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diff --git a/old/wymng10.txt b/old/wymng10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae21ec1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/wymng10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8762 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Wyoming, by William MacLeod Raine + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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THE DANCE AT FRASER'S +6. A PARTY CALL +7. THE MAN FROM THE SHOSHONE FASTNESSES +8. IN THE LAZY D HOSPITAL +9. A RESCUE +12. MISTRESS AND MAID +13. THE TWO COUSINS +14. FOR THE WORLD'S CHAMPIONSHIP +15. JUDD MORGAN PASSES +16. HUNTING BIG GAME +17. RUN TO EARTH +18. PLAYING FOR TIME +19. WEST POINT TO THE RESCUE +20. TWO CASES OF DISCIPLINE +21. THE SIGNAL LIGHTS +22. EXIT THE KING +23. JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' MEETING. + + + +CHAPTER 1. A DESERT MEETING + +An automobile shot out from a gash in the hills and slipped +swiftly down to the butte. Here it came to a halt on the white, +dusty road, while its occupant gazed with eager, unsated eyes on +the great panorama that stretched before her. The earth rolled in +waves like a mighty sea to the distant horizon line. From a +wonderful blue sky poured down upon the land a bath of sunbeat. +The air was like wine, pure and strong, and above the desert swam +the rare, untempered light of Wyoming. Surely here was a peace +primeval, a silence unbroken since the birth of creation. + +It was all new to her, and wonderfully exhilarating. The infinite +roll of plain, the distant shining mountains, the multitudinous +voices of the desert drowned in a sunlit sea of space--they were +all details of the situation that ministered to a large serenity. + +And while she breathed deeply the satisfaction of it, an +exploding rifle echo shattered the stillness. With excited +sputtering came the prompt answer of a fusillade. She was new to +the West; but some instinct stronger than reason told the girl +that here was no playful puncher shooting up the scenery to +ventilate his exuberance. Her imagination conceived something +more deadly; a sinister picture of men pumping lead in a grim, +close-lipped silence; a lusty plainsman, with murder in his +heart, crumpling into a lifeless heap, while the thin +smoke-spiral curled from his hot rifle. + +So the girl imagined the scene as she ran swiftly forward through +the pines to the edge of the butte bluff whence she might look +down upon the coulee that nestled against it. Nor had she greatly +erred, for her first sweeping glance showed her the thing she had +dreaded. + +In a semicircle, well back from the foot of the butte, half a +dozen men crouched in the cover of the sage-brush and a scattered +group of cottonwoods. They were perhaps fifty yards apart, and +the attention of all of them was focused on a spot directly +beneath her. Even as she looked, in that first swift moment of +apprehension, a spurt of smoke came from one of the rifles and +was flung back from the forked pine at the bottom of the mesa. +She saw him then, kneeling behind his insufficient shelter, a +trapped man making his last stand. + +>From where she stood the girl distinguished him very clearly, +and under the field-glasses that she turned on him the details +leaped to life. Tall, strong, slender, with the lean, clean build +of a greyhound, he seemed as wary and alert as a panther. The +broad, soft hat, the scarlet handkerchief loosely knotted about +his throat, the gray shirt, spurs and overalls, proclaimed him a +stockman, just as his dead horse at the entrance to the coulee +told of an accidental meeting in the desert and a hurried run for +cover. + +That he had no chance was quite plain, but no plainer than the +cool vigilance with which he proposed to make them pay. Even in +the matter of defense he was worse off than they were, but he +knew how to make the most of what he had; knew how to avail +himself of every inch of sagebrush that helped to render him +indistinct to their eyes. + +One of the attackers, eager for a clearer shot, exposed himself a +trifle too far in taking aim. Without any loss of time in +sighting, swift as a lightning-flash, the rifle behind the forked +pine spoke. That the bullet reached its mark she saw with a gasp +of dismay. For the man suddenly huddled down and rolled over on +his side. + +His comrades appeared to take warning by this example. The men at +both ends of the crescent fell back, and for a minute the girl's +heart leaped with the hope that they were about to abandon the +siege. Apparently the man in the scarlet kerchief had no such +expectation. He deserted his position behind the pine and ran +back, crouching low in the brush, to another little clump of +trees closer to the bluff. The reason for this was at first not +apparent to her, but she understood presently when the men who +had fallen back behind the rolling hillocks appeared again well +in to the edge of the bluff. Only by his timely retreat had the +man saved himself from being outflanked. + +It was very plain that the attackers meant to take their time to +finish him in perfect safety. He was surrounded on every side by +a cordon of rifles, except where the bare face of the butte hung +down behind him. To attempt to scale it would have been to expose +himself as a mark for every gun to certain death. + +It was now that she heard the man who seemed to be directing the +attack call out to another on his right. She was too far to make +out the words, but their effect was clear to her. He pointed to +the brow of the butte above, and a puncher in white woolen chaps +dropped back out of range and swung to the saddle upon one of the +ponies bunched in the rear. He cantered round in a wide circle +and made for the butte. His purpose was obviously to catch their +victim in the unprotected rear, and fire down upon him from +above. + +The young woman shouted a warning, but her voice failed to carry. +For a moment she stood with her hands pressed together in +despair, then turned and swiftly scudded to her machine. She +sprang in, swept forward, reached the rim of the mesa, and +plunged down. Never before had she attempted so precarious a +descent in such wild haste. The car fairly leaped into space, and +after it struck swayed dizzily as it shot down. The girl hung on, +her face white and set, the pulse in her temple beating wildly. +She could do nothing, as the machine rocked down, but hope +against many chances that instant destruction might be averted. + +Utterly beyond her control, the motor-car thundered down, reached +the foot of the butte, and swept over a little hill in its wild +flight. She rushed by a mounted horseman in the thousandth part +of a second. She was still speeding at a tremendous velocity, but +a second hill reduced this somewhat. She had not yet recovered +control of the machine, but, though her eyes instinctively +followed the white road that flashed past, she again had +photographed on her brain the scene of the turbid tragedy in +which she was intervening. + +At the foot of the butte the road circled and dipped into the +coulee. She braced herself for the shock, but, though the wheels +skidded till her heart was in her throat, the automobile, hanging +on the balance of disaster, swept round in safety. + +Her horn screamed an instant warning to the trapped man. She +could not see him, and for an instant her heart sank with the +fear that they had killed him. But she saw then that they were +still firing, and she continued her honking invitation as the car +leaped forward into the zone of spitting bullets. + +By this time she was recovering control of the motor, and she +dared not let her attention wander, but out of the corner of her +eye she appreciated the situation. Temporarily, out of sheer +amaze at this apparition from the blue, the guns ceased their +sniping. She became aware that a light curly head, crouched low +in the sage-brush, was moving rapidly to meet her at right +angles, and in doing so was approaching directly the line of +fire. She could see him dodging to and fro as he moved forward, +for the rifles were again barking. + +She was within two hundred yards of him, still going rapidly, but +not with the same headlong rush as before, when the curly head +disappeared in the sage-brush. It was up again presently, but she +could see that the man came limping, and so uncertainly that +twice he pitched forward to the ground. Incautionsly one of his +assailants ran forward with a shout the second time his head went +down. Crack! The unerring rifle rang out, and the impetuous one +dropped in his tracks. + +As she approached, the young woman slowed without stopping, and +as the car swept past Curly Head flung himself in headlong. He +picked himself up from her feet, crept past her to the seat +beyond, and almost instantly whipped his rifle to his shoulder in +prompt defiance of the fire that was now converged on them. + +Yet in a few moments the sound died away, for a voice midway in +the crescent had shouted an amazed discovery: + +"By God, it's a woman!" + +The car skimmed forward over the uneven ground toward the end of +the semicircle, and passed within fifty yards of the second man +from the end, the one she had picked out as the leader of the +party. He was a black, swarthy fellow in plain leather chaps and +blue shirt. As they passed he took a long, steady aim. + +"Duck!" shouted the man beside her, and dragged her down on the +seat so that his body covered hers. + +A puff of wind fanned the girl's cheek. + +"Near thing," her companion said coolly. He looked back at the +swarthy man and laughed softly. "Some day you'll mebbe wish you +had sent your pills straighter, Mr. Judd Morgan." + +Yet a few wheel-turns and they had dipped forward out of range +among the great land waves that seemed to stretch before them +forever. The unexpected had happened, and she had achieved a +rescue in the face of the impossible. + +"Hurt badly?" the girl inquired briefly, her dark-blue eyes +meeting his as frankly as those of a boy. + +"No need for an undertaker. I reckon I'll survive, ma'am," + +"Where are you hit?" + +"I just got a telegram from my ankle saying there was a cargo of +lead arrived there unexpected," he drawled easily. + +"Hurts a good deal, doesn't it?" + +"No more than is needful to keep my memory jogged up. It's a sort +of a forget-me-not souvenir. For a good boy; compliments of Mr. +Jim Henson," he explained. + +Her dark glance swept him searchingly. She disapproved the +assurance of his manner even while the youth in her applauded his +reckless sufficiency. His gay courage held her unconsenting +admiration even while she resented it. He was a trifle too much +at his ease for one who had just been snatched from dire peril. +Yet even in his insouciance there was something engaging; +something almost of distinction. + +"What was the trouble?" + +Mirth bubbled in his gray eyes. "I gathered, ma'am, that they +wanted to collect my scalp." + +"Do what?" she frowned. + +"Bump me off--send me across the divide." + +"Oh, I know that. But why?" + +He seemed to reproach himself. "Now how could I be so neglectful? +I clean forgot to ask." + +"That's ridiculous," was her sharp verdict. + +"Yes, ma'am, plumb ridiculous. My only excuse is that they began +scattering lead so sudden I didn't have time to ask many +'Whyfors.' I reckon we'll just have to call it a Wyoming +difference of opinion," he concluded pleasantly. + +"Which means, I suppose, that you are not going to tell me." + +"I got so much else to tell y'u that's a heap more important," he +laughed. "Y'u see, I'm enjoyin' my first automobile ride. It was +certainly thoughful of y'u to ask me to go riding with y'u, Miss +Messiter." + +"So you know my name. May I ask how?" was her astonished +question. + +He gave the low laugh that always seemed to suggest a private +source of amusement of his own. "I suspicioned that might be your +name when I say y'u come a-sailin' down from heaven to gather me +up like Enoch." + +"Why?" + +"Well, ma'am, I happened to drift in to Gimlet Butte two or three +days ago, and while I was up at the depot looking for some +freight a train sashaid in and side tracked a flat car. There was +an automobile on that car addressed to Miss Helen Messiter. Now, +automobiles are awful seldom in this country. I don't seem to +remember having seen one before." + +"I see. You're quite a Sherlock Holmes. Do you know anything more +about me?" + +"I know y'u have just fallen heir to the Lazy D. They say y'u are +a schoolmarm, but I don't believe it." + +"Well, I am." Then, "Why don't you believe it?" she added. + +He surveyed her with his smile audacious, let his amused eyes +wander down from the mobile face with the wild-rose bloom to the +slim young figure so long and supple, then serenely met her +frown. + +" Y'u don't look it." + +" No? Are you the owner of a composite photograph of the teachers +of the country?" + +He enjoyed again his private mirth. "I should like right well to +have the pictures of some of them." + +She glanced at him sharply, but he was gazing so innocently at +the purple Shoshones in the distance that she could not give him +the snub she thought he needed. + +"You are right. My name is Helen Messiter," she said, by way of +stimulating a counter fund of information. For, though she was a +young woman not much given to curiosity, she was aware of an +interest in this spare, broad-shouldered youth who was such an +incarnation of bronzed vigor. + +"Glad to meet y'u, Miss Messiter," he responded, and offered his +firm brown hand in Western fashion. + +But she observed resentfully that he did not mention his own +name. It was impossible to suppose that he knew no better, and +she was driven to conclude that he was silent of set purpose. +Very well! If he did not want to introduce himself she was not +going to urge it upon him. In a businesslike manner she gave her +attention to eating up the dusty miles. + +"Yes, ma'am. I reckon I never was more glad to death to meet a +lady than I was to meet up with y'u," he continued, cheerily. +"Y'u sure looked good to me as y'u come a-foggin' down the road. +I fair had been yearnin' for company but was some discouraged for +fear the invitation had miscarried." He broke off his sardonic +raillery and let his level gaze possess her for a long moment. +"Miss Messiter, I'm certainly under an obligation to y'u I can't +repay. Y'u saved my life," he finished gravely. + +"Nonsense." + +"Fact." + +"It isn't a personal matter at all," she assured him, with a +touch of impatient hauteur. + +"It s a heap personal to me." + +In spite of her healthy young resentment she laughed at the way +in which he drawled this out, and with a swift sweep her boyish +eyes took in again his compelling devil-may-care charm. She was a +tenderfoot, but intuition as well as experience taught her that +he was unusual enough to be one of ten thousand. No young Greek +god's head could have risen more superbly above the brick-tanned +column of the neck than this close-cropped curly one. Gray eyes, +deep and unwavering and masterful, looked out of a face as brown +as Wyoming. He was got up with no thought of effect, but the +tigerish litheness, the picturesque competency of him, spake +louder than costuming. + +"Aren't you really hurt worse than you pretend? I'm sure your +ankle ought to be attended to as soon as possible." + +"Don't tell me you're a lady doctor, ma'am," he burlesqued his +alarm. + +"Can you tell me where the nearest ranch house is?" she asked, +ignoring his diversion. + +"The Lazy D is the nearest, I reckon." + +"Which direction?" + +"North by east, ma'am." + +"Then I'll take the most direct road to it. + +"In that case I'll thank y'u for my ride and get out here." + +"But--why?" + +He waved a jaunty hand toward the recent battlefield. "The Lazy D +lies right back of that hill. I expect, mebbe, those wolves might +howl again if we went back." + +"Where, then, shall I take you?" + +"I hate to trouble y'u to go out of your way. + +"I dare say, but I'm going just the same," she told him, dryly. + +"If you're right determined " He interrupted himself to point to +the south. "Do y'u see that camel-back peak over there?" + +"The one with the sunshine on its lower edge?" + +"That's it, Miss Messiter. They call those two humps the Antelope +Peaks. If y'u can drop me somewhere near there I think I'll +manage all right." + +"I'm not going to leave you till we reach a house," she informed +him promptly. "You're not fit to walk fifty yards." + +"That's right kind of y'u, but I could not think of asking so +much. My friends will find me if y'u leave me where I can work a +heliograph." + +"Or your enemies," she cut in. + +"I hope not. I'd not likely have the luck to get another +invitation right then to go riding with a friendly young lady." + +She gave him direct, cool, black-blue eyes that met and searched +his. "I'm not at all sure she is friendly. I shall want to find +out the cause of the trouble you have just had before I make up +my mind as to that." + +"I judge people by their actions. Y'u didn't wait to find out +before bringing the ambulance into action," he laughed. + +"I see you do not mean to tell me." + +"You're quite a lawyer, ma'am," he evaded. + +"I find you a very slippery witness, then." + +"Ask anything y'u like and I'll tell you." + +"Very well. Who were those men, and why were they trying to kill +you?" + +"They turned their wolf loose on me because I shot up one of them +yesterday." + +"Dear me! Is it your business to go around shooting people? +That's three I happen to know that you have shot. How many more?" + +"No more, ma'am--not recently." + +"Well, three is quite enough--recently," she mimicked. "You seem +to me a good deal of a desperado." + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Don't say 'Yes, ma'am,' like that, as if it didn't matter in the +least whether you are or not," she ordered. + +"No, ma'am." + +"Oh!" She broke off with a gesture of impatience at his burlesque +of obedience. "You know what I mean--that you ought to deny it; +ought to be furious at me for suggesting it." + +"Ought I?" + +"Of course you ought." + +"There's a heap of ways I ain't up to specifications," he +admitted, cheerfully. + +"And who are they--the men that were attacking you?" + +There was a gleam of irrepressible humor in the bold eyes. "Your +cow-punchers, ma'am." + +"My cow-punchers?" + +"They ce'tainly belong to the Lazy D outfit." + +"And you say that you shot one of my men yesterday?" He could see +her getting ready for a declaration of war. + +"Down by Willow Creek-- Yes, ma'am," he answered, comfortably. + +"And why, may I ask?" she flamed + +"That's a long story, Miss Messiter. It wouldn't be square for me +to get my version in before your boys. Y'u ask them." He +permitted himself a genial smile, somewhat ironic. "I shouldn't +wonder but what they'll give me a giltedged testimonial as an +unhanged horse thief." + +"Isn't there such a thing as law in Wyoming?" the girl demanded. + +"Lots of it. Y'u can buy just as good law right here as in +Kalamazoo." + +"I wish I knew where to find it." + +"Like to put me in the calaboose?" + +"In the penitentiary. Yes, sir!" A moment later the question that +was in her thoughts leaped hotly from her lips. "Who are you, +sir, that dare to commit murder and boast of it?" + +She had flicked him on the raw at last. Something that was near +to pain rested for a second in his eyes. "Murder is a hard name, +ma'am. And I didn't say he was daid, or any of the three," came +his gentle answer. + +"You MEANT to kill them, anyhow." + +"Did I?" There was the ghost of a sad smile about his eyes. + +"The way you act, a person might think you one of Ned Bannister's +men," she told him, scornfully. + +"I expect you're right." + +She repented her a little at a charge so unjust. "If you are not +ashamed of your name why are you so loath to part with it?" + +"Y'u didn't ask me my name," he said, a dark flush sweeping his +face. + +"I ask it now." + +Like the light from a snuffed candle the boyish recklessness had +gone out of his face. His jaws were set like a vise and he looked +hard as hammered steel. + +"My name is Bannister," he said, coldly. + +"Ned Bannister, the outlaw," she let slip, and was aware of a +strange sinking of the heart. + +It seemed to her that something sinister came to the surface in +his handsome face. "I reckon we might as well let it go at that," +he returned, with bitter briefness. + + + +CHAPTER 2. THE KING OF THE BIG HORN COUNTRY + +Two months before this time Helen Messiter had been serenely +teaching a second grade at Kalamazoo, Michigan, notwithstanding +the earnest efforts of several youths of that city to induce her +to retire to domesticity "What's the use of being a schoolmarm?" +had been the burden of their plaint. "Any spinster can teach kids +C-A-T, Cat, but only one in several thousand can be the prettiest +bride in Kalamazoo." None of them, however, had been able to +drive the point sufficiently home, and it is probable that she +would have continued to devote herself to Young America if an +uncle she had never seen had not died without a will and left her +a ranch in Wyoming yclept the Lazy D. + +When her lawyer proposed to put the ranch on the market Miss +Helen had a word to say. + +"I think not. I'll go out and see it first, anyhow," she said. + +"But really, my dear young lady, it isn't at all necessary. Fact +is, I've already had an offer of a hundred thousand dollars for +it. Now, I should judge that a fair price " + +"Very likely," his client interrupted, quietly. "But, you see, I +don't care to sell." + +"Then what in the world are you going to do with it?" + +"Run it." + +"But, my dear Miss Messiter, it isn't an automobile or any other +kind of toy. You must remember that it takes a business head and +a great deal of experience to make such an investment pay. I +really think--" + +"My school ends on the fourteenth of June. I'll get a substitute +for the last two months. I shall start for Wyoming on the +eighteenth of April." + +The man of law gasped, explained the difficulties again carefully +as to a child, found that he was wasting his breath, and wisely +gave it up. + +Miss Messiter had started on the eighteenth of April, as she had +announced. When she reached Gimlet Butte, the nearest railroad +point to the Lazy D, she found a group of curious, weatherbeaten +individuals gathered round a machine foreign to their experience. +It was on a flat car, and the general opinion ran the gamut from +a newfangled sewing machine to a thresher. Into this guessing +contest came its owner with so brisk and businesslike an energy +that inside of two hours she was testing it up and down the wide +street of Gimlet Butte, to the wonder and delight of an audience +to which each one of the eleven saloons of the city had +contributed its admiring quota. + +Meanwhile the young woman attended strictly to business. She had +disappeared for half an hour with a suit case into the Elk House; +and when she returned in a short-skirted corduroy suit, leggings +and wide-brimmed gray Stetson hat, all Gimlet Butte took an +absorbing interest in the details of this delightful adventure +that had happened to the town. The population was out _en masse_ +to watch her slip down the road on a trial trip. + +Presently "Soapy" Sothern, drifting in on his buckskin from the +Hoodoo Peak country, where for private reasons of his own he had +been for the past month a sojourner, reported that he had seen +the prettiest sight in the State climbing under a gasoline bronc +with a monkey-wrench in her hand. Where? Right over the hill on +the edge of town. The immediate stampede for the cow ponies was +averted by a warning chug-chug that sounded down the road, +followed by the appearance of a flashing whir that made the +ponies dance on their hind legs. + +"The gasoline bronc lady sure makes a hit with me," announced +"Texas," gravely. "I allow I'll rustle a job with the Lazy D +outfit." + +"She ce'tainly rides herd on that machine like a champeen," +admitted Soapy. "I reckon I'll drift over to the Lazy D with you +to look after yore remains, Tex, when the lightning hits you." + +Miss Messiter swung the automobile round in a swift circle, came +to an abrupt halt in front of the hotel, and alighted without +delay. As she passed in through the half score of admirers she +had won, her dark eyes swept smilingly over assembled Cattleland. +She had already met most of them at the launching of the machine +from the flat car, and had directed their perspiring energies as +they labored to follow her orders. Now she nodded a recognition +with a little ripple of gay laughter. + +"I'm delighted to be able to contribute to the entertainment of +Gimlet Butte," she said, as she swept in. For this young woman +was possessed of Western adaptation. It gave her no conscientious +qualms to exchange conversation fraternal with these genial +savages. + +The Elk House did not rejoice in a private dining room, and +competition strenuous ensued as to who should have the pleasure +of sitting beside the guest of honor. To avoid ill feeling, the +matter was determined by a game of freeze-out, in which Texas and +a mature gentleman named, from his complexion, "Beet" Collins, +were the lucky victors. Texas immediately repaired to the general +store, where he purchased a new scarlet bandanna for the +occasion; also a cake of soap with which to rout the alkali dust +that had filtered into every pore of his hands and face from a +long ride across the desert. + +Came supper and Texas simultaneously, the cow-puncher's face +scrubbed to an apple shine. At the last moment Collins defaulted, +his nerve completely gone. Since, however, he was a thrifty soul, +he sold his place to Soapy for ten dollars, and proceeded to +invest the proceeds in an immediate drunk. + +During the first ten minutes of supper Miss Messiter did not +appear, and the two guardians who flanked her chair solicitously +were the object of much badinage. + +"She got one glimpse of that red haid of Tex and the pore lady's +took to the sage," explained Yorky. + +"And him scrubbed so shiny fust time since Christmas before the +big blizzard," sighed Doc Rogers. + +"Shucks! She ain't scared of no sawed-off, hammered-down runt +like Texas, No, siree! Miss Messiter's on the absent list 'cause +she's afraid she cayn't resist the blandishments of Soapy. Did +yo' ever hear about Soapy and that Caspar hash slinger?" + +"Forget it, Slim," advised Soapy, promptly. He had been engaged +in lofty and oblivious conversation with Texas, but he did not +intend to allow reminiscences to get under way just now. + +At this opportune juncture arrived the mistress of the "gasoline +bronc," neatly clad in a simple white lawn with blue trimmings. +She looked like a gleam of sunshine in her fresh, sweet youth; +and not even in her own school room had she ever found herself +the focus of a cleaner, more unstinted admiration. For the +outdoors West takes off its hat reverently to women worthy of +respect, especially when they are young and friendly. + +Helen Messiter had come to Wyoming because the call of adventure, +the desire for experience outside of rutted convention, were +stirring her warm-blooded youth. She had seen enough of life +lived in a parlor, and when there came knocking at her door a +chance to know the big, untamed outdoors at first hand she had at +once embraced it like a lover. She was eager for her new life, +and she set out skillfully to make these men tell her what she +wanted to know. To them, of course, it was an old story, and +whatever of romance it held was unconscious. But since she wanted +to talk of the West they were more than ready to please her. + +So she listened, and drew them out with adroit questions when it +was necessary. She made them talk of life on the open range, of +rustlers and those who lived outside the law in the upper +Shoshone country, of the deadly war waging between the cattle and +sheep industries. + +"Are there any sheep near the Lazy D ranch?" she asked, intensely +interested in Soapy's tale of how cattle and sheep could no more +be got to mix than oil and water. + +For an instant nobody answered her question; then Soapy replied, +with what seemed elaborate carelessness: + +"Ned Bannister runs a bunch of about twelve thousand not more'n +fifteen or twenty miles from your place." + +"And you say they are spoiling the range?" + +"They're ce'tainly spoiling it for cows." + +"But can't something be done? If my cows were there first I don't +see what right he has to bring his sheep there," the girl +frowned. + +The assembled company attended strictly to supper. The girl, +surprised at the stillness, looked round. "Well?" + +"Now you're shouting, ma'am! That's what we say," enthused Texas, +spurring to the rescue. + +"It doesn't much matter what you say. What do you do?" asked +Helen, impatiently. "Do you lie down and let Mr. Bannister and +his kind drive their sheep over you?" + +"Do we, Soapy?" grinned Texas. Yet it seemed to her his smile was +not quite carefree. + +"I'm not a cowman myself," explained Soapy to the girl. "Nor do I +run sheep. I--" + +"Tell Miss Messiter what yore business is, Soapy," advised Yorky +from the end of the table, with a mouthful of biscuit swelling +his cheeks. + +Soapy crushed the irrepressible Yorky with a look, but that young +man hit back smilingly. + +"Soapy, he sells soap, ma'am. He's a sorter city salesman, I +reckon." + +"I should never have guessed it. Mr. Sothern does not LOOK like a +salesman," said the girl, with a glance at his shrewd, hard, +expressionless face. + +"Yes, ma'am, he's a first-class seller of soap, is Mr. Sothern," +chuckled the cow-puncher, kicking his friends gayly under the +table. + +"You can see I never sold HIM any, Miss Messiter," came back +Soapy, sorrowfully. + +All this was Greek to the young lady from Kalamazoo. How was she +to know that Mr. Sothern had vended his soap in small cubes on +street corners, and that he wrapped bank notes of various +denominations in the bars, which same were retailed to eager +customers for the small sum of fifty cents, after a guarantee +that the soap was good? His customers rarely patronized him +twice; and frequently they used bad language because the soap +wrapping was not as valuable as they had expected. This was +manifestly unfair, for Mr. Sothern, who made no claims to +philanthropy, often warned them that the soap should be bought on +its merits, and not with an eye single to the premium that might +or might not accompany the package. + +"I started to tell you, ma'am, when that infant interrupted, that +the cowmen don't aim to quit business yet a while. They've drawn +a dead-line, Miss Messiter," + +"A dead-line?" + +"Yes, ma'am, beyond which no sheep herder is to run his bunch." + +"And if he does?" the girl asked, open eyed. + +" He don't do it twict, ma'am. Why don't you pass the fritters to +Miss Messiter, Slim?" + +"And about this Bannister Who is he?" + +Her innocent question seemed to ring a bell for silence; seemed +to carry with it some hidden portent that stopped idle +conversation as a striking clock that marks the hour of an +execution. + +The smile that had been gay grew grim, and men forgot the subject +of their light, casual talk. It was Sothern that answered her, +and she observed that his voice was grave, his face studiously +without expression. + +"Mr. Bannister, ma'am, is a sheepman." + +"So I understood, but " Her eyes traveled swiftly round the +table, and appraised the sudden sense of responsibility that had +fallen on these reckless, careless frontiersmen. "I am wondering +what else he is. Really, he seems to be the bogey man of Gimlet +Butte." + +There was another instant silence, and again it was Soapy that +lifted it. "I expaict you'll like Wyoming, Miss Messiter; +leastways I hope you will. There's a right smart of country +here." His gaze went out of the open door to the vast sea of +space that swam in the fine sunset light. "Yes, most folks that +ain't plumb spoilt with city ways likes it." + +"Sure she'll like it. Y'u want to get a good, easy-riding hawss, +Miss Messiter," advised Slim. + +"And a rifle," added Texas, promptly. + +It occurred to her that they were all working together to drift +the conversation back to a safe topic. She followed the lead +given her, but she made up her mind to know what it was about her +neighbor, Mr. Bannister, the sheep herder, that needed to be +handled with such wariness and circumspection of speech. + +Her chance came half an hour later, when she stood talking to the +landlady on the hotel porch in the mellow twilight that seemed to +rest on the land like a moonlit aura. For the moment they were +alone. + +"What is it about this man Bannister that makes men afraid to +speak of him?" she demanded, with swift impulse. + +Her landlady's startled eyes went alertly round to see that they +were alone. "Hush, child! You mustn't speak of him like that," +warned the older woman. + +"Why mustn't I? That's what I want to know." + +"Is isn't healthy." + +"What do you mean?" + +Again that anxious look flashed round in the dusk. "The Bannister +outfit is the worst in the land. Ned Bannister is king of the +whole Big Horn country and beyond that to the Tetons." + +"And you mean to tell me that everybody is afraid of him--that +men like Mr. Sothern dare not say their soul is their own?" the +newcomer asked, contemptuously. + +"Not so loud, child. He has spies everywhere That's the trouble. +You don't know who is in with him. He's got the whole region +terrified." + +"Is he so bad?" + +"He is a devil. Last year he and his hell riders swept down on +Topaz and killed two bartenders just to see them kick, Ned +Bannister said. Folks allow they knew too much." + +"But the law--the Government? Haven't you a sheriff and +officers?" + +"Bannister has. He elects the sheriff in this county." + +"Aren't there more honest people here than villains?" + +"Ten times as many, but the trouble is that the honest folks +can't trust each other. You see, if one of them made a mistake +and confided in the wrong man--well, some fine day he would go +riding herd and would not turn up at night. Next week, or next +month, maybe, one of his partners might find a pile of bones in +an arroyo. + +"Have you ever seen this Bannister?" + +"You MUST speak lower when you talk of him, Miss Messiter," the +woman insisted. "Yes, I saw him once; at least I think I did. +Mighty few folks know for sure that they have seen him. He is a +mystery, and he travels under many names and disguises." + +"When was it you think you saw him?" + +"Two years ago at Ayr. The bank was looted that night and robbed +of thirty thousand dollars. They roused the cashier from his bed +and made him give the combination. He didn't want to, and Ned +Bannister"--her voice sank to a tremulous whisper--"put red-hot +running-irons between his fingers till he weakened. It was a +moonlight night--much such a night as this--and after it was done +I peeped through the blind of my room and saw them ride away. He +rode in front of them and sang like an angel--did it out of +daredeviltry to mock the people of the town that hadn't nerve +enough to shoot him. You see, he knew that nobody would dare hurt +him 'count of the revenge of his men." + +"What was he like?" the mistress of the Lazy D asked, strangely +awed at this recital of transcendent villainy." + +"'Course he was masked, and I didn't see his face. But I'd know +him anywhere. He's a long, slim fellow, built like a mountain +lion. You couldn't look at him and ever forget him. He's one of +these graceful, easy men that go so fur with fool women; one of +the kind that half shuts his dark, devil eyes and masters them +without seeming to try." + +"So he's a woman killer, too, is he? Any more outstanding +inconsistencies in this versatile Jesse James?" + +"He's plumb crazy about music, they say. Has a piano and plays +Grigg and Chopping, and all that classical kind of music. He went +clear down to Denver last year to hear Mrs. Shoeman sing." + +Helen smiled, guessing at Schumann-Heink as the singer in +question, and Grieg and Chopin as the composers named. Her +interest was incredibly aroused. She had expected the West and +its products to exhilarate her, but she had not looked to find so +finished a Mephisto among its vaunted "bad men." He was probably +overrated; considered a wonder because his accomplishments +outstepped those of the range. But Helen Messiter had quite +determined on one thing. She was going to meet this redoubtable +villain and make up her mind for herself. Already, before she had +been in Wyoming six hours, this emancipated young woman had +decided on that. + + + +CHAPTER 3. AN INVITATION GIVEN AND ACCEPTED + +And already she had met him. Not only met him, but saved him from +the just vengeance about to fall upon him. She had not yet seen +her own ranch, had not spoken to a single one of her employees, +for it had been a part of her plan to drop in unexpected and +examine the situation before her foreman had a chance to put his +best foot forward. So she had started alone from Gimlet Butte +that morning in her machine, and had come almost in sight of the +Lazy D ranch houses when the battle in the coulee invited her to +take a hand. + +She had acted on generous impulse, and the unforeseen result had +been to save this desperado from justice. But the worst of it was +that she could not find it in her heart to regret it. Granted +that he was a villain, double-dyed and beyond hope, yet he was +the home of such courage, such virility, that her unconsenting +admiration went out in spite of herself. He was, at any rate, a +MAN, square-jawed, resolute, implacable. In the sinuous trail of +his life might lie arson, robbery, murder, but he still held to +that dynamic spark of self-respect that is akin to the divine. +Nor was it possible to believe that those unblinking gray eyes, +with the capability of a latent sadness of despair in them, +expressed a soul entirely without nobility. He had a certain +gallant ease, a certain attractive candor, that did not consist +with villainy unadulterated. + +It was characteristic even of her impulsiveness that Helen +Messiter curbed the swift condemnation that leaped to her lips +when she knew that the man sitting beside her was the notorious +bandit of the Shoshone fastnesses. She was not in the least +afraid. A sure instinct told her he was not the kind of a man of +whom a woman need have fear so long as her own anchor held fast. +In good time she meant to let him have her unvarnished opinion of +him, but she did not mean it to be an unconsidered one. Wherefore +she drove the machine forward toward the camelbacked peak he had +indicated, her eyes straight before her, a frown corrugating her +forehead. + +For him, having made his dramatic announcement, he seemed content +for the present with silence. He leaned back in the car and +appreciated her with a coolness that just missed impudence. +Certainly her appearance proclaimed her very much worth while. To +dwell on the long lines of her supple young body, the exquisite +throat and chin curve, was a pleasure with a thrill to it. As a +physical creation, a mere innocent young animal, he thought her +perfect; attuned to a fine harmony of grace and color. But it was +the animating vitality of her, the lightness of motion, the fire +and sparkle of expression that gave her the captivating charm she +possessed. + +They were two miles nearer the camel-backed peak before he broke +the silence. + +"Beats a bronco for getting over the ground. Think I'll have to +get one," he mused aloud. + +"With the money you took from the Ayr bank?" she flashed. + +"I might drive off some of your cows and sell them," he +countered, promptly. "About how much will they hold me up for a +machine like this?" + +"This is only a runabout. You can get one for twelve or fourteen +hundred dollars of anybody's money." + +"Of yours?" he laughed. + +"I haven't that much with me. If you'll come over and hold up the +ranch perhaps we might raise it among us," she jeered. + +His mirth was genuine. "But right now I couldn't get more than +how much off y'u?" + +"Sixty-three dollars is all I have with me, and I couldn't give +you more--NOT EVEN IF YOU PUT RED HOT IRONS BETWEEN MY FINGERS." +She gave it to him straight, her blue eyes fixed steadily on him. + +Yet she was not prepared for the effect of her words. The last +thing she had expected was to see the blood wash out of his +bronzed face, to see his sensitive nostrils twitch with pain. He +made her feel as if she had insulted him, as if she had been +needlessly cruel. And because of it she hardened her heart. Why +should she spare him the mention of it? He had not hesitated at +the shameless deed itself. Why should she shrink before that +wounded look that leaped to his fine eyes in that flash of time +before he hardened them to steel? + +"You did it--didn't you?" she demanded. + +"That's what they say." His gaze met her defiantly. + +"And it is true, isn't it?" + +"Oh, anything is true of a man that herds sheep," he returned, +bitterly. + +"If that is true it would not be possible for you to understand +how much I despise you." + +"Thank you," he retorted, ironically. + +"I don't understand at all. I don't see how you can be the man +they say you are. Before I met you it was easy to understand. But +somehow--I don't know--you don't LOOK like a villain." She found +herself strangely voicing the deep hope of her heart. It was +surely impossible to look at him and believe him guilty of the +things of which, he was accused. And yet he offered no denial, +suggested no defense. + +Her troubled eyes went over his thin, sunbaked face with its +touch, of bitterness, and she did not find it possible to dismiss +the subject without giving him a chance to set himself right. + +"You can't be as bad as they say. You are not, are you?" she +asked, naively. + +"What do y'u think?" he responded, coolly. + +She flushed angrily at what she accepted as his insolence. "A man +of any decency would have jumped at the chance to explain." + +"But if there is nothing to explain?" + +"You are then guilty." + +Their eyes met, and neither of them quailed. + +"If I pleaded not guilty would y'u believe me?" + +She hesitated. "I don't know. How could I when it is known by +everybody? And yet--" + +He smiled. "Why should I trouble y'u, then, with explanations? I +reckon we'll let it go at guilty." + +"Is that all you can say for yourself?" + +He seemed to hang in doubt an instant, then shook his head and +refused the opening. + +"I expect if we changed the subject I could say a good deal for +y'u," he drawled. "I never saw anything pluckier than the way y'u +flew down from the mesa and conducted the cutting-out expedition. +Y'u sure drilled through your punchers like a streak of +lightning." + +"I didn't know who you were," she explained, proudly. + +"Would it have made any difference if y'u had?" + +Again the angry flush touched her cheeks. "Not a bit. I would +have saved you in order to have you properly hanged later," she +cut back promptly. + +He shook his head gayly. "I'm ce'tainly going to disappoint y'u +some. Your enterprising punchers may collect me yet, but not +alive, I reckon." + +"I'll give them strict orders to bring you in alive." + +"Did you ever want the moon when y'u was a little kid?" he asked. + +"We'll see, Mr. Outlaw Bannister." + +He laughed softly, in the quiet, indolent fashion that would have +been pleasant if it had not been at her. "It's right kind of you +to take so much interest in me. I'd most be willing to oblige by +letting your boys rope me to renew this acquaintance, ma'am." +Then, "I get out here Miss Messiter, he added. + +She stopped on the instant. Plainly she could not get rid of him +too soon. "Haven't you forgot one thing?" she asked, ironically. + +"Yes, ma'am. To thank you proper for what y'u did for me." He +limped gingerly down from the car and stood with his hand on one +of the tires. "I have been trying to think how to say it right; +but I guess I'll have to give it up. All is that if I ever get a +chance to even the score--" + +She waved his thanks aside impatiently "I didn't mean that. You +have forgotten to take my purse. + +His gravity was broken on the instant, and his laughter was +certainly delightfully fresh. "I clean forgot, but I expect I'll +drop over to the ranch for it some day." + +"We'll try to make to make you welcome, Mr. Bannister." + +"Don't put yourself out at all. I'll take pot-luck when I come." + +"How many of you may we expect?" she asked, defiantly. + +"Oh, I allow to come alone." + +"You'll very likely forget." + +"No, ma'am, I don't know so many ladies that I'm liable to such +an oversight. + +"I have heard a different story. But if you do remember to come, +and will let us know when you expect to honor the Lazy D, I'll +have messengers sent to meet you." + +He perfectly understood her to mean leaden ones, and the humorous +gleam in his eye sparkled in appreciation of her spirit. "I don't +want all that fuss made over me. I reckon I'll drop in +unexpected," he said. + +She nodded curtly. "Good-bye. Hope your ankle won't trouble you +very much." + +"Thank y'u, ma'am. I reckon it won't. Good-bye, Miss Messiter." + +Out of the tail of her eye she saw him bowing like an Italian +opera singer, as impudently insouciant, as gracefully graceless +as any stage villain in her memory. Once again she saw him, when +her machine swept round a curve and she could look back without +seeming to do so, limping across through the sage brush toward a +little hillock near the road. And as she looked the bare, curly +head was inclined toward her in another low, mocking bow. He was +certainly the gallantest vagabond unhanged. + + + +CHAPTER 4. AT THE LAZY D RANCH + +Helen Messiter was a young woman very much alive, which implies +that she was given to emotions; and as her machine skimmed over +the ground to the Lazy D she had them to spare. For from the +first this young man had taken her eye, and it had come upon her +with a distinct shock that he was the notorious scoundrel who was +terrorizing the countryside. She told herself almost passionately +that she would never have believed it if he had not said so +himself. She knew quite well that the coldness that had clutched +her heart when he gave his name had had nothing to do with fear. +There had been chagrin, disappointment, but nothing in the least +like the terror she might have expected. The simple truth was +that he had seemed so much a man that it had hurt her to find him +also a wild beast. + +Deep in her heart she resented the conviction forced upon her. +Reckless he undoubtedly was, at odds with the law surely, but it +was hard to admit that attractive personality to be the mask of +fiendish cruelty and sinister malice. And yet--the facts spoke +for themselves. He had not even attempted a denial. Still there +was a mystery about him, else how was it possible for two so +distinct personalities to dwell together in the same body. + +She hated him with all her lusty young will; not only for what he +was, but also for what she had been disappointed in not finding +him after her first instinctive liking. Yet it was with an odd +little thrill that she ran down again into the coulee where her +prosaic life had found its first real adventure. He might be all +they said, but nothing could wipe out the facts that she had +offered her life to save his, and that he had lent her his body +as a living shield for one exhilarating moment of danger. + +As she reached the hill summit beyond the coulee, Helen Messiter +was aware that a rider in ungainly chaps of white wool was +rapidly approaching. He dipped down into the next depression +without seeing her; and when they came face to face at the top of +the rise the result was instantaneous. His pony did an animated +two-step not on the programme. It took one glance at the +diabolical machine, and went up on its hind legs, preliminary to +giving an elaborate exhibition of pitching. The rider indulged in +vivid profanity and plied his quirt vigorously. But the bronco, +with the fear of this unknown evil on its soul, varied its +bucking so effectively that the puncher astride its hurricane +deck was forced, in the language of his kind, to "take the dust." + +His red head sailed through the air and landed in the white sand +at the girl's feet. For a moment he sat in the road and gazed +with chagrin after the vanishing heels of his mount. Then his +wrathful eyes came round to the owner of the machine that had +caused the eruption. His mouth had opened to give adequate +expression to his feelings, when he discovered anew the forgotten +fact that he was dealing with a woman. His jaw hung open for an +instant in amaze; and when he remembered the unedited vocabulary +he had turned loose on the world a flood of purple swept his +tanned face. + +She wanted to laugh, but wisely refrained. "I'm very sorry," was +what she said. + +He stared in silence as he slowly picked himself from the ground. +His red hair rose like the quills of a porcupine above a face +that had the appearance of being unfinished. Neither nose nor +mouth nor chin seemed to be quite definite enough. + +She choked down her gayety and offered renewed apologies. + +"I was going for a doc," he explained, by way of opening his +share of the conversation. + +"Then perhaps you had better jump in with me and ride back to the +Lazy D. I suppose that's where you came from?" + +He scratched his vivid head helplessly. "Yes, ma'am." + +"Then jump in." + +"I was going to Bear Creek, ma'am," he added dubiously. + +"How far is it?" + +"'Bout twenty-five miles, and then some." + +"You don't expect to walk, do you?" + +"No; I allowed--" + +"I'll take you back to the ranch, where you can get another +horse." + +"I reckon, ma'am, I'd ruther walk." + +"Nonsense! Why?" + +"I ain't used to them gas wagons." + +"It's quite safe. There is nothing to be afraid of." + +Reluctantly he got in beside her, as happy as a calf in a +branding pen. + +"Are you the lady that sashaid off with Ned Bannister?" he asked +presently, after he had had time to smother successively some of +his fear, wonder and delight at their smooth, swift progress. + +"Yes. Why?" + +"The boys allow you hadn't oughter have done it." Then, to place +the responsibility properly on shoulders broader than his own, he +added: "That's what Judd says." + +"And who is Judd?" + +"Judd, he's the foreman of the Lazy D." + +Below them appeared the corrals and houses of a ranch nestling in +a little valley flanked by hills. + +"This yere's the Lazy D," announced the youth, with pride, and in +the spirit of friendliness suggested a caution. "Judd, he's some +peppery. You wanter smooth him down some, seeing as he's riled up +to-day." + +A flicker of steel came into the blue eyes. "Indeed! Well, here +we are." + +"If it ain't Reddy, AND the lady with the flying machine," +murmured a freckled youth named McWilliams, emerging from the +bunkhouse with a pan of water which had been used to bathe the +wound of one of the punctured combatants. + +"What's that?" snapped a voice from within; and immediately its +owner appeared in the doorway and bored with narrowed black eyes +the young woman in the machine. + +"Who are you?" he demanded, brusquely. + +"Your target," she answered, quietly. "Would you like to take +another shot at me?" + +The freckled lad broke out into a gurgle of laughter, at which +the black, swarthy man beside him wheeled round in a rage. "What +you cacklin' at, Mac?" he demanded, in a low voice. + +"Oh, the things I notice," returned that youth jauntily, meeting +the other's anger without the flicker of an eyelid. + +"It ain't healthy to be so noticin'," insinuated the other. + +"Y'u don't say," came the prompt, sarcastic retort. "If you're +such a darned good judge of health, y'u better be attending to +some of your patients." He jerked a casual thumb over his +shoulder toward the bunks on which lay the wounded men. + +"I shouldn't wonder but what there might be another patient for +me to attend to," snarled the foreman. + +"That so? Well, turn your wolf loose when y'u get to feelin' real +devilish," jeered the undismayed one, strolling forward to assist +Miss Messiter to alight. + +The mistress of the Lazy D had been aware of the byplay, but she +had caught neither the words nor their import. She took the +offered brown hand smilingly, for here again she looked into the +frank eyes of the West, unafraid and steady. She judged him not +more than twenty-two, but the school where he had learned of life +had held open and strenuous session every day since he could +remember. + +"Glad to meet y'u, ma'am," he assured her, in the current phrase +of the semi-arid lands. + +"I'm sure I am glad to meet YOU," she answered, heartily. "Can +you tell me where is the foreman of the Lazy D?" + +He introduced with a smile the swarthy man in the doorway. "This +is him ma'am--Mr. Judd Morgan." + +Now it happened that Mr. Judd Morgan was simmering with +suppressed spleen. + +"All I've got to say is that you had no business mixing up in +that shootin' affair back there. Perhaps you don't know that the +man you saved is Ned Bannister, the outlaw," was his surly +greeting. + +"Oh, yes, I know that." + +"Then what d'ye mean--Who are you, anyway?" His insolent eyes +coasted malevolently over her. + +"Helen Messiter is my name." + +It was ludicrous to see the change that came over the man. He had +been prepared to bully her; and with a word she had pricked the +bubble of his arrogance. He swallowed his anger and got a +mechanical smile in working order. + +"Glad to see you here, Miss Messiter," he said, his sinister gaze +attempting to meet hers frankly "I been looking for you every +day." + +"But y'u managed to surprise him, after all ma'am," chuckled Mac. + +"Where's yo' hawss, Reddy?" inquired a tall young man, who had +appeared silently in the doorway of the bunkhouse. + +Reddy pinked violently. "I had an accident, Denver," he +explained. "This lady yere she--" + +"Scooped y'u right off yore hawss. Y'u don't say," sympathized +Mac so breathlessly that even Reddy joined in the chorus of +laughter that went up at his expense. + +The young woman thought to make it easy for him, and suggested an +explanation. + +"His horse isn't used to automobiles, and so when it met this +one--" + +"I got off," interposed Reddy hastily, displaying a complexion +like a boiled beet. + +"He got off," Mac explained gravely to the increasing audience. + +Denver nodded with an imperturbable face. "He got off." + +Mac introduced Miss Messiter to such of her employees as were on +hand. " Shake hands with Miss Messiter, Missou," was the formula, +the name alone varying to suit the embarrassed gentlemen in +leathers. Each of them in turn presented a huge hand, in which +her little one disappeared for the time, and was sawed up and +down in the air like a pump-handle. Yet if she was amused she did +not show it; and her pleasure at meeting the simple, elemental +products of the plains outweighed a great deal her sense of the +ludicrous. + +"How are your patients getting along?" she presently asked of her +foreman. + +"I reckon all right. I sent Reddy for a doc, but--" + +"He got off," murmured Mac pensively. + +"I'll go rope another hawss," put in the man who had got off. + +"Get a jump on you, then. Miss Messiter, would you like to look +over the place?" + +"Not now. I want to see the men that were hurt. Perhaps I can +help them. Once I took a few weeks in nursing." + +"Bully for you, ma'am," whooped Mac. "I've a notion those boys +are sufferin' for a woman to put the diamond-hitch on them +bandages." + +"Bring that suit-case in," she commanded Denver, in the gentlest +voice he had ever heard, after she had made a hasty inspection of +the first wounded man. + +From the suit-case she took a little leather medicine-case, the +kind that can be bought already prepared for use. It held among +other things a roll of medicated cotton, some antiseptic tablets, +and a little steel instrument for probing. + +"Some warm water, please; and have some boiling on the range," +were her next commands. + +Mac flew to execute them. + +It was a pleasure to see her work, so deftly the skillful hands +accomplished what her brain told them. In admiring awe the +punchers stood awkwardly around while she washed and dressed the +hurts. Two of the bullets had gone through the fleshy part of the +arm and left clean wounds. In the case of the third man she had +to probe for the lead, but fortunately found it with little +difficulty. Meanwhile she soothed the victim with gentle womanly +sympathy. + +"I know it hurts a good deal. Just a minute and I'll be through." + +His hands clutched tightly the edges of his bunk. "That's all +right, doc. You attend to roping that pill and I'll endure the +grief." + +A long sigh of relief went up from the assembled cowboys when she +drew the bullet out. + +The sinewy hands fastened on the wooden bunk relaxed suddenly. + +"'Frisco's daid," gasped the cook, who bore the title of Wun Hop +for no reason except that he was an Irishman in a place formerly +held by a Chinese. + +"He has only fainted," she said quietly, and continued with the +antiseptic dressing. + +When it was all over, the big, tanned men gathered at the +entrance to the calf corral and expanded in admiration of their +new boss. + +"She's a pure for fair. She grades up any old way yuh take her to +the best corn-fed article on the market," pronounced Denver, with +enthusiasm. + +"I got to ride the boundary," sighed Missou. "I kinder hate to go +right now." + +"Here, too," acquiesced another. "I got a round-up on Wind Creek +to cut out them two-year-olds. If 'twas my say-so, I'd order Mac +on that job." + +"Right kind of y'u. Seems to me"--Mac's sarcastic eye trailed +around to include all those who had been singing her +praises--"the new queen of this hacienda won't have no trouble at +all picking a prince consort when she gets round to it. Here's +Wun Hop, not what y'u might call anxious, but ce'tainly willing. +Then Denver's some in the turtle-dove business, according to that +hash-slinger in Cheyenne. Missou might be induced to accept if it +was offered him proper; and I allow Jim ain't turned the color of +Redtop's hair jest for instance. I don't want to leave out +'Frisco and the other boys carrying Bannister's pills--" + +"Nor McWilliams. I'd admire to include him," murmured Denver. + +That sunburned, nonchalant youth laughed musically. "Sure thing. +I'd hate to be left out. The only difference is--" + +"Well?" + +His roving eye circled blandly round. "I stand about one show in +a million. Y'u roughnecks are dead ones already." + +With which cold comfort he sauntered away to join Miss Messiter +and the foreman, who now appeared together at the door of the +ranchhouse, prepared to make a tour of the buildings and the +immediate corrals. + +"Isn't there a woman on the place?" she was asking Morgan. + +"No'm, there ain't. Henderson's daughter would come and stay with +y'u a while I reckon." + +"Please send for her at once, then, and ask her to come to-day." + +"All right. I'll send one of the boys right away." + +"How did y'u leave 'Frisco, ma'am?" asked Mac, by way of +including himself easily. + +"He's resting quietly. Unless blood-poisoning sets in they ought +all to do well." + +"It's right lucky for them y'u happened along. This is the hawss +corral, ma'am," explained the young man just as Morgan opened his +thin lips to tell her. + +Judd contrived to get rid of him promptly. "Slap on a saddle, +Mac, and run up the remuda so Miss Messiter can see the hawsses +for herself," he ordered. + +"Mebbe she'd rather ride down and look at the bunch," suggested +the capable McWilliams. + +As it chanced, she did prefer to ride down the pasture and look +over the place from on horseback. She was in love with her ranch +already. Its spacious distances, the thousands of cattle and the +horses, these picturesque retainers who served her even to the +shedding of an enemy's blood; they all struck an answering echo +in her gallant young heart that nothing in Kalamazoo had been +able to stir. She bubbled over with enthusiasm, the while Morgan +covertly sneered and McWilliams warmed to the untamed youth in +her. + +"What about this man Bannister?" she flung out suddenly, after +they had cantered back to the house when the remuda had been +inspected. + +Her abrupt question brought again the short, tense silence she +had become used to expect. + +"He runs sheep about twenty or thirty miles southwest of here," +explained McWilliams, in a carefully casual tone. + +"So everybody tells me, but it seems to me he spills a good deal +of lead on my men," she answered impatiently. "What's the +trouble?" + +"Last week he crossed the dead-line with a bunch of five thousand +sheep." + +"Who draws this dead-line?" + +"The cattlemen got together and drew it. Your uncle was one of +those that marked it off, ma'am." + +"And Bannister crossed it?" + +"Yes, ma'am. Yesterday 'Frisco come on him and one of his herders +with a big bunch of them less than fifteen miles from here. He +didn't know it was Bannister, and took a pot-shot at him. 'Course +Bannister came back at him, and he got Frisco in the laig." + +"Didn't know it was Bannister? What difference WOULD that make?" +she said impatiently. + +Mac laughed. "What difference would it make, Judd?" + +Morgan scowled, and the young man answered his own question. "We +don't any of us go out of our way more'n a mile to cross +Bannister's trail," he drawled. + +"Do you wear this for an ornament? Are you upholstered with +hardware to catch the eyes of some girl?" she asked, touching +with the end of her whip the revolver in the holster strapped to +his chaps. + +His serene, gay smile flashed at her. "Are y'u ordering me to go +out and get Ned Bannister's scalp?" + +"No, I am not," she explained promptly. "What I am trying to +discover is why you all seem to be afraid of one man. He is only +a man, isn't he?" + +A veil of ice seemed to fall over the boyish face and leave it +chiseled marble. His unspeaking eyes rested on the swarthy +foreman as he answered: + +"I don't know what he is, ma'am. He may be one man, or he may be +a hundred. What's more, I ain't particularly suffering to find +out. Fact is, I haven't lost any Bannisters." + +The girl became aware that her foreman was looking at her with a +wary silent vigilance sinister in its intensity. + +"In short, you're like the rest of the people in this section. +You're afraid." + +"Now y'u're shoutin', Miss Messiter. I sure am when it comes to +shootin' off my mouth about Bannister." + +"And you, Mr. Morgan?" + +It struck her that the young puncher waited with a curious +interest for the answer of the foreman. + +"Did it look like I was afraid this mawnin', ma'am?" he asked, +with narrowed eyes. + +"No, you all seemed brave enough then, when you had him eight to +one." + +"I wasn't there," hastily put in McWilliams. "I don't go gunning +for my man without giving him a show." + +"I do," retorted Morgan cruelly. "I'd go if we was fifty to one. +We'd 'a' got him, too, if it hadn't been for Miss Messiter. 'Twas +a chance we ain't likely to get again for a year." + +"It wasn't your fault you didn't kill him, Mr. Morgan," she said, +looking hard at him. "You may be interested to know that your +last shot missed him only about six inches, and me about four." + +"I didn't know who you were," he sullenly defended. + +"I see. You only shoot at women when you don't know who they +are." She turned her back on him pointedly and addressed herself +to McWilliams. "You can tell the men working on this ranch that I +won't have any more such attacks on this man Bannister. I don't +care what or who he is. I don't propose to have him murdered by +my employees. Let the law take him and hang him. Do you hear?" + +"I ce'tainly do, and the boys will get the word straight," he +replied. + +"I take it since yuh are giving your orders through Mac, yuh +don't need me any longer for your foreman," bullied Morgan. + +"You take it right, sir," came her crisp reply. "McWilliams will +be my foreman from to-day." + +The man's face, malignant and wolfish, suddenly lost its mask. +That she would so promptly call his bluff was the last thing he +had expected. "That's all right. I reckon yuh think yuh know your +own business, but I'll put it to yuh straight. Long as yuh live +you'll be sorry for this." + +And with that he wheeled away. + +She turned to her new foreman and found him less radiant than she +could have desired. "I'm right sorry y'u did that. I'm afraid +y'u'll make trouble for yourself," he said quietly. + +"Why?" + +"I don't know myself just why." He hesitated before adding: "They +say him and Bannister is thicker than they'd ought to be. It's a +cinch that he's in cahoots somehow with that Shoshone bunch of +bad men." + +"But--why, that's ridiculous. Only this morning he was trying to +kill Bannister himself." + +"That's what I don't just savvy. There's a whole lot about that +business I don't get next to. I guess Bannister is at the head of +them. Everybody seems agreed about that. But the whole thing is a +tangle of contradiction to me. I've milled it over a heap in my +mind, too." + +"What are some of the contradictions?" + +"Well, here's one right off the bat, as we used to say back in +the States. Bannister is a great musician, they claim; fine +singer, and all that. Now I happen to know he can't sing any more +than a bellowing yearling." + +"How do you know?" she asked, her eyes shining with interest. + +"Because I heard him try it. 'Twas one day last summer when I was +out cutting trail of a bunch of strays down by Dead Cow Creek. +The day was hot, and I lay down behind a cottonwood and dropped +off to sleep. When I awakened it didn't take me longer'n an hour +to discover what had woke me. Somebody on the other side of the +creek was trying to sing. It was ce'tainly the limit. Pretty soon +he come out of the brush and I seen it was Bannister." + +"You're sure it was Bannister?" + +"If seeing is believing, I'm sure." + +"And was his singing really so bad?" + +"I'd hate ever to hear worse." + +"Was he singing when you saw him?" + +"No, he'd just quit. He caught sight of my pony grazing, and +hunted cover real prompt." + +"Then it might have been another man singing in the thicket." + +"It might, but it wasn't. Y'u see, I'd followed him through the +bush by his song, and he showed up the moment I expected him." + +"Still there might have been another man there singing." + +"One chance in a million," he conceded. + +A sudden hope flamed up like tow in her heart. Perhaps, after +all, Ned Bannister was not the leader of the outlaws. Perhaps +somebody else was masquerading in his name, using Bannister's +unpopularity as a shield to cover his iniquities. Still, this was +an unlikely hypothesis, she had to admit. For why should he allow +his good name to be dragged in the dust without any effort to +save it? On a sudden impulse the girl confided her doubt to +McWilliams. + +"You don't suppose there can be any mistake, do you? Somehow I +can't think him as bad as they say. He looks awfully reckless, +but one feels one could trust his face." + +"Same here," agreed the new foreman. "First off when I saw him my +think was, 'I'd like to have that man backing my play when I'm +sitting in the game with Old Man Hard Luck reaching out for my +blue chips.'" + +"You don't think faces lie, do you?" + +"I've seen them that did, but, gen'rally speaking, tongues are a +heap likelier to get tangled with the truth. But I reckon there +ain't any doubt about Bannister. He's known over all this Western +country." + +The young woman sighed. "I'm afraid you're right." + + + +CHAPTER 5. THE DANCE AT FRASER'S + +"Heard tell yet of the dance over to Fraser's?" + +He was a young man of a brick red countenance and he wore loosely +round his neck the best polka dot silk handkerchief that could be +bought in Gimlet Butte, also such gala attire as was usually +reserved only for events of importance. Sitting his horse +carelessly in the plainsman's indolent fashion, he asked his +question of McWilliams in front of the Lazy D bunkhouse. + +"Nope. When does the shindig come off?" + +"Friday night. Big thing. Y'u want to be there. All y'u lads." + +"Mebbe some of us will ride over." + +He of the polka dot kerchief did not appear quite satisfied. His +glance wandered toward the house, as it had been doing +occasionally since the moment of his arrival. + +"Y'u bet this dance is ace high, Mac. Fancy costumes and masks. +Y'u can rent the costumes over to Slauson's for three per. Texas, +he's going to call the dances. Music from Gimlet Butte. Y'u want +to get it tucked away in your thinker that this dance ain't on +the order of culls. No, sirree, it's cornfed." + +"Glad to hear of it. I'll cipher out somehow to be there, Slim." + +Slim's glance took in the ranchhouse again. He had ridden +twenty-three miles out of his way to catch a glimpse of the newly +arrived mistress of the Lazy D, the report of whose good looks +and adventures had traveled hand in hand through many canons even +to the heart of the Tetons. It had been on Skunk Creek that he +had heard of her three days before, and now he had come to verify +the tongue of rumor, to see her quite casually, of course, and do +his own appraising. It began to look as if he were going to have +to ride off without a glimpse of her. + +He nodded toward the house, turning a shade more purple than his +native choleric hue. "Y'u want to bring your boss with y'u, Mac. +We been hearing a right smart lot about her and the boys would +admire to have her present. It's going to be strictly according +to Hoyle--no rough-house plays go, y'understand." + +"I'll speak to her about it." Mac's deep amusement did not reach +the surface. He was quite well aware that Slim was playing for +time and that he was too bashful to plump out the desire that was +in him. "Great the way cows are jumpin', ain't it?" + +"Sure. Well, I'll be movin' along to Slauson's. I just drapped in +on my way. Thought mebbe y'u hadn't heard tell of the dance." + +"Much obliged. Was it for old man Slauson y'u dug up all them +togs, Slim? He'll ce'tainly admire to see y'u in that silk +tablecloth y'u got round your neck." + +Slim's purple deepened again. "Y'u go to grass, Mac. I don't aim +to ask y'u to be my valley yet awhile." + +"C'rect. I was just wondering do all the Triangle Bar boys ride +the range so handsome?" + +"Don't y'u worry about the Triangle Bar boys," advised the +embarrassed Slim, gathering up his bridle reins. + +With one more reluctant glance in the direction of the house he +rode away. When he reached the corral he looked back again. His +gaze showed him the boyish foreman doubled up with laughter; also +the sweep of a white skirt descending from the piazza. + +"Now, ain't that hoodooed luck?" the aggrieved rider of the +Triangle Bar outfit demanded of himself, "I made my getaway about +three shakes too soon, by gum!" + +Her foreman was in the throes of mirth when Helen Messiter +reached him. + +"Include me in the joke," she suggested. + +"Oh, I was just thinkin'," he explained inadequately. + +"Does it always take you that way?" + +"About these boys that drop in so frequent on business these +days. Funny how fond they're getting of the Lazy D. There was +that stock detective happened in yesterday to show how anxious he +was about your cows. Then the two Willow Creek riders that wanted +a job punching for y'u, not to mention mention the Shoshone miner +and the storekeeper from Gimlet Butte and Soapy Sothern and--" + +"Still I don't quite see the joke." + +"It ain't any joke with them. Serious business, ma'am." + +"What happened to start you on this line?" + +"The lad riding down the road on that piebald pinto. He come +twenty miles out of his way, plumb dressed for a wedding, all to +give me an invite to a dance at Fraser's. Y'u would call that +real thoughtful of him, I expect." + +She gayly sparkled. "A real ranch dance--the kind you have been +telling me about. Are Ida and I invited?" + +"Invited? Slim hinted at a lynching if I came without y'u." + +She laughed softly, merry eyes flashing swiftly at him. "How +gallant you Westerners are, even though you do turn it into +burlesque." + +His young laugh echoed hers. "Burlesque nothing. My life wouldn't +be worth a thing if I went alone. Honest, I wouldn't dare." + +"Since the ranch can't afford to lose its foreman Ida and I will +go along," she promised. "That is, if it is considered proper +here." + +"Proper. Good gracious, ma'am! Every lady for thirty miles round +will be there, from six months old to eighty odd years. It +wouldn't be PROPER to stay at home." + +The foreman drove her to Fraser's in a surrey with Ida Henderson +and one of the Lazy D punchers on the back seat. The drive was +over twenty-five miles, but in that silent starry night every +mile was a delight. Part of the way led through a beautiful +canon, along the rocky mountain road of which the young man +guided the rig with unerring skill. Beyond the gorge the country +debouched into a grassy park that fell away from their feet for +miles. It was in this basin that the Fraser ranch lay. + +The strains of the fiddle and the thumping of feet could be heard +as they drove up. Already the rooms seemed to be pretty well +filled, as Helen noticed when they entered. Three sets were on +the floor for a quadrille and the house shook with the energy of +the dancers. On benches against the walls were seated the +spectators, and on one of them stood Texas calling the dance. + +"Alemane left. Right hand t'yer pardner and grand right and left. +Ev-v-rybody swing," chanted the caller. + +A dozen rough young fellows were clustered near the front door, +apparently afraid to venture farther lest their escape be cut +off. Through these McWilliams pushed a way for his charges, the +cowboys falling back respectfully at once when they discovered +the presence of Miss Messiter. + +In the bedroom where she left her wraps the mistress of the Lazy +D found a dozen or more infants and several of their mothers. In +the kitchen were still other women and babies, some of the former +very old and of the latter very young. A few of the babies were +asleep, but most of them were still very much alive to this scene +of unwonted hilarity in their young lives. + +As soon as she emerged into the general publicity of the dancing +room her foreman pounced upon Helen and led her to a place in the +head set that was making up. The floor was rough, the music jerky +and uncertain, the quadrilling an exhibition of joyous and +awkward abandon; but its picturesque lack of convention appealed +to the girl from Michigan. It rather startled her to be swung so +vigorously, but a glance about the room showed that these +humorous-eyed Westerners were merely living up to the duty of the +hour as they understood it. + +At the close of the quadrille Helen found herself being +introduced to "Mr. Robins," alias Slim, who drew one of his feet +back in an embarrassed bow. + +"I enjoy to meet y'u, ma'am," he assured her, and supplemented +this with a request for the next dance, after which he fell into +silence that was painful in its intensity. + +Nearly all the dances were squares, as few of those present +understood the intricacies of the waltz and two-step. Hence it +happened that the proficient McWilliams secured three round +dances with his mistress. + +It was during the lunch of sandwiches, cake and coffee that Helen +perceived an addition to the company. The affair had been +advertised a costume ball, but most of those present had +construed this very liberally. She herself, to be sure, had come +as Mary Queen of Scots, Mac was arrayed in the scarlet tunic and +tight-fitting breeches of the Northwest Mounted Police, and +perhaps eight or ten others had made some attempt at representing +some one other than they were. She now saw another, apparently a +new arrival, standing in the doorway negligently. A glance told +her that he was made up for a road agent and that his revolvers +and mask were a part of the necessary costuming. + +Slowly his gaze circled the room and came round to her. His eyes +were hard as diamonds and as flashing, so that the impact of +their meeting looks seemed to shock her physically. He was a tall +man, swarthy of hue, and he carried himself with a light ease +that looked silken strong. Something in the bearing was familiar +yet not quite familiar either. It seemed to suggest a resemblance +to somebody she knew. And in the next thought she knew that the +somebody was Ned Bannister. + +The man spoke to Fraser, just then passing with a cup of coffee, +and Helen saw the two men approach. The stranger was coming to be +formally introduced. + +"Shake hands with Mr. Holloway, Miss Messiter. He's from up in +the hill country and he rode to our frolic. Y'u've got three +guesses to figure out what he's made up as." + +"One will be quite enough, I think," she answered coldly. + +Fraser departed on his destination with the coffee and the +newcomer sat down on the bench beside her. + +"One's enough, is it?" he drawled smilingly. + +"Quite, but I'm surprised so few came in costume. Why didn't you? +But I suppose you had your reasons." + +"Didn't I? I'm supposed to be a bad man from the hills." + +She swept him casually with an indifferent glance. "And isn't +that what you are in real life?" + +His sharp scrutiny chiseled into her. "What's that?" + +"You won't mind if I forget and call you Mr. Bannister instead of +Mr. Holloway?" + +She thought his counterfeit astonishment perfect. + +"So I'm Ned Bannister, am I?" + +Their eyes clashed. + +"Aren't you?" + +She felt sure of it, and yet there was a lurking doubt. For there +was in his manner something indescribably more sinister than she +had felt in him on that occasion when she had saved his life. +Then a debonair recklessness had been the outstanding note, but +now there was something ribald and wicked in him. + +"Since y'u put it as a question, common politeness demands an +answer. Ned Bannister is my name." + +"You are the terror of this country?" + +"I shan't be a terror to y'u, ma'am, if I can help it," he +smiled. + +"But you are the man they call the king?" + +"I have that honor." + +"HONOR?" + +At the sharp scorn of her accent he laughed. + +"Do you mean that you are proud of your villainy?" she demanded. + +"Y'u've ce'tainly got the teacher habit of asking questions," he +replied with a laugh that was a sneer. + +A shadow fell across them and a voice said quietly, "She didn't +wait to ask any when she saved your life down in the coulee back +of the Lazy D." + +The shadow was Jim McWilliams's, and its owner looked down at the +man beside the girl with steady, hostile eyes. + +"Is this your put in, sir?" the other flashed back. + +"Yes, seh, it is. The boys don't quite like seeing your hardware +so prominent at a social gathering. In this community guns don't +come into the house at a ranch dance. I'm a committee to mention +the subject and to collect your thirty-eights if y'u agree with +us." + +"And if I don't agree with you?" + +"There's all outdoors ready to receive y'u, seh. It would be a +pity to stay in the one spot where your welcome's wore thin." + +"Still I may choose to stay." + +"Ce'tainly, but if y'u decide that way y'u better step out on the +porch and talk it over with us where there ain't ladies present." + +"Isn't this a costume dance? What's the matter with my guns? I'm +an outlaw, ain't I?" + +"I don't know whether y'u are or not, seh. If y'u say y'u are +we're ready to take your word. The guns have to be shucked if y'u +stay here. They might go off accidental and scare the ladies. " + +The man rose blackly. "I'll remember this. If y'u knew who y'u +were getting so gay with--" + +"I can guess, Mr. Holloway, the kind of an outfit y'u freight +with, and I expect I could put a handle to another name for you." + +"By God, if y'u dare to say--" + +"I don't dare. especially among so many ladies," came +McWilliams's jaunty answer. + +The eyes of the two men gripped, after which Holloway swung on +his heel and swaggered defiantly out of the house. + +Presently there came the sound of a pony's feet galloping down +the road. It had not yet died away when Texas announced that the +supper intermission was over. + +"Pardners for a quadrille. Ladies' choice." + +The dance was on again full swing. The fiddlers were tuning up +and couples gathering for a quadrille. Denver came to claim Miss +Messiter for a partner. Apparently even the existence of the +vanished Holloway was forgotten. But Helen remembered it, and +pondered over the affair long after daylight had come and brought +with it an end to the festivities. + + + +CHAPTER 6. A PARTY CALL + +The mistress of the Lazy D, just through with her morning visit +to the hospital in the bunkhouse, stopped to read the gaudy +poster tacked to the wall. It was embellished with the drawing of +a placid rider astride the embodiment of fury incarnate, under +which was the legend: "Stick to Your Saddle." + +BIG FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION AT GIMLET BUTTE. ROPING AND BRONCO +BUSTING CONTESTS FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP OF THE WORLD AND BIG +PRIZES, +Including $1,000 for the Best Rider and the Same for Best Roper. +Cow Pony Races, Ladies' Races and Ladies' Riding Contest, +Fireworks, +AND FREE BARBECUE! ! ! ! EVERYBODY COME AND TURN YOUR WOLF LOOSE. + +A sudden thud of pounding hoofs, a snatch of ragtime, and her +foreman swept up in a cloud of white dust. His pony came from a +gallop to an instant halt, and simultaneously Mac landed beside +her, one hand holding the wide-brimmed hat he had snatched off in +his descent, the other hitched by a casual thumb to the belt of +his chaps. + +She laughed. "You really did it very well." + +Mac blushed. He was still young enough to take pride in his +picturesque regalia, to prefer the dramatic way of doing a +commonplace thing. But, though he liked this girl's trick of +laughing at him with a perfectly grave face out of those dark, +long-lashed eyes, he would have liked it better if sometimes they +had given back the applause he thought his little tricks merited. + +"Sho! That's foolishness," he deprecated. + +"I suppose they got you to sit for this picture;" and she +indicated the poster with a wave of her hand. + +"That ain't a real picture," he explained, and when she smiled +added, "as of course y'u know. No hawss ever pitched that +way--and the saddle ain't right. Fact is, it's all wrong." + +"How did it come here? It wasn't here last night." + +"I reckon Denver brought it from Slauson's. He was ridin' that +country yesterday, and as the boys was out of smokin' he come +home that way." + +"I suppose you'll all go?" + +"I reckon." + +"And you'll ride?" + +"I aim to sit in." + +"At the roping, too?" + +"No, m'm. I ain't so much with the rope. It takes a Mexican to +snake a rope." + +"Then I'll be able to borrow only a thousand dollars from you to +help buy that bunch of young cows we were speaking about," she +mocked. + +"Only a thousand," he grinned. "And it ain't a cinch I'll win. +There are three or four straightup riders on this range. A fellow +come from the Hole-in-the-Wall and won out last year." + +"And where were you?" + +"Oh, I took second prize," he explained, with obvious +indifference. + +"Well, you had better get first this year. We'll have to show +them the Lazy D hasn't gone to sleep." + +"Sure thing," he agreed. + +"Has that buyer from Cheyenne turned up yet?" she asked, +reverting to business. + +"Not yet. Do y'u want I should make the cut soon as he comes?" + +"Don't you think his price is a little low--twenty dollars from +brand up?" + +"It's a scrub bunch. We want to get rid of them, anyway. But +you're the doctor," he concluded slangily. + +She thought a moment. "We'll let him have them, but don't make +the cut till I come back. I'm going to ride over to the Twin +Buttes." + +His admiring eyes followed her as she went toward the pony that +was waiting saddled with the rein thrown to the ground. She +carried her slim, lithe figure with a grace, a lightness, that +few women could have rivaled. When she had swung to the saddle, +she half-turned in her seat to call an order to the foreman. + +"I think, Mac, you had better run up those horses from Eagle +Creek. Have Denver and Missou look after them." + +"Sure, ma'am," he said aloud; and to himself: "She's ce'tainly a +thoroughbred. Does everything well she tackles. I never saw +anything like it. I'm a Chink if she doesn't run this ranch like +she had been at it forty years. Same thing with her gasoline +bronc. That pinto, too. He's got a bad eye for fair, but she +makes him eat out of her hand. I reckon the pinto is like the +rest of us--clean mashed." He put his arms on the corral fence +and grew introspective. "Blamed if I know what it is about her. +'Course she's a winner on looks, but that ain't it alone. I guess +it's on account of her being such a game little gentleman. When +she turns that smile loose on a fellow--well, there's sure +sunshine in the air. And game--why, Ned Bannister ain't gamer +himself." + +McWilliams had climbed lazily to the top board of the fence. He +was an energetic youth, but he liked to do his thinking at his +ease. Now, as his gaze still followed its lodestar, he suddenly +slipped from his seat and ran forward, pulling the revolver from +its scabbard as he ran. Into his eyes had crept a tense +alertness, the shining watchfulness of the tiger ready for its +spring. + +The cause of the change in the foreman of the Lazy D was a simple +one, and on its face innocent enough. It was merely that a +stranger had swung in casually at the gate of the short stable +lane, and was due to meet Miss Messiter in about ten seconds. So +far good enough. A dozen travelers dropped in every day, but this +particular one happened to be Ned Bannister. + +From the stable door a shot rang out. Bannister ducked and +shouted genially: "Try again." + +But Helen Messiter whirled her pony as on a half-dollar, and +charged down on the stable. + +"Who fired that shot?" she demanded, her eyes blazing. + +The horse-wrangler showed embarrassment. He had found time only +to lean the rifle against the wall. + +"I reckon I did, ma'am. Y'u see--" + +"Did you get my orders about this feud?" she interrupted crisply. + +"Yes, ma'am, but--" + +"Then you may call for your time. When I give my men orders I +expect them to obey." + +"I wouldn't 'a' shot if I'd knowed y'u was so near him. Y'u was +behind that summer kitchen," he explained lamely. + +"You only expect to obey orders when I'm in sight. Is that it?" +she asked hotly, and without waiting for an answer delivered her +ultimatum. "Well, I won't have it. I run this ranch as long as I +am its owner. Do you understand?" + +"Yes, ma'am. I hadn't ought to have did it, but when I seen +Bannister it come over me I owed him a pill for the one he sent +me last week down in the coulee. So I up and grabbed the rifle +and let him have it." + +"Then you may up and grab your trunk for Medicine Hill. Shorty +will drive you tomorrow." + +When she returned to her unexpected guest, Helen found him in +conversation with McWilliams. The latter's gun had found again +its holster, but his brown, graceful hand hovered close to its +butt. + +"Seems like a long time since the Lazy D has been honored by a +visit from Mr. Bannister," he was saying, with gentle irony. + +"That's right. So I have come to make up for lost time," came +Bannister's quiet retort. + +Miss Messiter did not know much about Wyoming human nature in the +raw, but she had learned enough to be sure that the soft courtesy +of these two youths covered a stark courage that might leap to +life any moment. Wherefore she interposed. + +"We'll be pleased to show you over the place, Mr. Bannister. As +it happens, we are close to the hospital. Shall we begin there?" + +Her cool, silken defiance earned a smile from the visitor. "All +your cases doing well, ma'am?" + +"It's very kind of you to ask. I suppose you take an interest +because they are YOUR cases, too, in a way of speaking?" + +"Mine? Indeed!" + +"Yes. If it were not for you I'm afraid our hospital would be +empty." + +"It must be right pleasant to be nursed by Miss Messiter. I +reckon the boys are grateful to me for scattering my lead so +promiscuous." + +"I heard one say he would like to lam your haid tenderly," +murmured McWilliams. + +"With a two-by-four, I suppose," laughed Bannister. + +"Shouldn't wonder. But, looking y'u over casual, it occurs to me +he might get sick of his job befo' he turned y'u loose," +McWilliams admitted, with a glance of admiration at the clean +power showing in the other's supple lines. + +Nor could either the foreman or his mistress deny the tribute of +their respect to the bravado of this scamp who sat so jauntily +his seat regardless of what the next moment might bring forth. +Three wounded men were about the place, all presumably quite +willing to get a clean shot at him in the open. One of them had +taken his chance already, and missed. Their visitor had no +warrant for knowing that a second might not any instant try his +luck with better success. Yet he looked every inch the man on +horseback, no whit disturbed, not the least conscious of any +danger. Tall, spare, broad shouldered, this berry-brown young +man, crowned with close-cropped curls, sat at the gates of the +enemy very much at his insolent case. + +"I came over to pay my party call," he explained. + +"It really wasn't necessary. A run in the machine is not a formal +function." + +"Maybe not in Kalamazoo." + +"I thought perhaps you had come to get my purse and the +sixty-three dollars," she derided. + +"No, ma'am; nor yet to get that bunch of cows I was going to +rustle from you to buy an auto. I came to ask you to go riding +with me." + +The audacity of it took her breath. Of all the outrageous things +she had ever heard, this was the cream. An acknowledged outlaw, +engaged in feud with her retainers over that deadly question of +the run of the range, he had sauntered over to the ranch where +lived a dozen of his enemies, three of them still scarred with +his bullets, merely to ask her to go riding with him. The +magnificence of his bravado almost obliterated its impudence. Of +course she would not think of going. The idea! But her eyes +glowed with appreciation of his courage, not the less because the +consciousness of it was so conspicuously absent from his manner. + +"I think not, Mr. Bannister" and her face almost imperceptibly +stiffened. "I don't go riding with strangers, nor with men who +shoot my boys. And I'll give you a piece of advice, sir. That is, +to burn the wind back to your home. Otherwise I won't answer for +your life. My punchers don't love you, and I don't know how long +I can keep them from you. You're not wanted here any more than +you were at the dance the other evening." + +McWilliams nodded. "That's right. Y'u better roll your trail, +seh; and if y'u take my advice, you'll throw gravel lively. I +seen two of the boys cutting acrost that pasture five minutes +ago. They looked as if they might be haided to cut y'u off, and I +allow it may be their night to howl. Miss Messiter don't want to +be responsible for y'u getting lead poisoning." + +"Indeed!" Their visitor looked politely interested. "This +solicitude for me is very touching. I observe that both of you +are carefully blocking me from the bunkhouse in order to prevent +another practice-shot. If I can't persuade you to join me in a +ride, Miss Messiter, I reckon I'll go while I'm still +unpunctured." He bowed, and gathered the reins for departure. + +"One moment! Mr. McWilliams and I are going with you," the girl +announced. + +"Changed your mind? Think you'll take a little pasear, after +all?" + +"I don't want to be responsible for your killing. We'll see you +safe off the place," she answered curtly. + +The foreman fell in on one side of Bannister, his mistress on the +other. They rode in close formation, to lessen the chance of an +ambuscade. Bannister alone chatted at his debonair ease, ignoring +the responsibility they felt for his safety. + +"I got my ride, after all," he presently chuckled. "To be sure, I +wasn't expecting Mr. McWilliams to chaperon us. But that's an +added pleasure." + +"Would it be an added pleasure to get bumped off to kingdom +come?" drawled the foreman, giving a reluctant admiration to his +aplomb. + +"Thinking of those willing boys of yours again, are you?" laughed +Bannister. "They're ce'tainly a heap prevalent with their +hardware, but their hunting don't seem to bring home any meat." + +"By the way, how IS your ankle, Mr. Bannister? I forgot to ask." +This shot from the young woman. + +He enjoyed it with internal mirth. "They did happen on the target +that time," he admitted. "Oh, it's getting along fine, but I aim +to do most of my walking on horseback for a while." + +They swept past the first dangerous grove of cottonwoods in +safety, and rounded the boundary fence corner. + +"They're in that bunch of pines over there," said the foreman, +after a single sweep of his eyes in that direction. + +"Yes, I see they are. You oughtn't to let your boys wear red +bandannas when they go gunning, Miss Messiter. It's an awful +careless habit." + +Helen herself could see no sign of life in the group of pines, +but she knew their keen, trained eyes had found what hers could +not. Riding with one or another of her cowboys, she had often +noticed how infallibly they could read the country for miles +around. A scattered patch on a distant hillside, though it might +be a half-hour's ride from them, told them a great deal more than +seemed possible. To her the dark spots sifted on that slope meant +scrub underbrush, if there was any meaning at all in them. But +her riders could tell not only whether they were alive, but could +differentiate between sheep and cattle. Indeed, McWilliams could +nearly always tell whether they were HER cattle or not. He was +unable to explain to her how he did it. By a sort of instinct, +she supposed. + +The pines were negotiated in safety, and on the part of the men +with a carelessness she could not understand. For after they had +passed there was a spot between her shoulder-blades that seemed +to tingle in expectation of a possible bullet boring its way +through. But she would have died rather than let them know how +she felt. + +Perhaps Bannister understood, however, for he remarked casually: +"I wouldn't be ambling past so leisurely if I was riding alone. +It makes a heap of difference who your company is, too. Those +punchers wouldn't take a chance at me now for a million dollars." + +"No, they're some haidstrong, but they ain't plumb locoed," +agreed Mac. + +Fifteen minutes later Helen drew up at the line corner. "We'll +part company here, Mr. Bannister. I don't think there is any more +danger from my men." + +"Before we part there is something I want to say. I hold that a +man has as much right to run sheep on these hills as cows. It's +government land, and neither one of us owns it. It's bound to be +a case of the survival of the fittest. If sheep are hardier and +more adapted to the country, then cows have got to vamos. That's +nature, as it looks to me. The buffalo and the antelope have +gone, and I guess cows have got to take their turn." + +Her scornful eyes burned him. "You came to tell me that, did you? +Well, I don't believe a word of it. I'll not yield my rights +without a fight. You may depend on that." + +"Here, too," nodded her foreman. "I'm with my boss clear down the +line. And as soon as she lets me turn loose my six-gun, you'll +hear it pop, seh." + +"I have not a doubt of it, Mr. McWilliams," returned the sheepman +blithely. "In the meantime I was going to say that though most of +my interests are in sheep instead of cattle--" + +"I thought most of your interests were in other people's +property," interrupted the young woman. + +"It goes into sheep ultimately," he smiled. "Now, what I am +trying to get at is this: I'm in debt to you a heap, Miss +Messiter, and since I'm not all yellow cur, I intend to play fair +with you. I have ordered my sheep back across the deadline. You +can have this range to yourself for your cattle. The fight's off +so far as we personally are concerned." + +A hint of deeper color touched her cheeks. Her manner had been +cavalier at best; for the most part frankly hostile; and all the +time the man was on an errand of good-will. Certainly he had +scored at her expense, and she was ashamed of herself. + +"Y'u mean that you're going to respect the deadline? asked Mac in +surprise. + +"I didn't say quite that," explained the sheepman. "What I said +was that I meant to keep on my side of it so far as the Lazy D +cattle are concerned. I'll let your range alone." + +"But y'u mean to cross it down below where the Bar Double-E cows +run?" + +Bannister's gay smile touched the sardonic face. "Do you invite +the public to examine your hand when you sit into a game of +poker, Mr. McWilliams?" + +"You're dead right. It's none of my business what y'u do so long +as y'u keep off our range," admitted the foreman. "And next time +the conversation happens on Mr. Bannister, I'll put in my little +say-so that he ain't all black." + +"That's very good of you, sir," was the other's ironical retort. + +The girl's gauntleted hand offered itself impulsively. "We can't +be friends under existing circumstances, Mr. Bannister. But that +does not alter the fact that I owe you an apology. You came as a +peace envoy, and one of my men shot at you. Of course, he did not +understand the reason why you came, but that does not matter. I +did not know your reason myself, and I know I have been very +inhospitable." + +"Are you shaking hands with Ned Bannister the sheepman or Ned +Bannister the outlaw?" asked the owner of that name, with a queer +little smile that seemed to mock himself. + +"With Ned Bannister the gentleman. If there is another side to +him I don't know it personally." + +He flushed underneath the tan, but very plainly with pleasure. +"Your opinions are right contrary to Hoyle, ma'am. Aren't you +aware that a sheepman is the lowest thing that walks? Ask Mr. +McWilliams." + +"I have known stockmen of that opinion, but--" + +The foreman's sentence was never finished. From a clump of bushes +a hundred yards away came the crack of a rifle. A bullet sang +past, cutting a line that left on one side of it Bannister, on +the other Miss Messiter and her foreman. Instantly the two men +slid from their horses on the farther side, dragged down the +young woman behind the cover of the broncos, and arranged the +three ponies so as to give her the greatest protection available. +Somehow the weapons that garnished them had leaped to their hands +before their feet touched the ground. + +"That coyote isn't one of our men. I'll back that opinion high," +said McWilliams promptly. + +"Who is he?" the girl whispered. + +"That's what we're going to find out pretty soon," returned +Bannister grimly. "Chances are it's me he is trying to gather. +Now, I'm going to make a break for that cottonwood. When I go, +you better run up a white handkerchief and move back from the +firing-line. Turn Buck loose when you leave. He'll stay around +and come when I whistle." + +He made a run for it, zigzagging through the sage-brush so +swiftly as to offer the least certain mark possible for a +sharpshooter. Yet twice the rifle spoke before he reached the +cottonwood. + +Meanwhile Mac had fastened the handkerchief of his mistress on +the end of a switch he had picked up and was edging out of range. +His tense, narrowed gaze never left the bush-clump from which the +shots were being pumped, and he was careful during their retreat +to remain on the danger side of the road, in order to cover +Helen. + +"I guess Bannister's right. He don't want us, whoever he is." + +And even as he murmured it, the wind of a bullet lifted his hat +from his head. He picked it up and examined it. The course of the +bullet was marked by a hole in the wide brim, and two more in the +side and crown. + +"He ce'tainly ventilated it proper. I reckon, ma'am, we'll make a +run for it. Lie low on the pinto's neck, with your haid on the +off side. That's right. Let him out." + +A mile and a half farther up the road Mac reined in, and made the +Indian peace-sign. Two dejected figures came over the hill and +resolved themselves into punchers of the Lazy D. Each of them +trailed a rifle by his side. + +"You're a fine pair of ring-tailed snorters, ain't y'u?" jeered +the foreman. "Got to get gay and go projectin' round on the shoot +after y'u got your orders to stay hitched. Anything to say for +yo'selves?" + +If they had it was said very silently. + +"Now, Miss Messiter is going to pass it up this time, but from +now on y'u don't go off on any private massacrees while y'u punch +at the Lazy D. Git that? This hyer is the last call for supper in +the dining-cah. If y'u miss it, y'u'll feed at some other +chuckhouse." Suddenly the drawl of his sarcasm vanished. His +voice carried the ring of peremptory command. "Jim, y'u go back +to the ranch with Miss Messiter, AND KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. Missou, +I need y'u. We're going back. I reckon y'u better hang on to the +stirrup, for we got to travel some. Adios, senorita!" + +He was off at a slow lope on the road he had just come, the other +man running beside the horse. Presently he stopped, as if the +arrangement were not satisfactory; and the second man swung +behind him on the pony. Later, when she turned in her saddle, she +saw that they had left the road and were cutting across the +plain, as if to take the sharpshooter in the rear. + +Her troubled thoughts stayed with her even after she had reached +the ranch. She was nervously excited, keyed up to a high pitch; +for she knew that out on the desert, within a mile or two of her, +men were stalking each other with life or death in the balance as +the price of vigilance, skill and an unflawed steel nerve. While +she herself had been in danger, she had been mistress of her +fear. But now she could do nothing but wait, after ordering out +such reinforcements as she could recruit without delay; and the +inaction told upon her swift, impulsive temperament. Once, twice, +the wind brought to her a faint sound. + +She had been pacing the porch, but she stopped, white as a sheet. +Behind those faint explosions might lie a sinister tragedy. Her +mind projected itself into a score of imaginary possibilities. +She listened, breathless in her tensity, but no further echo of +that battlefield reached her. The sun still shone warmly on brown +Wyoming. She looked down into a rolling plain that blurred in the +distance from knobs and flat spaces into a single stretch that +included a thousand rises and depressions. That roll of country +teemed with life, but the steady, inexorable sun beat down on +what seemed a shining, primeval waste of space. Yet somewhere in +that space the tragedy was being determined--unless it had been +already enacted. + +She wanted to scream. The very stillness mocked her. So, too, did +the clicking windmill, with its monotonous regularity. Her pony +still stood saddled in the yard. She knew that her place was at +home, and she fought down a dozen times the tremendous impulse to +mount and fly to the field of combat. + +She looked at her watch. How slowly the minutes dragged! It could +not be only five minutes since she had looked last time. Again +she fell to pacing the long west porch, and interrupted herself a +dozen times to stop and listen. + +"I can bear it no longer," she told herself at last, and in +another moment was in the saddle plying her pinto with the quirt. + +But before she reached the first cottonwoods she saw them coming. +Her glasses swept the distant group, and with a shiver she made +out the dreadful truth. They were coming slowly, carrying +something between them. The girl did not need to be told that the +object they were bringing home was their dead or wounded. + +A figure on horseback detached itself from the huddle of men and +galloped towards her. He was coming to break the news. But who +was the victim? Bannister or McWilliams she felt sure, by reason +of the sinking heart in her; and then it came home that she would +be hard hit if it were either. + +The approaching rider began to take distinct form through her +glasses. As he pounded forward she recognized him. It was the man +nicknamed Denver. The wind was blowing strongly from her to him, +and while he was still a hundred yards away she hurled her +question. + +His answer was lost in the wind sweep, but one word of it she +caught. That word was "Mac." + + + +CHAPTER 7. THE MAN FROM THE SHOSHONE FASTNESSES + +Though the sharpshooter's rifle cracked twice during his run for +the cottonwood, the sheepman reached the tree in safety. He could +dodge through the brush as elusively as any man in Wyoming. It +was a trick he had learned on the whitewashed football gridiron. +For in his buried past this man had been the noted half-back of a +famous college, and one of his specialties had been running the +ball back after a catch through a broken field of opponents. The +lesson that experience had then thumped into him had since saved +his life on more than one occasion. + +Having reached the tree, Bannister took immediate advantage of +the lie of the ground to snake forward unobserved for another +hundred feet. There was a dip from the foot of the tree, down +which he rolled into the sage below. He wormed his way through +the thick scrub brush to the edge of a dry creek, into the bed of +which he slid. Then swiftly, his body bent beneath the level of +the bank, he ran forward in the sand. He moved noiselessly, eyes +and ears alert to aid him, and climbed the bank at a point where +a live oak grew. + +Warily he peeped out from behind its trunk and swept the plain +for his foe. Nothing was to be seen of him. Slowly and patiently +his eyes again went over the semi-circle before him, for where +death may lurk behind every foot of vegetation, every bump or +hillock, the plainsman leaves as little as may be to chance. No +faintest movement could escape the sheepman's eyes, no least stir +fail to apprise his ears. Yet for many minutes he waited in vain, +and the delay told him that he had to do with a trained hunter +rather than a mere reckless cow-puncher. For somewhere in the +rough country before him his enemy lay motionless, every faculty +alive to the least hint of his presence. + +It was the whirring flight of a startled dove that told Bannister +the whereabouts of his foe. Two hundred yards from him the bird +rose, and the direction it took showed that the man must have +been trailing forward from the opposite quarter. The sheepman +slipped back into the dry creek bed, retraced his steps for about +a stone-throw, and again crawled up the bank. + +For a long time he lay face down in the grass, his gaze riveted +to the spot where he knew his opponent to be hidden. A faint +rustle not born of the wind stirred the sage. Still Bannister +waited. A less experienced plainsman would have blazed away and +exposed his own position. But not this young man with the +steel-wire nerves. Silent as the coming of dusk, no breaking twig +or displaced brush betrayed his self-contained presence. + +Something in the clump he watched wriggled forward and showed +indistinctly through an opening in the underscrub. He whipped his +rifle into position and fired twice. The huddled brown mass +lurched forward and disappeared. + +"Wonder if I got him? Seems to me I couldn't have missed clean," +thought Bannister. + +Silence as before, vast and unbroken. + +A scramble of running feet tearing a path through the brush, a +crouching body showing darkly for an eyeflash, and then the +pounding of a horse's retreating feet. + +Bannister leaped up, ran lightly across the intervening space, +and with his repeater took a potshot at the galloping horseman. + +"Missed!" he muttered, and at once gave a sharp whistle that +brought his pony to him on the trot. He vaulted to the saddle and +gave chase. It was rough going, but nothing in reason can stop a +cow-pony. As sure footed as a mountain goat, as good a climber +almost as a cat, Buck followed the flying horseman over perilous +rock rims and across deep-cut creek beds. Pantherlike he climbed +up the steep creek sides without hesitation, for the round-up had +taught him never to falter at stiff going so long as his rider +put him at it. + +It was while he was clambering out of the sheer sides of a wash +that Bannister made a discovery. The man he pursued was wounded. +Something in the manner of the fellow's riding had suggested this +to him, but a drop of blood splashed on a stone that happened to +meet his eye made the surmise a certainty. + +He was gaining now--not fast, almost imperceptibly, but none the +less surely. He could see the man looking over his shoulder, +once, twice, and then again, with that hurried, fearful glance +that measures the approach of retribution. Barring accidents, the +man was his. + +But the unforeseen happened. Buck stepped in the hole of a +prairie dog and went down. Over his head flew the rider like a +stone from a catapult. + +How long Ned Bannister lay unconscious he never knew. But when he +came to himself it was none too soon. He sat up dizzily and +passed his hand over his head. Something had happened. + +What was it? Oh, yes, he had been thrown from his horse. A wave +of recollection passed over him, and his mind was clear once +more. Presently he got to his feet and moved rather uncertainly +toward Buck, for the horse was grazing quietly a few yards from +him. + +But half way to the pony he stopped. Voices, approaching by way +of the bed of Dry Creek, drifted to him. + +"He must 'a' turned and gone back. Mebbe he guessed we was +there." + +And a voice that Bannister knew, one that had a strangely +penetrant, cruel ring of power through the drawl, made answer: +"Judd said before he fainted he was sure the man was Ned +Bannister. I'd ce'tainly like to meet up with my beloved cousin +right now and even up a few old scores. By God, I'd make him sick +before I finished with him!" + +"I'll bet y'u would, Cap," returned the other, admiringly. "Think +we'd better deploy here and beat up the scenery a few as we go?" + +There are times when the mind works like lightning, flashes its +messages on the wings of an electric current. For Bannister this +was one of them. The whole situation lighted for him plainly as +if it had been explained for an hour. + +His cousin had been out with a band of his cut-throats on some +errand, and while returning to the fastnesses of the Shoshone +Mountains had stopped to noon at a cow spring three or four miles +from the Lazy D. Judd Morgan, whom he knew to be a lieutenant of +the notorious bandit, had ridden toward the ranch in the hope of +getting an opportunity to vent his anger against its mistress or +some of her men. While pursuing the renegade Bannister had +stumbled into a hornet's nest, and was in imminent danger of +being stung to death. Even now the last speaker was scrambling up +the bank toward him. + +The sheepman had to choose between leaving his rifle and +immediate flight. The latter was such a forlorn hope that he gave +up Buck for the moment, and ran back to the place where his +repeating Winchester had fallen. Without stopping he scooped the +rifle up as he passed. In his day he had been a famous sprinter, +and he scudded now for dear life. It was no longer a question of +secrecy. The sound of men breaking their hurried way through the +heavy brush of the creek bank came crisply to him. A voice behind +shouted a warning, and from not a hundred yards in front of him +came an answering shout. Hemmed in from the fore and the rear, he +swung off at a right angle. An open stretch lay before him, but +he had to take his desperate chance without cover. Anything was +better than to be trapped like a wild beast driven by the beaters +to the guns. + +Across the bare, brown mesa he plunged; and before he had taken a +dozen steps the first rifle had located its prey and was sniping +at him. He had perhaps a hundred yards to cover ere the mesa fell +away into a hollow, where he might find temporary protection in +the scrub pines. And now a second marksman joined himself to the +first. But he was going fast, already had covered half the +distance, and it is no easy thing to bring down a live, dodging +target. + +Again the first gun spoke, and scored another miss, whereat a +mocking, devilish laugh rang out in the sunshine. + +"Y'u boys splash a heap of useless lead around the horizon. I +reckon Cousin Ned's my meat. Y'u see, I get him in the flapper +without spoiling him complete." And at the word he flung the +rifle to his shoulder and fired with no apparent aim. + +The running man doubled up like a cottontail, but found his feet +again in an instant, though one arm hung limp by his side. He was +within a dozen feet of the hilldrop and momentary safety. + +"Shall I take him, Cap?" cried one of the men. + +"No; he's mine." The rifle smoked once more and again the runner +went down. But this time he plunged headlong down the slope and +out of sight. + +The outlaw chief turned on his heel. "I reckon he'll not run any +more to-day. Bring him into camp and we'll take him along with +us," he said carelessly, and walked away to his horse in the +creek bed. + +Two of the men started forward, but they stopped half way, as if +rooted to the ground. For a galloping horseman suddenly drew up +at the very point for which they were starting. He leaped to the +ground and warned them back with his rifle. While he covered them +a second man rode up and lifted Bannister to his saddle. + +"Ready, Mac," he gave the word, and both horses disappeared with +their riders over the brow of the hill. When the surprised +desperadoes recovered themselves and reached that point the +rescuers had disappeared in the heavy brush. + +The alarm was at once given, and their captain, cursing them in a +raucous bellow for their blunder, ordered immediate pursuit. It +was some little time before the trail of the fugitives was picked +up, but once discovered they were over hauled rapidly. + +"We're not going to get out without swapping lead," McWilliams +admitted anxiously. "I wisht y'u wasn't hampered with that load, +but I reckon I'll have to try to stand them off alone." + +"We bucked into a slice of luck when I opened on his bronc +mavericking around alone. Hadn't been for that we could never +have made it," said Missou, who never crossed a bridge until he +came to it. + +"We haven't made it yet, old hoss, not by a long mile, and two +more on top o' that. They're beginning to pump lead already. Huh! +Got to drap your pills closer'n that 'fore y'u worry me." + +"I believe he's daid, anyway," said Missou presently, peering +down into the white face of the unconscious man. + +"Got to hang onto the remains, anyhow, for Miss Helen. Those +coyotes are too much of the wolf breed to leave him with them." + +"Looks like they're gittin' the aim some better," equably +remarked the other a minute later, when a spurt of sand flew up +in front of him. + +"They're ce'tainly crowding us. I expaict I better send them a +'How-de-do?' so as to discourage them a few." He took as careful +aim as he could on the galloping horse, but his bullet went wide. + +"They're gaining like sixty. It's my offhand opinion we better +stop at that bunch of trees and argue some with them. No use +buck-jumpin' along to burn the wind while they drill streaks of +light through us." + +"All right. Take the trees. Y'u'll be able to get into the game +some then." + +They debouched from the road to the little grove and slipped from +their horses. + +"Deader'n hell," murmured Missou, as he lifted the limp body from +his horse. " But I guess we'll pack what's left back to the +little lady at the Lazy D." + +The leader of the pursuers halted his men just out of range and +came forward alone, holding his right hand up in the usual signal +of peace. In appearance he was not unlike Ned Bannister. There +was the same long, slim, tiger build, with the flowing muscles +rippling easily beneath the loose shirt; the same effect of power +and dominance, the same clean, springy stride. The pose of the +head, too, even the sweep of salient jaw, bore a marked +resemblance. But similarity ceased at the expression. For instead +of frankness there lurked here that hint of the devil of strong +passion uncontrolled. He was the victim of his own moods, and in +the space of an hour one might, perhaps, read in that face cold +cunning, cruel malignity, leering ribaldry, as well as the +hard-bitten virtues of unflinching courage and implacable +purpose. + +"I reckon you're near enough," suggested Mac, when the man had +approached to within a hundred feet of the tree clump. + +"Y'u're drawing the dead-line," the other acknowledged, +indolently. "It won't take ten words to tell y'u what I want and +mean to have. I'm giving y'u two minutes to hand me over the body +of Ned Bannister. If y'u don't see it that way I'll come and make +a lead mine of your whole outfit." + +"Y'u can't come too quick, seh. We're here a-shootin', and don't +y'u forget it," was McWilliams's prompt answer. + +The sinister face of the man from the Shoshones darkened. "Y'u've +signed your own death warrants," he let out through set teeth, +and at the word swung on his heel. + +"The ball's about to open. Pardners for a waltz. Have a +dust-cutter, Mac, before she grows warm." + +The puncher handed over his flask, and the other held it before +his eye and appraised the contents in approved fashion. " Don't +mind if I do. Here's how!" + +"How!" echoed Missou, in turn, and tipped up the bottle till the +liquor gurgled down his baked throat. + +"He's fanning out his men so as to, get us both at the front and +back door. Lucky there ain't but four of them." + +"I guess we better lie back to back," proposed Missou. "If our +luck's good I reckon they're going to have a gay time rushing +this fort." + +A few desultory shots had already been dropped among the +cottonwoods, and returned by the defendants when Missou let out a +yell of triumph. + +"Glory Hallelujah! Here comes the boys splittin' down the road +hell-for-leather. That lopsided, ring-tailed snorter of a +hawss-thief is gathering his wolves for a hike back to the tall +timber. Feed me a cigareet, Mac. I plumb want to celebrate." + +It was as the cow-puncher had said. Down the road a cloud of dust +was sweeping toward them, in the centre of which they made out +three hardriding cowboys from the ranch. Farther back, in the +distance, was another dust whirl. The outlaw chief's hard, +vigilant gaze swept over the reinforcements! and decided +instantly that the game had gone against him for the present. He +whistled shrilly twice, and began a slow retreat toward the +hills. The miscreants flung a few defiant shots at the advancing +cowmen, and disappeared, swallowed up in the earth swells. + +The homeward march was a slow one, for Bannister had begun to +show signs of consciousness and it was necessary to carry him +with extreme care. While they were still a mile from the ranch +house the pinto and its rider could be seen loping toward them. + +"Ride forward, Denver, and tell Miss Helen we're coming. Better +have her get everything fixed to doctor him soon as we get there. +Give him the best show in the world, and he'll still be sailing +awful close to the divide. I'll bet a hundred plunks he'll cash +in, anyway." + +"DONE!" + +The voice came faintly from the improvised litter. Mac turned +with a start, for he had not known that Bannister was awake to +his surroundings. The man appeared the picture of helplessness, +all the lusty power and vigor stricken out of him; but his +indomitable spirit still triumphed over the physical collapse, +for as the foreman looked a faint smile touched the ashen lips. +It seemed to say: "Still in the ring, old man." + + + +CHAPTER 8. IN THE LAZY D HOSPITAL + +Helen's first swift glance showed that the wounded man was +Bannister. She turned in crisp command to her foreman. + +"Have him taken to my room and put to bed there. We have no time +to prepare another. And send one of the boys on your best horse +for a doctor." + +They carried the limp figure in with rough tenderness and laid +him in the bed. McWilliams unbuckled the belt and drew off the +chaps; then, with the help of Denver, undressed the wounded man +and covered him with quilts. So Helen found him when she came in +to attend his wounds, bringing with her such things as she needed +for her task. Mrs. Winslow, the housekeeper, assisted her, and +the foreman stayed to help, but it was on the mistress of the +ranch that the responsibility of saving him fell. Missou was +already galloping to Bear Creek for a doctor, but the girl knew +that the battle must be fought and the issue decided before he +could arrive. + +He had fallen again into insensibility and she rinsed and dressed +his wounds, working with the quiet impersonal certainty of touch +that did not betray the inner turmoil of her soul. But +McWilliams, his eyes following her every motion and alert to +anticipate her needs, saw that the color had washed from her face +and that she was controlling herself only to meet the demands of +the occasion. + +As she was finishing, the sheepman opened his eyes and looked at +her. + +"You are not to speak or ask questions. You have been wounded and +we are going to take care of you," she ordered. + +"That's right good of y'u. I ce'tainly feet mighty trifling." His +wide eyes traveled round till they fell on the foreman. "Y'u see +I came back to help fill your hospital. Am I there now? Where am +I?" His gaze returned to Helen with the sudden irritation of the +irresponsible sick. + +"You are at the Lazy D, in my room. You are not to worry about +anything. Everything's all right." + +He took her at her word and his eyes closed; but presently he +began to mutter unconnected words and phrases. When his lids +lifted again there was a wilder look in his eyes, and she knew +that delirium was beginning. At intervals it lasted for long; +indeed, until the doctor came next morning in the small hours. He +talked of many things Helen Messiter did not understand, of +incidents in his past life, some of them jerky with the +excitement of a tense moment, others apparently snatches of talk +with relatives. It was like the babbling of a child, irrelevant +and yet often insistent. He would in one breath give orders +connected with the lambing of his sheep, in the next break into +football talk, calling out signals and imploring his men to hold +them or to break through and get the ball. Once he broke into +curses, but his very oaths seemed to come from a clean heart and +missed the vulgarity they might have had. Again his talk rambled +inconsequently over his youth, and he would urge himself or +someone else of the same name to better life. + +"Ned, Ned, remember your mother," he would beseech. "She asked me +to look after you. Don't go wrong." Or else it would be, "Don't +disgrace the general, Ned. You'll break his heart if you blacken +the old name." To this theme he recurred repeatedly, and she +noticed that when he imagined himself in the East his language +was correct and his intonation cultured, though still with a +suggestion of a Southern softness. + +But when he spoke of her his speech lapsed into the familiar +drawl of Cattleland. "I ain't such a sweep as y'u think, girl. +Some day I'll sure tell y'u all about it, and how I have loved +y'u ever since y'u scooped me up in your car. You're the gamest +little lady! To see y'u come a-sailin' down after me, so steady +and businesslike, not turning a hair when the bullets hummed--I +sure do love y'u, Helen." And then he fell upon her first name +and called her by it a hundred times softly to himself. + +This happened when she was alone with him, just before the doctor +came. She heard it with starry eyes and with a heart that flushed +for joy a warmer color into her cheeks. Brushing back the short +curls, she kissed his damp forehead. It was in the thick of the +battle, before he had weathered that point where the issues of +life and death pressed closely, and even in the midst of her +great fears it brought her comfort. She was to think often of it +later, and always the memory was to be music in her heart. Even +when she denied her love for him, assured herself it was +impossible she could care for so shameful a villain, even then it +was a sweet torture to allow herself the luxury of recalling his +broken delirious phrases. At the very worst he could not be as +bad as they said; some instinct told her this was impossible. His +fearless devil-may-care smile, his jaunty, gallant bearing, these +pleaded against the evidence for him. And yet was it conceivable +that a man of spirit, a gentleman by training at least, would let +himself lie under the odium of such a charge if he were not +guilty? Her tangled thoughts fought this profitless conflict for +days. Nor could she dismiss it from her mind. Even after he began +to mend she was still on the rack. For in some snatch of good +talk, when the fine quality of the man seemed to glow in his +face, poignant remembrance would stab her with recollection of +the difference between what he was and what he seemed to be. + +One of the things that had been a continual surprise to Helen was +the short time required by these deep-cheated and clean-blooded +Westerners to recover from apparently serious wounds. It was +scarce more than two weeks since Bannister had filled the +bunkhouse with wounded men, and already two of them were back at +work and the third almost fit for service. For perhaps three days +the sheepman's life hung in the balance, after which his splendid +constitution and his outdoor life began to tell. The thermometer +showed that the fever had slipped down a notch, and he was now +sleeping wholesomely a good part of his time. Altogether, unless +for some unseen contingency, the doctor prophesied that the +sheepman was going to upset the probabilities and get well. + +"Which merely shows, ma'am, what is possible when you give a +sound man twenty-four hours a day in our hills for a few years," +he added. "Thanks to your nursing he's going to shave through by +the narrowest margin possible. I told him to-day that he owed his +life to you, Miss Messiter." + +"I don't think you need have told him that Doctor," returned that +young woman, not a little vexed at him, "especially since you +have just been telling me that he owes it to Wyoming air and his +own soundness of constitution." + +When she returned to the sickroom to give her patient his +medicine he wanted to tell her what the doctor had said, but she +cut him off ruthlessly and told him not to talk. + +"Mayn't I even say 'Thank you?'" he wanted to know. + +"No; you talk far too much as it is." + +He smiled "All right. Y'u sit there in that chair, where I can +see y'u doing that fancywork and I'll not say a word. It'll keep, +all right, what I want to say." + +"I notice you keep talking," she told him, dryly. + +"Yes, ma'am. Y'u had better have let me say what I wanted to, but +I'll be good now." + +He fell asleep watching her, and when he awoke she was still +sitting there, though it was beginning to grow dark. He spoke +before she knew he was awake. + +"I'm going to get well, the doctor thinks." + +"Yes, he told me," she answered. + +"Did he tell y'u it was your nursing saved me?" + +"Please don't think about that." + +"What am I to think about? I owe y'u a heap, and it keeps piling +up. I reckon y'u do it all because it's your Christian duty?" he +demanded. + +"It is my duty, isn't it?" + +"I didn't say it wasn't, though I expaict Bighorn County will +forget to give y'u a unanimous vote of thanks for doing it. I +asked if y'u did it because it was your duty?" + +"The reason doesn't matter so that I do it," she answered, +steadily. + +"Reasons matter some, too, though they ain't as important as +actions out in this country. Back in Boston they figure more, and +since y'u used to go to school back there y'u hadn't ought to +throw down your professor of ethics." + +"Don't you think you have talked enough for the present?" she +smiled, and added: "If I make you talk whenever I sit beside you +I shall have to stay away." + +"That's where y'u've ce'tainly got the drop on me, ma'am. I'm a +clam till y'u give the word." + +Before a week he was able to sit up in a chair for an hour or +two, and soon after could limp into the living room with the aid +of a walking stick and his hostess. Under the tan he still wore +an interesting pallor, but there could be no question that he was +on the road to health. + +"A man doesn't know what he's missing until he gets shot up and +is brought to the Lazy D hospital, so as to let Miss Messiter +exercise her Christian duty on him," he drawled, cheerfully, +observing the sudden glow on her cheek brought by the reference +to his unanswered question. + +He made the lounge in the big sunny window his headquarters. From +it he could look out on some of the ranch activities when she was +not with him, could watch the line riders as they passed to and +fro and command a view of one of the corrals. There was always, +too, the turquoise sky, out of which poured a flood of light on +the roll of hilltops. Sometimes he read to himself, but he was +still easily tired, and preferred usually to rest. More often she +read aloud to him while he lay back with his leveled eyes gravely +on her till the gentle, cool abstraction she affected was +disturbed and her perplexed lashes rose to reproach the intensity +of his gaze. + +She was of those women who have the heavenborn faculty of making +home of such fortuitous elements as are to their hands. Except +her piano and such knickknacks as she had brought in a single +trunk she had had to depend upon the resources of the +establishment to which she had come, but it is wonderful how much +can be done with some Navajo rugs, a bearskin, a few bits of +Indian pottery and woven baskets and a judicious arrangement of +scenic photographs. In a few days she would have her pictures +from Kalamazoo, pending which her touch had transformed the big +living room from a cheerless barn into a spot that was a comfort +to the eye and heart. To the wounded man who lay there slowly +renewing the blood he had lost the room was the apotheosis of +home, less, perhaps, by reason of what it was in itself than +because it was the setting for her presence--for her grave, +sympathetic eyes, the sound of her clear voice, the light grace +of her motion. He rejoiced in the delightful intimacy the +circumstances made necessary. To hear snatches of joyous song and +gay laughter even from a distance, to watch her as she came in +and out on her daily tasks, to contest her opinions of books and +life and see how eagerly she defended them; he wondered himself +at the strength of the appeal these simple things made to him. +Already he was dreading the day when he must mount his horse and +ride back into the turbulent life from which she had for a time, +snatched him. + +"I'll hate to go back to sheepherding," he told her one day at +lunch, looking at her across a snow-white tablecloth upon which +were a service of shining silver, fragile china teacups and +plates stamped Limoges. + +He was at the moment buttering a delicious French roll and she +was daintily pouring tea from an old family heirloom. The +contrast between this and the dust and the grease of a midday +meal at the end of a "chuck wagon" lent accent to his smiling +lamentation. + +"A lot of sheepherding you do," she derided. + +"A shepherd has to look after his sheep, y'u know." + +"You herd sheep just about as much as I punch cows." + +"I have to herd my herders, anyhow, and that keeps me on the +move." + +"I'm glad there isn't going to be any more trouble between you +and the Lazy D. And that reminds me of another thing. I've often +wonered who those men could have been that attacked you the day +you were hurt." + +She had asked the question almost carelessly, without any thought +that this might be something he wished to conceal, but she +recognized her mistake by the wariness that filmed his eyes +instantly. + +"Room there for a right interesting guessing contest," he +replied. + +"You wouldn't need to guess," she charged, on swift impulse. + +"Meaning that I know?" + +"You do know. You can't deny that you now." + +"Well, say that I know?" + +"Aren't you going to tell?" + +He shook his head. "Not just yet. I've got private reasons for +keeping it quiet a while." + +"I'm sure they are creditable to you," came her swift ironic +retort. + +"Sure," he agreed, whimsically. "I must live up to the +professional standard. Honor among thieves, y'u know." + + + +CHAPTER 9. MISS DARLING ARRIVES + +Miss Messiter clung to civilization enough, at least, to prefer +that her chambermaid should be a woman rather than a Chinese. It +did not suit her preconceived idea of the proper thing that Lee +Ming should sweep floors, dust bric-a-brac, and make the beds. To +see him slosh-sloshing around in his felt slippers made her +homesick for Kalamazoo. There were other reasons why the +proprieties would be better served by having another woman about +the place; reasons that had to do with the chaperone system that +even in the uncombed West make its claims upon unmarried young +women of respectability. She had with her for the present +fourteen-year-old Ida Henderson, but this arrangement was merely +temporary. + +Wherefore on the morning after her arrival Helen had sent two +letters back to "the States." One of these had been to Mrs. +Winslow, a widow of fifty-five, inviting her to come out on a +business basis as housekeeper of thc Lazy D. The buxom widow had +loved Helen since she had been a toddling baby, and her reply was +immediate and enthusiastic. Eight days later she had reported in +person. The second letter bore the affectionate address of Nora +Darling, Detroit, Michigan. This also in time bore fruit at the +ranch in a manner worthy of special mention. + +It was the fourth day after Ned Bannister had been carried back +to the Lazy D that Helen Messiter came out to the porch of the +house with a letter in her hand. She found her foreman sitting on +the steps waiting for her, but he got up as soon as he heard the +fall of her light footsteps behind him. + +"You sent for me, ma'am?" he asked, hat in hand. + +"Yes; I want you to drive into Gimlet Butte and bring back a +person whom you'll find at the Elk House waiting for you. I had +rather you would go yourself, because I know you're reliable." + +"Thank you, ma'am. How will I know him?" + +"It's a woman--a spinster. She's coming to help Mrs. Winslow. +Inquire for Miss Darling. She isn't used to jolting two days in a +rig, but I know you will be careful of her." + +"I'll surely be as careful of the old lady as if she was my own +mother." + +The mistress of the ranch smothered a desire to laugh. + +"I'm sure you will. At her age she may need a good deal of care. +Be certain you take rug enough." + +"I'll take care of her the best I know how. expect she's likely +rheumatic, but I'll wrop her up till she looks like a Cheyenne +squaw when tourist is trying to get a free shoot at her with +camera." + +"Please do. I want her to get a good impression of Wyoming so +that she will stay. I don' know about the rheumatism, but you +might ask her." + +There were pinpoints of merriment behind th guileless innocence +of her eyes, but they came to the surface only after the foreman +had departed. + +McWilliams ordered a team of young horse hitched, and presently +set out on his two day; journey to Gimlet Butte. He reached that +town in good season, left the team at a corral and walked back to +the Elk House. The white dust of the plains was heavy on him, +from the bandanna that loosely embraced the brown throat above +the flannel shirt to the encrusted boots but through it the good +humor of his tanned face smiled fraternally on a young woman he +passes at the entrance to the hotel. Her gay smile met his +cordially, and she was still in his mind while he ran his eye +down the register in search of the name he wanted. There it +was--Miss Nora Darling, Detroit, Michigan--in the neatest of +little round letters, under date of the previous day's arrivals. + +"Is Miss Darling in?" asked McWilliams of the half-grown son of +the landlady who served in lieu of clerk and porter. + +"Nope! Went out a little while ago. Said to tell anybody to wait +that asked for her." + +Mac nodded, relieved to find that duty had postponed itself long +enough for him to pursue the friendly smile that had not been +wasted on him a few seconds before. He strolled out to the porch +and decided at once that he needed a cigar more than anything +else on earth. He was helped to a realization of his need by +seeing the owner of the smile disappear in an adjoining drug +store. + +She was beginning on a nut sundae when the puncher drifted in. +She continued to devote even her eyes to its consumption, while +the foreman opened a casual conversation with the drug clerk and +lit his cigar. + +"How are things coming in Gimlet Butte?" he asked, by way of +prolonging his stay rather than out of desire for information. + +Yes, she certainly had the longest, softest lashes he had ever +seen, and the ripest of cherry lips, behind the smiling depths of +which sparkled two rows of tiny pearls. He wished she would look +at HIM and smile again. There wasn't any use trying to melt a +sundae with it, anyhow. + +"Sure, it's a good year on the range and the price of cows +jumping," he heard his sub-conscious self make answer to the +patronizing inquiries of him of the "boiled" shirt. + +Funny how pretty hair of that color was especially when there was +so much of it. You might call it a sort of coppery gold where the +little curls escaped in tendrils and ran wild. A fellow--" + +"Yes, I reckon most of the boys will drop around to the Fourth of +July celebration. Got to cut loose once in a while, y'u know." + +A shy glance shot him and set him a-tingle with a queer delight. +Gracious, what pretty dark velvety lashes she had! + +She was rising already, and as she paid for the ice cream that +innocent gaze smote him again with the brightest of Irish eyes +conceivable. It lingered for just a ponderable sunlit moment or +him. She had smiled once more. + +After a decent interval Mac pursued his petit charmer to the +hotel. She was seated on the porch reading a magazine, and was +absorbedly unconscious of him when he passed. For a few awkward +moments he hung around the office, then returned to the porch and +took the chair most distant from her. He had sat there a long ten +minutes before she let her hands and the magazine fall into her +lap and demurely gave him his chance. + +"Can you tell me how far it is to the Lazy D ranch?" + +"Seventy-two miles as the crow flies, ma'am." + +"Thank you." + +The conversation threatened to die before it was well born. +Desperately McWilliams tried to think of something to say to keep +it alive without being too bold. + +"If y'u were thinking of traveling out that way I could give y'u +a lift. I just came in to get another lady--an old lady that has +just come to this country." + +"Thank you, but I'm expecting a conveyance to meet me here. You +didn't happen to pass one on the way, I suppose?" + +"No, I didn't. What ranch were y'u going to, ma'am? + +"Miss Messiter's--the Lazy D." + +A suspicion began to peretrate the foreman's brain. "Y'u ain't +Miss Darling?" + +"What makes you so sure I'm not?" she asked, tilting her dimpled +chin toward him aggressively. + +"Y'u're too young," he protested, helplessly. + +"I'm no younger than you are," came her quick, indignant retort. + +Thus boldly accused of his youth, the foreman blushed. "I didn't +mean that. Miss Messiter said she was an old lady--" + +"You needn't tell fibs about it. She couldn't have said anything +of the kind. Who are you, anyhow?" the girl demanded, with +spirit. + +"I'm the foreman of the Lazy D, come to get Miss Darling. My name +is McWilliams--Jim McWilliams." + +"I don't need your first name, Mr. McWilliams," she assured him, +sweetly. "And will you please tell me why you have kept me +waiting here more than thirty hours?" + +"Miss Messiter didn't get your letter in time. Y'u see, we don't +get mail every day at the Lazy D," he explained, the while he +hopefully wondered just when she was going to need his last name. + +"I don't see why you don't go after your mail every day at least, +especially when Miss Messiter was expecting me. To leave me +waiting here thirty hours--I'll not stand it. When does the next +train leave for Detroit?" she asked, imperiously. + +The situation seemed to call for diplomacy, and Jim McWilliams +moved to a nearer chair. "I'm right sorry it happened, ma'am, and +I'll bet Miss Messiter is, too. Y'u see, we been awful busy one +way and 'nother, and I plumb neglected to send one of the boys to +the post-office." + +"Why didn't one of them walk over after supper?" she demanded, +geverely. + +He curbed the smile that was twitching at his facial muscles. + +"Well, o' course it ain't so far,--only forty-three +miles--still--" + +"Forty-three miles to the post-office?" + +"Yes, ma'am, only forty-three. If you'll excuse me this time--" + +"Is it really forty-three?" + +He saw that her sudden smile had brought out the dimples in the +oval face and that her petulance had been swept away by his +astounding information. + +"Forty-three, sure as shootin', except twict a week when it comes +to Slauson's, and that's only twenty miles," he assured her. +"Used to be seventy-two, but the Government got busy with its +rural free delivery, and now we get it right at our doors." + +"You must have big doors," she laughed. + +"All out o' doors," he punned. "Y'u see, our house is under our +hat, and like as not that's twenty miles from the ranchhouse when +night falls." + +"Dear me!" She swept his graceful figure sarcastically. "And, of +course, twenty miles from a brush, too." + +He laughed with deep delight at her thrust, for the warm youth in +him did not ask for pointed wit on the part of a young woman so +attractive and with a manner so delightfully provoking. + +"I expaict I have gathered up some scenery on the journey. I'll +go brush it off and get ready for supper. I'd admire to sit +beside y'u and pass the butter and the hash if y'u don't object. +Y'u see, I don't often meet up with ladies, and I'd ought to +improve my table manners when I get a chanct with one so much +older than I am and o' course so much more experienced." + +"I see you don't intend to pass any honey with the hash," she +flashed, with a glimpse of the pearls. + +"DIDN'T y'u say y'u was older than me? I believe I've plumb +forgot how old y'u said y'u was, Miss Darling." + +"Your memory's such a sieve it wouldn't be worth while telling +you. After you've been to school a while longer maybe I'll try +you again." + +"Some ladies like 'em young," he suggested, amiably. + +"But full grown," she amended. + +"Do y'u judge by my looks or my ways?" he inquired, anxiously. + +"By both." + +"That's right strange," he mused aloud. "For judging by some of +your ways you're the spinster Miss Messiter was telling me about, +but judging by your looks y'u're only the prettiest and sassiest +twenty-year-old in Wyoming." + +And with this shot he fled, to see what transformation he could +effect with the aid of a whiskbroom, a tin pan of alkali water +and a roller towel. + +When she met him at the supper table her first question was, "Did +Miss Messiter say I was an old maid?" + +"Sho! I wouldn't let that trouble me if I was y'u. A woman ain't +any older than she looks. Your age don't show to speak of." + +"But did she?" + +"I reckon she laid a trap for me and I shoved my paw in. She +wanted to give me a pleasant surprise." + +"Oh!" + +"Don't y'u grow anxious about being an old maid. There ain't any +in Wyoming to speak of. If y'u like I'll tell the boys you're +worried and some of them will be Johnnie-on-the-Spot. They're +awful gallant, cowpunchers are." + +"Some of them may be," she differed. "If you want to know I'm +just twenty-one." + +He sawed industriously at his steak. "Y'u don't say! Just old +enough to vote--like this steer was before they massacreed him." + +She gave him one look, and thereafter punished him with silence. + +They left Gimlet Butte early next morning and reached the Lazy D +shortly after noon on the succeeding day. McWilliams understood +perfectly that strenuous competition would inevitably ensue as +soon as the Lazy D beheld the attraction he had brought into +their midst. Nor did he need a phrenologist to tell him that Nora +was a born flirt and that her shy slant glances were meant to +penetrate tough hides to tender hearts. But this did not +discourage him, and he set about making his individual impression +while he had her all to himself. He wasn't at all sure how deep +this went, but he had the satisfaction of hearing his first name, +the one she had told him she had no need of, fall tentatively +from her pretty lips before the other boys caught a glimpse of +her. + +Shortly after his arrival at the ranch Mac went to make his +report to his mistress of some business matters connected with +the trip. + +"I see you got back safely with the old lady," she laughed when +she caught sight of him. + +His look reproached her. "Y'u said a spinster." + +"But it was you that insisted on the rheumatism. By the way, did +you ask her about it?" + +"We didn't get that far," he parried. + +"Oh! How far did you get?" She perched herself on the porch +railing and mocked him with her friendly eyes. Her heart was +light within her and she was ready for anything in the way of +fun, for the doctor had just pronounced her patient out of danger +if he took proper care of himself. + +"About as fur as I got with y'u, ma'am," he audaciously retorted. + +"We might disagree as to how far that is," she flung back gayly +with heightened color. + +"No, ma'am, I don't think we would." + +"But, gracious! You're not a Mormon. You don't want us both, do +you?" she demanded, her eyes sparkling with the exhilaration of +the tilt. + +"Could I get either one of y'u, do y'u reckon? That's what's +worrying me." + +"I see, and so you intend to keep us both on the string." + +His joyous laughter echoed hers. "I expaict y'u would call that +presumption or some other dictionary word, wouldn't y'u?" + +"In anybody else perhaps, but surely not in Mr. McWilliams." + +"I'm awful glad to be trotting in a class by myself." + +"And you'll let us know when you have made your mind up which of +us it is to be?" + +"Well, mine ain't the only mind that has to be made up," he +drawled. + +She took this up gleefully. "I can't answer for Nora, but I'll +jump at the chance-- if you decide to give it to me." + +He laughed delightedly into the hat he was momentarily expecting +to put on. "I'll mill it over a spell and let y'u know, ma'am." + +"Yes, think it over from all points of view. Of course she is +prettier, but then I'm not afflicted with rheumatism and probably +wouldn't flirt as much afterward. I have a good temper, too, as a +rule, but then so has Nora." + +"Oh, she's prettier, is she?" With boyish audacity he grinned at +her. + +"What do you think?" + +He shook his head. "I'll have to go to the foot of the class on +that, ma'am. Give me an easier one." + +"I'll have to choose another subject then. What did you do about +that bunch of Circle 66 cows you looked at on your way in?" + +They discussed business for a few minutes, after which she went +back to her patient and he to his work. + +"Ain't she a straight-up little gentleman for fair?" the foreman +asked himself in rhetorical and exuberant question, slapping his +hat against his leg as he strode toward the corral. "Think of her +coming at me like she did, the blamed little thoroughbred. Y'u +bet she knows me down to the ground and how sudden I got over any +fool notions I might a-started to get in my cocoanut. But the way +she came back at me, quick as lightning and then some, pretendin' +all that foolishness and knowin' all the time I'd savez the +game." + +Both McWilliams and his mistress had guessed right in their +surmise as to Nora Darling's popularity in the cow country. She +made an immediate and pronounced hit. It was astonishing how many +errands the men found to take them to "the house," as they called +the building where the mistress of the ranch dwelt. Bannister +served for a time as an excellent excuse. Judging from the number +of the inquiries which the men found it necessary to make as to +his progress, Helen would have guessed him exceedingly popular +with her riders. Having a sense of humor, she mentioned this to +McWilliams one day. + +He laughed, and tried to turn it into a compliment to his +mistress. But she would have none of it. + +"I know better, sir. They don't come here to see me. Nora is the +attraction, and I have sense enough to know it. My nose is quite +out of joint," she laughed. + +Mac looked with gay earnestness at the feature she had mentioned. +"There's a heap of difference in noses," he murmured, apparently +apropos of nothing. + +"That's another way of telling me that Nora's pug is the sweetest +thing you ever saw," she charged. + +"I ain't half such a bad actor as some of the boys," he +deprecated. + +"Meaning in what way?" + +"The Nora Darling way." + +He pronounced her name so much as if it were a caress that his +mistress laughed, and he joined in it. + +"It's your fickleness that is breaking my heart, though I knew I +was lost as soon as I saw your beatific look on the day you got +back with Nora. The first week I came none of you could do enough +for me. Now it's all Nora, darling." She mimicked gayly his +intonation. + +"Well, ma'am, it's this way," explained the foreman with a grin. +" Y'u're right pleasant and friendly, but the boys have got a +savvy way down deep that y'u'd shuck that friendliness awful +sudden if any of them dropped around with 'Object, Matrimony' in +their manner. Consequence is, they're loaded down to the ground +with admiration of their boss, but they ain't presumptuous enough +to expaict any more. I had notions, mebbe, I'd cut more ice, me +being not afflicted with bashfulness. My notions faded, ma'am, in +about a week." + +"Then Nora came?" she laughed. + +"No, ma'am, they had gone glimmering long before she arrived. I +was just convalescent enough to need being cheered up when she +drapped in." + +"And are you cheered up yet?" his mistress asked. + +He took off his dusty hat and scratched his head. "I ain't right +certain, yet, ma'am. Soon as I know I'm consoled, I'll be round +with an invite to the wedding." + +"That is, if you are." + +"If I am--yes. Y'u can't most always tell when they have eyes +like hers." + +"You're quite an authority on the sex considering your years." + +"Yes, ma'am." He looked aggrieved, thinking himself a man grown. +"How did y'u say Mr. Bannister was?" + +"Wait, and I'll send Nora out to tell you," she flashed, and +disappeared in the house. + +Conversation at the bunkhouse and the chucktent sometimes circled +around the young women at the house, but its personality rarely +grew pronounced. References to Helen Messiter and the housemaid +were usually by way of repartee at each other. For a change had +come over the spirit of the Lazy D men, and, though a cheerful +profanity still flowed freely when they were alone together, +vulgarity was largely banished. + +The morning after his conversation with Miss Messiter, McWilliams +was washing in the foreman's room when the triangle beat the call +for breakfast, and he heard the cook's raucous "Come and get it." +There was the usual stampede for the tent, and a minute later Mac +flung back the flap and entered. He took the seat at the head of +the table, along the benches on both sides of which the punchers +were plying busy knives and forks. + +"A stack of chips," ordered the foreman; and the cook's "Coming +up" was scarcely more prompt than the plate of hot cakes he set +before the young man. + +"Hen fruit, sunny side up," shouted Reddy, who was further +advanced in his meal. + +"Tame that fog-horn, son," advised Wun Hop; but presently he slid +three fried eggs from a frying-pan into the plate of the hungry +one. + +"I want y'u boys to finish flankin' that bunch of hill calves +to-day," said the foreman, emptying half a jug of syrup over his +cakes. + +"Redtop, he ain't got no appetite these days," grinned Denver, as +the gentleman mentioned cleaned up a second loaded plate of ham, +eggs and fried potatoes. "I see him studying a Wind River Bible* +yesterday. Curious how in the spring a young man's fancy gits to +wandering on house furnishing. Red, he was taking the catalogue +alphabetically. Carpets was absorbin' his attention, chairs on +deck, and chandeliers in the hole, as we used to say when we was +baseball kids." + +[*A Wind River Bible in the Northwest ranch country is a +catalogue of one of the big Chicago department stores that does a +large shipping business in the West.] + + +"Ain't a word of truth in it," indignantly denied the assailed, +his unfinished nose and chin giving him a pathetic, whipped puppy +look. "Sho! I was just looking up saddles. Can't a fellow buy a +new saddle without asking leave of Denver?" + +"Cyarpets used to begin with a C in my spelling-book, but saddles +got off right foot fust with a S," suggested Mac amiably. + +"He was ce'tainly trying to tree his saddle among the C's. He was +looking awful loving at a Turkish rug. Reckon he thought it was a +saddle-blanket," derided Denver cheerfully. + +"Huh! Y'u're awful smart, Denver," retaliated Reddy, his +complexion matching his hair. "Y'u talk a heap with your mouth. +Nobody believes a word of what y'u say." + +Denver relaxed into a range song by way of repartee: + +"I want mighty bad to be married, To have a garden and a home; I +ce'tainly aim to git married, And have a gyurl for my own." + +"Aw! Y'u fresh guys make me tired. Y'u don't devil me a bit, not +a bit. Whyfor should I care what y'u say? I guess this outfit +ain't got no surcingle on me." Nevertheless, he made a hurried +end of his breakfast and flung out of the tent. + +"Y'u boys hadn't ought to wound Reddy's tender feelings, and him +so bent on matrimony!" said Denver innocently. "Get a move on +them fried spuds and sashay them down this way, if there's any +left when y'u fill your plate, Missou." + +Nor was Reddy the only young man who had dreams those days at the +Lazy D. Cupid must have had his hands full, for his darts +punctured more than one honest plainsman's heart. The reputation +of the young women at the Lazy D seemed to travel on the wings of +the wind, and from far and near Cattleland sent devotees to this +shrine of youth and beauty. So casually the victims drifted in, +always with a good business excuse warranted to endure raillery +and sarcasm, that it was impossible to say they had come of set +purpose to sun themselves in feminine smiles. + +As for Nora, it is not too much to say that she was having the +time of her life. Detroit, Michigan, could offer no such field +for her expansive charms as the Bighorn country, Wyoming. Here +she might have her pick of a hundred, and every one of them +picturesquely begirt with flannel shirt, knotted scarf at neck, +an arsenal that bristled, and a sun-tan that could be achieved +only in the outdoors of the Rockies. Certainly these knights of +the saddle radiated a romance with which even her floorwalker +"gentleman friend " could not compete. + + + +CHAPTER 10. A SHEPHERD OF THE DESERT + +It had been Helen Messiter's daily custom either to take a ride +on her pony or a spin in her motor car, but since Bannister had +been quartered at the Lazy D her time had been so fully occupied +that she had given this up for the present. The arrival of Nora +Darling, however, took so much work off her hands that she began +to continue her rides and drives. + +Her patient was by this time so far recovered that he did not +need her constant attendance and there were reasons why she +decided it best to spend only a minimum of her time with him. +These had to do with her increasing interest in the man and the +need she felt to discourage it. It had come to a pretty pass, she +told herself scornfully, when she found herself inventing excuses +to take her into the room where this most picturesque of unhanged +scamps was lying. Most good women are at heart puritans, and if +Helen was too liberal to judge others narrowly she could be none +the less rigid with herself. She might talk to him of her duty, +but it was her habit to be frank in thought and she knew that +something nearer than that abstraction had moved her efforts in +his behalf. She had fought for his life because she loved him. +She could deny it no longer. Nor was the shame with which she +confessed it unmingled with pride. He was a man to compel love, +one of the mood imperative, chain-armored in the outdoor virtues +of strength and endurance and stark courage. Her abasement began +only where his superlation ended. That a being so godlike in +equipment should have been fashioned without a soul, and that she +should have given her heart to him. This was the fount of her +degradation. + +It was of these things she thought as she drove in the late +afternoon toward those Antelope Peaks he had first pointed out to +her. She swept past the scene of the battle and dipped down into +the plains for a run to that western horizon behind the jagged +mountain line of which the sun was radiantly setting in a splash +of glorious colors. Lost in thought, space slipped under her +wheels unnoticed. Not till her car refused the spur and slowed to +a despondent halt did she observe that velvet night was falling +over the land. + +She prowled round the machine after the fashion of the motorist, +examining details that might be the cause of the trouble. She +discovered soon enough with instant dismay that the gasolene tank +was empty. Reddy, always unreliable, must have forgotten to fill +it when she told him to. + +By the road she must be thirty miles from home if she were a +step; across country as the crow flies, perhaps twenty. She was a +young woman of resolution, and she wasted no time in tears or +regrets. The XIX ranch, owned by a small "nester" named +Henderson, could not be more than five or six miles to the +southeast. If she struck across the hills she would be sure to +run into one of the barblines. At the XIX she could get a horse +and reach the Lazy D by midnight. Without any hesitation she +struck out. It was unfortunate that she did not have on her heavy +laced high boots, but she realized that she must take things as +she found them. Things might have been a good deal worse, she +reflected philosophically. + +And before long they were worse, for the increasing darkness +blotted out the landmarks she was using as guides and she was +lost among the hill waves that rolled one after another across +the range. Still she did not give way, telling herself that it +would be better after the moon was up. She could then tell north +from south, and so have a line by which to travel. But when at +length the stars came out, thousands upon thousands of them, and +looked down on a land magically flooded with chill moonlight, the +girl found that the transformation of Wyoming into this scence of +silvery loveliness had toned the distant mountain line to an +indefinite haze that made it impossible for her to distinguish +one peak from another. + +She wandered for hours, hungry and tired and frightened, though +this last she would not confess. + +"There's nothing to be afraid of," she told herself over and +over. "Even if I have to stay out all night it will do me no +harm. There's no need to be a baby about it." + +But try to evade it as she would, there was something in the +loneliness of this limitless stretch of hilltop that got on her +nerves. The very shadows cast by the moonshine seemed too +fantastic for reality. Something eerie and unearthly hovered over +it all, and before she knew it a sob choked up her throat. + +Vague fancies filtered through her mind, weird imaginings born of +the night in a mind that had been swept from the moorings of +reason. So that with no sensible surprise there came to her in +that moonlit sea of desert the sound of a voice a clear sweet +tenor swelling bravely in song with the very ecstacy of pathos. + +It was the prison song from "Il Trovatore," and the desolation of +its lifted appeal went to the heart like water to the roots of +flowers. + + Ah! I have sigh'd to rest me. + Deep in the quiet grave. + +The girl's sob caught in her breast, stilled with the awe of that +heavenly music. So for an instant she waited before it was borne +in on her that the voice was a human one, and that the heaven +from which it descended was the hilltop above her. + +A wild laugh, followed by an oath, cut the dying echoes of the +song. She could hear the swish of a quirt falling again and +again, and the sound of trampling hoofs thudding on the hard, +sun-cracked ground. Startled, she sprang to her feet, and saw +silhouetted against the skyline a horse and his rider fighting +for mastery. + +The battle was superb while it lasted. The horse had been a +famous outlaw, broken to the saddle by its owner out of the sheer +passion for victory, but there were times when its savage +strength rebelled at abject submission, and this was one of them. +It swung itself skyward, and came down like a pile-driver, +camel-backed, and without joints in the legs. Swiftly it rose +again lunging forward and whirling in the air, then jarred down +at an angle. The brute did its malevolent best, a fury incarnate. +But the ride, was a match, and more than a match, for it. He sat +the saddle like a Centaur, with the perfect: unconscious grace of +a born master, swaying in his seat as need was, and spurring the +horse to a blinder fury. + +Sudden as had been the start, no less sudden was the finish of +the battle. The bronco pounded to a stiff-legged standstill, +trembled for a long minute like an aspen, and sank to a tame +surrender, despite the sharp spurs roweling its bloody sides. + +"Ah, my beauty. You've had enough, have you?" demanded the cruel, +triumphant voice of the rider. "You would try that game, would +you? I'll teach you." + +"Stop spurring that horse, you bully." + +The man stopped, in sheer amazement at this apparition which had +leaped out of the ground almost at his feet. His wary glance +circled the hills to make sure she was alone. + +"Ce'tainly, ma'am. We're sure delighted to meet up with you. +Ain't we, Two-step?" + +For himself, he spoke the simple truth. He lived in his +sensations, spurring himself to fresh ones as he had but just now +been spurring his horse to sate the greed of conquest in him. And +this high-spirited, gallant creature--he could feel her vital +courage in the very ring of her voice--offered a rare fillip to +his jaded appetite. The dusky, long-lashed eyes which always give +a woman an effect of beauty, the splendid fling of head, and the +piquant, finely cut features, with their unconscious tale of +Brahmin caste, the long lines of the supple body, willowy and yet +plump as a partridge--they went to his head like strong wine. +Here was an adventure from the gods--a stubborn will to bend, the +pride of a haughty young beauty to trail in the dust, her untamed +heart to break if need be. The lust of the battle was on him +already. She was a woman to dream about, + + "Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, + Or Cytherea's breath," + +he told himself exultantly as he slid from his horse and stood +bowing before her. + +And he, for his part, was a taking enough picture of +devil-may-care gallantry gone to seed. The touch of jaunty +impudence in his humility, not less than the daring admiration of +his handsome eyes and the easy, sinuous grace of his flexed +muscles, labeled him what he was--a man bold and capable to do +what he willed, and a villain every inch of him. + +Said she, after that first clash of stormy eyes with bold, +admiring ones: + +"I am lost--from the Lazy D ranch." + +"Why, no, you're found," he corrected, white teeth flashing in a +smile. + +"My motor ran out of gasolene this afternoon. I've been"--there +was a catch in her voice--"wandering ever since." + +"You're played out, of course, and y'u've had no supper," he +said, his quiet close gaze on her. + +"Yes, I'm played out and my nerve's gone." She laughed a little +hysterically. "I expect I'm hungry and thirsty, too, though I +hadn't noticed it before." + +He whirled to his saddle, and had the canteen thongs unloosed in +a moment. While she drank he rummaged from his saddle-bags some +sandwiches of jerky and a flask of whiskey. She ate the +sandwiches, he the while watching her with amused sympathy in his +swarthy countenance. + +"You ain't half-bad at the chuck-wagon, Miss Messiter," he told +her. + +She stopped, the sandwich part way to her mouth. "I don't +remember your face. I've met so many people since I came to the +Lazy D. Still, I think I should remember you." + +He immediately relieved of duty her quasi apology. "You haven't +seen my face before," he laughed, and, though she puzzled over +the double meaning that seemed to lurk behind his words and amuse +him, she could not find the key to it. + +It was too dark to make out his features at all clearly, but she +was sure she had seen him before or somebody that looked very +much like him. + +"Life on the range ain't just what y'u can call exciting," he +continued, "and when a young lady fresh from back East drops +among us while sixguns are popping, breaks up a likely feud and +mends right neatly all the ventilated feudists it's a corollary +to her fun that's she is going to become famous." + +What he said was true enough. The unsolicited notoriety her +exploit had brought upon her had been its chief penalty. Garbled +versions of it had appeared with fake pictures in New York and +Chicago Sunday supplements, and all Cattleland had heard and +discussed it. No matter into what unfrequented canon she rode, +some silent cowpuncher would look at her as they met with +admiring eyes behind which she read a knowledge of the story. It +was a lonely desolate country, full of the wide deep silences of +utter emptiness, yet there could be no footfall but the whisper +of it was bruited on the wings of the wind. + +"Do you know where the Lazy D ranch is from here?" she asked. + +He nodded. + +"Can you take me home?" + +"I surely can. But not to-night. You're more tired than y'u know. +We'll camp here, and in the mo'ning we'll hit the trail bright +and early." + +This did not suit her at all. "Is it far to the Lazy D?" she +inquired anxiously. + +"Every inch of forty miles. There's a creek not more than two +hundred yards from here. We'll stay there till morning," he made +answer in a matter of course voice, leading the way to the place +he had mentioned. + +She followed, protesting. Yet though it was not in accord with +her civilized sense of fitness, she knew that what he proposed +was the common sense solution. She was tired and worn out, and +she could see that his broncho had traveled far. + +Having reached the bank of the creek, he unsaddled, watered his +horse and picketed it, and started a fire. Uneasily she watched +him. + +"I don't like to sleep out. Isn't there a ranchhouse near?" + +"Y'u wouldn't call it near by the time we had reached it. What's +to hinder your sleeping here? Isn't this room airy enough? And +don't y'u like the system of lighting? 'Twas patented I forget +how many million years ago. Y'u ain't going to play parlor girl +now after getting the reputation y'u've got for gameness, are +y'u?" + +But he knew well enough that it was no silly schoolgirl fear she +had, but some deep instinct in her that distrusted him and warned +her to beware. So, lightly he took up the burden of the talk +while he gathered cottonwood branches for the fire. + +"Now if I'd only thought to bring a load of lumber and some +carpenters--and a chaperon," he chided himself in burlesque, his +bold eyes closely on the girl's face to gloat on the color that +flew to her cheeks at his suggestion. + +She hastened to disclaim lightly the feeling he had unmasked in +her. "It is a pity, but it can't be helped now. I suppose I am +cross and don't seem very grateful. I'm tired out and nervous, +but I am sure that I'll enjoy sleeping out. If I don't I shall +not be so ungenerous as to blame you." + +He soon had a cup of steaming coffee ready for her, and the heat +of it made a new woman of her. She sat in the warm fire glow, and +began to feel stealing over her a delightful reaction of languor. +She told herself severely it was ridiculous to have been so +foolishly prim about the inevitable. + +"Since you know my name, isn't it fair that I should know yours?" +she smilingly asked, more amiably than she had yet spoken to him. + +"Well, since I have found the lamb that was lost, y'u may call me +a shepherd of the desert." + +"Then, Mr. Shepherd, I'm very glad to meet you. I don't remember +when I ever was more glad to meet a stranger." And she added with +a little laugh: "It's a pity I'm too sleepy to do my duty by you +in a social way." + +"We'll let that wait till to-morrow. Y'u'll entertain me plenty +then. I'll make your bunk up right away." + +She was presently lying with her feet to the fire, snugly rolled +in his saddle blankets. But though her eyes were heavy, her brain +was still too active to permit her to sleep immediately. The +excitement of her adventure was too near, the emotions of the day +too poignantly vivid, to lose their hold on her at once. For the +first time in her life she lay lapped in the illimitable velvet +night, countless unwinking stars lighting the blue-black dream in +which she floated. The enchantment of the night's loveliness +swept through her sensitive pulses and thrilled her with the +mystery of the great life of which she was an atom. Awe held her +a willing captive. + +She thought of many things, of her past life and its incongruity +with the present, of the man who lay wounded at the Lazy D, of +this other wide-shouldered vagabond who was just now in the +shadows beyond the firelight, pacing up and down with long, light +even strides as he looked to his horse and fed the fire. She +watched him make an end of the things he found to do and then +take his place opposite her. Who and what was he, this +fascinating scamp who one moment flooded the moonlit desert with +inspired snatches from the opera sung in the voice of an angel, +and the next lashed at his horse like a devil incarnate? How +reconcile the outstanding inconsistencies in him? For his every +inflection, every motion, proclaimed the strain of good blood +gone wrong and trampled under foot of set, sardonic purpose, +indicated him a man of culture in a hell of his own choosing. +Lounging on his elbow in the flickering shadows, so carelessly +insouciant in every picturesque inch of him, he seemed to radiate +the melodrama of the untamed frontier, just as her guest of +tarnished reputation now at the ranch seemed to breathe forth its +romance. + +"Sleep well, little partner. Don't be afraid; nothing can harm +you," this man had told her. + +Promptly she had answered, "I'm not afraid, thank you, in the +least"; and after a mornent had added, not to seem hostile, "Good +night, big partner." + +But despite her calm assurance she knew she did not feel so +entirely safe as if it had been one of her own ranch boys on the +other side of the fire, or even that other vagabond who had made +so direct an appeal to her heart. If she were not afraid, at +least she knew some vague hint of anxiety. + +She was still thinking of him when she fell asleep, and when she +awakened the first sound that fell on her ears was his tuneful +whistle. Indeed she had an indistinct memory of him in the night, +wrapping the blankets closer about her when the chill air had +half stirred her from her slumber. The day was still very young, +but the abundant desert light dismissed sleep summarily. She +shook and brushed the wrinkles out of her clothes and went down +to the creek to wash her face with the inadequate facilities at +hand. After redressing her hair she returned to the fire, upon +which a coffee pot was already simmering. + +She came up noiselessly behind him, but his trained senses were +apprised of her approach. + +"Good mo'ning! How did y'u find your bedroom?" he asked, without +turning from the bacon he was broiling on the end of a stick. + +"Quite up to the specifications. With all Wyoming for a floor and +the sky for a ceiling, I never had a room I liked better. But +have you eyes in the back of your head?" + +He laughed grimly. "I have to be all eyes and ears in my +business." + +"Is your business of a nature so sensitive?" + +"As much so as stocks on Wall Street. And we haven't any ticker +to warn us to get under cover. Do you take cream in your coffee, +Miss Messiter?" + +She looked round in surprise. "Cream?" + +"We're in tin-can land, you know, and live on air-tights. I milk +my cow with a can-opener. Let me recommend this quail on toast." +He handed her a battered tin plate, and prepared to help her from +the frying-pan. + +"I suppose that is another name for pork?" + +"No, really. I happened to bag a couple of hooters before you +wakened." + +"You're a missionary of the good-foods movement. I shall name +your mission St. Sherry's-in-the-Wilderness." + +"Ah, Sherry's! That's since my time. I don't suppose I should +know my way about in little old New York now." + +She found him eager to pick up again the broken strands that had +connected him with the big world from which he had once come. It +had been long since she had enjoyed a talk more, for he expressed +himself with wit and dexterity. But through her enjoyment ran a +note of apprehension. He was for the moment a resurrected +gentleman. But what would he be next? She had an insistent memory +of a heavenly flood of music broken by a horrible discord of +raucous oaths. + +It was he that lingered over their breakfast, loath to make the +first move to bring him back into realities; and it was she that +had to suggest the need of setting out. But once on his feet, he +saddled and packed swiftly, with a deftness born of experience. + +"We'll have to ask Two-step to carry double to-day," he said, as +he helped her to a place behind him. + +Two-step had evidently made an end of the bronco spree upon which +he had been the evening before, for he submitted sedately to his +unusual burden. The first hilltop they reached had its surprise +to offer the girl. In a little valley below them, scarce a mile +away, nestled a ranch with its corrals and buildings. + +"Look!" she exclaimed; and then swiftly, "Didn't you know it was +there?" + +"Yes, that's the Hilke place," he answered with composure. "It +hasn't been occupied for years." + +"Isn't that some one crossing to the corral now?" + +"No. A stray cow, I reckon." + +They dropped into a hollow between the hills and left the ranch +on their left. She was not satisfied, and yet she had not grounds +enough upon which to base a suspicion. For surely the figure she +had seen had been that of a man. + + + +CHAPTER 12. MISTRESS AND MAID + +Now that it was safely concluded, Helen thought the adventure +almost worthwhile for the spontaneous expressions of good will it +had drawn forth from her adherents. Mrs. Winslow and Nora had +taken her to their arms and wept and laughed over her in turn, +and in their silent undemonstrative way she had felt herself +hedged in by unusual solicitude on the part of her riders. It was +good--none but she knew how good--to be back among her own, to +bask in a friendliness she could not doubt. It was best of all to +sit opposite Ned Bannister again with no weight on her heart from +the consciousness of his unworthiness. + +She could affect to disregard the gray eyes that followed her +with such magnetized content about the living room, but beneath +her cool self-containment she knew the joyous heart in her was +strangely buoyant. He loved her, and she had a right to let +herself love him. This was enough for the present. + +"They're so plumb glad to see y'u they can't let y'u alone," +laughed Bannister at the sound of a knock on the door that was +about the fifth in as many minutes. + +This time it proved to be Nora, come to find out what her +mistress would like for supper. Helen turned to the invalid. + +"What would you like, Mr. Bannister?" + +"I should like a porterhouse with mushrooms," he announced +promptly. + +"You can't have it. You know what the doctor said." Very +peremptorily she smiled this at him. + +"He's an old granny, Miss Messiter." + +"You may have an egg on toast." + +"Make it two," he pleaded. "Excitement's just like caviar to the +appetite, and seeing y'u safe--" + +"Very well--two," she conceded. + +They ate supper together in a renewal of the pleasant intimacy so +delightful to both. He lay on the lounge, propped up with sofa +cushions, the while he watched her deft fingers butter the toast +and prepare his egg. It was surely worth while to be a +convalescent, given so sweet a comrade for a nurse; and after he +had moved over to the table he enjoyed immensely the gay firmness +with which she denied him what was not good for him. + +"I'll bet y'u didn't have supper like this at Robbers' Roost." he +told her, enthusiastically. + +"It wasn't so bad, considering everything." She was looking +directly at him as she spoke. "Your cousin is rather a remarkable +man in some ways. He manages to live on the best that can be got +in tin-can land." + +"Did he tell y'u he was my cousin?" he asked, slowly. + +"Yes, and that his name was Ned Bannister, too?" + +"Did that explain anything to y'u?" + +"It explained a great deal, but it left some things not clear +yet." + +"For instance?" + +"For one thing, the reason why you should bear the odium of his +crimes. I suppose you don't care for him, though I can see how +you might in a way." + +"I don't care for him in the least, though I used to when we were +boys. As to letting myself be blamed for his crimes. I did it +because I couldn't help myself. We look more or less alike, and +he was cunning enough to manufacture evidence against me. We were +never seen together, and so very few know that there are two +Bannisters. At first I used to protest, but I gave it up. There +wasn't the least use. I could only wait for him to be captured or +killed. In the meantime it didn't make me any more popular to be +a sheepman." + +"Weren't you taking a long chance of being killed first? Some one +with a grudge against him might have shot you." + +"They haven't yet," he smiled. + +"You might at least have told me how it was," she reproached. + +"I started to tell y'u that first day, but it looked so much of a +fairy tale to unload that I passed it up." + +"Then you ought not to blame me for thinking you what you were +not." + +"I don't remember blaming y'u. The fact is I thought it awful +white of y'u to do your Christian duty so thorough, me being such +a miscreant," he drawled. + +"You gave me no chance to think well of you." + +"But yet y'u did your duty from A to Z." + +"We're not talking about my duty," she flashed back. "My point is +that you weren't fair to me. If I thought ill of you how could I +help it?" + +"I expaict your Kalamazoo conscience is worryin' y'u because y'u +misjudged me." + +"It isn't," she denied instantly. + +"I ain't of a revengeful disposition. I'll forgive y'u for doing +your duty and saving my life twice," he said, with a smile of +whimsical irony. + +"I don't want your forgiveness." + +"Well, then for thinking me a 'bad man.'" + +"You ought to beg my pardon. I was a friend, at least you say I +acted like one--and you didn't care enough to right yourself with +me." + +"Maybe I cared too much to risk trying it. I knew there would be +proof some time, and I decided to lie under the suspicion until I +could get it. I see now that wasn't kind or fair to you. I am +sorry I didn't tell y'u all about it. May I tell y'u the story +now?" + +"If you wish." + +It was a long story, but the main points can be told in a +paragraph. The grandfather of the two cousins, General Edward +Bannister, had worn the Confederate gray for four years, and had +lost an arm in the service of the flag with the stars and bars. +After the war he returned to his home in Virginia to find it in +ruins, his slaves freed and his fields mortgaged. He had pulled +himself together for another start, and had practiced law in the +little town where his family had lived for generations. Of his +two sons, one was a ne'er-do-well. He was one of those brilliant +fellows of whom much is expected that never develops. He had a +taste for low company, married beneath him, and, after a career +that was a continual mortification and humiliation to his father, +was killed in a drunken brawl under disgraceful circumstances, +leaving behind a son named for the general. The second son of +General Bannister also died young, but not before he had proved +his devotion to his father by an exemplary life. He, too, was +married and left an only son, also named for the old soldier. The +boys were about of an age and were well matched in physical and +mental equipment. But the general, who had taken them both to +live with him, soon discovered that their characters were as +dissimilar as the poles. One grandson was frank, generous, open +as the light; the other was of a nature almost degenerate. In +fact, each had inherited the qualities of his father. Tales began +to come to the old general's ears that at first he refused to +credit. But eventually it was made plain to him that one of the +boys was a rake of the most objectionable type. + +There were many stormy scenes between the general and his +grandson, but the boy continued to go from bad to worse. After a +peculiarly flagrant case, involving the character of a +respectable young girl, young Ned Bannister was forbidden his +ancestral home. It had been by means of his cousin that this last +iniquity of his had been unearthed, and the boy had taken it to +his grandfather in hot indignation as the last hope of protecting +the reputation of the injured girl. From that hour the evil +hatred of his cousin, always dormant in the heart, flamed into +active heat. The disowned youth swore to be revenged. A short +time later the general died, leaving what little property he had +entirely to the one grandson. This stirred again the bitter rage +of the other. He set fire to the house that had been willed his +cousin, and took a train that night for Wyoming. By a strange +irony of fate they met again in the West years later, and the +enmity between them was renewed, growing every month more bitter +on the part of the one who called himself the King of the Bighorn +Country. + +She broke the silence after his story with a gentle "Thank you. I +can understand why you don't like to tell the story." + +"I am very glad of the chance to tell it to you," he answered. + +"When you were delirious you sometimes begged some one you called +Ned not to break his mother's heart. I thought then you might be +speaking to yourself as ill people do. Of course I see now it was +your cousin that was on your mind." + +"When I was out of my head I must have talked a lot of nonsense," +he suggested, in the voice of a question. "I expect I had +opinions I wouldn't have been scattering around so free if I'd +known what I was saying." + +He was hardly prepared for the tide of color that swept her +cheeks at his words nor for the momentary confusion that +shuttered the shy eyes with long lashes cast down. + +"Sick folks do talk foolishness, they say," he added, his gaze +trained on her suspiciously. + +"Do they?" + +"Mrs. Winslow says I did. But when I asked her what it was I said +she only laughed and told me to ask y'u. Well, I'm askin' now." + +She became very busy over the teapot. "You talked about the work +at your ranch--sheep dipping and such things." + +"Was that all?" + +"No, about lots of other things--football and your early life. I +don't see what Mrs. Winslow meant. Will you have some more tea?" + +"No, thank y'u. I have finished. Yes, that ce'tainly seems +harmless. I didn't know but I had been telling secrets." Still +his unwavering eyes rested quietly on her. + +"Secrets?" She summoned her aplomb to let a question rest lightly +in the face she turned toward him, though she was afraid she met +his eyes hardly long enough for complete innocence "Why, yes, +secrets." He measured looks with her deliberately before he +changed the subject, and he knew again the delightful excitement +of victory. "Are y'u going to read to me this evening?" + +She took his opening so eagerly that he smiled, at which her +color mounted again. + +"If y'u like. What shall I read?" + +"Some more of Barrie's books, if y'u don't mind. When a fellow is +weak as a kitten he sorter takes to things that are about kids." + +Nora came in and cleared away the supper things. She was just +beginning to wash them when McWilliams and Denver dropped into +the kitchen by different doors. Each seemed surprised and +disappointed at the presence of the other. Nora gave each of them +a smile and a dishcloth. + +"Reddy, he's shavin' and Frisco's struggling with a biled +shirt--I mean with a necktie," Denver hastily amended. "They'll +be along right soon, I shouldn't wonder." + +"Y'u better go tell the boys Miss Nora don't want her kitchen +littered up with so many of them," suggested his rival. + +"Y'u're foreman here. I don't aim to butt into your business, +Mac," grinned back the other, polishing a tea plate with the +towel. + +"I want to get some table linen over to Lee Ming to-night," said +Nora, presently. + +"Denver, he'll be glad to take it for y'u, Miss Nora. He's real +obliging," offered Mac, generously. + +"I've been in the house all day, so I need a walk. I thought +perhaps one of you gentlemen--" Miss Nora looked from one to the +other of them with deep innocence. + +"Sure, I'll go along and carry it. Just as Mac says, I'll be real +pleased to go," said Denver, hastily. + +Mac felt he had been a trifle precipitate in his assumption that +Nora did not intend to go herself. Lee Ming had established a +laundry some half mile from the ranch, and the way thereto lay +through most picturesque shadow and moonlight. The foreman had +conscientious scruples against letting Denver escort her down +such a veritable lovers' lane of romantic scenery. + +"I don't know as y'u ought to go out in the night air with that +cold, Denver. I'd hate a heap to have y'u catch pneumony. It +don't seem to me I'd be justified in allowin' y'u to," said the +foreman, anxiously. + +"You're THAT thoughtful, Mac. But I expect mebbe a little saunter +with Miss Nora will do my throat good. We'll walk real slow, so's +not to wear out my strength." + +"Big, husky fellows like y'u are awful likely to drop off with +pneumony. I been thinkin' I got some awful good medicine that +would be the right stuff for y'u. It's in the drawer of my +wash-stand. Help yourself liberal and it will surely do y'u good. +Y'u'll find it in a bottle." + +"I'll bet it's good medicine, Mac. After we get home I'll drop +around. In the washstand, y'u said?" + +"I hate to have y'u take such a risk," Mac tried again. "There +ain't a bit of use in y'u exposing yourself so careless. Y'u take +a hot footbath and some of that medicine, Denver, then go right +straight to bed, and in the mo'ning y'u'll be good as new. +Honest, y'u won't know yourself." + +"Y'u got the best heart, Mac." Nora giggled. + +"Since I'm foreman I got to be a mother to y'u boys, ain't I?" + +"Y'u're liable to be a grandmother to us if y'u keep on," came +back the young giant. + +"Y'u plumb discourage me, Denver," sighed the foreman. + +"No, sir! The way I look at it, a fellow's got to take some risk. +Now, y'u cayn't tell some things. I figure I ain't half so likely +to catch pneumony as y'u would be to get heart trouble if y'u +went walking with Miss Nora," returned Denver. + +A perfect gravity sat on both their faces during the progress of +most of their repartee. + +"If your throat's so bad, Mr. Halliday, I'll put a kerosene rag +round it for you when we get back," Nora said, with a sweet +little glance of sympathy that the foreman did not enjoy. + +Denver, otherwise "Mr. Halliday," beamed. "Y'u're real kind, +ma'am. I'll bet that will help it on the outside much as Mac's +medicine will inside." + +"What'll y'u do for my heart, ma'am, if it gits bad the way +Denver figures it will?" + +"Y'u might try a mustard plaster," she gurgled, with laughter. + +For once the debonair foreman's ready tongue had brought him to +defeat. He was about to retire from the field temporarily when +Nora herself offered first aid to the wounded. + +"We would like to have you come along with us, Mr. McWilliams. I +want you to come if you can spare the time." + +The soft eyes telegraphed an invitation with such a subtle +suggestion of a private understanding that Mac was instantly +encouraged to accept. + +He knew, of course, that she was playing them against each other +and sitting back to enjoy the result, but he was possessed of the +hope common to youths in his case that he really was on a better +footing with her than the other boys. This opinion, it may be +added, was shared by Denver, Frisco and even Reddy as regards +themselves. Which is merely another way of putting the +regrettable fact that this very charming young woman was given to +coquetting with the hearts of her admirers. + +"Any time y'u get oneasy about that cough y'u go right on home, +Denver. Don't stay jest out of politeness. We'll never miss y'u, +anyhow," the foreman assured him. + +"Thank y'u, Mac. But y'u see I got to stay to keep Miss Nora from +getting bored." + +"Was it a phrenologist strung y'u with the notion y'u was a cure +for lonesomeness?" + +"Shucks! I don't make no such claims. The only thing is it's a +comfort when you're bored to have company. Miss Nora, she's so +polite. But, y'u see, if I'm along I can take y'u for a walk when +y'u get too bad." + +They reached the little trail that ran up to Lee Ming's place, +and Denver suggested that Mac run in with the bundle so as to +save Nora the climb. + +"I'd like to, honest I would. But since y'u thought of it first I +won't steal the credit of doing Miss Nora a good turn. We'll wait +right here for y'u till y'u come back." + +"We'll all go up together," decided Nora, and honors were easy. + +In the pleasant moonlight they sauntered back, two of them still +engaged in lively badinage. while the third played chorus with +appreciative little giggles and murmurs of "Oh, Mr. Halliday!" +and "You know you're just flattering me, Mr. McWilliams." + +If they had not been so absorbed in their gay foolishness the two +men might not have walked so innocently into the trap waiting for +them at their journey's end. As it was, the first intimation they +had of anything unusual was a stern command to surrender. + +"Throw up your hands. Quick, you blank fools!" + +A masked man covered them, in each hand a six-shooter, and at his +summons the arms of the cow-punchers went instantly into the air. + +Nora gave an involuntary little scream of dismay. + +"Y'u don't need to be afraid, lady. Ain't nobody going to hurt +you, I reckon," the masked man growled. + +" Sure they won't," Mac reassured her, adding ironically: "This +gun-play business is just neighborly frolic. Liable to happen any +day in Wyoming." + +A second masked man stepped up. He, too was garnished with an +arsenal. + +"What's all this talking about?" he demanded sharply. + +"We just been having a little conversation seh?" returned +McWilliams, gently, his vigilant eyes searching through the +disguise of the other " Just been telling the lady that your call +is in friendly spirit. No objections, I suppose?" + +The swarthy newcomer, who seemed to be in command, swore sourly. + +"Y'u put a knot in your tongue, Mr. Foreman." + +"Ce'tainly, if y'u prefer," returned the indomitable McWilliams. + +"Shut up or I'll pump lead into you!" + +"I'm padlocked, seh." + +Nora Darling interrupted the dialogue by quietly fainting. The +foreman caught her as she fell. + +"See what y'u done, y'u blamed chump!" he snapped. + + + +CHAPTER 13. THE TWO COUSINS + +The sheepman lay at his ease, the strong supple lines of him +stretched lazily on the lounge. Helen was sitting beside him in +an easy chair, and he watched the play of her face in the +lamplight as she read from "The Little White Bird." She was very +good to see, so vitally alive and full of a sweet charm that half +revealed and half concealed her personality. The imagination with +which she threw herself into a discussion of the child fancies +portrayed by the Scotch writer captured his fancy. It delighted +him to tempt her into discussions that told him by suggestion +something of what she thought and was. + +They were in animated debate when the door opened to admit +somebody else. He had stepped in so quietly that he stood there a +little while without being observed, smiling down at them with +triumphant malice behind the mask he wore. Perhaps it was the +black visor that was responsible for the Mephisto effect, since +it hid all the face but the leering eyes. These, narrowed to +slits, swept the room and came back to its occupants. He was a +tall man and well-knit, dressed incongruously in up-to-date +riding breeches and boots, in combination with the usual gray +shirt, knotted kerchief and wide-brimmed felt hat of the horseman +of the plains. The dust of the desert lay thick on him, without +in the least obscuring a certain ribald elegance, a distinction +of wickedness that rested upon him as his due. To this result his +debonair manner contributed, though it carried with it no +suggestion of weakness. To the girl who looked up and found him +there he looked indescribably sinister. + +She half rose to her feet, dilated eyes fixed on him. + +"Good evenin'. I came to make sure y'u got safe home, Miss +Messiter," he said. + +The eyes of the two men clashed, the sheepman's stern and +unyielding, his cousin's lit with the devil of triumph. But out +of the faces of both men looked the inevitable conflict, the +declaration of war that never ends till death. + +"I've been a heap anxious about y'u--couldn't sleep for worrying. +So I saddled up and rode in to find out if y'u were all right and +to inquire how Cousin Ned was getting along." + +The sheepman, not deigning to move an inch from his position, +looked in silence his steady contempt. + +"This conversation sounds a whole lot like a monologue up to +date," he continued. "Now, maybe y'u don't know y'u have the +honor of entertaining the King of the Bighorn." The man's brown +hand brushed the mask from his eyes and he bowed with mocking +deference. "Miss Messiter, allow me to introduce myself +again--Ned Bannister, train robber, rustler, kidnapper and +general bad man. But I ain't told y'u the worst yet. I'm cousin +to a sheepherder' and that's the lowest thing that walks." + +He limped forward a few steps and sat down. "Thank you, I believe +I will stay a while since y'u both ask me so urgent. It isn't +often I meet with a welcome so hearty and straight from the +heart." + +It was not hard to see how the likeness between them contributed +to the mistake that had been current concerning them. Side by +side, no man could have mistaken one for the other. The color of +their eyes, the shade of hair, even the cut of their features, +were different. But beneath all distinctions in detail ran a +family resemblance not to be denied. This man looked like his +cousin, the sheepman, as the latter might have done if all his +life he had given a free rein to evil passions. + +The height, the build, the elastic tread of each, made further +contributions to this effect of similarity. + +"What are you doing here?" They were the first words spoken by +the man on the lounge and they rang with a curt challenge. + +"Come to inquire after the health of my dear cousin," came the +prompt silken answer. + +"You villain!" + +"My dear cousin, y'u speak with such conviction that y'u almost +persuade me. But of course if I'm a villain I've got to live up +to my reputation. Haven't I, Miss Messiter?" + +"Wouldn't it be better to live it down?" she asked with a +quietness that belied her terror. For there had been in his +manner a threat, not against her but against the man whom her +heart acknowledged as her lover. + +He laughed. "Y'u're still hoping to make a Sunday school +superintendent out of me, I see. Y'u haven't forgot all your +schoolmarm ways yet, but I'll teach y'u to forget them." + +The other cousin watched him with a cool, quiet glance that never +wavered. The outlaw was heavily armed, but his weapons were +sheathed, and, though there was a wary glitter behind the +vindictive exultation in his eyes, his capable hands betrayed no +knowledge of the existence of his revolvers. It was, he knew, to +be a moral victory, if one at all. + +"Hope I'm not disturbing any happy family circle," he remarked, +and, taking two limping steps forward, he lifted the book from +the girl's unresisting hands. "H'm! Barrie. I don't go much on +him. He's too sissy for me. But I could have guessed the other +Ned Bannister would be reading something like that," he +concluded, a flicker of sneering contempt crossing his face. + +"Perhaps y'u'll learn some time to attend to your own business," +said the man on the couch quietly. + +Hatred gleamed in the narrowed slits from which the soul of the +other cousin looked down at him. "I'm a philanthropist, and my +business is attending to other people's. They raise sheep, for +instance, and I market them." + +The girl hastily interrupted. She had not feared for herself, but +she knew fear for the indomitable man she had nursed back to +life. "Won't you sit down, Mr. Bannister? Since you don't approve +our literature, perhaps we can find some other diversion more to +your taste." She smiled faintly. + +The man turned in smiling divination of her purpose, and sat down +to play with her as a cat does with a mouse. + +"Thank y'u, Miss Messiter, I believe I will. I called to thank +y'u for your kindness to my cousin as well as to inquire about +you. The word goes that y'u pulled my dear cousin back when death +was reaching mighty strong for him. Of course I feel grateful to +y'u. How is he getting along now?" + +"He's doing very well, I think." + +"That's ce'tainly good hearing," was his ironical response. "How +come he to get hurt, did y'u say?" + +His sleek smile was a thing hateful to see. + +"A hound bit me," explained the sheepman. + +"Y'u don't say! I reckon y'u oughtn't to have got in its way. Did +y'u kill it?" + +"Not yet." + +"That was surely a mistake, for it's liable to bite again." + +The girl felt a sudden sickness at his honeyed cruelty, but +immediately pulled herself together. For whatever fiendish +intention might be in his mind she meant to frustrate it. + +"I hear you are of a musical turn, Mr. Bannister. Won't you play +for us?" + +She had by chance found his weak spot. Instantly his eyes lit up. +He stepped across to the piano and began to look over the music, +though not so intently that he forgot to keep under his eye the +man on the lounge. + +"H'm! Mozart, Grieg, Chopin, Raff, Beethoven. Y'u ce'tainly have +the music here; I wonder if y'u have the musician." He looked her +over with a bold, unscrupulous gaze. "It's an old trick to have +classical music on the rack and ragtime in your soul. Can y'u +play these?" + +"You will have to be the judge of that," she said. + +He selected two of Grieg's songs and invited her to the piano. He +knew instantly that the Norwegian's delicate fancy and lyrical +feeling had found in her no inadequate medium of expression. The +peculiar emotional quality of the song "I Love Thee" seemed to +fill the room as she played. When she swung round on the stool at +its conclusion it was to meet a shining-eyed, musical enthusiast +instead of the villain she had left five minutes earlier. + +"Y'u CAN play," was all he said, but the manner of it spoke +volumes. + +For nearly an hour he kept her at the piano, and when at last he +let her stop playing he seemed a man transformed. + +"You have given me a great pleasure, a very great pleasure, Miss +Messiter," he thanked her warmly, his Western idiom sloughed with +his villainy for the moment. "It has been a good many months +since I have heard any decent music. With your permission I shall +come again." + +Her hesitation was imperceptible. "Surely, if you wish." She felt +it would be worse than idle to deny the permission she might not +be able to refuse. + +With perfect grace he bowed, and as he wheeled away met with a +little shock of remembrance the gaze of his cousin. For a long +moment their eyes bored into each other. Neither yielded the beat +of an eyelid, but it was the outlaw that spoke. + +"I had forgotten y'u. That's strange, too because it was for y'u +I came. I'm going to take y'u home with me. + +"Alive or dead?" asked the other serenely. + +"Alive, dear Ned." + +"Same old traits cropping out again. There was always something +feline about y'u. I remember when y'u were a boy y'u liked to +torment wild animals y'u had trapped." + +"I play with larger game now--and find it more interesting." + +"Just so. Miss Messiter, I shall have to borrow a pony from y'u, +unless--" He broke off and turned indifferently to the bandit. + +"Yes, I brought a hawss along with me for y'u," replied the other +to the unvoiced question. "I thought maybe y'u might want to ride +with us." + +"But he can't ride. He couldn't possibly. It would kill him," the +girl broke out. + +"I reckon not." The man from the Shoshones glanced at his victim +as he drew on his gauntlets. "He's a heap tougher than y'u +think." + +"But it will. If he should ride now, why--It would be the same as +murder," she gasped. "You wouldn't make him ride now?" + +"Didn't y'u hear him order his hawss, ma'am? He's keen on this +ride. Of course he don't have to go unless he wants to." The man +turned his villainous smile on his cousin, and the latter +interpreted it to mean that if he preferred, the point of attack +might be shifted to the girl. He might go or he might stay. But +if he stayed the mistress of the Lazy D would have to pay for his +decision. + +"No, I'll ride," he said at once. + +Helen Messiter had missed the meaning of that Marconied message +that flashed between them. She set her jaw with decision. "Well, +you'll not. It's perfectly ridiculous. I won't hear of such a +thing." + +"Y'u seem right welcome. Hadn't y'u better stay, Ned?" murmured +the outlaw, with smiling eyes that mocked. + +"Of course he had. He couldn't ride a mile-- not half a mile. The +idea is utterly preposterous." + +The sheepman got to his feet unsteadily. " I'll do famously." + +"I won't have it. Why are you so foolish about going? He said you +didn't need to go. You can't ride any more than a baby could chop +down that pine in the yard." + +"I'm a heap stronger than y'u think." + +"Yes, you are!" she derided. "It's nothing but obstinacy. Make +him stay," she appealed to the outlaw. + +"Am I my cousin's keeper?" he drawled. "I can advise him to stay, +but I can't make him." + +"Well, I can. I'm his nurse, and I say he sha'n't stir a foot out +of this house--not a foot." + +The wounded man smiled quietly, admiring the splendid energy of +her. "I'm right sorry to leave y'u so unceremoniously." + +"You're not going." She wheeled on the outlaw "I don't understand +this at all. But if you want him you can find him here when you +come again. Put him on parole and leave him here. I'll not be a +party to murder by letting him go." + +"Y'u think I'm going to murder him?" he smiled. + +"I think he cannot stand the riding. It would kill him." + +"A haidstrong man is bound to have his way. He seems hell-bent on +riding. All the docs say the outside of a hawss is good for the +inside of a man. Mebbe it'll be the making of him." + +"I won't have it. I'll rouse the whole countryside against you. +Why don't you parole him till he is better?" + +"All right. We'll leave it that way," announced the man. "I'd +hate to hurt your tender feelings after such a pleasant evening. +Let him give his parole to come to me whenever I send for him, no +matter where he may be, to quit whatever he is doing right that +instant, and come on the jump. If he wants to leave it that way, +we'll call it a bargain." + +Again the rapier-thrust of their eyes crossed. The sheepman was +satisfied with what he saw in the face of his foe. + +"All right. It's a deal," he agreed, and sank weakly back to the +couch. + +There are men whose looks are a profanation to any good woman. +Ned Bannister, of the Shoshones, was one of them. He looked at +his cousin, and his ribald eyes coasted back to bold scrutiny of +this young woman's charming, buoyant youth. There was Something +in his face that sent a flush of shame coursing through her rich +blood. No man had ever looked at her like that before. + +"Take awful good care of him," he sneered, with so plain an +implication of evil that her clean blood boiled. "But I know y'u +will, and don't let him go before he's real strong." + +"No," she murmured, hating herself for the flush that bathed her. + +He bowed like a Chesterfield, and went out with elastic heels, +spurs clicking. + +Helen turned fiercely on her guest. "Why did you make me insist +on your staying? As if I want you here, as if--" She stopped, +choking with anger; presently flamed out, "I hate you," and ran +from the room to hide herself alone with her tears and her shame. + + + +CHAPTER 14. FOR THE WORLD'S CHAMPIONSHIP + +The scene on which Helen Messiter's eyes rested that mellow +Fourth of July was vivid enough to have interested a far more +jaded mind than hers. Nowhere outside of Cattleland could it have +been duplicated. Wyoming is sparsely populated, but the riders of +the plains think nothing of traveling a hundred miles in the +saddle to be present at a "broncobusting" contest. Large +delegations, too, had come in by railroad from Caspar, Billings, +Sheridan, Cheyenne and a score of other points, so that the +amphitheatre that looked down on the arena was filled to its +capacity. + +All night the little town had rioted with its guests. Everything +was wide open at Gimlet Butte. Saloons were doing a land-office +business and gambling-houses coining money. Great piles of gold +had passed to and fro during the night at the roulette wheel and +the faro table. But with the coming of day interest had centered +on the rough-riding contest for the world's championship. Saloons +and dance halls were deserted, and the universal trend of travel +had been toward the big grand stands, from which the sport could +be best viewed. + +It was afternoon now. The preliminaries had been ridden, and half +a dozen of the best riders had been chosen by the judges to ride +again for the finals. Helen was wonderfully interested, because +in the six who were to ride again were included the two Bannister +cousins, her foreman, McWilliams, the young man "Texas," whom she +had met the day of her arrival at Gimlet Butte, and Tom Sanford, +who had last year won the championship. + +She looked down on the arena, and her heart throbbed with the +pure joy of life. Already she loved her West and its picturesque, +chap-clad population. Their jingling spurs and their colored +kerchiefs knotted round sunburned necks, their frank, +whole-hearted abandon to the interest of the moment, led her to +regard these youths as schoolboys. Yet they were a hard-bitten +lot, as one could see, burned to a brick-red by the untempered +sun of the Rockies; with muscles knit like steel, and hearts +toughened to endure any blizzard they might meet. Only the +humorous wrinkles about the corners of their eyes gave them away +for the cheerful sons of mirth that they were. + +"Bob Austin on Two-Step," announced the megaphone man, and a +little stir eddied through the group gathered at the lane between +the arena and the corral. + +A meek-looking buckskin was driven into the arena. The embodiment +of listlessness, it apparently had not ambition enough to flick a +fly from its flank with its tail. Suddenly the bronco's ears +pricked, its sharp eyes dilated. A man was riding forward, the +loop of a lariat circling about his head. The rope fell true, but +the wily pony side-stepped, and the loop slithered to the ground. +Again the rope shot forward, dropped over the pony's head and +tightened. The roper's mustang braced its forefeet, and brought +the buckskin up short. Another rope swept over its head. It stood +trembling, unable to move without strangling itself. + +A picturesque youth in flannel shirt and chaps came forward, +dragging blanket, saddle and bridle. At sight of him the horse +gave a spasmodic fling, then trembled again violently. A blind +was coaxed over its eyes and the bridle slipped on. Quickly and +warily, with deft fingers, the young man saddled and cinched. He +waved a hand jauntily to the ropers. The lariats were thrown off +as the puncher swung to the saddle. For an instant the buckskin +stood bewildered, motionless as a statue. There was a sudden leap +forward high in air, and Bob Austin, alias "Texas," swung his +sombrero with a joyous whoop. + +"Fan him! Fan him!" screamed the spectators, and the rider's +quirt went up and down like a piston-rod. + +Round and round went Two-Step in a vicious circle, "swapping +ends" with dizzying rapidity. Suddenly he went forward as from a +catapult, and came to sudden halt in about five seconds. But +Texas's knees still clung, viselike, to the sides of the pony. A +series of quick bucks followed, the buckskin coming down with +back humped, all four legs stiff as iron posts. The jar on the +rider would have been like a pile-driver falling on his head had +he not let himself grow limp. The buckskin plunged forward again +in frenzied leaps, ending in an unexpected jump to one side. Alas +for Texas! One moment he was jubilantly plying quirt and spurs, +the next he found himself pitching sideways. To save himself he +caught at the saddle-horn. + +"He's hunting leather," shouted a hundred voices. + +One of the judges rode out and waved a hand. Texas slipped to the +ground disqualified, and made his dejected way back to his +deriding comrades. Some of them had endured similar misfortunes +earlier in the day. Therefore they found much pleasure in +condoling with him. + +"If he'd only recollected to saw off the horn of his saddle, then +he couldn't 'a' found it when he went to hunt leather," +mournfully commented one puncher in a shirt of robin's egg blue. + +"'Twould have been most as good as to take the dust, wouldn't +it?" retorted Texas gently, and the laugh was on the gentleman in +blue, because he had been thrown earlier in the day. + +"A fellow's hands sure get in his way sometimes. I reckon if +you'd tied your hands, Tex, you'd been riding that rocking-hawss +yet," suggested Denver amiably. + +"Sometimes it's his foot he puts in it. There was onct a gent +disqualified for riding on his spurs," said Texas reminiscently. + +At which hit Denver retired, for not three hours before he had +been detected digging his spurs into the cinch to help him stick +to the saddle. + +"Jim McWilliams will ride Dead Easy," came the announcement +through the megaphone, and a burst of cheering passed along the +grand stand, for the sunny smile of the foreman of the Lazy D +made him a general favorite. Helen leaned forward and whispered +something gaily to Nora, who sat in the seat in front of her. The +Irish girl laughed and blushed, but when her mistress looked up +it was her turn to feel the mounting color creep into her cheeks. +For Ned Bannister, arrayed in all his riding finery, was making +his way along the aisle to her. + +She had not seen him since he had ridden away from the Lazy D ten +days before, quite sufficiently recovered from his wounds to take +up the routine of life again. They had parted not the best of +friends, for she had not yet forgiven him for his determination +to leave with his cousin on the night that she had been forced to +insist on his remaining. He had put her in a false position, and +he had never explained to her why. Nor could she guess the +reason--for he was not a man to harvest credit for himself by +explaining his own chivalry. + +Since her heart told her how glad she was he had come to her box +to see her, she greeted him with the coolest little nod in the +world. + +"Good morning, Miss Messiter. May I sit beside y'u?" he asked. + +"Oh, certainly!" She swept her skirts aside carelessly and made +room for him. "I thought you were going to ride soon." + +"No, I ride last except for Sanford, the champion. My cousin +rides just before me. He's entered under the name of Jack +Holloway." + +She was thinking that he had no business to be riding, that his +wounds were still too fresh, but she did not intend again to show +interest enough in his affairs to interfere even by suggestion. +Her heart had been in her mouth every moment of the time this +morning while he had been tossed hither and thither on the back +of his mount. In his delirium he had said he loved her. If he +did, why should he torture her so? It was well enough for sound +men to risk their lives, but-- + +A cheer swelled in the grand stand and died breathlessly away. +McWilliams was setting a pace it would take a rare expert to +equal. He was a trick rider, and all the spectacular feats that +appealed to the onlooker were his. While his horse was wildly +pitching, he drank a bottle of pop and tossed the bottle away. +With the reins in his teeth he slipped off his coat and vest, and +concluded a splendid exhibition of skill by riding with his feet +out of the stirrups. He had been smoking a cigar when he mounted. +Except while he had been drinking the pop it had been in his +mouth from beginning to end, and, after he had vaulted from the +pony's back, he deliberately puffed a long smoke-spiral into the +air, to show that his cigar was still alight. No previous rider +had earned so spontaneous a burst of applause. "He's ce'tainly a +pure when it comes to riding," acknowledged Bannister. "I look to +see him get either first or second." + +"Whom do you think is his most dangerous rival?" Helen asked. + +"My cousin is a straight-up rider, too. He's more graceful than +Mac, I think, but not quite so good on tricks. It will be nip and +tuck." + +"How about your cousin's cousin?" she asked, with bold irony. + +"He hopes he won't have to take the dust," was his laughing +answer. + +The next rider suffered defeat irrevocably before he had been +thirty seconds in the saddle. His mount was one of the most +cunning of the outlaw ponies of the Northwest, and it brought him +to grief by jamming his leg hard against the fence. He tried in +vain to spur the bronco into the middle of the arena, but after +it drove at a post for the third time and ground his limb against +it, he gave up to the pain and slipped off. + +"That isn't fair, is it?" Helen asked of the young man sitting +beside her. + +He shrugged his lean, broad shoulders. "He should have known how +to keep the horse in the open. Mac would never have been caught +that way." + +"Jack Holloway on Rocking Horse," the announcer shouted. + +It took four men and two lariats to subdue this horse to a +condition sufficiently tame to permit of a saddle being slipped +on. Even then this could not be accomplished without throwing the +bronco first. The result was that all the spirit was taken out of +the animal by the preliminary ordeal, so that when the man from +the Shoshone country mounted, his steed was too jaded to attempt +resistance. + +"Thumb him! Thumb him!" the audience cried, referring to the +cowboy trick of running the thumbs along a certain place in the +shoulder to stir the anger of the bucker. + +But the rider slipped off with disgust. "Give me another horse," +he demanded, and after a minute's consultation among the judges a +second pony was driven out from the corral. This one proved to be +a Tartar. It went off in a frenzy of pitching the moment its +rider dropped into the saddle. + +"Y'u'll go a long way before you see better ridin' than his and +Mac's. Notice how he gives to its pitching," said Bannister, as +he watched his cousin's perfect ease in the cyclone of which he +was the center. + +"I expect it depends on the kind of a 'hawss,'" she mocked. "He's +riding well, isn't he?" + +"I don't know any that ride better." + +The horse put up a superb fight, trying everything it knew to +unseat this demon clamped to its back. It possessed in +combination all the worst vices, was a weaver, a sunfisher and a +fence-rower, and never had it tried so desperately to maintain +its record of never having been ridden. But the outlaw in the +saddle was too much for the outlaw underneath. He was master, +just as he was first among the ruffians whom he led, because +there was in him a red-hot devil of wickedness that would brook +no rival. + +The furious bronco surrendered without an instant's warning, and +its rider slipped at once to the ground. As he sauntered through +the dust toward the grand stand, Helen could not fail to see how +his vanity sunned itself in the applause that met his +performance. His equipment was perfect to the least detail. The +reflection from a lady's looking-glass was no brighter than the +silver spurs he jingled on his sprightly heels. Strikingly +handsome in a dark, sinister way, one would say at first sight, +and later would chafe at the justice of a verdict not to be +denied. + +Ned Bannister rose from his seat beside Helen. "Wish me luck," he +said, with his gay smile. + +"I wish you all the luck you deserve," she answered. + +"Oh, wish me more than that if y'u want me to win." + +"I didn't say I wanted you to win. You take the most +unaccountable things for granted." + +"I've a good mind to win, then, just to spite y'u," he laughed. + +"As if you could," she mocked; but her voice took a softer +intonation as she called after him in a low murmur: "Be careful, +please." + +His white teeth flashed a smile of reassurance at her. "I've +never been killed yet." + +"Ned Bannister on Steamboat," sang out the megaphone man. + +"I'm ce'tainly in luck. Steamboat's the worst hawss on the +range," he told himself, as he strode down the grand stand to +enter the arena. + +The announcement of his name created for the second time that day +a stir of unusual interest. Everybody in that large audience had +heard of Ned Bannister; knew of his record as a "bad man" and his +prowess as the king of the Shoshone country; suspected him of +being a train and bank robber as well as a rustler. That he +should have the boldness to enter the contest in his own name +seemed to show how defiant he was of the public sentiment against +him, and how secure he counted himself in flaunting this +contempt. As for the sheepman, the notoriety that his cousin's +odorous reputation had thrust upon him was extremely distasteful +as well as dangerous, but he had done nothing to disgrace his +name, and he meant to use it openly. He could almost catch the +low whispers that passed from mouth to mouth about him. + +"Ain't it a shame that a fellow like that, leader of all the +criminals that hide in the mountains, can show himself openly +before ten thousand honest folks?" That he knew to be the purport +of their whispering, and along with it went a recital of the +crimes he had committed. How he was a noted "waddy," or +cattle-rustler; how he and his gang had held up three trains in +eighteen months; how he had killed Tom Mooney, Bob Carney and +several others--these were the sorts of things that were being +said about him, and from the bottom of his soul he resented his +impotency to clear his name. + +There was something in Bannister's riding that caught Helen's +fancy at once. It was the unconscious grace of the man, the ease +with which he seemed to make himself a very part of the horse. He +attempted no tricks, rode without any flourishes. But the perfect +poise of his lithe body as it gave with the motions of the horse, +proclaimed him a born rider; so finished, indeed, that his very +ease seemed to discount the performance. Steamboat had a +malevolent red eye that glared hatred at the oppressor man, and +to-day it lived up to its reputation of being the most vicious +and untamed animal on the frontier. But, though it did its best +to unseat the rider and trample him underfoot, there was no +moment when the issue seemed in doubt save once. The horse flung +itself backward in a somersault, risking its own neck in order to +break its master's. But he was equal to the occasion; and when +Steamboat staggered again to its feet Bannister was still in the +saddle. It was a daring and magnificent piece of horsemanship, +and, though he was supposed to be a desperado and a ruffian, his +achievement met with a breathless gasp, followed by thunderous +applause. + +The battle between horse and man was on again, for the animal was +as strong almost in courage as the rider. But Steamboat's +confidence had been shaken as well as its strength. Its efforts +grew less cyclonic. Foam covered its mouth and flecked its sides. +The pitches were easy to foresee and meet. Presently they ceased +altogether. + +Bannister slid from the saddle and swayed unsteadily across the +arena. The emergency past, he had scarce an ounce of force left +in him. Jim McWilliams ran out and slipped an arm around his +shoulders, regardless of what his friends might think of him for +it. + +"You're all in, old man. Y'u hadn't ought to have ridden, even +though y'u did skin us all to a finish." + +"Nonsense, Mac. First place goes to y'u or--or Jack Holloway." + +"Not unless the judges are blind." + +But Bannister's prediction proved true. The champion, Sanford, +had been traveling with a Wild West show, and was far too soft to +compete with these lusty cowboys, who had kept hard from their +daily life on the plains. Before he had ridden three minutes it +was apparent that he stood no chance of retaining his title, so +that the decision narrowed itself to an issue between the two +Bannisters and McWilliams. First place was awarded to the latter, +the second prize to Jack Holloway and the third to Ned Bannister. + +But nearly everybody in the grand stand knew that Bannister had +been discriminated against because of his unpopularity. The +judges were not local men, and had nothing to fear from the +outlaw. Therefore they penalized him on account of his +reputation. It would never do for the Associated Press dispatches +to send word all over the East that a murderous desperado was +permitted, unmolested, to walk away with the championship belt. + +"It ain't a square deal," declared McWilliams promptly. + +He was sitting beside Nora, and he turned round to express his +opinion to the two sitting behind him in the box. + +"We'll not go behind the returns. Y'u won fairly. I congratulate +y'u, Mr. Champion-of-the-world," replied the sheepman, shaking +hands cordially. + +"I told you to bring that belt to the Lazy D," smiled his +mistress, as she shook hands. + +But in her heart she was crying out that it was an outrage. + + + +CHAPTER 15. JUDD MORGAN PASSES + +Gimlet Butte devoted the night of the Fourth to a high old time. +The roping and the other sports were to be on the morrow, and +meanwhile the night hours were filled with exuberance. The +cowboy's spree comes only once in several months, but when it +does come he enters into the occasion with such whole-hearted +enthusiasm as to make up swiftly for lost time. A traveling +midway had cast its tents in a vacant square in competition with +the regular attractions of the town, and everywhere the +hard-riding punchers were "night herding" in full regalia. + +There was a big masked ball in the street, and another in the +Masonic Hall, while here and there flared the lights of the faker +with something to sell. Among these last was "Soapy" Sothern, +doing a thriving business in selling suckers and bars wrapped +with greenbacks. Crowds tramped the streets blowing horns and +throwing confetti, and everywhere was a large sprinkling of men +in high-heeled boots, swinging along with the awkward, +stiff-legged gait of the cowboy. Sometimes a girl was hanging on +his arm, and again he was "whooping it up with the boys"; but in +either case the range-rider's savings were burning a hole through +his pockets with extreme rapidity. + +Jim McWilliams and the sheepman Bannister had that day sealed a +friendship that was to be as enduring as life. The owner of the +sheep ranch was already under heavy obligation to the foreman of +the Lazy D, but debt alone is not enough on which to found soul +brotherhood. There must be qualities of kinship in the primeval +elements of character. Both men had suspected that this kinship +existed, but to-day they had proved it in the way that one had +lost and the other had won the coveted championship. They had +made no vows and no professions. The subject had not even been +touched in words; a meeting of the eyes, followed by the +handshake with which Bannister had congratulated the winner. That +had been all. But it was enough. + +With the casual democracy of the frontier they had together +escorted Helen Messiter and Nora Darling through a riotous three +hours of carnival, taking care to get them back to their hotel +before the night really began "to howl." + +But after they had left the young women, neither of them cared to +sleep yet. They were still in costume, Mac dressed as a monk, and +his friend as a Stuart cavalier, and the spirit of frolic was yet +strong in them. + +"I expaict, mebbe, we better hunt in couples if we're going to +help paint the town," smiled Mac, and his friend had immediately +agreed. + +It must have been well after midnight that they found themselves +"bucking the tiger" in a combination saloon and gambling-house, +whose patrons were decidedly cosmopolitan in character. Here +white and red and yellow men played side by side, the Orient and +the Occident and the aboriginal alike intent on the falling cards +and the little rolling ball. A good many of them were still in +their masks and dominos, though these, for the most part, removed +their vizors before playing. + +Neither McWilliams nor his friend were betting high, and the luck +had been so even that at the end of two hours' play neither of +them had at any time either won or lost more than fifteen +dollars. In point of fact, they were playing not so much to win +as just to keep in touch with the gay, youthful humor of the +night. + +They were getting tired of the game when two men jingled in for a +drink. They were talking loudly together, and it was impossible +to miss the subject of their conversation. + +McWilliams gave a little jerk of his head toward one of them. +"Judd Morgan," his lips framed without making a sound. + +Bannister nodded. + +"Been tanking up all day," Mac added. "Otherwise his tongue would +not be shooting off so reckless." + +A silence had fallen over the assembly save for the braggarts at +the bar. Men looked at each other, and then furtively at +Bannister. For Morgan, ignorant of who was sitting quietly with +his back to him at the faro-table, was venting his hate of +Bannister and McWilliams. + +"Both in the same boat. Did y'u see how Mac ran to help him +to-day? Both waddies. Both rustlers. Both train robbers. Sho! I +got through putting a padlock on me mouth. Man to man, I'm as +good as either of them--damn sight better. I wisht they was here, +one or both; I wisht they would step up here and fight it out. +Bannister's a false alarm, and that foreman of the Lazy D--" His +tongue stumbled over a blur of vilification that ended with a +foul mention of Miss Messiter. + +Instantly two chairs crashed to the floor. Two pair of gray eyes +met quietly. + +"My quarrel, Bann," said Jim, in a low, even voice. + +The other nodded. "I'll see y'u have a clear field." + +The man who was with Morgan suddenly whispered in his ear, and +the latter slewed his head in startled fear. Almost instantly a +bullet clipped past McWilliams's shoulder. Morgan had fired +without waiting for the challenge he felt sure was at hand. +Once--twice the foreman's revolver made answer. Morgan staggered, +slipped down to the floor, a bullet crashing through the +chandelier as he fell. For a moment his body jerked. Then he +rolled over and lay still. + +The foreman's weapon covered him unwaveringly, but no more +steadily than Bannister's gaze the man who had come in with him +who lay lifeless on the floor. The man looked at the lifeless +thing, shuddered, and backed out of the saloon. + +"I call y'u all to witness that my friend killed him in +self-defense," said Bannister evenly. "Y'u all saw him fire +first. Mac did not even have his gun out." + +"That's right," agreed one, and another added: "He got what was +coming to him." + +"He sure did," was the barkeeper's indorsement. "He came in +hunting trouble, but I reckon he didn't want to be accommodated +so prompt." + +"Y'u'll find us at the Gimlet Butte House if we're wanted for +this," said Bannister. "We'll be there till morning." + +But once out of the gambling-house McWilliams drew his friend to +one side. "Do y'u know who that was I killed?" + +"Judd Morgan, foreman before y'u at the Lazy D." + +"Yes, but what else?" + +"What do y'u mean?" + +"I mean that next to your cousin Judd was leader of that +Shoshone-Teton bunch." + +"How do y'u know?" + +"I suspected it a long time, but I knew for sure the day that +your cousin held up the ranch. The man that was in charge of the +crowd outside was Morgan. I could swear to it. I knew him soon as +I clapped eyes to him, but I was awful careful to forget to tell +him I recognized him." + +"That means we are in more serious trouble than I had supposed." + +"Y'u bet it does. We're in a hell of a hole, figure it out any +way y'u like. Instead of having shot up a casual idiot, I've +killed Ned Bannister's right-hand man. That will be the +excuse--shooting Morgan. But the real trouble is that I won the +championship belt from your cousin. He already hated y'u like +poison, and he don't love me any too hard. He will have us +arrested by his sheriff here. Catch the point. Y'U'RE NED +BANNISTER, THE OUTLAW, AND I'M HIS RIGHT-BOWER. That's the play +he's going to make, and he's going to make it right soon." + +"I don't care if he does. We'll fight him on his own ground. +We'll prove that he's the miscreant and not us." + +"Prove nothing," snarled McWilliams. "Do y'u reckon he'll give us +a chance to prove a thing? Not on your life. He'll have us jailed +first thing; then he'll stir up a sentiment against us, and +before morning there will be a lynchingbee, and y'u and I will +wear the neckties. How do y'u like the looks of it?" + +"But y'u have a lot of friends. They won't stand for anything +like that." + +"Not if they had time to stop it. Trouble is, fellow's friends +think awful slow. They'll arrive in time to cut us down and be +the mourners. No, sir! It's a hike for Jimmie Mac on the back of +the first bronc he can slap a saddle on." + +Bannister frowned. "I don't like to run before the scurvy +scoundrels." + +"Do y'u suppose I'm enjoying it? Not to any extent, I allow. But +that sweet relative of yours holds every ace in the deck, and +he'll play them, too. He owns the law in this man's town, and he +owns the lawless. But the best card he holds is that he can get a +thousand of the best people here to join him in hanging the +'king' of the Shoshone outlaws. Explanations nothing! Y'u rode +under the name of Bannister, didn't y'u? He's Jack Holloway." + +"It does make a strong combination," admitted the sheepman. + +"Strong! It's invincible. I can see him playing it, laughing up +his sleeve all the time at the honest fools he is working. No, +sir! I draw out of a game like that. Y'u don't get a run for your +money." + +"Of course he knows already what has happened," mused Bannister. + +"Sure he knows. That fellow with Morgan made a bee-line for him. +Just about now he's routing the sheriff out of his bed. We got no +time to lose. Thing is, to burn the wind out of this town while +we have the chance." + +"I see. It won't help us any to be spilling lead into a sheriff's +posse. That would ce'tainly put us in the wrong." + +"Now y'u're shouting. If we're honest men why don't we surrender +peaceable? That's the play the 'king' is going to make in this +town. Now if we should spoil a posse and bump off one or two of +them, we couldn't pile up evidence enough to get a jury to +acquit. No, sir! We can't surrender and we can't fight. +Consequence is, we got to roll our tails immediate." + +"We have an appointment with Miss Messiter and Nora for to-morrow +morning. We'll have to leave word we can't keep it." + +"Sure. Denver and Missou are playing the wheel down at the Silver +Dollar. I reckon we better make those boys jump and run errands +for us while we lie low. I'll drop in casual and give them the +word. Meet y'u here in ten minutes. Whatever y'u do, keep that +mask on your face." + +"Better meet farther from the scene of trouble. Suppose we say +the north gate of the grand stand?" + +"Good enough. So-long." + +The first faint streaks of day were beginning to show on the +horizon when Bannister reached the grand stand. He knew that +inside of another half-hour the little frontier town would be +blinking in the early morning sunlight that falls so brilliantly +through the limpid atmosphere. If they were going to leave +without fighting their way out there was no time to lose. + +Ten minutes slowly ticked away. + +He glanced at his watch. "Five minutes after four. I wish I had +gone with Mac. He may have been recognized." + +But even as the thought flitted through his mind, the +semi-darkness opened to let a figure out of it. + +"All quiet along the Potomac, seh?" asked the foreman's blithe +voice. "Good. I found the boys and got them started." He flung +down a Mexican vaquero's gaily trimmed costume. + +"Get into these, seh. Denver shucked them for me. That coyote +must have noticed what we wore before he slid out. Y'u can bet +the orders are to watch for us as we were dressed then." + +"What are y u going to do?" + +"Me? I'm scheduled to be Aaron Burr, seh. Missou swaps with me +when he gets back here. They're going to rustle us some white +men's clothes, too, but we cayn't wear them till we get out of +town on account of showing our handsome faces." + +"What about horses?" + +"Denver is rustling some for us. Y'u better be scribbling your +billy-doo to the girl y'u leave behind y'u, seh." + +"Haven't y'u got one to scribble?" Bannister retorted. "Seems to +me y'u better get busy, too." + +So it happened that when Missou arrived a few minutes later he +found this pair of gentlemen, who were about to flee for their +lives, busily inditing what McWilliams had termed facetiously +billets-doux. Each of them was trying to make his letter a little +warmer than friendship allowed without committing himself to any +chance of a rebuff. Mac got as far as Nora Darling, +absentmindedly inserted a comma between the words, and there +stuck hopelessly. He looked enviously across at Bannister, whose +pencil was traveling rapidly down his note-book. + +"My, what a swift trail your pencil leaves on that paper. That's +going some. Mine's bogged down before it got started. I wisht y'u +would start me off." + +"Well, if you ain't up and started a business college already. I +had ought to have brought a typewriter along with me," murmured +Missou ironically. + +"How are things stacking? Our friends the enemy getting busy +yet?" asked Bannister, folding and addressing his note. + +"That's what. Orders gone out to guard every road so as not to +let you pass. What's the matter with me rustling up the boys and +us holding down a corner of this town ourselves?" + +The sheepman shook his head. "We're not going to start a little +private war of our own. We couldn't do that without spilling a +lot of blood. No, we'll make a run for it." + +"That y'u, Denver?" the foreman called softly, as the sound of +approaching horses reached him. + +"Bet your life. Got your own broncs, too. Sheriff Burns called up +Daniels not to let any horses go out from his corral to anybody +without his O.K. I happened to be cinching at the time the 'phone +message came, so I concluded that order wasn't for me, and lit +out kinder unceremonious." + +Hastily the fugitives donned the new costumes and dominos, turned +their notes over to Denver, and swung to their saddles. + +"Good luck!" the punchers called after them, and Denver added an +ironical promise that the foreman had no doubt he would keep. +"I'll look out for Nora--Darling." There was a drawling pause +between the first and second names. "I'll ce'tainly see that she +don't have any time to worry about y'u, Mac." + +"Y'u go to Halifax," returned Mac genially over his shoulder as +he loped away. + +"I doubt if we can get out by the roads. Soon as we reach the end +of the street we better cut across that hayfield," suggested Ned. + +"That's whatever. Then we'll slip past the sentries without being +seen. I'd hate to spoil any of them if we can help it. We're +liable to get ourselves disliked if our guns spatter too much." + +They rode through the main street, still noisy with the shouts of +late revelers returning to their quarters. Masked men were yet in +evidence occasionally, so that their habits caused neither remark +nor suspicion. A good many of the punchers, unable to stay +longer, were slipping out of town after having made a night of +it. In the general exodus the two friends hoped to escape +unobserved. + +They dropped into a side street, galloped down it for two hundred +yards, and dismounted at a barb-wire fence which ran parallel +with the road. The foreman's wire-clippers severed the strands +one by one, and they led their horses through the gap. They +crossed an alfalfa-field, jumped an irrigation ditch, used the +clippers again, and found themselves in a large pasture. It was +getting lighter every moment, and while they were still in the +pasture a voice hailed them from the road in an unmistakable +command to halt. + +They bent low over the backs of their ponies and gave them the +spur. The shot they had expected rang out, passing harmlessly +over them. Another followed, and still another. + +"That's right. Shoot up the scenery. Y'u don't hurt us none," the +foreman said, apostrophizing the man behind the gun. + +The next clipped fence brought them to the open country. For half +an hour they rode swiftly without halt. Then McWilliams drew up. + +"Where are we making for?" + +"How about the Wind River country?" + +"Won't do. First off, they'll strike right down that way after +us. What's the matter with running up Sweetwater Creek and lying +out in the bad lands around the Roubideaux?" + +"Good. I have a sheep-camp up that way. I can arrange to have +grub sent there for us by a man I can trust." + +"All right. The Roubideaux goes." + +While they were nooning at a cow-spring, Bannister, lying on his +back, with his face to the turquoise sky, became aware that a +vagrant impulse had crystallized to a fixed determination. He +broached it at once to his companion. + +"One thing is a cinch, Mac. Neither y'u nor I will be safe in +this country now until we have broken up the gang of desperadoes +that is terrorizing this country. If we don't get them they will +get us. There isn't any doubt about that. I'm not willing to lie +down before these miscreants. What do y'u say?" + +"I'm with y'u, old man. But put a name to it. What are y'u +proposing?" + +"I'm proposing that y'u and I make it our business not to have +any other business until we clean out this nest of wolves. Let's +go right after them, and see if we can't wipe out the +Shoshone-Teton outfit." + +"How? They own the law, don't they?" + +"They don't own the United States Government. When they held up a +mail-train they did a fool thing, for they bucked up against +Uncle Sam. What I propose is that we get hold of one of the gang +and make him weaken. Then, after we have got hold of some +evidence that will convict, we'll go out and run down my namesake +Ned Bannister. If people once get the idea that his hold isn't so +strong there's a hundred people that will testify against him. +We'll have him in a Government prison inside of six months." + +"Or else he'll have us in a hole in the ground," added the +foreman, dryly. + +"One or the other," admitted Bannister. "Are y'u in on this +thing?" + +"I surely am. Y'u're the best man I've met up with in a month of +Sundays, seh. Y'u ain't got but one fault; and that is y'u don't +smoke cigareets. Feed yourself about a dozen a day and y'u won't +have a blamed trouble left. Match, seh?" The foreman of the Lazy +D, already following his own advice, rolled deftly his smoke, +moistened it and proceeded to blow away his troubles. + +Bannister looked at his debonair insouciance and laughed. "Water +off a duck's back," he quoted. "I know some folks that would be +sweating fear right now. It's ce'tainly an aggravating situation, +that of being an honest man hunted as a villain by a villain. But +I expaict my cousin's enjoying it." + +"He ain't enjoying it so much as he would if his plans had worked +out a little smoother. He's holding the sack right now and +cussing right smaht over it being empty, I reckon." + +"He did lock the stable door a little too late," chuckled the +sheepman. But even as he spoke a shadow fell over his face. "My +God! I had forgotten. Y'u don't suppose he would take it out of +Miss Messiter." + +"Not unless he's tired of living," returned her foreman, darkly. +"One thing, this country won't stand for is that. He's got to +keep his hands off women or he loses out. He dassent lay a hand +on them if they don't want him to. That's the law of the plains, +isn't it?" + +"That's the unwritten law for the bad man, but I notice it +doesn't seem to satisfy y'u, my friend. Y'u and I know that my +cousin, Ned Bannister, doesn't acknowledge any law, written or +unwritten. He's a devil and he has no fear. Didn't he kidnap her +before?" + +"He surely would never dare touch those young ladies. But--I +don't know. Bann, I guess we better roll along toward the Lazy D +country, after all." + +"I think so." Ned looked at his friend with smiling drollery. "I +thought y'u smoked your troubles away, Jim. This one seems to +worry y'u." + +McWilliams grinned sheepishly. "There's one trouble won't be +smoked away. It kinder dwells. "Then, apparently apropos of +nothing, he added, irrelevantly: "Wonder what Denver's doing +right now?" + +"Probably keeping that appointment y'u ran away from," bantered +his friend. + +"I'll bet he is. Funny how some men have all the luck," murmured +the despondent foreman. + + + +CHAPTER 16. HUNTING BIG GAME + +In point of fact, Denver's occupation at that moment was +precisely what they had guessed it to be. He was sitting beside +Nora Darling in the grand stand, explaining to her the fine +points of "roping." Mr. Bob Austin, commonly known as "Texas," +was meanwhile trying to make himself agreeable to Helen Messiter. +Truth to tell, both young women listened with divided interest to +their admirers. Both of them had heard the story of the night, +and each of them had tucked away in her corsage a scribbled note +she wanted to get back to her room and read again. That the +pursuit was still on everybody knew, and those on the inside were +aware that the "King," masquerading under the name of Jack +Holloway, was the active power behind the sheriff stimulating the +chase. + +It was after the roping had begun, and Austin had been called +away to take his turn, that the outlaw chief sauntered along the +aisle of the grand stand to the box in which was seated the +mistress of the Lazy D. + +"Beautiful mo'ning, isn't it? Delightfully crisp and clear," he +said by way of introduction, stopping at her box. + +She understood the subtle jeer in his manner, and her fine +courage rose to meet it. There was a daring light in her eye, a +buoyant challenge in her voice as she answered: + +"It is a splendid morning. I'm not surprised you are enjoying +it." + +"Did I say I was enjoying it?" He laughed as he lifted the bar, +came into her box and took a seat. + +"Of course not. How careless of me! I had forgotten you were in +mourning for a deceased friend." + +His dark eyes flashed. "I'll not mourn for him long. He was a +mighty trifling fellow, anyhow. Soon as I catch and hang his +murderers I'll quit wearing black." + +"You may wear out several suits before then," she hit back. + +"Don't y'u believe it; when I want a thing I don't quit till it's +done." + +She met his gaze, and the impact of eyes seemed to shock her +physically. The wickedness in him threatened, gloated, dominated. +She shivered in the warm sunlight, and would not have had him +know it for worlds. + +"Dear me! How confident you talk. Aren't you sometimes +disappointed?" + +"Temporarily. But when I want a thing I take it in the end." + +She knew he was serving notice on her that he meant to win her; +and again the little spinal shiver raced over her. She could not +look at his sardonic, evil face without fear, and she could not +look away without being aware of his eyes possessing her. What +was the use of courage against such a creature as this? + +"Yes, I understand you take a good deal that isn't yours," she +retorted carelessly, her eyes on the arena. + +"I make it mine when I take it," he answered coolly, admiring the +gameness which she wore as a suit of chain armor against his +thrusts. + +"Isn't it a little dangerous sometimes?" her even voice +countered. "When you take what belongs to others you run a risk, +don't you?" + +"That's part of the rules. Except for that I shouldn't like it so +well. I hunt big game, and the bigger the game the more risk. +That's why y'u guessed right when y'u said I was enjoying the +mo'ning." + +"Meaning--your cousin?" + +"Well, no. I wasn't thinking of him, though he's some sizable. +But I'm hunting bigger game than he is, and I expect to bag it." + +She let her scornful eyes drift slowly over him. "I might pretend +to misunderstand you. But I won't. You may have your answer now. +I am not afraid of you, for since you are a bully you must be a +coward. I saw a rattlesnake last week in the hills. It reminded +me of some one I have seen. I'll leave you to guess who." + +Her answer drew blood. The black tide raced under the swarthy tan +of his face. He leaned forward till his beady eyes were close to +her defiant ones. "Y'u have forgotten one thing, Miss Messiter. A +rattlesnake can sting. I ask nothing of you. Can't I break your +heart without your loving me? You're only a woman--and not the +first I have broken, by God--" + +His slim, lithe body was leaning forward so that it cut off +others, and left them to all intents alone. At a touch of her +fingers the handbag in her lap flew open and a little +ivory-hilted revolver lay in her hand. + +"You may break me, but you'll never bend me an inch." + +He looked at the little gun and laughed ironically. "Sho! If y'u +should hit me with that and I should find it out I might get mad +at y'u." + +"Did I say it was for you?" she said coldly; and again the shock +of joined eyes ended in drawn battle. + +"Have y'u the nerve?" He looked her over, so dainty and so +resolute, so silken strong; and he knew he had his answer. + +His smoldering eyes burned with desire to snatch her to him and +ride away into the hills. For he was a man who lived in his +sensations. He had won many women to their hurt, but it was the +joy of conflict that made the pursuit worth while to him; and +this young woman, who could so delightfully bubble with little +laughs ready to spill over and was yet possessed of a spirit so +finely superior to the tenderness of her soft, round, maidenly +curves, allured him mightily to the attack. + +She dropped the revolver back into the bag and shut the clasp +with a click, "And now I think, Mr. Bannister, that I'll not +detain you any longer. We understand each other sufficiently." + +He rose with a laugh that mocked. "I expaict to spend quite a bit +of time understanding y'u one of these days. In the meantime this +is to our better acquaintance." + +Deliberately, without the least haste, he stooped and kissed her +before she could rally from the staggering surprise of the +intention she read in his eyes too late to elude. Then, with the +coolest bravado in the world, he turned on his heel and strolled away. + +Angry sapphires gleamed at him from under the long, brown lashes. +She was furious, aghast, daunted. By the merest chance she was +sitting in a corner of the box, so screened from observation that +none could see. But the insolence of him, the reckless defiance +of all standards of society, shook her even while it enraged her. +He had put forth his claim like a braggart, but he had made good +with an audacity superb in its effrontery. How she hated him! How +she feared him! The thoughts were woven inseparably in her mind. +Mephisto himself could not have impressed himself more +imperatively than this strutting, heartless master artist in +vice. + +She saw him again presently down in the arena, for it was his +turn to show his skill at roping. Texas had done well; very well, +indeed. He had made the throw and tie in thirty-seven seconds, +which was two seconds faster than the record of the previous +year. But she knew instinctively, as her fascinated eyes watched +the outlaw preparing for the feat, that he was going to win. He +would use his success as a weapon against her; as a means of +showing her that he always succeeded in whatever he undertook. So +she interpreted he look he flung her as he waited at the chute +for the wild hill steer to be driven into the arena. It takes a +good man physically to make a successful roper. He must be +possessed of nerve, skill and endurance far out of the ordinary. +He must be quick-eyed, strong-handed, nimble of foot, expert of +hand and built like a wildcat. So Denver explained to the two +young women in the box, and the one behind him admitted +reluctantly that she long, lean, supple Centaur waiting +impassively at the gateway fitted the specifications. + +Out flashed the rough-coated hill steer, wild and fleet as a +hare, thin and leggy, with muscles of whipcord. Down went the +flag, and the stopwatches began to tick off the seconds. Like an +arrow the outlaw's pony shot forward, a lariat circling round and +round the rider's head. At every leap the cow pony lessened the +gap as it pounded forward on the heels of the flying steer. + +The loop swept forward and dropped over the horns of the animal. +The pony, with the perfect craft of long practice, swerved to one +side with a rush. The dragging rope swung up against the running +steer's legs, grew suddenly taut. Down went the steer's head, and +next moment its feet were swept from under it as it went heavily +to the ground. Man and horse were perfect in their team work. As +the supple rider slid from the back of the pony it ran to the end +of the rope and braced itself to keep the animal from rising. +Bannister leaped on the steer, tie-rope in hand. Swiftly his deft +hands passed to and fro, making the necessary loops and knots. +Then his hands went into the air. The steer was hog-tied. + +For a few seconds the judges consulted together. "Twenty-nine +seconds," announced their spokesman, and at the words a great +cheer went up. Bannister had made his tie in record time. + +Impudently the scoundrel sauntered up to the grand stand, bowed +elaborately to Miss Messiter, and perched himself on the fence, +where he might be the observed of all observers. It was curious, +she thought, how his vanity walked hand in hand with so much +power and force. He was really extraordinarily strong, but no +debutante's self-sufficiency could have excelled his. He was so +frankly an egotist that it ceased to be a weakness. + +Back in her room at the hotel an hour later Helen paced up and +down under a nervous strain foreign to her temperament. She was +afraid; for the first time in her life definitely afraid. This +man pitted against her had deliberately divorced his life from +morality. In him lay no appeal to any conscience court of last +resort. But the terror of this was not for herself principally, +but for her flying lover. With his indubitable power, backed by +the unpopularity of the sheepman in this cattle country, the King +of the Bighorn could destroy his cousin if he set himself to do +so. Of this she was convinced, and her conviction carried a +certainty that he had the will as well as the means. If he had +lacked anything in motive she herself had supplied one. For she +was afraid that this villain had read her heart. + +And as her hand went fluttering to her heart she found small +comfort in the paper lying next it that only a few hours before +had brought her joy. For at any moment a messenger might come in +to tell her that the writer of it had been captured and was to be +dealt with summarily in frontier fashion. At best her lover and +her friend were but fugitives from justice. Against them were +arrayed not only the ruffian followers of their enemy, but also +the lawfully constituted authorities of the county. Even if they +should escape to-day the net would tighten on them, and they +would eventually be captured. + +For the third time since coming to Wyoming Helen found refuge in +tears. + + + +CHAPTER 17. RUN TO EARTH + +When word came to Denver and the other punchers of the Lazy D +that Reddy had been pressed into service as a guide for the posse +that was pursuing the fugitives they gave vent to their feelings +in choice profanity. + +"Now, ain't that like him? Had to run around like a locoed calf +telling all he knowed and more till Burns ropes him in," +commented the disgusted Missou. + +"Trouble with Reddy is he sets his mouth to working and then goes +away and leaves it," mourned Jim Henson. + +"I'd hate to feel as sore as Reddy will when the boys get through +playing with him after he gets back to the ranch," Denver +contributed, when he had exhausted his vocabulary. + +Meanwhile Reddy, unaware of being a cause of offense, was +cheerfully happy in the unexpected honor that had been thrust +upon him. His will was of putty, molded into the opinion of +whomever he happened at the moment to be with. Just now, with the +ironic eye of Sheriff Burns upon him, he was strong for law +enforcement. + +"A feller hadn't ought to be so promiscuous with his hardware. +This here thing of shooting up citizens don't do Wyoming no good +these days. Capital ain't a-going to come in when such goings-on +occur," he sagely opined, unconsciously parroting the sentiment +Burns had just been instilling into him. + +"That's right, sir. If that ain't horse sense I don't know any. +You got a head on you, all right," answered the admiring sheriff. + +The flattered Reddy pleaded guilty to being wiser than most men. +"Jest because I punch cows ain't any reason why I'm anybody's +fool. I'll show them smart boys at the Lazy D I don't have to +take the dust of any of the bunch when it comes to using my think +tank." + +"I would," sympathized Burns. You bet they'll all be almighty +jealous when they learn how you was chosen out of the whole +outfit on this job." + +All day they rode, and that night camped a few miles from the +Lazy D. Early next morning they hailed a solitary rider as he +passed. The man turned out to be a cowman, with a small ranch not +far from the one owned by Miss Messiter. + +"Hello, Henderson! y'u seen anything of Jim McWilliams and +another fellow riding acrost this way?" asked Reddy. + +"Nope," answered the cowman promptly. But immediately he modified +his statement to add that he had seen two men riding toward Dry +Creek a couple of hours ago. "They was going kinder slow. Looked +to me sorter like one of them was hurt and the other was helping +him out," he volunteered. + +The sheriff looked significantly at one of his men and nodded. + +"You didn't recognize the horses, I reckon?" + +"Come to think of it, one of the ponies did look like Jim's roan. +What's up, boys? Anything doing?" + +"Nothing particular. We want to see Jim, that's all. So long." + +What Henderson had guessed was the truth. The continuous hard +riding had been too much for Bannister and his wound had opened +anew. They were at the time only a few miles from a shack on Dry +Creek, where the Lazy D punchers sometimes put up. McWilliams had +attended the wound as best he could, and after a few hours' rest +had headed for the cabin in the hills. They were compelled to +travel very slowly, since the motion kept the sheepman's wound +continually bleeding. But about noon they reached the refuge they +had been seeking and Bannister lay down on the bunk with their +saddle blankets under him. He soon fell asleep, and Mac took +advantage of this to set out on a foraging expedition to a ranch +not far distant. Here he got some bread, bacon, milk and eggs +from a man he could trust and returned to his friend. + +It was dark by the time he reached the cabin. He dismounted, and +with his arms full of provisions pushed into the hut. + +"Awake, Bann?" he asked in a low voice. + +The answer was unexpected. Something heavy struck his chest and +flung him back against the wall. Before he could recover his +balance he was pinioned fast. Four men had hurled themselves upon +him. + +"We've got you, Jim. Not a mite o' use resisting," counseled the +sheriff. + +"Think I don't savez that? I can take a hint when a whole +Methodist church falls on me. Who are y'u, anyhow?" + +"Somebody light a lantern," ordered Burns. + +By the dim light it cast Mac made them out, and saw Ned Bannister +gagged and handcuffed on the bed. He knew a moment of surprise +when his eyes fell on Reddy. + +"So it was y'u brought them here, Red?" he said quietly. + +Contrary to his own expectations, the gentleman named was +embarrassed "The sheriff, he summoned me to serve," was his lame +defense. + +"And so y'u threw down your friends. Good boy!" + +"A man's got to back the law up, ain't he?" + +Mac turned his shoulder on him rather pointedly. "There isn't any +need of keeping that gag in my friend's mouth any longer," he +suggested to Burns. + +"That's right, too. Take it out, boys. I got to do my duty, but I +don't aim to make any gentleman more uncomfortable than I can +help. I want everything to be pleasant all round." + +"I'm right glad to hear that, Burns, because my friend isn't fit +to travel. Y'u can take me back and leave him out here with a +guard," the foreman replied quickly. + +"Sorry I can't accommodate you, Jim, but I got to take y'u both +with me." + +"Those are the orders of the King, are they?" + +Burns flushed darkly. "It ain't going to do you any good to talk +that way. You know mighty well this here man with you is +Bannister. I ain't going to take no chances on losing him now +I've got my hand on him." + +"Y'u ce'tainly deserve a re-election, and I'll bet y'u get it all +right. Any man so given over to duty, so plumb loaded down to the +hocks with conscience as y'u, will surely come back with a big +majority next November." + +"I ain't askin' for YOUR vote, Mac." + +"Oh, y'u don't need votes. Just get the King to O. K. your +nomination and y'u'll win in a walk." + +"My friend, y'u better mind your own business. Far as I can make +out y'u got troubles enough of your own," retorted the nettled +sheriff. + +"Y'u don't need to tell me that, Tom Burns' Y'u ain't a +man--nothing but a stuffed skin worked by a string. When that +miscreant Bannister pulls the string y'u jump. He's jerked it +now, so y'u're taking us back to him. I can prove that coyote +Morgan shot at me first, but that doesn't cut any ice with you." + +"What made you light out so sudden, then?" demanded the aggrieved +Burns triumphantly. + +"Because I knew you. That's a plenty good reason. I'm not asking +anything for myself. All I say is that my friend isn't fit to +travel yet. Let him stay here under a guard till he is." + +"He was fit enough to get here. By thunder, he's fit to go back!" + +"Y'u've said enough, Mac," broke in Bannister. "It's awfully good +of y'u to speak for me, but I would rather see it out with you to +a finish. I don't want any favors from this yellow dog of my +cousin." + +The "yellow dog" set his teeth and swore vindictively behind +them. He was already imagining an hour when these insolent +prisoners of his would sing another tune. + + + +CHAPTER 18. PLAYING FOR TIME + +"They've got 'em. Caught them on Dry Creek, just below Green +Forks." + +Helen Messiter, just finishing her breakfast at the hotel +preparatory to leaving in her machine for the ranch, laid down +her knife and fork and looked with dilated eyes at Denver, who +had broken in with the news. + +"Are you sure?" The color had washed from her face and left her +very white, but she fronted the situation quietly without +hysterics or fuss of any kind. + +"Yes, ma'am. They're bringing them in now to jail. Watch out and +y'u'll see them pass here in a few minutes. Seems that +Bannister's wound opened up on him and he couldn't go any +farther. Course Mac wouldn't leave him. Sheriff Burns and his +posse dropped in on them and had them covered before Mac could +chirp." + +"You are sure this man--this desperado Bannister--will do nothing +till night?" + +"Not the way I figure it. He'll have the jail watched all day. +But he's got to work the town up to a lynching. I expect the bars +will be free for all to-day. By night the worst part of this town +will be ready for anything. The rest of the citizens are going to +sit down and do nothing just because it is Bannister." + +"But it isn't Bannister--not the Bannister they think it is." + +He shook his head. "No use, ma'am. I've talked till my throat +aches, but it don't do a mite of good. Nobody believes a word of +what I say. Y'u see, we ain't got any proof." + +"Proof! We have enough, God knows! didn't this villain--this +outlaw that calls himself Jack Holloway--attack and try to murder +him?" + +"That's what we believe, but the report out is that one of us +punchers shot him up for crossing the dead-line." + +"Didn't this fellow hold up the ranch and try to take Ned +Bannister away with him?" + +"Yes, ma'am. But that doesn't look good to most people. They say +he had his friends come to take him away so y'u wouldn't hold him +and let us boys get him. This cousin business is a fairy tale the +way they size it up. How come this cousin to let him go if he +held up the ranch to put the sick man out of business? No, miss. +This country has made up its mind that your friend is the +original Ned Bannister. My opinion is that nothing on earth can +save him." + +"I don't want your opinion. I'm going to save him, I tell you; +and you are going to help. Are his friends nothing but a bunch of +quitters?" she cried, with sparkling eyes. + +"I didn't know I was such a great friend of his," answered the +cowboy sulkily. + +"You're a friend of Jim McWilliams, aren't you? Are you going to +sneak away and let these curs hang him?" + +Denver flushed. "Y'u're dead right, Miss Helen. I guess I'll see +it out with you. What's the orders?" + +"I want you to help me organize a defense. Get all Mac's friends +stirred up to make a fight for him. Bring as many of them in to +see me during the day as you can. If you see any of the rest of +the Lazy D boys send them in to me for instructions. Report +yourself every hour to me. And make sure that at least three of +your friends that you can trust are hanging round the jail all +day so as to be ready in case any attempt is made to storm it +before dark." + +"I'll see to it." Denver hung on his heel a moment before +leaving. "It's only square to tell y'u, Miss Helen, that this +means war here tonight. These streets are going to run with blood +if we try to save them." + +"I'm taking that responsibility," she told him curtly; but a +moment later she added gently: "I have a plan, my friend, that +may stop this outrage yet. But you must do your best for me." She +smiled sadly at him. "You're my foreman, to-day, you know." + +"I'm going to do my level best, y'u may tie to that," he told her +earnestly. + +"I know you will." And their fingers touched for an instant. + +Through a window the girl could see a crowd pouring down the +street toward the hotel. She flew up the stairs and out upon the +second-story piazza that looked down upon the road. + +From her point of vantage she easily picked them out--the two +unarmed men riding with their hands tied behind their backs, +encircled by a dozen riders armed to the teeth. Bannister's hat +had apparently fallen off farther down the street, for the man +beside him was dusting it. The wounded prisoner looked about him +without fear, but it was plain he was near the limit of +endurance. He was pale as a sheet, and his fair curls clung +moistly to his damp forehead. + +McWilliams caught sight of her first, and she could see him turn +and say a word to his comrade. Bannister looked up, caught sight +of her, and smiled. That smile, so pale and wan, went to her +heart like a knife. But the message of her eyes was hope. They +told the prisoners silently to be of good cheer, that at least +they were not deserted to their fate. + +"What is it about--the crowd?" Nora asked of her mistress as the +latter was returning to the head of the stairs. + +In as few words as she could Helen told her, repressing sharply +the tears the girl began to shed. "This is not the time to +weep--not yet. We must save them. You can do your part. Mr. +Bannister is wounded. Get a doctor over the telephone and see +that he attends him at the. Don't leave the 'phone until you have +got one to promise to go immediately." + +"Yes, miss. Is there anything else?" + +"Ask the doctor to call you up from the prison and tell you how +Mr. Bannister is. Make it plain to him that he is to give up his +other practice, if necessary, and is to keep us informed through +the day about his patient's condition. I will be responsible for +his bill." + +Helen herself hurried to the telegraph office at the depot. She +wrote out a long dispatch and handed it to the operator. "Send +this at once please." + +He was one of those supercilious young idiots that make the most +of such small power as ever drifts down to them. Taking the +message, he tossed it on the table. "I'll send it when I get +time." + +"You'll send it now." + +"What--what's that?" + +Her steady eyes caught and held his shifting ones. "I say you are +going to send it now--this very minute." + +"I guess not. The line's busy," he bluffed. + +"If you don't begin sending that message this minute I'll make it +my business to see that you lose your position," she told him +calmly. + +He snatched up the paper from the place where he had tossed it. +"Oh, well, if it's so darned important," he-conceded +ungraciously. + +She stood quietly above him while he sent the telegram, even +though he contrived to make every moment of her stay an unvoiced +insult. Her wire was to the wife of the Governor of the State. +They had been close friends at school, and the latter had been +urging Helen to pay a visit to Cheyenne. The message she sent was +as follows: + +Battle imminent between outlaws and cattlemen here. Bloodshed +certain to-night. My foreman last night killed in self-defense a +desperado. Bannister's gang, in league with town authorities, +mean to lynch him and one of my other friends after dark this +evening. Sheriff will do nothing. Can your husband send soldiers +immediately? Wire answer. + +The operator looked up sullenly after his fingers had finished +the last tap. "Well?" + +"Just one thing more," Helen told him. "You understand the rules +of the company about secrecy. Nobody you knows I am sending this +message. If by any chance it should leak out, I shall know +through whom. If you want to hold your position, you will keep +quiet." + +"I know my business," he growled. Nevertheless, she had spoken in +season, for he had had it in his mind to give a tip where he knew +it would be understood to hasten the jail delivery and +accompanying lynching. + +When she returned to the hotel? Helen found Missou waiting for +her. She immediately sent him back to the office, and told him to +wait there until the answer was received. "I'll send one of the +boys up to relieve you so that you may come with the telegram as +soon as it arrives. I want the operator watched all day. Oh, +here's Jim Henson! Denver has explained the situation to you, I +presume. I want you to go up to the telegraph office and stay +there all day. Go to lunch with the operator when he goes. +Don't let him talk privately to anybody, not even for a few +seconds. I don't want you to seem to have him under guard before +outsiders, but let him know it very plainly. He is not to mention +a wire I sent or the answer to it--not to anybody, Jim. Is that +plain?" + +"Y'u bet! He's a clam, all right, till the order is +countermanded." And the young man departed with a cheerful grin +that assured Helen she had nothing to fear from official leaks. + +Nora, from answering a telephone call, came to report to the +general in charge. "The doctor says that he has looked after Mr. +Bannister, and there is no immediate danger. If he keeps quiet +for a few days he ought to do well. Mr. McWilliams sent a message +by him to say that we aren't to worry about him. He said he +would--would--rope a heap of cows on the Lazy D yet." + +Nora, bursting into tears, flung herself into Helen's arms. "They +are going to kill him. I know they are, and--and 'twas only +yesterday, ma'am, I told him not to--to get gay, the poor boy. +When he tried to--to--" She broke down and sobbed. + +Her mistress smiled in spite of herself, though she was bitterly +aware that even Nora's grief was only superficially ludicrous. + +"We're going to save him, Nora, if we can. There's hope while +there's life. You see, Mac himself is full of courage. HE hasn't +given up. We must keep up our courage, too." + +"Yes, ma'am, but this is the first gentleman friend I ever had +hanged, and--" She broke off, sobbing, leaving the rest as a +guess. + +Helen filled it out aloud. "And you were going to say that you +care more for him than any of the others. Well, you must stop +coquetting and tell him so when we have saved him." + +"Yes, ma'am," agreed Nora, very repentant for the moment of the +fact that it was her nature to play with the hearts of those of +the male persuasion. Immediately she added: "He was THAT kind, +ma'am, tender-hearted." + +Helen, whose own heart was breaking, continued to soothe her. +"Don't say WAS, child. You are to be brave, and not think of him +that way." + +"Yes, ma'am. He told me he was going to buy cows with the +thousand dollars he won yesterday. I knew he meant--" + +"Yes, of course. It's a cowboy's way of saying that he means to +start housekeeping. Have you the telegram, Missou?" For that +young man was standing in the doorway. + +He handed her the yellow slip. She ripped open the envelope and +read: Company B en route. Railroad connections uncertain Postpone +crisis long as possible. May reach Gimlet Butte by ten-thirty. + +Her first thought was of unspeakable relief. The militia was +going to take a hand. The boys in khaki would come marching down +the street, and everything would be all right. But hard on the +heels of her instinctive gladness trod the sober second thought. +Ten-thirty at best, and perhaps later! Would they wait that long, +or would they do their cowardly work as soon as night fell She +must contrive to delay them till the train drew in. She must play +for those two lives with all her woman's wit; must match the +outlaw's sinister cunning and fool him into delay. She knew he +would come if she sent for him. But how long could she keep him? +As long as he was amused at her agony, as long as his pleasure in +tormenting her was greater than his impatience to be at his +ruffianly work. Oh, if she ever needed all her power it would be +to-night. + +Throughout the day she continued to receive hourly reports from +Denver, who always brought with him four or five honest +cowpunchers from up-country to listen to the strange tale she +unfolded to them. It was, of course, in part, the spell of her +sweet personality, of that shy appeal she made to the manhood in +them; but of those who came, nearly all believed, for the time at +least, and aligned themselves on her side in the struggle that +was impending. Some of these were swayed from their allegiance in +the course of the day, but a few she knew would remain true. + +Meanwhile, all through the day, the enemy was busily at work. As +Denver had predicted, free liquor was served to all who would +drink. The town and its guests were started on a grand debauch +that was to end in violence that might shock their sober +intelligence. Everywhere poisoned whispers were being flung +broadcast against the two men waiting in the jail for what the +night would bring forth. + +Dusk fell on a town crazed by bad whiskey and evil report. The +deeds of Bannister were hashed and rehashed at every bar, and +nobody related them with more ironic gusto than the man who +called himself Jack Holloway. There were people in town who knew +his real name and character, but of these the majority were +either in alliance with him or dared not voice their knowledge. +Only Miss Messiter and her punchers told the truth, and their +words were blown away like chaff. + +From the first moment of darkness Helen had the outlaw leader +dogged by two of her men. Since neither of these were her own +riders this was done without suspicion. At intervals of every +quarter of an hour they reported to her in turn. Bannister was +beginning to drink heavily, and she did not want to cut short his +dissipation by a single minute. Yet she had to make sure of +getting his attention before he went too far. + +It was close to nine when she sent him a note, not daring to +delay a minute longer. For the reports of her men were all to the +same effect, that the crisis would not now be long postponed. +Bannister, or Holloway, as he chose to call himself, was at the +bar with his lieutenants in evil when the note reached him. He +read it with a satisfaction he could not conceal. So! He had +brought her already to her knees. Before he was through with her +she should grovel in the dust before him. + +"I'll be back in a few minutes. Do nothing till I return," he +ordered, and went jingling away to the Elk House. + +The young woman's anxiety was pitiable, but she repressed it +sternly when she went to meet the man she feared; and never had +it been more in evidence than in this hour of her greatest +torture. Blithely she came forward to meet him, eye challenging +eye gayly. No hint of her anguish escaped into her manner. He +read there only coquetry, the eternal sex conflict, the winsome +defiance of a woman hitherto the virgin mistress of all assaults +upon her heart's citadel. It was the last thing he had expected +to see, but it was infinitely more piquant, more intoxicating, +than desperation. She seemed to give the lie to his impression of +her love for his cousin; and that, too, delighted his pride. + +"You will sit down?" + +Carelessly, almost indolently, she put the question, her raised +eyebrows indicating a chair with perfunctory hospitality. He had +not meant to sit, had expected only to gloat a few minutes over +her despair; but this situation called for more deliberation. He +had yet to establish the mastery his vanity demanded. Therefore +he took a chair. + +"This is ce'tainly an unexpected honor. Did y'u send for me to +explain some more about that sufficient understanding between +us?" he sneered. + +It was a great relief to her to see that, though he had been +drinking, as she had heard, he was entirely master of himself. +Her efforts might still be directed to Philip sober. + +"I sent for you to congratulate you," she answered, with a smile. +"You are a bigger man than I thought. You have done what you said +you would do, and I presume you can very shortly go out of +mourning." + +He radiated vanity, seemed to visibly expand "Do y'u go in when I +go out?" he asked brutally. + +She laughed lightly. "Hardly. But it does seem as if I'm unlucky +in my foremen. They all seem to have engagements across the +divide." + +"I'll get y u another." + +"Thank you. I was going to ask as much of you. Can you suggest +one now?" + +"I'm a right good cattle man myself." + +"And--can you stay with me a reasonable time?" + +He laughed. "I have no engagements across the Styx, ma'am." + +"My other foremen thought they were permanent fixtures here, +too." + +"We're all liable to mistakes." + +"Even you, I suppose." + +"I'll sign a lease to give y'u possession of my skill for as long +as y'u like." + +She settled herself comfortably back in an easy chair, as +alluring a picture of buoyant, radiant youth as he had seen in +many a day. "But the terms. I am afraid I can't offer you as much +as you make at your present occupation." + +"I could keep that up as a side-line." + +"So you could. But if you use my time for your own profit, you +ought to pay me a royalty on your intake." + +His eyes lit with laughter. "I reckon that can be arranged. Any +percentage you think fair It will all be in the family, anyway." + +"I think that is one of the things about which we don't agree," +she made answer softly, flashing him the proper look of inviting +disdain from under her silken lashes. + +He leaned forward, elbow on the chair-arm and chin in hand. +"We'll agree about it one of these days." + +"Think so?" she returned airily. + +"I don't think. I know." + +Just an eyebeat her gaze met his, with that hint of shy +questioning, of puzzled doubt that showed a growing interest. "I +wonder," she murmured, and recovered herself little laugh. + +How she hated her task, and him! She was a singularly honest +woman, but she must play the siren; must allure this scoundrel to +forgetfulness, with a hurried and yet elude the very familiarity +her manner invited. She knew her part, the heartless enticing +coquette, compounded half of passion and half of selfishness. It +was a hateful thing to do, this sacrifice of her personal +reticence, of the individual abstraction in which she wrapped +herself as a cloak, in order to hint at a possibility of some +intimacy of feeling between them. She shrank from it with a +repugnance hardly to be overcome, but she held herself with an +iron will and consummate art to the role she had undertaken. Two +lives hung on her success. She must not forget that. She would +not let herself forget that--and one of them that of the man she +loved. + +So, bravely she played her part, repelling always with a hint of +invitation, denying with the promise in her fascinated eyes of +ultimate surrender to his ardor. In the zest of the pursuit the +minutes slipped away unnoticed. Never had a woman seemed to him +more subtly elusive, and never had he felt more sure of himself. +Her charm grew on him, stirred his pulses to a faster beat. For +it was his favorite sport, and this warm, supple young creature, +who was to be the victim of his bow and arrow, showed herself +worthy of his mettle. + +The clock downstairs struck the half-hour, and Bannister, +reminded of what lay before him outside, made a move to go. Her +alert eyes had been expecting it, and she forestalled him by a +change of tactics. Moved apparently by impulse, she seated +herself on the piano-stool, swept the keys for an instant with +her fingers, and plunged into the brilliant "Carmen" overture. +Susceptible as this man was to the influence of music, he could +not fail to be arrested by so perfect an interpretation of his +mood. He stood rooted, was carried back again in imagination to a +great artiste's rendering of that story of fierce passion and +aching desire so brilliantly enacted under the white sunbeat of a +country of cloudless skies. Imperceptibly she drifted into other +parts of the opera. Was it the wild, gypsy seductiveness of +_Carmen_ that he felt, or, rather, this American girl's +allurement? From "Love will like a birdling fly" she slipped into +the exquisitely graceful snatches of song with which _Carmen_ +answers the officer's questions. Their rare buoyancy marched with +his mood, and from them she carried him into the song "Over the +hill," that is so perfect and romantic an expression of the +_wanderlust._ + +How long she could have held him she will never know, for at that +inopportune time came blundering one of his men into the room +with a call for his presence to take charge of the situation +outside. + +"What do y'u want, Bostwick?" he demanded, with curt +peremptoriness. + +The man whispered in his ear. + +"Can't wait any longer, can't they?" snapped his chief. "Y'u tell +them they'll wait till I give the word. Understand?" + +He almost flung the man out of the room, but Helen noticed that +she had lost him. His interest was perfunctory, and, though he +remained a little time longer, it was to establish his authority +with the men rather than to listen to her. Twice he looked at his +watch within five minutes. + +He rose to go. "There is a little piece of business I have to put +through. So I'll have to ask y'u to excuse me. I have had a +delightful hour, and I hate to go." He smiled, and quoted with +mock sentimentality: + +"The hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of +pearls to me; I count them over, every one apart, My rosary! My +rosary!" + +"Dear me! One certainly lives and learns. How could I have +guessed that, with your reputation, you could afford to indulge +in a rosary?" she mocked. + +"Good night." He offered his hand. + +"Don't go yet," she coaxed. + +He shook his head. "Duty, y'u know." + +"Stay only a little longer. Just ten minutes more." + +His vanity purred, so softly she stroked it. "Can't. Wish I +could. Y'u hear how noisy things are getting. I've got to take +charge. So-long." + +She stood close, looking up at him with a face of seductive +appeal. + +"Don't go yet. Please!" + +The triumph of victory mounted to his head. "I'll come back when +I've done what I've got to do." + +"No, no. Stay a little longer just a little." + +"Not a minute, sweetheart." + +He bent to kiss her, and a little clenched fist struck his face. + +"Don't you dare!" she cried. + +The outraged woman in her, curbed all evening with an iron bit, +escaped from control. Delightedly he laughed. The hot spirit in +her pleased him mightily. He took her little hands and held them +in one of his while he smiled down at her. "I guess that kiss +will keep, my girl, till I come back." + +"My God! Are you going to kill your own cousin?" + +All her terror, all her detestation and hatred of him, looked +haggardly out of her unmasked face. His narrowed eyes searched +her heart, and his countenance grew every second more sinister, + +"Y'u have been fooling me all evening, then?" + +"Yes, and hating you every minute of the time." + +"Y'u dared?" His face was black with rage. + +"You would like to kill me. Why don't you?" + +"Because I know a better revenge. I'm going out to take it now. +After your lover is dead, I'll come back and make love to y'u +again," he sneered. + +"Never!" She stood before him like a queen in her lissom, brave, +defiant youth. "And as for your cousin, you may kill him, but you +can't destroy his contempt for you. He will die despising you for +a coward and a scoundrel." + +It was true, and he knew it. In his heart he cursed her, while he +vainly sought some weapon that would strike home through her +impervious armor. + +"Y'u love him. I'll remember that when I see him kick," he +taunted. + +"I make you a present of the information. I love him, and I +despise you. Nothing can change those facts," she retorted +whitely. + +"Mebbe, but some day y'u'll crawl on your knees to beg my pardon +for having told me so." + +"There is your overweening vanity again," she commented. + +"I'm going to break y'u, my beauty, so that y'u'll come running +when I snap my fingers." + +"We'll see." + +"And in the meantime I'll go hang your lover." He bowed +ironically, swung on his jingling heel, and strode out of the +room. + +She stood there listening to his dying footfalls, then covered +her face with her hands, as if to press back the dreadful vision +her mind conjured. + + + +CHAPTER 19. WEST POINT TO THE RESCUE + +It was understood that the sheriff should make a perfunctory +defense against the mob in order to "square" him with the voters +at the election soon to be held. But the word had been quietly +passed that the bullets of the prison guards would be fired over +the heads of the attackers. This assurance lent an added +braggadocio to the Dutch courage of the lynchers. Many of them +who would otherwise have hung back distinguished themselves by +the enthusiasm which they displayed. + +Bannister himself generaled the affair, detailing squads to +batter down the outer door, to guard every side of the prison, +and to overpower the sheriff's guard. That official, according to +programme, appeared at a window and made a little speech, +declaring his intention of performing his duty at whatever cost. +He was hooted down with jeers and laughter, and immediately the +attack commenced. + +The yells of the attackers mingled with the sound of the +axe-blows and the report of revolvers from inside the building. +Among those nearest to the door being battered down were Denver +and the few men he had with him. His plan offered merely a +forlorn hope. It was that in the first scramble to get in after +the way was opened he and his friends might push up the stairs in +the van, and hold the corridor for as long as they could against +the furious mob. + +It took less than a quarter of an hour to batter down the door, +and among the first of those who sprang across the threshold were +Denver, Missou, Frisco and their allies. While others stopped to +overpower the struggling deputies according to the arranged +farce, they hurried upstairs and discovered the cell in which +their friends were fastened. + +Frisco passed a revolver through the grating to McWilliams, and +another to Bannister. "Haven't got the keys, so I can't let y'u +out, old hoss," he told the foreman. "But mebbe y'u won't feel so +lonesome with these little toys to play with." + +Meanwhile Denver, a young giant of seventy-six inches, held the +head of the stairs, with four stalwart plainsmen back of him. The +rush of many feet came up pell-mell, and he flung the leaders +back on those behind. + +"Hold on there. This isn't a free-lunch counter. Don't you see +we're crowded up here already?" + +"What's eating you ? Whyfor, can't we come?" growled one of the +foremost nursing an injured nose. + +"I've just explained to you, son, that it's crowded. Folks are +prevalent enough up here right now. Send up that bunch of keys +and we'll bring your meat to you fast enough." + +"What's that? What's that?" The outlaw chief pushed his way +through the dense mob at the door and reached the stairway. + +"He won't let us up," growled one of them. + +"Who won't?" demanded Bannister sharply, and at once came leaping +up the stairs. + +"Nothing doing," drawled Frisco, and tossed him over the railing +on to the heads of his followers below. + +They carried Bannister into the open air, for his head had struck +the newel-post in his descent. This gave the defense a few +minutes respite. + +"They're going to come a-shooting next time," remarked Denver. +"Just as soon as he comes back from bye-low land you'll see +things hum." + +"Y'u bet," agreed Missou. We'll last about three minutes when the +stampede begins." + +The scream of an engine pierced the night. + +Denver's face lit. "Make it five minutes, Missou, and Mac is +safe. At least, I'm hoping so awful hard. Miss Helen wired for +the militia from Sheridan this nothing. Chances are they're on +that train. I couldn't tell you earlier because she made me +promise not to. She was afraid it might leak out and get things +started sooner. " + +Weak but furious, the miscreant from the Shoshones returned to +the attack. "Break in the back door and sneak up behind on those +fellows. We'll have the men we want inside of fifteen minutes," +he promised the mob. + +"We'll rush them from both sides, and show those guys on the +landing whether they can stop us," added Bostwick. + +Suddenly some one raised the cry, "The soldiers!" Bannister +looked up the street and swore a vicious oath. Swinging down the +road at double time came a company of militia in khaki. He was +mad with baffled fury, but he made good his retreat at once and +disappeared promptly into the nearest dark alley. + +The mob scattered by universal impulse; disintegrated so promptly +that within five minutes the soldiers held the ground alone, save +for the officials of the prison and Denver's little band. + +A boyish lieutenant lately out of the Point, and just come in to +a lieutenancy in the militia, was in command. "In time?" he asked +anxiously, for this was his first independent expedition. + +"Y'u bet," chuckled Denver. "We're right glad to see you, and +I'll bet those boys in the cage ain't regretting your arrival +any. Fifteen minutes later and you would have been in time to +hold the funeral services, I reckon." + +"Where is Miss Messiter?" asked the young officer. + +"She's at the Elk House, colonel. I expect some of us better +drift over there and tell her it's all right. She's the gamest +little woman that ever crossed the Wyoming line. Hadn't been for +her these boys would have been across the divide hours ago. She's +a plumb thoroughbred. Wouldn't give up an inch. All day she has +generaled this thing; played a mighty weak hand for a heap more +than it was worth. Sand? Seh: she's grit clear through, if +anybody asks you." And Denver told the story of the day, making +much of her unflinching courage and nothing of her men's +readiness to back whatever steps she decided upon. + +It was ten minutes past eleven when a smooth young, apple-cheeked +lad in khaki presented himself before Helen Messiter with a bow +never invented outside of West Point. + +"I am Lieutenant Beecher. Governor Raleigh presents his +compliments by me, Miss Messiter, and is very glad to be able to +put at your service such forces as are needed to quiet the town." + +"You were in time?" she breathed. + +"With about five minutes to spare. I am having the prisoners +brought here for the night if you do not object. In the morning I +shall investigate the affair, and take such steps as are +necessary. In the meantime you may rest assured that there will +be no further disturbance." + +"Thank you I am sure that with you in command everything will now +be all right, and I am quite of your opinion that the prisoners +had better stay here for the night. One of them is wounded, and +ought to be given the best attention. But, of course, you will +see to that, lieutenant." + +The young man blushed. This was the right kind of appreciation. +He wished his old classmates at the Point could hear how +implicitly this sweet girl relied on him. + +"Certainly. And now, Miss Messiter, if there is nothing you wish, +I shall retire for the night. You may sleep with perfect +confidence." + +"I am sure I may, lieutenant." She gave him a broadside of +trusting eyes full of admiration. "But perhaps you would like me +to see my foreman first, just to relieve my mind. And, as you +were about to say, his friend might be brought in, too, since +they are together." + +The young man promptly assented, though he had not been aware +that he was about to say anything of the kind. + +They came in together, Bannister supported by McWilliams's arm. +The eyes of both mistress and maid brimmed over with tears when +they saw them. Helen dragged forward a chair for the sheepman, +and he sank into it. From its depths he looked up with his rare, +sweet smile. + +"I've heard about it," he told her, in a low voice. "I've heard +how y'u fought for my life all day. There's nothing I can say. I +owed y'u everything already twice, and now I owe it all over +again. Give me a lifetime and I couldn't get even." + +Helen's swift glance swept over Nora and the foreman. They were +in a dark alcove, oblivious of anybody else. Also they were in +each other's arms frankly. For some reason wine flowed into the +cream of Helen's cheeks. + +"Do you have to 'get even'? Among friends is that necessary?" she +asked shyly. + +"I hope not. If it is, I'm sure bankrupt Even my thanks seem to +stay at home. If y'u hadn't done so much for me, perhaps I could +tell y'u how much y'u had done But I have no words to say it." + +"Then don't," she advised. + +"Y'u're the best friend a man ever had. That's all I can say." + +"It's enough, since you mean it, even though it isn't true," she +answered gently. + +Their eyes met, fastened for an instant, and by common consent +looked away. + +As it chanced they were close to the window, their shadows +reflected on the blind. A man, slipping past in the street on +horseback, stopped at sight of that lighted window, with the +moving shadows, in an uncontrollable white fury. He slid from the +saddle, threw the reins over the horse's head to the ground, and +slipped his revolver from its holster and back to make sure that +he could draw it easily. Then he passed springily across the road +to the hotel and up the stairs. He trod lightly, stealthily, and +by his very wariness defeated his purpose of eluding observation. +For a pair of keen eyes from the hotel office glimpsed the figure +stealing past so noiselessly, and promptly followed up the +stairway. + +"Hope I don't intrude at this happy family gathering." + +Helen, who had been pouring a glass of cordial for the spent and +wounded sheepman, put the glass down on the table and turned at +sound of the silken, sinister voice. After one glance at the +vindictive face, from the cold eyes of which hate seemed to +smolder, she took an instinctive step toward her lover. The cold +wave that drenched her heart accompanied an assurance that the +man in the doorway meant trouble. + +His sleek smile arrested her. He was standing with his feet +apart, his hands clasped lightly behind his back, as natty and as +well groomed as was his wont. + +"Ah, make the most of what ye yet may spend, +Before ye, too, into the Dust descend; +Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie, +Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans +End!" + +he misquoted, with a sneer; and immediately interrupted his irony +to give way to one of his sudden blind rages. + +With incredible swiftness his right hand moved forward and up, +catching revolver from scabbard as it rose. But by a fraction of +a second his purpose had been anticipated. A closed fist shot +forward to the salient jaw in time to fling the bullets into the +ceiling. An arm encircled the outlaw's neck, and flung him +backward down the stairs. The railing broke his fall, and on it +his body slid downward, the weapon falling from his hand. He +pulled himself together at the foot of the stairs, crouched for +an upward rush, but changed his mind instantly. The young officer +who had flung him down had him covered with his own six-shooter. +He could hear footsteps running toward him, and he knew that in a +few seconds he would be in the hands of the soldiers. Plunging +out of the doorway, the desperado vaulted to the saddle and drove +his spurs home. For a minute hoofs pounded on the hard, white +road. Then the night swallowed him and the echo of his +disappearance. + +"That was Bannister of the Shoshones and the Tetons," the girl's +white lips pronounced to Lieutenant Beecher. + +"And I let him get away from me," the disappointed lad groaned. +"Why, I had him right in my hands. I could have throttled him as +easy. But how was I to know he would have nerve enough to come +rushing into a hotel full of soldiers hunting him?" + +"Y'u have a very persistent cousin, Mr. Bannister," said +McWilliams, coming forward from the alcove with shining eyes. +"And I must say he's game. Did y'u ever hear the like? Come +butting in here as cool as if he hadn't a thing to do but sing +out orders like he was in his own home. He was that easy." + +"It seems to me that a little of the praise is due Lieutenant +Beecher. If he hadn't dealt so competently with the situation +murder would have been done. Did you learn your boxing at the +Academy, Lieutenant?" Helen asked, trying to treat the situation +lightly in spite of her hammering heart. + +"I was the champion middleweight of our class," Beecher could not +help saying boyishly, with another of his blushes. + +"I can easily believe it," returned Helen. + +"I wish y'u would teach me how to double up a man so prompt and +immediate," said the admiring foreman. + +"I expect I'm under particular obligations to that straight right +to the chin, Lieutenant," chimed in the sheepman. "The fact is +that I don't seem to be able to get out anything except thanks +these days. I ought to send my cousin a letter thanking him for +giving me a chance to owe so much kindness to so many people." + +"Your cousin?" repeated the uncomprehending officer. + +"This desperado, Bannister, is my cousin," answered the sheepman +gravely. + +"But if he was your cousin, why should he want--to kill you?" + +"That's a long story, Lieutenant. Will y'u hear it now?" + +"If you feel strong enough to tell it." + +"Oh, I'm strong enough." He glanced at Helen. "Perhaps we had +better not tire Miss Messiter with it. If y'u'll come to my +room--" + +"I should like, above all things, to hear it again," interrupted +that young woman promptly. + +For the man she loved had just come back to her from the brink of +the grave and she was still reluctant to let him out of her +sight. + +So Ned Bannister told his story once more, and out of the alcove +came the happy foreman and Nora to listen to the tale. While he +told it his sweetheart's contented eyes were on him. The +excitement of the night burnt pleasantly in her veins, for out of +the nettle danger she had plucked safety for her sheepman. + + + +CHAPTER 20. TWO CASES OF DISCIPLINE + +The Fourth of July celebration at Gimlet Butte had been a thing +of the past for four days and the Lazy D had fallen back into the +routine of ranch life. The riders were discussing supper and the +continued absence of Reddy when that young man drew back the flap +and joined them. + +He stood near the doorway and grinned with embarrassed guilt at +the assembled company. + +"I reckon I got too much Fourth of July at Gimlet Butte, boys. +That's how come I to be onpunctual getting back." + +There was a long silence, during which those at the table looked +at him with an expressionless gravity that did not seem to veil +an unduly warm welcome. + +"Hello, Mac! Hello, boys! I just got back," he further +contributed. + +Without comment the Lazy D resumed supper. Apparently it had not +missed Reddy or noticed his return. Casual conversation was +picked up cheerfully. The return of the prodigal was quite +ignored. + +"Then that blamed cow gits its back up and makes a bee-line for +Rogers. The old man hikes for his pony and--" + +"Seems good to git my legs under the old table again," +interrupted Reddy with cheerful unease. + +"--loses by about half a second," continued Missou. "If Doc +hadn't roped its hind laig--" + +"Have some cigars, boys. I brought a box back with me." Reddy +tossed a handful on the table, where they continued to lie +unnoticed. + +"--there's no telling what would have happened. As 'twas the old +man got off with a--" + +"Y'u bet, they're good cigars all right," broke in the +propitiatory Reddy. + +The interrupted anecdote went on to a finish and the men trooped +out and left the prodigal alone with his hash. When that young +man reached the bunkhouse Frisco was indulging in a reminiscence. +Reddy got only the last of it, but that did not contribute to his +serenity. + +"Yep! When I was working on the Silver Dollar. Must a-been three +years ago, I reckon, when Jerry Miller got that chapping." + +"Threw down the outfit in a row they had with the Lafferty crowd, +didn't he?" asked Denver. + +Frisco nodded. + +Mac got up, glanced round, and reached for his hat. "I reckon +I'll have to be going," he said, and forthright departed. + +Reddy reached for HIS hat and rose. "I got to go and have a talk +with Mac," he explained. + +Denver got to the door first and his big frame filled it. + +"Don't hurry, Reddy. It ain't polite to rush away right after +dinner. Besides, Mac will be here all day. He ain't starting for +New York." + +"Y'u're gittin' blamed particular. Mac he went right out." + +"But Mac didn't have a most particular engagement with the boys. +There's a difference." + +"Why, I ain't got--" Reddy paused and looked around helplessly. + +"Gents, I move y'u that it be the horse sense of the Lazy D that +our friend Mr. Reddy Reeves be given gratis one chapping +immediately if not sooner. The reason for which same being that +he played a lowdown trick on the outfit whose bread he was +eating." + +"Oh, quit your foolin', boys," besought the victim anxiously. + +"And that Denver, being some able-bodied and having a good reach, +be requested to deliver same to the gent needing it," concluded +Missou. + +Reddy backed in alarm to the wall. "Y'u boys don't want to get +gay with me. Y'u can't monkey with--" + +Motion carried unanimously. + +Just as Reddy whipped out his revolver Denver's long leg shot out +and his foot caught the wrist behind the weapon. When Reddy next +took cognizance of his surroundings he was serving as a mattress +for the anatomy of three stalwart riders. He was gently deposited +face down on his bunk with a one-hundred-eighty-pound live peg at +the end of each arm and leg. + +"All ready, Denver," announced Frisco from the end of the left +foot. + +Denver selected a pair of plain leather chaps with care and +proceeded to business. What he had to do he did with energy. It +is safe to say that at least one of those present can still +vividly remember this and testify to his thoroughness. + +Mac drifted in after the disciplining. As foreman it was fitting +that he should be discreetly ignorant of what had occurred, but +he could not help saying: + +"That y'u I heard singing, Reddy? Seems to me y'u had ought to +take that voice into grand opera. The way y'u straddle them high +notes is a caution for fair. What was it y'u was singing? Sounded +like 'Would I were far from here, love.'" + +"Y'u go to hell," choked Reddy, rushing past him from the +bunkhouse. + +McWilliams looked round innocently. "I judge some of y'u boys +must a-been teasing Reddy from his manner. Seemed like he didn't +want to sit down and talk." + +"I shouldn't wonder but he'll hold his conversations standing for +a day or two," returned Missou gravely. + +At the end of the laugh that greeted this Mac replied: + +Well, y'u boys want to be gentle with him." "He's so plumb tender +now that I reckon he'll get along without any more treatment in +that line from us," drawled Frisco. + +Mac departed laughing. He had an engagement that recurred daily +in the dusk of the evening, and he was always careful to be on +time. The other party to the engagement met him at the kitchen +door and fell with him into the trail that led to Lee Ming's +laundry. + +"What made you late?" she asked. + +"I'm not late, honey. I seem late because you're so anxious," he +explained. + +"I'm not," protested Nora indignantly. "If you think you're the +only man on the place, Jim McWilliams " + +"Sho! Hold your hawsses a minute, Nora, darling. A spinster like +y'u--" + +"You think you're awful funny--writing in my autograph album that +a spinster's best friend is her powder box. I like Mr. Halliday's +ways better. He's a perfect gentleman." + +"I ain't got a word to say against Denver, even if he did write +in your book, + +"'Sugar is sweet, The sky is blue, Grass is green And so are +you.' + +I reckon, being a perfect gentleman, he meant--" + +"You know very well you wrote that in yourself and pretended it +was Mr. Halliday, signing his name and everything. It wasn't a +bit nice of you." + +"Now do I look like a forger?" he wanted to know with innocence +on his cherubic face. + +"Anyway you know it was mean. Mr. Halliday wouldn't do such a +thing. You take your arm down and keep it where it belongs, Mr. +McWilliams." + +"That ain't my name, Nora, darling, and I'd like to know where my +arm belongs if it isn't round the prettiest girl in Wyoming. +What's the use of being engaged if--" + +"I'm not sure I'm going to stay engaged to you," announced the +young woman coolly, walking at the opposite edge of the path from +him. + +"Now that ain't any way to talk " + +"You needn't lecture me. I'm not your wife and I don't think I'm +going to be," cut in Nora, whose temper was ruffled on account of +having had to wait for him as well as for other reasons. + +"Y'u surely wouldn't make me sue y'u for breach of promise, would +y'u?" he demanded, with a burlesque of anxiety that was the final +straw. + +Nora turned on her heel and headed for the house. + +"Now don't y'u get mad at me, honey. I was only joking," he +explained as he pursued her. + +"You think you can laugh at me all you please. I'll show you that +you can't," she informed him icily. + +"Sho! I wasn't laughing at y'u. What tickled me--" + +"I'm not interested in your amusement, Mr. McWilliams." + +"What's the use of flying out about a little thing like that? +Honest, I don't even know what you're mad at me for," the +perplexed foreman averred. + +"I'm not mad at you, as you call it. I'm simply disgusted." + +And with a final "Good night" flung haughtily over her shoulder +Miss Nora Darling disappeared into the house. + +Mac took off his hat and gazed at the door that had been closed +in his face. He scratched his puzzled poll in vain. + +"I ce'tainly got mine good and straight just like Reddy got his. +But what in time was it all about? And me thinkin' I was a +graduate in the study of the ladies. I reckon I never did get +jarred up so. It's plumb discouraging." + +If he could have caught a glimpse of Nora at that moment, lying +on her bed and crying as if her heart would break, Mac might have +found the situation less hopeless. + + + +CHAPTER 21. THE SIGNAL LIGHTS + +In a little hill-rift about a mile back of the Lazy D Ranch was a +deserted miner's cabin. + +The hut sat on the edge of a bluff that commanded a view of the +buildings below, while at the same time the pines that surrounded +it screened the shack from any casual observation. A thin curl of +smoke was rising from the mud chimney, and inside the cabin two +men lounged before the open fire. + +"It's his move, and he is going to make it soon. Every night I +look for him to drop down on the ranch. His hate's kind of +volcanic, Mr. Ned Bannister's is, and it's bound to bubble over +mighty sudden one of these days," said the younger of the two, +rising and stretching himself. + +"It did bubble over some when he drove two thousand of my sheep +over the bluff and killed the whole outfit," suggested the +namesake of the man mentioned. + +"Yes, I reckon that's some irritating," agreed McWilliams. "But +if I know him, he isn't going to be content with sheep so long as +he can take it out of a real live man." + +"Or woman," suggested the sheepman. + +"Or woman," agreed the other. "Especially when he thinks he can +cut y'u deeper by striking at her. If he doesn't raid the Lazy D +one of these nights, I'm a blamed poor prophet." + +Bannister nodded agreement. "He's near the end of his rope. He +could see that if he were blind. When we captured Bostwick and +they got a confession out of him, that started the landslide +against him. It began to be noised abroad that the government was +going to wipe him out. Folks began to lose their terror of him, +and after that his whole outfit began to want to turn State's +evidence. He isn't sure of one of them now; can't tell when he +will be shot in the back by one of his own scoundrels for that +two thousand dollars reward." + +The foreman strolled negligently to the door. His eyes drifted +indolently down into the valley, and immediately sparkled with +excitement. + +"The signal's out, Bann," he exclaimed. "It's in your window." + +The sheepman leaped to his feet and strode to the door. Down in +the valley a light was gleaming in a window. Even while he looked +another light appeared in a second window. + +"She wants us both," cried the foreman, running to the little +corral back of the house. + +He presently reappeared with two horses, both saddled, and they +took the downward trail at once. + +"If Miss Helen can keep him in play till we arrive," murmured Mac +anxiously. + +"She can if he gives her a chance, and I think he will. There's a +kind of cat instinct in him to play with his prey." + +"Yes, but he missed his kill last time by letting her fool him. +That's what I'm afraid of' that he won't wait." + +They had reached lower ground now, and could put their ponies at +a pounding gallop that ate up the trail fast. As they approached +the houses, both men drew rein and looked carefully to their +weapons. Then they slid from the saddles and slipped noiselessly +forward. + +What the foreman had said was exactly true. Helen Messiter did +want them both, and she wanted them very much indeed. + +After supper she had been dreamily playing over to herself one of +Chopin's waltzes, when she became aware, by some instinct, that +she was not alone in the room. There had been no least sound, no +slightest stir to betray an alien presence. Yet that some one was +in the room she knew, and by some subtle sixth sense could even +put a name to the intruder. + +Without turning she called over her shoulder: "Shall I finish the +waltz?" No faintest tremor in the clear, sweet voice betrayed the +racing heart. + +"Y'u're a cool hand, my friend," came his ready answer. "But I +think we'll dispense with the music. I had enough last time to +serve me for twice." + +She laughed as she swung on the stool, with that musical scorn +which both allured and maddened. "I did rather do you that time," +she allowed. + +"This is the return match. You won then. I win now," he told her, +with a look that chilled. + +"Indeed! But isn't that rather discounting the future?" + +"Only the immediate future. Y'u're mine, my beauty, and I mean to +take y'u with me." + +Just a disdainful sweep of her eyes she gave him as she rose from +the piano-stool and rearranged the lamps. "You mean so much that +never comes to pass, Mr. Bannister. The road to the nether +regions is paved with good intentions, we are given to +understand. Not that yours can by any stretch of imagination be +called 'good intentions.'" + +"Contrariwise, then, perhaps the road to heaven may be paved with +evil intentions. Since y'u travel the road with me, wherever it +may lead, it were but gallant to hope so." + +He took three sharp steps toward her and stood looking down in +her face, her sweet slenderness so close to him that the perfume +mounted to his brain. Surely no maiden had ever been more +desirable than this one, who held him in such contemptuous +estimation that only her steady eyes moved at his approach. These +held to his and defied him, while she stood leaning motionless +against the table with such strong and supple grace. She knew +what he meant to do, hated him for it, and would not give him the +satisfaction of flying an inch from him or struggling with him. + +"Your eyes are pools of splendor. That's right. Make them flash +fire. I love to see such spirit, since it offers a more enticing +pleasure in breaking," he told her, with an admiration half +ironic but wholly genuine. "Pools of splendor, my beauty! +Therefore I salute them." + +At the touch of his lips upon her eyelids a shiver ran through +her, but still she made no movement, was cold to him as marble. +"You coward!" she said softly, with an infinite contempt. + +"Your lips," he continued to catalogue, "are ripe as fresh flesh +of Southern fruit. No cupid ever possessed so adorable a mouth. A +worshiper of Eros I, as now I prove." + +This time it was the mouth he kissed, the while her unconquered +spirit looked out of the brave eyes, and fain would have murdered +him. In turn he kissed her cold cheeks, the tip of one of her +little ears, the small, clenched fist with which she longed to +strike him. + +"Are you quite through?" + +"For the present, and now, having put the seal of my ownership on +her more obvious charms, I'll take my bride home." + +"I would die first." + +"Nay, you'll die later, Madam Bannister, but not for many years, +I hope," he told her, with a theatrical bow. + +"Do you think me so weak a thing as your words imply?" + +"Rather so strong that the glory of overcoming y'u fills me with +joy. Believe me, madam, though your master I am not less your +slave," he mocked. + +"You are neither my master nor my slave, but a thing I detest," +she said, in a low voice that carried extraordinary intensity. + +"And obey," he added, suavely. "Come, madam, to horse, for our +honeymoon." + +"I tell you I shall not go." + +"Then, in faith, we'll re-enact a modern edition of 'The Taming +of the Shrew.' Y'u'll find me, sweet, as apt at the part as old +Petruchio." He paced complacently up the room and back, and +quoted glibly: + +"And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor. +He that knows better how to tame a shrew, +Now let him, speak; 'tis charity to show." + +"Would you take me against my will?" + +"Y'u have said it. What's your will to me? What I want I take. +And I sure want my beautiful shrew." His half-shuttered eyes +gloated on her as he rattled off a couple more lines from the +play he had mentioned. + +"Kate, like the hazel-twig, +Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue +As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels." + +She let a swift glance travel anxiously to the door. "You are in +a very poetical mood to-day." + +"As befits a bridegroom, my own." He stepped lightly to the +window and tapped twice on the pane. "A signal to bring the +horses round. If y'u have any preparations to make, any trousseau +to prepare, y'u better set that girl of yours to work." + +"I have no preparations to make." + +"Coming to me simply as y'u are? Good! We'll lead the simple +life." + +Nora, as it chanced, knocked and entered at his moment. The sight +of her vivid good looks truck him for the first time. At sight of +him she stopped, gazing with parted lips, a double row of pearls +shining through. + +He turned swiftly to the mistress. "Y'u ought not to be alone +there among so many men. It wouldn't be proper. We'll take the +girl along with us." + +"Where?" Nora's parted lips emitted. + +"To Arden, my dear." He interrupted himself to look at his watch. +"I wonder why that fellow doesn't come with the horses. They +should pass this window. + +Bannister, standing jauntily with his feet astride as he looked +out of the window, heard someone enter the room. "Did y'u bring +round the horses?" he snapped, without looking round. + +"NO, WE ALLOWED THEY WOULDN'T BE NEEDED." + +At sound of the slow drawl the outlaw wheeled like a flash, his +hand traveling to the hilt of the revolver that hung on his hip. +But he was too late. Already two revolvers covered him, and he +knew that both his cousin and McWilliams were dead shots. He +flashed one venomous look at the mistress of the ranch. + +"Y'u fooled me again. That lamp business was a signal, and I was +too thick-haided to see it. My compliments to y'u, Miss Messiter." + +"Y'u are under arrest," announced his cousin. + +"Y'u don't say." His voice was full of sarcastic admiration. "And +you done it with your little gun! My, what a wonder y'u are!" + +"Take your hand from the butt of that gun. Y'u better relieve him +of it, Mac. He's got such a restless disposition he might commit +suicide by reaching for it." + +"What do y'u think you're going to do with me now y'u have got +me, Cousin Ned?" + +"We're going to turn y'u over to the United States Government." + +"Guess again. I have a thing, or two to say to that." + +"You're going to Gimlet Butte with us, alive or dead." + +The outlaw intentionally misunderstood. "If I've got to take y'u, +then we'll say y'u go dead rather than alive." + +"He was going to take Nora and me with him," Helen explained to +her friends. + +Instantly the man swung round on her. "But now I've changed my +mind, ma'am. I'm going to take my cousin with me instead of y'u +ladies." + +Helen caught his meaning first, and flashed it whitely to her +lover. It dawned on him more slowly. + +"I see y'u remember, Miss Messiter," he continued, with a cruel, +silken laugh. "He gave me his parole to go with me whenever I +said the word. I'm saying it now." He sat down astride a chair, +put his chin on the back cross-bar, and grinned malevolently from +one to another. + +"What's come over this happy family? It don't look so joyous all +of a sudden. Y'u don't need to worry, ma'am, I'll send him back +to y'u all right--alive or dead. With his shield or on it, y'u +know. Ha! ha!" + +"You will not go with him?" It was wrung from Helen as a low cry, +and struck her lover's heart. + +"I must," he answered. "I gave him my word, y'u remember." + +"But why keep it? You know what he is, how absolutely devoid of +honor." + +"That is not quite the question, is it?" he smiled. + +"Would he keep his word to you?" + +"Not if a lie would do as well. But that isn't the point, +either." + +"It's quixotic--foolish--worse than that--ridiculous," she +implored. + +"Perhaps, but the fact remains that I am pledged." + +"'I could not love thee, dear, so much +Loved I not honor more,'" + +murmured the villain in the chair, apparently to the ceiling. +"Dear Ned, he always was the soul of honor. I'll have those lines +carved on his tombstone." + +"You see! He is already bragging that he means to kill you," said +the girl. + +"I shall go armed," the sheepman answered. + +"Yes, but he will take you into the mountain fastnesses, where +the men that serve him will do his bidding. What is one man among +so many?" + +"Two men, ma'am," corrected the foreman. + +"What's that?" The outlaw broke off the snatch of opera he was +singing to slew his head round at McWilliams. + +"I said two. Any objections, seh?" + +"Yes. That wasn't in the contract." + +"We're giving y'u surplusage, that's all. Y'u wanted one of us, +and y'u get two. We don't charge anything for the extra weight," +grinned Mac. + +"Oh, Mac, will you go with him?" cried Helen, with shining eyes. + +"Those are my present intentions, Miss Helen," laughed her +foreman. + +Whereat Nora emerged from the background and flung herself on +him. "Y'u can't go, Jim! I won't have you go!" she cried. + +The young man blushed a beautiful pink, and accepted gladly this +overt evidence of a reconciliation. "It's all right, honey. Don't +y'u think two big, grown-up men are good to handle that scalawag? +Sho! Don't y'u worry." + +"Miss Nora can come, too, if she likes," suggested he of the +Shoshones. "Looks like we would have quite a party. Won't y'u +join us, too, Miss Messiter, according to the original plan?" he +said, extending an ironical invitation. + +"I think we had better cut it down to me alone. We'll not burden +your hospitality, sir," said the sheepman. + +"No, sir, I'm in on this. Whyfor can't I go?" demanded Jim. + +Bannister, the outlaw, eyed him unpleasantly. "Y'u certainly can +so far as I am concerned. I owe y'u one, too, Mr. McWilliams. +Only if y'u come of your own free will, as y'u are surely welcome +to do, don't holler if y'u're not so welcome to leave whenever +y'u take a notion." + +"I'll try and look out for that. It's settled, then, that we ride +together. When do y'u want to start?" + +"We can't go any sooner than right now. I hate to take these +young men from y'u, lady. but, as I said, I'll send them back in +good shape. Adios, senorita. Don't forget to whom y'u belong." He +swaggered to the door and turned, leaning against the jamb with +one hand again it. "I expect y'u can say those lovey-dov +good-byes without my help. I'm going into the yard. If y'u want +to y'u can plug me in the back through the window," he suggested, +with a sneer. + +"As y'u would us under similar circumstances," retorted his +cousin. + +"Be with y'u in five minutes," said the foreman. + +"Don't hurry. It's a long good-bye y'u're saying," returned his +enemy placidly. + +Nora and the young man who belonged to her followed him from the +room, leaving Bannister and his hostess alone. + +"Shall I ever see you again?" Helen murmured. + +"I think so," the sheepman answered. "The truth is that this +opportunity falls pat. Jim and have been wanting to meet those +men who are under my cousin's influence and have a talk with +them. There is no question but that the gang is disintegrating, +and I believe that if we offer to mediate between its members and +the Government something might be done to stop the outrages that +have been terrorizing this country. My cousin can't be reached, +but I believe the rest of them, or, at least a part, can be +induced either to surrender or to flee the country. Anyhow, we +want to try it." + +"But the danger?" she breathed. + +"Is less than y'u think. Their leader has not anywhere nearly the +absolute power he had a few months ago. They would hardly dare do +violence to a peace envoy." + +"Your cousin would. I don't believe he has any scruples." + +"We shall keep an eye on him. Both of us will not sleep at the +same time. Y'u may depend on me to bring your foreman safely back +to y'u," he smiled. + +"Oh, my foreman!" + +"And your foreman's friend," he added. "I have the best of +reasons for wanting to return alive. I think y'u know them. They +have to do with y'u, Miss Helen." + +It had come at last, but, womanlike, she evaded the issue her +heart had sought. "Yes, I know. You think it would not be fair to +throw away your life in this foolish manner after I have saved it +for you--how many times was it you said?" The blue eyes lifted +with deceptive frankness to the gray ones. + +"No, that isn't my reason. I have a better one than that. I love +y'u, girl, more than anything in this world." + +"And so you try to prove it to me by running into a trap set for +you to take your life. That's a selfish kind of love, isn't it? +Or it would be if I loved you." + +"Do y'u love me, Helen?" + +"Why should I tell you, since you don't love me enough to give up +this quixotic madness?" + +"Don't y'u see, dear, I can't give it up?" + +"I see you won't. You care more for your pride than for me." + +"No, it isn't that. I've got to go. It isn't that I want to leave +y'u, God knows. But I've given my word, and I must keep it. Do +y'u want me to be a quitter, and y'u so game yourself? Do y'u +want it to go all over this cattle country that I gave my word +and took it back because I lost my nerve?" + +"The boy that takes a dare isn't a hero, is he! There's a higher +courage that refuses to be drawn into such foolishness, that +doesn't give way to the jeers of the empty headed." + +"I don't think that is a parallel case. I'm sorry, we can't see +this alike, but I've got to go ahead the way that seems to me +right." + + +"You're going to leave me, then, to go with that man?" + +"Yes, if that's the way y'u have to put it." He looked at her +sorrowfully, and added gently: "I thought you would see it. I +thought sure you would." + +But she could not bear that he should leave her so, and she cried +out after him. "Oh, I see it. I know you must go; but I can't +bear it." Her head buried itself in his coat. "It isn't right--it +isn't a--a square deal that you should go away now, the very +minute you belong to me." + +A happy smile shone in his eyes. "I belong to you, do I? That's +good hearing, girl o' mine." His arm went round her and he +stroked the black head softly. "I'll not be gone long, dear. +Don't y'u worry about me. I'll be back with y'u soon; just as +soon as I have finished this piece of work I have to do." + +"But if you should get--if anything should happen to you?" + +"Nothing is going to happen to me. There is a special providence +looks after lovers, y'u know." + +"Be careful, Ned, of yourself. For my sake, dear." + +"I'll dry my socks every time I get my feet wet for fear of +taking cold," he laughed. + +"But you will, won't you?" + +"I'll be very careful, Helen," he promised more gravely. + +Even then she could hardly let him go, clinging to him with a +reluctance to separate that was a new experience to her +independent, vigorous youth. In the end he unloosened her arm, +kissed her once, and hurried out of the room. In the hallway he +met McWilliams, also hurryin out from a tearful farewell on the +part of Nora. + +Bannister, the outlaw, already mounted, was waiting for them. +"Y'u did get through at last, he drawled insolently. "Well, if +y'u'll kindly give orders to your seven-foot dwarf to point the +Winchester another way I'll collect my men an we'll be moving." + +For, though the outlaw had left his men in command of the ranch +when he went into the house, he found the situation reversed on +his return. With the arrival of reinforcements, in the persons of +McWilliams and his friend, it had been the turn of the raiders to +turn over their weapons. + +"All right, Denver," nodded the foreman. + +The outlaw chief whistled for his men, and with their guests they +rode into the silent, desert night. + + + +CHAPTER 22. EXIT THE "KING" + +They bedded that night under the great vault-roof where twinkle a +million stars. + +There were three of the outlaw's men with him, and both +Mcwilliams and his friend noticed that they slept a little apart +from their chief. There were other indications among the rustlers +of a camp divided against itself. Bannister's orders to them he +contrived to make an insult, and their obedience was as surly as +possible compatible with safety. For all of the men knew that he +would not hesitate to shoot them down in one of his violent rages +should they anger him sufficiently. + +Throughout the night there was no time that at least two men were +not awake in the camp. The foreman and the sheepman took turns +keeping vigil; and on the other side of the fire sat one of the +rustlers in silent watchfulness. To the man opposite him each of +the sentinels were outposts of the enemy, but they fraternized +after the manner of army sentries, exchanging tobacco and +occasional casual conversation. + +The foreman took the first turn, and opposite him sat a one-eyed +old scoundrel who had rustle calves from big outfits ever since +Wyoming was a territory and long before. Chalkeye Dave, he was +called, and sometimes merely Chalkeye. What his real name was no +man knew. Nor was his past a subject for conversation in his +presence. It was known that he had been in the Nevada +penitentiary, and that he had killed a man in Arizona, but these +details of an active life were rarely resurrected. For Chalkeye +was deadly on the shoot, and was ready for it at the drop of the +hat, though he had his good points too. One of these was a +remarkable fondness for another member of the party, a mere lad, +called by his companions Hughie. Generally surly and morose, to +such a degree that even his chief was careful to humor him as a +rule, when with Hughie all the softer elements of his character +came to the surface. In his rough way he was ever humorous and +genial. + +Jim McWilliams found him neither, however. He declined to engage +in conversation, accepted a proffer of tobacco with a silent, +hostile grunt and relapsed into a long silence that lasted till +his shift was ended. + +"Hate to have y'u leave, old man. Y'u're so darned good company +I'll ce'tainly pine for you," the foreman suggested, with +sarcasm, when the old man rolled up in his blankets preparatory +to falling asleep immediately. + +Chalkeye's successor was a blatant youth much impressed with his +own importance. He was both foul-mouthed and foul-minded, so that +Jim was constrained to interrupt his evil boastings by pretending +to fall asleep. + +It was nearly two o'clock when the foreman aroused his friend to +take his turn. Shortly after this the lad Hughie relieved the +bragging, would-be bad man. + +Hughie was a flaxen-haired, rather good-looking boy of nineteen. +In his small, wistful face was not a line of wickedness, though +it was plain that he was weak. He seemed so unfit for the life he +was leading that the sheepman's interest was aroused. For on the +frontier it takes a strong, competent miscreant to be a bad man +and survive. Ineffectives and weaklings are quickly weeded out to +their graves or the penitentiaries. + +The boy was manifestly under great fear of his chief, but the +curly haired young Hermes who kept watch with him had a very +winning smile and a charming manner when he cared to exert it. +Almost in spite of himself the youngster was led to talk. It +seemed that he had but lately joined the Teton-Shoshones outfit +of desperadoes, and between the lines Bannister easily read that +his cousin's masterful compulsion had coerced the young fellow. +All he wanted was an opportunity to withdraw in safety, but he +knew he could never do this so long as the "King" was alive and +at liberty. + +Under the star-roof in the chill, breaking day Ned Bannister +talked to him long and gently. It was easy to bring the boy to +tears, but it was harder thing to stiffen a will that was of +putty and to hearten a soul in mortal fear. But he set himself +with all the power in him to combat the influence of his cousin +over this boy; and before the camp stirred to life again he knew +that he had measurably succeeded. + +They ate breakfast in the gray dawn under the stars, and after +they had finished their coffee and bacon horses were saddled and +the trail taken up again. It led in and out among the foot-hills +slopping upward gradually toward the first long blue line of the +Shoshones that stretched before them in the distance. Their +nooning was at running stream called Smith's Creek, and by +nightfall the party was well up in the higher foot hills. + +In the course of the day and the second night both the sheepman +and his friend made attempt to establish a more cordial +relationship with Chalkeye, but so far as any apparent results +went their efforts were vain. He refused grimly to meet their +overtures half way, even though it was plain from his manner that +a break between him and his chief could not long be avoided. + +All day by crooked trails they pushed forward, and as the party +advanced into the mountains the gloom of the mournful pines and +frowning peaks invaded its spirits. Suspicion and distrust went +with it, camped at night by the rushing mountain stream, lay down +to sleep in the shadows at every man's shoulder. For each man +looked with an ominous eye on his neighbor, watchful of every +sudden move, of every careless word that might convey a sudden +meaning. + +Along a narrow rock-rim trail far above a steep canon, whose +walls shot precipitously down, they were riding in single file, +when the outlaw chief pushed his horse forward between the road +wall and his cousin's bronco. The sheepman immediately fell back. + +"I reckon this trail isn't wide enough for two--unless y'u take +the outside," he explained quietly. + +The outlaw, who had been drinking steadily ever since leaving the +Lazy D, laughed his low, sinister cackle. "Afraid of me, are y'u? +Afraid I'll push y'u off?" + +"Not when I'm inside and you don't have chance." + +"'Twas a place about like this I drove for thousand of your sheep +over last week. With sheep worth what they are I'm afraid it must +have cost y'u quite a bit. Not that y'u'll miss it where you are +going," he hastened to add. + +"It was very like you to revenge yourself on dumb animals." + +"Think so?" The "King's" black gaze rested on him. "Y'u'll sing a +different song soon Mr. Bannister. It's humans I'll drive next +time and don't y'u forget it." + +"If you get the chance," amended his cousin gently. + +"I'll get the chance. I'm not worrying about that. And about +those sheep--any man that hasn't got more sense than to run sheep +in a cow country ought to lose them for his pig-headedness. + +"Those sheep were on the right side of the dead-line. You had to +cross it to reach them." Their owner's steady eyes challenged a +denial. + +"Is that so? Now how do y'u know that? We didn't leave the herder +alive to explain that to y'u, did we?" + +"You admit murdering him?" "To y'u, dear cousin. Y'u see, I have +a hunch that maybe y'u'll go join your herder right soon. Y'u'll +not do much talking." + +The sheepman fell back. "I think I'll ride alone." + +Rage flared in the other's eye. "Too good for me, are y'u, my +mealy-mouthed cousin? Y'u always thought yourself better than me. +When y'u were a boy you used to go sneaking to that old +hypocrite, your grandfather--" + +"You have said enough," interrupted the other sternly. "I'll not +hear another word. Keep your foul tongue off him." + +Their eyes silently measured strength. + +"Y'u'll not hear a word!" sneered the chief of the rustlers. +"What will y'u do, dear cousin? + +"Stand up and fight like a man and settle this thing once for +all." + +Still their steely eyes crossed as with the thrust of rapiers. +The challenged man crouched tensely with a mighty longing for the +test, but he had planned a more elaborate revenge and a surer one +than this. Reluctantly he shook his head. + +"Why should I? Y'u're mine. We're four to two, and soon we'll be +a dozen to two. I'd like a heap to oblige y'u, but I reckon I +can't afford to just now. Y'u will have to wait a little for that +bumping off that's coming to y'u." + +"In that event I'll trouble you not to inflict your society on me +any more than is necessary + +"That's all right, too. If y'u think I enjoy your conversation +y'u have got another guess coming." + +So by mutual consent the sheepman fell in behind the blatant +youth who had wearied McWilliams so and rode in silence. + +It was again getting close to nightfall. The slant sun was +throwing its rays on less and less of the trail. They could see +the shadows grow and the coolness of night sift into the air. +They were pushing on to pass the rim of a great valley basin that +lay like a saucer in the mountains in order that they might camp +in the valley by a stream all of them knew. Dusk was beginning to +fall when they at last reached the saucer edge and only the +opposite peaks were still tipped with the sun rays. This, too, +disappeared before they had descended far, and the gloom of the +great mountains that girt the valley was on all their spirits, +even McWilliams being affected by it. + +They were tired with travel, and the long night watches did not +improve tempers already overstrained with the expectation of a +crisis too long dragged out. Rain fell during the night, and +continued gently in a misty drizzle after day broke. It was a +situation and an atmosphere ripe for tragedy, and it fell on them +like a clap of thunder out of a sodden sky. + +Hughie was cook for the day, and he came chill and stiff-fingered +to his task. Summer as it was, there lay a thin coating of ice +round the edges of the stream, for they had camped in an altitude +of about nine thousand feet. The "King" had wakened in a vile +humor. He had a splitting headache, as was natural under the +circumstances and he had not left in his bottle a single drink to +tide him over it. He came cursing to the struggling fire, which +was making only fitful headway against the rain which beat down +upon it. + +"Why didn't y'u build your fire on the side of the tree?" he +growled at Hughie. + +Now, Hughie was a tenderfoot, and in his knowledge of outdoor +life he was still an infant. "I didn't know--" he was beginning, +when his master cut him short with a furious tongue lashing out +of all proportion to the offense. + +The lad's face blanched with fear, and his terror was so manifest +that the bully, who was threatening him with all manner of evils, +began to enjoy himself. Chalkeye, returning from watering the +horses, got back in time to hear the intemperate fag-end of the +scolding. He glanced at Hughie, whose hands were trembling in +spite of him, and then darkly at the brute who was attacking him. +But he said not a word. + +The meal proceeded in silence except for jeers and taunts of the +"King." For nobody cared to venture conversation which might +prove a match to a powder magazine. Whatever thoughts might be +each man kept them to himself. + +"Coffee," snapped the single talker, toward end of breakfast. + +Hughie jumped up, filled the cup that was handed him and set the +coffee pot back on fire. As he handed the tin cup with the coffee +to the outlaw the lad's foot slipped on a piece wet wood, and the +hot liquid splashed over his chief's leg. The man jumped to his +feet in a rage and struck the boy across the face with his whip +once, and then again. + +"By God, that'll do for you!" cried Chalkeye from the other side +of the fire, springing revolver in hand. "Draw, you coyote! I +come a-shooting." + +The "King" wheeled, finding his weapon he turned. Two shots rang +out almost simultaneously, and Chalkeye pitched forward. The +outlaw chief sank to his knees, and, with one hand resting on the +ground to steady himself fired two more shots into the twitching +body on the other side of the fire. Then he, too, lurched forward +and rolled over. + +It had come to climax so swiftly that not one of them had moved +except the combatants. Bannister rose and walked over to the +place where the body of his cousin lay. He knelt down and +examined him. When he rose it was with a very grave face. + +"He is dead," he said quietly. + +McWilliams, who had been bending over Chalkeye, looked up. "Here, +too. Any one of the shots would have finished him." + +Bannister nodded. "Yes. That first exchange killed them both." He +looked down at the limp body of his cousin, but a minute before +so full of supple, virile life. "But his hate had to reach out +and make sure, even though he was as good as dead himself. He was +game." Then sharply to the young braggart, who had risen and was +edging away with a face of chalk: "Sit down, y'u! What do y'u +take us for? Think this is to be a massacre?" + +The man came back with palpable hesitancy. "I was aiming to go +and get the boys to bury them. My God, did you ever see anything +so quick? They drilled through each other like lightning." + +Mac looked him over with dry contempt. "My friend, y'u're too +tender for a genuwine A1 bad man. If I was handing y'u a bunch of +advice it would be to get back to the prosaic paths of peace +right prompt. And while we're on the subject I'll borrow your +guns. Y'u're scared stiff and it might get into your fool coconut +to plug one of us and light out. I'd hate to see y'u commit +suicide right before us, so I'll just natcherally unload y'u." + +He was talking to lift the strain, and it was for the same +purpose that Bannister moved over to Hughie, who sat with his +face in his hands, trying to shut out the horror of what he had +seen. + +The sheepman dropped a hand on his shoulder gently. "Brace up, +boy! Don't you see that the very best thing that could have +happened is this. It's best for y'u, best for the rest of the +gang and best for the whole cattle country. We'll have peace here +at last. Now he's gone, honest men are going to breathe easy. +I'll take y'u in hand and set y'u at work on one of my stations, +if y'u like. Anyhow, you'll have a chance to begin life again in +a better way." + +"That's right," agreed the blatant youth. "I'm sick of rustling +the mails and other folks' calves. I'm glad he got what was +coming to him," he concluded vindictively, with a glance at his +dead chief and a sudden raucous oath. + +McWilliams's cold blue eye transfixed him "Hadn't you better be a +little careful how your mouth goes off? For one thing, he's daid +now; and for another, he happens to be Mr. Bannister's cousin." + +"But--weren't they enemies?" + +"That's how I understand it. But this man's passed over the +range. A MAN doesn't unload his hatred on dead folks--and I +expect if y'u'll study him, even y'u will be able to figure out +that my friend measures up to the size of a real man." + +"I don't see why if--" + +"No, I don't suppose y'u do," interrupted the foreman, turning on +his heel. Then to Bannister, who was looking down at his cousin +with a stony face: "I reckon, Bann, we better make arrangements +to have the bodies buried right here in the valley," he said +gently. + +Bannister was thinking of early days, of the time when this +miscreant, whose light had just been put out so instantaneously, +had played with him day in and day out. They had attended their +first school together, had played marbles and prisoners' base a +hundred times against each other. He could remember how they used +to get up early in the morning to go fishing with each other. And +later, when each began, unconsciously, to choose the path he +would follow in already beginning to settle into an established +fact. He could see now, by looking back on trifles of their +childhood, that his cousin had been badly handicapped in his +fight with himself against the evil in him. He had inherited +depraved instincts and tastes, and with them somewhere in him a +strand of weakness that prevented him from slaying the giants he +had to oppose in the making of a good character. From bad to +worse he had gone, and here he lay with the drizzling rain on his +white face, a warning and a lesson to wayward youths just setting +their feet in the wrong direction. Surely it was kismet. + +Ned Bannister untied the handkerchief from his neck and laid it +across the face of his kinsman. A moment longer he looked down, +then passed his hands across his eyes and seemed to brush away +the memories that thronged him. He stepped forward to the fire +and warmed his hands. + +"We'll go on, Mac, to the rendezvous he had appointed with his +outfit. We ought to reach there by noon, and the boys can send a +wagon back to get the bodies." + + + +CHAPTER 23. JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' MEETING + +It had been six days since the two Ned Bannisters had ridden away +together into the mountains, and every waking hour since that +time had been for Helen one of harassing anxiety. No word had yet +reached her of the issue of that dubious undertaking, and she +both longed and dreaded to hear. He had promised to send a +messenger as soon as he had anything definite to tell, but she +knew it would be like his cousin, too, to send her some +triumphant word should he prove the victor in the struggle +between them. So that every stranger she glimpsed brought to her +a sudden beating of the heart. + +But it was not the nature of Helen Messiter to sit down and give +herself up a prey to foreboding. Her active nature cried out for +work to occupy her and distract her attention. Fortunately this +was to be had in abundance just now. For the autumn round-up was +on, and since her foreman was away the mistress of the Lazy D +found plenty of work ready to her hand. + +The meeting place for the round-up riders was at Boom Creek, five +miles from the ranch, and Helen rode out there to take charge of +her own interests in person. With her were six riders, and for +the use of each of them in addition to his present mount three +extra ponies were brought in the remuda. For the riding is so +hard during the round-up that a horse can stand only one day in +four of it. At the appointed rendezvous a score of other cowboys +and owners met them. Without any delay they proceeded to +business. Mr. Bob Austin, better known as "Texas," was elected +boss of the round-up, and he immediately assigned the men to +their places and announced that they would work Squaw Creek. They +moved camp at once, Helen returning to the ranch. + +It was three o'clock in the morning when the men were roused by +the cook's triangle calling them to the "chuck wagon" for +breakfast. It was still cold and dark as the boys crawled from +under their blankets and squatted round the fire to eat jerky, +biscuits and gravy, and to drink cupfuls of hot, black coffee. +Before sun rose every man was at his post far up on the Squaw +Creek ridges ready to begin the drive. + +Later in the day Helen rode to the parade grounds, toward which a +stream of cattle was pouring down the canyon of the creek. Every +gulch tributary to the creek contributed its quota of wild cows +and calves. These came romping down the canyon mouth, where four +picked men, with a bunch of tame cows in front of them, stopped +the rush of flying cattle. Lunch was omitted, and branding began +at once. Every calf belonging to a Lazy D cow, after being roped +and tied, was flanked with the great D which indicated its +ownership by Miss Messiter, and on account of the recumbent +position of which letter the ranch had its name. + +It was during the branding that a boyish young fellow rode up and +handed Helen a note. Her heart pumped rapidly with relief, for +one glance told her that it was in the handwriting of the Ned +Bannister she loved. She tore it open and glanced swiftly through +it. + +DEAR FRIEND: Two hours ago my cousin was killed by one of his own +men. I am sending back to you a boy who had been led astray by +him, and it would be a great service to me if you would give him +something to do till I return. His name is Hugh Rogers. I think +if you trust him he will prove worthy of it. + +Jim and I are going to stay here a few days longer to finish the +work that is begun. We hope to meet and talk with as many of the +men implicated in my cousin's lawlessness as is possible. What +the result will be I cannot say. We do not consider ourselves in +any danger whatever, though we are not taking chances. If all +goes well we shall be back within a few days. + +I hope you are not missing Jim too much at the roundup. +Sincerely, + +NED BANNISTER + +She liked the letter because there was not a hint of the +relationship between them to be read in it. He had guarded her +against the chance of its falling into the wrong hands and +creating talk about them. + +She turned to Hughie. "Can you ride?" + +"In a way, ma'am. I can't ride like these men." His glance +indicated a cow-puncher pounding past after a wild steer that had +broken through the cordon of riders and was trying to get away. + +"Do you want to learn?" + +"I'd like to if I had a chance," he answered wistfully. + +"All right. You have your chance. I'll see that Mr. Austin finds +something for you to do. From to-day you are in my employ." + +She rode back to the ranch in the late afternoon, while the sun +was setting in a great splash of crimson. The round-up boss had +hinted that if she were nervous about riding alone he could find +it convenient to accompany her. But the girl wanted to be alone +with her own thoughts, and she had slipped away while he was busy +cutting out calves from the herd. It had been a wonderful relief +to her to find that HER Ned Bannister was the one that had +survived in the conflict, and her heart sang a paean of joy as +she rode into the golden glow of the westering sun. He was +alive--to love and be loved. The unlived years of her future +seemed to unroll before her as a vision. She glowed with a +resurgent happiness that was almost an ecstasy. The words of a +bit of verse she had once seen--a mere scrap from a magazine that +had stuck in an obscure corner of her memory--sang again and +again in her heart: + +Life and love And a bright sky o'er us, +And--God take care Of the way before us! + +Ah, the way before them, before her and her romance-radiating +hero! It might he rough and hilly, but if they trod it together-- +Her tangled thoughts were off again in another glad leap of +imagination. + +The days passed somehow. She busied herself with the affairs of +the ranch, rode out often to the scenes of the cattle drives and +watched the round-up, and every twenty-four hours brought her one +day nearer to his return, she told herself. Nora, too, was on the +lookout under her longlashed, roguish eyelids; and the two young +women discussed the subject of their lovers' return in that +elusive, elliptical way common to their sex. + +No doubt each of these young women had conjectured as to the +manner of that homecoming and the meeting that would accompany +it; but it is safe to say that neither of them guessed in her +day-dreams how it actually was to occur. + +Nora had been eager to see something of the round-up, and as she +was no horsewoman her mistress took her out one day in her motor. +The drive had been that day on Bronco Mesa, and had finished in +the natural corral made by Bear Canon, fenced with a cordon of +riders at the end opening to the plains below. After watching for +two hours the busy scenes of cutting out, roping and branding, +Helen wheeled her car and started down the canyon on their +return. + +Now, a herd of wild cattle is uncertain as an April day's +behavior. Under the influence of the tame valley cattle among +which they are driven, after a little milling around, the whole +bunch may gentle almost immediately, or, on the other hand, it +may break through and go crashing away on a wild stampede at a +moment's notice. Every experienced cowman knows enough to expect +the unexpected. + +At Bronco Mesa the round-up had proceeded with unusual facility. +Scores of wiry, long-legged steers had drifted down the ridges or +gulches that led to the canon; and many a cow, followed by its +calf, had stumbled forward to the herd and apparently accepted +the inevitable. But before Helen Messiter had well started out of +the canyon's mouth the situation changed absolutely. + +A big hill steer, which had not seen a man for a year, broke +through the human corral with a bellow near a point where Reddy +kept guard. The puncher wheeled and gave chase, Before the other +men could close the opening a couple of two-year-olds seized the +opportunity and followed its lead. A second rider gave chase, and +at once, as if some imp of mischief had stirred them, fifty tails +went up in wild flight. Another minute and the whole herd was in +stampede. + +Down the gulch the five hundred cattle thundered toward the motor +car, which lay directly in their path. Helen turned, appreciated +the danger, and put the machine at its full speed. The road +branched for a space of about fifty yards, and in her excitement +she made the mistake of choosing the lower, more level, one. Into +a deep sand bed they plowed, the wheels sinking at every turn. +Slower and slower went the car; finally came to a full stop. + +Nora glanced back in affright at the two hundred and fifty tons +of beef that was charging wildly toward them. "What shall we do?" +she gasped, and clambered to the ground. + +"Run!" cried Helen, following her example and scudding for the +sides of the canyon, which here sloped down less precipitately +than at other points. But before they had run a dozen steps each +of them was aware that they could not reach safety in time to +escape the hoofs rushing toward them so heavily that the ground quaked. + +"Look out!" A resonant cry rang out above the dull thud of the +stampeding cattle that were almost upon them. Down the steep +sides of the gorge two riders were galloping recklessly. It was a +race for life between them and the first of the herd, and they +won by scarce more than a length. Across the sand the horses +plowed, and as they swept past the two trembling young women each +rider bent from the saddle without slackening speed, and snatched +one almost from under the very hoofs of the leaders. + +The danger was not past. As the horses swerved and went forward +with the rush Helen knew that a stumble would fling not only her +and the man who had saved her, but also the horse down to death. +They must contrive to hold their own in that deadly rush until a +way could be found of escaping from the path of the living +cyclone that trod at their heels, galloped beside them, in front, +behind. + +For it came to her that the horse was tiring in that rush through +the sand with double weight upon its back. + +"Courage!" cried the man behind her as her fearful eyes met his. + +As he spoke they reached the end of the canyon and firm ground +simultaneously. Helen saw that her rescuer had now a revolver in +his hand, and that he was firing in such a way as to deflect the +leaders to the left. At first the change in course was hardly +perceptible, but presently she noticed that they were getting +closer to the outskirts of the herd, working gradually to the +extreme right, edging inch by inch, ever so warily, toward +safety. Going parallel to their course, running neck and neck +with the cow pony, lumbered a great dun steer. Unconsciously it +blocked every effort of the horseman to escape. He had one shot +left in his revolver, and this time he did not fire into the air. +It was a mighty risk, for the animal in falling might stagger +against the horse and hunt them all down to death. But the man +took it without apparent hesitation. Into the ear of the bullock +he sent the lead crashing. The brute stumbled and went down head +over heels. Its flying hoofs struck the flanks of the pony, but +the bronco stuck to its feet, and next moment staggered out from +among the herd stragglers and came to halt. + +The man slid from its back and lifted down the half-fainting +girl. She clung to him, white a trembling. "Oh, it was horrible, +Ned!" She could still look down in imagination upon the sea of +dun backs that swayed and surged about them like storm-tossed +waves. + +"It was a near thing, but we made it, girl. So did Jim. He got +out before we did. It's all past now. You can remember it as the +most exciting experience of your life." + +She shuddered. "I don't want to remember it at all." And so +shaken was she that she did not realize that his arm was about +her the while she sobbed on his shoulder. + +"A cattle stampede is a nasty thing to get in front of. Never +mind. It's done with now and everybody's safe." + +She drew a long breath. "Yes, everybody's safe and you are back +home. Why didn't you come after your cousin was killed?" + +"I had to finish my work." + +"And DID you finish it?" + +"I think we did. There will be no more Shoshone gang. It's +members have scatted in all directions." + +"I'm glad you stayed, then. We can live at peace now." And +presently she added: "I knew you would not come back until you +had done what you set out to do. You're very obstinate, sir. Do +you know that?" + +"Perseverance, I call it," he smiled, glad to see that she was +recovering her lightness of tone. + +"You don't always insist on putting your actions in the most +favorable light. Do you remember the first day I ever saw you?" + +"Am I likely ever to forget it?" he smiled fondly. + +"I didn't mean THAT. What I was getting at was that you let me go +away from you thinking you were 'the king.' I haven't forgiven +you entirely for that." + +"I expect y'u'll always have to be forgiving me things." + +"If you valued my good opinion I don't see how you could let me +go without telling me. Was it fair or kind?" + +"If y'u come to that, was it so fair and kind to convict me so +promptly on suspicion?" he retaliated with a smile. + +"No, it wasn't. But--" She flushed with a divine shyness. "But I +loved you all the time, even when they said you were a villain." + +"Even while y'u believed me one?" + +"I didn't. I never would believe you one--not deep in my heart. I +wouldn't let myself. I made excuses for you--explained everything +to myself." + +"Yet your reason told y'u I was guilty " + +"Yes, I think my mind hated you and my heart loved you." + +He adored her for the frank simplicity of her confession, that +out of the greatness of her love she dared to make no secret of +it to him. Direct as a boy, she was yet as wholly sweet as the +most retiring girl could be. + +"Y'u always swamp my vocabulary, sweetheart. I can't ever tell +y'u--life wouldn't be long enough--how much I care for you." + +"I'm glad," she said simply. + +They stood looking at each other, palms pressed to palms in +meeting hands, supremely happy in this miracle of love that had +befallen them. They were alone--for Nora and Jim had gone into +temporary eclipse behind a hill and seemed in no hurry to +emerge--alone in the sunshine with this wonder that flowed from +one to another by shining eyes, by finger touch, and then by +meeting lips. He held her close, knew the sweet delight of +contact with the supple, surrendered figure, then released her as +she drew away in maidenly reserve. + +"When shall we be married, Helen? Is the early part of next week +too late?" he asked. + +Still blushing, she straightened her hat. "That's ridiculous, +sir. I haven't got used to the thought of you yet." + +"Plenty of time for that afterward. Then we'll say next week if +that suits y'u." + +"But it doesn't. Don't you know that it is the lady's privilege +to name the day? Besides, I want time to change my mind if I +should decide to." + +"That's what I'm afraid of," he laughed joyfully. "So I have to +insist on an early marriage." + +"Insist?" she demurred. + +"I've been told on the best of authority that I'm very +obstinate," he gayly answered. + +"I have a mind of my own myself. If I ever marry you be sure I +shall name the day, sir." + +"Will y'u marry me the day Nora does Jim?" + +"We'll see." The eyes slanted at him under the curved lashes, +teased him delightfully. "Did Nora tell you she was going to +marry Jim?" + +Bannister looked mildly hurt. "My common sense has been telling +it to me a month." + +"How long has your common sense been telling you about us?" + +"I didn't use it when I fell in love with y'u," he boldly +laughed. + +"Of all things to say!" + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Wyoming, by William MacLeod Raine + |