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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Straw, by Harold Titus
+
+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 Last Straw
+
+Author: Harold Titus
+
+Illustrator: George W. Gage
+
+Release Date: June 26, 2011 [EBook #36523]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST STRAW ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Sly, Al Haines and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST STRAW
+
+
+BY
+
+HAROLD TITUS
+
+
+Author of "Bruce of the Circle A," "I--Conquered," etc.
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY
+
+GEORGE W. GAGE
+
+
+
+BOSTON
+
+SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1920,
+
+BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
+
+(INCORPORATED)
+
+
+_Second Printing, June, 1920._
+
+
+PRESS OF GEO. H. ELLIS CO., BOSTON, MASS.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+     I  THE NEW BOSS
+    II  MY ADVICE, MA'AM
+   III  THE NESTER--AND ANOTHER
+    IV  THE CHAMPION
+     V  THE COURTING
+    VI  OUTCASTS
+   VII  THE CATAMOUNT
+  VIII  AND NOW, THE CLERGY
+    IX  THE DESTROYER
+     X  A MATTER OF DIRECTION
+    XI  HEPBURN'S PLAY
+   XII  A NEIGHBORLY CALL
+  XIII  THE FRAME-UP
+   XIV  THE BIG CHANCE
+    XV  WAR!
+   XVI  THE WARNING
+  XVII  HIS FAITHFUL LITTLE PONY
+ XVIII  AN INTERRUPTED PROPOSAL
+   XIX  CONCERNING SAM MCKEE
+    XX  "WORK AMONG THE HEATHEN"
+   XXI  RENUNCIATION
+  XXII  THE REVEREND'S STRATEGY
+ XXIII  BECK'S DEPARTURE
+  XXIV  IN THE SHADOW
+   XXV  A MOUNTAIN PORTIA
+  XXVI  BATTLE!
+ XXVII  THE LAST STRAW
+
+
+
+
+THE LAST STRAW
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE NEW BOSS
+
+
+The last patches of snow, even in the most secluded gulches, had been
+licked up by the mounting sun; the waters of Coyote Creek had returned
+to the confines of the stream bed; in places a suggestion of green was
+making its appearance about the bases of grass clumps, and cottonwood
+buds were swelling. Four men sat on the bench before the bunkhouse of
+the H.C. ranch; one was braiding a belt, another whittling and two
+more, hats over their eyes to shield them from the brilliant light,
+joined in the desultory conversation from time to time.
+
+In the pauses, such as the one now prevailing, was something besides
+the spirit of idling. Dad Hepburn, gray of hair, eye and mustache, but
+with the body of a young man, who sat nearest the doorway, glanced
+frequently towards the road as though expecting to see another come
+that way to bring fresh interest; Two-Bits Beal was uneasy and did not
+remain long in one pose, as men do who sit in the first real warmth of
+spring for its own sake; Jimmy Oliver, the whittler, stopped now and
+then and held his head at an angle, as if listening; and although he
+worked industriously at the belt it was evident that Tom Beck had
+thought for other affairs.
+
+"So she was his nephew an' only heir," commented Two-Bits, gravely.
+Hepburn stirred and snorted softly. Jimmy Oliver looked at the homely,
+freckle-blotched face of the gaunt speaker and grinned. After a moment
+Tom Beck said:
+
+"Two-Bits, for a smart man you know less than anybody I ever
+encountered! When I first set eyes on you, I said to myself, 'That man
+ain't real. He's no work of God A'mighty. Some of these _hombres_
+that draw cartoons for newspapers got him up.' But I thought you must
+have brains, seein' you're so powerful low on looks. You're a good
+cowhand and a first rate horse handler, but won't you ever get anything
+in your head but those things? Or did this cartoonist make a mistake
+an' put your kidneys in your skull?
+
+"Niece; _niece!_ Not nephew!"
+
+"Have it your way," Two-Bits said in his high voice, swallowing so his
+immense Adam's apple shot up half the extraordinary length of his lean
+throat toward his pointed chin, and slipped back again with a jerk. "I
+was half right, wasn't I? She's his only heir, ain't she? You can't ask
+a man to be more'n half right, can you?"
+
+"If his heir'd been a nephew instead of a niece, we wouldn't all be
+settin' here so anxious about this arrival," opined Jimmy. "An' we
+wouldn't all be wonderin' if we was goin' to work for a squaw outfit.
+It'll be a relief when this lady lands in our midst. Mebby there'll be
+less speculatin' and more work done."
+
+"You're right," assented Dad, and pulled at his mustache. "There's a
+lot to do."
+
+Tom Beck began to whistle softly and the older man glanced sideways at
+him uneasily; then fixed his eyes on the road.
+
+"I'll bet two bit," volunteered Two-Bits, "that she's as homely as Tom
+claims I am an' about as pleasant as a hod full of bumble bees."
+
+No one demonstrated interest in his offer and, as though he had not
+even heard it, Beck said:
+
+"Seems to me there's been a lot goin' on lately, Dad. Or did you mean
+there was a lot _more_ to do?"
+
+"I don't remember such awful activity," the other replied. "'Course,
+there's been--"
+
+"Nobody ever located those four mares an' their colts, did they? And
+the last we heard about that bunch of white faces they was headed
+towards Utah with a shod horse trailing 'em."
+
+Hepburn changed what started as an impatient expostulation into a sharp
+sigh and relieved himself by stabbing a spur into the hard ground.
+
+"Yes, there has been stealin'," he admitted. "There's been a lot of it.
+But who could do anything? The old man had been slack for years and in
+the last months before the end he just let go entire. He wouldn't even
+give anybody else authority enough to have any say; didn't even have a
+foreman. That's why horses an' cattle have been stole from him.
+
+"'Course, there's been more devil to pay since he died than went on
+before, but when a man leaves things in a lawyer's hands and the lawyer
+won't even look in on the job, what you goin' to do?"
+
+His manner was as benevolent as it was deliberate and he turned a
+paternal smile on Beck.
+
+"Let the thievin' go merrily on, I expect," the other said, giving the
+leather strips a series of sturdy jerks to tighten the mesh.
+
+"I expect you'd like to be foreman, wouldn't you, Dad?" Two-Bits asked
+innocently, whereupon Hepburn certified the accuracy of that surmisal
+by moving uneasily. "You'd make a fair foreman ... _fair_. Now
+Tommy here," he continued, oblivious of the older man's discomfiture
+and the delighted smiles of the others, "would make a fine foreman if
+he'd only give a damn. But he don't ... he don't. It's too bad, Tommy,
+you don't settle down and amount to somethin'. You're the best hand in
+this country!"
+
+Beck lifted his face and sniffed loudly.
+
+"The smell of your bouquet is about as delicate as your diplomacy,
+Two-Bits!" he said.
+
+Another pause. Beck resumed his whistling and Hepburn devoted his
+attention to the road. Once he looked at the other from the tail of his
+eye and a flicker of ill temper showed in his broad, grizzled face.
+
+"Her name's Jane, ain't it?" Two-Bits was an ardent conversationalist.
+"Jane Hunter! I knowed a school marm named Hunter onct. She was worse'n
+thunder for sourin' milk."
+
+"I'll bet--"
+
+"Listen!"
+
+Oliver held up his knife in gesture and Two-Bits stopped talking. The
+sounds of an approaching wagon were clearly audible.
+
+"I'll bet it's the mail instead of--"
+
+"You lose," muttered Hepburn, getting to his feet as a buckboard swung
+around the bend.
+
+"An' she sure's come to stay!" from Jimmy as he closed his knife with
+an air of finality.
+
+The body of the wagon was piled high with trunks and bags and beside
+the driver sat a very small woman. That she was not of the west, not
+the sort of woman these men had been accustomed to deal with, was
+evident from the clothes she wore, but at least one of them remarked
+that she was not wholly without the qualities essential to the frontier
+for, when the driver dropped down to open the gate, he gave her the
+reins to the lathered, excited horses which had brought her from the
+railroad. As soon as the gate swung open they sprang forward, but she
+put her weight on the reins and spoke with confident authority and
+wrenched them back.
+
+"Not exactly helpless, anyhow," Tom Beck said to himself.
+
+He was the only one of the group who did not walk across toward the
+cottonwoods which sheltered the long, red ranch house beside the creek.
+He sat there, braiding his belt, an indefinable half smile on his face.
+
+The girl--for girlishness was her outstanding quality--jumped out
+unassisted. She looked about slowly, at the house first of all, then at
+the low stable and the corrals and, lastly, down the creek, on either
+side of which the hills rose sharply, giving a false appearance of
+narrowness to the bottoms, and her eyes rested for a long moment on the
+ridges far below, blue and sharp in the crystal distance.
+
+She was unaware that the driver was waiting for her to give further
+directions and that the three others had come close and stopped,
+waiting for her to notice them, for she said aloud, as though to
+herself:
+
+"For a beginning, this is quite remarkable!" Then she laughed sharply,
+with a hard mirthless quality, and turned about. She was genuinely
+surprised to confront the men; evidence of this was in her eyes, which
+were large and remarkably blue. She smiled brightly and said:
+
+"Oh, I didn't know I was overlooking any one! I suppose you men belong
+here, on the ranch, and it's likely you've been waiting for the new
+owner to come. Well, here I am! I'm Jane Hunter and I want to know who
+you are. Now what is your name?"
+
+Her frankness, that unhesitating, assured manner of a distinct type of
+city-bred woman, was new but it over-rode somewhat the embarrassment
+they all felt.
+
+"My name is Hepburn, ma'am," Dad said and shook hands heavily. "I hope
+you like this place."
+
+"I know I shall, Mr. Hepburn. And your name?"
+
+"That's Jimmy Oliver, Miss Hunter," Hepburn said.
+
+Two-Bits had watched this with growing confusion and when she turned on
+him her searching, straightforward glance his freckles became lost in a
+pink suffusion. He swayed his body from the hips and looked high over
+her head as he offered a limp hand.
+
+"I'm Mister Beal," he said weakly.
+
+"Don't you believe that!" laughed Hepburn. "That's Two-Bits. He ain't
+entitled to any frills."
+
+"Two-Bits it is!" the girl cried, scanning his face in amazement at its
+color and contour. "I couldn't call you mister, Two-Bits. We're going
+to be too good friends for that!"
+
+"Oh my gosh!" giggled the flustered cowboy and turned away, seeking
+refuge in the bunkhouse.
+
+"You talk about me bein' got up by a feller that draws pictures, Tom,"
+he said to Beck. "Holy Tin Can, you ought to see her! Why, this feller
+that paints them girls for these here, now, magazines painted her! She
+looks like she walked right out of a picture, with blue eyes an' yeller
+hair an' all pink an' white. An' friendly.... Oh my, I'll bet she makes
+this outfit take notice!"
+
+Old Carlotta, the half-breed Mexican woman who had been housekeeper at
+the HC for years had come from the house to greet her new mistress.
+The trunks were carried in, the buckboard departed for its twenty-five
+mile trip back to town and the riders who had been at work further down
+the creek straggled in to hear the first tales of their new boss.
+
+Conjecture was high as to her plan of procedure.
+
+"It won't take long for things to happen. You can bank on that," Jimmy
+Oliver declared. "She ain't our kind of a woman an' the good Lord alone
+knows what notions she'll have, but she'll get busy! She's that kind."
+
+He was not wrong for just as the sun was drawing down into the hills
+Carlotta appeared at the bunkhouse.
+
+"Miss Hunter, she want to spik to Senor Dad an' Beck an' Jimmy an'
+Curtis," she said. "Right away, quick-_pronto_."
+
+"This must be a mass meetin' with th' rest of us left out," Two-Bits
+said. "I'd give a dollar to look at her again ... clost up. I'll bet I
+wouldn't be _afraid_ to look next time."
+
+The four men summoned went immediately to the big house. Beck lagged a
+trifle and it was certain from his manner that his curiosity was not
+greatly excited. He appeared to be amused, for his black eyes twinkled
+gaily, but as they passed through the gate they set their gaze on the
+back of Hepburn's broad neck and a curious speculation showed in them.
+
+Jane Hunter was waiting on the veranda which ran the length of the
+ranch house and without formalities began her explanation.
+
+"You all know the situation, I believe. My uncle left me this ranch and
+I have come from New York to take possession. How long I remain depends
+on a number of things, but I find that for the present at least, I must
+conduct my own business. For the last four weeks, since the property
+came to me, it has been in the hands of Mr. Alward, the attorney in
+town. I arrived yesterday expecting to have his help, but his doctor
+has sent him into a lower altitude because of some heart difficulty and
+I'm alone on the job with nothing to guide me but a lengthy letter he
+wrote.
+
+"I know little about business of any sort, I know nothing at all about
+ranching, so I have a great deal to learn. I do know that the first
+thing I need is an actual head for this place and that is why I called
+you here: to select a ... a foreman, you call him?
+
+"Mr. Alward left word that any one of you four men would be competent
+and I'm going to choose one of you by chance: Understand, this is no
+guarantee to keep whoever is chosen on the job for any length of time,
+but I don't care to take the responsibility of handling the men myself,
+as my uncle and as Mr. Alward have done. Some one must do this and
+until I learn enough to know what I want I will be dependent upon
+whomever is selected."
+
+She had spoken rapidly, at no loss for words, without a trace of
+hesitation or embarrassment, looking intently from face to face,
+studying the men as she explained her plan, but as she paused her eyes
+were on Beck's eyes and their gaze was arrested there a moment as
+though it had encountered something not usual.
+
+"I am going to need all your help and all the suggestions that you can
+give me,"--with a slight gesture to include the four, though she still
+looked straight at the tall Westerner,--"but I feel that at first there
+must be system of some sort, a man at the head of the organization. I'm
+going to let you draw straws for the place."
+
+The men stirred and looked at one another.
+
+"That's fair enough," said Dad, with just a trace of indecision in his
+voice.
+
+"For us," commented Curtis, a lean, leathery man.
+
+Jane stooped and picked up an oat straw. She broke off four pieces and
+placed them tightly between her thumb and palm.
+
+"Now, draw!" she directed, with a smile, holding them toward Curtis.
+"The lucky straw will be the shortest."
+
+Curtis silently selected one of the bits. Then Jimmy Oliver drew and
+the two stood eyeing the lots they had picked. Hepburn had cleared his
+throat twice rather sharply when the drawing commenced and as he
+stepped forward at her gesture he manifested an eagerness which did not
+quite harmonize with his usual deliberation. He drew, eyed his straw
+and glanced sharply at those held by the other two.
+
+Beck had not moved forward with the others, but stood back, thumbs
+hooked in his belt, his eyes, which were mildly smiling, still on the
+girl's face. She looked at him again and saw there something other than
+the interest that approached eagerness which had been evident in the
+others; she read another thing which caught her attention; the man was
+laughing at her, she felt, laughing at her and at the entire
+performance. It seemed to him to be an absurdity and as she searched
+his expression again and perceived that this was no bucolic whim but
+the attitude of a man whose assurance was as stable as her own the
+smile which had been on her face faded a degree.
+
+"Now it is your turn ... the last straw," she said to him.
+
+"Thank you, ma'am," he replied in an even, matter-of-fact voice, though
+that annoying smile was still in his eyes, "but I guess you can count
+me out."
+
+She lowered the hand which held the straw.
+
+"You don't care to draw?"
+
+"That's what I meant, ma'am."
+
+"And why not?"
+
+She was piqued, without good reason, at this refusal.
+
+"In the first place, ma'am, I've never taken a chance in my life, if I
+knew it. I've tried to arrange so I wouldn't have to. I'm a poor
+gambler."
+
+A suggestion of a flush crept into the girl's cheeks, for, though his
+manner was all frankness, he gave the impression that this was not his
+reason, or, at least, not his best reason; he seemed, in a subtle
+manner, to be poking fun at her. "Besides," he went on, "pickin' at
+pieces of straw don't seem like a good way to pick men."
+
+"You understand why it is being done that way?" Though her manner did
+not betray it, she felt as though she were on the defensive.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. I wasn't reflecting on you especially. I was thinkin'
+about your lawyer. But you won't be so very mad, if I ain't crazy to
+take a chance, will you? If anybody wants to know whether I can hold a
+job or not, I'd sooner have 'em ask about me or try me; when it comes
+to drawing lots I'll have to be counted out."
+
+His eyes had been squarely on hers throughout and when he ceased
+speaking they still clung. Beyond a doubt, she reasoned, that flicker
+in them was amusement and yet she felt no resentment towards him; was
+not even annoyed as she had been at his first refusal. It was
+interesting; it impressed her with a difference between him and the
+three who had drawn. For a moment she was impelled to argue; she wanted
+that man to help her more than she wanted to retain her poise ... just
+an instant.
+
+Abruptly she turned to the others.
+
+"Very well, we will see who did win."
+
+The four drew close together and measured.
+
+"Mr. Hepburn's is the shortest!" she cried; then looked at the fourth
+straw she still held. It was shorter by half an inch.
+
+"You would have drawn well," she said to Beck, holding it up.
+
+"So it seems, ma'am," he answered, but she noticed that he did not look
+at her. His eyes were on the new foreman's face, which was flushed with
+the depressions beneath the eyes puffed a bit. He was nervously
+breaking to shreds the straw which had won the place but about him was
+a bearing of unmistakable elation and something in his eyes, which were
+small, and about his chin suggested greed....
+
+The four started away and Jane stood watching them. Four! And one of
+them was to be her deputy in life's first--and perhaps life's
+saving--adventure. But she did not watch him, in fact, had no thought
+for him. Her eyes followed Tom Beck until he was out of sight and as
+she turned to enter the house she said:
+
+"But he looks as though he might take a ... long chance...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+MY ADVICE, MA'AM
+
+
+He stood on a bearskin rug before the blazing fire, hat in hand, boots
+polished, tall and trim with his handsome head bowed just a trifle. The
+blazing logs gave the only light to the place and his bronzed face was
+burnished by their reflection.
+
+"You sent for me?" he asked as she came into the room.
+
+She advanced from the shadows and for a moment did not reply. She felt
+that he was taking her in from her crown of light hair, down through
+the smart, high-collared waist to the short, scant skirt which showed
+her silken clad ankles and the modish shoes. His eyes rested on those
+shoes. He was thinking that they were wonderfully plain for a city girl
+to wear, at least the sort of city girl he had ever known. But they had
+a simplicity which he thought went well with her manner.
+
+"I had planned on talking to Mr. Hepburn this evening," she said. "I
+want to get all the information and all the advice I can from the
+start. Carlotta said he had gone away, so, in spite of the fact that
+you wouldn't gamble with me this afternoon, I sent for you. I think
+that you can tell me many things I need to know. You don't mind my
+asking you, do you? You don't feel that you'd be ... be taking a
+chance, talking to me?"
+
+She took his hat.
+
+"Sit down," motioning to the davenport before the fire. "Would you like
+to start with a drink?"
+
+"Why, yes," eyeing her calculatingly.
+
+"There's not much here. I slipped one bottle of Vermouth in a trunk.
+I'll have to try to mix a cocktail in a tumbler and there isn't any
+ice. It's likely to be a bad cocktail, but maybe it will help us talk."
+
+She walked down the long room toward the dining table and sideboard at
+the far end and he heard glass clinking and liquids gurgling as he sat
+looking about with that small part of a smile on his features. All
+along the walls were books and above the cases hung trophies of the
+country: heads of deer and elk, a pelt of a mountain lion and of a
+bobcat, a pair of magnificent sheep's horns and a stuffed eagle. In the
+low windows were boxes of geraniums, Carlotta's pride.
+
+"Here you are," she said as she returned, holding one of the two
+glasses toward Beck, who rose to accept it. "My uncle left a very small
+stock of drinks, but as soon as I know what I'm about I'll try to
+remedy that defect in an otherwise splendid establishment." Her manner
+was terse, brisk, open and her eyes met another's directly when she
+talked.
+
+She lifted her glass to her chin's level and smiled at him.
+
+"To the future!" she said.
+
+His question was adroitly timed for she had just given the glass a
+slight toss and was already carrying its rim toward her lips when his
+words checked the movement.
+
+"I take it, ma'am, that you'll want this liquor to go where it'll do
+your future the most good?"
+
+He looked from her down to the cocktail he held and moved the glass in
+a quick little circle to set the yellow liquid swirling. His voice had
+been quite casual, but when he raised his eyes to meet her inquiring
+look the last of a twinkle was giving way to gravity.
+
+"You mean?..."
+
+"Just about what I said: that you'd like to have this brace of drinks
+do your future some good?"
+
+"Why, yes, that was my intention. Why?"
+
+"You called me down here to get a little advice. Let's commence here."
+
+He reached out for her glass in a manner which was at once gentle and
+dominating, presumptuous but unoffending, with a measure of certainty;
+still, by his face, she might have told that he was experimenting with
+her, not just sure of how she would react, not, perhaps, caring a great
+deal. His fingers closed on her glass and she yielded with half
+laughing, half protesting astonishment. He took both glasses in one
+hand, moved deliberately toward the hearth and tossed their contents
+into the flames. He then set the empty tumblers on the mantel and
+turned about with a questioning smile on his lips.
+
+The sharp, slowly dwindling hiss of quenched flame which followed
+completely died out before she spoke. Color had leaped into her cheeks
+and ebbed as quickly; her lips had shut in a tight line and for a
+fraction of time it was as though she would angrily demand explanation.
+
+But she said evenly enough: "I don't understand that."
+
+"I'm glad you didn't show how mad it made you," he replied.
+
+"But why.... What made you do it?"
+
+"You said, you know, that you wanted that liquor to go where it'd help
+your future. I thought the fire was about the best place for it under
+the circumstances."
+
+"But why di--"
+
+"And I believed you when you said you had a lot to learn and that you
+called me down to start the job. You have a way of makin' people think
+you mean what you say. I'm mighty glad to give you advice; I thought
+this was a good way to begin."
+
+Jane gave a queer laugh and sat down, looking blankly into the fire.
+She turned her face after a moment and found him studying her as he sat
+at the other end of the davenport.
+
+"I understand your meaning," she said, "but you're as startling in your
+actions as you must be in your reasoning. You didn't object to the idea
+of a drink; I didn't think many of you people did out here."
+
+"We don't, ma'am. Most of us drink our share. I do."
+
+"But just now you threw yours away."
+
+"You see, I was bound to throw _yours_ away. It wouldn't have been
+polite, would it, for me to drink and not let you?" His smile mocked
+her. "Besides," dryly--"I ain't much on these fancy drinks. You warned
+me that it wouldn't be so very good anyhow."
+
+She stared at him in perplexity.
+
+"You have no scruples against drinking?"
+
+"Moderate drinking; no."
+
+"Then why did you take this liberty with me?"--suggesting indignation.
+
+"You see, you're a woman. You guessed a minute ago that there wasn't
+much objection to hard liquor here. I told you you were right; most of
+us boys drink, but we can afford to and you can't." His manner was
+light, almost to the degree of banter, as if that which had aroused her
+was the simplest of matters.
+
+"A man in this country don't build a reputation on many things. So long
+as he's honest, he gets along pretty well. But a woman: that's
+different. She has to make people know she's right in everything she
+does."
+
+"An occasional drink will make her less right?"
+
+"Not a bit less, ma'am, but it won't help other folks to know she's
+right. And that's all that counts. Everybody, man or woman, who comes
+into the west has to make or break by what he does here; nothin' that
+has been, good or bad, matters. They commence from the bottom again and
+by what they do people judge them.
+
+"Reputation is the first thing you've got to make for yourself.
+Everybody is watchin' you: the boys here on the ranch, the neighbors
+down creek, the people in town. You've got to show that you're honest,
+that you've got courage; if you were a man it could stop there, but
+you're a woman an' that makes it....
+
+"Well, men out here expect things from a woman that I guess men in
+cities don't think so much about and you might as well know now as any
+time that men in this country don't like to see a woman do some of the
+things they do. We ain't as polite as some; we ain't as gentle, when
+it's necessary to act quick and for sure, but maybe we make up for some
+of our roughness in the idea we have of women. We think a good woman is
+about as fine a thing as God has made, ma'am, and we have our ideas of
+goodness.
+
+"You see, you've got to handle men; you've got to have their respect
+and you won't have their respect if you don't understand how they
+think, and then act accordingly.
+
+"Besides, you're on a job that's going to take all the brains and grit
+and strength you've got. Booze never helped anybody on a job like that.
+If you was a man and your job was just ridin' after cattle it'd be
+different. But neither one is the case....
+
+"My advice, ma'am!"
+
+She watched his face a moment before saying:
+
+"As long as I can remember, women about me have been drinking. Ever
+since I grew up I've been drinking. I've never taken too much; I've
+never needed it; I've done it because ... because it was being done."
+
+"Yeah. Well, it ain't done here. It's a new country and a new life for
+you and one of the first things you've got to learn is how to get on
+with people. Maybe back east some of the folks wouldn't respect you if
+you didn't drink. There are folks like that, who think it's smart to do
+certain things, and maybe there are a lot of 'em like you, who don't
+need it, don't even want it, but they do it because of their
+reputations.
+
+"You see, it's the same rule workin' backwards out here."
+
+The girl moved to face the fire again. She scowled a trifle and the
+glow on her cheeks was not wholly due to the reflection of the blazing
+logs.
+
+"Did it ever occur to you that there might be people who gave little
+attention to what others think of them?" she asked rather coldly.
+
+"Sure thing! There are lots like that."
+
+"I can see where, if a stranger were to plan to stay in a place like
+this for long it might be expedient to ... to cater to the community
+morals. I don't intend to be a permanent resident. That is, I won't if
+I can help it. I don't expect that I'd ever come up to your notion of a
+worthy woman,"--a bitterness creeping into the voice--"so perhaps it is
+fortunate that I look on this ranch only as means to an end."
+
+"You mean, money, ma'am?" he asked, and when she did not reply at once
+he went on: "Folks generally come west for one of three reasons: money
+or health or because they like the country. I take it your health's all
+right ... and that you ain't just struck with the country."
+
+She made a slight grimace and sat forward, elbows on knees.
+
+"Yes, money!" she said under her breath. "I came here to get it. I'm
+going to." She looked up at him quickly, eyebrows arched in a somewhat
+defiant query, and, after a pause, went on: "You don't seem to approve?"
+
+"No, ma'am," candidly, that smile only half hidden in his eyes.
+
+"And why not? What else is there out here for a woman like me?"
+
+"That's a hard question. One thing she might find is herself, for
+instance."
+
+She gave a startled laugh and asked:
+
+"Herself?"
+
+"The same, ma'am. I s'pose there are folks who live for money and what
+it'll bring 'em. Cities must be full of 'em, or there wouldn't be so
+many cities. Folks do work pretty hard to make money an' pile it up,
+but I've never seen any of 'em that got to be very successful in other
+ways. The more money they made the more they seemed to depend on makin'
+money to attract attention. They don't seem to think that it ain't what
+a man does that really counts so much as what he is. The same goes for
+a woman."
+
+She sat back, brows drawn together.
+
+"Are you trying to preach to me?" she asked sharply.
+
+Beck laughed lightly, as though that obvious hurting of her pride
+delighted him.
+
+"Not just, ma'am. Preachers hammer away at folks about sin and such. I
+hadn't thought about you as a sinner; I was just considerin' you and
+your job; and what you say brought you here.
+
+"It's none of my business what you want to get out of life. You told me
+what you wanted and asked me if I didn't like it, and I don't. That's
+all.
+
+"It seems to me that everybody who's alive ought to want to get the
+best out of himself and I don't think you can do it by just tryin' to
+herd dollars." He divined in her retort what she was withholding.
+"Sure, I'm only an ordinary cowpuncher, ma'am. I don't seem to care
+much about any kind of success but I'm afflicted like everybody else:
+I'm a human being, and every one of us likes to pick on the faults he
+finds in others that correspond to his own faults....
+
+"You see, you've got a big chance here. You've got a chance to be
+somebody. This is one of the biggest outfits in this state. All this
+country out here has been this outfit's range for years. You ain't got
+a neighbor in miles because you amount to so much. Away down Coyote
+Creek, 'most thirty miles, is Riley's ranch, an' close by him is
+Hewitt's. Off west an' south is Pat Webb's who, far as you're
+concerned, might better be a good deal further west," dryly.
+
+"Your uncle an' Riley was the first in here. Why, ma'am, they had to
+fight Indians to protect their cattle! They made names for 'emselves.
+They made money, too, or at least your uncle did, but he wasn't
+respected just because he made money. Men liked him because he
+_did_ things.
+
+"Men will like you if you do things, ma'am.... Perhaps you'll like
+yourself better, too."
+
+He looked into her eyes and their gazes were for the moment very
+serious. Jane Hunter was meeting with a new sense of values; Tom Beck
+had sensed a faint recklessness, a despair, about her and, behind all
+his mockery and lightness, was a warm heart. Then she terminated the
+interval of silence by saying rather impatiently:
+
+"That's all very interesting, but what you said about my needing my
+brains and my grit is of greater interest. Do you mean that it's just a
+big job naturally or that there are complications?"
+
+"Both."
+
+"How much of both?"
+
+Beck shoved a hand into his pocket and gave his head a skeptical twist.
+
+"That remains to be seen. It's a man's job to run this place under
+favorable conditions. Your uncle, Colonel Hunter, sort of got shiftless
+in the last years. He let things slide. I don't know about debts and
+such, but I suspect there are some. There are other things, though.
+You've got some envious neighbors ... and some that ain't particular
+how they make their money,"--with just a shade of emphasis on the last.
+
+"You mean that they steal?"
+
+"Plenty, ma'am."
+
+"But how? Who?"
+
+"I don't know, but it seems to be gettin' quite the custom here to get
+rich off the HC ... especially since the place changed owners."
+
+"Why at that particular time?"
+
+"Since it got noised about that a woman was goin' to own it there's
+been a lively interest in crime. I told you that your uncle was a man
+who was respected a lot. Some feared him, too."
+
+"And they won't respect me because I'm a woman?"
+
+"That's about it. It's believed, ma'am, that a woman, 'specially an
+Eastern woman, can't make a go of it out here, so what's the use of
+givin' her a fair show?"
+
+He waited for her to speak again but she did not and he added with that
+experimental manner:
+
+"So, maybe, if you want to make money, it'd be well to find a buyer.
+Maybe if you was to take an interest in this ranch and did want to be
+... to stay in this country, you couldn't make it go."
+
+"Do you think that's impossible?"
+
+He waited a moment before saying:
+
+"I don't know. You don't make a very good start, ma'am."
+
+"At least you are deliciously frank!"
+
+"It pays; it does away with misunderstandings. I wouldn't want you to
+think--since you've asked me--that I believed you could make a go of
+this ranch, even if you wanted to."
+
+That stung her sharply; she drew her breath in with a slight sound and
+leaned quickly forward as if ready to denounce his skepticism, but she
+did not speak.
+
+She only arose impatiently and walked to the mantel.
+
+"Do you smoke?" she asked, holding out a box of cigarettes.
+
+"Yes; do you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+In the word was a clear defiance. She struck a match and held it
+towards him; then lighted her own cigarette.
+
+Seated again, she stared into the fire, smoking slowly, but as his eyes
+remained fast on her the color crept upward into her cheeks, higher and
+brighter until she turned to meet the gaze that was on her and with a
+bite to the words asked:
+
+"You don't approve of this, either?"
+
+"Why, ma'am, I like to smoke."
+
+"But you stare at me as though I were committing a crime."
+
+"You see, you're the first good white woman I've ever seen smoke."
+
+"You--" She checked the question, looked at him and then eyed her
+cigarette critically.
+
+"I don't suppose women out here do smoke, do they?"
+
+"No, ma'am; not much."
+
+"And you men? You men who drink and smoke don't want the women to enjoy
+the same privilege?"
+
+"That appears about it."
+
+She did not answer. He rose and looked down upon her. One tendril of
+her golden hair, like silk in texture, caressed her fine-grained cheek,
+delicately contrasted against its alluring color. He would have liked
+to press it closer to the skin with his fingers ... quite gently. But
+he said:
+
+"I guess you and I don't understand each other very well, and, if we
+don't, it ain't any use in our talking further. As for advisin' you
+about your business...."
+
+Jane blew on her ash.
+
+"I just tried to show you how to start right, accordin' to my notion,
+and if it made you mad I'm sorry.
+
+"After all, it don't make so much difference what other folks think of
+us. It's what we think of ourselves that counts most, but none of us
+can get clear away from the other _hombre's_ ideas."
+
+That twinkle crept back in to his eyes. Her little frame fairly
+bristled independence and self-sufficiency; it was in the pert set of
+her head, the poise of her square shoulders, the languid swinging of
+one small foot.
+
+"I think that you think a lot of yourself, ma'am. That's more 'n most
+folks can say."
+
+She rose as he reached for his hat.
+
+"I'm glad to have your opinion on the proportions of my job," she said
+briefly, "and for that I am glad that you came in."
+
+The oblique rebuke could not be misunderstood.
+
+"I'm complimented," he replied, and, although she looked frankly and
+impersonally up at him, she had a quick fear that despite her assurance
+this man was leaving her with a strange feeling of inferiority, and
+when he went through the doorway into the night she was quite certain
+he was smiling merrily.
+
+She stood until the sound of his footsteps dwindled, then turned to the
+table and stood idly caressing the wood. Her fingers encountered
+something which she picked up and examined, at first abstractedly. It
+was a bit of straw, the one Beck had refused and, which drawn, would
+have made him her right hand man. She moved towards the fire to toss it
+into the flames; checked herself and, instead, put it between the
+covers of a book which lay handy.
+
+She stood on the stone hearth thinking of what he had said, cigarette
+smoke curling up her small hand and delicate wrist. The offended
+feeling subsided and, wonderingly, she tried to restimulate it; the
+sensation would not return! Of a sudden she felt small and weak and of
+little consequence.
+
+So he doubted, even, that she could be herself!
+
+She dropped the stub of her cigarette into the fire and, frowning,
+reached for another, and tapped its end on the mantel. She struck a
+match and put the white cylinder to her lips. Then, quite slowly, she
+waved the glare out and tossed the tiny stick into the coals. With a
+movement which was so deliberate that it was almost weary she dropped
+the unlighted cigarette after it. Slight as was the gesture there was
+in it something of finality.
+
+The coals were dimmed with ash before she moved to walk slowly to the
+window and look out. It was cold and still.
+
+A movement among the cottonwoods attracted her. A man was walking
+there, slowly, as one on patrol. She watched him go the length of the
+row of trees; then followed his slow progress back, saw him stand
+watching the house a moment before he moved on towards the bunkhouse.
+
+She lay awake for hours that night, partly from a helpless rage and,
+later, a rare thrill, a hope, perhaps, kept sleep from her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE NESTER--AND ANOTHER
+
+
+"Now about the men, Miss Hunter," said Hepburn. When he reached this
+subject he looked through the deep window far down the creek and had
+Jane known him better she might have seen hesitancy with his
+deliberation, as though he approached the subject reluctantly.
+
+"How many will you need?" she asked.
+
+"Not many yet. Four besides myself. There's seven here now. That is,
+there'll be six, because one is pullin' out this mornin' of his own
+accord. We'll need more when the round-up starts, but until then--about
+June--we can get along. The fewer the better."
+
+"That will be largely up to you. Of course, I will be consulted."
+
+"I guess we'll keep Curtis and Oliver. Then there's Two-Bits--"
+
+"Oh, keep Two-Bits by all means!" she laughed. "I'm in love with him
+already!"
+
+"All right, we'll keep Two-Bits. As for the other, there's a chance to
+choose because--"
+
+"Beck; how about him?"
+
+Her manner was a bit too casual and she folded a sheet of memoranda
+with minute care before her foreman, who eyed her sharply, replied:
+
+"He's settled that for himself, I guess. He was packin' his war bag
+when I come down here. I told him to come to the house for his time."
+
+"You mean he's leaving?"
+
+Hepburn nodded.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, I guess his nose is out of joint at not bein' picked for
+foreman."
+
+"But he wouldn't even draw. Said he wouldn't take a chance!"
+
+"I know. He appeared not to give a hang for the job, but he's a funny
+man. He an' I never got along any too well. We don't hitch."
+
+"Is he a good worker?"
+
+"If he wants to be. He don't say much, but he always.... Why, he always
+seems to be laughin' at everybody and everything."
+
+"I think _I_ could persuade him to want to work for me."
+
+"Perhaps. But then, too, he's hot tempered. In kind of bad with some of
+the boys over trouble he's had."
+
+"What trouble?"
+
+"Why, principally because he beat up a man--Sam McKee--on the beef ride
+last fall."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"Well.... He thought this man was a little rough with his horse."
+
+"And he whipped him because he had abused a horse? That, it seems to
+me, isn't much against him."
+
+"No; maybe not. He beat him a sight worse than he beat his horse," he
+explained, moving uneasily. "Anyhow, he's settled that. Here he comes
+now, after his time."
+
+Jane stepped nearer the window. Beck approached, whistling softly. He
+wore leather chaps with a leather fringe and great, silver conchos. A
+revolver swung at his hip. His movements were easy and graceful. She
+opened the door and, seeing her, he removed his hat.
+
+"I've come for my time, ma'am," he explained.
+
+"Won't you come in? Maybe you're not going to go just yet."
+
+He entered and she thought that as he glanced at Hepburn, who did not
+look up, his eyes danced with a flicker of delight.
+
+"I don't know as I can stay, ma'am. I told your foreman a little while
+ago that I'd be going. Somebody's got to go, and it may as well be one
+as another."
+
+"Don't you think my wishes should be consulted?" she asked.
+
+He twirled his hat, looking at her with a half smile.
+
+"This is your outfit, ma'am. I should think your wishes ought to go,
+but it won't do for you to start in with more trouble than's necessary."
+
+"But if I want you and Mr. Hepburn wants you, where is the chance for
+trouble? You _do_ want him, don't you, Mr. Hepburn?"
+
+The older man looked up with a forced grin.
+
+"Bless you, Miss Hunter, yes! Why, Tom, the only reason I thought we
+might as well part was because I figured you'd be discontented here."
+
+"Now! You see, your employer wants you and your foreman wants you. What
+more can you ask?" the girl exclaimed, facing Beck.
+
+"Nothin' much, of course, unless what I think about it might matter."
+
+Her enthusiasm ebbed and she looked at him, clearly troubled.
+
+"I am not urging you to stay because I need one more man. It is
+essential to have men I can trust. I can trust you. I need you. I ...
+I'm quite alone, you know, and I have decided to stay ... if I
+_can_ stay."
+
+She flushed ever so slightly at the indefinable change in his eyes.
+
+"You told me last night some of the things I must do, which I can't do
+wholly alone. I should like very much to have you stay,"--ending with a
+girlish simplicity quite unlike her usual manner.
+
+"Maybe my advice and help ain't what you'd call good," he said.
+
+"I thought it over when you had gone," she said, "and I came to the
+conclusion that it was good advice." Her eyes remained on his,
+splendidly frank.
+
+"Some of us are apt to be disconcerted when we listen to new things;
+and, again, when we know that they come sincerely and our pride quits
+hurting we're inclined, perhaps, to take a new point of view. I have,
+on some things."
+
+His face sobered in the rare way it had and he said:
+
+"I'm mighty glad."
+
+Hepburn had watched them closely, not understanding, and in his usually
+amiable face was a cunning speculation.
+
+"I wouldn't ask you to take a chance against your better judgment. If
+you must move on, I'm sorry. But ... I need you."
+
+With those three words she had ended: I need you. But in them was a
+plea, frank, unabashed, and her eyes were filled with it and as he
+stood looking down at his hat, evidently undecided, she lifted one hand
+in appeal and spoke again in a tone that was low and sweet:
+
+"Won't you, please?"
+
+He nodded and said:
+
+"I'll stay."
+
+"I'm so glad!" she cried. "And you're glad, aren't you, Mr. Hepburn?"
+
+The foreman had watched closely, trying to determine just what this all
+meant, but not knowing what had gone before, he was mystified. At her
+question he forced a show of heavy enthusiasm and said:
+
+"Bet your life!" Then looking up to see the tall cowboy eyeing him with
+that half humorous smile, he rose and said:
+
+"Now we can start doing business. Tom, Miss Hunter wants a horse, says
+she can ride and wants the best we've got, right off, to-day. There's
+that bunch that's been ranging in Little Pinon all winter. Guess we'd
+better bring 'em down this forenoon and let her pick one."
+
+They departed. They had little to say to one another in the hours it
+required to gather the horses and bring them down, but when they were
+within sight of the corrals Hepburn began to speak as though what he
+had to say was the result of careful deliberation.
+
+"I don't want us to have any misunderstandin', Tom. This mornin' I
+figured you wanted to move and I don't want any man in the outfit who'd
+rather be somewhere else, so long as I'm runnin' it." He shifted his
+weight in the saddle and glanced at Beck, who rode looking straight
+ahead. "'Course, you and I ain't been pals. I've thought sometimes you
+didn't just like me--"
+
+"I s'pose she'll want a gentle horse," the other broke in.
+
+"Prob'ly....
+
+"You and I can be friends, I know. We can get along--"
+
+"Look at this outfit!" Beck interrupted again, this time with better
+reason.
+
+Around the bend in the road appeared a queer cavalcade. It was headed
+by a pair of ancient mules drawing a covered wagon, on the seat of
+which sat a scrawny, discouraged man with drooping lids, mustache and
+shoulders. To the wagon were tied three old mares and behind them
+trailed a half dozen colts, ranging from one only a few weeks old to a
+runty three-year-old.
+
+These were followed by a score of cattle, mostly cows and yearling
+calves, and the rear was brought up by a girl, riding a big brown horse.
+
+She was young, and yet her face was strangely mature. She wore a hat,
+the worse for wear, a red shirt, open at the throat, a riding skirt and
+dusty boots. She was slouched easily in the saddle, as one who has
+ridden much.
+
+Tom spurred ahead to prevent their horses from entering a draw which
+opened on the road just where they must pass and as he slowed to a walk
+and looked back he saw Hepburn making a movement of one hand. That hand
+was just dropping to the fork of his saddle but--and he knew that this
+may have been purely a product of his imagination--he thought that it
+had been lifted in a gesture of warning.
+
+The foreman halted and the wagon stopped with a creak, as of relief.
+
+"Just foller on down and swing to the left. Keep right on. You'll pass
+the state boundry," Beck heard Hepburn say.
+
+The wagon started again and Dad joined him.
+
+"Goin' some place?" Tom asked.
+
+"Utah. He was askin' the way."
+
+Just then the girl came within easy talking distance.
+
+"Goin' far?" Tom asked.
+
+"Not so very fur," the other replied sullenly and swung a worn quirt
+against her boot.
+
+They rode on after their horses.
+
+"Nesters," Beck commented grimly. "They're a bad lot to see comin' in."
+
+"Thank God, they're headed for Utah," Dad replied.
+
+"Yeah. Utah's a long ways, though. The girl didn't seem to think they
+was going so very far."
+
+The other made no answer and after a moment Beck said:
+
+"Notice the brand on them cattle? THO? That ain't a good neighbor for
+the HC to have.... Unless it's an honest neighbor."
+
+"Well, they're goin' into Utah," Dad said doggedly.
+
+"You know, Hepburn, one of the first things I'd do if I was foreman of
+this outfit?" Beck asked.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Take up the water in Devil's Hole. That's the best early feed this
+outfit has got, but without water it's worthless. Nesters are comin'
+in, which would worry me, if I was foreman. The Colonel had somebody
+file on it once, planning to buy when he'd patented the claim. This
+party didn't make good, and the matter dropped."
+
+The other did not reply for a moment, but looked hard at his horse's
+ears, as if struggling to control himself.
+
+"I've already took that up with her," he said sulkily, and stirred in
+his saddle.
+
+"If I wasn't foreman of an outfit, do you know what I'd do? I'd let the
+foreman do the worryin'."
+
+Beck scratched his chin with a concern which surely could not have been
+genuine, for he said:
+
+"Yeah. That's the best way. Only..."
+
+"Well, you had your chance to be foreman; why didn't you take it?"
+
+Beck pondered a moment.
+
+"In the first place I wasn't crazy wild to stay with this outfit,
+'cause when I lift my nose in the air and sniff real careful, I can
+smell a lot of hell coming this way, and I'm a mighty meek and peaceful
+citizen.
+
+"In the second place, I don't care much about drawing the best job in
+the country like I'd draw a prize cake at a church social."
+
+Hepburn sniffed.
+
+"You passed it up, though. Now, why don't you pass up worryin' about my
+job?"
+
+Beck did not reply at once, but turned on the other a taunting,
+maddening smile.
+
+"You're right. I passed it up, but there's something that won't let me
+pass up the worry.
+
+"You know what that is,"--nodding toward the distant ranch house. "You
+know she's in a jack pot. You heard her tell me she needed good men,
+men she could trust, and the good Lord knows that's so. You know I
+stayed on because she asked me like she meant it and not because I
+fancied the job.
+
+"I've got a notion that makin' good out here means more to her than
+making money; I like her style, and I like to help her sort if I can.
+That's why I may do more 'n an ordinary hand's share of worryin'.
+
+"You know, somebody's got to,"--significantly.
+
+"What's meant by that, Beck?" Dad asked after a moment and the grit in
+his tone told that the insinuation had not missed its mark.
+
+"If it was so awful hard for you to guess, Hepburn, I don't think you'd
+get on the peck so easy. I mean that since she's asked me to stay and
+work for her, I'm on the job. Not only with both hands and feet and
+what head I've got, but with my eyes and my ears and my heart.
+
+"I don't want trouble, but if I've got to take trouble on, I'll do it
+on the run; you can tie to that! I don't like you, Hepburn; I don't
+trust you. Your way ain't my way--No, no, you listen to _me!_" as
+the other attempted to interrupt. "A while back you was trying to talk
+friendship to me when I'm about as popular with you as fever. I don't
+do things in that style. I ain't got a thing on you, but if this was my
+ranch I wouldn't want you for my foreman."
+
+"You mean you think I'd double cross her an--"
+
+"I don't recall bein' that specific. I just mentioned that I don't
+trust you. There's no use in your getting so wrought up over it. I may
+be wrong. If I am you'll win. I may be takin' a chance, which is
+against my religion, but I'm here to work for this Hunter girl and her
+only and it won't be healthy for anybody who is working against her to
+bring himself to my notice.
+
+"I guess we understand each other. Maybe you can get me fired. If so,
+that's satisfactory to me. So long as I'm here and working for you,
+I'll be the best hand you've got. If you're lookin' for good hands I'll
+satisfy you. If you ain't ... we may not get along so well."
+
+There was a seriousness in his eyes, but behind it was again the
+flicker of mockery as though this might not be such a serious matter
+after all.
+
+"We'll see, Beck," Hepburn said with a slow nodding. "We understand
+each other. You've covered a lot of territory. Your cards are on the
+table. Bet!"
+
+Tom stroked his horse's withers thoughtfully. He continued to smile,
+but the smile was not pleasant.
+
+When they entered the big gate an automobile was standing before the
+bunkhouse and after turning the horses into a corral they dismounted
+and walked towards it.
+
+"Hello, Larry!" exclaimed Hepburn. "What brings you out?"
+
+"Nothin' much, judgin' by his conversation," replied the man who had
+driven the car.
+
+"Visitor?"
+
+"Dude. Regular dude from N'Yawk, b' Gosh!" He spat and grinned. "Come
+in yesterday and was busier 'n hell all day buzzin' around town. First
+thing this a. m. he wants to come here. Great attraction you've got, it
+seems."
+
+"The new boss?"
+
+"Th' same, indeed! I seen her. Quite a peach, I'll go on record. But
+... Th' boys tell me she's going to run this outfit with her own lily
+white hands."
+
+"So she says," replied Dad benevolently. "I think she'll do a good job,
+too."
+
+"Like so much hell, you do! An' I hear you're foreman, Dad. You
+figurin' on marryin' the outfit or gettin' rich by honest endeavor?"
+
+"Sho, Larry! You and your jokes!" the man grumbled good naturedly and
+entered the building.
+
+"Well, if any of you waddies are calculatin' marryin' this filly you've
+got to build to her. This dude sure means business. He's found out more
+about the HC in one day than I ever knew. Besides, what I knew an' he
+didn't he got comin' out. Sure's a devil for obtainin' news.
+
+"There he is now; see?"
+
+He gestured toward the ranch house where Jane and the stranger stood on
+the veranda, the girl pointing to the great sweep of country which
+showed down creek. Then they turned and reentered the house.
+
+"And so this is yours!" the man laughed. "Yours and your business!"
+
+"My business, Dick! For the first time I feel as though I had a real
+object in living."
+
+He smiled cynically.
+
+"Jane, Queen of the Range!" he mocked.
+
+She did not smile with him, but said soberly:
+
+"I expect it is funny to you. It must be funny to all the old crowd. I
+can hear them, as soon as they know that I have decided to stay here,
+the girls at tea, the men in their clubs, talking it over. Jane Hunter,
+burying herself in the mountains and _doing_ something, becoming
+earnest and serious minded, getting up with the sun and going to bed at
+dark! It is strange!"
+
+"It's too strange for life, Jane," he said, pulling up his trousers
+gingerly and sitting on the davenport. He leaned back and smoothed his
+sleek hair. "It isn't real. You're going to wake up before long and
+find that out.
+
+"It was absurd enough for you to come here, but this preposterous
+notion that you are going to _stay_.... Why, that's beyond words!
+What got into you, anyhow?"
+
+He eyed her closely.
+
+"I don't know, yet. It's a strange impulse but it's real, the first
+real thing that's ever gotten into me, I guess. I know only that ...
+except that it is a pleasant sensation.
+
+"When I left New York I was desperate. I came here to take something
+tangible that was mine and go back with it and now I've found out that
+the thing I want is nothing that I can see or touch, that I can't take
+it away with me. Not for a long time, anyhow. It isn't waiting
+ready-made for me; I must create it from the materials that are in my
+hands."
+
+He continued to look at her a thoughtful moment.
+
+"You've told me a lot about yourself and about this ranch and about
+these men who are working for you. You've told me about this country
+and, rather vaguely, about your plans. I suspect you don't know much
+about them yet," he added parenthetically. "You've not asked a question
+about New York, nor why I came."
+
+She picked a yellowed leaf from a geranium plant and turned to face him.
+
+"As for New York," she said with a lift of the eyebrows and a quick
+tilt of her head, "I don't give a ... damn,"--softly. "As for your
+coming, I didn't need ask. When a man has followed a girl wherever she
+has gone, to sea, to other countries, for four years, there is nothing
+surprising in the fact that he should trail her only two-thirds of the
+way across this continent....
+
+"But it's no use, Dick. I made up my mind that I would not marry you
+before I came here. I tried to convince you of the honesty of my
+purpose in my last letter, but perhaps I failed because I wasn't truly
+honest with myself then. I thought I was through, but, in reality, I
+was only planning a variation of the old way of doing things.
+
+"Now I'm finished, absolutely, with the rot I've called life!"
+
+She lifted her chin and shook her head in emphasis. The man laughed.
+
+"You amuse as much as you thrill me," he said, looking at her hungrily.
+
+"That's a splendid way to help a fellow: to laugh at the first effort I
+make to justify my existence."
+
+"I want to help you, Jane. I've always wanted to help you. I've put
+myself and what I have at your disposal. I've not only done that, but
+I've begged and pleaded and schemed to make you take them. You'd never
+listen when I talked love to you.
+
+"You've always seemed to be a peculiarly material-minded girl and I had
+to play on that. But when I've talked ease and comfort and luxury to
+you, you know that I've meant more than just those things. It's been
+love, Jane ... love in every syllable."
+
+He rose and walked to stand before her.
+
+"That hurt," she said, with a sharp little laugh. "That ...
+materialism. But I believe it was only too true. It had to be, you see.
+It was the only thing I could see to live for. There was the one thing
+I missed, the thing I had expected to find. It was the thing you talked
+about: Love. I wanted love, tried to find love and at twenty-five gave
+it up. That's a horrible thing, Dick. Giving that up at twenty-five!"
+
+"But I have offered you love, continually, for four years."
+
+"Dick ... oh, Dick! You don't know what that means. You showed that
+when you selected your tactics: trying to give me things that I could
+taste and touch and see.
+
+"If it had been love, the real thing, that you felt, you'd have
+overwhelmed me with it, you would not have allowed another
+consideration to enter, you'd have swept me off my feet with making me
+understand that it was love. You wouldn't have talked places and
+motors, luxury and aimlessness."
+
+Her voice shook. She was hurt, bordering on anger.
+
+"You pass the buck," he retorted evenly. "You've told me, time after
+time, that love didn't matter to you."
+
+"Not the sort you offered. It never could."
+
+"There's another kind, then?"
+
+"Somewhere,"--with an emphatic nod.
+
+"You think you can find the sort you're looking for here?"
+
+"I don't know. I haven't thought of that yet, but I know there is
+something else I can find."
+
+"And that?"
+
+"Myself!"--stoutly.
+
+He threw back his head with a hearty laugh.
+
+"You talk like a convert, Jane!"
+
+"I am, Dick. Just that. I've seen the evil of my ways, I have seen the
+light; I'm going to try to justify my existence, going to try to stand
+for something, to be something, not just a girl with looks or with ...
+money.
+
+"I may miss love entirely, but I have realized, all of a sudden, that
+as yet I'm not fit for the love I wanted. Why, I have nothing to give
+to a man; I would take all and give nothing. A woman doesn't win a true
+love by such a transaction. If I can stand alone, if I can fight my own
+battles, if I can overcome obstacles that are as real as the love I
+have wanted, then I will be justified in seeking that love....
+
+"And there's another consideration: If this thing I have wanted never
+does come I have the opportunity of gaining all that you say you could
+give me by my own efforts: the comforts, the material things. I
+wouldn't be trading myself for them, you see; I'll be winning them with
+my hands and what intelligence I may possess."
+
+"Are you sure of that, Jane? Are you sure that a girl who has never
+done a tap of work in her life, who has not even talked business with
+business men can come out here and beat this game? Oh, I know what I'm
+talking about and you don't. I spent all yesterday in town looking up
+this place because your letter was convincing in at least one thing. I
+know your enthusiasm, when it's aroused. I know that you'd rush in
+where a business prince wouldn't even chance a peek!
+
+"When men talk about you in town they grin. The bartender grinned when
+he told me about you. The banker grinned. The man who drove me out
+thought it was a fine joke! These men know; they're not skeptical
+because they know you or your past, but they know the job and that
+you're a stranger. That's enough. You can't beat another man's game."
+
+"I can try, can't I?"
+
+"But what's the use?"--with a gesture of impatience and a set of the
+mouth that was far from pleasant. "You're doomed to fail and even if
+you should hit on the one chance in a thousand of pulling through, what
+would you get? Less than I can give you in the time it takes to sign my
+name. You won't let me talk love and you don't seem to have much hope
+that you ever will find the love you think you want, so let's put love
+aside once more. Come with me, Jane. I'll give you all you could ever
+hope to get here and without the cost of the awful effort anything like
+success would require.
+
+"You've been bored, perhaps, and discouraged. You've taken this thing
+as a ... a last straw. Won't you listen to reason?"
+
+"The last straw," she repeated. "Yes, I guess that is it. Dick, do you
+know how close I came to letting you do the thing you want to do?" She
+put the question sharply. "I'll tell you: Within three hundred dollars!
+That's how close.
+
+"Oh, you don't know the game I've played. No one knows it. You all have
+just seen the exterior, the show. You've never been behind the scenes
+with me.
+
+"I never knew my mother. I never knew my father well. I don't know that
+he cared much for me after she went; perhaps, though, he was only
+afraid to bring up a girl alone. First, it was boarding school, then
+finishing school, then a woman companion of the smart sort. Then he
+died, and we discovered that his fortune was not what it had been, that
+it was a miserable thing for a girl to depend on who had been trained
+as I had been trained.
+
+"You met me soon after I was alone. I fell in with your crowd and they
+picked me up. I didn't like them particularly and certainly I didn't
+like their life, but it was the only one open for me. We lived hard,
+heartless lives, made up of week-ends and dances and cocktails and
+greed!
+
+"Materialism is the right charge! I was steeped in it; all those girls
+were. It was the only thing any of us lived for. Girls sold themselves
+for material advantage; they loathed it, most of them, but they lied to
+themselves and tried to make the rest of us believe it was happiness.
+They knew, and we knew what it was and we knew, too, that they were
+helpless to do otherwise.
+
+"Then you came and made love to me on the same crass basis. I liked
+you, Dick. I didn't love you. I cared no more for you than I did for
+three or four men so I kept putting you off, never actually
+discouraging you to a point where you would give up. I was simply
+closing my eyes to the inevitable.
+
+"Now and then we met women, to us strange creatures, who did things. I
+never can make anyone understand how inferior I felt beside them. Why,
+I remember one little decorator who, because she was young and cheap,
+came to do my apartment over. I had her stay for dinner and she was
+quite overwhelmed with many things.
+
+"When she went away I cried from sheer envy ... and she was going down
+somewhere into Greenwich Village to sleep in a stuffy little studio.
+But she was _doing_ something. I used to feel guilty before my
+dressmaker and even my maid. I didn't understand why that was, then; it
+was not a sensation produced by reason; by intuition, rather.
+
+"And then I had to look at things as they were. I paid up everything
+and totaled my bank balance. Every source of income I had ever had was
+gone and I had left ... three hundred and two dollars. That was on a
+Friday, the Friday of our last week-end party at the Hollisters' in
+Westchester.
+
+"You talked to me again that night after we had been playing billiards.
+Dick, I had made up my mind to take you up. The words were on my lips;
+I was within a breath of telling you that it was a bargain, that I'd
+sell myself to you for the things you could buy me....
+
+"I don't know why I didn't. Maybe it was this part of me I had never
+known until I came here, this part which enthuses so over what lies
+before me now, the part that used to envy the girls who did things. We
+went back to town and there was a letter for me from this little
+frontier law office, telling me I had inherited this ranch. I didn't
+sleep a minute. I was sole owner of a big business....
+
+"I never can make you understand the relief I experienced! It meant
+money and money meant that I could go on in the old way, putting off
+the inevitable, blinding myself to what I actually was.
+
+"That was my motive in coming here: to turn this property into money.
+And no sooner had I made the acquaintance of these people than I began
+to learn that my point of view had been radically different from
+theirs. I had thought that money would give me the thing I wanted,
+independence and prestige; but I found that with them, with the best of
+them, anyhow, that sort of standing was not considered.
+
+"The thing that counts out here is being yourself, Dick, in making a
+place by your determination, your wits, by impressing people with the
+best that is in you. Material things don't count in the mountains; that
+is, they don't count primarily. They are nice things to possess but the
+possession of them alone does not bring respect ... the respect of
+others or self respect. That, I think, is what I want: respect. That is
+what I am going to win. The only way I can win it is to establish a
+place for myself by my own efforts. These men doubt that I can do it.
+You are right, I believe, when you picture the whole country expecting
+me to fail. Well, that's an incentive, isn't it, to do my best? That is
+what I am here to do!
+
+"There, there's Book One." Then looking out into the country....
+"There's the rest of the story."
+
+The man did not reply for an instant but stood frowning at the floor.
+
+"And when you fail? What then?"
+
+She laughed almost merrily.
+
+"Don't say _when_ so positively! But if I should fail, Dick, I
+might have to take you up! It might break my faith in myself because
+it's a young, immature faith, but it will give me a chance, a few
+months of seeing whether I'm of any account. It gives me a hope."
+
+As she spoke of her alternative a glimmer as of hope passed across the
+man's thin, finely moulded face but he did not let her see. He shook
+his head and said:
+
+"After this the first thing I need is a drink."
+
+"On the sideboard," she answered, "is my stock."
+
+He walked down the room and examined the bottles, then poured out two
+drinks and returned with them.
+
+"Anyhow, we'll drink to your future, whatever and wherever it may be,"
+he said, cynical again.
+
+"That's kind of you, but I'm afraid you'll have to drink alone."
+
+She put the glass he had handed her on the table.
+
+"It's the first time I've ever seen you refuse a drink."
+
+"A record broken! That, like the rest of the old life, all belongs in
+Book One."
+
+"You ... you never thought you used enough to hurt?"
+
+"No. I'm sure I never used enough to hurt my body. I never thought I
+used enough to hurt anything about me ... until last night."
+
+"What made you change your mind?"
+
+She was half impelled to pass the question off, then said resolutely:
+
+"A man came here to talk to me, one of my cowpunchers. I made a
+cocktail. He threw it away."
+
+"Well, that was a devil of a thing to do. Did you fire him, as he
+deserved?"
+
+"No,"--deliberately, tracing a line on a rug with her toe and watching
+it critically--"I took his advice. You see, the men out here expect
+things from women that no one has ever expected from me before."
+
+He sneered: "Turned Puritan, Jane? A sweet thing to face, trying to be
+other than yourself, confining yourself to the morals of the crowd."
+
+"Not just that, Dick. There's a sweetness about it, yes. As for morals:
+we didn't discuss them at all....
+
+"This man said that he supposed some people thought it was smart to
+drink. That hit me rather on the head. We were, the smartest people in
+New York, weren't we?"
+
+"Rot!"
+
+"Perhaps. It interested me, though, when I'd gotten over the first
+shock. He said another thing that interested me; he said that I was the
+first _good_ white woman he'd ever seen smoke."
+
+He laughed harshly.
+
+"At least he did you the honor to think you good."
+
+"Yes,"--still deliberately,--"and it was a novel sensation. It was the
+first time any man had ever appealed to the commonplace thing in me
+that we call womanhood. He wasn't preaching. It was a practical matter
+with him....
+
+"I don't think you'd understand this man, Dick. He takes little things
+quite seriously and yet he appears to be laughing at the whole scheme
+all the time."
+
+He put his glass down slowly.
+
+"Do you mean that one of these roughnecks has been making love to you?"
+
+"Oh, by no means. I don't think he even likes me and I want him to!
+Why, this morning he was going away, was not even going to work for me,
+and I had to beg him to stay.
+
+"Dick, you don't understand! This man is so different from you, from
+me, from all of us. Rough, yes, but I don't think he'd try to buy a
+woman. And if he should I'm sure he'd be most frank about it; he
+wouldn't hide behind words."
+
+She looked hard at him and though she smiled her words stung him, but
+before he could break in she went on:
+
+"When I sat here having him talk to me last night I had that dreadful
+inferior feeling again, felt as though I weren't up to the standard of
+good women that these roughnecks hold. I can't explain it to you
+because you wouldn't let yourself understand. I was furious for a time,
+but he was right, according to his way of thinking.
+
+"That way is going to be my way,"--with growing firmness. "I'm playing
+a new game and I must play it according to the rules. I did more than
+make up my mind to leave the drinks and cigarettes alone. I resolved
+that I'd try to be worthy in every way of the respect I want these men
+to have for me!"
+
+"Because this Westerner doesn't approve of the way you have lived?"
+
+"Yes. He knows the rules of the new game."
+
+"Jane, I'm going to stop this foolishness!" He advanced to her and
+caught her hands in his. "I love you, I love you! I'm not going to see
+you losing your head this way!"
+
+She struggled to withdraw her hands.
+
+"No, I'm going to hold you, going to keep you. I'm--" He drew her to
+him roughly, but she slipped from the clasp of his arm and backed
+across the room, her hands still imprisoned in his.
+
+"Dick!"
+
+It was not her cry which caused him to halt. It was a step outside the
+door and, standing there, her hands in his, he met the level, amused
+gaze of Tom Beck.
+
+Jane turned from him and he let her go without attempt to restrain her
+further.
+
+"Ma'am, the horses are here. Your foreman said to tell you."
+
+His face lost a measure of its lightness as he stood hat in hand,
+looking from the man whose face was lined with passion to the girl,
+flushed and a bit breathless.
+
+"Very well.... And thank you. I'll be out soon."
+
+He stood a moment irresolute, as though he thought his presence might
+be needed there. Then turned and walked away.
+
+"Your help seems rather unceremonious," Hilton remarked.
+
+"Thanks for that! What if he had seen more? Dick, are you beside
+yourself? You call this love?"
+
+"It proves that it's love," he replied tensely. "You set me wild with
+your vagaries, Jane! You--" He checked himself and, with an obvious
+effort, smiled. Then went on with voice and manner under control: "You
+see, I am much in love with you and losing you for only a little while
+puts me a bit off my head.
+
+"I have wanted you for four years and I'm jealous of the months, even
+the weeks. I'm sure, but that doesn't help much."
+
+"Sure? Of what?"
+
+"Of you."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Because I know you. You confessed your weaknesses just a moment ago.
+You know as well as I that you're without foundation, without
+background in this experience. Why, Jane, if you'd been capable of
+fighting your own battles, you'd have forced the issue long before it
+was necessary, but you are not. You need help, you need the faith of
+other people.
+
+"Why, women like you weren't made to stand alone!"
+
+"Flattering!"
+
+"Yes, it is. You were made to be loved, to be protected, to have the
+men take the knocks for you, you and all your kind. You were born to
+lean and to make the lives of men worth while by leaning on them, never
+to attempt to go your own way. You have always done just this and you
+have admitted it, here, this afternoon.
+
+"Your wild wants, your absurd desires.... Everyone has them. That is a
+rule of life: wanting to do the thing you are not fitted to do. You can
+no more be a business woman than I can fly; you can no more cut
+yourself away from your old environment and slip into this than one of
+your cowpunchers could fit into my life.
+
+"Don't you see that you're risking disaster? In your old life you had a
+belief in yourself; in this you think you have, but you have not, your
+eyes will be opened and when you see that you have failed ... then you
+will be a failure, and nothing is so hopeless as that realization.
+
+"You are weak, and I thank God for that weakness. You know that it is
+either this, or me. You are trying this, trying to refuse me, but you
+will come back to me just as surely as we stand together in this room.
+You may come back without a shred of faith in yourself, but I have
+faith in you, in the old Jane, the one I know and love, and I can bring
+that back. The future won't be bad; it will be wholly good."
+
+His words were very gentle, his manner most kindly, but beneath it was
+a scarcely detectable hardness, a deliberate, cold determination, and
+perhaps it was this which struck a fear into the girl's heart.
+
+Weak? Surely, she was weak! Always had been weak, never had proved
+strength by act or decision until now. And she did not know ... she did
+not know....
+
+"You are sure that I will come back?" she managed to say naturally
+enough. "What if I should fail? Might I not try somewhere else?"
+
+"You might, if you were another sort. But you won't. And you will fail,
+in spite of all you can do, Jane."
+
+She sensed clearly the harsh strength beneath his smooth manner; his
+pronouncement had not been as an opinion; as a verdict, rather, and
+ominous in its assurance.
+
+He picked up his hat and gloves.
+
+"I know; I know. It is of no use to argue with you. You must learn this
+lesson by experience. It is going to be bitter, but I will do all I can
+to make what waits beyond take away that taste, Jane.
+
+"I am not going away. I'm going to stay in this little town. After four
+years of waiting and following I can well do that. Your world is there,
+Jane, yours for the asking. There are the things you wanted; there is
+the love you want if you only will see it."
+
+He left her then and when he had gone she felt a quick panic come. It
+all seemed so absurd, her struggling in the things which held her back;
+and his manner left her with a sense that he thought more than he had
+spoken, that his assurance was founded well, that he would not be the
+tacit waiter he had suggested. She knew his passion for her, she knew
+his will and it came to her then that beneath his sleekness he was
+ruthless.
+
+She stared down Coyote creek, not following him with her eyes.
+
+"The things I have wanted.... Yes," she thought. "But love: is that
+anywhere?"
+
+The sound of the car departing roused her and she watched it go. Then a
+commotion in the corral attracted her. She saw horses milling, saw Tom
+Beck standing ready, rope in his hand; then, with a dexterous flip of
+the loop, a slight, overhand motion, he snared a pinto and braced his
+feet against the antics of the animal and held firmly until it had
+quieted.
+
+She watched him go down the rope slowly, hand over hand, with caution
+and assurance until he rested his fingers on the nose of the frightened
+animal. A forefoot shot out in a lightning stroke at him but he did not
+flinch. She saw that he was talking to the horse, gently, quietly, with
+the born confidence of the master.
+
+"Anywhere?" she asked herself again, this time aloud, still watching
+Beck. "Why,"--eyes lighting in surprise that was almost
+astonishment--"it might be ... _might_ be!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE CHAMPION
+
+
+Beck was still busy with the horses when Jane appeared, bareheaded and
+clad in a riding habit. He had separated the unbroken stock from the
+horses that had been turned loose for the winter and was playing with
+these last, overcoming the shyness that months on the range had
+engendered.
+
+As she stopped at the corral he walked toward her, studying her face.
+There was no trace of confusion or embarrassment and for all he could
+discern she might have had her mind on horses only since early
+forenoon. That puzzled him because, though he was far from certain, he
+had felt that the scene which he had interrupted had caused her
+distress. Still, he reminded himself, this was not the type of woman he
+knew. She was completely strange to him; good margin, that, for coming
+to mistaken conclusions.
+
+"These, ma'am, are the gentle horses," he explained. "I cut 'em out for
+you. They're some of the best you've got."
+
+"They're rough, of course," she remarked after eyeing the animals a
+moment and he looked at her sharply because her manner was of one who
+is familiar with horses, "but nothing here looks particularly good. Are
+these all you brought in?"
+
+"I cut the rest into the little corral. There's some good ones there,
+but they ain't gentle."
+
+They walked toward the other enclosure and at their approach the colts
+gave evidence of alarm.
+
+"Now that brown horse's been ridden some--"
+
+"But what about the sorrel?" she broke in as a shapely head with a
+white star between the eyes and a flowing forelock tossed back over
+delicate ears rose above the mass of backs.
+
+"Him, ma'am? He's probably the best colt you own; got the makin's of a
+fine horse, but he's a bad actor."
+
+Just then the crowding of the horses broke into a milling and the
+sorrel came into full view. A beautiful beast with white stockings
+behind, deep chest, high withers, short, straight back.
+
+"He's a beauty!" she declared. "He has bone and leg. He's gaunt now;
+not enough belly, but I suppose that's because he's been on the range.
+I like that square hipped sort when you can get its strength without
+sacrificing looks."
+
+"You're acquainted with horses somewhat, I take it."
+
+"I've ridden some; hunted a little. Can you bring him out?"
+
+Beck entered the corral and roped the horse. For an instant he
+resisted, head flung back and feet securely planted; then he came out
+of the bunch on a trot.
+
+"He knows what a rope is. It don't take an intelligent creature, man or
+beast, long to learn."
+
+The horse stood watching him suspiciously, ready to run if given the
+opportunity.
+
+"Where shall we try him?" Jane asked.
+
+"In the big corral," he replied and led the sorrel through the gate.
+
+The colt, closely snubbed, stood trembling while the blanket was put
+on; then flinched and breathed loudly as the weight of the saddle was
+gently placed on his back. He stepped about and kicked as the cinch was
+drawn tight and resisted a long time the efforts of the man to slip a
+bit between his teeth.
+
+Jane stood by watching, her attention divided between admiration of the
+man and the horse. The former was assured, gentle, positive in every
+move; the latter alarmed, rebellious but recognized the fact that he
+was under control.
+
+"Now, if you'll shorten the stirrups I'll try him," she said.
+
+"_You_'ll try him, ma'am? Why, this horse ain't been ridden three
+times in his life. He'll buck an' buck hard."
+
+"So much more reason why I should try him. We spoke of reputations last
+night; they can only be formed at the cost of knocks. There are many
+things I must try to do out here; there are bound to be some that I
+can't even try but this is not one."
+
+"But you--"
+
+"Must I order you to let me ride him?"
+
+There was no lightness in the question; she meant business, Beck
+realized. And her bruskness delighted him for when he turned to give
+the cinch one more hitch--his only reply to her question--he was
+smiling merrily.
+
+It was not much of a ride as western riding goes. Beck blindfolded the
+sorrel with the black silk scarf he wore about his neck, helped Jane to
+mount, saw that she had both stirrups, took the rope cautiously from
+the trembling bronco's neck and, at her nod, drew off the blind.
+
+For a moment the great colt stood there as if bewildered. Then, with a
+grunt and a bound, he bowed his back, hung his head and pitched.
+
+"Keep his head up! His head!" warned Beck, watching with intense
+interest. "Watch him...."
+
+The horse went straight forward for a half dozen jumps. Erect in the
+saddle, sitting too far back, trusting too much to her stirrups, Jane
+rode.
+
+The violence of the lunging jerked her head unmercifully but she had
+her balance.... Until he sunfished, with a wrenching movement that
+heaved her forward against the fork, dangerously near a fall.
+
+"Grab it all!" called Beck, not remembering that his injunction to hang
+on was as Greek to her. "He--Look out!"
+
+With a vicious fling of his whole body the sorrel swapped ends and as
+he came down, head toward the man, the girl shot into the air, turned
+completely over and struck full on her back.
+
+Beck ran to her, heedless of the horse, which circled at a gallop. She
+lay very still with her eyes closed; a smudge of dirt was on her white
+cheek. He knelt beside her.
+
+"Are you hurt, ma'am?" he asked, and when she did not reply raised her
+head to his knee. Her body was surprisingly light, surprisingly firm,
+as he held it with an arm beneath her shoulders. He was fumbling with
+her collar to open it, knuckles against her soft throat, when she
+opened her eyes and gasped and coughed. She tried to speak but for a
+moment continued to choke; then smiled and said weakly:
+
+"I didn't ... ride him."
+
+"But you made a fine try!" he said with more enthusiasm than she had
+seen him display. "And I sure _am_ glad you ain't hurt bad!"
+
+She laughed feebly and he felt her breath on his cheek, for their faces
+were very close; he felt his heart leap, too, and helped her up, saying
+words of which he was not conscious.
+
+"I can stand alone," she said after he had steadied her an interval and
+reluctantly he took his arm from about her. "I'd like to try him again."
+
+"But you're not going to, not to-day. I'm giving you that order,"--with
+resolution. "I wouldn't want you to be hurt, ma'am. I--"
+
+He checked himself, realizing that he had become very earnest and that
+she was looking straight into his eyes, reading the concern that was
+there.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+There was talk of that ride in the bunkhouse when the men came in.
+Jimmy Oliver had seen from a distance and asked Beck for the story. He
+related the incident rather lightly and ended:
+
+"Tried to keep her off him, but only got orders to take orders. If she
+breaks her neck tryin' some such tricks, I wouldn't be surprised."
+
+"She appears to have sand, though," Oliver commented, as though he were
+making a concession.
+
+Others had opinions to pass, briefly, to the point. Those men were not
+given to accepting readily a stranger and this stranger, being a woman,
+came to them under an added handicap. Where a man, inept and showing
+the same courage, might have found himself quietly accepted, Jane's
+attempt at riding was not received with noticeable warmth. The
+performance was in her favor, and that was about all that could be said.
+
+A close observer might have noticed that Tom Beck gave attention
+whenever another spoke of their new boss, as though deeply interested
+in what the men had to say. Yet when he spoke of her, his manner was
+rather disparaging.
+
+Mail had come in that afternoon and, a happening without precedent,
+there were two letters for Two-Bits. The man, who could not write and
+whose reading was limited to brands, never received mail and before he
+arrived there was speculation as to the writer of the one letter. Of
+the other there was no mystery because each man of the outfit had
+received a similar envelope containing a circular letter from a boot
+manufacturer.
+
+Two-Bits arrived late, riding slowly toward the corral with his eyes on
+the ranch house for a possible look at his fair employer.
+
+"Mail for you, Two-Bits," Curtis remarked casually as he entered.
+
+The others concealed their interest while Beck handed the letters to
+Two-Bits, who stood eyeing them gravely, striving to cover his
+surprise. This could not be done, though, for his agitated Adam's apple
+gave him away as he stood with a letter in each hand, looking from one
+to the other.
+
+"I'll bet two-bits somebody's dead," he said with concern, then walked
+to the window under a growing sense of importance at his deluge of
+correspondence.
+
+He opened the letter which they knew contained the solicitation of the
+maker of boots and all watched him as he stood scowling at it for
+minutes. He folded the sheet with a sigh and stuffed it, with the other
+letter, into his _chap_ pocket and walked thoughtfully to his
+bunk, sitting down heavily, elbows on his knees. He shook his head
+sorrowfully and made a depreciatory clicking with his tongue.
+
+"Boys, I always knowed that girl'd turn out a bad one! It's awful....
+An' her mother a lady!"
+
+For a moment their restraint held and then their laughter cut loose
+with a roar. Curtis fell face down on his bunk and laughed until his
+entire length shook. Jimmy Oliver gasped for breath, hands across his
+stomach, and the others reeled about the floor or leaned against the
+walls, weak with mirth.
+
+"It ain't nothin' to laugh at!" Two-Bits protested, but when he failed
+to convince them of the gravity he shammed, he rose and permitted an
+abashed grin to distort his freckled face, muttered something about
+feeding his horse and walked out.
+
+It was Saturday evening in a season of light work and the social
+diversions of Ute Crossing had called HC riders. Hepburn departed
+early and after their horses had eaten Beck and Two-Bits rode out of
+the ranch townward bound. Out of sight of the building Two-Bits said:
+
+"Tom, my eyes ain't very good. I'd like to get you to read this here
+other letter for me."
+
+Beck knew that such confidence was high compliment for Two-Bits was
+sensitive over his educational shortcomings, so he took the letter and,
+after glancing down the single page, said:
+
+"This is from the Reverend Azariah Beal."
+
+"Oh, my gosh! That's my brother! What's the matter with him, Tom?"
+
+The other read as follows:
+
+
+My dear Brother:--God willing, I shall visit you. I have often been
+impelled to renew our fraternal relationships but my various charges
+have demanded my sole attention. Now, however, I am on a brief sojourn
+in the marts of trade and my interests call me in your direction. I
+expect to arrive shortly after you receive this. May the Almighty guard
+and bless thee and keep thee safe until our hands meet in the clasp of
+brotherly love.
+
+
+"Oh, my gosh!" cried Two-Bits again, Adam's apple leaping and his gray
+eyes, usually so mild, alight with enthusiasm. "He's comin' to visit
+me. Gosh, Tom, but he's a smart man! Ain't that elegant language? Say,
+he's the smartest man in our family an' he's comin' clean from Texas to
+see me."
+
+"How long since you've seen him?"
+
+"Oh, quite a while. Since I was three years old."
+
+"And how long ago was that?"
+
+"You got me. I heard about him. He's a preacher. My, oh my, but
+_she_'ll like him. He's smart, like she is."
+
+His manner was high elation and he spoke breathlessly, and while they
+trotted on he chattered in his high voice, eulogizing the virtues of
+this brother he had not seen since infancy, regaling the other with
+long and vague tales of his accomplishments. Pressed for details he
+could not offer them because his knowledge of the relative had come to
+him verbally through the devious channels of the cattle country, but
+this did not shake his conviction that the Reverend Beal was peerless.
+
+Tom's mind was not on the extravagant talk of Two-Bits. Curiously, it
+persisted in thinking of Jane Hunter.
+
+Two days before he had thought this girl from the east was a
+rattle-brained piece of inconsequence with her selection of a foreman
+by the drawing of straws. Now he was not so sure that she did not
+possess at least several admirable qualities. He had offended her,
+gently bullied her, only last evening; he had sensed the waning of her
+own feeling of superiority, had understood that, behind her pique, she
+took to heart the things he had said, things which he had said not
+because he thought she should know them but because he wanted to see
+how she would react to blunt truths.
+
+She wanted something very badly. Not money; that had been a means.
+Perhaps it was that vague thing, Herself, of which he had spoken. He
+did not understand, but he liked her determination.... And what was
+this other stranger, this man, to her?
+
+He put his horse into a lope with a queer misgiving. He was taking this
+woman seriously! He was saying slighting things about her and yet
+hoping that other men would speak about her highly! He had never taken
+many things--particularly women--seriously before and his experience
+with women had not been meager. It frightened him....
+
+They dismounted before the saloon which adjoined the hotel, eased their
+cinches and approached the doorway.
+
+In the shadow of the next building two men were talking and Beck eyed
+the figures closely. One, he knew, was Hepburn, and the other, from the
+intonation of his cautiously lowered voice, he took to be Pat Webb, the
+rancher of whom he had spoken to Jane Hunter, telling her that his
+presence in the country was not an asset for her.
+
+He went inside, rather absorbed. Sam McKee was there, one of Webb's
+riders, the one on whom Beck had inflicted terrible punishment for
+cruelty to a horse. McKee looked away, a nasty light playing across his
+gray eyes, but Beck did not even give him a glance. What was Hepburn
+doing in close talk with Webb? he asked himself. For years Webb had
+been under suspicion as a thief and a friend of the lawless. Colonel
+Hunter had never trusted him, and now the foreman of the HC was
+talking with him, secretly....
+
+A moment later Hepburn entered and lounged up to the bar and shortly
+afterwards Webb came in. He was a small man with sharp features and
+bright, button-like eyes which roved restlessly. His skin was mottled,
+his lips hard and cruel; his body seemed to be all nerves for he was in
+constant motion.
+
+Webb ordered a drink and glanced about, eyeing Beck and Two-Bits with a
+suggestive smile. He drank with a swagger and wiped his lips with a
+sharp smack, still smiling as though some unpleasant thought amused him.
+
+A man at the far end of the bar moved closer to Hepburn.
+
+"How's the new boss?" he said with a grin, and Hepburn said, in his
+benevolent manner, that he believed she would do very well.
+
+Others, interested, came closer and more questions followed. Then Webb
+broke in:
+
+"I shouldn't think that you HC waddies 'uld be in town nights any
+more,"--his glittering eyes on them rather jubilantly.
+
+The talk stopped, for Webb, unsavory as to reputation, was still a
+figure in the country and his manner as he spoke was laden with
+significance.
+
+"How's that, Webb?" Hepburn asked.
+
+"How's that!" the other mocked. "I've seen her, ain't that enough?
+There's only two reasons why men want to come to this hole nights;
+one's booze, an' th' other's women. You can carry your booze out home
+an'--"
+
+He went on with his blackguard inference and when he had ended a laugh
+went up, a ribald, obscene, barroom laugh. It had reached its height
+when Tom Beck, whose eyes had been on Hepburn as Webb gave voice to his
+insult, elbowed the foreman from his way and faced the one who had
+occasioned that laugh.
+
+There was in his manner a quality which caught attention like nippers.
+
+He stood, forcing Webb to look into his threatening face a quiet
+instant. Then he spoke:
+
+"That's a lie!"
+
+The bantering smile swept from the other's face and his mouth drew down
+in a slanting snarl.
+
+"What's a lie?"
+
+"What you said is a lie, Webb, an' you're a liar--"
+
+The smaller man's hand whipped to his holster and Beck, breaking short,
+closed on him, fingers like steel gripping the ready wrist.
+
+"Don't try that with me, you rat!"
+
+With a steady pull he lifted the resisting hand which gripped the gun
+away from the man's side while Webb struggled, cursing as he found
+himself unable to resist that strength.
+
+"Give me that gun!"
+
+Beck wrenched the weapon free. The group had drawn back and behind him
+Sam McKee made a quick movement. Two-Bits, beside him, dropped his hand
+to his hip and muttered:
+
+"Keep out of this!"
+
+McKee, hate flickering in his face, subsided, without protest, as a
+craven will.
+
+Tom broke the gun and the cartridges scattered on the floor. He closed
+it with a snap and sent it spinning down the bar, clear to the far end.
+His eyes had not left Webb's face.
+
+"You're a liar," he said again quietly. "You're a liar and you're going
+to tell all the boys here that you're a liar."
+
+"Don't tell me I lie!"--retreating a step as Beck's body swayed toward
+him.
+
+"You lied," Tom said quietly, though his voice was not just steady. His
+hands were clenched and he held them slightly before his body as though
+yearning for opportunity to seize upon and injure the other.
+
+"What is it to you, anyhow, if--"
+
+"It's this to me, Webb: It makes me want to strangle the foul breath in
+your throat! That's what it is to me an' before these boys I will if
+you don't swallow your own dirty words just to get their taste.
+
+"I don't want to be a killer, even over such as you are, but you've got
+me mad. We don't know an' nobody else knows how this girl's goin' to
+make it in this country, but, by God, Webb, she's goin' to have a fair
+chance. There ain't going to be any rotten talk that ain't called for
+an' it ain't called for ... yet.
+
+"I expect I'd get into trouble if I killed you for this. There's just
+one chance for me to keep out of trouble, and that's for you to say you
+lied!"
+
+He moved closer as Webb retreated slowly, his spurs ringing ever so
+slightly, yet their sound was audible in the stillness.
+
+"Say it!" he insisted. "Say it, you whelp!"
+
+Webb's face had gone from red to the color of suet and the blotches
+stood sharply out against the pallor. His dirty assurance was beaten
+down and before this man he was frightened ... and enraged at his own
+fright.
+
+"Mebby I spoke too quick--"
+
+"You lied! Nothin' short of that! Say you lied and say it now....
+Quick!"
+
+He half lurched forward, lifting his eager, vengeful hands, when Webb
+relaxed and gave a short, half laugh and said:
+
+"Have it your own way. I lied, I guess. I didn't mean--"
+
+"That'll do, Webb. You've said all that's necessary."
+
+He stood back and dropped his hands limply to his side, eyeing the
+other with dying wrath. His gaze then went to Hepburn and clung there a
+moment, eloquent of contempt and he might as well have said: "You're
+her foreman. Why didn't _you_ take this up?"
+
+Then he moved to the bar and asked for a drink. Constrained talk arose.
+Webb sulkily recovered his gun and stood close to Sam McKee, drinking.
+From the doorway which led into the hotel office Dick Hilton turned
+back, whistling lowly to himself, a speculative whistle.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Tom Beck rode home alone, hours before he had intended to leave town.
+Why had he done that? Always he had disliked Webb but why had this
+thing roused in him such tremendous rage? he asked as he unsaddled.
+
+He laughed softly to himself as though he had done something
+ridiculous; then he strolled down toward the creek and stood under the
+cottonwoods a long interval, watching a lighted chamber window.
+
+"You're a queer little yellow-head," he said aloud to that window.
+"You're the kind that gets men into trouble, but maybe you're ... worth
+it, a lot of it."
+
+He stood for some time, until his wrath had wholly gone and the mood
+which sent merriment dancing in his eyes had returned. It had been a
+day of understanding: he had broken down the barrier of deceit which
+Hepburn had attempted to build, he had come to understand that there
+was something strange in the pursuit of Jane Hunter by Dick Hilton, he
+had understood that in his employer was at least a physical courage
+which was promising, he had humiliated Webb and given the whole country
+to understand that there should be no doubting of the new girl's
+reputation.
+
+Of those incidents the only one now giving him concern was the attitude
+of the foreman. His suspicion was strong, his evidence wholly
+inadequate.
+
+Tom stood beside his bunk for a time. He had thrown down his gauntlet;
+he had taken a chance. He might, from now on, face danger or
+humiliation but he experienced a relief at knowledge that so far as he
+was concerned there was no longer anything under cover. He did not fear
+Hepburn or Webb so far as his own safety went. But there were other
+things, he told himself.
+
+What _was_ up? Just what game would Hepburn play ... if any? And
+who was that man from the East? To what was Jane's confusion due that
+afternoon? Was it only embarrassment? Only?
+
+He dozed off and woke with a start. Again he felt the weight of her
+body on his arm, again the warmth of her breath on his cheek. He lay
+there with his heart hammering, then, with a growl, rolled over and
+went to sleep.
+
+Well he could that night! But other nights were coming when he would
+ponder the significance of Hilton, when the cloud which he then saw
+vaguely over Jane Hunter's future would be real and appalling, when he
+would actually feel her body in his arms, when her warm breath would
+mingle with her warm tears on his cheek, when he would hope that death
+might come to him as a tribute to her. Oh, yes, Tom Beck could put it
+all aside and sleep this night, but there were others coming ... other
+nights....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE COURTING
+
+
+Jane Hunter was in work up to her trim elbows. She had little time for
+anything else. Twice again Dick Hilton came to see her, riding a horse
+in the second visit, but his stays were not lengthy ... and not
+satisfactory, because the girl had little thought for anything but
+ranch affairs.
+
+For long hours she sat at the desk which she had placed in a bay window
+that commanded a superb view of far ridges and pored over records she
+had found. She discovered a detailed diary of events for the past ten
+years, a voluminous chronicle kept more for the sake of giving
+self-expression to the old colonel than for an efficient record, but it
+served her well as a key to the fortunes of the property.
+
+From time to time she sent for one of her men and quizzed him rigidly
+on some phase of the work with which he was particularly familiar,
+never satisfied until she had learned all that he could teach her.
+Every evening Hepburn sat with her and discussed ranch affairs at
+length, Jane forcing him into argument to defend his statements.
+
+While with the girl Dad maintained his paternal, patronizing attitude,
+yet he was not content, as was evident from the moroseness which he
+displayed before the men. He had been stripped of initiative until his
+authority was reduced to executing orders; this, despite the fact that
+Jane depended on him for most of her information.
+
+Beck watched the foreman's attitude carefully. Hepburn was chagrined,
+yet dogged, as though staying on and accepting the situation for
+definite purpose. It had been decided after Jane had argued away
+Hepburn's objections that Beck was to have a free hand with the horses,
+gathering the saddle stock and getting it in shape for the summer's
+work, breaking young horses, watching the mares and colts. This made it
+unnecessary for Beck to look to the older man for detailed orders and
+delayed the clashes which were bound to come between them.
+
+Jane's approach to her responsibilities was considered admirable by the
+men, but it occasioned little comment. Their judgment of her was still
+suspended; that is, with the exception of Two-Bits. Her first look had
+won him without reservation.
+
+"She's smart!" he declared at frequent intervals. "She's the smartest
+girl I've ever seen ... an' the loveliest!" The last with a drop in the
+voice which provoked laughter.
+
+Once he said to Beck:
+
+"My gosh, Tommy, how'd you like to have wife like her?"
+
+The other smiled cryptically.
+
+"Now you're gettin' into a profound subject," he said. "It ain't wise
+to pick out a wife like you'd pick out a horse. There ain't much can
+fool a man who knows horses when he looks one over careful-like, but
+there's a lot about women that you can't know by lookin' 'em over and
+watching 'em step."
+
+He was watching Jane "step" and though he still was the first to listen
+when others spoke of her qualities his manner toward her was the least
+flattering of any.
+
+After she had ridden the sorrel twice, each time accompanied by Beck or
+Hepburn she sent Two-Bits to saddle him.
+
+"What you doing with that horse?" Beck asked, looking up from the hoof
+of a colt which he pared gently to reveal some hidden infection.
+
+"She wants him to ride," the cowboy explained.
+
+"Goin' alone?"
+
+"Guess so."
+
+"Then take that saddle off and put it on the little pinto."
+
+"But she said to--"
+
+"Makes no difference. You take it off or I'll make you look like two
+bits, Mex!"
+
+On finding her order miscarried Jane demanded explanation.
+
+"Tommy, he told me," Two-Bits said, uneasily.
+
+"But I ordered the sorrel--"
+
+"And I told Two-Bits to give you this paint, ma'am," Beck said, the
+foot of the colt still between his knees.
+
+"And why?"--with a show of spirit.
+
+"Because you ain't up to him yet and he ain't down to you. If somebody
+was with you, it'd be different. You can't ride him alone, ma'am."
+
+She gave her head an indignant toss and was about to demand the
+execution of her plan but he turned back to his work, talking gently to
+the animal. Then with a grudgingly resigned sigh she walked toward the
+pinto, for there was something about Beck that precluded argument.
+
+Again she told him of a contemplated visit to the ranches further down
+the creek.
+
+"Why, ma'am?" he asked.
+
+"There are many things to talk over, plans for the summer's work and
+the like. Besides, I want to become acquainted."
+
+He smiled and said:
+
+"That last is fine, but I guess you'd better wait for the rest."
+
+"Wait? What for?"
+
+"Until you know, ma'am. You see, you've only been here a little while;
+you've learned a lot, but you don't know enough to talk business with
+anybody yet. It won't be good for you to go talking about something you
+don't understand."
+
+"I think I am capable of judging that," she said bruskly. "I will go."
+
+But she did not. She had intended to go the next day but as she lay
+awake that morning she told herself that he had been right, she did not
+know enough about her affairs to discuss her relationships with
+neighbors intelligently. She still smarted from his frankness, but the
+hurt was leavened by a feeling that behind his presumption had been
+thought of her own welfare.
+
+She tired quickly in the first days that she rode and once, remarking
+on it, she drew this advice from Beck:
+
+"You'd do a lot better without corsets."
+
+Simply, bluntly, impersonally and with so much assurance that she could
+not even reply. His observation had smacked of no disagreeable
+intimacy. She had told him that she tired; he had given her his idea of
+the cause.
+
+She took off her corsets.
+
+A day of cold rain came on; at noon the downpour abated for a time and
+Jane asked Hepburn to ride down the creek with her to look over land
+that was to be cleared and irrigated.
+
+"Have you got a slicker, ma'am?" Beck asked when she requested that a
+horse be saddled.
+
+She had none.
+
+"There ain't an extra one on the place," he said, "so I guess you'd
+better not go."
+
+"But the rain is over. Anyhow, what hurt will a wetting do?"
+
+"I don't guess the rain's all over," he said. "And to get wet and cold
+ain't a good thing for anybody; it'd be a mighty bad thing for you.
+You're a city woman; you can't do these things yet."
+
+An exasperating sense of inferiority came over her, bringing a helpless
+sort of rage. This man was not even her foreman and yet he brought her
+up short, time after time. She started to tell him so, but changed her
+mind. Also, she changed her plans for the day.
+
+He was not rough, not obtrusive in any of this. Just frank and simple,
+and when she bridled under it all she saw that twinkle creep into his
+eye, as though she were a child and her spirit amused him!
+
+But she did more than amuse. She could not see, she could not know;
+nights he roused from sleep and lay awake trying to fathom the
+sensations he experienced; days he rode without sufficient thought for
+the work that was before him. At times he was impelled to be irritable
+toward her and this because his stronger impulse was to be gentle!
+
+He did not want to care for this woman and he found himself caring in
+spite of himself! He rode to town and spent an evening with a waitress
+from the hotel, taking her to a picture show, paying her broad
+compliments, seeing her pride rise because of his attentions, and he
+rode home before daylight, disgusted with himself. His life was being
+reshaped, his tastes, his desires. His caution against taking chances
+was being beaten down.
+
+She commenced to ride with him regularly and these rides grew longer as
+she found her body becoming toughened and her endurance greater until
+they were together many hours each day, until, in fact, escorting her
+had become Beck's job. The ostensible purpose of this was to learn the
+country and the manner of range work but though she did learn rapidly
+their talk was largely personal. Beck was not responsive and the more
+reserved he became the greater Jane's efforts to force him to talk of
+himself.
+
+These efforts netted her little and after a time she gave up,
+tentatively, and adopted other means of winning his confidence.
+
+Once she helped him gather a bunch of horses that had not been corraled
+for seasons. The way led down a steep point and Jane was ahead, holding
+up the bunch while Beck crowded them from behind. She took the descent
+with a degree of hesitation for the going--so steep that she was forced
+to clamp a hand behind her cantle to retain a seat--chilled her with
+fear. On the level she fanned the sorrel and kept ahead of the horses
+until she could lead them safely into a corral.
+
+The gate closed, Jane looked at Beck with sparkling eyes, expecting a
+word of reward, but he only said:
+
+"You've got to keep goin' with horses. The country's all got to look
+level to you. You slowed up bustin' off that point."
+
+The rebuke hurt her ... and stimulated her ambition.
+
+He taught her to use a rifle and she brought down her first deer, a
+yearling buck, at long range.
+
+"I told you to hold just behind his shoulder; see where you hit," he
+said, indicating the wound, a hand's breadth too far back.
+
+She shot with his revolver and he told her that she would never learn
+to use the weapon. She bade him teach her the rudiments of roping and
+he decried the woman movements of arms and body.
+
+In all this he was quick to criticise, niggardly of praise; ready to
+teach, reluctant to grant progress.
+
+She was resentful but her resentment was no match for her
+determination. Now and then his rebukes whipped flushes to her cheeks
+and more than once she left him with tears standing in her eyes, only
+to tell herself aloud that she _would_ make him acknowledge her
+accomplishments....
+
+Once, riding on alone after Jane had turned back toward the ranch Beck
+encountered Sam McKee. The man had dismounted and was recinching when
+Tom passed him. He looked up with that baleful expression, as though he
+was impelled to do the HC rider great harm and held back only by his
+cowardice. When Tom had passed McKee mounted and before he started on
+his way he turned to shout over his shoulder:
+
+"Chaperone!"
+
+In it he put all that contempt which small, timid boys put into their
+shouted taunts.
+
+Beck was not angered but that gave him something to think about.
+
+Another time as, on his roan, he led the sorrel toward the gate to the
+houseyard he saw Hepburn smiling at him with scornful humour and when
+the foreman saw that Beck had seen he said:
+
+"A regular chaperone, ain't you?"
+
+Tom did not reply though it roiled him. He thought about the remark at
+length but the thing which interested him was that Hepburn had used the
+same word that McKee had used.... Was that, he asked himself, mere
+chance?
+
+They had ridden far to the eastward one afternoon and returning long
+after dark Jane made a meal herself and they ate together at her table.
+Beck was noticeably restrained and when finished hastened to leave.
+
+"Can't you sit and talk with me a while?" she asked.
+
+"I could, ma'am, but is it necessary?"
+
+"Not necessary to the business, perhaps, but it might mean a pleasant
+evening for me."
+
+He gave her steady gaze for steady gaze and then said:
+
+"Anybody would think you were courtin' me, ma'am."
+
+She laughed easily, yet her gaze wavered. She asked:
+
+"And what if I should be?"
+
+This disconcerted him but he replied:
+
+"It's likely I'd quit."
+
+"I'm ... wholly distasteful to you, then?"
+
+"If I was to say yes, it'd hurt your feelings, needless. So I won't. I
+don't mind tellin' you, though, that the country is calling me your
+chaperone."
+
+"And does what people say worry you?"
+
+"Not when they talk about something that I'm responsible for. I didn't
+hire out as a ... a companion, ma'am."
+
+She stepped closer, hands behind her and said:
+
+"The first time you talked to me at any length you had a great deal to
+say about respect. No one had ever talked to me as you did. I took it
+because it was true ... and I respected you.
+
+"Since that time I have been trying to be worthy of the respect of you
+men; of yours particularly because you are the only one with whom I
+have talked so frankly about myself. But at every turn you repulse me,
+drive me back. Nothing that I do seems to be pleasing to you. You pick
+on me, Tom Beck! Why do you do it?"
+
+He eyed her calculatingly.
+
+"What would you think if I told you that it was because I don't like
+you?"
+
+"I would think it was not the truth."
+
+He flushed and this time his eyes fell from hers.
+
+"I would think just that, but I might be wrong." She breathed rapidly,
+one hand on a gold locket that was at her throat. "I might think that
+you fear that becoming my friend would be taking a chance ... but I
+might not want to think that.
+
+"You were the first man who ever dared tell me just how little I have
+amounted to. You are the first individual that ever made me feel
+ashamed of myself. You did those things; you opened my eyes, you showed
+me what real achievement is.
+
+"Now I'm fighting for a place. I have won one thing: my self respect.
+Now I'm going to win another: the respect of other people and if I can
+win their respect I can win their friendship.
+
+"I may be overconfident. Time will prove that. But there is one thing I
+want, Tom Beck, and that is your friendship. Before I get through, and
+if I succeed, you are going to be glad to be my ... friend!"
+
+There was challenge in her tone, which, withal its assurance, was sweet
+and gentle, almost appealing; and that combination of qualities
+indicated that her words did not express her whole thought. It steeled
+him and with that mocking twinkle again he said:
+
+"You seem quite sure, ma'am."
+
+"As sure as I have ever been of anything in my life!"
+
+But her assurance did not compare with her desire, for when he had gone
+she was seized with the fear that she had said too much, had gone too
+far. And that which she had boasted would be hers was to Jane Hunter a
+precious possession.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+OUTCASTS
+
+
+At sunset a girl rider descended from the uplands into the shadows of
+Devil's Hole. The big brown which carried her picked his way slowly
+down the treacherous trail, nose low, ears forward, selecting his
+footing with care.
+
+The girl sat braced back in her saddle. Her face was dark, eyes filled
+with a brooding, but the mouth though sternly set showed a rueful droop
+at the corners.
+
+Her mind was not on her progress. She was lost in a very definite
+consideration, something which stirred resentment, it was evident from
+her face. Finally she drew a sharp deep breath of impatience.
+
+"Oh, get along, you dromedary!" she muttered and rowelled her horse
+sharply.
+
+The big beast sprang forward with a grunt and went down the trail in
+long, shaking bounds, even more intent on his footing than before and
+when they reached the level he crashed through the brush at a high
+lope, leaping little washes with great lunges and bearing his light
+rider swiftly toward the cabin from which a whisp of smoke curled.
+
+The discouraged looking man stood before the doorway watching her come
+and as the girl swung down, before the horse was well halted, she
+flashed a quick smile at him.
+
+"I heerd you comin', daughter, away back thar. I shore thought the
+devil himself might 've been after you!"
+
+He smiled wanly.
+
+"I seen her again," the girl said as she dragged her saddle off.
+
+The man pulled languidly at his mustache.
+
+"She see you?"
+
+"No. I set under a juniper and watched 'em ... her an' that Beck man."
+
+"Mebby if you was to talk to her an' get friendly--"
+
+"I don't want to be no friends with her! I hate her already!"
+
+She spat out the words and her face was a storm of dislike.
+
+"What I meant ... mebby 't would be easier for us if you played like
+you was friends. Then she mightn't suspect."
+
+She rolled her saddle to its side and spread the blanket over it.
+
+"No. I can't do things that-a way, Alf,"--with a slow shake of her
+head. "Mebby 't would get us more ... but there's somethin' in me, in
+here,"--a palm to her breast--"that won't let me. I can steal her blind
+an' only be glad about it, but I couldn't make up like I was her friend
+while I done it."
+
+"Mebby ... mebby you would sure enough like her," he persisted. "You
+ain't never had no friends--"
+
+"I'd never like her, not while we're this way,"--with a gesture to
+include the litter about the cabin. "She's got all that I want. She's
+had all the things I've never had. She's got clothes, lots of pretty
+clothes; she's lived in towns an's always had things easy. She's got
+friends and folks to respect her. You can tell that by lookin' at
+her....
+
+"What makes me that way, Alf? What makes me hate folks that have got
+the things I want?"
+
+He pulled on his mustache again and scanned the scarlet sky which rose
+above the purple heights to the westward. He shook his head rather
+helplessly and then looked at the girl who stood before him, the
+eagerness of her query showing in her eyes with an intensity that was
+almost desperate.
+
+"Mebby you get it from me. I've had it ... always. That's all I have
+had ... that an' hard luck."
+
+"But I don't like it!" she said and in the tone was something of the
+spirit of a bewildered little girl. "I'd like to be like other girls.
+I'd like to have friends ... girl friends, but the more I want 'em, the
+more I hate those that have 'em!
+
+"What's the matter with me, Alf?"
+
+"The same thing that's the matter with me, daughter: hard luck. I've
+wanted things so bad that not hevin' 'em has soured me. I've watched
+other outfits grow big an' rich an' nothin' like that has ever come my
+way. The bigger the rest got, the harder 't was for me to get along ...
+an' the worse I hated 'em!"
+
+There was no iron in his voice; just the whine of a weakling,
+dispirited to a point where his resentment at ill fortune, even, was a
+passive thing.
+
+"Why, she's got a fine house to live in, an' I'll bet she always had.
+She's never knowed what it was to set out a norther in a wagon. She's
+never lived on buckskin an' frozen spuds all winter. She's never been
+chased from one place to another....
+
+"Folks respect her for what she's got. Why don't folks get respected
+for just what they are?"
+
+There was pathos in that query.
+
+The man answered:
+
+"It ain't what you are that matters, daughter. It's what you own."
+
+"You've always said that, ever since I can remember. Mebby if you
+hadn't said it so much, Alf, I wouldn't feel like I do."
+
+He shifted his footing uneasily and looked again at the flaring sky.
+
+"Well, it's so," he whined. "You'd have found it out yourself. I've
+brung you up the best I knowed how."
+
+"Oh, Alf! I didn't mean I was finding fault! Damned if you _ain't_
+brought me up good! Why, you're the only friend I got Alf! What'd I do
+without you? You're the only one I've ever knowed ... real well. You're
+the only one who's ever been good to me!" She put her hands on his
+shoulders and looked into his face with a smile of genuine affection.
+"Good old Alf! We've been pals, ain't we?"
+
+He nodded, and said:
+
+"An' if you stick to me a little mite longer, you'll have enough.
+
+"You're brighter'n I be, daughter. You got a longer head. Now's your
+chanct to use it!" He looked about, somewhat nervously, as if they
+might be overheard. "Sometimes I get afeerd. Lately, since we've come
+here, I've been afeerd. It's the only time I ever let anybody else know
+what my plans was an' it makes me feel creepy to think somebody else
+_knows!_"
+
+"'Fraid of what, Alf?" she asked.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Gettin' caught again, an'--"
+
+"Oh, but you won't! You can't. Alf, you can't get caught an' sent to
+jail an' leave me alone again!"
+
+She spoke in a whisper and gripped her fist for emphasis.
+
+"I shore don't want to leave you, daughter. I shore don't want to get
+catched. That's where you come in ... helpin' me scheme! I ain't afeerd
+of havin' 'em come up on me an' git me red-handed so much as I am of
+havin' somebody else know what's goin' on."
+
+"But he sent for us. He told us the outfit was goin' to be owned by a
+tenderfoot. He's as much in danger as we, ain't he?"
+
+Her father nodded slowly.
+
+"You're right ... in a way, but if it ever come to a show-down, I'd be
+the one to hold th' bag, wouldn't I? That's what we got to watch out
+for. 'Course, it's easy pickin', with this gal tryin' to run things
+herself, an' what with her brand workin' over into ourn so easy, there
+ain't many chances.... Except havin' somebody else to know."
+
+"If anybody ever was to double cross you, Alf, I'd get 'em if it was
+the last thing I done!"
+
+That threat carried conviction and her father looked at her with a rare
+brand of admiration in his eyes.
+
+"Lord, daughter, sometimes I think you was meant to be a man ... an' a
+hard man! Sometimes you almost scare me, th' way you say things!"
+
+She made no reply and he said:
+
+"All we got to do is go slow. A brandin' iron has built many a fortune,
+an' nobody ever had it any easier 'n us."
+
+"Do you think we'll ever get rich enough, Alf, to have a regular house?
+An' be respected by folks?"
+
+"Luck's bound to change sometime," he muttered. "Ours has been bad a
+long time ... a long, long time."
+
+He gathered an arm load of wood and entered the cabin. The girl stood
+alone a long time, watching the brilliant flowering of the sky sink
+slowly into the west, drawing steely night to cover its garden. A sharp
+star bored its way through the failing light and stood half way between
+earth and heaven. A vagrant breeze slid down the creek, bringing with
+it the breath of sage, and afar off somewhere a cow bawled plaintively.
+
+"She has 'em," she muttered to herself. "Friends ... an' respect ...
+an' everything I want....
+
+"I wonder what makes me hate folks so...."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CATAMOUNT
+
+
+Three weeks after her arrival Jane made her first trip to town and Beck
+drove the pair of strong bays which swirled their buckboard over the
+road at a spanking trot.
+
+Events had arisen to prevent their being together in the days
+immediately following the frank discussion of their attitudes toward
+one another and Jane thought that she detected a feeling of curiosity
+in him, as though he wondered just how she would go about forcing him
+to like her. Shrewdly, she avoided personalities and talked much of the
+ranch.
+
+When they broke over the divide and began the long drop into town, he
+said:
+
+"Since you asked advice from me, I keep thinkin' up more, ma'am."
+
+"That's nice. I need it. What now?"
+
+"I s'pose Dad mentioned that water in Devil's Hole?"
+
+"Why, I don't recall it. We've talked so much and about so many things
+that perhaps it's slipped my mind."
+
+"Maybe. He said he had."
+
+She questioned him further but he said it might be well for her to
+mention it to Hepburn. "He's foreman, you know."
+
+They swung into the one street of Ute Crossing and stopped before the
+bank. As Beck stepped down to tie the team a girl came out of a store
+across the way and vaulted into the saddle on a big brown horse with
+graceful ease. It was the nester's daughter.
+
+Two men came from the saloon just as she reined her horse about. They
+eyed her insolently with that stare of a type of loafer which is
+eloquent of all that is despicable and one of them, a short, stodgy
+man, smiled brazenly.
+
+The girl gave them one stare, hostility in her brown eyes, and then
+looked away, her lips moving in an unheard word, surely of contempt.
+
+Then the man spoke. It is not well to repeat. His words were few, but
+they were ugly. The girl had touched her horse with a spur and he
+leaped forward. Just that one bound. As he made it the man spoke and
+with a wrench she set the brown back on his haunches and whirled him
+about. Her face was suddenly white, her lips in a tight, red line, and
+her eyes blazed.
+
+She rode back to the men, who had continued on their way, holding her
+horse to a mincing trot, for he seemed to have caught the tensity of
+her mood.
+
+"Did I hear you right?" she said to the man who had spoken.
+
+He stood still and looked up with the rude leer.
+
+"That depends on your ears, likely. All I said was that you--"
+
+She did not give him time to repeat. Her right arm flashed up and the
+quirt, slung to its wrist, hissed angrily as it cut back and with a
+stinging crack wound its thong about the man's face.
+
+"Take that!" she cried. "And that ... and that!"
+
+At the first blow the man ducked and turned, throwing up his hands to
+guard, and as other slashes, relentless, rapid, of scourging vigor,
+fell upon his head and face and neck, he doubled over and ran for the
+shelter of a store. But the girl's wrath was not satisfied. She sent
+the big horse from street to sidewalk where his hoofs thundered on the
+planks, crowded in between her quarry and the building fronts, cutting
+off his flight, striking faster, harder, teeth showing now between her
+drawn lips.
+
+The man fled into the street again, but she followed, guiding her horse
+without conscious thought, surely, for no woman roused as her face
+showed she was roused could have had thought for other than the
+thrashing she administered. Endangered by the excited hoofs which were
+all about him as he ducked and dodged in vain to escape, the man ran
+with hands and arms close about his head, moving them with each blow
+that fell in futile attempts to save other parts from the cut and smart
+of that rawhide.
+
+The girl uttered no word. All the rancor, all the rage he had roused by
+his insult, found vent in the whipping. Her whole lithe torso moved
+with each stroke as she put into the downward swing all the strength
+she could command, and across the man's cheek rose broad red welts,
+contrasting with his pallor of fright, until his face looked like a
+fancy berry pie.
+
+Scuttling, dodging, doubling, the man worked across the street, turned
+back time and again but persisting until, with a cry of pain and
+desperation, he threw out one hand, caught the bridle and in the
+instant's respite the move gave him stumbled to the other sidewalk,
+across it and sprawled through the swinging doors of the saloon he had
+left moments before.
+
+The horse came to a halt with a slam against the flimsy front of the
+building. The girl drew back her quirt as for a final blow, but the
+man, regaining his feet, fled through the bar room and disappeared. She
+dropped her hand to the top of the door, pushed it open and held it so,
+peering darkly into the room.
+
+People had come into the street to watch. There had been excited shouts
+and a scream or two, but as the girl sat looking into the place a quick
+silence shut down and when she spoke her voice, trembling with emotion
+but scarcely raised above its normal pitch, was easily heard.
+
+"I've took a lot from men," she said, "ever since I was a kid. When I
+come into this country I thought maybe I'd get a little respect ... for
+bein' just a girl. I didn't get it ... I've got to take it.
+
+"If that man's a sample of the kind you've got here, you're a nest of
+skunks. And you talk easy hereafter, every one of you, because so long
+as I've got a quirt and an arm, I'll hide you till you're raw if you
+make any breaks like he did. Keep that in mind!"
+
+She released her hold on the door; it swung outward smartly and as it
+struck the horse he sprang sideways, wheeled, and clearing the shallow
+gutter with a lunge, swung down the street at a gallop.
+
+When she passed Jane Hunter, who stood amazed in her buckboard, tears
+showed in the girl's eyes, but her back was as erect, her shoulders as
+trimly set as though no great emotion was surging in her heart.
+
+"She's quite a catamount, I'll guess," said Tom Beck as he gave the
+knot in the tie rope a securing tug and turned to face Jane.
+
+His eyes were fired with admiration.
+
+"But a girl--"
+
+"She was magnificent!"
+
+It was Dick Hilton who had interrupted with the words. Beck looked at
+him and the enthusiasm which had been in his face faded. He eyed the
+Easterner briefly and turned to adjust a buckle on the harness.
+
+"And only a girl!" exclaimed Jane under her breath. "Dick, did you see
+it all?"
+
+"A typical Western girl, I should say," he replied. "Your.... Your
+neighbor and associate? Your companion, Jane?" he asked. "The sort you
+want to cast your lot with?"
+
+"And a moment ago you thought her magnificent!" she taunted as she
+stepped down and offered him her hand.
+
+"I'll meet you in, say, two hours, ma'am," Beck said.
+
+"Very well; right here," she replied, and he left her as she turned to
+meet Hilton's unpleasant smile.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+They began the return trip shortly after noon. Hilton had been with
+Jane when Tom returned and he stood beside the buckboard talking some
+minutes after Beck had picked up the reins and was ready to commence
+the drive. Occasionally Dick's eyes wandered from Jane to the other
+man's face but Tom sat, knees crossed, idly toying with the whip, as
+indifferent to what was being said as if the others were out of sight
+and hearing. Hilton made an obvious effort to exclude the Westerner but
+Beck's disregard of him was as genuine as it was evident. He sat
+patiently, with an easy sense of superiority and the contrast was not
+lost on Jane Hunter.
+
+The town was far behind and below them, a mere cluster of miniature
+buildings, before either spoke. Then it was Jane.
+
+"That girl.... There was something splendid about her, wasn't there?"
+
+"There was," he agreed. "She sure expressed her opinion of men in
+general!"
+
+"A newcomer, evidently."
+
+Beck nodded. "Came in soon after you did, with her father, it looked
+like."
+
+"And she wins the respect of strange men by blows!" she said.
+
+"He deserved all he got, didn't he?" Beck asked, smiling. "I like to
+see a bad _hombre_ like that get set down by a woman. There's
+something humiliating about it that counts a lot more than the whippin'
+she gave him."
+
+"But wouldn't it have spoken more for the chivalry of the country if
+some man had done it for her?"
+
+"That's likely. But there ain't much chivalry here, ma'am."
+
+"And am I so fortunate as to have enjoyed the protection of what little
+there is?"
+
+He looked at her blankly.
+
+"I had to come clear to Ute Crossing to learn how one man defended me
+from the insult of another."
+
+He stirred uneasily on the seat.
+
+"That was nothin'," he growled. "I'd been waiting for a chance to land
+on Webb for a long time."
+
+He did not look at her and his manner had none of its usual bluntness;
+clearly he was evasive and, more, uncomfortable.
+
+"First, I want to thank you," Jane said after she had looked at him a
+moment. "You don't know how a woman such as I am can feel about a thing
+like that. I think it was the finest thing a man has ever done for me
+... and many men have been trying to do fine things for me for a long
+time."
+
+She was deeply touched and her voice was not just steady but when Beck
+did not answer, just looked straight ahead with his tell-tale flush
+deepening, a delight crept into her eyes and the corners of her pretty
+mouth quirked.
+
+"Besides, it was a great deal to expect of a man who has made up his
+mind not to like me!"
+
+They had topped the divide and the sorrels had been fighting the bits.
+As she spoke Tom gave them their heads and the team swept the buckboard
+forward with a banging and clatter that would have drowned words
+anyhow, but the fact that he did not reply gave Jane a feeling of
+jubilation. Her thrust had pricked his reserve, showing it to be not
+wholly genuine!
+
+Dick Hilton had told her of the encounter Beck had had with Webb, told
+it jeeringly as he attempted to impress her with the distasteful phases
+of her environment. He had failed in that. He had impressed her only
+with the fact that Tom Beck had gone out of his way, had taken a
+chance, to protect her standing. Others of her men had heard her
+insulted, men from other ranches had been there, but of them all Beck
+had been her champion.
+
+And it was Beck who had bullied her, had doubted her in the face of her
+best efforts to convince him of fitness! He had even challenged her to
+make herself his friend!
+
+She had believed before she came into those hills that she knew men of
+all sorts but now she had found something new. Here was a man who, in
+her presence, would plot to humiliate her and yet when she could not
+see or hear his loyalty and his belief in her were outstanding.
+
+And what was it, she asked herself, that made her pulse leap and her
+throat tighten? It was not wholly gratitude. It was not merely because
+he resisted her efforts to win his open regard. Those things were
+potent influences, surely, but there was something more fundamental
+about him, a basic quality which she had not before encountered in men;
+she could not analyze it but daily she had sensed its growing strength.
+Now she felt it ... felt, but could not identify.
+
+Two-Bits opened the gate for them and Tom carried her bundles into the
+house.
+
+At the corral, as Beck unharnessed, the homely cow puncher said:
+
+"Gosh, Tommy, how'd it seem, ridin' all the way to town an' back with
+her settin' up beside you?"
+
+"Just about like you was there, Two-Bits, only we didn't swear quite so
+much."
+
+"I got lots of respect for you, Tommy, but I think you're a damned
+liar."
+
+And Beck chuckled to himself as though, perhaps, the other had been
+right.
+
+"Two weeks now since he wrote," Two-Bits sighed. "He shore ought to be
+comin'. Gosh, Tom, but he's a bright man!"
+
+Again that night Jane Hunter looked from a window after the lights in
+the bunk house had gone out and the place was quiet, to see a tall,
+silent figure move slowly beneath the cottonwoods, watching the house,
+pausing at times as if listening. Then it went back through the shadows
+more rapidly, as though satisfied that all was well.
+
+Many times she had watched this but tonight it seemed of greater
+significance than ever before. He denied her his friendship; he had
+made Webb his sworn enemy by defending her (she had not told him that
+part of the tale she heard in Ute Crossing) and yet disclaimed any
+great interest in her as a motive. Still, he patrolled her dooryard at
+night!
+
+A sudden impulse to do something that would _make_ him give her
+that consideration in her presence which he gave before others came to
+life. His attitude suddenly angered her beyond reason and she felt her
+body shaking as tears sprang into her eyes. The great thing which she
+desired was just there, just out of reach and the fact exasperated her,
+grew, became a fever until, on her knees at the window, hammering the
+sill with her fists, she cried:
+
+"Tom Beck you're going to love me!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AND NOW, THE CLERGY
+
+
+Two-bits was the last into the bunkhouse the following evening. He had
+ridden his Nigger horse in from the westward hills and had not come
+through the big gate so not until he stepped across the threshold were
+the others aware of his presence.
+
+"Here he is!" said a rider from down the creek who was stopping for the
+night and the group in the center of the low room broke apart.
+
+"Two-Bits, here's your brother," said Curtis.
+
+A small man stood beside him. He wore a green, battered derby hat, band
+and binding of which were sadly frayed. He wore spectacles, steel
+rimmed, over searching gray eyes. He was unshaven. A celluloid collar,
+buttoned behind, made an overly large cylinder for his wrinkled neck.
+He wore a frock coat, also green with age, the pockets of which bulged
+and sagged and their torn corners spoke of long overloading. His
+overalls, patched and newly washed, were tucked into boots with
+run-down heels. In his hand he held a fountain pen.
+
+At the entrance of Two-Bits all talk had ceased; at Curtis'
+introduction, Two-Bits stopped. He swallowed, setting his Adam's apple
+in sharp vibration. He took off his hat. He flushed and his mild eyes
+wavered. Then he advanced across the room, extending a limp hand and
+said in a thin, embarrassed voice:
+
+"Please to meet you, Mister Beal."
+
+Tom Beck bit his lips but one or two of the others laughed outright;
+they ceased, however, when the Reverend Beal, in a voice that was
+tremendously deep and impressive for such a small man, said:
+
+"My brother, I extend to you the right hand of fellowship! It is a deed
+of God that enables me to look once more into your beloved face after
+these years of separation. Give me your hand, brother. May the
+blessings of Heaven descend upon and abide with thee!"
+
+He shook Two-Bits' paw, looking up earnestly into his face, while the
+blushing became more furious.
+
+"Marvelous are the ways of Providence!" he boomed. "Let us give thanks."
+
+He doffed his hat, and still clinging to Two-Bits' hand, lowered his
+head.
+
+"Almighty Father, whose blessings are diverse and manifold, we,
+brothers of the flesh, give our thanks to Thee for bringing about this
+reunion on earth. We realize, oh Lord, that these mundane moments are
+but brief forerunners of greater joys that are to come, that they are
+but passing pleasures; but joy here below is a rare thing and from this
+valley of tears and sin we lift our hearts and our voices in thanks
+that such blessings have been visited upon us by Thy blessed
+magnanimity!"
+
+He lifted his head and honest tears showed behind his spectacles.
+
+"And now, brother,"--in a brusk, business-like manner, "you, too, will
+be interested in this article which I was about to demonstrate to the
+congregation."
+
+He replaced his hat with a dead _punk_, held the pen aloft in
+gesture, drew a pad of paper from one of his sagging pockets and
+continued:
+
+"Made of India rubber, combined in a secret process with Belgian talc
+and Swedish, water-proof shellac, this pen will withstand the acid
+action of the strongest inks. It is self-filling, durable, compact,
+artistic in design. The clip prevents its falling from the pocket and
+consequent loss.
+
+"The point is of the finest, specially selected California, eighteen
+carat gold. It was designed by that peerless inventor, Thomas Edison.
+Its every feature, from the safety shank to the velvet tip, is covered
+by patents granted by the authority of this great republic!
+
+"It does not leak!"--shaking it vigorously. "It does not fail to flow.
+It does not scratch or prick. Follow me closely, men; watch every move."
+
+With facility he guided the point across the paper in great flourishes,
+sketching a crudely designed bird on the wing.
+
+"See? See what can be done with this invention? How can any mature man
+or woman do without this article? _Such_ an article!
+
+"This, men, is a three dollar commodity, but for the purposes of
+advertising I am permitted by the firm to charge you--Two-fifty? No!
+Two dollars? _No!_ One fifty? NO! For the sum of one dollar,
+American money, E Pluribus Unum and In God We Trust, I will place this
+invaluable article in your possession. One dollar, men! _One
+dollar!_
+
+"But wait. Further"--diving into another pocket, "we will give away
+absolutely free of charge to every purchaser one of these celebrated
+key rings and chains, made of a new conglomerate called white metal,
+guaranteed not to rust, tarnish or break except under excessive strain.
+Keeps your keys safe and always handy. Free, with each and every
+individual purchase!
+
+"Still more!"--making another dive into the inexhaustable
+pockets--"Another article used by every gentleman and lady. A hand
+mirror, a magnifying hand mirror. Carry it in your pocket, have it
+always handy for the thousand and one uses to which it may be put.
+
+"Think! This magnificent fountain pen, this key-ring and chain, this
+pocket mirror, a collection which regularly would retail for from four
+to five dollars, are yours for one dollar....
+
+"Now, who's first?"
+
+Two-Bits who had watched and listened with a growing amazement, mouth
+open, Adam's apple jumping, was roused.
+
+"I am, Mister Beal," he said eagerly, digging in a pocket for the money.
+
+"Ah, brother, part of being a Beal is knowing a bargain! Who else, now?"
+
+He sold six of the pens before the big bell at the ranch house summoned
+the men to supper; then slipped his stock back in the pockets of that
+clerical looking garment and, grasping Two-Bits by the arm, beaming up
+into his face, stumped along by his side.
+
+At the table he ate and talked, at one and the same time, doing both
+with astonishing ease. No matter how great the excess of food in his
+mouth, he was still able to articulate, and no matter how rapidly he
+talked, he could always thrust more nourishment between his lips.
+
+"Oh, it warms the heart of a seeker after strays from the herds of the
+Master to look upon the bright, honest faces of stalwart men!" he
+cried, brandishing his fork and helping himself to more syrup with the
+other hand.
+
+"Blessed are the pure in heart, it is written, and I know that when in
+the presence of such men as you, I am among the blessed of the Father!
+I can see integrity, devotion to duty, uprightness and honor in all
+your faces. Or, that is, in _most_ of your faces. What
+contrast!"--heedless of the uproar his qualification of a broad
+statement caused. "What contrast to the iniquitous ways of those who
+dwell in the tents of the wicked.
+
+"Why, brethren, only last night I stood in the hotel in yonder
+settlement and watched and listened to the cries of a lost soul, a
+young man sunk hopelessly in sin. He was a stranger in a strange land,
+but he had not yet felt the heavy hand of a slowly-roused God, had not
+yet become the Prodigal. He had tasted of the wine when it was red and
+out of his mouth flowed much evil.
+
+"A man possessed of a devil, I am sure, and I spoke to him, asking if
+he did not desire to seek redemption in the straight and narrow way
+which leads to the only righteous life.
+
+"'Righteousness, hell!' he shouted at me, his face black with ungodly
+thoughts.
+
+"'That's what I want _less_ of: righteousness! That's what's
+raised hell in me!'
+
+"Oh, it was terrible, brothers! He drank continually and finally they
+carried him off to bed, cursing and swearing, cherishing bitterness in
+his heart, which is against the word of the Almighty. A definite wrong
+was in his mind, I was led to presume, for he cried again and again:
+'I'll break her if it's the last thing I do! I'll ruin her and bring
+her back!'
+
+"I tell you, my fellow men, I prayed fervently for that lost soul
+through the night. Something heavy is upon him, something tremendous."
+
+"Likely some of that high-pressure booze," remarked one, at which
+everybody except the Reverend and Two-Bits laughed.
+
+"Goin' to stay long?" Oliver asked.
+
+"Alas, I am not my own master. My feet are guided from up Yonder. To
+tarry with my dear brother is my most devout prayer and wish, but we
+have no promise of the morrow. I may remain in your midst a day, a
+month. I cannot tell when the call will come."
+
+Tom Beck had watched with a glimmer in his eye until the newcomer told
+of the scene in the hotel. It was not difficult for him to identify the
+sin beset young man as Hilton and at that he became less attentive to
+the garrulous talk of the itinerant preacher-peddler. In fact, he gave
+no heed at all until, returned to the bunk house, the Reverend made a
+point of seeking out Dad Hepburn and talking to him in confidence.
+
+Dad's bed was directly across from Tom's and he could not help hearing.
+
+"I waited to get you alone," Beal said, dropping his elocutionary
+manner, "because what others don't know won't hurt 'em, and so forth.
+But just before I was leaving town, saddling my mare in the corral, I
+heard two men talking and it may interest you.
+
+"This outfit uses the HC on horses as well as cattle, don't it?"
+
+"That's right."
+
+"Exactly! One of the men said (they didn't know I was near,
+understand). 'So there's eight more HC horses gone west.' And the
+other one said, 'Yes, they was camped at the mouth of Twenty Mile this
+mornin'. It's easy. They had the horses in a box gulch, with a tree
+down across the mouth, most natural.'
+
+"Have you sold any horses lately?"
+
+Hepburn glanced about cautiously and just before he turned to reply his
+eyes met Beck's gaze, cold and hard this time, flinging an unmistakable
+challenge at him.
+
+"Not a horse," he mumbled. "They're sneaking out of the country with
+'em. Tom, come here,"--with a jerk of his head. Beck walked over and
+sat down. "Did you hear what the Reverend says?" Dad asked. "About the
+horses?"
+
+"Yes, I ain't surprised. Are you?"
+
+His eyes, again amused, bored into Hepburn's face with the query:
+
+"No, but--"
+
+The sharp batter of running hoofs cut him short. The whole assemblage
+was listening. The rider stopped short at the gate, they heard it creak
+and a moment later he came across toward the bunk house at a high lope.
+They heard him speak gruffly to the horse, heard the creak of leather
+as he swung down and then jingling spurs marked his further progress
+toward the door.
+
+It was Henry Riley, owner of the Bar Z ranch, thirty miles down Coyote
+creek. A cattleman of the old order, a man not given to haste or
+excitement. His appearance caught the interest of all, for he was
+breathing fast and his eyes blazed.
+
+"Where's Dad?" he asked and Hepburn, rising, said: "Here. What's the
+matter, Henry?"
+
+"Who's this nester in Devil's Hole?" Riley asked.
+
+"Why ... I didn't know there was a nester there."
+
+Dad answered hesitatingly and Beck scraped one foot on the floor.
+
+"Well, there is. Guess we've all been asleep. He's there, with a girl,
+and they filed on that water yesterday. That shuts your outfit and mine
+out of the best range in the country if he fences, which he will! If
+they're goin' to dry farm our steers off the range we'd better look
+alive."
+
+"I'll be damned," muttered Hepburn. "That was one of the next things I
+was goin' to have her do, file on that water."
+
+He scratched his head and turned. Beck was waiting for him to face
+about.
+
+"Now," he said slowly, "what are you going to do?"
+
+His eyes flashed angrily and any who watched could see the challenge.
+
+Silently Hepburn reached for his belt and gun, strapped it on, dug in
+his blankets for another revolver and shoved it into his shirt.
+
+"First," he said, "I'm goin' after those horses. _That_ ain't too
+late to be remedied. No, I'll go alone!" as Tom stepped toward his bunk
+where his gun hung.
+
+Hepburn gave Beck stare for stare as though defying him now to impute
+his motives and strode out into a fine rain, drawing on his slicker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE DESTROYER
+
+
+While the men were eating that night another rider had come to H.C. He
+entered slowly, tied his horse to the fence and walked down along the
+cottonwoods toward the house. He stood outside a time, looking through
+the window at Jane whose golden head was bowed in the mellow glow of
+the student lamp as she worked at her desk.
+
+He stepped lightly across the veranda and rapped; at her bidding he
+entered.
+
+"Dick!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Undoubtedly," he said, with forced attempt at lightness.
+
+"How did you get here? Why come at this time of day?"--rising and
+walking toward him.
+
+"I rode a horse, and I came because I couldn't stay away from you any
+longer."
+
+She looked at him, head tilted a bit to one side, and genuine regret
+was in her slow smile.
+
+"Oh, Dick, don't look or feel like that! I'm glad to see you, but I
+_wish_ you'd stop thinking and talking and looking like that. I
+don't like to have you so dreadfully determined ... when it's no use.
+
+"All this way to see me! And did you eat? Of course you didn't!"
+
+"I don't want anything," he protested glumly.
+
+"But you must."
+
+She seized on his need as welcome distraction from the love making,
+which undoubtedly was his purpose. She took his coat and hat, placed
+cigarettes for him and went to the kitchen to help Carlotta prepare a
+quick meal. She served it herself, going to pains to make it
+attractive, and finally seated herself across the table from Hilton,
+who made a pretense of eating.
+
+She talked, a bit feverishly, perhaps, but compelled him to stick to
+matters far from personal and after he had finished his scant meal and
+lighted a cigarette he leaned back in his chair and smiled easily at
+her. It was a good smile, open and frank and gentle, but when it died
+that nasty light came back; as though the smile showed the man Jane
+Hunter had tolerated for long, masking the man she now tried to put
+from her.
+
+"If your enthusiasm were for anything else, I'd like it," he said.
+
+"But it isn't. Why can't you like it as it is?"
+
+He ignored the question.
+
+"Busy, Jane?"
+
+"As the devil on Forty-Second street."
+
+"And still think it's worth while?"
+
+"The only worth-while thing I've ever done; more worth while every day.
+So much worth while that I'm made over from the heart out and I've been
+here less than a month!"
+
+"After taking a bottle of your bitters I am now able to support my
+husband and children," he quoted ironically.
+
+"Laugh if you must,"--with a lift of her shoulders. "I mean it."
+
+"You get along with the men, Jane?"
+
+"Very well so far. They're fine, real, honest men. I like them all.
+There are some things I don't quite understand yet," examining a finger
+nail closely. "I haven't made up my mind that my foreman can be trusted
+or that he's as honest as he seems to be."
+
+"The fellow who was with you yesterday?"
+
+"No; Dad Hepburn. An older man. He.... He seems to evade me some times."
+
+Hilton watched her closely. She was one of the few women he knew who
+had been able to judge men; he made a mental note of the name she had
+mentioned.
+
+The talk became desultory and Dick's eyes clung more closely to Jane's
+face, their hard, bright light accentuated. It began to rain and Jane,
+hearing, looked out.
+
+"Raining! You can't go back tonight. You'll have to stay here. Mr.
+Hepburn can fix you up with the rest of the men."
+
+He smiled peculiarly at that, for it cut. He made no comment beyond
+expressing the belief that a wetting, since it was not cold, would do
+no harm. She knew that he did not mean that and contrasted his evasion
+with Beck's quiet candor.
+
+"What's the idea of the locket?" he asked and Jane looked down at the
+trinket with which she had been toying. "You never were much addicted
+to ornaments."
+
+She laughed with an expression which he did not understand.
+
+"Something is in there which is very dear to me," she said. "I don't
+wear it as an ornament; as a talisman, rather. I'm getting to be quite
+dependent on it." Her manner was outwardly light but at bottom was a
+seriousness which she did not wholly cover.
+
+"Excuse me ... for intruding on privacies," he said bitterly. Then,
+after a moment: "The picture of some cow-puncher lover, perhaps?"
+
+"No, though that wouldn't be unreasonable," she replied. "Such things
+have happened in--"
+
+"Let's cut this!" he said savagely, breaking in on her and sitting
+forward. "Let's quit these absurd banalities.
+
+"You know why I came here. You know what's in my mind. There's a job
+before me that gets bigger every day; the least you can do is to help
+me."
+
+"In what?"
+
+"Tell me what I must do to make you understand that I love you."
+
+He leaned across the table intently. The girl laughed.
+
+"Prove to me first that two and two make six!"
+
+"Meaning?"
+
+"That it can't be done."
+
+"It's the first time you've ever been that certain."
+
+"The first time I've ever expressed the certainty, perhaps. Things
+happen, Dick. I progress."
+
+"Do you mean such an impossible thing as that there is someone else?"
+
+"Another question which you have no right to ask."
+
+"Jane, look at me! Are you wholly insane?"
+
+"No, but as I look back I think I have been a little off, perhaps."
+
+"But you're putting behind you everything that is of you,"--his color
+rising with his voice as her secure conviction maddened him. "The life
+that is yours by nature and training. You're going blindly ahead into
+something you don't know, among people who are not yours!"
+
+He became suddenly tense, as though the passion which he had repressed
+until that moment swept through him with a mighty urge. His breath
+slipped out in a long sigh.
+
+"You are repeatedly mistaken, Dick. I have just found my people."
+
+"_Your_ people!" he scoffed.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"'East is East and West is West,' you know, and the two shall never
+meet. It must be true, and, if so, I have never been of the east. I
+never felt comfortable there, with the lies and the shams and the
+hypocrisies that were all about us. Out here, I do.
+
+"Perhaps that is why you and I...." She shrugged her shoulders again.
+"You see, Dick, I have cast my lot here. The East is gone, for me; it
+never can pass for you. I have found my people; they are my people,
+their Gods are my Gods. I have a strength, a peace of mind, self
+respect, ambitions and natural, real impulses that I never knew before.
+I feel that I have come home!"
+
+He laughed dryly, but she went on as though she had not heard:
+
+"You have never understood me; you never can hope to now. There's a
+gulf between us, Dick, that will never be bridged. I am sorry, in a
+way. I never can love you and I hate to see you wasting your desires on
+me.
+
+"I have thought about you a great deal lately. You are missing all that
+is fine in life and because of that I am sorry for you. We used to have
+one thing in common: the lack of worthy ideals. I have wiped out that
+lack and I wish you might; I truly wish that, Dick! And it seems
+possible to me that you may, just because you are here where realities
+count. There's an incentive in the atmosphere and I do hope it gets
+into your blood.
+
+"It is all so nonsensical, the thing you are doing, so foolish. I
+suppose I am the only thing you have ever wanted that you couldn't get
+and that's what stimulates your want. It's not love, Dick."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I have learned things in these weeks," with a wistful smile. "I have
+learned about ... men, for one thing. I have found an honesty, an
+honor, a simple directness, which I have never known before."
+
+He rose and leaned his fists on the table.
+
+"You mean you've found a lover?"
+
+She met his eyes frankly.
+
+"Again I say, you have no right to ask that question. In the second
+place, I am not yet sure."
+
+His mouth drew down in a leer.
+
+"So that's it, eh? So you would turn me away for some rough-neck who
+murders the English language and smells of horse. You'd let a thing
+like that overwhelm you in a few days when a civilized human has failed
+after years of trying!
+
+"I've tried to treat you with respect. I've tried to be gentle and
+honorable. Now if you don't want that, if you want this he-man sort of
+wooing, by God you'll get it!"
+
+He kicked his chair back angrily and advanced about the table. A big
+blue vein which ran down over his forehead stood out in knots. Jane
+rose.
+
+"Dick!" she cried and in the one word was disappointment, anger,
+appeal, reproach, query.
+
+"Oh, I'm through," he muttered. "I used to think you were a different
+sort; used to think you were fine and finished. But if you're a woman
+in the raw ... then I'll treat you as such. You've got me, either way;
+I can't get you out of my mind an hour.
+
+"I'm through holding myself back, now. You've driven me mad and you
+prove by your own insinuations that the lover you want is not the one
+who will dally with you. You want the primitive, go-and-get-it kind,
+the kind that takes and keeps. Well, mine can be that kind!"
+
+She backed from him slowly and he kept on advancing with a menacing
+assurance, his face contorted with jealousy and desire.
+
+"The other day,"--stopping a moment, "when I took your hands and felt
+your body here in this room I was almost beside myself. You haven't
+been out of my thoughts an hour since then! I tried to kill it with
+reason and then with drink. I've tried to be patient and wait among the
+ ... the cattle in that little town." He walked on toward
+her.
+
+"Dick, are you mad?" she challenged, trying to summon her assurance
+through the fright which he had given her. "It's not what you think....
+It's none of your affair--
+
+"Dick!"
+
+He grasped her wrists roughly.
+
+"Am I mad?" he repeated, looking down at her, his jaw clenched. "Yes,
+I'm mad. Mad from want of you ... your eyes, your lips, your hair,
+your very breath drives me mad and when I hear you tell me that you've
+found the flesh that calls to your flesh among these men it drives me
+wild! I can offer you more than any of them can a thousand times
+over....
+
+"Great God, I love you!"
+
+But his snarl was not the snarl of devotion, of affection. It was the
+lust cry of the destroyer, he who would possess hungrily, unthinkingly,
+without sympathy or understanding ... even without respect.
+
+He drew her to him roughly and she struggled, too frightened to cry
+out, face white and lips closed. He imprisoned both her hands in his
+one and with the other arm about her body crushed it against his, her
+breast to his breast, her limbs to his limbs. He lowered his lips
+toward her face and she bent backward, crying out lowly, but the touch
+of her lithe torso, tense in the struggle to be free, made his strength
+greater, swept away the last barrier of caution and his body was aflame
+with desire.
+
+"Dick ... stop...." she panted and managed to free one hand.
+
+She struck him on the mouth and struck again, blindly. He gave her
+efforts no notice but, releasing her hands, crushed her to him with
+both arms and she could feel the quick come and go of his breath
+through her hair as he buried his face in it.
+
+And at that she became possessed of fresh strength. She turned and half
+slipped, half fought her way through his clutch, running down the room
+to the fireplace where she stood with the davenport between them
+breathing irregularly, a hand clenched at her breast.
+
+"You ... you beast!" she said, slowly, unsteadily as he came toward her
+again.
+
+"Yes, beast!" he echoed. "We're all beasts, every one of us who sees
+and feels and I've seen you and I've felt you and the beast is hungry!"
+
+"And you call that love!" She spoke rapidly, breathlessly. "An hour ago
+if anyone would have said that Dick Hilton, sober, would have displayed
+this, this _thing_ which is his true self, I'd have come to your
+defense! But now ... you ... you!"
+
+Her face was flaming, her voice shook with outraged pride.
+
+"Stop!" she cried, drawing herself up, no longer afraid. She emerged
+from fear commanding, impressive, and Hilton hesitated, putting one
+hand to a chair back and eyeing her calculatingly as though scheming.
+The vein on his forehead still stood out like an uneven seam.
+
+"For shame!" she cried again. "Shame on you, Dick Hilton, and shame on
+me for having tolerated, for having believed in you ... little as I
+did! Oh, I loathe it all, you and myself--that was--because if it had
+not been for that other self which tolerated you, which gave you the
+opening, this ... this insult would never have been. You, who failing
+to buy a woman's love, would take it by strength! You would do this,
+and talk of your desire as love. You, who scoff at men whose respect
+for women is as real as the lives they lead. You ... you beast!"
+
+She hissed the word.
+
+"Yes, beast!" he repeated again. "Like all these other beasts, these
+others who are blinding you as you say I have blinded you, who have--"
+
+"Stop it!" she demanded again. "There is nothing more to be said ...
+ever. We understand one another now and there is but one thing left for
+you to do."
+
+"And that?"
+
+"Go."
+
+He laughed bitterly and ran a hand over his sleek hair.
+
+"If I go, you go with me," he said evenly.
+
+"Leave this house," the girl commanded, but instead of obeying he moved
+toward her again menacingly, a disgusting smile on his lips.
+
+He passed the end of the davenport and she, in turn, retreated to the
+far side.
+
+"When I go, two of--"
+
+"I take it that you heard what was said to you, sir."
+
+At the sound of the intruding voice Hilton wheeled sharply. He faced
+Tom Beck, who stood in the doorway, framed against the black night,
+arms limp and rather awkwardly hanging at his sides, eyes dangerously
+luminous; still, playing across them was that half amused look, as
+though this were not in reality so serious a matter.
+
+For an interval there was no sound except Hilton's breathing: a sort of
+hoarse gasp. The two men eyed each other and Jane, supporting her
+suddenly weakened limbs by a hand on the table, looked from one to the
+other.
+
+"What the devil are you doing here?" Dick asked heavily.
+
+"Just standin' quiet, waiting to open the gate for you when you ride
+out."
+
+The Easterner braced his shoulders backward and sniffed.
+
+"And if I don't choose to ride out? What will you do then?"
+
+Beck looked at Jane slowly and his eyes danced.
+
+"It ain't necessary to talk about things that won't happen. You're
+going to go."
+
+"Who the hell are you to be so certain?"
+
+"My name's Beck, sir. I'm just workin' here."
+
+"And playing the role of a protector?"
+
+"Well, nothing much ever comes up that I don't _try_ to do."
+
+Hilton made as if to speak again but checked himself, walked down the
+room in long strides, seized his coat, thrust his arms into the sleeves
+viciously and stood buttoning the garment. Beck looked away into the
+night as though nothing within interested him and Jane stood clutching
+the locket at her throat, caressing it with her slim, nervous fingers.
+
+"Under the circumstances, making my farewells must be to the point,"
+Hilton said. He spoke sharply, belligerently. "I have just this to say:
+I am not through."
+
+"Oh, go!" moaned Jane, dropping into a chair and covering her face with
+her hands.
+
+She heard the men leave the veranda, heard a gruff, low word from
+Hilton and knew that he went on alone. After the outer gate had closed
+she heard Tom walk slowly up the path toward the bunk house. He had
+left her without comment, without any attempt at an expression of
+concern or sympathy. She knew it was no oversight, but only a delicacy
+which would not have been shown by many men.
+
+Her loathing was gone, her anger dead; the near past was a numb memory
+and she looked up and about the room as though it were a strange place.
+There, within those walls, she had experienced the rebirth, she had
+felt ambition to stand alone come into full being, she had shaken off
+the fetters with which the past had sought to hamper her....
+
+And now she was free, wholly free. The tentacle that had been reached
+out to draw her back had been cast away. Tonight's renunciation had
+burned the last bridge to that which had been; Dick Hilton, she
+believed, would never again be an active influence in her life.
+
+She could not--perhaps fortunately--foretell how mistaken this belief
+actually would prove to be. She did not know the intensity of a man's
+jealousy, particularly when Fate has tricked him of his most valued
+prize. Nor could she foresee those events which would impell her to
+send for Hilton, to call him back, and the wells of misery which that
+action would tap!
+
+To-night he was gone, and she was even strong enough to rise above
+loathing and pity him for the failure he was. Just one fact of him
+remained. Again she heard his ominous prediction, pronounced on his
+first visit there: You cannot stand alone! You will fail! You will come
+back to me!
+
+She knew, now, that she would never return to him, but there were other
+possibilities as disastrous. Could she meet this new life and beat it
+and make in it a place for herself? Was her faith in herself strong
+enough to outride the defeat which very possibly confronted her?
+
+She did not know....
+
+Outside the rain drummed and the cottonwoods, now in full leaf, sighed
+as the wind bowed their water weighted branches. She went to the window
+and looked out, searching the darkness for movement. There was none but
+he was not far away she knew....
+
+Her fingers again sought the locket and she lifted it quickly, holding
+it pressed tightly against her mouth.
+
+"It's all there, locked up in a little gold disc!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A MATTER OF DIRECTION
+
+
+If Dick Hilton had not been bewildered by passion, jealousy and rage at
+thwarted desires, he might have known that his horse was not taking the
+homeward way, and had the horse not been bred and raised by one of
+Colonel Hunter's mares he might have carried his rider straight back to
+Ute Crossing.
+
+But he was a canny little beast, he was cold and drenched, the trip to
+town was long and the range on which he had spent his happy colthood
+was not far off. Horses know riders before riders know horses so, as he
+went through the gate, he slyly tried out this rider and instead of
+swinging to the right he bore to the left. He went tentatively through
+the pitch darkness, one ear cocked backward at first but when Hilton,
+collar up, hat down, bowed before the storm, gave no evidence of
+detecting this plan, the beast picked up his rapid walk and took the
+trail for the nearer, more satisfactory place where many times in the
+past he had stood out such downpours with no great discomfort under the
+shelter of a spreading cedar.
+
+And direction was the last thing in Dick Hilton's mind. For a long
+interval his thoughts were incoherent and the conflicting emotions they
+provoked were distressing. Being alone, made physically uncomfortable
+by the water seeping through his shoulders and breeches, sensing the
+steady movement of the animal under him, brought some order to his
+mental chaos and finally realization began to dawn.
+
+Yes, he had followed his strongest impulses; there could be no question
+about what he had done, but as for its wisdom: Ah, that was another
+matter, and he cursed himself for a fool, at first mentally, then under
+his breath and when the horse began mounting a steep incline,
+clattering over rocks with his unshod hoofs, Hilton halted him and
+looked about in foolish attempt to make out his whereabouts and said
+aloud:
+
+"Off the road. That's twice you've made an ass of yourself tonight!"
+
+There was nothing for him to do but go on and trust to the horse. He
+knew that this was not the highway but consoled himself that it might
+be a short cut to the Crossing. Small consolation and it was dissipated
+when they commenced a lurching descent with a wall of rock
+uncomfortably close to his right, so close that at times his knee
+scrubbed it smartly. He became alarmed for the horse went cautiously,
+head low, feeling his way over insecure footing. Once his fore feet
+slipped and he stopped short while loosened stones rolled before them
+on the trail and Hilton heard one strike far below to his left, and
+strike again and again, sounds growing fainter. He peered down into the
+gloom but could see nothing, hear nothing but the hiss of rain. An
+empty ache came into his viscera as he imagined the depths that might
+wait to that side.
+
+After a moment the horse went on, picking his way gingerly.
+
+Somewhere beyond or below he made out a light. It was a feeble glow and
+its location became a weird thing for lack of perceptive, but it
+cheered him. He was decidedly uncomfortable and his state of mind added
+to the physical need of warmth and shelter so he urged the horse on.
+
+Finally they reached a flat and he felt wet brush slapping at his legs
+as the horse, intent on the light himself, trotted forward.
+
+Their destination was a cabin. The glow finally resolved itself into
+cracks of light showing between logs and through a tarpaulin which hung
+across the doorway.
+
+Dick shouted. Movement inside; the curtain was drawn back and he rode
+blinking into the light, which he could see came from a fireplace. A
+woman stood outlined against the flare.
+
+"Who's there?" she asked sharply, and Dick stopped his horse.
+
+"My name is Hilton," he said, "but that won't do you much good. I'm a
+stranger and I'm off my way, I guess."
+
+The other did not reply as he dismounted and walked toward her.
+
+"Without a slicker," she said. "Come in."
+
+The first thing he saw inside was movement: A cartridge belt, swinging
+from a nail. A rifle leaned handily against the door casing.
+
+The girl who had held the curtain back for him to enter let it drop and
+turned to face him. Hilton drew his breath sharply. Blue-black hair, in
+a heavy, orderly mass atop a shapely, high-held head and falling down
+her straight trim back in one thick plait; brown eyes, ripe red lips, a
+delicate chin and a throat of exquisite proportions. His gaze traveled
+down her figure, the natural grace of which could not be concealed by
+the shirt and riding skirt she wore. She was wholly beautiful.
+
+"Oh, I've seen you before," he said slowly. "You're the girl that
+demanded respect and got it in the Crossing the other day!"
+
+She eyed him in silence a moment, evidently unaware of the admiration
+in his tone.
+
+"I never saw you. I ain't been here long," she said, her expression
+still defiant, as though he had challenged her. She searched his face,
+his clothing, and back at his face again. "Where was you travelin'
+tonight?"
+
+"I was going to the Crossing," he said with a short laugh. "My horse
+brought me here."
+
+Without comment she walked to the fire and threw on another knot. He
+watched her movements, the free rhythmic swing of her walk, the easy
+grace with which her hands and arms moved, the perfect assurance in
+even her smallest gesture. His eyes kindled.
+
+"Set," she said, indicating a box by the hearth. "You're soaked. Lucky
+you struck here or you'd made a night of it."
+
+Hilton seated himself, holding his hands toward the fire. He looked
+about the one room of the cabin. In two corners were beds on the
+earthen floor, a table made from a packing box contained dishes, Dutch
+ovens and a frying pan were on the hearth. The roof leaked.
+
+The girl sat eyeing the fire, rather sullenly. He held his gaze on her,
+watching the play of light over her throat as it threw a velvety sheen
+on the wind kissed skin. Her shirt was open at the neck and he could
+see the easy rise and fall of her breast as she breathed. He noticed
+that her fingers were slender and that her wrists, bronzed by exposure,
+indicated with all their delicacy, wiry strength. Another thing: She
+was clean.
+
+Suddenly the girl looked up.
+
+"Think you'd know me again?" she said bruskly, and rather swaggered as
+she moved.
+
+"I don't think I shall ever forget you," he replied. "I knew I should
+not the first time I saw you. I shall never forget the way you gave
+that fellow what he deserved. It was great!"
+
+His manner was kindly, showing no resentment at her belligerence and
+though her only reply was a sniff he knew that what he had said pleased
+her.
+
+"I wouldn't want you to think I'm staring at you," he went on. "A man
+shouldn't be blamed for looking at you closely."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"You are very beautiful."
+
+She poked at the fire with a stick.
+
+"I reckon that'll be enough of that," she said as she walked back
+toward the door.
+
+The man smiled and followed her with his eyes, which squinted
+speculatively.
+
+"You'd better unsaddle that horse," she said. "He'll roll with your kak
+if you don't."
+
+Hilton looked about the room again.
+
+"Are you alone?" he asked.
+
+She whirled and looked at him with temper. Her hand, perhaps
+unconsciously, was pressed against the wall near that rifle.
+
+"What if I am?"--sharply.
+
+"Because if you are I shall not unsaddle my horse. I'll have to go on."
+
+When she put her question she had been rigidly expectant but at his
+answer she relaxed and the fierceness that had been about her yielded
+to a curiosity.
+
+"Go on in the rain? How's that?"--in a voice that was quite different,
+as though she had encountered something she did not understand.
+
+He looked at her a lengthy interval before replying.
+
+"Because I respect you very much. Do you understand that?"
+
+She moved back to the fireplace, eyeing him questioningly, and he met
+that look with an easy smile.
+
+"No, I don't understand that," she said.
+
+"You should. I saw you beat a man the other day because he didn't
+respect you. No one but that type of man would refuse to respect you.
+It's wise, perhaps, for you to take down that rifle when strangers come
+at night ... but it isn't always necessary. Some men might stay here
+with you alone, but I couldn't."
+
+"You mean, that you'd ride on in the rain?"
+
+"Surely."
+
+"Well.... You ain't afraid of the gun, are you?"
+
+He laughed outright.
+
+"No, it's not that! It's because I'd ride any distance rather than do
+something that might bring you unhappiness. Don't you see?" He leaned
+forward, elbows on knees, looking up into her serious face. "Don't you
+see that if I stayed here with you, alone, and people heard about it,
+they might not respect you?"
+
+"It's none of their business!"
+
+"Neither was it any business of that man to insult you in town the
+other day. But he did."
+
+"But it's rainin' and you're cold. I ain't afraid of you."
+
+It was raining, but he was not cold. The fire was close and, besides,
+another warmth was seeping through his body as he looked earnestly into
+the face of that daughter of the mountains. The ready defiance was gone
+from it and the features, in repose, gave it an expression that was
+little less than wistful.
+
+"And you are a young girl who deserves the admiration of every man that
+walks. If I stayed here with you, you would know it's all right, and so
+would I.... Others might not understand."
+
+She sat down abruptly, leaned back, clasped one knee with her hands and
+smiled for the first time. It was a beautiful smile, in great contrast
+to her earlier sullen defiance.
+
+"I like you," she said simply, and Hilton's face grew hot.
+
+"If you like me, my night's ride hasn't gone to waste," he replied, and
+laughed.
+
+She looked him over again, calculatingly, as closely as she had at
+first, but with a different interest. Her smile faded but the lips
+remained slightly parted, showing teeth of calcium whiteness.
+
+"You're the first man that's ever talked that-a way to me. I've been
+travelin' ever since I can remember, first one place, then another.
+I've always had to look out for men.... I've been able to, too, since I
+got big enough to be bothered.
+
+"This is the first time any man's talked like you're talkin' to me."
+
+"Bless you," he said very gently, "that's been tough luck. A girl like
+you are doesn't deserve that."
+
+"Don't she? Well, it ain't what you deserve that counts, it's what you
+get."
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"Bobby.... Bobby Cole."
+
+"How old are you?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"I don't know ... just. About twenty. Alf knows; I ain't thought to ask
+him for quite a while."
+
+"Who's Alf?"
+
+"My father."
+
+"... And your mother?"
+
+"I never had none that I recall. She died early; that was back in
+Oklahoma, Alf says."
+
+"No brothers or sisters?"
+
+A shake of the head.
+
+"And since then you've been alone with your father?"
+
+She nodded. "For weeks an' months, without talkin' to another soul."
+
+"Have you always lived so far away as that? Always in such remote
+places that you didn't even see people?"
+
+"Huh! Usually I've seen 'em, 'most every day.... But there's a
+difference between seein' folks and talkin' to 'em."
+
+He was puzzled and said so.
+
+"Funny!" she repeated after him. "Maybe it's funny ... but I can't see
+it that-a way."
+
+"But surely you've made friends! A girl like you couldn't help make
+friends."
+
+"I've never had a friend in my life ... but Alf," she answered bitterly.
+
+"Then it must have been because you didn't want to make friends with
+people."
+
+"Didn't want to!" she echoed almost angrily. "What else does anybody
+want but friends ... an' things like that? Oh, I wanted to all right,
+but folks don't make friends with ... with trash like we are. We ain't
+got enough to have friends; ain't got enough even to have peace."
+
+Hilton studied her face carefully. It was a queer blending of appealing
+want and virulence.
+
+"They won't even let you have peace?" he asked deliberately to urge her
+in further revelation.
+
+"Folks that have things don't want other folks to have 'em. In this
+country when poor folks try to get ahead all they get is trouble."
+
+"Is that always so?"
+
+She shrugged and said, "It's always been so with us. Big cattle outfits
+have drove us out time after time. They're always sayin' Alf steals;
+they're always makin' us trouble. I hate 'em!
+
+"I could get along all right. I can fight but Alf can't. He's had so
+much bad luck that it's took th' heart out of him.... If it wasn't for
+me he couldn't get along at all. He's discouraged."
+
+"You must think a lot of your father."
+
+She shook her head as if to infer that measuring such devotion was an
+impossibility.
+
+"Think a lot of him? God, yes! He's all I got. He's all I ever had.
+He's the only one that hasn't chased me out ... or chased after me.
+We've been on the move ever since I can recollect, stayin' a few months
+or a year or two, then hittin' the trail again. Move, move, move!
+Always chased out by big outfits, always made fun of, an' he's been
+good to me through it all. I'd crawl through fire for Alf."
+
+"A devotion like that is a very fine and noble thing."
+
+"Is it? It comes sort of natural to me. I never thought about
+it,"--with a weary sigh.
+
+"How did you happen to come here?" he asked.
+
+She looked at him and a flicker as of suspicion crossed her face.
+
+"Just come," she replied, rather evasively, he thought.
+
+For a time they did not speak. The fire crackled dully. Steam rose in
+wisps from Hilton's soaked clothing and a cunning crept into his
+expression. The rain pattered on the roof and dripped through in
+several places, forming dark spots on the hard floor; the horse stamped
+in the mud outside.
+
+The man saw the regular leap of the pulse in her throat and caressed
+his thumb with finger tips as delicately as though they stroked that
+smooth skin.
+
+Her lips were parted ... and _such_ lips! He told himself that she
+was more beautiful than he had first thought and as filled with
+contrasts as the heavens themselves. Shortly before she had been
+defiant, ready for trouble, prepared to defend herself with a rifle if
+necessary; now she was a child; that, and no more ... and she was
+distinctive ... quite so.
+
+"You better stay," she said rather shyly after a time. "Alf'll be back
+some time before mornin'. Nobody'll know."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"You and I would know, and after I've told you what I think about it,
+maybe you wouldn't like me if I did stay ... you've said you did like
+me."
+
+He rose, smiling.
+
+"Sure enough goin'?"
+
+"Sure enough going."
+
+"But you're soaked and cold."
+
+"No man could do less for a girl like you."
+
+He bowed playfully low and when he lifted his eyes to her again they
+read her simple pleasure. He had touched her greatest love, the desire
+to be treated by men with respect.
+
+"I'll just ask you to show me the way."
+
+"You come by the way, I guess. Just start back that trail and your
+cayuse'll take you to the road--
+
+"But Alf'll be back. We've never turned anybody out in the rain before."
+
+"Then this is something new. Don't ask me again, please. When you ask a
+man it makes it very hard to refuse and I must ... for your sake.
+
+"After I strike the road, then what?"
+
+"Follow right past the HC ranch to town. You know where that is?"
+
+A wave of rage swept through him.
+
+"I ought to!" he said bitterly. "I was sent away from there tonight."
+
+"Sent away? In the _rain_?"
+
+"In the rain."
+
+"Why did they do that?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Because there are things which some people do not value as highly as
+you do. Generosity, thoughtfulness for the desires of others,
+hospitality."
+
+He licked his lips almost greedily as he watched her.
+
+"Did _she_ know?"
+
+"Who do you mean?"
+
+"That greenhorn gal."
+
+"Yes, she knew," he answered grimly, and buttoned his coat.
+
+He put out his hand and she took it, rather awed.
+
+"Some time I may come back and thank you for what you've wanted to do."
+
+"Oh, you'll come back?"
+
+"Do you want me to?"
+
+"Yes,"--eagerly.
+
+"Then it is impossible for me to stay away for long!"
+
+She stood watching, as, touching his hat, he rode into the night. She
+let the curtain drop and returned to the fire, standing there a moment.
+Then she sat down, rather weakly, and stretched her slim legs across
+the hearth.
+
+"I'll be damned!" she said, rather reverently.
+
+Hilton did not ride far. His horse was reluctant to go at first and
+then stopped and stood with head in the air, nickering softly and would
+not go on when his rider spurred him. After a moment Hilton sat still
+and listened. He heard the steady _plunk-plunk-plunk_ of a
+trotting horse and, soon, the swish of brush; then a call, rather low
+and cautious.
+
+The canvas before the doorway was drawn back.
+
+"You decided to stay?" Then, in surprise, "Who's there?"--sharply.
+
+One word in answer and Hilton remembered it:
+
+"Hepburn."
+
+The rider dismounted and entered.
+
+Dick rode on up the trail. When he reached Ute Crossing his clothing
+was dried by the early sun. He ate breakfast and crawled into his bed,
+angered one moment, puzzled the next and, finally, thrilled as he
+dropped asleep with a vision of firelight playing over a deliciously
+slender throat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+HEPBURN'S PLAY
+
+
+It was the next morning. Beck, standing beside Jane's desk, had told
+her of the foreman's departure and its motive.
+
+"But doesn't that mean he'll be in danger?" she queried in frank dismay.
+
+"A man who goes after horse thieves is likely to run into trouble,
+ma'am. That is, if he gets close to 'em. He wouldn't let anybody go
+with him so I guess he figures he's competent,"--dryly. "He'll come
+back all right. I'd bet on it."
+
+"But I don't want any of you men to put yourselves in danger for me,
+for the things I own. I won't have it! Haven't we any law to protect
+us?"
+
+Beck shook his head.
+
+"There's law, on books. But using that law takes time and in some
+cases, like this, there ain't time to spare. You've got to make a law
+of your own or those that somebody else makes won't be worth much to
+you.
+
+"It ain't just pleasant to have to go gunning for your horses and
+cattle, but if that's the only way to hold 'em it's got to be done.
+It's either go get 'em and drive the thieves out or be driven out
+yourself. You don't want to be driven out, do you, ma'am?"
+
+"You know the answer to that," she declared resolutely. "Where is this
+place? How long will it take him to get there?"
+
+"Can't tell that. Twenty Mile is only a short ride, but we got the news
+late. They're probably gone yonder by now and he might trail 'em a good
+many days an' then lose 'em."
+
+Again that dryness of manner as he looked at the girl.
+
+"And this other? This water hole? What about that?"
+
+Beck could not give her an answer.
+
+"It all depends on what sort of nester this is. He might be talked out
+of it, though that ain't likely."
+
+She tapped the desk with nervous fingers.
+
+"I came down to tell you about Dad last night. That's why I was here,"
+he explained, as though he considered an explanation necessary. And
+with it was an indication of the curiosity which he could not conceal.
+
+Jane flushed, and her gaze fell. The man stood looking down at her
+golden hair, the soft skin of cheeks and throat, the parted lips. One
+of his hands closed slowly, tightly. For a moment he let himself want
+her!
+
+"I am very glad that you did come. I don't know how much you heard or
+what you saw but--"
+
+"Nothing that I can recall, except that you wasn't havin' your own way."
+
+The courtesy of this touched her and she smiled her gratitude.
+
+"Dick Hilton had been an old friend of mine; that is, I thought he was
+a friend. I....
+
+"He said some things last night that I wouldn't want you to
+misunderstand. They.... That is, it would hurt me to think that you
+might believe what you heard him say."
+
+"I don't think there's any danger of me misunderstanding anything that
+man would say about you. I mean, his meaning, ma'am, not only his
+words."
+
+"That is as much assurance as could be given," she replied.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+For forty-eight hours following Hepburn's departure the HC was in a
+state of expectation. Frequently, even on the first night following,
+the men would stop talking and listen at any unusual sound as though
+that all believed it might be the foreman returning or some one with
+the word that he would never return, because the remainder of the crew
+did not have the faith in his well being that Beck had expressed to
+Jane Hunter.
+
+The Reverend held the floor much of the time, preaching frequent
+impromptu sermons, discoursing largely on small matters. To him the
+rest listened in delight with the exception of Two-Bits, who was
+overawed by the verboseness of his kin.
+
+A less obvious activity of the Reverend's was his pertinent, never
+ceasing questioning. He asked questions casually and covered his
+attempts to glean information by long-winded comments on irrelevant
+subjects. Tom Beck, even, caught himself expressing opinions when he
+had not intended to and guarded himself thereafter.
+
+"He's an old fox!" he thought. "He knows a heap more than he lets on
+... like some other folks."
+
+Otherwise the man seemed harmless. He let no opportunity pass to sell
+his fountain pens which he carried always in the pockets of his frock
+coat. He took frequent inventories of his stock and when he miscounted
+or actually found some article missing he turned the place upside down
+until the loss was adjusted.
+
+He seemed inclined to linger because though assuring the rest that his
+plans were not of mortal making he often spoke of the summer's work. He
+was no mean ranch hand himself and was with his brother much, doing
+everything from branding colts to digging post holes.
+
+When, on the morning of the third day Hepburn had not returned, Jane
+called Beck to the house and asked if he did not think it wise to send
+help. The man did not reply at once because at this suggestion a
+possibility flashed into his mind which he had not considered hitherto.
+He looked at the girl who stood fingering the locket and asked himself:
+
+"Has he taken this chance to quit the country? Has something happened
+that is bound to come to light?"
+
+Aloud, he said:
+
+"Your worry is in the wrong place. You're worrying over your men and
+you ought to be worrying over your stock. You've come into this
+country; you want to stay; you don't seem to understand, quite, that
+this is no polite game you're playing.
+
+"When a man goes to work for an outfit, if he's the right kind to be a
+top hand out here, he's willing to do anything that comes up, even if
+it's risking his life. That ain't right pleasant to think about, ma'am,
+but we all understand it. If it has to be it has to be; no choice.
+
+"If you're going to worry more about your men in a case like this than
+you do about havin' them hold up your end of the game you ain't going
+to play up to your part. You can't be soft hearted and stand off horse
+thieves."
+
+"But, don't you see that I can't feel that way?" she pleaded.
+
+"Then you've got to act that way, ma'am," he replied in rebuke. "Your
+men have got to understand that you care whether school keeps or not
+... or school ain't going to keep. Get that straight in your head."
+
+He looked down at her a moment and his face changed, that little
+dancing light coming into his eyes at first; then he smiled openly.
+
+"There's a word we use out here that I guess that they didn't use in
+the country you come from. It's Guts. They're necessary, ma'am."
+
+He waited to see how she would take his assertion, but she only flushed
+slightly.
+
+"If Hepburn don't show up soon, it might be wise to go prospectin', but
+it won't be best to think more about him than you do about the men he's
+after ... least, it won't be wise to show you do. I ain't advisin' you
+to be hard hearted. Just play the game; that's all."
+
+He left her, with a deal to think about.
+
+After all, there had been no occasion for concern because at noon, dust
+covered, on a gaunt horse, the foreman brought eight HC horses into
+the ranch.
+
+The men hastened from the dinner table but Hepburn did not respond to
+their queries and congratulations. He bore himself with dignity and had
+an eye only for the completion of his task.
+
+"Open the gate to the little corral, Two-Bits," he directed and, this
+done, urged the horses within.
+
+Next he dragged his saddle from the big bay and rubbed the animal's
+back solicitously, let him roll and led him to the stable where he
+measured out a lavish feed of oats.
+
+Meanwhile he had been surrounded by insistent questioners but he put
+them off rather abruptly; when he emerged from the stable, slapping his
+palms together to rid them of moist horse hair he stopped, hitched up
+his chaps and looked from face to face until his eyes met those of Tom
+Beck, who had been the last to approach. Their gazes clung, Hepburn's
+in challenge, now, and in the other's an expression which defied
+definition.
+
+"I brought 'em in," the foreman said, still staring at Beck and bit
+savagely down on his tobacco. "Does _that_ mean anything?"
+
+Beck smiled, as though it did not matter much, and said:
+
+"For the present ... you win."
+
+The others had not caught the significance of this exchange and when
+Dad moved forward their talk broke out afresh. The foreman grinned,
+pleased at the stir.
+
+"Now, now! Don't swamp a waddie when he comes in after next to no sleep
+an' ridin' from hell to breakfast!" he protested. "One at a time, one
+at a time."
+
+"Tie to the story an' drag her past us," advised Curtis.
+
+"It ain't much,"--with a modesty that was somewhat forced. "It wasn't
+nothin' but a case of goin' and gettin' the goods. Picked up the trail
+at the mouth of Twenty Mile early the mornin' after I set out and
+dragged right along on it. There was three of 'em, so I laid pretty low
+after noon. Then one cuts off towards the rail road and at night the
+others turned the horses into that old corral at the Ute's buckskin
+camp. I waited until they got to sleep, saw I couldn't sneak the stock
+away so,"--he spat and wiped his mustache, "I just naturally scattered
+their fire all ways!"
+
+He laughed heartily.
+
+"You'd ought to seen 'em coming out of their blankets! I dropped two
+shots in the coals and then blazed away at the first man up. Missed him
+but cut 'em off from their ridin' horses, got ours out of the corral
+while their saddle stock was stampedin' all over the brush and lit out
+for here, hittin' the breeze!
+
+"That's about all. Stopped at Webb's last night and tried to figure out
+the men, but they're strangers, I guess."
+
+There were comments and questions. Then Jimmy Oliver, looking at Dad's
+saddle, said:
+
+"What happened to your horn, there?"
+
+The foreman chuckled.
+
+"One of 'em almost got me, boys, but a miss is as good as four or five
+days' ride, ain't it? Was circlin' for the horses, shootin' sideways at
+'em when one of 'em put some lead in betwixt me and the horn, only
+quite close to the horn, it seems."
+
+"Well, I'll be darned if you didn't have a close shave, and--"
+
+Just then Jane Hunter rode up on her sorrel and when she saw her
+foreman she smiled in relief.
+
+"You're back, and safely!" she said as she dismounted.
+
+"With the bacon, ma'am."
+
+"An' they almost got his bacon, Miss Hunter," Oliver said. "Look here!"
+He indicated the damaged saddle and explained.
+
+"They came that close to shooting you?" she asked Dad. Her voice was
+even enough but she could not conceal her dismay at his narrow escape.
+
+"Why, Miss Hunter, that ain't nothin'! I was just tellin' the boys that
+a miss is as good as a long ride. I'm your foreman, they was your
+horses--"
+
+"Such things have to be," she broke in, making an effort to be decisive
+and convincing, but her voice was not just steady and Beck, at least,
+knew how desperately she tried to play up to her part, to smother her
+impulse to show that she held life dearer than she did her property, to
+shrink from the hard facts of the hard life she faced.
+
+"So long as I'm your foreman nobody's goin' to get away with your stock
+without a fight," Hepburn went on pompously, well satisfied with the
+impression he had made. "If necessary they'll come a lot closer to
+lettin' blessed sunshine in to my carcass than this! There ain't a man
+of us who wouldn't do it for you an' gladly. If they're goin' to try to
+fleece you they've got us to reckon with first.
+
+"Ain't that the truth, Tom?"
+
+Beck did not reply but watched Jane Hunter as she stood looking down at
+the saddle with its tell tale scar.
+
+The Reverend remained when the group broke up. He leaned low over the
+saddle and examined the leather binding about the horn. He fingered it,
+then lowered his face close against it. For a moment he held so and
+then straightened slowly. He walked toward the bunk house so absorbed
+that he talked to himself and as he passed Beck he was muttering:
+
+"... wolf in sheep's clothing ..."
+
+"What's that?" asked Beck.
+
+The Reverend stopped, surprised that he had been overheard. He looked
+at Tom and blinked and rattled the pens in his coat pocket; then looked
+about to see whether they were observed.
+
+"Brother, when a man is honest does he go to great pains to make that
+honesty evident? Does he lie to make people believe he does not act a
+lie?"
+
+"Not usually. What are you drivin' at, Reverend?"
+
+The other stepped closer.
+
+"If you'll examine that saddle horn, you'll discover that the shot
+which tore it was fired from a gun held so close that the powder burned
+the leather. More: that it was fired so recently that the smell of
+powder is still there.
+
+"There is something rotten, brother, in a locality nearer than Denmark!"
+
+Beck whistled softly to himself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A NEIGHBORLY CALL
+
+
+The mountains which had been brown and saffron when Jane Hunter came to
+take possession of her ranch grew tinted with green as grasses sprouted
+under the coaxing sun. Pinons were edged with lighter tints,
+contrasting sharply with the deep color of older growth. Service bushes
+turned cream color with bloom and sage put out new growth; calves,
+high-tailed and venturesome, frolicked between frequent meals from
+swollen udders, birds nested and shy mountain flowers completed their
+scant cycle.
+
+No life remained arrested and with the rest the girl developed. She
+took on a more robust color, her eyes which had always been clear and
+cool, possessed a different look and a thin sprinkling of tiny freckles
+appeared across her nose. She had taken to the ways of the mountains
+easily. Her modish clothing was discarded and she wore brightly colored
+shirts, a brimmed hat, drab riding skirt and the smallest pair of boots
+that had ever been manufactured in that country.
+
+Two-Bits was wide-eyed in his enthusiasm.
+
+"My gosh, Reverend!" he whispered, "look at them boots! Ain't they th'
+grandest little things you ever seen?... Gosh, they're too little for
+any spurs she can buy, ain't they? _Gosh_ ..."--in helpless
+admiration.
+
+Two-Bits and the Reverend had something on. This was evident from the
+manner in which they kept apart from the others. Each evening they
+would sit on a wagon seat or perch on a corral or Azariah would stand
+near while his brother groomed his little horse, Nigger, and they would
+talk, low and confidently, the Reverend gesticulating and Two-Bits
+looking far away and talking laboriously as though he were memorizing
+something.
+
+The homely fellow took several mysterious trips to town and once he
+borrowed ten dollars from Beck and offered a buckskin bridle as
+security, which the other waved away with affectionate curses.
+
+Hepburn had been commissioned to talk with Cole, the nester, and
+determine his plans as they might affect the HC. This took him away
+from the ranch repeatedly ... so many times, in fact, that it gave Beck
+one more thing to wonder about. Also, there was a letter for Hepburn,
+arriving a day or two after his return with the stolen horses, which
+sent him suddenly to Ute Crossing; thereafter he went frequently.
+
+There seemed no way around the potential difficulty which the nester
+presented and, as one of her last resorts, Jane sent Tom to the
+Crossing to look up the record of the filing himself and to confer with
+the one remaining attorney in the town. He announced his going and
+Two-Bits, hearing, asked him to bring back a package which would be
+waiting there. When Tom returned that night he handed the gawky lad a
+small parcel which he immediately stuffed into his shirt and carried to
+the supper table.
+
+"Them your jooles?" Oliver asked.
+
+"None of your gol-darned business!"
+
+"Ah, come on, old timer, an' let us in on it," the other pleaded. "I'll
+bet it's a present for your best girl."
+
+"If you got to know, it's corn plasters for th' corns on your brains,
+Jimmy," Two-Bits countered.
+
+He hurried through his meal and from the table and, with the Reverend,
+walked down toward the creek where they went through their usual
+performance, this time, however, with less prompting from the
+clergyman. Then, brushing the dust from his shirt, adjusting his scarf,
+Two-Bits walked nervously toward the ranch house.
+
+Jane answered his knock with a call to enter. He stepped in with the
+package in his hand, but as he removed his hat the parcel dropped to
+the floor and when he regained an erect position after recovering it
+his face was fiery red.
+
+"What's your trouble tonight, Two-Bits?" Jane asked, approaching him.
+
+"In," he began and stopped to clear his throat. He swallowed with great
+difficulty. "In--In recognition of your--your God--" He coughed and
+swallowed once more.
+
+_"What?"_--in amazement.
+
+"In recognition of your God--your God given beauty, an'
+estim--estimable qualifications--"
+
+He ran a finger inside his collar and dropped his hat. Perspiration
+stood on his lip in beads and his dismayed eyes roved the room. He
+moved his feet nervously.
+
+"In recognition of your God--" he began again, but broke short:
+
+"Hell, ma'am," he exploded, "my brother taught me a fine speech--
+
+"Here!"--holding the package toward her with an unsteady hand and a
+great relief coming into his eyes. "I found this in th' road an'
+thought mebby you might want 'em."
+
+Controlling her desire to laugh at his confusion Jane took the package
+and turned it over in her hands.
+
+"What is it, Two-Bits? Why do you bring it to me?"
+
+"I can't use it--'em. I thought ... I ..." he began, backing rapidly
+toward the door, moving with accelerated speed as he put distance
+between them.
+
+"Two-Bits, you wait!" she commanded. "I'm going to find out what this
+is before you go."
+
+He looked about in a fresh agony of embarrassment but her order had
+rendered him unable to move. Jane broke the string, took off the
+wrapping and opened a paper box. Within reposed a pair of spurs, as
+small spurs as her boots were small boots. They were beautiful products
+of some mountain forge, one-piece steel, heavily engraved by hand,
+silver plated. Small silver chains and hand-tooled straps were attached
+and as she held them up the delicate rowels jingled like tiny bells.
+
+"Two-Bits!" she cried. "Aren't they beautiful?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," he said, and made for the door again.
+
+She caught him by the arm that time, else he would have fled, and she
+made him look at her.
+
+"Two-Bits, you lied to me! You didn't find these on the road, now, did
+you?"
+
+"Well, that is.... Not exactly, ma'am,"--weakly.
+
+"Where did they come from?"
+
+"A fella, he made 'em an' give 'em to me an' they was too small for
+me--"
+
+"Don't you tell me another single lie! _Where_ did you get them?"
+
+"Well ... I had 'em made,"--swallowing again, and _very_ weakly.
+
+"Two-Bits!"--seizing his rough, cold hand while a suggestion of tears
+came into her eyes. "You had these made for me? Why, bless your heart,
+I've never had a finer gift before. And to think--
+
+"You're a dear!"
+
+"Oh, my gosh!" he whimpered, and despite her detaining hand, fled the
+disquieting presence.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Of all men in that country, Two-Bits was the only one who openly
+accepted Jane Hunter and his devotion was caused by an awed
+appreciation of her beauty. The others, even her own riders, remained
+stolidly skeptical of her ability to measure up to the task she had
+undertaken and when men talked of the business of the country they
+unconsciously spoke of the prestige of the HC as a thing of the past.
+
+Hepburn had brought back some of her property that was being driven off
+but he had not halted attempts to make away with her horses and cattle.
+There were rumors, vague but persistent, of other depredations and
+those who best knew the ways of the cattle country awaited that time
+when the situation must reach a crisis, when Jane Hunter must be put to
+the ordeal that would test her mettle.
+
+She was yet unconscious of much of this for her urge to make a place
+for herself centered on penetrating the callousness of the one man she
+wanted to impress most of all. He remained aloof, watching her either
+with that tantalizing amusement or a subtle challenge to win his open
+friendship. There were moments when, as on that night after their drive
+to Ute Crossing, she wanted to throw herself on him, to beg, to plead
+that he lower his reserve and give her a place ... a place in his heart.
+
+But that, reason told her, would be the last thing to win him. She must
+trust to the force of her personality to drive her way into his life....
+
+Occasionally he would talk, for she offered a sympathetic audience to
+the things he had to say but never did their conversation become
+intimate; the subjects he discussed were invariably abstract and
+impersonal. While listening she studied the man, striving to define
+that quality about him which lay behind his reserve and drew her on.
+She could not seize and analyze it.... He was, aside from obvious minor
+qualities, a closed book.
+
+Still she saw him at night patrolling the cottonwoods before he slept!
+
+She could not know what went on in the heart of that man, of the fight
+he waged with himself, of the struggle he made to stick to his creed:
+never to take a chance. He did not know that she was aware of those
+nightly vigils. The first had been on that night after he had played
+with her pride and her high spirits. Returned to the bunk house he had
+suddenly seen her not a smart, capable stranger but as a girl, alone,
+facing a new life, surrounded by strange people and unfriendly
+influences. He sensed a pity for her and walked back to look about the
+place and see that all was well, as he might have watched over a
+sleeping child.
+
+And then, the day that the sorrel threw her, he had felt her body and
+the man in him had been stirred and when next he paced those shadows it
+was not as a protector of some defenseless life, but as one who quite
+tenderly lays siege to the heart of a woman.
+
+He did not admit that even to himself. He reasoned that he was
+protecting her because she was a stranger in a strange land and that
+the impulse was only kindness. But his reason in that was a conscious
+lie for as he stood under the stars with the cool, quiet night all
+about him he could hear her voice in the murmur of the creek, hear her
+limbs rustling her skirts in the soft sigh of wind in the trees, could
+feel her presence there ... when he was stark alone....
+
+And he fought it off, fought stubbornly, coldly because he did not
+know, he did not know love, did not know the ground into which he was
+being carried.
+
+Women? He had had many but the experiences had been casual, mere
+surface rifflings, and he had never been stirred as this woman stirred
+him. It was new, entirely new, and Tom Beck feared that which he did
+not know.
+
+He was accustomed to talk to his horses as men will who love them and
+while he rode the gulches alone he would in later days reason aloud
+with his own roan or the HC black or bay he used.
+
+"Why, old stager, we can't take a chance like that!" he said time after
+time. "We've kept our heels out of trouble by playing a close game, not
+gettin' out on a limb, but up to now everything that come along has
+been boy's play ... compared to this.
+
+"If an _hombre_ took a chance with his love that'd be the limit,
+wouldn't it? He'd have his stack on the table, an' the deal wouldn't be
+more than started!"
+
+He talked over the loves of other men with those horses, earnestly,
+soberly. He recalled the marriages he had known between men and women
+who were from the same stocks, who knew none but the same life; so many
+were failures! And this girl, this girl of whom he dreamed at night and
+thought by day, scarcely yet spoke his language!
+
+But he could not argue away the disturbing impulse. He could cover it,
+hide it from others, hide it from himself at times, but drive it out?
+Never!
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Tom's report to Jane after his trip to town offered no encouragement.
+The filing had been legally accomplished and its significance was
+further impressed on the girl when he said:
+
+"It's a mighty popular subject in town, ma'am. Everybody's interested."
+
+"I suppose they all think it will mean trouble for me?"
+
+"Yes, an' they're likely to be right."
+
+She shook her head sharply.
+
+"We don't want trouble, but if it does come we must meet it half way!"
+She leaned forward determinedly and Beck stirred in his chair. It was a
+gesture of delight for those were almost his very words to Hepburn when
+they cleared their relationships of pretense; but he said only:
+
+"That's the easiest way to take trouble on."
+
+Just then Hepburn came in with his report on his visit to the Hole.
+
+"The old fellow seems reasonable, Miss Hunter," he said ponderously.
+"He don't look like he's a permanent neighbor even if he has bought
+some cows from Webb, which I found out today. He's poor as a church
+mouse to begin with--"
+
+"And buyin' more cattle?" put in Beck.
+
+"Oh, they were old stock an' I guess Webb was glad to get rid of 'em,"
+the foreman said with a wave of his hand, yet he did not return Beck's
+searching gaze.
+
+"Cole told me he didn't have any intention of fencin' up the water so I
+guess there ain't anything to fret you, Miss Hunter. I sounded him out
+on buyin' but didn't get far. He's a shiftless old cuss, from th' look
+of things, so I don't anticipate any trouble at all. He may not even
+last the summer out."
+
+Tom left and afterward Hepburn talked at length of the situation,
+minimizing the menace the others saw, urging Jane to put the matter out
+of her mind. But the girl was not satisfied and the next day, with Tom,
+rode off toward the Hole.
+
+They made an early start, riding out of the ranch just as the sun
+topped the heights to the eastward. Dew hung heavily on the sage from
+which fresh, clean fragrance rose as their horses stirred the brush.
+Their shadows were thrown far in advance as they followed a narrow
+gulch and the sunlight was caught and concentrated and scattered again
+as the drops flew from leaf and twig.
+
+The girl breathed deeply of the light, sweet air and looked at Beck
+with a little laugh as of relief.
+
+"When I sit at that desk, I feel like a prosaic business woman whose
+interest is in ledgers," she said, "but when I ride in this country I
+feel like a character in some romantic story."
+
+Tom scratched his chin thoughtfully.
+
+"That's too bad, 'ma'am," he said.
+
+"Which?"
+
+"Both."
+
+"I can see disadvantages to the first, but why the other?"
+
+"I guess I ain't struck much with stories. Used to read 'em, used to
+get real interested in some but that was before I commenced to get
+interested in folks."
+
+"Yes?" she encouraged after a moment.
+
+"You see, I think the folks I see and hear and live with and get to
+know are a lot more interestin' than the folks somebody's thought up
+out of his head.
+
+"A man in a book talks and acts like a man in a book an' nothing else.
+You never hear men talk out here in the bunk house or ridin' the
+country like a writer would make 'em talk on the page of a book; take
+my word for that....
+
+"Folks are mighty interestin'. The best fun I get is watching folks,
+studying them. It's a lot more fun than reading about some man or woman
+you know ain't real, ma'am.
+
+"Life is mighty interesting if you look at it right. If you try to
+glorify and lie about it you cheapen the whole works. It's either
+damned serious or a joke. There's no in between. I don't know which it
+is, yet, but I do know that most of the books I ever read was th'
+in-between kind, neither one thing nor the other.
+
+"I've been around considerable among men but I never seen things happen
+in life like writers make things happen in books. Everything works out
+so lovely in books, folks never make mistakes in anything ... that is,
+the heroes don't. Why, love even works out right in books!"
+
+He spoke the last in a lowered voice as if he talked of a sacred thing
+that had been mistreated. Unconsciously he had voiced the fear that had
+grown in his own soul and when he turned to look at her his eyes
+reflected a queer mental conflict, almost fright!
+
+She caught something of his mood and waited a moment to summon the
+courage to ask very gently:
+
+"And doesn't it ... doesn't love work out in life?"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Seldom, ma'am. In books folks gamble with it like it was ... why,
+ma'am, like their love was a white chip!"
+
+Again he spoke as of a sacrilege and his earnestness, though he did not
+appear to be thinking of her, confused the girl. The wordless interval
+which followed was distressing to her so she said:
+
+"And the other forms of expression? Music? Poetry? Painting?"
+
+"You've got me on music," he confessed with a laugh. "I've heard
+greasers playin' fandangoes on busted old guitars that sounded a lot
+sweeter to me than any band I ever heard.
+
+"As for poetry ... I don't know,"--shaking his head. "I read some;
+tried to understand it, but it seems all messed up with words as if
+poets liked to take the long, painful way of telling things.
+
+"I expect poets want to tell something that's sort of ... delicate an'
+beautiful.... Now and then I've got a funny feel out of poetry, but it
+ain't anything to me like, say, seeing a bunch of little quail run
+along under the brush, heads up, lookin' back at you, whistlin' to each
+other. That's the most delicate thing I've ever seen or heard....
+
+"I've seen some paintings, in Los and San Francisco; once in Chicago
+and once in Denver. I don't know. They don't get my idea of it. I never
+want to see anything more beautiful than sunrise over the Grand Canyon,
+or sunsets over these hills, dust storm on the desert, snow blowin'
+before a norther off the ridges, and things like that. God, who's such
+a close friend to the Reverend, and who I don't know much about, is as
+good a painter as any I've ever seen."
+
+He said no more but rode apparently thinking of much more that might be
+said and Jane watched him carefully, a hungry look coming into her
+eyes. His words had partly analyzed him for her:
+
+He was _real_.
+
+He was the most real human being she had ever known, real because he
+lived a real life, because he appreciated realities; he was sufficient
+to himself, finding such an interest in life about him that his own
+impressions and reactions occupied the foreground of his consciousness.
+
+All her life she had been fed on the artificial, living on a soft pad
+of unrealities which softened and hid the bed-rock foundation of
+existence from her. Within the last weeks she had had her first taste
+of the real, was face to face with life and with herself; it had been
+sweet and inspiring; she felt a great urge for more of that experience
+and her mind sped ahead into the vague future, the future which her
+imagination could not even conjure because the new foundation beneath
+her feet was as yet unfamiliar. But for all that vagueness she thrilled
+and as she peered forward eagerly she saw this man, this clean, frank
+man ever at her side....
+
+And yet he had spoken of love as a gamble which did not work itself out
+in life! A sharp stab of shame shot through her heart, for she had once
+handled her love as though it had been a white chip, she had been
+willing to chance it as a thing of little value and she knew that to
+him that would be the outraging of a sacred thing.
+
+And again she heard the pronouncement of Hilton: You cannot stand
+alone! You will fail! A knave, she now knew, but he knew her as she had
+been. And could he be right? Could she measure up to where a real man's
+love would not be wasted upon her? She did not know; she dared not
+think further, so driving back these doubts, she said:
+
+"There's one question I want to ask and I want your honest answer. What
+is your opinion of Hepburn?"
+
+He looked at her with that twinkle in his eye again.
+
+"In just what way, ma'am?"
+
+"At times he seems reluctant to talk to me, as though he knew more than
+he wanted to tell and again I've had a notion he didn't want me asking
+about certain ranch matters at all.
+
+"I confess to you that with all the talk of thieving I've wondered if
+he didn't know more about it than he gave me to understand, but what he
+did the other day seems, in all reason, to wipe that suspicion out."
+
+He said: "It seems you've answered your own question. When you've said
+that he went a long ways to prove that he's the man you want by what
+he's just done, you've said all there was to say."
+
+"But do you mean that? Are you keeping some suspicion of your own from
+me?"
+
+He deliberated a moment, then smiled.
+
+"It's easy to suspect but it don't pay very big until you know
+somethin'. Then you don't need to."
+
+They climbed out of the gulch, horses breathing loudly as they made the
+last steep ascent and gained the ridge they were to follow and there
+was little more talk until they stopped and sat looking down across the
+great flat-bottomed cavity of Devil's Hole. It was a pear-shaped
+depression, perhaps four miles from rim to rim at the widest point and
+fully a score of miles in length. Its sides were sprinkled with cedars
+which clung to the sheer cliffs determinedly, but its bottom was
+blanketed with thrifty sage brush, purple in the sunlight that was just
+then slanting across the floor and beneath this sheen they could see
+the bright green of new grasses. A dark line marked with the clarity of
+a map the course of the creek and half way down toward the neck of the
+Hole was a small cabin erected by the man who had filed on the land for
+Colonel Hunter and who had drifted on without establishing title.
+
+"There's your neighbor," Beck said.
+
+Jane looked for a moment, then lifted her eyes to the country which
+showed through the narrow outlet of the deep valley. Behind her endless
+ridges tossed upward to a sharp horizon, but out through that gap the
+range lay in a vast basin, rising gently to diminutive lavendar buttes
+plastered against the sky many miles away. It seemed soft and vague and
+unreal ... like one of the unreal paintings Beck had seen hanging
+within walls.
+
+Tom led the way through trees and among upstanding ledges of rock into
+the narrow, dangerous trail and as he went down, his big roan picking
+the way quickly yet cautiously, he half turned in his saddle to explain
+the significance of the descent.
+
+It was the only egress on that side of the Hole. There was one trail on
+the far side, so steep and hazardous that a man must lead his horse
+either up or down. The only other outlet was through the narrow Gap
+where the wash of flood water during storms had made the going easy for
+men and stock. Out to the northwest, however, lay miles of desert, the
+great basin of which Jane had had a glimpse, well enough to use for
+range in three seasons, but in summer it became parched and useless. In
+the Hole cattle could feed on the abundant gramma, could drink from the
+creek, but getting them out and over the divide to the more plentiful
+water of Coyote Creek was an undertaking.
+
+"That's the danger," he told her, "It's a long, hard climb for stock in
+good shape, but if anything should happen to prevent your stock from
+drinkin' down here and they should get low from lack of water, why then
+you'd leave a lot of 'em down there if you tried to bring 'em up."
+
+He pointed over the abrupt drop at his left where a pebble would fall
+hundreds of feet before striking again and as he indicated his right
+chap scrubbed the face of the cliff, so narrow was the way to which
+they clung.
+
+Finally they reached the flat and swung along at a free trot through
+the brash sage.
+
+"There's water here now," he explained, as they followed the steep
+creek bank, "but that don't last. It's mighty low right this mornin'.
+The creek sinks when it don't rain an' its been comin' up in just one
+spot for years. That's what makes a nester dangerous for you."
+
+They approached the cabin. A mare and a newly born colt eyed them
+suspiciously. An ancient wagon, its top tattered, its tires red with
+rust, stood close beside a frail corral. Fire wood was scattered about;
+here was an axe with a broken helve, there a rust-eaten shovel, and the
+whole place spoke of poverty.
+
+And yet piled against the cabin was spool upon spool of new barbed wire!
+
+"Fence!" muttered Beck.
+
+"But Mr. Hepburn said--"
+
+"Yeah, I recall what he _said!_"
+
+Just then the canvas which served as a door was thrown back and the
+girl stepped out. She stood just across the threshold looking at them,
+sullen and defiant.
+
+"Good-morning," said Jane.
+
+"Howdy," replied the girl indifferently.
+
+An awkward pause. Surely, she would volunteer no more and Beck asked:
+
+"Your dad around?"
+
+"What do you want with him?"--a demand rather than a question.
+
+"I am Miss Hunter. I own the--"
+
+"Oh, I know who you are!" the girl cut in defiantly.
+
+"I came down to talk to your father. We are neighbors. If we are to be
+good neighbors there are things we must discuss."
+
+Jane was unpoised by the attitude of the other but she dismounted and
+walked toward the cabin.
+
+"What did you want with him?" the girl asked again.
+
+"I want to ask some things about your plans."
+
+"And what is our business to you?" The girl's eyes snapped and her
+vivid color intensified.
+
+"It may be a great deal to me. That is why I am frank in coming here.
+For years this place has been range for HC cattle. Recently water has
+been short. You have wire and evidently are going to fence.
+
+"I don't come as an enemy. Now that you are here I want to make the
+best of it."
+
+"But you don't want us here!"
+
+The simple declaration, voiced with that same defiance, confused Jane;
+then she met the other on her own ground.
+
+"No, we don't want you here unless you will work with us as we all try
+to work together. I think you will do that because it is the wiser--"
+
+"So you start out workin' with us by lookin' up our claim, the way we
+filed it, before you come to talk!"
+
+"Yes, I did that,"--frankly. "I wanted to be sure just what your rights
+were before I came to talk business."
+
+"Well, you know now. You know no lawyers can run us off. Ain't that
+enough? If you know we've got rights, what do you come here for?" She
+stopped, but before Jane could reply went on, her eyes flashing sudden
+heat: "You don't want us here but we've come to stay an' from the way
+you've started in to talk your business I guess that's all you'll find
+out."
+
+Jane eyed her for an interval then said:
+
+"You and I are the only women for miles about in this country. We are
+near neighbors as neighbors go in the mountains; do you think this is
+the best way to start in being friends?"
+
+"Who said anything about bein' friends?"
+
+"I want to be your friend." The sincerity of this balked the girl and
+her eyes became puzzled. "I want to be your friend and want you for my
+friend. We can help each other in a good many ways."
+
+"I don't recollect askin' for your help."
+
+"No, but I want to give it to you and I want to ask yours in return. We
+are here in a big country. We are all dependent to an extent on those
+about us. None of us can get along so well alone as we can by working
+together."
+
+"Like turnin' folks out in the rain at night, for instance?"
+
+Jane's cheeks flamed.
+
+"I don't understand," she said.
+
+"Think it over an' maybe you will!"
+
+The girl's eyes blazed uncovered hate, but as they took Jane in again
+from hat to boots a curious envy showed in them.
+
+"I've seen how much you big outfits want to help poor folks before,"
+she said. "I know all about that,"--bitterly. "Maybe it's a good thing
+you come here today so you'll get to understand, first hand, instead of
+sendin' your men around to learn things for you.
+
+"We've come a long ways. We've been on th' move ever since I can
+recollect. Folks have offered to help us before, an' they have helped
+us ... to decide to move. We've come to stay here; we can take care of
+ourselves; we don't ask nothin' but to be let alone, an' we're goin' to
+be let alone if we have to make it stick with gun play."
+
+She had advanced and, hands on her hips, weight on one foot, spoke the
+last with her face close to Jane's, her head nodding in slow emphasis.
+
+"I trust it won't come to that," Jane said evenly. She had not
+flinched, but studied the girl carefully, impersonally, though the
+color in her cheeks had died; her face was in repose, her bearing
+dignified and assured, yet without suggestion of any superficial
+superiority. "If it does come to that it will not be because I am
+unwilling to do all that is reasonable. I have come down here to talk
+to you, which should be evidence of my good faith; I have been frank.
+You meet me as though I had come to cheat you or drive you out. I don't
+think that is fair."
+
+The other drew back a step, clearly puzzled again. Her face, in spite
+of its forbidding expression, was very beautiful.
+
+"That sounds all right," she said at length, "but I've heard it before
+and I know how much it's worth. You ain't my kind. You don't belong
+here and I do. You don't want to be my friend ... you wouldn't know how.
+
+"All we want is to be let alone. Our business ain't yours an' we won't
+try to make yours ours. Have you said all you wanted to say?"
+
+"No, not quite all, but if you won't listen to me, if you won't believe
+me, there is only one more thing I can say: You will know where to find
+me any time you want to talk to me. I will be ready to work with you,
+to do my share, and maybe a little more. I hope there will be no
+trouble, for it would force me to make my share of that."
+
+She turned abruptly and walked toward Beck.
+
+The man had purposely held aloof to watch the encounter between the two
+women. He had been certain that the meeting would be anything but
+amicable and it was like other situations into which he had let Jane
+Hunter walk, needlessly and only to see how she would handle herself.
+Usually the result only amused him but today he had watched Jane bear
+up admirably under difficult circumstances, refusing to be angered or
+confused, refusing to plead yet, while retaining dignity, leaving the
+door to friendship open.
+
+As Jane mounted Bobby Cole stepped back into the cabin with no word and
+the riders turned back on the way they had come.
+
+"I've been wonderin'," Beck said after a time, "how this old codger
+rakes up the dust to buy cattle and wire."
+
+Jane did not reply. She wondered at that, too, but there was another
+wonder in her mind about another, more human mystery, going back to a
+night of storm in the heavens and storm in hearts. How did Bobby Cole
+know she had turned Dick Hilton out?
+
+As they went silently each thinking of significant things which had
+been revealed the girl threw back the curtain in the doorway and
+watched them.
+
+"I hate you!" she whispered at Jane Hunter. "I hate you!... Because you
+turned him out ... because you're ... you're _you_."
+
+She stood a long time watching them and with the darkness in her face
+another quality finally mingled: that envy again.
+
+After a time Jane said:
+
+"A queer creature, that girl."
+
+"On the peck from the start!" Beck replied.
+
+"And beautiful!"
+
+"Ain't she, though?... Poor kid! I've seen 'em before, kids of movers
+like that, not so good lookin', not so smart as she is, but like her
+because they was always suspicious, always ready to scrap....
+
+"That's because they've never had a chance to be decent, brought up in
+a wagon that way."
+
+"A shame!" Jane whispered.
+
+"I like kids," he said later, as though his mind had been on nothing
+else. "I like all kids, but I feel sorry for a lot of 'em ... for most
+of 'em.... Every kid that's born ought to have a chance, a fair show
+against the world, because the old world don't seem to like kids any
+too much.
+
+"That girl didn't have a chance, never will have it. She was marked
+from the day she was born.
+
+"Why, ma'am, one winter I worked for a cow man down in the Salt River
+valley which is in Arizona. He didn't have a big outfit, he didn't have
+much luck; trouble with his water, his cattle got sick and his horses
+didn't do well and he had just one dose of trouble after another.
+
+"But he had three kids, all in a row they seemed,"--indicating
+progressive heights with his hand. "I think they was the happiest kids
+I've ever seen. I always think of 'em when I see kids that've had to
+grow up like that girl. I remember those mornin's when we used to start
+out for a day's ride, looking back and seeing those kids playing in the
+dirt beside the rose bushes. Their clothes was dirty the minute they
+stepped outside and their hands an' faces was a sight from the 'dobe,
+but there was roses in their cheeks as bright as th' roses on the
+bushes and they laughed loud and their eyes always smiled ... like that
+Arizona sky, which ain't got a match anywhere....
+
+"This man and his wife just buckled down an' bucked old Mister Hard
+Luck from the word Go, for them kids! They sure thought the world of
+'em. I guess that was what put the roses in their cheeks an' the smiles
+in their eyes....
+
+"I'll never forget those kids by the rose bushes with somebody to care
+for 'em, an' work their hearts out for 'em. That's the way kids ought
+to grow up; not like that catamount grew up."
+
+He smiled in reminiscence and his smile was tender.
+
+"Roses and kids," he repeated after a while. "They ought to go
+together."
+
+He looked at Jane and saw that her eyes were filmed.
+
+She rode closer to him, until her knee touched his chap and said:
+
+"I think that is beautiful: Roses and kids. I shall always remember it;
+always...."
+
+She knew, now, the man she loved, the man whose love she would win, the
+man behind that exasperating front of caution. His clear eyes and keen
+mind were interested only in realities and yet he could display a
+tenderness more delicate than she had ever before encountered in men.
+He was strong, and as gentle as he was strong; he was generous while a
+skeptic; he had poise and personality. And he could liken love to a
+poker chip; without using the word make her know that he held love
+sacred!
+
+She raised her hand to that locket again and held it tightly in her
+small palm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE FRAME-UP
+
+
+The water in Devil's Hole was fenced.
+
+It was the Reverend who brought word of the fencing. He had made a
+circuit of the ranches, holding services and selling pens, and on his
+way back from the lower reaches of Coyote Creek he stopped to call on
+the Coles. His visit was not financially productive but he did see long
+rows of posts set by three Mexicans, and saw wire being stretched on
+them.
+
+Another thing he saw, which he did not mention to Hepburn: He saw Bobby
+Cole riding beside a man, a man who did not wear the dress of her
+country but who wore swagger riding clothes; who did not talk with the
+self consciousness of a mountain man who rides beside a pretty girl,
+but who leaned toward her and talked engagingly, so engagingly that the
+girl lost her hostile attitude and looked up into his face with wide,
+eager eyes.
+
+The fencing stirred the country as nothing had done since the first and
+only time sheep bands attempted to come in. There was talk of it in
+town, there was talk of it when men met on trail or road, there was
+talk of it in ranch houses down the creek and there was talk of it
+elsewhere, at length, in stealthy jubilation....
+
+Riley of the Bar Z rode the thirty miles from his ranch to discuss it
+with Jane Hunter.
+
+"I don't guess you quite understand how serious it is, Miss Hunter," he
+said after they had talked a time. "Do you realize that if we have a
+dry summer--and it's startin' out that way--that this is goin' to cut
+your cattle off some of your best range. It may break you."
+
+"I understand that, Mr. Riley," she said, leaning across her desk, "but
+there are other things I do not understand and I am inclined to believe
+that they are of first importance. Without understanding them, this
+condition can not be remedied."
+
+He gave evidence of his surprise.
+
+"I'm not wanted here," she went on. "I'm not wanted because the HC is
+a rich prize. It seems to be the accepted opinion that I cannot stay,
+that I will be unable to stand my ground.
+
+"I want to know _why!_ I want to know who is going to drive me
+out. Some one is behind this nester, I am convinced, and it is the
+influence behind the things we can see that is dangerous. Loss of range
+is serious, surely; but by what manner has that range been lost.
+_That_ is what I want to know!"
+
+Riley eyed her with approval.
+
+"I came up here with the idea that you didn't understand but I guess
+you do," he said quietly. "You've got the situation sized up right, but
+there's one thing I want to tell you: So far only one blow has been
+struck; it has fallen on you. The next and the next may fall on you,
+but every time you are hurt it's goin' to hurt the rest of us. That
+makes your fight our fight.... If you fail, others are likely to fail.
+
+"I've lived here too long in peace after fighting for that peace, to
+stand by and see trouble start again if I can help it. I'm of the old
+school, Miss Hunter; your uncle and I came in here together. I think a
+lot of his ranch and ... well, if it comes to a fight I can fight again
+beside his heir as I fought by his side.
+
+"It won't be pleasant for a woman. Cattle wars ain't gentle affairs.
+They can't be if they're going to be short wars. There's three things
+to be used; just three: guns an' rope and nerve."
+
+"I trust I can stand unpleasantness if necessary," was her reply.
+
+Riley was impressed with the girl's courage but like the others he was
+reluctant to believe that she was made of the stuff that could
+recognize disaster and fight it out, her strength unweakened by panic.
+
+Another visitor was there that day: Pat Webb. Jimmy Oliver had found
+one of his colts badly cut by wire and had brought it in. Webb had come
+to see the animal and had lingered to talk intimately with Hepburn.
+
+This gave Beck much to think about.
+
+He was saddling his horse at noon when Hepburn approached and asked his
+plans for the balance of the day.
+
+"It depends on what I find. I'm after horses first, but I might have a
+look at other things. There's so damned much happenin' around here that
+it pays a man to look sharp."
+
+"You'd better cut out that sort of talk, Beck!"
+
+"What talk?"--mockingly. "Seems to me if you didn't know any more than
+I do you wouldn't be so easily roiled up, Hepburn."
+
+"You mind your business and I'll look after mine," the foreman warned,
+breathing heavily. "About one more break from you and we'll part
+company."
+
+His eyes glittered ominously and his face was malicious.
+
+"I wouldn't be surprised. This outfit's a little too small for you and
+me. It seems to shrink every day, Dad. Maybe, sometime, you'll have to
+go, but just keep this in your head: I've promised Miss Hunter to stay
+and my word is good."
+
+He mounted and Hepburn, walking slowly toward the stable, twirled his
+mustache speculatively, one eye lid drooped as though he saw faintly a
+plan which promised to solve perplexities.
+
+Beck was cautious that afternoon, as he had trained himself to be when
+riding alone. He kept an eye on the back trail and scanned both gulches
+when he rode a ridge; but cautious as he was he did not see the two
+riders who sat on quiet horses beneath a spreading juniper tree at the
+head of Twenty Mile.
+
+It was after dark when he returned to the ranch and the moon was just
+commencing to show. The others were at supper. He threw his gun and
+chaps into the bunk house and fed his horse. As he walked down toward
+the ranch house the other men were straggling out and their dining room
+was empty. Carlotta brought him steaming food and he ate with gusto.
+
+When he had nearly finished Jane entered and he started to rise, but
+she made him remain seated.
+
+"What do you suppose that man Webb is doing here?" she asked. "Hepburn
+explains that he is trying to arrange to send a representative with our
+round-up."
+
+"Whatever he's doin' here, it ain't for your good," he replied.
+
+"Nor yours."
+
+"Don't you worry about mine, ma'am and unless he's a lot smarter than I
+think he is, or unless he's got lots of help, don't figure he's goin'
+to do you any great harm. He's just a low-down--"
+
+A man was running toward the house and he broke off to listen.
+
+Two-Bits came hurriedly into the room, eyes wide, face white, showing
+none of his usual confusion at Jane's presence.
+
+"Tommy, they want you," he said unnaturally.
+
+"Yeah? What for, Two-Bits?"
+
+"I don't know, Tommy. Hepburn an' Riley an' Webb an' the rest want you.
+I don't know what it is, Tommy, but it must be serious."
+
+Tom saw the anxiety in Jane's eyes. She did not put her query into
+words; it was not necessary; he knew and answered:
+
+"I ain't got an idea, ma'am, but I'll go find out. You're all wound up,
+Two-Bits!"--laughing.
+
+"My gosh, Tommy, they acted funny. Have you done anything?" the cowboy
+asked in an undertone as they left the house.
+
+"A lot, Two-Bits. I sure hope they don't go proddin' into my awful
+past! There's some terrible things they might find!"
+
+He hooked his arm through the other's and laughed at the boy's
+apprehension.
+
+But Beck knew that something of grave consequence impended the instant
+he set foot in the bunk house for the men, who had been talking lowly,
+stopped and eyed him in sober silence. Afterward he had a distinct
+recollection of Two-Bits slipping along the wall, looking at him over
+his shoulder with the freckles showing in great blotches against his
+white skin. Hepburn, Riley and Webb sat on one bed. The foreman was
+leaning back, hands clasping a knee, but he chewed his tobacco with
+nervous vigor.
+
+"The Reverend about to offer prayer?" Tom asked easily.
+
+There was no responsive smile on any face. Someone coughed loudly and
+sharply as if it had been an unnecessary cough. Tom halted.
+
+"I'm here. What's up?" he asked quietly. "This is like a funeral ... or
+a trial."
+
+At that Hepburn cleared his throat.
+
+"Want to ask you somethin', Beck. I want you to tell these other men
+what you said to me this noon."
+
+Tom hitched up his belt.
+
+"If you want 'em to know, why don't you speak the piece yourself? You
+recall it, don't you?"
+
+"Better talk, Tom," Riley advised.
+
+"I don't know what this is all about; I don't know what difference what
+I said to Hepburn can make to the rest of you, but I respect your
+opinions, Riley, and if he's willing for you to know what I said, I
+sure am willing to repeat it.
+
+"Hepburn and I've had a little argument. It's been goin' on for some
+time. He'd be pleased to have me move on, I take it, but I sort of like
+this outfit."
+
+"Go on," Hepburn said impatiently.
+
+"I told you, Hepburn, and I'll tell you again that this ranch is
+gettin' a little small to hold both of us. It seems to shrink every day
+and I don't get good elbow room any more, but so far as I'm concerned
+I'm more or less permanent."
+
+Webb nodded and Riley shifted uneasily, looking from Beck to Hepburn,
+frankly puzzled.
+
+"Yes, that's what you said to me. Now will you tell the boys where you
+rode this afternoon?"
+
+Beck eyed him a long moment and the foreman stared back, assured but
+not quite composed, his little eyes dark. Once he bit his chew savagely
+but his expression did not change.
+
+"I rode out of here straight up Sunny Gulch, climbed out at the head,
+rode those little dry gulches as far down as Twenty Mile and came up
+the far ridge. Then I took a circle to the east and came home by the
+road."
+
+"You admit bein' at the head of Twenty Mile, then?"
+
+"Admit it? Yes."
+
+"What time?"
+
+"Three o'clock or thereabouts,"--after a pause in which he considered.
+
+"See any other men?"
+
+"Not a man until I got back."
+
+Hepburn looked about. Two-Bits muttered lowly to himself. Riley dragged
+a spur across the floor slowly. Every eye in the room was on Beck, and
+Beck's eyes were on Hepburn.
+
+"Then will you tell the boys how come this?"
+
+The foreman drew a gun and holster from behind him. It was Beck's gun.
+He drew it from the scabbard, broke it and dropped the cartridges into
+his palm.
+
+Three of the shells were empty.
+
+The two gave one another stare for stare. Hepburn was breathing rapidly
+but his look was of a man who faces a crisis with all confidence. Beck
+did not move or speak. His eyes smouldered and his face settled into
+stern lines. Then that smouldering burst into blaze and before the
+glare of will the foreman's hand, holding the contents of the revolver
+chambers, trembled. He closed it quickly and looked away and where a
+moment before he had been the accuser he was now on the defense. It was
+determination against determination and in the conflict words were
+wrung from him.
+
+"Somebody fired three shots at me at the head of Twenty Mile at three
+o'clock this afternoon."
+
+And that sentence, though it was an indictment, was voiced more in a
+manner of defense than in accusation. With it Beck's expression
+changed; it became alert, as though following some play upon which
+great stakes hung, but following intelligently, not blind to the way of
+the game.
+
+"I can explain those empty shells. I took a shot at a coyote on the way
+back. I didn't see you, Hepburn, after I left here this afternoon until
+I got back."
+
+Webb got up.
+
+"I guess that makes the case," he said to no one in particular.
+
+Then to Tom: "I was with Dad; he was ten rod ahead of me. Th' shots
+come from above and landed all around him.
+
+"_We_ didn't have to look very hard for somebody who wants to get
+rid of Dad, but we wanted it from you, Beck."
+
+Triumph was in his little beady eyes and on his mottled face. There was
+a shuffling of feet and Tom hooked one thumb in his belt, with a slow,
+uncertain movement. His eyes held on Hepburn's face, prying, searching,
+striving to force a meeting but the other would not look at him, he
+busied himself stuffing the evidence into his shirt pocket.
+
+Riley rose and the low stir which had followed the revelation subsided.
+
+"Isn't there something else you want to say, Beck?" he asked. "Didn't
+you see any other man? Can't you say something for yourself?"
+
+"I didn't see another man this afternoon," the other replied, still
+striving to make Hepburn meet his gaze, "an' besides there don't seem
+to be much to say. I've told my story. It's simple enough.... You've
+heard the other story, which seems simple enough. Now it's my word
+against Hepburn's ... an' Webb's,"--as though the last were in
+afterthought, and of little matter.
+
+Riley faced the circle of listeners.
+
+"This is no boy's play," he said grimly. "The foreman of the biggest
+outfit in this country has been shot at, shot at by somebody who didn't
+come from cover and give him even a fair show for a fight. We know that
+there's been bad blood between these two men; Tommy's admitted that. I
+hate like hell to think he lost his head over a quarrel and that he'd
+fight a man from cover, but it looks bad.
+
+"We can't have this go on! There's been stealing and rumors of stealing
+for months. There's trouble comin' over water and fence. We've gotten
+along like good neighbors for years but now trouble seems to be in the
+air. I don't see that there's much to it but to take Tom to town an'
+turn him over to the sheriff.
+
+"Unless,"--facing Beck. "Tommy, ain't there anything you want to say?
+You've refused once but I keep thinkin' you've got something else you
+could tell us."
+
+"No, Riley, I'd be taking a chance by doing more talkin' tonight. I'll
+do it when it'll do me more good," he said, but at his own words, brave
+though they sounded, his heart sank and a rage boiled up in him.
+
+"Then I'm afraid it's jail for you, son," Riley said. "I can--"
+
+"Jail?"
+
+Jane Hunter had stepped into the bunk house. It was the first time she
+had ever been there and that was reason enough to rivet attention on
+her; but now she came under circumstances which were stressed, her face
+was white, lips parted, eyes wide with a child-like wonder and as she
+paused on the threshold, one hand against the casing, dread was in
+every line of her figure.
+
+"Jail?" she repeated in a strained voice. "And why?"
+
+The silence was oppressive and for a breath no one moved or spoke. Beck
+had not turned to face her; his eyes never left Hepburn's face and it
+was he who broke the suspense with one word, addressed to the foreman.
+
+"Well?"--a challenge.
+
+Hepburn moved slowly toward the girl.
+
+"There's been a little trouble, Miss Hunter," with an attempt at a
+laugh, which resulted dismally.
+
+"Trouble?"--with rising inflection.
+
+She took a step forward, looking about at the serious faces. She looked
+back at Hepburn; then at Beck. Her eyes clung to him a moment, then
+swept the circle again.
+
+"Trouble? About what? Who is in trouble?"
+
+"I didn't want to bother you with it," her foreman said, his assurance
+coming back, for Beck had ceased looking at him. "It's a nasty mess; I
+don't like it. None of us like it. Even if he is inclined to be a
+little hot-headed, we all thought better of Tom--"
+
+"Tom?"
+
+Slowly she turned to face Beck.
+
+"Yes. Tom. We're.... We're sorry, ma'am," Dad stammered; then recovered
+and with an effort to belittle the situation by his manner proceeded:
+"Somebody did a small amount of shootin' at me this afternoon. Webb,
+here, an' I was at the head of Twenty-Mile and somebody fired three
+times at me. Tom come in tonight with three empty shells in his gun.
+He.... He didn't explain well enough to suit us because all he could
+say was that he fired at a coyote comin' down the road, but--"
+
+"And you're going to take him to jail?"
+
+Her hand had gone slowly to her throat, fingers clamping on the gold
+locket as if for support. Her eyes had become very dark.
+
+"Well, ma'am, that's about all we can do: turn him over to the
+sheriff," Hepburn said.
+
+She drew a deep breath, a second interval of tense silence prevailed
+and then Jane, putting one arm across her eyes, began to laugh. The
+laugh started low in her throat and rippled upward until it was full
+and as clear as the ringing of a glass gong. She swayed back against
+the wall and pressed her extended palms hard against the tough logs....
+
+"On that evidence?" she cried. "On such evidence you would charge a man
+with attempted murder and turn him over to the law? Because there were
+empty shells in his revolver?
+
+"Why, I was with him when he came down the road and he _did_ shoot
+at a coyote ... three times ... I heard it; I saw it ... I was there."
+
+She leaned her head back and her body shook with silent, nervous
+laughter.
+
+"Praise ye the Lord!" chanted the Reverend, "For his ways are wonderous
+and strange to behold!"
+
+A babel of comments, loud, profane, excited, relieved, arose. Hepburn
+stood as if struck dumb, mouth agape and then, face growing dark with a
+rush of blood under the bronzed skin, he said:
+
+"I thought you said you didn't see a soul!"
+
+"I said I didn't see a man, you pole-cat!" Beck retorted and his eyes
+danced. Webb sat down on a bunk as though suddenly weakened. Riley,
+voice husky, took Tom's hand, shook it gravely.
+
+"Why didn't you tell us, my boy?" he questioned.
+
+The rest stopped to hear the answer:
+
+"I didn't want to spill my case before this ... this _hombre_
+showed his full hand," he lied.
+
+He turned to look at the other who had lied ... but Jane Hunter had
+fled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE BIG CHANCE
+
+
+Hours later, after the Reverend had offered a strong, verbose prayer,
+invoking the wrath of the Almighty upon those who plot to strike from
+cover, after the bunk house had finally become quiet, Beck stole out
+into the night.
+
+The moon rode high, flooding the creek bottom with its cold, blue-white
+light and he stood bareheaded, shirt open at the chest, staring at one
+bright star which stared back from the edge of the hills. Far off, away
+down the creek, a coyote yapped and, waiting, cried again and its faint
+echo reverberated into silence. A horse in the corral stomped and blew
+loudly....
+
+He moved on down toward the cottonwoods and reaching them stood in
+their shadows, arms at his sides, shoulders slacked as if weakened,
+irresolute. The ranch house was dark, its shingles smeared with a sheen
+of silver by the moon, the veranda in deep black.
+
+Tom did not see her coming until she was halfway across the dooryard.
+Then, rather heavily, he climbed the wire fence and met her.
+
+Without words of greeting Jane put out her hands and he took them both,
+holding them between his, looking down into her face silently. Her eyes
+were dry, but there had been tears on her cheeks, and her lips, as she
+looked into his smouldering eyes, trembled.
+
+"What were they trying to do to you?" she whispered.
+
+"They were trying to send me to jail for shooting at a man," he
+answered. "Why did you lie for me?"
+
+"Oh, you were in trouble! I didn't know. I couldn't think.... I saw it
+all so clearly, all in a flash, saw that all you needed was one little
+word from someone else to make it right and I didn't care beyond that.
+It was the only thing that mattered. If they had taken you away I'd
+have been alone, wholly alone...."
+
+"You believed me when I told 'em I shot at a coyote?"
+
+"Believe? Believe? I didn't think, didn't consider. It made no
+difference to me what you had done. The only thing I wanted to do was
+to set you free, to clear you!"
+
+"You'd lie for me, even if you thought I'd shot to kill a man?" he
+insisted.
+
+"I didn't know what you had--"
+
+"You'd take a chance like that? Why would you, ma'am?"
+
+For a long moment their eyes, half seen to one another in those
+shadows, clung almost fiercely, his inquisitory, hers changing as wave
+followed wave of emotion through her body. She had never seen him so
+dominating, and he had no need to insist again that she answer. She let
+her head fall back with a half smile.
+
+"Oh, I did it because it was the only thing I could do.... I did it,
+Tom, because I--"
+
+He straightened sharply and cut in:
+
+"I know, ma'am; you did it because you need me here, on the ranch."
+
+His chest swelled with a great breath and he released her hands,
+stepping back and putting a hand slowly to his head.
+
+For an instant she made no sound. Then she laughed strangely.
+
+"Because I need you here.... Yes, that was it. That was why I lied for
+you." She spoke with nervous rapidity, rather breathlessly, and one
+hand went again to that locket, clutching it in a cold clasp. "I knew
+it was not like you to try to shoot a man unfairly. I didn't think
+there was much chance in lying. All I saw was them taking you away and
+leaving me here alone to face all this, without anyone I can trust,
+without anyone to help me. That was why I lied to them.
+
+"You promised me once that you would stay. I knew then that I needed
+you; every hour since that promise was made I've had a greater
+realization of my need for you until it ... it ..." Her breath caught
+in a sob and she pressed knuckles to her lips.
+
+Beck stood silently watching her, a cold moisture forming on his brow,
+hands clenched as if he were holding himself against the urge of some
+great impulse.
+
+"I felt when I stepped in there and learned what it all was, that the
+last thing I have to depend on was slipping away ... and I reached out
+and grasped you like I'd grasp a straw in a sea. It ... I can't tell
+you,"--her voice trembled, "what it meant, what it means to me...."
+
+Words, words! They spilled from her lips with a rapidity that
+approached hysteria. She was talking without thought, without reason,
+letting her voice run on while her consciousness, divorced entirely
+from it, fell into chaos.
+
+"Everything seems to be working against me and now, because you have
+been my help, my strength, they are trying to take you away. Oh, I need
+all the help there is, and that is you!"--with a stamp of the foot as
+she drove tears back.
+
+"There are influences which I can't see, which I can only feel, all
+about me, within me,"--beating her breast--"and outside."
+
+"It may be interestin' to you to know that I didn't shoot at any
+coyote."
+
+She gasped lightly and for a moment did not speak.
+
+"Then you did shoot at Hepburn?"--in a whisper.
+
+"No, I didn't. I'd never shoot from cover."
+
+"I knew that," she said quickly, knowing that by her question she had
+hurt him.
+
+"It appears that I ain't very welcome with your foreman. It was a
+frame-up, a good way to get rid of me. They planted that evidence in my
+gun while I was eating. It was one of those influences at work, the
+kind you've only felt. You can see some of 'em now, ma'am....
+
+"It's lucky you thought to lie," he said, with a weak laugh that was
+unlike him. "I guess you're going to need all your luck....
+
+"But you better go in now. It's late and cold."
+
+He wanted her to be away from him, to be rid of her presence, for it
+pulled him, drew him, and he fought against it, fought against the
+strongest impulse that has been born to man, fought blindly, his old,
+deeply rooted caution, dragging him back ... dragging him....
+
+"I don't want to go in; I don't want to leave you," she said. "I want--"
+
+"But you must go. Have I got to pick you up an' carry you into your
+house, ma'am?"
+
+"I want you to take this," she went on where he had interrupted,
+fumbling at the catch of the chain which held the locket against her
+throat. "Take it," she said, holding it swinging toward him, spattered
+with moonlight. "It's brought me all the luck I've ever had; it will
+help you, it will protect you. You need luck as much as I do ... and
+you need it for me. Wear it, a foolish little trinket but it means ...
+oh, more than you can know! I'd like to think of you as wearing it...."
+
+"I don't think I need that, ma'am. What's in it?"
+
+"Don't ask that! Don't even open it, please. Just take it and wear it,
+for me."
+
+He made no move to take the ornament, just stood looking at it
+skeptically.
+
+"Take it ... and then I will go in, without being carried."
+
+She reached up to place the chain about his neck with her own hands;
+her unsteady fingers, fumbling with the catch, slipped and her cool,
+bared arms, touched his flesh. At the contact she swayed against him.
+
+"Oh, carry me in," she pleaded gently, "carry me in ... not into my
+house, but into your life!"
+
+All the caution, all the reason he had summoned to hold back that urge
+was swept aside. The touch of her skin against his skin sent seething
+blood to the ends of his limbs. It did not need her plea to break him
+down; the touch accomplished it, and fiercely, roughly, he caught her
+to him.
+
+"It's all been a lie, another lie, all this you've said!" he cried
+lowly. "You didn't lie tonight because you need me; you lied because
+you love me, ma'am! You love me, like a good woman can love, and I love
+you.... I love you, ma'am, like I never thought I could love. It's
+bigger than I am, bigger than all the rest of my life....
+
+"From that first night you talked to me I've been afraid I was goin' to
+love you. That was why I planned to go away because I didn't want to
+take a chance with my love. It's the only sacred thing I've ever owned
+and I've kept it back, savin' it for the time when I could turn it
+loose....
+
+"When you told me you'd made up your mind to stay here, that you wanted
+to do something that was real and worth-while, I felt that I couldn't
+hold it back....
+
+"But I didn't know you. I got to love you so much I was afraid of you,
+afraid of myself. That was why I bullied you, that was why I picked on
+you. I tried to drive you away from me, I tried, even, to keep from
+bein' your friend, but somethin' told me all the time that this had to
+come.
+
+"I've watched you grow strong and big. I've hurt you on purpose. I've
+made some things hard for you to do, but you've done 'em. You're like a
+man, in the way you stand up to things ... and the gentlest, the
+sweetest woman down in your heart!"
+
+"Not that!" she pleaded. "Not all that. I'm not what you think, I'm
+only what you can make me. I'm weak and need it. I want to be carried
+... along and upward by it!"
+
+Chin drawn in, he looked down into her face as she lay in his arms, her
+breath quick and fast and warm on his cheek. He could feel his limbs
+vibrate as his pulse leaped and his whole body trembled as he read the
+look in her eyes, revealed by the moonlight.
+
+Up on the hills a little owl hooted and again the coyote yapped. A
+vagrant night wind touched the trees above them and the leaves
+whispered sleepily, as if roused by a pleasant dream. The murmur of the
+creek sounded almost as a blessing. None of these they heard. They were
+lost in a vague, limitless world, alone, swayed by the most powerful,
+the most beautiful forces in life.
+
+"You lied because you love me," he whispered.
+
+And at that she stirred and her breath slipped out in a long sob. He
+lowered his face to hers as scalding tears brimmed from her eyes. He
+felt them on his cheek, mingled with her breath and he felt her arms
+tighten about his neck, her body draw closer to his.
+
+"It wasn't any chance!" he whispered fiercely. "It wasn't any chance,
+and I've been holdin' back, fighting it off, denying it to myself for
+weeks ... afraid to risk it, afraid to let it come out ... afraid of
+what is _so!_"
+
+"Isn't it a chance?" she asked almost in a gasp. "Isn't it? Are you
+sure, Tom?"
+
+"As sure as I am that the moon is up there, Jane."
+
+He lowered his lips to hers and for a long kiss they clung.
+
+"But you don't know--you don't know!" she cried, suddenly struggling to
+be free. "You don't know me," pressing her palms against his chest as
+he held her. "It's big, it's fine ... the biggest, the finest thing
+that has ever come into my life.
+
+"Tom! What if it should be a chance?"
+
+"But, Jane it can't--"
+
+With a faint little cry, almost as though she were hurt, she broke from
+him and fled toward the house through the moonlight.
+
+He stood alone, the feel of her lips still on his, heart leaping, mind
+swirling. And, looking down, he saw that in his hand he held the little
+gold locket.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WAR!
+
+
+So, for Jane and Tom, at least, Hepburn came into the open.
+
+And for Hepburn, these two displayed their hands.
+
+Of greater consequence, Beck's reserve, his caution was swept away. He
+had taken his big chance!
+
+"You're all there is to me," he told Jane the following morning with a
+desperation in his eyes and a seriousness in his voice that made her
+search his face with alarm. "I fought against my love for you but it
+wasn't any use. You _made_ me love you. You'll make me keep lovin'
+you, won't you, Jane?"
+
+"I hope so! You don't know how much I hope so!" she assured him as her
+arms clasped his neck closely. "It frightens me, having this
+responsibility. It's the greatest I've ever had and I'm weak, Tom, a
+weak woman!"
+
+"No, strong!" he declared and stopped her further protest with kisses.
+
+Dad Hepburn, of course, could not stay on under the circumstances.
+
+"There's an advantage of having a reptile in sight if you've got to
+have one in the country," Beck told Jane as they discussed the matter,
+"but he won't stay. He's got an excuse to back out gracefully now and
+we haven't any excuse to keep him on."
+
+"And will you be my foreman?" she asked.
+
+"If you'll trust me that far," he replied with the laugh in his eyes
+again.
+
+Hepburn departed that day, telling Jane that he would like to stay but
+that he did not feel like risking his life for the sake of a job, to
+which she made no reply other than writing his check. This nettled him;
+he did not meet her gaze because, though they both had lied, her guilt
+was white while his was smirched with treachery.
+
+His farewell to Beck was not open but his successor read in it an
+ominous quality.
+
+"I wish you luck on your job, Beck," he said as he mounted, ready to
+ride away. "Lots of luck."
+
+"Mostly bad luck, Hepburn?" Tom taunted and the flush that whipped into
+the face of the older man was not that of humiliation.
+
+He reined his horse away with a growl and did not look back.
+
+If the little gold locket which Tom wore about his neck brought luck,
+it supplied a dire need. He had two determined personal enemies in the
+country, Webb and Hepburn, and as foreman of the HC he had many
+others, identities not fully established.
+
+There was Cole and the Mexicans he had hired to build the fence and
+clear his land. There was the usual gathering of riff-raff at Webb's.
+And there was Sam McKee, the coward, who was not reckoned as a menace
+by Beck and who, in later days, was to figure so largely!
+
+Another piece of news the Reverend brought:
+
+"They're talkin' about you in town, brother. They're saying that now
+some of this thieving will stop. They're looking to you to clean up the
+country."
+
+"Ain't that a lot of responsibility to put on one peaceful citizen?"
+Beck asked, but though he jested over the fact he did not fail to
+appreciate its significance.
+
+"Be cautious. These men are without scruple, brother."
+
+"And so am I ... but I got lots of luck, Reverend!" was his parting.
+
+He needed his luck.
+
+Riding alone, under a rim rock, with the country falling away to the
+westward, he speculated on his luck and on the talisman Jane had given
+him. He drew the locket from his shirt front and held it on his big
+palm eyeing the thing, wondering what it contained that Jane had wanted
+to conceal from him.
+
+"I've got a half grown notion to open it," he muttered and stopped his
+horse shortly.
+
+And he might have sprung the lid had not a zipping and a dull, dead
+spatter on the rock just ahead caught his attention. He looked up
+sharply, saw the stain of metal against the ledge and saw in the
+sunlight a fragment of the bullet that had shattered itself there, that
+would have drilled him had his horse taken the next step.
+
+Whoever fired had calculated on that next step because he was at such a
+distance that no report of a rifle reached him.
+
+Beck turned his horse and raced to cover and lay for an hour scanning
+the country, but his assailant did not appear.
+
+When Tom rode away he smiled grimly to himself and said to the roan:
+
+"We won't look in it now. Stoppin' to consider saved our skin that
+time; maybe we'll need that luck again ... and worse."
+
+Another time, the same week, he threw his bed on a pack horse and
+started a two-day ride to the south-east for, as foreman, he gave close
+heed to the detail of his work.
+
+At sundown he made camp and while his coffee boiled stripped himself
+and bathed luxuriously in a waterhole.
+
+He lay looking upward at the stars that night thinking more of Jane
+Hunter than her property, thrilling at memory of her hair and eyes and
+lips, telling himself that conditions were reversed now, and that
+instead of fighting her off, evading her charms, he was consumed with
+an eagerness for them.
+
+Drowsiness came and, turning on his side, he reached a hand for the
+locket to hold it fast while he slept. It was not about his neck. He
+remembered that he had left it on a rock where he had undressed for his
+bath and, slipping out of his blankets, turning them back that the
+night chill might not dampen his bed, he picked his way carefully to
+the place and groped for the trinket.
+
+His fingers had just touched the gold disc when the quiet of the night
+was punctured by a shot ... then four more in quick succession.
+
+He squatted low, holding his breath. He heard booted feet running over
+rocks, heard a man speak gruffly to a horse and, in a moment, heard
+galloping hoofs carrying a rider away. He waited a half hour, then
+stole back to his bed. The tarp and blankets were drilled by five
+bullet holes.
+
+"Maybe I'm superstitious," he muttered, fastening the gold chain about
+his neck, "but this thing, or whatever is in it, has saved my hide
+twice in one week."
+
+The man who had fired into his blankets had trailed him deliberately,
+had waited until satisfied that he was asleep and had stolen up to
+murder him without offering a fighting chance.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"Hepburn has gone into partnership with Webb," Jane told him on his
+return to the ranch. "The Reverend brought in that word. What do you
+make of it?"
+
+"Not much. Without my help it makes about the finest couple of snakes
+that could be brought together!" Tom muttered.
+
+"And somebody tampered with the ditch in the upper field. Curtis and
+the men started the water down late in the afternoon. They left their
+tools there and the ditch bank was broken. They tell me it surely was
+shoveled out. The water is low and losing it hurt."
+
+"That looks quite like war," he told her.
+
+War it was. That night the men in the bunk house were awakened by a
+bright glare and looking out Beck saw that four stacks of hay, totaling
+more than a hundred tons of feed left from the winter, were in a blaze.
+While the others hastily dressed and ran toward the stack yard in the
+futile hope that some portion might be saved, the foreman stayed behind
+... listening. From far up the road he heard the faint, quick rattle of
+a running horse.
+
+In the morning a note was found stuck in the latch of the big gate. It
+was addressed to Jane Hunter and, in a rude scrawl, had been written:
+
+"The longer you stay the more you will lose."
+
+She showed it to Beck and after he had read and re-read and turned the
+single sheet of paper over in his hands he looked up to see her eyes
+tear filled.
+
+"It isn't worth it!" she cried with a stamp of her foot. "This is only
+the start. Do you know what they are saying in town? The word has been
+passed that first you are to be driven out and that then I will have to
+go. People are saying that the others are too many and too ruthless for
+you, that they are bound to drive us away. It is being said that you
+are too straight to win a crooked fight!
+
+"I could risk losing the things I own, my property, but I wouldn't risk
+you, Tom dear ... I wouldn't do that!"
+
+"And there's somethin' else you wouldn't do," he said lowly, stroking
+her forehead. "You wouldn't let 'em drive you out. You didn't start
+that way. You come out here to beat the game and if you quit cold you
+wouldn't think much of yourself, would you? We didn't want trouble, but
+we've got to go and meet it!"
+
+"But you!" she moaned, putting her arms about his big shoulders. "What
+of you?"
+
+"Don't worry about me when the only danger is from men that won't come
+into the open! Maybe I'm a bigger crook than I'm given credit for.
+Besides, you've given me lots of luck....
+
+"I don't know what's in this thing,"--holding out the locket--"but I've
+got a lot of faith in it ... and in you, Jane!"
+
+Where, before he gave his love recognition, he had taken pains to bring
+Jane into contact with adversities, he now was impelled to shield her
+from all that he could. In the natural role of her protector he did
+everything possible to allay her apprehension. He could not blind her
+to the broad situation but he could and did withhold the seriousness of
+some of its detail, even keeping some things that transpired, such as
+the attempts on his life, to himself.
+
+But he did worry about the enemy that worked from cover, that shot at
+sleeping men, that broke ditches and burned property and sent unsigned
+threats to women. That made his fight a battle in the darkness and his
+strength was the strength of light, of frankness, of honesty. His mind
+was not adapted to scheming and skulking.
+
+To drive his foe into the open was his first objective and that night
+he set out.
+
+"You call it recognizing a state of war, I believe," he told Jane with
+a twinkle in his eye when she queried his going.
+
+"Tom! You're not going--"
+
+"Not going to take a chance," he said soberly. "It's just a diplomatic
+mission, you might say."
+
+He put her off and rode out of the ranch gate. It was dark and when he
+had progressed a mile he halted his horse, dropped off, loosened the
+cinch so the leather would not creak when the animal breathed, and
+stood listening. Aside from the natural noises of the night, the world
+was without sound.
+
+He drew his gun from its holster and twirled the cylinder. Usually he
+carried the trigger over an empty chamber; tonight it was filled. And
+inside his shirt was another gun.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE WARNING
+
+
+The fire in Webb's cook stove was not all that furnished warmth to the
+three men sitting about it that night, for they drank frequently from
+the bottle which, when not passing from hand to hand, was nestled on
+Dick Hilton's lap, his hands caressing its smooth surface lovingly ...
+save the word!
+
+Sam McKee and three other men played solo on the table, noisily and
+quarrelsomely after the manner of their kind. Engrossed in the game
+they gave little heed to the talk of the others. It was shop talk, of
+plots and schemes, of danger and distrust.
+
+Webb's little button eyes were even more ugly than usual, Hilton's
+mouth drawn in lines that were even more cruel, but Hepburn, under
+influence of the liquor, only became more paternal, more deliberate as
+the evening and the drinking went on. He was not nettled by Webb's
+disfavor, and even smiled on the rancher indulgently as he listened to
+the querulous plaint.
+
+"If you'd only used yer head an' stayed there," Webb went on, "then
+we'd hev had it all easy-like. You could've stole her blind an' she'd
+never knew. Then you had to git on the peck about _him!_" He
+sniffed in disgust.
+
+"Now, Webb, you're too harsh in what you say," the other replied
+blandly. "I done all I could but Beck wouldn't be blinded! He's got
+second sight or somethin',"--with a degree of heat.
+
+"We had him scotched all right, but we hadn't figured on the girl.
+Nobody'd thought she was sweet on him!"
+
+Hilton stirred uneasily and the color in his face deepened. He looked
+at Hepburn with an ugly light in his eyes.
+
+"That upset everything," Hepburn went on. "There wasn't no use tryin'
+to play a quiet game after that. They both know we want to get rid of
+'em worst way and now we've got to keep under cover an' use our heads
+harder'n ever."
+
+"There's too many in it," Webb whined. "I tell you the's too many in
+it! If you'd let me alone, just me an' the boys, I'd felt safer. But
+now there's Cole an' his daughter an' ... half the country!"
+
+He flashed an indecisive glance at Hilton who studied the bottle,
+frowning.
+
+"Lots in it," Hepburn said heavily, "but they've got to hang together
+or...."
+
+"Separately," added Dick cynically.
+
+Hepburn nodded and Webb shifted and jerked his head petulantly.
+
+"But there's nothin' to fret about," Dad went on. "None of us will be a
+leak. Cole can't because we could put him behind bars by just lettin'
+on that he'd used his homestead rights under another name an' had no
+right on this place, let alone other things.
+
+"We can use his brand, which is why I brought him in here. I've spread
+the news that he's bought cows of you an' between workin' over the HC
+and ventin' your marks we'll have a herd here in a couple of seasons
+that'll make us rich!
+
+"An' we'll have range for 'em, too. She won't stand up under a range
+war!"
+
+"But Beck will," Webb protested.
+
+"He will if you don't get rid of him!" with slow anger behind the words
+and a cunning glitter in his eyes. "I don't see how in hell you missed
+him. You must've been drunk!"
+
+"He wasn't in his bed, I tell you. He couldn't 've been!"
+
+"Well, if _I_ had against him what you got, I'd get him," Hepburn
+stated emphatically, well satisfied, and showing it, that this was a
+masterly stroke. "He made you laughed at by the whole country."
+
+"You wait," Webb snarled. "My time's comin'!"
+
+"Deliberately, I'd say," Hilton put in ironically.
+
+"Oh, you're always kickin'!" Webb protested. "I don't see why you stay
+on if things don't satisfy you. You've got to have sheets on your bed,
+you've got to have grub cooked different, you've got to sleep late an'
+you've got to have hot water to wash and shave always when th' kettle's
+cold! You've got into this deal an' you'd like to run it your way.
+
+"What the hell do you stay on for?"
+
+Hepburn looked at Hilton's face as though he, too, wondered just why he
+stayed on, but, pursuing his usual tactics, he said:
+
+"Why, if Mr. Hilton can pay for it, why can't he have his way? He has
+the money. He's willing to spend it. I'm sure his willingness to stake
+Cole to fence and hired help means a lot to all of us, Webb. That's
+goin' to drive her out of the Hole entire this summer.
+
+"The booze has made you irritable, Webb."
+
+Webb sat forward, elbows on knees, chin in his hands and grumbled:
+
+"I have to stand a lot, I do. Both of you eggin' me on all the time,
+all the time! I do th' best I can, but nothin's ever satisfactory.
+Nobody ever does anything for me!"
+
+"Sho, Webb, that ain't so. Didn't Mr. Hilton give you a brand new
+automatic? Ain't I been reasonable in turnin' a chance to make good
+your way?"
+
+The other fidgeted, then looked up at Hilton.
+
+"I don't see why _you've_ got such an interest in this for,
+anyhow. Course, it's none of my business, but I don't see why you
+should always egg me on about Beck."
+
+"I am concerned to see the THO prosper," said Hilton mockingly. "That
+is why I bought fence; that is why I want your friend, the HC foreman,
+out of the way."
+
+He rose, placed the bottle on the table and stepped out of the house.
+They heard him walk across the dooryard and into the stable.
+
+"You s'pose he's goin' to meet her again tonight?" Webb growled.
+
+"Likely.... It's likely."
+
+"I wish th' hell he'd clear out. I don't see what you wanted to take
+him in for!"
+
+Hepburn chuckled.
+
+"How could you keep him out? The girl, she knows everything, an' what
+she knows he knows. His money's valuable to us an' besides ... it'll
+keep her quiet if we ever do get out on a limb."
+
+Webb looked up in query.
+
+"You're right when you say there's too many in it, Webb, but there's
+just _one_ too many. That's the girl! I can't figure her out; I
+can't trust her. If we was to try to pass the buck to Cole, in a pinch,
+she'd raise the deuce.... That is, she would if it wasn't for Hilton."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"If she turned on the rest of us, it'd catch Hilton an' she's gone on
+him. Never saw a girl who was so loyal to her father but when you bring
+in another man that loyalty won't stand up in a pinch; not if it's a
+choice between a father and a lover."
+
+"But he ain't on the level with her!"
+
+"Makes no difference. She's took to him like girls of her sort do. He
+can handle her an' she's the only one that knows our side who'll ever
+need any handlin'. He was right when he said the rest of us'd have to
+hang together, or separately."
+
+Outside a horseman rode quietly to the gate and sat looking through the
+open doorway and the one window of the room. He counted the men
+carefully; counted again, then rode back the way he had come and
+stopped and waited.
+
+"But what about the other girl ... Hunter?" Webb asked after a silent
+interval. "Hilton was sweet on her."
+
+Hepburn's eyes kindled.
+
+"His jealousy is another asset. Hilton wanted her an' couldn't get her,
+an' he knows the reason now: It's Beck. You think he's been practicin'
+with a rifle and pistol for the fun of it? Not on your life!" Leaning
+closer: "The time may come, Webb, when Hilton'll clear Beck out of our
+way.... That'd be easier. I don't want to try it in the open; I don't
+guess you do. He's got a crimp in all the boys. Look at Sam, for
+instance. He's itchin' to kill Beck but he ain't got the sand!"
+
+"If she ever found out he wasn't on the level with her,"--Webb's mind
+going back to Bobby Cole--"she'd claw him up fearful."
+
+"Yup. But she's in love an' love plays hell with men and women, Webb."
+
+The other started to reply, then sat rigid, listening.
+
+A horse came up the road at a slow trot and halted by the gate. A
+saddle creaked, then the bars complained as they were lowered. A man
+was whistling lightly as he rode toward the house and dismounted,
+leaving his horse standing.
+
+"Must be one of the boys," he said, and settled back. None who had
+other than friendly business there would come uncautious.
+
+"I was going to say," went on Hepburn, "that they'll be fooled about
+that Hole range. It's time for the cattle to start comin' in from the
+desert. They'll get up there and the creek'll be an ash bed with a
+couple more days of this sun. They can't take 'em back through the Gap
+without a big loss and if they leave 'em in the Hole without water long
+enough they can't get 'em up the trail without loss so--"
+
+"If you'll all rise up and put up your hands we won't have any trouble
+... tonight!"
+
+Hepburn looked slowly over his shoulder, slightly bewildered. Webb, who
+had been stooped forward, raised his eyes and breath slipped through
+his lips in a long hiss. Sam McKee, who had reached out to take a
+trick, let his ace drop from limp fingers. The other three started up
+like guilty men sharply accused of their crime.
+
+Tom Beck, a revolver in each hand, stood framed in the doorway, bending
+forward from the hips, hat back, eyes burning. His voice had been level
+and natural, with something akin to a laugh in it, but when he spoke
+again it was a rasp:
+
+"Get up on your rattles, you snakes, and put up your hands!"
+
+With an oath Hepburn sprang to his feet, faced about and raised his
+arms. Webb followed, with jerky movements, his face pallid with fear.
+The four card players got from their chairs. As McKee's hands went
+slowly above his head they trembled like aspen branches in a breeze.
+
+For a long moment there was no sound, save Hepburn's heavy breathing.
+Then Tom Beck let a curious smile run across his lips.
+
+"This is a hell of a way to come to talk business," he commented. "I
+don't like it ... but little more than you seem to. It's the safest way
+for me. That's why I'm here, to consider my safety."
+
+He let his gaze run from face to face. Webb's eyes met his squarely, a
+baleful challenge in them, but as he glared at Hepburn, Hepburn's gaze
+wavered, flicking back twice, only to drop again. McKee whimpered under
+his breath. The other three stared back sullenly, alert for an opening.
+
+Beck moved into the room just one step.
+
+"I don't know who it is that's been tryin' to kill me, but it wouldn't
+take many guesses," he said. Again his eyes ran from face to face. "It
+might be you, Hepburn, and it might be you, Webb. It's like both of
+you, to shoot from cover ... like you accused me of shootin'. It might
+be McKee, but even that takes more nerve than he's got. I wouldn't put
+it past any of the rest of you.
+
+"I didn't come here to try to find out. I got more important things to
+do than to identify the party right now.
+
+"I rode over this evening to make a little call an' to drop the word
+that if I see any of this outfit anywhere near the HC ranch or on its
+range there's goin' to be shootin' a-plenty and that if you want to be
+the first to shoot, you want to draw almighty quick! If any of you see
+one of my men anywhere, you hit the breeze. It's the best way out of
+trouble.
+
+"Hepburn, you an' Webb tried to frame me once. That's sufficient cause.
+I'd kill you like I'd kill a ... a scorpion. McKee don't count. You
+other three probably are in on the threat to drive me out of the
+country. Just workin' here puts you beyond the law that protects honest
+men.
+
+"Now there's a little matter of trouble that's happened around the HC.
+That's going to stop from now on. We've got lots of men over there who
+are handy with their artillery. They're pretty well worked up. There
+won't be a finger lifted to prevent you workin' within your rights, but
+the first crooked move one of you makes ... there'll be a new table
+boarder in th' devil's kitchen.
+
+"That's all I come to say. That's all the conversation that'll be
+necessary between us from now on. The HC is goin' to keep doing
+business, and its present owner is going to stay on the job. As for me
+... it's been talked around that I was to be drove out an' all I've got
+to say is, come on and do your driving!"
+
+His mouth set with an expression of finality and his eyes bored into
+theirs. He was through, but even as he straightened preparatory to
+backing through the doorway into the night a flicker of cunning crossed
+Dad Hepburn's face, set there by a faint, faint creaking of the stable
+door, unheard by Beck whose own voice had been in his ears.
+
+"Don't you think you're a little quick in passin' judgment, Tom?" he
+asked.
+
+Beck laughed shortly.
+
+"Looking for me to handle you with gloves, Dad? After you tried to
+frame me? After you--" He checked himself shortly as he was about to
+accuse Hepburn of one specific art of treachery against the H.C. He
+might need that later. "After you've tried to get me?
+
+"No, somebody shot at my bed one night; somebody shot at me while I was
+riding open country one day." At that a glint of astonishment showed in
+Webb's face. "There's just one way to handle men like that, and I'm
+doin' it now, to-night. I'm--"
+
+The crash of a shot from behind, the splintering of the door panel at
+his shoulder, cut him short. Webb jumped as though the bullet had been
+sent at him. Hepburn's face contorted into a grimace of elation.
+
+With a catch of his breath Beck wheeled, senses steeled to this
+emergency, driving down the quick panic that wanted to throttle his
+heart.
+
+There in the shaft of yellow light, bareheaded, stepping toward him,
+arm raised to fire again, was Dick Hilton. It was a situation in which
+fractions of time were infinitely precious. That first shot had gone
+wild because the Easterner, unfamiliar with fire arms, unnerved by the
+rage which swept up within him, had let his eagerness have full sway.
+But now he was stepping forward, coming closer. At that range he could
+not miss!
+
+And Beck saw all that in the split second it required for him to whirl,
+leaving his back exposed to those other men for the instant. He
+squeezed the trigger as he flipped his left-hand gun toward his
+assailant. The two reports sounded almost as one, but the stream of
+fire from Hilton's weapon instead of stabbing toward Beck streaked into
+the air and the automatic, ripped from his hand by the same ball that
+tore his fingers, spun clinking to earth.
+
+But even as it struck, before Beck could turn again to cover the room
+behind, a swinging palm sent the lamp crashing to the floor. He sprang
+clear of the doorway. An instant before he had dominated the situation,
+now he was a fugitive.
+
+Inside, darkness; out in the dooryard, starlight. Inside, ruthless
+enemies who had listened to a declaration that precluded quarter;
+outside, their target who could not hope to live before the fusillade
+that must come.
+
+"Put up your hands!" Beck gasped, jabbing a gun into Hilton's stomach
+and springing behind the Easterner's body, screening himself.
+
+Crouched there, peering over the other's shoulder, one gun against
+Hilton's trembling body, the other thrust past it to cover the doorway,
+he paused. He heard quick, unsteady footsteps, an oath, a hurried word
+and then the man before him cried huskily:
+
+"For God's sake don't shoot, boys! You'll get me!"
+
+After that there passed a moment in which Hilton's breath made the only
+sound that came to Beck's ears.
+
+"I'm going to back up to my horse," he said lowly, "you follow me."
+
+It was unnecessary to add a threat. Enough threat in the situation!
+
+Slowly he began to back, feeling his way, shoving the one gun harder
+against Hilton's body, keeping the other ready for instant use should
+those who watched choose to shoot down the Easterner to be at him. The
+roan snorted softly in query and Beck spoke. But the animal, startled
+by the shooting, unsatisfied that this huddle creeping toward him was
+wholly friendly, backed off. Tom spoke again; then ceased all movement,
+for from inside had come a muttering and stealthy footsteps crossed the
+floor. A door at the rear of the house creaked. One or several had gone
+out to stalk him! The others, he knew, waited within to take first
+opportunity to kill that might be offered.
+
+"Stand still!" he said sharply to the horse and turned his head ever so
+quickly to see the animal, head to him, back slowly.
+
+He moved backward faster for a few steps, shoving the revolver harder
+into Hilton's body to assure his obedience, but the horse only
+progressed as rapidly, snuffing loudly at this performance which no
+horse could be expected to understand!
+
+They moved in a circle, swinging in toward the house, Beck ever keeping
+Hilton as a direct screen. He stopped and the horse stopped. He
+listened. He heard soft movements within the house. He thought he heard
+a faint rustling behind a far corner of the building but a cow, bawling
+at the moment, obscured the faint sound.
+
+Beck felt a cold damp standing out on his body. From the darkness, from
+any direction, disaster might strike at any second!
+
+He began to talk to the horse soothingly, moving toward him slowly, but
+the roan would not understand. Once he was within an arm's length of
+the bridle, but before he could grasp it the animal had swung his head
+ever so slightly and was moving off again, passing a corner of the
+house from where that suggestion of a rustle had come.
+
+And then, of a sudden, the horse leaped sideways, with a startled
+grunt, as a horse will that comes upon a coiled snake. He lunged toward
+Beck and Hilton, swinging about on his hind feet, beginning to run for
+the gate, thoroughly frightened and bent on escape from the thing that
+alarmed him.
+
+It was Beck's last chance! As the horse leaped toward the gate he
+sprang back a pace from Hilton, raised both guns and fired, one at the
+window, one at the doorway. Glass burst and tinkled and he heard the
+panel of the door again sliver. As he opened fire the great roan
+swerved; his hoofs spurned the ground in the impatience of fright and
+Beck, shooting again toward the house, turned and ran swiftly for the
+fleeing horse.
+
+Down in the shadows the thing which had frightened the horse rose,
+stumbling into shape. Flame streamed from Beck's guns toward it, but he
+shot as he ran and his fire was inaccurate. He cried sharply as the
+animal swung even wider in his circuit toward the gate, sprang forward
+in long strides, dropped the gun from his right hand, leaped, fastened
+his fingers about the horn, took two quick strides and vaulted into the
+saddle.
+
+The animal leaped the half lowered bars and Beck fired again, twice at
+the house, once at the figure outside, and then flung himself far down
+over the roan's shoulder as the window belched flame and stabs of it
+came from about the building and bullets screeched overhead. He fanned
+the roan's belly with his hat and twenty rods further swung into an
+erect position again, leaning low as they ate the road.
+
+"A close one, old timer!" he muttered to the horse. "_That_ was a
+chance!"
+
+And miles further on, when the roan had cooled from his first desperate
+dash that had carried Tom to unquestionable safety for the night, he
+said aloud:
+
+"Now what was _he_ doin' there? And how much will he count?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HIS FAITHFUL LITTLE PONY
+
+
+In the days that followed you might have seen approaching from a
+distance a rider for the HC. Watching, you would have noticed that he
+stopped his horse, rode on, stopped again, rode on and stopped the
+third time. Had you not halted and repeated the performance he would
+not have come toward you and, on coming within eyesight, you might have
+seen him sitting with a hand on his holster, or rifle scabbard--for the
+deadlier weapons appeared--carelessly enough, outwardly, but latent
+with disaster. For war had been declared. Jane Hunter's men were ready
+for trouble, waiting for trouble, but it did not come at once for
+though Hepburn and Webb and their following hated Tom Beck for the man
+he was they respected him and gave heed to his warning to stay away
+from HC property ... or at least not to be seen thereabouts.
+
+The war went on, but it was a silent, covert struggle, and though Beck
+suspected happenings, he could not know all that transpired.
+
+For instance:
+
+It was Webb who finally dropped the pliers and declared the job
+finished, standing back to survey the stout cedars which had been bound
+together with wire to form a gate for one of the numerous little blind
+draws that stabbed back into the parapet which surrounded Devil's Hole.
+In the recesses of that draw was the smallest amount of seeping water,
+enough, say, to keep young calves alive. From a distance of a hundred
+yards this barricade of tough boughs and steel strands would not be
+detected.
+
+Again:
+
+They came up from the mouth of the Hole after dusk had fallen, Bobby
+Cole and her father, the old horses drawing the wagon along the
+indistinct track which wound through the sage. They were tired and
+silent and finally the girl's head dropped to Cole's shoulder and she
+slept, with his arm about her, holding her close, his lids and mustache
+and shoulders drooping.
+
+The wagon halted, hours later, before the blocked draw and, straddled
+upon their bodies, the girl liberated first one calf, then another,
+until six had been shoved from the tail gate into the hidden pen. Then
+they drove back toward their cabin.
+
+"Why don't I think it's wrong to steal?" the girl asked soberly.
+
+Alf shook his head. "It ain't ... for us...."
+
+"But I've read that it is," she protested, scowling into the darkness.
+"I read it in a book, about a man that stole; that book said it was
+wrong. Why don't I think it's wrong?"
+
+She turned her face to him and he looked down to see, under the
+starlight, her mouth pathetically drooping, her lips trembling, and the
+big brown eyes filled with perplexed tears.
+
+"Why'm I so different from other folks? Maybe that's why I never had no
+friends...."
+
+"It ain't wrong for you to steal from her," he said defensively.
+
+The girl looked ahead again.
+
+"No, it can't be. I hate her.... I like to steal from her. But why
+ain't it wrong for me if it's wrong for anybody else?"
+
+"I've allus told you it was the thing to do. Ain't that enough?" he
+asked wearily....
+
+"Did you see him this mornin'?"--as if to change the subject.
+
+Bobby nodded her head.
+
+"He was down. He hurt his hand; got it shut under Webb's window. He....
+He stayed a long time."
+
+Her voice was quite changed; rather soft and reverent. "I'm glad he
+did. When he's there I feel like I ain't so different ... not so awful
+different from other folks...."
+
+Alf did not reply. The wagon chucked heavily on, the brush scratched
+the wagon bed, the horses plodded listlessly. Dawn came....
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Another thing:
+
+Far out to the north and west of the Gap in Devil's Hole was a natural
+reservoir, Cathedral Tank. Winter floods were stored there and long
+after surrounding miles of quickly growing grasses had become useless
+as range because of the lack of drink, this tank afforded water for the
+H C cattle. Late in the Spring, of course, it became scum covered and
+fetid but until the caked silt commenced to show on the boulder basin
+the cattle would cling there, saving higher range for later use. Then,
+in other years, they would drift up toward the Hole, graze through the
+Gap and water in the creek until the round-up caught and carried them
+into still higher country.
+
+This spring the desert tank was of far greater importance than ever
+before. The Hole was closed to the HC unless rain fell, and the days
+were uniformly clear, so it was wisdom to delay the round-up until the
+tank was emptied, then shove the cattle straight past the mouth of the
+Hole and start them up country from the lower waters of Coyote Creek.
+Beck rode to the tank himself and arranged his plans in accordance with
+the water he found.
+
+But after Beck had been there another horseman made the ride, leaving
+the timber at dusk, shacking along across the waste country in a
+straight line for the tank. Cattle, bedded for the night about the
+water hole, stirred themselves as he approached and dismounted, then
+stood nearby and watched a strange proceeding. The man found a crevice
+in the rock basin, scraped deeply into it with a clasp knife. Then he
+wedged in five sticks of dynamite with stones and, finally, rolled
+boulders over them.
+
+He led his horse far back after the fuse had been spit, but even where
+he stood, outside the circle of steers, rock fell. After the explosion
+had died into the night he pulled at his mustache and regained his
+saddle rather deliberately, chuckling to himself.
+
+The fact that a steer with a broken leg was bawling loudly and that
+another, its life torn out of its side, moaned softly in helplessness,
+did not impress him. He rode back as he had come.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+There was little time for love making in the life of the HC foreman.
+More riders were necessary for the round-up and he was particular about
+the men he hired. The country had taken sides; rather, it was either
+openly behind Beck in his handicapped fight, though skeptical of his
+chances for winning or openly forecasting failure for him and Jane
+Hunter; and of the latter Tom had his doubts. Many of them were not
+neutral, he knew.
+
+But he was with Jane when he could be although, since he had declared
+himself to Webb and Hepburn, he did not permit her to ride far from the
+ranch, even when with escort. He wanted her witness to no tragedy, and
+tragedy impended.
+
+Of the motives of Webb, Hepburn, Cole and their following he had no
+doubts but there was one whose reasons were a mystery to him. He
+studied this long hours, when at work, when lying sleepless on his bunk
+and even when with Jane Hunter. Hilton was at Webb's and that was
+enough to brand him ... but how deeply? He hesitated to enlist her aid
+in the solution but when he had spent days puzzling to no result he
+said to her:
+
+"Nothing about what you have been matters with me, but there's one
+thing I want to ask you."
+
+"And that?"
+
+He eyed her a speculative moment as they sat beside her desk, the
+yellow light on her yellow hair.
+
+"What was this Hilton to you?"
+
+She colored and dropped her gaze from his, picking at a book in her lap.
+
+"That belongs to the past," she said, "and you've just said that the
+past doesn't matter. I had hoped you never would want to know because
+it touches a spot that isn't healed yet....
+
+"There was a time," lifting her eyes to his, "when I had made up my
+mind to marry Dick Hilton."
+
+He sat very quietly and his expression did not change.
+
+"That would have been too bad, Jane," he said after a moment.
+
+She nodded slowly in affirmation.
+
+"I'd rather he wasn't in the country just now," he went on. "You
+wouldn't mind, would you, if I drove him out?"
+
+She said quickly:
+
+"You trust me, don't you?"
+
+He smiled gently and looked at her with a light in his eyes that was
+almost humble.
+
+"I've trusted you with my love. I want to do things for you. I'd like
+to drive this man out of your way."
+
+He was reluctant to give his real reason because, by doing so, he would
+necessarily make her aware of the strength of the menace of which
+Hilton, he felt but could not prove, was a part. He still wanted to
+shield her from full realization of the force aligned against her.
+
+She leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands folded.
+
+"I wish he would go away, but I wouldn't want to see him driven. You
+see, there are things about me which you will never understand. Dick
+Hilton, for a man, was not far different from what I used to be, as a
+woman. Our impulses were quite similar. Since I feel that I have
+established my right to exist by trying to do something, to be somebody
+to ... walk alone, I've come to an appreciation of the thing that I
+used to be, and I pity the old Jane Hunter and all her kind. In spite
+of all that he has been, I pity Dick Hilton, Tom, and in that very fact
+I see an indication of strength of which I'm proud....
+
+"You see, I like to think about myself now; that didn't used to be true.
+
+"Last year I would have been deeply resentful toward Dick for what he
+has done, but now, after my natural anger has gone, I can only be sorry
+for him. That, I feel, is true strength.
+
+"I am not bitter. I don't wish him harm. His environment is to blame
+for what he is and perhaps this country, the people he comes in contact
+with here, will do for him what they have done for me." Beck thought
+that this was an unconscious absurdity! "I begrudge him nothing. I only
+wish that he might come to see life as I have come to see it.
+
+"If he could only see himself as he is! Why, he is intelligent, he has
+a good mind, he has been generous and kindly, and if he could only get
+set straight in his outlook I feel that I could call him my friend.
+
+"Do you understand that?"
+
+He shook his head, driving back the perplexity he felt.
+
+"No, I don't understand that.... There's lots of things I'll never
+quite understand about you, I expect. That's one thing that made me
+love you; you interest me.
+
+"I just thought maybe you'd like him out of the country."
+
+"I can never be a dog in the manger," she replied. "What is good about
+this life I would share with my worst enemy, and gladly, because at one
+time I was my own worst enemy."
+
+"You ... you don't think you'd ever want to see him again, Jane?" With
+that evidence of natural jealousy was a gentle reproach, a woe-begone
+expression which, being so groundless in fact, set Jane Hunter laughing.
+
+"Silly!" she cried, throwing her arms about him.
+
+"Look at me and read the answer!"
+
+Beck laughed at himself then.
+
+"Who wouldn't want _you_ all to himself!" he whispered. "And who
+wouldn't believe in you!"
+
+Beck stood a long time under the stars that night, the feel of her lips
+still on his, but an uncomfortable doubt in his heart. He was tolerant,
+as mountain men are tolerant, but he had been bred in a hard school; he
+had learned to weigh men and to discard those who were found wanting.
+He was not vindictive, but he took no chances. Placing his trust in
+those who had showed repeatedly that they were unworthy of trust was
+taking a chance and though Jane Hunter had done her best to make her
+reasoning carry, he could not comprehend.
+
+Finally he said: "This ain't any compliment to her, wonderin' like
+this. It's her way and she sure's got a right to it!"
+
+But he went to sleep unsatisfied.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Out at Cathedral Tank that night the cattle stood snuffing rather
+wonderingly. Two days before there had been water which reached their
+knees at the deepest place; today there was none. It had trickled
+through the scars the blast had torn in the basin. The bellies of some
+were a bit shrunken from lack of it and bodies of the steers that had
+been killed were bloated. One, even, had already furnished food to a
+coyote and a pair of vultures.
+
+Three or four licked the last of the damp silt and then turned eastward
+and began the slow trek back toward Devil's Hole, where at this season
+they had gone since they had been calves.
+
+The Reverend saw this scattered stringing of cattle and reported it to
+Beck. Tom looked up from the wheel of the chuck wagon which he was
+repairing and considered.
+
+"They're early," he muttered. "I hadn't figured they'd leave before the
+end of the week.... That's bad...."
+
+The next morning he and Two-Bits, the latter riding his beloved Nigger,
+with an extra horse carrying the tee-pee, bed and grub, clattered down
+the trail into the Hole and made through the brush for the Gap. They
+skirted the Cole ranch, eyeing the Mexicans who were at work clearing
+sage brush, and a mile further on halted their horses ... rode forward,
+halted again, rode forward ... stopped.
+
+"It's McKee," Two-Bits said. "That's Webb's gray horse."
+
+The other rider came on and they rode forward again, Beck's holster
+hitched a bit forward, thumb locked in his belt.
+
+Two-Bits had been right and when McKee recognized them he averted his
+face as though he would ride past without speaking. But this was not to
+be for Beck stopped directly in his way and said:
+
+"Sam, if it was anybody else I'd been shootin' long ago. I ain't got
+the heart to kill you. You recollect, don't you, what I told you and
+your crowd about driftin' into our territory?"
+
+"This ain't your range," McKee grumbled. "This is Cole's."
+
+His gray eyes met Beck's just once and fell off, showing helpless hate
+in their depths, the hate of the man who would give battle but who
+dares not, who is outraged by forces from without and by his own
+weakness.
+
+"No need to argue," Beck replied, tolerance replaced by a snap in his
+tone. "You drag it for your own range, McKee, and don't you stop to
+look back."
+
+Two-Bits was delighted at the hot flush which swept into the other's
+face. He loathed McKee and to see him under the dominion of a strong
+man like Beck appealed to him as immensely funny.
+
+"An' if my brother was here he'd tell you about a woman that looked
+back an' turned to salt," he said. "But if you turn an' look back I'll
+bet two-bits you turn to somethin' worse!"
+
+The other flashed one look at him, a look of long-standing hate, devoid
+of a measure of the fear which he evidenced for Beck. He rode on
+without a word and Two-Bits laughed aloud. McKee did not even look back.
+
+At the Gap there was water, just enough for a man and his horses for a
+few days. The seep had stopped and the water was not fresh.
+
+"I guess it'll do, though," Beck said. "It's mighty important we keep
+this stock out of the Hole, Two-Bits. That's why I brought a
+trustworthy man.
+
+"Lord, they're stringin' up fast,"--staring out on the desert where the
+steers slowly ate their way to the mouth of the Hole. "Funny they're
+out of water so soon. If they get up in here,"--gesturing back through
+the Gap,--"there may be hell to pay."
+
+He helped Two-Bits pitch his tee-pee and rode away.
+
+Throughout that day the homely cow-boy met the drifting steers and
+turned them eastward, past the Hole toward the lower waters of Coyote
+Creek. They were reluctant to go for they knew that beyond the Gap lay
+water but Two-Bits slapped his chaps with rein ends and whooped and
+chased them until the van of the procession moved on in the desired
+direction.
+
+He was up late at night and awoke early in the morning, riding up the
+Gap to turn back those that had stolen past in the night, then
+stationing himself in the shade of the parapet to await the others that
+came in increasing numbers.
+
+Two-Bits did not see the gray horse picking its way along the heights
+above him. The gray's rider saw to it that he was not exposed. Nor
+could he know that the animal was picketed and that a man crawled over
+the rocks on his belly, shoving a rifle before him until, from a point
+that screened him well, he could look down into the Gap.
+
+Steers strolled up and eyed the sentinel, lifting their noses to snuff,
+flinging heads about now and then to dislodge flies that their flicking
+tails could not reach. He would ride out toward them, shoving them down
+around the shoulder of the point toward the east, then return to head
+off others that took advantage of his absence to make a steal for the
+Gap.
+
+As he worked, he sang:
+
+  "Ho, I'm a jolly _cow_boy, from Texas now I _hail!_
+    Give me my quirt and _po-o_-ony, I'm ready for the _trail_;
+  I love the rolling _prai_ries, they're free from care an' _strife!_
+    Behind a herd of _long_horns I'll journey all my _life!_"
+
+
+His voice was unmusical, unlovely, but he sang with fervor, sang as
+conscientiously as he worked.
+
+As he came and went the man above watched him, his gray eyes squinting
+in the glare of light, following now and then the barrel of the rifle,
+bringing the ivory sight to bear on the man's back, caressing the
+trigger with his finger. A dozen times he stiffened and held his breath
+and the finger twitched; and each time his body relaxed quickly and he
+cursed softly, rolling over on his side, impatient at his indecision.
+
+A continued flush was on his cheeks and the light in his eyes was
+baleful, resolved, yet the lines of his mouth were weak and indecisive.
+Once, when Two-Bits' raucous voice reached him, he muttered aloud and
+stiffened again and squeezed the stock with his trigger hand ... then
+went limp.
+
+Noon came and shadows commenced to spill into the gap from the
+westward. The steers that drifted up from the far reaches of
+wash-ribbed desert came faster, were more intent, more reluctant to be
+driven back. Two-Bits changed to his Nigger horse and drank from the
+water hole and rode yipping toward a big roan steer that advanced
+determinedly. The animal doubled and dodged but, shoulder against its
+rump, nipping viciously at the critter's back, Nigger aided his rider
+to success; then swung back.
+
+Two-Bits' voice floated up as he stroked his horse's neck:
+
+  "Oh, I'm a Texas _cow_boy, lighthearted, brave an' _free_,
+    To roam the wide _prai_rie is always joy to _me_.
+  My trusty little _po-o_-ony is my companion _true_
+    O'er creeks an' hills an' _riv_ers he's sure to pull me _through!_"
+
+
+From above a dull spat. In Two-Bits' ears an abrupt crunching as he was
+knocked forward and down and a dull, rending pain spread across his
+shoulders. He struck the ground with his face first and instinctively
+his hand started back toward his holster. The first movement was a
+whip, then became jerky, faltering, and when the fingers found the
+handle of his revolver they fumbled and could not close. He half raised
+himself on the other elbow, dragging his knees beneath his body slowly.
+
+His mouth was filled with sand. His eyes were.... He did not know what
+ailed them, but he could not see. He felt dizzy and sick. He hitched
+himself upward another degree, striving to close those fingers on his
+revolver butt. It was a Herculean task, but the only necessary action
+that his groggy mind could recall. He gritted the sand between his
+teeth in the effort. He would draw! He would fight back! He wasn't gone
+... yet ... wasn't ...
+
+And then he collapsed, limp and flat on the ground, as an inert body
+will lie.
+
+The fingers twitched convulsively; then were still. A stain seeped
+through his vest, dark in the sun. The breath slipped through his teeth
+slowly. The horse stood looking at him, nose low; then stepped closer
+and snuffed gently; looked rather resentfully at a steer trailing
+through the Gap unheeded, then snuffed again....
+
+Up above a man was crawling back across the hot rocks to where a gray
+horse waited in the sun....
+
+"I got him," he muttered feverishly as he covered the last distance at
+a run. "Now, by God, I'll get-- ..."
+
+Nigger stood there, switching at the flies which alighted on him. From
+time to time he snuffed and stamped; occasionally he peered far up the
+Hole or out onto the desert almost hopefully, watching distant objects
+with erect ears; then the ears would droop quickly and he would chew
+his bit and look back at his master with helpless eyes.
+
+Cattle strayed back from the east where Two-Bits had sent them and
+entered the Hole, those which had once been driven away passing the
+prone figure and the watching horse on a trot, others with their noses
+in the air smelling water, heedless of else.
+
+The shadows crept closer and deeper about Two-Bits. Overhead a buzzard
+wheeled, banking sharply, coming down lazily, then flapped upward and
+on. It was not yet his time!
+
+The horse dozed fitfully, one hip slumped, waking now and then with a
+jerk, pricking his ears at the quiet figure as though he detected
+movement; then letting them droop again rather forlornly. Once he
+walked completely about his master, slowly, reins trailing and then
+stopped to nose the body gently as if to say:
+
+"What is this, my friend? I'm only a horse and I don't understand; if I
+knew how to help you I would. Won't you tell me what to do? I'm waiting
+here just for that; to help you. But I'm only a horse..."
+
+He plucked grass aimlessly and returned to stand above the man's body
+chewing abstractedly, stopping and holding his breath while he gazed
+down at the inanimate lump; then chewing again. Once he sighed deeply
+and the saddle creaked from the strain his inhalation put on the cinch.
+
+For hours there had been no movement. Night stole down from the east,
+shrouding the desert in purple, softening the harsh distances, making
+them seem gentle and easy. Then from the still man came a sound, like a
+sigh that was choked off, and the hand which, hours before had groped
+haltingly for the revolver, stirred ever so slightly.
+
+Nigger's ears went forward. He stepped gingerly about the body, keeping
+his fore feet close to it, swinging his hind parts in a big circle. He
+nickered softly, almost entreatingly, as if begging his master to
+speak, to make more movement; he nuzzled the body rather roughly, then
+stamped in impatience ... sighed again and slumped a hip, chewing on
+his bit....
+
+Two-Bits was wet with dew when daylight came, but he had not stirred.
+The sun peered into the Gap and the drops of moisture, blinking back a
+brief interval, seemed to draw into his clothing and skin; the rays
+licked up the damp that had gathered in the hoof prints about the
+figure.
+
+Nigger lifted his head high and whinnered shrilly at nothing at all.
+This was another day; there might be hope!
+
+The flies came and lighted on the crusted stain on the vest and crawled
+down inside the shirt ... and after an aeon a sharp, white wire of
+consciousness commenced to glow in Two-Bits' blank mind. The one
+hand--the gun hand--twitched again and the fingers, puffed from their
+cramped position, stretched stiffly, resuming their struggle for the
+gun where it had left off yesterday.
+
+One foot moved a trifle and a muffled cough sent a small spurt of dust
+from beneath the face pressed into it. Slowly the gun hand gave up its
+search and was still, gathering strength. The arm drew up along the
+man's side, the hand reached his face. Elbows pressed into the ground
+and with a moan Two-Bits tried to lift his body ... tried and failed
+and sank back, with his face turned away from the dirt.
+
+Nigger blew loudly and shook his whole body and stared. The other horse
+came up and stared, too; then moved toward the water hole, the precious
+water, and drank deeply. Nigger watched him as though he, too, would
+drink. But he did not go; remained there, with the reins dangling among
+the flies. Now and then his nostrils twitched and fluttered; his ears
+quirked in constant query.
+
+Noon, and another effort to rise. A muttered word this time and a
+squinting of the eyes that was not wholly witless.
+
+Two-Bits shifted his position. He could see his tee-pee, his black
+kettle on the ashes, his water bucket ... his bucket ... water bucket
+... water.... He worked his lips heavily. They were burned and cracked
+and his mouth was an insensate orifice....
+
+After a time he commenced to crawl, moving an inch at a time, settling
+back, moaning. The crusted stain on his vest took on fresh life and the
+flies buzzed angrily when disturbed. His arms were of little use and he
+progressed by slow undulations of his limbs. Once he found a crack
+between two rocks with a toe and shoved himself forward a foot.
+
+"Damn..." he muttered in feeble triumph.
+
+A fevered glow came into his eyes. His breath quickened under the
+effort. He moaned more; rested less.
+
+And behind, beside or before him went the excited Nigger. He muttered
+softly, as in encouragement, doing his best to put his hope into
+sounds. His heavy mane and forelock fell about his eyes, giving him a
+disheveled appearance, but he seemed to be trying to say:
+
+"You're alive; you're alive! You _can_ move after all; you
+_can_ move! Let me help! Oh, pardner, let me help you!"
+
+The horse pawed the earth desperately, sending stones and dirt
+scattering, dust drifting.
+
+"Keep on!" he seemed to say. "Keep it up! I'm here; we'll get there
+somehow!"
+
+Two-Bits gained shadows. The water was less than a hundred feet away.
+He moved his head from side to side in an agony of effort and threw one
+hand clumsily before him. It touched sage brush and after moments of
+struggle he clamped his fingers about the stalk and dragged himself on,
+gritting his teeth against the pain. He reached a little wash and tried
+to rise to his feet. He could not. He floundered in effort and rolled
+into it, crying lowly as his torso doubled limply and he sprawled on
+his back.
+
+Nigger stood at the edge, snuffing, peering down. He kicked at a fly
+irritably and stepped down into the wash himself, nickering in tender
+query.
+
+It took a long time for Two-Bits to roll over. He cried hoarsely from
+the hurt of the effort and the fevered light in his eyes mounted. His
+mouth was no longer without sensation. It and his throat stung and
+smarted. Their hurt was worse than the weight of suffering on his
+shoulders.... He wanted water as only a man whose life is in the
+balance can want water!
+
+Somehow he crawled out of the wash. It was fifty feet to the hole
+now.... He cut it to twenty and lay gasping, trembling, burning, Nigger
+close beside him, first on one side, then the other, sometimes at his
+feet. Never, though, standing motionless in his path....
+
+It was ten feet.... Then five. Lifting eye lids was a world of effort
+in itself. His mouth was open, breath sucking in the dust, but he could
+not close it. He made a hand's breadth and stopped. His limbs twitched
+spasmodically and drew up. He made a straining, strangling sound,
+gathering all the life that remained in his body. He rose on his elbows
+and on one knee. He swayed forward, he scrambled drunkenly. He pitched
+down and as he went he made one last, awkward attempt to push his own
+weight along. Then fell ... short.
+
+The right hand half propped his body up. It slid slowly forward,
+impelled by the weight upon it alone, shoving light sand in its way....
+Then went limp and extended.
+
+The tip of his second finger just dented the surface of the water in
+the pool!
+
+The horse switched his tail slowly, as if disconsolate at a waning hope.
+
+"Hang it all," he might have thought. "Here I thought you were going to
+make it and you can't! I _wish_ I knew how to help!"
+
+He sighed again, this time as if in despair. He waited a long time
+before drinking himself as if hoping that his master would move. But
+the body was motionless ... utterly. The shallow, quick come and go of
+breath was not in evidence. Two-Bits had done all that he could do for
+himself....
+
+Nigger moved to the lip of rock which held the water against the cliff.
+He snuffed, as if to tantalize himself and then plunged his nose into
+the place, guzzling greedily. Great gulps ran down his long throat,
+little shoots of water left his lips beside the bit and fell back. He
+breathed and drank and made great sounds in satisfying his thirst. He
+lifted his head and caught his breath and let it slip out in a sigh of
+satisfaction ... drank again.
+
+Finally he was through and stepped back, holding his lips close, as
+horses will whose mouth contains one more swallow. Then he stared at
+Two-Bits and moved close to him and chewed instinctively on the bit,
+letting the water that he did not need spill from his mouth....
+
+It fell squarely on the back of the man's neck, spattering on his hair,
+running down under his shirt, driving out the flies....
+
+Two-Bits swam back again. A strength, a pleasing chill ran through him.
+He moved the one arm and the fingers slid on into the water. With a
+choking cry he wriggled forward and thrust his face into the pool....
+After a long time he drew back and let his fevered forehead soak,
+breathing more easily through his mouth.
+
+It was nearly sunset when he rolled over, slowly, painfully, weakly,
+but not as a man on the edge of death. He looked up at Nigger standing
+beside him, nose fluttering encouragement. Just above him a stirrup
+swung to and fro in a short arc.
+
+"After a while ... a week or so, I can ... get hold of that ... mebby,"
+the man said huskily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+AN INTERRUPTED PROPOSAL
+
+
+The love that grew in the hearts of Tom Beck and Jane Hunter was not
+the only suit which approached a climax in the hills. Another existed,
+quite different, unknown to them, unsuspected, even, but it was not a
+secret to one who rode from the HC ranch.
+
+This was the Reverend Azariah Beal. He stayed on, though assuring Beck
+that the call might come any hour which would send him on his way. He
+was sent on many errands of importance, because Beck had come to
+believe that he could trust the clergyman as he could trust no other
+man and it was this riding which gave Beal his knowledge of that other
+love making.
+
+Day after day he saw Dick Hilton in Devil's Hole. He saw him joined by
+another rider, by Bobby Cole, and knew that the Easterner spent many
+days at the ranch house down there in the deep valley.
+
+Hilton treated the girl as she never had been treated before. He told
+her tales of cities and men and women that held her breathless and he
+wooed her with an artfulness which kept her unaware of love making.
+When with him, as when with her father, that ready defiance, her
+expectation of trouble, became reduced to a wistfulness, an eager
+inquiry which left her, not the self-sufficient bundle of passionate
+strength, but a simple mountain child.
+
+He would ride beside her or sit at night by the fire in her father's
+cabin and talk for hours, giving of his experience well, for he was a
+glib talker. He asked nothing in return ... openly, but while he talked
+his eyes were on her eyes, prodding their depths, on her red mouth,
+hungering, on her wonderful throat, fired by desire. He bided his time,
+for his was a choice prize.
+
+Now and then she talked to him of Jane Hunter and though her allusions
+were scornful and her face assumed that hostility, he knew that this
+only resulted from her envy, the curiosity which she would not let come
+into being. He played upon this, dropping hints of the reason for his
+coming west, lying insinuations of his relationships with the mistress
+of the big ranch, each hint a fertile seed planted in the rich soil of
+her imagination.
+
+One afternoon they dismounted in a clump of willows where early in the
+season and in wet summers a spring bubbled under a rim rock. Now it was
+dry, almost dust-dry in places, and the girl sat on the grass while
+Hilton stretched at her feet, smoking idly.
+
+He talked to her for long and when he paused she said, looking far away:
+
+"I'd like to see somethin' else besides this. I'd like to have some of
+the chances other gals have. I'd give anything for a chance to be
+somebody!"
+
+He threw away his cigarette.
+
+"I'd give anything to give you a chance, Bobby," he said.
+
+"Yes, but you can't!" she laughed hopelessly. "You're a gentleman and
+I.... Why, I'm just the daughter of a nester."
+
+"And maybe that very combination of circumstances gives me my chance to
+give you yours.
+
+"I should like very much to take you east, Bobby."
+
+"Yes, but there's Alf. I couldn't leave him,"--shaking her head, still
+innocent of his intent.
+
+Hilton was not unprepared.
+
+"But if he had a comfortable ranch, with good buildings and plenty of
+stock, and could come to visit you at times?"
+
+"But he ain't got any of them an' besides--
+
+"You don't mean for me to _stay!_" she said suddenly, eyes
+incredulous.
+
+"To stay, Bobby. To stay with me, forever and ever."
+
+She started to laugh but checked herself and leaned suddenly toward
+him, her lips parted. He lifted himself to an elbow and reached out for
+her hand.
+
+"Don't you understand, dear girl? Don't you see that I love you?"
+
+She withdrew her hand from his clasp and looked away, brows drawn
+toward one another a trifle. He watched her craftily, timing his urging
+to her realization.
+
+"Don't you see that I came west, guided by something bigger than my own
+reason, directed by something that regulates the loves of men to bring
+them to a good end?"
+
+She looked back at him and shook her head slowly.
+
+"I never thought I'd be loved. I never thought you cared for me that-a
+way."
+
+"Bless you! That night when I went walking into your cabin and you met
+me with a rifle ready I knew I would love you and that you would love
+me. It's one of the things neither of us can explain, but I was sure of
+it, sure of it. Didn't you guess? Didn't you feel it deep down in your
+heart?"
+
+"No, never. Nothin' good had ever happened to me. I didn't calculate
+anything good ever would happen. The only bein' I ever thought I'd love
+was Alf and I'd go through fire for him....
+
+"But this ... it's different. It ain't like that. This is somethin' ...
+I don't know...."
+
+She rose and pressed her hands to her breast as though some bursting
+emotion hurt her. Hilton stood before her, his breath a trifle quick,
+lips parted greedily. His particular hour, he felt, had struck!
+
+"One of the reasons that has made me love you has been your devotion to
+your father. Another was your distrust. You never did trust me at
+first. I felt that you were keeping me off, holding yourself away from
+me, Bobby. I wanted to tell you all this long ago,"--which was the
+truth--"but I wanted you to be sure of yourself; I wanted you to
+recognize love and know that this thing between us is the lasting
+sort"--which was a lie.
+
+"The lasting kind?" she queried. "You love me? For good? Honest?"
+
+"Honest!" he promised, taking both her hands. "I love you with all the
+love a man can give a woman! I love you enough to devote my whole life
+to making you happy. I have money. We can go where we please, do what
+we please. You will have friends and respect. You can see cities and
+the ocean. You can live in grand hotels and eat wonderful food that
+someone else has cooked; you can hear music and go to theaters; you
+will have flowers and automobiles; you'll see California and Florida
+and Europe...."
+
+"And because you love?" she demanded as he put his arms about her.
+"It's because you love me, ain't it? If I thought ... if I thought it
+was for anything else I'd kill you." Her tone was even enough, her
+voice the soft, full voice of a woman touched by love, but beneath its
+velvet was a matter-of-fact certainty that caused the faintest tremor
+to run through his limbs.
+
+They looked into one another's eyes, felt each other's breath upon
+their cheeks, the one consumed by passion, the other swept upward into
+a new world, a new, incredible life, as a beautiful hope touched her
+heart. They did not see their horses standing with intent ears and, as
+they were up wind they did not hear the slight sounds of another
+approaching.
+
+"Because I love you, Bobby! Will you come?"
+
+"And I'll be your wife and you won't be ashamed of me ... ever?"
+
+"Never!"--in a tone that was too firm for conviction.
+
+"An' Alf'll come to see us whenever he wants to?"
+
+"Whenever he wants to. Don't you believe me? Why question?"--hurriedly.
+"Say you love me, now, today, this hour,"--straining her to him. "Say
+it to me, Bobby; say that you love me as I love you!"
+
+His eyes burned into hers and he closed his lips to press them on hers,
+to touch the woman of her into being, to accomplish the end he sought.
+
+"Oh, Mister Hilton, I--"
+
+Her voice had the quality of a sob and he waited for her to go on
+before he sealed his tricky pact with a kiss, but as she choked a
+crashing of the brush shocked him into a realization of the outside
+world and a resounding voice cried:
+
+"One moment! Just one moment!"
+
+The Reverend Azariah Beal advanced toward them through the willows.
+
+Bobby whirled to face him and Hilton, with an oath, released her.
+
+For a moment, portentous silence. The Reverend halted, plainly
+confused. Before Hilton's glare and the girl's breathless fury his eyes
+wavered. He opened his lips to speak and closed them helplessly. Then a
+queer glimmer crossed his face, half hope, half smile.
+
+He reached into his pocket, brought forth a fountain pen, held it up
+and said:
+
+"One moment of your time to bring to your attention this article, known
+from coast to coast, indispensable to any man, woman or child, which we
+are introducing for the purposes of further advertising at a trifling
+price, which--"
+
+"Who the devil sent you here?" demanded Hilton, advancing.
+
+The Reverend lowered his hand and blinked through his spectacles.
+
+"I do not recall that I came from that black deity," he replied mildly.
+"My feet are directed from Above,"--gesturing. "I have been called
+upon--"
+
+"Now you're called upon to get out. Understand? Get out!"
+
+"Brother, is it possible that you are not interested in this article?
+Made of pure India rubber--"
+
+"You heard me! Get out!" cried Hilton.
+
+For a moment the Reverend stood, as though undecided.
+
+"I am sorry," he said, "that I can not interest you. If not today, then
+another time, perhaps? A splendid gift for a lady, my friend, a--"
+
+"Nobody here wants to listen to you. Be on your way!"
+
+Sorrowfully the Reverend replaced the pen in his pocket, rattling it
+against the remainder of his stock. As he turned away he drew them all
+out and stood for some time beside his horse, counting them carefully,
+muttering to himself. He looked about his feet, retraced his steps to
+where he had stood in his attempt to make a sale, scanning the ground.
+
+"Can it be," he asked absently, "that I have miscounted?"
+
+He gave no heed to the two who watched him but it was a matter of ten
+minutes before he was finally satisfied that there had been no loss--or
+that nothing else would be lost that day--and rode away.
+
+By that time Hilton's ill temper was implacable and in Bobby's face was
+a half frightened, bewildered look. She turned to the Easterner with a
+questioning little gesture but he did not respond.
+
+"He spoiled it for a while, Bobby," he said. "Let's ride back."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CONCERNING SAM MCKEE
+
+
+Webb was building biscuits and Hepburn was slicing a steak from the
+hind quarter of a carcass that a few days before had been an HC steer.
+McKee entered with an armful of wood. He dropped it into the box beside
+the stove with a clatter and went out again. He was whistling a doleful
+little tune, as a preoccupied man will whistle. His gray eyes were
+peculiarly grim and when he stopped whistling, his mouth set into
+determined lines.
+
+"What's got into him?" Webb asked.
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"He's changed in the last day or two. Wouldn't think he was the same
+man," Webb went on. "Do you think there's a chance...."
+
+It was unnecessary to finish the question for there was only one
+subject that these men discussed which called for the cautious tone
+which Webb had adopted. Hepburn chuckled scornfully.
+
+"Hell, no!" he said. "Sam's the last one to double-cross us, 'specially
+when Beck's on th' other side.
+
+"Somethin's got into him all right, but it ain't anything to hurt us.
+He's changed."
+
+"You know how he used to be, Dad, kind of a bully, always lookin' for
+trouble. Well, it wasn't that he was quarrelsome like most mean men
+are. It was because he was afraid to be any other way. That was what
+made him abuse his horse that time; the pony had put a crimp in Sam an'
+th' only way Sam could work up his nerve to get aboard was to work him
+over unmerciful.
+
+"That give Beck his chance, an' he sure did comb poor Sam! It took all
+th' starch out of him, but that wasn't th' worst. It give everybody
+that didn't like him a chance to rub it in, an' they sure done it!
+Sam's been a standin' joke ever since. They seem to look for chances to
+ride him. Two-Bits ain't let him alone a minute when they was near
+together.
+
+"Sam used to swear he'd get both Two-Bits an' Beck, but he won't. He
+ain't that kind, I guess. Beck knocked what little sand he had left all
+out of him.
+
+"Somethin's changed him again, though ..."
+
+"You've rubbed it into him pretty strong yourself, Webb," Hepburn
+reminded.
+
+"Different reason." Webb waxed philosophical. "When a man's enemies
+bother him it only drives him down; that is, a man like Sam. But when
+his friends ride him it's likely to put a little color in his liver.
+That's why I keep after him. I never did figure he'd try to get Beck in
+an open fight, but I used to think he might do it some other way.
+That's what I'd like to see him do!"--darkly.
+
+"Maybe he will. Somethin's changed him again, Webb. I tell you he's
+been goin' around today like a man whose done somethin' big! It's a
+sort of ... of confidence, you'd call it."
+
+"Mebby Hilton's got under his skin. He don't like Sam but he talks a
+lot to him about Beck, quiet-like, as if it wasn't of much importance.
+Still, he keeps dingin' away at it."
+
+"Like he does to us about things, eh? Always sort of suggestin' until
+you go do somethin' that seems like a good play an' then, after a
+while, wake up to realize that he was the one who started you on your
+way!"
+
+Hilton came in and the four--the other riders were on the range--ate
+their meal and talked lowly of the war they waged. That is, Hepburn and
+Webb talked. McKee listened; neither of the others bothered to address
+him or even consciously include him as an auditor.... And Hilton
+listened and watched McKee, his eyes speculative.
+
+"With th' tank gone that cuts down just so much on their range," Webb
+said, "an' it's plain they don't figure on usin' the Hole or they'd let
+their stuff drift in there as they've always done."
+
+"You don't want to be too sure that their stuff won't get into the
+Hole," put in McKee with a nodding of his head.
+
+"I s'pose they put a man in the Gap to go to sleep, did they?" Webb
+returned. "It was a good move on Beck's part. I wish to hell they would
+get by and perish of thirst. We'd keep 'em out of Cole's water, you
+bet! Beck's too wise to give us a chance, though."
+
+"Mebby he ain't so wise as he thinks," McKee insisted in that queer,
+lofty manner. "He put a man there all right, all right, but everybody
+ain't been asleep."
+
+Hepburn started to say something to Webb but was arrested by this.
+
+"What you got in your head, Sam?" he asked, with more intent than he
+had used in questioning McKee in months.
+
+Sam felt himself assuming a sudden importance at this; his manner of
+mystery and confidence had caught their interest and it was the first
+time he had so succeeded for long, the first time he had really been an
+insider in the game they played. It was gratifying to know facts which
+they did not know; he cherished this superiority, so he said:
+
+"Never you mind what's in Sam's head. You've been figurin' I'm a
+helpless sort of waddie for a long time but I guess you'll think
+different when you find out some things I know!"
+
+Hepburn urged again but McKee was no more responsive so the older man
+put McKee's secretiveness down as pique, concealing nothing of value,
+and went on with the talk.
+
+Later in the evening Webb said:
+
+"Sure you didn't leave anything by the tank that'd give us away?"
+
+"Think I'm simple minded?" Hepburn countered.
+
+"It's a damn good thing not to be. That's th' first place they'll ride
+when th' round-up starts an' as soon as Beck hears the Tank's gone
+he'll go over that place himself with a fine tooth comb. If he could
+hang that on us it'd be all he'd need."
+
+"He can go over it with a microscope but he'll find nothin'!"
+
+"You sure he will?" McKee asked, rather breathlessly, his eyes lighted
+with a peculiar glow.
+
+"Will what?"
+
+"Go there to look it over?"
+
+Hepburn snorted.
+
+"That's one thing you can be sure about Beck: he watches details an'
+don't let nothin' get away from him. He's always pryin' into things
+himself; he ain't satisfied to get his information second hand. A thing
+like this, which has meant a lot to them ... why, he'll investigate it
+until he's found somethin' or hell freezes!"
+
+McKee sat back, staring at the floor, his hands limp in his lap. Still
+that strange light showed in his eyes and occasionally his lips moved
+as though he rehearsed a declaration to himself.... And Hilton,
+stretched on his bed, watched McKee.
+
+After a time Sam roused and rolled a cigarette with fingers that were
+not just steady and sat smoking as he planned, already triumphing in
+anticipation. His eyes changed, and the lines of his face were
+remoulded ... and Hilton watched.
+
+Late that evening McKee went out into the dooryard to be alone with the
+memory of the one stroke he had made and to continue his plans for the
+master blow he was to make. But he was not alone. Hilton followed and
+spoke quietly over his shoulder, saying:
+
+"Yes, Sam, the chances are that he'll go to the tank alone."
+
+Whereupon the other started and whispered savagely:
+
+"How'd you know I was thinkin' _that?_"
+
+Hilton laughed lowly and put an arm across Sam's shoulders and they
+walked at length in the darkness, talking, talking.... The Easterner
+looked close into McKee's face and flattered and suggested and
+encouraged....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"WORK AMONG THE HEATHEN"
+
+
+The chuck wagon had gone, followed by the bed wagon and the cavet, the
+last made up of one hundred and forty saddle horses, stringing along
+the road, a solid column of horse flesh. In a day the round-up would be
+on. Camp was to be made first far down on Coyote Creek and the country
+from Cathedral Tank eastward would first be ridden.
+
+Outwardly the departure was not so different from others of its sort.
+There were rifles on saddles, to be sure, but there was banter and fun.
+Still, a spirit prevailed which told that the men were not wholly
+concerned with the normal business of the range. There were other
+things, more grim, more serious, than gathering steers and branding
+calves.
+
+H C hands were not the only ones who rode heavily armed. There were
+others, skulking on high ridges, watching, waiting. The whole country
+knew they were there. The eyes of the whole country were on the
+factions. The ears of the country were strained to catch what sounds of
+clash might rise. For the coming of that clash was sensed as an
+impending crash of thunder will be sensed under cloud banked skies.
+
+"I'll be joinin' them tonight or in the morning," Beck told Jane as the
+cavalcade disappeared down creek. "I'm glad there are things to hold me
+here a few hours longer because I'll be gone a long time an' I'm
+jealous of the days I have to be away from you."
+
+"You'll come to say good-bye?"
+
+"If I have to crawl to you!"--as he gave her one of his lingering
+kisses. "When I come back from the ride there's something I'd like to
+talk over with you ... which we ain't mentioned yet."
+
+"I'll be waiting to talk it over, dear," she whispered, for she
+understood.
+
+Not long after Beck had ridden away the Reverend stumped down from the
+corral to the big ranch house and rapped on the door. Jane was at her
+desk and looked up in surprise for it was the first time the elder Beal
+had ever come to her alone.
+
+"I come to ask for aid, ma'am, in what might be termed work among the
+heathen, though, it is in a sense the task of a home missionary."
+
+Jane put down her pen and sat back in her chair, trying to hide her
+amusement.
+
+"Yes, Reverend," in her crisp manner--"I'm interested."
+
+He blinked and rattled pens in a side pocket of the rusty coat.
+
+"I trust that you will bear with me, ma'am, until I have finished. I
+have been moved to speak to you for long but have hesitated because it
+is difficult to present the matter without intruding on privacies.
+
+"An unholy love is being hidden in the solitudes of these hills, a man
+who is at heart a serpent seeks to corrupt the white soul of a child.
+You possess a knowledge of this man which may hold the only hope of
+salvation for the innocent."
+
+A feeling of apprehension swept through the girl; with it was
+suspicion, for though her mind easily fastened on Dick Hilton as the
+man referred to, she could connect him with no other woman.
+
+"I trust, ma'am, that you will be charitable in your estimate of my
+works. It is no more possible for Azariah Beal to go through life with
+his eyes closed and his powers of deduction dormant than it is for the
+birds to refrain from flight or the fishes from swimming. I try to do
+good as I go my way. I realize that it is not in the orthodox manner,
+that my methods are strange; but my work is among unusual people and
+the old ways of accomplishment will not produce results any more than
+the old standards of morality will fit the lives of my people.
+
+"I observed this man, a stranger to the country, in town on my arrival.
+When I reached here to tarry with my brother until I am called to move
+I observed you, also a stranger to the frontier. I observed other
+things which you will not consider prying curiosity, I hope. There was
+a connection, a logical connection, between you two strangers: were it
+not for subsequent events this observation would have remained in my
+heart. So far it has, but now I must reveal it to you.
+
+"You are the only individual who stands between Dick Hilton and the
+ruin of Bobby Cole!"
+
+He stopped talking and rattled his pens again. The apprehension which
+had possessed Jane passed and she experienced a sharp abhorrence.
+
+"You mean that he ..." she began and let the question trail off.
+
+The Reverend nodded.
+
+"Exactly. He has charmed her. He speaks with the cunning of a serpent
+and she, under his influence, is as guileless as a quail.
+
+"He cannot be driven off by threats because he is not that sort. The
+girl cannot be convinced of his wicked purpose because she trusts no
+man but him. If the affair proceeds she will pay the price of a broken
+heart because, in spirit, she is pure gold.
+
+"He might protest his sincerity to men of this country and force them
+into belief, but with you it is different. There is in every man, no
+matter how far he may have fallen, a sense of shame. He can bury it
+deeply from those who do not know him but to his own kind it is ever
+near the surface.
+
+"I beg of you, ma'am, to join me in this holy cause and dissuade him
+from his black purpose, if not by an appeal to honor, then by an appeal
+to his shame."
+
+Jane rose.
+
+"You mean that he has been making ... making love to this girl? And
+that you think I can save her?"
+
+"It's the only way. She will not listen to men, she will not listen to
+you because she considers you her enemy. He may be so far sunk in sin
+that he will not heed the advice of one he has known and respected and,
+excuse me, loved ... after his manner of loving." Jane flushed but he
+gave no notice. "But unless I attempt to bring your influence to bear
+upon him I will feel that I have not answered the call to duty."
+
+He blinked again and looked at her with an appeal that wiped out any
+impression of charlatanry, of preposterousness that she might have had;
+he was wholly sincere.
+
+"Why ... I don't know what I could say ... what I could do."
+
+"Nor I. But you know Hilton; you know the girl; I have made you
+familiar with the situation. I rely on your resourcefulness. May I
+bring him to you?"
+
+"Why, he wouldn't come here!"
+
+The Reverend rattled his pens and said:
+
+"I think I might persuade him. Have I, as your employee, your
+permission, I might say, your _order_, to bring him here?"
+
+"Of course. If there is anything I can do.... Ugh!" She shuddered and
+pressed a wrist against her eyes. "It's beastly! Beastly!"
+
+The Reverend departed and throughout the day Jane Hunter could think of
+little other than the situation which he had outlined to her. Her wrath
+was roused, replacing the disgust she had felt at first, and her heart
+went out to Bobby Cole with a tenderness that only woman can know for
+woman.
+
+She tried to think ahead, to consider what she could say or do, to
+speculate on what the results of this next meeting with Dick Hilton
+might be.
+
+Evening was well into dusk with the first stars pricking through the
+failing daylight when two riders came through the HC gate. Dick Hilton
+rode first and behind him, one hand in a deep pocket of his frock coat,
+rode the Reverend.
+
+"You can get down and open the gate," the Reverend said and Hilton,
+sulkily obeying, led his horse through.
+
+"Now what?" he asked in surly submission.
+
+"Now I'll finish my errand by escorting you to the owner of this
+establishment."
+
+Hilton led his horse across to the dooryard. The Reverend dismounted
+and the two walked down the cottonwoods to the big veranda, the
+Easterner still in the lead, the other with his hand in his side pocket.
+
+Jane saw them; she was at the door.
+
+"Good evening!" said Hilton with bitterness.
+
+"In accordance with your orders, ma'am, I persuaded this gentleman to
+call," said Beal, almost humbly. "I'll feed his horse and return later."
+
+He turned and hurried up the path.
+
+Hilton pulled down his coat sleeves irritably and looked at Jane with a
+bitter smile.
+
+"To what do I owe the ... the honor of such a summons?"
+
+"Come in, Dick. I want to talk to you,"--keeping her voice and
+expression steady. She held the door open to him and he entered, his
+mouth drawn down in a sardonic grimace. A single shaded lamp was
+lighted and as she turned to him she could see his eyes glittering
+balefully in the semi-darkness.
+
+"Rather different from our last meeting," he said testily. "Then you
+were concerned with my going; now you seem determined to have me here."
+
+"Let's not discuss the past, Dick. I called you here for a definite
+purpose. Can you guess what it is?"
+
+He eyed her in hostile speculation.
+
+"I don't see where anything that concerns me could concern you now.
+That is, unless you've changed your mind."
+
+She gave him a wry smile and a shake of her head.
+
+"I shall never change, Dick. It was no interest in you that made me
+send for you. It was interest in the well-being of another woman."
+
+"Oh, another woman! And who, pray, may she be?"--frigidly, face
+darkening.
+
+"Can't you guess? Have there been so many out here?"
+
+"You know there's only one woman for me," he said bitterly, "and she
+drove me off like a thief and has called me back as though I were a
+thief!"
+
+"Perhaps you are."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+There was that about him which made her think of a man cornered.
+
+"I have called you here because I have reason to believe that you are
+trying to steal the heart of a young girl--of Bobby Cole."
+
+He laughed unpleasantly, but there was in the laugh a queer relief, as
+though he had anticipated other things.
+
+"Now who's been tattling to you?"
+
+"My men have seen you come and go, they have seen you with the girl.
+One of them came to me and begged that I send for you and try to talk
+you out of this. They know, Dick. These men understand men ... like
+you."
+
+"Because they see me with her and because I'm not considered fit by you
+to stay beneath your roof, even when it is night and storming, they
+think I'm damned beyond hope, do they? They think I'm menacing her
+happiness, do they?"
+
+"But aren't you?" she countered. "I know her. I have talked to her and
+watched her. Dick, she is a lonely, pathetic little creature with the
+world against her. There have been just two things left in her life:
+her own splendid self respect and her devotion to her father. Why, she
+hasn't even had the respect of the people about her!
+
+"And now she is facing loss of the biggest thing she possesses: the
+loss of her belief in herself, for you will destroy that just as surely
+as you force her to listen to your ... to what I suppose you still call
+your love-making."
+
+He eyed her a moment before saying:
+
+"You used, at least, to be fair, Jane; you used to go slowly in judging
+people and their motives and usually you were more or less right. Have
+you put all that behind you? Does the fact that a man is charged with
+some irregularity convince you of his guilt now?"
+
+"Why no. But knowing you and knowing her..."
+
+"Don't you think it possible for a man, even, for the sake of the
+argument, a blackguard like me,"--bowing slightly--"to change a trifle?"
+
+He put the question with so much confidence, with so much of his old
+certainty that it checked Jane.
+
+"Why, we all may change," she said slowly.
+
+"I am glad you will grant that much,"--ironically. "Think back, just a
+few weeks, and you may recall one somewhat theatrical statement you
+made to me about finding yourself among these people. I thought it
+preposterous then but I have lived and learned; I know now that you
+could mean what you said then.... Jane, I, too, have found my people
+... at least my woman."
+
+She stared hard at him.
+
+"Do you mean that, Dick Hilton?"--very lowly.
+
+"As much as I have ever meant anything in my life!"
+
+"Sit down," she said, more to give her time to think than in
+consideration of his comfort. Then, after a moment: "It isn't much of a
+boast, to mean this as much as you have ever meant anything."
+
+"Then need we talk further? You ask questions; I answer; you do not
+believe. Why continue?"
+
+She sat down in a chair before him.
+
+"This is the reason: That I think you have lied to me again. I don't
+believe you are sincere. No, no, you must listen to me, now!"--as he
+started forward with an enraged exclamation. "I brought you here to
+make what is left of the Dick Hilton I once liked see this thing as I
+see it."
+
+And try she did. She talked rapidly, almost hurriedly, carried along by
+her own conviction, made dominant by it, sweeping aside his early
+protests, forcing him to listen to her. She put her best into that
+effort for as he sat there with his cruel, cynical smile on her she
+realized that this was a task worthy of her best mettle.
+
+She sketched Bobby Cole's life as she knew it, she argued in detail to
+show him how the girl had never had a chance to taste the things which
+are sweetest to girlhood. She touched on the incident in town where, in
+desperation, Bobby had tried to force the respect of men and she told
+him of the defiance with which her own advances of friendship had been
+met.
+
+Jane was eloquent. For the better part of an hour she talked steadily,
+occasionally interrupted by a skeptical laugh or a sneering retort, but
+she persisted. Hilton listened and watched, eyes hard, mouth drawn into
+forbidding lines, a manner of suspicious caution about him, as though
+there were much that he wanted to conceal.
+
+Finally her sincerity had an effect and she could see his cold
+assurance melting. His gaze left hers and a flush crept into his
+cheeks. She moved quickly to sit beside him.
+
+"Dick! Dick! For the sake of what you once were, for the sake of what
+you still can be, go away! If you won't go for the sake of the girl, go
+for your own salvation!"
+
+"It's not what you think," he protested feebly, without looking at her.
+"I'm not philandering. I--"
+
+"No, Dick, not philandering, because that is too gentle a word. It is
+something worse, something darker, which will bring more shame to you
+and to all who once knew and trusted you.
+
+"Don't you see that you're playing with something as delicate as a
+mountain flower? Don't you see you will crush it? Because this girl is
+strong of body and thoroughly able to contend for her own position with
+muscles and weapons, don't think that her heart can be treated roughly.
+It would wither if she gave it to you and found that you held it of
+little value."
+
+"I tell you I'm on the level with her."
+
+"Would you marry her?"--leaning closer to him as his manner told of the
+effect her pleas were having.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"You'd take her east, to your friends?"
+
+"Why, why not?"--shifting uneasily.
+
+"Dick, look at me!" Tears in her eyes, she put her hands on his
+shoulders and forced him to turn his face. "You can't mean that? I can
+see you don't. Dick, oh, Dick! For the sake of all that is good and
+fine in life, for the sake of the manhood you can regain, don't do this
+thing!
+
+"I'm asking it of you. Perhaps I have little right to make any requests
+of you but in the name of the love you say you once bore for me try to
+look into my, a woman's heart, and see what this thing means. I'm not
+trying to make it difficult for you; I'm not trying to interfere and be
+mean. I'm begging you, Dick, to give her up and if nothing else will
+appeal to you, do it for my sake!"
+
+She shook him gently as he turned his head from her, humiliated,
+shamed, beaten. He was convinced: she knew that his sham was broken
+down, that his purpose was clear to her and the conscience that
+remained in his soul tortured him.
+
+Jane held so a long moment, fingers gripping his shoulders, appeal in
+every tense line of her body.
+
+And close outside the window another figure held tense, watching,
+holding breath in futile attempt to catch the low words they spoke. It
+was a slender figure and had ridden up on a soft-stepping horse,
+dismounted, slipped over the fence, ran stealthily along the creek,
+halted in the shadow of the cottonwoods and then crept slowly forward
+until it stood close to the shaft of yellow light which streamed from
+the window. There it stood spying....
+
+"You have said that you loved me, Dick. Do this for me in the name of
+that love! I am asking it with a sincerity that was never in any other
+request I have made of you."
+
+She shook him again and slowly he turned his face to hers, showing an
+expression of weakness, of helplessness, as one who turns to ask
+humbly, almost desperately for aid.
+
+The figure out there started forward as though it would leap through
+the window, making a sharp sound of breath hissing through teeth, in
+fright or in hatred. The movement was checked, for the gate creaked
+open, the scuffling boots of a man were heard on the path. The figure
+skulked swiftly along the house, ducking along the cottonwoods, out
+toward the road where a horse stood waiting.
+
+It was the Reverend coming and he whistled "_Yield not to
+Temptation_," as he neared the house, as if to give warning of his
+approach. Hilton heard and looked up sharply and a glitter of rage
+appeared in his eyes. He shook Jane Hunter off savagely and rose.
+
+"I'd let you make an ass of me!" he cried savagely. "You won't believe
+when I tell you the truth....
+
+"But what the devil should I care?" he broke off shortly. "Whatever I
+do and where and why is my own affair; none of yours, though you try to
+make it yours, try to judge me as you judge your own, new friends,
+probably.
+
+"You talk of the man I once was. Well, if I've changed in your eyes, it
+is not my fault; it's yours, Jane Hunter, yours! You'd drive me on,
+lead me on, and when finally cornered you'd be perfectly frank to tell
+me that you'd only toyed with me, that you tolerated me because you
+thought you might have to use the things I owned!"
+
+"Not that, Dick! You're putting it all wrong...."
+
+"Listen to me!" he shouted, quivering with rage. "If I've changed it is
+you who have changed me! If life means nothing to me, it is you who
+have made it so!" He was towering in his anger and, seeking to shift
+responsibility for his own rottenness to the shoulders of the woman
+before him, he aroused a sense of injury and genuine indignation. "You
+played me as your last straw as long as you dared and now, by God, when
+I go my way, the only way open to me, when I try to redeem a little
+happiness, you hound me, try to shame me with your sham morals!"
+
+"Dick, that's not true."
+
+"It is true. Why, you haven't a leg to stand on, you--"
+
+His storming was interrupted by a rap on the door and he turned to see
+the Reverend standing there, battered derby in his hands.
+
+"Excuse me," he said mildly, "but the gentleman's horse is fed."
+
+It was his way of letting Jane Hunter--and Dick Hilton--know that she
+was not alone; but if the Reverend had intended to stop the tirade
+which he had heard from outside he did not succeed for the Easterner
+was further enraged at sight of him.
+
+"I suppose this is part of your plan!" he snapped. "You found out that
+it's no use to wheedle me, so you've had your gun-man come to drive me
+off as he brought me!"
+
+"Dick, don't be silly! You're absurd. A gun. The idea!"
+
+Hilton laughed tauntingly and said:
+
+"He's standing there now, covering me with a gun! Look at him." He
+pointed to the Reverend's pocket. A hand was in it and the garment
+bulged sharply as though a revolver, concealed there, was ready for
+instant use. "That's how you treat me; that's how you got me here. God
+knows I wouldn't have come otherwise if your existence depended on it.
+
+"This man met me on the trail. He said you wanted to see me. I
+consigned him to the Hell from which he tries to have sinners and he
+covered me from his pocket just as he has me covered now and said it
+would be wise for me to answer your summons.
+
+"How else do you think he brought me?" he demanded, wheeling to face
+Jane again.
+
+The girl looked quickly to Beal, lips parted in surprise.
+
+"I sent Mr. Beal for you, yes, but I said nothing about using force to
+bring you. I wouldn't do that. I'm sure there is some mistake."
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I'm sure there is," said the Reverend, blinking and
+withdrawing his hand slowly. "I'm a man of peace. I'm not a man of
+force."
+
+He lifted his hand clear, the ominous bulge in his pocket giving way,
+and held up one of his pens.
+
+"One dollar," he said rather weakly ... as though frightened, or vastly
+amused.
+
+Standing there, looking rather blankly about, holding that pen in his
+hand he was in ludicrous contrast to the furious Hilton. It made the
+other man seem absurd, his raging like the burlesque of some clowning
+actor.
+
+With a helpless, choking oath Hilton turned, livid with rage, and
+strode for the doorway.
+
+"For the last time I've been made a fool of!" he cried, and hastened up
+the path.
+
+They heard him mount his horse and ride away.
+
+Jane was too busied with more somber thoughts to appreciate the humor
+of the situation; she did later. Even had she been able to give
+attention to the contrast between Hilton's rage and the chagrin which
+followed so closely, the change in the Reverend would have diverted her
+attention. He stood looking at her with grief in his eyes and when he
+spoke his voice shook.
+
+"I feel that I have done my duty, ma'am, but that is all Azariah Beal
+has to say for himself. There has been no result. I may have been too
+late in my attempt. Surely, there is nothing more to be done....
+
+"Nothing more, unless you may succeed in ridding yourself of your
+enemies."
+
+"Do you think that would have an effect on Bobby Cole?"
+
+He nodded gravely.
+
+"You and she have something in common: an enemy."
+
+"He has been here tonight? You mean that Hilton is my enemy in the
+sense that he may imperil the future of the HC?"
+
+"The same, ma'am."
+
+"Reverend, it is likely that you are right. I am beginning to see a
+connection between factors which have seemed to be unrelated."
+
+He started to speak but a shout checked him. They listened to a
+confusion of voices.
+
+"Something's wrong," Beal said and stepped to the veranda. "Why ...
+somebody's hurt!"
+
+Jane ran to the doorway but he had already started up the path. She
+followed as she saw a close huddle of men about the lighted doorway of
+the bunk house move slowly in, carrying a burden gently and as she
+neared the building a rather tragic quiet marked the group.
+
+Nigger, Two-Bits' horse, was standing saddled in the path of light.
+Inside a man was lying face down on the floor. The Reverend knelt
+beside him, leaning forward, and others stood close, silent and grave.
+
+The prostrate man was Two-Bits and his shoulders dripped blood. As Jane
+became a part of the group he stirred and struggled to raise his head.
+
+"What is it, brother?" Azariah asked gently, turning Two-Bits over and
+supporting his head. "Tell us. You're not done for. It's ripped your
+back open, but that's all. Who was it?"
+
+The other looked about slowly with bewildered eyes.
+
+"From behind," he said weakly. "They got me from behind...." His gaze
+wavered from face to face and finally rested on Jane's. He moved feebly.
+
+"A big bunch of your cattle must be in th' Hole, ma'am," he said.
+"There ain't ... any water there.... I was keepin' 'em ... out ... an'
+somebody got me from behind.... They must of waited ... to get me ...
+from behind.... And the only water's ... in fence....
+
+"It looks like ... a lot of trouble, ma'am...."
+
+He stopped talking, exhausted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+RENUNCIATION
+
+
+It looked like trouble and there was trouble.
+
+Beck, with the Reverend, Curtis and two of the ranch hands preceded
+Jane to the Hole at dawn and when she rode down the trail she saw them
+on their horses, forming a little group well away from the nester's
+cabin.
+
+Her cattle were there and the fenced area was fringed with them as they
+moved back and forth, sniffing at the water they wanted, which they
+needed and which, though just on the other side of the wire strands,
+might as well have been days away. Inside the fence grazed Cole's herd
+with plenty to eat and drink.
+
+Tom's face was troubled as he rode to meet the girl.
+
+"It's serious," he said. "There's enough of your stock down here to
+ruin you, ma'am, unless we get 'em out to water."
+
+"Let's take them out, then!"
+
+He shook his head skeptically.
+
+"They're in bad shape. They're crazy wild and we haven't got enough men
+here to shove 'em up the trail. It's an awful job with quiet cattle
+because they have to go in single file and there's no drivin' 'em. I
+don't dare risk taking these through the Gap and around to water the
+other way. Why, Jane, that's forty miles!
+
+"It'll be another day before we can get the boys back to help get 'em
+out and it looks like a heavy loss at best unless we get water. There's
+only one way to get it and that's to persuade Cole or his daughter that
+we'd ought to have it."
+
+"They must have water!" she cried. "It's inhuman not to give it to
+them!" She watched a big steer going past at a rapid walk, eyes bright
+and protruding as in fright; he bawled hoarsely for drink. "Why, Tom,
+people can't refuse water to beasts that need it."
+
+"See! There's Cole and Bobby now,"--pointing toward the cabin. "Come.
+I'll buy water if necessary."
+
+She spurred her horse and Beck followed at a gallop. When he came
+abreast he looked curiously at her face. Her jaw was tight and her eyes
+dark with determination. This was her fight and she was thoroughly
+aroused to it. She asked no advice, she showed no hesitation; she went
+forward with all confidence, certain that in this cause which involved
+not only the loss of property but the suffering of dumb creatures she
+could have her way.
+
+A hundred yards from the cabin a steer thrust his head through the wire
+strands and shoved, heedless of barbs, tantalized by the smell of
+water. Cole shouted with his weak voice and picked up a stick and ran
+toward the animal, brandishing his cudgel.
+
+Bobby stood watching the riders approach.
+
+"I've come to see you again," Jane said in brief preface. "This time it
+is an urgent matter." She dismounted and faced the other girl. "My
+cattle are here and they need drink very badly. You have all the water.
+Will you let them through your fence? As soon as they can be moved we
+will take them out and they will bother you no more."
+
+Bobby eyed her with loathing but it was not as she had been on their
+previous encounter, for about her manner was something more concrete,
+as though she cherished a definite grudge this time.
+
+"Is your memory so bad that you don't recollect what I told you
+before?" she asked slowly. "I told you once to keep away from us; I
+tell you that again. This is our range now; your stock ain't got any
+rights here."
+
+"I'll grant you that I have no right to ask. I did what I could to keep
+my cattle out of here. The man I set to guard the Gap was shot down;
+that is why they are here this morning; that is why I must have your
+water, because it is the only water available.
+
+"I am willing to pay. This means very much to me. Won't you name a
+price, give me water? I am asking it as a favor and will be willing to
+pay for that favor."
+
+"Favor!"
+
+The girl shot the word out harshly.
+
+"Favor! You're a sweet one to come askin' _me_ for a favor!"
+
+A fever of rage rose in her face and her brows gathered threateningly.
+
+"Nothin' we've got is for sale to you! I wouldn't help you if I could
+save your outfit by liftin' my hand ... an' if I was starvin' for that
+you'd give me in pay!"
+
+Jane was nonplussed. Bobby's breast rose and fell quickly and her white
+teeth gleamed behind drawn lips. She was the catamount, ready to fight!
+
+"But think of these cattle! They're suffering--"
+
+"Cattle! You ask me to think of cattle because they're suffering and
+you'd make human beings suffer from worse things than thirst!"
+
+"I don't understand you. What have I done that would make people
+suffer?"
+
+"I s'pose you don't know?"--jeeringly. "I s'pose you don't _want_
+to know in front of him,"--with a flirt of her quirt to indicate Beck.
+"I wouldn't either if I was in your place, you--sneak!"
+
+"Sneak?" Jane repeated, stung to open resentment. "Sneak?"
+
+"Yes, sneak. You'd run us out of this country if you could, but you
+can't. You'd take my man if you could ... but you can't!"--through shut
+teeth.
+
+"Your man?"--looking at the girl and then at Beck in bewilderment.
+"Your--"
+
+"Yes, my man! Oh, don't think I don't know. I saw it all. I saw one of
+your hands take him to your home last night. I followed him, I watched
+through your window. I seen you beg with him and plead with him. I know
+what you want....
+
+"Why, he's told me everything, from th' first! You got him to follow
+you out here, you got mad at him and threw him out of your house once.
+Now you want him back. You want him back. I suppose while he,"--tilting
+her head toward Tom--"is away on round-up! You want him back when
+you've got everything you want and he's all I got, all I ever had!"
+
+Tears sprang into her eyes and her voice came trembling through
+trembling lips. Jane, swept by confusion, sought words and found none.
+It was preposterous! And yet the very accusation degraded her. Drawn
+into a quarrel over a man, and such a man!
+
+"You'd take this claim, if you could, when you've got more land than
+anybody around here. You'd take my man when you've got lots of others
+yourself. You _must_ have lots like you got lots of other things.
+Maybe you think that by takin' him you can drive me out and get the
+claim that way. Maybe that's your reason, you ... you...." She seemed
+to search in vain for an expletive that would convey her contempt.
+
+"But you misunderstand! You're all wrong."
+
+"Wrong, am I? Wrong, when you put your arms around his neck and put
+your face close to his an' make him look at you an' beg him to do
+things for your sake. I watched through your window last night. I heard
+those words, 'For my sake.' You said 'em. I suppose that's wrong, is
+it? I--"
+
+"But it wasn't that! It wasn't what you think it--"
+
+"I s'pose you thought he wouldn't tell me, but he did. He won't come
+back to you. You couldn't get him away from me!"--in triumph.
+
+Her manner was so assured, she was so convinced of the truth of
+Hilton's version of last night's encounter that Jane Hunter was at a
+loss for argument. Impulsively she turned to look at Beck, as for
+suggestion, and what she saw there stripped her of ability to fight
+back. His face was as devoid of expression as a countenance can be, but
+his eyes challenged, accused, bore down upon her, demanding that she
+explain!
+
+He _demanded_ that she explain!
+
+He suspected her! He gave credence to Bobby's accusation. He could do
+that!
+
+A word, even a gesture, would have cleared the situation but his look
+struck her inarticulate, immobile. She had been so confident of
+herself, of his trust; and now he had grasped upon this monstrous
+charge and held her to answer.
+
+"You with your fine notions, your money, your city ways!" the other
+taunted. "You, with all you've got, would take the only thing I've got,
+the only thing I've ever had!
+
+"An' now you come, askin' favors. Favors from me! Why, all I'll do for
+you is to run you out of this country. I've heard what they call me
+here: the catamount. I'll show you how the catamount can scratch and
+bite!"
+
+It swept over Jane that she must reply, that she must say some word in
+her defense, that she must say it now ... _now_ ... that in this
+second of time her fate swung in balance, that bitter though
+explanation might be she must make it, for Beck was listening, Beck was
+watching, Beck was doubting!
+
+And, as she would have spoken, lamely, but with enough clarity to
+absolve her from suspicion, Bobby stepped closer.
+
+"You take your men an' light out!" she snapped. "You keep your men out
+of here an' your cattle away from this fence. Th' first steer that
+breaks through 'll get shot down, th' first man that tries to help 'em
+through will find that he needs help himself. I hate you!" she cried.
+"I hate you worse 'n I hate a snake an' I'll treat you like a snake
+from now on.
+
+"You carry that idea home with you an' you carry this ... as first
+payment, to bind the bargain!"
+
+With a quick, sharp swing of her arm, she whipped her quirt through the
+air and it wrapped about Jane's soft throat with a vicious snap.
+
+She stepped back with a choking cry, hiding her face. She heard Beck's
+short, "That'll do!" in a strange, unnatural voice, as though his
+throat were dry. She heard the Catamount's contemptuous sniff and her
+hard, "Clear out!"
+
+She found herself in her saddle again, riding beside Beck as they moved
+toward the other HC riders, who, dismounted and seated on the ground,
+had not witnessed the dramatic parley and its humiliating climax. She
+was confronted by a situation which clearly spelled disaster for her
+ranch unless solved and solved quickly but that did not matter now.
+
+She had been whipped, as the man who had insulted Bobby Cole had been
+whipped. Had been drawn into a brawl! And, far worse, she had found
+that the man toward whom she had toiled from the Jane Hunter that had
+been to the Jane Hunter she had one day dreamed she might be, had
+doubted her!
+
+He was talking haltingly, something about bringing more men to shove
+the cattle up into the Coyote Creek country, but even through her
+confusion she realized that his thoughts were not finding words, that
+he was forcing himself to talk of those things. Her heart wanted to cry
+out, to tell him that he had misunderstood, that her encounter with
+Hilton was not occasioned by the motive Bobby Cole had suspected. The
+old Jane Hunter would have done so, but with her new strength had come
+another thing, until that hour hidden: it was pride, a pride which was
+as noble as her love, which would permit no cavail, which would not
+stoop to conquer!
+
+She fought it down, striving for clarified thought, feeling for the
+word, the brief sentence which would explain away Beck's suspicion and
+leave that pride uninjured, for there must be such a way. And while she
+fought, blinded by tears and confused by humiliation, the moment of
+opportunity passed. Beck left her.
+
+They were with the others, who grouped about her foreman, and he said:
+
+"I was going to send one of you men to bring a dozen of the boys from
+the wagon to help save this stuff, if we can, but I've changed my
+mind,"--with a bitter significance which they did not catch. "I'm goin'
+myself. Curtis, you're in charge. Keep your head. Keep the cattle from
+breakin' his fence because they'll shoot 'em down an' if they start
+shooting cattle there'll be a lot of us get shot."
+
+He started away at a gallop without so much as a look at Jane.
+Impulsively she called his name and spurred her sorrel after him. He
+set his horse on his haunches, wheeled and waited for her, face white,
+those eyes so dark, so accusing. That look checked the words that were
+on her lips as effectively as a blow on the mouth and he spoke first as
+she halted beside him:
+
+"You did send for him, I take it? You didn't deny that."
+
+He was hard, cruel, brows gathered, and the storm within him stung that
+pride of hers further, roused it to newer life.
+
+"Yes, I sent for him," she managed to say, "but Tom, won't--"
+
+"That's all that's necessary then," he said, and was gone.
+
+She sat on her horse watching him ride across the flat for the steep
+trail that led out of the Hole and she felt that all the sweetness, all
+the worth-while quality of her life was riding hard behind that
+straight figure. A bitterness rose in her heart, a rebellion. He would
+not listen to her and she had tried to speak!
+
+Jane did not consider that this was but one evidence of the greatness
+of the love of such a man, of the sacredness with which he treasured
+it; all she saw was the distrust, unbelief, and after a time she rode
+slowly on, watching him become a fleck on the face of the mountain,
+seeing him finally disappear over the rim, out of her life, it seemed.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+With leaden heart she entered her house and sat heavily in the chair
+before the desk. An envelope was there, addressed to her in Beck's
+coarse hand. She tore it open with unsteady fingers.
+
+The little gold locket which had been warmed first by her heart, then
+by Beck's, which had been her talisman for months, slipped into her
+palm. With tear-dimmed eyes she looked at it and then turned to the
+letter, reading:
+
+
+"It is likely that you need your luck worse than I do so I am returning
+your gift. I would go away from your outfit now but if I did they would
+say that they drove me out as they have said they would do. My
+reputation is all I have left now and I would like to keep that because
+a man must have something.
+
+"I did not want to love you in the first place as you may recall but I
+guess I was pretty weak for a man. I told you once that there were
+things I did not understand about you and I guess the way you think
+about men is one of them. I wanted to drive him out of the country and
+you would not let me. I waited a long time today for you to deny what
+the Cole girl said and you did not do it. I was pretty mad when I left
+you but I realize now it is all my fault. I took a chance which is not
+the way to do and now I am paying for it. Well, I am able to pay.
+
+"I hope you will not answer this and will not try to talk to me again
+unless on business. I do not blame you. I blame myself but I do not
+want to talk about it. I will take good care of your cattle and your
+men because that is my job. I will run these men out of this country
+and then if I am able to resign I will.
+
+"Respectfully,
+    "TOM BECK."
+
+
+She put down the letter, feeling queerly numb. She experienced no
+particular resentment because she could well see how her failure to
+speak at the proper moment had condemned her in Beck's eyes; her
+sensation was of one who has failed in a crisis. Bobby Cole had
+dominated her, had swept her off her feet, had given her that
+depressing feeling of inferiority again and before her lover's eyes; it
+had shaken her assurance, made her question the strength of which she
+had been so certain in the last weeks! It was that which hurt her far
+more than the stinging welt about her throat where the lash had bitten
+her flesh.
+
+She inquired for Two-Bits, learning that the doctor had left him with
+the assurance that his recovery would not be unduly delayed. She ate
+her dinner abstractedly. In all she did she moved as one who is only
+partly alive; a portion of her body, even, seemed insensate, while her
+mind was dead. A dull ache pervaded her, an emptiness, for something
+vastly important was gone and she was without resource to call it back.
+
+The Reverend came and went, taking beds on pack horses and when Jane
+saw him departing she laughed rather weakly to herself.
+
+It was so simple! There was the agency which could bridge this chasm
+and while so doing could save the pride which was creating the conflict
+within her.
+
+The Reverend knew her motive in sending for Hilton. He could and would
+make Beck aware of what had transpired. She even thought of writing Tom
+a note, something as follows:
+
+
+"I am terribly hurt but in a way it is of my own doing. I have just one
+thing to request: Ask the Reverend how Dick Hilton came to be here."
+
+
+But she had no one to send with it and Beck would be back on the morrow
+with the men to move the thirst tortured cattle. Besides, there must be
+another way than the despatch of such a message. That was too cold and
+formal. It would bring him humbly to her but she knew how he would
+suffer when his pride was hurt; and such a thing would do no less than
+hurt his pride. She would make it as easy as possible.
+
+A let-down came and she cried and when she slept that night her dreams
+were not distressing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE REVEREND'S STRATEGY
+
+
+Throughout the day the sun beat into the canyon, its heat relieved by
+rare breezes of brief duration. What wind did come raised swirls of
+dust and rustled wilted foliage, for the country had become ash dry.
+
+The cattle, most of them on their fourth waterless day, bawled
+dismally, a thirsty chorus rising as the day aged. They did not eat;
+they wandered rapidly about seeking moisture. Those spots of the creek
+bed which showed damp above and below Cole's fence were tramped to
+powder by uneasy hoofs and a narrow area outside the fence was cut to
+fluff by the restless wanderings of the suffering steers.
+
+As afternoon came on they abandoned their futile search for unguarded
+drink and clung closer to the wire barrier, snuffing loudly as their
+nostrils drank in the smell of water as greedily as their throats would
+have swallowed the fluid itself. Their eyes became wider, wilder, and
+the bawling was without cessation. Flanks pumped the hot air into their
+bodies in rapid tempo and slaver hung from loose chops. The herd was in
+desperate condition.
+
+Now and then a big beefer would rush the fence as if to tear his way
+through but the new wire and solid posts always flung them back. Again,
+another would push his head tentatively between the strands and attempt
+entrance by gentler methods, but always they were driven back either by
+one of the HC riders or by Cole himself.
+
+By the time the sun was half way to the horizon the steers were moving
+in a compact mass back and forth along the fence, snuffing, crying,
+sobbing in dry throats, bodies growing more gaunt hourly as frenzy
+added its toll to physical suffering.
+
+The bawling became a din. Big steers shook their heads and hooked at
+one another groggily. The first one went down and could not rise alone;
+the men "tailed" him up and worked him to shade, where he sank to his
+side again, panting, drooling and silent.
+
+"Damn an outfit like that!" growled Curtis, looking across the bunch to
+Cole, who stood staring back.
+
+"There's goin' to be hell a-poppin' here," commented one of the men.
+"They're waitin' for trouble an' you can't prevent 'em havin' it--"
+
+"Look at that!"
+
+A half dozen steers, surging against the fence, put their combined
+weight on a panel and the post gave with a snap.
+
+Bobby ran forward, brandishing a club, and drove them back as they
+floundered in the sagging wire, heedless of barbs, eyes protruding with
+want of the drink that dilated nostrils told them was near.
+
+After he had propped the post up again the nester shook his fist at
+Curtis and shouted:
+
+"I'll protect my property! You can protect yourn if you will. Th' next
+critter that breaks my fence gits lead in his carcass!"
+
+He slouched back to the cabin and came out a moment later with a rifle.
+Seating himself on a stump he crossed his knees and with the weapon
+across his lap sat waiting.
+
+"We'll bunch 'em so we can make a show at holdin' 'em tonight," Curtis
+said. "That'll save time in th' mornin' ... an' we'll need all our
+time."
+
+Forthwith he and the others began gathering the suffering stragglers in
+a loose bunch.
+
+The Reverend came riding across the flat before this was completed. His
+face was serious and as he came close to the herd and saw the condition
+of the cattle he shook his head apprehensively.
+
+"I fear, brother, that by another day there'll be little strength in
+those bodies to get 'em up to open water," he said to Curtis.
+
+"It'll be the devil's own job for sure! It'll take twenty men to move
+'em and if we don't lose half we'll be lucky.
+
+"If that old cuss 'uld let 'em water once it'd be a cinch, but he's a
+bad _hombre_; he won't. There's something back of this, Reverend."
+
+Beal scratched his chin and blinked and looked across to where Cole
+sat. One of his Mexicans also was armed and had taken up his position
+further down the fence.
+
+"So it would appear," he replied. "As Joshua said to Moses, 'There's a
+noise of war in the camp.'
+
+"I see a relationship between the smiting of my beloved brother and the
+refusal of this outfit to grant water.
+
+"Oh, another watcher!"
+
+He indicated Pat Webb who evidently had gained the Cole ranch by a
+circuitous route and had taken up his position within the fence, armed
+with a rifle.
+
+Night came on with a dry wind in the trees on the heights. Its draft
+did not reach the Hole but the sound did and that uneasy, distant roar
+served to intensify the distress of the cattle.
+
+Beds were made on a knoll not far from the bunched steers and the
+Reverend was the first to rest, while the others, singing, whistling,
+slapping chaps with quirts rode round and round the herd keeping them
+away from the fence to give the riflemen no opportunity to shoot.
+Azariah did not sleep but rolled uneasily on his tarp watching the
+bright, dry stars, muttering to himself now and then.
+
+Once he got up and fussed about his blankets and Curtis, riding by,
+stopped.
+
+"No, I can't rest," the Reverend replied to his query. "I believe I
+have lost one pen....
+
+"By the way, brother, if these were your cattle how many head would you
+give just to get them to water tonight?"
+
+"I'd give several," Curtis answered bitterly. "Yes, I'd give a good
+many and look at it as a good investment. Without water we're goin' to
+make lots of feed for buzzards an' coyotes, tryin' to make up that
+trail tomorrow!"
+
+"A good many.... A good many," the clergyman muttered as Curtis rode
+on. "She is for peace, but when she speaks, they are for war," he
+paraphrased the Psalm.
+
+"'They that war against thee shall be as nothing.'... An investment ...
+a good investment...."
+
+He sat hunched on his bed for some time, whispering over and over....
+"A good investment ... investment...."
+
+Then suddenly he rose and pawed about him for a dried bough of cedar
+which he had cast aside to make his bed. With trembling fingers he
+sought a match, struck and applied it.
+
+The flame licked up the tinder and burst into a brilliant torch. The
+bawling of the cattle cut off sharply. Whites of terrified eyes showed
+for an instant and then vanished as heads were quickly turned away.
+
+The herd stirred, like a concentrated mass, body crowding body; it
+swayed forward, a rumbling of hoofs arose. And from the far side came
+the shrill yipping of horsemen as they broke into a gallop and sought
+to set the cattle milling.
+
+Futile effort! Driven mad by thirst it would have required a much less
+conspicuous disturbance than that flare of fire to start the wild rush.
+With a roll of hoofs, a sickening, overwhelming sound, heads down,
+crowded together into a knitted body of frightened strength the bunch
+was in full stampede!
+
+Down the far side rode Curtis, high in his stirrups, his revolver
+spitting fire into the air. A big white steer charged straight at his
+horse like a blinded thing and the animal carried his rider to
+momentary safety with a hand's breath to spare.
+
+On another flank of the herd another rider charged in and shouted and
+shot and swung off. There was no time; there was no room! It was less
+than a hundred yards to the fence and to be caught between its stout
+strands and those charging heads meant terrible death. Curtis' warning
+cry cut in above the fury of the flight as he doubled back toward
+safety.
+
+Within the fence were shouts. Figures sprang to outline in the
+darkness. The first steer's shoulders struck the wire, the fence held,
+threw him back and then, driven forward again by oncoming numbers the
+creature went through, torn and raw, through a torn and tangled
+barrier. There was a creaking strain of wire for rods, a snapping of
+stout posts and then orange stabs out of the night.... Two ... four ...
+five, and the sound of rifle shots pricked through the background of
+heavier sounds.
+
+A steer bawled once, its voice pitched high, and went down. Another
+dropped beneath mincing hoofs without a sound. From their path ran the
+riflemen, desperate in their fright, heedless of damage done property
+or rights. Over, under and through the fence went the cattle, pouring
+across the cleared land, crowding, snorting, gaining momentum with each
+stride. On across the flat, on down the steep bank of the creek, on
+into the water that sloshed about their knees....
+
+And there, as quickly as it had come, their panic departed, for the
+need of that water dissipated their fright. Noise of the flight
+subsided and into the night rose the greedy sound of their guzzling as
+the water which Cole had fenced and sought to hold was gulped down the
+parched throats of HC cattle.
+
+Curtis rode up at a gallop, drawing his horse to such a quick stop that
+his hoofs scattered dirt over Azariah.
+
+"What th' hell?" he began.
+
+"I found it!" cried the Reverend in exultation, holding up a fountain
+pen. "Must have dropped out when I took off my coat--"
+
+"But look what you've done!" cried the other. "They knocked four steers
+dead as the Populist party!"
+
+Azariah looked up at him, the shrewdness in his face covered by
+darkness, but his voice was guile itself.
+
+"A small investment, brother, a good investment. Perhaps a parable is
+writ this night.... A pillar of fire, a smiting of the rock?"
+
+Curtis whistled lowly.
+
+"Reverend, you planned it all out?"
+
+"It is not given to me to plan; I am guided by the spirit of
+righteousness! Besides, those who lack wisdom are the only ones who
+divulge their innermost thoughts, brother. I found a way out of Egypt
+for the cattle, as 't were. Remember, brother, the way of the Lord is
+strength!"
+
+They had not heard Bobby Cole running through the brush toward them but
+as the Reverend stopped she stepped between him and Oliver's horse.
+
+"So that's it!" she hissed. "So you're th' one to blame! I'll tell you
+what I told your boss this mornin', that I'll run you out of the
+country if it's th' last thing I do, you Bible talkin' rat!
+
+"This ain't th' first thing I've got against you,"--darkly. "I might
+'ve forgot th' other because she was to blame for it, but I've heard
+what you just said an' I won't forget this! And don't think I'm th'
+only one who'll keep it in mind!
+
+"Why, you'll be run out of this country like a snake 'uld be chased out
+of a cabin! Remember that!"
+
+For a moment she stood confronting him in the darkness and though
+features were not clearly distinguishable they could see by the poise
+of her figure that those were no idle threats. Then she went as quickly
+as she had come, leaving the Reverend scratching his chin and Curtis
+whistling softly to himself.
+
+"A woman possessed of the devil!" said Beal softly.
+
+"Yeah. Or three or four," commented the other.
+
+"Yesterday I sought to save her soul and tomorrow I must seek to save
+my own skin!"
+
+There was no more shooting because HC cattle were mingled with Cole's.
+Curtis parlayed with the nester who made whining threats of a suit for
+damages. When Curtis returned to the beds for the remainder of the
+night the Reverend was not there.
+
+"Dragged it for the ranch!" he chuckled.
+
+So he thought. The Reverend had dragged it, but not for the HC or any
+other nearby stopping place. Though Beal did not know all that
+transpired to bring about the ruin of Jane Hunter he knew enough to
+realize that he had made one determined enemy that night, that to make
+one was to make many and that Bobby Cole's inference that he had
+plunged himself into disfavor with others was no empty warning. Azariah
+Beal was not a coward but he was discreet. The risk of remaining was
+not justified by the end he might serve and now he sought sanctuary in
+distance.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Tom Beck led the riders from the wagon into the Hole at dawn. Gathering
+and moving the refreshed cattle up the trail was a difficult task but
+it was accomplished without further loss, a fact which satisfied the
+men. They reached the ranch on their way back to the round-up camp in
+late afternoon.
+
+News of the saving stampede had been carried ahead and Jane realized
+that one difficulty had been surmounted and that the financial ruin
+which confronted her yesterday was no more. However, removal of that
+distraction allowed her mind to concentrate on the greater difficulty:
+the breach which separated her from Tom Beck. Only one way seemed open:
+to prevail upon the Reverend to explain matters, and that way was
+closed when a passing cow-boy delivered her a note, written hastily on
+rough paper. She read:
+
+"The call has come and my feet are turned toward a far country.
+
+"My arm has been lifted for you; though I am no longer in your presence
+my prayers will continue to be lifted in your behalf.
+
+"Respy.,
+    "A. BEAL."
+
+
+Azariah had served the HC well. But for his strategy she might even
+then be suffering from a loss which would doom the ranch. And yet he
+could have served her infinitely better by staying on, by untangling
+the snarl which circumstances had made in her affairs.
+
+There was just one remaining course to follow, she told herself. This
+was to go to Tom and explain everything. Then up rose her pride and
+made denial. She could not do that! If his love would not bear up under
+doubt, then she must keep her pride intact, for that was all she
+possessed. Torn between desire to fling herself upon him and sob out
+the whole story and to maintain her stand until he should be proven
+wrong and come to her contrite, she dallied with the decision until the
+riders had come and gone.
+
+She watched Beck, riding at a trot down the road, looking neither to
+the right nor left. She could not know that a similar struggle tortured
+him. "Turn back!" one voice in his heart commanded. "Seek her out and
+question and question until you know why; if it is the worst, if she
+has been hiding a secret affection from you, beg her to turn from it,
+to come to you; offer her your all, your pride, your life if need be.
+She is all that living holds for you!"
+
+And then that other, sterner self, which said over and over: "That
+cannot be! If there is that in her heart which must be hidden from you,
+draw back now and save all that is left to you: your pride!"
+
+So pride held the one in her house and it led the other down Coyote
+Creek, and each mile, each hour put between them multiplied the
+difficulties, wore down the chance of reconciliation. For by such
+simple, basic conflicts are loves ruined!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BECK'S DEPARTURE
+
+
+Night had come upon the round-up camp, fires near the cook wagon were
+dying. On the rise to the southward the night-hawk sat with an eye on
+the saddle stock which grazed over a wide area and in their tee-pees
+the men were sleeping, preparatory to the first day's riding.
+
+Tom Beck sat alone by the glowing remnants of the cook's fire, staring
+stolidly into the coals, mouth set, struggling with his pride. That
+quiet, inner voice continued its insistence that he yield a trifle,
+give Jane Hunter one more chance. "What?" it asked, "will you gain by
+denying her this? What, indeed, will be left for you if you persist?"
+
+But the voice was weaker than it had been early that day. The
+alternative it raised in his consciousness less appealing, and a
+determination to smother it grew steadily. He had been crossed; he had
+been duped!
+
+Oh, he had been a fool! he told himself. He had thrown to the winds his
+caution and his reserve; he had taken the biggest chance that life, the
+trickster, dangles before men. He had taken it blindly, against his
+better judgment; it left him embittered, with nothing beyond except the
+position which he held among men. That was a mawkish attainment now; it
+was so cheap and inconsequential compared to the sense of
+accomplishment which had been his when Jane Hunter had thrown herself
+into his arms and begged that he carry her into his life! Deluded
+though he may have been, that moment had opened to him sensations,
+vistas, that he had never before imagined existed.
+
+And now! All else that remained was gray and dead. He had been lifted
+up to see what might be, only to find that it was denied him; more,
+those moments of glory had taken the zest from the life that had been
+his before and that now remained.
+
+For long he sat there and gradually the inner voice died entirely,
+slowly a cold, heartless desire to cling to a dead thing like his
+standing in the country took its place as his chief interest in life.
+He had written Jane that such was all that remained to him. He had not
+realized as he scrawled those words what a pitiful bauble it was but
+now it was necessary to endow it with values that he could not truly
+feel. But he forced himself to believe it of consequence, for men like
+Tom Beck must have some one valuable thing to live for.
+
+The tee-pees were quiet when he arose, dropped his dead cigarette into
+the expiring embers and sought his bed. But in one tee-pee a man looked
+out at the faint jingle of spurs. It was Riley who, with others from
+the lower country, was riding with the HC wagon to help the larger
+outfit and, in turn, to be helped in his branding. He was bunked with
+Jimmy Oliver and Oliver said:
+
+"What's he doin'?"
+
+"Turnin' in."
+
+Riley settled back in his blankets and muttered:
+
+"It's funny ... damned funny, Jim."
+
+"He's like a man that's _through_. Didn't appear to have any real
+interest in the work today, seems like he don't give a damn. I don't
+understand it."
+
+"If it wasn't Tom Beck I'd say that they'd got his goat. It's hard to
+believe of him."
+
+"It can't be that." Oliver was loyal. "It's somethin' else, but it
+seems like somethin' worse than a man bein' sick of his job. Still, he
+said twice today that he wouldn't be here long an' the way he said
+_long_ made me think it'd be a mighty short time."
+
+Silence for a time.
+
+"Mebby," said Riley, "it's her."
+
+"Mebby you're right," the other replied. "Tom didn't used to give a
+damn whether school kept or not. Then, after she come he changed, got
+to takin' things seriously and anybody could see he was gone on her.
+Now....
+
+"Well, he ain't afraid of men. There ain't bad men enough in this
+country to drive Tom Beck out.... But women.... They'll put a crimp in
+th' best of us!"
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+It was the following evening that news of the destruction of Cathedral
+Tank was brought to Tom Beck. Riley had ridden the far circle himself
+and had found no cattle at the waterhole which the HC foreman had
+visited only a few days before. That is, no live cattle. He found four
+steer carcasses, already ravaged by coyotes and buzzards, found the
+fresh gash in the rock basin and had ridden back to help those cowboys
+who were on shorter circles, holding explanation of the fact that he
+returned empty handed until he could give it first to Beck.
+
+Tom received the news silently.
+
+"I expect you can fix up the basin with some concrete so it'll hold
+next winter," Riley said.
+
+"It's likely," the other responded, "but next winter's plans for this
+outfit ain't worryin' me, Riley."
+
+He meant, of course, that there were matters of greater importance just
+then. The dynamiting had been accomplished after his warning to Webb
+and Hepburn, which was clear evidence that the war went on as
+desperately as before and that these other men were not cowed, their
+determination to run him from the country had not been shaken. A hot
+rage swept through him. Next winter's plans were remote indeed! Fate
+had taken his woman from him; these renegades would take away the last
+hold on life!
+
+But Riley did not construe his meaning as such and when, the following
+morning, Tom called Jimmy Oliver aside and talked to him the
+misunderstanding of what went on in his mind was more complicated for
+he said:
+
+"Jimmy, you're goin' to lead this round-up for a while ... mebby for
+good."
+
+"So, Tom?"--in surprise, and in hope that an explanation would be
+forthcoming.
+
+"I'm leavin' here an' mebby I won't be back."
+
+Beck was thinking that he would inspect that tank and track down the
+men responsible for its destruction and make them pay. He said that he
+might not be back because he had warned them away from HC property and
+could expect no leniency if he invaded their stronghold. Invade it he
+would, for this had gone past the point where he could play a waiting
+game. So long as it had been his safety which mattered most he could
+assume and retain the defensive, but now Two-Bits had all but lost his
+life while executing his orders and HC cattle had been driven by
+hundreds into high country before he had planned they should come. It
+was time to counter-attack.
+
+Rapidly the word ran through the camp: Beck was leaving! As it passed
+from man to man it grew, as rumors all will, and took more definite
+shape: Beck was quitting.
+
+He ate silently with the others and his very silence was so marked that
+it quieted the rest, warded off the questions which under other
+circumstances might have been put to him.
+
+The wrangler brought in the horses and Beck was the first to approach
+the cavet with rope ready. He selected his big roan, looked the animal
+over carefully and slinging a canteen over the horn, climbed rather
+heavily to the saddle.
+
+Other men were catching up their horses. One was pitching and fighting
+the rope; two others were trying desperately to break out of the cavet.
+There was running about and confusion, but as Beck rode away to the
+west-way, head down, so obviously absorbed in himself, men stopped to
+watch and to wonder.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The HC foreman was not the only individual in that country who, as the
+sun shoved over the far rim of the world, thought so intensely of his
+own, wholly personal interests that consciousness of what transpired
+about him was lost.
+
+Jane Hunter sat suddenly up in her bed, golden hair in a shower about
+her shoulders, blue eyes that had been waking and painful until dawn,
+filled with tears. She stared about her as one will who rouses abruptly
+from a startling dream, lips parted, a hand to her flushed throat,
+breath quick and irregular. She held so a moment, then sank back into
+the pillows, calling softly:
+
+"Tom; Tom!"
+
+Her slender body quivered spasmodically and her sobbing became like
+that of a child. One hand, flung across the cover, clenched feebly and
+feebly beat the bedding, as though it hammered hopelessly at walls
+which held her in, making her a prisoner ... as she was, a prisoner to
+her pride.
+
+And high up on the point which formed the western flank of the Gap to
+Devil's Hole, Sam McKee dropped down from his gray horse and stood
+looking far out across the level country beneath him. In the clear air
+he could see the smoke of the round-up camp fire.
+
+Yesterday he had watched from there, with Hilton's words still in his
+ears, Hilton's hope in his heart, and had known that Riley rode to the
+tank. Last night he had talked and walked in the darkness with the
+Easterner again, had heard Hilton's crafty questioning of Hepburn and
+Webb which caused them to repeat again and again their belief that Tom
+Beck would take it upon himself to inspect the damage done by dynamite.
+He had slept fitfully, in a fever of anticipation.
+
+And yet he had kept secret his achievement in shooting down Two-Bits.
+There was a time for all things and the time to divulge that minor
+accomplishment was not yet. For long he had been belittled, and had no
+standing among his associates; now they were banded in common cause, he
+had made one step toward triumph and that move had reestablished the
+confidence that had lain dormant for long. It had enabled Hilton's
+suggestions to take hold, enabled him to whet his own hate, to work
+himself into a paroxysm of rage, and today he was to emerge a figure of
+consequence, for he was to remove the obstacle which was in the path of
+all.
+
+Webb's battered field glasses were slung over his shoulder and as he
+picked out the lone dot of moving life, coming slowly in his direction,
+he unstrapped the case with hands that trembled. It required but one
+moment to identify that horse for none but Beck's roan swung along with
+the same distance-eating shack; but McKee stared for a long interval,
+his body tense, his breath slow and audible, as if tantalizing himself
+by sight of that isolated rider, teasing his hatred, teasing it....
+
+Then he mounted the gray and swung down the treacherous point, seeking
+a big wash that made a wrinkle on in the floor of the desert where
+storm waters had rushed toward the tank for countless decades. In this
+he could ride unseen and he went forward at a trot, eyes straight
+ahead, moistening his lips from time to time....
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+IN THE SHADOW
+
+
+The outcropping which formed Cathedral Tank stood stark and saffron in
+the lap of the desert under the morning sun, flinging out slow waves of
+heat even at that early hour, as Sam McKee rode from the wash into the
+basin and stopped his horse.
+
+Since the mountains themselves were made that group of pinnacles and
+ledges had jutted up from the seamed desert, a landmark for miles
+around, catching the flood waters that rushed toward it from far hills.
+
+The name of the tank was result of no far-fetched imaginings for the
+granite rose in long, slender spires, as though the thirsty desert
+reached great fingers toward the sky in stiff appeal. Narrow defiles
+struck back into the granite and sharp crevices cut deeply down between
+the natural minarets, and at one place a larger opening led backward
+into the rocks, widened and narrowed again, forming the rough outlines
+of transept and nave. More, the wind which always blew there often
+sounded deep notes as of an organ when it wandered through narrow
+spaces.
+
+On three sides this abrupt, ragged rise of rock shut in the basin and
+the other was open to the waters that swept down from the south and
+eastward. When McKee neared this entrance he stopped his horse and
+reconnoitered. The other rider was not in sight, lost in some of the
+many depressions of the valley and many miles yonder, for the gray
+horse had traveled a shorter distance and that at a trot. The roan
+could not arrive for some time.... So he reasoned....
+
+The man stopped his horse at the edge of the fresh, deep scar which
+Hepburn's explosive had made. Other tracks were there, made by Riley
+yesterday. Across the way lay the dead steers and overhead a buzzard
+wheeled slowly, waiting to return to the feast from which he had been
+frightened by Sam's approach.
+
+"Bone dry!" the man said aloud, and laughed.
+
+Then he drank from his canteen and wiped his lips with a long sigh,
+either in satisfaction or anticipation, and then looked about; not
+absently, but with plan and craft.
+
+To that point Beck would come, there he would stand, and behind was a
+ledge on the face of the towering rock, higher than a mounted man's
+head, deep and with enough backward pitch to conceal thoroughly a man's
+body. It would be a hard scramble, but he could gain it by aid of a
+tough stub which grew on the wall. Once there he would be protected.
+
+McKee rode close under this ledge and stood in his saddle, lips parted
+and eyes alight. He could hold off a regiment there; what chance would
+one unsuspecting man have? As he stood so he unstrapped his gun and lay
+it with its belt on the shelf.
+
+He dropped down and rode into a nearby, narrow crevice, where his horse
+could remain concealed, dismounted, and took down his rope, preparatory
+to tieing the animal.
+
+He believed his growing haste was only anticipation, but perhaps there
+was a quality of premonition there. He had been unable to follow Beck's
+progress and remain concealed himself; therefore he had not seen the
+roan pick up his swinging trot as Tom's concentrated thought reached
+ferment and he sought relief in speed.
+
+McKee reached for the reins to lead his horse further into the crevice.
+Then his heart leaped and he went quickly cold as he looked at the
+animal.
+
+The gray's head was up, ears stiff, eyes alert as a horse will pose on
+sensing the approach of another animal. Even as Sam's hands flashed out
+for his nose the nostrils fluttered and had he been an instant later a
+betraying whinner would have gone echoing through the rocks to warn
+Beck. He drove his fingers into the soft muzzle and choked back the
+sound. The gray stepped quickly and shook his head whereat McKee
+relaxed his grasp somewhat. They then stood quiet, both listening, the
+horse alert, the man weak and white, breathing in fluttering gasps.
+
+He was trapped! Outside on the ledge where he had planned to wait and
+shoot Beck down without giving or taking a chance, lay his gun. On
+either side the walls rose sheer, without so much as a hand-hold for
+yards above his head; before was a blank wall; outside was Tom Beck.
+And fear of a degree such as the man had never known shook his body.
+
+It was that fear which is as dangerous to an enemy as the most absurd
+courage. Discovery would mean catastrophe; he had nothing to gain by
+shirking now!
+
+Slowly he released his grip on the gray's nostrils, holding ready to
+clamp down again should the horse attempt to greet the other. He heard
+hoofs clatter on the rock basin, knew that Beck had stopped. Then the
+wind soughed through the rocks with its prolonged organ tone and for
+the moment McKee could only guess what happened out there.
+
+The gray, with head turned, stared toward the opening of the crevice
+and then as no other sounds came, swung his head back to its normal
+position and switched rather languidly at flies.
+
+Carefully McKee stole toward the entrance of the crevice where he might
+see the other man. He went with a hand against the granite, putting
+down his boots very carefully, hoping against hope that Beck would be
+far enough away so that he might either recover his gun or devise some
+means of escape. Perspiration ran from beneath his hat band and his
+hands were clammy cold. His breath continued in that fluttering gasp.
+
+Beck had dismounted and was squatted beside the scar in the rocks. His
+roan stood a dozen feet behind him. McKee peered out, measuring the
+distance quickly. The other's back was to him but there was no chance
+that he could regain his gun without being detected. Beck's revolver
+swung from his hip, and McKee had nothing with which to fight but the
+rope in his hands....
+
+The rope! He stared down at it and drew back behind the boulder of
+rock. The rope!
+
+An absurd, impotent device, but it had served purposes as desperate as
+this! Besides ... there was a hope in it and, for McKee, there was no
+other hope beneath that blue dome of sky....
+
+He looked out again as he built his loop. Beck was on hands and knees,
+peering down into the crack through which stored waters had trickled
+away. Sam made the loop quickly, steeled to caution. He moved out from
+his hiding place a step ... then another. The roan looked up, with a
+little whiff of breath and Beck, attracted by the movement, the slight
+noise, turned his head sharply toward the horse.
+
+It was then that the loop swirled and that McKee sped forward a dozen
+paces as quickly, as quietly as a cat, balanced, sure of himself in
+that crisis. From the tail of his eye Beck saw the first loop cut the
+corner of his range of vision and his body made the first lunge toward
+an erect position as the lithe writhing thing sped through the air....
+
+McKee had never thrown as true. The loop settled about Tom's arms and
+beneath his knees. It came taut with an angry rip through the hondou
+even as the snared man made the first move to throw it off. He was
+pitched violently forward on his face, arms pinned to his sides, legs
+doubled against his stomach.
+
+The breath went from him in an angry oath of surprise as McKee's breath
+shot from his lips in another oath ... of triumph. Hand over hand he
+went down the rope, keeping it taut, yet hastening to reach the doubled
+body before Beck could wriggle free. He fell upon the other just as one
+arm worked slack enough to permit the hand to strain for the revolver
+at his hip.
+
+Snarling, gibbering with a mingling of terror and rage, McKee's one
+hand fastened on the gun. He clung to the rope with the other,
+battering Beck, who struggled to rise, back to earth with his knees.
+His fingers clamped on the grip of the Colt; he pulled free: it flashed
+in the air as his thumb sought the hammer and then, as he drove the
+muzzle downward against its living target the man beneath him bowed and
+writhed and he went over with a cry. A fist struck his wrist, the
+revolver exploded in the air and fell clattering, a dozen feet away.
+
+Then it was man to man, a fight of bone and muscle ... bone, muscle and
+rope. Blindly McKee clung to the strand with one hand. It passed about
+his body as they rolled over. Beck's own weight, struggling to tear
+from it, tightened its hold. Tom struck savagely at the face beside him
+with his one free fist but McKee's knees, jamming into his stomach,
+crushed breath from him.
+
+For one vibrant instant their strength was matched, the one's physical
+advantage offset by the handicap of the lariat about him. And then the
+rope told. Slowly Tom's resistance became less, gradually McKee wound
+the hemp about his own hand and wrist, shutting down its sinuous grasp,
+drawing Beck's body into a more compact knot. With a desperate shift he
+was on top, winding the hard-twist about Tom's hands, trussing them
+tightly behind his back, licking his lips as he made his victim secure.
+
+In that time neither had spoken nor did McKee utter a sound as he rose,
+wiped the dust and sweat from his eyes and surveyed the figure at his
+feet. Beck looked back at him, the rage in his eyes giving way to a
+sane calculation. At the cost of great effort he rolled over and
+propped himself on one elbow. A scratch on his forehead sent a trickle
+of blood into one eye and he shook his head to be rid of it, coughing
+slightly as he did so.
+
+"Now," he said, his panting becoming less noticeable, "what do you
+think you're goin' to do?"
+
+McKee laughed sharply and looked away. He walked to where the revolver
+lay in the sharp sunlight, picked it up, broke it, examined the
+cartridges and closed it again.
+
+"I come out here to kill you, Beck; that's what I'm goin' to do next."
+
+He did not lift his voice but about his manner was a defined swagger,
+the boasting of the craven who, for once, is beyond fear of
+retribution. A slow shadow crossed between them as the buzzard wheeled,
+waiting, lazily impatient....
+
+Beck delayed a brief interval before asking:
+
+"Right here, Sam? You going to kill me right here?"
+
+"Right here, you--!" He spat out the unforgiveable epithet with a curl
+to his lip. For once he had this man where he wanted him; Beck's life
+was in his hands ... right in his _palm_.... "I'm goin' to kill
+you like I'd kill a snake! I've took a lot off you; I've stood for a
+lot from you, but you've gone too fur, you've played your hand too
+high!"
+
+He began to feel a greater sense of his importance. He was dominating
+and it was sweet.
+
+"I've waited a long time, Beck; I ain't forgot a thing you've done to
+me; I've been waitin' for just this chance!
+
+"Now I'm goin' to kill you, you--!"
+
+Again the word, with even great conviction. The man's lips trembled
+with rage, but as he glared down at the other he saw the level, mocking
+eyes studying his. He had not yet impressed Tom Beck, had not made him
+fear! It was disconcerting.
+
+"What you goin' to kill me with, Sam?"
+
+"With your own gun, by God!"--spinning the cylinder.
+
+A moment of silence while Sam looked at the dull barrel, a queer, quick
+hesitancy coming over him, something he did not understand, something
+he did not will. When, a moment before, he felt that the situation
+would take a course exactly as he willed!
+
+"With my own gun!" Beck repeated.
+
+McKee cocked the weapon and looked about.
+
+"When you goin' to do this killing, Sam?"
+
+The level, mocking tone infuriated the other.
+
+"Now!" he cried, shaken by hate. "Now, by God!"
+
+He screamed the curse, threw the gun up to position and glared into
+Beck's face, moving forward a step, standing poised as though he would
+shoot and then fling himself upon his victim to vent his festering rage
+with his fists.
+
+But he had failed to reckon throughout on one fact: The human eye is a
+stronger weapon than the inventive genius of man has ever devised, and
+he was meeting the gaze from an eye that was as steady, as fearless, as
+collected as any he had ever seen. His courage was the courage bred of
+cowardly impulses and it could not stand before fearlessness....
+
+"Right now, Sam?"
+
+The question was low, gentle, and with another shade of inflection
+might have been a plea. But it was no plea. It was subtle, stinging
+mockery which penetrated McKee's understanding and gave full life to
+that desire to hesitate which had shaken him a moment before.
+
+"You ain't goin' to kill me right off, are you Sam?"
+
+And at that McKee's irresolution became full blown. His body swung
+backward from its menacing poise, the gun hand dropped just a degree;
+his gaze, an instant before fixed and red with hate, now wavered.
+
+"No, you ain't going to kill me now, Sam. You ain't got the guts!"
+
+Prostrate, bound, wholly helpless, miles from aid, Beck flung those
+words from his lips. They pelted on McKee's ears like hard flung stones
+and he looked back to see the eyes that a moment ago had been amused,
+blazing righteous wrath.
+
+"You wouldn't kill anybody, McKee," Beck said, after a breathless
+pause. In that pause McKee's gun hand had gone to his side and as it
+went down so did the flare of rage in Beck's face. His eyes grew calm
+and steady again with that covert amusement in them.
+
+"You ain't just that kind of a man. If you'd been goin' to kill me
+you'd have done it right off. You wouldn't have waited, like you're
+waitin' now.... You missed out on your intentions, Sam, when you didn't
+do it _pronto_."
+
+Across McKee's face swept a wave of helpless rage, humiliation, shame,
+self revulsion.... He stood there unable to move. He wanted to kill
+with a lust that men seldom feel, but he could not for he knew that he
+was a coward, knew that Beck knew, and the assurance that it was within
+his physical power to take a life without risk to his own mattered not
+at all. The moral force was lacking.
+
+He tried to meet Beck's gaze and hold it but he could not. That man,
+even now, did not fear him, and to a man who had been impelled to every
+strong act by fear, fearlessness is of itself an overwhelming force.
+
+Tom talked on, lowly, confidently. He chided, he made fun of his
+captor; he belittled himself, discussed his inability to defend
+himself, but time after time he said with emphasis:
+
+"You're afraid of me, Sam."
+
+Afraid of him! Yes, McKee was fear-filled. He could not kill and yet
+thought of the retribution that might come for going even this far put
+him in a panic. There were others who would kill. Webb would have done
+it, Hepburn might have ... there was one other who would have killed
+... Hilton, but _he_ could not and the others were far off. They
+would know, they would ridicule him and thought of that, coming so
+close on that high expectation of triumph that had sent him out onto
+the desert, made his position hopeless.
+
+He turned and walked slowly toward the ledge which was to have been his
+assassin's hiding place.
+
+"Goin' to leave me, Sam?" Beck asked.
+
+"You'll see what I'm goin' to do?" McKee raved, wheeling, suddenly
+articulate. "You'll see what'll happen to you, you--! What's already
+happened is only a starter. I didn't intend to kill you myself. I only
+come here to hogtie you. I guess I done that, didn't I?"
+
+"Ain't you just sure, Sam?"
+
+The tone was stinging and where McKee might have raved on he simply
+grasped the stub on the rock and scrambled up until he could reach his
+revolver.
+
+Beck asked if that was McKee's arsenal; wanted to know more about Sam's
+plans; wanted to know who sent him; wanted to know if any one else was
+coming or if they were going out to meet others.... He talked gently,
+slowly, tauntingly until McKee fidgetted like an embarrassed school
+girl.
+
+After a time Beck struggled to a sitting position, back against a rock.
+The searing sun beat down on his bared head, his wrists were puffing,
+fingers numb and swollen from the ropes cutting into his flesh. His
+body ached miserably, but he would not betray that. His throat burned
+for water and there was water on his saddle, but he would not mention
+thirst. There yet was danger! He must keep the other impressed with his
+inferiority....
+
+"That your pet buzzard, Sam?" he asked once, squinting upward at the
+wheeling scavenger. "Somebody said you kept one ... to pick up after
+you...."
+
+"You wait! You'll have less to say after a while," McKee growled and
+stared off toward the heights to the eastward, feigning expectancy.
+
+And then, as McKee paced back and forth, covering his helplessness and
+his fear to make another move, by the sham of watching for other
+arrivals, Beck's mind began working on a theory. Two-Bits had been shot
+down the day he had driven McKee off HC range. He had been shot from
+behind. McKee was the only one in the country who had a personal
+quarrel with the homely cowboy.
+
+It was clear enough to him but he feared that an accusation, bringing
+some demonstration of guilt, might bring other things that he dared not
+risk. He played a game that was desperate enough. He lived by the grace
+of McKee's cowardice and that cowardice had permitted this triumph by
+the scantest possible margin. To provoke the desperation that he knew
+was latent in Sam's heart would be the rankest folly.
+
+Noon, with blistering heat. McKee drank greedily, water running down
+his chin and spattering over his boots. It was agony for Beck but he
+fought against betraying evidence of it, holding his eyes on the other
+and smiling a trifle and wondering how long he could keep back the
+groans.
+
+McKee squatted in the shade of a rock for a time. Once he looked at
+Beck while Tom was staring across the desert and that hate flickered up
+in his eyes again; then Tom looked back and he got up and walked,
+licking his lips.
+
+Two o'clock: "I don't guess they're comin' today, Sam. Maybe you
+misunderstood 'em."
+
+Three: "Sure is too bad to have your plans all go to hell, isn't it,
+Sam?"
+
+The sensation had entirely gone from hands and lower arms. His biceps
+and shoulders ached as though they had been mauled; his back was shot
+with hot stabs of pain.
+
+But at four o'clock he said: "You'd ought to have killed me, Sam.
+That'd surprised 'em for sure!"
+
+He bit his lips to hold back the moan and for a time things swam. He
+hoped that he would not lose consciousness ... hoped this rather
+vaguely, for vaguely he felt that McKee would kill him should he be
+unable to realize what transpired. He had a confused notion that Jane
+Hunter was there and this disturbed him. He felt a poorly defined
+sinking sensation ... Jane ... and this. Why, then this really mattered
+very little! That his life was in danger, that his body hurt, were
+inconsequential details compared to the love that had died yesterday,
+to the hurt of his heart!
+
+A draft of cooler air, sucking through the rocks, roused him and he
+looked up to find that the tank was entirely in shadows. The rocks were
+still hot but the air which moved above them was heavier, cooler. McKee
+paced nervously back and forth. He wore two guns.
+
+"You reckon somebody's goin' to steal me?" Beck asked, forcing his
+voice to be steady. "I didn't realize I was valuable enough to be close
+herded by a two-gun man."
+
+With the moderation of temperature Tom's alertness revived.
+
+"I'm goin' to sleep right here, Sam; where are you going to turn in?"
+he asked. "I sleep pretty well in th' open; how about you?"
+
+He leaned forward slightly and his eye had a brighter glint. Question
+after question he flung at the other. Now and then McKee growled; twice
+he cursed Beck, in vile explosions of oaths. At these Beck nodded in
+assent.
+
+"I sure am an undesirable," he said.
+
+Back and forth, bewildered, McKee walked. He dared not face the future
+with Beck alive; he dared not take Beck's life. He feared the
+punishment that might be his for this much he had done; he feared the
+relentless ridicule of Webb and Hepburn and of Hilton; he feared to go,
+he feared to stay. And gradually this last fear grew.
+
+"I think you ought to start out an' ride after 'em, Sam," Beck advised.
+"Do they _sabe_ this country? You better go; they might get
+strayed. I'll be here. I figure on stayin' quite a time. I.... Honest,
+Sam, I've had a hell of a good time today...."
+
+McKee wheeled in his walking.
+
+"You'll stay all right!" he screamed. "You damned bet your dirty skin
+you won't go far! You've been talkin' a lot wiser than you know, you--!
+You'll stay!"
+
+He dropped to his knees beside Tom and with a wrench pulled off the
+man's boots.
+
+The movement sent exquisite pains through Tom's body, but he shut his
+teeth against them. He smiled, demonstrating more of the Spartan by
+that smile than he had at any time during the day.
+
+"You ain't figuring on walkin' your boots out, are you?" he asked in
+mock solicitation.
+
+"Never you mind, you--!" McKee snarled.
+
+He brought out his horse, tightened the cinch and led him toward the
+roan. He tied Tom's boots to his own saddle and then without looking at
+the man he had come to kill and who he was leaving bound, waterless,
+without boots or a horse, twenty miles from the first help, he lashed
+the roan with his quirt, sharply about the head and, when the big
+creature wheeled in surprise, about the hocks.
+
+Kicking, frightened, stepping on the reins and breaking them off,
+Beck's horse ran away. Ran scot free, head up, out to the eastward,
+abused and headed for home. He began to buck, pitching desperately. The
+saddle worked back and under and down. He kicked it free. Somewhere
+between the tank and that fallen saddle, Beck knew was his canteen. But
+McKee did not know. He mounted and stuck into the wash through which he
+had ridden hours before, lashing the gray to a gallop, putting distance
+between his menace, his shame....
+
+And back in the tank as night came on a man for whom every move was
+torment rolled and wriggled from place to place, searching doggedly for
+a ragged rock, among those that were water-worn and smooth.
+
+The buzzard had ceased his wheeling, the stars came out. Beck talked
+aloud rather crazily. Everything seemed smooth; even the pain became
+less harsh; everything was soft and easy ... remarkably so.... Until
+his cheek felt a ragged, narrow edge of rock, close in against the base
+of the tallest spire. Moaning feebly he wriggled against it until the
+ropes touched the edge. Then, with great labor, he began to writhe and
+twist. It took hours to fray out a single strand, and his arms were
+bound by many ... hours....
+
+And when finally his arms fell apart, sensations, fiendish, killing
+sensations, began to stab through them, he laughed lightly and ended
+shortly. He was free!...
+
+Free?
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Just at that time back in the HC ranch house a woman rose from her
+tumbled bed and dressed. Her eyes were dry though her breath came
+unevenly.
+
+She looked into her mirror as she put on her hat.
+
+"You're a fool!" she cried lowly. "A fool!... False pride has taken two
+days out of your life ... two precious days!"
+
+She ran down the stairs, out to the corral and saddled her sorrel horse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A MOUNTAIN PORTIA
+
+
+It was a long ride from the HC to the round-up camp but the sorrel was
+not spared. The impulse that sent Jane Hunter through the last hours of
+darkness had only accumulated strength before the resistance which had
+held it back through those dragging days. She was on her way to her
+lover, to explain in a word the situation that had caused the breach
+between them; she had fought down the pride of which that resistance
+was made and now her every thought, her every want was to make Beck
+know that it was humiliation and injured pride rather than infidelity
+which had sent him away.
+
+Thought that she had failed to stand self possessed before Bobby
+Cole--a burning, shaming thought yesterday--was relegated to an obscure
+place in her consciousness. She had fallen short of the poise her lover
+would have her retain, but that did not matter ... not now.
+
+Without Beck's love there was nothing for her, she had come to believe
+and she experienced a strange, little-girl feeling, fleeing toward the
+protecting arms that could comfort and hold her safe from the blackness
+that was elsewhere.
+
+She leaned low on the sorrel's neck and called to him and he ran
+through the dying night breathing excitedly as her impatience was
+communicated to him. Dawn yawned in the east and the mountains took
+shape. The road became discernable before her. She drew the excited
+horse down to a trot and forced herself to force him to conserve some
+of his splendid energy.... Then urged him forward, a moment later, at a
+stretching run....
+
+The round-up camp was moving that day. The riders were up and the first
+had swung off for the work of the morning before she pulled her horse
+to a stop beside the chuck wagon.
+
+"He ain't here, ma'am," Oliver replied to her query for Beck.
+
+"Not here?"--sharply, for she sensed from him that something was wrong.
+
+"No. He left yesterday. He told me to head this ride. He--"
+
+"And where did he go?" she broke in, voice not just steady.
+
+"I don't know, ma'am." The man studied her face intently, seeing the
+confusion there, adding it to the evidence he had collected to piece
+out a theory. "I thought maybe he said something to you about quitting."
+
+"_Quitting!_ You don't mean that!"
+
+"It looks like it, ma'am. I didn't know just how to take what he said.
+It seems like somethin' 's got him worried. He wasn't like himself. You
+wouldn't know him.
+
+"He said that future plans for this outfit didn't interest him. He said
+he was leavin' and it wasn't likely he'd be back but it wasn't so much
+what he said as it was th' way he said it that made me think he was
+goin' to drift. We all know he's got some pretty active enemies but it
+wasn't like Beck to run away from 'em. Still....
+
+"He left me in charge an' said I was to take orders from you. He ain't
+showed up since and Lord knows where he'd go except out of the country."
+
+Out of the country! The words made her hear but vaguely the story of
+the ruined Tank and the questions about the work that Oliver put to
+her. Out of the country! He had gone, then, thinking that her love had
+not been a fast love, that she was wholly unworthy. He had taken his
+chance and had lost and that loss had taken from him even the desire to
+stay and face the men who would drive him out of the country because he
+had defended her!
+
+Later Jane found herself riding homeward, the sorrel at a walk, her
+mind numb and heavy. Last night it had been a question of love against
+her pride; she had sacrificed the latter only to find that that
+sacrifice had been made too late.
+
+She wanted, suddenly, to quit ... to quit trying ... thinking....
+
+She canvased the situation: she was alone, without an understanding
+individual upon whom to lean. She was the target for great forces of
+evil which sought to undermine her very determination to exist in that
+country. A faint wave of resentment made itself felt at that. They
+would continue their war and upon a lone woman! She realized her
+position more keenly than she had before, when Beck had been shielding
+her. Now she stood unprotected. If she were to exist she _must stand
+alone!_
+
+Her mind went back to that time when Dick Hilton had told her that she
+could not stand alone and her resentment became a degree more
+pronounced.
+
+The lethargy, the hopelessness clung but behind it was something else,
+a realization that she had not lost utterly. She had lost the love she
+had found, but had she failed to gain anything? Yesterday it seemed
+that the ripest fruits of experience were hers; she had
+position--menaced, but still hers--she had love. Months before she had
+abandoned the quest of love, seeking only to stand alone. She might go
+back to her outlook of those days, put aside the call of her heart and
+seek only for place; she could make that search intelligently now!
+
+She sat at her desk, a spirit of resignation coming as a sort of
+comfort. If she had lost love, had she lost all that there was in life?
+No, not that! There was something else she had found in these months:
+She had found _herself!_
+
+Tom Beck was gone, his love for her was dead, miles were between them,
+and she believed she knew him well enough to understand that he had put
+her forever behind him. She had lost the true fulfillment of life,
+perhaps, but something remained. And the question came: Why not make
+the best of it? Why not keep what remains? Why not fight for it? Why
+not _stand alone?_
+
+Oh, she had not known the strength that had been born of Beck's
+resistance to her wooing! That morning she believed that she could
+quit, that she could drift aimlessly, buffeted by vagrant influences,
+but now she knew that she could not. A compelling force had been
+started within her which would not down, a driving impulse to keep on,
+to salvage her self respect, to wrest from life what remained.
+
+And in this she recognized that quality which Beck had planted in her,
+which he had nourished and coaxed and made to grow. To keep on would be
+rite offered at the shrine of her love for him ... though he was
+gone....
+
+For a moment she cried and after that hope was born. He might return;
+she might even follow and make him understand. She set that back,
+resolutely. Tom Beck was gone from her life, she told herself, but his
+influence remained. That could never go; by error she had lost final
+achievement: love. By error she had been thrown back upon herself, her
+own resources, her own will.
+
+The war that was waged upon her had been a terrifying thing yesterday;
+now it was even more horrible for it sought to take from her the last
+thing that remained to be desired, and that could not be!
+
+She wiped her eyes angrily and repeated aloud:
+
+"That cannot _be!_"
+
+She must fight on alone; fight harder than she ever had fought in her
+life before. It was up to her, now, to remain fast in the face of
+efforts to dislodge her.
+
+Jane paced the floor nervously, in quick, swinging strides. There was
+the burning of hay, the breaking of ditches; there was the shooting
+down of Two-Bits, the destruction of Cathedral Tank, there was the
+presence in the Hole of the nester and his daughter. At thought of
+Bobby a sharp pang shot through her. There was a woman who could
+dominate! There, perhaps, was the key to the puzzle.
+
+Beck had intimated that her enemies found a nucleus in the nester's
+outfit; the Reverend had been outspoken in his suspicion; she had
+confided in Riley that she suspected something of the sort. Cole
+himself was a negligible quantity but the girl was not. The catamount
+might hold Jane Hunter's fate in her hand ... the hand that had struck
+her!
+
+On her desk lay the envelope in which had been Beck's note; beside it
+the locket. She paused, picked up the trinket and studied it as it lay
+on her small palm. Slowly she lifted it to her lips, clutched it
+tightly and then with a catch of breath fastened it about her neck,
+where it nestled as though coming home again.
+
+She needed her luck, he had written! Oh yes, she needed her luck!
+
+And even then a rider was speeding across the hills toward her, lashing
+his horse, crashing through brush, leaping down timber, clattering over
+treacherous ledges to save time: and other men were riding on Jimmy
+Oliver's orders, bringing the cow-boys in off their circles, assembling
+them in Devil's Hole where a group of men stood silent and sullen....
+
+Oh, she would fight on, desperate in her determination to crowd thought
+of a lost love from her life! She welcomed combat for it would be as a
+balm to that gaping wound of loss.
+
+Later she saw the rider come into the ranch on his lathered horse. He
+flung off at the bunk house and, a moment later, came running toward
+her with Curtis at his side.
+
+Alarmed, Jane met them at the door with a query on her lips.
+
+"They want you in the Hole, ma'am," Curtis said.
+
+"What's the trouble?"--for it could be nothing but trouble which would
+bring men in such haste and she had a crisp fear that it pertained to
+Beck.
+
+"They've got Cole down there with a lot of your calves an' he's put his
+brand on 'em. Webb's there, too, an' Hepburn. They're holdin' 'em all
+for you to come," the messenger said. He was excited, he breathed
+rapidly and added: "Oliver an' Riley agreed you ought to come. It's
+your property ... an' it's your fight."
+
+Her fight! Her fight, indeed! Perhaps this was a drawing to a head of
+the forces that had been arrayed against her. The man had mentioned
+Webb and Hepburn as though he considered their presence of significance.
+
+A pinto, this time, bore her away from the ranch, the man, tense and
+silent, riding beside her. She did not speak as they scrambled up the
+point and gained high country nor did she look at him as they set into
+a gallop again. An indistinct haze was coming in the west with a
+looming thunder head protruding from it here and there. The wind in
+their faces was hot and fitful. The scarf about her neck fluttered
+erratically.
+
+Jane had little attention for the detail of that ride. This was her
+fight and she raced to meet it with an eagerness born of necessity to
+retain what she might of the happiness she had made hers. And as she
+rode Tom Beck, pieces cut from his chaps bound about his feet to
+protect them on the long journey by foot, his retrieved canteen over
+his shoulder, limped into the camp, heard the cook's vague,
+disconnected story of the discovery that had been made in the Hole,
+borrowed boots, saddled a horse and rode swiftly across the hills.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The pinto took Jane down the trail in great lunges, for she had no
+thought for dangers of the descent. At the foot was one of her men,
+Baldy Bowen, sitting ominously on his horse with a rifle across the
+horn. He watched her come and before she could speak jerked his head
+and said:
+
+"They're waitin' for you, straight across there, ma'am."
+
+She glanced in his direction and set off with renewed speed, winding
+through the cedars.
+
+Against the far wall of the Hole was formed a curious group before a
+fence of brush and wire that blocked the entrance to a box gulch. HC
+riders were there, dismounted, in a silent, unsmiling cluster. Under a
+cedar tree sat Cole, the nester, knees drawn up, arms falling limply
+over them; more than ever he seemed to be drooping, in spirit as well
+as body. He did not glance up; just sat, staring from beneath drooping
+lids at the ground. Nearby lounged one of Jane's cowboys, his holster
+hitched significantly forward.
+
+Apart from these others stood Hepburn, Webb and Bobby Cole and one
+other, curiously out of place in his smart clothes: Dick Hilton. Now
+and then one of the four spoke and the others would eye the speaker
+closely; then look away, absorbed in a situation that was evidently
+beyond words. Sitting grouped on the ground were Webb's riders and
+Cole's Mexicans. They talked and laughed lowly among themselves and
+from time to time turned rather taunting grins at Jane Hunter's men.
+
+At a short distance stood horses, grazing or dozing; listless, all. But
+there was no listlessness among the men. The atmosphere was tense ...
+to the breaking point.
+
+A rider came through the brush and stopped his horse. It was Sam McKee.
+He looked with widening eyes at the gathering, hesitated, as though to
+turn and leave, then approached.
+
+"I seen two men in th' Gap," he said to Webb. "They said...."
+
+He looked about again.
+
+"Well, get down an' set," Webb said cynically.
+
+McKee stared from face to face.
+
+"I guess I'll go on."
+
+"I guess you'll stay here," said Jimmy Oliver firmly. "We've got a
+little matter to talk over an' nobody leaves. I guess the boys in th'
+Gap probably thought you'd like to hear what was goin' on."
+
+Hilton stepped toward Oliver.
+
+"Look here," he said, "I'm a disinterested party to all this. There's
+no use in my staying here."
+
+"What I said to Sam goes for everybody else, Mister. When we put riders
+in the Gap an' at the trails we intended for everybody to hang around.
+That goes. Everybody!"
+
+Then he added: "If anybody wants to get out it'll be pretty good
+evidence that he's got somethin' to hide. This 's a matter that the
+whole country's interested in. You ain't got nothin' to hide, have you?"
+
+The Easterner did not reply; turned back to Bobby with a grimace.
+
+Sound of running hoofs and a quick silence shut down upon the
+gathering. The clouds were coming up more rapidly from the west; day
+was drawing down into them; the wind on the heights soughed restlessly.
+
+Jane Hunter brought her pinto to an abrupt stop and sat, flushed and
+wind-blown, looking about.
+
+"Well?" she said to Jimmy Oliver as he stepped forward.
+
+"We sent for you, ma'am, because we stumbled onto somethin' that looks
+bad ... for somebody."
+
+Her eyes ran from face to face. In the expression of her men she read a
+curious loyalty, mingled with speculation. They watched her closely as
+Oliver spoke, as men look upon a leader, as though waiting for her to
+speak that they might act. Still, about them was a reservation, as
+though their acceptance of her was conditional, as though they wondered
+what she would say or do.
+
+She saw Webb and Hepburn eyeing her craftily; she saw Bobby Cole's gaze
+on her, filled with hate and scorn ... and a strange brand of fear. And
+she saw Dick Hilton, eyeing her with helpless rage and offended
+dignity. The entire assemblage was grimly in earnest.
+
+"Go on," she said lowly and dismounted, standing erect on a rise of
+rock that put her head and shoulders above the others.
+
+"Jim Black here,"--indicating a cowboy in white angora chaps--"took
+down the trail after a renegade steer this forenoon. He came on this
+place and a hot fire and a yearlin' steer of yours whose brand had been
+tampered with.
+
+"There's been enough goin' on recent, ma'am, to let everybody know that
+something was pretty wrong. Mebby we've run onto the answer today.
+That's why we sent for you."
+
+She looked about again and old Riley, moving out from the group slowly,
+as a man who feels that the welfare of others may be in his hands might
+move, said:
+
+"For twenty years we've lived quite peaceable here, Miss Hunter. Since
+spring we've had anything but peace. It ain't a question that concerns
+any one of us alone; it affects the whole country. We've got evidence
+here of stealin'; we've got a man who, in our minds, ought to be tried
+for that crime....
+
+"We sent for you because it happened to be your property. There's
+plenty of law in the mountains, but things have happened here that have
+put men beyond that law. Parties have resorted to the law of strength,
+and not honest strength at that. It's time it was stopped or some of us
+ain't goin' to exist....
+
+"I know this ain't a pleasant task for a woman, but it seems like
+somethin' you've got to face ... if you're goin' to stay here. I guess
+you understand that, ma'am."
+
+Jane's heart leaped in apprehension, she was short of breath, blood
+roared in her ears, but she fought to retain at least a show of
+composure.
+
+"It seemed there wasn't any way out of it, but to turn the matter over
+to you. We'll all tell what we know; we'll see that there's order here.
+We agreed you ought to sit as judge on the evidence against this man."
+
+Again a consciousness of those faces upon her; faces of her men,
+honest, rugged, brave fellows, looking to her to stand alone! She knew,
+then, what that alloy in their loyalty had been. They would follow if
+she would lead; there was doubt in their hearts that she _could_
+lead, for she was a woman, she was a stranger and not their kind! For
+months they had watched her, refusing to judge, but now the time had
+come. Now, if she ever was to stand alone, she must rise in her own
+strength and be worthy to lead such men!
+
+Then there were those others: Hepburn and Webb and their outlaw
+following; perhaps, among them, the man who had shot Two-Bits down when
+he was serving her; perhaps the man who had burned her hay, broken her
+ditches, run off her horses. The men who would drive her out.
+
+She felt suddenly weak. They were all watching her. This was the hour
+in which she must win or lose. It was _she_, not Alf Cole, who was
+on trial!
+
+Jane began to speak, rather slowly, but evenly and clearly.
+
+"I want the story from the beginning. Jim Black, will you tell what you
+know?"
+
+Thus simply she accepted her responsibility to the country, took up her
+final fight for position there.
+
+Black stepped forward, serious, quiet, showing no self consciousness
+whatever as the eyes swung upon him. Webb's riders had risen and were
+grouped behind their leader.
+
+"Jimmy told you how I happened here. This steer, ma'am, cut across the
+flat an' I followed. I heard bawlin' over this way an', naturally, was
+surprised. Pulled up my hoss an' rode over. There was a fire in that
+gulch, an' it'd just been scattered. A man had been kneelin' down by
+it, an' there was one of your yearlin's hog-tied there. Your ear mark
+was still on him but your brand had been made from an HC into a THO
+by crossin' the H an' closin' the C."
+
+He stooped and with his quirt demonstrated thusly:
+
+[Illustration: HC THO]
+
+"There was other calves in there. I counted sixteen. They was all THO
+stuff an' they was all mighty young."
+
+"Did you see any men?" she asked.
+
+He shook his head. "I dragged it for high country, got Jimmy an' told
+him."
+
+"Oliver, have someone bring out this yearling," Jane said.
+
+Two men mounted their horses, opened the brush gate, roped the steer
+and dragged him, bawling, into the assemblage. Jane stepped down from
+her rock and, with a dozen others crowding about, examined the brand.
+
+"That's unmistakable," she said lowly as she straightened. "Part of
+that brand healed months ago; the rest is fresh."
+
+She moved back to the rock on which she had stood and rested a hand on
+the pinto's withers.
+
+"Oliver, what did you do?" she asked.
+
+"I gathered the boys an' come down here as fast as I could. I saw this
+pen an' the calves. I sent men to both trails an' two to the Gap with
+orders to shoot to kill anybody that tried to get out. Then I went to
+Cole's house.
+
+"Cole swore up an' down that he didn't know anything about it. His gal
+was there an' this here party from the east,"--with a rather
+contemptuous jerk of his head toward Hilton. "I brought Cole back here
+an' the others followed.
+
+"Seems Webb and Hepburn an' their men was in th' Hole. I didn't know
+it. Th' gal ... she went to get 'em.
+
+"It's just as well,"--dryly. "This ain't a matter that affects any one
+of us. It's for everybody in th' country to consider."
+
+Hepburn stirred uneasily as Jane looked from Oliver to him.
+
+"I think all that's necessary is to talk to Mr. Cole," she said.
+
+The nester looked up slowly and laboriously gained his feet. He
+slouched toward the girl.
+
+"I don't know nothin' about it," he said in his whining voice.
+
+Bobby Cole took a quick step forward as he spoke, but Hepburn put out a
+detaining hand and muttered a word. She stopped. Her face was
+colorless; eyes hard and bright; she breathed quickly and seemed almost
+on the verge of tears.
+
+"Who built this pen?" Jane asked.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Did you ever see it before?"
+
+"No, I--well, I did _see_ it, but I don't know nothin' about it."
+
+"You've been here all the Spring and didn't know anything about it?"
+
+Her tone was sharp, decisive and the color had mounted in her face. She
+leaned slightly forward from the hips.
+
+"No, I don't know nothin' about it," he protested, lifting his
+characterless eyes to hers.
+
+"Who brands your cattle?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"No one else?"
+
+"Not another,"--with a slow shaking of the head.
+
+"Can you think of anybody who would put your brand on my cattle?"
+
+"No. Nobody would hev done that."
+
+"But have you looked at this steer?"--indicating the yearling with the
+indisputable evidence on his side.
+
+Cole lifted an unsteady hand to scratch his mustache, eyed the animal
+furtively and glanced at Hepburn. As their eyes met Hepburn's head
+moved in slight, quick negation. Ever so slight, ever so quick, but
+Jane Hunter saw and Hepburn saw that she saw and a guilty flush whipped
+into his face, spreading clear to the eyes.
+
+"Hasn't someone been working over my brand?" she demanded, forcing Cole
+to look at her again.
+
+"I don't know ... I dunno nothin' about it...."
+
+She breathed deeply and moved a step backward.
+
+"How do you suppose these calves come to be here? My calves, with your
+brand on them?"
+
+"Them is my calves, ma'am," he protested, weakly, "Them is old brands."
+
+"Oh, all but this yearling belong to you?"
+
+"Yes,"--nodding his head as his confidence rallied. "Them's all mine. I
+branded 'em myself."
+
+"And why do you keep them here?"
+
+"Well, there's water an' feed an' I wanted to wean 'em--"
+
+"And a moment ago you said you knew nothing about this pen?"
+
+A flicker of confusion crossed the man's face and again he looked away
+toward Hepburn in mute appeal. Hepburn's face reflected a contempt, a
+wrath, and for a fraction of time Jane studied it intently, a quick
+hope forming in her breast. She lifted a hand to touch, in unconscious
+caress, the locket which was at her throat.
+
+"Look at me, Cole!" she cried and her body trembled. Her tone was
+compelling, she experienced a sensation of mounting power, felt that
+she was dominating and without looking she knew that the men before her
+stirred, impressed by her rising confidence. "Look at me and answer my
+questions!"
+
+Hesitatingly the man looked back and then dropped his eyes.
+
+"Well, I said I knew it was here."
+
+"You knew more than that. You have been using it. How long ago was it
+built?"
+
+"A month--Oh, I dunno--"
+
+"What about a month?" she insisted, gesturing bruskly. "What about a
+month?"
+
+"I dunno."
+
+She relaxed a trifle again and eyed the confused, visibly agitated man.
+For a breath the place was in utter silence. The gloom deepened; the
+wind held off. It was as though the crisis were at hand.... And just
+then the man at the foot of the trail across the flat put down his
+rifle and said with a short laugh:
+
+"I didn't make you out, Tom."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+When Jane spoke again it was in an easier tone.
+
+"How did you happen to come to this country, Cole?"
+
+He looked up, relief showing in his face as she abandoned the other
+line of questioning. Hepburn stirred and Webb lifted a hand to hook his
+thumb in his belt.
+
+"Why, I heered about this place. Good feed an' water an' a place to
+settle. So I just come; that's all."
+
+"How did you hear about it?"
+
+"A feller told me."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"I dunno his name. I--"
+
+"How many cows have you?"
+
+Her voice was suddenly sharp and hard as she cut in on his impotent
+evasion and shifted her subject again.
+
+"Why, 'bout twenty."
+
+"And how many calves are with them?"
+
+He seemed to calculate, but she insisted, leaning closer to him:
+
+"How many calves?"
+
+"Why, not more'n half of 'em got calves."
+
+"Sure? Not more than half?"
+
+"Why ... I guess--"
+
+"And you've got sixteen young calves in this pen! How do you account
+for that?"
+
+A murmur ran among her men and Cole looked at her with fright in his
+eyes.
+
+"I dunno!" he suddenly burst out, voice trembling. "I dunno nothin'
+about it. You've all got me here an' are pickin' on me. I didn't steal
+anything. I thought they was all mine." And then, in a broken,
+repressedly frantic appeal: "I don't want to go to jail again. I don't
+know nothin'...."
+
+"Again?" she said, quite gently.
+
+He looked at her and nodded slowly. The little resistance he had
+offered her was gone; his limbs trembled and his eyes had that whipped,
+abject look that a broken spirited dog will show.
+
+"You've been in jail once? For stealing cattle?"
+
+"I didn't steal.... They said I did. They didn't want me around.
+They're like all you big outfits; they don't want me ... they don't
+want me...."
+
+He lifted one hand in a gesture of hopeless appeal and tears showed in
+his eyes. They didn't want him, as she didn't want him! And suddenly an
+overwhelming pity surged upward in the girl for this man. It was like
+her, like all the Jane Hunters, like all men and women in whose hearts
+great strength and great pity is combined. There was no question of his
+guilt, but he was helpless before her; his fate was in her hands ...
+and back in her mind that other theory was forming; that other hope was
+coming to stronger life....
+
+"Cole, did you steal my calves?"
+
+She leaned low and spoke intently; her voice was a mingling of
+resolution and warmth that created confidence in his heart. For a
+moment he evaded her look; then answered it and a sob came up into his
+thin throat and shook it. He looked from her to Hepburn and then to
+Webb and read there something that Jane, whose eyes followed his, could
+not read; all she could read was threat ... threat, threat!
+
+"Did you steal my calves?" she repeated in a tone even lower.
+
+She saw her men strain forward.
+
+"Oh, I don't want to go to jail!" he said and tears streamed down his
+seamed cheeks. "I took 'em ... but I'm a poor man ... a poor man...."
+
+From Bobby came a stifled cry. She started forward again, but this time
+it was Hilton who grasped her arm, rather roughly. He drew her back,
+hissing a word between his teeth. His eyes glittered.
+
+Riley stepped forward quickly beside Cole. His face was strained; mouth
+very grim. Oliver was beside him; breathing quickly.
+
+"What's your verdict, Miss Hunter?" Riley asked. His voice was hoarse.
+
+"You have heard it," she said gently. "You heard it from his lips."
+
+She was not looking at them, but at Bobby Cole, who stood with knuckles
+pressed against her lips, fright, misery in her staring eyes. The
+strength, the vindictiveness was gone. She was a little girl, then, a
+little girl in trouble!
+
+"Then I guess there's nothin' to do, but to go through with this
+ourselves." The old cattle man spoke slowly and rather heavily. "Cole,
+there's a way of treatin' thieves in this country that's gone out of
+fashion in recent years; we ain't had to hang nobody for a long time,
+but--"
+
+"Stop!"
+
+It was a clear, ringing cry from Jane that checked Riley, that caused
+the man who had grimly picked up his rope to stand holding it
+motionless in his hand.
+
+"This is a matter for all of us, but by common consent I was selected
+to judge this man. He has admitted his guilt after an opportunity to
+protest his innocence. Now you must let me pass sentence...."
+
+"Sentence, ma'am?" Riley asked. "There's only one way. This has been
+war: they've warred you, they've threatened to drive you out. It's you
+or ... your enemies. This man is your proven enemy. Make an example of
+him. He's guilty; nothin' else should be considered!"
+
+"One thing," she said, smiling for the first time that afternoon, a
+slow, serious, grave smile, withal a tender smile, as she looked at
+Cole, the trembling craven.
+
+"One thing: The quality of mercy!
+
+"Men, do you know that line? 'The quality of mercy is not strained. It
+droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven'?
+
+"Mercy is the most holy thing in human relations. It is a blessing not
+only to the man who receives it, but to the man that gives!"
+
+The first, dissenting stir died. This was no dodging, no evading the
+issue. This was something new and her manner caught their interest as
+she stood with one outstretched hand appealing frankly for their
+attention and understanding.
+
+"This man has stolen from me. You have seen him here. He has shown
+himself to be a weakling, a poor, wretched man, who has neither friends
+nor respect for himself. He has known trouble before." She looked from
+the man before her to Bobby whose strained face was on hers with
+amazement, whose breast rose and fell irregularly, in whose eyes stood
+tears. "I think that he has known little but trouble; he has been
+unfortunate perhaps because he tried to help himself by troubling
+others. There is only one thing left in life for him and that is his
+liberty.
+
+"He cannot hurt me. He cannot hurt any of us from now on. He knows what
+we know of this thing today. He will stand before us all as a man who
+has not played the game fairly.
+
+"Do you fear him? Do you young, strong men fear this man?... No, you
+don't! No more than I. We have seen him humbled; we have heard him
+plead. Giving him his liberty will cost us nothing. I will go so far as
+to promise you that he will never steal from us again ... if we do this
+for him.... Don't you agree with me?"
+
+She looked from face to face, but as her eyes traveled they were not
+for an instant unconscious of other faces ... back there; faces to
+which had come relief, relaxation, color, after tensity and pallor;
+faces which the next instant were dark and apprehensive, for she said:
+
+"I don't want you to think that I am through ... not now. There has
+been stealing, but that has been only a part of the trouble. There have
+been other things, things which this man who we know has stolen would
+not do. Let us not be satisfied with cutting off the top of this weed
+which has poisoned the range; let us try to get to the roots and tear
+them out!"
+
+She stood, beautiful in the confidence which, with a sentence, with a
+gesture, had checked these men in their determination to administer
+justice as it once had been administered in those hills, which had
+stilled dissent on their lips, which had switched their reasoning into
+a new path. Alone among them she could dominate! Her strength, doubted
+an hour ago, over-rode Riley's influence, created by years of prestige
+on the range, even made that old cattleman stand back and wait
+respectfully, wondering what she had to say. Her color was high, eyes
+bright, lips parted slightly in a grave, assured smile, and her one
+extended hand, small, white, delicate held them!
+
+"This thievery was only a symptom, only an indication of what has
+transpired," she went on. "Just the outward evidence of those desires
+and impulses which have turned into chaos the peace of this beautiful
+country. Into that we must inquire and there is one more witness I want
+to call."
+
+She hesitated, then said gently:
+
+"Bobby Cole."
+
+A low murmur again ran through the group and from the clouds above them
+came a muttering of thunder.
+
+All turned to look at the girl and so intent were they that they did
+not see a horseman ride through the trees and stop and look; and
+dismount. Tom Beck walked slowly toward the group, until he could lay a
+hand on the hip of Jane Hunter's pinto. Then he stood behind her, eyes
+curious.
+
+"Will you come up here and talk to me?" Jane asked.
+
+The other girl remained motionless.
+
+"Well now, Miss Hunter, don't you think--" Hepburn began in mild
+protest.
+
+"I think many things, Mr. Hepburn. My purpose is either to justify or
+to convince myself that I think wrongly. Will you come ... Bobby?"
+
+Almost mechanically the girl moved forward. Hilton muttered a quick
+word to Webb and Webb glanced back nervously. Two of his men moved
+closer.
+
+"But we've found out about your calves, Miss Hunter. What else do you
+want to know?"
+
+Hepburn's voice was breath-choked though outwardly he maintained
+composure.
+
+"It makes damned little difference." It was Riley speaking and his hand
+was on his holster. "Hepburn, you and everybody else stand pat until
+you're called for."
+
+Hepburn's eyes flared malevolently. He started to speak again, but
+closed his lips, as in forebearance. Sam McKee coughed with a dry,
+forced sound.
+
+"What is it you want with me?"
+
+Bobby stopped before Jane and eyed her up and down, gaze settling on
+the girl's face finally. There was hostility in it; there was hate ...
+a degree; but these were softened, subdued, leavened by an outstanding
+appreciation. Her lips trembled and, almost thoughtlessly, she put out
+a hand to touch her father's, fingers squeezing his in a movement of
+affection ... and relief.
+
+For a moment Jane did not speak. Then she began, lowly, rapidly,
+flushed but resolute and with a light of friendliness in her eyes.
+
+"I want you to understand me ... without any more delay. You and I came
+into this country at about the same time. Where we should have been
+friends from the first we have been enemies; it even came to such a
+pass that you promised to drive me from the country."
+
+Her voice shook a bit and on the words that old hostility leaped back
+into Bobby's face.
+
+"I think that was because you did not understand me. You have thought
+that I wished you bad luck from the first and that is not so. Had I
+wanted to have vengeance on you, had I wanted to drive you out, I could
+have done so this afternoon ... only a moment ago. I am not trying to
+impress you with my generosity because I don't feel that I have been
+generous. I have tried to be just; that is all. I have tried to do the
+thing that would mean the most to all of us....
+
+"But there are things with which you can help me. I am sure. There are
+so many things that we have in common. You see, you and I are very much
+alike."
+
+That touched the other's curiosity. She was all intent, lips parted,
+eyes wondering.
+
+"Alike?" She was incredulous.
+
+Jane nodded.
+
+"The thing that you want most of all is the thing that I want more than
+anything else: That is the respect of men."
+
+She paused and Bobby's brows drew together in perplexity.
+
+"The first time I saw you, you were trying to win the respect of the
+men in this country with your quirt. Perhaps that helped you. Perhaps
+it would have helped me had I been able or inclined to take it that way.
+
+"That doesn't matter. The thing that matters, which gives us something
+in common is this: You found that men did not respect you and so did I.
+Men showed their disrespect for you by ... well, by saying unpardonable
+things. Men have shown their disrespect for me by trying to drive me
+out of the country, by burning and stealing and shooting at my men....
+
+"You and I are the only women here. These men,"--with a gesture--"can
+not understand what their respect means to us. It is the only thing
+worth while in our lives. Isn't that so? No woman can be happy or
+satisfied unless she has the respect of men. That is because our
+mothers for generations back have been mothers because men respected
+them....
+
+"I don't believe from what I know of you that you have ever had much
+respect from men. I can appreciate what that means to you, because it
+appears that the man who should have respected me the most in the
+country where I came from, did not respect me.
+
+"There was one man I used to know who was supposed to give me all the
+respect that a man could give a woman: he said that he loved me. That
+man,"--there was a quick movement in the group which she
+ignored--"followed me west to tell me that he loved me again and when
+he found that I could not love him, he showed that he did anything but
+respect me. Do you understand how that could hurt? When a man who had
+sworn for years that he loved me proved that ... it was something quite
+different?"
+
+She paused and Bobby, wide-eyed, said:
+
+"He follered you out here to ... try to get you to marry him?"
+
+Jane nodded.
+
+The other girl turned and her eyes sought out Hilton's face, which was
+contorted with raging humiliation.
+
+"Is that _so?_" she asked.
+
+"That's a lie!" he snarled, but looked away.
+
+"Is that _so?_"
+
+Her tone was lowered, but she hissed the question at him. She strained
+forward, glaring at him, and averting his face he said again:
+
+"It's a lie."
+
+But the assertion was without conviction, without strength.
+
+Bobby turned back. Her lips were tight and trembling.
+
+"Well?" she said, tears in her eyes again, and her manner proved that
+Hilton's denial had fallen far short of being convincing.
+
+"Then there were other factors: As soon as I arrived here things
+commenced to go wrong. Because I was a woman, people thought they could
+usurp my rights. My horses were stolen; my hay was burned; my ditches
+broken. My men were shot at. A note was sent to me, telling me that I'd
+better leave the country while I had something left.
+
+"You see, don't you, that that meant that men--it must have been men
+who did it--had no respect for me?
+
+"This water down here was fenced. That was your right, but I thought I
+could persuade you to help me a little. I think yet that I could have
+done so but for your misunderstanding....
+
+"I knew that you wanted the respect of men. I knew that about all you
+had in life was your self respect. I knew that the same man who had
+made love to me and who had not meant it, was making love to you and
+not meaning it. I called him to see me and tried to talk him out of it,
+begged him to go away from you before ... before you had stopped
+respecting yourself. You must have mistaken my motive in--"
+
+"You didn't send for him to ask him to take you back? You didn't do
+that?"
+
+"I have told you my motive once; that was the truth ... whole truth."
+
+Again Bobby turned and again her accusing, flaring eyes sought Hilton's
+distraught face.
+
+"So you lied to me again, did you? That was a lie, was it?" She waited.
+"Well, why don't you answer?" she flung at him and stood, directing on
+him the hate that she had once shown for Jane Hunter.
+
+But when she wheeled sharply back to confront the mistress of the HC
+her eyes were bathed in tears, her head was thrown back, and she threw
+her arms wide.
+
+"He did lie to me!" she panted. "He did.... I hated you because I
+thought you had friends an' folks that respected you. He lied an' it
+made me hate you worse...." She choked with sobs and Jane stepped down
+from the rock to put hands on her shoulders.
+
+"Oh, miss, I've acted so bad to you!" Bobby moaned lowly. "I ... I
+didn't know, didn't understand. I thought you didn't want anything but
+harm to come to us. I stole from you because I hated you.... I ..."
+
+She threw back her head again and the weakness of spiritual distress
+dropped from her. Her voice grew full and firm.
+
+"You've treated us like nobody else ever treated us before. You had Alf
+tied down to a calf stealin' an' you let him go. You.... You've been
+tryin' to do me good all the while I've been tryin' to do you harm.
+They've been warrin' on you an' I ... I could have stopped it!"
+
+She wheeled, facing the men, her back to Jane. Her shoulders were drawn
+up and she leaned backward. Her face was white, voice shrill. Her eyes
+burned.
+
+"Well ... you, Webb, an' Hepburn an' your whole filthy crew ... I'm
+done with you at last!"
+
+Thunder boomed sharply. The gloom was so deep that the features of the
+men she addressed could scarcely be made out.
+
+"You've tried to double-cross us from the first. You was as guilty as
+Alf today but you had it on us. I couldn't make a move without gettin'
+in worse.... You, Hilton, if it hadn't been for you, I'd have sent the
+bunch of you to hell by tellin' th' straight story when they came for
+Alf to-day! I ... I thought you loved me,"--gaspingly. "Ah! I thought
+you loved me, an' I'd have let Alf go to jail alone because of it....
+
+"Well, it ain't too late! Listen, all of you! You HC riders, don't let
+a man move until I get through!"
+
+Her eyes, quick, alert, intent, ran from face to face before her and
+her whole body trembled as though the things that she would tell
+clamoured to be out and were held back by great effort until she could
+make them coherent.
+
+"Hepburn, you're first!"
+
+The man made one movement aside as if he would evade and Tom Beck's
+voice rang out sharply:
+
+"Not a move!"
+
+Jane Hunter wheeled, a stifled word in her throat and watched him
+slowly advance. His face was drawn as by great suffering, his eyes
+burned as though his heart was wrenched with every beat. His mouth was
+set and his jaw thrust forward and the revolver he held close against
+his hip was as steady as rock. He moved slowly forward.
+
+"Swing back there, you men,"--and at his gesture the HC riders
+deployed, swinging to either side. He stood beside the two girls at the
+point of a V, the sides of which were formed by cowboys and beyond the
+opening of which the other group drew together as for protection in the
+face of this coming storm. Hepburn was foremost and the true scoundrel
+now glared through the mask of his benevolence.
+
+"Go on," Beck said quietly.
+
+"You're first," the girl repeated, as though there had been no
+interruption.
+
+"You planned to steal the HC blind, as soon as th' old owner died. You
+didn't have th' nerve to do it like I'd 've done it. You sent for us,
+because you knowed Alf had this brand which 'uld make stealin' easy!"
+
+"You're lying!"
+
+The man's voice was the merest croak, weak and unimpressive.
+
+"You wrote us, sayin' it would be easy pickin'. You said you would
+likely be foreman an' that anyhow you'd be workin' for the HC an' was
+goin' to help us from the inside.
+
+"When Miss Hunter come an' you saw what she was like you was mighty
+glad of it. You thought you could ruin her an' pretend you was trying
+to protect her. You was goin' to get half what we got for your share.
+
+"You had Webb run off them eight horses. Th' cat got out of the bag an'
+you had to bring 'em back to make good with Beck. I heard you tell Alf
+about it the night you started out an' stayed with us. Beck suspected
+you, so you shot your own saddle horn to make your story good.
+
+"Beck wasn't satisfied. He was in your way, so you an' Webb framed up a
+lie about him an' fixed his gun so it would look bad for him ... an' it
+didn't work because Miss Hunter here beat you to it.
+
+"Then you threw in with Webb an' we was all goin' to work together and
+drive the HC out in a rush.
+
+"You dynamited Cathedral Tank to spoil that range. Then somebody shot
+Two-Bits an' you planned with us not to let her have water, knowin' her
+cattle would perish. I was glad enough to keep 'em from water then
+because I thought ... I thought she wasn't ... what she is."
+
+She paused, panting, and brushed a quick hand at her tears.
+
+"Webb, you've been stealin' off th' HC for years."
+
+The man took a quick step forward and halted as gun hands jerked rigid.
+
+"You've been waitin' your chance. When Beck made you swallow your words
+about Miss Hunter you went hog-wild to get him. You got carin' more
+about that than you did about gettin' rich.
+
+"You shot at Beck's bed to kill him when he slept. You broke her
+ditches an' fired her hay with your own hands. You wrote that note,
+warnin' her to get out. You helped build this pen here an' you helped
+steal these calves an' every one of 'em was took away from an HC cow.
+You stole twenty head of horses that nobody knows about.
+
+"You an' Hepburn thought I didn't know a lot of this. Well, I did know!
+I knowed you was goin' to double-cross us if the pinch come an' Alf, he
+was afraid of it, too!
+
+"I heard you talkin' nights in our place. I watched you ridin' when you
+didn't know I was around. I listened an' remembered. I was one of you,
+but I didn't trust you. I wanted to steal from Miss Hunter. I wanted to
+drive her out because ... because I didn't know anybody could be kind
+to me like she's been. I never thought anybody'd do anythin' for me!"
+
+She stopped again to regain control of her surging emotions.
+
+"An' their riders, Miss Hunter"--half turning to look at the other
+woman. "They're a bunch of cut-throats. So are our greasers. They ain't
+been in on the stealin'. They didn't care about bein' inside, but they
+was ready to murder if they had a chance. They--Hepburn an' Webb--they
+thought that they was safe because every one of the rest had enough
+over him to hang. If one squealed they'd all get caught....
+
+"Even us! Why, we never had any right on this claim. Alf's used his
+homestead rights before, under another name. This water don't belong to
+us. Not by rights. It's all open range! That's what we was: t' worst
+nest of outlaws that ever got together in these hills!"
+
+She choked and Jane, her hands on the other's arms, could feel the
+tremors shooting through her lithe frame.
+
+Riley moved a step forward as thunder rolled heavily overhead, as if
+this much of the story was enough, but the girl cried out:
+
+"That ain't all! I've got to go through with it! I've finished with the
+rest an' now it's you.... Hilton!"
+
+Into the word she put bitter contempt and biting scorn.
+
+"Bah! You liar!" she drawled. "You liar, you sneak, you coward! You
+thought none of us could follow your game an' none of us could ...
+until now.
+
+"Why, you've been behind this whole thing. It was you called Hepburn to
+town an' offered him money to use in his dirty work. You paid for this
+fence of ours. You listened an' used your head. You saw things quicker
+'n Hepburn an' Webb did, an' you set them two thinkin' an' they never
+knew you was doin' it....
+
+"He was th' brains, I tell you!"--with an inclusive gesture to the men
+who listened so attentively. "He wanted to drive Miss Hunter out worse
+'n anybody. He wanted to kill Tom Beck. He didn't have the nerve to do
+it himself ... in a fair fight. He shot at him one day with a rifle but
+just as he shot Beck stopped his horse to look at somethin' in his
+hands, that locket he always wears an' is always lookin' at, I
+guess.... He didn't know I saw that but I did....
+
+"He was always talkin' Sam McKee, there, up to kill Beck. It's likely
+McKee shot Two-Bits--"
+
+"He didn't! I didn't do it!"
+
+McKee's voice, an excited cackle, broke in on her but the girl,
+ignoring, went on:
+
+"... It was just like he tried to talk Webb an' Hepburn into killin'.
+That was his way: makin' other folks do th' things he was scared to do!
+
+"An' he was as slick with me as he was with them, with his lies about
+being called here to help Miss Hunter on business! That's why I didn't
+think all this out before, that's why I didn't think he was a sneak
+until now. He ... he said he wanted to marry ... to marry me...."
+
+She put a palm against her lips, tears spilled over her cheeks as she
+turned. For a brief, heartbroken moment she stood looking into Jane
+Hunter's face, then bowed her head to the other's shoulder and cried
+stormily.
+
+Beside the girls was a quick movement, a man uttering one explosive
+word as though it gave vent to an emotion that had been pent deep in
+his heart for long and while the black storm clouds seemed to shut down
+and muffle every sound, even Bobby Cole's excited sobbing, Tom Beck
+cried twice:
+
+"Jane!... Jane!"
+
+Bobby, at that, turned from Jane to her father and the mistress of the
+H C faced her foreman. When she had first seen him she betrayed little
+except surprise; now she made one movement as though she would throw
+herself upon him but again the look in his face checked her.
+
+"You came back to me, Tom," she said.
+
+"Back," he answered.... "But I can't ever come back to ... you...."
+
+It was the miserable self loathing, the shame in his heart, which
+spoke, and it was that which made her see him, not as the strong man he
+had been but as a broken, penitent, self denying individual ... denying
+himself the love that was in her eyes, mingled with the relief at his
+return and the joy of triumph which still thrilled her ... that love
+which he felt unworthy to claim because he had doubted it!
+
+And then he changed. A movement sharp, decided, in the group, stiffened
+him.
+
+"Hold up!" he cried. "Don't one of you move! Jimmy, take two men to the
+Gap. Hold everybody in this Hole until we can get the sheriff, this'll
+be a clean-up for--"
+
+A blinding flare, a crash of thunder that tore sky and shook earth,
+broke in on him. There was a rending of tough timber as the bolt ripped
+down a cedar, a snorting of horses. And in that stunning instant Dick
+Hilton leaped from the group, vaulted to his saddle and lashing the
+horse frantically, made off.
+
+A revolver cracked, a rifle crashed. Hilton disappeared into a deluge
+of huge drops that came from the low, scudding clouds. Others got to
+their horses and a fusillade of shots sounded like the ripping of
+strong cloth. And above it rang Jane Hunter's voice:
+
+"Tom! Oliver! Hold these men. I'll bring the sheriff! You can spare me
+and only me!"
+
+With a hoarse cry Riley dropped his revolver and clutched at his
+wounded shoulder. Horses with riders and horses running wild circled
+the place where a moment before had been a compact group of men, but
+now Jane Hunter and Tom Beck stood there alone while from all about
+stabs of fire pricked the darkness or were lost as the sky blazed,
+while those who shot scarcely knew whether they were defending
+themselves from friend or foe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+BATTLE!
+
+
+Jane found herself on the pinto racing through the night, ducking under
+cedars until she was clear of the timber, crashing through brush,
+leaping washes and at her side, silent, close, protecting her, an arm
+ready to grasp her body should her horse fall, rode Tom Beck.
+
+They made straight across the flat toward the foot of the trail. To
+their right was shooting and behind them a sharp volley rattled. A
+stray bullet _zinged_ angrily, close over their heads.
+
+"You've got to get out of this, ma'am," Beck cried. "There'll be hell
+to pay before mornin'. There's nothing they won't do now."
+
+"Tom! You came!"
+
+Her eyes were blinded by tears as she turned her face to him, trying to
+put into words the forgiveness which she deemed unnecessary and which
+she knew was the one essential to Tom Beck, which she knew would be
+almost impossible to convey convincingly. But through the tears she saw
+the flash of a gun before them and an answering flash. A lengthy
+flicker of lightning showed two figures. One, Dick Hilton, horse drawn
+back on his hocks, revolver lifted. They saw him shoot again and they
+saw that other figure, Baldy Bowen, who was there to block the trail,
+crumple in his saddle and sag forward, struggle heavily to regain his
+position and then, as his frightened horse moved quickly, plunge in an
+ungainly mass to the ground.
+
+Beck raised his gun as Hilton's horse leaped for the trail. He shot but
+the instant of light had passed, making the world darker by contrast.
+They saw fire shoot from scrambling hoofs.
+
+The burst of rain had ceased, the interval of fury broken; the storm
+still swirled, roaring, above them, but it was dry and black,
+threatening, holding in reserve its strength....
+
+The sound of another horse, cutting in before them, running
+frantically, and Beck's gun hand went up only to poise arrested as a
+voice came to them with the singing of a rope end that flayed the
+animal's flanks.
+
+"Go; go! Take me after him!"
+
+It was Bobby Cole's cry. She had seen. She was riding on the trail of
+the man who would have been her betrayer.
+
+They dismounted hastily and stooped over the figure that lay quiet on
+the rocks. Jane stilled her sobbing as Beck rolled the body over and
+felt and listened.
+
+"Dead," he said huskily.
+
+"Dead!" echoed Jane. "Dick killed him! Oh ... beastly!"
+
+Fresh firing behind them. The shout of a man and an answer. More shots,
+coming closer.
+
+"You've got to get out," Beck said lowly, lifting her from her knees
+beside the dead rider. "There'll be hell here to-night and it's no
+place for you. You bring the law!"
+
+"I feel as though I should stay. There'll be others killed and it's my
+fight!"
+
+Hers was a cry of anguish, but he replied:
+
+"You'll save lives by bringin' help. And hurry, ma'am, hurry!"
+
+His only thought was to get her to safety.
+
+A rifle crashed twice not a hundred yards from them and they heard a
+running horse grunt as spurs raked his sides.
+
+"Get up and get out!" he cried hoarsely, fearful that she might insist
+on lingering in this place which, this night, was well named Devil's
+Hole.
+
+"There's only one of 'em ahead of you. He's bound only to make his
+get-away.... An' the Catamount, she'll clear your way if he does turn
+back!"
+
+He lifted her bodily to her horse.
+
+"It seems my place to stay!" she cried as shots peppered the storm. "To
+stay with you, Tom!"
+
+"It's your place to get out! Ride!"
+
+He swung his hat across the pinto's hind quarters and the animal leaped
+into the trail. He heard Jane cry out to him to stop.
+
+"Go on!" he shouted. "Go on! It's your job to bring help!"
+
+And he heard her go on, the horse floundering up the steep rise, and
+knew that she obeyed. Then he turned and looked out across the flat.
+
+Far down toward Cole's cabin was a shot. A riderless horse went past
+him, blowing with excitement. He crouched behind a boulder, gun in his
+hands, peering into the darkness. Others would not travel that trail
+that night so long as he was on guard....
+
+The fight had been carried in both directions, further up into the
+Hole, on down toward the Gap. HC riders, partially assembled and
+identified, had closed on the outlaws, cut them off from the trail and
+for the space of many minutes there was no revealed action, each
+waiting for the others to show themselves.
+
+Again in the distance was the mutter of thunder and a brilliant,
+prolonged flash of lightning. The wind had subsided to breathless
+silence as if the heavens marshaled their forces for fresh outbursts.
+Beck started up as the clouds flared, looking quickly about. He saw a
+horse with an empty saddle. He saw a man standing waist deep in brush,
+a rifle at his hip, ready to fire. He could not recognize the man.
+Darkness; again, a silent lighting of the skies, and with that the
+stillness was broken. There was the sharp crack of a rifle far to his
+left, up toward the head of the Hole. None replied to the shot. A
+moment later the clouds sent out their flare again ... and this time
+two shots echoed.
+
+Beck started up with a low cry. Above on the trail he had seen Jane
+Hunter's pinto, making for the high country, and those two stabs of
+yellow flame had been aimed upward and toward the wall to which her
+path clung.
+
+It seemed to the man an age until lightning again revealed the earth.
+He had an impression of a horseman far toward the top of the trail and
+behind him another, riding hard; and lastly, Jane's pinto toiling
+bravely up the sharp climb.
+
+And as darkness cut in again two more fangs of flame darted toward her!
+
+Jane Hunter, without protection, wholly revealed by the lightning, was
+a target for merciless men, for men who had nothing to lose and at
+least a fighting chance to gain by stopping her!
+
+He had believed that she was going to safety; he had underestimated the
+maliciousness of those men she had driven into the open that afternoon.
+He had neglected to consider the fact that on the trail she was without
+protection of any sort and that lightning would make her stand out like
+a cameo! He forgot his mental stress, he relegated his duty as sentinel
+to inconsequence, for she was in great danger and needed help! It was a
+joy to know that the life in his body, the blood in his flesh, might be
+the one thing she needed, for only by offering those possessions could
+he atone for his faithlessness. He had no idea that he could regain
+that desire to possess her. He only wanted her to know that what he had
+to give was hers; that was all!
+
+Then another rider was on the trail: Tom Beck, roweling his horse,
+fanning his shoulders with the rein ends, crying aloud to him for
+speed, his gun in his holster, a useless thing.
+
+He rode with abandon in the darkness, urging the horse to a speed that
+mocked safety. Stones were scattered by the animal's spurning feet and
+he heard them strike below, the sounds becoming fainter as he mounted
+the steep rise. Lightning again and the viper spits down there in the
+flat licked out for the woman ahead. Beck swore aloud and beat his
+horse's flanks with his hat.
+
+The darkness, though it handicapped speed and enhanced the danger of
+his race, was relief. When it was dark they could not fire....
+
+And he knew they were waiting down there, rifles ready, straining to
+see in the next burst of light....
+
+He begged of the Almighty to send rain, to hold back the lightning, but
+no rain came; the flares continued. He heard another shot, closer, from
+behind, and knew it was the rifleman he had seen standing in the brush
+firing at those who menaced Jane Hunter's safety.
+
+He was gaining on the pinto, slowly, with agonizing slowness. His big
+brown horse drove on, but, when in darkness and without perspective, it
+seemed as though his hoofs beat upon a treadmill. The animal's excited
+breathing became more clearly defined.... The pinto ahead crawled
+slowly and awkwardly like a dying animal, many minutes from shelter....
+
+One of those spurts of flame stung toward Beck. He heard, almost as he
+saw it, the spatter of a bullet on the rock behind him. He lay low on
+his horse's mane.
+
+The glimmer of lightning, unaccompanied now by thunder, became almost
+continuous. Against the white face of the mountain the riders were like
+silhouette targets. Below there were stabs of fire from a dozen places,
+like fire-flies on a summer night, but carrying death.
+
+Two bullets, close together, snarled past him, one above, the other
+just ahead, perhaps in a line behind his horse's ears. He hoped wildly
+that they were directing all their fire at him, that he was drawing it
+from the girl above but even as this hope mounted the skies coruscated
+again and he saw that the pinto was stopped, saw that Jane was slipping
+to the narrow trail, her body wedged between the cliff and the body of
+the horse.
+
+For an interminable time blackness seemed to hold. The big brown, whose
+breath was now laboring with exhaustion as well as with excitement,
+gasped scarcely a dozen breaths before the greeny light came again but
+to his rider it was an aeon of time. Tom Beck passed through the
+veriest depths of torment in that interval and unconsciously he shouted
+into the night incoherent cries of suffering. He had been too late! He
+had sent her to physical suffering, to her death, perhaps, and before
+he could make her understand that he blamed himself as only a just man
+who has been unjust can crush himself with execration!
+
+But light came and he saw her, still alive, still safe!
+
+The pinto was down, hind feet over the trail. Wounded, he had tried to
+turn back, tail to the abyss as a mountain bred animal will turn. He
+had moved on unsteady limbs, his hind feet slipped over the edge and
+moaning, head back, eyes bulging, he clawed with his fore hoofs to stay
+his fall. Clinging to the reins, calling aloud her encouragement, the
+girl helped with voice and limbs.
+
+For an interval she balanced the pull of the animal's own weight....
+
+And when Tom Beck could see again she was alone on the trail, one arm
+raised to her face as she cringed from the bullets that spattered all
+about!
+
+He cursed his horse, lashing furiously, spurring in the shoulders
+without mercy. He came up to her and she faced him, lips tight and in
+the dance of cloud fire he saw her eyes wide, nostrils distended.
+
+"Get up here!" he muttered and lifted her to his saddle horn, winding
+his arms about her, bowing his head and shoulders over hers to take the
+missiles in his own body first.
+
+She clutched him frantically, her warm arms around his neck, her
+trembling limbs across his thigh with his hand hooked beneath the
+knees, her soft breast cleaving to his and, slipping through his opened
+shirt the little gold locket that was at her throat pressed against his
+heart.... It was cold from the night and he felt it send a tingle
+through his body. Even then he wondered, with the strange sharpness
+which stressed thought will give to irrelevant matters, what it
+contained!
+
+"Tom! It's good to have you!"
+
+Good to have him! With death singing all about her it was good to have
+him; it was her first thought!
+
+"It would be good to die for you!" he said.
+
+"No, no!"--sharply. "Not that, Tom! Live for me ... live for me!"
+
+She felt him start and shudder and sway and a moan broke from his lips
+as a searching, tearing thing ripped at the small of his back,
+burrowing devilishly into his very vitals. She clutched him closer, not
+understanding.
+
+"It's all I've got to give you," he muttered unnaturally. "My life's
+all I've got, ma'am. I'd be proud to give it.... It's a little thing to
+give to pay ... a debt like I owe you....
+
+"You keep your body behind mine ... always ... until we get to the
+top...."
+
+"Tom!"--in alarm. "You're hit.... Oh, Tom!" She shook him, hitching
+herself about that she might see his face. "Tom!"
+
+"A scratch," he said. "Just a--"
+
+The horse threw up his head and recoiled as a bullet sang past.
+
+"A--scratch," he finished.
+
+The girl looked about wildly. She knew there was no shelter there, not
+a ledge behind which they could hide, not a tree that would screen
+them. The wall rose straight on one side, fell sheer on the other.
+There was no place to go but up; they could not turn there and go down
+for there was no room ... the pinto, shot through the belly, had tried
+that!
+
+The firing below grew more rapid. It did not wait for the lightning
+flashes now. Those spats of yellow fire struck upward continuously; in
+darkness, blindly; in light searching intelligently as the riders moved
+upward, nearer safety. HC men closed in on those who shot at the
+figures on the trail, aiming at the flurries of viper light, meeting
+counter fire as they drew nearer the murderous group of men.
+
+"Fireflies!" Beck muttered as he looked down again. "Lightnin' bugs let
+loose from hell!"
+
+When there was no fire in the clouds those light points looked so
+harmless, down there in the soft, velvet darkness! Well they might have
+been insects, bedecking a summer night ... but from them came the
+whining, droning, searching projectiles that flew to find his life and
+Jane Hunter's life!
+
+Fifty yards further was the first rise of rock that would protect them
+from below. Fifty yards, and the horse, under added burden, was sobbing
+as he staggered.
+
+Beck swayed forward and regained his balance with an effort that cost
+him a groan, but his arms, tight about Jane Hunter's body did not relax
+a trifle; they held like tough, green wood. The girl cried out to him
+again, that he was hurt....
+
+"It's nothin', ... my life," he replied. "It's all I could do ... for
+doubtin' you. I couldn't ask you to ... love me.... I could die for you
+... that's all, ma'am...."
+
+"Tom, Tom! Keep your head; keep your head one minute longer; we'll be
+safe.... Safe, then...."
+
+Thirty yards to the place where the trail ran between uprising walls of
+rock; thirty yards to that shelter; thirty yards to safety....
+
+But she looked down at those deadly fireflies playing on the flat, and
+did not see a hatless man, crouched forward, run down the trail toward
+them, pistol in his hand....
+
+Dick Hilton, who had escaped the Hole only to realize that there was no
+escape, was waiting to vent the last drop of poison in his heart....
+Nor did Jane see, nor did Hilton suspect, that waiting there for him
+was another stalker, who had followed and lost him, who had turned
+back, who had seen the travelers up the trail and who waited their
+approach screened by timber....
+
+Bobby Cole's heart leaped as she saw him run crouching to meet Tom
+Beck, and her gun leaped to position ... and she waited there in the
+darkness for the next flash of light ... as men waited below ... as
+Jane Hunter waited, with her heart racing in despair; as Dick Hilton,
+gibbering under his breath, waited....
+
+The big brown horse stumbled and Tom Beck cried aloud in fear and pain,
+cried drunkenly, as his blood drenched the saddle. Twenty yards to the
+shelter of solid rock ... ten ... five....
+
+And a scarecrow figure leaped from it at them, revealed by a long,
+green glimmer.
+
+"Damn you, Beck! Damn you, you've ruined me; you drove me to this....
+Now, take th--"
+
+His gun had whipped up even as the gun of the girl they saw behind him
+whipped up.
+
+Neither fired.
+
+Down below had come those winking fangs again and Hilton's voice
+trailed into a rising, rasping gasp as missiles from his compatriots
+drilled his body.
+
+His pistol dropped to the rock. He put his hands to his stomach.
+
+"Damn your--"
+
+He choked on the word, and as he choked he took one blind step forward,
+over the brink. As he fell he threw up his hands and sailed downward
+into the depths, into the coming darkness....
+
+The brown horse had halted, but as Jane Hunter slipped to the ground,
+holding Beck's sagging body with all her strength, he stepped forward,
+in behind the rocks: their haven....
+
+"Oh, they got him!" Bobby sobbed. "They got him...."
+
+She might have meant Hilton, but if so the pity, the regret in her
+voice was a mourning of her dead love, not the dead lover; or she might
+have meant Tom Beck and the tone might have been sympathy for the woman
+she had come to understand, the woman who had respect for her and who
+she could respect....
+
+They let Tom's body to the trail. The horse moved off. Hastily Bobby
+ripped open his shirt....
+
+"Through the hips," she whispered. "Through the hips....
+
+"Look!"--starting up. "He's movin' his foot. It didn't get his spine;
+it didn't get his spine...."
+
+She tore open her shirt and tugged at the undergarment beneath it. She
+stuffed it into the wound deftly, staying the blood while Jane Hunter,
+Beck's head in her lap, cried aloud.
+
+"Listen!" Bobby knelt beside the other woman, hands on her shoulders,
+peering into her face.... "You're safe here. They've got 'em cut off
+from this trail below....
+
+"My horse is fresh. I'm goin' to your ranch for help. He ain't goin' to
+die, ma'am.... I promise you that.... He ain't goin' to die!"
+
+She was gone and Jane Hunter, half faint, clinging to that promise as
+the last, the only thing in life, lowered her lips to her lover's eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+THE LAST STRAW
+
+
+It was the first day that Tom Beck could lie on his back. For weeks he
+had lain on his face there in the living room of the ranch house,
+nursed back to health by Jane Hunter's gentle hands. Now the doctor had
+turned him over, with the promise that he would not only be sitting up
+but walking before long, and the Veterans' Society had been in session.
+
+That was what Two-Bits called it: The Veterans' Society. Every
+afternoon they had gathered there, Two-Bits with his slowly healing
+back, Jimmy Oliver, after his leg had mended and he could hobble with a
+cane, Joe Black, whose arm was just out of its sling and, occasionally,
+Riley, who rode up the creek holding gingerly his one shoulder, to
+fight the battle over again.
+
+Summer was ripening and the golden sunlight spilled down onto peaceful
+mountains from a mighty sweep of sky. A gentle breeze bent the tall
+cottonwoods, making them whisper, making the birds in their branches
+sing in lazy contentment. Unmolested cattle ranged in prospering
+hundreds. The work was up, fall and beef ride were coming ... and other
+years to bring their toll of happiness and well being, for after its
+one paroxysm of strife the country had settled back to easier ways, to
+a better, more wholesome manner of living.
+
+There were memories, true, kept fresh by such things as this Veterans'
+Society, and the three graves in Devil's Hole where rested the bodies
+of Sam McKee, Dad Hepburn and Dick Hilton, for there was none to claim
+what remained of them. Under the cottonwoods slept Baldy Bowen, his
+grave surrounded by white pickets and his head marked by a stone.
+
+But even now those memories were less poignant than they had been weeks
+before. Interest in the range war was waning and though it would be
+talked about across bar and bunk house stove for many winters the
+thrill of it was gone ... as the horror of it was largely gone for
+those who had suffered most.
+
+Two-Bits had lingered after the departure of the rest and sat in a
+chair beside Tom's cot. Beck's face was pale, but his eyes were alive
+and as of old, evidence of satisfactory convalescence.
+
+"So you think there _is_ a hell, Tommy?" he asked.
+
+Beck grunted assent.
+
+"Yeah. I know there's a hell, Two-Bits."
+
+"My brother always said there was. He said it was an awful place,
+Tommy. I'll bet two bits th' old Devil was sorry to see Hepburn an'
+Hilton an' Sam McKee comin' in that mornin'! I'll bet he says to
+hisself: 'Here's some right smart competition for me!'"
+
+Beck laughed silently.
+
+"Sometimes I get feelin' mighty sorry for 'em," the lanky cow-boy
+continued. "I use to hate Webb somethin' awful an' I sure did think
+Hepburn was about th' lowest critter that walked.... God ought to 've
+made him crawl! Sam McKee never was no good. He was th' meanest man I
+ever saw....
+
+"But, shucks, Tommy, I hate to think of 'em bein' blistered all th'
+time!"
+
+"That ain't the kind of hell I referred to, Two-Bits. I don't know much
+about that kind, with brimstone and fire and all the rest....
+
+"There's a hell, though, Tommy. It's when a man lets the weakness in
+him run off with what strength he has, when he don't trust those who
+deserve to be trusted, when he's suspicious of those his heart tells
+him are above suspicion."
+
+Two-Bits swallowed, setting his Adam's apple leaping. His eyes widened.
+
+"Gosh, you talk just like th' Reverend!" he said, and Beck laughed
+until his wound hurt him.
+
+"Well, if they ain't in hell, they're under an awful lot of rocks," he
+added. "That's all I care, to have 'em out of her way."
+
+"Yes, it makes it smoother. Real folks, men who deserve the name, won't
+do anything but trust her and help her."
+
+"Not after the way she made 'em come out of their holes! That trial
+must've been grand, Tommy! I'd 've give two bits to seen it an' heard
+it!
+
+"She won't have no trouble no more. Everybody knows she's got more head
+than most men on this here creek. But she's got somethin' else! She's
+got a ... a gentle way with her that makes everybody want to do things
+for her.
+
+"Look at how she treated Cole. Why, anybody else 'd run him off! 'Stead
+of that she gets Bobby Cole to file on that claim an' helps 'em to
+build a good house an' wants 'em to stay. You can bet your life that H
+C cattle'll get water there now. That catamount ... hell, she'd
+_carry_ it for 'em if there wasn't any other way to get it to 'em!"
+
+"Yes, Bobby's changed."
+
+"Should say she is changed! She's got a different look to her, not so
+hard an' horstile as she used to be; she's plumb doe-cyle now!
+
+"I expect she's glad she didn't kill Hilton. If she hadn't changed
+she'd been glad to do it. But, bein' like she is now, she wouldn't want
+to hurt nobody.... Unless that somebody wanted to hurt Miss Hunter."
+
+His eyes roved off down the road and settled on a swiftly moving horse,
+the great sorrel who was bringing Jane Hunter back to the ranch after a
+ride far down the creek.
+
+"Speakin' of Hell, Tommy: there mebby ain't any like the Reverend
+claims there is, but there's a Heaven! I'll bet two bits there is! I'll
+gamble on it because I know an angel that stepped right down that
+there, now, solid gold ladder....
+
+"She's comin' up th' road.... An' Mister Two-Bits Beal, _esquire_,
+is goin' to drift out of here!"
+
+With a broad wink, which set a suggestion of a flush into Beck's
+cheeks, he took his hat and departed.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Jane entered, drawing the pin from her hat; then stopped on the
+threshold with a cry.
+
+"Oh, the doctor's been here!"
+
+"Yes, and he's rolled the old carcass over," Beck answered.
+
+She stood looking down at him for a moment and then dropped quickly to
+her knees.
+
+"It's so good to look into your eyes again," she whispered, and though
+her own eyes were bright there were tears in her voice.
+
+Beck's gaze wavered and he slowly withdrew the hand that she had taken.
+
+"You mustn't look like that!" he said, turning his face from her. "It's
+more than I've deserved, it's more than I have a right to!"
+
+She put her hands on his shoulders, gently, bearing no weight upon
+them, and said soberly:
+
+"Look at me, Tom Beck!"
+
+He obeyed, rather reluctantly.
+
+"I have waited, oh, so long, to talk to you! I promised the doctor that
+nothing should disturb you until you were well. That's one reason why I
+brought you into the house, instead of leaving you with the men: so you
+could be quiet.
+
+"But there was another reason, a greater: I wanted you here, in this
+room, in my house, near me, where I could see and feel and help you,
+because seeing and touching and helping you helped me!
+
+"I needed your help, Tom! I shall always need you near me!"
+
+"Nobody would agree with you," he protested. "You're the most capable
+man in the country. You sure can look out for yourself."
+
+"But looking out for myself isn't all. That's just a tiny part of
+life,"--indicating how small it was with a thumb and fore-finger. "It
+belongs to the side of me which owns this ranch, which is a cattle
+woman, which wants to fatten steers and raise calves and prosper....
+
+"There's the other part, the big part, the part that is really worth
+while: It's my heart, Tom. It's my heart that needs you!"
+
+His brows puckered.
+
+"I wish you wouldn't!" he said huskily. "I can't help that part, I had
+my chance ... an' I threw it away."
+
+"And I picked it up! Tom, that morning when you were crawling back from
+Cathedral Tank, across the desert, I was at the round-up camp. I went
+there to tell you, to make you understand--"
+
+"That's what hurts: that you had to ride thirty miles to tell me, to
+make me understand. Why, ma'am, I hadn't any right to have you do that
+for me. It was me who should have come crawlin' to you!"
+
+She took his hand again.
+
+"Look at me!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," striving to lighten his manner.
+
+"Yes, _Jane!_" she insisted.
+
+"Jane," very softly.
+
+"You are very foolish, sticking to an abstract idea of how you should
+have conducted yourself. You wanted to die for me once; you want to put
+me off now because you think you wronged me.
+
+"Don't you see what a wrong that would be! Don't you see that?"
+
+She leaned forward, hands clasped at her chin, and tears swam upward
+into her eyes.
+
+"I am saying the things I've waited so long to say.
+
+"You have lain here ever since that black night when they carried you
+in and I had to feel your heart to know whether you lived. I've tried
+to say nothing that would disturb you, tried to keep your mind off the
+thing that has occupied mine. But I know you've been thinking; I know
+you've been uneasy. I have seen that in the looks, the words, the way
+you've laughed, rather forced and weakly at times. I have known what
+you thought....
+
+"You are very foolish to be concerned with an idea of how you should
+have conducted yourself. You wanted to die for me once; you want to put
+me off now because you think you wronged me.
+
+"I am not forgiving you because there is nothing to forgive. My pride
+was hurt and by yielding to it I shook your faith in me. It was weak
+for me to yield to pride; it was foolish for you to give way to
+suspicion. It was not I who yielded, Tom; it was that other girl, the
+girl who came to you to be hurt and ridiculed and made strong! And it
+was not the Tom Beck who loved me that suspected; it was that other
+man, the one who held himself back, who did not take chances, who,
+perhaps, would have denied himself the finest thing in life if he had
+always walked on ground with which he was familiar....
+
+"And now to carry this breach from the past into the future.... Don't
+you see what a wrong that would be? Don't you see how you would be
+harming yourself? You, who wanted to die for me, would be refusing to
+live for me! And I who need you would walk alone.... Don't you see what
+a horrible thing that would be to both of us ... my lover?"
+
+She leaned forward, hands clasped at her breast, and the tears swam
+into her eyes. She was very beautiful, very gentle and tender, but as
+he looked he felt rather than saw the strength that was in her: the
+character that had stood alone, that had been herself in the face of
+the loss of love and position, and that, by so standing, had triumphed.
+
+For a breathless instant she poised so, with unsteady lips, and she saw
+the want come into his face, saw the old reserve, the old resolution to
+punish himself melt away.
+
+"I want you, Jane!" he whispered.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The evening shadows had come before she rose from her knees and drew up
+a chair to sit stroking his hand.
+
+His eyes rested on her hungrily and after a time they concentrated on
+the locket at her throat.
+
+"Say! Now that you've done me the honor to give me a second chance at
+lovin' you, there's somethin' I want to ask."
+
+"Ask it."
+
+"What's in that locket?"
+
+She laughed as she caught it in her fingers.
+
+"My luck!"
+
+"I understand that. It brought me luck, too, but there's something
+else. Won't you tell me?"
+
+She unclasped the trinket and held it in her hand, turning it over
+slowly. Then she sprung the catch and held it so he could see.
+
+Behind the disc of mica lay a piece of oat straw.
+
+"That is the last straw," she said simply.
+
+He did not understand.
+
+"The one you would not draw that day, which seems so long ago!"
+
+His face brightened.
+
+"You kept it?"
+
+"I clung to it as though it were ... the last straw!
+
+"Why, Tom, can't you see what it has meant? If you had drawn you would
+have been my foreman. You would have protected me, fought for me, taken
+care of me. I'd never have been forced to stand alone, never been
+forced to try to do something for myself, by myself. Your refusal put
+on me the responsibility of being a woman or a leech....
+
+"I drew the last straw that day. I drew the responsibility of keeping
+the HC on its feet. I feel that I have helped to do that...."
+
+"You have."
+
+"Through sickness and through death, through dark days and storms. I
+have done something! I have walked alone, unaided....
+
+"And I have made you love me, Tom.... _That_ is the biggest thing
+I have done. To be worthy of your love was my greatest undertaking. By
+being worthy, by winning you, I have justified my being here, my
+walking the earth, my breathing the air...."
+
+"Sho!" he cried in embarrassment, and took the locket and fingered it.
+
+His hand dropped to the blanket and he stared upward as though a fresh
+idea had occurred to him.
+
+"Say, I wonder if the Reverend was a regular preacher?" he asked.
+
+"Why? He was a doer of good works. Why consider his actual standing?"
+
+"Yeah. But I mean, could he marry folks, do you s'pose?"
+
+He looked at her again and in his eyes was that amused twinkle, the
+laugh of a man assured, content, self sufficient ... and behind it was
+the tenderness that comes to a strong man's eyes only when he looks
+upon the woman who has given him love for love.
+
+"If he could he'd be glad to," he said, "and I suspect that he'd throw
+a little variety into the ceremony ... something, likely, about your
+fightin' a good fight!"
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Italicized text is indicated with _underscores_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Straw, by Harold Titus
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