +Phil, who was sitting on the porch sewing on a pair of leather chaps, +indulged in a grin. "I see this is where we go out of the sheep +business," he said. + +"The market's good. I don't know but what it would be the right thing to +sell," his father agreed. "I want to meet you halfway in settling this +trouble, Mr. Weaver." + +The matter was discussed further at some length, after which the +cattleman shook hands all round and departed. Out of the tail of his eye +he saw Keller saddling a horse at the stables. + +"Think I'll beat you out of that ride with the schoolmarm to-day, my +friend. A steady diet of rides like that is liable to intoxicate a man," +he told himself, with his grim smile. In plain sight of all, he turned +the head of his horse toward the road that led to the schoolhouse. + +Presently he met pupils galloping home, calling to each other joyously +as they rode. Others followed more sedately in buggies. Nearer the +schoolhouse he came on one walking. + +After Phyllis had looked over some papers, made up her weekly report, +and outlined on the board work for next day, she saddled her pony and +set out homeward. Not in ten years had the country been so green and +lovely as it was now. There had been many winter snows and spring rains, +so that the _alfilaria_ covered the hills with a carpet of grass. Muddy +little rivulets, pouring down arroyos on their way from the mountains, +showed that there had been recent rains. These all ran into the Del Oro, +a creek which was dry in summer but was now full to its banks. + +She followed the river into the caƱon of the same name, a narrow gulch +with sheer precipitous walls. So much water was in the river that the +trail along the bank scarce gave the pony footing. Half a mile from the +point where she had entered the Del Oro the trail crept up the wall and +escaped to the mesa above. Phyllis was nearing the ascent when a sound +startled her. She swung round in her saddle, to see a wall of water +roaring down the lane with the leap of some terrible wild beast. +Somewhere in the hills there had been a waterspout. + +She called upon her pony with spur and voice, racing desperately for the +place where the trail rose. Of that wild dash for life she remembered +nothing afterward save the overmastering sense of peril. She knew that +the roan was pounding forward with the best speed in him, and presently +she knew too that no speed could save her. The roar of the advancing +water grew louder as it swept upon her. With a cry of terror she dragged +the pony to its haunches, slipped from the saddle, and attempted to +climb the rock face. + +Catching hold of outcropping ledges, mesquit, and even cactus bushes, +she went up like a mountain goat But the water swept upon her, waist +high, and dragged at her. She clung to a quartz knob her fingers had +found, but her feet were swept from her by the suction of the torrent. +Her hold relaxed, and she slid back into the river. + +Like a flash of light a rope descended over her outstretched arms, +tightened at her waist, and held her taut. She felt the pain of a +tremendous tug that seemed to tear her in two. Dimly her brain reported +that somebody was shouting. A long time afterward, as it seemed to her +then, a strong arm went round her. Inch by inch she was dragged from the +water that fought and wrestled for her. Phyllis knew that her rescuer +was working up the cliff wall with her. Then her perceptions blurred. + +"I'll never make it this way," he told himself aloud, half way up. + +In fact, he had come to an _impasse_. Even without the burden of her +weight, the sheer smooth wall rose insurmountable above him. He did the +one thing left for him to do. Leaving her unconscious body in a sort of +trough formed by the juncture of two strata, he lowered himself into the +rushing stream, searched with his foot for a grip, and swung to the left +into the niche formed by a mesquit bush growing from the rock. From +here, after stiff climbing, he reached the top. + +He found, as he had expected, his cow pony with feet braced to keep the +rope taut. Old Baldy was practising the lesson learned from scores of +roped steers. No man in the Malpais country was stronger than this one. +In another minute he had drawn up the girl and laid her on the grass. + +Soon she opened her eyes and looked into his troubled face. + +"Mr. Weaver," she breathed in faint surprise. "Where am I?" + +But her glances were already answering the question. They took in the +rope under her arms, followed it to the horn of the saddle, around which +the other end was tied, and came back to the leathery weather-beaten +face that looked down into hers. + +"You have saved my life." + +"Not me. Old Baldy did it. I never could have got you out alone. When I +roped you, he backed off same as if you had been a steer, and pulled for +all there was in him. Between us we got you up." + +"Good old Baldy!" She let it go at that for the moment, while she +thought it out. "If you hadn't been right here----" She finished her +sentence with a shudder. + +She could not guess how that thought stabbed him, for he replied +cheerfully: "I heard you call, and Baldy brought me on the jump." + +Phyllis covered her face with her hands. She was badly shaken and could +not quite control herself. "It was awful--awful." And short staccato +sobs shook her. + +Buck put his arm around her shoulders, and soothed her gently. "Don't +you care, Phyllis. It's all past now. Forget it, little girl." + +"It was like some tremendous wild beast--a thousand times stronger and +crueller than a grizzly. It leaped at me, and----Oh, if you hadn't been +here!" + +She caught at his sleeve and clung to it with both hands. + +"If a fellow sticks around long enough he is sure to come in handy," +Buck told her lightly. + +She did not answer, but presently she walked across a little unsteadily +and put her arms around the neck of the white-faced broncho. Her face +she buried in its mane. Weaver knew she was crying softly, and he wisely +left her alone while he recoiled the rope. + +Presently she recovered her composure and began to pat the white silken +nose of the pony. + +"You helped him to save my life, Baldy. Even he couldn't have done it +without you. How can I ever pay you for it?" + +Weaver had an inspiration. "He's yours from this moment. You can pay him +by taking him for your saddle horse. Baldy will never ride the round-up +again. We'll give him a Carnegie medal and retire him on a good-service +pension so far as the rough work goes." + +Without looking at him, the girl answered softly: "Thank you. I know I'm +taking from you the best cow-pony in Arizona, but I can't help it." + +"A cow-pony is a cow-pony, but a horse that saves the life of Miss +Phyllis Sanderson is a gentleman and a hero." + +"And what about the man who saves her life?" Her voice was very small +and weepy. + +"Tickled to death to have the chance. We'll forget that." + +Still she did not look at him. "Never! Never as long as I live," she +cried vehemently. + +It came to him that if he was ever going to put his fortune to the test +now was the time. He strode across and swung her round till she faced +him. + +"As long as you live, Phyllis. And you're only eighteen. Me, I'm +thirty-seven. I lack just a year of being twice as old. What about it? +Am I too old and too hard and tough for you, little girl?" + +"I--don't--understand." + +"Yes, you do. I'm asking you to marry me. Will you?" + +"Oh, Mr. Weaver!" she gasped. + +"I ought to wrap it up pretty, oughtn't I? But there's nothing pretty +about me. No woman should marry me if she can help it, not unless her +heart brings her to me in spite of herself. Is it that way with you?" + +Never before had she met a man like him, so masterful and virile. He +took short cuts as if he did not notice the "No Trespassing" sign. She +read in him a passion clamped by a will of iron, and there thrilled +through her a fierce delight in her power over this splendid type of the +male lover. She lived in a world of men, lean, wide-shouldered fellows, +who moved and had their being in conditions that made hickory withes of +them physically, hard close-mouthed citizens mentally. But even by the +frontier tests of efficiency, of gameness, of going the limit, Weaver +stood head and shoulders above his neighbors. She had lifted her gaze to +meet his, quite sure that her answer was not in doubt, but now her heart +was beating like a triphammer. She felt herself drifting from her +moorings. It was as though she were drowning forty fathoms deep in those +calm, unwinking eyes of his. + +"I don't think so," she cried desperately. + +"You've got to be sure. I don't want you else." + +"Yes--yes!" she cried eagerly. "Don't rush me." + +"Take all the time you need. You can't be any too sure to suit me." + +"I--I don't think it will be yes," she told him shyly. + +"I'm betting it will," he said confidently. "And now, little girl, it's +time we started. You'll ride your Carnegie horse and I'll walk." + +Her eyes dilated, for this brought to her mind something she had +forgotten. "My roan! What do you think has become of it?" + +He shook his head, preferring not to guess aloud. As he helped her to +the saddle his eyes fell on a stain of red running from the wrist of her +gauntlet. + +"You've hurt your hand," he cried. + +"It must have been when I caught at the cactus." + +Gently he slipped off the glove. Cruel thorns had torn the skin in a +dozen places. He drew the little spikes out one by one. Phyllis winced, +but did not cry out. After he had removed the last of them he tied her +handkerchief neatly round the wounds and drew on the gauntlet again. It +had been only a small service, nothing at all compared to the great one +he had just rendered, but somehow it had tightened his hold on her. She +wondered whether she would have to marry Buck Weaver no matter what she +really wanted to do. + +With her left hand she guided Baldy, while Buck strode beside, never +wavering from the easy, powerful stride that was the expression of his +sinuous strength. + +"Were you ever tired in your life?" she asked once, with a little sigh +of fatigue. + +He stopped in his stride, full of self-reproach. "Now, ain't that like +me! Pluggin' ahead, and never thinking about how played out you are. +We'll rest here under these cottonwoods." + +He lifted her down, for she was already very stiff and sore from her +adventure. An outdoor life had given her a supple strength and a wiry +endurance, of which her slender frame furnished no indication, but the +reaction from the strain was upon her. To Buck she looked pathetically +wan and exhausted. He put her down under a tree and arranged her saddle +for a pillow. Again the girl felt a net was being wound round her, that +she belonged to him and could not escape. Nor was she sure that she +wanted to get away from his possessive energy. In the pleasant sun glow +she fell asleep, without any intention of doing so. Two hours later she +opened her eyes. + +Looking round, she saw Weaver lying flat on his back fifty yards away. + +"I've been asleep," she called. + +He leaped to his feet and walked across the sand to her. + +"I suspected it," he said with a smile. + +"I feel like a new woman now." + +"Like one of them suffragettes?" + +"That isn't quite what I meant," she smiled. "I'm ready to start." + +Half an hour later they reached her home. It was close to supper time, +but Weaver would not stay. + +"See you next week," he said quietly, and turned his horse toward the +Twin Star ranch. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE HOLD-UP + + +From the wash where the sink of the Mimbres edges close to Noches two +riders emerged in mid-afternoon of a day that shimmered under the heat +of a blazing sun. They travelled in silence, the core of an alkali dust +cloud that moved with them and lay thick upon them. Well down over their +eyes were drawn the broad-rimmed hats. One of them wore sun goggles and +both of them had their lower faces covered by silk bandannas as if to +keep out the thick dust their ponies stirred. For the rest their +costumes were the undistinguished chaps, spurs, shirt, neckerchiefs, and +gauntlets of the range. + +With one distinction, however: these were better armed than the average +cow-puncher jaunting to town for the quarterly spree. Revolver butts +peeped from the holsters of their loosely hung cartridge belts. +Moreover, their rifles were not strapped beneath the stirrup leathers, +but were carried across the pommels of the saddles. + +The bell in the town hall announced three o'clock as they reached the +First National Bank at the corner of San Miguel and Main Streets. Here +one of the riders swung from the saddle, handed the reins and his rifle +to the other man, and jingled into the bank. His companion took the +horses round to the side entrance of the building, and waited there in +such shade as two live oaks offered. + +He had scarce drawn rein when two other riders joined him, having come +from a direction at right angles to that followed by him. One of them +rode an iron-gray, the other a roan with white stockings. Both of these +dismounted, and one of them passed through the side door into the bank. +Almost instantly he reappeared and nodded to his comrade, who joined him +with his own rifle and that of the first man that had gone in. + +There was an odd similarity in arms, manner, and dress between these and +the first arrivals. Once inside the building, each of them slipped a +black mask over his face. Then one stepped quickly to the front door and +closed and locked it, while the other simultaneously covered the teller +with a revolver. + +The cashier, busy in conversation with the first horseman about a loan +the other had said he wanted, was sitting with his back to the cage of +the teller. The first warning he had of anything unusual was the closing +of the door by a masked man. One glance was enough to tell him the bank +was about to be robbed. + +His hand moved swiftly toward the drawer in his desk which contained a +weapon, but stopped halfway to its destination. For he was looking +squarely into the rim of a six-shooter less than a foot from his +forehead. The gun was in the hands of the client with whom he had been +talking. + +"Don't do that," the man advised him brusquely. Then, more sharply: +"Reach for the roof. No monkeying." + +Benson, the cashier, was no coward, but neither was he a fool. He knew +when not to take a chance. Promptly his arms shot up. But even while he +obeyed, his eyes were carrying to his brain a classification of this man +for future identification. The bandit was a stranger to him, a +heavy-set, bandy-legged fellow of about forty-five, with a leathery face +and eyes as stony as those of a snake. + +"What do you want?" the bank officer asked quietly. + +"Your gold and notes. Is the safe open?" + +Before the cashier could reply a shot rang out. The unmasked outlaw +slewed his head, to see the president of the bank firing from the door +of his private office. The other two robbers were already pumping lead +at him. He staggered, clutched at the door jamb, and slowly sank to the +floor after the revolver had dropped from his hand. + +Benson seized the opportunity to duck behind his desk and drag open a +drawer, but before his fingers had closed on the weapon within, two +crashing blows descended with stunning force on his head. The outlaw +covering him had reversed his heavy revolver and clubbed him with the +butt. + +"That'll hold him for a while," the bandit remarked, and dragged the +unconscious man across the floor to where the president lay huddled. + +One of the masked men, a lithe, sinuous fellow with a polka-dot bandanna +round his neck, took command. + +"Keep these men covered, Irwin, while we get the loot," he ordered the +unmasked man. + +With that he and the boyish-looking fellow who had ridden into town with +him, the latter carrying three empty sacks, followed the trembling +teller to the vault. + +No sound broke the dead silence except the loud ticking of the bank +clock and an occasional groan from the cashier, who was just beginning +to return to consciousness. Twice the man left on guard called down to +those in the vault to hurry. + +There was need of haste. Somebody, attracted by the sound of firing, had +come running to the bank, peered in the big front window, and gone +flying to spread the alarm. + +Outside a shot and then another shattered the sultry stillness of the +day. The man left on guard ran to the door and looked out. An upper +window down the street was open, and from it a man with a rifle was +firing at the outlaw left in charge of the horses. + +The wrangler had taken refuge behind a bulwark of horseflesh, and was +returning the fire. + +"Hurry the boys, Brad! Hell's broke loose!" he called to his companion. + +The town was alarmed and buzzing like a hornet's nest. Soon they would +feel the sting of the swarm unless they beat an immediate retreat. One +sweep of his eyes told the bandy-legged fellow as much. He could hear +voices crying the alarm, could see men running to and fro farther down +the street. Even in the second he stood there a revolver began potting +at him. + +"Back in a moment," he cried to the wrangler, and disappeared within to +shout an urgent warning to the looters. + +Three men came up from the vault, each carrying a sack. The teller was +pushed into the street first, and the rest followed. A scattering fire +began to converge at once upon them. The roan with the white stockings +showed a red ridge across its flank where a bullet had furrowed a path. + +The teller dropped, wounded by his friends. Two of the robbers loaded +the horses, while the others answered the townsmen. In the inevitable +delay of getting started, every moment seemed an hour to the harassed +outlaws. + +But at last they were in the saddle and galloping down the street, +firing right and left as they went. At the next street crossing two men, +one fat and the other lean, came running, revolvers in hands, to +intercept them. They were too late. Before they reached the corner the +outlaws had galloped past in a cloud of white dust, still flinging +bullets at the invisible they were escaping. + +The big lean cow-puncher stopped with an oath as the riders disappeared. +"Nothing doing, Budd," he called to the fat man. "The show's moved on to +a new stand." + +Jim Budd, puffing heavily and glistening with perspiration, nodded the +answer he could not speak. Presently he got out what he wanted to say. + +"Notice that leading hawss on the nigh side, Slim?" he asked. + +"So you noticed it, too, Jim. I could swear to that roan with the four +stockings. It's the hawss Mr. Larrabie Keller mavericks around on, durn +his forsaken hide! And the man on it wore a polka-dot bandanna. So does +Keller. He'll have to go some to explain away that. I reckon the others +must be nesters from Bear Creek, too." + +"We've got 'em where the wool's short this time," Budd agreed. "They +been shootin' around right promiscuous. If anybody's dead, then Keller +has put a rope round his own neck." + +Men were already saddling and mounting for the first unorganized +pursuit. Slim and his friend joined these, and cantered down the dusty +street scarce ten minutes after the robbers. + +The suburbs of the town fell to the rear, and left them in the fall and +rise of the foothills that merged to the left in the wide, flat, +shimmering plain of the Malpais, and on the other side in the +saw-toothed range that notched the horizon from north to south. +Somewhere in that waste of cow-backed hills, in that swell of endless +land waves, the trail of the robbers vanished. + +Men rode far and wide, carrying the pursuit late into the night, but the +lost trail was not to be picked up again. So one by one, or in pairs, +under the yellow stars, they drifted back to Noches, leaving behind the +black depths of blue-canopied hills that had swallowed the fleeing +quartette. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS + + +To Phyllis, riding from school near the close of a hot Friday afternoon +along the old Fort Lincoln Trail, came the voice of Brill Healy from the +ridge above. She waved to him the broad-brimmed hat she was carrying in +her hand, and he guided his pony deftly down the edge of the steep +slope. + +"Been looking for some strays down at Three Pines," he explained. "Awful +glad I met you." + +"Where were you going now?" she asked. + +"Home, I reckon; but I'll ride with you to Seven Mile if you don't +mind." + +She looked at her watch. "It's just five-thirty. We'll be in time for +supper, and you can ride home afterward." + +"I guess you know that will suit me, Phyllis," he answered, with a +meaning look from his dark eyes. + +"Supper suits most healthy men so far as I've noticed," she said +carelessly, her glance sweeping keenly over him before it passed to the +purple shadowings that already edged the mouth of a distant caƱon. + +"I'll bet it does when they can sit opposite Phyl Sanderson to eat it." + +She frowned a little, the while he took her in out of half-shut, +smoldering eyes, as one does a picture in a gallery. In truth, one might +have ridden far to find a living picture more vital and more suggestive +of the land that had cradled and reared her. + +His gaze annoyed her, without her quite knowing why. "I wish you +wouldn't look at me all the time," she told him with the boyish +directness that still occasionally lent a tang to her speech. + +"And if I can't help it?" he laughed. + +"Fiddlesticks! You don't have to say pretty things to me, Brill Healy," +she told him. + +"I don't say them because I have to." + +"Then I wish you wouldn't say them at all. There's no sense in it when +you've known a girl eighteen years." + +"Known and loved her eighteen years. It's a long time, Phyl." + +Her eyes rained light derision on him. "It would be if it were true. But +then one has to forget truth when one is sentimental, I reckon." + +"I'm not sentimental. I tell you I'm in love," he answered. + +"Yes, Brill. With yourself. I've known that a long time, but not quite +eighteen years," she mocked. + +"With you," he made answer, and something of sullenness had by this time +crept into his voice. "I've got as much right to love you as any one +else, haven't I? As much right as that durned waddy, Keller?" + +Fire flashed in her eyes. "If you want to know, I despise you when you +talk that way." + +The anger grew in him. "What way? When I say anything against the +rustler, do you mean? Think I'm blind? Think I can't see how you're +running after him, and making a fool of yourself about him?" + +"How dare you talk that way to me?" she flamed, and gave her surprised +pony a sharp stroke with the quirt. + +Five minutes later the bronchos fell again to a walk, and Healy took up +the conversation where it had dropped. + +"No use flying out like that, Phyl. I only say what any one can see. +Take a look at the facts. You meet up with him making his getaway after +he's all but caught rustling. Now, what do you do?" + +"I don't believe he was rustling at all." + +"Course you don't _believe_ it. That proves just what I was saying." + +"Jim doesn't believe it, either." + +"Yeager's opinion don't have any weight with me. I want to tell you +right now that the boys are getting mighty leary of Jim. He's getting +too thick with that Bear Creek bunch." + +"Brill Healy, I never saw anybody so bigoted and pig-headed as you are," +the girl spoke out angrily. "Any one with eyes in his head could see +that Jim is as straight as a string. He couldn't be crooked if he +tried. Long as you've known him I should think you wouldn't need to be +told that." + +"Oh, _you_ say so," he growled sullenly. + +"Everybody says so. Jim Yeager of all men," she scoffed. Then, with a +flash of angry eyes at him, "How would you like it if your friends +rounded on you? By all accounts, you're not quite a plaster saint. I've +heard stories." + +"What about?" + +"Oh, gambling and drinking. What of it? That's _your_ business. One +doesn't have to believe all the talk that is flying around." She spoke +with a kind of fine scorn, for she was a girl of large generosities. + +"We've all got enemies, I reckon," he said sulkily. + +"You're Phil's friend, and mine, too, of course. I dare say you have +your faults like other men, but I don't have to listen to people while +they try to poison my mind against you. What's more, I don't." + +She had been agile-minded enough to shift the attack and put him upon +the defensive, but now Healy brought the question back to his original +point. + +"That's all very well, Phyl, but we weren't talking about me, but about +you. When you found this Keller making his escape you buckled in and +helped him. You tied up his wound and took him to Yeager's and lied for +him to us. That's bad enough, but later you did a heap worse." + +"In saving him from being lynched by you?" + +"Before that you made a fuss about him and had to tie up his wounds. I +had a cut on _my_ cheek, but I notice you didn't tie it up!" + +"I'm surprised at you, Brill. I didn't think you were so small; and just +because I didn't let a wounded man suffer." + +"You can put it that way if you want to," he laughed unpleasantly. + +Her passion flared again. "You and your insinuations! Who made you the +judge over my actions? You talk as if you were my father. If you've got +to reform somebody, let it be yourself." + +"I'm the man that is going to be your husband," he said evenly. "That +gives me a right." + +"Never! Don't think it," she flung back. "I'd not marry you if you were +the last man on earth." + +"You'll see. I'll not let a scoundrel like Keller come between us. No, +nor Yeager, either. Nor Buck Weaver himself. I notice he was right +attentive before he went home." + +Resentment burned angrily on her cheek. "Anybody else?" she asked +quietly. + +"That's all for just now. You're a natural-born flirt, Phyllis. That's +what's the matter with you." + +"Thank you, Mr. Healy. You're the only one of my friends that has been +so honest with me," she assured him sweetly. + +"I'm the only one of them that is going to marry you. Don't think I'll +let Keller butt in. Not on your life." + +Her rage broke bounds. "I never in my life heard of anything so +insolent. Never! _You'll_ not let me do this or that. Who are you, Brill +Healy?" + +"I've told you. I'm the man that means to marry you," he persisted +doggedly. + +"You never will. I'm not thinking of marrying, but when I do I'll not +ask for your indorsement. Be sure of that." + +"I'll not stand it! He'd better look out!" + +"Who do you mean?" + +"Keller, that's who I mean. This thing is hanging over his head yet. +He's got to come through with proofs he ain't a rustler, or he's got to +pull his freight out of the Malpais country." + +"And if he won't?" + +"We'll finish that little business you interrupted," he told her, riding +his triumph roughshod over her feelings. + +"You wouldn't, Brill! Not when there is a doubt about it. Jim says he is +innocent, and I believe he is. Surely you wouldn't!" + +"You'll see." + +"If you do I'll never speak to you again! Never, as long as I live; and +I'll never rest till I have you in the penitentiary for his murder!" she +cried tensely. + +"And yet you don't care anything about him. You've just been kind to him +out of charity," he mocked. + +For some minutes they had seen Seven Mile Ranch lying below them in the +faint twilight. They rode the rest of the way in silence, each of them +too bitter for speech. When they reached the house, she swung from the +saddle and he kept his seat, for both of them considered her supper +invitation and his acceptance cancelled. + +He bowed ironically and turned to leave. + +"Just a moment, Brill," called an excited voice. "I've got a piece of +news that will make you sit up." + +The speaker was the young mule skinner known as Cuffs. He came running +out to the porch and fired his bolt. + +"The First National Bank at Noches was held up two hours ago, and the +robbers got away with their loot after shooting three or four men!" + +"Two hours ago," the girl repeated. "You got it over the phone, of +course." + +"Yep. Slim called me up just now. He got back right this minute from +following their trail. They lost the fellows in the hills. Four of 'em, +Slim says, and he thinks they're headed this way." + +"What makes him think so?" asked Healy. + +"He figures they are Bear Creek men. One of them was recognized. It was +that fellow Keller." + +"Keller!" Phyllis and Healy cried the word together. + +Cuffs nodded. "Slim says he can swear to his hawss, and he's plumb sure +about the man, too. He wants we should organize a posse and nail them as +they go into the Pass for Bear Creek. He figures we'll have time to do +it if we jump. Noches is fifty-five miles from here, and about forty +from the Pass. + +"With their bronchs loaded they can't make it in much less than five +hours. That gives us most three hours to reach the Pass and stop them. +What think, Brill? Can we make it?" + +"We'll try damned hard. I'm not going to let Mr. Rustler Keller slip +through my fingers again!" Healy cried triumphantly. + +"I don't believe it was Bear Creek men at all. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. +Keller," Phyllis cried, with a face like parchment. + +There was an unholy light of vindictive triumph in Healy's face. "We'll +show you about that, Miss Missouri. Get the boys together, Cuffs. Call +up Purdy and Jim Budd and Tom Dixon on the phone. Rustle up as many of +the boys as you can. Start 'em for the Pass just as soon as they get +here. I'm going right up there now. Probably I can't stop them, but I +may make out who they are. Notify Buck Weaver, so he can head them off +if they try to cross the Malpais. And get a move on you. Hustle the boys +right along." + +And with that he put spurs to his horse and galloped off. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS + + +Unerringly rode Healy through the tangled hills toward a saddle in the +peaks that flared vivid with crimson and mauve and topaz. A man of +moods, he knew more than one before he reached the Pass for which he was +headed. Now he rode with his eyes straight ahead, his face creased to a +hard smile that brought out its evil lines. Now he shook his clenched +fist into the air and cursed. + +Or again he laughed exultingly. This was when he remembered that his +rival was trapped beyond hope of extrication. + +While the sky tints round the peaks deepened to purple with the coming +night he climbed caƱons, traversed rock ridges, and went down and up +rough slopes of shale. Always the trail grew more difficult, for he was +getting closer to the divide where Bear Creek heads. He reached the +upper regions of the pine gulches that seamed the hills with wooded +crevasses, and so came at last to Gregory's Pass. + +Here, close to the yellow stars that shed a cold wintry light, he +dismounted and hobbled his horse. After which he found a soft spot in +the mossy rocks and fell asleep. He was a light sleeper, and two hours +later he awakened. Horses were laboring up the Pass. + +He waited tensely, rifle in both hands, till the heads of the riders +showed in the moonlight. Three--four--five of them he counted. The men +he saw were those he expected, and he lowered his rifle at once. + +"Hello, Cuffs! Purdy! That you, Tom? Well, you're too late." + +"Too late," echoed little Purdy. + +"Yep. Didn't get here in time myself to see who any of them were except +the last. It was right dark, and they were most through before I reached +here." + +"But you knew one," Purdy suggested. + +Healy looked at him and nodded. "There were four of them. I crept +forward on top of that flat rock just as the last showed up. He was +ridin' a hawss with four white stockings." + +"A roan, mebbe," Tom put in quickly. + +"You've said it, Tom--a roan, and it looked to me like it was wounded. +There was blood all over the left flank." + +"O' course Keller was riding it," Purdy ventured. + +"Rung the bell at the first shot," Healy answered grimly. + +"The son of a gun!" + +"How long ago was it, Brill?" asked another. + +"Must a-been two hours, anyhow." + +"No use us following them now, then." + +"No use. They've gone to cover." + +They turned their horses and took the back trail. The cow ponies +scrambled down rocky slopes like cats, and up steep inclines with the +agility of mountain goats. The men rode in single file, and conversation +was limited to disjointed fragments jerked out now and again. After an +hour's rough going they reached the foothills, where they could ride two +abreast. As they drew nearer to the ranch country, now one and now +another turned off with a shout of farewell. + +Healy accepted Purdy's invitation, and dismounted with him at the +Fiddleback. Already the first glimmering of dawn flickered faintly from +the serrated range. The men unsaddled, watered, fed, and then walked +stiffly to the house. Within five minutes both of them lay like logs, +dead to the world, until Bess Purdy called them for breakfast, long +after the rest of the family had eaten. + +"What devilment you been leading paw into, Brill?" demanded Bess +promptly when he appeared in the doorway. "Dan says it was close to +three when you got home." + +She flung her challenge at the young man with a flash of smiling teeth. +Bess was seventeen, a romp, very pretty, and hail-fellow-well-met with +every range rider in a radius of thirty miles. + +"We been looking for a beau for you, Bess," Healy immediately explained. + +Miss Purdy tossed her head. "I can find one for myself, Brill Healy, +and I don't have to stay out till three to get him, either." + +"Come right to your door, do they?" he asked, as she helped him to the +ham and eggs. + +"Maybe they do, and maybe they don't." + +"Well, here's one come right in the middle of the night. Somehow, I jest +couldn't make out to wait till morning, Bess." + +"Oh, you," she laughed, with a demand for more of this sort of chaffing +in her hazel eyes. + +At this kind of rough give and take he was an adept. After breakfast he +stayed and helped her wash the dishes, romping with her the whole time +in the midst of gay bursts of laughter and such repartee as occurred to +them. + +He found his young hostess so entertaining that he did not get away +until the morning was half gone. By the time he reached Seven Mile the +sun was past the meridian, and the stage a lessening patch of dust in +the distance. + +Before he was well out of the saddle, Phyllis Sanderson was standing in +the doorway of the store, with a question in her eyes. + +"Well?" he forced her to say at last. + +Leisurely he turned, as if just aware of her presence. + +"Oh, it's you. Mornin', Phyl." + +"What did you find out?" + +"I met your friend." + +"What friend?" + +"Mr. Keller, the rustler and bank robber," he drawled insolently, +looking full in her face. + +"Tell me at once what you found out." + +"I found Mr. Keller riding a roan with four white stockings and a wound +on its flank." + +She caught at the jamb. "You didn't, Brill!" + +"I ce'tainly did," he jeered. + +"What--what did you do?" Her lips were white as her cheeks. + +"I haven't done, anything--yet. You see, I was alone. The other boys +hadn't arrived then." + +"And he wasn't alone?" + +"No; he had three friends with him. I couldn't make out whether any more +of them were college chums of yours." + +Without another word, she turned her back on him and went into the +store. All night she had lain sleepless and longed for and dreaded the +coming of the day. Over the wire from Noches had come at dawn fuller +details of the robbery, from her brother Phil, who was spending two or +three days in town. + +It appeared that none of the wounded men would die, though the president +had had a narrow escape. Posses had been out all night, and a fresh one +was just starting from Noches. It was generally believed, however, that +the bandits would be able to make good their escape with the loot. + +Her father was absent, making a round of his sheep camps, and would not +be back for a week. Hence her hands were very full with the store and +the ranch. + +She busied herself with the details of her work, nodded now and again to +one of the riders as they drifted in, smiled and chatted as occasion +demanded, but always with that weight upon her heart she could not shake +off. Now, and then again, came to her through the window the voices of +Public Opinion on the porch. She made out snatches of the talk, and knew +the tide was running strongly against the nester. The sound of Healy's +low, masterful voice came insistently. Once, as she looked through the +window, she saw a tilted flask at his lips. + +Suddenly she became aware, without knowing why, that something was +happening, something that stopped her heart and drew her feet swiftly to +the door. + +Conversation had ceased. All eyes were deflected to a pair of riders +coming down the Bear Creek trail with that peculiar jog that is neither +a run nor a walk. They seemed quite at ease with the world. Speech and +laughter rang languid and carefree. But as they swung from the saddles +their eyes swept the group before them with the vigilance of +searchlights in time of war. + +Brill Healy leaned forward, his right hand resting lightly on his thigh. + +"So you've come back, Mr. Keller," he said. + +"As you see." + +"But not on that roan of yours, I notice." + +"You notice correctly, seh." + +"Now I wonder why." Healy spoke with a drawl, but his eyes glittered +menacingly. + +"I expect you know why, Mr. Healy," came the quiet retort. + +"Meaning?" + +"That the roan was stolen from the pasture two nights ago. Do you happen +to know the name of the thief?" + +The cattleman laughed harshly, but behind his laughter lay rising anger. +"So that's the story you're telling, eh? Sounds most as convincing as +that yarn about the pocketknife you picked up." + +"I'm not quite next to your point. Have I got to explain to you why I do +or don't ride a certain horse, seh?" + +"It ain't necessary. We all know why. You ain't riding it because there +is a bullet wound in the roan's flank that might be some hard to +explain." + +"I don't know what you mean. I haven't seen the horse for two days. It +was stolen, as I say. Apparently you know a good deal about that roan. +I'd be right pleased to hear what you know, Mr. Healy." + +"Glad to death to wise you, Mr. Keller. That roan was in Noches +yesterday, and you were on its back." + +The nester shook his head. "No, I reckon not." + +Yeager broke in abruptly: "What have you got up your sleeve, Brill? Spit +it out." + +"Glad to oblige you, too, Jim. The First National at Noches was held up +yesterday, about half-past three or four, by some masked men. Slim and +Jim Budd were around and recognized that roan and its rider." + +"You mean----" + +"You've guessed it, Jim. I mean that your friend, the rustler, is a bank +robber, too." + +"Yesterday, you say, at four o'clock?" + +"About four, yes." + +Yeager's face cleared. "Then that lets him out. I was with him yesterday +all day." + +"Any one else with him?" + +"No. We were alone." + +"Where?" + +"Out in the hills." + +"Didn't happen to meet a soul all day maybe?" + +"No; what of it?" + +Healy barked out again his hard laugh of incredulity. "Go slow, Jim. +That ain't going to let him out. It's going to let you in." + +Yeager took a step toward him, fists clenched, and eyes flashing. "I'll +not stand for that, Brill." + +Healy waved him aside. "I've got no quarrel with you, Jim. I ain't +making any charges against you to-day. But when it comes to Mr. Keller, +that's different." His gaze shifted to the nester and carried with it +implacable hostility. "I back my play. He's not only a rustler, he's a +bank robber, too. What's more, he'll never leave here alive, except +with irons on his wrists!" + +"Have you a warrant for my arrest, Mr. Healy?" inquired Keller evenly. + +"Don't need one. Furthermore, I'd as lief take you in dead as alive. You +cayn't hide behind a girl's skirts this time," continued Healy. "You've +got to stand on your own legs and take what's coming. You're a bad +outfit. We know you for a rustler, and that's enough. But it ain't all. +Yesterday you gave us surplusage when you shot up three men in Noches. +Right now I serve notice that you've reached the limit." + +"_You_ serve notice, do you?" + +"You're right, I do." + +"But not legal notice, Mr. Healy." + +At sight of his enemy standing there so easy and undisturbed, facing +death so steadily and so alertly, Brill's passion seethed up and +overflowed. Fury filmed his eyes. He saw red. With a jerk, his revolver +was out and smoking. A stop watch could scarce have registered the time +before Keller's weapon was answering. + +But that tenth part of a second made all the difference. For the first +heavy bullet from Healy's .44 had crashed into the shoulder of his foe. +The shock of it unsteadied the nester's aim. When the smoke cleared it +showed the Bear Creek man sinking to the ground, and the right arm of +the other hanging limply at his side. + +At the first sound of exploding revolvers, Phyllis had grown rigid, but +the fusillade had not died away before she was flying along the hall to +the porch. + +Brill Healy's voice, cold and cruel, came to her in even tones: + +"I reckon I've done this job right, boys. If he hadn't winged me, and if +Jim hadn't butted in, I'd a-done it more thorough, though." + +Yeager was bending over the man lying on the ground. He looked up now +and spoke bitterly: "You've murdered an innocent man. Ain't that +thorough enough for you?" + +Then, catching sight of Cuffs on the porch of the house, Yeager issued +orders sharply: "Get on my horse and ride like hell for Doc Brown! Bob, +you and Luke help me carry him into the house. What room, Phyl?" + +"My room, Jim. Oh, Cuffs, hurry, please!" With that she was gone into +the house to make ready the bed for the wounded man. + +Healy picked up the revolver that had fallen from his hand, and slid it +back into the holster. + +"That's right, boys. Take him in and let Phyl patch up the coyote if she +can. I reckon this time, she'll have her hands plumb full. Beats all how +a decent girl can take up with a ruffian and a scoundrel." + +"That will be enough from you, seh," Yeager told him sharply. + +Purdy nodded. "Jim's right, Brill. This man has got what was coming to +him. It ain't proper to jump him right now, when he's down and out." + +"Awful tender-hearted you boys are. Come to that, I've got a pill in me, +too, but of course that don't matter," Healy retorted. + +"If he dies you'll have another in you, seh," Yeager told him quietly, +meeting his eyes steadily for an instant. "Steady, Bob. You take his +feet. That's right." + +They carried the nester to the bedroom of Phyllis and laid him down +gently on the bed. His eyes opened and he looked about him as if to ask +where he was. He seemed to understand what had happened, for presently +he smiled faintly at his friend and said: + +"Beat me to it, Jim. I'm bust up proper this time." + +"He shot without giving warning." + +Keller moved his head weakly in dissent. "No, I knew just when he was +going to draw, but I had to wait for him." + +The big, husky plainsmen undressed him with the tenderness of women, and +did their best with the help of Aunt Becky, to take care of his wounds +temporarily. After these had been dressed Phyllis and the old colored +woman took charge of the nursing and dismissed all the men but Yeager. + +It would be many hours before Doctor Brown arrived, and it took no +critical eyes to see that this man was stricken low. All the supple +strength and gay virility were out of him. Three of the bullets had +torn through him. In her heavy heart the girl believed he was going to +die. While Yeager was out of the room she knelt down by the bedside, +unashamed, and asked for his life as she had never prayed for anything +before. + +By this time his fever was high and he was wandering in his head. The +wild look of delirium was in his eyes, and faint weak snatches of +irrelevant speech on his lips. His moans stabbed her heart. There was +nothing she could do for him but watch and wait and pray. But what +little was to be done in the way of keeping his hot head cool with wet +towels her own hands did jealously. Jim and Aunt Becky waited on her +while she waited on the sick man. + +About midnight the doctor rode up. All day and most of the night before +he had been in the saddle. Cuffs had found him across the divide, nearly +forty miles away, working over a boy who had been bitten by a +rattlesnake. But he brought into the sick room with him that manner of +cheerful confidence which radiates hope. You could never have guessed +that he was very tired, nor, after the first few minutes, did he know it +himself. He lost himself in his case, flinging himself into the breach +to turn the tide of what had been a losing battle. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES + + +Jim Yeager had not watched through the long day and night with Phyllis +without discovering how deeply her feelings were engaged. His +unobtrusive readiness and his constant hopefulness had been to her a +tower of strength during the quiet, dreadful hours before the doctor +came. + +Once, during the night, she had followed him into the dark hall when he +went out to get some fresh cold water, and had broken down completely. + +"Is he--is he going to die?" she besought of him, bursting into tears +for the first time. + +Jim patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Now, don't you, Phyl. You got to +buck up and help pull him through. Course he's shot up a heap, but then +a man like him can stand a lot of lead in his body. There aren't any of +these wounds in a vital place. Chief trouble is he's lost so much blood. +That's where his clean outdoor life comes in to help build him up. I'll +bet Doc Brown pulls him through." + +"Are you just _saying_ that, Jim, or do you really think so?" + +"I'm saying it, and I think it. There's a whole lot in gaming a thing +out. What we've got to do is to _think_ he's going to make it. Once we +give up, it will be all off." + +"You are such a help, Jim," she sighed, dabbing at her eyes with her +little handkerchief. "And you're the _best_ man." + +"That's right. I'll be the best man when we pull off that big wedding of +yours and his." + +Her heart went out to him with a rush. "You're the only friend both of +us have," she cried impulsively. + +With the coming of Doctor Brown, Jim resigned his post of comforter in +chief, but he stayed at Seven Mile until the crisis was past and the +patient on the mend. Next day Slim, Budd, and Phil Sanderson rode in +from Noches. They were caked with the dust of their fifty-mile ride, but +after they had washed and eaten, Yeager had a long talk with them. He +learned, among other things, that Healy had telephoned Sheriff Gill that +Keller was lying wounded at Seven Mile, and that the sheriff was +expecting to follow them in a few hours. + +"Coming to arrest Brill for assault with intent to kill, I reckon," +Yeager suggested dryly. + +Phil turned on him petulantly. "What's the use of you trying to get away +with that kind of talk, Jim? This fellow Keller was recognized as one of +the robbers." + +"That ain't what Slim has just been telling, Phil. He says he recognized +the hawss, and thinks it was Keller in the saddle. Now, I don't think +anything about it. I _know_ Keller was with me in the hills when this +hold-up took place." + +"You're his friend, Jim," the boy told him significantly. + +"You bet I am. But I ain't a bank robber, if that's what you mean, +Phil." + +His clear eyes chiselled into those of the boy and dominated him. + +"I didn't say you were," Phil returned sulkily. "But I reckon we all +recall that you lied for him once. Whyfor would it be a miracle if you +did again?" + +Jim might have explained, but did not, that it was not for Keller he had +lied. He contented himself with saying that the roan with the white +stockings had been stolen from the pasture before the holdup. He +happened to know, because he was spending the night in Keller's shack +with him at the time. + +Slim cut in, with drawling sarcasm: "You've got a plumb perfect alibi +figured out for him, Jim. I reckon you've forgot that Brill saw him +riding through the Pass with the rest of his outfit." + +"Brill says so. I say he didn't," returned Yeager calmly. + +Toward evening Gill arrived and formally put Keller under arrest. +Practically, it amounted only to the precaution of leaving a deputy at +the ranch as a watch, for one glance had told the sheriff that the +wounded man would not be in condition to travel for some time. + +It was the following day that Yeager saddled and said good-by to +Phyllis. + +"I'm going to Noches to see if I cayn't find out something. It don't +look reasonable to me that those fellows could disappear, bag and +baggage, into a hole and draw it in after them." + +"What about Brill's story that he saw them at the Pass?" the girl asked. + +"He may have seen four men, but he ce'tainly didn't see Larrabie Keller. +My notion is, Brill lied out of whole cloth, but of course I'm not in a +position to prove it. Point is, why did he lie at all?" + +Phyllis blushed. "I think I know, Jim." + +Yeager smiled. "Oh, I know that. But that ain't, to my way of thinking, +motive enough. I mean that a white man doesn't try to hang another just +because he--well, because he cut him out of his girl." + +"I never was his girl," Phyllis protested. + +"I know that, but Brill couldn't get it through his thick head till a +stone wall fell on him and give him a hint." + +"What other motive are you thinking of, Jim?" + +He hesitated. "I've just been kinder milling things around. Do you +happen to know right when you met Brill the day of the robbery?" + +"Yes. I looked at my watch to see if we would be in time for supper. It +was five-thirty." + +"And the robbery was at three. The fellows didn't get out of town till +close to three-thirty, I reckon," he mused aloud. + +"What has that got to do with it? You don't mean that----" She stopped +with parted lips and eyes dilating. + +He shook his head. "I've got no right to mean that, Phyllie. Even if I +did have a kind of notion that way I'd have to give it up. Brill's got a +steel-bound, copper-riveted alibi. He couldn't have been at Noches at +three o'clock and with you two hours later, fifty-five miles from there. +No hawss alive could do it." + +"But, Jim--why, it's absurd, anyway. We've known Brill always. He +couldn't be that kind of a man. How could he?" + +"I didn't say he could," returned her friend noncommittally. "But when +it comes to knowing him, what do you know about him--or about me, say? I +might be a low-lived coyote without you knowing it. I might be all kinds +of a devil. A good girl like you wouldn't know it if I set out to keep +it still." + +"I could tell by looking at you," she answered promptly. + +"Yes, you could," he derided good-naturedly. "How would you know it? Men +don't squeal on each other." + +"Do you mean that Brill isn't--what we've always thought him?" + +"I'm not talking about Brill, but about Jim Yeager," he evaded. "He'd +hate to have you know everything that's mean and off color he ever did." + +"I believe you must have robbed the bank yourself, Jim," she laughed. +"Are you a rustler, too?" + +He echoed her laugh as he swung to the saddle. "I'm not giving myself +away any more to-day." + +Brill Healy rode up, his arm in a sling. Deep rings of dissipation or of +sleeplessness were under his eyes. He looked first at Yeager and then at +the young woman, with an ugly sneer. "How's your dear patient, Phyl?" + +"He is better, Brill," she answered quietly, with her eyes full on him. +"That is, we hope he is better. The doctor isn't quite sure yet." + +"Some of us don't hope it as much as the rest of us, I reckon." + +She said nothing, but he read in her look a contempt that stung like the +lash of a whip. + +"He'll be worse again before I'm through with him," the man cried, with +a furious oath. + +Phyllis measured him with her disdainful eye, and dismissed him. She +stepped forward and shook hands with Yeager. + +"Take care of yourself, Jim, and don't spare any expense that is +necessary," she said. + +For a moment she watched her friend canter off, then turned on her heel, +and passed into the house, utterly regardless of Healy. + +Yeager reached Noches late, for he had unsaddled and let his horse rest +at Willow Springs during the heat of the broiling day. + +After he had washed and had eaten, Yeager drifted to the Log Cabin +Saloon and gambling house. Here was gathered the varied and turbulent +life of the border country. Dark-skinned Mexicans rubbed shoulders with +range riders baked almost as brown by the relentless sun. Pima Indians +and Chinamen and negroes crowded round the faro and dice tables. Games +of monte and chuckaluck had their devotees, as had also roulette and +poker. + +It was a picturesque scene of strong, untamed, self-reliant +frontiersmen. Some of them were outlaws and criminals, and some were as +simple and tender-hearted as children. But all had become accustomed to +a life where it is possible at any moment to be confronted with sudden +death. + +A man playing the wheel dropped a friendly nod at Jim. He waited till +the wheel had stopped and saw the man behind it rake in his chips before +he spoke. Then, as he scattered more chips here and there over the +board, he welcomed Yeager with a whoop. + +"Hi there, Malpais! What's doing in the hills these yere pleasant days?" + +"A little o' nothin', Sam. The way they're telling it you been having +all the fun down here." + +Sam Wilcox gathered the chips pushed toward him by the croupier and +cashed in. He was a heavy-set, bronzed man, with a bleached, +straw-colored mustache. Taking his friend by the arm, he led him to one +end of the bar that happened for the moment to be deserted. + +"Have something, Jim. Oh, I forgot. You're ridin' the water wagon and +don't irrigate. More'n I can say for some of you Malpais lads. Some of +them was in here right woozy the other day." + +"The boys will act the fool when they hit town. Who was it?" + +"Slim and Budd and young Sanderson." + +"Was Phil Sanderson drunk?" Yeager asked, hardly surprised, but +certainly troubled. + +"I ain't sure he was, but he was makin' the fur fly at the wheel, there. +Must have dropped two hundred dollars." + +Jim's brows knit in a puzzled frown. He was wondering how the boy had +come by so much money at a time. + +"Who was he trailin' with?" + +"With a lad called Spiker, that fair-haired guy sitting in at the poker +table. He's another youngster that has been dropping money right +plentiful." + +"Who is he?" + +"He's what they call a showfer. He runs one o' these automobiles; takes +parties out in it." + +"Been here long? Looks kind o' like a tinhorn gambler." + +"Not long. He's thick with some of you Malpais gents. I've seen him with +Healy a few." + +"Oh, with Healy." + +Jim regarded the sportive youth more attentively, and presently dropped +into a vacant seat beside him, buying twenty dollars worth of chips. + +Spiker was losing steadily. He did not play either a careful or a +brilliant game. Jim, playing very conservatively, and just about holding +his own, listened to the angry bursts and the boastings of the man next +him, and drew his own conclusions as to his character. After a couple of +hours of play the Malpais man cashed in and went back to the hotel where +he was putting up. + +He slept till late, ate breakfast leisurely, and after an hour of +looking over the paper and gossiping with the hotel clerk about the +holdup he called casually upon the deputy sheriff. Only one thing of +importance he gleaned from him. This was that the roan with the white +stockings had been picked up seven miles from Noches the morning after +the holdup. + +This put a crimp in Healy's story of having seen Keller in the Pass on +the animal. Furthermore, it opened a new field for surmise. _Brill Healy +said that he had seen the horse with a wound in its flank._ Now, how did +he know it was wounded, since Slim had not mentioned this when he had +telephoned? It followed that if he had not seen the broncho--and that he +had seen it was a sheer physical impossibility--he could know of the +wound only because he was already in close touch with what had happened +at Noches. + +But how could he be aware of what was happening fifty miles away? That +was the sticker Jim could not get around. His alibi was just as good as +that of the horse. Both of them rested on the assumption that neither +could cover the ground between two given points in a given time. There +was one other possible explanation--that Healy had been in telephonic +communication with Noches before he met Phyllis. But this seemed to Jim +very unlikely, indeed. By his own story he had been cutting trail all +afternoon and had seen nobody until he met Phyllis. + +Yeager called on the cashier, Benson, later in the day, and had a talk +with him and with the president, Johnson. Both of these were now back at +their posts, though the latter was not attempting much work as yet. Jim +talked also with many others. Some of them had theories, but none of +them had any new facts to advance. + +The young cattleman put up at the same hotel as Spiker and struck up a +sort of intimacy with him. They sometimes loafed together during the +day, and at night they were always to be seen side by side at the poker +table. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI + + +Keller found convalescence under the superintendence of Miss Sanderson +one of the great pleasures of his life. Her school was out for the +summer and she was now at home all day. He had never before found time +to be lazy, and what dreaming he had done had been in the stress of +action. Now he might lie the livelong day and not too obviously watch +her brave, frank youth as she moved before him or sat reading. For the +first time in his life he was in love! + +But as the nester grew better he perceived that she was withdrawing +herself from him. He puzzled over the reason, not knowing that her +brother, Phil, was troubling her with flings and accusations thrown out +bitterly because his boyish concern for her good name could find no +gentler way to express itself. + +"They're saying you're in love with the fellow--and him headed straight +for the pen," he charged. + +"Who says it, Phil?" she asked quietly, but with flaming cheeks. + +He smote his fist on the table. "It don't matter who says it. You keep +away from him. Let Aunt Becky nurse him. You haven't any call to wait on +him, anyhow. If he's got to be nursed by one of the family, I'll do it." + +He tried to keep his word, and as a result of it the wounded man had to +endure his sulky presence occasionally. Keller was man of the world +enough to be amused at his attitude, and yet was interested enough in +the lad's opinion of him to keep always an even mood of cheerful +friendliness. There was a quantity of winsome camaraderie about him that +won its way with Phil in spite of himself. Moreover, all the boy in him +responded to the nester's gameness, the praises of which he heard on all +sides. + +"I see you have quite made up your mind I'm a skunk," the wounded man +told him amiably. + +"You robbed the bank at Noches and shot up three men that hadn't hurt +you any," the boy retorted defiantly. + +"Not unless Jim Yeager is a liar." + +"Oh, Jim! No use going into that. He's your friend. I don't know why, +but he is." + +"And you're Brill Healy's. That's why you won't tell that he was +carrying your sister's knife the day I saw you and him first." + +The boy flashed toward the bed startled eyes. Keller was looking at him +very steadily. + +"Who says he had Phyl's knife?" + +"Hadn't he?" + +"What difference does that make, anyhow? I hear you're telling that you +found the knife beside the dead cow. You ain't got any proof, have you?" +challenged young Sanderson angrily. + +"No proof," admitted the other. + +"Well, then." Phil chewed on it for a moment before he broke out again: +"I reckon you cayn't talk away the facts, Mr. Keller. We caught you in +the act--caught you good. By your own story, you're the man we came on. +What's the use of you trying to lay it on me and Brill?" + +"Am I trying to lay it on you?" + +"Looks like. On Brill, anyhow. There's nothing doing. Folks in this neck +of the woods is for him and against you. Might as well _sabe_ that right +now," the lad blurted. + +"I _sabe_ that some of them are," the other laughed, but not with quite +his usual debonair gayety. For he did not at all like the way things +looked. + +But though Phil had undertaken to do all the nursing that needed to be +done by the family, he was too much of an outdoors dweller to confine +himself for long to the four walls of a room. Besides, he was often +called away by the work of looking after the cattle of the ranch. +Moreover, both he and his father were away a good deal arranging for the +disposal of their sheep. At these times her patient hoped, and hoped in +vain, that Phyllis would take her brother's place. + +Came a day when Keller could stand it no longer. In Becky's absence, he +made shift to dress himself, bit by bit, lying on the bed in complete +exhaustion after the effort of getting into each garment. He could +scarce finish what he had undertaken, but at last he was clothed and +ready for the journey. Leaning on a walking stick, he dragged himself +into the passage and out to the porch, where Phyllis was sitting alone. + +She gave a startled cry at sight of him standing there, haggard and +white, his clothes hanging on his gaunt frame much as if he had been a +skeleton. + +"What are you doing?" she cried, running to his aid. + +After she had got him into her chair, he smiled up at her and panted +weakly. He was leaning back in almost complete exhaustion. + +"You wouldn't come to see me, so--I came--to see you," he gasped out, at +last. + +"But--you shouldn't have! You might have done yourself a great injury. +It's--it's criminal of you." + +"I wanted to see you," he explained simply. + +"Why didn't you send for me?" + +"There wasn't anybody to send. Besides, you wouldn't have stayed. You +never do, now." + +She looked at him, then looked away. "You don't need me now--and I have +my work to do." + +"But I do need you, Phyllie." + +It was the first time he had ever spoken the diminutive to her. He let +out the word lingeringly, as if it were a caress. The girl felt the +color flow beneath her dusky tan. She changed the subject abruptly. + +"None of the boys are here. How am I to get you back to your room?" + +"I'll roll a trail back there presently, ma'am." + +She looked helplessly round the landscape, in hope of seeing some rider +coming to the store. But nobody was in sight. + +"You had no business to come. It might have killed you. I thought you +had better sense," she reproached. + +"I wanted to see you," he parroted again. + +Like most young women, she knew how to ignore a good deal. "You'll have +to lean on me. Do you think you can try it now?" + +"If I go, will you stay with me and talk?" he bargained. + +"I have my work to do," she frowned. + +"Then I'll stay here, thank you kindly." He settled back into the chair +and let her have his gay smile. Nevertheless, she saw that his lips were +colorless. + +"Yes, I'll stay," she conceded, moved by her anxiety. + +"Every day?" + +"We'll see." + +"All right," he laughed weakly. "If you don't come, I'll take a _pasear_ +and go look for you." She helped him to his feet and they stood for a +moment facing each other. + +"You must put your hand on my shoulder and lean hard on me," she told +him. + +But when she saw the utter weakness of him, her arm slipped round his +waist and steadied him. + +"Now then. Not too fast," she ordered gently. + +They went back very slowly, his weight leaning on her more at every +step. When they reached his room, Keller sank down on the bed, utterly +exhausted. Phyllis ran for a cordial and put it to his lips. It was some +time before he could even speak. + +"Thank you. I ain't right husky yet," he admitted. + +"You mustn't ever do such a thing again," she charged him. + +"Not ever?" + +"Not till the doctor says you're strong enough to move." + +"I won't--if you'll come and see me every day," he answered +irrepressibly. + +So every afternoon she brought a book or her sewing, and sat by him, +letting Phil storm about it as much as he liked. These were happy hours. +Neither spoke of love, but the air was electrically full of it. They +laughed together a good deal at remarks not intrinsically humorous, and +again there were conversational gaps so highly charged that she would +rush at them as a reckless hunter takes a fence. + +As he got better, he would be propped up in bed, and Aunt Becky would +bring in tea for them both. If there had been any corner of his heart +unwon it would have surrendered then. For to a bachelor the acme of +bliss is to sit opposite a girl of whom he is very fond, and to see her +buttering his bread and pouring his tea with that air of domesticity +that visualizes the intimacy of which he has dreamed. Keller had played +a lone hand all his turbulent life, and this was like a glimpse of +Heaven let down to earth for his especial benefit. + +It was on such an occasion that Jim Yeager dropped in on them upon his +return from Noches. He let his eyes travel humorously over the room +before he spoke. + +"Why for don't I ever have the luck to be shot up?" he drawled. + +"Oh, you Jim!" Keller called a greeting from the bed. Phyllis came +forward, and, with a heightened color, shook hands with him. + +"You'll sit down with us and have some tea, Jim," she told him. + +"Me? I'm no society Willie. Don't know the game at all, Phyl. Besides, +I'm carrying half of Arizona on my clothes. It's some dusty down in the +Malpais." + +Nevertheless he sat down, and, over the biscuits and jam, told the +meagre story of what he had found out. + +The finding of the stocking-footed roan near Noches so soon after the +robbery disposed of Healy's lie, though it did not prove that Keller had +not been riding it at the time of the holdup. As for Healy, Yeager +confessed he saw no way of implicating him. His alibi was just as good +as that of any of them. + +But there was one person his story did involve, and that was Spiker, the +tinhorn, tenderfoot sport of Noches. During the absence of this young +man at the gaming table, Jim and his friend, Sam Weaver, had got into +his room with a skeleton key and searched it thoroughly. They had found, +in a suit case, a black mask, a pair of torn and shiny chaps, a gray +shirt, a white, dusty sombrero, much the worse for wear, and over three +hundred dollars in bills. + +"What does he pretend his business is?" Keller asked, when Jim had +finished. + +"Allows he's a showfer. Drives folks around in a gasoline wagon. That's +the theory, but I notice he turned down a mining man who wanted to get +him to run him into the hills on Monday. Said he hadn't time. The +showfer biz is a bluff, looks like." + +The nester made no answer. His eyes, narrowed to slits, were gazing out +of the window absently. Presently he came from deep thought to ask +Yeager to hand him the map he would find in his inside coat pocket. This +he spread out on the bed in front of him. When at last he looked up he +was smiling. + +"I reckon it's no bluff, Jim. He's a chauffeur, all right, but he only +drives out select outfits." + +"Meaning?" + +The map lying in front of Keller was one of Noches County. The nester +located, with his index finger, the town of that name, and traced the +road from it to Seven Mile. Then his finger went back to Noches, and +followed the old military road to Fort Lincoln, a route which almost +paralleled the one to the ranch. + +The eyes of Phyllis were already shining with excitement. She divined +what was coming. + +"Is this road still travelled, Jim?" + +"It goes out to the old fort. Nobody has lived there for most thirty +years. I reckon the road ain't travelled much." + +"Strikes through Del Oro CaƱon, doesn't it, right after it leaves +Noches?" + +"Yep." + +"I reckon, Jim, your friend, Spiker, drove a party out that way the +afternoon of the holdup," the nester drawled smilingly. "By the way, is +your friend in the lockup?" + +"He sure is. The deputy sheriff arrested him same night we went through +his room." + +"Good place for him. Well, it looks like we got Mr. Healy tagged at +last. I don't mean that we've got the proof, but we can prove he might +have been on the job." + +"I don't see it, Larry. I reckon my head's right thick." + +"I see it," spoke up Phyllis quickly. + +Keller smiled at her. "You tell him." + +"Don't you see, Jim? The motor car must have been waiting for them +somewhere after they had robbed the bank," she explained. + +"At the end of Del Oro CaƱon, likely," suggested the nester. + +She nodded eagerly. "Yes, they would get into the caƱon before the +pursuit was in sight. That is why they were not seen by Slim and the +rest of the posse." + +Yeager looked at her, and as he looked the certainty of it grew on him. +His mind began to piece out the movements of the outlaws from the time +they left Noches. "That's right, Phyl. His car is what he calls a +hummer. It can go like blazes--forty miles an hour, he told me. And the +old fort road is a dandy, too." + +"They would leave the automobile at Willow Creek, and cut across to the +Pass," she hazarded. + +"All but Brill. Being bridlewise, he rode right for Seven Mile to make +dead sure of his alibi, whilst the others made their getaway with the +loot. When he happened to meet you on the way, he would be plumb +tickled, for that cinched things proper for him. You would be a witness +nobody could get away from." + +"And what about their hawsses? Did they bring the bronchs in the car, +too?" drawled Keller, an amused flicker in his eyes. + +The others, who had been swimming into their deductions so confidently, +were brought up abruptly. Phyllis glanced at Jim and looked foolish. + +"The bronchs couldn't tag along behind at a forty per clip. That's +right," admitted Yeager blankly. + +"I hadn't thought about that. And they had to have their horses with +them to get from Willow Creek to the Pass. That spoils everything," the +girl agreed. + +Then, seeing her lover's white teeth flashing laughter at her, she knew +he had found a way round the difficulty. "How would this do, +partners--just for a guess: The car was waiting for them at the end of +the Del Oro CaƱon. They dumped their loot into it, then unsaddled and +threw all the saddles in, too. They gave the bronchs a good scare, and +started them into the hills, knowing they would find their way back home +all right in a couple of days. At Willow Creek they found hawsses +waiting for them, and Mr. Spiker hit the back trail for Noches, with his +car, and slid into town while everybody was busy about the robbery." + +"Sure. That would be the way of it," his friend nodded. "All we got to +do now is to get Spiker to squeal." + +"If he happens to be a quitter." + +"He will--under pressure. He's that kind." + +A knock came on the door, and Tom Benwell, the store clerk, answered +her summons to come in. + +"It's Budd, Miss Phyl. He came to see about getting-that stuff you was +going to order for a dress for his little girl," the storekeeper +explained. + +Phyllis rose and followed the man back to the store. When she had gone, +Jim stepped to the door and shut it. Returning, he sat down beside the +bed. + +"Larry, I didn't tell all I know. That hat in Spiker's room had the +initials P.S. written on the band. What's more, I knew the hat by a big +coffee stain splashed on the crown. It happens I made that stain myself +on the round-up onct when we were wrastling and I knocked the coffeepot +over." + +Keller looked at his friend gravely. "It was Phil Sanderson's hat?" + +Yeager nodded assent. "He must have loaned his old hat to Spiker for the +holdup." + +"You didn't turn the hat over to the sheriff?" + +"Not so as you could notice it. I shoved it in my jeans and burnt it +over my camp fire next day." + +"This mixes things up a heap. If Phil is in this thing--and it sure +looks that way--it ties our hands. I'd like to have a talk with Spiker +before we do anything." + +"What's the matter with having a talk with Phil? Why not shove this +thing right home to him?" + +The nester shook his head. "Let's wait a while. We don't want to drive +Healy away yet. If the kid's in it he would go right to Healy with the +whole story." + +Yeager swore softly. "It's all Brill's fault. He's been leading Phil +into devilment for two years now." + +"Yes." + +"And all the time been playing himself for the leader of us fellows that +are against the rustlers and that Bear Creek outfit," continued Jim +bitterly. "Why, we been talking of electing him sheriff. Durn his +forsaken hide, he's been riding round asking the boys to vote for him on +a promise to clean out the miscreants." + +"You can oppose him, of course. But we have no absolute proof against +him yet. We must have proof that nobody can doubt." + +"I reckon. And'll likely have to wait till we're gray." + +"I don't think so. My guess is that he's right near the end of his rope. +We're going to make a clean-up soon as I get solid on my feet." + +"And Phil? What if we catch him in the gather, and find him wearing the +bad-man brand?" + +Keller's eyes met those of his friend. "There never was a rodeo where +some cattle didn't slip through unnoticed, Jim." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +SURRENDER + + +The weeks slipped away and brought with them healing to the wounded man +at Seven Mile. He moved from the bed where at first he had spent his +days to a lounge in the living room, and there, from the bay window, he +could look out at the varied life of the cattle country. Men came and +went in the dust of the drag drive, their approach heralded by the bawl +of thirsty cattle. Others cantered up and bought tobacco and canned +goods. The stage arrived twice a week with its sack of mail, and always +when it did Public Opinion gathered upon the porch of the store, as of +yore. Phil Sanderson he saw often, Yeager sometimes, and once or twice +he caught a glimpse of Healy's saturnine face. + +A scarcity of beef and a sharp rise in prices brought the round-up +earlier than usual. Every spare man was called upon to help comb the +hills for the wild steers that ran the wooded water-sheds, as untamed as +the deer and the lynx. Even the storekeeper, Benwell, was pressed into +the service. 'Rastus and the nester were the only men about the place, +the deputy sheriff having been recalled to Noches on the collapse of +Healy's story. + +The removal to a distance of the rest of her admirers did not have the +effect of throwing Keller alone with Phyllis more often. The young +mistress of the ranch invited Bess Purdy to visit her, and now he never +saw her except in the presence of her other guest. + +Bess took him in at once, evidencing her approval of him by entering +upon a spirited war of repartee with him. She had not been in the house +twenty-four hours before she had unbosomed herself of a derisive +confidence. + +"I don't believe you're a bank robber, at all! I don't believe you are +even a rustler! You're a false alarm!" + +Both Keller and Miss Sanderson smiled at the daring of the girl's +challenge. But the former defended himself with apparent heat. + +"What makes you think so? Why should you undermine my reputation with +such an assertion? You can't talk that way about me without proving it, +Miss Purdy." + +"Well, I don't. You don't _look_ it." + +"I can't help that. You ask Mr. Healy. He'll tell you I am." + +"You'll need a better witness than Brill before I'll believe it." + +"And I thought you were going to like me," he lamented. + +"I like a lot of people who aren't ruffians, but of course I can't +admire you so much as if you were a really truly bad man." + +"But if I promise to be one?" + +"Oh, anybody can _promise_," she flung back, eyes bubbling with +laughter. + +"Wait till I get on my feet again." + +A youth galloped up to the house in a cloud of alkali dust. + +"There's Cuffs," announced Phyllis, smiling at Bess. + +That young woman blushed a little, supposed, aloud, she must go out to +see him, and withdrew in seeming reluctance. + +"He wants Bess to go with him to the Frying Pan dance. He sent a note +over from the round-up to ask her. She hasn't had a chance yet to tell +him that she would," explained her friend. + +"How will he take her?" asked the nester, his eyes quickening. + +"In the surrey, I suppose. Why?" + +"The surrey will hold four." + +She made no pretense of not understanding. Her look met his in a +betrayal of the pleasure his invitation gave her. Yet she shook her +head. + +"No, thank you." + +"But why--if I may ask?" + +"Ah! But you mayn't," she smiled. + +He considered that. "You like to dance." + +"Most girls do." + +"Then it is because of me," he soliloquized aloud. + +"Please," she begged lightly. + +"My reputation, I suppose." + +She began to roll up the embroidery upon which she was busy. But he got +to the door before her. + +"No, you don't." + +"You are not going to make me tell you why I can't go with you, are +you?" + +"That, to start with. Then I'm going to make you tell me some other +things." + +"But if I don't want to tell?" Her eyes were wide open with surprise, +for he had never before taken the masterful line with her. Deep down, +she liked it; but she had no intention of letting him know so. + +"There are times not to tell, and there are times to tell. This will be +one of the last kind, Phyllis." + +She tried mockery. "When you throw a big chest like that I suppose you +always get what you want." + +"You act right funny, girl. I never see you alone any more. We haven't +had a good talk for more than a week. Now, why?" + +She thought of telling him she had been too busy; then, moved by an +impulse of impatience, met his gaze fully, and told him part of the +truth. + +"I should think you would understand that a girl has to be careful of +what she does!" + +"You mean about us being friends?" + +"Oh, we can be friends, but----If you can't see it, then I can't tell +you," she finished. + +"I can see it, I reckon. You saved my life, and I expect some human cat +got his claws out and said it was because you were fond of me. + +"Then you saved it again by your nursing. No two ways about that. Doc +Brown says you and Jim did. I was so sick folks knew it had to be. But +now I'm getting well, you have to show them you're not interested in me. +Isn't that about it?" + +"Yes." + +"But you don't have to show me, too, do you?" + +"Am I not--courteous?" + +"I ain't worrying any about your courtesy. But, look here, Phyllie. Have +you forgotten what happened in the kitchen that night you helped me to +escape?" + +She flashed him one look of indignant reproach. "I should think you +would be the last person in the world to remind me of it." + +"I've got a right to mention it because I've asked you a question since +that ain't been answered. That week's been up ten days." + +"I'm not going to answer it now." + +And with that she slipped past him and from the room. + +He ran a hand through his curls and voiced his perplexity. "Now, if a +woman ain't the strangest ever. Just as a fellow is ready to tell her +things, she gets mad and hikes." + +Nevertheless he smiled, not uncheerfully. What experience he had had +with young women told him the signs were not hopeless for his success. +He was not sure of her, not by a good deal. He had captured her +imagination. But to win a girl's fancy is not the same as to storm her +heart. He often caught himself wondering just where he stood with her. +For himself, he knew he was fathoms deep in love. + +She was in his thoughts when he fell asleep. + +He awoke in the darkness, and sat upright in the bed, a feeling of +calamity oppressing him. Something pungent tickled his nostrils. + +A faint crackling sounded in the air. + +Swiftly he slipped on such clothes as he needed and stepped into the +passage. A heavy smoke was pouring up the back stairway. He knocked +insistently upon the door where Phyllis and her guest were sleeping. + +"What is it?" a voice demanded. + +"Get up and dress, Miss Sanderson! The house is on fire! You have plenty +of time, I think. If there's any hurry I'll let you know after I've +looked." + +He went down the front stairs and found that the fire was in the back +part of the house. Already volumes of smoke with spitting tongues of +flame were reaching toward the foot of the stairs. He ran up to the room +where the girls were dressing, and called to them: + +"Are you ready?" + +"Yes." + +The door opened, to show him two very pale girls, each carrying a bundle +of clothes. They were only partially dressed, but wrappers covered their +disarray. Keller went to the clothes closet, emptied it with a sweep and +lift of his arm, and returned, to lead the way downstairs. + +"Take a breath before you start. The smoke's bad, but there is no real +danger," he told them as he plunged forward. + +At the foot of the stairs he stopped to see that they were following him +closely, then flung open the outer door and let in a rush of cool, sweet +air. In another moment they were outside, safe and unhurt. + +Phyllis drew a long breath before she said: + +"The house is gone!" + +"If there is anything you want particularly from the living room I can +get in through the window," Keller told her. + +She shuddered. Flame jets were already shooting out here and there. "I +wouldn't let you go back for the world. We didn't get out too soon." + +"No," he agreed. + +A sniveling voice behind them broke in: "Where is Mr. Phil? I yain't +seen him yet." + +Larrabie swung round on 'Rastus like a flash. "What do you mean? He's at +the round-up, of course." + +The little fellow began to bawl: "No, sah. He done come home late last +night. Aftah you-all had gone to bed. He's in his room, tha's where he +is." + +Phyllis caught at the arm of Keller to steady her. She was colorless to +the lips. + +"Oh, God! Oh, God!" she cried faintly. + +The nester pushed her gently into the arms of her guest. + +"Take care of her, Bess. I'll get Phil." + +He ran round the house to the back. The bedroom occupied by young +Sanderson was on the first floor. The ranger caught up a stick, smashed +the window, and tore out the frame by main strength. Presently he was +inside, groping through the dense smoke toward the bed. + +Flames leaped at him from out of it like darting serpents. His hair, his +face, his clothes, caught fire before he had discovered that the bed had +been used, but was now empty. The door into the hall was open, and +through it were pouring billows of smoke. Evidently Phil must have tried +to escape that way and been overpowered. + +The young man caught up a towel and wrapped it around his throat and +mouth, then plunged forward into the caldron of the passage. The smoke +choked him and the intense heat peeled his face and made the endurance +of it an agony. + +He stumbled over something soft, and discovered with his hands that it +was a body. Smothered and choked, half frantic with the heat, he +struggled back into the bedroom with his burden. + +Somehow he reached the window, stumbled through it, and dragged the +inanimate body after him. Then, with Phil in his arms, he reeled forward +into the fresh air beyond. + +With a cry Phyllis broke from Bess and ran toward him. But before she +had reached the rescuer and the rescued, Keller went down in total +collapse. He, too, was unconscious when she knelt beside him and began +with her hands to crush out the smoldering fire in his clothes. + +He opened his eyes and smiled faintly when he saw who it was. + +"How's the boy?" he asked. + +"He is breathing," cried Bess joyfully, from where she was bending over +Sanderson. + +"You go attend to him. I'm all right now." + +"Are you truly?" + +"Truly." + +He proved it by sitting up, and presently by rising and joining with her +the group gathered around Phil. For Aunt Becky had now emerged from her +cabin and taken charge of affairs. + +Phil was supported to the bunk house and put to bed by Keller and +'Rastus. It was already plain that he would be none the worse for his +adventure after a night's good sleep. Aunt Becky applied to his case the +homely remedies she had used before, while the others stood around the +bed and helped as best they could. Strangely enough, he was not burned +at all. In this he had escaped better than Keller, whose hair and +eyebrows and skin were all the worse for singeing. + +The nester noticed that Phyllis, in handing a bowl of water to Bess, +used awkwardly her left hand. The right one, he observed, was held with +the palm concealed against the folds of her skirt. + +Presently Phyllis, her anxiety as to Phil relieved, left Aunt Becky and +Bess to care for him, while she went out to make arrangements for +disposing of the party until morning. The nester followed her into the +night and walked beside her toward the house of the foreman. The +darkness was lit up luridly by the shooting flames of the burning house. + +"The store isn't going to catch fire. That's one good thing," Keller +observed, by way of comfort. + +"Yes." There was a catch in her voice, for all the little treasures of +her girlhood, gathered from time to time, were going up in smoke. + +"You're insured, I reckon?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, it might be worse." + +She thought of the narrow escape Phil had had, and nodded. + +"You'll have to sleep in the bunk house. Take any of the beds you like. +Bess and I will put up at the foreman's," she explained. + +As is the custom among bachelors who attend to their own domestic +affairs, they found the bed just as the foreman had stepped out of it +two weeks before. While Keller held the lantern, Phyllis made it up, and +again he saw that she was using her right hand very carefully and +flinching when it touched the blankets. Putting the lantern down on the +table, he walked up to her. + +"I'll make the bed." + +She stepped back, with a little laugh. "All right." + +He made it, then turned to her at once. + +"I want to see your hand." + +She gave him the left one, even as he had done on the occasion of their +second meeting. He took it, and kept it. + +"Now the other." + +"What do you want with it?" + +"Never mind." He reached down and drew it from the folds of her skirt, +where it had again fallen. Very gently he turned it so that the palm was +up. Ugly blisters and a red seam showed where she had burned herself. He +looked at her without speaking. + +"It's nothing," she told him, a little hysterically. + +For an instant her mind flashed back to the time when Buck Weaver had +drawn the cactus spines out of that same hand. + +His voice was rough with feeling. "I can see it isn't. And you got it +for me--putting out the fire in my clothes. I reckon I cayn't thank you, +you poor little tortured hand." He lifted the fingers to his lips and +kissed them. + +"Don't," she cried brokenly. + +"Has it got to be this way always, Phyllie--you giving and me taking?" +His hand tightened on hers ever so slightly, and a spasm of pain shot +across her face. He looked at the burned fingers again tenderly. "Does +it hurt pretty bad, girl?" + +"I wish it was ten times as bad!" she broke out, with a sob. "You saved +Phil's life--at the risk of your own. I wish I could tell you how I +feel, what I think of you, how splendid you are." In default of which +ability, she began to cry softly. + +He wasted no more time. He did not ask her whether he might. With a +gesture, his arm went around her and drew her to him. + +"Let me tell what I think of you, instead, girl o' mine. I cayn't tell +it, either, for that matter, but I reckon I can make out to show you, +honey." + +"I didn't mean--that way," she protested, between laughter and tears. + +"Well, that's the way I mean." + +Neither spoke again for a minute. Than: "Do you really--love me?" she +murmured. + +"What do you think?" He laughed with the sheer unconquerable boyish +delight in her. + +"I think you're pretending right well," she smiled. + +"If I am making believe." + +"If you are." Her arms slipped round his neck with a swift impulse of +love. "But you're not. Tell me you're not, Larry." + +He told her, in the wordless way lovers have at command, the way that is +more convincing than speech. + +So Phyllis, from the troubled waters of doubt, came at last to safe +harborage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AT THE RODEO + + +There was an exodus from Seven Mile the second day after the fire. +Keller went up Bear Creek, Phyllis accepted the invitation of Bess to +stay with her at the Fiddleback, and her brother returned to the +round-up. + +The riders were now combing the Lost Creek watershed. Phil knew the camp +would be either at Peaceful Valley or higher up, near the headwaters of +the creek. Before he reached the valley the steady bawl of cattle told +him that the outfit was camped there. He topped the ridge and looked +down upon Cattleland at its busiest. Just below him was the remuda, the +ponies grazing slowly toward the hills under the care of three +half-grown boys. + +Beyond were the herded cattle. Here all was activity. Within the fence +of riders surrounding the wild creatures the cutting out and the +branding were being pushed rapidly forward. Occasionally some leggy +steer, tail up and feet pounding, would make a dash to break the cordon. +Instantly one of the riders would wheel in chase, head off the animal, +and drive it back. + +Brill Healy, boss of the rodeo by election, was in charge. He was an +expert handler of cattle, one of the best in the country. It was his +nature to seek the limelight, though it must be said for him that he +rose to his responsibilities. The owners knew that when he was running +the round-up few cattle would slip through the net he wound around them. + +"Hello, Brill!" shouted the young man as he rode up. + +"Hello, son! Too bad about the fire. I'll want to hear about it later. +Looking for a job?" he flung hurriedly over his shoulder. For he had not +even a minute to spare. + +"I reckon." + +Phil did not wait to be assigned work, but joined the calf branders. + +Not until night had fallen and they were gathered round in a semicircle +leaning against their saddles did Phil find time to tell the story of +the fire. There was some haphazard comment when he had finished, after +which Slim spoke. + +"So the nester hauled you out. Ce'tainly looks like he's plumb game. You +said he was afire when he got you into the open, didn't you, Phil?" + +The boy nodded. "And all in. He fainted right away." + +"With him still burning away like the doctor's fire there," murmured +Healy ironically, with a slight gesture toward the cook. + +Phil looked at him angrily. "I didn't say that. Some one put the fire +out." + +"Oh, some one! Might a man ask who?" + +Phil had not had any intention of telling, but he found himself letting +Healy have it straight. + +"Phyllis." + +"About what I thought!" Healy said it significantly, and with a malice +that overrode his discretion. + +"What do you mean?" demanded the boy fiercely. + +"I ain't said anything, have I?" Healy came back smoothly. + +Yeager's quiet voice broke the silence that followed, while Phil was +trying to voice the resentment in him. + +"You mean what we're all thinking, Brill, I reckon--that she is the sort +to forget herself when somebody needs her help. Ain't that it?" + +The eyes of the two met steadily in a clash of wills. Healy's gave way +for the time, not because he was mastered, but because he did not wish +to alienate the rough, but fair-minded, men sitting around. + +"You're mighty good at explaining me to the boys, Jim. I expect that is +what I mean," he answered sullenly. + +"Sure," put in Purdy, with amiable intent. + +"But when it comes to Mr. Keller I can explain myself tol'able well. I +don't need any help there, Jim, not even if he is yore best friend." + +"If you've got anything to say against him, I'll ask you to say it when +I'm not around," broke in Phil. "You'll recollect, please, that he's +_my_ friend, too." + +"That so? Since, when, Phil?" the rodeo boss retorted sarcastically. + +"Since he went into the fire after me and saved my life. Think I'm a +coyote to round on him? I tell you he's a white man clear through. In my +opinion, he's neither a rustler nor a bank robber." He was flushed and +excited, but his gaze met that of his former friend and challenged him +defiantly. + +Healy's eyes narrowed. He gazed at the boy darkly, as if he meant to +read him through and through. For years he had dominated Phil, had +shaped him to his ends, had led him into wild, lawless courses after +him. Now the anchors were dragging. He was losing control of him. He +resolved to turn the screws on him, but not at this time and place. + +"I've always been considered a full-grown man, Phil. What I think I aim +to say out loud when the notion hits me. That being so, I go on record +as having an opinion about Keller. You think he's on the square, and you +give him a whitewashed certificate as a bony-fidy Sunday-school scholar. + +"Different here. I think him a coyote and a crook, and so I say it right +out in meeting. Any objections?" The gaze of the boss shifted from +Sanderson to Yeager, and fastened. + +"None in the world. You think what you like, Brill, and we'll stick to +our opinions," Yeager replied cheerfully. + +"And when I get good and ready I'll act on mine," Healy replied with an +evil grin. + +"If you find it right convenient. I expect Keller ain't exactly a wooden +cigar Indian. Maybe he'll have a say-so in what's doing," suggested +Yeager. + +"About as much as he had last time," sneered the round-up boss. With +which he rose, stretched himself, and gave orders. "Time to turn in, +boys. We're combing Old Baldy to-morrow, remember." + +"And Old Baldy's sure a holy terror," admitted Slim. + +"Come three more days and we'd ought to be through. I'm not going to +grieve any when we are. This high life don't suit me too durned well," +put in Benwell. + +"Yet when you come here first you was a right sick man, Tom. Now, you're +some healthy. Don't that prove the outside of a hawss is good for the +inside of a man, like the docs say?" grinned Purdy. + +"Tom's notion of real living is sassiety with a capital S," explained +Cuffs. "You watch him cut ice at the Frying Pan dance next week. He'll +be the real-thing lady-killer. All you lads going, I reckon. How about +you, Jim?" + +Yeager said he expected to be there. + +"With yore friend the rustler?" asked Healy insolently over his +shoulder. + +"I haven't got any friend that's a rustler." + +"I'm speaking of Mr. Larrabie Keller." There was a slurring inflection +on the prefix. + +"He'll be there, I shouldn't wonder." + +"I'd wonder a heap," retorted Healy. "You'll see he won't show his face +there." + +"That's where you're wrong, Brill. He told me he was going," spoke up +Phil triumphantly. + +"We'll see. He's wise to the fact that this country knows him for an +out-and-out crook. He'll stay in his hole." + +"You going, Slim?" asked Purdy amiably, to turn the conversation into a +more pacific channel. + +"Sure," answered that young giant, getting lazily to his feet. "Well, +sons, the boss is right. Time to pound our ears." + +They rolled themselves in their blankets, the starry sky roofing their +bedroom. Within five minutes every man of them was asleep except the +night herders--and one other. + +Healy lay a little apart from the rest, partially screened by some boxes +of provisions and a couple of sacks of flour. His jaw was clamped tight. +He looked into the deep velvet sky without seeing. For a long time he +did not move. Then, noiselessly, he sat up, glanced around carefully to +make sure he was not observed, rose, and stole into the darkness, +carrying with him his saddle and bridle. + +One of his ponies was hobbled in the mesquite. Swiftly he saddled. +Leading the animal very carefully so as to avoid rustling the brush, he +zigzagged from the camp until he had reached a safe distance. Here he +swung himself on and rode into the blur of night, at first cautiously, +but later with swift-pounding hoofs. He went toward the northwest in a +bee line without hesitation or doubt. Only when the lie of the ground +forced a detour did he vary his direction. + +So for hours he travelled until he reached a caƱon in which squatted a +little log cabin. He let his voice out in the howl of a coyote before he +dismounted. No answer came, save the echo from the cliff opposite. Again +that mournful call sounded, and this time from the cabin found an +answer. + +A man came sleepily to the door and peered out. "Hello! That you, +Brill?" + +Healy swung off, trailed his rein, and followed the man into the cabin. +"Don't light up, Tom. No need." + +For ten minutes they talked in low tones. Healy emerged from the cabin, +remounted, and rode back to the cow camp. He reached it just as the +first, faint streaks of gray tinged the eastern sky. + +Silently he unsaddled, hobbled his pony, and carried his saddle back to +the place where he had been lying. Once more he lay down, glanced +cautiously round to see all was quiet, and fell asleep as soon as his +head touched the saddle. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +MISSING + + +From all over the Malpais country, from the water-sheds where Bear and +Elk and Cow creeks head, from the halfway house far out in the desert +where the stage changes horses, men and women dribbled to the Frying Pan +for the big dance after the round-up. Great were the preparations. Many +cakes and pies and piles of sandwiches had been made ready. Also there +was a wash boiler full of coffee and a galvanized tub brimming with +lemonade. For the Frying Pan was doing itself proud. + +Phil and his sister drove over together. The boy had asked Bess to go +with him, but Cuffs had beaten him to it. The distance was only +twenty-five miles, a neighborly stroll in that country of wide spaces +and desert stretches filled with absentees. + +When Phyllis came into the big room where the dancing was in progress, +her dark eye swept the room without finding him for whom she looked. +There were many there she knew, not more than two or three whom she had +never met, but among them all she looked at none who was a magnet for +her eyes. Keller had not yet arrived. + +Before she had taken her seat she had three engagements to dance. Jim +Yeager had waylaid her; so, too, had Slim and Curly. She waltzed first +with Phil, and after he had done his duty he left her to the besiegings +of half a score of riders for various ranches who came and went and came +again. She joked with them, joined the merry banter that went on, +laughed at them when they grew sentimental, always with a sprightly +devotion to the matter in hand. + +Nevertheless, though they did not know it, her mind was full of him who +had not yet appeared. Why was he late? Could he have missed the way by +any chance? And later--as the hours passed without bringing him--could +anything have happened to him? More than once her troubled gaze fell +upon Brill Healy with a brooding question in it. The man had received +only the day before his party's nomination for sheriff, and he was doing +the gracious to all the women and children. + +He had many of the qualities that make for popularity, even though he +was often overbearing, revengeful, and sullen. When he chose he could be +hail fellow well met in a way Malpais found flattering to its vanity. +Now he was apparently having the time of his life. Wherever he moved an +eddy of laughter and gayety went with him. The eyes of men as well as +women admiringly followed his dark, lithe, picturesque figure. + +Phyllis had declined to dance with him, giving as an excuse a full +programme, and for an instant his face had blazed with the suppressed +rage in him. He had bowed and swaggered away with a malicious sneer. Her +judgment told her it was folly to connect this man with the absence of +her lover, but that look of malevolent triumph had none the less shaken +her heart. What had he meant? It seemed less a threat for the future +than a gloating over some evil already done. + +When she could endure them no longer she carried her fears to Jim +Yeager. They were dancing, but she made an excuse of fatigue to drop +out. + +"First time I ever knew you to play out at a dance, Phyl," he rallied +her. + +"It isn't that. I want to say something to you," she whispered. + +He had a guess what it was, for his own mind was not quite easy. + +"Do you think anything could have happened, Jim?" she besought pitifully +when for a moment they were alone in a corner. + +"What _could_ have happened, Phyllie? Do you reckon he fell off his +hawss, and him a full-size man?" he scoffed. + +"Yes, but--you don't know how Brill looked at me. I'm afraid." + +"Oh, Brill!" His voice held an edge of scorn, but none the less it +concealed a real fear. He was making as much concession to it as to her +when he added lightly: "Tell you what I'll do, Phyl. I'll saddle up and +take a look back over the Bear Creek trail. Likely I'll meet him, and +we'll come in together." + +Her eyes met his, and he needed no other thanks. "You'll lose the +dance," was her only comment. + +Jim followed the road until it branched off to join the Bear Creek +trail. Here he deflected toward the mountains, taking the zigzag path +that ran like a winding thread among the rocks as it mounted. Now for +the first time there came to him the faint rhythmic sound of a galloping +horse's hoofs. He did not stop, and as he picked his way among the rocks +he heard for some time no more of it. + +"Mr. Hurry-up-like-hell kept the road, I reckon," Jim ruminated aloud, +and even as he spoke he caught again the echo of an iron shoe striking a +rock. + +He stopped and listened. Some one was climbing the trail behind him. + +"Mebbe he's a friend, and then mebbe he isn't. We'll let him have the +whole road to himself, eh, Keno?" + +Yeager guided his pony to the left, and took up a position behind some +huge bowlders from whence he could see without being seen. The pursuer +toiled into sight, a slim, wiry youth on a buckskin. He came forward out +of the shadows into the fretted moonlight. + +Yeager gave a glad whoop of recognition. "Hi-yi, Phil!" + +"You're there, are you? Did I scare you off the trail, Jim?" + +"That's whatever, boy. What are you doing here?" + +"Sis sent me. She got worried again, and we figured I'd better join +you." + +"I reckon there's nothing serious the matter. Still, it ain't like Larry +to say he would come and then not show up." + +"Brill is back there bragging about it." Phil nodded his head toward the +lights of the Frying Pan glimmering far below. "Says he knew the waddy +wouldn't show his head. You don't reckon, Jim, he's turned a trick on +Keller, do you?" + +"That's what we have got to find out, Phil." + +"Looks funny he'd be so durned sure when we all know how game Keller +is," the boy reflected aloud. + +"I don't expect you're armed, Phil?" Jim put the statement as a +question. + +"Nope. Are you?" + +"No, I ain't. Didn't think of it when I started. Oh, well, we'll make +out. Like enough there will be no need of guns." + +A gray light was sifting into the sky, and still they rode, winding up +toward the peaks of the divide. Jim, leading the way, drew rein and +pointed to a cactus bush beside the trail. Among its spines lay a gray +felt hat. From it his eye wandered to the very evident signs of a +struggle that had taken place. Moss and cactus had been trampled down by +boot heels. To the cholla hung here and there scraps of cloth. A blood +splash stared at them from an outcropping slope of rock. + +Jim swung from the saddle and rescued the hat from the spines. Inside +the sweat band were the initials L.K. Silently he handed the hat to +Phil. + +"It's his hat," the boy cried. + +"It's his hat," Jim agreed. "They must have laid for him here. He put up +a good scrap. Notice how that cholla is cut to ribbons. Point is, what +did they do to him?" + +They searched the ground thoroughly, and discovered no body hidden in +the brush. + +"They've taken him away. Likely he's alive," Yeager decided aloud at +last. + +"Brill couldn't have been in this. He was at the Frying Pan before I +was." + +"I reckon he ordered it done. If that's correct they will be holding +Larry till Brill gets there to give further orders." + +Phil entered an objection. "That doesn't look to me like Brill's way. +He's not scared of any man that lives. When he squares accounts with +Keller he'll be on the job himself." + +"That's so, too," admitted Yeager. "Still, I figure this is Healy's +work. Maybe he gave out there was to be no killing. He was at the ranch +himself, big as coffee, so as to be sure of his alibi." + +"What does he care about an alibi? When he gets ready to go gunnin' +after Keller he won't care if the whole Malpais sees him. There's +something in this I don't _sabe_." + +"There sure is. We've got to run the thing down _muy pronto_. No use +both of us going ahead without arms, Phil. My notion is this: You burn a +shuck back to the Frying Pan and round up some of our friends on the +q.t. Don't let Brill get a notion of what's in the air. Better make +straight for Gregory's Pass. I'm going to follow this trail we've cut +and see what's doing. Once I find out I'll double back to the Pass and +meet you. Bring along an extra gun for me." + +"I don't reckon I will, Jim. What's the matter with me going on instead +of you? I can follow this trail good as you can. I announce right here +that I'm not going back. I've got first call on this job. Keller went +into the fire after me. I'm going to follow this trail to hell if I have +to." + +Yeager tried persuasion, argument, appeal. The lad was as fixed as +Gibraltar. + +"I'm not going to go buttin' in where I'm not wanted any more than you +would, Jim. I'll play this hand out with a cool head, but I'm going to +play it my ownself." + +"All right. It's your say-so. I'll admit you've got a claim. But you +want to remember one thing--if anything happens to you I cayn't square +it with Phyl. Go slow, boy!" + +Without more words they parted, Jim to ride swiftly back for help, and +young Sanderson to push on up the trail with his eyes glued to it. Ever +since he could swing himself to a saddle he had been a vaquero in the +cow country. + +He was therefore an expert at reading the signs left by travellers. What +would have been invisible to a tenderfoot offered evidence to him as +plain as the print on a primer. Mile after mile he covered with a minute +scrutiny that never wavered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY + + +Keller rode blithely down the piney trail while the sun flung its +brilliant good-bye over the crotch of the mountains behind which it was +slipping. The western sky was a Turner sublimated to the _nth_ degree, a +thing magnificent and indescribable. The young man rode with his crisp +curls bared to the light, grateful breeze that came like healing from +the great peaks. From the joyous, unquenchable youth in him bubbled +snatches of song and friendly smiles scattered broadcast over a world +that pleased him mightily. + +He was going to see his girl, going down to the Frying Pan to take her +in his arms and whirl her into the land of romance to the rhythm of the +waltz. He wanted to shout it out to the chipmunks and the quails. Ever +and again he broke out with a line or two of a melody he had heard once +from a phonograph. No matter if he did not get the words exactly. He was +sure of the sentiment. So the hills flung back his lusty: + + "I love a lassie, + A bonnie Hieland lassie, + She's as pure as the lily of the dell." + +Disaster fell upon him like a bolt out of a June sky. His pony +stumbled, went down heavily with its weight on his leg. From the +darkness men surged upon him. Rough hands dragged at him. The butt of a +weapon crashed down on his hat and stunned him. + +He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he was +struggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down. He +knew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously with +both hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steel +flashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag pain +that blotted out the world. + +As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters a +far-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him. + +"He's coming to, looks like. I reckon you ain't bust his head, after +all, Brad." + +Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze. Slowly these took +form. Features stood out. The masks became faces. They no longer floated +detached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings. + +"It ain't our fault if you're stove up some, pardner. You're too durned +anxious to whip yore weight in wildcats," one of the men grinned. + +"Right you are, Tom. He shore hits like a kicking mule," chimed in a +third, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone. + +A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "No +hard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave a +final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner. + +"I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nester +quietly. + +"We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfit +doesn't run any information bureau," answered the heavy-set, sullen +fellow who had been called Brad. + +There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one of +them, if not two. The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one was +Brad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit. + +They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voiced +consultation. Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south, +while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across the +horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding +among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Through +the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parks +beyond. + +This region was the heart of the watershed where Little Goose Creek +heads. The peaks rose gaunt above them. Occasionally they glimpsed wide +vistas of tangled, wooded caƱons and hills innumerable as sea billows. +Into this maze they plunged ever deeper and deeper. Daylight came, and +found them still travelling. The prisoner did not need to be told that +this inaccessible country was the lurking place of the rustlers who had +preyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence to +connect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rode +in and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands while +honest folks kept their beds. + +The sun was well up to its meridian before they came through a thick +clump of quaking aspens to the mouth of a gulch opening from the end of +a little mountain park. On one of the slopes of the gulch a cabin +squatted, half hidden by the great boulders and the matting of pine +boughs in front. Here Brad swung stiffly from the saddle. + +"We'll 'light hyer," he announced. + +"Time, too," returned Keller easily. "If anybody asks you, tell them I +usually eat breakfast some before ten o'clock." + +"You'll do yore eating from now on when I give the word," his guard +answered surlily. + +He was a big, dark man with a grouch, one who took his duties sourly. +Not by any stretch of imagination could he be considered a brilliant +conversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, but +for the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surly +monosyllables. + +There was a good deal of the cave man about him. The heavy, slouching +shoulders, the glare of savagery, the long, hairy arms, all had their +primordial suggestion. Given a club and a stone ax, he might have been +set back thousands of years with no injustice to his mentality. + +The man soon had a fire blazing in the stove, and from it came a +breakfast of bacon, black coffee, and biscuits. He freed the hands of +the nester and sat opposite him at the table, a revolver by the side of +his plate for use in an emergency. + +Keller smiled. "This is one of those fashionable dinners where they have +extra hardware beside the plates," he suggested. + +"Get gay, and I'll blow the top of yore head off!" the cow-puncher swore +with gusto. + +"Thanks. Under the circumstances, I reckon I'll not get gay. I'm in no +hurry to put you in the pen, seh. Plenty of time. I'm going to need the +top of my head to testify against you." + +Irwin swore violently. + +"For two cents I'd pump you full of holes right now," he glared. + +Keller laughed, meeting him eye to eye pleasantly. + +"Those aren't the orders, friend. I'm to be held here till the boss +shows up or gives the signal." + +The big jaw of his captor fell from astonishment. "Who told you that?" + +The prisoner helped himself to more bacon and laughed again. He had made +a guess, but he knew now that he had hit the bull's-eye with his shot in +the dark. + +"Some things don't need telling. I don't have to be told, for instance, +that if things get too hot for Brill Healy he will slide out and leave +you to settle the bill with the law." + +Irwin's eyes glared angrily at his smiling ones. The unabashed +impudence, the unfluttered aplomb, but above all the uncanny prescience +of this youth disturbed him because he could not understand them. +Moreover, it happened that his suspicious mind had lingered on the +chance of a betrayal at the hands of his chief. For which very reason he +broke into angry denial. + +"That's a lie! Brill ain't that sort. He'd stand pat to a finish." Then, +tardily, came the instinct for caution. "And there's nothing to tell, +anyways," he finished sulkily. + +"Sure. What's a little rustling and a little bank robbing among +friends?" Keller wanted to know cheerfully. + +For just an instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffian +opposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. He +caught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger. + +His prisoner, leaning back in the chair, held him with quiet, unwavering +eyes. "Steady! Steady!" he drawled. + +"That will be about enough from you," Irwin let out through set teeth. +"You padlock that mouth of yours, mister." + +Keller took his advice temporarily, but it was not in him to long +repress the spirit of adventure that bubbled in him. The temptation to +bait this bear drew him irresistibly. He could not let him alone, the +more that he sensed the danger to himself of the prods he sent home +through the thick skin. + +Lying carelessly on the bed with his head on his arm, or perhaps sitting +astride a chair with his hands crossed on the back support, he would +smile with childlike innocence and sent his barbs in gayly. And Irwin, +murder in his dull brain, would glare at him like a maniac. + +"Now would be a good time to blow off the top of my cocoanut," the +nester suggested more than once to the infuriated cave man. "I'm +allowing, you know, to send you to Yuma as soon as I get out of this. +Nothing like grabbing your opportunity by the forelock." + +"And when are you expecting to get out of here?" his guard demanded +huskily. + +Keller waved his hand with airy persiflage. "No exact information +obtainable, my friend. Likely to-day. Maybe not till to-morrow. The one +dead-sure point is that I'll make my getaway at the right time." + +"There's one more dead-sure point--that I'm going to blow holes in you +at the right time," retorted the other. + +"Like to bet on which of us is a true prophet?" + +Brad relapsed into black, sulky silence. + +The hours followed each other, and still nobody came to relieve the +guard. Keller could not understand the reason for this, any more than +he could fathom an adequate one for his abduction. There was of course +something behind it--something more potent than mere malice. If the +intention had been merely to kill him, the thing could have been done +without all this trouble. But though he searched his brain for an +explanation, he could not find one that satisfied. + +The answer came to him later in the day. In the middle of the afternoon +a horse pounded up the draw to the cabin. Irwin went to the door, his +eye still on his prisoner, except for a swift glance at the newcomer. + +"How's yore five-thousand-dollar beauty, Brad?" inquired a voice that +the nester recognized. + +"Finer than silk, boss." + +The rider swung from the saddle, trailed his rein, and came with +jingling spurs into the cabin. + +"Good evening, Mr. Keller," he said with derisive respect. + +The nester, lying sideways on the bed with his head on his hand, nodded +a greeting. + +"I didn't know you and Mr. Irwin had doubled up and were bunkies," +continued the jubilant voice. "When did you-all patch up the +partnership?" + +"About eight o'clock last night, Mr. Healy," returned the prisoner, +eying him coolly. "And of course I knew it would be a surprise to you +when you learned it." + +"Expecting to stay long with him?" + +"He seems right hospitable, but I don't reckon I'll outstay my welcome." + +Healy laughed, with mockery and not amusement. "Brad's such a pressing +host there's no telling when he'll let you go." + +He was as malevolent as ever, but it was plain to be seen that he was +riding high on a wave of triumph. Affairs were plainly going to his +liking. + +"The way I heard it you were expected down at the Frying Pan last night. +Changed yore mind about going, I reckon," he went on insolently. + +"I reckon." + +"Had business that detained you, maybe." + +"You're a good guesser." + +"Folks were right anxious down there, according to the say-so that +reached me." + +Keller's cool eye measured him in silence, at which his enemy laughed +contemptuously and turned on his heel. + +Healy drew his confederate to one side of the room and held a whispered +talk with him. Apparently he did not greatly care whether his foe caught +the drift of it or not, for occasionally his voice lifted enough so that +scraps of sentences reached the man lounging on the bed. + +"--close to two hundred head--by the Mimbres Pass--the boys are +ce'tainly pushing the drive--out of danger by midnight--wait for the +signal before you turn him loose----" + +"So-long, Mr. Keller. I cayn't spare the time to stay longer with you," +their owner jeered. + +"Just a moment, Mr. Healy. I want to know why you are keeping me here." + +The man grinned. "Am I keeping you here, seh? Looks to me like it was +Brad that's a-keeping you. Make a break for a getaway, and I'll not do a +thing to you. Course I cayn't promise what Brad won't do. He's such a +plumb anxious host." + +"You're his brains. What you tell him to do he does. I hold you +responsible for this!" + +"You don't say!" + +"And right now I'll add, for all the devilment that has been going on in +these parts for years. You've about reached the end of your rope, +though." + +"I'll bet dollars to doughnuts you reach the end of one inside of +forty-eight hours, Mr. Rustler," flashed back Healy. + +And with an evil, significant grin he was gone. They heard the sound of +retreating hoofs die in the distance. + +But his visit had told the prisoner two things. A hurried wholesale +drive of rustled cattle was being made across the line into Sonora, and +it was being done in such a way as to fasten the suspicion of it upon +the nester who had not appeared at the dance and had not been seen since +that time. The irony of the thing was superb in its audacity. Healy and +his friends would get the profit from the stolen cattle, and they would +visit the punishment for the crime upon him. Evidence would be cooked +up of course, and the retribution would be so swift that his friends +would not be able to save him. This time his enemy would take no +chances. He would be wiped out like a troublesome insect. The thing was +diabolic in the simplicity of its cleverness. + +Keller watched his jailer now like a hawk. He was ready to take the +first chance that offered, no matter how slight a one it seemed. But the +man was vigilant and wary. He never let his hand wander a foot from the +handle of the weapon he carried. + +Silently Irwin cooked a second meal. They sat down to it opposite each +other, Keller facing the open window. While his jailer plied the knife, +his revolver again lay on the oilcloth within reach. + +"While I'm your guest and eating at your expense, I want to be properly +grateful," the nester told his vis-Ć -vis. "Some folks might kick because +the me-an'-you wasn't more varied, but I ain't that kind. You're doing +your best, and nobody could do more." + +"The which?" asked Irwin puzzled. + +"The me-an'-you. It's French for just plain grub. For breakfast we get +bacon and coffee and biscuits. For supper there's a variety. This time +it is biscuits and coffee and bacon. To-morrow I reckon----" + +Keller stopped halfway in his sentence, but took up his drawling comment +again instantly. Only an added sparkle in his eyes betrayed the change +that had suddenly wiped out his indolence and left him tense and alert. +For while he had been speaking a head had slowly raised itself above the +window casement and two eyes had looked in and met his. They belonged to +Phil Sanderson. + +Never had the brain of the prisoner been more alert. While his garrulous +tongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held up +empty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by the +flicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man at +table with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that moment +addressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. To +the other it was pregnant with meaning. + +"No, seh. Some might complain because you ain't better provided with +grub and fixings, but what I say is _to make out the best we can with +what we've got_," the slow, drawling voice continued. "Some folks cayn't +get along unless things are up to the Delmonico standard. That's plumb +foolishness. Reminds me of a friend of mine that happened on a grizzly +onct while he was cutting trail. + +"Not expecting to meet Mr. Bear, he didn't have any gun along. Mr. Bear +was surely on the wah-path that day. He made a bee line for my friend to +get better acquainted. Nothing like presence of mind. That cow-puncher +got his rope coiled in three shakes of a maverick's tail, his pinto +bucking for fair to make his getaway. The rope drapped over Mr. Bear's +head just as the puncher and the hawss separated company. + +"Things were doing right sudden then. My friend grabbed the end of that +rope and twisted it round and round a young live oak. Then he remembered +an appointment and lit out, Mr. Bear after him on the jump. _Muy pronto_ +that grizzly came up awful sudden. The more he jerked the nearer he was +to being choked. You better believe Mr. Puncher was hitting that trail +right willing in the meanwhile." + +"You talk too much with yore mouth," growled Irwin. + +"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races. I was just aiming +to show you that _if my friend hadn't happened to have a rope along he +would have been in a bad fix_. But, you notice, he used his brains, _and +a rope did just as well as a gun_." + +The eyes just above the window casing disappeared. Brad attended to the +business in hand, which was that of getting away with bacon and biscuits +while he kept an eye on the man opposite. His prisoner also did justice +to his supper, to his flow of conversation, and to the window behind the +unconscious jailer. + +In that open window were presently framed again the head and shoulders +of young Sanderson. Irwin pushed back his chair to get some more coffee, +and the picture in the frame shot instantly down. The guard, his coffee +cup, and his revolver went to the stove and returned. Phil reappeared +at the window, his rope coiled for action. It slid gracefully forward, +dropped over the head of Brad, and was instantly jerked tight. + +Keller vaulted across the table, and flung himself upon the struggling +man. Brad's arms were entangled in the rope, but one leg shot out and +hurled back the nester. But before he could free himself from the taut +loop his prisoner was upon him again and had borne him to the ground. + +Of the two, Irwin was far the more powerful, Keller the more agile and +supple. He knew every trick of the wrestling game, whereas the other was +clumsy and muscle-bound. By main strength the older man got to his feet +again. Over went the table as they surged against it. + +A chair, stamped into kindling, was hurled aside by the force of their +impact. The stove rocked, and the bed collapsed as the locked figures +crashed down upon it. The ranger, twisting as they fell, landed on top +and his fingers instantly found the throat of his foe. Simultaneously +Phil came to his assistance. + +Even then, taken at an advantage, with two much younger men against him, +the big jailer fought to the finish like a bear. Not till he was +completely exhausted and they nearly so did he give up and lie quiet. +All three of them panted heavily, the allies lying across his chest and +legs. The nester managed to draw the loop taut about Irwin's neck and +insert his knuckles so that he could use them as a tourniquet if +necessary. + +"Gather up the other end of the rope, loop it, and tie his feet +together," the nester ordered, getting his sentence out in fragmentary +jerks. + +Phil did so, deftly and expertly, after which, in spite of renewed +struggles, they tied the hands of their prisoner behind his back. + +"Looks like a cyclone had hit the room," said the boy, glancing at the +debris. + +Larrabie laughed. "He's the most willing mixer I ever saw." + +"What are you going to do with him?" + +"We'll leave him tied right where he is. When we get down into the +settlement we'll notify his friends, though I reckon they'll find him +without any help from us." + +In order to make sure they went over the knots again, tightening them +here and there. The revolver and the rifle of the bound man they +appropriated. The nester's horse was in a little corral back of the +house. He saddled, and shortly the two were on the back trail. Phil knew +the country as a golfer knows his links. To him Keller put the question +in his mind: + +"How far is the Mimbres Pass from here, and in what direction?" + +The younger man looked at him in surprise. "A dozen miles, I reckon. See +that cleft over there? That's the Mimbres." + +His friend drew rein and looked with level eyes at him. + +"Phil, it's come to a show-down! Are you for Brill Healy or are you for +me?" + +"I'm through with Brill." + +"Dead sure of that?" + +"Dead sure. Why?" + +"Because you've got to make your choice to-night whether you're going to +stand with honest men or thieves. Healy's gang is rustling a bunch of +cows gathered at the round-up. They're heading for Mimbres Pass. I'm +going to stop them if I can." + +"I'm with you, Larry." + +"Good! I was sure of you, Phil." + +The boy flushed, but his eyes did not waver. "I want to tell you +something. That day we most caught you over the dead cow of the C.O. +outfit Brill was carrying Phyl's knife. I had lent it to him the night +before." + +Keller nodded. "I had figured it out that way." + +"But that ain't all. Once when I was cutting trail in the hills--must +have been about six months before that time--I happened on Brill driving +a calf still bleeding from the brand he had put on it. + +"I didn't think anything of that, but I noticed he was anxious to have +me turn and join him. But I kept on the way I was going, and just by a +miracle my pony almost stumbled over a dead cow lying in the brush. That +set me thinking. That night I rode over to Healy's and asked an +explanation. + +"He had one ready. Some one else must have killed the cow. He found the +calf wandering about alone, and branded it. Somehow his story didn't +quite satisfy me, but I wasn't ready then to think him a coyote. I liked +him--always had. And it flattered me that he had picked me out to be his +best friend. So I said nothing, and figured it out that he was on the +square. Of course I knew he was reckless and wild, but I didn't like him +any the less for that. I reckon nobody ever accused him of not being +game." + +"Hardly," smiled Keller. "He'll stand the acid that way." + +"The thing that stuck in my craw was his lying about seeing you on the +night of the bank robbery. He said you were riding the roan with white +stockings. Later we found out that couldn't be true. Then I knew Jim was +telling the truth about you being with him in the hills at the time. It +kind of sifted to me by degrees that you were a white man and he was a +skunk." + +"And then?" + +"Then we had it out one day. He had his reason for wanting to stand well +with me. I reckon you know what it is." + +"I know his reason. No man could have a better. I reckon I've a right to +think so, Phil, because she has promised to marry me." + +The boy shook hands with him impulsively. "I'm right glad to hear +it--and I want to say they don't make girls any better than Phyl." + +"That's not news to me. I have known it since the first time I saw her." + +Sanderson returned to the order of the day. "Well, Brill and I had had +one or two tiffs, mostly about you and Phyl. He saw I was changed toward +him, and he wanted to know why. I let him have it straight, and since +then we haven't been friends." + +"I'm glad of that. It makes plain sailing for me. He's got to be run +down and caged, Phil. Healy is at the head of all this rustling that has +been troubling the Malpais country. His gang stuck up the Diamond Nugget +stage, killed Sheriff Fowler, and robbed the Noches Bank." + +"How could he have robbed the bank when he was seen fifty miles from +there not two hours afterward?" + +Keller briefly explained his theory then pushed on at once to his plans. + +"I'm going to make straight for the Mimbres Pass while you go back and +rustle help. I'll try to keep them from getting through the Pass until +you close in on them behind." + +"That don't look good to me. How do I know how long it will be before I +can gather the boys together or find Jim and his outfit? You might be +massacred before I got back." + +"A man has to take his fighting chance." + +"Then let me take mine. We'll hold the pass together. I'll bet we can. +Don't you reckon?" + +"What use would you be without a rifle? No, Phil, you'll have to bring +up the reinforcements. That's the best tactics." + +Sanderson protested eagerly, but in the end was overborne. They turned +their backs upon each other, one headed for the Mimbres and the other +for the trail that ran down to the Malpais country. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE MAN-HUNT + + +When Jim Yeager separated from Phil after their discovery of Keller's +hat and the deductions they drew from it, the former turned his pony +toward the Frying Pan. Daylight had already broken before he came in +sight of it, but sounds of revelry still issued boisterously from the +house. + +As he drew near there came to him the squeal of sawing riddles, the +high-pitched voice of the dance caller in sing-song drawl, the shuffling +of feet keeping time to the rhythm of the music. For though a new day +was at hand, the quadrilles continued with unflagging vigor, one +succeeding another as soon as the floor was cleared. + +The cow country takes its amusements seriously. A dance is infrequent +enough to be an event. Men and women do not ride or drive from thirty to +fifty miles without expecting to drink the last drop of pleasure there +may be in the occasion. + +As Jim swung from the saddle, a slim figure in white glided from the +shadow of the wild cucumber vines that rioted over one end of the porch. + +"Well, Jim?" + +The man came to the point with characteristic directness. "He has been +waylaid, Phyl. We found his hat and the place where they ambushed him." + +"Is he----" Her voice died at the word, but her meaning was clear. + +"I don't think it. Looks like they were aiming to take him prisoner +without hurting him. They might easily have shot him down, but the +ground shows there was a struggle." + +"And you came back without rescuing him?" she reproached. + +"Phil and I were unarmed. I came back to get guns and help." + +"And Phil?" + +"He's following the trail. I wanted him to let me while he came back. +But he wouldn't hear to it. Said he had to square his debt to Larry." + +"Good for Phil!" his sister cried, eyes like stars. + +"Is Brill still here?" he asked. + +"No. He rode away about an hour ago. He was very bitter at me because I +wouldn't dance with him. Said I'd curse myself for it before twenty-four +hours had passed. He must have Larry in his power, Jim." + +"Looks like," he nodded, and added grimly: "If you do any regretting +there will be others that will, too." + +She caught the lapels of his coat and looked into his face with +extraordinary intensity. "I'm going back with you, Jim. You'll let me, +won't you? I've waited--and waited. You can't think what an awful night +it has been. I can't stand it any longer! I'll go mad! Oh, Jim, you'll +take me, I know!" Her hands slipped down to his and clung to them with +passionate entreaty. + +"Why, honey, I cayn't. This is likely to be war before we finish. It +ain't any place for girls." + +"I'll stay back, Jim. I'll do whatever you say, if you'll only let me +go." + +He shook his head resolutely. "Cayn't be done, girl. I'm sorry, but you +see yourself it won't do." + +Nor could all her beseechings move him. Though his heart was very tender +toward her he was granite to her pleadings. At last he put her aside +gently and stepped into the house. + +Going at once to the fiddlers, he stopped the music and stood on the +little rostrum where they were seated. Surprised faces turned toward +him. + +"What's up, Jim?" demanded Slim, his arm still about the waist of Bess +Purdy. + +"A man was waylaid while coming to this dance and taken prisoner by his +enemies. They mean to do him a mischief. I want volunteers to rescue +him." + +"Who is it?" several voices cried at once. + +"The man I mean is Larrabie Keller." + +A pronounced silence followed before Slim drawled an answer: + +"Cayn't speak for the other boys, but I reckon I haven't lost any +Kellers, Jim." + +"Why not? What have you got against him?" + +"You know well enough. He's under a cloud. We don't say he's a rustler +and a bank robber, but then we don't say he ain't." + +"I say he isn't! Boys, it has come to a show-down. Keller is a member of +the Rangers, sent here by Bucky O'Connor to run down the rustlers." + +Questions poured upon him. + +"How do you know?" + +"How long have you known?" + +"Who told you?" + +"Why didn't he tell us so himself, then?" + +Jim waited till they were quiet. "I've seen letters from the governor to +him. He didn't come here declaring his intentions because he knew there +would be nothing doing if the rustlers knew he was in the neighborhood. +He has about done his work now, and it's up to us to save him before +they bump him off. Who will ride with me to rescue him?" + +There was no hesitation now. + +Every man pushed forward to have a hand in it. + +"Good enough," nodded Yeager. "We'll want rifles, boys. Looks to me like +hell might be a-popping before mo'ning grows very ancient. We'll set out +from Turkey Creek Crossroads two hours from now. Any man not on hand +then will get left behind. + +"And remember--this is a man hunt! No talking, boys. We don't want the +news that we're coming spread all over the hills before we arrive." + +As Jim descended from the rostrum, his roving gaze fell on Phyl +Sanderson standing in the doorway. Her fears had stolen the color even +from her lips, but the girl's beauty had never struck him more +poignantly. + +Misery stared at him out of her fine eyes, yet the unconscious courage +of her graceful poise--erect, with head thrown back so that he could +even see the pulse beat in the brown throat--suggested anything but +supine surrender to her terror. Before he could reach her she had +slipped into the night, and he could not find her. + +Men dribbled in to the Turkey Creek Crossroads along as many trails as +the ribs of a fan running to a common centre. Jim waited, watch open, +and when it said that seven o'clock had come he snapped it shut and gave +the word to set out. + +It was a grim, business-like posse, composed of good men and true who +had been sifted in the impartial sieve of life on the turbid frontier. +Moreover, they were well led. A certain hard metallic quality showed in +the voice and eye of Jim Yeager that boded no good for the man who faced +him in combat to-day. He rode with his gaze straight to the front, +toward that cleft in the hills where lay Gregory's Pass. The others fell +in behind, a silent, hard-bitten outfit as ever took the trail for that +most dangerous of all big game--the hidden outlaw. + +The little bunch of riders had not gone far before Purdy, who was +riding in the rear, called to Yeager. + +"Somebody coming hell-to-split after us, Jim." + +It turned out to be Buck Weaver, who had been notified by telephone of +what was taking place. A girl had called him up out of his sleep, and he +had pounded the road hard to get in at the finish. + +Jim explained the situation in a few words and offered to yield command +to the owner of the Twin Star ranch. But Buck declined. + +"You're the boss of this _rodeo_, Yeager. I'm riding in the ranks +to-day." + +"How did you hear we were rounding-up to-day?" Jim asked. + +"Some one called me up," Buck answered briefly, but he did not think it +necessary to say that it was Phyllis. + +Behind them, unnoticed by any, sometimes hidden from sight by the rise +and fall of the rough ground, sometimes silhouetted against the sky +line, rode a slim, supple figure on a white-faced cow pony. Once, when +the fresh morning wind swept down a gulch at an oblique angle, it lifted +for an instant from the stirrup leather what might have been a gray +flag. But the flag was only a skirt, and it signalled nothing more +definite than the courage and devotion of a girl who knew that the men +she loved best on earth were in danger. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE ROUND-UP + + +The Mimbres Pass narrows toward the southern exit where Point o' Rocks +juts into the caƱon and commands it like a sentinel. Toward this column +of piled boulders slowly moved a cloud of white dust, at the base of +which crept a band of hard-driven cattle. Swollen tongues were out, +heads stretched forward in a bellow for water taken up by one as another +dropped it. The day was still hot, though the sun had slipped down over +the range, and the drove had been worked forward remorselessly. Every +inch that could be sweated out of them had been gained. + +For those that pushed them along were in desperate hurry. Now and again +a rider would twist round in his saddle to sweep back a haggard glance. +Dust enshrouded them, lay heavy on every exposed inch; but through it +seams of anxiety crevassed their leathern faces. Iron men they were, +with one exception. Fight they could and would to the last ditch. But +behind the jaded, stony eyes lay a haunting fear, the never-ending dread +of a pursuit that might burst upon them at any moment. Driven to the +wall, they would have faced the enemy like tigers, with a fierce, +exultant hate. It was the never-ending possibility of disaster that lay +heavily upon them. + +Just as they entered the pass, a man came spurring up the steep trail +behind them. The drag drivers shouted a warning to those in front and +waited alertly with weapons ready. The man trying to overtake them waved +a sombrero as a flag of truce. + +"Keep an eye on him, Tom. If he makes a move that don't look good to +you, plug him!" ordered the keen-eyed man beside one of the drag +drivers. + +"I'm bridle wise, boss." But though he spoke with bravado Dixon shook +like an aspen in a breeze. + +The man he had called boss looked every inch a leader. He rode with the +loose seat and the straight back of the Westerner to the saddle born. +Just now he was looking back with impassive, reddened eyes at the +approaching figure. + +"Hold on, Tom! Don't shoot! It's Brad," he decided. "And I wonder what +in Mexico he is doing here." + +The leader of the outlaws was soon to learn. Irwin told the story of the +strategy that had changed him from jailer to prisoner and of the way he +had later freed himself from the rope that bound him. + +Healy unloaded his sentiments with an emphasis that did the subject +justice. Nevertheless he could not see that their plans were seriously +affected. + +"It's a leetle premature, but his getaway doesn't cut any ice. What we +want to do is to nail him, clamp the evidence home, and put him out of +business before his friends can say Jack Robinson. The story now is that +he was caught driving a little bunch of cows to met the big bunch his +pals were rustling, and that we left him in charge of Brad while we +tried to run down the other waddies. Understand, boys?" + +They did, and admired the more the versatility of a leader who could +make plans on the spur of the moment to meet any emergency. + +"We'll push right on, boys. Once we get through the pass it will trouble +anybody to find us. Before mo'ning you'll be across the line." + +"And you, Brill?" + +"I'm going back to settle accounts for good and all with Mr. Keller," +answered Healy grimly between set teeth. "I've got a notion about him. I +believe he's a spy." + +Just before Point o' Rocks a defile runs into the Mimbres Pass at right +angles. The leaders of the cattle, pushed forward by the pressure from +behind, stopped for a moment, and stood bawling at the junction. A rider +spurred forward to keep them from attempting the gulch. Suddenly he +dragged his pony to its haunches, so quickly did he stop it. For a clear +voice had called down a warning as if from the heavens: + +"You can't go this way! The Pass is closed!" + +The rider looked up in amazement, and beheld a man standing on the +ledge above with a rifle resting easily across his forearm. + +"By Heaven, it's Keller!" the rustler muttered. + +He wheeled as on a half dollar, pushed his way back along the edge of +the wall past the cattle, and shouted to his chief: + +"We're trapped, Brill!" + +None of the outlaws needed that notification. Five pair of eyes had +lifted to the ledge upon which Keller stood. The shock of the surprise +paralyzed them for an instant. For it occurred to none of the five that +this man would be standing there so quietly unless he were backed by a +posse sufficient to overpower them. He had not the manner of a man +taking a desperate chance. The situation was as dramatic as life and +death, but the voice that had come down to them had been as +matter-of-fact as if it had asked some one to pass him a cup of coffee +at the breakfast table. + +The temper of the outlaws' metal showed instantly. Dixon dropped his +rifle, threw up his hands, and ran bleating to the cover of some large +rocks, imploring the imagined posse not to shoot. Others found silently +what shelter they could. Healy alone took reckless counsel of his hate. + +Flinging his rifle to his shoulder, he blazed away at the figure on the +ledge--once, twice, three times. When the smoke cleared the ranger was +no longer to be seen. He was lying flat on his rock like a lizard, where +he had dropped just as his enemy whipped up his weapon to fire. Cold as +chilled steel, in spite of the fire of passion that blazed within him, +Healy slid to the ground on the far side of his horse and, without +exposing himself, slowly worked to the loose boulders bordering the edge +of the canon bed. + +The bawling of the cattle and the faint whimpering of Dixon alone +disturbed the silence. Healy and his confederates were waiting for the +other side to show its hand. Meanwhile the leader of the outlaws was +thinking out the situation. + +"I believe there's only two of them, Bart," he confided in a low voice +to the big fellow lying near. "Keller must have heard us when we talked +it over at the shack. I reckon he and Phil hit the trail for here +immediate. They hadn't time to go back and rustle help and still get +here before us. + +"We'll make Mr. Keller table his cards. I'm going to try to rush the +cattle through. We'll see at once what's doing. If they are too many for +us to do that we'll break for the gulch and fight our way out--that is, +if we find we're hemmed in behind, too." + +He called to the rest of the bandits and gave crisp instructions. At +sound of his sharp whistle four men leaped into sight, each making for +his horse. Dixon alone did not answer to the call. He lay white and +trembling behind the rock that sheltered him, physically unable to rise +and face the bullets that would rain down upon him. + +Keller, watching alertly from above, guessed what they would be at. His +rifle cracked twice, and two of the horses staggered, one of them +collapsing slowly. He had to show himself, and for three heartbeats +stood exposed to the fire of four rifles. One bullet fanned his cheek, a +second plunged through his coat sleeve, a third struck the rock at his +feet. While the echoes were still crashing, he was flat on his rock +again, peering over the edge to see their next move. + +"He's alone," cried Healy jubilantly. "Must have sent the kid back for +help. Bart, get Dixon's gun, steal up the ravine, and take him in the +rear. I'd go myself, but I can't leave the boys now." + +Slowly the cattle felt the impetus from behind, and began to move +forward. The voice above shouted a second warning. Healy answered with a +derisive yell. Keller again stood exposed on the ledge. + +Rifles cracked. + +This time the cattle detective was firing at men and not at horses, and +they in turn were pumping at him fast as they could work the levers. One +man went down, torn through and through by a rifle slug in his vitals. +Healy's horse twitched and staggered, but the rider was unhurt. The +officer on the ledge, a perfect target, was the heart of a very hail of +lead, but when he sank again to cover he was by some miracle still +unhurt. + +"They'll try a flank attack next time," Keller told himself. + +Up to date the honors were easily his. He had put three horses out of +commission and disabled one of the outlaws so badly that he would prove +negligible in the attack. Peering down, he could see Healy, with superb +contempt for the marksman above, slowly and carefully carry his wounded +comrade to shelter. The other men were already driven back to cover. The +cattle, excited by the firing, were milling round and round uneasily. + +Healy laid the wounded man down, knelt beside him, and gave him water +from his flask. The man was plainly hard hit, though he was not bleeding +much. + +"Where is it, Duke? Can I do anything for you, old fellow?" + +The dying man shook his head and whispered hoarsely: "I've got mine, +Brill. Shot to pieces. I'm dying right now. Get out while you can. Don't +mind me." + +His chief swore softly. "We'll get him right, Duke. Brad's after him +now. Buck up, old pard. You'll worry through yet." + +"Not this time, Brill. I've played rustler once too often." + +Keller, far up on the precipice, became aware of approaching riders long +before the outlaws below could see them. He counted eight--nine--ten +men, still black dots in a cloud of dust. This he knew must be Phil's +posse. + +If he could hold the rustlers for ten minutes more they would be caught +like rats in a trap. Once or twice he glanced behind him as a precaution +against some one of the enemy climbing Point o' Rocks from the defile, +but he gave this little consideration. He had not seen Brad when he +disappeared into the mesquite, and he supposed all of the rustlers were +still in the Pass five hundred feet below him. + +What he had expected was that they would force their way up the defile +for a quarter of a mile and strike the easy trail that ran from the rear +to the top of the Point. He wondered that this had not occurred to +Healy. + +In point of fact it had, but the outlaw leader knew that as they picked +their way among the broken boulders of the gulch bottom the enemy would +have them in the open for more than a hundred yards of slow going. He +had chosen the alternative of sending Brad quietly up the rough face of +the cliff. The other plan would do as a last resource if this failed. + +Healy believed that his enemy had been delivered into his hands. After +Keller had been killed they would toss his body down into the Pass, and +while his companions continued the drive to Mexico, Healy would return +to get help for Duke and spread the story he wanted to get out. The main +features of that tale would be that he and Duke had cut their trail by +accident, suspected rustling, and followed as far as the Mimbres Pass, +where Keller had shot Duke and been in turn shot by Healy. + +It was a neat plan, and one that would have been fairly sure of success +but for one unforeseen contingency--the approach of Yeager's posse a +half hour too soon. Healy heard them coming, knew he was trapped, and +attempted to force an escape through the narrows in front of Point o' +Rocks. + +The milling cattle had jammed the gateway. Keller, shooting down one or +two of them, blocked the exit still more. Healy and his confederates +could not get through, and turned to try the defile just as the first of +the posse came flying down the Pass. + +Young Sanderson was in the van, a hundred yards in front of Yeager, +dashing over the uneven ground in a reckless haste that Jim's slower +horse could not match. Loose shale was flying from his pony's hoofs as +it pounded forward. The outlaws just beat him to the mouth of the +intersecting gulch. Dragging his broncho to a slithering halt, he fired +twice at the retreating men. He had taken no time to aim, and his +bullets went wild. + +Brill laughed in mockery, covered him deliberately with his rifle, and +just as deliberately raised the barrel and fired into the air. The +distance was scarce a hundred yards. Phil could not doubt that his +former friend had purposely spared his life. The boy's rifle dropped +from his shoulder. + +"Brill wouldn't shoot at me! I couldn't kill him!" he shouted to +Weaver, as the latter rode up. + +Buck nodded. "Let me have him!" And he plunged into the gorge after the +men that had disappeared. + +Twice Keller's rifle spat at Healy and his companion as they plowed +forward across the boulder bed, but the difficulty of shooting from far +above at moving figures almost directly below saved the rustlers. They +reached a thick growth of aspens and disappeared. Healy parted company +with his ally at the place where the trail to the summit of Point o' +Rocks led up. + +"Break south when you get out of the gulch, Sam. In half an hour it will +be night, and you'll be safe. So-long." + +"Where you going, Brill?" + +"I'm going to settle accounts with that dashed spy!" answered Healy, +with an epithet. "Inside of half an hour either Keller or I will be down +and out!" + +The outlaw took the stiff incline leisurely, for he knew Keller could +come down only this way, and he had no mind to let himself get so +breathed as to disturb the sureness of his aim. The aspen grove ran like +a forked tongue up the ridge for a couple of hundred yards. As Healy +emerged from it he saw a rider just disappearing over the shoulder of +the hill in front of him. For an instant he had an amazed impression +that the figure was that of a woman, but he dismissed this as absurd. +He went the more cautiously, for he now knew that there would be two for +him to deal with on the Point instead of one--unless Brad reached the +scene in time to assist him. + +The sound of a shot drifted down to him, followed presently by a far, +faint cry of terror. What had happened was this: + +Keller, turning away from the overhanging ledge from which he had seen +the outlaws vanish into the grove, looked down the long slope +preliminary to descending. He was surprised to see a horse and rider +halfway between him and the aspen tongue. To him, too, there came a +swift impression that it was a woman, and almost at once something in +the poise of the gallant figure told him what woman. His heart leaped to +meet her. He waved a hand, and broke into a run. + +But only for two strides. For there had come to him a warning. He swung +on his heel and waited. Again he heard the light rumble of shale, and +before that had died away a sinister click. Alert in every fiber, his +gaze swept the bluff--and stopped when it met a pair of beady eyes +peering at him over the edge of the precipice. + +The two pair of eyes fastened for what seemed like an eternity, but +could have been no longer than four ticks of a clock. Neither of the men +spoke. The outlaw fired first--wildly, for the arm which held the rifle +was cramped for space. Keller's revolver flashed an answer which tore +through Irwin's teeth and went out beneath his ear. With a furious oath +the man dropped his weapon and flung himself upward and forward, landing +in a heap almost at the feet of the detective. + +"Don't move!" ordered the latter. + +Brad writhed forward awkwardly, knew the shock of another heavy bullet +in his shoulder, and catching his foe by the legs dragged him from his +feet. Keller's revolver was jerked over the edge of the precipice as he +let go of it to close with the burly ruffian. + +Both of them were unarmed save for the weapons nature had given them. +The detailed purpose of the struggle defined itself at once. Irwin meant +by main strength to fling the detective into the gulf that descended +sheer for five hundred feet. The other fought desperately to save +himself by dragging his infuriated antagonist back from the edge. + +They grappled in silence, save for the heavy panting that evidenced the +tension of their efforts. Each tried to bear the other to the ground, to +establish a grip against which his foe would be helpless. Now they were +on their knees, now on their sides. Over and over they rolled, first one +and then the other on top, shifting so fast that neither could clinch +any temporary advantage. + +[Illustration: THEY GRAPPLED IN SILENCE SAVE FOR THE HEAVY PANTING THAT +EVIDENCED THE TENSION OF THEIR EFFORTS. _Page 340_] + +Yet Keller, with a flying glance at the cliff, knew that he was being +forced nearer the gulf by sheer strength of muscle. Irwin, his jaw +shattered and his shoulder torn, was not fighting to win, but to +kill. He cared not whether he himself also went to death. He was +obsessed by the old primeval lust to crush the life out of this lusty +antagonist, and his whole gigantic force was concentrated to that end. +He scarce knew that he was wounded, and he cared not at all. Backward +and forward though the battle went, on the whole it moved jerkily toward +the chasm. + +The end came with a suddenness of which Larrabie had but an instant's +warning in the swift flare of joy that lit the madman's face. His foot, +searching for a brace as he was borne back, found only empty space. +Plunged downward, the nester clung viselike to the man above, dragged +him after, and by the very fury of Irwin's assault flung him far out +into the gulf head-first. + +It was Phyl Sanderson's cry of horror that Healy heard. She had put her +horse up the steep at a headlong gallop, had seen the whole furious +struggle and the tragic end of it that witnessed two men hurled over the +precipice into space. She slipped from the saddle, and sank dizzily to +the ground, not daring to look over the cliff at what she would see far +below. Waves of anguish shot through her and shook her very being. + +A man bent over her, and gave a startled cry. + +"My heaven, it's Phyl!" he cried. + +"Yes." She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice he could not have recognized +as hers. + +"Where is he? What's become of him?" Healy demanded. + +She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke +down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf +of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature +could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to +the girl and touched her on the shoulder. + +"Come." + +She looked up, shuddering, and asked, "Where?" + +"With me." + +"With you? It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!" + +"Never mind that now. Come." + +"I hate you! I should kill you when I got a chance! Why should I go with +you?" she asked evenly. + +He did not know why. He had no definite plan. All he knew was that his +old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night +like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever +free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the +cliff. He could not give her up now. He would not. + +The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him. She was his. He +had won her by the fortune of war. He would keep her against all comers +so long as he had life to fight. Night was falling softly over the +hills. They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new +earth. + +He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse. She looked at him +in a silence that stripped him of his dreams. + +"Come!" he said again, between clenched teeth. + +"Not with you. I don't know you. Leave me alone. You killed him! You're +a murderer!" + +He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the +dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit. + +"Go away! Don't touch me! You and your miscreants killed him!" And with +that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of +him. + +He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him, +but none the less determined to take her with him. Across the border he +would not be a hunted man with a price on his head. They could be +married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her +love him and forget this man that had come between them. At all events, +he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his. He +stooped and caught her shoulder. She had fainted. + +A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its +own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man +stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a +rifle ready for instant action. + +"So it's you!" Healy cried with an oath. + +"Have you killed him?" + +The outlaw lied, with swift, unblazing passion: "Yes, Buck Weaver, and +tossed his body to the buzzards. Your turn now!" + +"Then who is that with you there?" + +"The woman you love, the woman that turned you and him down for me," +taunted his rival. "After I've killed you we're going off to be +married." + +"Only a coyote would stand behind a woman's skirts and lie. I can't kill +you there, and you know it." + +Healy asked nothing better than an even break. He might have killed with +impunity from where he stood. Yet pantherlike, he swiftly padded six +paces to the left, never lifting his eyes from his antagonist. + +Buck waited, motionless. "Are you ready?" + +The outlaw's weapon flashed to the level and cracked. Almost +simultaneously the other answered. Weaver felt a bullet fan his cheek, +but he knew that his own had crashed home. + +The shock of it swung Healy half round. The man hung in silhouette +against the sky line, then the body plunged to the turf at full length. +Buck moved forward cautiously, fearing a trick, his eyes fastened on the +other. But as he drew nearer he knew it was no ruse. The body lay supine +and inert, as lifeless as the clay upon which it rested. + +Once sure of this Buck turned immediately to Phyllis. A faint crackling +of bushes stopped him. He waited, his eyes fixed on the edge of the +precipice from which the sound had come. Next there came to him the +slipping of displaced rubble. He was all eyes and ears, tense and alert +in every pulse. + +From out of the gulf a hand appeared and groped for a hold. Weaver +stepped noiselessly to the edge and looked down. A torn and bleeding +face looked up into his. + +"Good heavens, Keller!" + +Buck was on his knees instantly. He caught the ranger's hand with both +of his and dragged him up. The rescued man sank breathless on the ground +and told his story in gasped fragments. + +"--caught on a ledge--hung to some bushes growing there--climbed up--lay +still when Healy looked over--a near thing--makes me sick still!" + +"It was a millionth chance that saved you--if it was a chance." + +"Where's Healy?" + +Weaver pointed to the body. "We fought it out. The luck was with me." + +A faint, glad, terrified little cry startled them both. Phyllis was +staring with dilated eyes at the man restored to her from the dead. He +got up and walked across to her with outstretched hands. + +"My little girl." + +"Oh, Larry! I don't understand. I thought----" + +He nodded. "I reckon God was good to us, sweetheart." + +Her arms crept up and round his neck. "Oh, boy--boy--boy. I thought +you were--I thought you were----" + +She broke down, but he understood. "Well, I'm not," he laughed happily. +Catching sight of Buck's grim, set face, Larrabie explained what scarce +needed an explanation. "You'll have to excuse us, I reckon. It's my day +for congratulations." + +Phyllis freed herself and walked across to her other lover. "My friend, +I know the answer now," she told him. + +"I see you do." + +"Don't--please don't be hurt," she begged. "I have to care for him." + +The hard, leathery face softened. "I lose, girl. But who told you I was +a bad loser? The best man wins. I've got no kick to register." + +"Not the best man," Keller corrected, shaking hands with his rival. + +Phyllis summed it up in woman fashion: "My man, whether he is the best +or not. It's just that a girl goes where her heart goes." + +Weaver nodded. "Good enough. Well, I'll be going. I expect you'll not +miss me." + +He turned and went down the hill alone. At the foot of it he met Jim +Yeager. + +"What about Brill?" the younger man asked quickly. + +"He'll never rustle another cow," Buck answered gravely. "I killed him +on the top of Point o' Rocks after an even break." + +"Duke has cashed in. Game to the last. Wouldn't say a word to implicate +his pals. But Tom has confessed everything. The boys slipped a noose +over his head, and he came through right away. + +"Says he and Duke and Irwin helped Healy rob the Noches Bank and do a +lot of other deviltry. It was just like Keller figured. The automobile +was waiting for the bunch with the showfer, and took them out the old +Fort Lincoln Road. Dixon knows where the gold is hidden, and is going to +show the boys." + +"That clears up everything, then. I judge we've made a pretty thorough +gather." + +Jim looked up and indistinctly saw the lovers coming slowly down through +the grove. Dusk had fallen and soon the cloak of night would be over the +mountains. + +"Who is that?" + +Buck did not look round. "I reckon it's Keller and his sweetheart. She +followed us here." + +"I told her not to come." + +"I expect she takes her telling from Mr. Keller." He changed the subject +abruptly. "We'll go on down to the boys and see what's doing. They'll be +some glad, I shouldn't wonder, at making a gather that cleans out the +worst bunch of cutthroats and rustlers in the Malpais. Don't you +reckon?" + +"I reckon," answered Yeager briefly. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mavericks, by William MacLeod Raine + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14520 *** diff --git a/14520-h/14520-h.htm b/14520-h/14520-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ca0ae2 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/14520-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10327 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mavericks, by William Macleod Raine. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + IMG{border: 0px; } + + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .note {margin-left: 2em; margin-right: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} /* footnote */ + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + .sidenote {width: 20%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 1em; padding-left: 1em; font-size: smaller; float: right; clear: right;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem span.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em;} + .poem .caesura {vertical-align: -200%;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14520 ***</div> + +<br /> + +<a name="illus1"><!-- Image 1 --></a> +<center><a href="images/001_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/001_sm.jpg" height="479" width="300" +alt="THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTION UPON +POSSIBLE PURSUIT. Frontispiece. Page 33" /> +</a> +</center> +<p style="text-align: center"><span style=' +font-weight:700'><small> +THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTION UPON +POSSIBLE PURSUIT. +(<a href="#riderslewed">Page 33</a>)</small></span></p> +<br /><br /> + +<h1>MAVERICKS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF</h3> + +<h3>WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, BUCKY O'CONNOR, A TEXAS RANGER, ETC.</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS BY</h3> + +<h2>CLARENCE ROWE</h2> +<br /> + +<center> +<img alt="logo" src="images/logo.jpg" /> +</center> +<br /> + +<h2>GROSSET & DUNLAP</h2> + +<h3>PUBLISHERS NEW YORK</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>1911 STREET & SMITH</h3> + +<h3>1912 G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY</h3> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h2>TO MY MOTHER</h2> + +<center><table summary=""In vain men tell us time can alter Old loves, or make old memories falter.""><tr><td> +"In vain men tell us time can alter<br /> + Old loves, or make old memories falter."<br /> +</td></tr></table></center> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<center> + <a href='#CHAPTER_I'><b>I. PHYLLIS</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_II'><b>II. THE NESTER</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_III'><b>III. CAUGHT RED-HANDED</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_IV'><b>IV. "I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?"</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_V'><b>V. AN AIDER AND ABETTOR</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_VI'><b>VI. A GOOD FRIEND</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_VII'><b>VII. A SHOT FROM AMBUSH</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'><b>VIII. MISS GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_IX'><b>IX. PUNISHMENT</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_X'><b>X. INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XI'><b>XI. TOM DIXON</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XII'><b>XII. THE ESCAPE</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'><b>XIII. A MISTAKE</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'><b>XIV. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XV'><b>XV. THE BRAND BLOTTER</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'><b>XVI. A WATERSPOUT</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'><b>XVII. THE HOLD-UP</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'><b>XVIII. BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'><b>XIX. THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XX'><b>XX. YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'><b>XXI. BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'><b>XXII. SURRENDER</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'><b>XXIII. AT THE RODEO</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'><b>XXIV. MISSING</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXV'><b>XXV. LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXVI'><b>XXVI. THE MAN HUNT</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXVII'><b>XXVII. THE ROUND-UP</b></a><br /> +</center> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<center> +<a href='#illus1'>The rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon possible pursuit.</a><br /> + +<a href='#illus2'>She drew back as if he had struck her, all the +sparkling eagerness driven from her face.</a><br /> + +<a href='#illus3'>"Drop that gun!"</a><br /> + +<a href='#illus4'>They grappled in silence save for the heavy +panting that evidenced the tension of their efforts.</a><br /> +</center> +<br /> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_I'></a><h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>PHYLLIS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which +wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land +waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind +the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as +the minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail from +the Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in a +voice young and glad.</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"My love has breath o' roses,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>O' roses, o' roses,<br /></span> +<span>And cheeks like summer posies<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>All fresh with morning dew,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>floated the words to her across the sunlit open.</p> + +<p>If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen, +silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm in +her eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit. +They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front of +her and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest.</p> + +<p>"Don't see me, do you?" he asked, smiling.</p> + +<p>Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon."</p> + +<p>"And you don't think you see much then?" he suggested lightly.</p> + +<p>She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of her +straight figure and the flash of her dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"Mad at me, Phyl?" Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle he +leaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing.</p> + +<p>The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, still +creeping antlike toward the hills.</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"My love has breath o' roses,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>O' roses, o' roses,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came.</p> + +<p>It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky good +looks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back a +rebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple.</p> + +<p>"Somebody's acting right foolish," he continued jauntily. "It was all in +fun, and in a game at that."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't playing," he heard, though the profile did not turn in the +least toward him.</p> + +<p>"Well, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower."</p> + +<p>"I don't play kissing games any more," she informed him with dignity.</p> + +<p>"Sho, Phyl! I told you 'twas only in fun," he justified himself. "A kiss +ain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl that +ever was kissed."</p> + +<p>She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of his +boldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks of +the boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a critic +might have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouth +lacked firmness.</p> + +<p>"So I've been told," she answered tartly.</p> + +<p>"Jealous?"</p> + +<p>"No," she exploded.</p> + +<p>Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein.</p> + +<p>"You don't need to depend on hearing," he said, moving toward her.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" she flared.</p> + +<p>"You remember well enough—at the social down to Peterson's."</p> + +<p>"We were children then—or I was."</p> + +<p>"And you're not a kid now?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish things +and now you have become a woman."</p> + +<p>Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>"After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't +it?" he bantered.</p> + +<p>"Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon," she flashed fiercely.</p> + +<p>Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she +was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what +dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the +home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still +slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would +awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on +the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid +rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks, +the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her +words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that +struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a +masculine impulse he did not analyse.</p> + +<p>"So you won't be friends?"</p> + +<p>If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness +easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way.</p> + +<p>"No, I won't." And she gave him her profile again.</p> + +<p>"Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about," he +said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward +him.</p> + +<p>With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him from her.</p> + +<p>Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgot +his expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childish +petulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which his +vanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bare +insult.</p> + +<p>"How dare you!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threw +herself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him. +Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillows +where she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for this +insult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eat +dirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again—never so +long as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southern +blood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she did +not once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or to +her brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And it +was in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interfere +with her external duties.</p> + +<p>As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the +bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a +kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began +streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had +already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the +waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official +cage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Noches +on the stage.</p> + +<p>From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into the +dining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing through +the window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grown +youngster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing hands +from the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery window +was raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and that +of Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently torn +from a notebook.</p> + +<p>"This here is for you, Phyl," he explained.</p> + +<p>She pushed it back. "I'm too busy to read it."</p> + +<p>"It's from Tom," he further volunteered.</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it +across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the +fragments through the window to the floor.</p> + +<p>"Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?" she coolly asked +the next in line over the tow head of Bud.</p> + +<p>The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through the +open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smothered +curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did not +look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she had +seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon, +a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down the +mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his return +journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it, +she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certain +they would not forget to "rub it in" when next they met Master Tom. She +promised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to the +cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage station +for their mail, to teach that young man his place.</p> + +<p>"I'll take a dollar's worth of two's."</p> + +<p>Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had +inherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the +sheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of +sardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle.</p> + +<p>"Any mail for Buck Weaver?"</p> + +<p>"No," she answered promptly without looking.</p> + +<p>"Sure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her, +for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He had +no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his +insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She +had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against +wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate +lawlessness.</p> + +<p>"I know my business, sir."</p> + +<p>Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim +Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of +extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he +felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter, +hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and +slipped an arm into that of her father.</p> + +<p>"This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver," he was saying. "It's +been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin' +you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh."</p> + +<p>"Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's +reason a-plenty for me," Weaver told him contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"But not for me, seh. When you come into my house——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't come into your house."</p> + +<p>"Why—why——"</p> + +<p>"Father!" implored the girl. "It's a government post-office. He has a +right here as long as he behaves."</p> + +<p>"H'm!" the old fire-eater snorted. "I'd be obliged just the same, Mr. +Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck."</p> + +<p>"Dad!" the girl begged.</p> + +<p>He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. "Now don't you worry, +honey. There ain't going to be any trouble—leastways none of my making. +I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin' down +whilst anybody tromples on me neither."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't try to do that here," Phyllis reminded him.</p> + +<p>Weaver laughed in grim irony. "I'm surely much obliged to you for +protecting me." And to the father he added carelessly: "Keep your shirt +on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I +reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail."</p> + +<p>With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious to +the last virile inch of him.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_II'></a><h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE NESTER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office +to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself while +waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat for +many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted. +For at this store the Malpais country bought its ammunition, its +tobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its opinions had sifted +down to convictions. From this common meeting ground the gossip of +Cattleland was scattered far and wide.</p> + +<p>Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was the +owner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle company in that +country. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he had +begun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place +then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his +own ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacable +daring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Those +that survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only the +settlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the big +man of the district, dominating its social, business, and political +activities.</p> + +<p>"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he asked +curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle.</p> + +<p>"That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nester +homesteaded there," old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobacco +with a noncommittal air.</p> + +<p>"Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwaters +of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be a +mighty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly.</p> + +<p>The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either small +cattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on the +business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated +so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Most +of them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they did +not usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joined +hand with him.</p> + +<p>"You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped."</p> + +<p>The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was in +the common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny +leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of +course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an +untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows. +He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther, +reckless and yet wary.</p> + +<p>"We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill," Buck told him.</p> + +<p>"If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out," Healy +replied.</p> + +<p>Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable to +roll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteaders +had taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most of +these were honest men, others suspected rustlers. But Buck's fiat had +not sufficed to keep them out. They had held stoutly to their own +and—he suspected—a good deal more than their own. Calves had been +branded secretly and cows killed or driven away.</p> + +<p>"Go to it, Brill," Weaver jeered. "I'm wishing you all the luck in the +world."</p> + +<p>He touched his pony with the spur and swept up the road in a cloud of +white dust.</p> + +<p>Not till he had disappeared did conversation renew itself languidly, for +Seven Mile Ranch was lying under the lethargy of a summery sun.</p> + +<p>"I expect Buck's got the right of it," volunteered a brawny youth known +as Slim. "All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of big +outfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious. +There's sure money in being a nester."</p> + +<p>Despite the soft drawl of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as did +the others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustling +must be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. The +thieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairly +outwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven across +the line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established +ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners +faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once +or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader +of the outlaws had saved the men by the most daring strategy.</p> + +<p>Healy, until lately foreman of the Twin Star outfit, had organized the +ranchmen as a protective association. In this he had represented Weaver, +himself not popular enough to coöperate with the other ranchmen. Once +Brill had led the pursuit of the rustlers and had come back furious from +a long futile chase. For among the cattle being driven across to Sonora +were five belonging to him.</p> + +<p>Other charges also lay against the hill outlaws. A stage had been robbed +with a gold shipment from the Diamond Nugget mine. A cattleman had been +held up and relieved of two thousand dollars, just taken as part payment +for a sale of beef steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while trying +to arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, and +lowered his voice to a whisper. "Boys, this thing has got to stop. I've +sent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he can. +Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got."</p> + +<p>Yeager nodded. "Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep. as +a cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he coming?"</p> + +<p>"He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a couple +of weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to drop +everything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job till +he finishes it right," Healy promised.</p> + +<p>"Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stop +this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin' +around till we're stole blind," assented Slim.</p> + +<p>"It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies have +been hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to him +to clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call on +you."</p> + +<p>"Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill," nodded one +little fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising from +the Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. "What's the name of +this new nester, Jim?"</p> + +<p>Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with a +big double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast, +the voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsetto +scarce above a whisper.</p> + +<p>"Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller," +he said.</p> + +<p>"What's he look like?"</p> + +<p>"You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail this +way."</p> + +<p>The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source a +rider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up in +front of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle and +glanced around.</p> + +<p>"Evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his greeting. But +the lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not be doubted. +The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand resting on his +hip and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed gaze travel from +one to another, understood perfectly what those expressionless eyes of +stone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of light derision, +trailed debonairly into the store.</p> + +<p>"Any mail for Larrabie Keller?" he inquired of the postmistress.</p> + +<p>The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look. +When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant a +flash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb health +had painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pink +pushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetized +his gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyes +that had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushed +indignantly and withdrew from the window.</p> + +<p>Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned to +the porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter. +His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes were +focused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility.</p> + +<p>He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group, a +lad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look of +pride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guess +that they were brother and sister, very likely twins, though he found in +the boy's expression a sulky impatience lacking in hers. Perhaps the lad +needed the discipline that life hammers into those who want to be a law +unto themselves.</p> + +<p>With an insolence extremely boyish, the lad turned to Healy. "I'm for +running out a few of these nesters. We've got more than we can use, I +reckon. The range is overstocked now—both with them and cows. Come a +bad year and half of our cattle will starve."</p> + +<p>There was a moment of surcharged silence. Phil Sanderson had voiced the +growing feeling of them all, but he had flung it out as a stark +challenge before the time was ripe. It was one thing to resent the +coming of settlers; it was quite another to set themselves openly +against the law that allowed these men to homestead the natural parks in +the hills.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy laughed. "The fat's in the fire now, sure enough. Just the +same, I back your play, Phil."</p> + +<p>He turned recklessly to the man in the doorway. "You may tell your +friends up on Bear Creek that we own this range and mean to hold it. We +don't aim to let our cattle be starved, and we don't aim to lie down +before rustlers. Understand?"</p> + +<p>The nester smiled, but there was no gayety in his eyes. They met those +of the cattleman with a grip of steel, and measured strength with him. +Each knew the other would go the limit before Keller made quiet answer:</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>And with that he dismissed the subject and his unfriendly audience. With +perfect ease, he read his letter, pocketed it, and whistled softly as he +impassively took stock of the scenery. Apparently he had wiped Public +Opinion from his map, and was interested only in the panorama before +him.</p> + +<p>Seven Mile Ranch lay rooted at the desert terminus among the foothills, +a gateway between the mountains and the Malpais Plain. Below was a +shimmering stretch of sand and cactus tortured beneath a blazing sun. +Into that caldron with its furnace-cracked floor the sun had poured +itself torridly for countless eons. It was a Sahara of mirage and +desolation and death.</p> + +<p>To the left was a flat-topped mesa eroded to fantastic mockery of some +bastioned fort. In the round-topped hills behind it was Noches, fifty +miles away. Beyond lay the tangle of hills, rising to the saw-toothed +range now painted with orange and mauve and a hint of deepening purple. +For dusk was already slipping down over the peaks.</p> + +<p>"Mail's been open half an hour, boys," Phyllis announced through the +open window.</p> + +<p>They dropped in to the store, as noisy as schoolboys, but withal +deferential. It was clear the young postmistress reigned a queen among +the younger ones, but a queen that deigned to friendship with her +subjects. Some of them called her Miss Sanderson, one or two of them +Phyllie.</p> + +<p>Among these last was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with her +indeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handed +to each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed to +embarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greeted +with gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back to +them, they seemed all one happy family—and himself a rank outsider. He +trailed down the steps and swung himself to the saddle. As he loped away +the sound of her warm, clear laughter floated after him.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_III'></a><h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>CAUGHT RED-HANDED</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From a cleft in the hills two riders emerged, following a little gulch +to the point where it widened into a draw. The alkali dust of Arizona +lay thick upon their broad-brimmed Stetsons and every inch of exposed +surface, but through the gray coating bloomed the freshness of youth. It +rang from their voices, was apparent in the modelling and carriage of +their figures. The young man was sinewy and hard as nails, the girl +supple and wiry, of a slender grace, straight-backed as an Indian in the +saddle.</p> + +<p>Just where the draw dipped down into the grassy park they drew rein an +instant. Faint and far a sound drifted to them. Somebody down in the +park had fired a rifle.</p> + +<p>"I don't agree with you, Phil," the girl said, picking up the thread of +their conversation where they had dropped it some minutes earlier. "The +nesters have as much right here as we have. They come here to settle, +and they take up government land. Why shouldn't they?"</p> + +<p>"Because we got here first," he retorted impatiently. "Because our +cattle and sheep have been feeding on the land they are fencing. +Because they close the water holes and the creeks and claim they are +theirs. It means the end of the open range. That's what it means."</p> + +<p>"Of course that's what it means. We'll have to adapt ourselves to it. +You talk foolishness when you make threats to drive out the nesters. +That is the sort of thing Buck Weaver has been trying to do. It's +absurd. The law is back of them. You would only come to trouble, and if +you did succeed others would take their places."</p> + +<p>"And rustle our cattle," he added sullenly.</p> + +<p>"It isn't proved they are the rustlers. You haven't a shred of evidence. +Perhaps they are, but you should prove it before you make the charge."</p> + +<p>"If they aren't, who is?" he flared up.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. But whoever it is will be caught and punished some day. +There is no doubt at all about that."</p> + +<p>"You talk a heap of foolishness, Phyl," he answered resentfully. "My +notion is they never will be caught. What makes you so sure they will?"</p> + +<p>They had been riding down the draw, and at this moment Phyllis looked +up, to see a rider silhouetted against the sky line on the ridge above.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you Brill!" she cried, with a wave of her quirt.</p> + +<p>The man turned, saw them, and rode slowly down. He nodded, after the +fashion of the range, first to the girl, and then to her brother.</p> + +<p>"Morning," he nodded. "Headed for Mesa? Here, too."</p> + +<p>He fell in with them and rode beside the girl. Presently they topped a +little hillock, and looked down into the park. It had about the area of +a mile, and was perhaps twice as long as broad. Wooded spurs ran down +from the hills into it here and there, and through the meadow leaped a +silvery stream.</p> + +<p>"Hello! Wonder where that smoke comes from?"</p> + +<p>It was Healy that spoke. He pointed to a faint cloud rising from a +distance. Even before he began to speak, however, Phyllis had her field +glasses out, and was adjusting them to her eyes.</p> + +<p>"There's a fire there and a man standing over it," she presently +announced. "There's something else there, too. I can't make it +out—something lying down."</p> + +<p>The men glanced at each other, and in the meeting of their eyes some +intelligence passed between them. It was as if the younger accused and +the older sullenly denied.</p> + +<p>"Lemme have the glasses," Phil said to his sister almost roughly.</p> + +<p>Healy glanced at Phil swiftly, covertly, as the latter adjusted the +glasses. "She's right about the fire and the man. I can see as much with +my naked eyes," he cut in.</p> + +<p>The boy looked long, lowered the glasses, and met his friend's eye with +a kind of shamefaced hesitation. But apparently he gathered reassurance +from the quiet steadiness with which the other's gaze met him. He handed +the glasses to Healy. When the latter lowered them his face was grave. +"There's a man and a fire and a cow and a calf. When these four things +meet up together, what does it mean?"</p> + +<p>"Branding!" cried the girl.</p> + +<p>"That's right—branding. And when the cow is dead what does it mean?" +Brill asked, his eyes full on Phil.</p> + +<p>"Rustling!" she breathed again.</p> + +<p>"You've said it, Phyl. We've got one of them at last," he cried +jubilantly.</p> + +<p>Phil, hanging between doubt and suspicion and shame, brightened at the +enthusiasm of the other.</p> + +<p>"Right you are, Brill. We'll solve this mystery once for all."</p> + +<p>Healy, unstrapping the case in which lay his rifle, shot a question at +the boy. "Armed, Phil?"</p> + +<p>The lad nodded. "I brought my six-gun for rattlesnakes."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to—to——" cried Phyllis, the color gone from her face.</p> + +<p>"We're going to capture him alive if we can, Phyl. You're to wait right +here till we come back. You may hear shooting. Don't let that worry you. +We've got the drop on him, or will have. Nobody is going to get hurt if +he acts sensible," Healy reassured.</p> + +<p>"Don't you move from here. You stay right where you are," her brother +ordered sharply.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, and was aware that her throat was suddenly parched. +"You'll be careful, won't you, Phil?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," he called back, as he put his horse at a canter to follow his +friend up the draw.</p> + +<p>The sound of the hoofs died away, and she was alone. That they were +going to circle in and out among the tangle of hills until they were +opposite the miscreant, she knew, but in spite of Brill's promise she +had a heart of water. With trembling fingers she raised the glasses +again, and focused them on that point which was to be the centre of the +drama.</p> + +<p>The man was moving about now, quite unconscious of the danger that +menaced him. What she looked at was the great crime of Cattleland. All +her life she had been taught to hold it in horror. But now something +human in her was deeper than her detestation of the cowardly and awful +thing this man had just done. She wanted to cry out to him a warning, +and did in a faint, ineffective voice that carried not a tenth of the +distance between them.</p> + +<p>She had promised to remain where she was, but her tense interest in what +was doing drew her forward in spite of herself. She rode along the ridge +that bordered the park, at first slowly and then quicker as the impulse +grew in her to be in at the finish.</p> + +<p>The climax came. She saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his +pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang +out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the +saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged into a +wash and disappeared.</p> + +<p>What inspired her she could never tell. Perhaps it was her indignation +at the thing he had done, perhaps her anger at that mocking wave of the +hand with which he had vanished. She wheeled her horse, and put it at a +canter down the nearest draw so as to try to intercept him at right +angles. Her heart beat fast with excitement, but she was conscious of no +fear.</p> + +<p>Before she had covered half the distance, she knew she was going to be +too late to cut off his retreat. Faintly, she heard the rhythm of hoofs +striking the rocky bottom of the draw. Abruptly they ceased. Wondering +what that could mean, she found her answer presently. For the pounding +of the galloping broncho had renewed itself, and closer. The man was +riding up the gulch toward her. He had turned into its mesquite-laced +entrance for a hiding place. Phyllis drew rein, and waited quietly to +confront him, but with a pulse that hammered the moments for her.</p> + +<p>A white-stockinged roan, plowing a way through heavy sand, labored into +view round the bend, its <a name="riderslewed">rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon the possible pursuit.</a> Not until he was almost upon her +did the man turn. With a startled exclamation at sight of the motionless +figure, he pulled up sharply. It was the nester, Keller.</p> + +<p>"You," she cried.</p> + +<p>"Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily.</p> + +<p>His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow. +White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile.</p> + +<p>"So you are a—rustler," she told him scornfully.</p> + +<p>"I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter +irony.</p> + +<p>She saw something else, a deepening stain that soaked slowly down his +shirt sleeve.</p> + +<p>"You are wounded."</p> + +<p>"Am I?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Come to think of it, I believe I am," he laughed shortly.</p> + +<p>"Badly?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't got the doctor's report yet." There was a gleam of whimsical +gayety in his eyes as he added: "I was going to find him when I had the +good luck to meet up with you."</p> + +<p>He was a hunted miscreant, wounded, riding for his life as a hurt wolf +dodges to shake off the pursuit, but strangely enough her gallant heart +thrilled to the indomitable pluck of him. Never had she seen a man who +looked more the vagabond enthroned. His crisp bronze curls and his +superb shoulders were bathed in the sunpour. Not once, since his eyes +had fallen on her, had he looked back to see if his hunters had picked +up the lost trail. He was as much at ease as if his whole thought at +meeting her were the pleasure of the encounter.</p> + +<p>"Can you ride?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"I can stick on a hawss if it's plumb gentle. Leastways I've been trying +to for twenty years," he drawled.</p> + +<p>Her impatient gesture waved his flippancy aside. "I mean, are you too +much hurt to ride? I'm not going to leave you here like a wounded +coyote. Can you follow me if I lead the way?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>She turned. He followed her obediently, but with a ghost of a smile +still flickering on his face.</p> + +<p>"Am I your prisoner, Miss Sanderson?" he presently wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"I'm not thinking of prisoners just now," she answered shortly, with an +anxious backward glance.</p> + +<p>Presently she pulled up and wheeled her horse, so that when he halted +they sat facing each other.</p> + +<p>"Let me see your arm," she ordered.</p> + +<p>Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It +was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye.</p> + +<p>"This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other."</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness.</p> + +<p>Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist +gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a +clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble +except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked +pretty bad.</p> + +<p>"A plumb scratch," he explained.</p> + +<p>She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then +pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this +she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy."</p> + +<p>"It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded +jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again.</p> + +<p>There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you +tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud. +"Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering."</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>He let his cool eyes rest on her with a hint of amusement. "And what +were you thinking of doing with me now, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take you up to Jim Yeager's mine. He is doing his +assessment work now, and he'll look out for you for a day or two."</p> + +<p>"Look out for me in a locked room?" he wanted to know casually.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say so. It isn't my business to arrest criminals," she told +him icily.</p> + +<p>His eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills +alone. That is all."</p> + +<p>"Jim Yeager is your friend?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?"</p> + +<p>"He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently.</p> + +<p>"Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss +Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much."</p> + +<p>He checked his pony and bowed.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Up Bear Creek."</p> + +<p>"It's twenty miles. You can't do it."</p> + +<p>"Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the +handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony.</p> + +<p>"You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!"</p> + +<p>He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance.</p> + +<p>"I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her +pride.</p> + +<p>"Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend. +I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he +drawled.</p> + +<p>At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I +<i>like</i> you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel +friendly when I hate you?"</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came +back with his easy smile.</p> + +<p>"You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I +can't let you go alone."</p> + +<p>"You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss +Sanderson."</p> + +<p>With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he +heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious, +both at him and at herself.</p> + +<p>"Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it +yet," he said innocently.</p> + +<p>"I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one +that will take charge of you," she choked.</p> + +<p>"It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged, ma'am, but you're overestimating +the effect of this pill your friend injected into me."</p> + +<p>"Still, I'm going. I won't have your death on my hands," she told him +defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Sho! I ain't aimin' to pass over the divide on account of a scratch +like this. There's no danger but what I can look out for myself."</p> + +<p>She waited in silence for him to start, looking straight ahead of her.</p> + +<p>He tried in vain to argue her out of it. She had nothing to say, and he +saw she was obstinately determined to carry her point.</p> + +<p>Finally, with a little chuckle at her stubbornness, he gave in and +turned round.</p> + +<p>"All right. Yeager's it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to +me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she +disdained to answer.</p> + +<p>Yeager saw them from afar, and recognized the girl.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Phyllis!" he shouted down. "With you in a minute."</p> + +<p>The girl slipped to the ground, and climbed the steep trail to meet him. +Her crisp "Wait here," flung over her shoulder with the slightest turn +of the head, kept Keller in the saddle.</p> + +<p>Halfway up she and the man met. The one waiting below could not hear +what they said, but he could tell she was explaining the situation to +Yeager. The latter nodded from time to time, protested, was vehemently +overruled, and seemed to leave the matter with her. Together they +retraced their way. Young Yeager, in flannel shirt and half-leg miner's +boots, was a splendid specimen of bronzed Arizona. His level gaze judged +the man on horseback, approved him, and met him eye to eye.</p> + +<p>"Better light, Mr. Keller. If you come in we'll have a look at your arm. +An accident like that is a mighty awkward thing to happen to a man on +the trail. It's right fortunate Miss Sanderson found you so soon after +it happened."</p> + +<p>The nester knew a surge of triumph in his blood, but it did not show in +the impassive face which he turned upon his host.</p> + +<p>"It was right fortunate for me," he said, swinging from the saddle. +Incidentally he was wondering what story had been narrated to Yeager, +but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so +careless when he's got a gun in his hand."</p> + +<p>"You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is +liable to go off and hit somebody any time if he ain't careful. You're +in big luck you didn't shoot yourself up a heap worse."</p> + +<p>Yeager led the way to his cabin, and offered Phyllis the single chair he +boasted, and the nester a seat on the bed. Sitting beside him, he +examined the wound and washed it.</p> + +<p>"Comes to being an invalid I'm a false alarm," Keller said +apologetically. "I didn't want to come, but Miss Sanderson would bring +me."</p> + +<p>"She was dead right, too. Time you had ridden twenty miles through the +hot sun with that wound you would have been in a raging fever."</p> + +<p>"One way and another I'm quite in her debt."</p> + +<p>"That's so," agreed Yeager, intent on his work.</p> + +<p>She refused to meet the nester's smile. "Fiddlesticks! You talk mighty +foolish, Jim. I wouldn't go away and leave a wounded dog if I could help +it."</p> + +<p>"Suppose the dog were a sheep-killer?" Keller asked with his engaging, +impudent smile.</p> + +<p>A dust cloud rose from her skirt under a stroke of the restless quirt. +"I'd do my best for it and let it settle with the law afterward."</p> + +<p>"Even if it were a wolf caught in a trap?"</p> + +<p>"I should put it out of its pain. No matter how much I detested it, I +wouldn't leave it there to suffer."</p> + +<p>"I'm quite sure you wouldn't," the wounded man agreed.</p> + +<p>Yeager looked from one to the other, not quite catching the drift of the +underlying meaning. Another thing puzzled him, too. But, like most men +of the unfenced Southwest, Yeager had a large capacity for silence. Now +he attended strictly to his business, without mentioning what he had +noticed.</p> + +<p>The wound dressed, Phyllis rose to leave. "You'll be down for your mail +to-morrow, Jim," she suggested, as she sauntered toward the door.</p> + +<p>"Sure. I'll let you know how our patient is getting along."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's yours. I don't want any of the credit," she returned +carelessly.</p> + +<p>Then, the words scarce off her lips, she gave a little cry of alarm, and +stepped quickly back into the room. What she had seen had sapped the +color from her face. Yeager started forward, but she waved him back.</p> + +<p>"It's Phil and Brill Healy. You've got to hide us, Jim," she told him +tensely.</p> + +<p>The nester began to grin. He always did when he faced a difficulty +apparently insurmountable. Also his fingers slid toward the butt of his +revolver.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_IV'></a><h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>"I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?"</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Jim swept the cabin with a gesture. "Where can I hide you? Anyhow, there +are the horses in plain sight."</p> + +<p>Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered.</p> + +<p>At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung +its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained +handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack.</p> + +<p>"Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your +assessment work, remember. And whatever I say, don't give me away."</p> + +<p>Yeager nodded. He had manoeuvred the wounded arm through the coat sleeve +and was straightening out the shoulders. The nester's eyes were shining +with excitement. Alone of the three, he was enjoying himself.</p> + +<p>"Remember now. Don't talk too much. Let me run this," the girl +cautioned, and with that she stepped to the door, caught sight of her +brother with a glad little cry of apparent relief, and ran swiftly to +him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Phil!" she almost sobbed, and the stress of her emotion was genuine +enough, even if she dissembled as to the cause.</p> + +<p>The boy patted her dark hair gently. They were twins, without other near +relatives except their father, and the tie between them was close.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Phyllie? Why didn't you stay where we left you?"</p> + +<p>"I was afraid for you. And I rode a little nearer. Then he came straight +toward me—and I rode away. I could hear him crashing through the +mesquite. When I reached the trail of Jim's mine, I followed it, for I +knew he would be here."</p> + +<p>"Sure. Course she was scared. What woman wouldn't be? We oughtn't both +to have left her. But there wasn't one chance in a thousand of his +stumbling on the very spot where she was," said Healy.</p> + +<p>Phil gentled her with a caressing hand. "It's all right now, sis. Did +you happen to see the fellow at all?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. At a distance."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you would know him," Healy said.</p> + +<p>She gave a strained little laugh. "I didn't wait to get a description of +him. Didn't you boys recognize him?"</p> + +<p>After Phil's answer she breathed freer. "We did not get near enough, +though Brill got two shots at him as he pulled out. He was going +hell-for-leather and Brill missed both times." He lowered his voice and +asked angrily: "What's <i>he</i> doing here?"</p> + +<p>For Keller had followed Yeager from the cabin and was standing in the +doorway with his hands in his pockets. He wore no hat, and had the +manner of one very much at home.</p> + +<p>"He's helping Jim with his assessment work," she answered in the same +low tone. "It's too bad you lost the rustler. He must have broken for +the hills."</p> + +<p>Healy's eyes had narrowed to slits. Now he murmured a question: "What +about this man Keller? Was he here when you came, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>The girl turned to Yeager, who had sauntered up. "Didn't you say he came +this morning, Jim?"</p> + +<p>Yeager's eyes were like a stone wall. "Yep. This mo'ning. I needed some +husky guy to help me, so I got him."</p> + +<p>"Funny you had to get a fellow from Bear Creek to help you, Jim."</p> + +<p>"Are you looking for a job, Brill?"</p> + +<p>"No. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I ain't noticed any stampede this way among the boys to preempt +this job. I take a man where I can find him, Brill, and I don't ask you +to O.K. him."</p> + +<p>"I see you don't, Jim. The boys aren't going to like it very well, +though."</p> + +<p>"Then they know what they can do about it," Yeager answered evenly, +level eyes steadily on those of his critic.</p> + +<p>"What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil.</p> + +<p>Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been +about eight."</p> + +<p>"Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a +whisper.</p> + +<p>"What man?" Jim asked.</p> + +<p>"We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a +shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"How long ago was this?" asked Yeager.</p> + +<p>"About an hour since we first saw him. Beats all how he ever made his +getaway. We were right after him when he gave us the slip."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he gave you the slip, did he?"</p> + +<p>"Dropped into some hole and pulled it in after him. These hills are +built for hide and seek, looks like."</p> + +<p>"Notice the color of his horse?"</p> + +<p>"It was a roan, Jim. Something like that nester's." Phil nodded toward +the animal Keller had ridden.</p> + +<p>All eyes focused hard on the horse with the white stockings.</p> + +<p>"What brand was he putting on the calf? That'll tell you who the man +was."</p> + +<p>Phil and Healy looked at each other, and the latter laughed. "That's one +on us. We didn't stay to look, but got right out for Mr. Rustler."</p> + +<p>"Did he kill the cow?"</p> + +<p>Phil nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll find the calf still hanging around there unless he had a +pal to drive it away."</p> + +<p>"That's right. We'll go back now and look. Ready, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." She stepped to her horse, and swung to the saddle.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Healy rode forward to the cabin. Through narrowed lids he +looked down at the man standing in the doorway. "Give that message to +your friends?" he demanded insolently.</p> + +<p>There are men who have to look at each other only once to know that +there is born between them a perpetual hostility. Each of these men had +felt it at the first shock of meeting eyes. They would feel it again as +often as they looked at each other.</p> + +<p>"No," the nester answered.</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't care to. You may carry your own messages."</p> + +<p>"When I do I'll carry them with a gun."</p> + +<p>"Interesting if true." Keller's gaze passed derisively over him and +dismissed the man.</p> + +<p>"And I hope when I come I'll meet Mr. Keller first."</p> + +<p>The nester's attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed +to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona.</p> + +<p>Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the +trail with his broncho on the buck.</p> + +<p>Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a +frosty eye.</p> + +<p>"I've got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller," he said.</p> + +<p>"Unload 'em."</p> + +<p>Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on +the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, I'll announce myself. I don't hold with rustlers or +waddies. I'm a white man. That being understood, I want to know where +we're at."</p> + +<p>"Meaning?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up +accidental. Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me. You ain't +that kind of a durn fool. Would you mind handing me a dipper of water? +Thanks." Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back +into the pail. "I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand. +Your gun is on your right side. Then how in Mexico, you being +right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself <i>in the right arm below +the elbow?</i>"</p> + +<p>Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information. "Quite a Sherlock +Holmes, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Hell, no! I got eyes in my head, though. Moreover, that bullet went in +at right angles to your arm. How did you make out to do that?"</p> + +<p>"Sleight of hand," suggested the other.</p> + +<p>"No powder marks, either. And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a +revolver."</p> + +<p>"Anything more?"</p> + +<p>"Some. That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn't over and above +clear to me then. I <i>savez</i> it now. She hates you like p'ison, but +she's too tender-hearted to give you up. Ain't that it?"</p> + +<p>"That's it."</p> + +<p>"She lied for you to me. She lied again to Phil. So did I. Oh, we didn't +lie in words, but it's the same thing. Now, I wouldn't lie to save my +own skin. Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?"</p> + +<p>"I'm a rustler and a thief, am I?"</p> + +<p>"Ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?"</p> + +<p>Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, "No."</p> + +<p>"Then I won't say it."</p> + +<p>The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled +at him. "Mr. Keller, you're a newcomer here. I wonder if you know what +the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now."</p> + +<p>"I can guess."</p> + +<p>"Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn't be worth a plugged +quarter."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell?"</p> + +<p>Yeager brought his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl +Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I +ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father +has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should +I throw down my friends to save a rustler caught in the act?"</p> + +<p>"You've already tried and convicted me, I see."</p> + +<p>"The facts convict you, seh."</p> + +<p>"Your understanding of the facts, I reckon you mean."</p> + +<p>"I haven't noticed that you're giving me any chance to understand them +different," Yeager cut back dryly.</p> + +<p>The nester took from his pocket a little pearl-handled knife, picked up +a potato from a basket beside him, and began to whittle on it absently. +He looked across the table at the man sitting on the bed, and debated a +question in his mind. Was it best to confess the whole truth? Or should +he keep his own counsel?</p> + +<p>"I see you've got Miss Sanderson's knife. Did you forget to return it?" +Yeager made comment.</p> + +<p>For just an instant Keller's eye confessed amazement. "Miss Sanderson's +knife! Why—how did you know it was hers?" he asked, gathering himself +together lamely.</p> + +<p>"I ought to know, seeing as I gave it to her for a Christmas present. +Sent to Denver for that knife, I did. Best lady's knife in the market, +I'm told. Made in Sheffield, England."</p> + +<p>"Ye-es. It's sure a good knife. I'll ce'tainly return it next time I see +her."</p> + +<p>"Funny she ever let you get away with it. She's some particular who she +lends that knife to," Jim said proudly.</p> + +<p>Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his +pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had +told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a +possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in +trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others +into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson—surely not this +impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes. +Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would.</p> + +<p>"I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he +said gently.</p> + +<p>"Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for +yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You +may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for +Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know."</p> + +<p>"That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife."</p> + +<p>Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If +you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back."</p> + +<p>"Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler."</p> + +<p>"Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to +find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_V'></a><h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>AN AIDER AND ABETTOR</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Having come to an understanding, Yeager and Keller wasted no time or +temper in acrimony. Both of them belonged to that big outdoors West +which plays the game to the limit without littleness. They were in +hostile camps, but that did not prevent them from holding amiable +conversation on the common topics of Cattleland. Only one of these they +avoided by mutual consent. Neither of them had anything to say about +rustling.</p> + +<p>Together they ate and smoked and slept, and in the morning after +breakfast they saddled and set out for Seven Mile. A man might have +traveled far without seeing finer specimens of the frontier, any more +competent, self-restrained, or fitter for emergency. They rode with +straight back and loose seat, breaking long silences with occasional +drawling comment. For in the cow country strong men talk only when they +have something to say.</p> + +<p>The stage had just left when they reached Seven Mile, and Public Opinion +was seated on the porch as per custom. It regarded Keller with a stony, +expressionless hostility. Yeager with frank disapprobation.</p> + +<p>Just before swinging from the saddle, Jim turned to the nester. "I'm +giving you an hour, seh. After that, I'm going to speak my little piece +to the boys."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. An hour will be plenty," Keller answered, and passed into +the store, apparently oblivious of the silent observation focused upon +him.</p> + +<p>Phyllis, busy unwrapping a package of papers, glanced up to see his +curly head in the stamp window.</p> + +<p>"Anything for L. Keller?" he wanted to know, after he had unburdened +himself of a friendly "Mornin', Miss Sanderson."</p> + +<p>Her impulse was to ask him how his wound was, but she repressed it +sternly. She took the letters from the K pigeonhole and found two for +him.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, I'm feeling fine," he laughed, gathering up his mail.</p> + +<p>"I didn't ask you how you were feeling," she answered, turning coldly to +her newspapers.</p> + +<p>"I thought mebbe you'd want to know about my punctured tire."</p> + +<p>"It's very good of you to relieve my anxiety."</p> + +<p>"Let me relieve it some more, Miss Sanderson. Here's the knife you +lost."</p> + +<p>She glanced up carelessly at the pearl-handled knife he pushed through +the window. "I didn't know it was lost."</p> + +<p>"Well, now you know it's found. When do you remember seeing it last, +ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"I lent it to a friend two days ago."</p> + +<p>"Oh, to a friend—two days ago."</p> + +<p>His eyes were on her so steadily that the girl was aware of some +significance he gave to the fact, some hidden meaning that escaped her.</p> + +<p>"What friend did you say, Miss Sanderson?"</p> + +<p>He asked it casually, but his question irritated her.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say, sir."</p> + +<p>"That's so. You didn't."</p> + +<p>"Where did you get it?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>He grinned. "I'll tell you that if you'll tell me who you lent it to."</p> + +<p>Her curt answer reminded him that he was in her eyes a convicted +criminal. "It's of no importance, sir."</p> + +<p>"That's what you think, Miss Sanderson."</p> + +<p>She sorted the newspapers in the bundle, and began to slip them into the +private boxes where they belonged. Presently, however, her curiosity +demanded satisfaction. Without looking at him, she volunteered +information.</p> + +<p>"But there's no mystery about it. Phil borrowed the knife to fix a +stirrup leather, and forgot to give it back to me."</p> + +<p>"Your brother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He was taken aback. There was nothing for it but a white lie. "I found +it near Yeager's mine yesterday. I reckon he must have dropped it on his +way there."</p> + +<p>"I don't see anything very mysterious about that," she said frostily.</p> + +<p>She looked so definitely unaware of him as she worked that he fell back +from the window and passed out to the porch. He had found out more than +he wanted to know.</p> + +<p>Jim Yeager's drawling voice came to him, gentle and low as usual, but +with an edge to it. "I been discoverin' I'm some unpopular to-day, +Brill. Malpais has been expressin' its opinion right plain. You've +arrived in time to chirp in with a 'Me, too.'"</p> + +<p>Healy had evidently just ridden up, for he was still in the saddle. He +relaxed into one of the easy attitudes used by men of the plains to rest +themselves without dismounting.</p> + +<p>"You know my sentiments, Jim," he replied, not unamiably.</p> + +<p>"Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel +awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when +Keller touched him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see you for a moment, Mr. Yeager, if you can give me the +time," he said.</p> + +<p>Healy took in the nester with an eye of jade. "Your twin brother wants +you, Jim. Run along with him. Don't mind us."</p> + +<p>"I won't, Brill."</p> + +<p>The young man rose, and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. At +the corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under the +shade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowed +himself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him that +seemed to ally him further with the enemy.</p> + +<p>"Here I am, Mr. Keller. What can I do for you?"</p> + +<p>"You're a friend of Miss Sanderson. You would stand between her and +trouble?" the other demanded abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I expect."</p> + +<p>"Then find out for me what Phil Sanderson did with the knife his sister +lent him two days ago. Find out whether he lent it to anybody, and, if +so, who."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>It had come to a show-down, and the other tabled his cards.</p> + +<p>"I found that knife yesterday mo'ning. It was lying beside the dead cow +in the park where your friends happened on me. I reckon the rustlers +must have heard me coming and drove the calf away just before I arrived. +In his hurry one of them forgot that knife. If you'll tell me the man +who had it in his pocket yesterday when he left-home, I'll tell you who +one of the Malpais rustlers is."</p> + +<p>Jim considered this, his gaze upon the far-away range. When he brought +it back to Keller, he was smiling incredulously.</p> + +<p>"I hear you say so, seh. But what a man with, a halter round his neck +says don't go far before a court."</p> + +<p>"I expected you to say about that."</p> + +<p>"Then I haven't disappointed you." He continued presently, with cold +hostility: "That story you cooked up is about the only one you could +spring. What surprises me is that a man with as good a head as yours +took twenty-four hours to figure out your explanation. I want to tell +you, too, that it don't make any hit with me that you're trying to throw +the blame on a boy I've known all my life."</p> + +<p>"Who happens to be a brother of Miss Sanderson," Keller let himself +suggest.</p> + +<p>Yeager flushed. "That ain't the point."</p> + +<p>"The point is that I'm trying to clear this boy, and I want your help."</p> + +<p>"Looks to me like you want to clear yourself."</p> + +<p>"If I prove to you that I'm not a rustler, will you padlock your tongue +and help me clear young Sanderson?"</p> + +<p>"I sure will—if you prove it to my satisfaction."</p> + +<p>Keller drew from his pocket the two letters he had just received. "Read +these."</p> + +<p>When he had read, Yeager handed them back, and offered his hand. "That +clears you, seh. Truth is, I never was satisfied you was a rustler. My +mind was satisfied; but, durn it, you didn't <i>look</i> like a waddy. It's +lucky I hadn't spoke to the boys yet."</p> + +<p>"I want to keep this quiet," the Bear Creek settler explained.</p> + +<p>"Sure. I'm a clam, and at your service, seh."</p> + +<p>"Then find out the truth about the knife."</p> + +<p>Yeager's eye chiselled into that of Keller. "Mind, I ain't going to help +you bring trouble to Phyllie, and I ain't going to stand by and see it, +either."</p> + +<p>The other smiled. "I don't ask it of you. What I want is to clear the +boy."</p> + +<p>"Good enough," agreed Yeager, and led the way back.</p> + +<p>Before they had yet reached the house, a figure dropped from the foliage +of the live oak under which they had been standing, and rolled like a +ball from the fence into the deep dust of the corral. It picked itself +up in a gray cloud, from which shone as a nucleus a black face with +beady eyes and flashing-white teeth. Swiftly it scampered across the +paddock, disappeared into the rear of the stable, and reappeared at the +front door.</p> + +<p>"Here you, 'Rastus, where you been?" demanded the wrangler. "Didn't I +tell you to clean Miss Phyl's trap? I've wore my lungs out hollering for +you. Now, you git to work, or I'll wear you to a frazzle."</p> + +<p>'Rastus, general alias for his baptismal name of George Washington +Abraham Lincoln Randolph, grinned and ducked, shot out of the stable +like a streak of light, and appeared ten seconds later in the kitchen +presided over by his rotund mother, Becky.</p> + +<p>His abrupt entrance disturbed the maternal after-dinner nap. From the +rocking-chair where she sat Becky rolled affronted eyes at him.</p> + +<p>"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebenty +times seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?"</p> + +<p>"I wanter see Miss Phyl."</p> + +<p>"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool +away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable, +where you belong."</p> + +<p>'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that +part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky +stared after him in amazement.</p> + +<p>"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped.</p> + +<p>Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the +store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room +finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was +sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her +"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes.</p> + +<p>She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham +Lincoln Randolph?"</p> + +<p>"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live +oak at the corral."</p> + +<p>"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash——"</p> + +<p>"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream it +nerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they call +Keller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler, +and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler."</p> + +<p>"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazing +indignation.</p> + +<p>"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by the +dead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil."</p> + +<p>"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot blood +of Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted to +strike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he had +given to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person she +could best use for her instrument.</p> + +<p>Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender young +amazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in the +dusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this young +woman of many moods.</p> + +<p>"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus."</p> + +<p>The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the door +had closed on him.</p> + +<p>The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his own +tracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but——"</p> + +<p>"We have," she broke in.</p> + +<p>"I can't see it. According to Jim Yeager——"</p> + +<p>"Jim lied. I asked him to."</p> + +<p>"You—what?"</p> + +<p>"I asked him to say that this man had come there to work for him. Jim +was not to blame."</p> + +<p>"But—why?"</p> + +<p>She threw out a gesture of self-contempt. "Why did I do it? I don't +know. Because he was wounded, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Wounded! Then I did hit him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. In the arm—a flesh wound. I met him riding through the mesquite. +After I had tied up his wound, I took him to Jim's."</p> + +<p>His eyes narrowed slightly. "So you tied up his wound?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered defiantly, her head up.</p> + +<p>"That tender heart of yours," he murmured, with almost a sneer.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm a fool."</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well."</p> + +<p>"And he pays me back by trying to throw it on Phil. Hunt him down, +Brill. Bring him to me. I'll tell all I know against him," she cried +vindictively.</p> + +<p>"I'll get him, Phyl," he promised, and the sound of his laughter was not +pleasant. "I'll get him for you, or find out why."</p> + +<p>"Think of him trying to put it on Phil, and after I stood by him and +kept his secret. Isn't that the worst ever?" the girl flamed.</p> + +<p>"He rode away not five minutes ago as big as coffee on that ugly roan of +his with the white stockings; knew what we thought about him, but didn't +pay any more attention to us than as if we were bumps on a log."</p> + +<p>Healy strode out to the porch, told his story, and within five minutes +had organized his posse and appointed a rendezvous for two hours later +at Seven Mile.</p> + +<p>At the appointed time his men were on hand, six of them, armed with +rifles and revolvers, ready for grim business.</p> + +<p>From her window Phyllis saw them ride away, and persuaded herself that +she was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooter +who had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as the +hours passed she was beset by a consuming anxiety. What more likely +than that he would resist! If so, there could be only one end. She +could not keep her thoughts from those seven men whom she had sent +against the one.</p> + +<p>There was nobody to whom she could talk about it, for Phil and her +father were away at Noches. Restless as a caged panther, she twice had +her horse brought to the door, and rode into the hills to meet her +posse. But she could not be sure which way they would come, and after +venturing a short distance she would return for fear they might arrive +in her absence. Night had fallen over the country, and the stars were +out long before she got back the second time. Nine—ten—eleven o'clock +struck, and still no sign of those for whom she waited.</p> + +<p>At last they came, their prisoner riding in the midst, bareheaded and +with his hands tied.</p> + +<p>"I've got him, Phyl!" Healy cried in a voice that told the girl he was +riding on a wave of triumph.</p> + +<p>"I see you have."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless she looked not at the victor, but at the vanquished, and +never had she seen a man who looked more master of his fate than this +one. He was smiling down at her whimsically, and she saw they had not +taken him without a struggle. The marks of it were on them and on him. +Healy's cheek bone was laid open in a nasty cut, and Slim had a +handkerchief tied round his head.</p> + +<p>As for Keller, his shirt was in ribbons and dyed with the stains of +blood from the wound that had broken out again in the battle. The hair +on the left side of his head was clotted with dried blood, and his +cheeks were covered with it. Both eyes were blacked, and hands and face +were scratched badly. But his mien was as jaunty, his smile as gallant, +as if he had come at the head of a conquering army.</p> + +<p>"Good evenin', Miss Sanderson," he bowed ironically.</p> + +<p>She looked at him, and turned away without answering. She heard Healy +curse softly and knew why. This man contrived somehow to rob him of his +triumph.</p> + +<p>"You are none of you hurt, Brill?" the girl asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"No. He fought like a wild cat, but we took him by surprise. He had only +his bare fists."</p> + +<p>"How about him? Is he hurt?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—or care," the man answered sullenly.</p> + +<p>"But he must be looked to."</p> + +<p>"I don't know why. It ain't my fault we had to beat him up."</p> + +<p>"I didn't say it <i>was</i> your fault, Brill," she answered gently. "But any +one can see he has lost a lot of blood, and his wounds are full of dust. +They must be washed. I want him brought into the house. Aunt Becky and I +will look after him."</p> + +<p>"No need of that. Slim will fix him up."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No, Brill."</p> + +<p>His eyes gave way first, but his surrender came with a bad grace.</p> + +<p>"All right, Phyl. But he's going to be covered by a gun all the time. +I'm not taking chances on him."</p> + +<p>"Then have him taken into my den. I'll wake Aunt Becky and we'll be +there in a few minutes."</p> + +<p>When Phyllis arrived with Aunt Becky she found the nester sitting on the +lounge, Healy opposite him with a revolver close to his hand. The +prisoner's arms had been freed. His sardonic smile still twitched at the +corners of his mouth.</p> + +<p>"You've ce'tainly begun your practice on a disreputable patient, Doctor +Sanderson. I haven't had time to comb my hair since that little séance +with your friends. We sure did have a sociable time. They're all good +mixers." He looked into the long glass opposite, laughed at sight of his +swollen face, then rattled into a misquotation of some verses he +remembered:</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;<br /></span> +<span>For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Put the water and things down on that table, Becky," her mistress told +her, ignoring the man's blithe folly.</p> + +<p>"I'm giving you lots of chances to do the Good Samaritan act," he +continued. "Honest, I hate to be so much trouble. You'll have to blame +Mr. Healy. He's the responsible party for these little accidents of +mine."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to be responsible for one more," the stockman told him +darkly.</p> + +<p>"I understand your intentions are good, but I've noticed that sometimes +expectation outruns performance," his prisoner came back promptly.</p> + +<p>"Not this time, I think."</p> + +<p>Phyllis understood that Brill was threatening the nester and that the +latter was defying him lightly, but what either meant precisely she did +not know. She proceeded to business without a word except the necessary +directions to Becky. Not until the arm was dressed and the wound on the +head washed and bandaged did she address Keller.</p> + +<p>"I'll send you a powder that will help you get to sleep. The doctor left +it here for Phil, and he did not need it," she said.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe I won't need it, either." Keller laughed hardily, at his enemy it +seemed to the girl, and with some hint of a sinister understanding +between them from which she was excluded. "Thanks just the same, for +that and for everything else you've done for me."</p> + +<p>Phyllis said "Good night" stiffly, and followed the old negress out. She +went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and +it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of. +Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms +across the sill.</p> + +<p>Two men met beneath her window.</p> + +<p>"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other.</p> + +<p>While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slim +spoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that, +it won't take us long."</p> + +<p>"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily.</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course."</p> + +<p>"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do."</p> + +<p>"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game."</p> + +<p>"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it."</p> + +<p>"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for +his life."</p> + +<p>They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing +red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid. +They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had +been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While +the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed +subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently.</p> + +<p>What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in +the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no +matter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed the +rustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He had +known while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him to +death, and he had not even reproached her.</p> + +<p>Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it were +possible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course he +was guarded.</p> + +<p>She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed along +it to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside. +She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have him +outdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or they +might have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. If +the latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe place +under lock and key.</p> + +<p>Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted the +house at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranch +riders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creeping +close to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. In +front of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almost +upon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle.</p> + +<p>"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply.</p> + +<p>It was Tom Dixon.</p> + +<p>Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you are +guarding the prisoner."</p> + +<p>"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably can +now. I suppose I was nervous."</p> + +<p>"No wonder. But you may sleep, all right. He won't trouble you any. I'll +guarantee that," he promised largely. "Oh, Phyl!"</p> + +<p>She had turned to go, but she stopped at his call. "Well?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you be mad at me. I was only fooling the other day. Course I +hadn't ought to have got gay. But a fellow makes a break once in a +while."</p> + +<p>Under the stress of her deeper anxiety she had forgotten all about her +tiff with him. It had seemed important at the time, but since then Tom +and his affairs had been relegated to second place in her mind. He was +only a boy, full of the vanity that was a part of him. Somehow, her +anger against him was all burnt out.</p> + +<p>"If you never will again, Tom," she conceded.</p> + +<p>"I'll be good," he smiled, meaning that he would be good as long as he +must.</p> + +<p>"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once inside +she fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hung +a key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from there +noiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way without +a light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked. +This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storing +supplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went to +another stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight or +nine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole, +fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door.</p> + +<p>The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the door +creaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like a +trip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone.</p> + +<p>"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside."</p> + +<p>She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and +presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till +they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the +knots before she remembered a swifter way.</p> + +<p>"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case where +pocketknives were kept.</p> + +<p>Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free.</p> + +<p>He rose and stretched his cramped limbs.</p> + +<p>"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs. +Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute, +and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand.</p> + +<p>The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fence +of the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on my +head. Now, go."</p> + +<p>"Not till I know why you betrayed me."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because you +are what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager this +afternoon. Why don't you go?"</p> + +<p>"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself."</p> + +<p>"Did Yeager tell you that?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there is +still a chance."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going—not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what I +said."</p> + +<p>A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his hand +still on the handle, aware that there were others in the room.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror.</p> + +<p>"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie."</p> + +<p>Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed.</p> + +<p>"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caught +unexpectedly. "It's—it's Phil," she pretended to pretend.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before he +went out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don't +forget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as a +clam till you say the word."</p> + +<p>With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girl +turned on Keller.</p> + +<p>"There! You see. They may catch you any moment."</p> + +<p>"Will you ask Yeager?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you'll go."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll go."</p> + +<p>Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him from +his feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers, +soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheek +when she had stooped over him. The drag of sex was upon him and had set +him trembling strangely.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go?" she cried softly.</p> + +<p>He snatched himself away.</p> + +<p>But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides. +Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands in +his, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swing +of the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyes +by the faint light that sifted through the window upon her.</p> + +<p>"What—what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding her +in waves.</p> + +<p>"Why are you saving me, girl?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know. I've told you why."</p> + +<p>"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while you +think me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?"</p> + +<p>He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. It +told her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happened +she could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, his +kiss tingling through her blood like wine.</p> + +<p>She thrust him from her—and he was gone.</p> + +<p>She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with +excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now +her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for +this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed +his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it +untied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded the +sentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay the +open road, the hills, and safety.</p> + +<p>A cry rang out in the stillness—and another. A shot, the beat of +running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly +become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her +face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination +conjured—a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a +huddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_VI'></a><h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>A GOOD FRIEND</h3> +<br /> + +<p>How long she remained there Phyllis did not know. Fear drummed at her +heart. She was sick with apprehension. At last her very terror drove her +out to learn the worst. She walked round to the front of the house and +saw a light in the store. Swiftly she ran across and up the steps to the +porch. Three men were inside examining the empty chair by the light of a +lantern one held in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Did—did he get away?" the girl faltered.</p> + +<p>The men turned. One of them was Slim. He held in his hand pieces of the +slashed rope and the open pocket-knife that had freed the prisoner.</p> + +<p>"Looks like it," Slim answered. "With some help from a friend. Now, I +wonder who that useful friend was and how in time he got in here?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes betrayed her. Just for an instant they swept to the cellar +door, to make sure it was still shut. But that one glance was enough. +Slim, about to speak, changed his mind, and stared at her with parted +lips. She saw suspicion grow in his face and resolve itself to +certainty, helped to decision by the telltale color dyeing her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Does the cellar stairway from the store connect with the kitchen +cellar, Phyllie?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Ye-es."</p> + +<p>He nodded, then laughed without mirth. "I reckon I can tell you, boys, +who Mr. Keller's friend in need is."</p> + +<p>"Who? I'd like right well to know." Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had +just come in and was listening.</p> + +<p>Phyllis turned and faced him. "I was that friend, Brill."</p> + +<p>"You!" He stared at her in astonishment. "You! Why, it was you sent me +out to run him down."</p> + +<p>"I didn't tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?"</p> + +<p>"I guess there's a lot between him and you that you didn't tell me," he +jeered.</p> + +<p>Slim grinned, not at all maliciously. "I reckon that's right. I don't +need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the +kitchen."</p> + +<p>"He was just going," she protested.</p> + +<p>"Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead, Slim. I'm only a girl. You and Brill say what you like," she +flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her +hands.</p> + +<p>"Only don't say it out loud," cautioned a new voice. Jim Yeager was at +the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy.</p> + +<p>"I say what I think, Jim," Brill retorted promptly.</p> + +<p>"And you think?"</p> + +<p>Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter. "I think things ain't +right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape +twice."</p> + +<p>"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis.</p> + +<p>"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone.</p> + +<p>"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no +better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed."</p> + +<p>The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir," +she murmured with mock humility.</p> + +<p>"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked.</p> + +<p>"He sure has—clean as a whistle."</p> + +<p>"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more +a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an +innocent man."</p> + +<p>"Prove it," cried Healy.</p> + +<p>Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to +take my word for it."</p> + +<p>"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his +father announced promptly.</p> + +<p>Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager, +Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing +with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter."</p> + +<p>"I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I've got to trust my own eyes before +your indorsement," Healy sneered.</p> + +<p>"That's your privilege, Brill."</p> + +<p>"I reckon Jim knows what he's talking about," said Yeager, Senior, with +intent to conciliate.</p> + +<p>"Of course I know you're right friendly with him, Jim. There's nobody +more competent to pass an opinion on him. Like enough you know all about +his affairs," conceded Healy with polite malice.</p> + +<p>The two young men were looking at each other steadily. They never had +been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that. Rival +leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their +rivalry to a flame. Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted.</p> + +<p>"I expect I know more about them than you do, Brill."</p> + +<p>"Sure you do. Ain't he just got through being your guest? Didn't he come +visiting you in a hurry? Didn't you tie up his wound? And when Phil and +I came asking questions didn't you antedate his arrival about six hours? +I'm not denying you know all about him. What I'm wondering is why you +didn't tell all you knew. Of course, I understand they are your +reasons, though, not mine."</p> + +<p>"You've said it. They're my reasons."</p> + +<p>"I ain't saying they are not good reasons. Whyfor should a man round on +his friend?"</p> + +<p>The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right +proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go +right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't +known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter. +They're so durned teachable to-day maybe you can get them to swallow +that with the rest."</p> + +<p>With which parting shot he followed Phyllis out of the store. She turned +on him at the top of the porch steps leading to the house.</p> + +<p>"Did he tell you that Phil was the rustler?"</p> + +<p>"You mean did Keller tell me?" he said, surprised.</p> + +<p>"Yes. 'Rastus was in the live oak and heard all you said."</p> + +<p>"No. He didn't tell me that. We neither of us think it was Phil. It +couldn't be, for he was riding with you at the time. But he found your +knife there by the dead cow. Now, how did it come there? You let Phil +have the knife. Had he lent his knife to some one?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." She went on, after a momentary hesitation: "Are you +quite sure, Jim, that he really found the knife there?"</p> + +<p>"He said so. I believe him."</p> + +<p>She sighed softly, as if she would have liked to feel as sure. "The +reason I spoke of it was that I accused him of trying to throw the blame +on Phil, and he told me to ask you about it."</p> + +<p>Jim shook his head. "Nothing to it. If you want my opinion, Keller is +white clear enough. He wouldn't try a trick like that."</p> + +<p>The girl's face lit, and she held out an impulsive hand. "Anyhow, you're +a good friend, Jim."</p> + +<p>"I've been that ever since you was knee high to a duck, Phyl."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes, you have. The best I've got, next to Phil and Dad." Her heart +just now was very warm to him.</p> + +<p>"Don't you reckon maybe a good friend might make a good—something +else."</p> + +<p>She gasped. "Oh, Jim! You don't mean——"</p> + +<p>"Yep. That's what I do mean. Course I'm not good enough. I know that."</p> + +<p>"Good. You're the best ever. It isn't that. Only I don't like you that +way."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you might some day."</p> + +<p>She shook her head slowly. "I wish I could, Jim. But I never will."</p> + +<p>"Is there—someone else, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>If it had been light enough he could have seen a wave of color sweep her +face.</p> + +<p>"No. Of course there isn't. How could there be? I'm only a girl."</p> + +<p>"It ain't Brill then?"</p> + +<p>"No. It's—it isn't anybody." She carried the war, womanlike, into his +camp. "And I don't believe you care for me—that way. It's just a +fancy."</p> + +<p>"One I've had two years, little girl."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sorry. I <i>do</i> like you, better than any one else. You know +that, dear old Jim."</p> + +<p>He smiled wistfully. "If you didn't like me so well I reckon I'd have a +better chance. Well, I mustn't keep you here. Good night."</p> + +<p>Her ringers were lost in his big fist. "Good night, Jim." And again she +added, "I'm so sorry."</p> + +<p>"Don't you be. It's all right with me, Phyl. I just thought I'd mention +it. You never can tell, though I most knew how it would be. <i>Buenos +noches, nina.</i>"</p> + +<p>He released her hand, and without once looking back strode to his horse, +swung to the saddle, and rode into the night.</p> + +<p>She carried into the house with her a memory of his cheerful smile. It +had been meant as a reassurance to her. It told her he would get over +it, and she knew he would. For he was no puling schoolboy, but a man, +game to the core.</p> + +<p>The face of another man rose before her, saturnine and engaging and +debonair. With the picture came wave on wave of shame. He was a detected +villain, and she had let him kiss her. But beneath the self-scorn was +something new, something that stung her blood, that left her flushed and +tingling with her first experience of sex relations.</p> + +<p>A week ago she had not yet emerged fully from the chrysalis of +childhood. But in the Southland flowers ripen fast. Adolescence steals +hard upon the heels of infancy. Nature was pushing her relentlessly +toward a womanhood for which her splendid vitality and unschooled +impulses but scantily safeguarded her. The lank, shy innocence of the +fawn still wrapped her, but in the heart of this frank daughter of the +desert had been born a poignant shyness, a vague, delightful trembling +that marked a change. A quality which had lain banked in her nature like +a fire since childhood now threw forth its first flame of heat. At +sunset she had been still treading the primrose path of youth; at +sunrise she had entered upon the world-old heritage of her sex.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_VII'></a><h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>A SHOT FROM AMBUSH</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From the valley there drifted up a breeze-swept sound. The rider on the +rock-rim trail above, shifting in his saddle to one of the easy, +careless attitudes of the habitual horseman, recognized it as a rifle +shot.</p> + +<p>Presently, from a hidden wash rose little balloon-like puffs of smoke, +followed by a faint, far popping, as if somebody had touched off a bunch +of firecrackers. Men on horseback, dwarfed by distance to pygmy size, +clambered to the bank—now one and then another firing into the mesquite +that ran like a broad tongue from the roll of hills into the valley.</p> + +<p>"Looks like something's broke loose," the young man drawled aloud. "The +band's sure playing a right lively tune this glad mo'ning."</p> + +<p>Save for one or two farewell shots, the firing ceased. The riders had +disappeared into the chaparral.</p> + +<p>The rider did not need to be told that this was a man hunt, destined +perhaps to be one of a hundred unwritten desert tragedies. Some subtle +instinct in him differentiated between these hurried shots and those +born of the casual exuberance of the cow-puncher at play. He had a +reason for taking an interest in it—an interest that was more than +casual.</p> + +<p>Skirting the rim of the saucer-shaped valley, he rode forward warily, +came at length to a cañon that ran like a sword cleft into the hills, +and descended cautiously by a cattle trail, its scarred slope.</p> + +<p>Through the defile ran a mountain stream, splashing over and round +boulders in its swift fall.</p> + +<p>"I reckon we'll slide down, Keno, and work out close to the fire zone," +the rider said to his horse, as they began to slither down the +precipitous slope, starting rubble at every motion.</p> + +<p>Man and horse were both of the frontier, fit to the minute for any call +that might be made on them. The broncho was a roan, with muscles of +elastic leather, sure-footed as a mountain goat. Its master—a slim, +brown man, of medium height, well knit and muscular—looked on the +world, quietly and often humorously, with shrewd gray eyes.</p> + +<p>As he reached the bottom of the gulch, his glance fell upon another +rider—a woman. She crossed the stream hurriedly, her pony flinging +water at every step, and cantered up toward him.</p> + +<p>Her glance was once and again over her shoulder, so that it was not +until she was almost upon him that she saw the young man among the +cottonwoods, and drew her pony to an instant halt. The rifle that had +been lying across her saddle leaped halfway to her shoulder, covering +him instantly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Buenos dios, senorita.</i> Are you going for to shoot my head off?" he +drawled.</p> + +<p>"The rustler!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"The alleged rustler, Miss Sanderson," he corrected gently.</p> + +<p>"Let me past," she panted.</p> + +<p>He observed that her eyes mirrored terror of the scene she had just +left.</p> + +<p>"It's you that has got the drop on me, isn't it?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>The rifle went back to the saddle. Instantly the girl was in motion +again, flying up the cañon past the white-stockinged roan, her pony's +hindquarters gathered to take the sheep trail like those of a wild cat.</p> + +<p>Keller gazed after her. As she disappeared, he took off his hat, bowed +elaborately, and remarked to himself, in his low, soft drawl:</p> + +<p>"Good mo'ning, ma'am. See you again one of these days, mebbe, when you +ain't in such a hurry."</p> + +<p>But though he appeared to take the adventure whimsically his mind was +busy with its meaning. She was in danger, and he must save her. So much +he knew at least.</p> + +<p>He had scarcely turned the head of his horse toward the mouth of the +cañon when the pursuit drove headlong into sight. Galloping men pounded +up the arroyo, and came to halt at his sharp summons. Already Keller +and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed +the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted +to know amiably.</p> + +<p>The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm +bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large, +heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born +leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed.</p> + +<p>"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive, +he's ours." He gave crisp orders.</p> + +<p>"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock.</p> + +<p>For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded +man had whipped up a rifle and fired.</p> + +<p>Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too +many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail. +You see, it's loaded with buckshot."</p> + +<p>One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such +audacity as this was new to him.</p> + +<p>"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned +amusing," growled his leader.</p> + +<p>"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful +guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have."</p> + +<p>"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets +through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice, +just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the +other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get +him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here."</p> + +<p>"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row +about?" the cornered man wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you +didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make +your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a +stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?"</p> + +<p>"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply.</p> + +<p>"Douglas."</p> + +<p>"What doing here?"</p> + +<p>"Homesteading."</p> + +<p>"Name?"</p> + +<p>"Keller."</p> + +<p>"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to +shoot me. That's what you are."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of +us. If you're not the man, where is he?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't got him in my vest pocket."</p> + +<p>"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants."</p> + +<p>"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so +as to know him."</p> + +<p>"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit.</p> + +<p>"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher.</p> + +<p>"Well, then?"</p> + +<p>"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rustler who broke away from +us two weeks ago," Curly spoke out.</p> + +<p>"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out +between set teeth.</p> + +<p>"By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin +added.</p> + +<p>Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be +assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch, +riding a roan horse. He could swear that only one person had come in +before these pursuers—and that one was a woman on a roan. Her +frightened eyes, the fear that showed in every motion, her hurried +flight, all contributed to the same inevitable conclusion. It was +difficult to believe it, but impossible to deny. This wild, sylvan +creature, with the shy, wonderful eyes, had lain in ambush to kill her +father's enemy, and was flying from the vengeance on her heels.</p> + +<p>His lips were sealed. Even if he were not under heavy obligations to her +he could no more save himself at the expense of this brown sylph than he +could have testified against his own mother.</p> + +<p>"All right. If you feel lucky, come on. You'll get me, of course, but it +may prove right expensive," he said quietly.</p> + +<p>"That's all right. We're footing our end of the bill," Pesky retorted.</p> + +<p>By this time, he and Weaver had dismounted, and were sheltered behind +rocks. Already bullets were beginning to spit back and forth, though the +flankers had not yet got into action.</p> + +<p>"Durn his hide, I hate like sin to puncture it," Pesky told his boss. "I +tell you we're making a mistake, Buck. This fellow's a pure—he ain't +any hired killer. You can tie to that."</p> + +<p>"He's the man that pumped a bullet into my arm from ambush. That's +enough for me," the cattleman swore.</p> + +<p>"No use being revengeful, especially if it happens he ain't the man. By +his say-so, that's a shotgun he's carrying. Loaded with buckshot, he +claims. What hit you was a bullet from a Winchester, or some such gun. +Mighty easy to prove whether he's lying."</p> + +<p>"We'll be able to prove it afterward, all right."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with proving it now? I don't stand for any murder +business myself. I'm going to find out what's what."</p> + +<p>The cow-puncher tied the red bandanna from his neck round the end of his +revolver, and shoved it above the rock in front of him.</p> + +<p>"Flag of truce!" he shouted.</p> + +<p>"All right. Come right along. Better leave your gun behind," Keller +called back.</p> + +<p>Pesky waddled forward—a short, thick-set, bow-legged man in chaps, +spurs, flannel shirt, and white sombrero. When he took off this last, as +he did now, it revealed a head bald as a billiard ball.</p> + +<p>"How're they coming?" he inquired genially of the besieged man, as he +rounded the rock barricade.</p> + +<p>Larrabie's steel eyes relaxed to a hint of a friendly smile. He knew +this type of man like a brother.</p> + +<p>"Fine and dandy here. Hope you're well yourself, seh."</p> + +<p>"Tol'able. Buck's up on his ear, o' course. Can't blame him, can you? +Most any man would, with that kind of a pill sent to his address so +sudden by special delivery. Wasn't that some inconsiderate of you, Mr. +Keller?"</p> + +<p>"I thought I explained it was another party did that."</p> + +<p>Pesky rolled a cigarette and lit it.</p> + +<p>"Right sure of that, are you? Wouldn't mind my taking a look at that gun +of yours? You see, if it happens to be what you said it was, that +kinder lets you out."</p> + +<p>Keller handed over the gun promptly. The cow-puncher broke it, extracted +a shell, and with his knife picked out the wad. Into his palm rolled a +dozen buckshot.</p> + +<p>"Good enough! I told Buck he was barking up the wrong tree. Now, I'll go +back and have a powwow with him. I reckon you'll be willing to surrender +on guarantee of a square deal?"</p> + +<p>"Sure—that's all I ask. I never met your friend—didn't know who he was +from Adam. I ain't got any option to shoot all the red-haided men I +meet. No, sir! You've followed a cross trail."</p> + +<p>"Looks like. Still, it's blamed funny." Pesky scratched his shining +poll, and looked shrewdly at the other. "We certainly ran Mr. +Bushwhacker into the cañon. I'd swear to that. We was right on his +heels, though we couldn't see him very well. But he either come in here +or a hole in the ground swallowed him."</p> + +<p>He waited tentatively for an answer, but none came other than the +white-toothed smile that met him blandly.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you know more than you aim to tell, Mr. Keller," continued +Pesky. "Don't you figure it's up to you, if we let you out of this +thing, to whack up any information you've got? The kind of reptile that +kills from ambush don't deserve any consideration."</p> + +<p>Half an hour ago, the other would have agreed with him. The man that +shot his enemy from cover was a coyote—nothing less. But about that +brown slip of a creature, who had for three minutes crossed his orbit, +he wanted to reserve judgment.</p> + +<p>"I expect I haven't got a thing to tell you that would help any," he +drawled, his eye full on that of the cowpuncher.</p> + +<p>Pesky threw away his cigarette. "All right. You're the doctor. I'll +amble back, and report to the boss."</p> + +<p>He did so, with the result that a truce was arranged.</p> + +<p>Keller gave up his post of vantage, and came forward to surrender.</p> + +<p>Weaver met him with a hard, wintry eye. "Understand, I don't concede +your innocence. You're my prisoner, and, by God, if I get any more proof +of your guilt, you've got to stand the gaff."</p> + +<p>The other nodded quietly, meeting him eye to eye. Nor did his gaze fall, +though the big cattleman was the most masterful man on the range. Keller +was as easy and unperturbed as when he had been holding half a dozen +irate men at bay.</p> + +<p>"No kick coming here. But, if it's just the same to you, I'll ask you to +get the proof first and hang me afterward."</p> + +<p>"If you're homesteading, where's your place?"</p> + +<p>"Back in the hills, close to the headwaters of Salt Creek."</p> + +<p>"Huh! You'll make that good before I get through with you. And I want +to tell you this, too, Mr. Keller. It doesn't make any hit with me that +you're one of those thieving nesters. Moreover, there's another charge +against you. In the Malpais country we hang rustlers. The boys claim to +have you cinched. We'll see."</p> + +<p>"Who's that with Curly?" Pesky called out. "By Moses, it's a woman!"</p> + +<p>"It is the Sanderson girl," Weaver said in surprise.</p> + +<p>Keller swung round as if worked by a spring. The cow-puncher had told +the truth. Curly's companion was not only a woman, but <i>the</i> woman—the +same slim, tanned creature who had flashed past him on a wild race for +safety, only a few minutes earlier.</p> + +<p>All eyes were focused upon her. Weaver waited for her to speak. Instead, +Curly took up the word. He was smiling broadly, quite unaware of the +mine he was firing.</p> + +<p>"I found this young lady up on the rock rim. Since we were rounding up, +I thought I'd bring her down."</p> + +<p>"Good enough. Miss Sanderson, you've been where you could see if anyone +passed into the cañon. How about it? Anybody go up in last ten minutes?"</p> + +<p>Phyllis moistened her dry lips and looked at the prisoner. "No," she +answered reluctantly.</p> + +<p>Weaver wheeled on Keller, his eyes hard as jade. "That ties the rope +round your neck, my man."</p> + +<p>"No," Phyllis cried. "He didn't do it."</p> + +<p>The cattleman's stone wall eyes were on her now.</p> + +<p>"Didn't? How do you know he didn't?"</p> + +<p>"Because I—I passed him here as I rode up a few minutes ago."</p> + +<p>"So you rode up a few minutes ago." Buck's lids narrowed. "And he was +here, was he? Ever meet Mr. Keller before?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When? Speak up. Mind, no lying."</p> + +<p>This, struck the first spark of spirit from her. The deep eyes flashed. +"I'm not in the habit of lying, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then answer my question."</p> + +<p>"I've met him at the office when he came for his mail. And the boys +arrested him by mistake for a rustler. I saw him when they brought him +in."</p> + +<p>"By mistake. How do you know it was by mistake?"</p> + +<p>"It was I accused him. But I did it because I was angry at him."</p> + +<p>"You accused an innocent man of rustling because you were sore at him. +You're ce'tainly a pleasant young lady, Miss Sanderson."</p> + +<p>Her look flashed defiance at him, but she said nothing. In her slim +erectness was a touch of feminine ferocity that gave him another idea.</p> + +<p>"So you just rode into the cañon, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Meet up with anybody in the valley before you came in?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>His eyes were like steel drills. They never left her. "Quite sure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What were you doing there?"</p> + +<p>She had no answer ready. Her wild look went round in search of a friend +in this circle of enemies. They found him in the man who was a prisoner. +His steadfast eyes told her to have no fear.</p> + +<p>"Did you hear what I said?" demanded Weaver.</p> + +<p>"I was—riding."</p> + +<p>"Alone?"</p> + +<p>The answer came so slowly that it was barely audible. "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Riding in Antelope Valley?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Let me see that gun." Weaver held out his hand for the rifle.</p> + +<p>Phyllis looked at him and tried to fight against his domination; then +slowly she handed him the rifle. He broke and examined it. From the +chamber he extracted an empty shell.</p> + +<p>Grim as a hanging judge, his look chiselled into her.</p> + +<p>"I expect the lead that was in here is in my arm. Isn't that right?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Who does, then? Either you shot me or you know who did."</p> + +<p>Her gaze evaded his, but was forced at last to the meeting.</p> + +<p>"I did it."</p> + +<p>She was looking at him steadily now. Since the thing must be faced, she +had braced herself to it. It was amazing what defiant pluck shone out of +her soft eyes. This man of iron saw it, and, seeing, admired hugely the +gameness that dwelt in her slim body. But none of his admiration showed +in the hard, weather-beaten face.</p> + +<p>"So they make bushwhackers out of even the girls among your rustling, +sheep-herding outfit!" he taunted.</p> + +<p>"My people are not rustlers. They have a right to be on earth, even if +you don't want them there."</p> + +<p>"I'll show them what rights they have got in this part of the country +before I get through with them. But that ain't the point now. What I +want to know is how they came to send a girl to do their dirty killing +for them."</p> + +<p>"They didn't send me. I just saw you, and—and shot on an impulse. Your +men have clubbed and poisoned our sheep. They wounded one of our +herders, and beat his brother when they caught him unarmed. They have +done a hundred mean and brutal things. You are at the bottom of it all; +and when I saw you riding there, looking like the lord of all the earth, +I just——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't help—what I did."</p> + +<p>"You're a nicely brought up young woman—about as savage as the rest of +your wolf breed," jeered Weaver.</p> + +<p>Yet he exulted in her—in the impulse of ferocity that had made her +strike swiftly, regardless of risk to herself, at the man who had +hounded and harried her kin to the feud that was now raging. Her shy, +untamed beauty would not itself have attracted him; but in combination +with her fierce courage it made to him an appeal which he conceded +grudgingly.</p> + +<p>"What in Heaven's name brought you back after you had once got away?" +Weaver asked.</p> + +<p>The girl looked at Keller without answering.</p> + +<p>"I reckon I can tell you that, seh," explained that young man. "She +figured you would jump on me as the guilty party. It got on her +conscience that she had left an innocent man to stand for it. I +shouldn't wonder but she got to seeing a picture of you-all hanging me +or shooting me up. So she came back to own up, if she saw you had caught +me."</p> + +<p>Weaver nodded. "That's the way I figure it, too. Gamest thing I ever saw +a woman do," he said in an undertone to Keller, with whom he was now +standing a little apart.</p> + +<p>The latter agreed. "Never saw the beat of it. She's scared stiff, too. +Makes it all the pluckier. What will you do with her?"</p> + +<p>"Take her along with me back to the ranch."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't do that," said the young man quickly.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you?" Weaver's hard gaze went over him haughtily. "When I want +your advice, I'll ask you for it, young man. You're in luck to get off +scot-free yourself. That ought to content you for one day."</p> + +<p>"But what are you going to do with her? Surely not have her imprisoned +for attacking you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll do as I dashed please, and don't you forget it, Mr. Keller. Better +mind your own business, if you've got any."</p> + +<p>With which Buck Weaver turned on his heel, and swung slowly to the +saddle. His arm was paining him a great deal, but he gave no sign of it. +He expected his men to game it out when they ran into bad luck, and he +was stoic enough to set them an example without making any complaints.</p> + +<p>The little group of riders turned down the trail, passed through the +gateway that led to the valley below, and wound down among the +cow-backed hills toward the ranch roofs, which gleamed in the distance. +They were the houses of the Twin Star outfit, the big concern owned by +Buck Weaver, whose cattle fed literally upon a thousand hills.</p> + +<p>It suited Buck's ironic humor to ride beside the girl who had just +attempted his life. He bore her no resentment. Had the offender been a +man, Buck would have snuffed out his life with as little remorse as he +would a guttering candle. But her sex and her youth, and some quality of +charm in her, had altered the equation. He meant to show her who was +master, but he would choose a different method.</p> + +<p>What sport to tame the spirit of this wild desert beauty until she +should come like one of her own sheep dogs at his beck and call! He had +never yet met the woman he could not dominate. This one, too, would know +a good many new emotions before she rejoined her tribe in the hills.</p> + +<p>He swung from the saddle at the ranch plaza, and greeted her with a deep +bow that mocked her.</p> + +<p>"Welcome, Miss Sanderson, to the best the Twin Star outfit has to offer. +I hope you will enjoy your visit, which is going to be a long one."</p> + +<p>To a Mexican woman, who had come out to the porch in answer to his call, +he delivered the girl, charging her duty in two quick sentences of +Spanish. The woman nodded her understanding, and led Phyllis inside.</p> + +<p>Weaver noticed with delight that his captive's eye met his steadily, +with the defiant fierceness of some hunted wild thing. Here was a woman +worth taming, even though she was still a girl in years. His exultant +eye, returning from the last glimpse of the lissom figure as it +disappeared, met the gaze of Keller. That young man was watching him +with an odd look of challenge on his usually impassive face.</p> + +<p>The cattleman felt the spur of a new antagonism stirring his blood. +There was something almost like a sneer on his lips as he spoke:</p> + +<p>"Sorry to lose your company, Mr. Keller. But if you're homesteading, of +course, we'll have to let you go back to the hills right away. Couldn't +think of keeping you from that spring plowing that's waiting to be +done."</p> + +<p>"You're putting up a different line of talk from what you did. How about +that charge of rustling against me, Mr. Weaver? Don't you want to hold +me while you investigate it?"</p> + +<p>"No, I reckon not. Your lady friend gives you a clean bill of health. +She may or may not be lying. I'm not so sure myself. But without her the +case against you falls."</p> + +<p>Keller knew himself dismissed cavalierly, and, much as he would have +liked to stay, he could find no further excuse to urge. He could hardly +invite himself to be either the guest or the prisoner of a man who did +not want him.</p> + +<p>"Just as you say," he nodded, and turned carelessly to his pony.</p> + +<p>Yet he was quite sure it would not be as Weaver said if he could help +it. He meant to take a hand in the game, no matter what the other might +decree. But for the present he acquiesced in the inevitable. Weaver was +technically within his rights in holding her until he had communicated +with the sheriff. A generous foe might not have stood out for his pound +of flesh, but Buck was as hard as nails. As for the reputation of the +girl, it was safe at the Twin Star ranch. Buck's sister, a maiden lady +of uncertain years, was on hand to play chaperone.</p> + +<p>Larrabie swung to the saddle. His horse's hoofs were presently flinging +dirt toward the Twin Star as he loped up to the hills.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_VIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>MISS-GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Time had been when the range was large enough for all, when every man's +cattle might graze at will from horizon to horizon. But with the push of +settlement to the frontier had come a change. The feeding ground became +overstocked. One outfit elbowed another, and lines began to be drawn +between the runs of different owners. Water holes were seized and +fenced, with or without due process of law.</p> + +<p>With the establishment of forest reserves a new policy dominated the +government. Sanderson had been one of the first to avail himself of it +by leasing the public demesne for his stock. Later, learning that the +mountain parks were to be thrown open as a pasturage for sheep, he had +bought three thousand and driven them up, having first arranged terms +with the forestry service.</p> + +<p>Buck Weaver, fighting the government reserve policy with all his might, +resented fiercely the attitude of Sanderson. A sharp, bitter quarrel had +resulted, and had left a smoldering bad feeling that flamed at times +into open warfare. Upon the wholesome Malpais country had fallen the +bitterness of a sheep and cattle feud.</p> + +<p>The riders of the Twin Star outfit had thrice raided the Sanderson +flocks. Lambing sheep had been run cruelly. One herd had been clubbed +over a precipice, another decimated with poison. In return, the herders +shot and hamstrung Twin Star cows. A herder was held up and beaten by +cowboys. Next week a vaquero galloped home to the Twin Star ranch with a +bullet through his leg. This was the situation at the time when the +owner of the big ranch brought Phyllis a prisoner to its hospitality.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more pat to his liking. He was, in large +measure, the force behind the law in San Miguel county. The sheriff whom +he had elected to office would be conveniently deaf to any illegality +there might be in his holding the girl, would if necessary give him an +order to hold her there until further notice. The attempt to assassinate +him would serve as excuse enough for a proceeding even more highhanded +than this. Her relatives could scarce appeal to the law, since the law +would then step in and send her to the penitentiary. He could use her +position as a hostage to force her stiff-necked father to come to terms.</p> + +<p>But it was characteristic of the man that his reason for keeping her +was, after all, less the advantage he might gain by it than the pleasure +he found in tormenting her and her family. To this instinct of the +jungle beast was added the interest she had inspired in him. Untaught of +life she was, no doubt, a child of the desert, in some ways primitive as +Eve; but he perceived in her the capacity for deep feeling, for passion, +for that kind of fierce, dauntless endurance it is given some women to +possess.</p> + +<p>Miss Weaver took charge of the comfort of her guest. Her manner showed +severe disapproval of this girl so lost to the feelings of her sex as to +have attempted murder. That she was young and pretty made matters worse. +Alice Weaver always had worshipped her brother, by the law of opposites +perhaps. She was as drab and respectable as Boston. All her tastes ran +to humdrum monotony. But turbulent, lawless Buck, the brother whom she +had brought up after the death of their mother, held her heart in the +hollow of his hard, careless hand.</p> + +<p>"Have you had everything you wish?" she would ask Phyllis in a frigid +voice.</p> + +<p>"I want to be taken home."</p> + +<p>"You should have thought of that before you did the dreadful thing you +did."</p> + +<p>"You are holding me here a prisoner, then?"</p> + +<p>"An involuntary guest, my brother puts it. Until the sheriff can make +other arrangements."</p> + +<p>"You have no right to do it without notifying my father. He is at Noches +with my brother."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Weaver will do as he thinks best about that." The spinster shut +her lips tight and walked from the room.</p> + +<p>Supper was brought to Phyllis by the Mexican woman. In spite of her +indignation she ate and slept well. Nor did her appetite appear impaired +next morning, when she breakfasted in her bedroom. Noon found her +promoted to the family dining room. Weaver carried his arm in a sling, +but made no reference to the fact. He attempted conversation, but +Phyllis withdrew into herself and had nothing more friendly than a plain +"No" or "Yes" for him. His sister was presently called away to arrange +some household difficulty. At once Phyllis attacked the big man lounging +in his chair at his ease.</p> + +<p>"I want to go home. I've got to be at the schoolhouse to-morrow +morning," she announced.</p> + +<p>"It won't hurt you any to miss a few days' schooling, my dear. You'll +learn more here than you will there, anyhow," he assured her pleasantly. +Buck was cracking two walnuts in the palm of his hand and let his lazy +smile drift her way only casually.</p> + +<p>She stamped her foot. "I tell you I'm the teacher. It is necessary I +should be there."</p> + +<p>"You a schoolmarm!" he repeated, in surprise. "How old are you?"</p> + +<p>Her dress was scarcely below her shoe tops. She still had the slimness +of immature girlhood, the adorable shy daring of some uncaptured wood +nymph.</p> + +<p>"Does that matter to you, sir?"</p> + +<p>"How old?" he reiterated.</p> + +<p>"Going-on-eighteen," she answered—not because she wanted to, but +because somehow she must. There was something compelling about this +man's will. She would have resisted it had she not wanted to gain her +point about going home.</p> + +<p>"So you teach the kids their A B C's, do you? And you just out of them +yourself! How many scholars have you?"</p> + +<p>"Fourteen."</p> + +<p>"And they all love teacher, of course. Would you take me for a scholar, +Miss Going-On-Eighteen?"</p> + +<p>"No!" she flamed.</p> + +<p>"You'd find me right teachable. And I would promise to love you, too."</p> + +<p>Color came and went in her face beneath the brow. How dared he mock her +so! It humiliated and embarrassed and angered her.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to let me go back to my school?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"I reckon your school will have to get along without you for a few days. +Your fourteen scholars will keep right on loving you, I expect. 'To +memory dear, though far from eye.' Or, if you like, I'll send my boys up +into the hills, and round up the whole fourteen here for you. Then +school can keep right here in the house. How about that? Ain't that a +good notion, Miss Going-On-Eighteen?"</p> + +<p>She could stand his ironic mockery no longer. She faced him, fearless as +a tiger: "You villain!"</p> + +<p>With that, turning on her heel, she passed swiftly into her little +bedroom, and slammed the door. He heard the key turn in the lock.</p> + +<p>"She's sure got some devil in her," he laughed appreciatively, and he +cracked another walnut.</p> + +<p>Already he had struck the steel of her quality. She would be his +prisoner because she must, but the "no compromise" flag was nailed to +her masthead.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why you are so fond of me?" he mused aloud next day when he +found her as unresponsive to his advances as a block of wood.</p> + +<p>He was lying in the sand at her feet, his splendid body relaxed full +length at supple ease. Leaning on an elbow, he had been watching her for +some time.</p> + +<p>Her gaze was on the distant line of hills; on her face that far-away +expression which told him that he was not on the map for her. Used as he +was to impressing himself upon the imagination of women, this stung his +vanity sharply. He liked better the times when her passion flamed out at +him.</p> + +<p>Now he lost his sardonic mockery in a flash of anger.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear me? I asked you a question."</p> + +<p>She brought her head round until her eyes rested upon him.</p> + +<p>"Will you ask it again, please? I wasn't listening."</p> + +<p>"I want to know what makes you hate me so," he demanded roughly.</p> + +<p>"Do I hate you?"</p> + +<p>He laughed irritably. "What else do you call it? You won't hardly eat at +the same table with me. Last night you wouldn't come down to supper. +Same way this morning. If I sit down near you, soon you find an excuse +to leave. When I speak, you don't answer."</p> + +<p>"You are my jailer, not my friend."</p> + +<p>"I might be both."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you!"</p> + +<p>She said it with such quick, instinctive certainty that he ground his +teeth in resentment. He was the kind of man that always wanted what he +could not get. He began to covet this girl mightily, even while he told +himself that he was a fool for his pains. What was she but an untaught, +country schoolgirl? It would be a strange irony of fate if Buck Weaver +should fall in love with a sheepman's daughter.</p> + +<p>"Many people would go far to get my friendship," he told her.</p> + +<p>Quietly she looked at him. "The friends of my people are my friends. +Their enemies are mine."</p> + +<p>"Yet you said you didn't hate me."</p> + +<p>"I thought I did, but I find I don't."</p> + +<p>"Not worth hating, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>She neither corrected nor rejected his explanation.</p> + +<p>He touched his wounded arm as he went on: "If you don't hate me, why +this compliment to me? I reckon good, genuine hate sent that bullet."</p> + +<p>The girl colored, but after a moment's hesitation answered:</p> + +<p>"Once I shot a coyote when I saw it making ready to pounce on one of our +lambs. I did not hate that coyote."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he told her ironically.</p> + +<p>Her gaze went back to the mountains. She had always had a capacity for +silence. But it was as extraordinary to her as to him how, in the past +few days, she had sloughed the shy timidity of a mountain girl and found +the enduring courage of womanhood. Her wits, too, had taken on the edge +of maturity. He found that her tongue could strike swiftly and sharply. +She was learning to defend herself in all the ways women have acquired +by inheritance.</p> + +<p>Weaver's jaw set like a vise. Getting to his feet, he looked down at her +with the hard, relentless eyes that had made his name a terror.</p> + +<p>"Good enough, Miss Phyllis Sanderson. You've chosen your way. I'll +choose mine. You've got to learn that I'm master here; and, by God, I'll +teach it to you. Before I get through with you, young woman, you'll +come running when I snap my fingers. From to-day things will be +different. You'll eat your meals with us and not in your room. You'll +speak when you're spoken to. Set yourself up against me, and I'll bring +you to your knees fast enough. There's no law on the Twin Star Ranch but +Buck Weaver's will."</p> + +<p>He strode away, almost herculean in figure, and every inch of him +forceful. She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same +time, so wilful and so masterful. Before he was out of her sight, she +got an instance of his recklessness.</p> + +<p>A Mexican vaquero was driving some horses into a corral. His master +strode up to him, and dragged him from the saddle.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I tell you to take the colts down to the long pasture?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Si, señor,</i>" answered the trembling native.</p> + +<p>Weaver's great fist rose and fell once. The Mexican sank limply down. +Without another glance at him, the cattleman flung him aside, and strode +to the house.</p> + +<p>As the owner of the Twin Star had said, so it was. Thereafter Phyllis +sat at the table with him and his sister, while Josephine, the Mexican +woman, waited upon them. The girl came and went at his bidding. But she +held herself with such a quiet aloofness that his victory was a barren +one.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to go home?" he taunted her one morning, while at +breakfast.</p> + +<p>"Is it likely I would want to stay here?" she retorted.</p> + +<p>"Why not? What have you to complain of? Aren't you treated well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What, then? Are you afraid?"</p> + +<p>"No!" she answered, with a flash of her fine eyes.</p> + +<p>"That's good, because you've got to stay here—or go to the pen. You may +take your choice."</p> + +<p>"You're very generous. I suppose you don't expect to keep me here +always," she said scornfully.</p> + +<p>"Until my arm gets well. Since you wounded it you ought to nurse it."</p> + +<p>"Which I am not doing, even while I am here."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow it soothes the temper of the invalid to have you around." He +grinned satirically.</p> + +<p>"So I judge, from the effects."</p> + +<p>"Meaning that I'm always in a rage when I leave you?"</p> + +<p>"I notice your men are marked up a good deal these days."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell them to thank you for it," he flung back.</p> + +<p>Two days later, he scored on her hard for the first time. She came down +to breakfast just as two of the Twin Star riders brought a boy into the +hall.</p> + +<p>She flew instantly into his arms, thereby embarrassing him vastly.</p> + +<p>"Phil! How did you come here?"</p> + +<p>Her brother nodded toward Curly and Pesky. "They found me outside and +got the drop on me."</p> + +<p>"You were here looking for me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Just got back from Noches. Dad is still there. He don't know."</p> + +<p>"But—what are they going to do with you?"</p> + +<p>"What would you suggest, Miss Phyllis?" a voice behind her gibed.</p> + +<p>The speaker was Weaver. He filled the doorway of the dining room +triumphantly. She had had no fears for herself; he would see if she had +none for her brother.</p> + +<p>The boy whirled on the ranchman like a tiger whelp. "I don't care what +you do. Go ahead and do your worst."</p> + +<p>Weaver looked him over negligently, much as he might watch a struggling +calf. To him the boy was not an enemy—merely a tool which he could use +for his own ends. Phyllis, watching anxiously the hard, expressionless +face, felt that it was cruel as fate. She knew that somehow she would be +made to suffer through her love for her brother.</p> + +<p>"You daren't touch him. He's done nothing," she cried.</p> + +<p>"He shot at one of my riders. I can't have dangerous characters around. +I'm a peaceable man, me," grinned Buck.</p> + +<p>"You didn't, Phil," his sister reproached.</p> + +<p>"Sure I did. He tried to take my gun from me," the boy explained hotly.</p> + +<p>"Take him out to the bunk house, boys. I'll attend to him later," +nodded Buck, turning away indifferently.</p> + +<p>Stung to fury by the cavalier manner of his enemy, the boy leaped at him +like a wild cat. Weaver whirled round again, caught him by the shoulder +with his great hand, and shook him as if he had been a puppy. When he +dropped him, he nodded again to his men, who dragged out the struggling +boy.</p> + +<p>Phyllis stood straight as an arrow, but white to the lips. "What are you +going to do to him?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"How would a good chapping do, to start with? That is always good for an +unlicked cub."</p> + +<p>"Don't!" she implored.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, why not—since it's for his good?"</p> + +<p>Passion unleashed leaped from her. "You coward!"</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm right desolated to have your bad +opinion. But you say it almost as if you did hate me. That's a +compliment, you know. You didn't hate the coyote, you mentioned."</p> + +<p>Her eyes flamed. "Hate you! If wishes could kill, you would be a +thousand times dead!"</p> + +<p>"You disappoint me, my dear. I expected more than wishes from you. +There's a loaded revolver in that table drawer. It's yours, any time you +want it," he derided.</p> + +<p>"Don't tempt me!" she cried wildly. "If you lay a hand on Phil, I'll use +it—I surely will."</p> + +<p>His eyes shone with delight. "I wonder. By Jove, I've a mind to flog +the colt and see. I'll do it."</p> + +<p>The passion sank in her as suddenly as it had risen. "No—you mustn't! +You don't know him—or us. We are from the South."</p> + +<p>"That settles it. I will," he exulted. "You have called me a coward. +Would a coward do this, and defy your whole crew to its revenge?"</p> + +<p>"Would a brave man break the pride of a high-spirited boy for such a +mean motive?" she countered.</p> + +<p>"His pride will have to look out for itself. He took his chance of it +when he tried to assault me. What he'll get is only what's coming to +him."</p> + +<p>"Please don't! I'll—I'll be different to you. Take it out on me," she +begged.</p> + +<p>He laughed harshly. "Do you suppose I'm such a fool as not to know that +the way to take it out on you is to take it out of him?"</p> + +<p>She had come nearer, a step at a time. Now she threw her hand out in a +gesture of abandon.</p> + +<p>"Be generous! Don't punish me that way. Something dreadful will come of +it."</p> + +<p>She broke down and struggled with her tears. He watched her for a moment +without speaking.</p> + +<p>"Good enough. I'll be generous and let you pay his debt for him, if you +want to do it."</p> + +<p>Her eyes were glad with the swift joy that leaped into them.</p> + +<p>"That is good of you! And how shall I pay?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"With a kiss."</p> + +<p><a name='drewback'>She drew back as if he had struck her, all the sparkling eagerness +driven from her face.</a></p> + +<p>"Oh!" she moaned.</p> + +<p>"Just one kiss—I don't ask anything more. Give me that, and I'll turn +him loose. Honor bright."</p> + +<p>He held her startled gaze as a snake holds that of a fascinated bird.</p> + +<p>"Choose," he told her, in his masterful way.</p> + +<p>Her imagination conceived a vision of her young brother being tortured +by this man. She had not the least doubt that he would do what he said, +and probably would think the boy got only what he deserved.</p> + +<p>"Take it," she told him, and waited.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he might have spared her had it not been for the look of deep +contempt that bit into his vanity.</p> + +<p>He kissed her full on the lips.</p> + +<p>Instantly she woke to life, struck him on the cheek with her little, +brown fist, and, with a sob of woe, turned and ran from the room.</p> + +<p>Weaver cursed himself in a fury of anger. He felt himself to be a hound +because of the thing he had done, and he hated the instinct in him that +drove him to master her. He had insulted and trampled on her. Yet he +knew in his heart that he would have killed another man for doing it.</p> + +<a name="illus2"><!-- Image 2 --></a> +<center><a href="images/116_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/116_sm.jpg" height="472" width="300" +alt="SHE DREW BACK AS IF HE HAD STRUCK HER, ALL THE SPARKLING +EAGERNESS DRIVEN FROM HER FACE. Page 116" /> +</a> +</center> +<p style="text-align: center"><span style=' +font-weight:700'><small> +SHE DREW BACK AS IF HE HAD STRUCK HER, ALL THE SPARKLING +EAGERNESS DRIVEN FROM HER FACE. +(<a href="#drewback">Page 116</a>)</small></span></p> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_IX'></a><h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>PUNISHMENT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The cattleman strode into the bunk house, where young Sanderson sat +sulkily on a bed under the persuasion of Curly's rifle.</p> + +<p>"Have this boy's horse saddled and brought around, Curly."</p> + +<p>"You're the doctor," answered the cowboy promptly, and forthwith +vanished outdoors to obey instructions.</p> + +<p>Phil looked sullenly at his captor, and waited for him to begin. One of +his hands was under the pillow of the cot upon which he sat. His fingers +circled the butt of a revolver he had found there, where one of the +riders had chanced to leave it that morning.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to turn you loose to go home to the hills," Weaver told him.</p> + +<p>"And my sister?"</p> + +<p>"She stays here."</p> + +<p>"Then so do I."</p> + +<p>"That's up to you. There's no law against camping on the plains—that +is, out of range of the Twin Star."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with her?" the boy demanded ominously.</p> + +<p>"If you ask no questions, I'll tell you no lies."</p> + +<p>"You'll let her go home with me—that's what you'll do," cried Phil.</p> + +<p>"I reckon not. You've got a license to feel lucky you're going +yourself."</p> + +<p>"By God, I say you shall!"</p> + +<p>The cattleman's eyes took on their stony, snake-like look. His hand did +not move by so much as an inch toward the scabbarded revolver at his +side.</p> + +<p>"All right. Come a-shooting. I see you've got a gun under that pillow."</p> + +<p>The weapon leaped into sight. "You're right I have! I'll drill you full +of holes as soon as wink."</p> + +<p>Weaver laughed contemptuously. "Begin pumping, son."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take my sister home with me. You'll give orders to your +men to that effect."</p> + +<p>"Guess again."</p> + +<p>"I tell you I'll shoot your hide full of holes if you don't!" cried the +excited boy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you won't."</p> + +<p>Buck Weaver was flirting with death, and he knew it. The very breath of +it fanned his cheek. During that moment he lived gloriously; for he was +a man who revelled in his sensations. He laughed into the very muzzle of +the six-shooter that covered him.</p> + +<p>"Quit your play acting, boy," he jeered.</p> + +<p>"I give you one more chance before I blow out your brains."</p> + +<p>The cattleman put his unwounded hand into his trousers pocket and +lounged forward, thrusting his smiling face against the cold rim of the +blue barrel.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you'll scatter proper what few brains I've got."</p> + +<p>With a curse, the boy flung the weapon down on the bed. He could not +possibly kill a man so willing as this. To draw guns with him, and +chance the issue, would have suited young Sanderson exactly. But this +way would be no less than murder.</p> + +<p>"You devil!" he cried, with a boyish sob.</p> + +<p>Weaver picked up the revolver, and examined it. "Mighty careless of Ned +to leave it lying around this way," he commented absently, as if unaware +of the other's rage. "You never can tell when a gun is going to get into +the wrong hands."</p> + +<p>"What are you letting me go for? You've got a reason. What is it?" Phil +demanded.</p> + +<p>Weaver looked at him through narrowed, daredevil eyes. "The ransom price +has been paid," he explained.</p> + +<p>"Paid! Who paid it?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Phyllis Sanderson."</p> + +<p>"Phyllis?" repeated the boy incredulously. "But she had no money."</p> + +<p>"Did I say she paid it in money?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"She asked me to set you free. I named my price, and she agreed."</p> + +<p>"What was your price?" the boy asked hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"A kiss."</p> + +<p>At that, Phil struck him full in the sardonic, mocking face. Blood +crimsoned the lips that had been crushed against the strong, white +teeth.</p> + +<p>"Again," said Weaver.</p> + +<p>The brown fist went back and shot forward like a piston rod. This time +it left an ugly gash over the cheek bone.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged. Once more."</p> + +<p>The young man balanced himself carefully, and struck hard and true +between the eyes.</p> + +<p>A third, a fourth, and a fifth time Phil lashed out at the disfigured, +grinning face.</p> + +<p>"Let's make it an even half dozen," the cattleman suggested.</p> + +<p>But Phil had had enough of it. This was too much like butchery. His +passion had spent itself. He struck, but with no force behind the blow.</p> + +<p>Weaver went to the washstand, dashed some water on his face, and pressed +a towel against the raw wounds. He flung the red-soaked towel aside just +as Curly cantered up on Sanderson's horse. The cow-puncher stared at his +boss in amazement, opened his lips to speak, and thought better of it. +He looked at Phil, whose knuckles were badly barked and bleeding.</p> + +<p>Curly had seen his master marked up before, but on such occasions the +other man was a sight for the gods to wonder at. Now Weaver was the +spectacle, and the other was untouched. In view of Buck's reputation as +a rough-and-tumble fighter, this seemed no less than a miracle. Curly +departed with the wonder unexplained, for Weaver dismissed him with a +nod.</p> + +<p>"Like to see your sister before you go?" the cattleman asked curtly of +Phil, over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Buck led the way across the plaza to the house, and clapped his hands in +the hall. Josephine answered the summons.</p> + +<p>"Tell Miss Sanderson that her brother would like to see her."</p> + +<p>The woman vanished up the stairway, and the two men waited in silence. +Presently Phyllis stood in the door. Her eyes ignored Weaver, and were +only for her brother. Her first glance told her that all was well so far +as he was concerned, even though it also let her know that the boy was +anxious.</p> + +<p>"Phil!" she breathed.</p> + +<p>"So you bought my freedom for me, did you?" the boy said, his voice +trembling.</p> + +<p>Phyllis answered in the clearest of low voices. "Yes. Did he tell you?"</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to have done it. I'll have no such bargains made. +Understand that!" cried her brother, emotion in his high tones.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help it, Phil. I did it for the best. You don't know."</p> + +<p>"I know that you're to keep out of this. I'll fight my own battles. In +our family the girls don't sell kisses. Remember that."</p> + +<p>Phyl hung her head. She felt herself disgraced, but she knew that she +would do it again in like circumstances.</p> + +<p>Weaver broke in roughly: "You young fool! She's worth a dozen of you, +who haven't sense enough to <i>sabe</i> her kind."</p> + +<p>The girl glanced at him involuntarily. At sight of his swollen and +beaten face, she started. Her gaze clung to him, eyes wild and +fluttering with apprehension.</p> + +<p>"I've been taking a massage treatment," he explained.</p> + +<p>Phyllis looked at her brother, then back at the ranchman. The thing was +beyond comprehension. Ten minutes ago, this ferocious Hercules had left +her, sound and unscratched. Now he returned with a face beaten and +almost beyond recognition from bloodstains.</p> + +<p>"What—what is it?" The appeal was to her brother.</p> + +<p>"He let me beat him," Phil explained.</p> + +<p>"Let you beat him! Why?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>What the boy said was true, yet it was something less than the truth. He +was dimly aware that this man knew himself to have violated the code, +and that he had submitted to punishment because of the violation.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," Phyllis commanded.</p> + +<p>Phil told her in three sentences. She looked at Weaver with eyes that +saw him in a new light. He still sneered, but behind the mask she got +for the first time a glimpse of another man. Only dimly she divined him; +but what she visioned was half devil and half hero, capable of things +great as well as of deeds despicable.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to leave you here in this house," young Sanderson told +her. "I'll not go. If you stay, I stay."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No, Phil—you must go. I'm all right here—as safe +as I would be at home. You know, he has a right to send me to prison if +he wants to. I suppose he is holding me as a hostage against our friends +in the hills."</p> + +<p>The boy accepted her decree under protest. He did not know what else to +do. Decision comes only with age, and he could hit on no policy that +would answer. Reluctantly he gave way.</p> + +<p>"If you so much as touch her, you'll die for it," he gulped at Weaver, +in a sudden boyish passion. "We'll shoot you down like a dog."</p> + +<p>"Or a coyote," suggested Buck, with a swift glance at Phyllis. "It seems +to be a family habit. I'm much obliged to you."</p> + +<p>Phyl was in her brother's arms, frankly in tears.</p> + +<p>It was all very well to tell him to go; it was quite another thing to +let him go without a good cry at losing him.</p> + +<p>"Just say the word, and I'll see it out with you, sis," he told her.</p> + +<p>"No, no! I want you to go. I wouldn't have you stay. Tell the boys it's +all right, and don't let them do anything rash."</p> + +<p>Sanderson clenched his teeth, and looked at Weaver. "Oh, they'll do +nothing rash. Now they know you're here, they won't do a thing but sit +down and be happy, I expect."</p> + +<p>The twins whispered together for a minute, then the boy kissed her, put +her from him suddenly, and strode away. From the door he called back two +words at the cattleman.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget."</p> + +<p>With that, he was gone. Yet a moment, and they heard the clatter of his +horse's hoofs.</p> + +<p>"Why did you tell him?" Phyllis asked. "It will only anger them. Now +they will seek vengeance on you."</p> + +<p>The man shrugged his shoulders. "Search me. Perhaps I wanted to prove to +myself that a man may be a mean bully, and not all coyote. Perhaps I +wanted to get under his hide. Who knows?"</p> + +<p>She knew, in part. He had treated her abominably, and wanted blindly to +pay for it in the first way that came to his mind. Half savage as he +sometimes was, that way had been to stand up to personal punishment, to +invite retaliation from his enemies.</p> + +<p>"You must have your face looked to. Shall I call Josephine?"</p> + +<p>"No," he answered harshly.</p> + +<p>"I think I will. We can help it, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>That "we" saved the day. He let her call the Mexican woman, and order +warm water, towels, dressings, and adhesive plaster. It seemed to him +more than a fancy that there was healing in the cool, soft fingers which +washed his face and adjusted the bandages. His eyes, usually so hard, +held now the dumb hunger one sees in those of a faithful dog. They +searched hers for something which he knew he would never find in them.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_X'></a><h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY</h3> +<br /> + +<p>A man lay on the top of Flat Rock, stretched at supple ease. By his side +was a carbine; in his hand a pair of field glasses. These last had been +trained upon Twin Star Ranch for some time, but were now focused upon a +pair of approaching riders. At the edge of the young willow grove the +two dismounted and came forward leisurely.</p> + +<p>"Looks like the mountains are coming to Mahomet this trip," the watcher +told himself.</p> + +<p>One figure was that of a girl—a brown, light-stepping nymph, upon whom +the checkered sunlight filtered through the leaves. The other was a +finely built man, strong as an ox, but with the sap of youth still in +his blood and the spring of it in his step, in spite of his nearly +twoscore years. He stopped at the foot of Flat Rock, and turned to his +companion.</p> + +<p>"I've been wondering why you went riding with me yesterday and again +to-day, Miss Phyllis. I reckon I've hit on the reason."</p> + +<p>"I like to ride."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I expect you don't like to ride with me so awful much."</p> + +<p>"Yet you see I do," answered the girl with her swift, shy smile.</p> + +<p>"And the reason is that you know I would be riding, anyway. You don't +want any of your people from the hills to use me as a mark. With you +along, they couldn't do it."</p> + +<p>"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to +send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred.</p> + +<p>He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled +significantly.</p> + +<p>She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him.</p> + +<p>"And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He +grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion +tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does +her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a +dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them."</p> + +<p>"You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not +for the sake of the coyote."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said +that. Please!"</p> + +<p>"All right—I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that +hurts."</p> + +<p>"I don't think it."</p> + +<p>"You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't +dodge. You know you think I'm a bully."</p> + +<p>"I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing.</p> + +<p>"Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the +story?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'll listen, if you will tell me."</p> + +<p>Weaver shook his head. "No—I guess that wouldn't be playing fair. +You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to +that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me—most of +it, at least—I sure enough deserve."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she mused, smiling at him.</p> + +<p>Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom +Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in +bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide +her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk +of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed +heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even +though, at the same time, it terrified her.</p> + +<p>Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give +me the same certificate of character. And I reckon they ain't so far +out, either," he added grimly.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they are all right, and yet all wrong too."</p> + +<p>He looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe they don't see the other side of you" said Phyllis gently.</p> + +<p>"How do you know there's another side?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how, but I do."</p> + +<p>"I reckon it must be a right puny one."</p> + +<p>"It has a good deal to fight against, hasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"You're right it has. There's a devil in me that gets up on its hind +legs and strangles what little good it finds. But it certainly beats me +how you know so much that goes on inside a sweep like me."</p> + +<p>"You forget. I'm not very good myself. You know my temper runs away with +me, too."</p> + +<p>"You blessed lamb!" she heard him say under his breath; and the way he +said it made the exclamation half a groan.</p> + +<p>For her naive confession emphasized the gulf between them. Yet it +pleased him mightily that she linked herself with him as a fellow +wrongdoer.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you've been wondering why your people have made no attempt to +rescue you," he said presently; for he saw her eyes were turned toward +the hills beyond which lay her home.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad they haven't, because it must have made trouble; but I <i>am</i> +surprised," she confessed.</p> + +<p>"They have tried it—twice," he told her. "First time was Saturday +morning, just before daylight. We trapped them as they were coming +through the Box Cañon. I knew they would come down that way, because it +was the nearest; so I was ready for them."</p> + +<p>"And what happened?" Her dilated eyes were like those of a stricken doe.</p> + +<p>"Nothing that time. I let them see I had them caught. They couldn't go +forward or back. They laid down their arms, and took the back trail. +There was no other way to escape being massacred."</p> + +<p>"And the second time?"</p> + +<p>Buck hesitated. "There was shooting that time. It was last night. My +riders outnumbered them and had cover. We drove them back."</p> + +<p>"Anybody hurt?" cried Phyllis.</p> + +<p>"One of them fell. But he got up and ran limping to his horse, I figured +he wasn't hurt badly."</p> + +<p>"Was he—could you tell—" She leaned against the rock wall for support.</p> + +<p>"No—I didn't know him. He was a young fellow. But you may be sure he +wasn't hit mortally. I know, because I shot him myself."</p> + +<p>"You!" She drew back in a sudden sick horror of him.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he answered doggedly. "They were shooting at me—aiming to +kill, too. I shot low on purpose, when I might have killed him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I must go home—I must go home!" she moaned.</p> + +<p>"I've got the sheriff's orders to hold you pending an investigation. +What harm does it do you to stay here a while?" he asked doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Don't you see? When my father hears of it he will be furious. I made +Phil promise not to tell him. But he'll hear when he comes back. And +then—there will be trouble. He'll drag me from you, or he'll die +trying. He's that kind of man."</p> + +<p>A pebble rolled down the face of the wall against which she leaned. +Weaver looked up quickly—to find himself covered by a carbine.</p> + +<p>"Hands up, seh! No—don't reach for a gun."</p> + +<p>"So it's you, Mr. Keller! Homesteading up there, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"In a way of speaking. You remember I asked you a question."</p> + +<p>"And I told you to go to Halifax."</p> + +<p>"Well, I came back to answer the question myself. You're going to turn +the young lady loose."</p> + +<p>"If you say so." Weaver's voice carried an inflection of sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"That's what I say. Miss Sanderson, will you kindly unbuckle that belt +and round up the weapons of war? Good enough! I'll drift down that way +now myself."</p> + +<p>Keller lowered himself from Flat Rock, keeping his prisoner covered as +carefully as he could the while. But, though Keller came down the steep +bluff with infinite pains, the rough going offered a chance of escape to +one so reckless as Weaver, of which he made not the least attempt to +avail himself. Instead, he smiled cynically and waited with his hand in +the air, as bidden. Keller, coming forward with both eyes on his +prisoner, slipped on a loose boulder that rolled beneath his foot, +stumbled, and fell, almost at the feet of the cattleman. He got up as +swiftly as a cat. Weaver and his derisive grin were in exactly the same +position.</p> + +<p>Keller lowered his carbine instantly. This plainly was no case for the +coercion of arms.</p> + +<p>"We'll cut out the gun play," he said. "Better rest the hand that's +reaching for the sky. I expect hostilities are over."</p> + +<p>"You certainly had me scared stiff," Weaver mocked.</p> + +<p>From the first roll of the pebble that had announced the presence of a +third party, Phyl had experienced surprise after surprise. She had +expected to see one of the Seven Mile boys or her brother instead of +Keller—had looked with a quaking heart for the cattleman to fling back +the swift challenge of a bullet. His tame surrender had amazed her, +especially when Keller's fall had given him a chance to seize the +carbine. His drawling, sarcastic badinage pointed to the same +conclusion. Evidently he had no desire to resist. Behind this must be +some purpose which she could not fathom.</p> + +<p>"Elected yourself chaperon of the young lady, have you, Mr. Keller?" +Buck asked pleasantly.</p> + +<p>The young man smiled at the girl before he answered. "You've been +losing too much time on the job, Mr. Weaver. Subject to her approval, I +got a notion I'd take her back home."</p> + +<p>"Best place for her," assented Weaver promptly. "I've been thinking for +a day or two that she ought to get back to those school kids of hers. +But I'm going to take her there myself."</p> + +<p>"Yourself!" Phyllis spoke up in quick surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" The cattleman smiled.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean with your band of thugs?"</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am. You and I will be enough."</p> + +<p>The suggestion was of a piece with his usual audacity. The girl knew +that he would be quite capable of riding with her into the hills, where +he had a score of bitter, passionate enemies, and of affronting them, if +the notion should come into his head, even in their stronghold. Within +twenty-four hours he had shot one of them; yet he would go among them +with his jaunty, mocking smile and that hateful confidence of his.</p> + +<p>"You would not be safe. They might kill you."</p> + +<p>"Would that gratify you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" she cried passionately.</p> + +<p>He bowed. "Anything to give pleasure to a lady."</p> + +<p>"No—you can't go! I won't go with you. I wouldn't be responsible for +what might happen."</p> + +<p>"What might happen—another family impulse?"</p> + +<p>"You know as well as I do—after what you've done. And there's bad blood +between you already. Besides, you are so reckless, so intemperate in +what you say and do."</p> + +<p>"All right. If you won't go with me, I'll go alone," he said.</p> + +<p>She appealed to Keller to support her, but the latter shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No use. A wilful man must have his way. If he says he's going, I reckon +he'll go. But whyfor should I be euchred out of my ride. Let me go along +to keep the peace."</p> + +<p>Her eyes thanked him. "If you are sure you can spare the time."</p> + +<p>"Don't incommode yourself, if you're in a hurry. We won't miss you." +Weaver's cold stare more than hinted that three would be a crowd.</p> + +<p>The younger man ignored him cheerfully. "Time to burn, Miss Sanderson."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to let that spring plowing suffer," the cattleman +suggested ironically.</p> + +<p>"That's so. Glad you mentioned it. I'll try to pick up some one to do it +at the store," returned the optimist.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me there are a pair of us, Mr. Keller, who may not be welcome +at Seven Mile. Last time you were down there, weren't you the guest of +some willing lads who were arranging a little party for you?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Weaver," reproached Phyllis, flushing.</p> + +<p>But the reference did not embarrass the nester in the least. He laughed +hardily, meeting his rival eye to eye. "The boys did have notions, but +I expect maybe they have got over them."</p> + +<p>"Nothing like being hopeful. Now I'd back my show against yours every +day in the week."</p> + +<p>The girl handed his revolver back to Weaver, after first asking a +question of the homesteader with her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I get my hardware back, do I?" Buck grinned.</p> + +<p>Keller brought his horse round from back of Flat Rock, where it had been +picketed. They started at once, cutting across the plain to a flat +butte, which thrust itself out from the hills into the valley. Two hours +of steady travel brought them to the butte, behind which lay Seven Mile +ranch.</p> + +<p>At the first glimpse of the roofs shining in the golden sunlight Phyllis +gave a cry of delight.</p> + +<p>"Home again. I wonder whether Father's here."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," echoed Weaver grimly.</p> + +<p>"That little fellow riding into the corral is one of my scholars," she +told them.</p> + +<p>"One of the fourteen that loves you, Miss Going-On-Eighteen. My, +there'll be joy in Israel over the lost that is found. I reckon by +to-morrow you'll be teaching the young idea how to shoot." He glanced +down at his bandaged arm with a malicious grin.</p> + +<p>Phyllis looked at him without speaking. It was Keller who made +application of the remark.</p> + +<p>"There are others here beside her pupils. Some of them are right quick +and straight on the shoot, Mr. Weaver. Now you've seen Miss Sanderson +home, there's still time to make your getaway without trouble. How about +hitting the trail while travelling is good, seh?"</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you taking your own advice, Keller?"</p> + +<p>"I don't figure the need is pressing in my case. Different with you."</p> + +<p>"I told you I would back my chances against yours. Well, I'm standing +pat on that."</p> + +<p>"The road will be open to me to-morrow. I wonder will it be open to you +then."</p> + +<p>"My friend, who elected you guardeen to Buck Weaver?" drawled the big +man carelessly.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would go," Phyllis pleaded, plainly troubled over his +obstinacy.</p> + +<p>"Me, I always hated to disoblige a lady," Buck admitted.</p> + +<p>"Then go," she cried eagerly.</p> + +<p>"But I hate still more to go back on my word. So I'll stay."</p> + +<p>There was nothing more to be said. They rode forward to the ranch. +'Rastus, at the stables, raised a shout and broke for the store on the +run.</p> + +<p>"Hyer's Miss Phyl done come home."</p> + +<p>At his call light-stepping dusty men poured from the building like seeds +from a squeezed orange. There was a rush for the girl. She was lifted +from her saddle and carried in triumph to the porch. Jim Sanderson came +running from the cellar in the rear and buried her in his arms.</p> + +<p>She broke down and began to cry a little. "Oh, Dad—Dad, I'm so glad to +be home."</p> + +<p>The old Confederate veteran was close to tears himself.</p> + +<p>"Honey, I jes' got back from town. Phil, he done wrong not letting me +know. I come pretty nigh giving that boy the bud. Wait till I meet up +with Buck Weaver. It's him or me for suah this time."</p> + +<p>"No, Dad, no! You must let me explain. I've been quite safe, and it's +all over now. Everything is all right."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" Sanderson laughed harshly.</p> + +<p>"The sheriff telephoned him to keep me, but you see he brought me home."</p> + +<p>"Brought you home?" The sheepman's black eyes lifted quickly and met +those of his enemy.</p> + +<p>"So you're there, Buck Weaver. I reckon you and I will settle accounts."</p> + +<p>Phil and Tom Dixon had quietly circled round so as to cut off Weaver's +retreat in case he attempted one.</p> + +<p>"He's got the rustler with him," Tom Dixon cried quickly.</p> + +<p>"Goddlemighty, so he has. We'll make a clean sweep," the Southerner +cried, his eyes blazing.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll destroy the man who was ready to give his life for mine," +his daughter said quietly.</p> + +<p>"What's that? How's that, Phyllie?"</p> + +<p>"It's a long story. I want you to hear it all. But not here."</p> + +<p>Her voice fell. A sudden memory had come to her of one thing at least +that she could not tell even to him—the story of that moment when she +had lain in the arms of the nester with his heart beating against her +breast.</p> + +<p>The old man caught her by the shoulder, holding her at arm's length, +while the deep eyes under his shaggy, grizzled brows pierced her.</p> + +<p>"What have you got to tell me, gyurl? Out with it!"</p> + +<p>But on the heels of his imperative demand came reassurance. A tide of +color poured into her face, but her eyes met his quietly. They let him +understand, more certainly than words, that all was well with his ewe +lamb. Putting her gently to one side, he strode toward his enemy.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here, Buck Weaver?"</p> + +<p>The cattleman swept the circle of lowering faces, and laughed +contemptuously. "A man might think I wasn't welcome if he didn't know +better."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're welcome—I reckon nobody on earth is more welcome right +now," retorted Sanderson grimly. "We were starting right out after you, +seh. But seeing you're here it saves trouble. Better 'light, you and +your friend, both."</p> + +<p>The declining sun flashed on three weapons that already covered the +cattleman. He looked easily from one to another, without the least +concern, and swung lightly from his horse.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged. Glad to accept your hospitality. But about this young man +here—he's not exactly a friend of mine—a mere pick-up acquaintance, in +fact. You mustn't accept him on my say-so. Of course, you know <i>I'm</i> all +right, but I can't guarantee <i>him</i>," Buck drawled, with magnificent +effrontery.</p> + +<p>Phyllis spoke up unexpectedly. "<i>I</i> can."</p> + +<p>Keller looked at her gratefully. It was not that he cared so much for +the certificate of character as for the friendly spirit that prompted +it. "That's right kind of you," he nodded.</p> + +<p>"We haven't heard yet what you are doing here, Buck Weaver," old Jim +Sanderson said, holding the cattleman with a hard and hostile eye. "And +after you've explained that, there are a few other things to make +clear."</p> + +<p>"Such as——" suggested the plainsman.</p> + +<p>"Such as keeping my daughter a captive and insulting her while she was +in your house," the father retorted promptly.</p> + +<p>"I held her captive because it was my right. She admitted shooting me. +Would you expect me to turn her loose, and thank her right politely for +it? I want to tell you that some folks would be right grateful because I +didn't send her to the penitentiary."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't send her there. No jury in Arizona would convict—even if +she were guilty," Tom Dixon broke out.</p> + +<p>"That's a frozen fact about the Arizona jury," the cattleman agreed, +with a swift, careless look at the boy. "Just the same, I had a license +to hold her. About the insult—well, I've got nothing to say. Nothing +except this, that I wouldn't be wearing these decorations"—he touched +the scars on his face—"if I didn't agree with you that nobody but a +sweep would have done it."</p> + +<p>"Everybody unanimous on that point, I reckon," said Jim Yeager promptly.</p> + +<p>Phyllis had been speaking to her father in a low voice. The old man +listened with no great patience, but finally nodded a concession to her +importunity.</p> + +<p>"We'll waive the matter of the insult just now. How about that boy you +shot up? Looks like you're a fool to come drilling in here, with him +still lying there on his bed."</p> + +<p>"He took his fighting chance. You ain't kicking because I played out the +game the way you-all started to play it? If you are, I'll have to say I +might have expected a sheep herder to look at it that way," Weaver +retorted insolently.</p> + +<p>The old man took a grip on his rising wrath. "No—we're not kicking, any +more than you've got a right to kick when we settle accounts with you."</p> + +<p>"As we're liable to do right shortly, now we've got you," said Dixon, +vindictively.</p> + +<p>"All right—go ahead with the indictment," Weaver acquiesced quietly, +ignoring the boy.</p> + +<p>"Keep still, Tom," Sanderson ordered, and went on with his grievance. +"You try to run this valley as if you were God Almighty. By your way of +it, a man has to come with hat in hand to ask you if he may take up land +here. The United States says we may homestead, but Buck Weaver says we +shan't. Uncle Sam says we may lease land to run sheep. Buck Weaver has +another notion of it. We're to take orders from him. If we don't he +clubs our sheep and drives off our cattle."</p> + +<p>"Cattle were here first," retorted Weaver. "The range is overstocked, +and they've got a prior right. Nesters in the hills here are making +money by rustling Twin Star calves. That's another thing."</p> + +<p>"Some of them. You'll not find any rustled calves with the Seven Mile +brand on them. And we don't recognize any prior right. We came here +legally. We intend to stay. Every time your riders club a bunch of our +sheep, we'll even up on Twin Star cattle. You take my daughter captive; +I hold you prisoner."</p> + +<p>"You'll be in luck if you get away from here with a whole skin," broke +out Phil. "You came here to please yourself, but you'll stay to please +us."</p> + +<p>"So?" Buck smiled urbanely. He was staying because he wanted to, though +they never guessed it.</p> + +<p>"Unbuckle his gun belt, Tom," ordered the old man.</p> + +<p>"Save you the trouble." Weaver unbuckled the belt and tossed it, +revolver and all, to Yeager.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mr. Weaver, we'll adjourn to the house."</p> + +<p>"Anything to oblige."</p> + +<p>"What about Mr. Keller?" Phyllis asked, in a low voice, of her father.</p> + +<p>The old man's keen, hard eyes surveyed the stranger. "Who is he? What do +you know about him?"</p> + +<p>As shortly as she could, she told what she knew of Keller, and how he +had rescued her from captivity.</p> + +<p>Her father strode forward and shook hands with the young man.</p> + +<p>"Make yourself at home, seh. We'll be glad to have you stay with us as +long as you can. What you have done for my daughter puts us +everlastingly in your debt."</p> + +<p>"Not worth mentioning. And, to be fair, I think Weaver was going to +bring her home, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"The way the story reached me, he didn't mention it until you had the +drop on him," answered Sanderson dryly.</p> + +<p>"That's right," nodded the cattleman ironically, from the porch. "You're +the curly-haired hero, Keller, and I'm the red-headed villain of this +play. You want to beware of the miscreant, Miss Sanderson, or he'll sure +do you a meanness."</p> + +<p>Tom Dixon eyed him frostily. "I expect you'll not do her any meanness, +Buck Weaver. From now on, you'll go one way and she'll go another. +You'll be strangers."</p> + +<p>"You don't say!" Buck answered, looking him over derisively, as he +passed into the house. "You're crowing loud for your size. And don't you +bet heavy on that proposition, my friend."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>TOM DIXON</h3> +<br /> + +<p>With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls +came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay +soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint +for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that +has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to +harness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds, +who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waiting +buggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road.</p> + +<p>The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells—to meet the eyes of +a young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in a +good-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. It +was not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten that +one meets daily.</p> + +<p>"Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air of +cheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt.</p> + +<p>Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone—all but little Jimmie +Tryon. He rides home with me."</p> + +<p>"Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back," +complained the man.</p> + +<p>"Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank and +direct as that of a boy.</p> + +<p>But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way. +You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out.</p> + +<p>"Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way ever +since——"</p> + +<p>He broke off.</p> + +<p>A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?"</p> + +<p>"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver."</p> + +<p>"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly +broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid +this. Must we thrash it out?"</p> + +<p>"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I +reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with +you."</p> + +<p>A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes +refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were +just children."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?"</p> + +<p>"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she +pleaded.</p> + +<p>"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle, +and came toward her eagerly. "I love you—always have since I was +knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these +days."</p> + +<p>She held up a hand to keep him back. "No—we're not. I know now that +you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you."</p> + +<p>"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted.</p> + +<p>She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy +had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace. +She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother.</p> + +<p>"No, Tom—let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me +be just a friend."</p> + +<p>"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put +off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got +a right to know, and I'm going to know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you have a right—but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I +didn't know my own mind then, and I do now."</p> + +<p>"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily.</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart," +she told him gently.</p> + +<p>"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I +shot Weaver?"</p> + +<p>"You shot him from ambush."</p> + +<p>"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw +him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't +lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to +shoot, and I shot before——"</p> + +<p>"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning, +even if it was right to shoot at all—which, of course, it wasn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a +mistake?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than +that. I can't tell you just what I mean."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience.</p> + +<p>"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain."</p> + +<p>"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame +his eyes could not meet hers.</p> + +<p>"No—I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least +resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you +ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't +possibly marry you after that."</p> + +<p>The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling with +vexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness of +that scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bear +the brunt of what he had done.</p> + +<p>"You told me to go, and now you blame me for doing what you said," he +complained bitterly.</p> + +<p>She realized the weakness of his defense—that he had saved himself at +the expense of the girl he claimed to love, simply because she had +offered herself as a sacrifice in his place. She thought of another man, +who, at the risk of his life, had held back the half dozen pursuers just +to give a better chance to a girl he had not known a week. She thought +of the cattleman who had ridden gayly into this valley of enemies, +because he loved her, and was willing to face any punishment for the +wrong he had done her. Her brother, too, pointed the same moral. He had +defied the enemy, though he had been in his power. Not one of them would +have done what Tom Dixon, in his panic terror, had allowed himself to +do. But they were men, all of them—men of that stark courage that +clings to self-respect rather than to life. This youth had met the acid +test, and had failed in the assay. She had no anger toward him—only a +kindly pity, and a touch of contempt which she could not help.</p> + +<p>"No—I don't blame you, Tom," she told him, very kindly. "But I can't +marry you. I couldn't if you explained till Christmas. That is final. +Now let us be friends."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand. He looked at it through the tears of +mortification that were in his eyes, dashed it aside with an oath, swung +to the saddle, and galloped down the road.</p> + +<p>Phyllis gave a wistful sigh. Tears filmed her eyes. He was her first +lover, had given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the third +grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him +go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she +experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a +form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now +to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and +not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch +girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals +when she was not handy to receive them.</p> + +<p>"Was Tom Dixon mean to you, teacher?"</p> + +<p>Little five-year-old Jimmie Tryon was standing before her, feet apart, +fists knotted, and brow furrowed. She swooped upon her champion and +snatched him up for a kiss.</p> + +<p>"Nobody has been mean to teacher, Jimmie, you dear little kiddikins," +she cried. "It's all right, honey. Tom thinks it isn't, but before long +he'll know it is."</p> + +<p>"Who'll tell him?" Jimmie wanted to know anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Some nice girl, little curiosity box. I don't know who yet, but it will +be one of two or three I could name," she laughed.</p> + +<p>She harnessed the horse and hitched it to the trap in which Jimmie and +she came to school. But before she had gathered up the reins to start, +another young man strolled upon the scene.</p> + +<p>This one was walking and carried a rifle.</p> + +<p>At sight of him a glow began to burn through her dark cheeks. They had +not been alone together before since that moment when the stress of +their emotion had swept them to a meeting of warm lips and warm bodies +that had startled her by the electric pulsing of her blood.</p> + +<p>Her eyes could not hold to his. Shame dragged the lashes down.</p> + +<p>With him it was not shame. The male in him rode triumphant because he +had moved a girl to the deeps of her nature. But something in him, some +saving sense of embarrassment, of reverence for the purity and innocence +he sensed in her, made him shrink from pressing the victory. His mind +cast about for a commonplace with which to meet her.</p> + +<p>He held up as a trophy of his prowess two cottontails. "Who says I can't +shoot?" he wanted to know boisterously.</p> + +<p>"Where did you buy them?" she scoffed, faintly trying for sauciness.</p> + +<p>"That's a fine reward for honest virtue, after I tramped five miles to +get them for your supper," protested Keller.</p> + +<p>She recovered her composure quickly, as women will.</p> + +<p>"If they are for my supper, we'll have to ask him to ride home with +us—won't we, Jimmie? It would never do to have them reach the ranch too +late," she said, making room for Keller in the seat beside her.</p> + +<p>It was after she had driven several hundred yards that he said, with a +smile: "I met a young man on horseback as I was coming up. He went by me +like a streak of light. Looked like he found this a right mournful +world. You had ought to scatter sunshine and not gloom, Miss Phyllis."</p> + +<p>"Am I scattering gloom?" she asked demurely.</p> + +<p>"Not right now," he laughed. "But looks like you have been."</p> + +<p>She flicked a fly from the flank of her horse before she answered: "Some +people are so noticing."</p> + +<p>"It was hanging right heavy on him. Had the look of a man who had lost +his last friend," the young man observed meditatively.</p> + +<p>"Dear me! How pathetic!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—he sure looked like he'd rejoice to plug another cattleman. I +'most arranged to send for Buck Weaver again," said Keller calmly.</p> + +<p>Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that you +say?"</p> + +<p>"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you said too——"</p> + +<p>"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story of +yours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you was +riding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from +'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt a +mouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on a +blind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover."</p> + +<p>"He isn't a coyote," she objected.</p> + +<p>Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew how +to respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man who +would shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bear +the blame of his wrongdoing. "No—I reckon coyote is too big a name for +him," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It was +natural he should feel a grudge."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. How +come you to let him do it?"</p> + +<p>"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun go +up, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he had +fired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazy +with fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide in +the big rocks, while I cut across toward the cañon. The men saw me, and +gave chase."</p> + +<p>"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, with +emphasis.</p> + +<p>Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Of +course they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was that +somebody was riding through the chaparral."</p> + +<p>"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chance +to save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Keller +put the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a vent +to his feelings.</p> + +<p>Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of a +man game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not even +a friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I need +them to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty."</p> + +<p>"He stood by her, too," she answered, trying to keep the matter +impersonal.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he wanted to make her his friend," Larrabie suggested.</p> + +<p>"There is no perhaps about his success," she said quietly, her gaze just +beyond the ears of her horse. The young man dared now to look at her—a +child of the sun despite her duskiness. Eagerly he awaited the deep, +lustrous eyes that would presently sweep round upon him, big and dark +and sparkling. When she turned her head, they were full of that new +womanly dignity that yet did not obscure the shy innocence.</p> + +<p>"Look!" Jimmie Tryon pointed suddenly to the figure of a man +disappearing from the road into the mesquite two hundred yards in front +of them.</p> + +<p>"That's odd. I reckon you'd better wait here, and let me investigate a +few," suggested Keller.</p> + +<p>"Be careful," she said anxiously.</p> + +<p>"It's all right. Don't worry," the young man assured her.</p> + +<p>He got down from the trap and dived into the underbrush, rifle in hand. +The two in the buggy waited a long time. No sound came to them from the +cactus-covered waste to indicate what was happening. When Phyllis' watch +told her that he had been gone ten minutes, a cheerful hail came from +the road in front.</p> + +<p>"All right. Come on."</p> + +<p>But it was far from all right. Keller had with him an old Mexican +herder, called Manuel Quito—a man in the employ of her father. A +bandanna was tied round his shoulder, and it was soaked with +bloodstains. He told his story with many shrugs and much excited +gesticulation. He and Jesus Menendez had been herding on Lone Pine when +riders of the Twin Star outfit had descended upon them and attacked the +sheep. He and Menendez had elected to fight, and Jesus had been shot +down; he himself had barely escaped with his life—and that not without +a wound. The cow-punchers had followed him, and continued to fire at +him, but he had succeeded in escaping. Yes—he felt sure that Menendez +was dead. Even if he had not been dead at first, they would have killed +him.</p> + +<p>Keller consulted Miss Sanderson silently. He knew that she was thinking +the thought that was in his own mind. It would never do to let this +story reach her father and her brother, while Buck Weaver was still in +their power. Inflamed as they already were against him, they would +surely do in hot blood that which they would repent later. Somehow, +Keller and she must hold back the news until they could contrive a way +to free the cattleman.</p> + +<p>"Best leave Manuel at the Tryon place till morning. They will look out +for him as well as you can. That will give us twelve hours to work +before they hear what has happened."</p> + +<p>"But what about poor Jesus, lying out there alone?"</p> + +<p>"We'll get Bob Tryon to drive out. But you needn't worry about Jesus. If +they found him still living, the Twin Star boys will attend to him just +as kindly as we could. Cowboys have tender hearts, even though they go +off at half cock."</p> + +<p>They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under the +care of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silence +until morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to be +no reason why he should not do well.</p> + +<p>It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He was +confined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of the +riders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if a +better chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended upon +the possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, while +Phyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner.</p> + +<p>The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. One +thing was sure—if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemies +before the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, his +chance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood of +the South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strike +first and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swift +blow would be a deadly one.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE ESCAPE</h3> + +<p>For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch +by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her +bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one.</p> + +<p>In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along +the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened +one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a +trip hammer.</p> + +<p>Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in +the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal. +Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence.</p> + +<p>But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the +dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so +often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To +judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged.</p> + +<p>The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner +and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the +moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom +stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into +the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what +cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite +on the other side of the road.</p> + +<p>Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key +to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it +behind her.</p> + +<p>"Where are you?" her young voice breathed.</p> + +<p>"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?"</p> + +<p>She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you +tied?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—hands and feet."</p> + +<p>A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a +few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the +door opened and a head was thrust in.</p> + +<p>"What's the row, Tom?"</p> + +<p>Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing +began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about."</p> + +<p>But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the +fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched.</p> + +<p>"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the +cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows.</p> + +<p>They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged +from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the +cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting.</p> + +<p>"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her.</p> + +<p>She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He +would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in +his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers.</p> + +<p>"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as +not to arouse suspicion."</p> + +<p>"But tell me—what does it mean?" demanded Buck.</p> + +<p>"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave +this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost."</p> + +<p>With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an +apparition of terror to learn what was wrong.</p> + +<p>She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log +cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing, +and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions.</p> + +<p>"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of +excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp. +Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over. +This moment she chose for her entrance.</p> + +<p>"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the +doorway.</p> + +<p>"He's got away—we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously.</p> + +<p>"But—how?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By +God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore.</p> + +<p>Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and +coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too, +fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools," +snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner—that's what's the matter."</p> + +<p>Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought +you kept him guarded."</p> + +<p>"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil.</p> + +<p>"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly.</p> + +<p>"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a +meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers +answered that the prisoner was safe so far.</p> + +<p>"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm. +"Sounded like a battle—and when we got there not a soul could be found. +Beats me how they got away so slick."</p> + +<p>Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to +be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she +had been told to do.</p> + +<p>She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head +quickly when she entered.</p> + +<p>"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity," +he began.</p> + +<p>"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one +of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man +as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a +neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves +on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid—we were +both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller +slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to +draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail +above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all."</p> + +<p>"But what am I to do here?"</p> + +<p>"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go, +the chances are they would have caught you again."</p> + +<p>"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the +sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to +escape the law that has been written?"</p> + +<p>"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life."</p> + +<p>"I don't want blood on the hands of my people."</p> + +<p>"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his +old sneer.</p> + +<p>She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor +Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a +punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict +it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them."</p> + +<p>"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a +wolfish Amalekite. Come—the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the +reapers."</p> + +<p>He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended +to block the way.</p> + +<p>"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when +the news comes."</p> + +<p>"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his +derisive smile.</p> + +<p>"You do nothing but mock—at your own death, at that of others. But you +shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little +wildly.</p> + +<p>"If you put it that way——"</p> + +<p>"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend +to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back +to them out of spite or dare-deviltry."</p> + +<p>"Just as you say."</p> + +<p>"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all +our lives are planned for your amusement."</p> + +<p>"I wish yours were planned——" He pulled himself up short. "You're +right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in +your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do."</p> + +<p>"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you. +You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and +you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance +for you to get away."</p> + +<p>"But I'll be driving you out," he protested.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to sleep with Anna—the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs. +Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the +door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else +knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear."</p> + +<p>"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a +low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the +decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is +that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of +this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a +chance to prove them."</p> + +<p>She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And +with that she left him to himself.</p> + +<p>Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but +they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her, +and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism +to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly.</p> + +<p>The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her +again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to +find her in the passage with a tray of food.</p> + +<p>"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot—just what +happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys +are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry. +Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the +tray on the table.</p> + +<p>Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up +her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great +fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her +hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the +passage and down the back stairs.</p> + +<p>He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as +silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and +charm, was not—could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the +road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him.</p> + +<p>How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray +morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his +absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance.</p> + +<p>He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the +threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him.</p> + +<p>"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked.</p> + +<p>The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not +think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming +accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She +let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology.</p> + +<p>"It's Phil, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>There was no way out of it. "No—it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll +explain," said Buck Weaver.</p> + +<p>Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the +stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young +mistress.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost."</p> + +<p>"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room."</p> + +<p>"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply.</p> + +<p>"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought—oh, I don't +know what I thought."</p> + +<p>Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very +curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in +everybody's business.</p> + +<p>"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly.</p> + +<p>"I don't think. I saw him."</p> + +<p>"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of +gentle scorn.</p> + +<p>"No—he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go +and see myself. You stay here."</p> + +<p>She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I +wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now, +when everybody is excited over the escape of that man."</p> + +<p>"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl +maintained obstinately.</p> + +<p>"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me."</p> + +<p>Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from +Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had +been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she +eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she +could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to +her to save the man in her room.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>A MISTAKE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the +sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The +Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they +could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made +an end of him.</p> + +<p>Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of +the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go +to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate +might have in store.</p> + +<p>When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to +leave.</p> + +<p>She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there, +rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after +the breakfast.</p> + +<p>"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a +sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away."</p> + +<p>"I promise," he told her.</p> + +<p>She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face +was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it.</p> + +<p>"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read, +without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hope not—I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You <i>will</i> be +careful, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me."</p> + +<p>Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front +door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins.</p> + +<p>"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens——"</p> + +<p>"But it won't. Why should it?"</p> + +<p>"Anna knows. She blundered upon him."</p> + +<p>"Will she keep it quiet?"</p> + +<p>"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the +boys."</p> + +<p>"All right," he nodded.</p> + +<p>"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said +piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "No—you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will +be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going +to be on the job all day."</p> + +<p>"You're so good!"</p> + +<p>"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the +dust robe, without looking at her.</p> + +<p>But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of +hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in +her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence +and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed +himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing +him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver—and never to +his disadvantage.</p> + +<p>He talked with a drawl. He walked and rode with an air of languid ease. +But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so +gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force +in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good +humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he +had won her. But the touch of affection in his manner never suggested +weakness.</p> + +<p>From the porch Tom Dixon watched her departure sullenly. Since he could +not have her, he let himself grow jealous of the man who perhaps could. +And because he was what he was—a small man, full of vanity and +conceit—he must needs make parade of himself with another girl in the +role of conquering squire. Larrabie smiled as the young fellow went off +for a walk in obviously confidential talk with Anna Allan, but he +learned soon that it was no smiling matter.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, the girl came flying back along the trail the two +had taken. Catching sight of Keller, she ran across to him, plainly +quivering with excitement and fluttering with fears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Keller—I've done it now! I didn't think——I thought—"</p> + +<p>"Take it easy," soothed the young man, with one of his winning smiles. +"Now, what is it you have done?" Already his eyes had picked out Dixon +returning, not quite so impetuously, along the trail.</p> + +<p>"I told him about the man in Phyllis' room."</p> + +<p>Larrabie's eyes narrowed and grew steely. "Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I told him—I don't know why, but I never could keep a secret. I made +him promise not to tell. But he is going to tell the boys. There he +comes now. And I told Phyllis I wouldn't tell!" Anna began to cry, +miserably aware that she had made a mess of things.</p> + +<p>"I just begged him not to tell—and he had promised. But he says it's +his duty, and he's going to do it. Oh, Mr. Keller—if Mr. Weaver is +there they will hurt him, and I'll be to blame."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will be," he told her bluntly. "But we may save him yet—if +you can go about your business and keep your mouth shut."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I will—I will," she promised eagerly. "I'll not say a word—not to +anybody."</p> + +<p>"See that you don't. Now, run along home. I'm going to have a quiet +little talk with that young man. Maybe I can persuade him to change his +mind," he said grimly.</p> + +<p>"Please—if you could. I don't want to start any trouble."</p> + +<p>Larrabie grinned, without taking his eyes from the man coming down the +trail. It was usually some good-natured idiot, with a predisposition to +gabbling, that made most of the trouble in the world.</p> + +<p>"Well, you be a good girl and padlock your tongue. If you do, I'll fix +it up with Tom," he promised.</p> + +<p>He sauntered forward toward the path. Dixon, full of his news, was +hurrying to the ranch. He was eager to tell it to the Sandersons, +because he wanted to reinstate himself in their good graces. For, though +neither of them knew he had fired the shot that wounded Weaver, he had +observed a distinct coolness toward him for his desertion of Phyllis in +her time of need. It had been all very well for him to explain that he +had thought it best to hurry home to get help. The fact remained that he +had run away and left her alone.</p> + +<p>Now he was for pushing past Keller with a curt nod, but the latter +stopped him with a lift of the hand.</p> + +<p>"What's your sweat?"</p> + +<p>"Want to see me, do you?"</p> + +<p>Keller nodded easily.</p> + +<p>"All right. Unload your mind. I can't give you but a minute."</p> + +<p>"Press of business on to-day?"</p> + +<p>"It's <i>my</i> business."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make it mine."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" came the quick, suspicious retort.</p> + +<p>"Let's walk back up the trail and talk it over."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won.</p> + +<p>"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly.</p> + +<p>"We can, but we won't."</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail."</p> + +<p>"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man—a +brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes.</p> + +<p>Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did +not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about +this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour +without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he +stopped.</p> + +<p>"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed, +attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession.</p> + +<p>"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the +American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope—no, +sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused +aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch.</p> + +<p>Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn +foolishness?"</p> + +<p>"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and +me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a +thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His +voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his +eyes that showed him prepared for any move.</p> + +<p>So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral +Keller nailed him in a dozen strides.</p> + +<p>"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business +to keep me here."</p> + +<p>"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."</p> + +<p>The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and +twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. +Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of +his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and +stepped back.</p> + +<p>"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that +gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.</p> + +<p>"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take +a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."</p> + +<p>"What—what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told +you that lie."</p> + +<p>He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the +face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to +pay for it.</p> + +<p>"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's +been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand +the gaff for you. Now it's due."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said +that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize——"</p> + +<p>"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take +it."</p> + +<p>Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his +opponent by twenty pounds—a husky, well-built fellow; but he was +entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten +man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he +took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as +did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from +the marrow out.</p> + +<p>Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight +in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But +now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing +blows.</p> + +<p>Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see +nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed +out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left, +came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one +hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to +clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an +uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned.</p> + +<p>"Sure of that?"</p> + +<p>"You've pretty near killed me."</p> + +<p>Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to +that apology now, my friend."</p> + +<p>With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I +didn't mean—I hadn't ought to have said——"</p> + +<p>Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know +better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on +the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a +fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother. +It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But +when you said she lied to me, that's another matter."</p> + +<p>For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not +leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story +would be kept secret.</p> + +<p>"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they +would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover. +'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly.</p> + +<p>"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly.</p> + +<p>"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" +Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil +and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for +leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done +the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more +than talk.</p> + +<p>"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about +it, and hear the particulars."</p> + +<p>"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know, +she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his +feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully. +"You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my +little spiel."</p> + +<p>"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can +see. I'd rather they didn't know."</p> + +<p>"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where +Buck is right now."</p> + +<p>Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not +persuaded.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them +both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?"</p> + +<p>Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though +his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one.</p> + +<p>"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly.</p> + +<p>"No—I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie.</p> + +<p>The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll +close-herd both stories, then."</p> + +<p>"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry. +Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied."</p> + +<p>But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but +mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so. +If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could +not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against +submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole +story of the thrashing would be bound to come out.</p> + +<p>"I can't go down looking like this," he growled.</p> + +<p>"Do you have to go down?"</p> + +<p>"Have to get my horse, don't I?"</p> + +<p>"I'll bring it to you."</p> + +<p>"And say nothing about—what has happened?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care to talk of it any more than you do. I'll be a clam."</p> + +<p>"All right—I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed +tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms.</p> + +<p>Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of +Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be +depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse, +tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the +wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had +to come down and saddle the latter's mount.</p> + +<p>He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before +he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks +the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others +in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat +stamp.</p> + +<p>This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding +foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a +deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now +its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung +again to the saddle, and continued on his way.</p> + +<p>The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not hear him coming +as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand +something that clicked.</p> + +<p>Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like +tempered steel.</p> + +<p>"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I +reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty."</p> + +<p>Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked +up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from +him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun, +ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?"</p> + +<p>"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this +one, to save you trouble."</p> + +<p>He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of +the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his +side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie.</p> + +<p>For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with +him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that +indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve +to pit himself against such a man as this.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're +trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is +between us two. It won't go any further."</p> + +<p>Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen +out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked +its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a +leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the +hill and disappeared.</p> + +<p>Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of +one who lives much alone.</p> + +<p>"There's a <i>nice</i> young man—yellow clear through. Queer thing she could +ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good +looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely +he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against +the acid test, then."</p> + +<p>His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice +plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself +till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a +dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering. +Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind +hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is +headed for the pen mighty fast."</p> + +<p>He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him +pass the time.</p> + +<p>This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect +something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed +prints on the walls—cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs +were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To +the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such +frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were +circumscribed by the purse limitation.</p> + +<p>Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse +by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr +Song."</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>I know by the stir of the branches,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>The way she went;<br /></span> +<span>And at times I can see where a stem<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>Of the grass is bent.<br /></span> +<span>She's the secret and light of my life,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>She allures to elude;<br /></span> +<span>But I follow the spell of her beauty,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>Whatever the mood.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Knows what he's talking about—some poet, that fellow," Buck cried +aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into +words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost +in his discovery.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a +gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It +was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke. +Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose +tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind. +From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza.</p> + +<p>"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No +risk at all, looks to me."</p> + +<p>With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close +to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being +seen.</p> + +<p>The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed, +and went back to reading.</p> + +<p>The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was +upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on +another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco +into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again +puffing in pleasant serenity.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar.</p> + +<p>Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his +mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was +that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole +through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had +plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of +the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he +must have been up in a balloon.</p> + +<p>The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his +pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray +cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat +had reached the powder.</p> + +<p>By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along +the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob, +the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices.</p> + +<p>"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin.</p> + +<p>The fat was surely in the fire now.</p> + +<p>Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door +was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply.</p> + +<p>Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old +Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher +known as Cuffs. All of them were armed.</p> + +<p>"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked.</p> + +<p>"So you're here, are you?" spoke up Phil.</p> + +<p>"That's right. I'm here, sure enough."</p> + +<p>"How long you been here?"</p> + +<p>"Been hanging round the place ever since my escape. You kept so close a +watch I couldn't make my getaway. Some time the other side of noon I +drifted in here, figuring some of you would drive me from cover by +accident during the day if I stayed out in the chaparral. This room +looked handy, so I made myself right at home and locked the door. I hate +to shoot up a lady's boudoir, but looks like that's what I've done."</p> + +<p>"You durn fool! Who were you shooting at?" Phil asked contemptuously.</p> + +<p>But his father stepped forward, and with a certain austere dignity, more +menacing than threats, took the words out of the mouth of his son.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil."</p> + +<p>Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the +imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission +in a lady's room," he admitted humorously.</p> + +<p>A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had +been running. It was Keller.</p> + +<p>That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw +him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition, +and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for +him last night.</p> + +<p>"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly.</p> + +<p>They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old +sheepman waved his hand toward a chair.</p> + +<p>"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the +mantel.</p> + +<p>He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had +already condemned him to death. The quiet repression they imposed on +themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to +another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil +were unusually tall men—as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of +shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men, +but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose.</p> + +<p>"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay.</p> + +<p>"Made up your mind, have you?"</p> + +<p>"Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus +Menendez."</p> + +<p>"A bad break, that—and me a prisoner here. Some of the boys had been +out on the range a week. I reckon they didn't know I was the rat in your +trap."</p> + +<p>"So much the worse for you."</p> + +<p>"Looks like," Weaver nodded. Then he added, almost carelessly: "I expect +there wouldn't be any use mentioning the law to you? It's here to +punish the man that shot Menendez."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of use. You own the sheriff and half the juries in this +county. Besides, we've got the man right here that is responsible for +the killing of poor Jesus."</p> + +<p>"Oh! If you look at it that way, of course——"</p> + +<p>"That's the way to look at it I don't blame your riders any more than I +blame the guns they fired. <i>You</i> did that killing."</p> + +<p>"Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles +away."</p> + +<p>"That makes no difference."</p> + +<p>"Seems to me it makes some," suggested Keller, speaking for the first +time. "His riders may have acted contrary to orders. He surely did not +give any specific orders in this case."</p> + +<p>"His actions for months past have been orders enough," said Cuffs.</p> + +<p>"You'd better investigate before you take action," Larrabie urged.</p> + +<p>"We've done all the investigating we're going to do. This man has set +himself up like a czar. I'm not going through the list of it all, but he +has more than reached the limit months ago. He's passed it now. He's got +to die, by gum," the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars.</p> + +<p>"We all have to do that. Just when does my time come?" Weaver asked.</p> + +<p>"Now," cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath.</p> + +<p>Phil swallowed hard. He had grown white beneath the tan. The thing they +were about to do seemed awful to him.</p> + +<p>"Good God! You're not going to murder him, are you?" protested Larrabie.</p> + +<p>"He murdered poor Jesus Menendez, didn't he?"</p> + +<p>"You mean you're going to shoot him down in cold blood?"</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with hanging?" Slim asked brutally.</p> + +<p>"No," spoke up Keller quickly.</p> + +<p>The old man nodded agreement. "No—they didn't hang Menendez."</p> + +<p>"Your sheep herder died—if he died at all, and we have no proof of +it—with a gun in his hands," Larrabie said.</p> + +<p>"That's right," admitted Phil quickly. "That's right. We got to give him +a chance."</p> + +<p>"What sort of a chance would you like to give him?" Sanderson asked of +the boy.</p> + +<p>"Let him fight for his life. Give him a gun, and me one. We'll settle +this for good and all."</p> + +<p>The eyes of the old Confederate gleamed, though he negatived the idea +promptly.</p> + +<p>"That wouldn't be a square deal, Phil. He's our prisoner, and he has +killed one of our men. It wouldn't be right for one of us to meet him on +even terms."</p> + +<p>"Give me a gun, and I'll meet all of you!" cried Weaver, eyes gleaming.</p> + +<p>"By God, you're on! That's a sporting proposition," Sanderson retorted +promptly. "Lets us out, too. I don't fancy killing in cold blood, +myself. Of course we'll get you, but you'll have a run for your money +first, by gum."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you'll get me, and maybe you won't. Is this little vendetta to be +settled with revolvers, or rifles?"</p> + +<p>"Make it rifles," Phil suggested quickly.</p> + +<p>There was always a chance that, if the battle were fought at long range, +the cattleman might reach the hill cañons in safety.</p> + +<p>Keller was helpless. He lived in a man's world, where each one fought +for his own head and took his own fighting chance. Weaver had proposed +an adjustment of the difficulty, and his enemies had accepted his offer. +Even if the Sandersons would have tolerated further interference, the +cattleman would not.</p> + +<p>Moreover Keller's hands were tied as to taking sides. He could not fight +by the side of the owner of the Twin Star Ranch against the father and +brother of Phyllis. There was only one thing to do, and that offered +little hope. He slipped quietly from the room and from the house, swung +to the back of a horse he found saddled in the place and galloped wildly +down the road toward the schoolhouse.</p> + +<p>Phyllis had much influence over her father. If she could reach the +scene in time, she might prevent the duel.</p> + +<p>His pony went up and down the hills as in a moving-picture play.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile terms of battle were arranged at once, without haggling on +either side. Weaver was to have a repeating Winchester and a belt full +of cartridges, the others such weapons as they chose. The duel was to +start with two hundred and fifty yards separating the combatants, but +this distance could be increased or diminished at will. Such cover as +was to be found might be used.</p> + +<p>"Whatever's right suits me," the cattleman said. "I can't say more than +that you are doing handsomely by me. I reckon I'll make that declaration +to some of your help, if you don't mind."</p> + +<p>The horse wrangler and the Mexican waiter were sent for, and to them the +owner of the place explained what was about to occur. Their eyes stuck +out, and their chins dropped, but neither of the two had anything to +say.</p> + +<p>"We're telling you boys so you may know it's all right. I proposed this +thing. If I'm shot, nobody is to blame but myself. Understand?" Weaver +drove the idea home.</p> + +<p>The wrangler got out an automatic "Sure," and Manuel an amazed "<i>Si, +senor</i>," upon which they were promptly retired from the scene.</p> + +<p>Having prepared and tested their weapons, the parties to the difficulty +repaired to the pasture.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to try out this gun, if you don't mind. It's a new +proposition to me," the cattleman said.</p> + +<p>"Go to it," nodded Slim, seating himself tailor-fashion on the ground +and rolling a cigarette. He was a black, bilious-tempered fellow, but +this particular kind of gameness appealed to him.</p> + +<p>Weaver glanced around, threw the rifle to his shoulder, and fired +immediately. A chicken, one hundred and fifty yards away, fell over.</p> + +<p>"Accidents will happen," suggested Slim.</p> + +<p>"That accident happened through the neck, you'll find," Weaver retorted +calmly.</p> + +<p>"Betcher."</p> + +<p>Buck dropped another rooster.</p> + +<p>"You ain't happy unless you're killing something of ours," Slim grinned. +"Well, if you're satisfied with your gun, we'll go ahead and see how +good you are on humans."</p> + +<p>They measured the distance, and Sanderson called: "Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"I reckon," came back the answer.</p> + +<p>The father gave the signal—the explosion of a revolver. Even as it +flashed, Buck doubled up like a jack rabbit and leaped for the shelter +of a live oak, some thirty yards distant. Four rifles spoke almost at +the same instant, so that between the first and the last not a second +intervened. One of them cracked a second time. But the runner did not +stop until he reached the tree and dropped behind its spreading roots.</p> + +<p>"Hunt cover, boys!" the father gave orders. "Don't any of you expose +yourself. We'll have to outflank him, but we'll take our time about it."</p> + +<p>He got this out in staccato jerks, the last part of it not until all +were for the moment safe. The strange thing was that Weaver had not +fired once as they scurried for shelter, even though Phil's foot had +caught in a root and held him prisoner for an instant while he freed it. +But as they began circling round him carefully, he fired—first at one +of them and then at another. His shooting was close, but not one of them +was hit. Recalling the incident of the chickens, this seemed odd. In +Slim's phrasing, he did not seem to be so good on "humans."</p> + +<p>Behind his live oak, Buck was so well protected that only a chance shot +could reach him before his enemies should outflank him. How long that +would have taken nobody ever found out; for an intervention occurred in +the form of a flying Diana, on horseback, taking the low fence like a +huntress.</p> + +<p>It was Phyllis, hatless, her hair flying loose—a picture long to be +remembered. Straight as an arrow she rode for Weaver, flung herself from +the saddle, and ran forward to him, waving her handkerchief as a signal +to her people to cease firing.</p> + +<p>"Thank God, I'm in time!" she cried, her voice deep with feeling. Then, +womanlike, she leaned against the tree, and gave way to the emotion that +had been pent within her.</p> + +<p>Buck patted her shoulders with awkward tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Don't you! Don't you!" he implored.</p> + +<p>Her collapse lasted only a short time. She dried her tears, and stilled +her sobs. "I must see my father," she said.</p> + +<p>The old man was already hurrying forward, and as he ran he called to his +boys not to shoot. Phyl would not move a single step of the way to meet +him, lest they take advantage of her absence to keep up the firing.</p> + +<p>"How under heaven did you get here?" Buck asked her.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Keller came to meet me. I took his horse, and he is bringing the +buggy. I heard firing, so I cut straight across," she explained.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't have come. You might have been hit."</p> + +<p>She wrung her hands in distress. "It's terrible—terrible! Why will you +do such things—you and them?" she finished, forgetting the careful +grammar that becomes a schoolmarm.</p> + +<p>Buck might have told her—but he did not—that he had carefully avoided +hitting any of her people; that he had determined not to do so even if +he should pay for his forbearance with his life. What he did say was an +apologetic explanation, which explained nothing.</p> + +<p>"We were settling a difference of opinion in the old Arizona way, Miss +Phyl."</p> + +<p>"In what way? By murdering my father?" she asked sharply.</p> + +<p>"He's covering ground right lively for a dead one," Buck said dryly.</p> + +<p>"I'm speaking of your intentions. You can't deny you would have done +it."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, I haven't denied it."</p> + +<p>Sanderson, almost breathless, reached them, caught the girl by the +shoulders, and shook her angrily.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by it? What are you doing here? Goddlemighty, girl! +Are you stark mad?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I think all you people are."</p> + +<p>"You'll march home to your room, and stay there till I come."</p> + +<p>"No, father."'</p> + +<p>"Yes, I say!"</p> + +<p>"I must see you—alone."</p> + +<p>"You can see me afterward. We'll do no talking till this business is +finished."</p> + +<p>"Why do you talk so? It won't be finished—it can't," she moaned.</p> + +<p>"We'll attend to this without your help, my girl."</p> + +<p>"You don't understand." Her voice fell to the lowest murmur. "He came +here for me."</p> + +<p>"For you-all?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you see? He brought me back here because he—cared for me." A +tide of shame flushed her cheeks. Surely no girl had ever been so +cruelly circumstanced that she must tell such things before a lover, +who had not declared himself explicitly.</p> + +<p>"Cared for you? As a wolf does for a lamb!"</p> + +<p>"At first, maybe—but not afterward. Don't you see he was sorry? +Everything shows that."</p> + +<p>"And to show that he was sorry, he had poor Jesus Menendez killed!"</p> + +<p>"No—he didn't know about that till I told him."</p> + +<p>"Till <i>you</i> told him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. When I freed him and took him to my room."</p> + +<p>"So you freed him—<i>and took him to your room?</i>" She had never heard her +father speak in such a voice, so full at once of anger and incredulous +horror.</p> + +<p>"Don't look at me like that, father! Don't you see—can't you see——Oh, +why are you so cruel to me?" She buried her face in her forearm against +the rock.</p> + +<p>Her father caught her arm so savagely that a spasm of pain shot through +her. "None of that! Give me the truth. Now—this instant!"</p> + +<p>Anger at his injustice welled up in her. "You've had the truth. I knew +of the attack on the sheep camp—heard of it on the way home from +school, from Manuel. Do you think I've lived with you eighteen years for +nothing? I knew what you would do, and I tried to save you from +yourself. There was no place where he would be safe but in my room. I +took him there, and slept with Anna. I did right. I would do it again."</p> + +<p>"Slept with Anna, did you?"</p> + +<p>She felt again that furious tide of blood sweep into her face. "Yes. +From the time of the shooting."</p> + +<p>"Goddlemighty, gyurl, I wisht you'd keep out of my business."</p> + +<p>"And let you do murder?"</p> + +<p>"Why did you save him? Because you love him?" demanded Sanderson +fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Because I love <i>you</i>. But you're too blind to see it."</p> + +<p>"And him—do you love him? Answer me!"</p> + +<p>"No!" she flamed. "But if I did, I would be loving a man. He wouldn't +take odds of five to one against an enemy."</p> + +<p>Her father's great black eyes chiselled into hers. "Are you lying to me, +girl?"</p> + +<p>Weaver spoke out quietly. "I expect <i>I</i> can answer that, Mr. Sanderson. +Your daughter has given me to understand that I'm about as mean a thing +as God ever made."</p> + +<p>But Phyl was beyond caution now. Her resentment against her father, for +that he had forced her to drag out the secret things of her heart and +speak of them in the presence of the man concerned, boiled into +words—quick, eager, full of passion.</p> + +<p>"I take it all back then—every word of it!" she cried. "You are +braver, kinder, more generous to me than my own people—more chivalrous. +You would have gone to your death without telling them that I took you +to my room. But my own father, who has known me all my life, insults me +grossly."</p> + +<p>"I was wrong," Sanderson admitted uneasily.</p> + +<p>Keller climbed the pasture fence, and came running up at the same time +as Phil and Slim.</p> + +<p>"Menendez is alive!" he cried. "He is at the Twin Star Ranch. The boys +there are taking care of him, and the doctor says he will pull through."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"Bob Tryon. I met him not five minutes ago. He is on his way here."</p> + +<p>This put a new face on things. If Menendez were still alive, Weaver +could be held to await developments. Moreover, since the sheep herder +was a prisoner at the Twin Star Ranch, retaliation would follow any +measures taken against the cattleman.</p> + +<p>Phyllis gave a glad little cry. "Then it's all right now."</p> + +<p>Weaver's face crinkled to a leathery grin. "Mighty unfortunate—ain't +it, boys? Puts a kind of a kink in our plans for the little +entertainment we were figuring on pulling off. But maybe you've a notion +of still going on with it."</p> + +<p>"If we don't, it won't be on your account, seh, I don't reckon," +Sanderson answered reluctantly.</p> + +<p>But though he would not admit it, the old man was beginning to admire +this big fellow, who could afford to miss his enemies on purpose even in +the midst of a deadly duel. He was coming to a grudging sense of quality +in Weaver. The cattleman might be many things that were evil, but +undeniably he possessed also those qualities which on the frontier count +for more than civilized virtues. He was game to the core. And he knew +how to keep his mouth shut at the right time, no matter what it was +going to cost him. On the whole Buck Weaver would stand the acid test, +the old soldier was coming to think. And because he did not want to +believe any good of his enemy, old Jim Sanderson, when he was alone in +the corral with the horses or on a hillside driving his sheep, would +shake his gnarled fist impotently and swear fluently until his +surcharged feelings were relieved.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THE BRAND BLOTTER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Two riders followed the trail to Yeager's Spur—one a man, brown and +forceful; the other a girl, with sunshine in her dancing eyes and a +voice full of the lilt of laughter. What they might come to be to each +other both were already speculating about, though neither knew as yet. +They were the best of friends—good comrades, save when chance eyes said +unguardedly too much. For the girl that sufficed, but it was not enough +for the man. He knew that he had found the one woman he wanted for his +wife. But Phyllis only wondered, let her thoughts rove over many things. +For instance, why queer throbs and sudden shyness swept her soft young +body. She liked Larrabie Keller—oh, so much!—but her untutored heart +could not quite tell her whether she loved him. His eyes drilled into +her electric pulsations whenever they met hers. The youth in him called +to the youth in her. She admired him. He stirred her imagination, and +yet—and yet——</p> + +<p>They rode through a valley of gold and russet, all warm with yellow +sunlight. In front of them, the Spur projected from the hill ridge into +the mountain park.</p> + +<p>"Then I think you're a cow-puncher looking for a job, but not very +anxious to find one," she was hazarding, answering a question.</p> + +<p>"No. That leaves you one more guess."</p> + +<p>"That forces me to believe that you are what you say you are," she +mocked; "just a plain, prosaic homesteader."</p> + +<p>She had often considered in her mind what business might be his, that +could wait while he lingered week after week and rode trail with the +cowboys; but it had not been the part of hospitality to ask questions of +her friend. This might seem to imply a doubt, and of doubt she had none. +To-day, he himself had broached the subject. Having brought it up, he +now dropped it for the time.</p> + +<p>He had shaded his eyes, and was gazing at something that held his +attention—a little curl of smoke, rising from the wash in front of +them.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked, impatient that his mind could so easily be +diverted from her.</p> + +<p>"That is what I'm going to find out. Stay here!"</p> + +<p>Rifle in hand, Keller slipped forward through the brush. His imperative +"Stay here!" annoyed her just a little. She uncased her rifle, dropped +from the saddle as he had done, and followed him through the cacti. Her +stealthy advance did not take her far before she came to the wash.</p> + +<p>There Keller was standing, crouched like a panther ready for the +spring, quite motionless and silent—watching now the bushes that +fringed the edge of the wash, and now the smoke spiral rising faintly +from the embers of a fire.</p> + +<p>Slowly the man's tenseness relaxed. Evidently he had made up his mind +that death did not lurk in the bushes, for he slid down into the wash +and stepped across to the fire. Phyllis started to follow him, but at +the first sound of slipping rubble her friend had her covered.</p> + +<p>"I told you not to come," he reproached, lowering his rifle as soon as +he recognized her.</p> + +<p>"But I wanted to come. What is it? Why are you so serious?"</p> + +<p>His eyes were busy making an inventory of the situation, his mind, too, +was concentrated on the thing before him.</p> + +<p>"Do you think it is rustlers? Is that what you mean?" she asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute and I'll tell you what I think." He finished making his +observations and returned to her. "First, I'll tell you something else, +something that nobody in the neighborhood knows but you and Jim Yeager. +I belong to the ranger force. Lieutenant O'Connor sent me here to clean +up this rustling that has been going on for several years."</p> + +<p>"And a lot of the boys thought you were a rustler yourself," she +commented.</p> + +<p>"So did one or two of the young ladies," he smiled. "But that is not the +business before this meeting. Because I'm trained to it I notice things +you wouldn't. For instance, I saw a man the other day with a horse whose +hind hoof left a trail like that."</p> + +<p>He pointed to one, and then another track in the soft sand. "Maybe that +might be a coincidence, but the owner of that horse had a habit of +squirting tobacco juice on clean rocks—like that—and that."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't prove he has been rustling."</p> + +<p>"No; but the signs here show he has been branding, and Buck Weaver ran +across these same marks left by a waddy who surely was making free with +a Twin Star calf."</p> + +<p>"How long has he been gone?"</p> + +<p>"There were two of them, and they've been gone about twenty minutes."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>He pointed to a stain of tobacco juice still moist.</p> + +<p>"Who is he?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He knew her stanch loyalty to her friends, and Tom Dixon had been a +friend till very lately. He hesitated; then, without answering, made a +second thorough examination of the whole ground.</p> + +<p>"Come—if we have any luck, I'll show him to you," he said, returning to +her. "But you must do just as I say—must be under my orders."</p> + +<p>"I will," she promised.</p> + +<p>Forthwith, they started. After they had ridden in silence for some +distance, covering ground fast, they drew to a walk.</p> + +<p>"You know by the trail for where they were heading," she suggested in a +voice that was a question.</p> + +<p>"I guessed."</p> + +<p>Presently, at the entrance to a little cañon, Keller swung down and +examined the ground carefully, seemed satisfied, and rode with her into +the gully. But she noticed that now he went cautiously, eyes narrowed +and wary, with the hard face and the look of a coiled spring she had +seen on him before. Her heart drummed with excitement. She was not +afraid, but she was fearfully alive.</p> + +<p>At the other entrance to the cañon, Larrabie was down again for another +examination. What he seemed to find gave him pleasure.</p> + +<p>"They've separated," he told Phyllis. "We'll give our attention to the +gentleman with the calf, and let his friend go, to-day."</p> + +<p>They swung sharply to the north, taking a precipitous trail of shale +that Phyllis judged to be a short cut. It was rough going, but their +mountain ponies were good for anything less than a perpendicular wall. +They clambered up and down like cats, as sure-footed as wild goats.</p> + +<p>At the summit of the ridge, Keller pointed out something in the valley +below—a rider on horseback, driving a calf.</p> + +<p>"There goes Mr. Waddy, as big as coffee."</p> + +<p>"He's going to swing round the point. You mean to drop down the hill and +cut him off?"</p> + +<a name="illus3"><!-- Image 3 --></a> +<center><a href="images/204_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/204_sm.jpg" height="477" width="300" +alt=""DROP THAT GUN!" Page 205" /> +</a> +</center> +<p style="text-align: center"><span style=' +font-weight:700'><small> +"DROP THAT GUN!" +(<a href="#dropthat">Page 205</a>)</small></span></p> + + +<p>"That's the plan. Better do no more talking after we pass that live +oak. See that little wash? We'll drop into it, and hide among the +cottonwoods."</p> + +<p>The rustler was pushing along hurriedly, driving the calf at a trot, +half the time twisted in the saddle, with anxious eyes to the rear. +Revolvers and a rifle garnished him, but quite plainly they gave him no +sense of safety.</p> + +<p>When the summons came to him to <a name='dropthat'>"Drop that gun!"</a> it was only a +confirmation of his fears. Yet he jumped as a boy jumps under the +unexpected cut of a cane.</p> + +<p>The rifle went clattering to the stony trail. Without being ordered to +do so, the hands of the waddy were thrust skyward.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's Tom Dixon! We've made a mistake," Phyllis discovered; and +moved forward from her hiding place.</p> + +<p>"We've made no mistake. I told you I'd show you the rustler, and I've +shown him to you," Keller answered, as he too stepped forward. And to +Tom, whose hands dropped at sight of Phyllis: "Better keep them reaching +till I get those guns. That's right. Now, you may 'light."</p> + +<p>"What's got into you?" demanded Dixon, his teeth still chattering. +"Holding up a man for nothing. Take away that gun you got bent on me!"</p> + +<p>"You're under arrest for rustling, seh," the cattle detective told him +sternly.</p> + +<p>"Prove it. Prove it!" Dixon swung from the saddle, and faced the other +doggedly.</p> + +<p>"That calf you're driving now is rustled. You branded it less than two +hours ago in Spring Valley, right by the three cottonwoods below the +trail to Yeager's Spur."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" cried the startled youth. And on the heels of that: +"It's a lie!" He was getting a better grip on his courage. He spat +defiantly a splash of tobacco juice on a flat pebble which his eye +found. "No such thing! This calf was a maverick. Ask Phyl. She'll tell +you I'm no rustler."</p> + +<p>Phyllis said nothing. Her gaze was very steadily on Tom.</p> + +<p>Keller pointed to the evidence which the hoof of the horse had printed +on the trail, and to that which the man had written on the pebble. "We +found both these signs once before. They were left by one of the +rustlers operating in this vicinity. That time it was a Twin Star brand +you blotted. You've done a poor job, for I can see there has been +another brand there. Your partner left you with the cow at the entrance +to the cañon. Caught red-handed as you have been driving the calf to +your place, you'll find all this aggregates evidence enough to send you +to the penitentiary. Buck Weaver will attend to that."</p> + +<p>"It's a conspiracy. You and him mean to railroad me through," Tom +charged sullenly. "I tell you, Phyllis knows I'm no rustler."</p> + +<p>"I've known you were one ever since the day you wanted to go back and +tell where Weaver was hidden. You and your pony scattered the evidence +around then, just as you're doing here," the ranger answered.</p> + +<p>"You've got it cooked up to put me through," Dixon insisted desperately. +"You want to get me out of the way, so you'll have a clear track with +Phyl. Think I don't <i>sabe</i> your game?"</p> + +<p>The angry color sucked into Keller's face beneath the tan. He avoided +looking at Phyllis. "We'll not discuss that, seh. But I can say that +kind of talk won't help buy you anything."</p> + +<p>The girl looked at Dixon in silent contempt. She was very angry, so that +for the moment her embarrassment was swamped. But she did not choose to +dignify his spleen by replying to it.</p> + +<p>There was no iron in Dixon's make-up. When he saw that this attack had +reacted against him, he tried whining.</p> + +<p>"Honest, you're wrong about this calf, Mr. Keller. I don't say, mind +you, it ain't a rustled calf. It may be; but I don't know it if it is. +Maybe the rustlers were scared off just before I happened on it."</p> + +<p>"We'll see how a jury looks at that. You're going to get the chance to +tell that story to one, I expect," Larrabie remarked dryly.</p> + +<p>"Pass it up this time, and I'll get out of the country," the youth +promised.</p> + +<p>"Take care! Whatever you say will be used against you."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I did rustle one of Buck Weaver's calves—mind, I don't say I +did—but say I did? Didn't he bust my father up in business? Ain't he +aiming to do the same by your folks, Phyl?" He was almost ready to cry.</p> + +<p>The girl turned her head aside, and spoke in a low voice to Keller. She +was greatly angered and disgusted at Tom; but she had been his friend, +and on this occasion there had been some justification for him in the +wrong the cattleman had done his family.</p> + +<p>"Do you have to report him and have him prosecuted?"</p> + +<p>"I'm paid to stop the rustling that has been going on," answered Keller, +in the same undertone.</p> + +<p>"He won't do it again. He has had his scare. It will last him a +lifetime." Even while she promised it for him, it was not without +contempt for the poor-spirited craven who could be so easily driven from +his evil ways. If a man must do wrong, let it be boldly—as Buck Weaver +did it.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but his pals haven't had theirs."</p> + +<p>"But you don't know them."</p> + +<p>"I can guess one man in it with him. We've got to root the thing out."</p> + +<p>"Why not serve warning on him by Tom? Then they would both clear out."</p> + +<p>Dixon divined that she was pleading for him, and edged in another word +for himself. "Whatever wrong I've done I've been driven to. There's been +an older man to lead me into it, too."</p> + +<p>"You mean Red Hughes?" Keller said sharply.</p> + +<p>Tom hesitated. He had not got to the point of betraying his accomplice. +"I ain't saying who I mean. Nor, for that matter, I ain't admitting I've +done any particular wrong—no more than other young fellows."</p> + +<p>Keller brought him sharply to time. "You've used your last wet blanket. +I've got the evidence that will put you behind the bars. Miss Phyllis +wants me to let you off. I can't do it unless you make a clean breast of +it. You'll either come through with what I want to know, and do as I +say, or you'll have to stand the gaff."</p> + +<p>"What do you want to know?"</p> + +<p>"How many pals had you in this rustling?"</p> + +<p>"You said you would use against me anything I said."</p> + +<p>"I say now I'll use it <i>for</i> you if you tell the truth and meet my +conditions."</p> + +<p>"What are your conditions?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind. You'll learn them later. Answer my question. How many?"</p> + +<p>"One"—very sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Red Hughes?"</p> + +<p>"That's the one thing I can't tell you," the lad cried. "Don't you see I +can't?"</p> + +<p>"It's the one thing I don't need to know. I've got Red cinched about as +tight as you, my boy. How long has this been going on?"</p> + +<p>The information came from Dixon as reluctantly as a tight cork comes +from a bottle. "Nearly a year."</p> + +<p>Sharp, incisive questions followed, one after another; and at the end of +the quiz Tom was pumped nearly dry. Those who heard his confession +listened to the story of how and why he had first started rustling—the +tale of each exploit, the location of the mountain cache where the +calves had been driven, even the name of the Mexican buyer who once had +come across the line to receive a bunch of stolen cattle.</p> + +<p>Keller laid down his conditions. "You'll go to Red <i>muy pronto</i>, and +tell him he's got thirty-six hours to get across the line. He and you +will go to Sonora, and you'll stay there. We've got you dead to rights. +Show up in this country again, and you'll both go to Yuma. Understand?"</p> + +<p>Tom understood well enough. He writhed under it, but he was up against +the need of surrender. Sullenly he waited until the other had laid down +the law, then asked for his weapons. Keller emptied the chambers of the +cartridges, and returned the revolvers, looking also to the magazine of +the rifle before he handed it back. Without a word, without even a nod +or a glance, Dixon rode out of the gulch.</p> + +<p>The eyes of the remaining two met, and became tangled at once. Hastily +both pairs withdrew.</p> + +<p>"We'll have to drive the calf back, won't we?" said Phyllis, seizing on +the first irrelevant thing that occurred to say.</p> + +<p>"Yes—as far as Tryon's."</p> + +<p>Presently she said: "Do you think they will leave the country?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Her glance swept him in surprise. "Then—why did you let him go so +easily?"</p> + +<p>He smiled. "Didn't you ask me to let him off?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but——" How could she explain that by lapsing from his duty so far, +even at her request, he had disappointed her!</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am! I'm a false alarm. It wasn't out of gallantry I unroped him. +Shall I tell you why it was? I kept naming Red as his partner. But +Hughes ain't in this. He has been in Sonora for a year. When Tom goes +back all worried and tells what has happened to him, the gentleman who +is the brains for the outfit is going to be right pleased I'm following +a false trail. That's liable to make him more careless. If we had had +the evidence to cinch Dixon it would have been different. But a roan +calf is a roan calf. I don't expect the owner could swear to it, even if +we knew who he was. So I made my little play and let him go."</p> + +<p>"And I thought all the time you were doing it for me," she laughed, and +on the heels of it made her little confession: "And I was blaming you +for giving way."</p> + +<p>"I'll know now that the way to please you is not to do what you want me +to do."</p> + +<p>"You know a lot about girls, don't you?" she mocked.</p> + +<p>"Me, I'm a wiz," he agreed with her derision.</p> + +<p>Keller spoke absently, considering whether this might be the propitious +moment to try his luck. They had been comrades together in an adventure +well concluded. Both were thinking of what Dixon had said. It seemed to +Larrabie that it would be a wonderful thing if they might ride back +through the warm sunlight with this new miracle of her love in his life. +It was at the meeting of their fingers, when he gave her the bridle, +that he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I've got to say it, Miss Phyllis. I've got to know where I stand."</p> + +<p>She understood him of course. The touch of their eyes had warmed her +even before he began. But "Stand how?" she repeated feebly.</p> + +<p>"With you. I love you! We both know that. What about you? Could you care +for me? Do you?"</p> + +<p>Her shy, deep eyes met his fairly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I +do, and then sometimes I think I don't—that way."</p> + +<p>The touch of affection that made his face occasionally tender as a +woman's, lit his warm smile.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you make that first sometimes always, don't you reckon, +Phyllis?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! If I knew! But I don't—truly, I don't. I—I want to care," she +confessed, with divine shyness.</p> + +<p>"That's good listening. Couldn't you go ahead on those times you do, +honey?"</p> + +<p>"No!" She drew back from his advance. "No—give me time. I'm—I'm not +sure—I'm not at all sure. I can't explain, but——"</p> + +<p>"Can't decide between me and another man?" he suggested, by way of a +joke, to lighten her objection.</p> + +<p>Then, in a flash, he knew that by accident he had hit the truth. The +startled look of doubt in her eyes told him. Perhaps she had not known +it herself before, but his words had clarified her mind. There was +another man in the running—one not to be thrust aside easily.</p> + +<p>Phyllis' first impulse was to be alone. She turned her face away and +busied herself with a stirrup leather.</p> + +<p>"Don't say anything more now—please. I'm such a little goose! I don't +know—yet. Won't you wait and—forget it till—say, till next week?"</p> + +<p>He promised to wait, but he did not promise to forget it. As they rode +home, he made cheerful talk on many subjects; but the one in both their +minds was that which had been banned. Every silence was full charged +with it. Its suppression ran like quicksilver through every spoken +sentence.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>A WATERSPOUT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Almost imperceptibly, Buck Weaver's relation to his jailers changed. It +was still understood that their interests differed, but the personal +bitterness was largely gone. He went riding occasionally with the boys, +rather as a guest than as a prisoner.</p> + +<p>At any time he might have escaped, but for a tacit understanding that he +would stay until Menendez was strong enough to be sent home from the +Twin Star.</p> + +<p>One pleasure, however, was denied him. He saw nothing of Phyllis, save +for a distant glimpse or two when she was starting to school or +returning from a ride with Larrabie Keller. He knew that her father and +her brother were studiously eliminating him, so far as she was +concerned. Certain events had been of a nature to induce whispered +gossip. Fortunately, such gossip had been nipped in the bud. They +intended that there should be no revival of it.</p> + +<p>Weaver had sent word to the riders of the Twin Star that there was to be +nothing doing in the matter of the feud until his return.</p> + +<p>He had at the same time ordered from them a change of linen, a box of +his favorite cigars, and certain papers to be found in his desk. These +in due time were delivered by Jesus Menendez in person, together with a +note from the ranch.</p> + +<div class='blkquot'> +<span style='padding-left: 10%;'> +TWIN STAR RANCH, Tuesday Morning.</span> +<br /> +DERE BUCK: You've sure got us up in the air. The boys was figurring + some on rounding up the whole Seven Mile outfit in a big drive, but + looks like you got other notions. Wise us if you want the + cooperation of<br /> + +<span style='padding-left: 40%;'>PESKY and the other boys.</span></div> + +<p>With a smile, Weaver showed it to Phil. "Shall I send word to the boys +to start on the round-up?"</p> + +<p>"It won't be necessary. You don't need their cooperation. Fact is, now +Menendez is back, you're free to go. 'Rastus is getting your horse right +now."</p> + +<p>The cattleman realized instantly that he did not want to go. Business +affairs at home pressed for his attention, but he felt extremely +reluctant to pull out and leave the field in possession of Larrabie +Keller, even temporarily. He could not, however, very well say so.</p> + +<p>"Good enough," he said brusquely. "Before I go, we'd better settle the +matter of the range. Send for your father, and I'll make him a +proposition that looks fair to me."</p> + +<p>When Sanderson arrived, he found the cattleman with a map of the county +spread before him upon the table. With a pencil he divided the range in +a zigzag, twisting line.</p> + +<p>"How about that? I'll take all on the valley side. You take what is in +the hills and the parks."</p> + +<p>Sanderson looked at him in astonishment. "That's all we've been +contending for!"</p> + +<p>Buck nodded. "Since you get what you want, you ought to be satisfied," +he said gruffly. "Of course, there will have to be some give-and-take +about this. My cattle will cross the line. So will yours. That can't be +helped. I've worked out this problem of the range feed pretty +thoroughly. My territory will feed just about as many as yours. Each +year we can arrange together to keep the number of cattle down."</p> + +<p>Under his shaggy brows, Sanderson looked at him in perplexity. The +proposition was more than generous. It meant that Weaver would have to +sell off about a thousand head of cattle, while the hill-men, on the +other hand, could increase their holdings.</p> + +<p>"What about sheep?" the old man asked bluntly.</p> + +<p>Buck's stony gaze met his steadily. "I'm going to leave those sheep on +your conscience, Mr. Sanderson. You'll have to settle that matter for +yourself."</p> + +<p>"You mean you'll not stand in the way, if I want to keep them?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I mean. It's up to you."</p> + +<p>Phil, who was sitting on the porch sewing on a pair of leather chaps, +indulged in a grin. "I see this is where we go out of the sheep +business," he said.</p> + +<p>"The market's good. I don't know but what it would be the right thing to +sell," his father agreed. "I want to meet you halfway in settling this +trouble, Mr. Weaver."</p> + +<p>The matter was discussed further at some length, after which the +cattleman shook hands all round and departed. Out of the tail of his eye +he saw Keller saddling a horse at the stables.</p> + +<p>"Think I'll beat you out of that ride with the schoolmarm to-day, my +friend. A steady diet of rides like that is liable to intoxicate a man," +he told himself, with his grim smile. In plain sight of all, he turned +the head of his horse toward the road that led to the schoolhouse.</p> + +<p>Presently he met pupils galloping home, calling to each other joyously +as they rode. Others followed more sedately in buggies. Nearer the +schoolhouse he came on one walking.</p> + +<p>After Phyllis had looked over some papers, made up her weekly report, +and outlined on the board work for next day, she saddled her pony and +set out homeward. Not in ten years had the country been so green and +lovely as it was now. There had been many winter snows and spring rains, +so that the <i>alfilaria</i> covered the hills with a carpet of grass. Muddy +little rivulets, pouring down arroyos on their way from the mountains, +showed that there had been recent rains. These all ran into the Del Oro, +a creek which was dry in summer but was now full to its banks.</p> + +<p>She followed the river into the cañon of the same name, a narrow gulch +with sheer precipitous walls. So much water was in the river that the +trail along the bank scarce gave the pony footing. Half a mile from the +point where she had entered the Del Oro the trail crept up the wall and +escaped to the mesa above. Phyllis was nearing the ascent when a sound +startled her. She swung round in her saddle, to see a wall of water +roaring down the lane with the leap of some terrible wild beast. +Somewhere in the hills there had been a waterspout.</p> + +<p>She called upon her pony with spur and voice, racing desperately for the +place where the trail rose. Of that wild dash for life she remembered +nothing afterward save the overmastering sense of peril. She knew that +the roan was pounding forward with the best speed in him, and presently +she knew too that no speed could save her. The roar of the advancing +water grew louder as it swept upon her. With a cry of terror she dragged +the pony to its haunches, slipped from the saddle, and attempted to +climb the rock face.</p> + +<p>Catching hold of outcropping ledges, mesquit, and even cactus bushes, +she went up like a mountain goat But the water swept upon her, waist +high, and dragged at her. She clung to a quartz knob her fingers had +found, but her feet were swept from her by the suction of the torrent. +Her hold relaxed, and she slid back into the river.</p> + +<p>Like a flash of light a rope descended over her outstretched arms, +tightened at her waist, and held her taut. She felt the pain of a +tremendous tug that seemed to tear her in two. Dimly her brain reported +that somebody was shouting. A long time afterward, as it seemed to her +then, a strong arm went round her. Inch by inch she was dragged from the +water that fought and wrestled for her. Phyllis knew that her rescuer +was working up the cliff wall with her. Then her perceptions blurred.</p> + +<p>"I'll never make it this way," he told himself aloud, half way up.</p> + +<p>In fact, he had come to an <i>impasse</i>. Even without the burden of her +weight, the sheer smooth wall rose insurmountable above him. He did the +one thing left for him to do. Leaving her unconscious body in a sort of +trough formed by the juncture of two strata, he lowered himself into the +rushing stream, searched with his foot for a grip, and swung to the left +into the niche formed by a mesquit bush growing from the rock. From +here, after stiff climbing, he reached the top.</p> + +<p>He found, as he had expected, his cow pony with feet braced to keep the +rope taut. Old Baldy was practising the lesson learned from scores of +roped steers. No man in the Malpais country was stronger than this one. +In another minute he had drawn up the girl and laid her on the grass.</p> + +<p>Soon she opened her eyes and looked into his troubled face.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Weaver," she breathed in faint surprise. "Where am I?"</p> + +<p>But her glances were already answering the question. They took in the +rope under her arms, followed it to the horn of the saddle, around which +the other end was tied, and came back to the leathery weather-beaten +face that looked down into hers.</p> + +<p>"You have saved my life."</p> + +<p>"Not me. Old Baldy did it. I never could have got you out alone. When I +roped you, he backed off same as if you had been a steer, and pulled for +all there was in him. Between us we got you up."</p> + +<p>"Good old Baldy!" She let it go at that for the moment, while she +thought it out. "If you hadn't been right here——" She finished her +sentence with a shudder.</p> + +<p>She could not guess how that thought stabbed him, for he replied +cheerfully: "I heard you call, and Baldy brought me on the jump."</p> + +<p>Phyllis covered her face with her hands. She was badly shaken and could +not quite control herself. "It was awful—awful." And short staccato +sobs shook her.</p> + +<p>Buck put his arm around her shoulders, and soothed her gently. "Don't +you care, Phyllis. It's all past now. Forget it, little girl."</p> + +<p>"It was like some tremendous wild beast—a thousand times stronger and +crueller than a grizzly. It leaped at me, and——Oh, if you hadn't been +here!"</p> + +<p>She caught at his sleeve and clung to it with both hands.</p> + +<p>"If a fellow sticks around long enough he is sure to come in handy," +Buck told her lightly.</p> + +<p>She did not answer, but presently she walked across a little unsteadily +and put her arms around the neck of the white-faced broncho. Her face +she buried in its mane. Weaver knew she was crying softly, and he wisely +left her alone while he recoiled the rope.</p> + +<p>Presently she recovered her composure and began to pat the white silken +nose of the pony.</p> + +<p>"You helped him to save my life, Baldy. Even he couldn't have done it +without you. How can I ever pay you for it?"</p> + +<p>Weaver had an inspiration. "He's yours from this moment. You can pay him +by taking him for your saddle horse. Baldy will never ride the round-up +again. We'll give him a Carnegie medal and retire him on a good-service +pension so far as the rough work goes."</p> + +<p>Without looking at him, the girl answered softly: "Thank you. I know I'm +taking from you the best cow-pony in Arizona, but I can't help it."</p> + +<p>"A cow-pony is a cow-pony, but a horse that saves the life of Miss +Phyllis Sanderson is a gentleman and a hero."</p> + +<p>"And what about the man who saves her life?" Her voice was very small +and weepy.</p> + +<p>"Tickled to death to have the chance. We'll forget that."</p> + +<p>Still she did not look at him. "Never! Never as long as I live," she +cried vehemently.</p> + +<p>It came to him that if he was ever going to put his fortune to the test +now was the time. He strode across and swung her round till she faced +him.</p> + +<p>"As long as you live, Phyllis. And you're only eighteen. Me, I'm +thirty-seven. I lack just a year of being twice as old. What about it? +Am I too old and too hard and tough for you, little girl?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't—understand."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do. I'm asking you to marry me. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Weaver!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"I ought to wrap it up pretty, oughtn't I? But there's nothing pretty +about me. No woman should marry me if she can help it, not unless her +heart brings her to me in spite of herself. Is it that way with you?"</p> + +<p>Never before had she met a man like him, so masterful and virile. He +took short cuts as if he did not notice the "No Trespassing" sign. She +read in him a passion clamped by a will of iron, and there thrilled +through her a fierce delight in her power over this splendid type of the +male lover. She lived in a world of men, lean, wide-shouldered fellows, +who moved and had their being in conditions that made hickory withes of +them physically, hard close-mouthed citizens mentally. But even by the +frontier tests of efficiency, of gameness, of going the limit, Weaver +stood head and shoulders above his neighbors. She had lifted her gaze to +meet his, quite sure that her answer was not in doubt, but now her heart +was beating like a triphammer. She felt herself drifting from her +moorings. It was as though she were drowning forty fathoms deep in those +calm, unwinking eyes of his.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," she cried desperately.</p> + +<p>"You've got to be sure. I don't want you else."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes!" she cried eagerly. "Don't rush me."</p> + +<p>"Take all the time you need. You can't be any too sure to suit me."</p> + +<p>"I—I don't think it will be yes," she told him shyly.</p> + +<p>"I'm betting it will," he said confidently. "And now, little girl, it's +time we started. You'll ride your Carnegie horse and I'll walk."</p> + +<p>Her eyes dilated, for this brought to her mind something she had +forgotten. "My roan! What do you think has become of it?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head, preferring not to guess aloud. As he helped her to +the saddle his eyes fell on a stain of red running from the wrist of her +gauntlet.</p> + +<p>"You've hurt your hand," he cried.</p> + +<p>"It must have been when I caught at the cactus."</p> + +<p>Gently he slipped off the glove. Cruel thorns had torn the skin in a +dozen places. He drew the little spikes out one by one. Phyllis winced, +but did not cry out. After he had removed the last of them he tied her +handkerchief neatly round the wounds and drew on the gauntlet again. It +had been only a small service, nothing at all compared to the great one +he had just rendered, but somehow it had tightened his hold on her. She +wondered whether she would have to marry Buck Weaver no matter what she +really wanted to do.</p> + +<p>With her left hand she guided Baldy, while Buck strode beside, never +wavering from the easy, powerful stride that was the expression of his +sinuous strength.</p> + +<p>"Were you ever tired in your life?" she asked once, with a little sigh +of fatigue.</p> + +<p>He stopped in his stride, full of self-reproach. "Now, ain't that like +me! Pluggin' ahead, and never thinking about how played out you are. +We'll rest here under these cottonwoods."</p> + +<p>He lifted her down, for she was already very stiff and sore from her +adventure. An outdoor life had given her a supple strength and a wiry +endurance, of which her slender frame furnished no indication, but the +reaction from the strain was upon her. To Buck she looked pathetically +wan and exhausted. He put her down under a tree and arranged her saddle +for a pillow. Again the girl felt a net was being wound round her, that +she belonged to him and could not escape. Nor was she sure that she +wanted to get away from his possessive energy. In the pleasant sun glow +she fell asleep, without any intention of doing so. Two hours later she +opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>Looking round, she saw Weaver lying flat on his back fifty yards away.</p> + +<p>"I've been asleep," she called.</p> + +<p>He leaped to his feet and walked across the sand to her.</p> + +<p>"I suspected it," he said with a smile.</p> + +<p>"I feel like a new woman now."</p> + +<p>"Like one of them suffragettes?"</p> + +<p>"That isn't quite what I meant," she smiled. "I'm ready to start."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later they reached her home. It was close to supper time, +but Weaver would not stay.</p> + +<p>"See you next week," he said quietly, and turned his horse toward the +Twin Star ranch.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>THE HOLD-UP</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From the wash where the sink of the Mimbres edges close to Noches two +riders emerged in mid-afternoon of a day that shimmered under the heat +of a blazing sun. They travelled in silence, the core of an alkali dust +cloud that moved with them and lay thick upon them. Well down over their +eyes were drawn the broad-rimmed hats. One of them wore sun goggles and +both of them had their lower faces covered by silk bandannas as if to +keep out the thick dust their ponies stirred. For the rest their +costumes were the undistinguished chaps, spurs, shirt, neckerchiefs, and +gauntlets of the range.</p> + +<p>With one distinction, however: these were better armed than the average +cow-puncher jaunting to town for the quarterly spree. Revolver butts +peeped from the holsters of their loosely hung cartridge belts. +Moreover, their rifles were not strapped beneath the stirrup leathers, +but were carried across the pommels of the saddles.</p> + +<p>The bell in the town hall announced three o'clock as they reached the +First National Bank at the corner of San Miguel and Main Streets. Here +one of the riders swung from the saddle, handed the reins and his rifle +to the other man, and jingled into the bank. His companion took the +horses round to the side entrance of the building, and waited there in +such shade as two live oaks offered.</p> + +<p>He had scarce drawn rein when two other riders joined him, having come +from a direction at right angles to that followed by him. One of them +rode an iron-gray, the other a roan with white stockings. Both of these +dismounted, and one of them passed through the side door into the bank. +Almost instantly he reappeared and nodded to his comrade, who joined him +with his own rifle and that of the first man that had gone in.</p> + +<p>There was an odd similarity in arms, manner, and dress between these and +the first arrivals. Once inside the building, each of them slipped a +black mask over his face. Then one stepped quickly to the front door and +closed and locked it, while the other simultaneously covered the teller +with a revolver.</p> + +<p>The cashier, busy in conversation with the first horseman about a loan +the other had said he wanted, was sitting with his back to the cage of +the teller. The first warning he had of anything unusual was the closing +of the door by a masked man. One glance was enough to tell him the bank +was about to be robbed.</p> + +<p>His hand moved swiftly toward the drawer in his desk which contained a +weapon, but stopped halfway to its destination. For he was looking +squarely into the rim of a six-shooter less than a foot from his +forehead. The gun was in the hands of the client with whom he had been +talking.</p> + +<p>"Don't do that," the man advised him brusquely. Then, more sharply: +"Reach for the roof. No monkeying."</p> + +<p>Benson, the cashier, was no coward, but neither was he a fool. He knew +when not to take a chance. Promptly his arms shot up. But even while he +obeyed, his eyes were carrying to his brain a classification of this man +for future identification. The bandit was a stranger to him, a +heavy-set, bandy-legged fellow of about forty-five, with a leathery face +and eyes as stony as those of a snake.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" the bank officer asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"Your gold and notes. Is the safe open?"</p> + +<p>Before the cashier could reply a shot rang out. The unmasked outlaw +slewed his head, to see the president of the bank firing from the door +of his private office. The other two robbers were already pumping lead +at him. He staggered, clutched at the door jamb, and slowly sank to the +floor after the revolver had dropped from his hand.</p> + +<p>Benson seized the opportunity to duck behind his desk and drag open a +drawer, but before his fingers had closed on the weapon within, two +crashing blows descended with stunning force on his head. The outlaw +covering him had reversed his heavy revolver and clubbed him with the +butt.</p> + +<p>"That'll hold him for a while," the bandit remarked, and dragged the +unconscious man across the floor to where the president lay huddled.</p> + +<p>One of the masked men, a lithe, sinuous fellow with a polka-dot bandanna +round his neck, took command.</p> + +<p>"Keep these men covered, Irwin, while we get the loot," he ordered the +unmasked man.</p> + +<p>With that he and the boyish-looking fellow who had ridden into town with +him, the latter carrying three empty sacks, followed the trembling +teller to the vault.</p> + +<p>No sound broke the dead silence except the loud ticking of the bank +clock and an occasional groan from the cashier, who was just beginning +to return to consciousness. Twice the man left on guard called down to +those in the vault to hurry.</p> + +<p>There was need of haste. Somebody, attracted by the sound of firing, had +come running to the bank, peered in the big front window, and gone +flying to spread the alarm.</p> + +<p>Outside a shot and then another shattered the sultry stillness of the +day. The man left on guard ran to the door and looked out. An upper +window down the street was open, and from it a man with a rifle was +firing at the outlaw left in charge of the horses.</p> + +<p>The wrangler had taken refuge behind a bulwark of horseflesh, and was +returning the fire.</p> + +<p>"Hurry the boys, Brad! Hell's broke loose!" he called to his companion.</p> + +<p>The town was alarmed and buzzing like a hornet's nest. Soon they would +feel the sting of the swarm unless they beat an immediate retreat. One +sweep of his eyes told the bandy-legged fellow as much. He could hear +voices crying the alarm, could see men running to and fro farther down +the street. Even in the second he stood there a revolver began potting +at him.</p> + +<p>"Back in a moment," he cried to the wrangler, and disappeared within to +shout an urgent warning to the looters.</p> + +<p>Three men came up from the vault, each carrying a sack. The teller was +pushed into the street first, and the rest followed. A scattering fire +began to converge at once upon them. The roan with the white stockings +showed a red ridge across its flank where a bullet had furrowed a path.</p> + +<p>The teller dropped, wounded by his friends. Two of the robbers loaded +the horses, while the others answered the townsmen. In the inevitable +delay of getting started, every moment seemed an hour to the harassed +outlaws.</p> + +<p>But at last they were in the saddle and galloping down the street, +firing right and left as they went. At the next street crossing two men, +one fat and the other lean, came running, revolvers in hands, to +intercept them. They were too late. Before they reached the corner the +outlaws had galloped past in a cloud of white dust, still flinging +bullets at the invisible they were escaping.</p> + +<p>The big lean cow-puncher stopped with an oath as the riders disappeared. +"Nothing doing, Budd," he called to the fat man. "The show's moved on to +a new stand."</p> + +<p>Jim Budd, puffing heavily and glistening with perspiration, nodded the +answer he could not speak. Presently he got out what he wanted to say.</p> + +<p>"Notice that leading hawss on the nigh side, Slim?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"So you noticed it, too, Jim. I could swear to that roan with the four +stockings. It's the hawss Mr. Larrabie Keller mavericks around on, durn +his forsaken hide! And the man on it wore a polka-dot bandanna. So does +Keller. He'll have to go some to explain away that. I reckon the others +must be nesters from Bear Creek, too."</p> + +<p>"We've got 'em where the wool's short this time," Budd agreed. "They +been shootin' around right promiscuous. If anybody's dead, then Keller +has put a rope round his own neck."</p> + +<p>Men were already saddling and mounting for the first unorganized +pursuit. Slim and his friend joined these, and cantered down the dusty +street scarce ten minutes after the robbers.</p> + +<p>The suburbs of the town fell to the rear, and left them in the fall and +rise of the foothills that merged to the left in the wide, flat, +shimmering plain of the Malpais, and on the other side in the +saw-toothed range that notched the horizon from north to south. +Somewhere in that waste of cow-backed hills, in that swell of endless +land waves, the trail of the robbers vanished.</p> + +<p>Men rode far and wide, carrying the pursuit late into the night, but the +lost trail was not to be picked up again. So one by one, or in pairs, +under the yellow stars, they drifted back to Noches, leaving behind the +black depths of blue-canopied hills that had swallowed the fleeing +quartette.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>To Phyllis, riding from school near the close of a hot Friday afternoon +along the old Fort Lincoln Trail, came the voice of Brill Healy from the +ridge above. She waved to him the broad-brimmed hat she was carrying in +her hand, and he guided his pony deftly down the edge of the steep +slope.</p> + +<p>"Been looking for some strays down at Three Pines," he explained. "Awful +glad I met you."</p> + +<p>"Where were you going now?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Home, I reckon; but I'll ride with you to Seven Mile if you don't +mind."</p> + +<p>She looked at her watch. "It's just five-thirty. We'll be in time for +supper, and you can ride home afterward."</p> + +<p>"I guess you know that will suit me, Phyllis," he answered, with a +meaning look from his dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"Supper suits most healthy men so far as I've noticed," she said +carelessly, her glance sweeping keenly over him before it passed to the +purple shadowings that already edged the mouth of a distant cañon.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet it does when they can sit opposite Phyl Sanderson to eat it."</p> + +<p>She frowned a little, the while he took her in out of half-shut, +smoldering eyes, as one does a picture in a gallery. In truth, one might +have ridden far to find a living picture more vital and more suggestive +of the land that had cradled and reared her.</p> + +<p>His gaze annoyed her, without her quite knowing why. "I wish you +wouldn't look at me all the time," she told him with the boyish +directness that still occasionally lent a tang to her speech.</p> + +<p>"And if I can't help it?" he laughed.</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks! You don't have to say pretty things to me, Brill Healy," +she told him.</p> + +<p>"I don't say them because I have to."</p> + +<p>"Then I wish you wouldn't say them at all. There's no sense in it when +you've known a girl eighteen years."</p> + +<p>"Known and loved her eighteen years. It's a long time, Phyl."</p> + +<p>Her eyes rained light derision on him. "It would be if it were true. But +then one has to forget truth when one is sentimental, I reckon."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sentimental. I tell you I'm in love," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Brill. With yourself. I've known that a long time, but not quite +eighteen years," she mocked.</p> + +<p>"With you," he made answer, and something of sullenness had by this time +crept into his voice. "I've got as much right to love you as any one +else, haven't I? As much right as that durned waddy, Keller?"</p> + +<p>Fire flashed in her eyes. "If you want to know, I despise you when you +talk that way."</p> + +<p>The anger grew in him. "What way? When I say anything against the +rustler, do you mean? Think I'm blind? Think I can't see how you're +running after him, and making a fool of yourself about him?"</p> + +<p>"How dare you talk that way to me?" she flamed, and gave her surprised +pony a sharp stroke with the quirt.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later the bronchos fell again to a walk, and Healy took up +the conversation where it had dropped.</p> + +<p>"No use flying out like that, Phyl. I only say what any one can see. +Take a look at the facts. You meet up with him making his getaway after +he's all but caught rustling. Now, what do you do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe he was rustling at all."</p> + +<p>"Course you don't <i>believe</i> it. That proves just what I was saying."</p> + +<p>"Jim doesn't believe it, either."</p> + +<p>"Yeager's opinion don't have any weight with me. I want to tell you +right now that the boys are getting mighty leary of Jim. He's getting +too thick with that Bear Creek bunch."</p> + +<p>"Brill Healy, I never saw anybody so bigoted and pig-headed as you are," +the girl spoke out angrily. "Any one with eyes in his head could see +that Jim is as straight as a string. He couldn't be crooked if he +tried. Long as you've known him I should think you wouldn't need to be +told that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>you</i> say so," he growled sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Everybody says so. Jim Yeager of all men," she scoffed. Then, with a +flash of angry eyes at him, "How would you like it if your friends +rounded on you? By all accounts, you're not quite a plaster saint. I've +heard stories."</p> + +<p>"What about?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, gambling and drinking. What of it? That's <i>your</i> business. One +doesn't have to believe all the talk that is flying around." She spoke +with a kind of fine scorn, for she was a girl of large generosities.</p> + +<p>"We've all got enemies, I reckon," he said sulkily.</p> + +<p>"You're Phil's friend, and mine, too, of course. I dare say you have +your faults like other men, but I don't have to listen to people while +they try to poison my mind against you. What's more, I don't."</p> + +<p>She had been agile-minded enough to shift the attack and put him upon +the defensive, but now Healy brought the question back to his original +point.</p> + +<p>"That's all very well, Phyl, but we weren't talking about me, but about +you. When you found this Keller making his escape you buckled in and +helped him. You tied up his wound and took him to Yeager's and lied for +him to us. That's bad enough, but later you did a heap worse."</p> + +<p>"In saving him from being lynched by you?"</p> + +<p>"Before that you made a fuss about him and had to tie up his wounds. I +had a cut on <i>my</i> cheek, but I notice you didn't tie it up!"</p> + +<p>"I'm surprised at you, Brill. I didn't think you were so small; and just +because I didn't let a wounded man suffer."</p> + +<p>"You can put it that way if you want to," he laughed unpleasantly.</p> + +<p>Her passion flared again. "You and your insinuations! Who made you the +judge over my actions? You talk as if you were my father. If you've got +to reform somebody, let it be yourself."</p> + +<p>"I'm the man that is going to be your husband," he said evenly. "That +gives me a right."</p> + +<p>"Never! Don't think it," she flung back. "I'd not marry you if you were +the last man on earth."</p> + +<p>"You'll see. I'll not let a scoundrel like Keller come between us. No, +nor Yeager, either. Nor Buck Weaver himself. I notice he was right +attentive before he went home."</p> + +<p>Resentment burned angrily on her cheek. "Anybody else?" she asked +quietly.</p> + +<p>"That's all for just now. You're a natural-born flirt, Phyllis. That's +what's the matter with you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Healy. You're the only one of my friends that has been +so honest with me," she assured him sweetly.</p> + +<p>"I'm the only one of them that is going to marry you. Don't think I'll +let Keller butt in. Not on your life."</p> + +<p>Her rage broke bounds. "I never in my life heard of anything so +insolent. Never! <i>You'll</i> not let me do this or that. Who are you, Brill +Healy?"</p> + +<p>"I've told you. I'm the man that means to marry you," he persisted +doggedly.</p> + +<p>"You never will. I'm not thinking of marrying, but when I do I'll not +ask for your indorsement. Be sure of that."</p> + +<p>"I'll not stand it! He'd better look out!"</p> + +<p>"Who do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Keller, that's who I mean. This thing is hanging over his head yet. +He's got to come through with proofs he ain't a rustler, or he's got to +pull his freight out of the Malpais country."</p> + +<p>"And if he won't?"</p> + +<p>"We'll finish that little business you interrupted," he told her, riding +his triumph roughshod over her feelings.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't, Brill! Not when there is a doubt about it. Jim says he is +innocent, and I believe he is. Surely you wouldn't!"</p> + +<p>"You'll see."</p> + +<p>"If you do I'll never speak to you again! Never, as long as I live; and +I'll never rest till I have you in the penitentiary for his murder!" she +cried tensely.</p> + +<p>"And yet you don't care anything about him. You've just been kind to him +out of charity," he mocked.</p> + +<p>For some minutes they had seen Seven Mile Ranch lying below them in the +faint twilight. They rode the rest of the way in silence, each of them +too bitter for speech. When they reached the house, she swung from the +saddle and he kept his seat, for both of them considered her supper +invitation and his acceptance cancelled.</p> + +<p>He bowed ironically and turned to leave.</p> + +<p>"Just a moment, Brill," called an excited voice. "I've got a piece of +news that will make you sit up."</p> + +<p>The speaker was the young mule skinner known as Cuffs. He came running +out to the porch and fired his bolt.</p> + +<p>"The First National Bank at Noches was held up two hours ago, and the +robbers got away with their loot after shooting three or four men!"</p> + +<p>"Two hours ago," the girl repeated. "You got it over the phone, of +course."</p> + +<p>"Yep. Slim called me up just now. He got back right this minute from +following their trail. They lost the fellows in the hills. Four of 'em, +Slim says, and he thinks they're headed this way."</p> + +<p>"What makes him think so?" asked Healy.</p> + +<p>"He figures they are Bear Creek men. One of them was recognized. It was +that fellow Keller."</p> + +<p>"Keller!" Phyllis and Healy cried the word together.</p> + +<p>Cuffs nodded. "Slim says he can swear to his hawss, and he's plumb sure +about the man, too. He wants we should organize a posse and nail them as +they go into the Pass for Bear Creek. He figures we'll have time to do +it if we jump. Noches is fifty-five miles from here, and about forty +from the Pass.</p> + +<p>"With their bronchs loaded they can't make it in much less than five +hours. That gives us most three hours to reach the Pass and stop them. +What think, Brill? Can we make it?"</p> + +<p>"We'll try damned hard. I'm not going to let Mr. Rustler Keller slip +through my fingers again!" Healy cried triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it was Bear Creek men at all. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. +Keller," Phyllis cried, with a face like parchment.</p> + +<p>There was an unholy light of vindictive triumph in Healy's face. "We'll +show you about that, Miss Missouri. Get the boys together, Cuffs. Call +up Purdy and Jim Budd and Tom Dixon on the phone. Rustle up as many of +the boys as you can. Start 'em for the Pass just as soon as they get +here. I'm going right up there now. Probably I can't stop them, but I +may make out who they are. Notify Buck Weaver, so he can head them off +if they try to cross the Malpais. And get a move on you. Hustle the boys +right along."</p> + +<p>And with that he put spurs to his horse and galloped off.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIX'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Unerringly rode Healy through the tangled hills toward a saddle in the +peaks that flared vivid with crimson and mauve and topaz. A man of +moods, he knew more than one before he reached the Pass for which he was +headed. Now he rode with his eyes straight ahead, his face creased to a +hard smile that brought out its evil lines. Now he shook his clenched +fist into the air and cursed.</p> + +<p>Or again he laughed exultingly. This was when he remembered that his +rival was trapped beyond hope of extrication.</p> + +<p>While the sky tints round the peaks deepened to purple with the coming +night he climbed cañons, traversed rock ridges, and went down and up +rough slopes of shale. Always the trail grew more difficult, for he was +getting closer to the divide where Bear Creek heads. He reached the +upper regions of the pine gulches that seamed the hills with wooded +crevasses, and so came at last to Gregory's Pass.</p> + +<p>Here, close to the yellow stars that shed a cold wintry light, he +dismounted and hobbled his horse. After which he found a soft spot in +the mossy rocks and fell asleep. He was a light sleeper, and two hours +later he awakened. Horses were laboring up the Pass.</p> + +<p>He waited tensely, rifle in both hands, till the heads of the riders +showed in the moonlight. Three—four—five of them he counted. The men +he saw were those he expected, and he lowered his rifle at once.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Cuffs! Purdy! That you, Tom? Well, you're too late."</p> + +<p>"Too late," echoed little Purdy.</p> + +<p>"Yep. Didn't get here in time myself to see who any of them were except +the last. It was right dark, and they were most through before I reached +here."</p> + +<p>"But you knew one," Purdy suggested.</p> + +<p>Healy looked at him and nodded. "There were four of them. I crept +forward on top of that flat rock just as the last showed up. He was +ridin' a hawss with four white stockings."</p> + +<p>"A roan, mebbe," Tom put in quickly.</p> + +<p>"You've said it, Tom—a roan, and it looked to me like it was wounded. +There was blood all over the left flank."</p> + +<p>"O' course Keller was riding it," Purdy ventured.</p> + +<p>"Rung the bell at the first shot," Healy answered grimly.</p> + +<p>"The son of a gun!"</p> + +<p>"How long ago was it, Brill?" asked another.</p> + +<p>"Must a-been two hours, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"No use us following them now, then."</p> + +<p>"No use. They've gone to cover."</p> + +<p>They turned their horses and took the back trail. The cow ponies +scrambled down rocky slopes like cats, and up steep inclines with the +agility of mountain goats. The men rode in single file, and conversation +was limited to disjointed fragments jerked out now and again. After an +hour's rough going they reached the foothills, where they could ride two +abreast. As they drew nearer to the ranch country, now one and now +another turned off with a shout of farewell.</p> + +<p>Healy accepted Purdy's invitation, and dismounted with him at the +Fiddleback. Already the first glimmering of dawn flickered faintly from +the serrated range. The men unsaddled, watered, fed, and then walked +stiffly to the house. Within five minutes both of them lay like logs, +dead to the world, until Bess Purdy called them for breakfast, long +after the rest of the family had eaten.</p> + +<p>"What devilment you been leading paw into, Brill?" demanded Bess +promptly when he appeared in the doorway. "Dan says it was close to +three when you got home."</p> + +<p>She flung her challenge at the young man with a flash of smiling teeth. +Bess was seventeen, a romp, very pretty, and hail-fellow-well-met with +every range rider in a radius of thirty miles.</p> + +<p>"We been looking for a beau for you, Bess," Healy immediately explained.</p> + +<p>Miss Purdy tossed her head. "I can find one for myself, Brill Healy, +and I don't have to stay out till three to get him, either."</p> + +<p>"Come right to your door, do they?" he asked, as she helped him to the +ham and eggs.</p> + +<p>"Maybe they do, and maybe they don't."</p> + +<p>"Well, here's one come right in the middle of the night. Somehow, I jest +couldn't make out to wait till morning, Bess."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you," she laughed, with a demand for more of this sort of chaffing +in her hazel eyes.</p> + +<p>At this kind of rough give and take he was an adept. After breakfast he +stayed and helped her wash the dishes, romping with her the whole time +in the midst of gay bursts of laughter and such repartee as occurred to +them.</p> + +<p>He found his young hostess so entertaining that he did not get away +until the morning was half gone. By the time he reached Seven Mile the +sun was past the meridian, and the stage a lessening patch of dust in +the distance.</p> + +<p>Before he was well out of the saddle, Phyllis Sanderson was standing in +the doorway of the store, with a question in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he forced her to say at last.</p> + +<p>Leisurely he turned, as if just aware of her presence.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you. Mornin', Phyl."</p> + +<p>"What did you find out?"</p> + +<p>"I met your friend."</p> + +<p>"What friend?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Keller, the rustler and bank robber," he drawled insolently, +looking full in her face.</p> + +<p>"Tell me at once what you found out."</p> + +<p>"I found Mr. Keller riding a roan with four white stockings and a wound +on its flank."</p> + +<p>She caught at the jamb. "You didn't, Brill!"</p> + +<p>"I ce'tainly did," he jeered.</p> + +<p>"What—what did you do?" Her lips were white as her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I haven't done, anything—yet. You see, I was alone. The other boys +hadn't arrived then."</p> + +<p>"And he wasn't alone?"</p> + +<p>"No; he had three friends with him. I couldn't make out whether any more +of them were college chums of yours."</p> + +<p>Without another word, she turned her back on him and went into the +store. All night she had lain sleepless and longed for and dreaded the +coming of the day. Over the wire from Noches had come at dawn fuller +details of the robbery, from her brother Phil, who was spending two or +three days in town.</p> + +<p>It appeared that none of the wounded men would die, though the president +had had a narrow escape. Posses had been out all night, and a fresh one +was just starting from Noches. It was generally believed, however, that +the bandits would be able to make good their escape with the loot.</p> + +<p>Her father was absent, making a round of his sheep camps, and would not +be back for a week. Hence her hands were very full with the store and +the ranch.</p> + +<p>She busied herself with the details of her work, nodded now and again to +one of the riders as they drifted in, smiled and chatted as occasion +demanded, but always with that weight upon her heart she could not shake +off. Now, and then again, came to her through the window the voices of +Public Opinion on the porch. She made out snatches of the talk, and knew +the tide was running strongly against the nester. The sound of Healy's +low, masterful voice came insistently. Once, as she looked through the +window, she saw a tilted flask at his lips.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she became aware, without knowing why, that something was +happening, something that stopped her heart and drew her feet swiftly to +the door.</p> + +<p>Conversation had ceased. All eyes were deflected to a pair of riders +coming down the Bear Creek trail with that peculiar jog that is neither +a run nor a walk. They seemed quite at ease with the world. Speech and +laughter rang languid and carefree. But as they swung from the saddles +their eyes swept the group before them with the vigilance of +searchlights in time of war.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy leaned forward, his right hand resting lightly on his thigh.</p> + +<p>"So you've come back, Mr. Keller," he said.</p> + +<p>"As you see."</p> + +<p>"But not on that roan of yours, I notice."</p> + +<p>"You notice correctly, seh."</p> + +<p>"Now I wonder why." Healy spoke with a drawl, but his eyes glittered +menacingly.</p> + +<p>"I expect you know why, Mr. Healy," came the quiet retort.</p> + +<p>"Meaning?"</p> + +<p>"That the roan was stolen from the pasture two nights ago. Do you happen +to know the name of the thief?"</p> + +<p>The cattleman laughed harshly, but behind his laughter lay rising anger. +"So that's the story you're telling, eh? Sounds most as convincing as +that yarn about the pocketknife you picked up."</p> + +<p>"I'm not quite next to your point. Have I got to explain to you why I do +or don't ride a certain horse, seh?"</p> + +<p>"It ain't necessary. We all know why. You ain't riding it because there +is a bullet wound in the roan's flank that might be some hard to +explain."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean. I haven't seen the horse for two days. It +was stolen, as I say. Apparently you know a good deal about that roan. +I'd be right pleased to hear what you know, Mr. Healy."</p> + +<p>"Glad to death to wise you, Mr. Keller. That roan was in Noches +yesterday, and you were on its back."</p> + +<p>The nester shook his head. "No, I reckon not."</p> + +<p>Yeager broke in abruptly: "What have you got up your sleeve, Brill? Spit +it out."</p> + +<p>"Glad to oblige you, too, Jim. The First National at Noches was held up +yesterday, about half-past three or four, by some masked men. Slim and +Jim Budd were around and recognized that roan and its rider."</p> + +<p>"You mean——"</p> + +<p>"You've guessed it, Jim. I mean that your friend, the rustler, is a bank +robber, too."</p> + +<p>"Yesterday, you say, at four o'clock?"</p> + +<p>"About four, yes."</p> + +<p>Yeager's face cleared. "Then that lets him out. I was with him yesterday +all day."</p> + +<p>"Any one else with him?"</p> + +<p>"No. We were alone."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Out in the hills."</p> + +<p>"Didn't happen to meet a soul all day maybe?"</p> + +<p>"No; what of it?"</p> + +<p>Healy barked out again his hard laugh of incredulity. "Go slow, Jim. +That ain't going to let him out. It's going to let you in."</p> + +<p>Yeager took a step toward him, fists clenched, and eyes flashing. "I'll +not stand for that, Brill."</p> + +<p>Healy waved him aside. "I've got no quarrel with you, Jim. I ain't +making any charges against you to-day. But when it comes to Mr. Keller, +that's different." His gaze shifted to the nester and carried with it +implacable hostility. "I back my play. He's not only a rustler, he's a +bank robber, too. What's more, he'll never leave here alive, except +with irons on his wrists!"</p> + +<p>"Have you a warrant for my arrest, Mr. Healy?" inquired Keller evenly.</p> + +<p>"Don't need one. Furthermore, I'd as lief take you in dead as alive. You +cayn't hide behind a girl's skirts this time," continued Healy. "You've +got to stand on your own legs and take what's coming. You're a bad +outfit. We know you for a rustler, and that's enough. But it ain't all. +Yesterday you gave us surplusage when you shot up three men in Noches. +Right now I serve notice that you've reached the limit."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> serve notice, do you?"</p> + +<p>"You're right, I do."</p> + +<p>"But not legal notice, Mr. Healy."</p> + +<p>At sight of his enemy standing there so easy and undisturbed, facing +death so steadily and so alertly, Brill's passion seethed up and +overflowed. Fury filmed his eyes. He saw red. With a jerk, his revolver +was out and smoking. A stop watch could scarce have registered the time +before Keller's weapon was answering.</p> + +<p>But that tenth part of a second made all the difference. For the first +heavy bullet from Healy's .44 had crashed into the shoulder of his foe. +The shock of it unsteadied the nester's aim. When the smoke cleared it +showed the Bear Creek man sinking to the ground, and the right arm of +the other hanging limply at his side.</p> + +<p>At the first sound of exploding revolvers, Phyllis had grown rigid, but +the fusillade had not died away before she was flying along the hall to +the porch.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy's voice, cold and cruel, came to her in even tones:</p> + +<p>"I reckon I've done this job right, boys. If he hadn't winged me, and if +Jim hadn't butted in, I'd a-done it more thorough, though."</p> + +<p>Yeager was bending over the man lying on the ground. He looked up now +and spoke bitterly: "You've murdered an innocent man. Ain't that +thorough enough for you?"</p> + +<p>Then, catching sight of Cuffs on the porch of the house, Yeager issued +orders sharply: "Get on my horse and ride like hell for Doc Brown! Bob, +you and Luke help me carry him into the house. What room, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>"My room, Jim. Oh, Cuffs, hurry, please!" With that she was gone into +the house to make ready the bed for the wounded man.</p> + +<p>Healy picked up the revolver that had fallen from his hand, and slid it +back into the holster.</p> + +<p>"That's right, boys. Take him in and let Phyl patch up the coyote if she +can. I reckon this time, she'll have her hands plumb full. Beats all how +a decent girl can take up with a ruffian and a scoundrel."</p> + +<p>"That will be enough from you, seh," Yeager told him sharply.</p> + +<p>Purdy nodded. "Jim's right, Brill. This man has got what was coming to +him. It ain't proper to jump him right now, when he's down and out."</p> + +<p>"Awful tender-hearted you boys are. Come to that, I've got a pill in me, +too, but of course that don't matter," Healy retorted.</p> + +<p>"If he dies you'll have another in you, seh," Yeager told him quietly, +meeting his eyes steadily for an instant. "Steady, Bob. You take his +feet. That's right."</p> + +<p>They carried the nester to the bedroom of Phyllis and laid him down +gently on the bed. His eyes opened and he looked about him as if to ask +where he was. He seemed to understand what had happened, for presently +he smiled faintly at his friend and said:</p> + +<p>"Beat me to it, Jim. I'm bust up proper this time."</p> + +<p>"He shot without giving warning."</p> + +<p>Keller moved his head weakly in dissent. "No, I knew just when he was +going to draw, but I had to wait for him."</p> + +<p>The big, husky plainsmen undressed him with the tenderness of women, and +did their best with the help of Aunt Becky, to take care of his wounds +temporarily. After these had been dressed Phyllis and the old colored +woman took charge of the nursing and dismissed all the men but Yeager.</p> + +<p>It would be many hours before Doctor Brown arrived, and it took no +critical eyes to see that this man was stricken low. All the supple +strength and gay virility were out of him. Three of the bullets had +torn through him. In her heavy heart the girl believed he was going to +die. While Yeager was out of the room she knelt down by the bedside, +unashamed, and asked for his life as she had never prayed for anything +before.</p> + +<p>By this time his fever was high and he was wandering in his head. The +wild look of delirium was in his eyes, and faint weak snatches of +irrelevant speech on his lips. His moans stabbed her heart. There was +nothing she could do for him but watch and wait and pray. But what +little was to be done in the way of keeping his hot head cool with wet +towels her own hands did jealously. Jim and Aunt Becky waited on her +while she waited on the sick man.</p> + +<p>About midnight the doctor rode up. All day and most of the night before +he had been in the saddle. Cuffs had found him across the divide, nearly +forty miles away, working over a boy who had been bitten by a +rattlesnake. But he brought into the sick room with him that manner of +cheerful confidence which radiates hope. You could never have guessed +that he was very tired, nor, after the first few minutes, did he know it +himself. He lost himself in his case, flinging himself into the breach +to turn the tide of what had been a losing battle.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XX'></a><h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Jim Yeager had not watched through the long day and night with Phyllis +without discovering how deeply her feelings were engaged. His +unobtrusive readiness and his constant hopefulness had been to her a +tower of strength during the quiet, dreadful hours before the doctor +came.</p> + +<p>Once, during the night, she had followed him into the dark hall when he +went out to get some fresh cold water, and had broken down completely.</p> + +<p>"Is he—is he going to die?" she besought of him, bursting into tears +for the first time.</p> + +<p>Jim patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Now, don't you, Phyl. You got to +buck up and help pull him through. Course he's shot up a heap, but then +a man like him can stand a lot of lead in his body. There aren't any of +these wounds in a vital place. Chief trouble is he's lost so much blood. +That's where his clean outdoor life comes in to help build him up. I'll +bet Doc Brown pulls him through."</p> + +<p>"Are you just <i>saying</i> that, Jim, or do you really think so?"</p> + +<p>"I'm saying it, and I think it. There's a whole lot in gaming a thing +out. What we've got to do is to <i>think</i> he's going to make it. Once we +give up, it will be all off."</p> + +<p>"You are such a help, Jim," she sighed, dabbing at her eyes with her +little handkerchief. "And you're the <i>best</i> man."</p> + +<p>"That's right. I'll be the best man when we pull off that big wedding of +yours and his."</p> + +<p>Her heart went out to him with a rush. "You're the only friend both of +us have," she cried impulsively.</p> + +<p>With the coming of Doctor Brown, Jim resigned his post of comforter in +chief, but he stayed at Seven Mile until the crisis was past and the +patient on the mend. Next day Slim, Budd, and Phil Sanderson rode in +from Noches. They were caked with the dust of their fifty-mile ride, but +after they had washed and eaten, Yeager had a long talk with them. He +learned, among other things, that Healy had telephoned Sheriff Gill that +Keller was lying wounded at Seven Mile, and that the sheriff was +expecting to follow them in a few hours.</p> + +<p>"Coming to arrest Brill for assault with intent to kill, I reckon," +Yeager suggested dryly.</p> + +<p>Phil turned on him petulantly. "What's the use of you trying to get away +with that kind of talk, Jim? This fellow Keller was recognized as one of +the robbers."</p> + +<p>"That ain't what Slim has just been telling, Phil. He says he recognized +the hawss, and thinks it was Keller in the saddle. Now, I don't think +anything about it. I <i>know</i> Keller was with me in the hills when this +hold-up took place."</p> + +<p>"You're his friend, Jim," the boy told him significantly.</p> + +<p>"You bet I am. But I ain't a bank robber, if that's what you mean, +Phil."</p> + +<p>His clear eyes chiselled into those of the boy and dominated him.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say you were," Phil returned sulkily. "But I reckon we all +recall that you lied for him once. Whyfor would it be a miracle if you +did again?"</p> + +<p>Jim might have explained, but did not, that it was not for Keller he had +lied. He contented himself with saying that the roan with the white +stockings had been stolen from the pasture before the holdup. He +happened to know, because he was spending the night in Keller's shack +with him at the time.</p> + +<p>Slim cut in, with drawling sarcasm: "You've got a plumb perfect alibi +figured out for him, Jim. I reckon you've forgot that Brill saw him +riding through the Pass with the rest of his outfit."</p> + +<p>"Brill says so. I say he didn't," returned Yeager calmly.</p> + +<p>Toward evening Gill arrived and formally put Keller under arrest. +Practically, it amounted only to the precaution of leaving a deputy at +the ranch as a watch, for one glance had told the sheriff that the +wounded man would not be in condition to travel for some time.</p> + +<p>It was the following day that Yeager saddled and said good-by to +Phyllis.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to Noches to see if I cayn't find out something. It don't +look reasonable to me that those fellows could disappear, bag and +baggage, into a hole and draw it in after them."</p> + +<p>"What about Brill's story that he saw them at the Pass?" the girl asked.</p> + +<p>"He may have seen four men, but he ce'tainly didn't see Larrabie Keller. +My notion is, Brill lied out of whole cloth, but of course I'm not in a +position to prove it. Point is, why did he lie at all?"</p> + +<p>Phyllis blushed. "I think I know, Jim."</p> + +<p>Yeager smiled. "Oh, I know that. But that ain't, to my way of thinking, +motive enough. I mean that a white man doesn't try to hang another just +because he—well, because he cut him out of his girl."</p> + +<p>"I never was his girl," Phyllis protested.</p> + +<p>"I know that, but Brill couldn't get it through his thick head till a +stone wall fell on him and give him a hint."</p> + +<p>"What other motive are you thinking of, Jim?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated. "I've just been kinder milling things around. Do you +happen to know right when you met Brill the day of the robbery?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I looked at my watch to see if we would be in time for supper. It +was five-thirty."</p> + +<p>"And the robbery was at three. The fellows didn't get out of town till +close to three-thirty, I reckon," he mused aloud.</p> + +<p>"What has that got to do with it? You don't mean that——" She stopped +with parted lips and eyes dilating.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I've got no right to mean that, Phyllie. Even if I +did have a kind of notion that way I'd have to give it up. Brill's got a +steel-bound, copper-riveted alibi. He couldn't have been at Noches at +three o'clock and with you two hours later, fifty-five miles from there. +No hawss alive could do it."</p> + +<p>"But, Jim—why, it's absurd, anyway. We've known Brill always. He +couldn't be that kind of a man. How could he?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say he could," returned her friend noncommittally. "But when +it comes to knowing him, what do you know about him—or about me, say? I +might be a low-lived coyote without you knowing it. I might be all kinds +of a devil. A good girl like you wouldn't know it if I set out to keep +it still."</p> + +<p>"I could tell by looking at you," she answered promptly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you could," he derided good-naturedly. "How would you know it? Men +don't squeal on each other."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that Brill isn't—what we've always thought him?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not talking about Brill, but about Jim Yeager," he evaded. "He'd +hate to have you know everything that's mean and off color he ever did."</p> + +<p>"I believe you must have robbed the bank yourself, Jim," she laughed. +"Are you a rustler, too?"</p> + +<p>He echoed her laugh as he swung to the saddle. "I'm not giving myself +away any more to-day."</p> + +<p>Brill Healy rode up, his arm in a sling. Deep rings of dissipation or of +sleeplessness were under his eyes. He looked first at Yeager and then at +the young woman, with an ugly sneer. "How's your dear patient, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>"He is better, Brill," she answered quietly, with her eyes full on him. +"That is, we hope he is better. The doctor isn't quite sure yet."</p> + +<p>"Some of us don't hope it as much as the rest of us, I reckon."</p> + +<p>She said nothing, but he read in her look a contempt that stung like the +lash of a whip.</p> + +<p>"He'll be worse again before I'm through with him," the man cried, with +a furious oath.</p> + +<p>Phyllis measured him with her disdainful eye, and dismissed him. She +stepped forward and shook hands with Yeager.</p> + +<p>"Take care of yourself, Jim, and don't spare any expense that is +necessary," she said.</p> + +<p>For a moment she watched her friend canter off, then turned on her heel, +and passed into the house, utterly regardless of Healy.</p> + +<p>Yeager reached Noches late, for he had unsaddled and let his horse rest +at Willow Springs during the heat of the broiling day.</p> + +<p>After he had washed and had eaten, Yeager drifted to the Log Cabin +Saloon and gambling house. Here was gathered the varied and turbulent +life of the border country. Dark-skinned Mexicans rubbed shoulders with +range riders baked almost as brown by the relentless sun. Pima Indians +and Chinamen and negroes crowded round the faro and dice tables. Games +of monte and chuckaluck had their devotees, as had also roulette and +poker.</p> + +<p>It was a picturesque scene of strong, untamed, self-reliant +frontiersmen. Some of them were outlaws and criminals, and some were as +simple and tender-hearted as children. But all had become accustomed to +a life where it is possible at any moment to be confronted with sudden +death.</p> + +<p>A man playing the wheel dropped a friendly nod at Jim. He waited till +the wheel had stopped and saw the man behind it rake in his chips before +he spoke. Then, as he scattered more chips here and there over the +board, he welcomed Yeager with a whoop.</p> + +<p>"Hi there, Malpais! What's doing in the hills these yere pleasant days?"</p> + +<p>"A little o' nothin', Sam. The way they're telling it you been having +all the fun down here."</p> + +<p>Sam Wilcox gathered the chips pushed toward him by the croupier and +cashed in. He was a heavy-set, bronzed man, with a bleached, +straw-colored mustache. Taking his friend by the arm, he led him to one +end of the bar that happened for the moment to be deserted.</p> + +<p>"Have something, Jim. Oh, I forgot. You're ridin' the water wagon and +don't irrigate. More'n I can say for some of you Malpais lads. Some of +them was in here right woozy the other day."</p> + +<p>"The boys will act the fool when they hit town. Who was it?"</p> + +<p>"Slim and Budd and young Sanderson."</p> + +<p>"Was Phil Sanderson drunk?" Yeager asked, hardly surprised, but +certainly troubled.</p> + +<p>"I ain't sure he was, but he was makin' the fur fly at the wheel, there. +Must have dropped two hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>Jim's brows knit in a puzzled frown. He was wondering how the boy had +come by so much money at a time.</p> + +<p>"Who was he trailin' with?"</p> + +<p>"With a lad called Spiker, that fair-haired guy sitting in at the poker +table. He's another youngster that has been dropping money right +plentiful."</p> + +<p>"Who is he?"</p> + +<p>"He's what they call a showfer. He runs one o' these automobiles; takes +parties out in it."</p> + +<p>"Been here long? Looks kind o' like a tinhorn gambler."</p> + +<p>"Not long. He's thick with some of you Malpais gents. I've seen him with +Healy a few."</p> + +<p>"Oh, with Healy."</p> + +<p>Jim regarded the sportive youth more attentively, and presently dropped +into a vacant seat beside him, buying twenty dollars worth of chips.</p> + +<p>Spiker was losing steadily. He did not play either a careful or a +brilliant game. Jim, playing very conservatively, and just about holding +his own, listened to the angry bursts and the boastings of the man next +him, and drew his own conclusions as to his character. After a couple of +hours of play the Malpais man cashed in and went back to the hotel where +he was putting up.</p> + +<p>He slept till late, ate breakfast leisurely, and after an hour of +looking over the paper and gossiping with the hotel clerk about the +holdup he called casually upon the deputy sheriff. Only one thing of +importance he gleaned from him. This was that the roan with the white +stockings had been picked up seven miles from Noches the morning after +the holdup.</p> + +<p>This put a crimp in Healy's story of having seen Keller in the Pass on +the animal. Furthermore, it opened a new field for surmise. <i>Brill Healy +said that he had seen the horse with a wound in its flank.</i> Now, how did +he know it was wounded, since Slim had not mentioned this when he had +telephoned? It followed that if he had not seen the broncho—and that he +had seen it was a sheer physical impossibility—he could know of the +wound only because he was already in close touch with what had happened +at Noches.</p> + +<p>But how could he be aware of what was happening fifty miles away? That +was the sticker Jim could not get around. His alibi was just as good as +that of the horse. Both of them rested on the assumption that neither +could cover the ground between two given points in a given time. There +was one other possible explanation—that Healy had been in telephonic +communication with Noches before he met Phyllis. But this seemed to Jim +very unlikely, indeed. By his own story he had been cutting trail all +afternoon and had seen nobody until he met Phyllis.</p> + +<p>Yeager called on the cashier, Benson, later in the day, and had a talk +with him and with the president, Johnson. Both of these were now back at +their posts, though the latter was not attempting much work as yet. Jim +talked also with many others. Some of them had theories, but none of +them had any new facts to advance.</p> + +<p>The young cattleman put up at the same hotel as Spiker and struck up a +sort of intimacy with him. They sometimes loafed together during the +day, and at night they were always to be seen side by side at the poker +table.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Keller found convalescence under the superintendence of Miss Sanderson +one of the great pleasures of his life. Her school was out for the +summer and she was now at home all day. He had never before found time +to be lazy, and what dreaming he had done had been in the stress of +action. Now he might lie the livelong day and not too obviously watch +her brave, frank youth as she moved before him or sat reading. For the +first time in his life he was in love!</p> + +<p>But as the nester grew better he perceived that she was withdrawing +herself from him. He puzzled over the reason, not knowing that her +brother, Phil, was troubling her with flings and accusations thrown out +bitterly because his boyish concern for her good name could find no +gentler way to express itself.</p> + +<p>"They're saying you're in love with the fellow—and him headed straight +for the pen," he charged.</p> + +<p>"Who says it, Phil?" she asked quietly, but with flaming cheeks.</p> + +<p>He smote his fist on the table. "It don't matter who says it. You keep +away from him. Let Aunt Becky nurse him. You haven't any call to wait on +him, anyhow. If he's got to be nursed by one of the family, I'll do it."</p> + +<p>He tried to keep his word, and as a result of it the wounded man had to +endure his sulky presence occasionally. Keller was man of the world +enough to be amused at his attitude, and yet was interested enough in +the lad's opinion of him to keep always an even mood of cheerful +friendliness. There was a quantity of winsome camaraderie about him that +won its way with Phil in spite of himself. Moreover, all the boy in him +responded to the nester's gameness, the praises of which he heard on all +sides.</p> + +<p>"I see you have quite made up your mind I'm a skunk," the wounded man +told him amiably.</p> + +<p>"You robbed the bank at Noches and shot up three men that hadn't hurt +you any," the boy retorted defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Not unless Jim Yeager is a liar."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jim! No use going into that. He's your friend. I don't know why, +but he is."</p> + +<p>"And you're Brill Healy's. That's why you won't tell that he was +carrying your sister's knife the day I saw you and him first."</p> + +<p>The boy flashed toward the bed startled eyes. Keller was looking at him +very steadily.</p> + +<p>"Who says he had Phyl's knife?"</p> + +<p>"Hadn't he?"</p> + +<p>"What difference does that make, anyhow? I hear you're telling that you +found the knife beside the dead cow. You ain't got any proof, have you?" +challenged young Sanderson angrily.</p> + +<p>"No proof," admitted the other.</p> + +<p>"Well, then." Phil chewed on it for a moment before he broke out again: +"I reckon you cayn't talk away the facts, Mr. Keller. We caught you in +the act—caught you good. By your own story, you're the man we came on. +What's the use of you trying to lay it on me and Brill?"</p> + +<p>"Am I trying to lay it on you?"</p> + +<p>"Looks like. On Brill, anyhow. There's nothing doing. Folks in this neck +of the woods is for him and against you. Might as well <i>sabe</i> that right +now," the lad blurted.</p> + +<p>"I <i>sabe</i> that some of them are," the other laughed, but not with quite +his usual debonair gayety. For he did not at all like the way things +looked.</p> + +<p>But though Phil had undertaken to do all the nursing that needed to be +done by the family, he was too much of an outdoors dweller to confine +himself for long to the four walls of a room. Besides, he was often +called away by the work of looking after the cattle of the ranch. +Moreover, both he and his father were away a good deal arranging for the +disposal of their sheep. At these times her patient hoped, and hoped in +vain, that Phyllis would take her brother's place.</p> + +<p>Came a day when Keller could stand it no longer. In Becky's absence, he +made shift to dress himself, bit by bit, lying on the bed in complete +exhaustion after the effort of getting into each garment. He could +scarce finish what he had undertaken, but at last he was clothed and +ready for the journey. Leaning on a walking stick, he dragged himself +into the passage and out to the porch, where Phyllis was sitting alone.</p> + +<p>She gave a startled cry at sight of him standing there, haggard and +white, his clothes hanging on his gaunt frame much as if he had been a +skeleton.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" she cried, running to his aid.</p> + +<p>After she had got him into her chair, he smiled up at her and panted +weakly. He was leaning back in almost complete exhaustion.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't come to see me, so—I came—to see you," he gasped out, at +last.</p> + +<p>"But—you shouldn't have! You might have done yourself a great injury. +It's—it's criminal of you."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see you," he explained simply.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you send for me?"</p> + +<p>"There wasn't anybody to send. Besides, you wouldn't have stayed. You +never do, now."</p> + +<p>She looked at him, then looked away. "You don't need me now—and I have +my work to do."</p> + +<p>"But I do need you, Phyllie."</p> + +<p>It was the first time he had ever spoken the diminutive to her. He let +out the word lingeringly, as if it were a caress. The girl felt the +color flow beneath her dusky tan. She changed the subject abruptly.</p> + +<p>"None of the boys are here. How am I to get you back to your room?"</p> + +<p>"I'll roll a trail back there presently, ma'am."</p> + +<p>She looked helplessly round the landscape, in hope of seeing some rider +coming to the store. But nobody was in sight.</p> + +<p>"You had no business to come. It might have killed you. I thought you +had better sense," she reproached.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see you," he parroted again.</p> + +<p>Like most young women, she knew how to ignore a good deal. "You'll have +to lean on me. Do you think you can try it now?"</p> + +<p>"If I go, will you stay with me and talk?" he bargained.</p> + +<p>"I have my work to do," she frowned.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll stay here, thank you kindly." He settled back into the chair +and let her have his gay smile. Nevertheless, she saw that his lips were +colorless.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll stay," she conceded, moved by her anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Every day?"</p> + +<p>"We'll see."</p> + +<p>"All right," he laughed weakly. "If you don't come, I'll take a <i>pasear</i> +and go look for you." She helped him to his feet and they stood for a +moment facing each other.</p> + +<p>"You must put your hand on my shoulder and lean hard on me," she told +him.</p> + +<p>But when she saw the utter weakness of him, her arm slipped round his +waist and steadied him.</p> + +<p>"Now then. Not too fast," she ordered gently.</p> + +<p>They went back very slowly, his weight leaning on her more at every +step. When they reached his room, Keller sank down on the bed, utterly +exhausted. Phyllis ran for a cordial and put it to his lips. It was some +time before he could even speak.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I ain't right husky yet," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't ever do such a thing again," she charged him.</p> + +<p>"Not ever?"</p> + +<p>"Not till the doctor says you're strong enough to move."</p> + +<p>"I won't—if you'll come and see me every day," he answered +irrepressibly.</p> + +<p>So every afternoon she brought a book or her sewing, and sat by him, +letting Phil storm about it as much as he liked. These were happy hours. +Neither spoke of love, but the air was electrically full of it. They +laughed together a good deal at remarks not intrinsically humorous, and +again there were conversational gaps so highly charged that she would +rush at them as a reckless hunter takes a fence.</p> + +<p>As he got better, he would be propped up in bed, and Aunt Becky would +bring in tea for them both. If there had been any corner of his heart +unwon it would have surrendered then. For to a bachelor the acme of +bliss is to sit opposite a girl of whom he is very fond, and to see her +buttering his bread and pouring his tea with that air of domesticity +that visualizes the intimacy of which he has dreamed. Keller had played +a lone hand all his turbulent life, and this was like a glimpse of +Heaven let down to earth for his especial benefit.</p> + +<p>It was on such an occasion that Jim Yeager dropped in on them upon his +return from Noches. He let his eyes travel humorously over the room +before he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Why for don't I ever have the luck to be shot up?" he drawled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you Jim!" Keller called a greeting from the bed. Phyllis came +forward, and, with a heightened color, shook hands with him.</p> + +<p>"You'll sit down with us and have some tea, Jim," she told him.</p> + +<p>"Me? I'm no society Willie. Don't know the game at all, Phyl. Besides, +I'm carrying half of Arizona on my clothes. It's some dusty down in the +Malpais."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he sat down, and, over the biscuits and jam, told the +meagre story of what he had found out.</p> + +<p>The finding of the stocking-footed roan near Noches so soon after the +robbery disposed of Healy's lie, though it did not prove that Keller had +not been riding it at the time of the holdup. As for Healy, Yeager +confessed he saw no way of implicating him. His alibi was just as good +as that of any of them.</p> + +<p>But there was one person his story did involve, and that was Spiker, the +tinhorn, tenderfoot sport of Noches. During the absence of this young +man at the gaming table, Jim and his friend, Sam Weaver, had got into +his room with a skeleton key and searched it thoroughly. They had found, +in a suit case, a black mask, a pair of torn and shiny chaps, a gray +shirt, a white, dusty sombrero, much the worse for wear, and over three +hundred dollars in bills.</p> + +<p>"What does he pretend his business is?" Keller asked, when Jim had +finished.</p> + +<p>"Allows he's a showfer. Drives folks around in a gasoline wagon. That's +the theory, but I notice he turned down a mining man who wanted to get +him to run him into the hills on Monday. Said he hadn't time. The +showfer biz is a bluff, looks like."</p> + +<p>The nester made no answer. His eyes, narrowed to slits, were gazing out +of the window absently. Presently he came from deep thought to ask +Yeager to hand him the map he would find in his inside coat pocket. This +he spread out on the bed in front of him. When at last he looked up he +was smiling.</p> + +<p>"I reckon it's no bluff, Jim. He's a chauffeur, all right, but he only +drives out select outfits."</p> + +<p>"Meaning?"</p> + +<p>The map lying in front of Keller was one of Noches County. The nester +located, with his index finger, the town of that name, and traced the +road from it to Seven Mile. Then his finger went back to Noches, and +followed the old military road to Fort Lincoln, a route which almost +paralleled the one to the ranch.</p> + +<p>The eyes of Phyllis were already shining with excitement. She divined +what was coming.</p> + +<p>"Is this road still travelled, Jim?"</p> + +<p>"It goes out to the old fort. Nobody has lived there for most thirty +years. I reckon the road ain't travelled much."</p> + +<p>"Strikes through Del Oro Cañon, doesn't it, right after it leaves +Noches?"</p> + +<p>"Yep."</p> + +<p>"I reckon, Jim, your friend, Spiker, drove a party out that way the +afternoon of the holdup," the nester drawled smilingly. "By the way, is +your friend in the lockup?"</p> + +<p>"He sure is. The deputy sheriff arrested him same night we went through +his room."</p> + +<p>"Good place for him. Well, it looks like we got Mr. Healy tagged at +last. I don't mean that we've got the proof, but we can prove he might +have been on the job."</p> + +<p>"I don't see it, Larry. I reckon my head's right thick."</p> + +<p>"I see it," spoke up Phyllis quickly.</p> + +<p>Keller smiled at her. "You tell him."</p> + +<p>"Don't you see, Jim? The motor car must have been waiting for them +somewhere after they had robbed the bank," she explained.</p> + +<p>"At the end of Del Oro Cañon, likely," suggested the nester.</p> + +<p>She nodded eagerly. "Yes, they would get into the cañon before the +pursuit was in sight. That is why they were not seen by Slim and the +rest of the posse."</p> + +<p>Yeager looked at her, and as he looked the certainty of it grew on him. +His mind began to piece out the movements of the outlaws from the time +they left Noches. "That's right, Phyl. His car is what he calls a +hummer. It can go like blazes—forty miles an hour, he told me. And the +old fort road is a dandy, too."</p> + +<p>"They would leave the automobile at Willow Creek, and cut across to the +Pass," she hazarded.</p> + +<p>"All but Brill. Being bridlewise, he rode right for Seven Mile to make +dead sure of his alibi, whilst the others made their getaway with the +loot. When he happened to meet you on the way, he would be plumb +tickled, for that cinched things proper for him. You would be a witness +nobody could get away from."</p> + +<p>"And what about their hawsses? Did they bring the bronchs in the car, +too?" drawled Keller, an amused flicker in his eyes.</p> + +<p>The others, who had been swimming into their deductions so confidently, +were brought up abruptly. Phyllis glanced at Jim and looked foolish.</p> + +<p>"The bronchs couldn't tag along behind at a forty per clip. That's +right," admitted Yeager blankly.</p> + +<p>"I hadn't thought about that. And they had to have their horses with +them to get from Willow Creek to the Pass. That spoils everything," the +girl agreed.</p> + +<p>Then, seeing her lover's white teeth flashing laughter at her, she knew +he had found a way round the difficulty. "How would this do, +partners—just for a guess: The car was waiting for them at the end of +the Del Oro Cañon. They dumped their loot into it, then unsaddled and +threw all the saddles in, too. They gave the bronchs a good scare, and +started them into the hills, knowing they would find their way back home +all right in a couple of days. At Willow Creek they found hawsses +waiting for them, and Mr. Spiker hit the back trail for Noches, with his +car, and slid into town while everybody was busy about the robbery."</p> + +<p>"Sure. That would be the way of it," his friend nodded. "All we got to +do now is to get Spiker to squeal."</p> + +<p>"If he happens to be a quitter."</p> + +<p>"He will—under pressure. He's that kind."</p> + +<p>A knock came on the door, and Tom Benwell, the store clerk, answered +her summons to come in.</p> + +<p>"It's Budd, Miss Phyl. He came to see about getting-that stuff you was +going to order for a dress for his little girl," the storekeeper +explained.</p> + +<p>Phyllis rose and followed the man back to the store. When she had gone, +Jim stepped to the door and shut it. Returning, he sat down beside the +bed.</p> + +<p>"Larry, I didn't tell all I know. That hat in Spiker's room had the +initials P.S. written on the band. What's more, I knew the hat by a big +coffee stain splashed on the crown. It happens I made that stain myself +on the round-up onct when we were wrastling and I knocked the coffeepot +over."</p> + +<p>Keller looked at his friend gravely. "It was Phil Sanderson's hat?"</p> + +<p>Yeager nodded assent. "He must have loaned his old hat to Spiker for the +holdup."</p> + +<p>"You didn't turn the hat over to the sheriff?"</p> + +<p>"Not so as you could notice it. I shoved it in my jeans and burnt it +over my camp fire next day."</p> + +<p>"This mixes things up a heap. If Phil is in this thing—and it sure +looks that way—it ties our hands. I'd like to have a talk with Spiker +before we do anything."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with having a talk with Phil? Why not shove this +thing right home to him?"</p> + +<p>The nester shook his head. "Let's wait a while. We don't want to drive +Healy away yet. If the kid's in it he would go right to Healy with the +whole story."</p> + +<p>Yeager swore softly. "It's all Brill's fault. He's been leading Phil +into devilment for two years now."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And all the time been playing himself for the leader of us fellows that +are against the rustlers and that Bear Creek outfit," continued Jim +bitterly. "Why, we been talking of electing him sheriff. Durn his +forsaken hide, he's been riding round asking the boys to vote for him on +a promise to clean out the miscreants."</p> + +<p>"You can oppose him, of course. But we have no absolute proof against +him yet. We must have proof that nobody can doubt."</p> + +<p>"I reckon. And'll likely have to wait till we're gray."</p> + +<p>"I don't think so. My guess is that he's right near the end of his rope. +We're going to make a clean-up soon as I get solid on my feet."</p> + +<p>"And Phil? What if we catch him in the gather, and find him wearing the +bad-man brand?"</p> + +<p>Keller's eyes met those of his friend. "There never was a rodeo where +some cattle didn't slip through unnoticed, Jim."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>SURRENDER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The weeks slipped away and brought with them healing to the wounded man +at Seven Mile. He moved from the bed where at first he had spent his +days to a lounge in the living room, and there, from the bay window, he +could look out at the varied life of the cattle country. Men came and +went in the dust of the drag drive, their approach heralded by the bawl +of thirsty cattle. Others cantered up and bought tobacco and canned +goods. The stage arrived twice a week with its sack of mail, and always +when it did Public Opinion gathered upon the porch of the store, as of +yore. Phil Sanderson he saw often, Yeager sometimes, and once or twice +he caught a glimpse of Healy's saturnine face.</p> + +<p>A scarcity of beef and a sharp rise in prices brought the round-up +earlier than usual. Every spare man was called upon to help comb the +hills for the wild steers that ran the wooded water-sheds, as untamed as +the deer and the lynx. Even the storekeeper, Benwell, was pressed into +the service. 'Rastus and the nester were the only men about the place, +the deputy sheriff having been recalled to Noches on the collapse of +Healy's story.</p> + +<p>The removal to a distance of the rest of her admirers did not have the +effect of throwing Keller alone with Phyllis more often. The young +mistress of the ranch invited Bess Purdy to visit her, and now he never +saw her except in the presence of her other guest.</p> + +<p>Bess took him in at once, evidencing her approval of him by entering +upon a spirited war of repartee with him. She had not been in the house +twenty-four hours before she had unbosomed herself of a derisive +confidence.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you're a bank robber, at all! I don't believe you are +even a rustler! You're a false alarm!"</p> + +<p>Both Keller and Miss Sanderson smiled at the daring of the girl's +challenge. But the former defended himself with apparent heat.</p> + +<p>"What makes you think so? Why should you undermine my reputation with +such an assertion? You can't talk that way about me without proving it, +Miss Purdy."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't. You don't <i>look</i> it."</p> + +<p>"I can't help that. You ask Mr. Healy. He'll tell you I am."</p> + +<p>"You'll need a better witness than Brill before I'll believe it."</p> + +<p>"And I thought you were going to like me," he lamented.</p> + +<p>"I like a lot of people who aren't ruffians, but of course I can't +admire you so much as if you were a really truly bad man."</p> + +<p>"But if I promise to be one?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, anybody can <i>promise</i>," she flung back, eyes bubbling with +laughter.</p> + +<p>"Wait till I get on my feet again."</p> + +<p>A youth galloped up to the house in a cloud of alkali dust.</p> + +<p>"There's Cuffs," announced Phyllis, smiling at Bess.</p> + +<p>That young woman blushed a little, supposed, aloud, she must go out to +see him, and withdrew in seeming reluctance.</p> + +<p>"He wants Bess to go with him to the Frying Pan dance. He sent a note +over from the round-up to ask her. She hasn't had a chance yet to tell +him that she would," explained her friend.</p> + +<p>"How will he take her?" asked the nester, his eyes quickening.</p> + +<p>"In the surrey, I suppose. Why?"</p> + +<p>"The surrey will hold four."</p> + +<p>She made no pretense of not understanding. Her look met his in a +betrayal of the pleasure his invitation gave her. Yet she shook her +head.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you."</p> + +<p>"But why—if I may ask?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! But you mayn't," she smiled.</p> + +<p>He considered that. "You like to dance."</p> + +<p>"Most girls do."</p> + +<p>"Then it is because of me," he soliloquized aloud.</p> + +<p>"Please," she begged lightly.</p> + +<p>"My reputation, I suppose."</p> + +<p>She began to roll up the embroidery upon which she was busy. But he got +to the door before her.</p> + +<p>"No, you don't."</p> + +<p>"You are not going to make me tell you why I can't go with you, are +you?"</p> + +<p>"That, to start with. Then I'm going to make you tell me some other +things."</p> + +<p>"But if I don't want to tell?" Her eyes were wide open with surprise, +for he had never before taken the masterful line with her. Deep down, +she liked it; but she had no intention of letting him know so.</p> + +<p>"There are times not to tell, and there are times to tell. This will be +one of the last kind, Phyllis."</p> + +<p>She tried mockery. "When you throw a big chest like that I suppose you +always get what you want."</p> + +<p>"You act right funny, girl. I never see you alone any more. We haven't +had a good talk for more than a week. Now, why?"</p> + +<p>She thought of telling him she had been too busy; then, moved by an +impulse of impatience, met his gaze fully, and told him part of the +truth.</p> + +<p>"I should think you would understand that a girl has to be careful of +what she does!"</p> + +<p>"You mean about us being friends?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, we can be friends, but——If you can't see it, then I can't tell +you," she finished.</p> + +<p>"I can see it, I reckon. You saved my life, and I expect some human cat +got his claws out and said it was because you were fond of me.</p> + +<p>"Then you saved it again by your nursing. No two ways about that. Doc +Brown says you and Jim did. I was so sick folks knew it had to be. But +now I'm getting well, you have to show them you're not interested in me. +Isn't that about it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But you don't have to show me, too, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Am I not—courteous?"</p> + +<p>"I ain't worrying any about your courtesy. But, look here, Phyllie. Have +you forgotten what happened in the kitchen that night you helped me to +escape?"</p> + +<p>She flashed him one look of indignant reproach. "I should think you +would be the last person in the world to remind me of it."</p> + +<p>"I've got a right to mention it because I've asked you a question since +that ain't been answered. That week's been up ten days."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to answer it now."</p> + +<p>And with that she slipped past him and from the room.</p> + +<p>He ran a hand through his curls and voiced his perplexity. "Now, if a +woman ain't the strangest ever. Just as a fellow is ready to tell her +things, she gets mad and hikes."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he smiled, not uncheerfully. What experience he had had +with young women told him the signs were not hopeless for his success. +He was not sure of her, not by a good deal. He had captured her +imagination. But to win a girl's fancy is not the same as to storm her +heart. He often caught himself wondering just where he stood with her. +For himself, he knew he was fathoms deep in love.</p> + +<p>She was in his thoughts when he fell asleep.</p> + +<p>He awoke in the darkness, and sat upright in the bed, a feeling of +calamity oppressing him. Something pungent tickled his nostrils.</p> + +<p>A faint crackling sounded in the air.</p> + +<p>Swiftly he slipped on such clothes as he needed and stepped into the +passage. A heavy smoke was pouring up the back stairway. He knocked +insistently upon the door where Phyllis and her guest were sleeping.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" a voice demanded.</p> + +<p>"Get up and dress, Miss Sanderson! The house is on fire! You have plenty +of time, I think. If there's any hurry I'll let you know after I've +looked."</p> + +<p>He went down the front stairs and found that the fire was in the back +part of the house. Already volumes of smoke with spitting tongues of +flame were reaching toward the foot of the stairs. He ran up to the room +where the girls were dressing, and called to them:</p> + +<p>"Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>The door opened, to show him two very pale girls, each carrying a bundle +of clothes. They were only partially dressed, but wrappers covered their +disarray. Keller went to the clothes closet, emptied it with a sweep and +lift of his arm, and returned, to lead the way downstairs.</p> + +<p>"Take a breath before you start. The smoke's bad, but there is no real +danger," he told them as he plunged forward.</p> + +<p>At the foot of the stairs he stopped to see that they were following him +closely, then flung open the outer door and let in a rush of cool, sweet +air. In another moment they were outside, safe and unhurt.</p> + +<p>Phyllis drew a long breath before she said:</p> + +<p>"The house is gone!"</p> + +<p>"If there is anything you want particularly from the living room I can +get in through the window," Keller told her.</p> + +<p>She shuddered. Flame jets were already shooting out here and there. "I +wouldn't let you go back for the world. We didn't get out too soon."</p> + +<p>"No," he agreed.</p> + +<p>A sniveling voice behind them broke in: "Where is Mr. Phil? I yain't +seen him yet."</p> + +<p>Larrabie swung round on 'Rastus like a flash. "What do you mean? He's at +the round-up, of course."</p> + +<p>The little fellow began to bawl: "No, sah. He done come home late last +night. Aftah you-all had gone to bed. He's in his room, tha's where he +is."</p> + +<p>Phyllis caught at the arm of Keller to steady her. She was colorless to +the lips.</p> + +<p>"Oh, God! Oh, God!" she cried faintly.</p> + +<p>The nester pushed her gently into the arms of her guest.</p> + +<p>"Take care of her, Bess. I'll get Phil."</p> + +<p>He ran round the house to the back. The bedroom occupied by young +Sanderson was on the first floor. The ranger caught up a stick, smashed +the window, and tore out the frame by main strength. Presently he was +inside, groping through the dense smoke toward the bed.</p> + +<p>Flames leaped at him from out of it like darting serpents. His hair, his +face, his clothes, caught fire before he had discovered that the bed had +been used, but was now empty. The door into the hall was open, and +through it were pouring billows of smoke. Evidently Phil must have tried +to escape that way and been overpowered.</p> + +<p>The young man caught up a towel and wrapped it around his throat and +mouth, then plunged forward into the caldron of the passage. The smoke +choked him and the intense heat peeled his face and made the endurance +of it an agony.</p> + +<p>He stumbled over something soft, and discovered with his hands that it +was a body. Smothered and choked, half frantic with the heat, he +struggled back into the bedroom with his burden.</p> + +<p>Somehow he reached the window, stumbled through it, and dragged the +inanimate body after him. Then, with Phil in his arms, he reeled forward +into the fresh air beyond.</p> + +<p>With a cry Phyllis broke from Bess and ran toward him. But before she +had reached the rescuer and the rescued, Keller went down in total +collapse. He, too, was unconscious when she knelt beside him and began +with her hands to crush out the smoldering fire in his clothes.</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes and smiled faintly when he saw who it was.</p> + +<p>"How's the boy?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He is breathing," cried Bess joyfully, from where she was bending over +Sanderson.</p> + +<p>"You go attend to him. I'm all right now."</p> + +<p>"Are you truly?"</p> + +<p>"Truly."</p> + +<p>He proved it by sitting up, and presently by rising and joining with her +the group gathered around Phil. For Aunt Becky had now emerged from her +cabin and taken charge of affairs.</p> + +<p>Phil was supported to the bunk house and put to bed by Keller and +'Rastus. It was already plain that he would be none the worse for his +adventure after a night's good sleep. Aunt Becky applied to his case the +homely remedies she had used before, while the others stood around the +bed and helped as best they could. Strangely enough, he was not burned +at all. In this he had escaped better than Keller, whose hair and +eyebrows and skin were all the worse for singeing.</p> + +<p>The nester noticed that Phyllis, in handing a bowl of water to Bess, +used awkwardly her left hand. The right one, he observed, was held with +the palm concealed against the folds of her skirt.</p> + +<p>Presently Phyllis, her anxiety as to Phil relieved, left Aunt Becky and +Bess to care for him, while she went out to make arrangements for +disposing of the party until morning. The nester followed her into the +night and walked beside her toward the house of the foreman. The +darkness was lit up luridly by the shooting flames of the burning house.</p> + +<p>"The store isn't going to catch fire. That's one good thing," Keller +observed, by way of comfort.</p> + +<p>"Yes." There was a catch in her voice, for all the little treasures of +her girlhood, gathered from time to time, were going up in smoke.</p> + +<p>"You're insured, I reckon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, it might be worse."</p> + +<p>She thought of the narrow escape Phil had had, and nodded.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to sleep in the bunk house. Take any of the beds you like. +Bess and I will put up at the foreman's," she explained.</p> + +<p>As is the custom among bachelors who attend to their own domestic +affairs, they found the bed just as the foreman had stepped out of it +two weeks before. While Keller held the lantern, Phyllis made it up, and +again he saw that she was using her right hand very carefully and +flinching when it touched the blankets. Putting the lantern down on the +table, he walked up to her.</p> + +<p>"I'll make the bed."</p> + +<p>She stepped back, with a little laugh. "All right."</p> + +<p>He made it, then turned to her at once.</p> + +<p>"I want to see your hand."</p> + +<p>She gave him the left one, even as he had done on the occasion of their +second meeting. He took it, and kept it.</p> + +<p>"Now the other."</p> + +<p>"What do you want with it?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind." He reached down and drew it from the folds of her skirt, +where it had again fallen. Very gently he turned it so that the palm was +up. Ugly blisters and a red seam showed where she had burned herself. He +looked at her without speaking.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing," she told him, a little hysterically.</p> + +<p>For an instant her mind flashed back to the time when Buck Weaver had +drawn the cactus spines out of that same hand.</p> + +<p>His voice was rough with feeling. "I can see it isn't. And you got it +for me—putting out the fire in my clothes. I reckon I cayn't thank you, +you poor little tortured hand." He lifted the fingers to his lips and +kissed them.</p> + +<p>"Don't," she cried brokenly.</p> + +<p>"Has it got to be this way always, Phyllie—you giving and me taking?" +His hand tightened on hers ever so slightly, and a spasm of pain shot +across her face. He looked at the burned fingers again tenderly. "Does +it hurt pretty bad, girl?"</p> + +<p>"I wish it was ten times as bad!" she broke out, with a sob. "You saved +Phil's life—at the risk of your own. I wish I could tell you how I +feel, what I think of you, how splendid you are." In default of which +ability, she began to cry softly.</p> + +<p>He wasted no more time. He did not ask her whether he might. With a +gesture, his arm went around her and drew her to him.</p> + +<p>"Let me tell what I think of you, instead, girl o' mine. I cayn't tell +it, either, for that matter, but I reckon I can make out to show you, +honey."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean—that way," she protested, between laughter and tears.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's the way I mean."</p> + +<p>Neither spoke again for a minute. Than: "Do you really—love me?" she +murmured.</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" He laughed with the sheer unconquerable boyish +delight in her.</p> + +<p>"I think you're pretending right well," she smiled.</p> + +<p>"If I am making believe."</p> + +<p>"If you are." Her arms slipped round his neck with a swift impulse of +love. "But you're not. Tell me you're not, Larry."</p> + +<p>He told her, in the wordless way lovers have at command, the way that is +more convincing than speech.</p> + +<p>So Phyllis, from the troubled waters of doubt, came at last to safe +harborage.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>AT THE RODEO</h3> +<br /> + +<p>There was an exodus from Seven Mile the second day after the fire. +Keller went up Bear Creek, Phyllis accepted the invitation of Bess to +stay with her at the Fiddleback, and her brother returned to the +round-up.</p> + +<p>The riders were now combing the Lost Creek watershed. Phil knew the camp +would be either at Peaceful Valley or higher up, near the headwaters of +the creek. Before he reached the valley the steady bawl of cattle told +him that the outfit was camped there. He topped the ridge and looked +down upon Cattleland at its busiest. Just below him was the remuda, the +ponies grazing slowly toward the hills under the care of three +half-grown boys.</p> + +<p>Beyond were the herded cattle. Here all was activity. Within the fence +of riders surrounding the wild creatures the cutting out and the +branding were being pushed rapidly forward. Occasionally some leggy +steer, tail up and feet pounding, would make a dash to break the cordon. +Instantly one of the riders would wheel in chase, head off the animal, +and drive it back.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy, boss of the rodeo by election, was in charge. He was an +expert handler of cattle, one of the best in the country. It was his +nature to seek the limelight, though it must be said for him that he +rose to his responsibilities. The owners knew that when he was running +the round-up few cattle would slip through the net he wound around them.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Brill!" shouted the young man as he rode up.</p> + +<p>"Hello, son! Too bad about the fire. I'll want to hear about it later. +Looking for a job?" he flung hurriedly over his shoulder. For he had not +even a minute to spare.</p> + +<p>"I reckon."</p> + +<p>Phil did not wait to be assigned work, but joined the calf branders.</p> + +<p>Not until night had fallen and they were gathered round in a semicircle +leaning against their saddles did Phil find time to tell the story of +the fire. There was some haphazard comment when he had finished, after +which Slim spoke.</p> + +<p>"So the nester hauled you out. Ce'tainly looks like he's plumb game. You +said he was afire when he got you into the open, didn't you, Phil?"</p> + +<p>The boy nodded. "And all in. He fainted right away."</p> + +<p>"With him still burning away like the doctor's fire there," murmured +Healy ironically, with a slight gesture toward the cook.</p> + +<p>Phil looked at him angrily. "I didn't say that. Some one put the fire +out."</p> + +<p>"Oh, some one! Might a man ask who?"</p> + +<p>Phil had not had any intention of telling, but he found himself letting +Healy have it straight.</p> + +<p>"Phyllis."</p> + +<p>"About what I thought!" Healy said it significantly, and with a malice +that overrode his discretion.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" demanded the boy fiercely.</p> + +<p>"I ain't said anything, have I?" Healy came back smoothly.</p> + +<p>Yeager's quiet voice broke the silence that followed, while Phil was +trying to voice the resentment in him.</p> + +<p>"You mean what we're all thinking, Brill, I reckon—that she is the sort +to forget herself when somebody needs her help. Ain't that it?"</p> + +<p>The eyes of the two met steadily in a clash of wills. Healy's gave way +for the time, not because he was mastered, but because he did not wish +to alienate the rough, but fair-minded, men sitting around.</p> + +<p>"You're mighty good at explaining me to the boys, Jim. I expect that is +what I mean," he answered sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Sure," put in Purdy, with amiable intent.</p> + +<p>"But when it comes to Mr. Keller I can explain myself tol'able well. I +don't need any help there, Jim, not even if he is yore best friend."</p> + +<p>"If you've got anything to say against him, I'll ask you to say it when +I'm not around," broke in Phil. "You'll recollect, please, that he's +<i>my</i> friend, too."</p> + +<p>"That so? Since, when, Phil?" the rodeo boss retorted sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"Since he went into the fire after me and saved my life. Think I'm a +coyote to round on him? I tell you he's a white man clear through. In my +opinion, he's neither a rustler nor a bank robber." He was flushed and +excited, but his gaze met that of his former friend and challenged him +defiantly.</p> + +<p>Healy's eyes narrowed. He gazed at the boy darkly, as if he meant to +read him through and through. For years he had dominated Phil, had +shaped him to his ends, had led him into wild, lawless courses after +him. Now the anchors were dragging. He was losing control of him. He +resolved to turn the screws on him, but not at this time and place.</p> + +<p>"I've always been considered a full-grown man, Phil. What I think I aim +to say out loud when the notion hits me. That being so, I go on record +as having an opinion about Keller. You think he's on the square, and you +give him a whitewashed certificate as a bony-fidy Sunday-school scholar.</p> + +<p>"Different here. I think him a coyote and a crook, and so I say it right +out in meeting. Any objections?" The gaze of the boss shifted from +Sanderson to Yeager, and fastened.</p> + +<p>"None in the world. You think what you like, Brill, and we'll stick to +our opinions," Yeager replied cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"And when I get good and ready I'll act on mine," Healy replied with an +evil grin.</p> + +<p>"If you find it right convenient. I expect Keller ain't exactly a wooden +cigar Indian. Maybe he'll have a say-so in what's doing," suggested +Yeager.</p> + +<p>"About as much as he had last time," sneered the round-up boss. With +which he rose, stretched himself, and gave orders. "Time to turn in, +boys. We're combing Old Baldy to-morrow, remember."</p> + +<p>"And Old Baldy's sure a holy terror," admitted Slim.</p> + +<p>"Come three more days and we'd ought to be through. I'm not going to +grieve any when we are. This high life don't suit me too durned well," +put in Benwell.</p> + +<p>"Yet when you come here first you was a right sick man, Tom. Now, you're +some healthy. Don't that prove the outside of a hawss is good for the +inside of a man, like the docs say?" grinned Purdy.</p> + +<p>"Tom's notion of real living is sassiety with a capital S," explained +Cuffs. "You watch him cut ice at the Frying Pan dance next week. He'll +be the real-thing lady-killer. All you lads going, I reckon. How about +you, Jim?"</p> + +<p>Yeager said he expected to be there.</p> + +<p>"With yore friend the rustler?" asked Healy insolently over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I haven't got any friend that's a rustler."</p> + +<p>"I'm speaking of Mr. Larrabie Keller." There was a slurring inflection +on the prefix.</p> + +<p>"He'll be there, I shouldn't wonder."</p> + +<p>"I'd wonder a heap," retorted Healy. "You'll see he won't show his face +there."</p> + +<p>"That's where you're wrong, Brill. He told me he was going," spoke up +Phil triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"We'll see. He's wise to the fact that this country knows him for an +out-and-out crook. He'll stay in his hole."</p> + +<p>"You going, Slim?" asked Purdy amiably, to turn the conversation into a +more pacific channel.</p> + +<p>"Sure," answered that young giant, getting lazily to his feet. "Well, +sons, the boss is right. Time to pound our ears."</p> + +<p>They rolled themselves in their blankets, the starry sky roofing their +bedroom. Within five minutes every man of them was asleep except the +night herders—and one other.</p> + +<p>Healy lay a little apart from the rest, partially screened by some boxes +of provisions and a couple of sacks of flour. His jaw was clamped tight. +He looked into the deep velvet sky without seeing. For a long time he +did not move. Then, noiselessly, he sat up, glanced around carefully to +make sure he was not observed, rose, and stole into the darkness, +carrying with him his saddle and bridle.</p> + +<p>One of his ponies was hobbled in the mesquite. Swiftly he saddled. +Leading the animal very carefully so as to avoid rustling the brush, he +zigzagged from the camp until he had reached a safe distance. Here he +swung himself on and rode into the blur of night, at first cautiously, +but later with swift-pounding hoofs. He went toward the northwest in a +bee line without hesitation or doubt. Only when the lie of the ground +forced a detour did he vary his direction.</p> + +<p>So for hours he travelled until he reached a cañon in which squatted a +little log cabin. He let his voice out in the howl of a coyote before he +dismounted. No answer came, save the echo from the cliff opposite. Again +that mournful call sounded, and this time from the cabin found an +answer.</p> + +<p>A man came sleepily to the door and peered out. "Hello! That you, +Brill?"</p> + +<p>Healy swung off, trailed his rein, and followed the man into the cabin. +"Don't light up, Tom. No need."</p> + +<p>For ten minutes they talked in low tones. Healy emerged from the cabin, +remounted, and rode back to the cow camp. He reached it just as the +first, faint streaks of gray tinged the eastern sky.</p> + +<p>Silently he unsaddled, hobbled his pony, and carried his saddle back to +the place where he had been lying. Once more he lay down, glanced +cautiously round to see all was quiet, and fell asleep as soon as his +head touched the saddle.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>MISSING</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From all over the Malpais country, from the water-sheds where Bear and +Elk and Cow creeks head, from the halfway house far out in the desert +where the stage changes horses, men and women dribbled to the Frying Pan +for the big dance after the round-up. Great were the preparations. Many +cakes and pies and piles of sandwiches had been made ready. Also there +was a wash boiler full of coffee and a galvanized tub brimming with +lemonade. For the Frying Pan was doing itself proud.</p> + +<p>Phil and his sister drove over together. The boy had asked Bess to go +with him, but Cuffs had beaten him to it. The distance was only +twenty-five miles, a neighborly stroll in that country of wide spaces +and desert stretches filled with absentees.</p> + +<p>When Phyllis came into the big room where the dancing was in progress, +her dark eye swept the room without finding him for whom she looked. +There were many there she knew, not more than two or three whom she had +never met, but among them all she looked at none who was a magnet for +her eyes. Keller had not yet arrived.</p> + +<p>Before she had taken her seat she had three engagements to dance. Jim +Yeager had waylaid her; so, too, had Slim and Curly. She waltzed first +with Phil, and after he had done his duty he left her to the besiegings +of half a score of riders for various ranches who came and went and came +again. She joked with them, joined the merry banter that went on, +laughed at them when they grew sentimental, always with a sprightly +devotion to the matter in hand.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, though they did not know it, her mind was full of him who +had not yet appeared. Why was he late? Could he have missed the way by +any chance? And later—as the hours passed without bringing him—could +anything have happened to him? More than once her troubled gaze fell +upon Brill Healy with a brooding question in it. The man had received +only the day before his party's nomination for sheriff, and he was doing +the gracious to all the women and children.</p> + +<p>He had many of the qualities that make for popularity, even though he +was often overbearing, revengeful, and sullen. When he chose he could be +hail fellow well met in a way Malpais found flattering to its vanity. +Now he was apparently having the time of his life. Wherever he moved an +eddy of laughter and gayety went with him. The eyes of men as well as +women admiringly followed his dark, lithe, picturesque figure.</p> + +<p>Phyllis had declined to dance with him, giving as an excuse a full +programme, and for an instant his face had blazed with the suppressed +rage in him. He had bowed and swaggered away with a malicious sneer. Her +judgment told her it was folly to connect this man with the absence of +her lover, but that look of malevolent triumph had none the less shaken +her heart. What had he meant? It seemed less a threat for the future +than a gloating over some evil already done.</p> + +<p>When she could endure them no longer she carried her fears to Jim +Yeager. They were dancing, but she made an excuse of fatigue to drop +out.</p> + +<p>"First time I ever knew you to play out at a dance, Phyl," he rallied +her.</p> + +<p>"It isn't that. I want to say something to you," she whispered.</p> + +<p>He had a guess what it was, for his own mind was not quite easy.</p> + +<p>"Do you think anything could have happened, Jim?" she besought pitifully +when for a moment they were alone in a corner.</p> + +<p>"What <i>could</i> have happened, Phyllie? Do you reckon he fell off his +hawss, and him a full-size man?" he scoffed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but—you don't know how Brill looked at me. I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Brill!" His voice held an edge of scorn, but none the less it +concealed a real fear. He was making as much concession to it as to her +when he added lightly: "Tell you what I'll do, Phyl. I'll saddle up and +take a look back over the Bear Creek trail. Likely I'll meet him, and +we'll come in together."</p> + +<p>Her eyes met his, and he needed no other thanks. "You'll lose the +dance," was her only comment.</p> + +<p>Jim followed the road until it branched off to join the Bear Creek +trail. Here he deflected toward the mountains, taking the zigzag path +that ran like a winding thread among the rocks as it mounted. Now for +the first time there came to him the faint rhythmic sound of a galloping +horse's hoofs. He did not stop, and as he picked his way among the rocks +he heard for some time no more of it.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hurry-up-like-hell kept the road, I reckon," Jim ruminated aloud, +and even as he spoke he caught again the echo of an iron shoe striking a +rock.</p> + +<p>He stopped and listened. Some one was climbing the trail behind him.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe he's a friend, and then mebbe he isn't. We'll let him have the +whole road to himself, eh, Keno?"</p> + +<p>Yeager guided his pony to the left, and took up a position behind some +huge bowlders from whence he could see without being seen. The pursuer +toiled into sight, a slim, wiry youth on a buckskin. He came forward out +of the shadows into the fretted moonlight.</p> + +<p>Yeager gave a glad whoop of recognition. "Hi-yi, Phil!"</p> + +<p>"You're there, are you? Did I scare you off the trail, Jim?"</p> + +<p>"That's whatever, boy. What are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"Sis sent me. She got worried again, and we figured I'd better join +you."</p> + +<p>"I reckon there's nothing serious the matter. Still, it ain't like Larry +to say he would come and then not show up."</p> + +<p>"Brill is back there bragging about it." Phil nodded his head toward the +lights of the Frying Pan glimmering far below. "Says he knew the waddy +wouldn't show his head. You don't reckon, Jim, he's turned a trick on +Keller, do you?"</p> + +<p>"That's what we have got to find out, Phil."</p> + +<p>"Looks funny he'd be so durned sure when we all know how game Keller +is," the boy reflected aloud.</p> + +<p>"I don't expect you're armed, Phil?" Jim put the statement as a +question.</p> + +<p>"Nope. Are you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't. Didn't think of it when I started. Oh, well, we'll make +out. Like enough there will be no need of guns."</p> + +<p>A gray light was sifting into the sky, and still they rode, winding up +toward the peaks of the divide. Jim, leading the way, drew rein and +pointed to a cactus bush beside the trail. Among its spines lay a gray +felt hat. From it his eye wandered to the very evident signs of a +struggle that had taken place. Moss and cactus had been trampled down by +boot heels. To the cholla hung here and there scraps of cloth. A blood +splash stared at them from an outcropping slope of rock.</p> + +<p>Jim swung from the saddle and rescued the hat from the spines. Inside +the sweat band were the initials L.K. Silently he handed the hat to +Phil.</p> + +<p>"It's his hat," the boy cried.</p> + +<p>"It's his hat," Jim agreed. "They must have laid for him here. He put up +a good scrap. Notice how that cholla is cut to ribbons. Point is, what +did they do to him?"</p> + +<p>They searched the ground thoroughly, and discovered no body hidden in +the brush.</p> + +<p>"They've taken him away. Likely he's alive," Yeager decided aloud at +last.</p> + +<p>"Brill couldn't have been in this. He was at the Frying Pan before I +was."</p> + +<p>"I reckon he ordered it done. If that's correct they will be holding +Larry till Brill gets there to give further orders."</p> + +<p>Phil entered an objection. "That doesn't look to me like Brill's way. +He's not scared of any man that lives. When he squares accounts with +Keller he'll be on the job himself."</p> + +<p>"That's so, too," admitted Yeager. "Still, I figure this is Healy's +work. Maybe he gave out there was to be no killing. He was at the ranch +himself, big as coffee, so as to be sure of his alibi."</p> + +<p>"What does he care about an alibi? When he gets ready to go gunnin' +after Keller he won't care if the whole Malpais sees him. There's +something in this I don't <i>sabe</i>."</p> + +<p>"There sure is. We've got to run the thing down <i>muy pronto</i>. No use +both of us going ahead without arms, Phil. My notion is this: You burn a +shuck back to the Frying Pan and round up some of our friends on the +q.t. Don't let Brill get a notion of what's in the air. Better make +straight for Gregory's Pass. I'm going to follow this trail we've cut +and see what's doing. Once I find out I'll double back to the Pass and +meet you. Bring along an extra gun for me."</p> + +<p>"I don't reckon I will, Jim. What's the matter with me going on instead +of you? I can follow this trail good as you can. I announce right here +that I'm not going back. I've got first call on this job. Keller went +into the fire after me. I'm going to follow this trail to hell if I have +to."</p> + +<p>Yeager tried persuasion, argument, appeal. The lad was as fixed as +Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to go buttin' in where I'm not wanted any more than you +would, Jim. I'll play this hand out with a cool head, but I'm going to +play it my ownself."</p> + +<p>"All right. It's your say-so. I'll admit you've got a claim. But you +want to remember one thing—if anything happens to you I cayn't square +it with Phyl. Go slow, boy!"</p> + +<p>Without more words they parted, Jim to ride swiftly back for help, and +young Sanderson to push on up the trail with his eyes glued to it. Ever +since he could swing himself to a saddle he had been a vaquero in the +cow country.</p> + +<p>He was therefore an expert at reading the signs left by travellers. What +would have been invisible to a tenderfoot offered evidence to him as +plain as the print on a primer. Mile after mile he covered with a minute +scrutiny that never wavered.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Keller rode blithely down the piney trail while the sun flung its +brilliant good-bye over the crotch of the mountains behind which it was +slipping. The western sky was a Turner sublimated to the <i>nth</i> degree, a +thing magnificent and indescribable. The young man rode with his crisp +curls bared to the light, grateful breeze that came like healing from +the great peaks. From the joyous, unquenchable youth in him bubbled +snatches of song and friendly smiles scattered broadcast over a world +that pleased him mightily.</p> + +<p>He was going to see his girl, going down to the Frying Pan to take her +in his arms and whirl her into the land of romance to the rhythm of the +waltz. He wanted to shout it out to the chipmunks and the quails. Ever +and again he broke out with a line or two of a melody he had heard once +from a phonograph. No matter if he did not get the words exactly. He was +sure of the sentiment. So the hills flung back his lusty:</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"I love a lassie,<br /></span> +<span>A bonnie Hieland lassie,<br /></span> +<span>She's as pure as the lily of the dell."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Disaster fell upon him like a bolt out of a June sky. His pony +stumbled, went down heavily with its weight on his leg. From the +darkness men surged upon him. Rough hands dragged at him. The butt of a +weapon crashed down on his hat and stunned him.</p> + +<p>He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he was +struggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down. He +knew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously with +both hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steel +flashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag pain +that blotted out the world.</p> + +<p>As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters a +far-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him.</p> + +<p>"He's coming to, looks like. I reckon you ain't bust his head, after +all, Brad."</p> + +<p>Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze. Slowly these took +form. Features stood out. The masks became faces. They no longer floated +detached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings.</p> + +<p>"It ain't our fault if you're stove up some, pardner. You're too durned +anxious to whip yore weight in wildcats," one of the men grinned.</p> + +<p>"Right you are, Tom. He shore hits like a kicking mule," chimed in a +third, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone.</p> + +<p>A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "No +hard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave a +final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner.</p> + +<p>"I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nester +quietly.</p> + +<p>"We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfit +doesn't run any information bureau," answered the heavy-set, sullen +fellow who had been called Brad.</p> + +<p>There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one of +them, if not two. The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one was +Brad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit.</p> + +<p>They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voiced +consultation. Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south, +while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across the +horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding +among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Through +the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parks +beyond.</p> + +<p>This region was the heart of the watershed where Little Goose Creek +heads. The peaks rose gaunt above them. Occasionally they glimpsed wide +vistas of tangled, wooded cañons and hills innumerable as sea billows. +Into this maze they plunged ever deeper and deeper. Daylight came, and +found them still travelling. The prisoner did not need to be told that +this inaccessible country was the lurking place of the rustlers who had +preyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence to +connect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rode +in and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands while +honest folks kept their beds.</p> + +<p>The sun was well up to its meridian before they came through a thick +clump of quaking aspens to the mouth of a gulch opening from the end of +a little mountain park. On one of the slopes of the gulch a cabin +squatted, half hidden by the great boulders and the matting of pine +boughs in front. Here Brad swung stiffly from the saddle.</p> + +<p>"We'll 'light hyer," he announced.</p> + +<p>"Time, too," returned Keller easily. "If anybody asks you, tell them I +usually eat breakfast some before ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"You'll do yore eating from now on when I give the word," his guard +answered surlily.</p> + +<p>He was a big, dark man with a grouch, one who took his duties sourly. +Not by any stretch of imagination could he be considered a brilliant +conversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, but +for the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surly +monosyllables.</p> + +<p>There was a good deal of the cave man about him. The heavy, slouching +shoulders, the glare of savagery, the long, hairy arms, all had their +primordial suggestion. Given a club and a stone ax, he might have been +set back thousands of years with no injustice to his mentality.</p> + +<p>The man soon had a fire blazing in the stove, and from it came a +breakfast of bacon, black coffee, and biscuits. He freed the hands of +the nester and sat opposite him at the table, a revolver by the side of +his plate for use in an emergency.</p> + +<p>Keller smiled. "This is one of those fashionable dinners where they have +extra hardware beside the plates," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"Get gay, and I'll blow the top of yore head off!" the cow-puncher swore +with gusto.</p> + +<p>"Thanks. Under the circumstances, I reckon I'll not get gay. I'm in no +hurry to put you in the pen, seh. Plenty of time. I'm going to need the +top of my head to testify against you."</p> + +<p>Irwin swore violently.</p> + +<p>"For two cents I'd pump you full of holes right now," he glared.</p> + +<p>Keller laughed, meeting him eye to eye pleasantly.</p> + +<p>"Those aren't the orders, friend. I'm to be held here till the boss +shows up or gives the signal."</p> + +<p>The big jaw of his captor fell from astonishment. "Who told you that?"</p> + +<p>The prisoner helped himself to more bacon and laughed again. He had made +a guess, but he knew now that he had hit the bull's-eye with his shot in +the dark.</p> + +<p>"Some things don't need telling. I don't have to be told, for instance, +that if things get too hot for Brill Healy he will slide out and leave +you to settle the bill with the law."</p> + +<p>Irwin's eyes glared angrily at his smiling ones. The unabashed +impudence, the unfluttered aplomb, but above all the uncanny prescience +of this youth disturbed him because he could not understand them. +Moreover, it happened that his suspicious mind had lingered on the +chance of a betrayal at the hands of his chief. For which very reason he +broke into angry denial.</p> + +<p>"That's a lie! Brill ain't that sort. He'd stand pat to a finish." Then, +tardily, came the instinct for caution. "And there's nothing to tell, +anyways," he finished sulkily.</p> + +<p>"Sure. What's a little rustling and a little bank robbing among +friends?" Keller wanted to know cheerfully.</p> + +<p>For just an instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffian +opposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. He +caught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger.</p> + +<p>His prisoner, leaning back in the chair, held him with quiet, unwavering +eyes. "Steady! Steady!" he drawled.</p> + +<p>"That will be about enough from you," Irwin let out through set teeth. +"You padlock that mouth of yours, mister."</p> + +<p>Keller took his advice temporarily, but it was not in him to long +repress the spirit of adventure that bubbled in him. The temptation to +bait this bear drew him irresistibly. He could not let him alone, the +more that he sensed the danger to himself of the prods he sent home +through the thick skin.</p> + +<p>Lying carelessly on the bed with his head on his arm, or perhaps sitting +astride a chair with his hands crossed on the back support, he would +smile with childlike innocence and sent his barbs in gayly. And Irwin, +murder in his dull brain, would glare at him like a maniac.</p> + +<p>"Now would be a good time to blow off the top of my cocoanut," the +nester suggested more than once to the infuriated cave man. "I'm +allowing, you know, to send you to Yuma as soon as I get out of this. +Nothing like grabbing your opportunity by the forelock."</p> + +<p>"And when are you expecting to get out of here?" his guard demanded +huskily.</p> + +<p>Keller waved his hand with airy persiflage. "No exact information +obtainable, my friend. Likely to-day. Maybe not till to-morrow. The one +dead-sure point is that I'll make my getaway at the right time."</p> + +<p>"There's one more dead-sure point—that I'm going to blow holes in you +at the right time," retorted the other.</p> + +<p>"Like to bet on which of us is a true prophet?"</p> + +<p>Brad relapsed into black, sulky silence.</p> + +<p>The hours followed each other, and still nobody came to relieve the +guard. Keller could not understand the reason for this, any more than +he could fathom an adequate one for his abduction. There was of course +something behind it—something more potent than mere malice. If the +intention had been merely to kill him, the thing could have been done +without all this trouble. But though he searched his brain for an +explanation, he could not find one that satisfied.</p> + +<p>The answer came to him later in the day. In the middle of the afternoon +a horse pounded up the draw to the cabin. Irwin went to the door, his +eye still on his prisoner, except for a swift glance at the newcomer.</p> + +<p>"How's yore five-thousand-dollar beauty, Brad?" inquired a voice that +the nester recognized.</p> + +<p>"Finer than silk, boss."</p> + +<p>The rider swung from the saddle, trailed his rein, and came with +jingling spurs into the cabin.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Mr. Keller," he said with derisive respect.</p> + +<p>The nester, lying sideways on the bed with his head on his hand, nodded +a greeting.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you and Mr. Irwin had doubled up and were bunkies," +continued the jubilant voice. "When did you-all patch up the +partnership?"</p> + +<p>"About eight o'clock last night, Mr. Healy," returned the prisoner, +eying him coolly. "And of course I knew it would be a surprise to you +when you learned it."</p> + +<p>"Expecting to stay long with him?"</p> + +<p>"He seems right hospitable, but I don't reckon I'll outstay my welcome."</p> + +<p>Healy laughed, with mockery and not amusement. "Brad's such a pressing +host there's no telling when he'll let you go."</p> + +<p>He was as malevolent as ever, but it was plain to be seen that he was +riding high on a wave of triumph. Affairs were plainly going to his +liking.</p> + +<p>"The way I heard it you were expected down at the Frying Pan last night. +Changed yore mind about going, I reckon," he went on insolently.</p> + +<p>"I reckon."</p> + +<p>"Had business that detained you, maybe."</p> + +<p>"You're a good guesser."</p> + +<p>"Folks were right anxious down there, according to the say-so that +reached me."</p> + +<p>Keller's cool eye measured him in silence, at which his enemy laughed +contemptuously and turned on his heel.</p> + +<p>Healy drew his confederate to one side of the room and held a whispered +talk with him. Apparently he did not greatly care whether his foe caught +the drift of it or not, for occasionally his voice lifted enough so that +scraps of sentences reached the man lounging on the bed.</p> + +<p>"—close to two hundred head—by the Mimbres Pass—the boys are +ce'tainly pushing the drive—out of danger by midnight—wait for the +signal before you turn him loose——"</p> + +<p>"So-long, Mr. Keller. I cayn't spare the time to stay longer with you," +their owner jeered.</p> + +<p>"Just a moment, Mr. Healy. I want to know why you are keeping me here."</p> + +<p>The man grinned. "Am I keeping you here, seh? Looks to me like it was +Brad that's a-keeping you. Make a break for a getaway, and I'll not do a +thing to you. Course I cayn't promise what Brad won't do. He's such a +plumb anxious host."</p> + +<p>"You're his brains. What you tell him to do he does. I hold you +responsible for this!"</p> + +<p>"You don't say!"</p> + +<p>"And right now I'll add, for all the devilment that has been going on in +these parts for years. You've about reached the end of your rope, +though."</p> + +<p>"I'll bet dollars to doughnuts you reach the end of one inside of +forty-eight hours, Mr. Rustler," flashed back Healy.</p> + +<p>And with an evil, significant grin he was gone. They heard the sound of +retreating hoofs die in the distance.</p> + +<p>But his visit had told the prisoner two things. A hurried wholesale +drive of rustled cattle was being made across the line into Sonora, and +it was being done in such a way as to fasten the suspicion of it upon +the nester who had not appeared at the dance and had not been seen since +that time. The irony of the thing was superb in its audacity. Healy and +his friends would get the profit from the stolen cattle, and they would +visit the punishment for the crime upon him. Evidence would be cooked +up of course, and the retribution would be so swift that his friends +would not be able to save him. This time his enemy would take no +chances. He would be wiped out like a troublesome insect. The thing was +diabolic in the simplicity of its cleverness.</p> + +<p>Keller watched his jailer now like a hawk. He was ready to take the +first chance that offered, no matter how slight a one it seemed. But the +man was vigilant and wary. He never let his hand wander a foot from the +handle of the weapon he carried.</p> + +<p>Silently Irwin cooked a second meal. They sat down to it opposite each +other, Keller facing the open window. While his jailer plied the knife, +his revolver again lay on the oilcloth within reach.</p> + +<p>"While I'm your guest and eating at your expense, I want to be properly +grateful," the nester told his vis-à-vis. "Some folks might kick because +the me-an'-you wasn't more varied, but I ain't that kind. You're doing +your best, and nobody could do more."</p> + +<p>"The which?" asked Irwin puzzled.</p> + +<p>"The me-an'-you. It's French for just plain grub. For breakfast we get +bacon and coffee and biscuits. For supper there's a variety. This time +it is biscuits and coffee and bacon. To-morrow I reckon——"</p> + +<p>Keller stopped halfway in his sentence, but took up his drawling comment +again instantly. Only an added sparkle in his eyes betrayed the change +that had suddenly wiped out his indolence and left him tense and alert. +For while he had been speaking a head had slowly raised itself above the +window casement and two eyes had looked in and met his. They belonged to +Phil Sanderson.</p> + +<p>Never had the brain of the prisoner been more alert. While his garrulous +tongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held up +empty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by the +flicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man at +table with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that moment +addressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. To +the other it was pregnant with meaning.</p> + +<p>"No, seh. Some might complain because you ain't better provided with +grub and fixings, but what I say is <i>to make out the best we can with +what we've got</i>," the slow, drawling voice continued. "Some folks cayn't +get along unless things are up to the Delmonico standard. That's plumb +foolishness. Reminds me of a friend of mine that happened on a grizzly +onct while he was cutting trail.</p> + +<p>"Not expecting to meet Mr. Bear, he didn't have any gun along. Mr. Bear +was surely on the wah-path that day. He made a bee line for my friend to +get better acquainted. Nothing like presence of mind. That cow-puncher +got his rope coiled in three shakes of a maverick's tail, his pinto +bucking for fair to make his getaway. The rope drapped over Mr. Bear's +head just as the puncher and the hawss separated company.</p> + +<p>"Things were doing right sudden then. My friend grabbed the end of that +rope and twisted it round and round a young live oak. Then he remembered +an appointment and lit out, Mr. Bear after him on the jump. <i>Muy pronto</i> +that grizzly came up awful sudden. The more he jerked the nearer he was +to being choked. You better believe Mr. Puncher was hitting that trail +right willing in the meanwhile."</p> + +<p>"You talk too much with yore mouth," growled Irwin.</p> + +<p>"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races. I was just aiming +to show you that <i>if my friend hadn't happened to have a rope along he +would have been in a bad fix</i>. But, you notice, he used his brains, <i>and +a rope did just as well as a gun</i>."</p> + +<p>The eyes just above the window casing disappeared. Brad attended to the +business in hand, which was that of getting away with bacon and biscuits +while he kept an eye on the man opposite. His prisoner also did justice +to his supper, to his flow of conversation, and to the window behind the +unconscious jailer.</p> + +<p>In that open window were presently framed again the head and shoulders +of young Sanderson. Irwin pushed back his chair to get some more coffee, +and the picture in the frame shot instantly down. The guard, his coffee +cup, and his revolver went to the stove and returned. Phil reappeared +at the window, his rope coiled for action. It slid gracefully forward, +dropped over the head of Brad, and was instantly jerked tight.</p> + +<p>Keller vaulted across the table, and flung himself upon the struggling +man. Brad's arms were entangled in the rope, but one leg shot out and +hurled back the nester. But before he could free himself from the taut +loop his prisoner was upon him again and had borne him to the ground.</p> + +<p>Of the two, Irwin was far the more powerful, Keller the more agile and +supple. He knew every trick of the wrestling game, whereas the other was +clumsy and muscle-bound. By main strength the older man got to his feet +again. Over went the table as they surged against it.</p> + +<p>A chair, stamped into kindling, was hurled aside by the force of their +impact. The stove rocked, and the bed collapsed as the locked figures +crashed down upon it. The ranger, twisting as they fell, landed on top +and his fingers instantly found the throat of his foe. Simultaneously +Phil came to his assistance.</p> + +<p>Even then, taken at an advantage, with two much younger men against him, +the big jailer fought to the finish like a bear. Not till he was +completely exhausted and they nearly so did he give up and lie quiet. +All three of them panted heavily, the allies lying across his chest and +legs. The nester managed to draw the loop taut about Irwin's neck and +insert his knuckles so that he could use them as a tourniquet if +necessary.</p> + +<p>"Gather up the other end of the rope, loop it, and tie his feet +together," the nester ordered, getting his sentence out in fragmentary +jerks.</p> + +<p>Phil did so, deftly and expertly, after which, in spite of renewed +struggles, they tied the hands of their prisoner behind his back.</p> + +<p>"Looks like a cyclone had hit the room," said the boy, glancing at the +debris.</p> + +<p>Larrabie laughed. "He's the most willing mixer I ever saw."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with him?"</p> + +<p>"We'll leave him tied right where he is. When we get down into the +settlement we'll notify his friends, though I reckon they'll find him +without any help from us."</p> + +<p>In order to make sure they went over the knots again, tightening them +here and there. The revolver and the rifle of the bound man they +appropriated. The nester's horse was in a little corral back of the +house. He saddled, and shortly the two were on the back trail. Phil knew +the country as a golfer knows his links. To him Keller put the question +in his mind:</p> + +<p>"How far is the Mimbres Pass from here, and in what direction?"</p> + +<p>The younger man looked at him in surprise. "A dozen miles, I reckon. See +that cleft over there? That's the Mimbres."</p> + +<p>His friend drew rein and looked with level eyes at him.</p> + +<p>"Phil, it's come to a show-down! Are you for Brill Healy or are you for +me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm through with Brill."</p> + +<p>"Dead sure of that?"</p> + +<p>"Dead sure. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because you've got to make your choice to-night whether you're going to +stand with honest men or thieves. Healy's gang is rustling a bunch of +cows gathered at the round-up. They're heading for Mimbres Pass. I'm +going to stop them if I can."</p> + +<p>"I'm with you, Larry."</p> + +<p>"Good! I was sure of you, Phil."</p> + +<p>The boy flushed, but his eyes did not waver. "I want to tell you +something. That day we most caught you over the dead cow of the C.O. +outfit Brill was carrying Phyl's knife. I had lent it to him the night +before."</p> + +<p>Keller nodded. "I had figured it out that way."</p> + +<p>"But that ain't all. Once when I was cutting trail in the hills—must +have been about six months before that time—I happened on Brill driving +a calf still bleeding from the brand he had put on it.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think anything of that, but I noticed he was anxious to have +me turn and join him. But I kept on the way I was going, and just by a +miracle my pony almost stumbled over a dead cow lying in the brush. That +set me thinking. That night I rode over to Healy's and asked an +explanation.</p> + +<p>"He had one ready. Some one else must have killed the cow. He found the +calf wandering about alone, and branded it. Somehow his story didn't +quite satisfy me, but I wasn't ready then to think him a coyote. I liked +him—always had. And it flattered me that he had picked me out to be his +best friend. So I said nothing, and figured it out that he was on the +square. Of course I knew he was reckless and wild, but I didn't like him +any the less for that. I reckon nobody ever accused him of not being +game."</p> + +<p>"Hardly," smiled Keller. "He'll stand the acid that way."</p> + +<p>"The thing that stuck in my craw was his lying about seeing you on the +night of the bank robbery. He said you were riding the roan with white +stockings. Later we found out that couldn't be true. Then I knew Jim was +telling the truth about you being with him in the hills at the time. It +kind of sifted to me by degrees that you were a white man and he was a +skunk."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"Then we had it out one day. He had his reason for wanting to stand well +with me. I reckon you know what it is."</p> + +<p>"I know his reason. No man could have a better. I reckon I've a right to +think so, Phil, because she has promised to marry me."</p> + +<p>The boy shook hands with him impulsively. "I'm right glad to hear +it—and I want to say they don't make girls any better than Phyl."</p> + +<p>"That's not news to me. I have known it since the first time I saw her."</p> + +<p>Sanderson returned to the order of the day. "Well, Brill and I had had +one or two tiffs, mostly about you and Phyl. He saw I was changed toward +him, and he wanted to know why. I let him have it straight, and since +then we haven't been friends."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that. It makes plain sailing for me. He's got to be run +down and caged, Phil. Healy is at the head of all this rustling that has +been troubling the Malpais country. His gang stuck up the Diamond Nugget +stage, killed Sheriff Fowler, and robbed the Noches Bank."</p> + +<p>"How could he have robbed the bank when he was seen fifty miles from +there not two hours afterward?"</p> + +<p>Keller briefly explained his theory then pushed on at once to his plans.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make straight for the Mimbres Pass while you go back and +rustle help. I'll try to keep them from getting through the Pass until +you close in on them behind."</p> + +<p>"That don't look good to me. How do I know how long it will be before I +can gather the boys together or find Jim and his outfit? You might be +massacred before I got back."</p> + +<p>"A man has to take his fighting chance."</p> + +<p>"Then let me take mine. We'll hold the pass together. I'll bet we can. +Don't you reckon?"</p> + +<p>"What use would you be without a rifle? No, Phil, you'll have to bring +up the reinforcements. That's the best tactics."</p> + +<p>Sanderson protested eagerly, but in the end was overborne. They turned +their backs upon each other, one headed for the Mimbres and the other +for the trail that ran down to the Malpais country.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE MAN-HUNT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>When Jim Yeager separated from Phil after their discovery of Keller's +hat and the deductions they drew from it, the former turned his pony +toward the Frying Pan. Daylight had already broken before he came in +sight of it, but sounds of revelry still issued boisterously from the +house.</p> + +<p>As he drew near there came to him the squeal of sawing riddles, the +high-pitched voice of the dance caller in sing-song drawl, the shuffling +of feet keeping time to the rhythm of the music. For though a new day +was at hand, the quadrilles continued with unflagging vigor, one +succeeding another as soon as the floor was cleared.</p> + +<p>The cow country takes its amusements seriously. A dance is infrequent +enough to be an event. Men and women do not ride or drive from thirty to +fifty miles without expecting to drink the last drop of pleasure there +may be in the occasion.</p> + +<p>As Jim swung from the saddle, a slim figure in white glided from the +shadow of the wild cucumber vines that rioted over one end of the porch.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jim?"</p> + +<p>The man came to the point with characteristic directness. "He has been +waylaid, Phyl. We found his hat and the place where they ambushed him."</p> + +<p>"Is he——" Her voice died at the word, but her meaning was clear.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it. Looks like they were aiming to take him prisoner +without hurting him. They might easily have shot him down, but the +ground shows there was a struggle."</p> + +<p>"And you came back without rescuing him?" she reproached.</p> + +<p>"Phil and I were unarmed. I came back to get guns and help."</p> + +<p>"And Phil?"</p> + +<p>"He's following the trail. I wanted him to let me while he came back. +But he wouldn't hear to it. Said he had to square his debt to Larry."</p> + +<p>"Good for Phil!" his sister cried, eyes like stars.</p> + +<p>"Is Brill still here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No. He rode away about an hour ago. He was very bitter at me because I +wouldn't dance with him. Said I'd curse myself for it before twenty-four +hours had passed. He must have Larry in his power, Jim."</p> + +<p>"Looks like," he nodded, and added grimly: "If you do any regretting +there will be others that will, too."</p> + +<p>She caught the lapels of his coat and looked into his face with +extraordinary intensity. "I'm going back with you, Jim. You'll let me, +won't you? I've waited—and waited. You can't think what an awful night +it has been. I can't stand it any longer! I'll go mad! Oh, Jim, you'll +take me, I know!" Her hands slipped down to his and clung to them with +passionate entreaty.</p> + +<p>"Why, honey, I cayn't. This is likely to be war before we finish. It +ain't any place for girls."</p> + +<p>"I'll stay back, Jim. I'll do whatever you say, if you'll only let me +go."</p> + +<p>He shook his head resolutely. "Cayn't be done, girl. I'm sorry, but you +see yourself it won't do."</p> + +<p>Nor could all her beseechings move him. Though his heart was very tender +toward her he was granite to her pleadings. At last he put her aside +gently and stepped into the house.</p> + +<p>Going at once to the fiddlers, he stopped the music and stood on the +little rostrum where they were seated. Surprised faces turned toward +him.</p> + +<p>"What's up, Jim?" demanded Slim, his arm still about the waist of Bess +Purdy.</p> + +<p>"A man was waylaid while coming to this dance and taken prisoner by his +enemies. They mean to do him a mischief. I want volunteers to rescue +him."</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" several voices cried at once.</p> + +<p>"The man I mean is Larrabie Keller."</p> + +<p>A pronounced silence followed before Slim drawled an answer:</p> + +<p>"Cayn't speak for the other boys, but I reckon I haven't lost any +Kellers, Jim."</p> + +<p>"Why not? What have you got against him?"</p> + +<p>"You know well enough. He's under a cloud. We don't say he's a rustler +and a bank robber, but then we don't say he ain't."</p> + +<p>"I say he isn't! Boys, it has come to a show-down. Keller is a member of +the Rangers, sent here by Bucky O'Connor to run down the rustlers."</p> + +<p>Questions poured upon him.</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"How long have you known?"</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"Why didn't he tell us so himself, then?"</p> + +<p>Jim waited till they were quiet. "I've seen letters from the governor to +him. He didn't come here declaring his intentions because he knew there +would be nothing doing if the rustlers knew he was in the neighborhood. +He has about done his work now, and it's up to us to save him before +they bump him off. Who will ride with me to rescue him?"</p> + +<p>There was no hesitation now.</p> + +<p>Every man pushed forward to have a hand in it.</p> + +<p>"Good enough," nodded Yeager. "We'll want rifles, boys. Looks to me like +hell might be a-popping before mo'ning grows very ancient. We'll set out +from Turkey Creek Crossroads two hours from now. Any man not on hand +then will get left behind.</p> + +<p>"And remember—this is a man hunt! No talking, boys. We don't want the +news that we're coming spread all over the hills before we arrive."</p> + +<p>As Jim descended from the rostrum, his roving gaze fell on Phyl +Sanderson standing in the doorway. Her fears had stolen the color even +from her lips, but the girl's beauty had never struck him more +poignantly.</p> + +<p>Misery stared at him out of her fine eyes, yet the unconscious courage +of her graceful poise—erect, with head thrown back so that he could +even see the pulse beat in the brown throat—suggested anything but +supine surrender to her terror. Before he could reach her she had +slipped into the night, and he could not find her.</p> + +<p>Men dribbled in to the Turkey Creek Crossroads along as many trails as +the ribs of a fan running to a common centre. Jim waited, watch open, +and when it said that seven o'clock had come he snapped it shut and gave +the word to set out.</p> + +<p>It was a grim, business-like posse, composed of good men and true who +had been sifted in the impartial sieve of life on the turbid frontier. +Moreover, they were well led. A certain hard metallic quality showed in +the voice and eye of Jim Yeager that boded no good for the man who faced +him in combat to-day. He rode with his gaze straight to the front, +toward that cleft in the hills where lay Gregory's Pass. The others fell +in behind, a silent, hard-bitten outfit as ever took the trail for that +most dangerous of all big game—the hidden outlaw.</p> + +<p>The little bunch of riders had not gone far before Purdy, who was +riding in the rear, called to Yeager.</p> + +<p>"Somebody coming hell-to-split after us, Jim."</p> + +<p>It turned out to be Buck Weaver, who had been notified by telephone of +what was taking place. A girl had called him up out of his sleep, and he +had pounded the road hard to get in at the finish.</p> + +<p>Jim explained the situation in a few words and offered to yield command +to the owner of the Twin Star ranch. But Buck declined.</p> + +<p>"You're the boss of this <i>rodeo</i>, Yeager. I'm riding in the ranks +to-day."</p> + +<p>"How did you hear we were rounding-up to-day?" Jim asked.</p> + +<p>"Some one called me up," Buck answered briefly, but he did not think it +necessary to say that it was Phyllis.</p> + +<p>Behind them, unnoticed by any, sometimes hidden from sight by the rise +and fall of the rough ground, sometimes silhouetted against the sky +line, rode a slim, supple figure on a white-faced cow pony. Once, when +the fresh morning wind swept down a gulch at an oblique angle, it lifted +for an instant from the stirrup leather what might have been a gray +flag. But the flag was only a skirt, and it signalled nothing more +definite than the courage and devotion of a girl who knew that the men +she loved best on earth were in danger.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>THE ROUND-UP</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The Mimbres Pass narrows toward the southern exit where Point o' Rocks +juts into the cañon and commands it like a sentinel. Toward this column +of piled boulders slowly moved a cloud of white dust, at the base of +which crept a band of hard-driven cattle. Swollen tongues were out, +heads stretched forward in a bellow for water taken up by one as another +dropped it. The day was still hot, though the sun had slipped down over +the range, and the drove had been worked forward remorselessly. Every +inch that could be sweated out of them had been gained.</p> + +<p>For those that pushed them along were in desperate hurry. Now and again +a rider would twist round in his saddle to sweep back a haggard glance. +Dust enshrouded them, lay heavy on every exposed inch; but through it +seams of anxiety crevassed their leathern faces. Iron men they were, +with one exception. Fight they could and would to the last ditch. But +behind the jaded, stony eyes lay a haunting fear, the never-ending dread +of a pursuit that might burst upon them at any moment. Driven to the +wall, they would have faced the enemy like tigers, with a fierce, +exultant hate. It was the never-ending possibility of disaster that lay +heavily upon them.</p> + +<p>Just as they entered the pass, a man came spurring up the steep trail +behind them. The drag drivers shouted a warning to those in front and +waited alertly with weapons ready. The man trying to overtake them waved +a sombrero as a flag of truce.</p> + +<p>"Keep an eye on him, Tom. If he makes a move that don't look good to +you, plug him!" ordered the keen-eyed man beside one of the drag +drivers.</p> + +<p>"I'm bridle wise, boss." But though he spoke with bravado Dixon shook +like an aspen in a breeze.</p> + +<p>The man he had called boss looked every inch a leader. He rode with the +loose seat and the straight back of the Westerner to the saddle born. +Just now he was looking back with impassive, reddened eyes at the +approaching figure.</p> + +<p>"Hold on, Tom! Don't shoot! It's Brad," he decided. "And I wonder what +in Mexico he is doing here."</p> + +<p>The leader of the outlaws was soon to learn. Irwin told the story of the +strategy that had changed him from jailer to prisoner and of the way he +had later freed himself from the rope that bound him.</p> + +<p>Healy unloaded his sentiments with an emphasis that did the subject +justice. Nevertheless he could not see that their plans were seriously +affected.</p> + +<p>"It's a leetle premature, but his getaway doesn't cut any ice. What we +want to do is to nail him, clamp the evidence home, and put him out of +business before his friends can say Jack Robinson. The story now is that +he was caught driving a little bunch of cows to met the big bunch his +pals were rustling, and that we left him in charge of Brad while we +tried to run down the other waddies. Understand, boys?"</p> + +<p>They did, and admired the more the versatility of a leader who could +make plans on the spur of the moment to meet any emergency.</p> + +<p>"We'll push right on, boys. Once we get through the pass it will trouble +anybody to find us. Before mo'ning you'll be across the line."</p> + +<p>"And you, Brill?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going back to settle accounts for good and all with Mr. Keller," +answered Healy grimly between set teeth. "I've got a notion about him. I +believe he's a spy."</p> + +<p>Just before Point o' Rocks a defile runs into the Mimbres Pass at right +angles. The leaders of the cattle, pushed forward by the pressure from +behind, stopped for a moment, and stood bawling at the junction. A rider +spurred forward to keep them from attempting the gulch. Suddenly he +dragged his pony to its haunches, so quickly did he stop it. For a clear +voice had called down a warning as if from the heavens:</p> + +<p>"You can't go this way! The Pass is closed!"</p> + +<p>The rider looked up in amazement, and beheld a man standing on the +ledge above with a rifle resting easily across his forearm.</p> + +<p>"By Heaven, it's Keller!" the rustler muttered.</p> + +<p>He wheeled as on a half dollar, pushed his way back along the edge of +the wall past the cattle, and shouted to his chief:</p> + +<p>"We're trapped, Brill!"</p> + +<p>None of the outlaws needed that notification. Five pair of eyes had +lifted to the ledge upon which Keller stood. The shock of the surprise +paralyzed them for an instant. For it occurred to none of the five that +this man would be standing there so quietly unless he were backed by a +posse sufficient to overpower them. He had not the manner of a man +taking a desperate chance. The situation was as dramatic as life and +death, but the voice that had come down to them had been as +matter-of-fact as if it had asked some one to pass him a cup of coffee +at the breakfast table.</p> + +<p>The temper of the outlaws' metal showed instantly. Dixon dropped his +rifle, threw up his hands, and ran bleating to the cover of some large +rocks, imploring the imagined posse not to shoot. Others found silently +what shelter they could. Healy alone took reckless counsel of his hate.</p> + +<p>Flinging his rifle to his shoulder, he blazed away at the figure on the +ledge—once, twice, three times. When the smoke cleared the ranger was +no longer to be seen. He was lying flat on his rock like a lizard, where +he had dropped just as his enemy whipped up his weapon to fire. Cold as +chilled steel, in spite of the fire of passion that blazed within him, +Healy slid to the ground on the far side of his horse and, without +exposing himself, slowly worked to the loose boulders bordering the edge +of the canon bed.</p> + +<p>The bawling of the cattle and the faint whimpering of Dixon alone +disturbed the silence. Healy and his confederates were waiting for the +other side to show its hand. Meanwhile the leader of the outlaws was +thinking out the situation.</p> + +<p>"I believe there's only two of them, Bart," he confided in a low voice +to the big fellow lying near. "Keller must have heard us when we talked +it over at the shack. I reckon he and Phil hit the trail for here +immediate. They hadn't time to go back and rustle help and still get +here before us.</p> + +<p>"We'll make Mr. Keller table his cards. I'm going to try to rush the +cattle through. We'll see at once what's doing. If they are too many for +us to do that we'll break for the gulch and fight our way out—that is, +if we find we're hemmed in behind, too."</p> + +<p>He called to the rest of the bandits and gave crisp instructions. At +sound of his sharp whistle four men leaped into sight, each making for +his horse. Dixon alone did not answer to the call. He lay white and +trembling behind the rock that sheltered him, physically unable to rise +and face the bullets that would rain down upon him.</p> + +<p>Keller, watching alertly from above, guessed what they would be at. His +rifle cracked twice, and two of the horses staggered, one of them +collapsing slowly. He had to show himself, and for three heartbeats +stood exposed to the fire of four rifles. One bullet fanned his cheek, a +second plunged through his coat sleeve, a third struck the rock at his +feet. While the echoes were still crashing, he was flat on his rock +again, peering over the edge to see their next move.</p> + +<p>"He's alone," cried Healy jubilantly. "Must have sent the kid back for +help. Bart, get Dixon's gun, steal up the ravine, and take him in the +rear. I'd go myself, but I can't leave the boys now."</p> + +<p>Slowly the cattle felt the impetus from behind, and began to move +forward. The voice above shouted a second warning. Healy answered with a +derisive yell. Keller again stood exposed on the ledge.</p> + +<p>Rifles cracked.</p> + +<p>This time the cattle detective was firing at men and not at horses, and +they in turn were pumping at him fast as they could work the levers. One +man went down, torn through and through by a rifle slug in his vitals. +Healy's horse twitched and staggered, but the rider was unhurt. The +officer on the ledge, a perfect target, was the heart of a very hail of +lead, but when he sank again to cover he was by some miracle still +unhurt.</p> + +<p>"They'll try a flank attack next time," Keller told himself.</p> + +<p>Up to date the honors were easily his. He had put three horses out of +commission and disabled one of the outlaws so badly that he would prove +negligible in the attack. Peering down, he could see Healy, with superb +contempt for the marksman above, slowly and carefully carry his wounded +comrade to shelter. The other men were already driven back to cover. The +cattle, excited by the firing, were milling round and round uneasily.</p> + +<p>Healy laid the wounded man down, knelt beside him, and gave him water +from his flask. The man was plainly hard hit, though he was not bleeding +much.</p> + +<p>"Where is it, Duke? Can I do anything for you, old fellow?"</p> + +<p>The dying man shook his head and whispered hoarsely: "I've got mine, +Brill. Shot to pieces. I'm dying right now. Get out while you can. Don't +mind me."</p> + +<p>His chief swore softly. "We'll get him right, Duke. Brad's after him +now. Buck up, old pard. You'll worry through yet."</p> + +<p>"Not this time, Brill. I've played rustler once too often."</p> + +<p>Keller, far up on the precipice, became aware of approaching riders long +before the outlaws below could see them. He counted eight—nine—ten +men, still black dots in a cloud of dust. This he knew must be Phil's +posse.</p> + +<p>If he could hold the rustlers for ten minutes more they would be caught +like rats in a trap. Once or twice he glanced behind him as a precaution +against some one of the enemy climbing Point o' Rocks from the defile, +but he gave this little consideration. He had not seen Brad when he +disappeared into the mesquite, and he supposed all of the rustlers were +still in the Pass five hundred feet below him.</p> + +<p>What he had expected was that they would force their way up the defile +for a quarter of a mile and strike the easy trail that ran from the rear +to the top of the Point. He wondered that this had not occurred to +Healy.</p> + +<p>In point of fact it had, but the outlaw leader knew that as they picked +their way among the broken boulders of the gulch bottom the enemy would +have them in the open for more than a hundred yards of slow going. He +had chosen the alternative of sending Brad quietly up the rough face of +the cliff. The other plan would do as a last resource if this failed.</p> + +<p>Healy believed that his enemy had been delivered into his hands. After +Keller had been killed they would toss his body down into the Pass, and +while his companions continued the drive to Mexico, Healy would return +to get help for Duke and spread the story he wanted to get out. The main +features of that tale would be that he and Duke had cut their trail by +accident, suspected rustling, and followed as far as the Mimbres Pass, +where Keller had shot Duke and been in turn shot by Healy.</p> + +<p>It was a neat plan, and one that would have been fairly sure of success +but for one unforeseen contingency—the approach of Yeager's posse a +half hour too soon. Healy heard them coming, knew he was trapped, and +attempted to force an escape through the narrows in front of Point o' +Rocks.</p> + +<p>The milling cattle had jammed the gateway. Keller, shooting down one or +two of them, blocked the exit still more. Healy and his confederates +could not get through, and turned to try the defile just as the first of +the posse came flying down the Pass.</p> + +<p>Young Sanderson was in the van, a hundred yards in front of Yeager, +dashing over the uneven ground in a reckless haste that Jim's slower +horse could not match. Loose shale was flying from his pony's hoofs as +it pounded forward. The outlaws just beat him to the mouth of the +intersecting gulch. Dragging his broncho to a slithering halt, he fired +twice at the retreating men. He had taken no time to aim, and his +bullets went wild.</p> + +<p>Brill laughed in mockery, covered him deliberately with his rifle, and +just as deliberately raised the barrel and fired into the air. The +distance was scarce a hundred yards. Phil could not doubt that his +former friend had purposely spared his life. The boy's rifle dropped +from his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Brill wouldn't shoot at me! I couldn't kill him!" he shouted to +Weaver, as the latter rode up.</p> + +<p>Buck nodded. "Let me have him!" And he plunged into the gorge after the +men that had disappeared.</p> + +<p>Twice Keller's rifle spat at Healy and his companion as they plowed +forward across the boulder bed, but the difficulty of shooting from far +above at moving figures almost directly below saved the rustlers. They +reached a thick growth of aspens and disappeared. Healy parted company +with his ally at the place where the trail to the summit of Point o' +Rocks led up.</p> + +<p>"Break south when you get out of the gulch, Sam. In half an hour it will +be night, and you'll be safe. So-long."</p> + +<p>"Where you going, Brill?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to settle accounts with that dashed spy!" answered Healy, +with an epithet. "Inside of half an hour either Keller or I will be down +and out!"</p> + +<p>The outlaw took the stiff incline leisurely, for he knew Keller could +come down only this way, and he had no mind to let himself get so +breathed as to disturb the sureness of his aim. The aspen grove ran like +a forked tongue up the ridge for a couple of hundred yards. As Healy +emerged from it he saw a rider just disappearing over the shoulder of +the hill in front of him. For an instant he had an amazed impression +that the figure was that of a woman, but he dismissed this as absurd. +He went the more cautiously, for he now knew that there would be two for +him to deal with on the Point instead of one—unless Brad reached the +scene in time to assist him.</p> + +<p>The sound of a shot drifted down to him, followed presently by a far, +faint cry of terror. What had happened was this:</p> + +<p>Keller, turning away from the overhanging ledge from which he had seen +the outlaws vanish into the grove, looked down the long slope +preliminary to descending. He was surprised to see a horse and rider +halfway between him and the aspen tongue. To him, too, there came a +swift impression that it was a woman, and almost at once something in +the poise of the gallant figure told him what woman. His heart leaped to +meet her. He waved a hand, and broke into a run.</p> + +<p>But only for two strides. For there had come to him a warning. He swung +on his heel and waited. Again he heard the light rumble of shale, and +before that had died away a sinister click. Alert in every fiber, his +gaze swept the bluff—and stopped when it met a pair of beady eyes +peering at him over the edge of the precipice.</p> + +<p>The two pair of eyes fastened for what seemed like an eternity, but +could have been no longer than four ticks of a clock. Neither of the men +spoke. The outlaw fired first—wildly, for the arm which held the rifle +was cramped for space. Keller's revolver flashed an answer which tore +through Irwin's teeth and went out beneath his ear. With a furious oath +the man dropped his weapon and flung himself upward and forward, landing +in a heap almost at the feet of the detective.</p> + +<p>"Don't move!" ordered the latter.</p> + +<p>Brad writhed forward awkwardly, knew the shock of another heavy bullet +in his shoulder, and catching his foe by the legs dragged him from his +feet. Keller's revolver was jerked over the edge of the precipice as he +let go of it to close with the burly ruffian.</p> + +<p>Both of them were unarmed save for the weapons nature had given them. +The detailed purpose of the struggle defined itself at once. Irwin meant +by main strength to fling the detective into the gulf that descended +sheer for five hundred feet. The other fought desperately to save +himself by dragging his infuriated antagonist back from the edge.</p> + +<p><a name='theygrappled'>They grappled in silence, save for the heavy panting that evidenced the +tension of their efforts.</a> Each tried to bear the other to the ground, to +establish a grip against which his foe would be helpless. Now they were +on their knees, now on their sides. Over and over they rolled, first one +and then the other on top, shifting so fast that neither could clinch +any temporary advantage.</p> + +<a name="illus4"><!-- Image 4 --></a> +<center><a href="images/340_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/340_sm.jpg" height="477" width="300" +alt="THEY GRAPPLED IN SILENCE SAVE FOR THE HEAVY PANTING THAT +EVIDENCED THE TENSION OF THEIR EFFORTS. Page 340" /> +</a> +</center> +<p style="text-align: center"><span style=' +font-weight:700'><small> +THEY GRAPPLED IN SILENCE SAVE FOR THE HEAVY PANTING THAT +EVIDENCED THE TENSION OF THEIR EFFORTS. +(<a href="#theygrappled">Page 340</a>)</small></span></p> + + +<p>Yet Keller, with a flying glance at the cliff, knew that he was being +forced nearer the gulf by sheer strength of muscle. Irwin, his jaw +shattered and his shoulder torn, was not fighting to win, but to +kill. He cared not whether he himself also went to death. He was +obsessed by the old primeval lust to crush the life out of this lusty +antagonist, and his whole gigantic force was concentrated to that end. +He scarce knew that he was wounded, and he cared not at all. Backward +and forward though the battle went, on the whole it moved jerkily toward +the chasm.</p> + +<p>The end came with a suddenness of which Larrabie had but an instant's +warning in the swift flare of joy that lit the madman's face. His foot, +searching for a brace as he was borne back, found only empty space. +Plunged downward, the nester clung viselike to the man above, dragged +him after, and by the very fury of Irwin's assault flung him far out +into the gulf head-first.</p> + +<p>It was Phyl Sanderson's cry of horror that Healy heard. She had put her +horse up the steep at a headlong gallop, had seen the whole furious +struggle and the tragic end of it that witnessed two men hurled over the +precipice into space. She slipped from the saddle, and sank dizzily to +the ground, not daring to look over the cliff at what she would see far +below. Waves of anguish shot through her and shook her very being.</p> + +<p>A man bent over her, and gave a startled cry.</p> + +<p>"My heaven, it's Phyl!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"Yes." She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice he could not have recognized +as hers.</p> + +<p>"Where is he? What's become of him?" Healy demanded.</p> + +<p>She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke +down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf +of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature +could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to +the girl and touched her on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Come."</p> + +<p>She looked up, shuddering, and asked, "Where?"</p> + +<p>"With me."</p> + +<p>"With you? It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind that now. Come."</p> + +<p>"I hate you! I should kill you when I got a chance! Why should I go with +you?" she asked evenly.</p> + +<p>He did not know why. He had no definite plan. All he knew was that his +old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night +like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever +free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the +cliff. He could not give her up now. He would not.</p> + +<p>The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him. She was his. He +had won her by the fortune of war. He would keep her against all comers +so long as he had life to fight. Night was falling softly over the +hills. They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new +earth.</p> + +<p>He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse. She looked at him +in a silence that stripped him of his dreams.</p> + +<p>"Come!" he said again, between clenched teeth.</p> + +<p>"Not with you. I don't know you. Leave me alone. You killed him! You're +a murderer!"</p> + +<p>He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the +dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit.</p> + +<p>"Go away! Don't touch me! You and your miscreants killed him!" And with +that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of +him.</p> + +<p>He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him, +but none the less determined to take her with him. Across the border he +would not be a hunted man with a price on his head. They could be +married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her +love him and forget this man that had come between them. At all events, +he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his. He +stooped and caught her shoulder. She had fainted.</p> + +<p>A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its +own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man +stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a +rifle ready for instant action.</p> + +<p>"So it's you!" Healy cried with an oath.</p> + +<p>"Have you killed him?"</p> + +<p>The outlaw lied, with swift, unblazing passion: "Yes, Buck Weaver, and +tossed his body to the buzzards. Your turn now!"</p> + +<p>"Then who is that with you there?"</p> + +<p>"The woman you love, the woman that turned you and him down for me," +taunted his rival. "After I've killed you we're going off to be +married."</p> + +<p>"Only a coyote would stand behind a woman's skirts and lie. I can't kill +you there, and you know it."</p> + +<p>Healy asked nothing better than an even break. He might have killed with +impunity from where he stood. Yet pantherlike, he swiftly padded six +paces to the left, never lifting his eyes from his antagonist.</p> + +<p>Buck waited, motionless. "Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>The outlaw's weapon flashed to the level and cracked. Almost +simultaneously the other answered. Weaver felt a bullet fan his cheek, +but he knew that his own had crashed home.</p> + +<p>The shock of it swung Healy half round. The man hung in silhouette +against the sky line, then the body plunged to the turf at full length. +Buck moved forward cautiously, fearing a trick, his eyes fastened on the +other. But as he drew nearer he knew it was no ruse. The body lay supine +and inert, as lifeless as the clay upon which it rested.</p> + +<p>Once sure of this Buck turned immediately to Phyllis. A faint crackling +of bushes stopped him. He waited, his eyes fixed on the edge of the +precipice from which the sound had come. Next there came to him the +slipping of displaced rubble. He was all eyes and ears, tense and alert +in every pulse.</p> + +<p>From out of the gulf a hand appeared and groped for a hold. Weaver +stepped noiselessly to the edge and looked down. A torn and bleeding +face looked up into his.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, Keller!"</p> + +<p>Buck was on his knees instantly. He caught the ranger's hand with both +of his and dragged him up. The rescued man sank breathless on the ground +and told his story in gasped fragments.</p> + +<p>"—caught on a ledge—hung to some bushes growing there—climbed up—lay +still when Healy looked over—a near thing—makes me sick still!"</p> + +<p>"It was a millionth chance that saved you—if it was a chance."</p> + +<p>"Where's Healy?"</p> + +<p>Weaver pointed to the body. "We fought it out. The luck was with me."</p> + +<p>A faint, glad, terrified little cry startled them both. Phyllis was +staring with dilated eyes at the man restored to her from the dead. He +got up and walked across to her with outstretched hands.</p> + +<p>"My little girl."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Larry! I don't understand. I thought——"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "I reckon God was good to us, sweetheart."</p> + +<p>Her arms crept up and round his neck. "Oh, boy—boy—boy. I thought +you were—I thought you were——"</p> + +<p>She broke down, but he understood. "Well, I'm not," he laughed happily. +Catching sight of Buck's grim, set face, Larrabie explained what scarce +needed an explanation. "You'll have to excuse us, I reckon. It's my day +for congratulations."</p> + +<p>Phyllis freed herself and walked across to her other lover. "My friend, +I know the answer now," she told him.</p> + +<p>"I see you do."</p> + +<p>"Don't—please don't be hurt," she begged. "I have to care for him."</p> + +<p>The hard, leathery face softened. "I lose, girl. But who told you I was +a bad loser? The best man wins. I've got no kick to register."</p> + +<p>"Not the best man," Keller corrected, shaking hands with his rival.</p> + +<p>Phyllis summed it up in woman fashion: "My man, whether he is the best +or not. It's just that a girl goes where her heart goes."</p> + +<p>Weaver nodded. "Good enough. Well, I'll be going. I expect you'll not +miss me."</p> + +<p>He turned and went down the hill alone. At the foot of it he met Jim +Yeager.</p> + +<p>"What about Brill?" the younger man asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"He'll never rustle another cow," Buck answered gravely. "I killed him +on the top of Point o' Rocks after an even break."</p> + +<p>"Duke has cashed in. Game to the last. Wouldn't say a word to implicate +his pals. But Tom has confessed everything. The boys slipped a noose +over his head, and he came through right away.</p> + +<p>"Says he and Duke and Irwin helped Healy rob the Noches Bank and do a +lot of other deviltry. It was just like Keller figured. The automobile +was waiting for the bunch with the showfer, and took them out the old +Fort Lincoln Road. Dixon knows where the gold is hidden, and is going to +show the boys."</p> + +<p>"That clears up everything, then. I judge we've made a pretty thorough +gather."</p> + +<p>Jim looked up and indistinctly saw the lovers coming slowly down through +the grove. Dusk had fallen and soon the cloak of night would be over the +mountains.</p> + +<p>"Who is that?"</p> + +<p>Buck did not look round. "I reckon it's Keller and his sweetheart. She +followed us here."</p> + +<p>"I told her not to come."</p> + +<p>"I expect she takes her telling from Mr. Keller." He changed the subject +abruptly. "We'll go on down to the boys and see what's doing. They'll be +some glad, I shouldn't wonder, at making a gather that cleans out the +worst bunch of cutthroats and rustlers in the Malpais. Don't you +reckon?"</p> + +<p>"I reckon," answered Yeager briefly.</p> + +<h2>THE END</h2> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14520 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + + diff --git a/14520-h/images/001_lg.jpg b/14520-h/images/001_lg.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..128eda9 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/001_lg.jpg diff --git a/14520-h/images/001_sm.jpg b/14520-h/images/001_sm.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c2b158 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/001_sm.jpg diff --git a/14520-h/images/116_lg.jpg b/14520-h/images/116_lg.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5329d64 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/116_lg.jpg diff --git a/14520-h/images/116_sm.jpg b/14520-h/images/116_sm.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..17b59ca --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/116_sm.jpg diff --git a/14520-h/images/204_lg.jpg b/14520-h/images/204_lg.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1e041c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/204_lg.jpg diff --git a/14520-h/images/204_sm.jpg b/14520-h/images/204_sm.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0dce103 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/204_sm.jpg diff --git a/14520-h/images/340_lg.jpg b/14520-h/images/340_lg.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d85e43f --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/340_lg.jpg diff --git a/14520-h/images/340_sm.jpg b/14520-h/images/340_sm.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b0e2849 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/340_sm.jpg diff --git a/14520-h/images/logo.jpg b/14520-h/images/logo.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..91f8a21 --- /dev/null +++ b/14520-h/images/logo.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d10d240 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14520 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14520) diff --git a/old/14520-8.txt b/old/14520-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..315a7fa --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14520-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10635 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mavericks, by William MacLeod Raine + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mavericks + +Author: William MacLeod Raine + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14520] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAVERICKS *** + + + + +Produced by Kathryn Lybarger and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + +[Illustration: THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTION +UPON POSSIBLE PURSUIT. _Frontispiece. Page 33_] + +MAVERICKS + +BY + +WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE + +AUTHOR OF + +WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, BUCKY O'CONNOR, A TEXAS RANGER, ETC. + + +ILLUSTRATIONS BY + +CLARENCE ROWE + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + +1911 STREET & SMITH + +1912 G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + "In vain men tell us time can alter + Old loves, or make old memories falter." + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. PHYLLIS 9 + + II. THE NESTER 18 + + III. CAUGHT RED-HANDED 28 + + IV. "I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?" 43 + + V. AN AIDER AND ABETTOR 53 + + VI. A GOOD FRIEND 76 + + VII. A SHOT FROM AMBUSH 84 + + VIII. MISS GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN 103 + + IX. PUNISHMENT 117 + + X. INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY 126 + + XI. TOM DIXON 144 + + XII. THE ESCAPE 157 + + XIII. A MISTAKE 168 + + XIV. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 183 + + XV. THE BRAND BLOTTER 200 + + XVI. A WATERSPOUT 214 + + XVII. THE HOLD-UP 226 + +XVIII. BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS 233 + + XIX. THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS 241 + + XX. YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES 253 + + XXI. BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI 263 + + XXII. SURRENDER 276 + +XXIII. AT THE RODEO 289 + + XXIV. MISSING 296 + + XXV. LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY 304 + + XXVI. THE MAN HUNT 323 + +XXVII. THE ROUND-UP 329 + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + PAGE + +The rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon possible pursuit. _Frontispiece_ 33 + +She drew back as if he had struck her, all the +sparkling eagerness driven from her face. 110 + +"Drop that gun!" 205 + +They grappled in silence save for the heavy panting +that evidenced the tension of their efforts. 340 + + + +MAVERICKS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PHYLLIS + + +Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which +wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land +waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind +the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as +the minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail from +the Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in a +voice young and glad. + + "My love has breath o' roses, + O' roses, o' roses, + And cheeks like summer posies + All fresh with morning dew," + +floated the words to her across the sunlit open. + +If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen, +silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm in +her eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit. +They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front of +her and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest. + +"Don't see me, do you?" he asked, smiling. + +Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response. + +"Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon." + +"And you don't think you see much then?" he suggested lightly. + +She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of her +straight figure and the flash of her dark eyes. + +"Mad at me, Phyl?" Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle he +leaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing. + +The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, still +creeping antlike toward the hills. + + "My love has breath o' roses, + O' roses, o' roses," + +he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came. + +It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky good +looks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back a +rebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple. + +"Somebody's acting right foolish," he continued jauntily. "It was all in +fun, and in a game at that." + +"I wasn't playing," he heard, though the profile did not turn in the +least toward him. + +"Well, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower." + +"I don't play kissing games any more," she informed him with dignity. + +"Sho, Phyl! I told you 'twas only in fun," he justified himself. "A kiss +ain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl that +ever was kissed." + +She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of his +boldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks of +the boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a critic +might have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouth +lacked firmness. + +"So I've been told," she answered tartly. + +"Jealous?" + +"No," she exploded. + +Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein. + +"You don't need to depend on hearing," he said, moving toward her. + +"What do you mean?" she flared. + +"You remember well enough--at the social down to Peterson's." + +"We were children then--or I was." + +"And you're not a kid now?" + +"No, I'm not." + +"Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish things +and now you have become a woman." + +Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand. + +"After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't +it?" he bantered. + +"Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon," she flashed fiercely. + +Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she +was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what +dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the +home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still +slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would +awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on +the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid +rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks, +the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her +words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that +struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a +masculine impulse he did not analyse. + +"So you won't be friends?" + +If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness +easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way. + +"No, I won't." And she gave him her profile again. + +"Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about," he +said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward +him. + +With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him from her. + +Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgot +his expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childish +petulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which his +vanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bare +insult. + +"How dare you!" she gasped. + +Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threw +herself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him. +Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillows +where she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for this +insult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eat +dirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again--never so +long as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southern +blood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she did +not once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or to +her brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And it +was in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interfere +with her external duties. + +As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the +bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a +kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began +streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had +already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the +waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official +cage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Noches +on the stage. + +From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into the +dining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing through +the window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grown +youngster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing hands +from the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery window +was raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and that +of Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently torn +from a notebook. + +"This here is for you, Phyl," he explained. + +She pushed it back. "I'm too busy to read it." + +"It's from Tom," he further volunteered. + +"Is it?" + +She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it +across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the +fragments through the window to the floor. + +"Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?" she coolly asked +the next in line over the tow head of Bud. + +The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through the +open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smothered +curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did not +look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she had +seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon, +a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down the +mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his return +journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it, +she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certain +they would not forget to "rub it in" when next they met Master Tom. She +promised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to the +cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage station +for their mail, to teach that young man his place. + +"I'll take a dollar's worth of two's." + +Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had +inherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the +sheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of +sardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle. + +"Any mail for Buck Weaver?" + +"No," she answered promptly without looking. + +"Sure?" + +"Yes." + +"Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?" + +Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her, +for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He had +no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his +insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She +had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against +wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate +lawlessness. + +"I know my business, sir." + +Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim +Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of +extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he +felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter, +hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and +slipped an arm into that of her father. + +"This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver," he was saying. "It's +been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin' +you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh." + +"Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's +reason a-plenty for me," Weaver told him contemptuously. + +"But not for me, seh. When you come into my house----" + +"I didn't come into your house." + +"Why--why----" + +"Father!" implored the girl. "It's a government post-office. He has a +right here as long as he behaves." + +"H'm!" the old fire-eater snorted. "I'd be obliged just the same, Mr. +Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck." + +"Dad!" the girl begged. + +He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. "Now don't you worry, +honey. There ain't going to be any trouble--leastways none of my making. +I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin' down +whilst anybody tromples on me neither." + +"He wouldn't try to do that here," Phyllis reminded him. + +Weaver laughed in grim irony. "I'm surely much obliged to you for +protecting me." And to the father he added carelessly: "Keep your shirt +on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I +reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail." + +With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious to +the last virile inch of him. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE NESTER + + +With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office +to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself while +waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat for +many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted. +For at this store the Malpais country bought its ammunition, its +tobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its opinions had sifted +down to convictions. From this common meeting ground the gossip of +Cattleland was scattered far and wide. + +Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was the +owner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle company in that +country. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he had +begun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place +then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his +own ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacable +daring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Those +that survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only the +settlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the big +man of the district, dominating its social, business, and political +activities. + +"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he asked +curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle. + +"That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nester +homesteaded there," old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobacco +with a noncommittal air. + +"Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwaters +of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be a +mighty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly. + +The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either small +cattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on the +business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated +so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Most +of them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they did +not usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joined +hand with him. + +"You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped." + +The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was in +the common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny +leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of +course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an +untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows. +He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther, +reckless and yet wary. + +"We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill," Buck told him. + +"If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out," Healy +replied. + +Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable to +roll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteaders +had taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most of +these were honest men, others suspected rustlers. But Buck's fiat had +not sufficed to keep them out. They had held stoutly to their own +and--he suspected--a good deal more than their own. Calves had been +branded secretly and cows killed or driven away. + +"Go to it, Brill," Weaver jeered. "I'm wishing you all the luck in the +world." + +He touched his pony with the spur and swept up the road in a cloud of +white dust. + +Not till he had disappeared did conversation renew itself languidly, for +Seven Mile Ranch was lying under the lethargy of a summery sun. + +"I expect Buck's got the right of it," volunteered a brawny youth known +as Slim. "All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of big +outfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious. +There's sure money in being a nester." + +Despite the soft drawl of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as did +the others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustling +must be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. The +thieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairly +outwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven across +the line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established +ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners +faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once +or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader +of the outlaws had saved the men by the most daring strategy. + +Healy, until lately foreman of the Twin Star outfit, had organized the +ranchmen as a protective association. In this he had represented Weaver, +himself not popular enough to coöperate with the other ranchmen. Once +Brill had led the pursuit of the rustlers and had come back furious from +a long futile chase. For among the cattle being driven across to Sonora +were five belonging to him. + +Other charges also lay against the hill outlaws. A stage had been robbed +with a gold shipment from the Diamond Nugget mine. A cattleman had been +held up and relieved of two thousand dollars, just taken as part payment +for a sale of beef steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while trying +to arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks. + +Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, and +lowered his voice to a whisper. "Boys, this thing has got to stop. I've +sent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he can. +Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got." + +Yeager nodded. "Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep. as +a cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he coming?" + +"He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a couple +of weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to drop +everything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job till +he finishes it right," Healy promised. + +"Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stop +this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin' +around till we're stole blind," assented Slim. + +"It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies have +been hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to him +to clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call on +you." + +"Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill," nodded one +little fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising from +the Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. "What's the name of +this new nester, Jim?" + +Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with a +big double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast, +the voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsetto +scarce above a whisper. + +"Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller," +he said. + +"What's he look like?" + +"You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail this +way." + +The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source a +rider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up in +front of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle and +glanced around. + +"Evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly. + +Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his greeting. But +the lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not be doubted. +The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand resting on his +hip and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed gaze travel from +one to another, understood perfectly what those expressionless eyes of +stone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of light derision, +trailed debonairly into the store. + +"Any mail for Larrabie Keller?" he inquired of the postmistress. + +The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look. +When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant a +flash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb health +had painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pink +pushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetized +his gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyes +that had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushed +indignantly and withdrew from the window. + +Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned to +the porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter. +His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes were +focused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility. + +He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group, a +lad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look of +pride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guess +that they were brother and sister, very likely twins, though he found in +the boy's expression a sulky impatience lacking in hers. Perhaps the lad +needed the discipline that life hammers into those who want to be a law +unto themselves. + +With an insolence extremely boyish, the lad turned to Healy. "I'm for +running out a few of these nesters. We've got more than we can use, I +reckon. The range is overstocked now--both with them and cows. Come a +bad year and half of our cattle will starve." + +There was a moment of surcharged silence. Phil Sanderson had voiced the +growing feeling of them all, but he had flung it out as a stark +challenge before the time was ripe. It was one thing to resent the +coming of settlers; it was quite another to set themselves openly +against the law that allowed these men to homestead the natural parks in +the hills. + +Brill Healy laughed. "The fat's in the fire now, sure enough. Just the +same, I back your play, Phil." + +He turned recklessly to the man in the doorway. "You may tell your +friends up on Bear Creek that we own this range and mean to hold it. We +don't aim to let our cattle be starved, and we don't aim to lie down +before rustlers. Understand?" + +The nester smiled, but there was no gayety in his eyes. They met those +of the cattleman with a grip of steel, and measured strength with him. +Each knew the other would go the limit before Keller made quiet answer: + +"I think so." + +And with that he dismissed the subject and his unfriendly audience. With +perfect ease, he read his letter, pocketed it, and whistled softly as he +impassively took stock of the scenery. Apparently he had wiped Public +Opinion from his map, and was interested only in the panorama before +him. + +Seven Mile Ranch lay rooted at the desert terminus among the foothills, +a gateway between the mountains and the Malpais Plain. Below was a +shimmering stretch of sand and cactus tortured beneath a blazing sun. +Into that caldron with its furnace-cracked floor the sun had poured +itself torridly for countless eons. It was a Sahara of mirage and +desolation and death. + +To the left was a flat-topped mesa eroded to fantastic mockery of some +bastioned fort. In the round-topped hills behind it was Noches, fifty +miles away. Beyond lay the tangle of hills, rising to the saw-toothed +range now painted with orange and mauve and a hint of deepening purple. +For dusk was already slipping down over the peaks. + +"Mail's been open half an hour, boys," Phyllis announced through the +open window. + +They dropped in to the store, as noisy as schoolboys, but withal +deferential. It was clear the young postmistress reigned a queen among +the younger ones, but a queen that deigned to friendship with her +subjects. Some of them called her Miss Sanderson, one or two of them +Phyllie. + +Among these last was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with her +indeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handed +to each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed to +embarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greeted +with gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back to +them, they seemed all one happy family--and himself a rank outsider. He +trailed down the steps and swung himself to the saddle. As he loped away +the sound of her warm, clear laughter floated after him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CAUGHT RED-HANDED + + +From a cleft in the hills two riders emerged, following a little gulch +to the point where it widened into a draw. The alkali dust of Arizona +lay thick upon their broad-brimmed Stetsons and every inch of exposed +surface, but through the gray coating bloomed the freshness of youth. It +rang from their voices, was apparent in the modelling and carriage of +their figures. The young man was sinewy and hard as nails, the girl +supple and wiry, of a slender grace, straight-backed as an Indian in the +saddle. + +Just where the draw dipped down into the grassy park they drew rein an +instant. Faint and far a sound drifted to them. Somebody down in the +park had fired a rifle. + +"I don't agree with you, Phil," the girl said, picking up the thread of +their conversation where they had dropped it some minutes earlier. "The +nesters have as much right here as we have. They come here to settle, +and they take up government land. Why shouldn't they?" + +"Because we got here first," he retorted impatiently. "Because our +cattle and sheep have been feeding on the land they are fencing. +Because they close the water holes and the creeks and claim they are +theirs. It means the end of the open range. That's what it means." + +"Of course that's what it means. We'll have to adapt ourselves to it. +You talk foolishness when you make threats to drive out the nesters. +That is the sort of thing Buck Weaver has been trying to do. It's +absurd. The law is back of them. You would only come to trouble, and if +you did succeed others would take their places." + +"And rustle our cattle," he added sullenly. + +"It isn't proved they are the rustlers. You haven't a shred of evidence. +Perhaps they are, but you should prove it before you make the charge." + +"If they aren't, who is?" he flared up. + +"I don't know. But whoever it is will be caught and punished some day. +There is no doubt at all about that." + +"You talk a heap of foolishness, Phyl," he answered resentfully. "My +notion is they never will be caught. What makes you so sure they will?" + +They had been riding down the draw, and at this moment Phyllis looked +up, to see a rider silhouetted against the sky line on the ridge above. + +"Oh, you Brill!" she cried, with a wave of her quirt. + +The man turned, saw them, and rode slowly down. He nodded, after the +fashion of the range, first to the girl, and then to her brother. + +"Morning," he nodded. "Headed for Mesa? Here, too." + +He fell in with them and rode beside the girl. Presently they topped a +little hillock, and looked down into the park. It had about the area of +a mile, and was perhaps twice as long as broad. Wooded spurs ran down +from the hills into it here and there, and through the meadow leaped a +silvery stream. + +"Hello! Wonder where that smoke comes from?" + +It was Healy that spoke. He pointed to a faint cloud rising from a +distance. Even before he began to speak, however, Phyllis had her field +glasses out, and was adjusting them to her eyes. + +"There's a fire there and a man standing over it," she presently +announced. "There's something else there, too. I can't make it +out--something lying down." + +The men glanced at each other, and in the meeting of their eyes some +intelligence passed between them. It was as if the younger accused and +the older sullenly denied. + +"Lemme have the glasses," Phil said to his sister almost roughly. + +Healy glanced at Phil swiftly, covertly, as the latter adjusted the +glasses. "She's right about the fire and the man. I can see as much with +my naked eyes," he cut in. + +The boy looked long, lowered the glasses, and met his friend's eye with +a kind of shamefaced hesitation. But apparently he gathered reassurance +from the quiet steadiness with which the other's gaze met him. He handed +the glasses to Healy. When the latter lowered them his face was grave. +"There's a man and a fire and a cow and a calf. When these four things +meet up together, what does it mean?" + +"Branding!" cried the girl. + +"That's right--branding. And when the cow is dead what does it mean?" +Brill asked, his eyes full on Phil. + +"Rustling!" she breathed again. + +"You've said it, Phyl. We've got one of them at last," he cried +jubilantly. + +Phil, hanging between doubt and suspicion and shame, brightened at the +enthusiasm of the other. + +"Right you are, Brill. We'll solve this mystery once for all." + +Healy, unstrapping the case in which lay his rifle, shot a question at +the boy. "Armed, Phil?" + +The lad nodded. "I brought my six-gun for rattlesnakes." + +"Are you going to--to----" cried Phyllis, the color gone from her face. + +"We're going to capture him alive if we can, Phyl. You're to wait right +here till we come back. You may hear shooting. Don't let that worry you. +We've got the drop on him, or will have. Nobody is going to get hurt if +he acts sensible," Healy reassured. + +"Don't you move from here. You stay right where you are," her brother +ordered sharply. + +"Yes," she said, and was aware that her throat was suddenly parched. +"You'll be careful, won't you, Phil?" + +"Sure," he called back, as he put his horse at a canter to follow his +friend up the draw. + +The sound of the hoofs died away, and she was alone. That they were +going to circle in and out among the tangle of hills until they were +opposite the miscreant, she knew, but in spite of Brill's promise she +had a heart of water. With trembling fingers she raised the glasses +again, and focused them on that point which was to be the centre of the +drama. + +The man was moving about now, quite unconscious of the danger that +menaced him. What she looked at was the great crime of Cattleland. All +her life she had been taught to hold it in horror. But now something +human in her was deeper than her detestation of the cowardly and awful +thing this man had just done. She wanted to cry out to him a warning, +and did in a faint, ineffective voice that carried not a tenth of the +distance between them. + +She had promised to remain where she was, but her tense interest in what +was doing drew her forward in spite of herself. She rode along the ridge +that bordered the park, at first slowly and then quicker as the impulse +grew in her to be in at the finish. + +The climax came. She saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his +pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang +out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the +saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged into a +wash and disappeared. + +What inspired her she could never tell. Perhaps it was her indignation +at the thing he had done, perhaps her anger at that mocking wave of the +hand with which he had vanished. She wheeled her horse, and put it at a +canter down the nearest draw so as to try to intercept him at right +angles. Her heart beat fast with excitement, but she was conscious of no +fear. + +Before she had covered half the distance, she knew she was going to be +too late to cut off his retreat. Faintly, she heard the rhythm of hoofs +striking the rocky bottom of the draw. Abruptly they ceased. Wondering +what that could mean, she found her answer presently. For the pounding +of the galloping broncho had renewed itself, and closer. The man was +riding up the gulch toward her. He had turned into its mesquite-laced +entrance for a hiding place. Phyllis drew rein, and waited quietly to +confront him, but with a pulse that hammered the moments for her. + +A white-stockinged roan, plowing a way through heavy sand, labored into +view round the bend, its rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon the possible pursuit. Not until he was almost upon her +did the man turn. With a startled exclamation at sight of the motionless +figure, he pulled up sharply. It was the nester, Keller. + +"You," she cried. + +"Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily. + +His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow. +White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile. + +"So you are a--rustler," she told him scornfully. + +"I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter +irony. + +She saw something else, a deepening stain that soaked slowly down his +shirt sleeve. + +"You are wounded." + +"Am I?" + +"Aren't you?" + +"Come to think of it, I believe I am," he laughed shortly. + +"Badly?" + +"I haven't got the doctor's report yet." There was a gleam of whimsical +gayety in his eyes as he added: "I was going to find him when I had the +good luck to meet up with you." + +He was a hunted miscreant, wounded, riding for his life as a hurt wolf +dodges to shake off the pursuit, but strangely enough her gallant heart +thrilled to the indomitable pluck of him. Never had she seen a man who +looked more the vagabond enthroned. His crisp bronze curls and his +superb shoulders were bathed in the sunpour. Not once, since his eyes +had fallen on her, had he looked back to see if his hunters had picked +up the lost trail. He was as much at ease as if his whole thought at +meeting her were the pleasure of the encounter. + +"Can you ride?" she demanded. + +"I can stick on a hawss if it's plumb gentle. Leastways I've been trying +to for twenty years," he drawled. + +Her impatient gesture waved his flippancy aside. "I mean, are you too +much hurt to ride? I'm not going to leave you here like a wounded +coyote. Can you follow me if I lead the way?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +She turned. He followed her obediently, but with a ghost of a smile +still flickering on his face. + +"Am I your prisoner, Miss Sanderson?" he presently wanted to know. + +"I'm not thinking of prisoners just now," she answered shortly, with an +anxious backward glance. + +Presently she pulled up and wheeled her horse, so that when he halted +they sat facing each other. + +"Let me see your arm," she ordered. + +Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It +was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye. + +"This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other." + +"Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness. + +Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist +gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a +clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble +except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked +pretty bad. + +"A plumb scratch," he explained. + +She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then +pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this +she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy. + +"Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy." + +"It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded +jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again. + +There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you +tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud. +"Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering." + +"Exactly." + +He let his cool eyes rest on her with a hint of amusement. "And what +were you thinking of doing with me now, ma'am?" + +"I'm going to take you up to Jim Yeager's mine. He is doing his +assessment work now, and he'll look out for you for a day or two." + +"Look out for me in a locked room?" he wanted to know casually. + +"I didn't say so. It isn't my business to arrest criminals," she told +him icily. + +His eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?" + +"I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills +alone. That is all." + +"Jim Yeager is your friend?" + +"Yes." + +"And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?" + +"He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently. + +"Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss +Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much." + +He checked his pony and bowed. + +"Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed. + +"Up Bear Creek." + +"It's twenty miles. You can't do it." + +"Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the +handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony. + +"You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!" + +He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance. + +"I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her +pride. + +"Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend. +I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he +drawled. + +At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I +_like_ you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel +friendly when I hate you?" + +"Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came +back with his easy smile. + +"You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I +can't let you go alone." + +"You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss +Sanderson." + +With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he +heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious, +both at him and at herself. + +"Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it +yet," he said innocently. + +"I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one +that will take charge of you," she choked. + +"It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged, ma'am, but you're overestimating +the effect of this pill your friend injected into me." + +"Still, I'm going. I won't have your death on my hands," she told him +defiantly. + +"Sho! I ain't aimin' to pass over the divide on account of a scratch +like this. There's no danger but what I can look out for myself." + +She waited in silence for him to start, looking straight ahead of her. + +He tried in vain to argue her out of it. She had nothing to say, and he +saw she was obstinately determined to carry her point. + +Finally, with a little chuckle at her stubbornness, he gave in and +turned round. + +"All right. Yeager's it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to +me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she +disdained to answer. + +Yeager saw them from afar, and recognized the girl. + +"Hello, Phyllis!" he shouted down. "With you in a minute." + +The girl slipped to the ground, and climbed the steep trail to meet him. +Her crisp "Wait here," flung over her shoulder with the slightest turn +of the head, kept Keller in the saddle. + +Halfway up she and the man met. The one waiting below could not hear +what they said, but he could tell she was explaining the situation to +Yeager. The latter nodded from time to time, protested, was vehemently +overruled, and seemed to leave the matter with her. Together they +retraced their way. Young Yeager, in flannel shirt and half-leg miner's +boots, was a splendid specimen of bronzed Arizona. His level gaze judged +the man on horseback, approved him, and met him eye to eye. + +"Better light, Mr. Keller. If you come in we'll have a look at your arm. +An accident like that is a mighty awkward thing to happen to a man on +the trail. It's right fortunate Miss Sanderson found you so soon after +it happened." + +The nester knew a surge of triumph in his blood, but it did not show in +the impassive face which he turned upon his host. + +"It was right fortunate for me," he said, swinging from the saddle. +Incidentally he was wondering what story had been narrated to Yeager, +but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so +careless when he's got a gun in his hand." + +"You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is +liable to go off and hit somebody any time if he ain't careful. You're +in big luck you didn't shoot yourself up a heap worse." + +Yeager led the way to his cabin, and offered Phyllis the single chair he +boasted, and the nester a seat on the bed. Sitting beside him, he +examined the wound and washed it. + +"Comes to being an invalid I'm a false alarm," Keller said +apologetically. "I didn't want to come, but Miss Sanderson would bring +me." + +"She was dead right, too. Time you had ridden twenty miles through the +hot sun with that wound you would have been in a raging fever." + +"One way and another I'm quite in her debt." + +"That's so," agreed Yeager, intent on his work. + +She refused to meet the nester's smile. "Fiddlesticks! You talk mighty +foolish, Jim. I wouldn't go away and leave a wounded dog if I could help +it." + +"Suppose the dog were a sheep-killer?" Keller asked with his engaging, +impudent smile. + +A dust cloud rose from her skirt under a stroke of the restless quirt. +"I'd do my best for it and let it settle with the law afterward." + +"Even if it were a wolf caught in a trap?" + +"I should put it out of its pain. No matter how much I detested it, I +wouldn't leave it there to suffer." + +"I'm quite sure you wouldn't," the wounded man agreed. + +Yeager looked from one to the other, not quite catching the drift of the +underlying meaning. Another thing puzzled him, too. But, like most men +of the unfenced Southwest, Yeager had a large capacity for silence. Now +he attended strictly to his business, without mentioning what he had +noticed. + +The wound dressed, Phyllis rose to leave. "You'll be down for your mail +to-morrow, Jim," she suggested, as she sauntered toward the door. + +"Sure. I'll let you know how our patient is getting along." + +"Oh, he's yours. I don't want any of the credit," she returned +carelessly. + +Then, the words scarce off her lips, she gave a little cry of alarm, and +stepped quickly back into the room. What she had seen had sapped the +color from her face. Yeager started forward, but she waved him back. + +"It's Phil and Brill Healy. You've got to hide us, Jim," she told him +tensely. + +The nester began to grin. He always did when he faced a difficulty +apparently insurmountable. Also his fingers slid toward the butt of his +revolver. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?" + + +Jim swept the cabin with a gesture. "Where can I hide you? Anyhow, there +are the horses in plain sight." + +Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered. + +At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung +its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained +handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack. + +"Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your +assessment work, remember. And whatever I say, don't give me away." + +Yeager nodded. He had manoeuvred the wounded arm through the coat sleeve +and was straightening out the shoulders. The nester's eyes were shining +with excitement. Alone of the three, he was enjoying himself. + +"Remember now. Don't talk too much. Let me run this," the girl +cautioned, and with that she stepped to the door, caught sight of her +brother with a glad little cry of apparent relief, and ran swiftly to +him. + +"Oh, Phil!" she almost sobbed, and the stress of her emotion was genuine +enough, even if she dissembled as to the cause. + +The boy patted her dark hair gently. They were twins, without other near +relatives except their father, and the tie between them was close. + +"What is it, Phyllie? Why didn't you stay where we left you?" + +"I was afraid for you. And I rode a little nearer. Then he came straight +toward me--and I rode away. I could hear him crashing through the +mesquite. When I reached the trail of Jim's mine, I followed it, for I +knew he would be here." + +"Sure. Course she was scared. What woman wouldn't be? We oughtn't both +to have left her. But there wasn't one chance in a thousand of his +stumbling on the very spot where she was," said Healy. + +Phil gentled her with a caressing hand. "It's all right now, sis. Did +you happen to see the fellow at all?" + +"Yes. At a distance." + +"I don't suppose you would know him," Healy said. + +She gave a strained little laugh. "I didn't wait to get a description of +him. Didn't you boys recognize him?" + +After Phil's answer she breathed freer. "We did not get near enough, +though Brill got two shots at him as he pulled out. He was going +hell-for-leather and Brill missed both times." He lowered his voice and +asked angrily: "What's _he_ doing here?" + +For Keller had followed Yeager from the cabin and was standing in the +doorway with his hands in his pockets. He wore no hat, and had the +manner of one very much at home. + +"He's helping Jim with his assessment work," she answered in the same +low tone. "It's too bad you lost the rustler. He must have broken for +the hills." + +Healy's eyes had narrowed to slits. Now he murmured a question: "What +about this man Keller? Was he here when you came, Phyl?" + +The girl turned to Yeager, who had sauntered up. "Didn't you say he came +this morning, Jim?" + +Yeager's eyes were like a stone wall. "Yep. This mo'ning. I needed some +husky guy to help me, so I got him." + +"Funny you had to get a fellow from Bear Creek to help you, Jim." + +"Are you looking for a job, Brill?" + +"No. Why?" + +"Because I ain't noticed any stampede this way among the boys to preempt +this job. I take a man where I can find him, Brill, and I don't ask you +to O.K. him." + +"I see you don't, Jim. The boys aren't going to like it very well, +though." + +"Then they know what they can do about it," Yeager answered evenly, +level eyes steadily on those of his critic. + +"What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil. + +Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been +about eight." + +"Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a +whisper. + +"What man?" Jim asked. + +"We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a +shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil +exclaimed. + +"How long ago was this?" asked Yeager. + +"About an hour since we first saw him. Beats all how he ever made his +getaway. We were right after him when he gave us the slip." + +"Oh, he gave you the slip, did he?" + +"Dropped into some hole and pulled it in after him. These hills are +built for hide and seek, looks like." + +"Notice the color of his horse?" + +"It was a roan, Jim. Something like that nester's." Phil nodded toward +the animal Keller had ridden. + +All eyes focused hard on the horse with the white stockings. + +"What brand was he putting on the calf? That'll tell you who the man +was." + +Phil and Healy looked at each other, and the latter laughed. "That's one +on us. We didn't stay to look, but got right out for Mr. Rustler." + +"Did he kill the cow?" + +Phil nodded. + +"Then you'll find the calf still hanging around there unless he had a +pal to drive it away." + +"That's right. We'll go back now and look. Ready, Phyl?" + +"Yes." She stepped to her horse, and swung to the saddle. + +Meanwhile Healy rode forward to the cabin. Through narrowed lids he +looked down at the man standing in the doorway. "Give that message to +your friends?" he demanded insolently. + +There are men who have to look at each other only once to know that +there is born between them a perpetual hostility. Each of these men had +felt it at the first shock of meeting eyes. They would feel it again as +often as they looked at each other. + +"No," the nester answered. + +"Why not?" + +"I didn't care to. You may carry your own messages." + +"When I do I'll carry them with a gun." + +"Interesting if true." Keller's gaze passed derisively over him and +dismissed the man. + +"And I hope when I come I'll meet Mr. Keller first." + +The nester's attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed +to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona. + +Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the +trail with his broncho on the buck. + +Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a +frosty eye. + +"I've got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller," he said. + +"Unload 'em." + +Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on +the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it. + +"In the first place, I'll announce myself. I don't hold with rustlers or +waddies. I'm a white man. That being understood, I want to know where +we're at." + +"Meaning?" + +"Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up +accidental. Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me. You ain't +that kind of a durn fool. Would you mind handing me a dipper of water? +Thanks." Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back +into the pail. "I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand. +Your gun is on your right side. Then how in Mexico, you being +right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself _in the right arm below +the elbow?_" + +Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information. "Quite a Sherlock +Holmes, ain't you?" + +"Hell, no! I got eyes in my head, though. Moreover, that bullet went in +at right angles to your arm. How did you make out to do that?" + +"Sleight of hand," suggested the other. + +"No powder marks, either. And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a +revolver." + +"Anything more?" + +"Some. That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn't over and above +clear to me then. I _savez_ it now. She hates you like p'ison, but +she's too tender-hearted to give you up. Ain't that it?" + +"That's it." + +"She lied for you to me. She lied again to Phil. So did I. Oh, we didn't +lie in words, but it's the same thing. Now, I wouldn't lie to save my +own skin. Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?" + +"I'm a rustler and a thief, am I?" + +"Ain't you?" + +"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?" + +Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, "No." + +"Then I won't say it." + +The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled +at him. "Mr. Keller, you're a newcomer here. I wonder if you know what +the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now." + +"I can guess." + +"Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn't be worth a plugged +quarter." + +"Why didn't you tell?" + +Yeager brought his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl +Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I +ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father +has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should +I throw down my friends to save a rustler caught in the act?" + +"You've already tried and convicted me, I see." + +"The facts convict you, seh." + +"Your understanding of the facts, I reckon you mean." + +"I haven't noticed that you're giving me any chance to understand them +different," Yeager cut back dryly. + +The nester took from his pocket a little pearl-handled knife, picked up +a potato from a basket beside him, and began to whittle on it absently. +He looked across the table at the man sitting on the bed, and debated a +question in his mind. Was it best to confess the whole truth? Or should +he keep his own counsel? + +"I see you've got Miss Sanderson's knife. Did you forget to return it?" +Yeager made comment. + +For just an instant Keller's eye confessed amazement. "Miss Sanderson's +knife! Why--how did you know it was hers?" he asked, gathering himself +together lamely. + +"I ought to know, seeing as I gave it to her for a Christmas present. +Sent to Denver for that knife, I did. Best lady's knife in the market, +I'm told. Made in Sheffield, England." + +"Ye-es. It's sure a good knife. I'll ce'tainly return it next time I see +her." + +"Funny she ever let you get away with it. She's some particular who she +lends that knife to," Jim said proudly. + +Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his +pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had +told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a +possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in +trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others +into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson--surely not this +impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes. +Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would. + +"I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he +said gently. + +"Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for +yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You +may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for +Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know." + +"That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife." + +Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If +you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back." + +"Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler." + +"Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to +find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AN AIDER AND ABETTOR + + +Having come to an understanding, Yeager and Keller wasted no time or +temper in acrimony. Both of them belonged to that big outdoors West +which plays the game to the limit without littleness. They were in +hostile camps, but that did not prevent them from holding amiable +conversation on the common topics of Cattleland. Only one of these they +avoided by mutual consent. Neither of them had anything to say about +rustling. + +Together they ate and smoked and slept, and in the morning after +breakfast they saddled and set out for Seven Mile. A man might have +traveled far without seeing finer specimens of the frontier, any more +competent, self-restrained, or fitter for emergency. They rode with +straight back and loose seat, breaking long silences with occasional +drawling comment. For in the cow country strong men talk only when they +have something to say. + +The stage had just left when they reached Seven Mile, and Public Opinion +was seated on the porch as per custom. It regarded Keller with a stony, +expressionless hostility. Yeager with frank disapprobation. + +Just before swinging from the saddle, Jim turned to the nester. "I'm +giving you an hour, seh. After that, I'm going to speak my little piece +to the boys." + +"Thank you. An hour will be plenty," Keller answered, and passed into +the store, apparently oblivious of the silent observation focused upon +him. + +Phyllis, busy unwrapping a package of papers, glanced up to see his +curly head in the stamp window. + +"Anything for L. Keller?" he wanted to know, after he had unburdened +himself of a friendly "Mornin', Miss Sanderson." + +Her impulse was to ask him how his wound was, but she repressed it +sternly. She took the letters from the K pigeonhole and found two for +him. + +"Thank you, I'm feeling fine," he laughed, gathering up his mail. + +"I didn't ask you how you were feeling," she answered, turning coldly to +her newspapers. + +"I thought mebbe you'd want to know about my punctured tire." + +"It's very good of you to relieve my anxiety." + +"Let me relieve it some more, Miss Sanderson. Here's the knife you +lost." + +She glanced up carelessly at the pearl-handled knife he pushed through +the window. "I didn't know it was lost." + +"Well, now you know it's found. When do you remember seeing it last, +ma'am?" + +"I lent it to a friend two days ago." + +"Oh, to a friend--two days ago." + +His eyes were on her so steadily that the girl was aware of some +significance he gave to the fact, some hidden meaning that escaped her. + +"What friend did you say, Miss Sanderson?" + +He asked it casually, but his question irritated her. + +"I didn't say, sir." + +"That's so. You didn't." + +"Where did you get it?" she demanded. + +He grinned. "I'll tell you that if you'll tell me who you lent it to." + +Her curt answer reminded him that he was in her eyes a convicted +criminal. "It's of no importance, sir." + +"That's what you think, Miss Sanderson." + +She sorted the newspapers in the bundle, and began to slip them into the +private boxes where they belonged. Presently, however, her curiosity +demanded satisfaction. Without looking at him, she volunteered +information. + +"But there's no mystery about it. Phil borrowed the knife to fix a +stirrup leather, and forgot to give it back to me." + +"Your brother?" + +"Yes." + +He was taken aback. There was nothing for it but a white lie. "I found +it near Yeager's mine yesterday. I reckon he must have dropped it on his +way there." + +"I don't see anything very mysterious about that," she said frostily. + +She looked so definitely unaware of him as she worked that he fell back +from the window and passed out to the porch. He had found out more than +he wanted to know. + +Jim Yeager's drawling voice came to him, gentle and low as usual, but +with an edge to it. "I been discoverin' I'm some unpopular to-day, +Brill. Malpais has been expressin' its opinion right plain. You've +arrived in time to chirp in with a 'Me, too.'" + +Healy had evidently just ridden up, for he was still in the saddle. He +relaxed into one of the easy attitudes used by men of the plains to rest +themselves without dismounting. + +"You know my sentiments, Jim," he replied, not unamiably. + +"Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel +awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when +Keller touched him on the shoulder. + +"I'd like to see you for a moment, Mr. Yeager, if you can give me the +time," he said. + +Healy took in the nester with an eye of jade. "Your twin brother wants +you, Jim. Run along with him. Don't mind us." + +"I won't, Brill." + +The young man rose, and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. At +the corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under the +shade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowed +himself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him that +seemed to ally him further with the enemy. + +"Here I am, Mr. Keller. What can I do for you?" + +"You're a friend of Miss Sanderson. You would stand between her and +trouble?" the other demanded abruptly. + +"I expect." + +"Then find out for me what Phil Sanderson did with the knife his sister +lent him two days ago. Find out whether he lent it to anybody, and, if +so, who." + +"What for?" + +It had come to a show-down, and the other tabled his cards. + +"I found that knife yesterday mo'ning. It was lying beside the dead cow +in the park where your friends happened on me. I reckon the rustlers +must have heard me coming and drove the calf away just before I arrived. +In his hurry one of them forgot that knife. If you'll tell me the man +who had it in his pocket yesterday when he left-home, I'll tell you who +one of the Malpais rustlers is." + +Jim considered this, his gaze upon the far-away range. When he brought +it back to Keller, he was smiling incredulously. + +"I hear you say so, seh. But what a man with, a halter round his neck +says don't go far before a court." + +"I expected you to say about that." + +"Then I haven't disappointed you." He continued presently, with cold +hostility: "That story you cooked up is about the only one you could +spring. What surprises me is that a man with as good a head as yours +took twenty-four hours to figure out your explanation. I want to tell +you, too, that it don't make any hit with me that you're trying to throw +the blame on a boy I've known all my life." + +"Who happens to be a brother of Miss Sanderson," Keller let himself +suggest. + +Yeager flushed. "That ain't the point." + +"The point is that I'm trying to clear this boy, and I want your help." + +"Looks to me like you want to clear yourself." + +"If I prove to you that I'm not a rustler, will you padlock your tongue +and help me clear young Sanderson?" + +"I sure will--if you prove it to my satisfaction." + +Keller drew from his pocket the two letters he had just received. "Read +these." + +When he had read, Yeager handed them back, and offered his hand. "That +clears you, seh. Truth is, I never was satisfied you was a rustler. My +mind was satisfied; but, durn it, you didn't _look_ like a waddy. It's +lucky I hadn't spoke to the boys yet." + +"I want to keep this quiet," the Bear Creek settler explained. + +"Sure. I'm a clam, and at your service, seh." + +"Then find out the truth about the knife." + +Yeager's eye chiselled into that of Keller. "Mind, I ain't going to help +you bring trouble to Phyllie, and I ain't going to stand by and see it, +either." + +The other smiled. "I don't ask it of you. What I want is to clear the +boy." + +"Good enough," agreed Yeager, and led the way back. + +Before they had yet reached the house, a figure dropped from the foliage +of the live oak under which they had been standing, and rolled like a +ball from the fence into the deep dust of the corral. It picked itself +up in a gray cloud, from which shone as a nucleus a black face with +beady eyes and flashing-white teeth. Swiftly it scampered across the +paddock, disappeared into the rear of the stable, and reappeared at the +front door. + +"Here you, 'Rastus, where you been?" demanded the wrangler. "Didn't I +tell you to clean Miss Phyl's trap? I've wore my lungs out hollering for +you. Now, you git to work, or I'll wear you to a frazzle." + +'Rastus, general alias for his baptismal name of George Washington +Abraham Lincoln Randolph, grinned and ducked, shot out of the stable +like a streak of light, and appeared ten seconds later in the kitchen +presided over by his rotund mother, Becky. + +His abrupt entrance disturbed the maternal after-dinner nap. From the +rocking-chair where she sat Becky rolled affronted eyes at him. + +"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebenty +times seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?" + +"I wanter see Miss Phyl." + +"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool +away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable, +where you belong." + +'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that +part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky +stared after him in amazement. + +"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped. + +Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the +store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room +finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was +sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her +"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes. + +She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham +Lincoln Randolph?" + +"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live +oak at the corral." + +"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash----" + +"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream it +nerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they call +Keller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler, +and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler." + +"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazing +indignation. + +"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by the +dead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil." + +"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot blood +of Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted to +strike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he had +given to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person she +could best use for her instrument. + +Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender young +amazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in the +dusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this young +woman of many moods. + +"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus." + +The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused. + +"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the door +had closed on him. + +The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his own +tracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but----" + +"We have," she broke in. + +"I can't see it. According to Jim Yeager----" + +"Jim lied. I asked him to." + +"You--what?" + +"I asked him to say that this man had come there to work for him. Jim +was not to blame." + +"But--why?" + +She threw out a gesture of self-contempt. "Why did I do it? I don't +know. Because he was wounded, I suppose." + +"Wounded! Then I did hit him?" + +"Yes. In the arm--a flesh wound. I met him riding through the mesquite. +After I had tied up his wound, I took him to Jim's." + +His eyes narrowed slightly. "So you tied up his wound?" + +"Yes," she answered defiantly, her head up. + +"That tender heart of yours," he murmured, with almost a sneer. + +"Yes. I'm a fool." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well." + +"And he pays me back by trying to throw it on Phil. Hunt him down, +Brill. Bring him to me. I'll tell all I know against him," she cried +vindictively. + +"I'll get him, Phyl," he promised, and the sound of his laughter was not +pleasant. "I'll get him for you, or find out why." + +"Think of him trying to put it on Phil, and after I stood by him and +kept his secret. Isn't that the worst ever?" the girl flamed. + +"He rode away not five minutes ago as big as coffee on that ugly roan of +his with the white stockings; knew what we thought about him, but didn't +pay any more attention to us than as if we were bumps on a log." + +Healy strode out to the porch, told his story, and within five minutes +had organized his posse and appointed a rendezvous for two hours later +at Seven Mile. + +At the appointed time his men were on hand, six of them, armed with +rifles and revolvers, ready for grim business. + +From her window Phyllis saw them ride away, and persuaded herself that +she was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooter +who had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as the +hours passed she was beset by a consuming anxiety. What more likely +than that he would resist! If so, there could be only one end. She +could not keep her thoughts from those seven men whom she had sent +against the one. + +There was nobody to whom she could talk about it, for Phil and her +father were away at Noches. Restless as a caged panther, she twice had +her horse brought to the door, and rode into the hills to meet her +posse. But she could not be sure which way they would come, and after +venturing a short distance she would return for fear they might arrive +in her absence. Night had fallen over the country, and the stars were +out long before she got back the second time. Nine--ten--eleven o'clock +struck, and still no sign of those for whom she waited. + +At last they came, their prisoner riding in the midst, bareheaded and +with his hands tied. + +"I've got him, Phyl!" Healy cried in a voice that told the girl he was +riding on a wave of triumph. + +"I see you have." + +Nevertheless she looked not at the victor, but at the vanquished, and +never had she seen a man who looked more master of his fate than this +one. He was smiling down at her whimsically, and she saw they had not +taken him without a struggle. The marks of it were on them and on him. +Healy's cheek bone was laid open in a nasty cut, and Slim had a +handkerchief tied round his head. + +As for Keller, his shirt was in ribbons and dyed with the stains of +blood from the wound that had broken out again in the battle. The hair +on the left side of his head was clotted with dried blood, and his +cheeks were covered with it. Both eyes were blacked, and hands and face +were scratched badly. But his mien was as jaunty, his smile as gallant, +as if he had come at the head of a conquering army. + +"Good evenin', Miss Sanderson," he bowed ironically. + +She looked at him, and turned away without answering. She heard Healy +curse softly and knew why. This man contrived somehow to rob him of his +triumph. + +"You are none of you hurt, Brill?" the girl asked in a low voice. + +"No. He fought like a wild cat, but we took him by surprise. He had only +his bare fists." + +"How about him? Is he hurt?" + +"I don't know--or care," the man answered sullenly. + +"But he must be looked to." + +"I don't know why. It ain't my fault we had to beat him up." + +"I didn't say it _was_ your fault, Brill," she answered gently. "But any +one can see he has lost a lot of blood, and his wounds are full of dust. +They must be washed. I want him brought into the house. Aunt Becky and I +will look after him." + +"No need of that. Slim will fix him up." + +She shook her head. "No, Brill." + +His eyes gave way first, but his surrender came with a bad grace. + +"All right, Phyl. But he's going to be covered by a gun all the time. +I'm not taking chances on him." + +"Then have him taken into my den. I'll wake Aunt Becky and we'll be +there in a few minutes." + +When Phyllis arrived with Aunt Becky she found the nester sitting on the +lounge, Healy opposite him with a revolver close to his hand. The +prisoner's arms had been freed. His sardonic smile still twitched at the +corners of his mouth. + +"You've ce'tainly begun your practice on a disreputable patient, Doctor +Sanderson. I haven't had time to comb my hair since that little séance +with your friends. We sure did have a sociable time. They're all good +mixers." He looked into the long glass opposite, laughed at sight of his +swollen face, then rattled into a misquotation of some verses he +remembered: + + "There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine; + For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May." + +"Put the water and things down on that table, Becky," her mistress told +her, ignoring the man's blithe folly. + +"I'm giving you lots of chances to do the Good Samaritan act," he +continued. "Honest, I hate to be so much trouble. You'll have to blame +Mr. Healy. He's the responsible party for these little accidents of +mine." + +"I'm going to be responsible for one more," the stockman told him +darkly. + +"I understand your intentions are good, but I've noticed that sometimes +expectation outruns performance," his prisoner came back promptly. + +"Not this time, I think." + +Phyllis understood that Brill was threatening the nester and that the +latter was defying him lightly, but what either meant precisely she did +not know. She proceeded to business without a word except the necessary +directions to Becky. Not until the arm was dressed and the wound on the +head washed and bandaged did she address Keller. + +"I'll send you a powder that will help you get to sleep. The doctor left +it here for Phil, and he did not need it," she said. + +"Mebbe I won't need it, either." Keller laughed hardily, at his enemy it +seemed to the girl, and with some hint of a sinister understanding +between them from which she was excluded. "Thanks just the same, for +that and for everything else you've done for me." + +Phyllis said "Good night" stiffly, and followed the old negress out. She +went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and +it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of. +Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms +across the sill. + +Two men met beneath her window. + +"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other. + +While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slim +spoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that, +it won't take us long." + +"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily. + +There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course." + +"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do." + +"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game." + +"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it." + +"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for +his life." + +They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing +red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid. +They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had +been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While +the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed +subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently. + +What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in +the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no +matter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed the +rustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He had +known while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him to +death, and he had not even reproached her. + +Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it were +possible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course he +was guarded. + +She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed along +it to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside. +She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have him +outdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or they +might have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. If +the latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe place +under lock and key. + +Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted the +house at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranch +riders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creeping +close to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. In +front of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almost +upon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle. + +"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply. + +It was Tom Dixon. + +Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you are +guarding the prisoner." + +"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her. + +"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably can +now. I suppose I was nervous." + +"No wonder. But you may sleep, all right. He won't trouble you any. I'll +guarantee that," he promised largely. "Oh, Phyl!" + +She had turned to go, but she stopped at his call. "Well?" + +"Don't you be mad at me. I was only fooling the other day. Course I +hadn't ought to have got gay. But a fellow makes a break once in a +while." + +Under the stress of her deeper anxiety she had forgotten all about her +tiff with him. It had seemed important at the time, but since then Tom +and his affairs had been relegated to second place in her mind. He was +only a boy, full of the vanity that was a part of him. Somehow, her +anger against him was all burnt out. + +"If you never will again, Tom," she conceded. + +"I'll be good," he smiled, meaning that he would be good as long as he +must. + +"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm. + +She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once inside +she fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hung +a key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from there +noiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way without +a light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked. +This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storing +supplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went to +another stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight or +nine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole, +fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door. + +The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the door +creaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like a +trip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store. + +"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone. + +"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered. + +"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside." + +She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and +presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till +they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the +knots before she remembered a swifter way. + +"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case where +pocketknives were kept. + +Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free. + +He rose and stretched his cramped limbs. + +"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs. +Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute, +and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand. + +The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fence +of the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said. + +"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded. + +"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on my +head. Now, go." + +"Not till I know why you betrayed me." + +"_You_ can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because you +are what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager this +afternoon. Why don't you go?" + +"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?" + +"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself." + +"Did Yeager tell you that?" + +"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there is +still a chance." + +"I'm not going--not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what I +said." + +A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his hand +still on the handle, aware that there were others in the room. + +"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror. + +"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie." + +Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed. + +"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caught +unexpectedly. "It's--it's Phil," she pretended to pretend. + +"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before he +went out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don't +forget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as a +clam till you say the word." + +With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girl +turned on Keller. + +"There! You see. They may catch you any moment." + +"Will you ask Yeager?" + +"Yes, if you'll go." + +"All right. I'll go." + +Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him from +his feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers, +soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheek +when she had stooped over him. The drag of sex was upon him and had set +him trembling strangely. + +"Why don't you go?" she cried softly. + +He snatched himself away. + +But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides. +Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands in +his, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swing +of the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyes +by the faint light that sifted through the window upon her. + +"What--what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding her +in waves. + +"Why are you saving me, girl?" + +"I--don't know. I've told you why." + +"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while you +think me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?" + +He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. It +told her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happened +she could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, his +kiss tingling through her blood like wine. + +She thrust him from her--and he was gone. + +She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with +excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now +her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for +this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed +his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it +untied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded the +sentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay the +open road, the hills, and safety. + +A cry rang out in the stillness--and another. A shot, the beat of +running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly +become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her +face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination +conjured--a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a +huddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A GOOD FRIEND + + +How long she remained there Phyllis did not know. Fear drummed at her +heart. She was sick with apprehension. At last her very terror drove her +out to learn the worst. She walked round to the front of the house and +saw a light in the store. Swiftly she ran across and up the steps to the +porch. Three men were inside examining the empty chair by the light of a +lantern one held in his hand. + +"Did--did he get away?" the girl faltered. + +The men turned. One of them was Slim. He held in his hand pieces of the +slashed rope and the open pocket-knife that had freed the prisoner. + +"Looks like it," Slim answered. "With some help from a friend. Now, I +wonder who that useful friend was and how in time he got in here?" + +Her eyes betrayed her. Just for an instant they swept to the cellar +door, to make sure it was still shut. But that one glance was enough. +Slim, about to speak, changed his mind, and stared at her with parted +lips. She saw suspicion grow in his face and resolve itself to +certainty, helped to decision by the telltale color dyeing her cheeks. + +"Does the cellar stairway from the store connect with the kitchen +cellar, Phyllie?" he asked. + +"Ye-es." + +He nodded, then laughed without mirth. "I reckon I can tell you, boys, +who Mr. Keller's friend in need is." + +"Who? I'd like right well to know." Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had +just come in and was listening. + +Phyllis turned and faced him. "I was that friend, Brill." + +"You!" He stared at her in astonishment. "You! Why, it was you sent me +out to run him down." + +"I didn't tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?" + +"I guess there's a lot between him and you that you didn't tell me," he +jeered. + +Slim grinned, not at all maliciously. "I reckon that's right. I don't +need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the +kitchen." + +"He was just going," she protested. + +"Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate." + +"Go ahead, Slim. I'm only a girl. You and Brill say what you like," she +flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her +hands. + +"Only don't say it out loud," cautioned a new voice. Jim Yeager was at +the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy. + +"I say what I think, Jim," Brill retorted promptly. + +"And you think?" + +Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter. "I think things ain't +right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape +twice." + +"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis. + +"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone. + +"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no +better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed." + +The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir," +she murmured with mock humility. + +"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked. + +"He sure has--clean as a whistle." + +"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more +a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an +innocent man." + +"Prove it," cried Healy. + +Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to +take my word for it." + +"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his +father announced promptly. + +Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager, +Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing +with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter." + +"I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I've got to trust my own eyes before +your indorsement," Healy sneered. + +"That's your privilege, Brill." + +"I reckon Jim knows what he's talking about," said Yeager, Senior, with +intent to conciliate. + +"Of course I know you're right friendly with him, Jim. There's nobody +more competent to pass an opinion on him. Like enough you know all about +his affairs," conceded Healy with polite malice. + +The two young men were looking at each other steadily. They never had +been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that. Rival +leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their +rivalry to a flame. Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted. + +"I expect I know more about them than you do, Brill." + +"Sure you do. Ain't he just got through being your guest? Didn't he come +visiting you in a hurry? Didn't you tie up his wound? And when Phil and +I came asking questions didn't you antedate his arrival about six hours? +I'm not denying you know all about him. What I'm wondering is why you +didn't tell all you knew. Of course, I understand they are your +reasons, though, not mine." + +"You've said it. They're my reasons." + +"I ain't saying they are not good reasons. Whyfor should a man round on +his friend?" + +The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right +proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go +right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't +known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter. +They're so durned teachable to-day maybe you can get them to swallow +that with the rest." + +With which parting shot he followed Phyllis out of the store. She turned +on him at the top of the porch steps leading to the house. + +"Did he tell you that Phil was the rustler?" + +"You mean did Keller tell me?" he said, surprised. + +"Yes. 'Rastus was in the live oak and heard all you said." + +"No. He didn't tell me that. We neither of us think it was Phil. It +couldn't be, for he was riding with you at the time. But he found your +knife there by the dead cow. Now, how did it come there? You let Phil +have the knife. Had he lent his knife to some one?" + +"I don't know." She went on, after a momentary hesitation: "Are you +quite sure, Jim, that he really found the knife there?" + +"He said so. I believe him." + +She sighed softly, as if she would have liked to feel as sure. "The +reason I spoke of it was that I accused him of trying to throw the blame +on Phil, and he told me to ask you about it." + +Jim shook his head. "Nothing to it. If you want my opinion, Keller is +white clear enough. He wouldn't try a trick like that." + +The girl's face lit, and she held out an impulsive hand. "Anyhow, you're +a good friend, Jim." + +"I've been that ever since you was knee high to a duck, Phyl." + +"Yes--yes, you have. The best I've got, next to Phil and Dad." Her heart +just now was very warm to him. + +"Don't you reckon maybe a good friend might make a good--something +else." + +She gasped. "Oh, Jim! You don't mean----" + +"Yep. That's what I do mean. Course I'm not good enough. I know that." + +"Good. You're the best ever. It isn't that. Only I don't like you that +way." + +"Maybe you might some day." + +She shook her head slowly. "I wish I could, Jim. But I never will." + +"Is there--someone else, Phyl?" + +If it had been light enough he could have seen a wave of color sweep her +face. + +"No. Of course there isn't. How could there be? I'm only a girl." + +"It ain't Brill then?" + +"No. It's--it isn't anybody." She carried the war, womanlike, into his +camp. "And I don't believe you care for me--that way. It's just a +fancy." + +"One I've had two years, little girl." + +"Oh, I'm sorry. I _do_ like you, better than any one else. You know +that, dear old Jim." + +He smiled wistfully. "If you didn't like me so well I reckon I'd have a +better chance. Well, I mustn't keep you here. Good night." + +Her ringers were lost in his big fist. "Good night, Jim." And again she +added, "I'm so sorry." + +"Don't you be. It's all right with me, Phyl. I just thought I'd mention +it. You never can tell, though I most knew how it would be. _Buenos +noches, nina._" + +He released her hand, and without once looking back strode to his horse, +swung to the saddle, and rode into the night. + +She carried into the house with her a memory of his cheerful smile. It +had been meant as a reassurance to her. It told her he would get over +it, and she knew he would. For he was no puling schoolboy, but a man, +game to the core. + +The face of another man rose before her, saturnine and engaging and +debonair. With the picture came wave on wave of shame. He was a detected +villain, and she had let him kiss her. But beneath the self-scorn was +something new, something that stung her blood, that left her flushed and +tingling with her first experience of sex relations. + +A week ago she had not yet emerged fully from the chrysalis of +childhood. But in the Southland flowers ripen fast. Adolescence steals +hard upon the heels of infancy. Nature was pushing her relentlessly +toward a womanhood for which her splendid vitality and unschooled +impulses but scantily safeguarded her. The lank, shy innocence of the +fawn still wrapped her, but in the heart of this frank daughter of the +desert had been born a poignant shyness, a vague, delightful trembling +that marked a change. A quality which had lain banked in her nature like +a fire since childhood now threw forth its first flame of heat. At +sunset she had been still treading the primrose path of youth; at +sunrise she had entered upon the world-old heritage of her sex. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A SHOT FROM AMBUSH + + +From the valley there drifted up a breeze-swept sound. The rider on the +rock-rim trail above, shifting in his saddle to one of the easy, +careless attitudes of the habitual horseman, recognized it as a rifle +shot. + +Presently, from a hidden wash rose little balloon-like puffs of smoke, +followed by a faint, far popping, as if somebody had touched off a bunch +of firecrackers. Men on horseback, dwarfed by distance to pygmy size, +clambered to the bank--now one and then another firing into the mesquite +that ran like a broad tongue from the roll of hills into the valley. + +"Looks like something's broke loose," the young man drawled aloud. "The +band's sure playing a right lively tune this glad mo'ning." + +Save for one or two farewell shots, the firing ceased. The riders had +disappeared into the chaparral. + +The rider did not need to be told that this was a man hunt, destined +perhaps to be one of a hundred unwritten desert tragedies. Some subtle +instinct in him differentiated between these hurried shots and those +born of the casual exuberance of the cow-puncher at play. He had a +reason for taking an interest in it--an interest that was more than +casual. + +Skirting the rim of the saucer-shaped valley, he rode forward warily, +came at length to a cańon that ran like a sword cleft into the hills, +and descended cautiously by a cattle trail, its scarred slope. + +Through the defile ran a mountain stream, splashing over and round +boulders in its swift fall. + +"I reckon we'll slide down, Keno, and work out close to the fire zone," +the rider said to his horse, as they began to slither down the +precipitous slope, starting rubble at every motion. + +Man and horse were both of the frontier, fit to the minute for any call +that might be made on them. The broncho was a roan, with muscles of +elastic leather, sure-footed as a mountain goat. Its master--a slim, +brown man, of medium height, well knit and muscular--looked on the +world, quietly and often humorously, with shrewd gray eyes. + +As he reached the bottom of the gulch, his glance fell upon another +rider--a woman. She crossed the stream hurriedly, her pony flinging +water at every step, and cantered up toward him. + +Her glance was once and again over her shoulder, so that it was not +until she was almost upon him that she saw the young man among the +cottonwoods, and drew her pony to an instant halt. The rifle that had +been lying across her saddle leaped halfway to her shoulder, covering +him instantly. + +"_Buenos dios, senorita._ Are you going for to shoot my head off?" he +drawled. + +"The rustler!" she cried. + +"The alleged rustler, Miss Sanderson," he corrected gently. + +"Let me past," she panted. + +He observed that her eyes mirrored terror of the scene she had just +left. + +"It's you that has got the drop on me, isn't it?" he suggested. + +The rifle went back to the saddle. Instantly the girl was in motion +again, flying up the cańon past the white-stockinged roan, her pony's +hindquarters gathered to take the sheep trail like those of a wild cat. + +Keller gazed after her. As she disappeared, he took off his hat, bowed +elaborately, and remarked to himself, in his low, soft drawl: + +"Good mo'ning, ma'am. See you again one of these days, mebbe, when you +ain't in such a hurry." + +But though he appeared to take the adventure whimsically his mind was +busy with its meaning. She was in danger, and he must save her. So much +he knew at least. + +He had scarcely turned the head of his horse toward the mouth of the +cańon when the pursuit drove headlong into sight. Galloping men pounded +up the arroyo, and came to halt at his sharp summons. Already Keller +and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed +the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun. + +"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted +to know amiably. + +The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm +bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large, +heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born +leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed. + +"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive, +he's ours." He gave crisp orders. + +"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock. + +For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded +man had whipped up a rifle and fired. + +Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too +many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail. +You see, it's loaded with buckshot." + +One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such +audacity as this was new to him. + +"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned +amusing," growled his leader. + +"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful +guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have." + +"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets +through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice, +just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the +other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get +him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here." + +"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row +about?" the cornered man wanted to know. + +"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you +didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make +your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman." + +"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a +stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?" + +"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply. + +"Douglas." + +"What doing here?" + +"Homesteading." + +"Name?" + +"Keller." + +"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to +shoot me. That's what you are." + +"No." + +"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of +us. If you're not the man, where is he?" + +"I haven't got him in my vest pocket." + +"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants." + +"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so +as to know him." + +"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit. + +"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher. + +"Well, then?" + +"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rustler who broke away from +us two weeks ago," Curly spoke out. + +"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out +between set teeth. + +"By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin +added. + +Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be +assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch, +riding a roan horse. He could swear that only one person had come in +before these pursuers--and that one was a woman on a roan. Her +frightened eyes, the fear that showed in every motion, her hurried +flight, all contributed to the same inevitable conclusion. It was +difficult to believe it, but impossible to deny. This wild, sylvan +creature, with the shy, wonderful eyes, had lain in ambush to kill her +father's enemy, and was flying from the vengeance on her heels. + +His lips were sealed. Even if he were not under heavy obligations to her +he could no more save himself at the expense of this brown sylph than he +could have testified against his own mother. + +"All right. If you feel lucky, come on. You'll get me, of course, but it +may prove right expensive," he said quietly. + +"That's all right. We're footing our end of the bill," Pesky retorted. + +By this time, he and Weaver had dismounted, and were sheltered behind +rocks. Already bullets were beginning to spit back and forth, though the +flankers had not yet got into action. + +"Durn his hide, I hate like sin to puncture it," Pesky told his boss. "I +tell you we're making a mistake, Buck. This fellow's a pure--he ain't +any hired killer. You can tie to that." + +"He's the man that pumped a bullet into my arm from ambush. That's +enough for me," the cattleman swore. + +"No use being revengeful, especially if it happens he ain't the man. By +his say-so, that's a shotgun he's carrying. Loaded with buckshot, he +claims. What hit you was a bullet from a Winchester, or some such gun. +Mighty easy to prove whether he's lying." + +"We'll be able to prove it afterward, all right." + +"What's the matter with proving it now? I don't stand for any murder +business myself. I'm going to find out what's what." + +The cow-puncher tied the red bandanna from his neck round the end of his +revolver, and shoved it above the rock in front of him. + +"Flag of truce!" he shouted. + +"All right. Come right along. Better leave your gun behind," Keller +called back. + +Pesky waddled forward--a short, thick-set, bow-legged man in chaps, +spurs, flannel shirt, and white sombrero. When he took off this last, as +he did now, it revealed a head bald as a billiard ball. + +"How're they coming?" he inquired genially of the besieged man, as he +rounded the rock barricade. + +Larrabie's steel eyes relaxed to a hint of a friendly smile. He knew +this type of man like a brother. + +"Fine and dandy here. Hope you're well yourself, seh." + +"Tol'able. Buck's up on his ear, o' course. Can't blame him, can you? +Most any man would, with that kind of a pill sent to his address so +sudden by special delivery. Wasn't that some inconsiderate of you, Mr. +Keller?" + +"I thought I explained it was another party did that." + +Pesky rolled a cigarette and lit it. + +"Right sure of that, are you? Wouldn't mind my taking a look at that gun +of yours? You see, if it happens to be what you said it was, that +kinder lets you out." + +Keller handed over the gun promptly. The cow-puncher broke it, extracted +a shell, and with his knife picked out the wad. Into his palm rolled a +dozen buckshot. + +"Good enough! I told Buck he was barking up the wrong tree. Now, I'll go +back and have a powwow with him. I reckon you'll be willing to surrender +on guarantee of a square deal?" + +"Sure--that's all I ask. I never met your friend--didn't know who he was +from Adam. I ain't got any option to shoot all the red-haided men I +meet. No, sir! You've followed a cross trail." + +"Looks like. Still, it's blamed funny." Pesky scratched his shining +poll, and looked shrewdly at the other. "We certainly ran Mr. +Bushwhacker into the cańon. I'd swear to that. We was right on his +heels, though we couldn't see him very well. But he either come in here +or a hole in the ground swallowed him." + +He waited tentatively for an answer, but none came other than the +white-toothed smile that met him blandly. + +"I reckon you know more than you aim to tell, Mr. Keller," continued +Pesky. "Don't you figure it's up to you, if we let you out of this +thing, to whack up any information you've got? The kind of reptile that +kills from ambush don't deserve any consideration." + +Half an hour ago, the other would have agreed with him. The man that +shot his enemy from cover was a coyote--nothing less. But about that +brown slip of a creature, who had for three minutes crossed his orbit, +he wanted to reserve judgment. + +"I expect I haven't got a thing to tell you that would help any," he +drawled, his eye full on that of the cowpuncher. + +Pesky threw away his cigarette. "All right. You're the doctor. I'll +amble back, and report to the boss." + +He did so, with the result that a truce was arranged. + +Keller gave up his post of vantage, and came forward to surrender. + +Weaver met him with a hard, wintry eye. "Understand, I don't concede +your innocence. You're my prisoner, and, by God, if I get any more proof +of your guilt, you've got to stand the gaff." + +The other nodded quietly, meeting him eye to eye. Nor did his gaze fall, +though the big cattleman was the most masterful man on the range. Keller +was as easy and unperturbed as when he had been holding half a dozen +irate men at bay. + +"No kick coming here. But, if it's just the same to you, I'll ask you to +get the proof first and hang me afterward." + +"If you're homesteading, where's your place?" + +"Back in the hills, close to the headwaters of Salt Creek." + +"Huh! You'll make that good before I get through with you. And I want +to tell you this, too, Mr. Keller. It doesn't make any hit with me that +you're one of those thieving nesters. Moreover, there's another charge +against you. In the Malpais country we hang rustlers. The boys claim to +have you cinched. We'll see." + +"Who's that with Curly?" Pesky called out. "By Moses, it's a woman!" + +"It is the Sanderson girl," Weaver said in surprise. + +Keller swung round as if worked by a spring. The cow-puncher had told +the truth. Curly's companion was not only a woman, but _the_ woman--the +same slim, tanned creature who had flashed past him on a wild race for +safety, only a few minutes earlier. + +All eyes were focused upon her. Weaver waited for her to speak. Instead, +Curly took up the word. He was smiling broadly, quite unaware of the +mine he was firing. + +"I found this young lady up on the rock rim. Since we were rounding up, +I thought I'd bring her down." + +"Good enough. Miss Sanderson, you've been where you could see if anyone +passed into the cańon. How about it? Anybody go up in last ten minutes?" + +Phyllis moistened her dry lips and looked at the prisoner. "No," she +answered reluctantly. + +Weaver wheeled on Keller, his eyes hard as jade. "That ties the rope +round your neck, my man." + +"No," Phyllis cried. "He didn't do it." + +The cattleman's stone wall eyes were on her now. + +"Didn't? How do you know he didn't?" + +"Because I--I passed him here as I rode up a few minutes ago." + +"So you rode up a few minutes ago." Buck's lids narrowed. "And he was +here, was he? Ever meet Mr. Keller before?" + +"Yes." + +"When? Speak up. Mind, no lying." + +This, struck the first spark of spirit from her. The deep eyes flashed. +"I'm not in the habit of lying, sir." + +"Then answer my question." + +"I've met him at the office when he came for his mail. And the boys +arrested him by mistake for a rustler. I saw him when they brought him +in." + +"By mistake. How do you know it was by mistake?" + +"It was I accused him. But I did it because I was angry at him." + +"You accused an innocent man of rustling because you were sore at him. +You're ce'tainly a pleasant young lady, Miss Sanderson." + +Her look flashed defiance at him, but she said nothing. In her slim +erectness was a touch of feminine ferocity that gave him another idea. + +"So you just rode into the cańon, did you?" + +"Yes." + +"Meet up with anybody in the valley before you came in?" + +"No." + +His eyes were like steel drills. They never left her. "Quite sure?" + +"Yes." + +"What were you doing there?" + +She had no answer ready. Her wild look went round in search of a friend +in this circle of enemies. They found him in the man who was a prisoner. +His steadfast eyes told her to have no fear. + +"Did you hear what I said?" demanded Weaver. + +"I was--riding." + +"Alone?" + +The answer came so slowly that it was barely audible. "Yes." + +"Riding in Antelope Valley?" + +"Yes." + +"Let me see that gun." Weaver held out his hand for the rifle. + +Phyllis looked at him and tried to fight against his domination; then +slowly she handed him the rifle. He broke and examined it. From the +chamber he extracted an empty shell. + +Grim as a hanging judge, his look chiselled into her. + +"I expect the lead that was in here is in my arm. Isn't that right?" + +"I--I don't know." + +"Who does, then? Either you shot me or you know who did." + +Her gaze evaded his, but was forced at last to the meeting. + +"I did it." + +She was looking at him steadily now. Since the thing must be faced, she +had braced herself to it. It was amazing what defiant pluck shone out of +her soft eyes. This man of iron saw it, and, seeing, admired hugely the +gameness that dwelt in her slim body. But none of his admiration showed +in the hard, weather-beaten face. + +"So they make bushwhackers out of even the girls among your rustling, +sheep-herding outfit!" he taunted. + +"My people are not rustlers. They have a right to be on earth, even if +you don't want them there." + +"I'll show them what rights they have got in this part of the country +before I get through with them. But that ain't the point now. What I +want to know is how they came to send a girl to do their dirty killing +for them." + +"They didn't send me. I just saw you, and--and shot on an impulse. Your +men have clubbed and poisoned our sheep. They wounded one of our +herders, and beat his brother when they caught him unarmed. They have +done a hundred mean and brutal things. You are at the bottom of it all; +and when I saw you riding there, looking like the lord of all the earth, +I just----" + +"Well?" + +"Couldn't help--what I did." + +"You're a nicely brought up young woman--about as savage as the rest of +your wolf breed," jeered Weaver. + +Yet he exulted in her--in the impulse of ferocity that had made her +strike swiftly, regardless of risk to herself, at the man who had +hounded and harried her kin to the feud that was now raging. Her shy, +untamed beauty would not itself have attracted him; but in combination +with her fierce courage it made to him an appeal which he conceded +grudgingly. + +"What in Heaven's name brought you back after you had once got away?" +Weaver asked. + +The girl looked at Keller without answering. + +"I reckon I can tell you that, seh," explained that young man. "She +figured you would jump on me as the guilty party. It got on her +conscience that she had left an innocent man to stand for it. I +shouldn't wonder but she got to seeing a picture of you-all hanging me +or shooting me up. So she came back to own up, if she saw you had caught +me." + +Weaver nodded. "That's the way I figure it, too. Gamest thing I ever saw +a woman do," he said in an undertone to Keller, with whom he was now +standing a little apart. + +The latter agreed. "Never saw the beat of it. She's scared stiff, too. +Makes it all the pluckier. What will you do with her?" + +"Take her along with me back to the ranch." + +"I wouldn't do that," said the young man quickly. + +"Wouldn't you?" Weaver's hard gaze went over him haughtily. "When I want +your advice, I'll ask you for it, young man. You're in luck to get off +scot-free yourself. That ought to content you for one day." + +"But what are you going to do with her? Surely not have her imprisoned +for attacking you?" + +"I'll do as I dashed please, and don't you forget it, Mr. Keller. Better +mind your own business, if you've got any." + +With which Buck Weaver turned on his heel, and swung slowly to the +saddle. His arm was paining him a great deal, but he gave no sign of it. +He expected his men to game it out when they ran into bad luck, and he +was stoic enough to set them an example without making any complaints. + +The little group of riders turned down the trail, passed through the +gateway that led to the valley below, and wound down among the +cow-backed hills toward the ranch roofs, which gleamed in the distance. +They were the houses of the Twin Star outfit, the big concern owned by +Buck Weaver, whose cattle fed literally upon a thousand hills. + +It suited Buck's ironic humor to ride beside the girl who had just +attempted his life. He bore her no resentment. Had the offender been a +man, Buck would have snuffed out his life with as little remorse as he +would a guttering candle. But her sex and her youth, and some quality of +charm in her, had altered the equation. He meant to show her who was +master, but he would choose a different method. + +What sport to tame the spirit of this wild desert beauty until she +should come like one of her own sheep dogs at his beck and call! He had +never yet met the woman he could not dominate. This one, too, would know +a good many new emotions before she rejoined her tribe in the hills. + +He swung from the saddle at the ranch plaza, and greeted her with a deep +bow that mocked her. + +"Welcome, Miss Sanderson, to the best the Twin Star outfit has to offer. +I hope you will enjoy your visit, which is going to be a long one." + +To a Mexican woman, who had come out to the porch in answer to his call, +he delivered the girl, charging her duty in two quick sentences of +Spanish. The woman nodded her understanding, and led Phyllis inside. + +Weaver noticed with delight that his captive's eye met his steadily, +with the defiant fierceness of some hunted wild thing. Here was a woman +worth taming, even though she was still a girl in years. His exultant +eye, returning from the last glimpse of the lissom figure as it +disappeared, met the gaze of Keller. That young man was watching him +with an odd look of challenge on his usually impassive face. + +The cattleman felt the spur of a new antagonism stirring his blood. +There was something almost like a sneer on his lips as he spoke: + +"Sorry to lose your company, Mr. Keller. But if you're homesteading, of +course, we'll have to let you go back to the hills right away. Couldn't +think of keeping you from that spring plowing that's waiting to be +done." + +"You're putting up a different line of talk from what you did. How about +that charge of rustling against me, Mr. Weaver? Don't you want to hold +me while you investigate it?" + +"No, I reckon not. Your lady friend gives you a clean bill of health. +She may or may not be lying. I'm not so sure myself. But without her the +case against you falls." + +Keller knew himself dismissed cavalierly, and, much as he would have +liked to stay, he could find no further excuse to urge. He could hardly +invite himself to be either the guest or the prisoner of a man who did +not want him. + +"Just as you say," he nodded, and turned carelessly to his pony. + +Yet he was quite sure it would not be as Weaver said if he could help +it. He meant to take a hand in the game, no matter what the other might +decree. But for the present he acquiesced in the inevitable. Weaver was +technically within his rights in holding her until he had communicated +with the sheriff. A generous foe might not have stood out for his pound +of flesh, but Buck was as hard as nails. As for the reputation of the +girl, it was safe at the Twin Star ranch. Buck's sister, a maiden lady +of uncertain years, was on hand to play chaperone. + +Larrabie swung to the saddle. His horse's hoofs were presently flinging +dirt toward the Twin Star as he loped up to the hills. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MISS-GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN + + +Time had been when the range was large enough for all, when every man's +cattle might graze at will from horizon to horizon. But with the push of +settlement to the frontier had come a change. The feeding ground became +overstocked. One outfit elbowed another, and lines began to be drawn +between the runs of different owners. Water holes were seized and +fenced, with or without due process of law. + +With the establishment of forest reserves a new policy dominated the +government. Sanderson had been one of the first to avail himself of it +by leasing the public demesne for his stock. Later, learning that the +mountain parks were to be thrown open as a pasturage for sheep, he had +bought three thousand and driven them up, having first arranged terms +with the forestry service. + +Buck Weaver, fighting the government reserve policy with all his might, +resented fiercely the attitude of Sanderson. A sharp, bitter quarrel had +resulted, and had left a smoldering bad feeling that flamed at times +into open warfare. Upon the wholesome Malpais country had fallen the +bitterness of a sheep and cattle feud. + +The riders of the Twin Star outfit had thrice raided the Sanderson +flocks. Lambing sheep had been run cruelly. One herd had been clubbed +over a precipice, another decimated with poison. In return, the herders +shot and hamstrung Twin Star cows. A herder was held up and beaten by +cowboys. Next week a vaquero galloped home to the Twin Star ranch with a +bullet through his leg. This was the situation at the time when the +owner of the big ranch brought Phyllis a prisoner to its hospitality. + +Nothing could have been more pat to his liking. He was, in large +measure, the force behind the law in San Miguel county. The sheriff whom +he had elected to office would be conveniently deaf to any illegality +there might be in his holding the girl, would if necessary give him an +order to hold her there until further notice. The attempt to assassinate +him would serve as excuse enough for a proceeding even more highhanded +than this. Her relatives could scarce appeal to the law, since the law +would then step in and send her to the penitentiary. He could use her +position as a hostage to force her stiff-necked father to come to terms. + +But it was characteristic of the man that his reason for keeping her +was, after all, less the advantage he might gain by it than the pleasure +he found in tormenting her and her family. To this instinct of the +jungle beast was added the interest she had inspired in him. Untaught of +life she was, no doubt, a child of the desert, in some ways primitive as +Eve; but he perceived in her the capacity for deep feeling, for passion, +for that kind of fierce, dauntless endurance it is given some women to +possess. + +Miss Weaver took charge of the comfort of her guest. Her manner showed +severe disapproval of this girl so lost to the feelings of her sex as to +have attempted murder. That she was young and pretty made matters worse. +Alice Weaver always had worshipped her brother, by the law of opposites +perhaps. She was as drab and respectable as Boston. All her tastes ran +to humdrum monotony. But turbulent, lawless Buck, the brother whom she +had brought up after the death of their mother, held her heart in the +hollow of his hard, careless hand. + +"Have you had everything you wish?" she would ask Phyllis in a frigid +voice. + +"I want to be taken home." + +"You should have thought of that before you did the dreadful thing you +did." + +"You are holding me here a prisoner, then?" + +"An involuntary guest, my brother puts it. Until the sheriff can make +other arrangements." + +"You have no right to do it without notifying my father. He is at Noches +with my brother." + +"Mr. Weaver will do as he thinks best about that." The spinster shut +her lips tight and walked from the room. + +Supper was brought to Phyllis by the Mexican woman. In spite of her +indignation she ate and slept well. Nor did her appetite appear impaired +next morning, when she breakfasted in her bedroom. Noon found her +promoted to the family dining room. Weaver carried his arm in a sling, +but made no reference to the fact. He attempted conversation, but +Phyllis withdrew into herself and had nothing more friendly than a plain +"No" or "Yes" for him. His sister was presently called away to arrange +some household difficulty. At once Phyllis attacked the big man lounging +in his chair at his ease. + +"I want to go home. I've got to be at the schoolhouse to-morrow +morning," she announced. + +"It won't hurt you any to miss a few days' schooling, my dear. You'll +learn more here than you will there, anyhow," he assured her pleasantly. +Buck was cracking two walnuts in the palm of his hand and let his lazy +smile drift her way only casually. + +She stamped her foot. "I tell you I'm the teacher. It is necessary I +should be there." + +"You a schoolmarm!" he repeated, in surprise. "How old are you?" + +Her dress was scarcely below her shoe tops. She still had the slimness +of immature girlhood, the adorable shy daring of some uncaptured wood +nymph. + +"Does that matter to you, sir?" + +"How old?" he reiterated. + +"Going-on-eighteen," she answered--not because she wanted to, but +because somehow she must. There was something compelling about this +man's will. She would have resisted it had she not wanted to gain her +point about going home. + +"So you teach the kids their A B C's, do you? And you just out of them +yourself! How many scholars have you?" + +"Fourteen." + +"And they all love teacher, of course. Would you take me for a scholar, +Miss Going-On-Eighteen?" + +"No!" she flamed. + +"You'd find me right teachable. And I would promise to love you, too." + +Color came and went in her face beneath the brow. How dared he mock her +so! It humiliated and embarrassed and angered her. + +"Are you going to let me go back to my school?" she demanded. + +"I reckon your school will have to get along without you for a few days. +Your fourteen scholars will keep right on loving you, I expect. 'To +memory dear, though far from eye.' Or, if you like, I'll send my boys up +into the hills, and round up the whole fourteen here for you. Then +school can keep right here in the house. How about that? Ain't that a +good notion, Miss Going-On-Eighteen?" + +She could stand his ironic mockery no longer. She faced him, fearless as +a tiger: "You villain!" + +With that, turning on her heel, she passed swiftly into her little +bedroom, and slammed the door. He heard the key turn in the lock. + +"She's sure got some devil in her," he laughed appreciatively, and he +cracked another walnut. + +Already he had struck the steel of her quality. She would be his +prisoner because she must, but the "no compromise" flag was nailed to +her masthead. + +"I wonder why you are so fond of me?" he mused aloud next day when he +found her as unresponsive to his advances as a block of wood. + +He was lying in the sand at her feet, his splendid body relaxed full +length at supple ease. Leaning on an elbow, he had been watching her for +some time. + +Her gaze was on the distant line of hills; on her face that far-away +expression which told him that he was not on the map for her. Used as he +was to impressing himself upon the imagination of women, this stung his +vanity sharply. He liked better the times when her passion flamed out at +him. + +Now he lost his sardonic mockery in a flash of anger. + +"Do you hear me? I asked you a question." + +She brought her head round until her eyes rested upon him. + +"Will you ask it again, please? I wasn't listening." + +"I want to know what makes you hate me so," he demanded roughly. + +"Do I hate you?" + +He laughed irritably. "What else do you call it? You won't hardly eat at +the same table with me. Last night you wouldn't come down to supper. +Same way this morning. If I sit down near you, soon you find an excuse +to leave. When I speak, you don't answer." + +"You are my jailer, not my friend." + +"I might be both." + +"No, thank you!" + +She said it with such quick, instinctive certainty that he ground his +teeth in resentment. He was the kind of man that always wanted what he +could not get. He began to covet this girl mightily, even while he told +himself that he was a fool for his pains. What was she but an untaught, +country schoolgirl? It would be a strange irony of fate if Buck Weaver +should fall in love with a sheepman's daughter. + +"Many people would go far to get my friendship," he told her. + +Quietly she looked at him. "The friends of my people are my friends. +Their enemies are mine." + +"Yet you said you didn't hate me." + +"I thought I did, but I find I don't." + +"Not worth hating, I suppose?" + +She neither corrected nor rejected his explanation. + +He touched his wounded arm as he went on: "If you don't hate me, why +this compliment to me? I reckon good, genuine hate sent that bullet." + +The girl colored, but after a moment's hesitation answered: + +"Once I shot a coyote when I saw it making ready to pounce on one of our +lambs. I did not hate that coyote." + +"Thank you," he told her ironically. + +Her gaze went back to the mountains. She had always had a capacity for +silence. But it was as extraordinary to her as to him how, in the past +few days, she had sloughed the shy timidity of a mountain girl and found +the enduring courage of womanhood. Her wits, too, had taken on the edge +of maturity. He found that her tongue could strike swiftly and sharply. +She was learning to defend herself in all the ways women have acquired +by inheritance. + +Weaver's jaw set like a vise. Getting to his feet, he looked down at her +with the hard, relentless eyes that had made his name a terror. + +"Good enough, Miss Phyllis Sanderson. You've chosen your way. I'll +choose mine. You've got to learn that I'm master here; and, by God, I'll +teach it to you. Before I get through with you, young woman, you'll +come running when I snap my fingers. From to-day things will be +different. You'll eat your meals with us and not in your room. You'll +speak when you're spoken to. Set yourself up against me, and I'll bring +you to your knees fast enough. There's no law on the Twin Star Ranch but +Buck Weaver's will." + +He strode away, almost herculean in figure, and every inch of him +forceful. She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same +time, so wilful and so masterful. Before he was out of her sight, she +got an instance of his recklessness. + +A Mexican vaquero was driving some horses into a corral. His master +strode up to him, and dragged him from the saddle. + +"Didn't I tell you to take the colts down to the long pasture?" + +"_Si, seńor,_" answered the trembling native. + +Weaver's great fist rose and fell once. The Mexican sank limply down. +Without another glance at him, the cattleman flung him aside, and strode +to the house. + +As the owner of the Twin Star had said, so it was. Thereafter Phyllis +sat at the table with him and his sister, while Josephine, the Mexican +woman, waited upon them. The girl came and went at his bidding. But she +held herself with such a quiet aloofness that his victory was a barren +one. + +"Do you want to go home?" he taunted her one morning, while at +breakfast. + +"Is it likely I would want to stay here?" she retorted. + +"Why not? What have you to complain of? Aren't you treated well?" + +"Yes." + +"What, then? Are you afraid?" + +"No!" she answered, with a flash of her fine eyes. + +"That's good, because you've got to stay here--or go to the pen. You may +take your choice." + +"You're very generous. I suppose you don't expect to keep me here +always," she said scornfully. + +"Until my arm gets well. Since you wounded it you ought to nurse it." + +"Which I am not doing, even while I am here." + +"Anyhow it soothes the temper of the invalid to have you around." He +grinned satirically. + +"So I judge, from the effects." + +"Meaning that I'm always in a rage when I leave you?" + +"I notice your men are marked up a good deal these days." + +"I'll tell them to thank you for it," he flung back. + +Two days later, he scored on her hard for the first time. She came down +to breakfast just as two of the Twin Star riders brought a boy into the +hall. + +She flew instantly into his arms, thereby embarrassing him vastly. + +"Phil! How did you come here?" + +Her brother nodded toward Curly and Pesky. "They found me outside and +got the drop on me." + +"You were here looking for me?" + +"Yes. Just got back from Noches. Dad is still there. He don't know." + +"But--what are they going to do with you?" + +"What would you suggest, Miss Phyllis?" a voice behind her gibed. + +The speaker was Weaver. He filled the doorway of the dining room +triumphantly. She had had no fears for herself; he would see if she had +none for her brother. + +The boy whirled on the ranchman like a tiger whelp. "I don't care what +you do. Go ahead and do your worst." + +Weaver looked him over negligently, much as he might watch a struggling +calf. To him the boy was not an enemy--merely a tool which he could use +for his own ends. Phyllis, watching anxiously the hard, expressionless +face, felt that it was cruel as fate. She knew that somehow she would be +made to suffer through her love for her brother. + +"You daren't touch him. He's done nothing," she cried. + +"He shot at one of my riders. I can't have dangerous characters around. +I'm a peaceable man, me," grinned Buck. + +"You didn't, Phil," his sister reproached. + +"Sure I did. He tried to take my gun from me," the boy explained hotly. + +"Take him out to the bunk house, boys. I'll attend to him later," +nodded Buck, turning away indifferently. + +Stung to fury by the cavalier manner of his enemy, the boy leaped at him +like a wild cat. Weaver whirled round again, caught him by the shoulder +with his great hand, and shook him as if he had been a puppy. When he +dropped him, he nodded again to his men, who dragged out the struggling +boy. + +Phyllis stood straight as an arrow, but white to the lips. "What are you +going to do to him?" she asked. + +"How would a good chapping do, to start with? That is always good for an +unlicked cub." + +"Don't!" she implored. + +"But, my dear, why not--since it's for his good?" + +Passion unleashed leaped from her. "You coward!" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm right desolated to have your bad +opinion. But you say it almost as if you did hate me. That's a +compliment, you know. You didn't hate the coyote, you mentioned." + +Her eyes flamed. "Hate you! If wishes could kill, you would be a +thousand times dead!" + +"You disappoint me, my dear. I expected more than wishes from you. +There's a loaded revolver in that table drawer. It's yours, any time you +want it," he derided. + +"Don't tempt me!" she cried wildly. "If you lay a hand on Phil, I'll use +it--I surely will." + +His eyes shone with delight. "I wonder. By Jove, I've a mind to flog +the colt and see. I'll do it." + +The passion sank in her as suddenly as it had risen. "No--you mustn't! +You don't know him--or us. We are from the South." + +"That settles it. I will," he exulted. "You have called me a coward. +Would a coward do this, and defy your whole crew to its revenge?" + +"Would a brave man break the pride of a high-spirited boy for such a +mean motive?" she countered. + +"His pride will have to look out for itself. He took his chance of it +when he tried to assault me. What he'll get is only what's coming to +him." + +"Please don't! I'll--I'll be different to you. Take it out on me," she +begged. + +He laughed harshly. "Do you suppose I'm such a fool as not to know that +the way to take it out on you is to take it out of him?" + +She had come nearer, a step at a time. Now she threw her hand out in a +gesture of abandon. + +"Be generous! Don't punish me that way. Something dreadful will come of +it." + +She broke down and struggled with her tears. He watched her for a moment +without speaking. + +"Good enough. I'll be generous and let you pay his debt for him, if you +want to do it." + +Her eyes were glad with the swift joy that leaped into them. + +"That is good of you! And how shall I pay?" she cried. + +"With a kiss." + +She drew back as if he had struck her, all the sparkling eagerness +driven from her face. + +"Oh!" she moaned. + +"Just one kiss--I don't ask anything more. Give me that, and I'll turn +him loose. Honor bright." + +He held her startled gaze as a snake holds that of a fascinated bird. + +"Choose," he told her, in his masterful way. + +Her imagination conceived a vision of her young brother being tortured +by this man. She had not the least doubt that he would do what he said, +and probably would think the boy got only what he deserved. + +"Take it," she told him, and waited. + +Perhaps he might have spared her had it not been for the look of deep +contempt that bit into his vanity. + +He kissed her full on the lips. + +Instantly she woke to life, struck him on the cheek with her little, +brown fist, and, with a sob of woe, turned and ran from the room. + +Weaver cursed himself in a fury of anger. He felt himself to be a hound +because of the thing he had done, and he hated the instinct in him that +drove him to master her. He had insulted and trampled on her. Yet he +knew in his heart that he would have killed another man for doing it. + +[Illustration: SHE DREW BACK AS IF HE HAD STRUCK HER, ALL THE SPARKLING +EAGERNESS DRIVEN FROM HER FACE. _Page 116_] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PUNISHMENT + + +The cattleman strode into the bunk house, where young Sanderson sat +sulkily on a bed under the persuasion of Curly's rifle. + +"Have this boy's horse saddled and brought around, Curly." + +"You're the doctor," answered the cowboy promptly, and forthwith +vanished outdoors to obey instructions. + +Phil looked sullenly at his captor, and waited for him to begin. One of +his hands was under the pillow of the cot upon which he sat. His fingers +circled the butt of a revolver he had found there, where one of the +riders had chanced to leave it that morning. + +"I'm going to turn you loose to go home to the hills," Weaver told him. + +"And my sister?" + +"She stays here." + +"Then so do I." + +"That's up to you. There's no law against camping on the plains--that +is, out of range of the Twin Star." + +"What are you going to do with her?" the boy demanded ominously. + +"If you ask no questions, I'll tell you no lies." + +"You'll let her go home with me--that's what you'll do," cried Phil. + +"I reckon not. You've got a license to feel lucky you're going +yourself." + +"By God, I say you shall!" + +The cattleman's eyes took on their stony, snake-like look. His hand did +not move by so much as an inch toward the scabbarded revolver at his +side. + +"All right. Come a-shooting. I see you've got a gun under that pillow." + +The weapon leaped into sight. "You're right I have! I'll drill you full +of holes as soon as wink." + +Weaver laughed contemptuously. "Begin pumping, son." + +"I'm going to take my sister home with me. You'll give orders to your +men to that effect." + +"Guess again." + +"I tell you I'll shoot your hide full of holes if you don't!" cried the +excited boy. + +"Oh, no, you won't." + +Buck Weaver was flirting with death, and he knew it. The very breath of +it fanned his cheek. During that moment he lived gloriously; for he was +a man who revelled in his sensations. He laughed into the very muzzle of +the six-shooter that covered him. + +"Quit your play acting, boy," he jeered. + +"I give you one more chance before I blow out your brains." + +The cattleman put his unwounded hand into his trousers pocket and +lounged forward, thrusting his smiling face against the cold rim of the +blue barrel. + +"I reckon you'll scatter proper what few brains I've got." + +With a curse, the boy flung the weapon down on the bed. He could not +possibly kill a man so willing as this. To draw guns with him, and +chance the issue, would have suited young Sanderson exactly. But this +way would be no less than murder. + +"You devil!" he cried, with a boyish sob. + +Weaver picked up the revolver, and examined it. "Mighty careless of Ned +to leave it lying around this way," he commented absently, as if unaware +of the other's rage. "You never can tell when a gun is going to get into +the wrong hands." + +"What are you letting me go for? You've got a reason. What is it?" Phil +demanded. + +Weaver looked at him through narrowed, daredevil eyes. "The ransom price +has been paid," he explained. + +"Paid! Who paid it?" + +"Miss Phyllis Sanderson." + +"Phyllis?" repeated the boy incredulously. "But she had no money." + +"Did I say she paid it in money?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"She asked me to set you free. I named my price, and she agreed." + +"What was your price?" the boy asked hoarsely. + +"A kiss." + +At that, Phil struck him full in the sardonic, mocking face. Blood +crimsoned the lips that had been crushed against the strong, white +teeth. + +"Again," said Weaver. + +The brown fist went back and shot forward like a piston rod. This time +it left an ugly gash over the cheek bone. + +"Much obliged. Once more." + +The young man balanced himself carefully, and struck hard and true +between the eyes. + +A third, a fourth, and a fifth time Phil lashed out at the disfigured, +grinning face. + +"Let's make it an even half dozen," the cattleman suggested. + +But Phil had had enough of it. This was too much like butchery. His +passion had spent itself. He struck, but with no force behind the blow. + +Weaver went to the washstand, dashed some water on his face, and pressed +a towel against the raw wounds. He flung the red-soaked towel aside just +as Curly cantered up on Sanderson's horse. The cow-puncher stared at his +boss in amazement, opened his lips to speak, and thought better of it. +He looked at Phil, whose knuckles were badly barked and bleeding. + +Curly had seen his master marked up before, but on such occasions the +other man was a sight for the gods to wonder at. Now Weaver was the +spectacle, and the other was untouched. In view of Buck's reputation as +a rough-and-tumble fighter, this seemed no less than a miracle. Curly +departed with the wonder unexplained, for Weaver dismissed him with a +nod. + +"Like to see your sister before you go?" the cattleman asked curtly of +Phil, over his shoulder. + +"Yes." + +Buck led the way across the plaza to the house, and clapped his hands in +the hall. Josephine answered the summons. + +"Tell Miss Sanderson that her brother would like to see her." + +The woman vanished up the stairway, and the two men waited in silence. +Presently Phyllis stood in the door. Her eyes ignored Weaver, and were +only for her brother. Her first glance told her that all was well so far +as he was concerned, even though it also let her know that the boy was +anxious. + +"Phil!" she breathed. + +"So you bought my freedom for me, did you?" the boy said, his voice +trembling. + +Phyllis answered in the clearest of low voices. "Yes. Did he tell you?" + +"You oughtn't to have done it. I'll have no such bargains made. +Understand that!" cried her brother, emotion in his high tones. + +"I couldn't help it, Phil. I did it for the best. You don't know." + +"I know that you're to keep out of this. I'll fight my own battles. In +our family the girls don't sell kisses. Remember that." + +Phyl hung her head. She felt herself disgraced, but she knew that she +would do it again in like circumstances. + +Weaver broke in roughly: "You young fool! She's worth a dozen of you, +who haven't sense enough to _sabe_ her kind." + +The girl glanced at him involuntarily. At sight of his swollen and +beaten face, she started. Her gaze clung to him, eyes wild and +fluttering with apprehension. + +"I've been taking a massage treatment," he explained. + +Phyllis looked at her brother, then back at the ranchman. The thing was +beyond comprehension. Ten minutes ago, this ferocious Hercules had left +her, sound and unscratched. Now he returned with a face beaten and +almost beyond recognition from bloodstains. + +"What--what is it?" The appeal was to her brother. + +"He let me beat him," Phil explained. + +"Let you beat him! Why?" + +"I don't know." + +What the boy said was true, yet it was something less than the truth. He +was dimly aware that this man knew himself to have violated the code, +and that he had submitted to punishment because of the violation. + +"Tell me," Phyllis commanded. + +Phil told her in three sentences. She looked at Weaver with eyes that +saw him in a new light. He still sneered, but behind the mask she got +for the first time a glimpse of another man. Only dimly she divined him; +but what she visioned was half devil and half hero, capable of things +great as well as of deeds despicable. + +"I'm not going to leave you here in this house," young Sanderson told +her. "I'll not go. If you stay, I stay." + +She shook her head. "No, Phil--you must go. I'm all right here--as safe +as I would be at home. You know, he has a right to send me to prison if +he wants to. I suppose he is holding me as a hostage against our friends +in the hills." + +The boy accepted her decree under protest. He did not know what else to +do. Decision comes only with age, and he could hit on no policy that +would answer. Reluctantly he gave way. + +"If you so much as touch her, you'll die for it," he gulped at Weaver, +in a sudden boyish passion. "We'll shoot you down like a dog." + +"Or a coyote," suggested Buck, with a swift glance at Phyllis. "It seems +to be a family habit. I'm much obliged to you." + +Phyl was in her brother's arms, frankly in tears. + +It was all very well to tell him to go; it was quite another thing to +let him go without a good cry at losing him. + +"Just say the word, and I'll see it out with you, sis," he told her. + +"No, no! I want you to go. I wouldn't have you stay. Tell the boys it's +all right, and don't let them do anything rash." + +Sanderson clenched his teeth, and looked at Weaver. "Oh, they'll do +nothing rash. Now they know you're here, they won't do a thing but sit +down and be happy, I expect." + +The twins whispered together for a minute, then the boy kissed her, put +her from him suddenly, and strode away. From the door he called back two +words at the cattleman. + +"Don't forget." + +With that, he was gone. Yet a moment, and they heard the clatter of his +horse's hoofs. + +"Why did you tell him?" Phyllis asked. "It will only anger them. Now +they will seek vengeance on you." + +The man shrugged his shoulders. "Search me. Perhaps I wanted to prove to +myself that a man may be a mean bully, and not all coyote. Perhaps I +wanted to get under his hide. Who knows?" + +She knew, in part. He had treated her abominably, and wanted blindly to +pay for it in the first way that came to his mind. Half savage as he +sometimes was, that way had been to stand up to personal punishment, to +invite retaliation from his enemies. + +"You must have your face looked to. Shall I call Josephine?" + +"No," he answered harshly. + +"I think I will. We can help it, I'm sure." + +That "we" saved the day. He let her call the Mexican woman, and order +warm water, towels, dressings, and adhesive plaster. It seemed to him +more than a fancy that there was healing in the cool, soft fingers which +washed his face and adjusted the bandages. His eyes, usually so hard, +held now the dumb hunger one sees in those of a faithful dog. They +searched hers for something which he knew he would never find in them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY + + +A man lay on the top of Flat Rock, stretched at supple ease. By his side +was a carbine; in his hand a pair of field glasses. These last had been +trained upon Twin Star Ranch for some time, but were now focused upon a +pair of approaching riders. At the edge of the young willow grove the +two dismounted and came forward leisurely. + +"Looks like the mountains are coming to Mahomet this trip," the watcher +told himself. + +One figure was that of a girl--a brown, light-stepping nymph, upon whom +the checkered sunlight filtered through the leaves. The other was a +finely built man, strong as an ox, but with the sap of youth still in +his blood and the spring of it in his step, in spite of his nearly +twoscore years. He stopped at the foot of Flat Rock, and turned to his +companion. + +"I've been wondering why you went riding with me yesterday and again +to-day, Miss Phyllis. I reckon I've hit on the reason." + +"I like to ride." + +"Yes, but I expect you don't like to ride with me so awful much." + +"Yet you see I do," answered the girl with her swift, shy smile. + +"And the reason is that you know I would be riding, anyway. You don't +want any of your people from the hills to use me as a mark. With you +along, they couldn't do it." + +"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to +send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred. + +He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled +significantly. + +She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him. + +"And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He +grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion +tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does +her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a +dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?" + +"Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them." + +"You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not +for the sake of the coyote." + +"I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said +that. Please!" + +"All right--I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that +hurts." + +"I don't think it." + +"You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't +dodge. You know you think I'm a bully." + +"I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing. + +"Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the +story?" + +"No. I'll listen, if you will tell me." + +Weaver shook his head. "No--I guess that wouldn't be playing fair. +You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to +that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me--most of +it, at least--I sure enough deserve." + +"I wonder," she mused, smiling at him. + +Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom +Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in +bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide +her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk +of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed +heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even +though, at the same time, it terrified her. + +Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give +me the same certificate of character. And I reckon they ain't so far +out, either," he added grimly. + +"Perhaps they are all right, and yet all wrong too." + +He looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?" + +"Maybe they don't see the other side of you" said Phyllis gently. + +"How do you know there's another side?" + +"I don't know how, but I do." + +"I reckon it must be a right puny one." + +"It has a good deal to fight against, hasn't it?" + +"You're right it has. There's a devil in me that gets up on its hind +legs and strangles what little good it finds. But it certainly beats me +how you know so much that goes on inside a sweep like me." + +"You forget. I'm not very good myself. You know my temper runs away with +me, too." + +"You blessed lamb!" she heard him say under his breath; and the way he +said it made the exclamation half a groan. + +For her naive confession emphasized the gulf between them. Yet it +pleased him mightily that she linked herself with him as a fellow +wrongdoer. + +"I suppose you've been wondering why your people have made no attempt to +rescue you," he said presently; for he saw her eyes were turned toward +the hills beyond which lay her home. + +"I'm glad they haven't, because it must have made trouble; but I _am_ +surprised," she confessed. + +"They have tried it--twice," he told her. "First time was Saturday +morning, just before daylight. We trapped them as they were coming +through the Box Cańon. I knew they would come down that way, because it +was the nearest; so I was ready for them." + +"And what happened?" Her dilated eyes were like those of a stricken doe. + +"Nothing that time. I let them see I had them caught. They couldn't go +forward or back. They laid down their arms, and took the back trail. +There was no other way to escape being massacred." + +"And the second time?" + +Buck hesitated. "There was shooting that time. It was last night. My +riders outnumbered them and had cover. We drove them back." + +"Anybody hurt?" cried Phyllis. + +"One of them fell. But he got up and ran limping to his horse, I figured +he wasn't hurt badly." + +"Was he--could you tell--" She leaned against the rock wall for support. + +"No--I didn't know him. He was a young fellow. But you may be sure he +wasn't hit mortally. I know, because I shot him myself." + +"You!" She drew back in a sudden sick horror of him. + +"Why not?" he answered doggedly. "They were shooting at me--aiming to +kill, too. I shot low on purpose, when I might have killed him." + +"Oh, I must go home--I must go home!" she moaned. + +"I've got the sheriff's orders to hold you pending an investigation. +What harm does it do you to stay here a while?" he asked doggedly. + +"Don't you see? When my father hears of it he will be furious. I made +Phil promise not to tell him. But he'll hear when he comes back. And +then--there will be trouble. He'll drag me from you, or he'll die +trying. He's that kind of man." + +A pebble rolled down the face of the wall against which she leaned. +Weaver looked up quickly--to find himself covered by a carbine. + +"Hands up, seh! No--don't reach for a gun." + +"So it's you, Mr. Keller! Homesteading up there, I presume?" + +"In a way of speaking. You remember I asked you a question." + +"And I told you to go to Halifax." + +"Well, I came back to answer the question myself. You're going to turn +the young lady loose." + +"If you say so." Weaver's voice carried an inflection of sarcasm. + +"That's what I say. Miss Sanderson, will you kindly unbuckle that belt +and round up the weapons of war? Good enough! I'll drift down that way +now myself." + +Keller lowered himself from Flat Rock, keeping his prisoner covered as +carefully as he could the while. But, though Keller came down the steep +bluff with infinite pains, the rough going offered a chance of escape to +one so reckless as Weaver, of which he made not the least attempt to +avail himself. Instead, he smiled cynically and waited with his hand in +the air, as bidden. Keller, coming forward with both eyes on his +prisoner, slipped on a loose boulder that rolled beneath his foot, +stumbled, and fell, almost at the feet of the cattleman. He got up as +swiftly as a cat. Weaver and his derisive grin were in exactly the same +position. + +Keller lowered his carbine instantly. This plainly was no case for the +coercion of arms. + +"We'll cut out the gun play," he said. "Better rest the hand that's +reaching for the sky. I expect hostilities are over." + +"You certainly had me scared stiff," Weaver mocked. + +From the first roll of the pebble that had announced the presence of a +third party, Phyl had experienced surprise after surprise. She had +expected to see one of the Seven Mile boys or her brother instead of +Keller--had looked with a quaking heart for the cattleman to fling back +the swift challenge of a bullet. His tame surrender had amazed her, +especially when Keller's fall had given him a chance to seize the +carbine. His drawling, sarcastic badinage pointed to the same +conclusion. Evidently he had no desire to resist. Behind this must be +some purpose which she could not fathom. + +"Elected yourself chaperon of the young lady, have you, Mr. Keller?" +Buck asked pleasantly. + +The young man smiled at the girl before he answered. "You've been +losing too much time on the job, Mr. Weaver. Subject to her approval, I +got a notion I'd take her back home." + +"Best place for her," assented Weaver promptly. "I've been thinking for +a day or two that she ought to get back to those school kids of hers. +But I'm going to take her there myself." + +"Yourself!" Phyllis spoke up in quick surprise. + +"Why not?" The cattleman smiled. + +"Do you mean with your band of thugs?" + +"No, ma'am. You and I will be enough." + +The suggestion was of a piece with his usual audacity. The girl knew +that he would be quite capable of riding with her into the hills, where +he had a score of bitter, passionate enemies, and of affronting them, if +the notion should come into his head, even in their stronghold. Within +twenty-four hours he had shot one of them; yet he would go among them +with his jaunty, mocking smile and that hateful confidence of his. + +"You would not be safe. They might kill you." + +"Would that gratify you?" + +"Yes!" she cried passionately. + +He bowed. "Anything to give pleasure to a lady." + +"No--you can't go! I won't go with you. I wouldn't be responsible for +what might happen." + +"What might happen--another family impulse?" + +"You know as well as I do--after what you've done. And there's bad blood +between you already. Besides, you are so reckless, so intemperate in +what you say and do." + +"All right. If you won't go with me, I'll go alone," he said. + +She appealed to Keller to support her, but the latter shook his head. + +"No use. A wilful man must have his way. If he says he's going, I reckon +he'll go. But whyfor should I be euchred out of my ride. Let me go along +to keep the peace." + +Her eyes thanked him. "If you are sure you can spare the time." + +"Don't incommode yourself, if you're in a hurry. We won't miss you." +Weaver's cold stare more than hinted that three would be a crowd. + +The younger man ignored him cheerfully. "Time to burn, Miss Sanderson." + +"You don't want to let that spring plowing suffer," the cattleman +suggested ironically. + +"That's so. Glad you mentioned it. I'll try to pick up some one to do it +at the store," returned the optimist. + +"Seems to me there are a pair of us, Mr. Keller, who may not be welcome +at Seven Mile. Last time you were down there, weren't you the guest of +some willing lads who were arranging a little party for you?" + +"Mr. Weaver," reproached Phyllis, flushing. + +But the reference did not embarrass the nester in the least. He laughed +hardily, meeting his rival eye to eye. "The boys did have notions, but +I expect maybe they have got over them." + +"Nothing like being hopeful. Now I'd back my show against yours every +day in the week." + +The girl handed his revolver back to Weaver, after first asking a +question of the homesteader with her eyes. + +"Oh, I get my hardware back, do I?" Buck grinned. + +Keller brought his horse round from back of Flat Rock, where it had been +picketed. They started at once, cutting across the plain to a flat +butte, which thrust itself out from the hills into the valley. Two hours +of steady travel brought them to the butte, behind which lay Seven Mile +ranch. + +At the first glimpse of the roofs shining in the golden sunlight Phyllis +gave a cry of delight. + +"Home again. I wonder whether Father's here." + +"I wonder," echoed Weaver grimly. + +"That little fellow riding into the corral is one of my scholars," she +told them. + +"One of the fourteen that loves you, Miss Going-On-Eighteen. My, +there'll be joy in Israel over the lost that is found. I reckon by +to-morrow you'll be teaching the young idea how to shoot." He glanced +down at his bandaged arm with a malicious grin. + +Phyllis looked at him without speaking. It was Keller who made +application of the remark. + +"There are others here beside her pupils. Some of them are right quick +and straight on the shoot, Mr. Weaver. Now you've seen Miss Sanderson +home, there's still time to make your getaway without trouble. How about +hitting the trail while travelling is good, seh?" + +"What's the matter with you taking your own advice, Keller?" + +"I don't figure the need is pressing in my case. Different with you." + +"I told you I would back my chances against yours. Well, I'm standing +pat on that." + +"The road will be open to me to-morrow. I wonder will it be open to you +then." + +"My friend, who elected you guardeen to Buck Weaver?" drawled the big +man carelessly. + +"I wish you would go," Phyllis pleaded, plainly troubled over his +obstinacy. + +"Me, I always hated to disoblige a lady," Buck admitted. + +"Then go," she cried eagerly. + +"But I hate still more to go back on my word. So I'll stay." + +There was nothing more to be said. They rode forward to the ranch. +'Rastus, at the stables, raised a shout and broke for the store on the +run. + +"Hyer's Miss Phyl done come home." + +At his call light-stepping dusty men poured from the building like seeds +from a squeezed orange. There was a rush for the girl. She was lifted +from her saddle and carried in triumph to the porch. Jim Sanderson came +running from the cellar in the rear and buried her in his arms. + +She broke down and began to cry a little. "Oh, Dad--Dad, I'm so glad to +be home." + +The old Confederate veteran was close to tears himself. + +"Honey, I jes' got back from town. Phil, he done wrong not letting me +know. I come pretty nigh giving that boy the bud. Wait till I meet up +with Buck Weaver. It's him or me for suah this time." + +"No, Dad, no! You must let me explain. I've been quite safe, and it's +all over now. Everything is all right." + +"Is it?" Sanderson laughed harshly. + +"The sheriff telephoned him to keep me, but you see he brought me home." + +"Brought you home?" The sheepman's black eyes lifted quickly and met +those of his enemy. + +"So you're there, Buck Weaver. I reckon you and I will settle accounts." + +Phil and Tom Dixon had quietly circled round so as to cut off Weaver's +retreat in case he attempted one. + +"He's got the rustler with him," Tom Dixon cried quickly. + +"Goddlemighty, so he has. We'll make a clean sweep," the Southerner +cried, his eyes blazing. + +"Then you'll destroy the man who was ready to give his life for mine," +his daughter said quietly. + +"What's that? How's that, Phyllie?" + +"It's a long story. I want you to hear it all. But not here." + +Her voice fell. A sudden memory had come to her of one thing at least +that she could not tell even to him--the story of that moment when she +had lain in the arms of the nester with his heart beating against her +breast. + +The old man caught her by the shoulder, holding her at arm's length, +while the deep eyes under his shaggy, grizzled brows pierced her. + +"What have you got to tell me, gyurl? Out with it!" + +But on the heels of his imperative demand came reassurance. A tide of +color poured into her face, but her eyes met his quietly. They let him +understand, more certainly than words, that all was well with his ewe +lamb. Putting her gently to one side, he strode toward his enemy. + +"What are you doing here, Buck Weaver?" + +The cattleman swept the circle of lowering faces, and laughed +contemptuously. "A man might think I wasn't welcome if he didn't know +better." + +"Oh, you're welcome--I reckon nobody on earth is more welcome right +now," retorted Sanderson grimly. "We were starting right out after you, +seh. But seeing you're here it saves trouble. Better 'light, you and +your friend, both." + +The declining sun flashed on three weapons that already covered the +cattleman. He looked easily from one to another, without the least +concern, and swung lightly from his horse. + +"Much obliged. Glad to accept your hospitality. But about this young man +here--he's not exactly a friend of mine--a mere pick-up acquaintance, in +fact. You mustn't accept him on my say-so. Of course, you know _I'm_ all +right, but I can't guarantee _him_," Buck drawled, with magnificent +effrontery. + +Phyllis spoke up unexpectedly. "_I_ can." + +Keller looked at her gratefully. It was not that he cared so much for +the certificate of character as for the friendly spirit that prompted +it. "That's right kind of you," he nodded. + +"We haven't heard yet what you are doing here, Buck Weaver," old Jim +Sanderson said, holding the cattleman with a hard and hostile eye. "And +after you've explained that, there are a few other things to make +clear." + +"Such as----" suggested the plainsman. + +"Such as keeping my daughter a captive and insulting her while she was +in your house," the father retorted promptly. + +"I held her captive because it was my right. She admitted shooting me. +Would you expect me to turn her loose, and thank her right politely for +it? I want to tell you that some folks would be right grateful because I +didn't send her to the penitentiary." + +"You couldn't send her there. No jury in Arizona would convict--even if +she were guilty," Tom Dixon broke out. + +"That's a frozen fact about the Arizona jury," the cattleman agreed, +with a swift, careless look at the boy. "Just the same, I had a license +to hold her. About the insult--well, I've got nothing to say. Nothing +except this, that I wouldn't be wearing these decorations"--he touched +the scars on his face--"if I didn't agree with you that nobody but a +sweep would have done it." + +"Everybody unanimous on that point, I reckon," said Jim Yeager promptly. + +Phyllis had been speaking to her father in a low voice. The old man +listened with no great patience, but finally nodded a concession to her +importunity. + +"We'll waive the matter of the insult just now. How about that boy you +shot up? Looks like you're a fool to come drilling in here, with him +still lying there on his bed." + +"He took his fighting chance. You ain't kicking because I played out the +game the way you-all started to play it? If you are, I'll have to say I +might have expected a sheep herder to look at it that way," Weaver +retorted insolently. + +The old man took a grip on his rising wrath. "No--we're not kicking, any +more than you've got a right to kick when we settle accounts with you." + +"As we're liable to do right shortly, now we've got you," said Dixon, +vindictively. + +"All right--go ahead with the indictment," Weaver acquiesced quietly, +ignoring the boy. + +"Keep still, Tom," Sanderson ordered, and went on with his grievance. +"You try to run this valley as if you were God Almighty. By your way of +it, a man has to come with hat in hand to ask you if he may take up land +here. The United States says we may homestead, but Buck Weaver says we +shan't. Uncle Sam says we may lease land to run sheep. Buck Weaver has +another notion of it. We're to take orders from him. If we don't he +clubs our sheep and drives off our cattle." + +"Cattle were here first," retorted Weaver. "The range is overstocked, +and they've got a prior right. Nesters in the hills here are making +money by rustling Twin Star calves. That's another thing." + +"Some of them. You'll not find any rustled calves with the Seven Mile +brand on them. And we don't recognize any prior right. We came here +legally. We intend to stay. Every time your riders club a bunch of our +sheep, we'll even up on Twin Star cattle. You take my daughter captive; +I hold you prisoner." + +"You'll be in luck if you get away from here with a whole skin," broke +out Phil. "You came here to please yourself, but you'll stay to please +us." + +"So?" Buck smiled urbanely. He was staying because he wanted to, though +they never guessed it. + +"Unbuckle his gun belt, Tom," ordered the old man. + +"Save you the trouble." Weaver unbuckled the belt and tossed it, +revolver and all, to Yeager. + +"Now, Mr. Weaver, we'll adjourn to the house." + +"Anything to oblige." + +"What about Mr. Keller?" Phyllis asked, in a low voice, of her father. + +The old man's keen, hard eyes surveyed the stranger. "Who is he? What do +you know about him?" + +As shortly as she could, she told what she knew of Keller, and how he +had rescued her from captivity. + +Her father strode forward and shook hands with the young man. + +"Make yourself at home, seh. We'll be glad to have you stay with us as +long as you can. What you have done for my daughter puts us +everlastingly in your debt." + +"Not worth mentioning. And, to be fair, I think Weaver was going to +bring her home, anyhow." + +"The way the story reached me, he didn't mention it until you had the +drop on him," answered Sanderson dryly. + +"That's right," nodded the cattleman ironically, from the porch. "You're +the curly-haired hero, Keller, and I'm the red-headed villain of this +play. You want to beware of the miscreant, Miss Sanderson, or he'll sure +do you a meanness." + +Tom Dixon eyed him frostily. "I expect you'll not do her any meanness, +Buck Weaver. From now on, you'll go one way and she'll go another. +You'll be strangers." + +"You don't say!" Buck answered, looking him over derisively, as he +passed into the house. "You're crowing loud for your size. And don't you +bet heavy on that proposition, my friend." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +TOM DIXON + + +With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls +came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay +soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint +for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that +has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to +harness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds, +who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waiting +buggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road. + +The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells--to meet the eyes of +a young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in a +good-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. It +was not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten that +one meets daily. + +"Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air of +cheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt. + +Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone--all but little Jimmie +Tryon. He rides home with me." + +"Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back," +complained the man. + +"Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank and +direct as that of a boy. + +But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way. +You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out. + +"Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly. + +"What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way ever +since----" + +He broke off. + +A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?" + +"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver." + +"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly +broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid +this. Must we thrash it out?" + +"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I +reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with +you." + +A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes +refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were +just children." + +"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?" + +"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she +pleaded. + +"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle, +and came toward her eagerly. "I love you--always have since I was +knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these +days." + +She held up a hand to keep him back. "No--we're not. I know now that +you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you." + +"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted. + +She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy +had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace. +She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother. + +"No, Tom--let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me +be just a friend." + +"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put +off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got +a right to know, and I'm going to know." + +"Yes, you have a right--but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I +didn't know my own mind then, and I do now." + +"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily. + +She was silent. + +"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!" + +"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart," +she told him gently. + +"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I +shot Weaver?" + +"You shot him from ambush." + +"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw +him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't +lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to +shoot, and I shot before----" + +"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning, +even if it was right to shoot at all--which, of course, it wasn't." + +"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a +mistake?" + +"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than +that. I can't tell you just what I mean." + +"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience. + +"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain." + +"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame +his eyes could not meet hers. + +"No--I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least +resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you +ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't +possibly marry you after that." + +The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling with +vexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness of +that scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bear +the brunt of what he had done. + +"You told me to go, and now you blame me for doing what you said," he +complained bitterly. + +She realized the weakness of his defense--that he had saved himself at +the expense of the girl he claimed to love, simply because she had +offered herself as a sacrifice in his place. She thought of another man, +who, at the risk of his life, had held back the half dozen pursuers just +to give a better chance to a girl he had not known a week. She thought +of the cattleman who had ridden gayly into this valley of enemies, +because he loved her, and was willing to face any punishment for the +wrong he had done her. Her brother, too, pointed the same moral. He had +defied the enemy, though he had been in his power. Not one of them would +have done what Tom Dixon, in his panic terror, had allowed himself to +do. But they were men, all of them--men of that stark courage that +clings to self-respect rather than to life. This youth had met the acid +test, and had failed in the assay. She had no anger toward him--only a +kindly pity, and a touch of contempt which she could not help. + +"No--I don't blame you, Tom," she told him, very kindly. "But I can't +marry you. I couldn't if you explained till Christmas. That is final. +Now let us be friends." + +She held out her hand. He looked at it through the tears of +mortification that were in his eyes, dashed it aside with an oath, swung +to the saddle, and galloped down the road. + +Phyllis gave a wistful sigh. Tears filmed her eyes. He was her first +lover, had given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the third +grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him +go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she +experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a +form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now +to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and +not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch +girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals +when she was not handy to receive them. + +"Was Tom Dixon mean to you, teacher?" + +Little five-year-old Jimmie Tryon was standing before her, feet apart, +fists knotted, and brow furrowed. She swooped upon her champion and +snatched him up for a kiss. + +"Nobody has been mean to teacher, Jimmie, you dear little kiddikins," +she cried. "It's all right, honey. Tom thinks it isn't, but before long +he'll know it is." + +"Who'll tell him?" Jimmie wanted to know anxiously. + +"Some nice girl, little curiosity box. I don't know who yet, but it will +be one of two or three I could name," she laughed. + +She harnessed the horse and hitched it to the trap in which Jimmie and +she came to school. But before she had gathered up the reins to start, +another young man strolled upon the scene. + +This one was walking and carried a rifle. + +At sight of him a glow began to burn through her dark cheeks. They had +not been alone together before since that moment when the stress of +their emotion had swept them to a meeting of warm lips and warm bodies +that had startled her by the electric pulsing of her blood. + +Her eyes could not hold to his. Shame dragged the lashes down. + +With him it was not shame. The male in him rode triumphant because he +had moved a girl to the deeps of her nature. But something in him, some +saving sense of embarrassment, of reverence for the purity and innocence +he sensed in her, made him shrink from pressing the victory. His mind +cast about for a commonplace with which to meet her. + +He held up as a trophy of his prowess two cottontails. "Who says I can't +shoot?" he wanted to know boisterously. + +"Where did you buy them?" she scoffed, faintly trying for sauciness. + +"That's a fine reward for honest virtue, after I tramped five miles to +get them for your supper," protested Keller. + +She recovered her composure quickly, as women will. + +"If they are for my supper, we'll have to ask him to ride home with +us--won't we, Jimmie? It would never do to have them reach the ranch too +late," she said, making room for Keller in the seat beside her. + +It was after she had driven several hundred yards that he said, with a +smile: "I met a young man on horseback as I was coming up. He went by me +like a streak of light. Looked like he found this a right mournful +world. You had ought to scatter sunshine and not gloom, Miss Phyllis." + +"Am I scattering gloom?" she asked demurely. + +"Not right now," he laughed. "But looks like you have been." + +She flicked a fly from the flank of her horse before she answered: "Some +people are so noticing." + +"It was hanging right heavy on him. Had the look of a man who had lost +his last friend," the young man observed meditatively. + +"Dear me! How pathetic!" + +"Yes--he sure looked like he'd rejoice to plug another cattleman. I +'most arranged to send for Buck Weaver again," said Keller calmly. + +Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that you +say?" + +"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again." + +"Yes, but you said too----" + +"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story of +yours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you was +riding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from +'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt a +mouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on a +blind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover." + +"He isn't a coyote," she objected. + +Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew how +to respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man who +would shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bear +the blame of his wrongdoing. "No--I reckon coyote is too big a name for +him," he admitted. + +"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It was +natural he should feel a grudge." + +"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. How +come you to let him do it?" + +"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun go +up, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he had +fired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazy +with fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide in +the big rocks, while I cut across toward the cańon. The men saw me, and +gave chase." + +"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, with +emphasis. + +Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Of +course they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was that +somebody was riding through the chaparral." + +"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chance +to save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Keller +put the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a vent +to his feelings. + +Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of a +man game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not even +a friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could. + +"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I need +them to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty." + +"He stood by her, too," she answered, trying to keep the matter +impersonal. + +"Perhaps he wanted to make her his friend," Larrabie suggested. + +"There is no perhaps about his success," she said quietly, her gaze just +beyond the ears of her horse. The young man dared now to look at her--a +child of the sun despite her duskiness. Eagerly he awaited the deep, +lustrous eyes that would presently sweep round upon him, big and dark +and sparkling. When she turned her head, they were full of that new +womanly dignity that yet did not obscure the shy innocence. + +"Look!" Jimmie Tryon pointed suddenly to the figure of a man +disappearing from the road into the mesquite two hundred yards in front +of them. + +"That's odd. I reckon you'd better wait here, and let me investigate a +few," suggested Keller. + +"Be careful," she said anxiously. + +"It's all right. Don't worry," the young man assured her. + +He got down from the trap and dived into the underbrush, rifle in hand. +The two in the buggy waited a long time. No sound came to them from the +cactus-covered waste to indicate what was happening. When Phyllis' watch +told her that he had been gone ten minutes, a cheerful hail came from +the road in front. + +"All right. Come on." + +But it was far from all right. Keller had with him an old Mexican +herder, called Manuel Quito--a man in the employ of her father. A +bandanna was tied round his shoulder, and it was soaked with +bloodstains. He told his story with many shrugs and much excited +gesticulation. He and Jesus Menendez had been herding on Lone Pine when +riders of the Twin Star outfit had descended upon them and attacked the +sheep. He and Menendez had elected to fight, and Jesus had been shot +down; he himself had barely escaped with his life--and that not without +a wound. The cow-punchers had followed him, and continued to fire at +him, but he had succeeded in escaping. Yes--he felt sure that Menendez +was dead. Even if he had not been dead at first, they would have killed +him. + +Keller consulted Miss Sanderson silently. He knew that she was thinking +the thought that was in his own mind. It would never do to let this +story reach her father and her brother, while Buck Weaver was still in +their power. Inflamed as they already were against him, they would +surely do in hot blood that which they would repent later. Somehow, +Keller and she must hold back the news until they could contrive a way +to free the cattleman. + +"Best leave Manuel at the Tryon place till morning. They will look out +for him as well as you can. That will give us twelve hours to work +before they hear what has happened." + +"But what about poor Jesus, lying out there alone?" + +"We'll get Bob Tryon to drive out. But you needn't worry about Jesus. If +they found him still living, the Twin Star boys will attend to him just +as kindly as we could. Cowboys have tender hearts, even though they go +off at half cock." + +They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under the +care of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silence +until morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to be +no reason why he should not do well. + +It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He was +confined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of the +riders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if a +better chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended upon +the possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, while +Phyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner. + +The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. One +thing was sure--if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemies +before the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, his +chance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood of +the South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strike +first and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swift +blow would be a deadly one. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE ESCAPE + +For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch +by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her +bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one. + +In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along +the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened +one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a +trip hammer. + +Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in +the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal. +Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence. + +But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the +dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so +often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To +judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged. + +The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner +and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the +moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom +stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into +the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what +cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite +on the other side of the road. + +Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key +to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it +behind her. + +"Where are you?" her young voice breathed. + +"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?" + +She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you +tied?" + +"Yes--hands and feet." + +A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a +few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the +door opened and a head was thrust in. + +"What's the row, Tom?" + +Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing +began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about." + +But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the +fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched. + +"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the +cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows. + +They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged +from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the +cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting. + +"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her. + +She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He +would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in +his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers. + +"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as +not to arouse suspicion." + +"But tell me--what does it mean?" demanded Buck. + +"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave +this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost." + +With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an +apparition of terror to learn what was wrong. + +She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log +cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing, +and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions. + +"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of +excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp. +Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over. +This moment she chose for her entrance. + +"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the +doorway. + +"He's got away--we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously. + +"But--how?" + +"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By +God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore. + +Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and +coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too, +fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?" + +"Nothing--except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools," +snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner--that's what's the matter." + +Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought +you kept him guarded." + +"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil. + +"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly. + +"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a +meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers +answered that the prisoner was safe so far. + +"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm. +"Sounded like a battle--and when we got there not a soul could be found. +Beats me how they got away so slick." + +Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to +be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she +had been told to do. + +She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head +quickly when she entered. + +"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity," +he began. + +"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one +of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man +as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a +neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves +on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid--we were +both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller +slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to +draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail +above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all." + +"But what am I to do here?" + +"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go, +the chances are they would have caught you again." + +"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?" + +"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the +sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to +escape the law that has been written?" + +"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life." + +"I don't want blood on the hands of my people." + +"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his +old sneer. + +She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor +Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a +punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict +it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them." + +"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a +wolfish Amalekite. Come--the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the +reapers." + +He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended +to block the way. + +"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when +the news comes." + +"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his +derisive smile. + +"You do nothing but mock--at your own death, at that of others. But you +shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little +wildly. + +"If you put it that way----" + +"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend +to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back +to them out of spite or dare-deviltry." + +"Just as you say." + +"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all +our lives are planned for your amusement." + +"I wish yours were planned----" He pulled himself up short. "You're +right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in +your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do." + +"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you. +You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and +you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance +for you to get away." + +"But I'll be driving you out," he protested. + +"I'm going to sleep with Anna--the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs. +Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the +door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else +knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear." + +"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a +low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the +decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is +that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of +this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a +chance to prove them." + +She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And +with that she left him to himself. + +Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but +they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her, +and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism +to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly. + +The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her +again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to +find her in the passage with a tray of food. + +"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot--just what +happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys +are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry. +Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the +tray on the table. + +Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up +her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great +fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her +hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the +passage and down the back stairs. + +He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as +silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and +charm, was not--could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the +road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him. + +How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray +morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his +absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance. + +He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the +threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him. + +"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked. + +The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not +think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming +accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She +let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology. + +"It's Phil, isn't it?" + +There was no way out of it. "No--it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll +explain," said Buck Weaver. + +Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the +stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young +mistress. + +"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost." + +"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room." + +"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply. + +"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought--oh, I don't +know what I thought." + +Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very +curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in +everybody's business. + +"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly. + +"I don't think. I saw him." + +"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of +gentle scorn. + +"No--he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure." + +"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go +and see myself. You stay here." + +She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I +wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now, +when everybody is excited over the escape of that man." + +"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl +maintained obstinately. + +"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me." + +Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from +Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had +been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she +eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she +could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to +her to save the man in her room. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A MISTAKE + + +At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the +sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The +Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they +could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made +an end of him. + +Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of +the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go +to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate +might have in store. + +When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to +leave. + +She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there, +rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after +the breakfast. + +"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a +sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away." + +"I promise," he told her. + +She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face +was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it. + +"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read, +without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see." + +"Oh, I hope not--I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You _will_ be +careful, won't you?" + +"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me." + +Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front +door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins. + +"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens----" + +"But it won't. Why should it?" + +"Anna knows. She blundered upon him." + +"Will she keep it quiet?" + +"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the +boys." + +"All right," he nodded. + +"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said +piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so. + +He shook his head. "No--you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will +be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going +to be on the job all day." + +"You're so good!" + +"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the +dust robe, without looking at her. + +But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of +hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in +her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence +and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed +himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing +him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver--and never to +his disadvantage. + +He talked with a drawl. He walked and rode with an air of languid ease. +But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so +gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force +in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good +humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he +had won her. But the touch of affection in his manner never suggested +weakness. + +From the porch Tom Dixon watched her departure sullenly. Since he could +not have her, he let himself grow jealous of the man who perhaps could. +And because he was what he was--a small man, full of vanity and +conceit--he must needs make parade of himself with another girl in the +role of conquering squire. Larrabie smiled as the young fellow went off +for a walk in obviously confidential talk with Anna Allan, but he +learned soon that it was no smiling matter. + +Half an hour later, the girl came flying back along the trail the two +had taken. Catching sight of Keller, she ran across to him, plainly +quivering with excitement and fluttering with fears. + +"Oh, Mr. Keller--I've done it now! I didn't think----I thought--" + +"Take it easy," soothed the young man, with one of his winning smiles. +"Now, what is it you have done?" Already his eyes had picked out Dixon +returning, not quite so impetuously, along the trail. + +"I told him about the man in Phyllis' room." + +Larrabie's eyes narrowed and grew steely. "Yes?" + +"I told him--I don't know why, but I never could keep a secret. I made +him promise not to tell. But he is going to tell the boys. There he +comes now. And I told Phyllis I wouldn't tell!" Anna began to cry, +miserably aware that she had made a mess of things. + +"I just begged him not to tell--and he had promised. But he says it's +his duty, and he's going to do it. Oh, Mr. Keller--if Mr. Weaver is +there they will hurt him, and I'll be to blame." + +"Yes, you will be," he told her bluntly. "But we may save him yet--if +you can go about your business and keep your mouth shut." + +"Oh, I will--I will," she promised eagerly. "I'll not say a word--not to +anybody." + +"See that you don't. Now, run along home. I'm going to have a quiet +little talk with that young man. Maybe I can persuade him to change his +mind," he said grimly. + +"Please--if you could. I don't want to start any trouble." + +Larrabie grinned, without taking his eyes from the man coming down the +trail. It was usually some good-natured idiot, with a predisposition to +gabbling, that made most of the trouble in the world. + +"Well, you be a good girl and padlock your tongue. If you do, I'll fix +it up with Tom," he promised. + +He sauntered forward toward the path. Dixon, full of his news, was +hurrying to the ranch. He was eager to tell it to the Sandersons, +because he wanted to reinstate himself in their good graces. For, though +neither of them knew he had fired the shot that wounded Weaver, he had +observed a distinct coolness toward him for his desertion of Phyllis in +her time of need. It had been all very well for him to explain that he +had thought it best to hurry home to get help. The fact remained that he +had run away and left her alone. + +Now he was for pushing past Keller with a curt nod, but the latter +stopped him with a lift of the hand. + +"What's your sweat?" + +"Want to see me, do you?" + +Keller nodded easily. + +"All right. Unload your mind. I can't give you but a minute." + +"Press of business on to-day?" + +"It's _my_ business." + +"I'm going to make it mine." + +"What do you mean?" came the quick, suspicious retort. + +"Let's walk back up the trail and talk it over." + +"No." + +"Yes." + +Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won. + +"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly. + +"We can, but we won't." + +"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail." + +"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man--a +brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes. + +Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did +not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about +this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour +without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he +stopped. + +"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed, +attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession. + +"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the +American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope--no, +sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused +aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch. + +Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn +foolishness?" + +"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and +me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a +thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His +voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his +eyes that showed him prepared for any move. + +So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral +Keller nailed him in a dozen strides. + +"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business +to keep me here." + +"I'm doing it for pleasure, say." + +The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and +twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. +Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of +his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and +stepped back. + +"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that +gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed. + +"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take +a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver." + +"What--what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told +you that lie." + +He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the +face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to +pay for it. + +"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's +been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand +the gaff for you. Now it's due." + +"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said +that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize----" + +"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take +it." + +Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his +opponent by twenty pounds--a husky, well-built fellow; but he was +entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten +man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he +took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as +did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from +the marrow out. + +Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight +in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But +now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing +blows. + +Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see +nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed +out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left, +came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one +hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to +clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an +uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man. + +"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned. + +"Sure of that?" + +"You've pretty near killed me." + +Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to +that apology now, my friend." + +With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I +didn't mean--I hadn't ought to have said----" + +Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know +better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on +the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a +fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother. +It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But +when you said she lied to me, that's another matter." + +For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not +leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story +would be kept secret. + +"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they +would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover. +'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly. + +"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly. + +"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" +Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil +and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for +leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done +the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more +than talk. + +"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about +it, and hear the particulars." + +"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know, +she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his +feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief. + +"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully. +"You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my +little spiel." + +"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can +see. I'd rather they didn't know." + +"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where +Buck is right now." + +Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not +persuaded. + +"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them +both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?" + +Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though +his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one. + +"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly. + +"No--I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie. + +The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll +close-herd both stories, then." + +"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry. +Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied." + +But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but +mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so. +If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could +not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against +submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole +story of the thrashing would be bound to come out. + +"I can't go down looking like this," he growled. + +"Do you have to go down?" + +"Have to get my horse, don't I?" + +"I'll bring it to you." + +"And say nothing about--what has happened?" + +"I don't care to talk of it any more than you do. I'll be a clam." + +"All right--I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed +tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms. + +Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of +Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be +depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse, +tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the +wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had +to come down and saddle the latter's mount. + +He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before +he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks +the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others +in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat +stamp. + +This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding +foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a +deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now +its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung +again to the saddle, and continued on his way. + +The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not hear him coming +as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand +something that clicked. + +Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like +tempered steel. + +"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I +reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty." + +Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked +up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from +him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun, +ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?" + +"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this +one, to save you trouble." + +He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of +the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his +side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie. + +For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with +him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that +indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve +to pit himself against such a man as this. + +"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're +trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly. + +"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is +between us two. It won't go any further." + +Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen +out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked +its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a +leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the +hill and disappeared. + +Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of +one who lives much alone. + +"There's a _nice_ young man--yellow clear through. Queer thing she could +ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good +looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely +he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against +the acid test, then." + +His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice +plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks. + +"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself +till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a +dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering. +Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind +hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is +headed for the pen mighty fast." + +He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION + + +Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him +pass the time. + +This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect +something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed +prints on the walls--cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs +were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To +the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such +frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were +circumscribed by the purse limitation. + +Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse +by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr +Song." + + I know by the stir of the branches, + The way she went; + And at times I can see where a stem + Of the grass is bent. + She's the secret and light of my life, + She allures to elude; + But I follow the spell of her beauty, + Whatever the mood. + +"Knows what he's talking about--some poet, that fellow," Buck cried +aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into +words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost +in his discovery. + +It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a +gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It +was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke. +Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose +tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind. +From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza. + +"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No +risk at all, looks to me." + +With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close +to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being +seen. + +The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed, +and went back to reading. + +The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was +upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on +another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco +into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again +puffing in pleasant serenity. + +Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar. + +Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his +mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was +that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole +through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had +plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of +the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he +must have been up in a balloon. + +The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his +pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray +cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat +had reached the powder. + +By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along +the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob, +the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices. + +"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin. + +The fat was surely in the fire now. + +Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door +was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply. + +Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old +Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher +known as Cuffs. All of them were armed. + +"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked. + +"So you're here, are you?" spoke up Phil. + +"That's right. I'm here, sure enough." + +"How long you been here?" + +"Been hanging round the place ever since my escape. You kept so close a +watch I couldn't make my getaway. Some time the other side of noon I +drifted in here, figuring some of you would drive me from cover by +accident during the day if I stayed out in the chaparral. This room +looked handy, so I made myself right at home and locked the door. I hate +to shoot up a lady's boudoir, but looks like that's what I've done." + +"You durn fool! Who were you shooting at?" Phil asked contemptuously. + +But his father stepped forward, and with a certain austere dignity, more +menacing than threats, took the words out of the mouth of his son. + +"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil." + +Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the +imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission +in a lady's room," he admitted humorously. + +A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had +been running. It was Keller. + +That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw +him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition, +and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for +him last night. + +"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly. + +They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old +sheepman waved his hand toward a chair. + +"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the +mantel. + +He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had +already condemned him to death. The quiet repression they imposed on +themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to +another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil +were unusually tall men--as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of +shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men, +but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose. + +"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay. + +"Made up your mind, have you?" + +"Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus +Menendez." + +"A bad break, that--and me a prisoner here. Some of the boys had been +out on the range a week. I reckon they didn't know I was the rat in your +trap." + +"So much the worse for you." + +"Looks like," Weaver nodded. Then he added, almost carelessly: "I expect +there wouldn't be any use mentioning the law to you? It's here to +punish the man that shot Menendez." + +"Not a bit of use. You own the sheriff and half the juries in this +county. Besides, we've got the man right here that is responsible for +the killing of poor Jesus." + +"Oh! If you look at it that way, of course----" + +"That's the way to look at it I don't blame your riders any more than I +blame the guns they fired. _You_ did that killing." + +"Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles +away." + +"That makes no difference." + +"Seems to me it makes some," suggested Keller, speaking for the first +time. "His riders may have acted contrary to orders. He surely did not +give any specific orders in this case." + +"His actions for months past have been orders enough," said Cuffs. + +"You'd better investigate before you take action," Larrabie urged. + +"We've done all the investigating we're going to do. This man has set +himself up like a czar. I'm not going through the list of it all, but he +has more than reached the limit months ago. He's passed it now. He's got +to die, by gum," the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars. + +"We all have to do that. Just when does my time come?" Weaver asked. + +"Now," cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath. + +Phil swallowed hard. He had grown white beneath the tan. The thing they +were about to do seemed awful to him. + +"Good God! You're not going to murder him, are you?" protested Larrabie. + +"He murdered poor Jesus Menendez, didn't he?" + +"You mean you're going to shoot him down in cold blood?" + +"What's the matter with hanging?" Slim asked brutally. + +"No," spoke up Keller quickly. + +The old man nodded agreement. "No--they didn't hang Menendez." + +"Your sheep herder died--if he died at all, and we have no proof of +it--with a gun in his hands," Larrabie said. + +"That's right," admitted Phil quickly. "That's right. We got to give him +a chance." + +"What sort of a chance would you like to give him?" Sanderson asked of +the boy. + +"Let him fight for his life. Give him a gun, and me one. We'll settle +this for good and all." + +The eyes of the old Confederate gleamed, though he negatived the idea +promptly. + +"That wouldn't be a square deal, Phil. He's our prisoner, and he has +killed one of our men. It wouldn't be right for one of us to meet him on +even terms." + +"Give me a gun, and I'll meet all of you!" cried Weaver, eyes gleaming. + +"By God, you're on! That's a sporting proposition," Sanderson retorted +promptly. "Lets us out, too. I don't fancy killing in cold blood, +myself. Of course we'll get you, but you'll have a run for your money +first, by gum." + +"Maybe you'll get me, and maybe you won't. Is this little vendetta to be +settled with revolvers, or rifles?" + +"Make it rifles," Phil suggested quickly. + +There was always a chance that, if the battle were fought at long range, +the cattleman might reach the hill cańons in safety. + +Keller was helpless. He lived in a man's world, where each one fought +for his own head and took his own fighting chance. Weaver had proposed +an adjustment of the difficulty, and his enemies had accepted his offer. +Even if the Sandersons would have tolerated further interference, the +cattleman would not. + +Moreover Keller's hands were tied as to taking sides. He could not fight +by the side of the owner of the Twin Star Ranch against the father and +brother of Phyllis. There was only one thing to do, and that offered +little hope. He slipped quietly from the room and from the house, swung +to the back of a horse he found saddled in the place and galloped wildly +down the road toward the schoolhouse. + +Phyllis had much influence over her father. If she could reach the +scene in time, she might prevent the duel. + +His pony went up and down the hills as in a moving-picture play. + +Meanwhile terms of battle were arranged at once, without haggling on +either side. Weaver was to have a repeating Winchester and a belt full +of cartridges, the others such weapons as they chose. The duel was to +start with two hundred and fifty yards separating the combatants, but +this distance could be increased or diminished at will. Such cover as +was to be found might be used. + +"Whatever's right suits me," the cattleman said. "I can't say more than +that you are doing handsomely by me. I reckon I'll make that declaration +to some of your help, if you don't mind." + +The horse wrangler and the Mexican waiter were sent for, and to them the +owner of the place explained what was about to occur. Their eyes stuck +out, and their chins dropped, but neither of the two had anything to +say. + +"We're telling you boys so you may know it's all right. I proposed this +thing. If I'm shot, nobody is to blame but myself. Understand?" Weaver +drove the idea home. + +The wrangler got out an automatic "Sure," and Manuel an amazed "_Si, +senor_," upon which they were promptly retired from the scene. + +Having prepared and tested their weapons, the parties to the difficulty +repaired to the pasture. + +"I'd like to try out this gun, if you don't mind. It's a new +proposition to me," the cattleman said. + +"Go to it," nodded Slim, seating himself tailor-fashion on the ground +and rolling a cigarette. He was a black, bilious-tempered fellow, but +this particular kind of gameness appealed to him. + +Weaver glanced around, threw the rifle to his shoulder, and fired +immediately. A chicken, one hundred and fifty yards away, fell over. + +"Accidents will happen," suggested Slim. + +"That accident happened through the neck, you'll find," Weaver retorted +calmly. + +"Betcher." + +Buck dropped another rooster. + +"You ain't happy unless you're killing something of ours," Slim grinned. +"Well, if you're satisfied with your gun, we'll go ahead and see how +good you are on humans." + +They measured the distance, and Sanderson called: "Are you ready?" + +"I reckon," came back the answer. + +The father gave the signal--the explosion of a revolver. Even as it +flashed, Buck doubled up like a jack rabbit and leaped for the shelter +of a live oak, some thirty yards distant. Four rifles spoke almost at +the same instant, so that between the first and the last not a second +intervened. One of them cracked a second time. But the runner did not +stop until he reached the tree and dropped behind its spreading roots. + +"Hunt cover, boys!" the father gave orders. "Don't any of you expose +yourself. We'll have to outflank him, but we'll take our time about it." + +He got this out in staccato jerks, the last part of it not until all +were for the moment safe. The strange thing was that Weaver had not +fired once as they scurried for shelter, even though Phil's foot had +caught in a root and held him prisoner for an instant while he freed it. +But as they began circling round him carefully, he fired--first at one +of them and then at another. His shooting was close, but not one of them +was hit. Recalling the incident of the chickens, this seemed odd. In +Slim's phrasing, he did not seem to be so good on "humans." + +Behind his live oak, Buck was so well protected that only a chance shot +could reach him before his enemies should outflank him. How long that +would have taken nobody ever found out; for an intervention occurred in +the form of a flying Diana, on horseback, taking the low fence like a +huntress. + +It was Phyllis, hatless, her hair flying loose--a picture long to be +remembered. Straight as an arrow she rode for Weaver, flung herself from +the saddle, and ran forward to him, waving her handkerchief as a signal +to her people to cease firing. + +"Thank God, I'm in time!" she cried, her voice deep with feeling. Then, +womanlike, she leaned against the tree, and gave way to the emotion that +had been pent within her. + +Buck patted her shoulders with awkward tenderness. + +"Don't you! Don't you!" he implored. + +Her collapse lasted only a short time. She dried her tears, and stilled +her sobs. "I must see my father," she said. + +The old man was already hurrying forward, and as he ran he called to his +boys not to shoot. Phyl would not move a single step of the way to meet +him, lest they take advantage of her absence to keep up the firing. + +"How under heaven did you get here?" Buck asked her. + +"Mr. Keller came to meet me. I took his horse, and he is bringing the +buggy. I heard firing, so I cut straight across," she explained. + +"You shouldn't have come. You might have been hit." + +She wrung her hands in distress. "It's terrible--terrible! Why will you +do such things--you and them?" she finished, forgetting the careful +grammar that becomes a schoolmarm. + +Buck might have told her--but he did not--that he had carefully avoided +hitting any of her people; that he had determined not to do so even if +he should pay for his forbearance with his life. What he did say was an +apologetic explanation, which explained nothing. + +"We were settling a difference of opinion in the old Arizona way, Miss +Phyl." + +"In what way? By murdering my father?" she asked sharply. + +"He's covering ground right lively for a dead one," Buck said dryly. + +"I'm speaking of your intentions. You can't deny you would have done +it." + +"Anyhow, I haven't denied it." + +Sanderson, almost breathless, reached them, caught the girl by the +shoulders, and shook her angrily. + +"What do you mean by it? What are you doing here? Goddlemighty, girl! +Are you stark mad?" + +"No, but I think all you people are." + +"You'll march home to your room, and stay there till I come." + +"No, father."' + +"Yes, I say!" + +"I must see you--alone." + +"You can see me afterward. We'll do no talking till this business is +finished." + +"Why do you talk so? It won't be finished--it can't," she moaned. + +"We'll attend to this without your help, my girl." + +"You don't understand." Her voice fell to the lowest murmur. "He came +here for me." + +"For you-all?" + +"Oh, don't you see? He brought me back here because he--cared for me." A +tide of shame flushed her cheeks. Surely no girl had ever been so +cruelly circumstanced that she must tell such things before a lover, +who had not declared himself explicitly. + +"Cared for you? As a wolf does for a lamb!" + +"At first, maybe--but not afterward. Don't you see he was sorry? +Everything shows that." + +"And to show that he was sorry, he had poor Jesus Menendez killed!" + +"No--he didn't know about that till I told him." + +"Till _you_ told him?" + +"Yes. When I freed him and took him to my room." + +"So you freed him--_and took him to your room?_" She had never heard her +father speak in such a voice, so full at once of anger and incredulous +horror. + +"Don't look at me like that, father! Don't you see--can't you see----Oh, +why are you so cruel to me?" She buried her face in her forearm against +the rock. + +Her father caught her arm so savagely that a spasm of pain shot through +her. "None of that! Give me the truth. Now--this instant!" + +Anger at his injustice welled up in her. "You've had the truth. I knew +of the attack on the sheep camp--heard of it on the way home from +school, from Manuel. Do you think I've lived with you eighteen years for +nothing? I knew what you would do, and I tried to save you from +yourself. There was no place where he would be safe but in my room. I +took him there, and slept with Anna. I did right. I would do it again." + +"Slept with Anna, did you?" + +She felt again that furious tide of blood sweep into her face. "Yes. +From the time of the shooting." + +"Goddlemighty, gyurl, I wisht you'd keep out of my business." + +"And let you do murder?" + +"Why did you save him? Because you love him?" demanded Sanderson +fiercely. + +"Because I love _you_. But you're too blind to see it." + +"And him--do you love him? Answer me!" + +"No!" she flamed. "But if I did, I would be loving a man. He wouldn't +take odds of five to one against an enemy." + +Her father's great black eyes chiselled into hers. "Are you lying to me, +girl?" + +Weaver spoke out quietly. "I expect _I_ can answer that, Mr. Sanderson. +Your daughter has given me to understand that I'm about as mean a thing +as God ever made." + +But Phyl was beyond caution now. Her resentment against her father, for +that he had forced her to drag out the secret things of her heart and +speak of them in the presence of the man concerned, boiled into +words--quick, eager, full of passion. + +"I take it all back then--every word of it!" she cried. "You are +braver, kinder, more generous to me than my own people--more chivalrous. +You would have gone to your death without telling them that I took you +to my room. But my own father, who has known me all my life, insults me +grossly." + +"I was wrong," Sanderson admitted uneasily. + +Keller climbed the pasture fence, and came running up at the same time +as Phil and Slim. + +"Menendez is alive!" he cried. "He is at the Twin Star Ranch. The boys +there are taking care of him, and the doctor says he will pull through." + +"Who told you?" + +"Bob Tryon. I met him not five minutes ago. He is on his way here." + +This put a new face on things. If Menendez were still alive, Weaver +could be held to await developments. Moreover, since the sheep herder +was a prisoner at the Twin Star Ranch, retaliation would follow any +measures taken against the cattleman. + +Phyllis gave a glad little cry. "Then it's all right now." + +Weaver's face crinkled to a leathery grin. "Mighty unfortunate--ain't +it, boys? Puts a kind of a kink in our plans for the little +entertainment we were figuring on pulling off. But maybe you've a notion +of still going on with it." + +"If we don't, it won't be on your account, seh, I don't reckon," +Sanderson answered reluctantly. + +But though he would not admit it, the old man was beginning to admire +this big fellow, who could afford to miss his enemies on purpose even in +the midst of a deadly duel. He was coming to a grudging sense of quality +in Weaver. The cattleman might be many things that were evil, but +undeniably he possessed also those qualities which on the frontier count +for more than civilized virtues. He was game to the core. And he knew +how to keep his mouth shut at the right time, no matter what it was +going to cost him. On the whole Buck Weaver would stand the acid test, +the old soldier was coming to think. And because he did not want to +believe any good of his enemy, old Jim Sanderson, when he was alone in +the corral with the horses or on a hillside driving his sheep, would +shake his gnarled fist impotently and swear fluently until his +surcharged feelings were relieved. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE BRAND BLOTTER + + +Two riders followed the trail to Yeager's Spur--one a man, brown and +forceful; the other a girl, with sunshine in her dancing eyes and a +voice full of the lilt of laughter. What they might come to be to each +other both were already speculating about, though neither knew as yet. +They were the best of friends--good comrades, save when chance eyes said +unguardedly too much. For the girl that sufficed, but it was not enough +for the man. He knew that he had found the one woman he wanted for his +wife. But Phyllis only wondered, let her thoughts rove over many things. +For instance, why queer throbs and sudden shyness swept her soft young +body. She liked Larrabie Keller--oh, so much!--but her untutored heart +could not quite tell her whether she loved him. His eyes drilled into +her electric pulsations whenever they met hers. The youth in him called +to the youth in her. She admired him. He stirred her imagination, and +yet--and yet---- + +They rode through a valley of gold and russet, all warm with yellow +sunlight. In front of them, the Spur projected from the hill ridge into +the mountain park. + +"Then I think you're a cow-puncher looking for a job, but not very +anxious to find one," she was hazarding, answering a question. + +"No. That leaves you one more guess." + +"That forces me to believe that you are what you say you are," she +mocked; "just a plain, prosaic homesteader." + +She had often considered in her mind what business might be his, that +could wait while he lingered week after week and rode trail with the +cowboys; but it had not been the part of hospitality to ask questions of +her friend. This might seem to imply a doubt, and of doubt she had none. +To-day, he himself had broached the subject. Having brought it up, he +now dropped it for the time. + +He had shaded his eyes, and was gazing at something that held his +attention--a little curl of smoke, rising from the wash in front of +them. + +"What is it?" she asked, impatient that his mind could so easily be +diverted from her. + +"That is what I'm going to find out. Stay here!" + +Rifle in hand, Keller slipped forward through the brush. His imperative +"Stay here!" annoyed her just a little. She uncased her rifle, dropped +from the saddle as he had done, and followed him through the cacti. Her +stealthy advance did not take her far before she came to the wash. + +There Keller was standing, crouched like a panther ready for the +spring, quite motionless and silent--watching now the bushes that +fringed the edge of the wash, and now the smoke spiral rising faintly +from the embers of a fire. + +Slowly the man's tenseness relaxed. Evidently he had made up his mind +that death did not lurk in the bushes, for he slid down into the wash +and stepped across to the fire. Phyllis started to follow him, but at +the first sound of slipping rubble her friend had her covered. + +"I told you not to come," he reproached, lowering his rifle as soon as +he recognized her. + +"But I wanted to come. What is it? Why are you so serious?" + +His eyes were busy making an inventory of the situation, his mind, too, +was concentrated on the thing before him. + +"Do you think it is rustlers? Is that what you mean?" she asked quickly. + +"Wait a minute and I'll tell you what I think." He finished making his +observations and returned to her. "First, I'll tell you something else, +something that nobody in the neighborhood knows but you and Jim Yeager. +I belong to the ranger force. Lieutenant O'Connor sent me here to clean +up this rustling that has been going on for several years." + +"And a lot of the boys thought you were a rustler yourself," she +commented. + +"So did one or two of the young ladies," he smiled. "But that is not the +business before this meeting. Because I'm trained to it I notice things +you wouldn't. For instance, I saw a man the other day with a horse whose +hind hoof left a trail like that." + +He pointed to one, and then another track in the soft sand. "Maybe that +might be a coincidence, but the owner of that horse had a habit of +squirting tobacco juice on clean rocks--like that--and that." + +"That doesn't prove he has been rustling." + +"No; but the signs here show he has been branding, and Buck Weaver ran +across these same marks left by a waddy who surely was making free with +a Twin Star calf." + +"How long has he been gone?" + +"There were two of them, and they've been gone about twenty minutes." + +"How do you know?" + +He pointed to a stain of tobacco juice still moist. + +"Who is he?" she asked. + +He knew her stanch loyalty to her friends, and Tom Dixon had been a +friend till very lately. He hesitated; then, without answering, made a +second thorough examination of the whole ground. + +"Come--if we have any luck, I'll show him to you," he said, returning to +her. "But you must do just as I say--must be under my orders." + +"I will," she promised. + +Forthwith, they started. After they had ridden in silence for some +distance, covering ground fast, they drew to a walk. + +"You know by the trail for where they were heading," she suggested in a +voice that was a question. + +"I guessed." + +Presently, at the entrance to a little cańon, Keller swung down and +examined the ground carefully, seemed satisfied, and rode with her into +the gully. But she noticed that now he went cautiously, eyes narrowed +and wary, with the hard face and the look of a coiled spring she had +seen on him before. Her heart drummed with excitement. She was not +afraid, but she was fearfully alive. + +At the other entrance to the cańon, Larrabie was down again for another +examination. What he seemed to find gave him pleasure. + +"They've separated," he told Phyllis. "We'll give our attention to the +gentleman with the calf, and let his friend go, to-day." + +They swung sharply to the north, taking a precipitous trail of shale +that Phyllis judged to be a short cut. It was rough going, but their +mountain ponies were good for anything less than a perpendicular wall. +They clambered up and down like cats, as sure-footed as wild goats. + +At the summit of the ridge, Keller pointed out something in the valley +below--a rider on horseback, driving a calf. + +"There goes Mr. Waddy, as big as coffee." + +"He's going to swing round the point. You mean to drop down the hill and +cut him off?" + +[Illustration: "DROP THAT GUN!" _Page 205_] + +"That's the plan. Better do no more talking after we pass that live +oak. See that little wash? We'll drop into it, and hide among the +cottonwoods." + +The rustler was pushing along hurriedly, driving the calf at a trot, +half the time twisted in the saddle, with anxious eyes to the rear. +Revolvers and a rifle garnished him, but quite plainly they gave him no +sense of safety. + +When the summons came to him to "Drop that gun!" it was only a +confirmation of his fears. Yet he jumped as a boy jumps under the +unexpected cut of a cane. + +The rifle went clattering to the stony trail. Without being ordered to +do so, the hands of the waddy were thrust skyward. + +"Why, it's Tom Dixon! We've made a mistake," Phyllis discovered; and +moved forward from her hiding place. + +"We've made no mistake. I told you I'd show you the rustler, and I've +shown him to you," Keller answered, as he too stepped forward. And to +Tom, whose hands dropped at sight of Phyllis: "Better keep them reaching +till I get those guns. That's right. Now, you may 'light." + +"What's got into you?" demanded Dixon, his teeth still chattering. +"Holding up a man for nothing. Take away that gun you got bent on me!" + +"You're under arrest for rustling, seh," the cattle detective told him +sternly. + +"Prove it. Prove it!" Dixon swung from the saddle, and faced the other +doggedly. + +"That calf you're driving now is rustled. You branded it less than two +hours ago in Spring Valley, right by the three cottonwoods below the +trail to Yeager's Spur." + +"How do you know?" cried the startled youth. And on the heels of that: +"It's a lie!" He was getting a better grip on his courage. He spat +defiantly a splash of tobacco juice on a flat pebble which his eye +found. "No such thing! This calf was a maverick. Ask Phyl. She'll tell +you I'm no rustler." + +Phyllis said nothing. Her gaze was very steadily on Tom. + +Keller pointed to the evidence which the hoof of the horse had printed +on the trail, and to that which the man had written on the pebble. "We +found both these signs once before. They were left by one of the +rustlers operating in this vicinity. That time it was a Twin Star brand +you blotted. You've done a poor job, for I can see there has been +another brand there. Your partner left you with the cow at the entrance +to the cańon. Caught red-handed as you have been driving the calf to +your place, you'll find all this aggregates evidence enough to send you +to the penitentiary. Buck Weaver will attend to that." + +"It's a conspiracy. You and him mean to railroad me through," Tom +charged sullenly. "I tell you, Phyllis knows I'm no rustler." + +"I've known you were one ever since the day you wanted to go back and +tell where Weaver was hidden. You and your pony scattered the evidence +around then, just as you're doing here," the ranger answered. + +"You've got it cooked up to put me through," Dixon insisted desperately. +"You want to get me out of the way, so you'll have a clear track with +Phyl. Think I don't _sabe_ your game?" + +The angry color sucked into Keller's face beneath the tan. He avoided +looking at Phyllis. "We'll not discuss that, seh. But I can say that +kind of talk won't help buy you anything." + +The girl looked at Dixon in silent contempt. She was very angry, so that +for the moment her embarrassment was swamped. But she did not choose to +dignify his spleen by replying to it. + +There was no iron in Dixon's make-up. When he saw that this attack had +reacted against him, he tried whining. + +"Honest, you're wrong about this calf, Mr. Keller. I don't say, mind +you, it ain't a rustled calf. It may be; but I don't know it if it is. +Maybe the rustlers were scared off just before I happened on it." + +"We'll see how a jury looks at that. You're going to get the chance to +tell that story to one, I expect," Larrabie remarked dryly. + +"Pass it up this time, and I'll get out of the country," the youth +promised. + +"Take care! Whatever you say will be used against you." + +"Suppose I did rustle one of Buck Weaver's calves--mind, I don't say I +did--but say I did? Didn't he bust my father up in business? Ain't he +aiming to do the same by your folks, Phyl?" He was almost ready to cry. + +The girl turned her head aside, and spoke in a low voice to Keller. She +was greatly angered and disgusted at Tom; but she had been his friend, +and on this occasion there had been some justification for him in the +wrong the cattleman had done his family. + +"Do you have to report him and have him prosecuted?" + +"I'm paid to stop the rustling that has been going on," answered Keller, +in the same undertone. + +"He won't do it again. He has had his scare. It will last him a +lifetime." Even while she promised it for him, it was not without +contempt for the poor-spirited craven who could be so easily driven from +his evil ways. If a man must do wrong, let it be boldly--as Buck Weaver +did it. + +"Yes, but his pals haven't had theirs." + +"But you don't know them." + +"I can guess one man in it with him. We've got to root the thing out." + +"Why not serve warning on him by Tom? Then they would both clear out." + +Dixon divined that she was pleading for him, and edged in another word +for himself. "Whatever wrong I've done I've been driven to. There's been +an older man to lead me into it, too." + +"You mean Red Hughes?" Keller said sharply. + +Tom hesitated. He had not got to the point of betraying his accomplice. +"I ain't saying who I mean. Nor, for that matter, I ain't admitting I've +done any particular wrong--no more than other young fellows." + +Keller brought him sharply to time. "You've used your last wet blanket. +I've got the evidence that will put you behind the bars. Miss Phyllis +wants me to let you off. I can't do it unless you make a clean breast of +it. You'll either come through with what I want to know, and do as I +say, or you'll have to stand the gaff." + +"What do you want to know?" + +"How many pals had you in this rustling?" + +"You said you would use against me anything I said." + +"I say now I'll use it _for_ you if you tell the truth and meet my +conditions." + +"What are your conditions?" + +"Never mind. You'll learn them later. Answer my question. How many?" + +"One"--very sullenly. + +"Red Hughes?" + +"That's the one thing I can't tell you," the lad cried. "Don't you see I +can't?" + +"It's the one thing I don't need to know. I've got Red cinched about as +tight as you, my boy. How long has this been going on?" + +The information came from Dixon as reluctantly as a tight cork comes +from a bottle. "Nearly a year." + +Sharp, incisive questions followed, one after another; and at the end of +the quiz Tom was pumped nearly dry. Those who heard his confession +listened to the story of how and why he had first started rustling--the +tale of each exploit, the location of the mountain cache where the +calves had been driven, even the name of the Mexican buyer who once had +come across the line to receive a bunch of stolen cattle. + +Keller laid down his conditions. "You'll go to Red _muy pronto_, and +tell him he's got thirty-six hours to get across the line. He and you +will go to Sonora, and you'll stay there. We've got you dead to rights. +Show up in this country again, and you'll both go to Yuma. Understand?" + +Tom understood well enough. He writhed under it, but he was up against +the need of surrender. Sullenly he waited until the other had laid down +the law, then asked for his weapons. Keller emptied the chambers of the +cartridges, and returned the revolvers, looking also to the magazine of +the rifle before he handed it back. Without a word, without even a nod +or a glance, Dixon rode out of the gulch. + +The eyes of the remaining two met, and became tangled at once. Hastily +both pairs withdrew. + +"We'll have to drive the calf back, won't we?" said Phyllis, seizing on +the first irrelevant thing that occurred to say. + +"Yes--as far as Tryon's." + +Presently she said: "Do you think they will leave the country?" + +"No." + +Her glance swept him in surprise. "Then--why did you let him go so +easily?" + +He smiled. "Didn't you ask me to let him off?" + +"Yes; but----" How could she explain that by lapsing from his duty so far, +even at her request, he had disappointed her! + +"No, ma'am! I'm a false alarm. It wasn't out of gallantry I unroped him. +Shall I tell you why it was? I kept naming Red as his partner. But +Hughes ain't in this. He has been in Sonora for a year. When Tom goes +back all worried and tells what has happened to him, the gentleman who +is the brains for the outfit is going to be right pleased I'm following +a false trail. That's liable to make him more careless. If we had had +the evidence to cinch Dixon it would have been different. But a roan +calf is a roan calf. I don't expect the owner could swear to it, even if +we knew who he was. So I made my little play and let him go." + +"And I thought all the time you were doing it for me," she laughed, and +on the heels of it made her little confession: "And I was blaming you +for giving way." + +"I'll know now that the way to please you is not to do what you want me +to do." + +"You know a lot about girls, don't you?" she mocked. + +"Me, I'm a wiz," he agreed with her derision. + +Keller spoke absently, considering whether this might be the propitious +moment to try his luck. They had been comrades together in an adventure +well concluded. Both were thinking of what Dixon had said. It seemed to +Larrabie that it would be a wonderful thing if they might ride back +through the warm sunlight with this new miracle of her love in his life. +It was at the meeting of their fingers, when he gave her the bridle, +that he spoke. + +"I've got to say it, Miss Phyllis. I've got to know where I stand." + +She understood him of course. The touch of their eyes had warmed her +even before he began. But "Stand how?" she repeated feebly. + +"With you. I love you! We both know that. What about you? Could you care +for me? Do you?" + +Her shy, deep eyes met his fairly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I +do, and then sometimes I think I don't--that way." + +The touch of affection that made his face occasionally tender as a +woman's, lit his warm smile. + +"Couldn't you make that first sometimes always, don't you reckon, +Phyllis?" + +"Ah! If I knew! But I don't--truly, I don't. I--I want to care," she +confessed, with divine shyness. + +"That's good listening. Couldn't you go ahead on those times you do, +honey?" + +"No!" She drew back from his advance. "No--give me time. I'm--I'm not +sure--I'm not at all sure. I can't explain, but----" + +"Can't decide between me and another man?" he suggested, by way of a +joke, to lighten her objection. + +Then, in a flash, he knew that by accident he had hit the truth. The +startled look of doubt in her eyes told him. Perhaps she had not known +it herself before, but his words had clarified her mind. There was +another man in the running--one not to be thrust aside easily. + +Phyllis' first impulse was to be alone. She turned her face away and +busied herself with a stirrup leather. + +"Don't say anything more now--please. I'm such a little goose! I don't +know--yet. Won't you wait and--forget it till--say, till next week?" + +He promised to wait, but he did not promise to forget it. As they rode +home, he made cheerful talk on many subjects; but the one in both their +minds was that which had been banned. Every silence was full charged +with it. Its suppression ran like quicksilver through every spoken +sentence. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A WATERSPOUT + + +Almost imperceptibly, Buck Weaver's relation to his jailers changed. It +was still understood that their interests differed, but the personal +bitterness was largely gone. He went riding occasionally with the boys, +rather as a guest than as a prisoner. + +At any time he might have escaped, but for a tacit understanding that he +would stay until Menendez was strong enough to be sent home from the +Twin Star. + +One pleasure, however, was denied him. He saw nothing of Phyllis, save +for a distant glimpse or two when she was starting to school or +returning from a ride with Larrabie Keller. He knew that her father and +her brother were studiously eliminating him, so far as she was +concerned. Certain events had been of a nature to induce whispered +gossip. Fortunately, such gossip had been nipped in the bud. They +intended that there should be no revival of it. + +Weaver had sent word to the riders of the Twin Star that there was to be +nothing doing in the matter of the feud until his return. + +He had at the same time ordered from them a change of linen, a box of +his favorite cigars, and certain papers to be found in his desk. These +in due time were delivered by Jesus Menendez in person, together with a +note from the ranch. + + TWIN STAR RANCH, Tuesday Morning. + + DERE BUCK: You've sure got us up in the air. The boys was figurring + some on rounding up the whole Seven Mile outfit in a big drive, but + looks like you got other notions. Wise us if you want the + cooperation of + + PESKY and the other boys. + +With a smile, Weaver showed it to Phil. "Shall I send word to the boys +to start on the round-up?" + +"It won't be necessary. You don't need their cooperation. Fact is, now +Menendez is back, you're free to go. 'Rastus is getting your horse right +now." + +The cattleman realized instantly that he did not want to go. Business +affairs at home pressed for his attention, but he felt extremely +reluctant to pull out and leave the field in possession of Larrabie +Keller, even temporarily. He could not, however, very well say so. + +"Good enough," he said brusquely. "Before I go, we'd better settle the +matter of the range. Send for your father, and I'll make him a +proposition that looks fair to me." + +When Sanderson arrived, he found the cattleman with a map of the county +spread before him upon the table. With a pencil he divided the range in +a zigzag, twisting line. + +"How about that? I'll take all on the valley side. You take what is in +the hills and the parks." + +Sanderson looked at him in astonishment. "That's all we've been +contending for!" + +Buck nodded. "Since you get what you want, you ought to be satisfied," +he said gruffly. "Of course, there will have to be some give-and-take +about this. My cattle will cross the line. So will yours. That can't be +helped. I've worked out this problem of the range feed pretty +thoroughly. My territory will feed just about as many as yours. Each +year we can arrange together to keep the number of cattle down." + +Under his shaggy brows, Sanderson looked at him in perplexity. The +proposition was more than generous. It meant that Weaver would have to +sell off about a thousand head of cattle, while the hill-men, on the +other hand, could increase their holdings. + +"What about sheep?" the old man asked bluntly. + +Buck's stony gaze met his steadily. "I'm going to leave those sheep on +your conscience, Mr. Sanderson. You'll have to settle that matter for +yourself." + +"You mean you'll not stand in the way, if I want to keep them?" + +"That's what I mean. It's up to you." + +Phil, who was sitting on the porch sewing on a pair of leather chaps, +indulged in a grin. "I see this is where we go out of the sheep +business," he said. + +"The market's good. I don't know but what it would be the right thing to +sell," his father agreed. "I want to meet you halfway in settling this +trouble, Mr. Weaver." + +The matter was discussed further at some length, after which the +cattleman shook hands all round and departed. Out of the tail of his eye +he saw Keller saddling a horse at the stables. + +"Think I'll beat you out of that ride with the schoolmarm to-day, my +friend. A steady diet of rides like that is liable to intoxicate a man," +he told himself, with his grim smile. In plain sight of all, he turned +the head of his horse toward the road that led to the schoolhouse. + +Presently he met pupils galloping home, calling to each other joyously +as they rode. Others followed more sedately in buggies. Nearer the +schoolhouse he came on one walking. + +After Phyllis had looked over some papers, made up her weekly report, +and outlined on the board work for next day, she saddled her pony and +set out homeward. Not in ten years had the country been so green and +lovely as it was now. There had been many winter snows and spring rains, +so that the _alfilaria_ covered the hills with a carpet of grass. Muddy +little rivulets, pouring down arroyos on their way from the mountains, +showed that there had been recent rains. These all ran into the Del Oro, +a creek which was dry in summer but was now full to its banks. + +She followed the river into the cańon of the same name, a narrow gulch +with sheer precipitous walls. So much water was in the river that the +trail along the bank scarce gave the pony footing. Half a mile from the +point where she had entered the Del Oro the trail crept up the wall and +escaped to the mesa above. Phyllis was nearing the ascent when a sound +startled her. She swung round in her saddle, to see a wall of water +roaring down the lane with the leap of some terrible wild beast. +Somewhere in the hills there had been a waterspout. + +She called upon her pony with spur and voice, racing desperately for the +place where the trail rose. Of that wild dash for life she remembered +nothing afterward save the overmastering sense of peril. She knew that +the roan was pounding forward with the best speed in him, and presently +she knew too that no speed could save her. The roar of the advancing +water grew louder as it swept upon her. With a cry of terror she dragged +the pony to its haunches, slipped from the saddle, and attempted to +climb the rock face. + +Catching hold of outcropping ledges, mesquit, and even cactus bushes, +she went up like a mountain goat But the water swept upon her, waist +high, and dragged at her. She clung to a quartz knob her fingers had +found, but her feet were swept from her by the suction of the torrent. +Her hold relaxed, and she slid back into the river. + +Like a flash of light a rope descended over her outstretched arms, +tightened at her waist, and held her taut. She felt the pain of a +tremendous tug that seemed to tear her in two. Dimly her brain reported +that somebody was shouting. A long time afterward, as it seemed to her +then, a strong arm went round her. Inch by inch she was dragged from the +water that fought and wrestled for her. Phyllis knew that her rescuer +was working up the cliff wall with her. Then her perceptions blurred. + +"I'll never make it this way," he told himself aloud, half way up. + +In fact, he had come to an _impasse_. Even without the burden of her +weight, the sheer smooth wall rose insurmountable above him. He did the +one thing left for him to do. Leaving her unconscious body in a sort of +trough formed by the juncture of two strata, he lowered himself into the +rushing stream, searched with his foot for a grip, and swung to the left +into the niche formed by a mesquit bush growing from the rock. From +here, after stiff climbing, he reached the top. + +He found, as he had expected, his cow pony with feet braced to keep the +rope taut. Old Baldy was practising the lesson learned from scores of +roped steers. No man in the Malpais country was stronger than this one. +In another minute he had drawn up the girl and laid her on the grass. + +Soon she opened her eyes and looked into his troubled face. + +"Mr. Weaver," she breathed in faint surprise. "Where am I?" + +But her glances were already answering the question. They took in the +rope under her arms, followed it to the horn of the saddle, around which +the other end was tied, and came back to the leathery weather-beaten +face that looked down into hers. + +"You have saved my life." + +"Not me. Old Baldy did it. I never could have got you out alone. When I +roped you, he backed off same as if you had been a steer, and pulled for +all there was in him. Between us we got you up." + +"Good old Baldy!" She let it go at that for the moment, while she +thought it out. "If you hadn't been right here----" She finished her +sentence with a shudder. + +She could not guess how that thought stabbed him, for he replied +cheerfully: "I heard you call, and Baldy brought me on the jump." + +Phyllis covered her face with her hands. She was badly shaken and could +not quite control herself. "It was awful--awful." And short staccato +sobs shook her. + +Buck put his arm around her shoulders, and soothed her gently. "Don't +you care, Phyllis. It's all past now. Forget it, little girl." + +"It was like some tremendous wild beast--a thousand times stronger and +crueller than a grizzly. It leaped at me, and----Oh, if you hadn't been +here!" + +She caught at his sleeve and clung to it with both hands. + +"If a fellow sticks around long enough he is sure to come in handy," +Buck told her lightly. + +She did not answer, but presently she walked across a little unsteadily +and put her arms around the neck of the white-faced broncho. Her face +she buried in its mane. Weaver knew she was crying softly, and he wisely +left her alone while he recoiled the rope. + +Presently she recovered her composure and began to pat the white silken +nose of the pony. + +"You helped him to save my life, Baldy. Even he couldn't have done it +without you. How can I ever pay you for it?" + +Weaver had an inspiration. "He's yours from this moment. You can pay him +by taking him for your saddle horse. Baldy will never ride the round-up +again. We'll give him a Carnegie medal and retire him on a good-service +pension so far as the rough work goes." + +Without looking at him, the girl answered softly: "Thank you. I know I'm +taking from you the best cow-pony in Arizona, but I can't help it." + +"A cow-pony is a cow-pony, but a horse that saves the life of Miss +Phyllis Sanderson is a gentleman and a hero." + +"And what about the man who saves her life?" Her voice was very small +and weepy. + +"Tickled to death to have the chance. We'll forget that." + +Still she did not look at him. "Never! Never as long as I live," she +cried vehemently. + +It came to him that if he was ever going to put his fortune to the test +now was the time. He strode across and swung her round till she faced +him. + +"As long as you live, Phyllis. And you're only eighteen. Me, I'm +thirty-seven. I lack just a year of being twice as old. What about it? +Am I too old and too hard and tough for you, little girl?" + +"I--don't--understand." + +"Yes, you do. I'm asking you to marry me. Will you?" + +"Oh, Mr. Weaver!" she gasped. + +"I ought to wrap it up pretty, oughtn't I? But there's nothing pretty +about me. No woman should marry me if she can help it, not unless her +heart brings her to me in spite of herself. Is it that way with you?" + +Never before had she met a man like him, so masterful and virile. He +took short cuts as if he did not notice the "No Trespassing" sign. She +read in him a passion clamped by a will of iron, and there thrilled +through her a fierce delight in her power over this splendid type of the +male lover. She lived in a world of men, lean, wide-shouldered fellows, +who moved and had their being in conditions that made hickory withes of +them physically, hard close-mouthed citizens mentally. But even by the +frontier tests of efficiency, of gameness, of going the limit, Weaver +stood head and shoulders above his neighbors. She had lifted her gaze to +meet his, quite sure that her answer was not in doubt, but now her heart +was beating like a triphammer. She felt herself drifting from her +moorings. It was as though she were drowning forty fathoms deep in those +calm, unwinking eyes of his. + +"I don't think so," she cried desperately. + +"You've got to be sure. I don't want you else." + +"Yes--yes!" she cried eagerly. "Don't rush me." + +"Take all the time you need. You can't be any too sure to suit me." + +"I--I don't think it will be yes," she told him shyly. + +"I'm betting it will," he said confidently. "And now, little girl, it's +time we started. You'll ride your Carnegie horse and I'll walk." + +Her eyes dilated, for this brought to her mind something she had +forgotten. "My roan! What do you think has become of it?" + +He shook his head, preferring not to guess aloud. As he helped her to +the saddle his eyes fell on a stain of red running from the wrist of her +gauntlet. + +"You've hurt your hand," he cried. + +"It must have been when I caught at the cactus." + +Gently he slipped off the glove. Cruel thorns had torn the skin in a +dozen places. He drew the little spikes out one by one. Phyllis winced, +but did not cry out. After he had removed the last of them he tied her +handkerchief neatly round the wounds and drew on the gauntlet again. It +had been only a small service, nothing at all compared to the great one +he had just rendered, but somehow it had tightened his hold on her. She +wondered whether she would have to marry Buck Weaver no matter what she +really wanted to do. + +With her left hand she guided Baldy, while Buck strode beside, never +wavering from the easy, powerful stride that was the expression of his +sinuous strength. + +"Were you ever tired in your life?" she asked once, with a little sigh +of fatigue. + +He stopped in his stride, full of self-reproach. "Now, ain't that like +me! Pluggin' ahead, and never thinking about how played out you are. +We'll rest here under these cottonwoods." + +He lifted her down, for she was already very stiff and sore from her +adventure. An outdoor life had given her a supple strength and a wiry +endurance, of which her slender frame furnished no indication, but the +reaction from the strain was upon her. To Buck she looked pathetically +wan and exhausted. He put her down under a tree and arranged her saddle +for a pillow. Again the girl felt a net was being wound round her, that +she belonged to him and could not escape. Nor was she sure that she +wanted to get away from his possessive energy. In the pleasant sun glow +she fell asleep, without any intention of doing so. Two hours later she +opened her eyes. + +Looking round, she saw Weaver lying flat on his back fifty yards away. + +"I've been asleep," she called. + +He leaped to his feet and walked across the sand to her. + +"I suspected it," he said with a smile. + +"I feel like a new woman now." + +"Like one of them suffragettes?" + +"That isn't quite what I meant," she smiled. "I'm ready to start." + +Half an hour later they reached her home. It was close to supper time, +but Weaver would not stay. + +"See you next week," he said quietly, and turned his horse toward the +Twin Star ranch. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE HOLD-UP + + +From the wash where the sink of the Mimbres edges close to Noches two +riders emerged in mid-afternoon of a day that shimmered under the heat +of a blazing sun. They travelled in silence, the core of an alkali dust +cloud that moved with them and lay thick upon them. Well down over their +eyes were drawn the broad-rimmed hats. One of them wore sun goggles and +both of them had their lower faces covered by silk bandannas as if to +keep out the thick dust their ponies stirred. For the rest their +costumes were the undistinguished chaps, spurs, shirt, neckerchiefs, and +gauntlets of the range. + +With one distinction, however: these were better armed than the average +cow-puncher jaunting to town for the quarterly spree. Revolver butts +peeped from the holsters of their loosely hung cartridge belts. +Moreover, their rifles were not strapped beneath the stirrup leathers, +but were carried across the pommels of the saddles. + +The bell in the town hall announced three o'clock as they reached the +First National Bank at the corner of San Miguel and Main Streets. Here +one of the riders swung from the saddle, handed the reins and his rifle +to the other man, and jingled into the bank. His companion took the +horses round to the side entrance of the building, and waited there in +such shade as two live oaks offered. + +He had scarce drawn rein when two other riders joined him, having come +from a direction at right angles to that followed by him. One of them +rode an iron-gray, the other a roan with white stockings. Both of these +dismounted, and one of them passed through the side door into the bank. +Almost instantly he reappeared and nodded to his comrade, who joined him +with his own rifle and that of the first man that had gone in. + +There was an odd similarity in arms, manner, and dress between these and +the first arrivals. Once inside the building, each of them slipped a +black mask over his face. Then one stepped quickly to the front door and +closed and locked it, while the other simultaneously covered the teller +with a revolver. + +The cashier, busy in conversation with the first horseman about a loan +the other had said he wanted, was sitting with his back to the cage of +the teller. The first warning he had of anything unusual was the closing +of the door by a masked man. One glance was enough to tell him the bank +was about to be robbed. + +His hand moved swiftly toward the drawer in his desk which contained a +weapon, but stopped halfway to its destination. For he was looking +squarely into the rim of a six-shooter less than a foot from his +forehead. The gun was in the hands of the client with whom he had been +talking. + +"Don't do that," the man advised him brusquely. Then, more sharply: +"Reach for the roof. No monkeying." + +Benson, the cashier, was no coward, but neither was he a fool. He knew +when not to take a chance. Promptly his arms shot up. But even while he +obeyed, his eyes were carrying to his brain a classification of this man +for future identification. The bandit was a stranger to him, a +heavy-set, bandy-legged fellow of about forty-five, with a leathery face +and eyes as stony as those of a snake. + +"What do you want?" the bank officer asked quietly. + +"Your gold and notes. Is the safe open?" + +Before the cashier could reply a shot rang out. The unmasked outlaw +slewed his head, to see the president of the bank firing from the door +of his private office. The other two robbers were already pumping lead +at him. He staggered, clutched at the door jamb, and slowly sank to the +floor after the revolver had dropped from his hand. + +Benson seized the opportunity to duck behind his desk and drag open a +drawer, but before his fingers had closed on the weapon within, two +crashing blows descended with stunning force on his head. The outlaw +covering him had reversed his heavy revolver and clubbed him with the +butt. + +"That'll hold him for a while," the bandit remarked, and dragged the +unconscious man across the floor to where the president lay huddled. + +One of the masked men, a lithe, sinuous fellow with a polka-dot bandanna +round his neck, took command. + +"Keep these men covered, Irwin, while we get the loot," he ordered the +unmasked man. + +With that he and the boyish-looking fellow who had ridden into town with +him, the latter carrying three empty sacks, followed the trembling +teller to the vault. + +No sound broke the dead silence except the loud ticking of the bank +clock and an occasional groan from the cashier, who was just beginning +to return to consciousness. Twice the man left on guard called down to +those in the vault to hurry. + +There was need of haste. Somebody, attracted by the sound of firing, had +come running to the bank, peered in the big front window, and gone +flying to spread the alarm. + +Outside a shot and then another shattered the sultry stillness of the +day. The man left on guard ran to the door and looked out. An upper +window down the street was open, and from it a man with a rifle was +firing at the outlaw left in charge of the horses. + +The wrangler had taken refuge behind a bulwark of horseflesh, and was +returning the fire. + +"Hurry the boys, Brad! Hell's broke loose!" he called to his companion. + +The town was alarmed and buzzing like a hornet's nest. Soon they would +feel the sting of the swarm unless they beat an immediate retreat. One +sweep of his eyes told the bandy-legged fellow as much. He could hear +voices crying the alarm, could see men running to and fro farther down +the street. Even in the second he stood there a revolver began potting +at him. + +"Back in a moment," he cried to the wrangler, and disappeared within to +shout an urgent warning to the looters. + +Three men came up from the vault, each carrying a sack. The teller was +pushed into the street first, and the rest followed. A scattering fire +began to converge at once upon them. The roan with the white stockings +showed a red ridge across its flank where a bullet had furrowed a path. + +The teller dropped, wounded by his friends. Two of the robbers loaded +the horses, while the others answered the townsmen. In the inevitable +delay of getting started, every moment seemed an hour to the harassed +outlaws. + +But at last they were in the saddle and galloping down the street, +firing right and left as they went. At the next street crossing two men, +one fat and the other lean, came running, revolvers in hands, to +intercept them. They were too late. Before they reached the corner the +outlaws had galloped past in a cloud of white dust, still flinging +bullets at the invisible they were escaping. + +The big lean cow-puncher stopped with an oath as the riders disappeared. +"Nothing doing, Budd," he called to the fat man. "The show's moved on to +a new stand." + +Jim Budd, puffing heavily and glistening with perspiration, nodded the +answer he could not speak. Presently he got out what he wanted to say. + +"Notice that leading hawss on the nigh side, Slim?" he asked. + +"So you noticed it, too, Jim. I could swear to that roan with the four +stockings. It's the hawss Mr. Larrabie Keller mavericks around on, durn +his forsaken hide! And the man on it wore a polka-dot bandanna. So does +Keller. He'll have to go some to explain away that. I reckon the others +must be nesters from Bear Creek, too." + +"We've got 'em where the wool's short this time," Budd agreed. "They +been shootin' around right promiscuous. If anybody's dead, then Keller +has put a rope round his own neck." + +Men were already saddling and mounting for the first unorganized +pursuit. Slim and his friend joined these, and cantered down the dusty +street scarce ten minutes after the robbers. + +The suburbs of the town fell to the rear, and left them in the fall and +rise of the foothills that merged to the left in the wide, flat, +shimmering plain of the Malpais, and on the other side in the +saw-toothed range that notched the horizon from north to south. +Somewhere in that waste of cow-backed hills, in that swell of endless +land waves, the trail of the robbers vanished. + +Men rode far and wide, carrying the pursuit late into the night, but the +lost trail was not to be picked up again. So one by one, or in pairs, +under the yellow stars, they drifted back to Noches, leaving behind the +black depths of blue-canopied hills that had swallowed the fleeing +quartette. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS + + +To Phyllis, riding from school near the close of a hot Friday afternoon +along the old Fort Lincoln Trail, came the voice of Brill Healy from the +ridge above. She waved to him the broad-brimmed hat she was carrying in +her hand, and he guided his pony deftly down the edge of the steep +slope. + +"Been looking for some strays down at Three Pines," he explained. "Awful +glad I met you." + +"Where were you going now?" she asked. + +"Home, I reckon; but I'll ride with you to Seven Mile if you don't +mind." + +She looked at her watch. "It's just five-thirty. We'll be in time for +supper, and you can ride home afterward." + +"I guess you know that will suit me, Phyllis," he answered, with a +meaning look from his dark eyes. + +"Supper suits most healthy men so far as I've noticed," she said +carelessly, her glance sweeping keenly over him before it passed to the +purple shadowings that already edged the mouth of a distant cańon. + +"I'll bet it does when they can sit opposite Phyl Sanderson to eat it." + +She frowned a little, the while he took her in out of half-shut, +smoldering eyes, as one does a picture in a gallery. In truth, one might +have ridden far to find a living picture more vital and more suggestive +of the land that had cradled and reared her. + +His gaze annoyed her, without her quite knowing why. "I wish you +wouldn't look at me all the time," she told him with the boyish +directness that still occasionally lent a tang to her speech. + +"And if I can't help it?" he laughed. + +"Fiddlesticks! You don't have to say pretty things to me, Brill Healy," +she told him. + +"I don't say them because I have to." + +"Then I wish you wouldn't say them at all. There's no sense in it when +you've known a girl eighteen years." + +"Known and loved her eighteen years. It's a long time, Phyl." + +Her eyes rained light derision on him. "It would be if it were true. But +then one has to forget truth when one is sentimental, I reckon." + +"I'm not sentimental. I tell you I'm in love," he answered. + +"Yes, Brill. With yourself. I've known that a long time, but not quite +eighteen years," she mocked. + +"With you," he made answer, and something of sullenness had by this time +crept into his voice. "I've got as much right to love you as any one +else, haven't I? As much right as that durned waddy, Keller?" + +Fire flashed in her eyes. "If you want to know, I despise you when you +talk that way." + +The anger grew in him. "What way? When I say anything against the +rustler, do you mean? Think I'm blind? Think I can't see how you're +running after him, and making a fool of yourself about him?" + +"How dare you talk that way to me?" she flamed, and gave her surprised +pony a sharp stroke with the quirt. + +Five minutes later the bronchos fell again to a walk, and Healy took up +the conversation where it had dropped. + +"No use flying out like that, Phyl. I only say what any one can see. +Take a look at the facts. You meet up with him making his getaway after +he's all but caught rustling. Now, what do you do?" + +"I don't believe he was rustling at all." + +"Course you don't _believe_ it. That proves just what I was saying." + +"Jim doesn't believe it, either." + +"Yeager's opinion don't have any weight with me. I want to tell you +right now that the boys are getting mighty leary of Jim. He's getting +too thick with that Bear Creek bunch." + +"Brill Healy, I never saw anybody so bigoted and pig-headed as you are," +the girl spoke out angrily. "Any one with eyes in his head could see +that Jim is as straight as a string. He couldn't be crooked if he +tried. Long as you've known him I should think you wouldn't need to be +told that." + +"Oh, _you_ say so," he growled sullenly. + +"Everybody says so. Jim Yeager of all men," she scoffed. Then, with a +flash of angry eyes at him, "How would you like it if your friends +rounded on you? By all accounts, you're not quite a plaster saint. I've +heard stories." + +"What about?" + +"Oh, gambling and drinking. What of it? That's _your_ business. One +doesn't have to believe all the talk that is flying around." She spoke +with a kind of fine scorn, for she was a girl of large generosities. + +"We've all got enemies, I reckon," he said sulkily. + +"You're Phil's friend, and mine, too, of course. I dare say you have +your faults like other men, but I don't have to listen to people while +they try to poison my mind against you. What's more, I don't." + +She had been agile-minded enough to shift the attack and put him upon +the defensive, but now Healy brought the question back to his original +point. + +"That's all very well, Phyl, but we weren't talking about me, but about +you. When you found this Keller making his escape you buckled in and +helped him. You tied up his wound and took him to Yeager's and lied for +him to us. That's bad enough, but later you did a heap worse." + +"In saving him from being lynched by you?" + +"Before that you made a fuss about him and had to tie up his wounds. I +had a cut on _my_ cheek, but I notice you didn't tie it up!" + +"I'm surprised at you, Brill. I didn't think you were so small; and just +because I didn't let a wounded man suffer." + +"You can put it that way if you want to," he laughed unpleasantly. + +Her passion flared again. "You and your insinuations! Who made you the +judge over my actions? You talk as if you were my father. If you've got +to reform somebody, let it be yourself." + +"I'm the man that is going to be your husband," he said evenly. "That +gives me a right." + +"Never! Don't think it," she flung back. "I'd not marry you if you were +the last man on earth." + +"You'll see. I'll not let a scoundrel like Keller come between us. No, +nor Yeager, either. Nor Buck Weaver himself. I notice he was right +attentive before he went home." + +Resentment burned angrily on her cheek. "Anybody else?" she asked +quietly. + +"That's all for just now. You're a natural-born flirt, Phyllis. That's +what's the matter with you." + +"Thank you, Mr. Healy. You're the only one of my friends that has been +so honest with me," she assured him sweetly. + +"I'm the only one of them that is going to marry you. Don't think I'll +let Keller butt in. Not on your life." + +Her rage broke bounds. "I never in my life heard of anything so +insolent. Never! _You'll_ not let me do this or that. Who are you, Brill +Healy?" + +"I've told you. I'm the man that means to marry you," he persisted +doggedly. + +"You never will. I'm not thinking of marrying, but when I do I'll not +ask for your indorsement. Be sure of that." + +"I'll not stand it! He'd better look out!" + +"Who do you mean?" + +"Keller, that's who I mean. This thing is hanging over his head yet. +He's got to come through with proofs he ain't a rustler, or he's got to +pull his freight out of the Malpais country." + +"And if he won't?" + +"We'll finish that little business you interrupted," he told her, riding +his triumph roughshod over her feelings. + +"You wouldn't, Brill! Not when there is a doubt about it. Jim says he is +innocent, and I believe he is. Surely you wouldn't!" + +"You'll see." + +"If you do I'll never speak to you again! Never, as long as I live; and +I'll never rest till I have you in the penitentiary for his murder!" she +cried tensely. + +"And yet you don't care anything about him. You've just been kind to him +out of charity," he mocked. + +For some minutes they had seen Seven Mile Ranch lying below them in the +faint twilight. They rode the rest of the way in silence, each of them +too bitter for speech. When they reached the house, she swung from the +saddle and he kept his seat, for both of them considered her supper +invitation and his acceptance cancelled. + +He bowed ironically and turned to leave. + +"Just a moment, Brill," called an excited voice. "I've got a piece of +news that will make you sit up." + +The speaker was the young mule skinner known as Cuffs. He came running +out to the porch and fired his bolt. + +"The First National Bank at Noches was held up two hours ago, and the +robbers got away with their loot after shooting three or four men!" + +"Two hours ago," the girl repeated. "You got it over the phone, of +course." + +"Yep. Slim called me up just now. He got back right this minute from +following their trail. They lost the fellows in the hills. Four of 'em, +Slim says, and he thinks they're headed this way." + +"What makes him think so?" asked Healy. + +"He figures they are Bear Creek men. One of them was recognized. It was +that fellow Keller." + +"Keller!" Phyllis and Healy cried the word together. + +Cuffs nodded. "Slim says he can swear to his hawss, and he's plumb sure +about the man, too. He wants we should organize a posse and nail them as +they go into the Pass for Bear Creek. He figures we'll have time to do +it if we jump. Noches is fifty-five miles from here, and about forty +from the Pass. + +"With their bronchs loaded they can't make it in much less than five +hours. That gives us most three hours to reach the Pass and stop them. +What think, Brill? Can we make it?" + +"We'll try damned hard. I'm not going to let Mr. Rustler Keller slip +through my fingers again!" Healy cried triumphantly. + +"I don't believe it was Bear Creek men at all. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. +Keller," Phyllis cried, with a face like parchment. + +There was an unholy light of vindictive triumph in Healy's face. "We'll +show you about that, Miss Missouri. Get the boys together, Cuffs. Call +up Purdy and Jim Budd and Tom Dixon on the phone. Rustle up as many of +the boys as you can. Start 'em for the Pass just as soon as they get +here. I'm going right up there now. Probably I can't stop them, but I +may make out who they are. Notify Buck Weaver, so he can head them off +if they try to cross the Malpais. And get a move on you. Hustle the boys +right along." + +And with that he put spurs to his horse and galloped off. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS + + +Unerringly rode Healy through the tangled hills toward a saddle in the +peaks that flared vivid with crimson and mauve and topaz. A man of +moods, he knew more than one before he reached the Pass for which he was +headed. Now he rode with his eyes straight ahead, his face creased to a +hard smile that brought out its evil lines. Now he shook his clenched +fist into the air and cursed. + +Or again he laughed exultingly. This was when he remembered that his +rival was trapped beyond hope of extrication. + +While the sky tints round the peaks deepened to purple with the coming +night he climbed cańons, traversed rock ridges, and went down and up +rough slopes of shale. Always the trail grew more difficult, for he was +getting closer to the divide where Bear Creek heads. He reached the +upper regions of the pine gulches that seamed the hills with wooded +crevasses, and so came at last to Gregory's Pass. + +Here, close to the yellow stars that shed a cold wintry light, he +dismounted and hobbled his horse. After which he found a soft spot in +the mossy rocks and fell asleep. He was a light sleeper, and two hours +later he awakened. Horses were laboring up the Pass. + +He waited tensely, rifle in both hands, till the heads of the riders +showed in the moonlight. Three--four--five of them he counted. The men +he saw were those he expected, and he lowered his rifle at once. + +"Hello, Cuffs! Purdy! That you, Tom? Well, you're too late." + +"Too late," echoed little Purdy. + +"Yep. Didn't get here in time myself to see who any of them were except +the last. It was right dark, and they were most through before I reached +here." + +"But you knew one," Purdy suggested. + +Healy looked at him and nodded. "There were four of them. I crept +forward on top of that flat rock just as the last showed up. He was +ridin' a hawss with four white stockings." + +"A roan, mebbe," Tom put in quickly. + +"You've said it, Tom--a roan, and it looked to me like it was wounded. +There was blood all over the left flank." + +"O' course Keller was riding it," Purdy ventured. + +"Rung the bell at the first shot," Healy answered grimly. + +"The son of a gun!" + +"How long ago was it, Brill?" asked another. + +"Must a-been two hours, anyhow." + +"No use us following them now, then." + +"No use. They've gone to cover." + +They turned their horses and took the back trail. The cow ponies +scrambled down rocky slopes like cats, and up steep inclines with the +agility of mountain goats. The men rode in single file, and conversation +was limited to disjointed fragments jerked out now and again. After an +hour's rough going they reached the foothills, where they could ride two +abreast. As they drew nearer to the ranch country, now one and now +another turned off with a shout of farewell. + +Healy accepted Purdy's invitation, and dismounted with him at the +Fiddleback. Already the first glimmering of dawn flickered faintly from +the serrated range. The men unsaddled, watered, fed, and then walked +stiffly to the house. Within five minutes both of them lay like logs, +dead to the world, until Bess Purdy called them for breakfast, long +after the rest of the family had eaten. + +"What devilment you been leading paw into, Brill?" demanded Bess +promptly when he appeared in the doorway. "Dan says it was close to +three when you got home." + +She flung her challenge at the young man with a flash of smiling teeth. +Bess was seventeen, a romp, very pretty, and hail-fellow-well-met with +every range rider in a radius of thirty miles. + +"We been looking for a beau for you, Bess," Healy immediately explained. + +Miss Purdy tossed her head. "I can find one for myself, Brill Healy, +and I don't have to stay out till three to get him, either." + +"Come right to your door, do they?" he asked, as she helped him to the +ham and eggs. + +"Maybe they do, and maybe they don't." + +"Well, here's one come right in the middle of the night. Somehow, I jest +couldn't make out to wait till morning, Bess." + +"Oh, you," she laughed, with a demand for more of this sort of chaffing +in her hazel eyes. + +At this kind of rough give and take he was an adept. After breakfast he +stayed and helped her wash the dishes, romping with her the whole time +in the midst of gay bursts of laughter and such repartee as occurred to +them. + +He found his young hostess so entertaining that he did not get away +until the morning was half gone. By the time he reached Seven Mile the +sun was past the meridian, and the stage a lessening patch of dust in +the distance. + +Before he was well out of the saddle, Phyllis Sanderson was standing in +the doorway of the store, with a question in her eyes. + +"Well?" he forced her to say at last. + +Leisurely he turned, as if just aware of her presence. + +"Oh, it's you. Mornin', Phyl." + +"What did you find out?" + +"I met your friend." + +"What friend?" + +"Mr. Keller, the rustler and bank robber," he drawled insolently, +looking full in her face. + +"Tell me at once what you found out." + +"I found Mr. Keller riding a roan with four white stockings and a wound +on its flank." + +She caught at the jamb. "You didn't, Brill!" + +"I ce'tainly did," he jeered. + +"What--what did you do?" Her lips were white as her cheeks. + +"I haven't done, anything--yet. You see, I was alone. The other boys +hadn't arrived then." + +"And he wasn't alone?" + +"No; he had three friends with him. I couldn't make out whether any more +of them were college chums of yours." + +Without another word, she turned her back on him and went into the +store. All night she had lain sleepless and longed for and dreaded the +coming of the day. Over the wire from Noches had come at dawn fuller +details of the robbery, from her brother Phil, who was spending two or +three days in town. + +It appeared that none of the wounded men would die, though the president +had had a narrow escape. Posses had been out all night, and a fresh one +was just starting from Noches. It was generally believed, however, that +the bandits would be able to make good their escape with the loot. + +Her father was absent, making a round of his sheep camps, and would not +be back for a week. Hence her hands were very full with the store and +the ranch. + +She busied herself with the details of her work, nodded now and again to +one of the riders as they drifted in, smiled and chatted as occasion +demanded, but always with that weight upon her heart she could not shake +off. Now, and then again, came to her through the window the voices of +Public Opinion on the porch. She made out snatches of the talk, and knew +the tide was running strongly against the nester. The sound of Healy's +low, masterful voice came insistently. Once, as she looked through the +window, she saw a tilted flask at his lips. + +Suddenly she became aware, without knowing why, that something was +happening, something that stopped her heart and drew her feet swiftly to +the door. + +Conversation had ceased. All eyes were deflected to a pair of riders +coming down the Bear Creek trail with that peculiar jog that is neither +a run nor a walk. They seemed quite at ease with the world. Speech and +laughter rang languid and carefree. But as they swung from the saddles +their eyes swept the group before them with the vigilance of +searchlights in time of war. + +Brill Healy leaned forward, his right hand resting lightly on his thigh. + +"So you've come back, Mr. Keller," he said. + +"As you see." + +"But not on that roan of yours, I notice." + +"You notice correctly, seh." + +"Now I wonder why." Healy spoke with a drawl, but his eyes glittered +menacingly. + +"I expect you know why, Mr. Healy," came the quiet retort. + +"Meaning?" + +"That the roan was stolen from the pasture two nights ago. Do you happen +to know the name of the thief?" + +The cattleman laughed harshly, but behind his laughter lay rising anger. +"So that's the story you're telling, eh? Sounds most as convincing as +that yarn about the pocketknife you picked up." + +"I'm not quite next to your point. Have I got to explain to you why I do +or don't ride a certain horse, seh?" + +"It ain't necessary. We all know why. You ain't riding it because there +is a bullet wound in the roan's flank that might be some hard to +explain." + +"I don't know what you mean. I haven't seen the horse for two days. It +was stolen, as I say. Apparently you know a good deal about that roan. +I'd be right pleased to hear what you know, Mr. Healy." + +"Glad to death to wise you, Mr. Keller. That roan was in Noches +yesterday, and you were on its back." + +The nester shook his head. "No, I reckon not." + +Yeager broke in abruptly: "What have you got up your sleeve, Brill? Spit +it out." + +"Glad to oblige you, too, Jim. The First National at Noches was held up +yesterday, about half-past three or four, by some masked men. Slim and +Jim Budd were around and recognized that roan and its rider." + +"You mean----" + +"You've guessed it, Jim. I mean that your friend, the rustler, is a bank +robber, too." + +"Yesterday, you say, at four o'clock?" + +"About four, yes." + +Yeager's face cleared. "Then that lets him out. I was with him yesterday +all day." + +"Any one else with him?" + +"No. We were alone." + +"Where?" + +"Out in the hills." + +"Didn't happen to meet a soul all day maybe?" + +"No; what of it?" + +Healy barked out again his hard laugh of incredulity. "Go slow, Jim. +That ain't going to let him out. It's going to let you in." + +Yeager took a step toward him, fists clenched, and eyes flashing. "I'll +not stand for that, Brill." + +Healy waved him aside. "I've got no quarrel with you, Jim. I ain't +making any charges against you to-day. But when it comes to Mr. Keller, +that's different." His gaze shifted to the nester and carried with it +implacable hostility. "I back my play. He's not only a rustler, he's a +bank robber, too. What's more, he'll never leave here alive, except +with irons on his wrists!" + +"Have you a warrant for my arrest, Mr. Healy?" inquired Keller evenly. + +"Don't need one. Furthermore, I'd as lief take you in dead as alive. You +cayn't hide behind a girl's skirts this time," continued Healy. "You've +got to stand on your own legs and take what's coming. You're a bad +outfit. We know you for a rustler, and that's enough. But it ain't all. +Yesterday you gave us surplusage when you shot up three men in Noches. +Right now I serve notice that you've reached the limit." + +"_You_ serve notice, do you?" + +"You're right, I do." + +"But not legal notice, Mr. Healy." + +At sight of his enemy standing there so easy and undisturbed, facing +death so steadily and so alertly, Brill's passion seethed up and +overflowed. Fury filmed his eyes. He saw red. With a jerk, his revolver +was out and smoking. A stop watch could scarce have registered the time +before Keller's weapon was answering. + +But that tenth part of a second made all the difference. For the first +heavy bullet from Healy's .44 had crashed into the shoulder of his foe. +The shock of it unsteadied the nester's aim. When the smoke cleared it +showed the Bear Creek man sinking to the ground, and the right arm of +the other hanging limply at his side. + +At the first sound of exploding revolvers, Phyllis had grown rigid, but +the fusillade had not died away before she was flying along the hall to +the porch. + +Brill Healy's voice, cold and cruel, came to her in even tones: + +"I reckon I've done this job right, boys. If he hadn't winged me, and if +Jim hadn't butted in, I'd a-done it more thorough, though." + +Yeager was bending over the man lying on the ground. He looked up now +and spoke bitterly: "You've murdered an innocent man. Ain't that +thorough enough for you?" + +Then, catching sight of Cuffs on the porch of the house, Yeager issued +orders sharply: "Get on my horse and ride like hell for Doc Brown! Bob, +you and Luke help me carry him into the house. What room, Phyl?" + +"My room, Jim. Oh, Cuffs, hurry, please!" With that she was gone into +the house to make ready the bed for the wounded man. + +Healy picked up the revolver that had fallen from his hand, and slid it +back into the holster. + +"That's right, boys. Take him in and let Phyl patch up the coyote if she +can. I reckon this time, she'll have her hands plumb full. Beats all how +a decent girl can take up with a ruffian and a scoundrel." + +"That will be enough from you, seh," Yeager told him sharply. + +Purdy nodded. "Jim's right, Brill. This man has got what was coming to +him. It ain't proper to jump him right now, when he's down and out." + +"Awful tender-hearted you boys are. Come to that, I've got a pill in me, +too, but of course that don't matter," Healy retorted. + +"If he dies you'll have another in you, seh," Yeager told him quietly, +meeting his eyes steadily for an instant. "Steady, Bob. You take his +feet. That's right." + +They carried the nester to the bedroom of Phyllis and laid him down +gently on the bed. His eyes opened and he looked about him as if to ask +where he was. He seemed to understand what had happened, for presently +he smiled faintly at his friend and said: + +"Beat me to it, Jim. I'm bust up proper this time." + +"He shot without giving warning." + +Keller moved his head weakly in dissent. "No, I knew just when he was +going to draw, but I had to wait for him." + +The big, husky plainsmen undressed him with the tenderness of women, and +did their best with the help of Aunt Becky, to take care of his wounds +temporarily. After these had been dressed Phyllis and the old colored +woman took charge of the nursing and dismissed all the men but Yeager. + +It would be many hours before Doctor Brown arrived, and it took no +critical eyes to see that this man was stricken low. All the supple +strength and gay virility were out of him. Three of the bullets had +torn through him. In her heavy heart the girl believed he was going to +die. While Yeager was out of the room she knelt down by the bedside, +unashamed, and asked for his life as she had never prayed for anything +before. + +By this time his fever was high and he was wandering in his head. The +wild look of delirium was in his eyes, and faint weak snatches of +irrelevant speech on his lips. His moans stabbed her heart. There was +nothing she could do for him but watch and wait and pray. But what +little was to be done in the way of keeping his hot head cool with wet +towels her own hands did jealously. Jim and Aunt Becky waited on her +while she waited on the sick man. + +About midnight the doctor rode up. All day and most of the night before +he had been in the saddle. Cuffs had found him across the divide, nearly +forty miles away, working over a boy who had been bitten by a +rattlesnake. But he brought into the sick room with him that manner of +cheerful confidence which radiates hope. You could never have guessed +that he was very tired, nor, after the first few minutes, did he know it +himself. He lost himself in his case, flinging himself into the breach +to turn the tide of what had been a losing battle. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES + + +Jim Yeager had not watched through the long day and night with Phyllis +without discovering how deeply her feelings were engaged. His +unobtrusive readiness and his constant hopefulness had been to her a +tower of strength during the quiet, dreadful hours before the doctor +came. + +Once, during the night, she had followed him into the dark hall when he +went out to get some fresh cold water, and had broken down completely. + +"Is he--is he going to die?" she besought of him, bursting into tears +for the first time. + +Jim patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Now, don't you, Phyl. You got to +buck up and help pull him through. Course he's shot up a heap, but then +a man like him can stand a lot of lead in his body. There aren't any of +these wounds in a vital place. Chief trouble is he's lost so much blood. +That's where his clean outdoor life comes in to help build him up. I'll +bet Doc Brown pulls him through." + +"Are you just _saying_ that, Jim, or do you really think so?" + +"I'm saying it, and I think it. There's a whole lot in gaming a thing +out. What we've got to do is to _think_ he's going to make it. Once we +give up, it will be all off." + +"You are such a help, Jim," she sighed, dabbing at her eyes with her +little handkerchief. "And you're the _best_ man." + +"That's right. I'll be the best man when we pull off that big wedding of +yours and his." + +Her heart went out to him with a rush. "You're the only friend both of +us have," she cried impulsively. + +With the coming of Doctor Brown, Jim resigned his post of comforter in +chief, but he stayed at Seven Mile until the crisis was past and the +patient on the mend. Next day Slim, Budd, and Phil Sanderson rode in +from Noches. They were caked with the dust of their fifty-mile ride, but +after they had washed and eaten, Yeager had a long talk with them. He +learned, among other things, that Healy had telephoned Sheriff Gill that +Keller was lying wounded at Seven Mile, and that the sheriff was +expecting to follow them in a few hours. + +"Coming to arrest Brill for assault with intent to kill, I reckon," +Yeager suggested dryly. + +Phil turned on him petulantly. "What's the use of you trying to get away +with that kind of talk, Jim? This fellow Keller was recognized as one of +the robbers." + +"That ain't what Slim has just been telling, Phil. He says he recognized +the hawss, and thinks it was Keller in the saddle. Now, I don't think +anything about it. I _know_ Keller was with me in the hills when this +hold-up took place." + +"You're his friend, Jim," the boy told him significantly. + +"You bet I am. But I ain't a bank robber, if that's what you mean, +Phil." + +His clear eyes chiselled into those of the boy and dominated him. + +"I didn't say you were," Phil returned sulkily. "But I reckon we all +recall that you lied for him once. Whyfor would it be a miracle if you +did again?" + +Jim might have explained, but did not, that it was not for Keller he had +lied. He contented himself with saying that the roan with the white +stockings had been stolen from the pasture before the holdup. He +happened to know, because he was spending the night in Keller's shack +with him at the time. + +Slim cut in, with drawling sarcasm: "You've got a plumb perfect alibi +figured out for him, Jim. I reckon you've forgot that Brill saw him +riding through the Pass with the rest of his outfit." + +"Brill says so. I say he didn't," returned Yeager calmly. + +Toward evening Gill arrived and formally put Keller under arrest. +Practically, it amounted only to the precaution of leaving a deputy at +the ranch as a watch, for one glance had told the sheriff that the +wounded man would not be in condition to travel for some time. + +It was the following day that Yeager saddled and said good-by to +Phyllis. + +"I'm going to Noches to see if I cayn't find out something. It don't +look reasonable to me that those fellows could disappear, bag and +baggage, into a hole and draw it in after them." + +"What about Brill's story that he saw them at the Pass?" the girl asked. + +"He may have seen four men, but he ce'tainly didn't see Larrabie Keller. +My notion is, Brill lied out of whole cloth, but of course I'm not in a +position to prove it. Point is, why did he lie at all?" + +Phyllis blushed. "I think I know, Jim." + +Yeager smiled. "Oh, I know that. But that ain't, to my way of thinking, +motive enough. I mean that a white man doesn't try to hang another just +because he--well, because he cut him out of his girl." + +"I never was his girl," Phyllis protested. + +"I know that, but Brill couldn't get it through his thick head till a +stone wall fell on him and give him a hint." + +"What other motive are you thinking of, Jim?" + +He hesitated. "I've just been kinder milling things around. Do you +happen to know right when you met Brill the day of the robbery?" + +"Yes. I looked at my watch to see if we would be in time for supper. It +was five-thirty." + +"And the robbery was at three. The fellows didn't get out of town till +close to three-thirty, I reckon," he mused aloud. + +"What has that got to do with it? You don't mean that----" She stopped +with parted lips and eyes dilating. + +He shook his head. "I've got no right to mean that, Phyllie. Even if I +did have a kind of notion that way I'd have to give it up. Brill's got a +steel-bound, copper-riveted alibi. He couldn't have been at Noches at +three o'clock and with you two hours later, fifty-five miles from there. +No hawss alive could do it." + +"But, Jim--why, it's absurd, anyway. We've known Brill always. He +couldn't be that kind of a man. How could he?" + +"I didn't say he could," returned her friend noncommittally. "But when +it comes to knowing him, what do you know about him--or about me, say? I +might be a low-lived coyote without you knowing it. I might be all kinds +of a devil. A good girl like you wouldn't know it if I set out to keep +it still." + +"I could tell by looking at you," she answered promptly. + +"Yes, you could," he derided good-naturedly. "How would you know it? Men +don't squeal on each other." + +"Do you mean that Brill isn't--what we've always thought him?" + +"I'm not talking about Brill, but about Jim Yeager," he evaded. "He'd +hate to have you know everything that's mean and off color he ever did." + +"I believe you must have robbed the bank yourself, Jim," she laughed. +"Are you a rustler, too?" + +He echoed her laugh as he swung to the saddle. "I'm not giving myself +away any more to-day." + +Brill Healy rode up, his arm in a sling. Deep rings of dissipation or of +sleeplessness were under his eyes. He looked first at Yeager and then at +the young woman, with an ugly sneer. "How's your dear patient, Phyl?" + +"He is better, Brill," she answered quietly, with her eyes full on him. +"That is, we hope he is better. The doctor isn't quite sure yet." + +"Some of us don't hope it as much as the rest of us, I reckon." + +She said nothing, but he read in her look a contempt that stung like the +lash of a whip. + +"He'll be worse again before I'm through with him," the man cried, with +a furious oath. + +Phyllis measured him with her disdainful eye, and dismissed him. She +stepped forward and shook hands with Yeager. + +"Take care of yourself, Jim, and don't spare any expense that is +necessary," she said. + +For a moment she watched her friend canter off, then turned on her heel, +and passed into the house, utterly regardless of Healy. + +Yeager reached Noches late, for he had unsaddled and let his horse rest +at Willow Springs during the heat of the broiling day. + +After he had washed and had eaten, Yeager drifted to the Log Cabin +Saloon and gambling house. Here was gathered the varied and turbulent +life of the border country. Dark-skinned Mexicans rubbed shoulders with +range riders baked almost as brown by the relentless sun. Pima Indians +and Chinamen and negroes crowded round the faro and dice tables. Games +of monte and chuckaluck had their devotees, as had also roulette and +poker. + +It was a picturesque scene of strong, untamed, self-reliant +frontiersmen. Some of them were outlaws and criminals, and some were as +simple and tender-hearted as children. But all had become accustomed to +a life where it is possible at any moment to be confronted with sudden +death. + +A man playing the wheel dropped a friendly nod at Jim. He waited till +the wheel had stopped and saw the man behind it rake in his chips before +he spoke. Then, as he scattered more chips here and there over the +board, he welcomed Yeager with a whoop. + +"Hi there, Malpais! What's doing in the hills these yere pleasant days?" + +"A little o' nothin', Sam. The way they're telling it you been having +all the fun down here." + +Sam Wilcox gathered the chips pushed toward him by the croupier and +cashed in. He was a heavy-set, bronzed man, with a bleached, +straw-colored mustache. Taking his friend by the arm, he led him to one +end of the bar that happened for the moment to be deserted. + +"Have something, Jim. Oh, I forgot. You're ridin' the water wagon and +don't irrigate. More'n I can say for some of you Malpais lads. Some of +them was in here right woozy the other day." + +"The boys will act the fool when they hit town. Who was it?" + +"Slim and Budd and young Sanderson." + +"Was Phil Sanderson drunk?" Yeager asked, hardly surprised, but +certainly troubled. + +"I ain't sure he was, but he was makin' the fur fly at the wheel, there. +Must have dropped two hundred dollars." + +Jim's brows knit in a puzzled frown. He was wondering how the boy had +come by so much money at a time. + +"Who was he trailin' with?" + +"With a lad called Spiker, that fair-haired guy sitting in at the poker +table. He's another youngster that has been dropping money right +plentiful." + +"Who is he?" + +"He's what they call a showfer. He runs one o' these automobiles; takes +parties out in it." + +"Been here long? Looks kind o' like a tinhorn gambler." + +"Not long. He's thick with some of you Malpais gents. I've seen him with +Healy a few." + +"Oh, with Healy." + +Jim regarded the sportive youth more attentively, and presently dropped +into a vacant seat beside him, buying twenty dollars worth of chips. + +Spiker was losing steadily. He did not play either a careful or a +brilliant game. Jim, playing very conservatively, and just about holding +his own, listened to the angry bursts and the boastings of the man next +him, and drew his own conclusions as to his character. After a couple of +hours of play the Malpais man cashed in and went back to the hotel where +he was putting up. + +He slept till late, ate breakfast leisurely, and after an hour of +looking over the paper and gossiping with the hotel clerk about the +holdup he called casually upon the deputy sheriff. Only one thing of +importance he gleaned from him. This was that the roan with the white +stockings had been picked up seven miles from Noches the morning after +the holdup. + +This put a crimp in Healy's story of having seen Keller in the Pass on +the animal. Furthermore, it opened a new field for surmise. _Brill Healy +said that he had seen the horse with a wound in its flank._ Now, how did +he know it was wounded, since Slim had not mentioned this when he had +telephoned? It followed that if he had not seen the broncho--and that he +had seen it was a sheer physical impossibility--he could know of the +wound only because he was already in close touch with what had happened +at Noches. + +But how could he be aware of what was happening fifty miles away? That +was the sticker Jim could not get around. His alibi was just as good as +that of the horse. Both of them rested on the assumption that neither +could cover the ground between two given points in a given time. There +was one other possible explanation--that Healy had been in telephonic +communication with Noches before he met Phyllis. But this seemed to Jim +very unlikely, indeed. By his own story he had been cutting trail all +afternoon and had seen nobody until he met Phyllis. + +Yeager called on the cashier, Benson, later in the day, and had a talk +with him and with the president, Johnson. Both of these were now back at +their posts, though the latter was not attempting much work as yet. Jim +talked also with many others. Some of them had theories, but none of +them had any new facts to advance. + +The young cattleman put up at the same hotel as Spiker and struck up a +sort of intimacy with him. They sometimes loafed together during the +day, and at night they were always to be seen side by side at the poker +table. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI + + +Keller found convalescence under the superintendence of Miss Sanderson +one of the great pleasures of his life. Her school was out for the +summer and she was now at home all day. He had never before found time +to be lazy, and what dreaming he had done had been in the stress of +action. Now he might lie the livelong day and not too obviously watch +her brave, frank youth as she moved before him or sat reading. For the +first time in his life he was in love! + +But as the nester grew better he perceived that she was withdrawing +herself from him. He puzzled over the reason, not knowing that her +brother, Phil, was troubling her with flings and accusations thrown out +bitterly because his boyish concern for her good name could find no +gentler way to express itself. + +"They're saying you're in love with the fellow--and him headed straight +for the pen," he charged. + +"Who says it, Phil?" she asked quietly, but with flaming cheeks. + +He smote his fist on the table. "It don't matter who says it. You keep +away from him. Let Aunt Becky nurse him. You haven't any call to wait on +him, anyhow. If he's got to be nursed by one of the family, I'll do it." + +He tried to keep his word, and as a result of it the wounded man had to +endure his sulky presence occasionally. Keller was man of the world +enough to be amused at his attitude, and yet was interested enough in +the lad's opinion of him to keep always an even mood of cheerful +friendliness. There was a quantity of winsome camaraderie about him that +won its way with Phil in spite of himself. Moreover, all the boy in him +responded to the nester's gameness, the praises of which he heard on all +sides. + +"I see you have quite made up your mind I'm a skunk," the wounded man +told him amiably. + +"You robbed the bank at Noches and shot up three men that hadn't hurt +you any," the boy retorted defiantly. + +"Not unless Jim Yeager is a liar." + +"Oh, Jim! No use going into that. He's your friend. I don't know why, +but he is." + +"And you're Brill Healy's. That's why you won't tell that he was +carrying your sister's knife the day I saw you and him first." + +The boy flashed toward the bed startled eyes. Keller was looking at him +very steadily. + +"Who says he had Phyl's knife?" + +"Hadn't he?" + +"What difference does that make, anyhow? I hear you're telling that you +found the knife beside the dead cow. You ain't got any proof, have you?" +challenged young Sanderson angrily. + +"No proof," admitted the other. + +"Well, then." Phil chewed on it for a moment before he broke out again: +"I reckon you cayn't talk away the facts, Mr. Keller. We caught you in +the act--caught you good. By your own story, you're the man we came on. +What's the use of you trying to lay it on me and Brill?" + +"Am I trying to lay it on you?" + +"Looks like. On Brill, anyhow. There's nothing doing. Folks in this neck +of the woods is for him and against you. Might as well _sabe_ that right +now," the lad blurted. + +"I _sabe_ that some of them are," the other laughed, but not with quite +his usual debonair gayety. For he did not at all like the way things +looked. + +But though Phil had undertaken to do all the nursing that needed to be +done by the family, he was too much of an outdoors dweller to confine +himself for long to the four walls of a room. Besides, he was often +called away by the work of looking after the cattle of the ranch. +Moreover, both he and his father were away a good deal arranging for the +disposal of their sheep. At these times her patient hoped, and hoped in +vain, that Phyllis would take her brother's place. + +Came a day when Keller could stand it no longer. In Becky's absence, he +made shift to dress himself, bit by bit, lying on the bed in complete +exhaustion after the effort of getting into each garment. He could +scarce finish what he had undertaken, but at last he was clothed and +ready for the journey. Leaning on a walking stick, he dragged himself +into the passage and out to the porch, where Phyllis was sitting alone. + +She gave a startled cry at sight of him standing there, haggard and +white, his clothes hanging on his gaunt frame much as if he had been a +skeleton. + +"What are you doing?" she cried, running to his aid. + +After she had got him into her chair, he smiled up at her and panted +weakly. He was leaning back in almost complete exhaustion. + +"You wouldn't come to see me, so--I came--to see you," he gasped out, at +last. + +"But--you shouldn't have! You might have done yourself a great injury. +It's--it's criminal of you." + +"I wanted to see you," he explained simply. + +"Why didn't you send for me?" + +"There wasn't anybody to send. Besides, you wouldn't have stayed. You +never do, now." + +She looked at him, then looked away. "You don't need me now--and I have +my work to do." + +"But I do need you, Phyllie." + +It was the first time he had ever spoken the diminutive to her. He let +out the word lingeringly, as if it were a caress. The girl felt the +color flow beneath her dusky tan. She changed the subject abruptly. + +"None of the boys are here. How am I to get you back to your room?" + +"I'll roll a trail back there presently, ma'am." + +She looked helplessly round the landscape, in hope of seeing some rider +coming to the store. But nobody was in sight. + +"You had no business to come. It might have killed you. I thought you +had better sense," she reproached. + +"I wanted to see you," he parroted again. + +Like most young women, she knew how to ignore a good deal. "You'll have +to lean on me. Do you think you can try it now?" + +"If I go, will you stay with me and talk?" he bargained. + +"I have my work to do," she frowned. + +"Then I'll stay here, thank you kindly." He settled back into the chair +and let her have his gay smile. Nevertheless, she saw that his lips were +colorless. + +"Yes, I'll stay," she conceded, moved by her anxiety. + +"Every day?" + +"We'll see." + +"All right," he laughed weakly. "If you don't come, I'll take a _pasear_ +and go look for you." She helped him to his feet and they stood for a +moment facing each other. + +"You must put your hand on my shoulder and lean hard on me," she told +him. + +But when she saw the utter weakness of him, her arm slipped round his +waist and steadied him. + +"Now then. Not too fast," she ordered gently. + +They went back very slowly, his weight leaning on her more at every +step. When they reached his room, Keller sank down on the bed, utterly +exhausted. Phyllis ran for a cordial and put it to his lips. It was some +time before he could even speak. + +"Thank you. I ain't right husky yet," he admitted. + +"You mustn't ever do such a thing again," she charged him. + +"Not ever?" + +"Not till the doctor says you're strong enough to move." + +"I won't--if you'll come and see me every day," he answered +irrepressibly. + +So every afternoon she brought a book or her sewing, and sat by him, +letting Phil storm about it as much as he liked. These were happy hours. +Neither spoke of love, but the air was electrically full of it. They +laughed together a good deal at remarks not intrinsically humorous, and +again there were conversational gaps so highly charged that she would +rush at them as a reckless hunter takes a fence. + +As he got better, he would be propped up in bed, and Aunt Becky would +bring in tea for them both. If there had been any corner of his heart +unwon it would have surrendered then. For to a bachelor the acme of +bliss is to sit opposite a girl of whom he is very fond, and to see her +buttering his bread and pouring his tea with that air of domesticity +that visualizes the intimacy of which he has dreamed. Keller had played +a lone hand all his turbulent life, and this was like a glimpse of +Heaven let down to earth for his especial benefit. + +It was on such an occasion that Jim Yeager dropped in on them upon his +return from Noches. He let his eyes travel humorously over the room +before he spoke. + +"Why for don't I ever have the luck to be shot up?" he drawled. + +"Oh, you Jim!" Keller called a greeting from the bed. Phyllis came +forward, and, with a heightened color, shook hands with him. + +"You'll sit down with us and have some tea, Jim," she told him. + +"Me? I'm no society Willie. Don't know the game at all, Phyl. Besides, +I'm carrying half of Arizona on my clothes. It's some dusty down in the +Malpais." + +Nevertheless he sat down, and, over the biscuits and jam, told the +meagre story of what he had found out. + +The finding of the stocking-footed roan near Noches so soon after the +robbery disposed of Healy's lie, though it did not prove that Keller had +not been riding it at the time of the holdup. As for Healy, Yeager +confessed he saw no way of implicating him. His alibi was just as good +as that of any of them. + +But there was one person his story did involve, and that was Spiker, the +tinhorn, tenderfoot sport of Noches. During the absence of this young +man at the gaming table, Jim and his friend, Sam Weaver, had got into +his room with a skeleton key and searched it thoroughly. They had found, +in a suit case, a black mask, a pair of torn and shiny chaps, a gray +shirt, a white, dusty sombrero, much the worse for wear, and over three +hundred dollars in bills. + +"What does he pretend his business is?" Keller asked, when Jim had +finished. + +"Allows he's a showfer. Drives folks around in a gasoline wagon. That's +the theory, but I notice he turned down a mining man who wanted to get +him to run him into the hills on Monday. Said he hadn't time. The +showfer biz is a bluff, looks like." + +The nester made no answer. His eyes, narrowed to slits, were gazing out +of the window absently. Presently he came from deep thought to ask +Yeager to hand him the map he would find in his inside coat pocket. This +he spread out on the bed in front of him. When at last he looked up he +was smiling. + +"I reckon it's no bluff, Jim. He's a chauffeur, all right, but he only +drives out select outfits." + +"Meaning?" + +The map lying in front of Keller was one of Noches County. The nester +located, with his index finger, the town of that name, and traced the +road from it to Seven Mile. Then his finger went back to Noches, and +followed the old military road to Fort Lincoln, a route which almost +paralleled the one to the ranch. + +The eyes of Phyllis were already shining with excitement. She divined +what was coming. + +"Is this road still travelled, Jim?" + +"It goes out to the old fort. Nobody has lived there for most thirty +years. I reckon the road ain't travelled much." + +"Strikes through Del Oro Cańon, doesn't it, right after it leaves +Noches?" + +"Yep." + +"I reckon, Jim, your friend, Spiker, drove a party out that way the +afternoon of the holdup," the nester drawled smilingly. "By the way, is +your friend in the lockup?" + +"He sure is. The deputy sheriff arrested him same night we went through +his room." + +"Good place for him. Well, it looks like we got Mr. Healy tagged at +last. I don't mean that we've got the proof, but we can prove he might +have been on the job." + +"I don't see it, Larry. I reckon my head's right thick." + +"I see it," spoke up Phyllis quickly. + +Keller smiled at her. "You tell him." + +"Don't you see, Jim? The motor car must have been waiting for them +somewhere after they had robbed the bank," she explained. + +"At the end of Del Oro Cańon, likely," suggested the nester. + +She nodded eagerly. "Yes, they would get into the cańon before the +pursuit was in sight. That is why they were not seen by Slim and the +rest of the posse." + +Yeager looked at her, and as he looked the certainty of it grew on him. +His mind began to piece out the movements of the outlaws from the time +they left Noches. "That's right, Phyl. His car is what he calls a +hummer. It can go like blazes--forty miles an hour, he told me. And the +old fort road is a dandy, too." + +"They would leave the automobile at Willow Creek, and cut across to the +Pass," she hazarded. + +"All but Brill. Being bridlewise, he rode right for Seven Mile to make +dead sure of his alibi, whilst the others made their getaway with the +loot. When he happened to meet you on the way, he would be plumb +tickled, for that cinched things proper for him. You would be a witness +nobody could get away from." + +"And what about their hawsses? Did they bring the bronchs in the car, +too?" drawled Keller, an amused flicker in his eyes. + +The others, who had been swimming into their deductions so confidently, +were brought up abruptly. Phyllis glanced at Jim and looked foolish. + +"The bronchs couldn't tag along behind at a forty per clip. That's +right," admitted Yeager blankly. + +"I hadn't thought about that. And they had to have their horses with +them to get from Willow Creek to the Pass. That spoils everything," the +girl agreed. + +Then, seeing her lover's white teeth flashing laughter at her, she knew +he had found a way round the difficulty. "How would this do, +partners--just for a guess: The car was waiting for them at the end of +the Del Oro Cańon. They dumped their loot into it, then unsaddled and +threw all the saddles in, too. They gave the bronchs a good scare, and +started them into the hills, knowing they would find their way back home +all right in a couple of days. At Willow Creek they found hawsses +waiting for them, and Mr. Spiker hit the back trail for Noches, with his +car, and slid into town while everybody was busy about the robbery." + +"Sure. That would be the way of it," his friend nodded. "All we got to +do now is to get Spiker to squeal." + +"If he happens to be a quitter." + +"He will--under pressure. He's that kind." + +A knock came on the door, and Tom Benwell, the store clerk, answered +her summons to come in. + +"It's Budd, Miss Phyl. He came to see about getting-that stuff you was +going to order for a dress for his little girl," the storekeeper +explained. + +Phyllis rose and followed the man back to the store. When she had gone, +Jim stepped to the door and shut it. Returning, he sat down beside the +bed. + +"Larry, I didn't tell all I know. That hat in Spiker's room had the +initials P.S. written on the band. What's more, I knew the hat by a big +coffee stain splashed on the crown. It happens I made that stain myself +on the round-up onct when we were wrastling and I knocked the coffeepot +over." + +Keller looked at his friend gravely. "It was Phil Sanderson's hat?" + +Yeager nodded assent. "He must have loaned his old hat to Spiker for the +holdup." + +"You didn't turn the hat over to the sheriff?" + +"Not so as you could notice it. I shoved it in my jeans and burnt it +over my camp fire next day." + +"This mixes things up a heap. If Phil is in this thing--and it sure +looks that way--it ties our hands. I'd like to have a talk with Spiker +before we do anything." + +"What's the matter with having a talk with Phil? Why not shove this +thing right home to him?" + +The nester shook his head. "Let's wait a while. We don't want to drive +Healy away yet. If the kid's in it he would go right to Healy with the +whole story." + +Yeager swore softly. "It's all Brill's fault. He's been leading Phil +into devilment for two years now." + +"Yes." + +"And all the time been playing himself for the leader of us fellows that +are against the rustlers and that Bear Creek outfit," continued Jim +bitterly. "Why, we been talking of electing him sheriff. Durn his +forsaken hide, he's been riding round asking the boys to vote for him on +a promise to clean out the miscreants." + +"You can oppose him, of course. But we have no absolute proof against +him yet. We must have proof that nobody can doubt." + +"I reckon. And'll likely have to wait till we're gray." + +"I don't think so. My guess is that he's right near the end of his rope. +We're going to make a clean-up soon as I get solid on my feet." + +"And Phil? What if we catch him in the gather, and find him wearing the +bad-man brand?" + +Keller's eyes met those of his friend. "There never was a rodeo where +some cattle didn't slip through unnoticed, Jim." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +SURRENDER + + +The weeks slipped away and brought with them healing to the wounded man +at Seven Mile. He moved from the bed where at first he had spent his +days to a lounge in the living room, and there, from the bay window, he +could look out at the varied life of the cattle country. Men came and +went in the dust of the drag drive, their approach heralded by the bawl +of thirsty cattle. Others cantered up and bought tobacco and canned +goods. The stage arrived twice a week with its sack of mail, and always +when it did Public Opinion gathered upon the porch of the store, as of +yore. Phil Sanderson he saw often, Yeager sometimes, and once or twice +he caught a glimpse of Healy's saturnine face. + +A scarcity of beef and a sharp rise in prices brought the round-up +earlier than usual. Every spare man was called upon to help comb the +hills for the wild steers that ran the wooded water-sheds, as untamed as +the deer and the lynx. Even the storekeeper, Benwell, was pressed into +the service. 'Rastus and the nester were the only men about the place, +the deputy sheriff having been recalled to Noches on the collapse of +Healy's story. + +The removal to a distance of the rest of her admirers did not have the +effect of throwing Keller alone with Phyllis more often. The young +mistress of the ranch invited Bess Purdy to visit her, and now he never +saw her except in the presence of her other guest. + +Bess took him in at once, evidencing her approval of him by entering +upon a spirited war of repartee with him. She had not been in the house +twenty-four hours before she had unbosomed herself of a derisive +confidence. + +"I don't believe you're a bank robber, at all! I don't believe you are +even a rustler! You're a false alarm!" + +Both Keller and Miss Sanderson smiled at the daring of the girl's +challenge. But the former defended himself with apparent heat. + +"What makes you think so? Why should you undermine my reputation with +such an assertion? You can't talk that way about me without proving it, +Miss Purdy." + +"Well, I don't. You don't _look_ it." + +"I can't help that. You ask Mr. Healy. He'll tell you I am." + +"You'll need a better witness than Brill before I'll believe it." + +"And I thought you were going to like me," he lamented. + +"I like a lot of people who aren't ruffians, but of course I can't +admire you so much as if you were a really truly bad man." + +"But if I promise to be one?" + +"Oh, anybody can _promise_," she flung back, eyes bubbling with +laughter. + +"Wait till I get on my feet again." + +A youth galloped up to the house in a cloud of alkali dust. + +"There's Cuffs," announced Phyllis, smiling at Bess. + +That young woman blushed a little, supposed, aloud, she must go out to +see him, and withdrew in seeming reluctance. + +"He wants Bess to go with him to the Frying Pan dance. He sent a note +over from the round-up to ask her. She hasn't had a chance yet to tell +him that she would," explained her friend. + +"How will he take her?" asked the nester, his eyes quickening. + +"In the surrey, I suppose. Why?" + +"The surrey will hold four." + +She made no pretense of not understanding. Her look met his in a +betrayal of the pleasure his invitation gave her. Yet she shook her +head. + +"No, thank you." + +"But why--if I may ask?" + +"Ah! But you mayn't," she smiled. + +He considered that. "You like to dance." + +"Most girls do." + +"Then it is because of me," he soliloquized aloud. + +"Please," she begged lightly. + +"My reputation, I suppose." + +She began to roll up the embroidery upon which she was busy. But he got +to the door before her. + +"No, you don't." + +"You are not going to make me tell you why I can't go with you, are +you?" + +"That, to start with. Then I'm going to make you tell me some other +things." + +"But if I don't want to tell?" Her eyes were wide open with surprise, +for he had never before taken the masterful line with her. Deep down, +she liked it; but she had no intention of letting him know so. + +"There are times not to tell, and there are times to tell. This will be +one of the last kind, Phyllis." + +She tried mockery. "When you throw a big chest like that I suppose you +always get what you want." + +"You act right funny, girl. I never see you alone any more. We haven't +had a good talk for more than a week. Now, why?" + +She thought of telling him she had been too busy; then, moved by an +impulse of impatience, met his gaze fully, and told him part of the +truth. + +"I should think you would understand that a girl has to be careful of +what she does!" + +"You mean about us being friends?" + +"Oh, we can be friends, but----If you can't see it, then I can't tell +you," she finished. + +"I can see it, I reckon. You saved my life, and I expect some human cat +got his claws out and said it was because you were fond of me. + +"Then you saved it again by your nursing. No two ways about that. Doc +Brown says you and Jim did. I was so sick folks knew it had to be. But +now I'm getting well, you have to show them you're not interested in me. +Isn't that about it?" + +"Yes." + +"But you don't have to show me, too, do you?" + +"Am I not--courteous?" + +"I ain't worrying any about your courtesy. But, look here, Phyllie. Have +you forgotten what happened in the kitchen that night you helped me to +escape?" + +She flashed him one look of indignant reproach. "I should think you +would be the last person in the world to remind me of it." + +"I've got a right to mention it because I've asked you a question since +that ain't been answered. That week's been up ten days." + +"I'm not going to answer it now." + +And with that she slipped past him and from the room. + +He ran a hand through his curls and voiced his perplexity. "Now, if a +woman ain't the strangest ever. Just as a fellow is ready to tell her +things, she gets mad and hikes." + +Nevertheless he smiled, not uncheerfully. What experience he had had +with young women told him the signs were not hopeless for his success. +He was not sure of her, not by a good deal. He had captured her +imagination. But to win a girl's fancy is not the same as to storm her +heart. He often caught himself wondering just where he stood with her. +For himself, he knew he was fathoms deep in love. + +She was in his thoughts when he fell asleep. + +He awoke in the darkness, and sat upright in the bed, a feeling of +calamity oppressing him. Something pungent tickled his nostrils. + +A faint crackling sounded in the air. + +Swiftly he slipped on such clothes as he needed and stepped into the +passage. A heavy smoke was pouring up the back stairway. He knocked +insistently upon the door where Phyllis and her guest were sleeping. + +"What is it?" a voice demanded. + +"Get up and dress, Miss Sanderson! The house is on fire! You have plenty +of time, I think. If there's any hurry I'll let you know after I've +looked." + +He went down the front stairs and found that the fire was in the back +part of the house. Already volumes of smoke with spitting tongues of +flame were reaching toward the foot of the stairs. He ran up to the room +where the girls were dressing, and called to them: + +"Are you ready?" + +"Yes." + +The door opened, to show him two very pale girls, each carrying a bundle +of clothes. They were only partially dressed, but wrappers covered their +disarray. Keller went to the clothes closet, emptied it with a sweep and +lift of his arm, and returned, to lead the way downstairs. + +"Take a breath before you start. The smoke's bad, but there is no real +danger," he told them as he plunged forward. + +At the foot of the stairs he stopped to see that they were following him +closely, then flung open the outer door and let in a rush of cool, sweet +air. In another moment they were outside, safe and unhurt. + +Phyllis drew a long breath before she said: + +"The house is gone!" + +"If there is anything you want particularly from the living room I can +get in through the window," Keller told her. + +She shuddered. Flame jets were already shooting out here and there. "I +wouldn't let you go back for the world. We didn't get out too soon." + +"No," he agreed. + +A sniveling voice behind them broke in: "Where is Mr. Phil? I yain't +seen him yet." + +Larrabie swung round on 'Rastus like a flash. "What do you mean? He's at +the round-up, of course." + +The little fellow began to bawl: "No, sah. He done come home late last +night. Aftah you-all had gone to bed. He's in his room, tha's where he +is." + +Phyllis caught at the arm of Keller to steady her. She was colorless to +the lips. + +"Oh, God! Oh, God!" she cried faintly. + +The nester pushed her gently into the arms of her guest. + +"Take care of her, Bess. I'll get Phil." + +He ran round the house to the back. The bedroom occupied by young +Sanderson was on the first floor. The ranger caught up a stick, smashed +the window, and tore out the frame by main strength. Presently he was +inside, groping through the dense smoke toward the bed. + +Flames leaped at him from out of it like darting serpents. His hair, his +face, his clothes, caught fire before he had discovered that the bed had +been used, but was now empty. The door into the hall was open, and +through it were pouring billows of smoke. Evidently Phil must have tried +to escape that way and been overpowered. + +The young man caught up a towel and wrapped it around his throat and +mouth, then plunged forward into the caldron of the passage. The smoke +choked him and the intense heat peeled his face and made the endurance +of it an agony. + +He stumbled over something soft, and discovered with his hands that it +was a body. Smothered and choked, half frantic with the heat, he +struggled back into the bedroom with his burden. + +Somehow he reached the window, stumbled through it, and dragged the +inanimate body after him. Then, with Phil in his arms, he reeled forward +into the fresh air beyond. + +With a cry Phyllis broke from Bess and ran toward him. But before she +had reached the rescuer and the rescued, Keller went down in total +collapse. He, too, was unconscious when she knelt beside him and began +with her hands to crush out the smoldering fire in his clothes. + +He opened his eyes and smiled faintly when he saw who it was. + +"How's the boy?" he asked. + +"He is breathing," cried Bess joyfully, from where she was bending over +Sanderson. + +"You go attend to him. I'm all right now." + +"Are you truly?" + +"Truly." + +He proved it by sitting up, and presently by rising and joining with her +the group gathered around Phil. For Aunt Becky had now emerged from her +cabin and taken charge of affairs. + +Phil was supported to the bunk house and put to bed by Keller and +'Rastus. It was already plain that he would be none the worse for his +adventure after a night's good sleep. Aunt Becky applied to his case the +homely remedies she had used before, while the others stood around the +bed and helped as best they could. Strangely enough, he was not burned +at all. In this he had escaped better than Keller, whose hair and +eyebrows and skin were all the worse for singeing. + +The nester noticed that Phyllis, in handing a bowl of water to Bess, +used awkwardly her left hand. The right one, he observed, was held with +the palm concealed against the folds of her skirt. + +Presently Phyllis, her anxiety as to Phil relieved, left Aunt Becky and +Bess to care for him, while she went out to make arrangements for +disposing of the party until morning. The nester followed her into the +night and walked beside her toward the house of the foreman. The +darkness was lit up luridly by the shooting flames of the burning house. + +"The store isn't going to catch fire. That's one good thing," Keller +observed, by way of comfort. + +"Yes." There was a catch in her voice, for all the little treasures of +her girlhood, gathered from time to time, were going up in smoke. + +"You're insured, I reckon?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, it might be worse." + +She thought of the narrow escape Phil had had, and nodded. + +"You'll have to sleep in the bunk house. Take any of the beds you like. +Bess and I will put up at the foreman's," she explained. + +As is the custom among bachelors who attend to their own domestic +affairs, they found the bed just as the foreman had stepped out of it +two weeks before. While Keller held the lantern, Phyllis made it up, and +again he saw that she was using her right hand very carefully and +flinching when it touched the blankets. Putting the lantern down on the +table, he walked up to her. + +"I'll make the bed." + +She stepped back, with a little laugh. "All right." + +He made it, then turned to her at once. + +"I want to see your hand." + +She gave him the left one, even as he had done on the occasion of their +second meeting. He took it, and kept it. + +"Now the other." + +"What do you want with it?" + +"Never mind." He reached down and drew it from the folds of her skirt, +where it had again fallen. Very gently he turned it so that the palm was +up. Ugly blisters and a red seam showed where she had burned herself. He +looked at her without speaking. + +"It's nothing," she told him, a little hysterically. + +For an instant her mind flashed back to the time when Buck Weaver had +drawn the cactus spines out of that same hand. + +His voice was rough with feeling. "I can see it isn't. And you got it +for me--putting out the fire in my clothes. I reckon I cayn't thank you, +you poor little tortured hand." He lifted the fingers to his lips and +kissed them. + +"Don't," she cried brokenly. + +"Has it got to be this way always, Phyllie--you giving and me taking?" +His hand tightened on hers ever so slightly, and a spasm of pain shot +across her face. He looked at the burned fingers again tenderly. "Does +it hurt pretty bad, girl?" + +"I wish it was ten times as bad!" she broke out, with a sob. "You saved +Phil's life--at the risk of your own. I wish I could tell you how I +feel, what I think of you, how splendid you are." In default of which +ability, she began to cry softly. + +He wasted no more time. He did not ask her whether he might. With a +gesture, his arm went around her and drew her to him. + +"Let me tell what I think of you, instead, girl o' mine. I cayn't tell +it, either, for that matter, but I reckon I can make out to show you, +honey." + +"I didn't mean--that way," she protested, between laughter and tears. + +"Well, that's the way I mean." + +Neither spoke again for a minute. Than: "Do you really--love me?" she +murmured. + +"What do you think?" He laughed with the sheer unconquerable boyish +delight in her. + +"I think you're pretending right well," she smiled. + +"If I am making believe." + +"If you are." Her arms slipped round his neck with a swift impulse of +love. "But you're not. Tell me you're not, Larry." + +He told her, in the wordless way lovers have at command, the way that is +more convincing than speech. + +So Phyllis, from the troubled waters of doubt, came at last to safe +harborage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AT THE RODEO + + +There was an exodus from Seven Mile the second day after the fire. +Keller went up Bear Creek, Phyllis accepted the invitation of Bess to +stay with her at the Fiddleback, and her brother returned to the +round-up. + +The riders were now combing the Lost Creek watershed. Phil knew the camp +would be either at Peaceful Valley or higher up, near the headwaters of +the creek. Before he reached the valley the steady bawl of cattle told +him that the outfit was camped there. He topped the ridge and looked +down upon Cattleland at its busiest. Just below him was the remuda, the +ponies grazing slowly toward the hills under the care of three +half-grown boys. + +Beyond were the herded cattle. Here all was activity. Within the fence +of riders surrounding the wild creatures the cutting out and the +branding were being pushed rapidly forward. Occasionally some leggy +steer, tail up and feet pounding, would make a dash to break the cordon. +Instantly one of the riders would wheel in chase, head off the animal, +and drive it back. + +Brill Healy, boss of the rodeo by election, was in charge. He was an +expert handler of cattle, one of the best in the country. It was his +nature to seek the limelight, though it must be said for him that he +rose to his responsibilities. The owners knew that when he was running +the round-up few cattle would slip through the net he wound around them. + +"Hello, Brill!" shouted the young man as he rode up. + +"Hello, son! Too bad about the fire. I'll want to hear about it later. +Looking for a job?" he flung hurriedly over his shoulder. For he had not +even a minute to spare. + +"I reckon." + +Phil did not wait to be assigned work, but joined the calf branders. + +Not until night had fallen and they were gathered round in a semicircle +leaning against their saddles did Phil find time to tell the story of +the fire. There was some haphazard comment when he had finished, after +which Slim spoke. + +"So the nester hauled you out. Ce'tainly looks like he's plumb game. You +said he was afire when he got you into the open, didn't you, Phil?" + +The boy nodded. "And all in. He fainted right away." + +"With him still burning away like the doctor's fire there," murmured +Healy ironically, with a slight gesture toward the cook. + +Phil looked at him angrily. "I didn't say that. Some one put the fire +out." + +"Oh, some one! Might a man ask who?" + +Phil had not had any intention of telling, but he found himself letting +Healy have it straight. + +"Phyllis." + +"About what I thought!" Healy said it significantly, and with a malice +that overrode his discretion. + +"What do you mean?" demanded the boy fiercely. + +"I ain't said anything, have I?" Healy came back smoothly. + +Yeager's quiet voice broke the silence that followed, while Phil was +trying to voice the resentment in him. + +"You mean what we're all thinking, Brill, I reckon--that she is the sort +to forget herself when somebody needs her help. Ain't that it?" + +The eyes of the two met steadily in a clash of wills. Healy's gave way +for the time, not because he was mastered, but because he did not wish +to alienate the rough, but fair-minded, men sitting around. + +"You're mighty good at explaining me to the boys, Jim. I expect that is +what I mean," he answered sullenly. + +"Sure," put in Purdy, with amiable intent. + +"But when it comes to Mr. Keller I can explain myself tol'able well. I +don't need any help there, Jim, not even if he is yore best friend." + +"If you've got anything to say against him, I'll ask you to say it when +I'm not around," broke in Phil. "You'll recollect, please, that he's +_my_ friend, too." + +"That so? Since, when, Phil?" the rodeo boss retorted sarcastically. + +"Since he went into the fire after me and saved my life. Think I'm a +coyote to round on him? I tell you he's a white man clear through. In my +opinion, he's neither a rustler nor a bank robber." He was flushed and +excited, but his gaze met that of his former friend and challenged him +defiantly. + +Healy's eyes narrowed. He gazed at the boy darkly, as if he meant to +read him through and through. For years he had dominated Phil, had +shaped him to his ends, had led him into wild, lawless courses after +him. Now the anchors were dragging. He was losing control of him. He +resolved to turn the screws on him, but not at this time and place. + +"I've always been considered a full-grown man, Phil. What I think I aim +to say out loud when the notion hits me. That being so, I go on record +as having an opinion about Keller. You think he's on the square, and you +give him a whitewashed certificate as a bony-fidy Sunday-school scholar. + +"Different here. I think him a coyote and a crook, and so I say it right +out in meeting. Any objections?" The gaze of the boss shifted from +Sanderson to Yeager, and fastened. + +"None in the world. You think what you like, Brill, and we'll stick to +our opinions," Yeager replied cheerfully. + +"And when I get good and ready I'll act on mine," Healy replied with an +evil grin. + +"If you find it right convenient. I expect Keller ain't exactly a wooden +cigar Indian. Maybe he'll have a say-so in what's doing," suggested +Yeager. + +"About as much as he had last time," sneered the round-up boss. With +which he rose, stretched himself, and gave orders. "Time to turn in, +boys. We're combing Old Baldy to-morrow, remember." + +"And Old Baldy's sure a holy terror," admitted Slim. + +"Come three more days and we'd ought to be through. I'm not going to +grieve any when we are. This high life don't suit me too durned well," +put in Benwell. + +"Yet when you come here first you was a right sick man, Tom. Now, you're +some healthy. Don't that prove the outside of a hawss is good for the +inside of a man, like the docs say?" grinned Purdy. + +"Tom's notion of real living is sassiety with a capital S," explained +Cuffs. "You watch him cut ice at the Frying Pan dance next week. He'll +be the real-thing lady-killer. All you lads going, I reckon. How about +you, Jim?" + +Yeager said he expected to be there. + +"With yore friend the rustler?" asked Healy insolently over his +shoulder. + +"I haven't got any friend that's a rustler." + +"I'm speaking of Mr. Larrabie Keller." There was a slurring inflection +on the prefix. + +"He'll be there, I shouldn't wonder." + +"I'd wonder a heap," retorted Healy. "You'll see he won't show his face +there." + +"That's where you're wrong, Brill. He told me he was going," spoke up +Phil triumphantly. + +"We'll see. He's wise to the fact that this country knows him for an +out-and-out crook. He'll stay in his hole." + +"You going, Slim?" asked Purdy amiably, to turn the conversation into a +more pacific channel. + +"Sure," answered that young giant, getting lazily to his feet. "Well, +sons, the boss is right. Time to pound our ears." + +They rolled themselves in their blankets, the starry sky roofing their +bedroom. Within five minutes every man of them was asleep except the +night herders--and one other. + +Healy lay a little apart from the rest, partially screened by some boxes +of provisions and a couple of sacks of flour. His jaw was clamped tight. +He looked into the deep velvet sky without seeing. For a long time he +did not move. Then, noiselessly, he sat up, glanced around carefully to +make sure he was not observed, rose, and stole into the darkness, +carrying with him his saddle and bridle. + +One of his ponies was hobbled in the mesquite. Swiftly he saddled. +Leading the animal very carefully so as to avoid rustling the brush, he +zigzagged from the camp until he had reached a safe distance. Here he +swung himself on and rode into the blur of night, at first cautiously, +but later with swift-pounding hoofs. He went toward the northwest in a +bee line without hesitation or doubt. Only when the lie of the ground +forced a detour did he vary his direction. + +So for hours he travelled until he reached a cańon in which squatted a +little log cabin. He let his voice out in the howl of a coyote before he +dismounted. No answer came, save the echo from the cliff opposite. Again +that mournful call sounded, and this time from the cabin found an +answer. + +A man came sleepily to the door and peered out. "Hello! That you, +Brill?" + +Healy swung off, trailed his rein, and followed the man into the cabin. +"Don't light up, Tom. No need." + +For ten minutes they talked in low tones. Healy emerged from the cabin, +remounted, and rode back to the cow camp. He reached it just as the +first, faint streaks of gray tinged the eastern sky. + +Silently he unsaddled, hobbled his pony, and carried his saddle back to +the place where he had been lying. Once more he lay down, glanced +cautiously round to see all was quiet, and fell asleep as soon as his +head touched the saddle. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +MISSING + + +From all over the Malpais country, from the water-sheds where Bear and +Elk and Cow creeks head, from the halfway house far out in the desert +where the stage changes horses, men and women dribbled to the Frying Pan +for the big dance after the round-up. Great were the preparations. Many +cakes and pies and piles of sandwiches had been made ready. Also there +was a wash boiler full of coffee and a galvanized tub brimming with +lemonade. For the Frying Pan was doing itself proud. + +Phil and his sister drove over together. The boy had asked Bess to go +with him, but Cuffs had beaten him to it. The distance was only +twenty-five miles, a neighborly stroll in that country of wide spaces +and desert stretches filled with absentees. + +When Phyllis came into the big room where the dancing was in progress, +her dark eye swept the room without finding him for whom she looked. +There were many there she knew, not more than two or three whom she had +never met, but among them all she looked at none who was a magnet for +her eyes. Keller had not yet arrived. + +Before she had taken her seat she had three engagements to dance. Jim +Yeager had waylaid her; so, too, had Slim and Curly. She waltzed first +with Phil, and after he had done his duty he left her to the besiegings +of half a score of riders for various ranches who came and went and came +again. She joked with them, joined the merry banter that went on, +laughed at them when they grew sentimental, always with a sprightly +devotion to the matter in hand. + +Nevertheless, though they did not know it, her mind was full of him who +had not yet appeared. Why was he late? Could he have missed the way by +any chance? And later--as the hours passed without bringing him--could +anything have happened to him? More than once her troubled gaze fell +upon Brill Healy with a brooding question in it. The man had received +only the day before his party's nomination for sheriff, and he was doing +the gracious to all the women and children. + +He had many of the qualities that make for popularity, even though he +was often overbearing, revengeful, and sullen. When he chose he could be +hail fellow well met in a way Malpais found flattering to its vanity. +Now he was apparently having the time of his life. Wherever he moved an +eddy of laughter and gayety went with him. The eyes of men as well as +women admiringly followed his dark, lithe, picturesque figure. + +Phyllis had declined to dance with him, giving as an excuse a full +programme, and for an instant his face had blazed with the suppressed +rage in him. He had bowed and swaggered away with a malicious sneer. Her +judgment told her it was folly to connect this man with the absence of +her lover, but that look of malevolent triumph had none the less shaken +her heart. What had he meant? It seemed less a threat for the future +than a gloating over some evil already done. + +When she could endure them no longer she carried her fears to Jim +Yeager. They were dancing, but she made an excuse of fatigue to drop +out. + +"First time I ever knew you to play out at a dance, Phyl," he rallied +her. + +"It isn't that. I want to say something to you," she whispered. + +He had a guess what it was, for his own mind was not quite easy. + +"Do you think anything could have happened, Jim?" she besought pitifully +when for a moment they were alone in a corner. + +"What _could_ have happened, Phyllie? Do you reckon he fell off his +hawss, and him a full-size man?" he scoffed. + +"Yes, but--you don't know how Brill looked at me. I'm afraid." + +"Oh, Brill!" His voice held an edge of scorn, but none the less it +concealed a real fear. He was making as much concession to it as to her +when he added lightly: "Tell you what I'll do, Phyl. I'll saddle up and +take a look back over the Bear Creek trail. Likely I'll meet him, and +we'll come in together." + +Her eyes met his, and he needed no other thanks. "You'll lose the +dance," was her only comment. + +Jim followed the road until it branched off to join the Bear Creek +trail. Here he deflected toward the mountains, taking the zigzag path +that ran like a winding thread among the rocks as it mounted. Now for +the first time there came to him the faint rhythmic sound of a galloping +horse's hoofs. He did not stop, and as he picked his way among the rocks +he heard for some time no more of it. + +"Mr. Hurry-up-like-hell kept the road, I reckon," Jim ruminated aloud, +and even as he spoke he caught again the echo of an iron shoe striking a +rock. + +He stopped and listened. Some one was climbing the trail behind him. + +"Mebbe he's a friend, and then mebbe he isn't. We'll let him have the +whole road to himself, eh, Keno?" + +Yeager guided his pony to the left, and took up a position behind some +huge bowlders from whence he could see without being seen. The pursuer +toiled into sight, a slim, wiry youth on a buckskin. He came forward out +of the shadows into the fretted moonlight. + +Yeager gave a glad whoop of recognition. "Hi-yi, Phil!" + +"You're there, are you? Did I scare you off the trail, Jim?" + +"That's whatever, boy. What are you doing here?" + +"Sis sent me. She got worried again, and we figured I'd better join +you." + +"I reckon there's nothing serious the matter. Still, it ain't like Larry +to say he would come and then not show up." + +"Brill is back there bragging about it." Phil nodded his head toward the +lights of the Frying Pan glimmering far below. "Says he knew the waddy +wouldn't show his head. You don't reckon, Jim, he's turned a trick on +Keller, do you?" + +"That's what we have got to find out, Phil." + +"Looks funny he'd be so durned sure when we all know how game Keller +is," the boy reflected aloud. + +"I don't expect you're armed, Phil?" Jim put the statement as a +question. + +"Nope. Are you?" + +"No, I ain't. Didn't think of it when I started. Oh, well, we'll make +out. Like enough there will be no need of guns." + +A gray light was sifting into the sky, and still they rode, winding up +toward the peaks of the divide. Jim, leading the way, drew rein and +pointed to a cactus bush beside the trail. Among its spines lay a gray +felt hat. From it his eye wandered to the very evident signs of a +struggle that had taken place. Moss and cactus had been trampled down by +boot heels. To the cholla hung here and there scraps of cloth. A blood +splash stared at them from an outcropping slope of rock. + +Jim swung from the saddle and rescued the hat from the spines. Inside +the sweat band were the initials L.K. Silently he handed the hat to +Phil. + +"It's his hat," the boy cried. + +"It's his hat," Jim agreed. "They must have laid for him here. He put up +a good scrap. Notice how that cholla is cut to ribbons. Point is, what +did they do to him?" + +They searched the ground thoroughly, and discovered no body hidden in +the brush. + +"They've taken him away. Likely he's alive," Yeager decided aloud at +last. + +"Brill couldn't have been in this. He was at the Frying Pan before I +was." + +"I reckon he ordered it done. If that's correct they will be holding +Larry till Brill gets there to give further orders." + +Phil entered an objection. "That doesn't look to me like Brill's way. +He's not scared of any man that lives. When he squares accounts with +Keller he'll be on the job himself." + +"That's so, too," admitted Yeager. "Still, I figure this is Healy's +work. Maybe he gave out there was to be no killing. He was at the ranch +himself, big as coffee, so as to be sure of his alibi." + +"What does he care about an alibi? When he gets ready to go gunnin' +after Keller he won't care if the whole Malpais sees him. There's +something in this I don't _sabe_." + +"There sure is. We've got to run the thing down _muy pronto_. No use +both of us going ahead without arms, Phil. My notion is this: You burn a +shuck back to the Frying Pan and round up some of our friends on the +q.t. Don't let Brill get a notion of what's in the air. Better make +straight for Gregory's Pass. I'm going to follow this trail we've cut +and see what's doing. Once I find out I'll double back to the Pass and +meet you. Bring along an extra gun for me." + +"I don't reckon I will, Jim. What's the matter with me going on instead +of you? I can follow this trail good as you can. I announce right here +that I'm not going back. I've got first call on this job. Keller went +into the fire after me. I'm going to follow this trail to hell if I have +to." + +Yeager tried persuasion, argument, appeal. The lad was as fixed as +Gibraltar. + +"I'm not going to go buttin' in where I'm not wanted any more than you +would, Jim. I'll play this hand out with a cool head, but I'm going to +play it my ownself." + +"All right. It's your say-so. I'll admit you've got a claim. But you +want to remember one thing--if anything happens to you I cayn't square +it with Phyl. Go slow, boy!" + +Without more words they parted, Jim to ride swiftly back for help, and +young Sanderson to push on up the trail with his eyes glued to it. Ever +since he could swing himself to a saddle he had been a vaquero in the +cow country. + +He was therefore an expert at reading the signs left by travellers. What +would have been invisible to a tenderfoot offered evidence to him as +plain as the print on a primer. Mile after mile he covered with a minute +scrutiny that never wavered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY + + +Keller rode blithely down the piney trail while the sun flung its +brilliant good-bye over the crotch of the mountains behind which it was +slipping. The western sky was a Turner sublimated to the _nth_ degree, a +thing magnificent and indescribable. The young man rode with his crisp +curls bared to the light, grateful breeze that came like healing from +the great peaks. From the joyous, unquenchable youth in him bubbled +snatches of song and friendly smiles scattered broadcast over a world +that pleased him mightily. + +He was going to see his girl, going down to the Frying Pan to take her +in his arms and whirl her into the land of romance to the rhythm of the +waltz. He wanted to shout it out to the chipmunks and the quails. Ever +and again he broke out with a line or two of a melody he had heard once +from a phonograph. No matter if he did not get the words exactly. He was +sure of the sentiment. So the hills flung back his lusty: + + "I love a lassie, + A bonnie Hieland lassie, + She's as pure as the lily of the dell." + +Disaster fell upon him like a bolt out of a June sky. His pony +stumbled, went down heavily with its weight on his leg. From the +darkness men surged upon him. Rough hands dragged at him. The butt of a +weapon crashed down on his hat and stunned him. + +He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he was +struggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down. He +knew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously with +both hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steel +flashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag pain +that blotted out the world. + +As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters a +far-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him. + +"He's coming to, looks like. I reckon you ain't bust his head, after +all, Brad." + +Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze. Slowly these took +form. Features stood out. The masks became faces. They no longer floated +detached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings. + +"It ain't our fault if you're stove up some, pardner. You're too durned +anxious to whip yore weight in wildcats," one of the men grinned. + +"Right you are, Tom. He shore hits like a kicking mule," chimed in a +third, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone. + +A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "No +hard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave a +final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner. + +"I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nester +quietly. + +"We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfit +doesn't run any information bureau," answered the heavy-set, sullen +fellow who had been called Brad. + +There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one of +them, if not two. The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one was +Brad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit. + +They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voiced +consultation. Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south, +while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across the +horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding +among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Through +the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parks +beyond. + +This region was the heart of the watershed where Little Goose Creek +heads. The peaks rose gaunt above them. Occasionally they glimpsed wide +vistas of tangled, wooded cańons and hills innumerable as sea billows. +Into this maze they plunged ever deeper and deeper. Daylight came, and +found them still travelling. The prisoner did not need to be told that +this inaccessible country was the lurking place of the rustlers who had +preyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence to +connect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rode +in and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands while +honest folks kept their beds. + +The sun was well up to its meridian before they came through a thick +clump of quaking aspens to the mouth of a gulch opening from the end of +a little mountain park. On one of the slopes of the gulch a cabin +squatted, half hidden by the great boulders and the matting of pine +boughs in front. Here Brad swung stiffly from the saddle. + +"We'll 'light hyer," he announced. + +"Time, too," returned Keller easily. "If anybody asks you, tell them I +usually eat breakfast some before ten o'clock." + +"You'll do yore eating from now on when I give the word," his guard +answered surlily. + +He was a big, dark man with a grouch, one who took his duties sourly. +Not by any stretch of imagination could he be considered a brilliant +conversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, but +for the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surly +monosyllables. + +There was a good deal of the cave man about him. The heavy, slouching +shoulders, the glare of savagery, the long, hairy arms, all had their +primordial suggestion. Given a club and a stone ax, he might have been +set back thousands of years with no injustice to his mentality. + +The man soon had a fire blazing in the stove, and from it came a +breakfast of bacon, black coffee, and biscuits. He freed the hands of +the nester and sat opposite him at the table, a revolver by the side of +his plate for use in an emergency. + +Keller smiled. "This is one of those fashionable dinners where they have +extra hardware beside the plates," he suggested. + +"Get gay, and I'll blow the top of yore head off!" the cow-puncher swore +with gusto. + +"Thanks. Under the circumstances, I reckon I'll not get gay. I'm in no +hurry to put you in the pen, seh. Plenty of time. I'm going to need the +top of my head to testify against you." + +Irwin swore violently. + +"For two cents I'd pump you full of holes right now," he glared. + +Keller laughed, meeting him eye to eye pleasantly. + +"Those aren't the orders, friend. I'm to be held here till the boss +shows up or gives the signal." + +The big jaw of his captor fell from astonishment. "Who told you that?" + +The prisoner helped himself to more bacon and laughed again. He had made +a guess, but he knew now that he had hit the bull's-eye with his shot in +the dark. + +"Some things don't need telling. I don't have to be told, for instance, +that if things get too hot for Brill Healy he will slide out and leave +you to settle the bill with the law." + +Irwin's eyes glared angrily at his smiling ones. The unabashed +impudence, the unfluttered aplomb, but above all the uncanny prescience +of this youth disturbed him because he could not understand them. +Moreover, it happened that his suspicious mind had lingered on the +chance of a betrayal at the hands of his chief. For which very reason he +broke into angry denial. + +"That's a lie! Brill ain't that sort. He'd stand pat to a finish." Then, +tardily, came the instinct for caution. "And there's nothing to tell, +anyways," he finished sulkily. + +"Sure. What's a little rustling and a little bank robbing among +friends?" Keller wanted to know cheerfully. + +For just an instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffian +opposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. He +caught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger. + +His prisoner, leaning back in the chair, held him with quiet, unwavering +eyes. "Steady! Steady!" he drawled. + +"That will be about enough from you," Irwin let out through set teeth. +"You padlock that mouth of yours, mister." + +Keller took his advice temporarily, but it was not in him to long +repress the spirit of adventure that bubbled in him. The temptation to +bait this bear drew him irresistibly. He could not let him alone, the +more that he sensed the danger to himself of the prods he sent home +through the thick skin. + +Lying carelessly on the bed with his head on his arm, or perhaps sitting +astride a chair with his hands crossed on the back support, he would +smile with childlike innocence and sent his barbs in gayly. And Irwin, +murder in his dull brain, would glare at him like a maniac. + +"Now would be a good time to blow off the top of my cocoanut," the +nester suggested more than once to the infuriated cave man. "I'm +allowing, you know, to send you to Yuma as soon as I get out of this. +Nothing like grabbing your opportunity by the forelock." + +"And when are you expecting to get out of here?" his guard demanded +huskily. + +Keller waved his hand with airy persiflage. "No exact information +obtainable, my friend. Likely to-day. Maybe not till to-morrow. The one +dead-sure point is that I'll make my getaway at the right time." + +"There's one more dead-sure point--that I'm going to blow holes in you +at the right time," retorted the other. + +"Like to bet on which of us is a true prophet?" + +Brad relapsed into black, sulky silence. + +The hours followed each other, and still nobody came to relieve the +guard. Keller could not understand the reason for this, any more than +he could fathom an adequate one for his abduction. There was of course +something behind it--something more potent than mere malice. If the +intention had been merely to kill him, the thing could have been done +without all this trouble. But though he searched his brain for an +explanation, he could not find one that satisfied. + +The answer came to him later in the day. In the middle of the afternoon +a horse pounded up the draw to the cabin. Irwin went to the door, his +eye still on his prisoner, except for a swift glance at the newcomer. + +"How's yore five-thousand-dollar beauty, Brad?" inquired a voice that +the nester recognized. + +"Finer than silk, boss." + +The rider swung from the saddle, trailed his rein, and came with +jingling spurs into the cabin. + +"Good evening, Mr. Keller," he said with derisive respect. + +The nester, lying sideways on the bed with his head on his hand, nodded +a greeting. + +"I didn't know you and Mr. Irwin had doubled up and were bunkies," +continued the jubilant voice. "When did you-all patch up the +partnership?" + +"About eight o'clock last night, Mr. Healy," returned the prisoner, +eying him coolly. "And of course I knew it would be a surprise to you +when you learned it." + +"Expecting to stay long with him?" + +"He seems right hospitable, but I don't reckon I'll outstay my welcome." + +Healy laughed, with mockery and not amusement. "Brad's such a pressing +host there's no telling when he'll let you go." + +He was as malevolent as ever, but it was plain to be seen that he was +riding high on a wave of triumph. Affairs were plainly going to his +liking. + +"The way I heard it you were expected down at the Frying Pan last night. +Changed yore mind about going, I reckon," he went on insolently. + +"I reckon." + +"Had business that detained you, maybe." + +"You're a good guesser." + +"Folks were right anxious down there, according to the say-so that +reached me." + +Keller's cool eye measured him in silence, at which his enemy laughed +contemptuously and turned on his heel. + +Healy drew his confederate to one side of the room and held a whispered +talk with him. Apparently he did not greatly care whether his foe caught +the drift of it or not, for occasionally his voice lifted enough so that +scraps of sentences reached the man lounging on the bed. + +"--close to two hundred head--by the Mimbres Pass--the boys are +ce'tainly pushing the drive--out of danger by midnight--wait for the +signal before you turn him loose----" + +"So-long, Mr. Keller. I cayn't spare the time to stay longer with you," +their owner jeered. + +"Just a moment, Mr. Healy. I want to know why you are keeping me here." + +The man grinned. "Am I keeping you here, seh? Looks to me like it was +Brad that's a-keeping you. Make a break for a getaway, and I'll not do a +thing to you. Course I cayn't promise what Brad won't do. He's such a +plumb anxious host." + +"You're his brains. What you tell him to do he does. I hold you +responsible for this!" + +"You don't say!" + +"And right now I'll add, for all the devilment that has been going on in +these parts for years. You've about reached the end of your rope, +though." + +"I'll bet dollars to doughnuts you reach the end of one inside of +forty-eight hours, Mr. Rustler," flashed back Healy. + +And with an evil, significant grin he was gone. They heard the sound of +retreating hoofs die in the distance. + +But his visit had told the prisoner two things. A hurried wholesale +drive of rustled cattle was being made across the line into Sonora, and +it was being done in such a way as to fasten the suspicion of it upon +the nester who had not appeared at the dance and had not been seen since +that time. The irony of the thing was superb in its audacity. Healy and +his friends would get the profit from the stolen cattle, and they would +visit the punishment for the crime upon him. Evidence would be cooked +up of course, and the retribution would be so swift that his friends +would not be able to save him. This time his enemy would take no +chances. He would be wiped out like a troublesome insect. The thing was +diabolic in the simplicity of its cleverness. + +Keller watched his jailer now like a hawk. He was ready to take the +first chance that offered, no matter how slight a one it seemed. But the +man was vigilant and wary. He never let his hand wander a foot from the +handle of the weapon he carried. + +Silently Irwin cooked a second meal. They sat down to it opposite each +other, Keller facing the open window. While his jailer plied the knife, +his revolver again lay on the oilcloth within reach. + +"While I'm your guest and eating at your expense, I want to be properly +grateful," the nester told his vis-ą-vis. "Some folks might kick because +the me-an'-you wasn't more varied, but I ain't that kind. You're doing +your best, and nobody could do more." + +"The which?" asked Irwin puzzled. + +"The me-an'-you. It's French for just plain grub. For breakfast we get +bacon and coffee and biscuits. For supper there's a variety. This time +it is biscuits and coffee and bacon. To-morrow I reckon----" + +Keller stopped halfway in his sentence, but took up his drawling comment +again instantly. Only an added sparkle in his eyes betrayed the change +that had suddenly wiped out his indolence and left him tense and alert. +For while he had been speaking a head had slowly raised itself above the +window casement and two eyes had looked in and met his. They belonged to +Phil Sanderson. + +Never had the brain of the prisoner been more alert. While his garrulous +tongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held up +empty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by the +flicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man at +table with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that moment +addressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. To +the other it was pregnant with meaning. + +"No, seh. Some might complain because you ain't better provided with +grub and fixings, but what I say is _to make out the best we can with +what we've got_," the slow, drawling voice continued. "Some folks cayn't +get along unless things are up to the Delmonico standard. That's plumb +foolishness. Reminds me of a friend of mine that happened on a grizzly +onct while he was cutting trail. + +"Not expecting to meet Mr. Bear, he didn't have any gun along. Mr. Bear +was surely on the wah-path that day. He made a bee line for my friend to +get better acquainted. Nothing like presence of mind. That cow-puncher +got his rope coiled in three shakes of a maverick's tail, his pinto +bucking for fair to make his getaway. The rope drapped over Mr. Bear's +head just as the puncher and the hawss separated company. + +"Things were doing right sudden then. My friend grabbed the end of that +rope and twisted it round and round a young live oak. Then he remembered +an appointment and lit out, Mr. Bear after him on the jump. _Muy pronto_ +that grizzly came up awful sudden. The more he jerked the nearer he was +to being choked. You better believe Mr. Puncher was hitting that trail +right willing in the meanwhile." + +"You talk too much with yore mouth," growled Irwin. + +"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races. I was just aiming +to show you that _if my friend hadn't happened to have a rope along he +would have been in a bad fix_. But, you notice, he used his brains, _and +a rope did just as well as a gun_." + +The eyes just above the window casing disappeared. Brad attended to the +business in hand, which was that of getting away with bacon and biscuits +while he kept an eye on the man opposite. His prisoner also did justice +to his supper, to his flow of conversation, and to the window behind the +unconscious jailer. + +In that open window were presently framed again the head and shoulders +of young Sanderson. Irwin pushed back his chair to get some more coffee, +and the picture in the frame shot instantly down. The guard, his coffee +cup, and his revolver went to the stove and returned. Phil reappeared +at the window, his rope coiled for action. It slid gracefully forward, +dropped over the head of Brad, and was instantly jerked tight. + +Keller vaulted across the table, and flung himself upon the struggling +man. Brad's arms were entangled in the rope, but one leg shot out and +hurled back the nester. But before he could free himself from the taut +loop his prisoner was upon him again and had borne him to the ground. + +Of the two, Irwin was far the more powerful, Keller the more agile and +supple. He knew every trick of the wrestling game, whereas the other was +clumsy and muscle-bound. By main strength the older man got to his feet +again. Over went the table as they surged against it. + +A chair, stamped into kindling, was hurled aside by the force of their +impact. The stove rocked, and the bed collapsed as the locked figures +crashed down upon it. The ranger, twisting as they fell, landed on top +and his fingers instantly found the throat of his foe. Simultaneously +Phil came to his assistance. + +Even then, taken at an advantage, with two much younger men against him, +the big jailer fought to the finish like a bear. Not till he was +completely exhausted and they nearly so did he give up and lie quiet. +All three of them panted heavily, the allies lying across his chest and +legs. The nester managed to draw the loop taut about Irwin's neck and +insert his knuckles so that he could use them as a tourniquet if +necessary. + +"Gather up the other end of the rope, loop it, and tie his feet +together," the nester ordered, getting his sentence out in fragmentary +jerks. + +Phil did so, deftly and expertly, after which, in spite of renewed +struggles, they tied the hands of their prisoner behind his back. + +"Looks like a cyclone had hit the room," said the boy, glancing at the +debris. + +Larrabie laughed. "He's the most willing mixer I ever saw." + +"What are you going to do with him?" + +"We'll leave him tied right where he is. When we get down into the +settlement we'll notify his friends, though I reckon they'll find him +without any help from us." + +In order to make sure they went over the knots again, tightening them +here and there. The revolver and the rifle of the bound man they +appropriated. The nester's horse was in a little corral back of the +house. He saddled, and shortly the two were on the back trail. Phil knew +the country as a golfer knows his links. To him Keller put the question +in his mind: + +"How far is the Mimbres Pass from here, and in what direction?" + +The younger man looked at him in surprise. "A dozen miles, I reckon. See +that cleft over there? That's the Mimbres." + +His friend drew rein and looked with level eyes at him. + +"Phil, it's come to a show-down! Are you for Brill Healy or are you for +me?" + +"I'm through with Brill." + +"Dead sure of that?" + +"Dead sure. Why?" + +"Because you've got to make your choice to-night whether you're going to +stand with honest men or thieves. Healy's gang is rustling a bunch of +cows gathered at the round-up. They're heading for Mimbres Pass. I'm +going to stop them if I can." + +"I'm with you, Larry." + +"Good! I was sure of you, Phil." + +The boy flushed, but his eyes did not waver. "I want to tell you +something. That day we most caught you over the dead cow of the C.O. +outfit Brill was carrying Phyl's knife. I had lent it to him the night +before." + +Keller nodded. "I had figured it out that way." + +"But that ain't all. Once when I was cutting trail in the hills--must +have been about six months before that time--I happened on Brill driving +a calf still bleeding from the brand he had put on it. + +"I didn't think anything of that, but I noticed he was anxious to have +me turn and join him. But I kept on the way I was going, and just by a +miracle my pony almost stumbled over a dead cow lying in the brush. That +set me thinking. That night I rode over to Healy's and asked an +explanation. + +"He had one ready. Some one else must have killed the cow. He found the +calf wandering about alone, and branded it. Somehow his story didn't +quite satisfy me, but I wasn't ready then to think him a coyote. I liked +him--always had. And it flattered me that he had picked me out to be his +best friend. So I said nothing, and figured it out that he was on the +square. Of course I knew he was reckless and wild, but I didn't like him +any the less for that. I reckon nobody ever accused him of not being +game." + +"Hardly," smiled Keller. "He'll stand the acid that way." + +"The thing that stuck in my craw was his lying about seeing you on the +night of the bank robbery. He said you were riding the roan with white +stockings. Later we found out that couldn't be true. Then I knew Jim was +telling the truth about you being with him in the hills at the time. It +kind of sifted to me by degrees that you were a white man and he was a +skunk." + +"And then?" + +"Then we had it out one day. He had his reason for wanting to stand well +with me. I reckon you know what it is." + +"I know his reason. No man could have a better. I reckon I've a right to +think so, Phil, because she has promised to marry me." + +The boy shook hands with him impulsively. "I'm right glad to hear +it--and I want to say they don't make girls any better than Phyl." + +"That's not news to me. I have known it since the first time I saw her." + +Sanderson returned to the order of the day. "Well, Brill and I had had +one or two tiffs, mostly about you and Phyl. He saw I was changed toward +him, and he wanted to know why. I let him have it straight, and since +then we haven't been friends." + +"I'm glad of that. It makes plain sailing for me. He's got to be run +down and caged, Phil. Healy is at the head of all this rustling that has +been troubling the Malpais country. His gang stuck up the Diamond Nugget +stage, killed Sheriff Fowler, and robbed the Noches Bank." + +"How could he have robbed the bank when he was seen fifty miles from +there not two hours afterward?" + +Keller briefly explained his theory then pushed on at once to his plans. + +"I'm going to make straight for the Mimbres Pass while you go back and +rustle help. I'll try to keep them from getting through the Pass until +you close in on them behind." + +"That don't look good to me. How do I know how long it will be before I +can gather the boys together or find Jim and his outfit? You might be +massacred before I got back." + +"A man has to take his fighting chance." + +"Then let me take mine. We'll hold the pass together. I'll bet we can. +Don't you reckon?" + +"What use would you be without a rifle? No, Phil, you'll have to bring +up the reinforcements. That's the best tactics." + +Sanderson protested eagerly, but in the end was overborne. They turned +their backs upon each other, one headed for the Mimbres and the other +for the trail that ran down to the Malpais country. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE MAN-HUNT + + +When Jim Yeager separated from Phil after their discovery of Keller's +hat and the deductions they drew from it, the former turned his pony +toward the Frying Pan. Daylight had already broken before he came in +sight of it, but sounds of revelry still issued boisterously from the +house. + +As he drew near there came to him the squeal of sawing riddles, the +high-pitched voice of the dance caller in sing-song drawl, the shuffling +of feet keeping time to the rhythm of the music. For though a new day +was at hand, the quadrilles continued with unflagging vigor, one +succeeding another as soon as the floor was cleared. + +The cow country takes its amusements seriously. A dance is infrequent +enough to be an event. Men and women do not ride or drive from thirty to +fifty miles without expecting to drink the last drop of pleasure there +may be in the occasion. + +As Jim swung from the saddle, a slim figure in white glided from the +shadow of the wild cucumber vines that rioted over one end of the porch. + +"Well, Jim?" + +The man came to the point with characteristic directness. "He has been +waylaid, Phyl. We found his hat and the place where they ambushed him." + +"Is he----" Her voice died at the word, but her meaning was clear. + +"I don't think it. Looks like they were aiming to take him prisoner +without hurting him. They might easily have shot him down, but the +ground shows there was a struggle." + +"And you came back without rescuing him?" she reproached. + +"Phil and I were unarmed. I came back to get guns and help." + +"And Phil?" + +"He's following the trail. I wanted him to let me while he came back. +But he wouldn't hear to it. Said he had to square his debt to Larry." + +"Good for Phil!" his sister cried, eyes like stars. + +"Is Brill still here?" he asked. + +"No. He rode away about an hour ago. He was very bitter at me because I +wouldn't dance with him. Said I'd curse myself for it before twenty-four +hours had passed. He must have Larry in his power, Jim." + +"Looks like," he nodded, and added grimly: "If you do any regretting +there will be others that will, too." + +She caught the lapels of his coat and looked into his face with +extraordinary intensity. "I'm going back with you, Jim. You'll let me, +won't you? I've waited--and waited. You can't think what an awful night +it has been. I can't stand it any longer! I'll go mad! Oh, Jim, you'll +take me, I know!" Her hands slipped down to his and clung to them with +passionate entreaty. + +"Why, honey, I cayn't. This is likely to be war before we finish. It +ain't any place for girls." + +"I'll stay back, Jim. I'll do whatever you say, if you'll only let me +go." + +He shook his head resolutely. "Cayn't be done, girl. I'm sorry, but you +see yourself it won't do." + +Nor could all her beseechings move him. Though his heart was very tender +toward her he was granite to her pleadings. At last he put her aside +gently and stepped into the house. + +Going at once to the fiddlers, he stopped the music and stood on the +little rostrum where they were seated. Surprised faces turned toward +him. + +"What's up, Jim?" demanded Slim, his arm still about the waist of Bess +Purdy. + +"A man was waylaid while coming to this dance and taken prisoner by his +enemies. They mean to do him a mischief. I want volunteers to rescue +him." + +"Who is it?" several voices cried at once. + +"The man I mean is Larrabie Keller." + +A pronounced silence followed before Slim drawled an answer: + +"Cayn't speak for the other boys, but I reckon I haven't lost any +Kellers, Jim." + +"Why not? What have you got against him?" + +"You know well enough. He's under a cloud. We don't say he's a rustler +and a bank robber, but then we don't say he ain't." + +"I say he isn't! Boys, it has come to a show-down. Keller is a member of +the Rangers, sent here by Bucky O'Connor to run down the rustlers." + +Questions poured upon him. + +"How do you know?" + +"How long have you known?" + +"Who told you?" + +"Why didn't he tell us so himself, then?" + +Jim waited till they were quiet. "I've seen letters from the governor to +him. He didn't come here declaring his intentions because he knew there +would be nothing doing if the rustlers knew he was in the neighborhood. +He has about done his work now, and it's up to us to save him before +they bump him off. Who will ride with me to rescue him?" + +There was no hesitation now. + +Every man pushed forward to have a hand in it. + +"Good enough," nodded Yeager. "We'll want rifles, boys. Looks to me like +hell might be a-popping before mo'ning grows very ancient. We'll set out +from Turkey Creek Crossroads two hours from now. Any man not on hand +then will get left behind. + +"And remember--this is a man hunt! No talking, boys. We don't want the +news that we're coming spread all over the hills before we arrive." + +As Jim descended from the rostrum, his roving gaze fell on Phyl +Sanderson standing in the doorway. Her fears had stolen the color even +from her lips, but the girl's beauty had never struck him more +poignantly. + +Misery stared at him out of her fine eyes, yet the unconscious courage +of her graceful poise--erect, with head thrown back so that he could +even see the pulse beat in the brown throat--suggested anything but +supine surrender to her terror. Before he could reach her she had +slipped into the night, and he could not find her. + +Men dribbled in to the Turkey Creek Crossroads along as many trails as +the ribs of a fan running to a common centre. Jim waited, watch open, +and when it said that seven o'clock had come he snapped it shut and gave +the word to set out. + +It was a grim, business-like posse, composed of good men and true who +had been sifted in the impartial sieve of life on the turbid frontier. +Moreover, they were well led. A certain hard metallic quality showed in +the voice and eye of Jim Yeager that boded no good for the man who faced +him in combat to-day. He rode with his gaze straight to the front, +toward that cleft in the hills where lay Gregory's Pass. The others fell +in behind, a silent, hard-bitten outfit as ever took the trail for that +most dangerous of all big game--the hidden outlaw. + +The little bunch of riders had not gone far before Purdy, who was +riding in the rear, called to Yeager. + +"Somebody coming hell-to-split after us, Jim." + +It turned out to be Buck Weaver, who had been notified by telephone of +what was taking place. A girl had called him up out of his sleep, and he +had pounded the road hard to get in at the finish. + +Jim explained the situation in a few words and offered to yield command +to the owner of the Twin Star ranch. But Buck declined. + +"You're the boss of this _rodeo_, Yeager. I'm riding in the ranks +to-day." + +"How did you hear we were rounding-up to-day?" Jim asked. + +"Some one called me up," Buck answered briefly, but he did not think it +necessary to say that it was Phyllis. + +Behind them, unnoticed by any, sometimes hidden from sight by the rise +and fall of the rough ground, sometimes silhouetted against the sky +line, rode a slim, supple figure on a white-faced cow pony. Once, when +the fresh morning wind swept down a gulch at an oblique angle, it lifted +for an instant from the stirrup leather what might have been a gray +flag. But the flag was only a skirt, and it signalled nothing more +definite than the courage and devotion of a girl who knew that the men +she loved best on earth were in danger. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE ROUND-UP + + +The Mimbres Pass narrows toward the southern exit where Point o' Rocks +juts into the cańon and commands it like a sentinel. Toward this column +of piled boulders slowly moved a cloud of white dust, at the base of +which crept a band of hard-driven cattle. Swollen tongues were out, +heads stretched forward in a bellow for water taken up by one as another +dropped it. The day was still hot, though the sun had slipped down over +the range, and the drove had been worked forward remorselessly. Every +inch that could be sweated out of them had been gained. + +For those that pushed them along were in desperate hurry. Now and again +a rider would twist round in his saddle to sweep back a haggard glance. +Dust enshrouded them, lay heavy on every exposed inch; but through it +seams of anxiety crevassed their leathern faces. Iron men they were, +with one exception. Fight they could and would to the last ditch. But +behind the jaded, stony eyes lay a haunting fear, the never-ending dread +of a pursuit that might burst upon them at any moment. Driven to the +wall, they would have faced the enemy like tigers, with a fierce, +exultant hate. It was the never-ending possibility of disaster that lay +heavily upon them. + +Just as they entered the pass, a man came spurring up the steep trail +behind them. The drag drivers shouted a warning to those in front and +waited alertly with weapons ready. The man trying to overtake them waved +a sombrero as a flag of truce. + +"Keep an eye on him, Tom. If he makes a move that don't look good to +you, plug him!" ordered the keen-eyed man beside one of the drag +drivers. + +"I'm bridle wise, boss." But though he spoke with bravado Dixon shook +like an aspen in a breeze. + +The man he had called boss looked every inch a leader. He rode with the +loose seat and the straight back of the Westerner to the saddle born. +Just now he was looking back with impassive, reddened eyes at the +approaching figure. + +"Hold on, Tom! Don't shoot! It's Brad," he decided. "And I wonder what +in Mexico he is doing here." + +The leader of the outlaws was soon to learn. Irwin told the story of the +strategy that had changed him from jailer to prisoner and of the way he +had later freed himself from the rope that bound him. + +Healy unloaded his sentiments with an emphasis that did the subject +justice. Nevertheless he could not see that their plans were seriously +affected. + +"It's a leetle premature, but his getaway doesn't cut any ice. What we +want to do is to nail him, clamp the evidence home, and put him out of +business before his friends can say Jack Robinson. The story now is that +he was caught driving a little bunch of cows to met the big bunch his +pals were rustling, and that we left him in charge of Brad while we +tried to run down the other waddies. Understand, boys?" + +They did, and admired the more the versatility of a leader who could +make plans on the spur of the moment to meet any emergency. + +"We'll push right on, boys. Once we get through the pass it will trouble +anybody to find us. Before mo'ning you'll be across the line." + +"And you, Brill?" + +"I'm going back to settle accounts for good and all with Mr. Keller," +answered Healy grimly between set teeth. "I've got a notion about him. I +believe he's a spy." + +Just before Point o' Rocks a defile runs into the Mimbres Pass at right +angles. The leaders of the cattle, pushed forward by the pressure from +behind, stopped for a moment, and stood bawling at the junction. A rider +spurred forward to keep them from attempting the gulch. Suddenly he +dragged his pony to its haunches, so quickly did he stop it. For a clear +voice had called down a warning as if from the heavens: + +"You can't go this way! The Pass is closed!" + +The rider looked up in amazement, and beheld a man standing on the +ledge above with a rifle resting easily across his forearm. + +"By Heaven, it's Keller!" the rustler muttered. + +He wheeled as on a half dollar, pushed his way back along the edge of +the wall past the cattle, and shouted to his chief: + +"We're trapped, Brill!" + +None of the outlaws needed that notification. Five pair of eyes had +lifted to the ledge upon which Keller stood. The shock of the surprise +paralyzed them for an instant. For it occurred to none of the five that +this man would be standing there so quietly unless he were backed by a +posse sufficient to overpower them. He had not the manner of a man +taking a desperate chance. The situation was as dramatic as life and +death, but the voice that had come down to them had been as +matter-of-fact as if it had asked some one to pass him a cup of coffee +at the breakfast table. + +The temper of the outlaws' metal showed instantly. Dixon dropped his +rifle, threw up his hands, and ran bleating to the cover of some large +rocks, imploring the imagined posse not to shoot. Others found silently +what shelter they could. Healy alone took reckless counsel of his hate. + +Flinging his rifle to his shoulder, he blazed away at the figure on the +ledge--once, twice, three times. When the smoke cleared the ranger was +no longer to be seen. He was lying flat on his rock like a lizard, where +he had dropped just as his enemy whipped up his weapon to fire. Cold as +chilled steel, in spite of the fire of passion that blazed within him, +Healy slid to the ground on the far side of his horse and, without +exposing himself, slowly worked to the loose boulders bordering the edge +of the canon bed. + +The bawling of the cattle and the faint whimpering of Dixon alone +disturbed the silence. Healy and his confederates were waiting for the +other side to show its hand. Meanwhile the leader of the outlaws was +thinking out the situation. + +"I believe there's only two of them, Bart," he confided in a low voice +to the big fellow lying near. "Keller must have heard us when we talked +it over at the shack. I reckon he and Phil hit the trail for here +immediate. They hadn't time to go back and rustle help and still get +here before us. + +"We'll make Mr. Keller table his cards. I'm going to try to rush the +cattle through. We'll see at once what's doing. If they are too many for +us to do that we'll break for the gulch and fight our way out--that is, +if we find we're hemmed in behind, too." + +He called to the rest of the bandits and gave crisp instructions. At +sound of his sharp whistle four men leaped into sight, each making for +his horse. Dixon alone did not answer to the call. He lay white and +trembling behind the rock that sheltered him, physically unable to rise +and face the bullets that would rain down upon him. + +Keller, watching alertly from above, guessed what they would be at. His +rifle cracked twice, and two of the horses staggered, one of them +collapsing slowly. He had to show himself, and for three heartbeats +stood exposed to the fire of four rifles. One bullet fanned his cheek, a +second plunged through his coat sleeve, a third struck the rock at his +feet. While the echoes were still crashing, he was flat on his rock +again, peering over the edge to see their next move. + +"He's alone," cried Healy jubilantly. "Must have sent the kid back for +help. Bart, get Dixon's gun, steal up the ravine, and take him in the +rear. I'd go myself, but I can't leave the boys now." + +Slowly the cattle felt the impetus from behind, and began to move +forward. The voice above shouted a second warning. Healy answered with a +derisive yell. Keller again stood exposed on the ledge. + +Rifles cracked. + +This time the cattle detective was firing at men and not at horses, and +they in turn were pumping at him fast as they could work the levers. One +man went down, torn through and through by a rifle slug in his vitals. +Healy's horse twitched and staggered, but the rider was unhurt. The +officer on the ledge, a perfect target, was the heart of a very hail of +lead, but when he sank again to cover he was by some miracle still +unhurt. + +"They'll try a flank attack next time," Keller told himself. + +Up to date the honors were easily his. He had put three horses out of +commission and disabled one of the outlaws so badly that he would prove +negligible in the attack. Peering down, he could see Healy, with superb +contempt for the marksman above, slowly and carefully carry his wounded +comrade to shelter. The other men were already driven back to cover. The +cattle, excited by the firing, were milling round and round uneasily. + +Healy laid the wounded man down, knelt beside him, and gave him water +from his flask. The man was plainly hard hit, though he was not bleeding +much. + +"Where is it, Duke? Can I do anything for you, old fellow?" + +The dying man shook his head and whispered hoarsely: "I've got mine, +Brill. Shot to pieces. I'm dying right now. Get out while you can. Don't +mind me." + +His chief swore softly. "We'll get him right, Duke. Brad's after him +now. Buck up, old pard. You'll worry through yet." + +"Not this time, Brill. I've played rustler once too often." + +Keller, far up on the precipice, became aware of approaching riders long +before the outlaws below could see them. He counted eight--nine--ten +men, still black dots in a cloud of dust. This he knew must be Phil's +posse. + +If he could hold the rustlers for ten minutes more they would be caught +like rats in a trap. Once or twice he glanced behind him as a precaution +against some one of the enemy climbing Point o' Rocks from the defile, +but he gave this little consideration. He had not seen Brad when he +disappeared into the mesquite, and he supposed all of the rustlers were +still in the Pass five hundred feet below him. + +What he had expected was that they would force their way up the defile +for a quarter of a mile and strike the easy trail that ran from the rear +to the top of the Point. He wondered that this had not occurred to +Healy. + +In point of fact it had, but the outlaw leader knew that as they picked +their way among the broken boulders of the gulch bottom the enemy would +have them in the open for more than a hundred yards of slow going. He +had chosen the alternative of sending Brad quietly up the rough face of +the cliff. The other plan would do as a last resource if this failed. + +Healy believed that his enemy had been delivered into his hands. After +Keller had been killed they would toss his body down into the Pass, and +while his companions continued the drive to Mexico, Healy would return +to get help for Duke and spread the story he wanted to get out. The main +features of that tale would be that he and Duke had cut their trail by +accident, suspected rustling, and followed as far as the Mimbres Pass, +where Keller had shot Duke and been in turn shot by Healy. + +It was a neat plan, and one that would have been fairly sure of success +but for one unforeseen contingency--the approach of Yeager's posse a +half hour too soon. Healy heard them coming, knew he was trapped, and +attempted to force an escape through the narrows in front of Point o' +Rocks. + +The milling cattle had jammed the gateway. Keller, shooting down one or +two of them, blocked the exit still more. Healy and his confederates +could not get through, and turned to try the defile just as the first of +the posse came flying down the Pass. + +Young Sanderson was in the van, a hundred yards in front of Yeager, +dashing over the uneven ground in a reckless haste that Jim's slower +horse could not match. Loose shale was flying from his pony's hoofs as +it pounded forward. The outlaws just beat him to the mouth of the +intersecting gulch. Dragging his broncho to a slithering halt, he fired +twice at the retreating men. He had taken no time to aim, and his +bullets went wild. + +Brill laughed in mockery, covered him deliberately with his rifle, and +just as deliberately raised the barrel and fired into the air. The +distance was scarce a hundred yards. Phil could not doubt that his +former friend had purposely spared his life. The boy's rifle dropped +from his shoulder. + +"Brill wouldn't shoot at me! I couldn't kill him!" he shouted to +Weaver, as the latter rode up. + +Buck nodded. "Let me have him!" And he plunged into the gorge after the +men that had disappeared. + +Twice Keller's rifle spat at Healy and his companion as they plowed +forward across the boulder bed, but the difficulty of shooting from far +above at moving figures almost directly below saved the rustlers. They +reached a thick growth of aspens and disappeared. Healy parted company +with his ally at the place where the trail to the summit of Point o' +Rocks led up. + +"Break south when you get out of the gulch, Sam. In half an hour it will +be night, and you'll be safe. So-long." + +"Where you going, Brill?" + +"I'm going to settle accounts with that dashed spy!" answered Healy, +with an epithet. "Inside of half an hour either Keller or I will be down +and out!" + +The outlaw took the stiff incline leisurely, for he knew Keller could +come down only this way, and he had no mind to let himself get so +breathed as to disturb the sureness of his aim. The aspen grove ran like +a forked tongue up the ridge for a couple of hundred yards. As Healy +emerged from it he saw a rider just disappearing over the shoulder of +the hill in front of him. For an instant he had an amazed impression +that the figure was that of a woman, but he dismissed this as absurd. +He went the more cautiously, for he now knew that there would be two for +him to deal with on the Point instead of one--unless Brad reached the +scene in time to assist him. + +The sound of a shot drifted down to him, followed presently by a far, +faint cry of terror. What had happened was this: + +Keller, turning away from the overhanging ledge from which he had seen +the outlaws vanish into the grove, looked down the long slope +preliminary to descending. He was surprised to see a horse and rider +halfway between him and the aspen tongue. To him, too, there came a +swift impression that it was a woman, and almost at once something in +the poise of the gallant figure told him what woman. His heart leaped to +meet her. He waved a hand, and broke into a run. + +But only for two strides. For there had come to him a warning. He swung +on his heel and waited. Again he heard the light rumble of shale, and +before that had died away a sinister click. Alert in every fiber, his +gaze swept the bluff--and stopped when it met a pair of beady eyes +peering at him over the edge of the precipice. + +The two pair of eyes fastened for what seemed like an eternity, but +could have been no longer than four ticks of a clock. Neither of the men +spoke. The outlaw fired first--wildly, for the arm which held the rifle +was cramped for space. Keller's revolver flashed an answer which tore +through Irwin's teeth and went out beneath his ear. With a furious oath +the man dropped his weapon and flung himself upward and forward, landing +in a heap almost at the feet of the detective. + +"Don't move!" ordered the latter. + +Brad writhed forward awkwardly, knew the shock of another heavy bullet +in his shoulder, and catching his foe by the legs dragged him from his +feet. Keller's revolver was jerked over the edge of the precipice as he +let go of it to close with the burly ruffian. + +Both of them were unarmed save for the weapons nature had given them. +The detailed purpose of the struggle defined itself at once. Irwin meant +by main strength to fling the detective into the gulf that descended +sheer for five hundred feet. The other fought desperately to save +himself by dragging his infuriated antagonist back from the edge. + +They grappled in silence, save for the heavy panting that evidenced the +tension of their efforts. Each tried to bear the other to the ground, to +establish a grip against which his foe would be helpless. Now they were +on their knees, now on their sides. Over and over they rolled, first one +and then the other on top, shifting so fast that neither could clinch +any temporary advantage. + +[Illustration: THEY GRAPPLED IN SILENCE SAVE FOR THE HEAVY PANTING THAT +EVIDENCED THE TENSION OF THEIR EFFORTS. _Page 340_] + +Yet Keller, with a flying glance at the cliff, knew that he was being +forced nearer the gulf by sheer strength of muscle. Irwin, his jaw +shattered and his shoulder torn, was not fighting to win, but to +kill. He cared not whether he himself also went to death. He was +obsessed by the old primeval lust to crush the life out of this lusty +antagonist, and his whole gigantic force was concentrated to that end. +He scarce knew that he was wounded, and he cared not at all. Backward +and forward though the battle went, on the whole it moved jerkily toward +the chasm. + +The end came with a suddenness of which Larrabie had but an instant's +warning in the swift flare of joy that lit the madman's face. His foot, +searching for a brace as he was borne back, found only empty space. +Plunged downward, the nester clung viselike to the man above, dragged +him after, and by the very fury of Irwin's assault flung him far out +into the gulf head-first. + +It was Phyl Sanderson's cry of horror that Healy heard. She had put her +horse up the steep at a headlong gallop, had seen the whole furious +struggle and the tragic end of it that witnessed two men hurled over the +precipice into space. She slipped from the saddle, and sank dizzily to +the ground, not daring to look over the cliff at what she would see far +below. Waves of anguish shot through her and shook her very being. + +A man bent over her, and gave a startled cry. + +"My heaven, it's Phyl!" he cried. + +"Yes." She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice he could not have recognized +as hers. + +"Where is he? What's become of him?" Healy demanded. + +She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke +down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf +of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature +could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to +the girl and touched her on the shoulder. + +"Come." + +She looked up, shuddering, and asked, "Where?" + +"With me." + +"With you? It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!" + +"Never mind that now. Come." + +"I hate you! I should kill you when I got a chance! Why should I go with +you?" she asked evenly. + +He did not know why. He had no definite plan. All he knew was that his +old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night +like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever +free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the +cliff. He could not give her up now. He would not. + +The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him. She was his. He +had won her by the fortune of war. He would keep her against all comers +so long as he had life to fight. Night was falling softly over the +hills. They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new +earth. + +He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse. She looked at him +in a silence that stripped him of his dreams. + +"Come!" he said again, between clenched teeth. + +"Not with you. I don't know you. Leave me alone. You killed him! You're +a murderer!" + +He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the +dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit. + +"Go away! Don't touch me! You and your miscreants killed him!" And with +that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of +him. + +He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him, +but none the less determined to take her with him. Across the border he +would not be a hunted man with a price on his head. They could be +married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her +love him and forget this man that had come between them. At all events, +he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his. He +stooped and caught her shoulder. She had fainted. + +A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its +own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man +stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a +rifle ready for instant action. + +"So it's you!" Healy cried with an oath. + +"Have you killed him?" + +The outlaw lied, with swift, unblazing passion: "Yes, Buck Weaver, and +tossed his body to the buzzards. Your turn now!" + +"Then who is that with you there?" + +"The woman you love, the woman that turned you and him down for me," +taunted his rival. "After I've killed you we're going off to be +married." + +"Only a coyote would stand behind a woman's skirts and lie. I can't kill +you there, and you know it." + +Healy asked nothing better than an even break. He might have killed with +impunity from where he stood. Yet pantherlike, he swiftly padded six +paces to the left, never lifting his eyes from his antagonist. + +Buck waited, motionless. "Are you ready?" + +The outlaw's weapon flashed to the level and cracked. Almost +simultaneously the other answered. Weaver felt a bullet fan his cheek, +but he knew that his own had crashed home. + +The shock of it swung Healy half round. The man hung in silhouette +against the sky line, then the body plunged to the turf at full length. +Buck moved forward cautiously, fearing a trick, his eyes fastened on the +other. But as he drew nearer he knew it was no ruse. The body lay supine +and inert, as lifeless as the clay upon which it rested. + +Once sure of this Buck turned immediately to Phyllis. A faint crackling +of bushes stopped him. He waited, his eyes fixed on the edge of the +precipice from which the sound had come. Next there came to him the +slipping of displaced rubble. He was all eyes and ears, tense and alert +in every pulse. + +From out of the gulf a hand appeared and groped for a hold. Weaver +stepped noiselessly to the edge and looked down. A torn and bleeding +face looked up into his. + +"Good heavens, Keller!" + +Buck was on his knees instantly. He caught the ranger's hand with both +of his and dragged him up. The rescued man sank breathless on the ground +and told his story in gasped fragments. + +"--caught on a ledge--hung to some bushes growing there--climbed up--lay +still when Healy looked over--a near thing--makes me sick still!" + +"It was a millionth chance that saved you--if it was a chance." + +"Where's Healy?" + +Weaver pointed to the body. "We fought it out. The luck was with me." + +A faint, glad, terrified little cry startled them both. Phyllis was +staring with dilated eyes at the man restored to her from the dead. He +got up and walked across to her with outstretched hands. + +"My little girl." + +"Oh, Larry! I don't understand. I thought----" + +He nodded. "I reckon God was good to us, sweetheart." + +Her arms crept up and round his neck. "Oh, boy--boy--boy. I thought +you were--I thought you were----" + +She broke down, but he understood. "Well, I'm not," he laughed happily. +Catching sight of Buck's grim, set face, Larrabie explained what scarce +needed an explanation. "You'll have to excuse us, I reckon. It's my day +for congratulations." + +Phyllis freed herself and walked across to her other lover. "My friend, +I know the answer now," she told him. + +"I see you do." + +"Don't--please don't be hurt," she begged. "I have to care for him." + +The hard, leathery face softened. "I lose, girl. But who told you I was +a bad loser? The best man wins. I've got no kick to register." + +"Not the best man," Keller corrected, shaking hands with his rival. + +Phyllis summed it up in woman fashion: "My man, whether he is the best +or not. It's just that a girl goes where her heart goes." + +Weaver nodded. "Good enough. Well, I'll be going. I expect you'll not +miss me." + +He turned and went down the hill alone. At the foot of it he met Jim +Yeager. + +"What about Brill?" the younger man asked quickly. + +"He'll never rustle another cow," Buck answered gravely. "I killed him +on the top of Point o' Rocks after an even break." + +"Duke has cashed in. Game to the last. Wouldn't say a word to implicate +his pals. But Tom has confessed everything. The boys slipped a noose +over his head, and he came through right away. + +"Says he and Duke and Irwin helped Healy rob the Noches Bank and do a +lot of other deviltry. It was just like Keller figured. The automobile +was waiting for the bunch with the showfer, and took them out the old +Fort Lincoln Road. Dixon knows where the gold is hidden, and is going to +show the boys." + +"That clears up everything, then. I judge we've made a pretty thorough +gather." + +Jim looked up and indistinctly saw the lovers coming slowly down through +the grove. Dusk had fallen and soon the cloak of night would be over the +mountains. + +"Who is that?" + +Buck did not look round. "I reckon it's Keller and his sweetheart. She +followed us here." + +"I told her not to come." + +"I expect she takes her telling from Mr. Keller." He changed the subject +abruptly. "We'll go on down to the boys and see what's doing. They'll be +some glad, I shouldn't wonder, at making a gather that cleans out the +worst bunch of cutthroats and rustlers in the Malpais. Don't you +reckon?" + +"I reckon," answered Yeager briefly. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mavericks, by William MacLeod Raine + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAVERICKS *** + +***** This file should be named 14520-8.txt or 14520-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/2/14520/ + +Produced by Kathryn Lybarger and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mavericks + +Author: William MacLeod Raine + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14520] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAVERICKS *** + + + + +Produced by Kathryn Lybarger and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> + +<a name="illus1"><!-- Image 1 --></a> +<center><a href="images/001_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/001_sm.jpg" height="479" width="300" +alt="THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTION UPON +POSSIBLE PURSUIT. Frontispiece. Page 33" /> +</a> +</center> +<p style="text-align: center"><span style=' +font-weight:700'><small> +THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTION UPON +POSSIBLE PURSUIT. +(<a href="#riderslewed">Page 33</a>)</small></span></p> +<br /><br /> + +<h1>MAVERICKS</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF</h3> + +<h3>WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, BUCKY O'CONNOR, A TEXAS RANGER, ETC.</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS BY</h3> + +<h2>CLARENCE ROWE</h2> +<br /> + +<center> +<img alt="logo" src="images/logo.jpg" /> +</center> +<br /> + +<h2>GROSSET & DUNLAP</h2> + +<h3>PUBLISHERS NEW YORK</h3> +<br /> + +<h3>1911 STREET & SMITH</h3> + +<h3>1912 G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY</h3> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h2>TO MY MOTHER</h2> + +<center><table summary=""In vain men tell us time can alter Old loves, or make old memories falter.""><tr><td> +"In vain men tell us time can alter<br /> + Old loves, or make old memories falter."<br /> +</td></tr></table></center> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<center> + <a href='#CHAPTER_I'><b>I. PHYLLIS</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_II'><b>II. THE NESTER</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_III'><b>III. CAUGHT RED-HANDED</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_IV'><b>IV. "I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?"</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_V'><b>V. AN AIDER AND ABETTOR</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_VI'><b>VI. A GOOD FRIEND</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_VII'><b>VII. A SHOT FROM AMBUSH</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'><b>VIII. MISS GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_IX'><b>IX. PUNISHMENT</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_X'><b>X. INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XI'><b>XI. TOM DIXON</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XII'><b>XII. THE ESCAPE</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'><b>XIII. A MISTAKE</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'><b>XIV. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XV'><b>XV. THE BRAND BLOTTER</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'><b>XVI. A WATERSPOUT</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'><b>XVII. THE HOLD-UP</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'><b>XVIII. BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'><b>XIX. THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XX'><b>XX. YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'><b>XXI. BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'><b>XXII. SURRENDER</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'><b>XXIII. AT THE RODEO</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'><b>XXIV. MISSING</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXV'><b>XXV. LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXVI'><b>XXVI. THE MAN HUNT</b></a><br /> + <a href='#CHAPTER_XXVII'><b>XXVII. THE ROUND-UP</b></a><br /> +</center> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> + +<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<center> +<a href='#illus1'>The rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon possible pursuit.</a><br /> + +<a href='#illus2'>She drew back as if he had struck her, all the +sparkling eagerness driven from her face.</a><br /> + +<a href='#illus3'>"Drop that gun!"</a><br /> + +<a href='#illus4'>They grappled in silence save for the heavy +panting that evidenced the tension of their efforts.</a><br /> +</center> +<br /> + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_I'></a><h2>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>PHYLLIS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which +wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land +waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind +the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as +the minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail from +the Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in a +voice young and glad.</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"My love has breath o' roses,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>O' roses, o' roses,<br /></span> +<span>And cheeks like summer posies<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>All fresh with morning dew,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>floated the words to her across the sunlit open.</p> + +<p>If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen, +silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm in +her eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit. +They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front of +her and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest.</p> + +<p>"Don't see me, do you?" he asked, smiling.</p> + +<p>Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon."</p> + +<p>"And you don't think you see much then?" he suggested lightly.</p> + +<p>She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of her +straight figure and the flash of her dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"Mad at me, Phyl?" Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle he +leaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing.</p> + +<p>The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, still +creeping antlike toward the hills.</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"My love has breath o' roses,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>O' roses, o' roses,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came.</p> + +<p>It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky good +looks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back a +rebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple.</p> + +<p>"Somebody's acting right foolish," he continued jauntily. "It was all in +fun, and in a game at that."</p> + +<p>"I wasn't playing," he heard, though the profile did not turn in the +least toward him.</p> + +<p>"Well, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower."</p> + +<p>"I don't play kissing games any more," she informed him with dignity.</p> + +<p>"Sho, Phyl! I told you 'twas only in fun," he justified himself. "A kiss +ain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl that +ever was kissed."</p> + +<p>She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of his +boldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks of +the boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a critic +might have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouth +lacked firmness.</p> + +<p>"So I've been told," she answered tartly.</p> + +<p>"Jealous?"</p> + +<p>"No," she exploded.</p> + +<p>Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein.</p> + +<p>"You don't need to depend on hearing," he said, moving toward her.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" she flared.</p> + +<p>"You remember well enough—at the social down to Peterson's."</p> + +<p>"We were children then—or I was."</p> + +<p>"And you're not a kid now?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not."</p> + +<p>"Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish things +and now you have become a woman."</p> + +<p>Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>"After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't +it?" he bantered.</p> + +<p>"Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon," she flashed fiercely.</p> + +<p>Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she +was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what +dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the +home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still +slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would +awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on +the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid +rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks, +the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her +words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that +struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a +masculine impulse he did not analyse.</p> + +<p>"So you won't be friends?"</p> + +<p>If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness +easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way.</p> + +<p>"No, I won't." And she gave him her profile again.</p> + +<p>"Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about," he +said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward +him.</p> + +<p>With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him from her.</p> + +<p>Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgot +his expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childish +petulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which his +vanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bare +insult.</p> + +<p>"How dare you!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threw +herself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him. +Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillows +where she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for this +insult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eat +dirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again—never so +long as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southern +blood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she did +not once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or to +her brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And it +was in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interfere +with her external duties.</p> + +<p>As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the +bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a +kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began +streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had +already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the +waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official +cage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Noches +on the stage.</p> + +<p>From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into the +dining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing through +the window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grown +youngster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing hands +from the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery window +was raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and that +of Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently torn +from a notebook.</p> + +<p>"This here is for you, Phyl," he explained.</p> + +<p>She pushed it back. "I'm too busy to read it."</p> + +<p>"It's from Tom," he further volunteered.</p> + +<p>"Is it?"</p> + +<p>She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it +across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the +fragments through the window to the floor.</p> + +<p>"Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?" she coolly asked +the next in line over the tow head of Bud.</p> + +<p>The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through the +open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smothered +curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did not +look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she had +seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon, +a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down the +mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his return +journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it, +she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certain +they would not forget to "rub it in" when next they met Master Tom. She +promised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to the +cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage station +for their mail, to teach that young man his place.</p> + +<p>"I'll take a dollar's worth of two's."</p> + +<p>Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had +inherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the +sheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of +sardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle.</p> + +<p>"Any mail for Buck Weaver?"</p> + +<p>"No," she answered promptly without looking.</p> + +<p>"Sure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her, +for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He had +no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his +insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She +had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against +wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate +lawlessness.</p> + +<p>"I know my business, sir."</p> + +<p>Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim +Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of +extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he +felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter, +hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and +slipped an arm into that of her father.</p> + +<p>"This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver," he was saying. "It's +been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin' +you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh."</p> + +<p>"Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's +reason a-plenty for me," Weaver told him contemptuously.</p> + +<p>"But not for me, seh. When you come into my house——"</p> + +<p>"I didn't come into your house."</p> + +<p>"Why—why——"</p> + +<p>"Father!" implored the girl. "It's a government post-office. He has a +right here as long as he behaves."</p> + +<p>"H'm!" the old fire-eater snorted. "I'd be obliged just the same, Mr. +Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck."</p> + +<p>"Dad!" the girl begged.</p> + +<p>He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. "Now don't you worry, +honey. There ain't going to be any trouble—leastways none of my making. +I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin' down +whilst anybody tromples on me neither."</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't try to do that here," Phyllis reminded him.</p> + +<p>Weaver laughed in grim irony. "I'm surely much obliged to you for +protecting me." And to the father he added carelessly: "Keep your shirt +on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I +reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail."</p> + +<p>With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious to +the last virile inch of him.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_II'></a><h2>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>THE NESTER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office +to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself while +waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat for +many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted. +For at this store the Malpais country bought its ammunition, its +tobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its opinions had sifted +down to convictions. From this common meeting ground the gossip of +Cattleland was scattered far and wide.</p> + +<p>Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was the +owner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle company in that +country. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he had +begun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place +then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his +own ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacable +daring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Those +that survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only the +settlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the big +man of the district, dominating its social, business, and political +activities.</p> + +<p>"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he asked +curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle.</p> + +<p>"That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nester +homesteaded there," old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobacco +with a noncommittal air.</p> + +<p>"Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwaters +of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be a +mighty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly.</p> + +<p>The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either small +cattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on the +business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated +so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Most +of them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they did +not usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joined +hand with him.</p> + +<p>"You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped."</p> + +<p>The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was in +the common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny +leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of +course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an +untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows. +He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther, +reckless and yet wary.</p> + +<p>"We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill," Buck told him.</p> + +<p>"If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out," Healy +replied.</p> + +<p>Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable to +roll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteaders +had taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most of +these were honest men, others suspected rustlers. But Buck's fiat had +not sufficed to keep them out. They had held stoutly to their own +and—he suspected—a good deal more than their own. Calves had been +branded secretly and cows killed or driven away.</p> + +<p>"Go to it, Brill," Weaver jeered. "I'm wishing you all the luck in the +world."</p> + +<p>He touched his pony with the spur and swept up the road in a cloud of +white dust.</p> + +<p>Not till he had disappeared did conversation renew itself languidly, for +Seven Mile Ranch was lying under the lethargy of a summery sun.</p> + +<p>"I expect Buck's got the right of it," volunteered a brawny youth known +as Slim. "All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of big +outfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious. +There's sure money in being a nester."</p> + +<p>Despite the soft drawl of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as did +the others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustling +must be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. The +thieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairly +outwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven across +the line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established +ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners +faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once +or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader +of the outlaws had saved the men by the most daring strategy.</p> + +<p>Healy, until lately foreman of the Twin Star outfit, had organized the +ranchmen as a protective association. In this he had represented Weaver, +himself not popular enough to coöperate with the other ranchmen. Once +Brill had led the pursuit of the rustlers and had come back furious from +a long futile chase. For among the cattle being driven across to Sonora +were five belonging to him.</p> + +<p>Other charges also lay against the hill outlaws. A stage had been robbed +with a gold shipment from the Diamond Nugget mine. A cattleman had been +held up and relieved of two thousand dollars, just taken as part payment +for a sale of beef steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while trying +to arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, and +lowered his voice to a whisper. "Boys, this thing has got to stop. I've +sent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he can. +Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got."</p> + +<p>Yeager nodded. "Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep. as +a cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he coming?"</p> + +<p>"He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a couple +of weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to drop +everything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job till +he finishes it right," Healy promised.</p> + +<p>"Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stop +this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin' +around till we're stole blind," assented Slim.</p> + +<p>"It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies have +been hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to him +to clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call on +you."</p> + +<p>"Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill," nodded one +little fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising from +the Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. "What's the name of +this new nester, Jim?"</p> + +<p>Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with a +big double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast, +the voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsetto +scarce above a whisper.</p> + +<p>"Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller," +he said.</p> + +<p>"What's he look like?"</p> + +<p>"You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail this +way."</p> + +<p>The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source a +rider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up in +front of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle and +glanced around.</p> + +<p>"Evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly.</p> + +<p>Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his greeting. But +the lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not be doubted. +The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand resting on his +hip and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed gaze travel from +one to another, understood perfectly what those expressionless eyes of +stone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of light derision, +trailed debonairly into the store.</p> + +<p>"Any mail for Larrabie Keller?" he inquired of the postmistress.</p> + +<p>The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look. +When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant a +flash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb health +had painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pink +pushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetized +his gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyes +that had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushed +indignantly and withdrew from the window.</p> + +<p>Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned to +the porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter. +His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes were +focused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility.</p> + +<p>He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group, a +lad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look of +pride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guess +that they were brother and sister, very likely twins, though he found in +the boy's expression a sulky impatience lacking in hers. Perhaps the lad +needed the discipline that life hammers into those who want to be a law +unto themselves.</p> + +<p>With an insolence extremely boyish, the lad turned to Healy. "I'm for +running out a few of these nesters. We've got more than we can use, I +reckon. The range is overstocked now—both with them and cows. Come a +bad year and half of our cattle will starve."</p> + +<p>There was a moment of surcharged silence. Phil Sanderson had voiced the +growing feeling of them all, but he had flung it out as a stark +challenge before the time was ripe. It was one thing to resent the +coming of settlers; it was quite another to set themselves openly +against the law that allowed these men to homestead the natural parks in +the hills.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy laughed. "The fat's in the fire now, sure enough. Just the +same, I back your play, Phil."</p> + +<p>He turned recklessly to the man in the doorway. "You may tell your +friends up on Bear Creek that we own this range and mean to hold it. We +don't aim to let our cattle be starved, and we don't aim to lie down +before rustlers. Understand?"</p> + +<p>The nester smiled, but there was no gayety in his eyes. They met those +of the cattleman with a grip of steel, and measured strength with him. +Each knew the other would go the limit before Keller made quiet answer:</p> + +<p>"I think so."</p> + +<p>And with that he dismissed the subject and his unfriendly audience. With +perfect ease, he read his letter, pocketed it, and whistled softly as he +impassively took stock of the scenery. Apparently he had wiped Public +Opinion from his map, and was interested only in the panorama before +him.</p> + +<p>Seven Mile Ranch lay rooted at the desert terminus among the foothills, +a gateway between the mountains and the Malpais Plain. Below was a +shimmering stretch of sand and cactus tortured beneath a blazing sun. +Into that caldron with its furnace-cracked floor the sun had poured +itself torridly for countless eons. It was a Sahara of mirage and +desolation and death.</p> + +<p>To the left was a flat-topped mesa eroded to fantastic mockery of some +bastioned fort. In the round-topped hills behind it was Noches, fifty +miles away. Beyond lay the tangle of hills, rising to the saw-toothed +range now painted with orange and mauve and a hint of deepening purple. +For dusk was already slipping down over the peaks.</p> + +<p>"Mail's been open half an hour, boys," Phyllis announced through the +open window.</p> + +<p>They dropped in to the store, as noisy as schoolboys, but withal +deferential. It was clear the young postmistress reigned a queen among +the younger ones, but a queen that deigned to friendship with her +subjects. Some of them called her Miss Sanderson, one or two of them +Phyllie.</p> + +<p>Among these last was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with her +indeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handed +to each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed to +embarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greeted +with gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back to +them, they seemed all one happy family—and himself a rank outsider. He +trailed down the steps and swung himself to the saddle. As he loped away +the sound of her warm, clear laughter floated after him.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_III'></a><h2>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>CAUGHT RED-HANDED</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From a cleft in the hills two riders emerged, following a little gulch +to the point where it widened into a draw. The alkali dust of Arizona +lay thick upon their broad-brimmed Stetsons and every inch of exposed +surface, but through the gray coating bloomed the freshness of youth. It +rang from their voices, was apparent in the modelling and carriage of +their figures. The young man was sinewy and hard as nails, the girl +supple and wiry, of a slender grace, straight-backed as an Indian in the +saddle.</p> + +<p>Just where the draw dipped down into the grassy park they drew rein an +instant. Faint and far a sound drifted to them. Somebody down in the +park had fired a rifle.</p> + +<p>"I don't agree with you, Phil," the girl said, picking up the thread of +their conversation where they had dropped it some minutes earlier. "The +nesters have as much right here as we have. They come here to settle, +and they take up government land. Why shouldn't they?"</p> + +<p>"Because we got here first," he retorted impatiently. "Because our +cattle and sheep have been feeding on the land they are fencing. +Because they close the water holes and the creeks and claim they are +theirs. It means the end of the open range. That's what it means."</p> + +<p>"Of course that's what it means. We'll have to adapt ourselves to it. +You talk foolishness when you make threats to drive out the nesters. +That is the sort of thing Buck Weaver has been trying to do. It's +absurd. The law is back of them. You would only come to trouble, and if +you did succeed others would take their places."</p> + +<p>"And rustle our cattle," he added sullenly.</p> + +<p>"It isn't proved they are the rustlers. You haven't a shred of evidence. +Perhaps they are, but you should prove it before you make the charge."</p> + +<p>"If they aren't, who is?" he flared up.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. But whoever it is will be caught and punished some day. +There is no doubt at all about that."</p> + +<p>"You talk a heap of foolishness, Phyl," he answered resentfully. "My +notion is they never will be caught. What makes you so sure they will?"</p> + +<p>They had been riding down the draw, and at this moment Phyllis looked +up, to see a rider silhouetted against the sky line on the ridge above.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you Brill!" she cried, with a wave of her quirt.</p> + +<p>The man turned, saw them, and rode slowly down. He nodded, after the +fashion of the range, first to the girl, and then to her brother.</p> + +<p>"Morning," he nodded. "Headed for Mesa? Here, too."</p> + +<p>He fell in with them and rode beside the girl. Presently they topped a +little hillock, and looked down into the park. It had about the area of +a mile, and was perhaps twice as long as broad. Wooded spurs ran down +from the hills into it here and there, and through the meadow leaped a +silvery stream.</p> + +<p>"Hello! Wonder where that smoke comes from?"</p> + +<p>It was Healy that spoke. He pointed to a faint cloud rising from a +distance. Even before he began to speak, however, Phyllis had her field +glasses out, and was adjusting them to her eyes.</p> + +<p>"There's a fire there and a man standing over it," she presently +announced. "There's something else there, too. I can't make it +out—something lying down."</p> + +<p>The men glanced at each other, and in the meeting of their eyes some +intelligence passed between them. It was as if the younger accused and +the older sullenly denied.</p> + +<p>"Lemme have the glasses," Phil said to his sister almost roughly.</p> + +<p>Healy glanced at Phil swiftly, covertly, as the latter adjusted the +glasses. "She's right about the fire and the man. I can see as much with +my naked eyes," he cut in.</p> + +<p>The boy looked long, lowered the glasses, and met his friend's eye with +a kind of shamefaced hesitation. But apparently he gathered reassurance +from the quiet steadiness with which the other's gaze met him. He handed +the glasses to Healy. When the latter lowered them his face was grave. +"There's a man and a fire and a cow and a calf. When these four things +meet up together, what does it mean?"</p> + +<p>"Branding!" cried the girl.</p> + +<p>"That's right—branding. And when the cow is dead what does it mean?" +Brill asked, his eyes full on Phil.</p> + +<p>"Rustling!" she breathed again.</p> + +<p>"You've said it, Phyl. We've got one of them at last," he cried +jubilantly.</p> + +<p>Phil, hanging between doubt and suspicion and shame, brightened at the +enthusiasm of the other.</p> + +<p>"Right you are, Brill. We'll solve this mystery once for all."</p> + +<p>Healy, unstrapping the case in which lay his rifle, shot a question at +the boy. "Armed, Phil?"</p> + +<p>The lad nodded. "I brought my six-gun for rattlesnakes."</p> + +<p>"Are you going to—to——" cried Phyllis, the color gone from her face.</p> + +<p>"We're going to capture him alive if we can, Phyl. You're to wait right +here till we come back. You may hear shooting. Don't let that worry you. +We've got the drop on him, or will have. Nobody is going to get hurt if +he acts sensible," Healy reassured.</p> + +<p>"Don't you move from here. You stay right where you are," her brother +ordered sharply.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, and was aware that her throat was suddenly parched. +"You'll be careful, won't you, Phil?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," he called back, as he put his horse at a canter to follow his +friend up the draw.</p> + +<p>The sound of the hoofs died away, and she was alone. That they were +going to circle in and out among the tangle of hills until they were +opposite the miscreant, she knew, but in spite of Brill's promise she +had a heart of water. With trembling fingers she raised the glasses +again, and focused them on that point which was to be the centre of the +drama.</p> + +<p>The man was moving about now, quite unconscious of the danger that +menaced him. What she looked at was the great crime of Cattleland. All +her life she had been taught to hold it in horror. But now something +human in her was deeper than her detestation of the cowardly and awful +thing this man had just done. She wanted to cry out to him a warning, +and did in a faint, ineffective voice that carried not a tenth of the +distance between them.</p> + +<p>She had promised to remain where she was, but her tense interest in what +was doing drew her forward in spite of herself. She rode along the ridge +that bordered the park, at first slowly and then quicker as the impulse +grew in her to be in at the finish.</p> + +<p>The climax came. She saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his +pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang +out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the +saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged into a +wash and disappeared.</p> + +<p>What inspired her she could never tell. Perhaps it was her indignation +at the thing he had done, perhaps her anger at that mocking wave of the +hand with which he had vanished. She wheeled her horse, and put it at a +canter down the nearest draw so as to try to intercept him at right +angles. Her heart beat fast with excitement, but she was conscious of no +fear.</p> + +<p>Before she had covered half the distance, she knew she was going to be +too late to cut off his retreat. Faintly, she heard the rhythm of hoofs +striking the rocky bottom of the draw. Abruptly they ceased. Wondering +what that could mean, she found her answer presently. For the pounding +of the galloping broncho had renewed itself, and closer. The man was +riding up the gulch toward her. He had turned into its mesquite-laced +entrance for a hiding place. Phyllis drew rein, and waited quietly to +confront him, but with a pulse that hammered the moments for her.</p> + +<p>A white-stockinged roan, plowing a way through heavy sand, labored into +view round the bend, its <a name="riderslewed">rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon the possible pursuit.</a> Not until he was almost upon her +did the man turn. With a startled exclamation at sight of the motionless +figure, he pulled up sharply. It was the nester, Keller.</p> + +<p>"You," she cried.</p> + +<p>"Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily.</p> + +<p>His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow. +White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile.</p> + +<p>"So you are a—rustler," she told him scornfully.</p> + +<p>"I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter +irony.</p> + +<p>She saw something else, a deepening stain that soaked slowly down his +shirt sleeve.</p> + +<p>"You are wounded."</p> + +<p>"Am I?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Come to think of it, I believe I am," he laughed shortly.</p> + +<p>"Badly?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't got the doctor's report yet." There was a gleam of whimsical +gayety in his eyes as he added: "I was going to find him when I had the +good luck to meet up with you."</p> + +<p>He was a hunted miscreant, wounded, riding for his life as a hurt wolf +dodges to shake off the pursuit, but strangely enough her gallant heart +thrilled to the indomitable pluck of him. Never had she seen a man who +looked more the vagabond enthroned. His crisp bronze curls and his +superb shoulders were bathed in the sunpour. Not once, since his eyes +had fallen on her, had he looked back to see if his hunters had picked +up the lost trail. He was as much at ease as if his whole thought at +meeting her were the pleasure of the encounter.</p> + +<p>"Can you ride?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"I can stick on a hawss if it's plumb gentle. Leastways I've been trying +to for twenty years," he drawled.</p> + +<p>Her impatient gesture waved his flippancy aside. "I mean, are you too +much hurt to ride? I'm not going to leave you here like a wounded +coyote. Can you follow me if I lead the way?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>She turned. He followed her obediently, but with a ghost of a smile +still flickering on his face.</p> + +<p>"Am I your prisoner, Miss Sanderson?" he presently wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"I'm not thinking of prisoners just now," she answered shortly, with an +anxious backward glance.</p> + +<p>Presently she pulled up and wheeled her horse, so that when he halted +they sat facing each other.</p> + +<p>"Let me see your arm," she ordered.</p> + +<p>Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It +was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye.</p> + +<p>"This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other."</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness.</p> + +<p>Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist +gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a +clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble +except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked +pretty bad.</p> + +<p>"A plumb scratch," he explained.</p> + +<p>She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then +pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this +she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy."</p> + +<p>"It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded +jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again.</p> + +<p>There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you +tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud. +"Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering."</p> + +<p>"Exactly."</p> + +<p>He let his cool eyes rest on her with a hint of amusement. "And what +were you thinking of doing with me now, ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take you up to Jim Yeager's mine. He is doing his +assessment work now, and he'll look out for you for a day or two."</p> + +<p>"Look out for me in a locked room?" he wanted to know casually.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say so. It isn't my business to arrest criminals," she told +him icily.</p> + +<p>His eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills +alone. That is all."</p> + +<p>"Jim Yeager is your friend?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?"</p> + +<p>"He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently.</p> + +<p>"Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss +Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much."</p> + +<p>He checked his pony and bowed.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Up Bear Creek."</p> + +<p>"It's twenty miles. You can't do it."</p> + +<p>"Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the +handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony.</p> + +<p>"You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!"</p> + +<p>He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance.</p> + +<p>"I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her +pride.</p> + +<p>"Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend. +I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he +drawled.</p> + +<p>At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I +<i>like</i> you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel +friendly when I hate you?"</p> + +<p>"Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came +back with his easy smile.</p> + +<p>"You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I +can't let you go alone."</p> + +<p>"You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss +Sanderson."</p> + +<p>With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he +heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious, +both at him and at herself.</p> + +<p>"Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it +yet," he said innocently.</p> + +<p>"I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one +that will take charge of you," she choked.</p> + +<p>"It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged, ma'am, but you're overestimating +the effect of this pill your friend injected into me."</p> + +<p>"Still, I'm going. I won't have your death on my hands," she told him +defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Sho! I ain't aimin' to pass over the divide on account of a scratch +like this. There's no danger but what I can look out for myself."</p> + +<p>She waited in silence for him to start, looking straight ahead of her.</p> + +<p>He tried in vain to argue her out of it. She had nothing to say, and he +saw she was obstinately determined to carry her point.</p> + +<p>Finally, with a little chuckle at her stubbornness, he gave in and +turned round.</p> + +<p>"All right. Yeager's it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to +me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she +disdained to answer.</p> + +<p>Yeager saw them from afar, and recognized the girl.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Phyllis!" he shouted down. "With you in a minute."</p> + +<p>The girl slipped to the ground, and climbed the steep trail to meet him. +Her crisp "Wait here," flung over her shoulder with the slightest turn +of the head, kept Keller in the saddle.</p> + +<p>Halfway up she and the man met. The one waiting below could not hear +what they said, but he could tell she was explaining the situation to +Yeager. The latter nodded from time to time, protested, was vehemently +overruled, and seemed to leave the matter with her. Together they +retraced their way. Young Yeager, in flannel shirt and half-leg miner's +boots, was a splendid specimen of bronzed Arizona. His level gaze judged +the man on horseback, approved him, and met him eye to eye.</p> + +<p>"Better light, Mr. Keller. If you come in we'll have a look at your arm. +An accident like that is a mighty awkward thing to happen to a man on +the trail. It's right fortunate Miss Sanderson found you so soon after +it happened."</p> + +<p>The nester knew a surge of triumph in his blood, but it did not show in +the impassive face which he turned upon his host.</p> + +<p>"It was right fortunate for me," he said, swinging from the saddle. +Incidentally he was wondering what story had been narrated to Yeager, +but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so +careless when he's got a gun in his hand."</p> + +<p>"You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is +liable to go off and hit somebody any time if he ain't careful. You're +in big luck you didn't shoot yourself up a heap worse."</p> + +<p>Yeager led the way to his cabin, and offered Phyllis the single chair he +boasted, and the nester a seat on the bed. Sitting beside him, he +examined the wound and washed it.</p> + +<p>"Comes to being an invalid I'm a false alarm," Keller said +apologetically. "I didn't want to come, but Miss Sanderson would bring +me."</p> + +<p>"She was dead right, too. Time you had ridden twenty miles through the +hot sun with that wound you would have been in a raging fever."</p> + +<p>"One way and another I'm quite in her debt."</p> + +<p>"That's so," agreed Yeager, intent on his work.</p> + +<p>She refused to meet the nester's smile. "Fiddlesticks! You talk mighty +foolish, Jim. I wouldn't go away and leave a wounded dog if I could help +it."</p> + +<p>"Suppose the dog were a sheep-killer?" Keller asked with his engaging, +impudent smile.</p> + +<p>A dust cloud rose from her skirt under a stroke of the restless quirt. +"I'd do my best for it and let it settle with the law afterward."</p> + +<p>"Even if it were a wolf caught in a trap?"</p> + +<p>"I should put it out of its pain. No matter how much I detested it, I +wouldn't leave it there to suffer."</p> + +<p>"I'm quite sure you wouldn't," the wounded man agreed.</p> + +<p>Yeager looked from one to the other, not quite catching the drift of the +underlying meaning. Another thing puzzled him, too. But, like most men +of the unfenced Southwest, Yeager had a large capacity for silence. Now +he attended strictly to his business, without mentioning what he had +noticed.</p> + +<p>The wound dressed, Phyllis rose to leave. "You'll be down for your mail +to-morrow, Jim," she suggested, as she sauntered toward the door.</p> + +<p>"Sure. I'll let you know how our patient is getting along."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's yours. I don't want any of the credit," she returned +carelessly.</p> + +<p>Then, the words scarce off her lips, she gave a little cry of alarm, and +stepped quickly back into the room. What she had seen had sapped the +color from her face. Yeager started forward, but she waved him back.</p> + +<p>"It's Phil and Brill Healy. You've got to hide us, Jim," she told him +tensely.</p> + +<p>The nester began to grin. He always did when he faced a difficulty +apparently insurmountable. Also his fingers slid toward the butt of his +revolver.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_IV'></a><h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>"I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?"</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Jim swept the cabin with a gesture. "Where can I hide you? Anyhow, there +are the horses in plain sight."</p> + +<p>Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered.</p> + +<p>At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung +its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained +handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack.</p> + +<p>"Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your +assessment work, remember. And whatever I say, don't give me away."</p> + +<p>Yeager nodded. He had manoeuvred the wounded arm through the coat sleeve +and was straightening out the shoulders. The nester's eyes were shining +with excitement. Alone of the three, he was enjoying himself.</p> + +<p>"Remember now. Don't talk too much. Let me run this," the girl +cautioned, and with that she stepped to the door, caught sight of her +brother with a glad little cry of apparent relief, and ran swiftly to +him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Phil!" she almost sobbed, and the stress of her emotion was genuine +enough, even if she dissembled as to the cause.</p> + +<p>The boy patted her dark hair gently. They were twins, without other near +relatives except their father, and the tie between them was close.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Phyllie? Why didn't you stay where we left you?"</p> + +<p>"I was afraid for you. And I rode a little nearer. Then he came straight +toward me—and I rode away. I could hear him crashing through the +mesquite. When I reached the trail of Jim's mine, I followed it, for I +knew he would be here."</p> + +<p>"Sure. Course she was scared. What woman wouldn't be? We oughtn't both +to have left her. But there wasn't one chance in a thousand of his +stumbling on the very spot where she was," said Healy.</p> + +<p>Phil gentled her with a caressing hand. "It's all right now, sis. Did +you happen to see the fellow at all?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. At a distance."</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you would know him," Healy said.</p> + +<p>She gave a strained little laugh. "I didn't wait to get a description of +him. Didn't you boys recognize him?"</p> + +<p>After Phil's answer she breathed freer. "We did not get near enough, +though Brill got two shots at him as he pulled out. He was going +hell-for-leather and Brill missed both times." He lowered his voice and +asked angrily: "What's <i>he</i> doing here?"</p> + +<p>For Keller had followed Yeager from the cabin and was standing in the +doorway with his hands in his pockets. He wore no hat, and had the +manner of one very much at home.</p> + +<p>"He's helping Jim with his assessment work," she answered in the same +low tone. "It's too bad you lost the rustler. He must have broken for +the hills."</p> + +<p>Healy's eyes had narrowed to slits. Now he murmured a question: "What +about this man Keller? Was he here when you came, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>The girl turned to Yeager, who had sauntered up. "Didn't you say he came +this morning, Jim?"</p> + +<p>Yeager's eyes were like a stone wall. "Yep. This mo'ning. I needed some +husky guy to help me, so I got him."</p> + +<p>"Funny you had to get a fellow from Bear Creek to help you, Jim."</p> + +<p>"Are you looking for a job, Brill?"</p> + +<p>"No. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because I ain't noticed any stampede this way among the boys to preempt +this job. I take a man where I can find him, Brill, and I don't ask you +to O.K. him."</p> + +<p>"I see you don't, Jim. The boys aren't going to like it very well, +though."</p> + +<p>"Then they know what they can do about it," Yeager answered evenly, +level eyes steadily on those of his critic.</p> + +<p>"What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil.</p> + +<p>Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been +about eight."</p> + +<p>"Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a +whisper.</p> + +<p>"What man?" Jim asked.</p> + +<p>"We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a +shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil +exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"How long ago was this?" asked Yeager.</p> + +<p>"About an hour since we first saw him. Beats all how he ever made his +getaway. We were right after him when he gave us the slip."</p> + +<p>"Oh, he gave you the slip, did he?"</p> + +<p>"Dropped into some hole and pulled it in after him. These hills are +built for hide and seek, looks like."</p> + +<p>"Notice the color of his horse?"</p> + +<p>"It was a roan, Jim. Something like that nester's." Phil nodded toward +the animal Keller had ridden.</p> + +<p>All eyes focused hard on the horse with the white stockings.</p> + +<p>"What brand was he putting on the calf? That'll tell you who the man +was."</p> + +<p>Phil and Healy looked at each other, and the latter laughed. "That's one +on us. We didn't stay to look, but got right out for Mr. Rustler."</p> + +<p>"Did he kill the cow?"</p> + +<p>Phil nodded.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll find the calf still hanging around there unless he had a +pal to drive it away."</p> + +<p>"That's right. We'll go back now and look. Ready, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." She stepped to her horse, and swung to the saddle.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Healy rode forward to the cabin. Through narrowed lids he +looked down at the man standing in the doorway. "Give that message to +your friends?" he demanded insolently.</p> + +<p>There are men who have to look at each other only once to know that +there is born between them a perpetual hostility. Each of these men had +felt it at the first shock of meeting eyes. They would feel it again as +often as they looked at each other.</p> + +<p>"No," the nester answered.</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't care to. You may carry your own messages."</p> + +<p>"When I do I'll carry them with a gun."</p> + +<p>"Interesting if true." Keller's gaze passed derisively over him and +dismissed the man.</p> + +<p>"And I hope when I come I'll meet Mr. Keller first."</p> + +<p>The nester's attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed +to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona.</p> + +<p>Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the +trail with his broncho on the buck.</p> + +<p>Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a +frosty eye.</p> + +<p>"I've got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller," he said.</p> + +<p>"Unload 'em."</p> + +<p>Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on +the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it.</p> + +<p>"In the first place, I'll announce myself. I don't hold with rustlers or +waddies. I'm a white man. That being understood, I want to know where +we're at."</p> + +<p>"Meaning?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up +accidental. Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me. You ain't +that kind of a durn fool. Would you mind handing me a dipper of water? +Thanks." Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back +into the pail. "I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand. +Your gun is on your right side. Then how in Mexico, you being +right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself <i>in the right arm below +the elbow?</i>"</p> + +<p>Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information. "Quite a Sherlock +Holmes, ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Hell, no! I got eyes in my head, though. Moreover, that bullet went in +at right angles to your arm. How did you make out to do that?"</p> + +<p>"Sleight of hand," suggested the other.</p> + +<p>"No powder marks, either. And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a +revolver."</p> + +<p>"Anything more?"</p> + +<p>"Some. That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn't over and above +clear to me then. I <i>savez</i> it now. She hates you like p'ison, but +she's too tender-hearted to give you up. Ain't that it?"</p> + +<p>"That's it."</p> + +<p>"She lied for you to me. She lied again to Phil. So did I. Oh, we didn't +lie in words, but it's the same thing. Now, I wouldn't lie to save my +own skin. Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?"</p> + +<p>"I'm a rustler and a thief, am I?"</p> + +<p>"Ain't you?"</p> + +<p>"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?"</p> + +<p>Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, "No."</p> + +<p>"Then I won't say it."</p> + +<p>The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled +at him. "Mr. Keller, you're a newcomer here. I wonder if you know what +the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now."</p> + +<p>"I can guess."</p> + +<p>"Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn't be worth a plugged +quarter."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you tell?"</p> + +<p>Yeager brought his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl +Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I +ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father +has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should +I throw down my friends to save a rustler caught in the act?"</p> + +<p>"You've already tried and convicted me, I see."</p> + +<p>"The facts convict you, seh."</p> + +<p>"Your understanding of the facts, I reckon you mean."</p> + +<p>"I haven't noticed that you're giving me any chance to understand them +different," Yeager cut back dryly.</p> + +<p>The nester took from his pocket a little pearl-handled knife, picked up +a potato from a basket beside him, and began to whittle on it absently. +He looked across the table at the man sitting on the bed, and debated a +question in his mind. Was it best to confess the whole truth? Or should +he keep his own counsel?</p> + +<p>"I see you've got Miss Sanderson's knife. Did you forget to return it?" +Yeager made comment.</p> + +<p>For just an instant Keller's eye confessed amazement. "Miss Sanderson's +knife! Why—how did you know it was hers?" he asked, gathering himself +together lamely.</p> + +<p>"I ought to know, seeing as I gave it to her for a Christmas present. +Sent to Denver for that knife, I did. Best lady's knife in the market, +I'm told. Made in Sheffield, England."</p> + +<p>"Ye-es. It's sure a good knife. I'll ce'tainly return it next time I see +her."</p> + +<p>"Funny she ever let you get away with it. She's some particular who she +lends that knife to," Jim said proudly.</p> + +<p>Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his +pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had +told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a +possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in +trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others +into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson—surely not this +impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes. +Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would.</p> + +<p>"I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he +said gently.</p> + +<p>"Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for +yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You +may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for +Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know."</p> + +<p>"That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife."</p> + +<p>Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If +you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back."</p> + +<p>"Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler."</p> + +<p>"Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to +find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_V'></a><h2>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>AN AIDER AND ABETTOR</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Having come to an understanding, Yeager and Keller wasted no time or +temper in acrimony. Both of them belonged to that big outdoors West +which plays the game to the limit without littleness. They were in +hostile camps, but that did not prevent them from holding amiable +conversation on the common topics of Cattleland. Only one of these they +avoided by mutual consent. Neither of them had anything to say about +rustling.</p> + +<p>Together they ate and smoked and slept, and in the morning after +breakfast they saddled and set out for Seven Mile. A man might have +traveled far without seeing finer specimens of the frontier, any more +competent, self-restrained, or fitter for emergency. They rode with +straight back and loose seat, breaking long silences with occasional +drawling comment. For in the cow country strong men talk only when they +have something to say.</p> + +<p>The stage had just left when they reached Seven Mile, and Public Opinion +was seated on the porch as per custom. It regarded Keller with a stony, +expressionless hostility. Yeager with frank disapprobation.</p> + +<p>Just before swinging from the saddle, Jim turned to the nester. "I'm +giving you an hour, seh. After that, I'm going to speak my little piece +to the boys."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. An hour will be plenty," Keller answered, and passed into +the store, apparently oblivious of the silent observation focused upon +him.</p> + +<p>Phyllis, busy unwrapping a package of papers, glanced up to see his +curly head in the stamp window.</p> + +<p>"Anything for L. Keller?" he wanted to know, after he had unburdened +himself of a friendly "Mornin', Miss Sanderson."</p> + +<p>Her impulse was to ask him how his wound was, but she repressed it +sternly. She took the letters from the K pigeonhole and found two for +him.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, I'm feeling fine," he laughed, gathering up his mail.</p> + +<p>"I didn't ask you how you were feeling," she answered, turning coldly to +her newspapers.</p> + +<p>"I thought mebbe you'd want to know about my punctured tire."</p> + +<p>"It's very good of you to relieve my anxiety."</p> + +<p>"Let me relieve it some more, Miss Sanderson. Here's the knife you +lost."</p> + +<p>She glanced up carelessly at the pearl-handled knife he pushed through +the window. "I didn't know it was lost."</p> + +<p>"Well, now you know it's found. When do you remember seeing it last, +ma'am?"</p> + +<p>"I lent it to a friend two days ago."</p> + +<p>"Oh, to a friend—two days ago."</p> + +<p>His eyes were on her so steadily that the girl was aware of some +significance he gave to the fact, some hidden meaning that escaped her.</p> + +<p>"What friend did you say, Miss Sanderson?"</p> + +<p>He asked it casually, but his question irritated her.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say, sir."</p> + +<p>"That's so. You didn't."</p> + +<p>"Where did you get it?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>He grinned. "I'll tell you that if you'll tell me who you lent it to."</p> + +<p>Her curt answer reminded him that he was in her eyes a convicted +criminal. "It's of no importance, sir."</p> + +<p>"That's what you think, Miss Sanderson."</p> + +<p>She sorted the newspapers in the bundle, and began to slip them into the +private boxes where they belonged. Presently, however, her curiosity +demanded satisfaction. Without looking at him, she volunteered +information.</p> + +<p>"But there's no mystery about it. Phil borrowed the knife to fix a +stirrup leather, and forgot to give it back to me."</p> + +<p>"Your brother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>He was taken aback. There was nothing for it but a white lie. "I found +it near Yeager's mine yesterday. I reckon he must have dropped it on his +way there."</p> + +<p>"I don't see anything very mysterious about that," she said frostily.</p> + +<p>She looked so definitely unaware of him as she worked that he fell back +from the window and passed out to the porch. He had found out more than +he wanted to know.</p> + +<p>Jim Yeager's drawling voice came to him, gentle and low as usual, but +with an edge to it. "I been discoverin' I'm some unpopular to-day, +Brill. Malpais has been expressin' its opinion right plain. You've +arrived in time to chirp in with a 'Me, too.'"</p> + +<p>Healy had evidently just ridden up, for he was still in the saddle. He +relaxed into one of the easy attitudes used by men of the plains to rest +themselves without dismounting.</p> + +<p>"You know my sentiments, Jim," he replied, not unamiably.</p> + +<p>"Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel +awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when +Keller touched him on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to see you for a moment, Mr. Yeager, if you can give me the +time," he said.</p> + +<p>Healy took in the nester with an eye of jade. "Your twin brother wants +you, Jim. Run along with him. Don't mind us."</p> + +<p>"I won't, Brill."</p> + +<p>The young man rose, and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. At +the corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under the +shade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowed +himself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him that +seemed to ally him further with the enemy.</p> + +<p>"Here I am, Mr. Keller. What can I do for you?"</p> + +<p>"You're a friend of Miss Sanderson. You would stand between her and +trouble?" the other demanded abruptly.</p> + +<p>"I expect."</p> + +<p>"Then find out for me what Phil Sanderson did with the knife his sister +lent him two days ago. Find out whether he lent it to anybody, and, if +so, who."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>It had come to a show-down, and the other tabled his cards.</p> + +<p>"I found that knife yesterday mo'ning. It was lying beside the dead cow +in the park where your friends happened on me. I reckon the rustlers +must have heard me coming and drove the calf away just before I arrived. +In his hurry one of them forgot that knife. If you'll tell me the man +who had it in his pocket yesterday when he left-home, I'll tell you who +one of the Malpais rustlers is."</p> + +<p>Jim considered this, his gaze upon the far-away range. When he brought +it back to Keller, he was smiling incredulously.</p> + +<p>"I hear you say so, seh. But what a man with, a halter round his neck +says don't go far before a court."</p> + +<p>"I expected you to say about that."</p> + +<p>"Then I haven't disappointed you." He continued presently, with cold +hostility: "That story you cooked up is about the only one you could +spring. What surprises me is that a man with as good a head as yours +took twenty-four hours to figure out your explanation. I want to tell +you, too, that it don't make any hit with me that you're trying to throw +the blame on a boy I've known all my life."</p> + +<p>"Who happens to be a brother of Miss Sanderson," Keller let himself +suggest.</p> + +<p>Yeager flushed. "That ain't the point."</p> + +<p>"The point is that I'm trying to clear this boy, and I want your help."</p> + +<p>"Looks to me like you want to clear yourself."</p> + +<p>"If I prove to you that I'm not a rustler, will you padlock your tongue +and help me clear young Sanderson?"</p> + +<p>"I sure will—if you prove it to my satisfaction."</p> + +<p>Keller drew from his pocket the two letters he had just received. "Read +these."</p> + +<p>When he had read, Yeager handed them back, and offered his hand. "That +clears you, seh. Truth is, I never was satisfied you was a rustler. My +mind was satisfied; but, durn it, you didn't <i>look</i> like a waddy. It's +lucky I hadn't spoke to the boys yet."</p> + +<p>"I want to keep this quiet," the Bear Creek settler explained.</p> + +<p>"Sure. I'm a clam, and at your service, seh."</p> + +<p>"Then find out the truth about the knife."</p> + +<p>Yeager's eye chiselled into that of Keller. "Mind, I ain't going to help +you bring trouble to Phyllie, and I ain't going to stand by and see it, +either."</p> + +<p>The other smiled. "I don't ask it of you. What I want is to clear the +boy."</p> + +<p>"Good enough," agreed Yeager, and led the way back.</p> + +<p>Before they had yet reached the house, a figure dropped from the foliage +of the live oak under which they had been standing, and rolled like a +ball from the fence into the deep dust of the corral. It picked itself +up in a gray cloud, from which shone as a nucleus a black face with +beady eyes and flashing-white teeth. Swiftly it scampered across the +paddock, disappeared into the rear of the stable, and reappeared at the +front door.</p> + +<p>"Here you, 'Rastus, where you been?" demanded the wrangler. "Didn't I +tell you to clean Miss Phyl's trap? I've wore my lungs out hollering for +you. Now, you git to work, or I'll wear you to a frazzle."</p> + +<p>'Rastus, general alias for his baptismal name of George Washington +Abraham Lincoln Randolph, grinned and ducked, shot out of the stable +like a streak of light, and appeared ten seconds later in the kitchen +presided over by his rotund mother, Becky.</p> + +<p>His abrupt entrance disturbed the maternal after-dinner nap. From the +rocking-chair where she sat Becky rolled affronted eyes at him.</p> + +<p>"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebenty +times seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?"</p> + +<p>"I wanter see Miss Phyl."</p> + +<p>"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool +away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable, +where you belong."</p> + +<p>'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that +part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky +stared after him in amazement.</p> + +<p>"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped.</p> + +<p>Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the +store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room +finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was +sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her +"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes.</p> + +<p>She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham +Lincoln Randolph?"</p> + +<p>"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live +oak at the corral."</p> + +<p>"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash——"</p> + +<p>"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream it +nerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they call +Keller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler, +and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler."</p> + +<p>"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazing +indignation.</p> + +<p>"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by the +dead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil."</p> + +<p>"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot blood +of Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted to +strike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he had +given to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person she +could best use for her instrument.</p> + +<p>Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender young +amazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in the +dusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this young +woman of many moods.</p> + +<p>"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus."</p> + +<p>The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the door +had closed on him.</p> + +<p>The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his own +tracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but——"</p> + +<p>"We have," she broke in.</p> + +<p>"I can't see it. According to Jim Yeager——"</p> + +<p>"Jim lied. I asked him to."</p> + +<p>"You—what?"</p> + +<p>"I asked him to say that this man had come there to work for him. Jim +was not to blame."</p> + +<p>"But—why?"</p> + +<p>She threw out a gesture of self-contempt. "Why did I do it? I don't +know. Because he was wounded, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Wounded! Then I did hit him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. In the arm—a flesh wound. I met him riding through the mesquite. +After I had tied up his wound, I took him to Jim's."</p> + +<p>His eyes narrowed slightly. "So you tied up his wound?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered defiantly, her head up.</p> + +<p>"That tender heart of yours," he murmured, with almost a sneer.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I'm a fool."</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well."</p> + +<p>"And he pays me back by trying to throw it on Phil. Hunt him down, +Brill. Bring him to me. I'll tell all I know against him," she cried +vindictively.</p> + +<p>"I'll get him, Phyl," he promised, and the sound of his laughter was not +pleasant. "I'll get him for you, or find out why."</p> + +<p>"Think of him trying to put it on Phil, and after I stood by him and +kept his secret. Isn't that the worst ever?" the girl flamed.</p> + +<p>"He rode away not five minutes ago as big as coffee on that ugly roan of +his with the white stockings; knew what we thought about him, but didn't +pay any more attention to us than as if we were bumps on a log."</p> + +<p>Healy strode out to the porch, told his story, and within five minutes +had organized his posse and appointed a rendezvous for two hours later +at Seven Mile.</p> + +<p>At the appointed time his men were on hand, six of them, armed with +rifles and revolvers, ready for grim business.</p> + +<p>From her window Phyllis saw them ride away, and persuaded herself that +she was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooter +who had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as the +hours passed she was beset by a consuming anxiety. What more likely +than that he would resist! If so, there could be only one end. She +could not keep her thoughts from those seven men whom she had sent +against the one.</p> + +<p>There was nobody to whom she could talk about it, for Phil and her +father were away at Noches. Restless as a caged panther, she twice had +her horse brought to the door, and rode into the hills to meet her +posse. But she could not be sure which way they would come, and after +venturing a short distance she would return for fear they might arrive +in her absence. Night had fallen over the country, and the stars were +out long before she got back the second time. Nine—ten—eleven o'clock +struck, and still no sign of those for whom she waited.</p> + +<p>At last they came, their prisoner riding in the midst, bareheaded and +with his hands tied.</p> + +<p>"I've got him, Phyl!" Healy cried in a voice that told the girl he was +riding on a wave of triumph.</p> + +<p>"I see you have."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless she looked not at the victor, but at the vanquished, and +never had she seen a man who looked more master of his fate than this +one. He was smiling down at her whimsically, and she saw they had not +taken him without a struggle. The marks of it were on them and on him. +Healy's cheek bone was laid open in a nasty cut, and Slim had a +handkerchief tied round his head.</p> + +<p>As for Keller, his shirt was in ribbons and dyed with the stains of +blood from the wound that had broken out again in the battle. The hair +on the left side of his head was clotted with dried blood, and his +cheeks were covered with it. Both eyes were blacked, and hands and face +were scratched badly. But his mien was as jaunty, his smile as gallant, +as if he had come at the head of a conquering army.</p> + +<p>"Good evenin', Miss Sanderson," he bowed ironically.</p> + +<p>She looked at him, and turned away without answering. She heard Healy +curse softly and knew why. This man contrived somehow to rob him of his +triumph.</p> + +<p>"You are none of you hurt, Brill?" the girl asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"No. He fought like a wild cat, but we took him by surprise. He had only +his bare fists."</p> + +<p>"How about him? Is he hurt?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—or care," the man answered sullenly.</p> + +<p>"But he must be looked to."</p> + +<p>"I don't know why. It ain't my fault we had to beat him up."</p> + +<p>"I didn't say it <i>was</i> your fault, Brill," she answered gently. "But any +one can see he has lost a lot of blood, and his wounds are full of dust. +They must be washed. I want him brought into the house. Aunt Becky and I +will look after him."</p> + +<p>"No need of that. Slim will fix him up."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No, Brill."</p> + +<p>His eyes gave way first, but his surrender came with a bad grace.</p> + +<p>"All right, Phyl. But he's going to be covered by a gun all the time. +I'm not taking chances on him."</p> + +<p>"Then have him taken into my den. I'll wake Aunt Becky and we'll be +there in a few minutes."</p> + +<p>When Phyllis arrived with Aunt Becky she found the nester sitting on the +lounge, Healy opposite him with a revolver close to his hand. The +prisoner's arms had been freed. His sardonic smile still twitched at the +corners of his mouth.</p> + +<p>"You've ce'tainly begun your practice on a disreputable patient, Doctor +Sanderson. I haven't had time to comb my hair since that little séance +with your friends. We sure did have a sociable time. They're all good +mixers." He looked into the long glass opposite, laughed at sight of his +swollen face, then rattled into a misquotation of some verses he +remembered:</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;<br /></span> +<span>For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Put the water and things down on that table, Becky," her mistress told +her, ignoring the man's blithe folly.</p> + +<p>"I'm giving you lots of chances to do the Good Samaritan act," he +continued. "Honest, I hate to be so much trouble. You'll have to blame +Mr. Healy. He's the responsible party for these little accidents of +mine."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to be responsible for one more," the stockman told him +darkly.</p> + +<p>"I understand your intentions are good, but I've noticed that sometimes +expectation outruns performance," his prisoner came back promptly.</p> + +<p>"Not this time, I think."</p> + +<p>Phyllis understood that Brill was threatening the nester and that the +latter was defying him lightly, but what either meant precisely she did +not know. She proceeded to business without a word except the necessary +directions to Becky. Not until the arm was dressed and the wound on the +head washed and bandaged did she address Keller.</p> + +<p>"I'll send you a powder that will help you get to sleep. The doctor left +it here for Phil, and he did not need it," she said.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe I won't need it, either." Keller laughed hardily, at his enemy it +seemed to the girl, and with some hint of a sinister understanding +between them from which she was excluded. "Thanks just the same, for +that and for everything else you've done for me."</p> + +<p>Phyllis said "Good night" stiffly, and followed the old negress out. She +went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and +it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of. +Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms +across the sill.</p> + +<p>Two men met beneath her window.</p> + +<p>"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other.</p> + +<p>While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slim +spoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that, +it won't take us long."</p> + +<p>"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily.</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course."</p> + +<p>"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do."</p> + +<p>"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game."</p> + +<p>"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it."</p> + +<p>"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for +his life."</p> + +<p>They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing +red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid. +They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had +been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While +the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed +subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently.</p> + +<p>What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in +the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no +matter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed the +rustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He had +known while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him to +death, and he had not even reproached her.</p> + +<p>Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it were +possible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course he +was guarded.</p> + +<p>She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed along +it to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside. +She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have him +outdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or they +might have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. If +the latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe place +under lock and key.</p> + +<p>Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted the +house at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranch +riders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creeping +close to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. In +front of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almost +upon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle.</p> + +<p>"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply.</p> + +<p>It was Tom Dixon.</p> + +<p>Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you are +guarding the prisoner."</p> + +<p>"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably can +now. I suppose I was nervous."</p> + +<p>"No wonder. But you may sleep, all right. He won't trouble you any. I'll +guarantee that," he promised largely. "Oh, Phyl!"</p> + +<p>She had turned to go, but she stopped at his call. "Well?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you be mad at me. I was only fooling the other day. Course I +hadn't ought to have got gay. But a fellow makes a break once in a +while."</p> + +<p>Under the stress of her deeper anxiety she had forgotten all about her +tiff with him. It had seemed important at the time, but since then Tom +and his affairs had been relegated to second place in her mind. He was +only a boy, full of the vanity that was a part of him. Somehow, her +anger against him was all burnt out.</p> + +<p>"If you never will again, Tom," she conceded.</p> + +<p>"I'll be good," he smiled, meaning that he would be good as long as he +must.</p> + +<p>"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once inside +she fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hung +a key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from there +noiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way without +a light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked. +This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storing +supplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went to +another stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight or +nine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole, +fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door.</p> + +<p>The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the door +creaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like a +trip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone.</p> + +<p>"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside."</p> + +<p>She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and +presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till +they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the +knots before she remembered a swifter way.</p> + +<p>"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case where +pocketknives were kept.</p> + +<p>Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free.</p> + +<p>He rose and stretched his cramped limbs.</p> + +<p>"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs. +Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute, +and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand.</p> + +<p>The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fence +of the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on my +head. Now, go."</p> + +<p>"Not till I know why you betrayed me."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because you +are what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager this +afternoon. Why don't you go?"</p> + +<p>"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself."</p> + +<p>"Did Yeager tell you that?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there is +still a chance."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going—not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what I +said."</p> + +<p>A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his hand +still on the handle, aware that there were others in the room.</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror.</p> + +<p>"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie."</p> + +<p>Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed.</p> + +<p>"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caught +unexpectedly. "It's—it's Phil," she pretended to pretend.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before he +went out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don't +forget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as a +clam till you say the word."</p> + +<p>With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girl +turned on Keller.</p> + +<p>"There! You see. They may catch you any moment."</p> + +<p>"Will you ask Yeager?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, if you'll go."</p> + +<p>"All right. I'll go."</p> + +<p>Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him from +his feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers, +soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheek +when she had stooped over him. The drag of sex was upon him and had set +him trembling strangely.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you go?" she cried softly.</p> + +<p>He snatched himself away.</p> + +<p>But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides. +Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands in +his, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swing +of the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyes +by the faint light that sifted through the window upon her.</p> + +<p>"What—what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding her +in waves.</p> + +<p>"Why are you saving me, girl?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't know. I've told you why."</p> + +<p>"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while you +think me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?"</p> + +<p>He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. It +told her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happened +she could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, his +kiss tingling through her blood like wine.</p> + +<p>She thrust him from her—and he was gone.</p> + +<p>She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with +excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now +her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for +this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed +his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it +untied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded the +sentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay the +open road, the hills, and safety.</p> + +<p>A cry rang out in the stillness—and another. A shot, the beat of +running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly +become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her +face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination +conjured—a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a +huddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_VI'></a><h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<h3>A GOOD FRIEND</h3> +<br /> + +<p>How long she remained there Phyllis did not know. Fear drummed at her +heart. She was sick with apprehension. At last her very terror drove her +out to learn the worst. She walked round to the front of the house and +saw a light in the store. Swiftly she ran across and up the steps to the +porch. Three men were inside examining the empty chair by the light of a +lantern one held in his hand.</p> + +<p>"Did—did he get away?" the girl faltered.</p> + +<p>The men turned. One of them was Slim. He held in his hand pieces of the +slashed rope and the open pocket-knife that had freed the prisoner.</p> + +<p>"Looks like it," Slim answered. "With some help from a friend. Now, I +wonder who that useful friend was and how in time he got in here?"</p> + +<p>Her eyes betrayed her. Just for an instant they swept to the cellar +door, to make sure it was still shut. But that one glance was enough. +Slim, about to speak, changed his mind, and stared at her with parted +lips. She saw suspicion grow in his face and resolve itself to +certainty, helped to decision by the telltale color dyeing her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Does the cellar stairway from the store connect with the kitchen +cellar, Phyllie?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Ye-es."</p> + +<p>He nodded, then laughed without mirth. "I reckon I can tell you, boys, +who Mr. Keller's friend in need is."</p> + +<p>"Who? I'd like right well to know." Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had +just come in and was listening.</p> + +<p>Phyllis turned and faced him. "I was that friend, Brill."</p> + +<p>"You!" He stared at her in astonishment. "You! Why, it was you sent me +out to run him down."</p> + +<p>"I didn't tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?"</p> + +<p>"I guess there's a lot between him and you that you didn't tell me," he +jeered.</p> + +<p>Slim grinned, not at all maliciously. "I reckon that's right. I don't +need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the +kitchen."</p> + +<p>"He was just going," she protested.</p> + +<p>"Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate."</p> + +<p>"Go ahead, Slim. I'm only a girl. You and Brill say what you like," she +flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her +hands.</p> + +<p>"Only don't say it out loud," cautioned a new voice. Jim Yeager was at +the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy.</p> + +<p>"I say what I think, Jim," Brill retorted promptly.</p> + +<p>"And you think?"</p> + +<p>Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter. "I think things ain't +right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape +twice."</p> + +<p>"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis.</p> + +<p>"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone.</p> + +<p>"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no +better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed."</p> + +<p>The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir," +she murmured with mock humility.</p> + +<p>"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked.</p> + +<p>"He sure has—clean as a whistle."</p> + +<p>"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more +a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an +innocent man."</p> + +<p>"Prove it," cried Healy.</p> + +<p>Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to +take my word for it."</p> + +<p>"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his +father announced promptly.</p> + +<p>Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager, +Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing +with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter."</p> + +<p>"I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I've got to trust my own eyes before +your indorsement," Healy sneered.</p> + +<p>"That's your privilege, Brill."</p> + +<p>"I reckon Jim knows what he's talking about," said Yeager, Senior, with +intent to conciliate.</p> + +<p>"Of course I know you're right friendly with him, Jim. There's nobody +more competent to pass an opinion on him. Like enough you know all about +his affairs," conceded Healy with polite malice.</p> + +<p>The two young men were looking at each other steadily. They never had +been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that. Rival +leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their +rivalry to a flame. Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted.</p> + +<p>"I expect I know more about them than you do, Brill."</p> + +<p>"Sure you do. Ain't he just got through being your guest? Didn't he come +visiting you in a hurry? Didn't you tie up his wound? And when Phil and +I came asking questions didn't you antedate his arrival about six hours? +I'm not denying you know all about him. What I'm wondering is why you +didn't tell all you knew. Of course, I understand they are your +reasons, though, not mine."</p> + +<p>"You've said it. They're my reasons."</p> + +<p>"I ain't saying they are not good reasons. Whyfor should a man round on +his friend?"</p> + +<p>The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right +proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go +right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't +known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter. +They're so durned teachable to-day maybe you can get them to swallow +that with the rest."</p> + +<p>With which parting shot he followed Phyllis out of the store. She turned +on him at the top of the porch steps leading to the house.</p> + +<p>"Did he tell you that Phil was the rustler?"</p> + +<p>"You mean did Keller tell me?" he said, surprised.</p> + +<p>"Yes. 'Rastus was in the live oak and heard all you said."</p> + +<p>"No. He didn't tell me that. We neither of us think it was Phil. It +couldn't be, for he was riding with you at the time. But he found your +knife there by the dead cow. Now, how did it come there? You let Phil +have the knife. Had he lent his knife to some one?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know." She went on, after a momentary hesitation: "Are you +quite sure, Jim, that he really found the knife there?"</p> + +<p>"He said so. I believe him."</p> + +<p>She sighed softly, as if she would have liked to feel as sure. "The +reason I spoke of it was that I accused him of trying to throw the blame +on Phil, and he told me to ask you about it."</p> + +<p>Jim shook his head. "Nothing to it. If you want my opinion, Keller is +white clear enough. He wouldn't try a trick like that."</p> + +<p>The girl's face lit, and she held out an impulsive hand. "Anyhow, you're +a good friend, Jim."</p> + +<p>"I've been that ever since you was knee high to a duck, Phyl."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes, you have. The best I've got, next to Phil and Dad." Her heart +just now was very warm to him.</p> + +<p>"Don't you reckon maybe a good friend might make a good—something +else."</p> + +<p>She gasped. "Oh, Jim! You don't mean——"</p> + +<p>"Yep. That's what I do mean. Course I'm not good enough. I know that."</p> + +<p>"Good. You're the best ever. It isn't that. Only I don't like you that +way."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you might some day."</p> + +<p>She shook her head slowly. "I wish I could, Jim. But I never will."</p> + +<p>"Is there—someone else, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>If it had been light enough he could have seen a wave of color sweep her +face.</p> + +<p>"No. Of course there isn't. How could there be? I'm only a girl."</p> + +<p>"It ain't Brill then?"</p> + +<p>"No. It's—it isn't anybody." She carried the war, womanlike, into his +camp. "And I don't believe you care for me—that way. It's just a +fancy."</p> + +<p>"One I've had two years, little girl."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sorry. I <i>do</i> like you, better than any one else. You know +that, dear old Jim."</p> + +<p>He smiled wistfully. "If you didn't like me so well I reckon I'd have a +better chance. Well, I mustn't keep you here. Good night."</p> + +<p>Her ringers were lost in his big fist. "Good night, Jim." And again she +added, "I'm so sorry."</p> + +<p>"Don't you be. It's all right with me, Phyl. I just thought I'd mention +it. You never can tell, though I most knew how it would be. <i>Buenos +noches, nina.</i>"</p> + +<p>He released her hand, and without once looking back strode to his horse, +swung to the saddle, and rode into the night.</p> + +<p>She carried into the house with her a memory of his cheerful smile. It +had been meant as a reassurance to her. It told her he would get over +it, and she knew he would. For he was no puling schoolboy, but a man, +game to the core.</p> + +<p>The face of another man rose before her, saturnine and engaging and +debonair. With the picture came wave on wave of shame. He was a detected +villain, and she had let him kiss her. But beneath the self-scorn was +something new, something that stung her blood, that left her flushed and +tingling with her first experience of sex relations.</p> + +<p>A week ago she had not yet emerged fully from the chrysalis of +childhood. But in the Southland flowers ripen fast. Adolescence steals +hard upon the heels of infancy. Nature was pushing her relentlessly +toward a womanhood for which her splendid vitality and unschooled +impulses but scantily safeguarded her. The lank, shy innocence of the +fawn still wrapped her, but in the heart of this frank daughter of the +desert had been born a poignant shyness, a vague, delightful trembling +that marked a change. A quality which had lain banked in her nature like +a fire since childhood now threw forth its first flame of heat. At +sunset she had been still treading the primrose path of youth; at +sunrise she had entered upon the world-old heritage of her sex.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_VII'></a><h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>A SHOT FROM AMBUSH</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From the valley there drifted up a breeze-swept sound. The rider on the +rock-rim trail above, shifting in his saddle to one of the easy, +careless attitudes of the habitual horseman, recognized it as a rifle +shot.</p> + +<p>Presently, from a hidden wash rose little balloon-like puffs of smoke, +followed by a faint, far popping, as if somebody had touched off a bunch +of firecrackers. Men on horseback, dwarfed by distance to pygmy size, +clambered to the bank—now one and then another firing into the mesquite +that ran like a broad tongue from the roll of hills into the valley.</p> + +<p>"Looks like something's broke loose," the young man drawled aloud. "The +band's sure playing a right lively tune this glad mo'ning."</p> + +<p>Save for one or two farewell shots, the firing ceased. The riders had +disappeared into the chaparral.</p> + +<p>The rider did not need to be told that this was a man hunt, destined +perhaps to be one of a hundred unwritten desert tragedies. Some subtle +instinct in him differentiated between these hurried shots and those +born of the casual exuberance of the cow-puncher at play. He had a +reason for taking an interest in it—an interest that was more than +casual.</p> + +<p>Skirting the rim of the saucer-shaped valley, he rode forward warily, +came at length to a cañon that ran like a sword cleft into the hills, +and descended cautiously by a cattle trail, its scarred slope.</p> + +<p>Through the defile ran a mountain stream, splashing over and round +boulders in its swift fall.</p> + +<p>"I reckon we'll slide down, Keno, and work out close to the fire zone," +the rider said to his horse, as they began to slither down the +precipitous slope, starting rubble at every motion.</p> + +<p>Man and horse were both of the frontier, fit to the minute for any call +that might be made on them. The broncho was a roan, with muscles of +elastic leather, sure-footed as a mountain goat. Its master—a slim, +brown man, of medium height, well knit and muscular—looked on the +world, quietly and often humorously, with shrewd gray eyes.</p> + +<p>As he reached the bottom of the gulch, his glance fell upon another +rider—a woman. She crossed the stream hurriedly, her pony flinging +water at every step, and cantered up toward him.</p> + +<p>Her glance was once and again over her shoulder, so that it was not +until she was almost upon him that she saw the young man among the +cottonwoods, and drew her pony to an instant halt. The rifle that had +been lying across her saddle leaped halfway to her shoulder, covering +him instantly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Buenos dios, senorita.</i> Are you going for to shoot my head off?" he +drawled.</p> + +<p>"The rustler!" she cried.</p> + +<p>"The alleged rustler, Miss Sanderson," he corrected gently.</p> + +<p>"Let me past," she panted.</p> + +<p>He observed that her eyes mirrored terror of the scene she had just +left.</p> + +<p>"It's you that has got the drop on me, isn't it?" he suggested.</p> + +<p>The rifle went back to the saddle. Instantly the girl was in motion +again, flying up the cañon past the white-stockinged roan, her pony's +hindquarters gathered to take the sheep trail like those of a wild cat.</p> + +<p>Keller gazed after her. As she disappeared, he took off his hat, bowed +elaborately, and remarked to himself, in his low, soft drawl:</p> + +<p>"Good mo'ning, ma'am. See you again one of these days, mebbe, when you +ain't in such a hurry."</p> + +<p>But though he appeared to take the adventure whimsically his mind was +busy with its meaning. She was in danger, and he must save her. So much +he knew at least.</p> + +<p>He had scarcely turned the head of his horse toward the mouth of the +cañon when the pursuit drove headlong into sight. Galloping men pounded +up the arroyo, and came to halt at his sharp summons. Already Keller +and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed +the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun.</p> + +<p>"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted +to know amiably.</p> + +<p>The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm +bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large, +heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born +leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed.</p> + +<p>"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive, +he's ours." He gave crisp orders.</p> + +<p>"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock.</p> + +<p>For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded +man had whipped up a rifle and fired.</p> + +<p>Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too +many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail. +You see, it's loaded with buckshot."</p> + +<p>One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such +audacity as this was new to him.</p> + +<p>"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned +amusing," growled his leader.</p> + +<p>"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful +guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have."</p> + +<p>"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets +through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice, +just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the +other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get +him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here."</p> + +<p>"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row +about?" the cornered man wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you +didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make +your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a +stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?"</p> + +<p>"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply.</p> + +<p>"Douglas."</p> + +<p>"What doing here?"</p> + +<p>"Homesteading."</p> + +<p>"Name?"</p> + +<p>"Keller."</p> + +<p>"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to +shoot me. That's what you are."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of +us. If you're not the man, where is he?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't got him in my vest pocket."</p> + +<p>"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants."</p> + +<p>"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so +as to know him."</p> + +<p>"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit.</p> + +<p>"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher.</p> + +<p>"Well, then?"</p> + +<p>"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rustler who broke away from +us two weeks ago," Curly spoke out.</p> + +<p>"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out +between set teeth.</p> + +<p>"By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin +added.</p> + +<p>Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be +assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch, +riding a roan horse. He could swear that only one person had come in +before these pursuers—and that one was a woman on a roan. Her +frightened eyes, the fear that showed in every motion, her hurried +flight, all contributed to the same inevitable conclusion. It was +difficult to believe it, but impossible to deny. This wild, sylvan +creature, with the shy, wonderful eyes, had lain in ambush to kill her +father's enemy, and was flying from the vengeance on her heels.</p> + +<p>His lips were sealed. Even if he were not under heavy obligations to her +he could no more save himself at the expense of this brown sylph than he +could have testified against his own mother.</p> + +<p>"All right. If you feel lucky, come on. You'll get me, of course, but it +may prove right expensive," he said quietly.</p> + +<p>"That's all right. We're footing our end of the bill," Pesky retorted.</p> + +<p>By this time, he and Weaver had dismounted, and were sheltered behind +rocks. Already bullets were beginning to spit back and forth, though the +flankers had not yet got into action.</p> + +<p>"Durn his hide, I hate like sin to puncture it," Pesky told his boss. "I +tell you we're making a mistake, Buck. This fellow's a pure—he ain't +any hired killer. You can tie to that."</p> + +<p>"He's the man that pumped a bullet into my arm from ambush. That's +enough for me," the cattleman swore.</p> + +<p>"No use being revengeful, especially if it happens he ain't the man. By +his say-so, that's a shotgun he's carrying. Loaded with buckshot, he +claims. What hit you was a bullet from a Winchester, or some such gun. +Mighty easy to prove whether he's lying."</p> + +<p>"We'll be able to prove it afterward, all right."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with proving it now? I don't stand for any murder +business myself. I'm going to find out what's what."</p> + +<p>The cow-puncher tied the red bandanna from his neck round the end of his +revolver, and shoved it above the rock in front of him.</p> + +<p>"Flag of truce!" he shouted.</p> + +<p>"All right. Come right along. Better leave your gun behind," Keller +called back.</p> + +<p>Pesky waddled forward—a short, thick-set, bow-legged man in chaps, +spurs, flannel shirt, and white sombrero. When he took off this last, as +he did now, it revealed a head bald as a billiard ball.</p> + +<p>"How're they coming?" he inquired genially of the besieged man, as he +rounded the rock barricade.</p> + +<p>Larrabie's steel eyes relaxed to a hint of a friendly smile. He knew +this type of man like a brother.</p> + +<p>"Fine and dandy here. Hope you're well yourself, seh."</p> + +<p>"Tol'able. Buck's up on his ear, o' course. Can't blame him, can you? +Most any man would, with that kind of a pill sent to his address so +sudden by special delivery. Wasn't that some inconsiderate of you, Mr. +Keller?"</p> + +<p>"I thought I explained it was another party did that."</p> + +<p>Pesky rolled a cigarette and lit it.</p> + +<p>"Right sure of that, are you? Wouldn't mind my taking a look at that gun +of yours? You see, if it happens to be what you said it was, that +kinder lets you out."</p> + +<p>Keller handed over the gun promptly. The cow-puncher broke it, extracted +a shell, and with his knife picked out the wad. Into his palm rolled a +dozen buckshot.</p> + +<p>"Good enough! I told Buck he was barking up the wrong tree. Now, I'll go +back and have a powwow with him. I reckon you'll be willing to surrender +on guarantee of a square deal?"</p> + +<p>"Sure—that's all I ask. I never met your friend—didn't know who he was +from Adam. I ain't got any option to shoot all the red-haided men I +meet. No, sir! You've followed a cross trail."</p> + +<p>"Looks like. Still, it's blamed funny." Pesky scratched his shining +poll, and looked shrewdly at the other. "We certainly ran Mr. +Bushwhacker into the cañon. I'd swear to that. We was right on his +heels, though we couldn't see him very well. But he either come in here +or a hole in the ground swallowed him."</p> + +<p>He waited tentatively for an answer, but none came other than the +white-toothed smile that met him blandly.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you know more than you aim to tell, Mr. Keller," continued +Pesky. "Don't you figure it's up to you, if we let you out of this +thing, to whack up any information you've got? The kind of reptile that +kills from ambush don't deserve any consideration."</p> + +<p>Half an hour ago, the other would have agreed with him. The man that +shot his enemy from cover was a coyote—nothing less. But about that +brown slip of a creature, who had for three minutes crossed his orbit, +he wanted to reserve judgment.</p> + +<p>"I expect I haven't got a thing to tell you that would help any," he +drawled, his eye full on that of the cowpuncher.</p> + +<p>Pesky threw away his cigarette. "All right. You're the doctor. I'll +amble back, and report to the boss."</p> + +<p>He did so, with the result that a truce was arranged.</p> + +<p>Keller gave up his post of vantage, and came forward to surrender.</p> + +<p>Weaver met him with a hard, wintry eye. "Understand, I don't concede +your innocence. You're my prisoner, and, by God, if I get any more proof +of your guilt, you've got to stand the gaff."</p> + +<p>The other nodded quietly, meeting him eye to eye. Nor did his gaze fall, +though the big cattleman was the most masterful man on the range. Keller +was as easy and unperturbed as when he had been holding half a dozen +irate men at bay.</p> + +<p>"No kick coming here. But, if it's just the same to you, I'll ask you to +get the proof first and hang me afterward."</p> + +<p>"If you're homesteading, where's your place?"</p> + +<p>"Back in the hills, close to the headwaters of Salt Creek."</p> + +<p>"Huh! You'll make that good before I get through with you. And I want +to tell you this, too, Mr. Keller. It doesn't make any hit with me that +you're one of those thieving nesters. Moreover, there's another charge +against you. In the Malpais country we hang rustlers. The boys claim to +have you cinched. We'll see."</p> + +<p>"Who's that with Curly?" Pesky called out. "By Moses, it's a woman!"</p> + +<p>"It is the Sanderson girl," Weaver said in surprise.</p> + +<p>Keller swung round as if worked by a spring. The cow-puncher had told +the truth. Curly's companion was not only a woman, but <i>the</i> woman—the +same slim, tanned creature who had flashed past him on a wild race for +safety, only a few minutes earlier.</p> + +<p>All eyes were focused upon her. Weaver waited for her to speak. Instead, +Curly took up the word. He was smiling broadly, quite unaware of the +mine he was firing.</p> + +<p>"I found this young lady up on the rock rim. Since we were rounding up, +I thought I'd bring her down."</p> + +<p>"Good enough. Miss Sanderson, you've been where you could see if anyone +passed into the cañon. How about it? Anybody go up in last ten minutes?"</p> + +<p>Phyllis moistened her dry lips and looked at the prisoner. "No," she +answered reluctantly.</p> + +<p>Weaver wheeled on Keller, his eyes hard as jade. "That ties the rope +round your neck, my man."</p> + +<p>"No," Phyllis cried. "He didn't do it."</p> + +<p>The cattleman's stone wall eyes were on her now.</p> + +<p>"Didn't? How do you know he didn't?"</p> + +<p>"Because I—I passed him here as I rode up a few minutes ago."</p> + +<p>"So you rode up a few minutes ago." Buck's lids narrowed. "And he was +here, was he? Ever meet Mr. Keller before?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"When? Speak up. Mind, no lying."</p> + +<p>This, struck the first spark of spirit from her. The deep eyes flashed. +"I'm not in the habit of lying, sir."</p> + +<p>"Then answer my question."</p> + +<p>"I've met him at the office when he came for his mail. And the boys +arrested him by mistake for a rustler. I saw him when they brought him +in."</p> + +<p>"By mistake. How do you know it was by mistake?"</p> + +<p>"It was I accused him. But I did it because I was angry at him."</p> + +<p>"You accused an innocent man of rustling because you were sore at him. +You're ce'tainly a pleasant young lady, Miss Sanderson."</p> + +<p>Her look flashed defiance at him, but she said nothing. In her slim +erectness was a touch of feminine ferocity that gave him another idea.</p> + +<p>"So you just rode into the cañon, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Meet up with anybody in the valley before you came in?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>His eyes were like steel drills. They never left her. "Quite sure?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What were you doing there?"</p> + +<p>She had no answer ready. Her wild look went round in search of a friend +in this circle of enemies. They found him in the man who was a prisoner. +His steadfast eyes told her to have no fear.</p> + +<p>"Did you hear what I said?" demanded Weaver.</p> + +<p>"I was—riding."</p> + +<p>"Alone?"</p> + +<p>The answer came so slowly that it was barely audible. "Yes."</p> + +<p>"Riding in Antelope Valley?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Let me see that gun." Weaver held out his hand for the rifle.</p> + +<p>Phyllis looked at him and tried to fight against his domination; then +slowly she handed him the rifle. He broke and examined it. From the +chamber he extracted an empty shell.</p> + +<p>Grim as a hanging judge, his look chiselled into her.</p> + +<p>"I expect the lead that was in here is in my arm. Isn't that right?"</p> + +<p>"I—I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Who does, then? Either you shot me or you know who did."</p> + +<p>Her gaze evaded his, but was forced at last to the meeting.</p> + +<p>"I did it."</p> + +<p>She was looking at him steadily now. Since the thing must be faced, she +had braced herself to it. It was amazing what defiant pluck shone out of +her soft eyes. This man of iron saw it, and, seeing, admired hugely the +gameness that dwelt in her slim body. But none of his admiration showed +in the hard, weather-beaten face.</p> + +<p>"So they make bushwhackers out of even the girls among your rustling, +sheep-herding outfit!" he taunted.</p> + +<p>"My people are not rustlers. They have a right to be on earth, even if +you don't want them there."</p> + +<p>"I'll show them what rights they have got in this part of the country +before I get through with them. But that ain't the point now. What I +want to know is how they came to send a girl to do their dirty killing +for them."</p> + +<p>"They didn't send me. I just saw you, and—and shot on an impulse. Your +men have clubbed and poisoned our sheep. They wounded one of our +herders, and beat his brother when they caught him unarmed. They have +done a hundred mean and brutal things. You are at the bottom of it all; +and when I saw you riding there, looking like the lord of all the earth, +I just——"</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Couldn't help—what I did."</p> + +<p>"You're a nicely brought up young woman—about as savage as the rest of +your wolf breed," jeered Weaver.</p> + +<p>Yet he exulted in her—in the impulse of ferocity that had made her +strike swiftly, regardless of risk to herself, at the man who had +hounded and harried her kin to the feud that was now raging. Her shy, +untamed beauty would not itself have attracted him; but in combination +with her fierce courage it made to him an appeal which he conceded +grudgingly.</p> + +<p>"What in Heaven's name brought you back after you had once got away?" +Weaver asked.</p> + +<p>The girl looked at Keller without answering.</p> + +<p>"I reckon I can tell you that, seh," explained that young man. "She +figured you would jump on me as the guilty party. It got on her +conscience that she had left an innocent man to stand for it. I +shouldn't wonder but she got to seeing a picture of you-all hanging me +or shooting me up. So she came back to own up, if she saw you had caught +me."</p> + +<p>Weaver nodded. "That's the way I figure it, too. Gamest thing I ever saw +a woman do," he said in an undertone to Keller, with whom he was now +standing a little apart.</p> + +<p>The latter agreed. "Never saw the beat of it. She's scared stiff, too. +Makes it all the pluckier. What will you do with her?"</p> + +<p>"Take her along with me back to the ranch."</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't do that," said the young man quickly.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't you?" Weaver's hard gaze went over him haughtily. "When I want +your advice, I'll ask you for it, young man. You're in luck to get off +scot-free yourself. That ought to content you for one day."</p> + +<p>"But what are you going to do with her? Surely not have her imprisoned +for attacking you?"</p> + +<p>"I'll do as I dashed please, and don't you forget it, Mr. Keller. Better +mind your own business, if you've got any."</p> + +<p>With which Buck Weaver turned on his heel, and swung slowly to the +saddle. His arm was paining him a great deal, but he gave no sign of it. +He expected his men to game it out when they ran into bad luck, and he +was stoic enough to set them an example without making any complaints.</p> + +<p>The little group of riders turned down the trail, passed through the +gateway that led to the valley below, and wound down among the +cow-backed hills toward the ranch roofs, which gleamed in the distance. +They were the houses of the Twin Star outfit, the big concern owned by +Buck Weaver, whose cattle fed literally upon a thousand hills.</p> + +<p>It suited Buck's ironic humor to ride beside the girl who had just +attempted his life. He bore her no resentment. Had the offender been a +man, Buck would have snuffed out his life with as little remorse as he +would a guttering candle. But her sex and her youth, and some quality of +charm in her, had altered the equation. He meant to show her who was +master, but he would choose a different method.</p> + +<p>What sport to tame the spirit of this wild desert beauty until she +should come like one of her own sheep dogs at his beck and call! He had +never yet met the woman he could not dominate. This one, too, would know +a good many new emotions before she rejoined her tribe in the hills.</p> + +<p>He swung from the saddle at the ranch plaza, and greeted her with a deep +bow that mocked her.</p> + +<p>"Welcome, Miss Sanderson, to the best the Twin Star outfit has to offer. +I hope you will enjoy your visit, which is going to be a long one."</p> + +<p>To a Mexican woman, who had come out to the porch in answer to his call, +he delivered the girl, charging her duty in two quick sentences of +Spanish. The woman nodded her understanding, and led Phyllis inside.</p> + +<p>Weaver noticed with delight that his captive's eye met his steadily, +with the defiant fierceness of some hunted wild thing. Here was a woman +worth taming, even though she was still a girl in years. His exultant +eye, returning from the last glimpse of the lissom figure as it +disappeared, met the gaze of Keller. That young man was watching him +with an odd look of challenge on his usually impassive face.</p> + +<p>The cattleman felt the spur of a new antagonism stirring his blood. +There was something almost like a sneer on his lips as he spoke:</p> + +<p>"Sorry to lose your company, Mr. Keller. But if you're homesteading, of +course, we'll have to let you go back to the hills right away. Couldn't +think of keeping you from that spring plowing that's waiting to be +done."</p> + +<p>"You're putting up a different line of talk from what you did. How about +that charge of rustling against me, Mr. Weaver? Don't you want to hold +me while you investigate it?"</p> + +<p>"No, I reckon not. Your lady friend gives you a clean bill of health. +She may or may not be lying. I'm not so sure myself. But without her the +case against you falls."</p> + +<p>Keller knew himself dismissed cavalierly, and, much as he would have +liked to stay, he could find no further excuse to urge. He could hardly +invite himself to be either the guest or the prisoner of a man who did +not want him.</p> + +<p>"Just as you say," he nodded, and turned carelessly to his pony.</p> + +<p>Yet he was quite sure it would not be as Weaver said if he could help +it. He meant to take a hand in the game, no matter what the other might +decree. But for the present he acquiesced in the inevitable. Weaver was +technically within his rights in holding her until he had communicated +with the sheriff. A generous foe might not have stood out for his pound +of flesh, but Buck was as hard as nails. As for the reputation of the +girl, it was safe at the Twin Star ranch. Buck's sister, a maiden lady +of uncertain years, was on hand to play chaperone.</p> + +<p>Larrabie swung to the saddle. His horse's hoofs were presently flinging +dirt toward the Twin Star as he loped up to the hills.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_VIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>MISS-GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Time had been when the range was large enough for all, when every man's +cattle might graze at will from horizon to horizon. But with the push of +settlement to the frontier had come a change. The feeding ground became +overstocked. One outfit elbowed another, and lines began to be drawn +between the runs of different owners. Water holes were seized and +fenced, with or without due process of law.</p> + +<p>With the establishment of forest reserves a new policy dominated the +government. Sanderson had been one of the first to avail himself of it +by leasing the public demesne for his stock. Later, learning that the +mountain parks were to be thrown open as a pasturage for sheep, he had +bought three thousand and driven them up, having first arranged terms +with the forestry service.</p> + +<p>Buck Weaver, fighting the government reserve policy with all his might, +resented fiercely the attitude of Sanderson. A sharp, bitter quarrel had +resulted, and had left a smoldering bad feeling that flamed at times +into open warfare. Upon the wholesome Malpais country had fallen the +bitterness of a sheep and cattle feud.</p> + +<p>The riders of the Twin Star outfit had thrice raided the Sanderson +flocks. Lambing sheep had been run cruelly. One herd had been clubbed +over a precipice, another decimated with poison. In return, the herders +shot and hamstrung Twin Star cows. A herder was held up and beaten by +cowboys. Next week a vaquero galloped home to the Twin Star ranch with a +bullet through his leg. This was the situation at the time when the +owner of the big ranch brought Phyllis a prisoner to its hospitality.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have been more pat to his liking. He was, in large +measure, the force behind the law in San Miguel county. The sheriff whom +he had elected to office would be conveniently deaf to any illegality +there might be in his holding the girl, would if necessary give him an +order to hold her there until further notice. The attempt to assassinate +him would serve as excuse enough for a proceeding even more highhanded +than this. Her relatives could scarce appeal to the law, since the law +would then step in and send her to the penitentiary. He could use her +position as a hostage to force her stiff-necked father to come to terms.</p> + +<p>But it was characteristic of the man that his reason for keeping her +was, after all, less the advantage he might gain by it than the pleasure +he found in tormenting her and her family. To this instinct of the +jungle beast was added the interest she had inspired in him. Untaught of +life she was, no doubt, a child of the desert, in some ways primitive as +Eve; but he perceived in her the capacity for deep feeling, for passion, +for that kind of fierce, dauntless endurance it is given some women to +possess.</p> + +<p>Miss Weaver took charge of the comfort of her guest. Her manner showed +severe disapproval of this girl so lost to the feelings of her sex as to +have attempted murder. That she was young and pretty made matters worse. +Alice Weaver always had worshipped her brother, by the law of opposites +perhaps. She was as drab and respectable as Boston. All her tastes ran +to humdrum monotony. But turbulent, lawless Buck, the brother whom she +had brought up after the death of their mother, held her heart in the +hollow of his hard, careless hand.</p> + +<p>"Have you had everything you wish?" she would ask Phyllis in a frigid +voice.</p> + +<p>"I want to be taken home."</p> + +<p>"You should have thought of that before you did the dreadful thing you +did."</p> + +<p>"You are holding me here a prisoner, then?"</p> + +<p>"An involuntary guest, my brother puts it. Until the sheriff can make +other arrangements."</p> + +<p>"You have no right to do it without notifying my father. He is at Noches +with my brother."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Weaver will do as he thinks best about that." The spinster shut +her lips tight and walked from the room.</p> + +<p>Supper was brought to Phyllis by the Mexican woman. In spite of her +indignation she ate and slept well. Nor did her appetite appear impaired +next morning, when she breakfasted in her bedroom. Noon found her +promoted to the family dining room. Weaver carried his arm in a sling, +but made no reference to the fact. He attempted conversation, but +Phyllis withdrew into herself and had nothing more friendly than a plain +"No" or "Yes" for him. His sister was presently called away to arrange +some household difficulty. At once Phyllis attacked the big man lounging +in his chair at his ease.</p> + +<p>"I want to go home. I've got to be at the schoolhouse to-morrow +morning," she announced.</p> + +<p>"It won't hurt you any to miss a few days' schooling, my dear. You'll +learn more here than you will there, anyhow," he assured her pleasantly. +Buck was cracking two walnuts in the palm of his hand and let his lazy +smile drift her way only casually.</p> + +<p>She stamped her foot. "I tell you I'm the teacher. It is necessary I +should be there."</p> + +<p>"You a schoolmarm!" he repeated, in surprise. "How old are you?"</p> + +<p>Her dress was scarcely below her shoe tops. She still had the slimness +of immature girlhood, the adorable shy daring of some uncaptured wood +nymph.</p> + +<p>"Does that matter to you, sir?"</p> + +<p>"How old?" he reiterated.</p> + +<p>"Going-on-eighteen," she answered—not because she wanted to, but +because somehow she must. There was something compelling about this +man's will. She would have resisted it had she not wanted to gain her +point about going home.</p> + +<p>"So you teach the kids their A B C's, do you? And you just out of them +yourself! How many scholars have you?"</p> + +<p>"Fourteen."</p> + +<p>"And they all love teacher, of course. Would you take me for a scholar, +Miss Going-On-Eighteen?"</p> + +<p>"No!" she flamed.</p> + +<p>"You'd find me right teachable. And I would promise to love you, too."</p> + +<p>Color came and went in her face beneath the brow. How dared he mock her +so! It humiliated and embarrassed and angered her.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to let me go back to my school?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"I reckon your school will have to get along without you for a few days. +Your fourteen scholars will keep right on loving you, I expect. 'To +memory dear, though far from eye.' Or, if you like, I'll send my boys up +into the hills, and round up the whole fourteen here for you. Then +school can keep right here in the house. How about that? Ain't that a +good notion, Miss Going-On-Eighteen?"</p> + +<p>She could stand his ironic mockery no longer. She faced him, fearless as +a tiger: "You villain!"</p> + +<p>With that, turning on her heel, she passed swiftly into her little +bedroom, and slammed the door. He heard the key turn in the lock.</p> + +<p>"She's sure got some devil in her," he laughed appreciatively, and he +cracked another walnut.</p> + +<p>Already he had struck the steel of her quality. She would be his +prisoner because she must, but the "no compromise" flag was nailed to +her masthead.</p> + +<p>"I wonder why you are so fond of me?" he mused aloud next day when he +found her as unresponsive to his advances as a block of wood.</p> + +<p>He was lying in the sand at her feet, his splendid body relaxed full +length at supple ease. Leaning on an elbow, he had been watching her for +some time.</p> + +<p>Her gaze was on the distant line of hills; on her face that far-away +expression which told him that he was not on the map for her. Used as he +was to impressing himself upon the imagination of women, this stung his +vanity sharply. He liked better the times when her passion flamed out at +him.</p> + +<p>Now he lost his sardonic mockery in a flash of anger.</p> + +<p>"Do you hear me? I asked you a question."</p> + +<p>She brought her head round until her eyes rested upon him.</p> + +<p>"Will you ask it again, please? I wasn't listening."</p> + +<p>"I want to know what makes you hate me so," he demanded roughly.</p> + +<p>"Do I hate you?"</p> + +<p>He laughed irritably. "What else do you call it? You won't hardly eat at +the same table with me. Last night you wouldn't come down to supper. +Same way this morning. If I sit down near you, soon you find an excuse +to leave. When I speak, you don't answer."</p> + +<p>"You are my jailer, not my friend."</p> + +<p>"I might be both."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you!"</p> + +<p>She said it with such quick, instinctive certainty that he ground his +teeth in resentment. He was the kind of man that always wanted what he +could not get. He began to covet this girl mightily, even while he told +himself that he was a fool for his pains. What was she but an untaught, +country schoolgirl? It would be a strange irony of fate if Buck Weaver +should fall in love with a sheepman's daughter.</p> + +<p>"Many people would go far to get my friendship," he told her.</p> + +<p>Quietly she looked at him. "The friends of my people are my friends. +Their enemies are mine."</p> + +<p>"Yet you said you didn't hate me."</p> + +<p>"I thought I did, but I find I don't."</p> + +<p>"Not worth hating, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>She neither corrected nor rejected his explanation.</p> + +<p>He touched his wounded arm as he went on: "If you don't hate me, why +this compliment to me? I reckon good, genuine hate sent that bullet."</p> + +<p>The girl colored, but after a moment's hesitation answered:</p> + +<p>"Once I shot a coyote when I saw it making ready to pounce on one of our +lambs. I did not hate that coyote."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," he told her ironically.</p> + +<p>Her gaze went back to the mountains. She had always had a capacity for +silence. But it was as extraordinary to her as to him how, in the past +few days, she had sloughed the shy timidity of a mountain girl and found +the enduring courage of womanhood. Her wits, too, had taken on the edge +of maturity. He found that her tongue could strike swiftly and sharply. +She was learning to defend herself in all the ways women have acquired +by inheritance.</p> + +<p>Weaver's jaw set like a vise. Getting to his feet, he looked down at her +with the hard, relentless eyes that had made his name a terror.</p> + +<p>"Good enough, Miss Phyllis Sanderson. You've chosen your way. I'll +choose mine. You've got to learn that I'm master here; and, by God, I'll +teach it to you. Before I get through with you, young woman, you'll +come running when I snap my fingers. From to-day things will be +different. You'll eat your meals with us and not in your room. You'll +speak when you're spoken to. Set yourself up against me, and I'll bring +you to your knees fast enough. There's no law on the Twin Star Ranch but +Buck Weaver's will."</p> + +<p>He strode away, almost herculean in figure, and every inch of him +forceful. She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same +time, so wilful and so masterful. Before he was out of her sight, she +got an instance of his recklessness.</p> + +<p>A Mexican vaquero was driving some horses into a corral. His master +strode up to him, and dragged him from the saddle.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I tell you to take the colts down to the long pasture?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Si, señor,</i>" answered the trembling native.</p> + +<p>Weaver's great fist rose and fell once. The Mexican sank limply down. +Without another glance at him, the cattleman flung him aside, and strode +to the house.</p> + +<p>As the owner of the Twin Star had said, so it was. Thereafter Phyllis +sat at the table with him and his sister, while Josephine, the Mexican +woman, waited upon them. The girl came and went at his bidding. But she +held herself with such a quiet aloofness that his victory was a barren +one.</p> + +<p>"Do you want to go home?" he taunted her one morning, while at +breakfast.</p> + +<p>"Is it likely I would want to stay here?" she retorted.</p> + +<p>"Why not? What have you to complain of? Aren't you treated well?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What, then? Are you afraid?"</p> + +<p>"No!" she answered, with a flash of her fine eyes.</p> + +<p>"That's good, because you've got to stay here—or go to the pen. You may +take your choice."</p> + +<p>"You're very generous. I suppose you don't expect to keep me here +always," she said scornfully.</p> + +<p>"Until my arm gets well. Since you wounded it you ought to nurse it."</p> + +<p>"Which I am not doing, even while I am here."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow it soothes the temper of the invalid to have you around." He +grinned satirically.</p> + +<p>"So I judge, from the effects."</p> + +<p>"Meaning that I'm always in a rage when I leave you?"</p> + +<p>"I notice your men are marked up a good deal these days."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell them to thank you for it," he flung back.</p> + +<p>Two days later, he scored on her hard for the first time. She came down +to breakfast just as two of the Twin Star riders brought a boy into the +hall.</p> + +<p>She flew instantly into his arms, thereby embarrassing him vastly.</p> + +<p>"Phil! How did you come here?"</p> + +<p>Her brother nodded toward Curly and Pesky. "They found me outside and +got the drop on me."</p> + +<p>"You were here looking for me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Just got back from Noches. Dad is still there. He don't know."</p> + +<p>"But—what are they going to do with you?"</p> + +<p>"What would you suggest, Miss Phyllis?" a voice behind her gibed.</p> + +<p>The speaker was Weaver. He filled the doorway of the dining room +triumphantly. She had had no fears for herself; he would see if she had +none for her brother.</p> + +<p>The boy whirled on the ranchman like a tiger whelp. "I don't care what +you do. Go ahead and do your worst."</p> + +<p>Weaver looked him over negligently, much as he might watch a struggling +calf. To him the boy was not an enemy—merely a tool which he could use +for his own ends. Phyllis, watching anxiously the hard, expressionless +face, felt that it was cruel as fate. She knew that somehow she would be +made to suffer through her love for her brother.</p> + +<p>"You daren't touch him. He's done nothing," she cried.</p> + +<p>"He shot at one of my riders. I can't have dangerous characters around. +I'm a peaceable man, me," grinned Buck.</p> + +<p>"You didn't, Phil," his sister reproached.</p> + +<p>"Sure I did. He tried to take my gun from me," the boy explained hotly.</p> + +<p>"Take him out to the bunk house, boys. I'll attend to him later," +nodded Buck, turning away indifferently.</p> + +<p>Stung to fury by the cavalier manner of his enemy, the boy leaped at him +like a wild cat. Weaver whirled round again, caught him by the shoulder +with his great hand, and shook him as if he had been a puppy. When he +dropped him, he nodded again to his men, who dragged out the struggling +boy.</p> + +<p>Phyllis stood straight as an arrow, but white to the lips. "What are you +going to do to him?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"How would a good chapping do, to start with? That is always good for an +unlicked cub."</p> + +<p>"Don't!" she implored.</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, why not—since it's for his good?"</p> + +<p>Passion unleashed leaped from her. "You coward!"</p> + +<p>He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm right desolated to have your bad +opinion. But you say it almost as if you did hate me. That's a +compliment, you know. You didn't hate the coyote, you mentioned."</p> + +<p>Her eyes flamed. "Hate you! If wishes could kill, you would be a +thousand times dead!"</p> + +<p>"You disappoint me, my dear. I expected more than wishes from you. +There's a loaded revolver in that table drawer. It's yours, any time you +want it," he derided.</p> + +<p>"Don't tempt me!" she cried wildly. "If you lay a hand on Phil, I'll use +it—I surely will."</p> + +<p>His eyes shone with delight. "I wonder. By Jove, I've a mind to flog +the colt and see. I'll do it."</p> + +<p>The passion sank in her as suddenly as it had risen. "No—you mustn't! +You don't know him—or us. We are from the South."</p> + +<p>"That settles it. I will," he exulted. "You have called me a coward. +Would a coward do this, and defy your whole crew to its revenge?"</p> + +<p>"Would a brave man break the pride of a high-spirited boy for such a +mean motive?" she countered.</p> + +<p>"His pride will have to look out for itself. He took his chance of it +when he tried to assault me. What he'll get is only what's coming to +him."</p> + +<p>"Please don't! I'll—I'll be different to you. Take it out on me," she +begged.</p> + +<p>He laughed harshly. "Do you suppose I'm such a fool as not to know that +the way to take it out on you is to take it out of him?"</p> + +<p>She had come nearer, a step at a time. Now she threw her hand out in a +gesture of abandon.</p> + +<p>"Be generous! Don't punish me that way. Something dreadful will come of +it."</p> + +<p>She broke down and struggled with her tears. He watched her for a moment +without speaking.</p> + +<p>"Good enough. I'll be generous and let you pay his debt for him, if you +want to do it."</p> + +<p>Her eyes were glad with the swift joy that leaped into them.</p> + +<p>"That is good of you! And how shall I pay?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"With a kiss."</p> + +<p><a name='drewback'>She drew back as if he had struck her, all the sparkling eagerness +driven from her face.</a></p> + +<p>"Oh!" she moaned.</p> + +<p>"Just one kiss—I don't ask anything more. Give me that, and I'll turn +him loose. Honor bright."</p> + +<p>He held her startled gaze as a snake holds that of a fascinated bird.</p> + +<p>"Choose," he told her, in his masterful way.</p> + +<p>Her imagination conceived a vision of her young brother being tortured +by this man. She had not the least doubt that he would do what he said, +and probably would think the boy got only what he deserved.</p> + +<p>"Take it," she told him, and waited.</p> + +<p>Perhaps he might have spared her had it not been for the look of deep +contempt that bit into his vanity.</p> + +<p>He kissed her full on the lips.</p> + +<p>Instantly she woke to life, struck him on the cheek with her little, +brown fist, and, with a sob of woe, turned and ran from the room.</p> + +<p>Weaver cursed himself in a fury of anger. He felt himself to be a hound +because of the thing he had done, and he hated the instinct in him that +drove him to master her. He had insulted and trampled on her. Yet he +knew in his heart that he would have killed another man for doing it.</p> + +<a name="illus2"><!-- Image 2 --></a> +<center><a href="images/116_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/116_sm.jpg" height="472" width="300" +alt="SHE DREW BACK AS IF HE HAD STRUCK HER, ALL THE SPARKLING +EAGERNESS DRIVEN FROM HER FACE. Page 116" /> +</a> +</center> +<p style="text-align: center"><span style=' +font-weight:700'><small> +SHE DREW BACK AS IF HE HAD STRUCK HER, ALL THE SPARKLING +EAGERNESS DRIVEN FROM HER FACE. +(<a href="#drewback">Page 116</a>)</small></span></p> + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_IX'></a><h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>PUNISHMENT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The cattleman strode into the bunk house, where young Sanderson sat +sulkily on a bed under the persuasion of Curly's rifle.</p> + +<p>"Have this boy's horse saddled and brought around, Curly."</p> + +<p>"You're the doctor," answered the cowboy promptly, and forthwith +vanished outdoors to obey instructions.</p> + +<p>Phil looked sullenly at his captor, and waited for him to begin. One of +his hands was under the pillow of the cot upon which he sat. His fingers +circled the butt of a revolver he had found there, where one of the +riders had chanced to leave it that morning.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to turn you loose to go home to the hills," Weaver told him.</p> + +<p>"And my sister?"</p> + +<p>"She stays here."</p> + +<p>"Then so do I."</p> + +<p>"That's up to you. There's no law against camping on the plains—that +is, out of range of the Twin Star."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with her?" the boy demanded ominously.</p> + +<p>"If you ask no questions, I'll tell you no lies."</p> + +<p>"You'll let her go home with me—that's what you'll do," cried Phil.</p> + +<p>"I reckon not. You've got a license to feel lucky you're going +yourself."</p> + +<p>"By God, I say you shall!"</p> + +<p>The cattleman's eyes took on their stony, snake-like look. His hand did +not move by so much as an inch toward the scabbarded revolver at his +side.</p> + +<p>"All right. Come a-shooting. I see you've got a gun under that pillow."</p> + +<p>The weapon leaped into sight. "You're right I have! I'll drill you full +of holes as soon as wink."</p> + +<p>Weaver laughed contemptuously. "Begin pumping, son."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to take my sister home with me. You'll give orders to your +men to that effect."</p> + +<p>"Guess again."</p> + +<p>"I tell you I'll shoot your hide full of holes if you don't!" cried the +excited boy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you won't."</p> + +<p>Buck Weaver was flirting with death, and he knew it. The very breath of +it fanned his cheek. During that moment he lived gloriously; for he was +a man who revelled in his sensations. He laughed into the very muzzle of +the six-shooter that covered him.</p> + +<p>"Quit your play acting, boy," he jeered.</p> + +<p>"I give you one more chance before I blow out your brains."</p> + +<p>The cattleman put his unwounded hand into his trousers pocket and +lounged forward, thrusting his smiling face against the cold rim of the +blue barrel.</p> + +<p>"I reckon you'll scatter proper what few brains I've got."</p> + +<p>With a curse, the boy flung the weapon down on the bed. He could not +possibly kill a man so willing as this. To draw guns with him, and +chance the issue, would have suited young Sanderson exactly. But this +way would be no less than murder.</p> + +<p>"You devil!" he cried, with a boyish sob.</p> + +<p>Weaver picked up the revolver, and examined it. "Mighty careless of Ned +to leave it lying around this way," he commented absently, as if unaware +of the other's rage. "You never can tell when a gun is going to get into +the wrong hands."</p> + +<p>"What are you letting me go for? You've got a reason. What is it?" Phil +demanded.</p> + +<p>Weaver looked at him through narrowed, daredevil eyes. "The ransom price +has been paid," he explained.</p> + +<p>"Paid! Who paid it?"</p> + +<p>"Miss Phyllis Sanderson."</p> + +<p>"Phyllis?" repeated the boy incredulously. "But she had no money."</p> + +<p>"Did I say she paid it in money?"</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"She asked me to set you free. I named my price, and she agreed."</p> + +<p>"What was your price?" the boy asked hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"A kiss."</p> + +<p>At that, Phil struck him full in the sardonic, mocking face. Blood +crimsoned the lips that had been crushed against the strong, white +teeth.</p> + +<p>"Again," said Weaver.</p> + +<p>The brown fist went back and shot forward like a piston rod. This time +it left an ugly gash over the cheek bone.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged. Once more."</p> + +<p>The young man balanced himself carefully, and struck hard and true +between the eyes.</p> + +<p>A third, a fourth, and a fifth time Phil lashed out at the disfigured, +grinning face.</p> + +<p>"Let's make it an even half dozen," the cattleman suggested.</p> + +<p>But Phil had had enough of it. This was too much like butchery. His +passion had spent itself. He struck, but with no force behind the blow.</p> + +<p>Weaver went to the washstand, dashed some water on his face, and pressed +a towel against the raw wounds. He flung the red-soaked towel aside just +as Curly cantered up on Sanderson's horse. The cow-puncher stared at his +boss in amazement, opened his lips to speak, and thought better of it. +He looked at Phil, whose knuckles were badly barked and bleeding.</p> + +<p>Curly had seen his master marked up before, but on such occasions the +other man was a sight for the gods to wonder at. Now Weaver was the +spectacle, and the other was untouched. In view of Buck's reputation as +a rough-and-tumble fighter, this seemed no less than a miracle. Curly +departed with the wonder unexplained, for Weaver dismissed him with a +nod.</p> + +<p>"Like to see your sister before you go?" the cattleman asked curtly of +Phil, over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Buck led the way across the plaza to the house, and clapped his hands in +the hall. Josephine answered the summons.</p> + +<p>"Tell Miss Sanderson that her brother would like to see her."</p> + +<p>The woman vanished up the stairway, and the two men waited in silence. +Presently Phyllis stood in the door. Her eyes ignored Weaver, and were +only for her brother. Her first glance told her that all was well so far +as he was concerned, even though it also let her know that the boy was +anxious.</p> + +<p>"Phil!" she breathed.</p> + +<p>"So you bought my freedom for me, did you?" the boy said, his voice +trembling.</p> + +<p>Phyllis answered in the clearest of low voices. "Yes. Did he tell you?"</p> + +<p>"You oughtn't to have done it. I'll have no such bargains made. +Understand that!" cried her brother, emotion in his high tones.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help it, Phil. I did it for the best. You don't know."</p> + +<p>"I know that you're to keep out of this. I'll fight my own battles. In +our family the girls don't sell kisses. Remember that."</p> + +<p>Phyl hung her head. She felt herself disgraced, but she knew that she +would do it again in like circumstances.</p> + +<p>Weaver broke in roughly: "You young fool! She's worth a dozen of you, +who haven't sense enough to <i>sabe</i> her kind."</p> + +<p>The girl glanced at him involuntarily. At sight of his swollen and +beaten face, she started. Her gaze clung to him, eyes wild and +fluttering with apprehension.</p> + +<p>"I've been taking a massage treatment," he explained.</p> + +<p>Phyllis looked at her brother, then back at the ranchman. The thing was +beyond comprehension. Ten minutes ago, this ferocious Hercules had left +her, sound and unscratched. Now he returned with a face beaten and +almost beyond recognition from bloodstains.</p> + +<p>"What—what is it?" The appeal was to her brother.</p> + +<p>"He let me beat him," Phil explained.</p> + +<p>"Let you beat him! Why?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>What the boy said was true, yet it was something less than the truth. He +was dimly aware that this man knew himself to have violated the code, +and that he had submitted to punishment because of the violation.</p> + +<p>"Tell me," Phyllis commanded.</p> + +<p>Phil told her in three sentences. She looked at Weaver with eyes that +saw him in a new light. He still sneered, but behind the mask she got +for the first time a glimpse of another man. Only dimly she divined him; +but what she visioned was half devil and half hero, capable of things +great as well as of deeds despicable.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to leave you here in this house," young Sanderson told +her. "I'll not go. If you stay, I stay."</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "No, Phil—you must go. I'm all right here—as safe +as I would be at home. You know, he has a right to send me to prison if +he wants to. I suppose he is holding me as a hostage against our friends +in the hills."</p> + +<p>The boy accepted her decree under protest. He did not know what else to +do. Decision comes only with age, and he could hit on no policy that +would answer. Reluctantly he gave way.</p> + +<p>"If you so much as touch her, you'll die for it," he gulped at Weaver, +in a sudden boyish passion. "We'll shoot you down like a dog."</p> + +<p>"Or a coyote," suggested Buck, with a swift glance at Phyllis. "It seems +to be a family habit. I'm much obliged to you."</p> + +<p>Phyl was in her brother's arms, frankly in tears.</p> + +<p>It was all very well to tell him to go; it was quite another thing to +let him go without a good cry at losing him.</p> + +<p>"Just say the word, and I'll see it out with you, sis," he told her.</p> + +<p>"No, no! I want you to go. I wouldn't have you stay. Tell the boys it's +all right, and don't let them do anything rash."</p> + +<p>Sanderson clenched his teeth, and looked at Weaver. "Oh, they'll do +nothing rash. Now they know you're here, they won't do a thing but sit +down and be happy, I expect."</p> + +<p>The twins whispered together for a minute, then the boy kissed her, put +her from him suddenly, and strode away. From the door he called back two +words at the cattleman.</p> + +<p>"Don't forget."</p> + +<p>With that, he was gone. Yet a moment, and they heard the clatter of his +horse's hoofs.</p> + +<p>"Why did you tell him?" Phyllis asked. "It will only anger them. Now +they will seek vengeance on you."</p> + +<p>The man shrugged his shoulders. "Search me. Perhaps I wanted to prove to +myself that a man may be a mean bully, and not all coyote. Perhaps I +wanted to get under his hide. Who knows?"</p> + +<p>She knew, in part. He had treated her abominably, and wanted blindly to +pay for it in the first way that came to his mind. Half savage as he +sometimes was, that way had been to stand up to personal punishment, to +invite retaliation from his enemies.</p> + +<p>"You must have your face looked to. Shall I call Josephine?"</p> + +<p>"No," he answered harshly.</p> + +<p>"I think I will. We can help it, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>That "we" saved the day. He let her call the Mexican woman, and order +warm water, towels, dressings, and adhesive plaster. It seemed to him +more than a fancy that there was healing in the cool, soft fingers which +washed his face and adjusted the bandages. His eyes, usually so hard, +held now the dumb hunger one sees in those of a faithful dog. They +searched hers for something which he knew he would never find in them.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_X'></a><h2>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY</h3> +<br /> + +<p>A man lay on the top of Flat Rock, stretched at supple ease. By his side +was a carbine; in his hand a pair of field glasses. These last had been +trained upon Twin Star Ranch for some time, but were now focused upon a +pair of approaching riders. At the edge of the young willow grove the +two dismounted and came forward leisurely.</p> + +<p>"Looks like the mountains are coming to Mahomet this trip," the watcher +told himself.</p> + +<p>One figure was that of a girl—a brown, light-stepping nymph, upon whom +the checkered sunlight filtered through the leaves. The other was a +finely built man, strong as an ox, but with the sap of youth still in +his blood and the spring of it in his step, in spite of his nearly +twoscore years. He stopped at the foot of Flat Rock, and turned to his +companion.</p> + +<p>"I've been wondering why you went riding with me yesterday and again +to-day, Miss Phyllis. I reckon I've hit on the reason."</p> + +<p>"I like to ride."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I expect you don't like to ride with me so awful much."</p> + +<p>"Yet you see I do," answered the girl with her swift, shy smile.</p> + +<p>"And the reason is that you know I would be riding, anyway. You don't +want any of your people from the hills to use me as a mark. With you +along, they couldn't do it."</p> + +<p>"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to +send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred.</p> + +<p>He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled +significantly.</p> + +<p>She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him.</p> + +<p>"And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He +grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion +tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does +her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a +dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them."</p> + +<p>"You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not +for the sake of the coyote."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said +that. Please!"</p> + +<p>"All right—I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that +hurts."</p> + +<p>"I don't think it."</p> + +<p>"You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't +dodge. You know you think I'm a bully."</p> + +<p>"I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing.</p> + +<p>"Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the +story?"</p> + +<p>"No. I'll listen, if you will tell me."</p> + +<p>Weaver shook his head. "No—I guess that wouldn't be playing fair. +You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to +that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me—most of +it, at least—I sure enough deserve."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," she mused, smiling at him.</p> + +<p>Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom +Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in +bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide +her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk +of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed +heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even +though, at the same time, it terrified her.</p> + +<p>Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give +me the same certificate of character. And I reckon they ain't so far +out, either," he added grimly.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they are all right, and yet all wrong too."</p> + +<p>He looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe they don't see the other side of you" said Phyllis gently.</p> + +<p>"How do you know there's another side?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how, but I do."</p> + +<p>"I reckon it must be a right puny one."</p> + +<p>"It has a good deal to fight against, hasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"You're right it has. There's a devil in me that gets up on its hind +legs and strangles what little good it finds. But it certainly beats me +how you know so much that goes on inside a sweep like me."</p> + +<p>"You forget. I'm not very good myself. You know my temper runs away with +me, too."</p> + +<p>"You blessed lamb!" she heard him say under his breath; and the way he +said it made the exclamation half a groan.</p> + +<p>For her naive confession emphasized the gulf between them. Yet it +pleased him mightily that she linked herself with him as a fellow +wrongdoer.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you've been wondering why your people have made no attempt to +rescue you," he said presently; for he saw her eyes were turned toward +the hills beyond which lay her home.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad they haven't, because it must have made trouble; but I <i>am</i> +surprised," she confessed.</p> + +<p>"They have tried it—twice," he told her. "First time was Saturday +morning, just before daylight. We trapped them as they were coming +through the Box Cañon. I knew they would come down that way, because it +was the nearest; so I was ready for them."</p> + +<p>"And what happened?" Her dilated eyes were like those of a stricken doe.</p> + +<p>"Nothing that time. I let them see I had them caught. They couldn't go +forward or back. They laid down their arms, and took the back trail. +There was no other way to escape being massacred."</p> + +<p>"And the second time?"</p> + +<p>Buck hesitated. "There was shooting that time. It was last night. My +riders outnumbered them and had cover. We drove them back."</p> + +<p>"Anybody hurt?" cried Phyllis.</p> + +<p>"One of them fell. But he got up and ran limping to his horse, I figured +he wasn't hurt badly."</p> + +<p>"Was he—could you tell—" She leaned against the rock wall for support.</p> + +<p>"No—I didn't know him. He was a young fellow. But you may be sure he +wasn't hit mortally. I know, because I shot him myself."</p> + +<p>"You!" She drew back in a sudden sick horror of him.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he answered doggedly. "They were shooting at me—aiming to +kill, too. I shot low on purpose, when I might have killed him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I must go home—I must go home!" she moaned.</p> + +<p>"I've got the sheriff's orders to hold you pending an investigation. +What harm does it do you to stay here a while?" he asked doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Don't you see? When my father hears of it he will be furious. I made +Phil promise not to tell him. But he'll hear when he comes back. And +then—there will be trouble. He'll drag me from you, or he'll die +trying. He's that kind of man."</p> + +<p>A pebble rolled down the face of the wall against which she leaned. +Weaver looked up quickly—to find himself covered by a carbine.</p> + +<p>"Hands up, seh! No—don't reach for a gun."</p> + +<p>"So it's you, Mr. Keller! Homesteading up there, I presume?"</p> + +<p>"In a way of speaking. You remember I asked you a question."</p> + +<p>"And I told you to go to Halifax."</p> + +<p>"Well, I came back to answer the question myself. You're going to turn +the young lady loose."</p> + +<p>"If you say so." Weaver's voice carried an inflection of sarcasm.</p> + +<p>"That's what I say. Miss Sanderson, will you kindly unbuckle that belt +and round up the weapons of war? Good enough! I'll drift down that way +now myself."</p> + +<p>Keller lowered himself from Flat Rock, keeping his prisoner covered as +carefully as he could the while. But, though Keller came down the steep +bluff with infinite pains, the rough going offered a chance of escape to +one so reckless as Weaver, of which he made not the least attempt to +avail himself. Instead, he smiled cynically and waited with his hand in +the air, as bidden. Keller, coming forward with both eyes on his +prisoner, slipped on a loose boulder that rolled beneath his foot, +stumbled, and fell, almost at the feet of the cattleman. He got up as +swiftly as a cat. Weaver and his derisive grin were in exactly the same +position.</p> + +<p>Keller lowered his carbine instantly. This plainly was no case for the +coercion of arms.</p> + +<p>"We'll cut out the gun play," he said. "Better rest the hand that's +reaching for the sky. I expect hostilities are over."</p> + +<p>"You certainly had me scared stiff," Weaver mocked.</p> + +<p>From the first roll of the pebble that had announced the presence of a +third party, Phyl had experienced surprise after surprise. She had +expected to see one of the Seven Mile boys or her brother instead of +Keller—had looked with a quaking heart for the cattleman to fling back +the swift challenge of a bullet. His tame surrender had amazed her, +especially when Keller's fall had given him a chance to seize the +carbine. His drawling, sarcastic badinage pointed to the same +conclusion. Evidently he had no desire to resist. Behind this must be +some purpose which she could not fathom.</p> + +<p>"Elected yourself chaperon of the young lady, have you, Mr. Keller?" +Buck asked pleasantly.</p> + +<p>The young man smiled at the girl before he answered. "You've been +losing too much time on the job, Mr. Weaver. Subject to her approval, I +got a notion I'd take her back home."</p> + +<p>"Best place for her," assented Weaver promptly. "I've been thinking for +a day or two that she ought to get back to those school kids of hers. +But I'm going to take her there myself."</p> + +<p>"Yourself!" Phyllis spoke up in quick surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" The cattleman smiled.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean with your band of thugs?"</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am. You and I will be enough."</p> + +<p>The suggestion was of a piece with his usual audacity. The girl knew +that he would be quite capable of riding with her into the hills, where +he had a score of bitter, passionate enemies, and of affronting them, if +the notion should come into his head, even in their stronghold. Within +twenty-four hours he had shot one of them; yet he would go among them +with his jaunty, mocking smile and that hateful confidence of his.</p> + +<p>"You would not be safe. They might kill you."</p> + +<p>"Would that gratify you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!" she cried passionately.</p> + +<p>He bowed. "Anything to give pleasure to a lady."</p> + +<p>"No—you can't go! I won't go with you. I wouldn't be responsible for +what might happen."</p> + +<p>"What might happen—another family impulse?"</p> + +<p>"You know as well as I do—after what you've done. And there's bad blood +between you already. Besides, you are so reckless, so intemperate in +what you say and do."</p> + +<p>"All right. If you won't go with me, I'll go alone," he said.</p> + +<p>She appealed to Keller to support her, but the latter shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No use. A wilful man must have his way. If he says he's going, I reckon +he'll go. But whyfor should I be euchred out of my ride. Let me go along +to keep the peace."</p> + +<p>Her eyes thanked him. "If you are sure you can spare the time."</p> + +<p>"Don't incommode yourself, if you're in a hurry. We won't miss you." +Weaver's cold stare more than hinted that three would be a crowd.</p> + +<p>The younger man ignored him cheerfully. "Time to burn, Miss Sanderson."</p> + +<p>"You don't want to let that spring plowing suffer," the cattleman +suggested ironically.</p> + +<p>"That's so. Glad you mentioned it. I'll try to pick up some one to do it +at the store," returned the optimist.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me there are a pair of us, Mr. Keller, who may not be welcome +at Seven Mile. Last time you were down there, weren't you the guest of +some willing lads who were arranging a little party for you?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Weaver," reproached Phyllis, flushing.</p> + +<p>But the reference did not embarrass the nester in the least. He laughed +hardily, meeting his rival eye to eye. "The boys did have notions, but +I expect maybe they have got over them."</p> + +<p>"Nothing like being hopeful. Now I'd back my show against yours every +day in the week."</p> + +<p>The girl handed his revolver back to Weaver, after first asking a +question of the homesteader with her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I get my hardware back, do I?" Buck grinned.</p> + +<p>Keller brought his horse round from back of Flat Rock, where it had been +picketed. They started at once, cutting across the plain to a flat +butte, which thrust itself out from the hills into the valley. Two hours +of steady travel brought them to the butte, behind which lay Seven Mile +ranch.</p> + +<p>At the first glimpse of the roofs shining in the golden sunlight Phyllis +gave a cry of delight.</p> + +<p>"Home again. I wonder whether Father's here."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," echoed Weaver grimly.</p> + +<p>"That little fellow riding into the corral is one of my scholars," she +told them.</p> + +<p>"One of the fourteen that loves you, Miss Going-On-Eighteen. My, +there'll be joy in Israel over the lost that is found. I reckon by +to-morrow you'll be teaching the young idea how to shoot." He glanced +down at his bandaged arm with a malicious grin.</p> + +<p>Phyllis looked at him without speaking. It was Keller who made +application of the remark.</p> + +<p>"There are others here beside her pupils. Some of them are right quick +and straight on the shoot, Mr. Weaver. Now you've seen Miss Sanderson +home, there's still time to make your getaway without trouble. How about +hitting the trail while travelling is good, seh?"</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you taking your own advice, Keller?"</p> + +<p>"I don't figure the need is pressing in my case. Different with you."</p> + +<p>"I told you I would back my chances against yours. Well, I'm standing +pat on that."</p> + +<p>"The road will be open to me to-morrow. I wonder will it be open to you +then."</p> + +<p>"My friend, who elected you guardeen to Buck Weaver?" drawled the big +man carelessly.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would go," Phyllis pleaded, plainly troubled over his +obstinacy.</p> + +<p>"Me, I always hated to disoblige a lady," Buck admitted.</p> + +<p>"Then go," she cried eagerly.</p> + +<p>"But I hate still more to go back on my word. So I'll stay."</p> + +<p>There was nothing more to be said. They rode forward to the ranch. +'Rastus, at the stables, raised a shout and broke for the store on the +run.</p> + +<p>"Hyer's Miss Phyl done come home."</p> + +<p>At his call light-stepping dusty men poured from the building like seeds +from a squeezed orange. There was a rush for the girl. She was lifted +from her saddle and carried in triumph to the porch. Jim Sanderson came +running from the cellar in the rear and buried her in his arms.</p> + +<p>She broke down and began to cry a little. "Oh, Dad—Dad, I'm so glad to +be home."</p> + +<p>The old Confederate veteran was close to tears himself.</p> + +<p>"Honey, I jes' got back from town. Phil, he done wrong not letting me +know. I come pretty nigh giving that boy the bud. Wait till I meet up +with Buck Weaver. It's him or me for suah this time."</p> + +<p>"No, Dad, no! You must let me explain. I've been quite safe, and it's +all over now. Everything is all right."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" Sanderson laughed harshly.</p> + +<p>"The sheriff telephoned him to keep me, but you see he brought me home."</p> + +<p>"Brought you home?" The sheepman's black eyes lifted quickly and met +those of his enemy.</p> + +<p>"So you're there, Buck Weaver. I reckon you and I will settle accounts."</p> + +<p>Phil and Tom Dixon had quietly circled round so as to cut off Weaver's +retreat in case he attempted one.</p> + +<p>"He's got the rustler with him," Tom Dixon cried quickly.</p> + +<p>"Goddlemighty, so he has. We'll make a clean sweep," the Southerner +cried, his eyes blazing.</p> + +<p>"Then you'll destroy the man who was ready to give his life for mine," +his daughter said quietly.</p> + +<p>"What's that? How's that, Phyllie?"</p> + +<p>"It's a long story. I want you to hear it all. But not here."</p> + +<p>Her voice fell. A sudden memory had come to her of one thing at least +that she could not tell even to him—the story of that moment when she +had lain in the arms of the nester with his heart beating against her +breast.</p> + +<p>The old man caught her by the shoulder, holding her at arm's length, +while the deep eyes under his shaggy, grizzled brows pierced her.</p> + +<p>"What have you got to tell me, gyurl? Out with it!"</p> + +<p>But on the heels of his imperative demand came reassurance. A tide of +color poured into her face, but her eyes met his quietly. They let him +understand, more certainly than words, that all was well with his ewe +lamb. Putting her gently to one side, he strode toward his enemy.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing here, Buck Weaver?"</p> + +<p>The cattleman swept the circle of lowering faces, and laughed +contemptuously. "A man might think I wasn't welcome if he didn't know +better."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're welcome—I reckon nobody on earth is more welcome right +now," retorted Sanderson grimly. "We were starting right out after you, +seh. But seeing you're here it saves trouble. Better 'light, you and +your friend, both."</p> + +<p>The declining sun flashed on three weapons that already covered the +cattleman. He looked easily from one to another, without the least +concern, and swung lightly from his horse.</p> + +<p>"Much obliged. Glad to accept your hospitality. But about this young man +here—he's not exactly a friend of mine—a mere pick-up acquaintance, in +fact. You mustn't accept him on my say-so. Of course, you know <i>I'm</i> all +right, but I can't guarantee <i>him</i>," Buck drawled, with magnificent +effrontery.</p> + +<p>Phyllis spoke up unexpectedly. "<i>I</i> can."</p> + +<p>Keller looked at her gratefully. It was not that he cared so much for +the certificate of character as for the friendly spirit that prompted +it. "That's right kind of you," he nodded.</p> + +<p>"We haven't heard yet what you are doing here, Buck Weaver," old Jim +Sanderson said, holding the cattleman with a hard and hostile eye. "And +after you've explained that, there are a few other things to make +clear."</p> + +<p>"Such as——" suggested the plainsman.</p> + +<p>"Such as keeping my daughter a captive and insulting her while she was +in your house," the father retorted promptly.</p> + +<p>"I held her captive because it was my right. She admitted shooting me. +Would you expect me to turn her loose, and thank her right politely for +it? I want to tell you that some folks would be right grateful because I +didn't send her to the penitentiary."</p> + +<p>"You couldn't send her there. No jury in Arizona would convict—even if +she were guilty," Tom Dixon broke out.</p> + +<p>"That's a frozen fact about the Arizona jury," the cattleman agreed, +with a swift, careless look at the boy. "Just the same, I had a license +to hold her. About the insult—well, I've got nothing to say. Nothing +except this, that I wouldn't be wearing these decorations"—he touched +the scars on his face—"if I didn't agree with you that nobody but a +sweep would have done it."</p> + +<p>"Everybody unanimous on that point, I reckon," said Jim Yeager promptly.</p> + +<p>Phyllis had been speaking to her father in a low voice. The old man +listened with no great patience, but finally nodded a concession to her +importunity.</p> + +<p>"We'll waive the matter of the insult just now. How about that boy you +shot up? Looks like you're a fool to come drilling in here, with him +still lying there on his bed."</p> + +<p>"He took his fighting chance. You ain't kicking because I played out the +game the way you-all started to play it? If you are, I'll have to say I +might have expected a sheep herder to look at it that way," Weaver +retorted insolently.</p> + +<p>The old man took a grip on his rising wrath. "No—we're not kicking, any +more than you've got a right to kick when we settle accounts with you."</p> + +<p>"As we're liable to do right shortly, now we've got you," said Dixon, +vindictively.</p> + +<p>"All right—go ahead with the indictment," Weaver acquiesced quietly, +ignoring the boy.</p> + +<p>"Keep still, Tom," Sanderson ordered, and went on with his grievance. +"You try to run this valley as if you were God Almighty. By your way of +it, a man has to come with hat in hand to ask you if he may take up land +here. The United States says we may homestead, but Buck Weaver says we +shan't. Uncle Sam says we may lease land to run sheep. Buck Weaver has +another notion of it. We're to take orders from him. If we don't he +clubs our sheep and drives off our cattle."</p> + +<p>"Cattle were here first," retorted Weaver. "The range is overstocked, +and they've got a prior right. Nesters in the hills here are making +money by rustling Twin Star calves. That's another thing."</p> + +<p>"Some of them. You'll not find any rustled calves with the Seven Mile +brand on them. And we don't recognize any prior right. We came here +legally. We intend to stay. Every time your riders club a bunch of our +sheep, we'll even up on Twin Star cattle. You take my daughter captive; +I hold you prisoner."</p> + +<p>"You'll be in luck if you get away from here with a whole skin," broke +out Phil. "You came here to please yourself, but you'll stay to please +us."</p> + +<p>"So?" Buck smiled urbanely. He was staying because he wanted to, though +they never guessed it.</p> + +<p>"Unbuckle his gun belt, Tom," ordered the old man.</p> + +<p>"Save you the trouble." Weaver unbuckled the belt and tossed it, +revolver and all, to Yeager.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mr. Weaver, we'll adjourn to the house."</p> + +<p>"Anything to oblige."</p> + +<p>"What about Mr. Keller?" Phyllis asked, in a low voice, of her father.</p> + +<p>The old man's keen, hard eyes surveyed the stranger. "Who is he? What do +you know about him?"</p> + +<p>As shortly as she could, she told what she knew of Keller, and how he +had rescued her from captivity.</p> + +<p>Her father strode forward and shook hands with the young man.</p> + +<p>"Make yourself at home, seh. We'll be glad to have you stay with us as +long as you can. What you have done for my daughter puts us +everlastingly in your debt."</p> + +<p>"Not worth mentioning. And, to be fair, I think Weaver was going to +bring her home, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"The way the story reached me, he didn't mention it until you had the +drop on him," answered Sanderson dryly.</p> + +<p>"That's right," nodded the cattleman ironically, from the porch. "You're +the curly-haired hero, Keller, and I'm the red-headed villain of this +play. You want to beware of the miscreant, Miss Sanderson, or he'll sure +do you a meanness."</p> + +<p>Tom Dixon eyed him frostily. "I expect you'll not do her any meanness, +Buck Weaver. From now on, you'll go one way and she'll go another. +You'll be strangers."</p> + +<p>"You don't say!" Buck answered, looking him over derisively, as he +passed into the house. "You're crowing loud for your size. And don't you +bet heavy on that proposition, my friend."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>TOM DIXON</h3> +<br /> + +<p>With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls +came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay +soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint +for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that +has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to +harness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds, +who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waiting +buggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road.</p> + +<p>The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells—to meet the eyes of +a young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in a +good-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. It +was not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten that +one meets daily.</p> + +<p>"Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air of +cheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt.</p> + +<p>Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone—all but little Jimmie +Tryon. He rides home with me."</p> + +<p>"Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back," +complained the man.</p> + +<p>"Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank and +direct as that of a boy.</p> + +<p>But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way. +You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out.</p> + +<p>"Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way ever +since——"</p> + +<p>He broke off.</p> + +<p>A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?"</p> + +<p>"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver."</p> + +<p>"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly +broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid +this. Must we thrash it out?"</p> + +<p>"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I +reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with +you."</p> + +<p>A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes +refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were +just children."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?"</p> + +<p>"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she +pleaded.</p> + +<p>"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle, +and came toward her eagerly. "I love you—always have since I was +knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these +days."</p> + +<p>She held up a hand to keep him back. "No—we're not. I know now that +you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you."</p> + +<p>"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted.</p> + +<p>She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy +had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace. +She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother.</p> + +<p>"No, Tom—let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me +be just a friend."</p> + +<p>"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put +off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got +a right to know, and I'm going to know."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you have a right—but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I +didn't know my own mind then, and I do now."</p> + +<p>"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily.</p> + +<p>She was silent.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!"</p> + +<p>"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart," +she told him gently.</p> + +<p>"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I +shot Weaver?"</p> + +<p>"You shot him from ambush."</p> + +<p>"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw +him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't +lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to +shoot, and I shot before——"</p> + +<p>"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning, +even if it was right to shoot at all—which, of course, it wasn't."</p> + +<p>"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a +mistake?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than +that. I can't tell you just what I mean."</p> + +<p>"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience.</p> + +<p>"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain."</p> + +<p>"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame +his eyes could not meet hers.</p> + +<p>"No—I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least +resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you +ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't +possibly marry you after that."</p> + +<p>The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling with +vexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness of +that scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bear +the brunt of what he had done.</p> + +<p>"You told me to go, and now you blame me for doing what you said," he +complained bitterly.</p> + +<p>She realized the weakness of his defense—that he had saved himself at +the expense of the girl he claimed to love, simply because she had +offered herself as a sacrifice in his place. She thought of another man, +who, at the risk of his life, had held back the half dozen pursuers just +to give a better chance to a girl he had not known a week. She thought +of the cattleman who had ridden gayly into this valley of enemies, +because he loved her, and was willing to face any punishment for the +wrong he had done her. Her brother, too, pointed the same moral. He had +defied the enemy, though he had been in his power. Not one of them would +have done what Tom Dixon, in his panic terror, had allowed himself to +do. But they were men, all of them—men of that stark courage that +clings to self-respect rather than to life. This youth had met the acid +test, and had failed in the assay. She had no anger toward him—only a +kindly pity, and a touch of contempt which she could not help.</p> + +<p>"No—I don't blame you, Tom," she told him, very kindly. "But I can't +marry you. I couldn't if you explained till Christmas. That is final. +Now let us be friends."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand. He looked at it through the tears of +mortification that were in his eyes, dashed it aside with an oath, swung +to the saddle, and galloped down the road.</p> + +<p>Phyllis gave a wistful sigh. Tears filmed her eyes. He was her first +lover, had given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the third +grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him +go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she +experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a +form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now +to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and +not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch +girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals +when she was not handy to receive them.</p> + +<p>"Was Tom Dixon mean to you, teacher?"</p> + +<p>Little five-year-old Jimmie Tryon was standing before her, feet apart, +fists knotted, and brow furrowed. She swooped upon her champion and +snatched him up for a kiss.</p> + +<p>"Nobody has been mean to teacher, Jimmie, you dear little kiddikins," +she cried. "It's all right, honey. Tom thinks it isn't, but before long +he'll know it is."</p> + +<p>"Who'll tell him?" Jimmie wanted to know anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Some nice girl, little curiosity box. I don't know who yet, but it will +be one of two or three I could name," she laughed.</p> + +<p>She harnessed the horse and hitched it to the trap in which Jimmie and +she came to school. But before she had gathered up the reins to start, +another young man strolled upon the scene.</p> + +<p>This one was walking and carried a rifle.</p> + +<p>At sight of him a glow began to burn through her dark cheeks. They had +not been alone together before since that moment when the stress of +their emotion had swept them to a meeting of warm lips and warm bodies +that had startled her by the electric pulsing of her blood.</p> + +<p>Her eyes could not hold to his. Shame dragged the lashes down.</p> + +<p>With him it was not shame. The male in him rode triumphant because he +had moved a girl to the deeps of her nature. But something in him, some +saving sense of embarrassment, of reverence for the purity and innocence +he sensed in her, made him shrink from pressing the victory. His mind +cast about for a commonplace with which to meet her.</p> + +<p>He held up as a trophy of his prowess two cottontails. "Who says I can't +shoot?" he wanted to know boisterously.</p> + +<p>"Where did you buy them?" she scoffed, faintly trying for sauciness.</p> + +<p>"That's a fine reward for honest virtue, after I tramped five miles to +get them for your supper," protested Keller.</p> + +<p>She recovered her composure quickly, as women will.</p> + +<p>"If they are for my supper, we'll have to ask him to ride home with +us—won't we, Jimmie? It would never do to have them reach the ranch too +late," she said, making room for Keller in the seat beside her.</p> + +<p>It was after she had driven several hundred yards that he said, with a +smile: "I met a young man on horseback as I was coming up. He went by me +like a streak of light. Looked like he found this a right mournful +world. You had ought to scatter sunshine and not gloom, Miss Phyllis."</p> + +<p>"Am I scattering gloom?" she asked demurely.</p> + +<p>"Not right now," he laughed. "But looks like you have been."</p> + +<p>She flicked a fly from the flank of her horse before she answered: "Some +people are so noticing."</p> + +<p>"It was hanging right heavy on him. Had the look of a man who had lost +his last friend," the young man observed meditatively.</p> + +<p>"Dear me! How pathetic!"</p> + +<p>"Yes—he sure looked like he'd rejoice to plug another cattleman. I +'most arranged to send for Buck Weaver again," said Keller calmly.</p> + +<p>Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that you +say?"</p> + +<p>"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you said too——"</p> + +<p>"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story of +yours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you was +riding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from +'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt a +mouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on a +blind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover."</p> + +<p>"He isn't a coyote," she objected.</p> + +<p>Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew how +to respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man who +would shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bear +the blame of his wrongdoing. "No—I reckon coyote is too big a name for +him," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It was +natural he should feel a grudge."</p> + +<p>"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. How +come you to let him do it?"</p> + +<p>"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun go +up, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he had +fired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazy +with fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide in +the big rocks, while I cut across toward the cañon. The men saw me, and +gave chase."</p> + +<p>"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, with +emphasis.</p> + +<p>Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Of +course they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was that +somebody was riding through the chaparral."</p> + +<p>"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chance +to save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Keller +put the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a vent +to his feelings.</p> + +<p>Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of a +man game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not even +a friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I need +them to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty."</p> + +<p>"He stood by her, too," she answered, trying to keep the matter +impersonal.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps he wanted to make her his friend," Larrabie suggested.</p> + +<p>"There is no perhaps about his success," she said quietly, her gaze just +beyond the ears of her horse. The young man dared now to look at her—a +child of the sun despite her duskiness. Eagerly he awaited the deep, +lustrous eyes that would presently sweep round upon him, big and dark +and sparkling. When she turned her head, they were full of that new +womanly dignity that yet did not obscure the shy innocence.</p> + +<p>"Look!" Jimmie Tryon pointed suddenly to the figure of a man +disappearing from the road into the mesquite two hundred yards in front +of them.</p> + +<p>"That's odd. I reckon you'd better wait here, and let me investigate a +few," suggested Keller.</p> + +<p>"Be careful," she said anxiously.</p> + +<p>"It's all right. Don't worry," the young man assured her.</p> + +<p>He got down from the trap and dived into the underbrush, rifle in hand. +The two in the buggy waited a long time. No sound came to them from the +cactus-covered waste to indicate what was happening. When Phyllis' watch +told her that he had been gone ten minutes, a cheerful hail came from +the road in front.</p> + +<p>"All right. Come on."</p> + +<p>But it was far from all right. Keller had with him an old Mexican +herder, called Manuel Quito—a man in the employ of her father. A +bandanna was tied round his shoulder, and it was soaked with +bloodstains. He told his story with many shrugs and much excited +gesticulation. He and Jesus Menendez had been herding on Lone Pine when +riders of the Twin Star outfit had descended upon them and attacked the +sheep. He and Menendez had elected to fight, and Jesus had been shot +down; he himself had barely escaped with his life—and that not without +a wound. The cow-punchers had followed him, and continued to fire at +him, but he had succeeded in escaping. Yes—he felt sure that Menendez +was dead. Even if he had not been dead at first, they would have killed +him.</p> + +<p>Keller consulted Miss Sanderson silently. He knew that she was thinking +the thought that was in his own mind. It would never do to let this +story reach her father and her brother, while Buck Weaver was still in +their power. Inflamed as they already were against him, they would +surely do in hot blood that which they would repent later. Somehow, +Keller and she must hold back the news until they could contrive a way +to free the cattleman.</p> + +<p>"Best leave Manuel at the Tryon place till morning. They will look out +for him as well as you can. That will give us twelve hours to work +before they hear what has happened."</p> + +<p>"But what about poor Jesus, lying out there alone?"</p> + +<p>"We'll get Bob Tryon to drive out. But you needn't worry about Jesus. If +they found him still living, the Twin Star boys will attend to him just +as kindly as we could. Cowboys have tender hearts, even though they go +off at half cock."</p> + +<p>They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under the +care of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silence +until morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to be +no reason why he should not do well.</p> + +<p>It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He was +confined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of the +riders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if a +better chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended upon +the possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, while +Phyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner.</p> + +<p>The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. One +thing was sure—if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemies +before the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, his +chance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood of +the South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strike +first and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swift +blow would be a deadly one.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>THE ESCAPE</h3> + +<p>For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch +by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her +bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one.</p> + +<p>In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along +the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened +one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a +trip hammer.</p> + +<p>Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in +the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal. +Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence.</p> + +<p>But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the +dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so +often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To +judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged.</p> + +<p>The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner +and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the +moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom +stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into +the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what +cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite +on the other side of the road.</p> + +<p>Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key +to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it +behind her.</p> + +<p>"Where are you?" her young voice breathed.</p> + +<p>"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?"</p> + +<p>She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you +tied?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—hands and feet."</p> + +<p>A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a +few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the +door opened and a head was thrust in.</p> + +<p>"What's the row, Tom?"</p> + +<p>Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing +began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about."</p> + +<p>But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the +fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched.</p> + +<p>"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the +cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows.</p> + +<p>They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged +from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the +cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting.</p> + +<p>"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her.</p> + +<p>She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He +would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in +his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers.</p> + +<p>"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as +not to arouse suspicion."</p> + +<p>"But tell me—what does it mean?" demanded Buck.</p> + +<p>"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave +this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost."</p> + +<p>With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an +apparition of terror to learn what was wrong.</p> + +<p>She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log +cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing, +and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions.</p> + +<p>"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of +excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp. +Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over. +This moment she chose for her entrance.</p> + +<p>"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the +doorway.</p> + +<p>"He's got away—we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously.</p> + +<p>"But—how?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By +God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore.</p> + +<p>Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and +coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too, +fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing—except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools," +snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner—that's what's the matter."</p> + +<p>Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought +you kept him guarded."</p> + +<p>"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil.</p> + +<p>"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly.</p> + +<p>"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a +meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers +answered that the prisoner was safe so far.</p> + +<p>"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm. +"Sounded like a battle—and when we got there not a soul could be found. +Beats me how they got away so slick."</p> + +<p>Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to +be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she +had been told to do.</p> + +<p>She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head +quickly when she entered.</p> + +<p>"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity," +he began.</p> + +<p>"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one +of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man +as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a +neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves +on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid—we were +both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller +slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to +draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail +above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all."</p> + +<p>"But what am I to do here?"</p> + +<p>"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go, +the chances are they would have caught you again."</p> + +<p>"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the +sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to +escape the law that has been written?"</p> + +<p>"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life."</p> + +<p>"I don't want blood on the hands of my people."</p> + +<p>"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his +old sneer.</p> + +<p>She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor +Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a +punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict +it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them."</p> + +<p>"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a +wolfish Amalekite. Come—the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the +reapers."</p> + +<p>He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended +to block the way.</p> + +<p>"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when +the news comes."</p> + +<p>"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his +derisive smile.</p> + +<p>"You do nothing but mock—at your own death, at that of others. But you +shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little +wildly.</p> + +<p>"If you put it that way——"</p> + +<p>"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend +to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back +to them out of spite or dare-deviltry."</p> + +<p>"Just as you say."</p> + +<p>"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all +our lives are planned for your amusement."</p> + +<p>"I wish yours were planned——" He pulled himself up short. "You're +right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in +your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do."</p> + +<p>"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you. +You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and +you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance +for you to get away."</p> + +<p>"But I'll be driving you out," he protested.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to sleep with Anna—the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs. +Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the +door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else +knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear."</p> + +<p>"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a +low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the +decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is +that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of +this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a +chance to prove them."</p> + +<p>She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And +with that she left him to himself.</p> + +<p>Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but +they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her, +and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism +to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly.</p> + +<p>The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her +again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to +find her in the passage with a tray of food.</p> + +<p>"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot—just what +happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys +are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry. +Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the +tray on the table.</p> + +<p>Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up +her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great +fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her +hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the +passage and down the back stairs.</p> + +<p>He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as +silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and +charm, was not—could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the +road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him.</p> + +<p>How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray +morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his +absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance.</p> + +<p>He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the +threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him.</p> + +<p>"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked.</p> + +<p>The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not +think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming +accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She +let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology.</p> + +<p>"It's Phil, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>There was no way out of it. "No—it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll +explain," said Buck Weaver.</p> + +<p>Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the +stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young +mistress.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost."</p> + +<p>"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room."</p> + +<p>"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply.</p> + +<p>"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought—oh, I don't +know what I thought."</p> + +<p>Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very +curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in +everybody's business.</p> + +<p>"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly.</p> + +<p>"I don't think. I saw him."</p> + +<p>"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of +gentle scorn.</p> + +<p>"No—he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go +and see myself. You stay here."</p> + +<p>She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I +wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now, +when everybody is excited over the escape of that man."</p> + +<p>"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl +maintained obstinately.</p> + +<p>"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me."</p> + +<p>Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from +Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had +been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she +eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she +could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to +her to save the man in her room.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>A MISTAKE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the +sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The +Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they +could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made +an end of him.</p> + +<p>Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of +the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go +to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate +might have in store.</p> + +<p>When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to +leave.</p> + +<p>She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there, +rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after +the breakfast.</p> + +<p>"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a +sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away."</p> + +<p>"I promise," he told her.</p> + +<p>She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face +was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it.</p> + +<p>"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read, +without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I hope not—I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You <i>will</i> be +careful, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me."</p> + +<p>Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front +door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins.</p> + +<p>"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens——"</p> + +<p>"But it won't. Why should it?"</p> + +<p>"Anna knows. She blundered upon him."</p> + +<p>"Will she keep it quiet?"</p> + +<p>"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the +boys."</p> + +<p>"All right," he nodded.</p> + +<p>"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said +piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "No—you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will +be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going +to be on the job all day."</p> + +<p>"You're so good!"</p> + +<p>"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the +dust robe, without looking at her.</p> + +<p>But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of +hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in +her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence +and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed +himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing +him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver—and never to +his disadvantage.</p> + +<p>He talked with a drawl. He walked and rode with an air of languid ease. +But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so +gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force +in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good +humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he +had won her. But the touch of affection in his manner never suggested +weakness.</p> + +<p>From the porch Tom Dixon watched her departure sullenly. Since he could +not have her, he let himself grow jealous of the man who perhaps could. +And because he was what he was—a small man, full of vanity and +conceit—he must needs make parade of himself with another girl in the +role of conquering squire. Larrabie smiled as the young fellow went off +for a walk in obviously confidential talk with Anna Allan, but he +learned soon that it was no smiling matter.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, the girl came flying back along the trail the two +had taken. Catching sight of Keller, she ran across to him, plainly +quivering with excitement and fluttering with fears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Keller—I've done it now! I didn't think——I thought—"</p> + +<p>"Take it easy," soothed the young man, with one of his winning smiles. +"Now, what is it you have done?" Already his eyes had picked out Dixon +returning, not quite so impetuously, along the trail.</p> + +<p>"I told him about the man in Phyllis' room."</p> + +<p>Larrabie's eyes narrowed and grew steely. "Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I told him—I don't know why, but I never could keep a secret. I made +him promise not to tell. But he is going to tell the boys. There he +comes now. And I told Phyllis I wouldn't tell!" Anna began to cry, +miserably aware that she had made a mess of things.</p> + +<p>"I just begged him not to tell—and he had promised. But he says it's +his duty, and he's going to do it. Oh, Mr. Keller—if Mr. Weaver is +there they will hurt him, and I'll be to blame."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you will be," he told her bluntly. "But we may save him yet—if +you can go about your business and keep your mouth shut."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I will—I will," she promised eagerly. "I'll not say a word—not to +anybody."</p> + +<p>"See that you don't. Now, run along home. I'm going to have a quiet +little talk with that young man. Maybe I can persuade him to change his +mind," he said grimly.</p> + +<p>"Please—if you could. I don't want to start any trouble."</p> + +<p>Larrabie grinned, without taking his eyes from the man coming down the +trail. It was usually some good-natured idiot, with a predisposition to +gabbling, that made most of the trouble in the world.</p> + +<p>"Well, you be a good girl and padlock your tongue. If you do, I'll fix +it up with Tom," he promised.</p> + +<p>He sauntered forward toward the path. Dixon, full of his news, was +hurrying to the ranch. He was eager to tell it to the Sandersons, +because he wanted to reinstate himself in their good graces. For, though +neither of them knew he had fired the shot that wounded Weaver, he had +observed a distinct coolness toward him for his desertion of Phyllis in +her time of need. It had been all very well for him to explain that he +had thought it best to hurry home to get help. The fact remained that he +had run away and left her alone.</p> + +<p>Now he was for pushing past Keller with a curt nod, but the latter +stopped him with a lift of the hand.</p> + +<p>"What's your sweat?"</p> + +<p>"Want to see me, do you?"</p> + +<p>Keller nodded easily.</p> + +<p>"All right. Unload your mind. I can't give you but a minute."</p> + +<p>"Press of business on to-day?"</p> + +<p>"It's <i>my</i> business."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make it mine."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" came the quick, suspicious retort.</p> + +<p>"Let's walk back up the trail and talk it over."</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won.</p> + +<p>"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly.</p> + +<p>"We can, but we won't."</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail."</p> + +<p>"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man—a +brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes.</p> + +<p>Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did +not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about +this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour +without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he +stopped.</p> + +<p>"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed, +attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession.</p> + +<p>"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the +American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope—no, +sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused +aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch.</p> + +<p>Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn +foolishness?"</p> + +<p>"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and +me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a +thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His +voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his +eyes that showed him prepared for any move.</p> + +<p>So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral +Keller nailed him in a dozen strides.</p> + +<p>"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business +to keep me here."</p> + +<p>"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."</p> + +<p>The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and +twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. +Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of +his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and +stepped back.</p> + +<p>"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that +gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.</p> + +<p>"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take +a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."</p> + +<p>"What—what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told +you that lie."</p> + +<p>He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the +face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to +pay for it.</p> + +<p>"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's +been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand +the gaff for you. Now it's due."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said +that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize——"</p> + +<p>"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take +it."</p> + +<p>Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his +opponent by twenty pounds—a husky, well-built fellow; but he was +entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten +man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he +took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as +did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from +the marrow out.</p> + +<p>Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight +in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But +now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing +blows.</p> + +<p>Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see +nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed +out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left, +came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one +hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to +clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an +uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned.</p> + +<p>"Sure of that?"</p> + +<p>"You've pretty near killed me."</p> + +<p>Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to +that apology now, my friend."</p> + +<p>With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I +didn't mean—I hadn't ought to have said——"</p> + +<p>Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know +better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on +the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a +fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother. +It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But +when you said she lied to me, that's another matter."</p> + +<p>For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not +leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story +would be kept secret.</p> + +<p>"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they +would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover. +'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly.</p> + +<p>"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly.</p> + +<p>"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" +Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil +and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for +leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done +the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more +than talk.</p> + +<p>"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about +it, and hear the particulars."</p> + +<p>"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know, +she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his +feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully. +"You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my +little spiel."</p> + +<p>"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can +see. I'd rather they didn't know."</p> + +<p>"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where +Buck is right now."</p> + +<p>Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not +persuaded.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them +both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?"</p> + +<p>Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though +his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one.</p> + +<p>"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly.</p> + +<p>"No—I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie.</p> + +<p>The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll +close-herd both stories, then."</p> + +<p>"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry. +Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied."</p> + +<p>But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but +mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so. +If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could +not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against +submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole +story of the thrashing would be bound to come out.</p> + +<p>"I can't go down looking like this," he growled.</p> + +<p>"Do you have to go down?"</p> + +<p>"Have to get my horse, don't I?"</p> + +<p>"I'll bring it to you."</p> + +<p>"And say nothing about—what has happened?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care to talk of it any more than you do. I'll be a clam."</p> + +<p>"All right—I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed +tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms.</p> + +<p>Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of +Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be +depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse, +tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the +wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had +to come down and saddle the latter's mount.</p> + +<p>He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before +he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks +the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others +in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat +stamp.</p> + +<p>This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding +foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a +deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now +its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung +again to the saddle, and continued on his way.</p> + +<p>The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not hear him coming +as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand +something that clicked.</p> + +<p>Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like +tempered steel.</p> + +<p>"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I +reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty."</p> + +<p>Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked +up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from +him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun, +ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?"</p> + +<p>"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this +one, to save you trouble."</p> + +<p>He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of +the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his +side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie.</p> + +<p>For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with +him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that +indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve +to pit himself against such a man as this.</p> + +<p>"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're +trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is +between us two. It won't go any further."</p> + +<p>Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen +out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked +its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a +leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the +hill and disappeared.</p> + +<p>Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of +one who lives much alone.</p> + +<p>"There's a <i>nice</i> young man—yellow clear through. Queer thing she could +ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good +looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely +he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against +the acid test, then."</p> + +<p>His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice +plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself +till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a +dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering. +Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind +hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is +headed for the pen mighty fast."</p> + +<p>He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him +pass the time.</p> + +<p>This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect +something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed +prints on the walls—cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs +were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To +the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such +frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were +circumscribed by the purse limitation.</p> + +<p>Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse +by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr +Song."</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>I know by the stir of the branches,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>The way she went;<br /></span> +<span>And at times I can see where a stem<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>Of the grass is bent.<br /></span> +<span>She's the secret and light of my life,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>She allures to elude;<br /></span> +<span>But I follow the spell of her beauty,<br /></span> +<span class='i2'>Whatever the mood.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Knows what he's talking about—some poet, that fellow," Buck cried +aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into +words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost +in his discovery.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a +gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It +was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke. +Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose +tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind. +From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza.</p> + +<p>"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No +risk at all, looks to me."</p> + +<p>With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close +to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being +seen.</p> + +<p>The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed, +and went back to reading.</p> + +<p>The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was +upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on +another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco +into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again +puffing in pleasant serenity.</p> + +<p>Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar.</p> + +<p>Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his +mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was +that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole +through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had +plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of +the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he +must have been up in a balloon.</p> + +<p>The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his +pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray +cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat +had reached the powder.</p> + +<p>By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along +the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob, +the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices.</p> + +<p>"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin.</p> + +<p>The fat was surely in the fire now.</p> + +<p>Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door +was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply.</p> + +<p>Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old +Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher +known as Cuffs. All of them were armed.</p> + +<p>"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked.</p> + +<p>"So you're here, are you?" spoke up Phil.</p> + +<p>"That's right. I'm here, sure enough."</p> + +<p>"How long you been here?"</p> + +<p>"Been hanging round the place ever since my escape. You kept so close a +watch I couldn't make my getaway. Some time the other side of noon I +drifted in here, figuring some of you would drive me from cover by +accident during the day if I stayed out in the chaparral. This room +looked handy, so I made myself right at home and locked the door. I hate +to shoot up a lady's boudoir, but looks like that's what I've done."</p> + +<p>"You durn fool! Who were you shooting at?" Phil asked contemptuously.</p> + +<p>But his father stepped forward, and with a certain austere dignity, more +menacing than threats, took the words out of the mouth of his son.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil."</p> + +<p>Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the +imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission +in a lady's room," he admitted humorously.</p> + +<p>A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had +been running. It was Keller.</p> + +<p>That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw +him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition, +and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for +him last night.</p> + +<p>"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly.</p> + +<p>They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old +sheepman waved his hand toward a chair.</p> + +<p>"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the +mantel.</p> + +<p>He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had +already condemned him to death. The quiet repression they imposed on +themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to +another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil +were unusually tall men—as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of +shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men, +but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose.</p> + +<p>"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay.</p> + +<p>"Made up your mind, have you?"</p> + +<p>"Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus +Menendez."</p> + +<p>"A bad break, that—and me a prisoner here. Some of the boys had been +out on the range a week. I reckon they didn't know I was the rat in your +trap."</p> + +<p>"So much the worse for you."</p> + +<p>"Looks like," Weaver nodded. Then he added, almost carelessly: "I expect +there wouldn't be any use mentioning the law to you? It's here to +punish the man that shot Menendez."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of use. You own the sheriff and half the juries in this +county. Besides, we've got the man right here that is responsible for +the killing of poor Jesus."</p> + +<p>"Oh! If you look at it that way, of course——"</p> + +<p>"That's the way to look at it I don't blame your riders any more than I +blame the guns they fired. <i>You</i> did that killing."</p> + +<p>"Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles +away."</p> + +<p>"That makes no difference."</p> + +<p>"Seems to me it makes some," suggested Keller, speaking for the first +time. "His riders may have acted contrary to orders. He surely did not +give any specific orders in this case."</p> + +<p>"His actions for months past have been orders enough," said Cuffs.</p> + +<p>"You'd better investigate before you take action," Larrabie urged.</p> + +<p>"We've done all the investigating we're going to do. This man has set +himself up like a czar. I'm not going through the list of it all, but he +has more than reached the limit months ago. He's passed it now. He's got +to die, by gum," the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars.</p> + +<p>"We all have to do that. Just when does my time come?" Weaver asked.</p> + +<p>"Now," cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath.</p> + +<p>Phil swallowed hard. He had grown white beneath the tan. The thing they +were about to do seemed awful to him.</p> + +<p>"Good God! You're not going to murder him, are you?" protested Larrabie.</p> + +<p>"He murdered poor Jesus Menendez, didn't he?"</p> + +<p>"You mean you're going to shoot him down in cold blood?"</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with hanging?" Slim asked brutally.</p> + +<p>"No," spoke up Keller quickly.</p> + +<p>The old man nodded agreement. "No—they didn't hang Menendez."</p> + +<p>"Your sheep herder died—if he died at all, and we have no proof of +it—with a gun in his hands," Larrabie said.</p> + +<p>"That's right," admitted Phil quickly. "That's right. We got to give him +a chance."</p> + +<p>"What sort of a chance would you like to give him?" Sanderson asked of +the boy.</p> + +<p>"Let him fight for his life. Give him a gun, and me one. We'll settle +this for good and all."</p> + +<p>The eyes of the old Confederate gleamed, though he negatived the idea +promptly.</p> + +<p>"That wouldn't be a square deal, Phil. He's our prisoner, and he has +killed one of our men. It wouldn't be right for one of us to meet him on +even terms."</p> + +<p>"Give me a gun, and I'll meet all of you!" cried Weaver, eyes gleaming.</p> + +<p>"By God, you're on! That's a sporting proposition," Sanderson retorted +promptly. "Lets us out, too. I don't fancy killing in cold blood, +myself. Of course we'll get you, but you'll have a run for your money +first, by gum."</p> + +<p>"Maybe you'll get me, and maybe you won't. Is this little vendetta to be +settled with revolvers, or rifles?"</p> + +<p>"Make it rifles," Phil suggested quickly.</p> + +<p>There was always a chance that, if the battle were fought at long range, +the cattleman might reach the hill cañons in safety.</p> + +<p>Keller was helpless. He lived in a man's world, where each one fought +for his own head and took his own fighting chance. Weaver had proposed +an adjustment of the difficulty, and his enemies had accepted his offer. +Even if the Sandersons would have tolerated further interference, the +cattleman would not.</p> + +<p>Moreover Keller's hands were tied as to taking sides. He could not fight +by the side of the owner of the Twin Star Ranch against the father and +brother of Phyllis. There was only one thing to do, and that offered +little hope. He slipped quietly from the room and from the house, swung +to the back of a horse he found saddled in the place and galloped wildly +down the road toward the schoolhouse.</p> + +<p>Phyllis had much influence over her father. If she could reach the +scene in time, she might prevent the duel.</p> + +<p>His pony went up and down the hills as in a moving-picture play.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile terms of battle were arranged at once, without haggling on +either side. Weaver was to have a repeating Winchester and a belt full +of cartridges, the others such weapons as they chose. The duel was to +start with two hundred and fifty yards separating the combatants, but +this distance could be increased or diminished at will. Such cover as +was to be found might be used.</p> + +<p>"Whatever's right suits me," the cattleman said. "I can't say more than +that you are doing handsomely by me. I reckon I'll make that declaration +to some of your help, if you don't mind."</p> + +<p>The horse wrangler and the Mexican waiter were sent for, and to them the +owner of the place explained what was about to occur. Their eyes stuck +out, and their chins dropped, but neither of the two had anything to +say.</p> + +<p>"We're telling you boys so you may know it's all right. I proposed this +thing. If I'm shot, nobody is to blame but myself. Understand?" Weaver +drove the idea home.</p> + +<p>The wrangler got out an automatic "Sure," and Manuel an amazed "<i>Si, +senor</i>," upon which they were promptly retired from the scene.</p> + +<p>Having prepared and tested their weapons, the parties to the difficulty +repaired to the pasture.</p> + +<p>"I'd like to try out this gun, if you don't mind. It's a new +proposition to me," the cattleman said.</p> + +<p>"Go to it," nodded Slim, seating himself tailor-fashion on the ground +and rolling a cigarette. He was a black, bilious-tempered fellow, but +this particular kind of gameness appealed to him.</p> + +<p>Weaver glanced around, threw the rifle to his shoulder, and fired +immediately. A chicken, one hundred and fifty yards away, fell over.</p> + +<p>"Accidents will happen," suggested Slim.</p> + +<p>"That accident happened through the neck, you'll find," Weaver retorted +calmly.</p> + +<p>"Betcher."</p> + +<p>Buck dropped another rooster.</p> + +<p>"You ain't happy unless you're killing something of ours," Slim grinned. +"Well, if you're satisfied with your gun, we'll go ahead and see how +good you are on humans."</p> + +<p>They measured the distance, and Sanderson called: "Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"I reckon," came back the answer.</p> + +<p>The father gave the signal—the explosion of a revolver. Even as it +flashed, Buck doubled up like a jack rabbit and leaped for the shelter +of a live oak, some thirty yards distant. Four rifles spoke almost at +the same instant, so that between the first and the last not a second +intervened. One of them cracked a second time. But the runner did not +stop until he reached the tree and dropped behind its spreading roots.</p> + +<p>"Hunt cover, boys!" the father gave orders. "Don't any of you expose +yourself. We'll have to outflank him, but we'll take our time about it."</p> + +<p>He got this out in staccato jerks, the last part of it not until all +were for the moment safe. The strange thing was that Weaver had not +fired once as they scurried for shelter, even though Phil's foot had +caught in a root and held him prisoner for an instant while he freed it. +But as they began circling round him carefully, he fired—first at one +of them and then at another. His shooting was close, but not one of them +was hit. Recalling the incident of the chickens, this seemed odd. In +Slim's phrasing, he did not seem to be so good on "humans."</p> + +<p>Behind his live oak, Buck was so well protected that only a chance shot +could reach him before his enemies should outflank him. How long that +would have taken nobody ever found out; for an intervention occurred in +the form of a flying Diana, on horseback, taking the low fence like a +huntress.</p> + +<p>It was Phyllis, hatless, her hair flying loose—a picture long to be +remembered. Straight as an arrow she rode for Weaver, flung herself from +the saddle, and ran forward to him, waving her handkerchief as a signal +to her people to cease firing.</p> + +<p>"Thank God, I'm in time!" she cried, her voice deep with feeling. Then, +womanlike, she leaned against the tree, and gave way to the emotion that +had been pent within her.</p> + +<p>Buck patted her shoulders with awkward tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Don't you! Don't you!" he implored.</p> + +<p>Her collapse lasted only a short time. She dried her tears, and stilled +her sobs. "I must see my father," she said.</p> + +<p>The old man was already hurrying forward, and as he ran he called to his +boys not to shoot. Phyl would not move a single step of the way to meet +him, lest they take advantage of her absence to keep up the firing.</p> + +<p>"How under heaven did you get here?" Buck asked her.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Keller came to meet me. I took his horse, and he is bringing the +buggy. I heard firing, so I cut straight across," she explained.</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't have come. You might have been hit."</p> + +<p>She wrung her hands in distress. "It's terrible—terrible! Why will you +do such things—you and them?" she finished, forgetting the careful +grammar that becomes a schoolmarm.</p> + +<p>Buck might have told her—but he did not—that he had carefully avoided +hitting any of her people; that he had determined not to do so even if +he should pay for his forbearance with his life. What he did say was an +apologetic explanation, which explained nothing.</p> + +<p>"We were settling a difference of opinion in the old Arizona way, Miss +Phyl."</p> + +<p>"In what way? By murdering my father?" she asked sharply.</p> + +<p>"He's covering ground right lively for a dead one," Buck said dryly.</p> + +<p>"I'm speaking of your intentions. You can't deny you would have done +it."</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, I haven't denied it."</p> + +<p>Sanderson, almost breathless, reached them, caught the girl by the +shoulders, and shook her angrily.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean by it? What are you doing here? Goddlemighty, girl! +Are you stark mad?"</p> + +<p>"No, but I think all you people are."</p> + +<p>"You'll march home to your room, and stay there till I come."</p> + +<p>"No, father."'</p> + +<p>"Yes, I say!"</p> + +<p>"I must see you—alone."</p> + +<p>"You can see me afterward. We'll do no talking till this business is +finished."</p> + +<p>"Why do you talk so? It won't be finished—it can't," she moaned.</p> + +<p>"We'll attend to this without your help, my girl."</p> + +<p>"You don't understand." Her voice fell to the lowest murmur. "He came +here for me."</p> + +<p>"For you-all?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you see? He brought me back here because he—cared for me." A +tide of shame flushed her cheeks. Surely no girl had ever been so +cruelly circumstanced that she must tell such things before a lover, +who had not declared himself explicitly.</p> + +<p>"Cared for you? As a wolf does for a lamb!"</p> + +<p>"At first, maybe—but not afterward. Don't you see he was sorry? +Everything shows that."</p> + +<p>"And to show that he was sorry, he had poor Jesus Menendez killed!"</p> + +<p>"No—he didn't know about that till I told him."</p> + +<p>"Till <i>you</i> told him?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. When I freed him and took him to my room."</p> + +<p>"So you freed him—<i>and took him to your room?</i>" She had never heard her +father speak in such a voice, so full at once of anger and incredulous +horror.</p> + +<p>"Don't look at me like that, father! Don't you see—can't you see——Oh, +why are you so cruel to me?" She buried her face in her forearm against +the rock.</p> + +<p>Her father caught her arm so savagely that a spasm of pain shot through +her. "None of that! Give me the truth. Now—this instant!"</p> + +<p>Anger at his injustice welled up in her. "You've had the truth. I knew +of the attack on the sheep camp—heard of it on the way home from +school, from Manuel. Do you think I've lived with you eighteen years for +nothing? I knew what you would do, and I tried to save you from +yourself. There was no place where he would be safe but in my room. I +took him there, and slept with Anna. I did right. I would do it again."</p> + +<p>"Slept with Anna, did you?"</p> + +<p>She felt again that furious tide of blood sweep into her face. "Yes. +From the time of the shooting."</p> + +<p>"Goddlemighty, gyurl, I wisht you'd keep out of my business."</p> + +<p>"And let you do murder?"</p> + +<p>"Why did you save him? Because you love him?" demanded Sanderson +fiercely.</p> + +<p>"Because I love <i>you</i>. But you're too blind to see it."</p> + +<p>"And him—do you love him? Answer me!"</p> + +<p>"No!" she flamed. "But if I did, I would be loving a man. He wouldn't +take odds of five to one against an enemy."</p> + +<p>Her father's great black eyes chiselled into hers. "Are you lying to me, +girl?"</p> + +<p>Weaver spoke out quietly. "I expect <i>I</i> can answer that, Mr. Sanderson. +Your daughter has given me to understand that I'm about as mean a thing +as God ever made."</p> + +<p>But Phyl was beyond caution now. Her resentment against her father, for +that he had forced her to drag out the secret things of her heart and +speak of them in the presence of the man concerned, boiled into +words—quick, eager, full of passion.</p> + +<p>"I take it all back then—every word of it!" she cried. "You are +braver, kinder, more generous to me than my own people—more chivalrous. +You would have gone to your death without telling them that I took you +to my room. But my own father, who has known me all my life, insults me +grossly."</p> + +<p>"I was wrong," Sanderson admitted uneasily.</p> + +<p>Keller climbed the pasture fence, and came running up at the same time +as Phil and Slim.</p> + +<p>"Menendez is alive!" he cried. "He is at the Twin Star Ranch. The boys +there are taking care of him, and the doctor says he will pull through."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"Bob Tryon. I met him not five minutes ago. He is on his way here."</p> + +<p>This put a new face on things. If Menendez were still alive, Weaver +could be held to await developments. Moreover, since the sheep herder +was a prisoner at the Twin Star Ranch, retaliation would follow any +measures taken against the cattleman.</p> + +<p>Phyllis gave a glad little cry. "Then it's all right now."</p> + +<p>Weaver's face crinkled to a leathery grin. "Mighty unfortunate—ain't +it, boys? Puts a kind of a kink in our plans for the little +entertainment we were figuring on pulling off. But maybe you've a notion +of still going on with it."</p> + +<p>"If we don't, it won't be on your account, seh, I don't reckon," +Sanderson answered reluctantly.</p> + +<p>But though he would not admit it, the old man was beginning to admire +this big fellow, who could afford to miss his enemies on purpose even in +the midst of a deadly duel. He was coming to a grudging sense of quality +in Weaver. The cattleman might be many things that were evil, but +undeniably he possessed also those qualities which on the frontier count +for more than civilized virtues. He was game to the core. And he knew +how to keep his mouth shut at the right time, no matter what it was +going to cost him. On the whole Buck Weaver would stand the acid test, +the old soldier was coming to think. And because he did not want to +believe any good of his enemy, old Jim Sanderson, when he was alone in +the corral with the horses or on a hillside driving his sheep, would +shake his gnarled fist impotently and swear fluently until his +surcharged feelings were relieved.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>THE BRAND BLOTTER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Two riders followed the trail to Yeager's Spur—one a man, brown and +forceful; the other a girl, with sunshine in her dancing eyes and a +voice full of the lilt of laughter. What they might come to be to each +other both were already speculating about, though neither knew as yet. +They were the best of friends—good comrades, save when chance eyes said +unguardedly too much. For the girl that sufficed, but it was not enough +for the man. He knew that he had found the one woman he wanted for his +wife. But Phyllis only wondered, let her thoughts rove over many things. +For instance, why queer throbs and sudden shyness swept her soft young +body. She liked Larrabie Keller—oh, so much!—but her untutored heart +could not quite tell her whether she loved him. His eyes drilled into +her electric pulsations whenever they met hers. The youth in him called +to the youth in her. She admired him. He stirred her imagination, and +yet—and yet——</p> + +<p>They rode through a valley of gold and russet, all warm with yellow +sunlight. In front of them, the Spur projected from the hill ridge into +the mountain park.</p> + +<p>"Then I think you're a cow-puncher looking for a job, but not very +anxious to find one," she was hazarding, answering a question.</p> + +<p>"No. That leaves you one more guess."</p> + +<p>"That forces me to believe that you are what you say you are," she +mocked; "just a plain, prosaic homesteader."</p> + +<p>She had often considered in her mind what business might be his, that +could wait while he lingered week after week and rode trail with the +cowboys; but it had not been the part of hospitality to ask questions of +her friend. This might seem to imply a doubt, and of doubt she had none. +To-day, he himself had broached the subject. Having brought it up, he +now dropped it for the time.</p> + +<p>He had shaded his eyes, and was gazing at something that held his +attention—a little curl of smoke, rising from the wash in front of +them.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" she asked, impatient that his mind could so easily be +diverted from her.</p> + +<p>"That is what I'm going to find out. Stay here!"</p> + +<p>Rifle in hand, Keller slipped forward through the brush. His imperative +"Stay here!" annoyed her just a little. She uncased her rifle, dropped +from the saddle as he had done, and followed him through the cacti. Her +stealthy advance did not take her far before she came to the wash.</p> + +<p>There Keller was standing, crouched like a panther ready for the +spring, quite motionless and silent—watching now the bushes that +fringed the edge of the wash, and now the smoke spiral rising faintly +from the embers of a fire.</p> + +<p>Slowly the man's tenseness relaxed. Evidently he had made up his mind +that death did not lurk in the bushes, for he slid down into the wash +and stepped across to the fire. Phyllis started to follow him, but at +the first sound of slipping rubble her friend had her covered.</p> + +<p>"I told you not to come," he reproached, lowering his rifle as soon as +he recognized her.</p> + +<p>"But I wanted to come. What is it? Why are you so serious?"</p> + +<p>His eyes were busy making an inventory of the situation, his mind, too, +was concentrated on the thing before him.</p> + +<p>"Do you think it is rustlers? Is that what you mean?" she asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute and I'll tell you what I think." He finished making his +observations and returned to her. "First, I'll tell you something else, +something that nobody in the neighborhood knows but you and Jim Yeager. +I belong to the ranger force. Lieutenant O'Connor sent me here to clean +up this rustling that has been going on for several years."</p> + +<p>"And a lot of the boys thought you were a rustler yourself," she +commented.</p> + +<p>"So did one or two of the young ladies," he smiled. "But that is not the +business before this meeting. Because I'm trained to it I notice things +you wouldn't. For instance, I saw a man the other day with a horse whose +hind hoof left a trail like that."</p> + +<p>He pointed to one, and then another track in the soft sand. "Maybe that +might be a coincidence, but the owner of that horse had a habit of +squirting tobacco juice on clean rocks—like that—and that."</p> + +<p>"That doesn't prove he has been rustling."</p> + +<p>"No; but the signs here show he has been branding, and Buck Weaver ran +across these same marks left by a waddy who surely was making free with +a Twin Star calf."</p> + +<p>"How long has he been gone?"</p> + +<p>"There were two of them, and they've been gone about twenty minutes."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>He pointed to a stain of tobacco juice still moist.</p> + +<p>"Who is he?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He knew her stanch loyalty to her friends, and Tom Dixon had been a +friend till very lately. He hesitated; then, without answering, made a +second thorough examination of the whole ground.</p> + +<p>"Come—if we have any luck, I'll show him to you," he said, returning to +her. "But you must do just as I say—must be under my orders."</p> + +<p>"I will," she promised.</p> + +<p>Forthwith, they started. After they had ridden in silence for some +distance, covering ground fast, they drew to a walk.</p> + +<p>"You know by the trail for where they were heading," she suggested in a +voice that was a question.</p> + +<p>"I guessed."</p> + +<p>Presently, at the entrance to a little cañon, Keller swung down and +examined the ground carefully, seemed satisfied, and rode with her into +the gully. But she noticed that now he went cautiously, eyes narrowed +and wary, with the hard face and the look of a coiled spring she had +seen on him before. Her heart drummed with excitement. She was not +afraid, but she was fearfully alive.</p> + +<p>At the other entrance to the cañon, Larrabie was down again for another +examination. What he seemed to find gave him pleasure.</p> + +<p>"They've separated," he told Phyllis. "We'll give our attention to the +gentleman with the calf, and let his friend go, to-day."</p> + +<p>They swung sharply to the north, taking a precipitous trail of shale +that Phyllis judged to be a short cut. It was rough going, but their +mountain ponies were good for anything less than a perpendicular wall. +They clambered up and down like cats, as sure-footed as wild goats.</p> + +<p>At the summit of the ridge, Keller pointed out something in the valley +below—a rider on horseback, driving a calf.</p> + +<p>"There goes Mr. Waddy, as big as coffee."</p> + +<p>"He's going to swing round the point. You mean to drop down the hill and +cut him off?"</p> + +<a name="illus3"><!-- Image 3 --></a> +<center><a href="images/204_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/204_sm.jpg" height="477" width="300" +alt=""DROP THAT GUN!" Page 205" /> +</a> +</center> +<p style="text-align: center"><span style=' +font-weight:700'><small> +"DROP THAT GUN!" +(<a href="#dropthat">Page 205</a>)</small></span></p> + + +<p>"That's the plan. Better do no more talking after we pass that live +oak. See that little wash? We'll drop into it, and hide among the +cottonwoods."</p> + +<p>The rustler was pushing along hurriedly, driving the calf at a trot, +half the time twisted in the saddle, with anxious eyes to the rear. +Revolvers and a rifle garnished him, but quite plainly they gave him no +sense of safety.</p> + +<p>When the summons came to him to <a name='dropthat'>"Drop that gun!"</a> it was only a +confirmation of his fears. Yet he jumped as a boy jumps under the +unexpected cut of a cane.</p> + +<p>The rifle went clattering to the stony trail. Without being ordered to +do so, the hands of the waddy were thrust skyward.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's Tom Dixon! We've made a mistake," Phyllis discovered; and +moved forward from her hiding place.</p> + +<p>"We've made no mistake. I told you I'd show you the rustler, and I've +shown him to you," Keller answered, as he too stepped forward. And to +Tom, whose hands dropped at sight of Phyllis: "Better keep them reaching +till I get those guns. That's right. Now, you may 'light."</p> + +<p>"What's got into you?" demanded Dixon, his teeth still chattering. +"Holding up a man for nothing. Take away that gun you got bent on me!"</p> + +<p>"You're under arrest for rustling, seh," the cattle detective told him +sternly.</p> + +<p>"Prove it. Prove it!" Dixon swung from the saddle, and faced the other +doggedly.</p> + +<p>"That calf you're driving now is rustled. You branded it less than two +hours ago in Spring Valley, right by the three cottonwoods below the +trail to Yeager's Spur."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" cried the startled youth. And on the heels of that: +"It's a lie!" He was getting a better grip on his courage. He spat +defiantly a splash of tobacco juice on a flat pebble which his eye +found. "No such thing! This calf was a maverick. Ask Phyl. She'll tell +you I'm no rustler."</p> + +<p>Phyllis said nothing. Her gaze was very steadily on Tom.</p> + +<p>Keller pointed to the evidence which the hoof of the horse had printed +on the trail, and to that which the man had written on the pebble. "We +found both these signs once before. They were left by one of the +rustlers operating in this vicinity. That time it was a Twin Star brand +you blotted. You've done a poor job, for I can see there has been +another brand there. Your partner left you with the cow at the entrance +to the cañon. Caught red-handed as you have been driving the calf to +your place, you'll find all this aggregates evidence enough to send you +to the penitentiary. Buck Weaver will attend to that."</p> + +<p>"It's a conspiracy. You and him mean to railroad me through," Tom +charged sullenly. "I tell you, Phyllis knows I'm no rustler."</p> + +<p>"I've known you were one ever since the day you wanted to go back and +tell where Weaver was hidden. You and your pony scattered the evidence +around then, just as you're doing here," the ranger answered.</p> + +<p>"You've got it cooked up to put me through," Dixon insisted desperately. +"You want to get me out of the way, so you'll have a clear track with +Phyl. Think I don't <i>sabe</i> your game?"</p> + +<p>The angry color sucked into Keller's face beneath the tan. He avoided +looking at Phyllis. "We'll not discuss that, seh. But I can say that +kind of talk won't help buy you anything."</p> + +<p>The girl looked at Dixon in silent contempt. She was very angry, so that +for the moment her embarrassment was swamped. But she did not choose to +dignify his spleen by replying to it.</p> + +<p>There was no iron in Dixon's make-up. When he saw that this attack had +reacted against him, he tried whining.</p> + +<p>"Honest, you're wrong about this calf, Mr. Keller. I don't say, mind +you, it ain't a rustled calf. It may be; but I don't know it if it is. +Maybe the rustlers were scared off just before I happened on it."</p> + +<p>"We'll see how a jury looks at that. You're going to get the chance to +tell that story to one, I expect," Larrabie remarked dryly.</p> + +<p>"Pass it up this time, and I'll get out of the country," the youth +promised.</p> + +<p>"Take care! Whatever you say will be used against you."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I did rustle one of Buck Weaver's calves—mind, I don't say I +did—but say I did? Didn't he bust my father up in business? Ain't he +aiming to do the same by your folks, Phyl?" He was almost ready to cry.</p> + +<p>The girl turned her head aside, and spoke in a low voice to Keller. She +was greatly angered and disgusted at Tom; but she had been his friend, +and on this occasion there had been some justification for him in the +wrong the cattleman had done his family.</p> + +<p>"Do you have to report him and have him prosecuted?"</p> + +<p>"I'm paid to stop the rustling that has been going on," answered Keller, +in the same undertone.</p> + +<p>"He won't do it again. He has had his scare. It will last him a +lifetime." Even while she promised it for him, it was not without +contempt for the poor-spirited craven who could be so easily driven from +his evil ways. If a man must do wrong, let it be boldly—as Buck Weaver +did it.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but his pals haven't had theirs."</p> + +<p>"But you don't know them."</p> + +<p>"I can guess one man in it with him. We've got to root the thing out."</p> + +<p>"Why not serve warning on him by Tom? Then they would both clear out."</p> + +<p>Dixon divined that she was pleading for him, and edged in another word +for himself. "Whatever wrong I've done I've been driven to. There's been +an older man to lead me into it, too."</p> + +<p>"You mean Red Hughes?" Keller said sharply.</p> + +<p>Tom hesitated. He had not got to the point of betraying his accomplice. +"I ain't saying who I mean. Nor, for that matter, I ain't admitting I've +done any particular wrong—no more than other young fellows."</p> + +<p>Keller brought him sharply to time. "You've used your last wet blanket. +I've got the evidence that will put you behind the bars. Miss Phyllis +wants me to let you off. I can't do it unless you make a clean breast of +it. You'll either come through with what I want to know, and do as I +say, or you'll have to stand the gaff."</p> + +<p>"What do you want to know?"</p> + +<p>"How many pals had you in this rustling?"</p> + +<p>"You said you would use against me anything I said."</p> + +<p>"I say now I'll use it <i>for</i> you if you tell the truth and meet my +conditions."</p> + +<p>"What are your conditions?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind. You'll learn them later. Answer my question. How many?"</p> + +<p>"One"—very sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Red Hughes?"</p> + +<p>"That's the one thing I can't tell you," the lad cried. "Don't you see I +can't?"</p> + +<p>"It's the one thing I don't need to know. I've got Red cinched about as +tight as you, my boy. How long has this been going on?"</p> + +<p>The information came from Dixon as reluctantly as a tight cork comes +from a bottle. "Nearly a year."</p> + +<p>Sharp, incisive questions followed, one after another; and at the end of +the quiz Tom was pumped nearly dry. Those who heard his confession +listened to the story of how and why he had first started rustling—the +tale of each exploit, the location of the mountain cache where the +calves had been driven, even the name of the Mexican buyer who once had +come across the line to receive a bunch of stolen cattle.</p> + +<p>Keller laid down his conditions. "You'll go to Red <i>muy pronto</i>, and +tell him he's got thirty-six hours to get across the line. He and you +will go to Sonora, and you'll stay there. We've got you dead to rights. +Show up in this country again, and you'll both go to Yuma. Understand?"</p> + +<p>Tom understood well enough. He writhed under it, but he was up against +the need of surrender. Sullenly he waited until the other had laid down +the law, then asked for his weapons. Keller emptied the chambers of the +cartridges, and returned the revolvers, looking also to the magazine of +the rifle before he handed it back. Without a word, without even a nod +or a glance, Dixon rode out of the gulch.</p> + +<p>The eyes of the remaining two met, and became tangled at once. Hastily +both pairs withdrew.</p> + +<p>"We'll have to drive the calf back, won't we?" said Phyllis, seizing on +the first irrelevant thing that occurred to say.</p> + +<p>"Yes—as far as Tryon's."</p> + +<p>Presently she said: "Do you think they will leave the country?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>Her glance swept him in surprise. "Then—why did you let him go so +easily?"</p> + +<p>He smiled. "Didn't you ask me to let him off?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but——" How could she explain that by lapsing from his duty so far, +even at her request, he had disappointed her!</p> + +<p>"No, ma'am! I'm a false alarm. It wasn't out of gallantry I unroped him. +Shall I tell you why it was? I kept naming Red as his partner. But +Hughes ain't in this. He has been in Sonora for a year. When Tom goes +back all worried and tells what has happened to him, the gentleman who +is the brains for the outfit is going to be right pleased I'm following +a false trail. That's liable to make him more careless. If we had had +the evidence to cinch Dixon it would have been different. But a roan +calf is a roan calf. I don't expect the owner could swear to it, even if +we knew who he was. So I made my little play and let him go."</p> + +<p>"And I thought all the time you were doing it for me," she laughed, and +on the heels of it made her little confession: "And I was blaming you +for giving way."</p> + +<p>"I'll know now that the way to please you is not to do what you want me +to do."</p> + +<p>"You know a lot about girls, don't you?" she mocked.</p> + +<p>"Me, I'm a wiz," he agreed with her derision.</p> + +<p>Keller spoke absently, considering whether this might be the propitious +moment to try his luck. They had been comrades together in an adventure +well concluded. Both were thinking of what Dixon had said. It seemed to +Larrabie that it would be a wonderful thing if they might ride back +through the warm sunlight with this new miracle of her love in his life. +It was at the meeting of their fingers, when he gave her the bridle, +that he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I've got to say it, Miss Phyllis. I've got to know where I stand."</p> + +<p>She understood him of course. The touch of their eyes had warmed her +even before he began. But "Stand how?" she repeated feebly.</p> + +<p>"With you. I love you! We both know that. What about you? Could you care +for me? Do you?"</p> + +<p>Her shy, deep eyes met his fairly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I +do, and then sometimes I think I don't—that way."</p> + +<p>The touch of affection that made his face occasionally tender as a +woman's, lit his warm smile.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't you make that first sometimes always, don't you reckon, +Phyllis?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! If I knew! But I don't—truly, I don't. I—I want to care," she +confessed, with divine shyness.</p> + +<p>"That's good listening. Couldn't you go ahead on those times you do, +honey?"</p> + +<p>"No!" She drew back from his advance. "No—give me time. I'm—I'm not +sure—I'm not at all sure. I can't explain, but——"</p> + +<p>"Can't decide between me and another man?" he suggested, by way of a +joke, to lighten her objection.</p> + +<p>Then, in a flash, he knew that by accident he had hit the truth. The +startled look of doubt in her eyes told him. Perhaps she had not known +it herself before, but his words had clarified her mind. There was +another man in the running—one not to be thrust aside easily.</p> + +<p>Phyllis' first impulse was to be alone. She turned her face away and +busied herself with a stirrup leather.</p> + +<p>"Don't say anything more now—please. I'm such a little goose! I don't +know—yet. Won't you wait and—forget it till—say, till next week?"</p> + +<p>He promised to wait, but he did not promise to forget it. As they rode +home, he made cheerful talk on many subjects; but the one in both their +minds was that which had been banned. Every silence was full charged +with it. Its suppression ran like quicksilver through every spoken +sentence.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>A WATERSPOUT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Almost imperceptibly, Buck Weaver's relation to his jailers changed. It +was still understood that their interests differed, but the personal +bitterness was largely gone. He went riding occasionally with the boys, +rather as a guest than as a prisoner.</p> + +<p>At any time he might have escaped, but for a tacit understanding that he +would stay until Menendez was strong enough to be sent home from the +Twin Star.</p> + +<p>One pleasure, however, was denied him. He saw nothing of Phyllis, save +for a distant glimpse or two when she was starting to school or +returning from a ride with Larrabie Keller. He knew that her father and +her brother were studiously eliminating him, so far as she was +concerned. Certain events had been of a nature to induce whispered +gossip. Fortunately, such gossip had been nipped in the bud. They +intended that there should be no revival of it.</p> + +<p>Weaver had sent word to the riders of the Twin Star that there was to be +nothing doing in the matter of the feud until his return.</p> + +<p>He had at the same time ordered from them a change of linen, a box of +his favorite cigars, and certain papers to be found in his desk. These +in due time were delivered by Jesus Menendez in person, together with a +note from the ranch.</p> + +<div class='blkquot'> +<span style='padding-left: 10%;'> +TWIN STAR RANCH, Tuesday Morning.</span> +<br /> +DERE BUCK: You've sure got us up in the air. The boys was figurring + some on rounding up the whole Seven Mile outfit in a big drive, but + looks like you got other notions. Wise us if you want the + cooperation of<br /> + +<span style='padding-left: 40%;'>PESKY and the other boys.</span></div> + +<p>With a smile, Weaver showed it to Phil. "Shall I send word to the boys +to start on the round-up?"</p> + +<p>"It won't be necessary. You don't need their cooperation. Fact is, now +Menendez is back, you're free to go. 'Rastus is getting your horse right +now."</p> + +<p>The cattleman realized instantly that he did not want to go. Business +affairs at home pressed for his attention, but he felt extremely +reluctant to pull out and leave the field in possession of Larrabie +Keller, even temporarily. He could not, however, very well say so.</p> + +<p>"Good enough," he said brusquely. "Before I go, we'd better settle the +matter of the range. Send for your father, and I'll make him a +proposition that looks fair to me."</p> + +<p>When Sanderson arrived, he found the cattleman with a map of the county +spread before him upon the table. With a pencil he divided the range in +a zigzag, twisting line.</p> + +<p>"How about that? I'll take all on the valley side. You take what is in +the hills and the parks."</p> + +<p>Sanderson looked at him in astonishment. "That's all we've been +contending for!"</p> + +<p>Buck nodded. "Since you get what you want, you ought to be satisfied," +he said gruffly. "Of course, there will have to be some give-and-take +about this. My cattle will cross the line. So will yours. That can't be +helped. I've worked out this problem of the range feed pretty +thoroughly. My territory will feed just about as many as yours. Each +year we can arrange together to keep the number of cattle down."</p> + +<p>Under his shaggy brows, Sanderson looked at him in perplexity. The +proposition was more than generous. It meant that Weaver would have to +sell off about a thousand head of cattle, while the hill-men, on the +other hand, could increase their holdings.</p> + +<p>"What about sheep?" the old man asked bluntly.</p> + +<p>Buck's stony gaze met his steadily. "I'm going to leave those sheep on +your conscience, Mr. Sanderson. You'll have to settle that matter for +yourself."</p> + +<p>"You mean you'll not stand in the way, if I want to keep them?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I mean. It's up to you."</p> + +<p>Phil, who was sitting on the porch sewing on a pair of leather chaps, +indulged in a grin. "I see this is where we go out of the sheep +business," he said.</p> + +<p>"The market's good. I don't know but what it would be the right thing to +sell," his father agreed. "I want to meet you halfway in settling this +trouble, Mr. Weaver."</p> + +<p>The matter was discussed further at some length, after which the +cattleman shook hands all round and departed. Out of the tail of his eye +he saw Keller saddling a horse at the stables.</p> + +<p>"Think I'll beat you out of that ride with the schoolmarm to-day, my +friend. A steady diet of rides like that is liable to intoxicate a man," +he told himself, with his grim smile. In plain sight of all, he turned +the head of his horse toward the road that led to the schoolhouse.</p> + +<p>Presently he met pupils galloping home, calling to each other joyously +as they rode. Others followed more sedately in buggies. Nearer the +schoolhouse he came on one walking.</p> + +<p>After Phyllis had looked over some papers, made up her weekly report, +and outlined on the board work for next day, she saddled her pony and +set out homeward. Not in ten years had the country been so green and +lovely as it was now. There had been many winter snows and spring rains, +so that the <i>alfilaria</i> covered the hills with a carpet of grass. Muddy +little rivulets, pouring down arroyos on their way from the mountains, +showed that there had been recent rains. These all ran into the Del Oro, +a creek which was dry in summer but was now full to its banks.</p> + +<p>She followed the river into the cañon of the same name, a narrow gulch +with sheer precipitous walls. So much water was in the river that the +trail along the bank scarce gave the pony footing. Half a mile from the +point where she had entered the Del Oro the trail crept up the wall and +escaped to the mesa above. Phyllis was nearing the ascent when a sound +startled her. She swung round in her saddle, to see a wall of water +roaring down the lane with the leap of some terrible wild beast. +Somewhere in the hills there had been a waterspout.</p> + +<p>She called upon her pony with spur and voice, racing desperately for the +place where the trail rose. Of that wild dash for life she remembered +nothing afterward save the overmastering sense of peril. She knew that +the roan was pounding forward with the best speed in him, and presently +she knew too that no speed could save her. The roar of the advancing +water grew louder as it swept upon her. With a cry of terror she dragged +the pony to its haunches, slipped from the saddle, and attempted to +climb the rock face.</p> + +<p>Catching hold of outcropping ledges, mesquit, and even cactus bushes, +she went up like a mountain goat But the water swept upon her, waist +high, and dragged at her. She clung to a quartz knob her fingers had +found, but her feet were swept from her by the suction of the torrent. +Her hold relaxed, and she slid back into the river.</p> + +<p>Like a flash of light a rope descended over her outstretched arms, +tightened at her waist, and held her taut. She felt the pain of a +tremendous tug that seemed to tear her in two. Dimly her brain reported +that somebody was shouting. A long time afterward, as it seemed to her +then, a strong arm went round her. Inch by inch she was dragged from the +water that fought and wrestled for her. Phyllis knew that her rescuer +was working up the cliff wall with her. Then her perceptions blurred.</p> + +<p>"I'll never make it this way," he told himself aloud, half way up.</p> + +<p>In fact, he had come to an <i>impasse</i>. Even without the burden of her +weight, the sheer smooth wall rose insurmountable above him. He did the +one thing left for him to do. Leaving her unconscious body in a sort of +trough formed by the juncture of two strata, he lowered himself into the +rushing stream, searched with his foot for a grip, and swung to the left +into the niche formed by a mesquit bush growing from the rock. From +here, after stiff climbing, he reached the top.</p> + +<p>He found, as he had expected, his cow pony with feet braced to keep the +rope taut. Old Baldy was practising the lesson learned from scores of +roped steers. No man in the Malpais country was stronger than this one. +In another minute he had drawn up the girl and laid her on the grass.</p> + +<p>Soon she opened her eyes and looked into his troubled face.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Weaver," she breathed in faint surprise. "Where am I?"</p> + +<p>But her glances were already answering the question. They took in the +rope under her arms, followed it to the horn of the saddle, around which +the other end was tied, and came back to the leathery weather-beaten +face that looked down into hers.</p> + +<p>"You have saved my life."</p> + +<p>"Not me. Old Baldy did it. I never could have got you out alone. When I +roped you, he backed off same as if you had been a steer, and pulled for +all there was in him. Between us we got you up."</p> + +<p>"Good old Baldy!" She let it go at that for the moment, while she +thought it out. "If you hadn't been right here——" She finished her +sentence with a shudder.</p> + +<p>She could not guess how that thought stabbed him, for he replied +cheerfully: "I heard you call, and Baldy brought me on the jump."</p> + +<p>Phyllis covered her face with her hands. She was badly shaken and could +not quite control herself. "It was awful—awful." And short staccato +sobs shook her.</p> + +<p>Buck put his arm around her shoulders, and soothed her gently. "Don't +you care, Phyllis. It's all past now. Forget it, little girl."</p> + +<p>"It was like some tremendous wild beast—a thousand times stronger and +crueller than a grizzly. It leaped at me, and——Oh, if you hadn't been +here!"</p> + +<p>She caught at his sleeve and clung to it with both hands.</p> + +<p>"If a fellow sticks around long enough he is sure to come in handy," +Buck told her lightly.</p> + +<p>She did not answer, but presently she walked across a little unsteadily +and put her arms around the neck of the white-faced broncho. Her face +she buried in its mane. Weaver knew she was crying softly, and he wisely +left her alone while he recoiled the rope.</p> + +<p>Presently she recovered her composure and began to pat the white silken +nose of the pony.</p> + +<p>"You helped him to save my life, Baldy. Even he couldn't have done it +without you. How can I ever pay you for it?"</p> + +<p>Weaver had an inspiration. "He's yours from this moment. You can pay him +by taking him for your saddle horse. Baldy will never ride the round-up +again. We'll give him a Carnegie medal and retire him on a good-service +pension so far as the rough work goes."</p> + +<p>Without looking at him, the girl answered softly: "Thank you. I know I'm +taking from you the best cow-pony in Arizona, but I can't help it."</p> + +<p>"A cow-pony is a cow-pony, but a horse that saves the life of Miss +Phyllis Sanderson is a gentleman and a hero."</p> + +<p>"And what about the man who saves her life?" Her voice was very small +and weepy.</p> + +<p>"Tickled to death to have the chance. We'll forget that."</p> + +<p>Still she did not look at him. "Never! Never as long as I live," she +cried vehemently.</p> + +<p>It came to him that if he was ever going to put his fortune to the test +now was the time. He strode across and swung her round till she faced +him.</p> + +<p>"As long as you live, Phyllis. And you're only eighteen. Me, I'm +thirty-seven. I lack just a year of being twice as old. What about it? +Am I too old and too hard and tough for you, little girl?"</p> + +<p>"I—don't—understand."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you do. I'm asking you to marry me. Will you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Weaver!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"I ought to wrap it up pretty, oughtn't I? But there's nothing pretty +about me. No woman should marry me if she can help it, not unless her +heart brings her to me in spite of herself. Is it that way with you?"</p> + +<p>Never before had she met a man like him, so masterful and virile. He +took short cuts as if he did not notice the "No Trespassing" sign. She +read in him a passion clamped by a will of iron, and there thrilled +through her a fierce delight in her power over this splendid type of the +male lover. She lived in a world of men, lean, wide-shouldered fellows, +who moved and had their being in conditions that made hickory withes of +them physically, hard close-mouthed citizens mentally. But even by the +frontier tests of efficiency, of gameness, of going the limit, Weaver +stood head and shoulders above his neighbors. She had lifted her gaze to +meet his, quite sure that her answer was not in doubt, but now her heart +was beating like a triphammer. She felt herself drifting from her +moorings. It was as though she were drowning forty fathoms deep in those +calm, unwinking eyes of his.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so," she cried desperately.</p> + +<p>"You've got to be sure. I don't want you else."</p> + +<p>"Yes—yes!" she cried eagerly. "Don't rush me."</p> + +<p>"Take all the time you need. You can't be any too sure to suit me."</p> + +<p>"I—I don't think it will be yes," she told him shyly.</p> + +<p>"I'm betting it will," he said confidently. "And now, little girl, it's +time we started. You'll ride your Carnegie horse and I'll walk."</p> + +<p>Her eyes dilated, for this brought to her mind something she had +forgotten. "My roan! What do you think has become of it?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head, preferring not to guess aloud. As he helped her to +the saddle his eyes fell on a stain of red running from the wrist of her +gauntlet.</p> + +<p>"You've hurt your hand," he cried.</p> + +<p>"It must have been when I caught at the cactus."</p> + +<p>Gently he slipped off the glove. Cruel thorns had torn the skin in a +dozen places. He drew the little spikes out one by one. Phyllis winced, +but did not cry out. After he had removed the last of them he tied her +handkerchief neatly round the wounds and drew on the gauntlet again. It +had been only a small service, nothing at all compared to the great one +he had just rendered, but somehow it had tightened his hold on her. She +wondered whether she would have to marry Buck Weaver no matter what she +really wanted to do.</p> + +<p>With her left hand she guided Baldy, while Buck strode beside, never +wavering from the easy, powerful stride that was the expression of his +sinuous strength.</p> + +<p>"Were you ever tired in your life?" she asked once, with a little sigh +of fatigue.</p> + +<p>He stopped in his stride, full of self-reproach. "Now, ain't that like +me! Pluggin' ahead, and never thinking about how played out you are. +We'll rest here under these cottonwoods."</p> + +<p>He lifted her down, for she was already very stiff and sore from her +adventure. An outdoor life had given her a supple strength and a wiry +endurance, of which her slender frame furnished no indication, but the +reaction from the strain was upon her. To Buck she looked pathetically +wan and exhausted. He put her down under a tree and arranged her saddle +for a pillow. Again the girl felt a net was being wound round her, that +she belonged to him and could not escape. Nor was she sure that she +wanted to get away from his possessive energy. In the pleasant sun glow +she fell asleep, without any intention of doing so. Two hours later she +opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>Looking round, she saw Weaver lying flat on his back fifty yards away.</p> + +<p>"I've been asleep," she called.</p> + +<p>He leaped to his feet and walked across the sand to her.</p> + +<p>"I suspected it," he said with a smile.</p> + +<p>"I feel like a new woman now."</p> + +<p>"Like one of them suffragettes?"</p> + +<p>"That isn't quite what I meant," she smiled. "I'm ready to start."</p> + +<p>Half an hour later they reached her home. It was close to supper time, +but Weaver would not stay.</p> + +<p>"See you next week," he said quietly, and turned his horse toward the +Twin Star ranch.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>THE HOLD-UP</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From the wash where the sink of the Mimbres edges close to Noches two +riders emerged in mid-afternoon of a day that shimmered under the heat +of a blazing sun. They travelled in silence, the core of an alkali dust +cloud that moved with them and lay thick upon them. Well down over their +eyes were drawn the broad-rimmed hats. One of them wore sun goggles and +both of them had their lower faces covered by silk bandannas as if to +keep out the thick dust their ponies stirred. For the rest their +costumes were the undistinguished chaps, spurs, shirt, neckerchiefs, and +gauntlets of the range.</p> + +<p>With one distinction, however: these were better armed than the average +cow-puncher jaunting to town for the quarterly spree. Revolver butts +peeped from the holsters of their loosely hung cartridge belts. +Moreover, their rifles were not strapped beneath the stirrup leathers, +but were carried across the pommels of the saddles.</p> + +<p>The bell in the town hall announced three o'clock as they reached the +First National Bank at the corner of San Miguel and Main Streets. Here +one of the riders swung from the saddle, handed the reins and his rifle +to the other man, and jingled into the bank. His companion took the +horses round to the side entrance of the building, and waited there in +such shade as two live oaks offered.</p> + +<p>He had scarce drawn rein when two other riders joined him, having come +from a direction at right angles to that followed by him. One of them +rode an iron-gray, the other a roan with white stockings. Both of these +dismounted, and one of them passed through the side door into the bank. +Almost instantly he reappeared and nodded to his comrade, who joined him +with his own rifle and that of the first man that had gone in.</p> + +<p>There was an odd similarity in arms, manner, and dress between these and +the first arrivals. Once inside the building, each of them slipped a +black mask over his face. Then one stepped quickly to the front door and +closed and locked it, while the other simultaneously covered the teller +with a revolver.</p> + +<p>The cashier, busy in conversation with the first horseman about a loan +the other had said he wanted, was sitting with his back to the cage of +the teller. The first warning he had of anything unusual was the closing +of the door by a masked man. One glance was enough to tell him the bank +was about to be robbed.</p> + +<p>His hand moved swiftly toward the drawer in his desk which contained a +weapon, but stopped halfway to its destination. For he was looking +squarely into the rim of a six-shooter less than a foot from his +forehead. The gun was in the hands of the client with whom he had been +talking.</p> + +<p>"Don't do that," the man advised him brusquely. Then, more sharply: +"Reach for the roof. No monkeying."</p> + +<p>Benson, the cashier, was no coward, but neither was he a fool. He knew +when not to take a chance. Promptly his arms shot up. But even while he +obeyed, his eyes were carrying to his brain a classification of this man +for future identification. The bandit was a stranger to him, a +heavy-set, bandy-legged fellow of about forty-five, with a leathery face +and eyes as stony as those of a snake.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" the bank officer asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"Your gold and notes. Is the safe open?"</p> + +<p>Before the cashier could reply a shot rang out. The unmasked outlaw +slewed his head, to see the president of the bank firing from the door +of his private office. The other two robbers were already pumping lead +at him. He staggered, clutched at the door jamb, and slowly sank to the +floor after the revolver had dropped from his hand.</p> + +<p>Benson seized the opportunity to duck behind his desk and drag open a +drawer, but before his fingers had closed on the weapon within, two +crashing blows descended with stunning force on his head. The outlaw +covering him had reversed his heavy revolver and clubbed him with the +butt.</p> + +<p>"That'll hold him for a while," the bandit remarked, and dragged the +unconscious man across the floor to where the president lay huddled.</p> + +<p>One of the masked men, a lithe, sinuous fellow with a polka-dot bandanna +round his neck, took command.</p> + +<p>"Keep these men covered, Irwin, while we get the loot," he ordered the +unmasked man.</p> + +<p>With that he and the boyish-looking fellow who had ridden into town with +him, the latter carrying three empty sacks, followed the trembling +teller to the vault.</p> + +<p>No sound broke the dead silence except the loud ticking of the bank +clock and an occasional groan from the cashier, who was just beginning +to return to consciousness. Twice the man left on guard called down to +those in the vault to hurry.</p> + +<p>There was need of haste. Somebody, attracted by the sound of firing, had +come running to the bank, peered in the big front window, and gone +flying to spread the alarm.</p> + +<p>Outside a shot and then another shattered the sultry stillness of the +day. The man left on guard ran to the door and looked out. An upper +window down the street was open, and from it a man with a rifle was +firing at the outlaw left in charge of the horses.</p> + +<p>The wrangler had taken refuge behind a bulwark of horseflesh, and was +returning the fire.</p> + +<p>"Hurry the boys, Brad! Hell's broke loose!" he called to his companion.</p> + +<p>The town was alarmed and buzzing like a hornet's nest. Soon they would +feel the sting of the swarm unless they beat an immediate retreat. One +sweep of his eyes told the bandy-legged fellow as much. He could hear +voices crying the alarm, could see men running to and fro farther down +the street. Even in the second he stood there a revolver began potting +at him.</p> + +<p>"Back in a moment," he cried to the wrangler, and disappeared within to +shout an urgent warning to the looters.</p> + +<p>Three men came up from the vault, each carrying a sack. The teller was +pushed into the street first, and the rest followed. A scattering fire +began to converge at once upon them. The roan with the white stockings +showed a red ridge across its flank where a bullet had furrowed a path.</p> + +<p>The teller dropped, wounded by his friends. Two of the robbers loaded +the horses, while the others answered the townsmen. In the inevitable +delay of getting started, every moment seemed an hour to the harassed +outlaws.</p> + +<p>But at last they were in the saddle and galloping down the street, +firing right and left as they went. At the next street crossing two men, +one fat and the other lean, came running, revolvers in hands, to +intercept them. They were too late. Before they reached the corner the +outlaws had galloped past in a cloud of white dust, still flinging +bullets at the invisible they were escaping.</p> + +<p>The big lean cow-puncher stopped with an oath as the riders disappeared. +"Nothing doing, Budd," he called to the fat man. "The show's moved on to +a new stand."</p> + +<p>Jim Budd, puffing heavily and glistening with perspiration, nodded the +answer he could not speak. Presently he got out what he wanted to say.</p> + +<p>"Notice that leading hawss on the nigh side, Slim?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"So you noticed it, too, Jim. I could swear to that roan with the four +stockings. It's the hawss Mr. Larrabie Keller mavericks around on, durn +his forsaken hide! And the man on it wore a polka-dot bandanna. So does +Keller. He'll have to go some to explain away that. I reckon the others +must be nesters from Bear Creek, too."</p> + +<p>"We've got 'em where the wool's short this time," Budd agreed. "They +been shootin' around right promiscuous. If anybody's dead, then Keller +has put a rope round his own neck."</p> + +<p>Men were already saddling and mounting for the first unorganized +pursuit. Slim and his friend joined these, and cantered down the dusty +street scarce ten minutes after the robbers.</p> + +<p>The suburbs of the town fell to the rear, and left them in the fall and +rise of the foothills that merged to the left in the wide, flat, +shimmering plain of the Malpais, and on the other side in the +saw-toothed range that notched the horizon from north to south. +Somewhere in that waste of cow-backed hills, in that swell of endless +land waves, the trail of the robbers vanished.</p> + +<p>Men rode far and wide, carrying the pursuit late into the night, but the +lost trail was not to be picked up again. So one by one, or in pairs, +under the yellow stars, they drifted back to Noches, leaving behind the +black depths of blue-canopied hills that had swallowed the fleeing +quartette.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XVIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>To Phyllis, riding from school near the close of a hot Friday afternoon +along the old Fort Lincoln Trail, came the voice of Brill Healy from the +ridge above. She waved to him the broad-brimmed hat she was carrying in +her hand, and he guided his pony deftly down the edge of the steep +slope.</p> + +<p>"Been looking for some strays down at Three Pines," he explained. "Awful +glad I met you."</p> + +<p>"Where were you going now?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Home, I reckon; but I'll ride with you to Seven Mile if you don't +mind."</p> + +<p>She looked at her watch. "It's just five-thirty. We'll be in time for +supper, and you can ride home afterward."</p> + +<p>"I guess you know that will suit me, Phyllis," he answered, with a +meaning look from his dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"Supper suits most healthy men so far as I've noticed," she said +carelessly, her glance sweeping keenly over him before it passed to the +purple shadowings that already edged the mouth of a distant cañon.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet it does when they can sit opposite Phyl Sanderson to eat it."</p> + +<p>She frowned a little, the while he took her in out of half-shut, +smoldering eyes, as one does a picture in a gallery. In truth, one might +have ridden far to find a living picture more vital and more suggestive +of the land that had cradled and reared her.</p> + +<p>His gaze annoyed her, without her quite knowing why. "I wish you +wouldn't look at me all the time," she told him with the boyish +directness that still occasionally lent a tang to her speech.</p> + +<p>"And if I can't help it?" he laughed.</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks! You don't have to say pretty things to me, Brill Healy," +she told him.</p> + +<p>"I don't say them because I have to."</p> + +<p>"Then I wish you wouldn't say them at all. There's no sense in it when +you've known a girl eighteen years."</p> + +<p>"Known and loved her eighteen years. It's a long time, Phyl."</p> + +<p>Her eyes rained light derision on him. "It would be if it were true. But +then one has to forget truth when one is sentimental, I reckon."</p> + +<p>"I'm not sentimental. I tell you I'm in love," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Brill. With yourself. I've known that a long time, but not quite +eighteen years," she mocked.</p> + +<p>"With you," he made answer, and something of sullenness had by this time +crept into his voice. "I've got as much right to love you as any one +else, haven't I? As much right as that durned waddy, Keller?"</p> + +<p>Fire flashed in her eyes. "If you want to know, I despise you when you +talk that way."</p> + +<p>The anger grew in him. "What way? When I say anything against the +rustler, do you mean? Think I'm blind? Think I can't see how you're +running after him, and making a fool of yourself about him?"</p> + +<p>"How dare you talk that way to me?" she flamed, and gave her surprised +pony a sharp stroke with the quirt.</p> + +<p>Five minutes later the bronchos fell again to a walk, and Healy took up +the conversation where it had dropped.</p> + +<p>"No use flying out like that, Phyl. I only say what any one can see. +Take a look at the facts. You meet up with him making his getaway after +he's all but caught rustling. Now, what do you do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe he was rustling at all."</p> + +<p>"Course you don't <i>believe</i> it. That proves just what I was saying."</p> + +<p>"Jim doesn't believe it, either."</p> + +<p>"Yeager's opinion don't have any weight with me. I want to tell you +right now that the boys are getting mighty leary of Jim. He's getting +too thick with that Bear Creek bunch."</p> + +<p>"Brill Healy, I never saw anybody so bigoted and pig-headed as you are," +the girl spoke out angrily. "Any one with eyes in his head could see +that Jim is as straight as a string. He couldn't be crooked if he +tried. Long as you've known him I should think you wouldn't need to be +told that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>you</i> say so," he growled sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Everybody says so. Jim Yeager of all men," she scoffed. Then, with a +flash of angry eyes at him, "How would you like it if your friends +rounded on you? By all accounts, you're not quite a plaster saint. I've +heard stories."</p> + +<p>"What about?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, gambling and drinking. What of it? That's <i>your</i> business. One +doesn't have to believe all the talk that is flying around." She spoke +with a kind of fine scorn, for she was a girl of large generosities.</p> + +<p>"We've all got enemies, I reckon," he said sulkily.</p> + +<p>"You're Phil's friend, and mine, too, of course. I dare say you have +your faults like other men, but I don't have to listen to people while +they try to poison my mind against you. What's more, I don't."</p> + +<p>She had been agile-minded enough to shift the attack and put him upon +the defensive, but now Healy brought the question back to his original +point.</p> + +<p>"That's all very well, Phyl, but we weren't talking about me, but about +you. When you found this Keller making his escape you buckled in and +helped him. You tied up his wound and took him to Yeager's and lied for +him to us. That's bad enough, but later you did a heap worse."</p> + +<p>"In saving him from being lynched by you?"</p> + +<p>"Before that you made a fuss about him and had to tie up his wounds. I +had a cut on <i>my</i> cheek, but I notice you didn't tie it up!"</p> + +<p>"I'm surprised at you, Brill. I didn't think you were so small; and just +because I didn't let a wounded man suffer."</p> + +<p>"You can put it that way if you want to," he laughed unpleasantly.</p> + +<p>Her passion flared again. "You and your insinuations! Who made you the +judge over my actions? You talk as if you were my father. If you've got +to reform somebody, let it be yourself."</p> + +<p>"I'm the man that is going to be your husband," he said evenly. "That +gives me a right."</p> + +<p>"Never! Don't think it," she flung back. "I'd not marry you if you were +the last man on earth."</p> + +<p>"You'll see. I'll not let a scoundrel like Keller come between us. No, +nor Yeager, either. Nor Buck Weaver himself. I notice he was right +attentive before he went home."</p> + +<p>Resentment burned angrily on her cheek. "Anybody else?" she asked +quietly.</p> + +<p>"That's all for just now. You're a natural-born flirt, Phyllis. That's +what's the matter with you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Healy. You're the only one of my friends that has been +so honest with me," she assured him sweetly.</p> + +<p>"I'm the only one of them that is going to marry you. Don't think I'll +let Keller butt in. Not on your life."</p> + +<p>Her rage broke bounds. "I never in my life heard of anything so +insolent. Never! <i>You'll</i> not let me do this or that. Who are you, Brill +Healy?"</p> + +<p>"I've told you. I'm the man that means to marry you," he persisted +doggedly.</p> + +<p>"You never will. I'm not thinking of marrying, but when I do I'll not +ask for your indorsement. Be sure of that."</p> + +<p>"I'll not stand it! He'd better look out!"</p> + +<p>"Who do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Keller, that's who I mean. This thing is hanging over his head yet. +He's got to come through with proofs he ain't a rustler, or he's got to +pull his freight out of the Malpais country."</p> + +<p>"And if he won't?"</p> + +<p>"We'll finish that little business you interrupted," he told her, riding +his triumph roughshod over her feelings.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't, Brill! Not when there is a doubt about it. Jim says he is +innocent, and I believe he is. Surely you wouldn't!"</p> + +<p>"You'll see."</p> + +<p>"If you do I'll never speak to you again! Never, as long as I live; and +I'll never rest till I have you in the penitentiary for his murder!" she +cried tensely.</p> + +<p>"And yet you don't care anything about him. You've just been kind to him +out of charity," he mocked.</p> + +<p>For some minutes they had seen Seven Mile Ranch lying below them in the +faint twilight. They rode the rest of the way in silence, each of them +too bitter for speech. When they reached the house, she swung from the +saddle and he kept his seat, for both of them considered her supper +invitation and his acceptance cancelled.</p> + +<p>He bowed ironically and turned to leave.</p> + +<p>"Just a moment, Brill," called an excited voice. "I've got a piece of +news that will make you sit up."</p> + +<p>The speaker was the young mule skinner known as Cuffs. He came running +out to the porch and fired his bolt.</p> + +<p>"The First National Bank at Noches was held up two hours ago, and the +robbers got away with their loot after shooting three or four men!"</p> + +<p>"Two hours ago," the girl repeated. "You got it over the phone, of +course."</p> + +<p>"Yep. Slim called me up just now. He got back right this minute from +following their trail. They lost the fellows in the hills. Four of 'em, +Slim says, and he thinks they're headed this way."</p> + +<p>"What makes him think so?" asked Healy.</p> + +<p>"He figures they are Bear Creek men. One of them was recognized. It was +that fellow Keller."</p> + +<p>"Keller!" Phyllis and Healy cried the word together.</p> + +<p>Cuffs nodded. "Slim says he can swear to his hawss, and he's plumb sure +about the man, too. He wants we should organize a posse and nail them as +they go into the Pass for Bear Creek. He figures we'll have time to do +it if we jump. Noches is fifty-five miles from here, and about forty +from the Pass.</p> + +<p>"With their bronchs loaded they can't make it in much less than five +hours. That gives us most three hours to reach the Pass and stop them. +What think, Brill? Can we make it?"</p> + +<p>"We'll try damned hard. I'm not going to let Mr. Rustler Keller slip +through my fingers again!" Healy cried triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it was Bear Creek men at all. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. +Keller," Phyllis cried, with a face like parchment.</p> + +<p>There was an unholy light of vindictive triumph in Healy's face. "We'll +show you about that, Miss Missouri. Get the boys together, Cuffs. Call +up Purdy and Jim Budd and Tom Dixon on the phone. Rustle up as many of +the boys as you can. Start 'em for the Pass just as soon as they get +here. I'm going right up there now. Probably I can't stop them, but I +may make out who they are. Notify Buck Weaver, so he can head them off +if they try to cross the Malpais. And get a move on you. Hustle the boys +right along."</p> + +<p>And with that he put spurs to his horse and galloped off.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XIX'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Unerringly rode Healy through the tangled hills toward a saddle in the +peaks that flared vivid with crimson and mauve and topaz. A man of +moods, he knew more than one before he reached the Pass for which he was +headed. Now he rode with his eyes straight ahead, his face creased to a +hard smile that brought out its evil lines. Now he shook his clenched +fist into the air and cursed.</p> + +<p>Or again he laughed exultingly. This was when he remembered that his +rival was trapped beyond hope of extrication.</p> + +<p>While the sky tints round the peaks deepened to purple with the coming +night he climbed cañons, traversed rock ridges, and went down and up +rough slopes of shale. Always the trail grew more difficult, for he was +getting closer to the divide where Bear Creek heads. He reached the +upper regions of the pine gulches that seamed the hills with wooded +crevasses, and so came at last to Gregory's Pass.</p> + +<p>Here, close to the yellow stars that shed a cold wintry light, he +dismounted and hobbled his horse. After which he found a soft spot in +the mossy rocks and fell asleep. He was a light sleeper, and two hours +later he awakened. Horses were laboring up the Pass.</p> + +<p>He waited tensely, rifle in both hands, till the heads of the riders +showed in the moonlight. Three—four—five of them he counted. The men +he saw were those he expected, and he lowered his rifle at once.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Cuffs! Purdy! That you, Tom? Well, you're too late."</p> + +<p>"Too late," echoed little Purdy.</p> + +<p>"Yep. Didn't get here in time myself to see who any of them were except +the last. It was right dark, and they were most through before I reached +here."</p> + +<p>"But you knew one," Purdy suggested.</p> + +<p>Healy looked at him and nodded. "There were four of them. I crept +forward on top of that flat rock just as the last showed up. He was +ridin' a hawss with four white stockings."</p> + +<p>"A roan, mebbe," Tom put in quickly.</p> + +<p>"You've said it, Tom—a roan, and it looked to me like it was wounded. +There was blood all over the left flank."</p> + +<p>"O' course Keller was riding it," Purdy ventured.</p> + +<p>"Rung the bell at the first shot," Healy answered grimly.</p> + +<p>"The son of a gun!"</p> + +<p>"How long ago was it, Brill?" asked another.</p> + +<p>"Must a-been two hours, anyhow."</p> + +<p>"No use us following them now, then."</p> + +<p>"No use. They've gone to cover."</p> + +<p>They turned their horses and took the back trail. The cow ponies +scrambled down rocky slopes like cats, and up steep inclines with the +agility of mountain goats. The men rode in single file, and conversation +was limited to disjointed fragments jerked out now and again. After an +hour's rough going they reached the foothills, where they could ride two +abreast. As they drew nearer to the ranch country, now one and now +another turned off with a shout of farewell.</p> + +<p>Healy accepted Purdy's invitation, and dismounted with him at the +Fiddleback. Already the first glimmering of dawn flickered faintly from +the serrated range. The men unsaddled, watered, fed, and then walked +stiffly to the house. Within five minutes both of them lay like logs, +dead to the world, until Bess Purdy called them for breakfast, long +after the rest of the family had eaten.</p> + +<p>"What devilment you been leading paw into, Brill?" demanded Bess +promptly when he appeared in the doorway. "Dan says it was close to +three when you got home."</p> + +<p>She flung her challenge at the young man with a flash of smiling teeth. +Bess was seventeen, a romp, very pretty, and hail-fellow-well-met with +every range rider in a radius of thirty miles.</p> + +<p>"We been looking for a beau for you, Bess," Healy immediately explained.</p> + +<p>Miss Purdy tossed her head. "I can find one for myself, Brill Healy, +and I don't have to stay out till three to get him, either."</p> + +<p>"Come right to your door, do they?" he asked, as she helped him to the +ham and eggs.</p> + +<p>"Maybe they do, and maybe they don't."</p> + +<p>"Well, here's one come right in the middle of the night. Somehow, I jest +couldn't make out to wait till morning, Bess."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you," she laughed, with a demand for more of this sort of chaffing +in her hazel eyes.</p> + +<p>At this kind of rough give and take he was an adept. After breakfast he +stayed and helped her wash the dishes, romping with her the whole time +in the midst of gay bursts of laughter and such repartee as occurred to +them.</p> + +<p>He found his young hostess so entertaining that he did not get away +until the morning was half gone. By the time he reached Seven Mile the +sun was past the meridian, and the stage a lessening patch of dust in +the distance.</p> + +<p>Before he was well out of the saddle, Phyllis Sanderson was standing in +the doorway of the store, with a question in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he forced her to say at last.</p> + +<p>Leisurely he turned, as if just aware of her presence.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's you. Mornin', Phyl."</p> + +<p>"What did you find out?"</p> + +<p>"I met your friend."</p> + +<p>"What friend?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Keller, the rustler and bank robber," he drawled insolently, +looking full in her face.</p> + +<p>"Tell me at once what you found out."</p> + +<p>"I found Mr. Keller riding a roan with four white stockings and a wound +on its flank."</p> + +<p>She caught at the jamb. "You didn't, Brill!"</p> + +<p>"I ce'tainly did," he jeered.</p> + +<p>"What—what did you do?" Her lips were white as her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"I haven't done, anything—yet. You see, I was alone. The other boys +hadn't arrived then."</p> + +<p>"And he wasn't alone?"</p> + +<p>"No; he had three friends with him. I couldn't make out whether any more +of them were college chums of yours."</p> + +<p>Without another word, she turned her back on him and went into the +store. All night she had lain sleepless and longed for and dreaded the +coming of the day. Over the wire from Noches had come at dawn fuller +details of the robbery, from her brother Phil, who was spending two or +three days in town.</p> + +<p>It appeared that none of the wounded men would die, though the president +had had a narrow escape. Posses had been out all night, and a fresh one +was just starting from Noches. It was generally believed, however, that +the bandits would be able to make good their escape with the loot.</p> + +<p>Her father was absent, making a round of his sheep camps, and would not +be back for a week. Hence her hands were very full with the store and +the ranch.</p> + +<p>She busied herself with the details of her work, nodded now and again to +one of the riders as they drifted in, smiled and chatted as occasion +demanded, but always with that weight upon her heart she could not shake +off. Now, and then again, came to her through the window the voices of +Public Opinion on the porch. She made out snatches of the talk, and knew +the tide was running strongly against the nester. The sound of Healy's +low, masterful voice came insistently. Once, as she looked through the +window, she saw a tilted flask at his lips.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she became aware, without knowing why, that something was +happening, something that stopped her heart and drew her feet swiftly to +the door.</p> + +<p>Conversation had ceased. All eyes were deflected to a pair of riders +coming down the Bear Creek trail with that peculiar jog that is neither +a run nor a walk. They seemed quite at ease with the world. Speech and +laughter rang languid and carefree. But as they swung from the saddles +their eyes swept the group before them with the vigilance of +searchlights in time of war.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy leaned forward, his right hand resting lightly on his thigh.</p> + +<p>"So you've come back, Mr. Keller," he said.</p> + +<p>"As you see."</p> + +<p>"But not on that roan of yours, I notice."</p> + +<p>"You notice correctly, seh."</p> + +<p>"Now I wonder why." Healy spoke with a drawl, but his eyes glittered +menacingly.</p> + +<p>"I expect you know why, Mr. Healy," came the quiet retort.</p> + +<p>"Meaning?"</p> + +<p>"That the roan was stolen from the pasture two nights ago. Do you happen +to know the name of the thief?"</p> + +<p>The cattleman laughed harshly, but behind his laughter lay rising anger. +"So that's the story you're telling, eh? Sounds most as convincing as +that yarn about the pocketknife you picked up."</p> + +<p>"I'm not quite next to your point. Have I got to explain to you why I do +or don't ride a certain horse, seh?"</p> + +<p>"It ain't necessary. We all know why. You ain't riding it because there +is a bullet wound in the roan's flank that might be some hard to +explain."</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you mean. I haven't seen the horse for two days. It +was stolen, as I say. Apparently you know a good deal about that roan. +I'd be right pleased to hear what you know, Mr. Healy."</p> + +<p>"Glad to death to wise you, Mr. Keller. That roan was in Noches +yesterday, and you were on its back."</p> + +<p>The nester shook his head. "No, I reckon not."</p> + +<p>Yeager broke in abruptly: "What have you got up your sleeve, Brill? Spit +it out."</p> + +<p>"Glad to oblige you, too, Jim. The First National at Noches was held up +yesterday, about half-past three or four, by some masked men. Slim and +Jim Budd were around and recognized that roan and its rider."</p> + +<p>"You mean——"</p> + +<p>"You've guessed it, Jim. I mean that your friend, the rustler, is a bank +robber, too."</p> + +<p>"Yesterday, you say, at four o'clock?"</p> + +<p>"About four, yes."</p> + +<p>Yeager's face cleared. "Then that lets him out. I was with him yesterday +all day."</p> + +<p>"Any one else with him?"</p> + +<p>"No. We were alone."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Out in the hills."</p> + +<p>"Didn't happen to meet a soul all day maybe?"</p> + +<p>"No; what of it?"</p> + +<p>Healy barked out again his hard laugh of incredulity. "Go slow, Jim. +That ain't going to let him out. It's going to let you in."</p> + +<p>Yeager took a step toward him, fists clenched, and eyes flashing. "I'll +not stand for that, Brill."</p> + +<p>Healy waved him aside. "I've got no quarrel with you, Jim. I ain't +making any charges against you to-day. But when it comes to Mr. Keller, +that's different." His gaze shifted to the nester and carried with it +implacable hostility. "I back my play. He's not only a rustler, he's a +bank robber, too. What's more, he'll never leave here alive, except +with irons on his wrists!"</p> + +<p>"Have you a warrant for my arrest, Mr. Healy?" inquired Keller evenly.</p> + +<p>"Don't need one. Furthermore, I'd as lief take you in dead as alive. You +cayn't hide behind a girl's skirts this time," continued Healy. "You've +got to stand on your own legs and take what's coming. You're a bad +outfit. We know you for a rustler, and that's enough. But it ain't all. +Yesterday you gave us surplusage when you shot up three men in Noches. +Right now I serve notice that you've reached the limit."</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> serve notice, do you?"</p> + +<p>"You're right, I do."</p> + +<p>"But not legal notice, Mr. Healy."</p> + +<p>At sight of his enemy standing there so easy and undisturbed, facing +death so steadily and so alertly, Brill's passion seethed up and +overflowed. Fury filmed his eyes. He saw red. With a jerk, his revolver +was out and smoking. A stop watch could scarce have registered the time +before Keller's weapon was answering.</p> + +<p>But that tenth part of a second made all the difference. For the first +heavy bullet from Healy's .44 had crashed into the shoulder of his foe. +The shock of it unsteadied the nester's aim. When the smoke cleared it +showed the Bear Creek man sinking to the ground, and the right arm of +the other hanging limply at his side.</p> + +<p>At the first sound of exploding revolvers, Phyllis had grown rigid, but +the fusillade had not died away before she was flying along the hall to +the porch.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy's voice, cold and cruel, came to her in even tones:</p> + +<p>"I reckon I've done this job right, boys. If he hadn't winged me, and if +Jim hadn't butted in, I'd a-done it more thorough, though."</p> + +<p>Yeager was bending over the man lying on the ground. He looked up now +and spoke bitterly: "You've murdered an innocent man. Ain't that +thorough enough for you?"</p> + +<p>Then, catching sight of Cuffs on the porch of the house, Yeager issued +orders sharply: "Get on my horse and ride like hell for Doc Brown! Bob, +you and Luke help me carry him into the house. What room, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>"My room, Jim. Oh, Cuffs, hurry, please!" With that she was gone into +the house to make ready the bed for the wounded man.</p> + +<p>Healy picked up the revolver that had fallen from his hand, and slid it +back into the holster.</p> + +<p>"That's right, boys. Take him in and let Phyl patch up the coyote if she +can. I reckon this time, she'll have her hands plumb full. Beats all how +a decent girl can take up with a ruffian and a scoundrel."</p> + +<p>"That will be enough from you, seh," Yeager told him sharply.</p> + +<p>Purdy nodded. "Jim's right, Brill. This man has got what was coming to +him. It ain't proper to jump him right now, when he's down and out."</p> + +<p>"Awful tender-hearted you boys are. Come to that, I've got a pill in me, +too, but of course that don't matter," Healy retorted.</p> + +<p>"If he dies you'll have another in you, seh," Yeager told him quietly, +meeting his eyes steadily for an instant. "Steady, Bob. You take his +feet. That's right."</p> + +<p>They carried the nester to the bedroom of Phyllis and laid him down +gently on the bed. His eyes opened and he looked about him as if to ask +where he was. He seemed to understand what had happened, for presently +he smiled faintly at his friend and said:</p> + +<p>"Beat me to it, Jim. I'm bust up proper this time."</p> + +<p>"He shot without giving warning."</p> + +<p>Keller moved his head weakly in dissent. "No, I knew just when he was +going to draw, but I had to wait for him."</p> + +<p>The big, husky plainsmen undressed him with the tenderness of women, and +did their best with the help of Aunt Becky, to take care of his wounds +temporarily. After these had been dressed Phyllis and the old colored +woman took charge of the nursing and dismissed all the men but Yeager.</p> + +<p>It would be many hours before Doctor Brown arrived, and it took no +critical eyes to see that this man was stricken low. All the supple +strength and gay virility were out of him. Three of the bullets had +torn through him. In her heavy heart the girl believed he was going to +die. While Yeager was out of the room she knelt down by the bedside, +unashamed, and asked for his life as she had never prayed for anything +before.</p> + +<p>By this time his fever was high and he was wandering in his head. The +wild look of delirium was in his eyes, and faint weak snatches of +irrelevant speech on his lips. His moans stabbed her heart. There was +nothing she could do for him but watch and wait and pray. But what +little was to be done in the way of keeping his hot head cool with wet +towels her own hands did jealously. Jim and Aunt Becky waited on her +while she waited on the sick man.</p> + +<p>About midnight the doctor rode up. All day and most of the night before +he had been in the saddle. Cuffs had found him across the divide, nearly +forty miles away, working over a boy who had been bitten by a +rattlesnake. But he brought into the sick room with him that manner of +cheerful confidence which radiates hope. You could never have guessed +that he was very tired, nor, after the first few minutes, did he know it +himself. He lost himself in his case, flinging himself into the breach +to turn the tide of what had been a losing battle.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XX'></a><h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Jim Yeager had not watched through the long day and night with Phyllis +without discovering how deeply her feelings were engaged. His +unobtrusive readiness and his constant hopefulness had been to her a +tower of strength during the quiet, dreadful hours before the doctor +came.</p> + +<p>Once, during the night, she had followed him into the dark hall when he +went out to get some fresh cold water, and had broken down completely.</p> + +<p>"Is he—is he going to die?" she besought of him, bursting into tears +for the first time.</p> + +<p>Jim patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Now, don't you, Phyl. You got to +buck up and help pull him through. Course he's shot up a heap, but then +a man like him can stand a lot of lead in his body. There aren't any of +these wounds in a vital place. Chief trouble is he's lost so much blood. +That's where his clean outdoor life comes in to help build him up. I'll +bet Doc Brown pulls him through."</p> + +<p>"Are you just <i>saying</i> that, Jim, or do you really think so?"</p> + +<p>"I'm saying it, and I think it. There's a whole lot in gaming a thing +out. What we've got to do is to <i>think</i> he's going to make it. Once we +give up, it will be all off."</p> + +<p>"You are such a help, Jim," she sighed, dabbing at her eyes with her +little handkerchief. "And you're the <i>best</i> man."</p> + +<p>"That's right. I'll be the best man when we pull off that big wedding of +yours and his."</p> + +<p>Her heart went out to him with a rush. "You're the only friend both of +us have," she cried impulsively.</p> + +<p>With the coming of Doctor Brown, Jim resigned his post of comforter in +chief, but he stayed at Seven Mile until the crisis was past and the +patient on the mend. Next day Slim, Budd, and Phil Sanderson rode in +from Noches. They were caked with the dust of their fifty-mile ride, but +after they had washed and eaten, Yeager had a long talk with them. He +learned, among other things, that Healy had telephoned Sheriff Gill that +Keller was lying wounded at Seven Mile, and that the sheriff was +expecting to follow them in a few hours.</p> + +<p>"Coming to arrest Brill for assault with intent to kill, I reckon," +Yeager suggested dryly.</p> + +<p>Phil turned on him petulantly. "What's the use of you trying to get away +with that kind of talk, Jim? This fellow Keller was recognized as one of +the robbers."</p> + +<p>"That ain't what Slim has just been telling, Phil. He says he recognized +the hawss, and thinks it was Keller in the saddle. Now, I don't think +anything about it. I <i>know</i> Keller was with me in the hills when this +hold-up took place."</p> + +<p>"You're his friend, Jim," the boy told him significantly.</p> + +<p>"You bet I am. But I ain't a bank robber, if that's what you mean, +Phil."</p> + +<p>His clear eyes chiselled into those of the boy and dominated him.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say you were," Phil returned sulkily. "But I reckon we all +recall that you lied for him once. Whyfor would it be a miracle if you +did again?"</p> + +<p>Jim might have explained, but did not, that it was not for Keller he had +lied. He contented himself with saying that the roan with the white +stockings had been stolen from the pasture before the holdup. He +happened to know, because he was spending the night in Keller's shack +with him at the time.</p> + +<p>Slim cut in, with drawling sarcasm: "You've got a plumb perfect alibi +figured out for him, Jim. I reckon you've forgot that Brill saw him +riding through the Pass with the rest of his outfit."</p> + +<p>"Brill says so. I say he didn't," returned Yeager calmly.</p> + +<p>Toward evening Gill arrived and formally put Keller under arrest. +Practically, it amounted only to the precaution of leaving a deputy at +the ranch as a watch, for one glance had told the sheriff that the +wounded man would not be in condition to travel for some time.</p> + +<p>It was the following day that Yeager saddled and said good-by to +Phyllis.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to Noches to see if I cayn't find out something. It don't +look reasonable to me that those fellows could disappear, bag and +baggage, into a hole and draw it in after them."</p> + +<p>"What about Brill's story that he saw them at the Pass?" the girl asked.</p> + +<p>"He may have seen four men, but he ce'tainly didn't see Larrabie Keller. +My notion is, Brill lied out of whole cloth, but of course I'm not in a +position to prove it. Point is, why did he lie at all?"</p> + +<p>Phyllis blushed. "I think I know, Jim."</p> + +<p>Yeager smiled. "Oh, I know that. But that ain't, to my way of thinking, +motive enough. I mean that a white man doesn't try to hang another just +because he—well, because he cut him out of his girl."</p> + +<p>"I never was his girl," Phyllis protested.</p> + +<p>"I know that, but Brill couldn't get it through his thick head till a +stone wall fell on him and give him a hint."</p> + +<p>"What other motive are you thinking of, Jim?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated. "I've just been kinder milling things around. Do you +happen to know right when you met Brill the day of the robbery?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I looked at my watch to see if we would be in time for supper. It +was five-thirty."</p> + +<p>"And the robbery was at three. The fellows didn't get out of town till +close to three-thirty, I reckon," he mused aloud.</p> + +<p>"What has that got to do with it? You don't mean that——" She stopped +with parted lips and eyes dilating.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. "I've got no right to mean that, Phyllie. Even if I +did have a kind of notion that way I'd have to give it up. Brill's got a +steel-bound, copper-riveted alibi. He couldn't have been at Noches at +three o'clock and with you two hours later, fifty-five miles from there. +No hawss alive could do it."</p> + +<p>"But, Jim—why, it's absurd, anyway. We've known Brill always. He +couldn't be that kind of a man. How could he?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't say he could," returned her friend noncommittally. "But when +it comes to knowing him, what do you know about him—or about me, say? I +might be a low-lived coyote without you knowing it. I might be all kinds +of a devil. A good girl like you wouldn't know it if I set out to keep +it still."</p> + +<p>"I could tell by looking at you," she answered promptly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you could," he derided good-naturedly. "How would you know it? Men +don't squeal on each other."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that Brill isn't—what we've always thought him?"</p> + +<p>"I'm not talking about Brill, but about Jim Yeager," he evaded. "He'd +hate to have you know everything that's mean and off color he ever did."</p> + +<p>"I believe you must have robbed the bank yourself, Jim," she laughed. +"Are you a rustler, too?"</p> + +<p>He echoed her laugh as he swung to the saddle. "I'm not giving myself +away any more to-day."</p> + +<p>Brill Healy rode up, his arm in a sling. Deep rings of dissipation or of +sleeplessness were under his eyes. He looked first at Yeager and then at +the young woman, with an ugly sneer. "How's your dear patient, Phyl?"</p> + +<p>"He is better, Brill," she answered quietly, with her eyes full on him. +"That is, we hope he is better. The doctor isn't quite sure yet."</p> + +<p>"Some of us don't hope it as much as the rest of us, I reckon."</p> + +<p>She said nothing, but he read in her look a contempt that stung like the +lash of a whip.</p> + +<p>"He'll be worse again before I'm through with him," the man cried, with +a furious oath.</p> + +<p>Phyllis measured him with her disdainful eye, and dismissed him. She +stepped forward and shook hands with Yeager.</p> + +<p>"Take care of yourself, Jim, and don't spare any expense that is +necessary," she said.</p> + +<p>For a moment she watched her friend canter off, then turned on her heel, +and passed into the house, utterly regardless of Healy.</p> + +<p>Yeager reached Noches late, for he had unsaddled and let his horse rest +at Willow Springs during the heat of the broiling day.</p> + +<p>After he had washed and had eaten, Yeager drifted to the Log Cabin +Saloon and gambling house. Here was gathered the varied and turbulent +life of the border country. Dark-skinned Mexicans rubbed shoulders with +range riders baked almost as brown by the relentless sun. Pima Indians +and Chinamen and negroes crowded round the faro and dice tables. Games +of monte and chuckaluck had their devotees, as had also roulette and +poker.</p> + +<p>It was a picturesque scene of strong, untamed, self-reliant +frontiersmen. Some of them were outlaws and criminals, and some were as +simple and tender-hearted as children. But all had become accustomed to +a life where it is possible at any moment to be confronted with sudden +death.</p> + +<p>A man playing the wheel dropped a friendly nod at Jim. He waited till +the wheel had stopped and saw the man behind it rake in his chips before +he spoke. Then, as he scattered more chips here and there over the +board, he welcomed Yeager with a whoop.</p> + +<p>"Hi there, Malpais! What's doing in the hills these yere pleasant days?"</p> + +<p>"A little o' nothin', Sam. The way they're telling it you been having +all the fun down here."</p> + +<p>Sam Wilcox gathered the chips pushed toward him by the croupier and +cashed in. He was a heavy-set, bronzed man, with a bleached, +straw-colored mustache. Taking his friend by the arm, he led him to one +end of the bar that happened for the moment to be deserted.</p> + +<p>"Have something, Jim. Oh, I forgot. You're ridin' the water wagon and +don't irrigate. More'n I can say for some of you Malpais lads. Some of +them was in here right woozy the other day."</p> + +<p>"The boys will act the fool when they hit town. Who was it?"</p> + +<p>"Slim and Budd and young Sanderson."</p> + +<p>"Was Phil Sanderson drunk?" Yeager asked, hardly surprised, but +certainly troubled.</p> + +<p>"I ain't sure he was, but he was makin' the fur fly at the wheel, there. +Must have dropped two hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>Jim's brows knit in a puzzled frown. He was wondering how the boy had +come by so much money at a time.</p> + +<p>"Who was he trailin' with?"</p> + +<p>"With a lad called Spiker, that fair-haired guy sitting in at the poker +table. He's another youngster that has been dropping money right +plentiful."</p> + +<p>"Who is he?"</p> + +<p>"He's what they call a showfer. He runs one o' these automobiles; takes +parties out in it."</p> + +<p>"Been here long? Looks kind o' like a tinhorn gambler."</p> + +<p>"Not long. He's thick with some of you Malpais gents. I've seen him with +Healy a few."</p> + +<p>"Oh, with Healy."</p> + +<p>Jim regarded the sportive youth more attentively, and presently dropped +into a vacant seat beside him, buying twenty dollars worth of chips.</p> + +<p>Spiker was losing steadily. He did not play either a careful or a +brilliant game. Jim, playing very conservatively, and just about holding +his own, listened to the angry bursts and the boastings of the man next +him, and drew his own conclusions as to his character. After a couple of +hours of play the Malpais man cashed in and went back to the hotel where +he was putting up.</p> + +<p>He slept till late, ate breakfast leisurely, and after an hour of +looking over the paper and gossiping with the hotel clerk about the +holdup he called casually upon the deputy sheriff. Only one thing of +importance he gleaned from him. This was that the roan with the white +stockings had been picked up seven miles from Noches the morning after +the holdup.</p> + +<p>This put a crimp in Healy's story of having seen Keller in the Pass on +the animal. Furthermore, it opened a new field for surmise. <i>Brill Healy +said that he had seen the horse with a wound in its flank.</i> Now, how did +he know it was wounded, since Slim had not mentioned this when he had +telephoned? It followed that if he had not seen the broncho—and that he +had seen it was a sheer physical impossibility—he could know of the +wound only because he was already in close touch with what had happened +at Noches.</p> + +<p>But how could he be aware of what was happening fifty miles away? That +was the sticker Jim could not get around. His alibi was just as good as +that of the horse. Both of them rested on the assumption that neither +could cover the ground between two given points in a given time. There +was one other possible explanation—that Healy had been in telephonic +communication with Noches before he met Phyllis. But this seemed to Jim +very unlikely, indeed. By his own story he had been cutting trail all +afternoon and had seen nobody until he met Phyllis.</p> + +<p>Yeager called on the cashier, Benson, later in the day, and had a talk +with him and with the president, Johnson. Both of these were now back at +their posts, though the latter was not attempting much work as yet. Jim +talked also with many others. Some of them had theories, but none of +them had any new facts to advance.</p> + +<p>The young cattleman put up at the same hotel as Spiker and struck up a +sort of intimacy with him. They sometimes loafed together during the +day, and at night they were always to be seen side by side at the poker +table.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Keller found convalescence under the superintendence of Miss Sanderson +one of the great pleasures of his life. Her school was out for the +summer and she was now at home all day. He had never before found time +to be lazy, and what dreaming he had done had been in the stress of +action. Now he might lie the livelong day and not too obviously watch +her brave, frank youth as she moved before him or sat reading. For the +first time in his life he was in love!</p> + +<p>But as the nester grew better he perceived that she was withdrawing +herself from him. He puzzled over the reason, not knowing that her +brother, Phil, was troubling her with flings and accusations thrown out +bitterly because his boyish concern for her good name could find no +gentler way to express itself.</p> + +<p>"They're saying you're in love with the fellow—and him headed straight +for the pen," he charged.</p> + +<p>"Who says it, Phil?" she asked quietly, but with flaming cheeks.</p> + +<p>He smote his fist on the table. "It don't matter who says it. You keep +away from him. Let Aunt Becky nurse him. You haven't any call to wait on +him, anyhow. If he's got to be nursed by one of the family, I'll do it."</p> + +<p>He tried to keep his word, and as a result of it the wounded man had to +endure his sulky presence occasionally. Keller was man of the world +enough to be amused at his attitude, and yet was interested enough in +the lad's opinion of him to keep always an even mood of cheerful +friendliness. There was a quantity of winsome camaraderie about him that +won its way with Phil in spite of himself. Moreover, all the boy in him +responded to the nester's gameness, the praises of which he heard on all +sides.</p> + +<p>"I see you have quite made up your mind I'm a skunk," the wounded man +told him amiably.</p> + +<p>"You robbed the bank at Noches and shot up three men that hadn't hurt +you any," the boy retorted defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Not unless Jim Yeager is a liar."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Jim! No use going into that. He's your friend. I don't know why, +but he is."</p> + +<p>"And you're Brill Healy's. That's why you won't tell that he was +carrying your sister's knife the day I saw you and him first."</p> + +<p>The boy flashed toward the bed startled eyes. Keller was looking at him +very steadily.</p> + +<p>"Who says he had Phyl's knife?"</p> + +<p>"Hadn't he?"</p> + +<p>"What difference does that make, anyhow? I hear you're telling that you +found the knife beside the dead cow. You ain't got any proof, have you?" +challenged young Sanderson angrily.</p> + +<p>"No proof," admitted the other.</p> + +<p>"Well, then." Phil chewed on it for a moment before he broke out again: +"I reckon you cayn't talk away the facts, Mr. Keller. We caught you in +the act—caught you good. By your own story, you're the man we came on. +What's the use of you trying to lay it on me and Brill?"</p> + +<p>"Am I trying to lay it on you?"</p> + +<p>"Looks like. On Brill, anyhow. There's nothing doing. Folks in this neck +of the woods is for him and against you. Might as well <i>sabe</i> that right +now," the lad blurted.</p> + +<p>"I <i>sabe</i> that some of them are," the other laughed, but not with quite +his usual debonair gayety. For he did not at all like the way things +looked.</p> + +<p>But though Phil had undertaken to do all the nursing that needed to be +done by the family, he was too much of an outdoors dweller to confine +himself for long to the four walls of a room. Besides, he was often +called away by the work of looking after the cattle of the ranch. +Moreover, both he and his father were away a good deal arranging for the +disposal of their sheep. At these times her patient hoped, and hoped in +vain, that Phyllis would take her brother's place.</p> + +<p>Came a day when Keller could stand it no longer. In Becky's absence, he +made shift to dress himself, bit by bit, lying on the bed in complete +exhaustion after the effort of getting into each garment. He could +scarce finish what he had undertaken, but at last he was clothed and +ready for the journey. Leaning on a walking stick, he dragged himself +into the passage and out to the porch, where Phyllis was sitting alone.</p> + +<p>She gave a startled cry at sight of him standing there, haggard and +white, his clothes hanging on his gaunt frame much as if he had been a +skeleton.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing?" she cried, running to his aid.</p> + +<p>After she had got him into her chair, he smiled up at her and panted +weakly. He was leaning back in almost complete exhaustion.</p> + +<p>"You wouldn't come to see me, so—I came—to see you," he gasped out, at +last.</p> + +<p>"But—you shouldn't have! You might have done yourself a great injury. +It's—it's criminal of you."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see you," he explained simply.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you send for me?"</p> + +<p>"There wasn't anybody to send. Besides, you wouldn't have stayed. You +never do, now."</p> + +<p>She looked at him, then looked away. "You don't need me now—and I have +my work to do."</p> + +<p>"But I do need you, Phyllie."</p> + +<p>It was the first time he had ever spoken the diminutive to her. He let +out the word lingeringly, as if it were a caress. The girl felt the +color flow beneath her dusky tan. She changed the subject abruptly.</p> + +<p>"None of the boys are here. How am I to get you back to your room?"</p> + +<p>"I'll roll a trail back there presently, ma'am."</p> + +<p>She looked helplessly round the landscape, in hope of seeing some rider +coming to the store. But nobody was in sight.</p> + +<p>"You had no business to come. It might have killed you. I thought you +had better sense," she reproached.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to see you," he parroted again.</p> + +<p>Like most young women, she knew how to ignore a good deal. "You'll have +to lean on me. Do you think you can try it now?"</p> + +<p>"If I go, will you stay with me and talk?" he bargained.</p> + +<p>"I have my work to do," she frowned.</p> + +<p>"Then I'll stay here, thank you kindly." He settled back into the chair +and let her have his gay smile. Nevertheless, she saw that his lips were +colorless.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll stay," she conceded, moved by her anxiety.</p> + +<p>"Every day?"</p> + +<p>"We'll see."</p> + +<p>"All right," he laughed weakly. "If you don't come, I'll take a <i>pasear</i> +and go look for you." She helped him to his feet and they stood for a +moment facing each other.</p> + +<p>"You must put your hand on my shoulder and lean hard on me," she told +him.</p> + +<p>But when she saw the utter weakness of him, her arm slipped round his +waist and steadied him.</p> + +<p>"Now then. Not too fast," she ordered gently.</p> + +<p>They went back very slowly, his weight leaning on her more at every +step. When they reached his room, Keller sank down on the bed, utterly +exhausted. Phyllis ran for a cordial and put it to his lips. It was some +time before he could even speak.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I ain't right husky yet," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't ever do such a thing again," she charged him.</p> + +<p>"Not ever?"</p> + +<p>"Not till the doctor says you're strong enough to move."</p> + +<p>"I won't—if you'll come and see me every day," he answered +irrepressibly.</p> + +<p>So every afternoon she brought a book or her sewing, and sat by him, +letting Phil storm about it as much as he liked. These were happy hours. +Neither spoke of love, but the air was electrically full of it. They +laughed together a good deal at remarks not intrinsically humorous, and +again there were conversational gaps so highly charged that she would +rush at them as a reckless hunter takes a fence.</p> + +<p>As he got better, he would be propped up in bed, and Aunt Becky would +bring in tea for them both. If there had been any corner of his heart +unwon it would have surrendered then. For to a bachelor the acme of +bliss is to sit opposite a girl of whom he is very fond, and to see her +buttering his bread and pouring his tea with that air of domesticity +that visualizes the intimacy of which he has dreamed. Keller had played +a lone hand all his turbulent life, and this was like a glimpse of +Heaven let down to earth for his especial benefit.</p> + +<p>It was on such an occasion that Jim Yeager dropped in on them upon his +return from Noches. He let his eyes travel humorously over the room +before he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Why for don't I ever have the luck to be shot up?" he drawled.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you Jim!" Keller called a greeting from the bed. Phyllis came +forward, and, with a heightened color, shook hands with him.</p> + +<p>"You'll sit down with us and have some tea, Jim," she told him.</p> + +<p>"Me? I'm no society Willie. Don't know the game at all, Phyl. Besides, +I'm carrying half of Arizona on my clothes. It's some dusty down in the +Malpais."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he sat down, and, over the biscuits and jam, told the +meagre story of what he had found out.</p> + +<p>The finding of the stocking-footed roan near Noches so soon after the +robbery disposed of Healy's lie, though it did not prove that Keller had +not been riding it at the time of the holdup. As for Healy, Yeager +confessed he saw no way of implicating him. His alibi was just as good +as that of any of them.</p> + +<p>But there was one person his story did involve, and that was Spiker, the +tinhorn, tenderfoot sport of Noches. During the absence of this young +man at the gaming table, Jim and his friend, Sam Weaver, had got into +his room with a skeleton key and searched it thoroughly. They had found, +in a suit case, a black mask, a pair of torn and shiny chaps, a gray +shirt, a white, dusty sombrero, much the worse for wear, and over three +hundred dollars in bills.</p> + +<p>"What does he pretend his business is?" Keller asked, when Jim had +finished.</p> + +<p>"Allows he's a showfer. Drives folks around in a gasoline wagon. That's +the theory, but I notice he turned down a mining man who wanted to get +him to run him into the hills on Monday. Said he hadn't time. The +showfer biz is a bluff, looks like."</p> + +<p>The nester made no answer. His eyes, narrowed to slits, were gazing out +of the window absently. Presently he came from deep thought to ask +Yeager to hand him the map he would find in his inside coat pocket. This +he spread out on the bed in front of him. When at last he looked up he +was smiling.</p> + +<p>"I reckon it's no bluff, Jim. He's a chauffeur, all right, but he only +drives out select outfits."</p> + +<p>"Meaning?"</p> + +<p>The map lying in front of Keller was one of Noches County. The nester +located, with his index finger, the town of that name, and traced the +road from it to Seven Mile. Then his finger went back to Noches, and +followed the old military road to Fort Lincoln, a route which almost +paralleled the one to the ranch.</p> + +<p>The eyes of Phyllis were already shining with excitement. She divined +what was coming.</p> + +<p>"Is this road still travelled, Jim?"</p> + +<p>"It goes out to the old fort. Nobody has lived there for most thirty +years. I reckon the road ain't travelled much."</p> + +<p>"Strikes through Del Oro Cañon, doesn't it, right after it leaves +Noches?"</p> + +<p>"Yep."</p> + +<p>"I reckon, Jim, your friend, Spiker, drove a party out that way the +afternoon of the holdup," the nester drawled smilingly. "By the way, is +your friend in the lockup?"</p> + +<p>"He sure is. The deputy sheriff arrested him same night we went through +his room."</p> + +<p>"Good place for him. Well, it looks like we got Mr. Healy tagged at +last. I don't mean that we've got the proof, but we can prove he might +have been on the job."</p> + +<p>"I don't see it, Larry. I reckon my head's right thick."</p> + +<p>"I see it," spoke up Phyllis quickly.</p> + +<p>Keller smiled at her. "You tell him."</p> + +<p>"Don't you see, Jim? The motor car must have been waiting for them +somewhere after they had robbed the bank," she explained.</p> + +<p>"At the end of Del Oro Cañon, likely," suggested the nester.</p> + +<p>She nodded eagerly. "Yes, they would get into the cañon before the +pursuit was in sight. That is why they were not seen by Slim and the +rest of the posse."</p> + +<p>Yeager looked at her, and as he looked the certainty of it grew on him. +His mind began to piece out the movements of the outlaws from the time +they left Noches. "That's right, Phyl. His car is what he calls a +hummer. It can go like blazes—forty miles an hour, he told me. And the +old fort road is a dandy, too."</p> + +<p>"They would leave the automobile at Willow Creek, and cut across to the +Pass," she hazarded.</p> + +<p>"All but Brill. Being bridlewise, he rode right for Seven Mile to make +dead sure of his alibi, whilst the others made their getaway with the +loot. When he happened to meet you on the way, he would be plumb +tickled, for that cinched things proper for him. You would be a witness +nobody could get away from."</p> + +<p>"And what about their hawsses? Did they bring the bronchs in the car, +too?" drawled Keller, an amused flicker in his eyes.</p> + +<p>The others, who had been swimming into their deductions so confidently, +were brought up abruptly. Phyllis glanced at Jim and looked foolish.</p> + +<p>"The bronchs couldn't tag along behind at a forty per clip. That's +right," admitted Yeager blankly.</p> + +<p>"I hadn't thought about that. And they had to have their horses with +them to get from Willow Creek to the Pass. That spoils everything," the +girl agreed.</p> + +<p>Then, seeing her lover's white teeth flashing laughter at her, she knew +he had found a way round the difficulty. "How would this do, +partners—just for a guess: The car was waiting for them at the end of +the Del Oro Cañon. They dumped their loot into it, then unsaddled and +threw all the saddles in, too. They gave the bronchs a good scare, and +started them into the hills, knowing they would find their way back home +all right in a couple of days. At Willow Creek they found hawsses +waiting for them, and Mr. Spiker hit the back trail for Noches, with his +car, and slid into town while everybody was busy about the robbery."</p> + +<p>"Sure. That would be the way of it," his friend nodded. "All we got to +do now is to get Spiker to squeal."</p> + +<p>"If he happens to be a quitter."</p> + +<p>"He will—under pressure. He's that kind."</p> + +<p>A knock came on the door, and Tom Benwell, the store clerk, answered +her summons to come in.</p> + +<p>"It's Budd, Miss Phyl. He came to see about getting-that stuff you was +going to order for a dress for his little girl," the storekeeper +explained.</p> + +<p>Phyllis rose and followed the man back to the store. When she had gone, +Jim stepped to the door and shut it. Returning, he sat down beside the +bed.</p> + +<p>"Larry, I didn't tell all I know. That hat in Spiker's room had the +initials P.S. written on the band. What's more, I knew the hat by a big +coffee stain splashed on the crown. It happens I made that stain myself +on the round-up onct when we were wrastling and I knocked the coffeepot +over."</p> + +<p>Keller looked at his friend gravely. "It was Phil Sanderson's hat?"</p> + +<p>Yeager nodded assent. "He must have loaned his old hat to Spiker for the +holdup."</p> + +<p>"You didn't turn the hat over to the sheriff?"</p> + +<p>"Not so as you could notice it. I shoved it in my jeans and burnt it +over my camp fire next day."</p> + +<p>"This mixes things up a heap. If Phil is in this thing—and it sure +looks that way—it ties our hands. I'd like to have a talk with Spiker +before we do anything."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with having a talk with Phil? Why not shove this +thing right home to him?"</p> + +<p>The nester shook his head. "Let's wait a while. We don't want to drive +Healy away yet. If the kid's in it he would go right to Healy with the +whole story."</p> + +<p>Yeager swore softly. "It's all Brill's fault. He's been leading Phil +into devilment for two years now."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And all the time been playing himself for the leader of us fellows that +are against the rustlers and that Bear Creek outfit," continued Jim +bitterly. "Why, we been talking of electing him sheriff. Durn his +forsaken hide, he's been riding round asking the boys to vote for him on +a promise to clean out the miscreants."</p> + +<p>"You can oppose him, of course. But we have no absolute proof against +him yet. We must have proof that nobody can doubt."</p> + +<p>"I reckon. And'll likely have to wait till we're gray."</p> + +<p>"I don't think so. My guess is that he's right near the end of his rope. +We're going to make a clean-up soon as I get solid on my feet."</p> + +<p>"And Phil? What if we catch him in the gather, and find him wearing the +bad-man brand?"</p> + +<p>Keller's eyes met those of his friend. "There never was a rodeo where +some cattle didn't slip through unnoticed, Jim."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>SURRENDER</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The weeks slipped away and brought with them healing to the wounded man +at Seven Mile. He moved from the bed where at first he had spent his +days to a lounge in the living room, and there, from the bay window, he +could look out at the varied life of the cattle country. Men came and +went in the dust of the drag drive, their approach heralded by the bawl +of thirsty cattle. Others cantered up and bought tobacco and canned +goods. The stage arrived twice a week with its sack of mail, and always +when it did Public Opinion gathered upon the porch of the store, as of +yore. Phil Sanderson he saw often, Yeager sometimes, and once or twice +he caught a glimpse of Healy's saturnine face.</p> + +<p>A scarcity of beef and a sharp rise in prices brought the round-up +earlier than usual. Every spare man was called upon to help comb the +hills for the wild steers that ran the wooded water-sheds, as untamed as +the deer and the lynx. Even the storekeeper, Benwell, was pressed into +the service. 'Rastus and the nester were the only men about the place, +the deputy sheriff having been recalled to Noches on the collapse of +Healy's story.</p> + +<p>The removal to a distance of the rest of her admirers did not have the +effect of throwing Keller alone with Phyllis more often. The young +mistress of the ranch invited Bess Purdy to visit her, and now he never +saw her except in the presence of her other guest.</p> + +<p>Bess took him in at once, evidencing her approval of him by entering +upon a spirited war of repartee with him. She had not been in the house +twenty-four hours before she had unbosomed herself of a derisive +confidence.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe you're a bank robber, at all! I don't believe you are +even a rustler! You're a false alarm!"</p> + +<p>Both Keller and Miss Sanderson smiled at the daring of the girl's +challenge. But the former defended himself with apparent heat.</p> + +<p>"What makes you think so? Why should you undermine my reputation with +such an assertion? You can't talk that way about me without proving it, +Miss Purdy."</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't. You don't <i>look</i> it."</p> + +<p>"I can't help that. You ask Mr. Healy. He'll tell you I am."</p> + +<p>"You'll need a better witness than Brill before I'll believe it."</p> + +<p>"And I thought you were going to like me," he lamented.</p> + +<p>"I like a lot of people who aren't ruffians, but of course I can't +admire you so much as if you were a really truly bad man."</p> + +<p>"But if I promise to be one?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, anybody can <i>promise</i>," she flung back, eyes bubbling with +laughter.</p> + +<p>"Wait till I get on my feet again."</p> + +<p>A youth galloped up to the house in a cloud of alkali dust.</p> + +<p>"There's Cuffs," announced Phyllis, smiling at Bess.</p> + +<p>That young woman blushed a little, supposed, aloud, she must go out to +see him, and withdrew in seeming reluctance.</p> + +<p>"He wants Bess to go with him to the Frying Pan dance. He sent a note +over from the round-up to ask her. She hasn't had a chance yet to tell +him that she would," explained her friend.</p> + +<p>"How will he take her?" asked the nester, his eyes quickening.</p> + +<p>"In the surrey, I suppose. Why?"</p> + +<p>"The surrey will hold four."</p> + +<p>She made no pretense of not understanding. Her look met his in a +betrayal of the pleasure his invitation gave her. Yet she shook her +head.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you."</p> + +<p>"But why—if I may ask?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! But you mayn't," she smiled.</p> + +<p>He considered that. "You like to dance."</p> + +<p>"Most girls do."</p> + +<p>"Then it is because of me," he soliloquized aloud.</p> + +<p>"Please," she begged lightly.</p> + +<p>"My reputation, I suppose."</p> + +<p>She began to roll up the embroidery upon which she was busy. But he got +to the door before her.</p> + +<p>"No, you don't."</p> + +<p>"You are not going to make me tell you why I can't go with you, are +you?"</p> + +<p>"That, to start with. Then I'm going to make you tell me some other +things."</p> + +<p>"But if I don't want to tell?" Her eyes were wide open with surprise, +for he had never before taken the masterful line with her. Deep down, +she liked it; but she had no intention of letting him know so.</p> + +<p>"There are times not to tell, and there are times to tell. This will be +one of the last kind, Phyllis."</p> + +<p>She tried mockery. "When you throw a big chest like that I suppose you +always get what you want."</p> + +<p>"You act right funny, girl. I never see you alone any more. We haven't +had a good talk for more than a week. Now, why?"</p> + +<p>She thought of telling him she had been too busy; then, moved by an +impulse of impatience, met his gaze fully, and told him part of the +truth.</p> + +<p>"I should think you would understand that a girl has to be careful of +what she does!"</p> + +<p>"You mean about us being friends?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, we can be friends, but——If you can't see it, then I can't tell +you," she finished.</p> + +<p>"I can see it, I reckon. You saved my life, and I expect some human cat +got his claws out and said it was because you were fond of me.</p> + +<p>"Then you saved it again by your nursing. No two ways about that. Doc +Brown says you and Jim did. I was so sick folks knew it had to be. But +now I'm getting well, you have to show them you're not interested in me. +Isn't that about it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But you don't have to show me, too, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Am I not—courteous?"</p> + +<p>"I ain't worrying any about your courtesy. But, look here, Phyllie. Have +you forgotten what happened in the kitchen that night you helped me to +escape?"</p> + +<p>She flashed him one look of indignant reproach. "I should think you +would be the last person in the world to remind me of it."</p> + +<p>"I've got a right to mention it because I've asked you a question since +that ain't been answered. That week's been up ten days."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to answer it now."</p> + +<p>And with that she slipped past him and from the room.</p> + +<p>He ran a hand through his curls and voiced his perplexity. "Now, if a +woman ain't the strangest ever. Just as a fellow is ready to tell her +things, she gets mad and hikes."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless he smiled, not uncheerfully. What experience he had had +with young women told him the signs were not hopeless for his success. +He was not sure of her, not by a good deal. He had captured her +imagination. But to win a girl's fancy is not the same as to storm her +heart. He often caught himself wondering just where he stood with her. +For himself, he knew he was fathoms deep in love.</p> + +<p>She was in his thoughts when he fell asleep.</p> + +<p>He awoke in the darkness, and sat upright in the bed, a feeling of +calamity oppressing him. Something pungent tickled his nostrils.</p> + +<p>A faint crackling sounded in the air.</p> + +<p>Swiftly he slipped on such clothes as he needed and stepped into the +passage. A heavy smoke was pouring up the back stairway. He knocked +insistently upon the door where Phyllis and her guest were sleeping.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" a voice demanded.</p> + +<p>"Get up and dress, Miss Sanderson! The house is on fire! You have plenty +of time, I think. If there's any hurry I'll let you know after I've +looked."</p> + +<p>He went down the front stairs and found that the fire was in the back +part of the house. Already volumes of smoke with spitting tongues of +flame were reaching toward the foot of the stairs. He ran up to the room +where the girls were dressing, and called to them:</p> + +<p>"Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>The door opened, to show him two very pale girls, each carrying a bundle +of clothes. They were only partially dressed, but wrappers covered their +disarray. Keller went to the clothes closet, emptied it with a sweep and +lift of his arm, and returned, to lead the way downstairs.</p> + +<p>"Take a breath before you start. The smoke's bad, but there is no real +danger," he told them as he plunged forward.</p> + +<p>At the foot of the stairs he stopped to see that they were following him +closely, then flung open the outer door and let in a rush of cool, sweet +air. In another moment they were outside, safe and unhurt.</p> + +<p>Phyllis drew a long breath before she said:</p> + +<p>"The house is gone!"</p> + +<p>"If there is anything you want particularly from the living room I can +get in through the window," Keller told her.</p> + +<p>She shuddered. Flame jets were already shooting out here and there. "I +wouldn't let you go back for the world. We didn't get out too soon."</p> + +<p>"No," he agreed.</p> + +<p>A sniveling voice behind them broke in: "Where is Mr. Phil? I yain't +seen him yet."</p> + +<p>Larrabie swung round on 'Rastus like a flash. "What do you mean? He's at +the round-up, of course."</p> + +<p>The little fellow began to bawl: "No, sah. He done come home late last +night. Aftah you-all had gone to bed. He's in his room, tha's where he +is."</p> + +<p>Phyllis caught at the arm of Keller to steady her. She was colorless to +the lips.</p> + +<p>"Oh, God! Oh, God!" she cried faintly.</p> + +<p>The nester pushed her gently into the arms of her guest.</p> + +<p>"Take care of her, Bess. I'll get Phil."</p> + +<p>He ran round the house to the back. The bedroom occupied by young +Sanderson was on the first floor. The ranger caught up a stick, smashed +the window, and tore out the frame by main strength. Presently he was +inside, groping through the dense smoke toward the bed.</p> + +<p>Flames leaped at him from out of it like darting serpents. His hair, his +face, his clothes, caught fire before he had discovered that the bed had +been used, but was now empty. The door into the hall was open, and +through it were pouring billows of smoke. Evidently Phil must have tried +to escape that way and been overpowered.</p> + +<p>The young man caught up a towel and wrapped it around his throat and +mouth, then plunged forward into the caldron of the passage. The smoke +choked him and the intense heat peeled his face and made the endurance +of it an agony.</p> + +<p>He stumbled over something soft, and discovered with his hands that it +was a body. Smothered and choked, half frantic with the heat, he +struggled back into the bedroom with his burden.</p> + +<p>Somehow he reached the window, stumbled through it, and dragged the +inanimate body after him. Then, with Phil in his arms, he reeled forward +into the fresh air beyond.</p> + +<p>With a cry Phyllis broke from Bess and ran toward him. But before she +had reached the rescuer and the rescued, Keller went down in total +collapse. He, too, was unconscious when she knelt beside him and began +with her hands to crush out the smoldering fire in his clothes.</p> + +<p>He opened his eyes and smiled faintly when he saw who it was.</p> + +<p>"How's the boy?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He is breathing," cried Bess joyfully, from where she was bending over +Sanderson.</p> + +<p>"You go attend to him. I'm all right now."</p> + +<p>"Are you truly?"</p> + +<p>"Truly."</p> + +<p>He proved it by sitting up, and presently by rising and joining with her +the group gathered around Phil. For Aunt Becky had now emerged from her +cabin and taken charge of affairs.</p> + +<p>Phil was supported to the bunk house and put to bed by Keller and +'Rastus. It was already plain that he would be none the worse for his +adventure after a night's good sleep. Aunt Becky applied to his case the +homely remedies she had used before, while the others stood around the +bed and helped as best they could. Strangely enough, he was not burned +at all. In this he had escaped better than Keller, whose hair and +eyebrows and skin were all the worse for singeing.</p> + +<p>The nester noticed that Phyllis, in handing a bowl of water to Bess, +used awkwardly her left hand. The right one, he observed, was held with +the palm concealed against the folds of her skirt.</p> + +<p>Presently Phyllis, her anxiety as to Phil relieved, left Aunt Becky and +Bess to care for him, while she went out to make arrangements for +disposing of the party until morning. The nester followed her into the +night and walked beside her toward the house of the foreman. The +darkness was lit up luridly by the shooting flames of the burning house.</p> + +<p>"The store isn't going to catch fire. That's one good thing," Keller +observed, by way of comfort.</p> + +<p>"Yes." There was a catch in her voice, for all the little treasures of +her girlhood, gathered from time to time, were going up in smoke.</p> + +<p>"You're insured, I reckon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, it might be worse."</p> + +<p>She thought of the narrow escape Phil had had, and nodded.</p> + +<p>"You'll have to sleep in the bunk house. Take any of the beds you like. +Bess and I will put up at the foreman's," she explained.</p> + +<p>As is the custom among bachelors who attend to their own domestic +affairs, they found the bed just as the foreman had stepped out of it +two weeks before. While Keller held the lantern, Phyllis made it up, and +again he saw that she was using her right hand very carefully and +flinching when it touched the blankets. Putting the lantern down on the +table, he walked up to her.</p> + +<p>"I'll make the bed."</p> + +<p>She stepped back, with a little laugh. "All right."</p> + +<p>He made it, then turned to her at once.</p> + +<p>"I want to see your hand."</p> + +<p>She gave him the left one, even as he had done on the occasion of their +second meeting. He took it, and kept it.</p> + +<p>"Now the other."</p> + +<p>"What do you want with it?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind." He reached down and drew it from the folds of her skirt, +where it had again fallen. Very gently he turned it so that the palm was +up. Ugly blisters and a red seam showed where she had burned herself. He +looked at her without speaking.</p> + +<p>"It's nothing," she told him, a little hysterically.</p> + +<p>For an instant her mind flashed back to the time when Buck Weaver had +drawn the cactus spines out of that same hand.</p> + +<p>His voice was rough with feeling. "I can see it isn't. And you got it +for me—putting out the fire in my clothes. I reckon I cayn't thank you, +you poor little tortured hand." He lifted the fingers to his lips and +kissed them.</p> + +<p>"Don't," she cried brokenly.</p> + +<p>"Has it got to be this way always, Phyllie—you giving and me taking?" +His hand tightened on hers ever so slightly, and a spasm of pain shot +across her face. He looked at the burned fingers again tenderly. "Does +it hurt pretty bad, girl?"</p> + +<p>"I wish it was ten times as bad!" she broke out, with a sob. "You saved +Phil's life—at the risk of your own. I wish I could tell you how I +feel, what I think of you, how splendid you are." In default of which +ability, she began to cry softly.</p> + +<p>He wasted no more time. He did not ask her whether he might. With a +gesture, his arm went around her and drew her to him.</p> + +<p>"Let me tell what I think of you, instead, girl o' mine. I cayn't tell +it, either, for that matter, but I reckon I can make out to show you, +honey."</p> + +<p>"I didn't mean—that way," she protested, between laughter and tears.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's the way I mean."</p> + +<p>Neither spoke again for a minute. Than: "Do you really—love me?" she +murmured.</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" He laughed with the sheer unconquerable boyish +delight in her.</p> + +<p>"I think you're pretending right well," she smiled.</p> + +<p>"If I am making believe."</p> + +<p>"If you are." Her arms slipped round his neck with a swift impulse of +love. "But you're not. Tell me you're not, Larry."</p> + +<p>He told her, in the wordless way lovers have at command, the way that is +more convincing than speech.</p> + +<p>So Phyllis, from the troubled waters of doubt, came at last to safe +harborage.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>AT THE RODEO</h3> +<br /> + +<p>There was an exodus from Seven Mile the second day after the fire. +Keller went up Bear Creek, Phyllis accepted the invitation of Bess to +stay with her at the Fiddleback, and her brother returned to the +round-up.</p> + +<p>The riders were now combing the Lost Creek watershed. Phil knew the camp +would be either at Peaceful Valley or higher up, near the headwaters of +the creek. Before he reached the valley the steady bawl of cattle told +him that the outfit was camped there. He topped the ridge and looked +down upon Cattleland at its busiest. Just below him was the remuda, the +ponies grazing slowly toward the hills under the care of three +half-grown boys.</p> + +<p>Beyond were the herded cattle. Here all was activity. Within the fence +of riders surrounding the wild creatures the cutting out and the +branding were being pushed rapidly forward. Occasionally some leggy +steer, tail up and feet pounding, would make a dash to break the cordon. +Instantly one of the riders would wheel in chase, head off the animal, +and drive it back.</p> + +<p>Brill Healy, boss of the rodeo by election, was in charge. He was an +expert handler of cattle, one of the best in the country. It was his +nature to seek the limelight, though it must be said for him that he +rose to his responsibilities. The owners knew that when he was running +the round-up few cattle would slip through the net he wound around them.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Brill!" shouted the young man as he rode up.</p> + +<p>"Hello, son! Too bad about the fire. I'll want to hear about it later. +Looking for a job?" he flung hurriedly over his shoulder. For he had not +even a minute to spare.</p> + +<p>"I reckon."</p> + +<p>Phil did not wait to be assigned work, but joined the calf branders.</p> + +<p>Not until night had fallen and they were gathered round in a semicircle +leaning against their saddles did Phil find time to tell the story of +the fire. There was some haphazard comment when he had finished, after +which Slim spoke.</p> + +<p>"So the nester hauled you out. Ce'tainly looks like he's plumb game. You +said he was afire when he got you into the open, didn't you, Phil?"</p> + +<p>The boy nodded. "And all in. He fainted right away."</p> + +<p>"With him still burning away like the doctor's fire there," murmured +Healy ironically, with a slight gesture toward the cook.</p> + +<p>Phil looked at him angrily. "I didn't say that. Some one put the fire +out."</p> + +<p>"Oh, some one! Might a man ask who?"</p> + +<p>Phil had not had any intention of telling, but he found himself letting +Healy have it straight.</p> + +<p>"Phyllis."</p> + +<p>"About what I thought!" Healy said it significantly, and with a malice +that overrode his discretion.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" demanded the boy fiercely.</p> + +<p>"I ain't said anything, have I?" Healy came back smoothly.</p> + +<p>Yeager's quiet voice broke the silence that followed, while Phil was +trying to voice the resentment in him.</p> + +<p>"You mean what we're all thinking, Brill, I reckon—that she is the sort +to forget herself when somebody needs her help. Ain't that it?"</p> + +<p>The eyes of the two met steadily in a clash of wills. Healy's gave way +for the time, not because he was mastered, but because he did not wish +to alienate the rough, but fair-minded, men sitting around.</p> + +<p>"You're mighty good at explaining me to the boys, Jim. I expect that is +what I mean," he answered sullenly.</p> + +<p>"Sure," put in Purdy, with amiable intent.</p> + +<p>"But when it comes to Mr. Keller I can explain myself tol'able well. I +don't need any help there, Jim, not even if he is yore best friend."</p> + +<p>"If you've got anything to say against him, I'll ask you to say it when +I'm not around," broke in Phil. "You'll recollect, please, that he's +<i>my</i> friend, too."</p> + +<p>"That so? Since, when, Phil?" the rodeo boss retorted sarcastically.</p> + +<p>"Since he went into the fire after me and saved my life. Think I'm a +coyote to round on him? I tell you he's a white man clear through. In my +opinion, he's neither a rustler nor a bank robber." He was flushed and +excited, but his gaze met that of his former friend and challenged him +defiantly.</p> + +<p>Healy's eyes narrowed. He gazed at the boy darkly, as if he meant to +read him through and through. For years he had dominated Phil, had +shaped him to his ends, had led him into wild, lawless courses after +him. Now the anchors were dragging. He was losing control of him. He +resolved to turn the screws on him, but not at this time and place.</p> + +<p>"I've always been considered a full-grown man, Phil. What I think I aim +to say out loud when the notion hits me. That being so, I go on record +as having an opinion about Keller. You think he's on the square, and you +give him a whitewashed certificate as a bony-fidy Sunday-school scholar.</p> + +<p>"Different here. I think him a coyote and a crook, and so I say it right +out in meeting. Any objections?" The gaze of the boss shifted from +Sanderson to Yeager, and fastened.</p> + +<p>"None in the world. You think what you like, Brill, and we'll stick to +our opinions," Yeager replied cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"And when I get good and ready I'll act on mine," Healy replied with an +evil grin.</p> + +<p>"If you find it right convenient. I expect Keller ain't exactly a wooden +cigar Indian. Maybe he'll have a say-so in what's doing," suggested +Yeager.</p> + +<p>"About as much as he had last time," sneered the round-up boss. With +which he rose, stretched himself, and gave orders. "Time to turn in, +boys. We're combing Old Baldy to-morrow, remember."</p> + +<p>"And Old Baldy's sure a holy terror," admitted Slim.</p> + +<p>"Come three more days and we'd ought to be through. I'm not going to +grieve any when we are. This high life don't suit me too durned well," +put in Benwell.</p> + +<p>"Yet when you come here first you was a right sick man, Tom. Now, you're +some healthy. Don't that prove the outside of a hawss is good for the +inside of a man, like the docs say?" grinned Purdy.</p> + +<p>"Tom's notion of real living is sassiety with a capital S," explained +Cuffs. "You watch him cut ice at the Frying Pan dance next week. He'll +be the real-thing lady-killer. All you lads going, I reckon. How about +you, Jim?"</p> + +<p>Yeager said he expected to be there.</p> + +<p>"With yore friend the rustler?" asked Healy insolently over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"I haven't got any friend that's a rustler."</p> + +<p>"I'm speaking of Mr. Larrabie Keller." There was a slurring inflection +on the prefix.</p> + +<p>"He'll be there, I shouldn't wonder."</p> + +<p>"I'd wonder a heap," retorted Healy. "You'll see he won't show his face +there."</p> + +<p>"That's where you're wrong, Brill. He told me he was going," spoke up +Phil triumphantly.</p> + +<p>"We'll see. He's wise to the fact that this country knows him for an +out-and-out crook. He'll stay in his hole."</p> + +<p>"You going, Slim?" asked Purdy amiably, to turn the conversation into a +more pacific channel.</p> + +<p>"Sure," answered that young giant, getting lazily to his feet. "Well, +sons, the boss is right. Time to pound our ears."</p> + +<p>They rolled themselves in their blankets, the starry sky roofing their +bedroom. Within five minutes every man of them was asleep except the +night herders—and one other.</p> + +<p>Healy lay a little apart from the rest, partially screened by some boxes +of provisions and a couple of sacks of flour. His jaw was clamped tight. +He looked into the deep velvet sky without seeing. For a long time he +did not move. Then, noiselessly, he sat up, glanced around carefully to +make sure he was not observed, rose, and stole into the darkness, +carrying with him his saddle and bridle.</p> + +<p>One of his ponies was hobbled in the mesquite. Swiftly he saddled. +Leading the animal very carefully so as to avoid rustling the brush, he +zigzagged from the camp until he had reached a safe distance. Here he +swung himself on and rode into the blur of night, at first cautiously, +but later with swift-pounding hoofs. He went toward the northwest in a +bee line without hesitation or doubt. Only when the lie of the ground +forced a detour did he vary his direction.</p> + +<p>So for hours he travelled until he reached a cañon in which squatted a +little log cabin. He let his voice out in the howl of a coyote before he +dismounted. No answer came, save the echo from the cliff opposite. Again +that mournful call sounded, and this time from the cabin found an +answer.</p> + +<p>A man came sleepily to the door and peered out. "Hello! That you, +Brill?"</p> + +<p>Healy swung off, trailed his rein, and followed the man into the cabin. +"Don't light up, Tom. No need."</p> + +<p>For ten minutes they talked in low tones. Healy emerged from the cabin, +remounted, and rode back to the cow camp. He reached it just as the +first, faint streaks of gray tinged the eastern sky.</p> + +<p>Silently he unsaddled, hobbled his pony, and carried his saddle back to +the place where he had been lying. Once more he lay down, glanced +cautiously round to see all was quiet, and fell asleep as soon as his +head touched the saddle.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXIV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>MISSING</h3> +<br /> + +<p>From all over the Malpais country, from the water-sheds where Bear and +Elk and Cow creeks head, from the halfway house far out in the desert +where the stage changes horses, men and women dribbled to the Frying Pan +for the big dance after the round-up. Great were the preparations. Many +cakes and pies and piles of sandwiches had been made ready. Also there +was a wash boiler full of coffee and a galvanized tub brimming with +lemonade. For the Frying Pan was doing itself proud.</p> + +<p>Phil and his sister drove over together. The boy had asked Bess to go +with him, but Cuffs had beaten him to it. The distance was only +twenty-five miles, a neighborly stroll in that country of wide spaces +and desert stretches filled with absentees.</p> + +<p>When Phyllis came into the big room where the dancing was in progress, +her dark eye swept the room without finding him for whom she looked. +There were many there she knew, not more than two or three whom she had +never met, but among them all she looked at none who was a magnet for +her eyes. Keller had not yet arrived.</p> + +<p>Before she had taken her seat she had three engagements to dance. Jim +Yeager had waylaid her; so, too, had Slim and Curly. She waltzed first +with Phil, and after he had done his duty he left her to the besiegings +of half a score of riders for various ranches who came and went and came +again. She joked with them, joined the merry banter that went on, +laughed at them when they grew sentimental, always with a sprightly +devotion to the matter in hand.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, though they did not know it, her mind was full of him who +had not yet appeared. Why was he late? Could he have missed the way by +any chance? And later—as the hours passed without bringing him—could +anything have happened to him? More than once her troubled gaze fell +upon Brill Healy with a brooding question in it. The man had received +only the day before his party's nomination for sheriff, and he was doing +the gracious to all the women and children.</p> + +<p>He had many of the qualities that make for popularity, even though he +was often overbearing, revengeful, and sullen. When he chose he could be +hail fellow well met in a way Malpais found flattering to its vanity. +Now he was apparently having the time of his life. Wherever he moved an +eddy of laughter and gayety went with him. The eyes of men as well as +women admiringly followed his dark, lithe, picturesque figure.</p> + +<p>Phyllis had declined to dance with him, giving as an excuse a full +programme, and for an instant his face had blazed with the suppressed +rage in him. He had bowed and swaggered away with a malicious sneer. Her +judgment told her it was folly to connect this man with the absence of +her lover, but that look of malevolent triumph had none the less shaken +her heart. What had he meant? It seemed less a threat for the future +than a gloating over some evil already done.</p> + +<p>When she could endure them no longer she carried her fears to Jim +Yeager. They were dancing, but she made an excuse of fatigue to drop +out.</p> + +<p>"First time I ever knew you to play out at a dance, Phyl," he rallied +her.</p> + +<p>"It isn't that. I want to say something to you," she whispered.</p> + +<p>He had a guess what it was, for his own mind was not quite easy.</p> + +<p>"Do you think anything could have happened, Jim?" she besought pitifully +when for a moment they were alone in a corner.</p> + +<p>"What <i>could</i> have happened, Phyllie? Do you reckon he fell off his +hawss, and him a full-size man?" he scoffed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but—you don't know how Brill looked at me. I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Brill!" His voice held an edge of scorn, but none the less it +concealed a real fear. He was making as much concession to it as to her +when he added lightly: "Tell you what I'll do, Phyl. I'll saddle up and +take a look back over the Bear Creek trail. Likely I'll meet him, and +we'll come in together."</p> + +<p>Her eyes met his, and he needed no other thanks. "You'll lose the +dance," was her only comment.</p> + +<p>Jim followed the road until it branched off to join the Bear Creek +trail. Here he deflected toward the mountains, taking the zigzag path +that ran like a winding thread among the rocks as it mounted. Now for +the first time there came to him the faint rhythmic sound of a galloping +horse's hoofs. He did not stop, and as he picked his way among the rocks +he heard for some time no more of it.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Hurry-up-like-hell kept the road, I reckon," Jim ruminated aloud, +and even as he spoke he caught again the echo of an iron shoe striking a +rock.</p> + +<p>He stopped and listened. Some one was climbing the trail behind him.</p> + +<p>"Mebbe he's a friend, and then mebbe he isn't. We'll let him have the +whole road to himself, eh, Keno?"</p> + +<p>Yeager guided his pony to the left, and took up a position behind some +huge bowlders from whence he could see without being seen. The pursuer +toiled into sight, a slim, wiry youth on a buckskin. He came forward out +of the shadows into the fretted moonlight.</p> + +<p>Yeager gave a glad whoop of recognition. "Hi-yi, Phil!"</p> + +<p>"You're there, are you? Did I scare you off the trail, Jim?"</p> + +<p>"That's whatever, boy. What are you doing here?"</p> + +<p>"Sis sent me. She got worried again, and we figured I'd better join +you."</p> + +<p>"I reckon there's nothing serious the matter. Still, it ain't like Larry +to say he would come and then not show up."</p> + +<p>"Brill is back there bragging about it." Phil nodded his head toward the +lights of the Frying Pan glimmering far below. "Says he knew the waddy +wouldn't show his head. You don't reckon, Jim, he's turned a trick on +Keller, do you?"</p> + +<p>"That's what we have got to find out, Phil."</p> + +<p>"Looks funny he'd be so durned sure when we all know how game Keller +is," the boy reflected aloud.</p> + +<p>"I don't expect you're armed, Phil?" Jim put the statement as a +question.</p> + +<p>"Nope. Are you?"</p> + +<p>"No, I ain't. Didn't think of it when I started. Oh, well, we'll make +out. Like enough there will be no need of guns."</p> + +<p>A gray light was sifting into the sky, and still they rode, winding up +toward the peaks of the divide. Jim, leading the way, drew rein and +pointed to a cactus bush beside the trail. Among its spines lay a gray +felt hat. From it his eye wandered to the very evident signs of a +struggle that had taken place. Moss and cactus had been trampled down by +boot heels. To the cholla hung here and there scraps of cloth. A blood +splash stared at them from an outcropping slope of rock.</p> + +<p>Jim swung from the saddle and rescued the hat from the spines. Inside +the sweat band were the initials L.K. Silently he handed the hat to +Phil.</p> + +<p>"It's his hat," the boy cried.</p> + +<p>"It's his hat," Jim agreed. "They must have laid for him here. He put up +a good scrap. Notice how that cholla is cut to ribbons. Point is, what +did they do to him?"</p> + +<p>They searched the ground thoroughly, and discovered no body hidden in +the brush.</p> + +<p>"They've taken him away. Likely he's alive," Yeager decided aloud at +last.</p> + +<p>"Brill couldn't have been in this. He was at the Frying Pan before I +was."</p> + +<p>"I reckon he ordered it done. If that's correct they will be holding +Larry till Brill gets there to give further orders."</p> + +<p>Phil entered an objection. "That doesn't look to me like Brill's way. +He's not scared of any man that lives. When he squares accounts with +Keller he'll be on the job himself."</p> + +<p>"That's so, too," admitted Yeager. "Still, I figure this is Healy's +work. Maybe he gave out there was to be no killing. He was at the ranch +himself, big as coffee, so as to be sure of his alibi."</p> + +<p>"What does he care about an alibi? When he gets ready to go gunnin' +after Keller he won't care if the whole Malpais sees him. There's +something in this I don't <i>sabe</i>."</p> + +<p>"There sure is. We've got to run the thing down <i>muy pronto</i>. No use +both of us going ahead without arms, Phil. My notion is this: You burn a +shuck back to the Frying Pan and round up some of our friends on the +q.t. Don't let Brill get a notion of what's in the air. Better make +straight for Gregory's Pass. I'm going to follow this trail we've cut +and see what's doing. Once I find out I'll double back to the Pass and +meet you. Bring along an extra gun for me."</p> + +<p>"I don't reckon I will, Jim. What's the matter with me going on instead +of you? I can follow this trail good as you can. I announce right here +that I'm not going back. I've got first call on this job. Keller went +into the fire after me. I'm going to follow this trail to hell if I have +to."</p> + +<p>Yeager tried persuasion, argument, appeal. The lad was as fixed as +Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to go buttin' in where I'm not wanted any more than you +would, Jim. I'll play this hand out with a cool head, but I'm going to +play it my ownself."</p> + +<p>"All right. It's your say-so. I'll admit you've got a claim. But you +want to remember one thing—if anything happens to you I cayn't square +it with Phyl. Go slow, boy!"</p> + +<p>Without more words they parted, Jim to ride swiftly back for help, and +young Sanderson to push on up the trail with his eyes glued to it. Ever +since he could swing himself to a saddle he had been a vaquero in the +cow country.</p> + +<p>He was therefore an expert at reading the signs left by travellers. What +would have been invisible to a tenderfoot offered evidence to him as +plain as the print on a primer. Mile after mile he covered with a minute +scrutiny that never wavered.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Keller rode blithely down the piney trail while the sun flung its +brilliant good-bye over the crotch of the mountains behind which it was +slipping. The western sky was a Turner sublimated to the <i>nth</i> degree, a +thing magnificent and indescribable. The young man rode with his crisp +curls bared to the light, grateful breeze that came like healing from +the great peaks. From the joyous, unquenchable youth in him bubbled +snatches of song and friendly smiles scattered broadcast over a world +that pleased him mightily.</p> + +<p>He was going to see his girl, going down to the Frying Pan to take her +in his arms and whirl her into the land of romance to the rhythm of the +waltz. He wanted to shout it out to the chipmunks and the quails. Ever +and again he broke out with a line or two of a melody he had heard once +from a phonograph. No matter if he did not get the words exactly. He was +sure of the sentiment. So the hills flung back his lusty:</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>"I love a lassie,<br /></span> +<span>A bonnie Hieland lassie,<br /></span> +<span>She's as pure as the lily of the dell."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Disaster fell upon him like a bolt out of a June sky. His pony +stumbled, went down heavily with its weight on his leg. From the +darkness men surged upon him. Rough hands dragged at him. The butt of a +weapon crashed down on his hat and stunned him.</p> + +<p>He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he was +struggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down. He +knew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously with +both hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steel +flashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag pain +that blotted out the world.</p> + +<p>As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters a +far-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him.</p> + +<p>"He's coming to, looks like. I reckon you ain't bust his head, after +all, Brad."</p> + +<p>Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze. Slowly these took +form. Features stood out. The masks became faces. They no longer floated +detached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings.</p> + +<p>"It ain't our fault if you're stove up some, pardner. You're too durned +anxious to whip yore weight in wildcats," one of the men grinned.</p> + +<p>"Right you are, Tom. He shore hits like a kicking mule," chimed in a +third, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone.</p> + +<p>A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "No +hard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave a +final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner.</p> + +<p>"I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nester +quietly.</p> + +<p>"We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfit +doesn't run any information bureau," answered the heavy-set, sullen +fellow who had been called Brad.</p> + +<p>There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one of +them, if not two. The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one was +Brad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit.</p> + +<p>They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voiced +consultation. Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south, +while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across the +horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding +among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Through +the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parks +beyond.</p> + +<p>This region was the heart of the watershed where Little Goose Creek +heads. The peaks rose gaunt above them. Occasionally they glimpsed wide +vistas of tangled, wooded cañons and hills innumerable as sea billows. +Into this maze they plunged ever deeper and deeper. Daylight came, and +found them still travelling. The prisoner did not need to be told that +this inaccessible country was the lurking place of the rustlers who had +preyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence to +connect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rode +in and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands while +honest folks kept their beds.</p> + +<p>The sun was well up to its meridian before they came through a thick +clump of quaking aspens to the mouth of a gulch opening from the end of +a little mountain park. On one of the slopes of the gulch a cabin +squatted, half hidden by the great boulders and the matting of pine +boughs in front. Here Brad swung stiffly from the saddle.</p> + +<p>"We'll 'light hyer," he announced.</p> + +<p>"Time, too," returned Keller easily. "If anybody asks you, tell them I +usually eat breakfast some before ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"You'll do yore eating from now on when I give the word," his guard +answered surlily.</p> + +<p>He was a big, dark man with a grouch, one who took his duties sourly. +Not by any stretch of imagination could he be considered a brilliant +conversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, but +for the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surly +monosyllables.</p> + +<p>There was a good deal of the cave man about him. The heavy, slouching +shoulders, the glare of savagery, the long, hairy arms, all had their +primordial suggestion. Given a club and a stone ax, he might have been +set back thousands of years with no injustice to his mentality.</p> + +<p>The man soon had a fire blazing in the stove, and from it came a +breakfast of bacon, black coffee, and biscuits. He freed the hands of +the nester and sat opposite him at the table, a revolver by the side of +his plate for use in an emergency.</p> + +<p>Keller smiled. "This is one of those fashionable dinners where they have +extra hardware beside the plates," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"Get gay, and I'll blow the top of yore head off!" the cow-puncher swore +with gusto.</p> + +<p>"Thanks. Under the circumstances, I reckon I'll not get gay. I'm in no +hurry to put you in the pen, seh. Plenty of time. I'm going to need the +top of my head to testify against you."</p> + +<p>Irwin swore violently.</p> + +<p>"For two cents I'd pump you full of holes right now," he glared.</p> + +<p>Keller laughed, meeting him eye to eye pleasantly.</p> + +<p>"Those aren't the orders, friend. I'm to be held here till the boss +shows up or gives the signal."</p> + +<p>The big jaw of his captor fell from astonishment. "Who told you that?"</p> + +<p>The prisoner helped himself to more bacon and laughed again. He had made +a guess, but he knew now that he had hit the bull's-eye with his shot in +the dark.</p> + +<p>"Some things don't need telling. I don't have to be told, for instance, +that if things get too hot for Brill Healy he will slide out and leave +you to settle the bill with the law."</p> + +<p>Irwin's eyes glared angrily at his smiling ones. The unabashed +impudence, the unfluttered aplomb, but above all the uncanny prescience +of this youth disturbed him because he could not understand them. +Moreover, it happened that his suspicious mind had lingered on the +chance of a betrayal at the hands of his chief. For which very reason he +broke into angry denial.</p> + +<p>"That's a lie! Brill ain't that sort. He'd stand pat to a finish." Then, +tardily, came the instinct for caution. "And there's nothing to tell, +anyways," he finished sulkily.</p> + +<p>"Sure. What's a little rustling and a little bank robbing among +friends?" Keller wanted to know cheerfully.</p> + +<p>For just an instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffian +opposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. He +caught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger.</p> + +<p>His prisoner, leaning back in the chair, held him with quiet, unwavering +eyes. "Steady! Steady!" he drawled.</p> + +<p>"That will be about enough from you," Irwin let out through set teeth. +"You padlock that mouth of yours, mister."</p> + +<p>Keller took his advice temporarily, but it was not in him to long +repress the spirit of adventure that bubbled in him. The temptation to +bait this bear drew him irresistibly. He could not let him alone, the +more that he sensed the danger to himself of the prods he sent home +through the thick skin.</p> + +<p>Lying carelessly on the bed with his head on his arm, or perhaps sitting +astride a chair with his hands crossed on the back support, he would +smile with childlike innocence and sent his barbs in gayly. And Irwin, +murder in his dull brain, would glare at him like a maniac.</p> + +<p>"Now would be a good time to blow off the top of my cocoanut," the +nester suggested more than once to the infuriated cave man. "I'm +allowing, you know, to send you to Yuma as soon as I get out of this. +Nothing like grabbing your opportunity by the forelock."</p> + +<p>"And when are you expecting to get out of here?" his guard demanded +huskily.</p> + +<p>Keller waved his hand with airy persiflage. "No exact information +obtainable, my friend. Likely to-day. Maybe not till to-morrow. The one +dead-sure point is that I'll make my getaway at the right time."</p> + +<p>"There's one more dead-sure point—that I'm going to blow holes in you +at the right time," retorted the other.</p> + +<p>"Like to bet on which of us is a true prophet?"</p> + +<p>Brad relapsed into black, sulky silence.</p> + +<p>The hours followed each other, and still nobody came to relieve the +guard. Keller could not understand the reason for this, any more than +he could fathom an adequate one for his abduction. There was of course +something behind it—something more potent than mere malice. If the +intention had been merely to kill him, the thing could have been done +without all this trouble. But though he searched his brain for an +explanation, he could not find one that satisfied.</p> + +<p>The answer came to him later in the day. In the middle of the afternoon +a horse pounded up the draw to the cabin. Irwin went to the door, his +eye still on his prisoner, except for a swift glance at the newcomer.</p> + +<p>"How's yore five-thousand-dollar beauty, Brad?" inquired a voice that +the nester recognized.</p> + +<p>"Finer than silk, boss."</p> + +<p>The rider swung from the saddle, trailed his rein, and came with +jingling spurs into the cabin.</p> + +<p>"Good evening, Mr. Keller," he said with derisive respect.</p> + +<p>The nester, lying sideways on the bed with his head on his hand, nodded +a greeting.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you and Mr. Irwin had doubled up and were bunkies," +continued the jubilant voice. "When did you-all patch up the +partnership?"</p> + +<p>"About eight o'clock last night, Mr. Healy," returned the prisoner, +eying him coolly. "And of course I knew it would be a surprise to you +when you learned it."</p> + +<p>"Expecting to stay long with him?"</p> + +<p>"He seems right hospitable, but I don't reckon I'll outstay my welcome."</p> + +<p>Healy laughed, with mockery and not amusement. "Brad's such a pressing +host there's no telling when he'll let you go."</p> + +<p>He was as malevolent as ever, but it was plain to be seen that he was +riding high on a wave of triumph. Affairs were plainly going to his +liking.</p> + +<p>"The way I heard it you were expected down at the Frying Pan last night. +Changed yore mind about going, I reckon," he went on insolently.</p> + +<p>"I reckon."</p> + +<p>"Had business that detained you, maybe."</p> + +<p>"You're a good guesser."</p> + +<p>"Folks were right anxious down there, according to the say-so that +reached me."</p> + +<p>Keller's cool eye measured him in silence, at which his enemy laughed +contemptuously and turned on his heel.</p> + +<p>Healy drew his confederate to one side of the room and held a whispered +talk with him. Apparently he did not greatly care whether his foe caught +the drift of it or not, for occasionally his voice lifted enough so that +scraps of sentences reached the man lounging on the bed.</p> + +<p>"—close to two hundred head—by the Mimbres Pass—the boys are +ce'tainly pushing the drive—out of danger by midnight—wait for the +signal before you turn him loose——"</p> + +<p>"So-long, Mr. Keller. I cayn't spare the time to stay longer with you," +their owner jeered.</p> + +<p>"Just a moment, Mr. Healy. I want to know why you are keeping me here."</p> + +<p>The man grinned. "Am I keeping you here, seh? Looks to me like it was +Brad that's a-keeping you. Make a break for a getaway, and I'll not do a +thing to you. Course I cayn't promise what Brad won't do. He's such a +plumb anxious host."</p> + +<p>"You're his brains. What you tell him to do he does. I hold you +responsible for this!"</p> + +<p>"You don't say!"</p> + +<p>"And right now I'll add, for all the devilment that has been going on in +these parts for years. You've about reached the end of your rope, +though."</p> + +<p>"I'll bet dollars to doughnuts you reach the end of one inside of +forty-eight hours, Mr. Rustler," flashed back Healy.</p> + +<p>And with an evil, significant grin he was gone. They heard the sound of +retreating hoofs die in the distance.</p> + +<p>But his visit had told the prisoner two things. A hurried wholesale +drive of rustled cattle was being made across the line into Sonora, and +it was being done in such a way as to fasten the suspicion of it upon +the nester who had not appeared at the dance and had not been seen since +that time. The irony of the thing was superb in its audacity. Healy and +his friends would get the profit from the stolen cattle, and they would +visit the punishment for the crime upon him. Evidence would be cooked +up of course, and the retribution would be so swift that his friends +would not be able to save him. This time his enemy would take no +chances. He would be wiped out like a troublesome insect. The thing was +diabolic in the simplicity of its cleverness.</p> + +<p>Keller watched his jailer now like a hawk. He was ready to take the +first chance that offered, no matter how slight a one it seemed. But the +man was vigilant and wary. He never let his hand wander a foot from the +handle of the weapon he carried.</p> + +<p>Silently Irwin cooked a second meal. They sat down to it opposite each +other, Keller facing the open window. While his jailer plied the knife, +his revolver again lay on the oilcloth within reach.</p> + +<p>"While I'm your guest and eating at your expense, I want to be properly +grateful," the nester told his vis-à-vis. "Some folks might kick because +the me-an'-you wasn't more varied, but I ain't that kind. You're doing +your best, and nobody could do more."</p> + +<p>"The which?" asked Irwin puzzled.</p> + +<p>"The me-an'-you. It's French for just plain grub. For breakfast we get +bacon and coffee and biscuits. For supper there's a variety. This time +it is biscuits and coffee and bacon. To-morrow I reckon——"</p> + +<p>Keller stopped halfway in his sentence, but took up his drawling comment +again instantly. Only an added sparkle in his eyes betrayed the change +that had suddenly wiped out his indolence and left him tense and alert. +For while he had been speaking a head had slowly raised itself above the +window casement and two eyes had looked in and met his. They belonged to +Phil Sanderson.</p> + +<p>Never had the brain of the prisoner been more alert. While his garrulous +tongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held up +empty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by the +flicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man at +table with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that moment +addressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. To +the other it was pregnant with meaning.</p> + +<p>"No, seh. Some might complain because you ain't better provided with +grub and fixings, but what I say is <i>to make out the best we can with +what we've got</i>," the slow, drawling voice continued. "Some folks cayn't +get along unless things are up to the Delmonico standard. That's plumb +foolishness. Reminds me of a friend of mine that happened on a grizzly +onct while he was cutting trail.</p> + +<p>"Not expecting to meet Mr. Bear, he didn't have any gun along. Mr. Bear +was surely on the wah-path that day. He made a bee line for my friend to +get better acquainted. Nothing like presence of mind. That cow-puncher +got his rope coiled in three shakes of a maverick's tail, his pinto +bucking for fair to make his getaway. The rope drapped over Mr. Bear's +head just as the puncher and the hawss separated company.</p> + +<p>"Things were doing right sudden then. My friend grabbed the end of that +rope and twisted it round and round a young live oak. Then he remembered +an appointment and lit out, Mr. Bear after him on the jump. <i>Muy pronto</i> +that grizzly came up awful sudden. The more he jerked the nearer he was +to being choked. You better believe Mr. Puncher was hitting that trail +right willing in the meanwhile."</p> + +<p>"You talk too much with yore mouth," growled Irwin.</p> + +<p>"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races. I was just aiming +to show you that <i>if my friend hadn't happened to have a rope along he +would have been in a bad fix</i>. But, you notice, he used his brains, <i>and +a rope did just as well as a gun</i>."</p> + +<p>The eyes just above the window casing disappeared. Brad attended to the +business in hand, which was that of getting away with bacon and biscuits +while he kept an eye on the man opposite. His prisoner also did justice +to his supper, to his flow of conversation, and to the window behind the +unconscious jailer.</p> + +<p>In that open window were presently framed again the head and shoulders +of young Sanderson. Irwin pushed back his chair to get some more coffee, +and the picture in the frame shot instantly down. The guard, his coffee +cup, and his revolver went to the stove and returned. Phil reappeared +at the window, his rope coiled for action. It slid gracefully forward, +dropped over the head of Brad, and was instantly jerked tight.</p> + +<p>Keller vaulted across the table, and flung himself upon the struggling +man. Brad's arms were entangled in the rope, but one leg shot out and +hurled back the nester. But before he could free himself from the taut +loop his prisoner was upon him again and had borne him to the ground.</p> + +<p>Of the two, Irwin was far the more powerful, Keller the more agile and +supple. He knew every trick of the wrestling game, whereas the other was +clumsy and muscle-bound. By main strength the older man got to his feet +again. Over went the table as they surged against it.</p> + +<p>A chair, stamped into kindling, was hurled aside by the force of their +impact. The stove rocked, and the bed collapsed as the locked figures +crashed down upon it. The ranger, twisting as they fell, landed on top +and his fingers instantly found the throat of his foe. Simultaneously +Phil came to his assistance.</p> + +<p>Even then, taken at an advantage, with two much younger men against him, +the big jailer fought to the finish like a bear. Not till he was +completely exhausted and they nearly so did he give up and lie quiet. +All three of them panted heavily, the allies lying across his chest and +legs. The nester managed to draw the loop taut about Irwin's neck and +insert his knuckles so that he could use them as a tourniquet if +necessary.</p> + +<p>"Gather up the other end of the rope, loop it, and tie his feet +together," the nester ordered, getting his sentence out in fragmentary +jerks.</p> + +<p>Phil did so, deftly and expertly, after which, in spite of renewed +struggles, they tied the hands of their prisoner behind his back.</p> + +<p>"Looks like a cyclone had hit the room," said the boy, glancing at the +debris.</p> + +<p>Larrabie laughed. "He's the most willing mixer I ever saw."</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do with him?"</p> + +<p>"We'll leave him tied right where he is. When we get down into the +settlement we'll notify his friends, though I reckon they'll find him +without any help from us."</p> + +<p>In order to make sure they went over the knots again, tightening them +here and there. The revolver and the rifle of the bound man they +appropriated. The nester's horse was in a little corral back of the +house. He saddled, and shortly the two were on the back trail. Phil knew +the country as a golfer knows his links. To him Keller put the question +in his mind:</p> + +<p>"How far is the Mimbres Pass from here, and in what direction?"</p> + +<p>The younger man looked at him in surprise. "A dozen miles, I reckon. See +that cleft over there? That's the Mimbres."</p> + +<p>His friend drew rein and looked with level eyes at him.</p> + +<p>"Phil, it's come to a show-down! Are you for Brill Healy or are you for +me?"</p> + +<p>"I'm through with Brill."</p> + +<p>"Dead sure of that?"</p> + +<p>"Dead sure. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because you've got to make your choice to-night whether you're going to +stand with honest men or thieves. Healy's gang is rustling a bunch of +cows gathered at the round-up. They're heading for Mimbres Pass. I'm +going to stop them if I can."</p> + +<p>"I'm with you, Larry."</p> + +<p>"Good! I was sure of you, Phil."</p> + +<p>The boy flushed, but his eyes did not waver. "I want to tell you +something. That day we most caught you over the dead cow of the C.O. +outfit Brill was carrying Phyl's knife. I had lent it to him the night +before."</p> + +<p>Keller nodded. "I had figured it out that way."</p> + +<p>"But that ain't all. Once when I was cutting trail in the hills—must +have been about six months before that time—I happened on Brill driving +a calf still bleeding from the brand he had put on it.</p> + +<p>"I didn't think anything of that, but I noticed he was anxious to have +me turn and join him. But I kept on the way I was going, and just by a +miracle my pony almost stumbled over a dead cow lying in the brush. That +set me thinking. That night I rode over to Healy's and asked an +explanation.</p> + +<p>"He had one ready. Some one else must have killed the cow. He found the +calf wandering about alone, and branded it. Somehow his story didn't +quite satisfy me, but I wasn't ready then to think him a coyote. I liked +him—always had. And it flattered me that he had picked me out to be his +best friend. So I said nothing, and figured it out that he was on the +square. Of course I knew he was reckless and wild, but I didn't like him +any the less for that. I reckon nobody ever accused him of not being +game."</p> + +<p>"Hardly," smiled Keller. "He'll stand the acid that way."</p> + +<p>"The thing that stuck in my craw was his lying about seeing you on the +night of the bank robbery. He said you were riding the roan with white +stockings. Later we found out that couldn't be true. Then I knew Jim was +telling the truth about you being with him in the hills at the time. It +kind of sifted to me by degrees that you were a white man and he was a +skunk."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"Then we had it out one day. He had his reason for wanting to stand well +with me. I reckon you know what it is."</p> + +<p>"I know his reason. No man could have a better. I reckon I've a right to +think so, Phil, because she has promised to marry me."</p> + +<p>The boy shook hands with him impulsively. "I'm right glad to hear +it—and I want to say they don't make girls any better than Phyl."</p> + +<p>"That's not news to me. I have known it since the first time I saw her."</p> + +<p>Sanderson returned to the order of the day. "Well, Brill and I had had +one or two tiffs, mostly about you and Phyl. He saw I was changed toward +him, and he wanted to know why. I let him have it straight, and since +then we haven't been friends."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that. It makes plain sailing for me. He's got to be run +down and caged, Phil. Healy is at the head of all this rustling that has +been troubling the Malpais country. His gang stuck up the Diamond Nugget +stage, killed Sheriff Fowler, and robbed the Noches Bank."</p> + +<p>"How could he have robbed the bank when he was seen fifty miles from +there not two hours afterward?"</p> + +<p>Keller briefly explained his theory then pushed on at once to his plans.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make straight for the Mimbres Pass while you go back and +rustle help. I'll try to keep them from getting through the Pass until +you close in on them behind."</p> + +<p>"That don't look good to me. How do I know how long it will be before I +can gather the boys together or find Jim and his outfit? You might be +massacred before I got back."</p> + +<p>"A man has to take his fighting chance."</p> + +<p>"Then let me take mine. We'll hold the pass together. I'll bet we can. +Don't you reckon?"</p> + +<p>"What use would you be without a rifle? No, Phil, you'll have to bring +up the reinforcements. That's the best tactics."</p> + +<p>Sanderson protested eagerly, but in the end was overborne. They turned +their backs upon each other, one headed for the Mimbres and the other +for the trail that ran down to the Malpais country.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE MAN-HUNT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>When Jim Yeager separated from Phil after their discovery of Keller's +hat and the deductions they drew from it, the former turned his pony +toward the Frying Pan. Daylight had already broken before he came in +sight of it, but sounds of revelry still issued boisterously from the +house.</p> + +<p>As he drew near there came to him the squeal of sawing riddles, the +high-pitched voice of the dance caller in sing-song drawl, the shuffling +of feet keeping time to the rhythm of the music. For though a new day +was at hand, the quadrilles continued with unflagging vigor, one +succeeding another as soon as the floor was cleared.</p> + +<p>The cow country takes its amusements seriously. A dance is infrequent +enough to be an event. Men and women do not ride or drive from thirty to +fifty miles without expecting to drink the last drop of pleasure there +may be in the occasion.</p> + +<p>As Jim swung from the saddle, a slim figure in white glided from the +shadow of the wild cucumber vines that rioted over one end of the porch.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jim?"</p> + +<p>The man came to the point with characteristic directness. "He has been +waylaid, Phyl. We found his hat and the place where they ambushed him."</p> + +<p>"Is he——" Her voice died at the word, but her meaning was clear.</p> + +<p>"I don't think it. Looks like they were aiming to take him prisoner +without hurting him. They might easily have shot him down, but the +ground shows there was a struggle."</p> + +<p>"And you came back without rescuing him?" she reproached.</p> + +<p>"Phil and I were unarmed. I came back to get guns and help."</p> + +<p>"And Phil?"</p> + +<p>"He's following the trail. I wanted him to let me while he came back. +But he wouldn't hear to it. Said he had to square his debt to Larry."</p> + +<p>"Good for Phil!" his sister cried, eyes like stars.</p> + +<p>"Is Brill still here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No. He rode away about an hour ago. He was very bitter at me because I +wouldn't dance with him. Said I'd curse myself for it before twenty-four +hours had passed. He must have Larry in his power, Jim."</p> + +<p>"Looks like," he nodded, and added grimly: "If you do any regretting +there will be others that will, too."</p> + +<p>She caught the lapels of his coat and looked into his face with +extraordinary intensity. "I'm going back with you, Jim. You'll let me, +won't you? I've waited—and waited. You can't think what an awful night +it has been. I can't stand it any longer! I'll go mad! Oh, Jim, you'll +take me, I know!" Her hands slipped down to his and clung to them with +passionate entreaty.</p> + +<p>"Why, honey, I cayn't. This is likely to be war before we finish. It +ain't any place for girls."</p> + +<p>"I'll stay back, Jim. I'll do whatever you say, if you'll only let me +go."</p> + +<p>He shook his head resolutely. "Cayn't be done, girl. I'm sorry, but you +see yourself it won't do."</p> + +<p>Nor could all her beseechings move him. Though his heart was very tender +toward her he was granite to her pleadings. At last he put her aside +gently and stepped into the house.</p> + +<p>Going at once to the fiddlers, he stopped the music and stood on the +little rostrum where they were seated. Surprised faces turned toward +him.</p> + +<p>"What's up, Jim?" demanded Slim, his arm still about the waist of Bess +Purdy.</p> + +<p>"A man was waylaid while coming to this dance and taken prisoner by his +enemies. They mean to do him a mischief. I want volunteers to rescue +him."</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" several voices cried at once.</p> + +<p>"The man I mean is Larrabie Keller."</p> + +<p>A pronounced silence followed before Slim drawled an answer:</p> + +<p>"Cayn't speak for the other boys, but I reckon I haven't lost any +Kellers, Jim."</p> + +<p>"Why not? What have you got against him?"</p> + +<p>"You know well enough. He's under a cloud. We don't say he's a rustler +and a bank robber, but then we don't say he ain't."</p> + +<p>"I say he isn't! Boys, it has come to a show-down. Keller is a member of +the Rangers, sent here by Bucky O'Connor to run down the rustlers."</p> + +<p>Questions poured upon him.</p> + +<p>"How do you know?"</p> + +<p>"How long have you known?"</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"Why didn't he tell us so himself, then?"</p> + +<p>Jim waited till they were quiet. "I've seen letters from the governor to +him. He didn't come here declaring his intentions because he knew there +would be nothing doing if the rustlers knew he was in the neighborhood. +He has about done his work now, and it's up to us to save him before +they bump him off. Who will ride with me to rescue him?"</p> + +<p>There was no hesitation now.</p> + +<p>Every man pushed forward to have a hand in it.</p> + +<p>"Good enough," nodded Yeager. "We'll want rifles, boys. Looks to me like +hell might be a-popping before mo'ning grows very ancient. We'll set out +from Turkey Creek Crossroads two hours from now. Any man not on hand +then will get left behind.</p> + +<p>"And remember—this is a man hunt! No talking, boys. We don't want the +news that we're coming spread all over the hills before we arrive."</p> + +<p>As Jim descended from the rostrum, his roving gaze fell on Phyl +Sanderson standing in the doorway. Her fears had stolen the color even +from her lips, but the girl's beauty had never struck him more +poignantly.</p> + +<p>Misery stared at him out of her fine eyes, yet the unconscious courage +of her graceful poise—erect, with head thrown back so that he could +even see the pulse beat in the brown throat—suggested anything but +supine surrender to her terror. Before he could reach her she had +slipped into the night, and he could not find her.</p> + +<p>Men dribbled in to the Turkey Creek Crossroads along as many trails as +the ribs of a fan running to a common centre. Jim waited, watch open, +and when it said that seven o'clock had come he snapped it shut and gave +the word to set out.</p> + +<p>It was a grim, business-like posse, composed of good men and true who +had been sifted in the impartial sieve of life on the turbid frontier. +Moreover, they were well led. A certain hard metallic quality showed in +the voice and eye of Jim Yeager that boded no good for the man who faced +him in combat to-day. He rode with his gaze straight to the front, +toward that cleft in the hills where lay Gregory's Pass. The others fell +in behind, a silent, hard-bitten outfit as ever took the trail for that +most dangerous of all big game—the hidden outlaw.</p> + +<p>The little bunch of riders had not gone far before Purdy, who was +riding in the rear, called to Yeager.</p> + +<p>"Somebody coming hell-to-split after us, Jim."</p> + +<p>It turned out to be Buck Weaver, who had been notified by telephone of +what was taking place. A girl had called him up out of his sleep, and he +had pounded the road hard to get in at the finish.</p> + +<p>Jim explained the situation in a few words and offered to yield command +to the owner of the Twin Star ranch. But Buck declined.</p> + +<p>"You're the boss of this <i>rodeo</i>, Yeager. I'm riding in the ranks +to-day."</p> + +<p>"How did you hear we were rounding-up to-day?" Jim asked.</p> + +<p>"Some one called me up," Buck answered briefly, but he did not think it +necessary to say that it was Phyllis.</p> + +<p>Behind them, unnoticed by any, sometimes hidden from sight by the rise +and fall of the rough ground, sometimes silhouetted against the sky +line, rode a slim, supple figure on a white-faced cow pony. Once, when +the fresh morning wind swept down a gulch at an oblique angle, it lifted +for an instant from the stirrup leather what might have been a gray +flag. But the flag was only a skirt, and it signalled nothing more +definite than the courage and devotion of a girl who knew that the men +she loved best on earth were in danger.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='CHAPTER_XXVII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>THE ROUND-UP</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The Mimbres Pass narrows toward the southern exit where Point o' Rocks +juts into the cañon and commands it like a sentinel. Toward this column +of piled boulders slowly moved a cloud of white dust, at the base of +which crept a band of hard-driven cattle. Swollen tongues were out, +heads stretched forward in a bellow for water taken up by one as another +dropped it. The day was still hot, though the sun had slipped down over +the range, and the drove had been worked forward remorselessly. Every +inch that could be sweated out of them had been gained.</p> + +<p>For those that pushed them along were in desperate hurry. Now and again +a rider would twist round in his saddle to sweep back a haggard glance. +Dust enshrouded them, lay heavy on every exposed inch; but through it +seams of anxiety crevassed their leathern faces. Iron men they were, +with one exception. Fight they could and would to the last ditch. But +behind the jaded, stony eyes lay a haunting fear, the never-ending dread +of a pursuit that might burst upon them at any moment. Driven to the +wall, they would have faced the enemy like tigers, with a fierce, +exultant hate. It was the never-ending possibility of disaster that lay +heavily upon them.</p> + +<p>Just as they entered the pass, a man came spurring up the steep trail +behind them. The drag drivers shouted a warning to those in front and +waited alertly with weapons ready. The man trying to overtake them waved +a sombrero as a flag of truce.</p> + +<p>"Keep an eye on him, Tom. If he makes a move that don't look good to +you, plug him!" ordered the keen-eyed man beside one of the drag +drivers.</p> + +<p>"I'm bridle wise, boss." But though he spoke with bravado Dixon shook +like an aspen in a breeze.</p> + +<p>The man he had called boss looked every inch a leader. He rode with the +loose seat and the straight back of the Westerner to the saddle born. +Just now he was looking back with impassive, reddened eyes at the +approaching figure.</p> + +<p>"Hold on, Tom! Don't shoot! It's Brad," he decided. "And I wonder what +in Mexico he is doing here."</p> + +<p>The leader of the outlaws was soon to learn. Irwin told the story of the +strategy that had changed him from jailer to prisoner and of the way he +had later freed himself from the rope that bound him.</p> + +<p>Healy unloaded his sentiments with an emphasis that did the subject +justice. Nevertheless he could not see that their plans were seriously +affected.</p> + +<p>"It's a leetle premature, but his getaway doesn't cut any ice. What we +want to do is to nail him, clamp the evidence home, and put him out of +business before his friends can say Jack Robinson. The story now is that +he was caught driving a little bunch of cows to met the big bunch his +pals were rustling, and that we left him in charge of Brad while we +tried to run down the other waddies. Understand, boys?"</p> + +<p>They did, and admired the more the versatility of a leader who could +make plans on the spur of the moment to meet any emergency.</p> + +<p>"We'll push right on, boys. Once we get through the pass it will trouble +anybody to find us. Before mo'ning you'll be across the line."</p> + +<p>"And you, Brill?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going back to settle accounts for good and all with Mr. Keller," +answered Healy grimly between set teeth. "I've got a notion about him. I +believe he's a spy."</p> + +<p>Just before Point o' Rocks a defile runs into the Mimbres Pass at right +angles. The leaders of the cattle, pushed forward by the pressure from +behind, stopped for a moment, and stood bawling at the junction. A rider +spurred forward to keep them from attempting the gulch. Suddenly he +dragged his pony to its haunches, so quickly did he stop it. For a clear +voice had called down a warning as if from the heavens:</p> + +<p>"You can't go this way! The Pass is closed!"</p> + +<p>The rider looked up in amazement, and beheld a man standing on the +ledge above with a rifle resting easily across his forearm.</p> + +<p>"By Heaven, it's Keller!" the rustler muttered.</p> + +<p>He wheeled as on a half dollar, pushed his way back along the edge of +the wall past the cattle, and shouted to his chief:</p> + +<p>"We're trapped, Brill!"</p> + +<p>None of the outlaws needed that notification. Five pair of eyes had +lifted to the ledge upon which Keller stood. The shock of the surprise +paralyzed them for an instant. For it occurred to none of the five that +this man would be standing there so quietly unless he were backed by a +posse sufficient to overpower them. He had not the manner of a man +taking a desperate chance. The situation was as dramatic as life and +death, but the voice that had come down to them had been as +matter-of-fact as if it had asked some one to pass him a cup of coffee +at the breakfast table.</p> + +<p>The temper of the outlaws' metal showed instantly. Dixon dropped his +rifle, threw up his hands, and ran bleating to the cover of some large +rocks, imploring the imagined posse not to shoot. Others found silently +what shelter they could. Healy alone took reckless counsel of his hate.</p> + +<p>Flinging his rifle to his shoulder, he blazed away at the figure on the +ledge—once, twice, three times. When the smoke cleared the ranger was +no longer to be seen. He was lying flat on his rock like a lizard, where +he had dropped just as his enemy whipped up his weapon to fire. Cold as +chilled steel, in spite of the fire of passion that blazed within him, +Healy slid to the ground on the far side of his horse and, without +exposing himself, slowly worked to the loose boulders bordering the edge +of the canon bed.</p> + +<p>The bawling of the cattle and the faint whimpering of Dixon alone +disturbed the silence. Healy and his confederates were waiting for the +other side to show its hand. Meanwhile the leader of the outlaws was +thinking out the situation.</p> + +<p>"I believe there's only two of them, Bart," he confided in a low voice +to the big fellow lying near. "Keller must have heard us when we talked +it over at the shack. I reckon he and Phil hit the trail for here +immediate. They hadn't time to go back and rustle help and still get +here before us.</p> + +<p>"We'll make Mr. Keller table his cards. I'm going to try to rush the +cattle through. We'll see at once what's doing. If they are too many for +us to do that we'll break for the gulch and fight our way out—that is, +if we find we're hemmed in behind, too."</p> + +<p>He called to the rest of the bandits and gave crisp instructions. At +sound of his sharp whistle four men leaped into sight, each making for +his horse. Dixon alone did not answer to the call. He lay white and +trembling behind the rock that sheltered him, physically unable to rise +and face the bullets that would rain down upon him.</p> + +<p>Keller, watching alertly from above, guessed what they would be at. His +rifle cracked twice, and two of the horses staggered, one of them +collapsing slowly. He had to show himself, and for three heartbeats +stood exposed to the fire of four rifles. One bullet fanned his cheek, a +second plunged through his coat sleeve, a third struck the rock at his +feet. While the echoes were still crashing, he was flat on his rock +again, peering over the edge to see their next move.</p> + +<p>"He's alone," cried Healy jubilantly. "Must have sent the kid back for +help. Bart, get Dixon's gun, steal up the ravine, and take him in the +rear. I'd go myself, but I can't leave the boys now."</p> + +<p>Slowly the cattle felt the impetus from behind, and began to move +forward. The voice above shouted a second warning. Healy answered with a +derisive yell. Keller again stood exposed on the ledge.</p> + +<p>Rifles cracked.</p> + +<p>This time the cattle detective was firing at men and not at horses, and +they in turn were pumping at him fast as they could work the levers. One +man went down, torn through and through by a rifle slug in his vitals. +Healy's horse twitched and staggered, but the rider was unhurt. The +officer on the ledge, a perfect target, was the heart of a very hail of +lead, but when he sank again to cover he was by some miracle still +unhurt.</p> + +<p>"They'll try a flank attack next time," Keller told himself.</p> + +<p>Up to date the honors were easily his. He had put three horses out of +commission and disabled one of the outlaws so badly that he would prove +negligible in the attack. Peering down, he could see Healy, with superb +contempt for the marksman above, slowly and carefully carry his wounded +comrade to shelter. The other men were already driven back to cover. The +cattle, excited by the firing, were milling round and round uneasily.</p> + +<p>Healy laid the wounded man down, knelt beside him, and gave him water +from his flask. The man was plainly hard hit, though he was not bleeding +much.</p> + +<p>"Where is it, Duke? Can I do anything for you, old fellow?"</p> + +<p>The dying man shook his head and whispered hoarsely: "I've got mine, +Brill. Shot to pieces. I'm dying right now. Get out while you can. Don't +mind me."</p> + +<p>His chief swore softly. "We'll get him right, Duke. Brad's after him +now. Buck up, old pard. You'll worry through yet."</p> + +<p>"Not this time, Brill. I've played rustler once too often."</p> + +<p>Keller, far up on the precipice, became aware of approaching riders long +before the outlaws below could see them. He counted eight—nine—ten +men, still black dots in a cloud of dust. This he knew must be Phil's +posse.</p> + +<p>If he could hold the rustlers for ten minutes more they would be caught +like rats in a trap. Once or twice he glanced behind him as a precaution +against some one of the enemy climbing Point o' Rocks from the defile, +but he gave this little consideration. He had not seen Brad when he +disappeared into the mesquite, and he supposed all of the rustlers were +still in the Pass five hundred feet below him.</p> + +<p>What he had expected was that they would force their way up the defile +for a quarter of a mile and strike the easy trail that ran from the rear +to the top of the Point. He wondered that this had not occurred to +Healy.</p> + +<p>In point of fact it had, but the outlaw leader knew that as they picked +their way among the broken boulders of the gulch bottom the enemy would +have them in the open for more than a hundred yards of slow going. He +had chosen the alternative of sending Brad quietly up the rough face of +the cliff. The other plan would do as a last resource if this failed.</p> + +<p>Healy believed that his enemy had been delivered into his hands. After +Keller had been killed they would toss his body down into the Pass, and +while his companions continued the drive to Mexico, Healy would return +to get help for Duke and spread the story he wanted to get out. The main +features of that tale would be that he and Duke had cut their trail by +accident, suspected rustling, and followed as far as the Mimbres Pass, +where Keller had shot Duke and been in turn shot by Healy.</p> + +<p>It was a neat plan, and one that would have been fairly sure of success +but for one unforeseen contingency—the approach of Yeager's posse a +half hour too soon. Healy heard them coming, knew he was trapped, and +attempted to force an escape through the narrows in front of Point o' +Rocks.</p> + +<p>The milling cattle had jammed the gateway. Keller, shooting down one or +two of them, blocked the exit still more. Healy and his confederates +could not get through, and turned to try the defile just as the first of +the posse came flying down the Pass.</p> + +<p>Young Sanderson was in the van, a hundred yards in front of Yeager, +dashing over the uneven ground in a reckless haste that Jim's slower +horse could not match. Loose shale was flying from his pony's hoofs as +it pounded forward. The outlaws just beat him to the mouth of the +intersecting gulch. Dragging his broncho to a slithering halt, he fired +twice at the retreating men. He had taken no time to aim, and his +bullets went wild.</p> + +<p>Brill laughed in mockery, covered him deliberately with his rifle, and +just as deliberately raised the barrel and fired into the air. The +distance was scarce a hundred yards. Phil could not doubt that his +former friend had purposely spared his life. The boy's rifle dropped +from his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Brill wouldn't shoot at me! I couldn't kill him!" he shouted to +Weaver, as the latter rode up.</p> + +<p>Buck nodded. "Let me have him!" And he plunged into the gorge after the +men that had disappeared.</p> + +<p>Twice Keller's rifle spat at Healy and his companion as they plowed +forward across the boulder bed, but the difficulty of shooting from far +above at moving figures almost directly below saved the rustlers. They +reached a thick growth of aspens and disappeared. Healy parted company +with his ally at the place where the trail to the summit of Point o' +Rocks led up.</p> + +<p>"Break south when you get out of the gulch, Sam. In half an hour it will +be night, and you'll be safe. So-long."</p> + +<p>"Where you going, Brill?"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to settle accounts with that dashed spy!" answered Healy, +with an epithet. "Inside of half an hour either Keller or I will be down +and out!"</p> + +<p>The outlaw took the stiff incline leisurely, for he knew Keller could +come down only this way, and he had no mind to let himself get so +breathed as to disturb the sureness of his aim. The aspen grove ran like +a forked tongue up the ridge for a couple of hundred yards. As Healy +emerged from it he saw a rider just disappearing over the shoulder of +the hill in front of him. For an instant he had an amazed impression +that the figure was that of a woman, but he dismissed this as absurd. +He went the more cautiously, for he now knew that there would be two for +him to deal with on the Point instead of one—unless Brad reached the +scene in time to assist him.</p> + +<p>The sound of a shot drifted down to him, followed presently by a far, +faint cry of terror. What had happened was this:</p> + +<p>Keller, turning away from the overhanging ledge from which he had seen +the outlaws vanish into the grove, looked down the long slope +preliminary to descending. He was surprised to see a horse and rider +halfway between him and the aspen tongue. To him, too, there came a +swift impression that it was a woman, and almost at once something in +the poise of the gallant figure told him what woman. His heart leaped to +meet her. He waved a hand, and broke into a run.</p> + +<p>But only for two strides. For there had come to him a warning. He swung +on his heel and waited. Again he heard the light rumble of shale, and +before that had died away a sinister click. Alert in every fiber, his +gaze swept the bluff—and stopped when it met a pair of beady eyes +peering at him over the edge of the precipice.</p> + +<p>The two pair of eyes fastened for what seemed like an eternity, but +could have been no longer than four ticks of a clock. Neither of the men +spoke. The outlaw fired first—wildly, for the arm which held the rifle +was cramped for space. Keller's revolver flashed an answer which tore +through Irwin's teeth and went out beneath his ear. With a furious oath +the man dropped his weapon and flung himself upward and forward, landing +in a heap almost at the feet of the detective.</p> + +<p>"Don't move!" ordered the latter.</p> + +<p>Brad writhed forward awkwardly, knew the shock of another heavy bullet +in his shoulder, and catching his foe by the legs dragged him from his +feet. Keller's revolver was jerked over the edge of the precipice as he +let go of it to close with the burly ruffian.</p> + +<p>Both of them were unarmed save for the weapons nature had given them. +The detailed purpose of the struggle defined itself at once. Irwin meant +by main strength to fling the detective into the gulf that descended +sheer for five hundred feet. The other fought desperately to save +himself by dragging his infuriated antagonist back from the edge.</p> + +<p><a name='theygrappled'>They grappled in silence, save for the heavy panting that evidenced the +tension of their efforts.</a> Each tried to bear the other to the ground, to +establish a grip against which his foe would be helpless. Now they were +on their knees, now on their sides. Over and over they rolled, first one +and then the other on top, shifting so fast that neither could clinch +any temporary advantage.</p> + +<a name="illus4"><!-- Image 4 --></a> +<center><a href="images/340_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/340_sm.jpg" height="477" width="300" +alt="THEY GRAPPLED IN SILENCE SAVE FOR THE HEAVY PANTING THAT +EVIDENCED THE TENSION OF THEIR EFFORTS. Page 340" /> +</a> +</center> +<p style="text-align: center"><span style=' +font-weight:700'><small> +THEY GRAPPLED IN SILENCE SAVE FOR THE HEAVY PANTING THAT +EVIDENCED THE TENSION OF THEIR EFFORTS. +(<a href="#theygrappled">Page 340</a>)</small></span></p> + + +<p>Yet Keller, with a flying glance at the cliff, knew that he was being +forced nearer the gulf by sheer strength of muscle. Irwin, his jaw +shattered and his shoulder torn, was not fighting to win, but to +kill. He cared not whether he himself also went to death. He was +obsessed by the old primeval lust to crush the life out of this lusty +antagonist, and his whole gigantic force was concentrated to that end. +He scarce knew that he was wounded, and he cared not at all. Backward +and forward though the battle went, on the whole it moved jerkily toward +the chasm.</p> + +<p>The end came with a suddenness of which Larrabie had but an instant's +warning in the swift flare of joy that lit the madman's face. His foot, +searching for a brace as he was borne back, found only empty space. +Plunged downward, the nester clung viselike to the man above, dragged +him after, and by the very fury of Irwin's assault flung him far out +into the gulf head-first.</p> + +<p>It was Phyl Sanderson's cry of horror that Healy heard. She had put her +horse up the steep at a headlong gallop, had seen the whole furious +struggle and the tragic end of it that witnessed two men hurled over the +precipice into space. She slipped from the saddle, and sank dizzily to +the ground, not daring to look over the cliff at what she would see far +below. Waves of anguish shot through her and shook her very being.</p> + +<p>A man bent over her, and gave a startled cry.</p> + +<p>"My heaven, it's Phyl!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"Yes." She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice he could not have recognized +as hers.</p> + +<p>"Where is he? What's become of him?" Healy demanded.</p> + +<p>She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke +down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf +of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature +could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to +the girl and touched her on the shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Come."</p> + +<p>She looked up, shuddering, and asked, "Where?"</p> + +<p>"With me."</p> + +<p>"With you? It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!"</p> + +<p>"Never mind that now. Come."</p> + +<p>"I hate you! I should kill you when I got a chance! Why should I go with +you?" she asked evenly.</p> + +<p>He did not know why. He had no definite plan. All he knew was that his +old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night +like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever +free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the +cliff. He could not give her up now. He would not.</p> + +<p>The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him. She was his. He +had won her by the fortune of war. He would keep her against all comers +so long as he had life to fight. Night was falling softly over the +hills. They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new +earth.</p> + +<p>He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse. She looked at him +in a silence that stripped him of his dreams.</p> + +<p>"Come!" he said again, between clenched teeth.</p> + +<p>"Not with you. I don't know you. Leave me alone. You killed him! You're +a murderer!"</p> + +<p>He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the +dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit.</p> + +<p>"Go away! Don't touch me! You and your miscreants killed him!" And with +that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of +him.</p> + +<p>He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him, +but none the less determined to take her with him. Across the border he +would not be a hunted man with a price on his head. They could be +married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her +love him and forget this man that had come between them. At all events, +he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his. He +stooped and caught her shoulder. She had fainted.</p> + +<p>A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its +own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man +stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a +rifle ready for instant action.</p> + +<p>"So it's you!" Healy cried with an oath.</p> + +<p>"Have you killed him?"</p> + +<p>The outlaw lied, with swift, unblazing passion: "Yes, Buck Weaver, and +tossed his body to the buzzards. Your turn now!"</p> + +<p>"Then who is that with you there?"</p> + +<p>"The woman you love, the woman that turned you and him down for me," +taunted his rival. "After I've killed you we're going off to be +married."</p> + +<p>"Only a coyote would stand behind a woman's skirts and lie. I can't kill +you there, and you know it."</p> + +<p>Healy asked nothing better than an even break. He might have killed with +impunity from where he stood. Yet pantherlike, he swiftly padded six +paces to the left, never lifting his eyes from his antagonist.</p> + +<p>Buck waited, motionless. "Are you ready?"</p> + +<p>The outlaw's weapon flashed to the level and cracked. Almost +simultaneously the other answered. Weaver felt a bullet fan his cheek, +but he knew that his own had crashed home.</p> + +<p>The shock of it swung Healy half round. The man hung in silhouette +against the sky line, then the body plunged to the turf at full length. +Buck moved forward cautiously, fearing a trick, his eyes fastened on the +other. But as he drew nearer he knew it was no ruse. The body lay supine +and inert, as lifeless as the clay upon which it rested.</p> + +<p>Once sure of this Buck turned immediately to Phyllis. A faint crackling +of bushes stopped him. He waited, his eyes fixed on the edge of the +precipice from which the sound had come. Next there came to him the +slipping of displaced rubble. He was all eyes and ears, tense and alert +in every pulse.</p> + +<p>From out of the gulf a hand appeared and groped for a hold. Weaver +stepped noiselessly to the edge and looked down. A torn and bleeding +face looked up into his.</p> + +<p>"Good heavens, Keller!"</p> + +<p>Buck was on his knees instantly. He caught the ranger's hand with both +of his and dragged him up. The rescued man sank breathless on the ground +and told his story in gasped fragments.</p> + +<p>"—caught on a ledge—hung to some bushes growing there—climbed up—lay +still when Healy looked over—a near thing—makes me sick still!"</p> + +<p>"It was a millionth chance that saved you—if it was a chance."</p> + +<p>"Where's Healy?"</p> + +<p>Weaver pointed to the body. "We fought it out. The luck was with me."</p> + +<p>A faint, glad, terrified little cry startled them both. Phyllis was +staring with dilated eyes at the man restored to her from the dead. He +got up and walked across to her with outstretched hands.</p> + +<p>"My little girl."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Larry! I don't understand. I thought——"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "I reckon God was good to us, sweetheart."</p> + +<p>Her arms crept up and round his neck. "Oh, boy—boy—boy. I thought +you were—I thought you were——"</p> + +<p>She broke down, but he understood. "Well, I'm not," he laughed happily. +Catching sight of Buck's grim, set face, Larrabie explained what scarce +needed an explanation. "You'll have to excuse us, I reckon. It's my day +for congratulations."</p> + +<p>Phyllis freed herself and walked across to her other lover. "My friend, +I know the answer now," she told him.</p> + +<p>"I see you do."</p> + +<p>"Don't—please don't be hurt," she begged. "I have to care for him."</p> + +<p>The hard, leathery face softened. "I lose, girl. But who told you I was +a bad loser? The best man wins. I've got no kick to register."</p> + +<p>"Not the best man," Keller corrected, shaking hands with his rival.</p> + +<p>Phyllis summed it up in woman fashion: "My man, whether he is the best +or not. It's just that a girl goes where her heart goes."</p> + +<p>Weaver nodded. "Good enough. Well, I'll be going. I expect you'll not +miss me."</p> + +<p>He turned and went down the hill alone. At the foot of it he met Jim +Yeager.</p> + +<p>"What about Brill?" the younger man asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"He'll never rustle another cow," Buck answered gravely. "I killed him +on the top of Point o' Rocks after an even break."</p> + +<p>"Duke has cashed in. Game to the last. Wouldn't say a word to implicate +his pals. But Tom has confessed everything. The boys slipped a noose +over his head, and he came through right away.</p> + +<p>"Says he and Duke and Irwin helped Healy rob the Noches Bank and do a +lot of other deviltry. It was just like Keller figured. The automobile +was waiting for the bunch with the showfer, and took them out the old +Fort Lincoln Road. Dixon knows where the gold is hidden, and is going to +show the boys."</p> + +<p>"That clears up everything, then. I judge we've made a pretty thorough +gather."</p> + +<p>Jim looked up and indistinctly saw the lovers coming slowly down through +the grove. Dusk had fallen and soon the cloak of night would be over the +mountains.</p> + +<p>"Who is that?"</p> + +<p>Buck did not look round. "I reckon it's Keller and his sweetheart. She +followed us here."</p> + +<p>"I told her not to come."</p> + +<p>"I expect she takes her telling from Mr. Keller." He changed the subject +abruptly. "We'll go on down to the boys and see what's doing. They'll be +some glad, I shouldn't wonder, at making a gather that cleans out the +worst bunch of cutthroats and rustlers in the Malpais. Don't you +reckon?"</p> + +<p>"I reckon," answered Yeager briefly.</p> + +<h2>THE END</h2> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mavericks, by William MacLeod Raine + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAVERICKS *** + +***** This file should be named 14520-h.htm or 14520-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/2/14520/ + +Produced by Kathryn Lybarger and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mavericks + +Author: William MacLeod Raine + +Release Date: December 29, 2004 [EBook #14520] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAVERICKS *** + + + + +Produced by Kathryn Lybarger and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + + +[Illustration: THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTION +UPON POSSIBLE PURSUIT. _Frontispiece. Page 33_] + +MAVERICKS + +BY + +WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE + +AUTHOR OF + +WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, BUCKY O'CONNOR, A TEXAS RANGER, ETC. + + +ILLUSTRATIONS BY + +CLARENCE ROWE + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + +1911 STREET & SMITH + +1912 G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + "In vain men tell us time can alter + Old loves, or make old memories falter." + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I. PHYLLIS 9 + + II. THE NESTER 18 + + III. CAUGHT RED-HANDED 28 + + IV. "I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?" 43 + + V. AN AIDER AND ABETTOR 53 + + VI. A GOOD FRIEND 76 + + VII. A SHOT FROM AMBUSH 84 + + VIII. MISS GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN 103 + + IX. PUNISHMENT 117 + + X. INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY 126 + + XI. TOM DIXON 144 + + XII. THE ESCAPE 157 + + XIII. A MISTAKE 168 + + XIV. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 183 + + XV. THE BRAND BLOTTER 200 + + XVI. A WATERSPOUT 214 + + XVII. THE HOLD-UP 226 + +XVIII. BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS 233 + + XIX. THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS 241 + + XX. YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES 253 + + XXI. BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI 263 + + XXII. SURRENDER 276 + +XXIII. AT THE RODEO 289 + + XXIV. MISSING 296 + + XXV. LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY 304 + + XXVI. THE MAN HUNT 323 + +XXVII. THE ROUND-UP 329 + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + PAGE + +The rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon possible pursuit. _Frontispiece_ 33 + +She drew back as if he had struck her, all the +sparkling eagerness driven from her face. 110 + +"Drop that gun!" 205 + +They grappled in silence save for the heavy panting +that evidenced the tension of their efforts. 340 + + + +MAVERICKS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +PHYLLIS + + +Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which +wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land +waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind +the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as +the minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail from +the Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in a +voice young and glad. + + "My love has breath o' roses, + O' roses, o' roses, + And cheeks like summer posies + All fresh with morning dew," + +floated the words to her across the sunlit open. + +If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen, +silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm in +her eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit. +They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front of +her and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest. + +"Don't see me, do you?" he asked, smiling. + +Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response. + +"Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon." + +"And you don't think you see much then?" he suggested lightly. + +She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of her +straight figure and the flash of her dark eyes. + +"Mad at me, Phyl?" Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle he +leaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing. + +The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, still +creeping antlike toward the hills. + + "My love has breath o' roses, + O' roses, o' roses," + +he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came. + +It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky good +looks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back a +rebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple. + +"Somebody's acting right foolish," he continued jauntily. "It was all in +fun, and in a game at that." + +"I wasn't playing," he heard, though the profile did not turn in the +least toward him. + +"Well, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower." + +"I don't play kissing games any more," she informed him with dignity. + +"Sho, Phyl! I told you 'twas only in fun," he justified himself. "A kiss +ain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl that +ever was kissed." + +She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of his +boldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks of +the boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a critic +might have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouth +lacked firmness. + +"So I've been told," she answered tartly. + +"Jealous?" + +"No," she exploded. + +Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein. + +"You don't need to depend on hearing," he said, moving toward her. + +"What do you mean?" she flared. + +"You remember well enough--at the social down to Peterson's." + +"We were children then--or I was." + +"And you're not a kid now?" + +"No, I'm not." + +"Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish things +and now you have become a woman." + +Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand. + +"After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't +it?" he bantered. + +"Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon," she flashed fiercely. + +Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she +was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what +dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the +home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still +slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would +awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on +the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid +rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks, +the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her +words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that +struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a +masculine impulse he did not analyse. + +"So you won't be friends?" + +If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness +easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way. + +"No, I won't." And she gave him her profile again. + +"Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about," he +said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward +him. + +With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him from her. + +Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgot +his expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childish +petulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which his +vanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bare +insult. + +"How dare you!" she gasped. + +Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threw +herself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him. +Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillows +where she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for this +insult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eat +dirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again--never so +long as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southern +blood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she did +not once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or to +her brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And it +was in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interfere +with her external duties. + +As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the +bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a +kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began +streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had +already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the +waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official +cage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Noches +on the stage. + +From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into the +dining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing through +the window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grown +youngster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing hands +from the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery window +was raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and that +of Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently torn +from a notebook. + +"This here is for you, Phyl," he explained. + +She pushed it back. "I'm too busy to read it." + +"It's from Tom," he further volunteered. + +"Is it?" + +She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it +across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the +fragments through the window to the floor. + +"Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?" she coolly asked +the next in line over the tow head of Bud. + +The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through the +open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smothered +curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did not +look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she had +seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon, +a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down the +mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his return +journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it, +she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certain +they would not forget to "rub it in" when next they met Master Tom. She +promised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to the +cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage station +for their mail, to teach that young man his place. + +"I'll take a dollar's worth of two's." + +Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had +inherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the +sheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of +sardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle. + +"Any mail for Buck Weaver?" + +"No," she answered promptly without looking. + +"Sure?" + +"Yes." + +"Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?" + +Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her, +for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He had +no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his +insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She +had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against +wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate +lawlessness. + +"I know my business, sir." + +Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim +Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of +extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he +felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter, +hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and +slipped an arm into that of her father. + +"This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver," he was saying. "It's +been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin' +you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh." + +"Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's +reason a-plenty for me," Weaver told him contemptuously. + +"But not for me, seh. When you come into my house----" + +"I didn't come into your house." + +"Why--why----" + +"Father!" implored the girl. "It's a government post-office. He has a +right here as long as he behaves." + +"H'm!" the old fire-eater snorted. "I'd be obliged just the same, Mr. +Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck." + +"Dad!" the girl begged. + +He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. "Now don't you worry, +honey. There ain't going to be any trouble--leastways none of my making. +I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin' down +whilst anybody tromples on me neither." + +"He wouldn't try to do that here," Phyllis reminded him. + +Weaver laughed in grim irony. "I'm surely much obliged to you for +protecting me." And to the father he added carelessly: "Keep your shirt +on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I +reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail." + +With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious to +the last virile inch of him. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE NESTER + + +With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office +to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself while +waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat for +many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted. +For at this store the Malpais country bought its ammunition, its +tobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its opinions had sifted +down to convictions. From this common meeting ground the gossip of +Cattleland was scattered far and wide. + +Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was the +owner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle company in that +country. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he had +begun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place +then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his +own ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacable +daring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Those +that survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only the +settlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the big +man of the district, dominating its social, business, and political +activities. + +"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he asked +curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle. + +"That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nester +homesteaded there," old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobacco +with a noncommittal air. + +"Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwaters +of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be a +mighty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly. + +The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either small +cattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on the +business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated +so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Most +of them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they did +not usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joined +hand with him. + +"You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped." + +The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was in +the common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny +leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of +course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an +untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows. +He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther, +reckless and yet wary. + +"We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill," Buck told him. + +"If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out," Healy +replied. + +Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable to +roll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteaders +had taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most of +these were honest men, others suspected rustlers. But Buck's fiat had +not sufficed to keep them out. They had held stoutly to their own +and--he suspected--a good deal more than their own. Calves had been +branded secretly and cows killed or driven away. + +"Go to it, Brill," Weaver jeered. "I'm wishing you all the luck in the +world." + +He touched his pony with the spur and swept up the road in a cloud of +white dust. + +Not till he had disappeared did conversation renew itself languidly, for +Seven Mile Ranch was lying under the lethargy of a summery sun. + +"I expect Buck's got the right of it," volunteered a brawny youth known +as Slim. "All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of big +outfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious. +There's sure money in being a nester." + +Despite the soft drawl of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as did +the others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustling +must be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. The +thieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairly +outwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven across +the line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established +ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners +faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once +or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader +of the outlaws had saved the men by the most daring strategy. + +Healy, until lately foreman of the Twin Star outfit, had organized the +ranchmen as a protective association. In this he had represented Weaver, +himself not popular enough to cooeperate with the other ranchmen. Once +Brill had led the pursuit of the rustlers and had come back furious from +a long futile chase. For among the cattle being driven across to Sonora +were five belonging to him. + +Other charges also lay against the hill outlaws. A stage had been robbed +with a gold shipment from the Diamond Nugget mine. A cattleman had been +held up and relieved of two thousand dollars, just taken as part payment +for a sale of beef steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while trying +to arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks. + +Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, and +lowered his voice to a whisper. "Boys, this thing has got to stop. I've +sent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he can. +Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got." + +Yeager nodded. "Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep. as +a cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he coming?" + +"He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a couple +of weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to drop +everything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job till +he finishes it right," Healy promised. + +"Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stop +this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin' +around till we're stole blind," assented Slim. + +"It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies have +been hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to him +to clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call on +you." + +"Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill," nodded one +little fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising from +the Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. "What's the name of +this new nester, Jim?" + +Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with a +big double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast, +the voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsetto +scarce above a whisper. + +"Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller," +he said. + +"What's he look like?" + +"You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail this +way." + +The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source a +rider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up in +front of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle and +glanced around. + +"Evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly. + +Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his greeting. But +the lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not be doubted. +The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand resting on his +hip and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed gaze travel from +one to another, understood perfectly what those expressionless eyes of +stone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of light derision, +trailed debonairly into the store. + +"Any mail for Larrabie Keller?" he inquired of the postmistress. + +The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look. +When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant a +flash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb health +had painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pink +pushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetized +his gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyes +that had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushed +indignantly and withdrew from the window. + +Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned to +the porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter. +His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes were +focused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility. + +He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group, a +lad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look of +pride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guess +that they were brother and sister, very likely twins, though he found in +the boy's expression a sulky impatience lacking in hers. Perhaps the lad +needed the discipline that life hammers into those who want to be a law +unto themselves. + +With an insolence extremely boyish, the lad turned to Healy. "I'm for +running out a few of these nesters. We've got more than we can use, I +reckon. The range is overstocked now--both with them and cows. Come a +bad year and half of our cattle will starve." + +There was a moment of surcharged silence. Phil Sanderson had voiced the +growing feeling of them all, but he had flung it out as a stark +challenge before the time was ripe. It was one thing to resent the +coming of settlers; it was quite another to set themselves openly +against the law that allowed these men to homestead the natural parks in +the hills. + +Brill Healy laughed. "The fat's in the fire now, sure enough. Just the +same, I back your play, Phil." + +He turned recklessly to the man in the doorway. "You may tell your +friends up on Bear Creek that we own this range and mean to hold it. We +don't aim to let our cattle be starved, and we don't aim to lie down +before rustlers. Understand?" + +The nester smiled, but there was no gayety in his eyes. They met those +of the cattleman with a grip of steel, and measured strength with him. +Each knew the other would go the limit before Keller made quiet answer: + +"I think so." + +And with that he dismissed the subject and his unfriendly audience. With +perfect ease, he read his letter, pocketed it, and whistled softly as he +impassively took stock of the scenery. Apparently he had wiped Public +Opinion from his map, and was interested only in the panorama before +him. + +Seven Mile Ranch lay rooted at the desert terminus among the foothills, +a gateway between the mountains and the Malpais Plain. Below was a +shimmering stretch of sand and cactus tortured beneath a blazing sun. +Into that caldron with its furnace-cracked floor the sun had poured +itself torridly for countless eons. It was a Sahara of mirage and +desolation and death. + +To the left was a flat-topped mesa eroded to fantastic mockery of some +bastioned fort. In the round-topped hills behind it was Noches, fifty +miles away. Beyond lay the tangle of hills, rising to the saw-toothed +range now painted with orange and mauve and a hint of deepening purple. +For dusk was already slipping down over the peaks. + +"Mail's been open half an hour, boys," Phyllis announced through the +open window. + +They dropped in to the store, as noisy as schoolboys, but withal +deferential. It was clear the young postmistress reigned a queen among +the younger ones, but a queen that deigned to friendship with her +subjects. Some of them called her Miss Sanderson, one or two of them +Phyllie. + +Among these last was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with her +indeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handed +to each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed to +embarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greeted +with gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back to +them, they seemed all one happy family--and himself a rank outsider. He +trailed down the steps and swung himself to the saddle. As he loped away +the sound of her warm, clear laughter floated after him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CAUGHT RED-HANDED + + +From a cleft in the hills two riders emerged, following a little gulch +to the point where it widened into a draw. The alkali dust of Arizona +lay thick upon their broad-brimmed Stetsons and every inch of exposed +surface, but through the gray coating bloomed the freshness of youth. It +rang from their voices, was apparent in the modelling and carriage of +their figures. The young man was sinewy and hard as nails, the girl +supple and wiry, of a slender grace, straight-backed as an Indian in the +saddle. + +Just where the draw dipped down into the grassy park they drew rein an +instant. Faint and far a sound drifted to them. Somebody down in the +park had fired a rifle. + +"I don't agree with you, Phil," the girl said, picking up the thread of +their conversation where they had dropped it some minutes earlier. "The +nesters have as much right here as we have. They come here to settle, +and they take up government land. Why shouldn't they?" + +"Because we got here first," he retorted impatiently. "Because our +cattle and sheep have been feeding on the land they are fencing. +Because they close the water holes and the creeks and claim they are +theirs. It means the end of the open range. That's what it means." + +"Of course that's what it means. We'll have to adapt ourselves to it. +You talk foolishness when you make threats to drive out the nesters. +That is the sort of thing Buck Weaver has been trying to do. It's +absurd. The law is back of them. You would only come to trouble, and if +you did succeed others would take their places." + +"And rustle our cattle," he added sullenly. + +"It isn't proved they are the rustlers. You haven't a shred of evidence. +Perhaps they are, but you should prove it before you make the charge." + +"If they aren't, who is?" he flared up. + +"I don't know. But whoever it is will be caught and punished some day. +There is no doubt at all about that." + +"You talk a heap of foolishness, Phyl," he answered resentfully. "My +notion is they never will be caught. What makes you so sure they will?" + +They had been riding down the draw, and at this moment Phyllis looked +up, to see a rider silhouetted against the sky line on the ridge above. + +"Oh, you Brill!" she cried, with a wave of her quirt. + +The man turned, saw them, and rode slowly down. He nodded, after the +fashion of the range, first to the girl, and then to her brother. + +"Morning," he nodded. "Headed for Mesa? Here, too." + +He fell in with them and rode beside the girl. Presently they topped a +little hillock, and looked down into the park. It had about the area of +a mile, and was perhaps twice as long as broad. Wooded spurs ran down +from the hills into it here and there, and through the meadow leaped a +silvery stream. + +"Hello! Wonder where that smoke comes from?" + +It was Healy that spoke. He pointed to a faint cloud rising from a +distance. Even before he began to speak, however, Phyllis had her field +glasses out, and was adjusting them to her eyes. + +"There's a fire there and a man standing over it," she presently +announced. "There's something else there, too. I can't make it +out--something lying down." + +The men glanced at each other, and in the meeting of their eyes some +intelligence passed between them. It was as if the younger accused and +the older sullenly denied. + +"Lemme have the glasses," Phil said to his sister almost roughly. + +Healy glanced at Phil swiftly, covertly, as the latter adjusted the +glasses. "She's right about the fire and the man. I can see as much with +my naked eyes," he cut in. + +The boy looked long, lowered the glasses, and met his friend's eye with +a kind of shamefaced hesitation. But apparently he gathered reassurance +from the quiet steadiness with which the other's gaze met him. He handed +the glasses to Healy. When the latter lowered them his face was grave. +"There's a man and a fire and a cow and a calf. When these four things +meet up together, what does it mean?" + +"Branding!" cried the girl. + +"That's right--branding. And when the cow is dead what does it mean?" +Brill asked, his eyes full on Phil. + +"Rustling!" she breathed again. + +"You've said it, Phyl. We've got one of them at last," he cried +jubilantly. + +Phil, hanging between doubt and suspicion and shame, brightened at the +enthusiasm of the other. + +"Right you are, Brill. We'll solve this mystery once for all." + +Healy, unstrapping the case in which lay his rifle, shot a question at +the boy. "Armed, Phil?" + +The lad nodded. "I brought my six-gun for rattlesnakes." + +"Are you going to--to----" cried Phyllis, the color gone from her face. + +"We're going to capture him alive if we can, Phyl. You're to wait right +here till we come back. You may hear shooting. Don't let that worry you. +We've got the drop on him, or will have. Nobody is going to get hurt if +he acts sensible," Healy reassured. + +"Don't you move from here. You stay right where you are," her brother +ordered sharply. + +"Yes," she said, and was aware that her throat was suddenly parched. +"You'll be careful, won't you, Phil?" + +"Sure," he called back, as he put his horse at a canter to follow his +friend up the draw. + +The sound of the hoofs died away, and she was alone. That they were +going to circle in and out among the tangle of hills until they were +opposite the miscreant, she knew, but in spite of Brill's promise she +had a heart of water. With trembling fingers she raised the glasses +again, and focused them on that point which was to be the centre of the +drama. + +The man was moving about now, quite unconscious of the danger that +menaced him. What she looked at was the great crime of Cattleland. All +her life she had been taught to hold it in horror. But now something +human in her was deeper than her detestation of the cowardly and awful +thing this man had just done. She wanted to cry out to him a warning, +and did in a faint, ineffective voice that carried not a tenth of the +distance between them. + +She had promised to remain where she was, but her tense interest in what +was doing drew her forward in spite of herself. She rode along the ridge +that bordered the park, at first slowly and then quicker as the impulse +grew in her to be in at the finish. + +The climax came. She saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his +pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang +out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the +saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged into a +wash and disappeared. + +What inspired her she could never tell. Perhaps it was her indignation +at the thing he had done, perhaps her anger at that mocking wave of the +hand with which he had vanished. She wheeled her horse, and put it at a +canter down the nearest draw so as to try to intercept him at right +angles. Her heart beat fast with excitement, but she was conscious of no +fear. + +Before she had covered half the distance, she knew she was going to be +too late to cut off his retreat. Faintly, she heard the rhythm of hoofs +striking the rocky bottom of the draw. Abruptly they ceased. Wondering +what that could mean, she found her answer presently. For the pounding +of the galloping broncho had renewed itself, and closer. The man was +riding up the gulch toward her. He had turned into its mesquite-laced +entrance for a hiding place. Phyllis drew rein, and waited quietly to +confront him, but with a pulse that hammered the moments for her. + +A white-stockinged roan, plowing a way through heavy sand, labored into +view round the bend, its rider slewed in the saddle with his whole +attention upon the possible pursuit. Not until he was almost upon her +did the man turn. With a startled exclamation at sight of the motionless +figure, he pulled up sharply. It was the nester, Keller. + +"You," she cried. + +"Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily. + +His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow. +White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile. + +"So you are a--rustler," she told him scornfully. + +"I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter +irony. + +She saw something else, a deepening stain that soaked slowly down his +shirt sleeve. + +"You are wounded." + +"Am I?" + +"Aren't you?" + +"Come to think of it, I believe I am," he laughed shortly. + +"Badly?" + +"I haven't got the doctor's report yet." There was a gleam of whimsical +gayety in his eyes as he added: "I was going to find him when I had the +good luck to meet up with you." + +He was a hunted miscreant, wounded, riding for his life as a hurt wolf +dodges to shake off the pursuit, but strangely enough her gallant heart +thrilled to the indomitable pluck of him. Never had she seen a man who +looked more the vagabond enthroned. His crisp bronze curls and his +superb shoulders were bathed in the sunpour. Not once, since his eyes +had fallen on her, had he looked back to see if his hunters had picked +up the lost trail. He was as much at ease as if his whole thought at +meeting her were the pleasure of the encounter. + +"Can you ride?" she demanded. + +"I can stick on a hawss if it's plumb gentle. Leastways I've been trying +to for twenty years," he drawled. + +Her impatient gesture waved his flippancy aside. "I mean, are you too +much hurt to ride? I'm not going to leave you here like a wounded +coyote. Can you follow me if I lead the way?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +She turned. He followed her obediently, but with a ghost of a smile +still flickering on his face. + +"Am I your prisoner, Miss Sanderson?" he presently wanted to know. + +"I'm not thinking of prisoners just now," she answered shortly, with an +anxious backward glance. + +Presently she pulled up and wheeled her horse, so that when he halted +they sat facing each other. + +"Let me see your arm," she ordered. + +Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It +was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye. + +"This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other." + +"Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness. + +Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist +gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a +clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble +except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked +pretty bad. + +"A plumb scratch," he explained. + +She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then +pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this +she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy. + +"Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy." + +"It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded +jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again. + +There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you +tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud. +"Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering." + +"Exactly." + +He let his cool eyes rest on her with a hint of amusement. "And what +were you thinking of doing with me now, ma'am?" + +"I'm going to take you up to Jim Yeager's mine. He is doing his +assessment work now, and he'll look out for you for a day or two." + +"Look out for me in a locked room?" he wanted to know casually. + +"I didn't say so. It isn't my business to arrest criminals," she told +him icily. + +His eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?" + +"I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills +alone. That is all." + +"Jim Yeager is your friend?" + +"Yes." + +"And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?" + +"He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently. + +"Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss +Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much." + +He checked his pony and bowed. + +"Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed. + +"Up Bear Creek." + +"It's twenty miles. You can't do it." + +"Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the +handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony. + +"You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!" + +He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance. + +"I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her +pride. + +"Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend. +I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he +drawled. + +At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I +_like_ you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel +friendly when I hate you?" + +"Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came +back with his easy smile. + +"You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I +can't let you go alone." + +"You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss +Sanderson." + +With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he +heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious, +both at him and at herself. + +"Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it +yet," he said innocently. + +"I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one +that will take charge of you," she choked. + +"It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged, ma'am, but you're overestimating +the effect of this pill your friend injected into me." + +"Still, I'm going. I won't have your death on my hands," she told him +defiantly. + +"Sho! I ain't aimin' to pass over the divide on account of a scratch +like this. There's no danger but what I can look out for myself." + +She waited in silence for him to start, looking straight ahead of her. + +He tried in vain to argue her out of it. She had nothing to say, and he +saw she was obstinately determined to carry her point. + +Finally, with a little chuckle at her stubbornness, he gave in and +turned round. + +"All right. Yeager's it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to +me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she +disdained to answer. + +Yeager saw them from afar, and recognized the girl. + +"Hello, Phyllis!" he shouted down. "With you in a minute." + +The girl slipped to the ground, and climbed the steep trail to meet him. +Her crisp "Wait here," flung over her shoulder with the slightest turn +of the head, kept Keller in the saddle. + +Halfway up she and the man met. The one waiting below could not hear +what they said, but he could tell she was explaining the situation to +Yeager. The latter nodded from time to time, protested, was vehemently +overruled, and seemed to leave the matter with her. Together they +retraced their way. Young Yeager, in flannel shirt and half-leg miner's +boots, was a splendid specimen of bronzed Arizona. His level gaze judged +the man on horseback, approved him, and met him eye to eye. + +"Better light, Mr. Keller. If you come in we'll have a look at your arm. +An accident like that is a mighty awkward thing to happen to a man on +the trail. It's right fortunate Miss Sanderson found you so soon after +it happened." + +The nester knew a surge of triumph in his blood, but it did not show in +the impassive face which he turned upon his host. + +"It was right fortunate for me," he said, swinging from the saddle. +Incidentally he was wondering what story had been narrated to Yeager, +but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so +careless when he's got a gun in his hand." + +"You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is +liable to go off and hit somebody any time if he ain't careful. You're +in big luck you didn't shoot yourself up a heap worse." + +Yeager led the way to his cabin, and offered Phyllis the single chair he +boasted, and the nester a seat on the bed. Sitting beside him, he +examined the wound and washed it. + +"Comes to being an invalid I'm a false alarm," Keller said +apologetically. "I didn't want to come, but Miss Sanderson would bring +me." + +"She was dead right, too. Time you had ridden twenty miles through the +hot sun with that wound you would have been in a raging fever." + +"One way and another I'm quite in her debt." + +"That's so," agreed Yeager, intent on his work. + +She refused to meet the nester's smile. "Fiddlesticks! You talk mighty +foolish, Jim. I wouldn't go away and leave a wounded dog if I could help +it." + +"Suppose the dog were a sheep-killer?" Keller asked with his engaging, +impudent smile. + +A dust cloud rose from her skirt under a stroke of the restless quirt. +"I'd do my best for it and let it settle with the law afterward." + +"Even if it were a wolf caught in a trap?" + +"I should put it out of its pain. No matter how much I detested it, I +wouldn't leave it there to suffer." + +"I'm quite sure you wouldn't," the wounded man agreed. + +Yeager looked from one to the other, not quite catching the drift of the +underlying meaning. Another thing puzzled him, too. But, like most men +of the unfenced Southwest, Yeager had a large capacity for silence. Now +he attended strictly to his business, without mentioning what he had +noticed. + +The wound dressed, Phyllis rose to leave. "You'll be down for your mail +to-morrow, Jim," she suggested, as she sauntered toward the door. + +"Sure. I'll let you know how our patient is getting along." + +"Oh, he's yours. I don't want any of the credit," she returned +carelessly. + +Then, the words scarce off her lips, she gave a little cry of alarm, and +stepped quickly back into the room. What she had seen had sapped the +color from her face. Yeager started forward, but she waved him back. + +"It's Phil and Brill Healy. You've got to hide us, Jim," she told him +tensely. + +The nester began to grin. He always did when he faced a difficulty +apparently insurmountable. Also his fingers slid toward the butt of his +revolver. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?" + + +Jim swept the cabin with a gesture. "Where can I hide you? Anyhow, there +are the horses in plain sight." + +Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered. + +At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung +its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained +handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack. + +"Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your +assessment work, remember. And whatever I say, don't give me away." + +Yeager nodded. He had manoeuvred the wounded arm through the coat sleeve +and was straightening out the shoulders. The nester's eyes were shining +with excitement. Alone of the three, he was enjoying himself. + +"Remember now. Don't talk too much. Let me run this," the girl +cautioned, and with that she stepped to the door, caught sight of her +brother with a glad little cry of apparent relief, and ran swiftly to +him. + +"Oh, Phil!" she almost sobbed, and the stress of her emotion was genuine +enough, even if she dissembled as to the cause. + +The boy patted her dark hair gently. They were twins, without other near +relatives except their father, and the tie between them was close. + +"What is it, Phyllie? Why didn't you stay where we left you?" + +"I was afraid for you. And I rode a little nearer. Then he came straight +toward me--and I rode away. I could hear him crashing through the +mesquite. When I reached the trail of Jim's mine, I followed it, for I +knew he would be here." + +"Sure. Course she was scared. What woman wouldn't be? We oughtn't both +to have left her. But there wasn't one chance in a thousand of his +stumbling on the very spot where she was," said Healy. + +Phil gentled her with a caressing hand. "It's all right now, sis. Did +you happen to see the fellow at all?" + +"Yes. At a distance." + +"I don't suppose you would know him," Healy said. + +She gave a strained little laugh. "I didn't wait to get a description of +him. Didn't you boys recognize him?" + +After Phil's answer she breathed freer. "We did not get near enough, +though Brill got two shots at him as he pulled out. He was going +hell-for-leather and Brill missed both times." He lowered his voice and +asked angrily: "What's _he_ doing here?" + +For Keller had followed Yeager from the cabin and was standing in the +doorway with his hands in his pockets. He wore no hat, and had the +manner of one very much at home. + +"He's helping Jim with his assessment work," she answered in the same +low tone. "It's too bad you lost the rustler. He must have broken for +the hills." + +Healy's eyes had narrowed to slits. Now he murmured a question: "What +about this man Keller? Was he here when you came, Phyl?" + +The girl turned to Yeager, who had sauntered up. "Didn't you say he came +this morning, Jim?" + +Yeager's eyes were like a stone wall. "Yep. This mo'ning. I needed some +husky guy to help me, so I got him." + +"Funny you had to get a fellow from Bear Creek to help you, Jim." + +"Are you looking for a job, Brill?" + +"No. Why?" + +"Because I ain't noticed any stampede this way among the boys to preempt +this job. I take a man where I can find him, Brill, and I don't ask you +to O.K. him." + +"I see you don't, Jim. The boys aren't going to like it very well, +though." + +"Then they know what they can do about it," Yeager answered evenly, +level eyes steadily on those of his critic. + +"What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil. + +Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been +about eight." + +"Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a +whisper. + +"What man?" Jim asked. + +"We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a +shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil +exclaimed. + +"How long ago was this?" asked Yeager. + +"About an hour since we first saw him. Beats all how he ever made his +getaway. We were right after him when he gave us the slip." + +"Oh, he gave you the slip, did he?" + +"Dropped into some hole and pulled it in after him. These hills are +built for hide and seek, looks like." + +"Notice the color of his horse?" + +"It was a roan, Jim. Something like that nester's." Phil nodded toward +the animal Keller had ridden. + +All eyes focused hard on the horse with the white stockings. + +"What brand was he putting on the calf? That'll tell you who the man +was." + +Phil and Healy looked at each other, and the latter laughed. "That's one +on us. We didn't stay to look, but got right out for Mr. Rustler." + +"Did he kill the cow?" + +Phil nodded. + +"Then you'll find the calf still hanging around there unless he had a +pal to drive it away." + +"That's right. We'll go back now and look. Ready, Phyl?" + +"Yes." She stepped to her horse, and swung to the saddle. + +Meanwhile Healy rode forward to the cabin. Through narrowed lids he +looked down at the man standing in the doorway. "Give that message to +your friends?" he demanded insolently. + +There are men who have to look at each other only once to know that +there is born between them a perpetual hostility. Each of these men had +felt it at the first shock of meeting eyes. They would feel it again as +often as they looked at each other. + +"No," the nester answered. + +"Why not?" + +"I didn't care to. You may carry your own messages." + +"When I do I'll carry them with a gun." + +"Interesting if true." Keller's gaze passed derisively over him and +dismissed the man. + +"And I hope when I come I'll meet Mr. Keller first." + +The nester's attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed +to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona. + +Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the +trail with his broncho on the buck. + +Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a +frosty eye. + +"I've got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller," he said. + +"Unload 'em." + +Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on +the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it. + +"In the first place, I'll announce myself. I don't hold with rustlers or +waddies. I'm a white man. That being understood, I want to know where +we're at." + +"Meaning?" + +"Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up +accidental. Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me. You ain't +that kind of a durn fool. Would you mind handing me a dipper of water? +Thanks." Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back +into the pail. "I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand. +Your gun is on your right side. Then how in Mexico, you being +right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself _in the right arm below +the elbow?_" + +Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information. "Quite a Sherlock +Holmes, ain't you?" + +"Hell, no! I got eyes in my head, though. Moreover, that bullet went in +at right angles to your arm. How did you make out to do that?" + +"Sleight of hand," suggested the other. + +"No powder marks, either. And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a +revolver." + +"Anything more?" + +"Some. That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn't over and above +clear to me then. I _savez_ it now. She hates you like p'ison, but +she's too tender-hearted to give you up. Ain't that it?" + +"That's it." + +"She lied for you to me. She lied again to Phil. So did I. Oh, we didn't +lie in words, but it's the same thing. Now, I wouldn't lie to save my +own skin. Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?" + +"I'm a rustler and a thief, am I?" + +"Ain't you?" + +"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?" + +Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, "No." + +"Then I won't say it." + +The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled +at him. "Mr. Keller, you're a newcomer here. I wonder if you know what +the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now." + +"I can guess." + +"Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn't be worth a plugged +quarter." + +"Why didn't you tell?" + +Yeager brought his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl +Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I +ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father +has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should +I throw down my friends to save a rustler caught in the act?" + +"You've already tried and convicted me, I see." + +"The facts convict you, seh." + +"Your understanding of the facts, I reckon you mean." + +"I haven't noticed that you're giving me any chance to understand them +different," Yeager cut back dryly. + +The nester took from his pocket a little pearl-handled knife, picked up +a potato from a basket beside him, and began to whittle on it absently. +He looked across the table at the man sitting on the bed, and debated a +question in his mind. Was it best to confess the whole truth? Or should +he keep his own counsel? + +"I see you've got Miss Sanderson's knife. Did you forget to return it?" +Yeager made comment. + +For just an instant Keller's eye confessed amazement. "Miss Sanderson's +knife! Why--how did you know it was hers?" he asked, gathering himself +together lamely. + +"I ought to know, seeing as I gave it to her for a Christmas present. +Sent to Denver for that knife, I did. Best lady's knife in the market, +I'm told. Made in Sheffield, England." + +"Ye-es. It's sure a good knife. I'll ce'tainly return it next time I see +her." + +"Funny she ever let you get away with it. She's some particular who she +lends that knife to," Jim said proudly. + +Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his +pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had +told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a +possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in +trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others +into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson--surely not this +impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes. +Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would. + +"I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he +said gently. + +"Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for +yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You +may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for +Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know." + +"That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife." + +Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If +you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back." + +"Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler." + +"Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to +find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +AN AIDER AND ABETTOR + + +Having come to an understanding, Yeager and Keller wasted no time or +temper in acrimony. Both of them belonged to that big outdoors West +which plays the game to the limit without littleness. They were in +hostile camps, but that did not prevent them from holding amiable +conversation on the common topics of Cattleland. Only one of these they +avoided by mutual consent. Neither of them had anything to say about +rustling. + +Together they ate and smoked and slept, and in the morning after +breakfast they saddled and set out for Seven Mile. A man might have +traveled far without seeing finer specimens of the frontier, any more +competent, self-restrained, or fitter for emergency. They rode with +straight back and loose seat, breaking long silences with occasional +drawling comment. For in the cow country strong men talk only when they +have something to say. + +The stage had just left when they reached Seven Mile, and Public Opinion +was seated on the porch as per custom. It regarded Keller with a stony, +expressionless hostility. Yeager with frank disapprobation. + +Just before swinging from the saddle, Jim turned to the nester. "I'm +giving you an hour, seh. After that, I'm going to speak my little piece +to the boys." + +"Thank you. An hour will be plenty," Keller answered, and passed into +the store, apparently oblivious of the silent observation focused upon +him. + +Phyllis, busy unwrapping a package of papers, glanced up to see his +curly head in the stamp window. + +"Anything for L. Keller?" he wanted to know, after he had unburdened +himself of a friendly "Mornin', Miss Sanderson." + +Her impulse was to ask him how his wound was, but she repressed it +sternly. She took the letters from the K pigeonhole and found two for +him. + +"Thank you, I'm feeling fine," he laughed, gathering up his mail. + +"I didn't ask you how you were feeling," she answered, turning coldly to +her newspapers. + +"I thought mebbe you'd want to know about my punctured tire." + +"It's very good of you to relieve my anxiety." + +"Let me relieve it some more, Miss Sanderson. Here's the knife you +lost." + +She glanced up carelessly at the pearl-handled knife he pushed through +the window. "I didn't know it was lost." + +"Well, now you know it's found. When do you remember seeing it last, +ma'am?" + +"I lent it to a friend two days ago." + +"Oh, to a friend--two days ago." + +His eyes were on her so steadily that the girl was aware of some +significance he gave to the fact, some hidden meaning that escaped her. + +"What friend did you say, Miss Sanderson?" + +He asked it casually, but his question irritated her. + +"I didn't say, sir." + +"That's so. You didn't." + +"Where did you get it?" she demanded. + +He grinned. "I'll tell you that if you'll tell me who you lent it to." + +Her curt answer reminded him that he was in her eyes a convicted +criminal. "It's of no importance, sir." + +"That's what you think, Miss Sanderson." + +She sorted the newspapers in the bundle, and began to slip them into the +private boxes where they belonged. Presently, however, her curiosity +demanded satisfaction. Without looking at him, she volunteered +information. + +"But there's no mystery about it. Phil borrowed the knife to fix a +stirrup leather, and forgot to give it back to me." + +"Your brother?" + +"Yes." + +He was taken aback. There was nothing for it but a white lie. "I found +it near Yeager's mine yesterday. I reckon he must have dropped it on his +way there." + +"I don't see anything very mysterious about that," she said frostily. + +She looked so definitely unaware of him as she worked that he fell back +from the window and passed out to the porch. He had found out more than +he wanted to know. + +Jim Yeager's drawling voice came to him, gentle and low as usual, but +with an edge to it. "I been discoverin' I'm some unpopular to-day, +Brill. Malpais has been expressin' its opinion right plain. You've +arrived in time to chirp in with a 'Me, too.'" + +Healy had evidently just ridden up, for he was still in the saddle. He +relaxed into one of the easy attitudes used by men of the plains to rest +themselves without dismounting. + +"You know my sentiments, Jim," he replied, not unamiably. + +"Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel +awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when +Keller touched him on the shoulder. + +"I'd like to see you for a moment, Mr. Yeager, if you can give me the +time," he said. + +Healy took in the nester with an eye of jade. "Your twin brother wants +you, Jim. Run along with him. Don't mind us." + +"I won't, Brill." + +The young man rose, and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. At +the corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under the +shade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowed +himself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him that +seemed to ally him further with the enemy. + +"Here I am, Mr. Keller. What can I do for you?" + +"You're a friend of Miss Sanderson. You would stand between her and +trouble?" the other demanded abruptly. + +"I expect." + +"Then find out for me what Phil Sanderson did with the knife his sister +lent him two days ago. Find out whether he lent it to anybody, and, if +so, who." + +"What for?" + +It had come to a show-down, and the other tabled his cards. + +"I found that knife yesterday mo'ning. It was lying beside the dead cow +in the park where your friends happened on me. I reckon the rustlers +must have heard me coming and drove the calf away just before I arrived. +In his hurry one of them forgot that knife. If you'll tell me the man +who had it in his pocket yesterday when he left-home, I'll tell you who +one of the Malpais rustlers is." + +Jim considered this, his gaze upon the far-away range. When he brought +it back to Keller, he was smiling incredulously. + +"I hear you say so, seh. But what a man with, a halter round his neck +says don't go far before a court." + +"I expected you to say about that." + +"Then I haven't disappointed you." He continued presently, with cold +hostility: "That story you cooked up is about the only one you could +spring. What surprises me is that a man with as good a head as yours +took twenty-four hours to figure out your explanation. I want to tell +you, too, that it don't make any hit with me that you're trying to throw +the blame on a boy I've known all my life." + +"Who happens to be a brother of Miss Sanderson," Keller let himself +suggest. + +Yeager flushed. "That ain't the point." + +"The point is that I'm trying to clear this boy, and I want your help." + +"Looks to me like you want to clear yourself." + +"If I prove to you that I'm not a rustler, will you padlock your tongue +and help me clear young Sanderson?" + +"I sure will--if you prove it to my satisfaction." + +Keller drew from his pocket the two letters he had just received. "Read +these." + +When he had read, Yeager handed them back, and offered his hand. "That +clears you, seh. Truth is, I never was satisfied you was a rustler. My +mind was satisfied; but, durn it, you didn't _look_ like a waddy. It's +lucky I hadn't spoke to the boys yet." + +"I want to keep this quiet," the Bear Creek settler explained. + +"Sure. I'm a clam, and at your service, seh." + +"Then find out the truth about the knife." + +Yeager's eye chiselled into that of Keller. "Mind, I ain't going to help +you bring trouble to Phyllie, and I ain't going to stand by and see it, +either." + +The other smiled. "I don't ask it of you. What I want is to clear the +boy." + +"Good enough," agreed Yeager, and led the way back. + +Before they had yet reached the house, a figure dropped from the foliage +of the live oak under which they had been standing, and rolled like a +ball from the fence into the deep dust of the corral. It picked itself +up in a gray cloud, from which shone as a nucleus a black face with +beady eyes and flashing-white teeth. Swiftly it scampered across the +paddock, disappeared into the rear of the stable, and reappeared at the +front door. + +"Here you, 'Rastus, where you been?" demanded the wrangler. "Didn't I +tell you to clean Miss Phyl's trap? I've wore my lungs out hollering for +you. Now, you git to work, or I'll wear you to a frazzle." + +'Rastus, general alias for his baptismal name of George Washington +Abraham Lincoln Randolph, grinned and ducked, shot out of the stable +like a streak of light, and appeared ten seconds later in the kitchen +presided over by his rotund mother, Becky. + +His abrupt entrance disturbed the maternal after-dinner nap. From the +rocking-chair where she sat Becky rolled affronted eyes at him. + +"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebenty +times seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?" + +"I wanter see Miss Phyl." + +"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool +away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable, +where you belong." + +'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that +part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky +stared after him in amazement. + +"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped. + +Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the +store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room +finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was +sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her +"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes. + +She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham +Lincoln Randolph?" + +"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live +oak at the corral." + +"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash----" + +"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream it +nerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they call +Keller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler, +and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler." + +"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazing +indignation. + +"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by the +dead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil." + +"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot blood +of Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted to +strike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he had +given to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person she +could best use for her instrument. + +Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender young +amazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in the +dusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this young +woman of many moods. + +"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus." + +The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused. + +"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the door +had closed on him. + +The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his own +tracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but----" + +"We have," she broke in. + +"I can't see it. According to Jim Yeager----" + +"Jim lied. I asked him to." + +"You--what?" + +"I asked him to say that this man had come there to work for him. Jim +was not to blame." + +"But--why?" + +She threw out a gesture of self-contempt. "Why did I do it? I don't +know. Because he was wounded, I suppose." + +"Wounded! Then I did hit him?" + +"Yes. In the arm--a flesh wound. I met him riding through the mesquite. +After I had tied up his wound, I took him to Jim's." + +His eyes narrowed slightly. "So you tied up his wound?" + +"Yes," she answered defiantly, her head up. + +"That tender heart of yours," he murmured, with almost a sneer. + +"Yes. I'm a fool." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well." + +"And he pays me back by trying to throw it on Phil. Hunt him down, +Brill. Bring him to me. I'll tell all I know against him," she cried +vindictively. + +"I'll get him, Phyl," he promised, and the sound of his laughter was not +pleasant. "I'll get him for you, or find out why." + +"Think of him trying to put it on Phil, and after I stood by him and +kept his secret. Isn't that the worst ever?" the girl flamed. + +"He rode away not five minutes ago as big as coffee on that ugly roan of +his with the white stockings; knew what we thought about him, but didn't +pay any more attention to us than as if we were bumps on a log." + +Healy strode out to the porch, told his story, and within five minutes +had organized his posse and appointed a rendezvous for two hours later +at Seven Mile. + +At the appointed time his men were on hand, six of them, armed with +rifles and revolvers, ready for grim business. + +From her window Phyllis saw them ride away, and persuaded herself that +she was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooter +who had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as the +hours passed she was beset by a consuming anxiety. What more likely +than that he would resist! If so, there could be only one end. She +could not keep her thoughts from those seven men whom she had sent +against the one. + +There was nobody to whom she could talk about it, for Phil and her +father were away at Noches. Restless as a caged panther, she twice had +her horse brought to the door, and rode into the hills to meet her +posse. But she could not be sure which way they would come, and after +venturing a short distance she would return for fear they might arrive +in her absence. Night had fallen over the country, and the stars were +out long before she got back the second time. Nine--ten--eleven o'clock +struck, and still no sign of those for whom she waited. + +At last they came, their prisoner riding in the midst, bareheaded and +with his hands tied. + +"I've got him, Phyl!" Healy cried in a voice that told the girl he was +riding on a wave of triumph. + +"I see you have." + +Nevertheless she looked not at the victor, but at the vanquished, and +never had she seen a man who looked more master of his fate than this +one. He was smiling down at her whimsically, and she saw they had not +taken him without a struggle. The marks of it were on them and on him. +Healy's cheek bone was laid open in a nasty cut, and Slim had a +handkerchief tied round his head. + +As for Keller, his shirt was in ribbons and dyed with the stains of +blood from the wound that had broken out again in the battle. The hair +on the left side of his head was clotted with dried blood, and his +cheeks were covered with it. Both eyes were blacked, and hands and face +were scratched badly. But his mien was as jaunty, his smile as gallant, +as if he had come at the head of a conquering army. + +"Good evenin', Miss Sanderson," he bowed ironically. + +She looked at him, and turned away without answering. She heard Healy +curse softly and knew why. This man contrived somehow to rob him of his +triumph. + +"You are none of you hurt, Brill?" the girl asked in a low voice. + +"No. He fought like a wild cat, but we took him by surprise. He had only +his bare fists." + +"How about him? Is he hurt?" + +"I don't know--or care," the man answered sullenly. + +"But he must be looked to." + +"I don't know why. It ain't my fault we had to beat him up." + +"I didn't say it _was_ your fault, Brill," she answered gently. "But any +one can see he has lost a lot of blood, and his wounds are full of dust. +They must be washed. I want him brought into the house. Aunt Becky and I +will look after him." + +"No need of that. Slim will fix him up." + +She shook her head. "No, Brill." + +His eyes gave way first, but his surrender came with a bad grace. + +"All right, Phyl. But he's going to be covered by a gun all the time. +I'm not taking chances on him." + +"Then have him taken into my den. I'll wake Aunt Becky and we'll be +there in a few minutes." + +When Phyllis arrived with Aunt Becky she found the nester sitting on the +lounge, Healy opposite him with a revolver close to his hand. The +prisoner's arms had been freed. His sardonic smile still twitched at the +corners of his mouth. + +"You've ce'tainly begun your practice on a disreputable patient, Doctor +Sanderson. I haven't had time to comb my hair since that little seance +with your friends. We sure did have a sociable time. They're all good +mixers." He looked into the long glass opposite, laughed at sight of his +swollen face, then rattled into a misquotation of some verses he +remembered: + + "There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine; + For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May." + +"Put the water and things down on that table, Becky," her mistress told +her, ignoring the man's blithe folly. + +"I'm giving you lots of chances to do the Good Samaritan act," he +continued. "Honest, I hate to be so much trouble. You'll have to blame +Mr. Healy. He's the responsible party for these little accidents of +mine." + +"I'm going to be responsible for one more," the stockman told him +darkly. + +"I understand your intentions are good, but I've noticed that sometimes +expectation outruns performance," his prisoner came back promptly. + +"Not this time, I think." + +Phyllis understood that Brill was threatening the nester and that the +latter was defying him lightly, but what either meant precisely she did +not know. She proceeded to business without a word except the necessary +directions to Becky. Not until the arm was dressed and the wound on the +head washed and bandaged did she address Keller. + +"I'll send you a powder that will help you get to sleep. The doctor left +it here for Phil, and he did not need it," she said. + +"Mebbe I won't need it, either." Keller laughed hardily, at his enemy it +seemed to the girl, and with some hint of a sinister understanding +between them from which she was excluded. "Thanks just the same, for +that and for everything else you've done for me." + +Phyllis said "Good night" stiffly, and followed the old negress out. She +went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and +it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of. +Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms +across the sill. + +Two men met beneath her window. + +"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other. + +While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slim +spoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that, +it won't take us long." + +"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily. + +There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course." + +"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do." + +"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game." + +"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it." + +"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for +his life." + +They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing +red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid. +They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had +been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While +the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed +subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently. + +What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in +the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no +matter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed the +rustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He had +known while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him to +death, and he had not even reproached her. + +Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it were +possible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course he +was guarded. + +She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed along +it to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside. +She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have him +outdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or they +might have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. If +the latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe place +under lock and key. + +Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted the +house at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranch +riders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creeping +close to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. In +front of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almost +upon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle. + +"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply. + +It was Tom Dixon. + +Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you are +guarding the prisoner." + +"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her. + +"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably can +now. I suppose I was nervous." + +"No wonder. But you may sleep, all right. He won't trouble you any. I'll +guarantee that," he promised largely. "Oh, Phyl!" + +She had turned to go, but she stopped at his call. "Well?" + +"Don't you be mad at me. I was only fooling the other day. Course I +hadn't ought to have got gay. But a fellow makes a break once in a +while." + +Under the stress of her deeper anxiety she had forgotten all about her +tiff with him. It had seemed important at the time, but since then Tom +and his affairs had been relegated to second place in her mind. He was +only a boy, full of the vanity that was a part of him. Somehow, her +anger against him was all burnt out. + +"If you never will again, Tom," she conceded. + +"I'll be good," he smiled, meaning that he would be good as long as he +must. + +"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm. + +She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once inside +she fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hung +a key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from there +noiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way without +a light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked. +This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storing +supplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went to +another stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight or +nine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole, +fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door. + +The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the door +creaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like a +trip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store. + +"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone. + +"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered. + +"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside." + +She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and +presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till +they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the +knots before she remembered a swifter way. + +"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case where +pocketknives were kept. + +Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free. + +He rose and stretched his cramped limbs. + +"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs. +Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute, +and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand. + +The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fence +of the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said. + +"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded. + +"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on my +head. Now, go." + +"Not till I know why you betrayed me." + +"_You_ can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because you +are what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager this +afternoon. Why don't you go?" + +"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?" + +"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself." + +"Did Yeager tell you that?" + +"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there is +still a chance." + +"I'm not going--not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what I +said." + +A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his hand +still on the handle, aware that there were others in the room. + +"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror. + +"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie." + +Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed. + +"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caught +unexpectedly. "It's--it's Phil," she pretended to pretend. + +"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before he +went out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don't +forget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as a +clam till you say the word." + +With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girl +turned on Keller. + +"There! You see. They may catch you any moment." + +"Will you ask Yeager?" + +"Yes, if you'll go." + +"All right. I'll go." + +Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him from +his feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers, +soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheek +when she had stooped over him. The drag of sex was upon him and had set +him trembling strangely. + +"Why don't you go?" she cried softly. + +He snatched himself away. + +But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides. +Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands in +his, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swing +of the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyes +by the faint light that sifted through the window upon her. + +"What--what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding her +in waves. + +"Why are you saving me, girl?" + +"I--don't know. I've told you why." + +"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while you +think me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?" + +He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. It +told her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happened +she could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, his +kiss tingling through her blood like wine. + +She thrust him from her--and he was gone. + +She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with +excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now +her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for +this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed +his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it +untied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded the +sentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay the +open road, the hills, and safety. + +A cry rang out in the stillness--and another. A shot, the beat of +running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly +become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her +face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination +conjured--a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a +huddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A GOOD FRIEND + + +How long she remained there Phyllis did not know. Fear drummed at her +heart. She was sick with apprehension. At last her very terror drove her +out to learn the worst. She walked round to the front of the house and +saw a light in the store. Swiftly she ran across and up the steps to the +porch. Three men were inside examining the empty chair by the light of a +lantern one held in his hand. + +"Did--did he get away?" the girl faltered. + +The men turned. One of them was Slim. He held in his hand pieces of the +slashed rope and the open pocket-knife that had freed the prisoner. + +"Looks like it," Slim answered. "With some help from a friend. Now, I +wonder who that useful friend was and how in time he got in here?" + +Her eyes betrayed her. Just for an instant they swept to the cellar +door, to make sure it was still shut. But that one glance was enough. +Slim, about to speak, changed his mind, and stared at her with parted +lips. She saw suspicion grow in his face and resolve itself to +certainty, helped to decision by the telltale color dyeing her cheeks. + +"Does the cellar stairway from the store connect with the kitchen +cellar, Phyllie?" he asked. + +"Ye-es." + +He nodded, then laughed without mirth. "I reckon I can tell you, boys, +who Mr. Keller's friend in need is." + +"Who? I'd like right well to know." Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had +just come in and was listening. + +Phyllis turned and faced him. "I was that friend, Brill." + +"You!" He stared at her in astonishment. "You! Why, it was you sent me +out to run him down." + +"I didn't tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?" + +"I guess there's a lot between him and you that you didn't tell me," he +jeered. + +Slim grinned, not at all maliciously. "I reckon that's right. I don't +need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the +kitchen." + +"He was just going," she protested. + +"Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate." + +"Go ahead, Slim. I'm only a girl. You and Brill say what you like," she +flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her +hands. + +"Only don't say it out loud," cautioned a new voice. Jim Yeager was at +the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy. + +"I say what I think, Jim," Brill retorted promptly. + +"And you think?" + +Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter. "I think things ain't +right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape +twice." + +"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis. + +"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone. + +"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no +better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed." + +The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir," +she murmured with mock humility. + +"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked. + +"He sure has--clean as a whistle." + +"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more +a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an +innocent man." + +"Prove it," cried Healy. + +Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to +take my word for it." + +"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his +father announced promptly. + +Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager, +Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing +with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter." + +"I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I've got to trust my own eyes before +your indorsement," Healy sneered. + +"That's your privilege, Brill." + +"I reckon Jim knows what he's talking about," said Yeager, Senior, with +intent to conciliate. + +"Of course I know you're right friendly with him, Jim. There's nobody +more competent to pass an opinion on him. Like enough you know all about +his affairs," conceded Healy with polite malice. + +The two young men were looking at each other steadily. They never had +been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that. Rival +leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their +rivalry to a flame. Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted. + +"I expect I know more about them than you do, Brill." + +"Sure you do. Ain't he just got through being your guest? Didn't he come +visiting you in a hurry? Didn't you tie up his wound? And when Phil and +I came asking questions didn't you antedate his arrival about six hours? +I'm not denying you know all about him. What I'm wondering is why you +didn't tell all you knew. Of course, I understand they are your +reasons, though, not mine." + +"You've said it. They're my reasons." + +"I ain't saying they are not good reasons. Whyfor should a man round on +his friend?" + +The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right +proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go +right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't +known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter. +They're so durned teachable to-day maybe you can get them to swallow +that with the rest." + +With which parting shot he followed Phyllis out of the store. She turned +on him at the top of the porch steps leading to the house. + +"Did he tell you that Phil was the rustler?" + +"You mean did Keller tell me?" he said, surprised. + +"Yes. 'Rastus was in the live oak and heard all you said." + +"No. He didn't tell me that. We neither of us think it was Phil. It +couldn't be, for he was riding with you at the time. But he found your +knife there by the dead cow. Now, how did it come there? You let Phil +have the knife. Had he lent his knife to some one?" + +"I don't know." She went on, after a momentary hesitation: "Are you +quite sure, Jim, that he really found the knife there?" + +"He said so. I believe him." + +She sighed softly, as if she would have liked to feel as sure. "The +reason I spoke of it was that I accused him of trying to throw the blame +on Phil, and he told me to ask you about it." + +Jim shook his head. "Nothing to it. If you want my opinion, Keller is +white clear enough. He wouldn't try a trick like that." + +The girl's face lit, and she held out an impulsive hand. "Anyhow, you're +a good friend, Jim." + +"I've been that ever since you was knee high to a duck, Phyl." + +"Yes--yes, you have. The best I've got, next to Phil and Dad." Her heart +just now was very warm to him. + +"Don't you reckon maybe a good friend might make a good--something +else." + +She gasped. "Oh, Jim! You don't mean----" + +"Yep. That's what I do mean. Course I'm not good enough. I know that." + +"Good. You're the best ever. It isn't that. Only I don't like you that +way." + +"Maybe you might some day." + +She shook her head slowly. "I wish I could, Jim. But I never will." + +"Is there--someone else, Phyl?" + +If it had been light enough he could have seen a wave of color sweep her +face. + +"No. Of course there isn't. How could there be? I'm only a girl." + +"It ain't Brill then?" + +"No. It's--it isn't anybody." She carried the war, womanlike, into his +camp. "And I don't believe you care for me--that way. It's just a +fancy." + +"One I've had two years, little girl." + +"Oh, I'm sorry. I _do_ like you, better than any one else. You know +that, dear old Jim." + +He smiled wistfully. "If you didn't like me so well I reckon I'd have a +better chance. Well, I mustn't keep you here. Good night." + +Her ringers were lost in his big fist. "Good night, Jim." And again she +added, "I'm so sorry." + +"Don't you be. It's all right with me, Phyl. I just thought I'd mention +it. You never can tell, though I most knew how it would be. _Buenos +noches, nina._" + +He released her hand, and without once looking back strode to his horse, +swung to the saddle, and rode into the night. + +She carried into the house with her a memory of his cheerful smile. It +had been meant as a reassurance to her. It told her he would get over +it, and she knew he would. For he was no puling schoolboy, but a man, +game to the core. + +The face of another man rose before her, saturnine and engaging and +debonair. With the picture came wave on wave of shame. He was a detected +villain, and she had let him kiss her. But beneath the self-scorn was +something new, something that stung her blood, that left her flushed and +tingling with her first experience of sex relations. + +A week ago she had not yet emerged fully from the chrysalis of +childhood. But in the Southland flowers ripen fast. Adolescence steals +hard upon the heels of infancy. Nature was pushing her relentlessly +toward a womanhood for which her splendid vitality and unschooled +impulses but scantily safeguarded her. The lank, shy innocence of the +fawn still wrapped her, but in the heart of this frank daughter of the +desert had been born a poignant shyness, a vague, delightful trembling +that marked a change. A quality which had lain banked in her nature like +a fire since childhood now threw forth its first flame of heat. At +sunset she had been still treading the primrose path of youth; at +sunrise she had entered upon the world-old heritage of her sex. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A SHOT FROM AMBUSH + + +From the valley there drifted up a breeze-swept sound. The rider on the +rock-rim trail above, shifting in his saddle to one of the easy, +careless attitudes of the habitual horseman, recognized it as a rifle +shot. + +Presently, from a hidden wash rose little balloon-like puffs of smoke, +followed by a faint, far popping, as if somebody had touched off a bunch +of firecrackers. Men on horseback, dwarfed by distance to pygmy size, +clambered to the bank--now one and then another firing into the mesquite +that ran like a broad tongue from the roll of hills into the valley. + +"Looks like something's broke loose," the young man drawled aloud. "The +band's sure playing a right lively tune this glad mo'ning." + +Save for one or two farewell shots, the firing ceased. The riders had +disappeared into the chaparral. + +The rider did not need to be told that this was a man hunt, destined +perhaps to be one of a hundred unwritten desert tragedies. Some subtle +instinct in him differentiated between these hurried shots and those +born of the casual exuberance of the cow-puncher at play. He had a +reason for taking an interest in it--an interest that was more than +casual. + +Skirting the rim of the saucer-shaped valley, he rode forward warily, +came at length to a canon that ran like a sword cleft into the hills, +and descended cautiously by a cattle trail, its scarred slope. + +Through the defile ran a mountain stream, splashing over and round +boulders in its swift fall. + +"I reckon we'll slide down, Keno, and work out close to the fire zone," +the rider said to his horse, as they began to slither down the +precipitous slope, starting rubble at every motion. + +Man and horse were both of the frontier, fit to the minute for any call +that might be made on them. The broncho was a roan, with muscles of +elastic leather, sure-footed as a mountain goat. Its master--a slim, +brown man, of medium height, well knit and muscular--looked on the +world, quietly and often humorously, with shrewd gray eyes. + +As he reached the bottom of the gulch, his glance fell upon another +rider--a woman. She crossed the stream hurriedly, her pony flinging +water at every step, and cantered up toward him. + +Her glance was once and again over her shoulder, so that it was not +until she was almost upon him that she saw the young man among the +cottonwoods, and drew her pony to an instant halt. The rifle that had +been lying across her saddle leaped halfway to her shoulder, covering +him instantly. + +"_Buenos dios, senorita._ Are you going for to shoot my head off?" he +drawled. + +"The rustler!" she cried. + +"The alleged rustler, Miss Sanderson," he corrected gently. + +"Let me past," she panted. + +He observed that her eyes mirrored terror of the scene she had just +left. + +"It's you that has got the drop on me, isn't it?" he suggested. + +The rifle went back to the saddle. Instantly the girl was in motion +again, flying up the canon past the white-stockinged roan, her pony's +hindquarters gathered to take the sheep trail like those of a wild cat. + +Keller gazed after her. As she disappeared, he took off his hat, bowed +elaborately, and remarked to himself, in his low, soft drawl: + +"Good mo'ning, ma'am. See you again one of these days, mebbe, when you +ain't in such a hurry." + +But though he appeared to take the adventure whimsically his mind was +busy with its meaning. She was in danger, and he must save her. So much +he knew at least. + +He had scarcely turned the head of his horse toward the mouth of the +canon when the pursuit drove headlong into sight. Galloping men pounded +up the arroyo, and came to halt at his sharp summons. Already Keller +and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed +the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun. + +"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted +to know amiably. + +The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm +bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large, +heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born +leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed. + +"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive, +he's ours." He gave crisp orders. + +"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock. + +For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded +man had whipped up a rifle and fired. + +Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too +many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail. +You see, it's loaded with buckshot." + +One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such +audacity as this was new to him. + +"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned +amusing," growled his leader. + +"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful +guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have." + +"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets +through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice, +just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the +other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get +him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here." + +"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row +about?" the cornered man wanted to know. + +"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you +didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make +your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman." + +"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a +stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?" + +"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply. + +"Douglas." + +"What doing here?" + +"Homesteading." + +"Name?" + +"Keller." + +"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to +shoot me. That's what you are." + +"No." + +"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of +us. If you're not the man, where is he?" + +"I haven't got him in my vest pocket." + +"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants." + +"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so +as to know him." + +"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit. + +"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher. + +"Well, then?" + +"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rustler who broke away from +us two weeks ago," Curly spoke out. + +"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out +between set teeth. + +"By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin +added. + +Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be +assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch, +riding a roan horse. He could swear that only one person had come in +before these pursuers--and that one was a woman on a roan. Her +frightened eyes, the fear that showed in every motion, her hurried +flight, all contributed to the same inevitable conclusion. It was +difficult to believe it, but impossible to deny. This wild, sylvan +creature, with the shy, wonderful eyes, had lain in ambush to kill her +father's enemy, and was flying from the vengeance on her heels. + +His lips were sealed. Even if he were not under heavy obligations to her +he could no more save himself at the expense of this brown sylph than he +could have testified against his own mother. + +"All right. If you feel lucky, come on. You'll get me, of course, but it +may prove right expensive," he said quietly. + +"That's all right. We're footing our end of the bill," Pesky retorted. + +By this time, he and Weaver had dismounted, and were sheltered behind +rocks. Already bullets were beginning to spit back and forth, though the +flankers had not yet got into action. + +"Durn his hide, I hate like sin to puncture it," Pesky told his boss. "I +tell you we're making a mistake, Buck. This fellow's a pure--he ain't +any hired killer. You can tie to that." + +"He's the man that pumped a bullet into my arm from ambush. That's +enough for me," the cattleman swore. + +"No use being revengeful, especially if it happens he ain't the man. By +his say-so, that's a shotgun he's carrying. Loaded with buckshot, he +claims. What hit you was a bullet from a Winchester, or some such gun. +Mighty easy to prove whether he's lying." + +"We'll be able to prove it afterward, all right." + +"What's the matter with proving it now? I don't stand for any murder +business myself. I'm going to find out what's what." + +The cow-puncher tied the red bandanna from his neck round the end of his +revolver, and shoved it above the rock in front of him. + +"Flag of truce!" he shouted. + +"All right. Come right along. Better leave your gun behind," Keller +called back. + +Pesky waddled forward--a short, thick-set, bow-legged man in chaps, +spurs, flannel shirt, and white sombrero. When he took off this last, as +he did now, it revealed a head bald as a billiard ball. + +"How're they coming?" he inquired genially of the besieged man, as he +rounded the rock barricade. + +Larrabie's steel eyes relaxed to a hint of a friendly smile. He knew +this type of man like a brother. + +"Fine and dandy here. Hope you're well yourself, seh." + +"Tol'able. Buck's up on his ear, o' course. Can't blame him, can you? +Most any man would, with that kind of a pill sent to his address so +sudden by special delivery. Wasn't that some inconsiderate of you, Mr. +Keller?" + +"I thought I explained it was another party did that." + +Pesky rolled a cigarette and lit it. + +"Right sure of that, are you? Wouldn't mind my taking a look at that gun +of yours? You see, if it happens to be what you said it was, that +kinder lets you out." + +Keller handed over the gun promptly. The cow-puncher broke it, extracted +a shell, and with his knife picked out the wad. Into his palm rolled a +dozen buckshot. + +"Good enough! I told Buck he was barking up the wrong tree. Now, I'll go +back and have a powwow with him. I reckon you'll be willing to surrender +on guarantee of a square deal?" + +"Sure--that's all I ask. I never met your friend--didn't know who he was +from Adam. I ain't got any option to shoot all the red-haided men I +meet. No, sir! You've followed a cross trail." + +"Looks like. Still, it's blamed funny." Pesky scratched his shining +poll, and looked shrewdly at the other. "We certainly ran Mr. +Bushwhacker into the canon. I'd swear to that. We was right on his +heels, though we couldn't see him very well. But he either come in here +or a hole in the ground swallowed him." + +He waited tentatively for an answer, but none came other than the +white-toothed smile that met him blandly. + +"I reckon you know more than you aim to tell, Mr. Keller," continued +Pesky. "Don't you figure it's up to you, if we let you out of this +thing, to whack up any information you've got? The kind of reptile that +kills from ambush don't deserve any consideration." + +Half an hour ago, the other would have agreed with him. The man that +shot his enemy from cover was a coyote--nothing less. But about that +brown slip of a creature, who had for three minutes crossed his orbit, +he wanted to reserve judgment. + +"I expect I haven't got a thing to tell you that would help any," he +drawled, his eye full on that of the cowpuncher. + +Pesky threw away his cigarette. "All right. You're the doctor. I'll +amble back, and report to the boss." + +He did so, with the result that a truce was arranged. + +Keller gave up his post of vantage, and came forward to surrender. + +Weaver met him with a hard, wintry eye. "Understand, I don't concede +your innocence. You're my prisoner, and, by God, if I get any more proof +of your guilt, you've got to stand the gaff." + +The other nodded quietly, meeting him eye to eye. Nor did his gaze fall, +though the big cattleman was the most masterful man on the range. Keller +was as easy and unperturbed as when he had been holding half a dozen +irate men at bay. + +"No kick coming here. But, if it's just the same to you, I'll ask you to +get the proof first and hang me afterward." + +"If you're homesteading, where's your place?" + +"Back in the hills, close to the headwaters of Salt Creek." + +"Huh! You'll make that good before I get through with you. And I want +to tell you this, too, Mr. Keller. It doesn't make any hit with me that +you're one of those thieving nesters. Moreover, there's another charge +against you. In the Malpais country we hang rustlers. The boys claim to +have you cinched. We'll see." + +"Who's that with Curly?" Pesky called out. "By Moses, it's a woman!" + +"It is the Sanderson girl," Weaver said in surprise. + +Keller swung round as if worked by a spring. The cow-puncher had told +the truth. Curly's companion was not only a woman, but _the_ woman--the +same slim, tanned creature who had flashed past him on a wild race for +safety, only a few minutes earlier. + +All eyes were focused upon her. Weaver waited for her to speak. Instead, +Curly took up the word. He was smiling broadly, quite unaware of the +mine he was firing. + +"I found this young lady up on the rock rim. Since we were rounding up, +I thought I'd bring her down." + +"Good enough. Miss Sanderson, you've been where you could see if anyone +passed into the canon. How about it? Anybody go up in last ten minutes?" + +Phyllis moistened her dry lips and looked at the prisoner. "No," she +answered reluctantly. + +Weaver wheeled on Keller, his eyes hard as jade. "That ties the rope +round your neck, my man." + +"No," Phyllis cried. "He didn't do it." + +The cattleman's stone wall eyes were on her now. + +"Didn't? How do you know he didn't?" + +"Because I--I passed him here as I rode up a few minutes ago." + +"So you rode up a few minutes ago." Buck's lids narrowed. "And he was +here, was he? Ever meet Mr. Keller before?" + +"Yes." + +"When? Speak up. Mind, no lying." + +This, struck the first spark of spirit from her. The deep eyes flashed. +"I'm not in the habit of lying, sir." + +"Then answer my question." + +"I've met him at the office when he came for his mail. And the boys +arrested him by mistake for a rustler. I saw him when they brought him +in." + +"By mistake. How do you know it was by mistake?" + +"It was I accused him. But I did it because I was angry at him." + +"You accused an innocent man of rustling because you were sore at him. +You're ce'tainly a pleasant young lady, Miss Sanderson." + +Her look flashed defiance at him, but she said nothing. In her slim +erectness was a touch of feminine ferocity that gave him another idea. + +"So you just rode into the canon, did you?" + +"Yes." + +"Meet up with anybody in the valley before you came in?" + +"No." + +His eyes were like steel drills. They never left her. "Quite sure?" + +"Yes." + +"What were you doing there?" + +She had no answer ready. Her wild look went round in search of a friend +in this circle of enemies. They found him in the man who was a prisoner. +His steadfast eyes told her to have no fear. + +"Did you hear what I said?" demanded Weaver. + +"I was--riding." + +"Alone?" + +The answer came so slowly that it was barely audible. "Yes." + +"Riding in Antelope Valley?" + +"Yes." + +"Let me see that gun." Weaver held out his hand for the rifle. + +Phyllis looked at him and tried to fight against his domination; then +slowly she handed him the rifle. He broke and examined it. From the +chamber he extracted an empty shell. + +Grim as a hanging judge, his look chiselled into her. + +"I expect the lead that was in here is in my arm. Isn't that right?" + +"I--I don't know." + +"Who does, then? Either you shot me or you know who did." + +Her gaze evaded his, but was forced at last to the meeting. + +"I did it." + +She was looking at him steadily now. Since the thing must be faced, she +had braced herself to it. It was amazing what defiant pluck shone out of +her soft eyes. This man of iron saw it, and, seeing, admired hugely the +gameness that dwelt in her slim body. But none of his admiration showed +in the hard, weather-beaten face. + +"So they make bushwhackers out of even the girls among your rustling, +sheep-herding outfit!" he taunted. + +"My people are not rustlers. They have a right to be on earth, even if +you don't want them there." + +"I'll show them what rights they have got in this part of the country +before I get through with them. But that ain't the point now. What I +want to know is how they came to send a girl to do their dirty killing +for them." + +"They didn't send me. I just saw you, and--and shot on an impulse. Your +men have clubbed and poisoned our sheep. They wounded one of our +herders, and beat his brother when they caught him unarmed. They have +done a hundred mean and brutal things. You are at the bottom of it all; +and when I saw you riding there, looking like the lord of all the earth, +I just----" + +"Well?" + +"Couldn't help--what I did." + +"You're a nicely brought up young woman--about as savage as the rest of +your wolf breed," jeered Weaver. + +Yet he exulted in her--in the impulse of ferocity that had made her +strike swiftly, regardless of risk to herself, at the man who had +hounded and harried her kin to the feud that was now raging. Her shy, +untamed beauty would not itself have attracted him; but in combination +with her fierce courage it made to him an appeal which he conceded +grudgingly. + +"What in Heaven's name brought you back after you had once got away?" +Weaver asked. + +The girl looked at Keller without answering. + +"I reckon I can tell you that, seh," explained that young man. "She +figured you would jump on me as the guilty party. It got on her +conscience that she had left an innocent man to stand for it. I +shouldn't wonder but she got to seeing a picture of you-all hanging me +or shooting me up. So she came back to own up, if she saw you had caught +me." + +Weaver nodded. "That's the way I figure it, too. Gamest thing I ever saw +a woman do," he said in an undertone to Keller, with whom he was now +standing a little apart. + +The latter agreed. "Never saw the beat of it. She's scared stiff, too. +Makes it all the pluckier. What will you do with her?" + +"Take her along with me back to the ranch." + +"I wouldn't do that," said the young man quickly. + +"Wouldn't you?" Weaver's hard gaze went over him haughtily. "When I want +your advice, I'll ask you for it, young man. You're in luck to get off +scot-free yourself. That ought to content you for one day." + +"But what are you going to do with her? Surely not have her imprisoned +for attacking you?" + +"I'll do as I dashed please, and don't you forget it, Mr. Keller. Better +mind your own business, if you've got any." + +With which Buck Weaver turned on his heel, and swung slowly to the +saddle. His arm was paining him a great deal, but he gave no sign of it. +He expected his men to game it out when they ran into bad luck, and he +was stoic enough to set them an example without making any complaints. + +The little group of riders turned down the trail, passed through the +gateway that led to the valley below, and wound down among the +cow-backed hills toward the ranch roofs, which gleamed in the distance. +They were the houses of the Twin Star outfit, the big concern owned by +Buck Weaver, whose cattle fed literally upon a thousand hills. + +It suited Buck's ironic humor to ride beside the girl who had just +attempted his life. He bore her no resentment. Had the offender been a +man, Buck would have snuffed out his life with as little remorse as he +would a guttering candle. But her sex and her youth, and some quality of +charm in her, had altered the equation. He meant to show her who was +master, but he would choose a different method. + +What sport to tame the spirit of this wild desert beauty until she +should come like one of her own sheep dogs at his beck and call! He had +never yet met the woman he could not dominate. This one, too, would know +a good many new emotions before she rejoined her tribe in the hills. + +He swung from the saddle at the ranch plaza, and greeted her with a deep +bow that mocked her. + +"Welcome, Miss Sanderson, to the best the Twin Star outfit has to offer. +I hope you will enjoy your visit, which is going to be a long one." + +To a Mexican woman, who had come out to the porch in answer to his call, +he delivered the girl, charging her duty in two quick sentences of +Spanish. The woman nodded her understanding, and led Phyllis inside. + +Weaver noticed with delight that his captive's eye met his steadily, +with the defiant fierceness of some hunted wild thing. Here was a woman +worth taming, even though she was still a girl in years. His exultant +eye, returning from the last glimpse of the lissom figure as it +disappeared, met the gaze of Keller. That young man was watching him +with an odd look of challenge on his usually impassive face. + +The cattleman felt the spur of a new antagonism stirring his blood. +There was something almost like a sneer on his lips as he spoke: + +"Sorry to lose your company, Mr. Keller. But if you're homesteading, of +course, we'll have to let you go back to the hills right away. Couldn't +think of keeping you from that spring plowing that's waiting to be +done." + +"You're putting up a different line of talk from what you did. How about +that charge of rustling against me, Mr. Weaver? Don't you want to hold +me while you investigate it?" + +"No, I reckon not. Your lady friend gives you a clean bill of health. +She may or may not be lying. I'm not so sure myself. But without her the +case against you falls." + +Keller knew himself dismissed cavalierly, and, much as he would have +liked to stay, he could find no further excuse to urge. He could hardly +invite himself to be either the guest or the prisoner of a man who did +not want him. + +"Just as you say," he nodded, and turned carelessly to his pony. + +Yet he was quite sure it would not be as Weaver said if he could help +it. He meant to take a hand in the game, no matter what the other might +decree. But for the present he acquiesced in the inevitable. Weaver was +technically within his rights in holding her until he had communicated +with the sheriff. A generous foe might not have stood out for his pound +of flesh, but Buck was as hard as nails. As for the reputation of the +girl, it was safe at the Twin Star ranch. Buck's sister, a maiden lady +of uncertain years, was on hand to play chaperone. + +Larrabie swung to the saddle. His horse's hoofs were presently flinging +dirt toward the Twin Star as he loped up to the hills. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MISS-GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN + + +Time had been when the range was large enough for all, when every man's +cattle might graze at will from horizon to horizon. But with the push of +settlement to the frontier had come a change. The feeding ground became +overstocked. One outfit elbowed another, and lines began to be drawn +between the runs of different owners. Water holes were seized and +fenced, with or without due process of law. + +With the establishment of forest reserves a new policy dominated the +government. Sanderson had been one of the first to avail himself of it +by leasing the public demesne for his stock. Later, learning that the +mountain parks were to be thrown open as a pasturage for sheep, he had +bought three thousand and driven them up, having first arranged terms +with the forestry service. + +Buck Weaver, fighting the government reserve policy with all his might, +resented fiercely the attitude of Sanderson. A sharp, bitter quarrel had +resulted, and had left a smoldering bad feeling that flamed at times +into open warfare. Upon the wholesome Malpais country had fallen the +bitterness of a sheep and cattle feud. + +The riders of the Twin Star outfit had thrice raided the Sanderson +flocks. Lambing sheep had been run cruelly. One herd had been clubbed +over a precipice, another decimated with poison. In return, the herders +shot and hamstrung Twin Star cows. A herder was held up and beaten by +cowboys. Next week a vaquero galloped home to the Twin Star ranch with a +bullet through his leg. This was the situation at the time when the +owner of the big ranch brought Phyllis a prisoner to its hospitality. + +Nothing could have been more pat to his liking. He was, in large +measure, the force behind the law in San Miguel county. The sheriff whom +he had elected to office would be conveniently deaf to any illegality +there might be in his holding the girl, would if necessary give him an +order to hold her there until further notice. The attempt to assassinate +him would serve as excuse enough for a proceeding even more highhanded +than this. Her relatives could scarce appeal to the law, since the law +would then step in and send her to the penitentiary. He could use her +position as a hostage to force her stiff-necked father to come to terms. + +But it was characteristic of the man that his reason for keeping her +was, after all, less the advantage he might gain by it than the pleasure +he found in tormenting her and her family. To this instinct of the +jungle beast was added the interest she had inspired in him. Untaught of +life she was, no doubt, a child of the desert, in some ways primitive as +Eve; but he perceived in her the capacity for deep feeling, for passion, +for that kind of fierce, dauntless endurance it is given some women to +possess. + +Miss Weaver took charge of the comfort of her guest. Her manner showed +severe disapproval of this girl so lost to the feelings of her sex as to +have attempted murder. That she was young and pretty made matters worse. +Alice Weaver always had worshipped her brother, by the law of opposites +perhaps. She was as drab and respectable as Boston. All her tastes ran +to humdrum monotony. But turbulent, lawless Buck, the brother whom she +had brought up after the death of their mother, held her heart in the +hollow of his hard, careless hand. + +"Have you had everything you wish?" she would ask Phyllis in a frigid +voice. + +"I want to be taken home." + +"You should have thought of that before you did the dreadful thing you +did." + +"You are holding me here a prisoner, then?" + +"An involuntary guest, my brother puts it. Until the sheriff can make +other arrangements." + +"You have no right to do it without notifying my father. He is at Noches +with my brother." + +"Mr. Weaver will do as he thinks best about that." The spinster shut +her lips tight and walked from the room. + +Supper was brought to Phyllis by the Mexican woman. In spite of her +indignation she ate and slept well. Nor did her appetite appear impaired +next morning, when she breakfasted in her bedroom. Noon found her +promoted to the family dining room. Weaver carried his arm in a sling, +but made no reference to the fact. He attempted conversation, but +Phyllis withdrew into herself and had nothing more friendly than a plain +"No" or "Yes" for him. His sister was presently called away to arrange +some household difficulty. At once Phyllis attacked the big man lounging +in his chair at his ease. + +"I want to go home. I've got to be at the schoolhouse to-morrow +morning," she announced. + +"It won't hurt you any to miss a few days' schooling, my dear. You'll +learn more here than you will there, anyhow," he assured her pleasantly. +Buck was cracking two walnuts in the palm of his hand and let his lazy +smile drift her way only casually. + +She stamped her foot. "I tell you I'm the teacher. It is necessary I +should be there." + +"You a schoolmarm!" he repeated, in surprise. "How old are you?" + +Her dress was scarcely below her shoe tops. She still had the slimness +of immature girlhood, the adorable shy daring of some uncaptured wood +nymph. + +"Does that matter to you, sir?" + +"How old?" he reiterated. + +"Going-on-eighteen," she answered--not because she wanted to, but +because somehow she must. There was something compelling about this +man's will. She would have resisted it had she not wanted to gain her +point about going home. + +"So you teach the kids their A B C's, do you? And you just out of them +yourself! How many scholars have you?" + +"Fourteen." + +"And they all love teacher, of course. Would you take me for a scholar, +Miss Going-On-Eighteen?" + +"No!" she flamed. + +"You'd find me right teachable. And I would promise to love you, too." + +Color came and went in her face beneath the brow. How dared he mock her +so! It humiliated and embarrassed and angered her. + +"Are you going to let me go back to my school?" she demanded. + +"I reckon your school will have to get along without you for a few days. +Your fourteen scholars will keep right on loving you, I expect. 'To +memory dear, though far from eye.' Or, if you like, I'll send my boys up +into the hills, and round up the whole fourteen here for you. Then +school can keep right here in the house. How about that? Ain't that a +good notion, Miss Going-On-Eighteen?" + +She could stand his ironic mockery no longer. She faced him, fearless as +a tiger: "You villain!" + +With that, turning on her heel, she passed swiftly into her little +bedroom, and slammed the door. He heard the key turn in the lock. + +"She's sure got some devil in her," he laughed appreciatively, and he +cracked another walnut. + +Already he had struck the steel of her quality. She would be his +prisoner because she must, but the "no compromise" flag was nailed to +her masthead. + +"I wonder why you are so fond of me?" he mused aloud next day when he +found her as unresponsive to his advances as a block of wood. + +He was lying in the sand at her feet, his splendid body relaxed full +length at supple ease. Leaning on an elbow, he had been watching her for +some time. + +Her gaze was on the distant line of hills; on her face that far-away +expression which told him that he was not on the map for her. Used as he +was to impressing himself upon the imagination of women, this stung his +vanity sharply. He liked better the times when her passion flamed out at +him. + +Now he lost his sardonic mockery in a flash of anger. + +"Do you hear me? I asked you a question." + +She brought her head round until her eyes rested upon him. + +"Will you ask it again, please? I wasn't listening." + +"I want to know what makes you hate me so," he demanded roughly. + +"Do I hate you?" + +He laughed irritably. "What else do you call it? You won't hardly eat at +the same table with me. Last night you wouldn't come down to supper. +Same way this morning. If I sit down near you, soon you find an excuse +to leave. When I speak, you don't answer." + +"You are my jailer, not my friend." + +"I might be both." + +"No, thank you!" + +She said it with such quick, instinctive certainty that he ground his +teeth in resentment. He was the kind of man that always wanted what he +could not get. He began to covet this girl mightily, even while he told +himself that he was a fool for his pains. What was she but an untaught, +country schoolgirl? It would be a strange irony of fate if Buck Weaver +should fall in love with a sheepman's daughter. + +"Many people would go far to get my friendship," he told her. + +Quietly she looked at him. "The friends of my people are my friends. +Their enemies are mine." + +"Yet you said you didn't hate me." + +"I thought I did, but I find I don't." + +"Not worth hating, I suppose?" + +She neither corrected nor rejected his explanation. + +He touched his wounded arm as he went on: "If you don't hate me, why +this compliment to me? I reckon good, genuine hate sent that bullet." + +The girl colored, but after a moment's hesitation answered: + +"Once I shot a coyote when I saw it making ready to pounce on one of our +lambs. I did not hate that coyote." + +"Thank you," he told her ironically. + +Her gaze went back to the mountains. She had always had a capacity for +silence. But it was as extraordinary to her as to him how, in the past +few days, she had sloughed the shy timidity of a mountain girl and found +the enduring courage of womanhood. Her wits, too, had taken on the edge +of maturity. He found that her tongue could strike swiftly and sharply. +She was learning to defend herself in all the ways women have acquired +by inheritance. + +Weaver's jaw set like a vise. Getting to his feet, he looked down at her +with the hard, relentless eyes that had made his name a terror. + +"Good enough, Miss Phyllis Sanderson. You've chosen your way. I'll +choose mine. You've got to learn that I'm master here; and, by God, I'll +teach it to you. Before I get through with you, young woman, you'll +come running when I snap my fingers. From to-day things will be +different. You'll eat your meals with us and not in your room. You'll +speak when you're spoken to. Set yourself up against me, and I'll bring +you to your knees fast enough. There's no law on the Twin Star Ranch but +Buck Weaver's will." + +He strode away, almost herculean in figure, and every inch of him +forceful. She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same +time, so wilful and so masterful. Before he was out of her sight, she +got an instance of his recklessness. + +A Mexican vaquero was driving some horses into a corral. His master +strode up to him, and dragged him from the saddle. + +"Didn't I tell you to take the colts down to the long pasture?" + +"_Si, senor,_" answered the trembling native. + +Weaver's great fist rose and fell once. The Mexican sank limply down. +Without another glance at him, the cattleman flung him aside, and strode +to the house. + +As the owner of the Twin Star had said, so it was. Thereafter Phyllis +sat at the table with him and his sister, while Josephine, the Mexican +woman, waited upon them. The girl came and went at his bidding. But she +held herself with such a quiet aloofness that his victory was a barren +one. + +"Do you want to go home?" he taunted her one morning, while at +breakfast. + +"Is it likely I would want to stay here?" she retorted. + +"Why not? What have you to complain of? Aren't you treated well?" + +"Yes." + +"What, then? Are you afraid?" + +"No!" she answered, with a flash of her fine eyes. + +"That's good, because you've got to stay here--or go to the pen. You may +take your choice." + +"You're very generous. I suppose you don't expect to keep me here +always," she said scornfully. + +"Until my arm gets well. Since you wounded it you ought to nurse it." + +"Which I am not doing, even while I am here." + +"Anyhow it soothes the temper of the invalid to have you around." He +grinned satirically. + +"So I judge, from the effects." + +"Meaning that I'm always in a rage when I leave you?" + +"I notice your men are marked up a good deal these days." + +"I'll tell them to thank you for it," he flung back. + +Two days later, he scored on her hard for the first time. She came down +to breakfast just as two of the Twin Star riders brought a boy into the +hall. + +She flew instantly into his arms, thereby embarrassing him vastly. + +"Phil! How did you come here?" + +Her brother nodded toward Curly and Pesky. "They found me outside and +got the drop on me." + +"You were here looking for me?" + +"Yes. Just got back from Noches. Dad is still there. He don't know." + +"But--what are they going to do with you?" + +"What would you suggest, Miss Phyllis?" a voice behind her gibed. + +The speaker was Weaver. He filled the doorway of the dining room +triumphantly. She had had no fears for herself; he would see if she had +none for her brother. + +The boy whirled on the ranchman like a tiger whelp. "I don't care what +you do. Go ahead and do your worst." + +Weaver looked him over negligently, much as he might watch a struggling +calf. To him the boy was not an enemy--merely a tool which he could use +for his own ends. Phyllis, watching anxiously the hard, expressionless +face, felt that it was cruel as fate. She knew that somehow she would be +made to suffer through her love for her brother. + +"You daren't touch him. He's done nothing," she cried. + +"He shot at one of my riders. I can't have dangerous characters around. +I'm a peaceable man, me," grinned Buck. + +"You didn't, Phil," his sister reproached. + +"Sure I did. He tried to take my gun from me," the boy explained hotly. + +"Take him out to the bunk house, boys. I'll attend to him later," +nodded Buck, turning away indifferently. + +Stung to fury by the cavalier manner of his enemy, the boy leaped at him +like a wild cat. Weaver whirled round again, caught him by the shoulder +with his great hand, and shook him as if he had been a puppy. When he +dropped him, he nodded again to his men, who dragged out the struggling +boy. + +Phyllis stood straight as an arrow, but white to the lips. "What are you +going to do to him?" she asked. + +"How would a good chapping do, to start with? That is always good for an +unlicked cub." + +"Don't!" she implored. + +"But, my dear, why not--since it's for his good?" + +Passion unleashed leaped from her. "You coward!" + +He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm right desolated to have your bad +opinion. But you say it almost as if you did hate me. That's a +compliment, you know. You didn't hate the coyote, you mentioned." + +Her eyes flamed. "Hate you! If wishes could kill, you would be a +thousand times dead!" + +"You disappoint me, my dear. I expected more than wishes from you. +There's a loaded revolver in that table drawer. It's yours, any time you +want it," he derided. + +"Don't tempt me!" she cried wildly. "If you lay a hand on Phil, I'll use +it--I surely will." + +His eyes shone with delight. "I wonder. By Jove, I've a mind to flog +the colt and see. I'll do it." + +The passion sank in her as suddenly as it had risen. "No--you mustn't! +You don't know him--or us. We are from the South." + +"That settles it. I will," he exulted. "You have called me a coward. +Would a coward do this, and defy your whole crew to its revenge?" + +"Would a brave man break the pride of a high-spirited boy for such a +mean motive?" she countered. + +"His pride will have to look out for itself. He took his chance of it +when he tried to assault me. What he'll get is only what's coming to +him." + +"Please don't! I'll--I'll be different to you. Take it out on me," she +begged. + +He laughed harshly. "Do you suppose I'm such a fool as not to know that +the way to take it out on you is to take it out of him?" + +She had come nearer, a step at a time. Now she threw her hand out in a +gesture of abandon. + +"Be generous! Don't punish me that way. Something dreadful will come of +it." + +She broke down and struggled with her tears. He watched her for a moment +without speaking. + +"Good enough. I'll be generous and let you pay his debt for him, if you +want to do it." + +Her eyes were glad with the swift joy that leaped into them. + +"That is good of you! And how shall I pay?" she cried. + +"With a kiss." + +She drew back as if he had struck her, all the sparkling eagerness +driven from her face. + +"Oh!" she moaned. + +"Just one kiss--I don't ask anything more. Give me that, and I'll turn +him loose. Honor bright." + +He held her startled gaze as a snake holds that of a fascinated bird. + +"Choose," he told her, in his masterful way. + +Her imagination conceived a vision of her young brother being tortured +by this man. She had not the least doubt that he would do what he said, +and probably would think the boy got only what he deserved. + +"Take it," she told him, and waited. + +Perhaps he might have spared her had it not been for the look of deep +contempt that bit into his vanity. + +He kissed her full on the lips. + +Instantly she woke to life, struck him on the cheek with her little, +brown fist, and, with a sob of woe, turned and ran from the room. + +Weaver cursed himself in a fury of anger. He felt himself to be a hound +because of the thing he had done, and he hated the instinct in him that +drove him to master her. He had insulted and trampled on her. Yet he +knew in his heart that he would have killed another man for doing it. + +[Illustration: SHE DREW BACK AS IF HE HAD STRUCK HER, ALL THE SPARKLING +EAGERNESS DRIVEN FROM HER FACE. _Page 116_] + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PUNISHMENT + + +The cattleman strode into the bunk house, where young Sanderson sat +sulkily on a bed under the persuasion of Curly's rifle. + +"Have this boy's horse saddled and brought around, Curly." + +"You're the doctor," answered the cowboy promptly, and forthwith +vanished outdoors to obey instructions. + +Phil looked sullenly at his captor, and waited for him to begin. One of +his hands was under the pillow of the cot upon which he sat. His fingers +circled the butt of a revolver he had found there, where one of the +riders had chanced to leave it that morning. + +"I'm going to turn you loose to go home to the hills," Weaver told him. + +"And my sister?" + +"She stays here." + +"Then so do I." + +"That's up to you. There's no law against camping on the plains--that +is, out of range of the Twin Star." + +"What are you going to do with her?" the boy demanded ominously. + +"If you ask no questions, I'll tell you no lies." + +"You'll let her go home with me--that's what you'll do," cried Phil. + +"I reckon not. You've got a license to feel lucky you're going +yourself." + +"By God, I say you shall!" + +The cattleman's eyes took on their stony, snake-like look. His hand did +not move by so much as an inch toward the scabbarded revolver at his +side. + +"All right. Come a-shooting. I see you've got a gun under that pillow." + +The weapon leaped into sight. "You're right I have! I'll drill you full +of holes as soon as wink." + +Weaver laughed contemptuously. "Begin pumping, son." + +"I'm going to take my sister home with me. You'll give orders to your +men to that effect." + +"Guess again." + +"I tell you I'll shoot your hide full of holes if you don't!" cried the +excited boy. + +"Oh, no, you won't." + +Buck Weaver was flirting with death, and he knew it. The very breath of +it fanned his cheek. During that moment he lived gloriously; for he was +a man who revelled in his sensations. He laughed into the very muzzle of +the six-shooter that covered him. + +"Quit your play acting, boy," he jeered. + +"I give you one more chance before I blow out your brains." + +The cattleman put his unwounded hand into his trousers pocket and +lounged forward, thrusting his smiling face against the cold rim of the +blue barrel. + +"I reckon you'll scatter proper what few brains I've got." + +With a curse, the boy flung the weapon down on the bed. He could not +possibly kill a man so willing as this. To draw guns with him, and +chance the issue, would have suited young Sanderson exactly. But this +way would be no less than murder. + +"You devil!" he cried, with a boyish sob. + +Weaver picked up the revolver, and examined it. "Mighty careless of Ned +to leave it lying around this way," he commented absently, as if unaware +of the other's rage. "You never can tell when a gun is going to get into +the wrong hands." + +"What are you letting me go for? You've got a reason. What is it?" Phil +demanded. + +Weaver looked at him through narrowed, daredevil eyes. "The ransom price +has been paid," he explained. + +"Paid! Who paid it?" + +"Miss Phyllis Sanderson." + +"Phyllis?" repeated the boy incredulously. "But she had no money." + +"Did I say she paid it in money?" + +"What do you mean?" + +"She asked me to set you free. I named my price, and she agreed." + +"What was your price?" the boy asked hoarsely. + +"A kiss." + +At that, Phil struck him full in the sardonic, mocking face. Blood +crimsoned the lips that had been crushed against the strong, white +teeth. + +"Again," said Weaver. + +The brown fist went back and shot forward like a piston rod. This time +it left an ugly gash over the cheek bone. + +"Much obliged. Once more." + +The young man balanced himself carefully, and struck hard and true +between the eyes. + +A third, a fourth, and a fifth time Phil lashed out at the disfigured, +grinning face. + +"Let's make it an even half dozen," the cattleman suggested. + +But Phil had had enough of it. This was too much like butchery. His +passion had spent itself. He struck, but with no force behind the blow. + +Weaver went to the washstand, dashed some water on his face, and pressed +a towel against the raw wounds. He flung the red-soaked towel aside just +as Curly cantered up on Sanderson's horse. The cow-puncher stared at his +boss in amazement, opened his lips to speak, and thought better of it. +He looked at Phil, whose knuckles were badly barked and bleeding. + +Curly had seen his master marked up before, but on such occasions the +other man was a sight for the gods to wonder at. Now Weaver was the +spectacle, and the other was untouched. In view of Buck's reputation as +a rough-and-tumble fighter, this seemed no less than a miracle. Curly +departed with the wonder unexplained, for Weaver dismissed him with a +nod. + +"Like to see your sister before you go?" the cattleman asked curtly of +Phil, over his shoulder. + +"Yes." + +Buck led the way across the plaza to the house, and clapped his hands in +the hall. Josephine answered the summons. + +"Tell Miss Sanderson that her brother would like to see her." + +The woman vanished up the stairway, and the two men waited in silence. +Presently Phyllis stood in the door. Her eyes ignored Weaver, and were +only for her brother. Her first glance told her that all was well so far +as he was concerned, even though it also let her know that the boy was +anxious. + +"Phil!" she breathed. + +"So you bought my freedom for me, did you?" the boy said, his voice +trembling. + +Phyllis answered in the clearest of low voices. "Yes. Did he tell you?" + +"You oughtn't to have done it. I'll have no such bargains made. +Understand that!" cried her brother, emotion in his high tones. + +"I couldn't help it, Phil. I did it for the best. You don't know." + +"I know that you're to keep out of this. I'll fight my own battles. In +our family the girls don't sell kisses. Remember that." + +Phyl hung her head. She felt herself disgraced, but she knew that she +would do it again in like circumstances. + +Weaver broke in roughly: "You young fool! She's worth a dozen of you, +who haven't sense enough to _sabe_ her kind." + +The girl glanced at him involuntarily. At sight of his swollen and +beaten face, she started. Her gaze clung to him, eyes wild and +fluttering with apprehension. + +"I've been taking a massage treatment," he explained. + +Phyllis looked at her brother, then back at the ranchman. The thing was +beyond comprehension. Ten minutes ago, this ferocious Hercules had left +her, sound and unscratched. Now he returned with a face beaten and +almost beyond recognition from bloodstains. + +"What--what is it?" The appeal was to her brother. + +"He let me beat him," Phil explained. + +"Let you beat him! Why?" + +"I don't know." + +What the boy said was true, yet it was something less than the truth. He +was dimly aware that this man knew himself to have violated the code, +and that he had submitted to punishment because of the violation. + +"Tell me," Phyllis commanded. + +Phil told her in three sentences. She looked at Weaver with eyes that +saw him in a new light. He still sneered, but behind the mask she got +for the first time a glimpse of another man. Only dimly she divined him; +but what she visioned was half devil and half hero, capable of things +great as well as of deeds despicable. + +"I'm not going to leave you here in this house," young Sanderson told +her. "I'll not go. If you stay, I stay." + +She shook her head. "No, Phil--you must go. I'm all right here--as safe +as I would be at home. You know, he has a right to send me to prison if +he wants to. I suppose he is holding me as a hostage against our friends +in the hills." + +The boy accepted her decree under protest. He did not know what else to +do. Decision comes only with age, and he could hit on no policy that +would answer. Reluctantly he gave way. + +"If you so much as touch her, you'll die for it," he gulped at Weaver, +in a sudden boyish passion. "We'll shoot you down like a dog." + +"Or a coyote," suggested Buck, with a swift glance at Phyllis. "It seems +to be a family habit. I'm much obliged to you." + +Phyl was in her brother's arms, frankly in tears. + +It was all very well to tell him to go; it was quite another thing to +let him go without a good cry at losing him. + +"Just say the word, and I'll see it out with you, sis," he told her. + +"No, no! I want you to go. I wouldn't have you stay. Tell the boys it's +all right, and don't let them do anything rash." + +Sanderson clenched his teeth, and looked at Weaver. "Oh, they'll do +nothing rash. Now they know you're here, they won't do a thing but sit +down and be happy, I expect." + +The twins whispered together for a minute, then the boy kissed her, put +her from him suddenly, and strode away. From the door he called back two +words at the cattleman. + +"Don't forget." + +With that, he was gone. Yet a moment, and they heard the clatter of his +horse's hoofs. + +"Why did you tell him?" Phyllis asked. "It will only anger them. Now +they will seek vengeance on you." + +The man shrugged his shoulders. "Search me. Perhaps I wanted to prove to +myself that a man may be a mean bully, and not all coyote. Perhaps I +wanted to get under his hide. Who knows?" + +She knew, in part. He had treated her abominably, and wanted blindly to +pay for it in the first way that came to his mind. Half savage as he +sometimes was, that way had been to stand up to personal punishment, to +invite retaliation from his enemies. + +"You must have your face looked to. Shall I call Josephine?" + +"No," he answered harshly. + +"I think I will. We can help it, I'm sure." + +That "we" saved the day. He let her call the Mexican woman, and order +warm water, towels, dressings, and adhesive plaster. It seemed to him +more than a fancy that there was healing in the cool, soft fingers which +washed his face and adjusted the bandages. His eyes, usually so hard, +held now the dumb hunger one sees in those of a faithful dog. They +searched hers for something which he knew he would never find in them. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY + + +A man lay on the top of Flat Rock, stretched at supple ease. By his side +was a carbine; in his hand a pair of field glasses. These last had been +trained upon Twin Star Ranch for some time, but were now focused upon a +pair of approaching riders. At the edge of the young willow grove the +two dismounted and came forward leisurely. + +"Looks like the mountains are coming to Mahomet this trip," the watcher +told himself. + +One figure was that of a girl--a brown, light-stepping nymph, upon whom +the checkered sunlight filtered through the leaves. The other was a +finely built man, strong as an ox, but with the sap of youth still in +his blood and the spring of it in his step, in spite of his nearly +twoscore years. He stopped at the foot of Flat Rock, and turned to his +companion. + +"I've been wondering why you went riding with me yesterday and again +to-day, Miss Phyllis. I reckon I've hit on the reason." + +"I like to ride." + +"Yes, but I expect you don't like to ride with me so awful much." + +"Yet you see I do," answered the girl with her swift, shy smile. + +"And the reason is that you know I would be riding, anyway. You don't +want any of your people from the hills to use me as a mark. With you +along, they couldn't do it." + +"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to +send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred. + +He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled +significantly. + +She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him. + +"And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He +grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion +tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does +her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a +dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?" + +"Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them." + +"You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not +for the sake of the coyote." + +"I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said +that. Please!" + +"All right--I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that +hurts." + +"I don't think it." + +"You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't +dodge. You know you think I'm a bully." + +"I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing. + +"Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the +story?" + +"No. I'll listen, if you will tell me." + +Weaver shook his head. "No--I guess that wouldn't be playing fair. +You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to +that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me--most of +it, at least--I sure enough deserve." + +"I wonder," she mused, smiling at him. + +Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom +Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in +bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide +her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk +of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed +heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even +though, at the same time, it terrified her. + +Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give +me the same certificate of character. And I reckon they ain't so far +out, either," he added grimly. + +"Perhaps they are all right, and yet all wrong too." + +He looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?" + +"Maybe they don't see the other side of you" said Phyllis gently. + +"How do you know there's another side?" + +"I don't know how, but I do." + +"I reckon it must be a right puny one." + +"It has a good deal to fight against, hasn't it?" + +"You're right it has. There's a devil in me that gets up on its hind +legs and strangles what little good it finds. But it certainly beats me +how you know so much that goes on inside a sweep like me." + +"You forget. I'm not very good myself. You know my temper runs away with +me, too." + +"You blessed lamb!" she heard him say under his breath; and the way he +said it made the exclamation half a groan. + +For her naive confession emphasized the gulf between them. Yet it +pleased him mightily that she linked herself with him as a fellow +wrongdoer. + +"I suppose you've been wondering why your people have made no attempt to +rescue you," he said presently; for he saw her eyes were turned toward +the hills beyond which lay her home. + +"I'm glad they haven't, because it must have made trouble; but I _am_ +surprised," she confessed. + +"They have tried it--twice," he told her. "First time was Saturday +morning, just before daylight. We trapped them as they were coming +through the Box Canon. I knew they would come down that way, because it +was the nearest; so I was ready for them." + +"And what happened?" Her dilated eyes were like those of a stricken doe. + +"Nothing that time. I let them see I had them caught. They couldn't go +forward or back. They laid down their arms, and took the back trail. +There was no other way to escape being massacred." + +"And the second time?" + +Buck hesitated. "There was shooting that time. It was last night. My +riders outnumbered them and had cover. We drove them back." + +"Anybody hurt?" cried Phyllis. + +"One of them fell. But he got up and ran limping to his horse, I figured +he wasn't hurt badly." + +"Was he--could you tell--" She leaned against the rock wall for support. + +"No--I didn't know him. He was a young fellow. But you may be sure he +wasn't hit mortally. I know, because I shot him myself." + +"You!" She drew back in a sudden sick horror of him. + +"Why not?" he answered doggedly. "They were shooting at me--aiming to +kill, too. I shot low on purpose, when I might have killed him." + +"Oh, I must go home--I must go home!" she moaned. + +"I've got the sheriff's orders to hold you pending an investigation. +What harm does it do you to stay here a while?" he asked doggedly. + +"Don't you see? When my father hears of it he will be furious. I made +Phil promise not to tell him. But he'll hear when he comes back. And +then--there will be trouble. He'll drag me from you, or he'll die +trying. He's that kind of man." + +A pebble rolled down the face of the wall against which she leaned. +Weaver looked up quickly--to find himself covered by a carbine. + +"Hands up, seh! No--don't reach for a gun." + +"So it's you, Mr. Keller! Homesteading up there, I presume?" + +"In a way of speaking. You remember I asked you a question." + +"And I told you to go to Halifax." + +"Well, I came back to answer the question myself. You're going to turn +the young lady loose." + +"If you say so." Weaver's voice carried an inflection of sarcasm. + +"That's what I say. Miss Sanderson, will you kindly unbuckle that belt +and round up the weapons of war? Good enough! I'll drift down that way +now myself." + +Keller lowered himself from Flat Rock, keeping his prisoner covered as +carefully as he could the while. But, though Keller came down the steep +bluff with infinite pains, the rough going offered a chance of escape to +one so reckless as Weaver, of which he made not the least attempt to +avail himself. Instead, he smiled cynically and waited with his hand in +the air, as bidden. Keller, coming forward with both eyes on his +prisoner, slipped on a loose boulder that rolled beneath his foot, +stumbled, and fell, almost at the feet of the cattleman. He got up as +swiftly as a cat. Weaver and his derisive grin were in exactly the same +position. + +Keller lowered his carbine instantly. This plainly was no case for the +coercion of arms. + +"We'll cut out the gun play," he said. "Better rest the hand that's +reaching for the sky. I expect hostilities are over." + +"You certainly had me scared stiff," Weaver mocked. + +From the first roll of the pebble that had announced the presence of a +third party, Phyl had experienced surprise after surprise. She had +expected to see one of the Seven Mile boys or her brother instead of +Keller--had looked with a quaking heart for the cattleman to fling back +the swift challenge of a bullet. His tame surrender had amazed her, +especially when Keller's fall had given him a chance to seize the +carbine. His drawling, sarcastic badinage pointed to the same +conclusion. Evidently he had no desire to resist. Behind this must be +some purpose which she could not fathom. + +"Elected yourself chaperon of the young lady, have you, Mr. Keller?" +Buck asked pleasantly. + +The young man smiled at the girl before he answered. "You've been +losing too much time on the job, Mr. Weaver. Subject to her approval, I +got a notion I'd take her back home." + +"Best place for her," assented Weaver promptly. "I've been thinking for +a day or two that she ought to get back to those school kids of hers. +But I'm going to take her there myself." + +"Yourself!" Phyllis spoke up in quick surprise. + +"Why not?" The cattleman smiled. + +"Do you mean with your band of thugs?" + +"No, ma'am. You and I will be enough." + +The suggestion was of a piece with his usual audacity. The girl knew +that he would be quite capable of riding with her into the hills, where +he had a score of bitter, passionate enemies, and of affronting them, if +the notion should come into his head, even in their stronghold. Within +twenty-four hours he had shot one of them; yet he would go among them +with his jaunty, mocking smile and that hateful confidence of his. + +"You would not be safe. They might kill you." + +"Would that gratify you?" + +"Yes!" she cried passionately. + +He bowed. "Anything to give pleasure to a lady." + +"No--you can't go! I won't go with you. I wouldn't be responsible for +what might happen." + +"What might happen--another family impulse?" + +"You know as well as I do--after what you've done. And there's bad blood +between you already. Besides, you are so reckless, so intemperate in +what you say and do." + +"All right. If you won't go with me, I'll go alone," he said. + +She appealed to Keller to support her, but the latter shook his head. + +"No use. A wilful man must have his way. If he says he's going, I reckon +he'll go. But whyfor should I be euchred out of my ride. Let me go along +to keep the peace." + +Her eyes thanked him. "If you are sure you can spare the time." + +"Don't incommode yourself, if you're in a hurry. We won't miss you." +Weaver's cold stare more than hinted that three would be a crowd. + +The younger man ignored him cheerfully. "Time to burn, Miss Sanderson." + +"You don't want to let that spring plowing suffer," the cattleman +suggested ironically. + +"That's so. Glad you mentioned it. I'll try to pick up some one to do it +at the store," returned the optimist. + +"Seems to me there are a pair of us, Mr. Keller, who may not be welcome +at Seven Mile. Last time you were down there, weren't you the guest of +some willing lads who were arranging a little party for you?" + +"Mr. Weaver," reproached Phyllis, flushing. + +But the reference did not embarrass the nester in the least. He laughed +hardily, meeting his rival eye to eye. "The boys did have notions, but +I expect maybe they have got over them." + +"Nothing like being hopeful. Now I'd back my show against yours every +day in the week." + +The girl handed his revolver back to Weaver, after first asking a +question of the homesteader with her eyes. + +"Oh, I get my hardware back, do I?" Buck grinned. + +Keller brought his horse round from back of Flat Rock, where it had been +picketed. They started at once, cutting across the plain to a flat +butte, which thrust itself out from the hills into the valley. Two hours +of steady travel brought them to the butte, behind which lay Seven Mile +ranch. + +At the first glimpse of the roofs shining in the golden sunlight Phyllis +gave a cry of delight. + +"Home again. I wonder whether Father's here." + +"I wonder," echoed Weaver grimly. + +"That little fellow riding into the corral is one of my scholars," she +told them. + +"One of the fourteen that loves you, Miss Going-On-Eighteen. My, +there'll be joy in Israel over the lost that is found. I reckon by +to-morrow you'll be teaching the young idea how to shoot." He glanced +down at his bandaged arm with a malicious grin. + +Phyllis looked at him without speaking. It was Keller who made +application of the remark. + +"There are others here beside her pupils. Some of them are right quick +and straight on the shoot, Mr. Weaver. Now you've seen Miss Sanderson +home, there's still time to make your getaway without trouble. How about +hitting the trail while travelling is good, seh?" + +"What's the matter with you taking your own advice, Keller?" + +"I don't figure the need is pressing in my case. Different with you." + +"I told you I would back my chances against yours. Well, I'm standing +pat on that." + +"The road will be open to me to-morrow. I wonder will it be open to you +then." + +"My friend, who elected you guardeen to Buck Weaver?" drawled the big +man carelessly. + +"I wish you would go," Phyllis pleaded, plainly troubled over his +obstinacy. + +"Me, I always hated to disoblige a lady," Buck admitted. + +"Then go," she cried eagerly. + +"But I hate still more to go back on my word. So I'll stay." + +There was nothing more to be said. They rode forward to the ranch. +'Rastus, at the stables, raised a shout and broke for the store on the +run. + +"Hyer's Miss Phyl done come home." + +At his call light-stepping dusty men poured from the building like seeds +from a squeezed orange. There was a rush for the girl. She was lifted +from her saddle and carried in triumph to the porch. Jim Sanderson came +running from the cellar in the rear and buried her in his arms. + +She broke down and began to cry a little. "Oh, Dad--Dad, I'm so glad to +be home." + +The old Confederate veteran was close to tears himself. + +"Honey, I jes' got back from town. Phil, he done wrong not letting me +know. I come pretty nigh giving that boy the bud. Wait till I meet up +with Buck Weaver. It's him or me for suah this time." + +"No, Dad, no! You must let me explain. I've been quite safe, and it's +all over now. Everything is all right." + +"Is it?" Sanderson laughed harshly. + +"The sheriff telephoned him to keep me, but you see he brought me home." + +"Brought you home?" The sheepman's black eyes lifted quickly and met +those of his enemy. + +"So you're there, Buck Weaver. I reckon you and I will settle accounts." + +Phil and Tom Dixon had quietly circled round so as to cut off Weaver's +retreat in case he attempted one. + +"He's got the rustler with him," Tom Dixon cried quickly. + +"Goddlemighty, so he has. We'll make a clean sweep," the Southerner +cried, his eyes blazing. + +"Then you'll destroy the man who was ready to give his life for mine," +his daughter said quietly. + +"What's that? How's that, Phyllie?" + +"It's a long story. I want you to hear it all. But not here." + +Her voice fell. A sudden memory had come to her of one thing at least +that she could not tell even to him--the story of that moment when she +had lain in the arms of the nester with his heart beating against her +breast. + +The old man caught her by the shoulder, holding her at arm's length, +while the deep eyes under his shaggy, grizzled brows pierced her. + +"What have you got to tell me, gyurl? Out with it!" + +But on the heels of his imperative demand came reassurance. A tide of +color poured into her face, but her eyes met his quietly. They let him +understand, more certainly than words, that all was well with his ewe +lamb. Putting her gently to one side, he strode toward his enemy. + +"What are you doing here, Buck Weaver?" + +The cattleman swept the circle of lowering faces, and laughed +contemptuously. "A man might think I wasn't welcome if he didn't know +better." + +"Oh, you're welcome--I reckon nobody on earth is more welcome right +now," retorted Sanderson grimly. "We were starting right out after you, +seh. But seeing you're here it saves trouble. Better 'light, you and +your friend, both." + +The declining sun flashed on three weapons that already covered the +cattleman. He looked easily from one to another, without the least +concern, and swung lightly from his horse. + +"Much obliged. Glad to accept your hospitality. But about this young man +here--he's not exactly a friend of mine--a mere pick-up acquaintance, in +fact. You mustn't accept him on my say-so. Of course, you know _I'm_ all +right, but I can't guarantee _him_," Buck drawled, with magnificent +effrontery. + +Phyllis spoke up unexpectedly. "_I_ can." + +Keller looked at her gratefully. It was not that he cared so much for +the certificate of character as for the friendly spirit that prompted +it. "That's right kind of you," he nodded. + +"We haven't heard yet what you are doing here, Buck Weaver," old Jim +Sanderson said, holding the cattleman with a hard and hostile eye. "And +after you've explained that, there are a few other things to make +clear." + +"Such as----" suggested the plainsman. + +"Such as keeping my daughter a captive and insulting her while she was +in your house," the father retorted promptly. + +"I held her captive because it was my right. She admitted shooting me. +Would you expect me to turn her loose, and thank her right politely for +it? I want to tell you that some folks would be right grateful because I +didn't send her to the penitentiary." + +"You couldn't send her there. No jury in Arizona would convict--even if +she were guilty," Tom Dixon broke out. + +"That's a frozen fact about the Arizona jury," the cattleman agreed, +with a swift, careless look at the boy. "Just the same, I had a license +to hold her. About the insult--well, I've got nothing to say. Nothing +except this, that I wouldn't be wearing these decorations"--he touched +the scars on his face--"if I didn't agree with you that nobody but a +sweep would have done it." + +"Everybody unanimous on that point, I reckon," said Jim Yeager promptly. + +Phyllis had been speaking to her father in a low voice. The old man +listened with no great patience, but finally nodded a concession to her +importunity. + +"We'll waive the matter of the insult just now. How about that boy you +shot up? Looks like you're a fool to come drilling in here, with him +still lying there on his bed." + +"He took his fighting chance. You ain't kicking because I played out the +game the way you-all started to play it? If you are, I'll have to say I +might have expected a sheep herder to look at it that way," Weaver +retorted insolently. + +The old man took a grip on his rising wrath. "No--we're not kicking, any +more than you've got a right to kick when we settle accounts with you." + +"As we're liable to do right shortly, now we've got you," said Dixon, +vindictively. + +"All right--go ahead with the indictment," Weaver acquiesced quietly, +ignoring the boy. + +"Keep still, Tom," Sanderson ordered, and went on with his grievance. +"You try to run this valley as if you were God Almighty. By your way of +it, a man has to come with hat in hand to ask you if he may take up land +here. The United States says we may homestead, but Buck Weaver says we +shan't. Uncle Sam says we may lease land to run sheep. Buck Weaver has +another notion of it. We're to take orders from him. If we don't he +clubs our sheep and drives off our cattle." + +"Cattle were here first," retorted Weaver. "The range is overstocked, +and they've got a prior right. Nesters in the hills here are making +money by rustling Twin Star calves. That's another thing." + +"Some of them. You'll not find any rustled calves with the Seven Mile +brand on them. And we don't recognize any prior right. We came here +legally. We intend to stay. Every time your riders club a bunch of our +sheep, we'll even up on Twin Star cattle. You take my daughter captive; +I hold you prisoner." + +"You'll be in luck if you get away from here with a whole skin," broke +out Phil. "You came here to please yourself, but you'll stay to please +us." + +"So?" Buck smiled urbanely. He was staying because he wanted to, though +they never guessed it. + +"Unbuckle his gun belt, Tom," ordered the old man. + +"Save you the trouble." Weaver unbuckled the belt and tossed it, +revolver and all, to Yeager. + +"Now, Mr. Weaver, we'll adjourn to the house." + +"Anything to oblige." + +"What about Mr. Keller?" Phyllis asked, in a low voice, of her father. + +The old man's keen, hard eyes surveyed the stranger. "Who is he? What do +you know about him?" + +As shortly as she could, she told what she knew of Keller, and how he +had rescued her from captivity. + +Her father strode forward and shook hands with the young man. + +"Make yourself at home, seh. We'll be glad to have you stay with us as +long as you can. What you have done for my daughter puts us +everlastingly in your debt." + +"Not worth mentioning. And, to be fair, I think Weaver was going to +bring her home, anyhow." + +"The way the story reached me, he didn't mention it until you had the +drop on him," answered Sanderson dryly. + +"That's right," nodded the cattleman ironically, from the porch. "You're +the curly-haired hero, Keller, and I'm the red-headed villain of this +play. You want to beware of the miscreant, Miss Sanderson, or he'll sure +do you a meanness." + +Tom Dixon eyed him frostily. "I expect you'll not do her any meanness, +Buck Weaver. From now on, you'll go one way and she'll go another. +You'll be strangers." + +"You don't say!" Buck answered, looking him over derisively, as he +passed into the house. "You're crowing loud for your size. And don't you +bet heavy on that proposition, my friend." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +TOM DIXON + + +With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls +came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay +soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint +for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that +has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to +harness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds, +who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waiting +buggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road. + +The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells--to meet the eyes of +a young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in a +good-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. It +was not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten that +one meets daily. + +"Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air of +cheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt. + +Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone--all but little Jimmie +Tryon. He rides home with me." + +"Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back," +complained the man. + +"Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank and +direct as that of a boy. + +But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way. +You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out. + +"Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly. + +"What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way ever +since----" + +He broke off. + +A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?" + +"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver." + +"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly +broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid +this. Must we thrash it out?" + +"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I +reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with +you." + +A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes +refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were +just children." + +"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?" + +"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she +pleaded. + +"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle, +and came toward her eagerly. "I love you--always have since I was +knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these +days." + +She held up a hand to keep him back. "No--we're not. I know now that +you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you." + +"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted. + +She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy +had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace. +She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother. + +"No, Tom--let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me +be just a friend." + +"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put +off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got +a right to know, and I'm going to know." + +"Yes, you have a right--but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I +didn't know my own mind then, and I do now." + +"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily. + +She was silent. + +"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!" + +"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart," +she told him gently. + +"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I +shot Weaver?" + +"You shot him from ambush." + +"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw +him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't +lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to +shoot, and I shot before----" + +"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning, +even if it was right to shoot at all--which, of course, it wasn't." + +"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a +mistake?" + +"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than +that. I can't tell you just what I mean." + +"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience. + +"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain." + +"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame +his eyes could not meet hers. + +"No--I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least +resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you +ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't +possibly marry you after that." + +The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling with +vexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness of +that scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bear +the brunt of what he had done. + +"You told me to go, and now you blame me for doing what you said," he +complained bitterly. + +She realized the weakness of his defense--that he had saved himself at +the expense of the girl he claimed to love, simply because she had +offered herself as a sacrifice in his place. She thought of another man, +who, at the risk of his life, had held back the half dozen pursuers just +to give a better chance to a girl he had not known a week. She thought +of the cattleman who had ridden gayly into this valley of enemies, +because he loved her, and was willing to face any punishment for the +wrong he had done her. Her brother, too, pointed the same moral. He had +defied the enemy, though he had been in his power. Not one of them would +have done what Tom Dixon, in his panic terror, had allowed himself to +do. But they were men, all of them--men of that stark courage that +clings to self-respect rather than to life. This youth had met the acid +test, and had failed in the assay. She had no anger toward him--only a +kindly pity, and a touch of contempt which she could not help. + +"No--I don't blame you, Tom," she told him, very kindly. "But I can't +marry you. I couldn't if you explained till Christmas. That is final. +Now let us be friends." + +She held out her hand. He looked at it through the tears of +mortification that were in his eyes, dashed it aside with an oath, swung +to the saddle, and galloped down the road. + +Phyllis gave a wistful sigh. Tears filmed her eyes. He was her first +lover, had given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the third +grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him +go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she +experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a +form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now +to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and +not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch +girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals +when she was not handy to receive them. + +"Was Tom Dixon mean to you, teacher?" + +Little five-year-old Jimmie Tryon was standing before her, feet apart, +fists knotted, and brow furrowed. She swooped upon her champion and +snatched him up for a kiss. + +"Nobody has been mean to teacher, Jimmie, you dear little kiddikins," +she cried. "It's all right, honey. Tom thinks it isn't, but before long +he'll know it is." + +"Who'll tell him?" Jimmie wanted to know anxiously. + +"Some nice girl, little curiosity box. I don't know who yet, but it will +be one of two or three I could name," she laughed. + +She harnessed the horse and hitched it to the trap in which Jimmie and +she came to school. But before she had gathered up the reins to start, +another young man strolled upon the scene. + +This one was walking and carried a rifle. + +At sight of him a glow began to burn through her dark cheeks. They had +not been alone together before since that moment when the stress of +their emotion had swept them to a meeting of warm lips and warm bodies +that had startled her by the electric pulsing of her blood. + +Her eyes could not hold to his. Shame dragged the lashes down. + +With him it was not shame. The male in him rode triumphant because he +had moved a girl to the deeps of her nature. But something in him, some +saving sense of embarrassment, of reverence for the purity and innocence +he sensed in her, made him shrink from pressing the victory. His mind +cast about for a commonplace with which to meet her. + +He held up as a trophy of his prowess two cottontails. "Who says I can't +shoot?" he wanted to know boisterously. + +"Where did you buy them?" she scoffed, faintly trying for sauciness. + +"That's a fine reward for honest virtue, after I tramped five miles to +get them for your supper," protested Keller. + +She recovered her composure quickly, as women will. + +"If they are for my supper, we'll have to ask him to ride home with +us--won't we, Jimmie? It would never do to have them reach the ranch too +late," she said, making room for Keller in the seat beside her. + +It was after she had driven several hundred yards that he said, with a +smile: "I met a young man on horseback as I was coming up. He went by me +like a streak of light. Looked like he found this a right mournful +world. You had ought to scatter sunshine and not gloom, Miss Phyllis." + +"Am I scattering gloom?" she asked demurely. + +"Not right now," he laughed. "But looks like you have been." + +She flicked a fly from the flank of her horse before she answered: "Some +people are so noticing." + +"It was hanging right heavy on him. Had the look of a man who had lost +his last friend," the young man observed meditatively. + +"Dear me! How pathetic!" + +"Yes--he sure looked like he'd rejoice to plug another cattleman. I +'most arranged to send for Buck Weaver again," said Keller calmly. + +Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that you +say?" + +"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again." + +"Yes, but you said too----" + +"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story of +yours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you was +riding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from +'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt a +mouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on a +blind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover." + +"He isn't a coyote," she objected. + +Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew how +to respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man who +would shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bear +the blame of his wrongdoing. "No--I reckon coyote is too big a name for +him," he admitted. + +"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It was +natural he should feel a grudge." + +"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. How +come you to let him do it?" + +"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun go +up, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he had +fired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazy +with fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide in +the big rocks, while I cut across toward the canon. The men saw me, and +gave chase." + +"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, with +emphasis. + +Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Of +course they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was that +somebody was riding through the chaparral." + +"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chance +to save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Keller +put the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a vent +to his feelings. + +Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of a +man game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not even +a friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could. + +"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I need +them to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty." + +"He stood by her, too," she answered, trying to keep the matter +impersonal. + +"Perhaps he wanted to make her his friend," Larrabie suggested. + +"There is no perhaps about his success," she said quietly, her gaze just +beyond the ears of her horse. The young man dared now to look at her--a +child of the sun despite her duskiness. Eagerly he awaited the deep, +lustrous eyes that would presently sweep round upon him, big and dark +and sparkling. When she turned her head, they were full of that new +womanly dignity that yet did not obscure the shy innocence. + +"Look!" Jimmie Tryon pointed suddenly to the figure of a man +disappearing from the road into the mesquite two hundred yards in front +of them. + +"That's odd. I reckon you'd better wait here, and let me investigate a +few," suggested Keller. + +"Be careful," she said anxiously. + +"It's all right. Don't worry," the young man assured her. + +He got down from the trap and dived into the underbrush, rifle in hand. +The two in the buggy waited a long time. No sound came to them from the +cactus-covered waste to indicate what was happening. When Phyllis' watch +told her that he had been gone ten minutes, a cheerful hail came from +the road in front. + +"All right. Come on." + +But it was far from all right. Keller had with him an old Mexican +herder, called Manuel Quito--a man in the employ of her father. A +bandanna was tied round his shoulder, and it was soaked with +bloodstains. He told his story with many shrugs and much excited +gesticulation. He and Jesus Menendez had been herding on Lone Pine when +riders of the Twin Star outfit had descended upon them and attacked the +sheep. He and Menendez had elected to fight, and Jesus had been shot +down; he himself had barely escaped with his life--and that not without +a wound. The cow-punchers had followed him, and continued to fire at +him, but he had succeeded in escaping. Yes--he felt sure that Menendez +was dead. Even if he had not been dead at first, they would have killed +him. + +Keller consulted Miss Sanderson silently. He knew that she was thinking +the thought that was in his own mind. It would never do to let this +story reach her father and her brother, while Buck Weaver was still in +their power. Inflamed as they already were against him, they would +surely do in hot blood that which they would repent later. Somehow, +Keller and she must hold back the news until they could contrive a way +to free the cattleman. + +"Best leave Manuel at the Tryon place till morning. They will look out +for him as well as you can. That will give us twelve hours to work +before they hear what has happened." + +"But what about poor Jesus, lying out there alone?" + +"We'll get Bob Tryon to drive out. But you needn't worry about Jesus. If +they found him still living, the Twin Star boys will attend to him just +as kindly as we could. Cowboys have tender hearts, even though they go +off at half cock." + +They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under the +care of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silence +until morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to be +no reason why he should not do well. + +It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He was +confined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of the +riders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if a +better chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended upon +the possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, while +Phyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner. + +The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. One +thing was sure--if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemies +before the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, his +chance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood of +the South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strike +first and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swift +blow would be a deadly one. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE ESCAPE + +For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch +by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her +bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one. + +In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along +the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened +one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a +trip hammer. + +Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in +the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal. +Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence. + +But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the +dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so +often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To +judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged. + +The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner +and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the +moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom +stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into +the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what +cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite +on the other side of the road. + +Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key +to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it +behind her. + +"Where are you?" her young voice breathed. + +"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?" + +She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you +tied?" + +"Yes--hands and feet." + +A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a +few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the +door opened and a head was thrust in. + +"What's the row, Tom?" + +Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing +began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about." + +But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the +fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched. + +"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the +cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows. + +They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged +from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the +cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting. + +"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her. + +She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He +would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in +his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers. + +"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as +not to arouse suspicion." + +"But tell me--what does it mean?" demanded Buck. + +"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave +this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost." + +With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an +apparition of terror to learn what was wrong. + +She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log +cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing, +and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions. + +"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of +excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp. +Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over. +This moment she chose for her entrance. + +"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the +doorway. + +"He's got away--we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously. + +"But--how?" + +"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By +God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore. + +Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and +coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too, +fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?" + +"Nothing--except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools," +snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner--that's what's the matter." + +Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought +you kept him guarded." + +"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil. + +"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly. + +"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a +meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers +answered that the prisoner was safe so far. + +"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm. +"Sounded like a battle--and when we got there not a soul could be found. +Beats me how they got away so slick." + +Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to +be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she +had been told to do. + +She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head +quickly when she entered. + +"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity," +he began. + +"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one +of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man +as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a +neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves +on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid--we were +both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller +slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to +draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail +above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all." + +"But what am I to do here?" + +"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go, +the chances are they would have caught you again." + +"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?" + +"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the +sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to +escape the law that has been written?" + +"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life." + +"I don't want blood on the hands of my people." + +"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his +old sneer. + +She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor +Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a +punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict +it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them." + +"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a +wolfish Amalekite. Come--the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the +reapers." + +He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended +to block the way. + +"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when +the news comes." + +"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his +derisive smile. + +"You do nothing but mock--at your own death, at that of others. But you +shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little +wildly. + +"If you put it that way----" + +"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend +to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back +to them out of spite or dare-deviltry." + +"Just as you say." + +"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all +our lives are planned for your amusement." + +"I wish yours were planned----" He pulled himself up short. "You're +right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in +your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do." + +"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you. +You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and +you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance +for you to get away." + +"But I'll be driving you out," he protested. + +"I'm going to sleep with Anna--the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs. +Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the +door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else +knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear." + +"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a +low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the +decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is +that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of +this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a +chance to prove them." + +She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And +with that she left him to himself. + +Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but +they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her, +and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism +to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly. + +The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her +again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to +find her in the passage with a tray of food. + +"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot--just what +happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys +are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry. +Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the +tray on the table. + +Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up +her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great +fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her +hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the +passage and down the back stairs. + +He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as +silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and +charm, was not--could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the +road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him. + +How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray +morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his +absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance. + +He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the +threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him. + +"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked. + +The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not +think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming +accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She +let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology. + +"It's Phil, isn't it?" + +There was no way out of it. "No--it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll +explain," said Buck Weaver. + +Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the +stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young +mistress. + +"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost." + +"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room." + +"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply. + +"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought--oh, I don't +know what I thought." + +Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very +curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in +everybody's business. + +"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly. + +"I don't think. I saw him." + +"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of +gentle scorn. + +"No--he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure." + +"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go +and see myself. You stay here." + +She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I +wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now, +when everybody is excited over the escape of that man." + +"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl +maintained obstinately. + +"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me." + +Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from +Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had +been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she +eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she +could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to +her to save the man in her room. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A MISTAKE + + +At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the +sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The +Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they +could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made +an end of him. + +Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of +the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go +to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate +might have in store. + +When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to +leave. + +She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there, +rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after +the breakfast. + +"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a +sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away." + +"I promise," he told her. + +She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face +was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it. + +"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read, +without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see." + +"Oh, I hope not--I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You _will_ be +careful, won't you?" + +"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me." + +Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front +door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins. + +"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens----" + +"But it won't. Why should it?" + +"Anna knows. She blundered upon him." + +"Will she keep it quiet?" + +"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the +boys." + +"All right," he nodded. + +"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said +piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so. + +He shook his head. "No--you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will +be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going +to be on the job all day." + +"You're so good!" + +"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the +dust robe, without looking at her. + +But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of +hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in +her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence +and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed +himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing +him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver--and never to +his disadvantage. + +He talked with a drawl. He walked and rode with an air of languid ease. +But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so +gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force +in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good +humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he +had won her. But the touch of affection in his manner never suggested +weakness. + +From the porch Tom Dixon watched her departure sullenly. Since he could +not have her, he let himself grow jealous of the man who perhaps could. +And because he was what he was--a small man, full of vanity and +conceit--he must needs make parade of himself with another girl in the +role of conquering squire. Larrabie smiled as the young fellow went off +for a walk in obviously confidential talk with Anna Allan, but he +learned soon that it was no smiling matter. + +Half an hour later, the girl came flying back along the trail the two +had taken. Catching sight of Keller, she ran across to him, plainly +quivering with excitement and fluttering with fears. + +"Oh, Mr. Keller--I've done it now! I didn't think----I thought--" + +"Take it easy," soothed the young man, with one of his winning smiles. +"Now, what is it you have done?" Already his eyes had picked out Dixon +returning, not quite so impetuously, along the trail. + +"I told him about the man in Phyllis' room." + +Larrabie's eyes narrowed and grew steely. "Yes?" + +"I told him--I don't know why, but I never could keep a secret. I made +him promise not to tell. But he is going to tell the boys. There he +comes now. And I told Phyllis I wouldn't tell!" Anna began to cry, +miserably aware that she had made a mess of things. + +"I just begged him not to tell--and he had promised. But he says it's +his duty, and he's going to do it. Oh, Mr. Keller--if Mr. Weaver is +there they will hurt him, and I'll be to blame." + +"Yes, you will be," he told her bluntly. "But we may save him yet--if +you can go about your business and keep your mouth shut." + +"Oh, I will--I will," she promised eagerly. "I'll not say a word--not to +anybody." + +"See that you don't. Now, run along home. I'm going to have a quiet +little talk with that young man. Maybe I can persuade him to change his +mind," he said grimly. + +"Please--if you could. I don't want to start any trouble." + +Larrabie grinned, without taking his eyes from the man coming down the +trail. It was usually some good-natured idiot, with a predisposition to +gabbling, that made most of the trouble in the world. + +"Well, you be a good girl and padlock your tongue. If you do, I'll fix +it up with Tom," he promised. + +He sauntered forward toward the path. Dixon, full of his news, was +hurrying to the ranch. He was eager to tell it to the Sandersons, +because he wanted to reinstate himself in their good graces. For, though +neither of them knew he had fired the shot that wounded Weaver, he had +observed a distinct coolness toward him for his desertion of Phyllis in +her time of need. It had been all very well for him to explain that he +had thought it best to hurry home to get help. The fact remained that he +had run away and left her alone. + +Now he was for pushing past Keller with a curt nod, but the latter +stopped him with a lift of the hand. + +"What's your sweat?" + +"Want to see me, do you?" + +Keller nodded easily. + +"All right. Unload your mind. I can't give you but a minute." + +"Press of business on to-day?" + +"It's _my_ business." + +"I'm going to make it mine." + +"What do you mean?" came the quick, suspicious retort. + +"Let's walk back up the trail and talk it over." + +"No." + +"Yes." + +Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won. + +"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly. + +"We can, but we won't." + +"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail." + +"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man--a +brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes. + +Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did +not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about +this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour +without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he +stopped. + +"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed, +attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession. + +"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the +American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope--no, +sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused +aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch. + +Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn +foolishness?" + +"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and +me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a +thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His +voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his +eyes that showed him prepared for any move. + +So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral +Keller nailed him in a dozen strides. + +"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business +to keep me here." + +"I'm doing it for pleasure, say." + +The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and +twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. +Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of +his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and +stepped back. + +"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that +gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed. + +"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take +a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver." + +"What--what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told +you that lie." + +He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the +face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to +pay for it. + +"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's +been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand +the gaff for you. Now it's due." + +"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said +that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize----" + +"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take +it." + +Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his +opponent by twenty pounds--a husky, well-built fellow; but he was +entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten +man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he +took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as +did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from +the marrow out. + +Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight +in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But +now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing +blows. + +Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see +nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed +out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left, +came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one +hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to +clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an +uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man. + +"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned. + +"Sure of that?" + +"You've pretty near killed me." + +Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to +that apology now, my friend." + +With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I +didn't mean--I hadn't ought to have said----" + +Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know +better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on +the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a +fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother. +It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But +when you said she lied to me, that's another matter." + +For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not +leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story +would be kept secret. + +"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they +would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover. +'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly. + +"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly. + +"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" +Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil +and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for +leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done +the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more +than talk. + +"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about +it, and hear the particulars." + +"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know, +she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his +feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief. + +"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully. +"You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my +little spiel." + +"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can +see. I'd rather they didn't know." + +"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where +Buck is right now." + +Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not +persuaded. + +"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them +both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?" + +Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though +his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one. + +"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly. + +"No--I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie. + +The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll +close-herd both stories, then." + +"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry. +Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied." + +But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but +mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so. +If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could +not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against +submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole +story of the thrashing would be bound to come out. + +"I can't go down looking like this," he growled. + +"Do you have to go down?" + +"Have to get my horse, don't I?" + +"I'll bring it to you." + +"And say nothing about--what has happened?" + +"I don't care to talk of it any more than you do. I'll be a clam." + +"All right--I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed +tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms. + +Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of +Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be +depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse, +tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the +wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had +to come down and saddle the latter's mount. + +He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before +he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks +the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others +in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat +stamp. + +This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding +foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a +deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now +its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung +again to the saddle, and continued on his way. + +The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not hear him coming +as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand +something that clicked. + +Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like +tempered steel. + +"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I +reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty." + +Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked +up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from +him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun, +ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?" + +"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this +one, to save you trouble." + +He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of +the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his +side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie. + +For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with +him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that +indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve +to pit himself against such a man as this. + +"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're +trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly. + +"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is +between us two. It won't go any further." + +Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen +out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked +its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a +leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the +hill and disappeared. + +Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of +one who lives much alone. + +"There's a _nice_ young man--yellow clear through. Queer thing she could +ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good +looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely +he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against +the acid test, then." + +His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice +plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks. + +"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself +till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a +dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering. +Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind +hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is +headed for the pen mighty fast." + +He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION + + +Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him +pass the time. + +This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect +something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed +prints on the walls--cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs +were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To +the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such +frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were +circumscribed by the purse limitation. + +Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse +by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr +Song." + + I know by the stir of the branches, + The way she went; + And at times I can see where a stem + Of the grass is bent. + She's the secret and light of my life, + She allures to elude; + But I follow the spell of her beauty, + Whatever the mood. + +"Knows what he's talking about--some poet, that fellow," Buck cried +aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into +words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost +in his discovery. + +It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a +gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It +was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke. +Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose +tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind. +From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza. + +"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No +risk at all, looks to me." + +With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close +to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being +seen. + +The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed, +and went back to reading. + +The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was +upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on +another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco +into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again +puffing in pleasant serenity. + +Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar. + +Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his +mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was +that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole +through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had +plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of +the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he +must have been up in a balloon. + +The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his +pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray +cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat +had reached the powder. + +By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along +the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob, +the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices. + +"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin. + +The fat was surely in the fire now. + +Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door +was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply. + +Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old +Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher +known as Cuffs. All of them were armed. + +"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked. + +"So you're here, are you?" spoke up Phil. + +"That's right. I'm here, sure enough." + +"How long you been here?" + +"Been hanging round the place ever since my escape. You kept so close a +watch I couldn't make my getaway. Some time the other side of noon I +drifted in here, figuring some of you would drive me from cover by +accident during the day if I stayed out in the chaparral. This room +looked handy, so I made myself right at home and locked the door. I hate +to shoot up a lady's boudoir, but looks like that's what I've done." + +"You durn fool! Who were you shooting at?" Phil asked contemptuously. + +But his father stepped forward, and with a certain austere dignity, more +menacing than threats, took the words out of the mouth of his son. + +"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil." + +Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the +imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission +in a lady's room," he admitted humorously. + +A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had +been running. It was Keller. + +That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw +him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition, +and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for +him last night. + +"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly. + +They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old +sheepman waved his hand toward a chair. + +"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the +mantel. + +He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had +already condemned him to death. The quiet repression they imposed on +themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to +another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil +were unusually tall men--as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of +shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men, +but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose. + +"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay. + +"Made up your mind, have you?" + +"Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus +Menendez." + +"A bad break, that--and me a prisoner here. Some of the boys had been +out on the range a week. I reckon they didn't know I was the rat in your +trap." + +"So much the worse for you." + +"Looks like," Weaver nodded. Then he added, almost carelessly: "I expect +there wouldn't be any use mentioning the law to you? It's here to +punish the man that shot Menendez." + +"Not a bit of use. You own the sheriff and half the juries in this +county. Besides, we've got the man right here that is responsible for +the killing of poor Jesus." + +"Oh! If you look at it that way, of course----" + +"That's the way to look at it I don't blame your riders any more than I +blame the guns they fired. _You_ did that killing." + +"Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles +away." + +"That makes no difference." + +"Seems to me it makes some," suggested Keller, speaking for the first +time. "His riders may have acted contrary to orders. He surely did not +give any specific orders in this case." + +"His actions for months past have been orders enough," said Cuffs. + +"You'd better investigate before you take action," Larrabie urged. + +"We've done all the investigating we're going to do. This man has set +himself up like a czar. I'm not going through the list of it all, but he +has more than reached the limit months ago. He's passed it now. He's got +to die, by gum," the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars. + +"We all have to do that. Just when does my time come?" Weaver asked. + +"Now," cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath. + +Phil swallowed hard. He had grown white beneath the tan. The thing they +were about to do seemed awful to him. + +"Good God! You're not going to murder him, are you?" protested Larrabie. + +"He murdered poor Jesus Menendez, didn't he?" + +"You mean you're going to shoot him down in cold blood?" + +"What's the matter with hanging?" Slim asked brutally. + +"No," spoke up Keller quickly. + +The old man nodded agreement. "No--they didn't hang Menendez." + +"Your sheep herder died--if he died at all, and we have no proof of +it--with a gun in his hands," Larrabie said. + +"That's right," admitted Phil quickly. "That's right. We got to give him +a chance." + +"What sort of a chance would you like to give him?" Sanderson asked of +the boy. + +"Let him fight for his life. Give him a gun, and me one. We'll settle +this for good and all." + +The eyes of the old Confederate gleamed, though he negatived the idea +promptly. + +"That wouldn't be a square deal, Phil. He's our prisoner, and he has +killed one of our men. It wouldn't be right for one of us to meet him on +even terms." + +"Give me a gun, and I'll meet all of you!" cried Weaver, eyes gleaming. + +"By God, you're on! That's a sporting proposition," Sanderson retorted +promptly. "Lets us out, too. I don't fancy killing in cold blood, +myself. Of course we'll get you, but you'll have a run for your money +first, by gum." + +"Maybe you'll get me, and maybe you won't. Is this little vendetta to be +settled with revolvers, or rifles?" + +"Make it rifles," Phil suggested quickly. + +There was always a chance that, if the battle were fought at long range, +the cattleman might reach the hill canons in safety. + +Keller was helpless. He lived in a man's world, where each one fought +for his own head and took his own fighting chance. Weaver had proposed +an adjustment of the difficulty, and his enemies had accepted his offer. +Even if the Sandersons would have tolerated further interference, the +cattleman would not. + +Moreover Keller's hands were tied as to taking sides. He could not fight +by the side of the owner of the Twin Star Ranch against the father and +brother of Phyllis. There was only one thing to do, and that offered +little hope. He slipped quietly from the room and from the house, swung +to the back of a horse he found saddled in the place and galloped wildly +down the road toward the schoolhouse. + +Phyllis had much influence over her father. If she could reach the +scene in time, she might prevent the duel. + +His pony went up and down the hills as in a moving-picture play. + +Meanwhile terms of battle were arranged at once, without haggling on +either side. Weaver was to have a repeating Winchester and a belt full +of cartridges, the others such weapons as they chose. The duel was to +start with two hundred and fifty yards separating the combatants, but +this distance could be increased or diminished at will. Such cover as +was to be found might be used. + +"Whatever's right suits me," the cattleman said. "I can't say more than +that you are doing handsomely by me. I reckon I'll make that declaration +to some of your help, if you don't mind." + +The horse wrangler and the Mexican waiter were sent for, and to them the +owner of the place explained what was about to occur. Their eyes stuck +out, and their chins dropped, but neither of the two had anything to +say. + +"We're telling you boys so you may know it's all right. I proposed this +thing. If I'm shot, nobody is to blame but myself. Understand?" Weaver +drove the idea home. + +The wrangler got out an automatic "Sure," and Manuel an amazed "_Si, +senor_," upon which they were promptly retired from the scene. + +Having prepared and tested their weapons, the parties to the difficulty +repaired to the pasture. + +"I'd like to try out this gun, if you don't mind. It's a new +proposition to me," the cattleman said. + +"Go to it," nodded Slim, seating himself tailor-fashion on the ground +and rolling a cigarette. He was a black, bilious-tempered fellow, but +this particular kind of gameness appealed to him. + +Weaver glanced around, threw the rifle to his shoulder, and fired +immediately. A chicken, one hundred and fifty yards away, fell over. + +"Accidents will happen," suggested Slim. + +"That accident happened through the neck, you'll find," Weaver retorted +calmly. + +"Betcher." + +Buck dropped another rooster. + +"You ain't happy unless you're killing something of ours," Slim grinned. +"Well, if you're satisfied with your gun, we'll go ahead and see how +good you are on humans." + +They measured the distance, and Sanderson called: "Are you ready?" + +"I reckon," came back the answer. + +The father gave the signal--the explosion of a revolver. Even as it +flashed, Buck doubled up like a jack rabbit and leaped for the shelter +of a live oak, some thirty yards distant. Four rifles spoke almost at +the same instant, so that between the first and the last not a second +intervened. One of them cracked a second time. But the runner did not +stop until he reached the tree and dropped behind its spreading roots. + +"Hunt cover, boys!" the father gave orders. "Don't any of you expose +yourself. We'll have to outflank him, but we'll take our time about it." + +He got this out in staccato jerks, the last part of it not until all +were for the moment safe. The strange thing was that Weaver had not +fired once as they scurried for shelter, even though Phil's foot had +caught in a root and held him prisoner for an instant while he freed it. +But as they began circling round him carefully, he fired--first at one +of them and then at another. His shooting was close, but not one of them +was hit. Recalling the incident of the chickens, this seemed odd. In +Slim's phrasing, he did not seem to be so good on "humans." + +Behind his live oak, Buck was so well protected that only a chance shot +could reach him before his enemies should outflank him. How long that +would have taken nobody ever found out; for an intervention occurred in +the form of a flying Diana, on horseback, taking the low fence like a +huntress. + +It was Phyllis, hatless, her hair flying loose--a picture long to be +remembered. Straight as an arrow she rode for Weaver, flung herself from +the saddle, and ran forward to him, waving her handkerchief as a signal +to her people to cease firing. + +"Thank God, I'm in time!" she cried, her voice deep with feeling. Then, +womanlike, she leaned against the tree, and gave way to the emotion that +had been pent within her. + +Buck patted her shoulders with awkward tenderness. + +"Don't you! Don't you!" he implored. + +Her collapse lasted only a short time. She dried her tears, and stilled +her sobs. "I must see my father," she said. + +The old man was already hurrying forward, and as he ran he called to his +boys not to shoot. Phyl would not move a single step of the way to meet +him, lest they take advantage of her absence to keep up the firing. + +"How under heaven did you get here?" Buck asked her. + +"Mr. Keller came to meet me. I took his horse, and he is bringing the +buggy. I heard firing, so I cut straight across," she explained. + +"You shouldn't have come. You might have been hit." + +She wrung her hands in distress. "It's terrible--terrible! Why will you +do such things--you and them?" she finished, forgetting the careful +grammar that becomes a schoolmarm. + +Buck might have told her--but he did not--that he had carefully avoided +hitting any of her people; that he had determined not to do so even if +he should pay for his forbearance with his life. What he did say was an +apologetic explanation, which explained nothing. + +"We were settling a difference of opinion in the old Arizona way, Miss +Phyl." + +"In what way? By murdering my father?" she asked sharply. + +"He's covering ground right lively for a dead one," Buck said dryly. + +"I'm speaking of your intentions. You can't deny you would have done +it." + +"Anyhow, I haven't denied it." + +Sanderson, almost breathless, reached them, caught the girl by the +shoulders, and shook her angrily. + +"What do you mean by it? What are you doing here? Goddlemighty, girl! +Are you stark mad?" + +"No, but I think all you people are." + +"You'll march home to your room, and stay there till I come." + +"No, father."' + +"Yes, I say!" + +"I must see you--alone." + +"You can see me afterward. We'll do no talking till this business is +finished." + +"Why do you talk so? It won't be finished--it can't," she moaned. + +"We'll attend to this without your help, my girl." + +"You don't understand." Her voice fell to the lowest murmur. "He came +here for me." + +"For you-all?" + +"Oh, don't you see? He brought me back here because he--cared for me." A +tide of shame flushed her cheeks. Surely no girl had ever been so +cruelly circumstanced that she must tell such things before a lover, +who had not declared himself explicitly. + +"Cared for you? As a wolf does for a lamb!" + +"At first, maybe--but not afterward. Don't you see he was sorry? +Everything shows that." + +"And to show that he was sorry, he had poor Jesus Menendez killed!" + +"No--he didn't know about that till I told him." + +"Till _you_ told him?" + +"Yes. When I freed him and took him to my room." + +"So you freed him--_and took him to your room?_" She had never heard her +father speak in such a voice, so full at once of anger and incredulous +horror. + +"Don't look at me like that, father! Don't you see--can't you see----Oh, +why are you so cruel to me?" She buried her face in her forearm against +the rock. + +Her father caught her arm so savagely that a spasm of pain shot through +her. "None of that! Give me the truth. Now--this instant!" + +Anger at his injustice welled up in her. "You've had the truth. I knew +of the attack on the sheep camp--heard of it on the way home from +school, from Manuel. Do you think I've lived with you eighteen years for +nothing? I knew what you would do, and I tried to save you from +yourself. There was no place where he would be safe but in my room. I +took him there, and slept with Anna. I did right. I would do it again." + +"Slept with Anna, did you?" + +She felt again that furious tide of blood sweep into her face. "Yes. +From the time of the shooting." + +"Goddlemighty, gyurl, I wisht you'd keep out of my business." + +"And let you do murder?" + +"Why did you save him? Because you love him?" demanded Sanderson +fiercely. + +"Because I love _you_. But you're too blind to see it." + +"And him--do you love him? Answer me!" + +"No!" she flamed. "But if I did, I would be loving a man. He wouldn't +take odds of five to one against an enemy." + +Her father's great black eyes chiselled into hers. "Are you lying to me, +girl?" + +Weaver spoke out quietly. "I expect _I_ can answer that, Mr. Sanderson. +Your daughter has given me to understand that I'm about as mean a thing +as God ever made." + +But Phyl was beyond caution now. Her resentment against her father, for +that he had forced her to drag out the secret things of her heart and +speak of them in the presence of the man concerned, boiled into +words--quick, eager, full of passion. + +"I take it all back then--every word of it!" she cried. "You are +braver, kinder, more generous to me than my own people--more chivalrous. +You would have gone to your death without telling them that I took you +to my room. But my own father, who has known me all my life, insults me +grossly." + +"I was wrong," Sanderson admitted uneasily. + +Keller climbed the pasture fence, and came running up at the same time +as Phil and Slim. + +"Menendez is alive!" he cried. "He is at the Twin Star Ranch. The boys +there are taking care of him, and the doctor says he will pull through." + +"Who told you?" + +"Bob Tryon. I met him not five minutes ago. He is on his way here." + +This put a new face on things. If Menendez were still alive, Weaver +could be held to await developments. Moreover, since the sheep herder +was a prisoner at the Twin Star Ranch, retaliation would follow any +measures taken against the cattleman. + +Phyllis gave a glad little cry. "Then it's all right now." + +Weaver's face crinkled to a leathery grin. "Mighty unfortunate--ain't +it, boys? Puts a kind of a kink in our plans for the little +entertainment we were figuring on pulling off. But maybe you've a notion +of still going on with it." + +"If we don't, it won't be on your account, seh, I don't reckon," +Sanderson answered reluctantly. + +But though he would not admit it, the old man was beginning to admire +this big fellow, who could afford to miss his enemies on purpose even in +the midst of a deadly duel. He was coming to a grudging sense of quality +in Weaver. The cattleman might be many things that were evil, but +undeniably he possessed also those qualities which on the frontier count +for more than civilized virtues. He was game to the core. And he knew +how to keep his mouth shut at the right time, no matter what it was +going to cost him. On the whole Buck Weaver would stand the acid test, +the old soldier was coming to think. And because he did not want to +believe any good of his enemy, old Jim Sanderson, when he was alone in +the corral with the horses or on a hillside driving his sheep, would +shake his gnarled fist impotently and swear fluently until his +surcharged feelings were relieved. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE BRAND BLOTTER + + +Two riders followed the trail to Yeager's Spur--one a man, brown and +forceful; the other a girl, with sunshine in her dancing eyes and a +voice full of the lilt of laughter. What they might come to be to each +other both were already speculating about, though neither knew as yet. +They were the best of friends--good comrades, save when chance eyes said +unguardedly too much. For the girl that sufficed, but it was not enough +for the man. He knew that he had found the one woman he wanted for his +wife. But Phyllis only wondered, let her thoughts rove over many things. +For instance, why queer throbs and sudden shyness swept her soft young +body. She liked Larrabie Keller--oh, so much!--but her untutored heart +could not quite tell her whether she loved him. His eyes drilled into +her electric pulsations whenever they met hers. The youth in him called +to the youth in her. She admired him. He stirred her imagination, and +yet--and yet---- + +They rode through a valley of gold and russet, all warm with yellow +sunlight. In front of them, the Spur projected from the hill ridge into +the mountain park. + +"Then I think you're a cow-puncher looking for a job, but not very +anxious to find one," she was hazarding, answering a question. + +"No. That leaves you one more guess." + +"That forces me to believe that you are what you say you are," she +mocked; "just a plain, prosaic homesteader." + +She had often considered in her mind what business might be his, that +could wait while he lingered week after week and rode trail with the +cowboys; but it had not been the part of hospitality to ask questions of +her friend. This might seem to imply a doubt, and of doubt she had none. +To-day, he himself had broached the subject. Having brought it up, he +now dropped it for the time. + +He had shaded his eyes, and was gazing at something that held his +attention--a little curl of smoke, rising from the wash in front of +them. + +"What is it?" she asked, impatient that his mind could so easily be +diverted from her. + +"That is what I'm going to find out. Stay here!" + +Rifle in hand, Keller slipped forward through the brush. His imperative +"Stay here!" annoyed her just a little. She uncased her rifle, dropped +from the saddle as he had done, and followed him through the cacti. Her +stealthy advance did not take her far before she came to the wash. + +There Keller was standing, crouched like a panther ready for the +spring, quite motionless and silent--watching now the bushes that +fringed the edge of the wash, and now the smoke spiral rising faintly +from the embers of a fire. + +Slowly the man's tenseness relaxed. Evidently he had made up his mind +that death did not lurk in the bushes, for he slid down into the wash +and stepped across to the fire. Phyllis started to follow him, but at +the first sound of slipping rubble her friend had her covered. + +"I told you not to come," he reproached, lowering his rifle as soon as +he recognized her. + +"But I wanted to come. What is it? Why are you so serious?" + +His eyes were busy making an inventory of the situation, his mind, too, +was concentrated on the thing before him. + +"Do you think it is rustlers? Is that what you mean?" she asked quickly. + +"Wait a minute and I'll tell you what I think." He finished making his +observations and returned to her. "First, I'll tell you something else, +something that nobody in the neighborhood knows but you and Jim Yeager. +I belong to the ranger force. Lieutenant O'Connor sent me here to clean +up this rustling that has been going on for several years." + +"And a lot of the boys thought you were a rustler yourself," she +commented. + +"So did one or two of the young ladies," he smiled. "But that is not the +business before this meeting. Because I'm trained to it I notice things +you wouldn't. For instance, I saw a man the other day with a horse whose +hind hoof left a trail like that." + +He pointed to one, and then another track in the soft sand. "Maybe that +might be a coincidence, but the owner of that horse had a habit of +squirting tobacco juice on clean rocks--like that--and that." + +"That doesn't prove he has been rustling." + +"No; but the signs here show he has been branding, and Buck Weaver ran +across these same marks left by a waddy who surely was making free with +a Twin Star calf." + +"How long has he been gone?" + +"There were two of them, and they've been gone about twenty minutes." + +"How do you know?" + +He pointed to a stain of tobacco juice still moist. + +"Who is he?" she asked. + +He knew her stanch loyalty to her friends, and Tom Dixon had been a +friend till very lately. He hesitated; then, without answering, made a +second thorough examination of the whole ground. + +"Come--if we have any luck, I'll show him to you," he said, returning to +her. "But you must do just as I say--must be under my orders." + +"I will," she promised. + +Forthwith, they started. After they had ridden in silence for some +distance, covering ground fast, they drew to a walk. + +"You know by the trail for where they were heading," she suggested in a +voice that was a question. + +"I guessed." + +Presently, at the entrance to a little canon, Keller swung down and +examined the ground carefully, seemed satisfied, and rode with her into +the gully. But she noticed that now he went cautiously, eyes narrowed +and wary, with the hard face and the look of a coiled spring she had +seen on him before. Her heart drummed with excitement. She was not +afraid, but she was fearfully alive. + +At the other entrance to the canon, Larrabie was down again for another +examination. What he seemed to find gave him pleasure. + +"They've separated," he told Phyllis. "We'll give our attention to the +gentleman with the calf, and let his friend go, to-day." + +They swung sharply to the north, taking a precipitous trail of shale +that Phyllis judged to be a short cut. It was rough going, but their +mountain ponies were good for anything less than a perpendicular wall. +They clambered up and down like cats, as sure-footed as wild goats. + +At the summit of the ridge, Keller pointed out something in the valley +below--a rider on horseback, driving a calf. + +"There goes Mr. Waddy, as big as coffee." + +"He's going to swing round the point. You mean to drop down the hill and +cut him off?" + +[Illustration: "DROP THAT GUN!" _Page 205_] + +"That's the plan. Better do no more talking after we pass that live +oak. See that little wash? We'll drop into it, and hide among the +cottonwoods." + +The rustler was pushing along hurriedly, driving the calf at a trot, +half the time twisted in the saddle, with anxious eyes to the rear. +Revolvers and a rifle garnished him, but quite plainly they gave him no +sense of safety. + +When the summons came to him to "Drop that gun!" it was only a +confirmation of his fears. Yet he jumped as a boy jumps under the +unexpected cut of a cane. + +The rifle went clattering to the stony trail. Without being ordered to +do so, the hands of the waddy were thrust skyward. + +"Why, it's Tom Dixon! We've made a mistake," Phyllis discovered; and +moved forward from her hiding place. + +"We've made no mistake. I told you I'd show you the rustler, and I've +shown him to you," Keller answered, as he too stepped forward. And to +Tom, whose hands dropped at sight of Phyllis: "Better keep them reaching +till I get those guns. That's right. Now, you may 'light." + +"What's got into you?" demanded Dixon, his teeth still chattering. +"Holding up a man for nothing. Take away that gun you got bent on me!" + +"You're under arrest for rustling, seh," the cattle detective told him +sternly. + +"Prove it. Prove it!" Dixon swung from the saddle, and faced the other +doggedly. + +"That calf you're driving now is rustled. You branded it less than two +hours ago in Spring Valley, right by the three cottonwoods below the +trail to Yeager's Spur." + +"How do you know?" cried the startled youth. And on the heels of that: +"It's a lie!" He was getting a better grip on his courage. He spat +defiantly a splash of tobacco juice on a flat pebble which his eye +found. "No such thing! This calf was a maverick. Ask Phyl. She'll tell +you I'm no rustler." + +Phyllis said nothing. Her gaze was very steadily on Tom. + +Keller pointed to the evidence which the hoof of the horse had printed +on the trail, and to that which the man had written on the pebble. "We +found both these signs once before. They were left by one of the +rustlers operating in this vicinity. That time it was a Twin Star brand +you blotted. You've done a poor job, for I can see there has been +another brand there. Your partner left you with the cow at the entrance +to the canon. Caught red-handed as you have been driving the calf to +your place, you'll find all this aggregates evidence enough to send you +to the penitentiary. Buck Weaver will attend to that." + +"It's a conspiracy. You and him mean to railroad me through," Tom +charged sullenly. "I tell you, Phyllis knows I'm no rustler." + +"I've known you were one ever since the day you wanted to go back and +tell where Weaver was hidden. You and your pony scattered the evidence +around then, just as you're doing here," the ranger answered. + +"You've got it cooked up to put me through," Dixon insisted desperately. +"You want to get me out of the way, so you'll have a clear track with +Phyl. Think I don't _sabe_ your game?" + +The angry color sucked into Keller's face beneath the tan. He avoided +looking at Phyllis. "We'll not discuss that, seh. But I can say that +kind of talk won't help buy you anything." + +The girl looked at Dixon in silent contempt. She was very angry, so that +for the moment her embarrassment was swamped. But she did not choose to +dignify his spleen by replying to it. + +There was no iron in Dixon's make-up. When he saw that this attack had +reacted against him, he tried whining. + +"Honest, you're wrong about this calf, Mr. Keller. I don't say, mind +you, it ain't a rustled calf. It may be; but I don't know it if it is. +Maybe the rustlers were scared off just before I happened on it." + +"We'll see how a jury looks at that. You're going to get the chance to +tell that story to one, I expect," Larrabie remarked dryly. + +"Pass it up this time, and I'll get out of the country," the youth +promised. + +"Take care! Whatever you say will be used against you." + +"Suppose I did rustle one of Buck Weaver's calves--mind, I don't say I +did--but say I did? Didn't he bust my father up in business? Ain't he +aiming to do the same by your folks, Phyl?" He was almost ready to cry. + +The girl turned her head aside, and spoke in a low voice to Keller. She +was greatly angered and disgusted at Tom; but she had been his friend, +and on this occasion there had been some justification for him in the +wrong the cattleman had done his family. + +"Do you have to report him and have him prosecuted?" + +"I'm paid to stop the rustling that has been going on," answered Keller, +in the same undertone. + +"He won't do it again. He has had his scare. It will last him a +lifetime." Even while she promised it for him, it was not without +contempt for the poor-spirited craven who could be so easily driven from +his evil ways. If a man must do wrong, let it be boldly--as Buck Weaver +did it. + +"Yes, but his pals haven't had theirs." + +"But you don't know them." + +"I can guess one man in it with him. We've got to root the thing out." + +"Why not serve warning on him by Tom? Then they would both clear out." + +Dixon divined that she was pleading for him, and edged in another word +for himself. "Whatever wrong I've done I've been driven to. There's been +an older man to lead me into it, too." + +"You mean Red Hughes?" Keller said sharply. + +Tom hesitated. He had not got to the point of betraying his accomplice. +"I ain't saying who I mean. Nor, for that matter, I ain't admitting I've +done any particular wrong--no more than other young fellows." + +Keller brought him sharply to time. "You've used your last wet blanket. +I've got the evidence that will put you behind the bars. Miss Phyllis +wants me to let you off. I can't do it unless you make a clean breast of +it. You'll either come through with what I want to know, and do as I +say, or you'll have to stand the gaff." + +"What do you want to know?" + +"How many pals had you in this rustling?" + +"You said you would use against me anything I said." + +"I say now I'll use it _for_ you if you tell the truth and meet my +conditions." + +"What are your conditions?" + +"Never mind. You'll learn them later. Answer my question. How many?" + +"One"--very sullenly. + +"Red Hughes?" + +"That's the one thing I can't tell you," the lad cried. "Don't you see I +can't?" + +"It's the one thing I don't need to know. I've got Red cinched about as +tight as you, my boy. How long has this been going on?" + +The information came from Dixon as reluctantly as a tight cork comes +from a bottle. "Nearly a year." + +Sharp, incisive questions followed, one after another; and at the end of +the quiz Tom was pumped nearly dry. Those who heard his confession +listened to the story of how and why he had first started rustling--the +tale of each exploit, the location of the mountain cache where the +calves had been driven, even the name of the Mexican buyer who once had +come across the line to receive a bunch of stolen cattle. + +Keller laid down his conditions. "You'll go to Red _muy pronto_, and +tell him he's got thirty-six hours to get across the line. He and you +will go to Sonora, and you'll stay there. We've got you dead to rights. +Show up in this country again, and you'll both go to Yuma. Understand?" + +Tom understood well enough. He writhed under it, but he was up against +the need of surrender. Sullenly he waited until the other had laid down +the law, then asked for his weapons. Keller emptied the chambers of the +cartridges, and returned the revolvers, looking also to the magazine of +the rifle before he handed it back. Without a word, without even a nod +or a glance, Dixon rode out of the gulch. + +The eyes of the remaining two met, and became tangled at once. Hastily +both pairs withdrew. + +"We'll have to drive the calf back, won't we?" said Phyllis, seizing on +the first irrelevant thing that occurred to say. + +"Yes--as far as Tryon's." + +Presently she said: "Do you think they will leave the country?" + +"No." + +Her glance swept him in surprise. "Then--why did you let him go so +easily?" + +He smiled. "Didn't you ask me to let him off?" + +"Yes; but----" How could she explain that by lapsing from his duty so far, +even at her request, he had disappointed her! + +"No, ma'am! I'm a false alarm. It wasn't out of gallantry I unroped him. +Shall I tell you why it was? I kept naming Red as his partner. But +Hughes ain't in this. He has been in Sonora for a year. When Tom goes +back all worried and tells what has happened to him, the gentleman who +is the brains for the outfit is going to be right pleased I'm following +a false trail. That's liable to make him more careless. If we had had +the evidence to cinch Dixon it would have been different. But a roan +calf is a roan calf. I don't expect the owner could swear to it, even if +we knew who he was. So I made my little play and let him go." + +"And I thought all the time you were doing it for me," she laughed, and +on the heels of it made her little confession: "And I was blaming you +for giving way." + +"I'll know now that the way to please you is not to do what you want me +to do." + +"You know a lot about girls, don't you?" she mocked. + +"Me, I'm a wiz," he agreed with her derision. + +Keller spoke absently, considering whether this might be the propitious +moment to try his luck. They had been comrades together in an adventure +well concluded. Both were thinking of what Dixon had said. It seemed to +Larrabie that it would be a wonderful thing if they might ride back +through the warm sunlight with this new miracle of her love in his life. +It was at the meeting of their fingers, when he gave her the bridle, +that he spoke. + +"I've got to say it, Miss Phyllis. I've got to know where I stand." + +She understood him of course. The touch of their eyes had warmed her +even before he began. But "Stand how?" she repeated feebly. + +"With you. I love you! We both know that. What about you? Could you care +for me? Do you?" + +Her shy, deep eyes met his fairly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I +do, and then sometimes I think I don't--that way." + +The touch of affection that made his face occasionally tender as a +woman's, lit his warm smile. + +"Couldn't you make that first sometimes always, don't you reckon, +Phyllis?" + +"Ah! If I knew! But I don't--truly, I don't. I--I want to care," she +confessed, with divine shyness. + +"That's good listening. Couldn't you go ahead on those times you do, +honey?" + +"No!" She drew back from his advance. "No--give me time. I'm--I'm not +sure--I'm not at all sure. I can't explain, but----" + +"Can't decide between me and another man?" he suggested, by way of a +joke, to lighten her objection. + +Then, in a flash, he knew that by accident he had hit the truth. The +startled look of doubt in her eyes told him. Perhaps she had not known +it herself before, but his words had clarified her mind. There was +another man in the running--one not to be thrust aside easily. + +Phyllis' first impulse was to be alone. She turned her face away and +busied herself with a stirrup leather. + +"Don't say anything more now--please. I'm such a little goose! I don't +know--yet. Won't you wait and--forget it till--say, till next week?" + +He promised to wait, but he did not promise to forget it. As they rode +home, he made cheerful talk on many subjects; but the one in both their +minds was that which had been banned. Every silence was full charged +with it. Its suppression ran like quicksilver through every spoken +sentence. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A WATERSPOUT + + +Almost imperceptibly, Buck Weaver's relation to his jailers changed. It +was still understood that their interests differed, but the personal +bitterness was largely gone. He went riding occasionally with the boys, +rather as a guest than as a prisoner. + +At any time he might have escaped, but for a tacit understanding that he +would stay until Menendez was strong enough to be sent home from the +Twin Star. + +One pleasure, however, was denied him. He saw nothing of Phyllis, save +for a distant glimpse or two when she was starting to school or +returning from a ride with Larrabie Keller. He knew that her father and +her brother were studiously eliminating him, so far as she was +concerned. Certain events had been of a nature to induce whispered +gossip. Fortunately, such gossip had been nipped in the bud. They +intended that there should be no revival of it. + +Weaver had sent word to the riders of the Twin Star that there was to be +nothing doing in the matter of the feud until his return. + +He had at the same time ordered from them a change of linen, a box of +his favorite cigars, and certain papers to be found in his desk. These +in due time were delivered by Jesus Menendez in person, together with a +note from the ranch. + + TWIN STAR RANCH, Tuesday Morning. + + DERE BUCK: You've sure got us up in the air. The boys was figurring + some on rounding up the whole Seven Mile outfit in a big drive, but + looks like you got other notions. Wise us if you want the + cooperation of + + PESKY and the other boys. + +With a smile, Weaver showed it to Phil. "Shall I send word to the boys +to start on the round-up?" + +"It won't be necessary. You don't need their cooperation. Fact is, now +Menendez is back, you're free to go. 'Rastus is getting your horse right +now." + +The cattleman realized instantly that he did not want to go. Business +affairs at home pressed for his attention, but he felt extremely +reluctant to pull out and leave the field in possession of Larrabie +Keller, even temporarily. He could not, however, very well say so. + +"Good enough," he said brusquely. "Before I go, we'd better settle the +matter of the range. Send for your father, and I'll make him a +proposition that looks fair to me." + +When Sanderson arrived, he found the cattleman with a map of the county +spread before him upon the table. With a pencil he divided the range in +a zigzag, twisting line. + +"How about that? I'll take all on the valley side. You take what is in +the hills and the parks." + +Sanderson looked at him in astonishment. "That's all we've been +contending for!" + +Buck nodded. "Since you get what you want, you ought to be satisfied," +he said gruffly. "Of course, there will have to be some give-and-take +about this. My cattle will cross the line. So will yours. That can't be +helped. I've worked out this problem of the range feed pretty +thoroughly. My territory will feed just about as many as yours. Each +year we can arrange together to keep the number of cattle down." + +Under his shaggy brows, Sanderson looked at him in perplexity. The +proposition was more than generous. It meant that Weaver would have to +sell off about a thousand head of cattle, while the hill-men, on the +other hand, could increase their holdings. + +"What about sheep?" the old man asked bluntly. + +Buck's stony gaze met his steadily. "I'm going to leave those sheep on +your conscience, Mr. Sanderson. You'll have to settle that matter for +yourself." + +"You mean you'll not stand in the way, if I want to keep them?" + +"That's what I mean. It's up to you." + +Phil, who was sitting on the porch sewing on a pair of leather chaps, +indulged in a grin. "I see this is where we go out of the sheep +business," he said. + +"The market's good. I don't know but what it would be the right thing to +sell," his father agreed. "I want to meet you halfway in settling this +trouble, Mr. Weaver." + +The matter was discussed further at some length, after which the +cattleman shook hands all round and departed. Out of the tail of his eye +he saw Keller saddling a horse at the stables. + +"Think I'll beat you out of that ride with the schoolmarm to-day, my +friend. A steady diet of rides like that is liable to intoxicate a man," +he told himself, with his grim smile. In plain sight of all, he turned +the head of his horse toward the road that led to the schoolhouse. + +Presently he met pupils galloping home, calling to each other joyously +as they rode. Others followed more sedately in buggies. Nearer the +schoolhouse he came on one walking. + +After Phyllis had looked over some papers, made up her weekly report, +and outlined on the board work for next day, she saddled her pony and +set out homeward. Not in ten years had the country been so green and +lovely as it was now. There had been many winter snows and spring rains, +so that the _alfilaria_ covered the hills with a carpet of grass. Muddy +little rivulets, pouring down arroyos on their way from the mountains, +showed that there had been recent rains. These all ran into the Del Oro, +a creek which was dry in summer but was now full to its banks. + +She followed the river into the canon of the same name, a narrow gulch +with sheer precipitous walls. So much water was in the river that the +trail along the bank scarce gave the pony footing. Half a mile from the +point where she had entered the Del Oro the trail crept up the wall and +escaped to the mesa above. Phyllis was nearing the ascent when a sound +startled her. She swung round in her saddle, to see a wall of water +roaring down the lane with the leap of some terrible wild beast. +Somewhere in the hills there had been a waterspout. + +She called upon her pony with spur and voice, racing desperately for the +place where the trail rose. Of that wild dash for life she remembered +nothing afterward save the overmastering sense of peril. She knew that +the roan was pounding forward with the best speed in him, and presently +she knew too that no speed could save her. The roar of the advancing +water grew louder as it swept upon her. With a cry of terror she dragged +the pony to its haunches, slipped from the saddle, and attempted to +climb the rock face. + +Catching hold of outcropping ledges, mesquit, and even cactus bushes, +she went up like a mountain goat But the water swept upon her, waist +high, and dragged at her. She clung to a quartz knob her fingers had +found, but her feet were swept from her by the suction of the torrent. +Her hold relaxed, and she slid back into the river. + +Like a flash of light a rope descended over her outstretched arms, +tightened at her waist, and held her taut. She felt the pain of a +tremendous tug that seemed to tear her in two. Dimly her brain reported +that somebody was shouting. A long time afterward, as it seemed to her +then, a strong arm went round her. Inch by inch she was dragged from the +water that fought and wrestled for her. Phyllis knew that her rescuer +was working up the cliff wall with her. Then her perceptions blurred. + +"I'll never make it this way," he told himself aloud, half way up. + +In fact, he had come to an _impasse_. Even without the burden of her +weight, the sheer smooth wall rose insurmountable above him. He did the +one thing left for him to do. Leaving her unconscious body in a sort of +trough formed by the juncture of two strata, he lowered himself into the +rushing stream, searched with his foot for a grip, and swung to the left +into the niche formed by a mesquit bush growing from the rock. From +here, after stiff climbing, he reached the top. + +He found, as he had expected, his cow pony with feet braced to keep the +rope taut. Old Baldy was practising the lesson learned from scores of +roped steers. No man in the Malpais country was stronger than this one. +In another minute he had drawn up the girl and laid her on the grass. + +Soon she opened her eyes and looked into his troubled face. + +"Mr. Weaver," she breathed in faint surprise. "Where am I?" + +But her glances were already answering the question. They took in the +rope under her arms, followed it to the horn of the saddle, around which +the other end was tied, and came back to the leathery weather-beaten +face that looked down into hers. + +"You have saved my life." + +"Not me. Old Baldy did it. I never could have got you out alone. When I +roped you, he backed off same as if you had been a steer, and pulled for +all there was in him. Between us we got you up." + +"Good old Baldy!" She let it go at that for the moment, while she +thought it out. "If you hadn't been right here----" She finished her +sentence with a shudder. + +She could not guess how that thought stabbed him, for he replied +cheerfully: "I heard you call, and Baldy brought me on the jump." + +Phyllis covered her face with her hands. She was badly shaken and could +not quite control herself. "It was awful--awful." And short staccato +sobs shook her. + +Buck put his arm around her shoulders, and soothed her gently. "Don't +you care, Phyllis. It's all past now. Forget it, little girl." + +"It was like some tremendous wild beast--a thousand times stronger and +crueller than a grizzly. It leaped at me, and----Oh, if you hadn't been +here!" + +She caught at his sleeve and clung to it with both hands. + +"If a fellow sticks around long enough he is sure to come in handy," +Buck told her lightly. + +She did not answer, but presently she walked across a little unsteadily +and put her arms around the neck of the white-faced broncho. Her face +she buried in its mane. Weaver knew she was crying softly, and he wisely +left her alone while he recoiled the rope. + +Presently she recovered her composure and began to pat the white silken +nose of the pony. + +"You helped him to save my life, Baldy. Even he couldn't have done it +without you. How can I ever pay you for it?" + +Weaver had an inspiration. "He's yours from this moment. You can pay him +by taking him for your saddle horse. Baldy will never ride the round-up +again. We'll give him a Carnegie medal and retire him on a good-service +pension so far as the rough work goes." + +Without looking at him, the girl answered softly: "Thank you. I know I'm +taking from you the best cow-pony in Arizona, but I can't help it." + +"A cow-pony is a cow-pony, but a horse that saves the life of Miss +Phyllis Sanderson is a gentleman and a hero." + +"And what about the man who saves her life?" Her voice was very small +and weepy. + +"Tickled to death to have the chance. We'll forget that." + +Still she did not look at him. "Never! Never as long as I live," she +cried vehemently. + +It came to him that if he was ever going to put his fortune to the test +now was the time. He strode across and swung her round till she faced +him. + +"As long as you live, Phyllis. And you're only eighteen. Me, I'm +thirty-seven. I lack just a year of being twice as old. What about it? +Am I too old and too hard and tough for you, little girl?" + +"I--don't--understand." + +"Yes, you do. I'm asking you to marry me. Will you?" + +"Oh, Mr. Weaver!" she gasped. + +"I ought to wrap it up pretty, oughtn't I? But there's nothing pretty +about me. No woman should marry me if she can help it, not unless her +heart brings her to me in spite of herself. Is it that way with you?" + +Never before had she met a man like him, so masterful and virile. He +took short cuts as if he did not notice the "No Trespassing" sign. She +read in him a passion clamped by a will of iron, and there thrilled +through her a fierce delight in her power over this splendid type of the +male lover. She lived in a world of men, lean, wide-shouldered fellows, +who moved and had their being in conditions that made hickory withes of +them physically, hard close-mouthed citizens mentally. But even by the +frontier tests of efficiency, of gameness, of going the limit, Weaver +stood head and shoulders above his neighbors. She had lifted her gaze to +meet his, quite sure that her answer was not in doubt, but now her heart +was beating like a triphammer. She felt herself drifting from her +moorings. It was as though she were drowning forty fathoms deep in those +calm, unwinking eyes of his. + +"I don't think so," she cried desperately. + +"You've got to be sure. I don't want you else." + +"Yes--yes!" she cried eagerly. "Don't rush me." + +"Take all the time you need. You can't be any too sure to suit me." + +"I--I don't think it will be yes," she told him shyly. + +"I'm betting it will," he said confidently. "And now, little girl, it's +time we started. You'll ride your Carnegie horse and I'll walk." + +Her eyes dilated, for this brought to her mind something she had +forgotten. "My roan! What do you think has become of it?" + +He shook his head, preferring not to guess aloud. As he helped her to +the saddle his eyes fell on a stain of red running from the wrist of her +gauntlet. + +"You've hurt your hand," he cried. + +"It must have been when I caught at the cactus." + +Gently he slipped off the glove. Cruel thorns had torn the skin in a +dozen places. He drew the little spikes out one by one. Phyllis winced, +but did not cry out. After he had removed the last of them he tied her +handkerchief neatly round the wounds and drew on the gauntlet again. It +had been only a small service, nothing at all compared to the great one +he had just rendered, but somehow it had tightened his hold on her. She +wondered whether she would have to marry Buck Weaver no matter what she +really wanted to do. + +With her left hand she guided Baldy, while Buck strode beside, never +wavering from the easy, powerful stride that was the expression of his +sinuous strength. + +"Were you ever tired in your life?" she asked once, with a little sigh +of fatigue. + +He stopped in his stride, full of self-reproach. "Now, ain't that like +me! Pluggin' ahead, and never thinking about how played out you are. +We'll rest here under these cottonwoods." + +He lifted her down, for she was already very stiff and sore from her +adventure. An outdoor life had given her a supple strength and a wiry +endurance, of which her slender frame furnished no indication, but the +reaction from the strain was upon her. To Buck she looked pathetically +wan and exhausted. He put her down under a tree and arranged her saddle +for a pillow. Again the girl felt a net was being wound round her, that +she belonged to him and could not escape. Nor was she sure that she +wanted to get away from his possessive energy. In the pleasant sun glow +she fell asleep, without any intention of doing so. Two hours later she +opened her eyes. + +Looking round, she saw Weaver lying flat on his back fifty yards away. + +"I've been asleep," she called. + +He leaped to his feet and walked across the sand to her. + +"I suspected it," he said with a smile. + +"I feel like a new woman now." + +"Like one of them suffragettes?" + +"That isn't quite what I meant," she smiled. "I'm ready to start." + +Half an hour later they reached her home. It was close to supper time, +but Weaver would not stay. + +"See you next week," he said quietly, and turned his horse toward the +Twin Star ranch. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE HOLD-UP + + +From the wash where the sink of the Mimbres edges close to Noches two +riders emerged in mid-afternoon of a day that shimmered under the heat +of a blazing sun. They travelled in silence, the core of an alkali dust +cloud that moved with them and lay thick upon them. Well down over their +eyes were drawn the broad-rimmed hats. One of them wore sun goggles and +both of them had their lower faces covered by silk bandannas as if to +keep out the thick dust their ponies stirred. For the rest their +costumes were the undistinguished chaps, spurs, shirt, neckerchiefs, and +gauntlets of the range. + +With one distinction, however: these were better armed than the average +cow-puncher jaunting to town for the quarterly spree. Revolver butts +peeped from the holsters of their loosely hung cartridge belts. +Moreover, their rifles were not strapped beneath the stirrup leathers, +but were carried across the pommels of the saddles. + +The bell in the town hall announced three o'clock as they reached the +First National Bank at the corner of San Miguel and Main Streets. Here +one of the riders swung from the saddle, handed the reins and his rifle +to the other man, and jingled into the bank. His companion took the +horses round to the side entrance of the building, and waited there in +such shade as two live oaks offered. + +He had scarce drawn rein when two other riders joined him, having come +from a direction at right angles to that followed by him. One of them +rode an iron-gray, the other a roan with white stockings. Both of these +dismounted, and one of them passed through the side door into the bank. +Almost instantly he reappeared and nodded to his comrade, who joined him +with his own rifle and that of the first man that had gone in. + +There was an odd similarity in arms, manner, and dress between these and +the first arrivals. Once inside the building, each of them slipped a +black mask over his face. Then one stepped quickly to the front door and +closed and locked it, while the other simultaneously covered the teller +with a revolver. + +The cashier, busy in conversation with the first horseman about a loan +the other had said he wanted, was sitting with his back to the cage of +the teller. The first warning he had of anything unusual was the closing +of the door by a masked man. One glance was enough to tell him the bank +was about to be robbed. + +His hand moved swiftly toward the drawer in his desk which contained a +weapon, but stopped halfway to its destination. For he was looking +squarely into the rim of a six-shooter less than a foot from his +forehead. The gun was in the hands of the client with whom he had been +talking. + +"Don't do that," the man advised him brusquely. Then, more sharply: +"Reach for the roof. No monkeying." + +Benson, the cashier, was no coward, but neither was he a fool. He knew +when not to take a chance. Promptly his arms shot up. But even while he +obeyed, his eyes were carrying to his brain a classification of this man +for future identification. The bandit was a stranger to him, a +heavy-set, bandy-legged fellow of about forty-five, with a leathery face +and eyes as stony as those of a snake. + +"What do you want?" the bank officer asked quietly. + +"Your gold and notes. Is the safe open?" + +Before the cashier could reply a shot rang out. The unmasked outlaw +slewed his head, to see the president of the bank firing from the door +of his private office. The other two robbers were already pumping lead +at him. He staggered, clutched at the door jamb, and slowly sank to the +floor after the revolver had dropped from his hand. + +Benson seized the opportunity to duck behind his desk and drag open a +drawer, but before his fingers had closed on the weapon within, two +crashing blows descended with stunning force on his head. The outlaw +covering him had reversed his heavy revolver and clubbed him with the +butt. + +"That'll hold him for a while," the bandit remarked, and dragged the +unconscious man across the floor to where the president lay huddled. + +One of the masked men, a lithe, sinuous fellow with a polka-dot bandanna +round his neck, took command. + +"Keep these men covered, Irwin, while we get the loot," he ordered the +unmasked man. + +With that he and the boyish-looking fellow who had ridden into town with +him, the latter carrying three empty sacks, followed the trembling +teller to the vault. + +No sound broke the dead silence except the loud ticking of the bank +clock and an occasional groan from the cashier, who was just beginning +to return to consciousness. Twice the man left on guard called down to +those in the vault to hurry. + +There was need of haste. Somebody, attracted by the sound of firing, had +come running to the bank, peered in the big front window, and gone +flying to spread the alarm. + +Outside a shot and then another shattered the sultry stillness of the +day. The man left on guard ran to the door and looked out. An upper +window down the street was open, and from it a man with a rifle was +firing at the outlaw left in charge of the horses. + +The wrangler had taken refuge behind a bulwark of horseflesh, and was +returning the fire. + +"Hurry the boys, Brad! Hell's broke loose!" he called to his companion. + +The town was alarmed and buzzing like a hornet's nest. Soon they would +feel the sting of the swarm unless they beat an immediate retreat. One +sweep of his eyes told the bandy-legged fellow as much. He could hear +voices crying the alarm, could see men running to and fro farther down +the street. Even in the second he stood there a revolver began potting +at him. + +"Back in a moment," he cried to the wrangler, and disappeared within to +shout an urgent warning to the looters. + +Three men came up from the vault, each carrying a sack. The teller was +pushed into the street first, and the rest followed. A scattering fire +began to converge at once upon them. The roan with the white stockings +showed a red ridge across its flank where a bullet had furrowed a path. + +The teller dropped, wounded by his friends. Two of the robbers loaded +the horses, while the others answered the townsmen. In the inevitable +delay of getting started, every moment seemed an hour to the harassed +outlaws. + +But at last they were in the saddle and galloping down the street, +firing right and left as they went. At the next street crossing two men, +one fat and the other lean, came running, revolvers in hands, to +intercept them. They were too late. Before they reached the corner the +outlaws had galloped past in a cloud of white dust, still flinging +bullets at the invisible they were escaping. + +The big lean cow-puncher stopped with an oath as the riders disappeared. +"Nothing doing, Budd," he called to the fat man. "The show's moved on to +a new stand." + +Jim Budd, puffing heavily and glistening with perspiration, nodded the +answer he could not speak. Presently he got out what he wanted to say. + +"Notice that leading hawss on the nigh side, Slim?" he asked. + +"So you noticed it, too, Jim. I could swear to that roan with the four +stockings. It's the hawss Mr. Larrabie Keller mavericks around on, durn +his forsaken hide! And the man on it wore a polka-dot bandanna. So does +Keller. He'll have to go some to explain away that. I reckon the others +must be nesters from Bear Creek, too." + +"We've got 'em where the wool's short this time," Budd agreed. "They +been shootin' around right promiscuous. If anybody's dead, then Keller +has put a rope round his own neck." + +Men were already saddling and mounting for the first unorganized +pursuit. Slim and his friend joined these, and cantered down the dusty +street scarce ten minutes after the robbers. + +The suburbs of the town fell to the rear, and left them in the fall and +rise of the foothills that merged to the left in the wide, flat, +shimmering plain of the Malpais, and on the other side in the +saw-toothed range that notched the horizon from north to south. +Somewhere in that waste of cow-backed hills, in that swell of endless +land waves, the trail of the robbers vanished. + +Men rode far and wide, carrying the pursuit late into the night, but the +lost trail was not to be picked up again. So one by one, or in pairs, +under the yellow stars, they drifted back to Noches, leaving behind the +black depths of blue-canopied hills that had swallowed the fleeing +quartette. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS + + +To Phyllis, riding from school near the close of a hot Friday afternoon +along the old Fort Lincoln Trail, came the voice of Brill Healy from the +ridge above. She waved to him the broad-brimmed hat she was carrying in +her hand, and he guided his pony deftly down the edge of the steep +slope. + +"Been looking for some strays down at Three Pines," he explained. "Awful +glad I met you." + +"Where were you going now?" she asked. + +"Home, I reckon; but I'll ride with you to Seven Mile if you don't +mind." + +She looked at her watch. "It's just five-thirty. We'll be in time for +supper, and you can ride home afterward." + +"I guess you know that will suit me, Phyllis," he answered, with a +meaning look from his dark eyes. + +"Supper suits most healthy men so far as I've noticed," she said +carelessly, her glance sweeping keenly over him before it passed to the +purple shadowings that already edged the mouth of a distant canon. + +"I'll bet it does when they can sit opposite Phyl Sanderson to eat it." + +She frowned a little, the while he took her in out of half-shut, +smoldering eyes, as one does a picture in a gallery. In truth, one might +have ridden far to find a living picture more vital and more suggestive +of the land that had cradled and reared her. + +His gaze annoyed her, without her quite knowing why. "I wish you +wouldn't look at me all the time," she told him with the boyish +directness that still occasionally lent a tang to her speech. + +"And if I can't help it?" he laughed. + +"Fiddlesticks! You don't have to say pretty things to me, Brill Healy," +she told him. + +"I don't say them because I have to." + +"Then I wish you wouldn't say them at all. There's no sense in it when +you've known a girl eighteen years." + +"Known and loved her eighteen years. It's a long time, Phyl." + +Her eyes rained light derision on him. "It would be if it were true. But +then one has to forget truth when one is sentimental, I reckon." + +"I'm not sentimental. I tell you I'm in love," he answered. + +"Yes, Brill. With yourself. I've known that a long time, but not quite +eighteen years," she mocked. + +"With you," he made answer, and something of sullenness had by this time +crept into his voice. "I've got as much right to love you as any one +else, haven't I? As much right as that durned waddy, Keller?" + +Fire flashed in her eyes. "If you want to know, I despise you when you +talk that way." + +The anger grew in him. "What way? When I say anything against the +rustler, do you mean? Think I'm blind? Think I can't see how you're +running after him, and making a fool of yourself about him?" + +"How dare you talk that way to me?" she flamed, and gave her surprised +pony a sharp stroke with the quirt. + +Five minutes later the bronchos fell again to a walk, and Healy took up +the conversation where it had dropped. + +"No use flying out like that, Phyl. I only say what any one can see. +Take a look at the facts. You meet up with him making his getaway after +he's all but caught rustling. Now, what do you do?" + +"I don't believe he was rustling at all." + +"Course you don't _believe_ it. That proves just what I was saying." + +"Jim doesn't believe it, either." + +"Yeager's opinion don't have any weight with me. I want to tell you +right now that the boys are getting mighty leary of Jim. He's getting +too thick with that Bear Creek bunch." + +"Brill Healy, I never saw anybody so bigoted and pig-headed as you are," +the girl spoke out angrily. "Any one with eyes in his head could see +that Jim is as straight as a string. He couldn't be crooked if he +tried. Long as you've known him I should think you wouldn't need to be +told that." + +"Oh, _you_ say so," he growled sullenly. + +"Everybody says so. Jim Yeager of all men," she scoffed. Then, with a +flash of angry eyes at him, "How would you like it if your friends +rounded on you? By all accounts, you're not quite a plaster saint. I've +heard stories." + +"What about?" + +"Oh, gambling and drinking. What of it? That's _your_ business. One +doesn't have to believe all the talk that is flying around." She spoke +with a kind of fine scorn, for she was a girl of large generosities. + +"We've all got enemies, I reckon," he said sulkily. + +"You're Phil's friend, and mine, too, of course. I dare say you have +your faults like other men, but I don't have to listen to people while +they try to poison my mind against you. What's more, I don't." + +She had been agile-minded enough to shift the attack and put him upon +the defensive, but now Healy brought the question back to his original +point. + +"That's all very well, Phyl, but we weren't talking about me, but about +you. When you found this Keller making his escape you buckled in and +helped him. You tied up his wound and took him to Yeager's and lied for +him to us. That's bad enough, but later you did a heap worse." + +"In saving him from being lynched by you?" + +"Before that you made a fuss about him and had to tie up his wounds. I +had a cut on _my_ cheek, but I notice you didn't tie it up!" + +"I'm surprised at you, Brill. I didn't think you were so small; and just +because I didn't let a wounded man suffer." + +"You can put it that way if you want to," he laughed unpleasantly. + +Her passion flared again. "You and your insinuations! Who made you the +judge over my actions? You talk as if you were my father. If you've got +to reform somebody, let it be yourself." + +"I'm the man that is going to be your husband," he said evenly. "That +gives me a right." + +"Never! Don't think it," she flung back. "I'd not marry you if you were +the last man on earth." + +"You'll see. I'll not let a scoundrel like Keller come between us. No, +nor Yeager, either. Nor Buck Weaver himself. I notice he was right +attentive before he went home." + +Resentment burned angrily on her cheek. "Anybody else?" she asked +quietly. + +"That's all for just now. You're a natural-born flirt, Phyllis. That's +what's the matter with you." + +"Thank you, Mr. Healy. You're the only one of my friends that has been +so honest with me," she assured him sweetly. + +"I'm the only one of them that is going to marry you. Don't think I'll +let Keller butt in. Not on your life." + +Her rage broke bounds. "I never in my life heard of anything so +insolent. Never! _You'll_ not let me do this or that. Who are you, Brill +Healy?" + +"I've told you. I'm the man that means to marry you," he persisted +doggedly. + +"You never will. I'm not thinking of marrying, but when I do I'll not +ask for your indorsement. Be sure of that." + +"I'll not stand it! He'd better look out!" + +"Who do you mean?" + +"Keller, that's who I mean. This thing is hanging over his head yet. +He's got to come through with proofs he ain't a rustler, or he's got to +pull his freight out of the Malpais country." + +"And if he won't?" + +"We'll finish that little business you interrupted," he told her, riding +his triumph roughshod over her feelings. + +"You wouldn't, Brill! Not when there is a doubt about it. Jim says he is +innocent, and I believe he is. Surely you wouldn't!" + +"You'll see." + +"If you do I'll never speak to you again! Never, as long as I live; and +I'll never rest till I have you in the penitentiary for his murder!" she +cried tensely. + +"And yet you don't care anything about him. You've just been kind to him +out of charity," he mocked. + +For some minutes they had seen Seven Mile Ranch lying below them in the +faint twilight. They rode the rest of the way in silence, each of them +too bitter for speech. When they reached the house, she swung from the +saddle and he kept his seat, for both of them considered her supper +invitation and his acceptance cancelled. + +He bowed ironically and turned to leave. + +"Just a moment, Brill," called an excited voice. "I've got a piece of +news that will make you sit up." + +The speaker was the young mule skinner known as Cuffs. He came running +out to the porch and fired his bolt. + +"The First National Bank at Noches was held up two hours ago, and the +robbers got away with their loot after shooting three or four men!" + +"Two hours ago," the girl repeated. "You got it over the phone, of +course." + +"Yep. Slim called me up just now. He got back right this minute from +following their trail. They lost the fellows in the hills. Four of 'em, +Slim says, and he thinks they're headed this way." + +"What makes him think so?" asked Healy. + +"He figures they are Bear Creek men. One of them was recognized. It was +that fellow Keller." + +"Keller!" Phyllis and Healy cried the word together. + +Cuffs nodded. "Slim says he can swear to his hawss, and he's plumb sure +about the man, too. He wants we should organize a posse and nail them as +they go into the Pass for Bear Creek. He figures we'll have time to do +it if we jump. Noches is fifty-five miles from here, and about forty +from the Pass. + +"With their bronchs loaded they can't make it in much less than five +hours. That gives us most three hours to reach the Pass and stop them. +What think, Brill? Can we make it?" + +"We'll try damned hard. I'm not going to let Mr. Rustler Keller slip +through my fingers again!" Healy cried triumphantly. + +"I don't believe it was Bear Creek men at all. I'm sure it wasn't Mr. +Keller," Phyllis cried, with a face like parchment. + +There was an unholy light of vindictive triumph in Healy's face. "We'll +show you about that, Miss Missouri. Get the boys together, Cuffs. Call +up Purdy and Jim Budd and Tom Dixon on the phone. Rustle up as many of +the boys as you can. Start 'em for the Pass just as soon as they get +here. I'm going right up there now. Probably I can't stop them, but I +may make out who they are. Notify Buck Weaver, so he can head them off +if they try to cross the Malpais. And get a move on you. Hustle the boys +right along." + +And with that he put spurs to his horse and galloped off. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS + + +Unerringly rode Healy through the tangled hills toward a saddle in the +peaks that flared vivid with crimson and mauve and topaz. A man of +moods, he knew more than one before he reached the Pass for which he was +headed. Now he rode with his eyes straight ahead, his face creased to a +hard smile that brought out its evil lines. Now he shook his clenched +fist into the air and cursed. + +Or again he laughed exultingly. This was when he remembered that his +rival was trapped beyond hope of extrication. + +While the sky tints round the peaks deepened to purple with the coming +night he climbed canons, traversed rock ridges, and went down and up +rough slopes of shale. Always the trail grew more difficult, for he was +getting closer to the divide where Bear Creek heads. He reached the +upper regions of the pine gulches that seamed the hills with wooded +crevasses, and so came at last to Gregory's Pass. + +Here, close to the yellow stars that shed a cold wintry light, he +dismounted and hobbled his horse. After which he found a soft spot in +the mossy rocks and fell asleep. He was a light sleeper, and two hours +later he awakened. Horses were laboring up the Pass. + +He waited tensely, rifle in both hands, till the heads of the riders +showed in the moonlight. Three--four--five of them he counted. The men +he saw were those he expected, and he lowered his rifle at once. + +"Hello, Cuffs! Purdy! That you, Tom? Well, you're too late." + +"Too late," echoed little Purdy. + +"Yep. Didn't get here in time myself to see who any of them were except +the last. It was right dark, and they were most through before I reached +here." + +"But you knew one," Purdy suggested. + +Healy looked at him and nodded. "There were four of them. I crept +forward on top of that flat rock just as the last showed up. He was +ridin' a hawss with four white stockings." + +"A roan, mebbe," Tom put in quickly. + +"You've said it, Tom--a roan, and it looked to me like it was wounded. +There was blood all over the left flank." + +"O' course Keller was riding it," Purdy ventured. + +"Rung the bell at the first shot," Healy answered grimly. + +"The son of a gun!" + +"How long ago was it, Brill?" asked another. + +"Must a-been two hours, anyhow." + +"No use us following them now, then." + +"No use. They've gone to cover." + +They turned their horses and took the back trail. The cow ponies +scrambled down rocky slopes like cats, and up steep inclines with the +agility of mountain goats. The men rode in single file, and conversation +was limited to disjointed fragments jerked out now and again. After an +hour's rough going they reached the foothills, where they could ride two +abreast. As they drew nearer to the ranch country, now one and now +another turned off with a shout of farewell. + +Healy accepted Purdy's invitation, and dismounted with him at the +Fiddleback. Already the first glimmering of dawn flickered faintly from +the serrated range. The men unsaddled, watered, fed, and then walked +stiffly to the house. Within five minutes both of them lay like logs, +dead to the world, until Bess Purdy called them for breakfast, long +after the rest of the family had eaten. + +"What devilment you been leading paw into, Brill?" demanded Bess +promptly when he appeared in the doorway. "Dan says it was close to +three when you got home." + +She flung her challenge at the young man with a flash of smiling teeth. +Bess was seventeen, a romp, very pretty, and hail-fellow-well-met with +every range rider in a radius of thirty miles. + +"We been looking for a beau for you, Bess," Healy immediately explained. + +Miss Purdy tossed her head. "I can find one for myself, Brill Healy, +and I don't have to stay out till three to get him, either." + +"Come right to your door, do they?" he asked, as she helped him to the +ham and eggs. + +"Maybe they do, and maybe they don't." + +"Well, here's one come right in the middle of the night. Somehow, I jest +couldn't make out to wait till morning, Bess." + +"Oh, you," she laughed, with a demand for more of this sort of chaffing +in her hazel eyes. + +At this kind of rough give and take he was an adept. After breakfast he +stayed and helped her wash the dishes, romping with her the whole time +in the midst of gay bursts of laughter and such repartee as occurred to +them. + +He found his young hostess so entertaining that he did not get away +until the morning was half gone. By the time he reached Seven Mile the +sun was past the meridian, and the stage a lessening patch of dust in +the distance. + +Before he was well out of the saddle, Phyllis Sanderson was standing in +the doorway of the store, with a question in her eyes. + +"Well?" he forced her to say at last. + +Leisurely he turned, as if just aware of her presence. + +"Oh, it's you. Mornin', Phyl." + +"What did you find out?" + +"I met your friend." + +"What friend?" + +"Mr. Keller, the rustler and bank robber," he drawled insolently, +looking full in her face. + +"Tell me at once what you found out." + +"I found Mr. Keller riding a roan with four white stockings and a wound +on its flank." + +She caught at the jamb. "You didn't, Brill!" + +"I ce'tainly did," he jeered. + +"What--what did you do?" Her lips were white as her cheeks. + +"I haven't done, anything--yet. You see, I was alone. The other boys +hadn't arrived then." + +"And he wasn't alone?" + +"No; he had three friends with him. I couldn't make out whether any more +of them were college chums of yours." + +Without another word, she turned her back on him and went into the +store. All night she had lain sleepless and longed for and dreaded the +coming of the day. Over the wire from Noches had come at dawn fuller +details of the robbery, from her brother Phil, who was spending two or +three days in town. + +It appeared that none of the wounded men would die, though the president +had had a narrow escape. Posses had been out all night, and a fresh one +was just starting from Noches. It was generally believed, however, that +the bandits would be able to make good their escape with the loot. + +Her father was absent, making a round of his sheep camps, and would not +be back for a week. Hence her hands were very full with the store and +the ranch. + +She busied herself with the details of her work, nodded now and again to +one of the riders as they drifted in, smiled and chatted as occasion +demanded, but always with that weight upon her heart she could not shake +off. Now, and then again, came to her through the window the voices of +Public Opinion on the porch. She made out snatches of the talk, and knew +the tide was running strongly against the nester. The sound of Healy's +low, masterful voice came insistently. Once, as she looked through the +window, she saw a tilted flask at his lips. + +Suddenly she became aware, without knowing why, that something was +happening, something that stopped her heart and drew her feet swiftly to +the door. + +Conversation had ceased. All eyes were deflected to a pair of riders +coming down the Bear Creek trail with that peculiar jog that is neither +a run nor a walk. They seemed quite at ease with the world. Speech and +laughter rang languid and carefree. But as they swung from the saddles +their eyes swept the group before them with the vigilance of +searchlights in time of war. + +Brill Healy leaned forward, his right hand resting lightly on his thigh. + +"So you've come back, Mr. Keller," he said. + +"As you see." + +"But not on that roan of yours, I notice." + +"You notice correctly, seh." + +"Now I wonder why." Healy spoke with a drawl, but his eyes glittered +menacingly. + +"I expect you know why, Mr. Healy," came the quiet retort. + +"Meaning?" + +"That the roan was stolen from the pasture two nights ago. Do you happen +to know the name of the thief?" + +The cattleman laughed harshly, but behind his laughter lay rising anger. +"So that's the story you're telling, eh? Sounds most as convincing as +that yarn about the pocketknife you picked up." + +"I'm not quite next to your point. Have I got to explain to you why I do +or don't ride a certain horse, seh?" + +"It ain't necessary. We all know why. You ain't riding it because there +is a bullet wound in the roan's flank that might be some hard to +explain." + +"I don't know what you mean. I haven't seen the horse for two days. It +was stolen, as I say. Apparently you know a good deal about that roan. +I'd be right pleased to hear what you know, Mr. Healy." + +"Glad to death to wise you, Mr. Keller. That roan was in Noches +yesterday, and you were on its back." + +The nester shook his head. "No, I reckon not." + +Yeager broke in abruptly: "What have you got up your sleeve, Brill? Spit +it out." + +"Glad to oblige you, too, Jim. The First National at Noches was held up +yesterday, about half-past three or four, by some masked men. Slim and +Jim Budd were around and recognized that roan and its rider." + +"You mean----" + +"You've guessed it, Jim. I mean that your friend, the rustler, is a bank +robber, too." + +"Yesterday, you say, at four o'clock?" + +"About four, yes." + +Yeager's face cleared. "Then that lets him out. I was with him yesterday +all day." + +"Any one else with him?" + +"No. We were alone." + +"Where?" + +"Out in the hills." + +"Didn't happen to meet a soul all day maybe?" + +"No; what of it?" + +Healy barked out again his hard laugh of incredulity. "Go slow, Jim. +That ain't going to let him out. It's going to let you in." + +Yeager took a step toward him, fists clenched, and eyes flashing. "I'll +not stand for that, Brill." + +Healy waved him aside. "I've got no quarrel with you, Jim. I ain't +making any charges against you to-day. But when it comes to Mr. Keller, +that's different." His gaze shifted to the nester and carried with it +implacable hostility. "I back my play. He's not only a rustler, he's a +bank robber, too. What's more, he'll never leave here alive, except +with irons on his wrists!" + +"Have you a warrant for my arrest, Mr. Healy?" inquired Keller evenly. + +"Don't need one. Furthermore, I'd as lief take you in dead as alive. You +cayn't hide behind a girl's skirts this time," continued Healy. "You've +got to stand on your own legs and take what's coming. You're a bad +outfit. We know you for a rustler, and that's enough. But it ain't all. +Yesterday you gave us surplusage when you shot up three men in Noches. +Right now I serve notice that you've reached the limit." + +"_You_ serve notice, do you?" + +"You're right, I do." + +"But not legal notice, Mr. Healy." + +At sight of his enemy standing there so easy and undisturbed, facing +death so steadily and so alertly, Brill's passion seethed up and +overflowed. Fury filmed his eyes. He saw red. With a jerk, his revolver +was out and smoking. A stop watch could scarce have registered the time +before Keller's weapon was answering. + +But that tenth part of a second made all the difference. For the first +heavy bullet from Healy's .44 had crashed into the shoulder of his foe. +The shock of it unsteadied the nester's aim. When the smoke cleared it +showed the Bear Creek man sinking to the ground, and the right arm of +the other hanging limply at his side. + +At the first sound of exploding revolvers, Phyllis had grown rigid, but +the fusillade had not died away before she was flying along the hall to +the porch. + +Brill Healy's voice, cold and cruel, came to her in even tones: + +"I reckon I've done this job right, boys. If he hadn't winged me, and if +Jim hadn't butted in, I'd a-done it more thorough, though." + +Yeager was bending over the man lying on the ground. He looked up now +and spoke bitterly: "You've murdered an innocent man. Ain't that +thorough enough for you?" + +Then, catching sight of Cuffs on the porch of the house, Yeager issued +orders sharply: "Get on my horse and ride like hell for Doc Brown! Bob, +you and Luke help me carry him into the house. What room, Phyl?" + +"My room, Jim. Oh, Cuffs, hurry, please!" With that she was gone into +the house to make ready the bed for the wounded man. + +Healy picked up the revolver that had fallen from his hand, and slid it +back into the holster. + +"That's right, boys. Take him in and let Phyl patch up the coyote if she +can. I reckon this time, she'll have her hands plumb full. Beats all how +a decent girl can take up with a ruffian and a scoundrel." + +"That will be enough from you, seh," Yeager told him sharply. + +Purdy nodded. "Jim's right, Brill. This man has got what was coming to +him. It ain't proper to jump him right now, when he's down and out." + +"Awful tender-hearted you boys are. Come to that, I've got a pill in me, +too, but of course that don't matter," Healy retorted. + +"If he dies you'll have another in you, seh," Yeager told him quietly, +meeting his eyes steadily for an instant. "Steady, Bob. You take his +feet. That's right." + +They carried the nester to the bedroom of Phyllis and laid him down +gently on the bed. His eyes opened and he looked about him as if to ask +where he was. He seemed to understand what had happened, for presently +he smiled faintly at his friend and said: + +"Beat me to it, Jim. I'm bust up proper this time." + +"He shot without giving warning." + +Keller moved his head weakly in dissent. "No, I knew just when he was +going to draw, but I had to wait for him." + +The big, husky plainsmen undressed him with the tenderness of women, and +did their best with the help of Aunt Becky, to take care of his wounds +temporarily. After these had been dressed Phyllis and the old colored +woman took charge of the nursing and dismissed all the men but Yeager. + +It would be many hours before Doctor Brown arrived, and it took no +critical eyes to see that this man was stricken low. All the supple +strength and gay virility were out of him. Three of the bullets had +torn through him. In her heavy heart the girl believed he was going to +die. While Yeager was out of the room she knelt down by the bedside, +unashamed, and asked for his life as she had never prayed for anything +before. + +By this time his fever was high and he was wandering in his head. The +wild look of delirium was in his eyes, and faint weak snatches of +irrelevant speech on his lips. His moans stabbed her heart. There was +nothing she could do for him but watch and wait and pray. But what +little was to be done in the way of keeping his hot head cool with wet +towels her own hands did jealously. Jim and Aunt Becky waited on her +while she waited on the sick man. + +About midnight the doctor rode up. All day and most of the night before +he had been in the saddle. Cuffs had found him across the divide, nearly +forty miles away, working over a boy who had been bitten by a +rattlesnake. But he brought into the sick room with him that manner of +cheerful confidence which radiates hope. You could never have guessed +that he was very tired, nor, after the first few minutes, did he know it +himself. He lost himself in his case, flinging himself into the breach +to turn the tide of what had been a losing battle. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES + + +Jim Yeager had not watched through the long day and night with Phyllis +without discovering how deeply her feelings were engaged. His +unobtrusive readiness and his constant hopefulness had been to her a +tower of strength during the quiet, dreadful hours before the doctor +came. + +Once, during the night, she had followed him into the dark hall when he +went out to get some fresh cold water, and had broken down completely. + +"Is he--is he going to die?" she besought of him, bursting into tears +for the first time. + +Jim patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Now, don't you, Phyl. You got to +buck up and help pull him through. Course he's shot up a heap, but then +a man like him can stand a lot of lead in his body. There aren't any of +these wounds in a vital place. Chief trouble is he's lost so much blood. +That's where his clean outdoor life comes in to help build him up. I'll +bet Doc Brown pulls him through." + +"Are you just _saying_ that, Jim, or do you really think so?" + +"I'm saying it, and I think it. There's a whole lot in gaming a thing +out. What we've got to do is to _think_ he's going to make it. Once we +give up, it will be all off." + +"You are such a help, Jim," she sighed, dabbing at her eyes with her +little handkerchief. "And you're the _best_ man." + +"That's right. I'll be the best man when we pull off that big wedding of +yours and his." + +Her heart went out to him with a rush. "You're the only friend both of +us have," she cried impulsively. + +With the coming of Doctor Brown, Jim resigned his post of comforter in +chief, but he stayed at Seven Mile until the crisis was past and the +patient on the mend. Next day Slim, Budd, and Phil Sanderson rode in +from Noches. They were caked with the dust of their fifty-mile ride, but +after they had washed and eaten, Yeager had a long talk with them. He +learned, among other things, that Healy had telephoned Sheriff Gill that +Keller was lying wounded at Seven Mile, and that the sheriff was +expecting to follow them in a few hours. + +"Coming to arrest Brill for assault with intent to kill, I reckon," +Yeager suggested dryly. + +Phil turned on him petulantly. "What's the use of you trying to get away +with that kind of talk, Jim? This fellow Keller was recognized as one of +the robbers." + +"That ain't what Slim has just been telling, Phil. He says he recognized +the hawss, and thinks it was Keller in the saddle. Now, I don't think +anything about it. I _know_ Keller was with me in the hills when this +hold-up took place." + +"You're his friend, Jim," the boy told him significantly. + +"You bet I am. But I ain't a bank robber, if that's what you mean, +Phil." + +His clear eyes chiselled into those of the boy and dominated him. + +"I didn't say you were," Phil returned sulkily. "But I reckon we all +recall that you lied for him once. Whyfor would it be a miracle if you +did again?" + +Jim might have explained, but did not, that it was not for Keller he had +lied. He contented himself with saying that the roan with the white +stockings had been stolen from the pasture before the holdup. He +happened to know, because he was spending the night in Keller's shack +with him at the time. + +Slim cut in, with drawling sarcasm: "You've got a plumb perfect alibi +figured out for him, Jim. I reckon you've forgot that Brill saw him +riding through the Pass with the rest of his outfit." + +"Brill says so. I say he didn't," returned Yeager calmly. + +Toward evening Gill arrived and formally put Keller under arrest. +Practically, it amounted only to the precaution of leaving a deputy at +the ranch as a watch, for one glance had told the sheriff that the +wounded man would not be in condition to travel for some time. + +It was the following day that Yeager saddled and said good-by to +Phyllis. + +"I'm going to Noches to see if I cayn't find out something. It don't +look reasonable to me that those fellows could disappear, bag and +baggage, into a hole and draw it in after them." + +"What about Brill's story that he saw them at the Pass?" the girl asked. + +"He may have seen four men, but he ce'tainly didn't see Larrabie Keller. +My notion is, Brill lied out of whole cloth, but of course I'm not in a +position to prove it. Point is, why did he lie at all?" + +Phyllis blushed. "I think I know, Jim." + +Yeager smiled. "Oh, I know that. But that ain't, to my way of thinking, +motive enough. I mean that a white man doesn't try to hang another just +because he--well, because he cut him out of his girl." + +"I never was his girl," Phyllis protested. + +"I know that, but Brill couldn't get it through his thick head till a +stone wall fell on him and give him a hint." + +"What other motive are you thinking of, Jim?" + +He hesitated. "I've just been kinder milling things around. Do you +happen to know right when you met Brill the day of the robbery?" + +"Yes. I looked at my watch to see if we would be in time for supper. It +was five-thirty." + +"And the robbery was at three. The fellows didn't get out of town till +close to three-thirty, I reckon," he mused aloud. + +"What has that got to do with it? You don't mean that----" She stopped +with parted lips and eyes dilating. + +He shook his head. "I've got no right to mean that, Phyllie. Even if I +did have a kind of notion that way I'd have to give it up. Brill's got a +steel-bound, copper-riveted alibi. He couldn't have been at Noches at +three o'clock and with you two hours later, fifty-five miles from there. +No hawss alive could do it." + +"But, Jim--why, it's absurd, anyway. We've known Brill always. He +couldn't be that kind of a man. How could he?" + +"I didn't say he could," returned her friend noncommittally. "But when +it comes to knowing him, what do you know about him--or about me, say? I +might be a low-lived coyote without you knowing it. I might be all kinds +of a devil. A good girl like you wouldn't know it if I set out to keep +it still." + +"I could tell by looking at you," she answered promptly. + +"Yes, you could," he derided good-naturedly. "How would you know it? Men +don't squeal on each other." + +"Do you mean that Brill isn't--what we've always thought him?" + +"I'm not talking about Brill, but about Jim Yeager," he evaded. "He'd +hate to have you know everything that's mean and off color he ever did." + +"I believe you must have robbed the bank yourself, Jim," she laughed. +"Are you a rustler, too?" + +He echoed her laugh as he swung to the saddle. "I'm not giving myself +away any more to-day." + +Brill Healy rode up, his arm in a sling. Deep rings of dissipation or of +sleeplessness were under his eyes. He looked first at Yeager and then at +the young woman, with an ugly sneer. "How's your dear patient, Phyl?" + +"He is better, Brill," she answered quietly, with her eyes full on him. +"That is, we hope he is better. The doctor isn't quite sure yet." + +"Some of us don't hope it as much as the rest of us, I reckon." + +She said nothing, but he read in her look a contempt that stung like the +lash of a whip. + +"He'll be worse again before I'm through with him," the man cried, with +a furious oath. + +Phyllis measured him with her disdainful eye, and dismissed him. She +stepped forward and shook hands with Yeager. + +"Take care of yourself, Jim, and don't spare any expense that is +necessary," she said. + +For a moment she watched her friend canter off, then turned on her heel, +and passed into the house, utterly regardless of Healy. + +Yeager reached Noches late, for he had unsaddled and let his horse rest +at Willow Springs during the heat of the broiling day. + +After he had washed and had eaten, Yeager drifted to the Log Cabin +Saloon and gambling house. Here was gathered the varied and turbulent +life of the border country. Dark-skinned Mexicans rubbed shoulders with +range riders baked almost as brown by the relentless sun. Pima Indians +and Chinamen and negroes crowded round the faro and dice tables. Games +of monte and chuckaluck had their devotees, as had also roulette and +poker. + +It was a picturesque scene of strong, untamed, self-reliant +frontiersmen. Some of them were outlaws and criminals, and some were as +simple and tender-hearted as children. But all had become accustomed to +a life where it is possible at any moment to be confronted with sudden +death. + +A man playing the wheel dropped a friendly nod at Jim. He waited till +the wheel had stopped and saw the man behind it rake in his chips before +he spoke. Then, as he scattered more chips here and there over the +board, he welcomed Yeager with a whoop. + +"Hi there, Malpais! What's doing in the hills these yere pleasant days?" + +"A little o' nothin', Sam. The way they're telling it you been having +all the fun down here." + +Sam Wilcox gathered the chips pushed toward him by the croupier and +cashed in. He was a heavy-set, bronzed man, with a bleached, +straw-colored mustache. Taking his friend by the arm, he led him to one +end of the bar that happened for the moment to be deserted. + +"Have something, Jim. Oh, I forgot. You're ridin' the water wagon and +don't irrigate. More'n I can say for some of you Malpais lads. Some of +them was in here right woozy the other day." + +"The boys will act the fool when they hit town. Who was it?" + +"Slim and Budd and young Sanderson." + +"Was Phil Sanderson drunk?" Yeager asked, hardly surprised, but +certainly troubled. + +"I ain't sure he was, but he was makin' the fur fly at the wheel, there. +Must have dropped two hundred dollars." + +Jim's brows knit in a puzzled frown. He was wondering how the boy had +come by so much money at a time. + +"Who was he trailin' with?" + +"With a lad called Spiker, that fair-haired guy sitting in at the poker +table. He's another youngster that has been dropping money right +plentiful." + +"Who is he?" + +"He's what they call a showfer. He runs one o' these automobiles; takes +parties out in it." + +"Been here long? Looks kind o' like a tinhorn gambler." + +"Not long. He's thick with some of you Malpais gents. I've seen him with +Healy a few." + +"Oh, with Healy." + +Jim regarded the sportive youth more attentively, and presently dropped +into a vacant seat beside him, buying twenty dollars worth of chips. + +Spiker was losing steadily. He did not play either a careful or a +brilliant game. Jim, playing very conservatively, and just about holding +his own, listened to the angry bursts and the boastings of the man next +him, and drew his own conclusions as to his character. After a couple of +hours of play the Malpais man cashed in and went back to the hotel where +he was putting up. + +He slept till late, ate breakfast leisurely, and after an hour of +looking over the paper and gossiping with the hotel clerk about the +holdup he called casually upon the deputy sheriff. Only one thing of +importance he gleaned from him. This was that the roan with the white +stockings had been picked up seven miles from Noches the morning after +the holdup. + +This put a crimp in Healy's story of having seen Keller in the Pass on +the animal. Furthermore, it opened a new field for surmise. _Brill Healy +said that he had seen the horse with a wound in its flank._ Now, how did +he know it was wounded, since Slim had not mentioned this when he had +telephoned? It followed that if he had not seen the broncho--and that he +had seen it was a sheer physical impossibility--he could know of the +wound only because he was already in close touch with what had happened +at Noches. + +But how could he be aware of what was happening fifty miles away? That +was the sticker Jim could not get around. His alibi was just as good as +that of the horse. Both of them rested on the assumption that neither +could cover the ground between two given points in a given time. There +was one other possible explanation--that Healy had been in telephonic +communication with Noches before he met Phyllis. But this seemed to Jim +very unlikely, indeed. By his own story he had been cutting trail all +afternoon and had seen nobody until he met Phyllis. + +Yeager called on the cashier, Benson, later in the day, and had a talk +with him and with the president, Johnson. Both of these were now back at +their posts, though the latter was not attempting much work as yet. Jim +talked also with many others. Some of them had theories, but none of +them had any new facts to advance. + +The young cattleman put up at the same hotel as Spiker and struck up a +sort of intimacy with him. They sometimes loafed together during the +day, and at night they were always to be seen side by side at the poker +table. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI + + +Keller found convalescence under the superintendence of Miss Sanderson +one of the great pleasures of his life. Her school was out for the +summer and she was now at home all day. He had never before found time +to be lazy, and what dreaming he had done had been in the stress of +action. Now he might lie the livelong day and not too obviously watch +her brave, frank youth as she moved before him or sat reading. For the +first time in his life he was in love! + +But as the nester grew better he perceived that she was withdrawing +herself from him. He puzzled over the reason, not knowing that her +brother, Phil, was troubling her with flings and accusations thrown out +bitterly because his boyish concern for her good name could find no +gentler way to express itself. + +"They're saying you're in love with the fellow--and him headed straight +for the pen," he charged. + +"Who says it, Phil?" she asked quietly, but with flaming cheeks. + +He smote his fist on the table. "It don't matter who says it. You keep +away from him. Let Aunt Becky nurse him. You haven't any call to wait on +him, anyhow. If he's got to be nursed by one of the family, I'll do it." + +He tried to keep his word, and as a result of it the wounded man had to +endure his sulky presence occasionally. Keller was man of the world +enough to be amused at his attitude, and yet was interested enough in +the lad's opinion of him to keep always an even mood of cheerful +friendliness. There was a quantity of winsome camaraderie about him that +won its way with Phil in spite of himself. Moreover, all the boy in him +responded to the nester's gameness, the praises of which he heard on all +sides. + +"I see you have quite made up your mind I'm a skunk," the wounded man +told him amiably. + +"You robbed the bank at Noches and shot up three men that hadn't hurt +you any," the boy retorted defiantly. + +"Not unless Jim Yeager is a liar." + +"Oh, Jim! No use going into that. He's your friend. I don't know why, +but he is." + +"And you're Brill Healy's. That's why you won't tell that he was +carrying your sister's knife the day I saw you and him first." + +The boy flashed toward the bed startled eyes. Keller was looking at him +very steadily. + +"Who says he had Phyl's knife?" + +"Hadn't he?" + +"What difference does that make, anyhow? I hear you're telling that you +found the knife beside the dead cow. You ain't got any proof, have you?" +challenged young Sanderson angrily. + +"No proof," admitted the other. + +"Well, then." Phil chewed on it for a moment before he broke out again: +"I reckon you cayn't talk away the facts, Mr. Keller. We caught you in +the act--caught you good. By your own story, you're the man we came on. +What's the use of you trying to lay it on me and Brill?" + +"Am I trying to lay it on you?" + +"Looks like. On Brill, anyhow. There's nothing doing. Folks in this neck +of the woods is for him and against you. Might as well _sabe_ that right +now," the lad blurted. + +"I _sabe_ that some of them are," the other laughed, but not with quite +his usual debonair gayety. For he did not at all like the way things +looked. + +But though Phil had undertaken to do all the nursing that needed to be +done by the family, he was too much of an outdoors dweller to confine +himself for long to the four walls of a room. Besides, he was often +called away by the work of looking after the cattle of the ranch. +Moreover, both he and his father were away a good deal arranging for the +disposal of their sheep. At these times her patient hoped, and hoped in +vain, that Phyllis would take her brother's place. + +Came a day when Keller could stand it no longer. In Becky's absence, he +made shift to dress himself, bit by bit, lying on the bed in complete +exhaustion after the effort of getting into each garment. He could +scarce finish what he had undertaken, but at last he was clothed and +ready for the journey. Leaning on a walking stick, he dragged himself +into the passage and out to the porch, where Phyllis was sitting alone. + +She gave a startled cry at sight of him standing there, haggard and +white, his clothes hanging on his gaunt frame much as if he had been a +skeleton. + +"What are you doing?" she cried, running to his aid. + +After she had got him into her chair, he smiled up at her and panted +weakly. He was leaning back in almost complete exhaustion. + +"You wouldn't come to see me, so--I came--to see you," he gasped out, at +last. + +"But--you shouldn't have! You might have done yourself a great injury. +It's--it's criminal of you." + +"I wanted to see you," he explained simply. + +"Why didn't you send for me?" + +"There wasn't anybody to send. Besides, you wouldn't have stayed. You +never do, now." + +She looked at him, then looked away. "You don't need me now--and I have +my work to do." + +"But I do need you, Phyllie." + +It was the first time he had ever spoken the diminutive to her. He let +out the word lingeringly, as if it were a caress. The girl felt the +color flow beneath her dusky tan. She changed the subject abruptly. + +"None of the boys are here. How am I to get you back to your room?" + +"I'll roll a trail back there presently, ma'am." + +She looked helplessly round the landscape, in hope of seeing some rider +coming to the store. But nobody was in sight. + +"You had no business to come. It might have killed you. I thought you +had better sense," she reproached. + +"I wanted to see you," he parroted again. + +Like most young women, she knew how to ignore a good deal. "You'll have +to lean on me. Do you think you can try it now?" + +"If I go, will you stay with me and talk?" he bargained. + +"I have my work to do," she frowned. + +"Then I'll stay here, thank you kindly." He settled back into the chair +and let her have his gay smile. Nevertheless, she saw that his lips were +colorless. + +"Yes, I'll stay," she conceded, moved by her anxiety. + +"Every day?" + +"We'll see." + +"All right," he laughed weakly. "If you don't come, I'll take a _pasear_ +and go look for you." She helped him to his feet and they stood for a +moment facing each other. + +"You must put your hand on my shoulder and lean hard on me," she told +him. + +But when she saw the utter weakness of him, her arm slipped round his +waist and steadied him. + +"Now then. Not too fast," she ordered gently. + +They went back very slowly, his weight leaning on her more at every +step. When they reached his room, Keller sank down on the bed, utterly +exhausted. Phyllis ran for a cordial and put it to his lips. It was some +time before he could even speak. + +"Thank you. I ain't right husky yet," he admitted. + +"You mustn't ever do such a thing again," she charged him. + +"Not ever?" + +"Not till the doctor says you're strong enough to move." + +"I won't--if you'll come and see me every day," he answered +irrepressibly. + +So every afternoon she brought a book or her sewing, and sat by him, +letting Phil storm about it as much as he liked. These were happy hours. +Neither spoke of love, but the air was electrically full of it. They +laughed together a good deal at remarks not intrinsically humorous, and +again there were conversational gaps so highly charged that she would +rush at them as a reckless hunter takes a fence. + +As he got better, he would be propped up in bed, and Aunt Becky would +bring in tea for them both. If there had been any corner of his heart +unwon it would have surrendered then. For to a bachelor the acme of +bliss is to sit opposite a girl of whom he is very fond, and to see her +buttering his bread and pouring his tea with that air of domesticity +that visualizes the intimacy of which he has dreamed. Keller had played +a lone hand all his turbulent life, and this was like a glimpse of +Heaven let down to earth for his especial benefit. + +It was on such an occasion that Jim Yeager dropped in on them upon his +return from Noches. He let his eyes travel humorously over the room +before he spoke. + +"Why for don't I ever have the luck to be shot up?" he drawled. + +"Oh, you Jim!" Keller called a greeting from the bed. Phyllis came +forward, and, with a heightened color, shook hands with him. + +"You'll sit down with us and have some tea, Jim," she told him. + +"Me? I'm no society Willie. Don't know the game at all, Phyl. Besides, +I'm carrying half of Arizona on my clothes. It's some dusty down in the +Malpais." + +Nevertheless he sat down, and, over the biscuits and jam, told the +meagre story of what he had found out. + +The finding of the stocking-footed roan near Noches so soon after the +robbery disposed of Healy's lie, though it did not prove that Keller had +not been riding it at the time of the holdup. As for Healy, Yeager +confessed he saw no way of implicating him. His alibi was just as good +as that of any of them. + +But there was one person his story did involve, and that was Spiker, the +tinhorn, tenderfoot sport of Noches. During the absence of this young +man at the gaming table, Jim and his friend, Sam Weaver, had got into +his room with a skeleton key and searched it thoroughly. They had found, +in a suit case, a black mask, a pair of torn and shiny chaps, a gray +shirt, a white, dusty sombrero, much the worse for wear, and over three +hundred dollars in bills. + +"What does he pretend his business is?" Keller asked, when Jim had +finished. + +"Allows he's a showfer. Drives folks around in a gasoline wagon. That's +the theory, but I notice he turned down a mining man who wanted to get +him to run him into the hills on Monday. Said he hadn't time. The +showfer biz is a bluff, looks like." + +The nester made no answer. His eyes, narrowed to slits, were gazing out +of the window absently. Presently he came from deep thought to ask +Yeager to hand him the map he would find in his inside coat pocket. This +he spread out on the bed in front of him. When at last he looked up he +was smiling. + +"I reckon it's no bluff, Jim. He's a chauffeur, all right, but he only +drives out select outfits." + +"Meaning?" + +The map lying in front of Keller was one of Noches County. The nester +located, with his index finger, the town of that name, and traced the +road from it to Seven Mile. Then his finger went back to Noches, and +followed the old military road to Fort Lincoln, a route which almost +paralleled the one to the ranch. + +The eyes of Phyllis were already shining with excitement. She divined +what was coming. + +"Is this road still travelled, Jim?" + +"It goes out to the old fort. Nobody has lived there for most thirty +years. I reckon the road ain't travelled much." + +"Strikes through Del Oro Canon, doesn't it, right after it leaves +Noches?" + +"Yep." + +"I reckon, Jim, your friend, Spiker, drove a party out that way the +afternoon of the holdup," the nester drawled smilingly. "By the way, is +your friend in the lockup?" + +"He sure is. The deputy sheriff arrested him same night we went through +his room." + +"Good place for him. Well, it looks like we got Mr. Healy tagged at +last. I don't mean that we've got the proof, but we can prove he might +have been on the job." + +"I don't see it, Larry. I reckon my head's right thick." + +"I see it," spoke up Phyllis quickly. + +Keller smiled at her. "You tell him." + +"Don't you see, Jim? The motor car must have been waiting for them +somewhere after they had robbed the bank," she explained. + +"At the end of Del Oro Canon, likely," suggested the nester. + +She nodded eagerly. "Yes, they would get into the canon before the +pursuit was in sight. That is why they were not seen by Slim and the +rest of the posse." + +Yeager looked at her, and as he looked the certainty of it grew on him. +His mind began to piece out the movements of the outlaws from the time +they left Noches. "That's right, Phyl. His car is what he calls a +hummer. It can go like blazes--forty miles an hour, he told me. And the +old fort road is a dandy, too." + +"They would leave the automobile at Willow Creek, and cut across to the +Pass," she hazarded. + +"All but Brill. Being bridlewise, he rode right for Seven Mile to make +dead sure of his alibi, whilst the others made their getaway with the +loot. When he happened to meet you on the way, he would be plumb +tickled, for that cinched things proper for him. You would be a witness +nobody could get away from." + +"And what about their hawsses? Did they bring the bronchs in the car, +too?" drawled Keller, an amused flicker in his eyes. + +The others, who had been swimming into their deductions so confidently, +were brought up abruptly. Phyllis glanced at Jim and looked foolish. + +"The bronchs couldn't tag along behind at a forty per clip. That's +right," admitted Yeager blankly. + +"I hadn't thought about that. And they had to have their horses with +them to get from Willow Creek to the Pass. That spoils everything," the +girl agreed. + +Then, seeing her lover's white teeth flashing laughter at her, she knew +he had found a way round the difficulty. "How would this do, +partners--just for a guess: The car was waiting for them at the end of +the Del Oro Canon. They dumped their loot into it, then unsaddled and +threw all the saddles in, too. They gave the bronchs a good scare, and +started them into the hills, knowing they would find their way back home +all right in a couple of days. At Willow Creek they found hawsses +waiting for them, and Mr. Spiker hit the back trail for Noches, with his +car, and slid into town while everybody was busy about the robbery." + +"Sure. That would be the way of it," his friend nodded. "All we got to +do now is to get Spiker to squeal." + +"If he happens to be a quitter." + +"He will--under pressure. He's that kind." + +A knock came on the door, and Tom Benwell, the store clerk, answered +her summons to come in. + +"It's Budd, Miss Phyl. He came to see about getting-that stuff you was +going to order for a dress for his little girl," the storekeeper +explained. + +Phyllis rose and followed the man back to the store. When she had gone, +Jim stepped to the door and shut it. Returning, he sat down beside the +bed. + +"Larry, I didn't tell all I know. That hat in Spiker's room had the +initials P.S. written on the band. What's more, I knew the hat by a big +coffee stain splashed on the crown. It happens I made that stain myself +on the round-up onct when we were wrastling and I knocked the coffeepot +over." + +Keller looked at his friend gravely. "It was Phil Sanderson's hat?" + +Yeager nodded assent. "He must have loaned his old hat to Spiker for the +holdup." + +"You didn't turn the hat over to the sheriff?" + +"Not so as you could notice it. I shoved it in my jeans and burnt it +over my camp fire next day." + +"This mixes things up a heap. If Phil is in this thing--and it sure +looks that way--it ties our hands. I'd like to have a talk with Spiker +before we do anything." + +"What's the matter with having a talk with Phil? Why not shove this +thing right home to him?" + +The nester shook his head. "Let's wait a while. We don't want to drive +Healy away yet. If the kid's in it he would go right to Healy with the +whole story." + +Yeager swore softly. "It's all Brill's fault. He's been leading Phil +into devilment for two years now." + +"Yes." + +"And all the time been playing himself for the leader of us fellows that +are against the rustlers and that Bear Creek outfit," continued Jim +bitterly. "Why, we been talking of electing him sheriff. Durn his +forsaken hide, he's been riding round asking the boys to vote for him on +a promise to clean out the miscreants." + +"You can oppose him, of course. But we have no absolute proof against +him yet. We must have proof that nobody can doubt." + +"I reckon. And'll likely have to wait till we're gray." + +"I don't think so. My guess is that he's right near the end of his rope. +We're going to make a clean-up soon as I get solid on my feet." + +"And Phil? What if we catch him in the gather, and find him wearing the +bad-man brand?" + +Keller's eyes met those of his friend. "There never was a rodeo where +some cattle didn't slip through unnoticed, Jim." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +SURRENDER + + +The weeks slipped away and brought with them healing to the wounded man +at Seven Mile. He moved from the bed where at first he had spent his +days to a lounge in the living room, and there, from the bay window, he +could look out at the varied life of the cattle country. Men came and +went in the dust of the drag drive, their approach heralded by the bawl +of thirsty cattle. Others cantered up and bought tobacco and canned +goods. The stage arrived twice a week with its sack of mail, and always +when it did Public Opinion gathered upon the porch of the store, as of +yore. Phil Sanderson he saw often, Yeager sometimes, and once or twice +he caught a glimpse of Healy's saturnine face. + +A scarcity of beef and a sharp rise in prices brought the round-up +earlier than usual. Every spare man was called upon to help comb the +hills for the wild steers that ran the wooded water-sheds, as untamed as +the deer and the lynx. Even the storekeeper, Benwell, was pressed into +the service. 'Rastus and the nester were the only men about the place, +the deputy sheriff having been recalled to Noches on the collapse of +Healy's story. + +The removal to a distance of the rest of her admirers did not have the +effect of throwing Keller alone with Phyllis more often. The young +mistress of the ranch invited Bess Purdy to visit her, and now he never +saw her except in the presence of her other guest. + +Bess took him in at once, evidencing her approval of him by entering +upon a spirited war of repartee with him. She had not been in the house +twenty-four hours before she had unbosomed herself of a derisive +confidence. + +"I don't believe you're a bank robber, at all! I don't believe you are +even a rustler! You're a false alarm!" + +Both Keller and Miss Sanderson smiled at the daring of the girl's +challenge. But the former defended himself with apparent heat. + +"What makes you think so? Why should you undermine my reputation with +such an assertion? You can't talk that way about me without proving it, +Miss Purdy." + +"Well, I don't. You don't _look_ it." + +"I can't help that. You ask Mr. Healy. He'll tell you I am." + +"You'll need a better witness than Brill before I'll believe it." + +"And I thought you were going to like me," he lamented. + +"I like a lot of people who aren't ruffians, but of course I can't +admire you so much as if you were a really truly bad man." + +"But if I promise to be one?" + +"Oh, anybody can _promise_," she flung back, eyes bubbling with +laughter. + +"Wait till I get on my feet again." + +A youth galloped up to the house in a cloud of alkali dust. + +"There's Cuffs," announced Phyllis, smiling at Bess. + +That young woman blushed a little, supposed, aloud, she must go out to +see him, and withdrew in seeming reluctance. + +"He wants Bess to go with him to the Frying Pan dance. He sent a note +over from the round-up to ask her. She hasn't had a chance yet to tell +him that she would," explained her friend. + +"How will he take her?" asked the nester, his eyes quickening. + +"In the surrey, I suppose. Why?" + +"The surrey will hold four." + +She made no pretense of not understanding. Her look met his in a +betrayal of the pleasure his invitation gave her. Yet she shook her +head. + +"No, thank you." + +"But why--if I may ask?" + +"Ah! But you mayn't," she smiled. + +He considered that. "You like to dance." + +"Most girls do." + +"Then it is because of me," he soliloquized aloud. + +"Please," she begged lightly. + +"My reputation, I suppose." + +She began to roll up the embroidery upon which she was busy. But he got +to the door before her. + +"No, you don't." + +"You are not going to make me tell you why I can't go with you, are +you?" + +"That, to start with. Then I'm going to make you tell me some other +things." + +"But if I don't want to tell?" Her eyes were wide open with surprise, +for he had never before taken the masterful line with her. Deep down, +she liked it; but she had no intention of letting him know so. + +"There are times not to tell, and there are times to tell. This will be +one of the last kind, Phyllis." + +She tried mockery. "When you throw a big chest like that I suppose you +always get what you want." + +"You act right funny, girl. I never see you alone any more. We haven't +had a good talk for more than a week. Now, why?" + +She thought of telling him she had been too busy; then, moved by an +impulse of impatience, met his gaze fully, and told him part of the +truth. + +"I should think you would understand that a girl has to be careful of +what she does!" + +"You mean about us being friends?" + +"Oh, we can be friends, but----If you can't see it, then I can't tell +you," she finished. + +"I can see it, I reckon. You saved my life, and I expect some human cat +got his claws out and said it was because you were fond of me. + +"Then you saved it again by your nursing. No two ways about that. Doc +Brown says you and Jim did. I was so sick folks knew it had to be. But +now I'm getting well, you have to show them you're not interested in me. +Isn't that about it?" + +"Yes." + +"But you don't have to show me, too, do you?" + +"Am I not--courteous?" + +"I ain't worrying any about your courtesy. But, look here, Phyllie. Have +you forgotten what happened in the kitchen that night you helped me to +escape?" + +She flashed him one look of indignant reproach. "I should think you +would be the last person in the world to remind me of it." + +"I've got a right to mention it because I've asked you a question since +that ain't been answered. That week's been up ten days." + +"I'm not going to answer it now." + +And with that she slipped past him and from the room. + +He ran a hand through his curls and voiced his perplexity. "Now, if a +woman ain't the strangest ever. Just as a fellow is ready to tell her +things, she gets mad and hikes." + +Nevertheless he smiled, not uncheerfully. What experience he had had +with young women told him the signs were not hopeless for his success. +He was not sure of her, not by a good deal. He had captured her +imagination. But to win a girl's fancy is not the same as to storm her +heart. He often caught himself wondering just where he stood with her. +For himself, he knew he was fathoms deep in love. + +She was in his thoughts when he fell asleep. + +He awoke in the darkness, and sat upright in the bed, a feeling of +calamity oppressing him. Something pungent tickled his nostrils. + +A faint crackling sounded in the air. + +Swiftly he slipped on such clothes as he needed and stepped into the +passage. A heavy smoke was pouring up the back stairway. He knocked +insistently upon the door where Phyllis and her guest were sleeping. + +"What is it?" a voice demanded. + +"Get up and dress, Miss Sanderson! The house is on fire! You have plenty +of time, I think. If there's any hurry I'll let you know after I've +looked." + +He went down the front stairs and found that the fire was in the back +part of the house. Already volumes of smoke with spitting tongues of +flame were reaching toward the foot of the stairs. He ran up to the room +where the girls were dressing, and called to them: + +"Are you ready?" + +"Yes." + +The door opened, to show him two very pale girls, each carrying a bundle +of clothes. They were only partially dressed, but wrappers covered their +disarray. Keller went to the clothes closet, emptied it with a sweep and +lift of his arm, and returned, to lead the way downstairs. + +"Take a breath before you start. The smoke's bad, but there is no real +danger," he told them as he plunged forward. + +At the foot of the stairs he stopped to see that they were following him +closely, then flung open the outer door and let in a rush of cool, sweet +air. In another moment they were outside, safe and unhurt. + +Phyllis drew a long breath before she said: + +"The house is gone!" + +"If there is anything you want particularly from the living room I can +get in through the window," Keller told her. + +She shuddered. Flame jets were already shooting out here and there. "I +wouldn't let you go back for the world. We didn't get out too soon." + +"No," he agreed. + +A sniveling voice behind them broke in: "Where is Mr. Phil? I yain't +seen him yet." + +Larrabie swung round on 'Rastus like a flash. "What do you mean? He's at +the round-up, of course." + +The little fellow began to bawl: "No, sah. He done come home late last +night. Aftah you-all had gone to bed. He's in his room, tha's where he +is." + +Phyllis caught at the arm of Keller to steady her. She was colorless to +the lips. + +"Oh, God! Oh, God!" she cried faintly. + +The nester pushed her gently into the arms of her guest. + +"Take care of her, Bess. I'll get Phil." + +He ran round the house to the back. The bedroom occupied by young +Sanderson was on the first floor. The ranger caught up a stick, smashed +the window, and tore out the frame by main strength. Presently he was +inside, groping through the dense smoke toward the bed. + +Flames leaped at him from out of it like darting serpents. His hair, his +face, his clothes, caught fire before he had discovered that the bed had +been used, but was now empty. The door into the hall was open, and +through it were pouring billows of smoke. Evidently Phil must have tried +to escape that way and been overpowered. + +The young man caught up a towel and wrapped it around his throat and +mouth, then plunged forward into the caldron of the passage. The smoke +choked him and the intense heat peeled his face and made the endurance +of it an agony. + +He stumbled over something soft, and discovered with his hands that it +was a body. Smothered and choked, half frantic with the heat, he +struggled back into the bedroom with his burden. + +Somehow he reached the window, stumbled through it, and dragged the +inanimate body after him. Then, with Phil in his arms, he reeled forward +into the fresh air beyond. + +With a cry Phyllis broke from Bess and ran toward him. But before she +had reached the rescuer and the rescued, Keller went down in total +collapse. He, too, was unconscious when she knelt beside him and began +with her hands to crush out the smoldering fire in his clothes. + +He opened his eyes and smiled faintly when he saw who it was. + +"How's the boy?" he asked. + +"He is breathing," cried Bess joyfully, from where she was bending over +Sanderson. + +"You go attend to him. I'm all right now." + +"Are you truly?" + +"Truly." + +He proved it by sitting up, and presently by rising and joining with her +the group gathered around Phil. For Aunt Becky had now emerged from her +cabin and taken charge of affairs. + +Phil was supported to the bunk house and put to bed by Keller and +'Rastus. It was already plain that he would be none the worse for his +adventure after a night's good sleep. Aunt Becky applied to his case the +homely remedies she had used before, while the others stood around the +bed and helped as best they could. Strangely enough, he was not burned +at all. In this he had escaped better than Keller, whose hair and +eyebrows and skin were all the worse for singeing. + +The nester noticed that Phyllis, in handing a bowl of water to Bess, +used awkwardly her left hand. The right one, he observed, was held with +the palm concealed against the folds of her skirt. + +Presently Phyllis, her anxiety as to Phil relieved, left Aunt Becky and +Bess to care for him, while she went out to make arrangements for +disposing of the party until morning. The nester followed her into the +night and walked beside her toward the house of the foreman. The +darkness was lit up luridly by the shooting flames of the burning house. + +"The store isn't going to catch fire. That's one good thing," Keller +observed, by way of comfort. + +"Yes." There was a catch in her voice, for all the little treasures of +her girlhood, gathered from time to time, were going up in smoke. + +"You're insured, I reckon?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, it might be worse." + +She thought of the narrow escape Phil had had, and nodded. + +"You'll have to sleep in the bunk house. Take any of the beds you like. +Bess and I will put up at the foreman's," she explained. + +As is the custom among bachelors who attend to their own domestic +affairs, they found the bed just as the foreman had stepped out of it +two weeks before. While Keller held the lantern, Phyllis made it up, and +again he saw that she was using her right hand very carefully and +flinching when it touched the blankets. Putting the lantern down on the +table, he walked up to her. + +"I'll make the bed." + +She stepped back, with a little laugh. "All right." + +He made it, then turned to her at once. + +"I want to see your hand." + +She gave him the left one, even as he had done on the occasion of their +second meeting. He took it, and kept it. + +"Now the other." + +"What do you want with it?" + +"Never mind." He reached down and drew it from the folds of her skirt, +where it had again fallen. Very gently he turned it so that the palm was +up. Ugly blisters and a red seam showed where she had burned herself. He +looked at her without speaking. + +"It's nothing," she told him, a little hysterically. + +For an instant her mind flashed back to the time when Buck Weaver had +drawn the cactus spines out of that same hand. + +His voice was rough with feeling. "I can see it isn't. And you got it +for me--putting out the fire in my clothes. I reckon I cayn't thank you, +you poor little tortured hand." He lifted the fingers to his lips and +kissed them. + +"Don't," she cried brokenly. + +"Has it got to be this way always, Phyllie--you giving and me taking?" +His hand tightened on hers ever so slightly, and a spasm of pain shot +across her face. He looked at the burned fingers again tenderly. "Does +it hurt pretty bad, girl?" + +"I wish it was ten times as bad!" she broke out, with a sob. "You saved +Phil's life--at the risk of your own. I wish I could tell you how I +feel, what I think of you, how splendid you are." In default of which +ability, she began to cry softly. + +He wasted no more time. He did not ask her whether he might. With a +gesture, his arm went around her and drew her to him. + +"Let me tell what I think of you, instead, girl o' mine. I cayn't tell +it, either, for that matter, but I reckon I can make out to show you, +honey." + +"I didn't mean--that way," she protested, between laughter and tears. + +"Well, that's the way I mean." + +Neither spoke again for a minute. Than: "Do you really--love me?" she +murmured. + +"What do you think?" He laughed with the sheer unconquerable boyish +delight in her. + +"I think you're pretending right well," she smiled. + +"If I am making believe." + +"If you are." Her arms slipped round his neck with a swift impulse of +love. "But you're not. Tell me you're not, Larry." + +He told her, in the wordless way lovers have at command, the way that is +more convincing than speech. + +So Phyllis, from the troubled waters of doubt, came at last to safe +harborage. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AT THE RODEO + + +There was an exodus from Seven Mile the second day after the fire. +Keller went up Bear Creek, Phyllis accepted the invitation of Bess to +stay with her at the Fiddleback, and her brother returned to the +round-up. + +The riders were now combing the Lost Creek watershed. Phil knew the camp +would be either at Peaceful Valley or higher up, near the headwaters of +the creek. Before he reached the valley the steady bawl of cattle told +him that the outfit was camped there. He topped the ridge and looked +down upon Cattleland at its busiest. Just below him was the remuda, the +ponies grazing slowly toward the hills under the care of three +half-grown boys. + +Beyond were the herded cattle. Here all was activity. Within the fence +of riders surrounding the wild creatures the cutting out and the +branding were being pushed rapidly forward. Occasionally some leggy +steer, tail up and feet pounding, would make a dash to break the cordon. +Instantly one of the riders would wheel in chase, head off the animal, +and drive it back. + +Brill Healy, boss of the rodeo by election, was in charge. He was an +expert handler of cattle, one of the best in the country. It was his +nature to seek the limelight, though it must be said for him that he +rose to his responsibilities. The owners knew that when he was running +the round-up few cattle would slip through the net he wound around them. + +"Hello, Brill!" shouted the young man as he rode up. + +"Hello, son! Too bad about the fire. I'll want to hear about it later. +Looking for a job?" he flung hurriedly over his shoulder. For he had not +even a minute to spare. + +"I reckon." + +Phil did not wait to be assigned work, but joined the calf branders. + +Not until night had fallen and they were gathered round in a semicircle +leaning against their saddles did Phil find time to tell the story of +the fire. There was some haphazard comment when he had finished, after +which Slim spoke. + +"So the nester hauled you out. Ce'tainly looks like he's plumb game. You +said he was afire when he got you into the open, didn't you, Phil?" + +The boy nodded. "And all in. He fainted right away." + +"With him still burning away like the doctor's fire there," murmured +Healy ironically, with a slight gesture toward the cook. + +Phil looked at him angrily. "I didn't say that. Some one put the fire +out." + +"Oh, some one! Might a man ask who?" + +Phil had not had any intention of telling, but he found himself letting +Healy have it straight. + +"Phyllis." + +"About what I thought!" Healy said it significantly, and with a malice +that overrode his discretion. + +"What do you mean?" demanded the boy fiercely. + +"I ain't said anything, have I?" Healy came back smoothly. + +Yeager's quiet voice broke the silence that followed, while Phil was +trying to voice the resentment in him. + +"You mean what we're all thinking, Brill, I reckon--that she is the sort +to forget herself when somebody needs her help. Ain't that it?" + +The eyes of the two met steadily in a clash of wills. Healy's gave way +for the time, not because he was mastered, but because he did not wish +to alienate the rough, but fair-minded, men sitting around. + +"You're mighty good at explaining me to the boys, Jim. I expect that is +what I mean," he answered sullenly. + +"Sure," put in Purdy, with amiable intent. + +"But when it comes to Mr. Keller I can explain myself tol'able well. I +don't need any help there, Jim, not even if he is yore best friend." + +"If you've got anything to say against him, I'll ask you to say it when +I'm not around," broke in Phil. "You'll recollect, please, that he's +_my_ friend, too." + +"That so? Since, when, Phil?" the rodeo boss retorted sarcastically. + +"Since he went into the fire after me and saved my life. Think I'm a +coyote to round on him? I tell you he's a white man clear through. In my +opinion, he's neither a rustler nor a bank robber." He was flushed and +excited, but his gaze met that of his former friend and challenged him +defiantly. + +Healy's eyes narrowed. He gazed at the boy darkly, as if he meant to +read him through and through. For years he had dominated Phil, had +shaped him to his ends, had led him into wild, lawless courses after +him. Now the anchors were dragging. He was losing control of him. He +resolved to turn the screws on him, but not at this time and place. + +"I've always been considered a full-grown man, Phil. What I think I aim +to say out loud when the notion hits me. That being so, I go on record +as having an opinion about Keller. You think he's on the square, and you +give him a whitewashed certificate as a bony-fidy Sunday-school scholar. + +"Different here. I think him a coyote and a crook, and so I say it right +out in meeting. Any objections?" The gaze of the boss shifted from +Sanderson to Yeager, and fastened. + +"None in the world. You think what you like, Brill, and we'll stick to +our opinions," Yeager replied cheerfully. + +"And when I get good and ready I'll act on mine," Healy replied with an +evil grin. + +"If you find it right convenient. I expect Keller ain't exactly a wooden +cigar Indian. Maybe he'll have a say-so in what's doing," suggested +Yeager. + +"About as much as he had last time," sneered the round-up boss. With +which he rose, stretched himself, and gave orders. "Time to turn in, +boys. We're combing Old Baldy to-morrow, remember." + +"And Old Baldy's sure a holy terror," admitted Slim. + +"Come three more days and we'd ought to be through. I'm not going to +grieve any when we are. This high life don't suit me too durned well," +put in Benwell. + +"Yet when you come here first you was a right sick man, Tom. Now, you're +some healthy. Don't that prove the outside of a hawss is good for the +inside of a man, like the docs say?" grinned Purdy. + +"Tom's notion of real living is sassiety with a capital S," explained +Cuffs. "You watch him cut ice at the Frying Pan dance next week. He'll +be the real-thing lady-killer. All you lads going, I reckon. How about +you, Jim?" + +Yeager said he expected to be there. + +"With yore friend the rustler?" asked Healy insolently over his +shoulder. + +"I haven't got any friend that's a rustler." + +"I'm speaking of Mr. Larrabie Keller." There was a slurring inflection +on the prefix. + +"He'll be there, I shouldn't wonder." + +"I'd wonder a heap," retorted Healy. "You'll see he won't show his face +there." + +"That's where you're wrong, Brill. He told me he was going," spoke up +Phil triumphantly. + +"We'll see. He's wise to the fact that this country knows him for an +out-and-out crook. He'll stay in his hole." + +"You going, Slim?" asked Purdy amiably, to turn the conversation into a +more pacific channel. + +"Sure," answered that young giant, getting lazily to his feet. "Well, +sons, the boss is right. Time to pound our ears." + +They rolled themselves in their blankets, the starry sky roofing their +bedroom. Within five minutes every man of them was asleep except the +night herders--and one other. + +Healy lay a little apart from the rest, partially screened by some boxes +of provisions and a couple of sacks of flour. His jaw was clamped tight. +He looked into the deep velvet sky without seeing. For a long time he +did not move. Then, noiselessly, he sat up, glanced around carefully to +make sure he was not observed, rose, and stole into the darkness, +carrying with him his saddle and bridle. + +One of his ponies was hobbled in the mesquite. Swiftly he saddled. +Leading the animal very carefully so as to avoid rustling the brush, he +zigzagged from the camp until he had reached a safe distance. Here he +swung himself on and rode into the blur of night, at first cautiously, +but later with swift-pounding hoofs. He went toward the northwest in a +bee line without hesitation or doubt. Only when the lie of the ground +forced a detour did he vary his direction. + +So for hours he travelled until he reached a canon in which squatted a +little log cabin. He let his voice out in the howl of a coyote before he +dismounted. No answer came, save the echo from the cliff opposite. Again +that mournful call sounded, and this time from the cabin found an +answer. + +A man came sleepily to the door and peered out. "Hello! That you, +Brill?" + +Healy swung off, trailed his rein, and followed the man into the cabin. +"Don't light up, Tom. No need." + +For ten minutes they talked in low tones. Healy emerged from the cabin, +remounted, and rode back to the cow camp. He reached it just as the +first, faint streaks of gray tinged the eastern sky. + +Silently he unsaddled, hobbled his pony, and carried his saddle back to +the place where he had been lying. Once more he lay down, glanced +cautiously round to see all was quiet, and fell asleep as soon as his +head touched the saddle. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +MISSING + + +From all over the Malpais country, from the water-sheds where Bear and +Elk and Cow creeks head, from the halfway house far out in the desert +where the stage changes horses, men and women dribbled to the Frying Pan +for the big dance after the round-up. Great were the preparations. Many +cakes and pies and piles of sandwiches had been made ready. Also there +was a wash boiler full of coffee and a galvanized tub brimming with +lemonade. For the Frying Pan was doing itself proud. + +Phil and his sister drove over together. The boy had asked Bess to go +with him, but Cuffs had beaten him to it. The distance was only +twenty-five miles, a neighborly stroll in that country of wide spaces +and desert stretches filled with absentees. + +When Phyllis came into the big room where the dancing was in progress, +her dark eye swept the room without finding him for whom she looked. +There were many there she knew, not more than two or three whom she had +never met, but among them all she looked at none who was a magnet for +her eyes. Keller had not yet arrived. + +Before she had taken her seat she had three engagements to dance. Jim +Yeager had waylaid her; so, too, had Slim and Curly. She waltzed first +with Phil, and after he had done his duty he left her to the besiegings +of half a score of riders for various ranches who came and went and came +again. She joked with them, joined the merry banter that went on, +laughed at them when they grew sentimental, always with a sprightly +devotion to the matter in hand. + +Nevertheless, though they did not know it, her mind was full of him who +had not yet appeared. Why was he late? Could he have missed the way by +any chance? And later--as the hours passed without bringing him--could +anything have happened to him? More than once her troubled gaze fell +upon Brill Healy with a brooding question in it. The man had received +only the day before his party's nomination for sheriff, and he was doing +the gracious to all the women and children. + +He had many of the qualities that make for popularity, even though he +was often overbearing, revengeful, and sullen. When he chose he could be +hail fellow well met in a way Malpais found flattering to its vanity. +Now he was apparently having the time of his life. Wherever he moved an +eddy of laughter and gayety went with him. The eyes of men as well as +women admiringly followed his dark, lithe, picturesque figure. + +Phyllis had declined to dance with him, giving as an excuse a full +programme, and for an instant his face had blazed with the suppressed +rage in him. He had bowed and swaggered away with a malicious sneer. Her +judgment told her it was folly to connect this man with the absence of +her lover, but that look of malevolent triumph had none the less shaken +her heart. What had he meant? It seemed less a threat for the future +than a gloating over some evil already done. + +When she could endure them no longer she carried her fears to Jim +Yeager. They were dancing, but she made an excuse of fatigue to drop +out. + +"First time I ever knew you to play out at a dance, Phyl," he rallied +her. + +"It isn't that. I want to say something to you," she whispered. + +He had a guess what it was, for his own mind was not quite easy. + +"Do you think anything could have happened, Jim?" she besought pitifully +when for a moment they were alone in a corner. + +"What _could_ have happened, Phyllie? Do you reckon he fell off his +hawss, and him a full-size man?" he scoffed. + +"Yes, but--you don't know how Brill looked at me. I'm afraid." + +"Oh, Brill!" His voice held an edge of scorn, but none the less it +concealed a real fear. He was making as much concession to it as to her +when he added lightly: "Tell you what I'll do, Phyl. I'll saddle up and +take a look back over the Bear Creek trail. Likely I'll meet him, and +we'll come in together." + +Her eyes met his, and he needed no other thanks. "You'll lose the +dance," was her only comment. + +Jim followed the road until it branched off to join the Bear Creek +trail. Here he deflected toward the mountains, taking the zigzag path +that ran like a winding thread among the rocks as it mounted. Now for +the first time there came to him the faint rhythmic sound of a galloping +horse's hoofs. He did not stop, and as he picked his way among the rocks +he heard for some time no more of it. + +"Mr. Hurry-up-like-hell kept the road, I reckon," Jim ruminated aloud, +and even as he spoke he caught again the echo of an iron shoe striking a +rock. + +He stopped and listened. Some one was climbing the trail behind him. + +"Mebbe he's a friend, and then mebbe he isn't. We'll let him have the +whole road to himself, eh, Keno?" + +Yeager guided his pony to the left, and took up a position behind some +huge bowlders from whence he could see without being seen. The pursuer +toiled into sight, a slim, wiry youth on a buckskin. He came forward out +of the shadows into the fretted moonlight. + +Yeager gave a glad whoop of recognition. "Hi-yi, Phil!" + +"You're there, are you? Did I scare you off the trail, Jim?" + +"That's whatever, boy. What are you doing here?" + +"Sis sent me. She got worried again, and we figured I'd better join +you." + +"I reckon there's nothing serious the matter. Still, it ain't like Larry +to say he would come and then not show up." + +"Brill is back there bragging about it." Phil nodded his head toward the +lights of the Frying Pan glimmering far below. "Says he knew the waddy +wouldn't show his head. You don't reckon, Jim, he's turned a trick on +Keller, do you?" + +"That's what we have got to find out, Phil." + +"Looks funny he'd be so durned sure when we all know how game Keller +is," the boy reflected aloud. + +"I don't expect you're armed, Phil?" Jim put the statement as a +question. + +"Nope. Are you?" + +"No, I ain't. Didn't think of it when I started. Oh, well, we'll make +out. Like enough there will be no need of guns." + +A gray light was sifting into the sky, and still they rode, winding up +toward the peaks of the divide. Jim, leading the way, drew rein and +pointed to a cactus bush beside the trail. Among its spines lay a gray +felt hat. From it his eye wandered to the very evident signs of a +struggle that had taken place. Moss and cactus had been trampled down by +boot heels. To the cholla hung here and there scraps of cloth. A blood +splash stared at them from an outcropping slope of rock. + +Jim swung from the saddle and rescued the hat from the spines. Inside +the sweat band were the initials L.K. Silently he handed the hat to +Phil. + +"It's his hat," the boy cried. + +"It's his hat," Jim agreed. "They must have laid for him here. He put up +a good scrap. Notice how that cholla is cut to ribbons. Point is, what +did they do to him?" + +They searched the ground thoroughly, and discovered no body hidden in +the brush. + +"They've taken him away. Likely he's alive," Yeager decided aloud at +last. + +"Brill couldn't have been in this. He was at the Frying Pan before I +was." + +"I reckon he ordered it done. If that's correct they will be holding +Larry till Brill gets there to give further orders." + +Phil entered an objection. "That doesn't look to me like Brill's way. +He's not scared of any man that lives. When he squares accounts with +Keller he'll be on the job himself." + +"That's so, too," admitted Yeager. "Still, I figure this is Healy's +work. Maybe he gave out there was to be no killing. He was at the ranch +himself, big as coffee, so as to be sure of his alibi." + +"What does he care about an alibi? When he gets ready to go gunnin' +after Keller he won't care if the whole Malpais sees him. There's +something in this I don't _sabe_." + +"There sure is. We've got to run the thing down _muy pronto_. No use +both of us going ahead without arms, Phil. My notion is this: You burn a +shuck back to the Frying Pan and round up some of our friends on the +q.t. Don't let Brill get a notion of what's in the air. Better make +straight for Gregory's Pass. I'm going to follow this trail we've cut +and see what's doing. Once I find out I'll double back to the Pass and +meet you. Bring along an extra gun for me." + +"I don't reckon I will, Jim. What's the matter with me going on instead +of you? I can follow this trail good as you can. I announce right here +that I'm not going back. I've got first call on this job. Keller went +into the fire after me. I'm going to follow this trail to hell if I have +to." + +Yeager tried persuasion, argument, appeal. The lad was as fixed as +Gibraltar. + +"I'm not going to go buttin' in where I'm not wanted any more than you +would, Jim. I'll play this hand out with a cool head, but I'm going to +play it my ownself." + +"All right. It's your say-so. I'll admit you've got a claim. But you +want to remember one thing--if anything happens to you I cayn't square +it with Phyl. Go slow, boy!" + +Without more words they parted, Jim to ride swiftly back for help, and +young Sanderson to push on up the trail with his eyes glued to it. Ever +since he could swing himself to a saddle he had been a vaquero in the +cow country. + +He was therefore an expert at reading the signs left by travellers. What +would have been invisible to a tenderfoot offered evidence to him as +plain as the print on a primer. Mile after mile he covered with a minute +scrutiny that never wavered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY + + +Keller rode blithely down the piney trail while the sun flung its +brilliant good-bye over the crotch of the mountains behind which it was +slipping. The western sky was a Turner sublimated to the _nth_ degree, a +thing magnificent and indescribable. The young man rode with his crisp +curls bared to the light, grateful breeze that came like healing from +the great peaks. From the joyous, unquenchable youth in him bubbled +snatches of song and friendly smiles scattered broadcast over a world +that pleased him mightily. + +He was going to see his girl, going down to the Frying Pan to take her +in his arms and whirl her into the land of romance to the rhythm of the +waltz. He wanted to shout it out to the chipmunks and the quails. Ever +and again he broke out with a line or two of a melody he had heard once +from a phonograph. No matter if he did not get the words exactly. He was +sure of the sentiment. So the hills flung back his lusty: + + "I love a lassie, + A bonnie Hieland lassie, + She's as pure as the lily of the dell." + +Disaster fell upon him like a bolt out of a June sky. His pony +stumbled, went down heavily with its weight on his leg. From the +darkness men surged upon him. Rough hands dragged at him. The butt of a +weapon crashed down on his hat and stunned him. + +He became dimly aware that his leg was free from the horse, that he was +struggling blindly to rise against the force that clamped him down. He +knew that he reached his feet, that he was lashing out furiously with +both hands, that even as he grappled with one assailant a gleam of steel +flashed across the moonlight and shot through him with a zigzag pain +that blotted out the world. + +As his mind swam back to consciousness through troubled waters a +far-away voice came out of the fog that surrounded him. + +"He's coming to, looks like. I reckon you ain't bust his head, after +all, Brad." + +Vague, grinning gargoyles mocked him from the haze. Slowly these took +form. Features stood out. The masks became faces. They no longer floated +detached in space, but belonged definitely to human beings. + +"It ain't our fault if you're stove up some, pardner. You're too durned +anxious to whip yore weight in wildcats," one of the men grinned. + +"Right you are, Tom. He shore hits like a kicking mule," chimed in a +third, nursing a cheek that had been cut open to the bone. + +A fourth spoke up, a leather-faced vaquero with hard eyes of jade. "No +hard feelings, friend. All in the way of business." With which he gave a +final tug at the knot that tied the hands of his prisoner. + +"I've got Mr. Healy to thank for this, I expect," commented the nester +quietly. + +"We've got no rope on yore expectations, Mr. Keller; but this outfit +doesn't run any information bureau," answered the heavy-set, sullen +fellow who had been called Brad. + +There were four of them, all masked; but the ranger was sure of one of +them, if not two. The first speaker had been Tom Dixon; the last one was +Brad Irwin, a rider belonging to the Twin Star outfit. + +They helped the bound man to his horse and held a low-voiced +consultation. Three of his captors turned their horses toward the south, +while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across the +horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding +among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Through +the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain parks +beyond. + +This region was the heart of the watershed where Little Goose Creek +heads. The peaks rose gaunt above them. Occasionally they glimpsed wide +vistas of tangled, wooded canons and hills innumerable as sea billows. +Into this maze they plunged ever deeper and deeper. Daylight came, and +found them still travelling. The prisoner did not need to be told that +this inaccessible country was the lurking place of the rustlers who had +preyed so long upon the Malpais district. Nor did he need evidence to +connect the sinister figure behind him with the gang of outlaws who rode +in and out of these silent places on their nefarious night errands while +honest folks kept their beds. + +The sun was well up to its meridian before they came through a thick +clump of quaking aspens to the mouth of a gulch opening from the end of +a little mountain park. On one of the slopes of the gulch a cabin +squatted, half hidden by the great boulders and the matting of pine +boughs in front. Here Brad swung stiffly from the saddle. + +"We'll 'light hyer," he announced. + +"Time, too," returned Keller easily. "If anybody asks you, tell them I +usually eat breakfast some before ten o'clock." + +"You'll do yore eating from now on when I give the word," his guard +answered surlily. + +He was a big, dark man with a grouch, one who took his duties sourly. +Not by any stretch of imagination could he be considered a brilliant +conversationalist. What he had to say he growled out audibly enough, but +for the rest his opinions had to be cork-screwed out of him in surly +monosyllables. + +There was a good deal of the cave man about him. The heavy, slouching +shoulders, the glare of savagery, the long, hairy arms, all had their +primordial suggestion. Given a club and a stone ax, he might have been +set back thousands of years with no injustice to his mentality. + +The man soon had a fire blazing in the stove, and from it came a +breakfast of bacon, black coffee, and biscuits. He freed the hands of +the nester and sat opposite him at the table, a revolver by the side of +his plate for use in an emergency. + +Keller smiled. "This is one of those fashionable dinners where they have +extra hardware beside the plates," he suggested. + +"Get gay, and I'll blow the top of yore head off!" the cow-puncher swore +with gusto. + +"Thanks. Under the circumstances, I reckon I'll not get gay. I'm in no +hurry to put you in the pen, seh. Plenty of time. I'm going to need the +top of my head to testify against you." + +Irwin swore violently. + +"For two cents I'd pump you full of holes right now," he glared. + +Keller laughed, meeting him eye to eye pleasantly. + +"Those aren't the orders, friend. I'm to be held here till the boss +shows up or gives the signal." + +The big jaw of his captor fell from astonishment. "Who told you that?" + +The prisoner helped himself to more bacon and laughed again. He had made +a guess, but he knew now that he had hit the bull's-eye with his shot in +the dark. + +"Some things don't need telling. I don't have to be told, for instance, +that if things get too hot for Brill Healy he will slide out and leave +you to settle the bill with the law." + +Irwin's eyes glared angrily at his smiling ones. The unabashed +impudence, the unfluttered aplomb, but above all the uncanny prescience +of this youth disturbed him because he could not understand them. +Moreover, it happened that his suspicious mind had lingered on the +chance of a betrayal at the hands of his chief. For which very reason he +broke into angry denial. + +"That's a lie! Brill ain't that sort. He'd stand pat to a finish." Then, +tardily, came the instinct for caution. "And there's nothing to tell, +anyways," he finished sulkily. + +"Sure. What's a little rustling and a little bank robbing among +friends?" Keller wanted to know cheerfully. + +For just an instant he thought he had gone too far. The big ruffian +opposite choked over his biscuit, the while rage purpled his face. He +caught up the revolver, and his fingers itched at the trigger. + +His prisoner, leaning back in the chair, held him with quiet, unwavering +eyes. "Steady! Steady!" he drawled. + +"That will be about enough from you," Irwin let out through set teeth. +"You padlock that mouth of yours, mister." + +Keller took his advice temporarily, but it was not in him to long +repress the spirit of adventure that bubbled in him. The temptation to +bait this bear drew him irresistibly. He could not let him alone, the +more that he sensed the danger to himself of the prods he sent home +through the thick skin. + +Lying carelessly on the bed with his head on his arm, or perhaps sitting +astride a chair with his hands crossed on the back support, he would +smile with childlike innocence and sent his barbs in gayly. And Irwin, +murder in his dull brain, would glare at him like a maniac. + +"Now would be a good time to blow off the top of my cocoanut," the +nester suggested more than once to the infuriated cave man. "I'm +allowing, you know, to send you to Yuma as soon as I get out of this. +Nothing like grabbing your opportunity by the forelock." + +"And when are you expecting to get out of here?" his guard demanded +huskily. + +Keller waved his hand with airy persiflage. "No exact information +obtainable, my friend. Likely to-day. Maybe not till to-morrow. The one +dead-sure point is that I'll make my getaway at the right time." + +"There's one more dead-sure point--that I'm going to blow holes in you +at the right time," retorted the other. + +"Like to bet on which of us is a true prophet?" + +Brad relapsed into black, sulky silence. + +The hours followed each other, and still nobody came to relieve the +guard. Keller could not understand the reason for this, any more than +he could fathom an adequate one for his abduction. There was of course +something behind it--something more potent than mere malice. If the +intention had been merely to kill him, the thing could have been done +without all this trouble. But though he searched his brain for an +explanation, he could not find one that satisfied. + +The answer came to him later in the day. In the middle of the afternoon +a horse pounded up the draw to the cabin. Irwin went to the door, his +eye still on his prisoner, except for a swift glance at the newcomer. + +"How's yore five-thousand-dollar beauty, Brad?" inquired a voice that +the nester recognized. + +"Finer than silk, boss." + +The rider swung from the saddle, trailed his rein, and came with +jingling spurs into the cabin. + +"Good evening, Mr. Keller," he said with derisive respect. + +The nester, lying sideways on the bed with his head on his hand, nodded +a greeting. + +"I didn't know you and Mr. Irwin had doubled up and were bunkies," +continued the jubilant voice. "When did you-all patch up the +partnership?" + +"About eight o'clock last night, Mr. Healy," returned the prisoner, +eying him coolly. "And of course I knew it would be a surprise to you +when you learned it." + +"Expecting to stay long with him?" + +"He seems right hospitable, but I don't reckon I'll outstay my welcome." + +Healy laughed, with mockery and not amusement. "Brad's such a pressing +host there's no telling when he'll let you go." + +He was as malevolent as ever, but it was plain to be seen that he was +riding high on a wave of triumph. Affairs were plainly going to his +liking. + +"The way I heard it you were expected down at the Frying Pan last night. +Changed yore mind about going, I reckon," he went on insolently. + +"I reckon." + +"Had business that detained you, maybe." + +"You're a good guesser." + +"Folks were right anxious down there, according to the say-so that +reached me." + +Keller's cool eye measured him in silence, at which his enemy laughed +contemptuously and turned on his heel. + +Healy drew his confederate to one side of the room and held a whispered +talk with him. Apparently he did not greatly care whether his foe caught +the drift of it or not, for occasionally his voice lifted enough so that +scraps of sentences reached the man lounging on the bed. + +"--close to two hundred head--by the Mimbres Pass--the boys are +ce'tainly pushing the drive--out of danger by midnight--wait for the +signal before you turn him loose----" + +"So-long, Mr. Keller. I cayn't spare the time to stay longer with you," +their owner jeered. + +"Just a moment, Mr. Healy. I want to know why you are keeping me here." + +The man grinned. "Am I keeping you here, seh? Looks to me like it was +Brad that's a-keeping you. Make a break for a getaway, and I'll not do a +thing to you. Course I cayn't promise what Brad won't do. He's such a +plumb anxious host." + +"You're his brains. What you tell him to do he does. I hold you +responsible for this!" + +"You don't say!" + +"And right now I'll add, for all the devilment that has been going on in +these parts for years. You've about reached the end of your rope, +though." + +"I'll bet dollars to doughnuts you reach the end of one inside of +forty-eight hours, Mr. Rustler," flashed back Healy. + +And with an evil, significant grin he was gone. They heard the sound of +retreating hoofs die in the distance. + +But his visit had told the prisoner two things. A hurried wholesale +drive of rustled cattle was being made across the line into Sonora, and +it was being done in such a way as to fasten the suspicion of it upon +the nester who had not appeared at the dance and had not been seen since +that time. The irony of the thing was superb in its audacity. Healy and +his friends would get the profit from the stolen cattle, and they would +visit the punishment for the crime upon him. Evidence would be cooked +up of course, and the retribution would be so swift that his friends +would not be able to save him. This time his enemy would take no +chances. He would be wiped out like a troublesome insect. The thing was +diabolic in the simplicity of its cleverness. + +Keller watched his jailer now like a hawk. He was ready to take the +first chance that offered, no matter how slight a one it seemed. But the +man was vigilant and wary. He never let his hand wander a foot from the +handle of the weapon he carried. + +Silently Irwin cooked a second meal. They sat down to it opposite each +other, Keller facing the open window. While his jailer plied the knife, +his revolver again lay on the oilcloth within reach. + +"While I'm your guest and eating at your expense, I want to be properly +grateful," the nester told his vis-a-vis. "Some folks might kick because +the me-an'-you wasn't more varied, but I ain't that kind. You're doing +your best, and nobody could do more." + +"The which?" asked Irwin puzzled. + +"The me-an'-you. It's French for just plain grub. For breakfast we get +bacon and coffee and biscuits. For supper there's a variety. This time +it is biscuits and coffee and bacon. To-morrow I reckon----" + +Keller stopped halfway in his sentence, but took up his drawling comment +again instantly. Only an added sparkle in his eyes betrayed the change +that had suddenly wiped out his indolence and left him tense and alert. +For while he had been speaking a head had slowly raised itself above the +window casement and two eyes had looked in and met his. They belonged to +Phil Sanderson. + +Never had the brain of the prisoner been more alert. While his garrulous +tongue ran aimlessly on, he considered ways and means. The boy held up +empty hands to show him that he was unarmed. The nester did not by the +flicker of an eyelash betray the presence of a third party to the man at +table with him. Nevertheless his chatter became from that moment +addressed to two listeners. To one it meant nothing in particular. To +the other it was pregnant with meaning. + +"No, seh. Some might complain because you ain't better provided with +grub and fixings, but what I say is _to make out the best we can with +what we've got_," the slow, drawling voice continued. "Some folks cayn't +get along unless things are up to the Delmonico standard. That's plumb +foolishness. Reminds me of a friend of mine that happened on a grizzly +onct while he was cutting trail. + +"Not expecting to meet Mr. Bear, he didn't have any gun along. Mr. Bear +was surely on the wah-path that day. He made a bee line for my friend to +get better acquainted. Nothing like presence of mind. That cow-puncher +got his rope coiled in three shakes of a maverick's tail, his pinto +bucking for fair to make his getaway. The rope drapped over Mr. Bear's +head just as the puncher and the hawss separated company. + +"Things were doing right sudden then. My friend grabbed the end of that +rope and twisted it round and round a young live oak. Then he remembered +an appointment and lit out, Mr. Bear after him on the jump. _Muy pronto_ +that grizzly came up awful sudden. The more he jerked the nearer he was +to being choked. You better believe Mr. Puncher was hitting that trail +right willing in the meanwhile." + +"You talk too much with yore mouth," growled Irwin. + +"It's a difference of opinion that makes horse races. I was just aiming +to show you that _if my friend hadn't happened to have a rope along he +would have been in a bad fix_. But, you notice, he used his brains, _and +a rope did just as well as a gun_." + +The eyes just above the window casing disappeared. Brad attended to the +business in hand, which was that of getting away with bacon and biscuits +while he kept an eye on the man opposite. His prisoner also did justice +to his supper, to his flow of conversation, and to the window behind the +unconscious jailer. + +In that open window were presently framed again the head and shoulders +of young Sanderson. Irwin pushed back his chair to get some more coffee, +and the picture in the frame shot instantly down. The guard, his coffee +cup, and his revolver went to the stove and returned. Phil reappeared +at the window, his rope coiled for action. It slid gracefully forward, +dropped over the head of Brad, and was instantly jerked tight. + +Keller vaulted across the table, and flung himself upon the struggling +man. Brad's arms were entangled in the rope, but one leg shot out and +hurled back the nester. But before he could free himself from the taut +loop his prisoner was upon him again and had borne him to the ground. + +Of the two, Irwin was far the more powerful, Keller the more agile and +supple. He knew every trick of the wrestling game, whereas the other was +clumsy and muscle-bound. By main strength the older man got to his feet +again. Over went the table as they surged against it. + +A chair, stamped into kindling, was hurled aside by the force of their +impact. The stove rocked, and the bed collapsed as the locked figures +crashed down upon it. The ranger, twisting as they fell, landed on top +and his fingers instantly found the throat of his foe. Simultaneously +Phil came to his assistance. + +Even then, taken at an advantage, with two much younger men against him, +the big jailer fought to the finish like a bear. Not till he was +completely exhausted and they nearly so did he give up and lie quiet. +All three of them panted heavily, the allies lying across his chest and +legs. The nester managed to draw the loop taut about Irwin's neck and +insert his knuckles so that he could use them as a tourniquet if +necessary. + +"Gather up the other end of the rope, loop it, and tie his feet +together," the nester ordered, getting his sentence out in fragmentary +jerks. + +Phil did so, deftly and expertly, after which, in spite of renewed +struggles, they tied the hands of their prisoner behind his back. + +"Looks like a cyclone had hit the room," said the boy, glancing at the +debris. + +Larrabie laughed. "He's the most willing mixer I ever saw." + +"What are you going to do with him?" + +"We'll leave him tied right where he is. When we get down into the +settlement we'll notify his friends, though I reckon they'll find him +without any help from us." + +In order to make sure they went over the knots again, tightening them +here and there. The revolver and the rifle of the bound man they +appropriated. The nester's horse was in a little corral back of the +house. He saddled, and shortly the two were on the back trail. Phil knew +the country as a golfer knows his links. To him Keller put the question +in his mind: + +"How far is the Mimbres Pass from here, and in what direction?" + +The younger man looked at him in surprise. "A dozen miles, I reckon. See +that cleft over there? That's the Mimbres." + +His friend drew rein and looked with level eyes at him. + +"Phil, it's come to a show-down! Are you for Brill Healy or are you for +me?" + +"I'm through with Brill." + +"Dead sure of that?" + +"Dead sure. Why?" + +"Because you've got to make your choice to-night whether you're going to +stand with honest men or thieves. Healy's gang is rustling a bunch of +cows gathered at the round-up. They're heading for Mimbres Pass. I'm +going to stop them if I can." + +"I'm with you, Larry." + +"Good! I was sure of you, Phil." + +The boy flushed, but his eyes did not waver. "I want to tell you +something. That day we most caught you over the dead cow of the C.O. +outfit Brill was carrying Phyl's knife. I had lent it to him the night +before." + +Keller nodded. "I had figured it out that way." + +"But that ain't all. Once when I was cutting trail in the hills--must +have been about six months before that time--I happened on Brill driving +a calf still bleeding from the brand he had put on it. + +"I didn't think anything of that, but I noticed he was anxious to have +me turn and join him. But I kept on the way I was going, and just by a +miracle my pony almost stumbled over a dead cow lying in the brush. That +set me thinking. That night I rode over to Healy's and asked an +explanation. + +"He had one ready. Some one else must have killed the cow. He found the +calf wandering about alone, and branded it. Somehow his story didn't +quite satisfy me, but I wasn't ready then to think him a coyote. I liked +him--always had. And it flattered me that he had picked me out to be his +best friend. So I said nothing, and figured it out that he was on the +square. Of course I knew he was reckless and wild, but I didn't like him +any the less for that. I reckon nobody ever accused him of not being +game." + +"Hardly," smiled Keller. "He'll stand the acid that way." + +"The thing that stuck in my craw was his lying about seeing you on the +night of the bank robbery. He said you were riding the roan with white +stockings. Later we found out that couldn't be true. Then I knew Jim was +telling the truth about you being with him in the hills at the time. It +kind of sifted to me by degrees that you were a white man and he was a +skunk." + +"And then?" + +"Then we had it out one day. He had his reason for wanting to stand well +with me. I reckon you know what it is." + +"I know his reason. No man could have a better. I reckon I've a right to +think so, Phil, because she has promised to marry me." + +The boy shook hands with him impulsively. "I'm right glad to hear +it--and I want to say they don't make girls any better than Phyl." + +"That's not news to me. I have known it since the first time I saw her." + +Sanderson returned to the order of the day. "Well, Brill and I had had +one or two tiffs, mostly about you and Phyl. He saw I was changed toward +him, and he wanted to know why. I let him have it straight, and since +then we haven't been friends." + +"I'm glad of that. It makes plain sailing for me. He's got to be run +down and caged, Phil. Healy is at the head of all this rustling that has +been troubling the Malpais country. His gang stuck up the Diamond Nugget +stage, killed Sheriff Fowler, and robbed the Noches Bank." + +"How could he have robbed the bank when he was seen fifty miles from +there not two hours afterward?" + +Keller briefly explained his theory then pushed on at once to his plans. + +"I'm going to make straight for the Mimbres Pass while you go back and +rustle help. I'll try to keep them from getting through the Pass until +you close in on them behind." + +"That don't look good to me. How do I know how long it will be before I +can gather the boys together or find Jim and his outfit? You might be +massacred before I got back." + +"A man has to take his fighting chance." + +"Then let me take mine. We'll hold the pass together. I'll bet we can. +Don't you reckon?" + +"What use would you be without a rifle? No, Phil, you'll have to bring +up the reinforcements. That's the best tactics." + +Sanderson protested eagerly, but in the end was overborne. They turned +their backs upon each other, one headed for the Mimbres and the other +for the trail that ran down to the Malpais country. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE MAN-HUNT + + +When Jim Yeager separated from Phil after their discovery of Keller's +hat and the deductions they drew from it, the former turned his pony +toward the Frying Pan. Daylight had already broken before he came in +sight of it, but sounds of revelry still issued boisterously from the +house. + +As he drew near there came to him the squeal of sawing riddles, the +high-pitched voice of the dance caller in sing-song drawl, the shuffling +of feet keeping time to the rhythm of the music. For though a new day +was at hand, the quadrilles continued with unflagging vigor, one +succeeding another as soon as the floor was cleared. + +The cow country takes its amusements seriously. A dance is infrequent +enough to be an event. Men and women do not ride or drive from thirty to +fifty miles without expecting to drink the last drop of pleasure there +may be in the occasion. + +As Jim swung from the saddle, a slim figure in white glided from the +shadow of the wild cucumber vines that rioted over one end of the porch. + +"Well, Jim?" + +The man came to the point with characteristic directness. "He has been +waylaid, Phyl. We found his hat and the place where they ambushed him." + +"Is he----" Her voice died at the word, but her meaning was clear. + +"I don't think it. Looks like they were aiming to take him prisoner +without hurting him. They might easily have shot him down, but the +ground shows there was a struggle." + +"And you came back without rescuing him?" she reproached. + +"Phil and I were unarmed. I came back to get guns and help." + +"And Phil?" + +"He's following the trail. I wanted him to let me while he came back. +But he wouldn't hear to it. Said he had to square his debt to Larry." + +"Good for Phil!" his sister cried, eyes like stars. + +"Is Brill still here?" he asked. + +"No. He rode away about an hour ago. He was very bitter at me because I +wouldn't dance with him. Said I'd curse myself for it before twenty-four +hours had passed. He must have Larry in his power, Jim." + +"Looks like," he nodded, and added grimly: "If you do any regretting +there will be others that will, too." + +She caught the lapels of his coat and looked into his face with +extraordinary intensity. "I'm going back with you, Jim. You'll let me, +won't you? I've waited--and waited. You can't think what an awful night +it has been. I can't stand it any longer! I'll go mad! Oh, Jim, you'll +take me, I know!" Her hands slipped down to his and clung to them with +passionate entreaty. + +"Why, honey, I cayn't. This is likely to be war before we finish. It +ain't any place for girls." + +"I'll stay back, Jim. I'll do whatever you say, if you'll only let me +go." + +He shook his head resolutely. "Cayn't be done, girl. I'm sorry, but you +see yourself it won't do." + +Nor could all her beseechings move him. Though his heart was very tender +toward her he was granite to her pleadings. At last he put her aside +gently and stepped into the house. + +Going at once to the fiddlers, he stopped the music and stood on the +little rostrum where they were seated. Surprised faces turned toward +him. + +"What's up, Jim?" demanded Slim, his arm still about the waist of Bess +Purdy. + +"A man was waylaid while coming to this dance and taken prisoner by his +enemies. They mean to do him a mischief. I want volunteers to rescue +him." + +"Who is it?" several voices cried at once. + +"The man I mean is Larrabie Keller." + +A pronounced silence followed before Slim drawled an answer: + +"Cayn't speak for the other boys, but I reckon I haven't lost any +Kellers, Jim." + +"Why not? What have you got against him?" + +"You know well enough. He's under a cloud. We don't say he's a rustler +and a bank robber, but then we don't say he ain't." + +"I say he isn't! Boys, it has come to a show-down. Keller is a member of +the Rangers, sent here by Bucky O'Connor to run down the rustlers." + +Questions poured upon him. + +"How do you know?" + +"How long have you known?" + +"Who told you?" + +"Why didn't he tell us so himself, then?" + +Jim waited till they were quiet. "I've seen letters from the governor to +him. He didn't come here declaring his intentions because he knew there +would be nothing doing if the rustlers knew he was in the neighborhood. +He has about done his work now, and it's up to us to save him before +they bump him off. Who will ride with me to rescue him?" + +There was no hesitation now. + +Every man pushed forward to have a hand in it. + +"Good enough," nodded Yeager. "We'll want rifles, boys. Looks to me like +hell might be a-popping before mo'ning grows very ancient. We'll set out +from Turkey Creek Crossroads two hours from now. Any man not on hand +then will get left behind. + +"And remember--this is a man hunt! No talking, boys. We don't want the +news that we're coming spread all over the hills before we arrive." + +As Jim descended from the rostrum, his roving gaze fell on Phyl +Sanderson standing in the doorway. Her fears had stolen the color even +from her lips, but the girl's beauty had never struck him more +poignantly. + +Misery stared at him out of her fine eyes, yet the unconscious courage +of her graceful poise--erect, with head thrown back so that he could +even see the pulse beat in the brown throat--suggested anything but +supine surrender to her terror. Before he could reach her she had +slipped into the night, and he could not find her. + +Men dribbled in to the Turkey Creek Crossroads along as many trails as +the ribs of a fan running to a common centre. Jim waited, watch open, +and when it said that seven o'clock had come he snapped it shut and gave +the word to set out. + +It was a grim, business-like posse, composed of good men and true who +had been sifted in the impartial sieve of life on the turbid frontier. +Moreover, they were well led. A certain hard metallic quality showed in +the voice and eye of Jim Yeager that boded no good for the man who faced +him in combat to-day. He rode with his gaze straight to the front, +toward that cleft in the hills where lay Gregory's Pass. The others fell +in behind, a silent, hard-bitten outfit as ever took the trail for that +most dangerous of all big game--the hidden outlaw. + +The little bunch of riders had not gone far before Purdy, who was +riding in the rear, called to Yeager. + +"Somebody coming hell-to-split after us, Jim." + +It turned out to be Buck Weaver, who had been notified by telephone of +what was taking place. A girl had called him up out of his sleep, and he +had pounded the road hard to get in at the finish. + +Jim explained the situation in a few words and offered to yield command +to the owner of the Twin Star ranch. But Buck declined. + +"You're the boss of this _rodeo_, Yeager. I'm riding in the ranks +to-day." + +"How did you hear we were rounding-up to-day?" Jim asked. + +"Some one called me up," Buck answered briefly, but he did not think it +necessary to say that it was Phyllis. + +Behind them, unnoticed by any, sometimes hidden from sight by the rise +and fall of the rough ground, sometimes silhouetted against the sky +line, rode a slim, supple figure on a white-faced cow pony. Once, when +the fresh morning wind swept down a gulch at an oblique angle, it lifted +for an instant from the stirrup leather what might have been a gray +flag. But the flag was only a skirt, and it signalled nothing more +definite than the courage and devotion of a girl who knew that the men +she loved best on earth were in danger. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE ROUND-UP + + +The Mimbres Pass narrows toward the southern exit where Point o' Rocks +juts into the canon and commands it like a sentinel. Toward this column +of piled boulders slowly moved a cloud of white dust, at the base of +which crept a band of hard-driven cattle. Swollen tongues were out, +heads stretched forward in a bellow for water taken up by one as another +dropped it. The day was still hot, though the sun had slipped down over +the range, and the drove had been worked forward remorselessly. Every +inch that could be sweated out of them had been gained. + +For those that pushed them along were in desperate hurry. Now and again +a rider would twist round in his saddle to sweep back a haggard glance. +Dust enshrouded them, lay heavy on every exposed inch; but through it +seams of anxiety crevassed their leathern faces. Iron men they were, +with one exception. Fight they could and would to the last ditch. But +behind the jaded, stony eyes lay a haunting fear, the never-ending dread +of a pursuit that might burst upon them at any moment. Driven to the +wall, they would have faced the enemy like tigers, with a fierce, +exultant hate. It was the never-ending possibility of disaster that lay +heavily upon them. + +Just as they entered the pass, a man came spurring up the steep trail +behind them. The drag drivers shouted a warning to those in front and +waited alertly with weapons ready. The man trying to overtake them waved +a sombrero as a flag of truce. + +"Keep an eye on him, Tom. If he makes a move that don't look good to +you, plug him!" ordered the keen-eyed man beside one of the drag +drivers. + +"I'm bridle wise, boss." But though he spoke with bravado Dixon shook +like an aspen in a breeze. + +The man he had called boss looked every inch a leader. He rode with the +loose seat and the straight back of the Westerner to the saddle born. +Just now he was looking back with impassive, reddened eyes at the +approaching figure. + +"Hold on, Tom! Don't shoot! It's Brad," he decided. "And I wonder what +in Mexico he is doing here." + +The leader of the outlaws was soon to learn. Irwin told the story of the +strategy that had changed him from jailer to prisoner and of the way he +had later freed himself from the rope that bound him. + +Healy unloaded his sentiments with an emphasis that did the subject +justice. Nevertheless he could not see that their plans were seriously +affected. + +"It's a leetle premature, but his getaway doesn't cut any ice. What we +want to do is to nail him, clamp the evidence home, and put him out of +business before his friends can say Jack Robinson. The story now is that +he was caught driving a little bunch of cows to met the big bunch his +pals were rustling, and that we left him in charge of Brad while we +tried to run down the other waddies. Understand, boys?" + +They did, and admired the more the versatility of a leader who could +make plans on the spur of the moment to meet any emergency. + +"We'll push right on, boys. Once we get through the pass it will trouble +anybody to find us. Before mo'ning you'll be across the line." + +"And you, Brill?" + +"I'm going back to settle accounts for good and all with Mr. Keller," +answered Healy grimly between set teeth. "I've got a notion about him. I +believe he's a spy." + +Just before Point o' Rocks a defile runs into the Mimbres Pass at right +angles. The leaders of the cattle, pushed forward by the pressure from +behind, stopped for a moment, and stood bawling at the junction. A rider +spurred forward to keep them from attempting the gulch. Suddenly he +dragged his pony to its haunches, so quickly did he stop it. For a clear +voice had called down a warning as if from the heavens: + +"You can't go this way! The Pass is closed!" + +The rider looked up in amazement, and beheld a man standing on the +ledge above with a rifle resting easily across his forearm. + +"By Heaven, it's Keller!" the rustler muttered. + +He wheeled as on a half dollar, pushed his way back along the edge of +the wall past the cattle, and shouted to his chief: + +"We're trapped, Brill!" + +None of the outlaws needed that notification. Five pair of eyes had +lifted to the ledge upon which Keller stood. The shock of the surprise +paralyzed them for an instant. For it occurred to none of the five that +this man would be standing there so quietly unless he were backed by a +posse sufficient to overpower them. He had not the manner of a man +taking a desperate chance. The situation was as dramatic as life and +death, but the voice that had come down to them had been as +matter-of-fact as if it had asked some one to pass him a cup of coffee +at the breakfast table. + +The temper of the outlaws' metal showed instantly. Dixon dropped his +rifle, threw up his hands, and ran bleating to the cover of some large +rocks, imploring the imagined posse not to shoot. Others found silently +what shelter they could. Healy alone took reckless counsel of his hate. + +Flinging his rifle to his shoulder, he blazed away at the figure on the +ledge--once, twice, three times. When the smoke cleared the ranger was +no longer to be seen. He was lying flat on his rock like a lizard, where +he had dropped just as his enemy whipped up his weapon to fire. Cold as +chilled steel, in spite of the fire of passion that blazed within him, +Healy slid to the ground on the far side of his horse and, without +exposing himself, slowly worked to the loose boulders bordering the edge +of the canon bed. + +The bawling of the cattle and the faint whimpering of Dixon alone +disturbed the silence. Healy and his confederates were waiting for the +other side to show its hand. Meanwhile the leader of the outlaws was +thinking out the situation. + +"I believe there's only two of them, Bart," he confided in a low voice +to the big fellow lying near. "Keller must have heard us when we talked +it over at the shack. I reckon he and Phil hit the trail for here +immediate. They hadn't time to go back and rustle help and still get +here before us. + +"We'll make Mr. Keller table his cards. I'm going to try to rush the +cattle through. We'll see at once what's doing. If they are too many for +us to do that we'll break for the gulch and fight our way out--that is, +if we find we're hemmed in behind, too." + +He called to the rest of the bandits and gave crisp instructions. At +sound of his sharp whistle four men leaped into sight, each making for +his horse. Dixon alone did not answer to the call. He lay white and +trembling behind the rock that sheltered him, physically unable to rise +and face the bullets that would rain down upon him. + +Keller, watching alertly from above, guessed what they would be at. His +rifle cracked twice, and two of the horses staggered, one of them +collapsing slowly. He had to show himself, and for three heartbeats +stood exposed to the fire of four rifles. One bullet fanned his cheek, a +second plunged through his coat sleeve, a third struck the rock at his +feet. While the echoes were still crashing, he was flat on his rock +again, peering over the edge to see their next move. + +"He's alone," cried Healy jubilantly. "Must have sent the kid back for +help. Bart, get Dixon's gun, steal up the ravine, and take him in the +rear. I'd go myself, but I can't leave the boys now." + +Slowly the cattle felt the impetus from behind, and began to move +forward. The voice above shouted a second warning. Healy answered with a +derisive yell. Keller again stood exposed on the ledge. + +Rifles cracked. + +This time the cattle detective was firing at men and not at horses, and +they in turn were pumping at him fast as they could work the levers. One +man went down, torn through and through by a rifle slug in his vitals. +Healy's horse twitched and staggered, but the rider was unhurt. The +officer on the ledge, a perfect target, was the heart of a very hail of +lead, but when he sank again to cover he was by some miracle still +unhurt. + +"They'll try a flank attack next time," Keller told himself. + +Up to date the honors were easily his. He had put three horses out of +commission and disabled one of the outlaws so badly that he would prove +negligible in the attack. Peering down, he could see Healy, with superb +contempt for the marksman above, slowly and carefully carry his wounded +comrade to shelter. The other men were already driven back to cover. The +cattle, excited by the firing, were milling round and round uneasily. + +Healy laid the wounded man down, knelt beside him, and gave him water +from his flask. The man was plainly hard hit, though he was not bleeding +much. + +"Where is it, Duke? Can I do anything for you, old fellow?" + +The dying man shook his head and whispered hoarsely: "I've got mine, +Brill. Shot to pieces. I'm dying right now. Get out while you can. Don't +mind me." + +His chief swore softly. "We'll get him right, Duke. Brad's after him +now. Buck up, old pard. You'll worry through yet." + +"Not this time, Brill. I've played rustler once too often." + +Keller, far up on the precipice, became aware of approaching riders long +before the outlaws below could see them. He counted eight--nine--ten +men, still black dots in a cloud of dust. This he knew must be Phil's +posse. + +If he could hold the rustlers for ten minutes more they would be caught +like rats in a trap. Once or twice he glanced behind him as a precaution +against some one of the enemy climbing Point o' Rocks from the defile, +but he gave this little consideration. He had not seen Brad when he +disappeared into the mesquite, and he supposed all of the rustlers were +still in the Pass five hundred feet below him. + +What he had expected was that they would force their way up the defile +for a quarter of a mile and strike the easy trail that ran from the rear +to the top of the Point. He wondered that this had not occurred to +Healy. + +In point of fact it had, but the outlaw leader knew that as they picked +their way among the broken boulders of the gulch bottom the enemy would +have them in the open for more than a hundred yards of slow going. He +had chosen the alternative of sending Brad quietly up the rough face of +the cliff. The other plan would do as a last resource if this failed. + +Healy believed that his enemy had been delivered into his hands. After +Keller had been killed they would toss his body down into the Pass, and +while his companions continued the drive to Mexico, Healy would return +to get help for Duke and spread the story he wanted to get out. The main +features of that tale would be that he and Duke had cut their trail by +accident, suspected rustling, and followed as far as the Mimbres Pass, +where Keller had shot Duke and been in turn shot by Healy. + +It was a neat plan, and one that would have been fairly sure of success +but for one unforeseen contingency--the approach of Yeager's posse a +half hour too soon. Healy heard them coming, knew he was trapped, and +attempted to force an escape through the narrows in front of Point o' +Rocks. + +The milling cattle had jammed the gateway. Keller, shooting down one or +two of them, blocked the exit still more. Healy and his confederates +could not get through, and turned to try the defile just as the first of +the posse came flying down the Pass. + +Young Sanderson was in the van, a hundred yards in front of Yeager, +dashing over the uneven ground in a reckless haste that Jim's slower +horse could not match. Loose shale was flying from his pony's hoofs as +it pounded forward. The outlaws just beat him to the mouth of the +intersecting gulch. Dragging his broncho to a slithering halt, he fired +twice at the retreating men. He had taken no time to aim, and his +bullets went wild. + +Brill laughed in mockery, covered him deliberately with his rifle, and +just as deliberately raised the barrel and fired into the air. The +distance was scarce a hundred yards. Phil could not doubt that his +former friend had purposely spared his life. The boy's rifle dropped +from his shoulder. + +"Brill wouldn't shoot at me! I couldn't kill him!" he shouted to +Weaver, as the latter rode up. + +Buck nodded. "Let me have him!" And he plunged into the gorge after the +men that had disappeared. + +Twice Keller's rifle spat at Healy and his companion as they plowed +forward across the boulder bed, but the difficulty of shooting from far +above at moving figures almost directly below saved the rustlers. They +reached a thick growth of aspens and disappeared. Healy parted company +with his ally at the place where the trail to the summit of Point o' +Rocks led up. + +"Break south when you get out of the gulch, Sam. In half an hour it will +be night, and you'll be safe. So-long." + +"Where you going, Brill?" + +"I'm going to settle accounts with that dashed spy!" answered Healy, +with an epithet. "Inside of half an hour either Keller or I will be down +and out!" + +The outlaw took the stiff incline leisurely, for he knew Keller could +come down only this way, and he had no mind to let himself get so +breathed as to disturb the sureness of his aim. The aspen grove ran like +a forked tongue up the ridge for a couple of hundred yards. As Healy +emerged from it he saw a rider just disappearing over the shoulder of +the hill in front of him. For an instant he had an amazed impression +that the figure was that of a woman, but he dismissed this as absurd. +He went the more cautiously, for he now knew that there would be two for +him to deal with on the Point instead of one--unless Brad reached the +scene in time to assist him. + +The sound of a shot drifted down to him, followed presently by a far, +faint cry of terror. What had happened was this: + +Keller, turning away from the overhanging ledge from which he had seen +the outlaws vanish into the grove, looked down the long slope +preliminary to descending. He was surprised to see a horse and rider +halfway between him and the aspen tongue. To him, too, there came a +swift impression that it was a woman, and almost at once something in +the poise of the gallant figure told him what woman. His heart leaped to +meet her. He waved a hand, and broke into a run. + +But only for two strides. For there had come to him a warning. He swung +on his heel and waited. Again he heard the light rumble of shale, and +before that had died away a sinister click. Alert in every fiber, his +gaze swept the bluff--and stopped when it met a pair of beady eyes +peering at him over the edge of the precipice. + +The two pair of eyes fastened for what seemed like an eternity, but +could have been no longer than four ticks of a clock. Neither of the men +spoke. The outlaw fired first--wildly, for the arm which held the rifle +was cramped for space. Keller's revolver flashed an answer which tore +through Irwin's teeth and went out beneath his ear. With a furious oath +the man dropped his weapon and flung himself upward and forward, landing +in a heap almost at the feet of the detective. + +"Don't move!" ordered the latter. + +Brad writhed forward awkwardly, knew the shock of another heavy bullet +in his shoulder, and catching his foe by the legs dragged him from his +feet. Keller's revolver was jerked over the edge of the precipice as he +let go of it to close with the burly ruffian. + +Both of them were unarmed save for the weapons nature had given them. +The detailed purpose of the struggle defined itself at once. Irwin meant +by main strength to fling the detective into the gulf that descended +sheer for five hundred feet. The other fought desperately to save +himself by dragging his infuriated antagonist back from the edge. + +They grappled in silence, save for the heavy panting that evidenced the +tension of their efforts. Each tried to bear the other to the ground, to +establish a grip against which his foe would be helpless. Now they were +on their knees, now on their sides. Over and over they rolled, first one +and then the other on top, shifting so fast that neither could clinch +any temporary advantage. + +[Illustration: THEY GRAPPLED IN SILENCE SAVE FOR THE HEAVY PANTING THAT +EVIDENCED THE TENSION OF THEIR EFFORTS. _Page 340_] + +Yet Keller, with a flying glance at the cliff, knew that he was being +forced nearer the gulf by sheer strength of muscle. Irwin, his jaw +shattered and his shoulder torn, was not fighting to win, but to +kill. He cared not whether he himself also went to death. He was +obsessed by the old primeval lust to crush the life out of this lusty +antagonist, and his whole gigantic force was concentrated to that end. +He scarce knew that he was wounded, and he cared not at all. Backward +and forward though the battle went, on the whole it moved jerkily toward +the chasm. + +The end came with a suddenness of which Larrabie had but an instant's +warning in the swift flare of joy that lit the madman's face. His foot, +searching for a brace as he was borne back, found only empty space. +Plunged downward, the nester clung viselike to the man above, dragged +him after, and by the very fury of Irwin's assault flung him far out +into the gulf head-first. + +It was Phyl Sanderson's cry of horror that Healy heard. She had put her +horse up the steep at a headlong gallop, had seen the whole furious +struggle and the tragic end of it that witnessed two men hurled over the +precipice into space. She slipped from the saddle, and sank dizzily to +the ground, not daring to look over the cliff at what she would see far +below. Waves of anguish shot through her and shook her very being. + +A man bent over her, and gave a startled cry. + +"My heaven, it's Phyl!" he cried. + +"Yes." She spoke in a flat, lifeless voice he could not have recognized +as hers. + +"Where is he? What's become of him?" Healy demanded. + +She told him with a gesture, then flung herself on the turf, and broke +down helplessly. The outlaw went to the edge and looked over. The gulf +of air told no story except the obvious one. No wingless living creature +could make that descent without forfeiture of life. He stepped back to +the girl and touched her on the shoulder. + +"Come." + +She looked up, shuddering, and asked, "Where?" + +"With me." + +"With you? It was you that drove him to his death, and I loved him!" + +"Never mind that now. Come." + +"I hate you! I should kill you when I got a chance! Why should I go with +you?" she asked evenly. + +He did not know why. He had no definite plan. All he knew was that his +old world lay in ruins at his feet, that he must fly through the night +like a hunted wolf, and that the girl he loved was beside him, forever +free from the rival who lay crushed and lifeless at the foot of the +cliff. He could not give her up now. He would not. + +The old savage instinct of ownership rose strong in him. She was his. He +had won her by the fortune of war. He would keep her against all comers +so long as he had life to fight. Night was falling softly over the +hills. They would go forth into it together to a new heaven and a new +earth. + +He lifted her to her feet and brought up her horse. She looked at him +in a silence that stripped him of his dreams. + +"Come!" he said again, between clenched teeth. + +"Not with you. I don't know you. Leave me alone. You killed him! You're +a murderer!" + +He stretched hands toward her, but she shrank from him, still in the +dull stupor of horror that was on her spirit. + +"Go away! Don't touch me! You and your miscreants killed him!" And with +that she flung herself down again, and buried her face from the sight of +him. + +He waited doggedly, helpless against her grief and her hatred of him, +but none the less determined to take her with him. Across the border he +would not be a hunted man with a price on his head. They could be +married by a padre in Sonora, and perhaps some day he would make her +love him and forget this man that had come between them. At all events, +he would be her master and would tie her life inextricably to his. He +stooped and caught her shoulder. She had fainted. + +A footfall set rolling a pebble. He looked up quickly, and almost of its +own volition, as it seemed, the rifle leaped to both of his hands. A man +stood looking at him across the plateau of the summit. He, too, held a +rifle ready for instant action. + +"So it's you!" Healy cried with an oath. + +"Have you killed him?" + +The outlaw lied, with swift, unblazing passion: "Yes, Buck Weaver, and +tossed his body to the buzzards. Your turn now!" + +"Then who is that with you there?" + +"The woman you love, the woman that turned you and him down for me," +taunted his rival. "After I've killed you we're going off to be +married." + +"Only a coyote would stand behind a woman's skirts and lie. I can't kill +you there, and you know it." + +Healy asked nothing better than an even break. He might have killed with +impunity from where he stood. Yet pantherlike, he swiftly padded six +paces to the left, never lifting his eyes from his antagonist. + +Buck waited, motionless. "Are you ready?" + +The outlaw's weapon flashed to the level and cracked. Almost +simultaneously the other answered. Weaver felt a bullet fan his cheek, +but he knew that his own had crashed home. + +The shock of it swung Healy half round. The man hung in silhouette +against the sky line, then the body plunged to the turf at full length. +Buck moved forward cautiously, fearing a trick, his eyes fastened on the +other. But as he drew nearer he knew it was no ruse. The body lay supine +and inert, as lifeless as the clay upon which it rested. + +Once sure of this Buck turned immediately to Phyllis. A faint crackling +of bushes stopped him. He waited, his eyes fixed on the edge of the +precipice from which the sound had come. Next there came to him the +slipping of displaced rubble. He was all eyes and ears, tense and alert +in every pulse. + +From out of the gulf a hand appeared and groped for a hold. Weaver +stepped noiselessly to the edge and looked down. A torn and bleeding +face looked up into his. + +"Good heavens, Keller!" + +Buck was on his knees instantly. He caught the ranger's hand with both +of his and dragged him up. The rescued man sank breathless on the ground +and told his story in gasped fragments. + +"--caught on a ledge--hung to some bushes growing there--climbed up--lay +still when Healy looked over--a near thing--makes me sick still!" + +"It was a millionth chance that saved you--if it was a chance." + +"Where's Healy?" + +Weaver pointed to the body. "We fought it out. The luck was with me." + +A faint, glad, terrified little cry startled them both. Phyllis was +staring with dilated eyes at the man restored to her from the dead. He +got up and walked across to her with outstretched hands. + +"My little girl." + +"Oh, Larry! I don't understand. I thought----" + +He nodded. "I reckon God was good to us, sweetheart." + +Her arms crept up and round his neck. "Oh, boy--boy--boy. I thought +you were--I thought you were----" + +She broke down, but he understood. "Well, I'm not," he laughed happily. +Catching sight of Buck's grim, set face, Larrabie explained what scarce +needed an explanation. "You'll have to excuse us, I reckon. It's my day +for congratulations." + +Phyllis freed herself and walked across to her other lover. "My friend, +I know the answer now," she told him. + +"I see you do." + +"Don't--please don't be hurt," she begged. "I have to care for him." + +The hard, leathery face softened. "I lose, girl. But who told you I was +a bad loser? The best man wins. I've got no kick to register." + +"Not the best man," Keller corrected, shaking hands with his rival. + +Phyllis summed it up in woman fashion: "My man, whether he is the best +or not. It's just that a girl goes where her heart goes." + +Weaver nodded. "Good enough. Well, I'll be going. I expect you'll not +miss me." + +He turned and went down the hill alone. At the foot of it he met Jim +Yeager. + +"What about Brill?" the younger man asked quickly. + +"He'll never rustle another cow," Buck answered gravely. "I killed him +on the top of Point o' Rocks after an even break." + +"Duke has cashed in. Game to the last. Wouldn't say a word to implicate +his pals. But Tom has confessed everything. The boys slipped a noose +over his head, and he came through right away. + +"Says he and Duke and Irwin helped Healy rob the Noches Bank and do a +lot of other deviltry. It was just like Keller figured. The automobile +was waiting for the bunch with the showfer, and took them out the old +Fort Lincoln Road. Dixon knows where the gold is hidden, and is going to +show the boys." + +"That clears up everything, then. I judge we've made a pretty thorough +gather." + +Jim looked up and indistinctly saw the lovers coming slowly down through +the grove. Dusk had fallen and soon the cloak of night would be over the +mountains. + +"Who is that?" + +Buck did not look round. "I reckon it's Keller and his sweetheart. She +followed us here." + +"I told her not to come." + +"I expect she takes her telling from Mr. Keller." He changed the subject +abruptly. "We'll go on down to the boys and see what's doing. They'll be +some glad, I shouldn't wonder, at making a gather that cleans out the +worst bunch of cutthroats and rustlers in the Malpais. Don't you +reckon?" + +"I reckon," answered Yeager briefly. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mavericks, by William MacLeod Raine + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAVERICKS *** + +***** This file should be named 14520.txt or 14520.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/5/2/14520/ + +Produced by Kathryn Lybarger and the PG Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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