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Paradise Bend

by William Patterson White · English · Gutenberg #34567 · 530,615 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Paradise Bend

Author: William Patterson White

Illustrator: Ralph P. Coleman


        
Release date: December 4, 2010 [eBook #34567]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34567

Credits: Produced by Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARADISE BEND ***




Produced by Al Haines









[Frontispiece: "_'Tom!' she breathed. 'Tom! you do think I betrayed you
after all...'_"]





PARADISE BEND


BY

WILLIAM PATTERSON WHITE



Author of

"_Hidden Trails,_" "_The Owner of the Lazy D,_" "_Lynch Lawyers_."




FRONTISPIECE BY

RALPH PALLEN COLEMAN




A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers    New York

Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Page & Company




COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF

TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,

INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN




TO MY CAPE MAY COUSINS

DOROTHY, BESS, AND MARION




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

     I.  Tom Loudon
    II.  At the Bar S
   III.  Shots on Pack-Saddle
    IV.  The Skinned Cattle
     V.  Their Own Deceivings
    VI.  Pestilent Fellows
   VII.  Paradise Bend
  VIII.  The Amazing Mackenzie
    IX.  Authors of Confusion
     X.  The Horse Thief
    XI.  Rocket
   XII.  Scotty Advises
  XIII.  The Dance
   XIV.  A Determined Woman
    XV.  A Hidden Trail
   XVI.  Kate is Helpful
  XVII.  Mrs. Burr Relieves Her Mind
 XVIII.  A Murder and a Killing
   XIX.  Marysville
    XX.  The Railroad Corral
   XXI.  The Judge's Office
  XXII.  Under the Ridge
 XXIII.  The Smoke of Conflict
  XXIV.  Before the Dawn
   XXV.  Trail's End




PARADISE BEND



CHAPTER I

TOM LOUDON

"And don't forget that ribbon!" called Kate Saltoun from the
ranch-house door.  "And don't lose the sample!"

"I won't!" shouted Tom Loudon, turning in his saddle.  "I'll get her
just like you said!  Don't you worry any!"

He waved his hat to Kate, faced about, and put his horse to a lope.

"Is it likely now I'd forget?" he muttered.  "We'd do more'n that for
her, wouldn't we, fellah?"

The horse, a long-legged chestnut named Ranger, turned back one ear.
He was accustomed to being questioned, was Ranger.  Tom Loudon loved
him.  He had bought him a five-year-old from the 88 ranch the year
before, and he would allow no one save Kate Saltoun to ride him.  For
the sun and the moon, in the estimation of Tom Loudon, rose and set in
the black eyes of Kate Saltoun, the exceedingly handsome daughter of
John T. Saltoun, the owner of the great Bar S ranch.

This day Loudon was riding into Farewell for the ranch mail, and Kate
had commissioned him to do an errand for her.  To serve his lady was
joy to Loudon.  He did not believe that she was aware of his state of
mind.  A flirt was Kate, and a charming one.  She played with a man as
a cat plays with a mouse.  At which pleasant sport Kate was an adept.
But Loudon realized nothing of all this.  Shrewd and penetrative in his
business, where Kate was concerned he saw nothing but the obvious.

Where the trail snaked over Indian Ridge, ten miles from the ranch
house, Loudon pulled up in front of a lone pine tree.  On the trunk of
the pine a notice was tacked.  Which notice set forth briefly that two
hundred dollars' reward was offered for the person or persons of the
unknown miscreant or miscreants who were depleting the herds of the Bar
S and the Cross-in-a-box outfits.  It was signed by Sheriff Block.

Who the miscreants were no one knew with certainty.  But strange tales
were told of the 88 punchers.  It was whispered that they carried
running-irons on their saddles.  Certainly they displayed, when riding
the range, a marked aversion to the company of men from the other
ranches.

The remains of small fires had been found time and again in draws
bordering the 88 range, and once a fire-marked cinch-ring had been
picked up.  As the jimmy and bunch of skeleton keys in a man's pocket
so are the running-iron and the extra cinch-ring under a puncher's
saddle-skirts.  They indicate a criminal tendency; specifically, in the
latter case, a whole-hearted willingness to brand the cattle of one's
neighbour.

Loudon read the notice of reward, slow contempt curling his lips.

"Signs," he said, gently.  "Signs----!  What we need is
Vigilantes--Vigilantes an' a bale o' rope!"

He turned in his saddle and looked back over the way he had come.
Fifty miles to the south the Frying Pan Mountains lay in a cool, blue,
tumbling line.

From where Loudon sat on his horse to the Frying Pans stretched the
rolling range, cut by a thin, kinked strip of cottonwoods marking the
course of a wandering river, pockmarked with draws and shallow basins,
blotched with clumps of pine and tamarack, and humped with knolls and
sprawling hills.  The meandering stream was the Lazy, and all the land
in sight, and beyond for that matter, was the famous Lazy River country
held by three great ranches, the Cross-in-a-box, the Bar S, and the 88.

Of these the 88 was the largest and the farthest west of the three, its
eastern line running along the high-bluffed banks of the Falling Horse,
which emptied into the Lazy some ten miles from the 88 ranch house.
East of the 88 lay the Bar S, and east of the Bar S was the
Cross-in-a-box.  The two latter ranches owned the better grazing, the
more broken country lying within the borders of the 88 ranch.

Beyond the 88 range, across the Falling Horse, were the Three Sisters
Mountains, a wild and jumbled tangle of peaks and narrow valleys where
the hunter and the bear and the mountain lion lived and had their
beings.  East of the Lazy River country lay the Double Diamond A and
the Hog-pen outfits; north and south stretched other ranches, but all
the ranges ended where the Three Sisters began.

Loudon swung his gaze westward, then slowly his eyes slid around and
fastened on the little brown dots that were the ranch buildings of the
Bar S.  He shook his head gently and sighed helplessly.

He was thinking partly of Kate and partly of her father, the gray old
man who owned the Bar S and would believe nothing evil of his
neighbours, the hard-riding 88 boys.  Loudon was morally certain that
forty cows within the last three months had transferred their
allegiance from Bar S to 88, and he had hinted as much to Mr. Saltoun.
But the latter had laughed him to scorn and insisted that only a few
cows had been taken and that the lifting was the work of independent
rustlers, or perhaps of one of the other ranches.  Nevertheless, in
response to the repeated urging of his foreman, Bill Rainey, Mr.
Saltoun had joined with the Cross-in-a-box in offering a reward for the
rustlers.

Loudon was well aware of the reason for Mr. Saltoun's fatuous
blindness.  That reason was Sam Blakely, the 88 manager, who came often
to the Bar S ranch and spent many hours in the company of Kate.  Mr.
Saltoun did not believe that a dog would bite the hand that fed him.
But it all depends on the breed of dog.  And Blakely was the wrong
breed.

"He shore is a pup," Loudon said, softly, "an' yellow at that.  He'd
steal the moccasins off a dead Injun.  An' Block would help him, the
cow-thief."

Then, being young, Loudon practised the road-agent's spin on the notice
of reward tacked on the pine tree, and planted three accurate bullets
in the same spot.

"Here, you!  What yuh doin'?" rasped a grating voice in Loudon's
immediate rear.

Loudon turned an unhurried head.  Ten yards distant a tall man,
black-bearded, of a disagreeable cast of countenance, was leaning
forward across an outcrop.

"I asked yuh what yuh was doin'?" repeated the peevish individual,
glaring at Loudon.

"I heard yuh the first time, Sheriff," replied Loudon, placidly.  "I
was just figurin' whether to tell yuh I was shoein' a horse or catchin'
butterflies.  Which answer would yuh like best?"

"Yuh think yo're mighty funny, Tom Loudon, but I tell yuh flat if yuh
don't go slow 'round here I'll find a quick way o' knockin' yore horns
off."

"Yuh don't say.  When yuh goin' to begin?"

Loudon beamed upon the sheriff, his gun held with studied carelessness.
Sheriff Block walked from behind his breastwork, his eyes watchful, his
thumbs carefully hooked in the armholes of his vest.

"That notice ain't no target," he grunted, halting beside the pine tree.

"It is now," remarked Loudon, genially.

"It won't be no more."

"O' course not, Sheriff.  I wouldn't think o' shootin' at it if you say
no.  It's a right pretty piece o' readin'.  Did yuh write it all
yoreself?"

The sheriff's eyes became suddenly blank and fixed.  His right thumb
slowly unhooked.

"I only fired three shots," observed Loudon, the muzzle of his
six-shooter bearing on the pit of the sheriff's stomach.

The sheriff's right thumb rehooked itself hurriedly.  His frame relaxed.

"Yuh shouldn't get mad over a joke," continued Loudon.  "It's plumb
foolish.  Been hidin' behind that rock long?"

"I wasn't hidin' behind it.  I was down in the draw, an' I seen you
a-readin' the notice, an' I come up."

Loudon's gray eyes twinkled.  He knew that the sheriff lied.  He knew
that Block had heard his comments on Blakely and his own worshipful
person, but evidently the sheriff did not consider this an opportune
time for taking umbrage.

"So yuh come up, did yuh?  Guess yuh thought it was one o' the rustlers
driftin' in to see what reward was out for him, didn't yuh?  But don't
get downhearted.  Maybe one'll come siftin' along yet.  Why don't yuh
camp here, Sheriff?  It'll be easier than ridin' the range for 'em, an'
a heap healthier.  Now, Sheriff, remember what I said about gettin'
red-headed.  Say, between friends, an' I won't tell even the little
hoss, who do you guess is doin' the rustlin'?"

"If I knowed," growled the sheriff, "his name'd be wrote on the notice."

"Would it?  I was just wonderin'.  Habit I got."

"Don't you fret none about them rustlers.  I'll get 'em if it takes ten
years."

"Make it twenty, Sheriff.  They'll keep right on electin' yuh."

"Do yuh mean to say the rustlers elected me?" exploded the sheriff.

"O' course not," chided Loudon, gently.  "Now what made yuh think I
meant that?"

"Well, yuh said----" began the sheriff.

"I said 'they,'" interrupted Loudon.  "You said 'rustlers'.  Stay in
the saddle, Sheriff.  You'll stub your toe sometime if yuh keep on
a-travellin' one jump ahead o' the hoss."

"Yo're ---- smart for a cow-punch."

"It is a cinch to fool most of 'em, ain't it--especially when yo're a
sheriff?"

Loudon's eyes were wide open and child-like in their gray blandness.
But the sheriff did not mistake his man.  Block knew that if his hand
dropped, a bullet would neatly perforate his abdomen.  The sheriff was
not a coward, but he had sense enough not to force an issue.  He could
afford to wait.

"I'll see yuh again," said the sheriff, harshly, and strode diagonally
down the slope.


Loudon watched him until he vanished among the pines a hundred yards
below.  Then Loudon touched his horse with the spur and rode on, chin
on shoulder, hands busy reloading his six-shooter.  Three minutes later
Loudon saw the sheriff, mounted on his big black stallion, issue from
the wood.  The great horse scrambled up the hillside, gained the trail,
and headed south.

"Bet he's goin' to the 88," said Loudon.  "I'd give ten dollars to know
what Block was roostin' behind that rock for.  Gawd!  I shore would
admire to be Sheriff o' Fort Creek County for thirty days!"

Eleven miles from Indian Ridge he topped a rise and saw below him
Farewell's straggly street, flanked by several false-fronted saloons,
two stores, one hotel leaning slightly askew, and a few unkempt houses,
the whole encircled by the twinkling pickets of innumerable bottles and
tin cans.

He rode along the street, fetlock-deep in dust, and stopped at the
hotel corral.  Freeing Ranger of the saddle and bridle, he opened the
gate and slapped the chestnut on the hip.

"Go on in, fellah," said Loudon.  "Yore dinner's a-comin'."

He walked around to the front of the hotel.  Under the wooden awning a
beefy, red-faced citizen was dozing in a chair tilted back against the
wall.  Loudon tapped the snoring individual on the shoulder.  The
sleeper awoke gaspingly, his eyes winking.  The chair settled on four
legs with a crash.

"Howdy, Bill," said Loudon, gravely.

"Howdy, Tom," gurgled the other.

"Hoss in the corral an' me here, Bill.  Feeds for two."

"Sure.  We've done et, but you go in an' holler for Lize.  She'll fix
you up."

The fat landlord waddled stableward and Loudon entered the hotel.  A
partition that did not reach the ceiling divided the sleeping
apartments from the dining room.  Carelessly hanging over the partition
were two shirts and someone's chaps.

The whole floor slanted, for, as has been said, the hotel leaned
sidewise.  The long table in the dining room, covered with cracked and
scaling oilcloth, was held unsteadily upright by three legs and a
cracker box.

Loudon, quite untouched by this scene of shiftlessness, hooked out a
chair with his foot, dropped his hat on the floor, and sat down.

"Oh, Mis' Lainey!" he called.

A female voice, somewhat softened by distance and a closed door,
instantly began to make oration to the effect that if any lazy chunker
of a puncher thought he was to eat any food he was very much mistaken.

The door banged open.  A slatternly, scrawny woman appeared in the
doorway.  She was still talking.  But the clacking tongue changed its
tone abruptly.

"Oh, it's you, Tom Loudon!" exclaimed the lean woman.  "How are yuh,
anyway?  I'm shore glad to see yuh.  I thought yuh was one o' them
rousy fellers, an' I wouldn't rustle no more chuck this noon for the
likes o' them, not if they was starvin' an' their tongues was hangin'
out a foot.  But yo're different, an' I ain't never forgot the time you
rode thirty mile for a doc when my young one was due to cash.  No, you
bet I ain't!  Now don't you say nothin'.  You jest set right patient a
short spell an' I'll rustle----"

The door swung shut, and the remainder of the sentence was lost in a
muffled din of pans.  Loudon winked at the closed door and grinned.

He had known the waspish Mrs. Lainey and her paunchy husband since that
day when, newly come to the Lazy River country, he had met them, their
buckboard wrecked by a runaway and their one child apparently dying of
internal injuries.  Though Loudon always minimized what he had done,
Mrs. Lainey and her husband did not.  And they were not folk whose
memories are short.

In less than twenty minutes Mrs. Lainey brought in a steak, fried
potatoes, and coffee.  The steak was fairly tough, so were the
potatoes, and the coffee required a copious quantity of condensed milk
to render it drinkable.  But Loudon ate with a rider's appetite.  Mrs.
Lainey, arms folded in her apron, leaned against the doorjamb, and
regaled him with the news of Farewell.

"Injun Joe got drunk las' week an' tried to hogtie Riley's bear.  It
wasn't hardly worth while buryin' Joe, but they done it.  Mis'
Stonestreet has a new baby.  This one makes the twelfth.  Yep, day
before yestiddy.  Charley's so proud over it he ain't been sober since.
Slep' in the waterin'-trough las' night, so he did, an' this mornin' he
was drunk as ever.  But he never did do things by halves, that Charley
Stonestreet.  Ain't the heat awful?  Yep, it's worse'n that.  Did yuh
hear about----"

Poor, good-hearted Mrs. Lainey.  With her, speech was a disease.
Loudon ate as hurriedly as he could, and fled to the sidewalk.  Bill
Lainey, who had fallen asleep again, roused sufficiently to accept six
bits.

"Mighty drowsy weather, Tom," he mumbled.

"It must be," said Loudon.  "So long."

Leaving the sleepy Lainey to resume his favourite occupation, Loudon
walked away.  Save Lainey, no human beings were visible on the glaring
street.  In front of the Palace Saloon two cow-ponies drooped.  Near
the postoffice stood another, bearing on its hip the Cross-in-a-box
brand.

From the door of the postoffice issued the loud and cheerful tones of a
voice whose owner was well pleased with the world at large.

"Guess I'll get that ribbon first," said Loudon to himself, and
promptly walked behind the postoffice.

He had recognized the cheerful voice.  It was that of his friend,
Johnny Ramsay, who punched cows for the Cross-in-a-box outfit.  And not
for a month's pay would Loudon have had Johnny Ramsay see him
purchasing yards of red ribbon.  Ramsay's sense of humour was too well
developed.

When four houses intervened between himself and the postoffice Loudon
returned to the street and entered the Blue Pigeon Store.  Compared
with most Western frontier stores the Blue Pigeon was compactly neat.
A broad counter fenced off three sides of the store proper.

Behind the counter lines of packed shelves lined the walls from floor
to ceiling.  Between the counter and the shelves knotted ropes, a long
arm's-length apart, depended from the rafters.  Above the
canvas-curtained doorway in the rear hung the model of a black-hulled,
slim-sparred clipper.

At the jingle of Loudon's spurs on the floor the canvas curtain was
pushed aside, and the proprietor shuffled and thumped, for his left leg
was of wood, into the store.  He was a red-headed man, was Mike Flynn,
the proprietor, barrel-chested, hairy-armed, and even the backs of his
ham-like hands were tattooed.

"Good aft'noon to yuh, Tom," said Mike Flynn.  "'Tis a fine day--hot,
mabbe, but I've seen worse in the Horse Latitudes.  An' what is it the
day?"

"Red ribbon, Mike," replied Loudon, devoutly thankful that no other
customer was in the store.

Mike glanced at the sample in Tom Loudon's hand.

"Shore, an' I have that same, width an' all," he said, and forthwith
seizing one of the knotted ropes he pulled himself hand over hand to
the top shelf.

Hanging by one hand he fumbled a moment, then lowered himself to the
floor.

"An' here yuh are!" he exclaimed.  "The finest ribbon that ever come
West.  Matches the bit yuh have like a twin brother.  One dollar two
bits a yard."

"I'll take five yards."

"Won't yuh be needin' a new necktie now?" inquired Mike Flynn, expertly
measuring off the ribbon.  "I've a fine lot in--grane ones, an' blue
ones, an' purple ones wit' white spots, an' some black ones wit' red
an' yaller figgers, not to spake o' some yaller ones wit' vi'let
horseshoes.  Very fancy, thim last.  God be with the ould days!  Time
was when I'd not have touched yaller save wit' me foot, but 'tis so
long since I've hove a brick at an Orangeman that the ould feelin'
ain't near so strong as it was.  An' here's the ribbon, Tom.  About
them neckties now.  They're worth seein'.  One minute an' I'll delight
yore eyes."

Rapidly Mike Flynn stumped around to the other side of the room, pulled
down several long boxes and deftly laid them, covers off, on the
counter.  Loudon did need a new necktie.  What man in love does not?
He passed over the yellow ones with violet horseshoes so strongly
recommended by Mike Flynn, and bought one of green silk.

"Yo're a lad after me own heart, Tom Loudon," said Mike Flynn, wrapping
the necktie.  "Grane's best when all's said an' done.  The colour of
ould Ireland, God bless her.  An' here comes Johnny Ramsay."

Loudon hastily stuffed his purchases inside his flannel shirt, and in a
careless tone asked for a box of forty-five calibre cartridges.  He
turned just in time to ward off the wild rush of Johnny Ramsay, who
endeavoured to seize him by the belt and waltz him round the store.

"Wow!  Wow!" yelled Johnny.  "How's Tommy?  How's the boy?  Allemane
left, you old bronc buster!"

"Quit it, you idjit!" bawled Loudon, the crushing of ribbon and necktie
being imminent.

Ramsay stepped back and prodded Loudon's breast with an inquiring
finger.

"Paddin'," he said, solemnly.  "Tryin' to give yoreself a chest, ain't
yuh, you old bean-pole?  Ouch!"

For Loudon had dug a hard knuckle into his friend's left side, and it
was Ramsay's turn to yell.  From behind the counter Mike Flynn beamed
upon them.  He liked them well, these careless youngsters of the range,
and their antics were a source of never-ending amusement.

Entered then a tall, lean man with black hair, and a face the good
looks of which were somewhat marred by a thin-lipped mouth and sharp,
sinister eyes.  But for all that Sam Blakely, the manager of the 88
ranch, was a very handsome man.  He nodded to the three, his lips
parting over white teeth, and asked Mike Flynn for a rope.

"Here's yore cartridges, Tom," called Mike, and turned to the rear of
the store.

Loudon picked up his box of cartridges, stuffing them into a pocket in
his chaps.

"Let's irrigate," he said to Ramsay.

"In a minute," replied his friend.  "I want some cartridges my own
self."

The two sat down on the counter to wait.  Blakely strolled across to
the open boxes of neckties.

"Cravats," he sneered, fingering them.

"An' ---- fine ones!" exclaimed Mike Flynn, slamming down the coil of
rope on the counter.  "Thim yaller ones wit' vi'let spots now, yuh
couldn't beat 'em in New York.  An' the grand grane ones.  Ain't they
the little beauts?  I just sold one to Tom Loudon."

"Green shore does suit some people," said the 88 manager, coldly.

Loudon felt Johnny Ramsay stiffen beside him.  But Loudon merely smiled
a slow, pleasant smile.

"Hirin' any new men, Sam?" he inquired, softly, his right hand cuddling
close to his belt.

"What do yuh want to know for?" demanded Blakely, wheeling.

"Why, yuh see, I was thinkin' o' quittin' the Bar S, an' I'd sort o'
like to get with a good, progressive outfit, one that don't miss any
chances."

Loudon's voice was clear and incisive.  Each word fell with the
precision of a pebble falling into a well.  Mike Flynn backed swiftly
out of range.

"What do yuh mean by that?" demanded Blakely, his gaze level.

"What I said," replied Loudon, staring into the other's sinister black
eyes.  "I shore do hate to translate my words."

For a long minute the two men gazed steadily at each other.  Neither
made a move.  Blakely's hand hung at his side.  Loudon's hand had not
yet touched his gun-butt.  But Blakely could not know that, for
Loudon's crossed knees concealed the position of his hand.

Loudon was giving Blakely an even chance.  He knew that Blakely was
quick on the draw, but he believed that he himself was quicker.
Blakely evidently thought, so too, for suddenly he grunted and turned
his back on Loudon.

"What's that?" inquired Blakely, pointing a finger at one end of the
rope.

"What--oh, that!" exclaimed Mike.  "Sure, that's what a seaman calls
whippin'.  The holdfast was missin', an' the rope was beginning' to
unlay, so I whipped the end of it.  'Twill keep the rope from frayin'
out, do yuh mind.  An' it's the last rope I have in stock, too."

Loudon, watching Blakely's hands, saw that what Mike Flynn called
whipping was whip-cord lapped tightly a dozen turns or so round the end
of the rope.  Blakely, without another word, paid for the rope, picked
it up, and departed, head high, sublimely indifferent to the presence
of Loudon.  Mike Flynn heaved a heartfelt sigh of relief.

"Praise be!" he ejaculated.  "I'd thought to lose a customer a minute
back."  Then, recollecting himself, he added quickly, "What was that
yuh said about cartridges, Johnny?"




CHAPTER II

AT THE BAR S

"That's a good-lookin' goat," observed cheerful Johnny
Ramsay, watching Loudon throw the saddle on the
long-legged chestnut.  "All he needs is horns an' a
_maa-a-a_."

"What particular tune can you play on it?" retorted
Loudon, passing the cinch-strap.

"On what?" inquired Ramsay, incautiously.

"On that four-legged accordeon yo're straddlin'."

"I wouldn't say nothin' about no accordeons--not if I was
abusin' a poor billy by cinchin' a hull on his back.  Honest,
Tommy, don't yuh like ridin' a hoss?  'Fraid he'll throw yuh
or somethin'?"

"Don't yuh worry none about this little cayuse.  He's all
hoss, he is, an' if yuh don't mind, Johnny, I'd be a heap
obliged if yuh'd follow behind when we ride out o' town.
Somebody might see us together an' take yuh for a friend o'
mine, an' that wouldn't do nohow."

"Please, mister," whined Johnny Ramsay, "let me go with
yuh.  I know where there's a pile o' nice tomatter cans for
the goat's supper.  Red Rose tomatter cans, too.  There's
more nourishment in them kind than there is in the Blue
Star brand.  Hey, quit!"

Loudon had suddenly flipped a broken horseshoe at
the hindquarters of Ramsay's pony, that surprised animal
going into the air immediately.  When Ramsay had quieted
his wild-eyed mount, the two friends rode away together.

"I wonder why Blakely didn't go to it," remarked
Ramsay, when Farewell lay behind them.

"Dunno," said Loudon.  "He wasn't afraid, yuh can
gamble on that."

"I ain't none so shore.  He's bad plumb through, Blakely
is.  An' he's a killer, by his eyes.  I guess it was just the
extra shade he wanted, an' the extra shade wasn't there.
You'd 'a' got him, Tom."

"Shore!  But don't yuh make no mistake about Blakely
bein' a coward.  He ain't.  He's seen trouble, an' seen it in
the smoke."

"You mean Skinner Jack.  Well, Jack wasn't slow with a
gun, but the other two was Injuns, an' they only had
Winchesters, an' Blakely he had a Sharp's.  So yuh can't tally
the war-whoops.  An' I did hear how Skinner Jack was drunk
when he called Blakely a liar."

"I doubt it.  Skinner could always hold his red-eye.
More likely his gun caught."

"Anyway, Tommy, you'd better not go cavortin' about on
the skyline too plenteous.  It wouldn't bother Blakely none
to bushwhack yuh."

"Oh, he wouldn't do that.  He ain't the bushwhackin' kind."

"Oh, ain't he?  Now just because he ain't never done nothin'
like that, it don't prove he won't.  He's got a killer's eyes,
I tell yuh, an' drillin' yuh would tickle him to death.  Yuh
run a blazer on him, an' he quit cold.  Other gents seen the
play.  He won't never forget that.  He'll down yuh on the
square, or what looks like an even break, if he can.  But if
he can't he'll down yuh anyway."

"Rustlers ramblin' over yore way any?" inquired Loudon
in a meaning tone.

Johnny Ramsay struck his saddle-horn a resounding
thwack with his open palm.

"If we could only get him that way!" he exclaimed.  "But
he's slicker'n axle-grease."

"The 88 will brand one calf too many some day.  Hell's
delight!  What do they do with 'em?  Yuh ride the
range an' yuh ride the range an' yuh don't find no cows
with unhealed brands.  I seen twelve, though, with the
88 brand that looked like some gent had been addin' to
Bar S with a runnin'-iron.  But the brands was all healed
up.  Anyway, we've lost forty cows, an' I dunno how many
calves."

"They'll turn up again."

"Shore--carryin' the 88 brand.  My idea is that them
rustlers brand 'em an' then hold 'em in some blind canyon
over near the Fallin' Horse till the burns heal up, an' then
they throw 'em loose on the range again.  If the cows do
drift across to the Bar S, what's the dif?  They got the 88
brand."

"That sounds good.  Why don't yuh take a little wander
'round the scenery near the Fallin' Horse?"

"I have; I didn't see nothin'.  But they got 'em hid
somewhere all right.  One day I runs across Marvin, an' I had a
job losin' him.  He stuck to me closer'n tar all day.  He was
worried some, I seen that."

"Goin' back?"

"Till I find their cache, I am."

"That's another reason for makin' Blakely so friendly.
He knows yuh won't stop lookin'.  Ain't it the devil an' all?
The measly Sheriff just squats down on his hunkers an' does
nothin' while we lose cows in car-lots.  An' when our cows go,
we kiss 'em good-bye.  They never come back--not even
with their brand altered.  Yuh can't change Cross-in-a-box
to 88."

"With the Bar S it's a cinch.  But the boss won't use another
brand.  Not him.  He'll stick to Bar S till he ain't got
a cow to run the iron on."

"Oh, it's a great system the 88 outfit are workin'!  An'
with Sheriff Block an' most all o' Marysville an' Farewell their
friends it's a hard game to buck.  Talk o' law!  There ain't
none in Fort Creek County."

"The only play is Vigilantes, an' it can't come to them till
there's proof.  We all know Blakely an' the 88 bunch are
up to their hocks in this rustlin' deal, but we can't prove it."

"There's the worst o' bein' straight," complained Johnny
Ramsay.  "Yuh know some tinhorn is a-grabbin' all yuh
own.  Yo're certain shore who the gent is, but yuh can't hop
out an' bust him without yuh catch him a-grabbin' or else
a-wearin' yore pet pants."

"That's whatever," agreed Loudon.

Five miles out of Farewell, where the trail forked, one
branch leading southeast to the Cross-in-a-box, the other to
the Bar S, Loudon checked his horse.

"Keep a-goin'," said Johnny Ramsay.  "I'm travellin' with
you a spell.  I'm kind o' sick o' that old trail.  I've rode it so
frequent I know all the rocks an' the cotton-woods by their
first names."

Which explanation Loudon did not accept at its face value.
He understood perfectly why Ramsay continued to ride
with him.  Ramsay believed that Blakely would endeavour
to drop Loudon from ambush, and it is well known that a
gentleman lying in wait for another will often stay his
hand when his intended victim is accompanied.  Neither
Loudon nor Ramsay made any mention of the true inwardness
of his thoughts.  They had been friends for a long time.

Climbing the long slope of Indian Ridge, they scanned the
trail warily.  But nowhere did the hoofprints of Blakely's
horse leave the dust of the trail.  On the reverse slope of the
ridge they picked up the larger hoofprints of Block's horse.
Fair and plain the two sets of marks led southward.

"Wonder who the other gent was," hazarded Ramsay.

"Block," said Loudon, "I met him this mornin'.  I was
puttin' holes in his notice, an' he didn't like it none."

"Did he chatter much?"

"He talked a few, but nothin' to hurt."

"The tinhorn!" laughed Ramsay.  "Bet he's goin' to the 88."

"It's some likely.  We'll know when we reach Long Coulee."

They reached Long Coulee, where the trail to the 88 swung
westward, as the sun was dropping behind the far-away peaks
of the Three Sisters Mountains.  Loudon slipped his feet
from the stirrups and stretched luxuriously.  But he did
not feel luxurious.

As he had expected, Block had turned into the 88 trail,
but as he had not expected Blakely had ridden straight on
toward the Bar S.  Which latter event was disquieting, not
that Loudon feared an act of violence on the part of Blakely,
but because Kate's evening would be preempted by his enemy.

Loudon keenly desired to talk to Kate that evening.  He
had a great many things to tell her, and now the coming of
Blakely spoiled it all.

"The nerve o' some folks," remarked Johnny Ramsay,
eying the tracks of Blakely's horse with disfavour.  "Better
tell old Salt to lock up the silver an' the cuckoo clock.  No
offence now, Tommy, but if I was you, I'd sleep in the corral
to-night.  Blakely might take a fancy to the goat."

"I shore hope he does," grinned Loudon.  "It would ease
the strain some."

"Make it complete, old beanpole, when you do call the
turn.  Well, I got to be skippin'.  Give my love to old Salt.
So long."

"So long."

Johnny Ramsay picked up his reins, wheeled his pony,
and fox-trotted away.  He felt that further accompanying of
Loudon was unnecessary.  The danger of an ambush was past.
Riding with Loudon had taken Ramsay some fifteen miles
out of his way, and twenty-five long miles lay between his
pony's nose and the corral bars of the Cross-in-a-box ranch.
But Ramsay wasted not a thought on his lengthened journey.
He would have ridden cheerfully across the territory and
back again in order to benefit a friend.

"Come on, fellah," said Loudon, when Ramsay had gone.

The chestnut moved off at a walk.  Loudon did not hurry
him.  He took out his papers and tobacco and rolled a
cigarette with neatness and despatch.  Tilting back his head,
he blew the first lungful of smoke straight up into the air.

"It wouldn't be right for her to marry him," he observed.
"She shore is one pretty girl.  I wonder now if I have got
any chance.  She's rich, an' I ain't, but I shore do love her
a lot.  Kate Loudon--that's a right nice-soundin' name."

He lowered his head and smoked silently for several
minutes.  The horse, reins on his neck, swung along steadily.

"Ranger fellah," said Loudon, "she'd ought to be willin'
to wait till we make a stake, oughtn't she now?  That's right.
Wiggle one ear for yes.  You know, don't yuh, old tiger-eye?"

When the lights of the ranch sparked across the flat,
Ranger pointed his ears, lifted his head, and broke into a
foxtrot.  Passing the ranch house, on his way to the corral,
Loudon heard the merry tinkle of a guitar.  Through an
open window Loudon saw the squat figure of Mr. Saltoun bent
over a desk.  On the porch, in the corner where the hammock
hung, flickered the glowing tip of a cigarette.  With a double
thrum of swept strings the guitar-player in the hammock
swung from "The Kerry Dance" into "Loch Lomond."

Loudon swore under his breath, and rode on.

Jimmy, the cook, and Chuck Morgan, one of the punchers,
were lying in their bunks squabbling over the respective
merits of Texas and New Mexico when Loudon entered the
bunkhouse.  Both men immediately ceased wrangling and
demanded letters.

"I ain't read 'em all yet," replied Loudon, dropping his
saddle and bridle in a corner.  "Wait till to-morrow."

"Jimmy's expectin' one from a red-headed gal," grinned
Chuck Morgan.  "He's been restless all day.  'Will she
write?' says he, 'an' I wonder if she's sick or somethin'.'  Don't
you worry none, cookie.  Them red-headed gals live
forever.  They're tough, same as a yaller hoss."

"You shut up!" exclaimed Jimmy.  "Who'd write to you,
you frazzled end of a misspent life?  D'jever look at yoreself
in the glass?  You!  Huh!  Gimme my letter, Tommy."

"Letter?  What letter?  I didn't say there was a letter
for yuh."

"Well, ain't there?"

"You gimme somethin' to eat, an' then we'll talk about
letters."

"You got a nerve!" roared the cook, indignantly.  "Comin'
rollickin' in 'round midnight an' want yore chuck!  Well,
there it is"--indicating Chuck Morgan--"go eat it."

"You fry him an' I will.  I'll gamble he wouldn't taste any
worse than them steaks you've been dishin' out lately."

"You punchers gimme a pain," growled the cook, swinging
his legs out of the bunk.  "Always eatin,' eatin'.  I never
seen nothin' like it nohow."

"He's sore 'cause Buff put a li'l dead snake in his bunk,"
explained Chuck Morgan placidly.  "Just a li'l snake--not
more'n three foot long at the outside.  He shore is the most
fault-findin' feller, that Jimmy is."

"There ain't anythin' for yuh, Chuck," said Loudon.
"Here's yore letter, Jimmy."

The cook seized the grimy missive and retreated to his
kitchen.  Twenty minutes later Loudon was eating supper.
He ate leisurely.  He was in no hurry to go up to the ranch
house.

"Got the makin's!"  Chuck Morgan's voice was a roar.

"Be careful," said Loudon, turning a slow head.  "Yo're
liable to strain yore throat, an' for a fellah talkin' as much as
you do, that would shore be a calamity."

"It shore would," agreed Morgan.  "I only asked yuh
for the makin's three times before I hollered."

"Holler first next time," advised Loudon, tossing paper
and tobacco across to Morgan.  "Have yuh got matches?
Perhaps yuh'd like me to roll yuh a pill an' then light it for
yuh?"

"Oh, that ain't necessary; none whatever.  I got matches.
They're all I got left.  This aft'noon Jimmy says 'gimme a
pipeful,' an' I wants to say right here that any jigger that'll
smoke a pipe will herd sheep.  'Gimme a load,' says Jimmy.
'Shore,' says I, an' Jimmy bulges up holdin' the father of all
corncobs in his hand.  I forks over my bag, an' Jimmy
wades in to fill the pipe.  But that pipe don't fill up for a
plugged nickel.

"He upends my bag, shakes her empty, an' hands her back.
'Thanks,' says Jimmy.  'That's all right,' I says, 'keep the
bag, too.  It'll fit in right handy to mend yore shirt with,
maybe.'  Come to find out, that pipe o' Jimmy's hadn't no
bottom in her, an' all the tobacco run through an' into a bag
Jimmy was holdin' underneath.  A reg'lar Injun trick, that
is.  Yuh can't tell me Jimmy ain't been a squaw-man.
Digger Injuns, too, I'll bet."

Jimmy, leaning against the door-jamb, laughed uproariously.

"Yah," he yelped.  "I'll teach yuh to steal my socks, I
will.  I'd just washed a whole pair an' I was a-dryin' 'em
behind the house, an' along comes Chuck an' gloms both of
'em, the hawg."

Leaving the two wrangling it out between them, Loudon
pushed back his chair and went to the door.  For a time he
stood looking out into the night.  Then he went to his saddle,
picked up the bag containing the mail for Mr. Saltoun, and
left the bunkhouse.

On the way to the ranch house he took out of his shirt the
parcel of ribbon and smoothed it out.  Skirting the house on
the side farthest from the porch corner where sat Kate and
Blakely, Loudon entered the kitchen and walked through the
dining room to the open doorway of the office.  Mr. Saltoun
half turned at Loudon's entrance.

"Hello," said Mr. Saltoun, screwing up his eyes.  "I was
just wonderin' when you'd pull in."

"'Lo," returned Loudon.  "Here's the mail, an' here's a
package for Miss Kate."

There was a rush of skirts, and handsome, black-haired
Kate Saltoun, her dark eyes dancing, stood in the doorway.

"Did you get my ribbon, Tom?" cried she, and pounced
on the flat parcel before Loudon could reply.

She smiled and glowed and held the ribbon under her olive
chin, exclaimed over it and thanked Loudon all in a breath.
Her father beamed upon her.  He loved this handsome girl
of his.

"Come out on the porch, Tom," said Kate, "when you're
through with father.  Mr. Blakely's here.  Thank you again
for bringing my ribbon."

Kate swished away, and Mr. Saltoun's beaming expression
vanished also.  Mr. Saltoun was not especially keen.  He
rarely saw anything save the obvious, but for several weeks
he had been under the impression that Kate and this tall,
lean puncher with the gray eyes were too friendly.

And here was Kate, while entertaining the 88 manager,
inviting Loudon to join her on the porch.  Mr. Saltoun was
ambitious for his daughter.  He had not the remotest
intention of receiving into his family a forty-dollar-a-month
cowhand.  He would have relished firing Loudon.  But the
latter was a valuable man.  He was the best rider and roper
in the outfit.  Good cowboys do not drift in on the heels of
every vagrant breeze.

Mr. Saltoun resolved to keep an eye on Loudon and arrange
matters so that Kate and the puncher should meet seldom,
if at all.  He knew better than to speak to his daughter.
That would precipitate matters.

By long experience Mr. Saltoun had learned that opposition
always stiffened Kate's determination.  From babyhood
her father had spoiled her.  Consequently the Kate of
twenty-three was hopelessly intractable.

Mr. Saltoun drummed on the desk-top with a pencil.
Loudon shifted his feet.  He had mumbled a non-committal
reply to Kate's invitation.  Not for a great deal would he
have joined the pair on the porch.  But Mr. Saltoun did not
know that.

"Chuck tells me," said Mr. Saltoun, suddenly, "that he
jerked five cows out o' that mud-hole on Pack-saddle Creek
near Box Hill.  Yeah, that one.  To-morrow I want yuh
to ride along Pack-saddle an' take a look at them other two
holes between Box Hill an' Fishtail Coolee.  If yuh see any
cows driftin' west, head 'em east.  When that ---- barb-wire
comes--if it ever does, an' I ordered it a month ago--you an'
Chuck can fence them three mud-holes.  Better get an early
start, Tom."

"All right," said Loudon, and made an unhurried
withdrawal--by way of the kitchen.

Once in the open air Loudon smiled a slow smile.  He had
correctly divined the tenor of his employer's thoughts.
Before he reached the bunkhouse Loudon had resolved to
propose to Kate Saltoun within forty-eight hours.




CHAPTER III

SHOTS ON PACK-SADDLE

  "I woke up one mornin' on the old Chisolm trail,
  Rope in my hand an' a cow by the tail.
  Crippled my hoss, I don't know how,
  Ropin' at the horns of a 2-U cow."


Thus sang Loudon, carrying saddle and bridle to the corral in the blue
light of dawn.  Chuck Morgan was before him at the corral, and
wrestling with a fractious gray pony.

"Whoa! yuh son of sin!" yelled Morgan, wrenching the pony's ear.
"Stand still, or I'll cave in yore slats!"

"Kick him again," advised Loudon, flicking the end of his rope across
the back of a yellow beast with a black mane and tail.

The yellow horse stopped trotting instantly.  He was rope-broke.  It
was unnecessary to "fasten," thanks to Loudon's training.

"They say yuh oughtn't to exercise right after eatin'," continued
Loudon, genially.  "An' yo're mussin' up this nice corral, too, Chuck."

"I'll muss up this nice little gray devil!" gasped Chuck.  "When I git
on him I'll plow the hide offen him.  ---- his soul!  He's half mule."

"He takes yuh for a relative!" called Jimmy, who had come up
unobserved.  "Relatives never do git along nohow!"

Jimmy fled, pursued by pebbles.  The panting and outraged Chuck
returned to his task of passing the rear cinch.  Still swearing, he
joined Loudon at the gate.  The two rode away together.

"That sorrel o' Blakely's," observed Chuck, his fingers busy with paper
and tobacco, "is shore as pretty as a little red wagon."

"Yeah," mumbled Loudon.

"I was noticin' him this mornin'," continued Chuck Morgan.  "He's got
the cleanest set o' legs I ever seen."

"This mornin'," said Loudon, slowly, "Where'd yuh see Blakely's sorrel
this mornin'?"

"In the little corral.  He's in there with the Old Man's string."

Loudon pulled his hat forward and started methodically to roll a
cigarette.  So Blakely had spent the night at the ranch.  This was the
first time he had ever stayed overnight.

What did it mean?  Calling on Kate was one thing, but spending the
night was quite another.

With the fatuous reasoning of a man deeply in love, Loudon refused to
believe that Blakely could be sailing closer to the wind of Kate's
affections than he himself.  Yet there remained the fact of Blakely's
extended visit.

"We've been losin' right smart o' cows lately," remarked Chuck Morgan.

"What's the use o' talkin'?" exclaimed Loudon, bitterly.  "The Old Man
says we ain't, an' he's the boss."

"He won't say so after the round-up.  He'll sweat blood then.  If I
could only catch one of 'em at it.  Just one.  But them thievin' 88
boys are plumb wise.  An' the Old Man thinks they're little he-angels
with four wings apiece."

"Yuh can't tell _him_ nothin'.  He knows."

"An' Blakely comes an' sets around, an' the Old Man laps up all he says
like a cat, an' Blakely grins behind his teeth.  I'd shore like to know
his opinion o' the Old Man."

"An' us."

"An' us.  Shore.  The Old Man can't be expected to know as much as us.
You can gamble an' go the limit Blakely has us sized up for
sheep-woolly baa-lambs."

Morgan made a gesture of exasperation.

"We will be sheep," exclaimed Loudon, "if we don't pick up somethin'
against the 88 before the round-up!  We're full-sized, two-legged men,
ain't we?  Got eyes, ain't we?  There ain't nothin' the matter with our
hands, is there?  Yet them 88 boys put it all over our shirt.
Blakely's right.  We're related plumb close to sheep, an' blind sheep
at that."

"Them 88 boys have all the luck," grunted Chuck Morgan.  "But their
luck will shore break if I see any of 'em a-foolin' with our cows.  So
long."

Chuck Morgan rode off eastward.  His business was with the cattle near
Cow Creek, which stream was one of the two dividing the Bar S range
from that of the Cross-in-a-box.  Loudon, his eyes continually sliding
from side to side, loped onward.  An hour later he forded the Lazy
River, and rode along the bank to the mouth of Pack-saddle Creek.

The course he was following was not the shortest route to the two
mud-holes between Box Hill and Fishtail Coulee.  But south of the Lazy
the western line of the Bar S was marked by Pack-saddle Creek, and
Loudon's intention was to ride along the creek from mouth to source.

There had been no rain for a month.  If any cows had been driven across
the stream he would know it.  Twice before he had ridden the line of
the creek, but his labours had not been rewarded.  Yet Loudon did not
despair.  His was a hopeful soul.

Occasionally, as he rode, he saw cows.  Here and there on the bank were
cloven hoofprints, showing where cattle had come down to drink.  But
none of them had crossed since the rain.  And there were no marks of
ponies' feet.

At the mud-hole near Box Hill a lone cow stood belly-deep, stolidly
awaiting death.

"Yuh poor idjit," commented Loudon, and loosed his rope from the
saddle-horn.

The loop settled around the cow's horns.  The yellow pony, cunningly
holding his body sidewise that the saddle might not be pulled over his
tail, strained with all four legs.

"C'mon, Lemons!" encouraged Loudon.  "C'mon, boy!  Yuh old yellow lump
o' bones!  Heave!  Head or cow, she's got to come!"

Thus adjured the pony strove mightily.  The cow also exerted itself.
Slowly the tenacious grip of the mud was broken.  With a suck and a
plop the cow surged free.  It stood, shaking its head.

Swiftly Loudon disengaged his rope, slapped the cow with the end of it,
and urged the brute inland.

Having chased the cow a full half-mile he returned to the mud-hole and
dismounted.  For he had observed that upon a rock ledge above the
mud-hole which he wished to inspect more closely.  What he had noted
was a long scratch across the face of the broad flat ledge of rock.
But for his having been drawn in close to the ledge by the presence of
the cow in the mud-hole, this single scratch would undoubtedly have
escaped his attention.

Loudon leaned over and scrutinized the scratch.  It was about a foot
long, a quarter of an inch broad at one end, tapering roughly to a
point.  Ordinarily such a mark would have interested Loudon not at all,
but under the circumstances it might mean much.  The side-slip of a
horse's iron-shod hoof had made it.  This was plain enough.  It was
evident, too, that the horse had been ridden.  A riderless horse does
not slip on gently sloping rocks.

Other barely visible abrasions showed that the horse had entered the
water.  Why had someone elected to cross at this point?  Pack-saddle
Creek was fordable in many places.  Below the mud-hole four feet and
less was the depth.  But opposite the rock ledge was a scour-hole fully
ten feet deep shallowing to eight in the middle of the stream.  Here
was no crossing for an honest man in his senses.  But for one of
questionable purpose, anxious to conceal his trail as much as possible,
no better could be chosen.

"Good thing his hoss slipped," said Loudon, and returned to the waiting
Lemons.

Mounting his horse he forded the creek and rode slowly along the bank.
Opposite the lower end of the ledge he found that which he sought.  In
the narrow belt of bare ground between the water's edge and the grass
were the tracks of several cows and one pony.  Straight up from the
water the trail led, and vanished abruptly when it reached the grass.

"Five cows," said Loudon.  "Nothin' mean about that jigger."

He bent down to examine the tracks more closely, and as he stooped a
rifle cracked faintly, and a bullet whisped over his bowed back.

Loudon jammed home both spurs, and jumped Lemons forward.  Plying his
quirt, he looked over his shoulder.

A puff of smoke suddenly appeared above a rock a quarter of a mile
downstream and on the other side of the creek.  The bullet tucked into
the ground close beside the pony's drumming hoofs.

Loudon jerked his Winchester from its scabbard under his leg, turned in
the saddle, and fired five shots as rapidly as he could work the lever.
He did not expect to score a hit, but earnestly hoped to shake the
hidden marksman's aim.  He succeeded but lamely.

The enemy's third shot cut through his shirt under the left armpit,
missing the flesh by a hair's-breadth.  Loudon raced over the lip of a
swell just as a fourth shot ripped through his hat.

Hot and angry, Loudon jerked Lemons to a halt half-way down the reverse
slope.  Leaving his horse tied to the ground he ran back and lay down
below the crest.  He removed his hat and wriggled forward to the top.

Cautiously lifting his head he surveyed the position of his unknown
opponent.  A half-mile distant, on the Bar S side of the Pack-saddle,
was the rock which sheltered the marksman.  A small dark dot appeared
above it.

Taking a long aim Loudon fired at the dot.  As he jerked down the lever
to reload, a gray smoke-puff mushroomed out at the lower right-hand
corner of the rock, and a violent shock at the elbow numbed his right
hand.

Loudon rolled swiftly backward, sat up, and stared wonderingly at his
two hands.  One held his Winchester, but gripped in the cramped fingers
of the right hand was the bent and broken lever of the rifle.  The
bullet of the sharp-shooting citizen had struck the lever squarely on
the upper end, snapped the pin, torn loose the lever, and hopelessly
damaged the loading mechanism.

"That jigger can shore handle a gun," remarked Loudon.  "If this ain't
one lovely fix for a Christian!  Winchester no good, only a
six-shooter, an' a fully-organized miracle-worker a-layin' for my hide.
I'm a-goin' somewhere, an' I'm goin' right now."

He dropped the broken lever and rubbed his numbed fingers till
sensation returned.  Then he put on his hat and hurried down to his
horse.

He jammed the rifle into the scabbard, mounted, and rode swiftly
southward, taking great pains to keep to the low ground.

A mile farther on he forded the creek and gained the shelter of an
outflung shoulder of Box Hill.

Near the top Loudon tied Lemons to a tree and went forward on foot.
Cautiously as an Indian, Loudon traversed the flat top of the hill and
squatted down in a bunch of tall grass between two pines.  From this
vantage-point his field of view was wide.  The rock ledge and the
mud-hole were in plain sight.  So was the rock from which he had been
fired upon.  It was a long mile distant, and it lay near the crest of a
low hog's-back close to the creek.

"He's got his hoss down behind the swell," muttered Loudon.  "Wish this
hill was higher."

Loudon pondered the advisability of climbing a tree.  He wished very
much to obtain a view of the depression behind the hog's-back.  He
finally decided to remain where he was.  It was just possible that the
hostile stranger might be provided with field glasses.  In which case
tree-climbing would invite more bullets, and the shooting of the enemy
was too nearly accurate for comfort.

Loudon settled himself comfortably in his bunch of grass and watched
intently.  Fifteen or twenty minutes later what was apparently a part
of the rock detached itself and disappeared behind the crest of the
hog's-back.

Soon the tiny figure of a mounted man came into view on the flat
beyond.  Horse and rider moved rapidly across the level ground and
vanished behind a knoll.  When the rider reappeared he was not more
than nine hundred yards distant and galloping hard on a course
paralleling the base of the hill.

"Good eye," chuckled Loudon.  "Goin' to surround me.  I'd admire to
hear what he says when he finds out I ain't behind that swell."

The stranger splashed across the creek and raced toward some high
ground in the rear of Loudon's old position.

Now that the enemy had headed westward there was nothing to be gained
by further delay.

Loudon had plenty of courage, but one requires more than bravery and a
six-shooter with which to pursue and successfully combat a gentleman
armed with a Winchester.

Hastily retreating to his horse, Loudon scrambled into the saddle,
galloped across the hilltop and rode down the eastern slope at a speed
exceedingly perilous to his horse's legs.  But the yellow horse somehow
contrived to keep his footing and reached the bottom with no damage
other than skinned hocks.

Once on level ground Loudon headed southward, and Lemons, that yellow
bundle of nerves and steel wire, stretched out his neck and galloped
with all the heart that was in him.

Loudon's destination was a line-camp twelve miles down the creek.  This
camp was the temporary abode of two Bar S punchers, who were riding the
country south of Fishtail Coulee.  Loudon knew that both men had taken
their Winchesters with them when they left the ranch, and he hoped to
find one of the rifles in the dugout.

With a rifle under his leg Loudon felt that the odds would be even, in
spite of the fact that the enemy had an uncanny mastery of the long
firearm.  Loudon's favourite weapon was the six-shooter, and he was at
his best with it.  A rifle in his hands was not the arm of precision it
became when Johnny Ramsay squinted along the sights.  For Johnny was an
expert.

"Keep a-travellin', little hoss, keep a-travellin'," encouraged Loudon.
"Split the breeze.  That's the boy!"

Loudon had more than one reason for being anxious to join issue with
the man who had attacked him.  At nine hundred yards one cannot
recognize faces or figures, but one can distinguish the colour of a
horse, and Loudon's antagonist rode a sorrel.  Chuck Morgan had said
that Blakely's horse was a sorrel.


Loudon sighted the dugout that was Pack-saddle line-camp in a trifle
less than an hour.  He saw with elation that two hobbled ponies were
grazing near by.  A fresh mount would quicken the return trip.
Loudon's elation collapsed like a pricked bubble when he entered the
dugout and found neither of the rifles.

He swore a little, and smoked a sullen cigarette.  Then he unsaddled
the weary Lemons and saddled the more vicious of the two hobbled
ponies.  Subjugating this animal, a most excellent pitcher, worked off
a deal of Loudon's ill-temper.  Even so, it was in no cheerful frame of
mind that he rode away to inspect the two mud-holes between Fishtail
Coulee and Box Hill.

To be beaten is not a pleasant state of affairs.  Not only had he been
beaten, but he had been caught by the old Indian fighter's trick of the
empty hat.  That was what galled Loudon.  To be lured into betraying
his position by such an ancient snare!  And he had prided himself on
being an adroit fighting man!  The fact that he had come within a
finger's breadth of paying with his life for his mistake did not lesson
the smart, rather it aggravated it.

Late in the afternoon he returned to the line-camp.  Hockling and Red
Kane, the two punchers, had not yet ridden in.  So Loudon sliced bacon
and set the coffee on to boil.  Half an hour after sunset Hockling and
Kane galloped up and fell upon Loudon with joy.  Neither relished the
labour, insignificant as it was, of cooking.

"Company," remarked Red Kane, a forkful of bacon poised in the air.

The far-away patter of hoofs swelled to a drumming crescendo.  Then
inside the circle of firelight a pony slid to a halt, and the voice of
cheerful Johnny Ramsay bawled a greeting.

"That's right, Tom!" shouted the irrepressible Johnny.  "Always have
chuck ready for yore uncle.  He likes his meals hot.  This is shore
real gayful.  I wasn't expectin' to find any folks here."

"I s'pose not," said Red Kane.  "You was figurin' on romancin' in while
we was away an' stockin' up on _our_ grub.  I know you.  Hock, you
better cache the extry bacon an' dobies.  Don't let Johnny see 'em."

"Well, o' course," observed Ramsay, superciliously, "I've got the
appetite of youth an' a feller with teeth.  I don't have to get my
nourishment out of soup."

"He must mean you, Hock," said Red Kane, calmly.  "You've done lost
eight."

"The rest of 'em all hit," asserted Hockling, grinning.  "But what
Johnny wants with teeth, I dunno.  By rights he'd ought to stick to
milk.  Meat ain't healthy for young ones.  Ain't we got a
nursin'-bottle kickin' round some'ers, Red?"

"Shore, Red owns one," drawled Loudon.  "I seen him buyin' one once
over to Farewell at Mike Flynn's."

"O' course," said Johnny, heaping his plate with bacon and beans.  "I
remember now I seen him, too.  Said he was buyin' it for a friend.  Why
not admit yo're married, Red?"

"Yuh know I bought it for Mis' Shaner o' the Three Bars!" shouted the
indignant Kane.  "She done asked me to get it for her.  It was for her
baby to drink out of."

"Yuh don't mean it," said Johnny, seriously.  "For a baby, yuh say.
Well now, if that ain't surprisin'.  I always thought nursin'-bottles
was to drive nails with."

In this wise the meal progressed pleasantly enough.  After supper, when
the four were sprawled comfortably on their saddle-blankets, Loudon
launched his bombshell.

"Had a small brush this mornin'," remarked Loudon, "with a gent over by
the mud-hole north o' Box Hill."

The three others sat up, gaping expectantly.

"Djuh get him?" demanded Johnny Ramsay, his blue eyes glittering in the
firelight.

Loudon shook his head.  He raised his left arm, revealing the rent in
his shirt.  Then he removed his hat and stuck his finger through the
hole in the crown.

"Souvenirs," said Loudon.  "He busted the lever off my Winchester an'
gormed up the action."

"An' he got away?" queried Red Kane.

"The last I seen of him he was workin' in behind where he thought I
was."

"Where was you?"

"I was watchin' him from the top o' Box Hill.  What did yuh think I'd
be doin'?  Waitin' for him to surround me an' plug me full o' holes?  I
come here some hurried after he crossed the creek.  I was hopin' you'd
have left a rifle behind."

"Wish't we had," lamented Hockling.  "Say, you was lucky to pull out of
it without reapin' no lead."

"I'll gamble you started the fraycas, Tommy," said Johnny Ramsay.

"Not this trip.  I was lookin' at some mighty interestin' cow an' pony
tracks opposite the rock ledge when this gent cuts down on me an'
misses by two inches."

"Tracks?"

"Yep.  Some sport drove five cows on to the ledge an' chased 'em over
the creek.  That's how they work the trick.  They throw the cows across
where there's hard ground or rocks on our side.  'Course the rustlers
didn't count none on us nosyin' along the opposite bank."

"Ain't they the pups!" ejaculated Hockling.

"They're wise owls," commented Johnny Ramsay.  "Say, Tom, did this
shootin' party look anyways familiar?"

"The colour of his hoss was--some," replied Loudon.  "Blakely was at
the ranch last night, an' his hoss was a sorrel."

"What did I tell yuh?" exclaimed Johnny Ramsay.  "What did I tell yuh?
That Blakely tinhorn is one bad actor."

"I ain't none shore it was him.  There's herds o' sorrel cayuses."

"Shore there are, but there's only one Blakely.  Oh, it was him all
right."

"Whoever it was, I'm goin' to wander over onto the 88 range to-morrow,
if Red or Hock'll lend me a Winchester."

"Take mine," said Hockling.  "Red's throws off a little."

"She does," admitted Red Kane, "but my cartridges don't.  I'll give yuh
a hull box."

Followed then much profane comment relative to the 88 ranch and the
crass stupidity of Mr. Saltoun.

"I see yo're packin' a Winchester," said Loudon to Johnny Ramsay, when
Hockling and Red had turned in.

"Hunter's trip," explained Johnny, his eyes twinkling.  "Jack Richie's
got his own ideas about this rustlin', so he sent me over to scamper
round the 88 range an' see what I could see.  I guess I'll travel with
you a spell."

"Fine!" said Loudon.  "Fine.  I was wishin' for company.  If we're
jumped we'd ought to be able to give 'em a right pleasant little
surprise."

Johnny Ramsay rolled a cigarette and gazed in silence at the dying fire
for some minutes.  Loudon, his hands clasped behind his head, stared
upward at the star-dusted heavens.  But he saw neither the stars nor
the soft blackness.  He saw Kate and Blakely, and thick-headed Mr.
Saltoun bending over his desk, and he was wondering how it all would
end.

"Say," said Johnny Ramsay, suddenly, "this here hold-up cut down on yuh
from behind a rock, didn't he?"

"Shore did," replied Loudon.

"Which side did he fire from?"

"Why, the hind side."

"I ain't tryin' to be funny.  Was it the left side or the right side?"

"The right side," Loudon replied, after a moment's thought.

"Yore right side?"

"Yep."

"That would make it his left side.  Did yuh ever stop to think, Tom,
that Blakely shoots a Colt right-handed an' a Winchester left-handed?"

Loudon swore sharply.

"Now, how did I come to forget that!" he exclaimed.  "O' course he
does."

"Guess Mr. Blakely's elected," said Johnny Ramsay.  "Seems likely."


Early next morning Loudon and Ramsay rode northward along the bank of
the Pack-saddle.  They visited first the boulder a quarter of a mile
below the mud-hole.  Here they found empty cartridge shells, and the
marks of boot-heels.

They forded the creek at the ledge above the mud-hole, where the cows
had been driven across, and started westward.  They were careful to
ride the low ground at first, but early in the afternoon they climbed
the rocky slope of Little Bear Mountain.  From the top they surveyed
the surrounding country.  They saw the splendid stretches of the range
specked here and there with dots that were cows, but they saw no riders.

They rode down the mountainside and turned into a wide draw, where
pines and tamaracks grew slimly.  At the head of the draw, where it
sloped abruptly upward, was a brushless wood of tall cedars, and here,
as they rode in among the trees, a calf bawled suddenly.

They rode toward the sound and came upon a dead cow.  At the cow's side
stood a lonely calf.  At sight of the men the calf fled lumberingly.
Ramsay unstrapped his rope and gave his horse the spur.  Loudon
dismounted and examined the dead cow.  When Ramsay returned with the
calf, Loudon was squatting on his heels, rolling a cigarette.

"There y'are," observed Loudon, waving his free hand toward the cow.
"There's evidence for yuh.  Ears slit with the 88 mark, an' the 88
brand over the old Bar S.  Leg broke, an' a hole in her head.  She
ain't been dead more'n a day.  What do you reckon?"

"That the 88 are damn fools.  Why didn't they skin her?"

"Too lazy, I guess.  That calf's branded an' earmarked all complete.
Never was branded before, neither."

"Shore.  An' the brand's about two days old.  Just look at it.  Raw
yet."

"Same date as its ma's.  They done some slick work with a wet blanket
on that cow, but the Bar S is plain underneath.  Give the cow a month,
if she'd lived, an' yuh'd never know but what she was born 88."

"Oh, they're slick, the pups!" exclaimed Johnny Ramsay.

"The Old Man ought to see this.  When Old Salt throws his eyes on that
brandin' I'll gamble he'll change his views some."

"You bet he will.  Better start now."

"All right.  Let's get a-goin'."

"One's enough.  You go, Tommy.  I'll stay an' caper around.  I might
run onto somethin'.  Yuh can't tell."

"I'd kind o' like to have yuh here when I get back."

"Don't worry none.  From what I know o' Old Salt you an' him won't be
here before to-morrow mornin'!  I'll be here then."

"All right.  I'll slide instanter.  So long, Johnny."




CHAPTER IV

THE SKINNED CATTLE

"This is a devil of a time to haul a man out o' bed," complained Mr.
Saltoun, stuffing the tail of his nightshirt into his trousers.  "C'mon
in the office," he added, grumpily.

Mr. Saltoun, while Loudon talked, never took his eyes from the
puncher's face.  Incredulity and anger warred in his expression.

"What do you reckon?" the owner inquired in a low tone, when Loudon
fell silent.

"Why, it's plain enough," said Loudon, impatiently.  "The rustlers were
night-drivin' them cows when one of 'em busted her leg.  So they shot
her, an' the calf got away an' come back after the rustlers had gone
on.  They must 'a' been night-drivin', 'cause if it had been daytime
they'd 'a' rounded up the calf.  Night-drivin' shows they were in a
hurry to put a heap o' range between themselves an' the Bar S.  They
were headin' straight for the Fallin' Horse an' the Three Sisters."

"I see all that.  I'm still askin' what do you reckon?"

"Meanin'?"

"Who-all's doin' it?"

"I ain't changed my opinion any.  If the rustlers don't ride for the
88, then they're related mighty close."

"You can't prove it," denied Mr. Saltoun.

"I know I can't.  But it stands to reason that two or three rustlers
workin' for themselves wouldn't drift cows west--right across the 88
range.  They'd drift 'em north toward Farewell, or south toward the
Fryin' Pans.  Findin' that cow an' calf on the 88 range is pretty near
as strong as findin' a man ridin' off on yore hoss."

"Pretty near ain't quite."

"I ain't sayin' anythin' more."

"You've got a grudge against the 88, Tom.  Just because a left-handed
sport on a sorrel cuts down on yuh it don't follow that Blakely is the
sport.  Yuh hadn't ought to think so, Tom.  Why, Blakely stayed here
the night before yuh started for Pack-saddle.  He didn't leave till
eight o'clock in the mornin', an' then he headed for the 88.  It ain't
likely he'd slope over to the creek an' shoot you up.  Why, that's
plumb foolish, Tom.  Blakely's white, an' he's a friend o' mine."

Mr. Saltoun gazed distressedly at Loudon.  The puncher stared straight
before him, his expression wooden.  He had said all that he intended to
say.

"Well, Tom," continued the owner, "I don't enjoy losin' cows any more
than the next feller.  We've got to stop this rustlin' somehow.  In the
mornin' I'll ride over with yuh an' have a look at that cow.  Tell
Chuck Morgan I want him to come along.  Now you get some sleep, an'
forget about the 88.  They ain't in on this deal, take my word for it."

It was a silent trio that departed in the pale light of the new day.
Chuck Morgan endeavoured to draw Loudon into conversation but gave it
up after the first attempt.  The heavy silence remained unbroken till
they reached the mouth of the wide draw beyond Little Bear Mountain.

"There's a hoss," said Loudon, suddenly.

A quarter of a mile away grazed a saddled pony.  Loudon galloped
forward.

The animal made no attempt to escape.  It stood quietly while Loudon
rode up and gathered in the reins dragging between its feet.  The full
_cantenas_ were in place.  The quirt hung on the horn.  The rope had
not been unstrapped.  The slicker was tied behind the cantle.  Under
the left fender the Winchester was in its scabbard.  All on the saddle
was as it should be.

"Whose hoss?" inquired Mr. Saltoun, who had followed more slowly.

"Ramsay's," replied the laconic Loudon, and started up the draw at a
lope, leading the riderless pony.

Loudon's eyes searched the ground ahead and on both sides.  He
instinctively felt that some ill had befallen Johnny Ramsay.  His
intuition was not at fault.

When the three had ridden nearly to the head of the draw, where the
trees grew thickly, Loudon saw, at the base of a leaning pine, the
crumpled body of Johnny Ramsay.

Loudon dropped from the saddle and ran to his friend.  Ramsay lay on
his back, his left arm across his chest, his right arm extended,
fingers gripping the butt of his six-shooter.  His face and neck and
left arm were red with blood.  His appearance was sufficiently ghastly
and death-like, but his flesh was warm.

Respiration was imperceptible, however, and Loudon tore open Ramsay's
shirt and pressed his ear above the heart.  It was beating, but the
beat was pitifully slow and faint.

Loudon set to work.  Chuck Morgan was despatched to find water, and Mr.
Saltoun found himself taking and obeying orders from one of his own
cowpunchers.

An hour later Ramsay, his wounds washed and bandaged, began to mutter,
but his words were unintelligible.  Within, half an hour he was raving
in delirium.  Chuck Morgan had departed, bound for the Bar S, and
Loudon and Mr. Saltoun sat back on their heels and watched their
moaning patient.

"It's a whipsaw whether he'll pull through or not," remarked the
bromidic Mr. Saltoun.

"He's got to pull through," declared Loudon, grimly.  "He ain't goin'
to die.  Don't think it for a minute."

"I dunno.  He's got three holes in him."

"Two.  Neck an' arm, an' the bone ain't touched.  That graze on the
head ain't nothin'.  It looks bad, but it only scraped the skin.  His
neck's the worst.  A half inch over an' he'd 'a' bled to death.  Yuh
can't rub out Johnny so easy.  There's a heap o' life in him."

"His heart's goin' better now," said Mr. Saltoun.

Loudon nodded, his gray eyes fixed on the bandaged head of his friend.
Conversation languished, and Mr. Saltoun began to roll and smoke
cigarettes.  After a time Loudon rose.

"He'll do till the wagon comes," he said.  "Let's go over an' take a
squint at that cow."

Loudon led Mr. Saltoun to the spot where lay the dead cow.  When the
puncher came in sight of the dead animal he halted abruptly and
observed that he would be damned.

Mr. Saltoun whistled.  The cow had been thoroughly skinned.  Beside the
cow lay the calf, shot through the head.  And from the little body
every vestige of hide had been stripped.

"I guess that settles the cat-hop," said Mr. Saltoun, and began
comprehensively to curse all rustlers and their works.

It was not the skinning that disturbed Mr. Saltoun.  It was the sight
of his defunct property.  The fact that he was losing cows had struck
home at last.  Inform a man that he is losing property, and he may or
may not become concerned, but show him that same property rendered
valueless, and he will become very much concerned.  Ocular proof is a
wonderful galvanizer.  Yet, in the case of Mr. Saltoun, it was not
quite wonderful enough.

"Oh, they're slick!" exclaimed Loudon, bitterly.  "They don't forget
nothin'!  No wonder Blakely's a manager!"

Mr. Saltoun ceased swearing abruptly.

"Yo're wrong, Tom," he reproved.  "The 88's got nothin' to do with it.
I know they ain't, an' that's enough.  I'm the loser, not you, an' I'm
the one to do the howlin'.  An' I don't want to hear any more about the
88 or Blakely."

Loudon turned his back on Mr. Saltoun and returned to the wounded man.
The cowboy yearned to take his employer by the collar and kick him into
a reasonable frame of mind.  Such blindness was maddening.

Mr. Saltoun heaped fuel on the fire of Loudon's anger by remarking that
the rustlers undoubtedly hailed from the Frying-Pan Mountains.  Loudon,
writhing internally, was on the point of relieving his pent-up feelings
when his eye glimpsed a horseman on the high ground above the draw.
The puncher reached for his Winchester, but he laid the rifle down when
the rider changed direction and came toward them.

"Block, ain't it?" inquired Mr. Saltoun.

Loudon nodded.  His eyes narrowed to slits, his lips set in a straight
line.  The sheriff rode up and halted, his little eyes shifting from
side to side.  He spoke to Mr. Saltoun, nodded to Loudon, and then
stared at the wounded man.

"Got a rustler, I see," he observed dryly, his lips crinkled in a
sneering smile.

"Yuh see wrong--as usual," said Loudon.  "Some friend o' yores shot
Johnny."

"Friend o' mine?  Who?" queried the sheriff, his manner one of mild
interest.

"Wish I knew.  Thought yuh might be able to tell me.  Ain't that what
yuh come here for?"

"Ramsay's shot--that's all we know," interposed Mr. Saltoun, hastily.
"An' there's a cow an' calf o' mine over yonder.  Skinned, both of 'em."

"An' the cow had been branded through a wet blanket," said Loudon, not
to be fobbed off.  "The Bar S was underneath an' the 88 was on top.
Johnny an' me found the dead cow an' the live calf yesterday.  I left
Johnny here an' rode in to the Bar S.  When we got here we found Johnny
shot an' the cow an' calf skinned.  What do you guess?"

"I don't guess nothin'," replied the sheriff.  "But it shore looks as
if rustlers had been mighty busy."

"Don't it?" said Loudon with huge sarcasm.  "I guess, now----"

"Say, look here, Sheriff," interrupted Mr. Saltoun, anxious to preserve
peace, "I ain't makin' no charges against anybody.  But this rustlin'
has got to stop.  I can't afford to lose any more cows.  Do somethin'.
Yo're sheriff."

"Do somethin'!" exclaimed the Sheriff.  "Well, I like that!  What can I
do?  I can't be in forty places at once.  Yuh talk like I knowed just
where the rustlers hang out."

"Yuh probably do," said Loudon, eyes watchful, his right hand ready.

"Keep out of this, Tom," ordered Mr. Saltoun, turning on Loudon with
sharp authority.  "I'll say what's to be said."

"Show me the rustlers," said the sheriff, electing to disregard
Loudon's outburst.  "Show me the rustlers, an' I'll do the rest."

At which remark the seething Loudon could control himself no longer.

"You'll do the rest!" he rapped out in a harsh and grating voice.  "I
guess yuh will!  If yuh was worth a ---- yuh'd get 'em without bein'
shown!  How much do they pay yuh for leavin' 'em alone?"

The sheriff did not remove his hands from the saddle-horn.  For Loudon
had jerked out his six-shooter, and the long barrel was in line with
the third button of the officer's shirt.

"Yuh got the drop," grunted the sheriff, his little eyes venomous, "an'
I ain't goin' up agin a sure thing."

"You can gamble yuh ain't.  I'd shore admire to blow yuh apart.  You
git, an' git now."

The sheriff hesitated.  Loudon's finger dragged on the trigger.  Slowly
the sheriff picked up his reins, wheeled his horse, and loped away.

"What did yuh do that for?" demanded Mr. Saltoun, disturbed and angry.

Loudon, his eye-corners puckered, stared at the owner of the Bar S.
The cowboy's gaze was curious, speculative, and it greatly lacked
respect.  Instead of replying to Mr. Saltoun's question, Loudon
sheathed his six-shooter, squatted down on his heels and began to roll
a cigarette.

"I asked yuh what yuh did that for?" reiterated blundering Mr. Saltoun.

Again Loudon favoured his employer with that curious and speculative
stare.

"I'll tell yuh," Loudon said, gently.  "I talked to Block because it's
about time someone did.  He's in with the rustlers--Blakely an' that
bunch.  If you wasn't blinder'n a flock of bats you'd see it, too."

"You can't talk to me this way!" cried the furious Mr. Saltoun.

"I'm doin' it," observed Loudon, placidly.

"Yo're fired!"

"Not by a jugful I ain't.  I quit ten minutes ago."

"You----" began Mr. Saltoun.

"Don't," advised Loudon, his lips parting in a mirthless smile.

Mr. Saltoun didn't.  He withdrew to a little distance and sat down.
After a time he took out his pocket-knife and began to play
mumblety-peg.  Mr. Saltoun's emotions had been violently churned.  He
required time to readjust himself.  But with his customary stubbornness
he held to the belief that Blakely and the 88 were innocent of
evil-doing.

Until Chuck Morgan and the wagon arrived early in the morning, Loudon
and his former employer did not exchange a word.




CHAPTER V

THEIR OWN DECEIVINGS

Johnny Ramsay was put to bed in the Bar S ranch house.  Kate Saltoun
promptly installed herself as nurse.  Loudon, paid off by the now
regretful Mr. Saltoun, took six hours' sleep and then rode away on
Ranger to notify the Cross-in-a-box of Ramsay's wounding.

An angry man was Richie, manager of the Cross-in-a-box, when he heard
what Loudon had to say.

The following day Loudon and Richie rode to the Bar S.  On Loudon's
mentioning that he was riding no longer for the Bar S, Richie
immediately hired him.  He knew a good man, did Jack Richie of the
Cross-in-a-box.

When they arrived at the Bar S they found Johnny Ramsay conscious, but
very weak.  His weakness was not surprising.  He had lost a great deal
of blood.  He grinned wanly at Loudon and Richie.

"You mustn't stay long," announced Miss Saltoun, firmly, smoothing the
bed-covering.

"We won't, ma'am," said Richie.  "Who shot yuh, Johnny?"

"I dunno," replied the patient.  "I was just a-climbin' aboard my hoss
when I heard a shot behind me an' I felt a pain in my neck.  I pulled
my six-shooter an' whirled, an' I got in one shot at a gent on a hoss.
He fired before I did, an' it seems to me there was another shot off to
the left.  Anyway, the lead got me on the side of the head an' that's
all I know."

"Who was the gent on the hoss?" Loudon asked.

"I dunno, Tom.  I hadn't more'n whirled when he fired, an' the smoke
hid his face.  It all come so quick.  I fired blind.  Yuh see the chunk
in my neck kind o' dizzied me, an' that rap on the head comin' on top
of it, why, I wouldn't 'a' knowed my own brother ten feet away.  I'm
all right now.  In a couple o' weeks I'll be ridin' the range again."

"Shore yuh will," said Loudon.  "An' the sooner the quicker.  You've
got a good nurse."

"I shore have," smiled Johnny, gazing with adoring eyes at Kate Saltoun.

"That will be about all," remarked Miss Saltoun.  "He's talked enough
for one day.  Get out now, the both of you, and don't fall over
anything and make a noise.  I'm not going to have my patient disturbed."

Loudon went down to the bunkhouse for his dinner.  After the meal,
while waiting for Richie, who was lingering with Mr. Saltoun, he strove
to obtain a word with Kate.  But she informed him that she could not
leave her patient.

"See you later," said Miss Saltoun.  "You mustn't bother me now."

And she shooed him out and closed the door.  Loudon returned to the
bunkhouse and sat down on the bench near the kitchen.  Soon Jimmy
appeared with a pan of potatoes and waxed loquacious as was his habit.

"Who plugged Johnny?  That's what I'd like to know," wondered Jimmy.
"Here! leave them Hogans be!  They're to eat, not to jerk at the
windmill.  I never seen such a kid as you.  Yo're worse than Chuck
Morgan, an' he's just a natural-born fool.  Oh, all right.  I ain't
a-goin' to talk to yuh if yuh can't act decent."

Jimmy picked up his pan of potatoes and withdrew with dignity.  The
grin faded from Loudon's mouth, and he gazed worriedly at the ground
between his feet.

What would Kate say to him?  Would she be willing to wait?  She had
certainly encouraged him, but----  Premonitory and unpleasant shivers
crawled up and down Loudon's spinal column.  Proposing was a strange
and novel business with him.  He had never done such a thing before.
He felt as one feels who is about to step forth into the unknown.  For
he was earnestly and honestly very much in love.  It is only your
philanderer who enters upon a proposal with cold judgment and a calm
heart.

Half an hour later Loudon saw Kate at the kitchen window.  He was up in
an instant and hurrying toward the kitchen door.  Kate was busy at the
stove when he entered.  Over her shoulder she flung him a charming
smile, stirred the contents of a saucepan a moment longer, then clicked
on the cover and faced him.

"Kate," said Loudon, "I'm quittin' the Bar S."

"Quitting?  Oh, why?"  Miss Saltoun's tone was sweetly regretful.

"Lot o' reasons.  I'm ridin' for the Cross-in-a-box now."

He took a step forward and seized her hand.  It lay in his, limp,
unresponsive.  Of which lack of sympathetic warmth he was too absorbed
to be conscious.

"Kate," he pursued, "I ain't got nothin' now but my forty a month.  But
I shore love yuh a lot.  Will yuh wait for me till I make enough for
the two of us?  Look at me, Kate.  I won't always be a punch.  I'll
make money, an' if I know yo're a-waitin' for me, I'll make it all the
faster."

According to recognized precedent Kate should have fallen into his
arms.  But she did nothing of the kind.  She disengaged her fingers and
drew back a step, ingenuous surprise written large on her countenance.
Pure art, of course, and she did it remarkably well.

"Why, Tom," she breathed, "I wasn't expecting this.  I didn't dream,
I----"

"That's all right," Loudon broke in.  "I'm tellin' yuh I love yuh,
honey.  Will yuh wait for me?  Yuh don't have to say yuh love me.  I'll
take a chance on yore lovin' me later.  Just say yuh'll wait, will yuh,
honey?"

"Oh, Tom, I can't!"

"Yuh can't!  Why not?  Don't love anybody else, do yuh?"

"Oh, I can't, Tom," evaded Kate.  "I don't think I could ever love you.
I like you--oh, a great deal.  You're a dear boy, Tommy, but--you can't
make yourself love any one."

"Yuh won't have to make yoreself.  I'll make yuh love me.  Just give me
a chance, honey.  That's all I want.  I'd be good to yuh, Kate, an' I'd
spend my time tryin' to make yuh happy.  We'd get along.  I know we
would.  Say yes.  Give me a chance."

Kate returned to the table and leaned against it, arms at her sides,
her hands gripping the table-edge.  It was a pose calculated to display
her figure to advantage.  She had practised it frequently.  Kate
Saltoun was running true to form.

"Tom," she said, her voice low and appealing, "Tom, I never had any
idea you loved me.  And I'm awfully sorry I can't love you.  Truly, I
am.  But we can be friends, can't we?"

"Friends!  Friends!"  The words were like a curse.

"Why not?"

Loudon, head lowered, looked at her under his eyebrows.

"Then it all didn't mean nothin'?"  He spoke with an effort.

"All?  All what?  What do you mean?"

"Yuh know what I mean.  You've been awful nice to me.  Yuh always acted
like yuh enjoyed havin' me around.  An' I thought yuh liked me--a
little.  An' it didn't mean nothin' 'cept we can be friends.  Friends!"

Again the word sounded like a curse.  Loudon turned his head and stared
unseeingly out of the window.  He raised his hand and pushed his hair
back from his forehead.  A great misery was in his heart.  Kate, for
once in her life swayed by honest impulse, stepped forward and laid a
hand on his arm.

"Don't take it so hard, Tom," she begged.

Loudon's eyes slid around and gazed down into her face.  Kate was a
remarkably handsome girl, but she had never appeared so alluring as she
did at that moment.

Loudon stared at the vivid dark eyes, the parted lips, and the tilted
chin.  Her warm breath fanned his neck.  The moment was tense, fraught
with possibilities, and--Kate smiled.  Even a bloodless cucumber would
have been provoked.  And Loudon was far from being a cucumber.

His long arms swept out and about her body, and he crushed her gasping
against his chest.  Once, twice, three times he kissed her mouth, then,
his grasp relaxing, she wrenched herself free and staggered back
against the table.  Panting, hands clenched at her throat, she faced
him.  Loudon stood swaying, his great frame trembling.

"Kate!  Oh, Kate!" he cried, and stretched out his arms.

But Kate groped her dazed way around the table.  Physically and
mentally, she had been severely shocked.  To meet a tornado where one
had expected a summer breeze is rather shattering to one's poise.
Quite so.  Kate suffered.  Then, out of the chaos of her emotions,
erupted wild anger.

"You!  You!" she hissed.  "How dare you kiss me!  Ugh-h!  I could kill
you!"

She drew the back of her hand across her mouth and snapped her hand
downward with precisely the same snap and jerk that a Mexican bartender
employs when he flips the pulque from his fingers.

"Do you know I'm engaged to Sam Blakely?  What do you think he'll do
when he finds this out?  Do you understand?  I'm going to marry Sam
Blakely!"

This facer cooled Loudon as nothing else could have done.  Outwardly,
at least, he became calm.

"I didn't understand, but I do now," he said, stooping to recover his
hat.  "If you'd told me that in the first place it would have saved
trouble."

"You'd have been afraid to kiss me then!" she taunted.

"Not afraid," he corrected, gently.  "I wouldn't 'a' wanted to.  I
ain't kissin' another man's girl."

"No, I guess not!  The nerve of you!  Think I'd marry an ignorant
puncher!"

"Yuh shore ain't goin' to marry this one, but yuh are goin' to marry a
cow thief!"

"A--a what?"

"A cow thief, a rustler, a sport who ain't particular whose cows he
brands."

"You lie!"

"Yuh'll find out in time I'm tellin' the truth.  I guess now I know
more about Sam Blakely than you do, an' I tell yuh he's a rustler."

"Kate!  Oh, Kate!" called a voice outside.

Kate sped through the doorway.  Loudon, his lips set in a straight
line, followed her quickly.  There, not five yards from the kitchen
door, Sam Blakely sat his horse.  The eyes of the 88 manager went from
Kate to Loudon and back to Kate.

"What's the excitement?" inquired Blakely, easily.

Kate levelled her forefinger at Loudon.

"He says," she gulped, "he says you're a rustler."

Blakely's hand swept downward.  His six-shooter had barely cleared the
edge of the holster when Loudon's gun flashed from the hip, and
Blakely's weapon spun through the air and fell ten feet distant.

With a grunt of pain, Blakely, using his left hand, whipped a derringer
from under his vest.

Again Loudon fired.

Blakely reeled, the derringer spat harmlessly upward, and then Blakely,
as his frightened horse reared and plunged, pitched backward out of the
saddle and dropped heavily to the ground.  Immediately the horse ran
away.

Kate, with a sharp cry, flung herself at the prostrate Blakely.

"You've killed him!" she wailed.  "Sam--Sam--speak to me!"

But Sam was past speech.  He had struck head first and was consequently
senseless.

Come running then Jimmy from the bunkhouse, Chuck Morgan from the
corrals, Mr. Saltoun and Richie from the office.

"He's dead!  He's dead!" was the burden of Kate's shrill cries.

"Let's see if he is," said the practical Richie, dropping on his knees
at Blakely's side.  "He didn't tumble like a dead man.  Just a shake,
ma'am, while I look at him.  I can't see nothin' with you a-layin' all
over him this-a-way.  Yo're gettin' all over blood, too.  There, now!
She's done fainted.  That's right, Salt.  You take care of her."

The capable Richie made a rapid examination.  He looked up, hands on
knees, his white teeth gleaming under his brown moustache.

"He's all right," he said, cheerfully.  "Heart's a-tickin' like a
alarm-clock.  Hole in his shoulder.  Missed the bones.  Bullet went
right on through."

At this juncture Kate recovered consciousness and struggled upright in
her father's arms.

"He shot first!" she cried, pointing at Loudon.  "He didn't give him a
chance!"

"You'll excuse me, ma'am," said Richie, his tone good-humoured, but his
eyes narrowing ever so slightly.  "You'll excuse me for contradictin'
yuh, but I happened to be lookin' through the office window an' I seen
the whole thing.  Sam went after his gun before Tom made a move."

Blakely moved feebly, groaned, and opened his eyes.  His gaze fell on
Loudon, and his eyes turned venomous.

"You got me," he gritted, his lips drawn back, "but I'll get you when
Marvin and Rudd ride in.  They've got the proof with 'em, you rustler!"

After which cryptic utterance Blakely closed his mouth tightly and
contented himself with glaring.  Richie the unconcerned rose to his
feet and dusted his knees.

"Take his legs, Chuck," directed Richie.  "Gimme a hand, will yuh,
Jimmy?  Easy now.  That's it.  Where'll we put him, Salt?"

Mr. Saltoun and his now sobbing daughter followed them into the ranch
house.  Loudon remained where he was.  When the others had disappeared
Loudon clicked out the cylinder of his six-shooter, ejected the two
spent shells and slipped in fresh cartridges.

"When Marvin an' Rudd ride in," he wondered.  "Got the proof with 'em
too, huh.  It looks as if Blakely was goin' to a lot o' trouble on my
account."

Loudon walked swiftly behind the bunkhouse and passed on to the
corrals.  From the top of the corral fence he intended watching for the
coming of Marvin and Rudd.  In this business he was somewhat delayed by
the discovery of Blakely's horse whickering at the gate of the corral.

"I ain't got nothin' against you," said Loudon, "but yuh shore have
queer taste in owners."

Forthwith he stripped off saddle and bridle and turned the animal into
the corral.  As he closed the gate his glance fell on the dropped
saddle.  The coiled rope had fallen away from the horn, and there was
revealed in the swell-fork a neat round hole.  He squatted down more
closely at the neat hole.

"That happened lately," he said, fingering the edges of the hole.  "I
thought so," he added, as an inserted little finger encountered a
smooth, slightly concave surface.

He took out his knife and dug industriously.  After three minutes' work
a somewhat mushroomed forty-five-calibre bullet lay in the palm of his
hand.

"O' course Johnny Ramsay ain't the only sport packin' a forty-five," he
said, softly.  "But Johnny did mention firin' one shot at a party on a
hoss.  It's possible he hit the swell-fork.  Yep, it's a heap possible."

Then Loudon dropped the bullet into a pocket of his chaps and climbed
to the top of the corral fence.


A mile distant, on the slope of a swell, two men were riding toward the
ranch house.  The horsemen were driving before them a cow and a calf.
Loudon climbed down and took position behind the mule corral.  From
this vantage-point he could observe unseen all that might develop.

The riders, Marvin, the 88 range boss, and Rudd, a puncher, passed
within forty feet of the mule corral.  The cow and the calf walked
heavily, as if they had been driven a long distance, and Loudon
perceived that they had been newly branded 8x8.  The brand was not one
that he recognized.

"Crossed Dumbbell or Eight times Eight."  he grinned.  "Take yore
choice.  I wonder if that brand's the proof Blakely was talkin' about.
Marvin an' Rudd shore do look serious."

He cautiously edged round the corral and halted behind the corner of
the bunkhouse.  Marvin and Rudd were holding the cow and calf near the
ranch house door.  The two men lounged in their saddles.  Marvin rolled
a cigarette.  Then in the doorway appeared Mr. Saltoun.

"Howdy, Mr. Saltoun," said Marvin.  "Sam got in yet?"

"He's in there," replied Mr. Saltoun, jerking a thumb over his
shoulder.  "He's shot."

"Who done it?"

"Tom Loudon,"

"Where is he?"

"Throw up yore hands!" rapped out the gentleman in question.

Loudon had approached unobserved and was standing some twenty feet in
the rear of Marvin and Rudd.  At Loudon's sharp command Rudd's hands
shot skyward instantly.

"I'm waitin'," cautioned Loudon.

Marvin's fingers slowly uncoiled from the butt of his six-shooter and
draggingly he followed his comrade's example.

"Now we can all be happy," remarked Loudon, nodding amiably to the
perturbed Mr. Saltoun.  "I won't shoot unless they shove me.  They can
talk just as comfortable with their hands up, an' it'll be a lot safer
all round.  Was the state o' Sam's health all yuh wanted to know,
Marvin?  No, don't either of yuh turn 'round.  Just keep yore eyes
clamped on the windmill.  About Sam, now, Marvin.  Richie says he'll
pull through.  Anythin' else?"

"You bet there is!" exploded the furious range-boss.  "You ----
rustler, you branded a cow an' a calf o' ours yest'day!"

"Shore," agreed Loudon, politely, "an' I held up the Farewell stage,
stole thirty-eight horses, an' robbed the Marysville bank the day
before.  Yuh don't want to forget all them little details, Marvin.
It's a shore sign yo're gettin' aged when yuh do.  Well, well, a cow
an' a calf yuh say.  Only the two, huh?  It don't look natural somehow.
I never brand less'n twenty-four at a clip."

Over the shoulders of the agitated Mr. Saltoun peered the faces of
avidly interested Richie, Chuck Morgan, and Jimmy the cook.  None of
these three allowed a sign of his true feeling to appear on his face.

The two 88 men were red with shame and anger.  Their lips moved with
wicked words.  Arms stretched heavenward, their gaze religiously fixed
on the windmill, they presented a ridiculous appearance, and they knew
it.  Loudon, the dominant figure in the scene, spread his legs and
smiled sardonically.

"Go on, Marvin," he said, after a moment, "yo're cussin' a lot, but yuh
ain't sayin' nothin'.  Let's hear the rest o' that interestin' story o'
the 88 cow an' her little daughter."

"You branded the both of 'em," stubbornly reiterated Marvin.  "We seen
yuh--Sam, Rudd here, an' me, we seen yuh."

"Yuh seen me!" exclaimed Loudon.  "Yuh seen me!  You was close enough
to see me, an' yuh didn't try to stop me!  Well, you shore are the
poorest liar in the territory."

"If I had my hands down yuh wouldn't call me that!"

"If yuh had yore hands down yuh'd be dead.  I'm tryin' to save yore
life.  C'mon, speak the rest o' yore little piece.  Yuh got as far as
the brandin'.  When did it all happen?"

"Gents," said Marvin, "this sport is a rustler.  There ain't no two
ways about it.  Day before yest'day, just before sundown, over near the
Sink, the three of us seen Loudon workin' round a hog-tied cow an'
calf.  We was three, maybe four miles away.  We seen him through field
glasses.  We hit the ground for the Sink, but when we got there all we
found was the cow an' calf, branded as yuh see 'em now.  Loudon had
sloped."

"Near the Sink," observed Loudon.  "In the middle of it?"

"I've quit talkin'," replied Marvin.

Richie stepped past Mr. Saltoun and stood in front of Marvin and Rudd.

"You've done made a right serious charge agin one o' my men," remarked
Richie, addressing Marvin.  "If he did brand them cattle, he'll be
stretched.  But it ain't all clear to me yet.  This here Crossed
Dumbbell brand now--see it on any other cattle besides these two,
Marvin?"

"No," said Marvin, shaking his head.

"Well," continued Richie, "why didn't yuh come here right off instead
o' waitin' two days?"

"We was busy."

"Didn't go back to the 88 ranch house before comin' here, did yuh?"

"No."

"Or stop at any o' yore line-camps?"

"No, we didn't.  We come here soon as we could make it."

"What part o' the Sink was Loudon workin' in?"

"The north side."

"Near the edge, o' course?"

"No, he was nearer the middle."

"Nearer the middle, was he?  An' yuh seen him at a distance o' three or
four miles.  Yuh must have good eyesight, because if you seen Loudon
workin' in the middle o' the Sink an' you was standin' where yuh say
yuh was, yuh looked through about two miles an' a half o' solid earth.
The middle o' the Sink is two hundred feet below the level o' the
surrounding country, an' there ain't no high land anywhere near it.
Unless yo're standin' right on the edge yuh can't see nothin' in the
bottom, an' the Sink is only about a mile from rim to rim.  I guess now
yo're mistaken, Marvin."

"I ain't none shore he was plumb in the middle," grudgingly admitted
Marvin.  "Maybe he was kind o' near the north rim.  But what's the
difference?" he added, brazenly.  "We seen him."

"Where are the field glasses?" astutely questioned Richie.

"Left 'em at our Lazy River line-camp," promptly replied Marvin.

"Now ain't that funny, Marvin.  Yuh told me not three minutes ago yuh
didn't stop at any o' yore line-camps."

"I mean we--I gave 'em to Shorty Simms.  He's at the Lazy River
line-camp, an' he took 'em there."

"Why did yuh give 'em to Shorty?" persisted Richie.

"Look here, Richie!" blazed Marvin, "this ain't no court, an' I don't
have to answer yore questions."

"Yuh'll have to answer plenty of questions," retorted Richie, "before
I'll see Loudon stretched."

"I tell yuh he's a rustler!" shouted the mulish Marvin.  "He's startin'
a herd o' his own, an' he's usin' the Dumbbell brand.  We seen him
brandin' that stock!  That's enough for you or any one else to know,
an' I tell yuh flat the 88 is out to stretch Tom Loudon the first
chance it gets!"

"Well, o' course, you know best," said Richie, "but I wouldn't do
nothin' rash, Marvin.  I just wouldn't go off at half-cock if I was
you."

"No," chipped in Loudon, briskly.  "I wouldn't set my heart on it,
Marvin, old hoss.  I ain't countin' none on dyin' yet awhile.  I've got
a heap o' little matters to attend to before I cash, an' yuh can see
how hangin' me would disarrange all my plans.  Take yore decorated cow
an' calf now an' pull yore freight, an' _don't_ look back."

When Marvin and Rudd were gone Richie hooked his thumb in his belt and
looked with twinkling eyes at Loudon and the men in the doorway.

"I guess that settles the cat-hop," said Jack Richie.




CHAPTER VI

PESTILENT FELLOWS

Before his departure Loudon visited Blakely.

"Found a bullet-hole in yore saddle," said Loudon without preliminary.
"Kind o' looks as if Johnny come near bustin' yore mainspring.  I ain't
told Johnny--yet.  Johnny bein' an impulsive sport he might ventilate
yuh plenty first time he met yuh.  Johnny's square.  He ain't shootin'
anybody unless he's pretty near certain the other party is a-layin' for
him, an' that bullet I dug out o' yore swell-fork shore makes it look
bad for yuh.

"Yuh needn't look so sour.  I got good news for yuh.  Yo're goin' to
marry Kate.  Well an' good.  I wouldn't enjoy downin' her husband
unless I'm crowded.  I could 'a' killed yuh a while back, an' I shot
wide on purpose.  Next time--but don't let there be any next time.
Just you keep away from me an' Johnny.  I'm leavin' the Lazy River
country anyway, but I tell yuh, Sam Blakely, if Johnny Ramsay is
bushwhacked by the 88 I'll come back an' get yuh first card out o' the
box.  Kate's husband or not yuh'll go shoutin' home.  Understand?"

"So yo're leavin' this country," bristled Blakely.  "Yuh'd better.
I'll shoot yuh on sight!"

"Shore yuh feel that way about it?" queried Loudon with suspicious
gentleness.

"I say what I mean as a rule.  I'll shoot yuh on sight you ----
rustler."

"All right.  Because o' Kate I was willin' to keep paws off, but if
yo're a-honin' to play the hand out, I'll give yuh every chance.
You've got to get well complete first.  Take three months.  That ought
to be time enough.  Three months from to-day I'll ride in to Farewell.
If yo're still feelin' fighty be in town when I hit it."

"I'll be there," Blakely assured him.

When Loudon had bidden Johnny Ramsay good-bye, he went out and mounted
Ranger and rode away with Jack Richie.

"I'm goin' away from here, Jack," said Loudon, after Richie had
discussed in profane detail the 88's endeavour to discredit him.

"I thought yuh was goin' to work for me?" exclaimed Richie in surprise.

"I was, but somethin's happened since then.  I'm kind o' sick o' the
Lazy River country.  I need a change."

"Well, you know best.  But----"

"I know what yo're thinkin'.  If I go now the 88 will think I've quit
cold.  Let 'em think it.  I don't care.  But I'll be back.  I made an
appointment with Blakely to meet him in Farewell three months from
to-day."

"That's good hearin'.  But I'm shore sorry you ain't goin' to ride for
me."

"So'm I."

"Stay over to-night anyway.  Yuh ain't in any howlin' rush to get away,
are yuh?"

"No, I ain't so hurried.  I dunno where I'll head--north, maybe."

"If yo're goin' north, why don't yuh try Scotty Mackenzie?  He owns the
Flyin' M horse ranch over beyond Paradise Bend.  There's three or four
good cow ranches near the Bend--the Seven Lazy Seven, the Wagon-wheel,
the Two Bar, an' the T V U."

"Maybe I will hit the Bend."

"If yuh do," pursued Richie, "yuh might stop an' say howdy at Cap'n
Burr's.  He married my sister, Burr did, an' all yuh got to do is say
yuh know me, an' they'll give yuh the house.  I guess, though, yuh know
Cap'n Burr yoreself."

"Shore I do.  It was the Cap'n who put me on to buyin' Ranger here.  He
kept tellin' me about this amazin' good cayuse over at the 88, an'
finally I went over, liked his looks, an' bought him.  The Cap'n was at
the 88 the day I took the hoss away.  He'd just freighted in a bunch o'
stuff Blakely'd ordered.  Cap'n Burr does a powerful lot o' business."

"Don't he now.  Yuh wouldn't think tin-peddlin' would pay so well.  Oh,
him an' his little old team o' blues shore glom onto the coin."


When Loudon rode into Farewell on the following day he saw half-a-dozen
88 cow-ponies hitched to the rail in front of the Palace Saloon.

"Now that's cheerful," said Loudon.  "For a peaceable feller I shore do
tie in with trouble a heap."

He turned aside at the hotel and tapped the landlord awake.  At sight
of Loudon Bill Lainey's eyes opened to their fullest extent and his red
face turned purple with excitement.

"Say," huskily whispered Lainey, "Shorty Simms, Rudd, Dakota Riley, an'
three more o' the 88 boys are in town.  They're tankin' up down in the
Palace.  Rudd's yowlin' round how he's goin' to drill yuh.  He's a heap
peevish, Rudd is.  I guess now yuh must 'a' riled him somehow, Tom."

"I guess maybe I did, Bill.  I'll take a little walk down to the Palace
after I eat.  Thanks for the warnin'.  Feed the little hoss, will yuh,
Bill?"

"Shore.  Go on in an' holler for Lize."

While Loudon was eating, a wiry, brisk little man with a white beard
entered the dining room.

"How are yuh, Cap'n?" grinned Loudon.

Captain Burr, surprise and embarrassment in his steel-blue eyes,
advanced and gripped Loudon's hand.

"Loudon!  By ----, suh!" he exclaimed.  "This is indeed a pleasuh!"

The tin-peddler slid into a chair and cleared his throat several times.

"I feah, suh," he said, shamefacedly, "that I have trespassed on youah
prese'ves.  Had I known that you were in town I would have stayed my
hand."

"Why?  What?" queried Loudon.

"Well, suh, I'll tell you the whole story.  It's sho't.  Twenty minutes
ago I ente'ed the Palace Saloon.  While drinking at the bah I could not
help but overheah the conve'sation of half-a-dozen 88 cowboys.  One of
them, a man named Rudd, mentioned youah name and called you a rustlah.

"You, Tom, are my friend, and, since I was unaware that you were in
town, I felt that I could not stand idly by.  I info'med this Rudd
person that traducing the absent was not the act of a gentleman.  I
also called him a ---- scoundrel and a liah to boot.  He took exception
to my wo'ds and, I was fo'ced to shoot him.

"You unde'stand, Tom, that I acted in complete good faith.  I believed
you to be at the Bah S.  Otherwise, I should have repo'ted the mattah
to you.  Of co'se, I would have stood at youah back while you shot the
rascal.  His ruffianly friends ah not to be trusted."

"Don't apologize, Cap'n," said Loudon, and he reached across the table
and shook hands again.

Captain Burr appeared to be greatly comforted at Loudon's ready
acceptance of his explanation, and he attacked his beef and beans with
appetite.

The captain was a good deal of a mystery to the folk with whom he came
in contact.  His mode of speech and his table manners were not those of
ordinary men.  But he was a man, with all that the name implies, and as
such they had learned to accept him.  I employ "learned" advisedly.
Certain unthinking individuals had, when the captain was a comparative
stranger in that region, commented upon his traits and received a
prompt and thorough chastening.

Captain Burr gained thereby an enviable reputation.  In reality there
was no mystery attached to the old tin-peddler.  He had simply been
born a gentleman.

"Did Rudd die?" inquired Loudon in a tone of studied casualness, when
he had finished his meal.

"He did not," replied the Captain.  "Unless blood-poisoning sets in he
will live to be hung.  My bullet broke his ahm.  He rode away with his
comrades five minutes lateh.  No doubt he was in some pain, but the
rogue was suffering much less than he dese'ved.  I realize that I
should have killed him, of co'se, but as I grow oldeh I find myself
becoming soft-heahted.  Time was--but one must not dwell in the past.
These beans ah excellent, Tom."

"They are.  Pullin' out soon?"

"At once.  I'm bound no'th.  I intend to visit all the ranches between
heah and Paradise Bend.  I hope to be home in two weeks.  Ah you
travelling my way?"

"Yep.  I guess I'm bound for the Bend, too."

"Then I will ask you to deliveh a letteh to my wife.  I missed the Bend
stage by two houahs to-day, and theah is no otheh fo' three days."

Loudon took the letter and placed it carefully in the inside pocket of
his vest.

While Captain Burr was harnessing his team, a job in which the
tin-peddler always refused assistance, Loudon rode down the street with
the intention of buying tobacco at the Blue Pigeon Store.  In front of
the Happy Heart Saloon, opposite the Palace Dance Hall, stood Sheriff
Block and five citizens.

As Loudon rode past the sheriff made a low-voiced remark and laughed
loudly.  Instantly the five citizens burst into cackles.  For Block,
besides being sheriff, owned both the Palace and the Happy Heart.
Hence most of Farewell's inhabitants took their cue from him.

The cachination in front of the Happy Heart grated on Loudon's feelings
as well as his ear-drums.  He knew that the sheriff, kindly soul, was
holding him up to ridicule.  Kate's refusal of him had made Loudon
somewhat reckless.  He had intended having it out with Rudd, but
Captain Burr had forestalled him there.  Here, however, was the sheriff
of the county, another enemy.  Loudon turned his horse.

Promptly the five friends oozed in various directions.  Sheriff Block,
a lonely figure, held his ground.

"I hear yo're lookin' for me," announced Loudon, a laughing devil in
his gray eyes.

"Who told yuh?" queried the sheriff, puzzled.  He had expected
something totally different.

"Who told me?  Oh, several little birds.  So I want to find out about
it.  I wouldn't like to put yuh to any trouble--such as huntin' me up,
for instance."

"That's good o' yuh.  But I ain't lookin' for yuh, not yet."

"I'm right glad to hear that.  Them little birds must 'a' lied.
Powerful lot o' lyin' goin' on in the world, ain't there?"

"I dunno nothin' about it," mumbled the sheriff, who was becoming more
and more puzzled at the apparently aimless words of the puncher.

"Don't yuh?" grinned Loudon.  "That's shore hard to believe."

The sheriff warily refused to take offence, and mumbled unintelligibly.

"Forget that afternoon in the draw west o' Little Bear Mountain?"
relentlessly pursued Loudon.  "We had some words--remember?  Yuh said
somethin' about me havin' the drop.  I ain't got the drop now.  My
hands are on the horn.  Yore's are hooked in yore belt.  But I'll lay
yuh two to one I bust yuh plumb centre before yuh can pull.  Take me
up?"

Loudon's lips were smiling, but his eyes stared with a disconcerting
gray chilliness into the small black eyes of Sheriff Block.  The
officer's eyelids wavered, winked, and Block shifted his gaze to
Loudon's chin.

"I ain't startin' no gun-play for nothin'," said Block with finality.

Loudon held up a ten-dollar gold piece.

"Two to one," he urged.

But the sheriff perceived that the hand holding the gold piece was
Loudon's left hand, and he could not quite screw his courage to the
sticking-point.  Block was ordinarily brave enough, but he was bad, and
as a rule there is at least one individual whom the bad man fears.  And
Block feared Loudon.

The sheriff's mean and vicious spirit writhed within him.  He hated
Loudon, hated him for his cocksureness, for his easy fearlessness.  He
would have sold his soul to the devil in return for the ability to
reach for his gun.  The sheriff licked his lips.

Loudon, still smiling, continued to hold aloft the gold piece.  The
onlookers--half of Farewell by this time--awaited the outcome in tense
silence.

Suddenly the sheriff shook his shoulders, spat on the sidewalk,
wheeled, and entered the Happy Heart.

Loudon flipped the gold piece into the air, caught it, and returned it
to his vest-pocket.  Without a glance at the keenly disappointed
populace, he turned Ranger and loped to the Blue Pigeon Store.

When he emerged, followed by the bawled "Good lucks!" of the
proprietor, Captain Burr was waiting.  The tin-peddler's face was grave
but his steel-blue eyes were twinkling with suppressed merriment.

"Well, suh----" chuckled the captain, when they were out of earshot of
the Farewell citizens--"well, suh, you ce'tainly talked to that
sheriff.  Lord, Tom, it made me laugh.  I didn't know that Block was so
lacking in honah and spo'ting spirit.  I fully expected to witness
quite a ruction."

"I wasn't lookin' for a fight," disclaimed Loudon.  "I knowed Block
wouldn't pull.  It was safe as takin' pie from a baby."

"I'm not so shuah," doubted Captain Burr.  "Any reptile is mighty
unce'tain.  And this reptile had friends.  I was watching them.  My
Spenceh seven-shooteh was ready fo' action.  You Rob'et E. Lee hoss,
pick up youah feet!  Well, I'm glad it ended peacefully.  My wife and
daughteh, as I may have mentioned, do not approve of fighting.  They
cannot realize how necessa'y it becomes at times.  It would be well, I
think, when you reach the Bend, to refrain from mentioning my little
disagreement with Rudd.  My family might heah of it, and--but you
unde'stand, don't you, Tom?"

"'Course, I do, Cap'n," heartily concurred Loudon.  "I won't say a
word."

"Thank you."

Captain Burr fell silent.  Suddenly he began to laugh.

"Po' Farewell," he chuckled.  "Theah will be some powdeh bu'nt befo'
the day is out."

"How?"

"Block.  His pride has had a fall.  Quite a few saw the tumble.  An
o'dina'y man would tuck his tail between his legs and go elsewheah.
But the sheriff is not an o'dina'y man.  He's too mean.  In order to
reinstate himself in the affections of the townspeople he will feel
compelled to shoot one of them.  Mahk my wo'ds, theah will be trouble
in the smoke fo' Farewell."

"It can stand it.  Outside o' Mike Flynn, an' Bill Lainey an' his wife,
there ain't a decent two-legged party in the whole place."

Captain Burr nodded and turned an appreciative eye on Ranger.

"That chestnut hoss ce'tainly does please me," he said.  "I wish I'd
bought him myself.  I do indeed."




CHAPTER VII

PARADISE BEND

Where the Dogsoldier River doubles on itself between Baldy Mountain and
the Government Hills sprawls the little town of Paradise Bend.  Larger
than Farewell, it boasted of two stores, a Wells Fargo office, two
dance halls, and five saloons.  The inevitable picket line of empty
bottles and tin cans encircled it, and its main street and three cross
streets were made unlovely by the familiar false fronts and waveringly
misspelt signs.

Loudon stared at the prospect with a pessimistic eye.  Solitude--he had
parted with Captain Burr the previous day--and the introspection
engendered thereby had rendered him gloomy.  The sulky devil that had
prompted him to seek a quarrel with Sheriff Block abode with him still.
Sullenly he checked his horse in front of the Chicago Store.

"Mornin'," said Loudon, addressing a dilapidated ancient sitting on a
cracker box.  "Can yuh tell me where Cap'n Burr lives?"

"Howdy, stranger?" replied the elderly person, eying with extreme
disfavour the 88 brand on Ranger's hip.  "I shore can.  Ride on down
past the Three Card, turn to the left, an' keep a-goin'.  It's the last
house."

Loudon nodded and continued on his way.  The ancient followed him with
alert eyes.

When Loudon drew abreast of the Three Card Saloon a man issued from the
doorway, glimpsed Ranger's brand, and immediately hastened into the
street and greeted Loudon after the fashion of an old friend.

"C'mon an' licker," invited the man, as Loudon checked his horse.

"Now that's what I call meetin' yuh with a brass band," remarked
Loudon.  "Do yuh always make a stranger to home this-away?"

"Always," grinned the other.  "I'm the reception committee."

"I'm trailin' yuh," said Loudon, dismounting.

He flung the reins over Ranger's head and followed the cordial
individual into the saloon.  While they stood at the bar Loudon took
stock of the other man.

He was a good-looking young fellow, strong-chinned, straight-mouthed,
with brown hair and eyes.  His expression was winning, too winning, and
there was a certain knowing look in his eye that did not appeal to
Loudon.  The latter drank his whisky slowly, his brain busily searching
for the key to the other man's conduct.

"Gambler, I guess," he concluded.  "I must look like ready money.
Here's where one tinhorn gets fooled."

After commenting at some length on the extraordinary dryness of the
season, Loudon's bottle-acquaintance, under cover of the loud-voiced
conversation of three punchers at the other end of the bar, said in a
low tone:

"Couldn't Sam come?"

Loudon stared.  The other noted his mystification, and mistook it.

"I'm Pete O'Leary," he continued.  "It's all right."

"Shore it is," conceded the puzzled Loudon.  "My name's Loudon.  Have
another."

The knowing look in Pete O'Leary's eyes was displaced by one of
distrust.  He drank abstractedly, mumbled an excuse about having to see
a man, and departed.

Loudon bought half-a-dozen cigars, stuffed five into the pocket of his
shirt, lit the sixth, and went out to his horse.  Puffing strongly, he
mounted and turned into the street designated by the dilapidated
ancient.  As he loped past the corner he glanced over his shoulder.  He
noted that not only was Pete O'Leary watching him from the window of a
dance hall, but that the tattered old person, leaning against a
hitching rail, was observing him also.

"I might be a hoss-thief or somethin'," muttered Loudon with a frown.
"This shore is a queer village o' prairie dogs.  The cigar's good,
anyway."  Then, his horse having covered a hundred yards in the
interval, he quoted, "'Couldn't Sam come?' an', 'I'm Pete O'Leary.'
Sam, Sam, who's Sam?  Now if Johnny Ramsay was here he'd have it all
figured out in no time."


"Why, Mr. Loudon!  Oh, wait!  Do wait!"

Loudon turned his head.  In the doorway of a house stood a plump young
woman waving a frantic dish-cloth.  Ranger, hard held, slid to a halt,
turned on a nickel, and shot back to the beckoning young woman.

"Well, ma'am," said Loudon, removing his hat.

"Don't you remember me?" coquettishly pouted the plump lady.

Loudon remembered her perfectly.  She was Mrs. Mace, wife of Jim Mace,
a citizen of Paradise Bend.  He had met her the year before when she
was visiting Kate Saltoun at the Bar S.  He had not once thought of
Mrs. Mace since her departure from the ranch, and of course he had
completely forgotten that she lived in Paradise Bend.  If he had
recalled the fact, he would have sought the Burrs' residence by some
other route.  One of Kate's friends was the last person on earth he
cared to meet.

"Shore, I remember yuh, Mrs. Mace," said Loudon, gravely.  "I'm right
glad to see yuh," he added, heavily polite.

"Are you?" said the lady somewhat sharply.  "Try to look happy then.  I
ain't a grizzly, an' I don't bite folks.  I won't stop you more'n a
second."

"Why, ma'am, I am glad to see yuh," protested Loudon, "an' I ain't in
no hurry, honest."

"That's all right.  I ain't offended.  Say, how's Kate an' her pa?"

"Fine when I saw 'em last.  Kate's as pretty as ever."

"She ought to be.  She ain't married.  Matrimony shore does rough up a
woman's figure an' face.  Lord, I'm a good thirty pounds heavier than I
was when I saw you last.  Say, do you know if Kate got that dress
pattern I sent her last month?"

"I dunno, ma'am.  I didn't hear her say."

"I s'pose not.  I guess you two had more important things to talk
about.  Say, how are you an' Kate gettin' along, anyway?"

"Why, all right, I guess."

Loudon felt extremely unhappy.  Mrs. Mace's keen gaze was embarrassing.
So was her next utterance.

"Well, I guess I'll write to Kate," remarked the lady, "an' find out
about that dress pattern.  She always was a poor writer, but she'd
ought to have sent me a thank-you anyway, an' me her best friend.  I'll
tell her I saw yuh, Mr. Loudon."

"Don't tell her on my account," said Loudon.  Then, realizing his
mistake, he continued hurriedly, "Shore, tell her.  She'd enjoy
hearin', o' course."

"Don't tell me you two haven't been quarrellin'," chided Mrs. Mace,
shaking a fat forefinger at Loudon.  "You'd ought to be ashamed of
yourselves, rowin' this way."

"Why, ma'am, yo're mistaken.  Me quarrel?  I guess not!  But I got to
be goin'.  Good-bye, ma'am.  I'll see yuh again."

Loudon, raging, loped away.  Meeting one of Kate's friends was bad
enough in itself.  For the friend wantonly to flick him on the raw was
intolerable.

Loudon began to believe that women were put into the world for the
purpose of annoying men.  But when he had dismounted in front of the
best house on the street, and the door had been opened in response to
his knock, he changed his mind, for a brown-haired young girl with a
very pleasant smile was looking at him inquiringly.

"Is this where Captain Burr lives?" queried Loudon.

"Yes," replied the girl, her smile broadening.

"Then here's a letter for Mis' Burr.  The Cap'n asked me to bring it up
for him."

"A letter for me?" exclaimed a sharp voice, and the speaker, a tall,
angular, harsh-featured woman, appeared at the girl's side with the
suddenness of a Jack-in-the-box.  "From Benjamin?" continued the
harsh-featured woman, uttering her words with the rapidity of a
machine-gun's fire.  "How is he?  When d'you see him last?  When's he
comin' home?"

"Heavens, Ma!" laughed the girl, before Loudon could make any reply.
"Give the poor man a chance to breathe."

"You got to excuse me, stranger," said Mrs. Burr.  "But I'm always so
worried about Benjamin when he's travellin'.  He's so venturesome.  But
come in, stranger.  Come in an' rest yore hat.  Dinner's 'most ready."

"Why, thank yuh, ma'am," stuttered the embarrassed Loudon.  "But I
guess I'll go to the hotel."

"I guess yuh won't!" snapped Mrs. Burr.  "I never let one o' my
husband's friends 'cept Scotty Mackenzie eat at the hotel yet, an' I
ain't goin' to begin now.  You'll just come right inside an' tell me
all about Benjamin while yo're eatin'.  That your hoss?  Well, the
corral's behind the house.  Dorothy, you go with the gentleman an' see
that he don't stampede."

Loudon, brick-red beneath his tan, seized Ranger's bridle and followed
Miss Burr to the corral.  While he was unsaddling he looked up and
caught her eying him amusedly.  He grinned and she laughed outright.

"I'm glad you didn't stampede," she said, her brown eyes twinkling.
"Mother would have been heart-broken if you had.  Whenever any of Dad's
friends are in town they never think of eating at the hotel--except
Scotty Mackenzie.  Scotty stubbornly refuses to dine with us.  He says
mother's cooking takes away his appetite for what he calls ranch grub.
Mother is really a wonderful cook.  You'll see."

In this manner was the ice broken, and Loudon's sullen gloom had gone
from him by the time he entered the Burr kitchen.  On the Turkey-red
tablecloth a broiled steak, surrounded by roasted potatoes, reposed on
a platter.  Flanking the platter were a bowl of peas and a large dish
of sliced beets adrip with butter sauce.  Loudon's eyes opened wide in
amazement.  Never in all his life had he beheld such an appetizing
array of edibles.

"Looks good, don't it?" beamed Mrs. Burr.

It was wonderful how her smile transformed her forbidding features.  To
Loudon she appeared as a benevolent angel.  He could only nod dumbly.

"Set now, an' don't be afraid o' the victuals," continued Mrs. Burr,
filling the coffee-cups.  "It all has to be et, an' I shore do hate to
chuck out good grub.  Lord, it makes me feel fine to cook for a man
again!  What did you say yore name is, Mister? ... Loudon, o' course; I
never can catch a name the first time.  I always got to hear it twice.
Dorothy, you reach over an' dish out them peas an' beets.  Take that
piece of steak next the bone, Mister Loudon.  Like gravy on yore
'taters?  Most do.  My man does, special.  Here's a spoon.  Dorothy,
pass the bread."

Everything tasted even better than it looked.  Loudon ate a second
piece of dried-apple pie, and had a fourth cup of coffee to top off
with.  To the puncher it had been a marvellous dinner.  No wonder
Scotty Mackenzie demurred at dining with the Burrs.  After one such
meal sowbelly and Miners Delights would be as bootsole and buckshot.

"You can smoke right here," said Mrs. Burr, after Loudon had refused a
fifth cup of coffee.  "Shove yore chair back agin' the wall, hook up
yore feet, an' be happy while Dorothy an' I wash the dishes.  I like to
see a man comfortable, I do.  So you know my brother.  Well, well,
ain't the world a small place?  How're Jack an' the Cross-in-a-box
makin' out?  He never thinks to write, Jack Richie don't, the lazy
rapscallion.  Wait till I set eyes on him.  I'll tell him a thing or
two."

Loudon, in no haste to find Scotty Mackenzie, was smoking his fifth
cigarette when the dilapidated ancient of the cracker box stuck his
head in the door.

"Howdy, Mis' Burr?" said the ancient.  "Howdy, Dorothy?"

"'Lo, Scotty," chorused the two women.  "Let me make yuh acquainted
with Mr. Loudon, Scotty," continued Mrs. Burr.  "Mr. Loudon, shake
hands with Mr. Mackenzie."

Loudon gripped hands with the ragged ancient.  In the latter's bright
blue eyes was no friendliness.

He acknowledged the introduction with careful politeness, and sat down
on a chair in a corner.  Having deftly rolled a cigarette, he flipped
the match through the doorway, tilted back his chair, remarked that the
weather was powerful dry, and relapsed into silence.  He took no
further part in the conversation.

At the end of the kitchen, between the windows, hung a small mirror.
Loudon, idly watching the two women as they moved about resetting the
table, happened to glance at the mirror.  In it he saw reflected the
face of Scotty Mackenzie.

The features were twisted into an almost demoniac expression of hate.
Slowly Loudon turned his head.  Mackenzie, his eyes on the floor, was
smoking, his expression one of serene well-being.

"He don't like me any," decided Loudon, and pondered the advisability
of asking Mackenzie for a job.

It was not Mackenzie's lack of friendliness that gave Loudon pause.  It
was the man's appearance.  Even for the West, where attire does not
make the man, Mackenzie had not an inspiring presence.  His trousers
showed several patches and a rip or two.  His vest was in a worse state
than his trousers.  His blue flannel shirt had turned green in spots,
and the left sleeve had once belonged to a red flannel undershirt.  Two
holes yawned in the corner of his floppy-brimmed hat, and his boots,
run over at the heels, would have shamed a tramp.

That this economically garbed individual could prove a good employer
seemed doubtful.  Yet he had been recommended by Jack Richie.

Mackenzie suddenly mumbled that he guessed he'd better be going, and
rose to his feet.  Loudon followed him into the street.  Mackenzie
halted and half-turned as Loudon caught up with him.  Loudon noted that
the ancient's hand was closer to his gun-butt than politeness and the
circumstances warranted.

"Hirin' any men?" inquired Loudon.

"I might," replied Mackenzie, the pupils of his blue eyes shrunk to
pin-points.  "Who, for instance?"

"Me for one."

Mackenzie continued to stare.  Loudon, who never lowered his eyes to
any man, steadily returned the ancient's gaze.

"Yo're hired," said Mackenzie, suddenly.  "Git yore hoss.  I'll meet
yuh at the corner o' Main Street."

Mackenzie walked rapidly away, and Loudon returned to the house of the
Burrs.  He took his leave of the two engaging women, the elder of whom
pressed him repeatedly to come again, and went out to the corral.

While Loudon awaited his employer's arrival at the corner of Main
Street he saw Pete O'Leary emerge from the doorway of the Three Card
Saloon and walk toward him.  But the young man of the knowing brown eye
did not cross the street.  He nodded to Loudon and swung round the
corner.

The Lazy River man shifted sidewise in the saddle and followed him with
his eyes.  Pete O'Leary interested Loudon.  Folk that are mysterious
will bear watching, and O'Leary's manner during his conversation with
Loudon had been perplexingly vague.

"Now I wonder where that nice-lookin' young fellah is goin'?" debated
Loudon.  "Burrs', for a plugged nickel!  Yep, there he goes in the
door.  Well, Mis' Burr ain't a fool, but if I owned a good-lookin'
daughter, that Pete O'Leary ain't just the right brand o' party I'd
want should come a-skirmishin' round."

Loudon's mental soliloquy was cut short by the arrival of Mackenzie.
The ancient's appalling disregard for his personal appearance did not
extend to his mount and saddlery.  His horse was a handsome bay.  The
saddle he sat in was a Billings swell-fork tree, with a silver horn,
silver conchas, carved leather skirts and cantle, and snowflake leather
strings.  The bridle was a split-ear, with a nose-band even more
marvellously carved than the saddle, and it sported a blue steel bit,
silver inlaid, and eighteen-inch rein-chains.  The most exacting dandy
in cowland could not have obtained better equipment.

Beyond a momentless sentence or two Mackenzie said nothing as he and
his new hand rode out into the valley of the Dogsoldier.  He maintained
his silence till Loudon, muttering that his cinches required
tightening, checked Ranger and dismounted.

"Throw up yore hands!" was the harsh order that fell on Loudon's
astonished ears.

Hands above his head, Loudon turned slowly and stared into the muzzle
of a well-kept six-shooter.  Behind the gun gleamed the frosty blue
eyes of Scotty Mackenzie.

"Got anythin' to say before I leave yuh?" inquired Mackenzie.

"That depends on how yuh leave me," countered Loudon.  "If yo're just
aimin' to say, 'So long,' yuh can't go too quick.  Yo're a mite too
abrupt to suit me.  But if yore intention is hostile, then I got a
whole lot to say."

"Hostile it is, young feller.  Trot out yore speech."

"That's handsome enough for a dog.  First, I'd shore admire to know why
yo're hostile."

"You know."

"I don't yet," denied Loudon.

Scotty Mackenzie stared woodenly.  His features betrayed no hint of his
purpose.  He might have been gazing at a cow or a calf or the kitchen
stove.  Nevertheless Loudon realized that the amazing old man was
within a whisper of pulling trigger.

"Yuh see," observed Loudon, forcing his lips to smile pleasantly, "it
ain't the goin' away I mind so much--it's the not knowin' why.  I get
off to fix cinches, an' yuh throw down on me.  I ain't done nothin' to
yuh--I ain't never seen yuh before, an' I don't believe I've ever met
up with any o' yore relations, so----"

"Yo're from the 88," interrupted Mackenzie.  "That's enough!"

"Bein' from the 88," said Loudon, "is shore a bad recommend for any
man.  But it just happens I'm from the Bar S.  I never have rode for
the 88, an' I don't think I ever will."

"What are yuh doin' with a 88 hoss?" pursued the unrelenting Mackenzie.

"88 hoss?  Why, that little hoss is my hoss.  I bought him from the 88."

"The brand ain't vented."

"I know it ain't.  At the time I bought him I didn't expect to have to
tell the story o' my life to every old bushwhacker in the territory, or
I shore would 'a' had that brand vented."

The six-shooter in Mackenzie's hand remained steady.  In his chill blue
eyes was no flicker of indecision.  Loudon was still smiling, but he
felt that his end was near.

"Say," said Loudon, "when you've done left me, I wish yuh'd send my
hoss an' saddle to Johnny Ramsay o' the Cross in-a-box.  Johnny's at
the Bar S now--got a few holes in him.  But you send the hoss to Jack
Richie an' tell him to keep him for Johnny till he comes back.  Don't
mind doin' that, do yuh?  Ain't aimin' to keep the cayuse, are yuh?"

"Do you know Johnny Ramsay?" queried Mackenzie.

"Ought to.  Johnny an' me've been friends for years."

"Know Jack Richie?"

"Know him 'most as well as I do Johnny.  An' I know Cap'n Burr, too.
Didn't yuh see me there at his house?"

"The Cap'n knows lots o' folks, an' it ain't hard to scrape
acquaintance with a couple o' soft-hearted women."

"I brought up a letter from Cap'n Burr to his wife.  You ask her."

"Oh, shore.  Yuh might 'a' carried a letter an' still be what I take
yuh for.'"

"Now we're back where we started.  What do yuh take me for?"

Mackenzie made no reply.  Again there fell between the two men that
spirit-breaking silence.  It endured a full five minutes, to be broken
finally by Mackenzie.

"Git aboard yore hoss," said the ranch-owner.  "An' don't go after no
gun."

"I'd rather draw what's comin' to me on the ground," objected Loudon.
"It ain't so far to fall."

"Ain't nothin' comin' to yuh yet.  Git aboard, go on to the ranch, an'
tell my foreman, Doubleday, I sent yuh, an' that I won't be back yet
awhile."

"I ain't so shore I want to work for yuh now."

"There ain't no two ways about it.  You'll either give me yore word to
go on to the ranch an' stay there till I come, or yuh'll stay right
here.  After I come back yuh can quit if yuh like."

"That's a harp with another tune entirely.  I'll go yuh."

Loudon turned to his horse and swung into the saddle.

"Keep a-goin' along this trail," directed Mackenzie, his six-shooter
still covering Loudon.  "It's about eight mile to the ranch."

Loudon did not look back as he rode away.




CHAPTER VIII

THE AMAZING MACKENZIE

Doubleday, a squat man with a sharp nose and a sharper eye, evinced no
surprise at his employer's message.  He merely swore resignedly on
learning that Mackenzie had not sent in the mail by Loudon, and in the
same breath thanked his Maker that a new man had arrived.

The advent of Loudon was most opportune, according to Doubleday.  For,
one "Lanky" having taken a wife and removed to the Sweet River Agency,
the Flying M was a man short.

"Turn yore hoss into the big corral," said Doubleday, when he had
sufficiently condemned the foolishness of Lanky, "an' take yore saddle
over to the bunkhouse.  There's three empty bunks.  Help yoreself.
Then c'mon over to the little corral an' bring yore rope.  Got an
outlaw stallion with a cut hind leg, an' it's a two-man job."

Loudon found favour in the eyes of Doubleday.  The former Bar S puncher
did his work easily and well.  He proved a better roper than Doubleday,
and he was the equal in horsemanship of "Telescope" Laguerre, the
half-breed buster.

With Laguerre, Loudon struck up an instant friendship.
Telescope--which name was the natural transformation undergone by
Telesphore in a Western climate--was a long lean man, with the straight
black hair and the swarthy complexion of his Indian mother and the
mobile features and facile speech and gestures of his French father.
When Loudon had been at the Flying M three days Telescope suggested
that they ride to town in the evening.

"We weel go to de dance hall," said Laguerre.  "Fine woman dere.  We
weel dance a leetle, we weel dreenk de w'iskey, un we weel have de good
tam.  By gar, I not been to town for two mont.  Wat your say, Tom?"

"I'd shore enjoy goin' along, Telescope, but I can't," replied Loudon,
mindful of his promise to Scotty Mackenzie.

"Dat ees all right," said the large-hearted half-breed.  "She ees my
treat.  I have more as one hundred dollar, un by gar!  I wan' for to
spen' eet.  You are my frien'.  You help me for spen' eet.  We weel
burn up de dance hall."

"Oh, I'm not broke," said Loudon.  "I'll go with yuh another time."

Laguerre, being wise in his generation, forbore to insist, and rode to
town alone.  The cook predicted a three-day orgy.

"Rats!" said Doubleday.  "Yuh don't know Telescope.  He never gets
drunk.  He can't.  He sops it up an' he sops it up, an' it don't bother
him a mite.  Wish I had his gift.  Why, I've seen him tuck away a quart
o' killer inside o' three hours, an' then hop out with his rope an'
fasten on a hoss any leg you tell him.  He's a walkin' miracle,
Telescope is, an' he'll be back in the mornin'."

Loudon, oiling his saddle in front of the bunkhouse, glanced casually
at the cook standing in the doorway, and wondered for the twentieth
time where he had seen the man before.  On his arrival at the Flying M,
Loudon had sensed that, in a vague way, the cook's face was familiar.
First impressions had taken no concrete form.  He could not remember
where or under what circumstances he had seen the cook.  But that he
had seen him, he was certain.

The cook's name was Rufe Cutting.  Which name, however, was not
enlightening.  Idly speculating, Loudon went on with his work.  The
cook returned to the kitchen.

Laguerre bore out the statement of Doubleday.  He returned while the
men were saddling in the morning.  He did not appear in the least
degree wearied.  Hurriedly changing his saddle to a fresh horse, he
rode away with Loudon.

"By gar!" exclaimed Laguerre.  "I have de fine tam.  I dance, I dreenk
de w'iskey, un I play de pokair wit' Pete O'Leary un two odder men un I
tak' deir money.  I ween feefty dollar.  By gar!  I am glad I go to
town, me."

"Yuh shore ought to be," said Loudon.  "Fifty dollars.  That's right
good hearin'."

"Pete O'Leary she wan' for know 'bout you," continued Laguerre.

"Pete O'Leary asked about me!  What did he say, huh?"

"Oh, she not say eet plain.  She walk een de watair.  But I have been
de scout; I have leeve wit Enjun; I know w'at ees een ees head.  She
talk 'bout Lanky quittin' de Flyin' M, un she wan' for know have Scotty
hired new man.  She say she see Scotty ride out wit' you, un she know
you name.  But I not say much.  I tell Pete O'Leary to ask Scotty 'bout
hees business, un I not say eef you work for de Flyin' M or not.  For I
tink mabbeso Pete O'Leary she ees not frien' to you."

"Well, he ain't strictly hostyle anyway," said Loudon, and he forthwith
told Laguerre of his meeting with Pete O'Leary and of the latter's
strange actions.

"Dat ees varree fonny," commented Laguerre.  "Pete O'Leary she was
expectin' de frien' or de message mabbee.  But dat ees not so fonny as
hees askin' 'bout you so moch.  She worry 'bout you, un dat ees fonny.
Why she worry eef she hones' man?  I tell you, my frien', I do not
trus' dat Pete O'Leary.  I would watch heem.  I would watch heem varree
sharp."

"Oh, I don't believe it means anythin'," doubted Loudon.  "But I'll
keep an eye skinned for him."

"You better, my frien', or mabbeso some tam she skeen you."


A week later Mackenzie returned.  That evening, after supper, Doubleday
told Loudon that Scotty wanted to see him.  Mackenzie, chair tilted,
feet propped on the table, his hands clasped behind his head, was
staring up at the ceiling when Loudon entered the office.  The chair
descended on four legs with a crash, and the ancient arose briskly.

"Stranger," said Mackenzie, his blue eyes no longer frosty, "I was
mistaken.  Yo're a gent an' a white man, an' I ain't holdin' out
nothin'.  Shake."

Loudon grinned and shook hands.  He was satisfied with the other's
apology.

"That's all right," said the puncher.  "I knowed yuh mistook me for
somebody else.  But I'd shore admire to know, if it ain't private, who
yuh thought I was."

"I don't mind tellin' yuh.  I ain't ever talked about it much.  Dunno
why.  No reason why I shouldn't.  Sit down, Loudon, an' I'll tell yuh.
When I first seen yuh there in Main Street that 88 brand on yore hoss
made me suspicious.

"Sam Blakely o' the 88 an' me ain't friends.  We had a run-in some
eight years ago over at Virginia City, an' I kind o' left Sam the worse
for wear.  I heard later how Sam was yellin' 'round that he'd get even.
Knowin' Sam, I believed it.  An' when I seen you ridin' a 88 hoss, I
says to myself, 'Here's Sam done gone an' hired a party to do the
gettin' even.'  When yuh wanted to ride for me, I was shore of it.

"So when you got down to fix yore cinches I expected to be plugged the
next second, an' I throwed down on yuh.  Yore askin' me to send yore
hoss an' saddle to Johnny Ramsay was what stopped me.  I knowed if
Johnny was a friend o' yores you was all right.  So I sent yuh on, an'
I trailed yuh clear to the ranch.  If you'd turned back I'd 'a' downed
yuh.  But yuh didn't turn back.

"Well, after I seen yuh talkin' to Doubleday----  Shore; yuh know that
little hill about half-a-mile south?  I was on top of it with a pair of
field glasses--after I seen yuh talkin' to Doubleday, I moseyed south
again to the Cross-in-a-box."

"Two hundred miles!" exclaimed Loudon.

"About that," said Mackenzie, easily, quite as if a four-hundred-mile
ride in ten days were an afternoon jaunt.  "Yuh see, I wanted to talk
to Jack Richie.  Didn't want to go to the Bar S if I could help it.  Me
an' Saltoun never did pull together.  He thinks I'm a fool, an' I know
he's crazy.

"Well, I talked with Jack, an' he explained everythin'.  Said who yuh
was an' how yuh'd bought yore hoss from the 88 an' how yuh'd creased
Sam Blakely, an' all.  That was fine work.  Too bad yuh didn't down him
for good.  He's a varmint.  Worse'n a rattler.  Yuh'd ought to 'a'
plugged Marvin, too, after him tryin' to make yuh out a rustler
that-away.  A sport like that'll stand shootin' any day.  What's the
matter?"

For Loudon was amazedly staring at Mackenzie.

"Four hundred miles both ways," said the puncher, "to see whether a
forty-five-dollar-a-month hand was tellin' the truth!"

"Yuh was more than a hand," rejoined Mackenzie, with a slight smile.
"Yuh was opportunity, with a big O.  Yuh see, when yuh asked for a job
I needed a man.  I needed him bad.  I was shore yuh was out to down me.
But when yuh said yuh knowed Johnny an' I changed my mind about
droppin' yuh, it come to me, provided you was straight, that you was
just the feller for me.  You was sent to me, like.  You was
Opportunity, see?

"An' I ain't never passed up an opportunity that I ain't been sorry.
I'm kind o' superstitious thataway now, an' I'll go out o' my way to
grab what I think looks like an opportunity.  I knowed I couldn't rest
easy till I found out somethin' about yuh.  So I done it.  An' I'm ----
glad I done it.

"Doubleday tells me yo're the best roper he ever seen, an' yo're a
wonder with the stallions.  A good man with stallions is somethin' I've
wished for ever since I owned the Flyin' M.  I never had him till you
come.  Opportunity!  I guess yuh was, an' then a few.  Now I don't know
whether yuh care about stayin', but I shore hope yuh will.  I'll see
that yuh don't regret it."

"Shore I'll stay," said Loudon.  "Them stallions is where I live."

"Then fifty-five a month goes for you from now on."

In this auspicious fashion began Loudon's life at the Flying M.  Yet
Loudon was not precisely happy.  The cheerfulness induced by the
whole-hearted Burrs had been but temporary.  He brooded over his
wrongs, and that is bad for a man.  Like all men who believe themselves
hard hit, he did not realize that there are a great many lonesome
ladies in the world, any one of whom will make a man utterly happy.

One young woman had proved to be an arrant flirt, therefore all young
women were flirts, and beauty was a snare and a delusion.  So reasoned
Loudon.  Surrendering almost wholly to his mood, he rarely took part in
the general conversation in the bunkhouse.  The men wondered at his
aloofness, but none essayed to draw him out.  His smoldering gray eyes
forbade any such familiarity.  When riding the range with Laguerre,
however, Loudon would emerge from his shell, and a strong friendship
swiftly grew up between the two.


One day, nearly two weeks after Mackenzie's return from the
Cross-in-a-box, Loudon was in the blacksmith shop making a set of shoes
for Ranger when Pete O'Leary rode up to the doorway and peered in.

"Hello," said O'Leary, cheerily.  "How's tricks?"

"Comin' in bunches," replied Loudon, shortly, and he blew the bellows
vigorously.

"That's good.  Hot, ain't it?  Well, I got to be weavin' along.  So
long."

Loudon walked to the doorway and watched O'Leary till he disappeared
among the cottonwoods fringing the bank of the Dogsoldier.

"Now I'd admire to know," he wondered, "if Pete O'Leary stopped here
just to ask how tricks was.  He kind o' looked at yore brand, too,
fellah," he added, addressing Ranger.

Thoughtfully he returned to his work.  Five minutes later he whacked
his knee and whistled.  Comprehension had at last come to him.  He
marvelled that it had not come sooner.

"Now, why didn't I think o' that quicker?" he muttered.  "It was that
88 brand on Ranger's hip that made Scotty suspicious.  So it was that
brand must 'a' made O'Leary freeze to me when I sifted into the Bend.
'Couldn't Sam come?' Sam Blakely o' the 88!  An' I never seen it till
just now."

The moves of an enemy are always interesting.  Even more thoughtfully
than before, Loudon pumped the handle of the bellows.  Why was Blakely
coming to Paradise Bend?  To settle his score with Scotty Mackenzie?
Loudon doubted it.  A newly engaged man does not, as a rule, jeopardize
his future happiness by reopening old issues.

Whatever the precise nature of Blakely's purpose might be, it was dark
and Machiavellian in the main.  O'Leary's peculiar actions in the Three
Card Saloon evinced as much.

"I don't see how it could have anythin' to do with me," puzzled Loudon.
"Sam couldn't 'a' knowed I was comin' to the Bend.  I didn't know
myself till just before I started.  Yet here's O'Leary askin' Telescope
about me an' skirmishin' over to see if I am at the Flyin' M.  It shore
is a heap mysterious."

Loudon decided to talk it over with Scotty Mackenzie.




CHAPTER IX

AUTHORS OF CONFUSION

When Loudon went to the office that evening he found Doubleday alone.
"Scotty's gone," said Doubleday, in response to Loudon's question.
"He's traipsin' over to the Seven Lazy Seven.  Wants to get rid o' some
of our no-account stock."

"When'll he be back?"

"Dunno.  He may take in the Two Bar, Wagonwheel, T V U, an' the Double
Diamond K before he comes back, He might stay away a week, or three
weeks, or a month.  Yuh can't keep tabs on Scotty.  I tried to once,
but I give it up long ago."

Loudon did not take the garrulous Doubleday into his confidence.  Nor
did he mention the matter to Laguerre.  The half-breed had seen O'Leary
ride up to the blacksmith shop, and his Gallic curiosity was aroused to
the full.

"My frien'," said Laguerre, when Loudon and he were mending a break in
the corral fence the following day, "my frien', I wan' for tell you
somethin'.  Somethin' mabbeso you not see.  Yes'erday O'Leary she come
to de ranch; she go to de blacksmith shop.  I see heem before she go to
de blacksmith shop.  I see heem aftair.  Before she see you dere een de
shop hees face was de face of de man who ees not satisfy, who ees hunt
for somethin'.  Wen I see heem aftair, she look satisfy.  She has foun'
w'at she hunt for.  Are you me?"

Loudon nodded.

"O'Leary's takin' a heap o' trouble on my account," he said, slowly.

"More dan I t'ought she would," vouchsafed Laguerre.  "I tell you, Tom,
she have not de good feelin' for you.  Were ees dat damn hammair gone?"

Three weeks later, Loudon and Laguerre were lazily enjoying the cool of
the evening outside the door of the bunkhouse when Doubleday came
striding toward them.  In one hand the foreman waved a letter.  He
appeared to be annoyed.  He was.

"Tom, Scotty wants yuh to meet him at the Bend Tuesday--that's
to-morrow," said Doubleday, crossly.  "Yuh'll find him at the Three
Card.  ---- it to ----!  An' I wanted you an' Telescope to ride the
north range to-morrow!  Which that Scotty Mackenzie is shore the most
unexpected gent!  Says he wants yuh to ride yore own hoss.  Dunno what
he wants yuh for.  He don't say.  Just says meet him."

Doubleday departed, swearing.

"Pore old Doubleday," drawled a bristle-haired youth named Swing
Tunstall.  "He gets a heap displeased with Scotty sometimes."

"Scotty ain't just regular in his ways," commented Giant Morton, a
dwarfish man with tremendously long arms.  "Scotty wasn't goin' beyond
the Wagonwheel, if he got that far, an' his letter was mailed in
Rocket, fifty miles south.  I brought her in from the Bend this
aft'noon, an' I noticed the postmark special."

"He wears the raggedest clo'es I ever seen," said the cook.  "An' he's
got money, too."

"Money!" exclaimed Morton.  "He's lousy with money.  Wish I had it.  Do
yuh know what I'd do?  I'd buy me a seventeen-hand hoss an' a saloon."

"I wouldn't," said Loudon, winking at Laguerre.  "I'd have a _hacienda_
down in old Mexico, an' I'd hire half-a-dozen good-lookin' _senoritas_
with black hair an' blue eyes to play tunes for me on banjos, an' I'd
hire cookie here to come an' wake me up every mornin' at five o'clock
just so's I could have the pleasure o' heavin' him out o' the window
an' goin' back to sleep."

By which it may be seen that the moody Loudon was becoming more human.
His remarks irritated the cook, who rather fancied himself.  He allowed
himself to be the more provoked because of a growing belief that
Loudon's habitually retiring and inoffensive manner denoted a lack of
mettle.  Which mental attitude was shared by none of the others.

At Loudon's careless words the cook bounced up from his seat on the
doorsill and assumed a crouching position in front of Loudon.

"Yuh couldn't throw nothin'!" yapped the man of pots and pans.  "Yuh
couldn't throw a fit, let alone me!  An' I want yuh to understand I can
throw any bowlegged misfit that ever wore hair pants!"

"What did yuh throw 'em with--yore mouth?" inquired Loudon, gently.

The Lazy River man had not moved from his seat on the washbench.  His
arms remained folded across his chest.  He smiled pleasantly at the
irate cook.

"I throwed 'em like I'm goin' to throw you!" frothed the hot-tempered
one.  "That is," he added, sneeringly, "if yuh ain't afraid."

The bristle-haired Tunstall sprang between the two.

"Don't mind him, Loudon!" he cried.  "He's only a fool idjit, but he's
a good cook, an' losin' him would be a calamity.  He don't never pack
no gun neither."

"I can see he ain't heeled," said Loudon, calmly.  "But he shore talks
just like a regular man, don't he?"

"Regular man!" bellowed the cook.  "Why----"

The sentence ended in a gurgle.  For Tunstall, Morton, and Laguerre had
hurled themselves upon the cook and gagged him with the crown of a hat.

"Ain't yuh got no sense at all?" growled Morton.

"'Tsall right," grinned Loudon, rising to his feet.  "I understand.
Turn yore bull loose."

The three doubtfully released the cook.  That misguided man promptly
lowered his head, spread wide his arms, and charged at Loudon.  The
puncher sidestepped neatly and gave the cook's head a smart downward
shove with the palm of his hand.  The cook's face plowed the earth.

Spitting dirt and gravel he scrambled up and plunged madly at his
elusive adversary.  This time Loudon did not budge.

Even as the cook gripped him round the waist Loudon leaned forward
along the cook's back, seized the slack of his trousers, and up-ended
him.  The cook's hold was broken, and again his head collided violently
with the ground.  He fell in a huddle, but arose instantly, his
stubborn spirit unshaken.  Now he did not rush.  He approached the
puncher warily.

Swaying on his high heels Loudon waited.  Then run, with a pantherlike
leap, he flung himself forward, drove both arms beneath those of the
cook and clipped him round the body.  The cook strove for a
strangle-hold, but Loudon forestalled the attempt by hooking his chin
over his opponent's shoulder.  Legs apart, Loudon lifted and squeezed.

Gradually, as Loudon put forth all his great strength, the breath of
the cook was expelled from his cracking chest in gasps and wheezes.
His muscles relaxed, his face became distorted, empurpled.

Loudon released his grip.  The cook fell limply and lay on his back,
arms outspread, his crushed lungs fighting for air.  In the struggle
his shirt had been ripped across, and now his chest and one shoulder
were exposed.  Loudon, gazing down at the prostrate man, started
slightly, then stooped and looked more closely at the broad triangle of
breast.

Abruptly Loudon turned away and resumed his seat on the bench.  After a
time the cook rolled over, staggered to his feet, and reeled into the
bunkhouse without a word.

No one commented on the wrestling-match.  Swing Tunstall started a
cheerful reminiscence of his last trip to the Bend.  Laguerre rose and
passed silently round the corner of the bunkhouse.  Loudon, chin on
hand, stared off into the distance.

Suddenly, within the bunkhouse, there was the thump of feet followed in
quick succession by a thud and a grunt.  Out through the doorway the
cook tumbled headlong, fell flat, and lay motionless, his nose in the
dirt, his boot-toes on the doorsill.  One outflung hand still clutched
the butt of a six-shooter.  From a gash on the back of his head the
blood oozed slowly.

Issued then Laguerre from the doorway.  The half-breed was in his
stocking feet.  He wrenched the gun from the cook's fingers, stuffed
the weapon into the waistband of his trousers, and squatted down on his
heels.

None of the onlookers had moved.  Gravely they regarded Laguerre and
the cook.  Loudon realized that he had narrowly escaped being shot in
the back.  A farce had developed into melodrama.

At this juncture Doubleday strolled leisurely out of the office.  At
sight of the fallen man and the serious group at the bunkhouse he
quickened his steps.

"Who done it?" demanded Doubleday, severely, for he believed the cook
to be dead.

"I heet heem on de head wit' my gun," explained Laguerre.  "Loudon she
t'row de cook.  De cook she geet varree mad un go een de bunkhouse.  I
t'ink mabbeso she do somethin' un I go roun' de bunkhouse, tak' off my
boots, un crawl een de side window.  De cook she was jus' run for door
wit' hees gun een hees han'.  I stop heem."

Complacently Laguerre gazed upon the still unconscious cook.

"The kyote!" exclaimed Doubleday.  "That's what comes o' not havin' any
sense o' humour!  ---- his soul!  Now I got to fire him.  Trouble!
Trouble!  Nothin' but ----"

The discouraged foreman slumped down beside Loudon and rolled a
cigarette with vicious energy.

Some ten minutes later the cook stirred, rolled over, and sat up.  He
stared with dull eyes at the men on the bench.  Stupidly he fingered
the cut at the back of his head.  As deadened senses revived and memory
returned, his back stiffened, and defiance blazed up in his eyes.

"Telescope," said Loudon, "I'd take it as a favour if yuh'd give him
his gun--an' his cartridges."

The cook lost his defiant look when the half-breed complied with
Loudon's request.  Helplessly he eyed the gun a moment, then, struck
with a bright idea, he waggled his right wrist and grimaced as if with
pain.  Gingerly he rubbed the wrist-bone.

"Sprained my wrist," he stated brazenly.  "Can't shoot with my left
hand nohow.  If I could, I'd shore enjoy finishin' up.  Helluva note
this is!  I start for to shoot it out with a gent, an' one o' you
sports whangs me over the head an' lays me out.  I'd admire to know
which one o' yuh done it."

"I done eet," Laguerre informed him, his white teeth flashing under his
black mustache.

"I'll remember yuh," said the cook with dignity.  "I'll remember you
too," he added looking at Loudon.  "Doubleday, I'd like my time.  I
ain't a-goin' to cook for this bunch no longer.  An' if it's all the
same to you I'll take a hoss for part o' my pay."

"Well, by ----!" exclaimed Doubleday, hugely annoyed at being thus
forestalled.  "You've got a nerve.  You ought to be hung!"

"Any gent does who works for the Flying M," countered the cook.  "But
I'm quittin'.  Do I get the hoss!"

"Yuh bet yuh do.  An' yo're hittin' the trail to-night."

"The sooner the quicker."

Within half an hour Rufe Cutting, erstwhile cook at the Flying M, a
bandage under his hat, mounted his horse and rode away toward Paradise
Bend.  As he vanished in the gathering dusk, Swing Tunstall laughed
harshly.

"All yaller an' a yard wide!" observed Giant Morton, and spat
contemptuously.

Loudon made no comment.  He was working out a puzzle, and he was making
very little headway.


In the morning he saddled Ranger and started for the Bend.  He followed
the trail for a mile or two, then, fording the Dogsoldier, he struck
across the flats where a few of Mackenzie's horses grazed.  He did not
turn his horse's head toward Paradise Bend till the Dogsoldier was well
out of rifle-range.  Loudon's caution was pardonable.  Rufe Cutting
knew that he was to ride to the Bend, and Rufe had a rifle.  Loudon had
marked him tying it in his saddle-strings.

It was quite within the bounds of possibility that the cunning Rufe was
at that very moment lying in wait somewhere among the cottonwoods on
the bank of the Dogsoldier, for the trail in many places swung close to
the creek.  Decidedly, the trail was no fit route for any one at odds
with a citizen of the Cutting stamp.

Loudon, when he drew near the Bend, circled back to the creek and
entered the town by the Farewell trail.

He dismounted in front of the Three Card, anchored Ranger to the
ground, and went into the saloon.  Several men were standing at the
bar.  They ceased talking at his entrance.

Loudon leaned both elbows on the bar and demanded liquor.  He sensed a
certain tenseness, a vague chill in the atmosphere.  The bartender, his
eyes looking anywhere but at Loudon, served him hastily.  The bartender
seemed nervous.  Bottle and glass rattled as he placed them on the bar.

"Scotty Mackenzie come in yet?" inquired Loudon of the bartender,
setting down his empty glass.

"N-no," quavered the bartender, shrilly.  "I ain't seen him."

Loudon stared at the bartender.  What was the matter with the man?  His
face was the colour of gray wrapping-paper.  Loudon turned and glanced
along the bar at the other customers.  Two of them were regarding him,
a rapt fascination in their expressions.  Swiftly the two men averted
their eyes.

Loudon hesitated an instant, then he wheeled and walked out of the
saloon.  As he crossed the sidewalk he noticed a group of men standing
near by.  He stooped to pick up his reins.  When he straightened there
was a sudden rustle and a whisk in his rear.  Something settled over
his shoulders and drew taut, pinning his arms to his sides.

"What in----" swore Loudon, and began to struggle furiously.

He was at once jerked over on his back.  He fell heavily.  The shock
partially stunned him.  Dazedly he gazed upward into a ring of faces.
The features of all save one were blurred.  And that face was the face
of Block, the Sheriff of Fort Creek County.

Loudon felt a tugging at his belt and knew that one was removing his
six-shooter.  He was pulled upright, his hands were wrenched together,
and before he was aware of what was taking place, his wrists were in
handcuffs.  Now his faculties returned with a rush.

"What seems to be the trouble, anyway?" he demanded of the crowd in
general.

"It seems yo're a hoss thief," replied a brown-bearded man wearing a
star on the left lapel of his vest.

"Who says so?"

"This gent."  The brown-bearded man pointed at Block.

"It's no good talkin', Loudon," said Block, grinning after the fashion
of the cat which has just eaten the canary.  "I know yuh.  Yuh stole
that hoss yo're ridin' from the 88 ranch.  There's the brand to prove
it.  But that ain't all.  Yuh was caught rustlin' 88 cows.  Yuh branded
'em Crossed Dumbbell.  An' yuh got away by shootin' Sam Blakely, an'
holdin' up Marvin an' Rudd.  I don't guess yuh'll get away now in a
hurry."

"Where's yore warrant?"

"Don't need no warrant."

"That's right," corroborated the brown-bearded man with the star.  "Yuh
don't need no warrant for a hoss-thief an' a rustler.  I tell yuh,
stranger, yo're lucky to be still alive.  I'm doin' yuh a favour by
lettin' yuh go south with Sheriff Block.  By rights yuh'd ought to be
lynched instanter."

"Yuh don't say," said Loudon, gently.  "Who are yuh, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm only the marshal here at the Bend," replied with sarcasm the
brown-bearded man.  "My name's Smith--Dan Smith.  Yuh might 'a' heard
o' me."

"Shore, I've heard o' yuh, an' I'd understood yuh was a party with
sense an' not in the habit o' believin' everythin' yuh hear.  Now----"

"Yuh understood right," said the marshal, drily.  "I'm listenin' to yuh
now, an' I don't believe everythin' I hear."

"Yo're believin' Block, an' he's the biggest liar in Fort Creek County,
an' that's sayin' quite it lot, seein' as how the 88 outfit belongs in
Fort Creek.  Now I never branded no 88 cows.  The 88, because they
knowed I knowed they'd been brandin' other folks' cattle, went an'
branded a cow an' a calf o' their own with the Crossed Dumbbell an'
then tried to throw the blame on me.  But the trick didn't pan out.
They couldn't prove it nohow.  Jack Richie o' the Cross-in-a-box can
tell yuh I didn't rustle them cattle."

"I thought yuh was workin' for the Bar S," put in the marshal.

"I was, but I quit."

"Then why wouldn't Saltoun o' the Bar S know all about it?  What did
yuh say Jack Richie for?"

The marshal drooped a wise eyelid.  He considered himself a most astute
cross-examiner.

"I said Jack Richie because he was there at the Bar S when Marvin an'
Rudd drove in the cow an' the calf.  It was him proved I couldn't 'a'
branded them cattle like they said I did."

"Why wouldn't Saltoun o' the Bar S speak for yuh?" inquired the marshal.

"He would, I guess," replied Loudon.  "Old Salt an' me don't just
hitch, but he's square.  He'd tell yuh about it."

"He won't tell me.  The Bar S an' the Cross-in-a-box are more'n two
hundred miles south.  I ain't ridin' that far to get yore pedigree.
No, yuh can just bet I ain't.  This gent here, Sheriff Block, will take
yuh south.  If it's like yuh say it is, then yuh needn't worry none.
Yuh'll have yore witnesses an' all right there."

"Don't yuh understand?  I'll never see none o' my friends.  The 88
outfit will lynch me soon as ever I hit Farewell.  I tell yuh I know
too much about 'em.  They want me out o' the way."

Before the marshal could reply there was a bustle in the crowd, and a
high-pitched feminine voice inquired what evil was being visited upon
Mr. Loudon.  An instant later Mrs. Burr, barearmed and perspiring,
unceremoniously pushed Block to one side and confronted the marshal.

"What yuh doin' to him?" she demanded, with a quick jerk of her head
toward Loudon.

"Why, Mis' Burr, ma'am," replied the marshal, "he's a hoss thief, an'
he's goin' south to Farewell."

"He ain't goin' to Farewell," retorted Mrs. Burr, "an' he ain't a hoss
thief.  Who says so?"

"I do, ma'am," said Block, stepping forward.  "He's a hoss thief,
an'----"

"Hoss thief yoreself!" snapped Mrs. Burr, wheeling on Block so fiercely
that the sheriff gave ground involuntarily.  "The more I look at yuh
the more yuh look like a hoss thief an' a rustler an' a road agent.
You shut up, Dan Smith!  I always guessed yuh was an idjit, an' now I
know it!  This man, Mr. Tom Loudon, is a friend o' my husband's.  I
know him well, an' if yuh think yo're goin' to string him up for a hoss
thief yo're mistaken."

"But, ma'am," explained the unhappy marshal, "we ain't a-goin' to
string him up.  This gent, Sheriff Block, is takin' him south.  He'll
get justice down there, Mis' Burr."

"Will he?  If the folks down there are as witless as you are he won't.
Justice!  Yuh make me plumb weary!  Did yuh ask to see this Block man's
warrant?  Answer me!  Did you?"

"He ain't got no warrant," replied the marshal in a small voice.

"Ain't got no warrant!" screamed Mrs. Burr.  "Ain't got no warrant, an'
yo're lettin' him take away a party on just his say-so!  Dan Smith,
since when have yuh allowed a stranger to come in an' tell you what to
do?  What right has this Block man from Fort Creek County to try an'
run Paradise Bend, I'd like to know?"

"I ain't tryin' to run the Bend," defended Block.  "I wouldn't think o'
such a thing.  But I want this hoss thief, an' I mean to have him."

The words had barely passed Block's teeth when Loudon's self-control
broke.  With an inarticulate howl of rage he sprang at Block and drove
the iron manacles into the sheriff's face.

Down went Block with Loudon on top of him.  Twice, three times, before
Dan Smith and two others pulled him up and away, Loudon smashed the
handcuffs home.  It was a bloody-faced, teeth-spitting sheriff that got
slowly to his feet.

"By ----!" gibbered Block.  "By ----!  I'll down you here an' now!"

A tall man with square features tapped the raving sheriff on the
shoulder.

"Don't cuss no more before a lady," advised the square-featured man.
"An' don't go draggin' at no gun.  This ain't Fort Creek County.  Yo're
in Paradise Bend, an' I just guess yuh won't beef any sport with his
hands tied.  This goes as it lays."

From the crowd came murmurs of approval.  Public opinion was changing
front.  Mrs. Burr smiled serenely.

"Yo're a real gent, Jim Mace," she said, addressing the square-featured
man.  "I always knowed you'd protect a defenseless female.  Dan Smith,"
she continued, turning to the marshal, "unlock them handcuffs."

Dan Smith hesitated.  Then Block spoiled his own case.  He seized
Loudon by the shoulders.  Loudon promptly kicked him in the skins
[Transcriber's note: shins?] and endeavoured to repeat his former
assault with the handcuffs.  But the two men holding him wrestled him
backward.

"Do I get him?" bellowed Block, rabid with pain, for Loudon had kicked
him with all his strength.  "Do I get him, or are yuh goin' to let a
woman tell yuh what to do?"

Jim Mace stepped close to the sheriff.

"Stranger," said Mace, sharply, "you've done chattered enough.  In yore
own partic'lar hog-waller yuh may be a full-size toad, but up here
yo're half o' nothin'.  Understand?"

The sheriff looked about him wildly.  The Paradise Benders, cold,
unfriendly, some openly hostile, stared back.  Wrought up though he
was, the sheriff had wit enough to perceive that he was treading close
to the edge of a volcano.  The sheriff subsided.

"Dan," said Mace, "it's come to a show-down.  It's the word o' Mis'
Burr agin' Block's.  There's only one answer.  If I was you I'd unlock
them handcuffs."

"Yo're right, Jim," agreed the marshal.  "I will."

"Gimme my gun," demanded Loudon, when his hands were free.

"In a minute," parried the marshal.  "Sheriff, if I was you I'd hit the
trail.  Yore popularity ain't more'n deuce-high just now."

"I'll go," glowered Block.  "But I'll be back.  An' when I come I'll
have a warrant.  I reckon the Sheriff o' Sunset will honour it, even if
you won't."

"Bring on yore warrant," retorted the marshal.

The rumble of wheels and thud of hoofs attracted Loudon's attention.
Over the heads of the crowd he saw the high sides of a
tarpaulin-covered wagon and, sitting on the driver's seat, Captain
Benjamin Burr and Scotty Mackenzie.

"Hi, Cap'n Burr.  Hi, Scotty!" shouted Loudon.

"Where are they?" exclaimed Mrs. Burr, her harsh features lighting up.
"Oh, there they are!  You Benjamin Burr, come right in here this
instant.  Yore wife wants yore help!"

Captain Burr swayed back on the reins.  Dragging a sawed-off shotgun he
hopped to the ground, Scotty Mackenzie at his heels.  The crowd made
way for them.  Captain Burr swept his hat off and bowed ceremoniously
to his wife.

"My love," said he, "in what way may I assist you?"

"That party," sniffed Mrs. Burr, levelling a long forefinger at the
wretched Block, "comes up an' accuses Mr. Tom Loudon here o' bein' a
rustler an' a hoss thief.  Says he's been brandin' 88 cows an' that he
stole that chestnut hoss yonder."

The sawed-off shotgun, an eight-gauge Greener, covered Block's belt
buckle.

"Suh, you lie," said Burr, simply.

"What did I tell all you folks?" cried Mrs. Burr, triumphantly.

Block made no attempt to draw.  He folded his arms and glared
ferociously.  He found glaring difficult, for he knew that he did not
look in the least ferocious.

"I'm doin' my duty," he said, sullenly.

"Gentlemen all, I'd like some show in this," pleaded Loudon.  "Just
gimme back my gun, an' me an' Block'll shoot it out."

"Wait a shake," said Scotty, sliding between Loudon and Block.  "Let me
get the straight of this.  You accuse Loudon here of brandin' 88
cattle?"

"Shore," insisted the stubborn Block, "an' he stole that chestnut hoss
he's ridin', too.  Just look at the 88 brand.  It's plain as day."

"Suh," burst out Burr, "I happened to be at the 88 ranch the day my
friend Tom Loudon bought that chestnut hoss.  I saw him pay Blakely.
Everybody in Fo't Creek County knows that Tom Loudon has owned that
hoss fo' upwa'ds of a yeah.  You know it, you rascal!  Don't attempt to
deny it!"

To this sweeping assertion Block made no reply.

"I guess now that settles half the cat-hop," said Scotty.  "The other
half I know somethin' about myself.  Jack Richie o' the Cross-in-a-box
told me.  It was thisaway----"

And Scotty related the tale of Marvin and Rudd and the Crossed Dumbbell
cow and calf.

"Now what yuh got to say?" Scotty demanded of Block when the story was
told.

"What can I do?" snapped Block.  "It's a whole town agin' one man.
I'll get a warrant, an' yuh can gamble on that.  If I thought I'd get a
square deal, I'd admire to shoot it out."

"Gimme my gun," begged Loudon.  "Gimme it, or lend me one, somebody.
He wants to shoot it out."

"No," said Scotty, firmly, "it's gone beyond shootin'.  Block knowed
you was innocent.  He couldn't help knowin' it.  He tried to work such
a sneakin', low-down trick that killin' don't seem to fit somehow.
He'd ought to be rode on a rail or buried up to his neck or somethin'."

"Tar an' feather him," suggested Mrs. Burr.

"We ain't got no tar," said Jim Mace, "an' there ain't a chicken in the
place."

"There's molasses an' goose-hair quilts in the Chicago Store," said
Mrs. Burr, helpfully.  "What more do yuh want?"

Molasses and feathers!  Here was an extravagant jape!  Block's hand
swept downward.  But no smooth revolver-butt met his clutching fingers.
A far-seeing soul had, in the confusion, adroitly removed the sheriff's
six-shooter.

In all seriousness the men of Paradise Bend set about their work.  They
saw no humour in the shriekingly grotesque business.  Sheriff Block
essayed to struggle.  But Scotty and other leading citizens attached
themselves to his arms and legs and pulled him down and sat upon him.

When one came running with a five-gallon jug of molasses Block,
uttering strange cries, was spread-eagled.  From his forehead to his
feet the molasses was thickly applied.  When the front of him had been
thoroughly daubed, he was rolled over upon a ripped-up quilt--this so
that none of the molasses might be wasted--and a fresh jug was brought
into play.

Dripping like a buckwheat cake, writhing in an agony of shame, Block
was rolled up in the quilt.  Then the quilt was torn away and men
showered upon him the contents of other quilts.  The Paradise Benders
used up ten gallons of molasses and three quilts on Block, and they
made a complete job.  Awful was the wreck that staggered down the
street.

Somehow the sheriff contrived to reach the stable where he had left his
horse, and somehow--for his movements were the movements of one far
gone in drink--he threw on the saddle and passed the cinch-straps.
Mounting with difficulty, he rode away.  None offered to molest him
further.




CHAPTER X

THE HORSE THIEF

Loudon, who had taken no part in the feathering, watched the departure
of the sheriff with brooding eyes.  He did not agree with Scotty
Mackenzie and the citizens of the Bend.  In his estimation the
punishment had not been sufficiently drastic.  Alive and in possession
of all his faculties the sheriff was a great power for evil.  He would
seek revenge.

Loudon swore softly.  He was far from being a bloodthirsty man, but he
regarded the killing of Block as a duty.  And he did not believe in
putting off till some future date what could be accomplished to-day.

"It's quite a list," he said to himself.  "Block, Rufe Cutting,
Blakely, an' the whole 88 outfit.  An' they won't be happy till they
get me.  It kind o' looks as if Blakely ain't expectin' to keep our
little engagement in Farewell.  Block wouldn't 'a' come up here without
Blakely sent him."

Thoughts of Blakely quite naturally induced thoughts of Pete O'Leary.
Where was O'Leary?  Loudon recollected that he had not seen O'Leary in
the crowd.  He looked up and down the street.  O'Leary was nowhere in
sight.  His absence was a small thing in itself, but it might signify a
guilty conscience.  Loudon wondered.

That disreputable person, Scotty Mackenzie, approached, leading his
horse.

"Tom," said Scotty, his blue eyes twinkling, "don't look so
downhearted.  He wasn't worth shootin'."

"I dunno, Scotty," replied Loudon.  "It'll come to it some day, or I
miss my guess."

"Yuh'll miss it while yo're workin' for me.  Block won't never come to
the Bend again, an' yuh can go the limit on that.  D'juh get the mail?"

"I ain't been to the post office.  Didn't have time.  I've been right
busy ever since I sifted in."

"I'll get it then.  Cap'n Burr wants yuh to eat dinner at his house.
I'll drift round later.  Better finish up what yuh come to town for
before yuh eat."

"I come to town to meet you."

"To meet me!" exclaimed Scotty.  "Now look here, Tom, do I look like I
need a gardeen?"

"Didn't yuh write to Doubleday," said the bewildered Loudon, "tellin'
him to send me in to meet yuh here to-day an' for me to ride my own
hoss?"

"What are yuh talkin' about?  Me write Doubleday!  I should say not!"

"Well, all I know is Doubleday got a letter from yuh, an' it was mailed
in Rocket."

"Mailed in Rocket!  Why, I never was in Rocket!  It's just luck me
bein' here to-day.  If I hadn't met Ben Burr down at the Wagonwheel I
wouldn't 'a' come for another couple o' days, mebbe."

"It's damn funny.  That letter from Rocket is no dream."

"I hope Doubleday saves the letter.  Well, you go on an' eat.  See yuh
later."

Loudon swung into the saddle and galloped to the house of Captain Burr.
On the doorsill Dorothy Burr and Pete O'Leary sat side by side.  As
Loudon dismounted Miss Bunrose to meet him.

"Oh, Mr. Loudon!" she exclaimed, "I've just heard about your frightful
experience.  I wish I'd been there.  I'd have enjoyed seeing them
plaster up that brute of a sheriff."

"He did look kind o' odd," said Loudon.  "Yore ma shore saved my life."

"Wasn't it luck Ma was down street?  I usually go myself, but this
morning Mr. O'Leary came, so Ma went.  We didn't know there was
anything going on till Ma came back and told us, and then it was all
over.  My!  I'd like to have seen Ma talking to that stupid Dan Smith.
The big idiot!  Ma's mad yet.  Oh, I forgot.  Have you met Mr. O'Leary?"

"I know him," said Loudon rather ungraciously, and nodded to the
gentleman in question.  "I guess I'll put the little hoss in the
corral."

"Yes, do.  Pa's out there.  Dinner'll be ready soon."

Miss Burr returned to the doorsill, and Loudon led away Ranger.  So
Pete O'Leary had been spending the morning at the Burrs'!  It would be
interesting to know why the engaging O'Leary had chosen to call upon
that particular morning.  Was it because he did not wish to identify
himself in any way with Sheriff Block?  Was it the guilty conscience?

"Well, suh," smiled Captain Burr, who was kneeling at the feet of one
of his horses, "well, suh, it went against the grain to let that
scoundrel go in peace, didn't it?"

Loudon smiled grimly.

"I appreciate youah feelings in the matteh, Tom," continued the
Captain.  "Such a puhson should not be allowed to live.  My impulse was
to shoot him, but I stayed my hand.  As I may have mentioned befo', I
am growing soft-heahted.  That's right, Tom, cuss away.  If Block were
otheh than he is, he would shoot himself.  No gentleman would care to
live afteh being tah'd and feath'ed.  But Block will writhe onwa'd like
the snake he is till he is crushed once fo' all.

"Do you remembeh what I said the day you made him quit right in the
street in Fa'ewell?  Well, suh, in o'deh to regain the respect of the
town he did kill a man--an inoffensive strangeh."

"Yuh might know it.  He'll be a reg'lar 'Billy the Kid' before a great
while."

"Not quite.  The Lincoln County young man was a wa'-eagle.  Block's a
buzza'd.  Tom, I'm afraid this Jeffe'son Davis hoss is developing a
wind-puff."

Loudon made no reply.  He was watching an approaching rider.  The
horseman passed by without a glance toward the corral and loped on into
town.

Now the road in front of the Burr house was the beginning of the trail
to the Flying M ranch, and the mounted man was none other than Rufe
Cutting.  It was evident to Loudon that he had not underestimated the
cook.  He resolved to seek out his would-be bushwhacker immediately.

Loudon looked quickly down at the Captain.  If Burr had perceived
Loudon's absorption he gave no sign.  He merely requested Loudon's
opinion of the slight swelling on Jefferson Davis's near fore.

"Yuh've got to excuse me, Cap'n," said Loudon, hastily.  "I've got a
little business to attend to before I eat."

"Need any help?" inquired Burr, reaching for his Greener.

"No, thanks," replied Loudon, swiftly resaddling Ranger.

"Dinner!" called Mrs. Burr, sticking her head out of the kitchen door a
moment later.  "Why, where's Tom Loudon?"

"He's gone away," grumbled her husband, regretfully eying his shotgun.

"Well, of all things!  Just as dinner's ready!  Don't he know he's
eatin' here?  Will he be gone long?"

"He may not be away twenty minutes, and then, on the otheh hand, he may
neveh retuhn."

"Never return!  What are you talkin' about, Benjamin Burr?"

"Wait and see, my love, wait and see," rejoined the Captain, and went
in to dinner.


Loudon, meanwhile, had galloped down to the corner of Main Street.
Rufe Cutting was not in sight.  But his horse was standing among the
horses in front of the Jacks Up Saloon.  Loudon rode across the street
and dismounted behind a freighter's wagon near the Chicago Store, where
he could not be observed from the windows of the Jacks Up.  Then he
walked briskly up the street and entered the saloon.

Rufe Cutting, his scratched features cast in sullen lines, was drinking
at the bar.  So were several other men.  A knot of citizens in
Cutting's immediate rear were discussing the events of the morning.
Two faro tables were crowded.  The Jacks Up was in full blast.  With
the place crowded a gun-play was apt to result in damage to the
bystanders.

However, the choice lay with Cutting.  Loudon would allow the first
move.

With this intention, Loudon edged up to the bar and called for a drink.
At the sound of his voice Cutting turned a slow head.  There were two
men in between, but they were not standing close to the bar.

Loudon, watching Cutting out of his eye-corners, picked up his glass
with his left hand.  Even as he did so, panic seized Cutting.  His
fingers closed on his own full glass and he hurled it at Loudon's head.

Involuntarily Loudon dodged.  When he recovered himself his gun was out.

The bartender promptly vanished under the bar.  Men skipped and dodged
and flung themselves over tables and chairs in their anxiety to give
Loudon a clear line of fire.  But Cutting had disappeared.

Two swearing men sprawling under an open rear window told the story.
In his fear-stricken efforts to escape Cutting had knocked them both
down.

Loudon and the two men, one of whom was Jim Mace and the other Dan
Smith, went through the window almost simultaneously.  Both sashes went
with them to a brave accompaniment of crackling glass.

Loudon landed on his knees, and was in time for a snapshot at a leg
sliding over a windowsill of the house next door.  Before Loudon could
rise Mace and the marshal tumbled over him.  The three fell in a tangle
and rolled among tin cans and bottles for a space of time.  When at
last, red-faced and almost breathless, they rushed the house next door
they were stopped by an angry woman brandishing a frying-pan.

"You drunk hunkers can't come through here!" screamed the irate lady.
"If you an' yore fool friends want to play tag yuh can play her in the
street!  What do yuh mean by bustin' into folks' houses an' wakin' my
baby up?  You idjits!  She'll be bawlin' her brains out all day now!"

"We're after a hold-up!" cried Loudon with great presence of mind.

It had the desired effect.

"Why didn't yuh say so at first?  Come right in."

Through the house and out of the front door they dashed.  Drifting
clouds of dust marked Cutting's line of flight.  He was a quarter of a
mile distant, spurring for the ford of the Dogsoldier and the Farewell
trail.  The marshal fired a futile shot.  Loudon laughed and holstered
his six-shooter.

"Look at him go!" he chuckled.  "Scared stiff."

"Get yore hosses!" commanded the marshal.  "Don't stand here gassin'!
We'll go after him right away!"

"Oh, let him go," drawled Loudon.  "He ain't worth chasin'."

"But he's a road agent, ain't he?" said Jim Mace.

"No, I just said he was," grinned Loudon.  "He ain't nothin' but a
right good cook, so far as I know."

"Ain't he done nothin'?" inquired the perplexed marshal.

"Only jerked a glass of whisky at me," replied Loudon.  "Yuh see, I
ain't right popular with him."

"From the way he's splittin' the breeze," said Jim Mace, "it looks like
he don't care for yore society none."

"I'd ought to go after him," grunted the marshal, vengefully, tenderly
feeling a skinned elbow.  "I don't mind a reg'lar gun-play, but this
here chuckin' glasses round promiscuous an' bumpin' folks over ain't
right.  It's agin' law an' order.  He'd ought to be arrested.  The
calaboose has been empty for a week, too."

Loudon left Jim Mace and Dan Smith explaining matters to the gathering
crowd, and walked back to where he had left his horse.  Ranger was not
behind the freighter's wagon.  Loudon ran into the Chicago Store.

"Shore," said the proprietor.  "I seen a feller climbin' aboard that
hoss a few minutes ago.  Seemed in a hurry, too.  What?  Yore hoss!"

The proprietor ducked under the counter for his spurs and his rifle,
and Loudon hurried out.  Cutting's mount, the bay he had bought from
Doubleday, was of course standing where he had been left among the
other horses.  Loudon threw the dropped reins over the bay's head and
swung up.

"He's a hoss thief!" he shouted to Dan Smith and Jim Mace.  "He got
away on my hoss!"

Quirting and spurring, Loudon tore down the street.  Before the horse's
hoofs spattered the water of the ford the proprietor of the Chicago
Store and the marshal were galloping in his wake.  Jim Mace and a score
of others followed at intervals.  A horse was not stolen in Paradise
Bend every day.  The inhabitants were bent on making the most of their
opportunity.

The bay was a good horse, but Ranger was the better, and Loudon knew
it--knew, too that, unless Ranger fell down, Cutting would escape.

"Ranger's good for all day," groaned Loudon.  "All day an' not strain
himself a little bit."

As the bay flashed across the top of a rise two miles beyond the
Dogsoldier, Loudon glimpsed two specks four miles ahead.

"Block!  He's with Block!" exclaimed Loudon, and drove in the spurs.

The bay leaped madly forward and rocketed down the long slope.  A
high-lipped swell concealed the two specks, and for a long ten minutes
Loudon rode between the sides of the draw.  The bay charged at the
high-lipped swell with undiminished vigour.  He was doing his level
best, but his gait was tied in.  It bore not the remotest resemblance
to Ranger's free-swinging stride.  When Loudon reached the crest of the
swell the specks had vanished.

He put the reins between his teeth and drew the Winchester from the
scabbard under his left leg.  He threw down the lever a trifle.  There
was a cartridge in the chamber.

The loading gate resisted the pressure of his thumb.  There was at
least one cartridge in the magazine, but by the weight of the rifle he
judged it to be fully loaded.  Loudon returned the Winchester to its
scabbard and slowed the willing little bay to a lope.

"Yo're all right, old hoss," he said, "but yuh can't never catch that
hoss o' mine.  Not in a million years.  We just got to wait till he
stops."

Rufe Cutting could have devised no better revenge than the stealing of
Loudon's horse.  Since Loudon had owned Ranger no one save himself and
Kate Saltoun had ridden him.  Ranger's legs were frequently
hand-rubbed.  Ranger was curried.  With his fingers--no true horseman
would dream of using the comb of commerce--Loudon frequently combed
Ranger's mane and tail.  When a horse in the cow country is curried and
combed, that horse is a highly valued horse.  Johnny Ramsay accused
Loudon of wrapping Ranger in blankets when the air was chilly, and of
taking his temperature on all occasions.  Undoubtedly Loudon was
somewhat of a crank where Ranger was concerned.

And now the inconceivable had come to pass.  Ranger had been
stolen--stolen almost under the very nose of his master.  Loudon did
not swear.  His feeling was too deeply grim for that.  But he promised
himself an accounting--a very full accounting.

Loudon rode onward at a steady lope.  Before him stretched the dusty
ribbon of trail.  Blank and bare it led between the low hills and
lifted over the ridges.  He saw no more specks ahead.  The quarry had
outdistanced him.

Fifteen miles out of Paradise Bend he heard a faint shout in his rear.
He looked over his shoulder.  A half mile distant two men were
galloping toward him.  One of them waved an arm half red, half blue.

"Scotty," muttered Loudon, and checked his horse.

The two clattered up, their horses' out-blown nostrils whistling.  One
of the men was the owner of the Flying M.  The other was the proprietor
of the Chicago Store.

"Seen him?" demanded Scotty.

"Once," replied Loudon.  "He's ridin' with Block now, but they pulled
away from me.  I ain't seen 'em for over a hour."

"They're stickin' to the trail," grunted the store proprietor, who
rejoiced in the name of Ragsdale, glancing at the hoof-marks in the
dust.

"C'mon!" snapped Scotty Mackenzie.

Three miles farther on Ragsdale's mount began to falter.

"He's done," growled Ragsdale.  "Give 'em one for me."

Ragsdale halted.  Loudon and Scotty Mackenzie rode on.

"Where did yuh get that bay?" queried Scotty, eying the Flying M brand
on the bay's hip.

"It was his--Cutting's," replied Loudon.

"Cutting's?  Djuh mean Rufe Cutting is the hoss thief?"

"Shore!  I clean forgot yuh didn't know about Cutting's quittin' his
job."

Loudon explained the manner of the cook's departure and his subsequent
actions to Mackenzie.

"An'," said Loudon, in conclusion, "I seen that feller at the 88 that
time I bought my hoss from Blakely."

"Yuh did!  Are yuh shore?"

"Shore as yo're a day old.  I was walkin' past the bunkhouse with
Blakely, an' this fellah was out in front with his shirt off a-washin'
himself, an' I seen a eagle tattooed on his chest in blue, an'
underneath a heart with a R on one side an' a T on the other.  Just
before yore cook pulled his freight his shirt got tore, an' I seen his
chest, an' there was the eagle an' the heart an' the two letters R an
T.  I knowed when I first laid eyes on him up here at the Flyin' M that
I'd seen him some'ers, but I couldn't place him till I seen the
tattoo-work.  It all come back to me then."

"What was his name at the 88?"

"I never knowed.  I never cut his trail again down there.  He wasn't
one o' the reg'lar outfit.  I know all o' them."

"Did Cap'n Burr see him?"

"No, he didn't.  I remember now, when the Cap'n come this fellah wasn't
in sight, an' he didn't show up again while we was there.  Cap'n Burr
left when I did."

"Cutting worked for me nigh onto a year.  He's always earned his pay.
Never done nothin' out of the way."

"I dunno what it means.  It's all a heap mysterious--special mysterious
when yuh come to think o' what O'Leary asked me when I first hit the
Bend.  'Couldn't Sam come?' says O'Leary to me.  Busts out into the
street to say it, too, right after I'd asked yuh the way to Cap'n
Burr's house."

"I remember," said Scotty, thoughtfully.  "I seen him talkin' to yuh.
I thought yuh knowed him.  I wonder who he took yuh for?"

"One o' Blakely's outfit, o' course," replied Loudon.  "It was that 88
brand o' Ranger's done the trick for him like it done for you.
'Couldn't Sam come?' says he.  Then he says, 'It's all right.  I'm Pete
O'Leary!'  When he seen I didn't understand him none, he got gun-shy
immediate an' wandered.  An' he didn't forget me a little bit.
Telescope told me that he'd been tryin' to find out if you'd hired me.
One day he come out to the ranch an' stopped just long enough to say
howdy.  Wanted to make shore I was there, see?  What do yuh make of it?"

"Nothin'--yet.  We got to wait an' see what happens."

"Seein' what happens may be expensive.  I tell yuh flat, Scotty, Sam
Blakely has got somethin' under the table for yuh.  He's aimin' to put
a crimp in yuh.  Yuh can go the limit on that."

"There ain't nothin' certain about it."

"O' course there ain't.  Sam ain't goin' to give himself away.  I wish
you'd let me Injun 'round some an' see what's up.  I think, maybe,
yuh'll save money if yuh do."

"Well, I dunno----" hesitated Scotty.

"O' course," said Loudon, quickly, "Blakely's got it in for me.  But
whatever he's cookin' up for you he thought of before I ever rode
north.  My comin' north has sort of upset his plans.  He knows I know
all about him, an' he wants to shut my mouth before he turns his bull
loose."

"Yo're goin' to meet him in Farewell, ain't yuh?  Seems to me Richie
said somethin' about it."

"Shore I am, but what's that got to do with it?"

"Why, maybe that's the reason he wants yuh out of the way.  He may not
hanker after shootin' it out with yuh."

"No, Sam Blakely ain't afraid," denied Loudon.  "He wouldn't object any
to meetin' me in Farewell if that was all there was to it.  No, what's
worryin' him is me bein' here at the Flying M.  An' it's worryin' him a
lot, or he'd never 'a' sent Block two hundred miles."

"Well, I dunno.  Yuh may be right, Tom, but I don't just guess Sam
Blakely will try to put any crimps in me.  He knows it would come kind
o' high.  Of course it's mighty puzzlin'.  I don't understand it none.
One thing, Blakely shore tried his best to get yuh down on the Lazy
River, an' that's why it looks to me like Block was sent to put in the
last licks."

"He was, but not the way yuh think.  I could gas my head off about
Blakely up here in the Bend, an' it wouldn't matter a ---- so long as
he was down on the Lazy.  But if he left the Lazy an' come projeckin'
up to the Bend, then what I'd be sayin' would count a lot.  See now?"

"I see," admitted Scotty.

"Well, gimme a chance to find out what he's up to."

"No, Tom, there's too much to do at the ranch.  I can't let yuh go.
Yo're too good a man.  I need yuh right at home.  We'll wait an' see
what happens.  Then we'll know what to do."

"It may be too late then," grumbled Loudon.

"If it is, then blame me.  I'm the one to lose, anyway."

"Yuh shore are."

Oh, the denseness of ranch owners!  Was Scotty Mackenzie to turn out
another Saltoun?

"It's a blind trail," observed Scotty, picking up the tangled thread of
their discourse.  "Some things kind o' fit when yuh look at 'em one
way, an' then again they don't when yuh look at 'em another.  Cutting
don't fit, none whatever.  All the time he worked for me, he only went
to town twice, an' the last time was six months ago.  O'Leary never
come to see him, so if somethin's up like yuh say there is, Rufe's out
of it.  But that won't help him none now.  He'll go out if we ever come
up with him."

"If we do," supplemented Loudon.

"My idea exactly.  That hoss o' yores can shore wriggle along, an' he
had a big start."

"I'm goin' through to Rocket anyhow."

"Me, too."

Till the latter half of the afternoon they kept the ponies loping.
Then, slowing to a walk, they risked a short-cut and did not strike the
trail again till the sun was setting.

"Still keepin' together," announced Loudon, after one look at the trail.

"An' still hittin' the high places," said Scotty.  "Them two cayuses
shore have bottom.  Cutting knowed a good hoss all right."




CHAPTER XI

ROCKET

The two men reached Rocket before midnight and rode up to the door of
the combination saloon and hotel.  While Scotty hammered on the planks
with his fist, Loudon uttered stentorian yells.  Rocket, male and
female, awoke, poked their heads out of the windows and shrilly
demanded information.

"Hoss thief!" bawled Loudon.  "He's ridin' a long-legged chestnut with
a white spot on his nose!  Fellah with him on a black horse!  The sport
on the black may or may not be dressed like a bird, accordin' to
whether he's washed himself!  Have yuh seen 'em?"

Rocket with one voice assured Loudon that he was drunk, and advised the
watering-trough.

"I ain't foolin'," expostulated Loudon.  "The gent on the black cayuse,
which his name is Block, Sheriff o' Fort Creek County, was tarred an'
feathered in Paradise Bend this afternoon."

Partisan Rocket cheered, and, in the same breath, grieved that neither
of the fugitives had been seen and clamoured to know details of the
tarring and feathering.  Rocket was in Sunset County, and it was
delightful to hear that Fort Creek, in the person of its sheriff, had
been insulted.

Loudon, sitting at ease on his weary, drooping-headed pony, told the
tale.  He carefully refrained, however, from mentioning his own leading
part in the affair.  Rocket received the story with howls of mirth.
Later, the male portion stuffed its nightshirts into trousers, pulled
on boots, and gathered three deep around Loudon and Scotty while the
two devoured cold beef and beans in the dining room of the hotel.

"Glad to see yo're feelin' better over yore hoss," observed Scotty,
when the last Rocketer had departed.

"Oh, I made 'em laugh," said Loudon, dismally.  "But it didn't make me
feel like laughin' myself a little bit.  I feel just as bad as
ever--worse if anythin'.  Why, Scotty, that hoss could do everythin'
but talk."

"Shore," said Scotty, hastily, "but we can't do nothin' now.  We've
done all we could.  They didn't come through Rocket, that's certain.
They've done turned off some'ers.  We can't trail 'em to-night, an' by
to-morrow they'll be forty mile off.  There's no use in keepin' it up."

Scotty looked anxiously at Loudon.  The latter made no reply.  He was
staring at the lamp on the table, his expression bitter in the extreme.

"Tell yuh what," hazarded Scotty.  "Yuh can have that bay yo're ridin'.
He ain't like yore reg'lar hoss, but he's a good pony.  Look at the way
he went to-day.  Got bottom, that hoss has.  Go till the Gulf o' Mexico
freezes solid."

"That's right good o' yuh, Scotty, but I couldn't take him off yuh
thataway.  I might buy him some day."

"The offer goes as it lays.  Yuh don't have to buy him.  He's yores
whenever yuh want him.  Well, what are yuh figurin' on doin'?"

"It's no use chasin' 'em any more now.  I know that.  Might as well
wander back where we come from.  Later, two or three weeks maybe, I'm
goin' south."

"Goin' south!"  Scotty was aghast.  He did not wish to lose his best
man.

"Yep.  Goin' south.  Don't expect to find Cutting first off.  But I'll
find Block, an' I guess he'll know somethin' about friend Cutting.  I'd
go instanter, only I want to give Block time to get back an' get
settled before I pay him a call.  I tell yuh, Scotty, I want that hoss
o' mine, an' I'll get him back if it takes me the rest o' my life!"

"You gents want beds?" inquired the landlord, suddenly appearing in the
doorway.

"Shore," replied Scotty.  "Two of 'em."

"Say, who's the postmaster here?" Loudon asked.

"Me," was the landlord's weary reply.

"A couple o' days ago," said Loudon, "a letter addressed to John
Doubleday in Paradise Bend was mailed here.  Remember who mailed it?"

"Couldn't say, stranger," yawned the landlord.  "Oh, shore," he added,
as Loudon looked incredulous, "I could tell yuh everybody else what
mailed mail for the last month.  But that one letter I couldn't.  I
didn't see the man, woman, child, or Injun what mailed it.  Three days
ago when I got up in the mornin' an' went outside to wash my face I
done found that letter an' two bits a-layin' on the door-step.  That's
all.  Just a letter an' two bits.  I clamps on a stamp an' sends her
along when the up-stage pulls in."

"Any parties from the Bend in town that day, or the day before?"

"Nary a party as I knows of--but then I ain't got eyes all over me.
Some sport might 'a' slid through an' me not know it."

"I ain't askin' questions just to make talk," said Loudon, sharply.
"So if yuh ain't got no real serious objections I'll ask a couple more."

"No need to get het, stranger," soothed the landlord.  "No need to get
het.  Ask away."

"Any strangers been in town lately?"

"Two, to-day.  They're the only strangers I've seen for quite a spell,
an' they're upstairs now.  Lady an' gent they are, travellin' separate.
Goin' to the Bend, I reckon.  Yest'day the off hind wheel o' the stage
dished down at Lew's Gully, an' she come in on three wheels an' half a
cottonwood.  Passengers had to stay over till Whisky Jim rustled him a
new wheel.  Whisky'll pull out in the mornin'."

"Who's the gent?"

"Drummer.  Dunno his name."

"Didn't Block--you know, Sheriff Block o' Fort Creek--didn't he stop
here a day or two ago?  He must 'a' come through Rocket."

"Shore he did.  But he ain't no stranger.  I see him as many as two or
three times a year.  Shore he come through Rocket.  He had a drink here
day before yest'day.  Goin' to the Bend, he said."

"Well, if he stops on his way back tell him Tom Loudon was askin' for
him.  Old friend o' mine, the sheriff is.  Just tell him yuh know me,
an' he'll set 'em up for the whole town."

"I expect," grinned the landlord.  "Was you wantin' beds, gents?"

"That's us," grunted Scotty.  "Me, I'm asleep from the neck down.  Show
me that bed, Mister."

Loudon, sitting on the edge of his sway-backed cot, pulled off his
boots, dropped them clattering on the floor, and looked across at
Scotty Mackenzie.

"Block didn't send that letter--or write it," he said, sliding his long
body under the blanket.

"How do yuh know?" came in muffled tones from Scotty.

"He ain't got the brains.  No sir, some gent in Paradise Bend sent that
letter, an' I think I know his name."

"Who is he?"  Scotty was plainly striving to keep awake, and making a
poor job of it.

"I'll tell yuh after we get back to the Bend."


Next morning, while the east was yet lemon and gray, the thunderous
clamour of a beaten dish-pan reverberated through the hotel.  The
hideous din ceased abruptly, and the voice of the landlord became
audible.

"Yuh half-witted idjit!  Don't yuh know better'n to beat that pan when
there's a lady in the house?  Dish-pans is for common folks, an' don't
yuh forget it!  Now you hump yoreself upstairs an' bang on her door
right gentle an' tell her the stage is due to pull out in a hour."

"Must be a real lady," commented Loudon, when a door at the other end
of the corridor had been duly rapped upon.

"Must be," said Scotty in a singularly joyless tone.  "Yuh couldn't
hear what she said to the feller.  Reg'lar female ladies always talk so
yuh got to ask 'em to say it again, they carry fancy-coloured umbrellas
when the sun shines, an' they pack their gold specs on the end of a
stick.  They watch yuh eat, too.  I know 'em.  Yuh bet I do.

"I met a pair of 'em once when they was visitin' at the Seven Lazy
Seven.  They made me so nervous a-lookin' at me that I cut the roof o'
my mouth three times with my knife.  Reg'lar ladies don't make me feel
to home nohow.  I'm goin' down now an' eat before this one scampers in
an' spoils my appetite."

So saying, Scotty almost ran from the room, buckling on his
cartridge-belt as he went.

The drummer was at the table when the two Flying M men sat down.  An
impressive person was the drummer.  He was known in his own circle as a
"perfectly elegant dresser."  If the tightest of tight-fitting suits,
the gaudiest of shirts, the highest of collars, an explosive cravat,
two watch-chains, a bartender's curl, and a perpetual leer made for
elegance, that drummer was elegant to a degree.

The three had nearly finished breakfast when there came a tapping of
quick heels on the stairs.  Scotty Mackenzie groaned.  The drummer
hastily patted his curl and broadened his leer.  Loudon raised his eyes
and gasped audibly.  His knife and fork rattled on the plate.  For the
woman entering the room was Kate Saltoun.

"Good morning, Tom," said Kate, brightly, quite as if she and he, the
best of friends, had parted the previous evening.

The nonplussed Loudon mumbled unintelligibly, but accomplished a
passable greeting by the time Kate had seated herself directly
opposite.  The drummer glanced contemptuously at Loudon, and, with a
flourish and a killing ogle, handed the bread to Kate.  Miss Saltoun
helped herself, nodded casual thanks, and bestowed a ravishing smile on
Loudon.

"I'm awfully glad to see you again, Tom," she declared, buttering her
bread.  "It's just like old times, isn't it?"

Could this smiling young girl be Kate Saltoun?  Was this the Kate that
had called him names and broken his heart and driven him from the Lazy
River?  Loudon furtively pinched himself.  The pinch hurt.

It was not all a dream then.  Kate Saltoun, in the flesh, and separated
from him by not more than four feet of scaly oilcloth, was actually
smiling at him.  Words failed Loudon.  He could do nothing but gaze.

Scotty, fearful of an introduction, oozed from the table.  The drummer,
unused to being ignored, fidgeted.  He cleared his throat raucously.
He would show this dumb person in chaps how a gentleman comports
himself in the presence of a lady.  It was the drummer's first trip
West.

"Beautiful day, Miss, beautiful," he smirked, tilting back in his
chair, and rattling his watch-chains.  "We should have a quick trip to
Paradise Bend.  Our driver, I understand, has procured another wheel,
and----"

The full-voiced utterance died abruptly.

For Kate had looked imploringly at Loudon, and Loudon had swung about
to face the drummer.  For the first time in his life the drummer
realized how cold, how utterly daunting, a pair of human eyes could be.

"You through?" demanded Loudon.

The drummer endured that disconcerting stare while a man might draw
three breaths.  Then his eyelids quivered, dropped, and a curious
mottled pallor overspread his countenance.  He glanced up, met again
that disconcerting stare, and quickly looked elsewhere.

"You through?" repeated Loudon.

"I--I don't know as that's any of your business," said the drummer,
faintly.

"Git out," ordered Loudon.

"Why, look here!  By what right----"

"Git out."  Loudon had not raised his voice.

The drummer glanced at Miss Saltoun.  She was crumbling her bread and
looking over his head with an air of intense boredom.  So far as she
was concerned, he had ceased to exist.  And she had been so friendly
and companionable on the long ride from Farewell.

"You've done kept me waitin' some time," suggested Loudon, softly.

Awkwardly, for he found his knees strangely weak, the drummer rose.
With a lame attempt at jauntiness he pulled down his vest, shot his
cuffs, and teetered from the room.  He made his way to the bar and
called for whisky.  His nerves were rather upset.

"Jake's put yore stuff in the stage," announced the landlord, who was
also the bartender.

"Then Jake can take my bags out again," said the drummer, disagreeably.
"I'm staying over till to-morrow."

"Well, hotel-keepers can't afford to be particular," the landlord said,
unsmilingly.  "But yuh'll have to unload yore truck yore own self."

The drummer would have enjoyed cursing the landlord.  But the latter
had the same peculiar look about the eyes that Loudon had.  The d

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