The water in Devil's Hole was fenced.
It was the Reverend who brought word of the fencing. He had made a circuit of the ranches, holding services and selling pens, and on his way back from the lower reaches of Coyote Creek he stopped to call on the Coles. His visit was not financially productive but he did see long rows of posts set by three Mexicans, and saw wire being stretched on them.
Another thing he saw, which he did not mention to Hepburn: He saw Bobby Cole riding beside a man, a man who did not wear the dress of her country but who wore swagger riding clothes; who did not talk with the self consciousness of a mountain man who rides beside a pretty girl, but who leaned toward her and talked engagingly, so engagingly that the girl lost her hostile attitude and looked up into his face with wide, eager eyes.
The fencing stirred the country as nothing had done since the first and only time sheep bands attempted to come in. There was talk of it in town, there was talk of it when men met on trail or road, there was talk of it in ranch houses down the creek and there was talk of it elsewhere, at length, in stealthy jubilation....
Riley of the Bar Z rode the thirty miles from his ranch to discuss it with Jane Hunter.
"I don't guess you quite understand how serious it is, Miss Hunter," he said after they had talked a time. "Do you realize that if we have a dry summer—and it's startin' out that way—that this is goin' to cut your cattle off some of your best range. It may break you."
"I understand that, Mr. Riley," she said, leaning across her desk, "but there are other things I do not understand and I am inclined to believe that they are of first importance. Without understanding them, this condition can not be remedied."
He gave evidence of his surprise.
"I'm not wanted here," she went on. "I'm not wanted because the HC is a rich prize. It seems to be the accepted opinion that I cannot stay, that I will be unable to stand my ground.
"I want to knowwhy!I want to know who is going to drive me out. Some one is behind this nester, I am convinced, and it is the influence behind the things we can see that is dangerous. Loss of range is serious, surely; but by what manner has that range been lost.Thatis what I want to know!"
Riley eyed her with approval.
"I came up here with the idea that you didn't understand but I guess you do," he said quietly. "You've got the situation sized up right, but there's one thing I want to tell you: So far only one blow has been struck; it has fallen on you. The next and the next may fall on you, but every time you are hurt it's goin' to hurt the rest of us. That makes your fight our fight.... If you fail, others are likely to fail.
"I've lived here too long in peace after fighting for that peace, to stand by and see trouble start again if I can help it. I'm of the old school, Miss Hunter; your uncle and I came in here together. I think a lot of his ranch and ... well, if it comes to a fight I can fight again beside his heir as I fought by his side.
"It won't be pleasant for a woman. Cattle wars ain't gentle affairs. They can't be if they're going to be short wars. There's three things to be used; just three: guns an' rope and nerve."
"I trust I can stand unpleasantness if necessary," was her reply.
Riley was impressed with the girl's courage but like the others he was reluctant to believe that she was made of the stuff that could recognize disaster and fight it out, her strength unweakened by panic.
Another visitor was there that day: Pat Webb. Jimmy Oliver had found one of his colts badly cut by wire and had brought it in. Webb had come to see the animal and had lingered to talk intimately with Hepburn.
This gave Beck much to think about.
He was saddling his horse at noon when Hepburn approached and asked his plans for the balance of the day.
"It depends on what I find. I'm after horses first, but I might have a look at other things. There's so damned much happenin' around here that it pays a man to look sharp."
"You'd better cut out that sort of talk, Beck!"
"What talk?"—mockingly. "Seems to me if you didn't know any more than I do you wouldn't be so easily roiled up, Hepburn."
"You mind your business and I'll look after mine," the foreman warned, breathing heavily. "About one more break from you and we'll part company."
His eyes glittered ominously and his face was malicious.
"I wouldn't be surprised. This outfit's a little too small for you and me. It seems to shrink every day, Dad. Maybe, sometime, you'll have to go, but just keep this in your head: I've promised Miss Hunter to stay and my word is good."
He mounted and Hepburn, walking slowly toward the stable, twirled his mustache speculatively, one eye lid drooped as though he saw faintly a plan which promised to solve perplexities.
Beck was cautious that afternoon, as he had trained himself to be when riding alone. He kept an eye on the back trail and scanned both gulches when he rode a ridge; but cautious as he was he did not see the two riders who sat on quiet horses beneath a spreading juniper tree at the head of Twenty Mile.
It was after dark when he returned to the ranch and the moon was just commencing to show. The others were at supper. He threw his gun and chaps into the bunk house and fed his horse. As he walked down toward the ranch house the other men were straggling out and their dining room was empty. Carlotta brought him steaming food and he ate with gusto.
When he had nearly finished Jane entered and he started to rise, but she made him remain seated.
"What do you suppose that man Webb is doing here?" she asked. "Hepburn explains that he is trying to arrange to send a representative with our round-up."
"Whatever he's doin' here, it ain't for your good," he replied.
"Nor yours."
"Don't you worry about mine, ma'am and unless he's a lot smarter than I think he is, or unless he's got lots of help, don't figure he's goin' to do you any great harm. He's just a low-down—"
A man was running toward the house and he broke off to listen.
Two-Bits came hurriedly into the room, eyes wide, face white, showing none of his usual confusion at Jane's presence.
"Tommy, they want you," he said unnaturally.
"Yeah? What for, Two-Bits?"
"I don't know, Tommy. Hepburn an' Riley an' Webb an' the rest want you. I don't know what it is, Tommy, but it must be serious."
Tom saw the anxiety in Jane's eyes. She did not put her query into words; it was not necessary; he knew and answered:
"I ain't got an idea, ma'am, but I'll go find out. You're all wound up, Two-Bits!"—laughing.
"My gosh, Tommy, they acted funny. Have you done anything?" the cowboy asked in an undertone as they left the house.
"A lot, Two-Bits. I sure hope they don't go proddin' into my awful past! There's some terrible things they might find!"
He hooked his arm through the other's and laughed at the boy's apprehension.
But Beck knew that something of grave consequence impended the instant he set foot in the bunk house for the men, who had been talking lowly, stopped and eyed him in sober silence. Afterward he had a distinct recollection of Two-Bits slipping along the wall, looking at him over his shoulder with the freckles showing in great blotches against his white skin. Hepburn, Riley and Webb sat on one bed. The foreman was leaning back, hands clasping a knee, but he chewed his tobacco with nervous vigor.
"The Reverend about to offer prayer?" Tom asked easily.
There was no responsive smile on any face. Someone coughed loudly and sharply as if it had been an unnecessary cough. Tom halted.
"I'm here. What's up?" he asked quietly. "This is like a funeral ... or a trial."
At that Hepburn cleared his throat.
"Want to ask you somethin', Beck. I want you to tell these other men what you said to me this noon."
Tom hitched up his belt.
"If you want 'em to know, why don't you speak the piece yourself? You recall it, don't you?"
"Better talk, Tom," Riley advised.
"I don't know what this is all about; I don't know what difference what I said to Hepburn can make to the rest of you, but I respect your opinions, Riley, and if he's willing for you to know what I said, I sure am willing to repeat it.
"Hepburn and I've had a little argument. It's been goin' on for some time. He'd be pleased to have me move on, I take it, but I sort of like this outfit."
"Go on," Hepburn said impatiently.
"I told you, Hepburn, and I'll tell you again that this ranch is gettin' a little small to hold both of us. It seems to shrink every day and I don't get good elbow room any more, but so far as I'm concerned I'm more or less permanent."
Webb nodded and Riley shifted uneasily, looking from Beck to Hepburn, frankly puzzled.
"Yes, that's what you said to me. Now will you tell the boys where you rode this afternoon?"
Beck eyed him a long moment and the foreman stared back, assured but not quite composed, his little eyes dark. Once he bit his chew savagely but his expression did not change.
"I rode out of here straight up Sunny Gulch, climbed out at the head, rode those little dry gulches as far down as Twenty Mile and came up the far ridge. Then I took a circle to the east and came home by the road."
"You admit bein' at the head of Twenty Mile, then?"
"Admit it? Yes."
"What time?"
"Three o'clock or thereabouts,"—after a pause in which he considered.
"See any other men?"
"Not a man until I got back."
Hepburn looked about. Two-Bits muttered lowly to himself. Riley dragged a spur across the floor slowly. Every eye in the room was on Beck, and Beck's eyes were on Hepburn.
"Then will you tell the boys how come this?"
The foreman drew a gun and holster from behind him. It was Beck's gun. He drew it from the scabbard, broke it and dropped the cartridges into his palm.
Three of the shells were empty.
The two gave one another stare for stare. Hepburn was breathing rapidly but his look was of a man who faces a crisis with all confidence. Beck did not move or speak. His eyes smouldered and his face settled into stern lines. Then that smouldering burst into blaze and before the glare of will the foreman's hand, holding the contents of the revolver chambers, trembled. He closed it quickly and looked away and where a moment before he had been the accuser he was now on the defense. It was determination against determination and in the conflict words were wrung from him.
"Somebody fired three shots at me at the head of Twenty Mile at three o'clock this afternoon."
And that sentence, though it was an indictment, was voiced more in a manner of defense than in accusation. With it Beck's expression changed; it became alert, as though following some play upon which great stakes hung, but following intelligently, not blind to the way of the game.
"I can explain those empty shells. I took a shot at a coyote on the way back. I didn't see you, Hepburn, after I left here this afternoon until I got back."
Webb got up.
"I guess that makes the case," he said to no one in particular.
Then to Tom: "I was with Dad; he was ten rod ahead of me. Th' shots come from above and landed all around him.
"Wedidn't have to look very hard for somebody who wants to get rid of Dad, but we wanted it from you, Beck."
Triumph was in his little beady eyes and on his mottled face. There was a shuffling of feet and Tom hooked one thumb in his belt, with a slow, uncertain movement. His eyes held on Hepburn's face, prying, searching, striving to force a meeting but the other would not look at him, he busied himself stuffing the evidence into his shirt pocket.
Riley rose and the low stir which had followed the revelation subsided.
"Isn't there something else you want to say, Beck?" he asked. "Didn't you see any other man? Can't you say something for yourself?"
"I didn't see another man this afternoon," the other replied, still striving to make Hepburn meet his gaze, "an' besides there don't seem to be much to say. I've told my story. It's simple enough.... You've heard the other story, which seems simple enough. Now it's my word against Hepburn's ... an' Webb's,"—as though the last were in afterthought, and of little matter.
Riley faced the circle of listeners.
"This is no boy's play," he said grimly. "The foreman of the biggest outfit in this country has been shot at, shot at by somebody who didn't come from cover and give him even a fair show for a fight. We know that there's been bad blood between these two men; Tommy's admitted that. I hate like hell to think he lost his head over a quarrel and that he'd fight a man from cover, but it looks bad.
"We can't have this go on! There's been stealing and rumors of stealing for months. There's trouble comin' over water and fence. We've gotten along like good neighbors for years but now trouble seems to be in the air. I don't see that there's much to it but to take Tom to town an' turn him over to the sheriff.
"Unless,"—facing Beck. "Tommy, ain't there anything you want to say? You've refused once but I keep thinkin' you've got something else you could tell us."
"No, Riley, I'd be taking a chance by doing more talkin' tonight. I'll do it when it'll do me more good," he said, but at his own words, brave though they sounded, his heart sank and a rage boiled up in him.
"Then I'm afraid it's jail for you, son," Riley said. "I can—"
"Jail?"
Jane Hunter had stepped into the bunk house. It was the first time she had ever been there and that was reason enough to rivet attention on her; but now she came under circumstances which were stressed, her face was white, lips parted, eyes wide with a child-like wonder and as she paused on the threshold, one hand against the casing, dread was in every line of her figure.
"Jail?" she repeated in a strained voice. "And why?"
The silence was oppressive and for a breath no one moved or spoke. Beck had not turned to face her; his eyes never left Hepburn's face and it was he who broke the suspense with one word, addressed to the foreman.
"Well?"—a challenge.
Hepburn moved slowly toward the girl.
"There's been a little trouble, Miss Hunter," with an attempt at a laugh, which resulted dismally.
"Trouble?"—with rising inflection.
She took a step forward, looking about at the serious faces. She looked back at Hepburn; then at Beck. Her eyes clung to him a moment, then swept the circle again.
"Trouble? About what? Who is in trouble?"
"I didn't want to bother you with it," her foreman said, his assurance coming back, for Beck had ceased looking at him. "It's a nasty mess; I don't like it. None of us like it. Even if he is inclined to be a little hot-headed, we all thought better of Tom—"
"Tom?"
Slowly she turned to face Beck.
"Yes. Tom. We're.... We're sorry, ma'am," Dad stammered; then recovered and with an effort to belittle the situation by his manner proceeded: "Somebody did a small amount of shootin' at me this afternoon. Webb, here, an' I was at the head of Twenty-Mile and somebody fired three times at me. Tom come in tonight with three empty shells in his gun. He.... He didn't explain well enough to suit us because all he could say was that he fired at a coyote comin' down the road, but—"
"And you're going to take him to jail?"
Her hand had gone slowly to her throat, fingers clamping on the gold locket as if for support. Her eyes had become very dark.
"Well, ma'am, that's about all we can do: turn him over to the sheriff," Hepburn said.
She drew a deep breath, a second interval of tense silence prevailed and then Jane, putting one arm across her eyes, began to laugh. The laugh started low in her throat and rippled upward until it was full and as clear as the ringing of a glass gong. She swayed back against the wall and pressed her extended palms hard against the tough logs....
"On that evidence?" she cried. "On such evidence you would charge a man with attempted murder and turn him over to the law? Because there were empty shells in his revolver?
"Why, I was with him when he came down the road and hedidshoot at a coyote ... three times ... I heard it; I saw it ... I was there."
She leaned her head back and her body shook with silent, nervous laughter.
"Praise ye the Lord!" chanted the Reverend, "For his ways are wonderous and strange to behold!"
A babel of comments, loud, profane, excited, relieved, arose. Hepburn stood as if struck dumb, mouth agape and then, face growing dark with a rush of blood under the bronzed skin, he said:
"I thought you said you didn't see a soul!"
"I said I didn't see a man, you pole-cat!" Beck retorted and his eyes danced. Webb sat down on a bunk as though suddenly weakened. Riley, voice husky, took Tom's hand, shook it gravely.
"Why didn't you tell us, my boy?" he questioned.
The rest stopped to hear the answer:
"I didn't want to spill my case before this ... thishombreshowed his full hand," he lied.
He turned to look at the other who had lied ... but Jane Hunter had fled.
Hours later, after the Reverend had offered a strong, verbose prayer, invoking the wrath of the Almighty upon those who plot to strike from cover, after the bunk house had finally become quiet, Beck stole out into the night.
The moon rode high, flooding the creek bottom with its cold, blue-white light and he stood bareheaded, shirt open at the chest, staring at one bright star which stared back from the edge of the hills. Far off, away down the creek, a coyote yapped and, waiting, cried again and its faint echo reverberated into silence. A horse in the corral stomped and blew loudly....
He moved on down toward the cottonwoods and reaching them stood in their shadows, arms at his sides, shoulders slacked as if weakened, irresolute. The ranch house was dark, its shingles smeared with a sheen of silver by the moon, the veranda in deep black.
Tom did not see her coming until she was halfway across the dooryard. Then, rather heavily, he climbed the wire fence and met her.
Without words of greeting Jane put out her hands and he took them both, holding them between his, looking down into her face silently. Her eyes were dry, but there had been tears on her cheeks, and her lips, as she looked into his smouldering eyes, trembled.
"What were they trying to do to you?" she whispered.
"They were trying to send me to jail for shooting at a man," he answered. "Why did you lie for me?"
"Oh, you were in trouble! I didn't know. I couldn't think.... I saw it all so clearly, all in a flash, saw that all you needed was one little word from someone else to make it right and I didn't care beyond that. It was the only thing that mattered. If they had taken you away I'd have been alone, wholly alone...."
"You believed me when I told 'em I shot at a coyote?"
"Believe? Believe? I didn't think, didn't consider. It made no difference to me what you had done. The only thing I wanted to do was to set you free, to clear you!"
"You'd lie for me, even if you thought I'd shot to kill a man?" he insisted.
"I didn't know what you had—"
"You'd take a chance like that? Why would you, ma'am?"
For a long moment their eyes, half seen to one another in those shadows, clung almost fiercely, his inquisitory, hers changing as wave followed wave of emotion through her body. She had never seen him so dominating, and he had no need to insist again that she answer. She let her head fall back with a half smile.
"Oh, I did it because it was the only thing I could do.... I did it, Tom, because I—"
He straightened sharply and cut in:
"I know, ma'am; you did it because you need me here, on the ranch."
His chest swelled with a great breath and he released her hands, stepping back and putting a hand slowly to his head.
For an instant she made no sound. Then she laughed strangely.
"Because I need you here.... Yes, that was it. That was why I lied for you." She spoke with nervous rapidity, rather breathlessly, and one hand went again to that locket, clutching it in a cold clasp. "I knew it was not like you to try to shoot a man unfairly. I didn't think there was much chance in lying. All I saw was them taking you away and leaving me here alone to face all this, without anyone I can trust, without anyone to help me. That was why I lied to them.
"You promised me once that you would stay. I knew then that I needed you; every hour since that promise was made I've had a greater realization of my need for you until it ... it ..." Her breath caught in a sob and she pressed knuckles to her lips.
Beck stood silently watching her, a cold moisture forming on his brow, hands clenched as if he were holding himself against the urge of some great impulse.
"I felt when I stepped in there and learned what it all was, that the last thing I have to depend on was slipping away ... and I reached out and grasped you like I'd grasp a straw in a sea. It ... I can't tell you,"—her voice trembled, "what it meant, what it means to me...."
Words, words! They spilled from her lips with a rapidity that approached hysteria. She was talking without thought, without reason, letting her voice run on while her consciousness, divorced entirely from it, fell into chaos.
"Everything seems to be working against me and now, because you have been my help, my strength, they are trying to take you away. Oh, I need all the help there is, and that is you!"—with a stamp of the foot as she drove tears back.
"There are influences which I can't see, which I can only feel, all about me, within me,"—beating her breast—"and outside."
"It may be interestin' to you to know that I didn't shoot at any coyote."
She gasped lightly and for a moment did not speak.
"Then you did shoot at Hepburn?"—in a whisper.
"No, I didn't. I'd never shoot from cover."
"I knew that," she said quickly, knowing that by her question she had hurt him.
"It appears that I ain't very welcome with your foreman. It was a frame-up, a good way to get rid of me. They planted that evidence in my gun while I was eating. It was one of those influences at work, the kind you've only felt. You can see some of 'em now, ma'am....
"It's lucky you thought to lie," he said, with a weak laugh that was unlike him. "I guess you're going to need all your luck....
"But you better go in now. It's late and cold."
He wanted her to be away from him, to be rid of her presence, for it pulled him, drew him, and he fought against it, fought against the strongest impulse that has been born to man, fought blindly, his old, deeply rooted caution, dragging him back ... dragging him....
"I don't want to go in; I don't want to leave you," she said. "I want—"
"But you must go. Have I got to pick you up an' carry you into your house, ma'am?"
"I want you to take this," she went on where he had interrupted, fumbling at the catch of the chain which held the locket against her throat. "Take it," she said, holding it swinging toward him, spattered with moonlight. "It's brought me all the luck I've ever had; it will help you, it will protect you. You need luck as much as I do ... and you need it for me. Wear it, a foolish little trinket but it means ... oh, more than you can know! I'd like to think of you as wearing it...."
"I don't think I need that, ma'am. What's in it?"
"Don't ask that! Don't even open it, please. Just take it and wear it, for me."
He made no move to take the ornament, just stood looking at it skeptically.
"Take it ... and then I will go in, without being carried."
She reached up to place the chain about his neck with her own hands; her unsteady fingers, fumbling with the catch, slipped and her cool, bared arms, touched his flesh. At the contact she swayed against him.
"Oh, carry me in," she pleaded gently, "carry me in ... not into my house, but into your life!"
All the caution, all the reason he had summoned to hold back that urge was swept aside. The touch of her skin against his skin sent seething blood to the ends of his limbs. It did not need her plea to break him down; the touch accomplished it, and fiercely, roughly, he caught her to him.
"It's all been a lie, another lie, all this you've said!" he cried lowly. "You didn't lie tonight because you need me; you lied because you love me, ma'am! You love me, like a good woman can love, and I love you.... I love you, ma'am, like I never thought I could love. It's bigger than I am, bigger than all the rest of my life....
"From that first night you talked to me I've been afraid I was goin' to love you. That was why I planned to go away because I didn't want to take a chance with my love. It's the only sacred thing I've ever owned and I've kept it back, savin' it for the time when I could turn it loose....
"When you told me you'd made up your mind to stay here, that you wanted to do something that was real and worth-while, I felt that I couldn't hold it back....
"But I didn't know you. I got to love you so much I was afraid of you, afraid of myself. That was why I bullied you, that was why I picked on you. I tried to drive you away from me, I tried, even, to keep from bein' your friend, but somethin' told me all the time that this had to come.
"I've watched you grow strong and big. I've hurt you on purpose. I've made some things hard for you to do, but you've done 'em. You're like a man, in the way you stand up to things ... and the gentlest, the sweetest woman down in your heart!"
"Not that!" she pleaded. "Not all that. I'm not what you think, I'm only what you can make me. I'm weak and need it. I want to be carried ... along and upward by it!"
Chin drawn in, he looked down into her face as she lay in his arms, her breath quick and fast and warm on his cheek. He could feel his limbs vibrate as his pulse leaped and his whole body trembled as he read the look in her eyes, revealed by the moonlight.
Up on the hills a little owl hooted and again the coyote yapped. A vagrant night wind touched the trees above them and the leaves whispered sleepily, as if roused by a pleasant dream. The murmur of the creek sounded almost as a blessing. None of these they heard. They were lost in a vague, limitless world, alone, swayed by the most powerful, the most beautiful forces in life.
"You lied because you love me," he whispered.
And at that she stirred and her breath slipped out in a long sob. He lowered his face to hers as scalding tears brimmed from her eyes. He felt them on his cheek, mingled with her breath and he felt her arms tighten about his neck, her body draw closer to his.
"It wasn't any chance!" he whispered fiercely. "It wasn't any chance, and I've been holdin' back, fighting it off, denying it to myself for weeks ... afraid to risk it, afraid to let it come out ... afraid of what isso!"
"Isn't it a chance?" she asked almost in a gasp. "Isn't it? Are you sure, Tom?"
"As sure as I am that the moon is up there, Jane."
He lowered his lips to hers and for a long kiss they clung.
"But you don't know—you don't know!" she cried, suddenly struggling to be free. "You don't know me," pressing her palms against his chest as he held her. "It's big, it's fine ... the biggest, the finest thing that has ever come into my life.
"Tom! What if it should be a chance?"
"But, Jane it can't—"
With a faint little cry, almost as though she were hurt, she broke from him and fled toward the house through the moonlight.
He stood alone, the feel of her lips still on his, heart leaping, mind swirling. And, looking down, he saw that in his hand he held the little gold locket.
So, for Jane and Tom, at least, Hepburn came into the open.
And for Hepburn, these two displayed their hands.
Of greater consequence, Beck's reserve, his caution was swept away. He had taken his big chance!
"You're all there is to me," he told Jane the following morning with a desperation in his eyes and a seriousness in his voice that made her search his face with alarm. "I fought against my love for you but it wasn't any use. Youmademe love you. You'll make me keep lovin' you, won't you, Jane?"
"I hope so! You don't know how much I hope so!" she assured him as her arms clasped his neck closely. "It frightens me, having this responsibility. It's the greatest I've ever had and I'm weak, Tom, a weak woman!"
"No, strong!" he declared and stopped her further protest with kisses.
Dad Hepburn, of course, could not stay on under the circumstances.
"There's an advantage of having a reptile in sight if you've got to have one in the country," Beck told Jane as they discussed the matter, "but he won't stay. He's got an excuse to back out gracefully now and we haven't any excuse to keep him on."
"And will you be my foreman?" she asked.
"If you'll trust me that far," he replied with the laugh in his eyes again.
Hepburn departed that day, telling Jane that he would like to stay but that he did not feel like risking his life for the sake of a job, to which she made no reply other than writing his check. This nettled him; he did not meet her gaze because, though they both had lied, her guilt was white while his was smirched with treachery.
His farewell to Beck was not open but his successor read in it an ominous quality.
"I wish you luck on your job, Beck," he said as he mounted, ready to ride away. "Lots of luck."
"Mostly bad luck, Hepburn?" Tom taunted and the flush that whipped into the face of the older man was not that of humiliation.
He reined his horse away with a growl and did not look back.
If the little gold locket which Tom wore about his neck brought luck, it supplied a dire need. He had two determined personal enemies in the country, Webb and Hepburn, and as foreman of the HC he had many others, identities not fully established.
There was Cole and the Mexicans he had hired to build the fence and clear his land. There was the usual gathering of riff-raff at Webb's. And there was Sam McKee, the coward, who was not reckoned as a menace by Beck and who, in later days, was to figure so largely!
Another piece of news the Reverend brought:
"They're talkin' about you in town, brother. They're saying that now some of this thieving will stop. They're looking to you to clean up the country."
"Ain't that a lot of responsibility to put on one peaceful citizen?" Beck asked, but though he jested over the fact he did not fail to appreciate its significance.
"Be cautious. These men are without scruple, brother."
"And so am I ... but I got lots of luck, Reverend!" was his parting.
He needed his luck.
Riding alone, under a rim rock, with the country falling away to the westward, he speculated on his luck and on the talisman Jane had given him. He drew the locket from his shirt front and held it on his big palm eyeing the thing, wondering what it contained that Jane had wanted to conceal from him.
"I've got a half grown notion to open it," he muttered and stopped his horse shortly.
And he might have sprung the lid had not a zipping and a dull, dead spatter on the rock just ahead caught his attention. He looked up sharply, saw the stain of metal against the ledge and saw in the sunlight a fragment of the bullet that had shattered itself there, that would have drilled him had his horse taken the next step.
Whoever fired had calculated on that next step because he was at such a distance that no report of a rifle reached him.
Beck turned his horse and raced to cover and lay for an hour scanning the country, but his assailant did not appear.
When Tom rode away he smiled grimly to himself and said to the roan:
"We won't look in it now. Stoppin' to consider saved our skin that time; maybe we'll need that luck again ... and worse."
Another time, the same week, he threw his bed on a pack horse and started a two-day ride to the south-east for, as foreman, he gave close heed to the detail of his work.
At sundown he made camp and while his coffee boiled stripped himself and bathed luxuriously in a waterhole.
He lay looking upward at the stars that night thinking more of Jane Hunter than her property, thrilling at memory of her hair and eyes and lips, telling himself that conditions were reversed now, and that instead of fighting her off, evading her charms, he was consumed with an eagerness for them.
Drowsiness came and, turning on his side, he reached a hand for the locket to hold it fast while he slept. It was not about his neck. He remembered that he had left it on a rock where he had undressed for his bath and, slipping out of his blankets, turning them back that the night chill might not dampen his bed, he picked his way carefully to the place and groped for the trinket.
His fingers had just touched the gold disc when the quiet of the night was punctured by a shot ... then four more in quick succession.
He squatted low, holding his breath. He heard booted feet running over rocks, heard a man speak gruffly to a horse and, in a moment, heard galloping hoofs carrying a rider away. He waited a half hour, then stole back to his bed. The tarp and blankets were drilled by five bullet holes.
"Maybe I'm superstitious," he muttered, fastening the gold chain about his neck, "but this thing, or whatever is in it, has saved my hide twice in one week."
The man who had fired into his blankets had trailed him deliberately, had waited until satisfied that he was asleep and had stolen up to murder him without offering a fighting chance.
"Hepburn has gone into partnership with Webb," Jane told him on his return to the ranch. "The Reverend brought in that word. What do you make of it?"
"Not much. Without my help it makes about the finest couple of snakes that could be brought together!" Tom muttered.
"And somebody tampered with the ditch in the upper field. Curtis and the men started the water down late in the afternoon. They left their tools there and the ditch bank was broken. They tell me it surely was shoveled out. The water is low and losing it hurt."
"That looks quite like war," he told her.
War it was. That night the men in the bunk house were awakened by a bright glare and looking out Beck saw that four stacks of hay, totaling more than a hundred tons of feed left from the winter, were in a blaze. While the others hastily dressed and ran toward the stack yard in the futile hope that some portion might be saved, the foreman stayed behind ... listening. From far up the road he heard the faint, quick rattle of a running horse.
In the morning a note was found stuck in the latch of the big gate. It was addressed to Jane Hunter and, in a rude scrawl, had been written:
"The longer you stay the more you will lose."
She showed it to Beck and after he had read and re-read and turned the single sheet of paper over in his hands he looked up to see her eyes tear filled.
"It isn't worth it!" she cried with a stamp of her foot. "This is only the start. Do you know what they are saying in town? The word has been passed that first you are to be driven out and that then I will have to go. People are saying that the others are too many and too ruthless for you, that they are bound to drive us away. It is being said that you are too straight to win a crooked fight!
"I could risk losing the things I own, my property, but I wouldn't risk you, Tom dear ... I wouldn't do that!"
"And there's somethin' else you wouldn't do," he said lowly, stroking her forehead. "You wouldn't let 'em drive you out. You didn't start that way. You come out here to beat the game and if you quit cold you wouldn't think much of yourself, would you? We didn't want trouble, but we've got to go and meet it!"
"But you!" she moaned, putting her arms about his big shoulders. "What of you?"
"Don't worry about me when the only danger is from men that won't come into the open! Maybe I'm a bigger crook than I'm given credit for. Besides, you've given me lots of luck....
"I don't know what's in this thing,"—holding out the locket—"but I've got a lot of faith in it ... and in you, Jane!"
Where, before he gave his love recognition, he had taken pains to bring Jane into contact with adversities, he now was impelled to shield her from all that he could. In the natural rôle of her protector he did everything possible to allay her apprehension. He could not blind her to the broad situation but he could and did withhold the seriousness of some of its detail, even keeping some things that transpired, such as the attempts on his life, to himself.
But he did worry about the enemy that worked from cover, that shot at sleeping men, that broke ditches and burned property and sent unsigned threats to women. That made his fight a battle in the darkness and his strength was the strength of light, of frankness, of honesty. His mind was not adapted to scheming and skulking.
To drive his foe into the open was his first objective and that night he set out.
"You call it recognizing a state of war, I believe," he told Jane with a twinkle in his eye when she queried his going.
"Tom! You're not going—"
"Not going to take a chance," he said soberly. "It's just a diplomatic mission, you might say."
He put her off and rode out of the ranch gate. It was dark and when he had progressed a mile he halted his horse, dropped off, loosened the cinch so the leather would not creak when the animal breathed, and stood listening. Aside from the natural noises of the night, the world was without sound.
He drew his gun from its holster and twirled the cylinder. Usually he carried the trigger over an empty chamber; tonight it was filled. And inside his shirt was another gun.
The fire in Webb's cook stove was not all that furnished warmth to the three men sitting about it that night, for they drank frequently from the bottle which, when not passing from hand to hand, was nestled on Dick Hilton's lap, his hands caressing its smooth surface lovingly ... save the word!
Sam McKee and three other men played solo on the table, noisily and quarrelsomely after the manner of their kind. Engrossed in the game they gave little heed to the talk of the others. It was shop talk, of plots and schemes, of danger and distrust.
Webb's little button eyes were even more ugly than usual, Hilton's mouth drawn in lines that were even more cruel, but Hepburn, under influence of the liquor, only became more paternal, more deliberate as the evening and the drinking went on. He was not nettled by Webb's disfavor, and even smiled on the rancher indulgently as he listened to the querulous plaint.
"If you'd only used yer head an' stayed there," Webb went on, "then we'd hev had it all easy-like. You could've stole her blind an' she'd never knew. Then you had to git on the peck abouthim!" He sniffed in disgust.
"Now, Webb, you're too harsh in what you say," the other replied blandly. "I done all I could but Beck wouldn't be blinded! He's got second sight or somethin',"—with a degree of heat.
"We had him scotched all right, but we hadn't figured on the girl. Nobody'd thought she was sweet on him!"
Hilton stirred uneasily and the color in his face deepened. He looked at Hepburn with an ugly light in his eyes.
"That upset everything," Hepburn went on. "There wasn't no use tryin' to play a quiet game after that. They both know we want to get rid of 'em worst way and now we've got to keep under cover an' use our heads harder'n ever."
"There's too many in it," Webb whined. "I tell you the's too many in it! If you'd let me alone, just me an' the boys, I'd felt safer. But now there's Cole an' his daughter an' ... half the country!"
He flashed an indecisive glance at Hilton who studied the bottle, frowning.
"Lots in it," Hepburn said heavily, "but they've got to hang together or...."
"Separately," added Dick cynically.
Hepburn nodded and Webb shifted and jerked his head petulantly.
"But there's nothin' to fret about," Dad went on. "None of us will be a leak. Cole can't because we could put him behind bars by just lettin' on that he'd used his homestead rights under another name an' had no right on this place, let alone other things.
"We can use his brand, which is why I brought him in here. I've spread the news that he's bought cows of you an' between workin' over the HC and ventin' your marks we'll have a herd here in a couple of seasons that'll make us rich!
"An' we'll have range for 'em, too. She won't stand up under a range war!"
"But Beck will," Webb protested.
"He will if you don't get rid of him!" with slow anger behind the words and a cunning glitter in his eyes. "I don't see how in hell you missed him. You must've been drunk!"
"He wasn't in his bed, I tell you. He couldn't 've been!"
"Well, ifIhad against him what you got, I'd get him," Hepburn stated emphatically, well satisfied, and showing it, that this was a masterly stroke. "He made you laughed at by the whole country."
"You wait," Webb snarled. "My time's comin'!"
"Deliberately, I'd say," Hilton put in ironically.
"Oh, you're always kickin'!" Webb protested. "I don't see why you stay on if things don't satisfy you. You've got to have sheets on your bed, you've got to have grub cooked different, you've got to sleep late an' you've got to have hot water to wash and shave always when th' kettle's cold! You've got into this deal an' you'd like to run it your way.
"What the hell do you stay on for?"
Hepburn looked at Hilton's face as though he, too, wondered just why he stayed on, but, pursuing his usual tactics, he said:
"Why, if Mr. Hilton can pay for it, why can't he have his way? He has the money. He's willing to spend it. I'm sure his willingness to stake Cole to fence and hired help means a lot to all of us, Webb. That's goin' to drive her out of the Hole entire this summer.
"The booze has made you irritable, Webb."
Webb sat forward, elbows on knees, chin in his hands and grumbled:
"I have to stand a lot, I do. Both of you eggin' me on all the time, all the time! I do th' best I can, but nothin's ever satisfactory. Nobody ever does anything for me!"
"Sho, Webb, that ain't so. Didn't Mr. Hilton give you a brand new automatic? Ain't I been reasonable in turnin' a chance to make good your way?"
The other fidgeted, then looked up at Hilton.
"I don't see whyyou'vegot such an interest in this for, anyhow. Course, it's none of my business, but I don't see why you should always egg me on about Beck."
"I am concerned to see the THO prosper," said Hilton mockingly. "That is why I bought fence; that is why I want your friend, the HC foreman, out of the way."
He rose, placed the bottle on the table and stepped out of the house. They heard him walk across the dooryard and into the stable.
"You s'pose he's goin' to meet her again tonight?" Webb growled.
"Likely.... It's likely."
"I wish th' hell he'd clear out. I don't see what you wanted to take him in for!"
Hepburn chuckled.
"How could you keep him out? The girl, she knows everything, an' what she knows he knows. His money's valuable to us an' besides ... it'll keep her quiet if we ever do get out on a limb."
Webb looked up in query.
"You're right when you say there's too many in it, Webb, but there's justonetoo many. That's the girl! I can't figure her out; I can't trust her. If we was to try to pass the buck to Cole, in a pinch, she'd raise the deuce.... That is, she would if it wasn't for Hilton."
"How's that?"
"If she turned on the rest of us, it'd catch Hilton an' she's gone on him. Never saw a girl who was so loyal to her father but when you bring in another man that loyalty won't stand up in a pinch; not if it's a choice between a father and a lover."
"But he ain't on the level with her!"
"Makes no difference. She's took to him like girls of her sort do. He can handle her an' she's the only one that knows our side who'll ever need any handlin'. He was right when he said the rest of us'd have to hang together, or separately."
Outside a horseman rode quietly to the gate and sat looking through the open doorway and the one window of the room. He counted the men carefully; counted again, then rode back the way he had come and stopped and waited.
"But what about the other girl ... Hunter?" Webb asked after a silent interval. "Hilton was sweet on her."
Hepburn's eyes kindled.
"His jealousy is another asset. Hilton wanted her an' couldn't get her, an' he knows the reason now: It's Beck. You think he's been practicin' with a rifle and pistol for the fun of it? Not on your life!" Leaning closer: "The time may come, Webb, when Hilton'll clear Beck out of our way.... That'd be easier. I don't want to try it in the open; I don't guess you do. He's got a crimp in all the boys. Look at Sam, for instance. He's itchin' to kill Beck but he ain't got the sand!"
"If she ever found out he wasn't on the level with her,"—Webb's mind going back to Bobby Cole—"she'd claw him up fearful."
"Yup. But she's in love an' love plays hell with men and women, Webb."
The other started to reply, then sat rigid, listening.
A horse came up the road at a slow trot and halted by the gate. A saddle creaked, then the bars complained as they were lowered. A man was whistling lightly as he rode toward the house and dismounted, leaving his horse standing.
"Must be one of the boys," he said, and settled back. None who had other than friendly business there would come uncautious.
"I was going to say," went on Hepburn, "that they'll be fooled about that Hole range. It's time for the cattle to start comin' in from the desert. They'll get up there and the creek'll be an ash bed with a couple more days of this sun. They can't take 'em back through the Gap without a big loss and if they leave 'em in the Hole without water long enough they can't get 'em up the trail without loss so—"
"If you'll all rise up and put up your hands we won't have any trouble ... tonight!"
Hepburn looked slowly over his shoulder, slightly bewildered. Webb, who had been stooped forward, raised his eyes and breath slipped through his lips in a long hiss. Sam McKee, who had reached out to take a trick, let his ace drop from limp fingers. The other three started up like guilty men sharply accused of their crime.
Tom Beck, a revolver in each hand, stood framed in the doorway, bending forward from the hips, hat back, eyes burning. His voice had been level and natural, with something akin to a laugh in it, but when he spoke again it was a rasp:
"Get up on your rattles, you snakes, and put up your hands!"
With an oath Hepburn sprang to his feet, faced about and raised his arms. Webb followed, with jerky movements, his face pallid with fear. The four card players got from their chairs. As McKee's hands went slowly above his head they trembled like aspen branches in a breeze.
For a long moment there was no sound, save Hepburn's heavy breathing. Then Tom Beck let a curious smile run across his lips.
"This is a hell of a way to come to talk business," he commented. "I don't like it ... but little more than you seem to. It's the safest way for me. That's why I'm here, to consider my safety."
He let his gaze run from face to face. Webb's eyes met his squarely, a baleful challenge in them, but as he glared at Hepburn, Hepburn's gaze wavered, flicking back twice, only to drop again. McKee whimpered under his breath. The other three stared back sullenly, alert for an opening.
Beck moved into the room just one step.
"I don't know who it is that's been tryin' to kill me, but it wouldn't take many guesses," he said. Again his eyes ran from face to face. "It might be you, Hepburn, and it might be you, Webb. It's like both of you, to shoot from cover ... like you accused me of shootin'. It might be McKee, but even that takes more nerve than he's got. I wouldn't put it past any of the rest of you.
"I didn't come here to try to find out. I got more important things to do than to identify the party right now.
"I rode over this evening to make a little call an' to drop the word that if I see any of this outfit anywhere near the H C ranch or on its range there's goin' to be shootin' a-plenty and that if you want to be the first to shoot, you want to draw almighty quick! If any of you see one of my men anywhere, you hit the breeze. It's the best way out of trouble.
"Hepburn, you an' Webb tried to frame me once. That's sufficient cause. I'd kill you like I'd kill a ... a scorpion. McKee don't count. You other three probably are in on the threat to drive me out of the country. Just workin' here puts you beyond the law that protects honest men.
"Now there's a little matter of trouble that's happened around the HC. That's going to stop from now on. We've got lots of men over there who are handy with their artillery. They're pretty well worked up. There won't be a finger lifted to prevent you workin' within your rights, but the first crooked move one of you makes ... there'll be a new table boarder in th' devil's kitchen.
"That's all I come to say. That's all the conversation that'll be necessary between us from now on. The HC is goin' to keep doing business, and its present owner is going to stay on the job. As for me ... it's been talked around that I was to be drove out an' all I've got to say is, come on and do your driving!"
His mouth set with an expression of finality and his eyes bored into theirs. He was through, but even as he straightened preparatory to backing through the doorway into the night a flicker of cunning crossed Dad Hepburn's face, set there by a faint, faint creaking of the stable door, unheard by Beck whose own voice had been in his ears.
"Don't you think you're a little quick in passin' judgment, Tom?" he asked.
Beck laughed shortly.
"Looking for me to handle you with gloves, Dad? After you tried to frame me? After you—" He checked himself shortly as he was about to accuse Hepburn of one specific art of treachery against the H.C. He might need that later. "After you've tried to get me?
"No, somebody shot at my bed one night; somebody shot at me while I was riding open country one day." At that a glint of astonishment showed in Webb's face. "There's just one way to handle men like that, and I'm doin' it now, to-night. I'm—"
The crash of a shot from behind, the splintering of the door panel at his shoulder, cut him short. Webb jumped as though the bullet had been sent at him. Hepburn's face contorted into a grimace of elation.
With a catch of his breath Beck wheeled, senses steeled to this emergency, driving down the quick panic that wanted to throttle his heart.
There in the shaft of yellow light, bareheaded, stepping toward him, arm raised to fire again, was Dick Hilton. It was a situation in which fractions of time were infinitely precious. That first shot had gone wild because the Easterner, unfamiliar with fire arms, unnerved by the rage which swept up within him, had let his eagerness have full sway. But now he was stepping forward, coming closer. At that range he could not miss!
And Beck saw all that in the split second it required for him to whirl, leaving his back exposed to those other men for the instant. He squeezed the trigger as he flipped his left-hand gun toward his assailant. The two reports sounded almost as one, but the stream of fire from Hilton's weapon instead of stabbing toward Beck streaked into the air and the automatic, ripped from his hand by the same ball that tore his fingers, spun clinking to earth.
But even as it struck, before Beck could turn again to cover the room behind, a swinging palm sent the lamp crashing to the floor. He sprang clear of the doorway. An instant before he had dominated the situation, now he was a fugitive.
Inside, darkness; out in the dooryard, starlight. Inside, ruthless enemies who had listened to a declaration that precluded quarter; outside, their target who could not hope to live before the fusillade that must come.
"Put up your hands!" Beck gasped, jabbing a gun into Hilton's stomach and springing behind the Easterner's body, screening himself.
Crouched there, peering over the other's shoulder, one gun against Hilton's trembling body, the other thrust past it to cover the doorway, he paused. He heard quick, unsteady footsteps, an oath, a hurried word and then the man before him cried huskily:
"For God's sake don't shoot, boys! You'll get me!"
After that there passed a moment in which Hilton's breath made the only sound that came to Beck's ears.
"I'm going to back up to my horse," he said lowly, "you follow me."
It was unnecessary to add a threat. Enough threat in the situation!
Slowly he began to back, feeling his way, shoving the one gun harder against Hilton's body, keeping the other ready for instant use should those who watched choose to shoot down the Easterner to be at him. The roan snorted softly in query and Beck spoke. But the animal, startled by the shooting, unsatisfied that this huddle creeping toward him was wholly friendly, backed off. Tom spoke again; then ceased all movement, for from inside had come a muttering and stealthy footsteps crossed the floor. A door at the rear of the house creaked. One or several had gone out to stalk him! The others, he knew, waited within to take first opportunity to kill that might be offered.
"Stand still!" he said sharply to the horse and turned his head ever so quickly to see the animal, head to him, back slowly.
He moved backward faster for a few steps, shoving the revolver harder into Hilton's body to assure his obedience, but the horse only progressed as rapidly, snuffing loudly at this performance which no horse could be expected to understand!
They moved in a circle, swinging in toward the house, Beck ever keeping Hilton as a direct screen. He stopped and the horse stopped. He listened. He heard soft movements within the house. He thought he heard a faint rustling behind a far corner of the building but a cow, bawling at the moment, obscured the faint sound.
Beck felt a cold damp standing out on his body. From the darkness, from any direction, disaster might strike at any second!
He began to talk to the horse soothingly, moving toward him slowly, but the roan would not understand. Once he was within an arm's length of the bridle, but before he could grasp it the animal had swung his head ever so slightly and was moving off again, passing a corner of the house from where that suggestion of a rustle had come.
And then, of a sudden, the horse leaped sideways, with a startled grunt, as a horse will that comes upon a coiled snake. He lunged toward Beck and Hilton, swinging about on his hind feet, beginning to run for the gate, thoroughly frightened and bent on escape from the thing that alarmed him.
It was Beck's last chance! As the horse leaped toward the gate he sprang back a pace from Hilton, raised both guns and fired, one at the window, one at the doorway. Glass burst and tinkled and he heard the panel of the door again sliver. As he opened fire the great roan swerved; his hoofs spurned the ground in the impatience of fright and Beck, shooting again toward the house, turned and ran swiftly for the fleeing horse.
Down in the shadows the thing which had frightened the horse rose, stumbling into shape. Flame streamed from Beck's guns toward it, but he shot as he ran and his fire was inaccurate. He cried sharply as the animal swung even wider in his circuit toward the gate, sprang forward in long strides, dropped the gun from his right hand, leaped, fastened his fingers about the horn, took two quick strides and vaulted into the saddle.
The animal leaped the half lowered bars and Beck fired again, twice at the house, once at the figure outside, and then flung himself far down over the roan's shoulder as the window belched flame and stabs of it came from about the building and bullets screeched overhead. He fanned the roan's belly with his hat and twenty rods further swung into an erect position again, leaning low as they ate the road.
"A close one, old timer!" he muttered to the horse. "Thatwas a chance!"
And miles further on, when the roan had cooled from his first desperate dash that had carried Tom to unquestionable safety for the night, he said aloud:
"Now what washedoin' there? And how much will he count?"