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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Forfeit, by Ridgwell Cullum
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Forfeit
+
+
+Author: Ridgwell Cullum
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 25, 2006  [eBook #19371]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORFEIT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+THE FORFEIT
+
+by
+
+RIDGWELL CULLUM
+
+Author of
+"The Night Riders," "The Way of The Strong," "The Trail of The Axe,"
+Etc.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A. L. Burt Company
+Publishers ------ New York
+Published by arrangement with George W. Jacobs & Company
+Copyright, 1917, by
+George W. Jacobs & Company
+All rights reserved
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+     I.  AT RAINBOW HILL VALLEY
+    II.  CONFLICTING CURRENTS
+   III.  TRAILING THE "BLACK TAIL"
+    IV.  THE WEAKER VESSEL
+     V.  THE HANGING BEE
+    VI.  THE RAIDERS RAIDED
+   VII.  OUTLAND JUSTICE
+  VIII.  JEFF CLOSES THE BOOK
+    IX.  FOUR YEARS LATER
+     X.  THE POLO CLUB RACES
+    XI.  ELVINE VAN BLOOREN
+   XII.  THE TEMPERING
+  XIII.  THE NEWS
+   XIV.  THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR
+    XV.  THE HOME-COMING
+   XVI.  THE RANCHMAN
+  XVII.  THE CALL TO ORRVILLE
+ XVIII.  DUG MCFARLANE
+   XIX.  THE RETURN HOME
+    XX.  AT BUD'S
+   XXI.  THE BARRIER
+  XXII.  THREATENINGS
+ XXIII.  THE HEARTS OF TWO WOMEN
+  XXIV.  TO SPRUCE CROSSING
+   XXV.  AN EPIC BATTLE
+  XXVI.  UNDER THE VEIL
+ XXVII.  THE ROUND-UP
+
+
+
+
+THE FORFEIT
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AT RAINBOW HILL VALLEY
+
+A companionable silence prevailed in the room.  At intervals it was
+broken, but only by the rustle of paper or the striking of a match.
+The heavy breathing, almost amounting to a snore, of one of the two
+men, and the inarticulate protests of a laboring "rocker" chair--these
+things were only a part of it.
+
+The man at the table was deeply immersed in a miniature sea of
+calculations.  His fair brows were drawn in deep concentration.
+Frequently he was at great pains to relight a pipe which contained
+nothing but charred remnants of tobacco and a moist, unsmokable mixture
+which afforded only a somewhat offensive taste and aroma.
+
+The partner in this companionship overflowed an undersized "rocker,"
+which withstood, with supreme heroism, the overwhelming forces of its
+invader.  But its sufferings, under the rhythmic rise and fall imposed
+upon it, found expression at intervals, although they failed to inspire
+the least sympathy.  The heedless giant's whole attention seemed to be
+absorbed in the personality and effort of his friend.
+
+Finally the latter raised a pair of deep blue eyes.  Following upon a
+sigh, he thrust his papers aside with a brusque movement of relief.
+Then he raised a hand to his broad forehead and smoothed his disheveled
+fair hair, which seemed to have undergone some upheaval as a result of
+the mental disturbance his efforts had inspired in the brain beneath.
+The handsome eyes smiled a reassuring smile into the rugged face of his
+friend.
+
+"Well?" he enquired, without seeming to desire a reply.
+
+"Wal?" echoed the gruff voice of the man in the rocker.
+
+"It's done."
+
+"So--I guessed."
+
+The patient amusement in the twinkling eyes of the man in the rocker
+was good to see.  There was confidence, too, in his regard of the
+younger man.
+
+"Can we do it--sure?" he enquired, as the other remained silent.
+
+"Without a worry."
+
+"Then dope it out, boy.  The easiest thing in the world is handin' out
+dollars on a right enterprise.  I don't know nothin' better--except it
+is takin' 'em in on the same sort o' play."
+
+Jeffrey Masters smiled more broadly into his friend's good-humored face.
+
+"Five years back, handing out twenty thousand dollars would have given
+us a nightmare, even on a right proposition," he said.  "It isn't that
+way now.  Guess we'll sleep on this thing like new-born babes with our
+tanks filled right.  Nat Williams is out to sell quick, and if we're
+bright, it's up to us to buy quick.  For twenty thousand dollars," he
+proceeded, referring to his figures, "we get his house, barns, corrals,
+and all his rolling stock.  His growing crops and machinery.  The bunch
+of old cows and calves he's pleased to call his 'herds.'  Also three
+teams of Shire-bred heavy draft horses, and six hundred and forty acres
+of first-class wheat land and grazing that only needs capital and
+hustle to set right on top.  I don't guess it'll worry us any to hand
+it all it needs that way.  This buy will join up my 'O----' territory
+with your 'T.T.' grazing, and will turn the combination into one of the
+finest ranching propositions west of Calthorpe, and one which even
+Montana needs to be proud of."
+
+He leaned back in his chair with a certain air of satisfaction.  But
+there was just a shade of anxiety, too, in the glance with which he
+favored his friend.  However, he need have felt no misgivings.  Bud
+Tristram had none.  He understood the keen business brain underlying
+his friend's tumbled fair hair.  Moreover, Jeff, who was only half the
+older man's age, was regarded with something like parental affection.
+
+They had fought their way up together from obscure beginnings to their
+present affluence, as the owners of the "T.T." ranch and the "O----"
+ranch respectively.  They had been partners in all but name.  Now they
+contemplated a definite deed of that nature.  It was a consummation
+which the older man had looked forward to ever since he first lent a
+hand to his new and youthful neighbor.  It was a consummation which
+Jeffrey, with acute foresight and honest purpose, had set himself to
+achieve.  If the older man regarded him with almost parental affection,
+that regard was fully reciprocated.  The business conference between
+them had for its purpose their mutual advantage, and both men were
+perfectly aware of the fact.
+
+But the thought that slightly worried the younger man was the ease, the
+unconcern of his future partner's attitude.  It disquieted him because
+it increased his responsibility.  But long ago he had learned the
+generous nature of the Great Bud.  Long ago he had realized his
+trusting simplicity.  Now he would have preferred a keen
+cross-examination of his statement.  But none was forthcoming, and he
+was forced to continue in face of the silent acceptance.
+
+"Bud, old friend, I wish I could get you interested in--figures.  And I
+guess they surely are interesting, when you apply them to our own
+concerns."
+
+But Bud remained unmoved.  He stretched himself in an ecstasy of ease,
+raising his great arms above his grizzled head in profound enjoyment of
+his bodily comfort.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Guess I know a steer.  Guess I know grass when I see it.  I wouldn't
+say there's a brand in Montana I ain't familiar with.  But
+figgers--sums--they're hell.  An' I don't guess I'm yearning for hell
+anyway.  Figgers is a sort o' paradise to you.  You're built that way.
+Say, I don't calc'late to rob you of a thing--not even paradise.  We'll
+take your figgers as they stand."
+
+Jeffrey Masters shook his head.
+
+"They're right, sure.  But it's no sort of way to talk business."
+
+"Business talk always makes me sweat."
+
+It was quite impossible.  Jeffrey was growing impatient.  A frown
+settled upon his broad brow, and the man in the rocker watched it with
+amused eyes.
+
+Quite suddenly the younger man's impatience broke forth into verbal
+protest.
+
+"Say, you make me mad.  Was there ever such a feller looking for sharps
+to play him?  How do you know I'm not out to beat you?  Why, I could
+roll you for every dollar you possess without lying awake five minutes
+at night.  It's not fair, Bud.  It's not fair to me--to you--to your
+little Nan----"
+
+"What's not fair to Nan?"
+
+Bud's twinkling eyes shot round upon the open French window with an
+alertness scarcely to be expected in a man of such apparent mental
+indolence.  Jeffrey's eyes cleared of their hot impatience as they
+sought a similar direction.  The gaze of both men encountered the
+picture of a brown-eyed, brown-haired girl of exquisite proportions,
+standing framed in the open window.  She was clad in a riding suit of
+light material, with a long-skirted coat which obviously concealed the
+divided skirt beneath.  Her long, brown top boots were white with dust
+of the trail, and her vicious-looking Mexican spurs hung loosely upon
+her heels.  Her eyes were bright with intelligence and good humor, and
+her pretty oval face smiled out from under the wide brim of an ample
+prairie hat.
+
+Jeff began to laugh.
+
+"It's your crazy old father, Nan," he cried.  "Say, just look at him.
+Feast your eyes on him.  Can you beat it?  Here we are right up to our
+necks in an epoch-making business proposition and he don't concern
+himself two whoops.  Was there ever such a bunch of simple trusting
+folly as is rolled up in that six feet three of good-hearted honesty?
+_That's_ what's not fair to--Nan."
+
+The girl came and laid a protecting hand upon the flannel-clad
+shoulders of her father.  Just for a moment her laughing eyes gazed
+affectionately down upon the recumbent form of the only parent she
+possessed, and whom she idolized.  He was stretched out luxuriously,
+his great be-chapped legs reaching to the table leg as a support to
+hold the rocker at a comfortable poise.  His shirt sleeves were rolled
+up displaying a pair of arms like legs of mutton.  The beadwork
+wristlets were held fixed in their position by the distended muscles
+beneath them.  She was proud of him, this father who went through the
+world trusting human nature, and handling cattle as only an artist in
+his profession can handle them.
+
+Then her dancing eyes sought the face of Jeffrey Masters.  Her smile
+remained, but a subtle something crept into their depths as she
+surveyed it.  It was the handsome, clean-cut face of a purposeful man.
+There was a straight-forward directness in the gaze of his blue eyes.
+It was the face of a man who has no fear, physical or moral.  It was
+almost too uncompromising in its fearlessness.
+
+Nan knew its every line by heart.  She had thought of it, dreamed of
+it, since the time when she had first realized that a woman's life is
+wholly incomplete without the care of a man upon her hands.  Sometimes
+she had felt that Jeffrey Masters possessed depths which could never be
+fathomed.  Depths of strength, of resource, and all those qualities
+which make for success.  Sometimes she even went further, when her
+analytical faculties--which she possessed in an unusual degree--were
+most active.  She felt that the possession of all these firm qualities
+had rather smothered, to an extent, the gentler emotions of the human
+nature in him.  He was strong, passionate, with a conscience of an
+almost puritanical order, and somehow she felt that a little softening,
+a little leavening of human weakness would have been all to the good.
+But this understanding made no difference to her woman's regard, unless
+it were to strengthen it to a sort of gentle worship such as woman is
+always ready to yield to strength.  It required no effort upon her part
+to picture this man in the heroic mould of a Spartan warrior.
+
+"'_That_,'" she replied, with a whimsical smile, "is a man, who most
+generally seems to fancy his own way of doing things."  Then she shook
+her head as her arm slipped protectingly around the big man's bronzed
+neck.  "I don't guess a woman's argument ever made a man see things
+different yet.  What's he done, Jeff?"
+
+Jeff laughed without humor.
+
+"Done?" he exclaimed.  Then, with a shake of the head: "It's not what
+he's done.  Guess it's what he hasn't done, and what he don't seem to
+figure to do.  I'd kind of raised a hope when I saw you in the window.
+But--well, it was only her father's daughter that came in, I guess."
+
+Then he drew his papers toward him again, and glanced seriously at the
+figures.
+
+"It's Nat's farm," he explained.  "And it's the thing we've been
+waiting on years.  We're getting it fixed right, and your Bud's just
+about as much help as a deaf mute at a talking bee.  I hand him
+figgers, and--and he smiles, just smiles.  I hand him facts, and--he
+keeps on smiling.  It's the kind of smile you most generally see on a
+dog-tired feller's face when you hand him a funny story.  He don't care
+a cuss anyway.  He's figuring to hand Nat ten thousand dollars with no
+more kick than a government spending public money.  He don't kick
+reasonably or unreasonably, and I'd gamble you a new hat he hasn't a
+notion what he's getting for it.  It makes me feel like a 'hold-up,'
+and I say it's not fair to me--nor to himself--nor to--you."
+
+Jeff was serious enough.  In such affairs it would have been difficult
+to find him otherwise.  Nan understood.  These two men had long been
+her profound study.  Her smiling regard remained unchanging while the
+man was talking.  When he ceased she bent over her father in a
+caressing fashion.
+
+"He'd lose his bet.  He surely would, daddy dear, wouldn't he?  But we
+really need to answer, don't we?  He'd think we were both fools, else.
+He wouldn't like it either.  Say, daddy, shall--shall I talk?"
+
+Bud chuckled comfortably.
+
+"I'd hate to stop you, Nan."
+
+Nan smiled contentedly, and raised a pair of challenging eyes in the
+direction of the table.
+
+"My daddy thinks I talk too much," she said.  "But I s'pose that's my
+way--most girls talk when they get the chance--just the same as it's
+his way talking too little.  But neither ways suggest a fool, Jeff.
+And anyway the only sort of fool you need to worry with is the fool who
+don't see and act in a way of his own.  My daddy's acting in his own
+way, and I guess it isn't his way, working overtime with the band
+playing.  If you're dead fixed on having a gamble, it's a new hat to a
+new and less smelly pipe than you're smoking now, that he knows the
+inside of this deal to the last cent's worth.  But what's more, Jeff,
+he knows you, and knows you couldn't 'hold-up' a Sunday-school kiddie
+without going and telling its teacher first.  And now the mail."
+
+She left her father's side and moved to the table, a very picture of
+gentle decision and practice.
+
+"Three for you, my daddy," she cried, dropping three letters on his
+chest, where his shirt gaped just below his neck.  Then she turned
+about.  "Only one for you, honest Jeff.  Just one, and I've guessed at
+the writing till I'm sick."
+
+Jeff was smiling up with frank amusement.
+
+"Say, that's great.  It's got you beat.  Well," he added, as he picked
+up the letter, "I'll just keep you right on guessing.  Where's yours?"
+
+The girl laughed merrily.
+
+"Had mine.  I don't guess any right-acting girl would sit easy in the
+saddle twelve miles without reading her mail.  Say----" she paused.
+The smile had died out of her eyes.  Jeff's expression had abruptly
+changed.  He was regarding the address on his envelope with startled
+seriousness.  Then she went on quickly: "Guess I'll wait till you're
+both through.  I'll get right out an' off-saddle.  Then for supper."
+
+In the parlor the silence remained unbroken.  It became unduly
+prolonged.  Bud finished his mail.  Jeff was still reading his.  It was
+not a long letter.  He had already read it twice through.  Now he again
+turned back to its beginning.
+
+Bud observed him closely.  He saw the knitted brows.  The curious set
+of the man's lips.  His absorbed interest.  Nor did he interrupt.  He
+contented himself with that patient waiting which betrayed much of the
+solid strength of his character.
+
+Presently Jeff looked up.  But his eyes did not seek his friend.  They
+were turned upon the open window, his gaze wandering out toward the
+distant hills, which marked the confines of Rainbow Hill Valley.
+
+Still the other refrained from speech.  Finally it was Jeff, himself,
+who broke the silence.
+
+"Bud," he began, without withdrawing his gaze from the scene beyond the
+window, "it's a letter from Ronald.  It's the second word I've had of
+him in--five years."
+
+Bud nodded.
+
+"The twin."
+
+Jeff's gaze came slowly, thoughtfully back to Bud's face.
+
+"Sure.  We're twins."
+
+An unusual softness crept into the eyes of the man at the table.
+
+"I'm kind of wondering, Bud," he went on presently, "wondering if you
+get all that means--means to me.  I don't know."  He passed a hand
+slowly across his brow, as though to brush aside growing perplexities.
+"I don't seem to get all it means myself.  No, I don't.  The whole
+thing's so queer," he went on, with a nervous, restless movement in his
+chair.  "It sort of seems crazy, too."  He laughed meaninglessly.  Then
+he suddenly leaned forward with flushed cheeks and hot eyes.  "Bud,
+don't think me crazy, but--well, say, I'm only part of me without Ronny
+near.  Oh, I don't guess that explains.  But it's what I feel--and I
+can't just talk it right.  You don't get it?  No, of course you don't.
+I can see it in your eyes.  You think I'm right for the foolish-house.
+Listen.  Is it possible--is it ordinary reason that when twins are
+born, the nature of one normal child can be divided between the two,
+one having what the other feller lacks?  There, that's how I feel about
+it.  It's the way it is with Ronny and me.  All that he is not, I am.
+I haven't one of his better features.  Say, Bud, I'm a pretty cold sort
+of man.  I'd have made a fair sort of Puritan if I'd been on earth a
+century or so ago.  I've little enough humor.  I don't care for play.
+I don't care for half the fun most folks see in life.  I'd sooner work
+than eat.  And Ronny--well, Ronny isn't just any of those things.  He's
+just a boy, full of every sort of human notion that's opposite to mine.
+And I'm crazy for him.  Say, Bud, I love him better than anything in
+life.  If anything happened to that boy, why, I guess all that's worth
+while in me would die plumb out."
+
+He paused.  Bud's shrewd eyes remained studying the emotion-lit
+features of this usually unemotional man.  He felt he was being
+admitted to a peep at a soul that was rarely, if ever, bared, and he
+wondered at the reason.  Was it a calculated display, or was it the
+outlet for an emotion altogether too strong for the man's restraint?
+He inclined to the former belief.
+
+"Nothin' _has_ happened?" he enquired presently, in his direct fashion.
+
+Jeff laughed without any visible sign of lightness.
+
+"No," he said.  Then with a deep sigh.  "Thank God nothing has
+happened.  But----"
+
+"Then the trouble----?"
+
+"The trouble?  Say, Bud, try to get it all as I see it.  It's
+difficult.  The boy's away up trapping and shooting--for a
+living--somewhere in the Cathills.  He's away there living on hard pan,
+while I'm here steadily traipsing on with you to a big pile.  Remember
+he's my other--half.  Do you know how I feel?  No, you can't.  Say,
+he's as merry as I am--dour.  He's as fond of life, and play, and the
+good things of the world as I'm indifferent to 'em.  He's
+reckless--he's _weak_."  Suddenly Jeff's eyes lit.  A great passion
+seemed to surge through his whole body.  "Bud, I want him here.  I want
+to be always around to help him when he gets bumping into potholes.
+It's that weakness that sets me crazy when I think.  He ain't made for
+the dreary grind of the life we live.  That's why he cut it out when I
+came here.  Well there's no grind for him now, and I want to have him
+come along and share in with me.  That's why I'm talking now.  From
+this moment on we're a great proposition in the ranching world, and I
+want Ronny to share in with me."
+
+Bud nodded.
+
+"I get it," he said.  Then he added: "You're a great feller."
+
+"Great!  Cut it out, Bud," Jeff cried sharply.  "It's my love for that
+other half of me that's talking.  That merry bit of a--twin."
+
+"An' you're sendin' for him?"
+
+Jeff shrugged, and depression seemed suddenly to descend upon him.
+
+"If I could fix it that way I don't guess I'd have opened my face to
+hand you all this.  But I can't.  He's in the Cathills, away a hundred
+and more miles northwest of us.  That's all he says.  He don't give a
+mail address.  No, Bud, I'm going to hunt him out.  I'm going to find
+him, and bring him back.  I'll find him sure.  We're just one mind an'
+one body, an'," he added thoughtfully, "I don't guess I'll need a
+detective bureau to locate him.  If he was chasin' around the other end
+of the world I'd find him--sure.  You see, he's the other half of me."
+
+Bud nodded in sympathy, but made no verbal reply.
+
+"See, Bud," Jeff went on, a moment later.  "The spring round-up's
+through.  We're going to fix this deed right away.  When the attorneys
+have robbed us all they need, and Nat's handed over, there'll be a good
+month to haying.  That month I'm going to spend in the Cathills.  I'll
+be back for the hay."
+
+The other eased himself in his rocker.  Then for some moments no sound
+broke the silence of the room.
+
+"It's been a heavy spring," Bud said at last.
+
+Jeff nodded.  His thoughts were away in the Cathills.
+
+"Seems to me," Bud went on.  "Work kind o' worries me some these
+times."  He smiled.  "Guess the wheels need the dope of leisure.  Mebbe
+I ain't as young as you."
+
+"No."
+
+Jeff's attention was still wandering.
+
+"Guess the Cathills is an a'mighty big piece o' country gropin' around
+in," Bud went on.
+
+"Sure.  A hell of a piece.  But--it don't signify."
+
+"No-o," Bud meditated.  Then he added: "I was kind o' thinkin'."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Why, mebbe two folks chasin' up a pin in a bunch o' grass is li'ble to
+halve most o' the chances agin either of 'em jabbin' their hands on the
+business end of it."
+
+"Two?  You mean you're goin' to come along an' help find--Ronny?"
+
+Jeff's eyes were expressing the thanks his lips withheld.
+
+Bud excused himself.
+
+"Them Cathills is plumb full of fur an' things.  Say, I ain't handled a
+gun in weeks."
+
+"Bud, you're----"
+
+The door of the room was abruptly flung open and Jeff's words remained
+unspoken.
+
+"Supper, folks!"
+
+Nan's smiling eyes glanced from one to the other.  She stood in the
+doorway compelling them.  Besides, the memory of Jeff's letter was
+still with her, and she was anxious to observe its later effect.  That
+which she now beheld was obviously satisfactory, and her smile deepened
+contentedly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CONFLICTING CURRENTS
+
+They were busy days in Orrville.  But business rarely yielded outward
+display in its citizens.  Men talked more.  They perhaps moved about
+more--in their customary leisurely fashion.  But any approach to bustle
+was as foreign to the rule of the township as it would be to a colony
+of aged snails in a cyclone.
+
+It was the custom of Orrville to rise early and go to bed late.  But
+this by no means implies any excessive activity.  On the contrary.
+These spells of activity lasted just as long as their accomplishment
+required.  In the interim its citizens returned to a slumber little
+less profound than that which supervened at night after the last
+roysterer had been ejected, by force, or persuasion, from the
+salubrious precincts of Ju Penrose's saloon.
+
+Orrville was a ranching township in the northwestern corner of Montana
+lying roughly some twenty miles west of the foothills of the Cathill
+Mountains, which, in turn, formed a projecting spur of the main range
+of the Rockies.
+
+Orrville was the township and Ju Penrose was the pioneer of its
+commerce.  He was a man of keen instincts for commerce of his own
+especial brand, and rejoiced in a disreputable past.  He possessed a
+thin, hooked nose of some dimensions, which never failed to cut a way
+for its owner into the shady secrets of his neighbors.  He possessed a
+temper as amiable and mild as a spring lamb when the stream of
+prosperity and profit flowed his way, and as vitriolic as a she-wolf in
+winter, when that stream chanced to become diverted into a neighbor's
+direction.
+
+He was considered a man of some importance in the place.  But this was
+probably the result of the nature of his trade, which, in the eyes of
+the denizens of the neighborhood, certainly possessed an advantage over
+such stodgy callings as "dry goods."  But besides the all-important
+thirst-quenching purpose of his establishment, it had become a sort of
+bureau for large and small transactions of a ranching nature, and a
+resort where every sort of card game could be freely indulged in,
+without regard for the limit of the stakes, and had thus gained for
+itself the subsidiary title amongst its clientele of "Ju's Poker Joint."
+
+At the moment Ju's usually busy tongue was taking a well-earned rest,
+and his hawk-like visage was shrouded in a deep, contemplative repose.
+His always bloodshot eyes were speculative as he surveyed the
+smoke-laden scene from behind his shabby bar.  The place was full of
+drinkers and gamblers.  The hour was past midnight.  And he was
+estimating silently the further spending possibilities of his
+customers, and consequently considering the advisability of closing
+down.
+
+A group of three ranch hands leaned against the centre of the bar.
+Their glasses were empty and none of them seemed anxious to command
+their refilling.  They were talking earnestly.  And their voices were
+unusually modulated.  Just beyond these a slight, good-looking man in
+chapps, with a face of particularly refined but somewhat debauched
+appearance, was obviously interested in their talk, although he took no
+part in it.  On the other side of them, away at the far end of the bar,
+leaned a solitary, tough-looking drinker, who seemed to take no
+interest whatever in his surroundings.  Every man in the place, the
+dozen or so occupying the card tables included, was fully armed in the
+customary fashion prevailing in this distant corner of the ranching
+world, and it would have needed no second thought to realize that these
+heavy, loaded weapons were not by any means intended for decorative
+purposes.
+
+"Wal, anyways they're a long time fixin' things," observed one of the
+three at the centre of the bar, with a yawn that displayed a double row
+of gleaming white teeth.  "The boss guessed I'd best wait around, so it
+ain't a heap o' use kickin'.  I'll hev to wait till the durned
+committee's through, if it takes 'em sittin' as long us a hide-bound
+hen."
+
+"It's allus that-a-way when folks gets on a committee racket, Curly,"
+replied one of his friends with a sympathetic grin.
+
+"That's just how, Dan," agreed the third.  "Hot air.  That's what it
+is.  This tarnation Vigilance stunt sets folk whisperin' among
+'emselves 'bout the hell goin' to be ladled out to all cattle thieves
+in general.  Gives 'em visions of hangin'-bees, an' a sort o' firework
+display with guns an' things, an' when they hatched out, what's the
+result?  Why, a waste o' hot air, an'--no checkens."
+
+"'T'so, Dan," agreed Curly, with easy decision.  "The boss is too near
+relative of a fancy gentleman for to hand out the sort o' dope rustlers
+need.  If us boys had the job we'd fix things quick.  You'd see this
+bum gang kicking air at the end of a rope 'fore Ju, here, had time to
+dope out four fingers of rotgut at the expense of the house."
+
+He leered across at the unsmiling face of the saloon-keeper.  Ju
+permitted himself to be drawn.
+
+"Nothin' doin', Curly."  A solemn shake of the head set his walrus
+moustache flapping.  Then he drew a cigar from a top vest pocket and
+bit the end through, brushing his moustache aside to discover a place
+in which to deposit it in his mouth.  "I'd sure hate to dope out any
+rotgut on you boys.  Y'see, I sure got your health at heart.  I kind o'
+love you fellers to death.  I'd hate to see you sufferin' at my hands.
+Guess I was raised Christian."
+
+"Was you?"
+
+Curly's sarcasm achieved the laugh intended, and, as a result of his
+satisfaction, he flung his last half-dollar on the dingy bar.
+
+"Make that into three drops of liver souse, an' hand us a smile, Ju.
+Your face is sure killin' trade."
+
+Ju rolled his cigar across his mouth under the curtain of moustache,
+lit it, and proceeded to push an uncorked bottle across to his
+customers.
+
+"Guess it ain't a bad proposition handin' you boys a smile.  Smiles
+allus happen easy on foolish faces.  Seein' I ain't deaf I been
+listenin' to your talk, an' I ain't made up my mind if you're as bright
+as you're guessin', or if you're the suckers your talk makes you out.
+Seein' I don't usual take chances, I'll put my dollars on the sucker
+business.  I've stood behind this darned old bar fer ten years, an' I
+guess for five of 'em I've listened to talk like yours--from fellers
+like you."  He removed the bottle from which the three men had helped
+themselves to liberal "four fingers," and eyed their glasses askance.
+"Now, you're worritin' over this lousy Lightfoot gang.  So was the
+others.  So's everybody bin fer five years.  An' fer five years this
+same lousy Lightfoot gang has just been helpin' 'emselves to the cattle
+on the ranches around here--liberal.  Same as youse fellers have helped
+yourselves out o' this bottle.  An', durin' that time, I ain't heard
+tell of one o' them boys who's been spoilin' to hang 'em all doin' a
+thing.  Not a thing, 'cep' it's lap up whisky to keep up a supply o'
+hot air.
+
+"Wal," he proceeded, in his biting fashion, as he thrust the bottle on
+the shelf and began wiping glasses with a towel that looked to be
+decomposing for want of soap, "them lousy rustlers is still running
+their play in the district jest wher', when, an' how they darn please.
+See?  You, Curly, are kickin' because your boss Dug McFarlane is too
+much of a gentleman.  Wal, if I know a man from a seam-squirrel, I'd
+sure say Dug's got more savee in his whiskers than you got dirt--which
+is some.  If I got things right, this night's sittin's goin' to put
+paid to the Lightfoot gang's account.  I'd be glad to say the same of
+one or two scores three bums have lately run up right here."
+
+The offensiveness of his manner left the men quite undisturbed.  The
+place would have been strange to them without it.  They accepted it as
+part of the evening's entertainment.  But the allusion to the Vigilance
+Committee's efforts brought them into attitudes of close attention.  It
+drew the attention, too, of the cattleman with the refined features,
+and, equally, that of the tough-looking individual at the far end of
+the bar.
+
+"What are they goin' to do?" demanded Dan urgently.
+
+Ju puffed aggravatingly at his cigar.
+
+"Do?" he echoed at last, gazing distantly at the card players across
+the room.  "Why, what any bunch of savee should ha' done five years
+ago.  Put out a great reward."
+
+Curly snorted in disdain.
+
+"See, I tho't it was to be a big play."
+
+"You allus was bright," sneered Dan.  "How's that goin' to fix the
+Lightfoot crowd?"
+
+"How?"  Ju's contempt always found an outlet in the echo of an
+opponent's interrogation.  "Say, Dan, how old are you?  Twenty?"
+
+"That ain't nuthin' to you," the cowpuncher retorted, with a gesture of
+hot impatience.
+
+"Ain't it?  Wal, mebbe it ain't," Ju agreed imperturbably.  "But y'see
+it takes years an' years gettin' the value o' dollars right.  I allow
+ther's folks guesses dollars talks.  Wal, I'm guessin' they just
+_holler_.  Make the wad big enough and ther' ain't nuthin' you can't
+buy from a wheat binder to a royal princess with a crown o' jools.  The
+only thing you're li'ble to have trouble over is the things Natur'
+fancies handin' you fer--nix.  That an' hoss sense.  That's pretty well
+the world to-day, no matter what the sky-pilots an' Sunday-school
+ma'ams dope out in their fancy literature.  I know.  You offer ten
+thousand dollars for the hangin' of Lightfoot's gang, an', I say right
+here, there ain't a feller in it from Lightfoot--if there is sech a
+feller--down, who wouldn't make a grab at that wad by givin' the rest
+of the crowd away.  Makes you think, don't it?  Sort o' worries them
+empty think tanks o' yours."
+
+But Ju's satisfaction received an unexpected shaking.
+
+"Some wind," observed the slim, lonely drinker, in the blandest fashion.
+
+Ju was round on him in a flash, his walrus moustache bristling.
+
+"I'm listening," he said, with a calmness which belied his attitude.
+
+The other set his glass down on the counter with a bump.
+
+"If you're listening," he said, "you have probably understood what I
+said.  You're talking through a fog of cynicism which seems to obscure
+an otherwise fairly competent intellect.  You've plundered so many
+innocents in your time by purveying an excessive quantity of bluestone
+disguised under the name of alcohol that your overweening conceit has
+entirely distorted your perspective till you fancy that your own dregs
+of human nature constitute the human nature of all the rest of the
+world, who would entirely resent being classed as your fellows.  In a
+word you need physic, Ju."
+
+The speaker laughed amiably, and his smile revealed the weakness which
+was pointed by the signs of debauchery in his good-looking face.  Ju
+eyed him steadily.  The offense of his words was mitigated by his
+manner, but Ju resented the laugh which went round the entire room at
+his expense.
+
+"See here, Bob Whitstone," he began, abandoning his glass wiping and
+supporting himself on his counter, with his face offensively thrust in
+his opponent's direction, "I ain't got the langwidge you seem to have
+lapped up with your mother's milk.  I don't guess any sucker paid a
+thousand dollars a year for my college eddication so I could come out
+here and grow a couple of old beeves and spend my leisure picklin' my
+food depot in a low down prairie saloon.  Therefor' I'll ask you to
+excuse me if I talk in a kind o' langwidge the folks about here most
+gener'ly understan'.  Guess you think you know some.  Maybe you figger
+to know it all.  Wal, get this.  When you get back home jest stand in
+front of a fi' cent mirror, if you got one in your bum shanty, an' get
+a peek at your map, an' ask yourself--when you studied it well--if I
+couldn't buy you, body an' soul, fer two thousand dollars--cash.  I'd
+sure hate slingin' mud at any feller's features, much less yours,
+who're a good customer to me, but you're comin' the highbrow, an' you
+got notions of honor still floatin' around in your flabby thinkin'
+department sech as was handed you by the guys who ran that thousand
+dollar college.  Wal, ef you'll look at yourself honest, an' argue with
+yourself honest, you'll find them things is sure a shadder of the past
+which happened somew'eres before you tasted that first dose o' prairie
+poison which has since become a kind o' habit.  It ain't no use in
+getting riled, Bob, it ain't no use in workin' overtime on that college
+dictionary o' yours to set me crawlin' around among the spit boxes.
+Fac's is fac's.  Ken you hand me a list o' the things you--you who
+ain't got two spare cents to push into the mission box, an' who'd
+willingly sleep in a hog pen if it weren't for a dandy wife who'd got
+no more sense than to marry you--wouldn't do if I was to hand you out a
+roll of ten thousand dollars right now--cash?  Tcha!  You think.  I
+know."
+
+He turned away in a wave of contemptuous disgust.  And as he did so a
+harsh voice from the other end of the bar held him up.
+
+"What about me, Ju?"
+
+The tough-looking prairie man made his demand with a laugh only a shade
+less harsh than his speaking voice.
+
+Ju stood.  His desperate, keen face was coldly still as he regarded the
+powerful frame of his challenger.  Then his retort came swift and
+poignant.
+
+"You, Sikkem?  You'd allus _give_ yourself away.  Get me?"
+
+The frigidity of the saloon-keeper's manner was over-powering.  The man
+called Sikkem was unequal in words to such a challenge.  A flush slowly
+dyed his lean cheeks, and an angry depression of the brows suggested
+something passionate and forceful.  Just for a moment many eyes glanced
+in his direction.  The saloon-keeper was steadily regarding him.  There
+was no suggestion of anger in his attitude, merely cat-like
+watchfulness.  Their eyes met.  Then the cloud abruptly lifted from
+Sikkem's brow, and he laughed with unsmiling, black eyes.  The
+saloon-keeper rinsed a glass and unconcernedly began to wipe it.
+
+The incident was allowed to pass.  But it was the termination of the
+discussion, a termination which left Ju victor, not because of the
+rightness of his views, but because there was no man in Orrville
+capable of joining issue with him in debate with any hope of success.
+Action rather than words was the prevailing feature with these people,
+and, in his way, Ju Penrose was equal, if not superior, not only in
+debate, but in the very method these people best understood.
+
+A moment later Sikkem took his departure.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was well past midnight when the last man turned out of Ju's bar.
+But the crowd had not yet scattered to their various homes.  They were
+gathered in a small, excited cluster gaping up at a big notice pasted
+on the weather-boarding of the saloon-keeper's shack.  Ju himself was
+standing in their midst, right in front of the notice, which had been
+indited in ink, evidently executed with a piece of flat wood.  He was
+holding up a lantern, and every eye was carefully, and in many
+instances laboriously, studying the text inscribed.
+
+It was a notice of reward.  A reward of ten thousand dollars for
+information leading to the capture of the gang of cattle thieves known
+as the "Lightfoot gang."  And it was signed by Dug McFarlane on behalf
+of the Orrville Rancher's Vigilance Committee.
+
+"Guess Ju knowed after all," somebody observed, in a confidential tone
+to his neighbor.
+
+But Ju's ears were as long and sharp as his tongue.  He flashed round
+on the instant, his lantern lowered from the level of the notice board.
+There was a sort of cold triumph in his manner as his eyes fell upon
+the speaker.
+
+"Know'd?" he cried sharply.  "Ain't 'knowin'' my business?  Psha!"  His
+contempt was withering.  Then his manner changed back to the triumph
+which the notice had inspired.  "Say, it's a great piece of money.  It
+surely is some bunch.  Ten thousand dollars!  Gee!  His game's up.
+Lightfoot's as good as kickin' his heels agin the breezes.  He's played
+his hand, an'--lost."
+
+And somehow no one seemed inclined to add to his statement.  Nor, which
+was much more remarkable, contradict it.  Now that these men had seen
+the notice with their own eyes the force of all Ju had so recently
+contended came home to them.  There was not one amongst that little
+gathering who did not realize the extent of the odds militating against
+the rustlers.  Ten thousand dollars!  There was not a man present who
+did not feel the tremendous power of such a reward.
+
+The gathering melted away slowly, and finally Bob Whitstone was left
+alone before the gleaming sheet of paper, with Ju standing in his
+doorway.  The lantern was at his feet upon the sill.  His hands were
+thrust in the tops of his shabby trousers.  He was regarding the
+"gentleman" rancher meditatively, and his half burnt cigar glowed under
+the deep intake of his powerful lungs.
+
+"It's a dandy bunch, Bob, eh?" he demanded presently, in an ironical
+tone.  "Guess I'd come nigh sellin' my own father fer--ten thousand
+dollars.  An' I don't calc'late I'd get nightmare neither."  Then he
+drew a deep breath which suggested regret.  "But--it ain't comin' my
+way.  No.  Not by a sight."  Then, after a watchful pause, he
+continued: "I'm kind o' figgerin' whose way.  Not mine, or--yours.  Eh,
+Bob?  We could do with it.  Pity, ain't it?"
+
+Bob turned.  His eyes sought the face in the shadow of the doorway.
+
+"I'm no descendant of Judas," he said coldly.
+
+"No.  But--Judas didn't sell a gang of murdering cattle rustlers.  That
+ain't Judas money."
+
+"Maybe.  But it's blood money all the same."
+
+"Mighty bad blood that oughter be spilt."
+
+Bob turned away.  His gaze wandered out westward.  Then his eyes came
+slowly back to the man in the door-way.
+
+"You thought I was talking hot air just now--about a man's price.  You
+didn't like it.  Well, when I find myself with a price I hope I shan't
+live to be paid it.  That's all."
+
+The man in the doorway shook his head.  Then he spoke slowly,
+deliberately.  And somehow much of the sharpness had gone out of his
+tone, and the hard glitter of his steely eyes had somehow become less
+pronounced.
+
+"Oh, I guess I got your meanin' right, fer all yer thousand dollar
+langwidge.  Sure, I took you right away.  But--it don't signify a cuss
+anyways.  Guess you was born a gentleman, Bob, which I wa'an't.  An'
+because you was born an' raised that-a-way you'd surely like to kep
+right hold o' the notion that folks ken still act as though they'd been
+weaned on talk of honor an' sichlike.  I sez kep a holt on that notion.
+Grip it tight, an' don't never let go on it.  Grab it same as you would
+the feller that's yearnin' fer your scalp.  If you lose your grip that
+tow-colored scalp of yours'll be raised sure, an' every penicious
+breeze that blows 'll get into your think depot and hand you every sort
+of mental disease ther' ain't physic enough in the world to cure.
+Guess that's plumb right.  It don't cut no ice what I think.  A feller
+like me jest thinks the way life happens to boost him.  Y'see, I ain't
+had no thousand dollar eddication to make me see things any other ways.
+Life's a mighty tough proposition an' it can't be run on no schedule,
+an' each feller's got to travel the way he sees with his own two eyes.
+If he's got the spectacles of a thousand dollar eddication he's an
+a'mighty lucky feller, an' I'm guessin' they'll help him dodge a whole
+heap o' muck holes he'd otherwise bury his silly head in.  So hang on,
+boy.  Grip them darn fool notions so they ain't got a chance.  If you
+let go--wal, you'll get a full-sized peek into a pretty fancy sort o'
+hell wher' ther' ain't any sort o' chance o' dopin' your visions out o'
+sight with Ju Penrose's belly wash.  So long."
+
+Ju picked up his lantern and turned back into his bar, closing and
+securing his door behind him.  Then, with keen anticipation and
+enjoyment, he approached his till and proceeded to count his day's
+takings.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Bob Whitstone unhitched his horse from Ju's tying post.  He swung
+himself into the saddle and rode away,--away toward his outland home
+under the starlit roof of the plains.  It was an almost nightly journey
+with him now, for the saloon habit had caught him in its toils, and was
+already holding him firmly.
+
+His mood was not easy.  He resented Ju Penrose.  He resented all men of
+his type.  He knew him for a crook.  He believed he possessed no more
+conscience than any other habitual criminal.  But his resentment was
+the weak echo of an upbringing which had never intended him for such
+association, and, in spite of it, the man's personality held him, and
+its strength dominated him.
+
+His way took him out across an almost trackless waste of rich
+grass-land.  Somewhere out there, hidden away at the foot of the
+Cathills, lay his homestead, and the wife for whom he had abandoned all
+that his birth had entitled him to.  During the past two years he had
+learned truly all that he had sacrificed for the greatest of all dreams
+of youth.
+
+But these things, for the moment, were not in his mind.  Only Penrose.
+Ju Penrose, whom he had learned to detest and despise out of the
+educated mind that was his.  The man's final homily was entirely lost
+upon Bob.  Such was his temper that only the gross outrages against the
+precepts of his youth remained.  He only heard the hateful, detestable
+cynicism, brutally expressed.  It was something curious how he only
+took note of these things, and missed the rough solicitude of Ju's
+final admonishment.  But he was young and weak, and a shadow of
+bitterness had entered his life, which, at his age, should have found
+no place in it.
+
+The miles swept away under his horse's hoofs.  Already the township,
+that sparse little oasis of shelter in a desert of grass-land, lay lost
+behind him in the depths of some hidden trough in the waves of the
+prairie ocean, The great yellow disc of the moon had cut the horizon
+and lit his tracks, but its light was still unrevealing and only added
+charm to the blaze of summer jewels which adorned the soft velvet of
+the heavens.
+
+He glanced back.  But almost instantly his eyes were turned again
+ahead.  The night scene of these plains was too familiar to him to
+excite interest.  To him there were simply miles intervening between
+him and the slumbers he was seeking.  The prairie, for all its
+beauties, spelt toilful days and bitter disappointment for him.
+Wherein then should be discovered its charms?
+
+Again his mind settled itself upon the events of the evening.  Price?
+Price?  Every man, he had been told, had his price.  Every man and
+woman.  He uttered a sound.  It might have been a laugh, but it lacked
+mirth.  It startled his alert horse.  It almost seemed to startle the
+quiet night itself.  What was his price?  All he knew about price was
+its payment.  He had only been called upon to pay.  And he had paid!
+My God, he had paid!  All that had been his.  All the wealth, the
+comfort, the luxury and prospects which had been his in his wealthy
+father's home, had been the price he had paid for the right, which was
+the right of every man, to choose for himself, and to take to himself
+and to wife, the woman who seemed to him to be the one creature in the
+world who could yield him the happiness which alone was worth while.
+
+This talk of a man's price only enraged him the more.  He viciously
+detested Ju Penrose, and all such creatures who walked the world.
+
+Well, the reward was out.  Time would show.  If it failed to find the
+Judas he would remind Ju.  Oh, yes, he would remind him.  He would wait
+his time for the reminder.  He would wait till the saloon was full, and
+then--then he would open out his batteries.  Men were of----
+
+What was that?
+
+He had pulled his horse up with a swift tightening of his hand.  Now
+the beast stood with head erect, and pricked ears firmly thrust
+forward.  Its head was turned southward, and the gush of its distended
+nostrils warned its rider that his question was shared by a creature
+whose instincts were even more acute, here, on the prairie, than those
+of its human master.
+
+Bob bent down in the saddle the better to obtain the silhouette of the
+sky-line.  The sound which had held him came up on the southern night
+breeze.  It was a low murmur, or rumble, and, to his accustomed ears,
+it suggested the speeding of hoofs over the green clad earth.  He
+waited for many moments, but the sound only increased.  There was no
+doubt left in his mind now.  None at all.
+
+He sat up again and glanced swiftly about him.  The moonlight had
+increased, and a silver sheen threw up the surrounding scene into
+indistinct relief.  Beyond, to his right, he detected a small patch of
+scrub and spruce, and, without a second thought, he made for it.
+
+A minute later he was out of the saddle beside his horse, screened from
+view of the plains by a belt of bush.  He secured his horse and moved
+to the fringe of his shelter.  Here he took up a position facing south,
+and his view of the plains beyond became uninterrupted.
+
+He knew what was coming.  Instinct warned him.  Perhaps even it was the
+wish fathering his belief.  He felt it was a certainty that the
+rustlers were out pursuing their depredations with their customary
+unchallenged daring.  Who, he wondered, was the present victim, and
+what was the extent of the raid?
+
+He had not long to wait.  The sound grew.  It lost its distant
+continuity and became broken into the distinct hoof beats of large
+numbers.  Furthermore, by the sound of it, they would pass right across
+his front.  He had been wise in seeking cover.  Had he remained----
+
+But speculation gave way before the interest of movement.  Now the
+silhouette of the sky-line was dancing before his eyes.  In the
+moonlight he could clearly make out the passing of a driven herd.  It
+came on, losing itself in the shadows of a distant trough.  Again it
+appeared.  More distinct now.  He whistled under his breath.  They were
+coming from the direction of Dug McFarlane's and it was a large herd.
+They were traveling northwest, which would cut into the hills away to
+the north of his homestead.  They----
+
+But they were almost abreast of him now, and he heard the voices of men
+urging and cursing.  Lower he dropped toward the earth the better to
+ascertain the numbers.  But his estimate was uncertain.  There were
+moments when the herd looked very large.  There were moments when it
+looked less.  He felt that a conservative estimate would be one hundred
+perhaps, and some eight or ten men driving them.
+
+They were gone as they had come, lumbering rapidly, and as they passed
+northward the southern breeze carried the sound away.  It died out
+quickly, and for minutes longer than was needed he stood listening,
+listening.  Then, at last, he turned back to his horse.
+
+In the two years of his sojourn on the land it was the first time he
+had witnessed the operation of the Lightfoot gang, and it left a deep
+impression upon his mind.  A great resentment rose up in him.  It was
+the natural temper of a man who is concerned, in however small a
+degree, in the cattle industry.  And his anger urged him to a greater
+speed for home, and a greater sympathy for the man who was prepared to
+accept the Judas money offered for the lives of this gang of criminals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+TRAILING THE "BLACK TAIL"
+
+The woman started.  She threw up her head.  Her wide eyes, wonderful
+and dark, searched the deep aisles of the shaded pine woods about her.
+Her hair hung loosely in a knot at the nape of her neck, and its
+intensely dark masses made an exquisite framing for the oval of the
+handsome face beneath the loose brim of wide prairie hat.
+
+The stillness of these wooded slopes of the Cathills was profound.
+They possessed something of the solemnity belonging to the parent range
+of the Rockies beyond.  For they were almost primeval.  The woman might
+have belonged to them, her dark beauty so harmonized with its
+surroundings.  Yet for all her coloring, for all the buckskin she wore
+for upper garment, there was nothing in her nature of the outlands
+which now claimed her.  She was of the cities.  She was bred and
+nurtured in the civilized places.  The life about her was another life.
+It was crude and foreign to her.  It claimed her by force of
+circumstance against every instinct and emotion.
+
+Her searching ceased, and her eyes fixed their steady regard upon a
+gray-brown object moving amongst the myriad of black stanchions which
+supported the tousled roof of melancholy green foliage above her.  With
+an almost imperceptible movement one buckskin clad arm reached slowly
+out toward the small sporting rifle which leaned against an adjacent
+tree-trunk.  Her whole poise was tense and steady.  There was in her
+attitude that hard decision which one associates only with the
+experienced hunter.  There was almost too much decision in a woman so
+obviously young.
+
+The weapon was drawn toward her.  For one brief moment it was laid
+across her lap upon the paper-covered book she had been reading.  Then
+its butt found its way to a resting place against her soft shoulder.
+Not for an instant had her gaze been diverted from the moving object.
+Now, however, her head inclined forward, and her warm cheek was laid
+against the cool butt.  The sights of the weapon were brought up into
+line.  The pressure of her forefinger was increased upon the trigger.
+There was a sharp report followed by a swift rush of scampering hoofs
+amongst the brittle pine cones and needles which carpeted the twilit
+woods.  Then, in a flash, all the tense poise gave way to considered
+but rapid activity.
+
+The woman sprang to her feet.  She was tall and straight as a willow.
+Her rough canvas skirt was divided.  Her buckskin shirt was fringed and
+beaded.  She made a picture of active purpose that belied her
+femininity.  In a moment she was in the saddle of the pony which had
+been dozing a few yards away.  Her rifle was slung upon one shoulder,
+and her paper-covered book was thrust within the fastenings of her
+shirt.  She was hot in pursuit of the small black-tailed deer which her
+shot had wounded.
+
+Effie bent low in the saddle which she rode astride.  Her
+well-accustomed pony twisted and turned, threading its way almost
+miraculously through the labyrinth of bald tree-trunks.  These
+pot-hunts, which were of such frequent occurrence, were the recreation
+which alone made life tolerable to its mistress.
+
+The woman saw only her quarry.  For the rest she left the road to her
+pony.  With slack reins she leaned forward, carrying her featherweight
+over the horn of the saddle.  The woods meant nothing to her.  The maze
+of tree-trunks as they sped by conveyed no threat of danger.  She was
+concerned only with the obviously limping beast which was to provide
+venison for the pot for the next two weeks to come.
+
+Her pony gained nothing upon the wounded deer.  But it lost no distance
+either.  The scene changed and changed again.  The woods yielded to
+open grass, and again they merged into scattered scrub, through which
+it was difficult to track their quarry.  Up hill, down dale, over
+hummock, through hollow.  Once more through the dark aisles of aged
+pine woods.  And always northward.
+
+Time had no place in the woman's mind.  Excitement, hope, doubt.  These
+occupied her to the full.  And above all purpose reigned.
+
+Twice she drew up to within shot.  But she refrained.  She was herself
+as breathless as her quarry, and the shot would probably have been
+wasted.  Besides, those pauses of the poor hunted beast carried their
+own significance to her practised mind.  Its limping was sore, and now
+its stumblings were becoming more and more frequent.
+
+They had passed an open stretch, a mere cup surrounded by sharp-rising,
+pine-clad hills.  They entered woods on the northernmost slope, and
+began a climb so severe that pursuer and pursued were brought to a
+sheer scramble.  The toil was terrific, but Effie's pony, bred of the
+tough prairie fibre, clawed up with indomitable courage and endurance.
+The deer kept its lead by desperate, agonizing effort, and the woman
+knew that the summit would have exhausted its resources.
+
+On they went, on and up, the pace of both ever slackening.  One hundred
+yards only separated them now, and, with almost every stride, the
+distance was lessening.  The summit was in sight.  The pony was blowing
+hard.  Effie urged him, and the vicious Mexican spurs found his flanks.
+There was no thought of sparing in the girl's mind.  If the broncho
+failed her, then she must finish the chase on foot.
+
+Another fifty yards or so and the deer would have reached the summit.
+Could she permit it?  Dared she risk what lay beyond?  If the open pine
+woods continued she might, but--what lay beyond?
+
+Without further speculation she suddenly flung out of the saddle.  Her
+decision was taken.  She dared not risk that summit with her pony now
+rapidly failing.  She must chance her own unsteadiness.  The pursuit
+had been hard and breathless.  Well, she must trust to her nerve.
+
+She left her steaming pony and dropped on one knee.  With all her mind
+and will concentrated she drew a deep breath as the rifle was raised to
+her shoulder.  With a stern deliberation she leveled her sights and
+fired.  The spent deer stood, and shook, and then gazed round.  There
+was something dreadful in the appeal of its wistful attitude.  For one
+second the woman closed her eyes.  Then they opened, and their beauty
+was full of resolve.  Again the rifle was at her shoulder.  Again the
+sights were leveled.  Again the weapon spat out its vicious pellet.
+This time the weapon was lowered for good, and the movement was
+inspired by the sight of the deer.  It quietly dropped upon its knees
+and rolled over on its side.
+
+Ten minutes later the body of the deer was securely lashed to the back
+of the saddle.  There was no regret in the heart of the woman as her
+practised fingers secured the warm body.  It was game.  Fair game,
+brought down in open chase, and it would provide welcome change in the
+monotonous diet of her home.  Besides, the spirit of the hunter gripped
+her soul.  It was the only thing which made life endurable in these
+drab outlands.
+
+At the summit of the hill she breathed a sigh of relief.  Her judgment
+and decision were amply proved.  Nor in any uncertain fashion.  The
+woods ceased in a clean cut, such as is so frequently the case where
+the pine world reigns.  And rearing blankly before her gaze stood a
+dense barrier of low and heavy green bush.  It needed small enough
+imagination to realize the security which lay in its depths for so
+small a creature as a wounded deer.
+
+For some thoughtful moments Effie gazed upon the barrier.  Then she
+turned and surveyed her dejected pony.  Again her decision was taken
+without hesitation.  She stooped and set a pair of hobbles about the
+tired creature's pasterns, and, leaving him to his own devices, set off
+to ascertain her whereabouts.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+But her movements were not without feminine curiosity, added to which
+was the businesslike desire to familiarize herself with every foot of
+the country within reach of her home.  This was a break into new
+territory.  Time was small enough object to her, and, besides, her pony
+needed time to recuperate from its leg weariness.
+
+It required less than ten minutes, however, to banish every other
+thought from her mind and absorb it in amazement at her discovery.  A
+brief battle with a dense and obstinate scrub found her standing in the
+centre of a wide sort of bridle path, scored with a dozen or so cattle
+tracks crowded with the spurs of driven cattle.
+
+She stood gazing down at the signs everywhere about her in the loose
+sand, dumbfounded at the sight.  She knew there was no homestead or
+ranch within miles of this region.  Was she not bitterly aware that her
+own home marked the fringe of the cattle world in this direction?
+
+Slowly there grew in the depths of her heart a feeling of apprehension.
+The stillness, the remoteness, the tremendous solitude, and yet--those
+tracks.
+
+She stood intent and listening.  Her ears were straining for a sound.
+But only there came to her the whispering breezes rustling the mournful
+foliage of the pine woods behind her.  Her eyes were raised to the
+walls of scrub lining the roadway.  They searched vainly for a sign.
+There was none.  Simply the riot of nature about her, and, at her feet,
+those tracks.
+
+She moved.  Then swiftly she passed across to the western side of the
+roadway where the westering sun threw ample shadow.  All unconsciously
+it seemed her movements became almost furtive, furtive and rapid.  She
+passed down the bush-lined way, hugging the grassy edges to avoid
+leaving trace of her footsteps in the sand.  Understanding was with
+her, and that understanding warned her of the jeopardy in which she
+stood should her presence be advertised.
+
+Thought, speculation and imagination were a-riot in her now.  She was
+proceeding in the direction the broad cloven hoof marks indicated.
+What--lay beyond?
+
+Many minutes passed.  Breathless minutes of pulsing excitement for the
+woman who knew only monotony and the drudgery of an outland life.  No
+womanish fears could deter her.  She believed and hoped she was on the
+eve of a great discovery, and such was her reckless desire that nothing
+could deter her.
+
+The aspect of the scrub changed.  It became dotted with taller trees.
+The paler foliage of spruce reared itself, and, here and there,
+isolated clumps of towering pines threw shadows across her path.  Then
+gaps broke up the continuity, but, even so, the view beyond to her left
+was cut off by remoter growths.  Once or twice she hazarded her way
+into them in her search for information, but always she returned to the
+broad track of the footprints of driven cattle.
+
+The pathway rose at a steep incline.  It bent away to the right, and,
+in the distance, it seemed that it must converge upon the sharp cut
+edge of the great pine woods she had so recently left.  With this
+conclusion came another.  The track must terminate abruptly or it must
+pass back into the great pine bluff.
+
+The end, however, was neither of these things.  And it was far nearer
+than she had suspected.  The path twisted back into the huge reverse of
+an S, and finished abruptly at the sharp edge of a wide deep valley.
+
+It came upon her almost with a shock.  The tracks had abruptly swung
+westward.  She rounded the bend, and, in a moment, found herself gazing
+out over a wide valley from a dizzy height.
+
+Her first feeling was that the drop was sheer, precipitate.  Then
+realization superseded, and she flung herself full length upon the
+ground and pressed her way into the shelter of an adjacent bush.  The
+path had not ended.  It passed over the brink and continued its way
+zigzagging down the terrific slope to the valley below.  It was this,
+and the sight of a distant spiral of smoke rising from below, which had
+flung her into the shelter of the friendly bush.  Her risk had only
+been momentary, but even in that moment she had been silhouetted in
+full view of any chance gaze below.
+
+She drew herself toward the edge of the drop.  Just where she had flung
+herself it was clean and sheer, and the bush overhung.  Thus she was
+left with a full view of the depths below.  Her dark eyes dwelt upon
+the zigzagging path.  She followed its downward course to the green
+plain.  She tracked it across to the far side of the valley.  Then she
+drew a sharp breath, and her eyes widened.
+
+The telltale smoke rose from the heart of a woodland bluff, and near by
+a large herd of cattle was grazing, watched over by three mounted men
+whose horses were moving slowly over the bright green carpet of grass.
+
+She lay quite still, regardless of all but those moving figures, and
+the dark green bluff.  She was watching and waiting for she knew not
+what.  Her heart was thumping in her bosom, and her breath came
+rapidly.  There was no question in her mind.  In a moment her whole
+life seemed to have changed.  The day had dawned to a contemplation of
+the monotonous round of drudging routine, only to close with a thrill
+such as she had never dreamed could be hers.
+
+The moments passed; rapid, poignant moments.  The sun dipped lower
+toward the alabaster crests of distant mountain peaks.  The peace of
+the scene suggested nothing of the turbulent thought a-riot behind her
+wide, dark eyes.  What must be done?  What could she do--a woman?  She
+felt helpless--so helpless.  And yet----
+
+She raised herself upon her elbow and propped her soft cheek upon the
+palm of her hand.  She must think--think.  The chance of it all.  It
+was so strange.  There lay the secret revealed--the secret which every
+rancher in the district for years had sought to discover.  There was
+the camp of the Lightfoot gang.  She had discovered it, had discovered
+its approach.  Everything--she, a woman.
+
+What could she do with the secret?  How could she----  She thought of
+her husband.  But somehow her enthusiasm lessened with the thought.
+But she needed him.  Yes.  There was no room for any doubt on that
+score.  He must be roused, and convinced.  He most be made to see the
+importance and significance of her discovery, and they must turn it
+to----
+
+The crack of a rifle startled her.  Almost on the instant the
+whistling, tearing of a bullet sounded in the bush to the left of her.
+Her glance was terrified as it turned in the direction.  Then, in a
+moment, she was crouching lower as she searched the valley away over by
+the bluff.
+
+In an instant her nerves strung tight.  A group of men were standing
+just within its shadow, and the three horsemen, who had been riding
+round the cattle, were racing directly toward the foot of the pathway
+leading out of the valley.  She must have been seen when she had stood
+at the opening.  And now----
+
+But there was not a second to lose.  She sprang to a crouching position
+under the bush.  Another shot rang viciously upon the still air.  The
+bullet tore its way through the bush.  This time it was still wider of
+her hiding place.  But already she had begun her retreat--swiftly, and
+crouching low.
+
+She reached the shelter of the barrier just as another bullet whistled
+overhead.  Then she set off at a run.
+
+And as she ran she calculated the chances.  She had a big start, and
+the horsemen had to face the zigzag climb.  If she made no mistakes
+there was little chance of their discovering her.  They could never
+make that climb before she reached her pony.
+
+She increased her pace.  Her nerves were steadying.  Strangely her
+control was wonderful.  There was no real fear in her--only tension.
+Now as she ran down the open way her eyes were alert for every
+landmark, and her woodcraft was sufficiently practised to stand her in
+good stead.  She recognized each feature in the path until she came to
+the point where she had first entered it In a moment she was battling
+her way through the thick bush, and the tension she was laboring under
+took her through it in a fraction of the time her first traversing had
+been made.  Her pony was standing within ten yards of the spot at which
+she had left him.
+
+She breathed a great relief.  In a moment she had unbuckled the hobbles
+on his forelegs.  Then, with the habit of her life on the plains, she
+tightened the cinchas of the saddle.  Then she replaced the bit in its
+mouth.
+
+As she swung herself into the saddle the distant plod of hoofs pounding
+the cattle tracks reached her.  For one instant she sat in doubt.
+Then, with a half-thought fear lest her hard pursuit of the wounded
+deer had left her tough broncho spent, she swung him about and vanished
+like a ghost into the gloomy depths of the woods.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE WEAKER VESSEL
+
+The homestead rested upon the southern slope of a wood-crowned hill,
+which was merely one of a swarm of hills of lesser or greater
+magnitude.  Westward, away in the distance, the silver sheen of the
+main mountain range still continued to reflect the rainbow tints of a
+radiant sunset.
+
+It was a homestead to associate with hands less than 'prentice.  There
+was neither imagination nor very definite purpose in its planning.  It
+rather gave the impression of the driving of sheer necessity than the
+enthusiasm of effort toward the achievement of a heartily conceived
+purpose.  Furthermore, it bore evident signs of a desire to escape as
+far as possible the burdens of the life it represented.
+
+The squalid two-roomed house was sunk into the backing to the sloping
+hill.  Its front and sides were of green logs and a mud plaster.  Its
+roof was of a primitive thatch, held secure from winter storms by
+sapling logs lashed fast across it.  The central doorway was filled by
+a rough-boarded door, and the apertures left for added light were
+covered with thin cotton material.  They were left wide open in summer,
+and in winter only served to shut out the worst of the driven snows and
+most of the daylight.
+
+The adjacent barn was of far greater extent, but of considerably less
+degree.  Still, it was sufficiently weather-proof, which was all that
+could be reasonably hoped for by the toughened creatures, who found
+shelter beneath its crazy roof.  Higher up the slope stood a couple of
+corrals of sorts.  Their position was at the southern extremity of the
+woodland crown, their placing probably inspired by the adjacency of the
+material required for their construction.
+
+Below the house stretched a sloping patch of growing wheat, perhaps
+about thirty acres in extent.  This was the real business of the
+homestead, and, in spite of the crazy fencing of barbed wire about it,
+it looked to be richly flourishing.
+
+For all the general ineffectiveness of the place, however, it was not
+without significance.  For it gave that human touch which at once
+breaks up the overpowering sensation which never fails to depress in
+the silent heart of Nature's immensity.  It spoke of courage, too.  The
+reckless courage of early youth, plunging for the first time into
+independence.  Furthermore, it suggested something of the first great
+sacrifice which the hot tide of love, surging through youthful veins,
+is prepared to make for the object of its passionate regard.  In any
+case it symbolized the irresistible progress of man's effort when
+pitted against the passive resistance of Nature's most fiercely rugged
+frontiers.
+
+A wonderful harmonious peace reigned over the scene which was bathed in
+the light of a drooping sun.  It was the chastened pastoral peace, than
+which there is no more perfect in the world.  Cattle were grazing their
+way homeward; the cows bearing their burden of laden udders to yield it
+for the benefit and prosperity of the community; the steers lingering
+at the banks of the murmuring mountain stream, or standing knee-deep in
+its waters, their sleek sides sheathed in rolls of fat, only waiting to
+yield up their humble lives as their contribution to the insatiable
+demands of the dominant race.
+
+Two or three horses stood adjacent to the doorway of the humble barn,
+patiently flickering their long, unkempt tails in a vain effort to ward
+off the attacks of swarming flies.  A few chickens moved about
+drowsily, just outside the hutch which had been contrived for their
+nightly shelter.  While stretched upon the dusty earth, side by side,
+lay two great rough-coated dogs slumbering their hours of watch and
+ward away in the shade, with the indifference of creatures whose vain
+hopes of battle have been all too long deferred.
+
+All of a sudden there came a partial awakening.
+
+Out of the west, down the slope of a neighboring hill came a figure on
+horseback.  It was moving at a rapid gallop.  The horses at the barn
+turned about and raised their heads watchfully.  They whinnied at the
+approach.  The two dogs were on their feet startled into alertness,
+vain hope rising once more in their fierce hearts.  The hens cackled
+fussily at the prospect of their deferred evening meal.  The last of
+the cattle ambled heavily from the water's edge.  It was rather like
+the obscure movement of a mainspring, setting into motion even the
+remotest wheel of a mechanism.
+
+Effie galloped up to the house.  Nothing of the gentle waking her
+coming had inspired attracted her observation.  Her handsome eyes were
+preoccupied, and their gaze wandered back over the way she had come,
+searching the distance with the minutest care.  Finally she dismounted
+and off-saddled, turning her pony loose to follow the promptings of its
+own particular requirements.  Then she set about releasing the carcase
+of the deer upon her saddle, and bore it away to a lean-to shed at the
+side of the house.  Emerging therefrom she picked up her saddle and
+bridle and took them into the house.  Then she took up her stand within
+the doorway and, once more, narrowly searched the surrounding hills
+with eyes as eager and doubtful as they were beautiful.
+
+The calm of evening had settled once more upon the place.  The peace of
+it all was superlative.  It was peace to which Effie was something more
+than averse.  She dreaded it.  For all her two years of life in the
+meagre home her husband had provided her with, it required all her
+courage and fortitude to endure it.  The hills haunted and oppressed
+her, and her only hope lay in the active prosecution of her work.
+
+She breathed a profound sigh.  There was relief in the expression of
+her face.  The drooping corners of her mouth and the tight compression
+of her well-formed lips told their own story of her emotions.  She had
+passed through an anxious time, and only now was she beginning to feel
+reassured.
+
+Yes.  All was well, she believed.  She had lost her pursuers, thanks to
+the staunchness of her pony, and her knowledge of the country about
+her.  With another sigh, but this time one of weariness, she left her
+doorway and moved over to the barn.  There was still the dreary round
+of "chores" to which her life seemed dedicated.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+A solitary horseman sat gazing out through a leafy barrier across the
+narrow valley of the little mountain stream.  His eyes were fixed upon
+the dejected homestead on the slope of the hill beyond.  He was
+be-chapped, and carried the usual complement of weapons at his waist.
+His horse was an unusually fine creature, and well up to the burden it
+was called upon to bear.  Nor was that burden a light one, for the man
+was both massive and muscular.
+
+The watchful eyes were deep set in a mahogany-hued setting.  It was a
+hard face, brutal, and the eyes were narrow and cruel.
+
+For a long time he sat there regarding the homestead.  He beheld the
+graceful form of the woman as she moved swiftly about her work.
+Judging from his expression, which was by no means pleasant, two
+emotions were struggling for dominance.  For some time doubt held chief
+place, but slowly it yielded to some more animal emotion.  Furthermore
+temptation was urging him, and more than once he lifted his reins,
+which became a sign of yielding.
+
+But all these emotions finally passed.  It was evident that some even
+stronger force was really governing him.  For, with a sharp ejaculation
+that conveyed every feeling suggested by disappointment, he swung his
+horse about and galloped off in a southeasterly direction--toward
+Orrville.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was past midnight.  Effie, flushed with an unusual excitement, was
+gazing up into her husband's face.  She was listening almost
+breathlessly to the story he was telling her.  The little living-room,
+more than half kitchen, was bathed in the yellow light of a small tin
+kerosene lamp.  For the time at least her surroundings, the poverty and
+drudgery of her life, were forgotten in the absorbing feelings
+consuming her.
+
+"I tell you, Effie, I was scared--plumb scared when I saw what it was,"
+Bob Whitstone ended up.  "Guess we've known long enough the whole
+blamed countryside is haunted by cattle rustlers, but--that's the first
+time I've seen 'em, and I guess it's the first time any one's seen 'em
+at work.  Say, I'm not yearning for the experience again."
+
+But Effie had no interest beyond his story.  His feelings on the matter
+of his experience were of no concern whatever at the moment.  There
+were other things in her mind, things of far greater import.  She
+returned to the rocker chair, which was the luxury of their home, and
+sat down.  There was one thing only in Bob's story which mattered to
+her just now.
+
+"Ten thousand dollars," she murmured.  "_Ten thousand_!  It's
+a--fortune."
+
+Bob moved across to a rough shelf nailed upon the wall and picked up a
+pipe.
+
+"A bit limited," he observed contemptuously, as poured some tobacco
+dust into the bowl.
+
+"I was thinking of--ourselves."
+
+The man ceased his operation to gaze swiftly down upon the gently
+swaying figure in the chair.
+
+"What d'you mean, Effie?" he demanded sharply.
+
+The girl's steady eyes were slowly raised in answer to the challenging
+tone.  They met her husband's without a shadow of hesitation.
+
+"It sounds like a fortune to me, who have not handled a dollar that I
+could spend without careful thought--for two years," she declared with
+warmth.
+
+Bob completed the filling of his pipe.  He did not answer for a few
+moments, but occupied himself by lighting it with a reeking sulphur
+match.
+
+"That's a pretty hard remark," he said at last, emitting heavy clouds
+of smoke between his words.
+
+"Is it?  But--it's just plain facts."
+
+"I s'pose it is."
+
+The girl had permitted her gaze to wander.  It passed from her
+husband's face to the deplorable surroundings which she had almost
+grown accustomed to, but which now stood out in her mind with an added
+sense of hopelessness.  The lime-wash over the cracked and broken
+plaster which filled the gaps between the logs of the walls.  The
+miserable furnishing, much of it of purely home manufacture, thrown up
+into hideous relief by the few tasteful knickknacks which had been
+wedding presents from her intimate friends and relatives in the east.
+The earthen floor, beaten hard and kept scrupulously swept by her own
+hands.  The cook-stove in the corner, with its ill-set stovepipe
+passing out of a hole in the wall which had been crudely covered with
+tin to keep out the draughts in winter.  The drooping ceiling of cotton
+material, which sagged in great billows under the thatch of the roof.
+It was all deplorable to a woman who had known the comfort of an almost
+luxurious girlhood.  Into her eyes crept a curious light.  It was half
+resentful, half triumphant.  It was wholly absorbed.
+
+"Suppose?  There's no supposition," she cried bitterly.  "I have had
+the experience of it all, the grind.  Maybe you don't know what it is
+to a woman, a girl, to find herself cut off suddenly from all the
+little luxuries she has always been used to.  I don't mean
+extravagances.  Just the trifling refinements which count for so much
+in a young woman's life.  The position is possible, so long as the hope
+remains of their return later, perhaps fourfold.  But when that hope no
+longer exists--I guess there's nothing much else that's worth while."
+
+The man continued to smoke on for some silent moments.  Then, as the
+girl, too, remained silent, he glanced at her out of the corners of his
+eyes.
+
+"You gave up a good deal for me--for this," he said in gentle protest.
+"But you did it with your eyes open--I mean, to the true facts of my
+position.  Say, Effie, I didn't hold you up for this thing.  I laid
+every card on the table.  My father threatened us both, to our faces,
+if we persisted in marrying.  Well, I guess we persisted, and he--why,
+he just handed us what he promised--the dollars that bought us
+this--farm.  That was all.  It was the last cent he figured to pass our
+way.  You know all that, and you never squealed--then.  You knew what
+was in store.  I mean--this."  He flung out one arm in a comprehensive
+gesture.  "You guessed you'd grit enough to face it--with me.  We hoped
+to win out."  Then he smiled.  "Say, I guess I haven't given up a
+thing--for you, eh?  I haven't quit the home of millionaire father
+where my year's pocket money was more than the income of seventy per
+cent. of other folks!  I, too, did it for this--and you.  Won't you
+stick it for me?"
+
+The man's appeal was spoken in low earnest tones His eyes were gentle.
+But the girl kept hers studiously turned from his direction, and it was
+impossible for him to read that which lay behind them.
+
+Again some silent moments passed.  The girl was gently rocking herself.
+At last, however, she drew in her feet in a nervous, purposeful
+movement, and sat forward.
+
+"Bob," she exclaimed, and now there were earnestness and kindness in
+the eyes that gazed up at the man, "it's no use for us to talk this
+way," she cried.  "I began it, and I ought to be sorry--real sorry.
+But I'm not.  I wouldn't have acted that way under ordinary
+circumstances.  But it's different now, and it was your own talk made
+me.  You sneered at that ten thousand dollars, which seems to be a
+fortune to me.  Ten thousand dollars!" she breathed.  "And we haven't
+ten dollars between us in this--house.  Bob, it makes me mad when I
+think of it.  You don't care.  You don't worry.  All yon care for is to
+get away from it all--from me--and spend your time among the boys in
+Orrville.  You've been away ever since dinner to-day, and now it's past
+midnight.  Why?  Why, when there's a hundred and one things to do
+around this wretched shanty?  No--you undertake this thing, and
+then--spend every moment you can steal--yes, that's the word--steal,
+hanging around Ju Penrose's saloon.  I'm left to fix things right
+here--to do the work which you have undertaken.  Then you sneer when I
+see a fortune in that ten thousand dollars reward."
+
+The girl's swift heat was not without effect.  She had not intended to
+accuse in so straight a fashion.  It was the result of long pent-up
+bitterness, which never needs more than a careless word to hurl into
+active expression.  Bob's mild expression of contempt looked to be
+about to cost him dear.
+
+A moody look not untouched with some sort of fear had crept into the
+man's eyes.  Now he tried to smooth the threat of storm he saw looming.
+Furthermore, an uncomfortable feeling of his own guilt was possessing
+him.
+
+"But what if it can be called a fortune, Effie?" he demanded swiftly.
+"It don't concern us.  I don't guess it's liable to come our way."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+The girl's challenge came short and sharp, and her beautiful eyes were
+turned upon him full of cold regard.
+
+The man was startled.  He was even shocked.
+
+"How?" he demanded.  "I don't get you."
+
+The girl sprang from her chair in a movement of sup-pressed excitement.
+She came toward him, her eyes shining.  A glorious ruddy tint shone
+through the tanning of her fair cheeks.  She was good to look at, and
+Bob felt the influence of her beauty at that moment just as he had felt
+it when, for her, he had first flung every worldly consideration to the
+four winds.
+
+"Will you listen, Bob?  Will you listen to me while I tell you all
+that's been churning around in my head ever since you told me of that
+reward?  You must.  You shall.  I have lived through a sort of
+purgatory in these hills for too long not to make my voice heard
+now--now when there's a chance of making our lives more tolerable.  Oh,
+I've had a day while you've been away.  It's been a day such as in my
+craziest moments I've never even dreamed of.  Bob, I've discovered what
+they've all been trying to discover for years.  I've found Lightfoot's
+camp!"
+
+"And then?"
+
+The girl's enthusiasm left her husband caught in a wave of
+apprehension.  He saw with a growing sense of horror the meaning of
+that sudden revolt.  This was displayed in his manner.  Nor was Effie
+unobservant of it.  Nor unresentful.
+
+She shrugged her perfect shoulders with assumed unconcern.
+
+"That reward--those ten thousand dollars are mine--ours--if I choose.
+And--I do choose."
+
+There was no mistaking the firmness, the decision in her final words.
+They came deliberate and hard, and they roused the man to prompt and
+sharp denial.
+
+"You--do--not."
+
+He was no longer propped against the table.  He was no longer gentle.
+He stood erect and angry, and their regard was eye to eye.  But even so
+there was no disputing the woman's dominance of personality.  The man's
+eyes, for all their anger, conveyed not a tithe of the other's
+decision.  His whole attitude was subjective to the poise of the
+woman's beautiful head, her erect, sculptured shoulders.  Her measuring
+eyes were full of a fine revolt.  There was nothing comparable between
+them--except their anger.
+
+"Who can stop me?  You?"
+
+The scornful challenge rang sharply through the little room.  Then a
+silence fraught with intense moment followed upon its heels.
+
+The man nodded.  His movement was followed by Effie's mocking laugh.
+
+Perhaps Bob realized the uselessness, the danger of retaining such an
+attitude.  Perhaps his peculiar nature was unequal to the continuous
+effort the position called for.  In a moment he seemed to shrink before
+those straight gazing eyes, and the light of purpose behind them.  When
+he finally spoke a curious, almost pleading tone blended with the
+genuine horror in his words.
+
+"No, no, Effie, you can't--you daren't!" he cried passionately.  "Do
+you know what you're doing?  Do you know what that reward means to
+you--to us?  Look at your hands.  They're clean, and soft, and white.
+Say, girl, that's blood money, blood money that'll surely stain them
+with a crimson you'll never wash off 'em all your life.  It's blood
+money.  Man's blood.  Human blood.  Just the same as runs through our
+veins.  Oh, say, girl, I've no sort of use for rustlers.  They're
+crooks, and maybe murderers.  Guess they're everything you can think
+of, and a sight more.  But they're men, and their blood's hot, warm
+blood the same as yours and mine.  And you reckon to chaffer that blood
+for a price.  You're going to sell it--for a price.  You're going to do
+more.  Yes.  You're going to wreck a woman's conscience for life for
+those filthy, blood-soaked dollars.  The price?  Effie, things are
+mighty hard with us.  Maybe they're harder with you than me.  But I
+just can't believe we've dropped so low we can sell the life blood of
+even a--murderer.  I can't believe it.  I just can't.  That's all.
+Tell 'em, Effie.  Tell 'em all you know and have discovered if you
+will.  Tell 'em in the cause of justice.  But barter your soul and
+conscience for filthy blood money--I--bah!  It makes me turn sick to
+think that way."
+
+But Effie was in no mood to listen to the dictates of squeamish
+principles from a man who lacked the spirit and power--the will to
+raise her out of the mire of penury into which he had helped to plunge
+her.  The hours of dreary, hopeless labor; the weeks and months of
+dismal and grinding poverty had sunk deeply into her soul.  No price
+was too high to pay to escape these things.  In a moment her reply was
+pouring forth in a passionate torrent.
+
+"Blood money?" she cried.  "Bob, you're crazier than I'd have thought.
+Where's the difference?  I mean between handin' these folks over to
+justice for justice sake, and taking the reward the folks who're most
+to benefit by it are ready to hand out to me?  Say, you can't talk that
+way, Bob.  You can't just do it.  Aren't the folks who carry out the
+justice in the land paid for it--from the biggest judge to the fellow
+who handles the levers of the electric chair?  Doesn't the country hand
+out thousands of dollars every year for the punishment of offenders,
+whether it's for the shedding of their life blood, or merely their
+heart's blood in the cruel horrors of a penitentiary?  Do you think I'm
+going to hand out my secret to a bunch of cattlemen for their benefit
+and profit, and reap no comfort from it for myself in the miserable
+life I'm condemned to endure?  Your scruples are just crazy.  They're
+worse.  They're selfish.  You'd rather see me drudging all the best
+moments of my life away, so you can lounge around Ju Penrose's saloon
+spending dollars you've no right to, than risk your peace of mind on an
+honest--yes, _honest_--transaction that's going to give me a little of
+the comfort that you haven't the grit to help me to yourself."
+
+The girl was carried away with the force of her own purpose and
+craving.  Every word she said was meant from the bottom of her soul.
+There was not a shadow of yielding.  She had no illusions.  For two
+years her heart had been hardening to its present condition, and she
+would not give up one tittle of the chance that now opened out before
+her hungry eyes.
+
+Bob was clay in her hands.  He was clay in any hands sufficiently
+dominating.  He knew from the moment he had delivered his appeal, and
+he had heard only the tones of her reply, that it was he who must yield
+or complete irrevocably the barrier which had been steadily growing up
+between them.  Just for a moment the weakly, obstinate thought had
+occurred of flinging everything to the winds and of denying her once
+more with all the force at his command.  But the moment passed.  It
+fled before the charm of her presence, and the memory of the loved
+which he was incapable of shutting out of his heart.  He knew he was
+right, and she was utterly wrong.  But he knew, equally well, from her
+words and attitude, that it was he who must give way, or----
+
+He shook his head with a negative movement which Effie was quick enough
+to realize meant yielding.  She wanted him to yield.  It would simplify
+all her purpose.  She desired that he should participate in the
+transaction.
+
+"You'll regret it, Effie," he said, in his usual easy tones.  "You'll
+regret it so you'll hate to think of this moment all the rest of your
+life.  It's not you talking, my dear, it's just--the experience you've
+had to go through.  Can't you see?  You've never been like this before.
+And it isn't you.  Say, I'd give my right hand it you'd quit the whole
+thing."
+
+But the girl's resolution was unwavering.
+
+"You--still refuse--to countenance it?" she demanded.
+
+Again Bob shook his head.  But now he moved away and struck a match to
+relight his pipe.
+
+"No," he said.  Then he slowly puffed out great clouds of smoke.  "No,
+my dear, if you're bent on it."  Then he moved to the cook-stove and
+supported one foot upon it.
+
+"Say--you guess I'm selfish.  You guess I haven't acted as I ought to
+help push our boat along.  You reckon I've become a sort of
+saloon-loafing bum.  Guess you sort of think I'm just about the limit.
+Well, maybe I'm nothing to shriek about.  However, I've told you all I
+feel.  I've told you what you're going to feel--later.  Meanwhile it's
+up to me to help you all I know.  Tell me the whole thing, and I'll do
+the business for you.  I'll see Dug McFarlane for you, and fix things.
+But it's on one condition."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+Something of the coldness had passed from the girl's eyes.  She was
+smiling because she had achieved her purpose.
+
+"Why--just this.  That I don't touch one single dollar of the price
+you're to receive for those poor devils' blood.  That's all."
+
+Just for a moment a dull flush surged up under the tan of the girl's
+cheeks, and her eyes sparkled ominously.  Then she returned to her
+rocker with great deliberation.
+
+"You're crazy, Bob," she said frigidly, but without any other display.
+"Still--just sit around, and--I'll tell you it all."
+
+And while the man listened to the story of his wife's adventures his
+mind went back to the scene in Ju Penrose's saloon, and the denial he
+had flung so heatedly at that philosophic cynic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE HANGING BEE
+
+Dug McFarlane was a picturesque creature.  He was big in height and
+girth.  He was also big in mind.  And, which was much more important to
+the people of the Orrville ranching world, big in purse.  He was
+grizzled and gray, and his eyes beamed out of a setting which was
+surely made for such beaming; a setting which possessed no sharp angles
+or disfiguring hollows, but only the healthy tissue of a well-nourished
+and wholesome-living man in middle life.
+
+As he sat his horse, beside his station foreman, gazing out at the
+broken line of foothills which marked the approach to the barrier of
+mountains cutting against the blue, he seemed to display in his bearing
+something of that dominating personality which few successful men are
+entirely without.  All about them lay the heavy-railed corrals of a
+distant out-station.  Just behind stood the rough shanty, which was the
+bunkhouse for the cowhands employed in this region.  The doctor was
+still within, tending the grievously injured man who had been so badly
+wounded in the previous night's raid by the rustlers.
+
+For the time Dug's beaming eyes were shadowed with a concern that was
+half angry and wholly depressed.  They searched the rolling grass-land
+until the distance was swallowed up by the barrier of hills.  He was
+seeking one reassuring glimpse of the black, hornless herd whose
+pastures these were.  But only disappointment met him on every side.
+The beautiful, sleek, Aberdeen-Angus herd, which was his joy and pride,
+had vanished.  They had gone, he knew.  They had gone the same way
+that, during the last five years, hundreds of head of his stock had
+gone.  It was the last straw.
+
+"Say, Lew Hank," he said, in a voice of something approaching an
+emotion he possessed no other means of displaying, "it's beat me bad.
+It's beat me so bad I don't seem able to think right.  We'd a hundred
+head running on this station.  As fine a bunch as ever were bred from
+the old country's strain.  I just feel that mad I could set right in to
+break things."
+
+Then, after a long pause during which the station foreman waited silent:
+
+"And only last night, while these guys was raising the mischief right
+here, I was setting around doping out big talk, and raising a mighty
+big wad for the round-up of the whole darnation gang.  Can you beat it?
+I'm sore.  Sore as hell.  Say, tell it me again.  I don't seem to have
+it clear."
+
+He passed one great muscular hand across his moist forehead, and the
+gesture was rather one of helplessness.
+
+Lew Hank regarded him with measuring eyes.  He knew him so well.  In
+the ten years and more he had worked for him he had studied his every
+mood.  This phase in the great cattleman's character was something new,
+something rather startling.  Dug's way was usually volcanic.  It was
+hot and fierce for a while, generally to hollowed by a hearty laugh,
+rather like the passing of a summer storm.  But this, in Lew's opinion,
+was a display of weakness.  A sign he neither liked nor respected.  The
+truth was Dug McFarlane had been hit in a direction of which his
+subordinate had no understanding.  That herd of Aberdeen-Angus cattle
+had been his plaything.  His hobby.  He had been devoted to it in a way
+that would have been absurd to any one but a cattleman.  Hank decided
+this unaccustomed weakness must be nipped in the bud.
+
+"Say, boss, it ain't no use in squealin'," he grumbled, in the hard
+tones of a man who yields to no feelings of sympathy.  His
+weather-stained face was set and ugly in its expression.  "Wher's the
+use in it anyway?" he demanded.  "Get a look around.  There's miles of
+territory, an' all of it runs into them blamed hills.  I got three boys
+with me.  They're right boys, too.  I don't guess there's a thing you
+or me could tell 'em 'bout their work.  Not a thing.  Day and night one
+of 'em's on grazin' guard.  Them beasties ain't never left to trail off
+into the hills.  Wal, I guess that's all we ken do--sure.  Say, you
+can't hold up a gang of ten an' more toughs with a single gun in the
+dead, o' night, 'specially with a hole in your guts same as young
+Syme's had bored into his.  I ain't ast once, nor twice, to hev them
+beasties run into the corrals o' nights, and fed hay, same as in
+winter.  I've ast it fifty times.  It's bin up to you, boss.  So I say
+it's no use in squealin'."
+
+Hank spat over his horse's shoulder, and his thin lips closed with a
+snap.  He was a lean forceful prairieman who possessed, as he would
+himself have said, no parlor tricks.  Dug McFarlane, for all his
+wealth, for all he had been elected president of the Western Union
+Cattle Breeders' Association three years in succession, was no more to
+him than any other employer who paid wages for work loyally performed.
+
+Dug regarded his foreman with close attention.  He ignored the man's
+rough manner.  But, nevertheless, it was not without effect.
+
+"And the other boys?"
+
+"Was dead asleep in the bunkhouse--same as me.  What 'ud you have?
+They ain't sheep dogs."
+
+Dug took no umbrage.
+
+"And they're out on the trail--right now?"
+
+"Sure.  Same as we should be, 'stead o' wastin' hot air around here.
+Say, I guess you're feelin' sore.  But I don't guess your feelin's is a
+circumstance to mine, boss.  You ain't bin beat to your face by this
+lousy gang.  I have.  An' say, I'm yearnin'--jest gaspin'--to wipe out
+the score.  I don't sort o' care a bit for your loss.  That ain't my
+funeral.  But they've beat me plumb out--same as if I was some sucker
+who ain't never roped an' branded a three-year-old steer since I was
+pupped.  Are you comin' along?  They struck out northwest.  We got
+that, an' the boys is follerin' hard on their trail.  It'll be better'n
+squealin' around here."
+
+There could be no doubt about the man's feelings.  They were displayed
+in every word he spoke.  In every glance of his fierce eyes.  Dug
+approved him.  His manners were nothing.  Lew was probably the most
+capable cattleman in his service.
+
+He was about to follow his foreman who had swung his horse about to set
+off northward, when he abruptly flung out an arm, pointing.
+
+"That one of your boys--coming in?  Maybe----"
+
+Lew screwed up his eyes in the sunlight.  His rep came in a moment.
+
+"Maybe--nuthin'.  That ain't one of my boys."  Then, after a brief,
+considering pause, in which he narrowly examined the distant horseman's
+outfit: "Sort o' rec'nize him, too.  Likely he's that bum guy with the
+dandy wife way up on Butte Creek.  Whitstone, ain't it?  Feller with
+swell folks way down east, an' who guesses the on'y sort o' farmin'
+worth a cuss is done in Ju Penrose's saloon.  That's him sure," he
+added, as the man drew nearer.  Then he went on musingly.  "I guess
+he's got a lot to dope out.  Say, them guys must have passed near by
+his shanty."
+
+Bob Whitstone reined his pony up with a jerk.  He was on a mission that
+inspired no other emotion than that of repulsion and self-loathing.
+And these things found reflection in his good-looking face.
+
+He glanced swiftly from one to the other as he confronted the burly
+rancher and his station foreman.  The latter he did not know, nor was
+he interested in him.  The man he had come to see was Dug McFarlane,
+who claimed from him, as he did from every man in the district,
+something in the nature of respect.
+
+"Guess you'll remember me, sir," he began, in his easy, refined tones.
+"My name is Whitstone--Bob Whitstone.  You granted me certain grazing
+rights awhile back.  It was some two years ago.  Maybe you'll remember.
+You did it to help me out.  Anyway, I came over to see you this morning
+because--I must.  If you can spare half an hour I want to see you
+privately.  It's--important.  You've been robbed last night, and--it's
+about them.  The gang, I mean."
+
+His pony was still blowing.  Bob had ridden hard.  He had first ridden
+into Orrville, and then followed the rancher out here.  He was leaning
+over in the saddle lounging upon the horn of it.  His eyes were gazing
+curiously, speculatively at the figure of the man who ruled the local
+cattle industry.  He was calculating in his own way what might be the
+effect of the news he had to impart.  What estimate this big man--and
+Bob knew him to be a big man--would have of him when he had told his
+news and claimed the--blood money?  With each moment he shrank smaller
+and smaller in his own estimation.
+
+Dug regarded him steadily.
+
+"You've got news of them?"
+
+Bob nodded, and glanced meaningly in the direction of Lew Hank.
+
+"I've seen 'em.  But--it's more than that."
+
+The rancher turned quickly upon his foreman.
+
+"Say, just get along into the shack there, and see how the Doc's making
+with young Syme.  I need a talk with Whitstone."
+
+It was not without obvious and resentful reluctance that Lew Hank
+withdrew.  Even his hardihood, however, was unequal to resisting so
+direct an order from his chief.
+
+The two men watched him out of earshot.  Then Dug, with almost
+precipitate haste, turned back to his visitor.
+
+"Now, sir, I'm ready to hear anything you need to tell me."
+
+But Bob was thinking of Ju Penrose as he had thought of him many times
+since he had listened and yielded to Effie's appeal.  Every man has his
+price.  Bob knew now that he, like the rest, had his price.  That price
+a woman had set for him.  Ju was right--hatefully right.  Well, he
+would now refuse to be robbed of one cent of it.
+
+He looked up sharply as the other made his demand.
+
+"You're offering ten thousand dollars reward for the| capture of the
+Lightfoot gang, Mr. McFarlane?"
+
+"That's so."
+
+The rancher's regard had deepened.  There was a curious light shining
+in his blue eyes.  It was half speculative, half suggestive of growing
+excitement.  It was wholly full of a burning interest.
+
+"Say, I'd just like to know how I stand."  Bob laughed that short hard
+laugh which bears no trace of mirth.  "You see, I can put you wise.  I
+can lead you right on to their camp so you can get 'em--while they're
+sleeping, or any other old way.  Oh, yes, I'm ready to play my part
+right up to the limit.  It don't matter a thing.  I'm not just here to
+tell you about things.  I'm here to lead you to that camp, and take a
+hand in the hanging when you get busy.  You see, I'm a whole hogger.
+But I want to know how things stand about that ten thousand dollar
+reward.  Do I get it?  If I get shot up does my wife get it?  And when
+it's paid, do you shout about it?  Does the gang down Orrville way need
+to know who it was they forgot to hand the name of Judas to when he was
+christened?  I don't care a cuss on my own account.  It's----"
+
+But Dug McFarlane broke in upon the bitter raillery.  He had no thought
+for the man or his feelings, just for one moment it seemed to him that
+some sort of miracle had happened.  And his every thought and feeling
+was absorbed in it.  Here, after five years of vain effort, here, after
+five years of depredations which had almost threatened the cattle
+industry in the district with complete crippling, here was a man who
+could lead them to the raiders' hiding-place, could show them how the
+hanging they all so cordially desired could be brought about.  It was
+stupendous.  It was--yes, it was miraculous.
+
+His first impulse had been to give way to the excitement which stirred
+him, but he restrained himself.
+
+"Ten thousand dollars will be paid by me to the man, or his nominee,
+privately, if his information leads to the hanging of this gang.  Say,
+boy, we ain't goin' to split hairs or play any low games on this lay
+out.  I'm a rich man, an' ten thousand dollars ain't a circumstance so
+we break up this gang.  If we only get one of 'em or part of 'em, the
+man who shows me their hiding-place, and leads me to it, that man--or
+his wife--gets my ten thousand dollars.  You can have it in writing.
+But my word goes any old time.  Now you can get busy and hand me the
+proposition."
+
+The steady eyes, the emphatic tones of this big, straight-dealing
+rancher silenced the last doubt in Bob's lesser mind.  He was out to do
+this dirty work with all his might in the interest of the woman who had
+inspired it.  But he had scarcely been prepared for such simple methods
+as this man displayed.  He had felt that it was for him to barter, to
+scheme, to secure the dollars Effie coveted.  A deep sigh escaped him.
+It may have been relief.  It may have been of regret that he must stand
+before so straight-dealing a personality claiming his thirty pieces of
+silver.
+
+He passed one hand across his perspiring brow and thrust his prairie
+hat farther back upon his head.  He would have preferred, however, to
+have drawn it down over his eyes to escape the searching gaze from the
+honest depths of the other's.  Suddenly, with a gesture of impatience,
+he began to talk rapidly.
+
+"It's no use, Mr. McFarlane, I hate this rotten work," he cried out.
+"I--I hate it so bad I could just rather bite my tongue out than tell
+you the things I've got to.  It's rotten.  I don't know----  Say, you
+don't know me, and I don't guess you care a curse anyway.  But I was
+brought up in a city and taught to believe things were a deal better
+than I've lately come to think they are.  Psha!  These fellers have got
+to be hanged when and where we get them.  But it hurts me bad to think
+that I've got to take dollars for handing you their lives.  Oh, that
+don't tell you a thing either.  You'd say I don't need to take 'em.
+But I do.  I got to take those dollars, if they blister my hands and
+burn the bones inside 'em.  I've got to have 'em, and I'd like to burn
+'em, every blazing one.  But I've got to have 'em.  Say, I'll be paid
+on the nail when the job's done?  If I get shot up the money'll be paid
+to my wife?  Will you give me your word, sir?  Your word of honor?"
+
+"My word of honor."
+
+"Say, then come right back with me to my shanty no, best not.  We'll
+ride back to Orrville, and I'll hand you all I know as we go.  I can
+quit you before we reach the township.  Then you can hustle the crowd
+together and I'll be waiting ready at my shack to play my part--the
+dirty rotten Judas racket."
+
+"Judas betrayed his--Master and Friend.  Are these people your friends?
+Is Lightfoot your master?"
+
+"Heavens!  What d'you take me for--a rustler?"
+
+"Then quit your crazy talk of Judas.  Your duty's plumb clear.  Your
+duty's to hand these folks, these bandits, into our hands.  The money's
+a matter of--choice.  I'll just hand my man a word or two, and we'll
+get back Orrville way."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was past midnight when Bob took up a position squatting on the sill
+of his own doorway.  Standing close behind him, leaning against the
+rough casing, Effie looked down upon his huddled figure.  Her eyes were
+alight with a power of suppressed excitement.  The blood was surging
+through her young veins, and every nerve was tense with the strain of
+waiting, of anticipation.
+
+But her emotions were by no means shared by her husband.  For all her
+beauty and woman's charm she was different, utterly different from him.
+She had been brought up to the understanding that she would have to
+make her own way in the world.  All her parents had been able to do for
+her was to see that she was as fully equipped for the adventure of life
+as their limited means would permit.  Those means would die when her
+chief parent died, and the style in which they had lived left no margin
+for saving.
+
+So, with cool calculation, Effie had set about her life's effort.  Nor
+had she considered herself unsuccessful in the first spreading of her
+maiden wings.  A millionaire's son!  It was a splendid match.  It had
+met with the entire approval of her family.
+
+Then had come disillusionment.  A determined opposition from Bob's
+father.  She had been urged to break off the engagement.  She even
+intended to do so.  But some how she had miscalculated the nature which
+her education had been powerless to eradicate.  She realized at last
+when the demands of her campaign made themselves heard, that there was
+something she had hitherto completely ignored.  There was the woman's
+heart of her.  She had most absurdly fallen in love with this first
+stepping-stone toward the goal of her ambition.  It was the absurd
+uncalculating love of extreme youth.  But it was sufficiently impetuous
+to flout all the reason which her training and upbringing had been
+calculated to inspire her with.
+
+The rest followed in natural sequence, and now, after two years of
+married penury, she was ready to seize any straw which chance flung in
+her way as a means of salving that ambition which she now saw, with
+more perfectly clear vision, was completely upon the rocks.
+
+Now, in her mind, there were only three matters of concern.  Would Dug
+McFarlane come?  Would they succeed in capturing this Lightfoot gang?
+Would she get those ten thousand dollars, which appeared so vast a sum
+to eyes only accustomed to dwelling upon cents?
+
+Bob was silent.  His whole aspect seemed to have undergone a complete
+changes.  He had returned to her with the story of his interview with
+Dug McFarlane.  He had returned to her with the assurance that he had
+sold his conscience, his honor, at her bidding, and he hoped she was
+satisfied.  Since then he had wrapped himself in a moody silence which
+had defied her utmost effort to break down.
+
+The horses stood ready saddled in the barn.  Effie was clad in her
+riding suit.  As yet the moon had not risen to reduce the starlit
+magnificence of the velvet summer night sky.  Nor was there any sound
+to warn them that the hours of suspense were nearly over.
+
+Finally, Effie could endure the silence no longer.  Her dark eyes were
+intently gazing down upon the bowed figure of the man.  They were hard
+with every bitter woman's emotion.  She was full of a fierce, hot
+resentment against the man who could so obstinately resist the spirit
+of her longing.
+
+"Bob," she cried at last, all restraint completely giving way, "do you
+know what I could do just now more willingly than anything else in the
+world?  I could thrust out my foot and spurn you with it as you might
+any surly cur which barred your way.  I tell you I'm hot with every
+feeling of contempt for your crazy attitude.  You dare to set yourself
+and your moral scruples between my welfare and the miserable life
+you've condemned me to.  Your moral scruples.  Were there ever such
+things?  Morals?  Ju Penrose's saloon day and night--for you.  The
+sluttish drudgery of this wretched place for me.  Then you dare to
+place your conscience before my--comfort."
+
+"Do I?"
+
+The man did not look up.  His brooding eyes were on the sky-line to the
+southeast.
+
+"I've done as you needed.  I've arranged everything with the--hangman.
+You're going to touch those pleasant dollars.  What more are you asking
+me?"
+
+"What more?  Yes, you've done these things because I've driven you to
+them.  You?  You'd rather see me sitting around here starving, a worn
+wreck of a woman, than lend a willing hand to bettering our lot.  Oh,
+yes, you've done these things, and--I hate you for the way you've done
+them."
+
+The man sat up.  He shifted his position so that he could gaze up at
+the splendid creature standing over him.
+
+"You don't hate me worse than I hate myself, Effie," he said with an
+exasperating lack of emotion.  "Say, you feel like kicking me.  You
+feel like treating me like a surly cur.  Well, I guess you're welcome.
+I don't guess there's a thing you can do that way can hurt me worse
+than you've done already."  Then he smiled.  And his smile was more
+maddening to the woman than his words.  "Don't worry a thing.  You're
+going to get your dollars if there's anything I can do to help you, and
+when you've got 'em--why, if the merciful God we've both been brought
+up to believe in is all we believe Him, I shan't be around to watch you
+dirtying your hands with them."
+
+Then with a swift, alert movement he raised a warning hand.
+
+"H'sh!"
+
+For some seconds they remained listening.  Far away to the southeast a
+low murmuring note came over the low hills.  The girl remained with
+eyes straining to pierce the starlit monotone.  The man rose slowly
+from his seat.  Finally he turned about and faced her, and his eyes
+smiled into hers.
+
+"The hanging bee," he said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE RAIDERS RAIDED
+
+It was the gap where the screen of bush broke off, leaving the barren
+shoulder overlooking the valley.  It was where the hard-beaten,
+converging cattle-paths hurled themselves over the brink to the wide
+depths below.
+
+The stillness that prevailed was unbroken by a single night sound.
+Even the insect life seemed wrapped in a deep hush of somnolence.  As
+yet the night scavengers had not emerged from their hidings to bay the
+silvery radiance of a moonlit night.  The deep hush beneath the myriad
+of eyes of night was as beautiful as it was treacherous, for it only
+cloaked hot, stirring passions ready in a moment to break out into
+warring chaos.
+
+Crouching low under the shelter of the screening bush three figures
+huddled closely.  They were peering across the wide gulf, searching
+with eyes that only half read what lay before them in the starlight.
+Their gaze rested upon one definite spot whose shadowy outline was
+indicated by the outstretched arm of one of the party.  It was a deep
+woodland bluff, leaning, as it seemed, for support against the far wall
+of the valley's western slope.
+
+After some tense moments the straining eyes beheld the faintest glimmer
+of artificial light flickering in the depths of its silent heart.  So
+faint was it, at the distance, that, for a while, doubt prevailed.
+Then conviction supervened as each of the watchers recorded his
+observation and a sigh of certitude made itself heard.  The point of
+light was held by all.  It was dwelt upon.  It was the verification
+needed to convey absolute faith in the woman's tale miraculous.
+
+Perhaps it was the light in some window of a secret abode.  Perhaps it
+was the steady flicker of an unscreened camp-fire.  Perhaps, even, it
+was the beam of some lantern carelessly set down and left alight.
+Whatever it was it was certainly of human agency, and human agency in
+these regions had only one interpretation for the minds of those who
+were watching from the high eastern wall of the valley.
+
+Presently a woman's voice spoke in the hush of suppressed excitement.
+Her tone was full of an eagerness that hurled her words swiftly upon
+the still night air.
+
+"That's where I marked them down," she whispered.  "There--just there.
+Right where that light's shining.  Somewhere in the heart of that
+bluff.  There was a herd grazing out in front, with three mounted men
+guarding it.  There's no mistake.  It's a bee-line right across.  And
+the men who fired up this way came out of those trees.  It's steep down
+these paths.  They sort of zigzag their way, but it's a path any horse
+can make without danger.  It just needs care.  Once in the valley it's
+a stretch of sweet-grass without a bluff or a break of any sort.
+There's no slough either.  It's just grass.  One big flat of
+sweet-grass."
+
+There was no reply from her companions.  They were engrossed with the
+object of their straining scrutiny.  Presently the woman went on again.
+
+"This is where my work quits," she said.  Then she withdrew her gaze
+and looked up at the dim outline of the big man nearest her.  There was
+just a shade of eagerness in her manner now.  "That's Lightfoot's camp,
+Mr. McFarlane," she assured.  "I've done all that's needed.  You see,
+I'm a woman, and I don't guess you need anything more from me.  Shall I
+stop right here, or--get back to home?"
+
+Bob Whitstone was watching his wife closely as she addressed herself to
+the rancher.  He noted her tone, her evident anxiety now, and he
+understood.  A curious repulsion surged through him.  In the brief two
+years of his married life no such sensation had ever possessed him.
+But he recognized it.  It was the breaking point.  Effie no longer held
+place in his affections.  He glanced up at McFarlane as his deep tones
+whispered in the silence.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, get right back to home.  There's no need for you to get
+mussed up with what's goin' to happen.  It's man's work, not a woman's.
+Your husband's got my word.  You'll find we aren't forgetful."
+
+Then he drew back under cover, and moved away to where, scattered along
+the path, well sheltered from view, a large party of dismounted
+horsemen were awaiting his orders.
+
+Effie turned to her husband.
+
+"You're coming back with me, Bob?" she said, almost pleadingly.  "It's
+a long way to home."
+
+Bob's eyes gazed straight into hers.  Even in the darkness Effie felt
+something of the coldness of his regard.
+
+"Are you scared?" he demanded.
+
+Effie shook her head.
+
+"There's nothing to be scared at.  But you've nothing to do with--the
+rest of it."
+
+"Haven't I?"
+
+"You're not going down there with them?"
+
+There was a curious sharpness in the woman's whispering voice.  Bob's
+cold regard remained unwavering.
+
+"I'm leaving nothing to chance.  You've got to get your wages.  I'm
+going to see you get them.  Yes, I'm going--down there."
+
+A sudden fierce passion swept through the woman's heart.  Hot words in
+retort surged to her lips.  But they remained unuttered.  A strong
+effort of restraint checked them.  She turned away coldly, her eyes
+focussing once more upon the tiny point of light across the hollow.
+
+"Guess you must do as you think," she said, with a shrug.  And she
+remained with her back turned upon the man she was destined never to
+address again.
+
+Bob moved away and joined the rest of the Vigilantes.  They were
+already in the saddle.  Dug McFarlane had given his final orders.  In a
+moment Bob surveyed the scene in the dim light.  Then he turned away to
+his own horse and sprang into the saddle.
+
+McFarlane saw him and rode up.
+
+"You coming along?" he enquired curiously.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Good boy."  Then he drew a deep breath.  "Maybe there'll be an empty
+saddle or two before we've done.  But I don't guess that'll need to
+worry us any.  The man who 'passes in' to-night won't have any kick
+comin'.  It's better that way--with your duty done."
+
+"Yes."
+
+The simple monosyllable was strangely expressive, but Dug McFarlane had
+no understanding of the thought that prompted it.  It would have been
+difficult indeed, even with understanding, to have probed the depths of
+feeling prompting it.  But Whitstone was incapable of seeing the
+broader aspect of anything pertaining to himself.  He saw only as his
+feelings dictated, without logic or reason of any sort.  He was of that
+nature which leans for support upon prejudices absorbed in early youth.
+Principles inculcated through early environment and teaching.  He was
+incapable of testing or questioning their verity.  Robbed of them he
+was left floundering.  And Effie, the woman whom he had married only
+out of hot, youthful human regard, had so robbed him.
+
+Effie drew back.  She pressed herself close into the bush as the
+cavalcade sought the path at the edge of the valley.  She watched the
+burly leader vanish over the brink.  Then, one by one, twenty-five
+others passed her in review, and were swallowed up by the depths below.
+She knew none of them personally, but she knew they were all ranchers
+and ranchmen of varying degree.  She knew that each individual had at
+some time suffered at the hands of the rustlers.  That deep in each
+heart was the craving for a vengeance which possessed small enough
+thought of justice in it.  These men were Vigilantes.  They were so
+called not from any desire to enforce law and order, but purely for
+their own self-defense, the defending of self-interests.
+
+They impressed her not from any justice of motive, but from the
+merciless purpose upon which they were bent.
+
+The last to pass over the brink was her husband, a slight figure,
+almost puny, amongst these hard prairie folk.  Just for one weak moment
+she was on the point of raising a protesting voice.  Just for one
+moment a womanly softening held her yielding.  He was her husband, and
+memories crowded.  But almost as they were born they died.  Their place
+was once more taken by the recollection of the life she had been forced
+to endure for the sake of her first youthful passion.  Her heart
+hardened.  No impulse had driven her to her present actions.  They were
+the result of a craving she was powerless to resist.  Her husband must
+go his way.  He must act as he saw fit.  For herself she would not
+forego one tithe of the reward which she believed would help her to
+that comfort in life for which her soul yearned.
+
+With the passing of the Vigilantes she moved clear of the bush.  She
+would see this out.  Home?  She had no desire for her home.  The night
+had no terrors for her.  Nothing had terror for her, except the failure
+of these men.
+
+She flung herself upon the ground and lay with wide eyes searching the
+remoteness of the valley beyond.  Her impatience had developed into
+something almost feverish.  She wanted a sign.  She wanted assurance.
+But the world seemed so still, so entirely peaceful.
+
+The moments pursued for her a sluggish course.  The jeweled sky was an
+added regret.  She desired light, light that she might witness the
+whole drama she hoped--yes, hoped--would be played out down there in
+the valley.  A sort of dementia had taken possession of her.  She had
+no thought of the blood to be poured out at her bidding.  She thought
+nothing of the strong lives to be given up in sacrifice for her
+well-being.  She thought only of herself, and all that the success of
+that night's affairs would mean to her.
+
+But the dragging minutes extending upward of half an hour wore her
+fever down.  And slowly depression replaced her more tense emotions.
+It all seemed so long in happening that failure began to loom, and to
+become a certainty.
+
+It was too good to hope.  Ten thousand dollars!  The amount bulked in
+her mind.  It grew greater and greater in its significance as delay
+thrust hope further and further from her thought.  Again impatience
+grew, hot, angry impatience, and drove depression out.  What were they
+doing down there?  Why did they not surround the bluff?  There were
+enough of them.  Look!  The light was still shining.  It was the camp.
+Where that light shone the men lay in hiding.  Well--it was simple.  To
+her mind there was no need for----
+
+The sound of a rifle shot split the air with significant abruptness.
+The sound banished the last of her half-angry causing.  The moment had
+come.  She raised herself up for no other reason than tense drawn
+suspense.
+
+A second shot.  Then a rattle of musketry which suggested general
+conflict.  She drew a deep breath.  Far away in the distance it seemed
+she heard a sharp cry.  It was the final shriek of a human creature in
+the agony of a mortal wound.  Then followed the sound of hoarse voices
+shouting.
+
+For some moments nothing in the scene changed.  The speck of light
+shone out twinkling and gleaming like some evil eye.  For the
+rest--there remained the deep twilight marked by the myriads of summer
+stars.
+
+But the cries of men, the trampling of speeding hoofs held her.  The
+breathlessness of the whole thing was upon her now, making it
+impossible to detach her regard from the main features.
+
+The rattle of rifles had become almost incessant.  And a few moments
+later a blaze of light shot up from the far side of the bluff.  It
+grew, licking up the great, sun-dried, resinous pine wood with
+paralyzing rapidity.  Another great sheet of flame soared upward
+further away to the right.  Then another to the south.  A fire trap had
+been set at the far side of the great bluff, and only the hither side
+remained open to those seeking shelter within it.
+
+Effie's gaze was fascinated beyond her control.  The Vigilantes had
+planned their coup deliberately and well.  The air she was breathing
+began to reek with the pungent smell of burning.  A light smoke haze
+began to flood the picture.  Now she beheld moving figures in the lurid
+glow which backed the scene.  They were horsemen.  But whether or not
+they were the Vigilantes she could not be certain.  They were racing
+across the open, and the crack of their rifles mingled with the
+spluttering crackle of the conflagration beyond.
+
+Never for one moment did the woman withdraw her gaze.  The spell of it
+all was almost painful.  She knew that life and death were at grips
+down there in that cauldron of conflict.  And though at moments
+shudders passed through her body, they were neither shudders of
+weakness nor womanish horror.  Her only emotion was excitement, and her
+nerves were ready to respond in physical expression to every vision her
+eyes communicated to them.
+
+An hour passed thus.  The bluff was a furnace, roaring, booming.  It
+lit the valley seemingly from end to end.  The night shadows had been
+swept aside, and the scene lay spread out before her eyes.  She saw
+dismounted riders moving about.  She beheld one group; a number of men
+huddled together, held as though they were prisoners.
+
+At last firing altogether ceased and the straggling horsemen began to
+reassemble in the vicinity of the chief group.  Then, as the raging
+fire ate its way through to the hither side of the bluff, and turned
+the final barrier into a wall of fire, the whole party moved away down
+the valley with obvious signs of haste.
+
+Effie gazed after them with widening eyes while the hot breath of the
+conflagration fanned her cheeks.  She was wondering, speculating, and
+slowly the significance of their movements began to take hold of her.
+
+At first she had thought that the movement was inspired by the
+overpowering heat of the forest fire.  She had warned herself of the
+danger.  The grass down there.  The flying sparks.  But almost in the
+same breath she realized that there was more, far more in that
+movement.  The grass was far too green in the valley to form any real
+danger and the bluff was sufficiently isolated.  No, there was more in
+it than the danger of fire.
+
+She shivered, although the night air now possessed something of the
+temperature of a summer noon.  All her excitement had passed.  She had
+even forgotten for the time all that the doings of that night meant to
+her.  She was thinking of the deliberate administration of justice as
+these men understood it.  It was crude, deadly, and full of a painful
+horror, and now, now, in saner moments, she beheld the dawn of emotions
+which had come all too late.  Whither were those men riding?  Whither?
+And then?  Ah--she shuddered, and her shudder was full of realization.
+For well she knew that the men she had seen grouped were living
+prisoners.  Living prisoners.  How long would they remain so?  What
+would be their end?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+OUTLAND JUSTICE
+
+The noon sun sweltered down through the rank vegetation of the narrow
+defile.  The heat was almost too burdensome to endure.  It was moist;
+it was dank with the reek of decaying matter.  The way was a seemingly
+endless battle against odds.  But the travelers were buoyed with the
+knowledge that it was a short cut, calculated to save them many hours
+and many miles.
+
+Bud Tristram had pointed the way.  Furthermore, he had urged Jeff to
+accept and endure the tortures and shortcomings which he knew they must
+face in the heart of this remote gulch.
+
+Nor were his warnings unneeded, for Nature had set up no inconsiderable
+defenses.  Here were swarms of over-grown mosquitoes of a peculiarly
+vicious type, which covered their horses' flanks in a gray horde,
+almost obliterating their original colors; and a bleeding mass resulted
+every time either man raised a hand to the back of his own neck to
+soothe the fierce irritation of the vicious attacks.  Then the way
+itself.  It was a narrow gorge almost completely occupied by the muddy
+bed and boggy shores of a drying mountain creek.
+
+It was, in Jeff's own words, a "fierce journey."  The heat left them
+drenched in perspiration, and wiltering.  The two packhorses fought for
+their very lives, often hock deep in a sucking mire.  While the beasts,
+who bore the burden of their exacting masters, were driven to battle
+every inch of the way against a fiercely obstinate rampart of dense
+grown bush.
+
+Mercifully the gorge was less than three miles in length.  A greater
+distance must have left the nervous equine mind staggered, and
+helpless, and beaten.  As it was nearly three hours of incessant
+struggle only served to pass the final barrier.
+
+"Phew!"
+
+Jeff Masters drew off his hat as they emerged upon the wide opening of
+a great valley.  Then he flung himself out of the saddle and began to
+sweep the blood-inflated mosquitoes from his horse's flanks.  Bud, with
+less haste, proceeded to do the same.  Finally, both men walked round
+the weary beasts and examined the security of the packs on the led
+horses.
+
+Bud pointed down the valley with one outstretched arm.
+
+"We'll make that way," he said, his deep eyes dwelling almost
+affectionately upon the wide stretch of blue-tinted grass.  "Guess
+we'll take the high land an' camp fer food."
+
+Then he turned back to his horse and remounted.  Jeff silently followed
+his example and they rode on.
+
+For many minutes no word passed between them.  Each was busy with his
+own particular thoughts.  The deep look of friendly affection was still
+in Bud's eyes.  Jeff was far less concerned with the wonderful scene
+slowly unfolding itself as they proceeded than with the purpose of his
+journey.  He knew they had reached the central point from which they
+were to radiate their search of the labyrinth of hills.  His mind was
+upon the wealth of possibility before them.  The difficulties.  Bud,
+for the time at least, was concerned only with that which his eyes
+beheld, and the memories of other days far, far back when he had
+possessed no greater responsibility than the quest of adventure, and
+his own safe delivery from the fruits of his unwisdom.
+
+It was he who first broke the silence between them.
+
+"Gee!" he exclaimed, with that curious note of appreciation which that
+ejaculation can assume.  "It's big.  Say, Jeff, it's big an' good to
+look on.  Sort of makes you think, too, don't it?  Jest get a peek that
+way.  Them slopes."  He indicated the western boundary of the valley
+rising up, up to great pine-crested heights.  "A thousand--two thousand
+feet.  And hills beyond.  Big hills, with snows you couldn't melt
+anyhow.  Over there, too."  One great hand waved in the direction of
+the east.  "Lesser hills.  Lesser woods.  But--man, it's fine!  Then
+ahead.  Miles an' miles of this queer blue grass which sets fat on
+cattle inches deep."
+
+His words ceased, but his eyes continued to feast, flooding the simple
+brain behind them with a joy which no words could describe.  Presently
+he went on:
+
+"Makes you feel A'mighty God's a pretty big feller, don't it?  Guess He
+jest tumbles things around, an' sets up, an' levels down in a way that
+wouldn't mean a thing to brains like ours--till He's finished it all,
+and sort of swep' up tidy.  Look at them colors, way up there to the
+west.  Queer?  Sure.  Every sort o' blamed color in a tangle no earthly
+painter could set out.  Ain't it a pictur'?  It's jest a sort o'
+pictur' a painter feller's li'ble to spend most of his wholesome nights
+dreamin' about.  An' when he wakes up, why, I don't guess he kin even
+think like it, an' he sure ain't a hell of a chance to paint that way
+anyhow.  Say, d'you make it these things are, or is it jest something
+He sets in us makes us see 'em that way?  He's big--He surely is.  I'm
+glad I come along with you, Jeff, boy.  Y' see, a feller sort o' sits
+around home, an' sees the same grass, an' brands the same steers, an'
+thinks the same thinks.  Ther' ain't nothin' he don't know around home.
+He gets so life don't seem a thing, an' he jest feels he's running
+things so as he pleases.  He sort o' fergets he's jest a part o' the
+scenery around.  He fergets he's set in that scenery by an A'mighty big
+Hand, same as them all-fired m'squitters we just found, an' kind o'
+guesses he is that A'mighty Hand."  He turned his deeply smiling eyes
+on his companion.  "I don't often take on like this, Jeff," he
+apologized, "but the sight o' this place makes me want to shout an' get
+right out an' thank the good God He's seen fit to let me sit around an'
+live."
+
+But Jeff had no means of simple expression such as Bud.  He could never
+give verbal expression to the emotions locked away in his heart.  Those
+who knew him regarded it as reserve, even hardness.  Perhaps it was
+only that shyness which the strongest characters are often most prone
+to.
+
+He ignored the older man's quaintly expressed feelings, and fastened
+upon the opening he had at last received, and which he had been seeking
+ever since it had become obvious that Bud's knowledge of the great
+Cathill range was almost phenomenal.
+
+"You know these parts a heap," he observed.
+
+"Know 'em?"  Bud laughed in his deep-throated way, which was only
+another indication of his buoyant mood.  "You'd know 'em, boy, if you'd
+had a father build up a big pelt trading post right in this valley, an'
+fer sixteen years o' your life you'd ridden, an' shot, an' hunted over
+this blue grass, and these hills, for nigh a range of fifty mile.
+Guess I know this territory same as you know the playgrounds o' the
+college that handed you your knowledge o' figgers.  Know it?  Say, you
+could dump me right down anywhere around here for fifty miles an' more,
+an' I'd travel straight here same as the birds fly."  He laughed again.
+"When you said you'd the notion of huntin' out your brother, who was
+huntin' these hills, you give me the excuse I'd been yearnin' to find
+in years.  I wanted to see these hills again.  I wanted it bad.  Guess
+I was jest crazy fer it.  It didn't get me figgerin' long, either, to
+locate wher' we'd likely find that boy you're lookin' fer.  Ther' ain't
+no better huntin' ground than around this valley.  It's sort of
+untouched since my father died, an' I had to quit it and take to
+punchin' cattle.  Then ther's that post he built.  A dandy place, with
+nigh everything a pelt hunter needs fer his comfort.  We're making for
+that post right now, an' when we make it I'm guessin' we ain't goin' to
+chase much farther to locate that twin brother of yours."
+
+"But you never----"
+
+Bud shook his great head, and stretched his ungainly legs with his
+stirrups thrust out wide.
+
+"Sure I didn't tell you these things," he nodded, in simple, almost
+childlike enjoyment.
+
+"I never----  Say, does Nan know you were--raised here?"
+
+"Surely."  Then Bud went on with an amused twinkle in his eyes.  "But I
+guess Nan's like me.  It ain't our way worryin' other folks with our
+troubles.  You see, most folks ain't a heap o' time to listen to other
+folks' troubles.  Most everybody's jest yearnin' to tell their own."
+
+"Troubles?"  Jeff smiled in his own peculiarly shadowy fashion.  "You
+don't seem to figure this valley's any sort of trouble, nor its
+associations.  But maybe there's a bone or two hidden around you don't
+figure to show me."
+
+Bud remained silent for some moments.  Then he gave way to another of
+his joyous, deep-throated laughs.
+
+"No, sirree!  Ther' ain't no troubles to this valley fer me.  None.  I
+got memories I wouldn't sell fer a farm.  Them wer' days you didn't
+find trouble in nothin'.  No.  It's later on you see things diff'rent.
+Make good, an' you see troubles wher' there shouldn't be none.  You an'
+me we're guessin' to make a pile o' dollars, so we could set up a
+palace on 5th Av'noo, New York, if we was yearnin' that-a-way.  I don't
+reckon there's many fellers 'ud find trouble in such a play as that.
+Wal, I'd be willing enough to turn it all down, an' pitch camp right
+here among these hills, an' chase pelts for the few dollars needed to
+keep the wind from rattling my bones--'cep' fer Nan."
+
+"Ah yes--Nan.  There's Nan to think of.  And Nan's more to you, Bud,
+than anything else in life.  Say, your little girl's a bright jewel.  I
+don't need to say a word about her value, eh?  But some day you're
+going to lose her.  And then?"
+
+Bud's eyes came round upon him and for some moments encountered Jeff's
+steady regard.  Then he looked away, and slowly all its simple delight
+dropped from the strong weather-tanned face, to be replaced by an
+almost painful dejection.  Presently he turned again, and, in a moment,
+Jeff found an added interest in the wonderful scene that lay ahead of
+him.
+
+"Nan's a fine, good gal," Bud declared, with simple earnestness.
+"Guess she's her mother over again--only she's jest Nan.  Nan's more to
+me than all the dollars in creation, boy.  Guess you're right.  Oh,
+yes, you're right--sure."  The man brushed aside the beads of sweat
+from his broad forehead.  "An' Nan's goin' to do jest as she notions.
+She's goin' to live around her home as long as she feels that way.
+When she don't feel that way she's goin' to quit.  When she feels like
+choosin' a man fer herself--why, I'm goin' to do all I know helpin' her
+that way.  But it's goin' to be her choice, boy.  An' when that time
+comes, why, I'll get right down on my knees an' pray A'mighty God he's
+the feller for her, an' the man I'm hopin' she'll choose, an' that he
+wants her, same as she wants him."
+
+Then he shook his head and a deep sigh escaped him.
+
+"But I don't know.  It don't seem to me reasonable.  Y' see, the luck's
+run all my way so far, an' I don't guess you can keep on dealin' the
+cards without 'em gettin' right up an' handin' it you plenty--some
+time."
+
+Jeff had no reply.  Something warned him to keep silent.  The older man
+in his earnest simplicity had opened out to him a vista which he felt
+he had no right to gaze upon.
+
+As they jogged steadily along over the blue-green carpet, and the
+kaleidoscopic coloring of the distant slopes fell away behind them, his
+whole mental vision became occupied by the sweet picture of a
+brown-eyed, brown-haired girl.  But he was regarding it without any
+lover's emotions.  Rather was he regarding it as one who calmly
+appraises a beautiful jewel he does not covet.  He was thinking of Nan
+as he had known her for some five years.  From the days of her
+schoolgirlhood he had watched her develop into a grown woman full of
+all that was wholesome and winsome.  She was her father over again,
+trustful, simple, fearless, and she was possessed of a whimsical
+philosophy quite beyond her years.  Her beauty was undeniable, her
+gentle kindliness was no less.  But the memory of these things made no
+stirring within him.  Nan was just a loyal little friend whom he loved
+and was ready to serve as he might love and help a sister, but regard
+of her broke off at that.  So, as he rode, the pictures of her failed
+to hold him, and, finally, his roving gaze became caught and held by a
+sudden and striking anachronism in the scene about him.
+
+He claimed Bud's attention with a gesture which roused him from his
+engrossing thought.
+
+"Fire," he observed.
+
+Bud's gaze became rivetted on the spot.
+
+"Yes, it's fire--sure," he admitted.
+
+It was a long way ahead.  Only the trained eyes of prairiemen could
+have read the sign aright at such a distance.  It was a break in the
+wonderful sea of varying shades of restful green.  It was, to them, an
+ominous dead black patch which broke the sky-line with unmistakable
+skeleton arms.
+
+It was the only remark upon the subject which passed between them, but
+as they rode on it occupied something more than a passing attention.
+
+With Jeff his interest was mere curiosity.  With Bud it was deeper and
+more significant.  Had the younger man observed him he might have
+discovered a curious expression almost amounting to pain in the deep
+eyes which contemplated the blackened limbs where the fire had wrought
+its havoc.
+
+As they drew nearer it became apparent that the havoc was even greater
+than they had first supposed.  A wide patch of woodland, hundreds of
+acres in extent, whose upper limits were confined only by the summit of
+the valley's slope, where it cut the sky-line, had been completely
+burnt out.  Nor was it possible to tell if even that limit was the
+extent of the disaster.
+
+Bud suddenly reined in his horse as they came abreast of it, and his
+voice broke with painful sharpness upon the deathly stillness of the
+world about them.
+
+"It's gone," he cried, with a note of deep distress and grievous
+disappointment.  "It's burnt right out to a shell.  Say----"
+
+"What's gone?"
+
+The older man glanced round.  Then his troubled eyes sought the charred
+remains of the splendid pines once more.
+
+"Why--the post."  Then he pointed amongst the charred skeletons.  "Get
+a peek right in ther'.  See, Jeff.  Them walls; them fallen logs.
+Burnt.  Burnt right through to the heart of 'em.  That's all that's
+left of the home that sheltered me for the first sixteen years of my
+life.  Say, I'm sick--sick to death."
+
+Jeff left his packhorse and moved forward amongst the blackened limbs.
+The reek of burnt wood hung heavily upon the air.  He threaded his way
+carefully toward the charred remains of an extensive abode, now plainly
+visible amongst the black tree trunks.
+
+It was a wide rambling structure, and, though burnt to cinders, much of
+its general shape, and the great logs which had formed its walls, still
+remained to testify to all it had been under the hands of those who had
+originally wrought there.
+
+Jeff glanced back at the man he had left behind.  He had not stirred.
+He sat in the saddle just gazing at the destruction.  That was all.  So
+he turned again to the ruins, and, dismounting, he proceeded on foot to
+explore.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+They were eyes wide with repulsion and a certain horror that gazed down
+upon the object at Jeff's feet.  It was the rotting, charred remains of
+a human figure.  It was beyond recognition, except in so far as its
+human identity was concerned.  The clothes were gone.  The flesh was
+seared and shriveled.  The process of incineration was almost complete.
+
+After a few fascinated moments his eyes searched further along the
+remains of the old post wall.  Another figure lay sprawling on the
+ground.  Near by it a heavy pistol had fallen wide.  A rifle, too, lay
+across the second body.
+
+Every detail was swiftly absorbed by the man's keenly active brain.  He
+stood back from the gutted precincts and gazed speculatively upon the
+picture.  His imagination reconstructed something of what he believed
+must have occurred in the deep heart of these wrecked woodlands.
+
+What of the fire?  How had it been started?  Was it the work of an
+incendiary?  Had the heat of the summer sun wrought the mischief?  Had
+the hut itself supplied the trouble?  None of these questions offered
+real enlightenment through the answers he could supply.  No.  He saw
+the superheated furnace of the woods blazing, and he saw men struggling
+with all their might to save themselves, and some of their more
+precious belongings.  The reckless daring of those two, perhaps at the
+last moment, returning to their shelter on one final journey to save
+some detail of their home.  Then the awful penalty for their temerity.
+Perhaps overwhelmed by smoke.  Death--hideous, appalling death.  Death,
+a thousand times worse than that which, in the routine of their lives,
+it was their work to mete out to the valuable fur bearers which yielded
+them a means of existence.
+
+A sudden question, not unaccompanied by fear, swept through his brain.
+It was a question inspired by the belief that these men were fur
+hunters.  Who--who were they?  He drew close up to each body in turn,
+seeking identity where none was discoverable.  A sweat broke upon his
+temples.  There was no sign in them.  There was no human semblance
+except for outline.
+
+"God!  If it should be----"
+
+His sentence remained incompleted.  A dreadful fear had broken it off.
+He was gazing down upon the second body, in earnest, horrified
+contemplation.  Then to his amazement he was answered by Bud's familiar
+voice.
+
+"It ain't the boy we're chasin' up, Jeff," he said, with a deep
+assurance.
+
+"How d'you know that?"
+
+The demand was incisive, almost rough.
+
+"These folks weren't pelt hunters.  Not by a sight.  I bin around."
+
+Jeff had turned to the speaker, and a great relief shone in his eyes.
+
+"What--who were they--then?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Maybe it was a ranch--of sorts."
+
+"Of sorts?  You mean----?"
+
+"Rustlers.  Come right on out of here, an' I'll show you."
+
+With gentle insistence he drew his friend away from the painfully
+fascinating spectacle which held so difficult a riddle.  And presently
+they were again with their horses, which were grazing unconcernedly
+upon the sweet blue grass which the valley yielded so generously.
+
+"Well?"  There was almost impatience in Jeff's monosyllable.
+
+For answer Bud pointed at a number of rough fences, uneven, crude,
+makeshift, some distance away.
+
+"See them?  Oh, yes, I guess they're corrals sure.  But it don't take a
+feller who's lived all his life among cattle more'n five seconds to
+locate their meanin'.  They're corrals set up in an a'mighty hurry by
+folks who hate work o' that sort anyway.  An' I'd say, Jeff,
+cattlemen--real cattlemen--don't dump a range down in the heart of the
+Cathills, not even fer this sweet-grass you can see around, when ther's
+the prairie jest outside.  That is cattlemen who got no sort o' reason
+fer keepin' quit of the--open plains.  Then ther's bin a big drive away
+north from here.  Mebbe they wer' gettin' clear of this fire."
+
+Under the influence of Bud's clear convictions all Jeff's fears
+vanished.  He accepted the other's admittedly better understanding of
+these things all the more readily that he desired earnestly to dispel
+the last shadows of his momentary doubt.
+
+"That's so," he agreed.  Then he added: "But anyway, our camp's gone."
+
+"Yes.  We'll make camp some'ere else.  Meanwhiles----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"We must follow up the trail."
+
+There was irrevocable decision in the older cattleman's tone.  And his
+words had the effect of startling the other.
+
+"But--I don't see----"
+
+"They're rustlers.  Ther's their tracks clear as day.  This is their
+hiding.  Wal, I guess there's jest one thing to be done.  It's our duty
+to track 'em down.  Our duty to the cattle world, Jeff, boy."
+
+"But what about--Ronald?"
+
+Bud looked him squarely in the eyes.
+
+"We're cattlemen first, Jeff.  The other'll come later."
+
+Jeff nodded, but there was a certain reluctance in his manner.  His
+whole heart was set upon the search for his twin brother.  He felt that
+his duty as a cattleman scarcely had the right to claim him at such a
+time.  But the older man's manner made it difficult to protest, and, in
+deference to him, he felt it would be ungenerous to refuse.  After all
+it only meant perhaps the delay of a day for his own projects.
+
+"Then we'll feed and water right here, Bud," he said resignedly.  "We
+can leave our pack ponies, and ride light.  There's five hours of
+daylight yet."
+
+"Yes, five hours good.  Thanks, boy.  Don't you worry a thing.  We'll
+make this time good.  We're goin' to find your Ronald--if he's
+anywheres around these Cathills."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The more concentrated the character, the more sure its power of moral
+endurance, so the more acute its suffering under adversity.  Such
+penalties lie ambushed for the strong, as though in delight at the
+immensity of the suffering which can thereby be inflicted.
+
+Such an ambush was awaiting Jeffrey Masters.  It came with terrifying
+suddenness.  Bud was on the lead.  The great sea of blue grass had been
+beaten and crushed by the hoofs of a considerable herd.  There was no
+difficulty, and the pace he made was rapid.  But, even so, Bud's keen
+eyes never left the well-defined trail.  He was reading it with an
+understanding which might well have seemed almost superhuman.  And as
+he rode he communicated odd fragments of his reading to the man behind
+him.
+
+"It's queer," he observed once, when they had covered nearly two miles
+of the track.  "Ther's a great bunch of horsemen been over this.  Kind
+o' seems to me as if ther' was as many horses as steers.  They're
+headin' northeast, too."
+
+Jeff's eyes were as close upon the trail as Bud's, only he read with
+less understanding.
+
+"They seem leading out of the valley," he said.  "Maybe there's another
+camp way up further."
+
+Suddenly Bud drew rein, his great body lurching forward in the saddle
+as his horse "propped" itself to a standstill.  Jeff's horse followed
+suit of its own accord.
+
+"What's doing?"
+
+Jeff's demand was accompanied by a keen look into the other's face.
+
+Bud's eyes were wide with speculation.
+
+"They've broke up--hereabouts," he cried.  "More'n half the horses have
+cut out.  Say, ther'," he went on pointing away to the right.  "That's
+the way they've took, clear across ther' to the east.  The herd's gone
+on with jest a few boys to handle it.  Say----"
+
+"Look!"
+
+A curious suppressed force rang in Jeff's exclamation.  He was pointing
+at a bluff of wide-spreading sturdy trees that grew hard in against the
+eastern slope of the valley.
+
+Bud followed the direction indicated, and that which he beheld robbed
+him of all inclination for further speech.
+
+Long silent moments passed.  Moments fraught with poignant, stirring
+emotions.  Something painful was slowly creeping into the eyes of both
+men as they continued to regard this stout cluster of trees.
+
+"Oaks."
+
+The word was muttered.
+
+Jeff vouchsafed no reply, but led the way toward them at a gallop.
+
+They drew up almost in the shadow of the trees, at a point where three
+hideous things were hanging suspended by rawhide ropes.  They were
+swaying gently, stirred almost imperceptibly under the pressure of the
+light breeze.
+
+Bud sat stock still upon his horse.  For a moment Jeff remained at his
+side.  Then the latter stirred.  He pressed his horse forward, urging
+it closer under the overhanging boughs.  The animal moved willingly
+enough for a few yards.  Then panic suddenly beset it.  It shied.  It
+reared and plunged.  The fierce reminder of the spur was powerless to
+affect it beyond driving it to even more strenuous rebellion.  The
+terror-stricken creature would not approach another step in the
+direction of those ominous swinging bodies.
+
+Jeff finally leaped from the saddle and released his horse.  It turned
+to bolt, but Bud reached its hanging reins and secured it.  Then he sat
+still, observing the movements of his companion with strained, intent
+gaze.
+
+Jeff passed under the great limbs of the tree.  He cautiously
+approached the first of the hanging bodies.  It was hideous.  There was
+a bandage drawn tightly over the dead eyes, but its folds were
+powerless to disguise the rest of the contorted features.  The head was
+tilted over on one side.  Its flesh was ghastly, and deep
+discolorations blotched it from the neck up.  The body was clad in the
+ordinary garb of the prairieman, with the loose waistcoat hanging open
+over a discolored cotton shirt, and the nether part of it sheathed in
+dirty moleskin trousers.  The ankles were lashed securely together, and
+the arms firmly pinioned.
+
+For some moments Jeff stared up at the dead man.  His blue eyes were
+quite unsoftening.  There was no real pity in him for the fate of a
+cattle thief.  He understood only the justice of it from the point of
+view of the cattle grower.  So his cold eyes gazed up at the horrid
+spectacle unflinchingly.
+
+After some moments he passed on to the second body.  The same
+conditions prevailed.  A colored handkerchief concealed the glazed
+eyes, and the dropping jaw displayed the blackened cavity beyond the
+lips.
+
+He moved away to the third.  Its back was turned to him, and the bared
+head displayed a close mass of fair curling hair.  In this instance the
+bandage over the eyes had fallen from its place, and lay lodged against
+the raw hide rope about the dead man's neck.  He moved round quickly.
+In a moment he was facing the dreadful dead features.
+
+He stood there without a sound.  But his eyes had changed from their
+cold regard to a horror unspeakable.  Once his lips parted, and there
+was an automatic effort to moisten them with a parching tongue.  He
+swallowed with a visible effort.  But no other movement came from him.
+
+The moments passed.  Hideous, dreadful moments of an agony that was
+displayed in the drawn lines which had suddenly taken possession of his
+strong features.  It was the face of a man whose soul is seared with
+the blasting fury of a hell from the sight of which he is powerless to
+withdraw his terrified gaze.  He knew nothing but the agony which smote
+through his every sense.  The world about him, the place, even the
+hideous swaying remains of a once joyous life that confronted him.  He
+was blind, blind to it all, crushed beneath a burden of agony which
+left him stupefied.  His twin brother Ronald was there before him, a
+dreadful, dead thing, hanged for a--cattle thief.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Bud gazed from the dead to the living.  His deep eyes were full of an
+understanding which required no words.  There was that about the dead,
+distorted face which was unmistakable.  One look into the dreadful eyes
+of the living had told him all he needed.
+
+He, too, stood silently contemplating the swaying figure.  But it was
+only for a moment.  Then he moved swiftly, actively.  As he moved he
+drew a sheath knife from his belt.
+
+He reached up.  The steel of the knife gleamed.  The next moment the
+dead thing was in his arms.
+
+A low fierce cry suddenly broke the silence of those dreadful shades.
+
+"Leave him!  Don't dare, or--I'll kill you!"
+
+Bud's head turned, and the muzzle of a gun touched his cheek.  The
+blazing eyes behind it shone like coals of fire as they glared into his.
+
+But the great Bud's purpose was stronger than the madness of the
+other's agony.
+
+"Put up your gun, Jeff," he said, in a deep gentle voice.  "We're jest
+goin' to hide this poor boy wher' the eyes o' men an' beasts can't see
+him.  We're jest goin' to hide him away wher' mebbe the good God'll
+watch over him, an' help him, an' surely will forgive him.  You ken
+jest help me, boy, to locate the place, an' when we find it we'll sort
+o' seal it up, an' you ken hide the key away in your heart so no one'll
+ever find it.  Are you goin' to help, Jeff?"
+
+For answer the gun was abruptly withdrawn.  Then Bud saw the stricken
+man's hand dash across his eyes, and, as it passed, he realized the
+moisture of tears upon the back of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+JEFF CLOSES THE BOOK
+
+Ju Penrose was a mild sort of sun-worshipper.  But he confined his
+regard to the single blessings of light and warmth.  Some of his
+deity's idiosyncrasies were by no means blessings in his estimation.
+He blamed the sun for the flies.  He blamed it that it made necessary
+the adoption of light cotton shirts, which required frequent washing.
+He, furthermore, blamed it for the temperature of drinks in summer
+time, in a place where no ice was procurable.  This he regarded as
+wholly unfair.  Then, too, possessing something of an artistic eye, he
+failed to appreciate the necessity for changing the delicate hues of
+nature in spring to a monotonous summer tone by the overbearing process
+of continuing its spring blessing _ad nauseam_.  And as for winter, it
+was perfectly ridiculous to turn off its "hot" tap when it was most
+needed.  Yes, there were moments when he certainly felt that he could
+order matters far more pleasantly if he were given a free hand.
+
+Still, just now winter was a long way off.  So that did not trouble him
+greatly as he lounged in his doorway, and reposefully contemplated the
+ruddy noonday light which was endeavoring to lend picturesqueness to a
+scene which, he assured himself, was an "everlastin' disgrace an' stain
+on the lousy pretensions of a museum of bum human intellec's."  He was
+referring to the rest of the buildings which comprised the township, as
+apart from his own "hotel."  The word "saloon" had been struck out of
+his vocabulary, except for use in scornful depreciation of all other
+enterprises of a character similar to his own.
+
+Just now he was chewing the cud, and, incidentally, a wad of tobacco,
+of a partial peace.  He felt that the recent break up of the Lightfoot
+gang, so successfully achieved through the agency of hangings and
+shootings, should certainly contribute to his advantage.  He argued
+that the long-endured threat against Orrville removed, money should
+automatically become easier, and, consequently, a considerable vista of
+his own personal prosperity opened out before his practical imagination.
+
+Yes, Ju was undoubtedly experiencing a certain mild satisfaction.  But
+somehow his ointment was not without taint.  He detected a fly in it.
+And he hated flies--even in ointment.
+
+To understand Ju's feelings clearly one must appreciate the fact that
+he loved dollars better than anything else in the world.  And something
+he hated with equal fervor was to see their flow diverted into any
+other channel than that of his own pocket.  Ten thousand of these
+delectable pieces of highly engraved treasure had definitely flowed
+into some pocket unknown, as a result of the Lightfoot gang episode.
+The whole transaction he felt was wicked, absolutely wicked.  What
+right had any ten thousand dollars to drift into any unknown pocket?
+Known, yes.  That was legitimate.  It always left an enterprising
+individual the sporting chance of dipping a hand into it.  But the
+other was an outrage against commercialism.  Why, if that sort of thing
+became the general practice, "how," he asked himself, "was an honest
+trader to live?"
+
+The enquiry was the result of extreme nervous irritation, and he
+scratched at the roots of his beard in a genuine physical trouble of
+that nature.
+
+He was so engrossed upon his meditations that he entirely failed to
+observe some mounted strangers debouch upon the market-place from the
+western end of the township.  Nor was it until they obstructed his view
+that he awoke to their presence.  Then he became aware of two men on
+two horses, leading two pack ponies.
+
+He scrutinized them narrowly without shifting his position, and, long
+before they reached him, he decided they were strangers.
+
+They dismounted in silence and without haste.  They went round their
+horses and loosened cinchas.  Then they tied the four beasts to the
+tie-posts in front of the saloon.
+
+They approached the saloon-keeper.  The larger of the two surveyed the
+unmoved Ju with steady eyes.  Then he greeted him in deep, easy tones.
+
+"Howdy," he said.  "You run this shanty?"
+
+The reflection upon his business house was not lost upon its proprietor.
+
+"Guess I'm boss of this--hotel."
+
+"Ah--hotel."  Bud's gaze wandered over the simple structure.  It
+settled for a moment upon a certain display of debris, bottles, cases,
+kegs, lying tumbled at an angle of the building.  Then it came back to
+Ju's hard face, and, in passing, it swept over the weather-boarding of
+the structure which was plastered thick with paint to rescue it from
+the ravages of drip from the shingle roof to which there was no
+guttering.  "Then I guess we'll get a drink."
+
+By a curious movement Ju seemed to fall back from his position and
+become swallowed up by the cavity behind him.  And Bud and his
+companion moved forward in his wake.
+
+The place was entirely empty of all but the reek of stale tobacco, and
+the curious, pungent odor of alcohol.  The two customers lounged
+against the shabby bar in that attitude which bespoke saddle weariness.
+Ju stood ready to carry out their orders, his busy, enquiring mind
+searching for an indication of the strangers' identity.
+
+"Rye?" he suggested amiably, testing, in his own fashion, their quality.
+
+But these men displayed no enthusiasm.
+
+"Got any lager?" demanded Bud.  "A long lager, right off the ice."
+
+"Ice?"  There was every sort of emotion in the echo of the word as the
+saloon-keeper glanced vengefully across at a window through which the
+sun was pouring.  "Guess we don't grow ice around these parts, 'cep'
+when we don't need it, an' I don't guess the railroad's discovered they
+hatched Orrville out yet.  We got lager in soak, an' lager by the keg,
+down in a cool celler.  Ef these things ain't to your notion I don't
+guess you need the lager I kep."
+
+"We'll have the bottled stuff in soak.  Long."
+
+"Ther's jest one size.  Ef that don't suit, guess you best duplicate."
+
+There was no offense in Ju's manner.  It was just his cold way of
+placing facts before his customers, when they were strangers.
+
+He uncorked the bottles and set them beside the long glasses, and
+waited while Bud poured his out.  Then he accepted the price and made
+change.  Jeff silently poured out his and raised it to his lips.
+
+"How, Bud."
+
+"How."
+
+The two men drank and set down their half-emptied glasses.
+
+The sharp ears of the saloon-keeper had caught the name "Bud," and he
+now stood racking his fertile brains to place it.  But the stranger's
+identity entirely escaped him.
+
+"Been times around here, ain't ther'?" Bud remarked casually.
+
+And Ju promptly seized the opportunity.
+
+"Times?  Sure.  Say, I guess you don't belong around.  Jest passin'
+thro'?"
+
+Bud nodded.  Jeff had moved off toward the window, where he stood
+gazing out.  The saloon-keeper's gaze followed him.
+
+"Why, yes.  We're passin' through," returned Bud, without hesitation.
+"You see, we belong down south in the 'T.T.' an' 'O----' country."
+
+"That so?"  Ju reached a box of cigars and thrust them at the new
+customer.  "Smoke?" he enquired.  His generosity was by no means
+uncalculated.
+
+Bud helped himself, and in response to Ju's "Your friend?" he called
+across to Jeff at the window.  But Jeff shook his head, and the
+saloon-keeper was given an opportunity of studying his set features,
+and the premature lines he saw graven upon them.  He withdrew the box
+and turned his attention to the more amenable Bud.
+
+"It's a swell country down your ways," he observed cordially.  Then he
+added, "You ain't been cussed with a gang o' toughs raidin' stock,
+neither, same as we have fer the last fi' years.  But they're out.  Oh,
+yes, they're sure out.  Yes, siree, you guessed right.  Ther's sure
+been some play around here.  As neat a hangin' as I've see in
+thirty-five year tryin' to figger out the sort o' sense stewin' in the
+think tanks o' the crazy guys who live in cities an' make up po'try
+about grass.  Mebbe you've heard all the play?"
+
+Bud shook his head.  He drank up his lager, and took the opportunity of
+glancing over his glass at Jeff's back.  Then he set his glass down and
+ordered another bottle for both of them.
+
+"No," he observed.  "I ain't heard much.  I heard there's been some
+hangin'.  The Lightfoot gang, eh?  Seems to me I've heard talk of 'em
+down our way.  So you boys here got in on 'em?"
+
+Ju set the two fresh bottles on the counter while Bud lit his cigar.
+
+"That's so," he said with appreciation, and propped his folded arms
+upon the bar.  "It sort o' come sudden, too."  He smiled faintly.  "It
+come as I said it would right here in this bar.  The boys was settin'
+around sousing, an' pushin' round the cyards, an' the Vigilante
+Committee was settin' on a pow-wow.  I was tellin' 'em ef the folks had
+the sense of a blind louse they'd dope out a reward, an' make it big.
+I guessed they'd get the gang quick that way.  Y'see, it don't matter
+who it is, folks is all after dollars--if there's only enough of 'em.
+Life's jest made up of two sorts o' guys, the fellers with dollars an'
+them without.  Wal, I guess it's a sort o' play goes right on all the
+time.  You just raise hell around till you get 'em, the other fellers
+raise hell till you ain't.  It's a sort o' give and take, though I
+reckon the taking seems to be the general scheme adopted.  That's how
+it comes Lightfoot an' his gang got a nasty kink in most o' their
+necks.  It's them dollars.  Some wise guy around here jest took himself
+by the neck and squeezed out a present of ten thousand dollars to the
+feller who'd sell up Lightfoot's good-will an' business.  What
+happened?  Why, it took jest about twenty-four hours for the
+transaction to be put through.  Say, ever hear tell of a time when
+ther' wa'an't some feller waiting ready to grab on to ten thousand
+dollars?  No, sir.  You never did.  No, nor no one else, 'cep' he spent
+the whole of his life in the foolish house."
+
+"Some one betrayed 'em--for ten thousand dollars?"
+
+Bud's question came with a sharp edge to it.
+
+"Don't guess 'betray's' the word, mister.  It was jest a commercial
+transaction.  You jest need to get a right understanding of them
+things.  When I got something to sell, an' you're yearnin' to dope out
+the dollars for it--say ten thousand of 'em--why, I don't guess there's
+anything else to it but a straight business proposition."
+
+"So you netted the ten thousand?" enquired Bud, in his simplest fashion.
+
+"Me?  Gee!  Say, if them ten thousand dollars had wafted my way I'd
+have set this city crazy drunk fer a week.  No, sir," he added, with a
+coldly gloomy shake of the head.  "That's jest about the pain I'm
+sufferin' right now.  Some mighty slick aleck's helped hisself to them
+dollars, an' I don't know who--nor does anybody else, 'cep' him who
+paid 'em."
+
+Bud realized the man's shameless earnestness, but passed it by.  He was
+seeking information.  It was what he and Jeff had come for.  The manner
+of this man was coldly callous, and he knew that every word he uttered
+was a lash applied to the bruised soul of the man by the window.
+Irresistible sympathy made him turn about.
+
+"Here's your lager, Jeff," he said, in his easiest fashion.  He had no
+desire that Ju should be made aware of the trouble that Jeff was
+laboring under.
+
+Jeff replied at once.  His readiness and even cheerfulness of manner
+surprised Bud.  But it relieved him as well.
+
+"Bully!" he cried, as he came back to the bar.  "I was just gettin' a
+look around at the--city."  He turned to Ju with his shadowy smile
+which almost broke Bud's heart.  "Quite a place, eh?"
+
+"Place?  Wal, it's got points I allow.  So's hell ef you kin look at it
+right."  Ju lit a cigar and hid nearly half of it in his capacious
+mouth.  "I'd say," he went on, with a certain satisfaction, "ther's
+more mush-headed souses in this lay out to the square yard than I've
+ever heard tell of in any other city.  Ef it wa'an't that way I
+couldn't see myself wastin' a valuable life lookin' at grass, hearin'
+talk of grass, smellin' grass, an' durned nigh eatin' grass.  I tell
+you right here it takes me countin' my legs twice a day to keep me from
+the delusion I got four, an' every time I got to shake my head at some
+haf soused bum who's needin' credit I'm scared to death my blamed
+ears'll start right in flappin'.  Why, yes, I guess it's some place--if
+you don't know no other."
+
+Bud was eager to get to the end of the task he had assumed for his
+friend.  He wanted the facts, all the facts as far as they were
+available, of the terrible enactments in that valley of his early youth.
+
+"An' who antied the price?" he demanded.
+
+"Who?  Why, the President of the Western Union Cattle Breeders'
+Association--Dug McFarlane."
+
+"And you don't know who--accepted it?"
+
+It was Jeff who put the question, and Bud, looking on, saw the steely
+gleam that lit the man's eyes as he spoke.
+
+But Ju's amiability was passing.  He was getting tired of a subject
+which dealt with another man's profit.  He rolled his cigar across his
+mouth.
+
+"Here.  Guess I best tell you the yarn as we know it.  Y'see," he added
+regretfully, "we ain't learned a heap 'cep' jest the racket of it.  Dug
+set up the reward overnight.  Next night twenty-five of the boys rode
+out with him to the hills.  Ther' was some guy with 'em leadin'.  But
+none of the boys come up with him.  He rode with Dug.  We've all
+guessed, but I don't reckon we know, or'll ever know.  You see, he got
+shot up they say by Lightfoot himself.  However, it don't signify.  I
+got my notions 'bout it, an' anyway I guess they're jest my own.  The
+boys guess it was one of the gang itself.  Mebbe it was.  Can't rightly
+say.  After they'd located the camp they set out to surround it.  It
+was in a bluff.  The scrap started right away, an' there was a deal o'
+shootin'.  One or two o' the boys got shot up bad.  Then some one fired
+the bluff, an' burned 'em right out like a crowd of gophers.  After
+that the scrap came good an' plenty, an' it seems to've lasted nigh an
+hour.  Anyways, they got three of 'em.  They shot up several others,
+an' not more than three got clear away."
+
+"An' what about Lightfoot?"  It was Bud who spoke.  His voice was
+changed from its usual deep tone.  It was sharp, and almost impatient.
+
+"They got him," said Ju, with a delight so evident that Bud felt like
+killing him for it.  "Oh, yes, they got him, sure.  A dandy gent with
+his blue eyes an' curly, tow hair.  They don't guess that's his right
+name tho'.  But it don't signify.  He was the boss all right, all
+right, an' they took him, an' hanged him with the other two, right out
+of hand.  Gee, I'd have give a deal to have seen----"
+
+"We'll have to be pushing on now, Bud."
+
+Jeff spoke with his head bent, examining the face of his gold
+timepiece.  Bud glanced at him.  He could see the ghastly hue of the
+averted features, and his answer came on the instant.
+
+"You git the ponies cinched up, Jeff," he said quickly.  "I'll be right
+with you."
+
+Ju watched Jeff hurry out of the bar.  Then his eyes came searchingly
+back to Bud's grimly set face.
+
+"Kind o' seems in a hurry, don't he?" he demanded, with a curious look
+in his hard eyes.  "Looks sick, too.  Say, I didn't git his name right.
+Mebbe he's traveling around incog.--ain't that the word?"
+
+There was no mistaking the suggestion in the man's half-smiling,
+half-sneering manner.  The ranchman understood it only too well.  He
+understood most of the ways and expressions of the men of the prairie.
+The hot blood surged under his calm exterior.  His gray eyes, so
+accustomed to smiling, snapped dangerously.  But his reply came with
+the same ease which he had displayed most of the time.
+
+"Wal, I don't guess ther's no myst'ry 'bout either of us, which you
+kind o' seem you'd like to think.  Jeff Masters of the 'O----'s' is
+well enough known to most folks, who got any sort o' knowledge of these
+parts.  An' ther's quite a few folks around here, including Dug
+McFarlane, li'ble to remember the name of Bud Tristram, of the
+'T.T.'s.'  But you're sure right in guessin' he's in a hurry to quit.
+Ther's some places, an' some folks, it ain't good to see a heap of.
+Ther's fellers with minds like sinks, an' others with natures like
+rattlers.  Neither of them things is as wholesome as a Sunday-school, I
+allow.  Jeff ain't yearnin' to explore no sinks, human or any other.
+An' I've generally noticed his favorite pastime is killin' rattlers.
+So it's jest about the only thing to do--quit this saloon, same as I'm
+goin' to do.  But say, 'fore I go I'd jest like to hand you this.
+Justice is justice, an' we all need to take our dope when it comes our
+way.  But ther' ain't no right on this blamed earth fer any feller to
+whoop it up at another feller's misdoin's, an' his ultimate undoin'.
+An' you kin take it how you fancy when I say only the heart of a louse
+could feel that-a-way--an' that's about the lowest I know how to hand
+you."
+
+Bud's eyes were shining dangerously.  They were squarely looking into
+the hard face of the saloon-keeper.  Not the movement of an eyelid
+escaped him.  He literally seemed to devour the unwholesome picture
+confronting him.  The aggressive chin beard, the continual mastication
+of the cigar which protruded from the corner of the mouth.  There was
+deadly fury lurking behind Ju's cruel eyes.  But the looked-for
+physical display was withheld, and Bud finally turned and walked slowly
+out of the bar.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was some minutes since a word had passed between the two men.  Jeff
+had nothing to say, and Bud's sympathy was too deep for words.  He was
+waiting for the younger man to fight his battle to its logical end.  He
+knew, only too well, all that Jeff had suffered since the moment of
+that gruesome discovery in the Cathills valley.  It had been no figure
+of speech when Jeff had described his twin brother as part of himself.
+The shock the man had received was, to Bud's mind, as though his heart
+had been torn asunder.  Hanged as a cattle thief!  Was there anything
+more dire, more terrible in the imagination of man than to suddenly
+find that his well-loved brother, twin body of his own, was a cattle
+thief, possibly a murderer, and had been hanged by his fellow-men?  It
+was a thought to leave the simple Bud staggered.  And for the victim of
+the shock it might well mean the mental breaking point.
+
+Jeff was fighting out his battle with an almost super-human courage.
+Bud knew that.  It was written in every detail of his attitude.  In the
+straining of his blue eyes, in the deep knitting of his fair strong
+brows, in the painful lines ploughing deeper and deeper about his
+mouth, and the set of his strong jaws.
+
+No.  There was no thought of breaking in upon the boy's black moments
+of suffering.  He must fight his own battle now, once and for all.
+When victory had been achieved, then perhaps his sympathy might become
+helpful.  But till then nothing but the necessities of their journey
+must be allowed to intrude between them.
+
+So they rode over the southern trail.  The noontide sun scorched the
+parching earth with a blistering heat, drinking up the last moisture
+which the tall prairie grass sought to secrete at its attenuated roots.
+The world about them was unchanged.  Every scene was similar in its
+characteristics to all that which had become their lives.  Yet Bud knew
+that for one of them, at least, the whole of life, and everything
+pertaining to it, had been completely and terribly distorted.
+
+But the character of Jeffrey Masters was stronger and fiercer than Bud
+knew.  For all his suffering there was no yielding in him.  There had
+been moments when his soul had cried out in agony.  There had been
+moments when the hideousness of his weak brother's fall had driven him
+to the verge of madness.  But with each yielding to suffering had come
+a rally of passionate force that would not be overborne, and gradually
+mastery supervened.
+
+Ten miles out of Orrville on the homeward journey Bud received his
+first intimation that the battle was waning.  It came almost as a
+shock.  They had passed a long stretch of flat grass-land, and were
+breasting an incline.  Jeff, on the lead, had reined his horse down to
+a walk.  In a moment they were riding abreast, with Bud's pack pony in
+between them.  Jeff turned his bloodshot eyes upon his friend, then
+they turned again to the trail.
+
+"There's nothing now, Bud, but to get ahead with all our plans and
+schemes," he said.  "We must drive ahead without any looking back.
+There's still things in life, I guess, that's worth while, and I'd say
+not the least of 'em is--work."
+
+He paused.  He had been gazing straight ahead to disguise his effort.
+Now he turned and looked into the face of his friend, and thrust his
+hat back on his head.
+
+"It's been tough, Bud.  So tough I don't know how I got through.  Guess
+I shouldn't have without you.  You see, Bud, you never said a thing,
+and--and that saved me.  Guess I'm sort of tired now.  Tired of
+thinking, tired of--everything.  But it's over, and now I sort of feel
+I've got to get busy, or I'll forget how to play the man.  I don't
+guess I'll ever hope to forget.  No, I don't want to forget.  I
+couldn't, just as I couldn't forget that there's some one in the world
+took ten thousand dollars as the price of Ronny's poor foolish life.
+Oh, it's pretty bad," he sighed wearily.  "But--I've closed the book,
+Bud, and please God I'll never open it again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+FOUR YEARS LATER
+
+Nan Tristram smiled to herself as she sat in the comfortable rocker
+before the open French window which gave on to the wide wooden balcony
+beyond.  The view she had was one of considerable charm, for Aston's
+Hotel was situated facing one end of Maple Avenue, looking straight
+down its length, which was at once the principal and most beautiful
+thoroughfare in the picturesque western city of Calthorpe.
+
+But her smile had nothing to do with anything the prospect yielded her.
+Its beauties were undeniable; she had admitted them to herself many
+times.  But she knew them with that intimacy which robs things of their
+first absorbing charm.  The wide-spreading maple trees, which so
+softened down the cold beauty of the large stone-fronted residences
+lining the avenue, were always a source of soothing influence in the
+excited delight of a visit to this busy and flourishing city.  Then the
+vista of lofty hills beyond the far limits of the town, with their
+purpling tints, their broken facets, their dimly defined woodland
+belts, they made such a wonderful backing to the civilized foreground.
+
+Nan Tristram loved the place.  For her, full of the dreams of youth,
+Calthorpe was the hub of all that suggested life and gaiety.  It was
+the one city she knew.  It was the holiday resort of the girl born and
+bred to the arduous, and sometimes monotonous life of the plains.
+
+But it was, in reality, a place of even greater significance.  Nan saw
+it only as it appealed to her ardent fancy.  But Calthorpe was a
+flourishing and buoyant city of "live" people, who were fully aware of
+its favorable possibilities as the centre of the richest agricultural
+region in the whole of the State of Montana.
+
+It was overflowing with prosperity.  The ranching community, and the
+rich grain growers for miles around, poured their wealth into it, and
+sought its light-hearted life for the amusement of their families and
+themselves.  Its social life was the life of the country, and to take
+part in it needed the qualification of many acres, or much stock, a
+bank balance that required no careful scrutiny, and a temperament
+calculated to absorb readily the joy of living.
+
+It was something of this joy of living which was stirring now, lighting
+the girl's soft brown eyes with that tender whimsical smile which was
+never very far from them.  She was resting after the early excitements
+of the day.  It was her twenty-second birthday, and, in consequence,
+with so devoted a father, a day of no small importance.  She had been
+warned by that solicitous parent to "go--an' have a sleep, so you don't
+peter right out when the fun gets good an' plenty."  But Nan had no use
+for sleep just now.  She had no use for anything that might rob her of
+one moment of the delight and excitement of the Calthorpe Cattle Week,
+as it was called.  Therefore she undutifully abandoned herself to a
+pleasurable review of events whilst waiting for the next act in the
+day's play to begin.
+
+And what a review it made in her understanding of the life about her.
+It was four years since her father and Jeff Masters had signed their
+partnership, and she knew that to-day, on the second day of _the_ week,
+the triumph of the great "Obar" Ranch, which her father and Jeffrey
+Masters had so laboriously and patiently built up, was to be completed.
+Now, even while she sat there gazing from her window at the panorama of
+life passing up and down the broad expanse of Maple Avenue, the Council
+of the Western Union Cattle Breeders' Association was sitting for its
+annual conference and election of officers.  And had she not already
+been confidentially warned that Jeff was to be the forthcoming year's
+president?
+
+It was the crowning event in the long dreamed dreams of the two men
+whom she frankly admitted to herself were nearest and dearest to her.
+Why should she not admit it?  Her father?  Ah, yes, her father was the
+most perfect, kindly, sympathetic father that ever lived.  And Jeff?  A
+warm thrill swept through her heart and set it beating tumultuously.
+Jeff was her whole sum and substance of life itself.
+
+Well enough she knew that no other bond than that of friendship existed
+between them; that no word had ever passed between them which might not
+have passed in the daily intercourse between brother and sister.  But
+this did not cause her to shrink from the admission.  Jeff was her
+whole horizon in life.  There was no detail of her focus which was not
+occupied by the image of the man whom she regarded as the genius of
+their fortunes.
+
+There were moments enough when she realized with something akin to
+dismay that Jeff and she _were_ friends.  But her gentle humor always
+served her at such moments.  And there was always the lukewarm
+consolation that there was no other woman who had even a similar claim.
+Therefore she hugged her secret to herself, and only gazed upon it in
+such moments of happy dreaming as the present.
+
+And just now they were happy moments.  How could it be otherwise in a
+girl so healthy, and with such a depth of human feeling and with such a
+capacity for sheer enjoyment of the simple pleasures which came her
+way?  What an evening yet confronted her in this brief week of holiday
+from the claims of the green-brown plains of summer.  She must be ready
+at seven o'clock for the reception at the City Hall.  She had a new
+gown for that particular event, which had, amongst others, been bought
+in New York.  It had cost one hundred and thirty dollars, an
+unthinkable price it had seemed, but dismissed as something too paltry
+to be considered by the open-handed ranchman whom she claimed as father.
+
+She was to assist Jeff and her father in receiving the guests, who
+would represent all the heads of their cattle world, and their friends,
+and their wives, and their daughters.  And after that the banquet,
+which, since the inauguration of the Association, had always taken
+place, here at Aston's Hotel.
+
+There would be speeches.  Jeff would speak, and her father--no, she
+hoped he wouldn't speak.  Her smile deepened.  He had such a way of
+saying just what came into his funny, simple old head, and such a
+curious vocabulary.  Then, after the banquet, the--Ball!
+
+The girl emitted a deep ecstatic sigh.  The ball!  It was the crowning
+glory, and--she had a beautiful new gown for each event.  It was a
+ravishing thought.  Perhaps a mere man may be forgiven his lack of
+imagination in his appreciation of such perfect, unutterable delight.
+But Nan had no cloud to obscure her sun.  The labor of dressing afresh,
+three times in one evening without a maid, except the questionable
+assistance of a hotel chambermaid, had no terrors for her--none
+whatever.
+
+Her day-dreaming was interrupted by an immoderate thump on the door.
+She turned her head at once, her pretty dancing eyes alight with
+expectancy.
+
+"That you, Dad?" she called.
+
+"Sure, Nan."  Then came a fumbling at the door handle.
+
+"You can come right in," the girl cried, without moving from her chair.
+
+The door was thrust open, and the sunburnt face with its shock of
+curling iron gray hair and whiskers appeared round it.  The deep-set
+eyes surveyed the room, and took on a look of deep concern.
+
+"Say, Nan," he cried, "you'll never git fixed in time.  I jest give you
+the limit of time before I got around.  You see, I didn't fancy you not
+gettin' a good slep."
+
+The girl shook her pretty head and smiled as she observed the careful
+toilet she felt sure her father had spent the whole afternoon upon.
+She sprang from her chair and surveyed him critically, with her head
+judicially poised on one side, and her pretty ripe lips slightly pursed.
+
+"Everything's bully but that bow tie," she declared, after a
+considering pause.  "Just come right here and I'll fix it.  Say, Dad, I
+envy you men.  Was there ever a nicer looking suit for men than evening
+clothes?  I'm--kind of proud of my Daddy, with his wide chest and good
+figure.  And that white waistcoat.  My, but you don't look as if you'd
+ever branded a calf in your life.  It's only your dear handsome face
+gives you away, and--and the backs of your hands."
+
+Nan laughed as she retied the tie to her satisfaction, the fashion in
+which a girl loves to see a bow tied.  The man submitted meekly, but
+with concern for her final remark.
+
+"But I scrubbed 'em both--sore," he declared anxiously.
+
+"I don't mean they're dirty, Daddy," the girl laughed.  "Was there ever
+such a simple, simple soul?  It's the wholesome mahogany tan which the
+wind and the sun have dyed them.  Say, there, get a peek at yourself in
+that glass."  She thrust him toward a wall mirror.  "It's not girls
+only who need a mirror, when a man is good to look at, Daddy, is it?
+Honest?  It doesn't make you hate yourself, nor feel foolish.  I guess
+there's men folks who'd have you think that way, but if I know anything
+they'd hate to be without a mirror when they're fixing themselves for a
+party where there's to be some nice looking women, and where they're to
+be something better than just a 'stray' blown in."
+
+Bud laughed at the rapid flow of the girl's banter.  But he had by no
+means forgotten his own concern.
+
+"But, say, Nan, you hain't got time for foolin' around.  You surely
+hain't.  It's haf after five, an' we're due at the City Hall seven,
+sharp.  Y'see, you ain't like us fellers who don't need no fixin' to
+speak of.  An' you're helpin' us to receive the folks----"
+
+Nan's delighted laugh rippled through the pleasant room.
+
+"Oh, my Daddy," she cried, with wide, accusing eyes, "you're the best
+laugh in a month."  Then she held up one admonishing finger before her
+dancing eyes.  "Now the truth.  What was the minute you started to make
+yourself--pretty?"
+
+She sat herself upon a table before him with the evident purpose of
+enjoying to the full the delighted feelings of the moment.
+
+Bud eyed her steadily.  He knew he was to be cornered.  Nor would it be
+for the first time.  The relation between these two was that of a
+delightful companionship in which the frequent measuring of wit held no
+inconsiderable place amidst a deep abiding affection.
+
+"Say--a touch of the north wind around, Nan, eh?" he smiled.
+
+"Never mind the north wind, Daddy," Nan laughed.  "Just when?  That's
+what I need to know now."
+
+The man's fingers sought his crisply curling hair.
+
+"No, no," cried Nan, in pretended alarm, "Guess you're going to undo an
+hour's work that way."
+
+Bud dropped his hand in real dismay.
+
+"Guess I plumb forgot.  Wal, say, since you got to know, I'd say it
+must ha' bin right after din--I mean luncheon.  You see, I'd----"
+
+"Ah, say three o'clock."  Nan leaned forward, her pretty face supported
+on the knuckles of her clasped hands, her elbows resting upon her
+knees.  "Oh, Daddy--and you aren't due at the party till seven.  Four
+hours.  Four valuable hours sitting around in your dandy new suit of
+evening clothes.  Vanity.  Pure vanity.  We're all the same, men who
+_don't_ need--fixing, and women who _do_.  Only you men won't admit it.
+Women do.  They surely do.  Any woman's ready to admit she'd rather
+look nicer than any other woman than be all sorts of a girl other ways.
+And though they don't ever reckon to admit it, men just feel that way,
+too.  Oh, I guess I know.  The boys are just yearning for the girls to
+think there's nothing but big 'thinks' moving around in their
+well-greased heads.  And they'd hate a girl who got the notion they had
+time to stand around gawking in a mirror to see their clothes set
+right, or study the look they're going to pour into the china blue eyes
+of some tow-headed bundle who knows his bank wad down to the last cent."
+
+She sighed heavily, but her eyes were literally dancing.
+
+"But it's kind of nice that boys act that way," she went on.  "It does
+give a girl a chance to think him all sorts of a god for--a while.
+Say, if she knew things just as they are, where'd she find that scrap
+of romance which makes life all sunshine and storm clouds, instead of
+the monotonous gray it really is?"
+
+She pointed at the snowy bed laden with the precious costumes she must
+use before the night was out.
+
+"Say, wouldn't it be just awful if every girl knew that the man
+she'd--marked down for her own, worried around with things like that
+before every party he was to take her to, same as she does?  I guess
+she'll learn it all later when she marries him, and has two folks to
+worry for instead of one.  But, meanwhile, she just dreams that he's
+dreaming those 'big thinks' that's going, some time, to set a dreaming
+world wide awake to the mighty 'thinks' she dreams into her beau's
+head."
+
+Then she began to laugh, and the infection of it caught her father, who
+gurgled heavily in chorus.
+
+"Say, wouldn't it be a real circus if a big, strong man had to act the
+same as us poor women?  I mean when we're scheming to stir up a
+sensation in the hearts of men, and in the envy depot of other girls,
+when we enter the portals of a swell social gathering.  Now Jeff.  Say,
+my Daddy, can you see him sort of mincing across the floor," she cried,
+springing from her seat and pantomiming across the room, "smiling, and
+smirking and bowing, this way and that, all done up in fancy bows, and
+sheeny satins, and--and with combs in his sleek hair to hold it in
+place, and with a jeweled tiara set on top of it?  And then--yes, just
+a teeny tiny touch of powder on his nose?  My word!"
+
+A happy chorus of laughter rang through the room as she returned to her
+seat, Bud's coming in great unrestrained gusts.  They were like two
+irresponsible children rather than father and daughter.
+
+"Oh, dear.  And you, too," laughed Nan.  "We can't leave you out of the
+picture.  Being of more mature years I guess you'd sweep in--that's the
+way--sweep in gowned--at your age you don't dance around in
+'frocks'--in something swell, and rich, and of sober hue.  Oh, dear,
+oh, dear.  Guess we'd have to match your mahogany face.  Wine color,
+eh?  No 'cute little bows for you.  Just beads and bugles, whatever
+they are.  But we'd let you play around with some tinted mixing of
+powder for your nose, or--or we'd sure spoil the picture to death.  My,
+I'd die laughing."
+
+Bud's amusement threatened to burst the white bonds which held his vast
+neck.
+
+"Oh, quit it, Nan," he cried, with his beaming face rapidly purpling.
+Then he struggled for seriousness.  "I didn't get around to listen to
+your foolin', child."  Then he bestirred himself to a great display of
+parental admonishment.  "Now, see right here, Nan, I'll get back in an
+hour.  Maybe Jeff's fixin' himself the way you said.  I can't jest say.
+But anyways he's the big feller to-night, an' it's up to you to worry
+out so you can be a credit to him, an' me, an' the 'Obar.'"  Then he
+came across to her and took her affectionately by the shoulders, and
+gazed down into her face with twinkling, kindly eyes.  "Say, you got
+more to work on than most gals.  You sure have, Nan.  Yep.  Your poor
+ma was a pictur', an' you're a pictur'.  An' I ain't goin' to say which
+of you had claim for the best framing.  Anyway, what you have in your
+pretty face you owe to the dear woman who never had a chance of the
+framing you can have.  So jest remember it, Nan--and thank her."
+
+Nan's eyes had completely sobered at the mention of her dead mother,
+whom she scarcely remembered, and earnestness and affection replaced
+all her mirth.
+
+"Maybe I owe it her," she said, suddenly releasing herself from the
+heavy hands, and rising from her seat.  Then she reached up and slipped
+her soft arms about the man's neck.  "And what do I owe to you?
+Nothing?  Ah, my Daddy, I guess you can shake your funny head till you
+muss up its contents to an addle.  I'll not forget what I owe my momma,
+and just thank her all I know, but I'm thanking you too--just as hard."
+
+She tiptoed until she was able to kiss him on the cheek.  Then her
+ready smile broke out afresh, and she gently pushed him toward the door.
+
+"Who is it wasting my time?  There," she cried, as she opened the door,
+and her father vanished through it, "get right out, and don't you dare
+come back for an hour."
+
+The ranchman's laugh echoed down the corridor as he moved away.  Then
+Nan, practical and sober once more, closed the door and rang for the
+chambermaid.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Whatever success could be claimed for the men who had founded and built
+up the "Obar" Ranch, and it was more than considerable, the triumph of
+that night was in no small measure to the credit of Nan Tristram.
+
+But when it was all over, when the last of the three beautiful gowns
+had been tucked tenderly away in the drawers which were their temporary
+home, and Nan was left to the night solitude in which to go over once
+more in her secret thoughts each keenly vivid detail of the
+kaleidoscopic play of events as they had swept past her during the
+evening, they found her soberly wondering if, after all, the
+anticipated delight had been realized.  Was it possible in all that
+unquestioned success there had been no delight, no real enjoyment at
+all?  It seemed impossible.  It was impossible, and she tried to put
+the thought out of her mind.  But it refused to be banished.  It
+returned again--and again, and, in desperation, not untouched with
+panic, she assured herself that she was tired--very tired, and this
+silly feeling was the result.  Then, too, her humor was summoned, and
+it warned her of the quantity of ice cream she had devoured at the
+ball.  It told her her digestion had suffered in consequence.  And this
+she thought was a pity, because she loved ice cream.
+
+But humor was swept aside by a far keener emotion.  She scorned the
+idea of indigestion.  She had no pain _there_.  But there was pain, a
+silly ache about her heart which robbed her of all desire for sleep.
+
+She tried to console herself by recalling her father's quaintly
+expressed admiration of her, when he first beheld her in her new and
+costly gown.  What was it?
+
+"Why, say, Nan, when I look at you I sort o' feel as if two fellers had
+bin at work fixin' you, a po't an' a painter, Seems as if they'd set
+their mushy heads together, an' each had doped out what the other
+couldn't, till ther' ain't a thing left fer the fancy of plain
+mule-headed sort o' bussocks like me."
+
+Curious as his method of expression had been she had understood and
+thrilled with delight.  But almost at once her thoughts flew on to much
+later when she was gliding through the dancing crowd at the ball.  His
+eyes had followed her everywhere.  But there was a change in their
+expression.  To her it was a complete change.  To her the simple
+approval had been replaced by a gleam of sympathetic concern.  But this
+was after--after the first cloud had settled upon her hope of unalloyed
+enjoyment.  Perhaps the look had not been there at all.  Perhaps it was
+simply her own feelings finding reflection for her where none existed.
+
+She became impatient with herself and grasped at the memory of Jeff's
+greeting when she had first appeared in the hotel parlor, equipped for
+the reception.
+
+He had not said much.  But that was always Jeff's way.  But there had
+been his quick smile of unusual satisfaction.  And the words of
+greeting had sprung quite spontaneously to his lips.
+
+"Say, Nan, you're--you're just great."
+
+The hesitation in the middle of it had told her even more than his
+smiling admiration.  It was almost like--and she thrilled as she
+thought it--a gasp for breath.
+
+She strove hard to support herself with these memories, out even as she
+considered them her mind passed on to the reception, and that stupid
+ache supervened once more.  Instantly her focus narrowed down.  There
+were only two figures in it.  The rest merely provided a setting for
+these two.  All the lights, the decorations, the beautiful costumes and
+smiling faces, these became an indistinct blurr, leaving the image of
+Mrs. Elvine van Blooren and a man standing vividly out.
+
+What a wonderful, wonderful picture of radiant womanhood Mrs. Van
+Blooren had made!  Even in her trouble Nan was generous.  The woman was
+beautiful in a way that poor Nan had only dreamed of.  The Madonna-like
+features, calm, perfect.  The dark hair, superb in the simplicity of
+its dressing.  She remembered that at the first glance it had suggested
+to her the sheen of a cloudless summer night.  And her gown, and her
+figure.  The gown must have cost--ah, Nan could not appraise its cost.
+She had had insufficient experience.  Her own maximum had been reached
+only now, and the sum seemed to her as paltry as her father had made it
+appear.  The one certainty that remained with her, however, was that
+the taste displayed in Mrs. Van Blooren's gown had placed it beyond
+such a thing as mere material value.
+
+And then her heart had seemed to stand still.  It appeared that Jeff,
+who was talking to some other people, and she had become aware of Mrs.
+Van Blooren's presence at the same moment.  For when Nan glanced in his
+direction he was gazing fixedly at the newcomer with a look in his
+steady blue eyes which she had never beheld in them before.  Oh, yes,
+there had been no mistaking that look.  She knew she was not clever,
+but she was a woman, and no woman could ever mistake such a look in the
+eyes of a man.
+
+But worse was to follow.  There was a respite for her in the activities
+of the reception.  For Jeff was as busily occupied as she was.  Then,
+too, at the banquet she had ample time to recover from the shock.  But
+the ball came, and they were both released from their duties, and
+everybody was left free to dance as only the western people love to
+dance.
+
+It was then that her bitter cup was filled to overflowing.  Jeff danced
+six times with Mrs. Van Blooren.  Six times, and one supper extra,
+while she had to content herself with a miserable two dances with the
+one man who, to her stood out foremost among all men.
+
+It was during the long hours of that dreary ball that she had
+encountered her father's curious regard, and now she wondered if he had
+seen what she had seen.  If he had understood as she understood.
+
+Nan wanted to cry.  As she lay there on her snowy bed, restless, and
+wakeful, and troubled, there were certainly moments when her tired eyes
+filled with tears.  But she did not, would not cry.  She smiled to
+herself, and even laughed.  She ridiculed herself and made jest of her
+absurd pretensions.  She told herself a hundred times she had no claim
+upon Jeff.  He was free to do as he chose, to dance all night with any
+Mrs. Van Blooren.
+
+But when, at last, the first beam of daylight penetrated the light
+material of the window blinds, and slowly flooded the room, it found
+Nan in a troubled sleep with two great unshed tears slowly welling in
+the corners of her eyes, and ready to fall heavily and sadly down the
+perfect moulding of her softly rounded cheeks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE POLO CLUB RACES
+
+The race-track at Calthorpe was a matter of no small pride to its
+citizens.  Any western city could possess broad and beautiful avenues.
+Any city might well boast hotels of six, eight, or even ten floors, and
+express elevators, and things of that sort.  A cathedral was not
+unknown even, and electric surface cars.  But a race-track--a
+recognized race-track--which was included in the official western
+circuit of race meetings, was certainly a matter for more than ordinary
+pride.
+
+Such regard was undoubtedly meted out to it, and as a corollary there
+were prophets in the city who foresaw the later development of a
+Country Club, with a golf course, and the provision for every other
+outdoor sport under its luxurious administration.  Those who could
+afford such luxuries pretended to look upon these things as
+indispensable, and those who couldn't regarded them with simple pride,
+and lived in the glamour of their reflected glory, and told each other
+how such things should be administered.
+
+Such developments, however, were for the future.  The race-track
+existed, and, amongst its many other delights, it supplied the cranks
+with a text for frequent sermons.
+
+It was set in a luxurious woodland dip, well beyond the town limits,
+and occupied a small flat of rich grass through which a mountain creek
+wound its ridiculously tortuous course.  Thus it was provided with the
+natural resources demanded by a steeplechase course as well as the
+"flat."
+
+It was a toy which the wealth of the neighborhood had been poured out
+upon with no niggard hand, till it found itself possessed of a
+miniature grand stand, a paddock and loose boxes, for the use of many a
+pony whose normal days were spent roaming wild upon the plains.  Then
+there was the Polo Club House and ground, where many of the city's
+social functions were held.  The whole thing was as pretentious as
+money could make it, and in due proportion it was attractive to the
+minds of those who believed themselves leaders in their social world.
+
+Nan Tristram understood all this and smiled at it, just as she
+understood that to absent oneself from the Polo Club Races in Cattle
+Week would be to send in one's resignation from the exclusive social
+circles to which she belonged, a position quite unthinkable for one who
+sought only the mild excitements which pertain to early youth.
+
+The noon following the ball, and all the disturbed moments which it
+inspired, found Nan on the way to the Polo Club Races.  Her party was
+riding, and it was an extensive party.  There were some twenty and more
+saddles.  Luncheon had been sent on ahead, catered for by Aston's Hotel
+at Jeffrey Masters' expense, one of the many social duties which his
+election to the Presidency of the Western Union Cattle Breeders'
+Association entitled him to undertake during the Cattle Week.
+
+It was a gay party, mostly made up of young and prosperous ranchmen,
+and the girls belonging to their little world.  Nor among them could
+have been found any one more brightly debonair and attractive than Nan
+Tristram.
+
+There was never a sign about her of the disquieting thoughts of
+overnight.  Such things might never have been.  Her eyes, so soft and
+brown, were sparkling with that joy of life which never fails in its
+attraction even for the most serious mind.  She sat her brown mare
+astride with the easy grace of a born horsewoman.  Her equipment lacked
+no detail in its comparison with that of the other women.  Bud's
+warning on this point had fallen upon willing and attentive ears when
+he had handed the girl a signed blank check.  And the old man had found
+ample reward for his generosity in the rivalry amongst the men for his
+"gal's" escort.
+
+The only shadow which fell across his enjoyment had occurred when he
+beheld Jeff leading the cavalcade at the side of Mrs. Van Blooren.  But
+in Nan's case it seemed to give not the smallest qualm.  Her one single
+purpose seemed to be to obtain a maximum of enjoyment at the side of
+young Bill Dugdale, a college-bred youth of more than ordinary repute
+as a prosperous cattleman.
+
+The day was fresh for midsummer.  The sky was ruffled with great
+billowing white summer clouds, and a cool northwest breeze was coming
+off the mountain tops.  The whole world about them was assuming that
+tawny green of the ripening season, and the trail was sufficiently
+dusty for its abandonment in favor of the bordering grass.  But if
+midsummer reigned over Nature, Spring, fresh, radiant Spring was in the
+hearts of those seeking the mild excitement of Calthorpe's race-track.
+
+Nan and young Dugdale laughed and chattered their way in the wake of
+the several couples ahead.  Dugdale's desire to please was more than
+evident.  And Nan was at no time difficult.  Just now she seemed to
+enter into the spirit of everything with a zest which sent the man's
+hopes soaring skyward.
+
+Once only during the brief ride did the girl give the least sign that
+her interest lay on anything but her good-looking escort.  It was at a
+moment when Dugdale was pointing out to her the humorous inspiration of
+his own registered cattle brand.
+
+"You see, 'B.B.' don't sound much of a scream, Miss Tristram," he said,
+in great seriousness.  "I don't guess it's likely to set you falling
+out of your saddle in one wild hysterical whoop of unrestrained mirth.
+Course I'm known by it, same as you're known by the 'Obar,' but some of
+the language the boys fix to my brand 'ud set a Baptist minister
+hollerin' help.  Say, I can't hand you it all.  I just can't, that's
+all.  'Bill's Bughouse' is sort of skimmed milk to pea soup.  Then
+there's 'Bill's Boneyard.'  That wouldn't offend any one but my
+foreman.  'Busy Bee' kind of hands me a credit I don't guess I'm
+entitled to.  But there's others smack of the intelligence of badly
+raised hogs."  Then he laughed.  "The truth is, when I first pitched
+camp on Lime Creek I wasn't as wise to things ranching as a
+Sunday-school committee.  I lived mostly on beans an' bacon, and when
+the boys fell in at night, why, I don't guess there was much beside
+beans and bacon to keep 'em from falling into a state of coma on my
+blankets.  It generally fixed them right, and I'm bound to say they
+never seemed to find they couldn't sit a saddle after it.  Yes, and hit
+the trail for fifty miles, if there was fresh meat at the end of it.  I
+sort of got known around as 'Beans and Bacon.'  Then it was abbreviated
+to B.B.  And so when I registered my brand it just seemed natural to
+set down B.B."
+
+Nan's laugh was very genuine.  Dugdale's ingenuous manner always
+pleased her.
+
+"You hadn't learned prairie hospitality," she said.  "You surely were
+committing a grave offense."
+
+The man was full of pretended penitence.
+
+"I don't guess that needed _learning_!" he said, with a wry smile.
+"The boys just handed it to me same as a parson hands a heart-to-heart
+talk on things you're hatin' to hear about.  Oh, I was put wise quick.
+But when you've got just about ten thousand dollars that's telling you
+you're all sorts of a fool, and you're yearning for 'em to believe
+you're a twin brother to Pierpont Morgan, why, you don't feel your
+hide's made of gossamer, and don't care a cuss if folks start right in
+to hammer tacks into it for shoe leather."
+
+"And the dollars?  You convinced them?"  Nan's eyes were full of humor.
+
+"Convinced 'em?"  The man's eyes opened wide.  "Say, Miss Tristram, it
+was a mighty big argument.  Oh, yes, and I guess there were times when
+we come near bein' such bad friends that I wanted to hand 'em right on
+to the nearest saloon-keeper I could find.  But in the end I won.  Oh,
+I won.  I just told 'em right out what I thought of 'em, and their
+parents, and their ancestors, and their forthcoming progeny, and--that,
+seemed to fix things.  They got civil then.  Sort of raised their hats,
+and--got busy.  You'd be astonished if you saw the way they hatched
+out--after that.  You see," he added whimsically, "there's just about
+only one way of makin' life act the way you need it.  Set your back
+teeth into the seat of things, and--hang on."
+
+But Nan's reply was slow in coming, and her usually ready laugh was not
+in evidence.  His final remark had brought very near the surface all
+those feelings and thoughts she had striven so hard to bury where they
+could no longer offend.  It seemed to the man that her eyes had grown
+unnecessarily serious.  But then he did not know that there was any
+unusual interest for her in the fact that Jeff Masters was escorting
+Mrs. Van Blooren.
+
+When she did speak it was with her gaze fixed upon the couple ahead.
+
+"Yes, that's it," she said.  "Hang on.  Hang on with every ounce of
+courage and strength you've got.  And if you've got to go under, why, I
+guess it's best done with a smile, eh?"  Quite abruptly she indicated
+the woman in front.  "I do think she's real beautiful, don't you?"
+
+"Who?"  The man had no concern for anybody at that moment but the girl
+at his side.
+
+"Who?  Say, aren't you just foolish.  I was thinking of Mrs. Van
+Blooren."
+
+The man laughed.
+
+"I surely am," he declared.  "And I've won prizes for thought-reading
+at parlor games, too."
+
+They both laughed.  Then Nan went on with a persistence which was quite
+lost upon the thought-reader.
+
+"Who is she?  Mrs. Van Blooren?" she demanded.
+
+"Why, you met her, sure?"  Then the man added with some significance:
+"She's riding with Jeff Masters."
+
+"Oh, yes.  I've met her.  I met her last night, and I've seen her many
+times before."  Then she added with a shadow of coldness in her manner:
+"But she doesn't belong to the cattle folk."
+
+The man's eyes were following the direction of Nan's.
+
+"No-o," he said seriously.  "Guess I'm not wise.  They say her husband
+was a rancher--before he acted foolish an' died."
+
+Nan's laugh came readily.
+
+"That's bright.  I don't guess he started running cattle--after."
+
+Dugdale chuckled explosively.
+
+"Who's to say?" he cried.  Then he went on with enthusiasm: "Say,
+wouldn't it be bully to think of?  Just get a thought of it.  Flapping
+around with elegant store wings, rounding up golden steers trimmed with
+fancy halos, and with jeweled eyes.  Branding calves of silver with
+flaming irons and turning 'em out to feed on a pasture of purple grass
+with emeralds and sapphires for blossoms all growing around.  And
+then----"
+
+"Think again.  Say, your taste's just--cheap.  But we're talking of
+Mrs. Van Blooren."
+
+"I'm sorry.  Why, I guess she's daughter to the Carruthers's.  John D.
+Carruthers.  He was principal at St. Bude's College.  Pensioned.  Guess
+it's five years since she handed us boys the G. B. and hooked up with a
+white-gilled hoodlum from down East.  He got around here with a wad
+he'd raised from his father.  Can't say who his father was.  Folks
+guessed he was some millionaire.  I don't just know the rights of it.
+Anyway, he left her well enough fixed.  Gee!  Fancy a feller acting
+that way--dying, with a wife like that.  Wonder what sort of mush he
+kept in his thinking depot?  I'd say folks with sense have to live on
+the chances fools can't just kick to death.  Anyway, seeing she's
+started right in to set her wings rustling again I guess some feller
+with hoss sense'll be getting busy.  They'd make a swell couple," he
+added with a grin.  "Jeff's a good-looker."
+
+Nan nodded.
+
+But she made no answer.  Had the man been less concerned with his
+match-making suggestions he must have observed the effect of his
+careless words.  Nan had paled under the pretty tanning of her rounded
+cheeks.  She was hurt, hurt beyond words, and though she could
+willingly have cried out she was forced to smother her feelings.  The
+panic of the moment passed, however, and, with a great effort, she was
+able to give her suggestion its proper value.  But somehow, for the
+rest of the ride, it seemed to her that the sun was less bright, the
+wind even had become chilly, and altogether there was a curious,
+enervating world-weariness hanging over everything.
+
+By the time they reached the race-track she felt in her simple heart
+she ought to apologize for having spoiled her escort's ride.  But the
+inclination was only the result of her depression.  She even told
+herself, with a gleam of humor, that if she attempted it she would have
+to burst into tears.
+
+However, the later excitement of the racing helped to revive Nan's
+drooping spirits.  The scene was irresistible.  The atmosphere.  The
+happy buoyant enjoyment on every side could not long be denied whatever
+the troubles awaiting more sober moments.  There were the sleek and
+glossy horses.  There were the brilliant colors of the jockey's silks.
+There was the babel of excited voices, the shouting as the horses
+rushed down the picturesque "straight."  Then the betting.  The
+lunching.  The sun.  The blessed sun and gracious woodland slopes
+shutting in this happy playground of men and women become children
+again at the touch of pleasure's magic wand.  No, for all her anxiety,
+Nan had no power to withstand the charm and delirium of it all.  And,
+for a while, she flung herself into it with an abandon which matched
+the most reckless.
+
+Twice she found herself in financial difficulties through reckless
+betting, and twice the open-handed Bud had to come to her assistance.
+Each time his comment was characteristic, and Nan laughed at him with
+the irresponsibility of a child who tastes the delight of gambling for
+the first time.
+
+"Say, little gal," Bud admonished her, the second time he unrolled his
+"wad" of bills.  "Makin' dollars on a race-track's jest about as easy
+as makin' ice-cream.  Ther's jest one way of doing it.  Ast yourself
+which hoss you're craziest to dope out your money on, an' when you're
+plumb sure then get right along an' bet on the other feller.
+Meanwhiles think in dollars an' play in cents."
+
+And Nan's answer reflected her feelings of the moment.
+
+"You can't play in cents, my Daddy, when it's time to play in dollars.
+You never know when the time's coming along when even cents are denied
+you."
+
+Then before the worshipping parent could add to his advice the girl
+darted off with her hands full of outspread bills seeking the pool
+rooms.
+
+She had seen the horses cantering over to the post for the half-mile
+dash.  It was a race for legitimate cow-ponies and she knew Jeff's
+"Sassafras" was running in it.  She meant to bet on Jeff's horse.  It
+mattered nothing to her what other horses were running.  She knew
+little enough of their claims.  She had one thought in life.  Anything
+to do with Jeff Masters, anything of his was good enough for her to
+gamble on--even with her life.  This was the real, all unconscious Nan.
+It was not in her to give half measure.  She had no idea of what she
+was doing.  She had no subtlety or calculation of anything where her
+love was concerned.  She would back Jeff to the limit, and stand or
+fall by it.  It was the simple loyalty and devotion which only a woman
+can yield.
+
+On her way to the pool room she encountered Jeff himself, and, in the
+excitement of the moment, clasping her money in both hands, she thrust
+them out toward him.
+
+"Say, Jeff," she cried, "I'm just crazy.  The horses have gone right
+out to the start now, and--and I'm gasping to put my dollars on
+Sassafras."
+
+The man's quiet smile was good to see.  And Nan warmed under its
+influence.  This was the Jeff she had known so long and loved so well.
+There was no other woman near to have provoked that smile.  It was
+hers.  She felt it was all hers, and her eyes shone up into the depths
+of blue she so loved.
+
+"Why, Nan, I just hate to disappoint you," he said, in a gentle
+fashion.  "But you'll surely be crazy to back my plug with Tommy
+Cleveden's 'Jack Rabbit' in the race.  It's a cinch for him.  It is so."
+
+Nan laughed a glad buoyant laugh.
+
+"Jack Rabbit?" she echoed scornfully.  "Why, he points the toe.  Guess
+he'd outrun Sassafras if he kept his feet, but he'll never do it.
+He'll peck.  Then he'll change his stride.  No, Jeff.  Sassafras goes
+with me."
+
+The smile in the man's eyes faded out.  He hated the thought of Nan
+losing her money on what he considered a foolish bet.  His practical
+mind could not see under her purpose.
+
+"Say, Nan, just don't you do it," he said persuasively.  "We aren't.
+We're backing Jack Rabbit for a big roll."
+
+"We?"
+
+"Mrs. Van Blooren and me."
+
+Jeff's manner was quite unconcerned.  At that instant he had no thought
+of anything but to dissuade Nan from throwing her money away uselessly.
+And Nan.  Her eyes never wavered for an instant in their regard.  Their
+warmth of expression remained.  Yet it was a cruel blow.  Perhaps the
+cruelest that could have been inflicted at such a moment.  Jeff had
+inflicted it--Jeff of all men.
+
+She smiled up at him.  Oh, how she smiled.  Her eyes shone like two
+superb brown diamonds as she forced her money upon him with even
+greater determination.
+
+"Take it, Jeff.  Take it," she cried urgently.  "Say, if you never,
+never do another thing for me--ever.  Take it, and, why, I guess every
+cent of it says Sassafras wins.  Sassafras is your pony, Jeff, and I'd
+back him if he'd only three legs and a fence post."  Then just the
+smallest gleam of the woman peeped through.  "Maybe Mrs. Van Blooren's
+a pretty bright woman.  But I guess I'm wise to horses."
+
+Jeff hurried away.  There was no time to waste.  The horses had already
+assembled at the start.  Nan watched him go with eyes that had lost
+their last gleam of sunshine.  The mask she had set up before the man
+had completely fallen.  Jeff was--was betting for Mrs. Van Blooren!  He
+was betting with her!  Maybe even they were pooling their bets!  Oh!
+
+For some moments she stood alone where Jeff had left her.  Everybody
+had rushed to the fence of the enclosure, crowding to witness the race.
+Nan seemed to have forgotten it.  It was Bud's voice that finally
+claimed her, and she tried to pull her scattered faculties together.
+
+She reached Bud's side amongst the crowd, and the old man's shrewd eyes
+searched her troubled face.
+
+"What's amiss, Nan?" he demanded, in a tone almost brusque.
+
+And the girl responded with a wistful smile.
+
+"Why, Daddy, I've bet all your money on Jeff's Sassafras, and--and I
+want him to win more than anything--anything in the world."
+
+Bud's reply was lost in the sudden shout that went up.  It was the
+start.  Some one made way for Nan, and gently pushed her to a place
+against the railings.  The winning-post was directly in front of her.
+The full breadth of the track was in her view.  She gazed out with eyes
+that were very near tears.  She saw a vista of green and many figures
+moving beyond the track.  She heard the hoarse cries of men, whose
+desires exceeded their veracity as they shouted the progress of the
+race.  But nothing of what she heard or beheld conveyed anything to
+her.  Her heart was aching once more, and her thoughts were heavily
+oppressed, and all the joy of the day had suddenly been banished.
+
+Then of a sudden came that greatest of all tonics.  That irresistible
+sensation so powerfully stimulating that no trouble can resist it.  The
+racing horses leaped into her view, and the disjointed shouts welded
+into one steady roar.  Nan was caught in the tide of it all.  The blood
+seemed to rush to her head like full rich wine.  She added her light
+cries to the general tumult.
+
+"Sassafras!  Sassafras!" she cried, with eyes blind to all but the
+indistinct cluster of the straining horses.
+
+Then in her ears rang a cry:
+
+"A hundred dollars Jack Rabbit!  A thousand!  Jack Rabbit!  Jack
+Rabbit!"
+
+It was like a douche of cold water.  The girl's heart sank.  She felt,
+she knew that Jack Rabbit had won.  Then into her ears poured a babel
+of voices.  The roar had died out, and the crowd were waiting for the
+numbers to go up.
+
+Nan had no further interest.  She turned to seek her father.  He was
+there, not far behind her, and she pushed her way toward him.  She
+smiled bravely as she came up, but the pathos of it was lost on Bud.
+He was craning, and his eyes were on the number board.  He did not even
+see her.
+
+"I'm--I'm sort of tired, Daddy," she began.
+
+But Bud held up his hand.  There was a rattle at the number board.  Nan
+understood.  She waited.  Then it seemed as if the crowd had timed
+itself for one unanimous shout.
+
+"Sassafras!"
+
+It came with a sort of electric thrill for the girl.  In one wild
+moment all her shadows seemed to clear.
+
+"Sassafras!" she cried.
+
+And her father's deep gray eyes beamed down upon her
+
+"You've sure guessed right, little gal," he said.  "An' I--hope it was
+dollar time."
+
+At that instant Jeff thrust his way through the crowd, and the warmth
+of his smile flooded the girl's heart with happiness.
+
+"Say, Nan," he cried, holding out his hand with an enthusiasm that was
+hardly to be expected in one who has lost, "you got us all beat a mile.
+You surely have.  Sassafras.  My old Sassafras.  Say, who'd 'a' thought
+it?"  Nan's hand remained clasped in his, and she seemed to have no
+desire to withdraw it.  Jeff looked round into Bud's face.  "Do you
+know what she's won?  Do you, Nan?" he went on to the girl again.
+
+Nan laughed.  It was all she wanted to do.
+
+"Not a notion, Jeff.  I handed you all Daddy gave me.  How much was it,
+Daddy?"
+
+"Five hundred."
+
+Nan's eyes widened in alarm.
+
+"Five hundred?  And I bet it all on--Sassafras!"
+
+"And you've won nearly five thousand," cried Jeff, stirred completely
+out of himself at the girl's success.
+
+"I--I must have been--crazy," she declared, in an awed voice.
+
+Bud laughed, but his eyes were full of a sympathy that had no meaning
+for the others.
+
+"Not crazy, little Nan.  Jest good grit.  Guess Jeff didn't see the
+pool waitin' around for him to pick up.  Wal, guess ther's a heap o'
+folk like him.  You played right out for a win, an' you won--by a head."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ELVINE VAN BLOOREN
+
+It was the last day of the Cattle Week.  A week which, for at least
+three people, was fraught with something in the nature of epoch-making
+events.  All that the simple heart of Nan Tristram had looked forward
+to, yearned for, had been denied her from the first moment she had
+beheld that unmistakable lightening up of Jeff's eyes on his meeting
+with Elvine van Blooren.  It had been a revelation of dread.  Her own
+secret hopes had been set shaking to their very foundations.  And from
+that moment on, during the rest of the week, brick by brick the whole
+edifice of them had been set tumbling.  By the last day nothing but a
+pile of debris remained.
+
+Holiday!  It had been a good deal less than holiday.  She had looked
+forward to one all too brief succession of days of delight.  Jeff, who
+had been honored by his fellows in the world which was theirs.  Jeff,
+the leader in the great industry which absorbed them all.  Jeff, the
+man by his very temperament marked out for a worldly success only
+bounded by the limitations of his personal ambitions.  She had been so
+proud of him.  She had been so thankful to be allowed to share in his
+triumphs.  She had shared in them, too--up till that meeting with
+Elvine van Blooren at the reception.  After that--ah, well, there had
+been very little after for Nan.
+
+And the man himself.  Four days had sufficed to reduce Jeff's feelings
+to a condition of love-sickness such as is best associated with extreme
+youth.  Furthermore its hold upon him was deeper, more lasting by
+reason of the innate strength of his character.
+
+As for Elvine van Blooren it would be less easy to say.  Her beauty was
+of a darkly reticent order.  Hers was the face, the eyes, the manner
+yielding up few secrets.  She rarely imparted confidence even to her
+mother.  And a woman who denies her mother rarely yields confidence to
+any other human creature.
+
+Perhaps in her case, however, she had good reason.  Mrs. John D.
+Carruthers, who possessed a simple erudite professor for a husband, a
+man who possessed no worldly ambitions of any sort, and who readily
+accepted his pension from the trustees of St. Bude's College at the
+earliest date, so that he might devote all his riper years to the
+prosecution of his passion for classical research, was a painful
+example of worldliness, and a woman who regarded position and wealth
+before all things.  There was little enough sympathy between mother and
+daughter.  Mrs. John D. Carruthers only saw in Elvine's unusual beauty
+an asset in her schemes of advancement.  While Elvine displayed a cold
+disregard for the older woman's efforts, and went her own way.
+
+Elvine was strong, even as Jeffrey Masters was strong.  But while the
+man's strength lay in the single purpose of achievement, Elvine looked
+for the ease and luxury which life could legitimately afford her.
+Elvine and her mother possessed far too much in common ever to have
+sympathy for one another.
+
+It was this very attitude which inspired an acrimonious half hour in
+the somewhat pretentious parlor on Maple Avenue just before Jeff was to
+pay his farewell call at the close of the Cattle Week.
+
+Elvine was occupied with a small note-book on the| pages of which there
+were many figures.  With a small gold pencil she was working out sums,
+which, apparently, were solely for her own edification.  She
+communicated nothing to her mother, who covertly glanced over at her
+from the fancy work she was engaged upon at the far side of the room.
+
+The room was such as might be found in any of the better middle-class
+houses in a western city.  Its furnishing was a trifle ornate.
+Comfortable chairs predominated, and their woodwork shone with an
+extreme lustre, or were equally aggressive in their modern fictitious
+Mission House style.  The carpet and rugs were broadly floral and
+bright.  There was altogether a modernity about the character of it
+which decidedly belonged to the gray-haired showiness of the wife of
+John Carruthers.  For all that, there was nothing absolutely untasteful
+about Elvine's surroundings.  The daughter would never have permitted
+such a thing.  It was only modern, extremely modern.  That type of
+modern which belongs to those homes where money is a careful
+consideration.
+
+At last Elvine closed her note-book and returned it to the rather large
+pocketbook which was lying in her lap.  Her fine eyes were half
+smiling, and a faint tinge of color deepened her perfect cheeks.  She
+sighed.
+
+"We didn't do so badly at the races, Momma," she said, more for her own
+satisfaction than her mother's information.  "Guess I've got most all
+of it in and--I'm satisfied."
+
+"Maybe you are, my dear," came the ungracious response.
+
+Her mother was bending over her work, nor did she trouble to raise her
+eyes in her daughter's direction.
+
+"That sounds as if somebody else wasn't."
+
+Elvine raised a pair of beautifully rounded arms above her head and
+rested the back of her neck upon her clasped hands.
+
+The gray head was lifted sharply.  A pair of brilliant black eyes shot
+a disapproving glance across the room.  Then the mother continued her
+work, shaking her head emphatically.
+
+"What's the use of a few dollars?  He's going back to his ranch
+to-morrow, and--nothing's happened."
+
+There was something crude, almost brutal in the manner of it.  There
+was something which on a woman's lips might well have revolted any man.
+But it was an attitude to which the daughter was used.  Besides, it
+saved her any qualms she might otherwise have had in pursuing her own
+way under the shelter of her mother's roof.
+
+"I really can't see what you've to complain of, Momma," Elvine laughed,
+without any display of mirth.  "I guess if you wanted to marry a man
+you'd leave him about as much chance as he'd have with a wildcat."
+Then her smile died out.  "Anyway it doesn't seem to be a matter for
+other folk to concern themselves with.  I'm not a child."
+
+"No.  But you're going to throw away the chance of a lifetime if you
+don't act right now.  Why, girl, Jeff Masters is the pick of the whole
+bunch of cattlemen around this district.  He's going to be one of the
+cattle kings of the country, or I don't guess I know a thing.  He's
+right here to your hand, and as tame as a lap-dog.  To-morrow he's off
+again to the ranch, and that girl of his partner's will have him to
+herself for a year.  Why, you're crazy to let him go.  Four years
+you've lived here since--since----"
+
+"I wish you'd stop worrying, Momma--and," the girl added with
+unconcealed resentment, "get on with your knitting."
+
+Elvine had risen to her feet.  She moved swiftly over to the window
+which gave on to a wide stoop, the roof of which was supported on
+well-built rag stone columns.  She was more angry than her words
+admitted.  Her fine eyes were sparkling, her delicately penciled brows
+were slightly knitted.
+
+She made a handsome picture.  Her wealth of dark hair was carefully
+dressed, but with the usual consummate simplicity.  Her figure was
+superb, with all the ripeness of maturity, but without the smallest
+inclination toward any gross development.  She was statuesque, with all
+the perfect cunning of Nature's art.  She was a woman to find favor in
+any eyes, man's or woman's, and to perform that dual feat was a test
+which few women could hope to survive.
+
+The mother's reply came sharply and without yielding.
+
+"It's just four years since you came back to home.  Five or more since
+you first married.  Anyway, you've sat around here for four years
+having a good time without a thought of the future.  You're spending
+your money, which didn't amount to----"
+
+The girl flashed round.
+
+"I won't tolerate it.  I just won't, Momma," she cried, with an energy
+which brought the other's eyes swiftly to her face.  "You've talked of
+four years wasted, but you don't say a word of the other year, the
+fifth.  It's taken me all that time to--forget what your judgment might
+have saved me from.  Oh, yes.  You know it just as well as I do.  Don't
+blind yourself.  I was foolish then, I thought I was in love, and it
+was the moment when the advice of a woman worth having might have
+helped me.  You urged me in my folly to marry then, the same as you're
+urging me now.  You saw everything you hoped for in that marriage, and
+you let me plunge myself into a living hell without a single qualm.
+The result.  Oh, I've tried to forget.  But I can't I haven't
+forgotten.  I never shall forget.  But I've learned.  I certainly have.
+I've learned to think wholly for myself--of myself.  I don't need
+advice now.  I don't need a thing.  You'll never see things my way, and
+I don't fancy to see them yours.  I shall marry.  And when I marry
+again I promise you I'll marry right, and," she laughed bitterly, "I
+guess I'll hand you the rake off which you're looking for.  But," she
+went on, with a swift, ruthless candor which stung even the worldly
+heart of the older woman, "I'll make no experimental practice.  I'll
+marry the man I want to, first because I like him, and second, because
+he's a right man, and can hand me the life I need.  Maybe that's pretty
+hard sounding, but I tell you, Momma, it's nothing to the hardness that
+makes you talk the way you do.  Anyway, I want you to get it fixed in
+your mind right now I'm no priceless gem in a jewelry store that you're
+going to sell at the price you figure.  I'll dispose of myself when,
+and to whom, I choose, and my motives will be my own.  Now we'll quit
+it, once for all.  Jeffrey Masters is coming right along down the
+sidewalk."
+
+The mother's black eyes snapped angrily.
+
+"Very well," she exclaimed sharply.  "See to it you make good.  Your
+father's pension isn't even sufficient for two, and your own money is
+limited.  Meanwhile, don't forget the Tristram girl's just as pretty as
+a picture."
+
+But Elvine's exasperation had passed.  There was a slight softening in
+her eyes as they surveyed the handsome, elaborately dressed gray head
+and the careful toilet of her unlovely mother.  She understood the
+bitter carping of this disappointed woman.  Her spirit soared far
+beyond the lot of the wife of a pensioned school-teacher.  She knew,
+too, that somewhere, lost in some dim recess of a coldly calculating
+nature, there was a tiny, glowing spot which burned wholly for her.
+
+There was an unusual softness in her tone when she replied.
+
+"But she needs framing, Momma," she said lightly.  "And anyway, a girl
+who lives more or less on the premises with a man for five years or so,
+and hasn't married him--well, I guess she never will."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The whole method of Jeff's life was rapidity of thought and swift
+execution supported by a perfect genius for clear thinking.  It was
+these characteristics which had lifted him so rapidly in the world of
+cattle he had made his own.  It was these which had shown him the
+possibilities of the now great Obar Ranch.
+
+It might have been claimed for him that he lacked many of the lovable
+weaknesses of human nature.  It might have been said that he was hard,
+cold.  Yet such was his passionate ambition beneath a cool, deliberate
+exterior that it would have been foolish to believe that his outward
+display was the real man.  He was perhaps a powerfully controlled fire,
+but the hot tide ran strong within him, and the right torch at the
+right moment might easily stir the depths of him and bring their fiery
+display to the surface.
+
+Bud knew him.  Bud understood something of the deep human tide flowing
+through his strong veins.  Once he had seen that tide at the surface,
+and it had left an impression not easily forgettable.  Nan, too, was
+not without understanding of him.  But hers was the understanding of
+her sex for an idol she had set up in her heart.  Her knowledge of his
+shortcomings and his best characteristics was perhaps the reflection of
+her feelings for him, feelings which make it possible for a woman to
+endow any object of her profound regard with the virtues she would have
+it possess.  To her there was nothing of the iron, relentless,
+purposeful soul about him.  He was just "Honest Jeff," as she loved to
+call him.  A creature full of kindly thought for others as well as
+strong in his own personal attitude toward life.
+
+For himself Jeff knew nothing of the emotions lying dormant within him
+until some chance happening stirred them from their slumbers and sent
+them pulsating through his senses.  He accepted the tide of life as he
+found it, and only on his journey, swimming down its many currents, he
+endeavored by skilful pilotship to avoid the shoals, and seek the
+beneficent backwaters so that his muscles and courage might be
+strengthened for the completion of the task he had still before him.
+
+Elvine van Blooren had held the right torch at their first meeting
+during the Cattle Week.  One look into her beautiful eyes had set his
+soul aflame, as all the years of his life spent in association with Nan
+Tristram had failed to do.  Did she only know it, the first waltz with
+him at the subsequent ball had completely made her mistress of his
+destiny.
+
+Again with his rapid, clear-thinking mind he had not only promptly
+admitted this truth to himself, but he reveled in the enchantment of
+the thought it inspired.  He desired it.  He regretted only that
+fortune had so long denied him the contemplation of such delights.  He
+felt he had never before lived.  He had merely existed, something more
+than a physical and mental machine, something less than a man.
+
+Something of all this stimulated his sensations during that ostensible
+farewell call upon the woman who had inspired the change.  And, as his
+hungry eyes dwelt upon her great beauty, he became a prey to an impulse
+that was irresistible.  Why should this be a farewell?  Why should
+there ever be a farewell between them?  There could be none.  Then, to
+his support came that steady determination which never failed him in
+crises.  There should be no farewell.
+
+He was clad in sober conventional garb.  There was only the bronzing
+upon his fair brow and firm cheeks to suggest the open air life that
+was his.  His slim, powerful figure was full of an ease which caught
+and held, and pleased Elvine van Blooren's fancy, and awoke in her more
+material mind something of the dreams which had driven her almost
+unthinkingly into the arms of her first husband.  His fine blue eyes
+were alight with possibilities which came near to overbalancing the
+calculations of her mature mind.  But, even so, she felt that the
+ground was so safe under her feet that, even with the background of the
+past ever in her memory, she could safely indulge her warmth of fancy
+to its full.
+
+They were alone in the little modern parlor.  At another time Jeff must
+have observed its atmosphere without enthusiasm, just now he welcomed
+it.  It represented the intimate background of a beautiful woman's
+life.  This was the shrine of the goddess whom he had set up for his
+own worship.  Again there was no half measure.
+
+They were talking in that intimate fashion which belongs to the period
+when a man and a woman have made up their minds that there remains no
+obstacle to the admission of mutual regard.
+
+"It's just wonderful to have done it all in so short a time," Elvine
+said in her low even tones.
+
+Jeff had been talking of the Obar Ranch which was more precious to him
+than a schoolboy's first big achievement in the playing fields.  He had
+been talking of it, not in the spirit of vain glory, but out of the
+deep affection of a strong heart for the child of his own creation.
+
+"Oh, I guess it would have been wonderful with any other feller for a
+partner than Bud Tristram," Jeff responded promptly.  "As an
+enterprise, why, I guess it's my thought.  As a success, it's Bud's
+genius for setting cattle prospering.  Say, you can't handle a wide
+proposition right by reckoning up figures and fixing deeds of sale and
+partnership.  I allow you need to do some thinking that way.  But when
+it's all figgered right, why, the real practical man needs to get busy
+or the figgers aren't worth the ink an' paper you've used to make 'em.
+Bud's the feller of the Obars.  I just sit around and talk wise when he
+needs talk, which I don't guess is frequent."
+
+Jeff's smile was genuine.  There was no false modesty that made him
+place the credit of the Obar's success at Bud's door.  The credit was
+Bud's.  He knew it.  And, with frank honesty, was only too ready to
+admit it, and even advertise it.
+
+Elvine nodded.  Her dark eyes were warmly returning his smile.
+
+"I like that," she said simply.  And she meant it.
+
+The blood mounted to the man's brow.  He felt that he had forced her to
+make the admission, and regarded his act with some shame.
+
+"Say, don't feel you've got to say that," he said earnestly.  "You
+mustn't just think I'm asking your applause.  These are simple facts
+which I can't deny.  I'd like to feel the sun just rises and sets
+around my work, but if I did I'd be the same sort of fool as those
+Pharisee fellers in the Bible.  Bud's a bully feller, and I'll owe him
+more than I can ever hand him back just as long as I live."
+
+Elvine was comparing this man's big generosity with her understanding
+of most of the men she had ever known.  She was thinking, too, of days
+long since passed, and events which even a wide distance of time had
+not succeeded in rendering mellow.
+
+She sighed.  Somehow "Honest Jeff" was hurting her in a way she would
+never have believed any man could hurt her--now.
+
+"This Bud Tristram's daughter--Nan.  She's a pretty creature," Elvine
+went on, feeling their topic needed changing.
+
+Jeff's smile deepened.
+
+"She's pretty--right through to her soul," came his prompt and earnest
+response.
+
+Elvine's eyes observed him closely.  She laughed in a challenging
+fashion.
+
+"And she is still her father's daughter?"
+
+Jeff flushed.  Her meaning could not be mistaken.  His impulse was to
+speak out of the depth of a strong abiding regard for his friend's
+"little gal."  But he rejected the impulse.  Time and his own desires
+were pressing.
+
+"Oh, I guess she'll marry some fellow some day.  Maybe he'll be good
+enough----"
+
+"And more than likely he won't."  Elvine's reply was emphatic.  She
+suddenly sat forward in the deep rocker, and a great earnestness shone
+in her eyes.  "I tell you no woman in this life has a right to be as
+'pretty' as you believe her to be," she said with intense bitterness.
+"If I had my way every girl would be taught to reason for herself on
+those things in life which make for her well-being.  I'd make her think
+that way before everything else.  To me it is the direst cruelty of
+Providence that we should be left to become the prey of our own
+emotions, and at the mercy of any man of whatever quality who can
+sufficiently stir them.  Maybe you do not agree to that.  But just
+think of the awful position that every wretched, physically feeble
+woman stands in in the life about her.  I tell you no girl on her own
+resources has much better than a dog's chance of getting through life
+without disaster.  Our emotions are the most absurdly foolish type it
+is possible to think of.  I guess we can do things with our normal
+reason which would shame a whole asylum of crazy folk who can't be let
+run around free.  Oh, I'd like to know her better, to tell her, to warn
+her.  I don't guess I've ever done good in the world, but I'd like to.
+If I could save one of my sex from some of the pitfalls lying around,
+maybe I'd feel I'd been some use."
+
+"Why not know her better?  Say, Nan's no end of a good sort.  She'd be
+real glad."
+
+Jeff's invitation sounded lame, even to himself.  But he was struggling
+under an emotion that made words difficult.
+
+Elvine laughed.
+
+"Would she?  I wonder."
+
+Then she hurried on lest her observation should be interpreted.
+
+"And you're going to quit our city to-morrow for your wonderful ranch.
+I guess the Cattle Week's liable to bore folks who've real work in the
+world--like you.  It's just a week of show, and glitter, and ceremony,
+all those things which have no real place in the world of things that
+matter.  But there, after all, I wonder what are the things that
+matter.  And do they matter anyway?  We have no guide.  We're just left
+to grope around and search for ourselves, and every folk's ideas are
+different from every other folk's.  I'm restless.  I sort of feel
+there's so much to be done in the world--if we only knew how, and what."
+
+The half-bantering manner of the woman did not disguise her
+earnestness.  Jeff shook his head.
+
+"Guess I can't say.  Guess none of us can--rightly.  But why not come
+around to the ranch and see things?  See if you can worry out an
+answer.  See if you think the work we're doing matters.  It certainly
+does matter to me, to us.  But in the world.  I don't know.  Just now I
+sort of feel it don't.  Just now I'm wondering whether I'll go back
+there to-morrow.  What do you say?"
+
+"I?  How can I say?"
+
+Jeff laughed.
+
+"I don't guess there's a thing easier."  His eyes were shining as he
+took in the girl's dark beauty.  "Seems to me I'm beginning to wonder
+about the things that matter myself.  It's been a bully week.  The sort
+of week some folks would write about in their secret diary.  Guess I
+don't keep a secret diary--except somewhere right in here."  He tapped
+his breast.  "I don't seem to feel I've ever had such a time, or ever
+will again, unless----"
+
+"Unless?"  Elvine was caught in the mood of the moment.  This man was
+exercising a fascination over her which had nothing to do with the
+calculations she had laid down for the guidance of her sex.
+
+"Why, unless I add another week to it."
+
+"D'you think you could duplicate it then?"
+
+"That just depends on--you."
+
+Elvine rose from her chair and moved toward the window.  Jeff, too,
+left his chair.  He stood tall and straight--waiting.
+
+Her back was turned to him.
+
+"It is not for me to say," she replied without turning.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Your work--in the world."
+
+"Can wait.  There's always--Bud Tristram."
+
+Suddenly Elvine turned about.  Her eyes were smiling, and full of a
+light which had not lived in them for several years.  There was not a
+shadow of calculation in them now.
+
+She held out her hand in token of dismissal.
+
+"We had some fine rides--together," she said.
+
+"My horses are still here."
+
+"And--the dances.  They were--very pleasant."
+
+"Maybe they can be danced--again."
+
+"Good-bye," she said, her beautiful hand lingering in his for a moment.
+
+"For the present," Jeff added with decision.
+
+Then he mechanically glanced at his timepiece.  His "farewell" call had
+lasted over two hours.  But even so it had been all too short for him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE TEMPERING
+
+Bud was packing in his rooms at Aston's Hotel.  It was late at night.
+Late as it was, however, he had only left Nan, engaged at a similar
+occupation, less than half an hour ago.  He had sat talking to her, and
+watching her with eyes of deep concern while, with infinite care, she
+bestowed those beautiful gowns which mean so much in a woman's life.
+
+His visit to her had not been one of mere companionship.  It had been
+inspired by a sympathy he had no other means of displaying.  He had
+talked to her; by every means in his power he had endeavored to
+interest her in reminiscence of the week's doings.  She listened
+patiently, almost submissively, for she understood the promptings of
+his endeavor.  But she was too deeply plunged in her own discouragement
+to display real interest, and it had required every ounce of courage
+she possessed to prevent herself falling to weeping.
+
+Nor was Bud at fault for a moment.  He recognized the trouble lurking
+in the sweet brown eyes.  And with all his might he pretended not to
+see.  So, when his last effort to cheer had proved unavailing, he took
+his departure under the excuse of his own packing.
+
+He knew.  Of course he knew.  Had he not watched the progress of events
+throughout the week?  Had he not seen for himself how Jeff's fancy had
+been caught?  And she was very beautiful, this town-bred woman,
+beautiful with that healthy, downy complexion which Bud found did not
+fit with his idea of city "raised" women.  He almost felt he hated her,
+yet he knew he had no right to his antagonism.  Jeff was unpledged, he
+was free.  No woman had any claim on him.  Not even Nan.  Poor Nan.  He
+had hoped to give her seven long days of unalloyed delight.  He had
+only given her seven days of bitter disappointment and disillusion.
+
+He set about his packing with furious zest.  In a moment, it seemed,
+his room was in a state of chaos.  And all the while, as he bundled
+garments together and flung them into his grips, his busy thought went
+on in the only direction in which it seemed capable of moving just now.
+
+His mind had gone back to the days before their visit to Calthorpe.  He
+remembered the delighted anticipation which Nan had displayed.  Her
+displays of happy affection for himself in the midst of her own great
+looking forward.  The ravishing hours she had spent in choosing
+patterns of material, and styles of gown.  He remembered the bright
+sparkling eyes shining, it seemed to him, at all times.  That wonderful
+looking forward.  Oh, the holiday of it had been nothing.  There was
+only one thing, one thought, which had inspired the child.  It was
+Jeff.  It was a week that was to see honor done him, and she--she was
+to join in honoring him.  Jeff was the whole hub about which her
+happiness revolved.
+
+He was pained.  He was angry.  And the vision of Elvine van Blooren's
+dark beauty haunted him.  He admitted it--her beauty.  And for all his
+disquiet, his bitter feeling, he found it impossible to blame the man.
+
+Yes, for all his exasperation.  For all he regarded Jeff as a "fool
+man," he was just enough to remember that Nan was his own little
+daughter, a pretty prairie girl, with nothing of the showy attraction
+of this city woman.  Then Jeff's attitude toward her.  It had never
+been more than the sheerest friendliness.  He reflected bitterly, even,
+that they might have been simply brother and sister.  While the dream
+of his life was some day to be able to pour out the wealth he was
+storing up into the out-stretched palms of their children.
+
+Well, it was a dream.  And now it had come tumbling about his feet, and
+it almost looked to him as if poor little Nan's heart was to be buried
+beneath the debris.
+
+He flung his evening suit, which Nan had so much admired, into the
+gaping jaws of a large leather grip, with a disregard that more than
+illustrated his feelings.  Then he strove to close the grip tucking in
+the projecting oddments of silk-lined cloth without the least
+consideration for their well-being.  He felt he never wanted to wear
+such things again, never wanted even to see them.  He and Nan belonged
+to the prairie, not to a city.  That was good enough for them.  What
+was the use----?
+
+But his reflections were interrupted by the abrupt appearance of Jeff
+himself.  Bud looked up as the door was unceremoniously thrust open,
+and his regard was quite unshaken by the depths of his feelings.  It
+displayed a mute question, however.
+
+Jeff began at once.
+
+"I saw the light through your transom, Bud, so I just came right in."
+
+Jeff was a shade paler than usual.  There was a look of some doubt in
+his blue eyes.  And his manner hinted at a decision taken.  A decision
+that had not been arrived at without some considerable exercise of mind.
+
+Slowly, as he regarded him, all Bud's bitterness subsided.  If Nan were
+his daughter, this man was almost a son to him.
+
+"Say, old friend, I'm--I'm not going back home with you to-morrow,"
+Jeff went on.  He stirred with a suggestion of nervousness, and then
+flung himself upon the old man's littered-up bed.  "I just can't, an'
+that's a fact.  I want to stop around here for a while.  I got to."
+
+He paused as though awaiting an answer, but none was forthcoming.  Only
+was there that steady regard from the man beyond the still open grip.
+
+Bud was not thinking of the announcement.  Jeff was certainly a
+"good-looker," and he was beginning to understand something of the
+attraction he must have for a woman like Elvine van Blooren.  He was
+slim and muscular, with a keen face of decision and strength.  Then,
+was he not on the rising wave which must ever appeal to the maturer
+mind of a widow, however young?  His disappointment rose again and
+threatened to find expression.  But he thrust it aside and struggled to
+remember only his regard for the man.
+
+"D'you mind?"  Jeff's question came nervously.
+
+Did he mind?  It was a weak question.  Coming from Jeff it sounded
+foolish.  Bud smiled, and his quiet sense of humor saved him from
+himself.
+
+"Why, if you feel that way I don't guess you need worry a thing, Jeff."
+Then he added: "Guess Nan an' me'll get right along home.  But it don't
+need to cut no ice.  I take it you're askin' me to fix things right at
+the Obars till you get around.  That so?"
+
+Jeff nodded.  He was feeling that he was doing something mean, even
+brutal.  He knew that what he contemplated must result in the bitterest
+disappointment to his old friend.  He had well enough known throughout
+their partnership Bud's yearning desire that he should marry Nan.
+Well, such a course was unthinkable now.  Somehow it had never seemed
+really possible.  He was troubled, grievously troubled, but he was
+determined now to act in the only honest way.  He was determined that
+Bud should know the truth--at all costs.
+
+"I'd be thankful to you, Bud."
+
+"You don't need to say a word.  It's fixed."
+
+For some moments no other word was spoken.  There was awkwardness.  But
+it was with Jeff alone.  He feared the result of what he must tell.
+
+"You're--packing?" he said presently.
+
+Bud sat himself heavily into a rocker.
+
+"Yep.  Lestways I don't guess Nan 'ud call it that way."  He raked his
+curly iron-gray hair with his strong fingers, and gazed ruefully at the
+chaos.
+
+"Maybe I can help some."
+
+Bud shook his head, and his smile was good.
+
+"Guess one darn fool's enough playin' this game.  When're you coming
+along to--home?"
+
+"Maybe a week."
+
+The reply was prompt.
+
+"An'--you'll bring her along with you?"
+
+The eyes of the two men met.  Each was reading the other like an open
+book.
+
+Jeff shook his head.  Somehow there was nothing absurd to him in Bud's
+suggestion.  There was nothing startling even in the probing of his
+secret with so much directness.
+
+"I haven't asked her--yet."
+
+Then it was that the big heart of the friend, who was almost a father,
+made itself apparent.
+
+"But you're goin' to, Jeff.  An' she's goin' to take you.  Say, Jeff,
+she's one lucky woman."
+
+In a moment the tide of the younger man's feelings was set flowing.  In
+a moment the egoism of the lover made a generous nature forget all else
+but the passion that absorbed him.  In a moment the thought that this
+man was Nan's father, and that the dearest wish of his life was that
+he, Jeff, should marry his daughter, was forgotten.
+
+"Lucky?  But you got it wrong, Bud," Jeff cried, sitting erect, his
+face flushed with the passionate stirring of Ills strong heart.  "It's
+I who'll be lucky, if she don't turn me down.  Man, I'm not worth the
+dust on her shoes.  I'm not fit to lackey for her.  Nor--nor is any
+other feller.  Say, Bud," he went on, leaning impressively forward, his
+eyes shining with his passion, "I'm just crazy to death for her.
+And--and I can't just help it.  I'd go through hell's flames for her,
+man, I'd----"
+
+"Say, boy, don't worry that-a-way.  Jest marry her instead," Bud broke
+in with his gentlest smile.  "You're all sorts of a boy, Jeff, and I
+don't figger you got call to talk about the dust of any woman's shoes.
+But I guess ther's times when it's good fer a man to feel he ain't as
+big as he's told.  Anyways, you get right ahead, and leave me to the
+Obars.  I ain't goin' to fail you now, any more than any other time."
+Then he rumpled his stubbly hair again, and it was an action that
+suggested heavy thought.  "Say," he went on, a moment later, his eyes
+looking squarely into the face of the other, "we're hittin' the trail
+good an' early to-morrow.  Guess you best let me say 'good-bye' to Nan
+for you.  That so?"
+
+Jeff nodded.  He understood.  And somehow the bigness of this man made
+him almost despise himself.
+
+"Then I guess I'll get right on with my--packin'."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+They were standing on the stoop of Aston's Hotel.  In front of them the
+broad Avenue opened out with its central walk, between an aisle of
+wide-spreading maple trees bathed in the early morning sun.  A spring
+wagon was already moving away, piled up with baggage.  The saddle
+horses were ready, held by one of the hotel servants.  Nan, in her
+riding costume, was waiting while her father exchanged a few parting
+words with the hotel manager.
+
+"Guess you're right.  It's been a darn good week this year.  The best
+in my memory.  I'd say the Conference was a heap better attended, an'
+the weather's been just great.  We got through a deal o' legislation,
+too.  Guess things are goin' to hum, with the Obars at the head of 'em
+this year.  Our big play is to be dealin' with rustlers.  We got a hell
+of a piece o' leeway to make up.  Four years ago we guessed we'd got
+'em fixed where we wanted 'em.  But they hatched out since like a brood
+o' wolf cubs.  So long."
+
+"Mr. Masters is stopping on for a while," the manager observed, with
+that intimate touch which he always practiced with his more influential
+customers of the cattle world.
+
+"Why, yes."  Bud's eyes were watching Nan as she mounted her pony,
+carefully held by a solicitous barn-hand.  Under other circumstances
+the man's attention would have afforded him amusement.  Just now he was
+regretting the manager's remark.  "Y'see, ther's a deal to fix.  Seein'
+he's president this year, why, I guess it's up to him to kep his ladle
+busy in the soup."
+
+He moved off the stoop and took his horse from the waiting man.  He
+swung himself into the saddle with an agility which belied his years.
+
+He waved one great hand in response to the manager's deferential bow,
+and turned his horse away.  In a moment Bud and Nan were riding side by
+side down the wide Avenue.
+
+It was a long time before either attempted to break the silence between
+them.  They had even reached the outskirts of the city before Nan
+broached the subject from which her father admittedly shrank.
+
+"I'm glad Jeff didn't get up to see us off," she said imply.  Then she
+laughed softly.  "Y'see, Daddy, there's times for most things; and
+'good-byes' in the early morning are a bit like cold baths in winter."
+
+Bud eyed his daughter with a quick sidelong glance, and then continued
+his survey of the trail ahead as it lifted over a gentle grassy slope.
+They were passing the last houses of the town, and ahead lay the tawny
+fields which made the country one of the greatest pastures in the world.
+
+"Ther'd been no sort o' sense his turning out around sun-up to see us
+folks off.  It ain't goin' to be weeks before he gets back home."
+
+"No."
+
+Nan's smile remained, and Bud, for all his avoidance of it, was aware
+that was so.  It was a smile that cut him to the heart, and yet he was
+simple man enough to find relief in it.
+
+"There'll be a deal for him to fix before he gets back home," Nan went
+on.
+
+She spoke in the earnest fashion of deep consideration.  Bud glanced
+round at her again, steadying his powerful horse to permit her pony to
+push its nose ahead.  Her manner had startled him.  But he refrained
+from the folly of replying.  He had that in his mind to impart the
+thought of which nearly broke his heart.  But it must be told, and by
+him.  And a passionate desire to lighten the blow made him watch
+desperately for the best opportunity.
+
+But he was dealing with a nature stronger, deeper, more honest and
+clear-sighted than he knew.  He was dealing with a woman who could
+sacrifice all to the well-being and happiness of those she loved.  With
+Nan self held a particularly subservient place to every other emotion.
+And when it did manage to obtrude itself it was her way to fight her
+battle alone, at a time when no prying eyes were there to witness her
+sufferings.  To the daylight she presented a pair of sweet brown
+smiling eyes, and lips as full, and ripe, and firm as though no shadow
+of doubt and unhappiness had ever crossed her path.
+
+She went on rapidly, speaking as though the matter under consideration
+were fully accepted between them.
+
+"It's queer how things fix themselves the way you don't guess," she
+said reflectively.  "Just one week, and they're changed around in a way
+that makes you wonder if you aren't dreaming.  It's sort of like the
+Indian summer, isn't it?  There's the beautiful light of the full sun
+on colors that set you 'most crazy with delight.  Pictures that make
+you feel Providence is just the biggest painter ever set brush to
+canvas.  Then, with a shiver of wind from the north, down the leaves
+tumble, and right on top of 'em comes the snow, and then you're moving
+around in a sort of crystal fairy web, and wonder when you'll wake up.
+A week ago Jeff didn't even know her; she wasn't in the world so far as
+he knew.  Now he's going to marry her."
+
+Nan stated the fact without a tremor of voice, without a shadow of
+hesitation.  The sunny smile was entirely without a cloud.  Her father
+stared down at her from his superior height with eyes wide with
+astonishment and something of alarm.
+
+"Say, did Jeff tell you?" he asked sharply.
+
+Nan shook her head.
+
+"Then how in hell d'you know it all?  Say----"
+
+"How d'you know anything that affects you here, Daddy?" the girl
+retorted, gently indicating her soft rounded bosom with one gauntleted
+hand.
+
+Then her smile broke out again, and the man's trouble was further
+increased.
+
+"Y'see, I don't mind saying things to you.  You're my Daddy and Momma
+all rolled into one.  And there's sure a heap of you for two," she
+smiled up at him.  "Maybe you don't always say all the things you feel,
+but it don't keep me guessing long.  You'd a heap of terr'ble, terr'ble
+things on your mind to say to me on this ride.  Oh, and they weighed
+heavy.  Your poor worried face had lost all its smile, and your eyes
+just looked as if you'd been lying awake nights an' nights, an' you'd
+seen every sort of nightmare ever thought of in the world of dreams.
+It made me kind of sorry, and I just couldn't wait for you to make that
+big talk you figgered on."
+
+Bud was gazing far out ahead at the brilliant sky-line where the crests
+of grass-land cut the line in perfect undulations.  Nan's gently drawn
+sigh was like the stab of a knife in his heart.  His feelings at that
+moment were too deep for words.  And so the girl went on in a voice
+that struck fresh chords of sympathy in the soul of the man who
+idolized her.
+
+"It seems to me, my Daddy, that we often think things that a great big
+Someone don't guess are good for us to think.  We sort of set up hopes
+we've no right to.  An' when we do, why, we've got to be handed our
+lessons.  Sometimes the lesson is pretty tough, sometimes I don't guess
+it's a deal worse than a pin-prick.  Anyway, lessons aren't joyous
+things at best, not even pin-pricks.  Well, if folks are right they'll
+just learn their lessons all they can without kicking, and if they get
+a hunch on, why, I don't figger it's likely to make 'em harder.  I've
+been learning my lesson a whole week now, and, yes, I've got it right.
+Oh, I've had to work.  It hasn't been easy.  And somehow, my Daddy, all
+these lovely, lovely gowns, and the thought of the generous hands that
+gave them to me, have helped me to learn quicker, and--better."
+
+She paused again.  Their horses were ambling leisurely along over the
+sandy trail.  They moved together, side by side, in a closeness of
+companionship which perhaps symbolized that of their riders.
+
+"I jest don't know what to say, Nan.  I surely don't," Bud lumbered at
+last with a half-bewildered drawing together of his heavy brows.  "It
+don't seem I ken even think right--about it."
+
+Nan gazed up into his big troubled face with the frank eyes that looked
+wholly untroubled.
+
+"Don't try, my Daddy.  Guess I've done all that's necessary that way.
+Maybe I know just how you're feeling, because I know how I'm feeling.
+God's been good to me all my years.  He's given me a Daddy who's the
+best in the world.  A Daddy who's taught me by his own example how to
+be strong and fight the little battles I guess it's meant for us to
+fight.  Oh, I won't say it hasn't hurt," she went on, with a catch in
+her voice.  "You see, I loved Jeff.  I love him now, and I'll go right
+on loving him to the end.  And it's because I love him I want to help
+him now--and always.  You won't think me a fool girl, my Daddy, will
+you, but--but--I won't hate Elvine van Blooren.  I'm--I'm going to try
+so hard to like her, and--and anyway, with all my might, I'm going to
+help them both.  D'you guess Jeff would let me get his house ready
+for--his wife?"
+
+The father's reply came with a violence which he calculated should
+conceal an emotion which his manhood forbade, but which only helped to
+reveal it the more surely to the clear eyes of the girl at his side.
+
+"Hell take the bunch--the whole of 'em!" he cried fiercely.  Then he
+added weakly: "You're nigh breakin' my heart all to pieces."
+
+But Nan's smile suddenly became radiant, as she turned her brown eyes
+away from the spectacle of her father's trouble to the distant horizon
+ahead.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, my Daddy.  I allow it feels that way just now.  I've felt that
+way, too.  But it's just God's tempering.  And when it's through, why I
+guess our hearts'll be made of good metal, strong and steady to do the
+work He'd have us do.  And that's just all we can ask, isn't it?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE NEWS
+
+Nan rode up to the veranda of the ranch house and sprang lightly from
+the saddle.  Her pony's flanks were caked with sweat.  The days now, as
+they approached July, were blistering, and the work of the great ranch
+was heavy for everybody.  Nan had constituted herself Jeff's substitute
+during his absence, and performed his share of the labor with a skill
+and efficiency which astonished even her father.
+
+She was a little weary just now.  The heat was trying.  Four weeks of
+continuous effort, four weeks of day-long saddle work, superintending
+the distant out-stations, the pasture fencing, the re-branding, which
+never seemed to come to an end, the hundred and one little duties which
+always cropped up unexpectedly; these things, in conjunction with the
+intense heat and the constant trouble which she held safely screened
+behind her smiling eyes, were not without effect upon her, although
+display was only permitted when no other eyes were present to witness
+her weakness.
+
+It was the ranch house dinner time.  Bud was due, as was the return of
+the men who belonged to the home station.
+
+Nan released the cinchas of her saddle and removed her pony's bridle.
+Then, with a sharp pat upon the creature's quarters, she sent it
+strolling off toward the open pasture, in which the windmill pump kept
+the string of watering tubs ready for the thirsty world about it.
+
+She watched the animal as it flung itself down for a roll.  Its
+ungainly, thrusting legs held her interest.  Then, as it scrambled to
+its feet and shook itself, and headed for the water, she seated herself
+in a low wicker chair and wiped the dust from her long riding boots
+with the silk handkerchief she wore loosely tied about her neck.  A few
+moments later her brown eyes were gazing fixedly out at the shimmer of
+heat which hovered low over the distant horizon.
+
+She was meditating deeply, her tired body yielding to the greater
+activity of her thought.  The scene was lost to her.  Her gaze sped
+beyond the maze of corrals, and the more distant patchwork of fenced
+pastures to the western boundary of her beloved Rainbow Hill Valley.
+There was nothing but grass, endless grass, until the purple line of
+the wood-clad mountains was reached.  And here it was that her regard
+found a resting place.  But even so she was unaware of it, for her
+thoughts were miles away in another direction.
+
+Her courage had reaped its natural harvest.  Her labors had yielded her
+a peace of mind which at one time had seemed impossible.  She could
+reflect calmly now, if not without a world of regret and sadness.  Just
+now, in the brief interval of waiting for her father for their midday
+meal, her relaxed body permitted her thoughts to wander toward the city
+where Jeff was still held captive by toils she herself had been unable
+to weave about him.
+
+She had had her desire.  She had pressed her less willing father into
+her service, and through him she had obtained the right to see that
+Jeff's house was made ready.  It had been a labor of love in its
+highest sense, for not one single detail of her efforts but had been a
+fresh laceration of her loyal soul.  In her mind it was never possible
+to shut out the memory that everything that was for Jeff was also for a
+woman who had plucked the only fruit she had ever coveted with her
+whole heart.  There had been moments of reward, however, a reward which
+perhaps a lesser spirit might never have known.  It was the passionate
+satisfaction that her hands, her love, were able to minister to the
+well-being of the man she loved, for all that another woman occupied
+her place in his heart.
+
+Feelings such as these filled her heart now.  They had so filled it
+that morning during her hour of superintending the work of the builders
+engaged upon the reconstruction of Jeff's house.  This was nearly
+completed, and somehow she felt when all the preparations were finished
+the last support must be banished forever.  Then there would be nothing
+left her but to watch, perhaps from afar, the happiness of the other
+woman basking in the love for which she would willingly have given her
+life.
+
+There were moments when her spirit furiously rebelled, when she felt
+that the sacrifice was too great, when the limits of human endurance
+forbade submission to her lot.  They were moments when mad jealousy
+rose up and threatened her bulwark of spiritual resistance.  And at
+such time her battle was furious and hard, and she emerged therefrom
+scarred and suffering, but with a spirit unbroken and even strengthened.
+
+Then her pride, a small gentle thing, added its quota to her support.
+No one should pity her, no one should ever, ever know anything of the
+sufferings she endured.  No, not even her beloved father.  So her
+smile, even her ready laughter, was enlisted in her support, and the
+manner of her discussion of the work on Jeff's house was an education
+in courageous acting.
+
+But her father remained wholly undeceived.  He saw with a vision
+rendered doubly acute by perfect sympathy.  He read through every smile
+to the tears lying behind it.  He noted the change in the tone of the
+laugh.  He missed nothing of the painful abstraction at odd moments
+when Nan believed she was wholly unobserved.  Nor did he misinterpret
+the language these things expressed.  But for all his heart bled for
+the girl--and in his moments of solitude he bitterly cursed the woman
+who had robbed him of a son, and heaped every scathing epithet of his
+rough vocabulary upon the head of the man himself--he gave no sign that
+the fair world about them concealed shadowed corners, or that the life
+which was theirs was not one triumph of eternal delight.  Thus was Nan
+helped, all unconscious of the help so given.  So she was able to play
+the part her courage and gentleness of spirit had assigned to her.
+
+Presently a horseman came within sight, out of the northwest.  It was
+the direction of Jeff's ranch house.  A moment of deliberate scrutiny
+revealed the man's identity.  It was Lal Hobhouse, second foreman of
+the Obar, the man who, before the amalgamation, was Jeff's foreman.
+
+Nan wondered what was bringing him in at this hour.  Usually his visits
+to their headquarters were made in the evening when the work of the day
+was completed.
+
+The man rode up and found Nan interestedly waiting to receive him.
+There was a touch of anxiety in her tone as she greeted him.
+
+"No trouble, Lal?" she demanded, as the man reined up his pony.  The
+direct manner of the girl was largely the result of her new
+responsibilities.
+
+Lal Hobhouse was a lean-faced specimen of sun-dried manhood.  His
+appearance suggested all wires and indifference to the nicenesses of
+life.  His long moustache drooped mournfully below his square chin.
+And his fierce black eyes were full of a violent heat, rendered more
+savage for its bottling up during his long ride.
+
+"Trouble?"  Then he exploded with a furious oath, and his volcanic
+temper drowned the sunburn of his cheek under a living heat.  "Them
+rustlers.  Them lousy bums," he cried almost choking.  "That bunch o'
+yearlings--Shorthorn yearlings, Miss.  Thirty of 'em--picked right out
+of the bush corrals where we'd got 'em for re-brandin'.  Say, Bud--your
+father, Miss," he corrected himself.  "He ain't around?"
+
+But Nan's interest was in the work of the rustlers.  Not in his final
+inquiry.  Her pretty eyes were wide and hard with the anger his news
+had inspired.
+
+"The Shorthorn yearlings, Lal?" she demanded.  "Our prize stock?"
+
+"Sure, Miss.  Them.  That's them.  God blister their filthy carkises!
+May they stew in hell!"
+
+He spat over his horse's shoulder as though to emphasize his furious
+disgust  But his forcefulness was displeasing.
+
+"Guess you best off-saddle," Nan said coolly.  "Father'll be along
+right now.  You'll need food.  Say, what boys you got out there?" she
+inquired as the man slipped out of the saddle and began to unfasten the
+cinchas.
+
+"Why, just the same four damn fools, an'--Sikkem."
+
+"And they're following up the trail?"
+
+"Sure."  The man flung off the saddle and his horse mouched away.
+
+"Psha!" he cried, turning his fierce eyes upon Nan.  "What's the use
+anyway?"  His gesture was one of helpless disgust.  "They're out.  Bin
+out since daylight.  An' I guess they've as much chance roundin' that
+crowd up as they would huntin' bugs in a hundred acre pasture.
+Sikkem's about the brightest.  But he ain't no sort o' good after a
+bunch of rustlers.  I wouldn't trust him with a dead mule o' mine
+anyway.  The boss hangs to him as if he was the on'y blamed cowpuncher
+east o' the mountains because he's handy.  I don't like him, Miss,
+an'----  Say, how did them rustlers know 'bout them calves?  Ther's two
+hundred head o' beeves out there, an' they passed 'em right over fer
+the Shorthorns."
+
+The man's argument and distrust of the man Sikkem made a deep
+impression on Nan.  She had listened to some of the latter before.  But
+Jeff's predilection for the dark-faced half Greaser had left her
+sceptical of Lal's opinion.  Now, however, she was seriously impressed.
+
+At that moment Bud himself rode up at a gallop, and behind him rode
+four of the home station boys.  The pace at which he came was unusual,
+and Nan's troubled eyes promptly sought his face.
+
+Instantly her greeting died upon her lips, which tightened ominously.
+His usually steady gray eyes were hot and fierce, and his face was set.
+The comfortable lines about his mouth were drawn hard and deep.  She
+needed no word to tell her that further trouble was abroad.
+
+He scarcely waited for his horse to come to a halt.  He was out of the
+saddle in a moment, and his great figure towered before the foreman,
+whom he took in with an angry stare.
+
+"What's brought you in?" he demanded, with a dangerous calm.  Then the
+calm broke before his storm of feeling.  "Don't tell me ther's trouble
+around your layout, too," he cried, without waiting for reply.  Then he
+turned on Nan, who was still on the veranda.  "Say, Nan, they done it.
+The rotten swines have done it.  They shot 'Jock' up!"
+
+"The Highland bull?" Nan gasped.
+
+"Yes.  That's it."  Bud laughed furiously.  "That bull I imported last
+fall for three thousand dollars," he went on, turning back to the
+foreman.  "They shot him up and drove off his twenty-five cows from the
+Coyote Bluff pastures.  Dirty spite an' meanness.  The white-livered
+scum!"  Then with a fierce oath the usually even-tempered Bud hurled
+his wrath upon the waiting man.  "Gorl darn it, you're standin' around
+like a barbed wire fence post.  What in hell's brought you around now?
+What they done your way?"
+
+His manner roused the foreman to a soreness he wasn't slow in showing.
+
+"Jest thirty Shorthorn yearlings," he said without any attempt to
+soften the blow.  "Jest thirty--prize stock."
+
+The announcement had an unlooked-for effect.  Where Nan expected
+another furious display Bud remained silent.  His eyes were wide as
+they stared into the foreman's.  But no word came.  Then, after a few
+moments, he began to laugh and Nan understood.  She felt it was either
+that, or--her father would break something.
+
+"Well, I go plumb to hell!" he cried at last.  And Nan felt relieved at
+the sound of his voice.
+
+The next moment Lal Hobhouse was pouring out his story with a redundant
+selection from his choicest vocabulary of abusive epithet, which was
+impartially divided between the rustlers and the cowhands under his
+charge.  Nan waited patiently, her eyes studying her father's face.
+But whatever his feelings he permitted them no further display, and, at
+the conclusion of the story, instead of offering comment, or reverting
+to his own discoveries, he turned to his daughter with a smile.
+
+"Food on, Nan?" he inquired, in his easy way.  "Guess I'm needin'
+food--pretty bad.  Maybe we'll feel better after."
+
+Then he turned to the men who stood around.
+
+"Git on down to the bunkhouse an' feed, boys.  One o' you grab my plug.
+After, we'll get around out with Lal here.  I----"
+
+He broke off as Nan darted away down the veranda.  The mail man had
+just clattered up to the front of the house, and she had gone to meet
+him.
+
+Bud passed his horse on to one of the men, and, with heavy strides,
+clanking with the rattle of his heavy Mexican spurs, his leather chapps
+creaking as he moved, he mounted the veranda and made his way into the
+house.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Nan entered the parlor with her hands full of mail.  The meal was laid
+ready, and a colored girl was setting the chairs in their places.
+
+"I'll jest get a clean up, Nan," her father said, without a single
+trace of his recent display.  "Guess I'm full of dust."
+
+He passed through the little room like some overwhelming mammoth.  He
+seemed altogether too vast for the small home, which had never grown
+with his other worldly possessions.  Nan watched him go.  Then she laid
+the mail down on a side table and began to sort it out.
+
+There were a number of letters for Jeff.  These she set carefully aside
+in a pile by themselves for redirection.  There were several addressed
+in girlish hands to herself.  For Bud there were only a few.  She
+glanced over the superscription of each.  One or two were easily
+recognized business letters.  There was a paper, however, addressed in
+Jeff's hand, and a letter of considerable bulk.  These were what she
+had been looking for.  She pushed the bunkhouse mail aside, and
+regarded reflectively the outer covering of Jeff's letter to her father.
+
+It was not the first he had received from Jeff during the four weeks
+since their return home.  But its bulk this time was out of the
+ordinary, and the carefully folded news sheet was more than
+interesting.  It awakened every doubt, every fear to which she had been
+a prey.
+
+The rapid beating of her heart left her with a choking sensation.
+Vivid imagination was at work, and she was reading in fancy under those
+covers that which, sooner or later, she knew she must read in fact.
+
+These were bad moments for the girl, moments which found her again
+struggling with that self which left her little enough peace.  Perhaps
+the struggle lasted five minutes.  Perhaps less.  At any rate it seemed
+an eternity to Nan before the hired girl announced the meal.
+
+Nan sighed as she moved from the side table on which the mail was
+spread out.
+
+"Give father a call," she said, and took up a position at the open
+French window.
+
+Her back was turned when Bud responded to the summons.  The cold sluice
+he had just indulged in seemed to have entirely restored his
+equanimity.  His voice came cheerily.
+
+"Guess we best set in, little gal," he said, moving to his place at the
+table.  "We'll need to get busy after."
+
+Nan turned.  She watched Maimie deposit the hot dishes.  Then, when the
+girl had withdrawn, she took her place opposite her father.
+
+"There's a deal of mail for Jeff," she said, as she sat down.  "There's
+some for you, too, Daddy.  There's a letter and--a newspaper.  Maybe
+you'd feel like reading them right away.  Guess there won't be time
+after."
+
+With all her might she struggled for indifference.  With all her might
+she desired that her father should miss the fears which prompted her.
+But she only succeeded in telling him of them in every word she spoke.
+
+Bud agreed readily.  He rose and fetched his letter--and the newspaper
+which Nan so feared.
+
+Nan went on with her food.  Her father tore open the covering of the
+letter.  She was watching him covertly and silently whilst he read page
+after page.  She was searching for confirmation of her worst fears.
+She was torturing herself.
+
+Bud's dissimulation was never great.  Nan watched the play of his
+expression.  There was no smile.  As the silent moments passed his brow
+became heavier.  The furrow deepened between his eyes, and once there
+came that rather helpless raising of his hand to his forehead.  Then,
+too, she observed the compression of his lips, and the occasional
+dilation of his nostrils.  Each observation carried conviction, and the
+weight upon her heart grew almost insupportable.
+
+Finally he laid the letter down and went on with his meal.  But he did
+not even glance at the wrappered newspaper.
+
+In self-defense Nan was forced to break the silence.  If it had
+remained she felt she must scream.  Instead she smiled over at him, and
+indicated the newspaper.
+
+"The _Calthorpe Times_, isn't it?" she said without a tremor.
+
+"Can't say."
+
+The harsh tone was intended to convey indifference.
+
+"Won't you open it?" she asked.  "Maybe Jeff's marked a piece."
+
+Then Bud gave a display such as Nan had never witnessed in him before.
+
+"Say, ain't we never to get food a feller ken eat?" he cried.  "That
+nigger slut needs firin' right away.  Guess she couldn't cook a dry
+hash on a round-up.  I'm quittin'.  This stew 'ud choke a she-wolf."
+
+His eyes were hot.  He thrust his plate away from him and pushed back
+his chair.  But Nan's calmness defeated his almost childlike subterfuge.
+
+"Say, my Daddy, you don't need to quit.  Sure," she added, a pathetic
+smile lighting her brown eyes, "I guess the stew's pretty good to any
+hungry folks, and Maimie's just the dandiest cook anywhere around."
+
+She paused.  Bud stood yearning for five minutes of unrestrained
+blasphemy as he read the understanding lying behind her words.
+
+"I don't guess it's the food worrying, or Maimie's cooking," Nan went
+on, almost at once.  "It's your letter.  Maybe there's a heap of things
+in it you aren't yearning to hand over to me."  A sigh escaped her.
+"Will I tell you of them?  Maybe one'll be sufficient.  It's the one
+worrying you most.  It's--it's his marriage.  It's fixed.  The date--I
+mean."
+
+Then she pointed at the unopened paper.
+
+"Likely it's in that.  And that's why he's sent it.  Shall I see?"
+
+She reached out and picked up the offending packet, and, with a swift
+movement, ripped the fastening open with one finger.  Without a word
+she unfolded the sheet, seeking a marked passage.  It was there, as she
+knew it would be.  It was found in a twinkling.  No one could have
+missed it.  Heavy ink outlined it in the column of "City Chatter," and
+she read the paragraph aloud without a tremor of voice.  Her
+deliberateness nearly drove the ranchman to distraction.
+
+
+"The friends of Mrs. John D. Carruthers will be interested to learn
+that the marriage of her daughter, Mrs. Elvine van Blooren, widow of
+the late Robert van Blooren, to Jeffrey Masters, of the celebrated
+'Obar' Ranch, and this year's President of the Western Union Cattle
+Breeders' Association, is to be solemnized at the Church of St. Mary in
+this city on August 4th next.  The Rev. Claude I. Carston, M. A.,
+will----"
+
+
+There was more of it, much more, referring in the usual local
+journalistic fashion to the "happy event," and dwelling upon the
+important "social standing" of the bride and bridegroom.  But Nan read
+no further then.  There was no need to.  Was not the completeness of
+her disaster contained in those lines?  The courage of the front she
+displayed before the sympathetic eyes of her father was superlative.
+
+There was just a pause.  It was the tragic pause under a staggering
+blow.  Then she forced a smile into the brave eyes, which never for a
+moment fell before the other's regard.
+
+"There!  There, my Daddy," she said, with a studied calm which did not
+conceal the dry-throated swallow which accompanied the words.  "I guess
+it was how I thought.  You were scared.  Scared to tell me."  She shook
+her head.  "It's--it's not very brave, is it?  I wonder why you were
+scared?  You needn't have been.  Folks don't need to be scared
+of--anything.  What you need most is just to--to grit your teeth
+and--die hard."
+
+Her manner was becoming abstracted.  It seemed as if she were
+addressing herself, warning herself, and fighting down a weakness which
+was threatening to overwhelm her.
+
+Presently she went on, while the man stood by utterly robbed of the
+power to comfort her:
+
+"August the fourth," she murmured.  "August--that's six weeks from now.
+Six weeks of--sunshine and--and warmth.  When the harvest's ripening,
+and all the world's just--glad.  And he'll be glad, and--and happy,
+too.  Yes, Jeff will be very, very happy because--she's going to make
+him happy."
+
+Quite suddenly she started up from her chair.  A dreadful panic had
+leaped to her eyes.  The delicious, healthy color had been swept from
+her pretty downy cheeks.  The corners of her sweet mouth were drooping,
+and her hands were held out in a gesture of despairing appeal.
+
+"Daddy, Daddy, he will--he will be happy, won't he?" she cried.  "I--I
+just need him to be happy, more--yes, more than anything in the world.
+Sure, sure, she'll make him happy?  Oh, if she doesn't!"
+
+Still the man looked on, a helpless spectator of the girl's suffering.
+Nor did it seem that his own was any less.  But Nan seemed to realize
+the weakness in her momentary display.  Her hands dropped to her side.
+There was even a visible effort in the manner in which she strove for
+self-mastery.  Her smooth brow puckered in an intense frown, and, to
+Bud, it almost seemed that she was literally clenching her teeth to
+hold back the passionate distress which was seeking to find expression.
+
+After a moment something of full self-possession seemed to return to
+her.  She smiled.  But it was a smile that lacked conviction.  A smile
+that almost broke her father's heart.
+
+"Tell me, Daddy," she pleaded.  "Do you think--he'd--he'd have me be
+a--a bridesmaid?  Would it sort of help him any?" she hurried on.  "You
+see, I--I want him to be real happy.  I want him to feel that we just
+love him, and that--that--we're just glad for him, and--and nothing in
+the world else matters--to anybody.  I'm so----"
+
+There was a little catch of breath.  The words she would have spoken
+died upon her lips.  She reeled.  Every vestige of color left her
+pretty face, and her eyes half closed.  Just for one weak instant her
+hands groped behind her for the chair.  Then, the next, Bud was at her
+side, and one strong arm was supporting her.
+
+"Don't, Nan!" he cried, in his heavy cumbersome way.  And the sound of
+his deep voice alone served to ward off the encroachment of that final
+weakness which, in spite of all her courage, the girl was at last
+compelled to yield to.
+
+Bud drew her to him, and one hand smoothed her pretty brown hair with
+rough tenderness.  For a moment her head rested against his broad
+bosom.  Then a deep sigh came, and Nan looked up, smiling into the
+steady gray eyes gazing down at her, through a mist of welling tears.
+
+"My dear--dear old Daddy," she murmured, as the tears finally
+overflowed and slowly rolled down her cheeks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR
+
+It seemed like the hand of Destiny that Elvine van Blooren should
+wander across the path of Jeffrey Masters at a moment when all the
+fruits of his ambition seemed to be falling into his outspread-hands.
+It was surely the work of Fate that instant recognition of her
+desirability leaped in his heart, so that some six weeks later they
+should set out on their life's journey together on the eastward bound
+mail train, which bore, in its foremost van, the mails for the world
+outside, gathered in from every district in the region of Calthorpe.
+
+Their happiness was perfect.  In six weeks' time the metamorphosis in
+the woman had been as complete as it was in the case of the man.
+
+For the man it seemed that life had opened out an entirely new vista.
+He had warmed under the influence of his new passion.  The angles in
+his character seemed to have softened.  Achievement had receded into
+its due proportion in his focus.  The world had become peopled with
+warm living creatures whose strivings were now a source of sympathy to
+him.  Life no longer moved about him detached, unappealing.
+
+So with the woman.  Elvine van Blooren's past was her own.  Whatever it
+was she hugged it to herself, and the very process of doing so had
+helped to harden her.
+
+But she possessed fires she had wilfully hidden, even from herself.
+For four years she had lived a life of desperate calculation against
+all those things she most dreaded, till she felt she had converted
+herself into a machine free from all trammeling emotions, equipped
+solely to execute the purpose she had set her mind on.
+
+These fires were awakened early.  Their awakening had been all unknown
+to her.  Yet she had admitted them when she had warned her mother that
+she intended to "like" the man she ultimately married.  All
+subconsciously she had "liked" Jeffrey Masters from their first formal
+meeting.  Further acquaintance had deepened her liking.  The keen eyes
+possessed strong qualities of appeal.  The decision of his clean-cut
+face suggested all that strength which appealed to her.
+
+The culmination was reached long before the appointed day of their
+wedding.  It came at the moment he definitely asked her to become his
+wife.  It had been a moment to her than which she had dreamed of
+nothing more sublime.  The flood-gates had been literally forced open
+before a tide of sudden passion, which left her gasping, and something
+incredulous.  Where was all the result of her years of hard
+calculation?  Where was that machine upon which she had gazed with so
+much confident pride?  It had only served her just so long as was
+required to realize that Jeffrey Masters was sufficiently desirable to
+fulfil the purposes of the life she had marked out for herself.  Then,
+the primitive woman in her had abandoned herself to the glowing fires
+burning deep within her young heart.
+
+Thus the bond held them both through delicious days, which so little
+time before had seemed impossible to either.  Thus the time drew on
+toward the golden day of consummation.  And with each passing day
+firmer and firmer, more and more irresistible, grew the ties under
+which they were held.
+
+As the local press had foreshadowed, the event of their marriage proved
+of primary social importance.  All Calthorpe speeded them upon their
+life's journey, and the east-bound mail bore them away with the echo of
+cheery farewells, and every other form of speeding, dying pleasantly
+away behind them.  So, too, the snake-like string of coaches bore the
+burden of Destiny in the great uninteresting, padlocked baskets and
+bags which contained the mail.
+
+The days of the honeymoon had been carefully thought out by Elvine.
+Her wishes had been supreme.  Toronto was their first destination.  A
+city whose bright, pleasant life appealed to her more, perhaps, even
+than any of the great cities of the greater world.
+
+Perfect happiness was theirs from the moment of their departure
+eastward.  No cloud drifted in sight during their first day in the
+great hotel from which they intended to view the life of Toronto.  Then
+came the second morning, and the--mail.
+
+They occupied a suite of rooms upon the first floor of the hotel.  It
+overlooked the wide portico which supported a deep balcony devoted to
+their sole use.  Jeff was alone in the luxurious sitting-room when the
+mail was brought in by a waiter.  He was glancing down the morning
+paper while he waited for Elvine, who was preparing for a morning round
+of the stores.
+
+His attention for the news he read was less than scant.  It is doubtful
+if he read more than the head-lines, and these only with partial
+understanding.  His mind was upon the beautiful woman in the adjacent
+apartment arraying herself with all the arts of a woman in love for the
+benefit of the man whose regard is alone worth while.
+
+His eyes were smiling unconsciously; something of the keenness of his
+whole expression had become lost under their new expression.  Dressed
+in the simple garb of civilization he had little about him, beyond the
+intense sunburn of his face, to remind one of the urgent young ranchman
+who had first planned the combination which was to develop into the
+famous Obar Ranch.
+
+At the arrival of the mail he flung his paper aside.  Then he picked up
+each letter in turn, examined the address, and set aside, in a separate
+pile, those addressed to his wife.  Of his own there were only four,
+and, of these, only the one addressed in Bud's cumbersome handwriting
+interested him seriously.
+
+Before opening it he pierced and lit a cigar.  He felt that from its
+bulk the letter must contain important reports from the ranch, and,
+coming at such a time, would need the steadying influence of a cigar to
+enable him to give them the consideration necessary.
+
+He lounged back in the big chair and leisurely tore open the envelope.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The door communicating with the principal bedroom opened noiselessly.
+Elvine entered the sitting-room, accompanied by that delightful rustle
+of silk which is quite irresistible to male ears.  At all times a
+beautiful woman, just now she was incomparable.
+
+A joy of life lit every feature, endowing her with an animation of
+expression unrecognizable in her a few short weeks ago.  There was a
+melting lustre in her dark eyes, a gentleness in the smiling corners of
+her irresistible mouth.  Her cheeks, even, seemed to have gained an
+added softness of contour.  While the masses of dark hair revealed
+beneath her hat shone with the burnish of the raven's wing.
+
+Her husband had turned on the instant.  His cigar was flung aside.  A
+moment later he was on his feet, and his arms, full of vital impulse,
+came near to destroying the perfection of her toilet.
+
+The woman made no protest under the embrace.  It told her so many
+things she wanted to know.  It told her of the love she now so frankly
+desired.  It told her, too, that the efforts on her toilet had not been
+ill-spent.
+
+Presently Jeff stood back, holding her at arm's length, while his
+hungry eyes devoured every feature of the face that had taught him so
+much of the real meaning of life.
+
+"Splendid--just splendid!" he exclaimed.
+
+"My--gown?"
+
+The smile was enticing.  The man laughed out of the buoyancy of his
+heart.
+
+"No--you!" he cried, leaning forward for the embrace she had invited.
+
+A moment later he stood back again, and Elvine's eyes fell upon the
+mail lying upon the table.
+
+"Some for me?" she inquired, moving toward it.
+
+Jeff nodded.  Then his smile died out.  His gaze had fallen upon his
+own open letter.  It was lying upon the table near the pile set aside
+for his wife, just where he had flung it down at the moment of her
+entrance.
+
+"Quite a few," he said.
+
+The unsmiling nature of his response had caught Elvine's attention.
+But she picked up her letters and glanced hastily through them.
+
+A moment later her eyes came back to his face.
+
+"Aren't you going to finish yours?" she inquired.
+
+She was seeking the meaning of that suddenly banished smile.
+
+It was almost with eagerness that the man caught at the opportunity.
+
+"It's from Bud, and--I guess it's important.  I've only two or three
+pages more."
+
+He picked the letter up and sorted the sheets into order.  Elvine
+watched him.  She wanted to ask a dozen questions.  But she put none of
+them.
+
+"He's your partner," was all she said.
+
+"Yep," he nodded, with his eyes on the pages.
+
+Then Elvine voiced something of her real feelings of the moment.
+
+"I just hate mail," she said, with what seemed unnecessary force, as
+she began to draw on her gloves.  "It always worries me to death.  I
+think it scares me.  Makes me think of death, or disaster, or--or bills
+and things."  She laughed.  "Maybe it's my pessimistic nature makes me
+feel that way.  When things are all sunshiny and fine, why, it kind of
+feels to me there are clouds around.  Nasty, mean, hateful shadows
+lurking, full of----"
+
+"Hell for some one, eh?"
+
+There was a wry twist to the man's lips as he smiled his reply.
+
+"Guess that's how it is with mine," he went on.  "I'll just read these
+pages, and then we'll get going.  Eh?"
+
+The woman's watchful eye smiled assent and she continued to draw her
+gloves on.  But her observation of him seemed to gather intensity the
+moment he became absorbed in the clumsy, unskilled handwriting.
+
+The last vestige of his smile had gone.  His fair brows had knitted in
+a troubled frown.  He seemed to read eagerly but intently, absorbed to
+an unusual degree.
+
+She realized the seriousness of that letter.  And for some curious
+reason alarm supervened.  He had spoken of it easily, but his manner of
+reading denied his spoken word.
+
+The silent moments irked her.  The rustle of the paper in his hands.  A
+feeling of foreboding grew, a feeling she knew was foolish, but which
+at the same time was irresistible.  She found herself speculating as to
+the contents of the letter.  She strove to review all the possibilities
+which the great Obar Ranch could offer for disaster.  And her mind
+drifted back over years to a memory that gave her not a shadow of
+comfort.
+
+The last button of her gloves had been secured when the refolding of
+the letter came.  Jeff deliberately, but abstractedly, returned it to
+its cover.  His smile was scarcely a happy one when he finally looked
+up.
+
+"I'm through, sweetheart," he said.  "Shall we----?"
+
+But Elvine's feelings would no longer be denied.
+
+"Serious as all that?" she demanded.  The next moment she would have
+given worlds to have been able to recall the words.
+
+"I'm afraid it is--in a way."
+
+Elvine had no option but to continue the subject.  She spoke with real
+feeling.
+
+"May I know, dear?" she appealed.  "You see, Jeff, things often read
+worse than they are.  Maybe I can help.  I've a clearer head than you'd
+guess."
+
+The man's cheeks flushed.  He had distressed her, frightened her, and
+the thought of it annoyed him.  He stepped toward her, his hands
+outheld.  She responded, and her hands were caught in his firm warm
+clasp.
+
+"Say, I'm just sorry.  I surely am.  Guess I've no sort of right
+scaring you.  Anyway, there's nothing to be scared about.  Just a bunch
+of rustlers----"
+
+"Cattle thieves?"
+
+The woman's whole expression had become transformed.  The announcement
+had shocked her out of her self-possession.  Her smile had fled.  Her
+eyes were wide, and their dark depths were full of a horror that seemed
+quite uncalled for.  Even her cheeks had lost their delicate bloom.
+Her gaze was held fast by the man's steady regard.  It was almost a
+fascinated stare held under some powerful hypnotic influence.
+
+The man was at a loss.  But he promptly claimed the fault to himself.
+
+"Don't just worry a thing, Evie," he cried, in real distress.  "It
+don't amount to anything.  And anyway you don't need to worry.  We can
+deal with it.  I best tell you right away.  You see, it's their second
+play since I've been from home.  Bud's feeling sore.  First it was a
+great imported bull they shot up while they ran off his cows, and a
+dandy bunch of yearling prize stock.  Now--now it's a swell bunch of
+fifty beeves that had been fattening for the buyers.  The loss don't
+hurt.  Oh, no, it's not that."
+
+He paused.  Somehow their hands fell apart, and, to the woman, now
+recovering herself, it was as though some shadow had thrust itself
+between them.  She waited, vaguely troubled.  Somehow speech for the
+moment had become impossible to her.  She was thinking, thinking far
+back amidst scenes she had no desire to recall.
+
+Her husband went on.  His manner had lost all the contrition he had
+displayed at alarming her.  It was abstracted.  He too seemed to be
+thinking deeply, far away amidst scenes which afforded him only the
+deepest pain.
+
+"I've just thought," he said.  Then he raised one strong hand and
+passed it across his broad forehead.  He drew a profound sigh.  "Say, I
+wonder," he went on reflectively.  "It's things Bud's said in his yarn.
+Suspicions.  They brought up all sorts of queer things to my mind."
+
+The smile he essayed was a hopeless failure.  Then, in a moment, all
+doubt seemed to pass away and he spoke with quick, keen decision.
+
+"I'll have to tell you, Evie.  You'd sort of made me forget.  These
+days have been the happiest I've ever known, and you've made 'em so.
+That's how I forgot to tell you of things I guess you ought to know."
+
+But the woman before him had no desire for his present mood.  She
+smilingly shook her head in a decided negative.  The last thing she
+desired was anything in the nature of a confidence.
+
+"Is there any need--now?" she asked.  Then she smiled.  "The stores are
+waiting."
+
+But she had yet to learn the real character of the man whom she had
+married.  She had yet to understand the meaning of the simple sobriquet
+"Honest Jeff," which Nan Tristram had long since bestowed upon him.  He
+was not the man to be turned from a decision once taken.  The decision
+on this occasion was arrived at through the depth of the passionate
+devotion which controlled his every thought.  His love for Elvine made
+his purpose only the more irrevocable.
+
+"I think they had best wait a shade longer," he said with a shadowy
+smile.  "You see, Evie, I kind of figure there's things that matter
+more than just gathering in the fancy goods money'll buy--even for you.
+Guess I owe you most everything a man can give, the same as you feel
+toward me.  That's how marriage--marriage like ours--seems to me.  As
+far as I can make it there's not going to be a thing on my conscience
+toward you.  I'd have told you this before, only--only you just drove
+it right out of my head with the sight of your beautiful face, the
+sound of your voice, which I just love, and the thought that you--you
+were to be my wife.  You see," he went on simply, "I hadn't room in my
+head for anything else."
+
+His manner was so firmly gentle that Elvine's protest melted before it.
+After all it was very sweet, and--and----  She drew a chair forward and
+sat down.  But her smile hid her real feelings.  Confidences,
+confessions, even from a husband, were repugnant to her.
+
+Jeff remained standing.  He gazed for a few silent moments in the
+direction of the open window.  The expression of his blue eyes
+suggested a deep, searching introspection.  He might have been
+searching for an opening.  Again, he might simply have been reviewing
+scenes which stirred his innermost soul with their horror and pain.
+
+At last, however, Elvine made a half impatient movement.  Instantly the
+blue eyes turned in her direction, and their expression startled her.
+They were full of a stony, passionless regard.  Not for her, but
+inspired by the thought behind them.  She shivered under their gaze and
+their impression upon her was never afterward obliterated.
+
+"It's four years past now," he began, in a voice she scarcely
+recognized.  "These rustlers brought it all back to me.  Say, Evie, I
+had a twin brother, Ronald.  Maybe that won't convey much.  I sort of
+loved him--better than myself.  That's all.  He was a bit queer.  I
+mean he just didn't care a heap for running along the main trail of
+things.  He was apt to get all mussed up running around byways.  Well,
+when Bud and I fixed up the Obar partnership, I was just crazy to hunt
+Ronny down, and hand him a share.  Bud's a great feller, and I told
+him.  I knew whereabouts the boy had staked out, and, figuring we'd
+earned a vacation, Bud and I set out to round him up, and hand him a
+piece which I guessed would keep him with me the rest of his life."
+
+He paused.  He drew a deep breath, and his eyes, hard as marble, had
+turned again in the direction of the window.
+
+Elvine was held even against herself.  The expression of his eyes, even
+more than the curious sharpness of his voice, troubled her, alarmed her.
+
+"I'm not going to yarn more than necessary," he went on after a moment.
+"There isn't any need.  I just want to give you the deadly facts.  As I
+said, I knew his layout, where he was--supposed to be trapping pelts.
+Supposed.  Bud had been raised in the district, so he acted scout.  He
+made the location and found him.  D'you know how?"
+
+There was a restrained fierceness in the sharp demand.
+
+The woman shook her head.  Any word would have seemed out of place.
+
+"Hanging by the neck to the bough of a tree."
+
+"Jeff, don't!" the woman gasped.
+
+But now there was a smile in the man's eyes.  It was a terrible smile
+which drove every vestige of color from his wife's cheeks.
+
+"I had to tell you," he cried harshly.  "They hanged him for a cattle
+thief.  He was one.  Oh, yes.  He was one.  That's why I had to tell
+you."
+
+The woman's eyes were wide with a sudden terror to which the man
+remained oblivious.
+
+"But you said----"
+
+"I said he was pelt hunting.  So he'd told me.  So I believed.  But he
+wasn't.  Say, he was a cattle rustler running a big gang who'd played
+hell with the district.  He'd been running it for nigh five years.
+He'd beaten 'em to a mush, all that time, till a reward was offered.  A
+reward of ten thousand dollars.  That fixed him.  There was some one
+knew wanted that reward, and--got it."
+
+There was a sudden movement in the room.  Elvine had abruptly risen
+from her chair.  She moved away.  She crossed to the window, and stood
+with her back turned, and so had thrust herself into her husband's
+focus.
+
+"It's--it's a terrible--dreadful story," came her faltering comment.
+
+"Terrible?  Dreadful?"  The man emitted a sound that might have been a
+laugh.  A shudder passed down the woman's back as it fell upon her
+ears.  "But it's nothing to the reality, Evie.  Oh, I've no sympathy
+for his crimes.  I hate rustlers like the poison they are.  But he was
+twin to me, and I loved him.  It made no difference to me.  You see, he
+was part of me.  Now--now I only hope the good God'll let me come up
+with the man who took the price of his blood.  For four years I've
+dreamed that way, and I guess it don't matter if it's fifty more.  I'll
+never change.  There's some one, somewhere, who's lower down than the
+worst cattle rustler ever lived."
+
+There was no response as the man ceased speaking.  Elvine had not
+stirred from her place at the window.  The moments passed.  Swift,
+poignant moments, in which two people were enduring an agony of
+recollection.
+
+The man's relentless expression never changed.  His eyes were gazing
+straight ahead.  And though his vision was obstructed by the perfect
+contours of his wife's figure, he was gazing through her, and beyond
+her, upon a scene which had for its central interest the suspended
+figure of a man with his head lolling forward and sideways, and his
+dead eyes bulging from their sockets.
+
+Elvine never stirred.  Her gaze was upon the crowded thoroughfare
+beyond.  But like her husband, she was gazing through and beyond.  She
+was watching the tongues of flame as they licked up the resinous trunks
+and foliage of a great pine bluff.
+
+At length it was the woman's voice broke the silence.
+
+"Where--where did this all happen?"
+
+The question was the verbal expression of a despairing hope.  The
+voice, however, was steady.
+
+"In the Cathills."
+
+"The Lightfoot gang?"
+
+"Yes.  That's what he called it.  You knew of them?"
+
+There was a slight movement of the woman's shoulders.  It was the
+faintest possible shrug.
+
+"Everybody in Calthorpe heard of them."
+
+Then she turned and faced him.  The mask with which she confronted him
+was perfect.  Her dark beauty was unimpaired by a sign of emotion.
+Even her cheeks had returned to their customary delicate bloom.  Her
+eyes shone with a world of sympathy as she came toward him.
+
+"Jeff, don't think of it all--now, dear.  It's too, too dreadful.
+Guess I was wrong to let you tell me.  I certainly was.  It's past.
+It's done with.  Nothing can ever bring him back to you.  To dwell upon
+it, to think and feel that way, will only serve to embitter your life.
+Say, try, Jeff.  I'll help you, dear.  I will.  Sure.  Sure.  Won't you
+try, for--my sake?"
+
+The man took her hands in his.  He drew her toward him.  The strained
+expression of his eyes melted before her perfect beauty.
+
+"I'll try, Evie," he said, without conviction.  Then he kissed her.
+
+After a while she looked up.
+
+"And the stores, Jeff?"
+
+The man smiled down in response.
+
+"Sure--the stores."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE HOME-COMING
+
+Six weeks of all she had ever hoped for, dreamed of, in the lean years
+of heart starvation.  The complete devotion of a strong man, a man who
+held a place in the world she knew.  Every luxury wealth could purchase
+at her disposal, even to satiation.  Her every whim ministered to, and
+even anticipated.  This was something of the ripe fruit literally
+heaped into Elvine's lap.  She had longed for it, schemed for it, and
+Providence had permitted all her efforts complete success.
+
+Now, with those six weeks behind her, she gazed upon the balance-sheet.
+She looked for the balance of happiness.  To her horror it was blotted
+out, smudged out of all recognition.  Oh, yes, the figures had been
+entered, but now they were completely obscured.
+
+It was the last stage of her journey to her new home.  It was a journey
+being made in the saddle.  Their baggage, a large number of trunks
+loaded with the precious gleanings from the great stores during the
+honeymoon, had been sent on ahead by wagon.  There was nothing, so far
+as could be seen, to rob the home-coming of its proper sense of
+delight.  Yet delight was more than far off.  Elvine was a prey to a
+hopelessness which nothing seemed able to relieve.
+
+Summer was not yet over, although the signs of the coming fall were by
+no means lacking.  The hard trail, like some carefully set out
+terra-cotta ribbon upon a field of tawny green, took them through a
+region of busy harvesting.  The tractors and threshers were busily
+engaged in many directions.  Great stacks of straw testified to the
+ample harvest in progress.  Fall ploughing had already begun, and
+high-wheeled wagons bore their burden of produce toward the distant
+elevators.  Then, too, human freight passed them, happy, smiling
+freight of old and young, whose sun-scorched faces reflected something
+of the joy of life and general prosperity prevailing.
+
+A radiant sun looked down upon the scenes through which they passed.
+It was the wonderful ripening God almost worshipped of these people who
+lived by the fruits of the earth.  Jeffrey Masters understood it all,
+and reveled in the pleasant senses it stirred.  For he, too, lived by
+the fruits of the earth, although his harvest was garnered in the flesh
+of creature kind.
+
+Elvine looked on with eyes that beheld but saw nothing of that which
+inspired her husband.  Remembrance claimed her.  Too well she
+remembered.  And gladly would she have shut out such sights altogether,
+for more and more surely they crushed her already depressed spirits to
+a depth from which it seemed impossible to raise them.
+
+Nor was her beautiful face without some reflection of this.  Her smile
+was ready for the man at her side.  She laughed and talked in a manner
+so care-free that he could never have suspected.  But in repose, when
+no eyes were upon her, a lurking, hunted dread peered furtively out of
+her dark eyes, and the fine-drawn lines gathered about her shapely
+lips, and seriously marred the serenity of their youthful contours.
+
+She had one purpose now, one only.  It was to ward off the blow which
+she knew might fall at any moment when she reached her new home.  The
+threat of it was with her always.  It drove her to panic in the dark of
+night.  It left her watchful and fearful in the light of day.  At all
+times the memory of her husband's words dinned through her brain like
+the haunt of some sickening melody.
+
+"Now I only hope the good God'll let me come up with the man who took
+the price of his blood."
+
+It had been spoken coldly.  It had been spoken with an intensity of
+bitterness that left an impression as hard as flint.  The tone had set
+her shuddering.  Then the look in those cold blue eyes when at last she
+had turned confronting them.  No, there had been no mercy in them.  No
+mercy, she told herself, for--anybody.
+
+At that moment she had known that the earth could hold no future peace
+for her.  She felt that Fate had passed sentence on her, and she was
+powerless to stay its execution.  Her husband demanded vengeance upon
+the man who had accepted the price of his brother's blood.
+
+For the moment she had been stunned.  Then had risen up in her a
+desperate courage.  She would fight.  She would fight for herself, she
+would fight for the love which all unbidden, all undesired, had come to
+her.  Then, in the end, if defeat should overtake her, she would, yes,
+she could, submit to the punishment his hand should mete out to her.
+
+Strangely, from that moment her love for this man seemed to increase a
+thousandfold.  He grew in her heart a towering colossus of worship.
+The primitive in her bowed down before his image ready to yield to his
+lightest word, while, by every art, she was ready to cajole and foster
+his love.
+
+It was all she knew, understood.  It was the woman in her who possessed
+no other weapons of defense.  She loved him, she desired him, then
+nothing was too small to cling to with the wild hope of the drowning.
+When the day came that he should turn and rend her soul she could
+submit.  But until that day she would cling to every straw that offered.
+
+While the scenes through which they were passing preoccupied the man,
+the silence of the wide plains left Elvine to her fears.  The great
+breadth of the world about her added to her hopelessness.  And after a
+silence which had become unduly protracted, she took refuge in talk for
+which she had no real desire.
+
+"It's beautiful, but--oppressive," she said, and the words were the
+inspiration of genuine thought.
+
+But the man was like one who has spent a world of love and devotion
+upon carving a beautiful setting and is now about to complete his work
+by securing in place the crowning jewel.  He had no room for any
+feeling of oppression.  He shook his head.
+
+"Say, Evie," he cried, "I just can't allow you the word 'oppressive.'
+I just can't.  Look--look right out there toward the hills we're
+making.  Take the colors as they heap up to the distance.  Every shade,
+I guess, from green to purple.  It makes me feel good.  It gives me
+room to stretch myself.  It sort o' sweeps away a whole heap of fusty
+city smells, and gives us something a deal more worth breathing.  It's
+a man's place.  And it's full of man's work.  Guess Providence got busy
+an' set it all out for us.  Providence guessed we'd have to use it.
+But Providence didn't just guess how far crazy human nature really was.
+She didn't foresee we'd gather around in the musty dump-holes we call
+cities.  She didn't figure on our tastes for the flesh-pots, and the
+indulgence of the senses she'd handed us.  But then Providence knows
+her power to fix us right when she feels that way."  Then he spread out
+his arms with an inexpressible suggestion of longing.  "Say, I'm
+crazy--plumb crazy to get the first peek at that dandy home I've had
+fixed for you."
+
+The woman's eyes sought her husband's with a smile that was a caress.
+
+"You're good to me, Jeff," she said.  Then she added: "So good."  Her
+smile deepened.  "You'd hand me the world with--with a fence around it,
+if I asked.  Why?  Why are you like that?"
+
+It was the love in her seeking reassurance.  Nor was she disappointed.
+
+"Why?"  The man laughed.  And the sound of it was good to hear.  It was
+deep, and seemed to come from the depths of his soul.  His blue eyes
+shone with a world of devotion.  "Guess I love you--just that," he
+said.  Then he pointed at the distant hills.  "I can't tell you all I
+feel, Elvie," he said, "but get those hills.  See them.  There, that
+peak, sitting right up over its fellows, with a cap of snow on it I
+don't guess the sun could ever melt.  That's thousands of feet up.  I'd
+say man's foot was never set there, nor bird's, nor animal's either.
+Well, if that peak was a throne it 'ud give you pleasure to occupy,
+why, I guess I'd just go the limit to have you sit there."
+
+Elvine was gazing at the mountain crest, but she was not thinking of
+it.  She was thinking of the love which the extravagant words
+expressed, and she was wondering at the bigness of it.  She was caught
+in its power, and it thrilled her with an even greater appreciation of
+her danger.  What would be the result upon such a nature as this man's
+when--he knew?
+
+"I believe you would," she said, her eyes coming back to the strong,
+flushed face.  Then she added: "Now."
+
+"Now?"
+
+There was a quick lifting in the man's fair brows.  There was
+incredulity in his tone.  To him it seemed impossible, the implied
+doubt in her final word.
+
+"I don't change easy, Elvie," he protested.  "I kind of get things
+hard.  It's my way, and it's no doing of mine.  Life's a full-sized
+proposition, and I don't guess we can see far through it.  But I can't
+imagine a thing that could come before you in my thoughts."
+
+"I'd like to think that.  I'd like to feel that," Elvine returned.  She
+was smiling up into his eyes.  "You see, Jeff, I was kind of thinking.
+We're young now.  We've been together just six weeks.  Maybe you'll get
+used to me later.  Men do get used to women till they become sort of
+part of the furniture.  Oh, I guess their love goes right on, but--but
+they wouldn't feel like starting in to fence in the North Pole, or--or
+hitch up Niagara to their wife's buggy just because she fancied that
+way.  Say, Jeff, when I lose your love I just lose everything in the
+world.  You--you won't ever let me lose it, will you?"
+
+Jeff shook his head, and smiled in the confidence of feelings.
+
+"Don't ever talk that way.  Don't ever think like that," he urged her.
+Then, as their horses ambled side by side up the last gentle incline
+before they dropped down to the great plain of the Rainbow Hill Valley,
+which was the setting of the Obar Ranch, he drew nearer and reached out
+one arm and gently encircled her waist.  "Guess you're feeling like me
+just now, Evie.  Do you know what I mean?  We're getting home.
+Home--yours and mine.  Well, say, that home is in my mind now, and it's
+full to the brim of thoughts of you.  You're in it--everywhere.  You're
+part of it.  You're just part of me.  I can't see any future without
+you.  It don't seem to me there could be any.  I don't doubt.  I guess
+the thought of it don't scare me a thing.  Maybe with you it's
+different.  Maybe you're scared such happiness can't last.  But I tell
+you it can--it will.  You're with me now and always, and I can't see a
+shadow that could come between us."
+
+"None?  No, none, none!"
+
+The woman forced conviction into her final denial, and, for a moment,
+she permitted herself to yield to the reassuring embrace.  Then she
+started up and released herself.
+
+"Oh, Jeff!" she cried.  "I just pray all the time that nothing shall
+ever rob me of your love.  Night and day I pray that way.  If I were to
+lose you, I--I think nothing else would much matter."
+
+The man smiled with supreme confidence.  They had reached the top of
+the hill, and he set his horse into a canter.
+
+"You're just going to live right on--for me, sweetheart," he cried.
+"Be yourself.  Just yourself.  The frank, honest woman I know and love.
+If ever the shadows you fear come to worry us, they'll have to be of
+your own creating.  We have nothing to fear from the future, nothing at
+all.  We'll just drive right on down the clear trail of life.  It's
+only in the byways there's any ugly dumps.  Look!"  He suddenly flung
+out one arm, pointing ahead where the great Obar plains rolled away
+toward the hills below them.  "That's the ranch.  There.  That one
+there is Bud's homestead, and the other to the right's your--our home.
+Say, it's good to see--mighty good!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Nan gazed upon the result of her labors and decided that it was good.
+Bud was observing her in his unobtrusive way.  They were together in
+the new parlor of the home which Jeff had had reconstructed under Nan's
+most careful supervision.
+
+The girl had put forth her greatest effort, greater even than she
+herself realized, for it had been inspired by a desire that Jeff and
+his wife should never realize the pain and bitter disappointment she
+had endured.
+
+Now, as she surveyed each detail in her final tour of inspection, she
+convinced herself that nothing, nothing she could think of had been
+forgotten.  Even the city-bred Elvine could find no fault with any
+detail of it.
+
+She and Bud were standing side by side rather like two children gazing
+in awed wonder at some undreamed of splendor suddenly discovered in a
+familiar playground, every square foot of which they had believed
+themselves familiar with.
+
+"I--don't think I've forgotten a thing," Nan said, in a tone subdued by
+her weight of responsibility.
+
+"Not a thing," agreed Bud, with a perfect disregard for any
+consequences his statement might have.
+
+He was utterly unchanged.  He had made no preparation to receive the
+bride and bridegroom in their home.  He was just the cattleman nothing
+could change him from.  His gray flannel shirt was agape over his
+sunburned chest.  His leather chapps creaked as he moved, his vicious
+spurs clanked.  Then, too, the curling iron-gray hair of his bared head
+was innocent of all extra combing.  With Nan it was different.  She had
+striven to rid herself of every sign of the prairie to which she
+belonged.  She was dressed with consummate care.  Every jealous feeling
+of the woman in her had cried out for her rights, and those rights were
+that her successful rival should be unable to sneer at or pity her.
+
+The result was a delightful picture that filled Bud's heart with
+admiration.  And for perhaps the thousandth time he silently
+anathematized the blind folly of the man who had wilfully cast his eyes
+in another direction.
+
+Nan seated herself in one of the luxuriously inviting armchairs, while
+Bud insinuated his huge form on to the polished surface of a large
+central table.
+
+"You know, Daddy, I sort of feel like a feller who's guessed the right
+answer to a question he hadn't a notion of.  Maybe you won't get just
+how I mean."  The smile in her pretty eyes changed to a deep
+seriousness.  "You know when I was a little teeny girl all mud and
+overall, that never could keep me within measurable distance of being
+clean, you used to talk to me just as if you were speaking your
+thoughts aloud.  Guess it was about the time poor Momma died, or maybe
+soon after.  I kind of remember you were squatting Indian fashion on
+the veranda of our shack, I'd been busy in the hopes of drowning myself
+in a half dry mud hole, and had mostly succeeded in absorbing more of
+the dirt than seemed good for a single meal.  Guess I must have started
+to cry, and you'd reached out and grabbed me, and fetched me up on your
+lap, and were handing me a few words you reckoned to cheer me up with.
+Do you remember them, my Daddy?  I don't guess you do.  I didn't till a
+while later, and then I didn't figure out their meaning till I went to
+school.  You said, 'Tears is only for kiddies an' grown women.  Kiddies
+mostly cry because they don't understand, an' grown women because they
+do.  Anyway, neither of 'em need to cry, if they only get busy an'
+think a while.  Ther' ain't a thing in this life calls for a tear from
+a living soul, not even a stomachful of moist mud, 'cos, you see,
+ther's Someone who fixes everything the way it should go, an' it's the
+right way.  So we'll jest give you a dose of physic to help boost the
+show along.'"  She glanced round her with smiling eyes at the
+tastefully arrayed furnishings of the parlor.  "This has been the dose
+of physic I gave myself, and--and I feel better for it.  I had the mud,
+and, why, the tears came just as they did before.  Maybe if I'd been
+able to think right I wouldn't have shed them.  But I just couldn't
+think right then.  But I've thought since, and the physic's helped me.
+Do--do you think he'll like it all?"
+
+The contemplative gaze of her father was full of gentle amusement.
+
+"Sure he will--if he ain't changed any."
+
+Nan shook her head.
+
+"Jeff couldn't change.  Even marriage couldn't change Jeff.  You see,
+Jeff's got notions of life which are just part of him.  Maybe he'll
+soften some in ways and things, but his notions'll remain, and they'll
+stand right out in all he does."
+
+But Bud remained without conviction.
+
+"A good woman can set a big man hunting a halo," he said.  "An' I allow
+he's li'ble to find it, if she don't weaken in her play.  But a bad
+woman--why, I guess a bad woman can send him down quicker than most
+things in life, once she tucks herself into a corner of his life depot."
+
+"But Jeff would never fall in love with a bad woman." Nan protested
+swiftly, an odd little pucker of anxiety gathering between her brows.
+"I--I'm sure his wife's a good woman."
+
+"An' I ain't any sort o' reason to think diff'rent."
+
+"But you do think--that way."
+
+Nan's understanding of her father was wide.  It could scarcely have
+been otherwise, since he had been her sole companion for so many years.
+
+But Bud was to be drawn no further.
+
+"Ther' ain't no accounting fer how folks think when they ain't out on a
+joy trip," he grumbled, as he moved across to the open window, and
+stood gazing out over the trail from the northeast.  Then all further
+discussion was abandoned in a small wave of excitement.  He was
+pointing down the trail.
+
+"Say, they're coming right along now.  An'----"
+
+But Nan was at his side.  Something of the color had faded out of her
+cheeks, and she clung to her father's arm as she gazed along the narrow
+winding road.  Her breath was coming rapidly.  For all her courage, now
+that the moment of great trial had arrived, she felt very weak, very
+helpless.
+
+Bud understood.  He released his arm from her nervous clasp, and placed
+it gently about her shoulders.  "It's Jeff setting the gait," he said.
+"I'd say he's crazy to get home."  Then he added as though to himself:
+"Guess I'd as lief seen her on the lead."
+
+But Nan gave no heed to his words.  The soul of the girl was in her
+eyes, which were full of a deep terror and yearning.  She had schooled
+herself for this meeting How she had schooled herself!  And now it
+seemed beyond her powers to live up to that schooling.
+
+Never for a moment did she withdraw her gaze.  It was held fascinated,
+perhaps against her will.  They came on, riding at an almost racing
+gallop, and finally drew up with their horses fighting against the
+restraining bits.
+
+Bud and Nan were on the veranda.  Bud's attitude was one of almost shy
+reserve.  Nan was smiling a welcome such as a moment before would have
+seemed quite impossible.  But her schooling had finally triumphed in
+the crisis, and her loyalty to her generous love had vanquished every
+baser feeling.  It was her hands which clasped those of the city woman
+before she sprang lightly from the saddle.  It was her steady voice
+spoke the first words of welcome.
+
+"Say, you sure must be tired with your journey," she said.  "Come right
+in to--your new home."
+
+Bud had averted his eyes the moment she began to speak.  He could not
+witness that greeting.  His courage was unequal to it.  Instead he
+greeted Jeff in his own fashion, as though nothing unusual had occurred.
+
+"Nan's got everything through for you same as you asked.  After you've
+eaten, why, I guess we'll need to make some talk.  Things have been
+moving, boy.  Guess we'll need to get busy."
+
+Nan had taken Elvine into the house, and one of the barn-hands was
+waiting to take the horses.  Jeff leaped from the saddle.  Once in the
+company of his partner, with all the atmosphere of the world to which
+he belonged about him, all the excitement of his home-coming seemed to
+drop from him.  He even seemed to have forgotten that this was the
+final great event of his new life--the bringing of his bride to the
+home he had prepared for her.  But Nan's estimate of him was right.
+Jeff's was a nature that could not be changed, even by his marriage.
+His love, his marriage, Elvine; these things were, in reality, merely
+episodes.  Delightful episodes.  Before all things his work claimed him.
+
+"You mean the--rustlers?"
+
+The two men were facing each other on the wide veranda.  The trailing
+wild cucumber vines tempered the blaze of sunlight and left the
+atmosphere of the veranda cool.  Jeff mopped the beads of perspiration
+from his forehead under his wide hat, which had been thrust back on his
+head.
+
+"That's so."  Bud's eyes were following the horses as they moved away
+in the wake of the barn-hand.
+
+"It's pretty bad?"
+
+"An' gettin' worse."
+
+Bud's eyes came back to his partner's face.  They gazed steadily into
+it.
+
+"Can't you tell me--now?  Evie's in there with Nan," he added
+significantly.
+
+Bud shook his head.
+
+"It's a big yarn, an' needs time.  But----"  He paused, searching the
+other's face.
+
+"Go right on."
+
+Jeff read through the pause.  He waited, his lips firmly set.
+
+Bud cleared his throat.
+
+"I've got to say these things later if I don't say 'em now, Jeff, boy.
+What I need to tell 'll make you sore, an' I don't guess it's the best
+sort o' welcome making you sore at your home-comin'.  It's the worst of
+the yarn anyway, an' I kind o' feel it's best spitting out the worst
+right away.  We're up against a gang, a slick gang, organized right,
+same as----"
+
+He hesitated.  But the younger man seemed to have no similar scruples.
+
+"The gang my brother ran."
+
+Bud nodded.
+
+"Some of 'em got clear away--that time."
+
+"And you figure after giving things time to get forgotten they've
+gathered up a crowd of toughs and started in on this district?"
+
+"It seems that way."
+
+"How?"
+
+"System," Bud declared sharply.  "They're takin' a steady toll of us,
+an' other folks in the district.  We trailed 'em to the hills,
+an'--lost 'em.  Say, if we don't handle 'em it means----"
+
+"Something like ruin for the--Obar."
+
+Jeff's manner was shorn of any equivocation.  He spoke with almost
+ruthless force, but the coldness of tone was incomparable with the
+steely light in his blue eyes.
+
+After a moment's silence he turned away.  He stood looking back over
+the trail he had just left, and Bud regarded his keen profile, waiting.
+He felt there was nothing more for him to say at the moment.
+
+At last the other turned in his quick, decided fashion as the sound of
+the women's voices reached them from within the parlor.
+
+"Will you stop and eat with us?" he asked bluntly.
+
+Bud shook his head.
+
+"Not now, Jeff, boy.  This is your home-coming."
+
+"Yes.  Well, I'll get around your place to-morrow morning, Bud.  We can
+make big talk then."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RANCHMAN
+
+The cool night breeze died out under the increasing heat of the early
+sun.  Away to the west gossamer melted upon the hillsides.  The
+mountain tops stood out under their eternal snows, above the lower
+cloud belts.  The summer dews on thirsty foliage dried up before their
+mission was completed.  But the wide prairie world stood up refreshed
+to withstand the day's heat yet to come.
+
+Elvine Masters was on the veranda of her new home gazing after the
+receding figure of her husband, who had just left her to discuss with
+his partner those vital things which they had touched upon at the
+moment of his arrival yesterday.
+
+Everywhere about her the busy life of the ranch was stirring.  Inside
+the house the maids were at work garnishing the home which Nan had
+already left spotless.  The corrals, which stood out from the shelter
+of a wood bluff, were claiming attention from several cow-hands.
+Sounds reached her from the region of the bunkhouse, away to the right.
+Then at the barns, and other ranch buildings, the voices of men implied
+the work that was going forward in their region.  Away in the distance
+isolated horsemen were moving about in the apparently aimless fashion
+of all fence riders, while, dotted about, small bands of cattle
+proceeded leisurely with the endless task of endeavoring to satisfy the
+craving of insatiable appetites.
+
+The woman's farewell smile had left her eyes cold as she surveyed the
+scene.  There was no sign of the expressed delight with which she had
+followed Nan at her first inspection of her new home.  The recollection
+of it had even left her.  Only a certain sense of the irony of it all
+occupied her.  That, and a painful wonder as to when the dread under
+which she labored would materialize into the shattering of every hope
+within her heart.
+
+Presently a "hand" appeared leading a saddle horse.  He was a
+youngster, a "barn-hand" who only worked around cattle in times of
+pressure.  But he possessed all the air of a cowpuncher, which he
+ultimately purposed to become.  Elvine watched his leisurely approach,
+and remembered the days when she would have saddled her own pony.
+
+The boy displayed no sign of deference.  He stood before her chewing a
+straw with all the unconcern of his kind, his arm linked through the
+reins, and his hands thrust into the tops of his trousers.  He was
+probably not more than thirteen years of age, but he possessed all the
+independence bred in the calling of the cattle world.
+
+Elvine broke in upon his meditative curiosity as he surveyed the new
+mistress of the ranch.
+
+"What's your name, boy?" she demanded, in a tone of authority.
+
+But the youngster was not to be startled out of his leisurely regard.
+An amiable smile upon his unclean face was the preliminary result of
+the question.
+
+"Pete, ma'am," he replied after a moment.  "An' around this bum lay-out
+I mostly reckon to have to do the stunts other folks don't notion."
+
+"Chore boy?"
+
+"Wal, mebbe that's how I figger on the pay roll.  I allow I ain't allus
+called that way."
+
+The smile had left his eyes.  He was talking with the frank candor of
+one unused to being taken notice of.  There was a deep curiosity in the
+look with which he surveyed her.  He had already been told that the
+boss's wife was a "swell piece," and his youthful mind was eager to
+verify the opinion.
+
+"How do they call you then?"  Elvine took the reins and threw them back
+over the horse's head, and examined the cinching of the saddle with the
+touch of experience.
+
+"Mostly a 'mule-headed bussock,' ma'am.  Sometimes I allow they change
+it to 'slap-sided hoboe,' or somethin' more fancy.  But that's jest the
+ignorant bums that ain't got no more learnin' than'll let 'em lose
+their cents reg'lar at 'draw.'  Ther's others who don't jest use
+langwidge--only their feet.  Then ther's the foreman, Lal Hobhouse.
+Mebbe you ain't acquainted yet--you bein' new around these parts.  He's
+a fine bully feller till he gits mad.  Then he's mean, ma'am.  Guess
+he's most as mean as a skunk.  He needs watching if you want to get on
+a racket.  I don't guess he ever laffed in his life.  Not even at a
+cirkis.  Yep.  He's a holy terror when he's mad.  He cowhided me
+t'other day so I ain't sat right in a week.  If he was to start in to
+fix you that way, why----"
+
+"I don't guess he'll cowhide me," said Elvine quickly, as she swung
+herself into the saddle.  "I'm not likely go on a racket."  Then she
+leaned forward over the horn of the saddle, and smiled down into the
+unclean face gawking up at her.  "How'd you fancy looking after my
+horses and saddle and things?  I mean just look after them for me, and
+nothing else?"
+
+The boy's eyes lit.
+
+"Bully!" he cried eagerly.  "That way I wouldn't have to wash lousy
+clothes for the bunkhouse.  Would I?  Then they wouldn't be able to
+fire rocks at me when I sassed 'em.  Bully!"
+
+"I'll speak to Lal Hobhouse about it."
+
+The hope died out of the boy's eyes.
+
+"You won't tell him wot I said, ma'am?" he pleaded.  "You see, I was
+jest settin' you wise, you bein' new around here.  It ain't friendly
+not to put folks wise, is it?  He's a bully feller sure, ma'am, an' I
+ain't got a word agin him.  I hain't reely.  I wouldn't 'a' sed a word
+if I'd tho't----"
+
+"Don't you worry, boy," Elvine cried, as she turned her horse about.
+"I wouldn't give you away.  I wouldn't give anybody away--now.  You
+see, you never know how things of that sort can come back on you."
+
+The obvious relief in the boy's dirty face was more than sufficient to
+bring back the smile to Elvine's eyes, which, for the moment, had
+become almost painfully serious.  But as she rode away leaving the boy
+gawking after her she quickly returned to the mood which had only been
+broken by the interlude.
+
+It was an interlude not easily forgotten, however.  It had brought home
+to her a fresh revelation.  And it had come in the boy's final appeal
+not to give him away.  A fierce sense of shame surged through her
+heart.  It communicated itself to her eyes, and displayed itself
+further in the deep flush on her beautiful cheeks.  Yet its reason must
+have remained obscure to any observer.
+
+She rode on urging her pony to a gait which set him reaching at his
+bit.  She sat her saddle in a fashion which belonged solely to the
+prairie.  The long stirrups and straight limb.  The lightness, and that
+indescribable something which suggests the single personality of horse
+and rider.
+
+She had no intention of returning to the ranch house until the noonday
+meal, and meanwhile it was her purpose to explore something of the vast
+domain which her husband controlled.
+
+It was curious that her purpose should lead her thus.  For somehow all
+sense of delight in these possessions had passed from her.  At one time
+the thought of his thousands upon thousands of acres had filled her
+with a world of desire, and pride that she was to share in them.  But
+not now.  With every furlong she covered her mood depressed, and her
+sense of dread increased.  She felt as though she were surveying from a
+great distance the details of the prize she had coveted, but the
+possession of which was denied her.  This--this was the wealth her
+husband had bestowed upon her, she told herself bitterly, and some
+greater power, some fatalistic power, purposed to snatch it from her
+before it reached her hands.
+
+She rode straight for the rising land of the foothills.  It almost
+seemed as though she were drawn thither by some magnetic influence.
+She had formed no definite decision to travel that way.  Perhaps it was
+the result of a subconscious realization of the monotony of the rolling
+tawny grass-land on the flat.  The distant view of grazing cattle
+failed to break it.  The occasional station shack and corral.  The
+hills rose up in sharp contrast and great variety.  There were the
+woodland bluffs.  There were little trickling streams.  There was that
+sense of the wild beyond.  Perhaps it was all this.  Or perhaps it was
+the call of a memory, which drew her beyond her power of resistance.
+
+She had long since left all beaten trails, and her way took her over
+the wiry growth of seeding grass.  She had arrived at the bank of a
+narrow reed-grown creek, which meandered placidly in the deeps of a
+trough between two waves of grass-land.  It had been her intention to
+cross it, but the marshy nature of its bed deterred her.  So she rode
+on until the rising ground abruptly mounted and merged into the two
+great hills which formed the portals through which the stream had found
+an outlet from its mountain prison to the freedom of the plains beyond.
+
+For a moment she paused at the edge of a woodland bluff which mounted
+the slope to her right, and crowned the hillock with a thatch of dark
+green pine foliage.  She gazed up with questioning eyes.  And the
+familiarity of the tattered foliage left her without enthusiasm for its
+beauty.  Then she gazed ahead along the course of the stream.  And it
+was obvious that she was in some doubt as to whether she should still
+proceed.
+
+After a moment of deep consideration she lifted her reins and her horse
+moved forward.  Then, suddenly, he was still again, held with a
+tightened rein.  The soft but rapid plod of galloping hoofs came out of
+the distance.  It was coming toward her from the hills, and an
+unaccountable but overwhelming desire to beat a hasty retreat took
+possession of her.
+
+But the action never matured.  She was still facing the hills when a
+horseman emerged from a narrow pathway which split up converging
+bluffs.  He was riding at a great pace, and was heading straight for
+the bank of the river where she had paused.
+
+Elvine remained where she was.  She made no effort either to proceed or
+retreat.  Somehow curiosity had caught her up and left her with no
+other emotion.  She regarded the stranger with searching eyes.  At the
+moment his features were too indistinct to obtain an impression.  But
+his general appearance left nothing to question.  He was a cow-hand
+without a doubt.  His open shirt and loose waistcoat, his chapps, and
+the plaited rawhide rope which hung from the horn of his saddle.  These
+were sufficient evidence.  But for the rest, the wide flapping brim of
+his hat left her no estimate of the face beneath it.
+
+He came on.  He even swerved his horse on one side as though to pass
+her without pausing.  Elvine's pony stirred restlessly in a desire to
+join the stranger.  Then, in a flash, the whole position was changed.
+The man reined up his horse with a heavy "yank" which almost flung it
+on its haunches, and a pair of fierce black eyes were staring into the
+woman's face with a light of startled recognition shining in their
+depths.
+
+"You!" he cried, without any other form of greeting.  And into the word
+he flung a world of harsh meaning.
+
+Elvine's reply was a blank stare, which had in it not a fraction of the
+recognition he displayed.  Not for an instant did her regard waver.  It
+was full of a haughty displeasure at the nature of the greeting.  Nor
+did she deign reply.
+
+The man sat for a moment as though incredulous.  Then he thrust his hat
+back from his head, displaying the brutal ugliness of his face.  Elvine
+observed the coarse moustache, the lean cheeks, the low forehead and
+vicious eyes.  The lips were hidden behind their curtain of hair.
+
+"Say, kind o' fergotten--ain't yer?" he demanded.  Then the woman's
+perfectly fitting riding suit seemed to attract his attention.  "Gee,"
+he exclaimed, "wher' you get that dandy rig?"  But even as he spoke a
+change in his expression came when he recognized the horse Elvine was
+riding.  Suddenly he raised one hand and smoothed the tangle of
+moustache with a downward gesture.  It was a gesture implying complete
+lack of comprehension.  "Well, I'm darned!"
+
+"You'll be more than that if you don't pass on to your work, whatever
+that may be."
+
+The coldness of the woman's tone matched the light in her dark eyes.
+Every ounce of her courage had been summoned to meet the situation.
+
+But the man displayed not the slightest regard for the threat.  The
+incredulity of his expression changed.  And the change was subtle.  It
+was perfectly apparent, however, to the woman.  And she nerved herself
+for what was to come.  An evil smile grew in the piercing black eyes,
+as the man regarded the beauty which, with him, was a long stored up
+memory.
+
+"Say, when d'you quit Orrville way?" he cried derisively.  "Maybe you
+hadn't a heap o' use for it when your man, Bob, got shot up.  Maybe you
+didn't need to stop around after you got your hands on the dollars I
+guess he left lying around.  Say, it beats hell meetin' you this way."
+
+But Elvine was no longer laboring under the shock of the encounter.
+She had no longer any thought of the remoteness of the spot, or the
+obviously brutish man with whom she was confronted.  She set about
+dealing with the situation with a desperate courage.  "I don't know if
+you're mad, or only--drunk," she said, with icy sharpness.  "But you're
+on my husband's land, and I suppose you work for him.  What's your
+name?  I need to know it so I can tell him of your insolence.  Jeffrey
+Masters is not the man to allow his wife to be insulted with impunity
+by one of his cattlemen.  It will be my business to see to it that he
+is told--everything.  You were riding that way."  She pointed the way
+she had come.  "I s'pose toward the ranch house.  Let me pass!"
+
+She moved her horse as though to proceed.  There was no sign of fear in
+her.  No haste.  At that moment her dignity was superb.  Every word she
+had spoken had been calculated, and the sting she had conveyed with her
+information had not been overdone.  She looked for its effect, which
+came with a dramatic change in the man's whole demeanor.  His evil face
+lost its smile, and, in a moment, he had bared his bristling head.  But
+even as Elvine beheld these things she understood the curious
+expression which he seemed powerless to banish from his ferretty eyes.
+
+"You're Mrs. Masters, ma'am?" the fellow cried.  "Say, ma'am, I'm just
+kind o' knocked all of a mush.  I hadn't a notion.  I truly hadn't.
+Guess I took you for a leddy I kind o' remember up Orrville way.  An'
+the likeness is jest that o' two beans.  I'm beat, ma'am, beat sore.  I
+wouldn't have offered you insult for a farm.  I'm sorry.  I'd heerd the
+boss's wife was around, but I didn't figger I----"  Then he replaced
+his hat, and made as though to pass on.  But he remained where he was.
+"Y'see, I was ridin' in about last night.  We lost another bunch.  On'y
+ten cows and their calves, but I had to make a report."
+
+"Another raid?"
+
+In a moment the woman caught him up.  And her attitude had taken on a
+calculated change.
+
+The man observed her interest, and took prompt advantage of it.
+
+"Yep.  An' things are lookin' pretty bad.  This gang's jest workin'
+how, an' when, an' wher' they fancy.  If the boss 'ud on'y listen to me
+he'd leave no stock around the outstations.  It's devilish luck, ma'am,
+that's what it is--devilish."
+
+Elvine remained lost in thought, and the man's narrow eyes never left
+the profile she presented to him.  When she turned to him again,
+however, his whole attitude was one of bland humility.
+
+"You can ride back to your station," she declared, with perfect
+authority.  "I'll convey your report.  What's your name?  You didn't
+give it me."
+
+"Sikkem.  Sikkem Bruce.  I'm out at Spruce Crossing, back ther' in the
+hills.  It's jest a piece.  Mebbe three miles, wher' this stream makes
+a joining with the Gophir Creek.  Say----"
+
+"Well?" Elvine inquired as he paused.
+
+"You ain't makin' no complaint to the boss, ma'am?  It was jest a darn
+fool mistake of mine.  It surely was.  I ken see it was.  I can't
+figger how I mistook you fer the lady I was thinkin' of.  Y'see, she
+was no account anyway.  She was jest one o' them vampire sorts who'd
+sell her soul fer a price, yep, and sell any man's life that way, too.
+Y'see, that's how I come to know her.  She handed over a bunch o' guys,
+scallawags, sure, who didn't need nothin' better, fer the price o' ten
+thousand dollars.  She corralled the information, an' drove her
+weak-livered man to do the lousy work.  I tell you, ma'am, a woman who
+gits that low is pretty mean.  You was sure right to figger on an
+insult when I guessed you was that 'piece.'  But I didn't mean it that
+way, I sure didn't."
+
+The marble coldness of Elvine's face as she listened to the man's words
+gave no indication of any feeling behind it.  At the end, however, she
+forced a smile to her lips.
+
+"You can forget it," she said.  Then she added deliberately: "I shall
+not inform my husband."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am.  Then I guess I'll get right on back--if you'll
+carry in the report.  Y'see, we're huntin' the trail.  That-a-way I'll
+be able to join up with the boys."
+
+"Yes."
+
+The man hesitated as though waiting for her to depart first, but as she
+made no movement, and offered no further word, he was forced to the
+initiative.  With an astonishing deference, which, perhaps, was even
+too elaborate, he wheeled his horse about and rode off.
+
+Elvine watched him until he was swallowed up by the narrow pathway
+between the bluffs, then she turned back and rode slowly homeward.
+
+But the face which was now turned down the river was no longer the face
+which had confronted Sikkem Bruce.  It was ghastly.  It was the face of
+a soul-tortured woman.
+
+"She was jest one of them vampire sorts who'd sell her soul fer a
+price, yes, an' sell any man's life that way, too."
+
+The words, even the tones of the man's voice dinned in her brain, and
+she knew that the legions of Fate had appeared upon a fresh horizon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE CALL TO ORRVILLE
+
+The windows were wide open.  Voices from within the parlor reached Nan.
+She was waiting on the veranda.  Waiting for the long council of
+men-folk to reach its conclusion.  She had elected to remain outside.
+She knew that the future well-being of the Obar Ranch was being
+considered by men whose sole regard that well-being was.  And somehow
+the woman in her demanded that in all the vital affairs of life it was
+the will of the men-folk which should rule.
+
+But her self-denial was strained to breaking as the interminable
+minutes grew, and, at last, she abandoned her principles to her woman's
+curiosity, and slipped into the room.  She knew well enough that none
+of those present would resent her intrusion.  And, anyway, it was hard
+to stand by when her whole interest was absorbed in the decisions to be
+arrived at.
+
+She passed round the room and took up a position on the arm of her
+father's chair.  No one spoke to her.  Scarcely an eye turned in her
+direction.  And something of the impressiveness of it all caught the
+girl's imagination.
+
+There was the dear familiar room with its simple furnishing, and its
+poignant associations.  It was part of her life.  It was certainly part
+of her father's and Jeff's.  Then there was the warm sunlight pouring
+in through the open windows.  It lit the tanned, strong faces of the
+men, and searched the weak spots in their toil-worn equipment.  There
+was not a weak face among them.  And Nan felt comfort in the thought
+that theirs was the decision.
+
+The face of Jay Pendick, their own headman, with its small, alert dark
+eyes reflected the intentness of his mind.  His capacity had been tried
+over and over again in his long years of service.  Then Lal Hobhouse,
+the best-hated man on the countryside for his ruthless genius in
+obtaining work from those under him, and the driving force of Jeff's
+side of the partnership.  Her father, wise and silent, except for his
+heavy breathing.  And lastly Jeff, full of a hard determination to beat
+the game in which he was engaged.
+
+So keen was the interest of the gathering that Bud alone was smoking.
+But then Bud regarded tobacco as a necessary adjunct to soundness of
+judgment.
+
+He slipped an arm about Nan's waist as she took up her position at his
+side.
+
+Jeff was seated at the centre table, a position strongly reminiscent to
+the girl of a smaller gathering some four years back, when he had
+occupied the position of leadership in the enterprise which had had
+such successful results for them all.  Jay was poised upon the edge of
+a small chair which suggested immediate peril under his forceful and
+scarcely elegant methods when discussing the doings of rustlers, and
+imparting his opinion upon all and sundry of their class.  Lal
+disdained all parlor attitude.  He was squatting against the edge of
+the table without the least consideration for its somewhat trifling
+powers of endurance.  But Jeff was talking, and Nan's whole attention
+was swiftly caught and held by the man whose words and actions were at
+all times irresistible to her.
+
+He was talking slowly and clearly with that shadow of a drawl which was
+his way when his decision was arrived at.
+
+"Say, it's as clear as don't matter we're up against an experienced and
+organized proposition," he said.  "I don't guess this is any kind of
+scallawag outfit of toughs which just get around and duff a bunch, and
+hit the trail for safety till the froth they've raised dies down again.
+It's Orrville repeating itself."  He paused thoughtfully.  His eyes
+were regarding the table before him.  When he raised them again they
+were full of a peculiar light which shone in Bud's direction.  "Ther's
+features in the game carry a parallel to that play, and I guess they
+point the fact that the fellers of that gang who got away at their
+round-up have got around this region now, and figure to carry on the
+same play right here.  You'll get that, Bud--sure."  Bud nodded.
+"Well, it's up to us," Jeff went on, as though the other's agreement
+had left his course of action clear.  "Maybe ther's States Marshalls
+around, and a pretty bunch of deputies lying behind Sheriff Hank
+Killick, but there never was an official gang these folk couldn't beat
+a mile.  Guess they're not duffing the private property of Hank
+Killick, or any of his boys.  We best get busy our own way, which is
+the way Dug McFarlane took nearly five years to dream out."
+
+His blue eyes had grown colder and harder while he talked.  There was a
+bite, too, in the manner in which he referred to the doings in Orrville
+of four years ago.  There was a curious curl to his firm lips, which,
+to Nan's mind, suggested a painful smile.  And she disliked it.  She
+disliked his whole manner, which, just now, was none of the Jeff she
+had always known.  Bud read deeper.  And that which he read carried him
+back to an unforgettable scene in the Cathills, when a twin stood
+gazing upon its other half, hanging by the neck dead under the shade of
+a wide-spreading tree.
+
+"It's up to us to set up a reward, Bud," Jeff went on, in the same
+passionless fashion.  "A big reward.  We've got to make it so some
+amateur Judas is ready to sell his friends.  It'll cost us a piece, but
+it's the way to fix things.  And anyway it's going to be worth it,
+sure.  I allow we'll need to hand out the story of reward good.  It's
+got to reach this gang itself.  An' if I guess right, and there's
+toughs from Orrville way running this lay-out, why, they aren't li'ble
+to have forgotten what happened that time.  We'll break the gang,
+or--we'll get 'em."
+
+There was something unrelenting, and even vicious, in the manner in
+which he gripped the pencil in his hand and dug the pointed lead and
+crushed it against the surface of the table.  Nan drew a deep sigh of
+relief as he finished speaking, and turned gladly as her father removed
+his pipe and cleared his throat.
+
+"An' the reward.  How much?" he questioned.
+
+The answer flashed back at him like the slash of a knife.
+
+"Ten thousand dollars!"
+
+In that answer Jeff's voice was unrecognizable to Nan.  His whole
+expression, too, seemed to have undergone some subtle change.  She sat
+groping for the meaning of it all, and somehow regretted she had not
+remained out on the veranda.
+
+Bud inclined his head and replaced his pipe in corner of his mouth.
+
+"It goes," he declared.  Then he lumbered out of his chair.  "That
+all?" he inquired.  And by his manner and tone Nan knew that he, too,
+had been affected by the things which had troubled her.
+
+"Not quite."
+
+Jeff turned on his own foreman.  He had lost none his intensity.
+
+"That reward goes," he said sharply.  "Get the exact amount.  Ten
+thousand dollars.  Not a cent more or less.  Hand it out everywhere.
+Meanwhile I'll see to it the notices are printed, and we'll have 'em
+set up wherever the eyes of these scum are likely to get peeking
+around."  Then he emitted a sound like a laugh, but there was no mirth
+in his eyes.  Nor in his manner.  "We'll locate the best trees for a
+hanging, and we'll set 'em up there."
+
+Nan moved over to an open window as the two headmen took their
+departure.  Bud had taken up a position against the cold iron stove.
+Jeff alone retained his seat, during the few silent moments which
+followed.
+
+With the departure of the men, however, he looked up from a letter he
+had withdrawn from his pocket.
+
+"Say, Bud," he said without emotion, "guess the Presidency of the
+Western Union's going to claim me right away.  I'll need to make
+Orrville right off."
+
+"Orrville?"  Bud's eyes were sharply scrutinizing.
+
+"Sure."  Jeff's indifference was obviously assumed.  Nan's questioning
+eyes passed uncertainly from Jeff to her father.  There was something
+between these two she did not understand.  Orrville?  It was when he
+had been speaking of Orrville all that intensity of bitterness had been
+so apparent in Jeff.  She received no enlightenment, however.
+
+"What's the play at--Orrville?"
+
+Bud's question had a suggestion of anxiety in it.
+
+Jeff rose from his chair.  He passed one hand wearily across his brow
+and smoothed back his lank fair hair.
+
+"Oh, it's just arbitration," he said.  "The parties agree to take my
+decision in some grazing rights instead of handing good dollars over to
+the law.  It's Dug.  Dug McFarlane, and a feller called Peters.  Peters
+figgers he's got rights on Dug's land, and--well, Dug just guesses he
+hasn't."
+
+"When are you starting?" Nan inquired, from her place at the window.
+
+"I'll need to get off early to-morrow."  Jeff's eyes were on the girl.
+The change in them had become pronounced.  Warmth had replaced
+frigidity, and the smile in them was real now.  "It's tough on top of
+my home-coming, eh, Nan?  Maybe Evie'll feel lonesome too--when I tell
+her.  Still, these things are part of the game, and I can't weaken on
+'em.  It's these toughs around I'm worrying 'll scare her.  I was kind
+of wondering if you'd----"
+
+"You don't need to worry a thing."  Nan's smile was full of a staunch
+reassurance.  And her readiness came with a spontaneity which had
+nothing to do with Jeff's wife.  It was the result of her delight and
+pride in this man himself who was called upon, and looked to, for
+leadership, in this little world of theirs.
+
+"You'll----"
+
+"I'll handle things here for you, Jeff."  Nan gave him no chance to
+make his appeal.  "Elvine shall be as safe as we can make her.  She can
+come right over here till you get back, or I'll sleep at your place.
+It shall be just as she feels.  She shan't be lonesome, and I guess my
+Daddy an' me we're equal to any crowd of rustlers."
+
+The genuineness, even enthusiasm of the girl was quite transparent.
+Nor was the man insensible to it.  For all his preoccupation he
+realized something of his debt to these people, to Nan.  It was a debt
+he had never attempted to pay, and now its rapid mounting made even
+ultimate payment seem doubtful.
+
+"You're pretty good to me, Nan," was all he trusted himself to say.
+
+Nan shook her head in smiling denial.
+
+"Women need to help each other in--these parts."
+
+But Jeff did not accept her excuse.
+
+"Maybe that's so," he said thoughtfully.  "But it don't alter things a
+little bit.  I'd just like to feel I deserved it.  But I don't and
+can't feel that way.  Some day----"  He laughed and made a helpless
+gesture.  "But why talk?  It's too easy, and it's mighty cheap anyway.
+I----"
+
+But Nan was pointing out of the window.  She welcomed a sudden
+diversion.
+
+"It's Elvine coming right along over."  Then, as Jeff craned forward:
+"Say, she's a dandy horsewoman.  Get a look at her.  Gracious, she
+might have been born in the saddle."
+
+But Jeff had not waited.  He was out on the veranda to greet his wife
+as she came.  And just for one instant Nan caught a glimpse of the
+light in his eyes which the sight of Elvine had conjured.  All the
+coldness she had witnessed that morning, all the merciless purpose,
+even the simple friendliness he had displayed toward her.  These were
+gone.  Their place had been taken by a light of passionate regard for
+the woman who had yielded herself to him.  For a moment it seemed as if
+her own emotions must stifle her.  But the next she was within the room
+again, her eyes merrily dancing, talking to the parent she adored.
+
+"Say, you Daddy of mine," she said, almost boisterously, "haven't you
+work to be done, the same as I have?  Shame on you for dallying.  Shame
+on us both.  Come right along, sir.  Come right along at once."  Then,
+as he moved toward the window, "No, no, you dear blundering Daddy, not
+that way!  That's reserved.  The back door for us, sure.  Come along."
+
+And the great Bud permitted himself to be hustled from the room through
+the kitchen way.
+
+Nan's effort was only partially successful.  In a few moments the
+fugitives were urgently recalled to hear the news of the disaster at
+Spruce Crossing, which Elvine had brought with her.  And during the
+discussion which followed Nan was forced to stand by while the handsome
+woman who had supplanted her occupied the centre of attention.
+
+Somehow the news which held the others, drawing forth hot condemnation
+from Bud, and the bitter comment of Jeff, for once left Nan cold.
+Somehow it seemed so small a thing compared with that other disaster
+which was always with her.  Her whole attention was held by Jeff and
+his wife.  Not a detail of expression or emotion, as the swift words
+flowed between them, was lost upon her.  And the exquisite pain of it
+all was excruciating.
+
+The great love of the man was so apparent.  There was a moment, even,
+just as Jeff and Elvine were about to take their departure, when Nan
+could have almost cried out.  It had followed upon an expression of
+Elvine's dislike and fear of the man who conveyed the news to her.
+
+Jeff took up her complaint in no half-hearted fashion, and, somehow,
+the injustice of his attitude and his obvious thought for his wife
+alone brought the girl's hot resentment very near the surface.
+
+"Yes," he said.  "He's a tough, sure.  I've kept him on because he's
+one of the brightest cow-hands east of the mountains.  But you're
+right, Evie.  And I can't stand for you being scared by the 'hands' on
+my ranch.  I'll have to get rid of him."  Then, as he sat in the saddle
+with Elvine on her pony at his side, he had taken in Nan and her father
+in a smiling, comprehensive glance.  "I guess Evie's some sport acting
+the way she's done," he declared with a lover's pride.  "I allow we owe
+her a heap of thanks, eh, Bud?"
+
+Bud nodded.
+
+"We're mighty grateful, ma'am," he declared, heartily in his formal
+way.  "Guess we all thank you, sure."  Then he turned to Jeff more
+directly.  "I'll get busy right away.  That'll leave you free to get
+right on doping out that reward notice this afternoon, an' generally
+fixing things before you make the trail to-morrow morning."
+
+Then they had taken their departure.  And with their going Nan hastily
+returned to the parlor.
+
+Bud followed her almost on the instant.  He had moved with incredible
+swiftness, which is often the way of heavy men under stress of feeling.
+Already the tears were gathering in the girl's eyes when his words fell
+upon her ears.
+
+"Say, little gal," he said, with a deep note of sympathy in his
+rumbling tones, "we're bein' hit up pretty bad since Jeff bro't her
+back home.  Maybe we're feelin' 'bout as foolish as we're lookin'.  But
+we're goin' to beat the game--sure, eh?  We're goin' to beat it because
+we're built that way, an'--we got the grit to do it."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The horses were walking leisurely over the summer grass.  The house was
+less than two miles distant.  There was no immediate hurry.  Besides,
+Elvine was reading the letter which Jeff had handed her in reply to her
+inquiry as to the contemplated journey which Bud had mentioned.
+
+Jeff was observing her closely as she read.  There were no doubts in
+his mind.  He was not even seeking the effect of the letter.  He was
+dwelling with a lover's delight upon the picture she made.
+
+Nor was his approval extravagant.  Any one must have admitted the
+justice of it.  Nan had admitted it when she beheld her in a prairie
+saddle, on a prairie pony, with only the wide wealth of grass-land for
+her setting.  Elvine in the saddle suggested a single identity between
+horse and rider.  Her riding suit was expensively simple, and cut as
+only such suits can be cut.  The figure beneath it was displayed to its
+fullest advantage.  There was no studied pose.  Just the perfection of
+horsemanship which demands an intimate freedom at all times.  Then her
+dark head under her carefully adjusted prairie hat.  The shining masses
+of hair, obvious in their wealth even under careful dressing.  The
+softly healthy cheeks, and the perfect profile as she pored over the
+letter in her hand.
+
+Presently Elvine looked up.  She did not turn at once to the husband at
+her side.  Her gaze was directed ahead.  It ignored the scene of
+undulating plain, and the distant ramparts of wooded hills.  It saw
+nothing but the images in her own brain, and the conjured thoughts of a
+troubled heart and conscience.
+
+"You see it's important," Jeff said, with a feeling that the news in
+the letter had caused disappointment.
+
+"I s'pose it is."
+
+There was a curious lack of interest in the woman manner.  Her tone was
+listless.
+
+"I'm afraid I'll have to go."  The man felt he was apologizing, and it
+seemed absurd that apology should be required.  Then he reminded her.
+"You see, these things come with my work as President.  It's pretty
+good if you think.  Guess I'll only be from home one night."
+
+"You _must_ go--I s'pose?"
+
+The man's eyes widened.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"But it seems unfair you should be put to all this for nothing."
+
+Jeff shook his head.
+
+"Why, I don't guess it's any worry.  Besides, it's an honor.  You see,
+Evie, I'm out all I know to set up a big position for you.  And it's
+these calls as President of the Western Union are going to fix things
+the way I'd have them."
+
+His eyes had somehow become serious.  There was even a lack of his
+recent warmth in them.  He had not expected any protest from his wife.
+A shade of disappointment at his going perhaps.  But that was all.
+
+"You're at the call of anybody around to settle disputes?"
+
+"Only where the interests of cattle-raising are affected."
+
+Elvine handed him back the letter.  She did not turn to him.  A curious
+set to her lips warned Jeff that in some way his contemplated journey
+was adversely affecting her.  Nor was it merely the disappointment he
+had been prepared for.  He felt there was need to say more, though the
+need of it was obscure.  It had never been his way to appeal, but he
+resigned himself to the reflection that his life had been entirely
+changed by his marriage.  He was no longer responsible only to himself.
+With an effort he flung aside an inclination to resentment.
+
+"Say, Evie," he cried, "it's a bit tough on you having to leave you
+even for a day just as we've got back to home.  It's that way with me,
+too.  I just don't fancy going a small bit.  But I daren't refuse Dug
+McFarlane.  He's one of the biggest men around, and I'll need all the
+friends I can round up.  There's another thing.  I've got it back of my
+mind later on to form a Trust amongst the growers, and Dug's a most
+important concern in such a scheme.  I'd be crazy to refuse.  Why, I
+just couldn't refuse anyway.  You're going to help me, dear, aren't
+you?  I've talked to Bud and Nan, and fixed things so you won't be
+lonesome.  Nan's promised to sleep in the house with you, so you shan't
+feel that way.  Or you could go over to her.  It's just one night,
+that's all."
+
+It may have been his obvious sincerity, it may have been that the
+woman's objections were really the result of disappointment only.  At
+any rate a distinct change came over her, and she turned to him with a
+smile.
+
+"I'm just too selfish, Jeff," she cried.  "But--but it did seem
+hard--at first.  Go?  Of course you must go.  And you're not to worry
+about me.  Nor is Nan.  I wouldn't have her come over for me for
+anything, and I'm not going to sleep out of my home, either.  You
+needn't be scared I'll be lonesome.  I've got all this beautiful world
+around me, and all your interests.  And rustlers?  Why, I'm not scared
+of the worst rustlers living."
+
+A delighted sense of gratitude replaced Jeff's every other feeling.
+
+"Say," he cried, with a sudden vehemence, "you've good grit, Evie.
+You're a bully soul.  You're the sort would set a man crazy to corral
+the world, and set it at your feet.  I'll get right back quick.  I
+won't wait an hour more than I need."
+
+Elvine's decision had been forced upon her, but once having taken it
+she threw something more into her words than the mere encouragement
+that seemed necessary.
+
+"No," she declared, her eyes shining.  "You're not even to hurry back.
+Get right through with your work, or any schemes you have to arrange
+while you're there, before you think of me."  Then her voice softened
+to a great tenderness.  "I want you to win through in everything you
+undertake, Jeff.  I don't care now for a thing else in the world.  You
+do believe that, don't you?  Oh, Jeff, I want you always to believe
+that.  Whatever may come in our life together, I want you always to
+know I love you better--better than the whole world, and your--your
+happiness is just my happiness.  Without your happiness I can never be
+happy.  It was selfishness made me demur at first.  You believe that,
+don't you?  I have always been very, very selfish.  It was nothing
+else.  You don't think there was anything else, do you?  I sort of feel
+I'd always have you in my sight, near me.  I'm happy then, because I
+feel nothing can ever come between us.  When you're away, I don't know,
+but it sort of seems as if shadows grow up threatening me.  I felt that
+way this morning.  I felt that way when I read your letter.  But these
+things just shan't be.  I love you with all that's in me, and--you love
+me.  Nothing shall ever come between us.  Say that's so, Jeff.
+Nothing.  Nothing."
+
+The man responded with all a lover's impetuosity.  He gave her to the
+full that reassurance of which she stood in need.  But for all his
+sincerity it was as useless as if it had been left unspoken.
+
+The letter from Dug McFarlane at Orrville, the recognition of her by
+the man Sikkem Bruce, had warned Elvine that the sands of her time of
+happiness were running out.  She felt she knew that a gape of despair
+was already yawning at her feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+DUG MCFARLANE
+
+The aroma of cigars blended delightfully with the fragrant evening air.
+Through the cool green lacing of the creeper the sun poured the last of
+its golden rays into the wide stoop.  The mists were already gathering
+upon the lower slopes of the hills, and a deep purpling seemed to be
+steadily embracing the whole of the great mountain range.
+
+Two men were lounging comfortably in wide wicker chairs on the veranda.
+They were resting bodies that rarely knew fatigue in the strenuous life
+that was theirs.  But then the day was closing, and one of them had
+come a long saddle journey.  Whisky stood on a table at the elbow of
+Dug McFarlane.  Jeffrey Masters had coffee near by.
+
+Outside the veranda a smudge fire in a bucket was doing battle with
+attacking mosquitoes, while its thin spiral of smoke served as a screen
+upon the still air to shut out the view of the disheveled township of
+Orrville.
+
+Dug McFarlane, opulent, of middle life and massive proportions, was in
+strong contrast to his guest.  The American-Scot was something of a
+product of the soil.  He was of the type which forces its way up from
+the smallest of small beginnings, a type which decides early upon a
+career in life, and which deviates not one step from the set course.
+He was a man of one idea--cattle.
+
+He knew nothing beyond--cattle.  Cattle was the sum and substance of
+his celibate life.  He was an old type of ranchman whose waking hours
+were devoted to a physical labor which left no room for anything else.
+But Jeff knew that for all his roughness of manner and speech, a
+roughness which left his own partner, Bud, a man of education and
+refinement beside him, he counted his wealth, as he, Jeff, could only
+hope to count his in the distant years to come.
+
+Jeff was his guest for the night, and the dispute upon which he was to
+arbitrate was to be settled upon the arrival of the man Peters.  And
+while they waited they talked of the thing which was their mutual
+interest.  The land and its produce, whether animal or vegetable, was
+their beginning and end.  They discussed every prospect from the
+overwhelming competition of the Argentine, to the rapid transformation
+of grazing pastures into golden wheat fields.  Their interest seemed
+endless, and it seemed only to require the non-appearance of Peters for
+their talk to continue until sleep overtook them.
+
+But the break came in the flow of their "shop" at the mention of the
+name of Peters.  Jeff was curious to hear about him.
+
+"Who is this Peters, anyway?" he demanded.  "He's not down in the stock
+register, and nobody seems to have found him except you."
+
+Dug's reply came with a great laugh.  His very bright gray eyes were
+full of a good humor beneath his pronounced black brows.
+
+"Peters?  Why, I guess Peters 'ud make a funeral procession laff.
+You've never seen him?  You don't know him?  No.  Sure you wouldn't.
+Nor you wouldn't find him registered.  Y'see, they don't register mixed
+farm stock.  Anyways, he got me laffin' all the time.  But he's
+bright--oh, yep, he's bright, sure.  He's a little feller.  To git him
+right you need to think of a buck louse with a think-box developed
+abnormal.  He's a great amusin' little cuss when you see him on his
+patch of land.  You'd think he was runnin' a cirkis he's so busy fixin'
+things wrong.  I'd like him fine if it wa'an't fer his habits.  I can't
+stand the feller who eats the top of his fingers raw, an' sings hymns
+o' Sunday in a voice that never oughter been handed out to anything
+livin' that hadn't the sense to choke itself at birth."
+
+"Is that the reason of the dispute?" Jeff asked with smile.
+
+Dug grinned and shook his head.
+
+"No, siree," he cried.  "It ain't a thing to do with it.  But I guess
+we'll keep clear of the dispute till he gets around.  Y'see, this
+arbitration game needs to be played good.  I'd hate to get ahead of the
+little cuss by settin' out my case in private.  Nope.  I hain't got a
+thing agin that grasshopper.  Not a thing, and I jest need to get this
+thing straightened right, even if it goes agin me.  That's why we fixed
+on appealin' to you rather than the law.  Y'see, I could buy up a
+decision at law, which Peters knows, so we decided on the right
+judgment of a straight feller.  Say, what in----!"
+
+Dug sprang from his chair with a forcible oath.  Jeff, too, was on his
+feet.  There was a frantic clatter beyond the screen of creeper.  A
+string of hoarse invective in a human voice.  The hammering of horses'
+hoofs and the sound of tin being battered in a wanton riot.  Dug broke
+into a great laugh as he thrust his head out.
+
+"Well, I be----!" he cried.
+
+Jeff joined in his laugh.  An absurdly small man was clinging
+desperately to the saddle of an absurdly large horse, which was rearing
+and plunging in a wild effort to shed its rider and bolt from the
+neighborhood of the overturned smudge-fire bucket.
+
+What a wealth of terror reigned.  The gray-headed little man's face
+matched the hue of his hair.  His short arms were grabbing frantically
+at his horse's neck.  His eyes were full of a piteous appeal, and his
+savage-looking spurs were firmly grappling his steed's flanks.  The
+wretched horse was shaking in every limb.  Its eyes were bulging, and
+the fierce snorts of his gushing nostrils had the force of escaping
+steam.
+
+Before any assistance could be offered by the onlookers the climax was
+reached and passed.  Elias Peters rolled slowly out of the saddle and
+reached the ground with a heavy flop.  Then, while its recent burden
+gathered himself up, quite unhurt and smiling amiably in relief, the
+horse contentedly mouched off toward a patch of inviting grass.
+
+"Guess I'm kind o' late, Mr. McFarlane," Elias apologized.  "An' it
+seems I've bust up your fire-bucket some," he added ruefully.  Then
+with cheery optimism: "It was hustling to get here.  I didn't jest see
+it.  Still, I got around."
+
+"You sure have," grinned Dug.  Then he indicated his companion.  "This
+is Mr. Jeffrey Masters, President of the Western Union.  If you'll come
+right along in we ken get things fixed up.  Meanwhiles I'll jest have a
+'hand' round-up your plug an' feed him hay."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Another chair was brought from the house and Elias Peters was ensconced
+therein.  He was a gray little man.  Gray from head to foot, it seemed.
+His hair, his eyes, his skin, his whiskers, his shirt, his loose jacket
+over it, his trousers.  Even the top-boots he wore, which, had
+doubtless once been black.  Everything about him was gray.
+
+Dug pressed whisky on him.
+
+"Take your time," he had said, in his easy, cordial fashion.  "Ther'
+ain't no sort o' hurry.  It's li'ble to shake a boy o' your years
+foolin' around in the dust when you'd oughter be in the saddle."
+
+"That's just it, Mr. McFarlane," came the prompt, distressed complaint.
+"What in the nature o' blamed things made me act that way?"
+
+"Jest the--nature o' things, I guess."
+
+The little man's eyes twinkled.
+
+"Guess you mean ther's folks who ain't in their right element in the
+saddle, an'--I'm one of 'em."  Then he turned on Jeff, whose whole
+interest had been quite absorbed in a personality which Dug had
+described as being reminiscent of a "buck louse."  "Say, Mr. Masters,
+guess you ain't never tried any stunt like raisin' kebbiges on a hog
+ranch?  No, sure you ain't.  Ther's jest one feller runnin' loose on
+this planet 'ud act that way, an' that's me.  Guess I bin doin' it all
+my life," he added, thoughtfully chewing a forefinger.  "I was built
+for, an' raised in a fifth rate city, an' I got the ideas an' ambitions
+of the President of a Republic.  Ther' ain't a blamed thing I can't do
+but I want to do.  An' the worst of it is ther's a sort o' restless
+spirit in me jest sets me so crazy to do it I can't resist makin' the
+jump.  That's how I come to buy up a bum homestead up toward the hills
+here, an' got the notion I could make a pile runnin' a mixed farm that
+way.  That's how I come to get outside a hoss when I'd be safer inside.
+That's how I come to--'break' a deal more prairie land than I could
+ever sow or harvest.  That's how I bought machinery for a thousand acre
+farm when I'd only got a half a mile.  That's how I come to run a bunch
+of cows without settin' up fencin' around my crops.  That's how I bo't
+the whole blamed lay-out without verifyin' the darned law feller's
+statement I'd got grazin' rights on Mr. McFarlane's grass--which is the
+thing I came right here to yarn about when I got mixed up with that
+unnatural hell, which I've learned since was only set up to amuse the
+skitters.  Kind o' makes me feel if I was to set fer my pictur' I'd
+sure come out a shipwreck at sea, or some other darn fool kind of
+unpleasantness."
+
+Jeff was forced to echo the laugh which Dug indulged in without
+restraint.  It seemed cruel in face of the strange little man's serious
+distress.  But its only effect upon him was to produce an inquiring
+glance of profound but unresentful astonishment.
+
+"Guess I must 'a' said something," he protested mildly.  "Seems to me I
+most generly do, with Mr. McFarlane around."  Then he smiled in his
+wintry fashion, which was quite powerless to add warmth to his curious
+aspect of grayness.  "Guess he must ha' been born laffin'--p'raps," he
+added thoughtfully.  "It's a dandy thing bein' born laffin'.  I don't
+reckon I ever got that luck.  It's more likely my moma got lost in a
+fog the day I was born.  Can't account noways fer things otherwise."
+
+Dug pushed the whisky bottle at him as a set-off to his own
+uncontrolled mirth, and in a few moments contrived to subdue his
+paroxysms sufficiently to start the business in hand.
+
+"Now, Masters," he said, as soon as the diminutive Elias had ministered
+adequately to his glass, "we've got a curious proposition to set before
+you.  It's jest one of them things which crops up in a country like
+this, where a whole heap o' the laws happens along through custom.  An'
+like all sech customs, ther's li'ble to be a tarnation lot of friction
+lyin' around if we can't get a right settlement.  Now, if we go to the
+courts it's goin' to be a mighty big scrap, eatin' up a hell of a pile
+of dollars.  An' if you're wise to the ways of the law fellers you ken
+just about figger the verdict is goin' to come along to the feller with
+the biggest wad.  In this case I guess I'm the feller with the biggest
+wad.  Now, ther's no sort o' bad blood between Peters an' me, 'cep' it
+is he will sing hymns outrageous on a Sunday.  Still, I ain't goin' to
+let that cut no ice.  I'm out for a square decision between us by a
+feller that don't know the meanin' of graft.  I don't care a cuss who
+gets it.  But I ain't goin' to be bluffed by any fancy legal readings
+of a position by city lawyers who don't know the north end of a steer
+goin' south from the cluckin' proposition of a blind hen motherin' a
+litter o' dormice.  Peters here'll give you his case, seein' he's
+plaintiff, in an elegant flow of warm air, an' when he's through I'll
+sort of hand you a counterblast.  An' when we finished you'll hand out
+your dope on the subject, that is if we ain't talked you into a home
+for incurable arbitrators.  You'll get busy right away, Peters."
+
+The rancher's manner was irresistible in its breezy frankness and
+generosity.  Jeff wondered at him.  Any man of modern business methods,
+he felt, would have jumped at the advantage which his wealth would have
+given him in the law courts over so insignificant a person as Elias
+Peters.  The whole situation inspired in him the feeling that he was in
+the presence of a really big man.  A man who deserved every fraction of
+his success.
+
+Nor was there any doubt as to the little gray man's feelings as he took
+a drink of whisky, and fixed his small eyes upon the weather and
+years-lined features of his adversary.
+
+"Guess you've made me feel 'bout as big as an under-fed skitter," he
+complained.  "You make me sort o' feel I want to tell you to keep your
+darn grazin' rights till I ken hand you a bunch of bills such as I'd
+like to pass on to an honest man.  But I don't guess I'm goin' to do
+it.  Y'see, I just can't afford it.  If I can't graze my stock on your
+grass they got to starve, or I got to get out.  An', seein' I doped all
+my wad into this lay-out, it 'ud well-nigh mean ruin to act that way."
+
+Then he turned to Jeff, who was almost bewildered at the curious
+attitude toward each other of these men.
+
+"Now, I ain't got a fancy yarn to hand you," he went on, fumbling in
+his pockets.  "I jest got my papers, here, as I got 'em from the law
+fellers.  You best take 'em, an' after we done get a look into 'em."
+He passed them across.  "Now these are the fac's of how I bo't, why I
+bo't, an' who I bo't from.  The place is a haf section, an' they asked
+five thousand odd dollars for it.  It was a bum sort o' homestead, an'
+belonged to a widder woman who'd got her man shot up by some rustlers
+workin' around this country.  They went by the name of Whitstone, but
+their real name, by them papers, was Van Blooren----"
+
+"What name?"  Jeff's voice broke sharply in upon the little man.
+
+"Van Blooren."
+
+"Go on."
+
+Jeff's eyes were gazing out through the lacing of creeper.  He was no
+longer regarding the man's unemotional gray features.
+
+"Wal, the place wa'an't worth the five thousand, 'cep' fer one clause
+in them papers.  This widder woman owned a right to graze up to two
+hundred head o' stock on Mr. McFarlane's range.  There was no mention
+o' lease, nor nothin' to talk of payin' fer it.  The right was in the
+deed of sale, clear an' unquestioned.  You'll see it right there in
+them papers.  Wal, I'm runnin' a hundred of stock, and the half section
+is under cultivation.  Now, Mr. McFarlane comes on me with the news
+that this widder woman had no such rights to sell, an' that she and her
+man were only allowed to graze their stock on his grass to help them
+out.  He's acted white over it so far, an' ain't taken no sort of
+action.  He's jest let my fool cows an' their calves run around chewin'
+till their jaws is tired, which is a white way of seein' things.  All
+he's handed me is that I ain't got no right, an' the thing stands
+pending your decision.  He says the whole proposition is jest business.
+He's got to safeguard the values of his property.  Now, sir, I claim
+them rights by right of that deed, an' if ther's any case it's between
+that Van Blooren widder an' Mr. McFarlane.  You got my papers,
+an'--wal, how d'you guess I stand?"
+
+The little man's eyes were anxious as he made his final appeal.  But no
+satisfaction was forthcoming at the moment.  Jeff's head was bent over
+the papers he had been handed.  His eyes were hidden.  He seemed wholly
+engrossed upon the various clauses in the deed.  Finally he spoke
+without looking up.
+
+"There's no deed granting grazing rights executed by Mr. McFarlane
+here," he said.
+
+Before Peters could reply, Dug broke in.
+
+"Ther' never was one made," he said easily.  "I don't guess you'll find
+it ther'--'less you use trick eyes.  Here--say, Peters has given you
+his story right.  I ain't no kick comin' to a word of it.  But this
+thing has more sides to it than you'd fancy.  Now, I don't just care a
+cuss Peters' grazin' two hundred, or five hundred head of stock on my
+pastures.  But if Peters bo't rights an' ken prove it, why, he's the
+right to sell 'em on to any feller who comes along, which kind o' turns
+my ranch into common land.  Nothin' doin'.  No, siree!"
+
+Jeff had abandoned his search of the papers.  Nor was he regarding
+either of the men.  His eyes were directed through the lacing of
+creeper, his gaze concentrated upon the purple vista of the hills.  His
+brows were depressed with profound thought.  Nor were the blue depths
+of his eyes easy.  Peters' whole attention was upon the rancher.
+
+"Now, see right here, Masters," Dug went on, after a deeply considering
+pause.  "I got a story to tell you I'd have liked to hold up, an' the
+reason I hate handin' it you is jest a sort o' fool sense of honor.
+Howsum, when folks git gay I can't see you're right to hold your hand.
+Now, them rights are sold by the law fellers of that widder woman, an',
+I guess, actin' under her instructions.  Now, she knows she don't own
+no rights to sell.  Wal, I allow she's on the crook."
+
+"Crook?"  Jeff's interrogation came swiftly, in a harsh voice utterly
+unlike his own.  Then his eyes came round to the face of the rancher.
+There was something deadly in the steadiness of their regard.  "This
+widow," he said.  "Her name is Van Blooren.  What is her first name,
+and the first name of her--husband?"
+
+Before Dug could reply Peters pointed at the deeds of sale.
+
+"Guess her full name's writ ther'," he said.  "Elvine van Blooren.
+Sort of queer name, ain't it?  It sort o' hit me that way when I first
+see it.  Kind o' good name fer a--crook."
+
+Jeff's eyes dropped to the papers again as Dug gave the other
+information required.
+
+"The man's name was Robert--Bob.  Called hisself when he was here.
+Y'see, his paw was some swell guy who guessed his son had made some
+darn fool marriage.  An' I allow he was wise.  Howbe, their names an'
+sech don't cut no ice."
+
+"No."
+
+Jeff's monosyllable brought Dug's gaze swiftly in his direction.  The
+next moment they were looking squarely into each other's eyes, and, as
+far as Jeff was concerned, Peters was entirely forgotten.
+
+"Will you tell me all you know of--this woman?" Jeff said, after a
+moment.  "I guess it'll be necessary--before we're through."
+
+"Sure.  That's how I figgered."  A momentary tension seemed to have
+been relaxed.  Dug once more settled himself at his ease.
+
+"'Tain't a pretty yarn, when you come to think," he said, his brows
+contracting under his feelings.  "Men are jest men, an' I guess you
+don't generly expect more'n a stink from a skunk.  But with women it's
+diff'rent.  When a feller thinks of women, he thinks of his mother, or
+sweetheart, or his wife.  An' when he thinks that way, why, I don't
+guess he figgers to find bad wher' he reckoned ther' was only good.
+Howsum, it kind o' seems to me human nature's as li'ble to set a feller
+cryin' as laffin' most times.  This thing come over that Lightfoot
+gang.  We got most of 'em, and those we got if they wa'an't pumped full
+of lead out of hand they was hanged.  Sort o' queer, too, the way we
+got 'em.  I'd set up a reward.  Ten thousand dollars.  It was right out
+o' my own bank roll.  Wal, I set it up--the notice o' reward--one
+night, an' next day got the news we was all yearnin' for.  Bob
+Whitstone, as he called himself, brought it right along to me.  I
+hadn't no use fer the feller up to then.  He was weak-kneed.  And, in a
+way, had fallen fer Ju Penrose's rye.  He'd come to me once before on
+the subject o' these all-fired grazin' rights.  Y'see, he'd been tryin'
+to git ahead raisin' wheat in a country where ther' was only a market
+fer cattle an' rye whisky.  Anyway, he cut most o' the wheat racket,
+an' guessed he'd travel the same road as other folks, an' asked me for
+permission to graze.  I was kind o' sorry about him, an' his
+good-lookin' wife--both city-raised folk--an' I did as he ast.  I said
+he could graze up to two hundred head.  Git a line on that.  Them
+rights was verbal between him an' me to help him out.  Ther' wa'an't no
+sort o' deed, an' he knew it wa'an't no saleable proposition.  Wal,
+when he come along in with his news I set him right through it, an' I
+allow, before I quit him, I got the notion that fer all his addled ways
+there was a heap to him I hadn't guessed.  He started by sayin' he'd
+located the rustlers, got their camp set in the hills, an' could hand
+over the whole blamed bunch right away quick.  That was elegant.  But I
+ast him how it come he'd on'y located 'em twelve hours after I'd set up
+a ten thousand dollar reward.  Y'see, they'd been rustlin' around fi'
+years.  Wal, to cut a long yarn, I got the whole thing out of him in
+quick time--he was like a kid in my hands.  He hadn't located that
+camp, he wasn't goin' to touch a cent of them ten thousand.  He called
+it 'blood money,' an' cussed it good an' plenty with an elegant flow.
+It was his wife.  Yes, siree, it was the woman driving the man.  She'd
+located them rustlers by chance only the day before, while he was
+around Ju's place sousin' rye.  When he got home an told her of the
+reward, she was nigh crazy to git her hands on the dollars.  Seems to
+me ther' must have been a mighty scrap-up.  I guess she told him of his
+ways, an' what he'd brought her to--in a way some women-folk can.  I
+didn't git it all clear.  Y'see, he did his best to screen her.
+Anyways, she made him promise to fix things so she touched those
+dollars.  An' that's why he come to me.  Ther's jest one thing stuck in
+my head so I can't lose it.  It was his last words to me about it.  He
+says, says he, see here, Mr. McFarlane, I need one favor out o' you.  I
+want to go with you on this racket, an' if ther's any mercy in the God
+of Heaven, he'll let me get my dose when the shootin' starts.
+Effie--that's how he called his wife--wants them dollars, an' you'll
+see she gets 'em.  But for me I just couldn't ever live around a woman
+who'd handled that blood money!  He didn't use them words.  They're
+mine.  But it's 'bout how he put it.  Wal, when the play was over he'd
+had his wish.  He was dropped plumb in his tracks.  Then I handed his
+widder the dollars.  She ain't around these parts now so it don't
+matter handin' you the story of it.  Maybe she's married agin.  She was
+some picture woman.  But anyway I'd say right here, the woman who could
+take the price of men's lives would be low enough to bluff a boy like
+Peters here out of his stock of dollars on a play like these rights.
+An' that's why I reckon this thing's been done on the crook."
+
+He reached round for his glass and took a deep drink in the silence
+that followed his story.  Then, as neither the man who was to
+arbitrate, nor Peters, attempted to break it, he went on:
+
+"Guess a reward's jest a reward, an' you can't kick at the feller who
+comes along an' grabs a holt on it.  But when a woman, young, a
+good-looker, an' eddicated, an' refined, gits grabbin', why, it makes
+you see sulphur an' brimstone, an' horns an' hoofs when your thoughts
+are full o' buzzin' white wings an' harps, an' halos an' things.  Git
+me?  I guess stealin' dollars out o' a citizen's pocket-book wouldn't
+be a circumstance to a female of that nature.  Say, I ain't got rid o'
+the stink of it yet, though it happened four years ago."
+
+The man's contempt and loathing were intense.  He had offered the
+reward, paid it, he had led the Vigilantes in the hanging.  But these
+things were simply part of the justice of man as he saw it, and rightly
+administered.
+
+The silent moments slipped by.  Jeffrey Masters was sitting erect in
+his chair.  A marble coldness seemed to have settled itself upon his
+keen face.  Peters was waiting for that decision he desired.  Dug
+McFarlane, with more understanding, realized that something was wrong.
+He, too, remained silent, however.
+
+At last Jeff stirred.  His gaze shifted.  It turned half vaguely upon
+the little man Peters.  Then it seemed to drift unmeaningly toward the
+rancher.  A moment later it fell upon the papers he was so tightly
+gripping.  It was then that realization seemed to come upon him.  He
+reached out and handed the deeds to their owner.  A moment later he was
+on his feet, and had moved across to the front of the veranda, where he
+stood, slim, erect, and with his back turned upon the others.
+
+He cleared his throat and spoke in a steady voice.
+
+"I can only hand you a decision on the intention as apart from the
+legal aspect of the case," he said judicially.  "It's clear to me no
+saleable rights were given.  There was no transaction over them.  The
+widow of this man had no rights to sell.  If disinterested advice is
+acceptable I should urge this.  It's in view, I guess, of McFarlane's
+expressed indifference to Peters' cattle grazing on his land.  Let
+Peters acknowledge he has no rights.  Then let McFarlane enter into an
+agreement that Peters can run his stock on his land, the right being
+non-transferable.  I should put the whole thing in writing."
+
+"An' a darn good an' honest decision, too," cried Dug heartily.
+
+The shadow of a beatific smile passed over Peters' small features.
+
+"Bully!" he murmured.  Then he added: "But I sort o' feel we both
+oughter set the law on that--she devil."
+
+Jeff turned abruptly.  His movement was almost electrical.
+
+"I shouldn't," he said sharply.
+
+Dug caught a glimpse of the desperate light in his eyes.
+
+"Why not?"  There was a dash of resentment in Peters' tone.
+
+But Jeff was spared a reply.  Dug anticipated him with an oath.
+
+"Gol darn you, because she's--a woman!" he cried, with a fierce warmth.
+"Hell take it you ken have your rights.  That's enough, I guess.  I'll
+have the papers wrote, an' have you sign 'em to-morrow.  Meanwhile I'm
+sick to death of the whole blamed thing.  I quit right here."
+
+His intention was plain enough.  He meant there should be no
+misunderstanding it.  And the little man, Peters, took his dismissal
+without demur.
+
+The moment Peters had safely negotiated the saddle and vanished in a
+cloud of dust, Dug pressed the whisky bottle upon his guest.  Jeff
+almost mechanically accepted it.  He gulped down a stiff drink of neat
+spirit.  Dug watched him.
+
+"Guess you're feelin' pretty darn saddle weary," he said kindly.
+
+Jeff flung himself into his chair without replying.
+
+Dug returned to his seat and gazed out at the yellow and purple
+afterglow of sunset.
+
+"Say, maybe you'd feel like handin' me the reason you wouldn't set the
+law on to that--woman?" he went on presently.
+
+The question was by no means idle.  It was inspired by the man's
+genuinely kindly nature.  Somehow, he felt that he had been responsible
+for that which he had seen, still saw, in this man's eyes.
+
+But he was wholly unprepared for the reply forthcoming.  It came
+promptly.  Each word came distinctly, deliberately, in a voice of
+bitter coldness.  The tragedy of it left the rancher speechless.
+
+"Because I married Elvine van Blooren just over six weeks ago."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE RETURN HOME
+
+A long day of anxiety and fevered apprehension merged into a night of
+terror.  It was the outcome of a conviction that was irresistible.  The
+shadow of disaster was marching hard upon her heels.  Nor had she the
+power to avoid it.
+
+As night came on Elvine remained alone in her twilit bedroom.  She had
+no desire to come into contact with the servants, she had no desire for
+human companionship of any sort.  So, with the fading light, she betook
+herself to the bedroom.
+
+But there was no relief.  It was haunted to-night, teeming with the
+fancies of a dreading imagination.  It seemed to her like the cell of a
+condemned prisoner.
+
+The day had passed heavily, drearily.  Every moment of it had been
+filled with the thought that Jeff was on his way to Orrville.  On his
+way to meet Dug McFarlane.  On his way to meet the one man in whose
+hands her whole fate lay.  He alone knew the source of the ten thousand
+dollars which she had carried back to her paternal home as the net
+result of her first marriage.  He alone knew it to be the price of the
+blood of men, amongst whom was the twin brother of her present husband.
+
+Memory was alive, and full of a poignant torture.  It brought back to
+her the scene when she had driven her first husband to help her to the
+money she had desired to possess.  He had spoken, in his horror and
+anger, of "blood money," of "Judas," and she would not hear.  She had
+derided him, she had lashed him with the scorn of an unbridled tongue,
+she had turned upon him in her selfish craving, without a thought of
+any principle.
+
+Now she understood what she had done, but she only understood because
+of the threat which overshadowed her.  It was no spiritual awakening.
+It was again the self in her, threatened in its desires as a result of
+her earlier wanton actions.  Her motives, even the picture of the
+carnage in that hidden valley, which came back to her unbidden, had no
+power to add to the hopelessness of her feelings.  Every emotion was
+wrapped in the thought that she was about to be robbed of all the
+fruits of the one great passion of her life.
+
+She had one desire now, one motive in life only.  It was the man she
+had married.  The man she had designed to marry for the station and
+wealth he could offer her, and who had almost instantly become the
+centre of her whole life.  Nothing of any worldly consideration counted
+any longer.  There was nothing could interest her of which he did not
+occupy the centre of the focus.  Self dominated still, but it was a
+more human type of self, which had, perhaps, some rightful claim on
+human sympathy.
+
+The shadows grew, and the wide airy room was filled with a hundred
+added terrors which claimed reality in the troubled brain.  The silence
+of the world about her became a threat.  The darkening of the cloudless
+sky beyond the open window.  She sat on, refusing to invoke the aid of
+lamp-light to banish the gathering legions of her dread.  She knew it
+was impossible to banish them.
+
+Oh, she had no physical fear of the world about her.  What was there to
+fear?  Did she not know it all?  Had she not lived it all before?  The
+two wide open windows invited her.  She moved to one of them, and drew
+a chair so that she could rest upon the sill and gaze out into the
+space so perfectly jeweled.  And the cool night air fanned her cheeks,
+and seemed to relieve the fever that was raging behind her hot eyes.
+
+The morrow.  There was no other concern with her now but--the morrow.
+To-morrow Jeff would return.  To-morrow she would know the worst, she
+would know if the purpose of Fate were for or against her.  Oh, that
+to-morrow!  And in the meantime there were interminable hours of
+darkness to endure, when sleep was impossible.  And after that the
+daylight, when she must fear every eye that was turned in her
+direction, when every moment brought nearer the possibility of the end
+for her of all things in the world which mattered.
+
+The night wore on.  Midnight came and passed.  She had not moved again.
+Her straining eyes had watched the starry groups as they set beyond the
+horizon.  There was no moon to create shadows upon the wide, rolling
+pasture before her.  Everything was in shadow, just as her every
+thought was similarly enwrapped.  There was no relief anywhere.
+
+Once she heard a sound that set her jarred nerves hammering.  It was a
+distant sound, and, to her fancy, it was the rapid beat of horse's
+hoofs sweeping across the wide valley.  But it died out.  She had been
+caught by the thought of the possibility of her husband's return,
+suddenly, in the night.  She pictured for one brief instant the
+headlong race of the man to charge her with the crime of his brother's
+life.
+
+She saw that keen, stern face with its cold blue eyes and the grimly
+tightened lips.  She had seen some such expression there before, and
+she knew there were depths within his soul which she had never probed,
+and hoped that she might never have to probe.
+
+It was the mystery of these unknown depths which had inspired her
+passion.  It was because of that cognizance of something unusual,
+profound, in his personality that he had first become so completely
+desirable.  Then as she grew to know him, so she found she knew him
+less, and desired to know him more.  Her love and worship of him was of
+the primitive.  It was such as is the love of all women when inspired
+by an emotion not untouched by fear.
+
+So, when the sounds of hoof-beats broke the night silence, she became
+panic-stricken, because such a return, at such an hour, could have but
+one meaning.
+
+Then the sounds passed, and her nerves steadied, and presently a
+stirring night breeze rustled the lank grass.  It came over the plain
+toward her.  It reached her window and fanned her cheeks with its chill
+breath.  Then it passed, sighing round an angle of the house.  Then, in
+its wake, came the plaintive dole of a scavenging coyote.  The
+combination, to her fancy, was an echo of her feelings.  It was the
+sigh of despair, and the cry of a lost soul.
+
+Presently the drowse of utter weariness descended upon her.  The dread
+of thought remained heavily overshadowing, but a certain distortion
+displayed the reaching of limits beyond which human power could not go,
+even in suffering.  It was a merciful nature asserting itself.  Her
+eyes closed, slowly, gently, with a drowsy helplessness.  Once her
+elbow slipped from the sill of the window and awoke her.  A somnolent
+thought that she would go to bed passed dully through her mind.  But
+she did not act upon it.  She propped her head upon her hand once more,
+and, in a moment, everything was forgotten.
+
+She awoke with a start.  There was no drowse in her wakefulness now.
+Her eyes were wide, and her thoughts alert.  The sensation of a blow, a
+light, unforceful blow was still tingling through her nerves.  The
+blow, it seemed, had fallen upon her forehead, and she thrust a hand up
+mechanically to the spot.  But the action yielded her no enlightenment.
+There was no pain, no sign.
+
+She peered through the open window and realized that the moon had
+risen.  She stared at it, and presently it occurred to her that she
+must have slept, and, by the position of the moon above the horizon,
+for at least an hour.
+
+Then her thoughts returned to the blow which had awakened her, and the
+conclusion followed that it must have been the result of the half-blind
+flight of one of those great winged beetles.
+
+She closed the window abruptly.  She closed the second one.  Then,
+having drawn the curtains, she fumbled for the matches and lit the
+candles upon her dressing bureau.  It was her intention to search for
+the intruding beetle, and then retire.
+
+But her search terminated abruptly.  It terminated even as it began.
+That which had struck her was lying almost at her feet upon the soft
+rug on which she stood, and within a yard of where she had been
+sitting.  It was a piece of paper tied about a small ball of soil.
+
+She stared down at it for some startled moments.  The effects of her
+dread were still upon her, and they set up a sort of panic which made
+her fearful of touching the missile.  But it could not remain there
+uninspected.  There could be no thought of retiring without learning
+the meaning of what lay there on the floor.
+
+Gingerly she stooped with a candle in her hand.  She stooped lower, but
+making no attempt to touch the thing which had disturbed her.  The
+candle revealed a folded sheet of white paper.  A string bound it round
+the rooted portion of a grass tuft.
+
+After a few moments she reached out and picked it up.  The next moment
+she was standing erect at her bureau, and with a pair of scissors she
+severed the string and dropped the grass tuft to the floor.
+
+The paper was folded and thumb-marked by dirty hands.  With shaking
+fingers and tense nerves she deliberately unfolded it.
+
+It was a note, and she read it eagerly.
+
+
+"You sold the lives of men for a price.  You had it your way then.
+We're goin' to have our way now.  You'll pay for that deal the only way
+we know."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Elvine sat watching the scenes of the work of the range.  The men were
+returning from distant points making for the ranch house where their
+evening meal was awaiting them at the bunkhouse.  Teams were moving
+toward the barns, and barn-hands were watering those which had already
+returned.  There was a general stir everywhere.  Certain stock was
+being corralled and hayed for the night.  In the hay corral men were
+busy cutting and hauling feed.  There was no loneliness, no solitude.
+The business of so great an enterprise as the Obar Ranch involved many
+hands, and seemingly endless work.
+
+But Elvine watched these things without interest.  In her present state
+of mind they meant nothing to her, they could mean nothing.  She was
+waiting, waiting in a perfect fever for the home-coming of her husband.
+
+Strangely, too, she was not without a glimmer of hope.  Somehow the
+belief had taken possession of her that had Jeff learned anything of
+her story he must have been home before this.  It seemed to her that he
+must have flung every consideration to the winds, and rushed in fevered
+haste to denounce her as the murderess of his twin brother.
+
+The mysterious note which had been flung in through her open window had
+left her sleepless for the rest of the night, but, even so, now, in the
+broad light of day, it was only relatively alarming.  The other terror
+overwhelmed it.
+
+The sun was already tinting the hilltops with ruddy, golden hues.  The
+frigid snow-caps no longer wore their sheen of alabaster.  There was a
+golden radiance everywhere, a suggestion of a perfect peace, such as
+the woman felt could never again find place in her heart.
+
+She turned her eyes from the splendor of the scene in silent protest.
+The green of the wide-spreading valley, even the dark purple shadows of
+the lower mountain slopes were better in harmony with her mood.  But
+even these she denied in her nervous irritation, and again, and yet
+again, her searching gaze was flung out to the northwest along the
+trail over which she knew her husband must come.
+
+The waiting seemed endless.  And the woman's heart literally stood
+still when at last she detected an infinitesimal flurry of dust away on
+the far distance of the trail.  A mad desire surged through her to flee
+for hiding to those vast purple solitudes she knew to lie in the heart
+of the hills.
+
+She remained where she was, however.  She stirred not a muscle.  She
+was powerless to do so.  What, what had the coming of the man for her?
+It was the one absorbing question which occupied her whole brain and
+soul.
+
+The dust flurry grew to a long trail in the wake of a horseman.  In
+five minutes he stood out ahead of it, clear to the eye.  In ten his
+identity was distinguishable.  And, presently he rode swiftly at a
+gallop past the ranch buildings and drew up before the house.
+
+The rack of that moment was superlative.  The woman's hands clenched
+and her finger nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms.  There was
+no greeting upon her lips.  She only had power to stare; her wide
+beautiful eyes were searching the face of the man she loved, searching
+it as the criminal in the dock might search the face of the judge about
+to pass sentence.
+
+Her tongue was ready for its release.  Pent words lay deep in her soul
+for an outpouring at the lightest sign.  But these things were
+dependent, dependent upon the reading she found in the man's eyes.
+
+The horse stood drooping at the termination of its effort.  The man
+sprang from the saddle.  A barn-hand took the beast away to its stable.
+Elvine's tongue remained almost cleaving to the roof of her mouth.
+
+The man's fair brows were depressed.  His eyes were sternly cold.  And
+not once did they turn in her direction.  He spoke in his usual tone to
+the barn-hand.  He issued his orders without a sign of emotion.
+
+Elvine could stand no more.  She stirred.  Then slowly she passed
+within the house.
+
+Presently Jeff's step sounded on the veranda.  It was quick.  There was
+nothing lagging in it.  The woman gripped the back of a chair in the
+living-room in which she had taken refuge.  She was seeking support.
+
+The man entered the room.  Nor did he remove his hat.  He stood just
+within the window opening, and his eyes, cold as the gleam of the
+mountain glaciers, regarded her steadily.
+
+"I see you understand," he said.  "You realized what must happen when I
+visited Dug McFarlane in the matter of Peters, who bought your dead
+husband's farm.  You knew it when you read that letter I gave you.  And
+so you protested.  So you assured me of--your regard."
+
+He came a step nearer.  The movement was almost involuntary.
+
+"I have prayed to God that some day he might bring me face to face with
+the person who sold my brother's life.  He has granted me my prayer.
+But it never entered my wildest dreams that it could be the woman I
+married.  I never questioned your past.  To me it was sufficient that
+you had taught me the meaning of love.  To me you must be all you
+seemed.  No more, no less.  God help me, I had no imagination to tell
+me that so fair a body could contain so foul a heart.  Were you not my
+wife, were you a man, I should know how to deal with that which lies
+between us.  As it is you must thank the difference in our sex for that
+which nothing else could have done for you.  As yet I have not had the
+time to arrange the details of our future.  To-morrow, perhaps, things
+will have cleared in my mind.  I shall sleep to-night over at Bud's----"
+
+"Oh, Jeff, Jeff, have mercy.  I----"
+
+"Mercy?  Mercy?"  A sudden fire blazed up where only a frigid light had
+shone.  The man's tones were alive with a fury of passion.  "Did you
+have mercy?  Was there one merciful, womanly emotion in your cruel,
+selfish heart when you sent those men, that man to his death for ten
+thousand filthy dollars?  Pray to God for mercy, not to me."
+
+A curious sullen light dawned in the woman's eyes.  But even as it
+dawned it faded with the man's movement to depart.
+
+"You--you won't leave me?" she pleaded.  "Oh, Jeff, I love you so.
+What I did was in ignorance, in cruel, selfish longing.  I had been
+reduced to the life of a drudge without hope, without even a house fit
+for existence.  I believed I had honest right.  I believed even that my
+act was a just one.  Jeff, Jeff, don't leave me, don't drive me out of
+your life.  I cannot bear it.  Anything, anything but that.  My God, I
+don't deserve it.  I don't--true.  Jeff--Jeff!"
+
+Her final appeal came as the man, without a word, passed through the
+open window.  She followed him in a desperate hope.  But the hope was
+vain.  She saw him mount the fresh horse which had been brought round
+and left at the tying post.
+
+As he turned the beast about to depart, just for one instant he looked
+in her direction.
+
+"I will see you again in the morning.  By that time I shall have
+decided what is best for us both."
+
+He waited for no more.  There was nothing to wait for.  He lifted the
+reins and his horse set off.  The dust rose up and screened him from
+view.
+
+Once more Elvine was standing on the veranda.  Once more her gaze was
+following the trail of rising dust.  But there was no fever of suspense
+in her beautiful eyes now.  There were not even tears.  The blow had
+fallen.  Fate had caught up with her.  Its merciless onrush had
+overwhelmed her.  She was crushed.  She was broken under its
+sledge-hammer blow.  She stood drooping, utterly, utterly broken and
+spiritless before the man's swift, brief indictment and action.
+
+The end had come.  Nor had it anything of the end she had visualized in
+her dread.  It was ten times more cruel than she had even dared to
+dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+AT BUD'S
+
+Supper was over when Jeff arrived.  He came straight into the room
+where the colored girl had just finished clearing the table.  Nan was
+returning a few odds and ends to their places.  Bud had already lit his
+evening pipe preparatory to settling down for the brief interim before
+turning in for the night.
+
+There was no preamble.  There was no sign of emotion, even at the
+moment of his arrival.  Jeff launched his request at father and
+daughter in a voice such as he might have used in the most commonplace
+of affairs.
+
+It was a request to be put up for the night.
+
+But both Bud and Nan were startled.  Nan's cheeks paled, and
+imagination gripped her.  She said nothing.  With Bud to be startled
+was to instantly resort to verbal expression.
+
+"Wot's wrong?" he demanded.
+
+Then the storm broke.  It broke almost immoderately before these two
+who were the intimates of Jeff's life.  All that had been withheld
+before Dug McFarlane, all which he had refused to display before the
+wife he had set up for his worship, Jeff had no scruples in laying
+before these two.  It was the sure token of the relations between them,
+relations of perfect trust and sympathy.
+
+Bud sat gazing at the outward sign of the passionate fires he had
+always known to lie smouldering in the depths of this man's soul.  Nan
+stood paralyzed before such violence.  Both knew that hell was raging
+under the storm of emotion.  Both knew that the wounds inflicted upon
+this man's strong heart were well-nigh mortal.
+
+The whole story was told, broken, disjointed.  For the first time Nan
+learned the result of the search for an erring twin brother, and her
+horror was unbounded.  A heart full of tenderness bled for the man
+whose sufferings she was witnessing.  The story of Elvine's own actions
+filled her with revolting, yet with pity.  It was not in her to condemn
+easily.  She felt that such acts were beyond her powers of judgment.
+
+The man's grief, his bitter, passionate resentment smote her beyond any
+sufferings she had ever known herself.  Elvine absorbed all the anger
+she could bestow, but even so it was infinitesimal beside the harvest
+of grief which the sight of this man's suffering yielded her.  That was
+the paramount emotion of the moment with her.  That, and the injustice
+she deemed to have been meted out to him.
+
+It was not until the great crescendo of the man's storm of grief had
+passed that Nan bethought herself of the need in which he stood.  Nor
+was that need apparent until his whole note had changed to a moody
+bitterness with which he regarded the future.  Then she understood the
+demon that was knocking at the door of his soul.
+
+Immediately her decision was taken.  She left the two men together and
+went to make the necessary preparations for this refugee's
+accommodation.  Curiously enough, these preparations were not complete
+for nearly an hour, at the time, in fact, that it was her father's
+habit to seek his bed.
+
+When she returned to the parlor the place was full of the reek of Bud's
+tobacco, but it was only from the one pipe.  Neither of the men were
+talking when she entered the room, and her glance passed swiftly from
+one to the other.
+
+She moved over to where Jeff was sitting with his back turned to her,
+and stood behind his chair.
+
+"Everything's fixed for you, Jeff," she said.  "But--but maybe you
+don't feel like turning in yet.  My Daddy usually goes at this time,
+and--he's had a hard day."
+
+Bud looked across at her.  His pipe was removed from his mouth for the
+purpose of protest.  But the protest remained unspoken in face of the
+meaning he beheld in the girl's brown eyes.  Instead he rose heavily
+from his rocker.
+
+"Say, jest take your time, Jeff, boy," he said.  "Guess you'll need to
+think hard before mornin'.  I don't guess it's your way to jump at
+things.  I ain't never see you jump yet.  Anyway, when you're thinkin',
+boy, it'll be best to remember that a woman's jest a woman, an' her
+notions ain't allus our notions."
+
+Nan came over to him, and he rested one great arm about her shoulders,
+and stooped and kissed her.
+
+"Good-night, little gal," he said.  "Maybe Jeff'll excuse me.  An'
+maybe you ken tell him some o' them things that don't come easy to me.
+So long, Jeff.  I'll sure see you in the mornin' before you quit."
+
+He stood uncertainly for a moment with his arm upon Nan's shoulders.
+He seemed to want to say more, and was at a loss how to say it.
+Finally he stuck his pipe back into his mouth with a savage thrust and
+lumbered heavily from the room.
+
+Nan understood.  She knew he was laboring under profound emotion, and a
+feeling of self-disgust at his own inability to help his partner and
+friend.
+
+As the door closed she moved over to the table and leaned against it.
+Jeff's back was toward her, and his face was turned in the direction of
+the window, across which the curtains had not yet been drawn.
+
+He was leaning forward, his gaze intent and straight ahead out into the
+black night beyond.  His elbows were on his knees, and his hands were
+clasped, and hanging between them.  To the sympathetic heart of Nan
+there was despair in every line of his attitude.  She nerved herself to
+carry out her decisions.
+
+"Jeff!"
+
+There was no movement in response.  But a reply came.  It was in the
+tone of a man indifferent to everything but the thought teeming through
+his brain.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Why did you come around here--to-night?"
+
+The question achieved its purpose.  The man abandoned his attitude in a
+movement of fierce resentment.  He swung round on the questioner, his
+eyes hot with feeling.
+
+"Because I guess I need to sleep somewhere.  Because nothing on earth
+could make me share roof with the woman who's my wife.  Gee, my wife!
+Say, Nan, the thought of it nearly sets me crazy."
+
+"Does it?  You didn't feel that way--two nights ago."
+
+The man's eyes met the girl's incredulously.
+
+"How can you talk that way?" he demanded roughly.  "I didn't know a
+thing then.  I thought she was all she seemed.  Maybe I was just a
+blind fool, crazy with love.  Anyway--I hadn't learned the hell lying
+around her heart."
+
+"I s'pose there is hell lying around her heart?"
+
+Nan's words were provocative.  Yet they were spoke in such a tone of
+simplicity as to rob them of all apparent intent.
+
+Jeff was in no mood for patience.  Swift resentment followed upon his
+incredulous stare.
+
+"Do you need me to give it you all again?" he cried fiercely.  "It
+don't need savvee to grip things."  Then his voice rose.  "And to think
+those dollars have fed her, and clothed her, a body as fair as an
+angel's, and a heart as foul as hell."  Then his tone dropped as if he
+were afraid of the sound of his own voice.  "Say, thank God I kept my
+hands off her.  If she'd been a man----"
+
+He left his sentence unfinished.  In her mind Nan completed it.  But
+aloud she gave it another ending.
+
+"If she'd been a man I don't guess she'd have been there to have you
+lay hands on her."
+
+There was a new note in the girl's tones.  But it passed Jeff by.
+
+"No," he said with almost foolish seriousness.
+
+"Say, Jeff," the girl went on gently, a moment later, "aren't you
+acting a teeny bit crazy over this?  I mean talking of souls foul as
+hell.  And--an' not sharing the same roof with the woman you've sworn
+to love, and--and cherish as long as you both live.  She hasn't done a
+thing wrong by you since you said--an' meant that.  She hasn't done a
+thing wrong anyway."
+
+The denial was so gentle yet so decided.  Had there been heat in it it
+must have been ineffective.  As it was Jeff stared incredulously and
+speechless, and the girl went on:
+
+"You think I'm wrong," she said.  "Maybe you think I'm crazy, same as I
+guess this thing's made you feel."  She shook her head.  "I'm
+not--sure.  Take us here.  Maybe I'm chasing around through the hills.
+Chance runs me plumb into the camp of these rustlers who're cutting
+into your profits on the Obar.  I come right in and hand you the story.
+You and Bud round up a bunch of boys and I take you to where the camp's
+hidden.  You hold 'em up, and you hang them.  Well, I guess the
+pleasantest moment of that racket for you would be to get back to home
+and hand me a bunch of dollars.  Say, I can see you doing it.  I can
+see your smile.  I can hear you sayin': 'Take 'em, little Nan, an' buy
+yourself some swell fixing.'  And say, Jeff, I wouldn't have done a
+thing less than your Evie's done.  That's how I'd say now, acting as
+you are, you aren't the 'Honest Jeff' I've always known.  You're not
+fair to Evie, you aren't just--before God."
+
+The man made a gesture of fierce impatience.  He seemed on the verge of
+a furious outburst.  But the steady light of Nan's eyes was upon him.
+For some moments he gazed into their sweet depths, and their courage,
+their steadfastness, seemed to abash him.  He flung out his arms in a
+helpless gesture of appeal.
+
+"Nan, Nan!" he cried, in a voice of hopelessness.  "I can't argue it.
+I just can't.  I can't see things right.  I sure nearly am crazed.  The
+only thing I can see is the blood of poor Ronny on her--her hands.  The
+hands I've held in mine.  The hands I've kissed.  Oh, was there ever so
+foul----"
+
+"Yes, Jeff, there was.  There is."
+
+Nan's voice was low but thrilling with deep feeling.  She moved forward
+from her place at the table with a little rush.  The rustle of her
+skirts only ceased as she fell upon her knees at the man's side, and
+her warm brown hands clasped themselves upon the strong arm propped
+upon his knee.
+
+"It's a far, far fouler thing, this thing you've got fixed in your mind
+to do.  Oh, Jeff, dear, if I could speak the things as I feel them.
+But I can't.  It's all inside me mussed up and maybe foolish.  But, oh,
+I know I'm right I want to tell you something, and I don't just know
+how."
+
+Her eyes were gazing up into his, the soft brown eyes of the beautiful
+soul within.  She strove to compel his gaze, but it moodily withheld
+its regard.
+
+"Jeff, you'll kill poor Evie.  You'll break her heart by robbing her of
+all you've brought into her life through your love.  Say, can't you see
+it all?  And you'll do it for a shadow.  Yes, it's a shadow, an ugly
+shadow, this crazy thought of yours for a brother who was just a
+low-down cattle rustler, same as these toughs you're making a bid of
+ten thousand dollars to see hanged the same as he was.  Think of it,
+Jeff.  She's just a woman, weak and helpless, and you're going to rob
+her of all that makes her life worth while.  Would you act that way by
+a mother, or--or a sister?  And she's your wife, Jeff, who's given you
+all a loving woman has to give.  I could tell you of the things this
+means to you, and the schemes and plans you've sort of set your heart
+on, but I don't need to.  I just want you to see what you're doing by
+her, and all the time she's done you no wrong.  Do you get that, dear?
+Evie's never done you a wrong, and in return you're going to do all you
+know to kill her heart dead."
+
+"Done me no wrong?"  There was a desperate sort of sneer in the words.
+They were the words of a man who is robbed of denial but still protests.
+
+But Nan rejected even that.  She swiftly flung it back in her sense of
+the injustice of it.
+
+"It's as I said, Jeff.  Just as I said," she declared solemnly.  She
+drew a deep breath.  She was about to take a plunge which might bear
+her she knew not whither.  "Oh, I could get mad with you for that.  I
+could so, Jeff.  I know the story of it.  You've told it yourself, and
+I don't guess you've spared her any.  But you're blinding yourself
+because you're crazy to do so.  You're blinding yourself to all sense
+of justice to defend a wretched scallawag who happened to be your
+brother.  Say, you're trying to fix on your wife, the woman who loves
+you, and who you guess you love, all the dirt you should heap on the
+worthless man who lived by theft, and maybe, even, was a murderer.
+Say, don't speak.  Not just a single word.  Guess you can say all you
+need when I'm through," she cried, as the man, with eyes ablaze, sought
+to break in.  "When I'm through I'll listen.  Say, bring this right
+home here.  We're being robbed by cattle thieves.  I don't guess
+they're better or worse than your brother.  What if he'd been one of
+this gang?  If you'd got this gang, with him in it?  Would you've let
+him go and hanged the others?  Tell me.  Tell me right here and now."
+
+The man sprang from his seat.  He moved away to the window.
+
+"You're talking foolish," he flung over his shoulder.  "It's not the
+position.  My brother's deserts aren't in question.  It's Evie's act.
+My wife's act.  You're a woman and defend her.  How could you be
+expected to see a man's point of view?"
+
+"There can be no man's point of view in it," Nan cried warmly.  "I
+guess there's just one point.  The point of right and justice.  In
+justice she's not done a thing to make you act this way.  For your
+sake, for hers, for the sake of justice you'll have to go back to her."
+
+The man swung round.
+
+"You'd have me go back to her?" he cried in fierce derision.  "Say,
+you're crazy!  Go back to her feeling as I do?"
+
+"Feeling as you've no right to feel," Nan retorted swiftly.  Then in a
+flash her voice changed, dropping to a note of deep tenderness and
+sympathy.  "Say, Jeff, won't you go back?  Won't you?" she pleaded.
+"Think of all it means to her, to you.  Think of a poor woman driven to
+the depths of despair for a shadow you've nursed in your brain these
+years.  That's what it comes to.  I know.  Oh, Jeff, as sure as ther's
+just a great big God above us you'll pay for it if you don't.  You
+surely will."
+
+The man shifted his gaze.  The lids of his eyes drooped and hid from
+the waiting girl all that passionate feeling he had not hesitated to
+display.  She wondered as she waited.  She was fearful, too.
+
+In the man every sort of emotion was surging through him in a chaotic
+tangle.  Nothing seemed clear; anger, revolting, even hatred, all
+fought for place.  And through it all the pleading tones of the girl
+would not be denied.
+
+After a moment he suddenly flung out his arms.
+
+"I--I just can't, Nan!" he cried desperately.
+
+A wave of relief swept through Nan's heart.  He was yielding, and she
+knew it.  His manner had completely and abruptly changed.  She drew
+nearer to him.  Every honest art of persuasion was in her tender
+manner.  All self was forgotten in that moment of spiritual purpose.
+
+"But you can--if you will," she said, her brown eyes uplifted to his.
+"There isn't a thing you can't do--and you will.  And this is so small,
+Jeff.  So small.  Just think of that great big God somewhere up above
+waiting, waiting to help you.  He's always waiting to help us--any of
+us.  Ask Him.  Ask His help.  He'll give it you.  He surely will.  And
+He can clear away all this dreadful feeling.  It'll pass right away
+easy.  I know.  He's done things for me.  You just can't guess how
+much.  Say, Jeff, and when He's fixed you right, feeling that way,
+He'll show you, and tell you more.  He'll show you that Evie's act was
+not hers, but--His.  It was just His way of bringing Ronny's punishment
+back to you.  You see, Jeff, Ronny was part of you.  You said so.  And
+oh, He's wiser than you an' me.  And He figures this thing is best so.
+It's a little Cross, such a teeny one, He's set you to bear, and if
+you're the man I know and believe in, why, you'll just carry it without
+a squeal.  Then later you'll understand, and--you'll be real glad for
+it.  Will you--will you go back to her--to-morrow, Jeff?"
+
+Nan waited almost breathlessly.  She was watching him with a gaze that
+searched every detail of his face.  She saw the strong veins at his
+temples standing out, the usually clear eyes stained and bloodshot.
+She saw him raise one hand wearily to his forehead, and pass it back
+over his hair.  She knew the movement so well.  The sight of it
+thrilled her.  There was little about him she did not know and
+understand.
+
+"You've made it seem I'll have to, Nan," he said with desperate
+reluctance.
+
+For a moment a strange feeling of weakness came over the girl.  But she
+resolutely thrust it aside.
+
+"It's not me, Jeff," she disclaimed.  "You know it's not me.  And
+you'll--promise?"
+
+He nodded.
+
+"I'll go back to her, because--of you."
+
+A curious look of fear crept into the girl's eyes.
+
+"You'll go back, because--of her," she persisted.
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"Anyway--I'll go back."
+
+The words were roughly spoken.  But Nan accepted them.  It was all she
+could hope for.  And--well, she had done her best.
+
+She sighed deeply.  She glanced about her.  For a moment they dwelt
+upon the man who was denied her.  The man in whom she saw all that
+could ever make life worth while.
+
+"Good-night, Jeff."
+
+Her voice was very low and soft.
+
+"Good-night, Nan."  Then with a sudden outburst, as forceful as it was
+spontaneous: "God, if the world were only made up of women like you!"
+
+But the door had closed.  And as Nan crept to her bedroom, unrestrained
+tears coursed down her soft cheeks.  The full force of the irony of it
+all was too great for her.  He was going back to Elvine, and--she had
+sent him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE BARRIER
+
+Jeff was abroad at daylight.  Even Bud, whose habit was sunrise, had not
+yet wakened from his heavy slumbers.  But Nan was stirring.  She heard
+Jeff moving, and she saw him beyond her window.  She saw him bring his
+horse from the barn, saddled and bridled.  In a moment he had mounted and
+ridden away.  Then she dressed, and, for the rest, wondered at the
+possible outcome of it all.  Half an hour later the sun rose and the
+day's work began.
+
+When Jeff reached his home it was still wrapped in the habit of night.
+There was no one and nothing stirring, for, as yet, only the golden glow
+of the eastern sky promised the coming of day.
+
+His mood was bitter.  But his purpose was calculated and deliberate.  He
+had given his promise in answer to Nan's irresistible pleading.  But
+otherwise the man was completely unchanged.  He moved away down to the
+corrals, and leaned against the great lateral rails which closed the
+entrance.  The beasts within were chewing the cud, and still picking at
+the remains of their overnight feed.
+
+They were a goodly sight to eyes that understood the meaning of such
+things.  It was only one of a number of corrals similarly crowded with
+beasts, that were, for various reasons, herded in shelter at night.
+These were a few, a very few of the vast numbers which bore the familiar
+"O----" brand.  There were the outlying stations which harbored their
+hundreds.  There were the pastures with their complement of breeding
+cows.  Then there were the herds of two- and three-year-olds roaming the
+plains at their will, fattening for the buyers who came at intervals.
+
+Thoughts of these things compelled Jeff now.  And he saw what Nan had
+saved him from.  Wreck had been threatening in the course he had marked
+out for himself at first.  How could prosperity have maintained under the
+conditions he would have imposed?  Even now, under the modification which
+Nan had appealed for, he failed to see the continuation of that success
+he had striven so hard for.  The incentive was no longer in him, he told
+himself.  Where lay the use, the purpose in it all?  The future?  That
+dream future which had come to him could never mature now.  It was no
+longer a dream.  It was nightmare.
+
+He wondered why he had yielded to Nan's entreaty.  It all seemed so
+purposeless now in the broad light of day.  He could force himself to
+live with his wife--under the same roof.  Perhaps in time he could even
+meet her in daily intercourse.  She might even become a factor in the
+great work of the Obar.  But the joy of achievement had been snatched
+from him.  All that he had foreseen might be achieved in the work, even.
+But the process would have been completely robbed of its inspiration, and
+was therefore not to be counted worth while.
+
+The thought of the woman's regard for him left him cold.  He dwelt upon
+it.  Suddenly he wondered.  Two days ago he could not have thought of it
+without a thrill.  Now it meant--nothing.  He remembered Nan's appeal.
+Why--why had it affected him last night?  It had not been because
+of--Evie.
+
+Nan had talked of justice--duty.  He could see no appeal in either now.
+Why should he be forced to observance of the laws of justice, or--duty
+toward a woman who----?
+
+He stirred restlessly.  His attention was drawn to his horse.  He moved
+over to it and off-saddled.  Then he returned to his place at the corral.
+The sun was just breaking the horizon.  He heard sounds of life coming
+from the bunkhouse.
+
+Nan's appeal no longer convinced him--now that he was away from her.
+But--he had pledged his word.  He could not break his word to Nan,
+although he longed--madly longed to resaddle his horse and ride away, and
+leave behind him forever this place which had suddenly become so full of
+bitter memories.  No--he had pledged his word.
+
+Soon he must once more confront his wife.  He reviewed the possibilities.
+The night long he had spent in considering the position he intended to
+place before her.  Would she accept it?  And--what then?  The long days
+of work, unlit by any hope of the future.  The process of building,
+building, which all men desire, without that spark of delight which
+inspires the desire.  Just the drudgery of it.  The resulting wealth and
+commercial power of it maybe, but not one moment of the joy with which
+only two days before he had regarded the broad vista of the future.
+
+Now the smell of cooking reached him from the bunkhouse.  Several men
+were moving down toward the corrals.  He passed on toward the house.  A
+moment or so later he stood on the veranda gazing out at the streaming
+cattle as they moved toward the wide home pastures, under the practised
+hands of the ranchmen.  It was a sight to inspire any cattleman, and, for
+a moment, the brooding eyes of the master of it all lit with a flash of
+their former appreciation.  But the change was fleeting.  The blue depths
+clouded again.  The question once more flashed through his
+brain--what--what was the use of it all?
+
+None, none at all.  Every dream had been swept from his waking thoughts.
+Every enchanting emotion was completely dead.  The woman who had inspired
+the rose-tinted glasses through which he had gazed upon the future no
+longer had power so to inspire him.  By her own action she had taken
+herself out of his life.  She could never again become a part of it.  He
+would live on with her, under the same roof, a mockery of the life which
+their marriage imposed upon them.  He had pledged that to Nan, and he
+would not break his word to--Nan.  But love?  His love was gone.  It was
+dead.  And he knew that the ashes of that once passionate fire could
+never be stirred into being again.
+
+There was a rustle of skirts behind him.  He heard, but did not turn.  A
+fierce passion was rising to his brain, and he dared not turn until he
+had forced it under restraint.
+
+"You have come back, Jeff?"
+
+The voice was low and soft.  There was something tragically humble in its
+tone.
+
+The man turned.
+
+"Yes, Evie."  Then he added: "I told you I would."
+
+His voice was gentler than he knew.  The harshness of their previous
+meeting had gone out of it.  Nor was he aware of the change, nor of the
+reason, although in his mind was the memory of his promise to Nan.
+
+"And you'll tell me your decision--now?"
+
+The humility was heart-breaking.  Nor was the man unaffected by it.  He
+looked into the beautiful face, for the dark eyes were averted.  Then his
+gaze dropped to the charming figure daintily clad in a simple morning
+frock of subtle attraction.  But his eyes came back to the face with its
+crowning of beautiful dark hair, nor was there any change in their
+expression as a result of their survey.
+
+"As well now as later."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+For the first time Jeff found himself gazing into the wide dark eyes.
+There was pain in them.  Apprehension.  There were the signs about them
+of long sleepless nights.  He shut the sight of these things out by the
+process of turning away to observe the general movement going on in the
+near distance.
+
+"Guess there's no use to say a deal," he said, a curiously moody note
+taking possession of his voice.  "If I did, why, I'd likely say a whole
+heap more than a man may say to his wife.  Guess the right an' wrong of
+things had best lie in our hearts.  You know just what you did, and why
+you did it.  I know what you did, an' can only guess why you did it.  I
+don't figger any talk could convince either of us different to how we
+think and feel.  Maybe there's Someone knows the rights of this thing
+better than either of us.  That being so, I allow He'll ultimately fix
+things as He intends.  Meanwhile it's for us to do as we feel, just so
+far as our personal earthly concerns go."
+
+The coldness in his voice had grown, and it left Evie with a complete
+sense of hopelessness that was harder to bear than any fears which
+violence of language might have inspired.
+
+His pause was prolonged.  She made no effort to break it, she dared not
+break it.  For the man, he was gathering the threads of what he had to
+say so as to deliver it concretely.  He feared to prolong this interview.
+In view of his decision he must not risk any violent outbreak such as his
+feelings were even now striving to force upon him.
+
+"Maybe you'll remember what I said to you about Ronny just after we
+were--married.  I don't guess you'll have forgotten, seeing things are as
+they are.  What I said then stands now.  If you'd been a man I'd have
+shot you down in your tracks when I got to home last night.  That should
+say all that need be said about how I'm feeling now.  You aren't a man,
+and you're my wife.  Well--you're still my wife.  That means it's up to
+me to keep you as though this thing hadn't broken things up.  I intend to
+act as right as I can by you.  This is your home.  You must use it, if
+you feel that way.  The Obar has to go on.  It's your means of living.
+It's my means of living.  Then there are others concerned in it.  For
+these reasons I shall carry on things, and your knowledge of this sort of
+work should hand you a reasonable share in the running of this place.  If
+you feel you can act this way, without remembering we're man and wife,
+why, I guess we can agree to live our--separate--lives under the same
+roof.  If you don't feel you can do this, why, you need to say so right
+here an' now, an' state your wishes.  I'll do my best to carry them
+through, provided you understand our lives are separate from now on.  Do
+you get that?"
+
+Did she get it?  Could there be any mistaking those cold tones, that
+ruthless decision?
+
+From slightly behind him Elvine had stood watching with straining eyes
+the still figure, speaking with so obvious a repression of feeling, his
+eyes steadily fixed upon the distant horizon.  Once or twice an ominous
+flush had suddenly flamed up in her eyes.  A deep flush had stained her
+cheeks.  But as he ceased speaking the same shrinking, the same humility
+marked her attitude.  She knew instinctively she dared not say the things
+she was yearning to pour out.  She knew instinctively that any such
+course would at once break down that thin veneer of restraint he was
+exercising.  And for perhaps the first time in her life she stood awed
+and cowed by a man.
+
+But this woman was the slave of her passions, and she knew it.  It was
+this now that made a coward of her.  With all the power of self in her
+she had abandoned herself to her love for her husband.  And, with slavish
+submission, she was prepared to accept his words rather than banish
+herself out of his presence altogether.  A mad, wild hope lay somewhere
+deep down in her heart that some day he could be made to forget.  That
+some day, through what looked to her like endless days of devotion and
+help, she might win back something of what she had lost.  She knew her
+own attraction.  She knew her own powers.  Might there not then be hope
+in the dim future?
+
+She had no pride where Jeff was concerned.  She wanted him.  His love was
+all life to her now.  If she had followed the natural course which should
+have been hers and refused his proposal, she would have been closing the
+door, finally, upon all that made life possible.  If she submitted there
+still remained to her the vaguest possible shadow of hope.  This was her
+thought and motive in the crisis with which she was faced, and her
+calculations were made out of her yearning, and without true
+understanding of the man with whom she was dealing.
+
+Jeff awaited her decision under an enforced calm.
+
+"It's for you to say," she said, after some moments.  "Nor is the choice
+mine.  I shall obey.  You've said I can help in the work.  Maybe it's my
+right.  I'll claim that right anyway.  It's the only right I'll claim.
+I've only one other thing to say, and maybe you'll let me speak it this
+once."
+
+"Go on."
+
+"I didn't guess I was doing wrong.  I don't know now I did wrong.
+Anyway, if what I did was wrong it's against God's laws and not man's.
+Maybe you've a right to punish me.  I don't know.  Anyway, my life and
+interests are bound to yours, and I want you to know every effort of mine
+will be to further--your interests.  This has made no change in me--that
+way.  You can trust me as you'd trust yourself.  I'm not here to squeal
+for any mercy from you, Jeff.  And maybe some day you'll--understand.  I
+guess your breakfast's ready.  I'll have mine later."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Later in the day Elvine rode out from the ranch house.  Nor did she
+concern herself with her object, nor her course, beyond a wild desire for
+the solitude of the hills.  The full torture of the new life, on the
+threshold of which she now stood, had not come upon her until after the
+effects of her interview with her husband had had time to calm down.
+Then to remain in the house, which had become a sort of prison to her,
+was made impossible.  She must get out.  She must break into activity.
+She felt that occupation alone could save her reason.
+
+So she struck out for the hills.  Their claim of earlier days was upon
+her.  The hills, and their wooded valleys.  Their brooding calm, their
+dark shadows, their mysterious silence.  These things claimed her mood.
+
+She rode recklessly across the wide spread of Rainbow-Hill Valley.  She
+had no thought for the horse under her.  She would have welcomed the
+pitfalls which mighty have robbed her of the dreadful consciousness of
+the disaster which had overwhelmed her.  She was striving to flee from
+thoughts from which she knew there was no escape.  She was striving to
+lose herself in the activities of the moment.
+
+The switchback of the plain rose and fell under her horse's busy hoofs.
+It rose higher, and ever higher, as she approached the western slopes.
+She left the fenced pastures behind her, and the last signs of the life
+to which she was now committed.  Before her the woodlands rose up
+shrouded in their dark foliage.  The mourning aspect of the pines suited
+her temper; she felt as though their drooping boughs were in harmony with
+the bereavement of her soul.
+
+She plunged amidst the serried aisles of leafless trunks with something
+like welcome for their shadows.  She rode on regardless of distance and
+direction.
+
+From the crest of a hill she looked down upon narrow mountain creek
+surging between borders of pale green foliage.  The sound of the waters
+came up to her, and the wilderness of it all appealed, as, at that
+moment, nothing else could have appealed.  She pressed her blowing horse
+forward, and rode down to the banks so densely overgrown.
+
+She leaped from the saddle.  She relieved her horse of its saddle and
+flung herself upon the mossy ground in the shelter of a cluster of
+spruce.  The humid heat was oppressive.  The tumbling waters were unable
+to stir the atmosphere.  But their music was soothing, and the sight of
+their turbulent rush seemed to hold sympathy for her troubled heart.  And
+so she lay there, her head propped upon a supporting hand, and yielded
+herself to the sway of her emotions.
+
+After a while tears dimmed her eyes.  They overflowed down her cheeks.
+She had reached the end of endurance before yielding to her woman's
+pitiful weakness.  Time had no meaning now.  Place had lost its
+influence.  She saw nothing, knew nothing but the trouble which had
+robbed her of all she lived for.
+
+Then came the inevitable.  Her tears eventually relaxed the tension of
+her nerves, and, after several ineffectual attempts to keep them open,
+the weight of the atmosphere closed her eyes and yielded her the final
+mercy of sleep.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Elvine awoke with a start.  She awoke with the conviction of the presence
+of the man she had met in the hill regions before.  She knew some one was
+near her, but, for the moment----
+
+Yes.  She sat up.  A pair of brown eyes were gazing down into hers.  Then
+came the voice, and it was low, and gentle.  It had nothing startling in
+it.
+
+"Why, say, an' I've been hunting your trail this hour, taking you
+for--some one else."
+
+Nan had been standing with her arm linked through her horse's reins.  Now
+she relinquished them, and flung herself upon the ground before the
+startled woman.
+
+Elvine stared at her with unease in her dark eyes.  Nor did she gain
+reassurance from the pretty face with its soft brown hair, and the
+graceful figure beneath its brown cloth riding suit.  Yet she was not
+insensible to the companionship.  Her greater fears had been of the man,
+Sikkem, who had been in her waking thoughts.
+
+"You were following my tracks?" she demanded uncertainly.
+
+Nan's eyes grew grave.
+
+"I certainly was.  Though I didn't guess they were yours.  Say, you must
+have crossed the tracks I was following," she added thoughtfully.  "Did
+you see anybody?  Four fellers?  Mighty tough-looking citizens, an'
+strangers?"
+
+The frankness of the girl reestablished confidence.
+
+Elvine sat up.
+
+"No," she said.  Then the wonder of it possessed her.  "But you--you
+alone were following on the tracks of four tough strangers?" she cried
+incredulously.
+
+Nan smiled.  Her smile was pretty.  It was a confident, wise little smile.
+
+"Sure," she said.  "I saw them, and it was up to me.  You see, Evie, we
+folks out here kind of need to think diff'rent.  A girl can't just help
+being a girl, but when rustlers are around, raising small Cain with her
+men-folks' goods, why, she's got to act the way they would when they
+light on a suspicious trail.  I was guessing that track would lead me
+somewhere.  But," she added with a grimace, "I wasn't as smart as I
+figgered.  You must have crossed it, an' I lost 'em."
+
+"But can't you get back to it?  Maybe I can help some.  I've followed a
+trail before," Elvine added, in a tone which Nan understood better than
+the other knew.
+
+But the girl shook her head.
+
+"My plug is tired, and there's the chase back to home.  I guess we'll
+leave 'em, and just--report.  But there's something doing.  I mean
+something queer.  These folk don't reckon to show themselves in daytime,
+and I guess they were traveling from the direction of Spruce Crossing."
+
+"That's where the man Sikkem's stationed," said Elvine.
+
+"Sure.  But I don't guess they been near his shanty.  They wouldn't fancy
+gettin' around Sikkem's lay-out in daytime.  You see, he's--sudden."
+
+Nan's confidence was not without its effect.  But Elvine was less sure.
+
+"This Sikkem.  I don't like him.  But----"
+
+Nan dismissed the matter in her own way.
+
+"Sikkem's been on the ranch nigh three years.  He's a cattleman first,
+and hates rustlers worse than poison.  But he's tough.  Oh, he's tough,
+all right.  I wouldn't gamble a pea-shuck he hasn't quite a dandy bunch
+of notches on his gun.  But we're used to his sort."
+
+Then she went on in a reflective fashion as though hollowing out a train
+of thought inspired by the man under discussion:
+
+"Sort o' seems queer the way we see things.  Right here on the prairie we
+mostly take folks on trust, an' treat 'em as we find 'em.  Maybe they're
+wanted for all sorts of crimes.  Maybe they done a turn in penitentiary.
+Maybe they even shot up folk cold.  These things don't signify a cent
+with us so they handle cattle right, and are ready to push lead into any
+bunch of rustlers lyin' around.  Guess it's environment makes us that
+way.  The prairie's so mighty wide it helps us folks to get wide."
+
+Evie was watching the play of the girl's expressive eyes.
+
+"I wonder--if you're right."
+
+"Mostly, I guess."
+
+"Mostly?"
+
+Nan nodded.
+
+"It isn't easy to condemn amongst folks on the prairie," she said with a
+sigh.
+
+Elvine shook her head.  Her eyes were turned from the girl.  They were
+staring down into the turbulent stream.
+
+"I don't think I've found it that way."
+
+"How?"
+
+The interrogation was natural.  But it brought Elvine's eyes sharply to
+the girl's, and, for a moment, they gazed steadily into each other's.
+
+Then the woman's graceful shoulders went up.
+
+"I see you know."
+
+"And--you aren't mad with me for knowing?  You aren't mad with Jeff for
+me knowing?  I wanted you to know I knew.  I wanted to tell you I knew,
+only I didn't just know how to tell you.  Then I wanted to tell
+you--something else."
+
+There was simple sincerity in every word the girl spoke.  The light in
+her eyes was shining with truth.  Elvine saw it, and knew these things
+were so, and, in her loneliness of heart, in her brokenness of spirit,
+she welcomed the chance of leaning for support upon a soul so obviously
+strong and sympathetic.  She yielded now as she would never have believed
+it possible to yield.
+
+Suddenly she raised her hands to her head and pressed her fingers to her
+temples.
+
+"Oh, I--I don't know what to do.  I sort of feel I just can't--can't stop
+around.  And yet----  Oh, I love him so I can't, daren't leave him
+altogether.  You can't understand, child, no one can.  You--oh, you've
+never known what love is, my dear.  I'm mad--mad for him.  And--and I can
+never come into his life again."
+
+She dropped her hands from her head in a movement that to Nan seemed as
+though she were wringing them.  Nan's own heart was thumping in her
+bosom.  She, too, could have cried out.  But her eyes steadily, and
+almost tenderly, regarded the woman who had taken Jeff from her.
+
+"You must stop around," she said in a low, firm tone.  "Say, Evie, I
+don't guess I'm bright, or clever, or anything like that.  I don't reckon
+I know things different to other folk.  But just think how it would be if
+you went away now.  You'd never see Jeff again, maybe, and he'd never
+know just how you love him.  You see, men-folk are so queer, too.  Maybe
+Jeff's right, and you and me are wrong.  Maybe we're right, and he's all
+wrong.  I can't say.  But I tell you Jeff needs you now--more than ever.
+He don't know it, maybe.  But he wants you, and if you love him you'll
+just--stand by.  Oh, I could tell you of a thousand ways you can help
+him.  A thousand ways you can show him your love without telling him.  It
+means a hard fight for you.  I know.  And maybe you'll think he isn't
+worth it.  But he is--to you.  You love him.  And any man a woman loves
+is worth to her every sacrifice she can make.  I don't know.  Maybe you
+got to be punished, not by us folk, not for what you done to Jeff.  But
+Someone guesses you got to be punished, and this is the way He's fixed
+it.  Say, Evie, you won't let go of things, will you?  Maybe you can't
+see ahead just now.  But you will--later.  You love Jeff, and he just
+loves you, though he's sort of blind to it now.  But he loves you, an' no
+one else.  He wouldn't act the way he's doing if it weren't so.  I sort
+of felt I must say all this to you.  I--I don't know why--just.  But I
+won't ever talk like this again.  I haven't a right, I know.  But I don't
+mean harm.  I don't sure.  And if you'll let me help you anyway I can
+I'll--be real glad."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THREATENINGS
+
+The offer of reward for the rustlers operating in Rainbow Hill Valley
+was without the desired effect.  It was worse.  The men against whom it
+was directed received it with deliberate but secretly expressed
+contempt.  Nor did Chance serve the masters of the Obar, as four years
+before She had served Dug McFarlane.
+
+Nor was the failure due to lack of effort.  Bud left no stone unturned.
+And Jeff--well, Jeff did all a man could.  The hills were scoured, and
+the deeps and hidden hollows of the greater foothills.  The notices of
+reward were sent broadcast, even penetrating to the Orrville country.
+They were set up as Jeff had promised, on tree trunks in the remoter
+hills where any chance eye might discover them.  Where undoubtedly the
+men who constituted the gang must sooner or later discover them.
+
+The only response was a continuation of the raids.
+
+But a distinct change had taken place in the method of these.  Whereas,
+originally, they had been directed against not only the Obar Ranch, but
+wherever opportunity offered in the district, they now fastened their
+vampire clutches upon the Obar only, and, finally, on only one section
+of its territory: the land which belonged to Jeff's side of the
+partnership.
+
+So marked was this that it could not be missed.
+
+The partners were out at a distant station where they had been urgently
+summoned.  A young "hand" had been wounded, a nasty flesh wound in the
+arm.  He had been bringing in a small bunch of steers which had strayed
+to a distant hollow in the hills.  It had been overnight.  He was held
+up, and shot by three outlaws, and his cattle run off.
+
+It was Bud who voiced the thought of both partners immediately after a
+close interrogation of the injured man.
+
+"Looks like some low-bred son-of-a-hobo owes you a reckonin' he's
+yearnin' to git quit of, Jeff," he said, the moment they were alone.
+"They're workin' this way all the time.  They ain't so much as smelt
+around the old 'T.T.' territory in days.  D'you make it that way?"
+
+Jeff nodded.
+
+"Sure."
+
+But he made no attempt to throw enlightenment.
+
+"Guess you signed the reward."
+
+Bud watched the shadowed serious face of his friend.
+
+"Maybe it's that."  There was something like indifference in the
+younger man's manner.
+
+Perhaps it was this manner which stirred Bud's impatience and drove him
+to resentment.
+
+"Say," he cried, in fiercely vibrant tones, "d'you know what it is I
+got in my head?  It's the 'hands' on our range.  Sure.  Ther's some
+lousy guy on the Obar working in with the gang.  Cowpunchers are a
+mongrel lot anyway.  Ther' ain't one but 'ud souse the sacrament wine
+ef the passon wa'an't lookin' on.  I guess we'll need to chase up the
+penitentiary re-cord of every blamed thief on our pay-roll.  Maybe the
+cinch we're lookin' fer lies that way."
+
+"It's curious."
+
+"Curious?  Gee, it's rotten!"
+
+The old man's patience completely gave way.
+
+"See right here, Jeff.  I ain't rattled.  Not a thing.  But ther's got
+to be some guts put into this thing, an' you an' me's got to find 'em.
+See?  I'm sick to death.  Right here an' now I tell you ther's goin' to
+be a rotten piece of trouble around this lay-out, an' I'm goin' to be
+in it--right up to my back teeth."
+
+It was perhaps the first time Bud had displayed impatience with the man
+who had always been the leading spirit of their enterprise.  The truth
+was, something seemed to have gone out of Jeff.  He neglected nothing.
+He spared himself no pains.  His physical efforts seemed even to have
+become greater as the days passed.  Frequently, now, night as well as
+day found him in the saddle watching over their interests.  He had
+become a sort of restless spirit urging forward the work, and watching,
+watching with the lynx eyes dreaded so much by the men who served him.
+But for all that something had certainly gone out of him, and Bud knew
+and feared its going.
+
+If Bud knew and feared the change, he also knew the cause of it.
+Neither he nor Nan were blind to the drama silently working out in the
+other household.  It was bitterly plain and almost heart-breaking to
+the onlookers.  The same roof sheltered husband and wife.  But no
+unnecessary word was spoken between them.  Their meals were taken
+apart.  They were as completely and coldly separate as though they
+occupied opposite poles.  And the girl who recognized these things, and
+the man who watched them, only wondered how long it must be before the
+final disaster came upon them.
+
+Jeff's moods had become extraordinarily variable.  There were moments
+when his moroseness became threatening.  The canker at his heart was
+communicating itself to his whole outlook, and herein lay the failure
+in his work.
+
+It was the realization of all this which stirred Bud's impatience.  He
+knew that unless a radical change was quickly brought about, the
+vaunted Obar had certainly reached and probably passed its zenith.
+
+Finally, he opened his heart to the sure sympathy of Nan.  He had
+purposely taken her with him on a boundary inspection amongst the
+foothills.  They were riding through a silent hollow where quiet seemed
+to lie on the top of everything.  Even their horses' hoofs failed to
+make an impression upon it.  Peace was crowding the woodland slopes, a
+peace profound and unbreakable.
+
+"The Obar's struck a mighty bad patch, Nan," he said abruptly.  "Ef
+things kep hittin' their present gait, why, I don't jest see wher'
+we're to strike bottom.  The pinch ain't yet, but you can't never kick
+out a prop without shakin' the whole darned buildin' mighty bad.  An'
+that's how the Obar's fixed.  Ther's a mighty big punch gone plumb out
+o' Jeff's fight, an', well, I guess we're needin' all our punch to fix
+the things crowdin' around us."
+
+"You mean the rustlers?"  Nan drove to the heart things without
+hesitation.
+
+"Sure.  Them an'--other things."
+
+The girl nodded.  She knew the other things without asking.
+
+"Jeff's in a heap of--trouble," she said with a sigh.
+
+"An' looks like carryin' us along with him--ef we ain't watchin'
+around."
+
+"We've always kind of leaned on Jeff."
+
+"Most folks are ready to lean, Nan.  It sort o' saves 'em a deal of
+trouble."
+
+"Yes.  Till you kick the prop away."
+
+"Sure.  Our prop's been kicked away, an' we've jest got to git right up
+on to our hind legs an'--git busy.  The leanin' racket's played out fer
+us.  We got to hand Jeff a prop now, an' see it don't git kicked away.
+See?"
+
+For some moments the girl's gaze searched straight ahead of her down
+the valley.  And into her eyes there grew a gentle light of enthusiasm.
+Suddenly she turned upon the great figure on its horse beside her.
+
+"We've stood up on our own years, Daddy--before Jeff came along.  We
+can stand now, can't we?  I guess we're not going to fail Jeff now he's
+in trouble.  Jeff's been all for us.  We're going to be all for him.
+He needs us, Daddy, and--I'm glad in a way.  Say, my heart nigh breaks
+every time I peek into his poor sad an' troubled face.  Jeff's just
+beating his soul dead.  And if the Obar gets wrong, it'll sure be the
+end of everything for him.  It mustn't, Daddy.  Things mustn't go
+wrong.  'Deed they mustn't.  It's up to us.  You must show me how,
+Daddy.  You're wise to it all.  You're strong.  You know.  Show me.
+Put me wise, an' I'll--take Jeff's place."
+
+The girl's words came full of a passionate sincerity.  There were no
+half measures in this child of the prairie.  Her love was given, a
+wealth of generous feeling and loyal self-sacrifice.  Her father read
+with a rare understanding.  And in his big heart, so rough, so warm, he
+cursed with every forceful epithet of his vocabulary the folly of the
+man he had marked out for a son.
+
+"We'll make good, or--bust," he said, with a warmth that almost matched
+the girl's.
+
+Then he pointed ahead where the hollow opened out, and a large clump of
+trees marked dividing ways.
+
+"I guessed you'd best see this.  It's one o' them notions o' Jeff's.
+That play ain't worth a cent."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+They rode up to the bluff in silence.  And after a moment's search Bud
+drew rein before a heavy tree trunk, to which was secured a printed
+sheet.  He pointed at it, and, for a while, neither spoke.  Nan was
+taking in the disfigurements with which it was covered, and she read
+the words written across it in bold but illiterate characters:
+
+"We're wise to her.  She don't git no second chanst."
+
+The rest of the disfigurings were mischievous, and of almost indecent
+character.
+
+"Does Jeff know?"  Nan's question was almost a whisper.
+
+"I ain't told him."
+
+Bud's reply was one of doubt.
+
+"He--he ought to be told."
+
+Then Bud suddenly abandoned the restraint he had been exercising.
+
+"Oh ----!  Ther' ain't no use.  He can't do a thing.  He wouldn't do a
+thing.  I tell you we're jest suckin'-kids in this racket.  We got to
+lie around crazy enough to fancy we're goin' to git the drop on these
+bums.  What a country!  What a cuss of a lay-out wher' you got to set
+around watching a darnation gang o' toughs whittlin' away your work
+till they got you beat to a mush.  Here, I'm goin' to start right in.
+I'm goin' to get around Calthorpe.  The sheriff's got to git busy, an'
+earn his monthly pay check.  We'll hev to raise vigilantes.  I tell you
+they'll break us else.  Ef Jeff can't see, why, he'll hev to be made
+to.  Blast their louse-bound souls to hell!"
+
+And Nan welcomed the outburst.  Rough, coarse, violent.  It did not
+matter.  What mattered to her was the purpose.  The purpose which she
+hoped and prayed would help Jeff.  She had no thought for themselves.
+Their end of the enterprise never came into her considerations.  She
+was thinking of Jeff.  Solely of Jeff--the man she loved better than
+her life.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The change in Elvine was no less marked than it was in Jeff.  But it
+was a change in a wholly different direction.  She was deeply subdued,
+even submissive in her attitude.  But now after the first crisis and
+its accompanying pain, a general relief was apparent.  A relief which
+anything but indicated the hopelessness which had at the first
+overwhelmed her.  She was not hopeless.  Therein lay the key of the
+matter.
+
+From the time when she had passed through those moments of frenzied
+despair, after Jeff's return from Orrville, her decision had been taken
+with lightning celerity.  Her back was to the wall, and she meant to
+fight for all she yearned, desired, by every art she possessed.  She
+knew nothing of the reason which had made her husband return to her.
+It was sufficient that he had done so.  It gave her the vague, wild
+hope she needed, and with all her might she intended to set herself to
+the task of winning back her position in his regard.
+
+She was not logical.  Had she been, she must have accepted the
+alternative of freedom offered her, and, on a liberal allowance,
+betaken herself to some selfish, worldly life which might have appealed
+to her.  No, she was not logical.  Had she been, she would never have
+loved this man as she now knew better than ever she loved him.  She was
+not logical, but she had courage.  It was the same courage which had
+driven her to fight for that which she had desired years ago.  She was
+going to fight now.  And again it was for selfish motives.  Only this
+time they took the form of the love of the man she| had married.
+
+She set to work from the very start.  Her attractions she knew were
+great.  Jeff must be made to realize them.  He must be made to realize
+all a woman could mean in this life which was theirs.  She would
+unobtrusively study his interests to the last degree.  His position in
+the ranching world would give her ample scope in this.  Then there was
+the work of the ranch.  Here her earlier experiences would help her
+materially.
+
+So she laid for herself a deliberate campaign.  Always counting that
+his lightest command was her law, and nothing must be permitted to
+display her desire to break down the barrier he had set up between them.
+
+Two days of deep consideration showed her her course.  And once having
+marked it out she set about following it.
+
+Her house was her first care.  It must be ordered as no other house of
+its kind was ordered.  She thought of every expressed wish of his
+during their brief engagement and honeymoon, and sorted it into its
+place in scheme.
+
+Then came her place in the work of the range.  This was more difficult
+to take at once by reason of lack of precedent.  But by tactful
+watchfulness she felt it could be accomplished.  Her first step must be
+to impress on Lal Hobhouse her intention, and, in this, even sooner
+than she had dared to hope, she managed to secure a footing.  Once her
+mind was set to achieve a purpose her capacity was beyond all question,
+and in these troublous times of rustlers the foreman was more than
+content to welcome her aid.
+
+Throughout these days she rarely obtruded herself upon the man she
+desired most in the world.  He might almost have been non-existent.
+The rare moments in which he spoke to her were met with a cool reserve
+on her part, which left nothing to be desired, and gave no opportunity
+for the reopening of those matters which had brought about the
+position.  Indeed, Elvine had more than reason to be satisfied with her
+work.
+
+She felt at last that the worst was over, and now it remained for her
+to win back, step by step, the lost ground, until she had restored
+herself to her position.  It could be done.  It should be done, she
+told herself.  She admitted no crime against him.  Then where was the
+justice of it?  Anyway, that fierce dread was off her mind.  She knew
+the worst now.  She no longer stood on the brink of an abyss of
+doubt----
+
+She was in her bedroom considering these things.  It was a golden
+evening and the setting sun was shining athwart her windows.  Quite
+suddenly the simple sewing in her fingers dropped upon her lap, and her
+startled eyes turned upon the wide view of the valley bathed in the
+perfect evening light.
+
+Was she no longer standing upon that brink?  The question flashed
+through her mind as she remembered an incident until then completely
+lost in the greater issues.  It was the threat of that scrawled note
+which had been flung in at that very window.  She even remembered the
+sensation of the blow which had awakened her on the night of torture
+during which she had waited for Jeff's return from Orrville.
+
+She sprang to her feet.  Every other thought was swept from her mind.
+And, for a moment, fresh panic stirred her veins.  The words of that
+message.  They were unforgettable.
+
+
+"You sold the lives of men for a price.  You had your way then.  We're
+goin' to have our way now.  You'll pay for that deal the only way we
+know."
+
+
+The only way we know!  Her memory flew to the man Sikkem.  Oh, she knew
+him.  She had recognized him on the instant of their meeting.  She knew
+he came from Orrville.  She had seen him there.  But----  Was he one of
+the original Orrville gang, all unsuspected, or, at least, if not
+unsuspected, _unknown_ to be?
+
+While she pondered the subject she heard her husband's arrival.  She
+heard him cross the veranda and, pass into the house.
+
+Then again she took up the thread of her thought.  This man Sikkem.  If
+he were one of the Orrville gang, what was more likely than that he
+should have sent that threat?  If he sent it, what more likely than
+that he was one of the gang of rustlers operating here?  If he were one
+of them, then what added significance did it give threat?
+
+A wave of sudden excitement replaced the panic of a moment before.
+"The only way we know."  Did that mean raiding her husband's stock and
+endeavoring so to ruin the Obar?  It looked like it.  It would account
+for what was being done.  But no.  That might be part of what was
+contained in the threat.  But not all.  The only way we know!  The only
+way this class of man understood paying off a score was different from
+that.  With these men it was always a life for a life.  Whose?  Hers?
+It might be.
+
+The sun had sunk beyond the mountain peaks.  In the adjoining
+living-room she heard the clatter of supper things.  Jeff was having
+his meal in the solitude which had become their habit.
+
+If it were her life they intended it would not much matter.  But was
+it?  Would they punish her that way?  To her it did not suggest the
+refinement of cruelty which would appeal to them.  No, there were other
+signs.  Their purpose looked to be to ruin the Obar, and then--what
+then?  Rob her of the man she loved?  It could be done.  It would be
+easy, and surely the refinement of it would appeal to natures so
+ruthless.
+
+Her sewing had dropped to the floor.  Mechanically she picked it up.
+Then and there she purposed to break in upon her husband's meal.  But
+she hesitated, and the impulse passed.  Instead, she went to a drawer
+in her bureau and withdrew the folded paper.  She read it over and
+returned to her seat.  Decision was lacking.  Her interpretation of the
+threat had taken strong hold upon her, but she could not decide what
+best to do.  Her fine eyes were troubled as she gazed out into the
+growing dusk.  Dared she go to him?  Would he listen?
+
+But once more her thoughts were diverted.  The sound of a great clatter
+of hoofs reached her from the other side of the house.  Some one had
+ridden up to the veranda at a great pace.  Who?  And what could the
+urgency be at such an hour?
+
+She heard Jeff moving in the living-room.  She heard him pass out on to
+the veranda.  Then curiosity, perhaps apprehension, urged her.  She
+passed to the window beyond her bureau, which was near the angle of the
+building, and leaned out of it.  Ordinary tones on the veranda would
+reach her there.
+
+She waited, breathing lightly lest her hearing should be impaired.  A
+strange voice was talking.  She could not place it.  It was rough, and
+the language was rough.  No doubt it was one of the "hands" from some
+outlying point.
+
+"They got him through the chest, an' I guess he's goin' to pass in.  He
+sez to me, 'Ride like hell an' fetch the boss.  Tell him I got 'em
+plumb wher' he wants 'em.  I located their lay-out.  I ain't got above
+an hour or so to tell him in.  Just hike an' ride like ----!'"
+
+Then came Jeff's voice cold and undisturbed.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Why, by his shack at Spruce Crossing.  He jest got in, an' nigh fell
+plumb in his tracks out o' the saddle.  I don't guess any feller but
+Sikkem could ha' done it.  He's tough--mighty tough."
+
+Sikkem!  Elvine moved from the window.  Sikkem!  Her heart was pounding
+in her bosom, and, for a moment, her brain seemed in a whirl.  Sikkem
+had discovered the raiders and was willing to give them away.  In a
+flash she was back in Orrville, and her mind was searching amongst
+shadowy memories that had suddenly become acute.  Sikkem!  Sikkem!  No.
+She must see Jeff.  She must tell him of--Sikkem.  She must warn him,
+and show him her note.  A sudden, crushing foreboding descended upon
+her, and she hurried toward the door.
+
+In a few seconds she was on the veranda confronting her husband.  For a
+moment her courage well-nigh failed her.  Jeff was standing with his
+back turned toward the sunset.  The ranchman was no longer there.  He
+had gone to the barn to order a fresh saddle horse for the master of
+the Obar.  Apparently Jeff had turned to repass into the house.
+
+His fair strong face, serious and cold, was turned directly upon the
+beautiful figure of his wife, and it was the coldness of it that
+daunted her now.
+
+"Well?"
+
+The bitterness of that frigid, surprised inquiry was crushing.  Elvine
+looked into his eyes for one single shadow of softening.  She could
+find none.  It shocked the hope she had been steadily building in her
+heart.
+
+She had no words in which to answer.  She stood thus for one uncertain
+moment.  Then she thrust out her hand.  It contained the threatening
+message.
+
+"Will you read that--at once?"
+
+His cold regard dropped from her face.  The man noted the dirty paper
+in her soft white hand.  Then he took it.  Nor did their hands come
+into contact.
+
+"Is it a matter of importance?"
+
+Elvine could have cried out with the stab of the question.  Only some
+matter of vital importance justified her action in his eyes.  Her gaze
+was averted to hide her pain.
+
+"I should not have come to you otherwise."
+
+The man moved to the edge of the veranda to obtain more of the dying
+light.  At that moment the ranchman approached with two saddle horses.
+Elvine scrutinized him carefully.  He was a complete stranger to her.
+
+Jeff had read the note.  He stood regarding the ranchman.  Suddenly his
+voice broke sharply.
+
+"Leave my horse at the tying post.  Wait for me at the barn."
+
+He watched the man secure his horse.  Then he watched him return to the
+barn.  Nor did he speak again till he was out of earshot.
+
+At last he turned back to the waiting woman.
+
+"Who sent this?  When did you get it?  How?"  The questions came
+rapidly.
+
+"It came the night you were at Orrville.  It was flung in through the
+open window late at night.  I'd fallen asleep in my chair--waiting.  It
+hit me on the face.  They'd made it fast around a grass-tuft."
+
+"Who sent it?"
+
+"It must have been the man, Sikkem, who's just sent in word to you
+he's--shot up."
+
+"Sikkem?  Why?"
+
+Suddenly the restraint Elvine was exercising gave way.  Even her
+husband's deliberate coldness was powerless to stem the tide of
+conviction which had steadily mounted up within her.  The one thought
+in her mind was that he stood in danger.  Her reason was slight enough,
+but her love accentuated her intuition.  She saw in her mind the
+claiming of the toll these men demanded, and to her swift imagination
+the picture of her husband's murder was complete before her eyes.
+
+"Sikkem comes from Orrville.  He was there--four years ago.  There was
+more than suspicion attached to him.  My first day here I met him.
+Maybe you'll remember.  He knew me at once.  I don't guess there was
+any mistake.  And I knew him.  When he heard I was--married to you he
+pretended he'd mistaken me for--some one else.  And when he explained
+who, and his feelings against that woman--it was me he was
+describing--I knew he was, as was suspected, one of the Lightfoot gang
+at Orrville.  Sikkem wrote that note.  I could stake my life on it.
+And--now he's sent for you.  He's asking you to go out to Spruce
+Crossing--at night.  A distant, lonely point in the hills.  He says
+he's mortally wounded.  He has found the rustlers hiding.  Of course he
+has.  He's known all along.  Nor do I believe he's wounded.  He--and
+the others--think the only way to get back on me is--through you.  They
+mean to kill you.  Who's the boy who brought in word?"
+
+"A new 'hand' we've taken on to replace the boy who was shot up two
+days back."
+
+"One of the gang."
+
+The woman spoke with a decision she did not realize.  But her belief
+had become conviction.  No shadow of doubt remained.
+
+Jeff gazed thoughtfully down at the note.  When he raised his eyes his
+regard had undergone a shadow of change.
+
+There was less coldness in them.  He shrugged.
+
+"Guess we'll leave that at present.  Why all this now?"
+
+"Because your life's in danger.  That's how I figure."
+
+There was a deep note of urgency in the woman's voice.  Her eyes were
+alight with a sudden, unmistakable emotion.  But even if the man
+realized these things he ignored them.
+
+"My life?"  There was something cruelly biting in the reflection.  "And
+all this time you knew--Sikkem.  You knew we were being raided."
+
+"I----"  Elvine broke off.
+
+She had no reply.  There could be no reply.  Why, she wondered in
+sudden horror, had she not told of this thing before?
+
+She stood with downcast eyes before the accusing glance of the man.
+Then, after a moment's pause, a sound escaped his lips.  And in it was
+every thinkable expression of condemnation and contempt.
+
+"Tchah!"
+
+He turned away and strode across to his horse.  The woman's voice came
+to him low, despairing, appealing.
+
+"For God's sake, Jeff, don't go!  You won't go!  They'll kill you!  Oh,
+God!  Jeff!  Oh!"
+
+The final exclamation came in a sort of moan as the man swung himself
+into the saddle, and, without a word, turned his horse and rode away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE HEARTS OF TWO WOMEN
+
+The figure was silent, motionless upon the veranda.  The eyes were dull
+and lifeless.  It was as though paralysis held the woman in its grip.
+
+"Tchah!"
+
+The echo of that fierce expletive remained.  It rang through heart and
+brain.  Its sting was hot.  It seared its way through the life channels
+and blasted all hope.
+
+Was there ever such contempt, such scorn, such repulsion, concentrated
+in one single ejaculation!  It told the woman everything.  It told of a
+failure so complete that hope became an emotion driven forever from her
+heart.  It told her that the usury of life was beyond all belief.  It
+told her that the interest demanded for every pledged moment was
+without pity, or mercy, or justice.  Now she knew how she had pawned,
+and, oh God, the interest which was being torn from her!
+
+Her gaze remained upon the angle of the barn around which her husband
+had vanished.  She was waiting for him to reappear.  She was waiting to
+see if he would ride off in spite of her warning.  But she was unaware
+of the thought prompting her.  All she knew, all she felt, was the
+contempt, the scorn, the distrust he had hurled at her.
+
+The western sky had faded to a pallid yellow.  The distance was losing
+itself in the rising purple shadows.  Already the dark patches of
+woodlands were assuming that ghostly vagueness which belongs to
+twilight.  The ranch was wrapped in a deep repose.  A sense of rest had
+fallen upon the great valley.  All life seemed satisfied with its long
+day's effort and desired only the peace of night.
+
+But the quiet suddenly gave way before a fresh clatter of movement.
+Hoofs once more beat on the sun-baked soil.  Two figures grew out of
+the twilight from behind the barn, and the woman knew that her warning
+had gone for naught.  She watched them until they were swallowed up by
+the growing dusk.  The last dim outline blurred itself into the
+pasture.  Then she stirred.
+
+A deep sigh was heavily breathed.  Then, in a moment, the paralysis
+fell from her.  The dullness of her eyes gave place to a sheen of
+excitement, and her perfect cheeks assumed a faint, hectic flush.
+
+For one brief moment she glanced back into the house.  Then she glanced
+down at her own clothing.  She was still clad in the riding suit which
+had become her daily wear.  The survey seemed to satisfy her, for she
+left the veranda at a run, and made her way toward the barn.
+
+Perhaps five minutes later she, too, became lost in the growing
+twilight, and her horse's hoofs awoke anew the echoes of the place.
+But her way did not lie in the track of the others.  Her horse was
+racing headlong in the direction of Nan's home.
+
+Bud and Nan were just finishing their supper when Elvine broke in upon
+them.  She came with a rush and a clatter which brought Nan out on to
+the veranda in hurry of anxious inquiry.  Bud was behind her, but his
+movements lacked her impulse.
+
+Elvine was out of the saddle.  She stood on the veranda, a figure of
+wild-eyed appeal.
+
+"Jeff!  Oh, he's gone.  Nan, they'll--they'll kill him!  I know it.
+I'm certain.  And I warned him.  I warned him.  But--oh!"
+
+She covered her face with her hands.  It was a movement inspired by the
+memory of his scorn.
+
+Nan's responsive heart was caught by the other's emotion.  But above it
+leaped a fear which she was powerless to deny.  Jeff?  Jeff in danger?
+She flung out an arm.  Her small hand gripped the other with a force
+that was incredible.
+
+"What d'you mean?" she cried, almost fiercely.  "Don't stand there like
+a fool.  Who is going to harm Jeff?"
+
+The sharp authority, so prompt, so unexpected, dragged the distraught
+woman into some command of herself.  She raised her head.  Her eyes
+were hot with unshed tears.  They looked into Nan's, so urgent, yet so
+full of a steadfast sanity.
+
+"It's Sikkem," she cried, steadying herself.  "He's sent in to say he's
+badly shot up.  He says he's located the rustlers' camp and must hand
+Jeff the news before--while he has time.  Jeff's gone out there,
+and--Sikkem's one of the gang and escaped from Orrville four years ago."
+
+"How d'you know?"  It was Bud's heavy voice put the question.  It was
+full of stern command.
+
+"I've seen him.  I know him, and--he knows me.  He--he wrote this and
+sent it me."
+
+Elvine thrust the crumpled note at Bud.  Her gesture was almost
+desperate.
+
+"When did he send it?"  Again came Bud's command.
+
+"Days ago."
+
+"An' Jeff--didn't know till--now?"
+
+"I was afraid to tell him--then."
+
+Bud and Nan read the note by the parlor lamplight.  A bitter
+imprecation broke from the man's lips.
+
+"Guess I don't get it--yet," he said.
+
+But Nan was quicker.
+
+"He's gone to Spruce Crossing--to Sikkem?" she cried, her eyes hot as
+they dwelt on the shaking woman before her.  "Don't wait talking.  It
+don't matter the right of things.  You, Daddy, get our horses fixed and
+round up a bunch of boys from the bunkroom.  Jeff's in danger, an' it's
+up to us.  Maybe Evie'll tell me while you go."
+
+Something of the great Bud's feelings was displayed in the celerity of
+his movements.  He was gone before Nan had finished speaking.
+
+The two women were left facing each other.
+
+Seconds passed without a word.  The gentle Nan no longer looked out of
+the brown eyes.  They were hot, resentful.  Nor would any one have
+recognized in the anxious-eyed woman before her the beautiful creature
+who had first stirred Jeffrey Masters out of his years of celibate
+thought.
+
+Without a word Nan turned back to the parlor.  When she reappeared she
+was buckling a revolver belt about her slim waist.  The two heavy
+holsters it supported were almost incongruous on so slight a figure.
+
+Elvine watched her.  The girl's deliberation was in deep contrast to
+her own emotions.  Then, too, the sympathy which had fled from Nan's
+brown eyes left them full of hard resolve.
+
+"You--are not going?" Elvine said, pointing at the weapons.
+
+Nan's surprise was genuine.
+
+"Jeff's in danger."
+
+"But you--a woman?  You can't help.  You might even----"
+
+"Jeff's in danger."
+
+Nan repeated the words with an emphasis there could be no mistaking.
+And as the final syllable escaped her pretty lips became firmly
+compressed.
+
+Elvine regarded her for a silent moment or two.  A strange new
+sensation was stirring within her.  Nan's attitude had brought it into
+being.  Her earlier emotions receded before this new feeling.  And,
+strangely enough, she remembered some words her mother had once spoken
+to her.  It was at a time before she had engaged herself to her husband.
+
+"But Jeff--is nothing to you," she said abruptly.
+
+There was a new ring in the voice in which she spoke.
+
+"Is he?"
+
+Nan's eyes looked straight into the wife's.  There was no smile in
+them.  There was no emotion lying behind them that Elvine could read.
+They were steady, unflinching.  That was all.
+
+Sounds came up from the ranch buildings.  Voices reached them plainly.
+And among them Bud's dominating tones were raised above all.
+
+Nan's eyes were drawn in the direction, but her gaze only encountered
+the moonless night.
+
+"What is he--to you?"  Elvine's demand was strident.  She was roused
+from her sense of her own sufferings, her own misery.  The newly
+awakened emotion had leaped to proportions which threatened to
+overwhelm all others.
+
+Nan's eyes came back to her face.  There was something almost reckless
+in their regard.  There was even a suggestion of derision in them, a
+suggestion of triumph.  But it was not the triumph over a rival.  It
+was the triumph of one who realizes her conquest over self.
+
+"Everything!" she cried.  Then she added almost to herself: "Everything
+I can think of, have ever dreamed of in life."  Then suddenly her voice
+rose to a ring of ecstasy.  It was the abundance, the purity of her
+love, the certainty of victory over self which inspired it.  "Ah, Evie,
+don't be rattled with what I'm telling you.  Ther' surely is no need.
+You want to be mad with me.  Guess you needn't to be.  Jeff don't know
+it.  He never will know it.  I've never had a hope of him since he met
+you.  He's always been just yours.  I don't guess you need to worry a
+thing that way.  The worrying's for me.  I've loved him since ever I
+was a child: since ever he came here.  Well, you figure he's in
+danger--so it's up to those who love him to do.  You see, I--well, I
+just love him with my whole soul."
+
+She turned away.  The reception of her confession seemed to concern her
+not at all.
+
+Out of the darkness loomed her father's great figure.  He was leading
+Nan's horse as well as his own.  The girl leaped into the saddle, and
+he passed his own reins up to her.
+
+"I shan't be haf a minit," he said.  "I need my guns.  The boys are
+waitin' by the barn."
+
+He passed into the house.  Then Nan observed Elvine.  She, too, had
+leaped into the saddle.  Nor could the girl help being struck by the
+manner of her action.
+
+"You're goin' back home?" she cried.
+
+Elvine shook her head resolutely.
+
+"How--then?"
+
+The wife suddenly urged her horse.  It came right up to Nan's with an
+almost spasmodic jump, driven by a vicious jab of the woman's spurred
+heel.
+
+The dark eyes were lit with an angry fire as she leaned forward in the
+saddle.  Her words came in a voice of passionate jealousy.
+
+"You love him, so you go to him, ready to face anything--for him.  Do
+you think I don't love him?  Do you think I'm not ready to dare for
+him--anything?  Your love gives you that right.  What of mine?  Does
+mine give me no right?  Say, child, your fool conceit runs away with
+you.  I tell you you don't know what love is.  You say you love him
+with your whole soul.  And you are content to live without him.  Psha!
+Your soul must be a poor enough thing.  I tell you life means nothing
+to me without him.  I can't and won't live without him."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The black earth sped under the horses' hoofs.  The stars shone like dew
+on the velvet pall of night.  Bud led, as he always led in the things
+practical which belonged to his life.
+
+He needed no thought for guidance on that night journey.  Unerring
+instinct served him across those wide plains.  Spruce Crossing might
+have possessed a beacon light, so straight, so unerring was the lead he
+offered those behind him.
+
+Now, perhaps, more than ever, all his great skill was put forth.  For
+he had listened to the complete, if halting, story of the man's wife,
+and shared with her the conviction of treachery.  For the time, at
+least, all consideration for the woman was thrust aside.  He offered no
+words of blame.  His concern was simply the succor of his friend.
+
+Nan was ready to follow him whithersoever he led.  She was ready to
+obey his lightest command, for she understood his skill.  She had no
+thought for anything but the man she loved.  No possibilities of
+mischance, no threat to herself could find place in her thought.  For
+her Jeff's well-being was her single concern.
+
+Elvine rode beside her, step for step.  She had told her story as they
+rode.  After that silence between them prevailed.  It was a silence
+fraught with an emotion too deep for any words.  A fierce jealousy
+mingled with her passionate longing.  Her world was empty of all but
+two figures.  The man she loved, and the girl who had confessed her
+love with all the strength of a great, simple courage.
+
+Whatever the night might bring forth, whatever tragedy might be in
+store, she scarcely had thought for anything but her own almost mad
+resolve.  This girl, this child of the plains, should obtain no
+advantage.  She was prepared to yield all for the succor of the husband
+who had scorned her--even to life itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+TO SPRUCE CROSSING
+
+The eyes of the night were there alone to see.  It was as well.  There
+are moments in men's lives when it is best that it should be so.
+Passions are not always sane.  They are not always human.
+
+So it was with Jeffrey Masters.  The change in him had been rapid.  It
+was almost magical.  Always one who lacked something of the softer
+human qualities, he yet must have been counted a man of balance.  If
+sympathy, sentiment, were never his strong points, he was by no means
+lacking in loyalty, kindliness, rightness of purpose.  All his life,
+achievement, achievement under the strictest canons of honesty, or
+moral scruple, had been the motive urging him.  He had seen neither to
+the right nor to the left of these things.
+
+Then had come the woman into his life and the lighting of those natural
+fires which belong to all human life.  He yielded to them, and the
+suddenness of it all seemed to sweep away every cooler method which had
+always governed him.  There had been no thought, no calculation in his
+yielding, such as might have been expected.  He was the victim of his
+own temperament.  His powerful restraint had been suddenly relaxed.
+And, for the time, he had been completely overwhelmed by the intensity
+of his passion.
+
+But this passion for the woman who had so suddenly entered his life was
+merely the opening of vials of emotion hitherto held sealed.  It was no
+radical transformation.  All that had been his before still remained,
+buried perhaps for the moment under the avalanche of feeling, but
+nevertheless still occupying its place.  These things could not be
+swept away.  They could not be destroyed.  They would remain when the
+passionate fires had completely burned themselves out.
+
+But the unlooked-for had happened.  These fires had not been permitted
+to burn themselves out.  They had been extinguished, deluged out of
+existence when the idol of his worship was flung headlong from its
+pedestal by the complete revolt of his moral being.  His prejudices,
+his instincts, matured through years of effort, were the stronger part
+of him, and the conflict was decided before it began.  The shock of
+discovery had brought a terrible reaction.  His love was killed under
+the blow.  And though for a while the sense of overwhelming disaster
+had been crushing, the measure of that disaster was taken swiftly.  It
+left him disillusioned, it left him harder, colder.  But it left him
+sane.
+
+These things were not all, however.  On this night he had approached
+far nearer the hell which only a woman can create for a man than his
+first discovery had borne him.  The irony of it was perfect.  Out of
+her great love for him, solely in his interest, in a great desire to
+shield him from a danger she saw threatening him, she had contrived to
+convince him that she had been as ready to sacrifice him, his
+interests, the interests of his friends, as she had been to accept the
+price offered for the blood of his twin brother.
+
+So the eyes of the night looked down upon the haunting figure of a man
+who knew neither mercy, nor pity, nor hope.  The world of human
+happiness had closed its doors upon him, and his whole spirit and body
+demanded a fierce retaliation.
+
+That was the mood which looked out of his coldly shining eyes.  That
+was the mood which drove the horse under him at a headlong gait, and
+left his spurs blood-stained upon his heels.  That was the mood that
+left him caring nothing for any danger that might lurk under cover of
+the starlit dark of night.  The fierceness of his temper demanded
+outlet.  Bodily outlet.  Active conflict.  Anything, so that a burning
+lust for hurt should be satisfied.  He cared nothing at all for
+himself.  No bodily suffering could compare with the anguish of mind he
+had passed through, was still passing through.  And so he rode headlong
+till the youth accompanying him was hard put to it to keep pace with
+him.
+
+The hammering of the horses' hoofs upon the sun-baked earth was a
+fitting accompaniment to his mood.  The sigh of the night breezes
+through the trees was no less desolate than his heart.  Nor was the
+darkness one whit more dark than the stream of thought which flowed
+through his hot brain.
+
+Not one word did he exchange with the man behind him.  In truth the
+youth who had brought the summons had no part in the thing that was
+happening, at least not in Jeffrey Masters' mind.  There was no one
+besides himself in this.  There was just himself and his goal--whatever
+that might bring forth--with a wild, almost insane desire to act
+fiercely and without mercy should opportunity offer.
+
+The land rose and fell, from hill to valley, from valley to hill.  The
+way lay through avenues of bluff-lined grass, or across hollows of
+virgin pasture.  Trickling mountain streams barred the way, only to be
+passed without a thought of their depth, or the dangers of their
+treacherous, sodden banks.  The mountain barrier ahead, looming darkly
+forbidding in the starlight, with its mazing hollows and woodland
+crowns, was incapable of inspiration at the moment.  There are moments
+when Nature's profoundest awe is powerless to affect the mind of man.
+These were such moments.  The whole mind of Jeffrey Masters was
+absorbed till there was no room for any influence which did not arise
+out of the burden of his bitterness.
+
+But if he were indifferent to his surroundings, the man riding hard
+behind him moved with eyes and ears fully alert.  That which he was
+seeking would have been impossible to tell.  Nevertheless every shadow
+seemed to possess interest, every night sound to possess some quality
+worth remarking.  Not for an instant, after the hills had been entered,
+did his vigilance relax.
+
+Spruce Crossing lay deep in the hills, a clearing to the south of the
+junction of converging mountain streams.  It was a mere cattle station,
+neither better nor worse than several others lying on the outskirts of
+the Obar territory.  Yet it was important that it headed a valley
+running north and south amongst the hills, where the grass was sweet,
+and rich, and fattening, one of those surprise natural pastures which
+the hills love to yield occasionally to those who seek out their wealth.
+
+A glimmer of light, like some distant star fallen to earth from its
+velvet setting above, marked the station, house.  It was visible at a
+great distance down the flat stretch of the valley.  The ranchman's
+horse was headed directly for it, and the animal moved readily, eagerly
+now, nor were the spurs needed to urge him further.  The instinct of
+its journey's end was sufficient to encourage its flagging spirits.
+
+The distant light grew brighter.  It took on the rectangular form of a
+window opening in a log-built hut.
+
+Jeffrey Masters had fixed his gaze upon it, and so the shadowy scene
+about him passed all unnoticed.  He saw nothing of the darker objects
+lying on the ground adjacent to his way.  The slumbering kine which
+bore his brand remained all unheeded.  He had no thought for them.  His
+course took him over a track which passed down a land between two
+fenced pastures.  These, too, were stocked with fattening steers, or
+with the brood cows and their attendant calves.  At another time, under
+other conditions, these things would have held for him an absorbing
+interest.  Now they concerned him not at all.
+
+The dark pastures gave place to a number of corrals, also lost in the
+summer night.  A dog barked.  Then, in a moment, its sharp yelps became
+silent, and the stillness became once more unbroken except for the hard
+pounding hoofs of the two horsemen approaching.
+
+A few moments later these sounds ceased as the dark outline of the
+station house itself took shape.
+
+For a few seconds Jeff gazed at the window opening where the light from
+within was still shining.  A sound had caught and held his attention.
+It came from within the hut, and there was no mistaking it.  It was the
+sound inspired by physical suffering, and the voice that uttered it was
+a man's.  He sprang out of the saddle and turned to hand his horse to
+the man who had accompanied him.  But he found himself standing alone.
+
+With a shrug of the shoulders he left his horse and turned at once to
+the hut.  Just for an instant he hesitated once more.  It was his
+thought to look in through the window.  The hesitation passed.  The
+next moment he passed along the lateral log walls to the far end of the
+building where he knew the door to be situated.
+
+The door was closed.  He placed his hand on the heavy wooden latch.  A
+second passed.  He glanced over his shoulder.  It had occurred to him
+to wonder at the sudden going of the youth who had accompanied him.
+
+But there was neither sight nor sound of the vanished youth.  He raised
+the latch and swung the door open.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+AN EPIC BATTLE
+
+The station house was extensive.  It was a bunkhouse of lesser
+dimensions.
+
+Jeff's eyes moved swiftly over the dim interior.  The remoter corners
+of the place were shadowed.  But the light was sufficient to yield him
+a view of four squalid bunks on which the many-hued blankets were
+tumbled.  The walls bore signs of personal effort at decoration.  There
+were photographs over each bunk, tacked up and disfigured by flies.
+There were odd prints pasted on the rough log walls, the seams of which
+were more or less adequately filled with mud to keep the weather out.
+
+There were two rough window openings, one in each side wall.  The only
+entrance or exit was the door at the northern end, through which he had
+approached.  At the other end, directly opposite this, an oil lamp was
+shedding its feeble rays through a well-smoked chimney glass.  It was
+standing on a small improvised table which divided two bunks set on
+wooden trestles.  The whole interior was perhaps thirty feet in length
+and twelve feet wide, a roomy, unkempt shanty, which served its simple
+purpose as a shelter for men unused to any of the comforts of life.
+
+The object which caught and held Jeff's instant attention was the
+figure of the man seated on the side of one of the bunks, beside the
+table on which the lamp stood.  It was the figure of Sikkem Bruce,
+bearing no trace whatever of any mortal injury, and with a look of
+wide-eyed surprise upon his evil countenance.
+
+Jeff moved up the room.  He approached without haste.  His eyes were
+steady, and his expression one of tight-lipped determination.  There
+was something coldly commanding in his attitude.  His fair, bronzed
+features, keen, set, displayed no weakening.  His body seemed poised
+ready for everything that could possibly happen.  The latent power and
+vigor of his movements were tremendous.  He carried no weapons of
+defense in view, and his dress was a simple loose jacket over a cotton
+shirt, and, for nether garments, a pair of loose riding breeches which
+terminated in soft leather top-boots.
+
+Sikkem's eyes were on him the whole time.  There was even some slight
+apprehension in them at the sight of that swift, voiceless approach.
+Jeff came to a halt before him, and it was the ranch hand who found
+speech most necessary.
+
+"Say, I didn't guess you was gettin' around to-night, boss," he said
+with some show of ease.
+
+"No?"
+
+"I sure didn't."
+
+Jeff's retort flashed out.
+
+"Then what did you send that youngster in for with mouthful of durned
+lies?"
+
+Sikkem stared.  But his look was unconvincing.  Moments passed before
+his reply came, and in those moments the keen eyes of his employer were
+busy.  The man was still in the working kit of a cowpuncher.  Even to
+the chapps, and the prairie hat crushed down on his ugly bullet head.
+Then, too, his pair of guns were still strapped about his waist.  None
+of these things escaped Jeff, any more than did the fellow's clumsy
+regard.  He wondered how much truth--if any--lay behind that mask of
+wicked eyes and brutish features.
+
+"I'm waiting."
+
+Jeff's demand came with a rasp.  The man's delay in reply had conveyed
+all he wanted to know of the truth in him.
+
+"Wot youngster?  I tell you I didn't send no one in."  There was
+truculence in the denial.  "Wot's the lies?"
+
+The ranchman was no match for the keen mind of his employer.  In brute
+force he might have been more than his equal.  But even that was
+doubtful.  While he was speaking Jeff moved.  Up to that moment he had
+been facing the foreman with his back turned toward the distant door.
+Now his movement placed him against the table with his back to the
+other empty bunk, and his focus took in not only the man before him,
+but the shadowy outline of the distant half-open door.
+
+"It's the boy we took on the other day at--your recommendation.  Your
+recommendation.  Get me?  Guess he came with the yarn you were shot to
+death.  You'd located the rustlers' camp.  You needed to see me quick."
+Jeff's words came swiftly.  Then after a pause he added: "You didn't
+send him along?  Who did?"
+
+As Jeff watched the man's deliberate shake of the head he became aware
+of a muffled sound, somewhere away beyond the door.  It was faint, but,
+to him, unmistakable.  He gave no sign.
+
+"Where are the other boys?" he demanded.
+
+"Out on cattle guard."
+
+The movement beyond the door again penetrated the silence of the hut.
+Now it was that the ranchman made his mistake.  Only for an instant did
+he turn his head and eyes in the direction of the sound.  But it was
+sufficient.
+
+Jeff's voice rasped again.
+
+"Stand up, darn you!  Stand up!"
+
+Sikkem's gaze came back abruptly, and on the instant his right hand
+flew to his waist for his guns.  But the muzzle of Jeff's revolver was
+within a foot of his head, and behind it his coldly shining eyes.
+
+Sikkem's hand dropped from his waist.  He stood up.  The law of the gun
+was powerfully ingrained upon his mind.
+
+"Loose those guns at your waist--quick!  Let 'em drop on the bunk!
+Quick, or I'll pump you full of lead!"
+
+The deadliness of Jeff's command was irresistible.  The power of that
+leveled gun indisputable.  The buckle was loosened, and the weapons
+fell on the blankets behind the ranchman.
+
+"Now push your hands up!  Right up!"
+
+The command was obeyed on the instant, but the look which accompanied
+the movement was as deadly as human passion could make it.
+
+"Back away!  Back to the far end!  Sharp!"
+
+Sikkem moved.  But his movement was not rapid enough.  Jeff urged him.
+
+In the pause Jeff's straining ears caught again the sound of movement,
+and he wondered why development was not precipitated.  Perhaps----  But
+Sikkem had nearly reached the distant wall, and, at that instant, a
+whistle shrilled through the building.
+
+Jeff knew he was trapped.  But, with a wonderful sense of detachment,
+mind and body worked almost electrically.  His revolver spat out its
+vicious report.  For the fraction of a second he held the smoking lamp
+poised in his other hand.  Then, like a shooting star, it flew through
+the adjacent window and fell extinguished amidst the crash of its own
+glass.  It was at the complete fall of darkness that the door slammed
+closed, and half a dozen shots rang out through the building, followed
+by the "plonk" of the bullets embedding themselves in the solid logs
+immediately behind where the rancher had been standing.
+
+But Jeff was no longer there.  There had been a simultaneous clatter of
+falling bunk boards.  There was the rustling of straw.  Then a sound of
+scrambling, and, after that, a dead silence.  The darkness was complete
+except for the faint silhouette of the windows against the dim
+starlight beyond them.
+
+Jeff had taken the big chance.  What remained now must be met as
+circumstance permitted.  The blood in him was fired.  The savage
+delight of battle.  He would sell the last breath in his body at the
+highest price he could make his enemies pay.  He had walked into a trap
+laid by the rustlers, headed, perhaps, by Sikkem Bruce, with his eyes
+wide open, and some almost insane yearning made him glad.
+
+Now he crouched down against the wall beside the table.  He had flung
+up a barrier of straw palliasse before him.  It was not as a protection
+against gun-fire, but to screen his movements should his opponents
+produce a light.  Then, too, there was another thought in his mind.
+
+The place became alive with sounds, voiceless, muffled sounds of
+cautious movement.  It was the movement of men who know that death is
+lurking at every turn.  Nor could they tell whence it was most likely
+to come.  It was a moment of tense and straining nerves wherein the wit
+of one man had discounted the elaborate plan to murder of those whose
+indifference to death only shrank from the contemplation of their own.
+
+Jeff's eyes strained against the darkness.  The windows stood out in
+silhouette.  From these he had no fear.  He knew, and he knew that
+these ruffians would know, the dangers attending themselves from any
+attack upon him from such a direction.  The advantage would be entirely
+his, since he had possessed himself of Sikkem's complete arsenal.  He
+knew it was for him to await the fire of these men, every shot of which
+would yield him a sure target.
+
+A flash broke the blackness ahead of him.  The bullet sank into the
+woodwork just above his head with a vicious splash.  But he refrained
+from reply.  Another crack split the silence, and the wall to the left
+of him flung back its response.  Still he offered no reply.
+
+His eyes were searching, searching.  And a surge of excitement suddenly
+thrilled him.
+
+Two shots came on the same instant.  One slithered hotly in the flesh
+of his shoulder, but the other struck wide of him.
+
+The wound gave him no concern.  Every sense, every faculty was
+concentrated on one thought, on one object.  A dim, fine-drawn but
+uneven line of shadowy light had grown out of the darkness to his now
+accustomed eyes.  It was vague, so vague that it required the greatest
+concentration to detect.  But he recognized it for what it was, and a
+savage delight possessed him as he observed that there were breaks in
+its continuity.  The line was waist high, and lateral, and he
+interpreted it to suit himself.
+
+He raised his gun and took steady aim at one of the breaks.  His shot
+was deliberate, careful, since the sight of his weapon, even the weapon
+itself, remained invisible in the dark.  He fired, and dropped himself
+prone behind his barrier.
+
+A bitter curse followed by a groan of pain was the answer to his shot.
+Then, where that break in the shadowy line of light had been, now the
+line was unbroken.
+
+A fierce glee permeated him.  The curse, the moan had been music to
+him.  But it only required a second before he had the enemy's retort.
+
+It came with a fusillade.  And every shot seemed to find practically
+the same spot on the wall.  He knew that the flash of his gun had been
+the target.  He knew he had only escaped by a fraction of time.
+
+His shoulder stung him.  But his will, his savage yearning for the
+continuance of the fight, left him disregarding.  There was more to
+come, and he knew it.  Nor did he care how much.  The blood was hot in
+his brain.  No pain, nothing mattered.  Again he searched along that
+lateral line of light.
+
+He was reaching out far beyond his retreat.  He had stealthily crawled
+to the left of the table.  Again his weapon was raised against another
+break in that telltale line of light, this time at a point where the
+angle of the building must be.  A moment passed while he judged his
+aim.  It was by no means easy.  Instinct was his only guide.  That
+instinct which belongs to the man accustomed to the constant use of a
+revolver.
+
+His shot rang out.  Again came a cry, inarticulate, fierce.  Then
+followed the sound of a falling body.  Then he let loose a second shot.
+But even as it sped he had his answer.  Four tongues of flame leaped
+out at him in the darkness, and four bullets smote viciously into the
+wood behind him.
+
+His second shot had cost him a sharp penalty.  The flesh of his forearm
+had been ripped by one of those four bullets and he felt the trickle of
+warm blood over the unscored flesh.
+
+He crouched behind his barrier.  The joy of battle for the highest
+stakes for which a man can play was undiminished in him.  The wounds he
+had received left him all unconcerned.  In the thrill of the moment he
+had no time for them.  The desire to kill was strong, and he knew he
+could already count two victims.
+
+But the general in him was foremost, even in the excitement of battle.
+The number of his opponents, their next move.  These things concerned
+him seriously.
+
+He searched the line of light with eager eyes.  He listened to the
+sound of movement.  These things were all he had to rely on, and on
+their accurate reading depended his chances of victory or defeat, with
+its certainty of swift death.
+
+In two places there ware still definite breaks in the line.  He knew he
+had accounted for two of the enemy.  Originally a volley of six shots
+had come at him.  There were two unaccounted for.  Where were these?
+They were not standing.
+
+He looked for no depths of subtlety in the methods of these men.  He
+understood their ruffianism too well.  Therefore the sound of movement
+that reached him suggested the obvious result of their first failure.
+It was the presage of an attack at close quarters.
+
+He listened intently.  The sounds were of shuffling bodies, moving
+uncertainly, possibly fearful of contact with obstruction which might
+betray them.  And he calculated they were approaching low down along
+the side walls, thus hoping to offer the least target possible.  If
+they reached him the chances would be all against him.  They must not
+reach him.  His decision was promptly taken.
+
+He raised one of Sikkem's guns.  It was heavy, and a sense of pleasure
+filled him as he felt the enormous bore of the muzzle with one finger.
+Stealthily he raised himself to his full height behind his barrier.  He
+leveled his gun at a spot just below the right hand window, where the
+wall rose up out of the floor.  There was no obstacle intervening.
+
+A moment later the crack of the gun burst through the silence.  Then,
+on the instant, he flung himself prone across the table.  His answer
+came like lightning.  Four shots.  And three of them harmlessly tore
+their way into the bowels of the woodwork.  The fourth had come from
+the direction in which he had aimed.
+
+A fierce spasm of pain through his chest blinded him mentally and
+physically for the moment.  But, by an almost superhuman effort, he
+recovered himself.  He knew he was hit, and hit badly.  Something
+seemed to have broken inside him, just under his left armpit.
+
+He forced himself to an upright position and flung out his gun arm.
+His eyes were again on the line of light.  A fury of recklessness was
+urging him.  There were the breaks, and he blazed at each in turn,
+carefully, deliberately.  A moment later two shots came from the right
+and left of him, and he dropped down behind his barrier, but not before
+he had heard the death-cries of fierce blasphemy at the far end of the
+room.
+
+He lay behind his shelter breathing hard and suffering an agony of
+physical pain.  The sweat poured down his forehead.  It seemed to him
+that everything was somehow receding from him, even the sense of his
+own danger.  In these feelings he realized how near he was to defeat,
+and with all his will he set himself to conquer his weakness.  A few
+moments passed.  His pain eased.  Then, with all the recklessness of
+the gambler, he prepared for his final throw.
+
+He was certain he had accounted for four of the enemy.  Four.  He
+calculated there were still two remaining.  He shifted his position,
+moving himself clear of his shelter.  A hell of suffering was endured
+in the process, and the sweat poured out afresh upon his forehead.  He
+gritted his teeth with superlative determination and flung back the
+dreadful faintness seeking to smother his powers.
+
+He raised himself to a sitting posture.  He sought support from the
+wall behind him.  Then, with unbroken nerve, he raised both Sikkem's
+guns, one in each hand.  Without a tremor he held them, and his aim
+took in the two points at which he felt the remaining foe were
+advancing upon him.  Oh, for one moment of light wherein to assure
+himself!  But the thought passed as it came, followed by a wild, simple
+hope that one of his shots might find its billet.
+
+He pressed the trigger in each hand.  He fired rapidly.  He fired until
+both guns were empty.  Then he flung them to the ground with a clatter.
+For an instant he thrilled at the sound of a cry of pain, and the
+fierce accompanying blasphemy.  Then he flung himself down and crawled
+to his retreat behind the palliasse, convinced that the cry was in the
+voice of Sikkem Bruce.
+
+His sufferings were well-nigh unendurable.  His very breathing caused
+him an exquisite pain.  He even found himself wondering how much longer
+he could endure.
+
+But his work was not yet finished.  If he must die he would die
+fighting.
+
+Now, blending with fresh sounds of movement along the side walls,
+another sound added its threat to the quiet of the room.  It came from
+behind the straw palliasse.  There was heavy breathing, almost gasping.
+There was a distinct gritting of teeth.  But there was also a sound of
+the effort which caused these things in the wounded man.  There was a
+sharp ripping and tearing, the rustle of straw and--something else.
+The movements were hasty, desperately hasty.  Movements which suggested
+the defender's realization of the narrow limits of time before his
+powers would become completely exhausted.
+
+These things lasted a matter of seconds only.  Then the threat broke.
+The quiet was shocked into desperate action.  There was the shout of
+human voices.  There was the rush and scramble of feet.  Then, in the
+midst of the tumult, a great tongue of flame leaped up from the heart
+of the straw palliasse.
+
+Its fierce, ruddy light revealed the faces of two men leaping to the
+attack of the wounded defender.  They were within a yard of their goal.
+But even as they were closing upon him they reeled back before the new
+terror whose dread was overwhelming even in face of their murderous
+lust.
+
+The flame shot up toward the roof.  Jeff staggered to his feet bearing
+in his arms the blazing bundle.  Higher he raised it.  Higher and
+higher, till the devouring flame licked at the parched thatch of grass
+roof above.  It caught in a second.  The flames swept up along the
+rough rafters till they reached the pitch of the roof.  In a moment
+great billows of smoke were rolling out of the dry crevices.
+
+Just for one instant, before the fog closed down upon the whole
+interior, Jeff beheld the result of his work.  The men had fled toward
+the closed door, and, on the ground, against the far wall, he had a
+glimpse of five bodies lying crumpled up where his guns had laid them.
+
+Suddenly a great shout reached him from without.
+
+"Ho, Jeff!  Ho, boy!"
+
+It was a deep-throated roar which drowned the hiss and crackle of the
+blazing straw.
+
+Jeff's answer rang through the burning structure with all the power of
+his lungs.
+
+"The door!  Bust it!  Quick, Bud!  Bust it, an' stand clear!"
+
+For answer there was a crash on the woodwork outside.  He waited for no
+more.  With a wild rush through the blinding, choking fog of smoke he
+charged down the room.  With all his might he flung the blazing
+palliasse from his scorched hands.  He had no idea of the direction in
+which it went.  His one desire now was to reach the door as it gave
+under the sledge-hammer attacks of the men outside.
+
+He heard a crash and rending of woodwork.  He could see nothing.  He
+was incapable of further effort.  The end had come all too soon.  He
+staggered blindly, helplessly.  His tottering limbs gave under him.
+Suffocation gripped him by the throat.  He was conscious of the rush of
+a figure toward him.  The sound of his name shrieked in a woman's
+voice.  Then there were shots fired.  He heard them.  And it seemed
+there were many of them, and the sound was blurred, and vague, and
+distant from his ears.  He fell.  He knew he fell.  For hours it seemed
+to him he continued to fall in an abyss of blackness that was wholly
+horrifying.  It was a blackness peopled with hideous invisible shadows.
+So impenetrable was the inky void that even sound had no place in it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+UNDER THE VEIL
+
+There was no moon.  Only a starry sheen lit the night.  A wonderful
+peace had descended upon the hills.  The quiet was the hush of the
+still prairie night.  Teeming maybe with restless life; but it was a
+life invisible, and rarely audible.  Nevertheless the hush was merely a
+veil.  A veil which concealed, but had no power to sweep away the
+garnered harvest of violent human passions.
+
+The figure of a man lay stretched upon his back on the bank of the
+river.  His head was carefully pillowed.  A covering had been spread
+over the upper body, as though to hide that which lay beneath, rather
+than yield warmth and comfort on the summer night.  The covering was a
+coat, a woman's coat, and the owner of it sat crouching over her charge.
+
+Nan stirred.  She reached out and tucked the long skirts of the coat
+under the man's shoulders with that mother instinct at once so
+solicitous, so tender.  She shifted her position which had become
+cramped with her long vigil.  These were moments of darkness, literal
+and mental.  Her anxiety and dread were almost overwhelming.  The
+waiting seemed interminable.
+
+She raised her eyes from her yearning regard of the still, bandaged
+head with its pale features.  She sighed, as she turned them in another
+direction, toward an object lying beneath the shadow of a great red
+willow near by.  It was a dark object, huddled and, like the other,
+quite still.  A curious sort of fascination held her for some moments,
+then, almost reluctantly, as though impelled by the trend of her
+feelings, her gaze wandered in the direction whence was wafted toward
+her a pungent reek of burning.  It was the dimly outlined skeleton of
+the station house, roofless and partly fallen, white-ashed and still
+faintly smoking.
+
+For long moments she regarded this sign of the destruction which had
+been wrought.  Nor was the sigh which escaped her wholly of regret.  A
+deep stirring was in her heart.  She was thinking of the heroic battle
+which the station home had witnessed.  She was thinking of the
+desperate odds one man had faced within those four walls.  She was
+thinking, too, of the victory which ultimately had been his.  But the
+cost.  She shuddered.  And her eyes came back to the white upturned
+features of the man before her.
+
+She started.  The man's eyes were open.  Tenderly she raised a hand and
+smoothed the cold forehead with its soft palm.  Tears of emotion had
+gathered in her eyes on the instant.  But they did not overflow down
+her cheeks.
+
+The eyes closed again.  The lids moved slowly, as though reluctant to
+perform their office.  The girl literally held her breath.  Would they
+open again?  Or----  Her question was answered almost on the instant.
+They reopened.  This time even more widely.  They were staring straight
+up at the starlit sky, quite unmoving.  There was no consciousness in
+them, and barely life.
+
+Nan waited for some long apprehensive moments.  Her heart was full of a
+wild, new-born hope.  But fear held her, too.  At last she moved.  She
+withdrew herself gently but swiftly.  Then she stood up, a picture of
+dapper womanhood in the white shirt-waist and loose riding breeches
+which the coat spread over the man's body should have held concealed.
+A moment later the darkness swallowed her up as she sped down the trail
+which passed near by.
+
+With her going there crept into the man's vacant eyes the first real
+sign of life.
+
+Five minutes later the girl was back at his side.  But she had not
+returned alone.  Bud was with her, and together they bent over the
+prostrate form.  The girl was kneeling.  She had gently taken
+possession of one of the bandaged hands lying inert at the man's side.
+Tenderly enough she held it between her own soft palms and chafed it,
+while her shining eyes, yielding all the secrets of her devoted heart,
+gazed yearningly down into his.
+
+"Jeff!" she murmured, in a low, eager tone.  "Jeff!"
+
+There was no response.  The eyes were fixed and staring.
+
+Bud had less scruples in his anxious impatience.
+
+"Say, that ain't no sort o' way to wake him, Nan," he whispered
+hoarsely.  Then in his deep gruff voice he displayed his better
+understanding.  "Say, Jeff!  You ken hear me, boy.  You're jest
+foolin'.  Say, hark to this.  You beat 'em.  You beat 'em
+single-handed, an' shot 'em plumb down."
+
+Curiously enough there was almost instant result, and Bud's
+satisfaction became evident.  The staring eyes relaxed their regard of
+the starry heavens.  The lids flickered, then the eyes themselves
+turned in the direction whence came those sonorous tones.
+
+"You ken hear?"
+
+Bud's words came on the instant, and were full of triumph.  Then he
+turned to the girl who had promptly relinquished Jeff's hand.
+
+"We ain't got a thing to hand him, 'cep' it's water," he said
+half-angrily.  "We can't jest move him, not nothin', till the boys git
+along with the wagon, an' that blamed dope merchant gits around.  What
+in hell ken we do?"
+
+"Wait."
+
+Nan's finality robbed her father of his complaint.
+
+"Guess we'll hev to.  Say----"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Do you guess he ken talk if he feels that way?"
+
+But Nan was no longer giving him any attention.  All her thoughts, all
+her being was for the man before them.
+
+A faint tinge of color was creeping under his skin, up to the soft
+white wrapping fastened about his fire-scorched forehead.  Even in the
+starlight it was plainly visible to the girl's eager eyes.  There was
+something else, too.  The look in his eyes had completely changed.  To
+Nan there was something approaching the shadow of a smile.
+
+She moved close to his side so that she could reach out and give him
+support.  Then she gave the father at her side his orders.
+
+"Get water, Dad--quick!" she demanded.
+
+Bud demurred.
+
+"I only got my hat," he said helplessly.
+
+"It'll do.  But get it."
+
+Bud moved away, with the heavy haste of two hundred and ten pounds of
+mental disturbance.
+
+The moment he had gone a faint sigh escaped the injured man.  Nan held
+her breath.  Would he--speak?  She would give worlds to hear the sound
+of his voice, She had believed him dying.  Now a wild hope surged.  If
+he would--could speak, it seemed to her simple logic that he must--live.
+
+"Nan!"
+
+The word was distinct, but, oh, the weakness of voice.  The girl
+thrilled.
+
+"Yes, Jeff.  I'm here.  I'm right beside you."
+
+"Tell me--things."
+
+The girl's heart sank.  In a flash she remembered all there was to
+tell.  Why had his first thoughts on returning life been of
+these--things?  Yet it was like him--so like him.  She drew a deep
+breath and resorted to subterfuge.
+
+"It's as Dad shouted at you just now, Jeff.  You beat them
+all--lone-handed.  But you mustn't talk.  Don't worry about them.
+Guess they're not worth it.  You've been shot up, Jeff, an' Dad an' I
+we've just fixed you the best we know, an' the boys have gone right in
+for a wagon, an' a doctor.  The doc's got to get in from Moose Creek,
+twenty miles away.  That's what scares me."
+
+The smile in the man's eyes had deepened.
+
+"Don't--get--scared, Nan.  I'm--not dying."
+
+The girl thrilled at the assurance in the tired voice.  But the thrill
+passed as swiftly as it came.  She knew what would follow when Jeff had
+gathered sufficient strength.
+
+Sure enough he went on presently:
+
+"I remember everything--till--I dropped," he said haltingly.  "What
+happened--after--that?  Y'see--I--heard--firing."
+
+Nan glanced helplessly about her.  If only her father would return with
+the water!  It might help her.  She felt that she could not, could not
+tell him the things he was demanding of her.
+
+But again came his demand, and in the tone of it was a sound of peevish
+impatience.
+
+"What--happened--after--Nan?  I need--to know."
+
+"It all came of a rush.  I can't just tell it right."
+
+The man's eyes closed again.  He remained silent so long that Nan's
+apprehensions reawakened.  She even forgot her panic at his persistence.
+
+"Jeff!  Jeff!"
+
+Her call to him was almost a whisper.  But the man heard.  His eyes
+opened at once.
+
+"Yes, Nan?"
+
+The girl laughed a little hysterically.
+
+"I--I--was----"
+
+"You thought I----"
+
+"Yes, yes.  But you are--better?  Sure?"
+
+The man's head turned deliberately toward her.  There was astonishing
+vigor in the movement.
+
+"Ther's things broke inside me, Nan," he said, in a voice that was
+growing stronger.  "A rib, I guess.  Maybe it's my shoulder.  The
+others--guess they're just nothing.  Now tell me--the things I asked.
+How did you happen to git around?  Start that way."
+
+A sense of relief helped the girl.  He had given her an opportunity
+which she seized upon.
+
+"Oh, Jeff, it was just thanks to Evie.  I guess she saved your life."
+
+"How?"
+
+The girl's enthusiasm received a set-back in his tone.
+
+"She came right along over to us, and told us--everything--the moment
+you'd gone.  We followed you just as hard as the horses could lay foot
+to the ground.  Dad an' me, and six of the boys."
+
+"What did Evie do?"
+
+"She came along--too."
+
+"Wher' is she?"
+
+Nan made no answer.  The question was repeated more sharply.
+
+"Wher' is she?"
+
+"She's under that red willow--yonder."
+
+The girl's voice was low.  Her words were little more than a whisper.
+
+"Is she--hurt?"
+
+"She's--dead."
+
+At that moment Bud reappeared bearing a hat full clear river water.
+
+Nan looked up.
+
+"How can we give it him?" she questioned.  Somehow the importance of
+the water had lessened in her mind.
+
+Jeff answered the question himself.
+
+"I don't need it, Bud," he said.  Then he added as an afterthought:
+"Thanks."
+
+Nan looked up at her father who stood doubtfully by.
+
+"Set it down, Daddy.  Then get right along an' look out for the doc,
+an' the wagon.  Hustle 'em along."
+
+Bud obeyed unquestioningly.  He felt that Nan's understanding of the
+situation was better than any ideas of his.  He set the hat down for
+the water to percolate through the soft felt at its leisure.  Then he
+moved on.
+
+The moment he was out of earshot Jeff's voice broke the silence once
+more.
+
+"Nan?"
+
+"Yes, Jeff?"
+
+"Wher's the red willow?  How far away?"
+
+"A few yards."
+
+"Can you help me up?"  The question came after a long considering
+pause.  It came with a certain eagerness.
+
+But Nan remonstrated with all her might.
+
+"No, no, Jeff," she cried, in serious alarm.  "You mustn't.  True you
+mustn't.  It'll kill you to move now."
+
+Her appeal was quite without effect.
+
+"Then I'll have to do it myself."
+
+Jeff's obstinate decision was immovable, and in the end the girl was
+forced to give way.
+
+The sick man endured five minutes of the intensest agony in the effort
+required.  Twice he nearly fainted, but, in the end, he stood beside
+the somewhat huddled figure under the red willow, gasping under the
+excruciation of internal pains.
+
+"I can lie here, Nan," he said.  "Will you--help me?"
+
+Exerting all her strength the girl helped him to the ground.  The
+position he had chosen was close to the still form of his dead wife.
+Once he was safely resting again, Nan breathed her relief.
+
+He looked up at her, and something like a smile was in his blue eyes.
+
+"Thanks, Nan.  Say--I'll need that coat of yours--later.  Will you go
+along--and get it?"
+
+Nan moved away.  She needed no second bidding.  Nor did she return
+until the man's voice summoned her.
+
+"Nan!" he called.
+
+She came to him at once bearing her coat in her hands.  For a second,
+surprise widened her eyes.  He was no longer where she had left him.
+He had moved a few yards away.  And she wondered how he had been
+capable of the unassisted effort.  Then she glanced swiftly at the dead
+woman.  The covering over the body had been moved.  She was certain.
+It had been replaced differently from the way she had arranged it.  She
+offered no comment, but busied herself spreading her coat over the
+man's bared chest, where the rough bandages had been fastened with her
+father's aid.
+
+Again she seated herself on the ground beside him, but now his face was
+turned from her.  It was toward the still figure a few yards away.
+
+"Tell me the rest now, Nan," he said.  "She did her--best--to--save me."
+
+"More than her best.  Say, Jeff, she loved you better than life.
+That's why she's--there."
+
+"Tell me."
+
+A new note had crept into his demand.  There was a hush in his voice
+which gave his words a curious tenderness, reverence even for the woman
+they were speaking of.
+
+"Guess it must have been over in a minute.  Oh, say, it was just the
+biggest, blindest, most tremendous thing.  It was too awful.  She was
+so beautiful, too.  And then the love in it.  I kind of shiver when I
+think of it.  We heard your shout, Jeff.  Evie came right along with
+us.  She insisted.  You see, I'd made her mad.  I'd blamed her to her
+face.  I--I'm sorry now.  But, my, she was brave, and how she loved
+you!  Well, when Bud heard your shout I guess it didn't take him more
+than a minute to beat in the door they'd fastened.  Him an' the boys.
+The rest took seconds.  We stood clear, as you said, guessing you meant
+a run for it.  The place was ablaze.  When the door fell we saw it all.
+You were near it.  Beyond you were two men.  Sikkem was one.  They were
+against the far wall, sideways from the door.  They had guns in their
+hands.  They meant finishing you anyway, whatever happened after.  But
+there was a bundle of blazing stuff in front of them, an' it seemed to
+worry them quite a deal.  You started for the door.  They got busy to
+use their guns right away.  Then something happened.  We'd forgot Evie.
+Guess we were plumb staggered.  Something rushed past us, into that
+blazing hut.  It was Evie, an' she managed to get between you and them
+just as you dropped.  She fell where she stood.  It was the shots
+they'd meant for you.  Then Bud opened on 'em, the boys did too, and
+after that we dragged you and Evie out.  Oh, Jeff, she just didn't want
+to live without you."
+
+A great sob broke from the girl, and it found an echo deep down in the
+man's heart.  Nan buried her face in her hands, and the sound of her
+sobs alone broke the stillness.
+
+The man offered no comment.  He made no movement.  He lay there with
+his clear eyes gazing at the silhouette of that still dark figure
+against the mysterious sheen of night.  His look gave no key to his
+thoughts or emotions.  His own physical sufferings even found no
+expression in them.  But thoughts were stirring, deep thoughts and
+emotions which were his alone, and would remain his alone until the end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE ROUND-UP
+
+Bud's great bulk blocked the window opening on to the veranda.  It was
+his favorite vantage point in leisure.  The after breakfast pipe
+usually found him there.  His evening pipe, when the sun was dipping
+toward the glistening, fretted peaks of the hills, rarely found him
+elsewhere.  It was the point from which, in a way, he was able to view
+the whole setting of the life that was his.
+
+The winter had come and gone, vanishing amidst the howling gales of
+snow and sleet which never fail to herald the approach of the open
+season.  It is almost like the last furious onslaught of a despairing
+and defeated foe.  Now the world was abeat with swift pulsations in
+fibre and nerve.  The wide valley of Rainbow Hill was stirring with the
+vigor of renewed life.  Man, beast, fowl, foliage.  It was the same.
+Spring was in the blood.  Spring was in the sap.  And all the world was
+fresh and ready for the call of the coming year.
+
+The spring round-up was in full swing with all its ceaseless toil for
+the ranching world.  Already the pastures were crowded with stock
+brought in from distant valleys and grazings.  Numberless calves
+answered their mothers' calls, and hung to their sides in panic at the
+commotion in the midst of which they found themselves.  Already
+hundreds of them had endured the terrors of the searing irons which
+left them indelibly marked as the property of the great Obar Ranch,
+while hundreds more were awaiting the same process.
+
+And the irons and forges were kept going all day.  Just as was the
+largely augmented band of cattlemen.  In ones and twos these hardy
+ruffians, many of them "toughs" who worked at no other time of the
+year, scoured every hill, and valley, and plain, however remote in the
+vast region.  Theirs it was to locate the strays to whatever ranch they
+belonged, and bring them in to home pastures.  The sorting would be
+made after and the distribution.  For the whole of the round-up was a
+commonwealth amongst the growers, and each and everybody was called
+upon to do his adequate share in the work.
+
+Bud was glad.  Nor was it without good reason.  The busy life was the
+life he lived for.  And the busy life had been made possible and
+complete by the events of the previous summer.
+
+He was physically weary and yearning for the supper which was still
+awaiting Nan's return.  But if he were physically tired the feeling did
+not extend beyond his muscles.  His thoughts were busy as his eyes
+gazed out upon the scenes of life and movement which were going on.
+
+Just now he was thinking of the girl, impatient at the delay of her
+return from the pastures, where she was superintending the sorting for
+the morrow's branding.  Thinking of her quickly carried him to thoughts
+of his partner and friend, and thus, by degrees, his mind went back to
+the events of the last summer which had left the present operations
+free from the threat which had then overshadowed all their efforts.
+
+It had been a bad time, a bad time for them all.  But for Jeff--ah, it
+had been touch and go.  How near, perhaps, it was only now, after long
+months had passed, and a proper perspective had been obtained, that the
+full extent of his narrow escape could be estimated.
+
+It had been Christmas before Jeff was completely out of the hands of
+the surgeon they had had to obtain from Calthorpe.  For three months of
+that time he had hovered between life and death.  Nor had his trouble
+been confined solely to his physical hurts.  No, these had been sore:
+they had been grievous in the extreme.  Three times wounded, and his
+face, and hands, and arms badly burned.  But half of his trouble had
+been the mental sufferings he had endured as a result of his marriage,
+and the final tragedy of Evie's death.
+
+Now, as Bud looked back on that time, two things stood out beyond all
+the rest.  It was the desperate courage--even madness he called it--of
+Jeff, and the superlative devotion of Nan.
+
+He had by no means understood all that Jeff had achieved at the moment
+of his rescue.  It was not till long after, by a process of close
+questioning, that the magnitude of it became plain.  Then the marvel of
+it dawned on him.  The courage, the madness of it.  Jeff had rid the
+district of the whole gang of rustlers single-handed.  He had shot five
+of them to death, and the last two had fallen victims to his own,
+Bud's, gun after they had been wounded by Jeff.
+
+Then had followed that period when Nan had stepped into the picture.
+With pride, and a great satisfaction, he remembered her weeks and
+months of devotion to the injured man.  Her sleepless, tireless watch.
+Her skill and patient tenderness.  These things had been colossal.  To
+him it had been a vision of a mother's tender care for an ailing child.
+And the thought of it now stirred him to a touch of bitterness in his
+feelings toward his partner and friend.
+
+To Bud there could only be one possible end to such a wealth of
+devotion as his little Nan had displayed, but it seemed that all his
+ideas on the subject must be wrong.  To his uncomprehending mind they
+seemed no nearer to each other than in the days before a mad passion
+had seized upon Jeff for the woman he had married.
+
+Bud was very human.  His patience had its limits, and just now they
+seemed to have been reached.  He admitted this to himself frankly.  He
+told himself he had "no durned patience with the bunch."  And the bunch
+included both Nan and Jeff.  He felt that Nan, too, must be to blame in
+some way.
+
+He had "no durned patience with the bunch."  Therein lay the key-note
+of his mixed feelings.  Here everything was prospering but the one
+thing above all others upon which he had set his heart.  He felt as
+though he must "butt in" and put matters right himself.  How, he did
+not attempt to suggest.  But he felt that if he did not do so, or
+something or other did not occur to precipitate matters, the "whole
+durned shootin' match was li'ble to peter."
+
+This was how he saw things.  This was how he felt, as he awaited Nan's
+return from the pastures.
+
+She came at last.  She rode up and passed her weary horse to a
+barn-hand who promptly waited upon her.  She was covered with dust to
+her waist.  Her top-boots were white with it.  But her cheeks were as
+fresh as peach bloom, and her soft eyes shone with all a ranchman's
+enthusiasm at the most exhilarating period of the year.
+
+"One hundred an' forty-two young Obars to-day, my Daddy," she cried out
+exuberantly.  "Ther' don't seem any end to last year's crop.  Say,
+Jeff's just crazy to death about things."
+
+"He surely is."
+
+The old man's reply was tinged by a reflection of his thoughts.  But
+his eyes lit nevertheless.
+
+Nan regarded him seriously.
+
+"Most men get a grouch when they're kept waiting food," she observed
+slily.  "Say, come right in an' you'll soon feel the world's a mighty
+good place to live in."
+
+Instantly Bud's humor improved.
+
+"Guess you do your best to make it that way."
+
+The girl laughed as she led the way in.
+
+"That surely is a pretty nice talk, my Daddy.  Guess I'll take
+advantage of it, an' keep you waiting another three minutes while I get
+rid of the dust."
+
+Her father nodded.
+
+"Jeff comin' up?" he inquired.
+
+The girl shook her head.  For a moment the smiling eyes were hidden
+beneath their lids.
+
+"Not for supper.  He's gone on to the branding 'pinch.'"
+
+She was gone before her father could reply, and he was left to his own
+reflections, which were still further inspired by impatience.
+
+Well enough he knew the arduous nature of the work.  Had he not been at
+it himself since the first streak of dawn?  But he felt that Jeff was
+going beyond the bounds of necessity.  Even beyond the bounds of reason.
+
+However, he was not given much time to nurse any imaginary grievance.
+For Nan reappeared after a surprisingly short interval, and the
+transformation she had achieved was not a little startling.  Her dusty
+riding suit had given place to a pretty house frock of some softly
+clinging material which restored to her at once the charm of her
+essential femininity.  The pretty brown of her eyes, and the wavy
+softness of her hair became indescribably charming in such a setting.
+Bud regarded her with warm approval, and his spirits rose.
+
+"Jeff's coming right up after he's eaten," she said, as they look their
+places at the table.  "He's getting the food he needs at the bunkhouse.
+He guesses he hasn't time to get supper right."
+
+"Ah."
+
+The announcement gave Bud more pleasure than his monosyllable admitted.
+His eyes once more took in the picture Nan made as she sat behind the
+steaming coffee urn at the head of the table.  And somehow the change
+she had made became less startling.
+
+The meal was the customary ranch supper.  The table was simply loaded
+with cold meats, and sweets, and cakes of varied description.  The fare
+was homely but plentiful, and, to these simple-living people, it was
+all that was required.  Bud helped himself liberally, while Nan poured
+out the fragrant coffee.
+
+"We ought to be through in a week now," Nan said, passing a heavy china
+cup of coffee across to her father.  "Jeff figures we're well up on
+average in spite of the stock we lost last summer.  It's pretty good to
+think--after that time.  Say, Daddy, we owe Jeff a pretty big thing."
+
+The old man looked up with a smile.
+
+"Guess the owin' ain't all with us," he said, with his mouth full.
+
+Nan paused in the act of sipping her coffee.  Her eyes were full of
+incredulity.
+
+"I don't understand, Daddy," she said frankly.  "We owe more to Jeff
+than ever.  Much more.  He came pretty near handing over his poor life
+so the Obar might prosper.  He cleared out that gang who would have
+done the Obar to death.  A man can't give more to--his friends."
+
+Bud remained unconvinced.  He shook his great head and his smile
+deepened to a twinkle of real amusement.
+
+"That's so," he said.  "But he didn't just give that poor life of his.
+I allow he was ready to because--because, wal, I guess he's built in a
+right fashion.  We owed him for that sure.  But I 'low he's been paid
+in a way it don't fall to every feller's lot to git paid.  You paid
+that score for us both, an' if ther's any debt left over to be paid,
+why I guess I'm ready to pay it."  He chuckled.  "You know, Nan,
+woman's a ticklish proposition.  Ther's wise highbrows guess they
+handed out all ther' is to say 'bout women-folk, an' I figger some has
+used elegant langwidge, an' made pretty talk.  But they ain't said it
+all, an' ain't never likely to ef they was to yarn the whole way from
+here to hell an' back.  I'm gettin' older most every day, an' maybe I
+oughter git wiser.  But ef I was to live till the great round-up I
+don't guess I'd ever learn the limits of a woman's self-sacrifice fer
+them she takes the notion to mother.  An' it don't matter if it's her
+own folk, or her beau, or her man, or some pestilential kid she's
+rescued from drownin' in a churn of cream she's jest fixed ready fer
+butter makin'.  Wot Jeff don't owe you fer haulin' him right back into
+the midst of life, why I guess you couldn't find with one of them
+things crazy highbrows wastes otherwise valuable lives in lookin' at
+bugs with."
+
+Nan laughed, but her denial came swiftly.
+
+"Jeff doesn't owe me a thing," she declared.  "The wasn't a soul else
+around to nurse him.  I'd have hated handing him on to you."  Then she
+sighed, but her eyes shone with a light which her father well enough
+understood.  "I--I needed to nurse him.  If I hadn't been able to, why,
+I think I'd have just died.  But he don't owe me a thing--not a thing."
+
+Bud took a great gulp of coffee and set his cup down with a clatter.
+His deep gurgling laugh was good to hear.
+
+"That ain't no argyment," he cried, his deep eyes twinkling.  "You've
+jest said the things I hadn't savvee to put into words right.  Woman's
+jest a sort of angel come right down from Heaven on a snowflake.  She
+sure is.  Ther' ain't no reason to her.  Set her around a sick bed with
+physic she ken hand on to the feller lyin' there, an' ther' ain't no
+limit to wot she can do.  It's a passion.  You can't blame her.  She's
+fixed that way.  She'll just nurse that feller in a way that makes him
+feel he wants to start right in trundlin' a wooden hoop, or blowin' a
+painted trumpet, hanging on to her hand, same as he did before he quit
+actin' foolish on his mother's lap.  It kind o' seems to me a mortal
+wonder women don't set their men-folk actin' queer settin' aside a
+railroad track guessin' they're advertisements fer a new hair-wash, or
+some other fancy dope.  I guess women is the greatest proposition ever
+step out o' the Garden of Eden--someways."
+
+Nan laughed happily.
+
+"That's spoiled it, Daddy," she cried.  "Why not leave it at the Garden
+of Eden?"
+
+Bud laughingly shook his head.
+
+"Why for should I?" he retorted.  "If they're angels they ain't all
+halo an' wings.  Anyway, she did step out o' the Garden.  An' though
+the committee ast her to vacate, I allow it was a mighty good thing fer
+the human race, or we'd all be eatin' grass still, or some other
+perfectly ridiculous cattle feed.  No siree!  She ain't all halo an'
+wings, or us men 'ud be settin' around all the time shoutin' hymns
+doleful instead of enjoyin' ourselves lyin' awake at nights figgerin'
+to beat the other feller's play.  Woman's jest woman, an' the
+diff'rences in her is just what a mighty tough world makes of her.
+Maybe she's foolish.  Maybe she ain't.  Anyway, she's got most things
+agin her to make her that way, an' it seems to me a yeller dawg don't
+have much the worst of the game.  No.  I guess woman's jest woman, an'
+us men needs to git right on our knees and thank Providence that is so."
+
+Bud reattacked his supper.  There had been impatience as well as
+amiability in his denial.  For all his regard for his partner he could
+not allow Nan her absurd self-effacement without protest.  None knew
+better than he the extent of his debt to Jeff for ridding the Obar of
+the rustlers.  But Jeff, he also knew, owed his life to the devotion,
+the skill, the love of this girl upon whom he had no claim.
+
+He remained silent now, lost in thoughts he dared not impart to Nan,
+and the girl herself had nothing to say.  She, too, was thinking.  But
+there was no impatience in her thoughts.
+
+She was thinking of a moment which had occurred down at the pastures.
+A moment just before her return home to supper.  To her it had been a
+moment of compensation for everything which she had ever suffered, a
+moment when the whole aspect of her life had been suddenly changed to a
+radiant vision of happiness.
+
+She had been standing beside Jeff watching the work of the boys within
+the pastures.  Their talk had all been of the business of the day.
+There had been no other sign between them.  The old comradeship alone
+seemed to prevail.  Then they had turned away, with their talk
+silenced.  They had moved toward their horses which were standing in
+the shadow of a small bluff.
+
+Just as they came up Jeff had paused, and turned, and looked down at
+her from his superior height.  She would never forget that look.  It
+was the look she had seen in his eyes when he first gazed on the beauty
+of the woman he had married.  Her heart was set thumping in her bosom
+as she thought of it now.  A deep flush surged to her cheeks, and she
+kept her head studiously bent over her plate.
+
+Then had followed a great impulsive abandoning of his usual reserve.
+It had been so unusual in him, but to Nan so natural.  It seemed as
+though of a sudden some great barrier between them had been thrust
+aside by emotions beyond the man's control.  He had flung out his hands
+toward her, and, before she knew what was happening, she felt their
+passionate pressure under the buckskin gauntlets she was wearing.  Then
+had come words, rapid, even disjointed; again to her so natural, yet
+strange, awkward on the lips of this man.
+
+"Say, little Nan," he cried, "we've won out.  Look at 'em.  The
+pastures.  They're full.  Fuller than we ever guessed they'd be after
+last year.  Things are running same as we've dreamed.  The Obar's going
+up--up.  And--it's all too late."
+
+On the warm impulse of the moment she had answered him without a second
+thought.
+
+"Why--why is it too late?"
+
+Her hands were still held in his passionate grasp.  He laughed a
+bitter, mirthless laugh.
+
+"Why, because--because I've wakened out of a passionate nightmare to
+realize all I've--lost."
+
+She had abruptly withdrawn her hands.  She remembered the curious chill
+which suddenly seemed to pass through her body.  But she answered him
+simply, earnestly.
+
+"You mustn't blame yourself for all you've lost, Jeff," she said.
+"Maybe Evie loved you better than you knew.  But she--she, too, was to
+blame.  You must try to forget."
+
+Then had happened something so startling that even now she could hardly
+credit it.  Jeff had turned away.  His face was toward the hills where
+the setting sun still lit the fastnesses in which lay the fateful
+Spruce Crossing.  His words came shortly, simply.
+
+"I wasn't thinking of--Evie," he said.  "The memory of her, of all
+that, has gone--forever."
+
+Oh, the bewilderment of that moment.  Nan remembered the absurdity of
+her reply now with something very like panic:
+
+"Who--what--were you thinking of then?"
+
+"Who--what?"  The man's eyes lit with a deep, passionate yearning.
+"Why, little Nan, the only person who is ever in my thoughts now--you."
+
+It had come so simply yet so full of scarcely restrained passion.
+Would she ever forget?  Never, never.  Her emotions had been beyond
+words.  She wanted to weep.  She wanted to laugh.  But more than all
+she wanted to flee before he could utter another word.  She turned to
+her horse without a word.  In a moment she was in the saddle, and had
+turned the creature about to ride off.  But Jeff's voice stayed her.
+
+"Say, little Nan, I----" he broke off.  "Oh, I guess I'll eat at the
+bunkhouse.  I haven't time for supper right.  I've got to get down to
+the branding pinch.  Say, Nan," a sudden deep urging had filled his
+voice, and he came to her horse's side and laid a detaining hand upon
+its reins.  "Can I come along up--later?  I didn't mean to make you
+mad.  True.  I couldn't help it.  I----  May I come along--after I get
+through?"
+
+It had been utterly impossible for her to make articulate reply.  Her
+emotions were too deep, too overwhelming.  She had simply nodded her
+head.  And in that trifling movement she knew she had conveyed a sign
+beyond all misunderstanding.
+
+After that the woman had impelled her.  She hurriedly rode off, fearing
+she knew not what.  She knew she fled, incontinently fled.  And her
+first act on arrival home had been to rid herself of the almost mannish
+suit in which she worked, so that Jeff, when he made his appearance,
+might find her the woman she really was.
+
+The voices of the men on the veranda reached Nan within the parlor.
+She did not want to listen.  She told herself so.  Besides, she had a
+perfect right to remain where she was.  And, anyway, Bud had no secrets
+from her.  So she placed herself beyond the chance of observation, and
+remained quiet lest she should lose a word of what the voices were
+saying.
+
+Bud was talking.  His tone and words rumbled pleasantly upon the
+evening air.  His talk was of the round-up.  It was the talk of a man
+wedded to the life of the western plains.  It was the talk of a man who
+is conscious of success achieved in spite of great difficulties and
+trials.  There was a deep note of satisfaction in all he said.
+
+Jeff's voice sounded at intervals.  A lighter note.  His answers were
+precise, as was his way.  But they lacked the enthusiasm of the other.
+It was as though his thoughts were traveling far afield, while his ears
+subconsciously conveyed the other's talk to a brain ready to formulate
+adequate reply.
+
+Apparently, however, this abstraction impressed itself upon the other
+at last, for presently Nan heard her father challenge him in his direct
+fashion.
+
+"Feelin' beat, eh?"
+
+Nan pictured the steady gaze of her father's deep-set inquiring eyes as
+he put the question.
+
+"No."
+
+The reply came without hesitation.  It was simple, definite.  Again the
+picture presented itself to Nan.  Jeff, she felt, was gazing out into
+the twilight, absorbed in the thoughts which held him.  She knew the
+attitude.  She had seen it so often before.
+
+It was Bud's voice which broke the silence that followed.
+
+"Guess the work's pretty tough," he said.  "You don't need to fergit
+you bin a mighty sick man.  If you do, why, you'll be li'ble to find
+yourself on Nan's hands again."
+
+"I couldn't wish for better."
+
+The reply had come on the instant.  It must have warned even Bud that
+he had found a key to the man's abstraction.
+
+"That's so--sure."
+
+The emphasis was unmistakable.  Nan waited almost breathlessly in a
+delicious condition of apprehension.
+
+"Wher's Nan?"
+
+Jeff's demand came sharply.
+
+"Som'eres around inside."
+
+"I came up to see her."
+
+"So?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The lowing of the cattle in the pastures was dying with the deepening
+twilight.  The calves seemed to have found their mothers and all was
+contentment.  Nan glad of the growing shadows.  For her, obscurity the
+only thing just now.
+
+Jeff's voice again broke the silence.  There was something utterly
+simple in the manner of his words.
+
+"I love Nan, Bud," he said.  "I want to tell her so.  If she'd marry
+me, I don't guess there'd be a thing left worth asking for.  But I
+don't guess she will.  Why should she?  I'm not worth her.  Gee!  But I
+want her bad."
+
+Nan buried her face in her hands.  Then she drew back, back, far into
+the dusk of the room.  But she could not escape the voices.
+
+Bud's answer came slowly, deliberately.  There was a curious note of
+emotion in it.
+
+"You sure aren't.  No man is.  Ther' ain't a feller on earth worthy my
+little Nan.  But it's up to her.  Guess she's around inside som'eres."
+
+There was the sound of swift footsteps on the veranda.  Nan drew
+further back into the room.  The far wall alone stayed her progress.
+The door was to her hand, but she made no attempt to avail herself of
+it.  Oh, those delicious moments of terror.  It seemed to her as if
+every joy of life was concentrated in them.  Her breath came pantingly.
+The moments became insupportable.
+
+Suddenly a figure, tall, slim, filled the open window.  Swift as a
+flash the mind of the girl went back to the long months of nursing when
+he had lain helpless in her hands.  He had been hers then in his
+helplessness.  Now, in his full manhood's strength, he was coming to
+her again.  A choking sensation seized her, a mist grew before her eyes.
+
+"Nan!"
+
+The tone of it The softness.  The thrilling passion.
+
+"Yes, Jeff."
+
+The answer was low, almost inaudible.
+
+Nor did the man have to search the darkened room.  The love which he
+had for so long thrust aside was--waiting for him.
+
+
+
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