Just at that time back in the HC ranch house a woman rose from her tumbled bed and dressed. Her eyes were dry though her breath came unevenly.
She looked into her mirror as she put on her hat.
"You're a fool!" she cried lowly. "A fool!... False pride has taken two days out of your life ... two precious days!"
She ran down the stairs, out to the corral and saddled her sorrel horse.
It was a long ride from the HC to the round-up camp but the sorrel was not spared. The impulse that sent Jane Hunter through the last hours of darkness had only accumulated strength before the resistance which had held it back through those dragging days. She was on her way to her lover, to explain in a word the situation that had caused the breach between them; she had fought down the pride of which that resistance was made and now her every thought, her every want was to make Beck know that it was humiliation and injured pride rather than infidelity which had sent him away.
Thought that she had failed to stand self possessed before Bobby Cole—a burning, shaming thought yesterday—was relegated to an obscure place in her consciousness. She had fallen short of the poise her lover would have her retain, but that did not matter ... not now.
Without Beck's love there was nothing for her, she had come to believe and she experienced a strange, little-girl feeling, fleeing toward the protecting arms that could comfort and hold her safe from the blackness that was elsewhere.
She leaned low on the sorrel's neck and called to him and he ran through the dying night breathing excitedly as her impatience was communicated to him. Dawn yawned in the east and the mountains took shape. The road became discernable before her. She drew the excited horse down to a trot and forced herself to force him to conserve some of his splendid energy.... Then urged him forward, a moment later, at a stretching run....
The round-up camp was moving that day. The riders were up and the first had swung off for the work of the morning before she pulled her horse to a stop beside the chuck wagon.
"He ain't here, ma'am," Oliver replied to her query for Beck.
"Not here?"—sharply, for she sensed from him that something was wrong.
"No. He left yesterday. He told me to head this ride. He—"
"And where did he go?" she broke in, voice not just steady.
"I don't know, ma'am." The man studied her face intently, seeing the confusion there, adding it to the evidence he had collected to piece out a theory. "I thought maybe he said something to you about quitting."
"Quitting!You don't mean that!"
"It looks like it, ma'am. I didn't know just how to take what he said. It seems like somethin' 's got him worried. He wasn't like himself. You wouldn't know him.
"He said that future plans for this outfit didn't interest him. He said he was leavin' and it wasn't likely he'd be back but it wasn't so much what he said as it was th' way he said it that made me think he was goin' to drift. We all know he's got some pretty active enemies but it wasn't like Beck to run away from 'em. Still....
"He left me in charge an' said I was to take orders from you. He ain't showed up since and Lord knows where he'd go except out of the country."
Out of the country! The words made her hear but vaguely the story of the ruined Tank and the questions about the work that Oliver put to her. Out of the country! He had gone, then, thinking that her love had not been a fast love, that she was wholly unworthy. He had taken his chance and had lost and that loss had taken from him even the desire to stay and face the men who would drive him out of the country because he had defended her!
Later Jane found herself riding homeward, the sorrel at a walk, her mind numb and heavy. Last night it had been a question of love against her pride; she had sacrificed the latter only to find that that sacrifice had been made too late.
She wanted, suddenly, to quit ... to quit trying ... thinking....
She canvased the situation: she was alone, without an understanding individual upon whom to lean. She was the target for great forces of evil which sought to undermine her very determination to exist in that country. A faint wave of resentment made itself felt at that. They would continue their war and upon a lone woman! She realized her position more keenly than she had before, when Beck had been shielding her. Now she stood unprotected. If she were to exist shemust stand alone!
Her mind went back to that time when Dick Hilton had told her that she could not stand alone and her resentment became a degree more pronounced.
The lethargy, the hopelessness clung but behind it was something else, a realization that she had not lost utterly. She had lost the love she had found, but had she failed to gain anything? Yesterday it seemed that the ripest fruits of experience were hers; she had position—menaced, but still hers—she had love. Months before she had abandoned the quest of love, seeking only to stand alone. She might go back to her outlook of those days, put aside the call of her heart and seek only for place; she could make that search intelligently now!
She sat at her desk, a spirit of resignation coming as a sort of comfort. If she had lost love, had she lost all that there was in life? No, not that! There was something else she had found in these months: She had foundherself!
Tom Beck was gone, his love for her was dead, miles were between them, and she believed she knew him well enough to understand that he had put her forever behind him. She had lost the true fulfillment of life, perhaps, but something remained. And the question came: Why not make the best of it? Why not keep what remains? Why not fight for it? Why notstand alone?
Oh, she had not known the strength that had been born of Beck's resistance to her wooing! That morning she believed that she could quit, that she could drift aimlessly, buffeted by vagrant influences, but now she knew that she could not. A compelling force had been started within her which would not down, a driving impulse to keep on, to salvage her self respect, to wrest from life what remained.
And in this she recognized that quality which Beck had planted in her, which he had nourished and coaxed and made to grow. To keep on would be rite offered at the shrine of her love for him ... though he was gone....
For a moment she cried and after that hope was born. He might return; she might even follow and make him understand. She set that back, resolutely. Tom Beck was gone from her life, she told herself, but his influence remained. That could never go; by error she had lost final achievement: love. By error she had been thrown back upon herself, her own resources, her own will.
The war that was waged upon her had been a terrifying thing yesterday; now it was even more horrible for it sought to take from her the last thing that remained to be desired, and that could not be!
She wiped her eyes angrily and repeated aloud:
"That cannotbe!"
She must fight on alone; fight harder than she ever had fought in her life before. It was up to her, now, to remain fast in the face of efforts to dislodge her.
Jane paced the floor nervously, in quick, swinging strides. There was the burning of hay, the breaking of ditches; there was the shooting down of Two-Bits, the destruction of Cathedral Tank, there was the presence in the Hole of the nester and his daughter. At thought of Bobby a sharp pang shot through her. There was a woman who could dominate! There, perhaps, was the key to the puzzle.
Beck had intimated that her enemies found a nucleus in the nester's outfit; the Reverend had been outspoken in his suspicion; she had confided in Riley that she suspected something of the sort. Cole himself was a negligible quantity but the girl was not. The catamount might hold Jane Hunter's fate in her hand ... the hand that had struck her!
On her desk lay the envelope in which had been Beck's note; beside it the locket. She paused, picked up the trinket and studied it as it lay on her small palm. Slowly she lifted it to her lips, clutched it tightly and then with a catch of breath fastened it about her neck, where it nestled as though coming home again.
She needed her luck, he had written! Oh yes, she needed her luck!
And even then a rider was speeding across the hills toward her, lashing his horse, crashing through brush, leaping down timber, clattering over treacherous ledges to save time: and other men were riding on Jimmy Oliver's orders, bringing the cow-boys in off their circles, assembling them in Devil's Hole where a group of men stood silent and sullen....
Oh, she would fight on, desperate in her determination to crowd thought of a lost love from her life! She welcomed combat for it would be as a balm to that gaping wound of loss.
Later she saw the rider come into the ranch on his lathered horse. He flung off at the bunk house and, a moment later, came running toward her with Curtis at his side.
Alarmed, Jane met them at the door with a query on her lips.
"They want you in the Hole, ma'am," Curtis said.
"What's the trouble?"—for it could be nothing but trouble which would bring men in such haste and she had a crisp fear that it pertained to Beck.
"They've got Cole down there with a lot of your calves an' he's put his brand on 'em. Webb's there, too, an' Hepburn. They're holdin' 'em all for you to come," the messenger said. He was excited, he breathed rapidly and added: "Oliver an' Riley agreed you ought to come. It's your property ... an' it's your fight."
Her fight! Her fight, indeed! Perhaps this was a drawing to a head of the forces that had been arrayed against her. The man had mentioned Webb and Hepburn as though he considered their presence of significance.
A pinto, this time, bore her away from the ranch, the man, tense and silent, riding beside her. She did not speak as they scrambled up the point and gained high country nor did she look at him as they set into a gallop again. An indistinct haze was coming in the west with a looming thunder head protruding from it here and there. The wind in their faces was hot and fitful. The scarf about her neck fluttered erratically.
Jane had little attention for the detail of that ride. This was her fight and she raced to meet it with an eagerness born of necessity to retain what she might of the happiness she had made hers. And as she rode Tom Beck, pieces cut from his chaps bound about his feet to protect them on the long journey by foot, his retrieved canteen over his shoulder, limped into the camp, heard the cook's vague, disconnected story of the discovery that had been made in the Hole, borrowed boots, saddled a horse and rode swiftly across the hills.
The pinto took Jane down the trail in great lunges, for she had no thought for dangers of the descent. At the foot was one of her men, Baldy Bowen, sitting ominously on his horse with a rifle across the horn. He watched her come and before she could speak jerked his head and said:
"They're waitin' for you, straight across there, ma'am."
She glanced in his direction and set off with renewed speed, winding through the cedars.
Against the far wall of the Hole was formed a curious group before a fence of brush and wire that blocked the entrance to a box gulch. HC riders were there, dismounted, in a silent, unsmiling cluster. Under a cedar tree sat Cole, the nester, knees drawn up, arms falling limply over them; more than ever he seemed to be drooping, in spirit as well as body. He did not glance up; just sat, staring from beneath drooping lids at the ground. Nearby lounged one of Jane's cowboys, his holster hitched significantly forward.
Apart from these others stood Hepburn, Webb and Bobby Cole and one other, curiously out of place in his smart clothes: Dick Hilton. Now and then one of the four spoke and the others would eye the speaker closely; then look away, absorbed in a situation that was evidently beyond words. Sitting grouped on the ground were Webb's riders and Cole's Mexicans. They talked and laughed lowly among themselves and from time to time turned rather taunting grins at Jane Hunter's men.
At a short distance stood horses, grazing or dozing; listless, all. But there was no listlessness among the men. The atmosphere was tense ... to the breaking point.
A rider came through the brush and stopped his horse. It was Sam McKee. He looked with widening eyes at the gathering, hesitated, as though to turn and leave, then approached.
"I seen two men in th' Gap," he said to Webb. "They said...."
He looked about again.
"Well, get down an' set," Webb said cynically.
McKee stared from face to face.
"I guess I'll go on."
"I guess you'll stay here," said Jimmy Oliver firmly. "We've got a little matter to talk over an' nobody leaves. I guess the boys in th' Gap probably thought you'd like to hear what was goin' on."
Hilton stepped toward Oliver.
"Look here," he said, "I'm a disinterested party to all this. There's no use in my staying here."
"What I said to Sam goes for everybody else, Mister. When we put riders in the Gap an' at the trails we intended for everybody to hang around. That goes. Everybody!"
Then he added: "If anybody wants to get out it'll be pretty good evidence that he's got somethin' to hide. This 's a matter that the whole country's interested in. You ain't got nothin' to hide, have you?"
The Easterner did not reply; turned back to Bobby with a grimace.
Sound of running hoofs and a quick silence shut down upon the gathering. The clouds were coming up more rapidly from the west; day was drawing down into them; the wind on the heights soughed restlessly.
Jane Hunter brought her pinto to an abrupt stop and sat, flushed and wind-blown, looking about.
"Well?" she said to Jimmy Oliver as he stepped forward.
"We sent for you, ma'am, because we stumbled onto somethin' that looks bad ... for somebody."
Her eyes ran from face to face. In the expression of her men she read a curious loyalty, mingled with speculation. They watched her closely as Oliver spoke, as men look upon a leader, as though waiting for her to speak that they might act. Still, about them was a reservation, as though their acceptance of her was conditional, as though they wondered what she would say or do.
She saw Webb and Hepburn eyeing her craftily; she saw Bobby Cole's gaze on her, filled with hate and scorn ... and a strange brand of fear. And she saw Dick Hilton, eyeing her with helpless rage and offended dignity. The entire assemblage was grimly in earnest.
"Go on," she said lowly and dismounted, standing erect on a rise of rock that put her head and shoulders above the others.
"Jim Black here,"—indicating a cowboy in white angora chaps—"took down the trail after a renegade steer this forenoon. He came on this place and a hot fire and a yearlin' steer of yours whose brand had been tampered with.
"There's been enough goin' on recent, ma'am, to let everybody know that something was pretty wrong. Mebby we've run onto the answer today. That's why we sent for you."
She looked about again and old Riley, moving out from the group slowly, as a man who feels that the welfare of others may be in his hands might move, said:
"For twenty years we've lived quite peaceable here, Miss Hunter. Since spring we've had anything but peace. It ain't a question that concerns any one of us alone; it affects the whole country. We've got evidence here of stealin'; we've got a man who, in our minds, ought to be tried for that crime....
"We sent for you because it happened to be your property. There's plenty of law in the mountains, but things have happened here that have put men beyond that law. Parties have resorted to the law of strength, and not honest strength at that. It's time it was stopped or some of us ain't goin' to exist....
"I know this ain't a pleasant task for a woman, but it seems like somethin' you've got to face ... if you're goin' to stay here. I guess you understand that, ma'am."
Jane's heart leaped in apprehension, she was short of breath, blood roared in her ears, but she fought to retain at least a show of composure.
"It seemed there wasn't any way out of it, but to turn the matter over to you. We'll all tell what we know; we'll see that there's order here. We agreed you ought to sit as judge on the evidence against this man."
Again a consciousness of those faces upon her; faces of her men, honest, rugged, brave fellows, looking to her to stand alone! She knew, then, what that alloy in their loyalty had been. They would follow if she would lead; there was doubt in their hearts that shecouldlead, for she was a woman, she was a stranger and not their kind! For months they had watched her, refusing to judge, but now the time had come. Now, if she ever was to stand alone, she must rise in her own strength and be worthy to lead such men!
Then there were those others: Hepburn and Webb and their outlaw following; perhaps, among them, the man who had shot Two-Bits down when he was serving her; perhaps the man who had burned her hay, broken her ditches, run off her horses. The men who would drive her out.
She felt suddenly weak. They were all watching her. This was the hour in which she must win or lose. It wasshe, not Alf Cole, who was on trial!
Jane began to speak, rather slowly, but evenly and clearly.
"I want the story from the beginning. Jim Black, will you tell what you know?"
Thus simply she accepted her responsibility to the country, took up her final fight for position there.
Black stepped forward, serious, quiet, showing no self consciousness whatever as the eyes swung upon him. Webb's riders had risen and were grouped behind their leader.
"Jimmy told you how I happened here. This steer, ma'am, cut across the flat an' I followed. I heard bawlin' over this way an', naturally, was surprised. Pulled up my hoss an' rode over. There was a fire in that gulch, an' it'd just been scattered. A man had been kneelin' down by it, an' there was one of your yearlin's hog-tied there. Your ear mark was still on him but your brand had been made from an HC into a THO by crossin' the H an' closin' the C."
He stooped and with his quirt demonstrated thusly:
HC THO
HC THO
"There was other calves in there. I counted sixteen. They was all THO stuff an' they was all mighty young."
"Did you see any men?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I dragged it for high country, got Jimmy an' told him."
"Oliver, have someone bring out this yearling," Jane said.
Two men mounted their horses, opened the brush gate, roped the steer and dragged him, bawling, into the assemblage. Jane stepped down from her rock and, with a dozen others crowding about, examined the brand.
"That's unmistakable," she said lowly as she straightened. "Part of that brand healed months ago; the rest is fresh."
She moved back to the rock on which she had stood and rested a hand on the pinto's withers.
"Oliver, what did you do?" she asked.
"I gathered the boys an' come down here as fast as I could. I saw this pen an' the calves. I sent men to both trails an' two to the Gap with orders to shoot to kill anybody that tried to get out. Then I went to Cole's house.
"Cole swore up an' down that he didn't know anything about it. His gal was there an' this here party from the east,"—with a rather contemptuous jerk of his head toward Hilton. "I brought Cole back here an' the others followed.
"Seems Webb and Hepburn an' their men was in th' Hole. I didn't know it. Th' gal ... she went to get 'em.
"It's just as well,"—dryly. "This ain't a matter that affects any one of us. It's for everybody in th' country to consider."
Hepburn stirred uneasily as Jane looked from Oliver to him.
"I think all that's necessary is to talk to Mr. Cole," she said.
The nester looked up slowly and laboriously gained his feet. He slouched toward the girl.
"I don't know nothin' about it," he said in his whining voice.
Bobby Cole took a quick step forward as he spoke, but Hepburn put out a detaining hand and muttered a word. She stopped. Her face was colorless; eyes hard and bright; she breathed quickly and seemed almost on the verge of tears.
"Who built this pen?" Jane asked.
"I don't know."
"Did you ever see it before?"
"No, I—well, I didseeit, but I don't know nothin' about it."
"You've been here all the Spring and didn't know anything about it?"
Her tone was sharp, decisive and the color had mounted in her face. She leaned slightly forward from the hips.
"No, I don't know nothin' about it," he protested, lifting his characterless eyes to hers.
"Who brands your cattle?"
"I do."
"No one else?"
"Not another,"—with a slow shaking of the head.
"Can you think of anybody who would put your brand on my cattle?"
"No. Nobody would hev done that."
"But have you looked at this steer?"—indicating the yearling with the indisputable evidence on his side.
Cole lifted an unsteady hand to scratch his mustache, eyed the animal furtively and glanced at Hepburn. As their eyes met Hepburn's head moved in slight, quick negation. Ever so slight, ever so quick, but Jane Hunter saw and Hepburn saw that she saw and a guilty flush whipped into his face, spreading clear to the eyes.
"Hasn't someone been working over my brand?" she demanded, forcing Cole to look at her again.
"I don't know ... I dunno nothin' about it...."
She breathed deeply and moved a step backward.
"How do you suppose these calves come to be here? My calves, with your brand on them?"
"Them is my calves, ma'am," he protested, weakly, "Them is old brands."
"Oh, all but this yearling belong to you?"
"Yes,"—nodding his head as his confidence rallied. "Them's all mine. I branded 'em myself."
"And why do you keep them here?"
"Well, there's water an' feed an' I wanted to wean 'em—"
"And a moment ago you said you knew nothing about this pen?"
A flicker of confusion crossed the man's face and again he looked away toward Hepburn in mute appeal. Hepburn's face reflected a contempt, a wrath, and for a fraction of time Jane studied it intently, a quick hope forming in her breast. She lifted a hand to touch, in unconscious caress, the locket which was at her throat.
"Look at me, Cole!" she cried and her body trembled. Her tone was compelling, she experienced a sensation of mounting power, felt that she was dominating and without looking she knew that the men before her stirred, impressed by her rising confidence. "Look at me and answer my questions!"
Hesitatingly the man looked back and then dropped his eyes.
"Well, I said I knew it was here."
"You knew more than that. You have been using it. How long ago was it built?"
"A month—Oh, I dunno—"
"What about a month?" she insisted, gesturing bruskly. "What about a month?"
"I dunno."
She relaxed a trifle again and eyed the confused, visibly agitated man. For a breath the place was in utter silence. The gloom deepened; the wind held off. It was as though the crisis were at hand.... And just then the man at the foot of the trail across the flat put down his rifle and said with a short laugh:
"I didn't make you out, Tom."
When Jane spoke again it was in an easier tone.
"How did you happen to come to this country, Cole?"
He looked up, relief showing in his face as she abandoned the other line of questioning. Hepburn stirred and Webb lifted a hand to hook his thumb in his belt.
"Why, I heered about this place. Good feed an' water an' a place to settle. So I just come; that's all."
"How did you hear about it?"
"A feller told me."
"Who?"
"I dunno his name. I—"
"How many cows have you?"
Her voice was suddenly sharp and hard as she cut in on his impotent evasion and shifted her subject again.
"Why, 'bout twenty."
"And how many calves are with them?"
He seemed to calculate, but she insisted, leaning closer to him:
"How many calves?"
"Why, not more'n half of 'em got calves."
"Sure? Not more than half?"
"Why ... I guess—"
"And you've got sixteen young calves in this pen! How do you account for that?"
A murmur ran among her men and Cole looked at her with fright in his eyes.
"I dunno!" he suddenly burst out, voice trembling. "I dunno nothin' about it. You've all got me here an' are pickin' on me. I didn't steal anything. I thought they was all mine." And then, in a broken, repressedly frantic appeal: "I don't want to go to jail again. I don't know nothin'...."
"Again?" she said, quite gently.
He looked at her and nodded slowly. The little resistance he had offered her was gone; his limbs trembled and his eyes had that whipped, abject look that a broken spirited dog will show.
"You've been in jail once? For stealing cattle?"
"I didn't steal.... They said I did. They didn't want me around. They're like all you big outfits; they don't want me ... they don't want me...."
He lifted one hand in a gesture of hopeless appeal and tears showed in his eyes. They didn't want him, as she didn't want him! And suddenly an overwhelming pity surged upward in the girl for this man. It was like her, like all the Jane Hunters, like all men and women in whose hearts great strength and great pity is combined. There was no question of his guilt, but he was helpless before her; his fate was in her hands ... and back in her mind that other theory was forming; that other hope was coming to stronger life....
"Cole, did you steal my calves?"
She leaned low and spoke intently; her voice was a mingling of resolution and warmth that created confidence in his heart. For a moment he evaded her look; then answered it and a sob came up into his thin throat and shook it. He looked from her to Hepburn and then to Webb and read there something that Jane, whose eyes followed his, could not read; all she could read was threat ... threat, threat!
"Did you steal my calves?" she repeated in a tone even lower.
She saw her men strain forward.
"Oh, I don't want to go to jail!" he said and tears streamed down his seamed cheeks. "I took 'em ... but I'm a poor man ... a poor man...."
From Bobby came a stifled cry. She started forward again, but this time it was Hilton who grasped her arm, rather roughly. He drew her back, hissing a word between his teeth. His eyes glittered.
Riley stepped forward quickly beside Cole. His face was strained; mouth very grim. Oliver was beside him; breathing quickly.
"What's your verdict, Miss Hunter?" Riley asked. His voice was hoarse.
"You have heard it," she said gently. "You heard it from his lips."
She was not looking at them, but at Bobby Cole, who stood with knuckles pressed against her lips, fright, misery in her staring eyes. The strength, the vindictiveness was gone. She was a little girl, then, a little girl in trouble!
"Then I guess there's nothin' to do, but to go through with this ourselves." The old cattle man spoke slowly and rather heavily. "Cole, there's a way of treatin' thieves in this country that's gone out of fashion in recent years; we ain't had to hang nobody for a long time, but—"
"Stop!"
It was a clear, ringing cry from Jane that checked Riley, that caused the man who had grimly picked up his rope to stand holding it motionless in his hand.
"This is a matter for all of us, but by common consent I was selected to judge this man. He has admitted his guilt after an opportunity to protest his innocence. Now you must let me pass sentence...."
"Sentence, ma'am?" Riley asked. "There's only one way. This has been war: they've warred you, they've threatened to drive you out. It's you or ... your enemies. This man is your proven enemy. Make an example of him. He's guilty; nothin' else should be considered!"
"One thing," she said, smiling for the first time that afternoon, a slow, serious, grave smile, withal a tender smile, as she looked at Cole, the trembling craven.
"One thing: The quality of mercy!
"Men, do you know that line? 'The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven'?
"Mercy is the most holy thing in human relations. It is a blessing not only to the man who receives it, but to the man that gives!"
The first, dissenting stir died. This was no dodging, no evading the issue. This was something new and her manner caught their interest as she stood with one outstretched hand appealing frankly for their attention and understanding.
"This man has stolen from me. You have seen him here. He has shown himself to be a weakling, a poor, wretched man, who has neither friends nor respect for himself. He has known trouble before." She looked from the man before her to Bobby whose strained face was on hers with amazement, whose breast rose and fell irregularly, in whose eyes stood tears. "I think that he has known little but trouble; he has been unfortunate perhaps because he tried to help himself by troubling others. There is only one thing left in life for him and that is his liberty.
"He cannot hurt me. He cannot hurt any of us from now on. He knows what we know of this thing today. He will stand before us all as a man who has not played the game fairly.
"Do you fear him? Do you young, strong men fear this man?... No, you don't! No more than I. We have seen him humbled; we have heard him plead. Giving him his liberty will cost us nothing. I will go so far as to promise you that he will never steal from us again ... if we do this for him.... Don't you agree with me?"
She looked from face to face, but as her eyes traveled they were not for an instant unconscious of other faces ... back there; faces to which had come relief, relaxation, color, after tensity and pallor; faces which the next instant were dark and apprehensive, for she said:
"I don't want you to think that I am through ... not now. There has been stealing, but that has been only a part of the trouble. There have been other things, things which this man who we know has stolen would not do. Let us not be satisfied with cutting off the top of this weed which has poisoned the range; let us try to get to the roots and tear them out!"
She stood, beautiful in the confidence which, with a sentence, with a gesture, had checked these men in their determination to administer justice as it once had been administered in those hills, which had stilled dissent on their lips, which had switched their reasoning into a new path. Alone among them she could dominate! Her strength, doubted an hour ago, over-rode Riley's influence, created by years of prestige on the range, even made that old cattleman stand back and wait respectfully, wondering what she had to say. Her color was high, eyes bright, lips parted slightly in a grave, assured smile, and her one extended hand, small, white, delicate held them!
"This thievery was only a symptom, only an indication of what has transpired," she went on. "Just the outward evidence of those desires and impulses which have turned into chaos the peace of this beautiful country. Into that we must inquire and there is one more witness I want to call."
She hesitated, then said gently:
"Bobby Cole."
A low murmur again ran through the group and from the clouds above them came a muttering of thunder.
All turned to look at the girl and so intent were they that they did not see a horseman ride through the trees and stop and look; and dismount. Tom Beck walked slowly toward the group, until he could lay a hand on the hip of Jane Hunter's pinto. Then he stood behind her, eyes curious.
"Will you come up here and talk to me?" Jane asked.
The other girl remained motionless.
"Well now, Miss Hunter, don't you think—" Hepburn began in mild protest.
"I think many things, Mr. Hepburn. My purpose is either to justify or to convince myself that I think wrongly. Will you come ... Bobby?"
Almost mechanically the girl moved forward. Hilton muttered a quick word to Webb and Webb glanced back nervously. Two of his men moved closer.
"But we've found out about your calves, Miss Hunter. What else do you want to know?"
Hepburn's voice was breath-choked though outwardly he maintained composure.
"It makes damned little difference." It was Riley speaking and his hand was on his holster. "Hepburn, you and everybody else stand pat until you're called for."
Hepburn's eyes flared malevolently. He started to speak again, but closed his lips, as in forebearance. Sam McKee coughed with a dry, forced sound.
"What is it you want with me?"
Bobby stopped before Jane and eyed her up and down, gaze settling on the girl's face finally. There was hostility in it; there was hate ... a degree; but these were softened, subdued, leavened by an outstanding appreciation. Her lips trembled and, almost thoughtlessly, she put out a hand to touch her father's, fingers squeezing his in a movement of affection ... and relief.
For a moment Jane did not speak. Then she began, lowly, rapidly, flushed but resolute and with a light of friendliness in her eyes.
"I want you to understand me ... without any more delay. You and I came into this country at about the same time. Where we should have been friends from the first we have been enemies; it even came to such a pass that you promised to drive me from the country."
Her voice shook a bit and on the words that old hostility leaped back into Bobby's face.
"I think that was because you did not understand me. You have thought that I wished you bad luck from the first and that is not so. Had I wanted to have vengeance on you, had I wanted to drive you out, I could have done so this afternoon ... only a moment ago. I am not trying to impress you with my generosity because I don't feel that I have been generous. I have tried to be just; that is all. I have tried to do the thing that would mean the most to all of us....
"But there are things with which you can help me. I am sure. There are so many things that we have in common. You see, you and I are very much alike."
That touched the other's curiosity. She was all intent, lips parted, eyes wondering.
"Alike?" She was incredulous.
Jane nodded.
"The thing that you want most of all is the thing that I want more than anything else: That is the respect of men."
She paused and Bobby's brows drew together in perplexity.
"The first time I saw you, you were trying to win the respect of the men in this country with your quirt. Perhaps that helped you. Perhaps it would have helped me had I been able or inclined to take it that way.
"That doesn't matter. The thing that matters, which gives us something in common is this: You found that men did not respect you and so did I. Men showed their disrespect for you by ... well, by saying unpardonable things. Men have shown their disrespect for me by trying to drive me out of the country, by burning and stealing and shooting at my men....
"You and I are the only women here. These men,"—with a gesture—"can not understand what their respect means to us. It is the only thing worth while in our lives. Isn't that so? No woman can be happy or satisfied unless she has the respect of men. That is because our mothers for generations back have been mothers because men respected them....
"I don't believe from what I know of you that you have ever had much respect from men. I can appreciate what that means to you, because it appears that the man who should have respected me the most in the country where I came from, did not respect me.
"There was one man I used to know who was supposed to give me all the respect that a man could give a woman: he said that he loved me. That man,"—there was a quick movement in the group which she ignored—"followed me west to tell me that he loved me again and when he found that I could not love him, he showed that he did anything but respect me. Do you understand how that could hurt? When a man who had sworn for years that he loved me proved that ... it was something quite different?"
She paused and Bobby, wide-eyed, said:
"He follered you out here to ... try to get you to marry him?"
Jane nodded.
The other girl turned and her eyes sought out Hilton's face, which was contorted with raging humiliation.
"Is thatso?" she asked.
"That's a lie!" he snarled, but looked away.
"Is thatso?"
Her tone was lowered, but she hissed the question at him. She strained forward, glaring at him, and averting his face he said again:
"It's a lie."
But the assertion was without conviction, without strength.
Bobby turned back. Her lips were tight and trembling.
"Well?" she said, tears in her eyes again, and her manner proved that Hilton's denial had fallen far short of being convincing.
"Then there were other factors: As soon as I arrived here things commenced to go wrong. Because I was a woman, people thought they could usurp my rights. My horses were stolen; my hay was burned; my ditches broken. My men were shot at. A note was sent to me, telling me that I'd better leave the country while I had something left.
"You see, don't you, that that meant that men—it must have been men who did it—had no respect for me?
"This water down here was fenced. That was your right, but I thought I could persuade you to help me a little. I think yet that I could have done so but for your misunderstanding....
"I knew that you wanted the respect of men. I knew that about all you had in life was your self respect. I knew that the same man who had made love to me and who had not meant it, was making love to you and not meaning it. I called him to see me and tried to talk him out of it, begged him to go away from you before ... before you had stopped respecting yourself. You must have mistaken my motive in—"
"You didn't send for him to ask him to take you back? You didn't do that?"
"I have told you my motive once; that was the truth ... whole truth."
Again Bobby turned and again her accusing, flaring eyes sought Hilton's distraught face.
"So you lied to me again, did you? That was a lie, was it?" She waited. "Well, why don't you answer?" she flung at him and stood, directing on him the hate that she had once shown for Jane Hunter.
But when she wheeled sharply back to confront the mistress of the HC her eyes were bathed in tears, her head was thrown back, and she threw her arms wide.
"He did lie to me!" she panted. "He did.... I hated you because I thought you had friends an' folks that respected you. He lied an' it made me hate you worse...." She choked with sobs and Jane stepped down from the rock to put hands on her shoulders.
"Oh, miss, I've acted so bad to you!" Bobby moaned lowly. "I ... I didn't know, didn't understand. I thought you didn't want anything but harm to come to us. I stole from you because I hated you.... I ..."
She threw back her head again and the weakness of spiritual distress dropped from her. Her voice grew full and firm.
"You've treated us like nobody else ever treated us before. You had Alf tied down to a calf stealin' an' you let him go. You.... You've been tryin' to do me good all the while I've been tryin' to do you harm. They've been warrin' on you an' I ... I could have stopped it!"
She wheeled, facing the men, her back to Jane. Her shoulders were drawn up and she leaned backward. Her face was white, voice shrill. Her eyes burned.
"Well ... you, Webb, an' Hepburn an' your whole filthy crew ... I'm done with you at last!"
Thunder boomed sharply. The gloom was so deep that the features of the men she addressed could scarcely be made out.
"You've tried to double-cross us from the first. You was as guilty as Alf today but you had it on us. I couldn't make a move without gettin' in worse.... You, Hilton, if it hadn't been for you, I'd have sent the bunch of you to hell by tellin' th' straight story when they came for Alf to-day! I ... I thought you loved me,"—gaspingly. "Ah! I thought you loved me, an' I'd have let Alf go to jail alone because of it....
"Well, it ain't too late! Listen, all of you! You HC riders, don't let a man move until I get through!"
Her eyes, quick, alert, intent, ran from face to face before her and her whole body trembled as though the things that she would tell clamoured to be out and were held back by great effort until she could make them coherent.
"Hepburn, you're first!"
The man made one movement aside as if he would evade and Tom Beck's voice rang out sharply:
"Not a move!"
Jane Hunter wheeled, a stifled word in her throat and watched him slowly advance. His face was drawn as by great suffering, his eyes burned as though his heart was wrenched with every beat. His mouth was set and his jaw thrust forward and the revolver he held close against his hip was as steady as rock. He moved slowly forward.
"Swing back there, you men,"—and at his gesture the H C riders deployed, swinging to either side. He stood beside the two girls at the point of a V, the sides of which were formed by cowboys and beyond the opening of which the other group drew together as for protection in the face of this coming storm. Hepburn was foremost and the true scoundrel now glared through the mask of his benevolence.
"Go on," Beck said quietly.
"You're first," the girl repeated, as though there had been no interruption.
"You planned to steal the HC blind, as soon as th' old owner died. You didn't have th' nerve to do it like I'd 've done it. You sent for us, because you knowed Alf had this brand which 'uld make stealin' easy!"
"You're lying!"
The man's voice was the merest croak, weak and unimpressive.
"You wrote us, sayin' it would be easy pickin'. You said you would likely be foreman an' that anyhow you'd be workin' for the HC an' was goin' to help us from the inside.
"When Miss Hunter come an' you saw what she was like you was mighty glad of it. You thought you could ruin her an' pretend you was trying to protect her. You was goin' to get half what we got for your share.
"You had Webb run off them eight horses. Th' cat got out of the bag an' you had to bring 'em back to make good with Beck. I heard you tell Alf about it the night you started out an' stayed with us. Beck suspected you, so you shot your own saddle horn to make your story good.
"Beck wasn't satisfied. He was in your way, so you an' Webb framed up a lie about him an' fixed his gun so it would look bad for him ... an' it didn't work because Miss Hunter here beat you to it.
"Then you threw in with Webb an' we was all goin' to work together and drive the HC out in a rush.
"You dynamited Cathedral Tank to spoil that range. Then somebody shot Two-Bits an' you planned with us not to let her have water, knowin' her cattle would perish. I was glad enough to keep 'em from water then because I thought ... I thought she wasn't ... what she is."
She paused, panting, and brushed a quick hand at her tears.
"Webb, you've been stealin' off th' HC for years."
The man took a quick step forward and halted as gun hands jerked rigid.
"You've been waitin' your chance. When Beck made you swallow your words about Miss Hunter you went hog-wild to get him. You got carin' more about that than you did about gettin' rich.
"You shot at Beck's bed to kill him when he slept. You broke her ditches an' fired her hay with your own hands. You wrote that note, warnin' her to get out. You helped build this pen here an' you helped steal these calves an' every one of 'em was took away from an HC cow. You stole twenty head of horses that nobody knows about.
"You an' Hepburn thought I didn't know a lot of this. Well, I did know! I knowed you was goin' to double-cross us if the pinch come an' Alf, he was afraid of it, too!
"I heard you talkin' nights in our place. I watched you ridin' when you didn't know I was around. I listened an' remembered. I was one of you, but I didn't trust you. I wanted to steal from Miss Hunter. I wanted to drive her out because ... because I didn't know anybody could be kind to me like she's been. I never thought anybody'd do anythin' for me!"
She stopped again to regain control of her surging emotions.
"An' their riders, Miss Hunter"—half turning to look at the other woman. "They're a bunch of cut-throats. So are our greasers. They ain't been in on the stealin'. They didn't care about bein' inside, but they was ready to murder if they had a chance. They—Hepburn an' Webb—they thought that they was safe because every one of the rest had enough over him to hang. If one squealed they'd all get caught....
"Even us! Why, we never had any right on this claim. Alf's used his homestead rights before, under another name. This water don't belong to us. Not by rights. It's all open range! That's what we was: t' worst nest of outlaws that ever got together in these hills!"
She choked and Jane, her hands on the other's arms, could feel the tremors shooting through her lithe frame.
Riley moved a step forward as thunder rolled heavily overhead, as if this much of the story was enough, but the girl cried out:
"That ain't all! I've got to go through with it! I've finished with the rest an' now it's you.... Hilton!"
Into the word she put bitter contempt and biting scorn.
"Bah! You liar!" she drawled. "You liar, you sneak, you coward! You thought none of us could follow your game an' none of us could ... until now.
"Why, you've been behind this whole thing. It was you called Hepburn to town an' offered him money to use in his dirty work. You paid for this fence of ours. You listened an' used your head. You saw things quicker 'n Hepburn an' Webb did, an' you set them two thinkin' an' they never knew you was doin' it....
"He was th' brains, I tell you!"—with an inclusive gesture to the men who listened so attentively. "He wanted to drive Miss Hunter out worse 'n anybody. He wanted to kill Tom Beck. He didn't have the nerve to do it himself ... in a fair fight. He shot at him one day with a rifle but just as he shot Beck stopped his horse to look at somethin' in his hands, that locket he always wears an' is always lookin' at, I guess.... He didn't know I saw that but I did....
"He was always talkin' Sam McKee, there, up to kill Beck. It's likely McKee shot Two-Bits—"
"He didn't! I didn't do it!"
McKee's voice, an excited cackle, broke in on her but the girl, ignoring, went on:
"... It was just like he tried to talk Webb an' Hepburn into killin'. That was his way: makin' other folks do th' things he was scared to do!
"An' he was as slick with me as he was with them, with his lies about being called here to help Miss Hunter on business! That's why I didn't think all this out before, that's why I didn't think he was a sneak until now. He ... he said he wanted to marry ... to marry me...."
She put a palm against her lips, tears spilled over her cheeks as she turned. For a brief, heartbroken moment she stood looking into Jane Hunter's face, then bowed her head to the other's shoulder and cried stormily.
Beside the girls was a quick movement, a man uttering one explosive word as though it gave vent to an emotion that had been pent deep in his heart for long and while the black storm clouds seemed to shut down and muffle every sound, even Bobby Cole's excited sobbing, Tom Beck cried twice:
"Jane!... Jane!"
Bobby, at that, turned from Jane to her father and the mistress of the HC faced her foreman. When she had first seen him she betrayed little except surprise; now she made one movement as though she would throw herself upon him but again the look in his face checked her.
"You came back to me, Tom," she said.
"Back," he answered.... "But I can't ever come back to ... you...."
It was the miserable self loathing, the shame in his heart, which spoke, and it was that which made her see him, not as the strong man he had been but as a broken, penitent, self denying individual ... denying himself the love that was in her eyes, mingled with the relief at his return and the joy of triumph which still thrilled her ... that love which he felt unworthy to claim because he had doubted it!
And then he changed. A movement sharp, decided, in the group, stiffened him.
"Hold up!" he cried. "Don't one of you move! Jimmy, take two men to the Gap. Hold everybody in this Hole until we can get the sheriff, this'll be a clean-up for—"
A blinding flare, a crash of thunder that tore sky and shook earth, broke in on him. There was a rending of tough timber as the bolt ripped down a cedar, a snorting of horses. And in that stunning instant Dick Hilton leaped from the group, vaulted to his saddle and lashing the horse frantically, made off.
A revolver cracked, a rifle crashed. Hilton disappeared into a deluge of huge drops that came from the low, scudding clouds. Others got to their horses and a fusillade of shots sounded like the ripping of strong cloth. And above it rang Jane Hunter's voice:
"Tom! Oliver! Hold these men. I'll bring the sheriff! You can spare me and only me!"
With a hoarse cry Riley dropped his revolver and clutched at his wounded shoulder. Horses with riders and horses running wild circled the place where a moment before had been a compact group of men, but now Jane Hunter and Tom Beck stood there alone while from all about stabs of fire pricked the darkness or were lost as the sky blazed, while those who shot scarcely knew whether they were defending themselves from friend or foe.