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Mavericks

by William MacLeod Raine · English · Gutenberg #14520 · 429,497 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Mavericks

Author: William MacLeod Raine

Illustrator: Clarence Rowe


        
Release date: December 29, 2004 [eBook #14520]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14520

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAVERICKS ***

[Illustration: THE RIDER SLEWED IN THE SADDLE WITH HIS WHOLE ATTENTION
UPON POSSIBLE PURSUIT. _Frontispiece. Page 33_]

MAVERICKS

BY

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

AUTHOR OF

WYOMING, RIDGWAY OF MONTANA, BUCKY O'CONNOR, A TEXAS RANGER, ETC.


ILLUSTRATIONS BY

CLARENCE ROWE


GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

1911 STREET & SMITH

1912 G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY



TO MY MOTHER

    "In vain men tell us time can alter
     Old loves, or make old memories falter."


CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                             PAGE
    I. PHYLLIS                                         9

   II. THE NESTER                                     18

  III. CAUGHT RED-HANDED                              28

   IV. "I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?"             43

    V. AN AIDER AND ABETTOR                           53

   VI. A GOOD FRIEND                                  76

  VII. A SHOT FROM AMBUSH                             84

 VIII. MISS GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN                        103

   IX. PUNISHMENT                                    117

    X. INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY                      126

   XI. TOM DIXON                                     144

  XII. THE ESCAPE                                    157

 XIII. A MISTAKE                                     168

  XIV. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION                       183

   XV. THE BRAND BLOTTER                             200

  XVI. A WATERSPOUT                                  214

 XVII. THE HOLD-UP                                   226

XVIII. BRILL HEALY AIRS HIS SENTIMENTS               233

  XIX. THE ROAN WITH THE WHITE STOCKINGS             241

   XX. YEAGER RIDES TO NOCHES                        253

  XXI. BREAKING DOWN AN ALIBI                        263

 XXII. SURRENDER                                     276

XXIII. AT THE RODEO                                  289

 XXIV. MISSING                                       296

  XXV. LARRY TELLS A BEAR STORY                      304

 XXVI. THE MAN HUNT                                  323

XXVII. THE ROUND-UP                                  329



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
                                                    PAGE

The rider slewed in the saddle with his whole
attention upon possible pursuit. _Frontispiece_       33

She drew back as if he had struck her, all the
sparkling eagerness driven from her face.            110

"Drop that gun!"                                     205

They grappled in silence save for the heavy panting
that evidenced the tension of their efforts.         340



MAVERICKS




CHAPTER I

PHYLLIS


Phyllis leaned against the door-jamb and looked down the long road which
wound up from the valley and lost itself now and again in the land
waves. Miles away she could see a little cloud of dust travelling behind
the microscopic stage, which moved toward her almost as imperceptibly as
the minute-hand of a clock. A bronco was descending the hill trail from
the Flagstaff mine, and its rider announced his coming with song in a
voice young and glad.

    "My love has breath o' roses,
      O' roses, o' roses,
    And cheeks like summer posies
      All fresh with morning dew,"

floated the words to her across the sunlit open.

If the girl heard, she heeded not. One might have guessed her a sullen,
silent lass, and would have done her less than justice. For the storm in
her eyes and the curl of the lip were born of a mood and not of habit.
They had to do with the gay vocalist who drew his horse up in front of
her and relaxed into the easy droop of the experienced rider at rest.

"Don't see me, do you?" he asked, smiling.

Her dark, level gaze came round and met his sunniness without response.

"Yes, I see you, Tom Dixon."

"And you don't think you see much then?" he suggested lightly.

She gave him no other answer than the one he found in the rigor of her
straight figure and the flash of her dark eyes.

"Mad at me, Phyl?" Crossing his arms on the pommel of the saddle he
leaned toward her, half coaxing, half teasing.

The girl chose to ignore him and withdrew her gaze to the stage, still
creeping antlike toward the hills.

    "My love has breath o' roses,
      O' roses, o' roses,"

he hummed audaciously, ready to catch her smile when it came.

It did not come. He thought he had never seen her carry her dusky good
looks more scornfully. With a movement of impatience she brushed back a
rebellious lock of blue-black hair from her temple.

"Somebody's acting right foolish," he continued jauntily. "It was all in
fun, and in a game at that."

"I wasn't playing," he heard, though the profile did not turn in the
least toward him.

"Well, I hated to let you stay a wall-flower."

"I don't play kissing games any more," she informed him with dignity.

"Sho, Phyl! I told you 'twas only in fun," he justified himself. "A kiss
ain't anything to make so much fuss over. You ain't the first girl that
ever was kissed."

She glanced quickly at him, recalling stories she had heard of his
boldness with girls. He had taken off his hat and the golden locks of
the boy gleamed in the sunlight. Handsome he surely was, though a critic
might have found weakness in the lower part of the face. Chin and mouth
lacked firmness.

"So I've been told," she answered tartly.

"Jealous?"

"No," she exploded.

Slipping to the ground, he trailed his rein.

"You don't need to depend on hearing," he said, moving toward her.

"What do you mean?" she flared.

"You remember well enough--at the social down to Peterson's."

"We were children then--or I was."

"And you're not a kid now?"

"No, I'm not."

"Here's congratulations, Miss Sanderson. You've put away childish things
and now you have become a woman."

Angrily the girl struck down his outstretched hand.

"After this, if a fellow should kiss you, it would be a crime, wouldn't
it?" he bantered.

"Don't you dare try it, Tom Dixon," she flashed fiercely.

Hitherto he had usually thought of her as a school girl, even though she
was teaching in the Willow's district. Now it came to him with what
dignity and unconscious pride her head was poised, how little the
home-made print could conceal the long, free lines of her figure, still
slender with the immaturity of youth. Soon now the woman in her would
awaken and would blossom abundantly as the spring poppies were doing on
the mountain side. Her sullen sweetness was very close to him. The rapid
rise and fall of her bosom, the underlying flush in her dusky cheeks,
the childish pout of the full lips, all joined in the challenge of her
words. Mostly it was pure boyishness, the impish desire to tease, that
struck the audacious sparkle to his eyes, but there was, too, a
masculine impulse he did not analyse.

"So you won't be friends?"

If he had gone about it the right way he might have found forgiveness
easily enough. But this did not happen to be the right way.

"No, I won't." And she gave him her profile again.

"Then we might as well have something worth while to quarrel about," he
said, and slipping his arm round her neck, he tilted her face toward
him.

With a low cry she twisted free, pushing him from her.

Beneath the fierce glow of her eyes his laughter was dashed. He forgot
his expected trivial triumph, for they flashed at him now no childish
petulance, but the scorn of a woman, a scorn in the heat of which his
vanity withered and the thing he had tried to do stood forth a bare
insult.

"How dare you!" she gasped.

Straight up the stairs to her room she ran, turned the lock, and threw
herself passionately on the bed. She hated him...hated him...hated him.
Over and over again she told herself this, crying it into the pillows
where she had hidden her hot cheeks. She would make him pay for this
insult some day. She would find a way to trample on him, to make him eat
dirt for this. Of course she would never speak to him again--never so
long as she lived. He had insulted her grossly. Her turbulent Southern
blood boiled with wrath. It was characteristic of the girl that she did
not once think of taking her grievance to her hot-headed father or to
her brother. She could pay her own debts without involving them. And it
was in character, too, that she did not let the inner tumult interfere
with her external duties.

As soon as she heard the stage breasting the hill, she was up from the
bed as swift as a panther and at her dressing-table dabbing with a
kerchief at the telltale eyes and cheeks. Before the passengers began
streaming into the house for dinner she was her competent self, had
already cast a supervising eye over Becky the cook and Manuel the
waiter, to see that everything was in readiness, and behind the official
cage had fallen to arranging the mail that had just come up from Noches
on the stage.

From this point of vantage she could cast an occasional look into the
dining-room to see that all was going well there. Once, glancing through
the window, she saw Tom Dixon in conversation with a half-grown
youngster in leathers, gauntlets, and spurs. A coin was changing hands
from the older boy to the younger, and as soon as the delivery window
was raised little Bud Tryon shuffled in to get the family mail and that
of Tom. Also he pushed through the opening a folded paper evidently torn
from a notebook.

"This here is for you, Phyl," he explained.

She pushed it back. "I'm too busy to read it."

"It's from Tom," he further volunteered.

"Is it?"

She took the paper quietly but with a swift, repressed passion, tore it
across, folded the pieces together, rent them again, and tossed the
fragments through the window to the floor.

"Do you want the mail for the Gordons, too, Mr. Purdy?" she coolly asked
the next in line over the tow head of Bud.

The boy grinned and ducked from his place through the door. Through the
open window there drifted to her presently the sound of a smothered
curse, followed by the rapid thud of a horse's hoofs. Phyllis did not
look, but a wicked gleam came into her black eyes. As well as if she had
seen him she beheld a picture of a sulky youth spurring home in dudgeon,
a scowl of discontent on his handsome, boyish face. He had come down the
mountain trail singing, but no music travelled with him on his return
journey. Nor had she alone known this. Without deigning to notice it,
she caught a wink and a nod from one vaquero to another. It was certain
they would not forget to "rub it in" when next they met Master Tom. She
promised herself, as she handed out newspapers and letters to the
cowmen, sheep-herders, and miners who had ridden in to the stage station
for their mail, to teach that young man his place.

"I'll take a dollar's worth of two's."

Phyllis turned her head in the slow, disdainful fashion she had
inherited from her Southern ancestors and without a word pushed the
sheet of stamps through the window. That voice, with its hint of
sardonic amusement, was like a trumpet call to battle.

"Any mail for Buck Weaver?"

"No," she answered promptly without looking.

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"Couldn't be overlooking any, could you?"

Her eyes met his with the rapier steel of hostility. He was mocking her,
for his mail all came to Saguaro. The man was her father's enemy. He had
no business here. His coming was of a piece with all the rest of his
insolence. Phyllis hated him with the lusty healthy hatred of youth. She
had her father's generosity and courage, his quick indignation against
wrong and injustice, and banked within her much of his passionate
lawlessness.

"I know my business, sir."

Weaver turned from the window and came front to front with old Jim
Sanderson. The burning black eyes of the Southerner, set in sockets of
extraordinary depths, blazed from a grim, hostile face. Always when he
felt ugliest Sanderson's drawl became more pronounced. His daughter,
hearing now the slow, gentle voice, ran quickly round the counter and
slipped an arm into that of her father.

"This hyer is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Weaver," he was saying. "It's
been quite some time since I've seen you all in my house before, makin'
you'self at home so pleasantly. It's ce'tainly an honor, seh."

"Don't get buck ague, Sanderson. I'm here because I'm here. That's
reason a-plenty for me," Weaver told him contemptuously.

"But not for me, seh. When you come into my house----"

"I didn't come into your house."

"Why--why----"

"Father!" implored the girl. "It's a government post-office. He has a
right here as long as he behaves."

"H'm!" the old fire-eater snorted. "I'd be obliged just the same, Mr.
Weaver, if you'd transact your business and then light a shuck."

"Dad!" the girl begged.

He patted her head awkwardly as it lay on his arm. "Now don't you worry,
honey. There ain't going to be any trouble--leastways none of my making.
I ain't a-forgettin' my promise to you-all. But I ain't sittin' down
whilst anybody tromples on me neither."

"He wouldn't try to do that here," Phyllis reminded him.

Weaver laughed in grim irony. "I'm surely much obliged to you for
protecting me." And to the father he added carelessly: "Keep your shirt
on, Sanderson. I'm not trying to break into society. And when I do I
reckon it won't be with a sheep outfit I'll trail."

With which parting shot he turned on his heel, arrogant and imperious to
the last virile inch of him.




CHAPTER II

THE NESTER


With the jingle of trailing spur Buck Weaver passed from the post-office
to the porch, where public opinion was wont to formulate itself while
waiting for the mail to be distributed. Here twice a week it had sat for
many years, had heard evidence, passed judgment, condemned or acquitted.
For at this store the Malpais country bought its ammunition, its
tobacco, and its canned goods; and on this porch its opinions had sifted
down to convictions. From this common meeting ground the gossip of
Cattleland was scattered far and wide.

Weaver filled the doorway while he drew on his gauntlets. He was the
owner of the Twin Star outfit, the biggest cattle company in that
country. Nearly twenty years ago, while still a boy of eighteen, he had
begun in a small way. The Malpais had been a wild and lawless place
then, but in all the turbid days that followed Buck Weaver had held his
own ruthlessly by adroit manipulation, shrewd sense, and implacable
daring. Some outfits he had bought out; others he had driven away. Those
that survived were at a respectable distance from him. Only the
settlers in the hills remained to trouble him. He had come to be the big
man of the district, dominating its social, business, and political
activities.

"What's this I hear about another settler up on Bear Creek?" he asked
curtly after he had gathered up his bridle and swung to the saddle.

"That's the way Jim Budd's telling it, Mr. Weaver. Another nester
homesteaded there," old Joe Yeager answered casually, chewing tobacco
with a noncommittal air.

"Fine! There'll soon be a right smart settlement up near the headwaters
of the creeks, I shouldn't wonder. The cow business is getting to be a
mighty profitable one when you don't own any," Buck said dryly.

The others laughed, but with small merriment. They were either small
cattle owners themselves or range riders whose living depended on the
business, and during the past two years a band of rustlers had operated
so boldly as to have wiped out the profits of some of the ranchers. Most
of them disliked Buck extremely for his overbearing ways. But they did
not usually tell him so. On this particular subject, too, they joined
hand with him.

"You're dead right, Mr. Weaver. It ce'tainly must be stopped."

The man who spoke rolled a cigarette and lit it. Like the rest he was in
the common garb of the plains. The broad-brimmed felt hat, the shiny
leather chaps, the loosely knotted bandanna, were as much a matter of
course as the hard-eyed, weather-beaten look that comes of life under an
untempered sun. But Brill Healy claimed a distinction above his fellows.
He was a black-haired, picturesque fellow, as supple as a panther,
reckless and yet wary.

"We'll have rustling as long as we have nesters, Brill," Buck told him.

"If that's the case we'll serve notice on the nesters to get out," Healy
replied.

Buck grinned. Indomitable fighter though he was, he had been unable to
roll back the advancing tide of settlement. Here and there homesteaders
had taken up land and had brought in small bunches of cattle. Most of
these were honest men, others suspected rustlers. But Buck's fiat had
not sufficed to keep them out. They had held stoutly to their own
and--he suspected--a good deal more than their own. Calves had been
branded secretly and cows killed or driven away.

"Go to it, Brill," Weaver jeered. "I'm wishing you all the luck in the
world."

He touched his pony with the spur and swept up the road in a cloud of
white dust.

Not till he had disappeared did conversation renew itself languidly, for
Seven Mile Ranch was lying under the lethargy of a summery sun.

"I expect Buck's got the right of it," volunteered a brawny youth known
as Slim. "All you got to do is to take up a claim near a couple of big
outfits with easy brands, then keep your iron hot and industrious.
There's sure money in being a nester."

Despite the soft drawl of his voice, he spoke with bitterness, as did
the others. Every day the feeling was growing stronger that the rustling
must be stopped if they were going to continue to run cattle. The
thieves had operated with a boldness and a shrewdness that fairly
outwitted the ranchers. Enough horses and cattle had been driven across
the line to stock a respectable ranch. Not one of the established
ranches had escaped heavy losses; so heavy, indeed, that the owners
faced the option of going broke or of exterminating the rustlers. Once
or twice the thieves had nearly been caught red-handed, but the leader
of the outlaws had saved the men by the most daring strategy.

Healy, until lately foreman of the Twin Star outfit, had organized the
ranchmen as a protective association. In this he had represented Weaver,
himself not popular enough to coöperate with the other ranchmen. Once
Brill had led the pursuit of the rustlers and had come back furious from
a long futile chase. For among the cattle being driven across to Sonora
were five belonging to him.

Other charges also lay against the hill outlaws. A stage had been robbed
with a gold shipment from the Diamond Nugget mine. A cattleman had been
held up and relieved of two thousand dollars, just taken as part payment
for a sale of beef steers. The sheriff of Noches County, while trying
to arrest a rustler, had been shot dead in his tracks.

Brill Healy leaned forward, gathered the eyes of those present, and
lowered his voice to a whisper. "Boys, this thing has got to stop. I've
sent for Bucky O'Connor. If anybody can run the coyotes to earth he can.
Anyhow, that's the reputation he's got."

Yeager nodded. "Good for you, Brill. He's ce'tainly got an A-one rep. as
a cattle detective, and likewise as a man hunter. When is he coming?"

"He writes that he's got a job on hand that will keep him busy a couple
of weeks, anyhow. After that we'll hear from him. I'm going to drop
everything else, if necessary, and stay right with him on this job till
he finishes it right," Healy promised.

"Now you're shoutin', Brill. Here, too. It's money in our pocket to stop
this thing right now, even if we pay big for it. No use jest sittin'
around till we're stole blind," assented Slim.

"It won't cost us anything. Buck, he pays the freight. The waddies have
been hitting him right hard lately and he figures it will be up to him
to clean them out. Course we expect help from you boys when we call on
you."

"Sure. We'll all be with you till the cows come home, Brill," nodded one
little fellow called Purdy. He was looking at a dust patch rising from
the Bear Creek trail, and slowly moving toward them. "What's the name of
this new nester, Jim?"

Budd, by way of being a curiosity on the range, was a fat man with a
big double chin. He was large as well as fat, and, by queer contrast,
the voice that came from that mountain of flesh was a small falsetto
scarce above a whisper.

"Didn't hear his name. Had no talk with him. Hear he is called Keller,"
he said.

"What's he look like?"

"You-all can see for yourself. This here's the gent rolling a tail this
way."

The little cloud of dust had come nearer and disclosed as its source a
rider on a rangy roan with four white-stockinged feet. Drawing up in
front of the porch, the man swung himself easily from the saddle and
glanced around.

"Evening, gentlemen," he said pleasantly.

Some nodded grimly, some growled an acknowledgment of his greeting. But
the lack of cordiality, the presence of hostility, could not be doubted.
The young man stood at supple ease before them, one hand resting on his
hip and the other on the saddle. He let his unabashed gaze travel from
one to another, understood perfectly what those expressionless eyes of
stone were telling him, and, with a little laugh of light derision,
trailed debonairly into the store.

"Any mail for Larrabie Keller?" he inquired of the postmistress.

The girl at the window glanced incuriously at him and turned to look.
When she pushed his letter through the grating he met for an instant a
flash of dark eyes from a mobile face which the sun and superb health
had painted to a harmony of gold and russet, with the soft glow of pink
pushing through the tan. The unexpectedness of the picture magnetized
his gaze. Admiration, frank and human, shone from the steel-gray eyes
that had till now been only a mask. Beneath his steady look she flushed
indignantly and withdrew from the window.

Convicted of rudeness, the last thing he had meant, Keller returned to
the porch and leaned against the door jamb while he opened his letter.
His appearance immediately sandbagged conversation. Stony eyes were
focused upon him incuriously, with expressionless hostility.

He noted, however, an exception. Another had been added to the group, a
lad of about eighteen, slim and swarthy, with the same dark look of
pride he had seen on the face at the stamp window. It was easy to guess
that they were brother and sister, very likely twins, though he found in
the boy's expression a sulky impatience lacking in hers. Perhaps the lad
needed the discipline that life hammers into those who want to be a law
unto themselves.

With an insolence extremely boyish, the lad turned to Healy. "I'm for
running out a few of these nesters. We've got more than we can use, I
reckon. The range is overstocked now--both with them and cows. Come a
bad year and half of our cattle will starve."

There was a moment of surcharged silence. Phil Sanderson had voiced the
growing feeling of them all, but he had flung it out as a stark
challenge before the time was ripe. It was one thing to resent the
coming of settlers; it was quite another to set themselves openly
against the law that allowed these men to homestead the natural parks in
the hills.

Brill Healy laughed. "The fat's in the fire now, sure enough. Just the
same, I back your play, Phil."

He turned recklessly to the man in the doorway. "You may tell your
friends up on Bear Creek that we own this range and mean to hold it. We
don't aim to let our cattle be starved, and we don't aim to lie down
before rustlers. Understand?"

The nester smiled, but there was no gayety in his eyes. They met those
of the cattleman with a grip of steel, and measured strength with him.
Each knew the other would go the limit before Keller made quiet answer:

"I think so."

And with that he dismissed the subject and his unfriendly audience. With
perfect ease, he read his letter, pocketed it, and whistled softly as he
impassively took stock of the scenery. Apparently he had wiped Public
Opinion from his map, and was interested only in the panorama before
him.

Seven Mile Ranch lay rooted at the desert terminus among the foothills,
a gateway between the mountains and the Malpais Plain. Below was a
shimmering stretch of sand and cactus tortured beneath a blazing sun.
Into that caldron with its furnace-cracked floor the sun had poured
itself torridly for countless eons. It was a Sahara of mirage and
desolation and death.

To the left was a flat-topped mesa eroded to fantastic mockery of some
bastioned fort. In the round-topped hills behind it was Noches, fifty
miles away. Beyond lay the tangle of hills, rising to the saw-toothed
range now painted with orange and mauve and a hint of deepening purple.
For dusk was already slipping down over the peaks.

"Mail's been open half an hour, boys," Phyllis announced through the
open window.

They dropped in to the store, as noisy as schoolboys, but withal
deferential. It was clear the young postmistress reigned a queen among
the younger ones, but a queen that deigned to friendship with her
subjects. Some of them called her Miss Sanderson, one or two of them
Phyllie.

Among these last was Healy, who appeared on very good terms with her
indeed. He appointed himself a sort of master of ceremonies, and handed
to each man his mail with appropriate jocular comments designed to
embarrass the recipient. He knew them all, and his hits were greeted
with gay laughter. To the man standing in the doorway with his back to
them, they seemed all one happy family--and himself a rank outsider. He
trailed down the steps and swung himself to the saddle. As he loped away
the sound of her warm, clear laughter floated after him.




CHAPTER III

CAUGHT RED-HANDED


From a cleft in the hills two riders emerged, following a little gulch
to the point where it widened into a draw. The alkali dust of Arizona
lay thick upon their broad-brimmed Stetsons and every inch of exposed
surface, but through the gray coating bloomed the freshness of youth. It
rang from their voices, was apparent in the modelling and carriage of
their figures. The young man was sinewy and hard as nails, the girl
supple and wiry, of a slender grace, straight-backed as an Indian in the
saddle.

Just where the draw dipped down into the grassy park they drew rein an
instant. Faint and far a sound drifted to them. Somebody down in the
park had fired a rifle.

"I don't agree with you, Phil," the girl said, picking up the thread of
their conversation where they had dropped it some minutes earlier. "The
nesters have as much right here as we have. They come here to settle,
and they take up government land. Why shouldn't they?"

"Because we got here first," he retorted impatiently. "Because our
cattle and sheep have been feeding on the land they are fencing.
Because they close the water holes and the creeks and claim they are
theirs. It means the end of the open range. That's what it means."

"Of course that's what it means. We'll have to adapt ourselves to it.
You talk foolishness when you make threats to drive out the nesters.
That is the sort of thing Buck Weaver has been trying to do. It's
absurd. The law is back of them. You would only come to trouble, and if
you did succeed others would take their places."

"And rustle our cattle," he added sullenly.

"It isn't proved they are the rustlers. You haven't a shred of evidence.
Perhaps they are, but you should prove it before you make the charge."

"If they aren't, who is?" he flared up.

"I don't know. But whoever it is will be caught and punished some day.
There is no doubt at all about that."

"You talk a heap of foolishness, Phyl," he answered resentfully. "My
notion is they never will be caught. What makes you so sure they will?"

They had been riding down the draw, and at this moment Phyllis looked
up, to see a rider silhouetted against the sky line on the ridge above.

"Oh, you Brill!" she cried, with a wave of her quirt.

The man turned, saw them, and rode slowly down. He nodded, after the
fashion of the range, first to the girl, and then to her brother.

"Morning," he nodded. "Headed for Mesa? Here, too."

He fell in with them and rode beside the girl. Presently they topped a
little hillock, and looked down into the park. It had about the area of
a mile, and was perhaps twice as long as broad. Wooded spurs ran down
from the hills into it here and there, and through the meadow leaped a
silvery stream.

"Hello! Wonder where that smoke comes from?"

It was Healy that spoke. He pointed to a faint cloud rising from a
distance. Even before he began to speak, however, Phyllis had her field
glasses out, and was adjusting them to her eyes.

"There's a fire there and a man standing over it," she presently
announced. "There's something else there, too. I can't make it
out--something lying down."

The men glanced at each other, and in the meeting of their eyes some
intelligence passed between them. It was as if the younger accused and
the older sullenly denied.

"Lemme have the glasses," Phil said to his sister almost roughly.

Healy glanced at Phil swiftly, covertly, as the latter adjusted the
glasses. "She's right about the fire and the man. I can see as much with
my naked eyes," he cut in.

The boy looked long, lowered the glasses, and met his friend's eye with
a kind of shamefaced hesitation. But apparently he gathered reassurance
from the quiet steadiness with which the other's gaze met him. He handed
the glasses to Healy. When the latter lowered them his face was grave.
"There's a man and a fire and a cow and a calf. When these four things
meet up together, what does it mean?"

"Branding!" cried the girl.

"That's right--branding. And when the cow is dead what does it mean?"
Brill asked, his eyes full on Phil.

"Rustling!" she breathed again.

"You've said it, Phyl. We've got one of them at last," he cried
jubilantly.

Phil, hanging between doubt and suspicion and shame, brightened at the
enthusiasm of the other.

"Right you are, Brill. We'll solve this mystery once for all."

Healy, unstrapping the case in which lay his rifle, shot a question at
the boy. "Armed, Phil?"

The lad nodded. "I brought my six-gun for rattlesnakes."

"Are you going to--to----" cried Phyllis, the color gone from her face.

"We're going to capture him alive if we can, Phyl. You're to wait right
here till we come back. You may hear shooting. Don't let that worry you.
We've got the drop on him, or will have. Nobody is going to get hurt if
he acts sensible," Healy reassured.

"Don't you move from here. You stay right where you are," her brother
ordered sharply.

"Yes," she said, and was aware that her throat was suddenly parched.
"You'll be careful, won't you, Phil?"

"Sure," he called back, as he put his horse at a canter to follow his
friend up the draw.

The sound of the hoofs died away, and she was alone. That they were
going to circle in and out among the tangle of hills until they were
opposite the miscreant, she knew, but in spite of Brill's promise she
had a heart of water. With trembling fingers she raised the glasses
again, and focused them on that point which was to be the centre of the
drama.

The man was moving about now, quite unconscious of the danger that
menaced him. What she looked at was the great crime of Cattleland. All
her life she had been taught to hold it in horror. But now something
human in her was deeper than her detestation of the cowardly and awful
thing this man had just done. She wanted to cry out to him a warning,
and did in a faint, ineffective voice that carried not a tenth of the
distance between them.

She had promised to remain where she was, but her tense interest in what
was doing drew her forward in spite of herself. She rode along the ridge
that bordered the park, at first slowly and then quicker as the impulse
grew in her to be in at the finish.

The climax came. She saw him look round quickly, and in an instant his
pony was at the gallop and he was lying low on its neck. A shot rang
out, and another, but without checking his flight. He turned in the
saddle and waved a derisive hand at the shooters, then plunged into a
wash and disappeared.

What inspired her she could never tell. Perhaps it was her indignation
at the thing he had done, perhaps her anger at that mocking wave of the
hand with which he had vanished. She wheeled her horse, and put it at a
canter down the nearest draw so as to try to intercept him at right
angles. Her heart beat fast with excitement, but she was conscious of no
fear.

Before she had covered half the distance, she knew she was going to be
too late to cut off his retreat. Faintly, she heard the rhythm of hoofs
striking the rocky bottom of the draw. Abruptly they ceased. Wondering
what that could mean, she found her answer presently. For the pounding
of the galloping broncho had renewed itself, and closer. The man was
riding up the gulch toward her. He had turned into its mesquite-laced
entrance for a hiding place. Phyllis drew rein, and waited quietly to
confront him, but with a pulse that hammered the moments for her.

A white-stockinged roan, plowing a way through heavy sand, labored into
view round the bend, its rider slewed in the saddle with his whole
attention upon the possible pursuit. Not until he was almost upon her
did the man turn. With a startled exclamation at sight of the motionless
figure, he pulled up sharply. It was the nester, Keller.

"You," she cried.

"Happy to meet you, Miss Sanderson," he told her jauntily.

His revolver slid into its holster, and his hat came off in a low bow.
White, even teeth gleamed in a sardonic smile.

"So you are a--rustler," she told him scornfully.

"I hate to contradict a lady," he came back, with a kind of bitter
irony.

She saw something else, a deepening stain that soaked slowly down his
shirt sleeve.

"You are wounded."

"Am I?"

"Aren't you?"

"Come to think of it, I believe I am," he laughed shortly.

"Badly?"

"I haven't got the doctor's report yet." There was a gleam of whimsical
gayety in his eyes as he added: "I was going to find him when I had the
good luck to meet up with you."

He was a hunted miscreant, wounded, riding for his life as a hurt wolf
dodges to shake off the pursuit, but strangely enough her gallant heart
thrilled to the indomitable pluck of him. Never had she seen a man who
looked more the vagabond enthroned. His crisp bronze curls and his
superb shoulders were bathed in the sunpour. Not once, since his eyes
had fallen on her, had he looked back to see if his hunters had picked
up the lost trail. He was as much at ease as if his whole thought at
meeting her were the pleasure of the encounter.

"Can you ride?" she demanded.

"I can stick on a hawss if it's plumb gentle. Leastways I've been trying
to for twenty years," he drawled.

Her impatient gesture waved his flippancy aside. "I mean, are you too
much hurt to ride? I'm not going to leave you here like a wounded
coyote. Can you follow me if I lead the way?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She turned. He followed her obediently, but with a ghost of a smile
still flickering on his face.

"Am I your prisoner, Miss Sanderson?" he presently wanted to know.

"I'm not thinking of prisoners just now," she answered shortly, with an
anxious backward glance.

Presently she pulled up and wheeled her horse, so that when he halted
they sat facing each other.

"Let me see your arm," she ordered.

Obediently he held out to her the one that happened to be nearest. It
was the unwounded one. An angry spark gleamed in her eye.

"This is no time to be fresh. Give me the other."

"Yes, ma'am." he answered, with deceptive meekness.

Without comment, she turned back the sleeve which came to the wrist
gauntlet, and discovered a furrow ridged by a rifle bullet. It was a
clean flesh wound, neither deep nor long enough to cause him trouble
except for the immediate loss of blood. To her inexperience it looked
pretty bad.

"A plumb scratch," he explained.

She took the kerchief from her neck, and tied it about the hurt, then
pulled down the sleeve and buttoned it over the brown forearm. All this
she did quite impersonally, her face free of the least sympathy.

"Thank you, ma'am. You're a right friendly enemy."

"It isn't a matter of friendship at all. One couldn't leave a wounded
jack rabbit in pain," she retorted coldly, taking up the trail again.

There was room for two abreast, and he chose to ride beside her. "So you
tied me up because it was your Christian duty," he soliloquized aloud.
"Just the same as if I had been a mangy coyote that was suffering."

"Exactly."

He let his cool eyes rest on her with a hint of amusement. "And what
were you thinking of doing with me now, ma'am?"

"I'm going to take you up to Jim Yeager's mine. He is doing his
assessment work now, and he'll look out for you for a day or two."

"Look out for me in a locked room?" he wanted to know casually.

"I didn't say so. It isn't my business to arrest criminals," she told
him icily.

His eyes gleamed mischief. "Is it your business to help them to escape?"

"I'm not helping you to escape. I'll not risk your dying in the hills
alone. That is all."

"Jim Yeager is your friend?"

"Yes."

"And you guarantee he'll keep his mouth padlocked and not betray me?"

"He'll do as he pleases about that," she said indifferently.

"Then I don't reckon I'll trouble his hospitality. Good-by, Miss
Sanderson. I've enjoyed meeting you very much."

He checked his pony and bowed.

"Where are you going?" the girl exclaimed.

"Up Bear Creek."

"It's twenty miles. You can't do it."

"Sure I can. Thanks for your kindness, Miss Sanderson. I'll return the
handkerchief some day," and with a touch swung round his pony.

"You're not going. I won't have it, and you wounded!"

He turned in the saddle, smiling at her with jaunty insouciance.

"I'll answer for Jim. He won't betray you," she promised, subduing her
pride.

"Thanks. I'll take your word for it, but I won't trouble your friend.
I've had all the Christian charity that's good for me this mo'ning," he
drawled.

At that she flamed out passionately: "Do you want me to tell you that I
_like_ you, knowing what you are? Do you want me to pretend that I feel
friendly when I hate you?"

"Do you want me to be under obligations to folks that hate me?" he came
back with his easy smile.

"You have lost a lot of blood. Your arm is still bleeding. You know I
can't let you go alone."

"You're ce'tainly aching for a chance to be a Good Samaritan, Miss
Sanderson."

With this he left her. But he had not gone a hundred yards before he
heard her pony cantering after his. One glance told him she was furious,
both at him and at herself.

"Did you come after your handkerchief, ma'am? I'm not through with it
yet," he said innocently.

"I'm going with you. I'm not going to leave you till we meet some one
that will take charge of you," she choked.

"It isn't necessary. I'm much obliged, ma'am, but you're overestimating
the effect of this pill your friend injected into me."

"Still, I'm going. I won't have your death on my hands," she told him
defiantly.

"Sho! I ain't aimin' to pass over the divide on account of a scratch
like this. There's no danger but what I can look out for myself."

She waited in silence for him to start, looking straight ahead of her.

He tried in vain to argue her out of it. She had nothing to say, and he
saw she was obstinately determined to carry her point.

Finally, with a little chuckle at her stubbornness, he gave in and
turned round.

"All right. Yeager's it is. We're acting like a pair of kids, seems to
me." This last with a propitiatory little smile toward her which she
disdained to answer.

Yeager saw them from afar, and recognized the girl.

"Hello, Phyllis!" he shouted down. "With you in a minute."

The girl slipped to the ground, and climbed the steep trail to meet him.
Her crisp "Wait here," flung over her shoulder with the slightest turn
of the head, kept Keller in the saddle.

Halfway up she and the man met. The one waiting below could not hear
what they said, but he could tell she was explaining the situation to
Yeager. The latter nodded from time to time, protested, was vehemently
overruled, and seemed to leave the matter with her. Together they
retraced their way. Young Yeager, in flannel shirt and half-leg miner's
boots, was a splendid specimen of bronzed Arizona. His level gaze judged
the man on horseback, approved him, and met him eye to eye.

"Better light, Mr. Keller. If you come in we'll have a look at your arm.
An accident like that is a mighty awkward thing to happen to a man on
the trail. It's right fortunate Miss Sanderson found you so soon after
it happened."

The nester knew a surge of triumph in his blood, but it did not show in
the impassive face which he turned upon his host.

"It was right fortunate for me," he said, swinging from the saddle.
Incidentally he was wondering what story had been narrated to Yeager,
but he took a chance without hesitation. "A fellow oughtn't to be so
careless when he's got a gun in his hand."

"You're right, seh. In this country of heavy underbrush a man's gun is
liable to go off and hit somebody any time if he ain't careful. You're
in big luck you didn't shoot yourself up a heap worse."

Yeager led the way to his cabin, and offered Phyllis the single chair he
boasted, and the nester a seat on the bed. Sitting beside him, he
examined the wound and washed it.

"Comes to being an invalid I'm a false alarm," Keller said
apologetically. "I didn't want to come, but Miss Sanderson would bring
me."

"She was dead right, too. Time you had ridden twenty miles through the
hot sun with that wound you would have been in a raging fever."

"One way and another I'm quite in her debt."

"That's so," agreed Yeager, intent on his work.

She refused to meet the nester's smile. "Fiddlesticks! You talk mighty
foolish, Jim. I wouldn't go away and leave a wounded dog if I could help
it."

"Suppose the dog were a sheep-killer?" Keller asked with his engaging,
impudent smile.

A dust cloud rose from her skirt under a stroke of the restless quirt.
"I'd do my best for it and let it settle with the law afterward."

"Even if it were a wolf caught in a trap?"

"I should put it out of its pain. No matter how much I detested it, I
wouldn't leave it there to suffer."

"I'm quite sure you wouldn't," the wounded man agreed.

Yeager looked from one to the other, not quite catching the drift of the
underlying meaning. Another thing puzzled him, too. But, like most men
of the unfenced Southwest, Yeager had a large capacity for silence. Now
he attended strictly to his business, without mentioning what he had
noticed.

The wound dressed, Phyllis rose to leave. "You'll be down for your mail
to-morrow, Jim," she suggested, as she sauntered toward the door.

"Sure. I'll let you know how our patient is getting along."

"Oh, he's yours. I don't want any of the credit," she returned
carelessly.

Then, the words scarce off her lips, she gave a little cry of alarm, and
stepped quickly back into the room. What she had seen had sapped the
color from her face. Yeager started forward, but she waved him back.

"It's Phil and Brill Healy. You've got to hide us, Jim," she told him
tensely.

The nester began to grin. He always did when he faced a difficulty
apparently insurmountable. Also his fingers slid toward the butt of his
revolver.




CHAPTER IV

"I'M A RUSTLER AND A THIEF, AM I?"


Jim swept the cabin with a gesture. "Where can I hide you? Anyhow, there
are the horses in plain sight."

Phyllis took imperious control. "Get a coat on him, Jim," she ordered.

At the same time she caught up the basin of bloodstained water and flung
its contents through the open window. The torn linen and the stained
handkerchief she tossed into a corner and covered with a gunny sack.

"Not a word about the wound, Jim. Mr. Keller is here to help you do your
assessment work, remember. And whatever I say, don't give me away."

Yeager nodded. He had manoeuvred the wounded arm through the coat sleeve
and was straightening out the shoulders. The nester's eyes were shining
with excitement. Alone of the three, he was enjoying himself.

"Remember now. Don't talk too much. Let me run this," the girl
cautioned, and with that she stepped to the door, caught sight of her
brother with a glad little cry of apparent relief, and ran swiftly to
him.

"Oh, Phil!" she almost sobbed, and the stress of her emotion was genuine
enough, even if she dissembled as to the cause.

The boy patted her dark hair gently. They were twins, without other near
relatives except their father, and the tie between them was close.

"What is it, Phyllie? Why didn't you stay where we left you?"

"I was afraid for you. And I rode a little nearer. Then he came straight
toward me--and I rode away. I could hear him crashing through the
mesquite. When I reached the trail of Jim's mine, I followed it, for I
knew he would be here."

"Sure. Course she was scared. What woman wouldn't be? We oughtn't both
to have left her. But there wasn't one chance in a thousand of his
stumbling on the very spot where she was," said Healy.

Phil gentled her with a caressing hand. "It's all right now, sis. Did
you happen to see the fellow at all?"

"Yes. At a distance."

"I don't suppose you would know him," Healy said.

She gave a strained little laugh. "I didn't wait to get a description of
him. Didn't you boys recognize him?"

After Phil's answer she breathed freer. "We did not get near enough,
though Brill got two shots at him as he pulled out. He was going
hell-for-leather and Brill missed both times." He lowered his voice and
asked angrily: "What's _he_ doing here?"

For Keller had followed Yeager from the cabin and was standing in the
doorway with his hands in his pockets. He wore no hat, and had the
manner of one very much at home.

"He's helping Jim with his assessment work," she answered in the same
low tone. "It's too bad you lost the rustler. He must have broken for
the hills."

Healy's eyes had narrowed to slits. Now he murmured a question: "What
about this man Keller? Was he here when you came, Phyl?"

The girl turned to Yeager, who had sauntered up. "Didn't you say he came
this morning, Jim?"

Yeager's eyes were like a stone wall. "Yep. This mo'ning. I needed some
husky guy to help me, so I got him."

"Funny you had to get a fellow from Bear Creek to help you, Jim."

"Are you looking for a job, Brill?"

"No. Why?"

"Because I ain't noticed any stampede this way among the boys to preempt
this job. I take a man where I can find him, Brill, and I don't ask you
to O.K. him."

"I see you don't, Jim. The boys aren't going to like it very well,
though."

"Then they know what they can do about it," Yeager answered evenly,
level eyes steadily on those of his critic.

"What time did this nester get here, Jim?" broke in Phil.

Yeager's opaque eyes passed from Healy to Sanderson. "It might have been
about eight."

"Then he couldn't be the man," the boy said to Healy, almost in a
whisper.

"What man?" Jim asked.

"We ran on a rustler branding a C.O. calf. We got close enough to take a
shot at him. Then he slid into some arroyo, and we lost him," Phil
exclaimed.

"How long ago was this?" asked Yeager.

"About an hour since we first saw him. Beats all how he ever made his
getaway. We were right after him when he gave us the slip."

"Oh, he gave you the slip, did he?"

"Dropped into some hole and pulled it in after him. These hills are
built for hide and seek, looks like."

"Notice the color of his horse?"

"It was a roan, Jim. Something like that nester's." Phil nodded toward
the animal Keller had ridden.

All eyes focused hard on the horse with the white stockings.

"What brand was he putting on the calf? That'll tell you who the man
was."

Phil and Healy looked at each other, and the latter laughed. "That's one
on us. We didn't stay to look, but got right out for Mr. Rustler."

"Did he kill the cow?"

Phil nodded.

"Then you'll find the calf still hanging around there unless he had a
pal to drive it away."

"That's right. We'll go back now and look. Ready, Phyl?"

"Yes." She stepped to her horse, and swung to the saddle.

Meanwhile Healy rode forward to the cabin. Through narrowed lids he
looked down at the man standing in the doorway. "Give that message to
your friends?" he demanded insolently.

There are men who have to look at each other only once to know that
there is born between them a perpetual hostility. Each of these men had
felt it at the first shock of meeting eyes. They would feel it again as
often as they looked at each other.

"No," the nester answered.

"Why not?"

"I didn't care to. You may carry your own messages."

"When I do I'll carry them with a gun."

"Interesting if true." Keller's gaze passed derisively over him and
dismissed the man.

"And I hope when I come I'll meet Mr. Keller first."

The nester's attention was focused indolently upon the hills. He seemed
to have forgotten that the cattleman was in Arizona.

Healy ripped out a sudden oath, drove the spurs in, and went down the
trail with his broncho on the buck.

Keller looked at Yeager and laughed, but that young man met him with a
frosty eye.

"I've got some questions to ask you, Mr. Keller," he said.

"Unload 'em."

Yeager led the way inside, offered his guest the chair, and sat down on
the bed with his arms on the table which had been drawn close to it.

"In the first place, I'll announce myself. I don't hold with rustlers or
waddies. I'm a white man. That being understood, I want to know where
we're at."

"Meaning?"

"Miss Phyllis unloads a story on me about you shooting yourself up
accidental. Soon as I looked at you that looked fishy to me. You ain't
that kind of a durn fool. Would you mind handing me a dipper of water?
Thanks." Yeager tossed the water out of the window, and the dipper back
into the pail. "I noticed you handed me that water with your right hand.
Your gun is on your right side. Then how in Mexico, you being
right-handed, did you manage to shoot yourself _in the right arm below
the elbow?_"

Keller laughed dryly, and offered no information. "Quite a Sherlock
Holmes, ain't you?"

"Hell, no! I got eyes in my head, though. Moreover, that bullet went in
at right angles to your arm. How did you make out to do that?"

"Sleight of hand," suggested the other.

"No powder marks, either. And, lastly, it was, a rifle did it, not a
revolver."

"Anything more?"

"Some. That side talk between you and Miss Phyllis wasn't over and above
clear to me then. I _savez_ it now. She hates you like p'ison, but
she's too tender-hearted to give you up. Ain't that it?"

"That's it."

"She lied for you to me. She lied again to Phil. So did I. Oh, we didn't
lie in words, but it's the same thing. Now, I wouldn't lie to save my
own skin. Why then should I for yours, and you a rustler and a thief?"

"I'm a rustler and a thief, am I?"

"Ain't you?"

"Would you believe me if I said I wasn't?"

Yeager debated an instant before he answered flatly, "No."

"Then I won't say it."

The wounded man tossed his answer off so flippantly that Yeager scowled
at him. "Mr. Keller, you're a newcomer here. I wonder if you know what
the Malpais country would be liable to do to a man caught rustling now."

"I can guess."

"Let me tell what I know and your life wouldn't be worth a plugged
quarter."

"Why didn't you tell?"

Yeager brought his big fist down heavily on the table. "Because of Phyl
Sanderson. That's why. She put it up to me, and I played her game. But I
ain't sure I'm going to keep on playing it. I'm a Malpais man. My father
has a ranch down there, and I've rode the range all my life. Why should
I throw down my friends to save a rustler caught in the act?"

"You've already tried and convicted me, I see."

"The facts convict you, seh."

"Your understanding of the facts, I reckon you mean."

"I haven't noticed that you're giving me any chance to understand them
different," Yeager cut back dryly.

The nester took from his pocket a little pearl-handled knife, picked up
a potato from a basket beside him, and began to whittle on it absently.
He looked across the table at the man sitting on the bed, and debated a
question in his mind. Was it best to confess the whole truth? Or should
he keep his own counsel?

"I see you've got Miss Sanderson's knife. Did you forget to return it?"
Yeager made comment.

For just an instant Keller's eye confessed amazement. "Miss Sanderson's
knife! Why--how did you know it was hers?" he asked, gathering himself
together lamely.

"I ought to know, seeing as I gave it to her for a Christmas present.
Sent to Denver for that knife, I did. Best lady's knife in the market,
I'm told. Made in Sheffield, England."

"Ye-es. It's sure a good knife. I'll ce'tainly return it next time I see
her."

"Funny she ever let you get away with it. She's some particular who she
lends that knife to," Jim said proudly.

Keller wiped the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his
pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had
told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a
possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in
trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others
into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson--surely not this
impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes.
Wherefore he decided to keep silent now and let Yeager do what he would.

"I reckon, seh, you'll have to do your own guessing at the facts," he
said gently.

"Just as you say, Mr. Keller. I reckon if you had anything to say for
yourself you would say it. Now, I'll do what talking I've got to do. You
may stay here twenty-four hours. After that you may hit the trail for
Bear Creek. I'm going down to Seven Mile to tell what I know."

"That's all right. I'll go along and return the pocketknife."

Yeager viewed him with stern disgust. "Don't make any mistake, seh. If
you go down it's an even chance you'll never go back."

"Sure. Life's full of chances. There's even a chance I'm not a rustler."

"Then I'd advise you not to go down to Seven Mile with me. I'd hate to
find out too late I'd helped hang the wrong man," Yeager dryly answered.




CHAPTER V

AN AIDER AND ABETTOR


Having come to an understanding, Yeager and Keller wasted no time or
temper in acrimony. Both of them belonged to that big outdoors West
which plays the game to the limit without littleness. They were in
hostile camps, but that did not prevent them from holding amiable
conversation on the common topics of Cattleland. Only one of these they
avoided by mutual consent. Neither of them had anything to say about
rustling.

Together they ate and smoked and slept, and in the morning after
breakfast they saddled and set out for Seven Mile. A man might have
traveled far without seeing finer specimens of the frontier, any more
competent, self-restrained, or fitter for emergency. They rode with
straight back and loose seat, breaking long silences with occasional
drawling comment. For in the cow country strong men talk only when they
have something to say.

The stage had just left when they reached Seven Mile, and Public Opinion
was seated on the porch as per custom. It regarded Keller with a stony,
expressionless hostility. Yeager with frank disapprobation.

Just before swinging from the saddle, Jim turned to the nester. "I'm
giving you an hour, seh. After that, I'm going to speak my little piece
to the boys."

"Thank you. An hour will be plenty," Keller answered, and passed into
the store, apparently oblivious of the silent observation focused upon
him.

Phyllis, busy unwrapping a package of papers, glanced up to see his
curly head in the stamp window.

"Anything for L. Keller?" he wanted to know, after he had unburdened
himself of a friendly "Mornin', Miss Sanderson."

Her impulse was to ask him how his wound was, but she repressed it
sternly. She took the letters from the K pigeonhole and found two for
him.

"Thank you, I'm feeling fine," he laughed, gathering up his mail.

"I didn't ask you how you were feeling," she answered, turning coldly to
her newspapers.

"I thought mebbe you'd want to know about my punctured tire."

"It's very good of you to relieve my anxiety."

"Let me relieve it some more, Miss Sanderson. Here's the knife you
lost."

She glanced up carelessly at the pearl-handled knife he pushed through
the window. "I didn't know it was lost."

"Well, now you know it's found. When do you remember seeing it last,
ma'am?"

"I lent it to a friend two days ago."

"Oh, to a friend--two days ago."

His eyes were on her so steadily that the girl was aware of some
significance he gave to the fact, some hidden meaning that escaped her.

"What friend did you say, Miss Sanderson?"

He asked it casually, but his question irritated her.

"I didn't say, sir."

"That's so. You didn't."

"Where did you get it?" she demanded.

He grinned. "I'll tell you that if you'll tell me who you lent it to."

Her curt answer reminded him that he was in her eyes a convicted
criminal. "It's of no importance, sir."

"That's what you think, Miss Sanderson."

She sorted the newspapers in the bundle, and began to slip them into the
private boxes where they belonged. Presently, however, her curiosity
demanded satisfaction. Without looking at him, she volunteered
information.

"But there's no mystery about it. Phil borrowed the knife to fix a
stirrup leather, and forgot to give it back to me."

"Your brother?"

"Yes."

He was taken aback. There was nothing for it but a white lie. "I found
it near Yeager's mine yesterday. I reckon he must have dropped it on his
way there."

"I don't see anything very mysterious about that," she said frostily.

She looked so definitely unaware of him as she worked that he fell back
from the window and passed out to the porch. He had found out more than
he wanted to know.

Jim Yeager's drawling voice came to him, gentle and low as usual, but
with an edge to it. "I been discoverin' I'm some unpopular to-day,
Brill. Malpais has been expressin' its opinion right plain. You've
arrived in time to chirp in with a 'Me, too.'"

Healy had evidently just ridden up, for he was still in the saddle. He
relaxed into one of the easy attitudes used by men of the plains to rest
themselves without dismounting.

"You know my sentiments, Jim," he replied, not unamiably.

"Sure I know them. Plumb dissatisfied with me, ain't you? Makes me feel
awful bad." Jim was sailing into the full tide of his sarcasm when
Keller touched him on the shoulder.

"I'd like to see you for a moment, Mr. Yeager, if you can give me the
time," he said.

Healy took in the nester with an eye of jade. "Your twin brother wants
you, Jim. Run along with him. Don't mind us."

"I won't, Brill."

The young man rose, and sauntered off with the Bear Creek settler. At
the corral fence, some fifty yards from the house, he stopped under the
shade of a live oak, and put his arms on the top rail. He had allowed
himself to show no sign of it, but he resented this claim upon him that
seemed to ally him further with the enemy.

"Here I am, Mr. Keller. What can I do for you?"

"You're a friend of Miss Sanderson. You would stand between her and
trouble?" the other demanded abruptly.

"I expect."

"Then find out for me what Phil Sanderson did with the knife his sister
lent him two days ago. Find out whether he lent it to anybody, and, if
so, who."

"What for?"

It had come to a show-down, and the other tabled his cards.

"I found that knife yesterday mo'ning. It was lying beside the dead cow
in the park where your friends happened on me. I reckon the rustlers
must have heard me coming and drove the calf away just before I arrived.
In his hurry one of them forgot that knife. If you'll tell me the man
who had it in his pocket yesterday when he left-home, I'll tell you who
one of the Malpais rustlers is."

Jim considered this, his gaze upon the far-away range. When he brought
it back to Keller, he was smiling incredulously.

"I hear you say so, seh. But what a man with, a halter round his neck
says don't go far before a court."

"I expected you to say about that."

"Then I haven't disappointed you." He continued presently, with cold
hostility: "That story you cooked up is about the only one you could
spring. What surprises me is that a man with as good a head as yours
took twenty-four hours to figure out your explanation. I want to tell
you, too, that it don't make any hit with me that you're trying to throw
the blame on a boy I've known all my life."

"Who happens to be a brother of Miss Sanderson," Keller let himself
suggest.

Yeager flushed. "That ain't the point."

"The point is that I'm trying to clear this boy, and I want your help."

"Looks to me like you want to clear yourself."

"If I prove to you that I'm not a rustler, will you padlock your tongue
and help me clear young Sanderson?"

"I sure will--if you prove it to my satisfaction."

Keller drew from his pocket the two letters he had just received. "Read
these."

When he had read, Yeager handed them back, and offered his hand. "That
clears you, seh. Truth is, I never was satisfied you was a rustler. My
mind was satisfied; but, durn it, you didn't _look_ like a waddy. It's
lucky I hadn't spoke to the boys yet."

"I want to keep this quiet," the Bear Creek settler explained.

"Sure. I'm a clam, and at your service, seh."

"Then find out the truth about the knife."

Yeager's eye chiselled into that of Keller. "Mind, I ain't going to help
you bring trouble to Phyllie, and I ain't going to stand by and see it,
either."

The other smiled. "I don't ask it of you. What I want is to clear the
boy."

"Good enough," agreed Yeager, and led the way back.

Before they had yet reached the house, a figure dropped from the foliage
of the live oak under which they had been standing, and rolled like a
ball from the fence into the deep dust of the corral. It picked itself
up in a gray cloud, from which shone as a nucleus a black face with
beady eyes and flashing-white teeth. Swiftly it scampered across the
paddock, disappeared into the rear of the stable, and reappeared at the
front door.

"Here you, 'Rastus, where you been?" demanded the wrangler. "Didn't I
tell you to clean Miss Phyl's trap? I've wore my lungs out hollering for
you. Now, you git to work, or I'll wear you to a frazzle."

'Rastus, general alias for his baptismal name of George Washington
Abraham Lincoln Randolph, grinned and ducked, shot out of the stable
like a streak of light, and appeared ten seconds later in the kitchen
presided over by his rotund mother, Becky.

His abrupt entrance disturbed the maternal after-dinner nap. From the
rocking-chair where she sat Becky rolled affronted eyes at him.

"What you doin' here, Gawge Washington? Ain't I done tole you sebenty
times seben to keep outa my kitchen at dis time o' day?"

"I wanter see Miss Phyl."

"Then I low you kin take it out in wantin'. Think she got time to fool
away on a nigger sprout like you-all? Light a shuck back to the stable,
where you belong."

'Rastus grinned amiably, flung himself at a door, and vanished into that
part of the house which was forbidden territory to him, the while Becky
stared after him in amazement.

"What in tarnation got in dat nigger child?" she gasped.

Phyllis, having arranged the mail and delivered most of it, had left the
store in charge of the clerk and retired to her private den, a cool room
finished in restful tints at the northeast corner of the house. She was
sitting by a window reading a magazine, when there came a knock. Her
"Come in" disclosed 'Rastus and the whites of his rolling eyes.

She nodded and smiled. "What can I do for you, George Washington Abraham
Lincoln Randolph?"

"I done come to tell you somepin I heerd whilst I was asleep in de live
oak at the corral."

"Something you dreamed. It is very good of you, George Wash----"

"Now, don't you call me all dat again, Miss Phyl. And I didn't dream it
nerrer. I woke up and heerd it. Mr. Jim Yeager and dat nester they call
Keller wuz a-talkin', and Mr. Jim he allowed dat Keller wuz a rustler,
and den Keller he allowed dat Mr. Phil wuz de rustler."

"What!" The girl had sprung to her feet, amazed, her dark eyes blazing
indignation.

"Tha's what he said. He went on to tell how he done found a knife by the
dead cow, an' 'twuz yore knife, an' you done loan it to Mr. Phil."

"He said that!" She was a creature transformed by passion. The hot blood
of Southern ancestors raced through her veins clamorously. She wanted to
strike down this man, to annihilate him and the cowardly lie he had
given to shield himself. And pat to her need came the very person she
could best use for her instrument.

Healy stood surprised in the doorway, confronted by the slender young
amazon. The storm of passion in the eyes, the underlying flush in the
dusky cheeks, indicated a new mood in his experience of this young
woman of many moods.

"Come in and shut the door," she ordered. Then, "Tell him, 'Rastus."

The boy, all smiles gone now, repeated his story, and was excused.

"What do you think of that, Brill?" the girl demanded, after the door
had closed on him.

The stockman's eyes had grown hard. "I think Keller's covering his own
tracks. Of course we've got no direct proof, but----"

"We have," she broke in.

"I can't see it. According to Jim Yeager----"

"Jim lied. I asked him to."

"You--what?"

"I asked him to say that this man had come there to work for him. Jim
was not to blame."

"But--why?"

She threw out a gesture of self-contempt. "Why did I do it? I don't
know. Because he was wounded, I suppose."

"Wounded! Then I did hit him?"

"Yes. In the arm--a flesh wound. I met him riding through the mesquite.
After I had tied up his wound, I took him to Jim's."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "So you tied up his wound?"

"Yes," she answered defiantly, her head up.

"That tender heart of yours," he murmured, with almost a sneer.

"Yes. I'm a fool."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, well."

"And he pays me back by trying to throw it on Phil. Hunt him down,
Brill. Bring him to me. I'll tell all I know against him," she cried
vindictively.

"I'll get him, Phyl," he promised, and the sound of his laughter was not
pleasant. "I'll get him for you, or find out why."

"Think of him trying to put it on Phil, and after I stood by him and
kept his secret. Isn't that the worst ever?" the girl flamed.

"He rode away not five minutes ago as big as coffee on that ugly roan of
his with the white stockings; knew what we thought about him, but didn't
pay any more attention to us than as if we were bumps on a log."

Healy strode out to the porch, told his story, and within five minutes
had organized his posse and appointed a rendezvous for two hours later
at Seven Mile.

At the appointed time his men were on hand, six of them, armed with
rifles and revolvers, ready for grim business.

From her window Phyllis saw them ride away, and persuaded herself that
she was glad. Vengeance was about to fall upon this insolent freebooter
who had not even manhood enough to appreciate a kindness. But as the
hours passed she was beset by a consuming anxiety. What more likely
than that he would resist! If so, there could be only one end. She
could not keep her thoughts from those seven men whom she had sent
against the one.

There was nobody to whom she could talk about it, for Phil and her
father were away at Noches. Restless as a caged panther, she twice had
her horse brought to the door, and rode into the hills to meet her
posse. But she could not be sure which way they would come, and after
venturing a short distance she would return for fear they might arrive
in her absence. Night had fallen over the country, and the stars were
out long before she got back the second time. Nine--ten--eleven o'clock
struck, and still no sign of those for whom she waited.

At last they came, their prisoner riding in the midst, bareheaded and
with his hands tied.

"I've got him, Phyl!" Healy cried in a voice that told the girl he was
riding on a wave of triumph.

"I see you have."

Nevertheless she looked not at the victor, but at the vanquished, and
never had she seen a man who looked more master of his fate than this
one. He was smiling down at her whimsically, and she saw they had not
taken him without a struggle. The marks of it were on them and on him.
Healy's cheek bone was laid open in a nasty cut, and Slim had a
handkerchief tied round his head.

As for Keller, his shirt was in ribbons and dyed with the stains of
blood from the wound that had broken out again in the battle. The hair
on the left side of his head was clotted with dried blood, and his
cheeks were covered with it. Both eyes were blacked, and hands and face
were scratched badly. But his mien was as jaunty, his smile as gallant,
as if he had come at the head of a conquering army.

"Good evenin', Miss Sanderson," he bowed ironically.

She looked at him, and turned away without answering. She heard Healy
curse softly and knew why. This man contrived somehow to rob him of his
triumph.

"You are none of you hurt, Brill?" the girl asked in a low voice.

"No. He fought like a wild cat, but we took him by surprise. He had only
his bare fists."

"How about him? Is he hurt?"

"I don't know--or care," the man answered sullenly.

"But he must be looked to."

"I don't know why. It ain't my fault we had to beat him up."

"I didn't say it _was_ your fault, Brill," she answered gently. "But any
one can see he has lost a lot of blood, and his wounds are full of dust.
They must be washed. I want him brought into the house. Aunt Becky and I
will look after him."

"No need of that. Slim will fix him up."

She shook her head. "No, Brill."

His eyes gave way first, but his surrender came with a bad grace.

"All right, Phyl. But he's going to be covered by a gun all the time.
I'm not taking chances on him."

"Then have him taken into my den. I'll wake Aunt Becky and we'll be
there in a few minutes."

When Phyllis arrived with Aunt Becky she found the nester sitting on the
lounge, Healy opposite him with a revolver close to his hand. The
prisoner's arms had been freed. His sardonic smile still twitched at the
corners of his mouth.

"You've ce'tainly begun your practice on a disreputable patient, Doctor
Sanderson. I haven't had time to comb my hair since that little séance
with your friends. We sure did have a sociable time. They're all good
mixers." He looked into the long glass opposite, laughed at sight of his
swollen face, then rattled into a misquotation of some verses he
remembered:

    "There's many a black black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
    For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May."

"Put the water and things down on that table, Becky," her mistress told
her, ignoring the man's blithe folly.

"I'm giving you lots of chances to do the Good Samaritan act," he
continued. "Honest, I hate to be so much trouble. You'll have to blame
Mr. Healy. He's the responsible party for these little accidents of
mine."

"I'm going to be responsible for one more," the stockman told him
darkly.

"I understand your intentions are good, but I've noticed that sometimes
expectation outruns performance," his prisoner came back promptly.

"Not this time, I think."

Phyllis understood that Brill was threatening the nester and that the
latter was defying him lightly, but what either meant precisely she did
not know. She proceeded to business without a word except the necessary
directions to Becky. Not until the arm was dressed and the wound on the
head washed and bandaged did she address Keller.

"I'll send you a powder that will help you get to sleep. The doctor left
it here for Phil, and he did not need it," she said.

"Mebbe I won't need it, either." Keller laughed hardily, at his enemy it
seemed to the girl, and with some hint of a sinister understanding
between them from which she was excluded. "Thanks just the same, for
that and for everything else you've done for me."

Phyllis said "Good night" stiffly, and followed the old negress out. She
went directly to her bedroom, but not to sleep. The night was hot, and
it had been to her a day full of excitement. She had much to think of.
Going to the open window, she sat down in a low chair with her arms
across the sill.

Two men met beneath her window.

"Gimme the makings, Slim," one said to the other.

While he was shaking the tobacco from the pouch to the paper, Slim
spoke. "The boys ought all to be here in another hour, Budd. After that,
it won't take us long."

"Not long," the fat man answered uneasily.

There was a silence. Slim broke it. "We got to do it, o' course."

"Looks like. Got to make an example. No peace on the range till we do."

"I hate like sin to, Budd. He's so damn game."

"Me, too. But we got to. No two ways about it."

"I reckon. Brill says so. But I wish the cuss had a chanct to fight for
his life."

They moved off together in troubled silence, Budd's cigarette glowing
red in the darkness. Behind them they left a girl shocked and rigid.
They were going to lynch him! She knew it as certainly as if she had
been told it in set words. Her blood grew cold, and she shivered. While
the confused horror of it raced through her brain, she noticed
subconsciously that her fingers on the sill were trembling violently.

What could she do? She was only a girl. These men deferred to her in
the trivial pleasantries, but she knew they would go their grim way no
matter how she pleaded. And it would be her fault. She had betrayed the
rustler to them. It would be the same as if she had murdered him. He had
known while she was tending his wounds that she had delivered him to
death, and he had not even reproached her.

Courage flowed back to her heart. She would save him if it were
possible. It must be by strategy if at all. But how? For of course he
was guarded.

She stepped out into the corridor. All was dark there. She tiptoed along
it to the guest room, and found the door unlocked. Nobody was inside.
She canvassed in her mind the possibilities. They might have him
outdoors or in the men's bunk house with them under a guard, or they
might have locked him up somewhere until the arrival of the others. If
the latter, it must be in the store, since that was the only safe place
under lock and key.

Phyllis slipped out of the back door into the darkness, and skirted the
house at a distance. There were lights in the bunk house of the ranch
riders, and through the window she could see a group gathered. Creeping
close to the window, she looked in. Their prisoner was not with them. In
front of the store two men were seated in the darkness. She was almost
upon them before she saw them. Each of them carried a rifle.

"Hello! Who's that?" one of them cried sharply.

It was Tom Dixon.

Phyllis came forward and spoke. "That you, Tom? I suppose you are
guarding the prisoner."

"Yep. Can't you sleep, Phyl?" He walked a dozen yards with her.

"I couldn't, but I see you're keeping watch, all right. I probably can
now. I suppose I was nervous."

"No wonder. But you may sleep, all right. He won't trouble you any. I'll
guarantee that," he promised largely. "Oh, Phyl!"

She had turned to go, but she stopped at his call. "Well?"

"Don't you be mad at me. I was only fooling the other day. Course I
hadn't ought to have got gay. But a fellow makes a break once in a
while."

Under the stress of her deeper anxiety she had forgotten all about her
tiff with him. It had seemed important at the time, but since then Tom
and his affairs had been relegated to second place in her mind. He was
only a boy, full of the vanity that was a part of him. Somehow, her
anger against him was all burnt out.

"If you never will again, Tom," she conceded.

"I'll be good," he smiled, meaning that he would be good as long as he
must.

"All right," she said, without much enthusiasm.

She left him and passed into the house without haste. But once inside
she fairly flew to Phil's room. On a nail near the head of his bed hung
a key. She took this, descended to the kitchen, and from there
noiselessly down the stairway to the cellar. She groped her way without
a light along the adobe wall till she came to a door which was unlocked.
This opened into another part of the cellar, used as a room for storing
supplies needed in their trade. Past barrels and boxes she went to
another stairway and breathlessly ascended it. At the top of eight or
nine steps a door barred progress. Very carefully she found the keyhole,
fitted in the key, and by infinitesimal degrees unlocked the door.

The night seemed alive with the noise of her movements. Now the door
creaked as it swung open before her. She waited, heart beating like a
trip hammer, and stared into the blackness of the store.

"Who is it?" a voice asked in a low tone.

"It's me, Phyl Sanderson. Are you alone?" she whispered.

"Yes. Tied to a chair. Guards are just outside."

She went toward him softly with hands outstretched in the darkness, and
presently her fingers touched his face. They travelled downward till
they found the ropes which bound him. For a moment she fumbled at the
knots before she remembered a swifter way.

"Wait," she breathed, and stole back of the counter to the case where
pocketknives were kept.

Finding one, she ran to him and hacked at the rope till he was free.

He rose and stretched his cramped limbs.

"This way." Phyllis took him by the hand, and led him to the stairs.
Together they descended, after she had locked the door. Another minute,
and they stood in the kitchen, still hand in hand.

The girl released herself. "You will find Slim's horse tied to the fence
of the corral. When you reach it, ride for your life," she said.

"Why have you saved me after you betrayed me?" he demanded.

"I save you because I did betray you. I couldn't have your blood on my
head. Now, go."

"Not till I know why you betrayed me."

"_You_ can ask that." Her indignation gathered and broke. "Because you
are what you are. Because I know what you told Jim Yeager this
afternoon. Why don't you go?"

"What did I tell Yeager? About the knife, you mean?"

"You tried to lay it on Phil to save yourself."

"Did Yeager tell you that?"

"No, but I know it," She pushed him toward the door. "Go, while there is
still a chance."

"I'm not going--not yet. Not till you promise to ask Yeager what I
said."

A footstep sounded, and the door opened. The intruder stopped, his hand
still on the handle, aware that there were others in the room.

"Who is it?" Phyllis breathed, stricken almost dumb with terror.

"It's Slim. Hope I ain't buttin' in, Phyllie."

Unconsciously he had given her the cue she needed.

"Well, you are." She laughed nervously, as might a lover caught
unexpectedly. "It's--it's Phil," she pretended to pretend.

"Oh, it's Phil." Slim laughed in kindly derision, and declared before he
went out: "I expect you would spell his name B-r-i-double l. Don't
forget to invite me to the wedding, Phyllie. Meanwhile I'll be mum as a
clam till you say the word."

With which he jingled away. The door was scarce closed before the girl
turned on Keller.

"There! You see. They may catch you any moment."

"Will you ask Yeager?"

"Yes, if you'll go."

"All right. I'll go."

Still he did not leave. The magic of this slim girl had swept him from
his feet. In imagination he still felt the touch of her warm fingers,
soft as a caress, the thrill of her hair as it had brushed his cheek
when she had stooped over him. The drag of sex was upon him and had set
him trembling strangely.

"Why don't you go?" she cried softly.

He snatched himself away.

But before he had reached the door he came back in two strides.
Startled and unnerved, she waited on him. He caught both her hands in
his, and opened them wide so that she was drawn toward him by the swing
of the motion. There for an instant he stood, looking down into her eyes
by the faint light that sifted through the window upon her.

"What--what do you want?" she demanded tremulously, emotion flooding her
in waves.

"Why are you saving me, girl?"

"I--don't know. I've told you why."

"I'm a villain, by your way of it, yet you save my life even while you
think me a skunk. I can't thank you. What's the use of trying?"

He looked down into her eyes, and that gaze did more than thank her. It
told her he would never forget and never let her forget. How it happened
she could not afterward remember, but she found herself in his arms, his
kiss tingling through her blood like wine.

She thrust him from her--and he was gone.

She sank into a chair beside the kitchen table, her pulses athrob with
excitement. Scorn herself she might and would in good time, but just now
her whole capacity for emotion was keyed to an agony of apprehension for
this prince of scamps. By the beating of her galloping heart she timed
his steps. He must have reached the horse now. Already he would have it
untied, would be in the saddle. Surely by this time he had eluded the
sentries and was slipping out of the danger zone. Before him lay the
open road, the hills, and safety.

A cry rang out in the stillness--and another. A shot, the beat of
running feet, a panted oath, more shots! The silent night had suddenly
become vocal with action and the fierce passions of men. She covered her
face with her hands to shut out the vision of what her imagination
conjured--a horse flying with empty saddle into the darkness, while a
huddled figure sank together lifeless by the roadside.




CHAPTER VI

A GOOD FRIEND


How long she remained there Phyllis did not know. Fear drummed at her
heart. She was sick with apprehension. At last her very terror drove her
out to learn the worst. She walked round to the front of the house and
saw a light in the store. Swiftly she ran across and up the steps to the
porch. Three men were inside examining the empty chair by the light of a
lantern one held in his hand.

"Did--did he get away?" the girl faltered.

The men turned. One of them was Slim. He held in his hand pieces of the
slashed rope and the open pocket-knife that had freed the prisoner.

"Looks like it," Slim answered. "With some help from a friend. Now, I
wonder who that useful friend was and how in time he got in here?"

Her eyes betrayed her. Just for an instant they swept to the cellar
door, to make sure it was still shut. But that one glance was enough.
Slim, about to speak, changed his mind, and stared at her with parted
lips. She saw suspicion grow in his face and resolve itself to
certainty, helped to decision by the telltale color dyeing her cheeks.

"Does the cellar stairway from the store connect with the kitchen
cellar, Phyllie?" he asked.

"Ye-es."

He nodded, then laughed without mirth. "I reckon I can tell you, boys,
who Mr. Keller's friend in need is."

"Who? I'd like right well to know." Brill Healy, in a pallid fury, had
just come in and was listening.

Phyllis turned and faced him. "I was that friend, Brill."

"You!" He stared at her in astonishment. "You! Why, it was you sent me
out to run him down."

"I didn't tell you that I wanted you to murder him, did I?"

"I guess there's a lot between him and you that you didn't tell me," he
jeered.

Slim grinned, not at all maliciously. "I reckon that's right. I don't
need to ask you now, Phyllie, who it was I found with you in the
kitchen."

"He was just going," she protested.

"Sure, and I busted into the good-bys right inconsiderate."

"Go ahead, Slim. I'm only a girl. You and Brill say what you like," she
flashed at him, the nails of her fingers biting into the palms of her
hands.

"Only don't say it out loud," cautioned a new voice. Jim Yeager was at
the door, and he was looking very pointedly at Healy.

"I say what I think, Jim," Brill retorted promptly.

"And you think?"

Healy slammed his fist down hard on the counter. "I think things ain't
right when a Malpais girl helps a hawss thief and a rustler to escape
twice."

"Take care, Brill," advised Phyllis.

"Not right how?" asked Yeager quietly, but in an ominous tone.

"Don't you two go to twisting my meaning. All Malpais knows that no
better girl than Phyl Sanderson ever breathed."

The young woman's lip curled. "I'm grateful for this indorsement, sir,"
she murmured with mock humility.

"Do I understand that Keller has made his getaway?" Jim Yeager asked.

"He sure has--clean as a whistle."

"Then you idiots want to be plumb grateful to Phyllie. He ain't any more
a rustler than I am. If you had hanged him you would have hanged an
innocent man."

"Prove it," cried Healy.

Jim looked at him quietly. "I cayn't prove it just now. You'll have to
take my word for it."

"Yore word goes with me, Jim, even if I am an idiot by yore say-so," his
father announced promptly.

Jim smiled and let an arm fall across the shoulders of James Yeager,
Senior. "I ain't countin' you in on that class, dad. You got to trailing
with bad company. I'll have to bring you up stricter."

"I hate to be a knocker, Jim, but I've got to trust my own eyes before
your indorsement," Healy sneered.

"That's your privilege, Brill."

"I reckon Jim knows what he's talking about," said Yeager, Senior, with
intent to conciliate.

"Of course I know you're right friendly with him, Jim. There's nobody
more competent to pass an opinion on him. Like enough you know all about
his affairs," conceded Healy with polite malice.

The two young men were looking at each other steadily. They never had
been friends, and lately they had been a good deal less than that. Rival
leaders of the range for years, another cause had lately fanned their
rivalry to a flame. Now a challenge had been flung down and accepted.

"I expect I know more about them than you do, Brill."

"Sure you do. Ain't he just got through being your guest? Didn't he come
visiting you in a hurry? Didn't you tie up his wound? And when Phil and
I came asking questions didn't you antedate his arrival about six hours?
I'm not denying you know all about him. What I'm wondering is why you
didn't tell all you knew. Of course, I understand they are your
reasons, though, not mine."

"You've said it. They're my reasons."

"I ain't saying they are not good reasons. Whyfor should a man round on
his friend?"

The innuendo was plain, and Yeager put it into words. "I'd be right
proud to have him for a friend. But we all know what you mean, Brill. Go
right ahead. Try and persuade the boys I'm a rustler, too. They haven't
known me on an average much over twenty years. But that doesn't matter.
They're so durned teachable to-day maybe you can get them to swallow
that with the rest."

With which parting shot he followed Phyllis out of the store. She turned
on him at the top of the porch steps leading to the house.

"Did he tell you that Phil was the rustler?"

"You mean did Keller tell me?" he said, surprised.

"Yes. 'Rastus was in the live oak and heard all you said."

"No. He didn't tell me that. We neither of us think it was Phil. It
couldn't be, for he was riding with you at the time. But he found your
knife there by the dead cow. Now, how did it come there? You let Phil
have the knife. Had he lent his knife to some one?"

"I don't know." She went on, after a momentary hesitation: "Are you
quite sure, Jim, that he really found the knife there?"

"He said so. I believe him."

She sighed softly, as if she would have liked to feel as sure. "The
reason I spoke of it was that I accused him of trying to throw the blame
on Phil, and he told me to ask you about it."

Jim shook his head. "Nothing to it. If you want my opinion, Keller is
white clear enough. He wouldn't try a trick like that."

The girl's face lit, and she held out an impulsive hand. "Anyhow, you're
a good friend, Jim."

"I've been that ever since you was knee high to a duck, Phyl."

"Yes--yes, you have. The best I've got, next to Phil and Dad." Her heart
just now was very warm to him.

"Don't you reckon maybe a good friend might make a good--something
else."

She gasped. "Oh, Jim! You don't mean----"

"Yep. That's what I do mean. Course I'm not good enough. I know that."

"Good. You're the best ever. It isn't that. Only I don't like you that
way."

"Maybe you might some day."

She shook her head slowly. "I wish I could, Jim. But I never will."

"Is there--someone else, Phyl?"

If it had been light enough he could have seen a wave of color sweep her
face.

"No. Of course there isn't. How could there be? I'm only a girl."

"It ain't Brill then?"

"No. It's--it isn't anybody." She carried the war, womanlike, into his
camp. "And I don't believe you care for me--that way. It's just a
fancy."

"One I've had two years, little girl."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I _do_ like you, better than any one else. You know
that, dear old Jim."

He smiled wistfully. "If you didn't like me so well I reckon I'd have a
better chance. Well, I mustn't keep you here. Good night."

Her ringers were lost in his big fist. "Good night, Jim." And again she
added, "I'm so sorry."

"Don't you be. It's all right with me, Phyl. I just thought I'd mention
it. You never can tell, though I most knew how it would be. _Buenos
noches, nina._"

He released her hand, and without once looking back strode to his horse,
swung to the saddle, and rode into the night.

She carried into the house with her a memory of his cheerful smile. It
had been meant as a reassurance to her. It told her he would get over
it, and she knew he would. For he was no puling schoolboy, but a man,
game to the core.

The face of another man rose before her, saturnine and engaging and
debonair. With the picture came wave on wave of shame. He was a detected
villain, and she had let him kiss her. But beneath the self-scorn was
something new, something that stung her blood, that left her flushed and
tingling with her first experience of sex relations.

A week ago she had not yet emerged fully from the chrysalis of
childhood. But in the Southland flowers ripen fast. Adolescence steals
hard upon the heels of infancy. Nature was pushing her relentlessly
toward a womanhood for which her splendid vitality and unschooled
impulses but scantily safeguarded her. The lank, shy innocence of the
fawn still wrapped her, but in the heart of this frank daughter of the
desert had been born a poignant shyness, a vague, delightful trembling
that marked a change. A quality which had lain banked in her nature like
a fire since childhood now threw forth its first flame of heat. At
sunset she had been still treading the primrose path of youth; at
sunrise she had entered upon the world-old heritage of her sex.




CHAPTER VII

A SHOT FROM AMBUSH


From the valley there drifted up a breeze-swept sound. The rider on the
rock-rim trail above, shifting in his saddle to one of the easy,
careless attitudes of the habitual horseman, recognized it as a rifle
shot.

Presently, from a hidden wash rose little balloon-like puffs of smoke,
followed by a faint, far popping, as if somebody had touched off a bunch
of firecrackers. Men on horseback, dwarfed by distance to pygmy size,
clambered to the bank--now one and then another firing into the mesquite
that ran like a broad tongue from the roll of hills into the valley.

"Looks like something's broke loose," the young man drawled aloud. "The
band's sure playing a right lively tune this glad mo'ning."

Save for one or two farewell shots, the firing ceased. The riders had
disappeared into the chaparral.

The rider did not need to be told that this was a man hunt, destined
perhaps to be one of a hundred unwritten desert tragedies. Some subtle
instinct in him differentiated between these hurried shots and those
born of the casual exuberance of the cow-puncher at play. He had a
reason for taking an interest in it--an interest that was more than
casual.

Skirting the rim of the saucer-shaped valley, he rode forward warily,
came at length to a cañon that ran like a sword cleft into the hills,
and descended cautiously by a cattle trail, its scarred slope.

Through the defile ran a mountain stream, splashing over and round
boulders in its swift fall.

"I reckon we'll slide down, Keno, and work out close to the fire zone,"
the rider said to his horse, as they began to slither down the
precipitous slope, starting rubble at every motion.

Man and horse were both of the frontier, fit to the minute for any call
that might be made on them. The broncho was a roan, with muscles of
elastic leather, sure-footed as a mountain goat. Its master--a slim,
brown man, of medium height, well knit and muscular--looked on the
world, quietly and often humorously, with shrewd gray eyes.

As he reached the bottom of the gulch, his glance fell upon another
rider--a woman. She crossed the stream hurriedly, her pony flinging
water at every step, and cantered up toward him.

Her glance was once and again over her shoulder, so that it was not
until she was almost upon him that she saw the young man among the
cottonwoods, and drew her pony to an instant halt. The rifle that had
been lying across her saddle leaped halfway to her shoulder, covering
him instantly.

"_Buenos dios, senorita._ Are you going for to shoot my head off?" he
drawled.

"The rustler!" she cried.

"The alleged rustler, Miss Sanderson," he corrected gently.

"Let me past," she panted.

He observed that her eyes mirrored terror of the scene she had just
left.

"It's you that has got the drop on me, isn't it?" he suggested.

The rifle went back to the saddle. Instantly the girl was in motion
again, flying up the cañon past the white-stockinged roan, her pony's
hindquarters gathered to take the sheep trail like those of a wild cat.

Keller gazed after her. As she disappeared, he took off his hat, bowed
elaborately, and remarked to himself, in his low, soft drawl:

"Good mo'ning, ma'am. See you again one of these days, mebbe, when you
ain't in such a hurry."

But though he appeared to take the adventure whimsically his mind was
busy with its meaning. She was in danger, and he must save her. So much
he knew at least.

He had scarcely turned the head of his horse toward the mouth of the
cañon when the pursuit drove headlong into sight. Galloping men pounded
up the arroyo, and came to halt at his sharp summons. Already Keller
and his horse were behind a huge boulder, over the top of which gleamed
the short barrel of a wicked-looking gun.

"Mornin', gentlemen. Lost something up this gulch, have you?" he wanted
to know amiably.

The last rider, coming to a gingerly halt in order not to jar an arm
bandaged roughly in a polka-dot bandanna, swore roundly. He was a large,
heavy-set man, still on the sunny side of forty, imperious, a born
leader, and, by the look of him, not one lightly to be crossed.

"He's our man, boys. We'll take him alive if we can; but, dead or alive,
he's ours." He gave crisp orders.

"Oh! It's me you've lost? Any reward?" inquired the man behind the rock.

For answer, a bullet flattened itself against the boulder. The wounded
man had whipped up a rifle and fired.

Keller called out a genial warning. "I wouldn't do that. There's too
many of you bunched close together, and this old gun spatters like hail.
You see, it's loaded with buckshot."

One of the cowboys laughed. He was rather a cool hand himself, but such
audacity as this was new to him.

"What's ailing you, Pesky? It don't strike me as being so damned
amusing," growled his leader.

"Different here, Buck. I was just grinning because he's such a cheerful
guy. Of course, I ain't got one of his pills in my arm, like you have."

"He won't be so gay about it when he's down, with a couple of bullets
through him," predicted the other grimly. "But we'll take his advice,
just the same. You boys scatter. Cross the creek and sneak up along the
other wall, Ned. Curly, you and Irwin climb up this side until you get
him in sight. Pesky and I will stay here."

"Hold on a minute! Let's get at the rights of this. What's all the row
about?" the cornered man wanted to know.

"You know dashed well what it's about, you blanked bushwhacker. But you
didn't shoot straight enough, and you didn't fix it so you could make
your getaway. I'm going to hang you high as Haman."

"Thank you. But your intentions aren't directed to the right man. I'm a
stranger in this country. Whyfor should I want to shoot you?"

"A stranger. Where from?" demanded Buck Weaver crisply.

"Douglas."

"What doing here?"

"Homesteading."

"Name?"

"Keller."

"Killer, you mean, I reckon. You're a hired assassin, brought in to
shoot me. That's what you are."

"No."

"Yes. The man we want came into this gulch, not three minutes ahead of
us. If you're not the man, where is he?"

"I haven't got him in my vest pocket."

"I reckon you've got him right there in your coat and pants."

"I ain't so dead sure, Buck," spoke up Pesky. "We didn't see the man so
as to know him."

"Riding a roan, wasn't he?" snapped the owner of the Twin Star outfit.

"Looked that way," admitted the cowpuncher.

"Well, then?"

"Keller! Why, that's the name given by the rustler who broke away from
us two weeks ago," Curly spoke out.

"No use jawing. I'm going to hang his skin up to dry," Weaver ground out
between set teeth.

"By his own way of it, he's only one of them dashed nesters," Irwin
added.

Keller was putting two and two together, in amazement. The would-be
assassin had, during the past few minutes, been driven into this gulch,
riding a roan horse. He could swear that only one person had come in
before these pursuers--and that one was a woman on a roan. Her
frightened eyes, the fear that showed in every motion, her hurried
flight, all contributed to the same inevitable conclusion. It was
difficult to believe it, but impossible to deny. This wild, sylvan
creature, with the shy, wonderful eyes, had lain in ambush to kill her
father's enemy, and was flying from the vengeance on her heels.

His lips were sealed. Even if he were not under heavy obligations to her
he could no more save himself at the expense of this brown sylph than he
could have testified against his own mother.

"All right. If you feel lucky, come on. You'll get me, of course, but it
may prove right expensive," he said quietly.

"That's all right. We're footing our end of the bill," Pesky retorted.

By this time, he and Weaver had dismounted, and were sheltered behind
rocks. Already bullets were beginning to spit back and forth, though the
flankers had not yet got into action.

"Durn his hide, I hate like sin to puncture it," Pesky told his boss. "I
tell you we're making a mistake, Buck. This fellow's a pure--he ain't
any hired killer. You can tie to that."

"He's the man that pumped a bullet into my arm from ambush. That's
enough for me," the cattleman swore.

"No use being revengeful, especially if it happens he ain't the man. By
his say-so, that's a shotgun he's carrying. Loaded with buckshot, he
claims. What hit you was a bullet from a Winchester, or some such gun.
Mighty easy to prove whether he's lying."

"We'll be able to prove it afterward, all right."

"What's the matter with proving it now? I don't stand for any murder
business myself. I'm going to find out what's what."

The cow-puncher tied the red bandanna from his neck round the end of his
revolver, and shoved it above the rock in front of him.

"Flag of truce!" he shouted.

"All right. Come right along. Better leave your gun behind," Keller
called back.

Pesky waddled forward--a short, thick-set, bow-legged man in chaps,
spurs, flannel shirt, and white sombrero. When he took off this last, as
he did now, it revealed a head bald as a billiard ball.

"How're they coming?" he inquired genially of the besieged man, as he
rounded the rock barricade.

Larrabie's steel eyes relaxed to a hint of a friendly smile. He knew
this type of man like a brother.

"Fine and dandy here. Hope you're well yourself, seh."

"Tol'able. Buck's up on his ear, o' course. Can't blame him, can you?
Most any man would, with that kind of a pill sent to his address so
sudden by special delivery. Wasn't that some inconsiderate of you, Mr.
Keller?"

"I thought I explained it was another party did that."

Pesky rolled a cigarette and lit it.

"Right sure of that, are you? Wouldn't mind my taking a look at that gun
of yours? You see, if it happens to be what you said it was, that
kinder lets you out."

Keller handed over the gun promptly. The cow-puncher broke it, extracted
a shell, and with his knife picked out the wad. Into his palm rolled a
dozen buckshot.

"Good enough! I told Buck he was barking up the wrong tree. Now, I'll go
back and have a powwow with him. I reckon you'll be willing to surrender
on guarantee of a square deal?"

"Sure--that's all I ask. I never met your friend--didn't know who he was
from Adam. I ain't got any option to shoot all the red-haided men I
meet. No, sir! You've followed a cross trail."

"Looks like. Still, it's blamed funny." Pesky scratched his shining
poll, and looked shrewdly at the other. "We certainly ran Mr.
Bushwhacker into the cañon. I'd swear to that. We was right on his
heels, though we couldn't see him very well. But he either come in here
or a hole in the ground swallowed him."

He waited tentatively for an answer, but none came other than the
white-toothed smile that met him blandly.

"I reckon you know more than you aim to tell, Mr. Keller," continued
Pesky. "Don't you figure it's up to you, if we let you out of this
thing, to whack up any information you've got? The kind of reptile that
kills from ambush don't deserve any consideration."

Half an hour ago, the other would have agreed with him. The man that
shot his enemy from cover was a coyote--nothing less. But about that
brown slip of a creature, who had for three minutes crossed his orbit,
he wanted to reserve judgment.

"I expect I haven't got a thing to tell you that would help any," he
drawled, his eye full on that of the cowpuncher.

Pesky threw away his cigarette. "All right. You're the doctor. I'll
amble back, and report to the boss."

He did so, with the result that a truce was arranged.

Keller gave up his post of vantage, and came forward to surrender.

Weaver met him with a hard, wintry eye. "Understand, I don't concede
your innocence. You're my prisoner, and, by God, if I get any more proof
of your guilt, you've got to stand the gaff."

The other nodded quietly, meeting him eye to eye. Nor did his gaze fall,
though the big cattleman was the most masterful man on the range. Keller
was as easy and unperturbed as when he had been holding half a dozen
irate men at bay.

"No kick coming here. But, if it's just the same to you, I'll ask you to
get the proof first and hang me afterward."

"If you're homesteading, where's your place?"

"Back in the hills, close to the headwaters of Salt Creek."

"Huh! You'll make that good before I get through with you. And I want
to tell you this, too, Mr. Keller. It doesn't make any hit with me that
you're one of those thieving nesters. Moreover, there's another charge
against you. In the Malpais country we hang rustlers. The boys claim to
have you cinched. We'll see."

"Who's that with Curly?" Pesky called out. "By Moses, it's a woman!"

"It is the Sanderson girl," Weaver said in surprise.

Keller swung round as if worked by a spring. The cow-puncher had told
the truth. Curly's companion was not only a woman, but _the_ woman--the
same slim, tanned creature who had flashed past him on a wild race for
safety, only a few minutes earlier.

All eyes were focused upon her. Weaver waited for her to speak. Instead,
Curly took up the word. He was smiling broadly, quite unaware of the
mine he was firing.

"I found this young lady up on the rock rim. Since we were rounding up,
I thought I'd bring her down."

"Good enough. Miss Sanderson, you've been where you could see if anyone
passed into the cañon. How about it? Anybody go up in last ten minutes?"

Phyllis moistened her dry lips and looked at the prisoner. "No," she
answered reluctantly.

Weaver wheeled on Keller, his eyes hard as jade. "That ties the rope
round your neck, my man."

"No," Phyllis cried. "He didn't do it."

The cattleman's stone wall eyes were on her now.

"Didn't? How do you know he didn't?"

"Because I--I passed him here as I rode up a few minutes ago."

"So you rode up a few minutes ago." Buck's lids narrowed. "And he was
here, was he? Ever meet Mr. Keller before?"

"Yes."

"When? Speak up. Mind, no lying."

This, struck the first spark of spirit from her. The deep eyes flashed.
"I'm not in the habit of lying, sir."

"Then answer my question."

"I've met him at the office when he came for his mail. And the boys
arrested him by mistake for a rustler. I saw him when they brought him
in."

"By mistake. How do you know it was by mistake?"

"It was I accused him. But I did it because I was angry at him."

"You accused an innocent man of rustling because you were sore at him.
You're ce'tainly a pleasant young lady, Miss Sanderson."

Her look flashed defiance at him, but she said nothing. In her slim
erectness was a touch of feminine ferocity that gave him another idea.

"So you just rode into the cañon, did you?"

"Yes."

"Meet up with anybody in the valley before you came in?"

"No."

His eyes were like steel drills. They never left her. "Quite sure?"

"Yes."

"What were you doing there?"

She had no answer ready. Her wild look went round in search of a friend
in this circle of enemies. They found him in the man who was a prisoner.
His steadfast eyes told her to have no fear.

"Did you hear what I said?" demanded Weaver.

"I was--riding."

"Alone?"

The answer came so slowly that it was barely audible. "Yes."

"Riding in Antelope Valley?"

"Yes."

"Let me see that gun." Weaver held out his hand for the rifle.

Phyllis looked at him and tried to fight against his domination; then
slowly she handed him the rifle. He broke and examined it. From the
chamber he extracted an empty shell.

Grim as a hanging judge, his look chiselled into her.

"I expect the lead that was in here is in my arm. Isn't that right?"

"I--I don't know."

"Who does, then? Either you shot me or you know who did."

Her gaze evaded his, but was forced at last to the meeting.

"I did it."

She was looking at him steadily now. Since the thing must be faced, she
had braced herself to it. It was amazing what defiant pluck shone out of
her soft eyes. This man of iron saw it, and, seeing, admired hugely the
gameness that dwelt in her slim body. But none of his admiration showed
in the hard, weather-beaten face.

"So they make bushwhackers out of even the girls among your rustling,
sheep-herding outfit!" he taunted.

"My people are not rustlers. They have a right to be on earth, even if
you don't want them there."

"I'll show them what rights they have got in this part of the country
before I get through with them. But that ain't the point now. What I
want to know is how they came to send a girl to do their dirty killing
for them."

"They didn't send me. I just saw you, and--and shot on an impulse. Your
men have clubbed and poisoned our sheep. They wounded one of our
herders, and beat his brother when they caught him unarmed. They have
done a hundred mean and brutal things. You are at the bottom of it all;
and when I saw you riding there, looking like the lord of all the earth,
I just----"

"Well?"

"Couldn't help--what I did."

"You're a nicely brought up young woman--about as savage as the rest of
your wolf breed," jeered Weaver.

Yet he exulted in her--in the impulse of ferocity that had made her
strike swiftly, regardless of risk to herself, at the man who had
hounded and harried her kin to the feud that was now raging. Her shy,
untamed beauty would not itself have attracted him; but in combination
with her fierce courage it made to him an appeal which he conceded
grudgingly.

"What in Heaven's name brought you back after you had once got away?"
Weaver asked.

The girl looked at Keller without answering.

"I reckon I can tell you that, seh," explained that young man. "She
figured you would jump on me as the guilty party. It got on her
conscience that she had left an innocent man to stand for it. I
shouldn't wonder but she got to seeing a picture of you-all hanging me
or shooting me up. So she came back to own up, if she saw you had caught
me."

Weaver nodded. "That's the way I figure it, too. Gamest thing I ever saw
a woman do," he said in an undertone to Keller, with whom he was now
standing a little apart.

The latter agreed. "Never saw the beat of it. She's scared stiff, too.
Makes it all the pluckier. What will you do with her?"

"Take her along with me back to the ranch."

"I wouldn't do that," said the young man quickly.

"Wouldn't you?" Weaver's hard gaze went over him haughtily. "When I want
your advice, I'll ask you for it, young man. You're in luck to get off
scot-free yourself. That ought to content you for one day."

"But what are you going to do with her? Surely not have her imprisoned
for attacking you?"

"I'll do as I dashed please, and don't you forget it, Mr. Keller. Better
mind your own business, if you've got any."

With which Buck Weaver turned on his heel, and swung slowly to the
saddle. His arm was paining him a great deal, but he gave no sign of it.
He expected his men to game it out when they ran into bad luck, and he
was stoic enough to set them an example without making any complaints.

The little group of riders turned down the trail, passed through the
gateway that led to the valley below, and wound down among the
cow-backed hills toward the ranch roofs, which gleamed in the distance.
They were the houses of the Twin Star outfit, the big concern owned by
Buck Weaver, whose cattle fed literally upon a thousand hills.

It suited Buck's ironic humor to ride beside the girl who had just
attempted his life. He bore her no resentment. Had the offender been a
man, Buck would have snuffed out his life with as little remorse as he
would a guttering candle. But her sex and her youth, and some quality of
charm in her, had altered the equation. He meant to show her who was
master, but he would choose a different method.

What sport to tame the spirit of this wild desert beauty until she
should come like one of her own sheep dogs at his beck and call! He had
never yet met the woman he could not dominate. This one, too, would know
a good many new emotions before she rejoined her tribe in the hills.

He swung from the saddle at the ranch plaza, and greeted her with a deep
bow that mocked her.

"Welcome, Miss Sanderson, to the best the Twin Star outfit has to offer.
I hope you will enjoy your visit, which is going to be a long one."

To a Mexican woman, who had come out to the porch in answer to his call,
he delivered the girl, charging her duty in two quick sentences of
Spanish. The woman nodded her understanding, and led Phyllis inside.

Weaver noticed with delight that his captive's eye met his steadily,
with the defiant fierceness of some hunted wild thing. Here was a woman
worth taming, even though she was still a girl in years. His exultant
eye, returning from the last glimpse of the lissom figure as it
disappeared, met the gaze of Keller. That young man was watching him
with an odd look of challenge on his usually impassive face.

The cattleman felt the spur of a new antagonism stirring his blood.
There was something almost like a sneer on his lips as he spoke:

"Sorry to lose your company, Mr. Keller. But if you're homesteading, of
course, we'll have to let you go back to the hills right away. Couldn't
think of keeping you from that spring plowing that's waiting to be
done."

"You're putting up a different line of talk from what you did. How about
that charge of rustling against me, Mr. Weaver? Don't you want to hold
me while you investigate it?"

"No, I reckon not. Your lady friend gives you a clean bill of health.
She may or may not be lying. I'm not so sure myself. But without her the
case against you falls."

Keller knew himself dismissed cavalierly, and, much as he would have
liked to stay, he could find no further excuse to urge. He could hardly
invite himself to be either the guest or the prisoner of a man who did
not want him.

"Just as you say," he nodded, and turned carelessly to his pony.

Yet he was quite sure it would not be as Weaver said if he could help
it. He meant to take a hand in the game, no matter what the other might
decree. But for the present he acquiesced in the inevitable. Weaver was
technically within his rights in holding her until he had communicated
with the sheriff. A generous foe might not have stood out for his pound
of flesh, but Buck was as hard as nails. As for the reputation of the
girl, it was safe at the Twin Star ranch. Buck's sister, a maiden lady
of uncertain years, was on hand to play chaperone.

Larrabie swung to the saddle. His horse's hoofs were presently flinging
dirt toward the Twin Star as he loped up to the hills.




CHAPTER VIII

MISS-GOING-ON-EIGHTEEN


Time had been when the range was large enough for all, when every man's
cattle might graze at will from horizon to horizon. But with the push of
settlement to the frontier had come a change. The feeding ground became
overstocked. One outfit elbowed another, and lines began to be drawn
between the runs of different owners. Water holes were seized and
fenced, with or without due process of law.

With the establishment of forest reserves a new policy dominated the
government. Sanderson had been one of the first to avail himself of it
by leasing the public demesne for his stock. Later, learning that the
mountain parks were to be thrown open as a pasturage for sheep, he had
bought three thousand and driven them up, having first arranged terms
with the forestry service.

Buck Weaver, fighting the government reserve policy with all his might,
resented fiercely the attitude of Sanderson. A sharp, bitter quarrel had
resulted, and had left a smoldering bad feeling that flamed at times
into open warfare. Upon the wholesome Malpais country had fallen the
bitterness of a sheep and cattle feud.

The riders of the Twin Star outfit had thrice raided the Sanderson
flocks. Lambing sheep had been run cruelly. One herd had been clubbed
over a precipice, another decimated with poison. In return, the herders
shot and hamstrung Twin Star cows. A herder was held up and beaten by
cowboys. Next week a vaquero galloped home to the Twin Star ranch with a
bullet through his leg. This was the situation at the time when the
owner of the big ranch brought Phyllis a prisoner to its hospitality.

Nothing could have been more pat to his liking. He was, in large
measure, the force behind the law in San Miguel county. The sheriff whom
he had elected to office would be conveniently deaf to any illegality
there might be in his holding the girl, would if necessary give him an
order to hold her there until further notice. The attempt to assassinate
him would serve as excuse enough for a proceeding even more highhanded
than this. Her relatives could scarce appeal to the law, since the law
would then step in and send her to the penitentiary. He could use her
position as a hostage to force her stiff-necked father to come to terms.

But it was characteristic of the man that his reason for keeping her
was, after all, less the advantage he might gain by it than the pleasure
he found in tormenting her and her family. To this instinct of the
jungle beast was added the interest she had inspired in him. Untaught of
life she was, no doubt, a child of the desert, in some ways primitive as
Eve; but he perceived in her the capacity for deep feeling, for passion,
for that kind of fierce, dauntless endurance it is given some women to
possess.

Miss Weaver took charge of the comfort of her guest. Her manner showed
severe disapproval of this girl so lost to the feelings of her sex as to
have attempted murder. That she was young and pretty made matters worse.
Alice Weaver always had worshipped her brother, by the law of opposites
perhaps. She was as drab and respectable as Boston. All her tastes ran
to humdrum monotony. But turbulent, lawless Buck, the brother whom she
had brought up after the death of their mother, held her heart in the
hollow of his hard, careless hand.

"Have you had everything you wish?" she would ask Phyllis in a frigid
voice.

"I want to be taken home."

"You should have thought of that before you did the dreadful thing you
did."

"You are holding me here a prisoner, then?"

"An involuntary guest, my brother puts it. Until the sheriff can make
other arrangements."

"You have no right to do it without notifying my father. He is at Noches
with my brother."

"Mr. Weaver will do as he thinks best about that." The spinster shut
her lips tight and walked from the room.

Supper was brought to Phyllis by the Mexican woman. In spite of her
indignation she ate and slept well. Nor did her appetite appear impaired
next morning, when she breakfasted in her bedroom. Noon found her
promoted to the family dining room. Weaver carried his arm in a sling,
but made no reference to the fact. He attempted conversation, but
Phyllis withdrew into herself and had nothing more friendly than a plain
"No" or "Yes" for him. His sister was presently called away to arrange
some household difficulty. At once Phyllis attacked the big man lounging
in his chair at his ease.

"I want to go home. I've got to be at the schoolhouse to-morrow
morning," she announced.

"It won't hurt you any to miss a few days' schooling, my dear. You'll
learn more here than you will there, anyhow," he assured her pleasantly.
Buck was cracking two walnuts in the palm of his hand and let his lazy
smile drift her way only casually.

She stamped her foot. "I tell you I'm the teacher. It is necessary I
should be there."

"You a schoolmarm!" he repeated, in surprise. "How old are you?"

Her dress was scarcely below her shoe tops. She still had the slimness
of immature girlhood, the adorable shy daring of some uncaptured wood
nymph.

"Does that matter to you, sir?"

"How old?" he reiterated.

"Going-on-eighteen," she answered--not because she wanted to, but
because somehow she must. There was something compelling about this
man's will. She would have resisted it had she not wanted to gain her
point about going home.

"So you teach the kids their A B C's, do you? And you just out of them
yourself! How many scholars have you?"

"Fourteen."

"And they all love teacher, of course. Would you take me for a scholar,
Miss Going-On-Eighteen?"

"No!" she flamed.

"You'd find me right teachable. And I would promise to love you, too."

Color came and went in her face beneath the brow. How dared he mock her
so! It humiliated and embarrassed and angered her.

"Are you going to let me go back to my school?" she demanded.

"I reckon your school will have to get along without you for a few days.
Your fourteen scholars will keep right on loving you, I expect. 'To
memory dear, though far from eye.' Or, if you like, I'll send my boys up
into the hills, and round up the whole fourteen here for you. Then
school can keep right here in the house. How about that? Ain't that a
good notion, Miss Going-On-Eighteen?"

She could stand his ironic mockery no longer. She faced him, fearless as
a tiger: "You villain!"

With that, turning on her heel, she passed swiftly into her little
bedroom, and slammed the door. He heard the key turn in the lock.

"She's sure got some devil in her," he laughed appreciatively, and he
cracked another walnut.

Already he had struck the steel of her quality. She would be his
prisoner because she must, but the "no compromise" flag was nailed to
her masthead.

"I wonder why you are so fond of me?" he mused aloud next day when he
found her as unresponsive to his advances as a block of wood.

He was lying in the sand at her feet, his splendid body relaxed full
length at supple ease. Leaning on an elbow, he had been watching her for
some time.

Her gaze was on the distant line of hills; on her face that far-away
expression which told him that he was not on the map for her. Used as he
was to impressing himself upon the imagination of women, this stung his
vanity sharply. He liked better the times when her passion flamed out at
him.

Now he lost his sardonic mockery in a flash of anger.

"Do you hear me? I asked you a question."

She brought her head round until her eyes rested upon him.

"Will you ask it again, please? I wasn't listening."

"I want to know what makes you hate me so," he demanded roughly.

"Do I hate you?"

He laughed irritably. "What else do you call it? You won't hardly eat at
the same table with me. Last night you wouldn't come down to supper.
Same way this morning. If I sit down near you, soon you find an excuse
to leave. When I speak, you don't answer."

"You are my jailer, not my friend."

"I might be both."

"No, thank you!"

She said it with such quick, instinctive certainty that he ground his
teeth in resentment. He was the kind of man that always wanted what he
could not get. He began to covet this girl mightily, even while he told
himself that he was a fool for his pains. What was she but an untaught,
country schoolgirl? It would be a strange irony of fate if Buck Weaver
should fall in love with a sheepman's daughter.

"Many people would go far to get my friendship," he told her.

Quietly she looked at him. "The friends of my people are my friends.
Their enemies are mine."

"Yet you said you didn't hate me."

"I thought I did, but I find I don't."

"Not worth hating, I suppose?"

She neither corrected nor rejected his explanation.

He touched his wounded arm as he went on: "If you don't hate me, why
this compliment to me? I reckon good, genuine hate sent that bullet."

The girl colored, but after a moment's hesitation answered:

"Once I shot a coyote when I saw it making ready to pounce on one of our
lambs. I did not hate that coyote."

"Thank you," he told her ironically.

Her gaze went back to the mountains. She had always had a capacity for
silence. But it was as extraordinary to her as to him how, in the past
few days, she had sloughed the shy timidity of a mountain girl and found
the enduring courage of womanhood. Her wits, too, had taken on the edge
of maturity. He found that her tongue could strike swiftly and sharply.
She was learning to defend herself in all the ways women have acquired
by inheritance.

Weaver's jaw set like a vise. Getting to his feet, he looked down at her
with the hard, relentless eyes that had made his name a terror.

"Good enough, Miss Phyllis Sanderson. You've chosen your way. I'll
choose mine. You've got to learn that I'm master here; and, by God, I'll
teach it to you. Before I get through with you, young woman, you'll
come running when I snap my fingers. From to-day things will be
different. You'll eat your meals with us and not in your room. You'll
speak when you're spoken to. Set yourself up against me, and I'll bring
you to your knees fast enough. There's no law on the Twin Star Ranch but
Buck Weaver's will."

He strode away, almost herculean in figure, and every inch of him
forceful. She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same
time, so wilful and so masterful. Before he was out of her sight, she
got an instance of his recklessness.

A Mexican vaquero was driving some horses into a corral. His master
strode up to him, and dragged him from the saddle.

"Didn't I tell you to take the colts down to the long pasture?"

"_Si, señor,_" answered the trembling native.

Weaver's great fist rose and fell once. The Mexican sank limply down.
Without another glance at him, the cattleman flung him aside, and strode
to the house.

As the owner of the Twin Star had said, so it was. Thereafter Phyllis
sat at the table with him and his sister, while Josephine, the Mexican
woman, waited upon them. The girl came and went at his bidding. But she
held herself with such a quiet aloofness that his victory was a barren
one.

"Do you want to go home?" he taunted her one morning, while at
breakfast.

"Is it likely I would want to stay here?" she retorted.

"Why not? What have you to complain of? Aren't you treated well?"

"Yes."

"What, then? Are you afraid?"

"No!" she answered, with a flash of her fine eyes.

"That's good, because you've got to stay here--or go to the pen. You may
take your choice."

"You're very generous. I suppose you don't expect to keep me here
always," she said scornfully.

"Until my arm gets well. Since you wounded it you ought to nurse it."

"Which I am not doing, even while I am here."

"Anyhow it soothes the temper of the invalid to have you around." He
grinned satirically.

"So I judge, from the effects."

"Meaning that I'm always in a rage when I leave you?"

"I notice your men are marked up a good deal these days."

"I'll tell them to thank you for it," he flung back.

Two days later, he scored on her hard for the first time. She came down
to breakfast just as two of the Twin Star riders brought a boy into the
hall.

She flew instantly into his arms, thereby embarrassing him vastly.

"Phil! How did you come here?"

Her brother nodded toward Curly and Pesky. "They found me outside and
got the drop on me."

"You were here looking for me?"

"Yes. Just got back from Noches. Dad is still there. He don't know."

"But--what are they going to do with you?"

"What would you suggest, Miss Phyllis?" a voice behind her gibed.

The speaker was Weaver. He filled the doorway of the dining room
triumphantly. She had had no fears for herself; he would see if she had
none for her brother.

The boy whirled on the ranchman like a tiger whelp. "I don't care what
you do. Go ahead and do your worst."

Weaver looked him over negligently, much as he might watch a struggling
calf. To him the boy was not an enemy--merely a tool which he could use
for his own ends. Phyllis, watching anxiously the hard, expressionless
face, felt that it was cruel as fate. She knew that somehow she would be
made to suffer through her love for her brother.

"You daren't touch him. He's done nothing," she cried.

"He shot at one of my riders. I can't have dangerous characters around.
I'm a peaceable man, me," grinned Buck.

"You didn't, Phil," his sister reproached.

"Sure I did. He tried to take my gun from me," the boy explained hotly.

"Take him out to the bunk house, boys. I'll attend to him later,"
nodded Buck, turning away indifferently.

Stung to fury by the cavalier manner of his enemy, the boy leaped at him
like a wild cat. Weaver whirled round again, caught him by the shoulder
with his great hand, and shook him as if he had been a puppy. When he
dropped him, he nodded again to his men, who dragged out the struggling
boy.

Phyllis stood straight as an arrow, but white to the lips. "What are you
going to do to him?" she asked.

"How would a good chapping do, to start with? That is always good for an
unlicked cub."

"Don't!" she implored.

"But, my dear, why not--since it's for his good?"

Passion unleashed leaped from her. "You coward!"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm right desolated to have your bad
opinion. But you say it almost as if you did hate me. That's a
compliment, you know. You didn't hate the coyote, you mentioned."

Her eyes flamed. "Hate you! If wishes could kill, you would be a
thousand times dead!"

"You disappoint me, my dear. I expected more than wishes from you.
There's a loaded revolver in that table drawer. It's yours, any time you
want it," he derided.

"Don't tempt me!" she cried wildly. "If you lay a hand on Phil, I'll use
it--I surely will."

His eyes shone with delight. "I wonder. By Jove, I've a mind to flog
the colt and see. I'll do it."

The passion sank in her as suddenly as it had risen. "No--you mustn't!
You don't know him--or us. We are from the South."

"That settles it. I will," he exulted. "You have called me a coward.
Would a coward do this, and defy your whole crew to its revenge?"

"Would a brave man break the pride of a high-spirited boy for such a
mean motive?" she countered.

"His pride will have to look out for itself. He took his chance of it
when he tried to assault me. What he'll get is only what's coming to
him."

"Please don't! I'll--I'll be different to you. Take it out on me," she
begged.

He laughed harshly. "Do you suppose I'm such a fool as not to know that
the way to take it out on you is to take it out of him?"

She had come nearer, a step at a time. Now she threw her hand out in a
gesture of abandon.

"Be generous! Don't punish me that way. Something dreadful will come of
it."

She broke down and struggled with her tears. He watched her for a moment
without speaking.

"Good enough. I'll be generous and let you pay his debt for him, if you
want to do it."

Her eyes were glad with the swift joy that leaped into them.

"That is good of you! And how shall I pay?" she cried.

"With a kiss."

She drew back as if he had struck her, all the sparkling eagerness
driven from her face.

"Oh!" she moaned.

"Just one kiss--I don't ask anything more. Give me that, and I'll turn
him loose. Honor bright."

He held her startled gaze as a snake holds that of a fascinated bird.

"Choose," he told her, in his masterful way.

Her imagination conceived a vision of her young brother being tortured
by this man. She had not the least doubt that he would do what he said,
and probably would think the boy got only what he deserved.

"Take it," she told him, and waited.

Perhaps he might have spared her had it not been for the look of deep
contempt that bit into his vanity.

He kissed her full on the lips.

Instantly she woke to life, struck him on the cheek with her little,
brown fist, and, with a sob of woe, turned and ran from the room.

Weaver cursed himself in a fury of anger. He felt himself to be a hound
because of the thing he had done, and he hated the instinct in him that
drove him to master her. He had insulted and trampled on her. Yet he
knew in his heart that he would have killed another man for doing it.

[Illustration: SHE DREW BACK AS IF HE HAD STRUCK HER, ALL THE SPARKLING
EAGERNESS DRIVEN FROM HER FACE. _Page 116_]




CHAPTER IX

PUNISHMENT


The cattleman strode into the bunk house, where young Sanderson sat
sulkily on a bed under the persuasion of Curly's rifle.

"Have this boy's horse saddled and brought around, Curly."

"You're the doctor," answered the cowboy promptly, and forthwith
vanished outdoors to obey instructions.

Phil looked sullenly at his captor, and waited for him to begin. One of
his hands was under the pillow of the cot upon which he sat. His fingers
circled the butt of a revolver he had found there, where one of the
riders had chanced to leave it that morning.

"I'm going to turn you loose to go home to the hills," Weaver told him.

"And my sister?"

"She stays here."

"Then so do I."

"That's up to you. There's no law against camping on the plains--that
is, out of range of the Twin Star."

"What are you going to do with her?" the boy demanded ominously.

"If you ask no questions, I'll tell you no lies."

"You'll let her go home with me--that's what you'll do," cried Phil.

"I reckon not. You've got a license to feel lucky you're going
yourself."

"By God, I say you shall!"

The cattleman's eyes took on their stony, snake-like look. His hand did
not move by so much as an inch toward the scabbarded revolver at his
side.

"All right. Come a-shooting. I see you've got a gun under that pillow."

The weapon leaped into sight. "You're right I have! I'll drill you full
of holes as soon as wink."

Weaver laughed contemptuously. "Begin pumping, son."

"I'm going to take my sister home with me. You'll give orders to your
men to that effect."

"Guess again."

"I tell you I'll shoot your hide full of holes if you don't!" cried the
excited boy.

"Oh, no, you won't."

Buck Weaver was flirting with death, and he knew it. The very breath of
it fanned his cheek. During that moment he lived gloriously; for he was
a man who revelled in his sensations. He laughed into the very muzzle of
the six-shooter that covered him.

"Quit your play acting, boy," he jeered.

"I give you one more chance before I blow out your brains."

The cattleman put his unwounded hand into his trousers pocket and
lounged forward, thrusting his smiling face against the cold rim of the
blue barrel.

"I reckon you'll scatter proper what few brains I've got."

With a curse, the boy flung the weapon down on the bed. He could not
possibly kill a man so willing as this. To draw guns with him, and
chance the issue, would have suited young Sanderson exactly. But this
way would be no less than murder.

"You devil!" he cried, with a boyish sob.

Weaver picked up the revolver, and examined it. "Mighty careless of Ned
to leave it lying around this way," he commented absently, as if unaware
of the other's rage. "You never can tell when a gun is going to get into
the wrong hands."

"What are you letting me go for? You've got a reason. What is it?" Phil
demanded.

Weaver looked at him through narrowed, daredevil eyes. "The ransom price
has been paid," he explained.

"Paid! Who paid it?"

"Miss Phyllis Sanderson."

"Phyllis?" repeated the boy incredulously. "But she had no money."

"Did I say she paid it in money?"

"What do you mean?"

"She asked me to set you free. I named my price, and she agreed."

"What was your price?" the boy asked hoarsely.

"A kiss."

At that, Phil struck him full in the sardonic, mocking face. Blood
crimsoned the lips that had been crushed against the strong, white
teeth.

"Again," said Weaver.

The brown fist went back and shot forward like a piston rod. This time
it left an ugly gash over the cheek bone.

"Much obliged. Once more."

The young man balanced himself carefully, and struck hard and true
between the eyes.

A third, a fourth, and a fifth time Phil lashed out at the disfigured,
grinning face.

"Let's make it an even half dozen," the cattleman suggested.

But Phil had had enough of it. This was too much like butchery. His
passion had spent itself. He struck, but with no force behind the blow.

Weaver went to the washstand, dashed some water on his face, and pressed
a towel against the raw wounds. He flung the red-soaked towel aside just
as Curly cantered up on Sanderson's horse. The cow-puncher stared at his
boss in amazement, opened his lips to speak, and thought better of it.
He looked at Phil, whose knuckles were badly barked and bleeding.

Curly had seen his master marked up before, but on such occasions the
other man was a sight for the gods to wonder at. Now Weaver was the
spectacle, and the other was untouched. In view of Buck's reputation as
a rough-and-tumble fighter, this seemed no less than a miracle. Curly
departed with the wonder unexplained, for Weaver dismissed him with a
nod.

"Like to see your sister before you go?" the cattleman asked curtly of
Phil, over his shoulder.

"Yes."

Buck led the way across the plaza to the house, and clapped his hands in
the hall. Josephine answered the summons.

"Tell Miss Sanderson that her brother would like to see her."

The woman vanished up the stairway, and the two men waited in silence.
Presently Phyllis stood in the door. Her eyes ignored Weaver, and were
only for her brother. Her first glance told her that all was well so far
as he was concerned, even though it also let her know that the boy was
anxious.

"Phil!" she breathed.

"So you bought my freedom for me, did you?" the boy said, his voice
trembling.

Phyllis answered in the clearest of low voices. "Yes. Did he tell you?"

"You oughtn't to have done it. I'll have no such bargains made.
Understand that!" cried her brother, emotion in his high tones.

"I couldn't help it, Phil. I did it for the best. You don't know."

"I know that you're to keep out of this. I'll fight my own battles. In
our family the girls don't sell kisses. Remember that."

Phyl hung her head. She felt herself disgraced, but she knew that she
would do it again in like circumstances.

Weaver broke in roughly: "You young fool! She's worth a dozen of you,
who haven't sense enough to _sabe_ her kind."

The girl glanced at him involuntarily. At sight of his swollen and
beaten face, she started. Her gaze clung to him, eyes wild and
fluttering with apprehension.

"I've been taking a massage treatment," he explained.

Phyllis looked at her brother, then back at the ranchman. The thing was
beyond comprehension. Ten minutes ago, this ferocious Hercules had left
her, sound and unscratched. Now he returned with a face beaten and
almost beyond recognition from bloodstains.

"What--what is it?" The appeal was to her brother.

"He let me beat him," Phil explained.

"Let you beat him! Why?"

"I don't know."

What the boy said was true, yet it was something less than the truth. He
was dimly aware that this man knew himself to have violated the code,
and that he had submitted to punishment because of the violation.

"Tell me," Phyllis commanded.

Phil told her in three sentences. She looked at Weaver with eyes that
saw him in a new light. He still sneered, but behind the mask she got
for the first time a glimpse of another man. Only dimly she divined him;
but what she visioned was half devil and half hero, capable of things
great as well as of deeds despicable.

"I'm not going to leave you here in this house," young Sanderson told
her. "I'll not go. If you stay, I stay."

She shook her head. "No, Phil--you must go. I'm all right here--as safe
as I would be at home. You know, he has a right to send me to prison if
he wants to. I suppose he is holding me as a hostage against our friends
in the hills."

The boy accepted her decree under protest. He did not know what else to
do. Decision comes only with age, and he could hit on no policy that
would answer. Reluctantly he gave way.

"If you so much as touch her, you'll die for it," he gulped at Weaver,
in a sudden boyish passion. "We'll shoot you down like a dog."

"Or a coyote," suggested Buck, with a swift glance at Phyllis. "It seems
to be a family habit. I'm much obliged to you."

Phyl was in her brother's arms, frankly in tears.

It was all very well to tell him to go; it was quite another thing to
let him go without a good cry at losing him.

"Just say the word, and I'll see it out with you, sis," he told her.

"No, no! I want you to go. I wouldn't have you stay. Tell the boys it's
all right, and don't let them do anything rash."

Sanderson clenched his teeth, and looked at Weaver. "Oh, they'll do
nothing rash. Now they know you're here, they won't do a thing but sit
down and be happy, I expect."

The twins whispered together for a minute, then the boy kissed her, put
her from him suddenly, and strode away. From the door he called back two
words at the cattleman.

"Don't forget."

With that, he was gone. Yet a moment, and they heard the clatter of his
horse's hoofs.

"Why did you tell him?" Phyllis asked. "It will only anger them. Now
they will seek vengeance on you."

The man shrugged his shoulders. "Search me. Perhaps I wanted to prove to
myself that a man may be a mean bully, and not all coyote. Perhaps I
wanted to get under his hide. Who knows?"

She knew, in part. He had treated her abominably, and wanted blindly to
pay for it in the first way that came to his mind. Half savage as he
sometimes was, that way had been to stand up to personal punishment, to
invite retaliation from his enemies.

"You must have your face looked to. Shall I call Josephine?"

"No," he answered harshly.

"I think I will. We can help it, I'm sure."

That "we" saved the day. He let her call the Mexican woman, and order
warm water, towels, dressings, and adhesive plaster. It seemed to him
more than a fancy that there was healing in the cool, soft fingers which
washed his face and adjusted the bandages. His eyes, usually so hard,
held now the dumb hunger one sees in those of a faithful dog. They
searched hers for something which he knew he would never find in them.




CHAPTER X

INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY


A man lay on the top of Flat Rock, stretched at supple ease. By his side
was a carbine; in his hand a pair of field glasses. These last had been
trained upon Twin Star Ranch for some time, but were now focused upon a
pair of approaching riders. At the edge of the young willow grove the
two dismounted and came forward leisurely.

"Looks like the mountains are coming to Mahomet this trip," the watcher
told himself.

One figure was that of a girl--a brown, light-stepping nymph, upon whom
the checkered sunlight filtered through the leaves. The other was a
finely built man, strong as an ox, but with the sap of youth still in
his blood and the spring of it in his step, in spite of his nearly
twoscore years. He stopped at the foot of Flat Rock, and turned to his
companion.

"I've been wondering why you went riding with me yesterday and again
to-day, Miss Phyllis. I reckon I've hit on the reason."

"I like to ride."

"Yes, but I expect you don't like to ride with me so awful much."

"Yet you see I do," answered the girl with her swift, shy smile.

"And the reason is that you know I would be riding, anyway. You don't
want any of your people from the hills to use me as a mark. With you
along, they couldn't do it."

"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to
send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred.

He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled
significantly.

She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him.

"And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He
grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion
tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does
her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a
dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?"

"Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them."

"You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not
for the sake of the coyote."

"I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said
that. Please!"

"All right--I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that
hurts."

"I don't think it."

"You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't
dodge. You know you think I'm a bully."

"I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing.

"Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the
story?"

"No. I'll listen, if you will tell me."

Weaver shook his head. "No--I guess that wouldn't be playing fair.
You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to
that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me--most of
it, at least--I sure enough deserve."

"I wonder," she mused, smiling at him.

Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom
Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in
bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide
her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk
of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed
heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even
though, at the same time, it terrified her.

Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give
me the same certificate of character. And I reckon they ain't so far
out, either," he added grimly.

"Perhaps they are all right, and yet all wrong too."

He looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Maybe they don't see the other side of you" said Phyllis gently.

"How do you know there's another side?"

"I don't know how, but I do."

"I reckon it must be a right puny one."

"It has a good deal to fight against, hasn't it?"

"You're right it has. There's a devil in me that gets up on its hind
legs and strangles what little good it finds. But it certainly beats me
how you know so much that goes on inside a sweep like me."

"You forget. I'm not very good myself. You know my temper runs away with
me, too."

"You blessed lamb!" she heard him say under his breath; and the way he
said it made the exclamation half a groan.

For her naive confession emphasized the gulf between them. Yet it
pleased him mightily that she linked herself with him as a fellow
wrongdoer.

"I suppose you've been wondering why your people have made no attempt to
rescue you," he said presently; for he saw her eyes were turned toward
the hills beyond which lay her home.

"I'm glad they haven't, because it must have made trouble; but I _am_
surprised," she confessed.

"They have tried it--twice," he told her. "First time was Saturday
morning, just before daylight. We trapped them as they were coming
through the Box Cañon. I knew they would come down that way, because it
was the nearest; so I was ready for them."

"And what happened?" Her dilated eyes were like those of a stricken doe.

"Nothing that time. I let them see I had them caught. They couldn't go
forward or back. They laid down their arms, and took the back trail.
There was no other way to escape being massacred."

"And the second time?"

Buck hesitated. "There was shooting that time. It was last night. My
riders outnumbered them and had cover. We drove them back."

"Anybody hurt?" cried Phyllis.

"One of them fell. But he got up and ran limping to his horse, I figured
he wasn't hurt badly."

"Was he--could you tell--" She leaned against the rock wall for support.

"No--I didn't know him. He was a young fellow. But you may be sure he
wasn't hit mortally. I know, because I shot him myself."

"You!" She drew back in a sudden sick horror of him.

"Why not?" he answered doggedly. "They were shooting at me--aiming to
kill, too. I shot low on purpose, when I might have killed him."

"Oh, I must go home--I must go home!" she moaned.

"I've got the sheriff's orders to hold you pending an investigation.
What harm does it do you to stay here a while?" he asked doggedly.

"Don't you see? When my father hears of it he will be furious. I made
Phil promise not to tell him. But he'll hear when he comes back. And
then--there will be trouble. He'll drag me from you, or he'll die
trying. He's that kind of man."

A pebble rolled down the face of the wall against which she leaned.
Weaver looked up quickly--to find himself covered by a carbine.

"Hands up, seh! No--don't reach for a gun."

"So it's you, Mr. Keller! Homesteading up there, I presume?"

"In a way of speaking. You remember I asked you a question."

"And I told you to go to Halifax."

"Well, I came back to answer the question myself. You're going to turn
the young lady loose."

"If you say so." Weaver's voice carried an inflection of sarcasm.

"That's what I say. Miss Sanderson, will you kindly unbuckle that belt
and round up the weapons of war? Good enough! I'll drift down that way
now myself."

Keller lowered himself from Flat Rock, keeping his prisoner covered as
carefully as he could the while. But, though Keller came down the steep
bluff with infinite pains, the rough going offered a chance of escape to
one so reckless as Weaver, of which he made not the least attempt to
avail himself. Instead, he smiled cynically and waited with his hand in
the air, as bidden. Keller, coming forward with both eyes on his
prisoner, slipped on a loose boulder that rolled beneath his foot,
stumbled, and fell, almost at the feet of the cattleman. He got up as
swiftly as a cat. Weaver and his derisive grin were in exactly the same
position.

Keller lowered his carbine instantly. This plainly was no case for the
coercion of arms.

"We'll cut out the gun play," he said. "Better rest the hand that's
reaching for the sky. I expect hostilities are over."

"You certainly had me scared stiff," Weaver mocked.

From the first roll of the pebble that had announced the presence of a
third party, Phyl had experienced surprise after surprise. She had
expected to see one of the Seven Mile boys or her brother instead of
Keller--had looked with a quaking heart for the cattleman to fling back
the swift challenge of a bullet. His tame surrender had amazed her,
especially when Keller's fall had given him a chance to seize the
carbine. His drawling, sarcastic badinage pointed to the same
conclusion. Evidently he had no desire to resist. Behind this must be
some purpose which she could not fathom.

"Elected yourself chaperon of the young lady, have you, Mr. Keller?"
Buck asked pleasantly.

The young man smiled at the girl before he answered. "You've been
losing too much time on the job, Mr. Weaver. Subject to her approval, I
got a notion I'd take her back home."

"Best place for her," assented Weaver promptly. "I've been thinking for
a day or two that she ought to get back to those school kids of hers.
But I'm going to take her there myself."

"Yourself!" Phyllis spoke up in quick surprise.

"Why not?" The cattleman smiled.

"Do you mean with your band of thugs?"

"No, ma'am. You and I will be enough."

The suggestion was of a piece with his usual audacity. The girl knew
that he would be quite capable of riding with her into the hills, where
he had a score of bitter, passionate enemies, and of affronting them, if
the notion should come into his head, even in their stronghold. Within
twenty-four hours he had shot one of them; yet he would go among them
with his jaunty, mocking smile and that hateful confidence of his.

"You would not be safe. They might kill you."

"Would that gratify you?"

"Yes!" she cried passionately.

He bowed. "Anything to give pleasure to a lady."

"No--you can't go! I won't go with you. I wouldn't be responsible for
what might happen."

"What might happen--another family impulse?"

"You know as well as I do--after what you've done. And there's bad blood
between you already. Besides, you are so reckless, so intemperate in
what you say and do."

"All right. If you won't go with me, I'll go alone," he said.

She appealed to Keller to support her, but the latter shook his head.

"No use. A wilful man must have his way. If he says he's going, I reckon
he'll go. But whyfor should I be euchred out of my ride. Let me go along
to keep the peace."

Her eyes thanked him. "If you are sure you can spare the time."

"Don't incommode yourself, if you're in a hurry. We won't miss you."
Weaver's cold stare more than hinted that three would be a crowd.

The younger man ignored him cheerfully. "Time to burn, Miss Sanderson."

"You don't want to let that spring plowing suffer," the cattleman
suggested ironically.

"That's so. Glad you mentioned it. I'll try to pick up some one to do it
at the store," returned the optimist.

"Seems to me there are a pair of us, Mr. Keller, who may not be welcome
at Seven Mile. Last time you were down there, weren't you the guest of
some willing lads who were arranging a little party for you?"

"Mr. Weaver," reproached Phyllis, flushing.

But the reference did not embarrass the nester in the least. He laughed
hardily, meeting his rival eye to eye. "The boys did have notions, but
I expect maybe they have got over them."

"Nothing like being hopeful. Now I'd back my show against yours every
day in the week."

The girl handed his revolver back to Weaver, after first asking a
question of the homesteader with her eyes.

"Oh, I get my hardware back, do I?" Buck grinned.

Keller brought his horse round from back of Flat Rock, where it had been
picketed. They started at once, cutting across the plain to a flat
butte, which thrust itself out from the hills into the valley. Two hours
of steady travel brought them to the butte, behind which lay Seven Mile
ranch.

At the first glimpse of the roofs shining in the golden sunlight Phyllis
gave a cry of delight.

"Home again. I wonder whether Father's here."

"I wonder," echoed Weaver grimly.

"That little fellow riding into the corral is one of my scholars," she
told them.

"One of the fourteen that loves you, Miss Going-On-Eighteen. My,
there'll be joy in Israel over the lost that is found. I reckon by
to-morrow you'll be teaching the young idea how to shoot." He glanced
down at his bandaged arm with a malicious grin.

Phyllis looked at him without speaking. It was Keller who made
application of the remark.

"There are others here beside her pupils. Some of them are right quick
and straight on the shoot, Mr. Weaver. Now you've seen Miss Sanderson
home, there's still time to make your getaway without trouble. How about
hitting the trail while travelling is good, seh?"

"What's the matter with you taking your own advice, Keller?"

"I don't figure the need is pressing in my case. Different with you."

"I told you I would back my chances against yours. Well, I'm standing
pat on that."

"The road will be open to me to-morrow. I wonder will it be open to you
then."

"My friend, who elected you guardeen to Buck Weaver?" drawled the big
man carelessly.

"I wish you would go," Phyllis pleaded, plainly troubled over his
obstinacy.

"Me, I always hated to disoblige a lady," Buck admitted.

"Then go," she cried eagerly.

"But I hate still more to go back on my word. So I'll stay."

There was nothing more to be said. They rode forward to the ranch.
'Rastus, at the stables, raised a shout and broke for the store on the
run.

"Hyer's Miss Phyl done come home."

At his call light-stepping dusty men poured from the building like seeds
from a squeezed orange. There was a rush for the girl. She was lifted
from her saddle and carried in triumph to the porch. Jim Sanderson came
running from the cellar in the rear and buried her in his arms.

She broke down and began to cry a little. "Oh, Dad--Dad, I'm so glad to
be home."

The old Confederate veteran was close to tears himself.

"Honey, I jes' got back from town. Phil, he done wrong not letting me
know. I come pretty nigh giving that boy the bud. Wait till I meet up
with Buck Weaver. It's him or me for suah this time."

"No, Dad, no! You must let me explain. I've been quite safe, and it's
all over now. Everything is all right."

"Is it?" Sanderson laughed harshly.

"The sheriff telephoned him to keep me, but you see he brought me home."

"Brought you home?" The sheepman's black eyes lifted quickly and met
those of his enemy.

"So you're there, Buck Weaver. I reckon you and I will settle accounts."

Phil and Tom Dixon had quietly circled round so as to cut off Weaver's
retreat in case he attempted one.

"He's got the rustler with him," Tom Dixon cried quickly.

"Goddlemighty, so he has. We'll make a clean sweep," the Southerner
cried, his eyes blazing.

"Then you'll destroy the man who was ready to give his life for mine,"
his daughter said quietly.

"What's that? How's that, Phyllie?"

"It's a long story. I want you to hear it all. But not here."

Her voice fell. A sudden memory had come to her of one thing at least
that she could not tell even to him--the story of that moment when she
had lain in the arms of the nester with his heart beating against her
breast.

The old man caught her by the shoulder, holding her at arm's length,
while the deep eyes under his shaggy, grizzled brows pierced her.

"What have you got to tell me, gyurl? Out with it!"

But on the heels of his imperative demand came reassurance. A tide of
color poured into her face, but her eyes met his quietly. They let him
understand, more certainly than words, that all was well with his ewe
lamb. Putting her gently to one side, he strode toward his enemy.

"What are you doing here, Buck Weaver?"

The cattleman swept the circle of lowering faces, and laughed
contemptuously. "A man might think I wasn't welcome if he didn't know
better."

"Oh, you're welcome--I reckon nobody on earth is more welcome right
now," retorted Sanderson grimly. "We were starting right out after you,
seh. But seeing you're here it saves trouble. Better 'light, you and
your friend, both."

The declining sun flashed on three weapons that already covered the
cattleman. He looked easily from one to another, without the least
concern, and swung lightly from his horse.

"Much obliged. Glad to accept your hospitality. But about this young man
here--he's not exactly a friend of mine--a mere pick-up acquaintance, in
fact. You mustn't accept him on my say-so. Of course, you know _I'm_ all
right, but I can't guarantee _him_," Buck drawled, with magnificent
effrontery.

Phyllis spoke up unexpectedly. "_I_ can."

Keller looked at her gratefully. It was not that he cared so much for
the certificate of character as for the friendly spirit that prompted
it. "That's right kind of you," he nodded.

"We haven't heard yet what you are doing here, Buck Weaver," old Jim
Sanderson said, holding the cattleman with a hard and hostile eye. "And
after you've explained that, there are a few other things to make
clear."

"Such as----" suggested the plainsman.

"Such as keeping my daughter a captive and insulting her while she was
in your house," the father retorted promptly.

"I held her captive because it was my right. She admitted shooting me.
Would you expect me to turn her loose, and thank her right politely for
it? I want to tell you that some folks would be right grateful because I
didn't send her to the penitentiary."

"You couldn't send her there. No jury in Arizona would convict--even if
she were guilty," Tom Dixon broke out.

"That's a frozen fact about the Arizona jury," the cattleman agreed,
with a swift, careless look at the boy. "Just the same, I had a license
to hold her. About the insult--well, I've got nothing to say. Nothing
except this, that I wouldn't be wearing these decorations"--he touched
the scars on his face--"if I didn't agree with you that nobody but a
sweep would have done it."

"Everybody unanimous on that point, I reckon," said Jim Yeager promptly.

Phyllis had been speaking to her father in a low voice. The old man
listened with no great patience, but finally nodded a concession to her
importunity.

"We'll waive the matter of the insult just now. How about that boy you
shot up? Looks like you're a fool to come drilling in here, with him
still lying there on his bed."

"He took his fighting chance. You ain't kicking because I played out the
game the way you-all started to play it? If you are, I'll have to say I
might have expected a sheep herder to look at it that way," Weaver
retorted insolently.

The old man took a grip on his rising wrath. "No--we're not kicking, any
more than you've got a right to kick when we settle accounts with you."

"As we're liable to do right shortly, now we've got you," said Dixon,
vindictively.

"All right--go ahead with the indictment," Weaver acquiesced quietly,
ignoring the boy.

"Keep still, Tom," Sanderson ordered, and went on with his grievance.
"You try to run this valley as if you were God Almighty. By your way of
it, a man has to come with hat in hand to ask you if he may take up land
here. The United States says we may homestead, but Buck Weaver says we
shan't. Uncle Sam says we may lease land to run sheep. Buck Weaver has
another notion of it. We're to take orders from him. If we don't he
clubs our sheep and drives off our cattle."

"Cattle were here first," retorted Weaver. "The range is overstocked,
and they've got a prior right. Nesters in the hills here are making
money by rustling Twin Star calves. That's another thing."

"Some of them. You'll not find any rustled calves with the Seven Mile
brand on them. And we don't recognize any prior right. We came here
legally. We intend to stay. Every time your riders club a bunch of our
sheep, we'll even up on Twin Star cattle. You take my daughter captive;
I hold you prisoner."

"You'll be in luck if you get away from here with a whole skin," broke
out Phil. "You came here to please yourself, but you'll stay to please
us."

"So?" Buck smiled urbanely. He was staying because he wanted to, though
they never guessed it.

"Unbuckle his gun belt, Tom," ordered the old man.

"Save you the trouble." Weaver unbuckled the belt and tossed it,
revolver and all, to Yeager.

"Now, Mr. Weaver, we'll adjourn to the house."

"Anything to oblige."

"What about Mr. Keller?" Phyllis asked, in a low voice, of her father.

The old man's keen, hard eyes surveyed the stranger. "Who is he? What do
you know about him?"

As shortly as she could, she told what she knew of Keller, and how he
had rescued her from captivity.

Her father strode forward and shook hands with the young man.

"Make yourself at home, seh. We'll be glad to have you stay with us as
long as you can. What you have done for my daughter puts us
everlastingly in your debt."

"Not worth mentioning. And, to be fair, I think Weaver was going to
bring her home, anyhow."

"The way the story reached me, he didn't mention it until you had the
drop on him," answered Sanderson dryly.

"That's right," nodded the cattleman ironically, from the porch. "You're
the curly-haired hero, Keller, and I'm the red-headed villain of this
play. You want to beware of the miscreant, Miss Sanderson, or he'll sure
do you a meanness."

Tom Dixon eyed him frostily. "I expect you'll not do her any meanness,
Buck Weaver. From now on, you'll go one way and she'll go another.
You'll be strangers."

"You don't say!" Buck answered, looking him over derisively, as he
passed into the house. "You're crowing loud for your size. And don't you
bet heavy on that proposition, my friend."




CHAPTER XI

TOM DIXON


With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls
came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay
soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint
for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that
has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to
harness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds,
who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waiting
buggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road.

The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells--to meet the eyes of
a young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in a
good-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. It
was not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten that
one meets daily.

"Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air of
cheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone--all but little Jimmie
Tryon. He rides home with me."

"Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back,"
complained the man.

"Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank and
direct as that of a boy.

But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way.
You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out.

"Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly.

"What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way ever
since----"

He broke off.

A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?"

"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver."

"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly
broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid
this. Must we thrash it out?"

"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I
reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with
you."

A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes
refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were
just children."

"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?"

"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she
pleaded.

"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle,
and came toward her eagerly. "I love you--always have since I was
knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these
days."

She held up a hand to keep him back. "No--we're not. I know now that
you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you."

"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted.

She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy
had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace.
She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother.

"No, Tom--let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me
be just a friend."

"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put
off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got
a right to know, and I'm going to know."

"Yes, you have a right--but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I
didn't know my own mind then, and I do now."

"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily.

She was silent.

"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!"

"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart,"
she told him gently.

"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I
shot Weaver?"

"You shot him from ambush."

"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw
him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't
lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to
shoot, and I shot before----"

"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning,
even if it was right to shoot at all--which, of course, it wasn't."

"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a
mistake?"

"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than
that. I can't tell you just what I mean."

"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience.

"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain."

"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame
his eyes could not meet hers.

"No--I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least
resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you
ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't
possibly marry you after that."

The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling with
vexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness of
that scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bear
the brunt of what he had done.

"You told me to go, and now you blame me for doing what you said," he
complained bitterly.

She realized the weakness of his defense--that he had saved himself at
the expense of the girl he claimed to love, simply because she had
offered herself as a sacrifice in his place. She thought of another man,
who, at the risk of his life, had held back the half dozen pursuers just
to give a better chance to a girl he had not known a week. She thought
of the cattleman who had ridden gayly into this valley of enemies,
because he loved her, and was willing to face any punishment for the
wrong he had done her. Her brother, too, pointed the same moral. He had
defied the enemy, though he had been in his power. Not one of them would
have done what Tom Dixon, in his panic terror, had allowed himself to
do. But they were men, all of them--men of that stark courage that
clings to self-respect rather than to life. This youth had met the acid
test, and had failed in the assay. She had no anger toward him--only a
kindly pity, and a touch of contempt which she could not help.

"No--I don't blame you, Tom," she told him, very kindly. "But I can't
marry you. I couldn't if you explained till Christmas. That is final.
Now let us be friends."

She held out her hand. He looked at it through the tears of
mortification that were in his eyes, dashed it aside with an oath, swung
to the saddle, and galloped down the road.

Phyllis gave a wistful sigh. Tears filmed her eyes. He was her first
lover, had given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the third
grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him
go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she
experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a
form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now
to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and
not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch
girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals
when she was not handy to receive them.

"Was Tom Dixon mean to you, teacher?"

Little five-year-old Jimmie Tryon was standing before her, feet apart,
fists knotted, and brow furrowed. She swooped upon her champion and
snatched him up for a kiss.

"Nobody has been mean to teacher, Jimmie, you dear little kiddikins,"
she cried. "It's all right, honey. Tom thinks it isn't, but before long
he'll know it is."

"Who'll tell him?" Jimmie wanted to know anxiously.

"Some nice girl, little curiosity box. I don't know who yet, but it will
be one of two or three I could name," she laughed.

She harnessed the horse and hitched it to the trap in which Jimmie and
she came to school. But before she had gathered up the reins to start,
another young man strolled upon the scene.

This one was walking and carried a rifle.

At sight of him a glow began to burn through her dark cheeks. They had
not been alone together before since that moment when the stress of
their emotion had swept them to a meeting of warm lips and warm bodies
that had startled her by the electric pulsing of her blood.

Her eyes could not hold to his. Shame dragged the lashes down.

With him it was not shame. The male in him rode triumphant because he
had moved a girl to the deeps of her nature. But something in him, some
saving sense of embarrassment, of reverence for the purity and innocence
he sensed in her, made him shrink from pressing the victory. His mind
cast about for a commonplace with which to meet her.

He held up as a trophy of his prowess two cottontails. "Who says I can't
shoot?" he wanted to know boisterously.

"Where did you buy them?" she scoffed, faintly trying for sauciness.

"That's a fine reward for honest virtue, after I tramped five miles to
get them for your supper," protested Keller.

She recovered her composure quickly, as women will.

"If they are for my supper, we'll have to ask him to ride home with
us--won't we, Jimmie? It would never do to have them reach the ranch too
late," she said, making room for Keller in the seat beside her.

It was after she had driven several hundred yards that he said, with a
smile: "I met a young man on horseback as I was coming up. He went by me
like a streak of light. Looked like he found this a right mournful
world. You had ought to scatter sunshine and not gloom, Miss Phyllis."

"Am I scattering gloom?" she asked demurely.

"Not right now," he laughed. "But looks like you have been."

She flicked a fly from the flank of her horse before she answered: "Some
people are so noticing."

"It was hanging right heavy on him. Had the look of a man who had lost
his last friend," the young man observed meditatively.

"Dear me! How pathetic!"

"Yes--he sure looked like he'd rejoice to plug another cattleman. I
'most arranged to send for Buck Weaver again," said Keller calmly.

Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that you
say?"

"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again."

"Yes, but you said too----"

"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story of
yours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you was
riding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from
'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt a
mouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on a
blind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover."

"He isn't a coyote," she objected.

Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew how
to respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man who
would shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bear
the blame of his wrongdoing. "No--I reckon coyote is too big a name for
him," he admitted.

"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It was
natural he should feel a grudge."

"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. How
come you to let him do it?"

"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun go
up, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he had
fired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazy
with fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide in
the big rocks, while I cut across toward the cañon. The men saw me, and
gave chase."

"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, with
emphasis.

Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Of
course they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was that
somebody was riding through the chaparral."

"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chance
to save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Keller
put the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a vent
to his feelings.

Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of a
man game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not even
a friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could.

"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I need
them to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty."

"He stood by her, too," she answered, trying to keep the matter
impersonal.

"Perhaps he wanted to make her his friend," Larrabie suggested.

"There is no perhaps about his success," she said quietly, her gaze just
beyond the ears of her horse. The young man dared now to look at her--a
child of the sun despite her duskiness. Eagerly he awaited the deep,
lustrous eyes that would presently sweep round upon him, big and dark
and sparkling. When she turned her head, they were full of that new
womanly dignity that yet did not obscure the shy innocence.

"Look!" Jimmie Tryon pointed suddenly to the figure of a man
disappearing from the road into the mesquite two hundred yards in front
of them.

"That's odd. I reckon you'd better wait here, and let me investigate a
few," suggested Keller.

"Be careful," she said anxiously.

"It's all right. Don't worry," the young man assured her.

He got down from the trap and dived into the underbrush, rifle in hand.
The two in the buggy waited a long time. No sound came to them from the
cactus-covered waste to indicate what was happening. When Phyllis' watch
told her that he had been gone ten minutes, a cheerful hail came from
the road in front.

"All right. Come on."

But it was far from all right. Keller had with him an old Mexican
herder, called Manuel Quito--a man in the employ of her father. A
bandanna was tied round his shoulder, and it was soaked with
bloodstains. He told his story with many shrugs and much excited
gesticulation. He and Jesus Menendez had been herding on Lone Pine when
riders of the Twin Star outfit had descended upon them and attacked the
sheep. He and Menendez had elected to fight, and Jesus had been shot
down; he himself had barely escaped with his life--and that not without
a wound. The cow-punchers had followed him, and continued to fire at
him, but he had succeeded in escaping. Yes--he felt sure that Menendez
was dead. Even if he had not been dead at first, they would have killed
him.

Keller consulted Miss Sanderson silently. He knew that she was thinking
the thought that was in his own mind. It would never do to let this
story reach her father and her brother, while Buck Weaver was still in
their power. Inflamed as they already were against him, they would
surely do in hot blood that which they would repent later. Somehow,
Keller and she must hold back the news until they could contrive a way
to free the cattleman.

"Best leave Manuel at the Tryon place till morning. They will look out
for him as well as you can. That will give us twelve hours to work
before they hear what has happened."

"But what about poor Jesus, lying out there alone?"

"We'll get Bob Tryon to drive out. But you needn't worry about Jesus. If
they found him still living, the Twin Star boys will attend to him just
as kindly as we could. Cowboys have tender hearts, even though they go
off at half cock."

They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under the
care of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silence
until morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to be
no reason why he should not do well.

It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He was
confined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of the
riders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if a
better chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended upon
the possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, while
Phyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner.

The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. One
thing was sure--if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemies
before the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, his
chance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood of
the South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strike
first and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swift
blow would be a deadly one.




CHAPTER XII

THE ESCAPE

For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch
by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her
bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one.

In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along
the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened
one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a
trip hammer.

Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in
the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal.
Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence.

But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the
dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so
often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To
judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged.

The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner
and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the
moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom
stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into
the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what
cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite
on the other side of the road.

Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key
to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it
behind her.

"Where are you?" her young voice breathed.

"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?"

She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you
tied?"

"Yes--hands and feet."

A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a
few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the
door opened and a head was thrust in.

"What's the row, Tom?"

Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing
began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about."

But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the
fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched.

"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the
cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows.

They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged
from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the
cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting.

"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her.

She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He
would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in
his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers.

"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as
not to arouse suspicion."

"But tell me--what does it mean?" demanded Buck.

"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave
this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost."

With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an
apparition of terror to learn what was wrong.

She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log
cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing,
and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions.

"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of
excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp.
Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over.
This moment she chose for her entrance.

"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the
doorway.

"He's got away--we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously.

"But--how?"

"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By
God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore.

Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and
coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too,
fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?"

"Nothing--except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools,"
snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner--that's what's the matter."

Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought
you kept him guarded."

"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil.

"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly.

"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a
meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers
answered that the prisoner was safe so far.

"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm.
"Sounded like a battle--and when we got there not a soul could be found.
Beats me how they got away so slick."

Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to
be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she
had been told to do.

She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head
quickly when she entered.

"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity,"
he began.

"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one
of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man
as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a
neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves
on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid--we were
both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller
slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to
draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail
above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all."

"But what am I to do here?"

"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go,
the chances are they would have caught you again."

"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?"

"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the
sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to
escape the law that has been written?"

"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life."

"I don't want blood on the hands of my people."

"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his
old sneer.

She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor
Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a
punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict
it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them."

"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a
wolfish Amalekite. Come--the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the
reapers."

He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended
to block the way.

"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when
the news comes."

"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his
derisive smile.

"You do nothing but mock--at your own death, at that of others. But you
shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little
wildly.

"If you put it that way----"

"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend
to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back
to them out of spite or dare-deviltry."

"Just as you say."

"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all
our lives are planned for your amusement."

"I wish yours were planned----" He pulled himself up short. "You're
right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in
your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do."

"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you.
You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and
you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance
for you to get away."

"But I'll be driving you out," he protested.

"I'm going to sleep with Anna--the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs.
Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the
door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else
knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear."

"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a
low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the
decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is
that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of
this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a
chance to prove them."

She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And
with that she left him to himself.

Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but
they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her,
and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism
to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly.

The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her
again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to
find her in the passage with a tray of food.

"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot--just what
happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys
are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry.
Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the
tray on the table.

Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up
her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great
fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her
hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the
passage and down the back stairs.

He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as
silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and
charm, was not--could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the
road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him.

How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray
morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his
absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance.

He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the
threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him.

"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked.

The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not
think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming
accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She
let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology.

"It's Phil, isn't it?"

There was no way out of it. "No--it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll
explain," said Buck Weaver.

Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the
stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young
mistress.

"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost."

"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room."

"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply.

"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought--oh, I don't
know what I thought."

Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very
curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in
everybody's business.

"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly.

"I don't think. I saw him."

"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of
gentle scorn.

"No--he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure."

"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go
and see myself. You stay here."

She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I
wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now,
when everybody is excited over the escape of that man."

"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl
maintained obstinately.

"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me."

Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from
Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had
been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she
eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she
could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to
her to save the man in her room.




CHAPTER XIII

A MISTAKE


At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the
sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The
Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they
could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made
an end of him.

Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of
the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go
to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate
might have in store.

When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to
leave.

She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there,
rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after
the breakfast.

"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a
sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away."

"I promise," he told her.

She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face
was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it.

"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read,
without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see."

"Oh, I hope not--I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You _will_ be
careful, won't you?"

"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me."

Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front
door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins.

"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens----"

"But it won't. Why should it?"

"Anna knows. She blundered upon him."

"Will she keep it quiet?"

"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the
boys."

"All right," he nodded.

"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said
piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so.

He shook his head. "No--you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will
be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going
to be on the job all day."

"You're so good!"

"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the
dust robe, without looking at her.

But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of
hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in
her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence
and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed
himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing
him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver--and never to
his disadvantage.

He talked with a drawl. He walked and rode with an air of languid ease.
But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so
gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force
in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good
humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he
had won her. But the touch of affection in his manner never suggested
weakness.

From the porch Tom Dixon watched her departure sullenly. Since he could
not have her, he let himself grow jealous of the man who perhaps could.
And because he was what he was--a small man, full of vanity and
conceit--he must needs make parade of himself with another girl in the
role of conquering squire. Larrabie smiled as the young fellow went off
for a walk in obviously confidential talk with Anna Allan, but he
learned soon that it was no smiling matter.

Half an hour later, the girl came flying back along the trail the two
had taken. Catching sight of Keller, she ran across to him, plainly
quivering with excitement and fluttering with fears.

"Oh, Mr. Keller--I've done it now! I didn't think----I thought--"

"Take it easy," soothed the young man, with one of his winning smiles.
"Now, what is it you have done?" Already his eyes had picked out Dixon
returning, not quite so impetuously, along the trail.

"I told him about the man in Phyllis' room."

Larrabie's eyes narrowed and grew steely. "Yes?"

"I told him--I don't know why, but I never could keep a secret. I made
him promise not to tell. But he is going to tell the boys. There he
comes now. And I told Phyllis I wouldn't tell!" Anna began to cry,
miserably aware that she had made a mess of things.

"I just begged him not to tell--and he had promised. But he says it's
his duty, and he's going to do it. Oh, Mr. Keller--if Mr. Weaver is
there they will hurt him, and I'll be to blame."

"Yes, you will be," he told her bluntly. "But we may save him yet--if
you can go about your business and keep your mouth shut."

"Oh, I will--I will," she promised eagerly. "I'll not say a word--not to
anybody."

"See that you don't. Now, run along home. I'm going to have a quiet
little talk with that young man. Maybe I can persuade him to change his
mind," he said grimly.

"Please--if you could. I don't want to start any trouble."

Larrabie grinned, without taking his eyes from the man coming down the
trail. It was usually some good-natured idiot, with a predisposition to
gabbling, that made most of the trouble in the world.

"Well, you be a good girl and padlock your tongue. If you do, I'll fix
it up with Tom," he promised.

He sauntered forward toward the path. Dixon, full of his news, was
hurrying to the ranch. He was eager to tell it to the Sandersons,
because he wanted to reinstate himself in their good graces. For, though
neither of them knew he had fired the shot that wounded Weaver, he had
observed a distinct coolness toward him for his desertion of Phyllis in
her time of need. It had been all very well for him to explain that he
had thought it best to hurry home to get help. The fact remained that he
had run away and left her alone.

Now he was for pushing past Keller with a curt nod, but the latter
stopped him with a lift of the hand.

"What's your sweat?"

"Want to see me, do you?"

Keller nodded easily.

"All right. Unload your mind. I can't give you but a minute."

"Press of business on to-day?"

"It's _my_ business."

"I'm going to make it mine."

"What do you mean?" came the quick, suspicious retort.

"Let's walk back up the trail and talk it over."

"No."

"Yes."

Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won.

"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly.

"We can, but we won't."

"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail."

"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man--a
brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes.

Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did
not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about
this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour
without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he
stopped.

"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed,
attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession.

"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the
American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope--no,
sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused
aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch.

Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn
foolishness?"

"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and
me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a
thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His
voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his
eyes that showed him prepared for any move.

So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral
Keller nailed him in a dozen strides.

"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business
to keep me here."

"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."

The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and
twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain.
Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of
his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and
stepped back.

"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that
gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.

"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take
a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."

"What--what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told
you that lie."

He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the
face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to
pay for it.

"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's
been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand
the gaff for you. Now it's due."

"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said
that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize----"

"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take
it."

Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his
opponent by twenty pounds--a husky, well-built fellow; but he was
entirely without the fighting edge. He

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