3

[pg 032]3Only a well-armed and convoyed set of wagons with a highly experienced and competent master could dare travel the Apache-infested trails these days. The first of the freighters, pulled by a sixteen-mule team, fairly burst into the plaza, outriders fanning about it. One of the mounted men was dressed in fringed buckskin, his shoulder-length hair and bushy black beard the badge of a frontier already passing swiftly into history. He rode a big black mule and carried a long-barreled rifle, not in the saddle boot, but resting across the horn as if even here in Tubacca there might be reason for instant action.The mule trotted on to the middle of the plaza. Then the weapon pointed skyward as its owner fired into the air, voicing a whoop as wild as the Rebel Yell from the throat of a charging Texas trooper.He was answered by cries and shouts from the gathering crowd as five more wagons, each with a trailer hooked to its main bulk, pulled in around the edge of the open area, until the center of the town was full and the din of braying mules was deafening.Drew retreated to the roofed entrance of the Four Jacks.[pg 033]The extra step of height there enabled him to get a good look at two more horsemen pushing past the end wagon. Both wore the dress of Mexican gentlemen, their short jackets glinting with silver braid and embroidery; their bridles, horse gear, and saddles were rich in scrolls and decorations of the same metal. Navajo blankets lay under the saddles, and serapes were folded over the shoulder of one rider, tied behind the cantle of the other.They pulled up before the cantina, and one man took the reins of both mounts. If the riders' clothing and horse furnishings were colorful, the horses themselves were equally striking. One was a chestnut, a warm, well-groomed red. But the other ... Drew stared. In all his years about the stables and breeding farms of Kentucky, and throughout his travels since, he had never seen a horse like this. Its coat was pure gold, a perfect match to one of the eagles in his money belt. But the silky locks of mane and tail were night black. Its breeding was plainly Arab, and it walked with a delicate pride as gracefully as a man might foot a dance measure.Drew had a difficult time breaking his gaze from the horse to the man dismounting. The ranchero was tall, perhaps an inch or so taller than Drew, and his body had the leanness of the men who worked the range country, possessing, too, a lithe youthfulness of carriage. Until one looked directly into his sun-browned face he could pass as a man still in his late twenties.But he was older, perhaps a decade older than that, Drew thought. Too high and prominent cheekbones with slight hollows below them, and a mouth tight set, made more for strength of will and discipline of feeling than conventional good looks. Yet his was a face not easily forgotten, once[pg 034]seen. Black hair was pepper-salted for a finger-wide space above his ears, which were fronted by long sideburns, and black brows were straight above dark eyes. In spite of his below-the-border dress and his coloring, he was unmistakably Anglo, just as the man looping both horses' reins to the rack was Mexican."So, you're still wearing your hair in good order? No trouble this trip?" Topham had come to the door of the cantina, his hand outstretched. "Welcome back, Hunt!""Paugh!" The Mexican spat. "Where is there one Indio who is able to faceDonCazar on his own ground? The folly of that they learned long ago."DonCazar smiled. That mask of aloofness was wiped away as if he were ten years younger and twenty years less responsible than he had been only seconds earlier. "And if they did not beware our rifles, Bartolomé here would talk them to death! Is that not so,amigo?" His speech was oddly formal, as if he were using a language other than his own, but there was a warmth to the tone which matched that sudden and surprising smile.Topham's arm went about the shoulders under the black-and-silver jacket, drawingDonCazar into the light, music, and excitement of the cantina. While Drew watched, the stouter back of Bartolomé cut off his first good look at his father.So ...thatwasDonCazar—Hunt Rennie! Drew did not know what he had expected of their first meeting. Now he could not understand why he felt so chilled and lost. He had planned it this way—no demands, no claims on a stranger, freedom to make the decision of when or how he would see his father; that was the only path he could take. But now he turned slowly away from that open door, the[pg 035]light, the laughter and singing, and walked back toward the stable, loneliness cutting into him.Tubacca had slumbered apathetically before; now the town was wide awake. In a couple of days the wagon train would head on north to Tucson, but now the activity in the plaza was a mixture of market day and fiesta. Small traders from Sonora took advantage of the protection afforded byDonCazar's outriders and had trailed along with their own products, now being spread out and hawked.Parrots shrieked from homemade cages; brightly woven fabrics were draped to catch the eye. As he wandered about viewing cactus syrup, sweet, brown panocha-candy, fruit, dried meat, blankets, saddles, Drew was again aware of the almost strident color of this country. He fingered appreciatively a horn goblet carved with intricate figures of gods his Anglo eyes did not recognize. The hum of voices, the bray of mules, the baa-ing and naa-ing of sheep and goats, kept up a roar to equal surf on a seacoast. Afternoon was fast fading into evening, but Tubacca, aroused from the post-noon siesta, was in tumult.A fighting cock tethered to a cart wheel stretched its neck to the utmost in an attempt to peck at Drew's spurs. He laughed, attracted, wrenched out of his own private world. The smell of spicy foods, of fruit, of animals and people ... the clamor ... the sights....Drew rounded one end of a wagon and stepped abruptly into yet another world and time. All the stories which had been dinned warningly into his ears since he had left the Mississippi now brought his hand to one of the Colts at his belt. Most of the half-dozen men squatting on their heels about a fire were three-quarters bare, showing dusty, brown bodies. Two had dirty calico shirts loose above hide breech-clouts.[pg 036]Dark-brown eyes, as unreadable as Johnny Shannon's, surveyed Drew, but none of the Indians moved or spoke.Common sense took over, and Drew's hand dropped from the gun butt. Hostiles would not be camping peacefully here in the heart of town. He could not be facing wild Apaches or Navajos. But they were the first Indians he had seen this close since he had ridden out of Texas."Somethin' buggin' you, boy?"Drew's war-trained muscles took over. He was in a half crouch, the Colt flipped over and out, pointing into the shadows where the newcomer emerged. Then the Kentuckian flushed and slammed his weapon back into the holster. This was the buckskinned man who had whooped the train into town that morning."Mite quick to show your iron, ain't you?" There was a chill in the question, and Drew saw that the long rifle was still held at alert by its owner."Cat-footin' up on a man ought to make you expect somethin' of a reception," Drew countered."Yep, guess some men has sure got 'em a bellyful of lead doin' that." To Drew's surprise the other was now grinning. "You huntin' someone?""No, just lookin' around." Drew longed to ask some things himself, but hesitated. Frontier etiquette was different from Kentucky custom; it was safer to be quiet when not sure."Wal, thar's aplenty to see tonight, right enough. Me—I'm Crow Fenner; I ride scout fur th' train. An' these here—they're Rennie's Pimas, what o' 'em is runnin' th' trail this trip."So these were the famous Pima Scouts! No wonder they[pg 037]took their ease in the Tubacca plaza. Every man, woman, and child in those adobe buildings had reason to be thankful for their skill and cunning—the web of protection Rennie's Pima Scouts had woven in this river valley."I'm Kirby, Drew Kirby." He hastened to match one introduction with another. "This is my first time in the valley—""From th' east, eh?""Texas.""Texas...." Something in the way Fenner repeated that made it sound not like a confirmation but a question. Or was Drew overly suspicious? After all, as Callie had agreed last night, the late Republic of Texas was a very large strip of country, housing a multitude of native sons, from the planting families of the Brazos to the ranchers in crude cabins of the Brasado. There were Texans and Texans, differing greatly in speech, manners, and background. And one did not ask intimate questions of a man riding west of the Pecos. Too often he might have come hunting a district where there was a longer distance between sheriffs. What a man volunteered about his past was accepted as the truth."Rode a far piece then," Fenner commented. "Me, I've been trailin' round this here country since th' moon was two-bit size. An' I ain't set my moccasins on all o' it yet. Thar's parts maybe even an Injun ain't seed neither. You jus' outta th' army, son?"Drew nodded. Apparently he could not escape that part of his past, and there was no reason to deny it."Iffen you be huntin' a job—DonCazar, he's always ready to hire on wagon guards. Any young feller what knows how to handle a gun, he's welcome—""Can't leave Tubacca, at least for now. Have me a mare[pg 038]over in the livery that just foaled. I'm not movin' until she's ready to travel—""Must be right good stock," Fenner observed. "Me, I has me a ridin' mule as kin smell Apaches two miles off. Two, three times that thar mule saved m' skin fur me. Got Old Tar when he turned up in a wild-hoss corral th' mustangers set over in th' Red River country—""I saw him when you rode into town. Good-lookin' animal."Crow Fenner nodded vigorously. "Shore is, shore is.DonCazar, he's partial to good stock—favors Tar, too. Th'Donhas him a high-steppin' hoss every hoss thief in this here territory'd like to run off. Bright yaller—""Saw that one, too. Unusual colorin' all right.""He put a white stud—white as milk—to run with some light buckskin mares back 'fore th' war. First colt out of that thar breedin' was that Oro hoss. Never got 'nother like him; he's special. Shows his heels good, too. They's gonna race him out on th' flats tomorrow if anyone is fool 'nough to say as he has a hoss as can beat Oro. Thar's always some greenhorn as thinks he has—""Oh?" Drew wondered aloud. The black-and-gold horse was beautiful and plainly of good breeding. That he was also a runner was not out of the question. But that Oro could best Gray Eagle-Ariel stock on the track, Drew doubted. There were unbroken records set on eastern tracks by horses in Shiloh's direct blood line. And the local talent that had been matched against Oro in the past had probably not been much competition. The Kentuckian began to speculate about a match between the gray stallion and the horse foaled on the Arizona range.[pg 039]"Yep, we'll see some race, does anyone turn up with a hoss t' match Oro."One of the shirted Indians rose to his feet. With rifle sloped over forearm, he padded into the dark. Fenner's relaxed posture tensed into alert readiness. His head turned, his attitude now one of listening concentration. Drew strained to see or hear what lay beyond. But the noise from the plaza and torchlight made a barrier for eye and ear.Fenner's rifle barrel dropped an inch or so; he stood easy again. Drew heard a jingle of metal, the creak of saddle leather, the pound of shod hoofs."Soldiers!" Fenner sniffed. "Wonder what they's doin', hittin' town now. Wal, that ain't no hair off m' skull. Me, I'm gonna git Tar his treat. Promised him some time back he could have a bait o' oats—oats an' salt, an' jus' a smidgen o' corn cake. That thar mule likes t' favor his stomach. Kells, he ought t' have them vittles put together right 'bout now. This mare o' yourn what's so special, young feller.... Me, I'd like t' see a hoss what's got to be took care of like she was a bang-up lady!"He put two fingers to his lips and whistled. A mule head, attached to a rangy mule body, weaved forward to follow dog-at-heel fashion behind the scout.A squad of blue coats was riding in—an officer and six men. They threaded their way to the cantina where the officer dismounted and went inside. The troopers continued to sit their saddles and regard the scene about them wistfully."Looks like a duty patrol," Fenner remarked. "Maybe Cap'n Bayliss. He's gittin' some biggety idear as how it's up t' him t' police this here town. Does he start t' crow too[pg 040]loud,DonCazar or Reese Topham'll cut his spurs. Maybe he sets up th' war shield an' does th' shoutin' back thar in front o' all them soldier boys. In this town he ain't no gold-lace general!""Troops and the town not friendly?" Drew asked."Th' soldiers—they ain't no trouble. Some o' 'em have their heads screwed on straight an' know what they's doin' or tryin' t' do. But a lot o' them officers now—they come out here wi' biggety idears 'bout how t' handle Injuns, thinkin' they knows all thar's t' be knowed 'bout fightin'—an' them never facin' up to a Comanche in war paint, let alone huntin' 'Paches. 'Paches, they know this here country like it was part o' their own bodies—can say 'Howdy-an'-how's-all-th'-folks, bub?' t' every lizard an' snake in th' rocks. Ain't no army gonna pull 'em out an' make 'em fight white-man style."DonCazar—he goes huntin' 'em when they've come botherin' him an' does it right. But he knows you think Injun, you live Injun, you eat Injun, you smell Injun when you do. They don't leave no more trail than an ant steppin' high, 'less they want you should foller them into a nice ambush as they has all figgered out. Put Greyfeather an' his Pimas on 'em an' then leg it till your belly's near meetin' your backbone an' you is all one big tired ache. Iffen you kin drink sand an' keep on footin' it over red-hot rocks when you is nigh t' a bag o' bones, then maybe—jus' maybe—you kin jump an Apache. Comanches, now, an' Cheyenne an' Kiowa an' Sioux ride out to storm at you—guns an' arrows all shootin'—wantin' to count coup on a man by hittin' him personal. But th' 'Pache ain't wastin' hisself that way. Nope—git behind a rock an' ambush ... put th' whole hell-fired country t' work fur them. That's how th' 'Pache does[pg 041]his fightin'. An' th' spit-an'-polish officers what come from eastward—they's got t' larn that. Only sometimes they ain't good at larnin', an' then they gits larned—good an' proper. Hey, Kells!"They were at the stable and Fenner lifted a hand, palm out, in greeting to the liveryman. "Here's Ole Tar wantin' his special grub—"Drew went on to Shiloh's stall. Reese Topham, the SpaniardDonLorenzo who had been in the cantina last night, the stout Mexican Bartolomé, andDonCazar himself were all there before him."Here he is now." Reese Topham waved a hand at Drew. "This is Mister Kirby, from Texas.""You have a fine horse there, Kirby—the mare, too. Eastern stock, I would judge, perhaps Kentucky breeding?" Rennie asked.Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, not lie directly."Yes, Kentucky." He answered the first words his father had ever addressed to him."And the line?"To be too evasive would invite suspicion. However, the Gray Eagle get was in more than one Kentucky stable."Eclipse...." Drew set back the pedigree several equine generations. Shiloh tossed his head, looked over his shoulder at Drew, who entered the stall and began quieting the stallion with hands drawn gently over the back and up the arch of the neck."The mare also?"DonCazar continued."Yes." The Kentuckian's answer sounded curt in his own ears, but he could not help it.[pg 042]"This Eclipse,amigo,"DonLorenzo turned to Rennie for enlightenment—"he was a notable horse?""Sí, of the Messenger line. But a gray of that breeding—"DonCazar's forefinger ran nail point along his lower lip. "Ariel blood, perhaps?"Drew busied himself adjusting Shiloh's hackamore. This was getting close. Hunt Rennie had lived in Kentucky over a year once. He had visited Red Springs many times before he had dared to court Alexander Mattock's daughter and been forbidden the place. His visits to the stable must have familiarized him with the Gray Eagle-Ariel strain bred there. On the other hand, horses of the same combination were the pride of several other families living around Lexington."A racing line of high blood,"DonLorenzo said thoughtfully. "Sí, this one has the pride, the appearance. You have raced him,señor?" he asked Drew with formal courtesy."Not on any real track,señor. During the war there were no races.""He wasn't a cavalry mount?"DonCazar looked surprised."No, suh. Too young for that. He was foaled on April sixth in sixty-two. That's why they called him Shiloh."There was a moment of silence, broken by a hail from the door."You there—Rennie!"Drew saw the involuntary spasm ofDonCazar's lips, the shadow of an expression which might mean he anticipated a distasteful scene to come. But the quirk disappeared as he turned to face the man in the blue uniform.[pg 043]"Captain Bayliss." It was acknowledgment rather than a greeting, delivered in a cool tone."I want to see you, Rennie!" The officer stamped forward a step or so, to stand in the full light of the first lantern. He was of medium height, and his blue blouse had been cut by a good tailor, though now it was worn. He was a good-looking man, though jowly about the mouth, above which a closely cropped mustache bristled. His color was high under a pink skin which in this hot country must burn painfully. And there was the permanent stamp of uncertain temper in the lines about his prominent eyes.[pg 044]4"So, you see me, Bayliss,"DonCazar returned evenly. "There is some trouble?"Bartolomé shifted from one foot to the other, his spurs ringing.DonLorenzo's expression was one of withdrawal, but on the round countenance of the Mexican was open dislike.The sun-reddened skin flushed darker. "All right, Rennie!" the captain exploded. "If you want it straight, that's the way you're going to get it! You've been hiring Rebs again!"Once before Drew had seen explosive anger curbed visibly by a man who knew the folly of losing control over his emotions. It had been on a hilltop back in Tennessee, with the storm clouds of January overhead. General Bedford Forrest, watching men driven to the limit by necessity and his own orders, had looked just that way when he had rounded on Drew, bearing news of yet another break-through by the Federals. Now it was this Anglo wearing Spanish dress and standing in a dim stable, reining temper to meet the open hostility of the captain."Captain Bayliss." The words sounded as remote as if the[pg 045]speaker bestrode some peak of the Chiricahuas to address a pygmy in a canyon below. "I know of no law which states that I may not employ whom I choose on my own land. If a man does his job and makes no trouble, his past does not matter. I am as ready to fire a former Union soldier as I am a Confederate—""I tell you again: I'm not going to have Rebs around here passing on information to Kitchell!""AndIsay once again, Captain, that men who ride for me do not in addition ride for Kitchell.""Sí—!" Bartolomé's face was as flushed as Bayliss' now. "We do not help thosebandidos. Do they not also raid us? Two weeks ago Francisco Perez, his horse comes in with blood on the saddle. We ride out and find him—shot, dragged with the rope. That is not Apache trick, that, but the work of Kitchell and his snakes!""Peace,amigo."DonCazar's raised finger silenced his man. "Bartolomé is right, Bayliss. Kitchell is beginning to nibble at the Range. He has not many sources of supply left. Soon he will either have to cross the border to stay or make some reckless raid which will give us a chance at him.""These damned Rebs around here will keep him going! You can't tell me they don't back him every chance they get. And I'm warning you, Rennie, if you hire any man you can't answer for, he's going to the stockade and you'll hear about it from the army!""And you also listen, Captain. I will not be dictated to, and the army had best understand that. I do not want Kitchell in this country any more than you do. He has made a boast of being Confederate leading what he terms Mounted Irregulars. But to my knowledge he never held a[pg 046]commission from the South, and he is nothing but an outlaw trading on the unsettled state of the territory. That is recognized by every decent man in Arizona. And that covers those you call 'Rebels' as well as former Union men."Bayliss was silent for a long second, and then he jerked his hat farther down on his peeling forehead. "You've had notice, Rennie, that's all I have to say. I'm going to clear all the Rebs out of this section. Then we will be able to get at Kitchell, and the army will settle him for good and all!""Bayliss!" The captain had half turned, butDonCazar's call halted him. "Don't you try harassing any of my riders. They mind their business and will not make any trouble as long as they are left in peace. If there are any problems in town,DonLorenzo Sierra, here, is the alcalde and they must be referred to him."The captain favored Rennie with a last glare and was gone. Tobe Kells spoke first."That one's chewin' th' bit an' gittin' ready to hump under th' saddle. This business of tryin' to run out th' Rebs, it'll cause smokin'!""He has no right to give such an order,"DonCazar was beginning when the alcalde interrupted:"Compadre, for a man such as that your talk of rights means nothing. He is eaten by the need to impress his will here, and that will bring trouble. I do not like what I have heard, no, I do not like it at all.""You know what may be really eating at him this time, Hunt?" Topham spoke from where he was leaning against the wall of Shadow's box stall. "Johnny was throwing his weight around again last night. Had a set-to in the Jacks with a trooper. Unless the kid quits trying to fight the war over again every time he sees an army blouse—or until he[pg 047]stops pouring whisky down him every time he hits town—there may be shooting trouble. There're some equal hot-heads in Bayliss' camp, and if Johnny goes up against one of them, a scuffle could become a battle.""Yeah, an' that warn't all Johnny was doin' last night." Kells shifted his tobacco cud from one cheek to the other. "Iffen Kirby here hadn't been to hand, Johnny would have skinned th' Trinfan kid with his quirt—jus' 'cause he dropped his purse outside th' Jacks an' th' kid followed him to give it back. Johnny's meaner than a drunk Injun these days. That's Bible-swear truth, Rennie.""To lose a war makes a man bitter,"DonCazar said slowly. "Johnny was far too young when he ran away to join Howard. And after that defeat at Glorieta, the retreat to Texas was pure hell with the fires roaring. It seems to have done something to the boy—inside.""Johnny wasn't the only boy at Glorieta. From what I've heard most of them weren't old enough to grow a good whisker crop." Topham's voice had lost its detached note. "And he sure wasn't the only Confederate to surrender. Hunt, he's got to learn that losing a war doesn't mean that a man has lost the rest of his life. But the way he's been acting these past months, Johnny might just lose it. Bayliss' tongue is hanging out a yard or more he's panting so hard to get back at you. That captain has heady ambitions under his hat, maybe like setting up here as a tinpot governor or something like. If he can discredit you, well, he probably thinks he's got a chance to rake in the full pot, and it's a big one. Get Johnny back on the Range, Hunt—put him to work, hard. Sweat that sour temper and whisky out of him. He used to be a promising youngster; now he's turning bronco fast. All he seems to have learned in the war[pg 048]is how to use those guns of his to lord it over anyone he believes he can push around. And someday he'll try to push the wrong man—"DonCazar was staring ahead of him now at Drew and Shiloh. But Drew knew that Hunt Rennie was not seeing either man or horse, but a mental picture which was not too pleasing."He's just a boy." Rennie did not utter that as an excuse; rather he said it as if to reassure himself. Then his eyes really focused on Drew, and he changed the subject abruptly."Kirby, when the train comes in we sometimes set up a race or two. Any thought of trying your colt against some of the local champions?""Oro perhaps?" Drew counter-questioned.Rennie laughed. "Oh, so you've been talking, Fenner?"The scout came away from where Tar was still very audibly munching his treat. "Didn't know as how th' younker had him a runnin' hoss,DonCazar." He inspected Shiloh critically. "But that thar sure looks a lotta hoss. 'Course maybe he ain't used t' runnin' out here whar th' ground ain't made all nice an' easy fur his feet. But I dunno, I dunno at all.""Anyway he'll give Oro stiffer competition than he's had in the last two races. Unless that Lieutenant Spath up at the camp tries again with that long-legged black of his," Topham added. "What about it, Kirby? You willing to match Shiloh?""He's green, but, yes, I'll do it."Drew's motives were mixed. His pride in the colt had been pushing him toward such a trial ever since he had heard Fenner speak of Oro. In addition, as the owner of a[pg 049]noted horse, he would take a place in this community, establish his identity as Drew Kirby. And in some way he could not define, this put him, at least in his own mind, on an equal footing withDonCazar.But by the next morning a few doubts troubled him as he tightened saddle cinches on the stallion. Shiloh's only races so far had been impromptu matches along the trail. Though the colt had been consistently the victor, none of his rivals had been in his class. And if Oro's speed was as striking as his coloring, the Range stud would prove a formidable opponent."Walk him up and down here by the corral." The Kentuckian handed the reins to Callie. "Got something I have to do."Drew went directly to the Four Jacks. This time the cantina was filled, with a double row of the thirsty demanding attention at the bar. But Topham was seated at a table withDonLorenzo and Zack Cahill of the stage line. The Kentuckian went over to them."You have come to back your horse,señor?"DonLorenzo smiled up at Drew. There were piles of coins on the table as Cahill listed bets for the men crowding around."Yes, suh." Drew spun down two double eagles. "What're the odds?""Started six to one for Oro," Topham told him. "Coasted down after a few of the boys had a look at Shiloh. Can give you four to one now. Anything else we can do for you?"Drew dropped his voice. "Do you have a safe here?"Topham's eyebrows climbed. "Do you foresee a deposit or a withdrawal?""Deposit. I want to ride light today.""Then I'll admit possession of a safe, such as it is.Don[pg 050]Lorenzo,por favor, will you act as banker?" He beckoned Drew after him into a small back room which was in sharp contrast to the main part of the Four Jacks.On one wall was a fanned display of old daggers and swords which dated a century or so back to the Spanish colonial days. A bookcase crammed with tightly squeezed volumes provided a resting place for pieces of native pottery bearing grotesque animal designs. On the far wall were strips of brightly colored woven materials flanking a huge closed cupboard, a very old one, Drew thought. Its paneled front was carved with deeply incised patterns centering about a shield bearing arms. Only the battered desk and an attendant chair with a laced rawhide seat were of the frontier.Topham took a chained key from the pocket of his fancy vest and went to fit it into a lock concealed in the carved foliage of the cupboard. The shield split down the middle, revealing shelves of metal boxes and packets of papers. Drew unfastened his money belt and handed it over. As he was tucking his shirt in his belt once more the gambler nodded at the cupboard."This is about as near a bank as we boast in Tubacca. Cahill has a strongbox at the stage station, and Stein some kind of a lockup at his store—that's the total for the town. We haven't grown to the size for a real banking establishment—""Hey, Reese, th' Old Man about—?"Shannon was in the doorway. In the full light of day he looked younger. Drew was puzzled. That strange animosity which had flashed between them last night—why had he felt it? There was nothing like that emotion now. But as Johnny Shannon's gaze flitted from Topham to the Kentuckian,[pg 051]Drew was once more aware that, whatever he might outwardly seem, Johnny Shannon was no boy. Behind that disarmingly youthful façade was another person altogether."Kirby, ain't it?" Shannon smiled. "Understand I got outta line th' other night ... stepped on a lotta toes." That gaze flickered for the merest instant to the Colts at the Kentuckian's belt. "I sure had me a real snootful an' I guess I was jus' fightin' th' war all over again. No hard feelin's?"That guileless confession was very convincing on the surface. How did you assess an emotion you did not understand yourself? Drew was teased by a fleeting memory of the past, of a time when he had faced another pair of eyes such as those, surface eyes behind which you could see nothing. Then he became conscious that the pause was too lengthy, and he replied with a hurry he immediately regretted:"No hard feelin's."This time he was able to recognize the meaning of that quirk of Shannon's lips. But prudence controlled the small flare of temper he felt inside him. It did not really matter. Let Shannon think he was backing down. If the time ever came that they did have to have a showdown, Johnny Shannon might be the surprised one."You're sure a trustin' fella." Shannon's fingers hooked to the front of the gun belt riding low on the hip. "Not askin' for no receipt or nothin'...."Topham laughed. "We don't forget what is due a customer, Johnny." He went to the desk, scribbled a line on a piece of paper, and held it out to Drew. "This should meet all contingencies, such as some patron out there getting[pg 052]downright ornery and putting a couple of extra buttonholes in my vest by the six-gun slug method.""Heard tell as how you're fixin' to race your plug 'gainst Oro, Kirby," Johnny drawled. "Also as how you laid down some good round boys to back his chance. I took me a piece of them—easy pickin's." The sneer was plainer in his voice than it had been in his smile.Drew's puzzlement grew. Why was Shannon leaning on him this way? Because he had stepped in to stop the quirting of Teodoro? That was the only reason the Kentuckian could think of."That's a matter of opinion." Topham was studying them both with interest. "I'd say Oro has him some real competition at last. None of the Eclipse blood was ever backward on the track.""You ridin' yourself?" Shannon paid no attention to the gambler's comment.Drew nodded. "He knows me, and I ride light—""Sure, I suppose you do—now." Shannon's eyes flickered again, this time to the locked cupboard. "Heard tell—leastways Callie's been spoutin' it around—that you was with General Forrest.""Yes.""You sure musta pulled outta th' war better'n th' rest of us poor Rebs. Got you a couple of blooded hosses an' a good heavy money belt. A sight more luck than th' rest of us had—""Don't include yourself in the empty-pocket brigade, Johnny," Topham rapped out. "I don't see you going without eating money, drinking money either, more's a pity. And if you're really looking for Rennie now, you'll find him down at the course."[pg 053]Shannon's smile was gone. He straightened away from the door frame which had been supporting his shoulders. "Thanks a lot, Reese." He left with the same abruptness as he had from the stable alley."So you're riding yourself." Topham ignored the departure. "León Rivas, Bartolomé's son, will be up on Oro; he always rides for Rennie. He's younger than you, but I'd say"—the gambler studied Drew's lithe body critically—"you're about matched in weight. I'd shuck that gun belt, though, and anything else you can. And good luck, Kirby. You'll need all of it you can muster."An hour later Drew followed Topham's advice, leaving gun belt, carbine, and everything else he could unload in Callie's keeping before he swung up on Shiloh. The big colt was nervous, tending to dance sideways, tossing his head high. Drew concentrated on the business at hand, striving to forget the crowd opening up to let him through, shouting encouragement or disparagement. Ahead was the appointed track, a beaten stretch of earth, part of the old road leading to the mines. The Kentuckian talked to Shiloh as they went, keeping up a stream of words to firm the bond between horse and rider.There was a knot of men surrounding the golden horse, and as his rider mounted, Oro put on a good show, rearing to paw the air with his forefeet as if he wished nothing better than to meet his gray rival in an impromptu boxing match. Then he nodded his head vigorously, acknowledging the shouts from his enthusiastic supporters. Beside that magnificent blaze of color Shiloh was drab, a shadow about to be put to flight by the sun.They were to break at a starting shot, head to the big tree which made an excellent landmark in the flat valley,[pg 054]rounding its patch of shade before returning to the starting point. Drew brought Shiloh, still prancing and playing with his bit, up beside Oro. The slim boy on the golden horse shot the Kentuckian a shoulder-side look and grinned, raising his quirt in salute as Drew nodded and smiled back.Some of the noise died.DonLorenzo pointed a pistol skyward. Drew strove to make his body one with Shiloh's small easy movements. The big gray knew very well what was in progress, was tensing now for a swift getaway leap. And he made it on the crack of the gun.But if Shiloh had easily outdistanced all opposition before on those improvised tracks, he was now meeting a far more equal race. The gray colt's stride was effortless, he was pounding out with power—more than Drew had ever known him to exert. Yet those golden legs matched his pace, reach for reach, hoofbeat for hoofbeat."Come on, boy!" Drew's urging was lost in the wild shouting of the spectators. Some who were mounted were trying to parallel the runners. But Shiloh responded to his rider's encouragement even if he could not hear or understand. Drew would never use quirt or spur on the stud. What Shiloh had to give must come willingly and because he delighted in the giving.They swept in and around the shade of the tree, made the arc to return. That golden head with its tossing crown of black forelock; itwasslipping back! Oro was no longer nose to nose with Shiloh, rather now nose to neck. Drew could hear Rivas' voice encouraging, pleading....A mass of men, mounted and on foot, funneled the runners down to where the line of rope lay straight to mark the finish. Oro was creeping up once more, inch by hard-won inch.[pg 055]Drew's head went up, his throat was rasped raw by the Yell which had taken desperate gray-coated troopers down hedge-bordered roads in Kentucky and steep ravines in Tennessee, sending them, if need be, straight into the mouths of Yankee field guns. And the Yell brought Shiloh home, only a nose ahead of his rival—as if he had been spurred by the now outlawed war cry. Then Drew found he had his hands full trying to pull up the colt and persuade him that the race was indeed over.[pg 056]5A black mule came up beside Drew as he slowly pulled Shiloh down to a canter. Fenner, a wide grin splitting his beard, bellowed:"That shore was a race! Need any help, son?"Drew shook his head, wanting to bring Shiloh under full control at a rate which would quiet the colt before they headed back to the furor about the finish line. And only now did he have time to relish his own excited pride and pleasure.Since he had first seen Shiloh on that scouting trip back to Kentucky in '64, he had known he must someday own the gray colt. He had lain out in the brush for a long time that morning to watch the head groom of Red Springs put the horse through his paces in the training paddock. And watching jealously, Drew had realized that Shiloh was one of those mounts that a man discovers only once in his life-time, though he may breed and love their kind all his years.Drew would have been content with Shiloh as a mount and a companion, but now he was sure that the colt was more, so much more. This gray was going to be one of the Great Ones, a racer and a sire—to leave his mark in horse[pg 057]history and stamp his own quality on foals throughout miles and years in this southwestern land. Drew licked the grit of dust from his lips, filled his lungs with a deep breath as Shiloh turned under rein pressure.It was a long time before the Kentuckian was able to separate Shiloh from his ring of new admirers and bring him back to the stable. Drew refused several offers for the colt, some of them so fantastic he could only believe their makers sun-touched or completely carried away by the excitement of the race.But when he foundDonCazar waiting for him at Kells', he guessed that this was serious."You do not wish to sell him, I suppose?" Hunt Rennie smiled at Drew's prompt shake of head. "No, that would be too much to hope for, you are not a fool. But I have something else to suggest. Reese Topham tells me you are looking for work, preferably with horses. Well, I have a contract to gentle some remounts for the army, and I need some experienced men to help break them—"Drew could not understand the sudden pinch of—could it be alarm? Here it was: a chance to work on the Range, to know Hunt Rennie, and learn whetherDonCazar was to remain a legend or become a father. But now he was not sure."I'm no breaker, suh. I've gentled, yes—but eastern style.""Breaking horses can be brutal, though we don't ride with red spurs on the Range. Suppose we try some of the eastern methods and see how they work on our wild ones. Do you think you can do it?""A man can't tell what he can do until he tries." Drew still hedged.There was a trace of frown now between Rennie's brows.[pg 058]"You told Topham you wanted work." His tone implied that he found Drew's present hesitancy odd. And—fromDonCazar's point of view—it was. Tubacca was still in a slump; the rest of the valley held about as many jobs for a man as Drew had fingers on one hand. The Range was the big holding, and to ride there meant security and an established position in the community. Also, perhaps it was not an offer lightly made to an unknown newcomer."I can't promise you blue-grass training, suh. That has to begin with a foal." He hoped Rennie would credit his wavering to a modest appraisal of his own qualifications."Blue-grass training?"As his father repeated the expression Drew realized the slip of tongue he had made. And if he took the job, there might be other slips, perhaps far more serious ones. But to refuse, after Topham had spoken for him ... he was caught in a pinch with cause for suspicion closing in on either side."I was in Kentucky for about a year after the war. I went to stay with a friend—""But youarefrom Texas?"Was Rennie watching him too intently? No, he must ride a tighter rein on his imagination. There was no reason in the wide world whyDonCazar should expect him to be anyone except Drew Kirby."Yes, suh. Didn't have anythin' to go back to there. Thought I'd try for a new start out here." There was the story of several thousand veterans. Rennie should have heard it a good many times already."Well, come and try some blue-grass training on our colts. And should you let this stud of yours run with a pickedmanadaof mares, I could promise good fees."[pg 059]"Suppose I said yes if the fees were some of the foals—of my own choosing, suh?" Drew asked.Rennie ran a finger across the brand which scarred the gray's hide. "Spur R—that's a new one to me.""My own. Heard tell as how there's a custom of the country that a slick this old can be branded and claimed by anyone bringing him in. I wasn't going to lose him that way should he do any straying, accidental or intentional."DonCazar laughed. "That's using your head, Kirby. All right. It's a deal as far as I'm concerned. You draw wrangler's pay and take stud fees in foals—say one in three, your choosing. Register that brand of yours withDonLorenzo to be on the safe side. Then you're welcome to run Spur R with the Double R on the Range."He held out his hand, and Drew grasped it for a quick shake to seal their agreement. He was committed now—to the Range and to a small partnership with its master. But he still wondered if he had made the right choice.Two days later he dropped bedroll and saddlebags on the spare bunk at one end of the long adobe-walled room and studied his surroundings with deep curiosity. It was a fort, all right, this whole stronghold of Rennie's—not just the bunkhouse which formed part of a side wall. Bunkhouse, feed store, and storage room, blacksmith shop, cookhouse, stables, main house, the quarters for the married men and their families—all arranged to enclose a patio into which choice stock could be herded at the time of an attack, with a curbed well in the center.The roofs of all the buildings were flat, with loopholed parapets to be manned at need. A sentry post on the main house was occupied twenty-four hours a day by relays of Pimas. A loaded rifle leaned at every window opening, ready[pg 060]to be fired through loopholes in the wooden war shutters. The walls were twenty-five inches thick, and mounted on the roof of the stable, facing the hills from which Apache attacks usually came, was a small brass cannon—DonCazar's legacy from troops marching away in '61.What he saw of the resources of this private fort led Drew to accept the other stories he had heard of the Range, like the one thatDonCazar's men practiced firing blindfolded at noise targets to be prepared for night raids. The place was self-contained and almost self-supporting, with stores of food, good water, its own forge and leather shop, its own craftsmen and experts. No wonder the Apaches had given up trying to break this Anglo outpost and Rennie had accomplished what others found impossible. He had held his land secure against the worst and most unbeatable enemy this country had nourished.There were other Range forts, smaller, but as stoutly and ingeniously designed, each built beside a water source on Rennie land—defense points forDonCazar's riders, their garrisons rotated at monthly intervals. And Drew had to thank that system for having taken Johnny Shannon away from the Stronghold before the Kentuckian arrived. Rennie's foster son was now riding inspection between one water-hole fortification and another. But Drew was uncertain just how he would rub along with Shannon in the future."SeñorKirby,DonCazar—he would speak with you in the Casa Grande," León Rivas called through one of the patio side windows."Coming." Drew left the huddle of his possessions on the bunk.The Casa Grande of the Stronghold was a high-ceilinged,[pg 061]five-room building about sixty feet long, the kitchen making a right angle to the other rooms and joining the smoke house to form part of another wall for the patio. Mesquite logs, adze-hewn and only partially smoothed, were placed over the doorways, and the plank doors themselves were slung on hand-wrought iron hinges or on leather straps, from oak turning-posts. Drew knocked on the age-darkened surface of the big door."Kirby? Come in."Here in contrast to the brilliant sunlight of the patio was a dusky coolness. There were no glass panes in the windows. Manta, the unbleached muslin which served to cover such openings in the frontier ranches, was tacked taut, allowing in air but only subdued light. The walls had been smoothly plastered, and as in Topham's office, lengths of colorful woven materials and a couple of Navajo blankets served as hangings. Rugs of cougar and wolf skin were scattered on the beaten earth of the floor. There was a tall carved cupboard with a grilled door, a bookcase, and two massive chests shoved back against the walls. And over the stone mantel of the fireplace hung a picture of a morose-looking, bearded man wearing a steel breastplate, the canvas dim and dark with age and smoke.DonCazar was seated at a table as massive as the chests, a pile of papers before him flanked by two four-branch candelabra of native silver. Bartolomé Rivas' more substantial bulk weighed down the rawhide seat of another chair more to one side."Sit down—" Rennie nodded to the seat in front of the table. "Smoke?" He pushed forward a silver box holding the long cigarillos of the border country. Drew shook his head.[pg 062]"Whisky? Wine?" He gestured to a tray with waiting glasses."Sherry." Drew automatically answered without thought."What do you think of the stock you saw down in the corral?"DonCazar poured a honey-colored liquid from the decanter into a small glass.As the Kentuckian raised it to sip, the scent of the wine quirked time for him, making this for a fleeting moment the dining room at Red Springs during a customary after-dinner gathering of the men of the household. The talk there, too, had been of horses—always horses. Then Drew came back in a twitch of eyelid to the here and now, to Hunt Rennie watching him with a measuring he did not relish, to Bartolomé's round face with its close-to-hostile expression. Deliberately Drew sipped again before answering the question."I'd say, suh, if they're but a sample of Range stock, the breed is excellent. However——""However what,señor?" Bartolomé's eyes challenged Drew. "In this territory, even in Sonora, there are none to compare with the horses of this hacienda.""That is not what I was about to say,SeñorRivas. But ifDonCazar wishes to try the eastern methods of training, these horses are too old. You begin with a yearling colt, not three-year-olds.""To break a foal! What madness!" Now Bartolomé's face expressed shock."Not breaking," Drew corrected, "training. It is another method altogether. One puts a weanling on a rope halter, accustoms him to the feel of the hackamore, of being with men. Then he grows older knowing no fear or strangeness."[pg 063]The Mexican looked from Drew toDonCazar, his shock fading to puzzlement. Rennie nodded."Sí, amigo, so it is done—in Kentucky and Virginia. But this time we must deal with the older ones. Can you modify those methods, gentle without breaking? A colt with the fire still in him, but saddle-broke, is worth much more—""I can try. But you have already said, suh, that you don't allow rough breakin' here." Drew's half suspicion crystallized into belief.DonCazar had not really wanted another wrangler at all; he had wanted Shiloh—and his foals. Well, perhaps he would find he did have a wrangler who could deliver the goods into the bargain."No, but it is always well to learn new ways. I have been in Kentucky, Kirby. Perhaps some of their methods would not work on the Range. On the other hand, others might. As you have said—we can but try." He picked up the top sheet of paper and began to read:"Bayos-blancos—light duns—two.Bayos-azafranados—saffrons—one.Bayos-narajados—orange duns—none——""There was one," Bartolomé interrupted. "The mare, she was lost at Cañon del Palomas."Rennie frowned, "Sí, the mare.Bayos-tigres—striped ones —three.Bayos-cebrunos—smoked duns—two.Grullas—blues—four. Roans—six. Blacks—three. Bays—four. Twenty-five three-year-olds. You won't be expected to take on the wholeremuda, Kirby. Select any six of your own choosing and use your methods of gentling on them. We'll make a test this way."Bartolomé uttered a sound closer to a snort than anything else. And Drew guessed how he stood with the Mexican foreman. Rennie might have faith, or pretend to have faith, in some new method of training, but Rivas was a conservative[pg 064]who preferred the tried and true and undoubtedly considered the Kentuckian an interloper."Now, the matter of Shiloh..."Drew finished the sherry with appreciation. He was beginning to see the amusing side of this conference. Drew's work on the Range settled, Rennie was about to get to what he really wanted. ButDonCazar's first words were a little startling."We'll keep him close-in the water corral. To turn a stud of eastern breeding loose is dangerous——""You mean he might be stolen, suh?" Drew clicked his empty glass down on the table."No, he might be killed!" And Rennie's tone indicated he meant just that."How...why?""There are wild-horse bands out there, though we're trying to capture or run them off the Range. And a wild stud will always try to add mares to his band. Because he has fought many times to keep or take mares, he is a formidable and vicious opponent, one that an imported, tamed stud can rarely best. Right now, coming into Big Rock well for water is a pinto that has killed three other stallions—including a black I imported back in '60—and two of them were larger, heavier animals than he."The Trinfans are moving down into that section this week. I hope they can break up that band, run down the stud anyway. He has courage and cunning, but his blood is not a line we want for foals on this range. So Shiloh stays here at the Stronghold; don't risk him loose.""Yes, suh. What about these wild ones—they worth huntin'?""They're mixed; some are scrubs, inbred, poor stuff. But[pg 065]a few fine ones turn up. Mostly when they do they're strays or bred from strays—escaped from horse thieves or Indians. If the mustangers here pick up any branded ones, they're returned to the owners, if possible, or sold at a yearly auction. By the old Mexican law the hunting season for horses runs from October to March. Foals are old enough then to be branded. Speaking of foals, you left your mare and the filly in town?""Kells'll give them stable room till next month. I can bring them out then.""We'll have a delivery of remounts to make to the camp about then. You can help haze those in and pick up your own stock on return."León appeared in the doorway. "DonCazar, themesteneoes—they arrive.""Good. These people are the real wild-horse experts, Kirby. Not much the Trinfans don't know about horses."DonCazar was already on his way to the door and Drew fell in behind Bartolomé.The Trinfan outfit was small, considering the job they intended, Drew thought. A cart pulled by two mules, lightly made and packed high, was the nucleus of their small caravan. Burros—two of them—were roped behind and, to Drew's surprise, a cow, bawling fretfully and intended, he later learned, to play foster mother to any unweaned foals which might be picked up. The cart was driven by a Mexican in leather breeches and jacket over a red shirt. Behind him rode the boy and girl Drew had seen in the Tubacca alley, mounted on rangy, nervous horses that had speed in every line of their under-fleshed bodies. Each rider trailed four spare mounts roped nose to tail."Buenos días, DonCazar." For so small a man the Mexican[pg 066]on the cart seat produced a trumpet-sized voice. He touched the roll-edged brim of his sombrero, and Drew noted that his arm was crooked as if in the past it had been broken and poorly set."Buenos dias, SeñorTrinfan. This house is yours." Rennie went to the side of the cart. "The west corral is ready for your use as always. Draw on the stores for any need you may have—""Gracias, DonCazar." It was the thanks of equal to equal. "You have some late news of the wild ones?""Only that the pinto still runs near the well.""That spotted one—sí, he is an Apache for cunning, for deviltry of spirit. It may be that this time he will not be the lucky one. There is in him a demon. Did I not see him, with my own eyes, kill a foal, tear flesh from the flanks of its dam when she tried to drop out of the run?Sí—a realdiablo, that one!""Get rid of him one way or another, Trinfan. He is a danger to the Range. He killed another stud this season. I am as sure of that as if I had seen him in action.""Ah, the blue one you thought might be a runner to match Oro.Sí, that was a great pity,DonCazar. Well, we shall try, we shall try this time to put thatdiablounder!"An hour later Drew was facing adiabloof his own, with far less confidence than Hilario Trinfan had voiced. Just how stupid could one be? Around him now were men trained from early childhood to this life, and he could show no skill at their employment. All the way out from Texas he had practiced doggedly with the lariat, and his best fell far short of what a range-bred child could do.Yet he had an audience waiting down at the corral. Drew's mouth was a straight line. He would soon confirm[pg 067]their belief thatDonCazar had in truth hired Shiloh instead of his owner. But there was no use trying to duck the ordeal, and the Kentuckian had never been one to put off the inevitable with a pallid hope that something would turn up to save him.Only this time, apparently, fortune was going to favor him."Which one you wish,señor?" Teodoro Trinfan, rope in hand, stood there ready to cast for one of the milling colts. Why the boy was making that offer of assistance Drew had no inkling. But to accept would give him a slight chance to prove he could do part of the work.He had already made his selection in the corral, though he had despaired of ever getting that animal at rope's end."The black—"

[pg 032]3Only a well-armed and convoyed set of wagons with a highly experienced and competent master could dare travel the Apache-infested trails these days. The first of the freighters, pulled by a sixteen-mule team, fairly burst into the plaza, outriders fanning about it. One of the mounted men was dressed in fringed buckskin, his shoulder-length hair and bushy black beard the badge of a frontier already passing swiftly into history. He rode a big black mule and carried a long-barreled rifle, not in the saddle boot, but resting across the horn as if even here in Tubacca there might be reason for instant action.The mule trotted on to the middle of the plaza. Then the weapon pointed skyward as its owner fired into the air, voicing a whoop as wild as the Rebel Yell from the throat of a charging Texas trooper.He was answered by cries and shouts from the gathering crowd as five more wagons, each with a trailer hooked to its main bulk, pulled in around the edge of the open area, until the center of the town was full and the din of braying mules was deafening.Drew retreated to the roofed entrance of the Four Jacks.[pg 033]The extra step of height there enabled him to get a good look at two more horsemen pushing past the end wagon. Both wore the dress of Mexican gentlemen, their short jackets glinting with silver braid and embroidery; their bridles, horse gear, and saddles were rich in scrolls and decorations of the same metal. Navajo blankets lay under the saddles, and serapes were folded over the shoulder of one rider, tied behind the cantle of the other.They pulled up before the cantina, and one man took the reins of both mounts. If the riders' clothing and horse furnishings were colorful, the horses themselves were equally striking. One was a chestnut, a warm, well-groomed red. But the other ... Drew stared. In all his years about the stables and breeding farms of Kentucky, and throughout his travels since, he had never seen a horse like this. Its coat was pure gold, a perfect match to one of the eagles in his money belt. But the silky locks of mane and tail were night black. Its breeding was plainly Arab, and it walked with a delicate pride as gracefully as a man might foot a dance measure.Drew had a difficult time breaking his gaze from the horse to the man dismounting. The ranchero was tall, perhaps an inch or so taller than Drew, and his body had the leanness of the men who worked the range country, possessing, too, a lithe youthfulness of carriage. Until one looked directly into his sun-browned face he could pass as a man still in his late twenties.But he was older, perhaps a decade older than that, Drew thought. Too high and prominent cheekbones with slight hollows below them, and a mouth tight set, made more for strength of will and discipline of feeling than conventional good looks. Yet his was a face not easily forgotten, once[pg 034]seen. Black hair was pepper-salted for a finger-wide space above his ears, which were fronted by long sideburns, and black brows were straight above dark eyes. In spite of his below-the-border dress and his coloring, he was unmistakably Anglo, just as the man looping both horses' reins to the rack was Mexican."So, you're still wearing your hair in good order? No trouble this trip?" Topham had come to the door of the cantina, his hand outstretched. "Welcome back, Hunt!""Paugh!" The Mexican spat. "Where is there one Indio who is able to faceDonCazar on his own ground? The folly of that they learned long ago."DonCazar smiled. That mask of aloofness was wiped away as if he were ten years younger and twenty years less responsible than he had been only seconds earlier. "And if they did not beware our rifles, Bartolomé here would talk them to death! Is that not so,amigo?" His speech was oddly formal, as if he were using a language other than his own, but there was a warmth to the tone which matched that sudden and surprising smile.Topham's arm went about the shoulders under the black-and-silver jacket, drawingDonCazar into the light, music, and excitement of the cantina. While Drew watched, the stouter back of Bartolomé cut off his first good look at his father.So ...thatwasDonCazar—Hunt Rennie! Drew did not know what he had expected of their first meeting. Now he could not understand why he felt so chilled and lost. He had planned it this way—no demands, no claims on a stranger, freedom to make the decision of when or how he would see his father; that was the only path he could take. But now he turned slowly away from that open door, the[pg 035]light, the laughter and singing, and walked back toward the stable, loneliness cutting into him.Tubacca had slumbered apathetically before; now the town was wide awake. In a couple of days the wagon train would head on north to Tucson, but now the activity in the plaza was a mixture of market day and fiesta. Small traders from Sonora took advantage of the protection afforded byDonCazar's outriders and had trailed along with their own products, now being spread out and hawked.Parrots shrieked from homemade cages; brightly woven fabrics were draped to catch the eye. As he wandered about viewing cactus syrup, sweet, brown panocha-candy, fruit, dried meat, blankets, saddles, Drew was again aware of the almost strident color of this country. He fingered appreciatively a horn goblet carved with intricate figures of gods his Anglo eyes did not recognize. The hum of voices, the bray of mules, the baa-ing and naa-ing of sheep and goats, kept up a roar to equal surf on a seacoast. Afternoon was fast fading into evening, but Tubacca, aroused from the post-noon siesta, was in tumult.A fighting cock tethered to a cart wheel stretched its neck to the utmost in an attempt to peck at Drew's spurs. He laughed, attracted, wrenched out of his own private world. The smell of spicy foods, of fruit, of animals and people ... the clamor ... the sights....Drew rounded one end of a wagon and stepped abruptly into yet another world and time. All the stories which had been dinned warningly into his ears since he had left the Mississippi now brought his hand to one of the Colts at his belt. Most of the half-dozen men squatting on their heels about a fire were three-quarters bare, showing dusty, brown bodies. Two had dirty calico shirts loose above hide breech-clouts.[pg 036]Dark-brown eyes, as unreadable as Johnny Shannon's, surveyed Drew, but none of the Indians moved or spoke.Common sense took over, and Drew's hand dropped from the gun butt. Hostiles would not be camping peacefully here in the heart of town. He could not be facing wild Apaches or Navajos. But they were the first Indians he had seen this close since he had ridden out of Texas."Somethin' buggin' you, boy?"Drew's war-trained muscles took over. He was in a half crouch, the Colt flipped over and out, pointing into the shadows where the newcomer emerged. Then the Kentuckian flushed and slammed his weapon back into the holster. This was the buckskinned man who had whooped the train into town that morning."Mite quick to show your iron, ain't you?" There was a chill in the question, and Drew saw that the long rifle was still held at alert by its owner."Cat-footin' up on a man ought to make you expect somethin' of a reception," Drew countered."Yep, guess some men has sure got 'em a bellyful of lead doin' that." To Drew's surprise the other was now grinning. "You huntin' someone?""No, just lookin' around." Drew longed to ask some things himself, but hesitated. Frontier etiquette was different from Kentucky custom; it was safer to be quiet when not sure."Wal, thar's aplenty to see tonight, right enough. Me—I'm Crow Fenner; I ride scout fur th' train. An' these here—they're Rennie's Pimas, what o' 'em is runnin' th' trail this trip."So these were the famous Pima Scouts! No wonder they[pg 037]took their ease in the Tubacca plaza. Every man, woman, and child in those adobe buildings had reason to be thankful for their skill and cunning—the web of protection Rennie's Pima Scouts had woven in this river valley."I'm Kirby, Drew Kirby." He hastened to match one introduction with another. "This is my first time in the valley—""From th' east, eh?""Texas.""Texas...." Something in the way Fenner repeated that made it sound not like a confirmation but a question. Or was Drew overly suspicious? After all, as Callie had agreed last night, the late Republic of Texas was a very large strip of country, housing a multitude of native sons, from the planting families of the Brazos to the ranchers in crude cabins of the Brasado. There were Texans and Texans, differing greatly in speech, manners, and background. And one did not ask intimate questions of a man riding west of the Pecos. Too often he might have come hunting a district where there was a longer distance between sheriffs. What a man volunteered about his past was accepted as the truth."Rode a far piece then," Fenner commented. "Me, I've been trailin' round this here country since th' moon was two-bit size. An' I ain't set my moccasins on all o' it yet. Thar's parts maybe even an Injun ain't seed neither. You jus' outta th' army, son?"Drew nodded. Apparently he could not escape that part of his past, and there was no reason to deny it."Iffen you be huntin' a job—DonCazar, he's always ready to hire on wagon guards. Any young feller what knows how to handle a gun, he's welcome—""Can't leave Tubacca, at least for now. Have me a mare[pg 038]over in the livery that just foaled. I'm not movin' until she's ready to travel—""Must be right good stock," Fenner observed. "Me, I has me a ridin' mule as kin smell Apaches two miles off. Two, three times that thar mule saved m' skin fur me. Got Old Tar when he turned up in a wild-hoss corral th' mustangers set over in th' Red River country—""I saw him when you rode into town. Good-lookin' animal."Crow Fenner nodded vigorously. "Shore is, shore is.DonCazar, he's partial to good stock—favors Tar, too. Th'Donhas him a high-steppin' hoss every hoss thief in this here territory'd like to run off. Bright yaller—""Saw that one, too. Unusual colorin' all right.""He put a white stud—white as milk—to run with some light buckskin mares back 'fore th' war. First colt out of that thar breedin' was that Oro hoss. Never got 'nother like him; he's special. Shows his heels good, too. They's gonna race him out on th' flats tomorrow if anyone is fool 'nough to say as he has a hoss as can beat Oro. Thar's always some greenhorn as thinks he has—""Oh?" Drew wondered aloud. The black-and-gold horse was beautiful and plainly of good breeding. That he was also a runner was not out of the question. But that Oro could best Gray Eagle-Ariel stock on the track, Drew doubted. There were unbroken records set on eastern tracks by horses in Shiloh's direct blood line. And the local talent that had been matched against Oro in the past had probably not been much competition. The Kentuckian began to speculate about a match between the gray stallion and the horse foaled on the Arizona range.[pg 039]"Yep, we'll see some race, does anyone turn up with a hoss t' match Oro."One of the shirted Indians rose to his feet. With rifle sloped over forearm, he padded into the dark. Fenner's relaxed posture tensed into alert readiness. His head turned, his attitude now one of listening concentration. Drew strained to see or hear what lay beyond. But the noise from the plaza and torchlight made a barrier for eye and ear.Fenner's rifle barrel dropped an inch or so; he stood easy again. Drew heard a jingle of metal, the creak of saddle leather, the pound of shod hoofs."Soldiers!" Fenner sniffed. "Wonder what they's doin', hittin' town now. Wal, that ain't no hair off m' skull. Me, I'm gonna git Tar his treat. Promised him some time back he could have a bait o' oats—oats an' salt, an' jus' a smidgen o' corn cake. That thar mule likes t' favor his stomach. Kells, he ought t' have them vittles put together right 'bout now. This mare o' yourn what's so special, young feller.... Me, I'd like t' see a hoss what's got to be took care of like she was a bang-up lady!"He put two fingers to his lips and whistled. A mule head, attached to a rangy mule body, weaved forward to follow dog-at-heel fashion behind the scout.A squad of blue coats was riding in—an officer and six men. They threaded their way to the cantina where the officer dismounted and went inside. The troopers continued to sit their saddles and regard the scene about them wistfully."Looks like a duty patrol," Fenner remarked. "Maybe Cap'n Bayliss. He's gittin' some biggety idear as how it's up t' him t' police this here town. Does he start t' crow too[pg 040]loud,DonCazar or Reese Topham'll cut his spurs. Maybe he sets up th' war shield an' does th' shoutin' back thar in front o' all them soldier boys. In this town he ain't no gold-lace general!""Troops and the town not friendly?" Drew asked."Th' soldiers—they ain't no trouble. Some o' 'em have their heads screwed on straight an' know what they's doin' or tryin' t' do. But a lot o' them officers now—they come out here wi' biggety idears 'bout how t' handle Injuns, thinkin' they knows all thar's t' be knowed 'bout fightin'—an' them never facin' up to a Comanche in war paint, let alone huntin' 'Paches. 'Paches, they know this here country like it was part o' their own bodies—can say 'Howdy-an'-how's-all-th'-folks, bub?' t' every lizard an' snake in th' rocks. Ain't no army gonna pull 'em out an' make 'em fight white-man style."DonCazar—he goes huntin' 'em when they've come botherin' him an' does it right. But he knows you think Injun, you live Injun, you eat Injun, you smell Injun when you do. They don't leave no more trail than an ant steppin' high, 'less they want you should foller them into a nice ambush as they has all figgered out. Put Greyfeather an' his Pimas on 'em an' then leg it till your belly's near meetin' your backbone an' you is all one big tired ache. Iffen you kin drink sand an' keep on footin' it over red-hot rocks when you is nigh t' a bag o' bones, then maybe—jus' maybe—you kin jump an Apache. Comanches, now, an' Cheyenne an' Kiowa an' Sioux ride out to storm at you—guns an' arrows all shootin'—wantin' to count coup on a man by hittin' him personal. But th' 'Pache ain't wastin' hisself that way. Nope—git behind a rock an' ambush ... put th' whole hell-fired country t' work fur them. That's how th' 'Pache does[pg 041]his fightin'. An' th' spit-an'-polish officers what come from eastward—they's got t' larn that. Only sometimes they ain't good at larnin', an' then they gits larned—good an' proper. Hey, Kells!"They were at the stable and Fenner lifted a hand, palm out, in greeting to the liveryman. "Here's Ole Tar wantin' his special grub—"Drew went on to Shiloh's stall. Reese Topham, the SpaniardDonLorenzo who had been in the cantina last night, the stout Mexican Bartolomé, andDonCazar himself were all there before him."Here he is now." Reese Topham waved a hand at Drew. "This is Mister Kirby, from Texas.""You have a fine horse there, Kirby—the mare, too. Eastern stock, I would judge, perhaps Kentucky breeding?" Rennie asked.Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, not lie directly."Yes, Kentucky." He answered the first words his father had ever addressed to him."And the line?"To be too evasive would invite suspicion. However, the Gray Eagle get was in more than one Kentucky stable."Eclipse...." Drew set back the pedigree several equine generations. Shiloh tossed his head, looked over his shoulder at Drew, who entered the stall and began quieting the stallion with hands drawn gently over the back and up the arch of the neck."The mare also?"DonCazar continued."Yes." The Kentuckian's answer sounded curt in his own ears, but he could not help it.[pg 042]"This Eclipse,amigo,"DonLorenzo turned to Rennie for enlightenment—"he was a notable horse?""Sí, of the Messenger line. But a gray of that breeding—"DonCazar's forefinger ran nail point along his lower lip. "Ariel blood, perhaps?"Drew busied himself adjusting Shiloh's hackamore. This was getting close. Hunt Rennie had lived in Kentucky over a year once. He had visited Red Springs many times before he had dared to court Alexander Mattock's daughter and been forbidden the place. His visits to the stable must have familiarized him with the Gray Eagle-Ariel strain bred there. On the other hand, horses of the same combination were the pride of several other families living around Lexington."A racing line of high blood,"DonLorenzo said thoughtfully. "Sí, this one has the pride, the appearance. You have raced him,señor?" he asked Drew with formal courtesy."Not on any real track,señor. During the war there were no races.""He wasn't a cavalry mount?"DonCazar looked surprised."No, suh. Too young for that. He was foaled on April sixth in sixty-two. That's why they called him Shiloh."There was a moment of silence, broken by a hail from the door."You there—Rennie!"Drew saw the involuntary spasm ofDonCazar's lips, the shadow of an expression which might mean he anticipated a distasteful scene to come. But the quirk disappeared as he turned to face the man in the blue uniform.[pg 043]"Captain Bayliss." It was acknowledgment rather than a greeting, delivered in a cool tone."I want to see you, Rennie!" The officer stamped forward a step or so, to stand in the full light of the first lantern. He was of medium height, and his blue blouse had been cut by a good tailor, though now it was worn. He was a good-looking man, though jowly about the mouth, above which a closely cropped mustache bristled. His color was high under a pink skin which in this hot country must burn painfully. And there was the permanent stamp of uncertain temper in the lines about his prominent eyes.[pg 044]4"So, you see me, Bayliss,"DonCazar returned evenly. "There is some trouble?"Bartolomé shifted from one foot to the other, his spurs ringing.DonLorenzo's expression was one of withdrawal, but on the round countenance of the Mexican was open dislike.The sun-reddened skin flushed darker. "All right, Rennie!" the captain exploded. "If you want it straight, that's the way you're going to get it! You've been hiring Rebs again!"Once before Drew had seen explosive anger curbed visibly by a man who knew the folly of losing control over his emotions. It had been on a hilltop back in Tennessee, with the storm clouds of January overhead. General Bedford Forrest, watching men driven to the limit by necessity and his own orders, had looked just that way when he had rounded on Drew, bearing news of yet another break-through by the Federals. Now it was this Anglo wearing Spanish dress and standing in a dim stable, reining temper to meet the open hostility of the captain."Captain Bayliss." The words sounded as remote as if the[pg 045]speaker bestrode some peak of the Chiricahuas to address a pygmy in a canyon below. "I know of no law which states that I may not employ whom I choose on my own land. If a man does his job and makes no trouble, his past does not matter. I am as ready to fire a former Union soldier as I am a Confederate—""I tell you again: I'm not going to have Rebs around here passing on information to Kitchell!""AndIsay once again, Captain, that men who ride for me do not in addition ride for Kitchell.""Sí—!" Bartolomé's face was as flushed as Bayliss' now. "We do not help thosebandidos. Do they not also raid us? Two weeks ago Francisco Perez, his horse comes in with blood on the saddle. We ride out and find him—shot, dragged with the rope. That is not Apache trick, that, but the work of Kitchell and his snakes!""Peace,amigo."DonCazar's raised finger silenced his man. "Bartolomé is right, Bayliss. Kitchell is beginning to nibble at the Range. He has not many sources of supply left. Soon he will either have to cross the border to stay or make some reckless raid which will give us a chance at him.""These damned Rebs around here will keep him going! You can't tell me they don't back him every chance they get. And I'm warning you, Rennie, if you hire any man you can't answer for, he's going to the stockade and you'll hear about it from the army!""And you also listen, Captain. I will not be dictated to, and the army had best understand that. I do not want Kitchell in this country any more than you do. He has made a boast of being Confederate leading what he terms Mounted Irregulars. But to my knowledge he never held a[pg 046]commission from the South, and he is nothing but an outlaw trading on the unsettled state of the territory. That is recognized by every decent man in Arizona. And that covers those you call 'Rebels' as well as former Union men."Bayliss was silent for a long second, and then he jerked his hat farther down on his peeling forehead. "You've had notice, Rennie, that's all I have to say. I'm going to clear all the Rebs out of this section. Then we will be able to get at Kitchell, and the army will settle him for good and all!""Bayliss!" The captain had half turned, butDonCazar's call halted him. "Don't you try harassing any of my riders. They mind their business and will not make any trouble as long as they are left in peace. If there are any problems in town,DonLorenzo Sierra, here, is the alcalde and they must be referred to him."The captain favored Rennie with a last glare and was gone. Tobe Kells spoke first."That one's chewin' th' bit an' gittin' ready to hump under th' saddle. This business of tryin' to run out th' Rebs, it'll cause smokin'!""He has no right to give such an order,"DonCazar was beginning when the alcalde interrupted:"Compadre, for a man such as that your talk of rights means nothing. He is eaten by the need to impress his will here, and that will bring trouble. I do not like what I have heard, no, I do not like it at all.""You know what may be really eating at him this time, Hunt?" Topham spoke from where he was leaning against the wall of Shadow's box stall. "Johnny was throwing his weight around again last night. Had a set-to in the Jacks with a trooper. Unless the kid quits trying to fight the war over again every time he sees an army blouse—or until he[pg 047]stops pouring whisky down him every time he hits town—there may be shooting trouble. There're some equal hot-heads in Bayliss' camp, and if Johnny goes up against one of them, a scuffle could become a battle.""Yeah, an' that warn't all Johnny was doin' last night." Kells shifted his tobacco cud from one cheek to the other. "Iffen Kirby here hadn't been to hand, Johnny would have skinned th' Trinfan kid with his quirt—jus' 'cause he dropped his purse outside th' Jacks an' th' kid followed him to give it back. Johnny's meaner than a drunk Injun these days. That's Bible-swear truth, Rennie.""To lose a war makes a man bitter,"DonCazar said slowly. "Johnny was far too young when he ran away to join Howard. And after that defeat at Glorieta, the retreat to Texas was pure hell with the fires roaring. It seems to have done something to the boy—inside.""Johnny wasn't the only boy at Glorieta. From what I've heard most of them weren't old enough to grow a good whisker crop." Topham's voice had lost its detached note. "And he sure wasn't the only Confederate to surrender. Hunt, he's got to learn that losing a war doesn't mean that a man has lost the rest of his life. But the way he's been acting these past months, Johnny might just lose it. Bayliss' tongue is hanging out a yard or more he's panting so hard to get back at you. That captain has heady ambitions under his hat, maybe like setting up here as a tinpot governor or something like. If he can discredit you, well, he probably thinks he's got a chance to rake in the full pot, and it's a big one. Get Johnny back on the Range, Hunt—put him to work, hard. Sweat that sour temper and whisky out of him. He used to be a promising youngster; now he's turning bronco fast. All he seems to have learned in the war[pg 048]is how to use those guns of his to lord it over anyone he believes he can push around. And someday he'll try to push the wrong man—"DonCazar was staring ahead of him now at Drew and Shiloh. But Drew knew that Hunt Rennie was not seeing either man or horse, but a mental picture which was not too pleasing."He's just a boy." Rennie did not utter that as an excuse; rather he said it as if to reassure himself. Then his eyes really focused on Drew, and he changed the subject abruptly."Kirby, when the train comes in we sometimes set up a race or two. Any thought of trying your colt against some of the local champions?""Oro perhaps?" Drew counter-questioned.Rennie laughed. "Oh, so you've been talking, Fenner?"The scout came away from where Tar was still very audibly munching his treat. "Didn't know as how th' younker had him a runnin' hoss,DonCazar." He inspected Shiloh critically. "But that thar sure looks a lotta hoss. 'Course maybe he ain't used t' runnin' out here whar th' ground ain't made all nice an' easy fur his feet. But I dunno, I dunno at all.""Anyway he'll give Oro stiffer competition than he's had in the last two races. Unless that Lieutenant Spath up at the camp tries again with that long-legged black of his," Topham added. "What about it, Kirby? You willing to match Shiloh?""He's green, but, yes, I'll do it."Drew's motives were mixed. His pride in the colt had been pushing him toward such a trial ever since he had heard Fenner speak of Oro. In addition, as the owner of a[pg 049]noted horse, he would take a place in this community, establish his identity as Drew Kirby. And in some way he could not define, this put him, at least in his own mind, on an equal footing withDonCazar.But by the next morning a few doubts troubled him as he tightened saddle cinches on the stallion. Shiloh's only races so far had been impromptu matches along the trail. Though the colt had been consistently the victor, none of his rivals had been in his class. And if Oro's speed was as striking as his coloring, the Range stud would prove a formidable opponent."Walk him up and down here by the corral." The Kentuckian handed the reins to Callie. "Got something I have to do."Drew went directly to the Four Jacks. This time the cantina was filled, with a double row of the thirsty demanding attention at the bar. But Topham was seated at a table withDonLorenzo and Zack Cahill of the stage line. The Kentuckian went over to them."You have come to back your horse,señor?"DonLorenzo smiled up at Drew. There were piles of coins on the table as Cahill listed bets for the men crowding around."Yes, suh." Drew spun down two double eagles. "What're the odds?""Started six to one for Oro," Topham told him. "Coasted down after a few of the boys had a look at Shiloh. Can give you four to one now. Anything else we can do for you?"Drew dropped his voice. "Do you have a safe here?"Topham's eyebrows climbed. "Do you foresee a deposit or a withdrawal?""Deposit. I want to ride light today.""Then I'll admit possession of a safe, such as it is.Don[pg 050]Lorenzo,por favor, will you act as banker?" He beckoned Drew after him into a small back room which was in sharp contrast to the main part of the Four Jacks.On one wall was a fanned display of old daggers and swords which dated a century or so back to the Spanish colonial days. A bookcase crammed with tightly squeezed volumes provided a resting place for pieces of native pottery bearing grotesque animal designs. On the far wall were strips of brightly colored woven materials flanking a huge closed cupboard, a very old one, Drew thought. Its paneled front was carved with deeply incised patterns centering about a shield bearing arms. Only the battered desk and an attendant chair with a laced rawhide seat were of the frontier.Topham took a chained key from the pocket of his fancy vest and went to fit it into a lock concealed in the carved foliage of the cupboard. The shield split down the middle, revealing shelves of metal boxes and packets of papers. Drew unfastened his money belt and handed it over. As he was tucking his shirt in his belt once more the gambler nodded at the cupboard."This is about as near a bank as we boast in Tubacca. Cahill has a strongbox at the stage station, and Stein some kind of a lockup at his store—that's the total for the town. We haven't grown to the size for a real banking establishment—""Hey, Reese, th' Old Man about—?"Shannon was in the doorway. In the full light of day he looked younger. Drew was puzzled. That strange animosity which had flashed between them last night—why had he felt it? There was nothing like that emotion now. But as Johnny Shannon's gaze flitted from Topham to the Kentuckian,[pg 051]Drew was once more aware that, whatever he might outwardly seem, Johnny Shannon was no boy. Behind that disarmingly youthful façade was another person altogether."Kirby, ain't it?" Shannon smiled. "Understand I got outta line th' other night ... stepped on a lotta toes." That gaze flickered for the merest instant to the Colts at the Kentuckian's belt. "I sure had me a real snootful an' I guess I was jus' fightin' th' war all over again. No hard feelin's?"That guileless confession was very convincing on the surface. How did you assess an emotion you did not understand yourself? Drew was teased by a fleeting memory of the past, of a time when he had faced another pair of eyes such as those, surface eyes behind which you could see nothing. Then he became conscious that the pause was too lengthy, and he replied with a hurry he immediately regretted:"No hard feelin's."This time he was able to recognize the meaning of that quirk of Shannon's lips. But prudence controlled the small flare of temper he felt inside him. It did not really matter. Let Shannon think he was backing down. If the time ever came that they did have to have a showdown, Johnny Shannon might be the surprised one."You're sure a trustin' fella." Shannon's fingers hooked to the front of the gun belt riding low on the hip. "Not askin' for no receipt or nothin'...."Topham laughed. "We don't forget what is due a customer, Johnny." He went to the desk, scribbled a line on a piece of paper, and held it out to Drew. "This should meet all contingencies, such as some patron out there getting[pg 052]downright ornery and putting a couple of extra buttonholes in my vest by the six-gun slug method.""Heard tell as how you're fixin' to race your plug 'gainst Oro, Kirby," Johnny drawled. "Also as how you laid down some good round boys to back his chance. I took me a piece of them—easy pickin's." The sneer was plainer in his voice than it had been in his smile.Drew's puzzlement grew. Why was Shannon leaning on him this way? Because he had stepped in to stop the quirting of Teodoro? That was the only reason the Kentuckian could think of."That's a matter of opinion." Topham was studying them both with interest. "I'd say Oro has him some real competition at last. None of the Eclipse blood was ever backward on the track.""You ridin' yourself?" Shannon paid no attention to the gambler's comment.Drew nodded. "He knows me, and I ride light—""Sure, I suppose you do—now." Shannon's eyes flickered again, this time to the locked cupboard. "Heard tell—leastways Callie's been spoutin' it around—that you was with General Forrest.""Yes.""You sure musta pulled outta th' war better'n th' rest of us poor Rebs. Got you a couple of blooded hosses an' a good heavy money belt. A sight more luck than th' rest of us had—""Don't include yourself in the empty-pocket brigade, Johnny," Topham rapped out. "I don't see you going without eating money, drinking money either, more's a pity. And if you're really looking for Rennie now, you'll find him down at the course."[pg 053]Shannon's smile was gone. He straightened away from the door frame which had been supporting his shoulders. "Thanks a lot, Reese." He left with the same abruptness as he had from the stable alley."So you're riding yourself." Topham ignored the departure. "León Rivas, Bartolomé's son, will be up on Oro; he always rides for Rennie. He's younger than you, but I'd say"—the gambler studied Drew's lithe body critically—"you're about matched in weight. I'd shuck that gun belt, though, and anything else you can. And good luck, Kirby. You'll need all of it you can muster."An hour later Drew followed Topham's advice, leaving gun belt, carbine, and everything else he could unload in Callie's keeping before he swung up on Shiloh. The big colt was nervous, tending to dance sideways, tossing his head high. Drew concentrated on the business at hand, striving to forget the crowd opening up to let him through, shouting encouragement or disparagement. Ahead was the appointed track, a beaten stretch of earth, part of the old road leading to the mines. The Kentuckian talked to Shiloh as they went, keeping up a stream of words to firm the bond between horse and rider.There was a knot of men surrounding the golden horse, and as his rider mounted, Oro put on a good show, rearing to paw the air with his forefeet as if he wished nothing better than to meet his gray rival in an impromptu boxing match. Then he nodded his head vigorously, acknowledging the shouts from his enthusiastic supporters. Beside that magnificent blaze of color Shiloh was drab, a shadow about to be put to flight by the sun.They were to break at a starting shot, head to the big tree which made an excellent landmark in the flat valley,[pg 054]rounding its patch of shade before returning to the starting point. Drew brought Shiloh, still prancing and playing with his bit, up beside Oro. The slim boy on the golden horse shot the Kentuckian a shoulder-side look and grinned, raising his quirt in salute as Drew nodded and smiled back.Some of the noise died.DonLorenzo pointed a pistol skyward. Drew strove to make his body one with Shiloh's small easy movements. The big gray knew very well what was in progress, was tensing now for a swift getaway leap. And he made it on the crack of the gun.But if Shiloh had easily outdistanced all opposition before on those improvised tracks, he was now meeting a far more equal race. The gray colt's stride was effortless, he was pounding out with power—more than Drew had ever known him to exert. Yet those golden legs matched his pace, reach for reach, hoofbeat for hoofbeat."Come on, boy!" Drew's urging was lost in the wild shouting of the spectators. Some who were mounted were trying to parallel the runners. But Shiloh responded to his rider's encouragement even if he could not hear or understand. Drew would never use quirt or spur on the stud. What Shiloh had to give must come willingly and because he delighted in the giving.They swept in and around the shade of the tree, made the arc to return. That golden head with its tossing crown of black forelock; itwasslipping back! Oro was no longer nose to nose with Shiloh, rather now nose to neck. Drew could hear Rivas' voice encouraging, pleading....A mass of men, mounted and on foot, funneled the runners down to where the line of rope lay straight to mark the finish. Oro was creeping up once more, inch by hard-won inch.[pg 055]Drew's head went up, his throat was rasped raw by the Yell which had taken desperate gray-coated troopers down hedge-bordered roads in Kentucky and steep ravines in Tennessee, sending them, if need be, straight into the mouths of Yankee field guns. And the Yell brought Shiloh home, only a nose ahead of his rival—as if he had been spurred by the now outlawed war cry. Then Drew found he had his hands full trying to pull up the colt and persuade him that the race was indeed over.[pg 056]5A black mule came up beside Drew as he slowly pulled Shiloh down to a canter. Fenner, a wide grin splitting his beard, bellowed:"That shore was a race! Need any help, son?"Drew shook his head, wanting to bring Shiloh under full control at a rate which would quiet the colt before they headed back to the furor about the finish line. And only now did he have time to relish his own excited pride and pleasure.Since he had first seen Shiloh on that scouting trip back to Kentucky in '64, he had known he must someday own the gray colt. He had lain out in the brush for a long time that morning to watch the head groom of Red Springs put the horse through his paces in the training paddock. And watching jealously, Drew had realized that Shiloh was one of those mounts that a man discovers only once in his life-time, though he may breed and love their kind all his years.Drew would have been content with Shiloh as a mount and a companion, but now he was sure that the colt was more, so much more. This gray was going to be one of the Great Ones, a racer and a sire—to leave his mark in horse[pg 057]history and stamp his own quality on foals throughout miles and years in this southwestern land. Drew licked the grit of dust from his lips, filled his lungs with a deep breath as Shiloh turned under rein pressure.It was a long time before the Kentuckian was able to separate Shiloh from his ring of new admirers and bring him back to the stable. Drew refused several offers for the colt, some of them so fantastic he could only believe their makers sun-touched or completely carried away by the excitement of the race.But when he foundDonCazar waiting for him at Kells', he guessed that this was serious."You do not wish to sell him, I suppose?" Hunt Rennie smiled at Drew's prompt shake of head. "No, that would be too much to hope for, you are not a fool. But I have something else to suggest. Reese Topham tells me you are looking for work, preferably with horses. Well, I have a contract to gentle some remounts for the army, and I need some experienced men to help break them—"Drew could not understand the sudden pinch of—could it be alarm? Here it was: a chance to work on the Range, to know Hunt Rennie, and learn whetherDonCazar was to remain a legend or become a father. But now he was not sure."I'm no breaker, suh. I've gentled, yes—but eastern style.""Breaking horses can be brutal, though we don't ride with red spurs on the Range. Suppose we try some of the eastern methods and see how they work on our wild ones. Do you think you can do it?""A man can't tell what he can do until he tries." Drew still hedged.There was a trace of frown now between Rennie's brows.[pg 058]"You told Topham you wanted work." His tone implied that he found Drew's present hesitancy odd. And—fromDonCazar's point of view—it was. Tubacca was still in a slump; the rest of the valley held about as many jobs for a man as Drew had fingers on one hand. The Range was the big holding, and to ride there meant security and an established position in the community. Also, perhaps it was not an offer lightly made to an unknown newcomer."I can't promise you blue-grass training, suh. That has to begin with a foal." He hoped Rennie would credit his wavering to a modest appraisal of his own qualifications."Blue-grass training?"As his father repeated the expression Drew realized the slip of tongue he had made. And if he took the job, there might be other slips, perhaps far more serious ones. But to refuse, after Topham had spoken for him ... he was caught in a pinch with cause for suspicion closing in on either side."I was in Kentucky for about a year after the war. I went to stay with a friend—""But youarefrom Texas?"Was Rennie watching him too intently? No, he must ride a tighter rein on his imagination. There was no reason in the wide world whyDonCazar should expect him to be anyone except Drew Kirby."Yes, suh. Didn't have anythin' to go back to there. Thought I'd try for a new start out here." There was the story of several thousand veterans. Rennie should have heard it a good many times already."Well, come and try some blue-grass training on our colts. And should you let this stud of yours run with a pickedmanadaof mares, I could promise good fees."[pg 059]"Suppose I said yes if the fees were some of the foals—of my own choosing, suh?" Drew asked.Rennie ran a finger across the brand which scarred the gray's hide. "Spur R—that's a new one to me.""My own. Heard tell as how there's a custom of the country that a slick this old can be branded and claimed by anyone bringing him in. I wasn't going to lose him that way should he do any straying, accidental or intentional."DonCazar laughed. "That's using your head, Kirby. All right. It's a deal as far as I'm concerned. You draw wrangler's pay and take stud fees in foals—say one in three, your choosing. Register that brand of yours withDonLorenzo to be on the safe side. Then you're welcome to run Spur R with the Double R on the Range."He held out his hand, and Drew grasped it for a quick shake to seal their agreement. He was committed now—to the Range and to a small partnership with its master. But he still wondered if he had made the right choice.Two days later he dropped bedroll and saddlebags on the spare bunk at one end of the long adobe-walled room and studied his surroundings with deep curiosity. It was a fort, all right, this whole stronghold of Rennie's—not just the bunkhouse which formed part of a side wall. Bunkhouse, feed store, and storage room, blacksmith shop, cookhouse, stables, main house, the quarters for the married men and their families—all arranged to enclose a patio into which choice stock could be herded at the time of an attack, with a curbed well in the center.The roofs of all the buildings were flat, with loopholed parapets to be manned at need. A sentry post on the main house was occupied twenty-four hours a day by relays of Pimas. A loaded rifle leaned at every window opening, ready[pg 060]to be fired through loopholes in the wooden war shutters. The walls were twenty-five inches thick, and mounted on the roof of the stable, facing the hills from which Apache attacks usually came, was a small brass cannon—DonCazar's legacy from troops marching away in '61.What he saw of the resources of this private fort led Drew to accept the other stories he had heard of the Range, like the one thatDonCazar's men practiced firing blindfolded at noise targets to be prepared for night raids. The place was self-contained and almost self-supporting, with stores of food, good water, its own forge and leather shop, its own craftsmen and experts. No wonder the Apaches had given up trying to break this Anglo outpost and Rennie had accomplished what others found impossible. He had held his land secure against the worst and most unbeatable enemy this country had nourished.There were other Range forts, smaller, but as stoutly and ingeniously designed, each built beside a water source on Rennie land—defense points forDonCazar's riders, their garrisons rotated at monthly intervals. And Drew had to thank that system for having taken Johnny Shannon away from the Stronghold before the Kentuckian arrived. Rennie's foster son was now riding inspection between one water-hole fortification and another. But Drew was uncertain just how he would rub along with Shannon in the future."SeñorKirby,DonCazar—he would speak with you in the Casa Grande," León Rivas called through one of the patio side windows."Coming." Drew left the huddle of his possessions on the bunk.The Casa Grande of the Stronghold was a high-ceilinged,[pg 061]five-room building about sixty feet long, the kitchen making a right angle to the other rooms and joining the smoke house to form part of another wall for the patio. Mesquite logs, adze-hewn and only partially smoothed, were placed over the doorways, and the plank doors themselves were slung on hand-wrought iron hinges or on leather straps, from oak turning-posts. Drew knocked on the age-darkened surface of the big door."Kirby? Come in."Here in contrast to the brilliant sunlight of the patio was a dusky coolness. There were no glass panes in the windows. Manta, the unbleached muslin which served to cover such openings in the frontier ranches, was tacked taut, allowing in air but only subdued light. The walls had been smoothly plastered, and as in Topham's office, lengths of colorful woven materials and a couple of Navajo blankets served as hangings. Rugs of cougar and wolf skin were scattered on the beaten earth of the floor. There was a tall carved cupboard with a grilled door, a bookcase, and two massive chests shoved back against the walls. And over the stone mantel of the fireplace hung a picture of a morose-looking, bearded man wearing a steel breastplate, the canvas dim and dark with age and smoke.DonCazar was seated at a table as massive as the chests, a pile of papers before him flanked by two four-branch candelabra of native silver. Bartolomé Rivas' more substantial bulk weighed down the rawhide seat of another chair more to one side."Sit down—" Rennie nodded to the seat in front of the table. "Smoke?" He pushed forward a silver box holding the long cigarillos of the border country. Drew shook his head.[pg 062]"Whisky? Wine?" He gestured to a tray with waiting glasses."Sherry." Drew automatically answered without thought."What do you think of the stock you saw down in the corral?"DonCazar poured a honey-colored liquid from the decanter into a small glass.As the Kentuckian raised it to sip, the scent of the wine quirked time for him, making this for a fleeting moment the dining room at Red Springs during a customary after-dinner gathering of the men of the household. The talk there, too, had been of horses—always horses. Then Drew came back in a twitch of eyelid to the here and now, to Hunt Rennie watching him with a measuring he did not relish, to Bartolomé's round face with its close-to-hostile expression. Deliberately Drew sipped again before answering the question."I'd say, suh, if they're but a sample of Range stock, the breed is excellent. However——""However what,señor?" Bartolomé's eyes challenged Drew. "In this territory, even in Sonora, there are none to compare with the horses of this hacienda.""That is not what I was about to say,SeñorRivas. But ifDonCazar wishes to try the eastern methods of training, these horses are too old. You begin with a yearling colt, not three-year-olds.""To break a foal! What madness!" Now Bartolomé's face expressed shock."Not breaking," Drew corrected, "training. It is another method altogether. One puts a weanling on a rope halter, accustoms him to the feel of the hackamore, of being with men. Then he grows older knowing no fear or strangeness."[pg 063]The Mexican looked from Drew toDonCazar, his shock fading to puzzlement. Rennie nodded."Sí, amigo, so it is done—in Kentucky and Virginia. But this time we must deal with the older ones. Can you modify those methods, gentle without breaking? A colt with the fire still in him, but saddle-broke, is worth much more—""I can try. But you have already said, suh, that you don't allow rough breakin' here." Drew's half suspicion crystallized into belief.DonCazar had not really wanted another wrangler at all; he had wanted Shiloh—and his foals. Well, perhaps he would find he did have a wrangler who could deliver the goods into the bargain."No, but it is always well to learn new ways. I have been in Kentucky, Kirby. Perhaps some of their methods would not work on the Range. On the other hand, others might. As you have said—we can but try." He picked up the top sheet of paper and began to read:"Bayos-blancos—light duns—two.Bayos-azafranados—saffrons—one.Bayos-narajados—orange duns—none——""There was one," Bartolomé interrupted. "The mare, she was lost at Cañon del Palomas."Rennie frowned, "Sí, the mare.Bayos-tigres—striped ones —three.Bayos-cebrunos—smoked duns—two.Grullas—blues—four. Roans—six. Blacks—three. Bays—four. Twenty-five three-year-olds. You won't be expected to take on the wholeremuda, Kirby. Select any six of your own choosing and use your methods of gentling on them. We'll make a test this way."Bartolomé uttered a sound closer to a snort than anything else. And Drew guessed how he stood with the Mexican foreman. Rennie might have faith, or pretend to have faith, in some new method of training, but Rivas was a conservative[pg 064]who preferred the tried and true and undoubtedly considered the Kentuckian an interloper."Now, the matter of Shiloh..."Drew finished the sherry with appreciation. He was beginning to see the amusing side of this conference. Drew's work on the Range settled, Rennie was about to get to what he really wanted. ButDonCazar's first words were a little startling."We'll keep him close-in the water corral. To turn a stud of eastern breeding loose is dangerous——""You mean he might be stolen, suh?" Drew clicked his empty glass down on the table."No, he might be killed!" And Rennie's tone indicated he meant just that."How...why?""There are wild-horse bands out there, though we're trying to capture or run them off the Range. And a wild stud will always try to add mares to his band. Because he has fought many times to keep or take mares, he is a formidable and vicious opponent, one that an imported, tamed stud can rarely best. Right now, coming into Big Rock well for water is a pinto that has killed three other stallions—including a black I imported back in '60—and two of them were larger, heavier animals than he."The Trinfans are moving down into that section this week. I hope they can break up that band, run down the stud anyway. He has courage and cunning, but his blood is not a line we want for foals on this range. So Shiloh stays here at the Stronghold; don't risk him loose.""Yes, suh. What about these wild ones—they worth huntin'?""They're mixed; some are scrubs, inbred, poor stuff. But[pg 065]a few fine ones turn up. Mostly when they do they're strays or bred from strays—escaped from horse thieves or Indians. If the mustangers here pick up any branded ones, they're returned to the owners, if possible, or sold at a yearly auction. By the old Mexican law the hunting season for horses runs from October to March. Foals are old enough then to be branded. Speaking of foals, you left your mare and the filly in town?""Kells'll give them stable room till next month. I can bring them out then.""We'll have a delivery of remounts to make to the camp about then. You can help haze those in and pick up your own stock on return."León appeared in the doorway. "DonCazar, themesteneoes—they arrive.""Good. These people are the real wild-horse experts, Kirby. Not much the Trinfans don't know about horses."DonCazar was already on his way to the door and Drew fell in behind Bartolomé.The Trinfan outfit was small, considering the job they intended, Drew thought. A cart pulled by two mules, lightly made and packed high, was the nucleus of their small caravan. Burros—two of them—were roped behind and, to Drew's surprise, a cow, bawling fretfully and intended, he later learned, to play foster mother to any unweaned foals which might be picked up. The cart was driven by a Mexican in leather breeches and jacket over a red shirt. Behind him rode the boy and girl Drew had seen in the Tubacca alley, mounted on rangy, nervous horses that had speed in every line of their under-fleshed bodies. Each rider trailed four spare mounts roped nose to tail."Buenos días, DonCazar." For so small a man the Mexican[pg 066]on the cart seat produced a trumpet-sized voice. He touched the roll-edged brim of his sombrero, and Drew noted that his arm was crooked as if in the past it had been broken and poorly set."Buenos dias, SeñorTrinfan. This house is yours." Rennie went to the side of the cart. "The west corral is ready for your use as always. Draw on the stores for any need you may have—""Gracias, DonCazar." It was the thanks of equal to equal. "You have some late news of the wild ones?""Only that the pinto still runs near the well.""That spotted one—sí, he is an Apache for cunning, for deviltry of spirit. It may be that this time he will not be the lucky one. There is in him a demon. Did I not see him, with my own eyes, kill a foal, tear flesh from the flanks of its dam when she tried to drop out of the run?Sí—a realdiablo, that one!""Get rid of him one way or another, Trinfan. He is a danger to the Range. He killed another stud this season. I am as sure of that as if I had seen him in action.""Ah, the blue one you thought might be a runner to match Oro.Sí, that was a great pity,DonCazar. Well, we shall try, we shall try this time to put thatdiablounder!"An hour later Drew was facing adiabloof his own, with far less confidence than Hilario Trinfan had voiced. Just how stupid could one be? Around him now were men trained from early childhood to this life, and he could show no skill at their employment. All the way out from Texas he had practiced doggedly with the lariat, and his best fell far short of what a range-bred child could do.Yet he had an audience waiting down at the corral. Drew's mouth was a straight line. He would soon confirm[pg 067]their belief thatDonCazar had in truth hired Shiloh instead of his owner. But there was no use trying to duck the ordeal, and the Kentuckian had never been one to put off the inevitable with a pallid hope that something would turn up to save him.Only this time, apparently, fortune was going to favor him."Which one you wish,señor?" Teodoro Trinfan, rope in hand, stood there ready to cast for one of the milling colts. Why the boy was making that offer of assistance Drew had no inkling. But to accept would give him a slight chance to prove he could do part of the work.He had already made his selection in the corral, though he had despaired of ever getting that animal at rope's end."The black—"

[pg 032]3Only a well-armed and convoyed set of wagons with a highly experienced and competent master could dare travel the Apache-infested trails these days. The first of the freighters, pulled by a sixteen-mule team, fairly burst into the plaza, outriders fanning about it. One of the mounted men was dressed in fringed buckskin, his shoulder-length hair and bushy black beard the badge of a frontier already passing swiftly into history. He rode a big black mule and carried a long-barreled rifle, not in the saddle boot, but resting across the horn as if even here in Tubacca there might be reason for instant action.The mule trotted on to the middle of the plaza. Then the weapon pointed skyward as its owner fired into the air, voicing a whoop as wild as the Rebel Yell from the throat of a charging Texas trooper.He was answered by cries and shouts from the gathering crowd as five more wagons, each with a trailer hooked to its main bulk, pulled in around the edge of the open area, until the center of the town was full and the din of braying mules was deafening.Drew retreated to the roofed entrance of the Four Jacks.[pg 033]The extra step of height there enabled him to get a good look at two more horsemen pushing past the end wagon. Both wore the dress of Mexican gentlemen, their short jackets glinting with silver braid and embroidery; their bridles, horse gear, and saddles were rich in scrolls and decorations of the same metal. Navajo blankets lay under the saddles, and serapes were folded over the shoulder of one rider, tied behind the cantle of the other.They pulled up before the cantina, and one man took the reins of both mounts. If the riders' clothing and horse furnishings were colorful, the horses themselves were equally striking. One was a chestnut, a warm, well-groomed red. But the other ... Drew stared. In all his years about the stables and breeding farms of Kentucky, and throughout his travels since, he had never seen a horse like this. Its coat was pure gold, a perfect match to one of the eagles in his money belt. But the silky locks of mane and tail were night black. Its breeding was plainly Arab, and it walked with a delicate pride as gracefully as a man might foot a dance measure.Drew had a difficult time breaking his gaze from the horse to the man dismounting. The ranchero was tall, perhaps an inch or so taller than Drew, and his body had the leanness of the men who worked the range country, possessing, too, a lithe youthfulness of carriage. Until one looked directly into his sun-browned face he could pass as a man still in his late twenties.But he was older, perhaps a decade older than that, Drew thought. Too high and prominent cheekbones with slight hollows below them, and a mouth tight set, made more for strength of will and discipline of feeling than conventional good looks. Yet his was a face not easily forgotten, once[pg 034]seen. Black hair was pepper-salted for a finger-wide space above his ears, which were fronted by long sideburns, and black brows were straight above dark eyes. In spite of his below-the-border dress and his coloring, he was unmistakably Anglo, just as the man looping both horses' reins to the rack was Mexican."So, you're still wearing your hair in good order? No trouble this trip?" Topham had come to the door of the cantina, his hand outstretched. "Welcome back, Hunt!""Paugh!" The Mexican spat. "Where is there one Indio who is able to faceDonCazar on his own ground? The folly of that they learned long ago."DonCazar smiled. That mask of aloofness was wiped away as if he were ten years younger and twenty years less responsible than he had been only seconds earlier. "And if they did not beware our rifles, Bartolomé here would talk them to death! Is that not so,amigo?" His speech was oddly formal, as if he were using a language other than his own, but there was a warmth to the tone which matched that sudden and surprising smile.Topham's arm went about the shoulders under the black-and-silver jacket, drawingDonCazar into the light, music, and excitement of the cantina. While Drew watched, the stouter back of Bartolomé cut off his first good look at his father.So ...thatwasDonCazar—Hunt Rennie! Drew did not know what he had expected of their first meeting. Now he could not understand why he felt so chilled and lost. He had planned it this way—no demands, no claims on a stranger, freedom to make the decision of when or how he would see his father; that was the only path he could take. But now he turned slowly away from that open door, the[pg 035]light, the laughter and singing, and walked back toward the stable, loneliness cutting into him.Tubacca had slumbered apathetically before; now the town was wide awake. In a couple of days the wagon train would head on north to Tucson, but now the activity in the plaza was a mixture of market day and fiesta. Small traders from Sonora took advantage of the protection afforded byDonCazar's outriders and had trailed along with their own products, now being spread out and hawked.Parrots shrieked from homemade cages; brightly woven fabrics were draped to catch the eye. As he wandered about viewing cactus syrup, sweet, brown panocha-candy, fruit, dried meat, blankets, saddles, Drew was again aware of the almost strident color of this country. He fingered appreciatively a horn goblet carved with intricate figures of gods his Anglo eyes did not recognize. The hum of voices, the bray of mules, the baa-ing and naa-ing of sheep and goats, kept up a roar to equal surf on a seacoast. Afternoon was fast fading into evening, but Tubacca, aroused from the post-noon siesta, was in tumult.A fighting cock tethered to a cart wheel stretched its neck to the utmost in an attempt to peck at Drew's spurs. He laughed, attracted, wrenched out of his own private world. The smell of spicy foods, of fruit, of animals and people ... the clamor ... the sights....Drew rounded one end of a wagon and stepped abruptly into yet another world and time. All the stories which had been dinned warningly into his ears since he had left the Mississippi now brought his hand to one of the Colts at his belt. Most of the half-dozen men squatting on their heels about a fire were three-quarters bare, showing dusty, brown bodies. Two had dirty calico shirts loose above hide breech-clouts.[pg 036]Dark-brown eyes, as unreadable as Johnny Shannon's, surveyed Drew, but none of the Indians moved or spoke.Common sense took over, and Drew's hand dropped from the gun butt. Hostiles would not be camping peacefully here in the heart of town. He could not be facing wild Apaches or Navajos. But they were the first Indians he had seen this close since he had ridden out of Texas."Somethin' buggin' you, boy?"Drew's war-trained muscles took over. He was in a half crouch, the Colt flipped over and out, pointing into the shadows where the newcomer emerged. Then the Kentuckian flushed and slammed his weapon back into the holster. This was the buckskinned man who had whooped the train into town that morning."Mite quick to show your iron, ain't you?" There was a chill in the question, and Drew saw that the long rifle was still held at alert by its owner."Cat-footin' up on a man ought to make you expect somethin' of a reception," Drew countered."Yep, guess some men has sure got 'em a bellyful of lead doin' that." To Drew's surprise the other was now grinning. "You huntin' someone?""No, just lookin' around." Drew longed to ask some things himself, but hesitated. Frontier etiquette was different from Kentucky custom; it was safer to be quiet when not sure."Wal, thar's aplenty to see tonight, right enough. Me—I'm Crow Fenner; I ride scout fur th' train. An' these here—they're Rennie's Pimas, what o' 'em is runnin' th' trail this trip."So these were the famous Pima Scouts! No wonder they[pg 037]took their ease in the Tubacca plaza. Every man, woman, and child in those adobe buildings had reason to be thankful for their skill and cunning—the web of protection Rennie's Pima Scouts had woven in this river valley."I'm Kirby, Drew Kirby." He hastened to match one introduction with another. "This is my first time in the valley—""From th' east, eh?""Texas.""Texas...." Something in the way Fenner repeated that made it sound not like a confirmation but a question. Or was Drew overly suspicious? After all, as Callie had agreed last night, the late Republic of Texas was a very large strip of country, housing a multitude of native sons, from the planting families of the Brazos to the ranchers in crude cabins of the Brasado. There were Texans and Texans, differing greatly in speech, manners, and background. And one did not ask intimate questions of a man riding west of the Pecos. Too often he might have come hunting a district where there was a longer distance between sheriffs. What a man volunteered about his past was accepted as the truth."Rode a far piece then," Fenner commented. "Me, I've been trailin' round this here country since th' moon was two-bit size. An' I ain't set my moccasins on all o' it yet. Thar's parts maybe even an Injun ain't seed neither. You jus' outta th' army, son?"Drew nodded. Apparently he could not escape that part of his past, and there was no reason to deny it."Iffen you be huntin' a job—DonCazar, he's always ready to hire on wagon guards. Any young feller what knows how to handle a gun, he's welcome—""Can't leave Tubacca, at least for now. Have me a mare[pg 038]over in the livery that just foaled. I'm not movin' until she's ready to travel—""Must be right good stock," Fenner observed. "Me, I has me a ridin' mule as kin smell Apaches two miles off. Two, three times that thar mule saved m' skin fur me. Got Old Tar when he turned up in a wild-hoss corral th' mustangers set over in th' Red River country—""I saw him when you rode into town. Good-lookin' animal."Crow Fenner nodded vigorously. "Shore is, shore is.DonCazar, he's partial to good stock—favors Tar, too. Th'Donhas him a high-steppin' hoss every hoss thief in this here territory'd like to run off. Bright yaller—""Saw that one, too. Unusual colorin' all right.""He put a white stud—white as milk—to run with some light buckskin mares back 'fore th' war. First colt out of that thar breedin' was that Oro hoss. Never got 'nother like him; he's special. Shows his heels good, too. They's gonna race him out on th' flats tomorrow if anyone is fool 'nough to say as he has a hoss as can beat Oro. Thar's always some greenhorn as thinks he has—""Oh?" Drew wondered aloud. The black-and-gold horse was beautiful and plainly of good breeding. That he was also a runner was not out of the question. But that Oro could best Gray Eagle-Ariel stock on the track, Drew doubted. There were unbroken records set on eastern tracks by horses in Shiloh's direct blood line. And the local talent that had been matched against Oro in the past had probably not been much competition. The Kentuckian began to speculate about a match between the gray stallion and the horse foaled on the Arizona range.[pg 039]"Yep, we'll see some race, does anyone turn up with a hoss t' match Oro."One of the shirted Indians rose to his feet. With rifle sloped over forearm, he padded into the dark. Fenner's relaxed posture tensed into alert readiness. His head turned, his attitude now one of listening concentration. Drew strained to see or hear what lay beyond. But the noise from the plaza and torchlight made a barrier for eye and ear.Fenner's rifle barrel dropped an inch or so; he stood easy again. Drew heard a jingle of metal, the creak of saddle leather, the pound of shod hoofs."Soldiers!" Fenner sniffed. "Wonder what they's doin', hittin' town now. Wal, that ain't no hair off m' skull. Me, I'm gonna git Tar his treat. Promised him some time back he could have a bait o' oats—oats an' salt, an' jus' a smidgen o' corn cake. That thar mule likes t' favor his stomach. Kells, he ought t' have them vittles put together right 'bout now. This mare o' yourn what's so special, young feller.... Me, I'd like t' see a hoss what's got to be took care of like she was a bang-up lady!"He put two fingers to his lips and whistled. A mule head, attached to a rangy mule body, weaved forward to follow dog-at-heel fashion behind the scout.A squad of blue coats was riding in—an officer and six men. They threaded their way to the cantina where the officer dismounted and went inside. The troopers continued to sit their saddles and regard the scene about them wistfully."Looks like a duty patrol," Fenner remarked. "Maybe Cap'n Bayliss. He's gittin' some biggety idear as how it's up t' him t' police this here town. Does he start t' crow too[pg 040]loud,DonCazar or Reese Topham'll cut his spurs. Maybe he sets up th' war shield an' does th' shoutin' back thar in front o' all them soldier boys. In this town he ain't no gold-lace general!""Troops and the town not friendly?" Drew asked."Th' soldiers—they ain't no trouble. Some o' 'em have their heads screwed on straight an' know what they's doin' or tryin' t' do. But a lot o' them officers now—they come out here wi' biggety idears 'bout how t' handle Injuns, thinkin' they knows all thar's t' be knowed 'bout fightin'—an' them never facin' up to a Comanche in war paint, let alone huntin' 'Paches. 'Paches, they know this here country like it was part o' their own bodies—can say 'Howdy-an'-how's-all-th'-folks, bub?' t' every lizard an' snake in th' rocks. Ain't no army gonna pull 'em out an' make 'em fight white-man style."DonCazar—he goes huntin' 'em when they've come botherin' him an' does it right. But he knows you think Injun, you live Injun, you eat Injun, you smell Injun when you do. They don't leave no more trail than an ant steppin' high, 'less they want you should foller them into a nice ambush as they has all figgered out. Put Greyfeather an' his Pimas on 'em an' then leg it till your belly's near meetin' your backbone an' you is all one big tired ache. Iffen you kin drink sand an' keep on footin' it over red-hot rocks when you is nigh t' a bag o' bones, then maybe—jus' maybe—you kin jump an Apache. Comanches, now, an' Cheyenne an' Kiowa an' Sioux ride out to storm at you—guns an' arrows all shootin'—wantin' to count coup on a man by hittin' him personal. But th' 'Pache ain't wastin' hisself that way. Nope—git behind a rock an' ambush ... put th' whole hell-fired country t' work fur them. That's how th' 'Pache does[pg 041]his fightin'. An' th' spit-an'-polish officers what come from eastward—they's got t' larn that. Only sometimes they ain't good at larnin', an' then they gits larned—good an' proper. Hey, Kells!"They were at the stable and Fenner lifted a hand, palm out, in greeting to the liveryman. "Here's Ole Tar wantin' his special grub—"Drew went on to Shiloh's stall. Reese Topham, the SpaniardDonLorenzo who had been in the cantina last night, the stout Mexican Bartolomé, andDonCazar himself were all there before him."Here he is now." Reese Topham waved a hand at Drew. "This is Mister Kirby, from Texas.""You have a fine horse there, Kirby—the mare, too. Eastern stock, I would judge, perhaps Kentucky breeding?" Rennie asked.Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, not lie directly."Yes, Kentucky." He answered the first words his father had ever addressed to him."And the line?"To be too evasive would invite suspicion. However, the Gray Eagle get was in more than one Kentucky stable."Eclipse...." Drew set back the pedigree several equine generations. Shiloh tossed his head, looked over his shoulder at Drew, who entered the stall and began quieting the stallion with hands drawn gently over the back and up the arch of the neck."The mare also?"DonCazar continued."Yes." The Kentuckian's answer sounded curt in his own ears, but he could not help it.[pg 042]"This Eclipse,amigo,"DonLorenzo turned to Rennie for enlightenment—"he was a notable horse?""Sí, of the Messenger line. But a gray of that breeding—"DonCazar's forefinger ran nail point along his lower lip. "Ariel blood, perhaps?"Drew busied himself adjusting Shiloh's hackamore. This was getting close. Hunt Rennie had lived in Kentucky over a year once. He had visited Red Springs many times before he had dared to court Alexander Mattock's daughter and been forbidden the place. His visits to the stable must have familiarized him with the Gray Eagle-Ariel strain bred there. On the other hand, horses of the same combination were the pride of several other families living around Lexington."A racing line of high blood,"DonLorenzo said thoughtfully. "Sí, this one has the pride, the appearance. You have raced him,señor?" he asked Drew with formal courtesy."Not on any real track,señor. During the war there were no races.""He wasn't a cavalry mount?"DonCazar looked surprised."No, suh. Too young for that. He was foaled on April sixth in sixty-two. That's why they called him Shiloh."There was a moment of silence, broken by a hail from the door."You there—Rennie!"Drew saw the involuntary spasm ofDonCazar's lips, the shadow of an expression which might mean he anticipated a distasteful scene to come. But the quirk disappeared as he turned to face the man in the blue uniform.[pg 043]"Captain Bayliss." It was acknowledgment rather than a greeting, delivered in a cool tone."I want to see you, Rennie!" The officer stamped forward a step or so, to stand in the full light of the first lantern. He was of medium height, and his blue blouse had been cut by a good tailor, though now it was worn. He was a good-looking man, though jowly about the mouth, above which a closely cropped mustache bristled. His color was high under a pink skin which in this hot country must burn painfully. And there was the permanent stamp of uncertain temper in the lines about his prominent eyes.

Only a well-armed and convoyed set of wagons with a highly experienced and competent master could dare travel the Apache-infested trails these days. The first of the freighters, pulled by a sixteen-mule team, fairly burst into the plaza, outriders fanning about it. One of the mounted men was dressed in fringed buckskin, his shoulder-length hair and bushy black beard the badge of a frontier already passing swiftly into history. He rode a big black mule and carried a long-barreled rifle, not in the saddle boot, but resting across the horn as if even here in Tubacca there might be reason for instant action.

The mule trotted on to the middle of the plaza. Then the weapon pointed skyward as its owner fired into the air, voicing a whoop as wild as the Rebel Yell from the throat of a charging Texas trooper.

He was answered by cries and shouts from the gathering crowd as five more wagons, each with a trailer hooked to its main bulk, pulled in around the edge of the open area, until the center of the town was full and the din of braying mules was deafening.

Drew retreated to the roofed entrance of the Four Jacks.[pg 033]The extra step of height there enabled him to get a good look at two more horsemen pushing past the end wagon. Both wore the dress of Mexican gentlemen, their short jackets glinting with silver braid and embroidery; their bridles, horse gear, and saddles were rich in scrolls and decorations of the same metal. Navajo blankets lay under the saddles, and serapes were folded over the shoulder of one rider, tied behind the cantle of the other.

They pulled up before the cantina, and one man took the reins of both mounts. If the riders' clothing and horse furnishings were colorful, the horses themselves were equally striking. One was a chestnut, a warm, well-groomed red. But the other ... Drew stared. In all his years about the stables and breeding farms of Kentucky, and throughout his travels since, he had never seen a horse like this. Its coat was pure gold, a perfect match to one of the eagles in his money belt. But the silky locks of mane and tail were night black. Its breeding was plainly Arab, and it walked with a delicate pride as gracefully as a man might foot a dance measure.

Drew had a difficult time breaking his gaze from the horse to the man dismounting. The ranchero was tall, perhaps an inch or so taller than Drew, and his body had the leanness of the men who worked the range country, possessing, too, a lithe youthfulness of carriage. Until one looked directly into his sun-browned face he could pass as a man still in his late twenties.

But he was older, perhaps a decade older than that, Drew thought. Too high and prominent cheekbones with slight hollows below them, and a mouth tight set, made more for strength of will and discipline of feeling than conventional good looks. Yet his was a face not easily forgotten, once[pg 034]seen. Black hair was pepper-salted for a finger-wide space above his ears, which were fronted by long sideburns, and black brows were straight above dark eyes. In spite of his below-the-border dress and his coloring, he was unmistakably Anglo, just as the man looping both horses' reins to the rack was Mexican.

"So, you're still wearing your hair in good order? No trouble this trip?" Topham had come to the door of the cantina, his hand outstretched. "Welcome back, Hunt!"

"Paugh!" The Mexican spat. "Where is there one Indio who is able to faceDonCazar on his own ground? The folly of that they learned long ago."

DonCazar smiled. That mask of aloofness was wiped away as if he were ten years younger and twenty years less responsible than he had been only seconds earlier. "And if they did not beware our rifles, Bartolomé here would talk them to death! Is that not so,amigo?" His speech was oddly formal, as if he were using a language other than his own, but there was a warmth to the tone which matched that sudden and surprising smile.

Topham's arm went about the shoulders under the black-and-silver jacket, drawingDonCazar into the light, music, and excitement of the cantina. While Drew watched, the stouter back of Bartolomé cut off his first good look at his father.

So ...thatwasDonCazar—Hunt Rennie! Drew did not know what he had expected of their first meeting. Now he could not understand why he felt so chilled and lost. He had planned it this way—no demands, no claims on a stranger, freedom to make the decision of when or how he would see his father; that was the only path he could take. But now he turned slowly away from that open door, the[pg 035]light, the laughter and singing, and walked back toward the stable, loneliness cutting into him.

Tubacca had slumbered apathetically before; now the town was wide awake. In a couple of days the wagon train would head on north to Tucson, but now the activity in the plaza was a mixture of market day and fiesta. Small traders from Sonora took advantage of the protection afforded byDonCazar's outriders and had trailed along with their own products, now being spread out and hawked.

Parrots shrieked from homemade cages; brightly woven fabrics were draped to catch the eye. As he wandered about viewing cactus syrup, sweet, brown panocha-candy, fruit, dried meat, blankets, saddles, Drew was again aware of the almost strident color of this country. He fingered appreciatively a horn goblet carved with intricate figures of gods his Anglo eyes did not recognize. The hum of voices, the bray of mules, the baa-ing and naa-ing of sheep and goats, kept up a roar to equal surf on a seacoast. Afternoon was fast fading into evening, but Tubacca, aroused from the post-noon siesta, was in tumult.

A fighting cock tethered to a cart wheel stretched its neck to the utmost in an attempt to peck at Drew's spurs. He laughed, attracted, wrenched out of his own private world. The smell of spicy foods, of fruit, of animals and people ... the clamor ... the sights....

Drew rounded one end of a wagon and stepped abruptly into yet another world and time. All the stories which had been dinned warningly into his ears since he had left the Mississippi now brought his hand to one of the Colts at his belt. Most of the half-dozen men squatting on their heels about a fire were three-quarters bare, showing dusty, brown bodies. Two had dirty calico shirts loose above hide breech-clouts.[pg 036]Dark-brown eyes, as unreadable as Johnny Shannon's, surveyed Drew, but none of the Indians moved or spoke.

Common sense took over, and Drew's hand dropped from the gun butt. Hostiles would not be camping peacefully here in the heart of town. He could not be facing wild Apaches or Navajos. But they were the first Indians he had seen this close since he had ridden out of Texas.

"Somethin' buggin' you, boy?"

Drew's war-trained muscles took over. He was in a half crouch, the Colt flipped over and out, pointing into the shadows where the newcomer emerged. Then the Kentuckian flushed and slammed his weapon back into the holster. This was the buckskinned man who had whooped the train into town that morning.

"Mite quick to show your iron, ain't you?" There was a chill in the question, and Drew saw that the long rifle was still held at alert by its owner.

"Cat-footin' up on a man ought to make you expect somethin' of a reception," Drew countered.

"Yep, guess some men has sure got 'em a bellyful of lead doin' that." To Drew's surprise the other was now grinning. "You huntin' someone?"

"No, just lookin' around." Drew longed to ask some things himself, but hesitated. Frontier etiquette was different from Kentucky custom; it was safer to be quiet when not sure.

"Wal, thar's aplenty to see tonight, right enough. Me—I'm Crow Fenner; I ride scout fur th' train. An' these here—they're Rennie's Pimas, what o' 'em is runnin' th' trail this trip."

So these were the famous Pima Scouts! No wonder they[pg 037]took their ease in the Tubacca plaza. Every man, woman, and child in those adobe buildings had reason to be thankful for their skill and cunning—the web of protection Rennie's Pima Scouts had woven in this river valley.

"I'm Kirby, Drew Kirby." He hastened to match one introduction with another. "This is my first time in the valley—"

"From th' east, eh?"

"Texas."

"Texas...." Something in the way Fenner repeated that made it sound not like a confirmation but a question. Or was Drew overly suspicious? After all, as Callie had agreed last night, the late Republic of Texas was a very large strip of country, housing a multitude of native sons, from the planting families of the Brazos to the ranchers in crude cabins of the Brasado. There were Texans and Texans, differing greatly in speech, manners, and background. And one did not ask intimate questions of a man riding west of the Pecos. Too often he might have come hunting a district where there was a longer distance between sheriffs. What a man volunteered about his past was accepted as the truth.

"Rode a far piece then," Fenner commented. "Me, I've been trailin' round this here country since th' moon was two-bit size. An' I ain't set my moccasins on all o' it yet. Thar's parts maybe even an Injun ain't seed neither. You jus' outta th' army, son?"

Drew nodded. Apparently he could not escape that part of his past, and there was no reason to deny it.

"Iffen you be huntin' a job—DonCazar, he's always ready to hire on wagon guards. Any young feller what knows how to handle a gun, he's welcome—"

"Can't leave Tubacca, at least for now. Have me a mare[pg 038]over in the livery that just foaled. I'm not movin' until she's ready to travel—"

"Must be right good stock," Fenner observed. "Me, I has me a ridin' mule as kin smell Apaches two miles off. Two, three times that thar mule saved m' skin fur me. Got Old Tar when he turned up in a wild-hoss corral th' mustangers set over in th' Red River country—"

"I saw him when you rode into town. Good-lookin' animal."

Crow Fenner nodded vigorously. "Shore is, shore is.DonCazar, he's partial to good stock—favors Tar, too. Th'Donhas him a high-steppin' hoss every hoss thief in this here territory'd like to run off. Bright yaller—"

"Saw that one, too. Unusual colorin' all right."

"He put a white stud—white as milk—to run with some light buckskin mares back 'fore th' war. First colt out of that thar breedin' was that Oro hoss. Never got 'nother like him; he's special. Shows his heels good, too. They's gonna race him out on th' flats tomorrow if anyone is fool 'nough to say as he has a hoss as can beat Oro. Thar's always some greenhorn as thinks he has—"

"Oh?" Drew wondered aloud. The black-and-gold horse was beautiful and plainly of good breeding. That he was also a runner was not out of the question. But that Oro could best Gray Eagle-Ariel stock on the track, Drew doubted. There were unbroken records set on eastern tracks by horses in Shiloh's direct blood line. And the local talent that had been matched against Oro in the past had probably not been much competition. The Kentuckian began to speculate about a match between the gray stallion and the horse foaled on the Arizona range.[pg 039]

"Yep, we'll see some race, does anyone turn up with a hoss t' match Oro."

One of the shirted Indians rose to his feet. With rifle sloped over forearm, he padded into the dark. Fenner's relaxed posture tensed into alert readiness. His head turned, his attitude now one of listening concentration. Drew strained to see or hear what lay beyond. But the noise from the plaza and torchlight made a barrier for eye and ear.

Fenner's rifle barrel dropped an inch or so; he stood easy again. Drew heard a jingle of metal, the creak of saddle leather, the pound of shod hoofs.

"Soldiers!" Fenner sniffed. "Wonder what they's doin', hittin' town now. Wal, that ain't no hair off m' skull. Me, I'm gonna git Tar his treat. Promised him some time back he could have a bait o' oats—oats an' salt, an' jus' a smidgen o' corn cake. That thar mule likes t' favor his stomach. Kells, he ought t' have them vittles put together right 'bout now. This mare o' yourn what's so special, young feller.... Me, I'd like t' see a hoss what's got to be took care of like she was a bang-up lady!"

He put two fingers to his lips and whistled. A mule head, attached to a rangy mule body, weaved forward to follow dog-at-heel fashion behind the scout.

A squad of blue coats was riding in—an officer and six men. They threaded their way to the cantina where the officer dismounted and went inside. The troopers continued to sit their saddles and regard the scene about them wistfully.

"Looks like a duty patrol," Fenner remarked. "Maybe Cap'n Bayliss. He's gittin' some biggety idear as how it's up t' him t' police this here town. Does he start t' crow too[pg 040]loud,DonCazar or Reese Topham'll cut his spurs. Maybe he sets up th' war shield an' does th' shoutin' back thar in front o' all them soldier boys. In this town he ain't no gold-lace general!"

"Troops and the town not friendly?" Drew asked.

"Th' soldiers—they ain't no trouble. Some o' 'em have their heads screwed on straight an' know what they's doin' or tryin' t' do. But a lot o' them officers now—they come out here wi' biggety idears 'bout how t' handle Injuns, thinkin' they knows all thar's t' be knowed 'bout fightin'—an' them never facin' up to a Comanche in war paint, let alone huntin' 'Paches. 'Paches, they know this here country like it was part o' their own bodies—can say 'Howdy-an'-how's-all-th'-folks, bub?' t' every lizard an' snake in th' rocks. Ain't no army gonna pull 'em out an' make 'em fight white-man style.

"DonCazar—he goes huntin' 'em when they've come botherin' him an' does it right. But he knows you think Injun, you live Injun, you eat Injun, you smell Injun when you do. They don't leave no more trail than an ant steppin' high, 'less they want you should foller them into a nice ambush as they has all figgered out. Put Greyfeather an' his Pimas on 'em an' then leg it till your belly's near meetin' your backbone an' you is all one big tired ache. Iffen you kin drink sand an' keep on footin' it over red-hot rocks when you is nigh t' a bag o' bones, then maybe—jus' maybe—you kin jump an Apache. Comanches, now, an' Cheyenne an' Kiowa an' Sioux ride out to storm at you—guns an' arrows all shootin'—wantin' to count coup on a man by hittin' him personal. But th' 'Pache ain't wastin' hisself that way. Nope—git behind a rock an' ambush ... put th' whole hell-fired country t' work fur them. That's how th' 'Pache does[pg 041]his fightin'. An' th' spit-an'-polish officers what come from eastward—they's got t' larn that. Only sometimes they ain't good at larnin', an' then they gits larned—good an' proper. Hey, Kells!"

They were at the stable and Fenner lifted a hand, palm out, in greeting to the liveryman. "Here's Ole Tar wantin' his special grub—"

Drew went on to Shiloh's stall. Reese Topham, the SpaniardDonLorenzo who had been in the cantina last night, the stout Mexican Bartolomé, andDonCazar himself were all there before him.

"Here he is now." Reese Topham waved a hand at Drew. "This is Mister Kirby, from Texas."

"You have a fine horse there, Kirby—the mare, too. Eastern stock, I would judge, perhaps Kentucky breeding?" Rennie asked.

Drew was taut inside. To say the wrong thing, to admit the line of that breeding, might be a bad slip. Yet he could only evade, not lie directly.

"Yes, Kentucky." He answered the first words his father had ever addressed to him.

"And the line?"

To be too evasive would invite suspicion. However, the Gray Eagle get was in more than one Kentucky stable.

"Eclipse...." Drew set back the pedigree several equine generations. Shiloh tossed his head, looked over his shoulder at Drew, who entered the stall and began quieting the stallion with hands drawn gently over the back and up the arch of the neck.

"The mare also?"DonCazar continued.

"Yes." The Kentuckian's answer sounded curt in his own ears, but he could not help it.[pg 042]

"This Eclipse,amigo,"DonLorenzo turned to Rennie for enlightenment—"he was a notable horse?"

"Sí, of the Messenger line. But a gray of that breeding—"DonCazar's forefinger ran nail point along his lower lip. "Ariel blood, perhaps?"

Drew busied himself adjusting Shiloh's hackamore. This was getting close. Hunt Rennie had lived in Kentucky over a year once. He had visited Red Springs many times before he had dared to court Alexander Mattock's daughter and been forbidden the place. His visits to the stable must have familiarized him with the Gray Eagle-Ariel strain bred there. On the other hand, horses of the same combination were the pride of several other families living around Lexington.

"A racing line of high blood,"DonLorenzo said thoughtfully. "Sí, this one has the pride, the appearance. You have raced him,señor?" he asked Drew with formal courtesy.

"Not on any real track,señor. During the war there were no races."

"He wasn't a cavalry mount?"DonCazar looked surprised.

"No, suh. Too young for that. He was foaled on April sixth in sixty-two. That's why they called him Shiloh."

There was a moment of silence, broken by a hail from the door.

"You there—Rennie!"

Drew saw the involuntary spasm ofDonCazar's lips, the shadow of an expression which might mean he anticipated a distasteful scene to come. But the quirk disappeared as he turned to face the man in the blue uniform.[pg 043]

"Captain Bayliss." It was acknowledgment rather than a greeting, delivered in a cool tone.

"I want to see you, Rennie!" The officer stamped forward a step or so, to stand in the full light of the first lantern. He was of medium height, and his blue blouse had been cut by a good tailor, though now it was worn. He was a good-looking man, though jowly about the mouth, above which a closely cropped mustache bristled. His color was high under a pink skin which in this hot country must burn painfully. And there was the permanent stamp of uncertain temper in the lines about his prominent eyes.

[pg 044]4"So, you see me, Bayliss,"DonCazar returned evenly. "There is some trouble?"Bartolomé shifted from one foot to the other, his spurs ringing.DonLorenzo's expression was one of withdrawal, but on the round countenance of the Mexican was open dislike.The sun-reddened skin flushed darker. "All right, Rennie!" the captain exploded. "If you want it straight, that's the way you're going to get it! You've been hiring Rebs again!"Once before Drew had seen explosive anger curbed visibly by a man who knew the folly of losing control over his emotions. It had been on a hilltop back in Tennessee, with the storm clouds of January overhead. General Bedford Forrest, watching men driven to the limit by necessity and his own orders, had looked just that way when he had rounded on Drew, bearing news of yet another break-through by the Federals. Now it was this Anglo wearing Spanish dress and standing in a dim stable, reining temper to meet the open hostility of the captain."Captain Bayliss." The words sounded as remote as if the[pg 045]speaker bestrode some peak of the Chiricahuas to address a pygmy in a canyon below. "I know of no law which states that I may not employ whom I choose on my own land. If a man does his job and makes no trouble, his past does not matter. I am as ready to fire a former Union soldier as I am a Confederate—""I tell you again: I'm not going to have Rebs around here passing on information to Kitchell!""AndIsay once again, Captain, that men who ride for me do not in addition ride for Kitchell.""Sí—!" Bartolomé's face was as flushed as Bayliss' now. "We do not help thosebandidos. Do they not also raid us? Two weeks ago Francisco Perez, his horse comes in with blood on the saddle. We ride out and find him—shot, dragged with the rope. That is not Apache trick, that, but the work of Kitchell and his snakes!""Peace,amigo."DonCazar's raised finger silenced his man. "Bartolomé is right, Bayliss. Kitchell is beginning to nibble at the Range. He has not many sources of supply left. Soon he will either have to cross the border to stay or make some reckless raid which will give us a chance at him.""These damned Rebs around here will keep him going! You can't tell me they don't back him every chance they get. And I'm warning you, Rennie, if you hire any man you can't answer for, he's going to the stockade and you'll hear about it from the army!""And you also listen, Captain. I will not be dictated to, and the army had best understand that. I do not want Kitchell in this country any more than you do. He has made a boast of being Confederate leading what he terms Mounted Irregulars. But to my knowledge he never held a[pg 046]commission from the South, and he is nothing but an outlaw trading on the unsettled state of the territory. That is recognized by every decent man in Arizona. And that covers those you call 'Rebels' as well as former Union men."Bayliss was silent for a long second, and then he jerked his hat farther down on his peeling forehead. "You've had notice, Rennie, that's all I have to say. I'm going to clear all the Rebs out of this section. Then we will be able to get at Kitchell, and the army will settle him for good and all!""Bayliss!" The captain had half turned, butDonCazar's call halted him. "Don't you try harassing any of my riders. They mind their business and will not make any trouble as long as they are left in peace. If there are any problems in town,DonLorenzo Sierra, here, is the alcalde and they must be referred to him."The captain favored Rennie with a last glare and was gone. Tobe Kells spoke first."That one's chewin' th' bit an' gittin' ready to hump under th' saddle. This business of tryin' to run out th' Rebs, it'll cause smokin'!""He has no right to give such an order,"DonCazar was beginning when the alcalde interrupted:"Compadre, for a man such as that your talk of rights means nothing. He is eaten by the need to impress his will here, and that will bring trouble. I do not like what I have heard, no, I do not like it at all.""You know what may be really eating at him this time, Hunt?" Topham spoke from where he was leaning against the wall of Shadow's box stall. "Johnny was throwing his weight around again last night. Had a set-to in the Jacks with a trooper. Unless the kid quits trying to fight the war over again every time he sees an army blouse—or until he[pg 047]stops pouring whisky down him every time he hits town—there may be shooting trouble. There're some equal hot-heads in Bayliss' camp, and if Johnny goes up against one of them, a scuffle could become a battle.""Yeah, an' that warn't all Johnny was doin' last night." Kells shifted his tobacco cud from one cheek to the other. "Iffen Kirby here hadn't been to hand, Johnny would have skinned th' Trinfan kid with his quirt—jus' 'cause he dropped his purse outside th' Jacks an' th' kid followed him to give it back. Johnny's meaner than a drunk Injun these days. That's Bible-swear truth, Rennie.""To lose a war makes a man bitter,"DonCazar said slowly. "Johnny was far too young when he ran away to join Howard. And after that defeat at Glorieta, the retreat to Texas was pure hell with the fires roaring. It seems to have done something to the boy—inside.""Johnny wasn't the only boy at Glorieta. From what I've heard most of them weren't old enough to grow a good whisker crop." Topham's voice had lost its detached note. "And he sure wasn't the only Confederate to surrender. Hunt, he's got to learn that losing a war doesn't mean that a man has lost the rest of his life. But the way he's been acting these past months, Johnny might just lose it. Bayliss' tongue is hanging out a yard or more he's panting so hard to get back at you. That captain has heady ambitions under his hat, maybe like setting up here as a tinpot governor or something like. If he can discredit you, well, he probably thinks he's got a chance to rake in the full pot, and it's a big one. Get Johnny back on the Range, Hunt—put him to work, hard. Sweat that sour temper and whisky out of him. He used to be a promising youngster; now he's turning bronco fast. All he seems to have learned in the war[pg 048]is how to use those guns of his to lord it over anyone he believes he can push around. And someday he'll try to push the wrong man—"DonCazar was staring ahead of him now at Drew and Shiloh. But Drew knew that Hunt Rennie was not seeing either man or horse, but a mental picture which was not too pleasing."He's just a boy." Rennie did not utter that as an excuse; rather he said it as if to reassure himself. Then his eyes really focused on Drew, and he changed the subject abruptly."Kirby, when the train comes in we sometimes set up a race or two. Any thought of trying your colt against some of the local champions?""Oro perhaps?" Drew counter-questioned.Rennie laughed. "Oh, so you've been talking, Fenner?"The scout came away from where Tar was still very audibly munching his treat. "Didn't know as how th' younker had him a runnin' hoss,DonCazar." He inspected Shiloh critically. "But that thar sure looks a lotta hoss. 'Course maybe he ain't used t' runnin' out here whar th' ground ain't made all nice an' easy fur his feet. But I dunno, I dunno at all.""Anyway he'll give Oro stiffer competition than he's had in the last two races. Unless that Lieutenant Spath up at the camp tries again with that long-legged black of his," Topham added. "What about it, Kirby? You willing to match Shiloh?""He's green, but, yes, I'll do it."Drew's motives were mixed. His pride in the colt had been pushing him toward such a trial ever since he had heard Fenner speak of Oro. In addition, as the owner of a[pg 049]noted horse, he would take a place in this community, establish his identity as Drew Kirby. And in some way he could not define, this put him, at least in his own mind, on an equal footing withDonCazar.But by the next morning a few doubts troubled him as he tightened saddle cinches on the stallion. Shiloh's only races so far had been impromptu matches along the trail. Though the colt had been consistently the victor, none of his rivals had been in his class. And if Oro's speed was as striking as his coloring, the Range stud would prove a formidable opponent."Walk him up and down here by the corral." The Kentuckian handed the reins to Callie. "Got something I have to do."Drew went directly to the Four Jacks. This time the cantina was filled, with a double row of the thirsty demanding attention at the bar. But Topham was seated at a table withDonLorenzo and Zack Cahill of the stage line. The Kentuckian went over to them."You have come to back your horse,señor?"DonLorenzo smiled up at Drew. There were piles of coins on the table as Cahill listed bets for the men crowding around."Yes, suh." Drew spun down two double eagles. "What're the odds?""Started six to one for Oro," Topham told him. "Coasted down after a few of the boys had a look at Shiloh. Can give you four to one now. Anything else we can do for you?"Drew dropped his voice. "Do you have a safe here?"Topham's eyebrows climbed. "Do you foresee a deposit or a withdrawal?""Deposit. I want to ride light today.""Then I'll admit possession of a safe, such as it is.Don[pg 050]Lorenzo,por favor, will you act as banker?" He beckoned Drew after him into a small back room which was in sharp contrast to the main part of the Four Jacks.On one wall was a fanned display of old daggers and swords which dated a century or so back to the Spanish colonial days. A bookcase crammed with tightly squeezed volumes provided a resting place for pieces of native pottery bearing grotesque animal designs. On the far wall were strips of brightly colored woven materials flanking a huge closed cupboard, a very old one, Drew thought. Its paneled front was carved with deeply incised patterns centering about a shield bearing arms. Only the battered desk and an attendant chair with a laced rawhide seat were of the frontier.Topham took a chained key from the pocket of his fancy vest and went to fit it into a lock concealed in the carved foliage of the cupboard. The shield split down the middle, revealing shelves of metal boxes and packets of papers. Drew unfastened his money belt and handed it over. As he was tucking his shirt in his belt once more the gambler nodded at the cupboard."This is about as near a bank as we boast in Tubacca. Cahill has a strongbox at the stage station, and Stein some kind of a lockup at his store—that's the total for the town. We haven't grown to the size for a real banking establishment—""Hey, Reese, th' Old Man about—?"Shannon was in the doorway. In the full light of day he looked younger. Drew was puzzled. That strange animosity which had flashed between them last night—why had he felt it? There was nothing like that emotion now. But as Johnny Shannon's gaze flitted from Topham to the Kentuckian,[pg 051]Drew was once more aware that, whatever he might outwardly seem, Johnny Shannon was no boy. Behind that disarmingly youthful façade was another person altogether."Kirby, ain't it?" Shannon smiled. "Understand I got outta line th' other night ... stepped on a lotta toes." That gaze flickered for the merest instant to the Colts at the Kentuckian's belt. "I sure had me a real snootful an' I guess I was jus' fightin' th' war all over again. No hard feelin's?"That guileless confession was very convincing on the surface. How did you assess an emotion you did not understand yourself? Drew was teased by a fleeting memory of the past, of a time when he had faced another pair of eyes such as those, surface eyes behind which you could see nothing. Then he became conscious that the pause was too lengthy, and he replied with a hurry he immediately regretted:"No hard feelin's."This time he was able to recognize the meaning of that quirk of Shannon's lips. But prudence controlled the small flare of temper he felt inside him. It did not really matter. Let Shannon think he was backing down. If the time ever came that they did have to have a showdown, Johnny Shannon might be the surprised one."You're sure a trustin' fella." Shannon's fingers hooked to the front of the gun belt riding low on the hip. "Not askin' for no receipt or nothin'...."Topham laughed. "We don't forget what is due a customer, Johnny." He went to the desk, scribbled a line on a piece of paper, and held it out to Drew. "This should meet all contingencies, such as some patron out there getting[pg 052]downright ornery and putting a couple of extra buttonholes in my vest by the six-gun slug method.""Heard tell as how you're fixin' to race your plug 'gainst Oro, Kirby," Johnny drawled. "Also as how you laid down some good round boys to back his chance. I took me a piece of them—easy pickin's." The sneer was plainer in his voice than it had been in his smile.Drew's puzzlement grew. Why was Shannon leaning on him this way? Because he had stepped in to stop the quirting of Teodoro? That was the only reason the Kentuckian could think of."That's a matter of opinion." Topham was studying them both with interest. "I'd say Oro has him some real competition at last. None of the Eclipse blood was ever backward on the track.""You ridin' yourself?" Shannon paid no attention to the gambler's comment.Drew nodded. "He knows me, and I ride light—""Sure, I suppose you do—now." Shannon's eyes flickered again, this time to the locked cupboard. "Heard tell—leastways Callie's been spoutin' it around—that you was with General Forrest.""Yes.""You sure musta pulled outta th' war better'n th' rest of us poor Rebs. Got you a couple of blooded hosses an' a good heavy money belt. A sight more luck than th' rest of us had—""Don't include yourself in the empty-pocket brigade, Johnny," Topham rapped out. "I don't see you going without eating money, drinking money either, more's a pity. And if you're really looking for Rennie now, you'll find him down at the course."[pg 053]Shannon's smile was gone. He straightened away from the door frame which had been supporting his shoulders. "Thanks a lot, Reese." He left with the same abruptness as he had from the stable alley."So you're riding yourself." Topham ignored the departure. "León Rivas, Bartolomé's son, will be up on Oro; he always rides for Rennie. He's younger than you, but I'd say"—the gambler studied Drew's lithe body critically—"you're about matched in weight. I'd shuck that gun belt, though, and anything else you can. And good luck, Kirby. You'll need all of it you can muster."An hour later Drew followed Topham's advice, leaving gun belt, carbine, and everything else he could unload in Callie's keeping before he swung up on Shiloh. The big colt was nervous, tending to dance sideways, tossing his head high. Drew concentrated on the business at hand, striving to forget the crowd opening up to let him through, shouting encouragement or disparagement. Ahead was the appointed track, a beaten stretch of earth, part of the old road leading to the mines. The Kentuckian talked to Shiloh as they went, keeping up a stream of words to firm the bond between horse and rider.There was a knot of men surrounding the golden horse, and as his rider mounted, Oro put on a good show, rearing to paw the air with his forefeet as if he wished nothing better than to meet his gray rival in an impromptu boxing match. Then he nodded his head vigorously, acknowledging the shouts from his enthusiastic supporters. Beside that magnificent blaze of color Shiloh was drab, a shadow about to be put to flight by the sun.They were to break at a starting shot, head to the big tree which made an excellent landmark in the flat valley,[pg 054]rounding its patch of shade before returning to the starting point. Drew brought Shiloh, still prancing and playing with his bit, up beside Oro. The slim boy on the golden horse shot the Kentuckian a shoulder-side look and grinned, raising his quirt in salute as Drew nodded and smiled back.Some of the noise died.DonLorenzo pointed a pistol skyward. Drew strove to make his body one with Shiloh's small easy movements. The big gray knew very well what was in progress, was tensing now for a swift getaway leap. And he made it on the crack of the gun.But if Shiloh had easily outdistanced all opposition before on those improvised tracks, he was now meeting a far more equal race. The gray colt's stride was effortless, he was pounding out with power—more than Drew had ever known him to exert. Yet those golden legs matched his pace, reach for reach, hoofbeat for hoofbeat."Come on, boy!" Drew's urging was lost in the wild shouting of the spectators. Some who were mounted were trying to parallel the runners. But Shiloh responded to his rider's encouragement even if he could not hear or understand. Drew would never use quirt or spur on the stud. What Shiloh had to give must come willingly and because he delighted in the giving.They swept in and around the shade of the tree, made the arc to return. That golden head with its tossing crown of black forelock; itwasslipping back! Oro was no longer nose to nose with Shiloh, rather now nose to neck. Drew could hear Rivas' voice encouraging, pleading....A mass of men, mounted and on foot, funneled the runners down to where the line of rope lay straight to mark the finish. Oro was creeping up once more, inch by hard-won inch.[pg 055]Drew's head went up, his throat was rasped raw by the Yell which had taken desperate gray-coated troopers down hedge-bordered roads in Kentucky and steep ravines in Tennessee, sending them, if need be, straight into the mouths of Yankee field guns. And the Yell brought Shiloh home, only a nose ahead of his rival—as if he had been spurred by the now outlawed war cry. Then Drew found he had his hands full trying to pull up the colt and persuade him that the race was indeed over.

"So, you see me, Bayliss,"DonCazar returned evenly. "There is some trouble?"

Bartolomé shifted from one foot to the other, his spurs ringing.DonLorenzo's expression was one of withdrawal, but on the round countenance of the Mexican was open dislike.

The sun-reddened skin flushed darker. "All right, Rennie!" the captain exploded. "If you want it straight, that's the way you're going to get it! You've been hiring Rebs again!"

Once before Drew had seen explosive anger curbed visibly by a man who knew the folly of losing control over his emotions. It had been on a hilltop back in Tennessee, with the storm clouds of January overhead. General Bedford Forrest, watching men driven to the limit by necessity and his own orders, had looked just that way when he had rounded on Drew, bearing news of yet another break-through by the Federals. Now it was this Anglo wearing Spanish dress and standing in a dim stable, reining temper to meet the open hostility of the captain.

"Captain Bayliss." The words sounded as remote as if the[pg 045]speaker bestrode some peak of the Chiricahuas to address a pygmy in a canyon below. "I know of no law which states that I may not employ whom I choose on my own land. If a man does his job and makes no trouble, his past does not matter. I am as ready to fire a former Union soldier as I am a Confederate—"

"I tell you again: I'm not going to have Rebs around here passing on information to Kitchell!"

"AndIsay once again, Captain, that men who ride for me do not in addition ride for Kitchell."

"Sí—!" Bartolomé's face was as flushed as Bayliss' now. "We do not help thosebandidos. Do they not also raid us? Two weeks ago Francisco Perez, his horse comes in with blood on the saddle. We ride out and find him—shot, dragged with the rope. That is not Apache trick, that, but the work of Kitchell and his snakes!"

"Peace,amigo."DonCazar's raised finger silenced his man. "Bartolomé is right, Bayliss. Kitchell is beginning to nibble at the Range. He has not many sources of supply left. Soon he will either have to cross the border to stay or make some reckless raid which will give us a chance at him."

"These damned Rebs around here will keep him going! You can't tell me they don't back him every chance they get. And I'm warning you, Rennie, if you hire any man you can't answer for, he's going to the stockade and you'll hear about it from the army!"

"And you also listen, Captain. I will not be dictated to, and the army had best understand that. I do not want Kitchell in this country any more than you do. He has made a boast of being Confederate leading what he terms Mounted Irregulars. But to my knowledge he never held a[pg 046]commission from the South, and he is nothing but an outlaw trading on the unsettled state of the territory. That is recognized by every decent man in Arizona. And that covers those you call 'Rebels' as well as former Union men."

Bayliss was silent for a long second, and then he jerked his hat farther down on his peeling forehead. "You've had notice, Rennie, that's all I have to say. I'm going to clear all the Rebs out of this section. Then we will be able to get at Kitchell, and the army will settle him for good and all!"

"Bayliss!" The captain had half turned, butDonCazar's call halted him. "Don't you try harassing any of my riders. They mind their business and will not make any trouble as long as they are left in peace. If there are any problems in town,DonLorenzo Sierra, here, is the alcalde and they must be referred to him."

The captain favored Rennie with a last glare and was gone. Tobe Kells spoke first.

"That one's chewin' th' bit an' gittin' ready to hump under th' saddle. This business of tryin' to run out th' Rebs, it'll cause smokin'!"

"He has no right to give such an order,"DonCazar was beginning when the alcalde interrupted:

"Compadre, for a man such as that your talk of rights means nothing. He is eaten by the need to impress his will here, and that will bring trouble. I do not like what I have heard, no, I do not like it at all."

"You know what may be really eating at him this time, Hunt?" Topham spoke from where he was leaning against the wall of Shadow's box stall. "Johnny was throwing his weight around again last night. Had a set-to in the Jacks with a trooper. Unless the kid quits trying to fight the war over again every time he sees an army blouse—or until he[pg 047]stops pouring whisky down him every time he hits town—there may be shooting trouble. There're some equal hot-heads in Bayliss' camp, and if Johnny goes up against one of them, a scuffle could become a battle."

"Yeah, an' that warn't all Johnny was doin' last night." Kells shifted his tobacco cud from one cheek to the other. "Iffen Kirby here hadn't been to hand, Johnny would have skinned th' Trinfan kid with his quirt—jus' 'cause he dropped his purse outside th' Jacks an' th' kid followed him to give it back. Johnny's meaner than a drunk Injun these days. That's Bible-swear truth, Rennie."

"To lose a war makes a man bitter,"DonCazar said slowly. "Johnny was far too young when he ran away to join Howard. And after that defeat at Glorieta, the retreat to Texas was pure hell with the fires roaring. It seems to have done something to the boy—inside."

"Johnny wasn't the only boy at Glorieta. From what I've heard most of them weren't old enough to grow a good whisker crop." Topham's voice had lost its detached note. "And he sure wasn't the only Confederate to surrender. Hunt, he's got to learn that losing a war doesn't mean that a man has lost the rest of his life. But the way he's been acting these past months, Johnny might just lose it. Bayliss' tongue is hanging out a yard or more he's panting so hard to get back at you. That captain has heady ambitions under his hat, maybe like setting up here as a tinpot governor or something like. If he can discredit you, well, he probably thinks he's got a chance to rake in the full pot, and it's a big one. Get Johnny back on the Range, Hunt—put him to work, hard. Sweat that sour temper and whisky out of him. He used to be a promising youngster; now he's turning bronco fast. All he seems to have learned in the war[pg 048]is how to use those guns of his to lord it over anyone he believes he can push around. And someday he'll try to push the wrong man—"

DonCazar was staring ahead of him now at Drew and Shiloh. But Drew knew that Hunt Rennie was not seeing either man or horse, but a mental picture which was not too pleasing.

"He's just a boy." Rennie did not utter that as an excuse; rather he said it as if to reassure himself. Then his eyes really focused on Drew, and he changed the subject abruptly.

"Kirby, when the train comes in we sometimes set up a race or two. Any thought of trying your colt against some of the local champions?"

"Oro perhaps?" Drew counter-questioned.

Rennie laughed. "Oh, so you've been talking, Fenner?"

The scout came away from where Tar was still very audibly munching his treat. "Didn't know as how th' younker had him a runnin' hoss,DonCazar." He inspected Shiloh critically. "But that thar sure looks a lotta hoss. 'Course maybe he ain't used t' runnin' out here whar th' ground ain't made all nice an' easy fur his feet. But I dunno, I dunno at all."

"Anyway he'll give Oro stiffer competition than he's had in the last two races. Unless that Lieutenant Spath up at the camp tries again with that long-legged black of his," Topham added. "What about it, Kirby? You willing to match Shiloh?"

"He's green, but, yes, I'll do it."

Drew's motives were mixed. His pride in the colt had been pushing him toward such a trial ever since he had heard Fenner speak of Oro. In addition, as the owner of a[pg 049]noted horse, he would take a place in this community, establish his identity as Drew Kirby. And in some way he could not define, this put him, at least in his own mind, on an equal footing withDonCazar.

But by the next morning a few doubts troubled him as he tightened saddle cinches on the stallion. Shiloh's only races so far had been impromptu matches along the trail. Though the colt had been consistently the victor, none of his rivals had been in his class. And if Oro's speed was as striking as his coloring, the Range stud would prove a formidable opponent.

"Walk him up and down here by the corral." The Kentuckian handed the reins to Callie. "Got something I have to do."

Drew went directly to the Four Jacks. This time the cantina was filled, with a double row of the thirsty demanding attention at the bar. But Topham was seated at a table withDonLorenzo and Zack Cahill of the stage line. The Kentuckian went over to them.

"You have come to back your horse,señor?"DonLorenzo smiled up at Drew. There were piles of coins on the table as Cahill listed bets for the men crowding around.

"Yes, suh." Drew spun down two double eagles. "What're the odds?"

"Started six to one for Oro," Topham told him. "Coasted down after a few of the boys had a look at Shiloh. Can give you four to one now. Anything else we can do for you?"

Drew dropped his voice. "Do you have a safe here?"

Topham's eyebrows climbed. "Do you foresee a deposit or a withdrawal?"

"Deposit. I want to ride light today."

"Then I'll admit possession of a safe, such as it is.Don[pg 050]Lorenzo,por favor, will you act as banker?" He beckoned Drew after him into a small back room which was in sharp contrast to the main part of the Four Jacks.

On one wall was a fanned display of old daggers and swords which dated a century or so back to the Spanish colonial days. A bookcase crammed with tightly squeezed volumes provided a resting place for pieces of native pottery bearing grotesque animal designs. On the far wall were strips of brightly colored woven materials flanking a huge closed cupboard, a very old one, Drew thought. Its paneled front was carved with deeply incised patterns centering about a shield bearing arms. Only the battered desk and an attendant chair with a laced rawhide seat were of the frontier.

Topham took a chained key from the pocket of his fancy vest and went to fit it into a lock concealed in the carved foliage of the cupboard. The shield split down the middle, revealing shelves of metal boxes and packets of papers. Drew unfastened his money belt and handed it over. As he was tucking his shirt in his belt once more the gambler nodded at the cupboard.

"This is about as near a bank as we boast in Tubacca. Cahill has a strongbox at the stage station, and Stein some kind of a lockup at his store—that's the total for the town. We haven't grown to the size for a real banking establishment—"

"Hey, Reese, th' Old Man about—?"

Shannon was in the doorway. In the full light of day he looked younger. Drew was puzzled. That strange animosity which had flashed between them last night—why had he felt it? There was nothing like that emotion now. But as Johnny Shannon's gaze flitted from Topham to the Kentuckian,[pg 051]Drew was once more aware that, whatever he might outwardly seem, Johnny Shannon was no boy. Behind that disarmingly youthful façade was another person altogether.

"Kirby, ain't it?" Shannon smiled. "Understand I got outta line th' other night ... stepped on a lotta toes." That gaze flickered for the merest instant to the Colts at the Kentuckian's belt. "I sure had me a real snootful an' I guess I was jus' fightin' th' war all over again. No hard feelin's?"

That guileless confession was very convincing on the surface. How did you assess an emotion you did not understand yourself? Drew was teased by a fleeting memory of the past, of a time when he had faced another pair of eyes such as those, surface eyes behind which you could see nothing. Then he became conscious that the pause was too lengthy, and he replied with a hurry he immediately regretted:

"No hard feelin's."

This time he was able to recognize the meaning of that quirk of Shannon's lips. But prudence controlled the small flare of temper he felt inside him. It did not really matter. Let Shannon think he was backing down. If the time ever came that they did have to have a showdown, Johnny Shannon might be the surprised one.

"You're sure a trustin' fella." Shannon's fingers hooked to the front of the gun belt riding low on the hip. "Not askin' for no receipt or nothin'...."

Topham laughed. "We don't forget what is due a customer, Johnny." He went to the desk, scribbled a line on a piece of paper, and held it out to Drew. "This should meet all contingencies, such as some patron out there getting[pg 052]downright ornery and putting a couple of extra buttonholes in my vest by the six-gun slug method."

"Heard tell as how you're fixin' to race your plug 'gainst Oro, Kirby," Johnny drawled. "Also as how you laid down some good round boys to back his chance. I took me a piece of them—easy pickin's." The sneer was plainer in his voice than it had been in his smile.

Drew's puzzlement grew. Why was Shannon leaning on him this way? Because he had stepped in to stop the quirting of Teodoro? That was the only reason the Kentuckian could think of.

"That's a matter of opinion." Topham was studying them both with interest. "I'd say Oro has him some real competition at last. None of the Eclipse blood was ever backward on the track."

"You ridin' yourself?" Shannon paid no attention to the gambler's comment.

Drew nodded. "He knows me, and I ride light—"

"Sure, I suppose you do—now." Shannon's eyes flickered again, this time to the locked cupboard. "Heard tell—leastways Callie's been spoutin' it around—that you was with General Forrest."

"Yes."

"You sure musta pulled outta th' war better'n th' rest of us poor Rebs. Got you a couple of blooded hosses an' a good heavy money belt. A sight more luck than th' rest of us had—"

"Don't include yourself in the empty-pocket brigade, Johnny," Topham rapped out. "I don't see you going without eating money, drinking money either, more's a pity. And if you're really looking for Rennie now, you'll find him down at the course."[pg 053]

Shannon's smile was gone. He straightened away from the door frame which had been supporting his shoulders. "Thanks a lot, Reese." He left with the same abruptness as he had from the stable alley.

"So you're riding yourself." Topham ignored the departure. "León Rivas, Bartolomé's son, will be up on Oro; he always rides for Rennie. He's younger than you, but I'd say"—the gambler studied Drew's lithe body critically—"you're about matched in weight. I'd shuck that gun belt, though, and anything else you can. And good luck, Kirby. You'll need all of it you can muster."

An hour later Drew followed Topham's advice, leaving gun belt, carbine, and everything else he could unload in Callie's keeping before he swung up on Shiloh. The big colt was nervous, tending to dance sideways, tossing his head high. Drew concentrated on the business at hand, striving to forget the crowd opening up to let him through, shouting encouragement or disparagement. Ahead was the appointed track, a beaten stretch of earth, part of the old road leading to the mines. The Kentuckian talked to Shiloh as they went, keeping up a stream of words to firm the bond between horse and rider.

There was a knot of men surrounding the golden horse, and as his rider mounted, Oro put on a good show, rearing to paw the air with his forefeet as if he wished nothing better than to meet his gray rival in an impromptu boxing match. Then he nodded his head vigorously, acknowledging the shouts from his enthusiastic supporters. Beside that magnificent blaze of color Shiloh was drab, a shadow about to be put to flight by the sun.

They were to break at a starting shot, head to the big tree which made an excellent landmark in the flat valley,[pg 054]rounding its patch of shade before returning to the starting point. Drew brought Shiloh, still prancing and playing with his bit, up beside Oro. The slim boy on the golden horse shot the Kentuckian a shoulder-side look and grinned, raising his quirt in salute as Drew nodded and smiled back.

Some of the noise died.DonLorenzo pointed a pistol skyward. Drew strove to make his body one with Shiloh's small easy movements. The big gray knew very well what was in progress, was tensing now for a swift getaway leap. And he made it on the crack of the gun.

But if Shiloh had easily outdistanced all opposition before on those improvised tracks, he was now meeting a far more equal race. The gray colt's stride was effortless, he was pounding out with power—more than Drew had ever known him to exert. Yet those golden legs matched his pace, reach for reach, hoofbeat for hoofbeat.

"Come on, boy!" Drew's urging was lost in the wild shouting of the spectators. Some who were mounted were trying to parallel the runners. But Shiloh responded to his rider's encouragement even if he could not hear or understand. Drew would never use quirt or spur on the stud. What Shiloh had to give must come willingly and because he delighted in the giving.

They swept in and around the shade of the tree, made the arc to return. That golden head with its tossing crown of black forelock; itwasslipping back! Oro was no longer nose to nose with Shiloh, rather now nose to neck. Drew could hear Rivas' voice encouraging, pleading....

A mass of men, mounted and on foot, funneled the runners down to where the line of rope lay straight to mark the finish. Oro was creeping up once more, inch by hard-won inch.[pg 055]

Drew's head went up, his throat was rasped raw by the Yell which had taken desperate gray-coated troopers down hedge-bordered roads in Kentucky and steep ravines in Tennessee, sending them, if need be, straight into the mouths of Yankee field guns. And the Yell brought Shiloh home, only a nose ahead of his rival—as if he had been spurred by the now outlawed war cry. Then Drew found he had his hands full trying to pull up the colt and persuade him that the race was indeed over.

[pg 056]5A black mule came up beside Drew as he slowly pulled Shiloh down to a canter. Fenner, a wide grin splitting his beard, bellowed:"That shore was a race! Need any help, son?"Drew shook his head, wanting to bring Shiloh under full control at a rate which would quiet the colt before they headed back to the furor about the finish line. And only now did he have time to relish his own excited pride and pleasure.Since he had first seen Shiloh on that scouting trip back to Kentucky in '64, he had known he must someday own the gray colt. He had lain out in the brush for a long time that morning to watch the head groom of Red Springs put the horse through his paces in the training paddock. And watching jealously, Drew had realized that Shiloh was one of those mounts that a man discovers only once in his life-time, though he may breed and love their kind all his years.Drew would have been content with Shiloh as a mount and a companion, but now he was sure that the colt was more, so much more. This gray was going to be one of the Great Ones, a racer and a sire—to leave his mark in horse[pg 057]history and stamp his own quality on foals throughout miles and years in this southwestern land. Drew licked the grit of dust from his lips, filled his lungs with a deep breath as Shiloh turned under rein pressure.It was a long time before the Kentuckian was able to separate Shiloh from his ring of new admirers and bring him back to the stable. Drew refused several offers for the colt, some of them so fantastic he could only believe their makers sun-touched or completely carried away by the excitement of the race.But when he foundDonCazar waiting for him at Kells', he guessed that this was serious."You do not wish to sell him, I suppose?" Hunt Rennie smiled at Drew's prompt shake of head. "No, that would be too much to hope for, you are not a fool. But I have something else to suggest. Reese Topham tells me you are looking for work, preferably with horses. Well, I have a contract to gentle some remounts for the army, and I need some experienced men to help break them—"Drew could not understand the sudden pinch of—could it be alarm? Here it was: a chance to work on the Range, to know Hunt Rennie, and learn whetherDonCazar was to remain a legend or become a father. But now he was not sure."I'm no breaker, suh. I've gentled, yes—but eastern style.""Breaking horses can be brutal, though we don't ride with red spurs on the Range. Suppose we try some of the eastern methods and see how they work on our wild ones. Do you think you can do it?""A man can't tell what he can do until he tries." Drew still hedged.There was a trace of frown now between Rennie's brows.[pg 058]"You told Topham you wanted work." His tone implied that he found Drew's present hesitancy odd. And—fromDonCazar's point of view—it was. Tubacca was still in a slump; the rest of the valley held about as many jobs for a man as Drew had fingers on one hand. The Range was the big holding, and to ride there meant security and an established position in the community. Also, perhaps it was not an offer lightly made to an unknown newcomer."I can't promise you blue-grass training, suh. That has to begin with a foal." He hoped Rennie would credit his wavering to a modest appraisal of his own qualifications."Blue-grass training?"As his father repeated the expression Drew realized the slip of tongue he had made. And if he took the job, there might be other slips, perhaps far more serious ones. But to refuse, after Topham had spoken for him ... he was caught in a pinch with cause for suspicion closing in on either side."I was in Kentucky for about a year after the war. I went to stay with a friend—""But youarefrom Texas?"Was Rennie watching him too intently? No, he must ride a tighter rein on his imagination. There was no reason in the wide world whyDonCazar should expect him to be anyone except Drew Kirby."Yes, suh. Didn't have anythin' to go back to there. Thought I'd try for a new start out here." There was the story of several thousand veterans. Rennie should have heard it a good many times already."Well, come and try some blue-grass training on our colts. And should you let this stud of yours run with a pickedmanadaof mares, I could promise good fees."[pg 059]"Suppose I said yes if the fees were some of the foals—of my own choosing, suh?" Drew asked.Rennie ran a finger across the brand which scarred the gray's hide. "Spur R—that's a new one to me.""My own. Heard tell as how there's a custom of the country that a slick this old can be branded and claimed by anyone bringing him in. I wasn't going to lose him that way should he do any straying, accidental or intentional."DonCazar laughed. "That's using your head, Kirby. All right. It's a deal as far as I'm concerned. You draw wrangler's pay and take stud fees in foals—say one in three, your choosing. Register that brand of yours withDonLorenzo to be on the safe side. Then you're welcome to run Spur R with the Double R on the Range."He held out his hand, and Drew grasped it for a quick shake to seal their agreement. He was committed now—to the Range and to a small partnership with its master. But he still wondered if he had made the right choice.Two days later he dropped bedroll and saddlebags on the spare bunk at one end of the long adobe-walled room and studied his surroundings with deep curiosity. It was a fort, all right, this whole stronghold of Rennie's—not just the bunkhouse which formed part of a side wall. Bunkhouse, feed store, and storage room, blacksmith shop, cookhouse, stables, main house, the quarters for the married men and their families—all arranged to enclose a patio into which choice stock could be herded at the time of an attack, with a curbed well in the center.The roofs of all the buildings were flat, with loopholed parapets to be manned at need. A sentry post on the main house was occupied twenty-four hours a day by relays of Pimas. A loaded rifle leaned at every window opening, ready[pg 060]to be fired through loopholes in the wooden war shutters. The walls were twenty-five inches thick, and mounted on the roof of the stable, facing the hills from which Apache attacks usually came, was a small brass cannon—DonCazar's legacy from troops marching away in '61.What he saw of the resources of this private fort led Drew to accept the other stories he had heard of the Range, like the one thatDonCazar's men practiced firing blindfolded at noise targets to be prepared for night raids. The place was self-contained and almost self-supporting, with stores of food, good water, its own forge and leather shop, its own craftsmen and experts. No wonder the Apaches had given up trying to break this Anglo outpost and Rennie had accomplished what others found impossible. He had held his land secure against the worst and most unbeatable enemy this country had nourished.There were other Range forts, smaller, but as stoutly and ingeniously designed, each built beside a water source on Rennie land—defense points forDonCazar's riders, their garrisons rotated at monthly intervals. And Drew had to thank that system for having taken Johnny Shannon away from the Stronghold before the Kentuckian arrived. Rennie's foster son was now riding inspection between one water-hole fortification and another. But Drew was uncertain just how he would rub along with Shannon in the future."SeñorKirby,DonCazar—he would speak with you in the Casa Grande," León Rivas called through one of the patio side windows."Coming." Drew left the huddle of his possessions on the bunk.The Casa Grande of the Stronghold was a high-ceilinged,[pg 061]five-room building about sixty feet long, the kitchen making a right angle to the other rooms and joining the smoke house to form part of another wall for the patio. Mesquite logs, adze-hewn and only partially smoothed, were placed over the doorways, and the plank doors themselves were slung on hand-wrought iron hinges or on leather straps, from oak turning-posts. Drew knocked on the age-darkened surface of the big door."Kirby? Come in."Here in contrast to the brilliant sunlight of the patio was a dusky coolness. There were no glass panes in the windows. Manta, the unbleached muslin which served to cover such openings in the frontier ranches, was tacked taut, allowing in air but only subdued light. The walls had been smoothly plastered, and as in Topham's office, lengths of colorful woven materials and a couple of Navajo blankets served as hangings. Rugs of cougar and wolf skin were scattered on the beaten earth of the floor. There was a tall carved cupboard with a grilled door, a bookcase, and two massive chests shoved back against the walls. And over the stone mantel of the fireplace hung a picture of a morose-looking, bearded man wearing a steel breastplate, the canvas dim and dark with age and smoke.DonCazar was seated at a table as massive as the chests, a pile of papers before him flanked by two four-branch candelabra of native silver. Bartolomé Rivas' more substantial bulk weighed down the rawhide seat of another chair more to one side."Sit down—" Rennie nodded to the seat in front of the table. "Smoke?" He pushed forward a silver box holding the long cigarillos of the border country. Drew shook his head.[pg 062]"Whisky? Wine?" He gestured to a tray with waiting glasses."Sherry." Drew automatically answered without thought."What do you think of the stock you saw down in the corral?"DonCazar poured a honey-colored liquid from the decanter into a small glass.As the Kentuckian raised it to sip, the scent of the wine quirked time for him, making this for a fleeting moment the dining room at Red Springs during a customary after-dinner gathering of the men of the household. The talk there, too, had been of horses—always horses. Then Drew came back in a twitch of eyelid to the here and now, to Hunt Rennie watching him with a measuring he did not relish, to Bartolomé's round face with its close-to-hostile expression. Deliberately Drew sipped again before answering the question."I'd say, suh, if they're but a sample of Range stock, the breed is excellent. However——""However what,señor?" Bartolomé's eyes challenged Drew. "In this territory, even in Sonora, there are none to compare with the horses of this hacienda.""That is not what I was about to say,SeñorRivas. But ifDonCazar wishes to try the eastern methods of training, these horses are too old. You begin with a yearling colt, not three-year-olds.""To break a foal! What madness!" Now Bartolomé's face expressed shock."Not breaking," Drew corrected, "training. It is another method altogether. One puts a weanling on a rope halter, accustoms him to the feel of the hackamore, of being with men. Then he grows older knowing no fear or strangeness."[pg 063]The Mexican looked from Drew toDonCazar, his shock fading to puzzlement. Rennie nodded."Sí, amigo, so it is done—in Kentucky and Virginia. But this time we must deal with the older ones. Can you modify those methods, gentle without breaking? A colt with the fire still in him, but saddle-broke, is worth much more—""I can try. But you have already said, suh, that you don't allow rough breakin' here." Drew's half suspicion crystallized into belief.DonCazar had not really wanted another wrangler at all; he had wanted Shiloh—and his foals. Well, perhaps he would find he did have a wrangler who could deliver the goods into the bargain."No, but it is always well to learn new ways. I have been in Kentucky, Kirby. Perhaps some of their methods would not work on the Range. On the other hand, others might. As you have said—we can but try." He picked up the top sheet of paper and began to read:"Bayos-blancos—light duns—two.Bayos-azafranados—saffrons—one.Bayos-narajados—orange duns—none——""There was one," Bartolomé interrupted. "The mare, she was lost at Cañon del Palomas."Rennie frowned, "Sí, the mare.Bayos-tigres—striped ones —three.Bayos-cebrunos—smoked duns—two.Grullas—blues—four. Roans—six. Blacks—three. Bays—four. Twenty-five three-year-olds. You won't be expected to take on the wholeremuda, Kirby. Select any six of your own choosing and use your methods of gentling on them. We'll make a test this way."Bartolomé uttered a sound closer to a snort than anything else. And Drew guessed how he stood with the Mexican foreman. Rennie might have faith, or pretend to have faith, in some new method of training, but Rivas was a conservative[pg 064]who preferred the tried and true and undoubtedly considered the Kentuckian an interloper."Now, the matter of Shiloh..."Drew finished the sherry with appreciation. He was beginning to see the amusing side of this conference. Drew's work on the Range settled, Rennie was about to get to what he really wanted. ButDonCazar's first words were a little startling."We'll keep him close-in the water corral. To turn a stud of eastern breeding loose is dangerous——""You mean he might be stolen, suh?" Drew clicked his empty glass down on the table."No, he might be killed!" And Rennie's tone indicated he meant just that."How...why?""There are wild-horse bands out there, though we're trying to capture or run them off the Range. And a wild stud will always try to add mares to his band. Because he has fought many times to keep or take mares, he is a formidable and vicious opponent, one that an imported, tamed stud can rarely best. Right now, coming into Big Rock well for water is a pinto that has killed three other stallions—including a black I imported back in '60—and two of them were larger, heavier animals than he."The Trinfans are moving down into that section this week. I hope they can break up that band, run down the stud anyway. He has courage and cunning, but his blood is not a line we want for foals on this range. So Shiloh stays here at the Stronghold; don't risk him loose.""Yes, suh. What about these wild ones—they worth huntin'?""They're mixed; some are scrubs, inbred, poor stuff. But[pg 065]a few fine ones turn up. Mostly when they do they're strays or bred from strays—escaped from horse thieves or Indians. If the mustangers here pick up any branded ones, they're returned to the owners, if possible, or sold at a yearly auction. By the old Mexican law the hunting season for horses runs from October to March. Foals are old enough then to be branded. Speaking of foals, you left your mare and the filly in town?""Kells'll give them stable room till next month. I can bring them out then.""We'll have a delivery of remounts to make to the camp about then. You can help haze those in and pick up your own stock on return."León appeared in the doorway. "DonCazar, themesteneoes—they arrive.""Good. These people are the real wild-horse experts, Kirby. Not much the Trinfans don't know about horses."DonCazar was already on his way to the door and Drew fell in behind Bartolomé.The Trinfan outfit was small, considering the job they intended, Drew thought. A cart pulled by two mules, lightly made and packed high, was the nucleus of their small caravan. Burros—two of them—were roped behind and, to Drew's surprise, a cow, bawling fretfully and intended, he later learned, to play foster mother to any unweaned foals which might be picked up. The cart was driven by a Mexican in leather breeches and jacket over a red shirt. Behind him rode the boy and girl Drew had seen in the Tubacca alley, mounted on rangy, nervous horses that had speed in every line of their under-fleshed bodies. Each rider trailed four spare mounts roped nose to tail."Buenos días, DonCazar." For so small a man the Mexican[pg 066]on the cart seat produced a trumpet-sized voice. He touched the roll-edged brim of his sombrero, and Drew noted that his arm was crooked as if in the past it had been broken and poorly set."Buenos dias, SeñorTrinfan. This house is yours." Rennie went to the side of the cart. "The west corral is ready for your use as always. Draw on the stores for any need you may have—""Gracias, DonCazar." It was the thanks of equal to equal. "You have some late news of the wild ones?""Only that the pinto still runs near the well.""That spotted one—sí, he is an Apache for cunning, for deviltry of spirit. It may be that this time he will not be the lucky one. There is in him a demon. Did I not see him, with my own eyes, kill a foal, tear flesh from the flanks of its dam when she tried to drop out of the run?Sí—a realdiablo, that one!""Get rid of him one way or another, Trinfan. He is a danger to the Range. He killed another stud this season. I am as sure of that as if I had seen him in action.""Ah, the blue one you thought might be a runner to match Oro.Sí, that was a great pity,DonCazar. Well, we shall try, we shall try this time to put thatdiablounder!"An hour later Drew was facing adiabloof his own, with far less confidence than Hilario Trinfan had voiced. Just how stupid could one be? Around him now were men trained from early childhood to this life, and he could show no skill at their employment. All the way out from Texas he had practiced doggedly with the lariat, and his best fell far short of what a range-bred child could do.Yet he had an audience waiting down at the corral. Drew's mouth was a straight line. He would soon confirm[pg 067]their belief thatDonCazar had in truth hired Shiloh instead of his owner. But there was no use trying to duck the ordeal, and the Kentuckian had never been one to put off the inevitable with a pallid hope that something would turn up to save him.Only this time, apparently, fortune was going to favor him."Which one you wish,señor?" Teodoro Trinfan, rope in hand, stood there ready to cast for one of the milling colts. Why the boy was making that offer of assistance Drew had no inkling. But to accept would give him a slight chance to prove he could do part of the work.He had already made his selection in the corral, though he had despaired of ever getting that animal at rope's end."The black—"

A black mule came up beside Drew as he slowly pulled Shiloh down to a canter. Fenner, a wide grin splitting his beard, bellowed:

"That shore was a race! Need any help, son?"

Drew shook his head, wanting to bring Shiloh under full control at a rate which would quiet the colt before they headed back to the furor about the finish line. And only now did he have time to relish his own excited pride and pleasure.

Since he had first seen Shiloh on that scouting trip back to Kentucky in '64, he had known he must someday own the gray colt. He had lain out in the brush for a long time that morning to watch the head groom of Red Springs put the horse through his paces in the training paddock. And watching jealously, Drew had realized that Shiloh was one of those mounts that a man discovers only once in his life-time, though he may breed and love their kind all his years.

Drew would have been content with Shiloh as a mount and a companion, but now he was sure that the colt was more, so much more. This gray was going to be one of the Great Ones, a racer and a sire—to leave his mark in horse[pg 057]history and stamp his own quality on foals throughout miles and years in this southwestern land. Drew licked the grit of dust from his lips, filled his lungs with a deep breath as Shiloh turned under rein pressure.

It was a long time before the Kentuckian was able to separate Shiloh from his ring of new admirers and bring him back to the stable. Drew refused several offers for the colt, some of them so fantastic he could only believe their makers sun-touched or completely carried away by the excitement of the race.

But when he foundDonCazar waiting for him at Kells', he guessed that this was serious.

"You do not wish to sell him, I suppose?" Hunt Rennie smiled at Drew's prompt shake of head. "No, that would be too much to hope for, you are not a fool. But I have something else to suggest. Reese Topham tells me you are looking for work, preferably with horses. Well, I have a contract to gentle some remounts for the army, and I need some experienced men to help break them—"

Drew could not understand the sudden pinch of—could it be alarm? Here it was: a chance to work on the Range, to know Hunt Rennie, and learn whetherDonCazar was to remain a legend or become a father. But now he was not sure.

"I'm no breaker, suh. I've gentled, yes—but eastern style."

"Breaking horses can be brutal, though we don't ride with red spurs on the Range. Suppose we try some of the eastern methods and see how they work on our wild ones. Do you think you can do it?"

"A man can't tell what he can do until he tries." Drew still hedged.

There was a trace of frown now between Rennie's brows.[pg 058]"You told Topham you wanted work." His tone implied that he found Drew's present hesitancy odd. And—fromDonCazar's point of view—it was. Tubacca was still in a slump; the rest of the valley held about as many jobs for a man as Drew had fingers on one hand. The Range was the big holding, and to ride there meant security and an established position in the community. Also, perhaps it was not an offer lightly made to an unknown newcomer.

"I can't promise you blue-grass training, suh. That has to begin with a foal." He hoped Rennie would credit his wavering to a modest appraisal of his own qualifications.

"Blue-grass training?"

As his father repeated the expression Drew realized the slip of tongue he had made. And if he took the job, there might be other slips, perhaps far more serious ones. But to refuse, after Topham had spoken for him ... he was caught in a pinch with cause for suspicion closing in on either side.

"I was in Kentucky for about a year after the war. I went to stay with a friend—"

"But youarefrom Texas?"

Was Rennie watching him too intently? No, he must ride a tighter rein on his imagination. There was no reason in the wide world whyDonCazar should expect him to be anyone except Drew Kirby.

"Yes, suh. Didn't have anythin' to go back to there. Thought I'd try for a new start out here." There was the story of several thousand veterans. Rennie should have heard it a good many times already.

"Well, come and try some blue-grass training on our colts. And should you let this stud of yours run with a pickedmanadaof mares, I could promise good fees."[pg 059]

"Suppose I said yes if the fees were some of the foals—of my own choosing, suh?" Drew asked.

Rennie ran a finger across the brand which scarred the gray's hide. "Spur R—that's a new one to me."

"My own. Heard tell as how there's a custom of the country that a slick this old can be branded and claimed by anyone bringing him in. I wasn't going to lose him that way should he do any straying, accidental or intentional."

DonCazar laughed. "That's using your head, Kirby. All right. It's a deal as far as I'm concerned. You draw wrangler's pay and take stud fees in foals—say one in three, your choosing. Register that brand of yours withDonLorenzo to be on the safe side. Then you're welcome to run Spur R with the Double R on the Range."

He held out his hand, and Drew grasped it for a quick shake to seal their agreement. He was committed now—to the Range and to a small partnership with its master. But he still wondered if he had made the right choice.

Two days later he dropped bedroll and saddlebags on the spare bunk at one end of the long adobe-walled room and studied his surroundings with deep curiosity. It was a fort, all right, this whole stronghold of Rennie's—not just the bunkhouse which formed part of a side wall. Bunkhouse, feed store, and storage room, blacksmith shop, cookhouse, stables, main house, the quarters for the married men and their families—all arranged to enclose a patio into which choice stock could be herded at the time of an attack, with a curbed well in the center.

The roofs of all the buildings were flat, with loopholed parapets to be manned at need. A sentry post on the main house was occupied twenty-four hours a day by relays of Pimas. A loaded rifle leaned at every window opening, ready[pg 060]to be fired through loopholes in the wooden war shutters. The walls were twenty-five inches thick, and mounted on the roof of the stable, facing the hills from which Apache attacks usually came, was a small brass cannon—DonCazar's legacy from troops marching away in '61.

What he saw of the resources of this private fort led Drew to accept the other stories he had heard of the Range, like the one thatDonCazar's men practiced firing blindfolded at noise targets to be prepared for night raids. The place was self-contained and almost self-supporting, with stores of food, good water, its own forge and leather shop, its own craftsmen and experts. No wonder the Apaches had given up trying to break this Anglo outpost and Rennie had accomplished what others found impossible. He had held his land secure against the worst and most unbeatable enemy this country had nourished.

There were other Range forts, smaller, but as stoutly and ingeniously designed, each built beside a water source on Rennie land—defense points forDonCazar's riders, their garrisons rotated at monthly intervals. And Drew had to thank that system for having taken Johnny Shannon away from the Stronghold before the Kentuckian arrived. Rennie's foster son was now riding inspection between one water-hole fortification and another. But Drew was uncertain just how he would rub along with Shannon in the future.

"SeñorKirby,DonCazar—he would speak with you in the Casa Grande," León Rivas called through one of the patio side windows.

"Coming." Drew left the huddle of his possessions on the bunk.

The Casa Grande of the Stronghold was a high-ceilinged,[pg 061]five-room building about sixty feet long, the kitchen making a right angle to the other rooms and joining the smoke house to form part of another wall for the patio. Mesquite logs, adze-hewn and only partially smoothed, were placed over the doorways, and the plank doors themselves were slung on hand-wrought iron hinges or on leather straps, from oak turning-posts. Drew knocked on the age-darkened surface of the big door.

"Kirby? Come in."

Here in contrast to the brilliant sunlight of the patio was a dusky coolness. There were no glass panes in the windows. Manta, the unbleached muslin which served to cover such openings in the frontier ranches, was tacked taut, allowing in air but only subdued light. The walls had been smoothly plastered, and as in Topham's office, lengths of colorful woven materials and a couple of Navajo blankets served as hangings. Rugs of cougar and wolf skin were scattered on the beaten earth of the floor. There was a tall carved cupboard with a grilled door, a bookcase, and two massive chests shoved back against the walls. And over the stone mantel of the fireplace hung a picture of a morose-looking, bearded man wearing a steel breastplate, the canvas dim and dark with age and smoke.

DonCazar was seated at a table as massive as the chests, a pile of papers before him flanked by two four-branch candelabra of native silver. Bartolomé Rivas' more substantial bulk weighed down the rawhide seat of another chair more to one side.

"Sit down—" Rennie nodded to the seat in front of the table. "Smoke?" He pushed forward a silver box holding the long cigarillos of the border country. Drew shook his head.[pg 062]

"Whisky? Wine?" He gestured to a tray with waiting glasses.

"Sherry." Drew automatically answered without thought.

"What do you think of the stock you saw down in the corral?"DonCazar poured a honey-colored liquid from the decanter into a small glass.

As the Kentuckian raised it to sip, the scent of the wine quirked time for him, making this for a fleeting moment the dining room at Red Springs during a customary after-dinner gathering of the men of the household. The talk there, too, had been of horses—always horses. Then Drew came back in a twitch of eyelid to the here and now, to Hunt Rennie watching him with a measuring he did not relish, to Bartolomé's round face with its close-to-hostile expression. Deliberately Drew sipped again before answering the question.

"I'd say, suh, if they're but a sample of Range stock, the breed is excellent. However——"

"However what,señor?" Bartolomé's eyes challenged Drew. "In this territory, even in Sonora, there are none to compare with the horses of this hacienda."

"That is not what I was about to say,SeñorRivas. But ifDonCazar wishes to try the eastern methods of training, these horses are too old. You begin with a yearling colt, not three-year-olds."

"To break a foal! What madness!" Now Bartolomé's face expressed shock.

"Not breaking," Drew corrected, "training. It is another method altogether. One puts a weanling on a rope halter, accustoms him to the feel of the hackamore, of being with men. Then he grows older knowing no fear or strangeness."[pg 063]

The Mexican looked from Drew toDonCazar, his shock fading to puzzlement. Rennie nodded.

"Sí, amigo, so it is done—in Kentucky and Virginia. But this time we must deal with the older ones. Can you modify those methods, gentle without breaking? A colt with the fire still in him, but saddle-broke, is worth much more—"

"I can try. But you have already said, suh, that you don't allow rough breakin' here." Drew's half suspicion crystallized into belief.DonCazar had not really wanted another wrangler at all; he had wanted Shiloh—and his foals. Well, perhaps he would find he did have a wrangler who could deliver the goods into the bargain.

"No, but it is always well to learn new ways. I have been in Kentucky, Kirby. Perhaps some of their methods would not work on the Range. On the other hand, others might. As you have said—we can but try." He picked up the top sheet of paper and began to read:

"Bayos-blancos—light duns—two.Bayos-azafranados—saffrons—one.Bayos-narajados—orange duns—none——"

"There was one," Bartolomé interrupted. "The mare, she was lost at Cañon del Palomas."

Rennie frowned, "Sí, the mare.Bayos-tigres—striped ones —three.Bayos-cebrunos—smoked duns—two.Grullas—blues—four. Roans—six. Blacks—three. Bays—four. Twenty-five three-year-olds. You won't be expected to take on the wholeremuda, Kirby. Select any six of your own choosing and use your methods of gentling on them. We'll make a test this way."

Bartolomé uttered a sound closer to a snort than anything else. And Drew guessed how he stood with the Mexican foreman. Rennie might have faith, or pretend to have faith, in some new method of training, but Rivas was a conservative[pg 064]who preferred the tried and true and undoubtedly considered the Kentuckian an interloper.

"Now, the matter of Shiloh..."

Drew finished the sherry with appreciation. He was beginning to see the amusing side of this conference. Drew's work on the Range settled, Rennie was about to get to what he really wanted. ButDonCazar's first words were a little startling.

"We'll keep him close-in the water corral. To turn a stud of eastern breeding loose is dangerous——"

"You mean he might be stolen, suh?" Drew clicked his empty glass down on the table.

"No, he might be killed!" And Rennie's tone indicated he meant just that.

"How...why?"

"There are wild-horse bands out there, though we're trying to capture or run them off the Range. And a wild stud will always try to add mares to his band. Because he has fought many times to keep or take mares, he is a formidable and vicious opponent, one that an imported, tamed stud can rarely best. Right now, coming into Big Rock well for water is a pinto that has killed three other stallions—including a black I imported back in '60—and two of them were larger, heavier animals than he.

"The Trinfans are moving down into that section this week. I hope they can break up that band, run down the stud anyway. He has courage and cunning, but his blood is not a line we want for foals on this range. So Shiloh stays here at the Stronghold; don't risk him loose."

"Yes, suh. What about these wild ones—they worth huntin'?"

"They're mixed; some are scrubs, inbred, poor stuff. But[pg 065]a few fine ones turn up. Mostly when they do they're strays or bred from strays—escaped from horse thieves or Indians. If the mustangers here pick up any branded ones, they're returned to the owners, if possible, or sold at a yearly auction. By the old Mexican law the hunting season for horses runs from October to March. Foals are old enough then to be branded. Speaking of foals, you left your mare and the filly in town?"

"Kells'll give them stable room till next month. I can bring them out then."

"We'll have a delivery of remounts to make to the camp about then. You can help haze those in and pick up your own stock on return."

León appeared in the doorway. "DonCazar, themesteneoes—they arrive."

"Good. These people are the real wild-horse experts, Kirby. Not much the Trinfans don't know about horses."DonCazar was already on his way to the door and Drew fell in behind Bartolomé.

The Trinfan outfit was small, considering the job they intended, Drew thought. A cart pulled by two mules, lightly made and packed high, was the nucleus of their small caravan. Burros—two of them—were roped behind and, to Drew's surprise, a cow, bawling fretfully and intended, he later learned, to play foster mother to any unweaned foals which might be picked up. The cart was driven by a Mexican in leather breeches and jacket over a red shirt. Behind him rode the boy and girl Drew had seen in the Tubacca alley, mounted on rangy, nervous horses that had speed in every line of their under-fleshed bodies. Each rider trailed four spare mounts roped nose to tail.

"Buenos días, DonCazar." For so small a man the Mexican[pg 066]on the cart seat produced a trumpet-sized voice. He touched the roll-edged brim of his sombrero, and Drew noted that his arm was crooked as if in the past it had been broken and poorly set.

"Buenos dias, SeñorTrinfan. This house is yours." Rennie went to the side of the cart. "The west corral is ready for your use as always. Draw on the stores for any need you may have—"

"Gracias, DonCazar." It was the thanks of equal to equal. "You have some late news of the wild ones?"

"Only that the pinto still runs near the well."

"That spotted one—sí, he is an Apache for cunning, for deviltry of spirit. It may be that this time he will not be the lucky one. There is in him a demon. Did I not see him, with my own eyes, kill a foal, tear flesh from the flanks of its dam when she tried to drop out of the run?Sí—a realdiablo, that one!"

"Get rid of him one way or another, Trinfan. He is a danger to the Range. He killed another stud this season. I am as sure of that as if I had seen him in action."

"Ah, the blue one you thought might be a runner to match Oro.Sí, that was a great pity,DonCazar. Well, we shall try, we shall try this time to put thatdiablounder!"

An hour later Drew was facing adiabloof his own, with far less confidence than Hilario Trinfan had voiced. Just how stupid could one be? Around him now were men trained from early childhood to this life, and he could show no skill at their employment. All the way out from Texas he had practiced doggedly with the lariat, and his best fell far short of what a range-bred child could do.

Yet he had an audience waiting down at the corral. Drew's mouth was a straight line. He would soon confirm[pg 067]their belief thatDonCazar had in truth hired Shiloh instead of his owner. But there was no use trying to duck the ordeal, and the Kentuckian had never been one to put off the inevitable with a pallid hope that something would turn up to save him.

Only this time, apparently, fortune was going to favor him.

"Which one you wish,señor?" Teodoro Trinfan, rope in hand, stood there ready to cast for one of the milling colts. Why the boy was making that offer of assistance Drew had no inkling. But to accept would give him a slight chance to prove he could do part of the work.

He had already made his selection in the corral, though he had despaired of ever getting that animal at rope's end.

"The black—"

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