The Project Gutenberg eBook ofTroubled Waters

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofTroubled WatersThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Troubled WatersAuthor: William MacLeod RaineRelease date: November 13, 2022 [eBook #69342]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Grosset & Dunlap, 1918Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TROUBLED WATERS ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Troubled WatersAuthor: William MacLeod RaineRelease date: November 13, 2022 [eBook #69342]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: Grosset & Dunlap, 1918Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

Title: Troubled Waters

Author: William MacLeod Raine

Release date: November 13, 2022 [eBook #69342]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Grosset & Dunlap, 1918

Credits: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TROUBLED WATERS ***

TROUBLEDWATERSBYWILLIAM MacLEOD RAINEAUTHOR OFBUCKY O’CONNOR, MAN-SIZE,THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP,GUNSIGHT PASS,Etc.GROSSET&DUNLAPPUBLISHERSNEW YORK

TROUBLEDWATERSBYWILLIAM MacLEOD RAINEAUTHOR OFBUCKY O’CONNOR, MAN-SIZE,THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP,GUNSIGHT PASS,Etc.

TROUBLED

WATERS

WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE

AUTHOR OF

BUCKY O’CONNOR, MAN-SIZE,

THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP,

GUNSIGHT PASS,Etc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE

COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

TROUBLED WATERS

CHAPTER I

THE young man drew up his horse at the side of the dusty road and looked across the barbed-wire fence into the orchard beyond. Far distant against the horizon could be seen the blue mountain range of the Big Horns, sharp-toothed, with fields of snow lying in the gulches. But in the valley basin where he rode an untempered sun, too hot for May, beat upon his brown neck and through the gray flannel shirt stretched taut across his flat back.

The trees were clouds of soft blossoms and the green alfalfa beneath looked delightfully cool. Warm and dry from travel as he was, that shadowy paradise of pink and white bloom and lush deep grass called mightily to him. A reader of character might have guessed that handsome Larry Silcott followed the line of least resistance. If his face betrayed no weakness, certainly it showed self-satisfaction, an assured smug acceptance of the fact that he was popular and knew it. Yet his friends, and he had many of them, would have protested that word smug. He was a good fellow, amiable, friendly, anxious to please. At dance and round-up he always had a smile or a laugh ready.

He caught a glimpse of the weathered roof of the ranch house where the rambling road dipped into a draw. Well, it would wait there for him. There were twenty-four hours in every day and seven days in each week. Time was one thing Larry had plenty of. Why not climb the fence and steal a long luxurious nap in the orchard of the Elkhorn Lodge? He looked at his watch—and ten seconds later was trespassing with long strides through the grass.

Larry was Irish by descent. He was five-and-twenty. He had the digestion of an ostrich. For which good reasons and several others he whistled as his quirt whipped the alfalfa tops from the stems. For the young range rider was in love with life, the mere living. Take last night, now. He had flirted outrageously at the Circle O T Ranch dance with Jack Cole’s girl, though he had known she was expecting to be married before winter. Jack was his friend, and he had annoyed him and made him jealous. Larry had excited Kate with the flattery of a new conquest, and he had made the ranchers and their wives smile tolerantly at the way he had “rushed” her. All of this was grist to his mill. He liked to be envied, to be admired, to be thought irresistible. His vanity accepted it as tribute to his attractiveness. Besides, what harm did it do? Kate and Jack would quarrel and make up. This would be a variation to the monotony of their courtship. He had really done them a kindness, though probably Jack would not recognize it as one.

Flinging himself down beneath a tree, he drew a deep breath of content. Roving eyes swept the open pasture adjoining, the blue sky with its westering sun ready to sink behind a crotch of the hills. His blinking lids closed sleepily, and opened again while he nestled closer to the ground and pillowed a dusky head on an arm. He had slept only two hours the night before.

From the foliage above came a faint rustle followed by what might pass as a discreet little cough. The range rider sat up as though he were hinged at the hips, rose to his feet, and lifted the pinched-in felt hat to a glimpse of blue in the shower of blossoms.

“Where didyoucome from?” he demanded, face lifted to the foliage.

“From Keokuk, Iowa,” came the prompt answer.

He laughed at this literal response. “I’ll never believe it, ma’am. You’re one of these banshees my mother used to talk about, or else you’re a fairy or one of these here nymphs that dwell in trees.”

Through the blossoms he made out a slim figure of grace, vaguely outlined in the mass of efflorescence.

Her laughter rippled down to him. “Sorry to disappoint you, sir. But I’m a mere woman.”

“I ain’t so sure you won’t open up yore wings an’ fly away,” he protested. “But if you’re givin’ me the straight of it, all I’ve got to say is that I like women. I been waitin’ for one twenty-odd years. Last night I dreamed I was gonna find her before sunset to-day. That’s straight.”

She was seated on a branch, chin tilted in a little cupped fist, one heel caught on the bough below to steady her. With an instinct wholly feminine she dexterously arranged the skirt without being able to conceal some inches of slender limb rising from a well-turned ankle.

“You’ll have to hasten on your way, then. The sun sets in half an hour,” she told him.

His grin was genial, insinuating, an unfriendly critic might have said impudent. “Room for argument, ma’am,” he demurred. “Funny, ain’t it, that of all the millions of apple trees in the world I sat down under this one—an’ while you were in it? Here we are, the man, the tree, an’ the girl, as you might say.”

“Are you listing the items in the order of their importance?” she asked. “And anyhow we won’t be here long, since I am leaving now.”

“Why are you going?” he wanted to know.

“A little matter, a mere trifle. You seem to have forgotten it, but—we haven’t been introduced.”

“Now looky here, ma’am. What’s in a name? Some guys says, ‘Meet Mr. Jones,’ an’ you claim you know me. Not a thing to that. It’s a heap more fun to do our own introducin’. Now ain’t it? Honest Injun! I’m anything you want to call me, an’ you’re Miss-Lady-in-the-Apple-Blossoms. An’ now that’s been fixed, I reckon I’ll take the elevator up.”

The girl’s eyes sparkled. There was something attractive about this young fellow’s impudence that robbed it of offence. Womanlike, her mind ran to evasions. “You can’t come up. You’d shake down all the blossoms.”

“If I shook ’em all down but one I’ll bet the tree would bloom to beat any other in the orchard.”

“If that is meant for a compliment——”

“No, Lady, for the truth.”

He caught the lowest limb and was about to swing himself up. Her sharp “No!” held him an instant while their eyes met. A smile crept into his and gave the face a roguish look, a touch of Pan.

“Will you come down then?”

“At my convenience, sir.”

An upward swing brought him to the fork of the tree. Yet a moment, and he was beside her among the blossoms. Her eyes swept him in one swift glance, curiously, a little shyly.

“With not even a by-your-leave. You are a claim jumper,” she said.

“No, ma’am. I’m locatin’ the one adjoinin’ yores.”

“You may have mine, since I’m vacating it.”

“Now don’t you,” he protested. “Let yoreself go once an’ be natural. Like a human being. Hear that meadow-lark calling to his mate. He’s tellin’ his lady friend how strong he is for her. Why even the irrigation ditch is singin’ a right nice song about what a peach of a day it is.”

The girl’s eyes appraised him without seeming to do so. So far the cow-punchers she had met had been shy and awkward, red-faced and perspiring. But this youth was none of these. The sun and the wind of the Rockies had painted the tan on face and neck and hands, had chiselled tiny humorous wrinkles that radiated from the corners of his eyes. Every inch of the broad-rimmed felt hat, of the fancy silk kerchief, of the decorated chaps, certified him a rider of the range. But where had he picked up that spirited look of gay energy, that whimsical smile which combined deference and audacity?

“He travels fast,” the girl announced to the world at large. “Which reminds me that so must I.”

Larry too made a confidant of his environment. “I wonder how she’ll get past me—unless she really has wings.”

“I’ve heard that all Westerners are gentlemen at heart,” she mused aloud. “Of course he’ll let me past.”

“Now she’s tryin’ to flatter me. Nothin’ doing. We’ll give it out right now that I’m no gentleman,” he replied, impersonally. Then, abandoning his communion with the apple blossoms, he put a question to the young woman who shared the tenancy of the tree with him: “Mind if I smoke?”

“Why should you ask me, since you confess—or do you boast?—that you are no gentleman?”

From the pocket of his shirt he drew tobacco and paper, then rolled a cigarette. “I’m one off an’ on,” he explained. “Whenever it don’t cramp my style, you understand.”

She took advantage of his preoccupation with the “makings,” stepped lightly to a neighbouring branch, swung to a lower one, and dropped easily to earth.

The eyes that looked up at him sparkled triumph. “I wish you luck in your search for that paragon you’re to meet before sunset,” she said.

“I’ll be lucky. Don’t you worry about that,” he boasted coolly. “Only I don’t have to find her now. I’ve found her.”

Then, unexpectedly, they went down into the alfalfa together amid a shower of apple blossoms. For he, swinging from the branch upon which he sat, had dropped, turned his ankle on an outcropping root, and clutched at her as he fell.

The girl merely sat down abruptly, but he plunged cheek first into the soft loam of the plowed orchard. His nose and the side of his face were decorated with débris. Mopping his face with a handkerchief, he succeeded in scattering more widely the soil he had accumulated.

She looked at him, gave a little giggle, suppressed it decorously, then went off into a gale of laughter. He joined her mirth.

“Not that there’s anything really to laugh at,” he presently assured her with dignity.

The young woman made an honest attempt at gravity, but one look at his embellished face set her off again.

“We just sat down,” he explained.

“Yes. On your bubble of romance. It’s gone—punctured——”

“No, no, Miss Lady-in-the-Apple-Blossoms. I’m stickin’ to my story.”

“But it won’t stick to you, as for instance the dirt does that you grubbed into.”

“Sho!” He mopped his face again. “You know blame’ well we’re gonna be friends. Startin’ from right now.”

She started to rise, but he was before her. With both hands he drew her to her feet. She looked at him, warily, with a little alarm, for he had not released her hands.

“If you please,” she suggested, a warning in her voice.

He laughed, triumphantly, and swiftly drew her to him. His lips brushed her hot cheek before she could push him away.

She snatched her hands from him, glared indignantly for an instant at him, then turned on her heel in contemptuous silence.

Smilingly he watched her disappear.

Slowly, jubilation still dancing in his eyes, he waded through the alfalfa to the fence, crept between two strands, and mounted the patient cow pony.

As he rode by the ranch house the girl he had kissed heard an unabashed voice lifted gaily in song. The words drifted to her down the wind.

“Foot in the stirrup and hand on the horn,Best damned cowboy that ever was born.”

“Foot in the stirrup and hand on the horn,

Best damned cowboy that ever was born.”

It came to her as a boast, almost as a challenge. She recognized the voice, the jaunty impudence of its owner. There was no need to go to the window of her room to make sure of who the singer was. The blood burned in her cheeks. Fire sparked in her eyes. If he ever gave her a chance she would put him in his place, she vowed.

CHAPTER II

AFTER dinner at the Elkhorn Lodge Ruth Trovillion left her aunt reading an installment of a magazine serial and drifted across to the large log cabin which was used as a recreation hall by guests of the “dude” ranch. At least she appeared to drift, to hesitate before starting, and after arriving gave an impression of being there tentatively. The thoughts and motives of young women are not always to be read by their manner.

Tim Flanders, owner of the ranch, was sitting on the porch smoking a postprandial pipe, his chair tilted back and his feet propped against one of the posts. At sight of Miss Trovillion, who was a favourite of his, the legs of the chair and his feet came to the floor simultaneously.

“Don’t disturb yourself on my account, Mr. Flanders,” she told him. “I’m not staying.”

“Might as well ’light an’ stay for a while,” he said, and dragged a chair forward.

Ruth stood for a moment, as though uncertain, before she sat down. “Well, I will, thank you, since you’ve taken so much trouble.”

They sat in silence, the girl looking across at the dark blue-black line of mountains which made a jagged outline against a sky not quite so dark. She had not yet lived long enough among the high hills to have got over her wonder at their various aspects under different lights and atmospheres.

“It’s been kinda hot to-day for this time o’ year,” her host said at last by way of a conversational advance.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But it will be June in a few days. Doesn’t it begin to get warmer here then?”

“Not what you’d call real warm, ma’am. We’re a mile high, an’ then some more on top o’ that,” he reminded her.

Presently, the subject of the weather having been exhausted, Flanders offered another gambit.

“I hope, ma’am, you didn’t break any more cowboy hearts to-day.”

She turned eyes of amiable scorn upon him. “Cowboys! Where are they, these cowboys you promised me?”

“They been kinda scarce down this way lately, sure enough,” he admitted. “But you mighta seen one to-day if you’d happen’ to have been lookin’ when he passed. His name is Larry Silcott.”

Tim’s shrewd eyes rested on her. He indulged in mental gossipy instincts, and it happened that he had seen Silcott come out of the orchard only a few moments before Miss Trovillion had arrived at the house, evidently also from the orchard.

Indifferently Miss Trovillion answered, her eyes again on the distant blue-black silhouette. “Is he the one that was claiming so loudly to be the best cowboy in the world?”

“Yes, ma’am. Larry’s liable to claim anything. He’s that-a-way.”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“He’s got his nerve, Larry has.” He chuckled. “Last night, for instance, by what the boys say.”

“Yes?”

“There was a dance at the Circle O T. I reckon Larry was pretty scand’lous the way he shined up to another fellow’s girl.”

“I suppose he’s one of the kind that thinks he’s irresistible,” she said, an edge of contempt in her voice.

“Maybe he has got notions along that line. Probably he’s got some basis for them too. Larry is the sort women like, I judge.”

“What sort is that?” she wanted to know.

“They like a fellow who is gay an’ puts up a good bluff, one who has lots of little laughin’ secrets to whisper to ’em behind his hand when other folks are in the room.”

“You seem to know all about it, Mr. Flanders. Why don’t you write a book about us?”

He refused to be daunted by her sarcasm. “I notice what I notice.”

“And I suppose this Mr. Silcott is really what they call a four-flusher?” she asked.

“Well, no, he ain’t. In his way Larry is a top hand. I ain’t right keen on his way, but that’s a matter of opinion. He’s mighty popular, an’ he delivers the goods. None of the boys can ride a buckin’ bronco with him, onless it’s Rowan McCoy.”

“And who’s he? Another poser?”

Flanders’ answer came instantly and emphatically. “No,ma’am. He’s a genuwine dyed-in-the-wool he-man, Rowan is. If you want to see a real Westerner, one of the best of the breed, why, Rowan McCoy is yore man.”

“Yes—and where is he on exhibit?” she asked lightly.

“He’s a cattleman. Owns the Circle Diamond Ranch—not so gosh awful far from here. I’ll ride over with you some day when I get time.”

Ruth knew he would never find time. Tim was temperamentally indolent. He could work hard when he once got his big body into action. But it took a charge of dynamite to start him. His promises were made in good faith, but he often did not quite get round to fulfilling them. He was always suggesting some place of interest she ought to see and offering to take her there some day. This suited Ruth well enough. She could always organize at any time a party for a day’s horseback trip among the guests of the “dude” ranch.

The girl referred again to her pretended grievance. “You’re a false alarm, Mr. Flanders, and I’m going to sue you for breach of contract. You promised me the second day we were here—you know you did—to round up a likely bunch of cow-punchers for me to study. We dudes don’t come out here just for the scenery, you know. We want all the local colour there is. It’s your business to supply it. I suppose it isn’t reasonable to ask for Indian raids any more, or hold-ups, or anything of that sort. But the least you can do is to supply us a few picturesque cowboys, even if you have to send to the moving-picture people to get them.”

“Say, Miss Trovillion, I’ve been readin’ about these new moving pictures. Last time I was in Denver I went to see one. It’s great. Of course I reckon it’s only a fad, but——”

“You’re dodging the issue, Mr. Flanders. Are you going to make good on those cowboys or aren’t you?”

The owner of the Elkhorn Lodge scratched his gray poll. “Sure I am. Right now most of the boys are busy up in the hills, but they’ll be driftin’ down soon. Say, I’m sure thick-haided. I’d ought to have taken you to that Circle O T dance last night. I expect Mrs. Flanders would have gone if I’d mentioned it. You would have seen plenty of the boys there. But one of these days there will be another dance. And say, ma’am, there’s Round-up Week at Bad Ax pretty soon. They’ll come ridin’ in for a hundred miles for that, every last one of these lads that throw a rope. That’s one realrodeo—ropin’, ridin’, bull-doggin’, pony races, Indian dances, anything you like.”

“Will they let a tenderfoot attend?”

“That’s what it’s for, to grab off the tenderfoot’s dough. But honest, it’s a good show. You’ll like it.”

“I’ll certainly be there, if Aunt is well enough,” Ruth announced with decision.

CHAPTER III

THE road meandered over and through brown Wyoming in the line of least resistance. It would no doubt reach the Fryingpan some time and ultimately Wagon Wheel, but the original surveyors of the trail were leisurely in their habits. They had chewed the bovine cud and circled hills with a saving instinct that wasted no effort. The ranchman of the Hill Creek district had taken the wise hint of their cattle. They, too, were in no haste and preferred to detour rather than climb.

If Rowan McCoy was in any hurry he gave no sign of it. He let his horse fall into a slow walk of its own choice. The problem of an overstocked range was worrying him. Sheep had come bleating across the bad lands to steal the grass from the cattle, regardless of priority of occupancy. It was a question that touched McCoy and his neighbours nearly. They had seen their stock pushed back from one feeding ground after another by herds of woolly invaders. Rowan could name a dozen cattlemen within as many miles who were face to face with ruin. All of them had well-stocked ranches, were heavily in debt, yet stood to make a good thing if they could hold the range even for two years longer. The price of a cattle had begun to go up and was due for a big rise. The point was whether they could hang on long enough to take advantage of this.

With a sweeping curve the road swung to the rim of a saucer-shaped valley and dipped abruptly over the brow—a white ribbon zigzagging across the tender spring green of the mountain park. Bovier’s Camp the place was still called, but the Frenchman who had first set up a cabin here had been dead twenty years. The camp was a trading centre for thirty miles, though there was nothing to it but a blacksmith shop, a doctor’s office with bachelor’s quarters attached, a stage station, a general store and post office, and the houses of the Pin and Feather Ranch. Yet cow-punchers rode a day’s journey to get their “air-tights” and their tobacco here and to lounge away an idle hour in gossip.

A man was swinging from his saddle just as McCoy rode up to the store. He was a big, loose-jointed fellow, hook-nosed, sullen of eye and mouth. His hard gaze met the glance of the cattleman with jeering hostility, but he offered no greeting before he turned away.

Two or three cow-punchers and a ranch owner were in the store. The hook-nosed man exchanged curt nods with them and went directly to the post office cage.

“Any mail for J. C. Tait?” he asked.

The postmistress handed him a letter and two circulars from liquor houses. She was an angular woman, plain, middle-aged, severe of feature.

“How’s Norma?” she asked.

“Nothin’ the matter with her far as I know,” answered Tait sulkily. His manner gave the impression that he resented her question.

A shout of welcome met McCoy as he appeared in the doorway. It was plain that he was in the good books of those present as much as Tait was the opposite. For Rowan McCoy, owner of the Circle Diamond Ranch, was the leader of the cattle interests in this neighbourhood, and big Joe Tait was the most aggressive and the most bitter of the sheepmen fighting for the range.

Bovier’s Camp was in the heart of the cattle country, but Tait made no concession to the fact that he was unwelcome here. He leaned against the counter, a revolver in its holster lying along his thigh. There was something sinister and deadly in the sneer with which he returned the coldness of the men he was facing.

He glanced over the liquor circulars before he ripped open the envelope of the letter. His black eyes, set in deep sockets, began to blaze. The red veined cheeks of his beefy face darkened to an apoplectic purple. Joe Tait enraged was not a pleasant object to see.

He flung a sudden profane defiance at them all. “You’re a fine bunch of four-flushers. It’s about your size to send a skull-and-crossbones threat through the mail, but I notice you haven’t the guts to sign it. I’m not to cross the bad lands, eh? I’m to keep on the other side of the dead line you’ve drawn. And if I don’t you warn me I’ll get into trouble. To hell with your warning!” Tait crumpled the letter in his sinewy fist, flung it down, spat tobacco juice on it, and ground it savagely under his heel. “That’s what I think of your warning, McCoy. Trouble! Me, I eat trouble. If you or any of your bunch of false alarms want any you can have it right now and here.”

McCoy, sitting on a nail keg, had been talking with one of his friends. He did not move. There was a moment’s chill silence. Every man present knew that Tait was ready to back his challenge. He might be a bully, but nobody doubted his gameness.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” the cattleman said coldly.

“I thought you weren’t,” jeered Tait. “You never have been, far as I can make out.”

The blood mounted to McCoy’s face. Nobody in the room could miss the point of that last taunt. It was common knowledge in the Hill Creek country that years before Norma Davis had jilted him to run away with Joe Tait.

“I reckon you’ve said enough,” suggested Falkner, the range rider to whom Rowan had been talking. “And enough is aplenty, Joe.”

“Do I have to get your say-so before I can talk, Falkner? I’ll say to you, too, what I’m saying to the man beside you. There can’t any of you—no, nor all of you—run me out the way you did Pap Thomson. Try anything like that, and you’ll find me lying right in the door of my sheep wagon with hell popping. Hear that, McCoy?”

“Yes, I hear you.” McCoy looked at him hard. One could have gathered no impression of weakness from the lean brown face of the cattleman. The blue-gray eyes were direct and steely. Power lay in the packed muscles of the stocky frame. Confidence rested in the set of the broad shoulders and the poise of the close-cropped head. “I didn’t write that letter to you, and I don’t know who did. But I’ll give you a piece of advice. Keep your sheep on the other side of the dead line. They’ll maybe live longer.”

The sheepman shook a fist at him furiously. “That’s a threat, McCoy. Don’t you back it. Don’t you dare lift a finger to my sheep. I’ll run them where I please. I’ll bring ’em right up to the door of the Circle Diamond, too, if it suits me.”

A young ranchman lounging in the doorway cut into the talk. “I reckon you can bring ’em there, Joe, but I ain’t so sure you could take ’em away again.”

“Who’d stop me?” demanded Tait, whirling on him. “Would it be you, Jack Cole?”

“I might be there, and I might not. You never can tell.”

Tait took a step toward him. The undisciplined temper of the man was boiling up. He had for nearly two days been drinking heavily.

“Might as well settle this now—the sooner the quicker,” he said thickly.

Sharply McCoy spoke: “We’re none of us armed, Tait. Don’t make a mistake.”

The sheep owner threw his revolver on the counter. “I don’t need any gun to settle any business I’ve got with Jack Cole.”

“Don’t you start anything here, Joe Tait,” ordered the postmistress in a shrill voice. She ran out from her cage and confronted the big man indomitably. “You can’t bullyme. I’m the United States Government when I’m in this room. Don’t you forget it, either.”

A shadow darkened the doorway, and a young woman came into the store. She stopped, surprised, aware that she had interrupted a scene. Her soft dark eyes passed from one to another, asking information.

There was an awkward silence. The sheepman turned with a half-suppressed oath, snatched up his weapon, thrust it into the holster, and strode from the room. Yet a moment, and the thudding of hoofs could be heard.

The postmistress turned in explanation to the girl. “It’s Joe Tait. He’s always trying to raise a rookus, that man is. But he can’t bully me, no matter how bad an actor he is. I’m not his wife.” She walked around the counter and resumed a dry manner of business. “Do you want all the mail for the Elkhorn Lodge or just your own?”

“I’ll take it all, Mrs. Stovall.”

The young woman handed through the cage opening a canvas bag, into which papers and letters were stuffed.

“Three letters for you, Miss Trovillion,” the older woman said, sliding them across to her.

“You’re good to me to-day.” The girl thanked her with a quick smile.

“I notice I’m good to you most days,” Mrs. Stovall replied with friendly sarcasm.

Ruth Trovillion buckled the mail bag and turned to go. As she walked out of the store her glance flashed curiously over the men. It lingered for a scarcely perceptible instant on McCoy.

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