"Two of 'em in sight, Telescope," said Loudon. "See any?"
"Me, no. What dey do, dem two?"
"They're crossin' the draw. Now they're climbin' up. They think we're still where we was. Hope they come right along."
The two riders galloped toward the boulders. Loudon and Laguerre, flattening their bodies, squeezed close to the rock. When the galloping pair were three quarters of a mile distant they halted.
"They don't just like the looks o' these rocks," observed Loudon. "Well, they give us credit o' havin' sense, anyway."
The two horsemen began to circle. Loudon settled himself and squinted along his sights. His finger dragged on the trigger. It was a long shot, and he missed. The two men immediately separated. One rode back over the way they had come. The other galloped out a mile and a half, then turned and rode parallel to the draw. Opposite the rear of the breastwork he halted.
"How they do think of everythin'," remarked Loudon. "But if they guess we can't get away to-night they can guess again. I dunno what we'll do with Marvin. Yo're puttin' us to a heap o' trouble, you are, Mister Range-Boss. Say, while I think of it, have yuh branded anymore Crossed Dumbbell cows?"
Marvin was silent. The mocking voice continued:
"That was shore well thought of, Marvin, but yuh was whirlin' too wide a loop. Instead o' tryin' to make me out a rustler yuh'd ought to 'a' shot me in the back like yuh did the Sheriff o' Sunset."
"I didn't kill him," grunted the stung Marvin.
"I know yuh didn't. When I said you I meant yore outfit. Shorty Simms pulled the trigger."
"Nothin' to do with me."
"Maybe not. We'll see."
"Yuh can't prove nothin'."
"Keep on a-thinkin' so if it helps yuh any. Yuh'd ought to know, Marvin, that in any gang o' thieves there's always one squealer, sometimes two. In this case, one's enough, but we don't object to another."
"Oh, ——!" grunted Marvin. "Yuh give me a pain."
"I expect. Yuh see, Marvin, a while back yuh accused Rudd o' sellin' yuh out. Them words have a right innocent sound, ain't they now? Shore they have. Why, yuh blind fool, do yuh s'pose we'd be a-freezin' to yuh this way if we didn't have yuh dead to rights?"
Marvin lay very still. He almost appeared not to breathe.
"Yuh ain't got out o' this hole yet," he muttered.
"We will, don't yuh worry none about that. An' we'll take yuh with us—wherever we go. Think it all over, Marvin. I may have something' to say to yuh later."
Crack! A rifle spoke on the opposite ridge, and a bullet glanced off Loudon's boulder with a discordant whistle.Crack!Crack!Crack! Long 45-90 bullets struck the breast-work with sharp splintering sounds, or ripped overhead, humming shrilly.
"Let's work the old game on 'em," suggested Loudon. "There's room for two my side."
Laguerre crawled over and lay down beside Loudon. The latter had aligned several large rocks beside his boulder. Between these rocks the two thrust the barrels of their rifles. One would fire. On the heels of the shot an opposing rifle would spit back. Then the other would fire into the gray of the smoke-cloud.
It is an old trick, well known to the Indian fighters. Loudon and Laguerre employed it for half an hour. Then the enemy bethought themselves of it, and Laguerre returned to the other end of the breastwork with a hole in his hat and his vest neatly ripped down the back.
The five deputies kept up a dropping fire. But the two behind the breastwork replied infrequently. Ammunition must be conserved. They anticipated brisk work after nightfall. They waited, vigorously chewing pebbles, and becoming thirstier by the minute. The boulders radiated heat like ovens.
The afternoon lengthened. It was nearing five o'clock when Loudon suddenly raised his head.
"Where was that rifle?" he inquired, sharply.
"Ovair yondair—not on de ridge," replied Laguerre.
"That's what I thought. Maybe—there she goes again. Two of 'em."
The rifles on the ridge snarled angrily. But no bullets struck the breastwork. The barking of the deputies' rifles became irregular, drifted southward, then ceased altogether. A few minutes later five horsemen and a led horse crossed the draw a mile to the south.
"Two of 'em hit bad," declared Loudon.
"Yuh bet yuh," said Laguerre. "See dat! One of 'em tumble off."
"They're gettin' him aboard again. Takin' our hosses along, the skunks! There goes our friend out yonder."
The man who had been watching the rear of the breast-work galloped to meet his friends. Five minutes later they all disappeared behind one of the western hills.
"Hey, you fellers!" bawled a voice from the shelter of the ridge across the valley. "Where are yuh, anyway?"
"That's Red Kane," laughed Loudon, and stood up. "Here we are!" he yelled. "C'mon over! We're all right. Not a scratch!"
Red Kane and Hockling, leading three horses, appeared on the crest of the ridge.
"Found him hid right pretty in a gully," said Hockling, indicating the extra horse.
"Yore hoss, Marvin?" queried Loudon.
Marvin nodded surlily. He had had his share of the water in the rescuers' canteens, but he was no happier.
"It's shore providential, yore happenin' down this way," said Loudon. "We'll do as much for you some day."
"Yo're welcome, but it ain't none providential, Tom," denied Hockling. "Me an' Red was fixin' the corral fence at the camp when up come Kate Saltoun on the jump an' says how yuh was standin' off six men opposite Box Hill. 'It's them deputies!' shouts Red, an' ropes a hoss immediate. Well, we come along, the three of us, an' that's all. It was long range, but I think I drilled one deputy. Red creased one, too."
"Yuh bet I did!" cried Red Kane. "I seen his arm flop when I fired."
"What's that about the three o' yuh comin' along?" said Loudon.
"Why, Kate, she was with us. She changed her saddle to one of our fresh hosses. She wouldn't quit nohow till she heard yuh say yuh was all right. Then she started off home. Funny, she was ridin' a 88 pony when she struck the line-camp."
"That's odd, but it don't matter none. I'll—I'll see Kate later."
"Shore," said Hockling, wondering at the lack of warmth in Loudon's tone. But Western etiquette forbids the questioning of another's motives.
"Say," remarked Red, hastening to break the awkward silence, "say, won't Block feel happy when he finds we've done ventilated his deputies?"
"Yeah," replied Loudon, "an' the funny part of it is, they ain't got no right to arrest me. That warrant has been pulled in."
"Yuh shore forgot to mention that last night," Hockling said, disgustedly. "Here Red an' me have been pattin' ourselves on the back for runnin' a blazer on the law. An' now, come to find out, them deputies was in the wrong, an' so we only give 'em what was comin' to 'em, anyway."
"Well, you've got a nerve, you have!" exclaimed the indignant Loudon. "Do yuh think I'm goin' round dodgin' warrants so you two jiggers can run blazers on the sheriff?"
He made a swift movement.
"Leggo my legs!" yelled Hockling. "I got on my new pants, an' I don't want the seat tore out! Hey, yuh idjit! Leggo!"
When order was restored and Hockling was tenderly feeling his precious trousers, Loudon suggested that Red, the lightest man, take Marvin's fresh pony and ride to the line-camp for food and two horses.
"Yuh'll have yore work cut out," said Red as he mounted, "to ride them ponies bareback. We ain't even got a extra bridle."
"Don't worry none," Loudon said. "We'll make bridles an' Injun surcingles out o' Marvin's rope, an' we'll toss for his saddle."
"How you feel, Tom?" inquired Laguerre, stretched at ease on a cot in the Cross-in-a-box ranch house.
"Whittled to the chin," replied Loudon. "Which that pony's ridgepole could give odds to a knife-blade on bein' sharp. We might 'a' knowed Marvin would win the toss. His own saddle, too."
"Eet ees de las' piece o' luck she weel have for varree long tam."
"I ain't so shore about that. There's no real evidence to show that Marvin's a rustler. 'Ceptin' Rudd, yuh can't connect any of the 88 outfit with the hoss stealin'. I know they done it. I always knowed Sam Blakely was at the bottom of it, an' I can't prove it yet. Here's you an' I rode from hell to breakfast an' back, an' all we've got to show for it is Archer an' the Maxson boys—an' the hosses, o' course. Unless I find out somethin' more soon an' sudden, I've got to take off Marvin's hobbles. My bluff about Bill Archer's blabbin' ain't workin' with Marvin. He's worried, an' he shows it, but he's standin' pat. I spent a solid hour with him to-night, an' all he does is cuss an' beef about what'll happen when Blakely finds out his range-boss has been kidnapped. It makes me sick!"
Laguerre nodded sympathetically.
"Yuh can't tell me," continued Loudon, "that them Marysville sports was the only ones in the hoss-stealin' deal. If they was, then why was Pete O'Leary expectin' Sam Blakely the day I struck the Bend, an' why was Rufe Cutting planted in the cook's job at the Flyin' M? It all points—so far. An' the rustlin' o' the Bar S an' Cross-in-a-box cattle—there's another mystery. Oh, it's a great life, this here detective business!"
"Tell you w'at, Tom," Laguerre suggested, hopefully, "you un me, huh, we weel bushwhack dees Blak'lee feller. W'at you say?"
"Can't be did, Telescope. We've got to get him the right way, so the folks o' Sunset an' Fort Creek'll know just why he went. That goes for his outfit an' Block an' his deputies, too. They're all in it up to their belts. They've made Fort Creek County what it is—a place where a straight gent has to watch himself an' what's around him all the time. Shorty Simms killed the Sheriff o' Sunset, but Blakely an' the 88 made the killin' possible. Oh, what's the use? I'm goin' to sleep."
But Loudon did not go to sleep at once. He had too much on his mind. From Blakely and the 88 his perplexed thoughts shifted to Kate Saltoun and the sinful ease with which she had made a fool of him; he had trusted her, and she had betrayed him. The daughter of a ranchman, she had flouted the law of the range. Given the thief money, too. It was almost incredible.
Idiot that he was, to believe for an instant that she loved him! Knowing her of old, it served him right, he told himself. He thanked Heaven that he did not love her, had not loved her since that day in the Bar S kitchen.
Quite naturally then, since he was so absolutely sure of himself and his emotions, he wondered how Rudd had had the luck to save Kate's life. He wished that it had been himself, in order that he might have made some small return for services rendered.
She had done a great deal for him at the Bend. She had simplified a most complex situation by bringing to his assistance Hockling and Red Kane. He undoubtedly owed a lot to Kate. Nevertheless, he assured himself that her conduct in the matter of Rudd's escape had squared the account. Of course it had. And he was glad of it. For, under the circumstances, he would never have to see her again. The Spinning Sister heard, and smiled—and Loudon fell asleep.
"Hey, Tom! Wake up!"
It was Jack Richie's voice that shouted, and it was Jack Richie's hand that shook Loudon awake.
"Whatsa matter?" Loudon opened sleepy eyes.
"Yore hoss is outside. Yore hoss, Ranger, an'——"
Jack Richie was almost overset by the blanket-shedding cyclone that whirled out of bed and through the doorway. In front of the ranch house stood Ranger, surrounded by Richie's amazed and conjecturing cowboys. The horse raised his wise head, cocked his ears, and nickered softly at Loudon's approach.
"It's him," grinned Loudon. "It's the little hoss. Well, fellah, you old tiger-eye!"
He rubbed the white spot on Ranger's nose. The horse nipped his fingers with soft lips.
"Found him tied to the post out back o' the wagon shed," volunteered the cook. "I thought I was seein' things."
"Funny he didn't whinner," said Loudon.
"There was a flour-sack over his head," explained the cook. "Here it is."
"That don't tell me nothin'," Loudon said. "Everybody uses Triple X. An' that hackamore could be just anybody's, too. Whoever brought him shore walked in the water."
"It ain't likely possible now," observed Jack Richie, "that Rufe Cutting could 'a' got religion or somethin'."
"It's possible, but it ain't likely," said Loudon. "Well, fellah, c'mon an' get yuh a drink, an' then for the big feed. Yo're gone off a good forty pounds since yuh quit me."
Later, Loudon, in company with Laguerre, visited the post where Ranger had been tied. Laguerre closely scrutinized the ground in the vicinity.
"Hoss she been tied up six-seven hour," observed Laguerre.
"It's 'bout half-past five now. That makes it ten or eleven when he was brought in."
"'Bout dat. Feller lead heem een. Hard to read de sign on de grass, but eet look lak de feller not walk good een hees boot—dey too beeg, mabbeso. Come 'long. We weel see w'ere feller she leave hees hoss."
They followed the trail a hundred yards, and then Laguerre knelt down, his eyes searching the grass. He picked up a small stone and held it up. The stone was sharp-cornered. It was stained a dark red.
"Feller she treep un fall on hees han's un knees," explained Laguerre. "Lef han' heet de leetle rock, un geet cut some. Han' bleed on eet."
Laguerre rose, tossed away the stone, and proceeded to follow the trail. He led the way to a tall pine some three hundred yards distant from the ranch house. Even Loudon's unpractised eyes told him that a horse had stood beneath the pine.
"Here feller she climb een de saddle un go 'way," said Laguerre. "No use follow de trail any more."
They returned to the ranch house, Loudon wondering greatly as to the identity of the mysterious philanthropist. In Cow Land a stolen horse is not returned except under compulsion. While they were at dinner the cook stuck his head through the doorway.
"Bunch o' riders a-comin' from the north," he announced, "an' they're a-comin' some swift."
"Scotty!" exclaimed Loudon, and ran to the window.
"It may be the sheriff," said Jack Richie, hastening to provide himself with a Winchester.
"It's Scotty," Loudon said. "I can tell him a mile off. He's wearin' the same shirt, red sleeve an' all."
The horsemen, some thirty men, rode up at an easy lope. Besides Scotty, Loudon recognized Doubleday, Johnny Ramsay, Chuck Morgan, Swing Tunstall, Giant Morton, Ragsdale, and many others.
"He's brought the whole ranch an' half the Bend," chuckled Loudon, and then swore gently, because he suddenly remembered that there was no evidence against Blakely.
With thirty men the 88 could be shown the error of its ways most effectually. And now the thirty could not be used. What a waste of good material!
The band of horsemen, bawling greetings to the group in the doorway, jingled to a halt. Loudon stepped forward and shook Scotty's proffered hand.
"Yuh've sure done fine," said Scotty. "Yuh've filled out just what I said 'bout opportunity with a big O. I ain't forgettin' it, neither. Besides Rudd now, did yuh run across anythin' touchin' Sam Blakely?"
"Not a thing," Loudon replied, "an it's no use a-goin' out to the 88 lookin' for Rudd. He's sloped. My fault he got away, too."
"That's tough, but it don't matter a heap. Yuh found the hosses an' three o' the thieves, anyway."
"Yeah, but they ain't enough. We'd ought to get 'em all, an' as far's I can see there ain't no chance o' gettin' 'em all."
"Don't yuh care. What yuh've done suits me. I'm satisfied."
"I ain't," said Loudon, "but I s'pose I've got to be. It makes me sick! Lot o' work gone for nothin'. We grabbed the 88 range-boss on the off-chance he'd chatter, but he won't say a word. He's tied up in Jack Richie's storeroom right now."
"Blakely's range-boss, huh? Well, yuh can't hang him without proof, Tom."
"I know that. Got to turn him loose, o' course. Did yuh see anythin' o' Block or Blakely or that gang when yuh come through Farewell?"
"We didn't strike Farewell. We rode here the shortest way. Why—what's the matter?"
For Loudon had ripped out an amazed oath.
"Yore rope!" exclaimed Loudon. "Where did yuh get that rope?"
"Oh, Doubleday found it down by the little corral the mornin' after him an' the boys rode in from the Bend—after them hosses was stole."
"Why didn't yuh tell me about it then? That rope was all I needed. Say, Johnny, djever see this rope before?"
Loudon held up the end of the rope. The holdfast was missing, and the end had been lapped with many turns of whip-cord. Johnny squinted at the rope's end. Jack Richie and the others crowded in.
"Yeah," said Johnny Ramsay, "now I think of it, you an' me was in Mike Flynn's store in Farewell when Sam Blakely bought him that rope with the whip-cord on the end. That was the day you bought a green necktie. Shore, I remember. Blakely he asked Mike what that whip-cord was, an' Mike called it whippin'."
"That's what he did," declared Loudon. "I noticed this whippin' jigger special, an' I can swear to it on a stack o' Bibles a mile high. It's the same rope all right enough."
Scotty observed that he would be consigned to everlasting damnation. Ropes, he had supposed, were all alike.
"I knowed that rope must 'a' belonged to one o' the rustlers," said Scotty, "but it was such a little thing that I'd forgot all about it by the time you got back to the ranch, Tom. Blakely's rope! It's shore amazin'."
"It sort o' settles the cat-hop, don't it?" said Loudon.
"Kind o'," Scotty said, his frosty blue eyes gleaming. "We'll wander over to the 88 right away. I guess now we'll leave Marvin tied up yet awhile. We'll attend to him later. Can yuh give us fresh hosses, Jack?"
"Can I?" exclaimed Jack Richie. "Watch me. I guess me an' a few o' the boys will ride along with yuh. Just to see fair play like."
"Say, Scotty," Loudon said, while the fresh horses were being roped, "I hope Pete O'Leary didn't see you an' the bunch leavin' the Bend."
"He didn't," replied Scotty. "O'Leary ain't with us no more—No, not that way. He's alive yet so far as I know. But he pulled his freight some sudden 'bout two weeks ago. Dunno why."
"Maybe we'll see his smilin' face again pretty soon," Loudon observed, significantly.
"Then here's hopin' it'll be in bad company," said Scotty Mackenzie.
An hour later the band, now numbering forty-two men, started for the 88 ranch. They rode northwest, intending to pass through Farewell, for it was quite possible that Brown Jug and the gray had been taken into town.
As they neared the town a rattle of shots came down the wind. With one accord the forty-two drove the spurs into their mounts.
At the top of the slight rise above the little town they halted. The windows of Bill Lainey's hotel and Piney Jackson's blacksmith shop were banked in drifting smoke through which red tongues of flame flashed at intervals. From the cover of boulders, wagon-bodies, the hotel corral, and the Happy Heart Saloon, rule-working citizens were pouring lead into the two places. Farther up the street several Winchesters in the Blue Pigeon Store were replying to the fire from the opposite houses and from a barn in the rear of the store.
"Sheriff Block an' his outfit are lockin' horns with some friends o' mine, I guess," observed Loudon.
"That ain't no way for a sheriff to act," said Scotty. "Let's go down an' tell him so. Friends o' Tom's, boys."
Loudon was already galloping down the slope. In his wake scattered hoof-beats became a thuttering drum. Men whooping and yelling, wild-eyed horses straining every muscle, the charge swept down upon the besiegers of Lainey's Hotel and Jackson's blacksmith shop.
The sheriff's friends broke like a covey of quail. The rifles in the hotel and blacksmith shop chattered like mad. Loudon headed toward the hotel corral to whose shelter two men had retreated. But there was no one there when he reached it.
He rode past the corral and galloped along the rear of the buildings fronting on the street. Twice he was shot at, one bullet nicking his horse's hip. But he contrived to reach the other end of the town unwounded, raced across the street, and dismounted behind the sheriff's corral. His feet had barely touched the ground when Johnny Ramsay, Laguerre, and Chuck Morgan joined him.
"Yuh idjit!" cried Johnny. "Don't yuh know no better'n that? Don't yuh suppose they can hit yuh at twenty yards? Yuh wasn't that far away from the backs of them houses. Ain't yuh got no sense at all?"
"Well, they didn't hit me, an' I notice three other idjits didn't have no better sense. Duck!"
Loudon jerked Johnny down just as a bullet gashed the side of a post above his head. Johnny ceased talking and ran hurriedly to where Chuck Morgan was kneeling behind a corner of the corral. Loudon joined Laguerre at the other corner.
The four were in an excellent position. The corral commanded the rear and one side of the sheriff's shack, the rear of the Happy Heart Saloon, and one side of the barn in the rear of the Blue Pigeon Store.
A man ran out of the barn. Laguerre's rifle cracked. The man stumbled, dropped, dragged himself to his hands and knees, and then huddled down slackly. Laguerre pumped in another cartridge. The staccato din at the other end of town was increasing. The heavy roars of several buffalo guns punctuated the steady crackling of the Winchesters' whip-like reports. Loudon smiled a slow smile and cuddled his rifle-butt against his shoulder. The world was coming his way at last.
"That sheriff wouldn't 'a' built his corral so solid," observed Loudon, "if he'd looked ahead."
"You bet he wouldn'," said Laguerre. "Dees log ees fine. No bullet come troo dem. Bimeby we geet Meestair Block, mebbeso."
"He may be down in the Happy Heart. There ain't been a shot from the shack yet. He's in town all right though. His hoss and seven others are in the corral"—Loudon peered through a crack in the logs—"I can't see the brands. They're turned the wrong way."
"Dere ees a lot o' pony een dat corral down dere," said Laguerre.
"That's behind the Happy Heart Saloon. Lord help 'em if they try to slide out on 'em."
Zing-g-g! A bullet ricochetted from a near-by boulder and hummed above Loudon's hat.
"That came from the barn," said Loudon, firing at a gray smoke-cloud high up on the side of the structure. "They've knocked a hole in a board, I guess. Yep"—as the thinning smoke revealed a black opening—"they have."
Shooting carefully and without haste, Loudon and Laguerre rendered firing from that hole in the barn a case of suicide. From their corner Johnny Ramsay and Chuck Morgan alternately drove questing bullets into the barn and the rear of the Happy Heart Saloon.
The firing from the barn slackened. That from the Happy Heart redoubled in vigour. The glass window-sashes began to fall in tinkling rain on the ground.
"The boys must 'a' gotten into the houses across the street," said Loudon. "They're a-firin' right through the saloon."
"She weel be dark een two hour," Laguerre remarked, irrelevantly.
"I know it. We'll have to finish up before then or they'll getaway. Plug any, Johnny?"
"One," was the laconic reply of that expert with a rifle.
"He didn't, neither!" denied Chuck Morgan. "I got him. Johnny was loadin' his rifle at the time the feller cashed. Johnny couldn't hit a flock o' barn doors flyin' low—not with his rifle."
"Oh, couldn't I, huh?" yapped Johnny Ramsay. "Well, if I hadn't 'a' got him you'd be a-lyin' there right quiet an' peaceful with yore hat over yore face. I hit what I aim at. I ain't been shootin' holes in boards like some people."
At this juncture the door of the Happy Heart opened a crack, and Johnny and Chuck forgot their argument at once. The door closed abruptly, the wood near the knob gashed and scarred by several bullets.
"This is gettin' monotonous," said Loudon. "I thought there'd be action this side an' there ain't a bit. The barn has gone to sleep. I'm goin' into the sheriff's shack. I'll bet it's empty."
"Dey geet you from the barn, mabbeso," Laguerre suggested.
"No, they won't—not if yuh keep 'em away from that hole."
Loudon laid his rifle down, pulled his hat firmly over his ears, and raced toward the shack, jerking out his revolvers as he ran. He reached the door of the shack without a shot having been fired at him.
Fully aware that death might be awaiting his entry, he drove his shoulder against the door and burst it open. He sprang across the doorsill and halted, balancing on the balls of his feet.
Save for the loud ticking of an alarm clock there was no sound in the shack. The door of the front room stood open. Through the doorway Loudon glimpsed a broken chair, and beside it, where the floor sagged, a pool of blood. Loudon walked into the front room.
His eyes beheld a scene of the wildest disorder. There had been a fierce fight in that front room. On his back on the floor, his legs under the table, lay Sheriff Block, his black beard reddened with blood from a wound in the cheek. One hand gripped the butt of a six-shooter and the other clutched the breast of his flannel shirt. There were two bullet-holes in the sheriff's chest.
Across the base of the closed front door lay the body of Rufe Cutting. He had been literally cut to pieces. Only his face was unmarked. Otherwise he was a ghastly object. From beneath his body oozy runlets of blood had centred in the pool beside the chair.
Propped up against the side wall, his legs outstretched, sat a stranger. Blood spotted and stained the floor about him. He had been shot in the legs and the chest. Across his knees lay a Winchester. Beside him a long knife, red from hilt to point, was stuck upright in the floor. The stranger's chin was on his breast, a bloody froth flecked his lips. So positive was Loudon that the stranger was dead, that, when the man jerked his head upright, he jumped a full yard backward. Weakly the wounded man plucked at his Winchester, his dull eyes fixed on Loudon. The latter ran to his side.
"It's all right, stranger," cried Loudon, "I'm a friend."
At this assurance the stranger ceased in his effort to raise his rifle.
"Water," he muttered, faintly, "water."
In a corner stood a bucket and a tin dipper. Loudon scooped up a dipperful and held it to the man's lips. He drank chokingly, and half the water spilled out on his shirt.
"Stranger," muttered the wounded man, "I'm goin' away from here in a hurry. Pull off my boots, will yuh?"
Loudon complied with the request. The removal of the boots must have cruelly hurt the wounded legs, but the man did not even groan.
"That's better," muttered the man, when the boots were off. "I was hopin' I wouldn't have to cash with 'em on. Who's yore friend?"
Loudon whirled, for his nerves were on edge, and Laguerre, who had entered without a sound, only saved himself from death by a cat-like leap to one side. As it was, Loudon's bullet missed him by the veriest fraction of an inch. Loudon shamefacedly holstered his weapon.
"My fault," said Laguerre, calmly. "Nex' time eet ees bes' I speak firs', yes. Who ees de man?"
"I dunno. Who are yuh, stranger?"
"Did yuh kill him?" queried the stranger, his eyes beginning to film over.
"No, he's a friend, too. Can't yuh tell yore name?"
"I'm Tom Hallaway," was the thickly uttered response. "Rufe Cutting killed my brother Jim an' stole his pinto hoss. Block was with Cutting, an' helped him. I got 'em both. I said I'd cut Rufe's heart out—an' I sure—done it. Gimme a—drink."
But before the water came Tom Hallaway's head fell forward, and he died.
"Look here," said Laguerre, who had looked out of the window opposite Tom Hallaway.
Loudon went to the window. Beneath it two dead men were sprawled. Their stiffened fingers clutched six-shooters.
"They drilled him through the window," said Loudon, "an' he got 'em both."
Laguerre nodded solemnly.
"Brave man, dat Tom Hallaway," said Telescope Laguerre.
The window through which Tom Hallaway had been shot faced the open country. The other two windows in the room flanked the front door. The thoughtful Laguerre had brought Loudon's rifle in with him, and the two men squatted down behind the windows. Their view of Main Street was excellent. They could see almost the whole width of the street from one end of the town to the other.
Far down the street the windows of Lainey's Hotel were smoking like the gunports of an old-time line-o'-battle-ship. The men in the hotel seemed to be devoting all their attention to the Happy Heart and the houses between it and Piney Jackson's blacksmith shop.
Directly opposite the Happy Heart was a small store from which three or four men were directing a heavy fire at the saloon. Next to the store were four empty corrals, and then came some twenty houses, the twentieth opposite the sheriff's shack. Of these houses all save the three nearest the corrals were silent. The folk in these three were carrying on a duel: with the defenders of the Blue Pigeon Store, whose fire had slackened somewhat.
"I hope they haven't got Mike," said Loudon, and drove a bullet close above a window-sill of the middle house of the three. "He's a good fellah." Another bullet nicked the window-sill. "This can't go on forever." Again a bullet shaved the window-sill. "Somethin's going' to pop some soon."
Something did pop. The firing from the Happy Heart culminated in a terrific volley, and then ceased abruptly.
"That's funny," commented Loudon. "It can't—— They're sliding out!"
Which latter remark was called forth by a sudden outburst of firing from the corral where Johnny and Chuck were stationed. Loudon and Laguerre ran out the back way. The former's surmise was correct.
The Happy Heart defenders had broken cover and reached the big corral behind the saloon. Four of them were down in front of the corral gate. They would never pull trigger again. But the others, in number a score or more, had reached their horses and were pouring out of the gate in the far side of the corral.
Loudon perceived that the two riders in the lead were mounted on Brown Jug and the gray. These two kept together. The remaining fugitives wisely fled separately and in many directions.
Loudon and Laguerre did not fire. The range was a long six hundred yards; too long for accurate shooting when the target is astride a racing horse. Imbued with the same idea they ran to their horses, flipped the reins over their heads, and jammed their Winchesters into the scabbards. Both ponies were galloping at full speed when the two were settled in their saddles.
"We can not catch dem!" cried Laguerre ten minutes later.
"We'll try, anyhow," replied Loudon, standing up in the stirrups to ease his horse, and wishing that he had ridden Ranger.
Half an hour later it became obvious that pursuit was useless. Brown Jug and the gray had the legs of the pursuer's horses. The sun was setting, too. Loudon and Laguerre pulled in their panting mounts.
"Here comes Johnny an' Chuck," said Loudon.
"Could yuh tell who they was?" demanded Johnny, breathlessly.
"They kept their backs to us," Loudon replied, drily, "an' they didn't leave any cards."
"Ain't got no manners at all," said Johnny Ramsay. "They're headin' northwest, an' they shore ought to get there. C'mon back, I'm dry."
"They was seven 88 ponies in Block's corral," said Chuck Morgan. "Let's hurry. Maybe we can get the owners yet."
"If they ain't already been got," said Johnny Ramsay.
"Seven 88 ponies," repeated Loudon. "I seen 'em in the corral, but I couldn't see the brand. Seven. That means seven o' the outfit was in Farewell, an' more'n seven, maybe. I don't believe Blakely was there. He's been mighty cautious lately. Well, anyhow, countin' seven at Farewell, there'd ought to be eight more at the four line-camps. Rudd's quit, an' Marvin is hogtied, an' Shorty Simms is dead. Accordin' to my figurin', that makes eighteen."
"Yo're well educated, Mr. Loudon," said Johnny Ramsay.
"Correct. Well, then, unless Blakely has hired a bunch o' new men, which ain't likely, then eighteen from twenty-five leaves seven."
"First class in 'rithmetic will take the front seats," remarked Chuck, solemnly. "The little boys mustn't sit with the little girls. Attention, children, an' I'll interduce our new teacher, Mr. Thomas Loudon, a well-known—— Hi! you leave my cayuse alone, Tom! I'm the only gent he allows to spur him. Damitall, he's goin' to buck, an' I'm all het up, anyhow. Oh, ——! I knowed it!"
"Chuck ought to ride pitchers for a livin'," commented Loudon. "Ain't he graceful? Go yuh ten, Telescope, he pulls leather."
Chuck returned to them ten minutes later. He sidled his now thoroughly chastened pony in between Ramsay and Laguerre.
"I'll have nothin' more to do with that long-legged feller on the left o' the line," Chuck announced to the world at large. "He'd just as soon break a friend's neck as not. He ain't got no feelin's whatever. 'Rithmetic's done locoed him."
"As I was sayin' before I was interrupted," said Loudon, grinning, "eighteen from twenty-five leaves seven. There oughtn't to be more'n seven men at the 88 ranch house an' they won't be expectin' callers. There's four of us. What's the answer?"
"Dat ees fine," Laguerre said. "We weel geet dere before Scotty un de odders come. I say we go."
"Me, too," said Johnny Ramsay.
"But no more 'rithmetic!" Chuck Morgan cried in mock alarm. "It shore makes my head ache, 'rithmetic does."
They swung away from Farewell and entered a long draw, dark with the purple shadows of the twilight.
"Wasn't there nobody at all in Block's shack?" queried Johnny Ramsay, rolling a cigarette one-handed.
"Three," replied Loudon.
"Huh!" Johnny Ramsay was startled.
"Two was dead an' the third was dyin'," explained Loudon. "He cashed before we come out. His name was Tom Hallaway. You remember about Cutting stealin' my hoss. Well, him an' Block turned up in Rocket, an' Cutting was ridin' a blaze-face pinto. Come to find out, the pinto belonged to a fellah named Jim Hallaway, an' Jim was found murdered. The way I figure it: Cutting knowed better'n to ride in on my hoss, so he killed Jim an' took his pony, leavin' my hoss back in the hills some'ers. Later he went back after Ranger, an' sloped with the pair.
"This Tom Hallaway was Jim's brother. The two dead men in the shack was the sheriff an' Cutting. Yeah, Rufe Cutting. It'd been better for him if he'd gone south like the sheriff said he did. Rufe was carved up tremendous, an' Block had been plugged three times. Hallaway got 'em both. Two o' the Farewell boys got him though—through the window. But they didn't live long enough to tell about it. He got them plumb centre. Yep, four was Hallaway's tally. He shore paid 'em in full for killin' Jim."
"Which I should say as much," murmured Chuck Morgan, admiringly. "He was some man!"
"An' he had to die," said Loudon. "All on account o' them measly skunks. Well, by the time Scotty an' that crowd get through with Farewell a Sunday-school won't be in it with the town."
"Yo're whistlin'," said Johnny Ramsay.
The four pushed their mounts almost to the limit of their strength. At three in the morning they dismounted in a grove of singing pines. The 88 ranch buildings were a bare quarter-mile distant.
They tied their horses and went forward on foot. Their plan was to enter the ranch house and take Blakely prisoner while he slept. It was a sufficiently foolhardy proceeding, for Blakely was known to be a light sleeper. And there might be more than seven men in the bunkhouse. If the scheme miscarried, and Blakely should give the alarm—— But the four men wasted little thought on that contingency.
Silently they approached the dark blots that were the ranch buildings. Foot by foot they edged along between the two corrals.
At the blacksmith shop they halted. To the right, and fifty or sixty yards away, was the bunkhouse. In front of them stretched the square shape of the ranch house. Loudon sat down and pulled off his boots. The others followed his example.
"I'm goin' down to the bunkhouse first," Loudon whispered. "I can tell by the snores, maybe, how many we've got to count in."
Loudon slid silently toward the bunkhouse. In ten minutes he was back.
"Not a snore," he whispered. "I listened at each window. There ain't a sound in that bunkhouse. If the boys are gone, then Blakely's gone. There's only one window open in the ranch house. I didn't hear nothin' there, either."
Leaving Johnny on guard at the back door, Loudon and the others tiptoed around the ranch house. They leaned their rifles against the wall beside the door and Loudon laid his hand on the latch. Slowly he lifted the latch and slowly, very slowly, so that it would not creak, he pushed the door open. Once inside they halted, nerves a-stretch, and ears straining to catch the slightest sound. But there was no sound.
Loudon knew that there were three rooms, an office, and a wide hall in the ranch house, but where Blakely was in the habit of sleeping he did not know. While Laguerre and Chuck Morgan remained in the hall, Loudon felt his way from room to room.
Still hearing no sound he grew bolder and struck a match. He found himself in the office. In company with the others he visited every room in turn. Each was empty. In one room the flickering matchlight revealed a bed. The blankets were tumbled. An alarm clock hanging on a nail above the bed had stopped at half-past two.
"Blakely left yesterday, all right," said Loudon. "It takes a day an' a half for them clocks to run down. Guess he must 'a' been at Farewell after all."
"Maybe some o'the boys got him," Chuck said, hopefully.
"No such luck."
The match went out, and Loudon scratched another, intending to light a lamp.
"Put out that light!" came in a hoarse whisper from the back door. "Somebody's a-comin'."
Loudon crushed the match between his fingers and hurried to the back door. Laguerre and Chuck crowded against him.
"Listen!" commanded Johnny Ramsay.
"Sounds like two horses," said Loudon.
"Comin' the way we come," growled Loudon.
The hoof-beats, at first a mere ripple of distant sound, grew louder rapidly.
"If they're comin' here, they'll come in the ranch house, shore," said Loudon. "They're only two, so they must be a couple o' the 88. We'll take 'em alive. Telescope, you an' Chuck take this door, an' Johnny an' I'll take the front. If they come yore way bend yore guns over their heads. Don't shoot till yuh know who they are for shore. It's just possible they may be friends."
Loudon and Johnny Ramsay ran through the hall, brought in the rifles, and closed the front door. Side by side they waited. The door was poorly hung. Through the cracks they could hear quite plainly the drum of the galloping horses' feet. Suddenly a horse neighed shrilly.
"Our hosses in the grove!" breathed Loudon. "I forgot 'em, an'——"
But the approaching horsemen did not halt. As they came closer Loudon heard one call to the other and the latter make a reply, but the words were unintelligible. They were still talking when they pulled up in front of the ranch-house door.
"I tell yuh I don't like that whinnerin'!" one man was insisting, angrily. "Maybe, now——"
"Gittin' scared, huh!" sneered the other. "It's just some o' our hosses strayed. They often go over in that bunch o' pines. You take the hosses down to the corral, Pete, an' change the saddles, an' I'll rustle us some grub an' the cartridges. Skip now!"
The speaker lifted the door latch. The door crashed open. A boot scuffed the doorsill. The heavy barrel of Loudon's six-shooter smashed down across hat and hair with a crunch.
Even as the man dropped, Loudon, taking no chances, flung his arms around the falling body and went down with it. Johnny Ramsay, drawing his own conclusions as to the friendliness of the man with the horses, sprang through the doorway, his six-shooter spitting. In mid-leap he checked and fell flat, his six-shooter flying from his hand. He was up in an instant and feeling about for his gun. Panting and swearing, for in his ears was the tuckle-tuck-tuckle-tuck of a furiously ridden horse, he found his six-shooter at last.
"Deed you heet heem?" called Laguerre from the doorway.
"I did not," replied Johnny. "Leastwise he didn't wait to tell me. If I hadn't tripped over somebody's feet an' lost my gun in the shuffle, I'd have got him all right. He wasn't five yards away. By the time I got hold o' the gun he was over the hills an' far away, so far as hittin' him was concerned. He left the other sport's hoss, though."
Johnny went up to the horse, a big light-coloured animal, and flung its dragging rein over a post near the door. The horse stood quietly, legs spread, breathing heavily.
"Hey!" bawled Loudon. "Somebody gimme a match! I can't find mine, an' I want to look at Blakely!"
"So eet ees Blakely," said Laguerre. "I deed not know."
"Shore," Loudon said, "I knowed both voices instanter. The other party was that Paradise Bender named Pete O'Leary. Ain't anybody got a match?"
Johnny Ramsay pulled a match out of his hat-band and scratched it. He held the flame above the face of the unconscious man on the floor.
"It's Blakely. No mistake about that," said Loudon in a tone of great satisfaction.
A guttural exclamation from Laguerre drew Loudon's eyes to the half-breed. Laguerre was bending forward, his eyes fixed in a terrible glare on the face of Blakely. Laguerre's lips writhed open. His teeth were bared to the gum. His countenance was a mask of relentless hate.
"Pony George!" almost whispered Laguerre. "At las'!"
The match went out.
"Gimme them matches!" exclaimed Loudon, harshly.
He went into the office, found a lamp and lit it. He carried it into the hall and placed it on a chair. Laguerre had squatted down on his heels. His eyes, now mere slits, were still fixed on Blakely. Johnny Ramsay and Chuck Morgan covertly watched Laguerre. They did not understand. Laguerre's head pivoted suddenly.
"Dat man ees mine," he said, staring at Loudon.
"Of course. Yuh don't need to say nothin' more, Telescope."
"I weel tell why. Dese odders mus' know. My frien's," the swarthy face with the terrible eyes turned toward Chuck and Johnny, "my frien's, long tam ago, ovair eas' on de Sweetwatair, I know dees man. She was not call Blakely den. Hees name was Taylor—Pony George, dey call heem. Pony George she keel my wife, my leetle Marie. Feefteen year I have hunt Pony George. Now I have foun' heem. Un I weel keel heem, me."
Johnny and Chuck nodded gravely. The primitive code of the broken lands is bluntly simple. Vengeance was Laguerre's.