Willie Dart's sunny nature seemed to grow ever brighter as the days wore on. Once or twice he sighed at Wayne Shandon's failure to respond to his levities; and when he felt particularly unappreciated he carried his dimpling personality to the bunk house where he was hailed with delight. When a flask that had come in with Long Steve, who had made a brief trip to the outer world, disappeared before that joyous gentleman had consumed half of the potent contents, and when later the empty flask was found in the covers of Emmet's bunk, Willie Dart looked on with sorrowful, innocent eyes while Steve and Emmet resorted to physical argument. When a game of crib was being played while half a dozen men looked on, and a portion of the deck vanished, only to turn up ten minutes later in the hip pocket of Tony Harris, who had not once been near the table and was most thoroughly mystified, no one thought of blaming the cheerful Mr. Dart. It was only when he offered privately to collect for Big Bill a debt of six bits long owing to him from Dave Platt that the real gift of those wonderful hands of his began to be at all apparent.
Then, too, the method of his progress over the range was another source of unfailing delight and unbounded admiration. He had ridden a horse to the Bar L-M, but no man of them ever saw his little legs astride a horse again. He found, back of the blacksmith shop, the wreck of an old cart which years ago had been used for breaking colts; he improvised shafts and seat; he discovered the encouraging fact that Old Bots, a shambling derelict who had lost an eye when Wayne Shandon was quite young, was gentle and trustworthy. After that, wherever he went abroad, and he travelled all over the countryside, he rode in the cart, steering Old Bots this way and that with much shouting, prodding and jerking of reins. And he drove where perhaps no man had ever driven before. His smiling confidence in Old Bots, in his rattling, creaking old cart, in his own ability as a driver were all characteristic of his joyous optimism.
In the meantime Wayne Shandon had at last seen Wanda. His reasons for making no effort to see her immediately after his heated interview with Martin Leland were clear in his own mind; he expected to find that they had been equally as clear to her, and that she would have understood. But the Wanda he found one riotously brilliant morning was rather cool, distant, unapproachable.
He had ridden up on the cliffs which towered at the upper end of the Echo Creek ranch, from which he could look down the valley and see her when she left the house, as he felt confident that she would. He saw her when it was not yet nine o'clock. She was riding out across the valley toward the cliffs opposite at the north end of the valley, toward the cave she had found there. Shandon marked the course she was taking, swung his horse across a ridge and hastened to the meeting with her. He came upon her as she dismounted near the big cedar against the rocks.
"Wanda!" he called softly.
She turned toward him, her face paler, he thought, than it should be. He slipped from the saddle and came swiftly toward her, his eyes shining, his arms out. Then she raised her hand, stopping him.
"Good morning, Wayne," she said quietly.
"Wanda," he cried, a little perplexed. "What is it? Aren't you glad to see me?"
She smiled, put down the parcel she had been carrying, and perched upon a big broken boulder forcing her eyes to look merrily into his. And what she read in his look sent a quick, glad flutter into her heart. But she did not let him know it.
"Glad to see you?" she replied gaily. "Why, of course I am. But," teasingly, a little cruelly, "aren't you the least bit afraid?"
"Afraid of what?" he asked blankly.
"Of papa!" she retorted, her dimples playing because she meant to look as though she was quite a heart whole maiden, and because the very ring of his earnest voice swept away all the uncertainty that had come to her during these last days of waiting. "You are on his land, you know."
"Surely you don't imagine—" he began.
She laughed lightly.
"My dear Wayne, how should I know?"
"I don't understand you, Wanda," he said a little stiffly. "After what happened the other day—"
In spite of her a little glowing colour ran up into her cheeks.
"Goodness," she exclaimed, persisting in the part she had vowed many times a day she would play for him, "haven't you forgotten that? Really, after you'd had time to think about it didn't you have to laugh? Weren't we a couple of precious kidlets?"
For a moment he stared at her as though dazed. This was a Wanda he had never seen before; he did not know what to make of her. And then suddenly he put his head back, the gladness that had sung in his heart when first he rode to meet her surged back and he laughed the great, deep, happy laugh the girl knew so well.
"You little witch!" he cried gaily, as gaily as Wanda had spoken at first and more genuinely so. "You've just set out to plague me. And I'll show you how I treat little girls who tease!"
Without more ado he came close to the rock upon which she sat looking down at him with demure eyes, swept her off into his arms and kissed her before he put her down.
"Now, Wanda Witch," he said softly, his eyes laughing into hers. "Are you sorry? And do you love me so hard it almost hurts?"
"So," she said when at last he released her, not certain in her heart that she had held out quite long enough, "that is the way you treat little girls who tease, is it? All little girls who tease? The 'Roosian' princess, for instance?"
"Thewhat?" he demanded, having for the moment forgotten Dart's wild tale.
"Helga," she told him quite as seriously as she could, rearranging her disturbed hair and meanwhile looking up at him with eyes that were beginning to defy her and smile.
As he remembered, as he thought of the things Dart had told her to "boost his game" he became for one of the rare times in his life just a trifle embarrassed. She must think him a fool for letting that little cur yap all kind of nonsense into her ears, or the ears of any one who would listen. He flushed under her teasing eyes.
"I'm going to wring Willie Dart's little neck the first thing when I get home," he said. "Look here, Wanda—"
"Oho!" Her brows lifted and she looked at him speculatively. "So there really is a Helga, is there?"
But he was laughing again, again threatening to kiss her adorable red mouth if she did not behave and tell him all about herself.
"If you had really wanted to know couldn't you have ridden over sooner?" she asked.
Then he told her why he had stayed away, how he had wanted to see her every day, how he had thought that she would understand.
"Your father forbade me the ranch," he reminded her. "At first I thought that it would be impossible for me to bring myself to set foot upon property belonging to him. I thought of sending word to you by Garth, by Dart even, asking you to meet me somewhere, anywhere that I would not be trespassing. And, dear, even before I would ask you to meet me, if you still cared!" with mock seriousness, "I wanted time to fight things out with myself, a few days in which to see if there was not some way out better than this one. I hoped, even, that your father would change his mind, that he would be fair with me as it is his way to be. And then at last, when I could not wait any longer, I came. And now, my Wanda Witch, I am going to stay until you come and put both arms around my neck and admit that you love me so hard that you've been perfectly miserable since you saw me!"
"And Helga?" she insisted lightly but with just a hint of curiosity.
"If you go on that way much more," he assured her, "I'll say, 'Damn Helga!' Tell me about yourself."
There was much to tell and it came at last as they sat together under the cedar, oblivious of the world about them, careless of what might lie in the future for them. There was the story of her rides, the murder of a bear cub, the meeting with Willie Dart, and—
"And, first of all," she cried triumphantly, "the discovery of a wonderful secret."
She refused to tell him what it was until he obeyed her bidding. She sent him scouting to see that no human eye could spy upon them, and then she sent him climbing the cedar.
"What's this?" he rebelled. "At least tell me whether I'm supposed to gather an armful of clouds or wait until dark and bring down some stars."
"Go straight up until I tell you to stop," she laughed. "And be sure you don't fall."
"Would you care very much, Wanda?" he asked loverlike and foolishly.
"I should," she informed him, her eyes twinkling. "For I shall be climbing right under you."
"Oh, I know, then. We're going to heaven."
And up he went. Laughing, calling back and forward like two children, their hearts gay and surcharged with something sweeter than mere gaiety, they made their way steadily, he always above, she just below him and carrying the parcel done up in a newspaper.
"You might at least let me carry our baggage upon our journey," he offered more than once. But she insisted that this too was a part of the secret.
At last he came to the limb that lay out across the ledge of rock and would have kept on climbing, he was so busy looking down at the rosy face that was looking up at him. But she commanded him to use his eyes for something else than just to make love with, and he understood.
"You mean to say you've been up here before? That you've gone out across that sort of a bridge?" he exclaimed in amazement. "Aren't you afraid of anything in the world, Wanda?"
"Yes," she answered. "Yes, to both questions. I'm inclined to be afraid of spiders; I think that I'd be afraid of an alligator. And now the secret!"
"A cave," he cried. "Way up here! How in the world did you happen to find it?"
When he had crossed first and given his hand to her she came swiftly to his side, thanked him with a nod and set him to work.
"This is my own private estate," she told him. "No one enters my portals until he has been invited. You are not invited yet. In that seam in the rock you will find plenty of wood and dry cones. If you'll put them at the doorway I'll let you know when you can come in. And, Wayne—"
"Yes?"
"No one knows of this place except we two. Keep behind the cedar, won't you, so that if any one should be about you won't be seen?"
Wayne gathered great armfuls of wood, piled cones conveniently, and in the meantime got no single glimpse of the interior of the cavern. For Wanda had slipped within, had drawn over the wide opening the screen of branches her own hands had made against the occasion, and was completely hidden by that and the curtain which reinforced it against a ray of light. He could hear her singing softly, happily as she went back and forth. At last her voice came to him, calling merrily.
"You may come in, Mr. Shandon. Don't bring the wood with you yet; just come to look and admire."
He thrust aside the screen, stepped through and his short exclamation amply repaid her for the many hours of preparation.
A dozen tall candles burned here and there, set into niches in the rough walls, gummed in their own grease to knobs of stone, their pointed flames standing still like fairy spear blades menacing the shadows which still clung to the lofty ceiling. Giving added light was a blazing fire of pine cones at the far side of the cave, near the mouth of the passage leading to the cleft where the water shot down. Strewn across the whole floor, masking its rough surface, were pine needles which, while they made a thick mat underfoot, filled the cave with their resinous tang. And there was another odour, agreeable, homelike. Shandon looked again at the fire; set on each side of a bed of coals were two flat stones, perched on the stones a battered, blackened old coffee pot.
"I called you a witch, didn't I, Wanda?"
"You might at least have called me a Fairy," she retorted, her eyes bright with the joy of a day-dream come true.
"Did you conjure this out of a broken eggshell with a wand? Is this how you got your name, Wanda?"
She took him on a tour of exploration, pointing out each little thing which she had already seen alone, which, when she had seen it had promised her a day like to-day when she could show it to him. They went down the sloping passageway and stood for a little while silently before the chasm with its din of falling waters. They speculated upon what might lie upon the farther side if a man could cross. They came back to the fire and Wayne was shown how the air drew through the cave so that the passageway at the back gave exit to the smoke. They had just a peep, for Wanda would allow him no more now, into a hidden recess not five steps from her fireplace where there were mysterious packages hinting that they might be bacon and butter and sugar and coffee. And then they came back to the screened entrance and stepped outside. Wanda held up her field glasses to him.
"Look out that way," she ordered him. "No, Goosy. Not at the trunk of the tree. Between those two branches yonder. What do you see?"
He adjusted the glasses while she watched his face. And he found the clearing about the Bar L-M headquarters, the buildings themselves set upon the knoll.
"It's wonderful," he cried. "Why, we could signal—"
"Wait a minute," she interrupted brightly. "This isn't your discovery, not a bit of it. It's all mine and I'm jealous of it. And I've thought it all out. Now, if you'll come inside we'll have a cup of coffee and a sandwich which you'll eat politely just as though you were hungry."
"I'm starved!"
"And I'll tell youmyinvention. First, though, while I serve luncheon you can be the hired man and bring in all your wood. I'm perfectly willing to be cook but I refuse to get my wood any longer."
When he had completed his task he came to her. She had poured two tin cups of coffee, sweetened and cooled with condensed milk, and upon a clean piece of bark served her sandwiches. And they sat on the floor upon heaped-up pine needles and she told him her plan.
There was an old spy glass at the Bar L-M, wasn't there? All right. Then his first duty when he got back home would be to spend a patient time locating with it her cedar and the cliffs back of it. To-morrow morning, early, she would be here—no, no. Not in the cave nor even upon the ledge outside; they must guard so carefully against their secret being lost; but upon the big boulder at the top of the cliff. She would have her field glasses. He could step out upon the front porch at the Bar L-M, and if any of the boys were about he could pretend to be looking idly at a herd of cows somewhere, or at a hawk or at anything but at her. They could see each other quite distinctly.
"If it wasn't so far we could talk on our fingers!"
"Do I have to remind you again that this is my discovery, my invention?"
She tried so charmingly to be severe, and failed so delightfully that he assured her he was going to put down his coffee cup and come over and kiss her. But when she threatened that if he misbehaved she would not stir out of the house again for a week he sighed and finished his coffee and listened obediently.
"Suppose," she went on, "that you stood very still on your porch, both hands holding your spyglass? That would mean one thing. Suppose you leaned lazily against the door post? That would mean another. If you came down the steps, if you took off your hat, if you put on your hat, if you sat down on the bench, if you turned your back to me, if you lifted both arms above your head as if you were yawning and stretching, if you stooped to pick up something, if you stooped once, walked five steps and stooped again—don't you see that even with your whole outfit looking on we can say 'Good morning,' and 'Good night,' and anything else we choose to say? Isn't it splendid?"
For an hour they worked on what Wayne termed the Wanda-code. She had a pencil and tiny memorandum book and they made duplicate copies of their code of signals as they worked them out. Thus:
1. Standing straight, both hands up—I love you, dear, with my whole heart. (That was Wayne's contribution to the code, and he insisted that it be number one in the book.)
2. Leaning against a tree or post—I must see you immediately.
3. Removing hat—Be careful. We are being watched.
4. Turning back—Something has happened to prevent our meeting to-day.
5. Stooping once—That's all. Good bye.
And so on until there were no less than two dozen signals each with its meaning, each to carry across the miles a lover's message.
They agreed upon the exact time when every day their love would laugh at the miles separating them; an early hour when they had waited just long enough to give Wanda time to ride hither and the Bar L-M men time to have gone about the day's work. And if Wayne were not upon his porch then Wanda was to understand that he was already riding to meet her.
"But your mother," he said. "Doesn't she often go with you?"
"Not when I want to be alone," Wanda smiled back at him. "Mamma knows, Wayne."
"You have told her? Your father told her?"
"It isn't something that papa talks about, dear. I told. And, Wayne—"
Suddenly they ceased to be children playing and became very serious. For while the love brimming their young hearts had been like a fountain from which laughter bubbled up, still its song had not deafened their ears to the murmur of life about them. There were things to be told each other, questions to ask and answer, their own future to look soberly in the face.
Day after day Shandon had looked for word from Martin Leland, had counted on receiving from him an offer for the water to be employed in bringing fertility to Dry Valley. He told her of Ruf Ettinger and his counter scheme, how close he had come to being drawn into it; he wondered if something had happened to cause Leland and Hume to give up their proposition.
No, whatever this proposition was they had not given it up, Wanda was sure of that. Her father was away much of the time; she knew that he had been often in Dry Valley, that he had had some sort of dealings with Ruf Ettinger. She had heard him say to her mother last night that the man was a hog, that when offered an unheard of price for his land he had held out for something still better, and that Leland had broken off negotiations with him entirely. Yes, it must be the same proposition about which Ettinger had gone to Shandon. Strange that Garth had not told him anything. She knew that Garth regularly met her father and Sledge Hume; she knew that whatever the business was that had drawn Leland and Hume together had drawn Conway into it also.
That matter finally disposed of, left with the unsatisfactory conclusion that Garth had his own reasons for remaining silent, and that Shandon would soon hear from Leland, Wanda broached the other subject which had all along been the one cloud upon her happiness. Driven to the rim of her mind by her gayer moods it was still there, sinister and black upon the horizon.
"I should have told you the other day," she said slowly, "the day when we found so much else to talk of. You will understand why papa has refused to let you come to the house."
"What is it, Wanda?" he asked eagerly, hoping there would be a direct charge so that he might vindicate himself.
"Have you no idea, Wayne?" a little curiously. "Have you never had a suspicion of the reason that makes papa hate you so?"
"He disliked my father—"
"It is not that. Maybe that makes him the more ready to suspect you—" And then she blurted it out, a little defiantly, laying her hand softly upon his arm. "He thinks, he has thought all along, that you killed Arthur!"
He stared at her gravely, the shock of such a charge too great to be appreciated to its fullest extent in a moment.
"He thinks that I killed Arthur?" he repeated incredulously. And then, bitterly, "My God, Wanda. This is too horrible."
"Listen, Wayne. We must talk this over calmly and see what is to be done. You see papa has disliked you because he hated your father. Oh, it's unjust but it's so human! He has believed all the hard things men have said of you and they have said many. He knows that the day before Arthur was killed you and he quarrelled. Then you went away, you were gone a year and he didn't think that you would ever come back. You came back, you made me love you. Believing as he did, papa did the natural thing when he refused to let you come again."
"He had no right to believe it," he cried angrily. "I shall tell him so. I shall make him tell me of a single thread of the wildest circumstantial evidence to point to this hideous thing!"
"It will do no good," she said simply. "Nothing in the world can be done unless—oh, I have thought so much about this, Wayne—unless the real murderer can be found. Surely if you offered rewards, if you hired detectives, if you talked with MacKelvey—"
"Wanda," he interrupted, his voice at once stern and troubled. "Do you remember when you gave me the revolver that morning? I didn't explain to you, even you. I couldn't. If I went away and stayed so long, if I didn't remain here doing the thing you suggest, offering rewards, hiring detectives to hunt his murderer down, couldn't you guess why? You found the revolver that killed him."
"Wayne!"
"And the day Arthur and I rode into El Toyon I gave the thing to him. It was his own then. He shot himself. God knows why. I should have spoken then, I should have told MacKelvey, your father, every one. But I hated to, I hated the thought of it, of having people know that Arthur had committed suicide, of having men talk of it. I thought that there would be investigations, of course, but that they would die down. I knew that no man would be accused; it was my secret. I would keep it for Arthur's sake."
He broke off sharply, moved strongly by his own words that conjured up something he had striven manfully to shut out of his mind, strongly moving the girl who heard him. She watched him with piteous, sad eyes while he strode up and down, back and forth in the candle lighted cave. Suddenly he stopped, exclaiming bitterly,
"Your father thinks this of me. Who else? Does half the countryside believe me a murderer? Does Garth believe it? Does Hume? Does your mother?"
"I don't know what Garth and Sledge Hume think," she answered. "I do know about mamma. Wayne, even she was afraid at first, even mamma. But she knows you too well, dear. She says that you are the other Wayne Shandon, over and over; that you may have been a spendthrift and a brawler,—forgive me,—dear, but that you have always been an honest and manly man. She knows that we love each other, Wayne. She knows that I have expected to see you. Isn't that enough?"
"Next to you, Wanda, she is the sweetest woman in the world." He took the girl's hands in his and stood looking down at her gravely. "And you, you have never been afraid? You recognised the revolver, you brought it to me. Are you very sure—"
"Kiss me, Wayne," she said for answer.
And yet, when they parted lingeringly, the little cloud was still upon the horizon, the uneasy feeling of uncertainty upon them. If, at this late hour, he went to the sheriff and told the truth, what would be the result? Would it sound like the truth to MacKelvey? To Martin Leland?
The summer sped by like one long golden day under its rare blue sky; yet always upon the horizon was that single black cloud. Not until summer had gone its bright way and winter had come, locked the mountain passes and departed again, was the way to be made clear.
If Wayne Shandon could have had the opportunity to act at once when Wanda told him the reason of her father's open enmity he would have gone immediately in his headlong way to MacKelvey. He would have told the sheriff his own version of the tragedy; he would have recounted the finding of the revolver by Wanda, her giving it to him, his certainty that Arthur had taken his own life. But having promised Wanda to do nothing rashly, without again talking with her, having pondered deeply as he rode back to the Bar L-M and during the days which followed, he came to see sanely that for his own sake and for the sake of the girl he loved it would be better if he held his peace until time and thought brought clear vision.
He was already suspected by Martin Leland, perhaps by MacKelvey himself, perhaps by many men among whom he came and went. Would the story he had to tell lessen suspicion in any single breast? Would it not rather give the sheriff just such a bit of evidence as he had long been seeking?
Much alike in one great essential Wayne Shandon and Wanda Leland had hearts that were tuned to happiness. To such people it is easier to be gay than sad; the trouble, stern as it was, that had entered their lives so early was less than the brightness which dissipated all other troubles but that one. Good fortune had disclosed to them a meeting place as high as the waving treetops where no one's curious eye would penetrate; they could converse across the miles almost as people may call across a street; they could be together two or three times a week without their world knowing. These things gave wings to the summer.
They were busy days, clad in action, crowned with dreamings. Wanda's cave became a dainty bower for a fair lady. Across the cliffs, by tortuous trail, it was a scant five miles to the little mountain town of White Rock. Many a dim morning before the shadows lifted to the rising sun the trail had echoed to the clanging hoofs of Shandon's horse as he rode down and back, bringing a surprise for Wanda. A packhorse had brought in supplies, bought in Shandon's own reckless way, which when piled high against the rock walls made Wanda gasp and ask him if he thought that she was going to take in boarders. There were camp stools, there were rugs. A tiny sheetiron camp stove came one day, and when Wanda put her rosy face through the screen that Wayne had substituted for her old one, her nostrils were assailed by the odours of boiling coffee, frying bacon, sizzling apples and burning bread.
There were strings of onions, and potatoes popping out of their bag before the summer died; a side of bacon swung against a ham where Wayne had driven a dead branch into a crevice in the rocks; there was a table he had constructed rudely but securely; there were books on it; there were candles burning everywhere.
"Because," he had laughed at her surprise, "winter will come one of these days, and do you think that I'm not going to see you until it's gone again? Oh, I suppose I'll have to be down at the lower pastures with the stock, but I'll get up here now and again. Then when a fine day comes and you want a long ski ride, you'll know where to come, won't you, Wanda? Where a hot luncheon will be waiting for you? And, who knows," he whispered, "maybe we'll spend our honeymoon here sometime!"
Shandon at first had thought of going to Garth Conway, of asking him frankly what the deal was in which he and Sledge Hume and Mr. Leland were interested, and if they were counting upon needing the Bar L-M water as Ruf Ettinger had told him they were. But in this matter also had he altered his first quick decision. He had always liked Conway, at least, without thinking a great deal about it he supposed he had, for the very simple reason that they were cousins and had, in a way, grown up together. But on the other hand they were men essentially unlike, in no respect congenial. They had never been confidential; were they the only two men in the world it is doubtful if one would have carried his personal thoughts and emotions to the other. That little reserve which had always existed, scarcely noted by Wayne Shandon, was suddenly a wall between them. This was Conway's business; if he chose to keep it his secret from his cousin, Wayne Shandon was not the man to ask him to talk about it.
Moreover, perhaps even more important now than that consideration, there was another. Leland and Hume had at least been upon the point of going into this matter just before Arthur's death, and they had taken Arthur into their confidence. Perhaps he was to have been one of their corporation when one was formed. Now that Wayne owned the Bar L-M and the water, the logical thing for them to do was to come to him. They had brought Garth into the circle of their endeavour; they had ignored Shandon. A little hurt at the obvious significance of this Shandon shrugged his shoulders and resolved that when the first word was spoken it would not be by himself.
And soon he came close to forgetting it. The incentive to bestir himself had at last come into his life and he was not loitering. Little by little, through long talks with Garth, with Big Bill and other men of his outfit, he came to have a grasp upon the work which should have been his a year before, and an interest in it. Only now for the first time did he take the trouble to learn the real meaning of resources and liabilities; to estimate profit and loss; to speculate upon success in the business which he found rather larger than he had suspected. He called a round-up to learn to the head how many steers and cows and calves carried the Bar L-M brand. He brought a quick look of surprise that was close to suspicion into Garth's eyes by asking casually just what sums had been taken in during the last year by sales of beef, how the money had been reinvested, if there was a surplus in the bank. He went into the matter of the wages of all of the men, and learned that Garth himself was drawing the same salary he had drawn under Arthur.
"Oh, I'm not thinking that you're holding out on me," he laughed at Garth's expression. "I've just begun thinking that it's about time I'm doing part of my own work. So everything you got out of the sales last year you slapped back into the business, buying more cattle?"
"I sent you four thousand, you remember," Garth reminded him.
"You don't quite get me, Garth. What's left of that four thousand wouldn't buy a sack of tobacco. We haven't banked any cash, have we?"
Even now Garth hesitated, Garth's way. Then he answered.
"Arthur left fifteen hundred in the bank. I haven't touched that, of course. If you haven't—"
"I didn't know it was there," laughed Wayne. "When I pulled out and gave you my power of attorney I let everything slide off my shoulders on to yours. Is that all?"
"I banked pretty heavily from sales," Garth went on. "Under my own name, as it saved trouble and I didn't know when you'd show up. I drew out again, for the men's wages, for a few improvements and running expenses, for the other cattle I bought. I've got the vouchers, if you want to see them."
"I don't want to see them."
"There is still something left," Garth said, his voice careless, his eyes glancing up at Shandon and down again. "It's still in my name. About four thousand."
"Good boy," cried Wayne. "That's going to save me some trouble. Will you give me a check for it, Garth?"
"It's yours," Garth replied, going to look for pass book and check book. But when he returned he could not refrain from asking, "What are you going to do with it, Wayne?"
"Double it!" laughed Shandon. "Bet it on a horse race, my boy! But look here," seriously. "I want only five thousand. Counting the other fifteen hundred there's something over that. You've been working like a dog for a year, drawing just foreman's wages while you've been taking the owner's responsibilities. I'm going to shove the other five hundred down your throat as the rest of the unpaid wages due you, or a bonus or whatever you like to call it."
And as Garth's momentary stupefaction was followed by what threatened to be very profuse thanks, Shandon fled to the stable and Little Saxon.
Already word of the race to be run in the springtime, in June when the snows would be gone, had travelled up and down the country. Sledge Hume's money was in the hands of Charlie Granger at El Toyon, and the order signed by him to turn over the five thousand dollars to the man who came in first, himself or Wayne Shandon, containing the clause which he had insisted upon, making it clear that if only one man entered the race he was to take the money.
Five thousand dollars wagered on a single race; Red Reckless and Sledge Hume riding; Endymion, who had already shown those who knew him that for beauty and speed and endurance he was the peer of his aristocratic, thoroughbred sire and dam; Little Saxon, whom men knew yet only as a wild hearted colt being tamed by a man who knew horses and who was willing to lay five thousand on him against his brother; the course a ten mile sweep of mountain and valley, of broken trail and grassy meadow, leading from the high lands to the east of Bar L-M and Echo Creek, ending at the Bar L-M corrals; this one event was enough to draw the attention of men up and down the cattle country, in the mining towns and lumber camps. Word of it went everywhere; letters came to Wayne Shandon from other men who had horses, who suggested this, that and the other race, who sought to find men to cover their bets.
It would be an all day meet; the Bar L-M outfit would entertain generously; there would be barbecued beef; every one was welcome; big wagons would be busy a week beforehand bringing in enough food for a small army. Any man had the opportunity of entering his own horse with these provisos: this was to be a Western race in all essentials; the horse must be Western, born and bred, the man who owned it must ride his own horse. There would be no professional jockeys; there would be no bookmakers.
News of the race, before the winter had come, more than six months before the day set in June, had gone over the crest of the Sierra and appeared in the papers at Reno. It had flashed across telegraph wires to Sacramento; had been talk for a day in many a place where sporting men foregather in San Francisco. Men who had never heard of them before came to know of Sledge Hume and Wayne Shandon, of Endymion and Little Saxon. And still Little Saxon was but a half broken colt.
"It's all right," grunted Willie Dart to himself, kicking his heels from the top of the corral and watching his Noble Benefactor risking his life in the company of a great, belligerent red-bay horse. "It's all right, seeing I'm here. Suppose I wasn't, suppose I was still dodging cops on Broadway, then what? Then Sledgehammer Hume would put some death-on-rats in Hell Fire's hay, or pick Red off with a shot gun, and who cops onto the five thou? A man don't have to have a fortune teller for a mother to get wised up to that."
Little by little the proud spirited horse learned his lesson. He came to see that his destiny lay in the hands of the man who came out to him daily. He gave over trying to beat the man to death with his flying heels; he no longer sought to tear at him with bared teeth; he recognised that it was as futile to seek to hurl the man from his back as to break the strong cinch which held the saddle; that he might run until he killed himself, but that he could not run away from the man who rode him and laughed. He learned that in this world that had been so utterly free for him there was one single being who was his master in all things, whom he must obey. And, when obedience came, pleasure in that obedience followed, and trust and faith and love.
That year winter came in as it had not come to these mountains for twenty-seven years, early, unheralded and hard. The cattle and horses had not yet been moved down to the lower ranges when one day, in mid-afternoon, the air thickened, bursting black clouds drove up from the southwest, the forests rocked moaning and shuddering under the smashing impact of the sudden storm, the sun was lost in a darkness that grew impenetrable toward the time of dusk, and the skies opened to a downpour of rain. For upwards of an hour the great drops drove unceasingly into the dry ground while giant daggers of lightning stabbed at the earth that seemed to bellow its torment in reverberating roars. Then the slanting rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, the wind went howling through the forests and was gone, and in the stillness which ushered in the true night the snow began.
All night it snowed, steadily, without cease. The morning dawned wanly on a white world; distant peaks and ridges were blotted out in the grey, snow filled air. Men who were careless yesterday became to-day filled with an activity which was swift and tireless. In candlelight and lamplight they dressed hurriedly and made speedy breakfasts. This storm might be nothing but a warning of winter; it might be the first day of a snowfall that would continue for two weeks. In any event it was high time to have the cattle on the run to the lower valleys.
"Two days of this," grunted Big Bill as he kicked his way viciously through the snow already over ankle deep on the way to the stable, "an' the passes'll be so choked up we can't whoop the cow brutes through 'em. An' me, I ain't hankerin' after totin' a bawlin' calf under each arm, nuther."
All day long, upon the Bar L-M and the Echo Creek, men were riding deep into the sheltered ravines, bringing out the stock, heading the stragglers westward down the valleys, gathering the different herds into one on each ranch to crowd them out of the belt of hard winter. Many men rode many miles that day, changing their horses at noon, making a hasty meal when they could, riding again.
Always before this year the herds of the Bar L-M had been pushed across the bridge or made to swim the river where it was wide and shallow, and driven across a corner of the Echo Creek ranch by the most direct route out. But this year Wayne Shandon briefly gave new orders, telling his men to keep on the Bar L-M property as long as they could, then to throw the herds across the ridge to the south and along a harder, longer trail to the county road ten miles further west. He offered no explanation, his men asked none. It was but another indication to them of the thing which was already no secret, that there was some sort of serious trouble between Wayne Shandon and Martin Leland.
Wayne and Garth intended to stay that night at the range house, being the last two men to leave, after attending to the countless little things which must be done about a ranch before it is abandoned to the winter and solitude. They planned to follow the rest of the Bar L-M outfit in the morning.
Even Martin Leland who usually moved his stock early had been caught unprepared. The fine weather preceding the storm had tricked him; he had not planned the drive until two weeks yet. He, too, having worked with his men all day, having ridden the first half dozen miles with them, came back to spend the night at his home.
That afternoon, while the men of both ranges were doing two days' work in one, Willie Dart called upon Wanda. Mr. Dart made it a part of his business in life to be on good terms with every one. He ignored the contemptuous grunts of Wanda's father, and in speaking of him referred to him as, "My old pal, Mart." Martin tolerated him, Mrs. Leland was amused by him, Wanda welcomed him as coming from Wayne's home, as always a possible bearer of tidings from Wayne himself. And such he was to-day.
For there had been no time for signalling, the snow had veiled the cliffs across the miles, and Wayne must send word of his sudden necessary change of plans. So he entrusted a note to Mr. Dart, having first sealed it in its envelope and informed the carrier that if he pried into it the police in New York would learn by telegraph of the present whereabouts of Mr. Dart.
Wanda and Dart were alone in the big living room while Mrs. Leland was busied with Julia in making preparations within the house for the siege of winter. As she left the room Mr. Dart winked slyly at Wanda, tapped his breast pocket, winked the other eye and assumed the air of a man bearing secret and very mysterious messages. In due time he brought out the letter, the flap of the envelope showing so little sign of having been tampered with that it was not to be expected that the eager girl would note it. Mr. Dart afterwards admitted that he prided himself upon the appearance of that envelope, all things, including inclement weather, considered—and presented it with a whispered,
"Red wouldn't trust anybody with it but me. Say, he's some kid, ain't he, Wanda?"
Beaming on her like a cherub in checked suit and brilliant necktie, he approached a little nearer and whispered again,
"Me, I'll just mosey out on the porch while you flash your eyes over Red's handwrite. Delicacy's my other name, times like this."
Still beaming he winked again, still winking let himself silently out of the front door.
Considering that all Wayne Shandon had to write a letter about was to tell Wanda that he was hurrying out with the herds to-morrow, that when during the next few weeks he could get back he would signal with smoke from the cliffs above her cave, it must have taken him a long time to say it. Considering how little she had to read Wanda must have been very deliberate in reading Wayne's scrawl. At any rate, long before she had finished, Mr. Willie Dart had gone silently down the porch, peered in the kitchen window at Mrs. Leland and Julia, continued on to the door of Martin's study and let himself in. The door had been locked, at that, when Dart's beautiful fingers first touched it, and they had done what Mr. Dart himself termed "plying his profession."
"I ain't had a chance like this since I was three," Mr. Dart told himself contentedly. "Honest, I ain't. Now, if these nice old country gents think they can put over something with my old pal Red, and me not know just how they're figuring on the skinning party, they better wise up."
He closed the door silently, and any sound he made might have been that of a pin dropped on a thick carpet. He surveyed the room with eyes that missed nothing.
"I knew it," he smiled, as though at the sight of an old friend as he found the safe in the far corner of the room. "I heard your door shut the other day, old party, when I was chumming with Wanda and you and the rest of the combination was talking war talk. Not to waste time we'll begin with you."
It was an old safe, an old, old make and style, and Mr. Dart sighed and shook his head a little disappointedly as he knelt, brought out of his pockets a set of bright, new tools and set to work.
"Any time," he mused when the door swung open, "that they put a pal of mine out of the running they better get up-to-date."