LIEUTENANT STEPHEN FRASER OF THE TEXAS RANGERSWho, single-handed, ran down and brought to justicethe worst gang of outlaws known in recent years.
“It's the same man,” Briscoe announced.
The escaped convict's mouth set in a cruel line.
“One of us, either him or me, never leaves this valley alive,” he announced.
Jed laughed softly and handed back the revolver. “That's the way to talk. My friend, if you mean that, you'll need your gun. Here's hoping you beat him to it.”
“It won't be an even break this time if I can help it.”
“I gather that it was, last time.”
“Yep. We drew together.” Struve interlarded his explanation with oaths. “He's a devil with a gun. See that?” He held up his right band.
“I see you're shy your most useful finger, if that's what you mean.”
“Fraser took it off clean at twenty yards. I got him in the hand, too, but right or left he's a dead shot. He might 'a' killed me if he hadn't wanted to take me alive. Before I'm through with him he'll wish he had.”
“Well, you don't want to make any mistake next time. Get him right.”
“I sure will.” Hitherto Struve had been absorbed in his own turbid emotions, but he came back from them now with a new-born suspicion in his eyes. “Where do you come in, Mr. Briscoe? Why are you so plumb anxious I should load him up with lead? If it's a showdown, I'd some like to see your cards too.”
Jed shrugged. “My reasons ain't urgent like yours. I don't favor spies poking their noses in here. That's all there's to it.”
Jed had worked out a plot as he rode through the night from the Dillon ranch—one so safe and certain that it pointed to sure success. Jed was no coward, but he had a spider-like cunning that wove others as dupes into the web of his plans.
The only weakness in his position lay in himself, in that sudden boiling up of passion in him that was likely to tear through his own web and destroy it. Three months ago he had given way to one of these outbursts, and he knew that any one of four or five men could put a noose around his neck. That was another reason why such a man as this Texas ranger must not be allowed to meet and mix with them.
It was his cue to know as much as he could of every man that came into the valley. Wherefore he had run down the record of Struve from the reward placard which a detective agency furnished him of hundreds of criminals who were wanted. What could be more simple than to stir up the convict, in order to save himself, to destroy the ranger who had run him down before? There would be a demand so insistent for the punishment of the murderer that it could not be ignored. He would find some pretext to lure Struve from the valley for a day or two, and would arrange it so that he would be arrested while he was away. Thus he would be rid of both these troublesome intruders without making a move that could be seen.
It was all as simple as A B C. Already Struve had walked into the trap. As Jed sat down to take a hand in the poker game that was in progress, he chuckled quietly to himself. He was quite sure that he was already practically master of the situation.
Arlie flung the question at Fraser with a frank directness of sloe-black eyes that had never known coquetry. She was washing handkerchiefs, and her sleeves were rolled to the elbows of the slender, but muscular, coffee-brown arms.
“I would.”
“If you like you may ride out with me to Willow Spring. I have some letters to take to dad.”
“Suits me down to the ground, ma'am.”
It was a morning beautiful even for Wyoming. The spring called potently to the youth in them. The fine untempered air was like wine, and out of a blue sky the sun beat pleasantly down through a crystal-clear atmosphere known only to the region of the Rockies. Nature was preaching a wordless sermon on the duty of happiness to two buoyant hearts that scarce needed it.
Long before they reached the scene of the round-up they could hear the almost continual bawl of worried cattle, and could even see the cloud of dust they stirred. They passed the remuda, in charge of two lads lounging sleepily in their saddles with only an occasional glance at the bunch of grazing horses they were watching. Presently they looked down from a high ridge at the busy scene below.
Out of Lost Valley ran a hundred rough and wooded gulches to the impassable cliff wall which bounded it. Into one of these they now descended slowly, letting their ponies pick a way among the loose stones and shale which covered the steep hillside.
What their eyes fell upon was cattle-land at its busiest. Several hundred wild hill cattle were gathered in the green draw, and around them was a cordon of riders holding the gather steady. Now and again one of the cows would make a dash to escape, and instantly the nearest rider would wheel, as on a batter's plate, give chase, and herd the animal back after a more or less lengthy pursuit.
Several of the riders were cutting out from the main herd cows with unmarked calves, which last were immediately roped and thrown. Usually it took only an instant to determine with whose cow the calf had been, and a few seconds to drive home the correct brand upon the sizzling flank. Occasionally the discussion was more protracted, in order to solve a doubt as to the ownership, and once a calf was released that it might again seek its mother to prove identity.
Arlie observed that Fraser's eyes were shining.
“I used to be a puncher myse'f,” he explained. “I tell you it feels good to grip a saddle between your knees, and to swallow the dust and hear the bellow of the cows. I used to live in them days. I sure did.”
A boyish puncher galloped past with a whoop and waved his hat to Arlie. For two weeks he had been in the saddle for fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. He was grimy with dust, and hollow-eyed from want of sleep. A stubbly beard covered his brick-baked face. But the unquenchable gayety of the youthful West could not be extinguished. Though his flannel shirt gaped where the thorns had torn it, and the polka-dot bandanna round his throat was discolored with sweat, he was as blithely debonair as ever.
“That's Dick France. He's a great friend of mine,” Arlie explained.
“Dick's in luck,” Fraser commented, but whether because he was enjoying himself so thoroughly or because he was her friend the ranger did not explain.
They stayed through the day, and ate dinner at the tail of the chuck wagon with the cattlemen. The light of the camp fires, already blazing in the nipping night air, shone brightly. The ranger rode back with her to the ranch, but next morning he asked Arlie if she could lend him an old pair of chaps discarded by her father.
She found a pair for him.
“If you don't mind, I'll ride out to the round-up and stay with the boys a few days,” he suggested.
“You're going to ride with them,” she accused.
“I thought I would. I'm not going to saddle myse'f on you two ladies forever.”
“You know we're glad to have you. But that isn't it. What about your heart? You know you can't ride the range.”
He flushed, and knew again that feeling of contempt for himself, or, to be more exact, for his position.
“I'll be awful careful, Miss Arlie,” was all he found to say.
She could not urge him further, lest he misunderstand her.
“Of course, you know best,” she said, with a touch of coldness.
He saddled Teddy and rode back. The drive for the day was already on, but he fell in beside young France and did his part. Before two days had passed he was accepted as one of these hard-riding punchers, for he was a competent vaquero and stood the grueling work as one born to it. He was, moreover, well liked, both because he could tell a good story and because these sons of Anak recognized in him that dynamic quality of manhood they could not choose but respect. In this a fortunate accident aided him.
They were working Lost Creek, a deep and rapid stream at the point where the drive ended. The big Norwegian, Siegfried, trying to head off a wild cow racing along the bank with tail up, got too near the edge. The bank caved beneath the feet of his pony, and man and horse went head first into the turbid waters. Fraser galloped up at once, flung himself from his saddle, and took in at a glance the fact that the big blond Hercules could not swim.
The Texan dived for him as he was going down, got hold of him by the hair, and after a struggle managed somehow to reach the farther shore. As they both lay there, one exhausted, and the other fighting for the breath he had nearly lost forever, Dillon reached the bank.
“Is it all right, Steve?” he called anxiously.
“All right,” grinned the ranger weakly. “He'll go on many a spree yet. Eh, Siegfried?”
The Norwegian nodded. He was still frightened and half drowned. It was not till they were riding up the creek to find a shallow place they could ford that he spoke his mind.
“Ay bane all in ven you got me, pardner.”
“Oh, you were still kicking.”
“Ay bane t'ink Ay had van chance not to get out. But Ay bane not forget dees. Eef you ever get in a tight place, send vor Sig Siegfried.”
“That's all right, Sig.”
Nobody wasted any compliments on him. After the fashion of their kind, they guyed the Norwegian about the bath he had taken. Nevertheless, Fraser knew that he had won the liking of these men, as well as their deep respect. They began to call him by his first name, which hitherto only Dillon had done, and they included him in the rough, practical jokes they played on each other.
One night they initiated him—an experience to be both dreaded and desired. To be desired because it implies the conferring of the thirty-second degree of the freemasonry of Cattleland's approval; to be dreaded because hazing is mild compared with some features of the exercises.
Fraser was dragged from sweet slumber, pegged face down on his blankets, with a large-sized man at the extremity of each arm and leg, and introduced to a chapping. Dick France wielded the chaps vigorously upon the portions of his anatomy where they would do the most execution. The Texan did not enjoy it, but he refrained from saying so. When he was freed, he sat down painfully on a saddle and remarked amiably:
“You're a beautiful bunch, ain't you? Anybody got any smoking?”
This proper acceptance of their attentions so delighted these overgrown children that they dug up three bottles of whisky that were kept in camp for rattlesnake bites, and made Rome howl. They had ridden all day, and for many weary days before that; but they were started toward making a night of it when Dillon appeared.
Dillon was boss of the round-up—he had been elected by general consent, and his word was law. He looked round upon them with a twinkling eye, and wanted to know how long it was going to last. But the way he put his question was:
“How much whisky is there left?”
Finding there was none, he ordered them all back to their blankets. After a little skylarking, they obeyed. Next day Fraser rode the hills, a sore, sore man. But nobody who did not know could have guessed it. He would have died before admitting it to any of his companions. Thus he won the accolade of his peers as a worthy horse-man of the hills.
Jed Briscoe rejoined the round-up the day following Fraser's initiation. He took silent note of the Texan's popularity, of how the boys all called him “Steve” because he had become one of them, and were ready either to lark with him or work with him. He noticed, too, that the ranger did his share of work without a whimper, apparently enjoying the long, hard hours in the saddle. The hill riding was of the roughest, and the cattle were wild as deers and as agile. But there was no break-neck incline too steep for Steve Fraser to follow.
Once Jed chanced upon Steve stripped for a bath beside the creek, and he understood the physical reason for his perfect poise. The wiry, sinuous muscles, packed compactly without obtrusion, played beneath the skin like those of a panther. He walked as softly and as easily as one, with something of the rippling, unconscious grace of that jungle lord. It was this certainty of himself that vivified the steel-gray eyes which looked forth unafraid, and yet amiably, upon a world primitive enough to demand proof of every man who would hold the respect of his fellows.
Meanwhile, Briscoe waited for Struve and his enemy to become entangled in the net he was spinning. He made no pretense of fellowship with Fraser; nor, on the other hand, did he actively set himself against him with the men. He was ready enough to sneer when Dick France grew enthusiastic about his new friend, but this was to be expected from one of his jaundiced temper.
“Who is this all-round crackerjack you're touting, Dick?” he asked significantly.
France was puzzled. “Who is he? Why, he's Steve Fraser.”
“I ain't asking you what his name is. I'm asking who he is. What does he do for a living? Who recommended him so strong to the boys that they take up with him so sudden?”
“I don't care what he does for a living. Likely, he rides the range in Texas. When it comes to recommendations, he's got one mighty good one written on his face.”
“You think so, do you?”
“That's what I think, Jed. He's the goods—best of company, a straight-up rider, and a first-rate puncher. Ask any of the boys.”
“I'm using my eyes, Dick. They tell me all I need to know.”
“Well, use them to-morrow. He's going to take a whirl at riding Dead Easy. Next day he's going to take on Rocking Horse. If he makes good on them, you'll admit he can ride.”
“I ain't saying he can't ride. So can you. If it's plumb gentle, I can make out to stick on a pony myself.”
“Course you can ride. Everybody knows that. You're the best ever. Any man that can win the championship of Wyoming——But you'll say yourself them strawberry roans are wicked devils.”
“He hasn't ridden them yet, Dick.”
“He's going to.”
“We'll be there to see it. Mebbe he will. Mebbe he won't. I've known men before who thought they were going to.”
It was in no moment of good-natured weakness that Fraser had consented to try riding the outlaw horses. Nor had his vanity anything to do with it. He knew a time might be coming when he would need all the prestige and all the friendship he could earn to tide him over the crisis. Jed Briscoe had won his leadership, partly because he could shoot quicker and straighter, ride harder, throw a rope more accurately, and play poker better than his companions.
Steve had a mind to show that he, too, could do some of these things passing well. Wherefore, he had let himself be badgered good-naturedly into trying a fall with these famous buckers. As the heavy work of the round-up was almost over, Dillon was glad to relax discipline enough to give the boys a little fun.
The remuda was driven up while the outfit was at breakfast. His friends guyed Steve with pleasant prophecy.
“He'll be hunting leather about the fourth buck!”
“If he ain't trying to make of himse'f one of them there Darius Green machines!” suggested another.
“Got any last words, Steve? Dead Easy most generally eats 'em alive,” Dick derided.
“Sho! Cayn't you see he's so plumb scared he cayn't talk?”
Fraser grinned and continued to eat. When he had finished he got his lariat from the saddle, swung to Siegfried's pony, and rode unobtrusively forward to the remuda. The horses were circling round and round, so that it was several minutes before he found a chance. When he did, the rope snaked forward and dropped over the head of the strawberry roan. The horse stood trembling, making not the least resistance, even while the ranger saddled and cinched.
But before the man settled to the saddle, the outlaw was off on its furious resistance. It went forward and up into the air with a plunging leap. The rider swung his hat and gave a joyous whoop. Next instant there was a scatter of laughing men as the horse came toward them in a series of short, stiff-legged bucks which would have jarred its rider like a pile driver falling on his head had he not let himself grow limp to meet the shock.
All the tricks of its kind this unbroken five-year-old knew. Weaving, pitching, sunfishing, it fought superbly, the while Steve rode with the consummate ease of a master. His sinuous form swayed instinctively to every changing motion of his mount. Even when it flung itself back in blind fury, he dropped lightly from the saddle and into it again as the animal struggled to its feet.
The cook waved a frying pan in frantic glee. “Hurra-ay! You're the goods, all right, all right.”
“You bet. Watch Steve fan him. And he ain't pulled leather yet. Not once.”
An unseen spectator was taking it in from the brow of a little hill crowned with a group of firs. She had reached this point just as the Texan had swung to the saddle, and she watched the battle between horse and man intently. If any had been there to see, he might have observed a strange fire smouldering in her eyes. For the first time there was filtering through her a vague suspicion of this man who claimed to have heart trouble, and had deliberately subjected himself to the terrific strain of such a test. She had seen broncho busters get off bleeding at mouth and nose and ears after a hard fight, and she had never seen a contest more superbly fought than this one. But full of courage as the horse was, it had met its master and began to know it.
The ranger's quirt was going up and down, stinging Dead Easy to more violent exertions, if possible. But the outlaw had shot its bolt. The plunges grew less vicious, the bucks more feeble. It still pitched, because of the unbroken gameness that defied defeat, but so mechanically that the motions could be forecasted.
Then Steve began to soothe the brute. Somehow the wild creatute became aware that this man who was his master was also disposed to be friendly. Presently it gave up the battle, quivering in every limb. Fraser slipped from the saddle, and putting his arm across its neck began to gentle the outlaw. The animal had always looked the incarnation of wickedness. The red eyes in its ill-shaped head were enough to give one bad dreams. A quarter of an hour before, it had bit savagely at him. Now it stood breathing deep, and trembling while its master let his hand pass gently over the nose and neck with soft words that slowly won the pony back from the terror into which it had worked itself.
“You did well, Mr. Fraser from Texas,” Jed complimented him, with a smile that thinly hid his malice. “But it won't do to have you going back to Texas with the word that Wyoming is shy of riders. I ain't any great shakes, but I reckon I'll have to take a whirl at Rocking Horse.” He had decided to ride for two reasons. One was that he had glimpsed the girl among the firs; the other was to dissipate the admiration his rival had created among the men.
Briscoe lounged toward the remuda, rope in hand. It was his cue to get himself up picturesquely in all the paraphernalia of the cowboy. Black-haired and white-toothed, lithe as a wolf, and endowed with a grace almost feline, it was easy to understand how this man appealed to the imagination of the reckless young fellows of this primeval valley. Everything he did was done well. Furthermore, he looked and acted the part of leader which he assumed.
Rocking Horse was in a different mood from its brother. It was hard to rope, and when Jed's raw-hide had fallen over its head it was necessary to reënforce the lariat with two others. Finally the pony had to be flung down before a saddle could be put on. When Siegfried, who had been kneeling on its head, stepped back, the outlaw staggered to its feet, already badly shaken, to find an incubus clamped to the saddle.
No matter how it pitched, the human clothespin stuck to his seat, and apparently with as little concern as if he had been in a rowboat gently moved to and fro by the waves. Jed rode like a centaur, every motion attuned to those of the animal as much as if he were a part of it. No matter how it pounded or tossed, he stuck securely to the hurricane deck of the broncho.
Once only he was in danger, and that because Rocking Horse flung furiously against the wheel of a wagon and ground the rider's leg till he grew dizzy with the pain. For an instant he caught at the saddle horn to steady himself as the roan bucked into the open again.
“He's pulling leather!” some one shouted.
“Shut up, you goat!” advised the Texan good-naturedly. “Can't you see his laig got jammed till he's groggy? Wonder is, he didn't take the dust! They don't raise better riders than he is.”
“By hockey! He's all in. Look out! Jed's falling,” France cried, running forward.
It looked so for a moment, then Jed swam back to clear consciousness again, and waved them back. He began to use his quirt without mercy.
“Might know he'd game it out,” remarked Yorky.
He did. It was a long fight, and the horse was flecked with bloody foam before its spirit and strength failed. But the man in the saddle kept his seat till the victory was won.
Steve was on the spot to join heartily the murmur of applause, for he was too good a sportsman to grudge admiration even to his enemy.
“You're the one best bet in riders, Mr. Briscoe. It's a pleasure to watch you,” he said frankly.
Jed's narrowed eyes drifted to him. “Oh, hell!” he drawled with insolent contempt, and turned on his heel.
From the clump of firs a young woman was descending, and Jed went to meet her.
“You rode splendidly,” she told him with vivid eyes. “Were you hurt when you were jammed again the wagon? I mean, does it still hurt?” For she noticed that he walked with a limp.
“I reckon I can stand the grief without an amputation. Arlie, I got something to tell you.”
She looked at him in her direct fashion and waited.
“It's about your new friend.” He drew from a pocket some leaves torn out of a magazine. His finger indicated a picture. “Ever see that gentleman before?”
The girl looked at it coolly. “It seems to be Mr. Fraser taken in his uniform; Lieutenant Fraser, I should say.”
The cattleman's face fell. “You know, then, who he is, and what he's doing here.”
Without evasion, her gaze met his. “I understood him to say he was an officer in the Texas Rangers. You know why he is here.”
“You're right, I do. But do you?”
“Well, what is it you mean? Out with it, Jed,” she demanded impatiently.
“He is here to get a man wanted in Texas, a man hiding in this valley right now.”
“I don't believe it,” she returned quickly. “And if he is, that's not your business or mine. It's his duty, isn't it?”
“I ain't discussing that. You know the law of the valley, Arlie.”
“I don't accept that as binding, Jed. Lots of people here don't. Because Lost Valley used to be a nest of miscreants, it needn't always be. I don't see what right we've got to set ourselves above the law.”
“This valley has always stood by hunted men when they reached it. That's our custom, and I mean to stick to it.”
“Very well. I hold you to that,” she answered quickly. “This man Fraser is a hunted man. He's hunted because of what he did for me and dad. I claim the protection of the valley for him.”
“He can have it—if he's what he says he is. But why ain't he been square with us? Why didn't he tell who he was?”
“He told me.”
“That ain't enough, Arlie. If he did, you kept it quiet. We all had a right to know.”
“If you had asked him, he would have told you.”
“I ain't so sure he would. Anyhow, I don't like it. I believe he is here to get the man I told you of. Mebbe that ain't all.”
“What more?” she scoffed.
“This fellow is the best range detective in the country. My notion is he's spying around about that Squaw Creek raid.”
Under the dusky skin she flushed angrily. “My notion is you're daffy, Jed. Talk sense, and I'll listen to you. You haven't a grain of proof.”
“I may get some yet,” he told her sulkily.
She laughed her disbelief. “When you do, let me know.”
And with that she gave her pony the signal to more forward.
Nevertheless, she met the ranger at the foot of the little hill with distinct coldness. When he came up to shake hands, she was too busy dismounting to notice.
“Your heart must be a good deal better. I suppose Lost Valley agrees with you.” She had swung down on the other side of the horse, and her glance at him across the saddle seat was like a rapier thrust.
He was aware at once of being in disgrace with her, and it chafed him that he had no adequate answer to her implied charge.
“My heart's all right,” he said a little gruffly.
“Yes, it seems to be, lieutenant.”
She trailed the reins and turned away at once to find her father. The girl was disappointed in him. He had, in effect, lied to her. That was bad enough; but she felt that his lie had concealed something, how much she scarce dared say. Her tangled thoughts were in chaos. One moment she was ready to believe the worst; the next, it was impossible to conceive such a man so vile a spy as to reward hospitality with treachery.
Yet she remembered now that it had been while she was telling of the fate of the traitor Burke that she had driven him to his lie. Or had he not told it first when she pointed out Lost Valley at his feet? Yes, it was at that moment she had noticed his pallor. He had, at least, conscience enough to be ashamed of what he was doing. But she recognized a wide margin of difference between the possibilities of his guilt. It was one thing to come to the valley for an escaped murderer; it was quite another to use the hospitality of his host as a means to betray the friends of that host. Deep in her heart she could not find it possible to convict him of the latter alternative. He was too much a man, too vitally dynamic. No; whatever else he was, she felt sure he was not so hopelessly lost to decency. He had that electric spark of self-respect which may coexist with many faults, but not with treachery.
A bunch of young steers which had strayed from their range were to be driven to the Dillon ranch, and the boss of the rodeo appointed France and Fraser to the task.
“Yo'll have company home, honey,” he told his daughter, “and yo'll be able to give the boys a hand if they need it. These hill cattle are still some wild, though we've been working them a week. Yo're a heap better cowboy than some that works more steady at the business.”
Briscoe nodded. “You bet! I ain't forgot that day Arlie rode Big Timber with me two years ago. She wasn't sixteen then, but she herded them hill steers like they belonged to a milk bunch.”
He spoke his compliment patly enough, but somehow the girl had an impression that he was thinking of something else. She was right, for as he helped gather the drive his mind was busy with a problem. Presently he dismounted to tighten a cinch, and made a signal to a young fellow known as Slim Leroy. The latter was a new and tender recruit to Jed's band of miscreants. He drew up beside his leader and examined one of the fore hoofs of his pony.
“Slim, I'm going to have Dillon send you for the mail to-day. When he tells you, that's the first you know about it. Understand? You'll have to take the hill cut to Jack Rabbit Run on your way in. At the cabin back of the aspens, inquire for a man that calls himself Johnson. If he's there, give him this message: 'This afternoon from Bald Knob.' Remember! Just those words, and nothing more. If he isn't there, forget the message. You'll know the man you want because he is shy his trigger finger and has a ragged scar across his right cheek. Make no mistake about this, Slim.”
“Sure I won't.”
Briscoe, having finished cinching, swung to his saddle and rode up to say good-by to Arlie.
“Hope you'll have no trouble with this bunch. If you push right along you'd ought to get home by night,” he told her.
Arlie agreed carelessly. “I don't expect any trouble with them. So-long, Jed.”
It would not have been her choice to ride home with the lieutenant of rangers, but since her father had made the appointment publicly she did not care to make objection. Yet she took care to let Fraser see that he was in her black books. The men rode toward the rear of the herd, one on each side, and Arlie fell in beside her old playmate, Dick. She laughed and talked with him about a hundred things in which Steve could have had no part, even if he had been close enough to catch more than one word out of twenty. Not once did she even look his way. Quite plainly she had taken pains to forget his existence.
“It was Briscoe's turn the other day,” mused the Texan. “It's mine now. I wonder when it will be Dick's to get put out in the cold!”
Nevertheless, though he tried to act the philosopher, it cut him that the high-spirited girl had condemned him. He felt himself in a false position from which he could not easily extricate himself. The worst of it was that if it came to a showdown he could not expect the simple truth to exonerate him.
From where they rode there drifted to him occasionally the sound of the gay voices of the young people. It struck him for the first time that he was getting old. Arlie could not be over eighteen, and Dick perhaps twenty-one. Maybe young people like that thought a fellow of twenty-seven a Methusaleh.
After a time the thirsty cattle smelt water and hit a bee line so steadily for it that they needed no watching. Every minute or two one of the leaders stretched out its neck and let out a bellow without slackening its pace.
Steve lazed on his pony, shifting his position to ease his cramped limbs after the manner of the range rider. In spite of himself, his eyes would drift toward the jaunty little figure on the pinto. The masculine in him approved mightily her lissom grace and the proud lilt of her dark head, with its sun-kissed face set in profile to him. He thought her serviceable costume very becoming, from the pinched felt hat pinned to the dark mass of hair, and the red silk kerchief knotted loosely round the pretty throat, to the leggings beneath the corduroy skirt and the flannel waist with sleeves rolled up in summer-girl fashion to leave the tanned arms bare to the dimpled elbows.
The trail, winding through a narrow defile, brought them side by side again.
“Ever notice what a persistent color buckskin is, Steve?” inquired France, by way of bringing him into the conversation. “It's strong in every one of these cattle, though the old man has been trying to get rid of it for ten years.”
“You mustn't talk to me, Dick,” responded his friend gravely. “Little Willie told a lie, and he's being stood in a corner.”
Arlie flushed angrily, opened her mouth to speak, and, changing her mind, looked at him witheringly. He didn't wither, however. Instead, he smiled broadly, got out his mouth organ, and cheerfully entertained them with his favorite, “I Met My Love In the Alamo.”
The hot blood under dusky skin held its own in her cheeks. She was furious with him, and dared not trust herself to speak. As soon as they had passed through the defile she spurred forward, as if to turn the leaders. France turned to his friend and laughed ruefully.
“She's full of pepper, Steve.”
The ranger nodded. “She's all right, Dick. If you want to know, she's got a right to make a doormat of me. I lied to her. I was up against it, and I kinder had to. You ride along and join her. If you want to get right solid, tell her how many kinds of a skunk I am. Worst of it is, I ain't any too sure I'm not.”
“I'm sure for you then, Steve,” the lad called back, as he loped forward after the girl.
He was so sure, that he began to praise his friend to Arlie, to tell her of what a competent cowman he was, how none of them could make a cut or rope a wild steer like him. She presently wanted to know whether Dick could not find something more interesting to talk about.
He could not help smiling at her downright manner. “You've surely got it in for him, Arlie. I thought you liked him.”
She pulled up her horse, and looked at him. “What made you think that? Did he tell you so?”
Dick fairly shouted. “You do rub it in, girl, when you've got a down on a fellow. No, he didn't tell me. You did.”
“Me?” she protested indignantly. “I never did.”
“Oh, you didn't say so, but I don't need a church to fall on me before I can take a hint. You acted as though you liked him that day you and him came riding into camp.”
“I didn't do any such thing, Dick France. I don't like him at all,” very decidedly.
“All the boys do—all but Jed. I don't reckon he does.”
“Do I have to like him because the boys do?” she demanded.
“O' course not.” Dick stopped, trying to puzzle it out. “He says you ain't to blame, that he lied to you. That seems right strange, too. It ain't like Steve to lie.”
“How do you know so much about him? You haven't known him a week.”
“That's what Jed says. I say it ain't a question of time. Some men I've knew ten years I ain't half so sure of. He's a man from the ground up. Any one could tell that, before they had seen him five minutes.”
Secretly, the girl was greatly pleased. She so wanted to believe that Dick was right. It was what she herself had thought.
“I wish you'd seen him the day he pulled Siegfried out of Lost Creek. Tell you, I thought they were both goners,” Dick continued.
“I expect it was most ankle-deep,” she scoffed. “Hello, we're past Bald Knob!”
“They both came mighty nigh handing in their checks.”
“I didn't know that, though I knew, of course, he was fearless,” Arlie said.
“What's that?” Dick drew in his horse sharply, and looked back.
The sound of a rifle shot echoed from hillside to hillside. Like a streak of light, the girl's pinto flashed past him. He heard her give a sobbing cry of anguish. Then he saw that Steve was slipping very slowly from his saddle.
A second shot rang out. The light was beginning to fail, but he made out a man's figure crouched among the small pines on the shoulder of Bald Knob. Dick jerked out his revolver as he rode back, and fired twice. He was quite out of pistol range, but he wanted the man in ambush to see that help was at hand. He saw Arlie fling herself from her pony in time to support the Texan just as he sank to the ground.
“She'll take care of Steve. It's me for that murderer,” the young man thought.
Acting upon that impulse, he slid from his horse and slipped into the sagebrush of the hillside. By good fortune he was wearing a gray shirt of a shade which melted into that of the underbrush. Night falls swiftly in the mountains, and already dusk was softly spreading itself over the hills.
Dick went up a draw, where young pines huddled together in the trough; and from the upper end of this he emerged upon a steep ridge, eyes and ears alert for the least sign of human presence. A third shot had rung out while he was in the dense mass of foliage of the evergreens, but now silence lay heavy all about him. The gathering darkness blurred detail, so that any one of a dozen bowlders might be a shield for a crouching man.
Once, nerves at a wire edge from the strain on him, he thought he saw a moving figure. Throwing up his gun, he fired quickly. But he must have been mistaken, for, shortly afterward, he heard some one crashing through dead brush at a distance.
“He's on the run, whoever he is. Guess I'll get back to Steve,” decided France wisely.
He found his friend stretched on the ground, with his head in Arlie's lap.
“Is it very bad?” he asked the girl.
“I don't know. There's no light. Whatever shall we do?” she moaned.
“I'm a right smart of a nuisance, ain't I?” drawled the wounded man unexpectedly.
She leaned forward quickly. “Where are you hit?”
“In the shoulder, ma'am.”
“Can you ride, Steve? Do you reckon you could make out the five miles?” Dick asked.
Arlie answered for him. She had felt the inert weight of his heavy body and knew that he was beyond helping himself. “No. Is there no house near? There's Alec Howard's cabin.”
“He's at the round-up, but I guess we had better take Steve there—if we could make out to get him that far.”
The girl took command quietly. “Unsaddle Teddy.”
She had unloosened his shirt and was tying her silk kerchief over the wound, from which blood was coming in little jets.
“We can't carry him,” she decided. “It's too far. We'll have to lift him to the back of the horse, and let him lie there. Steady, Dick. That's right. You must hold him on, while I lead the horse.”
Heavy as he was, they somehow hoisted him, and started. He had fainted again, and hung limply, with his face buried in the mane of the pony. It seemed an age before the cabin loomed, shadow-like, out of the darkness. They found the door unlocked, as usual, and carried him in to the bed.
“Give me your knife, Dick,” Arlie ordered quietly. “And I want water. If that's a towel over there, bring it.”
“Just a moment. I'll strike a light, and we'll see where we're at.”
“No. We'll have to work in the dark. A light might bring them down on us.” She had been cutting the band of the shirt, and now ripped it so as to expose the wounded shoulder.
Dick took a bucket to the creek, and presently returned with it. In his right hand he carried his revolver. When he reached the cabin he gave an audible sigh of relief and quickly locked the door.
“Of course you'll have to go for help, Dick. Bring old Doc Lee.”
“Why, Arlie, I can't leave you here alone. What are you talking about?”
“You'll have to. It's the only thing to do. You'll have to give me your revolver. And, oh, Dick, don't lose a moment on the way.”
He was plainly troubled. “I just can't leave you here alone, girl. What would your father say if anything happened? I don't reckon anything will, but we can't tell. No, I'll stay here, too. Steve must take his chance.”
“You'll not stay.” She flamed round upon him, with the fierce passion of a tigress fighting for her young. “You'll go this minute—this very minute!”
“But don't you see I oughtn't to leave you? Anybody would tell you that,” he pleaded.
“And you call yourself his friend,” she cried, in a low, bitter voice.
“I call myself yours, too,” he made answer doggedly.
“Then go. Go this instant. You'll go, anyway; but if you're my friend, you'll go gladly, and bring help to save us both.”
“I wisht I knew what to do,” he groaned.
Her palms fastened on his shoulders. She was a creature transformed. Such bravery, such feminine ferocity, such a burning passion of the spirit, was altogether outside of his experience of her or any other woman. He could no more resist her than he could fly to the top of Bald Knob.
“I'll go, Arlie.”
“And bring help soon. Get Doc Lee here soon as you can. Leave word for armed men to follow. Don't wait for them.”
“No.”
“Take his Teddy horse. It can cover ground faster than yours.”
“Yes.”
With plain misgivings, he left her, and presently she heard the sound of his galloping horse. It seemed to her for a moment as if she must call him back, but she strangled the cry in her throat. She locked the door and bolted it, then turned back to the bed, upon which the wounded man was beginning to moan in his delirium.