1 files changed, 9406 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/26911-8.txt b/26911-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..653f1c2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/26911-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9406 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Crooked Trails and Straight, by 
+William MacLeod Raine and D. C. Hutchison
+
+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: Crooked Trails and Straight
+
+Author: William MacLeod Raine
+        D. C. Hutchison
+
+Release Date: October 13, 2008 [EBook #26911]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THIS SLENDER GIRL DUMFOUNDED THEM _Frontispiece Page 41_]
+
+
+
+
+CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT
+
+BY
+WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
+
+AUTHOR OF
+BRAND BLOTTERS, BUCKY O'CONNOR, MAVERICKS,
+WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, A TEXAS RANGER, etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+D. C. HUTCHISON
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK
+
+Made in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1913, by
+G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
+
+Crooked Trails and Straight
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PART I
+
+CURLY
+
+CHAPTER                                               PAGE
+     I.  Following a Crooked Trail                       9
+    II.  Camping with Old Man Trouble                   23
+   III.  At the End of the Road                         33
+    IV.  The Cullisons                                  49
+     V.  Laura London                                   60
+    VI.  A Bear Trap                                    74
+   VII.  Bad Medicine                                   84
+  VIII.  A Rehearsed Quarrel                            94
+    IX.  Eavesdropping                                 110
+     X.  "Stick to Your Saddle"                        131
+
+PART II
+
+LUCK
+
+     I.  At the Round Up Club                          143
+    II.  Luck Meets an Old Acquaintance                151
+   III.  An Initialed Hat                              157
+    IV.  Kate Uses Her Quirt                           169
+     V.  "Ain't She the Gamest Little Thoroughbred?"   178
+    VI.  Two Hats On A Rack                            194
+   VII.  Anonymous Letters                             200
+  VIII.  A Message in Cipher                           213
+    IX.  "The Friends of L. C. Serve Notice"           220
+     X.  Cass Fendrick Makes a Call                    233
+    XI.  A Compromise                                  245
+   XII.  An Arrest                                     254
+  XIII.  A Conversation                                265
+   XIV.  A Touch of the Third Degree                   270
+    XV.  Bob Takes a Hand                              282
+   XVI.  A Clean Up                                    294
+  XVII.  The Prodigal Son                              312
+ XVIII.  Cutting Trail                                 316
+   XIX.  A Good Samaritan                              323
+    XX.  Loose Threads                                 337
+
+
+
+
+CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT
+
+PART I
+
+CURLY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FOLLOWING A CROOKED TRAIL
+
+
+Across Dry Valley a dust cloud had been moving for hours. It rolled into
+Saguache at the brisk heels of a bunch of horses just about the time the
+town was settling itself to supper. At the intersection of Main and La
+Junta streets the cloud was churned to a greater volume and density. From
+out of the heart of it cantered a rider, who swung his pony as on a half
+dollar, and deflected the remuda toward Chunn's corral.
+
+The rider was in the broad-rimmed felt hat, the gray shirt, the plain
+leather chaps of a vaquero. The alkali dust of Arizona lay thick on every
+exposed inch of him, but youth bloomed inextinguishably through the grime.
+As he swept forward with a whoop to turn the lead horses it rang in his
+voice, announced itself in his carriage, was apparent in the modeling of
+his slim, hard body. Under other conditions he might have been a college
+freshman for age, but the competent confidence of manhood sat easily on
+his broad shoulders. He was already a graduate of that school of
+experience which always holds open session on the baked desert. Curly
+Flandrau had more than once looked into the chill eyes of death.
+
+The leaders of the herd dribbled into the corral through the open gate,
+and the others crowded on their heels. Three more riders followed Curly
+into the enclosure. Upon them, too, the desert had sifted its white coat.
+The stained withers of the animals they rode told of long, steady travel.
+One of them, a red-haired young fellow of about the same age as Curly,
+swung stiffly from the saddle.
+
+"Me for a square meal first off," he gave out promptly.
+
+"Not till we've finished this business, Mac. We'll put a deal right
+through if Warren's here," decided a third member of the party. He was a
+tough-looking customer of nearly fifty. From out of his leathery
+sun-and-wind beaten face, hard eyes looked without expression. "Bad Bill"
+Cranston he was called, and the man looked as if he had earned his
+sobriquet.
+
+"And what if he ain't here?" snarled the fourth. "Are you aiming to sit
+down and wait for him?"
+
+"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Bad Bill answered. "Curly,
+want to ride up to the hotel and ask if Mr. Dave Warren is there? Bring
+him right down if he is."
+
+"And say, young fellow, don't shout all over the place what your business
+is with him," ordered the previous speaker sulkily. Lute Blackwell, a
+squat heavily muscled man of forty, had the manner of a bully. Unless his
+shifty eyes lied he was both cruel and vindictive.
+
+Curly's gaze traveled over him leisurely. Not a muscle in the boyish face
+moved, but in the voice one might have guessed an amused contempt. "All
+right. I won't, since you mention it, Lute."
+
+The young man cantered up the dusty street toward the hotel. Blackwell
+trailed toward the windmill pump.
+
+"Thought you'd fixed it with this Warren to be right on the spot so's we
+could unload on him prompt," he grumbled at Cranston without looking
+toward the latter.
+
+"I didn't promise he'd be hanging round your neck soon as you hit town,"
+Cranston retorted coolly. "Keep your shirt on, Lute. No use getting in a
+sweat."
+
+The owner of the corral sauntered from the stable and glanced over the
+bunch of horses milling around.
+
+"Been traveling some," he suggested to Bad Bill.
+
+"A few. Seen anything of a man named Warren about town to-day?"
+
+"He's been down here se-ve-re-al times. Said he was looking for a party
+with stock to sell. Might you be the outfit he's expecting?"
+
+"We might." Bad Bill took the drinking cup from Blackwell and drained it.
+"I reckon the dust was caked in my throat an inch deep."
+
+"Drive all the way from the Bar Double M?" asked the keeper of the corral,
+his eyes on the brand stamped on the flank of a pony circling past.
+
+"Yep."
+
+Bad Bill turned away and began to unsaddle. He did not intend to volunteer
+any information, though on the other hand he did not want to stir
+suspicion by making a mystery for gossips to chew on.
+
+"Looks like you been hitting the road at a right lively gait."
+
+Mac cut in. "Shoulder of my bronc's chafed from the saddle. Got anything
+that'll heal it?"
+
+"You bet I have." The man hurried into the stable and the redheaded
+cowpuncher winked across the back of his horse at Bill.
+
+The keeper of the stable and the young man were still busy doctoring the
+sore when Curly arrived with Warren. The buyer was a roundbodied man with
+black gimlet eyes that saw much he never told. The bargain he drove was a
+hard one, but it did not take long to come to terms at about one-third the
+value of the string he was purchasing. Very likely he had his suspicions,
+but he did not voice them. No doubt they cut a figure in the price. He let
+it be understood that he was a supply agent for the rebels in Mexico.
+Before the bills were warm in the pockets of the sellers, his vaqueros
+were mounted and were moving the remuda toward the border.
+
+Curly and Mac helped them get started. As they rode back to the corral a
+young man came out from the stable. Flandrau forgot that there were
+reasons why he wanted just now to be a stranger in the land with his
+identity not advertised. He let out a shout.
+
+"Oh you, Slats Davis!"
+
+"Hello, Curly! How are things a-comin'?"
+
+"Fine. When did you blow in to Saguache? Ain't you off your run some?"
+
+They had ridden the range together and had frolicked around on a dozen
+boyish larks. Their ways had suited each other and they had been a good
+deal more than casual bunkies. To put it mildly the meeting was likely to
+prove embarrassing.
+
+"Came down to see about getting some cows for the old man from the
+Fiddleback outfit," Davis explained. "Didn't expect to bump into friends
+'way down here. You riding for the Bar Double M?"
+
+There was a momentary silence. Curly's vigilant eyes met those of his old
+side partner. What did Slats know? Had he been in the stable while the
+remuda was still in the corral? Had he seen them with Bad Bill and
+Blackwell? Were his suspicions already active?
+
+"No, I'm riding for the Map of Texas," Flandrau answered evenly.
+
+"Come on, Curly. Let's go feed our faces," Mac called from the stable.
+
+Flandrau nodded. "You still with the Hashknife?" he asked Davis.
+
+"Still with 'em. I've been raised to assistant foreman."
+
+"Bully for you. That's great. All right, Mac. I'm coming. That's sure
+great, old hoss. Well, see you later, Slats."
+
+Flandrau followed Mac, dissatisfied with himself for leaving his friend so
+cavalierly. In the old days they had told each other everything, had
+talked things out together before many a campfire. He guessed Slats would
+be hurt, but he had to think of his partners in this enterprise.
+
+After supper they took a room at the hotel and divided the money Warren
+had paid for the horses. None of them had slept for the last fifty hours
+and Mac proposed to tumble into bed at once.
+
+Bad Bill shook his head. "I wouldn't, Mac. Let's hit the trail and do our
+sleeping in the hills. There's too many telephone lines into this town to
+suit me."
+
+"Sho! We made a clean getaway, and we're plumb wore out. Our play isn't to
+hike out like we were scared stiff of something. What we want to do is to
+act as if we could look every darned citizen in the face. Mac's sure
+right," Curly agreed.
+
+"You kids make me tired. As if you knew anything about it. I'm going to
+dust _muy pronto_," Blackwell snarled.
+
+"Sure. Whenever you like. You go and we'll stay. Then everybody'll be
+satisfied. We got to split up anyhow," Mac said.
+
+Bad Bill looked at Blackwell and nodded. "That's right. We don't all want
+to pull a blue streak. That would be a dead give away. Let the kids stay
+if they want to."
+
+"So as they can round on us if they're nabbed," Blackwell sneered.
+
+Cranston called him down roughly. "That'll be enough along that line,
+Lute. I don't stand for any more cracks like it."
+
+Blackwell, not three months out from the penitentiary, faced the other
+with an ugly look in his eyes. He was always ready to quarrel, but he did
+not like to fight unless he had a sure thing. He knew Bad Bill was an ugly
+customer when he once got started.
+
+"Didn't mean any harm," the ex-convict growled. "But I don't like this
+sticking around town. I tell you straight I don't like it."
+
+"Then I wouldn't stay if I were you," Curly suggested promptly. "Mac and I
+have got a different notion. So we'll tie to Saguache for a day or two."
+
+As soon as the older men had gone the others tumbled into bed and fell
+asleep at once. Daylight was sifting in through the open window before
+their eyes opened. Somebody was pounding on the bedroom door, which
+probably accounted for Flandrau's dream that a sheriff was driving nails
+in the lid of a coffin containing one Curly.
+
+Mac was already out of bed when his partner's feet hit the floor.
+
+"What's up, Mac?"
+
+The eyes of the redheaded puncher gleamed with excitement. His six-gun was
+in his hand. By the look of him he was about ready to whang loose through
+the door.
+
+"Hold your horses, you chump," Curly sang out "It's the hotel clerk. I
+left a call with him."
+
+But it was not the hotel clerk after all. Through the door came a quick,
+jerky voice.
+
+"That you, Curly? For God's sake, let me in."
+
+Before he had got the words out the door was open. Slats came in and shut
+it behind him. He looked at Mac, the forty-five shaking in the boy's hand,
+and he looked at Flandrau.
+
+"They're after you," he said, breathing fast as if he had been running.
+
+"Who?" fired Curly back at him.
+
+"The Bar Double M boys. They just reached town."
+
+"Put up that gun, Mac, and move into your clothes immediate," ordered
+Curly. Then to Davis: "Go on. Unload the rest. What do they know?"
+
+"They inquired for you and your friend here down at the Legal Tender. The
+other members of your party they could only guess at."
+
+"Have we got a chance to make our getaway?" Mac asked.
+
+Davis nodded. "Slide out through the kitchen, cut into the alley, and
+across lots to the corral. We'll lock the door and I'll hold them here
+long as I can."
+
+"Good boy, Slats. If there's a necktie party you'll get the first bid,"
+Curly grinned.
+
+Slats looked at him, cold and steady. Plainer than words he was telling
+his former friend that he would not joke with a horse thief. For the sake
+of old times he would save him if he could, but he would call any bluffs
+about the whole thing being a lark.
+
+Curly's eyes fell away. It came to him for the first time that he was no
+longer an honest man. Up till this escapade he had been only wild, but now
+he had crossed the line that separates decent folks from outlaws. He had
+been excited with liquor when he joined in this fool enterprise, but that
+made no difference now. He was a rustler, a horse thief. If he lived a
+hundred years he could never get away from the disgrace of it.
+
+Not another word was said while they hurried into their clothes. But as
+Curly passed out of the door he called back huskily. "Won't forget what
+you done for us, Slats."
+
+Again their eyes met. Davis did not speak, but the chill look on his face
+told Flandrau that he had lost a friend.
+
+The two young men ran down the back stairs, passed through the kitchen
+where a Chinese cook was getting breakfast, and out into the bright
+sunlight. Before they cut across to the corral their eyes searched for
+enemies. Nobody was in sight except the negro janitor of a saloon busy
+putting empty bottles into a barrel.
+
+"Won't do to be in any hurry. The play is we're gentlemen of leisure, just
+out for an amble to get the mo'ning air," Curly cautioned.
+
+While they fed, watered, and saddled they swapped gossip with the
+wrangler. It would not do to leave the boy with a story of two riders in
+such a hurry to hit the trail that they could not wait to feed their
+bronchos. So they stuck it out while the animals ate, though they were
+about as contented as a two-pound rainbow trout on a hook. One of them was
+at the door all the time to make sure the way was still clear. At that
+they shaved it fine, for as they rode away two men were coming down the
+street.
+
+"Kite Bonfils," Curly called to his partner.
+
+No explanation was needed. Bonfils was the foreman of the Bar Double M. He
+let out a shout as he caught sight of them and began to run forward.
+Simultaneously his gun seemed to jump from its holster.
+
+Mac's quirt sang and his pony leaped to a canter in two strides. A bullet
+zipped between them. Another struck the dust at their heels. Faintly there
+came to the fugitives the sound of the foreman's impotent curses. They had
+escaped for the time.
+
+Presently they passed the last barb wire fence and open country lay before
+them. It did not greatly matter which direction they followed, so long as
+they headed into the desert.
+
+"What we're looking for is a country filled with absentees," Curly
+explained with a grin.
+
+Neither of them had ever been in serious trouble before and both regretted
+the folly that had turned their drunken spree into a crime. Once or twice
+they came to the edge of a quarrel, for Mac was ready to lay the blame on
+his companion. Moreover, he had reasons why the thing he had done loomed
+up as a heinous offense.
+
+His reasons came out before the camp fire on Dry Sandy that evening. They
+were stretched in front of it trying to make a smoke serve instead of
+supper. Mac broke a gloomy silence to grunt out jerkily a situation he
+could no longer keep to himself.
+
+"Here's where I get my walking papers I reckon. No rustlers need apply."
+
+Curly shot a slant glance at him. "Meaning--the girl?"
+
+The redheaded puncher nodded. "She'll throw me down sure. Why shouldn't
+she? I tell you I've ruined my life. You're only a kid. What you know
+about it?"
+
+He took from his coat pocket a photograph and showed it to his friend. The
+sweet clean face of a wholesome girl smiled at Curly.
+
+"She's ce'tainly a right nice young lady. I'll bet she stands by you all
+right. Where's she live at?"
+
+"Waits in a restaurant at Tombstone. We was going to be married soon as we
+had saved five hundred dollars." Mac swallowed hard. "And I had to figure
+out this short cut to the money whilst I was drunk. As if she'd look at
+money made that way. Why, we'd a-been ready by Christmas if I'd only
+waited."
+
+Curly tried to cheer him up, but did not make much of a job at it. The
+indisputable facts were that Mac was an outlaw and a horse thief. Very
+likely a price was already on his head.
+
+The redheaded boy rolled another cigarette despondently. "Sho! I've cooked
+my goose. She'll not look at me--even if they don't send me to the pen."
+In a moment he added huskily, staring into the deepening darkness: "And
+she's the best ever. Her name's Myra Anderson."
+
+Abruptly Mac got up and disappeared in the night, muttering something
+about looking after the horses. His partner understood well enough what
+was the matter. The redheaded puncher was in a stress of emotion, and like
+the boy he was he did not want Curly to know it.
+
+Flandrau pretended to be asleep when Mac returned half an hour later.
+
+They slept under a live oak with the soundness of healthy youth. For the
+time they forgot their troubles. Neither of them knew that as the hours
+slipped away red tragedy was galloping closer to them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+CAMPING WITH OLD MAN TROUBLE
+
+
+The sun was shining in his face when Curly wakened. He sat up and rubbed
+his eyes. Mac was nowhere in sight. Probably he had gone to get the
+horses.
+
+A sound broke the stillness of the desert. It might have been the
+explosion of a giant firecracker, but Flandrau knew it was nothing so
+harmless. He leaped to his feet, and at the same instant Mac came running
+over the brow of the hill. A smoking revolver was in his hand.
+
+From behind the hill a gun cracked--then a second--and a third. Mac
+stumbled over his feet and pitched forward full length on the ground. His
+friend ran toward him, forgetting the revolver that lay in its holster
+under the live oak. Every moment he expected to see Mac jump up, but the
+figure stretched beside the cholla never moved. Flandrau felt the muscles
+round his heart tighten. He had seen sudden death before, but never had it
+come so near home.
+
+A bullet sent up a spurt of dust in front of him, another just on the
+left. Riders were making a half circle around the knoll and closing in on
+him. In his right mind Curly would have been properly frightened. But now
+he thought only of Mac lying there so still in the sand. Right into the
+fire zone he ran, knelt beside his partner, and lifted the red-thatched
+head. A little hole showed back of the left ear and another at the right
+temple. A bullet had plowed through the boy's skull.
+
+Softly Flandrau put the head back in the sand and rose to his feet. The
+revolver of the dead puncher was in his hand. The attackers had stopped
+shooting, but when they saw him rise a rifle puffed once more. The riders
+were closing in on him now. The nearest called to him to surrender. Almost
+at the same time a red hot pain shot through the left arm of the trapped
+rustler. Someone had nipped him from the rear.
+
+Curly saw red. Surrender nothing! He would go down fighting. As fast as he
+could blaze he emptied Mac's gun. When the smoke cleared the man who had
+ordered him to give up was slipping from his horse. Curly was surprised,
+but he knew he must have hit him by chance.
+
+"We got him. His gun's empty," someone shouted.
+
+Cautiously they closed in, keeping him covered all the time. Of a sudden
+the plain tilted up to meet the sky. Flandrau felt himself swaying on his
+feet. Everything went black. The boy had fainted.
+
+When he came to himself strange faces were all around him, and there were
+no bodies to go with them. They seemed to float about in an odd casual
+sort of way. Then things cleared.
+
+"He's coming to all right," one said.
+
+"Good. I'd hate to have him cheat the rope," another cried with an oath.
+
+"That's right. How is Cullison?"
+
+This was said to another who had just come up.
+
+"Hard hit. Looks about all in. Got him in the side."
+
+The rage had died out of Curly. In a flash he saw all that had come of
+their drunken spree: the rustling of the Bar Double M stock, the
+discovery, the death of his friend and maybe of Cullison, the certain
+punishment that would follow. He was a horse thief caught almost in the
+act. Perhaps he was a murderer too. And the whole thing had been entirely
+unpremeditated.
+
+Flandrau made a movement to rise and they jerked him to his feet.
+
+"You've played hell," one of the men told the boy.
+
+He was a sawed-off little fellow known as Dutch. Flandrau had seen him in
+the Map of Texas country try a year or two before. The rest were strangers
+to the boy. All of them looked at him out of hard hostile eyes. He was
+scarcely a human being to them; rather a wolf to be stamped out of
+existence as soon as it was convenient. A chill ran down Curly's spine. He
+felt as if someone were walking on his grave.
+
+At a shift in the group Flandrau's eyes fell on his friend lying in the
+sand with face turned whitely to the sky he never would see again. It came
+over him strangely enough how Mac used to break into a little chuckling
+laugh when he was amused. He had quit laughing now for good and all. A
+lump came into the boy's throat and he had to work it down before he
+spoke.
+
+"There's a picture in his pocket, and some letters I reckon. Send them to
+Miss Myra Anderson, Tombstone, care of one of the restaurants. I don't
+know which one."
+
+"Send nothin'," sneered Dutch, and coupled it with a remark no decent man
+makes of a woman on a guess.
+
+Because of poor Mac lying there with the little hole in his temple Curry
+boiled over. With a jerk his right arm was free. It shot out like a
+pile-driver, all his weight behind the blow. Dutch went down as if a
+charging bull had flung him.
+
+Almost simultaneously Curly hit the sand hard. Before he could stir three
+men were straddled over his anatomy. One of them ground his head into the
+dust.
+
+"You would, eh? We'll see about that. Jake, bring yore rope."
+
+They tied the hands of the boy, hauled him to his feet, and set him
+astride a horse. In the distance a windmill of the Circle C ranch was
+shining in the morning sun. Toward the group of buildings clustered around
+this two of his captors started with Flandrau. A third was already
+galloping toward the ranch house to telephone for a doctor.
+
+As they rode along a fenced lane which led to the house a girl came flying
+down the steps. She swung herself to the saddle just vacated by the
+messenger and pulled the horse round for a start. At sight of those coming
+toward her she called out quickly.
+
+"How is dad?" The quiver of fear broke in her voice.
+
+"Don' know yet, Miss Kate," answered one of the men. "He's right peart
+though. Says for to tell you not to worry. Don't you, either. We've got
+here the mangy son of a gun that did it."
+
+Before he had finished she was off like an arrow shot from a bow, but not
+until her eyes had fallen on the youth sitting bareheaded and bloody
+between the guns of his guard. Curly noticed that she had given a shudder,
+as one might at sight of a mangled mad dog which had just bit a dear
+friend. Long after the pounding of her pony's hoofs had died away the
+prisoner could see the startled eyes of fear and horror that had rested on
+him. As Curly kicked his foot out of the stirrup to dismount a light
+spring wagon rolled past him. In its bed were a mattress and pillows. The
+driver whipped up the horse and went across the prairie toward Dry Sandy
+Creek. Evidently he was going to bring home the wounded man.
+
+His guards put Flandrau in the bunk house and one of them sat at the door
+with a rifle across his knees. The cook, the stable boy, and redheaded Bob
+Cullison, a nephew of the owner of the ranch, peered past the _vaquero_ at
+the captive with the same awe they would have yielded to a caged panther.
+
+"Why, he's only a kid, Buck," the cook whispered.
+
+Buck chewed tobacco impassively. "Old enough to be a rustler and a
+killer."
+
+Bob's blue eyes were wide with interest "I'll bet he's a regular Billy the
+Kid," murmured the half-grown boy to the other lad.
+
+"Sure. Course he is. He's got bad eyes all right."
+
+"I'll bet he's got notches on his gun. Say, if Uncle Luck dies--" Bob left
+the result to the imagination.
+
+The excitement at the Circle C increased. Horses cantered up. Men shouted
+to each other the news. Occasionally some one came in to have a look at
+the "bad man" who had shot Luck Cullison. Young Flandrau lay on a cot and
+stared at the ceiling, paying no more attention to them than if they had
+been blocks of wood. It took no shrewdness to see that there burned in
+them a still cold anger toward him that might easily find expression in
+lynch law.
+
+The crunch of wagon wheels over disintegrated granite drifted to the bunk
+house.
+
+"They're bringing the boss back," Buck announced from the door to one of
+his visitors.
+
+The man joined him and looked over his shoulder. "Miss Kate there too?"
+
+"Yep. Say, if the old man don't pull through it will break her all up."
+
+The boy on the bed turned his face to the wall. He had not cried for ten
+years, but now he would have liked the relief of tears. The luck had
+broken bad for him, but it would be the worst ever if his random shot were
+to make Kate Cullison an orphan. A big lump rose in his throat and would
+not stay down. The irony of it was that he was staged for the part of a
+gray wolf on the howl, while he felt more like a little child that has
+lost its last friend.
+
+After a time there came again the crisp roll of wheels.
+
+"Doc Brown," announced Buck casually to the other men in the bunk house.
+
+There was more than one anxious heart at the Circle C waiting for the
+verdict of the bowlegged baldheaded little man with the satchel, but not
+one of them--no, not even Kate Cullison herself--was in a colder fear than
+Curly Flandrau. He was entitled to a deep interest, for if Cullison should
+die he knew that he would follow him within a few hours. These men would
+take no chances with the delays of the law.
+
+The men at the bunk house had offered more than once to look at Curly's
+arm, but the young man declined curtly. The bleeding had stopped, but
+there was a throb in it as if someone were twisting a red-hot knife in the
+wound. After a time Doctor Brown showed up in the doorway of the men's
+quarters.
+
+"Another patient here, they tell me," he grunted in the brusque way that
+failed to conceal the kindest of hearts.
+
+Buck nodded toward Flandrau.
+
+"Let's have a look at your arm, young fellow," the doctor ordered, mopping
+his bald head with a big bandanna handkerchief.
+
+"What about the boss?" asked Jake presently.
+
+"Mighty sick man, looks like. Tell you more to-morrow morning."
+
+"Do you mean that he--that he may not get well?" Curly pumped out, his
+voice not quite steady.
+
+Doctor Brown looked at him curiously. Somehow this boy did not fit the
+specifications of the desperado that had been poured into his ears.
+
+"Don't know yet. Won't make any promises." He had been examining the wound
+in a businesslike way. "Looks like the bullet's still in there. Have to
+give you an anesthetic while I dig it out."
+
+"Nothin' doing," retorted Flandrau. "You round up the pill in there and
+I'll stand the grief. When this lead hypodermic jabbed into my arm it
+sorter gave me one of them annie-what-d'ye-call-'em--and one's a-plenty
+for me."
+
+"It'll hurt," the little man explained.
+
+"Expect I'll find that out. Go to it."
+
+Brown had not been for thirty years carrying a medicine case across the
+dusty deserts of the frontier without learning to know men. He made no
+further protest but set to work.
+
+Twenty minutes later Curly lay back on the bunk with a sudden faintness.
+He was very white about the lips, but he had not once flinched from the
+instruments.
+
+The doctor washed his hands and his tools, pulled on his coat, and came
+across to the patient.
+
+"Feeling like a fighting cock, are you? Ready to tackle another posse?" he
+asked.
+
+"Not quite." The prisoner glanced toward his guards and his voice fell to
+a husky whisper. "Say, Doc. Pull Cullison through. Don't let him die."
+
+"Hmp! Do my best, young fellow. Seems to me you're thinking of that pretty
+late."
+
+Brown took up his medicine case and went back to the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AT THE END OF THE ROAD
+
+
+Curly's wooden face told nothing of what he was thinking. The first
+article of the creed of the frontier is to be game. Good or bad, the last
+test of a man is the way he takes his medicine. So now young Flandrau ate
+his dinner with a hearty appetite, smoked cigarettes impassively, and
+occasionally chatted with his guards casually and as a matter of course.
+Deep within him was a terrible feeling of sickness at the disaster that
+had overwhelmed him, but he did not intend to play the quitter.
+
+Dutch and an old fellow named Sweeney relieved the other watchers about
+noon. The squat puncher came up and looked down angrily at the boy lying
+on the bunk.
+
+"I'll serve notice right now that if you make any breaks I'll fill your
+carcass full of lead," he growled.
+
+The prisoner knew that he was nursing a grudge for the blow that had
+floored him. Not to be bluffed, Curly came back with a jeer. "Much
+obliged, my sawed-off and hammered-down friend. But what's the matter with
+your face? It looks some lopsided. Did a mule kick you?"
+
+Sweeney gave his companion the laugh. "Better let him alone, Dutch. If he
+lands on you again like he did before your beauty ce'tainly will be
+spoiled complete."
+
+The little puncher's eyes snapped rage. "You'll get yours pretty soon, Mr.
+Curly Flandrau. The boys are fixin' to hang yore hide up to dry."
+
+"Does look that way, doesn't it?" the boy agreed quietly.
+
+As the day began to wear out it looked so more than ever. Two riders from
+the Bar Double M reached the ranch and were brought in to identify him as
+the horse thief. The two were Maloney and Kite Bonfils, neither of them
+friends of the young rustler. The foreman in particular was a wet blanket
+to his chances. The man's black eyes were the sort that never soften
+toward the follies and mistakes of youth.
+
+"You've got the right man all right," he said to Buck without answering
+Flandrau's cool nod of recognition.
+
+"What sort of a reputation has he got?" Buck asked, lowering his voice a
+little.
+
+Kite did not take the trouble to lower his. "Bad. Always been a tough
+character. Friend of Bad Bill Cranston and Soapy Stone."
+
+Dutch chipped in. "Shot up the Silver Dollar saloon onct. Pretty near beat
+Pete Schiff's head off another time."
+
+Curly laughed rather wildly. "That's right. Keep a-coming, boys. Your turn
+now, Maloney."
+
+"All right. Might as well have it all," Buck agreed.
+
+"I don't know anything against the kid, barring that he's been a little
+wild," Maloney testified. "And I reckon we ain't any of us prize Sunday
+school winners for that matter."
+
+"Are we all friends of Soapy Stone and Bad Bill? Do we all rustle stock
+and shoot up good citizens?" Dutch shrilled.
+
+Maloney's blue Irish eyes rested on the little puncher for a moment, then
+passed on as if he had been weighed and found wanting.
+
+"I've noticed," he said to nobody in particular, "that them hollering
+loudest for justice are most generally the ones that would hate to have it
+done to them."
+
+Dutch bristled like a turkey rooster. "What do you mean by that?"
+
+The Irishman smiled derisively. "I reckon you can guess if you try real
+hard."
+
+Dutch fumed, but did no guessing out loud. His reputation was a
+whitewashed one. Queer stories had been whispered about him. He had been a
+nester, and it was claimed that calves certainly not his had been found
+carrying his brand. The man had been full of explanations, but there came
+a time when explanations no longer were accepted. He was invited to become
+an absentee at his earliest convenience. This was when he had been living
+across the mountains. Curly had been one of those who had given the
+invitation. He had taken the hint and left without delay. Now he was
+paying the debt he owed young Flandrau.
+
+Though the role Curly had been given was that of the hardened desperado he
+could not quite live up to the part. As Buck turned to leave the bunk
+house the boy touched him on the arm.
+
+"How about Cullison?" he asked, very low.
+
+But Buck would not have it that way. "What about him?" he demanded out
+load, his voice grating like steel when it grinds.
+
+"Is he--how is he doing?"
+
+"What's eatin' you? Ain't he dying fast enough to suit you?"
+
+Flandrau shrank from the cruel words, as a schoolboy does from his teacher
+when he jumps at him with a cane. He understood how the men were feeling,
+but to have it put into words like this cut him deeply.
+
+It was then that Maloney made a friend of the young man for life. He let a
+hand drop carelessly on Curly's shoulder and looked at him with a friendly
+smile in his eyes, just as if he knew that this was no wolf but a poor
+lost dog up against it hard.
+
+"Doc thinks he'll make it all right."
+
+But there were times when Curly wondered whether it would make any
+difference to him whether Cullison got well or not. Something immediate
+was in the air. Public opinion was sifting down to a decision. There were
+wise nods, and whisperings, and men riding up and going off again in a
+hurry. There had been a good deal of lawlessness of late, for which Soapy
+Stone's band of followers was held responsible. Just as plainly as if he
+had heard the arguments of Dutch and Kite Bonfils he knew that they were
+urging the others to make an example of him. Most of these men were well
+up to the average for the milk of human kindness. They were the squarest
+citizens in Arizona. But Flandrau knew they would snuff out his life just
+the same if they decided it was best. Afterward they might regret it, but
+that would not help him.
+
+Darkness came, and the lamps were lit. Again Curly ate and smoked and
+chatted a little with his captors. But as he sat there hour after hour,
+feeling death creep closer every minute, cold shivers ran up and down his
+spine.
+
+They began to question him, at first casually and carelessly, so it seemed
+to Curly. But presently he discerned a drift in the talk. They were trying
+to find out who had been his partners in the rustling.
+
+"And I reckon Soapy and Bad Bill left you lads at Saguache to hold the
+sack," Buck suggested sympathetically.
+
+Curly grew wary. He did not intend to betray his accomplices. "Wrong
+guess. Soapy and Bad Bill weren't in this deal," he answered easily.
+
+"We know there were two others in it with you. I guess they were Soapy and
+Bad Bill all right."
+
+"There's no law against guessing."
+
+The foreman of the Bar Double M interrupted impatiently, tired of trying
+to pump out the information by finesse. "You've got to speak, Flandrau.
+You've got to tell us who was engineering this theft. Understand?"
+
+The young rustler looked at the grim frowning face and his heart sank.
+"Got to tell you, have I?"
+
+"That's what?"
+
+"Out with it," ordered Buck.
+
+"Oh, I expect I'll keep that under my hat," Curly told them lightly.
+
+They were crowded about him in a half circle, nearly a score of hard
+leather-faced plainsmen. Some of them were riders of the Circle C outfit.
+Others had ridden over from neighboring ranches. All of them plainly meant
+business. They meant to stamp out rustling, and their determination had
+been given an edge by the wounding of Luck Cullison, the most popular man
+in the county.
+
+"Think again, Curly," advised Sweeney quietly. "The boys ain't trifling
+about this thing. They mean to find out who was in the rustling of the Bar
+Double M stock."
+
+"Not through me, they won't."
+
+"Through you. And right now."
+
+A dozen times during the evening Curly had crushed down the desire to beg
+for mercy, to cry out desperately for them to let him off. He had kept
+telling himself not to show yellow, that it would not last long. Now the
+fear of breaking down sloughed from his soul. He rose from the bed and
+looked round at the brown faces circled about him in the shine of the
+lamps.
+
+"I'll not tell you a thing--not a thing."
+
+He stood there chalk-faced, his lips so dry that he had to keep moistening
+them with the tip of his tongue. Two thoughts hammered in his head. One
+was that he had come to the end of his trail, the other that he would game
+it out without weakening.
+
+Dutch had a new rope in his hand with a loop at one end. He tossed it over
+the boy's head and drew it taut. Two or three of the faces in the circle
+were almost as bloodless as that of the prisoner, but they were set to see
+the thing out.
+
+"Will you tell now?" Bonfils asked.
+
+Curly met him eye to eye. "No."
+
+"Come along then."
+
+One of the men caught his arm at the place where he had been wounded. The
+rustler flinched.
+
+"Careful, Buck. Don't you see you're hurting his bad arm?" Sweeney said
+sharply.
+
+"Sure. Take him right under the shoulder."
+
+"There's no call to be rough with him."
+
+"I didn't aim to hurt him," Buck defended himself.
+
+His grip was loose and easy now. Like the others he was making it up to
+his conscience for what he meant to do by doing it in the kindest way
+possible.
+
+Curly's senses had never been more alert. He noticed that Buck had on a
+red necktie that had got loose from his shirt and climbed up his neck. It
+had black polka dots and was badly frayed. Sweeney was chewing tobacco. He
+would have that chew in his mouth after they had finished what they were
+going to do.
+
+"Ain't he the gamest ever?" someone whispered.
+
+The rustler heard the words and they braced him as a drink of whiskey does
+a man who has been on a bad spree. His heart was chill with fear, but he
+had strung his will not to let him give way.
+
+"Better do it at the cottonwoods down by the creek," Buck told Bonfils in
+a low voice.
+
+The foreman of the Bar Double M moved his head in assent. "All right.
+Let's get it over quick as we can."
+
+A sound of flying feet came from outside. Someone smothered an oath of
+surprise. Kate Cullison stood in the doorway, all out of breath and
+panting.
+
+She took the situation in before she spoke, guessed exactly what they
+intended to do. Yet she flung her imperious question at them.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+They had not a word to say for themselves. In that room were some of the
+most callous hearts in the territory. Not one man in a million could have
+phased them, but this slender girl dumfounded them. Her gaze settled on
+Buck. His wandered for help to Sweeney, to Jake, to Kite Bonfils.
+
+"Now look-a-here, Miss Kate," Sweeney began to explain.
+
+But she swept his remonstrance aside.
+
+"No--No--No!" Her voice gathered strength with each repetition of the
+word. "I won't have it. What are you thinking about?"
+
+To the boy with the rope around his neck she was an angel from heaven as
+she stood there so slim and straight, her dark eyes shining like stars.
+Some of these men were old enough to be her father. Any of them could have
+crushed her with one hand. But if a thunderbolt had crashed in their midst
+it could not have disturbed the vigilantes more.
+
+"He's a rustler, Miss Kate; belongs to Soapy Stone's outfit," Sweeney
+answered the girl.
+
+"Can you prove it?"
+
+"We got him double cinched."
+
+"Then let the law put him in prison."
+
+"He shot yore paw," Buck reminded her.
+
+"Is that why you're doing it?"
+
+"Yes'm," and "That's why," they nodded.
+
+Like a flash she took advantage of their admission. "Then I've got more
+against him than you have, and I say turn him over to the law."
+
+"He'd get a good lawyer and wiggle out," Dutch objected.
+
+She whirled on the little puncher. "You know how that is, do you?"
+
+Somebody laughed. It was known that Dutch had once been tried for stealing
+a sheep and had been acquitted.
+
+Kite pushed forward, rough and overbearing. "Now see here. We know what
+we're doing and we know why we're doing it. This ain't any business for a
+girl to mix in. You go back to the house and nurse your father that this
+man shot."
+
+"So it isn't the kind of business for a girl," she answered
+scornfully. "It's work for a man, isn't it? No, not for one. For
+nine--eleven--thirteen--seventeen big brave strong men to hang one poor
+wounded boy."
+
+Again that amused laugh rippled out. It came from Maloney. He was leaning
+against the door jamb with his hands in his pockets. Nobody had noticed
+him before. He had come in after the girl. When Curly came to think it
+over later, if he had been given three guesses as to who had told Kate
+Cullison what was on the program he would have guessed Maloney each time.
+
+"Now that you've relieved your mind proper, Miss Cullison, I expect any of
+the boys will be glad to escort you back to the house," Kite suggested
+with an acid smile.
+
+"What have you got to do with this?" she flamed. "Our boys took him. They
+brought him here as their prisoner. Do you think we'll let you come over
+into this county and dictate everything we do?"
+
+"I've got a notion tucked away that you're trying to do the dictating your
+own self," the Bar Double M man contradicted.
+
+"I'm not. But I won't stand by while you get these boys to do murder. If
+they haven't sense enough to keep them from it I've got to stop it
+myself."
+
+Kite laughed sarcastically. "You hear your boss, boys."
+
+"You've had yore say now, Miss Kate. I reckon you better say good-night,"
+advised Buck.
+
+She handed Buck and his friends her compliments in a swift flow of
+feminine ferocity.
+
+Maloney pushed into the circle. "She's dead right, boys. There's nothing
+to this lynching game. He's only a kid."
+
+"He's not such a kid but what he can do murder," Dutch spat out.
+
+Kate read him the riot act so sharply that the little puncher had not
+another word to say. The tide of opinion was shifting. Those who had been
+worked up to the lynching by the arguments of Bonfils began to resent his
+activity. Flandrau was their prisoner, wasn't he? No use going off half
+cocked. Some of them were discovering that they were not half so anxious
+to hang him as they had supposed.
+
+The girl turned to her friends and neighbors. "I oughtn't to have talked
+to you that way, but you know how worried I am about Dad," she apologized
+with a catch in her breath. "I'm sure you didn't think or you would never
+have done anything to trouble me more just now. You know I didn't half
+mean it." She looked from one to another, her eyes shiny with tears. "I
+know that no braver or kinder men live than you. Why, you're my folks.
+I've been brought up among you. And so you've got to forgive me."
+
+Some said "Sure," others told her to forget it, and one grass widower drew
+a laugh by saying that her little spiel reminded him of happier days.
+
+For the first time a smile lit her face. The boy for whose life she was
+pleading thought it was like sunshine after a storm.
+
+"I'm so glad you've changed your minds. I knew you would when you thought
+it over," she told them chattily and confidentially.
+
+She was taking their assent for granted. Now she waited and gave them a
+chance to chorus their agreement. None of them spoke except Maloney. Most
+of them were with her in sympathy but none wanted to be first in giving
+way. Each wanted to save his face, so that the others could not later
+blame him for quitting first.
+
+She looked around from one to another, still cheerful and sure of her
+ground apparently. Two steps brought her directly in front of one. She
+caught him by the lapels of his coat and looked straight into his eyes.
+"You _have_ changed your mind, haven't you, Jake?"
+
+The big Missourian twisted his hat in embarrassment. "I reckon I have,
+Miss Kate. Whatever the other boys say," he got out at last.
+
+"Haven't you a mind of your own, Jake?"
+
+"Sure. Whatever's right suits me."
+
+"Well, you know what is right, don't you?"
+
+"I expect."
+
+"Then you won't hurt this man, our prisoner?"
+
+"I haven't a thing against him if you haven't."
+
+"Then you won't hurt him? You won't stand by and let the other boys do
+it?"
+
+"Now, Miss Kate--"
+
+She burst into sudden tears. "I thought you were my friend, but now I'm in
+trouble you--you think only of making it worse. I'm worried to death about
+Dad--and you--you make me stay here--away from him--and torment me."
+
+Jake gave in immediately and the rest followed like a flock of sheep. Two
+or three of the promises came hard, but she did not stop till each one
+individually had pledged himself. And all the time she was cajoling them,
+explaining how good it was of them to think of avenging her father, how in
+one way she did not blame them at all, though of course they had seen it
+would not do as soon as they gave the matter a second thought. Dad would
+be so pleased at them when he heard about it, and she wanted them to know
+how much she liked and admired them. It was quite a love feast.
+
+The young man she had saved could not keep his eyes from her. He would
+have liked to kneel down and kiss the edge of her dress and put his curly
+head in the dust before her. The ice in his heart had melted in the warmth
+of a great emotion. She was standing close to him talking to Buck when he
+spoke in a low voice.
+
+"I reckon I can't tell you--how much I'm obliged to you, Miss."
+
+She drew back quickly as if he had been a snake about to strike, her hand
+instinctively gathering her skirts so that they would not brush against
+him.
+
+"I don't want your thanks," she told him, and her voice was like the
+drench of an icy wave.
+
+But when she saw the hurt in his eyes she hesitated. Perhaps she guessed
+that he was human after all, for an impulse carried her forward to take
+the rope from his neck. While his heart beat twice her soft fingers
+touched his throat and grazed his cheek. Then she turned and was gone from
+the room.
+
+It was a long time before the bunk house quieted. Curly, faint with
+weariness, lay down and tried to sleep. His arm was paining a good deal
+and he felt feverish. The men of the Circle C and their guests sat down
+and argued the whole thing over. But after a time the doctor came in and
+had the patient carried to the house. He was put in a good clean bed and
+his arm dressed again.
+
+The doctor brought him good news. "Cullison is doing fine. He has dropped
+into a good sleep. He'd ought to make it all right."
+
+Curly thought about the girl who had fought for his life.
+
+"You'll not let him die, Doc," he begged.
+
+"He's too tough for that, Luck Cullison is."
+
+Presently Doctor Brown gave him a sleeping powder and left him. Soon after
+that Curly fell asleep and dreamed about a slim dark girl with fine
+longlashed eyes that could be both tender and ferocious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE CULLISONS
+
+
+Curly was awakened by the sound of the cook beating the call to breakfast
+on a triangle. Buck was standing beside the bed.
+
+"How're they coming this glad mo'ning, son?" he inquired with a grin.
+
+"Fine and dandy," grinned back Flandrau.
+
+So he was, comparatively speaking. The pain in his arm had subsided. He
+had had a good sleep. And he was lying comfortably in a clean bed instead
+of hanging by the neck from the limb of one of the big cottonwoods on the
+edge of the creek.
+
+A memory smote him and instantly he was grave again.
+
+"How is Cullison?"
+
+"Good as the wheat, doc says. Mighty lucky for Mr. C. Flandrau that he is.
+Say, I'm to be yore valley and help you into them clothes. Git a wiggle on
+you."
+
+Buck escorted his prisoner over to the ranch mess house. The others had
+finished breakfast but Maloney was still eating. His mouth was full of hot
+cakes, but he nodded across at Curly in a casual friendly way.
+
+"How's the villain in the play this mo'ning?" he inquired.
+
+Twenty-one usually looks on the cheerful side of life. Curly had forgotten
+for the moment about what had happened to his friend Mac. He did not
+remember that he was in the shadow of a penitentiary sentence. The sun was
+shining out of a deep blue sky. The vigor of youth flowed through his
+veins. He was hungry and a good breakfast was before him. For the present
+these were enough.
+
+"Me, I'm feeling a heap better than I was last night," he admitted.
+
+"Came pretty near losing him out of the cast, didn't we?"
+
+"Might a-turned out that way if the stage manager had not remembered the
+right cue in time."
+
+Curly was looking straight into the eyes twinkling across the table at
+him. Maloney knew that the young fellow was thanking him for having saved
+his life. He nodded lightly, but his words still seemed to make a jest of
+the situation.
+
+"Enter the heroine. Spotlight. Sa-a-ved," he drawled.
+
+The heart of the prisoner went out to this man who was reaching a hand to
+him in his trouble. He had always known that Maloney was true and steady
+as a snubbing post, but he had not looked for any kindness from him.
+
+"Kite just got a telephone message from Saguache," the Bar Double M man
+went on easily. "Your friends that bought the rustled stock didn't get
+away with the goods. Seems they stumbled into a bunch of _rurales_
+unexpected and had to pull their freight sudden. The boys from the ranch
+happened along about then, claimed ownership and got possession."
+
+"If the men bought the stock why didn't they stop and explain?" asked
+Buck.
+
+"That game of buying stolen cattle is worn threadbare. The _rurales_ and
+the rangers have had their eye on those border flitters for quite some
+time. So they figured it was safer to dust."
+
+"Make their getaway?" Curly inquired as indifferently as he could. But in
+spite of himself a note of eagerness crept into his voice. For if the men
+had escaped that would be two less witnesses against him.
+
+"Yep."
+
+"Too bad. If they hadn't I could have proved by them I was not one of the
+men who sold them the stock," Flandrau replied.
+
+"Like hell you could," Buck snorted, then grinned at his prisoner in a
+shamefaced way: "You're a good one, son."
+
+"Luck has been breaking bad for me, but when things are explained----"
+
+"It sure will take a lot of explaining to keep you out of the pen. You'll
+have to be slicker than Dutch was."
+
+Jake stuck his head in at the door. "Buck, you're needed to help with them
+two-year-olds. The old man wants to have a talk with the rustler. Doc says
+he may. Maloney, will you take him up to the house? I'll arrange to have
+you relieved soon as I can."
+
+Maloney had once ridden for the Circle C and was friendly with all the men
+on the place. He nodded. "Sure."
+
+A Mexican woman let them into the chamber where the wounded man lay. It
+was a large sunny southeast room with French windows opening upon a long
+porch. Kate was bending over the bed rearranging the pillows, but she
+looked up quickly when the two men entered. Her eyes were still gentle
+with the love that had been shining down from them upon her father.
+
+Cullison spoke. "Sit down, Dick." And to his prisoner: "You too."
+
+Flandrau saw close at hand for the first time the man who had been
+Arizona's most famous fighting sheriff. Luck Cullison was well-built and
+of medium height, of a dark complexion, clean shaven, wiry and muscular.
+Already past fifty, he looked not a day more than forty. One glance was
+enough to tell Curly the kind of man this was. The power of him found
+expression in the gray steel-chilled eyes that bored into the young
+outlaw. A child could have told he was not one to trifle with.
+
+"You have begun early, young fellow," he said quietly.
+
+"Begun what?" Curly asked, having nothing better to say.
+
+"You know what. But never mind that. I don't ask you to convict yourself.
+I sent for you to tell you I don't blame you for this." He touched the
+wound in his side.
+
+"Different with your boys, sir."
+
+"So the boys are a little excited, are they?"
+
+"They were last night anyhow," Curly answered, with a glimmer of a smile.
+
+Cullison looked quickly at Maloney and then at his daughter.
+
+"I'll listen to what you've been hiding from me," he told them.
+
+"Oh, the boys had notions. Miss Kate argued with them and they saw things
+different," the Bar Double M rider explained.
+
+But Cullison would not let it go at that. He made them tell him the whole
+story. When Curly and Maloney had finished he buried his daughter's little
+hand in his big brown fist. His eyes were dancing with pride, but he gave
+her not a word of spoken praise.
+
+Kate, somewhat embarrassed, changed the subject briskly. "Now you're
+talking too much, Dad. Doctor Brown said you might see him for just a few
+minutes. But you're not to tire yourself, so I'll do the talking for
+you."
+
+He took his orders with the smiling submission of the man who knows his
+mistress.
+
+Kate spoke to Curly. "Father wants me to tell you that we don't blame you
+for shooting at him. We understand just how it was. Your friend got
+excited and shot as soon as he saw he was surrounded. We are both very
+sorry he was killed. Father could not stop the boys in time. Perhaps you
+remember that he tried to get you to surrender."
+
+The rustler nodded. "Yes, I heard him holler to me to put my gun down, but
+the others blazed away at me."
+
+"And so you naturally defended yourself. That's how we understand it.
+Father wants it made clear that he feels you could have done nothing
+else."
+
+"Much obliged. I've been sorry ever since I hit him, and not only on my
+own account."
+
+"Then none of us need to hold hard feelings." The girl looked at her
+father, who answered her appeal with a grim nod, and then she turned again
+to the young rustler a little timidly. "I wonder if you would mind if I
+asked you a question."
+
+"You've earned the right to ask as many as you like."
+
+"It's about---- We have been told you know the man they call Soapy Stone.
+Is that true?"
+
+Flandrau's eyes took on a stony look. It was as if something had sponged
+all the boyishness from his face. Still trying to get him to give away his
+partners in the rustling, were they? Well, he would show them he could
+take his medicine without squealing.
+
+"Maybe it is and maybe it isn't."
+
+"Oh, but you don't see what we mean. It isn't that we want to hurt you."
+She spoke in a quick eager voice of protest.
+
+"No, you just want me to squeal on my friends to save my own hide. Nothing
+doing, Miss Cullison."
+
+"No. You're wrong. Why are you so suspicious?"
+
+Curly laughed bitterly. "Your boys were asking that question about Soapy
+last night. They had a rope round my neck at the time. Nothing unfriendly
+in the matter, of course. Just a casual interest in my doings."
+
+Cullison was looking at him with the steel eyes that bored into him like a
+gimlet. Now he spoke sharply.
+
+"I've got an account running with Soapy Stone. Some day I'll settle it
+likely. But that ain't the point now. Do you know his friends--the bunch
+he trails with?"
+
+Wariness still seemed to crouch in the cool eyes of Flandrau.
+
+"And if I say yes, I'll bet your next question will be about the time and
+the place I last saw them."
+
+Kate picked up a photograph from the table and handed it to the prisoner.
+"We're not interested in his friends--except one of them. Did you ever see
+the boy that sat for that picture?"
+
+The print was a snapshot of a boy about nineteen, a good looking handsome
+fellow, a little sulky around the mouth but with a pair of straight honest
+eyes.
+
+Curly shook his head slowly. Yet he was vaguely reminded of someone he
+knew. Glancing up, he found instantly the clew to what had puzzled him.
+The young man in the picture was like Kate Cullison, like her father too
+for that matter.
+
+"He's your brother." The words were out before Flandrau could stop them.
+
+"Yes. You've never met him?"
+
+"No."
+
+Cullison had been watching the young man steadily. "Never saw him with
+Soapy Stone?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Never heard Stone speak of Sam Cullison?"
+
+"No. Soapy doesn't talk much about who his friends are."
+
+The ex-sheriff nodded. "I've met him."
+
+Of course he had met him. Curly knew the story of how in one drive he had
+made a gather of outlaws that had brought fame to him. Soapy had broken
+through the net, but the sheriff had followed him into the hills alone and
+run him to earth. What passed between the men nobody ever found out. Stone
+had repeatedly given it out that he could not be taken alive. But Cullison
+had brought him down to the valley bound and cowed. In due season the
+bandits had gone over the road to Yuma. Soapy and the others had sworn to
+get their revenge some day. Now they were back in the hills at their old
+tricks. Was it possible that Cullison's son was with them, caught in a
+trap during some drunken frolic just as Curly had been? In what way could
+Stone pay more fully the debt of hate he owed the former sheriff than by
+making his son a villain?
+
+The little doctor came briskly into the room.
+
+"Everybody out but the nurse. You've had company enough for one day,
+Luck," he announced cheerily.
+
+Kate followed Maloney and his prisoner to the porch.
+
+"About the letters of your friend that was shot," she said to Curly.
+"Doctor Brown was telling me what you said. I'll see they reach Miss
+Anderson. Do you know in what restaurant she works?"
+
+"No. Mac didn't tell me." The boy gulped to swallow an unexpected lump in
+his throat. "They was expecting to get married soon."
+
+"I--I'll write to her," Kate promised, her eyes misty.
+
+"I'd be obliged, Miss. Mac was a good boy. Anyone will tell you that. And
+he was awful fond of her. He talked about her that last night before the
+camp fire. I led him into this."
+
+"I'll tell her what you say."
+
+"Do. Tell her he felt bad about what he had done. Bad companions got him
+going wrong, but he sure would have settled down into a good man. That's
+straight goods, too. You write it strong."
+
+The girl's eyes were shiny with tears. "Yes," she answered softly.
+
+"I ain't any Harvard A. B. Writing letters ain't my long suit. I'm always
+disremembering whether a man had ought to say have went and have knew.
+Verbs are the beatingest things. But I know you'll fix it up right so as
+to let that little girl down easy."
+
+"I've changed my mind. I'll not write but go to see her."
+
+Curly could only look his thanks. Words seemed strangely inadequate. But
+Kate understood the boy's unspoken wish and nodded her head reassuringly
+as he left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+LAURA LONDON
+
+
+Kite Bonfils and Maloney took Curly back to Saguache and turned him over
+to Sheriff Bolt.
+
+"How about bail?" Maloney asked.
+
+The sheriff smiled. He was a long lean leather-faced man with friendly
+eyes from which humorous wrinkles radiated.
+
+"You honing to go bail for him, Dick?"
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Oh, say two thousand."
+
+"You're on."
+
+"What!"
+
+A cowpuncher with fifty dollars two weeks after pay day was a rarity. No
+wonder Bolt was surprised.
+
+"It's not my money. Luck Cullison is going bail for him," Maloney
+explained.
+
+"Luck Cullison!" Maloney's words had surprised the exclamation from Curly.
+Why should the owner of the Circle C of all men go bail for him?
+
+The sheriff commented dryly on the fact. "I thought this kid was the one
+that shot him."
+
+"That was just a happenstance. Curly shot to save his bacon. Luck don't
+hold any grudge."
+
+"So I should judge. Luck gave you his check, did he?"
+
+Bolt belonged to the political party opposed to Cullison. He had been
+backed by Cass Fendrick, a sheepman in feud with the cattle interests and
+in particular with the Circle C outfit. But he could not go back on his
+word. He and Maloney called together on the district attorney. An hour
+later Dick returned to the jail.
+
+"It's all right, kid," he told Curly. "You can shake off the dust of
+Saguache from your hoofs till court meets in September."
+
+To Flandrau the news seemed too good for the truth. Less than twenty-four
+hours ago he had been waiting for the end of the road with a rope around
+his neck. Now he was free to slip a saddle on his pony Keno and gallop off
+as soon as he pleased. How such a change had been brought about he did not
+yet understand.
+
+While he and Maloney were sitting opposite each other at the New Orleans
+Hash House waiting for a big steak with onions he asked questions.
+
+"I don't savvy Cullison's play. Whyfor is he digging up two thousand for
+me? How does he know I won't cut my stick for Mexico?"
+
+"How do I know it?"
+
+"Well, do you?"
+
+Maloney helped himself to the oyster crackers to pass the time. "Sure I
+do."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Search me. But I know you'll be here in September if you're alive and
+kicking."
+
+Flandrau persisted. "But Luck don't owe me anything, except one pill sent
+promiscuous to his address. What's he going down into his jeans for? Will
+you tell me that? And shove them crackers north by east. Got to fill up on
+something."
+
+"Ain't you as good a guesser as I am, Curly?"
+
+"Well then, here's my guess. Miss Kate made him."
+
+"I reckon maybe she influenced him. But why did she? You don't figure that
+curly topknot of yours is disturbing her dreams any, do you?"
+
+"Quit your joshing and tell me why."
+
+"I can't tell you for sure. But here's my guess. Don't cost you a cent if
+you ain't satisfied with it. First off, there was poor Mac shot by the
+Circle C boys. Course Mac was a horse thief, but then he was a kid too.
+That worried the little girl some. She got to thinking about brother Sam
+and how he might be in the same fix one of these days as you are now. He's
+on her mind a good deal, Sam is. Same way with the old man too, I reckon,
+though he don't say much. Well, she decided Soapy Stone had led you astray
+like he's doing with Sam. It got to worrying her for fear her brother
+might need a friend some time. So she handed over her worry to the old man
+and made him dig up for you."
+
+"That's about it. Tell me what you know of Sam. Is he as white as the rest
+of the family?"
+
+"Sam is all right, but he has got off wrong foot first. He and the old man
+got to kind of disagreeing, for the kid was a wild colt. Come by it
+honestly from the old man too. Well, they had a row one time when Sam got
+into trouble. Luck told him he never wanted to see him again. Sam lit out,
+and next folks knew he was trailing with Soapy's gang. Consequence is,
+Sam's hitting the toboggan for Tophet by all accounts."
+
+"Looks like some one ought to be able to pry him loose from that bunch,"
+Curly mused aloud.
+
+Maloney grinned across at him. "You try it, son. You've always led a good
+pious life. He sure would listen to you."
+
+He had said it as a jest, but Curly did not laugh. Why not? Why shouldn't
+he hunt up Sam and let him know how his folks were worrying about him?
+What was to hinder him from trying to wipe out some of the big debt he
+owed the Cullison family? He was footloose till September and out of a
+job. For he could not go back to the Map of Texas with his hat in his hand
+and a repentant whine on his lips. Why not take a hike into the hills and
+round up the boy? Of course Sam might not listen to him, but he could not
+tell that till he had tried. It had taken him scarcely a moment to make up
+his mind. The smile had not yet died out of Maloney's eyes when he spoke.
+
+"Damn if I don't take a crack at it."
+
+The man on the other side of the table stared at him.
+
+"Meaning that, are you?"
+
+"Yep."
+
+"Might be some lively if Soapy gets wise to your intentions," he said in a
+casual sort of way.
+
+"I don't aim to declare them out loud."
+
+That was all they said about it at the time. The rest of the evening was
+devoted to pleasure. After dinner they took in a moving picture show. The
+first film was a Western melodrama and it pleased them both immensely.
+
+"I'd be afraid to live in a country where guns popped like they do in
+moving picture land," Curly drawled. "Where is it anyhow? It ain't Texas,
+nor Oklahoma, nor Wyoming, nor Montana, nor any of the spots in between,
+because I've been in all of them."
+
+Maloney laughed. "Day before yesterday that's the way I'd a-talked my own
+self, but now I know better. What about your little stunt? Wasn't that
+warm enough for you? Didn't guns pop enough? Don't you talk about moving
+pictures!"
+
+After the picture show there were other things. But both of them trod the
+narrow path, Maloney because he was used to doing so and Flandrau because
+his experiences had sobered him.
+
+"I'm on the water wagon, Dick." He grinned ruefully at his friend.
+"Nothing like locking the stable after your bronc's been stole. I'd a-been
+a heap better off if I'd got on the wagon a week ago."
+
+Since their way was one for several miles Maloney and Curly took the road
+together next morning at daybreak. Their ponies ambled along side by side
+at the easy gait characteristic of the Southwest. Steadily they pushed
+into the brown baked desert. Little dust whirls in the shape of inverted
+cones raced across the sand wastes. The heat danced along the road in
+front of them in shimmering waves.
+
+Your plainsman is a taciturn individual. These two rode for an hour
+without exchanging a syllable. Then Curly was moved to talk.
+
+"Can you tell me how it is a man can get fond of so Godforsaken a country?
+Cactus and greasewood and mesquite, and for a change mesquite and
+greasewood and cactus! Nothing but sand washes and sand hills, except the
+naked mountains 'way off with their bones sticking through. But in the
+mo'ning like this, when the world's kind o' smiley with the sunshine, or
+after dark when things are sorter violet soft and the mountains lose their
+edges--say, would you swap it for any other country on earth?"
+
+Maloney nodded. He had felt that emotion a hundred times, though he had
+never put it into words.
+
+At Willow Wash their ways diverged. They parted with a casual "So-long;
+see you later." Curly was striking for the headwaters of Dead Cow Creek,
+where Soapy Stone had a horse ranch.
+
+He put up that night at the place of a nester in the foothills. His host
+looked at him curiously when he mentioned his destination, but he did not
+say anything. It was none of his business how many young fellows rode to
+Soapy's ranch.
+
+Flandrau took the trail again next morning after breakfast. About two
+o'clock he reached a little park in the hills, in the middle of which, by
+a dry creek, lay a ranch.
+
+The young man at first thought the place was deserted for the day, but
+when he called a girl appeared at the door. She smiled up at him with the
+lively interest any ranch girl may be expected to feel in a stranger who
+happens to be both young and good looking.
+
+She was a young person of soft curves and engaging dimples. Beneath the
+brown cheeks of Arizona was a pink that came and went very attractively.
+
+Curly took off his dusty gray hat. "_Buenos tardes; senorita!_ I'll bet
+I'm too late to draw any dinner."
+
+"_Buenos, senor_," she answered promptly. "I'll bet you'd lose your
+money."
+
+He swung from the saddle. "That's good hearing. When a fellow has had his
+knees clamped to the side of a bronch for seven hours he's sure ready for
+the dinner bell."
+
+"You can wash over there by the pump. There's a towel on the fence."
+
+She disappeared into the house, and Curly took care of his horse, washed,
+and sauntered back to the porch. He could smell potatoes frying and could
+hear the sizzling of ham and eggs.
+
+While he ate the girl flitted in and out, soft-footed and graceful,
+replenishing his plate from time to time.
+
+Presently he discovered that her father was away hunting strays on Sunk
+Creek, that the nearest neighbor was seven miles distant, and that Stone's
+ranch was ten miles farther up Dead Cow.
+
+"Ever meet a lad called Sam Cullison?" the guest asked carelessly.
+
+Curly was hardly prepared to see the color whip into her cheeks or to meet
+the quick stabbing look she fastened on him.
+
+"You're looking for him, are you?" she said.
+
+"Thought while I was here I'd look him up. I know his folks a little."
+
+"Do you know him?"
+
+He shook his head. She looked at him very steadily before she spoke.
+
+"You haven't met him yet but you want to. Is that it?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Will you have another egg?"
+
+Flandrau laughed. "No, thanks. Staying up at Stone's, is he?"
+
+"How should I know who's staying at Stone's?"
+
+It was quite plain she did not intend to tell anything that would hurt
+young Cullison.
+
+"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. I ain't lost him any to speak of," the young
+man drawled.
+
+"Are you expecting to stop in the hills long--or just visiting?"
+
+"Yes," Curly answered, with his most innocent blank wall look.
+
+"Yes which?"
+
+"Why, whichever you like, Miss London. What's worrying you? If you'll ask
+me plain out I'll know how to answer you."
+
+"So you know my name?"
+
+"Anything strange about that? The Bar 99 is the London brand. I saw your
+calves in the corral with their flanks still sore. Naturally I assume the
+young lady I meet here is Miss Laura London."
+
+She defended her suspicions. "Folks come up here with their mysterious
+questions. A person would think nobody lived on Dead Cow but outlaws and
+such, to hear some of you valley people tell it."
+
+"There's nothing mysterious about me and my questions. I'm just a
+lunkheaded cowpuncher out of a job. What did you think I was?"
+
+"What do you want with Sam Cullison? Are you friendly to him? Or aren't
+you?"
+
+"Ladies first. Are _you_ friendly to him? Or aren't you?"
+
+Curly smiled gaily across the table at her. A faint echo of his pleasantry
+began to dimple the corners of her mouth. It lit her eyes and spread from
+them till the prettiest face on the creek wrinkled with mirth. Both of
+them relaxed to peals of laughter, and neither of them quite knew the
+cause of their hilarity.
+
+"Oh, you!" she reproved when she had sufficiently recovered.
+
+"So you thought I was a detective or a deputy sheriff. That's certainly
+funny."
+
+"For all I know yet you may be one."
+
+"I never did see anyone with a disposition so dark-complected as yours. If
+you won't put them suspicions to sleep I'll have to table my cards." From
+his pocket he drew a copy of the Saguache Sentinel and showed her a marked
+story. "Maybe that will explain what I'm doing up on Dead Cow."
+
+This was what Laura London read:
+
+  From Mesa comes the news of another case of bold and flagrant
+  rustling. On Friday night a bunch of horses belonging to the Bar
+  Double M were rounded up and driven across the mountains to this
+  city. The stolen animals were sold here this morning, after which the
+  buyers set out at once for the border and the thieves made themselves
+  scarce. It is claimed that the rustlers were members of the notorious
+  Soapy Stone outfit. Two of the four were identified, it is alleged,
+  as William Cranston, generally known as "Bad Bill," and a young
+  vaquero called "Curly" Flandrau.
+
+  At the time of going to press posses are out after both the outlaws
+  and the stolen horses. Chances of overtaking both are considered
+  excellent. All likely points and outlying ranches have been notified
+  by telephone whenever possible.
+
+  In case the guilty parties are apprehended the _Sentinel_ hopes an
+  example will be made of them that will deter others of like stamp
+  from a practice that has of late been far too common. Lawlessness
+  seems to come in cycles. Just now the southern tier of counties
+  appears to be suffering from such a sporadic attack. Let all good men
+  combine to stamp it out. The time has passed when Arizona must stand
+  as a synonym for anarchy.
+
+She looked up at the young man breathlessly, her pretty lips parted, her
+dilated eyes taking him in solemnly. A question trembled on her lips.
+
+"Say it," advised Flandrau.
+
+The courage to ask what she was thinking came back in a wave. "Then I
+will. Are you a rustler?"
+
+"That's what the paper says, don't it?"
+
+"Are you this man mentioned here? What's his name--'Curly' Flandrau?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you're a rustler?"
+
+"What do you think? Am I more like a rustler than a deputy sheriff? Stands
+to reason I can't be both."
+
+Her eyes did not leave him. She brushed aside his foolery impatiently.
+"You don't even deny it."
+
+"I haven't yet. I expect I will later."
+
+"Why do men do such things?" she went on, letting the hands that held the
+paper drop into her lap helplessly. "You don't look bad. Anyone would
+think----"
+
+Her sentence tailed out and died away. She was still looking at Curly, but
+he could see that her mind had flown to someone else. He would have bet a
+month's pay that she was thinking of another lad who was wild but did not
+look bad.
+
+Flandrau rose and walked round the table to her. "Much obliged, Miss
+Laura. I'll shake hands on that with you. You've guessed it. Course, me
+being so 'notorious' I hate to admit it, but I ain't bad any more than he
+is."
+
+She gave him a quick shy look. He had made a center shot she was not
+expecting. But, womanlike, she did not admit it.
+
+"You mean this 'Bad Bill'?"
+
+"You know who I mean all right. His name is Sam Cullison. And you needn't
+to tell me where he is. I'll find him."
+
+"I know you don't mean any harm to him." But she said it as if she were
+pleading with him.
+
+"C'rect. I don't. Can you tell me how to get to Soapy Stone's horse ranch
+from here, Miss London?"
+
+She laughed. Her doubts were vanishing like mist before the sunshine.
+"Good guess. At least he was there the last I heard."
+
+"And I expect your information is pretty recent."
+
+That drew another little laugh accompanied by a blush.
+
+"Don't you think I have told you enough for one day, Mr. Flandrau?"
+
+"That 'Mr.' sounds too solemn. My friends call me 'Curly,'" he let her
+know.
+
+She remembered that he was a stranger and a rustler and she drew herself
+up stiffly. This pleasant young fellow was too familiar.
+
+"If you take this trail to the scrub pines above, then keep due north for
+about four miles, you'll strike the creek again. Just follow the trail
+along it to the horse ranch."
+
+With that she turned on her heel and walked into the kitchen.
+
+Curly had not meant to be "fresh." He was always ready for foolery with
+the girls, but he was not the sort to go too far. Now he blamed himself
+for having moved too fast. He had offended her sense of what was the
+proper thing.
+
+There was nothing for it but to saddle and take the road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A BEAR TRAP
+
+
+The winding trail led up to the scrub pines and from there north into the
+hills. Curly had not traveled far when he heard the sound of a gun fired
+three times in quick succession. He stopped to listen. Presently there
+came a faint far call for help.
+
+Curly cantered around the shoulder of the hill and saw a man squatting on
+the ground. He was stooped forward in an awkward fashion with his back to
+Flandrau.
+
+"What's up?"
+
+At the question the man looked over his shoulder. Pain and helpless rage
+burned in the deep-set black eyes.
+
+"Nothing at all. Don't you see I'm just taking a nap?" he answered
+quietly.
+
+Curly recognized him now. The man was Soapy Stone. Behind the straight
+thin-lipped mouth a double row of strong white teeth were clamped tightly.
+Little beads of perspiration stood out all over his forehead. A glance
+showed the reason. One of his hands was caught in a bear trap fastened to
+a cottonwood. Its jaws held him so that he could not move.
+
+The young man swung from the back of Keno. He found the limb of a
+cottonwood about as thick as his forearm below the elbow. This he set
+close to the trap.
+
+"Soon as I get the lip open shove her in," he told Stone.
+
+The prisoner moistened his dry lips. It was plain that he was in great
+pain.
+
+The rescuer slipped the toes of his boots over the lower lip and caught
+the upper one with both hands. Slowly the mouth of the trap opened. Stone
+slipped in the wooden wedge and withdrew his crushed wrist. By great good
+fortune the steel had caught on the leather gauntlet he was wearing.
+Otherwise it must have mangled the arm to a pulp.
+
+Even now he was suffering a good deal.
+
+"You'll have to let a doc look at it," Curly suggested.
+
+Stone agreed. "Reckon I better strike for the Bar 99." He was furious at
+himself for having let such an accident happen. The veriest tenderfoot
+might have known better.
+
+His horse had disappeared, but Curly helped him to the back of Keno.
+Together they took the trail for the Bar 99. On the face of the wounded
+man gathered the moisture caused by intense pain. His jaw was clenched to
+keep back the groans.
+
+"Hard sledding, looks like," Curly sympathized.
+
+"Reckon I can stand the grief," Stone grunted.
+
+Nor did he speak again until they reached the ranch and Laura London
+looked at him from a frightened face.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Ran a sliver in my finger, Miss Laura. Too bad to trouble you," Soapy
+answered with a sneer on his thin lips.
+
+A rider for the Bar 99 had just ridden up and Laura sent him at once for
+the doctor. She led the way into the house and swiftly gathered bandages,
+a sponge, and a basin of water. Together she and Curly bathed and wrapped
+the wound. Stone did not weaken, though he was pretty gray about the
+lips.
+
+Laura was as gentle as she could be.
+
+"I know I'm hurting you," she said, her fingers trembling.
+
+"Not a bit of it. Great pleasure to have you for a nurse. I'm certainly in
+luck." Curly did not understand the bitterness in the sardonic face and he
+resented it.
+
+"If the doctor would only hurry," Laura murmured.
+
+"Yes, I know I'm a great trouble. Too bad Curly found me."
+
+She was busy with the knots of the outer wrapping and did not look up. "It
+is no trouble."
+
+"I'm too meddlesome. Serves me right for being inquisitive about your
+father's trap."
+
+"He'll be sorry you were caught."
+
+"Yes. He'll have to climb the hill and reset it."
+
+That something was wrong between them Curly could see. Soapy was very
+polite in spite of his bitterness, but his hard eyes watched her as a cat
+does a mouse. Moreover, the girl was afraid of him. He could tell that by
+the timid startled way she had of answering. Now why need she fear the
+man? It would be as much as his life was worth to lift a hand to hurt
+her.
+
+After the doctor had come and had attended to the crushed wrist Curly
+stepped out to the porch to find Laura. She was watering her roses and he
+went across the yard to her.
+
+"I'm right sorry for what I said, Miss Laura. Once in a while a fellow
+makes a mistake. If he's as big a chump as I am it's liable to happen a
+little oftener. But I'm not really one of those smart guys."
+
+Out came her gloved hand in the firmest of grips.
+
+"I know that now. You didn't think. And I made a mistake. I thought you
+were taking advantage because I had been friendly. I'm glad you spoke
+about it. We'll forget it."
+
+"Then maybe we'll be friends after all, but I sha'n't tell you what my
+friends call me," he answered gaily.
+
+She laughed out in a sudden bubbling of mirth. "Take care."
+
+"Oh, I will. I won't even spell it."
+
+He helped her with the watering. Presently she spoke, with a quick look
+toward the house.
+
+"There's something I want to say."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Something I want you to do for me."
+
+"I expect maybe I'll do it."
+
+She said nothing more for a minute, then the thing that was troubling her
+burst from the lips of the girl as a flame leaps out of a pent fire.
+
+"It's about that boy he has up there." She gave a hopeless little gesture
+toward the hills.
+
+"Sam Cullison?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What about him?"
+
+"He's bent on ruining him, always has been ever since he got a hold on
+him. I can't tell you how I know it, but I'm sure---- And now he's more
+set on it than ever."
+
+Curly thought he could guess why, but he wanted to make sure. "Because you
+are Sam's friend?"
+
+The pink flooded her cheeks. "Yes."
+
+"And because you won't be Soapy Stone's friend?"
+
+She flashed a startled look at him. "How do you know?"
+
+"Jealous, is he?"
+
+Her face, buried in the blooms she had been cutting, was of the same tint
+as the roses.
+
+"And so he wants to hurt you through him?" Flandrau added.
+
+"Yes. If he can drag Sam down and get him into trouble he'll pay off two
+grudges at once. And he will too. You'll see. He's wily as an Indian. For
+that matter there is Apache blood in him, folks say."
+
+"What about young Cullison? Can't he make a fight for himself?"
+
+"Oh, you know how boys are. Sam is completely under this man's influence."
+Her voice broke a little. "And I can't help him. I'm only a girl. He won't
+listen to me. Besides, Dad won't let me have anything to do with him
+because of the way he's acting. What Sam needs is a man friend, one just
+as strong and determined as Soapy but one who is good and the right sort
+of an influence."
+
+"Are you picking me for that responsible friend who is to be such a
+powerful influence for good?" Curly asked with a smile.
+
+"Yes--yes, I am." She looked up at him confidently.
+
+"Haven't you forgotten that little piece in the _Sentinel_? How does it
+go? An example had ought to be made of the desperadoes, and all the rest
+of it."
+
+"I don't care what it says. I've seen you."
+
+"So had the editor."
+
+She waved his jests aside. "Oh, well! You've done wrong. What of that?
+Can't I tell you are a man? And I don't care how much fun you make of me.
+You're good too."
+
+Curly met her on the ground of her own seriousness. "I'll tell you
+something, Miss Laura. Maybe you'll be glad to know that the reason I'm
+going to the horse ranch is to help Sam Cullison if I can."
+
+He went on to tell her the whole story of what the Cullisons had done for
+him. In all that he said there was not one word to suggest such a thing,
+but Laura London's mind jumped the gaps to a knowledge of the truth that
+Curly himself did not have. The young man was in love with Kate Cullison.
+She was sure of it. Also, she was his ally in the good cause of romance.
+
+When Curly walked back into the house, Stone laid down the paper he had
+been reading.
+
+"I see the _Sentinel_ hints that Mr. Curly Flandrau had better be
+lynched," he jeered.
+
+"The _Sentinel_ don't always hit the bull's-eye, Soapy," returned the
+young man evenly. "It thinks I belong to the Soapy Stone outfit, but we
+know I haven't that honor."
+
+"There's no such outfit--not in the sense he means," snapped the man on
+the lounge. "What are your plans? Where you going to lie low? Picked a
+spot yet?"
+
+"I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on the way," Curly assured him
+gaily.
+
+Soapy frowned at him under the heavy eyebrows that gave him so menacing an
+effect.
+
+"Better come back with me to the ranch till you look around."
+
+"Suits me right down to the ground if it does you."
+
+Someone came whistling into the house and opened the door of the room. He
+was a big lank fellow with a shotgun in his hands. "From Missouri" was
+stamped all over his awkward frame. He stood staring at his unexpected
+guests. His eyes, clashing with those of Stone, grew chill and hard.
+
+"So you're back here again, are you?" he asked, looking pretty black.
+
+Stone's lip smile mocked him. "I don't know how you guessed it, but I sure
+am here."
+
+"Didn't I tell you to keep away from the Bar 99--you and your whole cursed
+outfit?"
+
+"Seems to me you did mention something of that sort. But how was I to know
+whether you meant it unless I came back to see?"
+
+Laura came into the room and ranged herself beside her father. Her hand
+rested lightly on his forearm.
+
+"He got caught in one of your bear traps and this young man brought him
+here to wait for the doctor," she explained.
+
+"Hmp!"
+
+The Missourian stared without civility at his guest, turned on his heel,
+and with his daughter beside him marched out of the room. He could not
+decently tell Stone to leave while he was under the care of a doctor, but
+he did not intend to make him welcome. London was a blunt grizzled old
+fellow who said what he thought even about the notorious Soapy Stone.
+
+"We'll pull our freights right away, Curly," Stone announced as soon as
+his host had gone.
+
+The young man went to the stable and saddled Keno. While he was tightening
+the cinch a shadow fell across his shoulder. He did not need to look round
+to see whose it was.
+
+"I'm so glad you're going to the horse ranch. You will look out for Sam. I
+trust you. I don't know why, but I have the greatest confidence in you,"
+the owner of the shadow explained sweetly.
+
+Curly smiled blandly over his shoulder at her. "Fine! That's a good
+uplifting line of talk, Miss Laura. Now will you please explain why you're
+feeding me this particular bunch of taffy? What is it I'm to do for you?"
+
+She blushed and laughed at the same time. Her hand came from behind her
+back. In it was a letter.
+
+"But I do mean it, every word of it."
+
+"That's to be my pay for giving Master Sam his billy doo, is it?"
+
+"How did you guess? It is a letter to Sam."
+
+"How did I guess it? Shows I'm sure a wiz, don't it?"
+
+She saw her father coming and handed him the letter quickly.
+
+"Here. Take it." A spark of mischief lit her eye and the dimples came out
+on her cheeks. "Good-by, _Curly_."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+BAD MEDICINE
+
+
+The house at the horse ranch was a long, low L-shaped adobe structure. The
+first impression Curly received was that of negligence. In places the roof
+sagged. A door in the rear hung from one hinge. More than one broken pane
+of glass was stuffed with paper. The same evidence of shiftlessness could
+be seen on every hand. Fences had collapsed and been repaired flimsily.
+The woodwork of the well was rotting. The windmill wheezed and did its
+work languidly for lack of oil.
+
+Two men were seated on the porch playing seven up. One was Bad Bill, the
+other Blackwell. At sight of Curly they gave up their game.
+
+"Hello, kid! Where did you drop from?" Cranston asked.
+
+A muscle twitched in Flandrau's cheek. "They got Mac."
+
+"Got him! Where? At Saguache?"
+
+"Ran us down near the Circle C. Mac opened fire. They--killed him."
+
+"Shot him, or----?" Curly was left to guess the other half of the
+question.
+
+"Shot him, and took me prisoner."
+
+"They couldn't prove a thing, could they?"
+
+"They could prove I wounded Cullison. That was enough for them. They set
+out to hang me. Later they changed their minds."
+
+"How come you here? Did you escape?"
+
+"Nope. Friends dug up bail."
+
+Cranston did not ask what friends. He thought he knew. Alec Flandrau, an
+uncle of Curly, owned a half interest in the Map of Texas ranch. No doubt
+he had come to the aid of the young scapegoat.
+
+"I'll bet the old man was sore at having to ante," was Big Bill's
+comment.
+
+"Say, Soapy has been telling me that the Cullison kid is up here. I reckon
+we better not say anything about my mixup with his folks. I'm not looking
+for any trouble with him."
+
+"All right, Curly. That goes with me. How about you, Blackwell?"
+
+"Sure. What Sam don't know won't hurt him."
+
+Curly sat down on the porch and told an edited story of his adventures to
+them. Before he had finished a young fellow rode up and dismounted. He had
+a bag of quail with him which he handed over to the Mexican cook. After he
+had unsaddled and turned his pony into a corral he joined the card players
+on the porch.
+
+By unanimous consent the game was changed to poker. Young Cullison had the
+chair next to Flandrau. He had, so Curly thought, a strong family
+resemblance to his father and sister. "His eye jumps straight at you and
+asks its questions right off the reel," the newcomer thought. Still a boy
+in his ways, he might any day receive the jolt that would transform him
+into a man.
+
+The cook's "Come and get it" broke up the game for a time. They trooped to
+supper, where for half an hour they discussed without words fried quail,
+cornbread and coffee. Such conversation as there was held strictly to
+necessary lines and had to do with the transportation of edibles.
+
+Supper over, they smoked till the table was cleared. Then coats were
+removed and they sat down to the serious business of an all night session
+of draw.
+
+Curly was not playing to win money so much as to study the characters of
+those present. Bill he knew already fairly well as a tough nut to crack,
+game to the core, and staunch to his friends. Blackwell was a bad lot,
+treacherous, vindictive, slippery as an eel. Even his confederates did not
+trust him greatly. But it was Soapy Stone and young Cullison that
+interested Flandrau most. The former played like a master. He chatted
+carelessly, but he overlooked no points. Sam had the qualities that go to
+make a brilliant erratic player, but he lacked the steadiness and the
+finesse of the veteran.
+
+The last play before they broke up in the gray dawn was a flashlight on
+Stone's cool audacity. The limit had long since been taken off. Blackwell
+and Stone had been the winners of the night, and the rest had all lost
+more or less.
+
+Curly was dealing, Cranston opened the pot.
+
+"She's cracked," he announced.
+
+Blackwell, sitting next to him, had been waiting his turn with palpable
+eagerness. "Got to boost her, boys, to protect Bill," he explained as his
+raise went in.
+
+Sam, who had drunk more than was good for him, raised in his turn. "Kick
+her again, gentlemen. Me, I'm plumb tired of that little song of mine,
+'Good here'."
+
+Stone stayed. Curly did not come in.
+
+Cranston showed his openers and laid down his hand. Blackwell hesitated,
+then raised again.
+
+"Reckon I'm content to trail along," Cullison admitted, pushing in the
+necessary chips.
+
+Soapy rasped his stubby chin, looked sideways at Sam and then at
+Blackwell, and abruptly shaved in chips enough to call the raise.
+
+"Cards?" asked Curly.
+
+"I'll play these," Blackwell announced.
+
+Sam called for two and Stone one.
+
+Blackwell raised. Sam, grumbling, stayed.
+
+"Might as well see what you've got when I've gone this far," he gave as a
+reason for throwing good money after bad.
+
+Soapy took one glance at his new card and came in with a raise.
+
+Blackwell slammed his fist down on the table. "Just my rotten luck. You've
+filled."
+
+Stone smiled, then dropped his eyes to his cards. Suddenly he started.
+What had happened was plain. He had misread his hand.
+
+With a cheerful laugh Blackwell raised in his turn.
+
+"Lets me out," Sam said.
+
+For about a tenth of a second one could see triumph ride in Soapy's eyes.
+"Different here," he explained in a quiet businesslike way. All his chips
+were pushed forward to the center of the table.
+
+On Blackwell's face were mapped his thoughts. Curly saw his stodgy mind
+working on the problem, studying helplessly the poker eyes of his easy
+placid enemy. Was Soapy bluffing? Or had he baited a hook for him to
+swallow? The faintest glimmer of amusement drifted across the face of
+Stone. He might have been a general whose plans have worked out to suit
+him, waiting confidently for certain victory. The longer the convict
+looked at him the surer he was that he had been trapped.
+
+With an oath he laid down his hand. "You've got me beat. Mine is only a
+jack high straight."
+
+Stone put down his cards and reached for the pot.
+
+Curly laughed.
+
+Blackwell whirled on him.
+
+"What's so condemned funny?"
+
+"The things I notice."
+
+"Meaning?"
+
+"That I wouldn't have laid down my hand."
+
+"Betcher ten plunks he had me beat."
+
+"You're on." Curly turned to Soapy. "Object to us seeing your hand?"
+
+Stone was counting his chips. He smiled. "It ain't poker, but go ahead.
+Satisfy yourselves."
+
+"You turn the cards," Flandrau said.
+
+A king of diamonds showed first, then a ten-spot and a six-spot of the
+same suit.
+
+"A flush," exulted Blackwell.
+
+"I've got just one more ten left, but it says you're wrong."
+
+The words were not out of Curly's mouth before the other had taken the
+bet. Soapy looked at Flandrau with a new interest. Perhaps this boy was
+not such a youth as he had first seemed.
+
+The fourth card turned was a king of hearts, the last a six of spades.
+Stone had had two pair to go on and had not bettered at the draw.
+
+Blackwell tossed down two bills and went away furious.
+
+That night was like a good many that followed. Sam was at an
+impressionable age, inclined to be led by any man whom he admired. Curly
+knew that he could gain no influence over him by preaching. He had to live
+the rough-and-tumble life of these men who dwelt beyond the pale of the
+law, to excel them at the very things of which they boasted. But in one
+respect he held himself apart. While he was at the horse ranch he did not
+touch a drop of liquor.
+
+Laura London's letter was not delivered until the second day, for, though
+she had not told her messenger to give it to Sam when he was alone, Curly
+guessed this would be better. The two young men had ridden down to Big
+Tree spring to get quail for supper.
+
+"Letter for you from a young lady," Flandrau said, and handed it to
+Cullison.
+
+Sam did not read his note at once, but put it in his pocket carelessly, as
+if it had been an advertisement. They lay down in the bushes about twenty
+yards apart, close to the hole where the birds flew every evening to
+water. Hidden by the mesquite, Sam ran over his letter two or three times
+while he was waiting. It was such a message as any brave-hearted,
+impulsive girl might send to the man she loved when he seemed to her to
+walk in danger. Cullison loved her for the interest she took in him, even
+while he ridiculed her fears.
+
+Presently the quails came by hundreds on a bee-line for the water hole.
+They shot as many as they needed, but no more, for neither of them cared
+to kill for pleasure.
+
+As they rode back to the ranch, Curly mentioned that he had seen Sam's
+people a day or two before.
+
+Cullison asked no questions, but he listened intently while the other told
+the story of his first rustling and of how Miss Kate and her father had
+stood by him in his trouble. The dusk was settling over the hills by this
+time, so that they could not see each other's faces clearly.
+
+"If I had folks like you have, the salt of the earth, and they were
+worrying their hearts out about me, seems to me I'd quit helling around
+and go back to them," Curly concluded.
+
+"The old man sent you to tell me that, did he?" Hard and bitter came the
+voice of the young man out of the growing darkness.
+
+"No, he didn't. He doesn't know I'm here. But he and your sister have done
+more for me than I ever can pay. That's why I'm telling you this."
+
+Sam answered gruffly, as a man does when he is moved, "Much obliged,
+Curly, but I reckon I can look out for myself."
+
+"Just what I thought, and in September I have to go to the penitentiary.
+Now I have mortgaged it away, my liberty seems awful good to me."
+
+"You'll get off likely."
+
+"Not a chance. They've got me cinched. But with you it's different. You
+haven't fooled away your chance yet. There's nothing to this sort of life.
+The bunch up here is no good. Soapy don't mean right by you, or by any
+young fellow he trails with."
+
+"I'll not listen to anything against Soapy. He took me in when my own
+father turned against me."
+
+"To get back at your father for sending him up the road."
+
+"That's all right. He has been a good friend to me. I'm not going to throw
+him down."
+
+"Would it be throwing him down to go back to your people?"
+
+"Yes, it would. We've got plans. Soapy is relying on me. No matter what
+they are, but I'm not going to lie down on him. And I'm not going back to
+the old man. He told me he was through with me. Once is a-plenty. I'm not
+begging him to take me back, not on your life."
+
+[Illustration: HE WAS THE MADDEST MAN IN ARIZONA.]
+
+Curly dropped the matter. To urge him further would only make the boy more
+set in his decision. But as the days passed he kept one thing in his mind,
+not to miss any chance to win his friendship. They rode together a good
+deal, and Flandrau found that Sam liked to hear him talk about the Circle
+C and its affairs. But often he was discouraged, for he made no progress
+in weaning him from his loyalty to Stone. The latter was a hero to him,
+and gradually he was filling him with wrong ideas, encouraging him the
+while to drink a great deal. That the man had some definite purpose Curly
+was sure. What it was he meant to find out.
+
+Meanwhile he played his part of a wild young cowpuncher ready for any
+mischief, but beneath his obtuse good humor Flandrau covered a vigilant
+wariness. Soapy held all the good cards now, but if he stayed in the game
+some of them would come to him. Then he would show Mr. Stone whether he
+would have everything his own way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A REHEARSED QUARREL
+
+
+Because he could not persuade him to join in their drinking bouts, Stone
+nicknamed Curly the good bad man.
+
+"He's the prize tough in Arizona, only he's promised his ma not to look on
+the wine when it is red," Blackwell sneered.
+
+Flandrau smiled amiably, and retorted as best he could. It was his cue not
+to take offence unless it were necessary.
+
+It was perhaps on account of this good nature that Blackwell made a
+mistake. He picked on the young man to be the butt of his coarse
+pleasantries. Day after day he pointed his jeers at Curly, who continued
+to grin as if he did not care.
+
+When the worm turned, it happened that they were all sitting on the porch.
+Curly was sewing a broken stirrup leather, Blackwell had a quirt in his
+hand, and from time to time flicked it at the back of his victim. Twice
+the lash stung, not hard, but with pepper enough to hurt. Each time the
+young man asked him to stop.
+
+Blackwell snapped the quirt once too often. When he picked himself out of
+the dust five seconds later, he was the maddest man in Arizona. Like a
+bull he lowered his head and rushed. Curly sidestepped and lashed out hard
+with his left.
+
+The convict whirled, shook the hair out of his eyes, and charged again. It
+was a sledge-hammer bout, with no rules except to hit the other man often
+and hard. Twice Curly went down from chance blows, but each time he rolled
+away and got to his feet before his heavy foe could close with him.
+Blackwell had no science. His arms went like flails. Though by sheer
+strength he kept Flandrau backing, the latter hit cleaner and with more
+punishing effect.
+
+Curly watched his chance, dodged a wild swing, and threw himself forward
+hard with his shoulder against the chest of the convict. The man staggered
+back, tripped on the lowest step of the porch, and went down hard. The
+fall knocked the breath out of him.
+
+"Had enough?" demanded Curly.
+
+For answer Blackwell bit his thumb savagely.
+
+"Since you like it so well, have another taste." Curly, now thoroughly
+angry, sent a short-arm jolt to the mouth.
+
+The man underneath tried to throw him off, but Flandrau's fingers found
+his hairy throat and tight-
+
+[Transcriber's Note: the last line printed in the preceeding paragraph was
+"tight-" and that was at a page break. The continuation was not printed at
+the top of the following page. From the context, "tightened" is likely the
+completed word.]
+
+"You're killing me," the convict gasped.
+
+"Enough?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+Curly stepped back quickly, ready either for a knife or a gun-play.
+Blackwell got to his feet, and glared at him.
+
+"A man is like a watermelon; you can't most generally tell how good he is
+till you thump him," Sam chuckled.
+
+Cranston laughed. "Curly was not so ripe for picking as you figured, Lute.
+If you'd asked me, I could a-told you to put in yore spare time letting
+him alone. But a fellow has to buy his own experience."
+
+The victor offered his hand to Blackwell. "I had a little luck. We'll call
+it quits if you say so."
+
+"I stumbled over the step," the beaten man snarled.
+
+"Sure. I had all the luck."
+
+"Looked to me like you were making yore own luck, kid," Bad Bill
+differed.
+
+The paroled convict went into the house, swearing to get even. His face
+was livid with fury.
+
+"You wouldn't think a little thing like a whaling given fair and square
+would make a man hold a grudge. My system has absorbed se-ve-real without
+doing it any harm." Sam stooped to inspect a rapidly discoloring eye.
+"Say, Curly, he hung a peach of a lamp on you."
+
+Soapy made no comment in words, but he looked at Flandrau with a new
+respect. For the first time a doubt as to the wisdom of letting him stay
+at the ranch crossed his mind.
+
+His suspicion was justified. Curly had been living on the edge of a secret
+for weeks. Mystery was in the air. More than once he had turned a corner
+to find the other four whispering over something. The group had
+disintegrated at once with a casual indifference that did not deceive.
+Occasionally a man had ridden into the yard late at night for private talk
+with Stone, and Curly was morally certain that the man was the little
+cowpuncher Dutch of the Circle C.
+
+Through it all Curly wore a manner of open confidence. The furtive
+whisperings did not appear to arouse his curiosity, nor did he intercept
+any of the knowing looks that sometimes were exchanged. But all the time
+his brain was busy with questions. What were they up to? What was it they
+had planned?
+
+Stone and Blackwell rode away one morning. To Curly the word was given
+that they were going to Mesa. Four days later Soapy returned alone. Lute
+had found a job, he said.
+
+"That a paper sticking out of your pocket?" Flandrau asked.
+
+Soapy, still astride his horse, tossed the _Saguache Sentinel_ to him as
+he turned toward the stable.
+
+"Lie number one nailed," Curly said to himself. "How came he with a
+Saguache paper if he's been to Mesa?"
+
+Caught between the folds of the paper was a railroad time table. It was a
+schedule of the trains of the Texas, Arizona & Pacific for July. This was
+the twenty-ninth of June. Certainly Soapy had lost no time getting the new
+folder as soon as it was issued. Why? He might be going traveling. If so,
+what had that to do with the mystery agitating him and his friends?
+
+Curly turned the pages idly till a penciled marking caught his eye. Under
+Number 4's time was scrawled, just below Saguache, the word Tin Cup, and
+opposite it the figures 10:19. The express was due to leave Saguache at
+9:57 in the evening. From there it pushed up to the divide and slid down
+with air brakes set to Tin Cup three thousand feet lower. Soapy could not
+want to catch the train fifteen miles the other side of Saguache. But this
+note on the margin showed that he was interested in the time it reached
+the water tank. There must be a reason for it.
+
+Stone came back hurriedly from the corral, to find Curly absorbed in the
+Sentinel.
+
+"Seen anything of a railroad folder? I must a-dropped it."
+
+"It was stuck in the paper. I notice there's liable to be trouble between
+Fendrick and the cattle interests over his sheep," the reader answered
+casually.
+
+"Yep. Between Fendrick and Cullison, anyhow." Stone had reclaimed and
+pocketed his time table.
+
+Incidentally Flandrau's doubt had been converted into a lively suspicion.
+Presently he took a gun, and strolled off to shoot birds. What he really
+wanted was to be alone so that he could think the matter over. Coming home
+in the dusk, he saw Stone and young Cullison with their heads together
+down by the corral. Curious to see how long this earnest talk would last,
+Curly sat down on a rock, and watched them, himself unobserved. They
+appeared to be rehearsing some kind of a scene, of which Soapy was stage
+director.
+
+The man on the rock smiled grimly. "They're having a quarrel, looks
+like.... Now the kid's telling Soapy to go to Guinea, and Soapy's pawing
+around mad as a bull moose. It's all a play. They don't mean it. But why?
+I reckon this dress rehearsal ain't for the calves in the corral."
+
+Curly's mind was so full of guesses that his poker was not up to par that
+night. About daybreak he began to see his way into the maze. His first
+gleam of light was when a row started between Soapy and Cullison. Before
+anyone could say a word to stop them they were going through with that
+identical corral quarrel.
+
+Flandrau knew now they had been preparing it for his benefit. Cranston
+chipped in against Sam, and to keep up appearances Curly backed the boy.
+The quarrel grew furious. At last Sam drove his fist down on the table and
+said he was through with the outfit and was going back to Saguache.
+
+"_Yo tambien_," agreed Curly. "Not that I've got anything against the
+horse ranch. That ain't it. But I'm sure pining for to bust the bank at
+Bronson's.
+
+                 'Round and round the little ball goes,
+                 Where it will land nobody knows.'
+
+I've got forty plunks burning my jeans. I've got to separate myself from
+it or make my roll a thousand."
+
+The end of it was that both Sam and Curly went down to the corral and
+saddled their ponies. To the last the conspirators played up to their
+parts.
+
+"Damned good riddance," Stone called after them as they rode away.
+
+"When I find out I'm doing business with four-flushers, I quit them cold,"
+Sam called back angrily.
+
+Curly was amused. He wanted to tell his friend that they had pulled off
+their little play very well. But he did not.
+
+Still according to program, Sam sulked for the first few miles of their
+journey. But before they reached the Bar 99 he grew sunny again.
+
+"I'm going to have a talk with Laura while I'm so near," he explained.
+
+"Yes, that will be fine. From the way the old man talked when I was there,
+I expect he'll kill the fatted yearling for you."
+
+"I don't figure on including the old man in my call. What's the use of
+having a friend along if you don't use him? You drift in ... just happen
+along, you know. I'll stay in the scrub pines up here. If the old man is
+absent scenery, you wave your bandanna real industrious. If he is at home,
+give Laura the tip and she'll know where to find me."
+
+The owner of the ranch, as it happened, was cutting trail over by Agua
+Caliente.
+
+"Do you want to see him very bad, Mr. Flandrau?" asked Miss Laura
+demurely.
+
+"My friends call me Curly."
+
+"I meant to say Curly."
+
+"That's what I thought. No, I can't say I've lost Mr. London."
+
+"You inquired for him."
+
+"Hmp! That's different. When I used to come home from the swimming hole
+contrary to orders, I used to ask where Dad was, but I didn't want to see
+him."
+
+"I see. Did you just come down from the horse ranch?"
+
+"You've guessed it right."
+
+"Then I'm sorry I can't ask you to 'light. Dad's orders."
+
+"You've got lots of respect for his orders, haven't you?" he derided.
+
+"Yes, I have." She could not quite make up her mind whether to laugh or
+become indignant.
+
+"Then there's no use trying to tell you the news from the ranch."
+
+A smile dimpled her cheeks and bubbled in her eyes. "If you should tell
+me, I suppose I couldn't help hearing."
+
+"But I'm trying to figure out my duty. Maybe I oughtn't to tempt you."
+
+"While you're making up your mind, I'll run back into the kitchen and look
+at the pies in the oven."
+
+Curly swung from the saddle, and tossed the bridle rein to the ground. He
+followed her into the house. She was taking an apple pie from the oven,
+but took time to be saucy over her shoulder.
+
+"I'm not allowed to invite you into the house, sir."
+
+"Anything in the by-laws about me inviting myself in?"
+
+"No, that wasn't mentioned."
+
+"Anything in them about you meeting one of the lads from the horse ranch
+up on the hillside where it is neutral ground?"
+
+"Did Sam come with you?" she cried.
+
+"Who said anything about Sam?"
+
+Glints of excitement danced in the brown pupils of her eyes. "He's here.
+Oh, I know he's here."
+
+"What do I get for bringing good news?"
+
+"I didn't say it was good news."
+
+"Sho! Your big eyes are shouting it."
+
+"Was that the news from the horse ranch?"
+
+"That's part of it, but there is more. Sam and Curly are on their way to
+Saguache to spend the Fourth of July. Sam is going for another reason, but
+I'm not sure yet what it is."
+
+"You mean----?"
+
+"There's something doing I don't _savez_, some big deal on foot that's not
+on the level. Sam is in it up to the hocks. To throw me off the scent they
+fixed up a quarrel among them. Sam is supposed to be quitting Soapy's
+outfit for good. But I know better."
+
+White to the lips, she faced him bravely. "What sort of trouble is he
+leading Sam into?"
+
+"I've got a kind of a notion. But it won't bear talking about yet. Don't
+you worry, little girl. I'm going to stand by Sam. And don't tell him what
+I've told you, unless you want to spoil my chance of helping him."
+
+"I won't," she promised; then added, with quick eagerness: "Maybe I can
+help you. I'm going down to Saguache to visit on the fourth. I'm to be
+there two weeks."
+
+"I'll look you up. Trouble is that Sam is hell bent on ruining himself.
+Seems to think Soapy is his best friend. If we could show him different
+things might work out all right."
+
+While she climbed the hill to Sam, Curly watered his horse and smoked a
+cigarette. He was not hired to chaperone lovers. Therefore, it took him
+three-quarters of an hour to reach the scrub pine belt on the edge of the
+park.
+
+At once he saw that they had been having a quarrel. The girl's eyes were
+red, and she was still dabbing at them with her handkerchief when he came
+whistling along. Sam looked discouraged, but stubborn. Very plainly they
+had been disagreeing about his line of conduct.
+
+The two young men took the trail again. The moroseness of Sam was real and
+not affected this time. He had flared up because the girl could not let
+him alone about his friendship for Soapy Stone. In his heart the boy knew
+he was wrong, that he was moving fast in the wrong direction. But his
+pride would neither let him confess it or go back on his word to the men
+with whom he had been living.
+
+About noon the next day they reached Saguache. After they had eaten, Curly
+strolled off by himself to the depot.
+
+"Gimme a ticket to Tin Cup for this evening. I want to go by the express,"
+he told the agent.
+
+The man looked at him and grinned. "I saw you at Mesa in the bucking
+broncho doings last year, didn't I?"
+
+"Maybe you did and maybe you didn't. Why?"
+
+"You certainly stay with the bad bronchs to a fare-you-well. If I'd been
+judge you'd a-had first place, Mr. Flandrau."
+
+"Much obliged. And now you've identified me sufficient, how about that
+ticket?"
+
+"I was coming to that. Sure you can get a ticket. Good on any train.
+You're so darned active, maybe you could get off Number 4 when she is
+fogging along sixty miles per. But most folks couldn't, not with any
+comfort."
+
+"Meaning that the Flyer doesn't stop?"
+
+"Not at Tin Cup."
+
+"Have to take the afternoon train then?"
+
+"I reckon." He punched a ticket and shoved it through the window toward
+Curly. "Sixty-five cents, please."
+
+Flandrau paid for and pocketed the ticket he did not intend to use. He had
+found out what he wanted to know. The express did not stop at Tin Cup.
+Why, then, had Soapy marked the time of its arrival there? He was
+beginning to guess the reason. But he would have to do more than guess.
+
+Curly walked back to the business section from the depot. Already the town
+was gay with banners in preparation for the Fourth. On the program were
+broncho-busting, roping, Indian dances, races, and other frontier events.
+Already visitors were gathering for the festivities. Saguache, wide open
+for the occasion, was already brisk with an assorted population of many
+races. Mexicans, Chinese, Indians of various tribes brushed shoulders with
+miners, tourists and cattlemen. Inside the saloons faro, chuckaluck and
+roulette attracted each its devotees.
+
+Flandrau sauntered back to the hotel on the lookout for Sam. He was not
+there, but waiting for him was a boy with a note for the gentleman in
+Number 311.
+
+"Kid looking for you," the clerk called to the cowpuncher.
+
+"Are you Mr. Soapy Stone's friend, the one just down from Dead Cow creek?"
+asked the boy.
+
+Taken as a whole, the answer was open to debate. But Curly nodded and took
+the note.
+
+This was what he read:
+
+  Sam, come to Chalkeye's place soon as you get this. There we will
+  talk over the business.
+
+                                                       You Know Who.
+
+Though he did not know who, Curly thought he could give a pretty good
+guess both as to the author and the business that needed talking over.
+
+Through the open door of the hotel he saw Sam approaching. Quickly he
+sealed the flap of the envelope again, and held it pressed against his
+fingers while he waited.
+
+"A letter for you, Sam."
+
+Cullison tore open the envelope and read the note.
+
+"A friend of mine has come to town and wants to see me," he explained.
+
+To help out his bluff, Curly sprang the feeble-minded jest on him. "Blonde
+or brunette?"
+
+"I'm no lady's man," Sam protested, content to let the other follow a
+wrong scent.
+
+"Sure not. It never is a lady," Flandrau called after him as he departed.
+
+But Sam had no more than turned the corner before Curly was out of a side
+door and cutting through an alley toward Chalkeye's place. Reaching the
+back door of the saloon, he opened it a few inches and peered in. A minute
+later Sam opened the front screen and asked a question of the man in the
+apron. The bartender gave a jerk of his thumb. Sam walked toward the rear
+and turned in at the second private booth.
+
+Curly slipped forward quietly, and passed unobserved into the third stall.
+The wall which divided one room from another was of pine boarding and did
+not reach the ceiling. As the eavesdropper slid to a seat a phonograph in
+front began the Merry Widow waltz. Noiselessly Flandrau stood on the
+cushioned bench with his ear close to the top of the dividing wall. He
+could hear a murmur of voices but could not make out a word. The record on
+the instrument wheezed to silence, but immediately a rag-time tune
+followed.
+
+Presently the music died away. Flattened against the wall, his attention
+strained to the utmost, Curly began to catch words and phrases of the
+low-voiced speakers in the next compartment. His position was perilous in
+the extreme, but he would not leave now until he had found out what he
+wanted to know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+EAVESDROPPING
+
+
+Out of the murmur of voices came one that Curly recognized as that of
+Soapy Stone, alias You Know Who.
+
+" ... then you'll take the 9:57, Sam...."
+
+After more whispering, "Yep, soon as you hear the first shot ... cover the
+passengers...."
+
+The listener lost what followed. Once he thought he heard the name Tin
+Cup, but he could not be sure. Presently another fragment drifted to him.
+"...make our getaway and cache the plunder...."
+
+The phonograph lifted up its voice again. This time it was "I love a
+lassie." Before the song was finished there came the sound of shuffling
+feet. One of the men in the next stall was leaving. Curly could not tell
+which one, nor did he dare look over the top of the partition to find out.
+He was playing safe. This adventure had caught him so unexpectedly that he
+had not found time to run back to his room for his six-gun. What would
+happen to him if he were caught listening was not a matter of doubt. Soapy
+would pump lead into him till he quit kicking, slap a saddle on a broncho,
+and light out for the Sonora line.
+
+As the phonograph finished unexpectedly--someone had evidently interrupted
+the record--the fragment of a sentence seemed to jump at Curly.
+
+" ... so the kid will get his in the row."
+
+It was the voice of Soapy, raised slightly to make itself heard above the
+music.
+
+"Take care," another voice replied, and Flandrau would have sworn that
+this belonged to Blackwell.
+
+Stone, who had been sitting on the other side of the table, moved close to
+the paroled convict. Between him and Curly there was only the thickness of
+a plank. The young man was afraid that the knocking of his heart could be
+heard.
+
+" ... don't like it," Blackwell was objecting sullenly.
+
+"Makes it safe for us. Besides"--Stone's voice grated like steel rasping
+steel, every word distinct though very low--"I swore to pay off Luck
+Cullison, and by God! I'm going to do it."
+
+"Someone will hear you if you ain't careful," the convict protested
+anxiously.
+
+"Don't be an old woman, Lute."
+
+" ... if you can do it safe. I owe Luck Cullison much as you do, but...."
+
+Again they fell to whispers. The next word that came to Curly clearly was
+his own name. But it was quite a minute before he gathered what they were
+saying.
+
+"Luck Cullison went his bail. I learnt it this mo'ning."
+
+"The son-of-a-gun. It's a cinch he's a spy. And me wanting you to let him
+in so's he could hold the sack instead of Sam."
+
+"Knew it wouldn't do, Lute. He's smart as a whip."
+
+"Reckon he knows anything?"
+
+"No. Can't."
+
+"If I thought he did----"
+
+"Keep your shirt on, Lute. He don't know a thing. And you get revenge on
+him all right. Sam will run with him and his friends while he's here.
+Consequence is, when they find the kid where we leave him they'll sure
+guess Curly for one of his pardners. Tell you his ticket is good as bought
+to Yuma. He's a horse thief. Why shouldn't he be a train robber, too.
+That's how a jury will argue."
+
+Blackwell grumbled something under his breath.
+
+Stone's voice grated harshly. "Me too. If he crosses my trail I'm liable
+to spoil his hide before court meets. No man alive can play me for a
+sucker and throw me down. Not Soapy Stone."
+
+Once more the voices ran together indistinctly. It was not till Blackwell
+suggested that they go get a drink that Curly understood anything more of
+what was being said.
+
+The outlaws passed out of the little room and strolled forward to the
+bar.
+
+Curly had heard more than he had expected to. Moreover, as he
+congratulated himself, his luck had stood up fine. Nobody in the sunburnt
+territory felt happier than he did that minute when he struck the good
+fresh air of the alley and knew that he had won through his hazardous
+adventure alive.
+
+The first thing that Flandrau did was to walk toward the outskirts of the
+town where he could think it out by himself. But in this little old planet
+events do not always occur as a man plans them. Before he reached Arroyo
+street Curly came plump against his old range-mate Slats Davis.
+
+The assistant foreman of the Hashknife nodded as he passed. He had helped
+Curly escape less than a month before, but he did not intend to stay
+friendly with a rustler.
+
+Flandrau caught him by the arm. "Hello, Slats. You're the man I want."
+
+"I'm pretty busy to-day," Davis answered stiffly.
+
+"Forget it. This is more important."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Come along and take a walk. I got something to tell you."
+
+"Can't you tell it here?"
+
+"I ain't going to, anyhow. Come along. I ain't got smallpox."
+
+Reluctantly Davis fell in beside him. "All right. Cut it short. I've got
+to see a man."
+
+"He'll have to wait." Curly could not help chuckling to himself at the
+evident embarrassment of the other. The impish impulse to "devil" him had
+its way. "You're a man of experience, Slats. Ever hold up a train?"
+
+The foreman showed plainly his disgust at this foolishness. "Haven't you
+sense enough ever to be serious, Curly? You're not a kid any more. In age
+you're a grown man. But how do you act? Talk like that don't do you any
+good. You're in trouble good and deep. Folks have got their eyes on you.
+Now is the time to show them you have quit all that hell raising you have
+been so busy at."
+
+"He sure is going good this mo'ning," Curly drawled confidentially to the
+scenery. "You would never guess, would you, that him and me had raised
+that crop in couples?"
+
+"That's all right, too. I'm no sky pilot. But I know when to quit.
+Seemingly you don't. I hear you've been up at Stone's horse ranch. I want
+to tell you that won't do you any good if it gets out."
+
+"Never was satisfied till I had rounded up all the trouble in sight.
+That's why I mentioned this train robbery. Some of my friends are aiming
+to hold up one shortly. If you'd like to get in I'll say a good word for
+you."
+
+Davis threw at him a look that drenched like ice water. "I expect you and
+me are traveling different trails these days, Curly. You don't mean it of
+course, but the point is I'm not going to joke with you along that line.
+Understand?"
+
+"Wrong guess, old hoss. I do mean it."
+
+Davis stopped in his tracks. "Then you've said too much to me. We'll part
+right here."
+
+"It takes two to agree to that, Slats."
+
+"That's where you're wrong. One is enough. We used to be good friends, but
+those days are past. None of us can keep a man from being a durned fool if
+he wants to be one. Nor a scoundrel. You've got the bit in your teeth and
+I reckon you'll go till there is a smash. But you better understand this.
+When you choose Soapy Stone's, crowd to run with that cuts out me and
+other decent folks. If they have sent you here to get me mixed up in their
+deviltry you go back and tell them there's nothing doing."
+
+"Won't have a thing to do with them. Is that it?"
+
+"Not till the call comes for citizens to get together and run them out of
+the country. Or to put them behind bars. Or to string them to a
+cottonwood. Then I'll be on the job."
+
+He stood there quiet and easy, the look in his steady eyes piercing
+Curly's ironic smile as a summer sun does mackerel clouds in a clear sky.
+Not many men would have had the courage to send that message to Soapy and
+his outfit. For Stone was not only a man killer, but a mean one at that.
+Since he had come back from the penitentiary he had been lying pretty low,
+but he brought down from the old days a record that chilled the blood.
+
+Curly sloughed his foolishness and came to the point.
+
+"You're on, Slats. I'm making that call to you now."
+
+The eyes of the two men fastened. Those of Flandrau had quit dancing and
+were steady as the sun in a blue sky. Surprise, doubt, wonder, relief
+filled in turn the face of the other man.
+
+"I'm listening, Curly."
+
+His friend told him the whole story from the beginning, just as he had
+been used to do in the old days. And Davis heard it without a word, taking
+the tale in quietly with a grim look settling, on his face.
+
+"So he aims to play traitor to young Cullison. The thing is damnable."
+
+"He means to shut Sam's mouth for good and all. That is what he has been
+playing for from the start, to get even with Luck. He and his gang will
+get away with the haul and they will leave Sam dead on the scene of the
+hold-up. There will be some shooting, and it will be figured the boy was
+hit by one of the train crew. Nothing could be easier."
+
+"If it worked out right."
+
+"Couldn't help working out right. That's why Soapy didn't let me in on the
+proposition. To get rid of one would be no great trouble, but two--well,
+that's different. Besides, I could tell he was not sure of me. Now he aims
+to put me on the stand and prove by me that Sam and he had a quarrel and
+parted company mighty sore at each other hardly a week before the hold-up.
+He'll have an alibi too to show he couldn't have been in it. You'll see."
+
+"You wouldn't think a white man could take a revenge like that on his
+enemy. It's an awful thing to do in cold blood."
+
+"Soapy is no white man. He's a wolf. See how slick his scheme is. At one
+flip of the cards he kills the kid and damns his reputation. He scores
+Cullison and he snuffs out Sam, who had had the luck to win the girl Soapy
+fancies. The boy gets his and the girl is shown she can't love another man
+than Stone."
+
+"Ever hear the story of French Dan?" asked Slats.
+
+"Not to know the right of it."
+
+"Soapy and Dan trained together in them days and went through a lot of
+meanness as side pardners. One day the Arivaca stage was held up by two
+men and the driver killed. In the scrap one of the men had his mask torn
+off. It was French Dan. Well, the outlaws had been too damned busy. Folks
+woke up and the hills were sprinkled with posses. They ran the fellows
+down and hunted them from place to place. Two--three times they almost
+nailed them. Shots were exchanged. A horse of one of the fugitives was
+killed and they could not get another. Finally one dark night the outlaws
+were surrounded. The posse lay down in the zacaton and waited for morning.
+In the night one of them heard a faint sound like the popping of a cork.
+When mo'ning broke the hunters crept forward through the thick grass.
+Guess what they found."
+
+Curly's answer was prompt. "Gimme a harder one. There were two men and
+only one horse. The only chance was to slip through the line before day
+arrived. My guess is that they found French Dan with a little round hole
+in his skull--_and that the bullet making it had gone in from behind_. My
+guess also is that the posse didn't find the horse and the other man, just
+a trail through the zacaton back into the hills."
+
+"Go to the head of the class. There was one man too many in that thicket
+for the horse. French Dan's pardner was afraid they might not agree about
+who was to have the bronch for a swift getaway. So he took no chances.
+There's only one man alive to-day can swear that Soapy was the man with
+French Dan lying in the zacaton. And he'll never tell, because he pumped
+the bullet into his friend. But one thing is sure. Soapy disappeared from
+Arizona for nearly two years. You can pick any reason you like for his
+going. That is the one I choose."
+
+"Same here. And the man that would shoot one partner in the back would
+shoot another if he had good reasons. By his way of it Soapy has reasons
+a-plenty."
+
+"I'm satisfied that is his game. Question is how to block it. Will you go
+to the sheriff?"
+
+"No. Bolt would fall down on it. First off, he would not believe the story
+because I'm a rustler myself. Soapy and his friends voted for Bolt. He
+would go to them, listen to their story, prove part of it by me, and turn
+them loose for lack of evidence. Sam would go back to Dead Cow with them,
+and Stone would weave another web for the kid."
+
+"You've got it about right," Slats admitted. "How about warning Sam?"
+
+"No use. He would go straight to Soapy with it, and his dear friend would
+persuade him it was just a yarn cooked up to get him to throw down the
+only genuwine straight-up pal he ever had."
+
+"Cullison then?"
+
+"You're getting warm. I've had that notion myself. The point is, would he
+be willing to wait and let Soapy play his hand out till we called?"
+
+"You would have to guarantee his boy would be safe meanwhile."
+
+"Two of us would have to watch him day and night without Sam knowing it."
+
+"Count me in."
+
+"This is where we hit heavy traveling, Slats. For we don't know when the
+thing is going to be pulled off."
+
+"We'll have to be ready. That's all."
+
+"Happen to know whether Dick Maloney is here for the show?"
+
+"Saw him this mo'ning. Luck is here too, him and his girl."
+
+"Good. We've got to have a talk with them, and it has to be on the q.t.
+You go back to town and find Dick. Tell him to meet us at the Del Mar,
+where Luck always puts up. Find out the number of Cullison's room and make
+an appointment. I'll be on El Molino street all mo'ning off and on. When
+you find out pass me without stopping, but tell me when we are to meet and
+just where."
+
+Curly gave Slats a quarter of an hour before sauntering back to town. As
+he was passing the Silver Dollar saloon a voice called him. Stone and
+Blackwell were standing in the door. Flandrau stopped.
+
+Soapy's deep-set eyes blazed at him. "You didn't tell me it was Luck
+Cullison went bail for you, Curly."
+
+"You didn't ask me."
+
+"So you and him are thick, are you?"
+
+"I've met him once, if that's being thick. That time I shot him up."
+
+"Funny. And then he went bail for you."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Now I wonder why."
+
+The eyes of the man had narrowed to red slits. His head had shot forward
+on his shoulders as that of a snake does. Curly would have given a good
+deal just then for the revolver lying on the bed of his room. For it was
+plain trouble was in sight. The desperado had been drinking heavily and
+was ready to do murder.
+
+"That's easy to explain, Soapy. I shot him because I was driven to it.
+He's too much of a man to bear a grudge for what I couldn't help."
+
+"That's it, is it? Does that explain why he dug up good money to turn
+loose a horse thief?"
+
+"If I told you why, you would not understand."
+
+"Let's hear you try."
+
+"He did it because I was young, just as Sam is; and because he figured
+that some day Sam might need a friend, too."
+
+"You're a liar. He did it because you promised to sneak up to my ranch and
+spy on us. That's why he did it."
+
+With the last word his gun jumped into sight. That he was lashing himself
+into a fury was plain. Presently his rage would end in a tragedy.
+
+Given a chance, Curly would have run for it. But Soapy was a dead shot. Of
+a sudden the anger in the boy boiled up over the fear. In two jumps he
+covered the ground and jammed his face close to the cold rim of the blue
+steel barrel.
+
+"I'm not heeled. Shoot and be damned, you coward. And with my last breath
+I'll tell you that you're a liar."
+
+Flandrau had called his bluff, though he had not meant it as one. A dozen
+men were in sight and were watching. They had heard the young man tell
+Stone he was not armed. Public opinion would hold him to account if he
+shot Curly down in cold blood. He hung there undecided, breathing fast,
+his jaw clamped tightly.
+
+The lad hammered home his defiance. "Drop that gun, you four-flusher, and
+I'll whale you till you can't stand. _Sabe?_ Call yourself a bad man, do
+you? Time I'm through with you there will be one tame wolf crawling back
+to Dead Cow with its tail between its legs."
+
+The taunt diverted his mind, just as Curly had hoped it would. He thrust
+the revolver back into the holster and reached for his foe.
+
+Then everybody, hitherto paralyzed by the sight of a deadly weapon, woke
+up and took a hand. They dragged the two men apart. Curly was thrust into
+a barber shop on the other side of the street and Stone was dragged back
+into the Silver Dollar.
+
+In two minutes Flandrau had made himself famous, for he was a marked man.
+The last words of the straggling desperado had been that he would shoot on
+sight. Now half a dozen talked at once. Some advised Curly one thing, some
+another. He must get out of town. He must apologize at once to Stone. He
+must send a friend and explain.
+
+The young man laughed grimly. "Explain nothing. I've done all the
+explaining I'm going to. And I'll not leave town either. If Soapy wants me
+he'll sure find me."
+
+"Don't be foolish, kid. He has got four notches on that gun of his. And
+he's a dead shot."
+
+The tongues of those about him galloped. Soapy was one of these
+Billy-the-Kid killers, the only one left from the old days. He could whang
+away at a quarter with that sawed-off .45 of his and hit it every crack.
+The sooner Curly understood that no boy would have a chance with him the
+better it would be. So the talk ran.
+
+"He's got you bluffed to a fare-you-well. You're tame enough to eat out of
+his hand. Didn't Luck Cullison go into the hills and bring him down all
+alone?" Flandrau demanded.
+
+"Luck's another wonder. There ain't another man in Arizona could have done
+it. Leastways no other but Bucky O'Connor."
+
+But Curly was excited, pleased with himself because he had stood up to the
+bogey man of the Southwest, and too full of strength to be afraid.
+
+Maloney came into the barber shop and grinned at him.
+
+"Hello, son!"
+
+"Hello, Dick!"
+
+"I hear you and Soapy are figuring on setting off some fireworks this
+Fourth."
+
+It did Curly good to see him standing there so easy and deliberate among
+the excitable town people.
+
+"Soapy is doing the talking."
+
+"I heard him; happened to be at the Silver Dollar when they dragged him
+in."
+
+Maloney's eyebrows moved the least bit. His friend understood. Together
+they passed out of the back door of the shop into an alley. The others
+stood back and let them go. But their eyes did not leave Curly so long as
+he was in sight. Until this thing was settled one way or the other the
+young rustler would be one of the most important men in town. Citizens
+would defer to him that had never noticed him before. He carried with him
+a touch of the solemnity that is allowed only the dead or the dying.
+
+Back to the hotel the two ran. When Curly buckled on his revolver and felt
+it resting comfortably against his thigh he felt a good deal better.
+
+"I've seen Slats Davis," Maloney explained. "He has gone to find Luck, who
+is now at the Del Mar. At least he was an hour ago."
+
+"Had any talk with Slats?"
+
+"No. He said you'd do the talking."
+
+"I'm to wait for him on El Molino street to learn where I'm to meet
+Cullison."
+
+"That won't do. You'd make too tempting a target. I'll meet him instead."
+
+That suited Curly. He was not hunting trouble just now, even though he
+would not run away from it. For he had serious business on hand that could
+not take care of itself if Soapy should kill him.
+
+Nearly an hour later Maloney appeared again.
+
+"We're to go right over to the Del Mar. Second floor, room 217. You are to
+go down El Molino to Main, then follow it to the hotel, keeping on the
+right hand side of the street. Slats will happen along the other side of
+the street and will keep abreast of you. Luck will walk with me behind
+you. Unless I yell your name don't pay any attention to what is behind
+you. Soon as we reach the hotel Slats will cross the road and go in by the
+side door. You will follow him a few steps behind, and we'll bring up the
+rear casually as if we hadn't a thing to do with you."
+
+"You're taking a heap of pains, seems to me."
+
+"Want to keep you from getting spoilt till September term of court opens.
+Didn't I promise Bolt you would show up?"
+
+They moved down the street as arranged. Every time a door opened in front
+of him, every time a man came out of a store or a saloon, Curly was ready
+for that lightning lift of the arm followed by a puff of smoke. The news
+of his coming passed ahead of him, so that windows were crowded with
+spectators. These were doomed to disappointment. Nothing happened. The
+procession left behind it the Silver Dollar, the Last Chance, Chalkeye's
+Place and Pete's Palace.
+
+Reaching the hotel first, Davis disappeared according to program into the
+side door. Carly followed, walked directly up the stairs, along the
+corridor, and passed without knocking into Room 217.
+
+A young woman was sitting there engaged with some fancy work. Slender and
+straight, Kate Cullison rose and gave Curly her hand. For about two
+heartbeats her fingers lay cuddled in his big fist. A strange stifling
+emotion took his breath.
+
+Then her arm fell to her side and she was speaking to him.
+
+"Dad has gone to meet you. We've heard about what happened this morning."
+
+"You mean what didn't happen. Beats all how far a little excitement goes
+in this town," he answered, embarrassed.
+
+Her father and Maloney entered the room. Cullison wrung his hand.
+
+"Glad to see you, boy. You're in luck that convict did not shoot you up
+while he had the chance. Saguache is sure buzzing this mo'ning with the
+way you stood up to him. That little play of yours will help with the jury
+in September."
+
+Curly thanked him for going bail.
+
+Luck fixed his steel-spoked eyes on him. "By what Dick tells me you've
+more than squared that account."
+
+Kate explained in her soft voice. "Dick told us why you went up to Dead
+Cow creek."
+
+"Sho! I hadn't a thing to do, so I just ran up there. Sam's in town with
+me. We're rooming together."
+
+"Oh, take me to him," Kate cried.
+
+"Not just now, honey," her father said gently. "This young man came here
+to tell us something. Or so I gathered from his friend Davis."
+
+Flandrau told his story, or all of it that would bear telling before a
+girl. He glossed over his account of the dissipation at the horse ranch,
+but he told all he knew of Laura London and her interest in Sam. But it
+was when he related what he had heard at Chalkeye's place that the
+interest grew most tense. While he was going over the plot to destroy
+young Cullison there was no sound in the room but his voice. Luck's eyes
+burned like live coals. The color faded from the face of his daughter so
+that her lips were gray as cigar ash. Yet she sat up straight and did not
+flinch.
+
+When he had finished the owner of the Circle C caught his hand. "You've
+done fine, boy. Not a man in Arizona could have done it better."
+
+Kate said nothing in words but her dark longlashed eyes rained thanks upon
+him.
+
+They talked the situation over from all angles. Always it simmered down to
+one result. It was Soapy's first play. Until he moved they could not. They
+had no legal evidence except the word of Curly. Nor did they know on what
+night he had planned to pull off the hold-up. If they were to make a
+complete gather of the outfit, with evidence enough to land them in the
+penitentiary, it could only be after the hold-up.
+
+Meanwhile there was nothing to do but wait and take what precautions they
+could against being caught by surprise. One of these was to see that Sam
+was never for an instant left unguarded either day or night. Another was
+to ride to Tin Cup and look the ground over carefully. For the present
+they could do no more than watch events, attracting no attention by any
+whispering together in public.
+
+Before the conference broke up Kate came in with her protest.
+
+"That's all very well, but what about Mr. Flandrau? He can't stay in
+Saguache with that man threatening to kill him on sight."
+
+"Don't worry about me, Miss Kate;" and Curly looked at her and blushed.
+
+Her father smiled grimly. "No, I wouldn't, Kate. He isn't going to be
+troubled by that wolf just now."
+
+"Doesn't stand to reason he'd spoil all his plans just to bump me off."
+
+"But he might. He forgot all about his plans this morning. How do we know
+he mightn't a second time?"
+
+"Don't you worry, honey. I've got a card up my sleeve," Luck promised.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"STICK TO YOUR SADDLE"
+
+
+The old Arizona fashion of settling a difference of opinion with the
+six-gun had long fallen into disuse, but Saguache was still close enough
+to the stark primeval emotions to wait with a keen interest for the crack
+of the revolver that would put a period to the quarrel between Soapy Stone
+and young Flandrau. It was known that Curly had refused to leave town,
+just as it was known that Stone and that other prison bird Blackwell were
+hanging about the Last Chance and Chalkeye's Place drinking together
+morosely. It was observed too that whenever Curly appeared in public he
+was attended by friends. Sometimes it would be Maloney and Davis,
+sometimes his uncle Alec Flandrau, occasionally a couple of the Map of
+Texas vaqueros.
+
+It chanced that "Old Man" Flandrau, drifting into Chalkeye's Place, found
+in the assembled group the man he sought. Billie Mackenzie, grizzled owner
+of the Fiddleback ranch, was with him, and it was in the preliminary pause
+before drinking that Alec made his official announcement.
+
+"No, Mac, I ain't worrying about that any. Curly is going to get a square
+deal. We're all agreed on that. If there's any shooting from cover
+there'll be a lynching _pronto_. That goes."
+
+Flandrau, Senior, did not glance at the sullen face of Lute Blackwell
+hovering in the background but he knew perfectly well that inside of an
+hour word would reach Soapy Stone that only an even break with Curly would
+be allowed.
+
+The day passed without a meeting between the two. Curly grew nervous at
+the delay.
+
+"I'm as restless as a toad on a hot skillet," he confessed to Davis. "This
+thing of never knowing what minute Soapy will send me his leaden
+compliments ain't any picnic. Wisht it was over."
+
+"He's drinking himself blind. Every hour is to the good for you."
+
+Curly shrugged. "Drunk or sober Soapy always shoots straight."
+
+Another day passed. The festivities had begun and Curly had to be much in
+evidence before the public. His friends had attempted to dissuade him from
+riding in the bucking broncho contest, but he had refused to let his name
+be scratched from the list of contestants.
+
+A thousand pair of eyes in the grandstand watched the boy as he lounged
+against the corral fence laughing and talking with his friends. A dozen
+people were on the lookout for the approach of Stone. Fifty others had
+warned the young man to be careful. For Saguache was with him almost to a
+man.
+
+Dick Maloney heard his voice called as he was passing the grandstand, A
+minute later he was in the Cullison box shaking hands with Kate.
+
+"Is--is there anything new?" she asked in a low voice.
+
+Her friend shook his head. "No. Soapy may drift out here any minute now."
+
+"Will he----?" Her eyes finished the question.
+
+He shook his head. "Don't know. That's the mischief of it. If they should
+meet just after Curly finishes riding the boy won't have a chance. His
+nerves won't be steady enough."
+
+"Dad is doing something. I don't know what it is. He had a meeting with a
+lot of cattlemen about it---- I don't see how that boy _can_ sit there on
+the fence laughing when any minute----"
+
+"Curly's game as they make 'em. He's a prince, too. I like that boy better
+every day."
+
+"He doesn't seem to me so----wild. But they say he's awfully reckless."
+She said it with a visible reluctance, as if she wanted him to deny the
+charge.
+
+"Sho! Curly needs explaining some. That's all. Give a dog a bad name and
+hang him. That saying is as straight as the trail of a thirsty cow. The
+kid got off wrong foot first, and before he'd hardly took to shaving
+respectable folks were hunting the dictionary to find bad names to throw
+at him. He was a reprobate and no account. Citizens that differed on
+everything else was unanimous about that. Mothers kinder herded their
+young folks in a corral when he slung his smile their way."
+
+"But why?" she persisted. "What had he done?"
+
+"Gambled his wages, and drank some, and, beat up Pete Schiff, and shot the
+lights out of the Legal Tender saloon. That's about all at first."
+
+"Wasn't it enough?"
+
+"Most folks thought so. So when Curly bumped into them keep-off-the-grass
+signs parents put up for him he had to prove they were justified. That's
+the way a kid acts. Half the bad men are only coltish cowpunchers gone
+wrong through rotten whiskey and luck breaking bad for them."
+
+"Is Soapy that kind?" she asked, but not because she did not know the
+answer.
+
+"He's the other kind, bad at the heart. But Curly was just a kid crazy
+with the heat when he made that fool play of rustling horses."
+
+A lad made his way to them with a note. Kate read it and turned to Dick.
+Her eyes were shining happily.
+
+"I've got news from Dad. It's all right. Soapy Stone has left town."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"A dozen of the big cattlemen signed a note and sent it to Stone. They
+told him that if he touched Curly he would never leave town alive. He was
+given word to get out of town at once."
+
+Maloney slapped his hand joyously on his thigh. "Fine! Might a-known Luck
+would find a way out. I tell you this thing has been worying me. Some of
+us wanted to take it off Curly's hands, but he wouldn't have it. He's a
+man from the ground up, Curly is. But your father found a way to butt in
+all right. Soapy couldn't stand out against the big ranchmen when they got
+together and meant business. He had to pull his freight."
+
+"Let me tell him the good news, Dick," she said, eagerly.
+
+"Sure. I'll send him right up."
+
+Bronzed almost to a coffee brown, with the lean lithe grace of youth
+garbed in the picturesque regalia of the _vaquero_, Flandrau was a taking
+enough picture to hold the roving eye of any girl. A good many centered
+upon him now, as he sauntered forward toward the Cullison box cool and
+easy and debonair. More than one pulse quickened at sight of him, for his
+gallantry, his peril and his boyishness combined to enwrap him in the
+atmosphere of romance. Few of the observers knew what a wary vigilance lay
+behind that careless manner.
+
+Kate gathered her skirts to make room for him beside her.
+
+"Have you heard? He has left town."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Soapy Stone. The cattlemen served notice on him to go. So he left."
+
+A wave of relief swept over the young man. "That's your father's fine
+work."
+
+"Isn't it good?" Her eyes were shining with gladness.
+
+"I'm plumb satisfied," he admitted. "I'm not hankering to shoot out my
+little difference with Soapy. He's too handy with a six-gun."
+
+"I'm so happy I don't know what to do."
+
+"I suppose now the hold-up will be put off. Did Sam and Blackwell go with
+him?"
+
+"No. He went alone."
+
+"Have you seen Sam yet?"
+
+"No, but I've seen Laura London. She's all the nice things you've said
+about her."
+
+Curly grew enthusiastic, "Ain't she the dandiest girl ever? She's the
+right kind of a friend. And pretty--with that short crinkly hair the color
+of ripe nuts! You would not think one person could own so many dimples as
+she does when she laughs. It's just like as if she had absorbed sunshine
+and was warming you up with her smile."
+
+"I see she has made a friend of you."
+
+"You bet she has."
+
+Miss Cullison shot a swift slant glance at him. "If you'll come back this
+afternoon you can meet her. I'm going to have all those dimples and all
+that sunshine here in the box with me."
+
+"Maybe that will draw Sam to you."
+
+"I'm hoping it will. But I'm afraid not. He avoids us. When they met he
+wouldn't speak to Father."
+
+"That's the boy of it. Just the same he feels pretty bad about the
+quarrel. I reckon there's nothing to do but keep an eye on him and be
+ready for Soapy's move when he makes it."
+
+"I'm so afraid something will happen to Sam."
+
+"Now don't you worry, Miss Kate. Sam is going to come out of this all
+right. We'll find a way out for him yet."
+
+Behind her smile the tears lay close. "You're the _best_ friend. How can
+we ever thank you for what you're doing for Sam?"
+
+A steer had escaped from the corral and was galloping down the track in
+front of the grandstand with its tail up. The young man's eyes followed
+the animal absently as he answered in a low voice.
+
+"Do you reckon I have forgot how a girl took a rope from my neck one
+night? Do you reckon I ever forget that?"
+
+"It was nothing. I just spoke to the boys."
+
+"Or that I don't remember how the man I had shot went bail for a rustler
+he did not know?"
+
+"Dick knew you. He told us about you."
+
+"Could he tell you any good about me? Could he say anything except that I
+was a worthless no-'count----?"
+
+She put her hand on his arm and stopped him. "Don't! I won't have you say
+such things about yourself. You were just a boy in trouble."
+
+"How many would have remembered that? But you did. You fought good for my
+life that night. I'll pay my debt, part of it. The whole I never could
+pay."
+
+His voice trembled in spite of the best he could do. Their eyes did not
+meet, but each felt the thrill of joy waves surging through their veins.
+
+The preliminaries in the rough riding contest took place that afternoon.
+Of the four who won the right to compete in the finals, two were Curly
+Flandrau and Dick Maloney. They went together to the Cullison box to get
+the applause due them.
+
+Kate Cullison had two guests with her. One was Laura London, the other he
+had never seen. She was a fair young woman with thick ropes of yellow hair
+coiled round her head. Deep-breasted and robust-loined, she had the rich
+coloring of the Scandinavian race and much of the slow grace peculiar to
+its women.
+
+The hostess pronounced their names. "Miss Anderson, this is Mr. Flandrau.
+Mr. Flandrau--Miss Anderson."
+
+Curly glanced quickly at Kate Cullison, who nodded. This then was the
+sweetheart of poor Mac.
+
+Her eyes filled with tears as she took the young man's hand. To his
+surprise Curly found his throat choking up. He could not say a word, but
+she understood the unspoken sympathy. They sat together in the back of the
+box.
+
+"I'd like to come and talk to you about--Mac. Can I come this evening,
+say?"
+
+"Please."
+
+Kate gave them no more time for dwelling on the past.
+
+"You did ride so splendidly," she told Curly.
+
+"No better than Dick did," he protested.
+
+"I didn't say any better than Dick. You both did fine."
+
+"The judges will say you ride better. You've got first place cinched,"
+Maloney contributed.
+
+"Sho! Just because I cut up fancy didoes on a horse. Grandstand stunts are
+not riding. For straight stick-to-your-saddle work I know my boss, and his
+name is Dick Maloney."
+
+"We'll know to-morrow," Laura London summed up.
+
+As it turned out, Maloney was the better prophet. Curly won the first
+prize of five hundred dollars and the championship belt. Dick took second
+place.
+
+Saguache, already inclined to make a hero of the young rustler, went wild
+over his victory. He could have been chosen mayor that day if there had
+been an election. To do him justice, Curly kept his head remarkably well.
+
+"To be a human clothes pin ain't so much," he explained to Kate. "Just
+because a fellow can stick to the hurricane deck of a bronch without
+pulling leather whilst it's making a milk shake out of him don't prove
+that he has got any more brains or decency than the law allows. Say, ain't
+this a peach of a mo'ning."
+
+A party of young people were taking an early morning ride through the
+outskirts of the little city. Kate pulled her pony to a walk and glanced
+across at him. He had taken off his hat to catch the breeze, and the sun
+was picking out the golden lights in his curly brown hair. She found
+herself admiring the sure poise of the head, the flat straight back, the
+virile strength of him.
+
+It did not occur to her that she herself made a picture to delight the
+heart. The curves of her erect tiger-lithe young body were modeled by
+nature to perfection. Radiant with the sheer pleasure of life, happy as
+God's sunshine, she was a creature vividly in tune with the glad morning.
+
+"Anyhow, I'm glad you won."
+
+Their eyes met. A spark from his flashed deep into hers as a star falls
+through the heavens on a summer night. Each looked away. After one
+breathless full-pulsed moment she recovered herself.
+
+"Wouldn't it be nice if----?"
+
+His gaze followed hers to two riders in front of them. One was Maloney,
+the other Myra Anderson. The sound of the girl's laughter rippled back to
+them on the light breeze.
+
+Curly smiled. "Yes, that would be nice. The best I can say for her--and
+it's a whole lot--is that I believe she's good enough for Dick."
+
+"And the best I can say for him is that he's good enough for her," the
+girl retorted promptly.
+
+"Then let's hope----"
+
+"I can't think of anything that would please me more."
+
+He looked away into the burning sun on the edge of the horizon. "I can
+think of one thing that would please me more," he murmured.
+
+She did not ask him what it was, nor did he volunteer an explanation.
+Perhaps it was from the rising sun her face had taken its swift glow of
+warm color.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+LUCK
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+AT THE ROUND UP CLUB
+
+
+A big game had been in progress all night at the Round Up Club. Now the
+garish light of day streamed through the windows, but the electric cluster
+still flung down its yellow glare upon the table. Behind the players were
+other smaller tables littered with cigars, discarded packs, and glasses
+full or empty. The men were in their shirt sleeves. Big broad-shouldered
+fellows they were, with the marks of the outdoors hard-riding West upon
+them. No longer young, they were still full of the vigor and energy of
+unflagging strength. From bronzed faces looked steady unwinking eyes with
+humorous creases around the corners, hard eyes that judged a man and his
+claims shrewdly and with good temper. Most of them had made good in the
+land, and their cattle fed upon a thousand hills.
+
+The least among them physically was Luck Cullison, yet he was their
+recognized leader. There was some innate quality in this man with the
+gray, steel-chilled eyes that marked him as first in whatever company he
+chose to frequent. A good friend and a good foe, men thought seriously
+before they opposed him. He had made himself a power in the Southwest
+because he was the type that goes the limit when aroused. Yet about him,
+too, there was the manner of a large amiability, of the easy tolerance
+characteristic of the West.
+
+While Alec Flandrau shuffled and dealt, the players relaxed. Cigars were
+relit, drinks ordered. Conversation reverted to the ordinary topics that
+interested Cattleland. The price of cows, the good rains, the time of the
+fall roundup, were touched upon.
+
+The door opened to let in a newcomer, a slim, graceful man much younger
+than the others present, and one whose costume and manner brought
+additional color into the picture. Flandrau, Senior, continued to shuffle
+without turning his head. Cullison also had his back to the door, but the
+man hung his broad-rimmed gray hat on the rack--beside an exactly similar
+one that belonged to the owner of the Circle C--and moved leisurely
+forward till he was within range of his vision.
+
+"Going to prove up soon on that Del Oro claim of yours, Luck?" asked
+Flandrau.
+
+He was now dealing, his eyes on the cards, so that he missed the
+embarrassment in the faces of those about him.
+
+"On Thursday, the first day the law allows," Cullison answered quietly.
+
+Flandrau chuckled. "I reckon Cass Fendrick will be some sore."
+
+"I expect." Cullison's gaze met coolly the black, wrathful eyes of the man
+who had just come in.
+
+"Sort of put a crimp in his notions when you took up the caņon draw,"
+Flandrau surmised.
+
+Something in the strained silence struck the dealer as unusual. He looked
+up, and showed a momentary confusion.
+
+"Didn't know you were there, Cass. Looks like I put my foot in it sure
+that time. I ce'tainly thought you were an absentee," he apologized.
+
+"Or you wouldn't have been talking about me," retorted Fendrick acidly.
+The words were flung at Flandrau, but plainly they were meant as a
+challenge for Cullison.
+
+A bearded man, the oldest in the party, cut in with good-natured reproof.
+"I shouldn't wonder, Cass, but your name is liable to be mentioned just
+like that of any other man."
+
+"Didn't know you were in this, Yesler," Fendrick drawled insolently.
+
+"Oh, well, I butted in," the other laughed easily. He pushed a stack of
+chips toward the center of the table. "The pot's open."
+
+Fendrick, refused a quarrel, glared at the impassive face of Cullison, and
+passed to the rear room for a drink. His impudence needed fortifying, for
+he knew that since he had embarked in the sheep business he was not
+welcome at this club, that in fact certain members had suggested his name
+be dropped from the books. Before he returned to the poker table the drink
+he had ordered became three.
+
+The game was over and accounts were being straightened. Cullison was the
+heavy loser. All night he had been bucking hard luck. His bluffs had been
+called. The others had not come in against his strong hands. On a straight
+flush he had drawn down the ante and nothing more. To say the least, it
+was exasperating. But his face had showed no anger. He had played poker
+too many years, was too much a sport in the thorough-going frontier
+fashion, to wince when the luck broke badly for him.
+
+The settlement showed that the owner of the Circle C was twenty-five
+hundred dollars behind the game. He owed Mackenzie twelve hundred,
+Flandrau four hundred, and three hundred to Yesler.
+
+With Fendrick sitting in an easy chair just across the room, he found it a
+little difficult to say what otherwise would have been a matter of
+course.
+
+"My bank's busted just now, boys. Have to ask you to let it stand for a
+few days. Say, till the end of the week."
+
+Fendrick laughed behind the paper he was pretending to read. He knew quite
+well that Luck's word was as good as his bond, but he chose to suggest a
+doubt.
+
+"Maybe you'll explain the joke to us, Cass," the owner of the Circle C
+said very quietly.
+
+"Oh, I was just laughing at the things I see, Luck," returned the younger
+man with airy offense, his eyes on the printed sheet.
+
+"Meaning for instance?"
+
+"Just human nature. Any law against laughing?"
+
+Cullison turned his back on him. "See you on Thursday if that's soon
+enough, boys."
+
+"All the time you want, Luck. Let mine go till after the roundup if you'd
+rather," Mackenzie suggested.
+
+"Thursday suits me."
+
+Cullison rose and stretched. He had impressed his strong, dominant
+personality upon his clothes, from the high-heeled boots to the very
+wrinkles in the corduroy coat he was now putting on. He bad enemies, a
+good many of them, but his friends were legion.
+
+"Don't hurry yourself."
+
+"Oh, I'll rustle the money, all right. Coming down to the hotel?" Luck was
+reaching for his hat, but turned toward his friends as he spoke.
+
+Without looking again at Fendrick, he led the way to the street.
+
+The young man left alone cursed softly to himself, and ordered another
+drink. He knew he was overdoing it, but the meeting with Cullison had
+annoyed him exceedingly. The men had never been friends, and of late years
+they had been leaders of hostile camps. Both of them could be overbearing,
+and there was scarcely a week but their interests overlapped. Luck was
+capable of great generosity, but he could be obstinate as the rock of
+Gibraltar when he chose. There had been differences about the ownership of
+calves, about straying cattle, about political matters. Finally had come
+open hostility. Cass leased from the forestry department the land upon
+which Cullison's cattle had always run free of expense. Upon this he had
+put sheep, a thing in itself of great injury to the cattle interests. The
+stockmen had all been banded together in opposition to the forestry
+administration of the new régime, and Luck regarded Fendrick's action as
+treachery to the common cause.
+
+He struck back hard. In Arizona the open range is valuable only so long as
+the water holes also are common property or a private supply available.
+The Circle C cattle and those of Fendrick came down from the range to the
+Del Oro to water at a point where the caņon walls opened to a spreading
+valley. This bit of meadow Luck homesteaded and fenced on the north side,
+thus cutting the cattle of his enemy from the river.
+
+Cass was furious. He promptly tore down the fence to let his cattle and
+sheep through. Cullison rebuilt it, put up a shack at a point which
+commanded the approach, and set a guard upon it day and night. Open
+warfare had ensued, and one of the sheepherders had been beaten because he
+persisted in crossing the dead line.
+
+Now Cullison was going to put the legal seal on the matter by making final
+proof on his homestead. Cass knew that if he did so it would practically
+put him out of business. He would be at the mercy of his foe, who could
+ruin him if he pleased. Luck would be in a position to dictate terms
+absolutely.
+
+Nor did it make his defeat any more palatable to Cass that he had brought
+it on himself by his bad-tempered unneighborliness and by his overreaching
+disposition. A hundred times he had blacknamed himself for an arrant fool
+because he had not anticipated the move of his enemy and homesteaded on
+his own account.
+
+He felt that there must be some way out of the trap if he could only find
+it. Whenever the thought of eating humble pie to Luck came into his mind,
+the rage boiled in him. He swore he would not do it. Better a hundred
+times to see the thing out to a fighting finish.
+
+Taking the broad-rimmed gray hat he found on the rack, Cass passed out of
+the clubhouse and into the sun-bathed street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+LUCK MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
+
+
+Cullison and his friends proceeded down Papago street to the old plaza
+where their hotel was located. Their transit was an interrupted one, for
+these four cattlemen were among the best known in the Southwest. All along
+the route they scattered nods of recognition, friendly greetings, and
+genial banter. One of them--the man who had formerly been the hard-riding,
+quick-shooting sheriff of the county--met also scowls once or twice, to
+which he was entirely indifferent. Luck had no slavish respect for law,
+had indeed, if rumor were true, run a wild and stormy course in his youth.
+But his reign as sheriff had been a terror to lawbreakers. He had made
+enemies, desperate and unscrupulous ones, who had sworn to wipe him from
+among the living, and one of these he was now to meet for the first time
+since the man had stood handcuffed before him, livid with fury, and had
+sworn to cut his heart out at the earliest chance.
+
+It was in the lobby of the hotel that Cullison came plump against Lute
+Blackwell. For just a moment they stared at each other before the former
+sheriff spoke.
+
+"Out again, eh, Blackwell?" he said easily.
+
+From the bloodshot eyes one could have told at a glance the man had been
+drinking heavily. From whiskey he had imbibed a Dutch courage just bold
+enough to be dangerous.
+
+"Yes, I'm out--and back again, just as I promised, Mr. Sheriff," he
+threatened.
+
+The cattleman ignored his manner. "Then I'll give you a piece of advice
+gratis. Papago County has grown away from the old days. It has got past
+the two-gun man. He's gone to join the antelope and the painted Indian.
+You'll do well to remember that."
+
+The fellow leaned forward, sneering so that his ugly mouth looked like a
+crooked gash. "How about the one-gun man, Mr. Sheriff?"
+
+"He doesn't last long now."
+
+"Doesn't he?"
+
+The man's rage boiled over. But Luck was far and away the quicker of the
+two. His left hand shot forward and gripped the rising wrist, his right
+caught the hairy throat and tightened on it. He shook the convict as if he
+had been a child, and flung him, black in the face, against the wall,
+where he hung, strangling and sputtering.
+
+"I--I'll get you yet," the ruffian panted. But he did not again attempt to
+reach for the weapon in his hip pocket.
+
+"You talk too much with your mouth."
+
+With superb contempt, Luck slapped him, turned on his heel, and moved
+away, regardless of the raw, stark lust to kill that was searing this
+man's elemental brain.
+
+Across the convict's rage came a vision. He saw a camp far up in the
+Rincons, and seated around a fire five men at breakfast, all of them
+armed. Upon them had come one man suddenly. He had dominated the situation
+quietly, had made one disarm the others, had handcuffed the one he wanted
+and taken him from his friends through a hostile country where any hour he
+might be shot from ambush. Moreover, he had traveled with his prisoner two
+days, always cheerful and matter of fact, not at all uneasy as to what
+might lie behind the washes or the rocks they passed. Finally he had
+brought his man safely to Casa Grande, from whence he had gone over the
+road to the penitentiary. Blackwell had been the captured man, and he held
+a deep respect for the prowess of the officer who had taken him. The sheer
+pluck of the adventure had alone made it possible. For such an unflawed
+nerve Blackwell knew his jerky rage was no match.
+
+The paroled convict recovered his breath and slunk out of the hotel.
+
+Billie Mackenzie, owner of the Fiddleback ranch, laughed even while he
+disapproved. "Some day, Luck, you'll get yours when you are throwing
+chances at a coyote like this. You'll guess your man wrong, or he'll be
+one glass drunker than you figure on, and then he'll plug you through and
+through."
+
+"The man that takes chances lives longest, Mac," his friend replied,
+dismissing the subject carelessly. "I'm going to tuck away about three
+hours of sleep. So long." And with a nod he was gone to his room.
+
+"All the same Luck's too derned rash," Flandrau commented. "He'll run into
+trouble good and hard one of these days. When I'm in Rattlesnake Gulch I
+don't aim to pick posies too unobservant."
+
+Mackenzie looked worried. No man lived whom he admired so much as Luck
+Cullison. "And he hadn't ought to be sitting in these big games. He's hard
+up. Owes a good bit here and there. Always was a spender. First thing
+he'll have to sell the Circle C to square things. He'll pay us this week
+like he said he would. That's dead sure. He'd die before he'd fall down on
+it, now Fendrick has got his back up. But I swear I don't know where he'll
+raise the price. Money is so tight right now."
+
+That afternoon Luck called at every bank in Saguache. All of the bankers
+knew him and were friendly to him, but in spite of their personal regard
+they could do nothing for him.
+
+"It's this stringency, Luck," Jordan of the Cattlemen's National explained
+to him. "We can't let a dollar go even on the best security. You know I'd
+like to let you have it, but it wouldn't be right to the bank. We've got
+to keep our reserve up. Why, I'm lying awake nights trying to figure out a
+way to call in more of our money."
+
+"I'm not asking much, Jack."
+
+"Luck, I'd let you have it if I dared. Why, we're running close to the
+wind. Public confidence is a mighty ticklish thing. If I didn't have
+twenty thousand coming from El Paso on the Flyer to-night I'd be uneasy
+for the bank."
+
+"Twenty thousand on the Flyer. I reckon you ship by express, don't you?"
+
+"Yes. Don't mention it to anyone. That twenty thousand would come handy to
+a good many people in this country these times."
+
+"It would come right handy to me," Luck laughed ruefully. "I need every
+cent of it. After the beef roundup, I'll be on Easy Street, but it's going
+to be hard sledding to keep going till then."
+
+"You'll make a turn somehow. It will work out. Maybe when money isn't so
+tight I'll be able to do something for you."
+
+Luck returned to the hotel morosely, and tried to figure a way out of his
+difficulties. He was not going to be beaten. He never had accepted defeat,
+even in the early days when he had sometimes taken a lawless short cut to
+what he wanted. By God, he would not lose out after all these years of
+fighting. It had been his desperate need of money that had made him sit in
+last night's poker game. But he had succeeded only in making a bad
+situation worse. He knew his debts by heart, but he jotted them down on
+the back of an envelope and added them again.
+
+  Mortgage on ranch (due Oct. 1), $13,000
+  Note to First National,           3,500
+  Note to Reynolds,                 1,750
+  I O U to Mackenzie,               1,200
+  Same to Flandrau,                   400
+  Same to Yesler,                     300
+                                   ------
+                           Total, $20,150
+
+Twenty thousand was the sum he needed, and mighty badly, too.
+Absentmindedly he turned the envelope over and jotted down one or two
+other things. Twenty thousand dollars! Just the sum Jordan had coming to
+the bank on the Flyer. Subconsciously, Luck's fingers gave expression to
+his thoughts. $20,000. Half a dozen times they penciled it, and just below
+the figures, "W. & S. Ex. Co." Finally they wrote automatically the one
+word, "To-night."
+
+Luck looked at what he had written, laughed grimly, and tore the envelope
+in two. He threw the pieces in the waste paper basket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AN INITIALED HAT
+
+
+Mackenzie was reading the _Sentinel_ while he ate a late breakfast. He had
+it propped against the water bottle, so that it need not interfere with
+the transportation of sausages, fried potatoes, hot cakes, and coffee to
+their common destination.
+
+Trying to do two things at once has its disadvantages. A startling
+headline caught his eyes just as the cup was at his lips. Hot coffee,
+precipitately swallowed, scalded his tongue and throat. He set down the
+cup, swore mildly, and gave his attention to the news that had excited
+him. The reporter had run the story to a column, but the leading paragraph
+gave the gist of it:
+
+  While the citizens of Saguache were peacefully sleeping last night, a
+  lone bandit held up the messengers of the Western and Southern
+  Express Company, and relieved them of $20,000 just received from El
+  Paso on the Flyer.
+
+  Perry Hawley, the local manager of the company, together with Len
+  Rogers, the armed guard, had just returned from the depot, where the
+  money had been turned over to them and receipted for. Hawley had
+  unlocked the door of the office and had stepped in, followed by
+  Rogers, when a masked desperado appeared suddenly out of the
+  darkness, disarmed the guard and manager, took the money, passed
+  through the door and locked it after him, and vanished as silently as
+  he had come. Before leaving, he warned his victims that the place
+  would be covered for ten minutes and at any attempt to call for help
+  they would be shot. Notwithstanding this, the imprisoned men risked
+  their lives by raising the alarm.
+
+Further down the page Mackenzie discovered that the desperado was still at
+large, but that Sheriff Bolt expected shortly to lay hands on him.
+
+"I'll bet a dollar Nick Bolt didn't make any such claim to the reporter.
+He ain't the kind that brags," Mackenzie told himself.
+
+He folded the paper and returned to his room to make preparation to return
+to his ranch. The buzz of the telephone called him to the receiver. The
+voice of Cullison reached him.
+
+"That you, Mac. I'll be right up. No, don't come down. I'd rather see you
+alone."
+
+The owner of the Circle C came right to business. "I've made a raise, Mac,
+and while I've got it I'm going to skin off what's coming to you."
+
+He had taken a big roll of bills from his pocket, and was counting off
+what he had lost to his friend. The latter noticed that it all seemed to
+be in twenties.
+
+"Twelve hundred. That squares us, Mac."
+
+The Scotchman was vaguely uneasy without a definite reason for his
+anxiety. Only last night Cullison had told him not a single bank in town
+would advance him a dollar. Now he had money in plenty. Where had he got
+it?
+
+"No hurry at all, Luck. Pay when you're good and ready."
+
+"That's now."
+
+"Because I'll only put it in the Cattlemen's National. It's yours if you
+need it."
+
+"I'll let you know if I do," his friend nodded.
+
+Mackenzie's eye fell on a copy of the _Sentinel_ protruding from the
+other's pocket. "Read about the hold-up of the W. & S. Express? That
+fellow had his nerve with him."
+
+"Sho! This hold-up game's the easiest yet. He got the drop on them, and
+there was nothing to it. The key was still in the lock of the door. Well,
+when he gets through he steps out, turns the key, and rides away."
+
+"How did he know there was money coming in last night?"
+
+"There's always a leak about things of that sort. Somebody talks. I knew
+it myself for that matter."
+
+"You knew! Who told you?"
+
+"That's a secret, Mac. Come to think of it, I wish you wouldn't tell
+anybody that I knew. I don't want to get the man who told me in trouble."
+
+"Sure I won't." He passed to another phase of the subject. "The _Sentinel_
+says Bolt expects to catch the robber. Think he will?"
+
+"Not if the fellow knows his business. Bolt has nothing to go on. He has
+the whole Southwest to pick from. For all he knows, it was you."
+
+"Yes, but----"
+
+"Or more likely me." The gray eyes of the former sheriff held a frosty
+smile.
+
+In spite of that smile, or perhaps because of it, Mackenzie felt again
+that flash of doubt. "What's the use of talking foolishness, Luck? Course
+you didn't do it. Anybody would know that. Man, I whiles wonder at you,"
+he protested, relapsing into his native tongue as he sometimes did when
+excited.
+
+"I didn't say I did it. I said I might have done it"
+
+"Oh, well! You didn't. I know you too well."
+
+But the trouble was Mackenzie did not know him well enough. Cullison was
+hard up, close to the wall. How far would he go to save himself? Thirty
+years before when they had been wild young lads these two had hunted their
+fun together. Luck had always been the leader, had always been ready for
+any daredeviltry that came to his mind. He had been the kind to go the
+limit in whatever he undertook, to play it to a finish in spite of
+opposition. And what a man is he must be to the end. In his slow, troubled
+fashion, Mac wondered if his old side partner's streak of lawlessness
+would take him as far as a hold-up. Of course it would not, he assured
+himself; but he could not get the ridiculous notion out of his head. It
+drew his thoughts, and at last his steps toward the express office where
+the hold-up had taken place.
+
+He opened a futile conversation with Hawley, while Len Rogers, the guard
+who had not made good, looked at him with a persistent, hostile eye.
+
+"Hard luck," the cattleman condoled.
+
+"That's what you think, is it? You and your friends, too, I reckon."
+
+Mackenzie looked at the guard, who was plainly sore in every humiliated
+crevice of his brain. "I ain't speaking for my friends, Len, but for
+myself," he said amiably.
+
+Rogers laughed harshly. "Didn't know but what you might be speaking for
+one of your friends."
+
+"They can all speak for themselves when they have got anything to say."
+
+Hawley sent a swift, warning look toward his subordinate. The latter came
+to time sulkily. "I didn't say they couldn't."
+
+Mackenzie drifted from this unfriendly atmosphere to the courthouse. He
+found Sheriff Bolt in his office. It was that official's busy day, but he
+found time not only to see the owner of the Fiddleback, but to press upon
+him cordially an invitation to sit down and smoke. The Scotchman wanted to
+discuss the robbery, but was shy about attacking the subject. While he
+boggled at it, Bolt was off on another tack.
+
+Inside of a quarter of an hour the sheriff had found out all he wanted to
+know about the poker game, Cullison's financial difficulties, and the news
+that Luck had liquidated his poker debt since breakfast time. He had
+turned the simple cattleman's thoughts inside out, was aware of the doubt
+Billie had scarcely admitted to himself, and knew all he did except the
+one point Luck had asked him not to mention. Moreover, he had talked so
+casually that his visitor had no suspicion of what he was driving at.
+
+Mackenzie attempted a little sleuthing of his own. "This hold-up fellow
+kind of slipped one over on you last night, Bolt."
+
+"Maybe so, and maybe not."
+
+"Got a clew, have you?"
+
+"Oh, yes--yes." The sheriff looked straight at him. "I've a notion his
+initials are L. C."
+
+Billie felt himself flushing. "What makes you think that, Nick?"
+
+Bolt walked to a cupboard and unlocked it. His back was toward the
+cattleman, but the latter could see him take something from a shelf.
+Turning quickly, the sheriff tossed a hat upon the table.
+
+"Ever see this before?"
+
+Mac picked it up. His fingers were not quite steady, for a great dread
+drenched his heart like a rush of icy water. Upon that gray felt hat with
+the pinched crown was stamped the individuality--and the initials--of Luck
+Cullison.
+
+"Don't know as I recognize it," he lied, not very readily. "Not to know
+it. Why?"
+
+"Thought perhaps you might know it. The hold-up dropped it while getting
+away."
+
+Mackenzie's eyes flinched. "Dropped it. How was that?"
+
+"A man happened to come along San Miguel street just as the robber swung
+to his horse. He heard the cries of the men inside, guessed what was
+doing, and exchanged shots with the miscreant. He shot this hat off the
+fellow's head."
+
+"The _Sentinel_ didn't tell any such a story."
+
+"I didn't give that detail to the editor."
+
+"Who was the man that shot the robber?"
+
+"Cass Fendrick."
+
+"But he didn't claim to recognize the hold-up?" Mackenzie forced himself
+to ask this in spite of his fears.
+
+"Not for certain."
+
+"Then he--he had a guess."
+
+"Yes, Mac. He guessed a man whose initials are the same as those in that
+hat."
+
+"Who do you mean, Nick?"
+
+"I don't need to tell you that. You know who."
+
+"If you mean Luck Cullison, it's a damned lie," exploded the cattleman. He
+was furious with himself, for he felt now that he had been unsuspectingly
+helping to certify the suspicions of the sheriff. Like an idiot, he had
+let out much that told heavily against his friend.
+
+"I hope so."
+
+"Cass Fendrick is not on good terms with him. We all know that. Luck has
+got him in a hole. I wouldn't put it a bit above Cass to lie if he thought
+it would hurt Luck. Tell you it's a damned conspiracy. Man, can't you see
+that?"
+
+"What about this hat, with the two holes shot through the rim?"
+
+"Sho! We all wear hats just like that. Look at mine." Billie held it out
+eagerly.
+
+"Has yours an L. C. stamped in the sweat band?" Bolt asked with a smile.
+
+"I know you ain't his friend, Nick. But you want to be fair to him even if
+he did oppose your election." Mackenzie laid an appealing hand on the knee
+of the man seated opposite him.
+
+"I'm sheriff of Papago County. It doesn't make any difference who worked
+for or against me, Billie. I was elected, and I'm going to enforce the
+law."
+
+"And you think Luck would do a fool thing like this?"
+
+"I didn't say I thought so, but it's my business not to overlook any
+bets."
+
+"But you do believe it. Now, don't you?"
+
+"Since you've got to have an answer--yes, I do."
+
+"By heaven, I'd as lief think I did it myself."
+
+"You're a good friend," Bolt conceded. "By the way, I've got to pay for
+some supplies this morning. Can you cash a check for a hundred?"
+
+"I reckon so." Mackenzie drew from his pocket the roll Cullison had given
+him two hours before. He peeled five twenties from it. The sheriff
+observed that the prevailing denomination was the same.
+
+"Get these from Luck?" he asked carelessly.
+
+The cattleman stared at him, and the suspicion grew on him that he had
+been trapped again.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because it happens the bills stolen from the W. & S. were all twenties."
+
+"No, I didn't get them from Cullison. This is money I had," he answered
+sullenly.
+
+"Then I dare say you can let me see the money you got from him."
+
+"He paid me by check."
+
+"Banked it yet?"
+
+"That's my business, Nick."
+
+"And mine, Billie. I can find out from the bank if you have. Besides, I
+happen to know that Luck's bank account is overdrawn."
+
+"Some one has been at you to prejudice you, Bolt."
+
+"Nobody but Luck Cullison himself--and his actions."
+
+From the office of the sheriff, Mackenzie wandered to the club in search
+of Luck. He was thoroughly dispirited, both dreaded to meet Luck, and yet
+was anxious to do so. For he wanted to warn him, wanted to see him fall
+into one of his chill rages when he told him there were suspicions against
+him.
+
+Cullison had left the club, but Alec Flandrau was still there. Billie drew
+him into a corner, and learned that Luck had just settled with him.
+
+"Anyone see him give it to you, Alec?"
+
+"No. He took me upstairs to the library and paid me."
+
+"In bills?"
+
+"Yes--in twenties."
+
+"For God's sake, don't tell anybody that." In a dozen jerky sentences the
+owner of the Fiddleback told Flandrau of the suspicions of the sheriff.
+
+Together they went in search of Luck. But though they looked for him all
+day, he was not to be found. They might have concluded he had ridden out
+to the ranch, but his horse was still at the stable where he had left it.
+
+The last that had been seen of him Luck was walking along the plaza toward
+the hotel, not a hundred and fifty yards from the latter. A dozen men had
+spoken to him in the distance of a block. But he had not been seen to
+reach his hotel. He had not called for his room key. Somehow he had
+vanished, and none could tell how or where.
+
+To Bolt his disappearance was as good as a confession of guilt. He
+searched Luck's room at the hotel. Among other things, he found an old
+envelope with interesting data penciled on it.
+
+Before nightfall the word was whispered all over Saguache that Luck
+Cullison, pioneer cattleman and former sheriff, was suspected of the
+W. & S. Express robbery and had fled to save himself from arrest. At first
+men marveled that one so well known and so popular, one who had been so
+prominent in affairs, could be suspected of such a crime, but as they
+listened to the evidence and saw it fall like blocks of a building into
+place, the conviction grew that he was the masked bandit wanted by the
+sheriff.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+KATE USES HER QUIRT
+
+
+Red-headed Bob Cullison finished making the diamond hitch and proudly
+called his cousin Kate to inspect the packhorse.
+
+"You never saw the hitch thrown better, sis," he bragged, boy-like. "Uncle
+Luck says I do it well as he can."
+
+"It's fine, Bob," his cousin agreed, with the proper enthusiasm in her
+dark eyes. "You'll have to teach me how to do it one of these days."
+
+She was in a khaki riding skirt, and she pulled herself to the saddle of
+her own horse. From this position she gave him final instructions before
+leaving. "Stay around the house, Bob. Dad will call the ranch up this
+morning probably, and I want you to be where you can hear the 'phone ring.
+Tell him about that white-faced heifer, and to be sure to match the goods
+I gave him. You'll find dinner set out for you on the dining-room table."
+
+It had been on Wednesday morning that Luck Cullison disappeared from the
+face of the earth. Before twenty-four hours the gossip was being whispered
+in the most distant caņons of Papago County. The riders of the Circle C
+knew it, but none of them had yet told either Bob or Kate.
+
+Now it was Friday morning and Kate was beginning to wonder why her father
+did not call her up. Could it be that Soapy Stone was pulling off his
+train robbery at Tin Cup and her father so busy that he could not take
+time to ride to a telephone station? She did not like to leave the ranch
+just now, even for a few hours, but other business called her away.
+Sweeney was holding down the fort at the Del Oro against Fendrick's
+sheepherders, and his weekly supply of provisions had to be taken to him.
+Since she wanted to see with her own eyes how things were getting along at
+the caņon, she was taking the supplies in person.
+
+It was a beautiful morning, even for Arizona. The soft air was at its
+winiest best. The spring rains had carpeted the hills with an unusually
+fine grass, and the summer suns had not yet burnt this to the crisp brown
+of August. Her young heart expanded with the very joy of life. Oh, how
+good it was to be alive in a world of warm sunshine, of blue, unflecked
+sky, and of cool, light breezes. Swifts basked on the rocks or darted like
+arrows for safety, and lay palpitating with suspense. The clear call of
+the quails sounded to right and left of her. To her eager consciousness it
+was as if some bath of splendor had poured down overnight upon the old
+earth.
+
+She rode from sunlight into shadow and from shadow to sunlight again,
+winding along the hill trail that took her toward the Del Oro. After hours
+of travel she came to the saddle from which one looked down to the gap in
+the caņon walls that had been the common watering place of all men's
+cattle, but now was homesteaded by her father. Far below her it lay, a
+dwarfed picture with detail blurred to a vague impressionistic map. She
+could see the hut, the fence line running parallel to the stream on the
+other side, some grazing cattle, Sweeney's horse in the corral.
+
+The piteous bleating of a lamb floated to her. Kate dismounted and made
+her way toward the sound. A pathetic little huddle of frightened life
+tried to struggle free at her approach. The slim leg of the lamb had
+become wedged at the intersection of several rocks in such a way that it
+could not be withdrawn.
+
+Kate pulled the boulder away, and released the prisoner. It looked at her
+and bleated without attempting to move. She took the soft, woolly creature
+in her arms, and examined the wounded limb, all torn and raw from its
+efforts to escape. A wound, she recalled, ought to be washed with cold
+water and bound. Returning to her horse, she put the little animal in
+front of the saddle and continued on the trail that led down to the
+river.
+
+Sweeney came out from the cabin and hailed her. He was a squat,
+weather-beaten man, who had ridden for her father ever since she could
+remember.
+
+"What in Mexico you got there?" he asked in surprise.
+
+She explained the circumstances under which she had found the lamb.
+
+"And what you aiming to do with it?"
+
+"I'm going to tie up its leg and take it across the river. Some of the
+C. F. herders are sure to find it before night."
+
+"Sho! What are you fooling with Cass Fendrick's sheep for?" he grumbled.
+
+"It isn't a sheep, but a lamb. And I'm not going to see it suffer, no
+matter who owns it."
+
+She was already walking toward the river. Protestingly he followed, and
+lent a hand at tying up the leg with the girl's handkerchief.
+
+"I'll just ride across and leave it outside the fence," she said.
+
+"Lemme go. I know the river better."
+
+Sweeney did not wait for her assent, but swung to the saddle. She handed
+him the lamb, and he forded the stream. At no place did the water come
+above the fetlocks of the horse.
+
+"I'm so glad you know the dangerous places. Be careful you don't drown,"
+she mocked.
+
+The rider's laughter rang back to her. One of her jokes went a long way
+with Sweeney. The danger of the river had been the flimsiest of excuses.
+What he had been afraid of was that one of Fendrick's herders might be
+lurking in some arroyo beyond the fence. There was little chance that he
+would dare hurt her, but he might shout something unpleasant.
+
+In point of fact, Sweeney saw some one disappear into a wash as he reached
+the fence. The rider held up the lamb, jabbered a sentence of broncho
+Spanish at the spot where the man had been, put down his bleating burden,
+and cantered back to his own side of the river without unnecessary delay.
+No bullets had yet been fired in the Cullison-Fendrick feud, but a
+"greaser" was liable to do anything, according to the old puncher's
+notion. Anyhow, he did not want to be a temptation to anyone with a gun in
+his hand.
+
+An hour later, Kate, on the return trip, topped the rise where she had
+found the lamb. Pulling up her pony, to rest the horse from its climb, she
+gazed back across the river to the rolling ridges among which lay the
+C. F. ranch. Oddly enough, she had never seen Cass Fendrick. He had come
+to Papago County a few years before, and had bought the place from an
+earlier settler. In the disagreement that had fallen between the two men,
+she was wholly on the side of her father. Sometimes she had wondered what
+manner of man this Cass Fendrick might be; disagreeable, of course, but
+after precisely what fashion.
+
+"Your property, I believe, Miss Cullison."
+
+She turned at sound of the suave, amused drawl, and looked upon a dark,
+slim young man of picturesque appearance. He was bowing to her with an
+obvious intention of overdoing it. Voice and manner had the habit of the
+South rather than of the West. A kind of indolent irony sat easily upon
+the swarthy face crowned with a black sleek head of hair.
+
+Her instinct told the girl who he was. She did not need to ask herself any
+longer what Cass Fendrick looked like.
+
+He was holding out to her the bloodstained kerchief that had been tied to
+the lamb's leg.
+
+"I didn't care to have it returned," she told him with cold civility.
+
+"Now, if you'd only left a note to say so, it would have saved me a quite
+considerable climb," he suggested.
+
+In spite of herself a flicker of amusement lit her eyes. She had a sense
+of humor, "I did not think of that, and since you have troubled to return
+it to me, I can only say thank you."
+
+She held out her hand for the kerchief, but he did not move. "I don't know
+but what I'll keep it, after all, for a souvenir. Just to remind me that
+Luck Cullison's daughter went out of her way to help one of Cass
+Fendrick's sheep."
+
+She ignored his sardonic mockery. "I don't let live creatures suffer when
+I can help it. Are you going to give me my handkerchief?"
+
+"Haven't made up my mind yet. Perhaps I'll have it washed and bring it
+home to you."
+
+She decided that he was trying to flirt with her, and turned the head of
+her horse to start.
+
+"Now your father has pulled his freight, I expect it will be safe to
+call," he added.
+
+The bridle rein tightened. "What nonsense are you saying about my
+father?"
+
+"No news, Miss Cullison; just what everybody is saying, that he has gone
+to cover on account of the hold-up."
+
+A chill fear drenched her heart. "Do you mean the hold-up of the Limited
+at Tin Cup?"
+
+"No, I don't." He looked at her sharply. "Mean to say you haven't heard of
+the hold-up of the W.& S. Express Company at Saguache?"
+
+"No. When was it?"
+
+"Tuesday night. The man got away with twenty thousand dollars."
+
+"And what has my father to do with that?" she demanded haughtily.
+
+A satisfied spleen purred in his voice. "My dear young lady, that is what
+everyone is asking."
+
+"What do you mean? Say it." There was fear as well as anger in her voice.
+Had her father somehow got into trouble trying to save Sam?
+
+"Oh, I'm saying nothing. But what Sheriff Bolt means is that when he gets
+his handcuffs on Luck Cullison, he'll have the man that can tell him where
+that twenty thousand is."
+
+"It's a lie."
+
+He waved his hand airily, as one who declined responsibility in the
+matter, but his dark, saturnine face sparkled with malice.
+
+"Maybe so. Seems to be some evidence, but I reckon he can explain that
+away--when he comes back. The hold-up dropped a hat with the initials
+L. C. in the band, since identified as his. He had lost a lot of money at
+poker. Next day he paid it. He had no money in the bank, but maybe he
+found it growing on a cactus bush."
+
+"You liar!" she panted, eyes blazing.
+
+"I'll take that from you, my dear, because you look so blamed pretty when
+you're mad; but I wouldn't take it from him--from your father, who is
+hiding out in the hills somewhere."
+
+Anger uncurbed welled from her in an inarticulate cry. He had come close
+to her, and was standing beside the stirrup, one bold hand upon the rein.
+Her quirt went swiftly up and down, cut like a thin bar of red-hot iron
+across his uplifted face. He stumbled back, half blind with the pain.
+Before he could realize what had happened the spur on her little boot
+touched the side of the pony, and it was off with a bound. She was
+galloping wildly down the trail toward home.
+
+He looked after her, fingers caressing the welt that burned his cheek.
+
+"You'll pay for that, Kate Cullison," he said aloud to himself.
+
+Anger stung him, but deeper than his rage was a growing admiration. How
+she had lashed out at him because he had taunted her of her father. By
+Jove, a girl like that would be worth taming! His cold eyes glittered as
+he put the bloodstained kerchief in his pocket. She was not through with
+him yet--not by a good deal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"AIN'T SHE THE GAMEST LITTLE THOROUGHBRED?"
+
+
+Kate galloped into the ranch plaza around which the buildings were set,
+slipped from her pony, and ran at once to the telephone. Bob was on a side
+porch mending a bridle.
+
+"Have you heard anything from dad?" she cried through the open door.
+
+"Nope," he answered, hammering down a rivet.
+
+Kate called up the hotel where Maloney was staying at Saguache, but could
+not get him. She tried the Del Mar, where her father and his friends
+always put up when in town. She asked in turn for Mackenzie, for Yesler,
+for Alec Flandrau.
+
+While she waited for an answer, the girl moved nervously about the room.
+She could not sit down or settle herself at anything. For some instinct
+told her that Fendrick's taunt was not a lie cut out of whole cloth.
+
+The bell rang. Instantly she was at the telephone. Mackenzie was at the
+other end of the line.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Mac." She had called him uncle ever since she could remember.
+"What is it they are saying about dad? Tell me it isn't true," she
+begged.
+
+"A pack of lees, lassie." His Scotch idiom and accent had succumbed to
+thirty years on the plains, but when he became excited it rose triumphant
+through the acquired speech of the Southwest.
+
+"Then is he there--in Saguache, I mean."
+
+"No-o. He's not in town."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Hoots! He'll just have gone somewhere on business."
+
+He did not bluff well. Through the hearty assurance she pierced to the
+note of trouble in his voice.
+
+"You're hiding something from me, Uncle Mac. I won't have it. You tell me
+the truth--the whole truth."
+
+In three sentences he sketched it for her, and when he had finished he
+knew by the sound of her voice that she was greatly frightened.
+
+"Something has happened to him. I'm coming to town."
+
+"If you feel you'd rather. Take the stage in to-morrow."
+
+"No. I'm coming to-night. I'll bring Bob. Save us two rooms at the
+hotel."
+
+"Better wait till to-morrow. Forty miles is a long ride, lass."
+
+"No, I can't wait. Have Curly Flandrau come to the Del Mar if he's in
+town--and Dick Maloney, too. That's all. Good-by."
+
+She turned to her cousin, who was standing big-eyed at her elbow.
+
+"What is it, Kate? Has anything happened to Uncle Luck?"
+
+She swallowed a lump in her throat. "Dad's gone, Bob. Nobody knows where.
+They say--the liars--that he robbed the W. & S. Express Company."
+
+Suddenly her face went down into her forearm on the table and sobs began
+to rack her body. The boy, staggered at this preposterous charge, could
+only lay his hand on her shoulder and beg her not to cry.
+
+"It'll be all right, Kate. Wait till Uncle Luck comes back. He'll make 'em
+sick for talking about him."
+
+"But suppose he--suppose he----" She dared not complete what was in her
+mind, that perhaps he had been ambushed by some of his enemies and
+killed.
+
+"You bet they'll drop into a hole and pull it in after them when Uncle
+Luck shows up," the boy bragged with supreme confidence.
+
+His cousin nodded, choking down her sobs. "Of course. It--it'll come out
+all right--as soon as he finds out what they're saying. Saddle two horses
+right away, Bob."
+
+"Sure. We'll soon find where he is, I bet you."
+
+The setting sun found their journey less than half done. The brilliant
+rainbow afterglow of sunset faded to colder tints, and then disappeared.
+The purple saw-toothed range softened to a violet hue. With the coming of
+the moon the hard, dry desert lost detail, took on a loveliness of tone
+and outline that made it an idealized painting of itself. Myriads of stars
+were out, so that the heavens seemed sown with them as an Arizona hillside
+is in spring with yellow poppies.
+
+Kate was tortured with anxiety, but the surpassing beauty that encompassed
+them was somehow a comfort to her. Deep within her something denied that
+her father could be gone out of a world so good. And if he were alive,
+Curly Flandrau would find him--Curly and Dick between them. Luck Cullison
+had plenty of good friends who would not stand by and see him wronged.
+
+Any theory of his disappearance that accepted his guilt did not occur to
+her mind for an instant. The two had been very close to each other. Luck
+had been in the habit of saying smilingly that she was his majordomo, his
+right bower. Some share of his lawless temperament she inherited, enough
+to feel sure that this particular kind of wrongdoing was impossible for
+him. He was reckless, sometimes passionate, but she did not need to
+reassure herself that he was scrupulously honest.
+
+This brought her back to the only other tenable hypothesis--foul play. And
+from this she shrank with a quaking heart. For surely if his enemies
+wished to harm him they would destroy him, and this was a conclusion
+against which she fought desperately.
+
+The plaza clock boomed ten strokes as they rode into Saguache. Mackenzie
+was waiting for them on the steps of the hotel.
+
+"Have they--has anything been----?"
+
+The owner of the Fiddleback shook his grizzled head. "Not yet. Didn't you
+meet Curly?"
+
+"No."
+
+"He rode out to come in with you, but if he didn't meet you by ten he was
+to come back. You took the north road, I reckon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+His warm heart was wrung for the young woman whose fine eyes stared with
+dumb agony from a face that looked very white in the shining moonlight. He
+put an arm around her shoulders, and drew her into the hotel with cheerful
+talk.
+
+"Come along, Bob. We're going to tuck away a good supper first off. While
+you're eating, I'll tell you all there is to be told."
+
+Kate opened her lips to say that she was not hungry and could not possibly
+eat a bite, but she thought better of it. Bob had tasted nothing since
+noon, and of course he must be fed.
+
+The lad fell to with an appetite grief had not dulled. His cousin could at
+first only pick at what was set before her. It seemed heartless to be
+sitting down in comfort to so good a supper while her father was in she
+knew not how great distress. Grief swelled in her throat, and forced back
+the food she was trying to eat.
+
+Mackenzie broke off his story to remonstrate. "This won't do at all, Kate.
+If you're going to help find Luck, you've got to keep yourself fit. Now,
+you try this chicken, honey."
+
+"I--just can't, Uncle Mac."
+
+"But you need it."
+
+"I know," the girl confessed, and as she said it broke down again into
+soft weeping.
+
+Mac let her have her cry out, petting her awkwardly. Presently she dried
+her eyes, set at her supper in a businesslike way, heard the story to an
+end quietly, and volunteered one heartbroken comment.
+
+"As if father _could_ do such a thing."
+
+The cattleman agreed eagerly. There were times when he was full of doubt
+on that point, but he was not going to let her know it.
+
+Curly came into the room, and the girl rose to meet him. He took her
+little hand in his tanned, muscular one, and somehow from his grip she
+gathered strength. He would do all that could be done to find her father,
+just as he had done so much to save her brother.
+
+"I'm so glad you've come," she said simply.
+
+"I'm glad you're glad," he smiled cheerfully.
+
+He knew she had been crying, that she was suffering cruelly, but he
+offered her courage rather than maudlin sympathy. Hope seemed to flow
+through her veins at the meeting of the eyes. Whatever a man could do for
+her would be done by Curly.
+
+They talked the situation over together.
+
+"As it looks to me, we've got to find out two things--first, what has
+become of your father, and, second, who did steal that money."
+
+"Now you're talking," Mackenzie agreed. "I always did say you had a good
+head, Curly."
+
+"I don't see it yet, but there's some link between the two things. I mean
+between the robbery and his disappearance."
+
+"How do you mean?" Kate asked.
+
+"We'll say the robbers were his enemies--some of the Soapy Stone outfit
+maybe. They have got him out of the way to satisfy their grudge and to
+make people think he did it. Unfortunately there is evidence that makes it
+look as if he might have done it--what they call corroborating
+testimony."
+
+Billie Mackenzie scratched his gray poll. "Hold on, Curly. This notion of
+a link between the hold-up and Luck's leaving is what the other side is
+tying to. Don't we want to think different from them?"
+
+"We do. They think he is guilty. We know he isn't."
+
+"What does Sheriff Bolt think?"
+
+Curly waved the sheriff aside. "It don't matter what he thinks, Miss Kate.
+He _says_ he thinks Luck was mixed up in the hold-up. Maybe that's what he
+thinks, but we don't want to forget that Cass Fendrick made him sheriff
+and your father fought him to a fare-you-well."
+
+"Then we can't expect any help from him."
+
+"Not much. He ain't a bad fellow, Bolt ain't. He'll be square, but his
+notions are liable to be warped."
+
+"I'd like to talk with him," the young woman announced.
+
+"All right," Mackenzie assented. "To-morrow mo'ning----"
+
+"No, to-night, Uncle Mac."
+
+The cattleman looked at her in surprise. Her voice rang with decision. Her
+slight figure seemed compact of energy and resolution. Was this the girl
+who had been in helpless tears not ten minutes before?
+
+"I'll see if he's at his office. Maybe he'll come up," Curly said.
+
+"No. I'll go down to the courthouse if he's there."
+
+Flandrau got Bolt on the telephone at his room. After a little grumbling
+he consented to meet Miss Cullison at his office.
+
+"Bob, you must go to bed. You're tired out," his cousin told him.
+
+"I ain't, either," he denied indignantly. "Tired nothing. I'm going with
+you."
+
+Curly caught Kate's glance, and she left the boy to him.
+
+"Look here, Bob. We're at the beginning of a big job. Some of us have to
+keep fresh all the time. We'll work in relays. To-night you sleep so as to
+be ready to-morrow."
+
+This way of putting it satisfied the boy. He reluctantly consented to go
+to bed, and was sound asleep almost as soon as his head struck the
+pillow.
+
+At the office of the sheriff, Kate cut to essentials as soon as
+introductions were over.
+
+"Do you think my father robbed the W. & S. Express Company, Mr. Bolt?" she
+asked.
+
+Her plainness embarrassed the officer.
+
+"Let's took at the facts, Miss Cullison," he began amiably. "Then you tell
+me what you would think in my place. Your father needed money mighty bad.
+There's no doubt at all about that. Here's an envelope on which he had
+written a list of his debts. You'll notice they run to just a little more
+than twenty thousand. I found this in his bedroom the day he
+disappeared."
+
+She took the paper, glanced at it mechanically, and looked at the sheriff
+again. "Well? Everybody wants money. Do they all steal it?"
+
+"Turn that envelope over, Miss Cullison. Notice how he has written there
+half a dozen times in a row, '$20,000,' and just below it twice, 'W. & S.
+Ex. Co.' Finally, the one word, 'To-night.'"
+
+She read it all, read it with a heart heavy as lead, and knew that there
+he had left in his own strong, bold handwriting convincing evidence
+against himself. Still, she did not doubt him in the least, but there
+could be no question now that he knew of the intended shipment, that
+absent-mindedly he had jotted down this data while he was thinking about
+it in connection with his own debts.
+
+The sheriff went on tightening the chain of evidence in a voice that for
+all its kindness seemed to her remorseless as fate. "It turns out that Mr.
+Jordan of the Cattleman's National Bank mentioned this shipment to your
+father that morning. Mr. Cullison was trying to raise money from him, but
+he couldn't let him have it. Every bank in the city refused him a loan.
+Yet next morning he paid off two thousand dollars he owed from a poker
+game."
+
+"He must have borrowed the money from some one," she said weakly.
+
+"That money he paid in twenty-dollar bills. The stolen express package was
+in twenties. You know yourself that this is a gold country. Bills ain't so
+plentiful."
+
+The girl's hand went to her heart. Faith in her father was a rock not to
+be washed away by any amount of evidence. What made her wince was the
+amount of circumstantial testimony falling into place so inexorably
+against him.
+
+"Is that all?" she asked despairingly.
+
+"I wish it were, Miss Cullison. But it's not. A man came round the corner
+and shot at the robber as he was escaping. His hat fell off. Here it is."
+
+As Kate took the hat something seemed to tighten around her heart. It
+belonged to her father. His personality was stamped all over it. She even
+recognized a coffee stain on the under side of the brim. There was no need
+of the initials L. C. to tell her whose it had been. A wave of despair
+swept over her. Again she was on the verge of breaking down, but
+controlled herself as with a tight curb.
+
+Bolt's voice went on. "Next day your father disappeared, Miss Cullison. He
+was here in town all morning. His friends knew that suspicion was
+fastening on him. The inference is that he daren't wait to have the truth
+come out. Mind, I don't say he's guilty. But it looks that way. Now,
+that's my case. If you were sheriff in my place, what would you do?"
+
+Her answer flashed back instantly. "If I knew Luck Cullison, I would be
+sure there was a mistake somewhere, and I would look for foul play. I
+would believe anything except that he was guilty--anything in the world.
+You know he has enemies."
+
+The sheriff liked her spirited defense no less because he could not agree
+with her. "Yes, I know that. The trouble is that these incriminating facts
+don't come in the main from his enemies."
+
+"You say the robber had on his hat, and that somebody shot at him. Whoever
+it was must know the man wasn't father."
+
+Gently Bolt took this last prop from her hope. "He is almost sure the man
+was your father."
+
+A spark of steel came into her dark eyes. "Who is the man?"
+
+"His name is Fendrick."
+
+"Cass Fendrick?" She whipped the word at him, leaning forward in her chair
+rigidly with her hands clenched on the arms of it. One could have guessed
+that the sound of the name had unleashed a dormant ferocity in her.
+
+"Yes. I know he and your father aren't friends. They have had some
+trouble. For that reason he was very reluctant to give your father's
+name."
+
+The girl flamed. "Reluctant! Don't you believe it? He hates Father like
+poison." A flash of inspiration came to her. She rose, slim and tall and
+purposeful. "Cass Fendrick is the man you want, and he is the man I want.
+He robbed the express company, and he has killed my father or abducted
+him. I know now. Arrest him to-night."
+
+"I have to have evidence," Bolt said quietly.
+
+"I can give you a motive. Listen. Father expected to prove up yesterday on
+his Del Oro claim. If he had done so Cass Fendrick's sheep would have been
+cut off from the water. Father had to be got out of the way not later than
+Wednesday, or that man would have been put out of business. He was very
+bitter about it. He had made threats."
+
+"It would take more than threats to get rid of the best fighting man in
+Arizona, right in the middle of the day, in the heart of the town, without
+a soul knowing about it." The officer added with a smile: "I'd hate to
+undertake the contract, give me all the help I wanted."
+
+"He was trapped somehow, of course," Curly cut in. For he was sure that in
+no other way could Luck Cullison have been overcome.
+
+"If you'll only tell me how, Flandrau," Bolt returned.
+
+"I don't know how, but we'll find out."
+
+"I hope so."
+
+Kate felt his doubt, and it was like a spark to powder.
+
+"Fendrick is your friend. You were elected by his influence. Perhaps you
+want to prove that Father did this."
+
+"The people elected me, Miss Cullison," answered Bolt, with grave
+reproach. "I haven't any friends or any enemies when it comes to doing
+what I've sworn to do."
+
+"Then you ought to know Father couldn't have done this. There is such a
+thing as character. Luck Cullison simply _couldn't_ be a thief."
+
+Mackenzie's faith had been strengthened by the insistent loyalty of the
+girl. "That's right, Nick. Let me tell you something else. Fendrick knew
+Luck was going to prove up on Thursday. He heard him tell us at the
+Round-Up Club Tuesday morning."
+
+The sheriff summed up. "You've proved Cass had interests that would be
+helped if Mr. Cullison were removed. But you haven't shaken the evidence
+against Luck."
+
+"We've proved Cass Fendrick had to get Father out of the way on the very
+day he disappeared. One day later would have been too late. We've shown
+his enmity. Any evidence that rests on his word is no good. The truth
+isn't in the man."
+
+"Maybe not, but he didn't make this evidence."
+
+Kate had another inspirational flash. "He did--some of it. Somehow he got
+hold of father's hat, and he manufactured a story about shooting it from
+the robber's head. But to make his story stick he must admit he was on the
+ground at the time of the hold-up. So he must have known the robbery was
+going to take place. It's as plain as old Run-A-Mile's wart that he knew
+of it because he planned it himself."
+
+Bolt's shrewd eyes narrowed to a smile. "You prove to me that Cass had
+your father's hat _before the hold-up_, and I'll take some stock in the
+story."
+
+"And in the meantime," suggested Curly.
+
+"I'll keep right on looking for Luck Cullison, but I'll keep an eye on
+Cass Fendrick, too."
+
+Kate took up the challenge confidently. "I'll prove he had the hat--at
+least I'll try to pretty hard. It's the truth, and it must come out
+somehow."
+
+After he had left her at the hotel, Curly walked the streets with a sharp
+excitement tingling his blood. He had lived his life among men, and he
+knew little about women and their ways. But his imagination seized avidly
+upon this slim, dark girl with the fine eyes that could be both tender and
+ferocious, with the look of combined delicacy and strength in every line
+of her.
+
+"Ain't she the gamest little thoroughbred ever?" he chuckled to himself.
+"Stands the acid every crack. Think of her standing pat so game--just like
+she did for me that night out at the ranch. She's the best argument Luck
+has got."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+TWO HATS ON A RACK
+
+
+One casual remark of Mackenzie had given Kate a clew. Even before she had
+explained it, Curly caught the point and began to dig for the truth. For
+though he was almost a boy, the others leaned on him with the expectation
+that in the absence of Maloney he would take the lead. Before they
+separated for the night he made Mackenzie go over every detail he could
+remember of the meeting between Cullison and Fendrick at the Round-Up
+Club. This was the last time the two men had been seen together in public,
+and he felt it important that he should know just what had taken place.
+
+In the morning he and Kate had a talk with his uncle on the same subject.
+Not content with this, he made the whole party adjourn to the club rooms
+so that he might see exactly where Luck had sat and the different places
+the sheepman had stood from the time he entered until the poker players
+left.
+
+Together Billie Mackenzie and Alec Flandrau dramatized the scene for the
+young people. Mac personated the sheepman, came into the room, hung up his
+hat, lounged over to the poker table, said his little piece as well as he
+could remember it, and passed into the next room. Flandrau, Senior, taking
+the role of Cullison, presently got up, lifted his hat from the rack, and
+went to the door.
+
+With excitement trembling in her voice, the girl asked an eager question.
+"Were their hats side by side like that on adjoining pegs?"
+
+Billie turned a puzzled face to his friend. "How about that, Alec?"
+
+"That's how I remember it."
+
+"Same here, my notion is."
+
+"Both gray hats?" Curly cut in.
+
+His uncle looked helplessly at the other man. "Can't be sure of that.
+Luck's was gray all right."
+
+"Cass wore a gray hat too, seems to me," Mackenzie contributed, scratching
+his gray hair.
+
+"Did Father hesitate at all about which one to take?"
+
+"No-o. I don't reckon he did. He had turned to ask me if I was
+coming--wasn't looking at the hats at all."
+
+Curly looked at Kate and nodded. "I reckon we know how Cass got Mr.
+Cullison's hat. It was left on the rack."
+
+"How do you mean?" his uncle asked.
+
+"Don't you see?" the girl explained, her eyes shining with excitement.
+"Father took the wrong hat. You know how absent-minded he is sometimes."
+
+Mackenzie slapped his knee. "I'll bet a stack of blues you've guessed
+it."
+
+"There's a way to make sure," Curly said.
+
+"I don't get you."
+
+"Fendrick couldn't wear Mr. Cullison's hat around without the risk of
+someone remembering it later. What would he do then?"
+
+Kate beamed. "Buy another at the nearest store."
+
+"That would be my guess. And the nearest store is the New York Emporium.
+We've got to find out whether he did buy one there on Tuesday some time
+after nine o'clock in the morning."
+
+The girl's eyes were sparkling. She bustled with businesslike energy.
+"I'll go and ask right away."
+
+"Don't you think we'd better let Uncle Alec find out? He's not so likely
+to stir up curiosity," Curly suggested.
+
+"That's right. Let me earn my board and keep," the owner of the Map of
+Texas volunteered.
+
+Within a quarter of an hour Alec Flandrau joined the others at the hotel.
+He was beaming like a schoolboy who has been given an unexpected holiday.
+
+"You kids are right at the head of the class in the detective game. Cass
+bought a brown hat, about 9:30 in the mo'ning. Paid five dollars for it.
+Wouldn't let them deliver the old one but took it with him in a paper
+sack."
+
+With her lieutenants flanking her Kate went straight to the office of the
+sheriff. Bolt heard the story out and considered it thoughtfully.
+
+"You win, Miss Cullison. You haven't proved Fendrick caused your father's
+disappearance by foul play, and you haven't proved he committed the
+robbery. Point of fact I don't think he did either one. But it certainly
+looks like he may possibly have manufactured evidence."
+
+Curly snorted scornfully. "You're letting your friend down easy, Mr. Bolt.
+By his own story he was on the ground a minute after the robbery took
+place. How do we know he wasn't there a minute before? For if he didn't
+know the hold-up was going to occur why did he bring Mr. Cullison's hat
+with him punctured so neatly with bullet holes?"
+
+"I'll bet a thousand dollars he is at the bottom of this whole thing,"
+Mackenzie added angrily.
+
+The sheriff flushed. "You gentlemen are entitled to your opinions just as
+I'm entitled to mine. You haven't even proved he took Mr. Cullison's hat;
+you've merely showed he may have done it."
+
+"We've given you a motive and some evidence. How much more do you want?"
+Curly demanded.
+
+"Hold your hawses a while, Flandrau, and look at this thing reasonable.
+You're all prejudiced for Cullison and against Fendrick. Talk about
+evidence! There's ten times as much against your friend as there is
+against Cass."
+
+"Then you'll not arrest Fendrick?"
+
+"When you give me good reason to do it," Bolt returned doggedly.
+
+"That's all right, Mr. Sheriff. Now we know where you stand," Flandrau,
+Senior, said stiffly.
+
+The harassed official mopped his face with a bandanna. "Sho! You all make
+me tired. I'm not Fendrick's friend while I'm in this office any more than
+I'm Luck's, But I've got to use my judgment, ain't I?"
+
+The four adjourned to meet at the Del Mar for a discussion of ways and
+means.
+
+"We'll keep a watch on Fendrick--see where he goes, who he talks to, what
+he does. Maybe he'll make a break and give himself away," Curly said
+hopefully.
+
+"But my father--we must rescue him first."
+
+"As soon as we find where he is. Me, I'm right hopeful all's well with
+him. Killing him wouldn't help Cass any, because you and Sam would prove
+up on the claim. But if he could hold your father a prisoner and get him
+to sign a relinquishment to him he would be in a fine position."
+
+"But Father wouldn't sign. He ought to know that."
+
+"Not through fear your father wouldn't. But if Fendrick could get at him
+some way he might put down his John Hancock. With this trouble of Sam
+still unsettled and the Tin Cup hold-up to be pulled off he might sign."
+
+"If we could only have Fendrick arrested--"
+
+"What good would that do? If he's guilty he wouldn't talk. And if he is
+holding your father somewhere in the hills it would only be serving notice
+that we were getting warm. No, I'm for a still hunt. Let Cass ride around
+and meet his partners in this deal. We'll keep an eye on him all right."
+
+"Maybe you're right," Kate admitted with a sigh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+ANONYMOUS LETTERS
+
+
+Sheriff Bolt, though a politician, was an honest man. It troubled him that
+Cullison's friends believed him to be a partisan in a matter of this sort.
+For which reason he met more than half way Curly's overtures. Young
+Flandrau was in the office of the sheriff a good deal, because he wanted
+to be kept informed of any new developments in the W. & S. robbery case.
+
+It was on one of those occasions that Bolt tossed across to him a letter
+he had just opened.
+
+"I've been getting letters from the village cut-up or from some crank, I
+don't know which. Here's a sample."
+
+The envelope, addressed evidently in a disguised hand, contained one sheet
+of paper. Upon this was lettered roughly,
+
+                       "Play the Jack of Hearts."
+
+Flandrau looked up with a suggestion of eagerness in his eyes.
+
+"What do you reckon it means?" he asked.
+
+"Search me. Like as not it don't mean a thing. The others had just as much
+sense as that one."
+
+"Let's see the others."
+
+"I chucked them into the waste paper basket. One came by the morning mail
+yesterday and one by the afternoon. I'm no mind reader, and I've got no
+time to guess fool puzzles."
+
+Curly observed that the waste paper basket was full. Evidently it had not
+been emptied for two or three days.
+
+"Mind if I look for the others?" he asked.
+
+Bolt waved permission. "Go to it."
+
+The young man emptied the basket on the floor and went over its contents
+carefully. He found three communications from the unknown writer. Each of
+them was printed by hand on a sheet of cheap lined paper torn from a
+scratch pad. He smoothed them out and put them side by side on the table.
+This was what he read:
+
+                           HEARTS ARE TRUMPS
+                       WHEN IN DOUBT PLAY TRUMPS
+                           PLAY TRUMPS _NOW_
+
+There was only the one line to each message, and all of them were plainly
+in the same hand. He could make out only one thing, that someone was
+trying to give the sheriff information in a guarded way.
+
+He was still puzzling over the thing when a boy came with a special
+delivery letter for the sheriff. Bolt glanced at it and handed the note to
+Curly.
+
+"Another _billy doo_ from my anxious friend."
+
+This time the sender had been in too much of a hurry to print the words.
+They were written in a stiff hand by some uneducated person.
+
+                       The Jack of Trumps, to-day
+
+"Mind if I keep these?" Curly asked.
+
+"Take 'em along."
+
+Flandrau walked out to the grandstand at the fair grounds and sat down by
+himself there to think out what connection, if any, these singular
+warnings might have with the vanishing of Cullison or the robbery of the
+W. & S. He wasted three precious hours without any result. Dusk was
+falling before he returned.
+
+"Guess I'll take them to my little partner and give her a whack at the
+puzzle," he decided.
+
+Curly strolled back to town along El Molino street and down Main. He had
+just crossed the old Spanish plaza when his absorbed gaze fell on a sign
+that brought him up short. In front of a cigar store stretched across the
+sidewalk a painted picture of a jack of hearts. The same name was on the
+window.
+
+Fifty yards behind him was the Silver Dollar saloon, where Luck Cullison
+had last been seen on his way to the Del Mar one hundred and fifty yards
+in front of him. Somewhere within that distance of two hundred yards the
+owner of the Circle C had vanished from the sight of men. The evidence
+showed he had not reached the hotel, for a cattle buyer had been waiting
+there to talk with him. His testimony, as well as that of the hotel clerk,
+was positive.
+
+Could this little store, the Jack of Hearts, be the central point of the
+mystery? In his search for information Curly had already been in it, had
+bought a cigar, and had stopped to talk with Mrs. Wylie, the proprietor.
+She was a washed-out little woman who had once been pretty. Habitually she
+wore a depressed, hopeless look, the air of pathetic timidity that comes
+to some women who have found life too hard for them. It had been easy to
+alarm her. His first question had evidently set her heart a-flutter, but
+Flandrau had reassured her cheerfully. She had protested with absurd
+earnestness that she had seen nothing of Mr. Cullison. A single glance had
+been enough to dismiss her from any possible suspicion.
+
+Now Curly stepped in a second time. The frightened gaze of Mrs. Wylie
+fastened upon him instantly. He observed that her hand moved instinctively
+to her heart. Beyond question she was in fear. A flash of light clarified
+his mind. She was a conspirator, but an unwilling one. Possibly she might
+be the author of the anonymous warnings sent Bolt.
+
+The young _vaquero_ subscribed for a magazine and paid her the money.
+Tremblingly she filled out the receipt. He glanced at the slip and handed
+it back.
+
+"Just write below the signature 'of the Jack of Hearts,' so that I'll
+remember where I paid the money if the magazine doesn't come," he
+suggested.
+
+She did so, and Curly put the receipt in his pocket carelessly. He
+sauntered leisurely to the hotel, but as soon as he could get into a
+telephone booth his listlessness vanished. Maloney had returned to town
+and he telephoned him to get Mackenzie at once and watch the Jack of
+Hearts in front and rear. Before he left the booth Curly had compared the
+writing of Mrs. Wylie with that on the sheet that had come by special
+delivery. The loop of the J's, the shape of the K's, the formation of the
+capital H in both cases were alike. So too was the general lack of
+character common to both, the peculiar hesitating drag of the letters.
+Beyond question the same person had written both.
+
+Certainly Mrs. Wylie was not warning the sheriff against herself. Then
+against whom? He must know her antecedents, and at once. There was no time
+for him to mole them out himself. Calling up a local detective agency, he
+asked the manager to let him know within an hour or two all that could be
+found out about the woman without alarming her.
+
+"Wait a moment I think we have her on file. Hold the 'phone." The
+detective presently returned. "Yes. We can give you the facts. Will you
+come to the office for them?"
+
+Fifteen minutes later Curly knew that Mrs. Wylie was the divorced wife of
+Lute Blackwell. She had come to Saguache from the mountains several years
+before. Soon after there had been an inconspicuous notice in the
+_Sentinel_ to the effect that Cora Blackwell was suing for divorce from
+Lute Blackwell, then a prisoner in the penitentiary at Yuma. Another news
+item followed a week later stating that the divorce had been granted
+together with the right to use her maiden name. Unobtrusively she had
+started her little store. Her former husband, paroled from the
+penitentiary a few months before the rustling episode, had at intervals
+made of her shop a loafing place since that time.
+
+Curly returned to the Del Mar and sent his name up to Miss Cullison. With
+Kate and Bob there was also in the room Alec Flandrau.
+
+The girl came forward lightly to meet him with the lance-straight poise
+that always seemed to him to express a brave spirit ardent and unafraid.
+
+"Have you heard something?" she asked quickly.
+
+"Yes. Tell me, when did your father last meet Lute Blackwell so far as you
+know?"
+
+"I don't know. Not for years, I think. Why?"
+
+The owner of the Map of Texas answered the question of his nephew. "He met
+him the other day. Let's see. It was right after the big poker game. We
+met him downstairs here. Luck had to straighten out some notions he had
+got."
+
+"How?"
+
+Flandrau, Senior, told the story of what had occurred in the hotel lobby.
+
+"And you say he swore to get even?"
+
+"That's what he said. And he looked like he meant it too."
+
+"What is it? What have you found out?" Kate implored.
+
+The young man told about the letters and Mrs. Wylie.
+
+"We've got to get a move on us," he concluded. "For if Lute Blackwell did
+this thing to your father it's mighty serious for him."
+
+Kate was white to the lips, but in no danger of breaking down. "Yes, if
+this man is in it he would not stop at less than murder. But I don't
+believe it. I know Father is alive. Cass Fendrick is the man we want. I'm
+sure of it."
+
+Curly had before seen women hard as nails, gaunt strong mountaineers as
+tough as hickory withes. But he had never before seen that quality
+dwelling in a slim girlish figure of long soft curves, never seen it in a
+face of dewy freshness that could melt to the tenderest pity. She was like
+flint, and yet she could give herself with a passionate tenderness to
+those she loved. He had seen animals guard their young with that same
+alert eager abandon. His conviction was that she would gladly die for her
+father if it were necessary. As he looked at her with hard unchanging
+eyes, his blood quickened to a fierce joy in her it had known for no other
+woman.
+
+"First thing is to search the Jack of Hearts and see what's there. Are you
+with me, Uncle Alec?"
+
+"I sure am, Curly;" and he reached for his hat.
+
+Bob too was on his feet. "I'm going. You needn't any of you say I ain't,
+for I am."
+
+Curly nodded. "If you'll do as you're told, Bob."
+
+"I will. Cross my heart."
+
+"May I come too?" Kate pleaded.
+
+She was a strongwilled impulsive young woman, and her deference to Curly
+flattered him; but he shook his head none the less.
+
+"No. You may wait in the parlor downstairs and I'll send Bob to you with
+any news. There's just a chance this may be a man's job and we want to go
+to it unhampered." He turned at the door with his warm smile. "By the way,
+I've got some news I forgot. I know where your father got the money to pay
+his poker debts. Mr. Jordan of the Cattlemen's National made him a
+personal loan. He figured it would not hurt the bank because the three men
+Luck paid it to would deposit it with the bank again."
+
+"By George, that's what we did, too, every last one of us," his uncle
+admitted.
+
+"Every little helps," Kate said; and her little double nod thanked Curly.
+
+The young man stopped a moment after the others had gone. "I'm not going
+to let Bob get into danger," he promised.
+
+"I knew you wouldn't," was her confident answer.
+
+At the corner of the plaza Curly gave Bob instructions.
+
+"You stay here and keep an eye on everyone that passes. Don't try to stop
+anybody. Just size them up."
+
+"Ain't I to go with you? I got a gun."
+
+"You're to do as I say. What kind of a soldier would you make if you can't
+obey orders? I'm running this. If you don't like it trot along home."
+
+"Oh, I'll stay," agreed the crestfallen youth.
+
+Maloney met them in front of the Jack of Hearts.
+
+"Dick, you go with me inside. Uncle Alec, will you keep guard outside?"
+
+"No, bub, I won't. I knew Luck before you were walking bowlegged," the old
+cattleman answered brusquely.
+
+Curly grinned. "All right. Don't blame me if you get shot up."
+
+Mrs. Wylie's startled eyes told tales when she saw the three men. Her face
+was ashen.
+
+"I'm here to play trumps, Mrs. Wylie. What secret has the Jack of Hearts
+got hidden from us?" young Flandrau demanded, his hard eyes fastened to
+her timorous ones.
+
+"I--I--I don't know what you mean."
+
+"No use. We're here for business. Dick, you stay with her. Don't let her
+leave or shout a warning."
+
+He passed into the back room, which was a kind of combination living room,
+kitchen and bedroom. A door led from the rear into a back yard littered
+with empty packing cases, garbage cans and waste paper. After taking a
+look around the yard he locked the back door noiselessly. There was no
+other apparent exit from the kitchen-bedroom except the one by which he
+and his uncle had entered from the shop. But he knew the place must have a
+cellar, and his inspection of the yard had showed no entrance there. He
+drew back the Navajo rug that covered the floor and found one of the
+old-fashioned trap doors some cheap houses have. Into this was fitted an
+iron ring with which to lift it.
+
+From the darkness below came no sound, but Curly's imagination conceived
+the place as full of shining eyes glaring up at him. Any bad men down
+there already had the drop on them. Therefore neither Curly nor his uncle
+made the mistake of drawing a weapon.
+
+"I'm coming down, boys," young Flandrau announced in a quiet confident
+voice. "The place is surrounded by our friends and it won't do you a whole
+lot of good to shoot me up. I'd advise you not to be too impulsive"
+
+He descended the steps, his face like a stone wall for all the emotion it
+recorded. At his heels came the older man. Curly struck a match, found an
+electric bulb above his head, and turned the button. Instantly the
+darkness was driven from the cellar.
+
+The two Flandraus were quite alone in the room. For furniture there was a
+table, a cot which had been slept in and not made up, and a couple of
+rough chairs. The place had no windows, no means of ventilation except
+through the trap door. Yet there were evidences to show that it had
+recently been inhabited. Half smoked cigars littered the floor. A pack of
+cards lay in disorder on the table. The _Sentinel_ with date line of that
+day lay tossed in a corner.
+
+The room told Curly this at least: There had been a prisoner here with a
+guard or guards. Judging by the newspaper they had been here within a few
+hours. The time of sending the special delivery letter made this the more
+probable. He had missed the men he wanted by a very little time. If he had
+had the gumption to understand the hints given by the letters Cullison
+might now be eating supper with his family at the hotel.
+
+"Make anything out of it?" the older Flandrau asked.
+
+"He's been here, but they've taken him away. Will you cover the
+telephoning? Have all the ranches notified that Luck is being taken into
+the hills so they can picket the trails."
+
+"How do you know he is being taken there?"
+
+"I don't know. I guess. Blackwell is in it. He knows every nook of the
+hills. The party left here not two hours since, looks like."
+
+Curly put the newspaper in his pocket and led the Way back to the store.
+
+"The birds have flown, Dick, Made their getaway through the alley late
+this afternoon, probably just after it got dark." He turned to the woman.
+"Mrs. Wylie, murder is going to be done, I shouldn't wonder. And you're
+liable to be held guilty of it unless you tell us all you know."
+
+She began to weep, helplessly, but with a sort of stubbornness too.
+Frightened she certainly was, but some greater fear held her silent as to
+the secret. "I don't know anything about it," she repeated over and over.
+
+"Won't do. You've got to speak. A man's life hangs on it."
+
+But his resolution could not break hers, incomparably stronger than she
+though he was. Her conscience had driven her to send veiled warnings to
+the sheriff. But for very fear of her life she dared not commit herself
+openly.
+
+Maloney had an inspiration. He spoke in a low voice to Curly. "Let's take
+her to the hotel. Miss Kate will know how to get it out of her better than
+we can."
+
+Mrs. Wylie went with them quietly enough. She was shaken with fears but
+still resolute not to speak. They might send her to prison. She would tell
+them nothing--nothing at all. For someone who had made terror the habit of
+her life had put the fear of death into her soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A MESSAGE IN CIPHER
+
+
+While Kate listened to what Curly had to tell her the dark eyes of the
+girl were fastened upon the trembling little woman standing near the
+door.
+
+"Do you mean that she is going to let my father be killed rather than tell
+what she knows?" Her voice was sharply incredulous, touched with a horror
+scarcely realized.
+
+"So she says."
+
+Mrs. Wylie wrung her hands in agitation. Her lined face was a mirror of
+distress.
+
+"But that's impossible. She must tell. What has Father ever done to hurt
+her?"
+
+"I--I don't know anything about it," the harassed woman iterated.
+
+"What's the use of saying that when we know you do? And you'll not get out
+of it by sobbing. You've _got_ to talk."
+
+Kate had not moved. None the less her force, the upblaze of feminine
+energy in her, crowded the little storekeeper to the wall. "You've got to
+tell--you've just got to," she insisted.
+
+The little woman shrank before the energy of a passion so vital. No
+strength was in her to fight. But she could and did offer the passive
+resistance of obstinate silence.
+
+Curly had drawn from his pocket the newspaper found in the cellar. His
+eyes had searched for the date line to use as cumulative evidence, but
+they had remained fastened to one story. Now he spoke imperatively.
+
+"Come here, Miss Kate."
+
+She was beside him in an instant. "What is it?"
+
+"I'm not sure yet, but---- Look here. I believe this is a message to us."
+
+"A message?"
+
+"From your father perhaps."
+
+"How could it be?"
+
+"I found the paper in the cellar where he was. See how some of these words
+are scored. Done with a finger nail, looks like."
+
+"But how could he know we would see the paper, and if we did see it would
+understand?"
+
+"He couldn't. It would be one chance in a million, but all his life he's
+been taking chances. This couldn't do any harm."
+
+Her dark head bent beside his fair one with the crisp sun-reddened curls.
+
+"I don't see any message. Where is it?"
+
+"I don't see it myself--not much of it. Gimme time."
+
+This was the paragraph upon which his gaze had fastened, and the words and
+letters were scored sharply as shown below, though in the case of single
+letters the mark ran through them instead of underneath, evidently that no
+mistake might be made as to which was meant.
+
+  J. P. Kelley of the ranger force reports
+
+  over the telephone that by unexpected good
+
+  luck he has succeeded in taking prisoner
+  ----                            --------
+  the notorious Jack Foster of Hermosilla
+                ----        -- --       -
+  and the Rincons notoriety and is now
+          -         -            - ---
+  bringing him to Saguache where he will be
+                  --------
+  locked up pending a disposition of his case.
+  -------------------------------------------
+  Kelley succeeded in surprising him while
+         ---------------------------
+  he was eating dinner at a Mexican road-house
+
+  just this side of the border.
+
+"Do you make it out?" Maloney asked, looking over their shoulders.
+
+Curly took a pencil and an envelope from his pocket. On the latter he
+jotted down some words and handed the paper to his friend. This was what
+Maloney read:
+
+  ........................................
+  ..........................................
+  luck............................prisoner
+  the notorious Jack Foster of Hermosilla
+  ..............Jack........of.He.......a
+  ........R.........t............s.now
+  ................Saguache.................
+  locked up pending a disposition of his case.
+  .......succeeded in surprising him......
+  ............................................
+  .............................
+
+"Read that right ahead."
+
+Dick did not quite get the idea, but Kate, tense with excitement, took the
+envelope and read aloud.
+
+"Luck----prisoner----Jack of Hearts----now Saguache----locked up pending a
+disposition of his case----succeeded in surprising him." She looked up
+with shining eyes. "He tells us everything but the names of the people who
+did it. Perhaps somewhere else in the paper he may tell that too."
+
+But though they went over it word for word they found no more. Either he
+had been interrupted, or he had been afraid that his casual thumb nail
+pressures might arouse the suspicion of his guards if persisted in too
+long.
+
+"He's alive somewhere. We'll save him now." Kate cried it softly, all warm
+with the joy of it.
+
+"Seems to let our friend Fendrick out," Maloney mused.
+
+"Lets him out of kidnapping Uncle Luck but maybe not out of the robbery,"
+Bob amended.
+
+"Doesn't let him out of either. Somebody was in this with Blackwell. If it
+wasn't Cass Fendrick then who was it?" Kate wanted to know.
+
+"Might have been Soapy Stone," Dick guessed.
+
+"Might have been, but now Sam has gone back into the hills to join Soapy;
+the gang would have to keep it from Sam. He wouldn't stand for it."
+
+"No, not for a minute," Kate said decisively.
+
+Curly spoke to her in a low voice. "You have a talk with Mrs. Wylie alone.
+We'll pull our freights. She'll tell you what she knows." He smiled in his
+gentle winning way. "She's sure had a tough time of it if ever a woman
+had. I reckon a little kindness is what she needs. Let her see we're her
+friends and will stand by her, that we won't let her come to harm because
+she talks. Show her we know everything anyhow but want her to corroborate
+details."
+
+It was an hour before Kate joined them, and her eyes, though they were
+very bright, told tales, of tears that had been shed.
+
+"That poor woman! She has told me everything. Father has been down in that
+cellar for days under a guard. They took him away to-night. She doesn't
+know where. It was she sent the warnings to Sheriff Bolt. She wanted him
+to raid the place, but she dared not go to him."
+
+"Because of Blackwell?"
+
+"Yes. He came straight to her as soon as he was freed from the
+penitentiary. He had her completely terrorized. It seems she has been
+afraid to draw a deep breath ever since he returned. Even while he was in
+the hills she was always looking for him to come. The man used to keep her
+in a hell and he began bullying her again. So she gave him money, and he
+came for more--and more."
+
+Curly nodded. He said nothing, but his strong jaw clamped.
+
+"He was there that day," the girl continued. "She plucked up courage to
+refuse him what little she had left because she needed it for the rent. He
+got hold of her arm and twisted it. Father heard her cry and came in.
+Blackwell was behind the door as it opened. He struck with a loaded cane
+and Father fell unconscious. He raised it to strike again, but she clung
+to his arm and called for help. Before he could shake her off another man
+came in. He wrenched the club away."
+
+"Fendrick?" breathed Curly.
+
+"She doesn't know. But the first thing he did was to lock the outer door
+and take the key. They carried Father down into the cellar. Before he came
+to himself his hands were tied behind his back."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"They watched him day and night. Fendrick himself did not go near the
+place--if it was Fendrick. Blackwell swore to kill Mrs. Wylie if she told.
+They held him there till to-night. She thinks they were trying to get
+Father to sign some paper."
+
+"The relinquishment of course. That means the other man was Fendrick."
+
+Kate nodded. "Yes."
+
+Curly rose. The muscles stood out in his jaw; hard as steel ropes.
+
+"We'll rake the Rincons with a fine tooth comb. Don't you worry. I've
+already wired for Bucky O'Connor to come and help. We'll get your Father
+out of the hands of those hell hounds. Won't we, Dick?"
+
+The girl's eyes admired him, a lean hard-bitten Westerner with eyes as
+unblinking as an Arizona sun and with muscles like wire springs. His face
+still held its boyishness, but it had lost forever the irresponsibility of
+a few months before. She saw in him an iron will, shrewdness, courage and
+resource. All of these his friend Maloney also had. But Curly was the
+prodigal son, the sinner who had repented. His engaging recklessness lent
+him a charm from which she could not escape. Out of ten thousand men there
+were none whose voice drummed on her heart strings as did that of this
+youth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"THE FRIENDS OF L. C. SERVE NOTICE"
+
+
+Two men sat in a log cabin on opposite sides of a cheap table. One of them
+was immersed in a newspaper. His body was relaxed, his mind apparently at
+ease. The other watched him malevolently. His fingers caressed the handle
+of a revolver that protruded from the holster at his side. He would have
+liked nothing better than to have drawn it and sent a bullet crashing into
+the unperturbed brain of his prisoner.
+
+There were reasons of policy why it were better to curb this fascinating
+desire, but sometimes the impulse to kill surged up almost uncontrollably.
+On these occasions Luck Cullison was usually "deviling" him, the only
+diversion that had been open to the ranchman for some days past. Because
+of its danger--for he could never be quite sure that Blackwell's lust for
+swift vengeance would not over-power discretion--this pastime made a
+peculiar appeal to the audacious temper of the owner of the Circle C.
+
+From time to time as Luck read he commented genially on the news.
+
+"I see Tucson is going to get the El Paso & Southwestern extension after
+all. I'll bet the boys in that burg will be right tickled to hear it. They
+sure have worked steady for it."
+
+Blackwell merely scowled. He never relaxed to the give and take of casual
+talk with his captive. Given his way, Cullison would not be here to read
+the _Sentinel_. But the brains of the conspiracy had ruled otherwise and
+had insisted too upon decent treatment. With one ankle securely tied to a
+leg of the table there was no danger in freeing the hands of the
+cattleman, but his hosts saw that never for an instant were hands and feet
+at liberty together. For this man was not the one with whom to take
+chances.
+
+"Rudd has been convicted of forgery and taken to Yuma. Seems to me you
+used to live there, didn't you?" asked the cattleman with cool insolence,
+looking up from his paper to smile across at the furious convict.
+
+Blackwell was livid. The man who had sent him to the territorial prison at
+Yuma dared to sit there bound and unarmed and taunt him with it.
+
+"Take care," he advised hoarsely.
+
+Cullison laughed and went back to the paper.
+
+"'Lieutenant O'Connor of the Arizona Rangers left town to-day for a short
+trip into the hills where he expects to spend a few days hunting.' Hunting
+what, do you reckon? Or hunting who, I should say. Ever meet Bucky
+O'Connor, Blackwell? No, I reckon not. He's since your time. A crackerjack
+too! Wonder if Bucky ain't after some friends of mine."
+
+"Shut up," growled the other.
+
+"Sure you'll be shut up--when Bucky lands you," retorted Luck cheerfully.
+Then, with a sudden whoop: "Hello, here's a personal to your address.
+Fine! They're getting ready to round you up, my friend. Listen. 'The
+friends of L. C. serve notice that what occurred at the Jack of Hearts is
+known. Any violence hereafter done to him will be paid for to the limit.
+No guilty man will escape.' So the boys are getting busy. I figured they
+would be. Looks like your chance of knocking me on the head has gone down
+Salt River. I tell you nowadays a man has to grab an opportunity by the
+tail when it's there."
+
+The former convict leaned forward angrily. "Lemme see that paper."
+
+His guest handed it over, an index finger pointing out the item. "Large as
+life, Blackwell. No, sir. You ce'tainly didn't ride herd proper on that
+opportunity."
+
+"Don't be too sure it's gone, Mr. Sheriff."
+
+The man's face was twisted to an ugly sneer back of which lurked cruel
+menace. The gray eyes of Cullison did not waver a hair's breadth.
+
+"It's gone. I'm as safe as if I were at the Circle C."
+
+"Don't you think it."
+
+"They've got you dead to rights. Read that personal again. Learn it by
+heart. 'The friends of L. C. give warning.' You better believe they're
+rounding up your outfit. They know I'm alive. They know all about the Jack
+of Hearts. Pretty soon they'll know where you've got me hidden."
+
+"You'd better pray they won't. For if they find the nest it will be
+empty."
+
+"Yes?" Luck spoke with ironical carelessness, but he shot an alert keen
+glance at the other.
+
+"That's what I said. Want to know where you will be?" the other
+triumphed.
+
+"I see you want to tell me. Unload your mind."
+
+Triumph overrode discretion. "Look out of that window behind you."
+
+Luck turned. The cabin was built on a ledge far up on the mountain side.
+From the back wall sloped for a hundred feet an almost perpendicular slide
+of rock.
+
+"There's a prospect hole down there," Blackwell explained savagely. "You'd
+go down the Devil's Slide--what's left of you, I mean--deep into that
+prospect hole. The timberings are rotted and the whole top of the working
+ready to cave in. When your body hits it there will be an avalanche--with
+Mr. Former-sheriff Cullison at the bottom of it. You'll be buried without
+any funeral expenses, and I reckon your friends will never know where to
+put the headstone."
+
+The thing was devilishly simple and feasible. Luck, still looking out of
+the window, felt the blood run cold down his spine, for he knew this
+fellow would never stick at murder if he felt it would be safe. No doubt
+he was being well paid, and though in this workaday world revenge has gone
+out of fashion there was no denying that this ruffian would enjoy evening
+the score. But his confederate was of another stripe, a human being with
+normal passions and instincts. The cattleman wondered how he could
+reconcile it to his conscience to go into so vile a plot with a villain
+like the convict.
+
+"So you see I'm right; you'd better pray your friends _won't_ find you.
+They can't reach here without being heard. If they get to hunting these
+hills you sure want to hope they'll stay cold, for just as soon as they
+get warm it will be the signal for you to shoot the chutes."
+
+Luck met his triumphant savagery with an impassive face. "Interesting if
+true. And where will you be when my friends arrive. I reckon it won't be a
+pleasant meeting for Mr. Blackwell."
+
+"I'll be headed for Mexico. I tell you because you ain't liable to go
+around spreading the news. There's a horse saddled in the dip back of the
+hill crest. Get it?"
+
+"Fine," Cullison came back. "And you'll ride right into some of Bucky
+O'Connor's rangers. He's got the border patroled. You'd never make it."
+
+"Don't worry. I'd slip through. I'm no tenderfoot."
+
+"What if you did? Bucky would drag you back by the scruff of the neck in
+two weeks. Remember Chavez."
+
+He referred to a murderer whom the lieutenant of rangers had captured and
+brought back to be hanged later.
+
+"Chavez was a fool."
+
+"Was he? You don't get the point. The old days are gone. Law is in the
+saddle. Murder is no longer a pleasant pastime." And Cullison stretched
+his arms and yawned.
+
+From far below there came through the open window the faint click of a
+horse's hoofs ringing against the stones in the dry bed of a river wash.
+Swiftly Blackwell moved to the door, taking down a rifle from its rack as
+he did so. Cullison rose noiselessly in his chair. If it came to the worst
+he meant to shout aloud his presence and close with this fellow. Hampered
+as he was by the table, the man would get him without question. But if he
+could only sink his fingers into that hairy throat while there was still
+life in him he could promise that the Mexican trip would never take
+place.
+
+Blackwell, from his place by the door, could keep an eye both on his
+prisoner and on a point of the trail far below where horsemen must pass to
+reach the cabin.
+
+"Sit down," he ordered.
+
+Cullison's eyes were like finely-tempered steel. "I'd rather stand."
+
+"By God, if you move from there----" The man did not finish his sentence,
+but the rifle was already half lifted. More words would have been
+superfluous.
+
+A rider came into sight and entered the mouth of the caņon. He was waving
+a white handkerchief. The man in the doorway answered the signal.
+
+"Not your friends this time, Mr. Sheriff," Blackwell jeered.
+
+"I get a stay of execution, do I?" The cool drawling voice of the
+cattleman showed nothing of the tense feeling within.
+
+He resumed his seat and the reading of the newspaper. Presently, to the
+man that came over the threshold he spoke with a casual nod.
+
+"Morning, Cass."
+
+Fendrick mumbled a surly answer. The manner of ironical comradeship his
+captive chose to employ was more than an annoyance. To serve his ends it
+was necessary to put the fear of death into this man's heart, which was a
+thing he had found impossible to do. His foe would deride him, joke with
+him, discuss politics with him, play cards with him, do anything but fear
+him. In the meantime the logic of circumstances was driving the sheepman
+into a corner. He had on impulse made the owner of the Circle C his
+prisoner. Seeing him lie there unconscious on the floor of the Jack of
+Hearts, it had come to him in a flash that he might hold him and force a
+relinquishment of the Del Oro claim. His disappearance would explain
+itself if the rumor spread that he was the W. & S. express robber. Cass
+had done it to save himself from the ruin of his business, but already he
+had regretted it fifty times. Threats could not move Luck in the least. He
+was as hard as iron.
+
+So the sheepman found himself between the upper and the nether millstones.
+He could not drive his prisoner to terms and he dared not release him. For
+if Cullison went away unpledged he would surely send him to the
+penitentiary. Nor could he hold him a prisoner indefinitely. He had seen
+the "personal" warning in both the morning and the afternoon papers. He
+guessed that the presence of the ranger Bucky O'Connor in Saguache was not
+a chance. The law was closing in on him. Somehow Cullison must be made to
+come through with a relinquishment and a pledge not to prosecute. The only
+other way out would be to let Blackwell wreak his hate on the former
+sheriff. From this he shrank with every instinct. Fendrick was a hard man.
+He would have fought it out to a finish if necessary. But murder was a
+thing he could not do.
+
+He had never discussed the matter with Blackwell. The latter had told him
+of this retreat in the mountains and they had brought their prisoner here.
+But the existence of the prospect hole at the foot of the Devil's Slide
+was unknown to him. From the convict's revenge he had hitherto saved Luck.
+Blackwell was his tool rather than his confederate, but he was uneasily
+aware that if the man yielded to the elemental desire to kill his enemy
+the law, would hold him, Cass Fendrick, guilty of the crime.
+
+"Price of sheep good this week?" Cullison asked amiably.
+
+"I didn't come here to discuss the price of sheep with you." Fendrick
+spoke harshly. A dull anger against the scheme of things burned in him.
+For somehow he had reached an _impasse_ from which there was neither
+advance nor retreat.
+
+"No. Well, you're right there. What I don't know about sheep would fill
+several government reports. Of course I've got ideas. One of them is----"
+
+"I don't care anything about your ideas. Are you going to sign this
+relinquishment?"
+
+Luck's face showed a placid surprise. "Why no, Cass. Thought I mentioned
+that before."
+
+"You'd better." The sheepman's harassed face looked ugly enough for
+anything.
+
+"Can't figure it out that way."
+
+"You've got to sign it. By God, you've no option."
+
+"No?" Still with pleasant incredulity.
+
+"Think I'm going to let you get away from here now. You'll sign and you'll
+promise to tell nothing you know against us."
+
+"No, I don't reckon I will."
+
+Cullison was looking straight at him with his fearless level gaze.
+Fendrick realized with a sinking heart that he could not drive him that
+way to surrender. He knew that in the other man's place he would have
+given way, that his enemy was gamer than he was.
+
+He threw up his hand in a sullen gesture that disclaimed responsibility.
+"All right. It's on your own head. I've done all I can for you."
+
+"What's on my head?"
+
+"Your life. Damn you, don't you see you're driving me too far?"
+
+"How far?"
+
+"I'm not going to let you get away to send us to prison. What do you
+expect?"
+
+Luck's frosty eyes did not release the other for a moment. "How are you
+going to prevent it, Cass?"
+
+"I'll find a way."
+
+"Blackwell's way--the Devil's Slide?"
+
+The puzzled look of the sheepman told Cullison that Blackwell's plan of
+exit for him had not been submitted to the other.
+
+"Your friend from Yuma has been explaining how he has arranged for me to
+cross the divide," he went on. "I'm to be plugged full of lead, shot down
+that rock, and landed in a prospect hole at the bottom."
+
+"First I've heard of it." Fendrick wheeled upon his accomplice with angry
+eyes. He was in general a dominant man, and not one who would stand much
+initiative from his assistants.
+
+"He's always deviling me," complained the convict surlily. Then, with a
+flash of anger: "But I stand pat. He'll get his before I take chances of
+getting caught. I'm nobody's fool."
+
+Cass snapped him up. "You'll do as I say. You'll not lift a finger against
+him unless he tries to escape."
+
+"Have you seen the _Sentinel_? I tell you his friends know everything.
+Someone's peached. They're hot on our trail. Bucky O'Connor is in the
+hills. Think I'm going to be caught like a rat in a trap?"
+
+"We'll talk of that later. Now you go look after my horse while I keep
+guard here."
+
+Blackwell went, protesting that he was no "nigger" to be ordered about on
+errands. As soon, as he was out of hearing Fendrick turned his thin
+lip-smile on the prisoner.
+
+"It's up to you, Cullison. I saved your life once. I'm protecting you now.
+But if your friends show up he'll do as he says. I won't be here to stop
+him. Sign up and don't be a fool."
+
+Luck's answer came easily and lightly. "My friend, we've already discussed
+that point."
+
+"You won't change your mind?"
+
+"Your arguments don't justify it, Cass."
+
+The sheepman looked at him with a sinister significance. "Good enough.
+I'll bring you one that will justify it _muy pronto_."
+
+"It will have to be a mighty powerful one. Sorry I can't oblige you and
+your friend, the convict."
+
+"It'll be powerful enough." Fendrick went to the door and called
+Blackwell. "Bring back that horse. I'm going down to the valley."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CASS FENDRICK MAKES A CALL
+
+
+Kate was in her rose garden superintending the stable boy as he loosened
+the dirt around the roots of some of the bushes. She had returned to the
+Circle C for a day or two to give some directions in the absence of her
+father. Buck and the other riders came to her for orders and took them
+without contempt. She knew the cattle business, and they knew she knew it.
+To a man they were proud of her, of her spirit, her energy, and her good
+looks.
+
+This rose garden was one evidence of her enterprise. No ranch in the
+county could show such a riot of bloom as the Circle C. The American
+Beauty, the Duchess, the La France bowed gracefully to neighbors of a
+dozen other choice varieties. Kate had brought this glimpse of Eden into
+the desert. She knew her catalogues by heart and she had the loving
+instinct that teaches all gardeners much about growing things.
+
+The rider who cantered up to the fence, seeing her in her well-hung
+corduroy skirt, her close-fitting blouse, and the broad-rimmed straw hat
+that shielded her dark head from the sun, appreciated the fitness of her
+surroundings. She too was a flower of the desert, delicately fashioned,
+yet vital with the bloom of health.
+
+At the clatter of hoofs she looked up from the bush she was trimming and
+at once rose to her feet. With the change in position she showed slim and
+tall, straight as a young poplar. Beneath their long lashes her eyes grew
+dark and hard. For the man who had drawn to a halt was Cass Fendrick.
+
+From the pocket of his shirt he drew a crumpled piece of stained linen.
+
+"I've brought back your handkerchief, Miss Cullison."
+
+"What have you done with my father?"
+
+He nodded toward the Mexican boy and Kate dismissed the lad. When he had
+gone she asked her question again in exactly the same words.
+
+"If we're going to discuss your father you had better get your quirt
+again," the sheepman suggested, touching a scar on his face.
+
+A flush swept over her cheeks, but she held her voice quiet and even.
+"Where is Father? What have you done with him?"
+
+He swung from the horse and threw the rein to the ground. Then, sauntering
+to the gate, he let himself in.
+
+"You've surely got a nice posy garden here. Didn't know there was one like
+it in all sunbaked Arizona."
+
+She stood rigid. Her unfaltering eyes, sloe-black in the pale face, never
+lifted from him.
+
+"There's only one thing you can talk to me about Where have you hidden my
+father?"
+
+"I've heard folks say he did himself all the hiding that was done."
+
+"You know that isn't true. That convict and you have hidden him somewhere.
+We have evidence enough to convict you both."
+
+"Imagination, most of it, I expect." He was inspecting the roses and
+inhaling their bloom.
+
+"Fact enough to send you to the penitentiary."
+
+"I ought to be scared. This is a La France, ain't it?"
+
+"I want you to tell me what you have done with my father."
+
+He laughed a little and looked at her with eyes that narrowed like those
+of a cat basking in the sun. He had something the look of the larger
+members of the cat family--the soft long tread, the compact rippling
+muscles of a tame panther, and with these the threat that always lies
+behind its sleepy wariness.
+
+"You're a young lady of one idea. No use arguing with you, I reckon."
+
+"Not the least use. I've talked with Mrs. Wylie."
+
+He raised his eyebrows. "Do I know the lady?"
+
+"She will know you. That is more to the point."
+
+"Did she say she knew me?" he purred.
+
+"She will say it in court--if it ever comes to that."
+
+"Just what will she say, if you please."
+
+Kate told him in four sentences with a stinging directness that was the
+outstanding note of her, that and a fine self-forgetful courage.
+
+"Is that all? Comes to this then, that she says I heard her scream, ran
+in, and saved your father's life. Is that a penitentiary offense? I don't
+say it oughtn't to be, but is it?"
+
+"You helped the villain take his body into the cellar. You plotted with
+him to hold Father a prisoner there."
+
+"Says that, does she--that she overheard us plotting?"
+
+"Of course she did not overhear what you said. You took good care of that.
+But she knew you were conspiring."
+
+"Just naturally knew it without overhearing," he derided. "And of course
+if I was in a plot I must have been Johnny-on-the-spot a good deal of the
+time. Hung round there a-plenty, I expect?"
+
+He had touched on the weak spot of Mrs. Wylie's testimony. The man who had
+saved Cullison's life, after a long talk with Blackwell, had gone out of
+the Jack of Hearts and had not returned so far as she knew. For her former
+husband had sent her on an errand just before the prisoner was taken away
+and she did not know who had helped him.
+
+Kate was silent.
+
+"How would this do for an explanation?" he suggested lazily. "We'll say
+just for the sake of argument that Mrs. Wylie's story is true, that I did
+save your father's life. We'll put it that I did help carry him downstairs
+where it was cooler and that I did have a long talk with the fellow
+Blackwell. What would I be talking to him about, if I wasn't reading the
+riot act to him? Ain't it likely too that he would be sorry for what he
+did while he was angry at your father for butting in as he was having
+trouble with his wife? And after he had said he was sorry why shouldn't I
+hit the road out of there? There's no love lost between me and Luck
+Cullison. I wasn't under any obligations to wrap him up in cotton and
+bring him back this side up with care to his anxious friends. If he chose
+later to take a hike out of town on p.d.q. hurry up business I ain't to
+blame. And I reckon you'll find a jury will agree with me."
+
+She had to admit to herself that he made out a plausible case. Not that
+she believed it for a moment. But very likely a jury would. As for his
+subsequent silence that could be explained by his desire not to mix
+himself in the affairs of one with whom he was upon unfriendly terms. The
+irrefutable fact that he had saved the life of Cullison would go a long
+way as presumptive proof of his innocence.
+
+"I see you are wearing your gray hat again? What have you done with the
+brown one?"
+
+She had flashed the question at him so unexpectedly that he was startled,
+but the wary mask fell again over the sardonic face.
+
+"You take a right friendly interest in my hats, seems to me."
+
+"I know this much. Father took your hat by mistake from the club. You
+bought a brown one half an hour later. You used Father's to manufacture
+evidence against him. If it isn't true that he is your prisoner how does
+it come that you have your gray hat again? You must have taken it from
+him."
+
+He laughed uneasily. She had guessed the exact truth.
+
+"In Arizona there are about forty thousand gray hats like this. Do you
+figure you can identify this one, Miss Cullison? And suppose your fairy
+tale of the Jack of Hearts is true, couldn't I have swapped hats again
+while he lay there unconscious?"
+
+She brushed his explanation aside with a woman's superb indifference to
+logic.
+
+"You can talk of course. I don't care. It is all lies--lies. You have
+kidnapped Father and are holding him somewhere. Don't you dare to hurt
+him. If you should--Oh, if you should--you will wish you had never been
+born." The fierceness of her passion beat upon him like sudden summer
+hail.
+
+He laughed slowly, well pleased. A lazy smoldering admiration shone in his
+half shuttered eyes.
+
+"So you're going to take it out of me, are you?"
+
+A creature of moods, there came over her now a swift change. Every feature
+of her, the tense pose, the manner of defiant courage, softened
+indescribably. She was no longer an enemy bent on his destruction but a
+girl pleading for the father she loved.
+
+"Why do you do it? You are a man. You want to fight fair. Tell me he is
+well. Tell me you will set him free."
+
+He forgot for the moment that he was a man with the toils of the law
+closing upon him, forgot that his success and even his liberty were at
+stake. He saw only a girl with the hunger of love in her wistful eyes, and
+knew that it lay in his power to bring back the laughter and the light
+into them.
+
+"Suppose I can't fight fair any longer. Suppose I've let myself get
+trapped and it isn't up to me but to somebody else."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Up to your father, say."
+
+"My father?"
+
+"Yes. How could I turn him loose when the first thing he did would be to
+swear out a warrant for my arrest?"
+
+"But he wouldn't--not if you freed him."
+
+He laughed harshly. "I thought you knew him. He's hard as nails."
+
+She recognized the justice of this appraisal. "But he is generous too. He
+stands by his friends."
+
+"I'm not his friend, not so you could notice it." He laughed again,
+bitterly. "Not that it matters. Of course I was just putting a case.
+Nothing to it really."
+
+He was hedging because he thought he had gone too far, but she appeared
+not to notice it. Her eyes had the faraway look of one who communes with
+herself.
+
+"If I could only see him and have a talk with him."
+
+"What good would that do?" he pretended to scoff.
+
+But he watched her closely nevertheless.
+
+"I think I could get him to do as I ask. He nearly always does." Her gaze
+went swiftly back to him. "Let me talk with him. There's a reason why he
+ought to be free now, one that would appeal to him."
+
+This was what he had come for, but now that she had met him half way he
+hesitated. If she should not succeed he would be worse off than before. He
+could neither hold her a prisoner nor free her to lead the pack of the law
+to his hiding place. On the other hand if Cullison thought they intended
+to keep her prisoner he would have to compromise. He dared not leave her
+in the hands of Lute Blackwell. Fendrick decided to take a chance. At the
+worst he could turn them both free and leave for Sonora.
+
+"All right. I'll take you to him. But you'll have to do as I say."
+
+"Yes," she agreed.
+
+"I'm taking you to back my play. I tell you straight that Blackwell would
+like nothing better than to put a bullet through your father. But I've got
+a hold on the fellow that ties him. He's got to do as I say. But if I'm
+not there and it comes to a showdown--if Bucky O'Connor for instance
+happens to stumble in--then it's all off with Luck Cullison. Blackwell
+won't hesitate a second. He'll kill your father and make a bolt for it.
+That's one reason why I'm taking you. I want to pile up witnesses against
+the fellow so as to make him go slow. But that's not my main object.
+You've got to persuade Luck to come through with an agreement to let go of
+that Del Oro homestead and to promise not to prosecute us. He won't do it
+to save his own life. He's got to think you come there as my prisoner.
+See? He's got to wrestle with the notion that you're in the power of the
+damnedest villain that ever went unhung. I mean Blackwell. Let him chew on
+that proposition a while and see what he makes of it."
+
+She nodded, white to the lips. "Let us go at once, please. I don't want to
+leave Father alone with that man." She called across to the corral.
+"Manuel, saddle the pinto for me. Hurry!"
+
+They rode together through the wind-swept sunlit land. From time to time
+his lazy glance embraced her, a supple graceful creature at perfect ease
+in the saddle. What was it about her that drew the eye so irresistibly?
+Prettier girls he had often seen. Her features were irregular, mouth and
+nose too large, face a little thin. Her contour lacked the softness, the
+allure that in some women was an unconscious invitation to cuddle. Tough
+as whipcord she might be, but in her there flowed a life vital and strong;
+dwelt a spirit brave and unconquerable. She seemed to him as little subtle
+as any woman he had ever met. This directness came no doubt from living so
+far from feminine influences. But he had a feeling that if a man once
+wakened her to love, the instinct of sex would spring full-grown into
+being.
+
+They talked of the interests common to the country, of how the spring
+rains had helped the range, of Shorty McCabe's broken leg, of the new
+school district that was being formed. Before she knew it Kate was
+listening to his defense of himself in the campaign between him and her
+father. He found her a partisan beyond chance of conversion. Yet she heard
+patiently his justification.
+
+"I didn't make the conditions that are here. I have to accept them. The
+government establishes forest reserves on the range. No use ramming my
+head against a stone wall. Uncle Sam is bigger than we are. Your father
+and his friends got stubborn. I didn't."
+
+"No, you were very wise," she admitted dryly.
+
+"You mean because I adapted myself to the conditions and made the best of
+them. Why shouldn't I?" he flushed.
+
+"Father's cattle had run over that range thirty years almost. What right
+had you to take it from him?"
+
+"Conditions change. He wouldn't see it. I did. As for the right of
+it--well, Luck ain't king of the valley just because he thinks he is."
+
+She began to grow angry. A dull flush burned through the tan of her
+cheeks.
+
+"So you bought sheep and brought them in to ruin the range, knowing that
+they would cut the feeding ground to pieces, kill the roots of vegetation
+with their sharp hoofs, and finally fill the country with little gullies
+to carry off the water that ought to sink into the ground."
+
+"Sheep ain't so bad if they are run right."
+
+"It depends where they run. This is no place for them."
+
+"That's what you hear your father say. He's prejudiced."
+
+"And you're not, I suppose."
+
+"I'm more reasonable than he is."
+
+"Yes, you are," she flung back at him irritably.
+
+Open country lay before them. They had come out from a stretch of heavy
+underbrush. Catclaw had been snatching at their legs. Cholla had made the
+traveling bad for the horses. Now she put her pony to a canter that for
+the time ended conversation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A COMPROMISE
+
+
+Luck lay stretched full length on a bunk, his face, to the roof, a wreath
+of smoke from his cigar traveling slowly toward the ceiling into a filmy
+blue cloud which hung above him. He looked the personification of vigorous
+full-blooded manhood at ease. Experience had taught him to take the
+exigencies of his turbulent life as they came, nonchalantly, to the eye of
+an observer indifferently, getting all the comfort the situation had to
+offer.
+
+By the table, facing him squarely, sat José Dominguez, a neatly built
+Mexican with snapping black eyes, a manner of pleasant suavity, and an
+ever-ready smile that displayed a double row of shining white teeth. That
+smile did not for an instant deceive Luck. He knew that José had no grudge
+against him, that he was a very respectable citizen, and that he would
+regretfully shoot him full of holes if occasion called for so drastic a
+termination to their acquaintanceship. For Dominguez had a third interest
+in the C. F. ranch, and he was the last man in the world to sacrifice his
+business for sentiment. Having put the savings of a lifetime into the
+sheep business, he did not propose to let anybody deprive him of his
+profits either legally or illegally.
+
+Luck was talking easily, in the most casual and amiable of voices.
+
+"No, Dominguez, the way I look at it you and Cass got in bad this time.
+Here's the point. In this little vendetta of ours both sides were trying
+to keep inside the law and win out. When you elected Bolt sheriff that was
+one to you. When you took out that grazing permit and cut me off the
+reserve that was another time you scored heavy. A third time was when you
+brought 'steen thousand of Mary's little lambs baaing across the desert.
+Well, I come back at you by deeding the Circle C to my girl and taking up
+the Del Oro homestead. You contest and lose. Good enough. It's up to you
+to try another move."
+
+"_Si, Seņor_, and we move immediate. We persuade you to visit us at our
+summer mountain home where we can talk at leisure. We suggest a
+compromise."
+
+Luck grinned. "Your notion of a compromise and mine don't tally, José.
+Your idea is for me to give you the apple and stand by while you eat it.
+Trouble is that both parties to this quarrel are grabbers."
+
+"True, but Seņor Cullison must remember his hands are tied behind him. He
+will perhaps not find the grabbing good," his opponent suggested
+politely.
+
+"Come to that, your hands are tied too, my friend. You can't hold me here
+forever. Put me out of business and the kid will surely settle your hash
+by proving up on the claim. What are you going to do about it?"
+
+"Since you ask me, I can only say that it depends on you. Sign the
+relinquishment, give us your word not to prosecute, and you may leave in
+three hours."
+
+Cullison shook his head. "That's where you get in wrong. Buck up against
+the law and you are sure to lose."
+
+"If we lose you lose too," Dominguez answered significantly.
+
+The tinkle of hoofs from the river bed in the gulch below rose through the
+clear air. The Mexican moved swiftly to the door and presently waved a
+handkerchief.
+
+"What gent are you wig-wagging to now?" Luck asked from the bed. "Thought
+I knew all you bold bad bandits by this time. Or is it Cass back again?"
+
+"Yes, it's Cass. There's someone with him too. It is a woman," the Mexican
+discovered in apparent surprise.
+
+"A woman!" Luck took the cigar from his mouth in vague unease. "What is he
+doing here with a woman?"
+
+The Mexican smiled behind his open hand. "Your question anticipates mine,
+Seņor. I too ask the same."
+
+The sight of his daughter in the doorway went through the cattleman with a
+chilling shock. She ran forward and with a pathetic cry of joy threw
+herself upon him where he stood. His hands were tied behind him. Only by
+the turn of his head and by brushing his unshaven face against hers could
+he answer her caresses. There was a look of ineffable tenderness on his
+face, for he loved her more than anything else on earth.
+
+"Mr. Fendrick brought me," she explained when articulate expression was
+possible.
+
+"He brought you, did he?" Luck looked across her shoulder at his enemy,
+and his eyes grew hard as jade.
+
+"Of my own free will," she added.
+
+"I promised you a better argument than those I'd given you. Miss Cullison
+is that argument," Fendrick said.
+
+The cattleman's set face had a look more deadly than words. It told
+Fendrick he would gladly have killed him where he stood. For Luck knew he
+was cornered and must yield. Neither Dominguez nor Blackwell would consent
+to let her leave otherwise.
+
+"He brought me here to have a talk with you, Dad. You must sign any paper
+he wants you to sign."
+
+"And did he promise to take you back home after our talk?"
+
+"Miss Cullison would not want to leave as long as her father was here,"
+Fendrick answered for her glibly with a smile that said more than the
+words.
+
+"I'm going to hold you responsible for bringing her here."
+
+Fendrick could not face steadily the eyes of his foe. They bored into him
+like gimlets.
+
+"And responsible for getting her back home just as soon as I say the
+word," Luck added, the taut muscles standing out in his clenched jaw.
+
+"I expect your say-so won't be final in this matter, Luck. But I'll take
+the responsibility. Miss Cullison will get home at the proper time."
+
+"I'm not going home till you do," the girl broke in. "Oh, Dad, we've been
+so worried. You can't think."
+
+"You've played a rotten trick on me, Fendrick. I wouldn't have thought it
+even of a sheepman."
+
+"No use you getting crazy with the heat, Cullison. Your daughter asked me
+to bring her here, and I brought her. Of course I'm not going to break my
+neck getting her home where she can 'phone Bolt or Bucky O'Connor and have
+us rounded up. That ain't reasonable to expect. But I aim to do what's
+right. We'll all have supper together like sensible folks. Then José and I
+will give you the cabin for the night if you'll promise not to attempt to
+escape. In the morning maybe you'll see things different."
+
+Fendrick calculated not without reason that the best thing to do would be
+to give Kate a chance for a long private talk with her father. Her
+influence would be more potent than any he could bring to bear.
+
+After supper the door of the cabin was locked and a sentry posted. The
+prisoners were on parole, but Cass did not on that account relax his
+vigilance. For long he and his partner could hear a low murmur of voices
+from within the cabin. At length the lights went out and presently the
+voices died. But all through the night one or the other of the sheepmen
+patroled a beat that circled around and around the house.
+
+Fendrick did not broach the subject at issue next morning till after
+breakfast.
+
+"Well, what have you decided?" he asked at last.
+
+"Let's hear about that compromise. What is it you offer?" Luck demanded
+gruffly.
+
+"You sign the relinquishment and agree not to make us any trouble because
+we brought you here, and you may go by two o'clock."
+
+"You want to reach Saguache with the relinquishment in time to file it
+before I could get to a 'phone. You don't trust me."
+
+Fendrick smiled. "When we let you go we're trusting you a heap more than
+we would most men. But of course you're going to be sore about this and we
+don't want to put temptation in your way."
+
+"I see. Well, I accept your terms. I'll make you no _legal_ trouble. But I
+tell you straight this thing ain't ended. It's only just begun. I'm going
+to run you out of this country before I'm through with you."
+
+"Go to it. We'll see whether you make good."
+
+"Where is that paper you want me to sign?"
+
+Luck dashed off his signature and pushed the document from him. He hated
+the necessity that forced him to surrender. For himself he would have died
+rather than give way, but he had to think of his daughter and of his boy
+Sam who was engaged in a plot to hold up a train.
+
+His stony eyes met those of the man across the table. "No need for me to
+tell you what I think of this. A white man wouldn't have done such a
+trick. It takes sheepherders and greasers to put across a thing so
+damnable as dragging a woman into a feud."
+
+Fendrick flushed angrily. "It's not my fault; you're a pigheaded obstinate
+chump. I used the only weapon left me."
+
+Kate, standing straight and tall behind her father's chair, looked at
+their common foe with uncompromising scorn. "He is not to blame, Dad. He
+can't help it because he doesn't see how despicable a thing he has done."
+
+Again the blood rushed to the face of the sheepman. "I reckon that will
+hold me hitched for the present, Miss Cullison. In the meantime I'll go
+file that homestead entry of mine. Nothing like living up to the opinion
+your friends have of you."
+
+He wheeled away abruptly, but as he went out of the door one word came to
+him.
+
+"Friends!" Kate had repeated, and her voice told fully the contempt she
+felt.
+
+At exactly two o'clock Dominguez set the Cullisons on the homeward road.
+He fairly dripped apologies for the trouble to which he and his friends
+had been compelled to put them.
+
+Blackwell, who had arrived to take his turn as guard, stood in the doorway
+and sulkily watched them go.
+
+[Illustration: SHE WAS THANKING GOD THE AFFAIR WAS ENDED]
+
+From the river bed below the departing guests looked up at the cabin
+hidden in the pines. The daughter was thanking God in her heart that the
+affair was ended. Her father was vowing to himself that it had just
+begun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+AN ARREST
+
+
+After half a week in the saddle Lieutenant Bucky O'Connor of the Arizona
+Rangers and Curly Flandrau reached Saguache tired and travel-stained. They
+had combed the Rincons without having met hide or hair of the men they
+wanted. Early next morning they would leave town again and this time would
+make for Soapy Stone's horse ranch.
+
+Bucky O'Connor was not disheartened. Though he was the best man hunter in
+Arizona, it was all in the day's work that criminals should sometimes
+elude him. But with Curly the issue was a personal one. He owed Luck
+Cullison a good deal and his imagination had played over the picture of
+that moment when he could go to Kate and tell her he had freed her
+father.
+
+After reaching town the first thing each of them did was to take a bath,
+the second to get shaved. From the barber shop they went to the best
+restaurant in Saguache. Curly was still busy with his pie _ā la mode_ when
+Burridge Thomas, United States Land Commissioner for that district, took
+the seat opposite and told to O'Connor a most interesting piece of news.
+
+They heard him to an end without interruption. Then Curly spoke one word.
+"Fendrick."
+
+"Yes, sir, Cass Fendrick. Came in about one o'clock and handed me the
+relinquishment just as I've been telling you."
+
+"Then filed on the claim himself, you said."
+
+"Yes, took it up himself."
+
+"Sure the signature to the relinquishment was genuine?"
+
+"I'd take oath to it. As soon as he had gone I got out the original filing
+and compared the two. Couldn't be any possible mistake. Nobody could have
+forged the signature. It is like Luck himself, strong and forceful and
+decided."
+
+"We're not entirely surprised, Mr. Thomas," Lieutenant O'Connor told the
+commissioner. "In point of fact we've rather been looking for something of
+the kind."
+
+"Then you know where Luck is?" Thomas, a sociable garrulous soul, leaned
+forward eagerly.
+
+"No, we don't. But we've a notion Fendrick knows." Bucky gave the
+government appointee his most blandishing smile. "Of course we know _you_
+won't talk about this, Mr. Thomas. Can we depend on your deputies?"
+
+"I'll speak to them."
+
+"We're much obliged to you. This clears up a point that was in doubt to
+us. By the way, what was the date when the relinquishment was signed?"
+
+"To-day."
+
+"And who was the notary that witnessed it?"
+
+"Dominguez. He's a partner of Fendrick in the sheep business."
+
+"Quite a family affair, isn't it. Well, I'll let you know how things come
+out, Mr. Thomas. You'll be interested to know. Have a cigar."
+
+Bucky rose. "See you later, Curly. Sorry I have to hurry, Mr. Thomas, but
+I've thought of something I'll have to do right away."
+
+Bucky followed El Molino Street to the old plaza and cut across it to the
+Hotel Wayland. After a sharp scrutiny of the lobby and a nod of
+recognition to an acquaintance he sauntered to the desk and looked over
+the register. There, among the arrivals of the day, was the entry he had
+hoped to see.
+
+                  Cass Fendrick, C. F. Ranch, Arizona.
+
+The room that had been assigned to him was 212.
+
+"Anything you want in particular, Lieutenant?" the clerk asked.
+
+"No-o. Just looking to see who came in to-day."
+
+He turned away and went up the stairs, ignoring the elevator. On the
+second floor he found 212. In answer to his knock a voice said "Come in."
+Opening the door, he stepped in, closed it behind him, and looked at the
+man lying in his shirt sleeves on the bed.
+
+"Evening, Cass."
+
+Fendrick put down his newspaper but did not rise. "Evening, Bucky."
+
+Their eyes held to each other with the level even gaze of men who
+recognize a worthy antagonist.
+
+"I've come to ask a question or two."
+
+"Kick them out."
+
+"First, I would like to know what you paid Luck Cullison for his Del Oro
+claim."
+
+"Thinking of buying me out?" was the ironical retort of the man on the
+bed.
+
+"Not quite. I've got another reason for wanting to know."
+
+"Then you better ask Cullison. The law says that if a man _sells_ a
+relinquishment he can't file on another claim. If he surrenders it for
+nothing he can. Now Luck may have notions of filing on another claim. You
+can see that we'll have to take it for granted he gave me the claim."
+
+It was so neat an answer and at the same time so complete a one that
+O'Connor could not help appreciating it. He smiled and tried again.
+
+"We'll put that question in the discard. That paper was signed by Luck
+to-day. Where was he when you got it from him?"
+
+"Sure it was signed to-day? Couldn't it have been ante-dated?"
+
+"You know better than I do. When was it signed?"
+
+Fendrick laughed. He was watching the noted officer of rangers with
+narrowed wary eyes. "On advice of counsel I decline to answer."
+
+"Sorry, Cass. That leaves me only one thing to do. You're under arrest."
+
+"For what?" demanded the sheepman sharply.
+
+"For abducting Luck Cullison and holding him prisoner without his
+consent."
+
+Lazily Cass drawled a question. "Are you right sure Cullison can't be
+found?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Are you right sure he ain't at home attending to his business?"
+
+"Has he come back?"
+
+"Maybe so. I'm not Luck Cullison's keeper."
+
+Bucky thought he understood. In return for the relinquishment Cullison had
+been released. Knowing Luck as he did, it was hard for him to see how
+pressure enough had been brought to bear to move him.
+
+"May I use your 'phone?" he asked.
+
+"Help yourself."
+
+Fendrick pretended to have lost interest. He returned to his newspaper,
+but his ears were alert to catch what went on over the wires. It was
+always possible that Cullison might play him false and break the
+agreement. Cass did not expect this, for the owner of the Circle C was a
+man whose word was better than most men's bond. But the agreement had been
+forced upon him through a trick. How far he might feel this justified him
+in ignoring it the sheepman did not know.
+
+O'Connor got the Circle C on long distance. It was the clear contralto of
+a woman that answered his "Hello!"
+
+"Is this Miss Cullison?" he asked. Almost at once he added: "O'Connor of
+the rangers is speaking. I've heard your father is home again. Is that
+true?"
+
+An interval followed during which the ranger officer was put into the role
+of a listener. His occasional "Yes----Yes----Yes" punctuated the rapid
+murmur that reached Fendrick.
+
+Presently Bucky asked a question. "On his way to town now?"
+
+Again the rapid murmur.
+
+"I'll attend to that, Miss Cullison. I am in Fendrick's room now. Make
+your mind easy."
+
+Bucky hung up and turned to the sheepman. The latter showed him a face of
+derision. He had gathered one thing that disquieted him, but he did not
+intend to let O'Connor know it.
+
+"Well?" he jeered. "Find friend Cullison in tolerable health?"
+
+"I've been talking with his daughter."
+
+"I judged as much. Miss Spitfire well?"
+
+"Miss Cullison didn't mention her health. We were concerned about yours."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Cullison is headed for town and his daughter is afraid he is on the
+warpath against you."
+
+"You don't say."
+
+"She wanted me to get you out of her father's way until he has cooled
+down."
+
+"Very kind of her."
+
+"She's right, too. You and Luck mustn't meet yet. Get out of here and hunt
+cover in the hills for a few days. You know why better than I do."
+
+"How can I when I'm under arrest?" Fendrick mocked.
+
+"You're not under arrest. Miss Cullison says her father has no charge to
+bring against you."
+
+"Good of him."
+
+"So you can light a shuck soon as you want to."
+
+"Which won't be in any hurry."
+
+"Don't make any mistake. Luck Cullison is a dangerous man when he is
+roused."
+
+The sheepman looked at the ranger with opaque stony eyes. "If Luck
+Cullison is looking for me he is liable to find me, and he won't have to
+go into the hills to hunt me either."
+
+Bucky understood perfectly. According to the code of the frontier no man
+could let himself be driven from town by the knowledge that another man
+was looking for him with a gun. There are in the Southwest now many
+thousands who do not live by the old standard, who are anchored to law and
+civilization as a protection against primitive passions. But Fendrick was
+not one of these. He had deliberately gone outside of the law in his feud
+with the cattleman. Now he would not repudiate the course he had chosen
+and hedge because of the danger it involved. He was an aspirant to
+leadership among the tough hard-bitted denizens of the sunbaked desert.
+That being so, he had to see his feud out to a fighting finish if need
+be.
+
+"There are points about this case you have overlooked," Bucky told him.
+
+"Maybe so. But the important one that sticks out like a sore thumb is that
+no man living can serve notice on me to get out of town because he is
+coming on the shoot."
+
+"Luck didn't serve any such notice. All his daughter knows is that he is
+hot under the collar. Look at things reasonably, Cass. You've caused that
+young lady a heap of trouble already. Are you going to unload a lot more
+on her just because you want to be pigheaded. Only a kid struts around and
+hollers 'Who's afraid?' No, it's up to you to pull out, not because of
+Luck Cullison but on account of his daughter."
+
+"Who is such a thorough friend of mine," the sheepman added with his
+sardonic grin.
+
+"What do you care about that? She's a girl. I don't know the facts, but I
+can guess them. She and Luck will stand pat on what they promised you.
+Don't you owe her something for that? Seems to me a white man wouldn't
+make her any more worry."
+
+"It's because I am a white man that I can't dodge a fight when it's
+stacked up for me, Bucky."
+
+He said it with a dogged finality that was unshaken, but O'Connor made one
+more effort.
+
+"Nobody will know why you left."
+
+"I would know, wouldn't I? I've got to go right on living with myself. I
+tell you straight I'm going to see it out."
+
+Bucky's jaw clamped. "Not if I know it. You're under arrest."
+
+Fendrick sat up in surprise. "What for?" he demanded angrily.
+
+"For robbing the W. & S. Express Company."
+
+"Hell, Bucky. You don't believe that."
+
+"Never mind what I believe. There's some evidence against you--enough to
+justify me."
+
+"You want to get me out of Cullison's way. That's all."
+
+"If you like to put it so."
+
+"I won't stand for it. That ain't square."
+
+"You'll stand for it, my friend. I gave you a chance to clear out and you
+wouldn't take it."
+
+"I wouldn't because I couldn't. Don't make any mistake about this. I'm not
+looking for Luck. I'm attending to my business. Arrest _him_ if you want
+to stop trouble."
+
+There came a knock on the door. It opened to admit Luck Cullison. He shut
+it and put his back to it, while his eyes, hard as hammered iron, swept
+past the officer to fix on Fendrick.
+
+The latter rose quickly from the bed, but O'Connor flung him back.
+
+"Don't forget you're my prisoner."
+
+"He's your prisoner, is he?" This was a turn of affairs for which Luck was
+manifestly unprepared: "Well, I've come to have a little settlement with
+him."
+
+Fendrick, tense as a coiled spring, watched him warily. "Can't be any too
+soon to suit me."
+
+Clear cut as a pair of scissors through paper, Bucky snapped out his
+warning. "Nothing stirring, gentlemen. I'll shoot the first man that makes
+a move."
+
+"Are you in this, Bucky?" asked Cullison evenly.
+
+"You're right I am. He's my prisoner."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"For robbing the W. & S."
+
+Luck's face lit. "Have you evidence enough to cinch him?"
+
+"Not enough yet. But I'll take no chances on his getting away."
+
+The cattleman's countenance reflected his thoughts as his decision hung in
+the balance. He longed to pay his debt on the spot. But on the other hand
+he had been a sheriff himself. As an outsider he had no right to interfere
+between an officer and his captive. Besides, if there was a chance to send
+Fendrick over the road that would be better than killing. It would clear
+up his own reputation, to some extent under a cloud.
+
+"All right, Bucky. If the law wants him I'll step aside for the time."
+
+The sheepman laughed in his ironic fashion. His amusement mocked them
+both. "Most as good as a play of the movies, ain't it? But we'd ought all
+to have our guns out to make it realistic."
+
+But in his heart he did not jeer. For the situation had been nearer red
+tragedy than melodrama. The resource and firmness of Bucky O'Connor had
+alone made it possible to shave disaster by a hair's breadth and no more.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A CONVERSATION
+
+
+Bucky O'Connor and his prisoner swung down the street side by side and
+turned in at the headquarters of the rangers. The officer switched on the
+light, shut the door, and indicated a chair. From his desk he drew a box
+of cigars. He struck a match and held it for the sheepman before using it
+himself.
+
+Relaxed in his chair, Fendrick spoke with rather elaborate indolence.
+
+"What's your evidence, Bucky? You can't hold me without any. What have you
+got that ties me to the W. & S. robbery?"
+
+"Why, that hat play, Cass? You let on you had shot Cullison's hat off his
+head while he was making his getaway. Come to find out you had his hat in
+your possession all the time."
+
+"Does that prove I did it myself?"
+
+"Looks funny you happened to be right there while the robbery was taking
+place and that you had Luck's hat with you."
+
+The sleepy tiger look lay warily in the sheepman's eyes. "That's what the
+dictionaries call a coincidence, Bucky."
+
+"They may. I'm not sure I do."
+
+"Fact, just the same."
+
+"I've a notion it will take some explaining."
+
+"Confidentially?"
+
+"Confidentially what?"
+
+"The explanation. You won't use it against me."
+
+"Not if you weren't in the hold-up."
+
+"I wasn't. This is the way it happened. You know Cullison was going to
+prove up on that Del Oro claim on Thursday. That would have put the C. F.
+ranch out of business. I knew he was in town and at the Del Mar, but I
+didn't know where he would be next day. He had me beat. I couldn't see any
+way out but to eat crow and offer a compromise. I hated it like hell, but
+it was up to me to hunt Luck up and see what he would do. His hat gave me
+an excuse to call. So I started out and came round the corner of San Mateo
+Street just in time to see the robber pull out. Honest, the fellow did
+shape up a little like Luck. Right then I got the darned fool notion of
+mixing him up in it. I threw his hat down and shot a hole in it, then
+unlocked the door of the express office carrying the hat in my hand.
+That's all there was to it."
+
+"Pretty low-down trick, wasn't it, to play on an innocent man?"
+
+"He was figuring to do me up. I don't say it was exactly on the square,
+but I was sore at him clear through. I wanted to get him into trouble. I
+_had_ to do something to keep his mind busy till I could turn round and
+think of a way out."
+
+Bucky reflected, looking at the long ash on his cigar. "The man that made
+the raid of the W. & S. shaped up like Luck, you say?"
+
+"In a general way."
+
+The ranger brushed the ash from the end of the cigar into the tray. Then
+he looked quietly at Fendrick. "Who was the man, Cass?"
+
+"I thought I told you----"
+
+"You did. But you lied. It was a moonlight night. And there's an arc light
+at that corner. By your own story, the fellow took his mask off as he
+swung to his horse. You saw his face just as distinctly as I see yours
+now."
+
+"No, I reckon not," Fendrick grinned.
+
+"Meaning you won't tell?"
+
+"That's not how I put it, Bucky. You're the one that says I recognized
+him. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the fellow didn't wear his mask
+till he was out of sight."
+
+"I am."
+
+"You are."
+
+"Yes. The mask was found just outside the office where the man dropped it
+before he got into the saddle."
+
+"So?"
+
+"That's not all. Curly and I found something else, too--the old shirt from
+which the cloth was cut."
+
+The sheepman swept him with one of his side-long, tiger-cat glances.
+"Where did you find it?"
+
+"In a barrel back of the Jack of Hearts."
+
+"Now, if you only knew who put it there," suggested Cass, with ironic
+hopefulness.
+
+"It happens I do. I have a witness who saw a man shove that old shirt down
+in the barrel after tearing a piece off."
+
+"Your witness got a name, Bucky?"
+
+"I'll not mention the name now. If it became too well known something
+might happen to my witness."
+
+Fendrick nodded. "You're wiser there. She wouldn't be safe, not if a
+certain man happened to hear what you've just told me."
+
+"I didn't say _she_, Cass."
+
+"No, I said it. Your witness is Mrs. Wylie."
+
+"Maybe, then, you can guess the criminal, too."
+
+"Maybe I could, but I'm not going to try."
+
+"Then we'll drop that subject. I'll ask you a question. Can you tell me
+where I can find a paroled convict named Blackwell?"
+
+Fendrick shook his head. "Don't know the gentleman. A friend of yours?"
+
+"One of yours. Better come through, Cass. I'm satisfied you weren't
+actually in this robbery, but there is such a thing as accessory after the
+fact. Now, I'm going to get that man. If you want to put yourself right,
+it's up to you to give me the information I want. Where is he?"
+
+"Haven't got him in _my_ pocket."
+
+The officer rose, not one whit less amiable. "I didn't expect you to tell
+me. That's all right. I'll find him. But in the meantime I'll have to lock
+you up till this thing is settled."
+
+From his inside coat pocket, Fendrick drew a sealed envelope, wrote the
+date across the front, and handed it to O'Connor.
+
+"Keep this, Bucky, and remember that I gave it to you. Put it in a safe
+place, but don't open the envelope till I give the word. Understand?"
+
+"I hear what you say, but I don't understand what you mean--what's back of
+it."
+
+"It isn't intended that you should yet. I'm protecting myself. That's
+all."
+
+"I guessed that much. Well, if you're ready, I'll arrange your lodgings
+for the night, Cass. I reckon I'll put you up at a hotel with one of the
+boys."
+
+"Just as you say."
+
+Fendrick rose, and the two men passed into the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+A TOUCH OF THE THIRD DEGREE
+
+
+Cullison was not the man to acknowledge himself beaten so long as there
+was a stone unturned. In the matter of the Del Oro homestead claim he
+moved at once. All of the county commissioners were personal friends of
+his, and he went to them with a plan for a new road to run across the Del
+Oro at the point where the caņon walls opened to a valley.
+
+"What in Mexico is the good of a county road there, Luck? Can't run a
+wagon over them mountains and down to the river. Looks to me like it would
+be a road from nowhere to nowhere," Alec Flandrau protested, puzzled at
+his friend's request.
+
+"I done guessed it," Yesler announced with a grin. "Run a county road
+through, and Cass Fendrick can't fence the river off from Luck's cows.
+Luck ain't aiming to run any wagon over that road."
+
+The Map of Texas man got up and stamped with delight. "I get you. We'll
+learn Cass to take a joke, by gum. Luck sure gets a county road for his
+cows to amble over down to the water. Cass can have his darned old
+homestead now."
+
+When Fendrick heard that the commissioners had condemned a right of way
+for a road through his homestead he unloaded on the desert air a rich
+vocabulary. For here would have been a simple way out of his trouble if he
+had only thought of it. Instead of which he had melodramatically kidnapped
+his enemy and put himself within reach of the law and of Cullison's
+vengeance.
+
+Nor did Luck confine his efforts to self-defense. He knew that to convict
+Fendrick of the robbery he must first lay hands upon Blackwell.
+
+It was, however, Bucky that caught the convict. The two men met at the top
+of a mountain pass. Blackwell, headed south, was slipping down toward
+Stone's horse ranch when they came face to face. Before the bad man had
+his revolver out, he found himself looking down the barrel of the ranger's
+leveled rifle.
+
+"I wouldn't," Bucky murmured genially.
+
+"What you want me for?" Blackwell demanded sulkily.
+
+"For the W. & S. robbery."
+
+"I'm not the man you want. My name's Johnson."
+
+"I'll put up with you till I find the man I do want, Mr. Johnson," Bucky
+told him cheerfully. "Climb down from that horse. No, I wouldn't try that.
+Keep your hands up."
+
+With his prisoner in front of him, O'Connor turned townward. They jogged
+down out of the hills through dark gulches and cactus-clad arroyos. The
+sharp catclaw caught at their legs. Tangled mesquite and ironwood made
+progress slow. They reached in time Apache Desert, and here Bucky camped.
+He hobbled his prisoner's feet and put around his neck a rope, the other
+end of which was tied to his own waist. Then he built a small fire of
+greasewood and made coffee for them both. The prisoner slept, but his
+captor did not. For he could take no chances of an escape.
+
+The outlines of the mountain ranges loomed shadowy and dim on both sides.
+The moonlight played strange tricks with the mesquit and the giant cactus,
+a grove of which gave to the place an awesome aspect of some ghostly
+burial ground of a long vanished tribe.
+
+Next day they reached Saguache. Bucky took his prisoner straight to the
+ranger's office and telephoned to Cullison.
+
+"Don't I get anything to eat?" growled the convict while they waited.
+
+"When I'm ready."
+
+Bucky believed in fair play. The man had not eaten since last night. But
+then neither had he. It happened that Bucky was tough as whipcord, as
+supple and untiring as a hickory sapling. Well, Blackwell was a pretty
+hard nut to crack, too. The lieutenant did not know anything about book
+psychology, but he had observed that hunger and weariness try out the
+stuff that is in a man. Under the sag of them many a will snaps that would
+have held fast if sustained by a good dinner and a sound night's sleep.
+This is why so many "bad men," gun fighters with a reputation for
+gameness, wilt on occasion like whipped curs. In the old days this came to
+nearly every terror of the border. Some day when he had a jumping
+toothache, or when his nerves were frayed from a debauch, a silent
+stranger walked into his presence, looked long and steadily into his eyes,
+and ended forever his reign of lawlessness. Sometimes the two-gun man was
+"planted," sometimes he subsided into innocuous peace henceforth.
+
+The ranger had a shrewd instinct that the hour had come to batter down
+this fellow's dogged resistance. Therefore he sent for Cullison, the man
+whom the convict most feared.
+
+The very look of the cattleman, with that grim, hard, capable aspect,
+shook Blackwell's nerve.
+
+"So you've got him, Bucky."
+
+Luck looked the man over as he sat handcuffed beside the table and read in
+his face both terror and a sly, dogged cunning. Once before the fellow had
+been put through the third degree. Something of the sort he fearfully
+expected now. Villainy is usually not consistent. This hulking bully
+should have been a hardy ruffian. Instead, he shrank like a schoolgirl
+from the thought of physical pain.
+
+"Stand up," ordered Cullison quietly.
+
+Blackwell got to his feet at once. He could not help it, even though the
+fear in his eyes showed that he cowered before the anticipated attack.
+
+"Don't hit me," he whined.
+
+Luck knew the man sweated under the punishment his imagination called up,
+and he understood human nature too well to end the suspense by making real
+the vision. For then the worst would be past, since the actual is never
+equal to what is expected.
+
+"Well?" Luck watched him with the look of tempered steel in his hard
+eyes.
+
+The convict flinched, moistened his lips with his tongue, and spoke at
+last.
+
+"I--I--Mr. Cullison, I want to explain. Every man is liable to make a
+mistake--go off half cocked. I didn't do right. That's a fac'. I can
+explain all that, but I'm sick now--awful sick."
+
+Cullison laughed harshly. "You'll be sicker soon."
+
+"You promised you wouldn't do anything if we turned you loose," the man
+plucked up courage to remind him.
+
+"I promised the law wouldn't do anything. You'll understand the
+distinction presently."
+
+"Mr. Cullison, please---- I admit I done wrong. I hadn't ought to have
+gone in with Cass Fendrick. He wanted me to kill you, but I wouldn't."
+
+With that unwinking gaze the ranchman beat down his lies, while fear
+dripped in perspiration from the pallid face of the prisoner.
+
+Bucky had let Cullison take the center of the stage. He had observed a
+growing distress mount and ride the victim. Now he stepped in to save the
+man with an alternative at which Blackwell might be expected not to snatch
+eagerly perhaps, but at least to be driven toward.
+
+"This man is my prisoner, Mr. Cullison. From what I can make out you ought
+to strip his hide off and hang it up to dry. But I've got first call on
+him. If he comes through with the truth about the W. & S. Express robbery,
+I've got to protect him."
+
+Luck understood the ranger. They were both working toward the same end.
+The immediate punishment of this criminal was not the important issue. It
+was merely a club with which to beat him into submission, and at that a
+moral rather than a physical one. But the owner of the Circle C knew
+better than to yield to Bucky too easily. He fought the point out with him
+at length, and finally yielded reluctantly, in such a way as to aggravate
+rather than relieve the anxiety of the convict.
+
+"All right. You take him first," he finally conceded harshly.
+
+Bucky kept up the comedy. "I'll take him, Mr. Cullison. But if he tells me
+the truth--and if I find out it's the whole truth--there'll be nothing
+doing on your part. He's my prisoner. Understand that."
+
+Metaphorically, Blackwell licked the hand of his protector. He was still
+standing, but his attitude gave the effect of crouching.
+
+"I aim to do what's right, Captain O'Connor. Whatever's right. You ask me
+any questions."
+
+"I want to know all about the W. & S. robbery, everything, from start to
+finish."
+
+"Honest, I wish I could tell you. But I don't know a thing about it. Cross
+my heart, I don't."
+
+"No use, Blackwell. If I'm going to stand by you against Mr. Cullison,
+you'll have to tell the truth. Why, man, I've even got the mask you wore
+and the cloth you cut it from."
+
+"I reckon it must a-been some one else, Major. Wisht I could help you, but
+I can't."
+
+Bucky rose. "All right. If you can't help me, I can't help you."
+Apparently he dismissed the matter from his mind, for he looked at his
+watch and turned to the cattleman. "Mr. Cullison, I reckon I'll run out
+and have some supper. Do you mind staying here with this man till I get
+back?"
+
+"No. That's all right, Bucky. Don't hurry, I'll keep him entertained."
+Perhaps it was not by chance that his eye wandered to a blacksnake whip
+hanging on the wall.
+
+O'Connor sauntered to the door. The frightened gaze of the prisoner clung
+to him as if for safety.
+
+"Major--Colonel--you ain't a-going," he pleaded.
+
+"Only for an hour or two. I'll be back. I wouldn't think of saying
+good-by--not till we reach Yuma."
+
+With that the door closed behind him. Blackwell cried out, hurriedly,
+eagerly. "Mister O'Connor!"
+
+Bucky's head reappeared. "What! Have you reduced me to the ranks already?
+I was looking to be a general by the time I got back," he complained
+whimsically.
+
+"I--I'll tell you everything--every last thing. Mr. Cullison--he's aiming
+to kill me soon as you've gone."
+
+"I've got no time to fool away, Blackwell. I'm hungry. If you mean
+business get to it. But remember that whatever you say will be used
+against you."
+
+"I'll tell you any dog-goned thing you want to know. You've got me beat.
+I'm plumb wore out--sick. A man can't stand everything."
+
+O'Connor came in and closed the door. "Let's have it, then--the whole
+story. I want it all: how you came to know about this shipment of money,
+how you pulled it off, what you have done with it, all the facts from
+beginning to the end."
+
+"Lemme sit down, Captain. I'm awful done up. I reckon while I was in the
+hills I've been underfed."
+
+"Sit down. There's a good dinner waiting for you at Clune's when you get
+through."
+
+Even then, though he must have known that lies could not avail, the man
+sprinkled his story with them. The residuum of truth that remained after
+these had been sifted out was something like this.
+
+He had found on the street a letter that had inadvertently been dropped.
+It was to Jordan of the Cattlemen's National Bank, and it notified him
+that $20,000 was to be shipped to him by the W. & S. Express Company on
+the night of the robbery. Blackwell resolved to have a try for it. He hung
+around the office until the manager and the guard arrived from the train,
+made his raid upon them, locked the door, and threw away his mask. He
+dived with the satchel into the nearest alley, and came face to face with
+the stranger whom he later learned to be Fendrick. The whole story of the
+horse had been a myth later invented by the sheepman to scatter the
+pursuit by making it appear that the robber had come from a distance. As
+the street had been quite deserted at the time this detail could be
+plausibly introduced with no chance of a denial.
+
+Fendrick, who had heard the shouting of the men locked in the express
+office, stopped the robber, but Blackwell broke away and ran down the
+alley. The sheepman followed and caught him. After another scuffle the
+convict again hammered himself free, but left behind the hand satchel
+containing the spoils. Fendrick (so he later explained to Blackwell) tied
+a cord to the handle of the bag and dropped it down the chute of a laundry
+in such a way that it could later be drawn up. Then he hurried back to the
+express office and released the prisoners. After the excitement had
+subsided, he had returned for the money and hid it. The original robber
+did not know where.
+
+Blackwell's second meeting with the sheepman had been almost as startling
+as the first. Cass had run into the Jack of Hearts in time to save the
+life of his enemy. The two men recognized each other and entered into a
+compact to abduct Cullison, for his share in which the older man was paid
+one thousand dollars. The Mexican Dominguez had later appeared on the
+scene, had helped guard the owner of the Circle C, and had assisted in
+taking him to the hut in the Rincons where he had been secreted.
+
+Both men asked the same question as soon as he had finished.
+
+"Where is the money you got from the raid on the W. & S. office?"
+
+"Don't know. I've been at Fendrick ever since to tell me. He's got it
+salted somewhere. You're fixing to put me behind the bars, and he's the
+man that really stole it."
+
+From this they could not shake him. He stuck to it vindictively, for
+plainly his malice against the sheepman was great. The latter had spoiled
+his coup, robbed him of its fruits, and now was letting him go to prison.
+
+"I reckon we'd better have a talk with Cass," Bucky suggested in a low
+voice to the former sheriff.
+
+Luck laughed significantly. "When we find him."
+
+For the sheepman had got out on bail the morning after his arrest.
+
+"We'll find him easily enough. And I rather think he'll have a good
+explanation, even if this fellow's story is true."
+
+"Oh, he'll be loaded with explanations. I don't doubt that for a minute.
+But it will take a hell of a lot of talk to get away from the facts. I've
+got him where I want him now, and by God! I'll make him squeal before the
+finish."
+
+"Oh, well, you're prejudiced," Bucky told him with an amiable smile.
+
+"Course I am; prejudiced as old Wall-eyed Rogers was against the
+vigilantes for hanging him on account of horse stealing. But I'll back my
+prejudices all the same. We'll see I'm right, Bucky."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+BOB TAKES A HAND
+
+
+Fendrick, riding on Mesa Verde, met Bob Cullison, and before he knew what
+had happened found a gun thrown on him.
+
+"Don't you move," the boy warned.
+
+"What does this tommyrot mean?" the sheepman demanded angrily.
+
+"It means that you are coming back with me to the ranch. That's what it
+means."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Never you mind what for."
+
+"Oh, go to Mexico," Cass flung back impatiently. "Think we're in some fool
+moving-picture play, you blamed young idiot. Put up that gun."
+
+Shrilly Bob retorted. He was excited enough to be dangerous. "Don't you
+get the wrong idea. I'm going to make this stick. You'll turn and go back
+with me to the Circle C."
+
+"And you'll travel to Yuma first thing you know, you young Jesse James.
+What _you_ need is a pair of leather chaps applied to your hide."
+
+"You'll go home with me, just the same."
+
+"You've got one more guess coming, kid. I'll not go without knowing why."
+
+"You're wanted for the W. & S. Express robbery. Blackwell has confessed."
+
+"Confessed that I did it?" Fendrick inquired scornfully.
+
+"Says you were in it with him. I ain't a-going to discuss it with you.
+Swing that horse round; and don't make any breaks, or there'll be mourning
+at the C. F. ranch."
+
+Cass sat immovable as the sphinx. He was thinking that he might as well
+face the charge now as any time. Moreover, he had reasons for wanting to
+visit the Circle C. They had to do with a tall, slim girl who never looked
+at him without scorn in her dark, flashing eyes.
+
+"All right. I'll go back with you, but not under a gun."
+
+"You'll go the way I say."
+
+"Don't think it. I've said I'll go. That settles it. But I won't stand for
+any gun-play capture."
+
+"You'll have to stand for it."
+
+Fendrick's face set. "Will I? It's up to you, then. Let's see you make
+me."
+
+Sitting there with his gaze steadily on the boy, Cass had Bob at a
+disadvantage. If the sheep owner had tried to break away into the
+chaparral. Bob could have blazed away at him, but he could not shoot a man
+looking at him with cynical, amused eyes. He could understand the point of
+view of his adversary. If Fendrick rode into the Circle C under compulsion
+of a gun in the hands of a boy he would never hear the end of the laugh on
+him.
+
+"You won't try to light out, will you?"
+
+"I've got no notion of lighting out."
+
+Bob put up his big blue gun reluctantly. Never before had it been trained
+on a human being, and it was a wrench to give up the thought of bringing
+in the enemy as a prisoner. But he saw he could not pull it off. Fendrick
+had declined to scare, had practically laughed him out of it. The boy had
+not meant his command as a bluff, but Cass knew him better than he did
+himself.
+
+They turned toward the Circle C.
+
+"Must have been taking lessons on how to bend a gun. You in training for
+sheriff, or are you going to take Bucky's place with the rangers?"
+Fendrick asked with casual impudence, malicious amusement gleaming from
+his lazy eyes.
+
+Bob, very red about the ears, took refuge in a sulky silence. He was being
+guyed, and not by an inch did he propose to compromise the Cullison
+dignity.
+
+"From the way you go at it, I figure you an old hand at the hold-up game.
+Wonder if you didn't pull off the W. & S. raid yourself."
+
+Bob writhed impotently. At this sort of thing he was no match for the
+other. Fendrick, now in the best of humors, planted lazily his offhand
+barbs.
+
+Kate was seated on the porch sewing. She rose in surprise when her cousin
+and the sheepman appeared. They came with jingling spurs across the plaza
+toward her. Bob was red as a turkeycock, but Fendrick wore his most
+devil-may-care insouciance.
+
+"Where's Uncle Luck, sis? I've brought this fellow back with me. Caught
+him on the mesa," explained the boy sulkily.
+
+Fendrick bowed rather extravagantly and flashed at the girl a smiling
+double-row of strong white teeth. "He's qualifying for a moving-picture
+show actor, Miss Cullison. I hadn't the heart to disappoint him when he
+got that cannon trained on me. So here I am."
+
+Kate looked at him and then let her gaze travel to her cousin. She somehow
+gave the effect of judging him of negligible value.
+
+"I think he's in his office, Bob. I'll go see."
+
+She went swiftly, and presently her father came out. Kate did not return.
+
+Luck looked straight at Cass with the uncompromising hostility so
+characteristic of him. Neither of the men spoke. It was Bob who made the
+necessary explanations. The sheepman heard them with a polite derision
+that suggested an impersonal amusement at the situation.
+
+"I've been looking for you," Luck said bluntly, after his nephew had
+finished.
+
+"So I gathered from young Jesse James. He intimated it over the long blue
+barrel of his cannon. Anything particular, or just a pleasant social
+call?"
+
+"You're in bad on this W. & S. robbery. I reckoned you would be safer in
+jail till it's cleared up."
+
+"You still sheriff, Mr. Cullison? Somehow I had got a notion you had quit
+the job."
+
+"I'm an interested party. There's new evidence, not manufactured,
+either."
+
+"Well, well!"
+
+"We'll take the stage into town and see what O'Connor says--that is, if
+you've got time to go." Luck could be as formal in his sarcasm as his
+neighbor.
+
+"With such good company on the way I'll have to make time."
+
+The stage did not usually leave till about half past one. Presently Kate
+announced dinner. A little awkwardly Luck invited the sheepman to join
+them. Fendrick declined. He was a Fletcherite, he informed Cullison
+ironically, and was in the habit of missing meals occasionally. This would
+be one of the times.
+
+His host hung in the doorway. Seldom at a loss to express himself, he did
+not quite know how to put into words what he was thinking. His enemy
+understood.
+
+"That's all right. You've satisfied the demands of hospitality. Go eat
+your dinner. I'll be right here on the porch when you get through."
+
+Kate, who was standing beside her father, spoke quietly.
+
+"There's a place for you, Mr. Fendrick. We should be very pleased to have
+you join us. People who happen to be at the Circle C at dinner time are
+expected to eat here."
+
+"Come and eat, man. You'll be under no obligations. I reckon you can hate
+us, just as thorough after a square meal as before. Besides, I was your
+guest for several days."
+
+Fendrick looked at the young mistress of the ranch. He meant to decline
+once more, but unaccountably found himself accepting instead. Something in
+her face told him she would rather have it so.
+
+Wherefore Cass found himself with his feet under the table of his foe
+discussing various topics that had nothing to do with sheep, homestead
+claims, abductions, or express robberies. He looked at Kate but rarely,
+yet he was aware of her all the time. At his ranch a Mexican did the
+cooking in haphazard fashion. The food was ill prepared and worse served.
+He ate only because it was a necessity, and he made as short a business of
+it as he could. Here were cut roses on a snowy tablecloth, an air of
+leisure that implied the object of dinner to be something more than to
+devour a given quantity of food. Moreover, the food had a flavor that made
+it palatable. The rib roast was done to a turn, the mashed potatoes
+whipped to a flaky lightness. The vegetable salad was a triumph, and the
+rice custard melted in his mouth.
+
+Presently a young man came into the dining room and sat down beside Kate.
+He looked the least in the world surprised at sight of the sheepman.
+
+"Mornin', Cass," he nodded
+
+"Morning, Curly," answered Fendrick. "Didn't know you were riding for the
+Circle C."
+
+"He's my foreman," Luck explained.
+
+Cass observed that he was quite one of the family. Bob admired him openly
+and without shame, because he was the best rider in Arizona; Kate seemed
+to be on the best of terms with him, and Luck treated him with the offhand
+bluffness he might have used toward a grown son.
+
+If Cass had, in his bitter, sardonic fashion, been interested in Kate
+before he sat down, the feeling had quickened to something different
+before he rose. It was not only that she was competent to devise such a
+meal in the desert. There was something else. She had made a _home_ for
+her father and cousin at the Circle C. The place radiated love,
+domesticity, kindly good fellowship. The casual give and take of the
+friendly talk went straight to the heart of the sheepman. This was living.
+It came to him poignantly that in his scramble for wealth he had missed
+that which was of far greater importance.
+
+The stage brought the two men to town shortly after sundown. Luck called
+up O'Connor, and made an appointment to meet him after supper.
+
+"Back again, Bucky," Fendrick grinned at sight of the ranger. "I hear I'm
+suspected of being a bad hold-up."
+
+"There's a matter that needs explaining, Cass. According to Blackwell's
+story, you caught him with the goods at the time of the robbery, and in
+making his getaway he left the loot with you. What have you done with
+it?"
+
+"Blackwell told you that, did he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Don't doubt your word for a moment, Bucky, but before I do any talking
+I'd like to hear him say so. I'll not round on him until I know he's given
+himself away."
+
+The convict was sent for. He substantiated the ranger reluctantly. He was
+so hemmed in that he did not know how to play his cards so as to make the
+most of them. He hated Fendrick. But much as he desired to convict him, he
+could not escape an uneasy feeling that he was going to be made the
+victim. For Cass took it with that sarcastic smile of his that mocked them
+all in turn. The convict trusted none of them. Already he felt the
+penitentiary walls closing on him. He was like a trapped coyote, ready to
+snarl and bite at the first hand he could reach. Just now this happened to
+belong to Fendrick, who had cheated him out of the money he had stolen and
+had brought this upon him.
+
+Cass heard him out with a lifted upper lip and his most somnolent
+tiger-cat expression. After Blackwell had finished and been withdrawn from
+circulation he rolled and lit a cigarette.
+
+"By Mr. Blackwell's say-so I'm the goat. By the way, has it ever occurred
+to you gentlemen that one can't be convicted on the testimony of a single
+accomplice?" He asked it casually, his chair tipped back, smoke wreaths
+drifting lazily ceilingward.
+
+"We've got a little circumstantial evidence to add, Cass." Bucky suggested
+pleasantly.
+
+"Not enough--not nearly enough."
+
+"That will be for a jury to decide," Cullison chipped in.
+
+Fendrick shrugged. "I've a notion to let it go to that. But what's the
+use? Understand this. I wasn't going to give Blackwell away, but since he
+has talked, I may tell what I know. It's true enough what he says. I did
+relieve him of the plunder."
+
+"Sorry to hear that, Cass," Bucky commented gravely. "What did you do with
+it?"
+
+The sheep owner flicked his cigarette ash into the tray, and looked at the
+lieutenant out of half-shuttered, indolent eyes. "Gave it to you, Bucky."
+
+O'Connor sat up. His blue Irish eyes were dancing. "You're a cool
+customer, Cass."
+
+"Fact, just the same. Got that letter I handed you the other day?"
+
+The officer produced it from his safe.
+
+"Open it."
+
+With a paper knife Bucky ripped the flap and took out a sheet of paper.
+
+"There's something else in there," Fendrick suggested.
+
+The something else proved to be a piece of paper folded tightly, which
+being opened disclosed a key.
+
+O'Connor read aloud the letter:
+
+  To Nicholas Bolt, Sheriff, Or Bucky O'connor, Lieutenant of Rangers:
+
+  Having come into possession of a little valise which is not mine, I
+  am getting rid of it in the following manner. I have rented a large
+  safety-deposit box at the Cattlemen's National Bank, and have put
+  into it the valise with the lock still unbroken. The key is inclosed
+  herewith. Shaw, the cashier, will tell you that when this box was
+  rented I gave explicit orders it should be opened only by the men
+  whose names are given in an envelope left with him, not even
+  excepting myself. The valise was deposited at exactly 10:30 A. M. the
+  morning after the robbery, as Mr. Shaw will also testify. I am
+  writing this the evening of the same day.
+
+  Cass Fendrick.
+
+"Don't believe a word of it," Cullison exploded.
+
+"Seeing is believing," the sheepman murmured. He was enjoying greatly the
+discomfiture of his foe.
+
+"Makes a likely fairy tale. What for would you keep the money and not turn
+it back?"
+
+"That's an easy one, Luck. He wanted to throw the burden of the robbery on
+you," Bucky explained.
+
+"Well, I've got to be shown."
+
+In the morning he was shown. Shaw confirmed exactly what Fendrick had
+said. He produced a sealed envelope. Within this was a sheet of paper,
+upon which were written two lines.
+
+  Box 2143 is to be opened only by Sheriff Bolt or Lieutenant Bucky
+  O'Connor of the Rangers, and before witnesses.
+
+  CASS FENDRICK.
+
+From the safety-deposit vault Bucky drew a large package wrapped in yellow
+paper. He cut the string, tore away the covering, and disclosed a leather
+satchel. Perry Hawley, the local manager of the Western & Southern Express
+Company, fitted to this a key and took out a sealed bundle. This he ripped
+open before them all. Inside was found the sum of twenty thousand dollars
+in crisp new bills.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A CLEAN UP
+
+
+A slight accident occurred at the jail, one so unimportant that Scanlan
+the jailer did not think it worth reporting to his chief. Blackwell, while
+eating, knocked a glass from the table and broke it on the cement floor of
+his cell. There is a legend to the effect that for want of a nail a battle
+was lost. By reason of a bit of glass secreted in his bed something quite
+as important happened to the convict.
+
+From the little table in his room he pried loose one of the corner braces.
+At night he scraped away at this with his bit of glass until the wood
+began to take the shape of a revolver. This he carefully blacked with the
+ink brought him by his guard. To the end of his weapon he fitted an iron
+washer taken from the bedstead. Then he waited for his opportunity.
+
+His chance came through the good nature of Scanlan. The jailer was in the
+habit of going down town to loaf for an hour or two with old cronies after
+he had locked up for the night. Blackwell pretended to be out of chewing
+tobacco and asked the guard to buy him some. About ten o'clock Scanlan
+returned and brought the tobacco to his prisoner. The moon was shining
+brightly, and he did not bring a lantern with him. As he passed the plug
+through the grating Blackwell's fingers closed around his wrist and drew
+the man close to the iron lattice work. Simultaneously a cold rim was
+pressed against the temple of the guard.
+
+"Don't move, or I'll fill you full of holes," the convict warned.
+
+Scanlan did not move, not until the man in the cell gave the word. Then he
+obeyed orders to the letter. His right hand found the bunch of keys,
+fitted the correct one to the door, and unlocked it according to
+instructions. Not until he was relieved of his weapon did Blackwell
+release him. The jailer was backed into the cell, gagged with a piece of
+torn bedding, and left locked up as securely as the other had been a few
+minutes earlier.
+
+The convict made his way downstairs, opened the outer door with the bunch
+of keys he had taken from Scanlan, locked it behind him, and slipped into
+the first alley that offered refuge. By way of the Mexican quarters he
+reached the suburbs and open country. Two hours later he stole a horse
+from an irrigated ranch near town. Within twenty-four hours he had reached
+the Soapy Stone horse ranch and safety.
+
+After this the plans for the raid on the Texas, Arizona & Pacific Flyer
+moved swiftly to a head. Soapy Stone and Sam dropped into Saguache
+inconspicuously one evening. Next day Stone rode down to Tin Cup to look
+over the ground. Maloney telephoned their movements to the Circle C and to
+the Hashknife. This brought to Saguache Luck Cullison, Curly Flandrau, and
+Slats Davis. Bucky O'Connor had been called to Douglas on important
+business and could not lend his help.
+
+Curly met Sam in front of Chalkeye's Place. They did the town together in
+a mild fashion and Flandrau proposed that they save money by taking a
+common room. To this young Cullison agreed.
+
+Luck, Curly and Dick Maloney had already ridden over the country
+surrounding the scene of the projected hold-up. They had decided that the
+robbery would probably take place at the depot, so that the outlaws could
+get the agent to stop the Flyer without arousing suspicion. In a pocket of
+the hills back of the station a camp had been selected, its site well back
+from any trail and so situated that from it one could command a view of
+Tin Cup.
+
+The owner of the Circle C selected three of his closemouthed
+riders--Sweeney, Jake and Buck were the ones he chose--to hold the camp
+with him until after the robbery. The only signal they needed was the
+stopping of the Flyer at Tin Cup. Then they would come pounding down from
+the hills in time to catch the robbers before they had got through with
+their work. Maloney or Curly would be on the train to take a hand in the
+battle. Caught by surprise, Soapy's gang would surely be trapped.
+
+So they planned it, but it happened that Soapy Stone had made his
+arrangements differently.
+
+Luck and his riders took their blankets and their traps down to Tin Cup
+according to agreement, while Davis, Maloney and Flandrau looked after the
+Saguache end of the business. All of them were very friendly with Sam. The
+boy, younger than any of them, was flattered that three of the best known
+riders in the territory should make so much of him. Moreover, Stone had
+given him instructions to mix with Curly's crowd as much as he could. He
+had given as a reason that it would divert suspicion, but what he really
+wanted was to throw the blame of the hold-up on these friends after Sam
+was found dead on the scene.
+
+Young Cullison had stopped drinking, but he could not keep his nerves from
+jumping. His companions pretended not to notice how worried he was, but
+they watched him so closely that he was never out of the sight of at least
+one of them. Soapy had decreed the boy's death by treachery, but his
+friends were determined to save him and to end forever the reign of Stone
+as a bad man.
+
+It was one day when the four young cowpunchers were sitting together in
+Curly's room playing poker that a special delivery letter came to Sam. The
+others, to cover their excitement, started an argument as to whether five
+aces (they were playing with the joker) beat a straight flush. Presently
+Sam spoke, as indifferently as he could.
+
+"Got the offer of a job down the line. Think I'll run down to-night far as
+Casa Grande and see what's doing."
+
+"If they need any extra riders here's some more out of a job," Dick told
+him.
+
+"Heard to-day of a freighter that wants a mule-skinner. I'm going to see
+him to-morrow," Slats chipped in.
+
+"Darn this looking for a job anyhow. It's tur'ble slow work," Curly
+followed up, yawning. "Well, here's hoping you land yours, Sam."
+
+This was about two o'clock in the afternoon. The game dragged on for a
+while, but nobody took any interest in it. Sam had to get ready for the
+work of the night, and the rest were anxious to get out and give him a
+chance. So presently Dick threw down his cards.
+
+"I've had enough poker for one session. Me, I'm going to drift out and see
+what's moving in town."
+
+"Think I'll snooze for a while," Sam said, stretching sleepily.
+
+The others trooped out and left him alone. From the room rented by Davis
+the three watched to see that Sam did not leave without being observed. He
+did not appear, and about six o'clock Curly went back to his room.
+
+"Time to grub," he sang out.
+
+"That's right," Sam agreed.
+
+They went to the New Orleans Hash House, and presently Davis and Maloney
+also arrived. The party ordered a good dinner and took plenty of time to
+eat it. Sam was obviously nervous, but eager to cover his uneasiness under
+a show of good spirits.
+
+Curly finished eating just as Sam's second cup of coffee came. Flandrau,
+who had purposely chosen a seat in the corner where he was hemmed in by
+the chairs of the others, began to feel in his vest pockets.
+
+"Darned if I've got a cigar. Sam, you're young and nimble. Go buy me one
+at the counter."
+
+"Sure." Cullison was away on the instant.
+
+Curly's hand came out of his pocket. In it was a paper. Quickly he shook
+the contents of the paper into the steaming cup of coffee and stirred the
+liquid with a spoon.
+
+Sam brought back the cigar and drank his coffee. Without any unnecessary
+delay they returned to his room. Before the party had climbed the stairs
+the boy was getting drowsy.
+
+"Dunno what's the matter with me. I'm feeling awful sleepy," he said,
+sitting on the bed.
+
+"Why don't you take a snooze? You've got lots of time before the train
+goes."
+
+"No, I don't reckon I better."
+
+He rubbed his eyes, yawned, and slumped down. His lids wavered, shut,
+jerked open again, and closed slowly.
+
+"Wake me, Curly--time for train." And with that he was sound asleep.
+
+They took off his boots and settled him comfortably. In his pocket they
+found a black mask big enough to cover his whole face. The registered
+letter could not be found and they decided he must have destroyed it.
+
+The sight of the mask had given Curly an idea. He was of about the same
+build as Sam. Why not go in his place? It would be worth doing just to
+catch sight of Soapy's face when he took the mask off after the robbers
+had been captured.
+
+"What's the use?" Davis protested. "It's an unnecessary risk. They might
+shoot you in place of Sam."
+
+"I'll look out for myself. Don't worry about that. Before the time for
+getting rid of Sam comes Mr. Soapy and his bunch will be prisoners."
+
+They argued it out, but Curly was set and could not be moved. He dressed
+in young Cullison's clothes and with Maloney took the express at 9:57.
+Davis remained to guard Sam.
+
+Curly's watch showed 10:17 when the wheels began to grind from the setting
+of the air brakes. He was in the last sleeper, Dick in the day coach near
+the front. They had agreed that Dick was to drop off as soon as the train
+slowed down enough to make it safe, whereas Curly would go on and play
+Sam's part until the proper time.
+
+The train almost slid to a halt from the pressure of the hard-jammed
+brakes. A volley of shots rang out. Curly slipped the mask over his face
+and rose with a revolver in each hand. He had been sitting at the end of
+the car, so that nobody noticed him until his voice rang out with a crisp
+order.
+
+"Hands up! Don't anybody move!"
+
+An earthquake shock could not have alarmed the passengers more. The color
+was washed completely from the faces of most of them.
+
+"Reach for the roof. Come, punch a hole in the sky!" To do it thoroughly,
+Curly flung a couple of shots through the ceiling. That was enough. Hands
+went up without any argument, most of them quivering as from an Arkansas
+chill.
+
+Presently Cranston herded the passengers in from the forward coaches. With
+them were most of the train crew. The front door of the car was locked so
+that they could not easily get out.
+
+"We're cutting off the express car and going forward to 'Dobe Wells with
+it. There we can blow open the safe uninterrupted," Bad Bill explained.
+"You ride herd on the passengers here from the outside till you hear two
+shots, then hump yourself forward and hop on the express car."
+
+Fine! Curly was to stand out there in the moonlight and let anybody in the
+car that had the nerve pepper away at him. If they did not attend to the
+job of riddling him, his false friends would do it while he was running
+forward to get aboard. Nothing could have been simpler--if he had not
+happened to have had inside information of their intent.
+
+He had to think quickly, for the plans of him and his friends had been
+deranged. They had reckoned on the express car being rifled on the spot.
+This would have given Cullison time to reach the scene of action. Mow they
+would be too late. Maloney, lying snugly in the bear grass beside the
+track, would not be informed as to the arrangement. Unless Curly could
+stop it, the hold-up would go through according to the program of Soapy
+and not of his enemies.
+
+The decision of Flamdrau was instantaneous. He slid down beside the track
+into the long grass. Whipping up one of his guns, he fired. As if in
+answer to the first shot his revolver cracked twice. Simultaneously, he
+let out a cry of pain, wriggled back for a dozen yards through the grass,
+and crossed the track in the darkness. As he crouched down close to the
+wheels of the sleeper someone came running back on the other side.
+
+"What's up, Sam? You hit?" he could hear Blackwell whisper.
+
+No answer came. The paroled convict was standing close to the car for fear
+of being hit himself and he dared not move forward into the grass to
+investigate.
+
+"Sam," he called again; then, "He's sure got his."
+
+That was all Curly wanted to know. Softly he padded forward, keeping as
+low as he could till he reached the empty sleepers. A brakeman was just
+uncoupling the express car when Curly dived underneath and nestled close
+to the trucks.
+
+From where he lay he could almost have reached out and touched Soapy
+standing by the car.
+
+"What about the kid?" Stone asked Blackwell as the latter came up.
+
+"They got him. Didn't you hear him yelp?"
+
+"Yes, but did they put him out of business? See his body?"
+
+Blackwell had no intention of going back into the fire zone and making
+sure. For his part he was satisfied. So he lied.
+
+"Yep. Blew the top of his head off."
+
+"Good," Soapy nodded. "That's a receipt in full for Mr. Luck Cullison."
+
+The wheels began to move. Soon they were hitting only the high spots.
+Curly guessed they must be doing close to sixty miles an hour. Down where
+he was the dust was flying so thickly he could scarce breathe, as it
+usually does on an Arizona track in the middle of summer.
+
+Before many minutes the engine began to slow down. The wheels had hardly
+stopped moving when Curly crept out, plowed through the sand, up the
+rubble of a little hill, and into a draw where a bunch of scrub oaks
+offered cover.
+
+A voice from in front called to him. Just then the moon appeared from
+behind drifting clouds.
+
+"Oh, it's you, Sam. Everything all right?"
+
+"Right as the wheat. We're blowing open the safe now," Flandrau answered.
+
+Moving closer, he saw that his questioner was the man in charge of the
+horses. Though he knew the voice, he could not put a name to its owner.
+But this was not the point that first occupied his mind. _There were only
+four horses for five riders._ Curly knew now that he had not been
+mistaken. Soapy had expected one of his allies to stay on the field of
+battle, had prepared for it from the beginning. The knowledge of this
+froze any remorse the young _vaquero_ might have felt.
+
+He pushed his revolver against the teeth of the horse wrangler.
+
+"Don't move, you bandy-legged maverick, or I'll fill your hide full of
+holes. And if you want to keep on living padlock that mouth of yours."
+
+In spite of his surprise the man caught the point at once. He turned over
+his weapons without a word.
+
+Curly unwound a rope from one of the saddles and dropped a loop round the
+neck of his prisoner. The two men mounted and rode out of the draw, the
+outlaw leading the other two horses. As soon as they reached the bluff
+above Flandrau outlined the next step in the program.
+
+"We'll stay here in the _tornilla_ and see what happens, my friend. Unless
+you've a fancy to get lead poisoning keep still."
+
+"Who in Mexico are you?" the captured man asked.
+
+"It's your showdown. Skin off that mask."
+
+The man hesitated. His own revolver moved a few inches toward his head.
+Hastily he took off the mask. The moon shone on the face of the man called
+Dutch. Flandrau laughed. Last time they had met Curly had a rope around
+his neck. Now the situation was reversed.
+
+An explosion below told them that the robbers had blown open the safe.
+Presently Soapy's voice came faintly to them.
+
+"Bring up the horses."
+
+He called again, and a third time. The dwarfed figures of the outlaws
+stood out clear in the moonlight. One of them ran up the track toward the
+draw. He disappeared into the scrub oaks, from whence his alarmed voice
+came in a minute.
+
+"Dutch! Oh, Dutch!"
+
+The revolver rim pressed a little harder against the bridge of the horse
+wrangler's nose.
+
+"He ain't here," Blackwell called back to his accomplices.
+
+That brought Stone on the run. "You condemned idiot, he _must_ be there.
+Ain't he had two hours to get here since he left Tin Cup?"
+
+They shouted themselves hoarse. They wandered up and down in a vain
+search. All the time Curly and his prisoner sat in the brush and scarcely
+batted an eye.
+
+At last Soapy gave up the hunt. The engine and the express car were sent
+back to join the rest of the train and as soon as they were out of sight
+the robbers set out across country toward the Flatiron ranch.
+
+Curly guessed their intentions. They would rustle horses there and head
+for the border. It was the only chance still left them.
+
+After they had gone Curly and his prisoner returned to the road and set
+out toward Tin Cup. About a mile and a half up the line they met Cullison
+and his riders on the way down. Maloney was with them. He had been picked
+up at the station.
+
+Dick gave a shout of joy when he heard Flandrau's voice.
+
+"Oh, you Curly! I've been scared stiff for fear they'd got you."
+
+Luck caught the boy's hand and wrung it hard. "You plucky young idiot,
+you've got sand in your craw. What the deuce did you do it for?"
+
+They held a conference while the Circle C riders handcuffed Dutch and tied
+him to a horse. Soon the posse was off again, having left the prisoner in
+charge of one of the men. They swung round in a wide half circle, not
+wishing to startle their game until the proper time. The horses pounded up
+hills, slid into washes, and plowed through sand on a Spanish trot,
+sometimes in the moonlight, more often in darkness. The going was rough,
+but they could not afford to slacken speed.
+
+When they reached the edge of the mesa that looked down on the Flatiron
+the moon was out and the valley was swimming in light. They followed the
+dip of a road that led down to the corral. Passing the fenced lane leading
+to the stable, they tied their ponies inside and took the places assigned
+to them by Cullison.
+
+They had not long to wait. In less than half an hour three shadowy figures
+slipped round the edge of the corral and up the lane. Each of them carried
+a rifle in addition to his hip guns.
+
+They slid into the open end of the stable. Cullison's voice rang out
+coldly.
+
+"Drop your guns!"
+
+A startled oath, a shot, and before one could have lifted a hand that
+silent moonlit valley of peace had become a battlefield.
+
+The outlaws fell back from the stable, weapons smoking furiously.
+Blackwell broke into a run, never looking behind him, but Soapy and Bad
+Bill gave back foot by foot fighting every step of the way.
+
+Dick and Curly rose from behind the rocks where they had been placed and
+closed the trap on Blackwell. The paroled convict let out one yell.
+
+"I give up. Goddlemighty, don't shoot!"
+
+His rifle he had already thrown away. With his arms reaching above him,
+his terror-stricken eyes popping from his head, he was a picture of the
+most frightened "bad man" who had ever done business in Arizona.
+
+Half way down the lane Cranston was hit. He sank to his knees, and from
+there lopped over sideways to his left elbow. In the darkness his voice
+could be heard, for the firing had momentarily ceased.
+
+"They've got me, Soapy. Run for it. I'll hold 'em back."
+
+"Hit bad, Bill?"
+
+"I'm all in. _Vamos!_"
+
+Stone turned to run, and for the first time saw that his retreat was cut
+off. As fast as he could pump the lever his rifle began working again.
+
+The firing this time did not last more than five seconds. When the smoke
+cleared it was all over. Soapy lay on his back, shot through and through.
+Blackwell had taken advantage of the diversion to crawl through the
+strands of barbed wire and to disappear in the chaparral. Bill had rolled
+over on his face.
+
+Curly crept through the fence after the escaping man, but in that heavy
+undergrowth he knew it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. After
+a time he gave it up and returned to the field of battle.
+
+Dick was bending over Stone. He looked up at the approach of his friend
+and said just one word.
+
+"Dead."
+
+Cullison had torn open Cranston's shirt and was examining his wounds.
+
+"No use, Luck. I've got a-plenty. You sure fooled us thorough. Was it Sam
+gave us away?"
+
+"No, Bill. Curly overheard Soapy and Blackwell at Chalkeye's Place. Sam
+stood pat, though you were planning to murder him."
+
+"I wasn't in on that, Luck--didn't know a thing about it till after the
+boy was shot. I wouldn't a-stood for it."
+
+"He wasn't shot. Curly saved him. He had to give you away to do it."
+
+"Good enough. Serves Soapy right for double crossing Sam. Take care of
+that kid, Luck. He's all right yet." His eye fell on Flandrau. "You're a
+game sport, son. You beat us all. No hard feelings."
+
+"Sorry it had to be this way, Bill."
+
+The dying man was already gray to the lips, but his nerve did not falter.
+"It had to come some time. And it was Luck ought to have done it too." He
+waved aside Sweeney, who was holding a flask to his lips. "What's the use?
+I've got mine."
+
+"Shall we take him to the house?" Maloney asked.
+
+"No. I'll die in the open. Say, there's something else, boys. Curly has
+been accused of that Bar Double M horse rustling back in the early summer.
+I did that job. He was not one of us. You hear, boys. Curly was not in
+it."
+
+A quarter of an hour later he died. He had lied to save from the
+penitentiary the lad who had brought about his death. Curly knew why he
+had done it--because he felt himself to blame for the affair. Maybe Bad
+Bill had been a desperado, a miscreant according to the usual standard,
+but when it came to dying he knew how to go better than many a respectable
+citizen. Curly stole off into the darkness so that the boys would not see
+him play the baby.
+
+By this time the men from the Flatiron were appearing, armed with such
+weapons as they could hastily gather. The situation was explained to them.
+Neighboring ranches were called up by telephone and a systematic hunt
+started to capture Blackwell.
+
+Luck left his three riders to help in the man hunt, but he returned with
+Curly and Maloney to Saguache. On the pommel of his saddle was a sack. It
+contained the loot from the express car of the Flyer. Two lives already
+had been sacrificed to get it, and the sum total taken amounted only to
+one hundred ninety-four dollars and sixteen cents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE PRODIGAL SON
+
+
+They found the prodigal son with his sister and Laura London at the Del
+Mar. Repentance was writ large all over his face and manner. From Davis
+and from the girls he had heard the story of how Soapy Stone had intended
+to destroy him. His scheme of life had been broken into pieces and he was
+a badly shaken young scamp.
+
+When Luck and Curly came into the room he jumped up, very white about the
+lips.
+
+"Father!"
+
+"My boy!"
+
+Cullison had him by the hand, one arm around the shaking shoulders.
+
+"What----what----?"
+
+Sam's question broke down, but his father guessed it.
+
+"Soapy and Bad Bill were killed, Dutch is a prisoner, and Blackwell
+escaped. All Spring Valley is out after him."
+
+The boy was aghast. "My God!"
+
+"Best thing for all of us. Soapy meant to murder you. If it hadn't been
+for Curly----"
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"No question about it. He brought no horse for you to ride away on. Bill
+admitted it, though he didn't know what was planned. Curly heard Soapy ask
+Blackwell whether he had seen your body."
+
+The boy shuddered and drew a long sobbing, breath. "I've been a fool,
+Father--and worse."
+
+"Forget it, son. We'll wipe the slate clean. I've been to blame too."
+
+It was no place for outsiders. Curly beat a retreat into the next room.
+The young women followed him. Both of them were frankly weeping. Arms
+twined about each other's waists, they disappeared into an adjoining
+bedroom.
+
+"Don't go," Kate called to him over her shoulder.
+
+Curly sat down and waited. Presently Kate came back alone. Her shining
+eyes met his.
+
+"I never was so happy in all my life before. Tell me what
+happened--everything please."
+
+As much as was good for her to know Curly told. Without saying a word she
+listened till he was through. Then she asked a question.
+
+"Won't Dutch tell about Sam being in it?"
+
+"Don't matter if he does. Evidence of an accomplice not enough to convict.
+Soapy overshot himself. I'm here to testify that Sam and he quarrelled
+before Sam left. Besides, Dutch won't talk. I drilled it into him thorough
+that he'd better take his medicine without bringing Sam in."
+
+She sat for a long time looking out of the window without moving. She did
+not make the least sound, but the young man knew she was crying softly to
+herself. At last she spoke in a low sweet voice.
+
+"What can we do for you? First you save Father and then Sam. You risked
+everything for my brother--to win him back to us, to save his life and now
+his reputation. If you had been killed people would always have believed
+you were one of the gang."
+
+"Sho! That's nonsense, Miss Kate." He twisted his hat in his hand
+uneasily. "Honest, I enjoyed every bit of it. And a fellow has to pay his
+debts."
+
+"Was that why you did it?" she asked softly.
+
+"Yes. I had to make good. I had to show your father and you that I had not
+thrown away all your kindness. So I quit travelling that downhill road on
+which I had got started."
+
+"I'm glad--I'm so glad." She whispered it so low he could hardly hear.
+
+"There was one way to prove myself. That was to stand between Sam and
+trouble. So I butted in and spoiled Soapy's game."
+
+"I wish I could tell you how fine Father thinks it was of you. He doesn't
+speak of it much, but I know."
+
+"Nothing to what I did--nothing at all." A wave of embarrassment had crept
+to the roots of his curly hair. "Just because a fellow--Oh, shucks!"
+
+"That's all very well for you to say, but you can't help us thinking what
+we please."
+
+"But that ain't right. I don't want you thinking things that ain't so
+because----"
+
+"Yes? Because----?"
+
+She lifted her eyes and met his. Then she knew it had to come out, that
+the feeling banked in him would overflow in words.
+
+"Because you're the girl I love."
+
+He had not intended to say it now, lest he might seem to be urging his
+services as a claim upon her. But the words had slipped out in spite of
+him.
+
+She held out her two hands to him with a little gesture of surrender. The
+light of love was in her starry eyes.
+
+And then----
+
+She was in his arms, and the kisses he had dreamed about were on his
+lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+CUTTING TRAIL
+
+
+Kate Cullison had disappeared, had gone out riding one morning and at
+nightfall had not returned. As the hours passed, anxiety at the Circle C
+became greater.
+
+"Mebbe she got lost," Bob suggested.
+
+Her father scouted this as absurd. "Lost nothing. You couldn't lose her
+within forty miles of the ranch. She knows this country like a cow does
+the range. And say she was lost--all she would have to do would be to give
+that pinto his head and he'd hit a bee line for home. No, nor she ain't
+had an accident either, unless it included the pony too."
+
+"You don't reckon a cougar----," began Sweeney, and stopped.
+
+Luck looked at his bandy-legged old rider with eyes in which little cold
+devils sparkled. "A human cougar, I'll bet. This time I'll take his hide
+off inch by inch while he's still living."
+
+"You thinking of Fendrick?" asked Sam.
+
+"You've said it."
+
+Sweeney considered, rasping his stubbly chin. "I don't reckon Cass would
+do Miss Kate a meanness. He's a white man, say the worst of him. But it
+might be Blackwell. When last seen he was heading into the hills. If he
+met her----"
+
+A spasm of pain shot across Luck's face. "My God! That would be awful."
+
+"By Gum, there he is now, Luck." Sweeney's finger pointed to an advancing
+rider.
+
+Cullison swung as on a pivot in time to see someone drop into the dip in
+the road, just beyond the corral. "Who--Blackwell?"
+
+"No. Cass."
+
+Fendrick reappeared presently and turned in at the lane. Cullison,
+standing on the porch at the head of the steps looked like a man who was
+passing through the inferno. But he looked too a personified day of
+judgment untempered by mercy. His eyes bored like steel gimlets into those
+of his enemy.
+
+The sheepman spoke, looking straight at his foe. "I've just heard the
+news. I was down at Yesler's ranch when you 'phoned asking if they had
+seen anything of Miss Cullison. I came up to ask you one question. When
+was she seen last?"
+
+"About ten o'clock this morning. Why?"
+
+"I saw her about noon. She was on Mesa Verde, headed for Blue Caņon looked
+like."
+
+"Close enough to speak to her?" Sam asked.
+
+"Yes. We passed the time of day."
+
+"And then?" Luck cut back into the conversation with a voice like a file.
+
+"She went on toward the gulch and I kept on to the ranch. The last I saw
+of her she was going straight on."
+
+"And you haven't seen her since?"
+
+The manner of the questioner startled Fendrick. "God, man, you don't think
+I'm in this, do you?"
+
+"If you are you'd better blow your brains out before I learn it. And if
+you're trying to lead me on a false scent----" Luck stopped. Words failed
+him, but his iron jaw clamped like a vice.
+
+Fendrick spoke quietly. "I'm willing. In the meantime we'd better travel
+over toward Mesa Verde, so as to be ready to start at daybreak."
+
+Cullison's gaze had never left him. It observed, weighed, appraised. "Good
+enough. We'll start."
+
+He left Sweeney to answer the telephone while he was away. All of his
+other riders were already out combing the hills under supervision of
+Curly. Luck had waited with Sam only to get some definite information
+before starting. Now he had his lead. Fendrick was either telling the
+truth or he was lying with some sinister purpose in view. The cattleman
+meant to know which.
+
+Morning breaks early in Arizona. By the time they had come to the spot
+where the sheepman said he had met Kate gray streaks were already
+lightening the sky. The party moved forward slowly toward the caņon,
+spreading out so as to cover as much ground as possible. Before they
+reached its mouth the darkness had lifted enough to show the track of a
+horse in the sand.
+
+They pushed up the gulch as rapidly as they could. The ashes of a camp
+fire halted them a few minutes later. Scattered about lay the feathers and
+dismembered bones of some birds.
+
+Cass stooped and picked up some of the feathers. "Quails, I reckon. Miss
+Cullison had three tied to her saddle horn when I met her."
+
+"Why did she come up here to cook them?" Sam asked.
+
+Luck was already off his horse, quartering over the ground to read what it
+might tell him.
+
+"She wasn't alone. There was a man with her. See these tracks."
+
+It was Fendrick who made the next discovery. He had followed a draw for a
+short distance and climbed to a little mesa above. Presently he called to
+Cullison.
+
+Father and son hurried toward him. The sheep-owner was standing at the
+edge of a prospect hole pointing down with his finger.
+
+"Someone has been in that pit recently, and he's been there several
+days."
+
+"Then how did he get out?" Sam asked.
+
+Fendrick knelt on the edge of the pit and showed him where a rope had been
+dragged so heavily that it had cut deeply into the clay.
+
+"Someone pulled him out."
+
+"What's it mean anyhow? Kate wasn't in that hole, was she?"
+
+Cass shook his head. "This is my guess. Someone was coming along here in
+the dark and fell in. Suppose Miss Cullison heard him calling as she came
+up the gulch. What would she do?"
+
+"Come up and help the fellow out."
+
+"Sure she would. And if he was hungry--as he likely was--she would cook
+her quail for him."
+
+"And then? Why didn't she come home?"
+
+Luck turned a gray agonized face on him. "Boy, don't you see? The man was
+Blackwell."
+
+"And if you'll put yourself in Blackwell's place you'll see that he
+couldn't let her go home to tell where she had seen him," Fendrick
+explained.
+
+"Then where is she? What did he do with her?"
+
+There came a moment's heavy silence. The pale face of the boy turned from
+the sheepman to his father. "You don't think that--that----"
+
+"No, I don't," Cass answered. "But let's look this thing squarely in the
+face. There were three things he could do with her. First, he might leave
+her in the pit. He didn't do that because he hadn't the nerve. She might
+be found soon and set the hunters on his track. Or she might die in that
+hole and he be captured later with her pinto. I know him. He always plays
+a waiting game when he can. Takes no chances if he can help it."
+
+"You think he took her with him then," Luck said.
+
+"Yes. There's a third possibility. He may have shot her when he got a good
+chance, but I don't think so. He would keep her for a hostage as long as
+he could."
+
+"That's the way I figure it," agreed Cullison. "He daren't hurt her, for
+he would know Arizona would hunt him down like a wolf if he did."
+
+"Then where's he taking her?" Sam asked.
+
+"Somewhere into the hills. He knows every pocket of them. His idea will be
+to slip down and cut across the line into Sonora. He's a rotten bad lot,
+but he won't do her any harm unless he's pushed to the wall. The fear of
+Luck Cullison is in his heart."
+
+"That's about it," nodded Luck. "He's somewhere in these hills unless he's
+broken through. Bolt 'phoned me that one of his posse came on the ashes of
+a camp fire still warm. They're closing in on him. He's got to get food or
+starve, unless he can break through."
+
+"There's a chance he'll make for one of my sheep camps to lay in a supply.
+Wouldn't it be a good idea to keep a man stationed at each one of them?"
+
+"You're talking sense," Cullison approved. "Sam, ride back and get in
+touch with Curly. Tell him to do that. And rouse the whole country over
+the wire. We'll run him down and feed him to the coyotes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A GOOD SAMARITAN
+
+
+Fendrick had told the exact truth. After leaving him Kate had ridden
+forward to the caņon and entered it. She did not mean to go much farther,
+but she took her time. More than once she slipped from under a fold of her
+waist a letter and reread sentences of it. Whenever she did this her eyes
+smiled. For it was a love letter from Curly, the first she had ever had.
+It had been lying on the inner edge of the threshold of her bedroom door
+that morning when she got up, and she knew that her lover had risen early
+to put it there unnoticed.
+
+They were to be married soon. Curly had wished to wait till after his
+trial, but she had overruled him. Both her father and Sam had sided with
+her, for she had made them both see what an advantage it would be with a
+jury for Flandrau to have his bride sitting beside him in the courtroom.
+
+Faintly there came to her a wind-swept sound. She pulled up and waited,
+but no repetition of it reached her ears. But before her pony had moved a
+dozen steps she stopped him again. This time she was almost sure of a far
+cry, and after it the bark of a revolver.
+
+With the touch of a rein she guided her horse toward the sound. It might
+mean nothing. On the other hand it might be a call for help. Her shout
+brought an answer which guided her to the edge of a prospect hole. In the
+darkness she made out an indistinct figure.
+
+"Water," a husky voice demanded.
+
+She got her canteen from the saddle and dropped it to him. The man glued
+his lips to the mouth as if he could never get enough.
+
+"For God's sake get me out of here," he pleaded piteously.
+
+"How long have you been there?"
+
+"Two days. I fell in at night whilst I was cutting acrost country."
+
+Kate fastened her rope to the horn of the saddle, tightened the cinch
+carefully, and dropped the other end to him. She swung to the back of the
+horse and braced herself by resting her full weight on the farther
+stirrup.
+
+"Now," she told him.
+
+The imprisoned man tried to pull himself up, bracing his feet against the
+rough projections of the rock wall to help him. But he could not manage
+the climb. At last he gave it up with an oath.
+
+"We'll try another way," the girl told him cheerfully.
+
+At spaces about a foot distant she tied knots in the rope for about the
+first six feet.
+
+"This time you'll make it," she promised. "You can get up part way as you
+did before. Then I'll start my horse forward. Keep braced out from the
+wall so as not to get crushed."
+
+He growled an assent. Once more she got into the saddle and gave the word.
+He dragged himself up a few feet and then the cowpony moved forward. The
+legs of the man doubled up under the strain and he was crushed against the
+wall just as he reached the top. However, he managed to hang on and was
+dragged over the edge with one cheek scratched and bleeding.
+
+"Might a-known you'd hurt me if you moved so fast," he complained, nursing
+his wounded face in such a way as to hide it.
+
+"I'm sorry. I did my best to go carefully," the girl answered, stepping
+forward.
+
+His hand shot forward and caught her wrist Her startled eyes flashed to
+his face. The man was the convict Blackwell.
+
+"Got anything to eat with you. I'm starving," he snapped.
+
+"Yes. I shot some quail Let go my hand."
+
+He laughed evilly, without mirth. "Don't try any of your sassy ways on me.
+By God, I'm a wolf on the howl."
+
+In spite of her supple slenderness there was strength in her small wrists.
+She fought and twisted till she was worn out in her efforts to free
+herself. Panting, she faced him.
+
+"Let me go, I tell you."
+
+For answer his open hand struck her mouth. "Not till you learn your boss.
+Before I'm through with you a squaw won't be half so tame as you."
+
+He dragged her to the horse, took from its case the rifle that hung by the
+saddle, and flung her from him roughly. Then he pulled himself to the
+saddle.
+
+"March ahead of me," he ordered.
+
+As soon as they had reached the bed of the caņon lie called a halt and
+bade her light a fire and cook him the quail. She gathered ironwood and
+catclaw while he watched her vigilantly. Together they roasted the birds
+by holding them over the fire with sharpened sticks thrust through the
+wings. He devoured them with the voracity of a wild beast.
+
+Hitherto his mind had been busy with the immediate present, but now his
+furtive shifting gaze rested on her more thoughtfully. It was as a factor
+of his safety that he considered her. Gratitude was a feeling not within
+his scope. The man's mind worked just as Fendrick had surmised. He would
+not let her go back to the ranch with the news that he was hidden in the
+hills so close at hand. He dared not leave her in the prospect hole. He
+was not yet ready to do murder for fear of punishment. That was a
+possibility to be considered only if he should be hard pressed. The only
+alternative left him was to take her to the border as a companion of his
+fugitive doublings.
+
+"We'll be going now," he announced, after he had eaten.
+
+"Going where? Don't you see I'll be a drag to you? Take my horse and go.
+You'll get along faster."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+She opened her lips to answer, but there was something in his
+face--something at once so cruel and deadly and wolfish--that made the
+words die on her lips. For the first time it came to her that if he did
+not take her with him he would kill her to insure his own safety. None of
+the arguments that would have availed with another man were of any weight
+here. Her sex, her youth, the service she had done him--these would not
+count a straw. He was lost to all the instincts of honor that govern even
+hard desperate men of his class.
+
+They struck into the mountains, following a cattle trail that wound upward
+with devious twists. The man rode, and the girl walked in front with the
+elastic lightness, the unconscious flexuous grace of poise given her body
+by an outdoor life. After a time they left the gulch. Steadily they
+traveled, up dark arroyos bristling with mesquite, across little valleys
+leading into timbered stretches through which broken limbs and uprooted
+trees made progress almost impossible, following always untrodden ways
+that appalled with their lonely desolation.
+
+By dusk they were up in the headwaters of the creeks. The resilient
+muscles of the girl had lost their spring. She moved wearily, her feet
+dragging heavily so that sometimes she staggered when the ground was
+rough. Not once had the man offered her the horse. He meant to be fresh,
+ready for any emergency that might come. Moreover, it pleased his small
+soul to see the daughter of Luck Cullison fagged and exhausted but still
+answering the spur of his urge.
+
+The moon was up before they came upon a tent shining in the cold silvery
+light. Beside it was a sheetiron stove, a box, the ashes of a camp fire,
+and a side of bacon hanging from the limb of a stunted pine. Cautiously
+they stole forward.
+
+The camp was for the time deserted. No doubt its owner, a Mexican
+sheepherder in the employ of Fendrick and Dominguez, was out somewhere
+with his flock.
+
+Kate cooked a meal and the convict ate. The girl was too tired and anxious
+to care for food, but she made herself take a little. They packed the
+saddlebags with bacon, beans, coffee and flour. Blackwell tightened again
+the cinches and once more the two took the trail.
+
+They made camp in a pocket opening from a gulch far up in the hills. With
+her own _reata_ he fastened her hands behind her and tied the girl
+securely to the twisted trunk of a Joshua tree. To make sure of her he lay
+on the rope, both hands clinched to the rifle. In five minutes he was
+asleep, but it was long before Kate could escape from wakefulness. She was
+anxious, her nerves were jumpy, and the muscles of arms and shoulders were
+cramped. At last she fell into troubled catnaps.
+
+From one of these she awoke to see that the morning light was sifting
+through the darkness. Her bones and muscles ached from the constraint of
+the position in which the rope held them. She was shivering with the chill
+of an Arizona mountain night. Turning her body, the girl's eyes fell upon
+her captor. He was looking at her in the way that no decent man looks at a
+woman. Her impulse was to scream, to struggle to her feet and run. What
+did he mean? What was he going to do?
+
+But something warned her this would precipitate the danger. She called
+upon her courage and tried to still the fearful tumult in her heart.
+Somehow she succeeded. A scornful, confident pride flashed from her eyes
+into his. It told him that for his life he dared not lay a finger upon her
+in the way of harm. And he knew it was true, knew that if he gave way to
+his desire no hole under heaven would be deep enough to hide him from the
+vengeance of her friends.
+
+He got sullenly to his feet. "Come. We'll be going."
+
+Within the hour they saw some of his hunters. The two were sweeping around
+the lip of a mountain park nestling among the summits. A wisp of smoke
+rose from the basin below. Grouped about it were three men eating
+breakfast.
+
+"Don't make a sound," warned Blackwell.
+
+His rifle covered her. With all her soul she longed to cry for help. But
+she dared not take the risk. Even as the two on the edge of the bowl
+withdrew from sight one of the campers rose and sauntered to a little
+grove where the ponies were tethered. The distance was too far to make
+sure, but something in the gait made the girl sure that the man was Curly.
+Her hands went out to him in a piteous little gesture of appeal.
+
+She was right. It was Curly. He was thinking of her at that moment
+despairingly, but no bell of warning rang within to tell him she was so
+near and in such fearful need of him.
+
+Twice during the morning did the refugee attempt to slip down into the
+parched desert that stretched toward Sonora and safety. But the cordon set
+about him was drawn too close. Each time a loose-seated rider lounging in
+the saddle with a rifle in his hands drove them back. The second attempt
+was almost disastrous, for the convict was seen. The hum of a bullet
+whistled past his ears as he and his prisoner drew back into the chaparral
+and from thence won back to cover.
+
+Kate, drooping with fatigue, saw that fear rode Blackwell heavily. He was
+trapped and he knew that by the Arizona code his life was forfeit and
+would be exacted of him should he be taken. He had not the hardihood to
+game it out in silence, but whined complaints, promises and threats. He
+tried to curry favor with her, to work upon her pity, even while his
+furtive glances told her that he was wondering whether he would have a
+better chance if he sacrificed her life.
+
+From gulch to arroyo, from rock-cover to pine-clad hillside he was driven
+in his attempts to break the narrowing circle of grim hunters that hemmed
+him. And with each failure, with every passing hour, the terror in him
+mounted. He would have welcomed life imprisonment, would have sold the
+last vestige of manhood to save the worthless life that would soon be
+snuffed out unless he could evade his hunters till night and in the
+darkness break through the line.
+
+He knew now that it had been a fatal mistake to bring the girl with him.
+He might have evaded Bolt's posses, but now every man within fifty miles
+was on the lookout for him. His rage turned against Kate because of it.
+Yet even in those black outbursts he felt that he must cling to her as his
+only hope of saving himself. He had made another mistake in lighting a
+campfire during the morning. Any fool ought to have known that the smoke
+would draw his hunters as the smell of carrion does a buzzard.
+
+Now he made a third error. Doubling back over an open stretch of hillside,
+he was seen again and forced into the first pocket that opened. It proved
+to be a blind gulch, one offering no exit at the upper end but a stiff
+rock climb to a bluff above.
+
+He whipped off his coat and gave it to Kate.
+
+"Put it on. Quick."
+
+Surprised, she slipped it on.
+
+"Now ride back out and cut along the edge of the hill. You've got time to
+make it all right before they close in if you travel fast. Stop once--just
+once--and I'll drop you in your tracks. Now git!"
+
+She saw his object in a flash. Wearing his gray felt hat and his coat, the
+pursuers would mistake her for him. They would follow her--perhaps shoot
+her down. Anyhow, it would be a diversion to draw them from him. Meanwhile
+he would climb the cliff and slip away unnoticed.
+
+The danger of what she had to do stood out quite clearly, but as a chance
+to get away from him she welcomed it gladly. She swung the pony with a
+touch of the rein and set him instantly at the canter. It was rough going,
+but she took it almost blindly.
+
+From the lip of the gulch she swung abruptly to the right. Her horse
+stumbled and went down just as a bullet flew over her head. Before she was
+free of the stirrups strong hands pinned her shoulders to the ground. She
+heard a glad startled cry. The rough hands became immediately gentle. Then
+things grew black. The last she remembered was that the mountains were
+dancing up and down in an odd fashion.
+
+Her eyes opened to see Curly. She was in his arms and his face was broken
+with emotions of love and tenderness.
+
+"You're not hurt," he implored.
+
+"No."
+
+"He didn't--mistreat you?" His voice was trembling as he whispered it.
+
+"No--No."
+
+And at that she broke down. A deep sob shook her body--and another. She
+buried her head on his shoulder and wept.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Without losing an instant the convict set himself at the climb. His haste,
+the swift glances shot behind him, the appalling dread that made his
+nerves ragged, delayed his speed by dissipating the singleness of his
+energy. His face and hands were torn with catclaw, his knee bruised by a
+slip against a sharp jut of quartz.
+
+When he reached the top he was panting and shaken. Before he had moved a
+dozen steps a man came out of the brush scarce seventy-five yards away and
+called to him to surrender. He flung his rifle to place and fired twice.
+
+The man staggered and steadied himself. A shell had jammed and Blackwell
+could not throw it out. He turned to run as the other fired. But he was
+too late. He stumbled, tripped, and went down full length.
+
+The man that had shot him waited for him to rise. The convict did not
+move. Cautiously the wounded hunter came forward, his eyes never lifting
+from the inert sprawling figure. Even now he half expected him to spring
+up, life and energy in every tense muscle. Not till he stood over him,
+till he saw the carelessly flung limbs, the uncouth twist to the neck,
+could he believe that so slight a crook of the finger had sent swift death
+across the plateau.
+
+The wounded man felt suddenly sick. Leaning against a rock, he steadied
+himself till the nausea was past. Voices called to him from the plain
+below. He answered, and presently circled down into the gulch which led to
+the open.
+
+At the gulch mouth he came on a little group of people. One glance told
+him all he needed to know. Kate Cullison was crying in the arms of Curly
+Flandrau. Simultaneously a man galloped up, flung himself from his horse,
+and took the young woman from her lover.
+
+"My little girl," he cried in a voice that rang with love.
+
+Luck had found his ewe lamb that was lost.
+
+It was Curly who first saw the man approaching from the gulch. "Hello,
+Cass! Did you get him?"
+
+Fendrick nodded wearily.
+
+"Dead sure?"
+
+"Yep. He's up there." The sheepman's hand swept toward the bluff.
+
+"You're wounded."
+
+"Got me in the shoulder. Nothing serious, I judge."
+
+Cullison swung around. "Sure about that, Cass?" It was the first time for
+years that he had called the other by his first name except in irony.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"Let's have a look at the shoulder."
+
+After he had done what he could for it Luck spoke bluffly. "This dashed
+feud is off, Cass. You've wiped the slate clean. When you killed Blackwell
+you put me out of a hostile camp."
+
+"I'm glad--so glad. Now we'll all be friends, won't we?" Kate cried.
+
+Cass looked at her and at Curly, both of them radiant with happiness, and
+his heart ached for what he had missed. But he smiled none the less.
+
+"Suits me if it does you."
+
+He gave one hand to Luck and the other to his daughter.
+
+Curly laughed gaily. "Everybody satisfied, I reckon,"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+LOOSE THREADS
+
+
+Curly was right when he said that those who knew about Sam's share in the
+planning of the Tin Cup hold-up would keep their mouths closed. All of the
+men implicated in the robbery were dead except Dutch. Cullison used his
+influence to get the man a light sentence, for he knew that he was not a
+criminal at heart. In return Dutch went down the line without so much as
+breathing Sam's name.
+
+Luck saw to it that Curly got all the credit of frustrating the outlaws in
+their attempt on the Flyer and of capturing them afterward. In the story
+of the rescue of Kate he played up Flandrau's part in the pursuit at the
+expense of the other riders. For September was at hand and the young man
+needed all the prestige he could get. The district attorney had no choice
+but to go on with the case of the State versus Flandrau on a charge of
+rustling horses from the Bar Double M. But public sentiment was almost a
+unit in favor of the defendant.
+
+The evidence of the prosecution was not so strong as it had been. All of
+his accomplices were dead and one of the men implicated had given it out
+in his last moments that the young man was not a party to the crime. The
+man who had owned the feed corral had sold out and gone to Colorado. The
+hotel clerk would not swear positively that the prisoner was the man he
+had seen with the other rustlers.
+
+Curly had one important asset no jury could forget. It counted for a good
+deal that Alec Flandrau, Billy Mackenzie, and Luck Cullison were known to
+be backing him, but it was worth much more that his wife of a week sat
+beside him in the courtroom. Every time they looked at the prisoner the
+jurymen saw too her dusky gallant little head and slender figure. They
+remembered the terrible experience through which she had so recently
+passed. She had come through it to happiness. Every look and motion of the
+girl wife radiated love for the young scamp who had won her. And since
+they were tender-hearted old frontiersmen they did not intend to spoil her
+joy. Moreover, society could afford to take chances with this young fellow
+Flandrau. He had been wild no doubt, but he had shown since the real stuff
+that was in him. Long before they left the box each member of the jury
+knew that he was going to vote for acquittal.
+
+It took the jury only one ballot to find a verdict of not guilty. The
+judge did not attempt to stop the uproar of glad cheers that shook the
+building when the decision was read. He knew it was not the prisoner so
+much they were cheering as the brave girl who had sat so pluckily for
+three days beside the husband she had made a man.
+
+From the courtroom Curly walked out under the blue sky of Arizona a free
+man. But he knew that the best of his good fortune was that he did not go
+alone. For all the rest of their lives her firm little steps would move
+beside him to keep him true and steady. He could not go wrong now, for he
+was anchored to a responsibility that was a continual joy and wonder to
+him.
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+"The Books You Like to Read at the Price You Like to Pay"
+
+There Are Two Sides to Everything--
+
+--including the wrapper which covers every Grosset & Dunlap book. When you
+feel in the mood for a good romance, refer to the carefully selected list
+of modern fiction comprising most of the successes by prominent writers of
+the day which is printed on the back of every Grosset & Dunlap book
+wrapper.
+
+You will find more than five hundred titles to choose from--books for
+every mood and every taste and every pocketbook.
+
+Don't forget the other side, but in case the wrapper is lost, write to the
+publishers for a complete catalog.
+
+There is a Grosset & Dunlap Book for every mood and for every taste
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crooked Trails and Straight, by 
+William MacLeod Raine and D. C. Hutchison
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT ***
+
+***** This file should be named 26911-8.txt or 26911-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/1/26911/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.