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diff --git a/29748.txt b/29748.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8cb0415 --- /dev/null +++ b/29748.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9254 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Duke Of Chimney Butte, by G. W. Ogden + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Duke Of Chimney Butte + +Author: G. W. Ogden + +Illustrator: P.V.E. Ivory + +Release Date: August 21, 2009 [EBook #29748] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE *** + + + + +Produced by Chris Curnow, Barbara Kosker, Michael and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +[Illustration: "There's no use to run away from me," he said] +[_Page 166_] + + + + + THE DUKE OF CHIMNEY BUTTE + + + + + BY + + G. W. OGDEN + + AUTHOR OF THE LAND OF LAST CHANCE + + + + + FRONTISPIECE BY P. V. E. IVORY + + + [Illustration] + + + GROSSET & DUNLAP + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + Made in the United States of America + + + + + Copyright + A. C. McClurg & Co. + 1920 + + Published April, 1920 + + _Copyrighted in Great Britain_ + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I The All-in-One 1 + + II Whetstone, the Outlaw 18 + + III An Empty Saddle 39 + + IV "And Speak in Passing" 47 + + V Feet upon the Road 69 + + VI Allurements of Glendora 81 + + VII The Homeliest Man 95 + + VIII The House on the Mesa 108 + + IX A Knight-Errant 114 + + X Guests of the Boss Lady 130 + + XI Alarms and Excursions 146 + + XII The Fury of Doves 166 + + XIII "No Honor in Her Blood" 185 + + XIV Notice Is Served 198 + + XV Wolves of the Range 218 + + XVI Whetstone Comes Home 238 + + XVII How Thick Is Blood? 255 + + XVIII The Rivalry of Cooks 270 + + XIX The Sentinel 276 + + XX Business, and More 289 + + XXI A Test of Loyalty 302 + + XXII The Will-o'-the-Wisp 320 + + XXIII Unmasked 329 + + XXIV Use for an Old Paper 333 + + XXV "When She Wakes Up" 345 + + XXVI Oysters and Ambitions 361 + + XXVII Emoluments and Rewards 374 + + + + +The Duke of Chimney Butte + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE ALL-IN-ONE + + +Down through the Bad Lands the Little Missouri comes in long windings, +white, from a distance, as a frozen river between the ash-gray hills. At +its margin there are willows; on the small forelands, which flood in +June when the mountain waters are released, cottonwoods grow, leaning +toward the southwest like captives straining in their bonds, yearning in +their way for the sun and winds of kinder latitudes. + +Rain comes to that land but seldom in the summer days; in winter the +wind sweeps the snow into rocky canons; buttes, with tops leveled by the +drift of the old, earth-making days, break the weary repetition of hill +beyond hill. + +But to people who dwell in a land a long time and go about the business +of getting a living out of what it has to offer, its wonders are no +longer notable, its hardships no longer peculiar. So it was with the +people who lived in the Bad Lands at the time that we come among them on +the vehicle of this tale. To them it was only an ordinary country of +toil and disappointment, or of opportunity and profit, according to +their station and success. + +To Jeremiah Lambert it seemed the land of hopelessness, the last +boundary of utter defeat as he labored over the uneven road at the end +of a blistering summer day, trundling his bicycle at his side. There was +a suit-case strapped to the handlebar of the bicycle, and in that +receptacle were the wares which this guileless peddler had come into +that land to sell. He had set out from Omaha full of enthusiasm and +youthful vigor, incited to the utmost degree of vending fervor by the +representations of the general agent for the little instrument which had +been the stepping-stone to greater things for many an ambitious young +man. + +According to the agent, Lambert reflected, as he pushed his punctured, +lop-wheeled, disordered, and dejected bicycle along; there had been +none of the ambitious business climbers at hand to add his testimony to +the general agent's word. + +Anyway, he had taken the agency, and the agent had taken his essential +twenty-two dollars and turned over to him one hundred of those notable +ladders to future greatness and affluence. Lambert had them there in his +imitation-leather suit-case--from which the rain had taken the last +deceptive gloss--minus seven which he had sold in the course of fifteen +days. + +In those fifteen days Lambert had traveled five hundred miles, by the +power of his own sturdy legs, by the grace of his bicycle, which had +held up until this day without protest over the long, sandy, rocky, +dismal roads, and he had lived on less than a gopher, day taken by day. + +Housekeepers were not pining for the combination potato-parer, +apple-corer, can-opener, tack-puller, known as the "All-in-One" in any +reasonable proportion. + +It did not go. Indisputably it was a good thing, and well built, and +finished like two dollars' worth of cutlery. The selling price, retail, +was one dollar, and it looked to an unsophisticated young graduate of +an agricultural college to be a better opening toward independence and +the foundation of a farm than a job in the hay fields. A man must make +his start somewhere, and the farther away from competition the better +his chance. + +This country to which the general agent had sent him was becoming more +and more sparsely settled. The chances were stretching out against him +with every mile. The farther into that country he should go the smaller +would become the need for that marvelous labor-saving invention. + +Lambert had passed the last house before noon, when his sixty-five-pound +bicycle had suffered a punctured tire, and there had bargained with a +Scotch woman at the greasy kitchen door with the smell of curing +sheepskins in it for his dinner. It took a good while to convince the +woman that the All-in-One was worth it, but she yielded out of pity for +his hungry state. From that house he estimated that he had made fifteen +miles before the tire gave out; since then he had added ten or twelve +more to the score. Nothing that looked like a house was in sight, and +it was coming on dusk. + +He labored on, bent in spirit, sore of foot. From the rise of a hill, +when it had fallen so dark that he was in doubt of the road, he heard a +voice singing. And this was the manner of the song: + + _Oh, I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss, + An' a hoo-dah, an' a hoo-dah; + I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss, + An' a hoo-dah bet on the bay._ + +The singer was a man, his voice an aggravated tenor with a shake to it +like an accordion, and he sang that stanza over and over as Lambert +leaned on his bicycle and listened. + +Lambert went down the hill. Presently the shape of trees began to form +out of the valley. Behind that barrier the man was doing his singing, +his voice now rising clear, now falling to distance as if he passed to +and from, in and out of a door, or behind some object which broke the +flow of sound. A whiff of coffee, presently, and the noise of the man +breaking dry sticks, as with his foot, jarring his voice to a deeper +tremolo. Now the light, with the legs of the man in it, showing a +cow-camp, the chuck wagon in the foreground, the hope of hospitality big +in its magnified proportions. + +Beyond the fire where the singing cook worked, men were unsaddling their +horses and turning them into the corral. Lambert trundled his bicycle +into the firelight, hailing the cook with a cheerful word. + +The cook had a tin plate in his hands, which he was wiping on a flour +sack. At sight of this singular combination of man and wheels he leaned +forward in astonishment, his song bitten off between two words, the tin +plate before his chest, the drying operations suspended. Amazement was +on him, if not fright. Lambert put his hand into his hip-pocket and drew +forth a shining All-in-One, which he always had ready there to produce +as he approached a door. + +He stood there with it in his hand, the firelight over him, smiling in +his most ingratiating fashion. That had been one of the strong texts of +the general agent. Always meet them with a smile, he said, and leave +them with a smile, no matter whether they deserved it or not. It proved +a man's unfaltering confidence in himself and the article which he +presented to the world. + +Lambert was beginning to doubt even this paragraph of his general +instructions. He had been smiling until he believed his eye-teeth were +wearing thin from exposure, but it seemed the one thing that had a grain +in it among all the buncombe and bluff. And he stood there smiling at +the camp cook, who seemed to be afraid of him, the tin plate held before +his gizzard like a shield. + +There was nothing about Lambert's appearance to scare anybody, and least +of all a bow-legged man beside a fire in the open air of the Bad Lands, +where things are not just as they are in any other part of this world at +all. His manner was rather boyish and diffident, and wholly apologetic, +and the All-in-One glistened in his hand like a razor, or a revolver, or +anything terrible and destructive that a startled camp cook might make +it out to be. + +A rather long-legged young man, in canvas puttees, a buoyant and +irrepressible light in his face which the fatigues and disappointments +of the long road had not dimmed; a light-haired man, with his hat pushed +back from his forehead, and a speckled shirt on him, and trousers rather +tight--that was what the camp cook saw, standing exactly as he had +turned and posed at Lambert's first word. + +Lambert drew a step nearer, and began negotiations for supper on the +basis of an even exchange. + +"Oh, agent, are you?" said the cook, letting out a breath of relief. + +"No; peddler." + +"I don't know how to tell 'em apart. Well, put it away, son, put it +away, whatever it is. No hungry man don't have to dig up his money to +eat in this camp." + +This was the kindest reception that Lambert had received since taking to +the road to found his fortunes on the All-in-One. He was quick with his +expression of appreciation, which the cook ignored while he went about +the business of lighting two lanterns which he hung on the wagon end. + +Men came stringing into the light from the noise of unsaddling at the +corral with loud and jocund greetings to the cook, and respectful, even +distant and reserved, "evenin's" for the stranger. All of them but the +cook wore cartridge-belts and revolvers, which they unstrapped and hung +about the wagon as they arrived. All of them, that is, but one +black-haired, tall young man. He kept his weapon on, and sat down to eat +with it close under his hand. + +Nine or ten of them sat in at the meal, with a considerable clashing of +cutlery on tin plates and cups. It was evident to Lambert that his +presence exercised a restraint over their customary exchange of banter. +In spite of the liberality of the cook, and the solicitation on part of +his numerous hosts to "eat hearty," Lambert could not help the feeling +that he was away off on the edge, and that his arrival had put a rein on +the spirits of these men. + +Mainly they were young men like himself, two or three of them only +betrayed by gray in beards and hair; brown, sinewy, lean-jawed men, no +dissipation showing in their eyes. + +Lambert felt himself drawn to them by a sense of kinship. He never had +been in a cow-camp before in his life, but there was something in the +air of it, in the dignified ignoring of the evident hardships of such a +life that told him he was among his kind. + +The cook was a different type of man from the others, and seemed to have +been pitched into the game like the last pawn of a desperate player. He +was a short man, thick in the body, heavy in the shoulders, so +bow-legged that he weaved from side to side like a sailor as he went +swinging about his work. It seemed, indeed, that he must have taken to a +horse very early in life, while his legs were yet plastic, for they had +set to the curve of the animal's barrel like the bark on a tree. + +His black hair was cut short, all except a forelock like a horse, +leaving his big ears naked and unframed. These turned away from his head +as if they had been frosted and wilted, and if ears ever stood as an +index to generosity in this world the camp cook's at once pronounced him +the most liberal man to be met between the mountains and the sea. His +features were small, his mustache and eyebrows large, his nose sharp +and thin, his eyes blue, and as bright and merry as a June day. + +He wore a blue wool shirt, new and clean, with a bright scarlet necktie +as big as a hand of tobacco; and a green velvet vest, a galloping horse +on his heavy gold watch-chain, and great, loose, baggy corduroy +trousers, like a pirate of the Spanish Main. These were folded into +expensive, high-heeled, quilted-topped boots, and, in spite of his +trade, there was not a spot of grease or flour on him anywhere to be +seen. + +Lambert noted the humorous glances which passed from eye to eye, and the +sly winks that went round the circle of cross-legged men with tin plates +between their knees as they looked now and then at his bicycle leaning +close by against a tree. But the exactions of hospitality appeared to +keep down both curiosity and comment during the meal. Nobody asked him +where he came from, what his business was, or whither he was bound, +until the last plate was pitched into the box, the last cup drained of +its black, scalding coffee. + +It was one of the elders who took it up then, after he had his pipe +going and Lambert had rolled a cigarette from the proffered pouch. + +"What kind of a horse is that you're ridin', son?" he inquired. + +"Have a look at it," Lambert invited, knowing that the machine was new +to most, if not all, of them. He led the way to the bicycle, they +unlimbering from their squatting beside the wagon and following. + +He took the case containing his unprofitable wares from the handlebars +and turned the bicycle over to them, offering no explanations on its +peculiarities or parts, speaking only when they asked him, in horse +parlance, with humor that broadened as they put off their reserve. On +invitation to show its gait he mounted it, after explaining that it had +stepped on a nail and traveled lamely. He circled the fire and came back +to them, offering it to anybody who might want to try his skill. + +Hard as they were to shake out of the saddle, not a man of them, old or +young, could mount the rubber-shod steed of the city streets. All of +them gave it up after a tumultuous hour of hilarity but the bow-legged +cook, whom they called Taterleg. He said he never had laid much claim +to being a horseman, but if he couldn't ride a long-horned Texas steer +that went on wheels he'd resign his job. + +He took it out into the open, away from the immediate danger of a +collision with a tree, and squared himself to break it in. He got it +going at last, cheered by loud whoops of admiration and encouragement, +and rode it straight into the fire. He scattered sticks and coals and +bore a wabbling course ahead, his friends after him, shouting and waving +hats. Somewhere in the dark beyond the lanterns he ran into a tree. + +But he came back pushing the machine, his nose skinned, sweating and +triumphant, offering to pay for any damage he had done. Lambert assured +him there was no damage. They sat down to smoke again, all of them +feeling better, the barrier against the stranger quite down, everything +comfortable and serene. + +Lambert told them, in reply to kindly, polite questioning from the elder +of the bunch, a man designated by the name Siwash, how he was lately +graduated from the Kansas Agricultural College at Manhattan, and how he +had taken the road with a grip full of hardware to get enough ballast +in his jeans to keep the winter wind from blowing him away. + +"Yes, I thought that was a college hat you had on," said Siwash. + +Lambert acknowledged its weakness. + +"And that shirt looked to me from the first snort I got at it like a +college shirt. I used to be where they was at one time." + +Lambert explained that an aggie wasn't the same as a regular college +fellow, such as they turn loose from the big factories in the East, +where they thicken their tongues to the broad a and call it an +education; nothing like that, at all. He went into the details of the +great farms manned by the students, the bone-making, as well as the +brain-making work of such an institution as the one whose shadows he had +lately left. + +"I ain't a-findin' any fault with them farmer colleges," Siwash said. "I +worked for a man in Montanny that sent his boy off to one of 'em, and +that feller come back and got to be state vet'nary. I ain't got nothing +ag'in' a college hat, as far as that goes, neither, but I know 'em when +I see 'em--I can spot 'em every time. Will you let us see them +Do-it-Alls?" + +Lambert produced one of the little implements, explained its points, and +it passed from hand to hand, with comments which would have been worth +gold to the general agent. + +"It's a toothpick and a tater-peeler put together," said Siwash, when it +came back to his hand. The young fellow with the black, sleek hair, who +kept his gun on, reached for it, bent over it in the light, examining it +with interest. + +"You can trim your toenails with it and half-sole your boots," he said. +"You can shave with it and saw wood, pull teeth and brand mavericks; you +can open a bottle or a bank with it, and you can open the hired gal's +eyes with it in the mornin'. It's good for the old and the young, for +the crippled and the in-sane; it'll heat your house and hoe your garden, +and put the children to bed at night. And it's made and sold and +distributed by Mr.--Mr.--by the Duke----" + +Here he bent over it a little closer, turning it in the light to see +what was stamped in the metal beneath the words "The Duke," that being +the name denoting excellence which the manufacturer had given the tool. + +"By the Duke of--the Duke of--is them three links of saursage, Siwash?" + +Siwash looked at the triangle under the name. + +"No, that's Indian writin'; it means a mountain," he said. + +"Sure, of course, I might 'a' knowed," the young man said with deep +self-scorn. "That's a butte, that's old Chimney Butte, as plain as +smoke. Made and sold and distributed in the Bad Lands by the Duke of +Chimney Butte. Duke," said he solemnly, rising and offering his hand, +"I'm proud to know you." + +There was no laughter at this; it was not time to laugh yet. They sat +looking at the young man, primed and ready for the big laugh, indeed, +but holding it in for its moment. As gravely as the cowboy had risen, as +solemnly as he held his countenance in mock seriousness, Lambert rose +and shook hands with him. + +"The pleasure is mostly mine," said he, not a flush of embarrassment or +resentment in his face, not a quiver of the eyelid as he looked the +other in the face, as if this were some high and mighty occasion, in +truth. + +"And you're all right, Duke, you're sure all right," the cowboy said, a +note of admiration in his voice. + +"I'd bet you money he's all right," Siwash said, and the others echoed +it in nods and grins. + +The cowboy sat down and rolled a cigarette, passed his tobacco across to +Lambert, and they smoked. And no matter if his college hat had been only +half as big as it was, or his shirt ring-streaked and spotted, they +would have known the stranger for one of their kind, and accepted him as +such. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +WHETSTONE, THE OUTLAW + + +When Taterleg roused the camp before the east was light, Lambert noted +that another man had ridden in. This was a wiry young fellow with a +short nose and fiery face, against which his scant eyebrows and lashes +were as white as chalk. + +His presence in the camp seemed to put a restraint on the spirits of the +others, some of whom greeted him by the name Jim, others ignoring him +entirely. Among these latter was the black-haired man who had given +Lambert his title and elevated him to the nobility of the Bad Lands. On +the face of it there was a crow to be picked between them. + +Jim was belted with a pistol and heeled with a pair of those +long-roweled Mexican spurs, such as had gone out of fashion on the +western range long before his day. He leaned on his elbow near the fire, +his legs stretched out in a way that obliged Taterleg to walk round the +spurred boots as he went between his cooking and the supplies in the +wagon, the tailboard of which was his kitchen table. + +If Taterleg resented this lordly obstruction, he did not discover it by +word or feature. He went on humming a tune without words as he worked, +handing out biscuits and ham to the hungry crew. Jim had eaten his +breakfast already, and was smoking a cigarette at his ease. Now and then +he addressed somebody in obscene jocularity. + +Lambert saw that Jim turned his eyes on him now and then with sneering +contempt, but said nothing. When the men had made a hasty end of their +breakfast three of them started to the corral. The young man who had +humorously enumerated the virtues of the All-in-One, whom the others +called Spence, was of this number. He turned back, offering Lambert his +hand with a smile. + +"I'm glad I met you, Duke, and I hope you'll do well wherever you +travel," he said, with such evident sincerity and good feeling that +Lambert felt like he was parting from a friend. + +"Thanks, old feller, and the same to you." + +Spence went on to saddle his horse, whistling as he scuffed through the +low sage. Jim sat up. + +"I'll make you whistle through your ribs," he snarled after him. + +It was Sunday. These men who remained in camp were enjoying the +infrequent luxury of a day off. With the first gleam of morning they got +out their razors and shaved, and Siwash, who seemed to be the handy man +and chief counselor of the outfit, cut everybody's hair, with the +exception of Jim, who had just returned from somewhere on the train, and +still had the scent of the barber-shop on him, and Taterleg, who had +mastered the art of shingling himself, and kept his hand in by constant +practice. + +Lambert mended his tire, using an old rubber boot that Taterleg found +kicking around camp to plug the big holes in his outer tube. He was for +going on then, but Siwash and the others pressed him to stay over the +day, to which invitation he yielded without great argument. + +There was nothing ahead of him but desolation, said Taterleg, a country +so rough that it tried a horse to travel it. Ranchhouses were farther +apart as a man proceeded, and beyond that, mountains. It looked to +Taterleg as if he'd better give it up. + +That was so, according to the opinion of Siwash. To his undoubted +knowledge, covering the history of twenty-four years, no agent ever had +penetrated that far before. Having broken this record on a bicycle, +Lambert ought to be satisfied. If he was bound to travel, said Siwash, +his advice would be to travel back. + +It seemed to Lambert that the bottom was all out of his plans, indeed. +It would be far better to chuck the whole scheme overboard and go to +work as a cowboy if they would give him a job. That was nearer the +sphere of his intended future activities; that was getting down to the +root and foundation of a business which had a ladder in it whose rungs +were not made of any general agent's hot air. + +After his hot and heady way of quick decisions and planning to +completion before he even had begun, Lambert was galloping the Bad Lands +as superintendent of somebody's ranch, having made the leap over all +the trifling years, with their trifling details of hardship, low wages, +loneliness, and isolation in a wink. From superintendent he galloped +swiftly on his fancy to a white ranchhouse by some calm riverside, his +herds around him, his big hat on his head, market quotations coming to +him by telegraph every day, packers appealing to him to ship five +trainloads at once to save their government contracts. + +What is the good of an imagination if a man cannot ride it, and feel the +wind in his face as he flies over the world? Even though it is a liar +and a trickster, and a rifler of time which a drudge of success would be +stamping into gold, it is better for a man than wine. He can return from +his wide excursions with no deeper injury than a sigh. + +Lambert came back to the reality, broaching the subject of a job. Here +Jim took notice and cut into the conversation, it being his first word +to the stranger. + +"Sure you can git a job, bud," he said, coming over to where Lambert sat +with Siwash and Taterleg, the latter peeling potatoes for a stew, +somebody having killed a calf. "The old man needs a couple of hands; he +told me to keep my eye open for anybody that wanted a job." + +"I'm glad to hear of it," said Lambert, warming up at the news, feeling +that he must have been a bit severe in his judgment of Jim, which had +not been altogether favorable. + +"He'll be over in the morning; you'd better hang around." + +Seeing the foundation of a new fortune taking shape, Lambert said he +would "hang around." They all applauded his resolution, for they all +appeared to like him in spite of his appearance, which was distinctive, +indeed, among the somber colors of that sage-gray land. + +Jim inquired if he had a horse, the growing interest of a friend in his +manner. Hearing the facts of the case from Lambert--before dawn he had +heard them from Taterleg--he appeared concerned almost to the point of +being troubled. + +"You'll have to git you a horse, Duke; you'll have to ride up to the +boss when you hit him for a job. He never was known to hire a man off +the ground, and I guess if you was to head at him on that bicycle, he'd +blow a hole through you as big as a can of salmon. Any of you fellers +got a horse you want to trade the Duke for his bicycle?" + +The inquiry brought out a round of somewhat cloudy witticism, with +proposals to Lambert for an exchange on terms rather embarrassing to +meet, seeing that even the least preposterous was not sincere. Taterleg +winked to assure him that it was all banter, without a bit of harm at +the bottom of it, which Lambert understood very well without the +services of a commentator. + +Jim brightened up presently, as if he saw a gleam that might lead +Lambert out of the difficulty. He had an extra horse himself, not much +of a horse to look at, but as good-hearted a horse as a man ever throwed +a leg over, and that wasn't no lie, if you took him the right side on. +But you had to take him the right side on, and humor him, and handle him +like eggs till he got used to you. Then you had as purty a little horse +as a man ever throwed a leg over, anywhere. + +Jim said he'd offer that horse, only he was a little bashful in the +presence of strangers--meaning the horse--and didn't show up in a style +to make his owner proud of him. The trouble with that horse was he used +to belong to a one-legged man, and got so accustomed to the feel of a +one-legged man on him that he was plumb foolish between two legs. + +That horse didn't have much style to him, and no gait to speak of; but +he was as good a cow-horse as ever chawed a bit. If the Duke thought +he'd be able to ride him, he was welcome to him. Taterleg winked what +Lambert interpreted as a warning at that point, and in the faces of the +others there were little gleams of humor, which they turned their heads, +or bent to study the ground, as Siwash did, to hide. + +"Well, I'm not much on a horse," Lambert confessed. + +"You look like a man that'd been on a horse a time or two," said Jim, +with a knowing inflection, a shrewd flattery. + +"I used to ride around a little, but that's been a good while ago." + +"A feller never forgits how to ride," Siwash put in; "and if a man wants +to work on the range, he's got to ride 'less'n he goes and gits a job +runnin' sheep, and that's below any man that is a man." + +Jim sat pondering the question, hands hooked in front of his knees, a +match in his mouth beside his unlighted cigarette. + +"I been thinkin' I'd sell that horse," said he reflectively. "Ain't got +no use for him much; but I don't know." + +He looked off over the chuck wagon, through the tops of the scrub pines +in which the camp was set, drawing his thin, white eyebrows, considering +the case. + +"Winter comin' on and hay to buy," said Siwash. + +"That's what I've been thinkin' and studyin' over. Shucks! I don't need +that horse. I tell you what I'll do, Duke"--turning to Lambert, brisk as +with a gush of sudden generosity--"if you can ride that old pelter, I'll +give him to you for a present. And I bet you'll not git as cheap an +offer of a horse as that ever in your life ag'in." + +"I think it's too generous--I wouldn't want to take advantage of it," +Lambert told him, trying to show a modesty in the matter that he did +not feel. + +"I ain't a-favorin' you, Duke; not a dollar. If I needed that horse, I'd +hang onto him, and you wouldn't git him a cent under thirty-five bucks; +but when a man don't need a horse, and it's a expense on him, he can +afford to give it away--he can give it away and make money. That's what +I'm a-doin', if you want to take me up." + +"I'll take a look at him, Jim." + +Jim got up with eagerness, and went to fetch a saddle and bridle from +under the wagon. The others came into the transaction with lively +interest. Only Taterleg edged round to Lambert, and whispered with his +head turned away to look like innocence: + +"Watch out for him--he's a bal'-faced hyeeny!" + +They trooped off to the corral, which was a temporary enclosure made of +wire run among the little pines. Jim brought the horse out. It stood +tamely enough to be saddled, with head drooping indifferently, and +showed no deeper interest and no resentment over the operation of +bridling, Jim talking all the time he worked, like the faker that he +was, to draw off a too-close inspection of his wares. + +"Old Whetstone ain't much to look at," he said, "and as I told you, +Mister, he ain't got no fancy gait; but he can bust the middle out of +the breeze when he lays out a straight-ahead run. Ain't a horse on this +range can touch his tail when old Whetstone throws a ham into it and +lets out his stren'th." + +"He looks like he might go some," Lambert commented in the vacuous way +of a man who felt that he must say something, even though he didn't know +anything about it. + +Whetstone was rather above the stature of the general run of range +horses, with clean legs and a good chest. But he was a hammer-headed, +white-eyed, short-maned beast, of a pale water-color yellow, like an old +dish. He had a beaten-down, bedraggled, and dispirited look about him, +as if he had carried men's burdens beyond his strength for a good while, +and had no heart in him to take the road again. He had a scoundrelly way +of rolling his eyes to watch all that went on about him without turning +his head. + +Jim girthed him and cinched him, soundly and securely, for no matter who +was pitched off and smashed up in that ride, he didn't want the saddle +to turn and be ruined. + +"Well, there he stands, Duke, and saddle and bridle goes with him if +you're able to ride him. I'll be generous; I won't go half-way with you; +I'll be whole hog or none. Saddle and bridle goes with Whetstone, all a +free gift, if you can ride him, Duke. I want to start you up right." + +It was a safe offer, taking all precedent into account, for no man ever +had ridden Whetstone, not even his owner. The beast was an outlaw of the +most pronounced type, with a repertory of tricks, calculated to get a +man off his back, so extensive that he never seemed to repeat. He stood +always as docilely as a camel to be saddled and bridled, with what +method in this apparent docility no man versed in horse philosophy ever +had been able to reason out. Perhaps it was that he had been born with a +spite against man, and this was his scheme for luring him on to his +discomfiture and disgrace. + +It was an expectant little group that stood by to witness this +greenhorn's rise and fall. According to his established methods, +Whetstone would allow him to mount, still standing with that indifferent +droop to his head. But one who was sharp would observe that he was +rolling his old white eyes back to see, tipping his sharp ear like a +wildcat to hear every scrape and creak of the leather. Then, with the +man in the saddle, nobody knew what he would do. + +That uncertainty was what made Whetstone valuable and interesting beyond +any outlaw in the world. Men grew accustomed to the tricks of ordinary +pitching broncos, in time, and the novelty and charm were gone. Besides, +there nearly always was somebody who could ride the worst of them. Not +so Whetstone. He had won a good deal of money for Jim, and everybody in +camp knew that thirty-five dollars wasn't more than a third of the value +that his owner put upon him. + +There was boundless wonder among them, then, and no little admiration, +when this stranger who had come into that unlikely place on a bicycle +leaped into the saddle so quickly that old Whetstone was taken +completely by surprise, and held him with such a strong hand and stiff +rein that his initiative was taken from him. + +The greenhorn's next maneuver was to swing the animal round till he lost +his head, then clap heels to him and send him off as if he had business +for the day laid out ahead of him. + +It was the most amazing start that anybody ever had been known to make +on Whetstone, and the most startling and enjoyable thing about it was +that this strange, overgrown boy, with his open face and guileless +speech, had played them all for a bunch of suckers, and knew more about +riding in a minute than they ever had learned in their lives. + +Jim Wilder stood by, swearing by all his obscene deities that if that +man hurt Whetstone, he'd kill him for his hide. But he began to feel +better in a little while. Hope, even certainty, picked up again. +Whetstone was coming to himself. Perhaps the old rascal had only been +elaborating his scheme a little at the start, and was now about to show +them that their faith in him was not misplaced. + +The horse had come to a sudden stop, legs stretched so wide that it +seemed as if he surely must break in the middle. But he gathered his +feet together so quickly that the next view presented him with his back +arched like a fighting cat's. And there on top of him rode the Duke, his +small brown hat in place, his gay shirt ruffling in the wind. + +After that there came, so quickly that it made the mind and eye hasten +to follow, all the tricks that Whetstone ever had tried in his past +triumphs over men; and through all of them, sharp, shrewd, unexpected, +startling as some of them were, that little brown hat rode untroubled on +top. Old Whetstone was as wet at the end of ten minutes as if he had +swum a river. He grunted with anger as he heaved and lashed, he squealed +in his resentful passion as he swerved, lunged, pitched, and clawed the +air. + +The little band of spectators cheered the Duke, calling loudly to inform +him that he was the only man who ever had stuck that long. The Duke +waved his hat in acknowledgement, and put it back on with deliberation +and exactness, while old Whetstone, as mad as a wet hen, tried to roll +down suddenly and crush his legs. + +Nothing to be accomplished by that old trick. The Duke pulled him up +with a wrench that made him squeal, and Whetstone, lifted off his +forelegs, attempted to complete the backward turn and catch his +tormentor under the saddle. But that was another trick so old that the +simplest horseman knew how to meet it. The next thing he knew, Whetstone +was galloping along like a gentleman, just wind enough in him to carry +him, not an ounce to spare. + +Jim Wilder was swearing himself blue. It was a trick, an imposition, he +declared. No circus-rider could come there and abuse old Whetstone that +way and live to eat his dinner. Nobody appeared to share his view of it. +They were a unit in declaring that the Duke beat any man handling a +horse they ever saw. If Whetstone didn't get him off pretty soon, he +would be whipped and conquered, his belly on the ground. + +"If he hurts that horse I'll blow a hole in him as big as a can of +salmon!" Jim declared. + +"Take your medicine like a man, Jim," Siwash advised. "You might know +somebody'd come along that'd ride him, in time." + +"Yes, _come_ along!" said Jim with a sneer. + +Whetstone had begun to collect himself out on the flat among the +sagebrush a quarter of a mile away. The frenzy of desperation was in +him. He was resorting to the raw, low, common tricks of the ordinary +outlaw, even to biting at his rider's legs. That ungentlemanly behavior +was costly, as he quickly learned, at the expense of a badly cut mouth. +He never had met a rider before who had energy to spare from his efforts +to stick in the saddle to slam him a big kick in the mouth when he +doubled himself to make that vicious snap. The sound of that kick +carried to the corral. + +"I'll fix you for that!" Jim swore. + +He was breathing as hard as his horse, sweat of anxiety running down his +face. The Duke was bringing the horse back, his spirit pretty well +broken, it appeared. + +"What do you care what he does to him? It ain't your horse no more." + +It was Taterleg who said that, standing near Jim, a little way behind +him, as gorgeous as a bridegroom in the bright sun. + +"You fellers can't ring me in on no game like that and beat me out of my +horse!" said Jim, redder than ever in his passion. + +"Who do you mean, rung you in, you little, flannel-faced fiste?"[1] +Siwash demanded, whirling round on him with blood in his eye. + +Jim was standing with his legs apart, bent a little at the knees, as if +he intended to make a jump. His right hand was near the butt of his gun, +his fingers were clasping and unclasping, as if he limbered them for +action. Taterleg slipped up behind him on his toes, and jerked the gun +from Jim's scabbard with quick and sure hand. He backed away with it, +presenting it with determined mien as Jim turned on him and cursed him +by all his lurid gods. + +"If you fight anybody in this camp today, Jim, you'll fight like a man," +said Taterleg, "or you'll hobble out of it on three legs, like a wolf." + +The Duke was riding old Whetstone like a feather, letting him have his +spurts of kicking and stiff-legged bouncing without any effort to +restrain him at all. There wasn't much steam in the outlaw's antics now; +any common man could have ridden him without losing his hat. + +Jim had drawn apart from the others, resentful of the distrust that +Taterleg had shown, but more than half of his courage and bluster taken +away from him with his gun. He was swearing more volubly than ever to +cover his other deficiencies; but he was a man to be feared only when he +had his weapon under his hand. + +The Duke had brought the horse almost back to camp when the animal was +taken with an extraordinarily vicious spasm of pitching, broken by +sudden efforts to fling himself down and roll over on his persistent +rider. The Duke let him have it his way, all but the rolling, for a +while; then he appeared to lose patience with the stubborn beast. He +headed him into the open, laid the quirt to him, and galloped toward the +hills. + +"That's the move--run the devil out of him," said one. + +The Duke kept him going, and going for all there was in him. Horse and +rider were dim in the dust of the heated race against the evil passion, +the untamed demon, in the savage creature's heart. It began to look as +if Lambert never intended to come back. Jim saw it that way. He came +over to Taterleg as hot as a hornet. + +"Give me that gun--I'm goin' after him!" + +"You'll have to go without it, Jim." + +Jim blasted him to sulphurous perdition, and split him with forked +lightning from his blasphemous tongue. + +"He'll come back; he's just runnin' the vinegar out of him," said one. + +"Come back--hell!" said Jim. + +"If he don't come back, that's his business. A man can go wherever he +wants to go on his own horse, I guess." + +That was the observation of Siwash, standing there rather glum and out +of tune over Jim's charge that they had rung the Duke in on him to beat +him out of his animal. + +"It was a put-up job! I'll split that feller like a hog!" + +Jim left them with that declaration of his benevolent intention, +hurrying to the corral where his horse was, his saddle on the ground by +the gate. They watched him saddle, and saw him mount and ride after the +Duke, with no comment on his actions at all. + +The Duke was out of sight in the scrub timber at the foot of the hills, +but his dust still floated like the wake of a swift boat, showing the +way he had gone. + +"Yes, you will!" said Taterleg. + +Meaningless, irrelevant, as that fragmentary ejaculation seemed, the +others understood. They grinned, and twisted wise heads, spat out their +tobacco, and went back to dinner. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[Footnote 1: Fice--dog.] + + + + +CHAPTER III + +AN EMPTY SADDLE + + +The Duke was seen coming back before the meal was over, across the +little plain between camp and hills. A quarter of a mile behind him Jim +Wilder rode, whether seen or unseen by the man in the lead they did not +know. + +Jim had fallen behind somewhat by the time the Duke reached camp. The +admiration of all hands over this triumph against horseflesh and the +devil within it was so great that they got up to welcome the Duke, and +shake hands with him as he left the saddle. He was as fresh and nimble, +unshaken and serene, as when he mounted old Whetstone more than an hour +before. + +Whetstone was a conquered beast, beyond any man's doubt. He stood with +flaring nostrils, scooping in his breath, not a dry hair on him, not a +dash of vinegar in his veins. + +"Where's Jim?" the Duke inquired. + +"Comin'," Taterleg replied, waving his hand afield. + +"What's he doin' out there--where's he been?" the Duke inquired, a +puzzled look in his face, searching their sober countenances for his +answer. + +"He thought you----" + +"Let him do his own talkin', kid," said Siwash, cutting off the cowboy's +explanation. + +Siwash looked at the Duke shrewdly, his head cocked to one side like a +robin listening for a worm. + +"What outfit was you with before you started out sellin' them +tooth-puller-can-opener machines, son?" he inquired. + +"Outfit? What kind of an outfit?" + +"Ranch, innercence; what range was you ridin' on?" + +"I never rode any range, I'm sorry to say." + +"Well, where in the name of mustard did you learn to ride?" + +"I used to break range horses for five dollars a head at the Kansas City +Stockyards. That was a good while ago; I'm all out of practice now." + +"Yes, and I bet you can throw a rope, too." + +"Nothing to speak of." + +"Nothing to speak of! Yes, I'll _bet_ you nothing to speak of!" + +Jim didn't stop at the corral to turn in his horse, but came clattering +into camp, madder for the race that the Duke had led him in ignorance of +his pursuit, as every man could see. He flung himself out of the saddle +with a flip like a bird taking to the wing, his spurs cutting the ground +as he came over to where Lambert stood. + +"Maybe you can ride my horse, you damn granger, but you can't ride me!" +he said. + +He threw off his vest as he spoke, that being his only superfluous +garment, and bowed his back for a fight. Lambert looked at him with a +flush of indignant contempt spreading in his face. + +"You don't need to get sore about it; I only took you up at your own +game," he said. + +"No circus-ringer's goin' to come in here and beat me out of my horse. +You'll either put him back in that corral or you'll chaw leather with +me!" + +"I'll put him back in the corral when I'm ready, but I'll put him back +as mine. I won him on your own bet, and it'll take a whole lot better +man than you to take him away from me." + +In the manner of youth and independence, Lambert got hotter with every +word, and after that there wasn't much room for anything else to be said +on either side. They mixed it, and they mixed it briskly, for Jim's +contempt for a man who wore a hat like that supplied the courage that +had been drained from him when he was disarmed. + +There was nothing epic in that fight, nothing heroic at all. It was a +wildcat struggle in the dust, no more science on either side than nature +put into their hands at the beginning. But they surely did kick up a lot +of dust. It would have been a peaceful enough little fight, with a +handshake at the end and all over in an hour, very likely, if Jim hadn't +managed to get out his knife when he felt himself in for a trimming. + +It was a mean-looking knife, with a buck-horn handle and a four-inch +blade that leaped open on pressure of a spring. Its type was widely +popular all over the West in those days, but one of them would be almost +a curiosity now. But Jim had it out, anyhow, lying on his back with the +Duke's knee on his ribs, and was whittling away before any man could +raise a hand to stop him. + +The first slash split the Duke's cheek for two inches just below his +eye; the next tore his shirt sleeve from shoulder to elbow, grazing the +skin as it passed. And there somebody kicked Jim's elbow and knocked the +knife out of his hand. + +"Let him up, Duke," he said. + +Lambert released the strangle hold that he had taken on Jim's throat and +looked up. It was Spence, standing there with his horse behind him. He +laid his hand on Lambert's shoulder. + +"Let him up, Duke," he said again. + +Lambert got up, bleeding a cataract. Jim bounced to his feet like a +spring, his hand to his empty holster, a look of dismay in his blanching +face. + +"That's your size, you nigger!" Spence said, kicking the knife beyond +Jim's reach. "That's the kind of a low-down cuss you always was. This +man's our guest, and when you pull a knife on him you pull it on me!" + +"You know I ain't got a gun on me, you----" + +"Git it, you sneakin' houn'!" + +Jim looked round for Taterleg. + +"Where's my gun? you greasy potslinger!" + +"Give it to him, whoever's got it." + +Taterleg produced it. Jim began backing off as soon as he had it in his +hand, watching Spence alertly. Lambert leaped between them. + +"Gentlemen, don't go to shootin' over a little thing like this!" he +begged. + +Taterleg came between them, also, and Siwash, quite blocking up the +fairway. + +"Now, boys, put up your guns; this is Sunday, you know," Siwash said. + +"Give me room, men!" Spence commanded, in voice that trembled with +passion, with the memory of old quarrels, old wrongs, which this last +insult to the camp's guest gave the excuse for wiping out. There was +something in his tone not to be denied; they fell out of his path as if +the wind had blown them. Jim fired, his elbow against his ribs. + +Too confident of his own speed, or forgetting that Wilder already had +his weapon out, Spence crumpled at the knees, toppled backward, fell. +His pistol, half-drawn, dropped from the holster and lay at his side. +Wilder came a step nearer and fired another shot into the fallen man's +body, dead as he must have known him to be. He ran on to his horse, +mounted, and rode away. + +Some of the others hurried to the wagon after their guns. Lambert, for a +moment shocked to the heart by the sudden horror of the tragedy, bent +over the body of the man who had taken up his quarrel without even +knowing the merits of it, or whose fault lay at the beginning. A look +into his face was enough to tell that there was nothing within the +compass of this earth that could bring back life to that strong, young +body, struck down in a breath like a broken vase. He looked up. Jim +Wilder was bending in the saddle as he rode swiftly away, as if he +expected them to shoot. A great fire of resentment for this man's +destructive deed swept over him, hotter than the hot blood wasting from +his wounded cheek. The passion of vengeance wrenched his joints, his +hand shook and grew cold, as he stooped again to unfasten the belt about +his friend's dead body. + +Armed with the weapon that had been drawn a fraction of a second too +late, drawn in the chivalrous defense of hospitality, the high courtesy +of an obligation to a stranger, Lambert mounted the horse that had come +to be his at the price of this tragedy, and galloped in pursuit of the +fleeing man. + +Some of the young men were hurrying to the corral, belting on their guns +as they ran to fetch their horses and join the pursuit. Siwash called +them back. + +"Leave it to him, boys; it's his by rights," he said. + +Taterleg stood looking after the two riders, the hindmost drawing +steadily upon the leader, and stood looking so until they disappeared in +the timber at the base of the hills. + +"My God!" said he. And again, after a little while: "My God!" + +It was dusk when Lambert came back, leading Jim Wilder's horse. There +was blood on the empty saddle. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"AND SPEAK IN PASSING" + + +The events of that Sunday introduced Lambert into the Bad Lands and +established his name and fame. Within three months after going to work +for the Syndicate ranch he was known for a hundred miles around as the +man who had broken Jim Wilder's outlaw and won the horse by that +unparalleled feat. + +That was the prop to his fame--that he had broken Jim Wilder's outlaw. +Certainly he was admired and commended for the unhesitating action he +had taken in avenging the death of his friend, but in that he had done +only what was expected of any man worthy the name. Breaking the outlaw +was a different matter entirely. In doing that he had accomplished what +was believed to be beyond the power of any living man. + +According to his own belief, his own conscience, Lambert had made a bad +start. A career that had its beginning in contentions and violence, +enough of it crowded into one day to make more than the allotment of an +ordinary life, could not terminate with any degree of felicity and +honor. They thought little of killing a man in that country, it seemed; +no more than a perfunctory inquiry, to fulfill the letter of the law, +had been made by the authorities into Jim Wilder's death. + +While it relieved him to know that the law held his justification to be +ample, there was a shadow following him which he could not evade in any +of the hilarious diversions common to those wild souls of the range. + +It troubled him that he had killed a man, even in a fair fight in the +open field with the justification of society at his back. In his sleep +it harried him with visions; awake, it oppressed him like a sorrow, or +the memory of a shame. He became solemn and silent as a chastened man, +seldom smiling, laughing never. + +When he drank with his companions in the little saloon at Misery, the +loading station on the railroad, he took his liquor as gravely as the +sacrament; when he raced them he rode with face grim as an Indian, +never whooping in victory, never swearing in defeat. + +He had left even his own lawful and proper name behind him with his +past. Far and near he was known as the Duke of Chimney Butte, shortened +in cases of direct address to "Duke." He didn't resent it, rather took a +sort of grim pride in it, although he felt at times that it was one more +mark of his surrender to circumstances whose current he might have +avoided at the beginning by the exercise of a proper man's sense. + +A man was expected to drink a good deal of the overardent spirits which +were sold at Misery. If he could drink without becoming noisy, so much +the more to his credit, so much higher he stood in the estimation of his +fellows as a copper-bottomed sport of the true blood. The Duke could put +more of that notorious whisky under cover, and still contain himself, +than any man they ever had seen in Misery. The more he drank the glummer +he became, but he never had been known either to weep or curse. + +Older men spoke to him with respect, younger ones approached him with +admiration, unable to understand what kind of a safety-valve a man had +on his mouth that would keep his steam in when that Misery booze began +to sizzle in his pipes. His horse was a subject of interest almost equal +to himself. + +Under his hand old Whetstone--although not more than seven--had +developed unexpected qualities. When the animal's persecution ceased, +his perversity fled. He grew into a well-conditioned creature, sleek of +coat, beautiful of tail as an Arab barb, bright of eye, handsome to +behold. His speed and endurance were matters of as much note as his +outlawry had been but a little while before, and his intelligence was +something almost beyond belief. + +Lambert had grown exceedingly fond of him, holding him more in the +estimation of a companion than the valuation of a dumb creature of +burden. When they rode the long watches at night he talked to him, and +Whetstone would put back his sensitive ear and listen, and toss his head +in joyful appreciation of his master's confidence and praise. + +Few horses had beaten Whetstone in a race since he became the Duke's +property. It was believed that none on that range could do it if the +Duke wanted to put him to his limit. It was said that the Duke lost only +such races as he felt necessary to the continuance of his prosperity. + +Racing was one of the main diversions when the cowboys from the +surrounding ranches met at Misery on a Sunday afternoon, or when loading +cattle there. Few trains stopped at Misery, a circumstance resented by +the cowboys, who believed the place should be as important to all the +world as it was to them. To show their contempt for this aloof behavior +they usually raced the trains, frequently outrunning those westward +bound as they labored up the long grade. + +Freight trains especially they took delight in beating, seeing how it +nettled the train crews. There was nothing more delightful in any +program of amusement that a cowboy could conceive than riding abreast of +a laboring freight engine, the sulky engineer crowding every pound of +power into the cylinders, the sooty fireman humping his back throwing in +coal. Only one triumph would have been sweeter--to outrun the big +passenger train from Chicago with the brass-fenced car at the end. + +No man ever had done that yet, although many had tried. The engineers +all knew what to expect on a Sunday afternoon when they approached +Misery, where the cowboys came through the fence and raced the trains on +the right-of-way. A long, level stretch of soft gray earth, set with +bunches of grass here and there, began a mile beyond the station, +unmarred by steam-shovel or grader's scraper. A man could ride it with +his eyes shut; a horse could cover it at its best. + +That was the racing ground over which they had contended with the +Chicago-Puget Sound flier for many years, and a place which engineers +and firemen prepared to pass quickly while yet a considerable distance +away. It was a sight to see the big engine round the curve below, its +plume of smoke rising straight for twenty feet, streaming back like a +running girl's hair, the cowboys all set in their saddles, waiting to +go. + +Engineers on the flier were not so sulky about it, knowing that the race +was theirs before it was run. Usually they leaned out of the window and +urged the riders on with beckoning, derisive hand, while the fireman +stood by grinning, confident of the head of steam he had begun storing +for this emergency far down the road. + +Porters told passengers about these wild horsemen in advance, and eager +faces lined the windows on that side of the cars as they approached +Misery, and all who could pack on the end of the observation car +assembled there. In spite of its name, Misery was quite a comfortable +break in the day's monotony for travelers on a Sunday afternoon. + +Amid the hardships and scant diversions of this life, Lambert spent his +first winter in the Bad Lands, drinking in the noisy revels at Misery, +riding the long, bitter miles back to the ranch, despising himself for +being so mean and low. It was a life in which a man's soul would either +shrink to nothing or expand until it became too large to find +contentment within the horizon of such an existence. + +Some of them expanded up to the size for ranch owners, superintendents, +bosses; stopped there, set in their mold. Lambert never had heard of +one stretching so wide that he was drawn out of himself entirely, his +eyes fixed on the far light of a nobler life. He liked to imagine a man +so inspired out of the lonely watches, the stormy rides, the battle +against blizzard and night. + +This train of thought had carried him away that gentle spring day as he +rode to Misery. He resented the thought that he might have to spend his +youth as a hired servant in this rough occupation, unremunerative below +the hope of ever gaining enough to make a start in business for himself. +There was no romance in it, for all that had been written, no beautiful +daughter of the ranch owner to be married, and a fortune gained with +her. + +Daughters there must be, indeed, among the many stockholders in that big +business, but they were not available in the Bad Lands. The +superintendent of the ranch had three or four, born to that estate, full +of loud laughter, ordinary as baled hay. A man would be a loser in +marrying such as they, even with a fortune ready made. + +What better could that rough country offer? People are no gentler than +their pursuits, no finer than the requirements of their lives. Daughters +of the Bad Lands, such as he had seen of them in the wives to whom he +once had tried to sell the All-in-One, and the superintendent's girls +were not intended for any other life. As for him, if he had to live it +out there, with the shadow of a dead man at his heels, he would live it +alone. So he thought, going on his way to Misery, where there was to be +racing that afternoon, and a grand effort to keep up with the Chicago +flier. + +Lambert never had taken part in that longstanding competition. It +appeared to him a senseless expenditure of horseflesh, a childish +pursuit of the wind. Yet, foolish as it was, he liked to watch them. +There was a thrill in the sweeping start of twenty or thirty horsemen +that warmed a man, making him feel as if he must whoop and wave his hat. +There was a belief alive among them that some day a man would come who +would run the train neck and neck to the depot platform. + +Not much distinction in it, even so, said he. But it set him musing and +considering as he rode, his face quickening out of its somber cloud. A +little while after his arrival at Misery the news went round that the +Duke was willing at last to enter the race against the flier. + +True to his peculiarities, the Duke had made conditions. He was willing +to race, but only if everybody else would keep out of it and give him a +clear and open field. Taterleg Wilson, the bow-legged camp cook of the +Syndicate, circulated himself like a petition to gain consent to this +unusual proposal. + +It was asking a great deal of those men to give up their established +diversion, no matter how distinguished the man in whose favor they were +requested to stand aside. That Sunday afternoon race had become as much +a fixed institution in the Bad Lands as the railroad itself. With some +argument, some bucking and snorting, a considerable cost to Taterleg for +liquor and cigars, they agreed to it. Taterleg said he could state, +authoritatively, that this would be the Duke's first, last, and only +ride against the flier. It would be worth money to stand off and watch +it, he said, and worth putting money on the result. When, where, would +a man ever have a chance to see such a race again? Perhaps never in his +life. + +On time, to a dot, the station agent told the committee headed by +Taterleg, which had gone to inquire in the grave and important manner of +men conducting a ceremony. The committee went back to the saloon, and +pressed the Duke to have a drink. He refused, as he had refused politely +and consistently all day. A man could fight on booze, he said, but it +was a mighty poor foundation for business. + +There was a larger crowd in Misery that day than usual for the time of +year, it being the first general holiday after the winter's hard +exactions. In addition to visitors, all Misery turned out to see the +race, lining up at the right-of-way fence as far as they would go, which +was not a great distance along. The saloon-keeper could see the finish +from his door. On the start of it he was not concerned, but he had money +up on the end. + +Lambert hadn't as much flesh, by a good many pounds, as he had carried +into the Bad Lands on his bicycle. One who had known him previously +would have thought that seven years had passed him, making him over +completely, indeed, since then. His face was thin, browned and +weathered, his body sinewy, its leanness aggravated by its length. He +was as light in the saddle as a leaf on the wind. + +He was quite a barbaric figure as he waited to mount and ride against +the train, which could be heard whistling far down the road. Coatless, +in flannel shirt, a bright silk handkerchief round his neck; calfskin +vest, tanned with the hair on, its color red and white; dressed leather +chaps, a pair of boots that had cost him two-thirds of a month's pay. +His hat was like forty others in the crowd, doe-colored, worn with the +high crown full-standing, a leather thong at the back of the head, the +brim drooping a bit from the weather, so broad that his face looked +narrower and sharper in its shadow. + +Nothing like the full-blooded young aggie who had come into the Bad +Lands to found his fortune a little less than a year before, and about +as different from him in thought and outlook upon life as in physical +appearance. The psychology of environment is a powerful force. + +A score or more of horsemen were strung out along the course, where they +had stationed themselves to watch the race at its successive stages, and +cheer their champion on his way. At the starting-point the Duke waited +alone; at the station a crowd of cowboys lolled in their saddles, not +caring to make a run to see the finish. + +It was customary for the horsemen who raced the flier to wait on the +ground until the engine rounded the curve, then mount and settle to the +race. It was counted fair, also, owing to the headway the train already +had, to start a hundred yards or so before the engine came abreast, in +order to limber up to the horses' best speed. + +For two miles or more the track ran straight after that curve, Misery +about the middle of the stretch. In that long, straight reach the +builders of the road had begun the easement of the stiff grade through +the hills beyond. It was the beginning of a hard climb, a stretch in +which west-bound trains gathered headway to carry them over the top. +Engines came panting round that curve, laboring with the strain of +their load, speed reduced half, and dropping a bit lower as they +proceeded up the grade. + +This Sunday, as usual, train crew and passengers were on the lookout for +the game sportsmen of Misery. Already the engineer was leaning out of +his window, arm extended, ready to give the derisive challenge to come +on as he swept by. + +The Duke was in the saddle, holding in Whetstone with stiff rein, for +the animal was trembling with eagerness to spring away, knowing very +well from the preparations which had been going forward that some big +event in the lives of his master and himself was pending. The Duke held +him, looking back over his shoulder, measuring the distance as the train +came sweeping grandly round the curve. He waited until the engine was +within a hundred feet of him before he loosed rein and let old Whetstone +go. + +A yell ran up the line of spectators as the pale yellow horse reached +out his long neck, chin level against the wind like a swimmer, and ran +as no horse ever had run on that race-course before. Every horseman +there knew that the Duke was still holding him in, allowing the train +to creep up on him as if he scorned to take advantage of the handicap. + +The engineer saw that this was going to be a different kind of race from +the yelling, chattering troop of wild riders which he had been +outrunning with unbroken regularity. In that yellow streak of horse, +that low-bending, bony rider, he saw a possibility of defeat and +disgrace. His head disappeared out of the window, his derisive hand +vanished. He was turning valves and pulling levers, trying to coax a +little more power into his piston strokes. + +The Duke held Whetstone back until his wind had set to the labor, his +muscles flexed, his sinews stretched to the race. A third of the race +was covered when the engine came neck and neck with the horse, and the +engineer, confident now, leaned far out, swinging his hand like the oar +of a boat, and shouted: + +"Come on! Come on!" + +Just a moment too soon this confidence, a moment too soon this defiance. +It was the Duke's program to run this thing neck and neck, force to +force, with no advantage asked or taken. Then if he could gather speed +and beat the engine on the home stretch no man, on the train or off, +could say that he had done it with the advantage of a handicap. + +There was a great whooping, a great thumping of hoofs, a monstrous swirl +of dust, as the riders at the side of the race-course saw the Duke's +maneuver and read his intention. Away they swept, a noisy troop, like a +flight of blackbirds, hats off, guns popping, in a scramble to get up as +close to the finishing line as possible. + +Never before in the long history of that unique contest had there been +so much excitement. Porters opened the vestibule doors, allowing +passengers to crowd the steps; windows were opened, heads thrust out, +every tongue urging the horseman on with cheers. + +The Duke was riding beside the engineer, not ten feet between them. More +than half the course was run, and there the Duke hung, the engine not +gaining an inch. The engineer was on his feet now, hand on the throttle +lever, although it was open as wide as it could be pulled. The fireman +was throwing coal into the furnace, looking round over his shoulder now +and then at the persistent horseman who would not be outrun, his eyes +white in his grimy face. + +On the observation car women hung over the rail at the side, waving +handkerchiefs at the rider's back; along the fence the inhabitants of +Misery broke away like leaves before a wind and went running toward the +depot; ahead of the racing horse and engine the mounted men who had +taken a big start rode on toward the station in a wild, delirious +charge. + +Neck and neck with the engine old Whetstone ran, throwing his long legs +like a wolf-hound, his long neck stretched, his ears flat, not leaving a +hair that he could control outstanding to catch the wind. The engineer +was peering ahead with fixed eyes now, as if he feared to look again on +this puny combination of horse and man that was holding its own in this +unequal trial of strength. + +Within three hundred yards of the station platform, which sloped down at +the end like a continuation of the course, the Duke touched old +Whetstone's neck with the tips of his fingers. As if he had given a +signal upon which they had agreed, the horse gathered power, grunting as +he used to grunt in the days of his outlawry, and bounded away from the +cab window, where the greasy engineer stood with white face and set jaw. + +Yard by yard the horse gained, his long mane flying, his long tail +astream, foam on his lips, forging past the great driving wheels which +ground against the rails; past the swinging piston; past the powerful +black cylinders; past the stubby pilot, advancing like a shadow over the +track. When Whetstone's hoofs struck the planks of the platform, marking +the end of the course, he was more than the length of the engine in the +lead. + +The Duke sat there waving his hand solemnly to those who cheered him as +the train swept past, the punchers around him lifting up a joyful chorus +of shots and shouts, showing off on their own account to a considerable +extent, but sincere over all because of the victory that the Duke had +won. + +Old Whetstone was standing where he had stopped, within a few feet of +the track, front hoofs on the boards of the platform, not more than +nicely warmed up for another race, it appeared. As the observation car +passed, a young woman leaned over the rail, handkerchief reached out to +the Duke as if trying to give it to him. + +He saw her only a second before she passed, too late to make even a +futile attempt to possess the favor of her appreciation. She laughed, +waving it to him, holding it out as if in challenge for him to come and +take it. Without wasting a precious fragment of a second in hesitation +the Duke sent Whetstone thundering along the platform in pursuit of the +train. + +It seemed a foolish thing to do, and a risky venture, for the platform +was old, its planks were weak in places. It was not above a hundred feet +long, and beyond it only a short stretch of right-of-way until the +public road crossed the track, the fence running down to the cattle +guard, blocking his hope of overtaking the train. + +More than that, the train was picking up speed, as if the engineer +wanted to get out of sight and hearing of that demonstrative crowd, and +put his humiliation behind him as quickly as possible. No man's horse +could make a start with planks under his feet, run two hundred yards +and overtake that train, no matter what the inducement. That was the +thought of every man who sat a saddle there and stretched his neck to +witness this unparalleled streak of folly. + +If Whetstone had run swiftly in the first race, he fairly whistled +through the air like a wild duck in the second. Before he had run the +length of the platform he had gained on the train, his nose almost even +with the brass railing over which the girl leaned, the handkerchief in +her hand. Midway between the platform and the cattle guard they saw the +Duke lean in his saddle and snatch the white favor from her hand. + +The people on the train end cheered this feat of quick resolution, +quicker action. But the girl whose handkerchief the Duke had won only +leaned on the railing, holding fast with both hands, as if she offered +her lips to be kissed, and looked at him with a pleasure in her face +that he could read as the train bore her onward into the West. + +The Duke sat there with his hat in his hand, gazing after her, only her +straining face in his vision, centered out of the dust and widening +distance like a star that a man gazes on to fix his course before it is +overwhelmed by clouds. + +The Duke sat watching after her, the train reducing the distance like a +vision that melts out of the heart with a sigh. She raised her hand as +the dust closed in the wake of the train. He thought she beckoned him. + +So she came, and went, crossing his way in the Bad Lands in that hour of +his small triumph, and left her perfumed token of appreciation in his +hand. The Duke put it away in the pocket of his shirt beneath the +calfskin vest, the faint delicacy of its perfume rising to his nostrils +like the elusive scent of a violet for which one searches the woodland +and cannot find. + +The dusty hills had gulped the train that carried her before the Duke +rode round the station and joined his noisy comrades. Everybody shook +hands with him, everybody invited him to have a drink. He put them +off--friend, acquaintance, stranger, on their pressing invitation to +drink--with the declaration that his horse came first in his +consideration. After he had put Whetstone in the livery barn and fed +him, he would join them for a round, he said. + +They trooped into the saloon to square their bets, the Duke going his +way to the barn. There they drank and grew noisier than before, to come +out from time to time, mount their horses, gallop up and down the road +that answered Misery for a street, and shoot good ammunition into the +harmless air. + +Somebody remarked after a while that the Duke was a long time feeding +that horse. Taterleg and others went to investigate. He had not been +there, the keeper of the livery barn said. A further look around +exhausted all the possible hiding-places of Misery. The Duke was not +there. + +"Well," said Taterleg, puzzled, "I guess he's went." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +FEET UPON THE ROAD + + +"I always thought I'd go out West, but somehow I never got around to +it," Taterleg said. "How far do you aim to go, Duke?" + +"As far as the notion takes me, I guess." + +It was about a month after the race that this talk between Taterleg and +the Duke took place, on a calm afternoon in a camp far from the site of +that one into which the peddler of cutlery had trundled his disabled +bicycle a year before. The Duke had put off his calfskin vest, the +weather being too hot for it. Even Taterleg had made sacrifices to +appearance in favor of comfort, his piratical corduroys being replaced +by overalls. + +The Duke had quit his job, moved by the desire to travel on and see the +world, he said. He said no word to any man about the motive behind that +desire, very naturally, for he was not the kind of a man who opened the +door of his heart. But to himself he confessed the hunger for an +unknown face, for the lure of an onward-beckoning hand which he was no +longer able to ignore. + +Since that day she had strained over the brass railing of the car to +hold him in her sight until the curtain of dust intervened, he had felt +her call urging him into the West, the strength of her beckoning hand +drawing him the way she had gone, to search the world for her and find +her on some full and glorious day. + +"Was you aimin' to sell Whetstone and go on the train, Duke?" + +"No, I'm not goin' to sell him yet a while." + +The Duke was not a talkative man on any occasion, and now he sat in +silence watching the cook kneading out a batch of bread, his thoughts a +thousand miles away. + +Where, indeed, would the journey that he was shaping in his intention +that minute carry him? Somewhere along the railroad between there and +Puget Sound the beckoning lady had left the train; somewhere on that +long road between mountain and sea she was waiting for him to come. + +Taterleg stood his loaves in the sun to rise for the oven, making a +considerable rattling about the stove as he put in the fire. A silence +fell. + +Lambert was waiting for his horse to rest a few hours, and, waiting, he +sent his dreams ahead of him where his feet could not follow save by +weary roads and slow. + +Between Misery and the end of that railroad at the western sea there +were many villages, a few cities. A passenger might alight from the +Chicago flier at any of them, and be absorbed in the vastness like a +drop of water in the desert plain. How was he to know where she had left +the train, or whither she had turned afterward, or journeyed, or where +she lodged now? It seemed beyond finding out. Assuredly it was a task +too great for the life of youth, so evanescent in the score of time, +even though so long and heavy to those impatient dreamers who draw +themselves onward by its golden chain to the cold, harsh facts of age. + +It was a foolish quest, a hopeless one. So reason said. Romance and +youth, and the longing that he could not define, rose to confute this +sober argument, flushed and eager, violet scent blowing before. + +Who could tell? and perhaps; rash speculations, faint promises. The +world was not so broad that two might never meet in it whose ways had +touched for one heart-throb and sundered again in a sigh. All his life +he had been hearing that it was a small place, after all was said. +Perhaps, and who can tell? And so, galloping onward in the free leash of +his ardent dreams. + +"When was you aimin' to start, Duke?" Taterleg inquired, after a silence +so long that Lambert had forgotten he was there. + +"In about another hour." + +"I wasn't tryin' to hurry you off, Duke. My reason for askin' you was +because I thought maybe I might be able to go along with you a piece of +the way, if you don't object to my kind of company." + +"Why, you're not goin' to jump the job, are you?" + +"Yes, I've been thinkin' it over, and I've made up my mind to draw my +time tonight. If you'll put off goin' till mornin', I'll start with +you. We can travel together till our roads branch, anyhow." + +"I'll be glad to wait for you, old feller. I didn't know--which way----" + +"Wyoming," said Taterleg, sighing. "It's come back on me ag'in." + +"Well, a feller has to rove and ramble, I guess." + +Taterleg sighed, looking off westward with dreamy eyes. "Yes, if he's +got a girl pullin' on his heart," said he. + +The Duke started as if he had been accused, his secret read, his soul +laid bare; he felt the blood burn in his face, and mount to his eyes +like a drift of smoke. But Taterleg was unconscious of this sudden +embarrassment, this flash of panic for the thing which the Duke believed +lay so deep in his heart no man could ever find it out and laugh at it +or make gay over the scented romance. Taterleg was still looking off in +a general direction that was westward, a little south of west. + +"She's in Wyoming," said Taterleg; "a lady I used to rush out in Great +Bend, Kansas, a long time ago." + +"Oh," said the Duke, relieved and interested. "How long ago was that?" + +"Over four years," sighed Taterleg, as if it might have been a quarter +of a century. + +"Not so very long, Taterleg." + +"Yes, but a lot of fellers can court a girl in four years, Duke." + +The Duke thought it over a spell. "Yes, I reckon they can," he allowed. +"Don't she ever write to you?" + +"I guess I'm more to blame than she is on that, Duke. She _did_ write, +but I was kind of sour and dropped her. It's hard to git away from, +though; it's a-comin' over me ag'in. I might 'a' been married and +settled down with that girl now, me and her a-runnin' a oyster parlor in +some good little railroad town, if it hadn't 'a' been for a Welshman +name of Elwood. He was a stonecutter, that Elwood feller was, Duke, +workin' on bridge 'butments on the Santa Fe. That feller told her I was +married and had four children; he come between us and bust us up." + +"Wasn't he onery!" said the Duke, feelingly. + +"I was chef in the hotel where that girl worked waitin' table, drawin' +down good money, and savin' it, too. But that derned Welshman got around +her and she growed cold. When she left Great Bend she went to Wyoming to +take a job--Lander was the town she wrote from, I can put my finger on +it in the map with my eyes shut. I met her when she was leavin' for the +depot, draggin' along with her grip and no Welshman in a mile of her to +give her a hand. I went up and tipped my hat, but I never smiled, Duke, +for I was sour over the way that girl she'd treated me. I just took hold +of that grip and carried it to the depot for her and tipped my hat to +her once more. 'You're a gentleman, whatever they say of you, Mr. +Wilson,' she said." + +"_She_ did?" + +"She did, Duke. 'You're a gentleman, Mr. Wilson, whatever they say of +you,' she said. Them was her words, Duke. 'Farewell to _you_,' I said, +distant and high-mighty, for I was hurt, Duke--I was hurt right down to +the bone." + +"I bet you was, old feller." + +"'Farewell to _you_,' I says, and the tears come in her eyes, and she +says to me--wipin' 'em on a han'kerchief I give her, nothing any +Welshman ever done for her, and you can bank on that Duke--she says to +me: 'I'll always think of you as a gentleman, Mr. Wilson.' I wasn't onto +what that Welshman told her then; I didn't know the straight of it till +she wrote and told me after she got to Wyoming." + +"It was too bad, old feller." + +"Wasn't it hell? I was so sore when she wrote, the way she'd believed +that little sawed-off snorter with rock dust in his hair, I never +answered that letter for a long time. Well, I got another letter from +her about a year after that. She was still in the same place, doin' +well. Her name was Nettie Morrison." + +"Maybe it is yet, Taterleg." + +"Maybe. I've been a-thinkin' I'd go out there and look her up, and if +she ain't married, me and her we might let bygones _be_ bygones and +hitch. I could open a oyster parlor out there on the dough I've saved +up; I'd dish 'em up and she'd wait on the table and take in the money. +We'd do well, Duke." + +"I _bet_ you would." + +"I got the last letter she wrote--I'll let you see it, Duke." + +Taterleg made a rummaging in the chuck wagon, coming out presently with +the letter. He stood contemplating it with tender eye. + +"Some writer, ain't she, Duke?" + +"She sure is a fine writer, Taterleg--writes like a schoolma'am." + +"She can talk like one, too. See--'Lander, Wyo.' It's a little town +about as big as my hat, from the looks of it on the map, standin' away +off up there alone. I could go to it with my eyes shut, straight as a +bee." + +"Why don't you write to her, Taterleg?" The Duke could scarcely keep +back a smile, so diverting he found this affair of the Welshman, the +waitress, and the cook. More comedy than romance, he thought, Taterleg +on one side of the fence, that girl on the other. + +"I've been a-squarin' off to write," Taterleg replied, "but I don't seem +to git the time." He opened his vest to put the letter away close to his +heart, it seemed, that it might remind him of his intention and square +him quite around to the task. But there was no pocket on the side +covering his heart. Taterleg put the letter next his lung as the +nearest approach to that sentimental portion of his anatomy, and sighed +long and loud as he buttoned his garment. + +"You said you'd put off goin' till mornin', Duke?" + +"Sure I will." + +"I'll throw my things in a sack and be ready to hit the breeze with you +after breakfast. I can write back to the boss for my time." + + * * * * * + +Morning found them on the road together, the sun at their backs. +Taterleg was as brilliant as a humming-bird, even to his belt and +scabbard, which had a great many silver tacks driven into them, +repeating the letters LW in great characters and small. He said the +letters were the initials of his name. + +"Lawrence?" the Duke ventured to inquire. + +Taterleg looked round him with great caution before answering, although +they were at least fifteen miles from camp, and farther than that from +the next human habitation. He lowered his voice, rubbing his hand +reflectively along the glittering ornaments of his belt. + +"Lovelace," he said. + +"Not a bad name." + +"It ain't no name for a cook," Taterleg said, almost vindictively. +"You're the first man I ever told it to, and I'll ask you not to pass it +on. I used to go by the name of Larry before they called me Taterleg. I +got that name out here in the Bad Lands; it suits _me_, all right." + +"It's a queer kind of a name to call a man by. How did they come to give +it to you?" + +"Well, sir, I give myself that name, you might say, when you come to +figger it down to cases. I was breakin' a horse when I first come out +here four years ago, headin' at that time for Wyoming. He throwed me. +When I didn't hop him ag'in, the boys come over to see if I was busted. +When they asked me if I was hurt, I says, 'He snapped my dern old leg +like a 'tater.' And from that day on they called me Taterleg. Yes, and I +guess I'd 'a' been in Wyoming now, maybe with a oyster parlor and a +wife, if it hadn't been for that blame horse." He paused reminiscently; +then he said: + +"Where was you aimin' to camp tonight, Duke?" + +"Where does the flier stop after it passes Misery, going west?" + +"It stops for water at Glendora, about fifty or fifty-five miles west, +sometimes. I've heard 'em say if a feller buys a ticket for there in +Chicago, it'll let him off. But I don't guess it stops there regular. +Why, Duke? Was you aimin' to take the flier there?" + +"No. We'll stop there tonight, then, if your horse can make it." + +"Make it! If he can't I'll eat him raw. He's made seventy-five many a +time before today." + +So they fared on that first day, in friendly converse. At sunset they +drew up on a mesa, high above the treeless, broken country through which +they had been riding all day, and saw Glendora in the valley below them. + +"There she is," said Taterleg. "I wonder what we're goin' to run into +down, there?" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +ALLUREMENTS OF GLENDORA + + +In a bend of the Little Missouri, where it broadened out and took on the +appearance of a consequential stream, Glendora lay, a lonely little +village with a gray hill behind it. + +There was but half a street in Glendora, like a setting for a stage, the +railroad in the foreground, the little sun-baked station crouching by +it, lonely as the winds which sung by night in the telegraph wires +crossing its roof. Here the trains went by with a roar, leaving behind +them a cloud of gray dust like a curtain to hide from the eyes of those +who strained from their windows to see the little that remained of +Glendora, once a place of more consequence than today. + +Only enough remained of the town to live by its trade. There was enough +flour in the store, enough whisky in the saloon; enough stamps in the +post office, enough beds in the hotel, to satisfy with comfort the +demands of the far-stretching population of the country contiguous +thereto. But if there had risen an extraordinary occasion bringing a +demand without notice for a thousand pounds more of flour, a barrel more +of whisky, a hundred more stamps or five extra beds, Glendora would have +fallen under the burden and collapsed in disgrace. + +Close by the station there were cattle pens for loading stock, with two +long tracks for holding the cars. In autumn fat cattle were driven down +out of the hidden valleys to entrain there for market. In those days +there was merriment after nightfall in Glendora. At other times it was +mainly a quiet place, the shooting that was done on its one-sided street +being of a peaceful nature in the way of expressing a feeling for which +some plain-witted, drunken cowherder had no words. + +A good many years before the day that the Duke and Taterleg came riding +into Glendora, the town had supported more than one store and saloon. +The shells of these dead enterprises stood there still, windows and +doors boarded up, as if their owners had stopped their mouths when they +went away to prevent a whisper of the secrets they might tell of the old +riotous nights, or of fallen hopes, or dishonest transactions. So they +stood now in their melancholy, backs against the gray hill, giving to +Glendora the appearance of a town that was more than half dead, and soon +must fail and pass utterly away in the gray-blowing clouds of dust. + +The hotel seemed the brightest and soundest living spot in the place, +for it was painted in green, like a watermelon, with a cottonwood tree +growing beside the pump at the porch corner. In yellow letters upon the +windowpane of the office there appeared the proprietor's name, doubtless +the work of some wandering artist who had paid the price of his lodging +or his dinner so. + + ORSON WOOD, PROP. + +said the sign, bedded in curlicues and twisted ornaments, as if a +carpenter had planed the letters out of a board, leaving the shavings +where they fell. A green rustic bench stood across one end of the long +porch, such as is seen in boarding-houses frequented by railroad men, +and chairs with whittled and notched arms before the office door, near +the pump. + +Into this atmosphere there had come, many years before, one of those +innocents among men whose misfortune it is to fall before the +beguilements of the dishonest; that sort of man whom the promoters of +schemes go out to catch in the manner of an old maid trapping flies in a +cup of suds. Milton Philbrook was this man. Somebody had sold him forty +thousand acres of land in a body for three dollars an acre. It began at +the river and ran back to the hills for a matter of twenty miles. + +Philbrook bought the land on the showing that it was rich in coal +deposits. Which was true enough. But he was not geologist enough to know +that it was only lignite, and not a coal of commercial value in those +times. This truth he came to later, together with the knowledge that his +land was worth, at the most extravagant valuation, not more than fifty +cents an acre. + +Finding no market for his brown coal, Philbrook decided to adopt the +customs of the country and turn cattleman. A little inquiry into that +business convinced him that the expenses of growing the cattle and the +long distance from market absorbed a great bulk of the profits +needlessly. He set about with the original plan, therefore, of fencing +his forty thousand acres with wire, thus erasing at one bold stroke the +cost of hiring men to guard his herds. + +A fence in the Bad Lands was unknown outside a corral in those days. +When carloads of barbed wire and posts began to arrive at Glendora men +came riding in for miles to satisfy themselves that the rumors were +founded; when Philbrook hired men to build the fence, and operations +were begun, murmurs and threats against the unwelcome innovation were +heard. Philbrook pushed the work to conclusion, unmindful of the +threats, moved now by the intention of founding a great, baronial estate +in that bleak land. His further plan of profit and consequence was to +establish a packing-house at Glendora, where his herds could be +slaughtered and dressed and shipped neat to market, at once assuring him +a double profit and reduced expense. But that was one phase of his dream +that never hardened into the reality of machinery and bricks. + +While the long lines of fence were going up, carpenters were at work +building a fit seat for Philbrook's baronial aims. The point he chose +for his home site was the top of a bare plateau overlooking the river, +the face of it gray, crumbling shale, rising three hundred feet in +abrupt slope from the water's edge. At great labor and expense Philbrook +built a road between Glendora and this place, and carried water in pipes +from the river to irrigate the grass, trees, shrubs and blooming plants +alien to that country which he planted to break the bleakness of it and +make a setting for his costly home. + +Here on this jutting shoulder of the cold, unfriendly upland, a house +rose which was the wonder of all who beheld it as they rode the wild +distances and viewed it from afar. It seemed a mansion to them, its +walls gleaming white, its roof green as the hope in its builder's +breast. It was a large house, and seemed larger for its prominence +against the sky, built in the shape of a T, with wide porches in the +angles. And to this place, upon which he had lavished what remained of +his fortune, Philbrook brought his wife and little daughter, as strange +to their surroundings as the delicate flowers which pined and drooped in +that unfriendly soil. + +Immediately upon completion of his fences he had imported well-bred +cattle and set them grazing within his confines. He set men to riding by +night and day a patrol of his long lines of wire, rifles under their +thighs, with orders to shoot anybody found cutting the fences in +accordance with the many threats to serve them so. Contentions and feuds +began, and battles and bloody encounters, which did not cease through +many a turbulent year. Philbrook lived in the saddle, for he was a man +of high courage and unbending determination, leaving his wife and child +in the suspense and solitude of their grand home in which they found no +pleasure. + +The trees and shrubs which Philbrook had planted with such care and +attended with such hope, withered on the bleak plateau and died, in +spite of the water from the river; the delicate grass with which he +sought to beautify and clothe the harsh gray soil sickened and pined +away; the shrubs made a short battle against the bleakness of winter, +putting out pale, strange flowers like the wan smile of a woman who +stands on the threshold of death, then failed away, and died. Mrs. +Philbrook broke under the long strain of never-ending battles, and died +the spring that her daughter came eighteen years of age. + +This girl had grown up in the saddle, a true daughter of her fighting +sire. Time and again she had led a patrol of two fence-riders along one +side of that sixty square miles of ranch while her father guarded the +other. She could handle firearms with speed and accuracy equal to any +man on the range, where she had been bearing a man's burden since her +early girlhood. + +All this information pertaining to the history of Milton Philbrook and +his adventures in the Bad Lands, Orson Wood, the one-armed landlord at +the hotel in Glendora told Lambert on the evening of the travelers' +arrival there. The story had come as the result of questions concerning +the great white house on the mesa, the two men sitting on the porch in +plain view of it, Taterleg entertaining the daughter of the hotel +across the show case in the office. + +Lambert found the story more interesting than anything he ever had +imagined of the Bad Lands. Here was romance looking down on him from the +lonely walls of that white house, and heroism of a finer kind than these +people appreciated, he was sure. + +"Is the girl still here?" he inquired. + +"Yes, she's back now. She's been away to school in Boston for three or +four years, comin' back in summer for a little while." + +"When did she come back?" + +Lambert felt that his voice was thick as he inquired, disturbed by the +eager beating of his heart. Who knows? and perhaps, and all the rest of +it came galloping to him with a roar of blood in his ears like the sound +of a thousand hoofs. The landlord called over his shoulder to his +daughter: + +"Alta, when did Vesta Philbrook come back?" + +"Four or five weeks ago," said Alta, with the sound of chewing gum. + +"Four or five weeks ago," the landlord repeated, as though Alta spoke a +foreign tongue and must be translated. + +"I see," said Lambert, vaguely, shaking to the tips of his fingers with +a kind of buck ague that he never had suffered from before. He was +afraid the landlord would notice it, and slewed his chair, getting out +his tobacco to cover the fool spell. + +For that was she, Vesta Philbrook was she, and she was Vesta Philbrook. +He knew it as well as he knew that he could count ten. Something had led +him there that day; the force that was shaping the course of their two +lives to cross again had held him back when he had considered selling +his horse and going West a long distance on the train. He grew calmer +when he had his cigarette alight. The landlord was talking again. + +"Funny thing about Vesta comin' home, too," he said, and stopped a +little, as if to consider the humor of it. Lambert looked at him with a +sudden wrench of the neck. + +"Which?" + +"Philbrook's luck held out, it looked like, till she got through her +education. All through the fights he had and the scrapes he run into +the last ten years he never got a scratch. Bullets used to hum around +that man like bees, and he'd ride through 'em like they _was_ bees, but +none of 'em ever notched him. Curious, wasn't it?" + +"Did somebody get him at last?" + +"No, he took typhoid fever. He took down about a week or ten days after +Vesta got home. He died about a couple of week ago. Vesta had him laid +beside her mother up there on the hill. He said they'd never run him out +of this country, livin' or dead." + +Lambert swallowed a dry lump. + +"Is she running the ranch?" + +"Like an old soldier, sir. I tell you, I've got a whole lot of +admiration for that girl." + +"She must have her hands full." + +"Night and day. She's short on fence-riders, and I guess if you boys are +lookin' for a job you can land up there with Vesta, all right." + +Taterleg and the girl came out and sat on the green rustic bench at the +farther end of the porch. It complained under them; there was talk and +low giggling. + +"We didn't expect to strike anything this soon," Lambert said, his +active mind leaping ahead to shape new romance like a magician. + +"You don't look like the kind of boys that'd shy from a job if it jumped +out in the road ahead of you." + +"I'd hate for folks to think we would." + +"Ain't you the feller they call; the Duke of Chimney Butte?" + +"They call me that in this country." + +"Yes; I knew that horse the minute you rode up, though he's changed for +the better wonderful since I saw him last, and I knew you from the +descriptions I've heard of you. Vesta'd give you a job in a minute, and +she'd pay you good money, too. I wouldn't wonder if she didn't put you +in as foreman right on the jump, account of the name you've got up here +in the Bad Lands." + +"Not much to my credit in the name, I'm afraid," said Lambert, almost +sadly. "Do they still cut her fences and run off her stock?" + +"Yes; rustlin's got to be stylish around here ag'in, after we thought we +had all them gangs rounded up and sent to the pen. I guess some of their +time must be up and they're comin' home." + +"It's pretty tough for a single-handed girl." + +"Yes, it is tough. Them fellers are more than likely some of the old +crowd Philbrook used to fight and round up and send over the road. He +killed off four or five of them, and the rest of them swore they'd salt +him when they'd done their time. Well, he's gone. But they're not above +fightin' a girl." + +"It's a tough job for a woman," said Lambert, looking thoughtfully +toward the white house on the mesa. + +"Ain't it, though?" + +Lambert thought about it a while, or appeared to be thinking about it, +sitting with bent head, smoking silently, looking now and then toward +the ranchhouse, the lights of which could be seen. Alta came across the +porch presently, Taterleg attending her like a courtier. She dismissed +him at the door with an excuse of deferred duties within. He joined his +thoughtful partner. + +"Better go up and see her in the morning," suggested Wood, the landlord. + +"I think I will, thank you." + +Wood went in to sell a cowboy a cigar; the partners started out to have +a look at Glendora by moonlight. A little way they walked in silence, +the light of the barber-shop falling across the road ahead of them. + +"See who in the morning, Duke?" Taterleg inquired. + +"Lady in the white house on the mesa. Her father died a few weeks ago, +and left her alone with a big ranch on her hands. Rustlers are runnin' +her cattle off, cuttin' her fences----" + +"Fences?" + +"Yes, forty thousand acres all fenced in, like Texas." + +"You don't tell me?" + +"Needs men, Wood says. I thought maybe----" + +The Duke didn't finish it; just left it swinging that way, expecting +Taterleg to read the rest. + +"Sure," said Taterleg, taking it right along. "I wouldn't mind stayin' +around here a while. Glendora's a nice little place; nicer place than I +thought it was." + +The Duke said nothing. But as they went on toward the barber-shop he +grinned. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE HOMELIEST MAN + + +That brilliant beam falling through the barber's open door and +uncurtained window came from a new lighting device, procured from a +Chicago mail-order house. It was a gasoline lamp that burned with a gas +mantle, swinging from the ceiling, flooding the little shop with a +greenish light. + +It gave a ghastly hue of death to the human face, but it would light up +the creases and wrinkles of the most weathered neck that came under the +barber's blade. That was the main consideration, for most of the +barber's work was done by night, that trade--or profession, as those who +pursue it unfailingly hold it to be--being a side line in connection +with his duties as station agent. He was a progressive citizen, and no +grass grew under his feet, no hair under his hand. + +At the moment that the Duke and Taterleg entered the barber's +far-reaching beam, some buck of the range was stretched in the chair. +The customer was a man of considerable length and many angles, a shorn +appearance about his face, especially his big, bony nose, that seemed to +tell of a mustache sacrificed in the operation just then drawing to a +close. + +Taterleg stopped short at sight of the long legs drawn up like a sharp +gable to get all of them into the chair, the immense nose raking the +ceiling like a double-barreled cannon, the morgue-tinted light giving +him the complexion of a man ready for his shroud. He touched Lambert's +arm to check him and call his attention. + +"Look in there--look at that feller, Duke! There he is; there's the man +I've been lookin' for ever since I was old enough to vote. I didn't +believe there was any such a feller; but there he is!" + +"What feller? Who is he?" + +"The feller that's uglier than me. Dang his melts, there he is! I'm +going to ask him for his picture, so I'll have the proof to show." + +Taterleg was at an unaccountable pitch of spirits. Adventure had taken +hold of him like liquor. He made a start for the door as if to carry out +his expressed intention in all earnestness. Lambert stopped him. + +"He might not see the joke, Taterleg." + +"He couldn't refuse a man a friendly turn like that, Duke. Look at him! +What's that feller rubbin' on him, do you reckon?" + +"Ointment of some kind, I guess." + +Taterleg stood with his bow legs so wide apart that a barrel could have +been pitched between them, watching the operation within the shop with +the greatest enjoyment. + +"Goose grease, with _pre_-fume in it that cuts your breath. Look at that +feller shut his eyes and stretch his derned old neck! Just like a calf +when you rub him under the chin. Look at him--did you ever see anything +to match it?" + +"Come on--let the man alone." + +"Wrinkle remover, beauty restorer," said Taterleg, not moving forward an +inch upon his way. While he seemed to be struck with admiration for the +process of renovation, there was an unmistakable jeer in his tone which +the barber resented by a fierce look. + +"You're goin' to get into trouble if you don't shut up," Lambert +cautioned. + +"Look at him shut his old eyes and stretch his neck! Ain't it the +sweetest----" + +The man in the chair lifted himself in sudden grimness, sat up from +between the barber's massaging hands, which still held their pose like +some sort of brace, turned a threatening look into the road. If half his +face was sufficient to raise the declaration from Taterleg that the man +was uglier than he, all of it surely proclaimed him the homeliest man in +the nation. His eyes were red, as from some long carousal, their lids +heavy and slow, his neck was long, and inflamed like an old gobbler's +when he inflates himself with his impotent rage. + +He looked hard at the two men, so sour in his wrath, so comical in his +unmatched ugliness, that Lambert could not restrain a most unusual and +generous grin. Taterleg bared his head, bowing low, not a smile, not a +ripple of a smile, on his face. + +"Mister, I take off my hat to you," he said. + +"Yes, and I'll take your fool head off the first time I meet you!" the +man returned. He let himself back into the barber's waiting hands, a +growl deep in him, surly as an old dog that has been roused out of his +place in the middle of the road. + +"General, I wouldn't hurt you for a purty, I wouldn't change your looks +for a dollar bill," said Taterleg. + +"Wait till I git out of this chair!" the customer threatened, voice +smothered in the barber's hands. + +"I guess he's not a dangerous man--lucky for you," said Lambert. He drew +Taterleg away; they went on. + +The allurements of Glendora were no more dazzling by night than by day. +There was not much business in the saloon, there being few visitors in +town, no roistering, no sounds of uncurbed gaiety. Formerly there had +been a dance-hall in connection with the saloon, but that branch of the +business had failed through lack of patronage long ago. The bar stood in +the front of the long, cheerless room, a patch of light over and around +it, the melancholy furniture of its prosperous days dim in the gloom +beyond. + +Lambert and Taterleg had a few drinks to show their respect for the +institutions of the country, and went back to the hotel. Somebody had +taken Taterleg's place beside Alta on the green bench. It was a man who +spoke with rumbling voice like the sound of an empty wagon on a rocky +road. Lambert recognized the intonation at once. + +"It looks to me like there's trouble ahead for you, Mr. Wilson," he +said. + +"I'll take that feller by the handle on his face and bust him ag'in' a +tree like a gourd," Taterleg said, not in boasting manner, but in the +even and untroubled way of a man stating a fact. + +"If there was any tree." + +"I'll slam him ag'in' a rock; I'll bust him like a oyster." + +"I think we'd better go to bed without a fight, if we can." + +"I'm willin'; but I'm not goin' around by the back door to miss that +feller." + +They came up the porch into the light that fell weakly from the office +down the steps. There was a movement of feet beside the green bench, an +exclamation, a swift advance on the part of the big-nosed man who had +afforded amusement for Taterleg in the barber's chair. + +"You little bench-leggid fiste, if you've got gall enough to say one +word to a man's face, say it!" he challenged. + +Alta came after him, quickly, with pacific intent. She was a tall girl, +not very well filled out, like an immature bean pod. Her heavy black +hair was cut in a waterfall of bangs which came down to her eyebrows, +the rest of it done up behind in loops like sausages, and fastened with +a large, red ribbon. She had put off her apron, and stood forth in +white, her sleeves much shorter than the arms which reached out of them, +rings on her fingers which looked as if they would leave their shadows +behind. + +"Now, Mr. Jedlick, I don't want you to go raisin' no fuss around here +with the guests," she said. + +"Jedlick!" repeated Taterleg, turning to Lambert with a pained, +depressed look on his face. "It sounds like something you blow in to +make a noise." + +The barber's customer was a taller man standing than he was long lying. +There wasn't much clearance between his head and the ceiling of the +porch. He stood before Taterleg glowing, his hat off, his short-cut hair +glistening with pomatum, showing his teeth like a vicious horse. + +"You look like you was cut out with a can-opener," he sneered. + +"Maybe I was, and I've got rough edges on me," Taterleg returned, +looking up at him with calculative eye. + +"Now, Mr. Jedlick"--a hand on his arm, but confident of the force of it, +like a lady animal trainer in a cage of lions--"you come on over here +and set down and leave that gentleman alone." + +"If anybody but you'd 'a' said it, Alta, I'd 'a' told him he was a +liar," Jedlick growled. He moved his foot to go with her, stopped, +snarled at Taterleg again. "I used to roll 'em in flour and swaller 'em +with the feathers on," said he. + +"You're a terrible rough feller, ain't you?" Taterleg inquired with +cutting sarcasm. + +Alta led Jedlick off to his corner; Taterleg and Lambert entered the +hotel office. + +"Gee, but this is a windy night!" said the Duke, holding his hat on with +both hands. + +"I'll let some of the wind out of him if he monkeys with me!" + +"Looks to me like I know another feller that an operation wouldn't +hurt," the Duke remarked, turning a sly eye on his friend. + +The landlord appeared with a lamp to light them to their beds, putting +an end to these exchanges of threat and banter. As he was leaving them +to their double-barreled apartment, Lambert remarked: + +"That man Jedlick's an interesting-lookin' feller." + +"Ben Jedlick? Yes, Ben's a case; he's quite a case." + +"What business does he foller?" + +"Ben? Ben's cook on Pat Sullivan's ranch up the river; one of the best +camp cooks in the Bad Lands, and I guess the best known, without any +doubt." + +Taterleg sat down on the side of his bed as if he had been punctured, +indeed, lopping forward in mock attitude of utter collapse as the +landlord closed the door. + +"Cook! That settles it for me; I've turned the last flapjack I'll ever +turn for any man but myself." + +"How will you manage the oyster parlor?" + +"Well, I've just about give up that notion, Duke. I've been thinkin' +I'll stick to the range and go in the sheep business." + +"I expect it would be a good move, old feller." + +"They're goin' into it around here, they tell me." + +"Alta tells you." + +"Oh, you git out! But I'm a cowman right now, and I'm goin' to stay one +for some little time to come. It don't take much intelligence in a man +to ride fence." + +"No; I guess we could both pass on that." + +The Duke blew the lamp out with his hat. There was silence, all but the +scuffing sound of disrobing. Taterleg spoke out of bed. + +"That girl's got purty eyes, ain't she?" + +"Lovely eyes, Taterleg." + +"And purty hair, too. Makes a feller want to lean over and pat that +little row of bangs." + +"I expect there's a feller down there doin' it now." + +The spring complained under Taterleg's sudden movement; there was a +sound of swishing legs under the sheet. Lambert saw him dimly against +the window, sitting with his feet on the floor. + +"You mean Jedlick?" + +"Why not Jedlick? He's got the field to himself." + +Taterleg sat a little while thinking about it. Presently he resumed his +repose, chuckling a choppy little laugh. + +"Jedlick! Jedlick ain't got no more show than a cow. When a lady steps +in and takes a man's part there's only one answer, Duke. And she called +me a gentleman, too. Didn't you hear her call me a gentleman, Duke?" + +"I seem to remember that somebody else called you that one time." + +Taterleg hadn't any reply at once. Lambert lay there grinning in the +dark. No matter how sincere Taterleg might have been in this or any +other affair, to the Duke it was only a joke. That is the attitude of +most men toward the tender vagaries of others. No romance ever is +serious but one's own. + +"Well, that happened a good while ago," said Taterleg defensively. + +But memories didn't trouble him much that night. Very soon he was +sleeping, snoring on the _G_ string with unsparing pressure. For Lambert +there was no sleep. He lay in a fever of anticipation. Tomorrow he +should see her, his quest ended almost as soon as begun. + +There was not one stick of fuel for the flame of this conjecture, not +one reasonable justification for his more than hope. Only something had +flashed to him that the girl in the house on the mesa was she whom his +soul sought, whose handkerchief was folded in his pocketbook and carried +with his money. He would take no counsel from reason, no denial from +fate. + +He lay awake seeing visions when he should have been asleep in the midst +of legitimate dreams. A score of plans for serving her came up for +examination, a hundred hopes for a happy culmination of this green +romance budded, bloomed, and fell. But above the race of his hot +thoughts the certainty persisted that this girl was the lady of the +beckoning hand. + +He had no desire to escape from these fevered fancies in sleep, as his +companion had put down his homely ambitions. Long he lay awake turning +them to view from every hopeful, alluring angle, hearing the small +noises of the town's small activities die away to silence and peace. + +In the morning he should ride to see her, his quest happily ended, +indeed, even on the threshold of its beginning. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HOUSE ON THE MESA + + +Even more bleak than from a distance the house on the mesa appeared as +the riders approached it up the winding road. It stood solitary on its +desert promontory, the bright sky behind it, not a shrub to ease its +lines, not a barn or shed to make a rude background for its amazing +proportions. Native grass grew sparsely on the great table where it +stood; rains had guttered the soil near its door. There was about it the +air of an abandoned place, its long, gaunt porches open to wind and +storm. + +As they drew nearer the house the scene opened in a more domestic +appearance. Beyond it in a little cup of the mesa the stable, cattle +sheds, and quarters for the men were located, so hidden in their shelter +that they could not be seen from any point in the valley below. To the +world that never scaled these crumbling heights, Philbrook's mansion +appeared as if it endured independent of those vulgar appendages +indeed. + +"Looks like they've got the barn where the house ought to be," said +Taterleg. "I'll bet the wind takes the hide off of a feller up here in +the wintertime." + +"It's about as bleak a place for a house as a man could pick," Lambert +agreed. He checked his horse a moment to look round on the vast sweep of +country presented to view from the height, the river lying as bright as +quicksilver in the dun land. + +"Not even a wire fence to break it!" Taterleg drew his shoulders up and +shivered in the hot morning sun as he contemplated the untrammeled +roadway of the northern winds. "Well, sir, it looks to me like a cyclone +carried that house from somewheres and slammed it down. No man in his +right senses ever built it there." + +"People take queer freaks sometimes, even in their senses. I guess we +can ride right around to the door." + +But for the wide, weathered porch they could have ridden up to it and +knocked on its panels from the saddle. Taterleg was for going to the +kitchen door, a suggestion which the Duke scorned. He didn't want to +meet that girl at a kitchen door, even her own kitchen door. For that he +was about to meet her, there was no doubt in him that moment. + +He was not in a state of trembling eagerness, but of calm expectation, +as a man might be justified in who had made his preparations and felt +the outcome sure. He even smiled as he pictured her surprise, like a man +returning home unexpectedly, but to a welcome of which he held no doubt. + +Taterleg remained mounted while Lambert went to the door. It was a +rather inhospitable appearing door of solid oak, heavy and dark. There +was a narrow pane of beveled glass set into it near the top, beneath it +a knocker that must have been hammered by a hand in some far land +centuries before the house on the mesa was planned. + +A negro woman, rheumatic, old, came to the door. Miss Philbrook was at +the barn, she said. What did they want of her? Were they looking for +work? To these questions Lambert made no reply. As he turned back to +his horse the old serving woman came to the porch, leaving the door +swinging wide, giving a view into the hall, which was furnished with a +profusion and luxuriance that Taterleg never had seen before. + +The old woman watched the Duke keenly as he swung into the saddle in the +suppleness of his youthful grace. She shaded her eyes against the sun, +looking after him still as he rode with his companion toward the barn. + +Chickens were making the barnyard lots comfortable with their noise, +some dairy cows of a breed alien to that range waited in a lot to be +turned out to the day's grazing; a burro put its big-eared head round +the corner of a shed, eying the strangers with the alert curiosity of a +nino of his native land. But the lady of the ranch was not in sight nor +sound. + +Lambert drew up at the gate cutting the employees' quarters from the +barnyard, and sat looking things over. Here was a peace and security, an +atmosphere of contentment and comfort, entirely lacking in the +surroundings of the house. The buildings were all of far better class +than were to be found on the ranches of that country; even the bunkhouse +a house, in fact, and not a shed-roofed shack. + +"I wonder where she's at?" said Taterleg, leaning and peering. "I don't +see her around here nowheres." + +"I'll go down to the bunkhouse and see if there's anybody around," +Lambert said, for he had a notion, somehow, that he ought to meet her on +foot. + +Taterleg remained at the gate, because he looked better on a horse than +off, and he was not wanting in that vain streak which any man with a +backbone and marrow in him possesses. He wanted to appear at his best +when the boss of that high-class outfit laid her eyes on him for the +first time; and if he had hopes that she might succumb to his charms, +they were no more extravagant than most men's are under similar +conditions. + +Off to one side of a long barn Lambert saw her as he opened the gate. +She was trying to coax a young calf to drink out of a bucket that an old +negro held under its nose. Perhaps his heart climbed a little, and his +eyes grew hot with a sudden surge of blood, after the way of youth, as +he went forward. + +He could not see her face fully, for she was bending over the calf, and +the broad brim of her hat interposed. She looked up at the sound of his +approach, a startled expression in her frank, gray eyes. Handsome, in +truth, she was, in her riding habit of brown duck, her heavy sombrero, +her strong, high boots. Her hair was the color of old honeycomb, her +face browned by sun and wind. + +She was a maid to gladden a man's heart, with the morning sun upon her, +the strength of her great courage in her clear eyes; a girl of breeding, +as one could see by her proud carriage. + +But she was _not_ the girl whose handkerchief he had won in his reckless +race with the train! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A KNIGHT-ERRANT + + +The Duke took off his hat, standing before her foolishly dumb between +his disappointment and embarrassment. He had counted so fully on finding +the girl of his romance that he was reluctant to accept the testimony of +his eyes. Here was one charming enough to compensate a man for a hundred +fasts and fevers, but she was not the lodestone that had drawn upon his +heart with that impelling force which could not be denied. + +What a stupid blunder his impetuous conclusion had led him into; what an +awkward situation! Pretty as she was, he didn't want to serve this +woman, no matter for her embarrassments and distress. He could not +remain there a week in the ferment of his longing to be on his way, +searching the world for her whom his soul desired. This ran over him +like an electric shock as he stood before her, hat in hand, head bent a +little, like a culprit, looking rather stupid in his confusion. + +"Were you looking for somebody?" she asked, her handsome face sunning +over with a smile that invited his confidence and dismissed his qualms. + +"I was looking for the boss, ma'am." + +"I'm the boss." She spoke encouragingly, as to some timid creature, +bending to brush off the milk that the stubborn calf had shaken from its +muzzle over her skirt. + +"My partner and I are strangers here--he's over there at the +gate--passing through the country, and wanted your permission to look +around the place a little. They told us about it down at Glendora." + +The animation of her face was clouded instantly as by a shadow of +disappointment. She turned her head as if to hide this from his eyes, +answering carelessly, a little pettishly: + +"Go ahead; look around till you're tired." + +Lambert hesitated, knowing very well that he had raised expectations +which he was in no present mind to fill. She must be sorely in need of +help when she would brighten up that way at the mere sight of a common +creature like a cow-puncher. He hated to take away what he had seemed to +come there offering, what he had, in all earnestness, come to offer. + +But she was not the girl. He had followed a false lure that his own +unbridled imagination had lit. The only thing to do was back out of it +as gracefully as he could, and the poor excuse of "looking around" was +the best one he could lay his hand to in a hurry. + +"Thank you," said he, rather emptily. + +She did not reply, but bent again to her task of teaching the little +black calf to take its breakfast out of the pail instead of the fashion +in which nature intended it to refresh itself. Lambert backed off a +little, for the way of the range had indeed become his way in that year +of his apprenticeship, and its crudities were over him painfully. When +off what he considered a respectful distance he put on his hat, turning +a look at her as if to further assure her that his invasion of her +premises was not a trespass. + +She gave him no further notice, engrossed as she appeared to be with the +calf, but when he reached the gate and looked back, he saw her standing +straight, the bucket at her feet, looking after him as if she resented +the fact that two free-footed men should come there and flaunt their +leisure before her in the hour of her need. + +Taterleg was looking over the gate, trying to bring himself into the +range of her eyes. He swept off his hat when she looked that way, to be +rewarded by an immediate presentation of her back. Such cow-punchers as +these were altogether too fine and grand in their independent airs, her +attitude seemed to say. + +"Did you take the job?" Taterleg inquired. + +"I didn't ask her about it." + +"You didn't ask her? Well, what in the name of snakes did you come up +here for?" + +The Duke led his horse away from the gate, back where she could not see +him, and stood fiddling with his cinch a bit, although it required no +attention at all. + +"I got to thinkin' maybe I'd better go on west a piece. If you want to +stay, don't let me lead you off. Go on over and strike her for a job; +she needs men, I know, by the way she looked." + +"No, I guess I'll go on with you till our roads fork. But I was kind of +thinkin' I'd like to stay around Glendora a while." Taterleg sighed as +he seemed to relinquish the thought of it, tried the gate to see that it +was latched, turned his horse about. "Well, where're we headin' for +now?" + +"I want to ride up there on that bench in front of the house and look +around a little at the view; then I guess we'll go back to town." + +They rode to the top of the bench the Duke indicated, where the view +broadened in every direction, that being the last barrier between the +river and the distant hills. The ranchhouse appeared big even in that +setting of immensities, and perilously near the edge of the crumbling +bluff which presented a face almost sheer on the river more than three +hundred feet below. + +"It must 'a' been a job to haul the lumber for that house up here." + +That was Taterleg's only comment. The rugged grandeur of nature +presented to him only its obstacles; its beauties did not move him any +more than they would have affected a cow. + +The Duke did not seem to hear him. He was stretching his gaze into the +dim south up the river, where leaden hills rolled billow upon billow, +engarnitured with their sad gray sage. Whatever his thoughts were, they +bound him in a spell which the creaking of Taterleg's saddle, as he +shifted in it impatiently, did not disturb. + +"Couple of fellers just rode up to the gate in the cross-fence back of +the bunkhouse," Taterleg reported. + +The Duke grunted, to let it be known that he heard, but was not +interested. He was a thousand miles away from the Bad Lands in his +fast-running dreams. + +"That old nigger seems to be havin' some trouble with them fellers," +came Taterleg's further report. "There goes that girl on her horse up to +the gate--say, look at 'em, Duke! Them fellers is tryin' to make her let +'em through." + +Lambert turned, indifferently, to see. There appeared to be a +controversy under way at the gate, to be sure. But rows between +employees and employer were common; that wasn't his fuss. Perhaps it +wasn't an argument, as it seemed to be from that distance, anyhow. + +"Did you see that?" Taterleg started his horse forward in a jump as he +spoke, reining up stiffly at Lambert's side. "One of them fellers pulled +his gun on that old nigger--did you see him, Duke?" + +"Ye-es, I saw him," said the Duke speculatively, watching the squabble +at the distant gate keenly, turning his horse to head that way by a +pressure of his knee. + +"Knocked him flat!" Taterleg set off in a gallop as he spoke, the Duke +right after him, soon ahead of him, old Whetstone a yellow streak across +the mesa. + +It wasn't his quarrel, but nobody could come flashing a gun in the face +of a lady when he was around. That was the argument that rose in the +Duke's thoughts as he rode down the slope and up the fenced passage +between the barns. + +The gate at which the two horsemen were disputing the way with the girl +and her old black helper was a hundred yards or more beyond the one at +which Taterleg and the Duke had stopped a little while before. It was in +a cross-fence which appeared to cut the house and other buildings from +the range beyond. + +As the Duke bent to open this first gate he saw that the girl had +dismounted and was bending over the old negro, who was lying stretched +on the ground. He had fallen against the gate, on which one of the +ruffians was now pushing, trying to open it against the weight of his +body. The girl spoke sharply to the fellow, bracing her shoulder against +the gate. Lambert heard the scoundrel laugh as he swung to the ground +and set his shoulder against the other side. + +The man who remained mounted leaned over and added his strength to the +struggle, together forcing the gate open, pushing the resisting girl +with it, dragging the old negro, who clutched the bottom plank and was +hauled brutally along. All concerned in the struggle were so deeply +engrossed in their own affair that none noted the approach of the Duke +and Taterleg. The fellow on the ground was leading his horse through as +Lambert galloped up. + +At the sound of Lambert's approach the dismounted man leaped into his +saddle. The two trespassers sat scowling inside the gate, watching him +closely for the first hostile sign. Vesta Philbrook was trying to help +the old negro to his feet. Blood was streaming down his face from a cut +on his forehead; he sank down again when she let go of him to welcome +this unexpected help. + +"These men cut my fence; they're trespassing on me, trying to defy and +humiliate me because they know I'm alone!" she said. She stretched out +her hand toward Lambert as if in appeal to a judge, her face flushed +from the struggle and sense of outrage, her hat pushed back on her amber +hair, the fire of righteous anger in her eyes. The realization of her +beauty seemed to sweep Lambert like a flood of sudden music, lifting his +heart in a great surge, making him recklessly glad. + +"Where do you fellers think you're goin'?" he asked, following the +speech of the range. + +"We're goin' where we started to go," the man who had just remounted +replied, glaring at Lambert with insulting sneer. + +This was a stocky man with bushy red-gray eyebrows, a stubble of roan +beard over his blunt, common face. One foot was short in his boot, as if +he had lost his toes in a blizzard, a mark not uncommonly set by +unfriendly nature on the men who defied its force in that country. He +wore a duck shooting-jacket, the pockets of it bulging as if with game. + +His companion was a much younger man, slender, graceful in the saddle, +rather handsome in a swarthy, defiant way. He ranged up beside the +spokesman as if to take full share in whatever was to come. Both of them +were armed with revolvers, the elder of the two with a rifle in +addition, which he carried in a leather scabbard black and slick with +age, slung on his saddle under his thigh. + +"You'll have to get permission from this lady before you go through +here," Lambert told him calmly. + +Vesta Philbrook had stepped back, as if she had presented her case and +waited adjudication. She stood by the old negro where he sat in the +dust, her hand on his head, not a word more to add to her case, seeming +to have passed it on to this slim, confident, soft-spoken stranger with +his clear eyes and steady hand, who took hold of it so competently. + +"I've been cuttin' this purty little fence for ten years, and I'll keep +on cuttin' it and goin' through whenever I feel like it. I don't have to +git no woman's permission, and no man's, neither, to go where I want to +go, kid." + +The man dropped his hand to his revolver as he spoke the last word with +a twisting of the lip, a showing of his scorbutic teeth, a sneer that +was at once an insult and a goad. The next moment he was straining his +arms above his head as if trying to pull them out of their sockets, and +his companion was displaying himself in like manner, Lambert's gun down +on them, Taterleg coming in deliberately a second or two behind. + +"Keep them right there," was the Duke's caution, jerking his head to +Taterleg in the manner of a signal understood. + +Taterleg rode up to the fence-cutters and disarmed them, holding his gun +comfortably in their ribs as he worked with swift hand. The rifle he +handed down to the old negro, who was now on his feet, and who took it +with a bow and a grave face across which a gleam of satisfaction +flashed. The holsters with the revolvers in them he passed to the Duke, +who hung them on his saddle-horn. + +"Pile off," Taterleg ordered. + +They obeyed, wrathful but impotent. Taterleg sat by, chewing gum, calm +and steady as if the thing had been rehearsed a hundred times. The Duke +pointed to the old negro's hat. + +"Pick it up," he ordered the younger man; "dust it off and give it to +him." + +The fellow did as directed, with evil face, for it hurt his high pride, +just as the Duke intended that it should hurt. Lambert nodded to the man +who had knocked the old fellow down with a blow of his heavy revolver. + +"Dust off his clothes," he said. + +Vesta Philbrook smiled as she witnessed this swift humbling of her +ancient enemy. The old negro turned himself arrogantly, presenting the +rear of his broad and dusty pantaloons; but the bristling, red-faced +rancher balked. He looked up at Lambert, half choked on the bone of his +rage. + +"I'll die before I'll do it!" he declared with a curse. + +Lambert beat down the defiant, red-balled glowering eyes with one brief, +straight look. The fence-cutter broke a tip of sage and set to work, the +old man lifting his arms like a strutting gobbler, his head held high, +the pain of his hurt forgotten in the triumphant moment of his revenge. + +"Have you got some wire and tools around here handy, Miss Philbrook?" +Lambert inquired. "These men are going to do a little fence fixin' this +morning for a change." + +The old negro pranced off to get the required tools, throwing a look +back at the two prisoners now and then, covering his mouth with his hand +to keep back the explosion of his mirth. Badly as he was hurt, his +enjoyment of this unprecedented situation seemed to cure him completely. +His mistress went after him, doubtful of his strength, with nothing but +a quick look into Lambert's eyes as she passed to tell him how deeply +she felt. + +It was a remarkable procession for the Bad Lands that set out from the +cross-line fence a few minutes later, the two free rangers starting +under escort to repair the damage done to a despised fence-man's +barrier. One of them carried a wire-stretcher, the chain of it wound +round his saddle-horn, the other a coil of barbed wire and such tools as +were required. After they had proceeded a little way, Taterleg thought +of something. + +"Don't you reckon we might need a couple of posts, Duke?" he asked. + +The Duke thought perhaps they might come in handy. They turned back, +accordingly, and each of the trespassers was compelled to shoulder an +oak post, with much blasphemy and threatening of future adjustment. In +that manner of marching, each free ranger carrying his cross as none of +his kind ever had carried it before, they rode to the scene of their +late depredations. + +Vesta Philbrook stood at the gate and watched them go, reproaching +herself for her silence in the presence of this man who had come to her +assistance with such sure and determined hand. She never had found it +difficult before to thank anybody who had done her a generous turn; but +here her tongue had lain as still as a hare in its covert, and her heart +had gone trembling in the gratitude which it could not voice. + +A strong man he was, and full of commanding courage, but neither so +strong nor so mighty that she had need to keep as quiet in his presence +as a kitchen maid before a king. But he would have to pass that way +coming back, and she could make amends. The old negro stood by, +chuckling his pleasure at the sight drawing away into the distance of +the pasture where his mistress' cattle fed. + +"Ananias, do you know who that man is," she asked. + +"Laws, Miss Vesta, co'se I do. Didn't you hear his hoss-wrangler call +him Duke?" + +"I heard him call him Duke." + +"He's that man they call Duke of Chimley Butte--I know that hoss he's +a-ridin'; that hoss used to be Jim Wilder's ole outlaw. That Duke man +killed Jim and took that hoss away from him; that's what he done. That +was while you was gone; you didn't hear 'bout it." + +"Killed him and took his horse? Surely, he must have had some good +reason, Ananias." + +"I don' know, and I ain't a-carin'. That's him, and that's what he +done." + +"Did you ever hear of him killing anybody else?" + +"Oh, plenty, plenty," said the old man with easy generosity. "I bet +he's killed a hun'ed men--maybe mo'n a hun'ed." + +"But you don't know," she said, smiling at the old man's extravagant +recommendation of his hero. + +"I don' know, but I bet he is," said he. "Look at 'em!" he chuckled; +"look at old Nick Ha'gus and his onery, low-down Injun-blood boy!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +GUESTS OF THE BOSS LADY + + +Vesta rode out to meet them as they were coming back, to make sure of +her thanks. She was radiant with gratitude, and at no loss any longer +for words to express it. Before they had ridden together on the return +journey half a mile, Taterleg felt that he had known her all her life, +and was ready to cast his fortunes with her, win or lose. + +Lambert was leaving the conversation between her and Taterleg, for the +greater part. He rode in gloomy isolation, like a man with something on +his mind, speaking only when spoken to, and then as shortly as +politeness would permit. Taterleg, who had words enough for a book, +appeared to feel the responsibility of holding them up to the level of +gentlemen and citizens of the world. Not if talk could prevent it would +Taterleg allow them to be classed as a pair of boors who could not go +beyond the ordinary cow-puncher's range in word and thought. + +"It'll be some time, ma'am, before that feller Hargus and his boy'll try +to make a short cut to Glendora through your ranch ag'in," said he. + +"It was the first time they were ever caught, after old man Hargus had +been cutting our fence for years, Mr. Wilson. I can't tell you how much +I owe you for humiliating them where they thought the humiliation would +be on my side." + +"Don't you mention it, ma'am; it's the greatest pleasure in the world." + +"He thought he'd come by the house and look in the window and defy me +because I was alone." + +"He's got a mean eye; he's got a eye like a wolf." + +"He's got a wolf's habits, too, in more ways than one, Mr. Wilson." + +"Yes, that man'd steal calves, all right." + +"We've never been able to prove it on him, Mr. Wilson, but you've put +your finger on Mr. Hargus' weakness like a phrenologist." + +Taterleg felt his oats at this compliment. He sat up like a major, his +chest out, his mustache as big on his thin face as a Mameluke's. It +always made Lambert think of the handlebars on that long-horn safety +bicycle that he came riding into the Bad Lands. + +"The worst part of it is, Mr. Wilson, that he's not the only one." + +"Neighbors livin' off of you, are they? Yes, that's the way it was down +in Texas when the big ranches begun to fence, they tell me--I never was +there, ma'am, and I don't know of my own knowledge and belief, as the +lawyers say. Fence-ridin' down there in them days was a job where a man +took his life in both hands and held it up to be shot at." + +"There's been an endless fight on this ranch, too. It's been a strain +and a struggle from the first day, not worth it, not worth half of it. +But father put the best years of his life into it, and established it +where men boasted it couldn't be done. I'm not going to let them whip me +now." + +Lambert looked at her with a quick gleam of admiration in his eyes. She +was riding between him and Taterleg, as easy in their company, and as +natural as if she had known them for years. There had been no heights of +false pride or consequence for her to descend to the comradeship of +these men, for she was as unaffected and ingenuous as they. Lambert +seemed to wake to a sudden realization of this. His interest in her +began to grow, his reserve to fall away. + +"They told us at Glendora that rustlers were running your cattle off," +said he. "Are they taking the stragglers that get through where the +fence is cut, or coming after them?" + +"They're coming in and running them off almost under our eyes. I've only +got one man on the ranch beside Ananias; nobody riding fence at all but +myself. It takes me a good while to ride nearly seventy miles of fence." + +"Yes, that's so," Lambert seemed to reflect. "How many head have you got +in this pasture?" + +"I ought to have about four thousand, but they're melting away like +snow, Mr. Lambert." + +"We saw a bunch of 'em up there where them fellers cut the fence," +Taterleg put in, not to be left out of the game which he had started +and kept going single-handed so long; "white-faced cattle, like they've +got in Kansas." + +"Ours--mine are all white-faced. They stand this climate better than any +other." + +"It must have been a bunch of strays we saw--none of them was branded," +Lambert said. + +"Father never would brand his calves, for various reasons, the humane +above all others. I never blamed him after seeing it done once, and I'm +not going to take up the barbarous practice now. All other +considerations aside, it ruins a hide, you know, Mr. Lambert." + +"It seems to me you'd better lose the hide than the calf, Miss +Philbrook." + +"It does make it easy for thieves, and that's the only argument in favor +of branding. While we've--I've got the only white-faced herd in this +country, I can't go into court and prove my property without a brand, +once the cattle are run outside of this fence. So they come in and take +them, knowing they're safe unless they're caught." + +Lambert fell silent again. The ranchhouse was in sight, high on its +peninsula of prairie, like a lighthouse seen from sea. + +"It's a shame to let that fine herd waste away like that," he said, +ruminatively, as if speaking to himself. + +"It's always been hard to get help here; cowboys seem to think it's a +disgrace to ride fence. Such as we've been able to get nearly always +turned out thieves on their own account in the end. The one out with the +cattle now is a farm boy from Iowa, afraid of his shadow." + +"They didn't want no fence in here in the first place--that's what set +their teeth ag'in' you," Taterleg said. + +"If I could only get some real men once," she sighed; "men who could +handle them like you boys did this morning. Even father never seemed to +understand where to take hold of them to hurt them, the way you do." + +They were near the house now. Lambert rode on a little way in silence. +Then: + +"It's a shame to let that herd go to pieces," he said. + +"It's a sin!" Taterleg declared. + +She dropped her reins, looking from one to the other, an eager appeal +in her hopeful face. + +"Why can't you boys stop here a while and help me out?" she asked, +saying at last in a burst of hopeful eagerness what had been in her +heart to say from the first. She held out her hand to each of them in a +pretty way of appeal, turning from one to the other, her gray eyes +pleading. + +"I hate to see a herd like that broken up by thieves, and all of your +investment wasted," said the Duke, thoughtfully, as if considering it +deeply. + +"It's a sin _and_ a shame!" said Taterleg. + +"I guess we'll stay and give you a hand," said the Duke. + +She pulled her horse up short, and gave him, not a figurative hand, but +a warm, a soft and material one, from which she pulled her buckskin +glove as if to level all thought or suggestion of a barrier between +them. She turned then and shook hands with Taterleg, warming him so with +her glowing eyes that he patted her hand a little before he let it go, +in manner truly patriarchal. + +"You're all right, you're _all_ right," he said. + +Once pledged to it, the Duke was anxious to set his hand to the work +that he saw cut out for him on that big ranch. He was like a physician +who had entered reluctantly into a case after other practitioners had +left the patient in desperate condition. Every moment must be employed +if disaster to that valuable herd was to be averted. + +Vesta would hear of nothing but that they come first to the house for +dinner. So the guests did the best they could at improving their +appearance at the bunkhouse after turning their horses over to the +obsequious Ananias, who appeared with a large bandage, and a strong +smell of turpentine, on his bruised head. + +Beyond brushing off the dust of the morning's ride there was little to +be done. Taterleg brought out his brightest necktie from the portable +possessions rolled up in his slicker; the Duke produced his calfskin +vest. There was not a coat between them to save the dignity of their +profession at the boss lady's board. Taterleg's green-velvet waistcoat +had suffered damage during the winter when a spark from his pipe burned +a hole in it as big as a dollar. He held it up and looked at it, +concluding in the end that it would not serve. + +With his hairy chaps off, Taterleg did not appear so bow-legged, but he +waddled like a crab as they went toward the house to join the companion +of their ride. The Duke stopped on the high ground near the house, +turned, looked off over the great pasture that had been Philbrook's +battle ground for so many years. + +"One farmer from Iowa out there to watch four thousand cattle, and +thieves all around him! Eatin' looks like burnin' daylight to me." + +"She'd 'a' felt hurt if we'd 'a' shied off from her dinner, Duke. You +know a man's got to eat when he ain't hungry and drink when he ain't dry +sometimes in this world to keep up appearances." + +"Appearances!" The Duke looked him over with humorous eye, from his +somewhat clean sombrero to his capacious corduroy trousers gathered into +his boot tops. "Oh, well, I guess it's all right." + +Vesta was in excellent spirits, due to the broadening of her prospects, +which had appeared so narrow and unpromising but a few hours before. +One of this pair, she believed, was worth three ordinary men. She asked +them about their adventures, and the Duke solemnly assured her that they +never had experienced any. + +Taterleg, loquacious as he might be on occasion, knew when to hold his +tongue. Lambert led her away from that ground into a discussion of her +own affairs, and conditions as they stood between her neighbors and +herself. + +"Nick Hargus is one of the most persistent offenders, and we might as +well dispose of him first, since you've met the old wretch and know what +he's like on the outside," she explained. "Hargus was in the cattle +business in a hand-to-mouth way when we came here, and he raised a +bigger noise than anybody else about our fences, claiming we'd cut him +off from water, which wasn't true. We didn't cut anybody off from the +river. + +"Hargus is married to an Indian squaw, a little old squat, black-faced +thing as mean as a snake. They've got a big brood of children, that boy +you saw this morning is the senior of the gang. Old Hargus usually +harbors two or three cattle thieves, horse thieves or other crooks of +that kind, some of them just out of the pen, some preparing their way to +it. He does a sort of general rustling business, with this ranch as his +main source of supply. We've had a standing fight on with him ever since +we came here, but today was the first time, as I told you, that he ever +was caught. + +"You heard what he said about cutting the fence this morning. That's the +attitude of the country all around. You couldn't convict a man for +cutting a fence in this country. So all a person can do is shoot them if +you catch them at it. I don't know what Hargus will do to get even with +this morning's humiliation." + +"I think he'll leave that fence alone like it was charged with +lightnin'," Taterleg said. + +"He'll try to turn something; he's wily and vindictive." + +"He needs a chunk of lead about the middle of his appetite," Taterleg +declared. + +"Who comes next?" Lambert inquired. + +"There's a man they call Walleye Bostian--his regular name is Jesse--on +the farther end of this place that's troubled with a case of incurable +resentment against a barbed-wire fence. He's a sheepman, one of the +last that would do a lawless deed, you'd think, from the look of him, +but he's mean to the roots of his hair." + +"All sheepmen's onery, ma'am, they tell me," said Taterleg, a cowman now +from core to rind, and loyal to his calling accordingly. + +"I don't know about the rest of them, but Walleye Bostian is a mighty +mean sheepman. Well, I know I got a shot at him once that he'll +remember." + +"_You_ did?" Taterleg's face was as bright as a dishpan with admiration. +He chuckled in his throat, eying the Duke slantingly to see how he took +that piece of news. + +The Duke sat up a little stiffer, his face grew a shade more serious, +and that was all the change in him that Taterleg could see. + +"I hope we can take that kind of work off your hands in the future, Miss +Philbrook," he said, his voice slow and grave. + +She lifted her grateful eyes with a look of appreciation that seemed to +him overpayment for a service proposed, rather than done. She went on, +then, with a description of her interesting neighbors. + +"This ranch is a long, narrow strip, only about three miles wide by +twenty deep, the river at this end of it, Walleye Bostian at the other. +Along the sides there are various kinds of reptiles in human skin, none +of them living within four or five miles of our fences, the average +being much farther than that, for people are not very plentiful right +around here. + +"On the north of us Hargus is the worst, on the south a man named Kerr. +Kerr is the biggest single-handed cattleman around here. His one +grievance against us is that we shut a creek that he formerly used along +inside our fences that forced him to range down to the river for water. +As the creek begins and ends on our land--it empties into the river +about a mile above here--it's hard for an unbiased mind to grasp Kerr's +point of objection." + +"Have you ever taken a shot at him?" the Duke asked, smiling a little +dry smile. + +"No-o," said she reflectively, "not at Kerr himself. Kerr is what is +usually termed a gentleman; that is, he's a man of education and wears +his beard cut like a banker's, but his methods of carrying on a feud are +extremely low. Fighting is beneath his dignity, I guess; he hires it +done." + +"You've seen some fightin' in your time, ma'am," Taterleg said. + +"Too much of it," she sighed wearily. "I've had a shot at his men more +than once, but there are one or two in that Kerr family I'd like to +sling a gun down on!" + +It was strange to hear that gentle-mannered, refined girl talk of +fighting as if it were the commonest of everyday business. There was no +note of boasting, no color of exaggeration in her manner. She was as +natural and sincere as the calm breeze, coming in through the open +window, and as wholesome and pure. There was not a doubt of that in the +mind of either of the men at the table with her. Their admiration spoke +out of their eyes. + +"When you've had to fight all your life," she said, looking up earnestly +into Lambert's face, "it makes you old before your time, and +quick-tempered and savage, I suppose, even when you fight in +self-defense. I used to ride fence when I was fourteen, with a rifle +across my saddle, and I wouldn't have thought any more of shooting a +man I saw cutting our fence or running off our cattle than I would a +rabbit." + +She did not say what her state of mind on that question was at present, +but it was so plainly expressed in her flushed cheeks and defiant eyes +that it needed no words. + +"If you'd 'a' had your gun on you this morning when them fellers knocked +that old coon down I bet there'd 'a' been a funeral due over at old +Hargus' ranch," said Taterleg. + +"I'd saddled up to go to the post office; I never carry a gun with me +when I go to Glendora," she said. + +"A country where a lady has to carry a gun at all ain't no country to +speak of. It needs cleanin' up, ma'am, that's what it needs." + +"It surely does, Mr. Wilson: you've got it sized up just right." + +"Well, Taterleg, I guess we'd better be hittin' the breeze," the Duke +suggested, plainly uneasy between the duty of courtesy and the long +lines of unguarded fence. + +Taterleg could not accustom himself to that extraordinary bunkhouse when +they returned to it, on such short time. He walked about in it, necktie +in his hand, looking into its wonders, marveling over its conveniences. + +"It's just like a regular human house," said he. + +There was a bureau with a glass to it in every room, and there were +rooms for several men. The Duke and Taterleg stowed away their slender +belongings in the drawers and soon were ready for the saddle. As he put +the calfskin vest away, the Duke took out the little handkerchief, from +which the perfume of faint violet had faded long ago, and pressed it +tenderly against his cheek. + +"You'll wait on me a little while longer, won't you?" he asked. + +Then he laid it away between the folds of his remarkable garment very +carefully, and went out, his slicker across his arm, to take up his life +in that strip of contention and strife between Vesta Philbrook's +far-reaching wire fences. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS + + +The news quickly ran over the country that Vesta Philbrook had hired the +notorious Duke of Chimney Butte and his gun-slinging side partner to +ride fence. What had happened to Nick Hargus and his boy, Tom, seemed to +prove that they were men of the old school, quite a different type from +any who had been employed on that ranch previously. + +Lambert was troubled to learn that his notoriety had run ahead of him, +increasing as it spread. It was said that his encounter with Jim Wilder +was only one of his milder exploits; that he was a grim and bloody man +from Oklahoma who had marked his miles with tombstones as he traveled. + +His first business on taking charge of the Philbrook ranch had been to +do a piece of fence-cutting on his own account opposite Nick Hargus' +ranch, through which he had ridden and driven home thirty head of +cattle lately stolen by that enterprising citizen from Vesta Philbrook's +herd. This act of open-handed restoration, carried out in broad daylight +alone, and in the face of Hargus, his large family of sons, and the +skulking refugees from the law who chanced to be hiding there at the +time, added greatly to the Duke's fame. + +It did not serve as a recommendation among the neighbors who had preyed +so long and notoriously on the Philbrook herd, and no doubt nothing +would have been said about it by Hargus to even the most intimate of his +ruffianly associates. But Taterleg and old Ananias took great pains to +spread the story in Glendora, where it passed along, with additions as +it moved. Hargus explained that the cattle were strays which had broken +out. + +While this reputation of the Duke was highly gratifying to Taterleg, who +found his own glory increased thereby, it was extremely distasteful to +Lambert, who had no means of preventing its spread or opportunity of +correcting its falsity. He knew himself to be an inoffensive, rather +backward and timid man, or at least this was his own measure of +himself. That fight with Jim Wilder always had been a cloud over his +spirits, although his conscience was clear. It had sobered him and made +him feel old, as Vesta Philbrook had said fighting made a person feel. +He could understand her better, perhaps, than one whom violence had +passed undisturbed. + +There was nothing farther from his desire than strife and turmoil, +gun-slinging and a fearful notoriety. But there he was, set up against +his will, against his record, as a man to whom it was wise to give the +road. That was a dangerous distinction, as he well understood, for a +time would come, even opportunities would be created, when he would be +called upon to defend it. That was the discomfort of a fighting name. It +was a continual liability, bound sooner or later to draw upon a man to +the full extent of his resources. + +This reputation lost nothing in the result of his first meeting with +Berry Kerr, the rancher who wore his beard like a banker and passed for +a gentleman in that country, where a gentleman was defined, at that +time, as a man who didn't swear. This meeting took place on the south +line of the fence on a day when Lambert had been on the ranch a little +more than a week. + +Kerr was out looking for strays, he said, although he seemed to overlook +the joke that he made in neglecting to state from whose herd. Lambert +gave him the benefit of the doubt and construed him to mean his own. He +rode up to the fence, affable as a man who never had an evil intention +in his life, and made inquiry concerning Lambert's connection with the +ranch, making a pretense of not having heard that Vesta had hired new +men. + +"Well, she needs a couple of good men that will stand by her steady," he +said, with all the generosity of one who had her interests close to his +heart. "She's a good girl, and she's been havin' a hard time of it. But +if you want to do her the biggest favor that a man ever did do under +circumstances of similar nature, persuade her to tear this fence out, +all around, and throw the range open like it used to be. Then all this +fool quarreling and shooting will stop, and everybody in here will be on +good terms again. That's the best way out of it for her, and it will be +the best way out of it for you if you intend to stay here and run this +ranch." + +While Kerr's manner seemed to be patriarchal and kindly advisory, there +was a certain hardness beneath his words, a certain coldness in his eyes +which made his proposal nothing short of a threat. It made all the +resentful indignation which Lambert had mastered and chained down in +himself rise up and bristle. He took it as a personal affront, as a +threat against his own safety, and the answer that he gave to it was +quick and to the point. + +"There'll never be a yard of this fence torn down on my advice, Mr. +Kerr," he said. "You people around here will have to learn to give it a +good deal more respect from now on than you have in the past. I'm going +to teach this crowd around here to take off their hats when they come to +a fence." + +Kerr was a slender, dry man, the native meanness of his crafty face +largely masked by his beard, which was beginning to show streaks of gray +in its brown. He was wearing a coat that day, although it was hot, and +had no weapon in sight. He sat looking Lambert straight in the eyes for +a moment upon the delivery of this bill of intentions, his brows drawn a +bit, a cast of concentrated hardness in his gray-blue eyes. + +"I'm afraid you've bit off more than you can chew, much less swallow, +young man," he said. With that he rode away, knowing that he had failed +in what he probably had some hope of accomplishing in his sly and +unworthy way. + +Things went along quietly after that for a few weeks. Hargus did not +attempt any retaliatory move; on the side of Kerr's ranch all was quiet. +The Iowa boy, under Taterleg's tutelage, was developing into a +trustworthy and capable hand, the cattle were fattening in the grassy +valleys. All counted, it was the most peaceful spell that Philbrook's +ranch ever had known, and the tranquility was reflected in the owner, +and her house, and all within its walls. + +Lambert did not see much of Vesta in those first weeks of his +employment, for he lived afield, close beside the fences which he +guarded as his own honor. Taterleg had a great pride in the matter also. +He cruised up and down his section with a long-range rifle across his +saddle, putting in more hours sometimes, he said, than there were in a +day. Taterleg knew very well that slinking eyes were watching him from +the covert of the sage-gray hills. Unceasing vigilance was the price of +reputation in that place, and Taterleg was jealous of his. + +Lambert was beginning to grow restless under the urge of his spirit to +continue his journey westward in quest of the girl who had left her +favor in his hand. The romance of it, the improbability of ever finding +her along the thousand miles between him and the sea, among the +multitudes of women in the cities and hamlets along the way, appealed to +him with a compelling lure. + +He had considered many schemes for getting trace of her, among the most +favored being that of finding the brakeman who stood on the end of the +train that day among those who watched him ride and overtake it, and +learning from him to what point her ticket read. That was the simplest +plan. But he knew that conductors and brakemen changed every few hundred +miles, and that this plan might not lead to anything in the end. But it +was too simple to put by without trying; when he set out again this +would be his first care. + +He smiled sometimes as he rode his lonely beat inside the fence and +recalled the thrill that had animated him with the certainty that Vesta +Philbrook would turn out to be _the_ girl, _his_ girl. The +disappointment had been so keen that he had almost disliked Vesta that +first day. She was a fine girl, modest and unaffected, honest as the +middle of the day, but there was no appeal but the appeal of the weak to +the strong from her to him. They were drawn into a common sympathy of +determination; he had paused there to help her because she was +outmatched, fighting a brave battle against unscrupulous forces. He was +taking pay from her, and there could not be admitted any thought of +romance under such conditions. + +But the girl whose challenge he had accepted at Misery that day was to +be considered in a different light. There was a pledge between them, a +bond. He believed that she was expecting him out there somewhere, +waiting for him to come. Often he would halt on a hilltop and look away +into the west, playing with a thousand fancies as to whom she might be, +and where. + +He was riding in one of these dreams one mid-afternoon of a hot day +about six weeks after taking charge of affairs on the ranch, thinking +that he would tell Vesta in a day or two that he must go. Taterleg might +stay with her, other men could be hired if she would look about her. He +wanted to get out of the business anyway; there was no offering for a +man in it without capital. So he was thinking, his head bent, as he rode +up a long slope of grassy hill. At the top he stopped to blow old +Whetstone a little, turning in the saddle, running his eyes casually +along the fence. + +He started, his dreams gone from him like a covey of frightened quail. +The fence was cut. For a hundred yards or more along the hilltop it was +cut at every post, making it impossible to piece. + +Lambert could not have felt his resentment burn any hotter if it had +been his own fence. It was a fence under his charge; the defiance was +directed at him. He rode along to see if any cattle had escaped, and +drew his breath again with relief when he found that none had passed. + +There was the track of but one horse; the fence-cutter had been alone, +probably not more than an hour ahead of him. The job finished, he had +gone boldly in the direction of Kerr's ranch, on whose side the +depredation had been committed. Lambert followed the trail some +distance. It led on toward Kerr's ranch, defiance in its very boldness. +Kerr himself must have done that job. + +One man had little chance of stopping such assaults, now they had begun, +on a front of twenty miles. But Lambert vowed that if he ever did have +the good fortune to come up on one of these sneaks while he was at work, +he'd fill his hide so full of lead they'd have to get a derrick to load +him into a wagon. + +It didn't matter so much about the fence, so long as they didn't get any +of the stock. But stragglers from the main herd would find a big gap +like that in a few hours, and the rustlers lying in wait would hurry +them away. One such loss as that and he would be a disgraced man in the +eyes of Vesta Philbrook, and the laughing-stock of the rascals who put +it through. He rode in search of the Iowa boy who was with the cattle, +his job being to ride among them continually to keep them accustomed to +a man on horseback. Luckily he found him before sundown and sent him for +wire. Then he stood guard at the cut until the damage was repaired. + +After that fence-cutting became a regular prank on Kerr's side of the +ranch. Watch as he might, Lambert could not prevent the stealthy +excursions, the vindictive destruction of the hated barrier. All these +breaches were made within a mile on either side of the first cut, +sometimes in a single place, again along a stretch, as if the person +using the nippers knew when to deliberate and when to hasten. + +Always there was the trace of but one rider, who never dismounted to cut +even the bottom wire. That it was the work of the same person each time +Lambert was convinced, for he always rode the same horse, as betrayed by +a broken hind hoof. + +Lambert tried various expedients for trapping this skulker during a +period of two weeks. He lay in wait by day and made stealthy excursions +by night, all to no avail. Whoever was doing it had some way of keeping +informed on his movements with exasperating closeness. + +The matter of discovering and punishing the culprit devolved on Lambert +alone. He could not withdraw Taterleg to help him; the other man could +not be spared from the cattle. And now came the crowning insult of all. + +It was early morning, after an all-night watch along the three miles of +fence where the wire-cutter always worked, when Lambert rode to the top +of the ridge where the first breach in his line had been made. Below +that point, not more than half a mile, he had stopped to boil his +breakfast coffee. His first discovery on mounting the ridge was a panel +of fence cut, his next a piece of white paper twisted to the end of one +of the curling wires. + +This he disengaged and unfolded. It was a page torn from a medicine +memorandum book such as cow-punchers usually carry their time in, and +the addresses of friends. + + _Why don't you come and get me, Mr. Duke?_ + +This was the message it bore. + +The writing was better, the spelling more exact than the output of the +ordinary cow-puncher. Kerr himself, Lambert thought again. He stood with +the taunting message in his fingers, looking toward the Kerr ranchhouse, +some seven or eight miles to the south, and stood so quite a while, his +eyes drawn small as if he looked into the wind. + +"All right; I'll take you up on that," he said. + +He rode slowly out through the gap, following the fresh trail. As +before, it was made by the horse with the notch in its left hind hoof. +It led to a hill three-quarters of a mile beyond the fence. From this +point it struck a line for the distant ranchhouse. + +Lambert did not go beyond the hill. Dismounting, he stood surveying the +country about him, struck for the first time by the view that this +vantage-point afforded of the domain under his care. Especially the line +of fence was plainly marked for a long distance on either side of the +little ridge where the last cut had been made. Evidently the skulker +concealed himself at this very point and watched his opening, playing +entirely safe. That accounted for all the cutting having been done by +daylight, as he was sure had been the case. + +He looked about for trace of where the fellow had lain behind the fringe +of sage, but the ground was so hard that it would not take a human +footprint. As he looked he formulated a plan of his own. Half a mile or +more beyond this hill, in the direction of the Kerr place, a small butte +stood, its steep sides grassless, its flat top bare. That would be his +watchtower from that day forward until he had his hand on this defiant +rascal who had time, in his security, to stop and write a note. + +That night he scaled the little butte after mending the fence behind +him, leaving his horse concealed among the huge blocks of rock at its +foot. Next day, and the one following, he passed in the blazing sun, but +nobody came to cut the fence. At night he went down, rode his horse to +water, turned him to graze, and went back to his perch among the ants +and lizards on top of the butte. + +The third day was cloudy and uneventful; on the fourth, a little before +nine, just when the sun was squaring off to shrivel him in his skin, +Lambert saw somebody coming from the direction of Kerr's ranch. + +The rider made straight for the hill below Lambert's butte, where he +reined up before reaching the top, dismounted and went crawling to the +fringe of sage at the farther rim of the bare summit. Lambert waited +until the fellow mounted and rode toward the fence, then he slid down +the shale, starting Whetstone from his doze. + +Lambert calculated that he was more than a mile from the fence. He +wanted to get over there near enough to catch the fellow at work, so +there would be full justification for what he intended to do. + +Whetstone stretched himself to the task, coming out of the broken ground +and up the hill from which the fence-cutter had ridden but a few minutes +before while the marauder was still a considerable distance from his +objective. The man was riding slowly, as if saving his horse for a +chance surprise. + +Lambert cut down the distance between them rapidly, and was not more +than three hundred yards behind when the fellow began snipping the wire +with a pair of nippers that glittered in the sun. + +Lambert held his horse back, approaching with little noise. The +fence-cutter was rising back to the saddle after cutting the bottom wire +of the second panel when he saw that he was trapped. + +Plainly unnerved by this _coup_ of the despised fence-guard, he sat +clutching his reins as if calculating his chance of dashing past the man +who blocked his retreat. Lambert slowed down, not more than fifty yards +between them, waiting for the first move toward a gun. He wanted as much +of the law on his side, even though there was no witness to it, as he +could have, for the sake of his conscience and his peace. + +Just a moment the fence-cutter hesitated, making no movement to pull a +gun, then he seemed to decide in a flash that he could not escape the +way that he had come. He leaned low over his horse's neck, as if he +expected Lambert to begin shooting, rode through the gap that he had cut +in the fence, and galloped swiftly into the pasture. + +Lambert followed, sensing the scheme at a glance. The rascal intended to +either ride across the pasture, hoping to outrun his pursuer in the +three miles of up-and-down country, or turn when he had a safe lead and +go back. As the chase led away, it became plain that the plan was to +make a run for the farther fence, cut it and get away before Lambert +could come up. That arrangement suited Lambert admirably; it would seem +to give him all the law on his side that any man could ask. + +There was a scrubby growth of brush on the hillsides, and tall red +willows along the streams, making a covert here and there for a horse. +The fleeing man took advantage of every offering of this nature, as if +he rode in constant fear of the bullet that he knew was his due. Added +to this cunning, he was well mounted, his horse being almost equal in +speed to Whetstone, it seemed, at the beginning of the race. + +Lambert pushed him as hard as he thought wise, conserving his horse for +the advantage that he knew he would have while the fence-cutter stopped +to make himself an outlet. The fellow rode hard, unsparing of his +quirt, jumping his long-legged horse over rocks and across ravines. + +It was in one of these leaps that Lambert saw something fall from the +saddle holster. He found it to be the nippers with which the fence had +been cut, lying in the bottom of the deep arroyo. He rode down and +recovered the tool, in no hurry now, for he was quite certain that the +fence-cutter would not have another. He would discover his loss when he +came to the fence, and then, if he was not entirely the coward and sneak +that his actions seemed to brand him, he would have recourse to another +tool. + +It did not take them long to finish the three-mile race across the +pasture, and it turned out in the end exactly as Lambert thought it +would. When the fugitive came within a few rods of the fence he put his +hand down to the holster for his nippers, discovering his loss. Then he +looked back to see how closely he was pressed, which was very close +indeed. + +Lambert felt that he did not want to be the aggressor, even on his own +land, in spite of the determination he had reached for such a +contingency as this. He recalled what Vesta had said about the +impossibility of securing a conviction for cutting a fence. Surely if a +man could not be held responsible for this act in the courts of the +country, it would fare hard with one who might kill him in the +commission of the outrage. Let him draw first, and then---- + +The fellow rode at the fence as if he intended to try to jump it. His +horse balked at the barrier, turned, raced along it, Lambert in close +pursuit, coming alongside him as he was reaching to draw his pistol from +the holster at his saddle bow. And in that instant, as the fleeing rider +bent tugging at the gun which seemed to be strapped in the holster, +Lambert saw that it was not a man. + +A strand of dark hair had fallen from under the white sombrero; it was +dropping lower and lower as it uncoiled from its anchorage. Lambert +pressed his horse forward a few feet, leaned far over and snatched away +the hand that struggled to unbuckle the weapon. + +She turned on him, her face scarlet in its fury, their horses racing +side by side, their stirrups clashing. Distorted as her features were +by anger and scorn at the touch of one so despised, Lambert felt his +heart leap and fall, and seem to stand still in his bosom. It was not +only a girl; it was _his_ girl, the girl of the beckoning hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE FURY OF DOVES + + +Lambert released her the moment that he made his double discovery, +foolishly shaken, foolishly hurt, to realize that she had been afraid to +have him know it was a woman he pursued. He caught her rein and checked +her horse along with his own. + +"There's no use to run away from me," he said, meaning to quiet her +fear. She faced him scornfully, seemingly to understand it as a boast. + +"You wouldn't say that to a man, you coward!" + +Again he felt a pang, like a blow from an ungrateful hand. She was +breathing fast, her dark eyes spiteful, defiant, her face eloquent of +the scorn that her words had only feebly expressed. He turned his head, +as if considering her case and revolving in his mind what punishment to +apply. + +She was dressed in riding breeches, with Mexican goatskin chaps, a heavy +gray shirt such as was common to cowboys, a costly white sombrero, its +crown pinched to a peak in the Mexican fashion. With the big +handkerchief on her neck flying as she rode, and the crouching posture +that she had assumed in the saddle every time her pursuer began to close +up on her in the race just ended, Lambert's failure to identify her sex +was not so inexcusable as might appear. And he was thinking that she had +been afraid to have him know she was a girl. + +His discovery had left him dumb, his mind confused by a cross-current of +emotions. He was unable to relate her with the present situation, +although she was unmistakably before his eyes, her disguise ineffectual +to change one line of her body as he recalled her leaning over the +railing of the car, her anger unable to efface one feature as pictured +in his memory. + +"What are you going to do about it?" she asked him defiantly, not a hint +in her bearing of shame for her discovery, or contrition for her crime. + +"I guess you'd better go home." + +He spoke in gentle reproof, as to a child caught in some trespass +well-nigh unforgivable, but to whose offense he had closed his eyes out +of considerations which only the forgiving understand. He looked her +full in the eyes as he spoke, the disappointment and pain of his +discovery in his face. The color blanched out of her cheeks, she stared +at him a moment in waking astonishment, her eyes just as he remembered +them when they drew him on in his perilous race after the train. + +Such a flame rose in him that he felt it must make him transparent, and +lay his deepest sentiments bare before her gaze. So she looked at him a +moment, eye to eye, the anger gone out of her face, the flash of scorn +no longer glinting in the dark well of her eye. But if she recognized +him she did not speak of it. Almost at once she turned away, as from the +face of a stranger, looking back over the way that she had ridden in +such headlong flight. + +He believed she was ashamed to have him know she recognized him. It was +not for him to speak of the straining little act that romance had cast +them for at their first meeting. Perhaps under happier circumstances +she would have recalled it, and smiled, and given him her hand. +Embarrassment must attend her here, no matter how well she believed +herself to be justified in her destructive raids against the fence. + +"I'll have to go back the way I came," she said. + +"There is no other way." + +They started back in silence, riding side by side. Wonder filled the +door of his mind; he had only disconnected, fragmentary thoughts, upon +the current of which there rose continually the realization, only half +understood, that he started out to search the world for this woman, and +he had found her. + +That he had discovered her in the part of a petty, spiteful lawbreaker, +dressed in an outlandish and unbecoming garb, did not trouble him. If he +was conscious of it at all, indeed, the hurrying turmoil of his thoughts +pushed it aside like drifted leaves by the way. The wonderful thing was +that he had found her, and at the end of a pursuit so hot it might have +been a continuation of his first race for the trophy of white linen in +her hand. + +Presently this fog cleared; he came back to the starting-point of it, to +the coldness of his disappointment. More than once in that chase across +the pasture his hand had dropped to his pistol in the sober intention of +shooting the fugitive, despised as one lower than a thief. She seemed to +sound his troubled thoughts, riding there by his side like a friend. + +"It was our range, and they fenced it!" she said, with all the feeling +of a feudist. + +"I understand that Philbrook bought the land; he had a right to fence +it." + +"He didn't have any right to buy it; they didn't have any right to sell +it to him! This was our range; it was the best range in the country. +Look at the grass here, and look at it outside of that fence." + +"I think it's better here because it's been fenced and grazed lightly so +long." + +"Well, they didn't have any right to fence it." + +"Cutting it won't make it any better now." + +"I don't care, I'll cut it again! If I had my way about it I'd drive our +cattle in here where they've got a right to be." + +"I don't understand the feeling of you people in this country against +fences; I came from a place where everybody's got them. But I suppose +it's natural, if you could get down to the bottom of it." + +"If there's one thing unnatural, it's a fence," she said. + +They rode on a little way, saying nothing more. Then she: + +"I thought the man they call the Duke of Chimney Butte was working on +this side of the ranch?" + +"That's a nickname they gave me over at the Syndicate when I first +struck this country. It doesn't mean anything at all." + +"I thought you were his partner," she said. + +"No, I'm the monster himself." + +She looked at him quickly, very close to smiling. + +"Well, you don't look so terrible, after all. I think a man like you +would be ashamed to have a woman boss over him." + +"I hadn't noticed it, Miss Kerr." + +"She told you about me," she charged, with resentful stress. + +"No." + +So they rode on, their thoughts between them, a word, a silence, nothing +worth while said on either side, coming presently to the gap she had +made in the wire. + +"I thought you'd hand me over to the sheriff," she told him, between +banter and defiance. + +"They say you couldn't get a conviction on anything short of cattle +stealing in this part of the country, and doubtful on that. But I +wouldn't give you over to the sheriff, Miss Kerr, even if I caught you +driving off a cow." + +"What would you do?" she asked, her head bent, her voice low. + +"I'd try to argue you out of the cow first, and then teach you better," +he said, with such evident seriousness that she turned her face away, he +thought to hide a smile. + +She stopped her horse between the dangling ends of wire. Her long braid +of black hair was swinging down her back to her cantle, her hard ride +having disarranged its cunning deceit beneath her hat until it drooped +over her ears and blew in loose strands over her dark, wildly piquant +face, out of which the hard lines of defiance had not quite melted. + +She was not as handsome as Vesta Philbrook, he admitted, but there was +something about her that moved emotions in him which slept in the +other's presence. Perhaps it was the romance of their first meeting; +perhaps it was the power of her dark, expressive eyes. Certainly Lambert +had seen many prettier women in his short experience, but none that ever +made his soul vibrate with such exquisite, sweet pain. + +"If you owned this ranch, Mr.----" + +"Lambert is my name, Miss Kerr." + +"If you owned it, Mr. Lambert, I believe we could live in peace, even if +you kept the fence. But with that girl--it can't be done." + +"Here are your nippers, Miss Kerr; you lost them when you jumped that +arroyo. Won't you please leave the fence-cutting to the men of the +family, if it has to be done, after this?" + +"We have to use them on the range since Philbrook cut us off from +water," she explained, "and hired men don't take much interest in a +person's family quarrels. They're afraid of Vesta Philbrook, anyhow. +She can pick a man off a mile with her rifle, they believe, but she +can't. I'm not afraid of her; I never was afraid of old Philbrook, the +old devil." + +Even though she concluded with that spiteful little stab, she gave the +explanation as if she believed it due Lambert's generous leniency and +courteous behavior. + +"And there being no men of the family who will undertake it, and no +hired men who can be interested, you have to cut the fence yourself," he +said. + +"I know you think I ought to be ashamed of cutting her fence," she said, +her head bent, her eyes veiled, "but I'm not." + +"I expect I'd feel it that way if it was my quarrel, too." + +"Any man like you would. I've been where they have fences, too, and +signs to keep off the grass. It's different here." + +"Can't we patch up a truce between us for the time I'm here?" + +He put out his hand in entreaty, his lean face earnest, his clear eyes +pleading. She colored quickly at the suggestion, and framed a hot +reply. He could see it forming, and went on hurriedly to forestall it. + +"I don't expect to be here always! I didn't come here looking for a job. +I was going West with a friend; we stopped off on the way through." + +"Riding fence for a woman boss is a low-down job." + +"There's not much to it for a man that likes to change around. Maybe +I'll not stay very long. We'd just as well have peace while I'm here." + +"You haven't got anything to do with it--you're only a fence-rider! The +fight's between me and that girl, and I'll cut her fence--I'll cut her +heart out if she gets in my road!" + +"Well, I'm going to hook up this panel," he said, leaning and taking +hold of the wire end, "so you can come here and let it down any time you +feel like you have to cut the fence. That will do us about the same +damage, and you every bit as much good." + +She was moved out of her sullen humor by this proposal for giving vent +to her passion against Vesta Philbrook. It seemed as if he regarded her +as a child, and her part in this fence-feud a piece of irresponsible +folly. It was so absurd in her eyes that she laughed. + +"I suppose you're in earnest, but if you knew how foolish it sounds!" + +"That's what I'm going to do, anyway. You know I'll just keep on fixing +the fence when you cut it, and this arrangement will save both of us +trouble. I'll put a can or something on one of the posts to mark the +spot for you." + +"This fence isn't any joke with us, Mr. Lambert, funny as you seem to +think it. It's more than a fence, it's a symbol of all that stands +between us, all the wrongs we've suffered, and the losses, on account of +it. I know it makes her rave to cut it, and I expect you'll have a good +deal of fixing to do right along." + +She started away, stopped a few rods beyond the fence, came back. + +"There's always a place for a good man over at our ranch," she said. + +He watched her braid of hair swinging from side to side as she galloped +away, with no regret for his rejected truce of the fence. She would come +back to cut it again, and again he would see her. Disloyal as it might +be to his employer, he hoped she would not delay the next excursion +long. + +He had found her. No matter for the conditions under which the discovery +had been made, his quest was at an end, his long flights of fancy were +done. It was a marvelous thing for him, more wonderful than the +realization of his first expectations would have been. This wild spirit +of the girl was well in accord with the character he had given her in +his imagination. When he watched her away that day at Misery he knew she +was the kind of woman who would exact much of a man; as he looked after +her anew he realized that she would require more. + +The man who found his way to her heart would have to take up her +hatreds, champion her feuds, ride in her forays, follow her wild will +against her enemies. He would have to sink the refinements of his +civilization, in a measure, discard all preconceived ideas of justice +and honor. He would have to hate a fence. + +The thought made him smile. He was so happy that he had found her that +he could have absolved her of a deeper blame than this. He felt, +indeed, as if he had come to the end of vast wanderings, a peace as of +the cessation of turmoils in his heart. Perhaps this was because of the +immensity of the undertaking which so lately had lain before him, its +resumption put off from day to day, its proportions increasing with each +deferment. + +He made no movement to dismount and hook up the cut wires, but sat +looking after her as she grew smaller between him and the hill. He was +so wrapped in his new and pleasant fancies that he did not hear the +approach of a horse on the slope of the rise until its quickened pace as +it reached the top brought Vesta Philbrook suddenly into his view. + +"Who is that?" she asked, ignoring his salutation in her excitement. + +"I think it must be Miss Kerr; she belongs to that family, at least." + +"You caught her cutting the fence?" + +"Yes, I caught her at it." + +"And you let her get away?" + +"There wasn't much else that I could do," he returned, with thoughtful +gravity. + +Vesta sat in her saddle as rigid and erect as a statue, looking after +the disappearing rider. Lambert contrasted the two women in mental +comparison, struck by the difference in which rage manifested itself in +their bearing. This one seemed as cold as marble; the other had flashed +and glowed like hot iron. The cold rigidity before his eyes must be the +slow wrath against which men are warned. + +The distant rider had reached the top of the hill from which she had +spied out the land. Here she pulled up and looked back, turning her +horse to face them when she saw that Lambert's employer had joined him. +A little while she gazed back at them, then waved her hat as in exultant +challenge, whirled her horse, and galloped over the hill. + +That was the one taunt needed to set off the slow magazine of Vesta +Philbrook's wrath. She cut her horse a sharp blow with her quirt and +took up the pursuit so quickly that Lambert could not interpose either +objection or entreaty. + +Lambert felt like an intruder who had witnessed something not intended +for his eyes. He had no thought at that moment of following and +attempting to prevent what might turn out a regretful tragedy, but sat +there reviling the land that nursed women on such a rough breast as to +inspire these savage passions of reprisal and revenge. + +Vesta was riding a big brown gelding, long-necked, deep-chested, slim of +hindquarters as a hound. Unless rough ground came between them she would +overhaul that Kerr girl inside of four miles, for her horse lacked the +wind for a long race, as the chase across the pasture had shown. In case +that Vesta overtook her, what would she do? The answer to that was in +Vesta's eyes when she saw the cut wire, the raider riding free across +the range. It was such an answer that it shot through Lambert like a +lightning-stroke. + +Yet, it was not his quarrel; he could not interfere on one side or the +other without drawing down the displeasure of somebody, nor as a neutral +without incurring the wrath of both. This view of it did not relieve him +of anxiety to know how the matter was going to terminate. + +He gave Whetstone the reins and galloped after Vesta, who was already +over the hill. As he rode he began to realize as never before the +smallness of this fence-cutting feud, the really worthless bone at the +bottom of the contention. Here Philbrook had fenced in certain lands +which all men agreed he had been cheated in buying, and here uprose +those who scorned him for his gullibility, and lay in wait to murder him +for shutting them out of his admittedly worthless domain. It was a +quarrel beyond reason to a thinking man. + +Nobody could blame Philbrook for defending his rights, but they seemed +such worthless possessions to stake one's life against day by day, year +after year. The feud of the fence was like a cancerous infection. It +spread to and poisoned all that the wind blew on around the borders of +that melancholy ranch. + +Here were these two women riding break-neck and bloody-eyed to pull guns +and fight after the code of the roughest. Both of them were primed by +the accumulated hatred of their young lives to deeds of violence with no +thought of consequences. It was a hard and bitter land that could foster +and feed such passions in bosoms of so much native excellence; a rough +and boisterous land, unworthy the labor that men lavished on it to make +therein their refuge and their home. + +The pursued was out of sight when Lambert gained the hilltop, the +pursuer just disappearing behind a growth of stunted brushwood in the +winding dry valley beyond. He pushed after them, his anxiety increasing, +hoping that he might overtake Vesta before she came within range of her +enemy. Even should he succeed in this, he was at fault for some way of +stopping her in her passionate design. + +He could not disarm her without bringing her wrath down on himself, or +attempt to persuade her without rousing her suspicion that he was +leagued with her destructive neighbors. On the other hand, the +fence-cutting girl would believe that he had wittingly joined in an +unequal and unmanly pursuit. A man's dilemma between the devil and the +deep water would be simple compared to his. + +All this he considered as he galloped along, leaving the matter of +keeping the trail mainly to his horse. He emerged from the hemming +brushwood, entering a stretch of hard tableland where the parched grass +was red, the earth so hard that a horse made no hoofprint in passing. +Across this he hurried in a ferment of fear that he would come too late, +and down a long slope where sage grew again, the earth dry and yielding +about its unlovely clumps. + +Here he discovered that he had left too much to his horse. The creature +had laid a course to suit himself, carrying him off the trail of those +whom he sought in such breathless state. He stopped, looking round him +to fix his direction, discovering to his deep vexation that Whetstone +had veered from the course that he had laid for him into the south, and +was heading toward the river. + +On again in the right direction, swerving sharply in the hope that he +would cut the trail. So for a mile or more, in dusty, headlong race, +coming then to the rim of a bowl-like valley and the sound of running +shots. + +Lambert's heart contracted in a paroxysm of fear for the lives of both +those flaming combatants as he rode precipitately into the little +valley. The shooting had ceased when he came into the clear and pulled +up to look for Vesta. + +The next second the two girls swept into sight. Vesta had not only +overtaken her enemy, but had ridden round her and cut off her retreat. +She was driving her back toward the spot where Lambert stood, shooting +at her as she fled, with what seemed to him a cruel and deliberate +hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +"NO HONOR IN HER BLOOD" + + +Vesta was too far behind the other girl for anything like accurate +shooting with a pistol, but Lambert feared that a chance shot might hit, +with the most melancholy consequences for both parties concerned. No +other plan presenting, he rode down with the intention of placing +himself between them. + +Now the Kerr girl had her gun out, and had turned, offering battle. She +was still a considerable distance beyond him, with what appeared from +his situation to be some three or four hundred yards between the +combatants, a safe distance for both of them if they would keep it. But +Vesta had no intention of making it a long-range duel. She pulled her +horse up and reloaded her gun, then spurred ahead, holding her fire. + +Lambert saw all this as he swept down between them like an eagle, old +Whetstone hardly touching the ground. He cut the line between them not +fifty feet from the Kerr girl's position, as Vesta galloped up. + +He held up his hand in an appeal for peace between them. Vesta charged +up to him as he shifted to keep in the line of their fire, coming as if +she would ride him down and go on to make an end of that chapter of the +long-growing feud. The Kerr girl waited, her pistol hand crossed on the +other, with the deliberate coolness of one who had no fear of the +outcome. + +Vesta waved him aside, her face white as ash, and attempted to dash by. +He caught her rein and whirled her horse sharply, bringing her face to +face with him, her revolver lifted not a yard from his breast. + +For a moment Lambert read in her eyes an intention that made his heart +contract. He held his breath, waiting for the shot. A moment; the film +of deadly passion that obscured her eyes like a smoke cleared, the +threatening gun faltered, drooped, was lowered. He twisted in his saddle +and commanded the Kerr girl with a swing of the arm to go. + +She started her horse in a bound, and again the soul-obscuring curtain +of murderous hate fell over Vesta's eyes. She lifted her gun as Lambert, +with a quick movement, clasped her wrist. + +"For God's sake, Vesta, keep your soul clean!" he said. + +His voice was vibrant with a deep earnestness that made him as solemn as +a priest. She stared at him with widening eyes, something in his manner +and voice that struck to reason through the insulation of her anger. Her +fingers relaxed on the weapon; she surrendered it into his hand. + +A little while she sat staring after the fleeing girl, held by what +thoughts he could not guess. Presently the rider whisked behind a point +of sage-dotted hill and was gone. Vesta lifted her hands slowly and +pressed them to her eyes, shivering as if struck by a chill. Twice or +thrice this convulsive shudder shook her. She bowed her head a little, +the sound of a sob behind her pressing hands. + +Lambert put her pistol back into the holster which dangled on her thigh +from the cartridge-studded belt round her pliant, slender waist. + +"Let me take you home, Vesta," he said. + +She withdrew her hands, discovering tears on her cheeks. Saying nothing, +she started to retrace the way of that mad, murderous race. She did not +resent his familiar address, if conscious of it at all, for he spoke +with the sympathetic tenderness one employs toward a suffering child. + +They rode back to the fence without a word between them. When they came +to the cut wires he rode through as if he intended to continue on with +her to the ranchhouse, six or seven miles away. + +"I can go on alone, Mr. Lambert," she said. + +"My tools are down here a mile or so. I'll have to get them to fix this +hole." + +A little way again in silence. Although he rode slowly she made no +effort to separate from his company and go her way alone. She seemed +very weary and depressed, her sensitive face reflecting the strain of +the past hour. It had borne on her with the wearing intensity of +sleepless nights. + +"I'm tired of this fighting and contending for evermore!" she said. + +Lambert offered no comment. There was little, indeed, that he could +frame on his tongue to fit the occasion, it seemed to him, still under +the shadow of the dreadful thing that he had averted but a little while +before. There was a feeling over him that he had seen this warm, +breathing woman, with the best of her life before her, standing on the +brink of a terrifying chasm into which one little movement would have +precipitated her beyond the help of any friendly hand. + +She did not realize what it meant to take the life of another, even with +full justification at her hand; she never had felt that weight of ashes +above the heart, or the presence of the shadow that tinctured all life +with its somber gloom. It was one thing for the law to absolve a slayer; +another to find absolution in his own conscience. It was a strain that +tried a man's mind. A woman like Vesta Philbrook might go mad under the +unceasing pressure and chafing of that load. + +When they came to where his tools and wire lay beside the fence, she +stopped. Lambert dismounted in silence, tied a coil of wire to his +saddle, strung the chain of the wire-stretcher on his arm. + +"Did you know her before you came here?" she asked, with such +abruptness, such lack of preparation for the question, that it seemed a +fragment of what had been running through her mind. + +"You mean----?" + +"That woman, Grace Kerr." + +"No, I never knew her." + +"I thought maybe you'd met her, she's been away at school +somewhere--Omaha, I think. Were you talking to her long?" + +"Only a little while." + +"What did you think of her?" + +"I thought," said he, slowly, his face turned from her, his eyes on +something miles away, "that she was a girl something could be made out +of if she was taken hold of the right way. I mean," facing her +earnestly, "that she might be reasoned out of this senseless barbarity, +this raiding and running away." + +Vesta shook her head. "The devil's in her; she was born to make +trouble." + +"I got her to half agree to a truce," said he reluctantly, his eyes +studying the ground, "but I guess it's all off now." + +"She wouldn't keep her word with you," she declared with great +earnestness, a sad, rather than scornful earnestness, putting out her +hand as if to touch his shoulder. Half way her intention seemed to +falter; her hand fell in eloquent expression of her heavy thoughts. + +"Of course, I don't know." + +"There's no honor in the Kerr blood. Kerr was given many a chance by +father to come up and be a man, and square things between them, but he +didn't have it in him. Neither has she. Her only brother was killed at +Glendora after he'd shot a man in the back." + +"It ought to have been settled, long ago, without all this fighting. But +if people refuse to live by their neighbors and be decent, a good man +among them has a hard time. I don't blame you, Vesta, for the way you +feel." + +"I'd have been willing to let this feud die, but she wouldn't drop it. +She began cutting the fence every summer as soon as I came home. She's +goaded me out of my senses, she's put murder in my heart!" + +"They've tried you almost past endurance, I know. But you've never +killed anybody, Vesta. All there is here isn't worth that price." + +"I know it now," she said, wearily. + +"Go home and hang your gun up, and let it stay there. As long as I'm +here I'll do the fighting when there's any to be done." + +"You didn't help me a little while ago. All you did was for her." + +"It was for both of you," he said, rather indignant that she should take +such an unjust view of his interference. + +"You didn't ride in front of her and stop her from shooting me!" + +"I came to you first--you saw that." + +Lambert mounted, turned his horse to go back and mend the fence. She +rode after him, impulsively. + +"I'm going to stop fighting, I'm going to take my gun off and put it +away," she said. + +He thought she never had appeared so handsome as at that moment, a soft +light in her eyes, the harshness of strain and anger gone out of her +face. He offered her his hand, the only expression of his appreciation +for her generous decision that came to him in the gratefulness of the +moment. She took it as if to seal a compact between them. + +"You've come back to be a woman again," he said, hardly realizing how +strange his words might seem to her, expressing the one thought that +came to the front. + +"I suppose I didn't act much like a woman out there a while ago," she +admitted, her old expression of sadness darkening in her eyes. + +"You were a couple of wildcats," he told her. "Maybe we can get on here +now without fighting, but if they come crowding it on let us men-folks +take care of it for you; it's no job for a girl." + +"I'm going to put the thought of it out of my mind, feud, fences, +everything--and turn it all over to you. It's asking a lot of you to +assume, but I'm tired to the heart." + +"I'll do the best by you I can as long as I'm here," he promised, +simply. He started on; she rode forward with him. + +"If she comes back again, what will you do?" + +"I'll try to show her where she's wrong, and maybe I can get her to hang +up her gun, too. You ought to be friends, it seems to me--a couple of +neighbor girls like you." + +"We couldn't be that," she said, loftily, her old coldness coming over +her momentarily, "but if we can live apart in peace it will be +something. Don't trust her, Mr. Lambert, don't take her word for +anything. There's no honor in the Kerr blood; you'll find that out for +yourself. It isn't in one of them to be even a disinterested friend." + +There was nothing for him to say to this, spoken so seriously that it +seemed almost a prophecy. He felt as if she had looked into the window +of his heart and read his secret and, in her old enmity for this slim +girl of the dangling braid of hair, was working subtly to raise a +barrier of suspicion and distrust between them. + +"I'll go on home and quit bothering you," she said. + +"You're no bother to me, Vesta; I like to have you along." + +She stopped, looked toward the place where she had lately ridden through +the fence in vengeful pursuit of her enemy, her eyes inscrutable, her +face sad. + +"I never felt it so lonesome out here as it is today," she said, and +turned her horse, and left him. + +He looked back more than once as he rode slowly along the fence, a mist +before his perception that he could not pierce. What had come over Vesta +to change her so completely in this little while? He believed she was +entering the shadow of some slow-growing illness, which bore down her +spirits in an uninterpreted foreboding of evil days to come. + +What a pretty figure she made in the saddle, riding away from him in +that slow canter; how well she sat, how she swayed at the waist as her +nimble animal cut in and out among the clumps of sage. A mighty pretty +girl, and as good as they grew them anywhere. It would be a calamity to +have her sick. From the shoulder of the slope he looked back again. +Pretty as any woman a man ever pictured in his dreams. + +She passed out of sight without looking back, and there rose a picture +in his thoughts to take her place, a picture of dark, defiant eyes, of +telltale hair falling in betrayal of her disguise, as if discovering +her secret to him who had a right to know. + +The fancy pleased him; as he worked to repair the damage she had +wrought, he smiled. How well his memory retained her, in her transition +from anger to scorn, scorn to uneasy amazement, amazement to relief. +Then she had smiled, and the recognition not owned in words but spoken +in her eyes, had come. + +Yes, she knew him; she recalled her challenge, his acceptance and +victory. Even as she rode swiftly to obey him out of that mad encounter +in the valley over there, she had owned in her quick act that she knew +him, and trusted him as she sped away. + +When he came to the place where she had ridden through, he pieced the +wire and hooked the ends together, as he had told her he would do. He +handled even the stubborn wire tenderly, as a man might the +appurtenances to a rite. Perhaps he was linking their destinies in that +simple act, he thought, sentimentally unreasonable; it might be that +this spot would mark the second altar of his romance, even as the little +station of Misery was lifted up in his heart as the shrine of its +beginning. + +There was blood on his knuckles where the vicious wire had torn him. He +dashed it to the ground as a libation, smiling like one moonstruck, a +flood of soft fancies making that bleak spot dear. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +NOTICE IS SERVED + + +Taterleg was finding things easier on his side of the ranch. Nick Hargus +was lying still, no hostile acts had been committed. This may have been +due to the fierce and bristling appearance of Taterleg, as he humorously +declared, or because Hargus was waiting reenforcements from the penal +institutions of his own and surrounding states. + +Taterleg had a good many nights to himself, as a consequence of the +security which his grisly exterior had brought. These he spent at +Glendora, mainly on the porch of the hotel in company of Alta Wood, +chewing gum together as if they wove a fabric to bind their lives in +adhesive amity to the end. + +Lambert had a feeling of security for his line of fence, also, as he +rode home on the evening of his adventurous day. He had left a note on +the pieced wire reminding Grace Kerr of his request that she ease her +spite by unhooking it there instead of cutting it in a new place. He +also added the information that he would be there on a certain date to +see how well she carried out his wish. + +He wondered whether she would read his hope that she would be there at +the same hour, or whether she might be afraid to risk Vesta Philbrook's +fury again. There was an eagerness in him for the hastening of the +intervening time, a joyous lightness which tuned him to such harmony +with the world that he sang as he rode. + +Taterleg was going to Glendora that night. He pressed Lambert to join +him. + +"A man's got to take a day off sometimes to rest his face and hands," he +argued. "Them fellers can't run off any stock tonight, and if they do +they can't git very far away with 'em before we'd be on their necks. +They know that; they're as safe as if we had 'em where they belong." + +"I guess you're right on that, Taterleg. I've got to go to town to buy +me a pair of clothes, anyhow, so I'll go you." + +Taterleg was as happy as a cricket, humming a tune as he went along. He +had made liberal application of perfume to his handkerchief and +mustache, and of barber's pomatum to his hair. He had fixed his hat on +carefully, for the protection of the cowlick that came down over his +left eyebrow, and he could not be stirred beyond a trot all the way to +Glendora for fear of damage that might result. + +"I had a run-in with that feller the other night," he said. + +"What feller do you mean?" + +"Jedlick, dern him." + +"You did? I didn't notice any of your ears bit off." + +"No, we didn't come to licks. He tried to horn in while me and Alta was +out on the porch." + +"What did you do?" + +"I didn't have a show to do anything but hand him a few words. Alta she +got me by the arm and drug me in the parlor and slammed the door. No use +tryin' to break away from that girl; she could pull a elephant away from +his hay if she took a notion." + +"Didn't Jedlick try to hang on?" + +"No, he stood out in the office rumblin' to the old man, but that didn't +bother me no more than the north wind when you're in bed under four +blankets. Alta she played me some tunes on her git-tar and sung me some +songs. I tell you, Duke, I just laid back and shut my eyes. I felt as +easy as if I owned the railroad from here to Omaha." + +"How long are you going to keep it up?" + +"Which up, Duke?" + +"Courtin' Alta. You'll have to show off your tricks pretty regular, I +think, if you want to hold your own in that ranch." + +Taterleg rode along considering it. + +"Ye-es, I guess a feller'll have to act if he wants to hold Alta. She's +young, and the young like change. 'Specially the girls. A man to keep +Alta on the line'll have to marry her and set her to raisin' children. +You know, Duke, there's something new to a girl in every man she sees. +She likes to have him around till she leans ag'in' him and rubs the +paint off, then she's out shootin' eyes at another one." + +"Are there others besides Jedlick?" + +"That bartender boards there at the _ho_-tel. He's got four gold teeth, +and he picks 'em with a quill. Sounds like somebody slappin' the crick +with a fishin'-pole. But them teeth give him a standin' in society; they +look like money in the bank. Nothing to his business, though, Duke; no +sentiment or romance or anything." + +"Not much. Who else is there sitting in this Alta game?" + +"Young feller with a neck like a bottle, off of a ranch somewhere back +in the hills." + +Taterleg mentioned him as with consideration. Lambert concluded that he +was a rival to be reckoned with, but gave Taterleg his own way of coming +to that. + +"That feller's got a watch with a music box in the back of it, Duke. +Ever see one of 'em?" + +"No, I never did." + +"Well, he's got one of 'em, all right. He starts that thing up about the +time he hits the steps, and comes in playin' 'Sweet Vilelets' like he +just couldn't help bustin' out in music the minute he comes in sight of +Alta. That feller gives me a pain!" + +The Duke smiled. To every man his own affair is romance; every other +man's a folly or a diverting comedy, indeed. + +"She's a little too keen on that feller to suit me, Duke. She sets out +there with him, and winds that fool watch and plays them two tunes over +till you begin to sag, leanin' her elbow on his shoulder like she had +him paid for and didn't care whether he broke or not." + +"What is the other tune?" + +"It's that one that goes: + + _A heel an' a toe and a po'ky-o_, + _A heel an' a toe and a po'ky-o_ + +--you know that one." + +"I've heard it. She'll get tired of that watch after a while, Taterleg." + +"Maybe. If she don't, I guess I'll have to figger some way to beat it." + +"What are Jedlick's attractions? Surely not good looks." + +"Money, Duke; that's the answer to him--money. He's got a salt barrel +full of it; the old man favors him for that money." + +"That's harder to beat than a music box in a watch." + +"You _can't_ beat it, Duke. What's good looks by the side of money? Or +brains? Well, they don't amount to cheese!" + +"Are you goin' to sidestep in favor of Jedlick? A man with all your +experience and good clothes!" + +"Me? I'm a-goin' to lay that feller out on a board!" + +They hitched at the hotel rack, that looking more respectable, as +Taterleg said, than to leave their horses in front of the saloon. Alta +was heard singing in the interior; there were two railroad men belonging +to a traveling paint gang on the porch smoking their evening pipes. + +Lambert felt that it was his duty to buy cigars in consideration of the +use of the hitching-rack. Wood appeared in the office door as they came +up the steps, and put his head beyond the jamb, looking this way and +that, like a man considering a sortie with enemies lying in wait. + +Taterleg went into the parlor to offer the incense of his cigar in the +presence of Alta, who was cooing a sentimental ballad to her guitar. It +seemed to be of parting, and the hope of reunion, involving one named +Irene. There was a run in the chorus accompaniment which Alta had down +very neatly. + +The tinkling guitar, the simple, plaintive melody, sounded to Lambert as +refreshing as the plash of a brook in the heat of the day. He stood +listening, his elbow on the show case, thinking vaguely that Alta had a +good voice for singing babies to sleep. + +Wood stood in the door again, his stump of arm lifted a little with an +alertness about it that made Lambert think of a listening ear. He looked +up and down the street in that uneasy, inquiring way that Lambert had +remarked on his arrival, then came back and got himself a cigar. He +stood across the counter from Lambert a little while, smoking, his brows +drawn in trouble, his eyes shifting constantly to the door. + +"Duke," said he, as if with an effort, "there's a man in town lookin' +for you. I thought I'd tell you." + +"Lookin' for me? Who is he?" + +"Sim Hargus." + +"You don't mean Nick?" + +"No; he's Nick's brother. I don't suppose you ever met him." + +"I never heard of him." + +"He's only been back from Wyoming a week or two. He was over there some +time--several years, I believe." + +"In the pen over there?" + +Wood took a careful survey of the door before replying, working his +cigar over to the other side of his mouth in the way that a one-armed +man acquires the trick. + +"I--they say he got mixed up in a cattle deal down there." + +Lambert smoked in silence a little while, his head bent, his face +thoughtful. Wood shifted a little nearer, standing straight and alert +behind his counter as if prepared to act in some sudden emergency. + +"Does he live around here?" Lambert asked. + +"He's workin' for Berry Kerr, foreman over there. That's the job he used +to have before he--left." + +Lambert grunted, expressing that he understood the situation. He stood +in his leaning, careless posture, arm on the show case, thumb hooked in +his belt near his gun. + +"I thought I'd tell you," said Wood uneasily. + +"Thanks." + +Wood came a step nearer along the counter, leaned his good arm on it, +watching the door without a break. + +"He's one of the old gang that used to give Philbrook so much +trouble--he's carryin' lead that Philbrook shot into him now. So he's +got it in for that ranch, and everybody on it. I thought I'd tell you." + +"I'm much obliged to you, Mr. Wood," said Lambert heartily. + +"He's one of these kind of men you want to watch out for when your +back's turned, Duke." + +"Thanks, old feller; I'll keep in mind what you say." + +"I don't want it to look like I was on one side or the other, you +understand, Duke; but I thought I'd tell you. Sim Hargus is one of them +kind of men that a woman don't dare to show her face around where he is +without the risk of bein' insulted. He's a foul-mouthed, foul-minded +man, the kind of a feller that ought to be treated like a rattlesnake in +the road." + +Lambert thanked him again for his friendly information, understanding at +once his watchful uneasiness and the absence of Alta from the front of +the house. He was familiar with that type of man such as Wood had +described Hargus as being; he had met some of them in the Bad Lands. +There was nothing holy to them in the heavens or the earth. They did not +believe there was any such thing as a virtuous woman, and honor was a +word they never had heard defined. + +"I'll go out and look him up," Lambert said. "If he happens to come in +here askin' about me, I'll be in either the store or the saloon." + +"There's where he is, Duke--in the saloon." + +"I supposed he was." + +"You'll kind of run into him natural, won't you, Duke, and not let him +think I tipped you off?" + +"Just as natural as the wind." + +Lambert went out. From the hitching-rack he saw Wood at his post of +vigil in the door, watching the road with anxious mien. It was a +Saturday night; the town was full of visitors. Lambert went on to the +saloon, hitching at the long rack in front where twenty or thirty horses +stood. + +The custom of the country made it almost an obligatory courtesy to go in +and spend money when one hitched in front of a saloon, an excuse for +entering that Lambert accepted with a grim feeling of satisfaction. +While he didn't want it to appear that he was crowding a quarrel with +any man, the best way to meet a fellow who had gone spreading it abroad +that he was out looking for one was to go where he was to be found. It +wouldn't look right to leave town without giving Hargus a chance to +state his business; it would be a move subject to misinterpretation, and +damaging to a man's good name. + +There was a crowd in the saloon, which had a smoky, blurred look through +the open door. Some of the old gambling gear had been uncovered and +pushed out from the wall. A faro game was running, with a dozen or more +players, at the end of the bar; several poker tables stretched across +the gloomy front of what had been the ballroom of more hilarious days. +These players were a noisy outfit. Little money was being risked, but +it was going with enough profanity to melt it. + +Lambert stood at the end of the bar near the door, his liquor in his +hand, lounging in his careless attitude of abstraction. But there was +not a lax fiber in his body; every faculty was alert, every nerve set +for any sudden development. The scene before him was disgusting, rather +than diverting, in its squalid imitation of the rough-and-ready times +which had passed before many of these men were old enough to carry the +weight of a gun. It was just a sporadic outburst, a pustule come to a +sudden head that would burst before morning and clear away. + +Lambert ran his eye among the twenty-five or thirty men in the place. +All appeared to be strangers to him. He began to assort their faces, as +one searches for something in a heap, trying to fix on one that looked +mean enough to belong to a Hargus. A mechanical banjo suddenly added its +metallic noise to the din, fit music, it seemed, for such obscene +company. Some started to dance lumberingly, with high-lifted legs and +ludicrous turkey struts. + +Among these Lambert recognized Tom Hargus, the young man who had made +the ungallant attempt to pass Vesta Philbrook's gate with his father. He +had more whisky under his dark skin than he could take care of. As he +jigged on limber legs he threw his hat down with a whoop, his long black +hair falling around his ears and down to his eyes, bringing out the +Indian that slept in him sharper than the liquor had done it. + +His face was flushed, his eyes were heavy, as if he had been under +headway a good while. Lambert watched him as he pranced about, chopping +his steps with feet jerked up straight like a string-halt horse. The +Indian was working, trying to express itself in him through this +exaggerated imitation of his ancestral dances. His companions fell back +in admiration, giving him the floor. + +A cowboy was feeding money into the music box to keep it going, giving +it a coin, together with certain grave, drunken advice, whenever it +showed symptom of a pause. Young Hargus circled about in the middle of +the room, barking in little short yelps. Every time he passed his hat he +kicked at it, sometimes hitting, oftener missing it, at last driving it +over against Lambert's foot, where it lodged. + +Lambert pushed it away. A man beside him gave it a kick that sent it +spinning back into the trodden circle. Tom was at that moment rounding +his beat at the farther end. He came face about just as the hat skimmed +across the floor, stopped, jerked himself up stiffly, looked at Lambert +with a leap of anger across his drunken face. + +Immediately there was silence in the crowd that had been assisting on +the side lines of his performance. They saw that Tom resented this +treatment of his hat by any foot save his own. The man who had kicked it +had fallen back with shoulders to the bar, where he stood presenting the +face of innocence. Tom walked out to the hat, kicked it back within a +few feet of Lambert, his hand on his gun. + +He was all Indian now; the streak of smoky white man was engulfed. His +handsome face was black with the surge of his lawless blood as he +stopped a little way in front of Lambert. + +"Pick up that hat!" he commanded, smothering his words in an avalanche +of profanity. + +Lambert scarcely changed his position, save to draw himself erect and +stand clear of the bar. To those in front of him he seemed to be +carelessly lounging, like a man with time on his hands, peace before +him. + +"Who was your nigger last year, young feller?" he asked, with good-humor +in his words. He was reading Tom's eyes as a prize fighter reads his +opponent's, watching every change of feature, every strain of facial +muscle. Before young Hargus had put tension on his sinews to draw his +weapon, Lambert had read his intention. + +The muzzle of the pistol was scarcely free of the scabbard when Lambert +cleared the two yards between them in one stride. A grip of the wrist, a +twist of the arm, and the gun was flung across the room. Tom struggled +desperately, not a word out of him, striking with his free hand. Sinewy +as he was, he was only a toy in Lambert's hands. + +"I don't want to have any trouble with you, kid," said Lambert, +capturing Tom's other hand and holding him as he would have held a boy. +"Put on your hat and go home." + +Lambert released him, and turned as if he considered the matter ended. +At his elbow a man stood, staring at him with insolent, threatening +eyes. He was somewhat lower of stature than Lambert, thick in the +shoulders, firmly set on the feet, with small mustache, almost colorless +and harsh as hog bristles. His thin eyebrows were white, his hair but a +shade darker, his skin light for an outdoors man. This, taken with his +pale eyes, gave him an appearance of bloodless cruelty which the sneer +on his lip seemed to deepen and express. + +Behind Lambert men were holding Tom Hargus, who had made a lunge to +recover his gun. He heard them trying to quiet him, while he growled and +whined like a wolf in a trap. Lambert returned the stranger's stare, +withholding anything from his eyes that the other could read, as some +men born with a certain cold courage are able to do. He went back to the +bar, the man going with him shoulder to shoulder, turning his malevolent +eyes to continue his unbroken stare. + +"Put up that gun!" the fellow said, turning sharply to Tom Hargus, who +had wrenched free and recovered his weapon. Tom obeyed him in silence, +picked up his hat, beat it against his leg, put it on. + +"You're the Duke of Chimney Butte, are you?" the stranger inquired, +turning again with his sneer and cold, insulting eyes to Lambert, who +knew him now for Sim Hargus, foreman for Berry Kerr. + +"If you know me, there's no need for us to be introduced," Lambert +returned. + +"Duke of Chimney Butte!" said Hargus with immeasurable scorn. He grunted +his words with such an intonation of insult that it would have been +pardonable to shoot him on the spot. Lambert was slow to kindle. He put +a curb now on even his naturally deliberate vehicle of wrath, looking +the man through his shallow eyes down to the roots of his mean soul. + +"You're the feller that's come here to teach us fellers to take off our +hats when we see a fence," Hargus said, looking meaner with every +breath. + +"You've got it right, pardner," Lambert calmly replied. + +"Duke of Chimney Butte! Well, pardner, I'm the King of Hotfoot Valley, +and I've got travelin' papers for you right here!" + +"You seem to be a little sudden about it," Lambert said, a lazy drawl to +his words that inflamed Hargus like a blow. + +"Not half as sudden as you'll be, kid. This country ain't no place for +you, young feller; you're too fresh to keep in this hot climate, and the +longer you stay the hotter it gits. I'll give you just two days to make +your gitaway in." + +"Consider the two days up," said Lambert with such calm and such +coolness of head that men who heard him felt a thrill of admiration. + +"This ain't no joke!" Hargus corrected him. + +"I believe you, Hargus. As far as it concerns me, I'm just as far from +this country right now as I'll be in two days, or maybe two years. +Consider your limit up." + +It was so still in the barroom that one could have heard a match burn. +Lambert had drawn himself up stiff and straight before Hargus, and stood +facing him with defiance in every line of his stern, strong face. + +"I've give you your rope," Hargus said, feeling that he had been called +to show his hand in an open manner that was not his style, and playing +for a footing to save his face. "If you ain't gone in two days you'll +settle with me." + +"That goes with me, Hargus. It's your move." + +Lambert turned, contempt in his courageous bearing, and walked out of +the place, scorning to throw a glance behind to see whether Hargus came +after him, or whether he laid hand to his weapon in the treachery that +Lambert had read in his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +WOLVES OF THE RANGE + + +Lambert left his horse at the saloon hitching-rack while he went to the +store. Business was brisk in that place, also, requiring a wait of half +an hour before his turn came. In a short time thereafter he completed +his purchases, tied his package to his saddle, and was ready to go home. + +The sound of revelry was going forward again in the saloon, the +mechanical banjo plugging away on its tiresome tune. There was a gap +here and there at the rack where horses had been taken away, but most of +them seemed to be anchored there for the night, standing dejectedly with +drooping heads. + +The tinkle of Alta's guitar sounded through the open window of the hotel +parlor as he passed, indicating that Taterleg was still in that harbor. +It would be selfish to call him, making the most as he was of a clear +field. Lambert smiled as he recalled the three-cornered rivalry for +Alta's bony hand. + +There was a lemon-rind slice of new moon low in the southwest, giving a +dusky light, the huddling sage clumps at the roadside blotches of +deepest shadow. Lambert ruminated on the trouble that had been laid out +for him that night as he rode away from town, going slowly, in no hurry +to put walls between him and the soft, pleasant night. + +He was confronted by the disadvantage of an unsought notoriety, or +reputation, or whatever his local fame might be called. A man with a +fighting name must live up to it, however distasteful the strife and +turmoil, or move beyond the circle of his fame. Move he would not, could +not, although it seemed a foolish thing, on reflection, to hang on there +in the lure of Grace Kerr's dark eyes. + +What could a man reasonably expect of a girl with such people as Sim +Hargus as her daily associates? Surely she had been schooled in their +warped view of justice, as her act that day proved. No matter for Omaha +and its refinements, she must be a savage under the skin. But gentle or +savage, he had a tender regard for her, a feeling of romantic sympathy +that had been groping out to find her as a plant in a pit strains toward +the light. Now, in the sunshine of her presence, would it flourish and +grow green, or wither in its mistaken worship and die? + +Vesta had warned him, not knowing anything of the peculiar circumstances +which brought him to that place, or of his discovery, which seemed a +revelation of fate, the conjunction of events shaped before his entry +upon the stage, indeed. She had warned him, but in the face of things as +they had taken place, what would it avail a man to turn his back on the +arrangements of destiny? As it was written, so it must be lived. It was +not in his hand or his heart to change it. + +Turning these things in his mind, flavoring the bitter in the prospect +with the sweet of romance, he was drawn out of his wanderings by the +sudden starting of his horse. It was not a shying start, but a +stiffening of attitude, a leap out of laxity into alertness, with a +lifting of the head, a fixing of the ears as if on some object ahead, +of which it was at once curious and afraid. + +Lambert was all tension in a breath. Ahead a little way the road +branched at the point of the hill leading to the Philbrook house. His +road lay to the right of the jutting plowshare of hill which seemed +shaped for the mere purpose of splitting the highway. The other branch +led to Kerr's ranch, and beyond. The horse was plainly scenting +something in this latter branch of the road, still hidden by the bushes +which grew as tall there as the head of a man on horseback. + +As the horse trotted on, Lambert made out something lying in the road +which looked, at that distance, like the body of a man. Closer approach +proved this to be the case, indeed. Whether the man was alive or dead, +it was impossible to determine from the saddle, but he lay in a huddled +heap as if he had been thrown from a horse, his hat in the road some +feet beyond. + +Whetstone would not approach nearer than ten or twelve feet. There he +stood, swelling his sides with long-drawn breaths, snorting his +warning, it seemed, expressing his suspicion in the best manner that he +could command. Lambert spoke to him, but could not quiet his fear. He +could feel the sensitive creature tremble under him, and took it as +certain that the man must be dead. + +Dismounting, he led the horse and bent over the man in the road. He +could see the fellow's shoulder move as he breathed, and straightened up +with a creeping of apprehension that this might be a trap to draw him +into just such a situation as he found himself that moment. The +nervousness of his horse rather increased than quieted, also, adding +color to his fear. + +His foot was in the stirrup when a quick rush sounded behind him. He saw +the man on the ground spring to his feet, and quick on the consciousness +of that fact there came a blow that stretched him as stiff as a dead +man. + +Lambert came to himself with a half-drowned sense of suffocation. Water +was falling on his head, pouring over his face, and there was the +confused sound of human voices around him. As he cleared he realized +that somebody was standing over him, pouring water on his head. He +struggled to get from under the drowning stream. A man laughed, shook +him, cursed him vilely close to his ear. + +"Wake up, little feller, somebody's a-cuttin' your fence!" said another, +taking hold of him from the other side. + +"Don't hurt him, boys," admonished a third voice, which he knew for +Berry Kerr's--"this is the young man who has come to the Bad Lands with +a mission. He's going to teach people to take off their hats to +barbed-wire fences. I wouldn't have him hurt for a keg of nails." + +He came near Lambert now, put a hand on his shoulder, and asked him with +a gentle kindness how he felt. + +Lambert did not answer him, for he had no words adequate to describe his +feelings at that moment to a friend, much less an enemy whose intentions +were unknown. He sat, fallen forward, in a limp and miserable heap, +drenched with water, clusters of fire gathering and breaking like +showers of a rocket before his eyes. His head throbbed and ached in +maddening pain. This was so great that it seemed to submerge every +faculty save that of hearing, to paralyze him so entirely that he could +not lift a hand. That blow had all but killed him. + +"Let him alone--he'll be all right in a minute," said Kerr's voice, +sounding close to his ear as if he stooped to examine him. + +One was standing behind Lambert, knees against his back to prevent his +entire collapse. The others drew off a little way. There followed the +sound of horses, as if they prepared to ride. It seemed as if the great +pain in Lambert's head attended the return of consciousness, as it +attends the return of circulation. It soon began to grow easier, +settling down to a throb with each heartbeat, as if all his life forces +rushed to that spot and clamored against his skull to be released. He +stiffened, and sat straight. + +"I guess you can stick on your horse now," said the man behind him. + +The fellow left him at that. Lambert could see the heads and shoulders +of men, the heads of horses, against the sky, as if they were below the +river bank. He felt for his gun. No surprise was in store for him there; +it was gone. + +He was unable to mount when they brought his horse. He attempted it, in +confusion of senses that made it seem the struggle of somebody whom he +watched and wanted to help, but could not. They lifted him, tied his +feet under the horse, his hands to the saddle-horn. In this fashion they +started away with him, one riding ahead, one on either hand. He believed +that one or more came following, but of this he was not sure. + +He knew it would be useless to make inquiry of their intentions. That +would bring down on him derision, after their savage way. Stolidly as an +Indian he rode among them to what end he could not imagine; but at the +worst, he believed they would not go beyond some further torture of him +to give him an initiation into what he must expect unless he accepted +their decree that he quit the country forthwith. + +As his senses cleared Lambert recognized the men beside him as Sim +Hargus and the half-Indian, Tom. Behind him he believed Nick Hargus +rode, making it a family party. In such hands, with such preliminary +usage, it began to look very grave for him. + +When they saw there was no danger of his collapse, they began to +increase their pace. Bound as he was, every step of the horse was +increased torture to Lambert. He appealed to Sim Hargus to release his +hands. + +"You can tie them behind me if you're afraid," he suggested. + +Hargus cursed him, refusing to ease his situation. Kerr turned on +hearing this outburst and inquired what it meant. Hargus repeated the +prisoner's request with obscene embellishment. They made no secret of +each other's identity, speaking familiarly, as if in the presence of one +who would make no future charges. Kerr found the request reasonable, and +ordered Hargus to tie Lambert's hands at his back. + +"I guess you might as well take your last ride comfortable, kid," Hargus +commented, as he shifted the bonds. + +They proceeded at a trot, keeping it up for two hours or more. Lambert +knew it was about ten o'clock when he stopped to investigate the man in +the road. There was a feel in the air now that told him it was far past +the turn of night. He knew about where they were in relation to the +ranch by this time, for a man who lives in the open places develops his +sense of direction until it serves him as a mole's in its underground +tunneling. + +There was no talking among his conductors, no sound but the tramp of the +horses in unceasing trot, the scraping of the bushes on the stirrups as +they passed. Lambert's legs were drawn close to his horse's belly, his +feet not in the stirrups, and tied so tightly that he rode in painful +rigidity. The brush caught the loose stirrups and flung them against +Whetstone's sides, treatment that he resented with all the indignation +of a genuine range horse. The twisting and jumping made Lambert's +situation doubly uncomfortable. He longed for the end of the journey, no +matter what awaited him at its conclusion. + +For some time Lambert had noticed a glow as of a fire directly ahead of +them. It grew and sank as if being fed irregularly, or as if smoke blew +before it from time to time. Presently they rounded the base of a hill +and came suddenly upon the fire, burning in a gulch, as it seemed, +covering a large area, sending up a vast volume of smoke. + +Lambert had seen smoke in this direction many times while riding fence, +but could not account for it then any more than he could now for a +little while as he stood facing its origin. Then he understood that this +was a burning vein of lignite, such as he had seen traces of in the +gorgeously colored soil in other parts of the Bad Lands where the fires +had died out and cooled long ago. + +These fires are peculiar to the Bad Lands, and not uncommon there, owing +their origin to forest or prairie blazes which spread to the exposed +veins of coal. As these broad, deep deposits of lignite lie near the +surface, the fire can be seen through crevasses and fallen sections of +crust. Sometimes they burn for years. + +At the foot of the steep bank on which Lambert and his captors stood the +crust had caved, giving the fire air to hasten its ravages. The mass of +slow-moving fire glowed red and intense, covered in places by its own +ashes, now sending up sudden clouds of smoke as an indraft of air +livened the combustion, now smoldering in sullen dullness, throwing off +a heat that made the horses draw back. + +Kerr drew aside on arriving at the fire, and sat his horse looking at +it, the light on his face. Sim Hargus pointed to the glowing pit. + +"That's our little private hell. What do you think of it, kid?" he said, +with his grunting, insulting sneer. + +The fire was visible only in front of them, in a jagged, irregular strip +marking the cave-in of the crust. It ranged from a yard to ten yards +across, and appeared to extend on either hand a long distance. The bank +on which Lambert's horse stood formed one shore of this fiery stream, +which he estimated to be four yards or more across at that point. On the +other side a recent settling of earth had exposed the coal, which was +burning brightly in a fringe of red flame. Whether the fire underlay the +ground beyond that point Lambert could not tell. + +"Quite a sight by night, isn't it?" said Kerr. "It covers several +acres," he explained, as if answering the speculation that rose, +irrelevantly in the face of his pain, humiliation and anxiety, in +Lambert's mind. What did it matter to him how much ground it covered, or +when it began, or when it would die, when his own life was as uncertain +that minute as a match-flame in the wind. + +Why had they brought him there to show him that burning coal-pit? Not +out of any desire to display the natural wonders of the land. The answer +was in the fact itself. Only the diabolism of a savage mind could +contrive or countenance such barbarity as they had come to submit him +to. + +"I lost several head of stock down below here a little way last winter," +said Kerr. "They crowded out over the fire in a blizzard and broke +through. If a man was to ride in there through ignorance I doubt if he'd +ever be able to get out." + +Kerr sat looking speculatively into the glowing pit below, the firelight +red over him in strong contrast of gleam and shadow. Sim Hargus leaned +to look Lambert in the face. + +"You said I was to consider the two days I give you was up," said he. + +"You understood it right," Lambert told him. + +Hargus drew back his fist. Kerr interposed, speaking sharply. + +"You'll not hit a man with his arms tied while I'm around, Sim," he +said. + +"Let him loose, then--put him down before me on his feet!" + +"Leave the kid alone," said Kerr, in his even, provoking voice. "I think +he's the kind of a boy that will take friendly advice if you come up on +the right side of him." + +"Don't be all night about it," said Nick Hargus from his place behind +Lambert, breaking silence in sullen voice. + +Kerr rode up to Lambert and took hold of his reins, stroking old +Whetstone's neck as if he didn't harbor an unkind thought for either man +or beast. + +"It's this way, Duke," he said. "You're a stranger here; the customs of +this country are not the customs you're familiar with, and it's foolish, +very foolish, and maybe dangerous, for you to try to change things +around single-handed and alone. We've used you a little rougher than I +intended the boys to handle you, but you'll get over it in a little +while, and we're going to let you go this time. + +"But we're going to turn you loose with the warning once more to clear +out of this country in as straight a line as you can draw, starting +right now, and keeping on till you're out of the state. You'll excuse us +if we keep your gun; you can send me your address when you land, and +I'll ship it to you. We'll have to start you off tied up, too, much as I +hate to do it. You'll find some way to get loose in a little while, I +guess, a man that's as resourceful and original as you." + +Tom Hargus had not said a word since they left the river. Now he leaned +over and peered into Lambert's face with an expression of excited +malevolence, his eyes glittering in the firelight, his nostrils flaring +as if he drew exhilaration with every breath. He betrayed more of their +intentions than Kerr had discovered in his words; so much, indeed, that +Lambert's heart seemed to gush its blood and fall empty and cold. + +Lambert forgot his throbbing head and tortured feet, and hands gorged +with blood to the strain of bursting below his tight-drawn bonds. The +realization of his hopeless situation rushed on him; he looked round him +to seize even the most doubtful opening that might lead him out of +their hands. + +There was no chance. He could not wheel his horse without hand on rein, +no matter how well the willing beast obeyed the pressure of his knees +while galloping in the open field. + +He believed they intended to kill him and throw his body in the fire. +Old Nick Hargus and his son had it in their power at last to take +satisfaction for the humiliation to which he had bent them. A thousand +regrets for his simplicity in falling into their trap came prickling him +with their momentary torture, succeeded by wild gropings, frantic +seekings, for some plan to get away. + +He had no thought of making an appeal to them, no consideration of a +surrender of his manhood by giving his promise to leave the country if +they would set him free. He was afraid, as any healthy human is afraid +when he stands before a danger that he can neither defend against nor +assail. Sweat burst out on him; his heart labored and heaved in heavy +strokes. + +Whatever was passing in his mind, no trace of it was betrayed in his +bearing. He sat stiff and erect, the red glow of the intense fire on his +face. His hat-brim was pressed back as the wind had held it in his ride, +the scar of Jim Wilder's knife a shadow adding to the grim strength of +his lean face. His bound arms drew his shoulders back, giving him a +defiant pose. + +"Take him out there and head him the right way, boys," Kerr directed. + +Tom Hargus rode ahead, leading Whetstone by the reins. Kerr was not +following. At Lambert's last sight of him he was still looking into the +fire, as if fascinated by the sight of it. + +A hundred yards or less from the fire they stopped. Tom Hargus turned +Whetstone to face back the way they had come, threw the reins over the +saddle-horn, rode up so close Lambert could feel his breath in his face. + +"You made me brush off a nigger's hat when you had the drop on me, and +carry a post five miles. That's the shoulder I carried it on!" + +He drove his knife into Lambert's right shoulder with the words. The +steel grated on bone. + +"I brushed a nigger off under your gun one time," said old Nick Hargus, +spurring up on the other side. "Now I'll brush you a little!" + +Lambert felt the hot streak of a knife-blade in the thick muscle of his +back. Almost at the same moment his horse leaped forward so suddenly +that it wrenched every joint in his bound, stiff body, squealing in +pain. He knew that one of them had plunged a knife in the animal's +haunch. There was loud laughter, the sudden rushing of hooves, yells, +and curses as they came after him. + +But no shots. For a moment Lambert hoped that they were to content +themselves with the tortures already inflicted and let him go, to find +his way out to help or perish in his bonds, as it might fall. For a +moment only, this hope. They came pressing after him, heading his horse +directly toward the fire. He struggled to bring pressure to old +Whetstone's ribs in the signal that he had answered a thousand times, +but he was bound so rigidly that his muscles only twitched on the bone. + +Whetstone galloped on, mad in the pain of his wound, heading straight +toward the fire. + +Lambert believed, as those who urged him on toward it believed, that no +horseman ever rode could jump that fiery gorge. On the brink of it his +pursuers would stop, while he, powerless to check or turn his horse, +would plunge over to perish in his bonds, smothered under his struggling +beast, pierced by the transcendent agonies of fire. + +This was the last thought that rose coherently out of the turmoil of his +senses as the firepit opened before his eyes. He heard his horse squeal +again in the pain of another knife thrust to madden it to its +destructive leap. Then a swirl of the confused senses as of released +waters, the lift of his horse as it sprang, the heat of the fire in his +face. + +The healthy human mind recoils from death, and there is no agency among +the destructive forces of nature which threatens with so much terror as +fire. The senses disband in panic before it, reason flees, the voice +appeals in its distress with a note that vibrates horror. In the threat +of death by fire, man descends to his primal levels; his tongue speaks +again the universal language, its note lending its horrified thrill to +the lowest thing that moves by the divine force of life. + +As Lambert hung over the fire in that mighty leap, his soul recoiled. +His strength rushed into one great cry, which still tore at his throat +as his horse struck, racking him with a force that seemed to tear him +joint from joint. + +The shock of this landing gathered his dispersed faculties. There was +fire around him, there was smoke in his nostrils, but he was alive. His +horse was on its feet, struggling to scramble up the bank on which it +had landed, the earth breaking under its hinder hoofs, threatening to +precipitate it back into the fire that its tremendous leap had cleared. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +WHETSTONE COMES HOME + + +Lambert saw the fire leaping around him, but felt no sting of its touch, +keyed as he was in that swift moment of adjustment. From a man as dead +he was transformed in a breath back to a living, panting, hoping, +struggling being, strong in the tenacious purpose of life. He leaned +over his horse's neck, shouting encouragement, speaking endearments to +it as to a woman in travail. + +There was silence on the bank behind him. Amazement over the leap that +had carried Whetstone across the place which they had designed for the +grave of both man and horse, held the four scoundrels breathless for a +spell. Fascinated by the heroic animal's fight to draw himself clear of +the fire which wrapped his hinder quarters, they forgot to shoot. + +A heave, a lurching struggle, a groan as if his heart burst in the +terrific strain, and Whetstone lunged up the bank, staggered from his +knees, snorted the smoke out of his nostrils, gathered his feet under +him, and was away like a bullet. The sound of shots broke from the bank +across the fiery crevasse; bullets came so close to Lambert that he lay +flat against his horse's neck. + +As the gallant creature ran, sensible of his responsibilities for his +master's life, it seemed, Lambert spoke to him encouragingly, proud of +the tremendous thing that he had done. There was no sound of pursuit, +but the shooting had stopped. Lambert knew they would follow as quickly +as they could ride round the field of fire. + +After going to this length, they could not allow him to escape. There +would have been nothing to explain to any living man with him and all +trace of him obliterated in the fire, but with him alive and fleeing, +saved by the winged leap of his splendid horse, they would be called to +answer, man by man. + +Whetstone did not appear to be badly hurt. He was stretching away like a +hare, shaping his course toward the ranch as true as a pigeon. If they +overtook him they would have to ride harder than they ever rode in +their profitless lives before. + +Lambert estimated the distance between the place where they had trapped +him and the fire as fifteen miles. It must be nine or ten miles across +to the Philbrook ranch, in the straightest line that a horse could +follow, and from that point many miles more to the ranchhouse and +release from his stifling ropes. The fence would be no security against +his pursuing enemies, but it would look like the boundary of hope. + +Whether they lost so much time in getting around the fire that they +missed him, or whether they gave it up after a trial of speed against +Whetstone, Lambert never knew. He supposed that their belief was that +neither man nor horse would live to come into the sight of men again. +However it fell, they did not approach within hearing if they followed, +and were not in sight as dawn broke and broadened into day. + +Whetstone made the fence without slackening his speed. There Lambert +checked him with a word and looked back for his enemies. Finding that +they were not near, he proceeded along the fence at easier gait, holding +the animal's strength for the final heat, if they should make a sudden +appearance. Somewhere along that miserable ride, after daylight had +broken and the pieced wire that Grace Kerr had cut had been passed, +Lambert fell unconscious across the horn of his saddle from the drain of +blood from his wounds and the unendurable pain of his bonds. + +In this manner the horse came bearing him home at sunrise. Taterleg was +away on his beat, not uneasy over Lambert's absence. It was the +exception for him to spend a night in the bunkhouse in that summer +weather. So old Whetstone, jaded, scorched, bloody from his own and his +master's wounds, was obliged to stand at the gate and whinny for help +when he arrived. + +It was hours afterward that the fence rider opened his eyes and saw +Vesta Philbrook, and closed them again, believing it was a delirium of +his pain. Then Taterleg spoke on the other side of the bed, and he knew +that he had come through his perils into gentle hands. + +"How're you feelin', old sport?" Taterleg inquired with anxious +tenderness. + +Lambert turned his head toward the voice and grinned a little, in the +teeth-baring, hard-pulling way of a man who has withstood a great deal +more than the human body and mind ever were designed to undergo. He +thought he spoke to Taterleg; the words shaped on his tongue, his throat +moved. But there was such a roaring in his ears, like the sound of a +train crossing a trestle, that he could not hear his own voice. + +"Sure," said Taterleg, hopefully, "you're all right, ain't you, old +sport?" + +"Fine," said Lambert, hearing his voice small and dry, strange as the +voice of a man to him unknown. + +Vesta put her arm under his head, lifted him a little, gave him a +swallow of water. It helped, or something helped. Perhaps it was the +sympathetic tenderness of her good, honest eyes. He paid her with +another little grin, which hurt her more to see than him to give, +wrenched even though it was from the bottom of his soul. + +"How's old Whetstone?" he asked, his voice coming clearer. + +"He's all right," she told him. + +"His tail's burnt off of him, mostly, and he's cut in the hams in a +couple of places, but he ain't hurt any, as I can see," Taterleg said, +with more truth than diplomacy. + +Lambert struggled to his elbow, the consciousness of what seemed his +ingratitude to this dumb savior of his life smiting him with shame. + +"I must go and attend to him," he said. + +Vesta and Taterleg laid hands on him at once. + +"You'll bust them stitches I took in your back if you don't keep still, +young feller," Taterleg warned. "Whetstone ain't as bad off as you, nor +half as bad." + +Lambert noticed then that his hands were wrapped in wet towels. + +"Burned?" he inquired, lifting his eyes to Vesta's face. + +"No, just swollen and inflamed. They'll be all right in a little while." + +"I blundered into their hands like a blind kitten," said he, +reproachfully. + +"They'll eat lead for it!" said Taterleg. + +"It was Kerr and that gang," Lambert explained, not wanting to leave any +doubt behind if he should have to go. + +"You can tell us after a while," she said, with compassionate +tenderness. + +"Sure," said Taterleg, cheerfully, "you lay back there and take it easy. +I'll keep my eye on things." + +That evening, when the pain had eased out of his head, Lambert told +Vesta what he had gone through, sparing nothing of the curiosity that +had led him, like a calf, into their hands. He passed briefly over their +attempt to herd him into the fire, except to give Whetstone the hero's +part, as he so well deserved. + +Vesta sat beside him, hearing him to the end of the brief recital that +he made of it in silence, her face white, her figure erect. When he +finished she laid her hand on his forehead, as if in tribute to the +manhood that had borne him through such inhuman torture, and the loyalty +that had been the cause of its visitation. Then she went to the window, +where she stood a long time looking over the sad sweep of broken +country, the fringe of twilight on it in somber shadow. + +It was not so dark when she returned to her place at his bedside, but he +could see that she had been weeping in the silent pain that rises like +a poison distillation from the heart. + +"It draws the best into it and breaks them," she said in great +bitterness, speaking as to herself. "It isn't worth the price!" + +"Never mind it, Vesta," he soothed, putting out his hand. She took it +between her own, and held it, and a great comfort came to him in her +touch. + +"I'm going to sell the cattle as fast as I can move them, and give it +up, Duke," she said, calling him by that name with the easy +unconsciousness of a familiar habit, although she never had addressed +him so before. + +"You're not going away from here whipped, Vesta," he said with a +firmness that gave new hope and courage to her sad heart. "I'll be out +of this in a day or two, then we'll see about it--about several things. +You're not going to leave this country whipped; neither am I." + +She sat in meditation, her face to the window, presenting the soft turn +of her cheek and chin to Lambert's view. She was too fine and good for +that country, he thought, too good for the best that it ever could offer +or give, no matter how generously the future might atone for the +hardships of the past. It would be better for her to leave it, he wanted +her to leave it, but not with her handsome head bowed in defeat. + +"I think if you were to sift the earth and screen out its meanest, they +wouldn't be a match for the people around here," she said. "There +wouldn't be a bit of use taking this outrage up with the authorities; +Kerr and his gang would say it was a joke, and get away with it, too." + +"I wouldn't go squealing to the county authorities, Vesta, even if I +knew I'd get results. This is something a man has to square for himself. +Maybe they intended it for a joke, too, but it was a little rougher than +I'm used to." + +"There's no doubt what their intention was. You can understand my +feelings toward them now, Duke; maybe I'll not seem such a savage." + +"I've got a case with you against them all, Vesta." + +He made no mental reservation as he spoke; there was no pleading for +exception in Grace Kerr's dark eyes that he could grant. Long as he had +nestled the romance between them in his breast, long as he had looked +into the West and sent his dream out after her, he could not, in this +sore hour, forgive her the taint of her blood. + +He felt that all tenderness in him toward any of her name was dead. It +had been a pretty fancy to hold, that thought of finding her, but she +was only swamp-fire that had lured him to the door of hell. Still the +marvel of his meeting her, the violet scent of his old dream, lingered +sweetly with him like the perfume that remains after a beautiful woman +whose presence has illuminated a room. So hard does romance die. + +"I think I'll have to break my word to you and buckle on my gun again +for a little while," she said. "Mr. Wilson can't ride the fence alone, +capable and willing as he is, and ready to go day and night." + +"Leave it to him till I'm out again, Vesta; that will only be a day or +two----" + +"A day or two! Three or four weeks, if you do well." + +"No, not that long, not anything like that long," he denied with +certainty. "They didn't hurt me very much." + +"Well, if they didn't hurt you much they damaged you considerably." + +He grinned over the serious distinction that she made between the words. +Then he thought, pleasantly, that Vesta's voice seemed fitted to her +lips like the tone of some beautiful instrument. It was even and soft, +slow and soothing, as her manner was deliberate and well calculated, her +presence a comfort to the eye and the mind alike. + +An exceptional combination of a girl, he reflected, speculating on what +sort of man would marry her. Whoever he was, whatever he might be, he +would be only secondary to her all through the compact. That chap would +come walking a little way behind her all the time, with a contented eye +and a certain pride in his situation. It was a diverting fancy as he lay +there in the darkening room, Vesta coming down the years a strong, +handsome, proud figure in the foreground, that man just far enough +behind her to give the impression as he passed that he belonged to her +_entourage_, but never quite overtaking her. + +Even so, the world might well envy the man his position. Still, if a +man should happen along who could take the lead--but Vesta wouldn't have +him; she wouldn't surrender. It might cost her pain to go her way with +her pretty head up, her eyes on the road far beyond, but she would go +alone and hide her pain rather than surrender. That would be Vesta +Philbrook's way. + +Myrtle, the negro woman, came in with chicken broth. Vesta made a light +for him to sup by, protesting when he would sit up to help himself, the +spoon impalpable in his numb fingers, still swollen and purple from the +long constriction of his bonds. + +Next morning Vesta came in arrayed in her riding habit, her sombrero on, +as she had appeared the first time he saw her. Only she was so much +lovelier now, with the light of friendship and tender concern in her +face, that he was gladdened by her presence in the door. It was as of a +sudden burst of music, or the voice of someone for whom the heart is +sick. + +He was perfectly fine, he told her, although he was as sore as a burn. +In about two days he would be in the saddle again; she didn't need to +bother about riding fence, it would be all right, he knew. His +declaration didn't carry assurance. He could see that by the changing +cast of her face, as sensitive as still water to a breathing wind. + +She was wearing her pistol, and appeared very competent with it on her +hip, and very high-bred and above that station of contention and strife. +He was troubled not a little at sight of her thus prepared to take up +the battles which she had renounced and surrendered into his hands only +yesterday. She must have read it in his eyes. + +"I'm only going to watch the fence and repair it to keep the cattle in +if they cut it," she said. "I'll not take the offensive, even if I see +her--them cutting it; I'll only act on the defensive, in any case. I +promise you that, Duke." + +She left him with that promise, before he could commend her on the +wisdom of her resolution, or set her right on the matter of Grace Kerr. +From the way Vesta spoke, a man would think she believed he had some +tender feeling for that wild girl, and the idea of it was so +preposterous that he felt his face grow hot. + +He was uneasy for Vesta that day, in spite of her promise to avoid +trouble, and fretted a good deal over his incapacitated state. His +shoulder burned where Tom Hargus' knife had scraped the bone, his +wounded back was stiff. + +Without this bodily suffering he would have been miserable, for he had +the sweat of his humiliation to wallow in, the black cloud of his +contemplated vengeance across his mind in ever-deepening shadow. On his +day of reckoning he cogitated long, planning how he was to bring it +about. The law would not justify him in going out to seek these men and +shooting them down where overtaken. Time and circumstance must be ready +to his hand before he could strike and wipe out that disgraceful score. + +It was not to be believed that they would allow the matter to stand +where it was; that was a comforting thought. They would seek occasion to +renew the trouble, and push it to their desired conclusion. That was the +day to which he looked forward in hot eagerness. Never again would he be +taken like a rabbit in a trap. He felt that, to stand clear before the +law, he would have to wait for them to push their fight on him, but he +vowed they never would find him unprepared, asleep or awake, under roof +or under sky. + +He would get Taterleg to oil up a pair of pistols from among the number +around the bunkhouse and leave them with him that night. There was +satisfaction in the anticipation of these preparations. Dwelling on them +he fell asleep. He woke late in the afternoon, when the sun was yellow +on the wall, the shadow of the cottonwood leaves quivering like +dragonflies' wings. + +On the little table beside his bed, near his glass, a bit of white paper +lay. He looked at it curiously. It bore writing in ink and marks as of a +pin. + + _Just to say hello, Duke._ + +That was the message, unsigned, folded as it had been pinned to the +wire. Vesta had brought it and left it there while he slept. + +He drew himself up with stiff carefulness and read it again, holding it +in his fingers then and gazing in abstraction out of the window, +through which he could pick up the landscape across the river, missing +the brink of the mesa entirely. + +A softness, as of the rebirth of his old romance, swept him, submerging +the bitter thoughts and vengeful plans which had been his but a few +hours before, the lees of which were still heavy in him. This little +piece of writing proved that Grace was innocent of anything that had +befallen him. In the friendly good-will of her heart she thought him, as +she doubtless wished him, unharmed and well. + +There was something in that girl better than her connections would seem +to guarantee; she was not intractable, she was not beyond the influence +of generosity, nor deaf to the argument of honor. It would be unfair to +hold her birth and relationship against her. Nobility had sprung out of +baseness many times in the painful history of human progress. If she was +vengeful and vindictive, it was what the country had made her. She +should not be judged for this in measure harsher than Vesta Philbrook +should be judged. The acts of both were controlled by what they +believed to be the right. + +Perhaps, and who knows, and why not? So, a train of dreams starting and +blowing from him, like smoke from a censer, perfumed smoke, purging the +place of demons which confuse the lines of men's and women's lives and +set them counter where they should go in amity, warm hand in warm hand, +side by side. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +HOW THICK IS BLOOD? + + +No sterner figure ever rode the Bad Lands than Jeremiah Lambert appeared +eight days after his escape out of his enemies' hands. The last five +days of his internment he had spent in his own quarters, protesting to +Vesta that he was no longer an invalid, and that further receipt of her +tender ministrations would amount to obtaining a valuable consideration +by false pretense. + +This morning as he rode about his duty the scar left by Jim Wilder's +knife in his cheek never had appeared so prominent. It cast over all his +face a shadow of grimness, and imparted to it an aged and seasoned +appearance not warranted by either his experience or his years. Although +he had not carried any superfluous flesh before his night of torture, he +was lighter now by many pounds. + +Not a handsome man that day, not much about him to recall the +red-faced, full-blooded agent of the All-in-One who had pushed his +bicycle into the Syndicate camp that night, guided by Taterleg's song. +But there was a look of confidence in his eyes that had not been his in +those days, which he considered now as far distant and embryonic; there +was a certainty in his hand that made him a man in a man's place +anywhere in the extreme exactions of that land. + +Vesta was firm in her intention of giving up the ranch and leaving the +Bad Lands as soon as she could sell the cattle. With that program ahead +of him, Lambert was going this morning to look over the herd and +estimate the number of cattle ready for market, that he might place his +order for cars. + +He didn't question the wisdom of reducing the herd, for that was good +business; but it hurt him to have Vesta leave there with drooping +feathers, acknowledging to the brutal forces which had opposed the ranch +so long that she was beaten. He would have her go after victory over +them, for it was no place for Vesta. But he would like for her to stay +until he had broken their opposition, and compelled them to take off +their hats to her fence. + +He swore as he rode this morning that he would do it. Vesta should not +clean out the cattle, lock the lonesome ranchhouse, abandon the barns +and that vast investment of money to the skulking wolves who waited only +such a retreat to sneak in and despoil the place. He had fixed in his +mind the intention, firm as a rock in the desert that defied storm and +disintegration, to bring every man of that gang up to the wire fence in +his turn and bend him before it, or break him if he would not bend. + +This accomplished, the right of the fence established on such terms that +it would be respected evermore, Vesta might go, if she desired. Surely +it would be better for her, a pearl in those dark waters where her +beauty would corrode and her soul would suffer in the isolation too hard +for one of her fine harmony to bear. Perhaps she would turn the ranch +over to him to run, with a band of sheep which he could handle and +increase on shares, after the custom of that business, to the profit of +both. + +He had speculated on this eventuality not a little during the days of +his enforced idleness. This morning the thought was so strong in him +that it amounted almost to a plan. Maybe there was a face in these +calculations, a face illumined by clear, dark eyes, which seemed to +strain over the brink of the future and beckon him on. Blood might stand +between them, and differences almost irreconcilable, but the face +withdrew never. + +It was evening before he worked through the herd and made it round to +the place where Grace Kerr had cut the fence. There was no message for +him. Without foundation for his disappointment, he was disappointed. He +wondered if she had been there, and bent in his saddle to examine the +ground across the fence. + +There were tracks of a horse, but whether old or new he was not educated +enough yet in range-craft to tell. He looked toward the hill from which +he had watched her ride to cut the fence, hoping she might appear. He +knew that this hope was traitorous to his employer, he felt that his +desire toward this girl was unworthy, but he wanted to see her and hear +her speak. + +Foolish, also, to yield to that desire to let down the fence where he +had hooked the wire and ride out to see if he could find her. Still, +there was so little probability of seeing her that he was not ashamed, +only for the twinge of a disloyal act, as he rode toward the hill, his +long shadow ambling beside him, a giant horseman on a mammoth steed. + +He returned from this little sentimental excursion feeling somewhat like +a sneak. The country was empty of Grace Kerr. In going out to seek her +in the folly of a romance too trivial for a man of his serious mien, he +was guilty of an indiscretion deserving Vesta Philbrook's deepest scorn. +He burned with his own shame as he dismounted to adjust the wire, like +one caught in a reprehensible deed, and rode home feeling foolishly +small. Kerr! He should hate the name. + +But when he came to shaving by lamplight that night, and lifted out his +pied calfskin vest to find his strop, the little handkerchief brought +all the old remembrances, the old tenderness, back in a sentimental +flood. He fancied there was still a fragrance of violet perfume about it +as he held it tenderly and pressed it to his cheek after a furtive +glance around. He folded it small, put it in a pocket of the garment, +which he hung on the foot of his bed. + +An inspiration directed the act. Tomorrow he would ride forth clothed in +the calfskin vest, with the bright handkerchief that he had worn on the +Sunday at Misery when he won Grace Kerr's scented trophy. For +sentimental reasons only; purely sentimental reasons. + +No, he was not a handsome man any longer, he confessed, grinning at the +admission, rather pleased to have it as it was. That scar gave him a +cast of ferocity which his heart did not warrant, for, inwardly, he +said, he knew he was as gentle as a dove. But if there was any doubt in +her mind, granted that he had changed a good deal since she first saw +him, the calfskin vest and the handkerchief would settle it. By those +signs she would know him, if she had doubted before. + +Not that she had doubted. As her anger and fear of him had passed that +morning, recognition had come, and with recognition, confidence. He +would take a look out that way in the morning. Surely a man had a right +to go into the enemy's country and get a line on what was going on +against him. So as he shaved he planned, arguing loudly for himself to +drown the cry of treason that his conscience raised. + +Tomorrow he would take a further look through the herd and conclude his +estimate. Then he'd have to go to Glendora and order cars for the first +shipment. Vesta wouldn't be able to get all of them off for many weeks. +It would mean several trips to Chicago for him, with a crew of men to +take care of the cattle along the road. It might be well along into the +early fall before he had them thinned down to calves and cows not ready +for market. + +He shaved and smoothed his weathered face, turning his eyes now and +again to his hairy vest with a feeling of affection in him for the +garment that neither its worth nor its beauty warranted. Sentimental +reasons always outweigh sensible ones as long as a man is young. + +He rode along the fence next morning on his way to the herd, debating +whether he should leave a note on the wire. He was not in such a soft +and sentimental mood this morning, for sense had rallied to him and +pointed out the impossibility of harmony between himself and one so +nearly related to a man who had attempted to burn him alive. It seemed +to him now that the recollection of those poignant moments would rise to +stand between them, no matter how gentle or far removed from the source +of her being she might appear. + +These gloomy speculations rose and left him like a flock of somber birds +as he lifted the slope. Grace Kerr herself was riding homeward, just +mounting the hill over which she must pass in a moment and disappear. He +unhooked the wire and rode after her. At the hilltop she stopped, +unaware of his coming, and looked back. He waved his hat; she waited. + +"Have you been sick, Duke?" she inquired, after greetings, looking him +over with concern. + +"My horse bit me," said he, passing it off with that old stock +pleasantry of the range, which covered anything and everything that a +man didn't want to explain. + +"I missed you along here," she said. She swept him again with that slow, +puzzled look of inquiry, her eyes coming back to his face in a frank, +unembarrassed stare. "Oh, I know what it is now! You're dressed like you +were that day at Misery. I couldn't make it out for a minute." + +She was not wearing her mannish garb this morning, but divided skirts of +corduroy and a white waist with a bit of bright color at the neck. Her +white sombrero was the only masculine touch about her, and that rather +added to her quick, dark prettiness. + +"You were wearing a white waist the first time I saw you," he said. + +"This one," she replied, touching it with simple motion of full +identification. + +Neither of them mentioned the mutual recognition on the day she had been +caught cutting the fence. They talked of commonplace things, as youth is +constrained to do when its heart and mind are centered on something else +which burns within it, the flame of which it cannot cover from any eyes +but its own. Life on the range, its social disadvantages, its rough +diversions, these they spoke of, Lambert's lips dry with his eagerness +to tell her more. + +How quickly it had laid hold of him again at sight of her, this +unreasonable longing! The perfume of his romance suffused her, purging +away all that was unworthy. + +"I trembled every second that day for fear your horse would break +through the platform and throw you," she said, suddenly coming back to +the subject that he wanted most to discuss. + +"I didn't think of it till a good while afterward," he said in slow +reflection. + +"I didn't suppose I'd ever see you again, and, of course, I never once +thought you were the famous Duke of Chimney Butte I heard so much about +when I got home." + +"More notorious than famous, I'm afraid, Miss Kerr." + +"Jim Wilder used to work for us; I knew him well." + +Lambert bent his head, a shadow of deepest gravity falling like a cloud +over the animation which had brightened his features but a moment +before. He sat in contemplative silence a little while, his voice low +when he spoke. + +"Even though he deserved it, I've always been sorry it happened." + +"Well, if you're sorry, I guess you're the only one. Jim was a bad kid. +Where's that horse you raced the train on?" + +"I'm resting him up a little." + +"You had him out here the other day." + +"Yes. I crippled him up a little since then." + +"I'd like to have that horse. Do you want to sell him, Duke?" + +"There's not money enough made to buy him!" Lambert returned, lifting +his head quickly, looking her in the eyes so directly that she colored, +and turned her head to cover her confusion. + +"You must think a lot of him when you talk like that." + +"He's done me more than one good turn, Miss Kerr," he explained, feeling +that she must have read his harsh thoughts. "He saved my life only a +week ago. But that's likely to happen to any man," he added quickly, +making light of it. + +"Saved your life?" said she, turning her clear, inquiring eyes on him +again in that expression of wonder that was so vast in them. "How did he +save your life, Duke?" + +"I guess I was just talking," said he, wishing he had kept a better +hold on his tongue. "You know we have a fool way of saying a man's life +was saved in very trivial things. I've known people to declare that a +drink of whisky did that for them." + +She lifted her brows as she studied his face openly and with such a +directness that he flushed in confusion, then turned her eyes away +slowly. + +"I liked him that day he outran the flier; I've often thought of him +since then." + +Lambert looked off over the wild landscape, the distant buttes softened +in the haze that seemed to presage the advance of autumn, considering +much. When he looked into her face again it was with the harshness gone +out of his eyes. + +"I wouldn't sell that horse to any man, but I'd give him to you, Grace." + +She started a little when he pronounced her name, wondering, perhaps, +how he knew it, her eyes growing great in the pleasure of his generous +declaration. She urged her horse nearer with an impetuous movement and +gave him her hand. + +"I didn't mean for you to take it that way, Duke, but I appreciate it +more than I can tell you." + +Her eyes were earnest and soft with a mist of gratitude that seemed to +rise out of her heart. He held her hand a moment, feeling that he was +being drawn nearer to her lips, as if he must touch them, and rise +refreshed to face the labors of his life. + +"I started out on him to look for you, expecting to ride him to the +Pacific, and maybe double back. I didn't know where I'd have to go, but +I intended to go on till I found you." + +"It seemed almost a joke," she said, "that we were so near each other +and you didn't know it." + +She laughed, not seeming to feel the seriousness of it as he felt it. It +is the woman who laughs always in these little life-comedies of ours. + +"I'll give him to you, Grace, when he picks up again. Any other horse +will do me now. He carried me to the end of my road; he brought me to +you." + +She turned her head, and he hadn't the courage in him to look and see +whether it was to hide a smile. + +"You don't know me, Duke; maybe you wouldn't--maybe you'll regret you +ever started out to find me at all." + +His courage came up again; he leaned a little nearer, laying his hand on +hers where it rested on her saddle-horn. + +"You wanted me to come, didn't you, Grace?" + +"I hoped you might come sometime, Duke." + +He rode with her when she set out to return home to the little valley +where he had interposed to prevent a tragedy between her and Vesta +Philbrook. Neither of them spoke of that encounter. It was avoided in +silence as a thing of which both were ashamed. + +"Will you be over this way again, Grace?" he asked when he stopped to +part. + +"I expect I will, Duke." + +"Tomorrow, do you think?" + +"Not tomorrow," shaking her head in the pretty way she had of doing it +when she spoke in negation, like an earnest child. + +"Maybe the next day?" + +"I expect I may come then, Duke--or what is your real name?" + +"Jeremiah. Jerry, if you like it better." + +She pursed her lips in comical seriousness, frowning a little as if +considering it weightily. Then she looked at him in frank comradeship, +her dark eyes serious, nodding her head. + +"I'll just call you Duke." + +He left her with the feeling that he had known her many years. Blood +between them? What was blood? Thicker than water? Nay, impalpable as +smoke. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE RIVALRY OF COOKS + + +Taterleg said that he would go to Glendora that night with Lambert, when +the latter announced he was going down to order cars for the first +shipment of cattle. + +"I've been layin' off to go quite a while," Taterleg said, "but that +scrape you run into kind of held me around nights. You know, that feller +he put a letter in the post office for me, servin' notice I was to keep +away from that girl. I guess he thinks he's got me buffaloed and on the +run." + +"Which one of them sent you a letter?" + +"Jedlick, dern him. I'm goin' down there from now on every chance I get +and set up to that girl like a Dutch uncle." + +"What do you suppose Jedlick intends to do to you?" + +"I don't care what he aims to do. If he makes a break at me, I'll lay +him on a board, if they can find one in the Bad Lands long enough to +hold him." + +"He's got a bad eye, a regular mule eye. You'd better step easy around +him and not stir him up too quick." + +Lambert had no faith in the valor of Jedlick at all, but Taterleg would +fight, as he very well knew. But he doubted whether there was any great +chance of the two coming together with Alta Wood on the watch between +them. She'd pat one and she'd rub the other, soothing them and drawing +them off until they forgot their wrath. Still, he did not want Taterleg +to be running any chance at all of making trouble. + +"You'd better let me take your gun," he suggested as they approached the +hotel. + +"I can take care of it," Taterleg returned, a bit hurt by the +suggestion, lofty and distant in his declaration. + +"No harm intended, old feller. I just didn't want you to go pepperin' +old Jedlick over a girl that's as fickle as you say Alta Wood is." + +"I ain't a-goin' to pull a gun on no man till he gives me a good reason, +Duke, but if he _gives_ me the reason, I want to be heeled. I guess I +was a little hard on Alta that time, because I was a little sore. She's +not so foolish fickle as some." + +"When she's trying to hold three men in line at once it looks to me she +must be playin' two of 'em for suckers. But go to it, go to it, old +feller; don't let me scare you off." + +"I never had but one little fallin' out with Alta, and that was the time +I was sore. She wanted me to cut off my mustache, and I told her I +wouldn't do that for no girl that ever punched a piller." + +"What did she want you to do that for, do you reckon?" + +"Curiosity, Duke, plain curiosity. She worked old Jedlick that way, but +she couldn't throw me. Wanted to see how it'd change me, she said. Well, +I know, without no experimentin'." + +"I don't know that it'd hurt you much to lose it, Taterleg." + +"Hurt me? I'd look like one of them flat Christmas toys they make out of +tin without that mustache, Duke. I'd be so sharp in the face I'd whistle +in the wind every time my horse went out of a walk. I'm a-goin' to wear +that mustache to my grave, and no woman that ever hung her stockin's out +of the winder to dry's goin' to fool me into cuttin' it off." + +"You know when you're comfortable, old feller. Stick to it, if that's +the way you feel about it." + +They hitched at the hotel rack. Taterleg said he'd go on to the depot +with Lambert. + +"I'm lookin' for a package of express goods I sent away to Chicago for," +he explained. + +The package was on hand, according to expectation. It proved to be a +five-pound box of chewing gum, "All kinds and all flavors," Taterleg +said. + +"You've got enough there to stick you to her so tight that even death +can't part you," Lambert told him. + +Taterleg winked as he worked undoing the cords. + +"Only thing can beat it, Duke--money. Money can beat it, but a man's got +to have a lick or two of common sense to go with it, and some good looks +on the side, if he picks off a girl as wise as Alta. When Jedlick was +weak enough to cut off his mustache, he killed his chance." + +"Is he in town tonight, do you reckon?" + +"I seen his horse in front of the saloon. Well, no girl can say I ever +went and set down by her smellin' like a bunghole on a hot day. I don't +travel that road. I'll go over there smellin' like a fruit-store, and +I'll put that box in her hand and tell her to chaw till she goes to +sleep, an then I'll pull her head over on my shoulder and pat them +bangs. Hursh, oh, hursh!" + +It seemed that the effervescent fellow could not be wholly serious about +anything. Lambert was not certain that he was serious in his attitude +toward Jedlick as he went away with his sweet-scented box under his arm. + +By the time Lambert had finished his arrangements for a special train to +carry the first heavy shipment of the Philbrook herd to market it was +long after dark. He was in the post office when he heard the shot that, +he feared, opened hostilities between Taterleg and Jedlick. He hurried +out with the rest of the customers and went toward the hotel. + +There was some commotion on the hotel porch, which it was too dark to +follow, but he heard Alta scream, after which there came another shot. +The bullet struck the side of the store, high above Lambert's head. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE SENTINEL + + +There appeared in the light of the hotel door for a moment the figures +of struggling men, followed by the sound of feet in flight down the +steps, and somebody mounting a horse in haste at the hotel +hitching-rack. Whoever this was rode away at a hard gallop. + +Lambert knew that the battle was over, and as he came to the +hitching-rack he saw that Taterleg's horse was still there. So he had +not fled. Several voices sounded from the porch in excited talk, among +them Taterleg's, proving that he was sound and untouched. + +His uneasiness gone, Lambert stood a little while in front, well out in +the dark, trying to pick up what was being said, but with little result, +for people were arriving with noise of heavy boots to learn the cause of +the disturbance. + +Taterleg held the floor for a little while, his voice severe as if he +laid down the law. Alta replied in what appeared to be indignant +protest, then fell to crying. There was a picture of her in the door a +moment being led inside by her mother, blubbering into her hands. The +door slammed after them, and Taterleg was heard to say in loud, firm +voice: + +"Don't approach me, I tell you! I'd hit a blind woman as quick as I +would a one-armed man!" + +Lambert felt that this was the place to interfere. He called Taterleg. + +"All right, Duke; I'm a-comin'," Taterleg answered. + +The door opened, revealing the one-armed proprietor entering the house; +revealing a group of men and women, bare-headed, as they had rushed to +the hotel at the sound of the shooting; revealing Taterleg coming down +the steps, his box of chewing gum under his arm. + +Wood fastened the door back in its accustomed anchorage. His neighbors +closed round where he stood explaining the affair, his stump of arm +lifting and pointing in the expressionless gestures common to a man thus +maimed. + +"Are you hurt?" Lambert inquired. + +"No, I ain't hurt none, Duke." + +Taterleg got aboard of his horse with nothing more asked of him or +volunteered on his part. They had not proceeded far when his indignation +broke bounds. + +"I ain't hurt, but I'm swinged like a fool miller moth in a lamp +chimley," he complained. + +"Who was that shootin' around so darned careless?" + +"Jedlick, dern him!" + +"It's a wonder he didn't kill somebody upstairs somewhere." + +"First shot he hit a box of t'backer back of Wood's counter. I don't +know what he hit the second time, but it wasn't me." + +"He hit the side of the store." + +Taterleg rode along in silence a little way. "Well, that was purty good +for him," he said. + +"Who was that hopped a horse like he was goin' for the doctor, and tore +off?" + +"Jedlick, dern him!" + +Lambert allowed the matter to rest at that, knowing that neither of them +had been hurt. Taterleg would come to the telling of it before long, +not being built so that he could hold a piece of news like that without +suffering great discomfort. + +"I'm through with that bunch down there," he said in the tone of deep, +disgustful renunciation. "I never was led on and soaked that way before +in my life. No, I ain't hurt, Duke, but it ain't no fault of that girl I +ain't. She done all she could to kill me off." + +"Who started it?" + +"Well, I'll give it to you straight, Duke, from the first word, and you +can judge for yourself what kind of a woman that girl's goin' to turn +out to be. I never would 'a' believed she'd 'a' throwed a man that way, +but you can't read 'em, Duke; no man can read 'em." + +"I guess that's right," Lambert allowed, wondering how far he had read +in certain dark eyes which seemed as innocent as a child's. + +"It's past the power of any man to do it. Well, you know, I went over +there with my fresh box of gum, all of the fruit flavors you can name, +and me and her we set out on the porch gabbin' and samplin' that gum. +She never was so leanin' and lovin' before, settin' up so clost to me +you couldn't 'a' put a sheet of writin' paper between us. Shucks!" + +"Rubbin' the paint off, Taterleg. You ought 'a' took the tip that she +was about done with you." + +"You're right; I would 'a' if I'd 'a' had as much brains as a ant. Well, +she told me Jedlick was layin' for me, and begged me not to hurt him, +for she didn't want to see me go to jail on account of a feller like +him. She talked to me like a Dutch uncle, and put her head so clost I +could feel them bangs a ticklin' my ear. But that's done with; she can +tickle all the ears she wants to tickle, but she'll never tickle mine no +more. And all the time she was talkin' to me like that, where do you +reckon that Jedlick feller was at?" + +"In the saloon, I guess, firin' up." + +"No, he wasn't, Duke. He was settin' right in that _ho_-tel, with his +old flat feet under the table, shovelin' in pie. He come out pickin' his +teeth purty soon, standin' there by the door, dern him, like he owned +the dump. Well, he may, for all I know. Alta she inched away from me, +and she says to him: 'Mr. Jedlick, come over here and shake hands with +Mr. Wilson.' + +"'Yes,' he says, 'I'll shake insect powder on his grave!' + +"'I see you doin' it,' I says, 'you long-hungry and half-full! If you +ever make a pass at me you'll swaller wind so fast you'll bust.' Well, +he begun to shuffle and prance and cut up like a boy makin' faces, and +there's where Alta she ducked in through the parlor winder. 'Don't hurt +him, Mr. Jedlick,' she says; 'please don't hurt him!' + +"'I'll chaw him up as fine as cat hair and blow him out through my +teeth,' Jedlick told her. And there's where I started after that feller. +He was standin' in front of the door all the time, where he could duck +inside if he saw me comin', and I guess he would 'a' ducked if Wood +hadn't 'a' been there. When he saw Wood, old Jedlick pulled his gun. + +"I slung down on him time enough to blow him in two, and pulled on my +trigger, not aimin' to hurt the old sooner, only to snap a bullet +between his toes, but she wouldn't work. Old Jedlick he was so rattled +at the sight of that gun in my hand he banged loose, slap through the +winder into that box of plug back of the counter. I pulled on her and +pulled on her, but she wouldn't snap, and I was yankin' at the hammer to +cock her when he tore loose with that second shot. That's when I found +out what the matter was with that old gun of mine." + +Taterleg was so moved at this passage that he seemed to run out of +words. He rode along in silence until they reached the top of the hill, +and the house on the mesa stood before them, dark and lonesome. Then he +pulled out his gun and handed it across to the Duke. + +"Run your thumb over the hammer of that gun, Duke," he said. + +"Well! What in the world--it feels like chewin' gum, Taterleg." + +"It is chewin' gum, Duke. A wad of it as big as my fist gluin' down the +hammer of that gun. That girl put it on there, Duke. She knew Jedlick +wouldn't have no more show before me, man to man, than a rabbit. She +done me that trick, Duke; she wanted to kill me off." + +"There wasn't no joke about that, old feller," the Duke said seriously, +grateful that the girl's trick had not resulted in any greater damage +to his friend than the shock to his dignity and simple heart. + +"Yes, and it was my own gum. That's the worst part of it, Duke; she +wasn't even usin' his gum, dang her melts!" + +"She must have favored Jedlick pretty strong to go that far." + +"Well, if she wants him after what she's saw of him, she can take him. I +clinched him before he could waste any more ammunition, and twisted his +gun away from him. I jolted him a couple of jolts with my fist, and he +broke and run. You seen him hop his horse." + +"What did you do with his gun?" + +"I walked over to the winder where that girl was lookin' out to see +Jedlick wipe up the porch with me, and I handed her the gun, and I says: +'Give this to Mr. Jedlick with my regards,' I says, 'and tell him if he +wants any more to send me word.' Well, she come out, and I called her on +what she done to my gun. She swore she didn't mean it for nothin' but a +joke. I said if that was her idear of a joke, the quicker we parted the +sooner. She began to bawl, and the old man and old woman put in, and +I'd 'a' slapped that feller, Duke, if he'd 'a' had two arms on him. But +you can't slap a half of a man." + +"I guess that's right." + +"I walked up to that girl, and I said: 'You've chawed the last wad of my +gum you'll ever plaster up ag'in' your old lean jawbone. You may be some +figger in Glendora,' I says, 'but anywheres else you wouldn't cut no +more ice than a cracker.' Wood he took it up ag'in. That's when I come +away." + +"It looks like it's all off between you and Alta now." + +"Broke off, short up to the handle. Serves a feller right for bein' a +fool. I might 'a' knowed when she wanted me to shave my mustache off she +didn't have no more heart in her than a fish." + +"That was askin' a lot of a man, sure as the world." + +"No man can look two ways at once without somebody puttin' something +down his back, Duke." + +"Referrin' to the lady in Wyoming. Sure." + +"She was white. She says: 'Mr. Wilson, I'll always think of you as a +gentleman.' Them was her last words, Duke." + +They were walking their horses past the house, which was dark, careful +not to wake Vesta. But their care went for nothing; she was not in bed. +Around the turn of the long porch they saw her standing in the +moonlight, looking across the river into the lonely night. It seemed as +if she stood in communion with distant places, to which she sent her +longing out of a bondage that she could not flee. + +"She looks lonesome," Taterleg said. "Well, I ain't a-goin' to go and +pet and console her. I'm done takin' chances." + +Lambert understood as never before how melancholy that life must be for +her. She turned as they passed, her face clear in the bright moonlight. +Taterleg swept off his hat with the grand air that took him so far with +the ladies, Lambert saluting with less extravagance. + +Vesta waved her hand in acknowledgment, turning again to her watching +over the vast, empty land, as if she waited the coming of somebody who +would quicken her life with the cheer that it wanted so sadly that calm +summer night. + +Lambert felt an unusual restlessness that night--no mood over him for +his bed. It seemed, in truth, that a man would be wasting valuable hours +of life by locking his senses up in sleep. He put his horse away, sated +with the comedy of Taterleg's adventure, and not caring to pursue it +further. To get away from the discussion of it that he knew Taterleg +would keep going as long as there was an ear open to hear him, he walked +to the near-by hilltop to view the land under this translating spell. + +This was the hilltop from which he had ridden down to interfere between +Vesta and Nick Hargus. With that adventure he had opened his account of +trouble in the Bad Lands, an account that was growing day by day, the +final balancing of which he could not foresee. + +From where he stood, the house was dark and lonely as an abandoned +habitation. It seemed, indeed, that bright and full of youthful light as +Vesta Philbrook was, she was only one warm candle in the gloom of this +great and melancholy monument of her father's misspent hopes. Before +she could warm it into life and cheerfulness, it would encroach upon her +with its chilling gloom, like an insidious cold drift of sand, +smothering her beauty, burying her quick heart away from the world for +which it longed, for evermore. + +It would need the noise of little feet across those broad, empty, +lonesome porches to wake the old house; the shouting and laughter and +gleam of merry eyes that childhood brings into this world's gloom, to +drive away the shadows that draped it like a mist. Perhaps Vesta stood +there tonight sending her soul out in a call to someone for whom she +longed, these comfortable, natural, womanly hopes in her own good heart. + +He sighed, wishing her well of such hope if she had it, and forgot her +in a moment as his eyes picked up a light far across the hills. Now it +twinkled brightly, now it wavered and died, as if its beam was all too +weak to hold to the continued effort of projecting itself so far. That +must be the Kerr ranch; no other habitation lay in that direction. +Perhaps in the light of that lamp somebody was sitting, bending a dark +head in pensive tenderness with a thought of him. + +He stood with his pleasant fancy, his dream around him like a cloak. All +the trouble that was in the world for him that hour was near the earth, +like the precipitation of settling waters. Over it he gazed, superior to +its ugly murk, careless of whether it might rise to befoul the clear +current of his hopes, or sink and settle to obscure his dreams no more. + +There was a sound of falling shale on the slope, following the +disturbance of a quick foot. Vesta was coming. Unseen and unheard +through the insulation of his thoughts, she had approached within ten +rods of him before he saw her, the moonlight on her fair face, glorious +in her uncovered hair. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +BUSINESS, AND MORE + + +"You stand out like an Indian water monument up here," she said +reprovingly, as she came scrambling up, taking the hand that he hastened +forward to offer and boost her over the last sharp face of crumbling +shale. + +"I expect Hargus could pick me off from below there anywhere, but I +didn't think of that," he said. + +"It wouldn't be above him," seriously, discounting the light way in +which he spoke of it; "he's done things just as cowardly, and so have +others you've met." + +"I haven't got much opinion of the valor of men who hunt in packs, +Vesta. Some of them might be skulking around, glad to take a shot at us. +Don't you think we'd better go down?" + +"We can sit over there and be off the sky-line. It's always the safe +thing to do around here." + +She indicated a point where an inequality in the hill would be above +their heads sitting, and there they composed themselves--the sheltering +swell of hilltop at their backs. + +"It's not a very complimentary reflection on a civilized community that +one has to take such a precaution, but it's necessary, Duke." + +"It's enough to make you want to leave it, Vesta. It's bad enough to +have to dodge danger in a city, but out here, with all this lonesomeness +around you, it's worse." + +"Do you feel it lonesome here?" She asked it with a curious soft +slowness, a speculative detachment, as if she only half thought of what +she said. + +"I'm never lonesome where I can see the sun rise and set. There's a lot +of company in cattle, more than in any amount of people you don't know." + +"I find it the same way, Duke. I never was so lonesome as when I was +away from here at school." + +"Everybody feels that way about home, I guess. But I thought maybe you'd +like it better away among people like yourself." + +"No. If it wasn't for this endless straining and watching, quarreling +and contending, I wouldn't change this for any place in the world. On +nights like this, when it whispers in a thousand inaudible voices, and +beckons and holds one close, I feel that I never can go away. There's a +call in it that is so subtle and tender, so full of sympathy, that I +answer it with tears." + +"I wish things could be cleared up so you could live here in peace and +enjoy it, but I don't know how it's going to come out. It looks to me +like I've made it worse." + +"It was wrong of me to draw you into it, Duke; I should have let you go +your way." + +"There's no regrets on my side, Vesta. I guess it was planned for me to +come this far and stop." + +"They'll never rest till they've drawn you into a quarrel that will give +them an excuse for killing you, Duke. They're doubly sure to do it since +you got away from them that night. I shouldn't have stopped you; I +should have let you go on that day." + +"I had to stop somewhere, Vesta," he laughed. "Anyway, I've found here +what I started out to find. This was the end of my road." + +"What you started to find, Duke?" + +"A man-sized job, I guess." He laughed again, but with a colorless +artificiality, sweating over the habit of solitude that leads a man into +thinking aloud. + +"You've found it, all right, Duke, and you're filling it. That's some +satisfaction to you, I know. But it's a man-using job, a life-wasting +job," she said sadly. + +"I've only got myself to blame for anything that's happened to me here, +Vesta. It's not the fault of the job." + +"Well, if you'll stay with me till I sell the cattle, Duke, I'll think +of you as the next best friend I ever had." + +"I've got no intention of leaving you, Vesta." + +"Thank you, Duke." + +Lambert sat turning over in his mind something that he wanted to say to +her, but which he could not yet shape to his tongue. She was looking in +the direction of the light that he had been watching, a gleam of which +showed faintly now and then, as if between moving boughs. + +"I don't like the notion of your leaving this country whipped, Vesta," +he said, coming to it at last. + +"I don't like to leave it whipped, Duke." + +"That's the way they'll look at it if you go." + +Silence again, both watching the far-distant, twinkling light. + +"I laid out the job for myself of bringing these outlaws around here up +to your fence with their hats in their hands, and I hate to give it up +before I've made good on my word." + +"Let it go, Duke; it isn't worth the fight." + +"A man's word is either good for all he intends it to be, or worth no +more than the lowest scoundrel's, Vesta. If I don't put up works to +equal what I've promised, I'll have to sneak out of this country between +two suns." + +"I threw off too much on the shoulders of a willing and gallant +stranger," she sighed. "Let it go, Duke; I've made up my mind to sell +out and leave." + +He made no immediate return to this declaration, but after a while he +said: + +"This will be a mighty bleak spot with the house abandoned and dark on +winter nights and no stock around the barns." + +"Yes, Duke." + +"There's no place so lonesome as one where somebody's lived, and put his +hopes and ambitions into it, and gone away and left it empty. I can hear +the winter wind cuttin' around the house down yonder, mournin' like a +widow woman in the night." + +A sob broke from her, a sudden, sharp, struggling expression of her +sorrow for the desolation that he pictured in his simple words. She bent +her head into her hands and cried. Lambert was sorry for the pain that +he had unwittingly stirred in her breast, but glad in a glowing +tenderness to see that she had this human strain so near the surface +that it could be touched by a sentiment so common, and yet so precious, +as the love of home. He laid his hand on her head, stroking her soft, +wavy hair. + +"Never mind, Vesta," he petted, as if comforting a child. "Maybe we can +fix things up here so there'll be somebody to take care of it. Never +mind--don't you grieve and cry." + +"It's home--the only home I ever knew. There's no place in the world +that can be to me what it has been, and is." + +"That's so, that's so. I remember, I know. The wind don't blow as soft, +the sun don't shine as bright, anywhere else as it does at home. It's +been a good while since I had one, and it wasn't much to see, but I've +got the recollection of it by me always--I can see every log in the +walls." + +He felt her shiver with the sobs she struggled to repress as his hand +rested on her hair. His heart went out to her in a surge of tenderness +when he thought of all she had staked in that land--her youth and the +promise of life--of all she had seen planned in hope, built in +expectation, and all that lay buried now on the bleak mesa marked by two +white stones. + +And he caressed her with gentle hand, looking away the while at the +spark of light that came and went, came and went, as if through blowing +leaves. So it flashed and fell, flashed and fell, like a slow, slow +pulse, and died out, as a spark in tinder dies, leaving the far night +blank. + +Vesta sat up, pushed her hair back from her forehead, her white hand +lingering there. He touched it, pressed it comfortingly. + +"But I'll have to go," she said, calm in voice, "to end this trouble and +strife." + +"I've been wondering, since I'm kind of pledged to clean things up here, +whether you'd consider a business proposal from me in regard to taking +charge of the ranch for you while you're gone, Vesta." + +She looked up with a quick start of eagerness. + +"You mean I oughtn't sell the cattle, Duke?" + +"Yes, I think you ought to clean them out. The bulk of them are in as +high condition as they'll ever be, and the market's better right now +that it's been in years." + +"Well, what sort of a proposal were you going to make, Duke?" + +"Sheep." + +"Father used to consider turning around to sheep. The country would come +to it, he said." + +"Coming to it more and more every day. The sheep business is the big +future thing in here. Inside of five years everybody will be in the +sheep business, and that will mean the end of these rustler camps that +go under the name of cattle ranches." + +"I'm willing to consider sheep, Duke. Go ahead with the plan." + +"There's twice the money in them, and not half the expense. One man can +take care of two or three thousand, and you can get sheepherders any +day. There can't be any possible objection to them inside your own +fence, and you've got range for ten or fifteen thousand. I'd suggest +about a thousand to begin with, though." + +"I'd do it in a minute, Duke--I'll do it whenever you say the word. Then +I could leave Ananias and Myrtle here, and I could come back in the +summer for a little while, maybe." + +She spoke with such eagerness, such appeal of loneliness, that he knew +it would break her heart ever to go at all. So there on the hilltop they +planned and agreed on the change from cattle to sheep, Lambert to have +half the increase, according to the custom, with herder's wages for two +years. She would have been more generous in the matter of pay, but that +was the basis upon which he had made his plans, and he would admit no +change. + +Vesta was as enthusiastic over it as a child, all eagerness to begin, +seeing in the change a promise of the peace for which she had so +ardently longed. She appeared to have come suddenly from under a cloud +of oppression and to sparkle in the sun of this new hope. It was only +when they came to parting at the porch that the ghost of her old trouble +came to take its place at her side again. + +"Has she cut the fence lately over there, Duke?" she asked. + +"Not since I caught her at it. I don't think she'll do it again." + +"Did she promise you she wouldn't cut it, Duke?" + +She did not look at him as she spoke, but stood with her face averted, +as if she would avoid prying into his secret too directly. Her voice was +low, a note of weary sadness in it that seemed a confession of the +uselessness of turning her back upon the strife that she would forget. + +"No, she didn't promise." + +"If she doesn't cut the fence she'll plan to hurt me in some other way. +It isn't in her to be honest; she couldn't be honest if she tried." + +"I don't like to condemn anybody without a trial, Vesta. Maybe she's +changed." + +"You can't change a rattlesnake. You seem to forget that she's a Kerr." + +"Even at that, she might be different from the rest." + +"She never has been. You've had a taste of the Kerr methods, but you're +not satisfied yet that they're absolutely base and dishonorable in every +thought and deed. You'll find it out to your cost, Duke, if you let that +girl lead you. She's a will-o'-the-wisp sent to lure you from the +trail." + +Lambert laughed a bit foolishly, as a man does when the intuition of a +woman uncovers the thing that he prided himself was so skilfully +concealed that mortal eyes could not find it. Vesta was reading through +him like a piece of greased parchment before a lamp. + +"I guess it will all come out right," he said weakly. + +"You'll meet Kerr one of these days with your old score between you, +and he'll kill you or you'll kill him. She knows it as well as I do. Do +you suppose she can be sincere with you and keep this thing covered up +in her heart? You seem to have forgotten what she remembers and plots on +every minute of her life." + +"I don't think she knows anything about what happened to me that night, +Vesta." + +"She knows all about it," said Vesta coldly. + +"I don't know her very well, of course; I've only passed a few words +with her," he excused. + +"And a few notes hung on the fence!" she said, not able to hide her +scorn. "She's gone away laughing at you every time." + +"I thought maybe peace and quiet could be established through her if she +could be made to see things in a civilized way." + +Vesta made no rejoinder at once. She put her foot on the step as if to +leave him, withdrew it, faced him gravely. + +"It's nothing to me, Duke, only I don't want to see her lead you into +another fire. Keep your eyes open and your hand close to your gun when +you're visiting with her." + +She left him with that advice, given so gravely and honestly that it +amounted to more than a warning. He felt that there was something more +for him to say to make his position clear, but could not marshal his +words. Vesta entered the house without looking back to where he stood, +hat in hand, the moonlight in his fair hair. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A TEST OF LOYALTY + + +Lambert rode to his rendezvous with Grace Kerr on the appointed day, +believing that she would keep it, although her promise had been +inconclusive. She had only "expected" she would be there, but he more +than expected she would come. + +He was in a pleasant mood that morning, sentimentally softened to such +extent that he believed he might even call accounts off with Sim Hargus +and the rest of them if Grace could arrange a peace. Vesta was a little +rough on her, he believed. Grace was showing a spirit that seemed to +prove she wanted only gentle guiding to abandon the practices of +violence to which she had been bred. + +Certainly, compared to Vesta, she seemed of coarser ware, even though +she was as handsome as heart could desire. This he admitted without +prejudice, not being yet wholly blind. But there was no bond of romance +between Vesta and him. There was no place for romance between a man and +his boss. Romance bound him to Grace Kerr; sentiment enchained him. It +was a sweet enslavement, and one to be prolonged in his desire. + +Grace was not in sight when he reached their meeting-place. He let down +the wire and rode to meet her, troubled as before by that feeling of +disloyalty to the Philbrook interests which caused him to stop more than +once and debate whether he should turn back and wait inside the fence. + +The desire to hasten the meeting with Grace was stronger than this +question of his loyalty. He went on, over the hill from which she used +to spy on his passing, into the valley where he had interfered between +the two girls on the day that he found Grace hidden away in this +unexpected place. There he met her coming down the farther slope. + +Grace was quite a different figure that day from any she had presented +before, wearing a perky little highland bonnet with an eagle feather in +it, and a skirt and blouse of the same plaid. His eyes announced his +approval as they met, leaning to shake hands from the saddle. + +Immediately he brought himself to task for his late admission that she +was inferior in the eyes to Vesta. That misappraisement was due to the +disadvantage under which he had seen Grace heretofore. This morning she +was as dainty as a fresh-blown pink, and as delicately sweet. He swung +from the saddle and stood off admiring her with so much speaking from +his eyes that she grew rosy in their fire. + +"Will you get down, Grace? I've never had a chance to see how tall you +are--I couldn't tell that day on the train." + +The eagle feather came even with his ear when she stood beside him, +slender and strong, health in her eyes, her womanhood ripening in her +lips. Not as tall as Vesta, not as full of figure, he began in mental +measurement, burning with self-reproof when he caught himself at it. Why +should he always be drawing comparisons between her and Vesta, to her +disadvantage in all things? It was unwarranted, it was absurd! + +They sat on the hillside, their horses nipping each other in +introductory preliminaries, then settling down to immediate friendship. +They were far beyond sight of the fence. Lambert hoped, with an uneasy +return of that feeling of disloyalty and guilt, that Vesta would not +come riding up that way and find the open strands of wire. + +This thought passed away and troubled him no more as they sat talking of +the strange way of their "meeting on the run," as she said. + +"There isn't a horse in a thousand that could have caught up with me +that day." + +"Not one in thousands," he amended, with due gratitude to Whetstone. + +"I expected you'd be riding him today, Duke." + +"He backed into a fire," said he uneasily, "and burned off most of his +tail. He's no sight for a lady in his present shape." + +She laughed, looking at him shrewdly, as if she believed it to be a joke +to cover something that he didn't want her to know. + +"But you promised to give him to me, Duke, when he rested up a little." + +"I will," he declared earnestly, getting hold of her hand where it lay +in the grass between them. "I'll give you anything I've got, Grace, from +the breath in my body to the blood in my heart!" + +She bent her head, her face rosy with her mounting blood. + +"Would you, Duke?" said she, so softly that it was not much more than +the flutter of the wings of words. + +He leaned a little nearer, his heart climbing, as if it meant to smother +him and cut him short in that crowning moment of his dream. + +"I'd have gone to the end of the world to find you, Grace," he said, his +voice shaking as if he had a chill, his hands cold, his face hot, a +tingling in his body, a sound in his ears like bells. "I want to tell +you how----" + +"Wait, Duke--I want to hear it all--but wait a minute. There's something +I want to ask you to do for me. Will you do me a favor, Duke, a simple +favor, but one that means the world and all to me?" + +"Try me," said he, with boundless confidence. + +"It's more than giving me your horse, Duke; a whole lot more than that, +but it'll not hurt you--you can do it, if you will." + +"I know you wouldn't ask me to do anything that would reflect on my +honesty or honor," he said, beginning to do a little thinking as his +nervous chill passed. + +"A man doesn't--when a man _cares_--" She stopped, looking away, a +little constriction in her throat. + +"What is it, Grace?" pressing her hand encouragingly, master of the +situation now, as he believed. + +"Duke"--she turned to him suddenly, her eyes wide and luminous, her +heart going so he could see the tremor of its vibrations in the lace at +her throat--"I want you to lend me tomorrow morning, for one day, just +one day, Duke--five hundred head of Vesta Philbrook's cattle." + +"That's a funny thing to ask, Grace," said he uneasily. + +"I want you to meet me over there where I cut the fence before sunup in +the morning, and have everybody out of the way, so we can cut them out +and drive them over here. You can manage it, if you want to, Duke. You +will, if you--if you _care_." + +"If they were my cattle, Grace, I wouldn't hesitate a second." + +"You'll do it, anyhow, won't you, Duke, for me?" + +"What in the world do you want them for, just for one day?" + +"I can't explain that to you now, Duke, but I pledge you my honor, I +pledge you everything, that they'll be returned to you before night, not +a head missing, nothing wrong." + +"Does your father know--does he----" + +"It's for myself that I'm asking this of you, Duke; nobody else. It +means--it means--_everything_ to me." + +"If they were my cattle, Grace, if they were my cattle," said he +aimlessly, amazed by the request, groping for the answer that lay behind +it. What could a girl want to borrow five hundred head of cattle for? +What in the world would she get out of holding them in her possession +one day and then turning them back into the pasture? There was something +back of it; she was the innocent emissary of a crafty hand that had a +trick to play. + +"We could run them over here, just you and I, and nobody would know +anything about it," she tempted, the color back in her cheeks, her eyes +bright as in the pleasure of a request already granted. + +"I don't like to refuse you even that, Grace." + +"You'll do it, you'll do it, Duke?" Her hand was on his arm in beguiling +caress, her eyes were pleading into his. + +"I'm afraid not, Grace." + +Perhaps she felt a shading of coldness in his denial, for distrust and +suspicion were rising in his cautious mind. It did not seem to him a +thing that could be asked with any honest purpose, but for what +dishonest one he had no conjecture to fit. + +"Are you going to turn me down on the first request I ever made of you, +Duke?" She watched him keenly as she spoke, making her eyes small, an +inflection of sorrowful injury in her tone. + +"If there's anything of my own you want, if there's anything you can +name for me to do, personally, all you've got to do is hint at it +once." + +"It's easy to say that when there's nothing else I want!" she said, +snapping it at him as sharp as the crack of a little whip. + +"If there _was_ anything----" + +"There'll never be anything!" + +She got up, flashing him an indignant look. He stood beside her, +despising the poverty of his condition which would not allow him to +deliver over to her, out of hand, the small matter of five hundred +beeves. + +She went to her horse, mightily put out and impatient with him, as he +could see, threw the reins over her pommel, as if she intended to leave +him at once. She delayed mounting, suddenly putting out her hands in +supplication, tears springing in her eyes. + +"Oh, Duke! If you knew how much it means to me," she said. + +"Why don't you tell me, Grace?" + +"Even if you stayed back there on the hills somewhere and watched them +you wouldn't do it, Duke?" she appealed, evading his request. + +He shook his head slowly, while the thoughts within it ran like +wildfire, seeking the thing that she covered. + +"It can't be done." + +"I give you my word, Duke, that if you'll do it nobody will ever lift a +hand against this ranch again." + +"It's almost worth it," said he. + +She quickened at this, enlarging her guarantee. + +"We'll drop all of the old feud and let Vesta alone. I give you my word +for all of them, and I'll see that they carry it out. You can do Vesta +as big a favor as you'll be doing me, Duke." + +"It couldn't be done without her consent, Grace. If you want to go to +her with this same proposal, putting it plainly like you have to me, I +think she'll let you have the cattle, if you can show her any good +reason for it." + +"Just as if I'd be fool enough to ask her!" + +"That's the only way." + +"Duke," said she coaxingly, "wouldn't it be worth something to you, +personally, to have your troubles settled without a fight? I'll promise +you nobody will ever lift a hand against you again if you'll do this for +me." + +He started, looked at her sternly, approaching her a step. + +"What do you know about anything that's happened to me?" he demanded. + +"I don't know anything about what's happened, but I know what's due to +happen if it isn't headed off." + +Lambert did some hard thinking for a little while, so hard that it +wrenched him to the marrow. If he had had suspicion of her entire +innocence in the solicitation of this unusual favor before, it had +sprung in a moment into distrust. Such a quick reversion cannot take +place in the sentiment without a shock. It seemed to Lambert that +something valuable had been snatched away from him, and that he stood in +bewilderment, unable to reach out and retrieve his loss. + +"Then there's no use in discussing it any more," he said, groping back, +trying to answer her. + +"You'd do it for her!" + +"Not for her any quicker than for you." + +"I know it looks crooked to you, Duke--I don't blame you for your +suspicions," she said with a frankness that seemed more like herself, +he thought. She even seemed to be coming back to him in that approach. +It made him glad. + +"Tell me all about it, Grace," he urged. + +She came close to him, put her arm about his neck, drew his head down as +if to whisper her confidence in his ear. Her breath was on his cheek, +his heart was afire in one foolish leap. She put up her lips as if to +kiss him, and he, reeling in the ecstasy of his proximity to her radiant +body, bent nearer to take what she seemed to offer. + +She drew back, her hand interposed before his eager lips, shaking her +head, denying him prettily. + +"In the morning, I'll tell you all in the morning when I meet you to +drive the cattle over," she said. "Don't say a word--I'll not take no +for my answer." She turned quickly to her horse and swung lightly into +the saddle. From this perch she leaned toward him, her hand on his +shoulder, her lips drawing him in their fiery lure again. "In the +morning--in the morning--you can kiss me, Duke!" + +With that word, that promise, she turned and galloped away. + +It was late afternoon, and Lambert had faced back toward the ranchhouse, +troubled by all that he could not understand in that morning's meeting, +thrilled and fired by all that was sweet to remember, when he met a man +who came riding in the haste of one who had business ahead of him that +could not wait. He was riding one of Vesta Philbrook's horses, a +circumstance that sharpened Lambert's interest in him at once. + +As they closed the distance between them, Lambert keeping his hand in +the easy neighborhood of his gun, the man raised his hand, palm forward, +in the Indian sign of peace. Lambert saw that he wore a shoulder holster +which supported two heavy revolvers. He was a solemn-looking man with a +narrow face, a mustache that crowded Taterleg's for the championship, a +buckskin vest with pearl buttons. His coat was tied on the saddle at his +back. + +"I didn't steal this horse," he explained with a sorrowful grin as he +drew up within arm's length of Lambert, "I requisitioned it. I'm the +sheriff." + +"Yes, sir?" said Lambert, not quite taking him for granted, no +intention of letting him pass on with that explanation. + +"Miss Philbrook said I'd run across you up this way." + +The officer produced his badge, his commission, his card, his +letterhead, his credentials of undoubted strength. On the proof thus +supplied, Lambert shook hands with him. + +"I guess everybody else in the county knows me--this is my second term, +and I never was taken for a horse thief before," the sheriff said, +solemn as a crow, as he put his papers away. + +"I'm a stranger in this country, I don't know anybody, nobody knows me, +so you'll not take it as a slight that I didn't recognize you, Mr. +Sheriff." + +"No harm done, Duke, no harm done. Well, I guess you're a little wider +known than you make out. I didn't bring a man along with me because I +knew you were up here at Philbrook's. Hold up your hand and be sworn." + +"What's the occasion?" Lambert inquired, making no move to comply with +the order. + +"I've got a warrant for this man Kerr over south of here, and I want you +to go with me. Kerr's a bad egg, in a nest of bad eggs. There's likely +to be too much trouble for one man to handle alone. You do solemnly +swear to support the constitution of the----" + +"Wait a minute, Mr. Sheriff," Lambert demurred; "I don't know that I +want to mix up in----" + +"It's not for you to say what you want to do--that's my business," the +sheriff said sharply. He forthwith deputized Lambert, and gave him a +duplicate of the warrant. "You don't need it, but it'll clear your mind +of all doubt of your power," he explained. "Can we get through this +fence?" + +"Up here six or seven miles, about opposite Kerr's place. But I'd like +to go on to the house and change horses; I've rode this one over forty +miles today already." + +The sheriff agreed. "Where's that outlaw you won from Jim Wilder?" he +inquired, turning his eyes on Lambert in friendly appreciation. + +"I'll ride him," Lambert returned briefly. "What's Kerr been up to?" + +"Mortgaged a bunch of cattle he's got over there to three different +banks. He was down a couple of days ago tryin' to put through another +loan. The investigation that banker started laid him bare. He promised +Kerr to come up tomorrow and look over his security, and passed the word +on to the county attorney. Kerr said he'd just bought five hundred head +of stock. He wanted to raise the loan on them." + +"Five hundred," said Lambert, mechanically repeating the sheriff's +words, doing some calculating of his own. + +"He ain't got any that ain't blanketed with mortgage paper so thick +already they'd go through a blizzard and never know it. His scheme was +to raise five or six thousand dollars more on that outfit and skip the +country." + +And Grace Kerr had relied on his infatuation for her to work on him for +the loan of the necessary cattle. Lambert could not believe that it was +all her scheme, but it seemed incredible that a man as shrewdly +dishonest as Kerr would entertain a plan that promised so little outlook +of success. They must have believed over at Kerr's that they had him +pretty well on the line. + +But Kerr had figured too surely on having his neighbor's cattle to show +the banker to stake all on the chance of Grace being able to wheedle him +into the scheme. If he couldn't get them by seduction, he meant to take +them in a raid. Grace never intended to come to meet him in the morning +alone. + +One crime more would amount to little in addition to what Kerr had done +already, and it would be a trick on which he would pride himself and +laugh over all the rest of his life. It seemed certain now that Grace's +friendliness all along had been laid on a false pretense, with the one +intention of beguiling him to his disgrace, his destruction, if disgrace +could not be accomplished without it. + +As he rode Whetstone--now quite recovered from his scorching, save for +the hair of his once fine tail--beside the sheriff, Lambert had some +uneasy cogitations on his sentimental blindness of the past; on the +good, honest advice that Vesta Philbrook had given him. Blood was blood, +after all. If the source of it was base, it was too much to hope that a +little removal, a little dilution, would ennoble it. She had lived there +all her life the associate of thieves and rascals; her way of looking +on men and property must naturally be that of the depredator, the +pillager, and thief. + +"And yet," thought he, thumb in the pocket of his hairy vest where the +little handkerchief lay, "and yet----" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE WILL-O'-THE-WISP + + +The Kerr ranch buildings were more than a mile away from the point where +Lambert and the sheriff halted to look down on them. The ranchhouse was +a structure of logs from which the bark had been stripped, and which had +weathered white as bones. It was long and low, suggesting spaciousness +and comfort, and enclosed about by a white picket fence. + +A winding trace of trees and brushwood marked the course of the stream +that ran behind it. On the brink of this little water, where it flashed +free of the tangled willows, there was a corral and stables, but no sign +of either animal or human life about the place. + +"He may be out with the cattle," Lambert suggested. + +"We'll wait for him to come back, if he is. He's sure to be home between +now and tomorrow." + +So that was her home, that was the roof that had sheltered her while she +grew in her loveliness. The soft call of his romance came whispering to +him again. Surely there was no attainder of blood to rise up against her +and make her unclean; he would have sworn that moment, if put to the +test, that she was innocent of any knowing attempt to involve him to his +disgrace. The gate of the world stood open to them to go away from that +harsh land and forget all that had gone before, as the gate of his heart +was open for all the love that it contained to rush out and embrace her, +and purge her of the unfortunate accident of her birth. + +After this, poor child, she would need a friend, as never before, with +only her step-mother, as she had told him, in the world to befriend her. +A man's hand, a man's heart---- + +"I'll take the front door," said the sheriff. "You watch the back." + +Lambert came out of his softening dream, down to the hard facts in the +case before him with a jolt. They were within half a mile of the house, +approaching it from the front. He saw that it was built in the shape of +an L, the base of the letter to the left of them, shutting off a view +of the angle. + +"He may see us in time to duck," the sheriff said, "and you can bank on +it he's got a horse saddled around there at the back door. If he comes +your way, don't fool with him; let him have it where he lives." + +They had not closed up half the distance between them and the house when +two horsemen rode suddenly round the corner of the L and through the +wide gate in the picket fence. Outside the fence they separated with the +suddenness of a preconcerted plan, darting away in opposite directions. +Each wore a white hat, and from that distance they appeared as much +alike in size and bearing as a man and his reflection. + +The sheriff swore a surprised oath at sight of them, and their cunning +plan to confuse and divide the pursuing force. + +"Which one of 'em's Kerr?" he shouted as he leaned in his saddle, urging +his horse on for all that it could do. + +"I don't know," Lambert returned. + +"I'll chance this one," said the sheriff, pointing. "Take the other +feller." + +Lambert knew that one of them was Grace Kerr. That he could not tell +which, he upbraided himself, not willing that she should be subjected to +the indignity of pursuit. It was a clever trick, but the preparation for +it and the readiness with which it was put into play seemed to reflect a +doubt of her entire innocence in her father's dishonest transactions. +Still, it was no more than natural that she should bend every faculty to +the assistance of her father in escaping the penalty of his crimes. He +would do it himself under like conditions; the unnatural would be the +other course. + +These things he thought as he rode into the setting sun in pursuit of +the fugitive designated by the sheriff. Whetstone was fresh and eager +after his long rest, in spite of the twelve or fifteen miles which he +had covered already between the two ranches. Lambert held him in, +doubtful whether he would be able to overtake the fleeing rider before +dark with the advantage of distance and a fresh horse that he or she +had. + +If Kerr rode ahead of him, then he must be overtaken before night gave +him sanctuary; if Grace, it was only necessary to come close enough to +her to make sure, then let her go her way untroubled. He held the +distance pretty well between them till sundown, when he felt the time +had come to close in and settle the doubt. Whetstone was still mainly in +reserve, tireless, deep-winded creature that he was. + +Lambert leaned over his neck, caressed him, spoke into the ear that +tipped watchfully back. They were in fairly smooth country, stretches of +thin grasslands and broken barrens, but beyond them, a few miles, the +hills rose, treeless and dun, offering refuge for the one who fled. +Pursuit there would be difficult by day, impossible by night. + +Whetstone quickened at his master's encouragement, pushing the race hard +for the one who led, cutting down the distance so rapidly that it seemed +the other must be purposely delaying. Half an hour more of daylight and +it would be over. + +The rider in the lead had driven his or her horse too hard in the +beginning, leaving no recovery of wind. Lambert remarked its weariness +as it took the next hill, laboring on in short, stiff jumps. At the top +the rider held in, as if to let the animal blow. It stood with nose +close to the ground, weariness in every line. + +The sky was bright beyond horse and rider, cut sharply by the line of +the hill. Against it the picture stood, black as a shadow, but with an +unmistakable pose in the rider that made Lambert's heart jump and grow +glad. + +It was Grace; chance had been kind to him again, leading him in the way +his heart would have gone if it had been given the choice. She looked +back, turning with a hand on the cantle of her saddle. He waved his +hand, to assure her, but she did not seem to read the friendly signal, +for she rode on again, disappearing over the hill before he reached the +crest. + +He plunged down after her, not sparing his horse where he should have +spared him, urging him on when they struck the level again. There was no +thought in him of Whetstone now--only of Grace. + +He must overtake her in the quickest possible time, and convince her of +his friendly sympathy; he must console and comfort her in this hour of +her need. Brave little thing, to draw him off that way, to keep on +running into the very edge of night, that wild country ahead of her, +for fear he would come close enough to recognize her and turn back to +help the sheriff on the true trail. That's what was in her mind; she +thought he hadn't recognized her, and was still fleeing to draw him as +far away as possible by dark. When he could come within shouting +distance of her, he could make his intention plain. To that end he +pushed on. Her horse had shown a fresh impulse of speed, carrying her a +little farther ahead. They were drawing close to the hills now, with a +growth of harsh and thorny brushwood in the low places along the runlets +of dry streams. + +Poor little bird, fleeing from him, luring him on like a trembling quail +that flutters before one's feet in the wheat to draw him away from her +nest. She didn't know the compassion of his heart, the tenderness in +which it strained to her over the intervening space. He forgot all, he +forgave all, in the soft pleading of romance which came back to him like +a well-loved melody. + +He fretted that dusk was falling so fast. In the little strips of +valley, growing narrower as he proceeded between the abrupt hills, it +was so nearly dark already that she appeared only dimly ahead of him, +urging her horse on with unsparing hand. It seemed that she must have +some objective ahead of her, some refuge which she strained to make, +some help that she hoped to summon. + +He wondered if it might be the cow-camp, and felt a cold indraft on the +hot tenderness of his heart for a moment. But, no; it could not be the +cow-camp. There was no sign that grazing herds had been there lately. +She was running because she was afraid to have him overtake her in the +dusk, running to prolong the race until she could elude him in the dark, +afraid of him, who loved her so! + +They were entering the desolation of the hills. On the sides of the thin +strip of valley, down which he pursued her, there were great, dark +rocks, as big as cottages along a village street. He shouted, calling +her name, fearful that he should lose her in this broken country in the +fast-deepening night. Although she was not more than two hundred yards +ahead of him now, she did not seem to hear. In a moment she turned the +base of a great rock, and there he lost her. + +The valley split a few rods beyond that point, broadening a little, +still set with its fantastic black monuments of splintered rock. It was +impossible to see among them in either direction as far as Grace had +been in the lead when she passed out of his sight. He pulled up and +shouted again, an appeal of tender concern in her name. There was no +reply, no sound of her fleeing horse. + +He leaned to look at the ground for tracks. No trace of her passing on +the hard earth with its mangy growth of grass. On a little way, stopping +to call her once more. His voice went echoing in that quiet place, but +there was no reply. + +He turned back, thinking she must have gone down the other branch of the +valley. Whetstone came to a sudden stop, lifted his head with a jerk, +his ears set forward, snorting an alarm. Quick on his action there came +a shot, close at hand. Whetstone started with a quivering bound, +stumbled to his knees, struggled to rise, then floundered with piteous +groans. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +UNMASKED + + +Lambert was out of the saddle at the sound of the shot. He sprang to the +shelter of the nearest rock, gun in hand, thinking with a sweep of +bitterness that Grace Kerr had led him into a trap. Whetstone was lying +still, his chin on the ground, one foreleg bent and gathered under him, +not in the posture of a dead horse, although Lambert knew that he was +dead. It was as if the brave beast struggled even after life to picture +the quality of his unconquerable will, and would not lie in death as +other horses lay, cold and inexpressive of anything but death, with +stiff limbs straight. + +Lambert was incautious of his own safety in his great concern for his +horse. He stepped clear of his shelter to look at him, hoping against +his conviction that he would rise. Somebody laughed behind the rock on +his right, a laugh that plucked his heart up and cast it down, as a +drunken hand shatters a goblet upon the floor. + +"I guess you'll never race me on _that_ horse again, fence-rider!" + +There was the sound of movement behind the rock; in a moment Grace Kerr +rode out from her concealment, not more than four rods beyond the place +where his horse lay. She rode out boldly and indifferently before his +eyes, turned and looked back at him, her face white as an evening +primrose in the dusk, as if to tell him that she knew she was safe, even +within the distance of his arm, much as she despised his calling and his +kind. + +Lambert put his gun back in its sheath, and she rode on, disappearing +again from his sight around the rock where the blasted valley of stones +branched upon its arid way. He took the saddle from his dead horse and +hid it behind a rock, not caring much whether he ever found it again, +his heart so heavy that it seemed to bow him to the ground. + +So at last he knew her for what Vesta Philbrook had told him she +was--bad to the core of her heart. Kindness could not regenerate her, +love could not purge away the vicious strain of blood. She might have +scorned him, and he would have bent his head and loved her more; struck +him, and he would have chided her with a look of love. But when she sent +her bullet into poor old Whetstone's brain, she placed herself beyond +any absolution that even his soft heart could yield. + +He bent over Whetstone, caressing his head, speaking to him in his old +terms of endearment, thinking of the many fruitless races he had run, +believing that his own race in the Bad Lands had come to an end. + +If he had but turned back from the foot of the hill where he recognized +her, as duty demanded of him that he turn, and not pressed on with his +simple intention of friendliness which she was too shallow to appreciate +or understand, this heavy loss would have been spared him. For this dead +animal was more to him than comrade and friend; more than any man who +has not shared the good and evil times with his horse in the silent +places can comprehend. + +He could not fight a woman; there was no measure of revenge that he +could take against her, but he prayed that she might suffer for this +deed of treachery to him with a pang intensified a thousand times +greater than his that hour. Will-o'-the-wisp she had been to him, +indeed, leading him a fool's race since she first came twinkling into +his life. + +Bitter were his reflections, somber was his heart, as he turned to walk +the thirty miles or more that lay between him and the ranch, leaving old +Whetstone to the wolves. + + * * * * * + +Lambert was loading cattle nearly a week later when the sheriff returned +Vesta's horse, with apologies for its footsore and beaten state. He had +followed Kerr far beyond his jurisdiction, pushing him a hard race +through the hills, but the wily cattleman had evaded him in the end. + +The sheriff advised Lambert to put in a bill against the county for the +loss of his horse, a proposal which Lambert considered with grave face +and in silence. + +"No," he said at last, "I'll not put in a bill. I'll collect in my own +way from the one that owes me the debt." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +USE FOR AN OLD PAPER + + +Lambert was a busy man for several weeks after his last race with the +will-o'-the-wisp, traveling between Glendora and Chicago, disposing of +the Philbrook herd. On this day he was jolting along with the last of +the cattle that were of marketable condition and age, twenty cars of +them, glad that the wind-up of it was in sight. + +Taterleg had not come this time on account of the Iowa boy having quit +his job. There remained several hundred calves and thin cows in the +Philbrook pasture, too much of a temptation to old Nick Hargus and his +precious brother Sim to be left unguarded. + +Sitting there on top of a car, his prod-pole between his knees, in his +high-heeled boots and old dusty hat, the Duke was a typical figure of +the old-time cow-puncher such as one never meets in these times around +the stockyards of the Middle West. There are still cow-punchers, but +they are mainly mail-order ones who would shy from a gun such as pulled +down on Lambert's belt that day. + +He sat there with the wind slamming the brim of his old hat up against +the side of his head, a sober, serious man, such as one would choose for +a business like this intrusted to him by Vesta Philbrook and never make +a mistake. Already he had sold more than eighty thousand dollars' worth +of cattle for her, and carried home to her the drafts. This time he was +to take back the money, so they would have the cash to buy out Walleye, +the sheepman, who was making a failure of the business and was anxious +to quit. + +The Duke wondered, with a lonesome sort of pleasure, how things were +going on the ranch that afternoon, and whether Taterleg was riding the +south fence now and then, as he had suggested, or sticking with the +cattle. That was a pleasant country which he was traveling through, +green fields and rich pastures as far as the eye could reach, a land +such as he had spent the greater part of his life in, such as some +people who are provincial and untraveled call "God's country," and are +fully satisfied with in their way. + +But there seemed something lacking out of it to Lambert as he looked +across the verdant flatness with pensive eyes, that great, gray +something that took hold of a man and drew him into its larger life, +smoothed the wrinkles out of him, and stood him upright on his feet with +the breath deeper in him than it ever had gone before. He felt that he +never would be content to remain amongst the visible plentitude of that +fat, complacent, finished land again. + +Give him some place that called for a fight, a place where the wind blew +with a different flavor than these domestic scents of hay and +fresh-turned furrows in the wheatlands by the road. In his vision he +pictured the place that he liked best--a rough, untrammeled country +leading back to the purple hills, a long line of fence diminishing in +its distance to a thread. He sighed, thinking of it. Dog-gone his melts, +he was lonesome--lonesome for a fence! + +He rolled a cigarette and felt about himself abstractedly for a match, +in this pocket, where Grace Kerr's little handkerchief still lay, with +no explanation or defense for its presence contrived or attempted; in +that pocket, where his thumb encountered a folded paper. + +Still abstracted, his head turned to save his cigarette from the wind, +he drew out this paper, wondering curiously when he had put it there and +forgotten it. It was the warrant for the arrest of Berry Kerr. He +remembered now having folded the paper and put it there the day the +sheriff gave it to him, never having read a word of it from that day to +this. Now he repaired that omission. It gave him quite a feeling of +importance to have a paper about him with that severe legal phraseology +in it. He folded it and put it back in his pocket, wondering what had +become of Berry Kerr, and from him transferring his thoughts to Grace. + +She was still there on the ranch, he knew, although Kerr's creditors had +cleaned out the cattle, and doubtless were at law among themselves over +the proceeds by now. How she would live, what she would do, he wondered. +Perhaps Kerr had left some of the money he had made out of his +multimortgage transactions, or perhaps he would send for Grace and his +wife when he had struck a gait in some other place. + +It didn't matter one way or another. His interest in her was finished, +his last gentle thought of her was dead. Only he hoped that she might +live to be as hungry for a friendly word as his heart had been hungry of +longing after her in its day; that she might moan in contrition and burn +in shame for the cruelty in which she broke the vessel of his friendship +and threw the fragments in his face. Poor old Whetstone! his bones all +scattered by the wolves by now over in that lonely gorge. + +Vesta Philbrook would not have been capable of a vengeance so mean. +Strange how she had grown so gentle and so good under the constant +persecution of this thieving gang! Her conscience was as clear as a +windowpane; a man could look through her soul and see the world +undisturbed by a flaw beyond it. A good girl; she sure was a good girl. +And as pretty a figure on a horse as man's eye ever followed. + +She had said once that she felt it lonesome out there by the fence. Not +half as lonesome, he'd gamble, as he was that minute to be back there +riding her miles and miles of wire. Not lonesome on account of Vesta; +sure not. Just lonesome for that dang old fence. + +Simple he was, sitting there on top of that hammering old cattle car +that sunny afternoon, the dust of the road in his three-day-old beard, +his barked willow prod-pole between his knees; simple as a ballad that +children sing, simple as a homely tune. + +Well, of course he had kept Grace Kerr's little handkerchief, for +reasons that he could not quite define. Maybe because it seemed to +represent her as he would have had her; maybe because it was the poor +little trophy of his first tenderness, his first yearning for a woman's +love. But he had kept it with the dim intention of giving it back to +her, opportunity presenting. + +"Yes, I'll give it back to her," he nodded; "when the time comes I'll +hand it to her. She can wipe her eyes on it when she opens them and +repents." + +Then he fell to thinking of business, and what was best for Vesta's +interests, and of how he probably would take up Pat Sullivan's offer for +the calves, thus cleaning up her troubles and making an end of her +expenses. Pat Sullivan, the rancher for whom Ben Jedlick was cook; he +was the man. The Duke smiled through his grime and dust when he +remembered Jedlick lying back in the barber's chair. + +And old Taterleg, as good as gold and honest as a horse, was itching to +be hitting the breeze for Wyoming. Selling the calves would give him the +excuse that he had been casting about after for a month. He was writing +letters to Nettie; she had sent her picture. A large-breasted, +calf-faced girl with a crooked mouth. Taterleg might wait a year, or +even four years more, with perfect safety. Nettie would not move very +fast on the market, even in Wyoming, where ladies were said to be +scarce. + +And so, pounding along, mile after mile through the vast green land +where the bread of a nation grew, arriving at midnight among squeals and +moans, trembling bleat of sheep, pitiful, hungry crying of calves, high, +lonesome tenor notes of bewildered steers. That was the end of the +journey for him, the beginning of the great adventure for the creatures +under his care. + +By eleven o'clock next morning, Lambert had a check for the cattle in +his pocket, and bay rum on his face where the dust, the cinders and the +beard had been but a little while before. He bought a little hand +satchel in a second-hand store to carry the money home in, cashed his +check and took a turn looking around, his big gun on his leg, his +high-heeled boots making him toddle along in a rather ridiculous gait +for an able-bodied cow-puncher from the Bad Lands. + +There was a train for home at six, that same flier he once had raced. +There would be time enough for a man to look into the progress of the +fine arts as represented in the pawn-shop windows of the stockyards +neighborhood, before striking a line for the Union Station to nail down +a seat in the flier. It was while engaged in this elevating pursuit that +Lambert glimpsed for an instant in the passing stream of people a figure +that made him start with the prickling alertness of recognition. + +He had caught but a flash of the hurrying figure but, with that eye for +singling a certain object from a moving mass that experience with cattle +sharpens, he recognized the carriage of the head, the set of the +shoulders. He hurried after, overtaking the man as he was entering a +hotel. + +"Mr. Kerr, I've got a warrant for you," he said, detaining the fugitive +with a hand laid on his shoulder. + +Kerr was taken so unexpectedly that he had no chance to sling a gun, +even if he carried one. He was completely changed in appearance, even to +the sacrifice of his prized beard, so long his aristocratic distinction +in the Bad Lands. He was dressed in the city fashion, with a little +straw hat in place of the eighteen-inch sombrero that he had worn for +years. Confident of this disguise, he affected astonished indignation. + +"I guess you've made a mistake in your man," said he. + +Lambert told him with polite firmness that there was no mistake. + +"I'd know your voice in the dark--I've got reason to remember it," he +said. + +He got the warrant out with one hand, keeping the other comfortably near +his gun, the little hand bag with its riches between his feet. Kerr was +so vehemently indignant that attention was drawn to them, which +probably was the fugitive cattleman's design, seeing in numbers a chance +to make a dash. + +Lambert had not forgotten the experience of his years at the Kansas City +Stockyards, where he had seen confidence men and card sharpers play the +same scheme on policemen, clamoring their innocence until a crowd had +been attracted in which the officer would not dare risk a shot. He kept +Kerr within reaching distance, flashed the warrant before his eyes, +passed it up and down in front of his nose, and put it away again. + +"There's no mistake, not by a thousand miles. You'll come along back to +Glendora with me." + +A policeman appeared by this time, and Kerr appealed to him, protesting +mistaken identity. The officer was a heavy-headed man of the +slaughter-house school, and Lambert thought for a while that Kerr's +argument was going to prevail with him. To forestall the policeman's +decision, which he could see forming behind his clouded countenance, +Lambert said: + +"There's a reward of nine hundred dollars standing for this man. If +you've got any doubt of who he is, or my right to arrest him, take us +both to headquarters." + +That seemed to be a worthy suggestion to the officer. He acted on it +without more drain on his intellectual reserve. There, after a little +course of sprouts by the chief of detectives, Kerr admitted his +identity, but refused to leave the state without requisition. They +locked him up, and Lambert telegraphed the sheriff for the necessary +papers. + +Going home was off for perhaps several days. Lambert gave his little +satchel to the police to lock in the safe. The sheriff's reply came back +like a pitched ball. Hold Kerr, he requested the police; requisition +would be made for him. He instructed Lambert to wait till the papers +came, and bring the fugitive home. + +Kerr got in telegraphic touch with a lawyer in the home county. Morning +showed a considerable change of temperature in the frontier financier. +He announced that, acting on legal advice, he would waive extradition. +Lambert telegraphed the sheriff the news, requesting that he meet him at +Glendora and relieve him of his charge. + +Lambert prepared for the home-going by buying another revolver, and a +pair of handcuffs for attaching his prisoner comfortably and securely to +the arm of the seat. The little black bag gave him no worry. It wasn't +half the trouble to watch money, when you didn't look as if you had any, +as a man who had swindled people out of it and wanted to hide his face. + +The police joked Lambert about the size of his bag when they gave it +back to him as he was starting with his prisoner for the train. + +"What have you got in that alligator, Sheriff, that you're so careful +not to set it down and forget it?" the chief asked him. + +"Sixteen thousand dollars," said Lambert, modestly, opening it and +flashing its contents before their eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +"WHEN SHE WAKES UP" + + +It was mid-afternoon of a bright autumn day when Lambert approached +Glendora with Kerr chained to the seat beside him. As the train rapidly +cut down the last few miles, Lambert noted a change in his prisoner's +demeanor. Up to that time his carriage had been melancholy and morose, +as that of a man who saw no gleam of hope ahead of him. He had spoken +but seldom during the journey, asking no favors except that of being +allowed to send a telegram to Grace from Omaha. + +Lambert had granted that request readily, seeing nothing amiss in Kerr's +desire to have his daughter meet him and lighten as much as she could +his load of disgrace. Kerr said he wanted her to go with him to the +county seat and arrange bond. + +"I'll never look through the bars of a jail in my home county," he said. +That was his one burst of rebellion, his one boast, his one approach to +a discussion of his serious situation, all the way. + +Now as they drew almost within sight of Glendora, Kerr became fidgety +and nervous. His face was strained and anxious, as if he dreaded +stepping off the train into sight of the people who had known him so +long as a man of consequence in that community. + +Lambert began to have his own worries about this time. He regretted the +kindness he had shown Kerr in permitting him to send that telegram to +Grace. She might try to deliver him on bail of another kind. Kerr's +nervous anxiety would seem to indicate that he expected something to +happen at Glendora. It hadn't occurred to Lambert before that this might +be possible. It seemed a foolish oversight. + +His apprehension, as well as Kerr's evident expectation, seemed +groundless as he stepped off the train almost directly in front of the +waiting-room door, giving Kerr a hand down the steps. There was nobody +in sight but the postmaster with the mail sack, the station agent, and +the few citizens who always stood around the station for the thrill of +seeing the flier stop to take water. + +Few, if any, of these recognized Kerr as Lambert hurried him across the +platform and into the station, his hands manacled at his back. Kerr held +back for one quick look up and down the station platform, then stumbled +hastily ahead under the force of Lambert's hand. The door of the +telegraph office stood open; Lambert pushed his prisoner within and +closed it. + +The station agent came in as the train pulled away, and Lambert made +inquiry of him concerning the sheriff. The agent had not seen him there +that day. He turned away with sullen countenance, looking with disfavor +on this intrusion upon his sacred precincts. He stood in front of his +chattering instruments in the bow window, looking up and down the +platform with anxious face out of which his natural human color had +gone, leaving even his lips white. + +"You don't have to keep him in here, I guess, do you?" he said, still +sweeping the platform up and down with his uneasy eyes. + +"No. I just stepped in to ask you to put this satchel in your safe and +keep it for me a while." + +Lambert's calm and confident manner seemed to assure the agent, and +mollify him, and repair his injured dignity. He beckoned with a jerk of +his head, not for one moment quitting his leaning, watchful pose, or +taking his eyes from their watch on the platform. Lambert crossed the +little room in two strides and looked out. Not seeing anything more +alarming than a knot of townsmen around the postmaster, who stood with +the lean mail sack across his shoulder, talking excitedly, he inquired +what was up. + +"They're layin' for you out there," the agent whispered. + +"I kind of expected they would be," Lambert told him. + +"They're liable to cut loose any minute," said the agent, "and I tell +you, Duke, I've got a wife and children dependin' on me!" + +"I'll take him outside. I didn't intend to stay here only a minute. +Here, lock this up. It belongs to Vesta Philbrook. If I have to go with +the sheriff, or anything, send her word it's here." + +As Lambert appeared in the door with his prisoner the little bunch of +excited gossips scattered hurriedly. He stood near the door a little +while, considering the situation. The station agent was not to blame for +his desire to preserve his valuable services for the railroad and his +family; Lambert had no wish to shelter himself and retain his hold on +the prisoner at the trembling fellow's peril. + +It was unaccountable that the sheriff was not there to relieve him of +this responsibility; he must have received the telegram two days ago. +Pending his arrival, or, if not his arrival, the coming of the local +train that would carry himself and prisoner to the county seat, Lambert +cast about him for some means of securing his man in such manner that he +could watch him and defend against any attempted rescue without being +hampered. + +A telegraph pole stood beside the platform some sixty or seventy feet +from the depot, the wires slanting down from it into the building's +gable end. To this Lambert marched his prisoner, the eyes of the town on +him. He freed one of Kerr's hands, passed his arms round the pole so he +stood embracing it, and locked him there. + +It was a pole of only medium thickness, allowing Kerr ample room to +encircle it with his chained arms, even to sit on the edge of the +platform when he should weary of his standing embrace. Lambert stood +back a pace and looked at him, thus ignominiously anchored in public +view. + +"Let 'em come and take you," he said. + +He laid out a little beat up and down the platform at Kerr's back, +rolled a cigarette, settled down to wait for the sheriff, the train, the +rush of Kerr's friends, or whatever the day might have in store. + +Slowly, thoughtfully, he paced that beat of a rod behind his surly +prisoner's back, watching the town, watching the road leading into it. +People stood in the doors, but none approached him to make inquiry, no +voice was lifted in pitch that reached him where he stood. If anybody +else in town besides the agent knew of the contemplated rescue, he kept +it selfishly to himself. + +Lambert did not see any of Kerr's men about. Five horses were hitched in +front of the saloon; now and then he could see the top of a hat above +the latticed half-door, but nobody entered, nobody left. The station +agent still stood in his window, working the telegraph key as if +reporting the clearing of the flier, watching anxiously up and down the +platform. + +Lambert hoped that Sim Hargus and young Tom, and the old stub-footed +scoundrel who was the meanest of them all who had lashed him into the +fire that night, would swing the doors of the saloon and come out with a +declaration of their intentions. He knew that some of them, if not all, +were there. He had tied Kerr out before their eyes like wolf bait. Let +them come and get him if they were men. + +This seemed the opportunity which he had been waiting for time to bring +him. If they flashed a gun on him now he could clean them down to the +ground with all legal justification, no questions asked. + +Two appeared far down the road, riding for Glendora in a swinging +gallop. The sheriff, Lambert thought; missed the train, and had ridden +the forty and more miles across. No; one was Grace Kerr. Even at a +quarter of a mile he never could mistake her again. The other was Sim +Hargus. They had miscalculated in their intention of meeting the train, +and were coming in a panic of anxiety. + +They dismounted at the hotel, and started across. Lambert stood near his +prisoner, waiting. Kerr had been sitting on the edge of the platform. +Now he got up, moving around the pole to show them that he was not to be +counted on to take a hand in whatever they expected to start. + +Lambert moved a little nearer his prisoner, where he stood waiting. He +had not shaved during the two days between Chicago and Glendora; the +dust of the road was on his face. His hat was tipped forward to shelter +his eyes against the afternoon glare, the leather thong at the back +rumpling his close-cut hair. He stood lean and long-limbed, easy and +indifferent in his pose, as it would seem to look at him as one might +glance in passing, the smoke of his cigarette rising straight from its +fresh-lit tip in the calm air of the somnolent day. + +As Hargus and Grace advanced, coming in the haste and heat of +indignation that Kerr's humiliating situation inflamed, two men left the +saloon. They stopped at the hitching-rack as if debating whether to +take their horses, and so stood, watching the progress of the two who +were cutting the long diagonal across the road. When Grace, who came a +little ahead of her companion in her eagerness, was within thirty feet +of him, Lambert lifted his hand in forbidding signal. + +"Stop there," he said. + +She halted, her face flaming with fury. Hargus stopped beside her, his +arm crooked to bring his hand up to his belt, sawing back and forth as +if in indecision between drawing his gun and waiting for the wordy +preliminaries to pass. Kerr stood embracing the pole in a pose of +ridiculous supplication, the bright chain of the new handcuffs +glistening in the sun. + +"I want to talk to my father," said Grace, lashing Lambert with a look +of scornful hate. + +"Say it from there," Lambert returned, inflexible, cool; watching every +movement of Sim Hargus' sawing arm. + +"You've got no right to chain him up like a dog!" she said. + +"You ain't got no authority, that anybody ever heard of, to arrest him +in the first place," Hargus added, his swinging, indecisive arm for a +moment still. + +Lambert made no reply. He seemed to be looking over their heads, back +along the road they had come, from the lift of his chin and the set of +his close-gathered brows. He seemed carelessly indifferent to Hargus' +legal opinion and presence, a little fresh plume of smoke going up from +his cigarette as if he breathed into it gently. + +Grace started forward with impatient exclamation, tossing her head in +disdainful defiance of this fence-rider's authority. + +"Go back!" Kerr commanded, his voice hoarse with the fear of something +that she, in her unreasoning anger, had not seen behind the calm front +of the man she faced. + +She stopped, turning back again to where Hargus waited. Along the street +men were drawing away from their doors, in cautious curiosity, silent +suspense. Women put their heads out for a moment, plucked curtains aside +for one swift survey, vanished behind the safety of walls. At the +hitching-rack the two men--one of them Tom Hargus, the other +unknown--stood beside their horses, as if in position according to a +previous plan. + +"We want that man," said Hargus, his hand hovering over his gun. + +"Come and take him," Lambert invited. + +Hargus spoke in a low voice to Grace; she turned and ran toward her +horse. The two at the hitching-rack swung into their saddles as Hargus, +watching Grace over his shoulder as she sped away, began to back off, +his hand stealing to his gun as if moved by some slow, precise machinery +which was set to time it according to the fleeing girl's speed. + +Lambert stood without shifting a foot, his nostrils dilating in the +slow, deep breath that he drew. Yard by yard Hargus drew away, his +intention not quite clear, as if he watched his chance to break away +like a prisoner. Grace was in front of the hotel door when he snapped +his revolver from its sheath. + +Lambert had been waiting this. He fired before Hargus touched the +trigger, his elbow to his side as he had seen Jim Wilder shoot on the +day when tragedy first came into his life. Hargus spun on his heel as if +he had been roped, spread his arms, his gun falling from his hand; +pitched to his face, lay still. The two on horses galloped out and +opened fire. + +Lambert shifted to keep them guessing, but kept away from the pole where +Kerr was chained, behind which he might have found shelter. They had +separated to flank him, Tom Hargus over near the corner of the depot, +the other ranging down toward the hotel, not more than fifty yards +between Lambert and either of them. + +Intent on drawing Tom Hargus from the shelter of the depot, Lambert ran +along the platform, stopping well beyond Kerr. Until that moment he had +not returned their fire. Now he opened on Tom Hargus, bringing his horse +down at the third shot, swung about and emptied his first gun +ineffectually at the other man. + +This fellow charged down on him as Lambert drew his other gun, Tom +Hargus, free of his fallen horse, shooting from the shelter of the rain +barrel at the corner of the depot. Lambert felt something strike his +left arm, with no more apparent force, no more pain, than the flip of a +branch when one rides through the woods. But it swung useless at his +side. + +Through the smoke of his own gun, and the dust raised by the man on +horseback, Lambert had a flash of Grace Kerr riding across the middle +background between him and the saloon. He had no thought of her +intention. It was not a moment for speculation with the bullets hitting +his hat. + +The man on horseback had come within ten yards of him. Lambert could see +his teeth as he drew back his lips when he fired. Lambert centered his +attention on this stranger, dark, meager-faced, marked by the +unmistakable Mexican taint. His hat flew off at Lambert's first shot as +if it had been jerked by a string; at his second, the fellow threw +himself back in the saddle with a jerk. He fell limply over the high +cantle and lay thus a moment, his frantic horse running wildly away. +Lambert saw him tumble into the road as a man came spurring past the +hotel, slinging his gun as he rode. + +Nearer approach identified the belated sheriff. He shouted a warning to +Lambert as he jerked his gun down and fired. Tom Hargus rose from +behind the rain barrel, staggered into the road, going like a drunken +man, his hat in one hand, the other pressed to his side, his head +hanging, his long black hair falling over his bloody face. + +In a second Lambert saw this, and the shouting, shooting officer bearing +down toward him. He had the peculiar impression that the sheriff was +submerged in water, enlarging grotesquely as he approached. The slap of +another bullet on his back, and he turned to see Grace Kerr firing at +him with only the width of the platform between them. + +It was all smoke, dust, confusion around him, a sickness in his body, a +dimness in his mind, but he was conscious of her horse rearing, lifting +its feet high--one of them a white-stockinged foot, as he marked with +painful precision--and falling backward in a clatter of shod hoofs on +the railroad. + +When it cleared a little, Lambert found the sheriff was on the ground +beside him, supporting him with his arm, looking into his face with +concern almost comical, speaking in anxious inquiry. + +"Lay down over there on the platform, Duke, you're shot all to pieces," +he said. + +Lambert sat on the edge of the platform, and the world receded. When he +felt himself sweep back to consciousness there were people about him, +and he was stretched on his back, a feeling in his nostrils as if he +breathed fire. Somebody was lying across from him a little way; he +struggled with painful effort to lift himself and see. + +It was Grace Kerr. Her face was white in the midst of her dark hair, and +she was dead. + +It was not right for her to be lying there, with dead face to the sky, +he thought. They should do something, they should carry her away from +the stare of curious, shocked eyes, they should--He felt in the pocket +of his vest and found the little handkerchief, and crept painfully +across to her, heedless of the sheriff's protest, defiant of his +restraining, kindly hand. + +With his numb left arm trailing by his side, a burning pain in his +breast, as if a hot rod had been driven through him, the track of her +treacherous bullet, he knew, he fumbled to unfold the bit of soft white +linen, refusing the help of many sympathetic hands that were +out-stretched. + +When he had it right, he spread it over her face, white again as an +evening primrose, as he once had seen it through the dusk of another +night. But out of this night that she had entered she would ride no +more. There was a thought in his heart as tender as his deed as he thus +masked her face from the white stare of day: + +"_She can wipe her eyes on it when she wakes up and repents._" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +OYSTERS AND AMBITIONS + + +"If you'd come on and go to Wyoming with me, Duke, I think it'd be +better for you than California. That low country ain't good for a feller +with a tender place in his lights." + +"Oh, I think I'm all right and as good as ever now, Taterleg." + +"Yes, it looks all right to you, but if you git dampness on that lung +you'll take the consumption and die. I knew a feller once that got shot +that way through the lights in a fight down on the Cimarron. Him and +another feller fell out over----" + +"Have you heard from Nettie lately?" Lambert broke in, not caring to +hear the story of the man who was shot on the Cimarron, or his +subsequent miscalculations on the state of his lights. + +Taterleg rolled his eyes to look at him, not turning his head, reproach +in the glance, mild reproof. But he let it pass in his good-natured way, +brightening to the subject nearest his heart. + +"Four or five days ago." + +"All right, is she?" + +"Up and a-comin', fine as a fiddle." + +"You'll be holdin' hands with her before the preacher in a little while +now." + +"Inside of a week, Duke. My troubles is nearly all over." + +"I don't know about that, but I hope it'll turn out that way." + +They were on their way home from delivering the calves and the clean-up +of the herd to Pat Sullivan, some weeks after Lambert's fight at +Glendora. Lambert still showed the effects of his long confinement and +drain of his wounds in the paleness of his face. But he sat his saddle +as straight as ever, not much thinner, as far as the eye could weigh +him, nothing missing from him but the brown of his skin and the blood +they had drawn from him that day. + +There was frost on the grass that morning, a foretaste of winter in the +sharp wind. The sky was gray with the threat of snow, the somber season +of hardship on the range was at hand. Lambert thought, as he read these +signs, that it would be a hard winter on livestock in that unsheltered +country, and was comfortable in mind over the profitable outcome of his +dealings for his employer. + +As for himself, his great plans were at an end on the Bad Lands range. +The fight at Glendora had changed all that. The doctor had warned him +that he must not attempt another winter in the saddle with that tender +spot in his lung, his blood thinned down that way, his flesh soft from +being housebound for nearly six weeks. He advised a milder climate for +several months of recuperation, and was very grave in his advice. + +So the sheep scheme was put aside. The cattle being sold, there was +nothing about the ranch that old Ananias could not do, and Lambert had +planned to turn his face again toward the West. He could not lie around +there in the bunkhouse and grow strong at Vesta's expense, although that +was what she expected him to do. + +He had said nothing to her of his determination to go, for he had +wavered in it from day to day, finding it hard to tear himself away from +that bleak land that he had come to love, as he never had loved the +country which claimed him by birth. He had been called on in this place +to fight for a man's station in it; he had trampled a refuge of safety +for the defenseless among its thorns. + +Vesta had said nothing further of her own plans, but they took it for +granted that she would be leaving, now that the last of the cattle were +sold. Ananias had told them that she was putting things away in the +house, getting ready to close most of it up. + +"I don't blame you for leavin'," said Taterleg, returning to the +original thread of discussion, "it'll be as lonesome as sin up there at +the ranch with Vesta gone away. When she's there she fills that place up +like the music of a band." + +"She sure does, Taterleg." + +"Old Ananias'll have a soft time of it, eatin' chicken and rabbit all +winter, nothing to do but milk them couple of cows, no boss to keep her +eye on him in a thousand miles." + +"He's one that'll never want to leave." + +"Well, it's a good place for a man," Taterleg sighed, "if he ain't got +nothin' else to look ahead to. I kind o' hate to leave myself, but at my +age, you know, Duke, a man's got to begin to think of marryin' and +settlin' down and fixin' him up a home, as I've said before." + +"Many a time before, old feller, so many times I've got it down by +heart." + +Taterleg looked at him again with that queer turning of the eyes, which +he could accomplish with the facility of a fish, and rode on in silence +a little way after chiding him in that manner. + +"Well, it won't do you no harm," he said. + +"No," sighed the Duke, "not a bit of harm." + +Taterleg chuckled as he rode along, hummed a tune, laughed again in his +dry, clicking way, deep down in his throat. + +"I met Alta the other day when I was down in Glendora," he said. + +"Did you make up?" + +"Make up! That girl looks to me like a tin cup by the side of a silver +shavin' mug now, Duke. Compare that girl to Nettie, and she wouldn't +take the leather medal. She says: 'Good morning, Mr. Wilson,' she says, +and I turned my head quick, like I was lookin' around for him, and never +kep' a-lettin' on like I knew she meant me." + +"That was kind of rough treatment for a lady, Taterleg." + +"It would be for a lady, but for that girl it ain't. It's what's comin' +to her, and what I'll hand her ag'in, if she ever's got the gall to +speak to me." + +The Duke had no further comment on Taterleg's rules of conduct. They +went along in silence a little way, but that was a state that Taterleg +could not long endure. + +"Well, I'll soon be in the oyster parlor up to the bellyband," he said, +full of the cheer of his prospect. "Nettie's got the place picked out +and nailed down--I sent her the money to pay the rent. I'll be handin' +out stews with a slice of pickle on the side of the dish before another +week goes by, Duke." + +"What are you goin' to make oysters out of in Wyoming?" the Duke +inquired wonderingly. + +"Make 'em out of? Oysters, of course. What do you reckon?" + +"There never was an oyster within a thousand miles of Wyoming, Taterleg. +They wouldn't keep to ship that far, much less till you'd used 'em up." + +"Cove oysters, Duke, cove oysters," corrected Taterleg gently. "You +couldn't hire a cowman to eat any other kind, you couldn't put one of +them slick fresh fellers down him with a pair of tongs." + +"Well, I guess you know, old feller." + +Taterleg fell into a reverie, from which he started presently with a +vehement exclamation of profanity. + +"If she's got bangs, I'll make her cut 'em off!" he said. + +"Who cut 'em off?" Lambert asked, viewing this outburst of feeling in +surprise. + +"Nettie! I don't want no bangs around me to remind me of that +snipe-legged Alta Wood. Bangs may be all right for fellers with music +boxes in their watches, but they don't go with me no more." + +"I didn't see Jedlick around the ranch up there; what do you suppose +become of him?" + +"Well, from what the boys told me, if he's still a-goin' like he was +when they seen him last, he must be up around Medicine Hat by now." + +"It was a sin the way you threw a scare into that man, Taterleg." + +"I'm sorry I didn't lay him out on a board, dern him!" + +"Yes, but you might as well let him have Alta." + +"He can come back and take her any time he wants her, Duke." + +The Duke seemed to reflect this simple exposition of Jedlick's present +case. + +"Yes, I guess that's so," he said. + +For a mile or more there was no sound but the even swing of their +horses' hoofs as they beat in the long, easy gallop which they could +hold for a day without a break. Then Lambert: + +"Plannin' to leave tonight, are you Taterleg?" + +"All set for leavin', Duke." + +On again, the frost-powdered grass brittle under the horses' feet. + +"I think I'll pull out tonight, too." + +"Why, I thought you was goin' to stay till Vesta left, Duke?" + +"Changed my mind." + +"Don't you reckon Vesta she'll be a little put out if you leave the +ranch after she'd figgered on you to stay and pick up and gain and be +stout and hearty to go in the sheep business next spring?" + +"I hope not." + +"Yeh, but I bet she will. Do you reckon she'll ever come back to the +ranch any more when she goes away?" + +"What?" said Lambert, starting as if he had been asleep. + +"Vesta; do you reckon she'll ever come back any more?" + +"Well," slowly, thoughtfully, "there's no tellin', Taterleg." + +"She's got a stockin' full of money now, and nobody dependin' on her. +She's just as likely as not to marry some lawyer or some other shark +that's after her dough." + +"Yes, she may." + +"No, I don't reckon much she'll ever come back. She ain't got nothing to +look back to here but hard times and shootin' scrapes--nobody to +'sociate with and wear low-neckid dresses like women with money want +to." + +"Not much chance for it here--you're right." + +"You'd 'a' had it nice and quiet there with them sheep if you'd 'a' been +able to go pardners with Vesta like you planned, old Nick Hargus in the +pen and the rest of them fellers cleaned out." + +"Yes, I guess there'll be peace around the ranch for some time to come." + +"Well, you made the peace around there, Duke; if it hadn't 'a' been for +you they'd 'a' broke Vesta up and run her out by now." + +"You had as much to do with bringin' them to time as I did, Taterleg." + +"Me? Look me over, Duke; feel of my hide. Do you see any knife scars in +me, or feel any bullet holes anywhere? I never done nothing but ride +along that fence, hopin' for a somebody to start something. They never +done it." + +"They knew you too well, old feller." + +"Knowed _me_!" said Taterleg. "Huh!" + +On again in quiet, Glendora in sight when they topped a hill. Taterleg +seemed to be thinking deeply; his face was sentimentally serious. + +"Purty girl," he said in a pleasant vein of musing. + +"Which one?" + +"Vesta. I like 'em with a little more of a figger, a little thicker in +some places and wider in others, but she's trim and she's tasty, and her +heart's pure gold." + +"You're right it is, Taterleg," Lambert agreed, keeping his eyes +straight ahead as they rode on. + +"You're aimin' to come back in the spring and go pardners with her on +the sheep deal, ain't you, Duke?" + +"I don't expect I'll ever come back, Taterleg." + +"Well," said Taterleg abstractedly, "I don't know." + +They rode past the station, the bullet-scarred rain barrel behind which +Tom Hargus took shelter in the great battle still standing in its place, +and past the saloon, the hitching-rack empty before it, for this was the +round-up season--nobody was in town. + +"There's that slab-sided, spider-legged Alta Wood standin' out on the +porch," said Taterleg disgustedly, falling behind Lambert, reining +around on the other side to put him between the lady and himself. + +"You'd better stop and bid her good-bye," Lambert suggested. + +Taterleg pulled his hat over his eyes to shut out the sight of her, +turned his head, ignoring her greeting. When they were safely past he +cast a cautious look behind. + +"I guess that settled _her_ hash!" he said. "Yes, and I'd like to wad a +handful of chewin' gum in them old bangs before I leave this man's +town!" + +"You've broken her chance for a happy married life with Jedlick, +Taterleg. Your heart's as hard as a bone." + +"The worst luck I can wish her is that Jedlick'll come back," he said, +turning to look at her as he spoke. Alta waved her hand. + +"She's a forgivin' little soul, anyway," Lambert said. + +"Forgivin'! 'Don't hurt him, Mr. Jedlick,' she says, 'don't hurt him!' +Huh! I had to build a fire under that old gun of mine to melt the +chawin' wax off of her. I wouldn't give that girl a job washin' dishes +in the oyster parlor if she was to travel from here to Wyoming on her +knees." + +So they arrived at the ranch from their last expedition together. +Lambert gave Taterleg his horse to take to the barn, while he stopped in +to deliver Pat Sullivan's check to Vesta and straighten up the final +business, and tell her good-bye. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +EMOLUMENTS AND REWARDS + + +Lambert took off his hat at the door and smoothed his hair with his +palm, tightened up his necktie, looked himself over from chest to toes. +He drew a deep breath then, like a man fortifying himself for a trial +that called for the best that was in him to come forward. He knocked on +the door. + +He was wearing a brown duck coat with a sheepskin collar, the wool of +which had been dyed a mottled saffron, and corduroy breeches as roomy of +leg as Taterleg's state pair. These were laced within the tall boots +which he had bought in Chicago, and in which he took a singular pride on +account of their novelty on the range. + +It was not a very handsome outfit, but there was a rugged +picturesqueness in it that the pistol belt and chafed scabbard enhanced, +and he carried it like a man who was not ashamed of it, and graced it +by the worth that it contained. + +The Duke's hair had grown long; shears had not touched his head since +his fight with Kerr's men. Jim Wilder's old scar was blue on his thin +cheek that day, for the wind had been cold to face. He was so solemn and +severe as he stood waiting at the door that it would seem to be a +triumph to make him smile. + +Vesta came to the door herself, with such promptness that seemed to tell +she must have been near it from the moment his foot fell on the porch. + +"I've come to settle up with you on our last deal, Vesta," he said. + +She took him to the room in which they always transacted business, which +was a library in fact as well as name. It had been Philbrook's office in +his day. Lambert once had expressed his admiration for the room, a long +and narrow chamber with antlers on the walls above the bookcases, a +broad fireplace flanked by leaded casement windows. It was furnished +with deep leather chairs and a great, dark oak table, which looked as if +it had stood in some English manor in the days of other kings. The +windows looked out upon the river. + +A pleasant place on a winter night, Lambert thought, with a log fire on +the dogs, somebody sitting near enough that one could reach out and find +her hand without turning his eyes from the book, the last warm touch to +crown the comfort of his happy hour. + +"You mean our latest deal, not our last, I hope, Duke," she said, +sitting at the table, with him at the head of it like a baron returned +to his fireside after a foray in the field. + +"I'm afraid it will be our last; there's nothing left to sell but the +fence." + +She glanced at him with relief in her eyes, a quick smile coming happily +to her lips. He was busy with the account of calves and grown stock +which he had drawn from his wallet, the check lying by his hand. His +face taken as an index to it, there was not much lightness in his heart. +Soon he had acquitted himself of his stewardship and given the check +into her hand. Then he rose to leave her. For a moment he stood silent, +as if turning his thoughts. + +"I'm going away," he said, looking out of the window down upon the tops +of the naked cottonwoods along the river. + +Just around the corner of the table she was standing, half facing him, +looking at him with what seemed almost compassionate tenderness, so +sympathetic were her eyes. She touched his hand where it lay with +fingers on his hat-brim. + +"Is it so hard for you to forget her, Duke?" + +He looked at her frankly, no deceit in his eyes, but a mild surprise to +hear her chide him so. + +"If I could forget of her what no forgiving soul should remember, I'd +feel more like a man," he said. + +"I thought--I thought--" she stammered, bending her head, her voice soft +and low, "you were grieving for her, Duke. Forgive me." + +"Taterleg is leaving tonight," he said, overlooking her soft appeal. "I +thought I'd go at the same time." + +"It will be so lonesome here on the ranch without you, Duke--lonesome as +it never was lonesome before." + +"Even if there was anything I could do around the ranch any longer, with +the cattle all gone and nobody left to cut the fence, I wouldn't be any +use, dodging in for every blizzard that came along, as the doctor says I +must." + +"I've come to depend on you as I never depended on anybody in my life." + +"And I couldn't do that, you know, any more than I'd be content to lie +around doing nothing." + +"You've been square with me on everything, from the biggest to the +least. I never knew before what it was to lie down in security and get +up in peace. You've fought and suffered for me here in a measure far in +excess of anything that common loyalty demanded of you, and I've given +you nothing in return. It will be like losing my right hand, Duke, to +see you go." + +"Taterleg's going to Wyoming to marry a girl he used to know back in +Kansas. We can travel together part of the way." + +"If it hadn't been for you they'd have robbed me of everything by +now--killed me, maybe--for I couldn't have fought them alone, and there +was no other help." + +"I thought maybe in California an old half-invalid might pick up and get +some blood put into him again." + +"You came out of the desert, as if God sent you, when my load was +heavier than I could bear. It will be like losing my right eye, Duke, to +see you go." + +"A man that's a fool for only a little while, even, is bound to leave +false impressions and misunderstandings of himself, no matter how wide +his own eyes have been opened, or how long. So I've resigned my job on +the ranch here with you, Vesta, and I'm going away." + +"There's no misunderstanding, Duke--it's all clear to me now. When I +look in your eyes and hear you speak I know you better than you know +yourself. It will be like losing the whole world to have you go!" + +"A man couldn't sit around and eat out of a woman's hand in idleness and +ever respect himself any more. My work's finished----" + +"All I've got is yours--you saved it to me, you brought it home." + +"The world expects a man that hasn't got anything to go out and make it +before he turns around and looks--before he lets his tongue betray his +heart and maybe be misunderstood by those he holds most dear." + +"It's none of the world's business--there isn't any world but ours!" + +"I thought with you gone away, Vesta, and the house dark nights, and me +not hearing you around any more, it would be so lonesome and bleak here +for an old half-invalid----" + +"I wasn't going, I couldn't have been driven away! I'd have stayed as +long as you stayed, till you found--till you knew! Oh, it will +tear--tear--my heart--my heart out of--my breast--to see you go!" + + * * * * * + +Taterleg was singing his old-time steamboat song when Lambert went down +to the bunkhouse an hour before sunset. There was an aroma of coffee +mingling with the strain: + + Oh, I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss, + An' a hoo-dah, an' a hoo-dah; + I bet my money on a bob-tailed hoss, + An' a hoo-dah bet on the bay. + +Lambert smiled, standing beside the door until Taterleg had finished. +Taterleg came out with his few possessions in a bran sack, giving +Lambert a questioning look up and down. + +"It took you a long time to settle up," he said. + +"Yes. There was considerable to dispose of and settle," Lambert replied. + +"Well, we'll have to be hittin' the breeze for the depot in a little +while. Are you ready?" + +"No. Changed my mind; I'm going to stay." + +"Goin' in pardners with Vesta?" + +"Pardners." + + + + +"_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_ + + +PETER B. KYNE'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=THE PRIDE OF PALOMAR= + +When two strong men clash and the under-dog has Irish blood in his +veins--there's a tale that Kyne can tell! And "the girl" is also very +much in evidence. + +=KINDRED OF THE DUST= + +Donald McKay, son of Hector McKay, millionaire lumber king, falls in +love with "Nan of the Sawdust Pile," a charming girl who has been +ostracized by her townsfolk. + +=THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS= + +The fight of the Cardigans, father and son, to hold the Valley of the +Giants against treachery. The reader finishes with a sense of having +lived with big men and women in a big country. + +=CAPPY RICKS= + +The story of old Cappy Ricks and of Matt Peasley, the boy he tried to +break because he knew the acid test was good for his soul. + +=WEBSTER: MAN'S MAN= + +In a little Jim Crow Republic in Central America, a man and a woman, +hailing from the "States," met up with a revolution and for a while +adventures and excitement came so thick and fast that their love affair +had to wait for a lull in the game. + +=CAPTAIN SCRAGGS= + +This sea yarn recounts the adventures of three rapscallion sea-faring +men--a Captain Scraggs, owner of the green vegetable freighter Maggie, +Gibney the mate and McGuffney the engineer. + +=THE LONG CHANCE= + +A story fresh from the heart of the West, of San Pasqual, a sun-baked +desert town, of Harley P. Hennage, the best gambler, the best and worst +man of San Pasqual and of lovely Donna. + + +=JACKSON GREGORY'S NOVELS= + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=THE EVERLASTING WHISPER= + +The story of a strong man's struggle against savage nature and humanity, +and of a beautiful girl's regeneration from a spoiled child of wealth +into a courageous strong-willed woman. + +=DESERT VALLEY= + +A college professor sets out with his daughter to find gold. They meet a +rancher who loses his heart, and become involved in a feud. An intensely +exciting story. + +=MAN TO MAN= + +Encircled with enemies, distrusted, Steve defends his rights. How he won +his game and the girl he loved is the story filled with breathless +situations. + +=THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN= + +Dr. Virginia Page is forced to go with the sheriff on a night journey +into the strongholds of a lawless band. Thrills and excitement sweep the +reader along to the end. + +=JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH= + +Judith Sanford part owner of a cattle ranch realizes she is being robbed +by her foreman. How, with the help of Bud Lee, she checkmates Trevor's +scheme makes fascinating reading. + +=THE SHORT CUT= + +Wayne is suspected of killing his brother after a violent quarrel. +Financial complications, villains, a horse-race and beautiful Wanda, all +go to make up a thrilling romance. + +=THE JOYOUS TROUBLE MAKER= + +A reporter sets up housekeeping close to Beatrice's Ranch much to her +chagrin. There is "another man" who complicates matters, but all turns +out as it should in this tale of romance and adventure. + +=SIX FEET FOUR= + +Beatrice Waverly is robbed of $5,000 and suspicion fastens upon Buck +Thornton, but she soon realizes he is not guilty. Intensely exciting, +here is a real story of the Great Far West. + +=WOLF BREED= + +No Luck Drennan had grown hard through loss of faith in men he had +trusted. A woman hater and sharp of tongue, he finds a match in Ygerne +whose clever fencing wins the admiration and love of the "Lone Wolf." + + +EDGAR RICE BURROUGH'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=TARZAN AND THE GOLDEN LION= + +A tale of the African wilderness which appeals to all readers of +fiction. + +=TARZAN THE TERRIBLE= + +Further thrilling adventures of Tarzan while seeking his wife in Africa. + +=TARZAN THE UNTAMED= + +Tells of Tarzan's return to the life of the ape-man in seeking vengeance +for the loss of his wife and home. + +=JUNGLE TALES OF TARZAN= + +Records the many wonderful exploits by which Tarzan proves his right to +ape kingship. + +=AT THE EARTH'S CORE= + +An astonishing series of adventures in a world located inside of the +Earth. + +=THE MUCKER= + +The story of Billy Byrne--as extraordinary a character as the famous +Tarzan. + +=A PRINCESS OF MARS= + +Forty-three million miles from the earth--a succession of the weirdest +and most astounding adventures in fiction. + +=THE GODS OF MARS= + +John Carter's adventures on Mars, where he fights the ferocious "plant +men," and defies Issus, the Goddess of Death. + +=THE WARLORD OF MARS= + +Old acquaintances, made in two other stories, reappear, Tars Tarkas, +Tardos Mors and others. + +=THUVIA, MAID OF MARS= + +The story centers around the adventures of Carthoris, the son of John +Carter and Thuvia, daughter of a Martian Emperor. + +=THE CHESSMEN OF MARS= + +The adventures of Princess Tara in the land of headless men, creatures +with the power of detaching their heads from their bodies and replacing +them at will. + + +RUBY M. AYRE'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=RICHARD CHATTERTON= + +A fascinating story in which love and jealousy play strange tricks with +women's souls. + +=A BACHELOR HUSBAND= + +Can a woman love two men at the same time? + +In its solving of this particular variety of triangle "A Bachelor +Husband" will particularly interest, and strangely enough, without one +shock to the most conventional minded. + +=THE SCAR= + +With fine comprehension and insight the author shows a terrific contrast +between the woman whose love was of the flesh and one whose love was of +the spirit. + +=THE MARRIAGE OF BARRY WICKLOW= + +Here is a man and woman who, marrying for love, yet try to build their +wedded life upon a gospel of hate for each other and yet win back to a +greater love for each other in the end. + +=THE UPHILL ROAD= + +The heroine of this story was a consort of thieves. The man was fine, +clean, fresh from the West. It is a story of strength and passion. + +=WINDS OF THE WORLD= + +Jill, a poor little typist, marries the great Henry Sturgess and +inherits millions, but not happiness. Then at last--but we must leave +that to Ruby M. Ayres to tell you as only she can. + +=THE SECOND HONEYMOON= + +In this story the author has produced a book which no one who has loved +or hopes to love can afford to miss. The story fairly leaps from climax +to climax. + +=THE PHANTOM LOVER= + +Have you not often heard of someone being in love with love rather than +the person they believed the object of their affections? That was +Esther! But she passes through the crisis into a deep and profound +love. + + +ETHEL M. DELL'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=CHARLES REX= + +The struggle against a hidden secret and the love of a strong man and a +courageous woman. + +=THE TOP OF THE WORLD= + +Tells of the path which leads at last to the "top of the world," which +it is given to few seekers to find. + +=THE LAMP IN THE DESERT= + +Tells of the lamp of love that continues to shine through all sorts of +tribulations to final happiness. + +=GREATHEART= + +The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul. + +=THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE= + +A hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth chance." + +=THE SWINDLER= + +The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith. + +=THE TIDAL WAVE= + +Tales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false. + +=THE SAFETY CURTAIN= + +A very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other +long stories of equal interest. + + +ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=JUST DAVID= + +The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts +of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left. + +=THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING= + +A compelling romance of love and marriage. + +=OH, MONEY! MONEY!= + +Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his +relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain John +Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment. + +=SIX STAR RANCH= + +A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star +Ranch. + +=DAWN= + +The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of +despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the +service of blind soldiers. + +=ACROSS THE YEARS= + +Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of +the best writing Mrs. Porter has done. + +=THE TANGLED THREADS= + +In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all +her other books. + +=THE TIE THAT BINDS= + +Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for +warm and vivid character drawing. + + +FLORENCE L. BARCLAY'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER= THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER + +A novel of the 12th Century. The heroine, believing she had lost her +lover, enters a convent. He returns, and interesting developments +follow. + +=THE UPAS TREE= + +A love story of rare charm. It deals with a successful author and his +wife. + +=THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE= + +The story of a seven day courtship, in which the discrepancy in ages +vanished into insignificance before the convincing demonstration of +abiding love. + +=THE ROSARY= + +The story of a young artist who is reputed to love beauty above all else +in the world, but who, when blinded through an accident, gains life's +greatest happiness. A rare story of the great passion of two real people +superbly capable of love, its sacrifices and its exceeding reward. + +=THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE= + +The lovely young Lady Ingleby, recently widowed by the death of a +husband who never understood her, meets a fine, clean young chap who is +ignorant of her title and they fall deeply in love with each other. When +he learns her real identity a situation of singular power is developed. + +=THE BROKEN HALO= + +The story of a young man whose religious belief was shattered in +childhood and restored to him by the little white lady, many years older +than himself, to whom he is passionately devoted. + +=THE FOLLOWING OF THE STARM= + +The story of a young missionary, who, about to start for Africa, marries +wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her fulfill the conditions of her +uncle's will, and how they finally come to love each other and are +reunited after experiences that soften and purify. + + +BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=SEVENTEEN.= Illustrated by Arthur William Brown. + +No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young +people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the +time when the reader was Seventeen. + +=PENROD.= Illustrated by Gordon Grant. + +This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous, +tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a +finished, exquisite work. + +=PENROD AND SAM.= Illustrated by Worth Brehm. + +Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases +of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness +that have ever been written. + +=THE TURMOIL.= Illustrated by C. E. Chambers. + +Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his +father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a +fine girl turns Bibb's life from failure to success. + +=THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA.= Frontispiece. + +A story of love and politics,--more especially a picture of a country +editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love +interest. + +=THE FLIRT.= Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood. + +The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement, +drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another +to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising +suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister. + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + + +KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + +=SISTERS.= Frontispiece by Frank Street. + +The California Redwoods furnish the background for this beautiful story +of sisterly devotion and sacrifice. + +=POOR, DEAR, MARGARET KIRBY.= + +Frontispiece by George Gibbs. + +A collection of delightful stories, including "Bridging the Years" and +"The Tide-Marsh." This story is now shown in moving pictures. + +=JOSSELYN'S WIFE.= Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. + +The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight for happiness +and love. + +=MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED.= + +Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers. + +The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions. + +=THE HEART OF RACHAEL.= + +Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers. + +An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come with a second +marriage. + +=THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE.= Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert. + +A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of a normal girl, obscure and +lonely, for the happiness of life. + +=SATURDAY'S CHILD.= Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes. + +Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through sheer +determination to the better things for which her soul hungered? + +=MOTHER.= Illustrated by F. C. Yohn. + +A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background of every +girl's life, and some dreams which came true. + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + + +STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=HER FATHER'S DAUGHTER.= Illustrated. + +This story is of California and tells of that charming girl, Linda +Strong, otherwise known as "Her Father's Daughter." + +=A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND.= Illustrated. + +Kate Bates, the heroine of this story, is a true "Daughter of the Land," +and to read about her is truly inspiring. + +=MICHAEL O'HALLORAN.= Illustrated by Frances Rogers. + +Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern +Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also aspires to +lead the entire rural community upward and onward. + +=LADDIE.= Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer. + +This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid In Indiana. The story +is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it +is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs +of older members of the family. + +=THE HARVESTER.= Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs. + +"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and is well worth +knowing, but when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a +romance of the rarest idyllic quality. + +=FRECKLES.= Illustrated. + +Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he +takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms; and his love-story +with "The Angel" are full of real sentiment. + +=A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST.= Illustrated. + +The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of +the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness +toward all things; her hope is never dimmed. + +=AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW.= Illustrations in colors. + +The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. It is +one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. + +=THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL.= Profusely Illustrated. + +A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and +humor. + + +ZANE GREY'S NOVELS + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=TO THE LAST MAN= +=THE MYSTERIOUS RIDER= +=THE MAN OF THE FOREST= +=THE DESERT OF WHEAT= +=THE U. P. TRAIL= +=WILDFIRE= +=THE BORDER LEGION= +=THE RAINBOW TRAIL= +=THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT= +=RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE= +=THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS= +=THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN= +=THE LONE STAR RANGER= +=DESERT GOLD= +=BETTY ZANE= + + * * * * * + +=LAST OF THE GREAT SCOUTS= + +The life story of "Buffalo Bill" by his sister Helen Cody Wetmore, with +Foreword and conclusion by Zane Grey. + + +ZANE GREY'S BOOKS FOR BOYS + +=KEN WARD IN THE JUNGLE= +=THE YOUNG LION HUNTER= +=THE YOUNG FORESTER= +=THE YOUNG PITCHER= +=THE SHORT STOP= +=THE RED-HEADED OUTFIELD AND OTHER BASEBALL STORIES= + + +JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD'S STORIES OF ADVENTURE + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list. + +=THE RIVER'S END= + +A story of the Royal Mounted Police. + +=THE GOLDEN SNARE= + +Thrilling adventures in the Far Northland. + +=NOMADS OF THE NORTH= + +The story of a bear-cub and a dog. + +=KAZAN= + +The tale of a "quarter-strain wolf and three-quarters husky" torn +between the call of the human and his wild mate. + +=BAREE, SON OF KAZAN= + +The story of the son of the blind Grey Wolf and the gallant part he +played in the lives of a man and a woman. + +=THE COURAGE OF CAPTAIN PLUM= + +The story of the King of Beaver Island, a Mormon colony, and his battle +with Captain Plum. + +=THE DANGER TRAIL= + +A tale of love, Indian vengeance, and a mystery of the North. + +=THE HUNTED WOMAN= + +A tale of a great fight in the "valley of gold" for a woman. + +=THE FLOWER OF THE NORTH= + +The story of Fort o' God, where the wild flavor of the wilderness is +blended with the courtly atmosphere of France. + +=THE GRIZZLY KING= + +The story of Thor, the big grizzly. + +=ISOBEL= + +A love story of the Far North. + +=THE WOLF HUNTERS= + +A thrilling tale of adventure in the Canadian wilderness. + +=THE GOLD HUNTERS= + +The story of adventure in the Hudson Bay wilds. + +=THE COURAGE OF MARGE O'DOONE= + +Filled with exciting incidents in the land of strong men and women. + +=BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY= + +A thrilling story of the Far North. The great Photoplay was made from +this book. + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK + + + + + +-----------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in the text: | + | | + | Page 120 tight changed to right | + | Page 177 new changed to anew | + | Page 352 let changed to lit | + | Page 385 wierdest changed to weirdest | + +-----------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Duke Of Chimney Butte, by G. W. 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