The Boss of the Lazy Y

by Charles Alden Seltzer

[Illustration: Her appearance now was in the nature of a transformation.]

She was arrayed in a riding habit of brown corduroy which consisted of a divided skirt—a "doubled-barreled" one in the sarcastic phraseology of the male cowpuncher, who affects to despise such an article of feminine apparel—a brown woolen blouse with a low collar, above which she had sensibly tied a neckerchief to keep the sun and sand from blistering her neck; and a black felt hat with a wide brim. On her hands were a pair of silver-spangled leather gauntlets; encasing her feet were a pair of high-topped, high-heeled riding boots, ornamented with a pair of long-roweled Mexican spurs, mounted with silver. She was carrying a saddle which was also bedecked and bespangled with silver.

Illumination came instantly to Calumet. These things—the saddle, the riding habit, the spurs—were material possessions that connected her with the past. They were her personal belongings, kept and treasured from the more prosperous days of her earlier life.

At the first look he had felt a mean impulse to ridicule her because of them, but this impulse was succeeded instantly by a queer feeling of pity for her, and he kept silent.

But even had he ridiculed her, his ridicule would have been merely a mask behind which he could have hidden his surprise and admiration, for though her riding habit suggested things effete and eastern, which are always to be condemned on general principles, it certainly did fit her well, was becoming, neat, and in it she made a figure whose attractions were not to be denied.

She knew how to wear her clothes, too, he noted that instantly. She was at home in them; she graced them, gave them a subtle hint of quality that carried far and sank deep. As she came toward him he observed that her cheeks were a trifle flushed, her eyes a little brighter than usual, but for all that she was at ease and natural.

She stopped in front of him and smiled.

"Do you mind going over to the Diamond K with me this morning?" she asked.

"What for?" he said gruffly, reddening as he thought she might see the admiration which was slumbering in his eyes.

"To buy some cattle," she returned. "Kelton, of the Diamond K, hasn't been fortunate this season. Little Darby has been dry nearly all of the time and there has been little good grass on his range. In the first place, he had too much stock, even if conditions were right. I have heard that Kelton offered to pay the Taggarts for the use of part of their grass, but they have never been friends and the Taggarts wanted to charge him an outrageous price for the privilege. Therefore, Kelton is anxious to get rid of some of his stock. We need cattle and we can get them from him at a reasonable figure. He has some white Herefords that I would like to get."

He cleared his throat and hesitated, frowning.

"Why don't you take Dade—or Malcolm?" he suggested.

She looked straight at him. "Don't be priggish," she said. "Dade and Malcolm have nothing to do with the running of this ranch. I want you to go with me, because I am going to buy some cattle and I want you to confirm the deal."

He laughed. "Do you reckon you need to go at all?" he said. "I figure to know cattle some myself, an' I wouldn't let Kelton hornswoggle me."

She straightened, her chin lifting a little. "Well," she said slowly, "if that is the way you feel, I presume I shall have to go alone. I had thought, though, that the prospective owner of the Lazy Y might have enough interest in his property to put aside his likes and dislikes long enough to care for his own interests. Also," she added, "where I came from, no man would be ungentlemanly enough to refuse to accompany a lady anywhere she might ask him to go."

The flush on his face grew. But he refused to become disconcerted. "I reckon to be as much of a gentleman as any Texas guy," he said. "But I expect, though," he added; "to prove that to you I'll have to trail along after you."

"Of course," she said, the corners of her mouth dimpling a little.

He went down to the corral, roped the most gentle and best appearing one of the two horses he had bought in Lazette, caught up his own horse, Blackleg, and brought them to the stable, where he saddled and bridled them. Before putting the bridle on her horse, however, he found an opportunity to work off part of the resentment which had accumulated in him over her reference to his conduct.

After adjusting the saddle, paying particular attention to the cinches, he straightened and looked at her.

"Do you reckon to have a bridle that belongs to that right pretty saddle an' suit of yourn?" he asked.

She cast a swift glance about her and blushed. "Oh," she said; "I have forgotten it! It is in my room!"

"I reckon I'd get it if I was thinkin' of goin' ridin'," he said. "Some folks seem to think that when you're ridin' a horse a bridle is right handy."

"Well," she said, smiling at him as she went out the stable door; "it has been a long time since I have had these things on, and perhaps I was a little nervous."

At this reference to her past the pulse of pity which he had felt for her before again shot over him. He had seen a quick sadness in her eyes, lurking behind the smile.

"I reckon you've been stayin' in the house too much," he said gruffly.

She hesitated, going out of the door, to look back at him, astonishment and something more subtle glinting her eyes. He saw it and frowned.

"It's twelve miles to the Diamond K," he suggested; "an' twelve back. If you're figgerin' on ridin' that distance an' takin' time between to look at any cattle mebbe you'd better get a move on."

She was out of the door before he had ceased speaking and in an incredibly short time was back, a little breathless, her face flushed as though she had been running.

He put the bridle on her horse, led it out, and condescended to hold the stirrup for her, a service which she acknowledged with a flashing smile that brought a reluctant grin to his face.

Then, swinging into his own saddle, he urged Blackleg after her, for she had not waited for him, riding down past the ranchhouse and out into the little stretch of plain that reached to the river.

They rode steadily, talking little, for Calumet deliberately kept a considerable distance between them, thus showing her that though courtesy had forced him to accompany her it could not demand that he should also become a mark at which she could direct conversation.

It was noon when they came in sight of the Diamond K ranch buildings. They were on a wide plain near the river and what grass there was was sun-scorched and rustled dryly under the tread of their horses' hoofs. Then Calumet added a word to the few that he had already spoken during the ride.

"I reckon Kelton must have been loco to try to raise cattle in a God-forsaken hole like this," he said with a sneer.

"That he was foolish enough to do so will result to our advantage," she replied.

"Meanin' what?"

"That we will be able to buy what cattle we want more cheaply than we would were Kelton's range what it should be," she returned, watching his face.

He looked at her vindictively. "You're one of them kind of humans that like to take advantage of a man's misfortune," he said.

"That is all in the viewpoint," she defended. "I didn't bring misfortune to Kelton. And I consider that in buying his cattle I am doing him a favor. I am not gloating over the opportunity—it is merely business."

"Why didn't you offer Kelton the Lazy Y range?" he said with a twisting grin.

She could not keep the triumph out of her voice. "I did," she answered. "He wouldn't take it because he didn't like you—doesn't like you. He told me that he knew you when you were a boy and you weren't exactly his style."

Thus eliminated as a conversationalist, and defeated in his effort to cast discredit upon her, Calumet maintained a sneering silence.

But when they rode up to the Diamond K ranchhouse, he flung a parting word at her.

"I reckon you can go an' talk cattle to your man, Kelton," he said. "I'm afraid that if he goes gassin' to me I'll smash his face in."

He rode back to the horse corral, which they had passed, to look again at a horse inside which had attracted his attention.

The animal was glossy black except for a little patch of white above the right fore-fetlock; he was tall, rangy, clean-limbed, high-spirited, and as Calumet sat in the saddle near the corral gate watching him he trotted impudently up to the bars and looked him over. Then, after a moment, satisfying his curiosity, he wheeled, slashed at the gate with both hoofs, and with a snort, that in the horse language might have meant contempt or derision, cavorted away.

Calumet's admiring glance followed him. He sat in the saddle for half an hour, eyeing the horse critically, and at the end of that time, noting that Betty had returned to the ranchhouse with Kelton, probably having looked at some of the stock she had come to see—Calumet had observed on his approach that the cattle corral was well filled with white Herefords—he wheeled Blackleg and rode over to them.

"Mr. Kelton has offered me four hundred head of cattle at a reasonable figure," Betty told him on his approach. "All that remains is for you to confirm it."

"I reckon you're the boss," said Calumet. He looked at Kelton, and evidently his fear that he would "smash" the tatter's face had vanished—perhaps in a desire to possess the black horse, which had seized him.

"I reckon you ain't sellin' that black horse?" he said.

"Cheap," said Kelton quickly.

"How cheap?"

"Fifty dollars."

"I reckon he's my horse," said Calumet. "The boss of the Lazy Y will pay for him when she hands you the coin for your cattle." He scrutinized Kelton's face closely, having caught a note in his voice which had interested him. "Why you wantin' to get rid of the black?" he questioned.

"He ain't been rode," said Kelton; "he won't be rode. You can back out of that sale now, if you like. But I'm tellin' you the gospel truth. There ain't no man in the Territory can ride him. Miskell, my regular bronc-buster, is the slickest man that ever forked a horse, an' he's layin' down in the bunkhouse right now, nursin' a leg which that black devil busted last week. An' men is worth more to me than horses right now. I reckon," he finished, eyeing Calumet with a certain vindictiveness, which had undoubtedly lasted over from his acquaintance with the latter in the old days; "that you ain't a heap smart at breakin' broncs, an' you won't want the black now."

"I'm reckonin' on ridin' him back to the Lazy Y," said Calumet.

Kelton grinned incredulously, and Betty looked swiftly at Calumet. For an instant she had half feared that this declaration had been made in a spirit of bravado, and she was prepared to be disagreeably disappointed in Calumet. She told herself when she saw his face, however, that she ought to have known better, for whatever his other shortcomings she had never heard him boast.

And that he was not boasting now was plainly evident, both to her and Kelton. His declaration had been merely a calm announcement of a deliberate purpose. He was as natural now as he had been all along. She saw Kelton's expression change—saw the incredulity go out of it, observed his face whiten a little.

But his former vindictiveness remained. "I reckon if you want to be a damn fool I ain't interferin'. But I've warned you, an' it's your funeral."

Calumet did not reply, contenting himself with grinning. He swung down from Blackleg, removed the saddle and bridle from the animal, and holding the latter by the forelock turned to Betty.

"I'd like you to ride Blackleg home. He's your horse now. Kelton will lend you a halter to lead that skate you're on. While he's gettin' the halter I'll put your saddle on Blackleg—if you'll get off."

Betty dismounted and the change was made. She had admired Blackleg—she was in love with him now that he belonged to her, but she was afflicted with a sudden speechlessness over the abruptness with which he had made the gift. She wanted to thank him, but she felt it was not time. Besides, he had not waited for her thanks. He had placed the halter on the horse she had ridden to the Diamond K, had looked on saturninely while Kelton had helped her into the saddle, and had then carried his own saddle to a point near the outside of the corral fence, laying the bridle beside it. Then he uncoiled the braided hair lariat that hung at the pommel of the saddle and walked to the corral gate.

With a little pulse of joy over her possession of the splendid animal under her, and an impulse of curiosity, she urged him to the corral fence and sat in the saddle, a little white of face, watching Calumet.

The black horse was alone in the corral and as Calumet entered and closed the gate behind him, not fastening it, the black came toward him with mincing steps, its ears laid back.

Calumet continued to approach him. The black backed away slowly until Calumet was within fifty feet of him—it seemed to Betty that the horse knew from previous experience the length of a rope—and then with a snort of defiance it wheeled and raced to the opposite end of the corral.

"Watch the gate!" called Calumet to Kelton.

He continued to approach the black. The beast retreated along the fence, stepping high, watching Calumet over its shoulder. Plainly, it divined Calumet's intention—which was to crowd it into a corner—and when almost there it halted suddenly, made a feint to pass to Calumet's left, wheeled just as suddenly and plunged back to his right.

The ruse did not work. Calumet had been holding his rope low, with seeming carelessness, but as the black whipped past he gave the rope a quick flirt. Like a sudden snake it darted sinuously out, the loop opened, rose, settled around the black's neck, tightened; the end in Calumet's hand was flipped in a half hitch around a snubbing post nearby, and the black tumbled headlong into the dust of the corral, striking with a force that brought a grunt from him.

For an instant he lay still. And in that instant Calumet was at his side. While advancing toward the black, he had taken off his neckerchief, and now he deftly knotted it around the black's head, covering its eyes. A moment later he was leading it, unprotesting, out of the corral gate.

He halted near the fence and looked at Betty, who was watching critically, though with a tenseness in her attitude that brought a fugitive smile to Calumet's lips.

"I reckon you'd better move a way an' give this here animal plenty of room," he said. "If he's as much horse as Kelton says he is he'll want a heap of it."

He waited until in obedience to his suggestion Betty had withdrawn to a safe distance toward the ranchhouse. Then with Kelton holding the black's head he placed the saddle on, then the bridle, working with a sure swiftness that brought an admiring glint into Betty's eyes. Then he deliberately coiled his rope and fastened it to the pommel of the saddle, taking extra care with it. This done he turned with a cold grin to Kelton, nodding his head shortly.

Kelton pulled the neckerchief from the black's eyes, let go of its head, and scurried to the top of the corral fence. Before he could reach it Calumet had vaulted into the saddle, and before the black could realize what had happened, his feet were in the stirrups.

For an instant the Black stood, its legs trembling, the muscles under its glossy coat quivering, its ears laid flat, its nostrils distended, its mouth open, its eyes wild and bloodshot. Then, tensed for movement, but uncertain, waiting a brief instant before yielding to the thousand impulses that flashed over him, he felt the rowels of Calumet's spurs as they were driven viciously into his sides.

He sprang wildly upward, screaming with the sudden pain, and came down, his legs asprawl, surprised, enraged, outraged. Alighting, he instantly lunged—forward, sideways, with an eccentric movement which he felt must dislodge the tormentor on his back. It was futile, attended with punishment, for again the sharp spurs sank in, were jammed into his sides, held there—rolling, biting points of steel that hurt him terribly.

He halted for a moment, to gather his wits and his strength, for his former experiences with this strange type of creature who clung so tenaciously to his back had taught him that he must use all his craft, all his strength, to dislodge him. To his relief, the spurs ceased to bite. But he was not misled. There was that moment near the corral fence when he had not moved, but still the spurs had sunk in anyway. He would make certain this time that the creature with the spurs would not have another opportunity to use them. And, gathering himself for a supreme effort, he lunged again, shunting himself off toward a stretch of plain back of the ranchhouse, bounding like a ball, his back arched, his head between his forelegs, coming down from each rise with his hoofs bunched so that they might have all landed in a dinner plate.

It was fruitless. Calumet remained unshaken, tenacious as ever. The black caught his breath again, and for the next five minutes practiced his whole category of tricks, and in addition some that he invented in the stress of the time.

To Betty, watching from her distance, it seemed that he must certainly unseat Calumet. She had watched bucking horses before, but never had her interest in the antics of one been so intense; never had she been so desperately eager for a rider's victory; never had she felt so breathlessly fearful of one's defeat. For, glancing from the corners of her eyes at Kelton, she saw a scornful, mocking smile on his face. He was wishing, hoping, that the black would throw Calumet.

At the risk of danger from the black's hoofs she urged Blackleg forward to a more advantageous position. As she brought him to a halt, she heard Kelton beside her.

"Some sunfisher, that black," he remarked.

She turned on him fiercely. "Keep still, can't you!" she said.

Kelton reddened; she did not see his face though, for she was watching Calumet and the black.

The outlaw had not ceased his efforts. On the contrary, it appeared that he was just beginning to warm to his work. Screaming with rage and hate he sprang forward at a dead run, propelling himself with the speed of a bullet for a hundred yards, only to come to a dizzying, terrifying stop; standing on his hind legs; pawing furiously at the air with his forehoofs; tearing impotently at the bit with his teeth, slashing with terrific force in the fury of his endeavor.

Calumet's hat had come off during the first series of bucks. The grin that had been on his face when he had got into the saddle back near the corral fence was gone, had been superseded by a grimness that Betty could see even from the distance from which she watched. He was a rider though, she saw that—had seen it from the first. She had seen many cowboy breakers of wild horses; she knew the confident bearing of them; the quickness with which they adjusted their muscles to the eccentric movements of the horse under them, anticipating their every action, so far as anyone was able to anticipate the actions of a rage-maddened demon who has only one desire, to kill or maim its rider, and she knew that Calumet was an expert. He was cool, first of all, in spite of his grimness; he kept his temper, he was absolutely without fear; he was implacable, inexorable in his determination to conquer. Somehow the battle between horse and man, as it raged up and down before her, sometimes shifting to the far end of the level, sometimes coming so near that she could see the expression of Calumet's face plainly, seemed to be a contest between kindred spirits. The analogy, perhaps, might not have been perceived by anyone less intimately acquainted with Calumet, or by anyone who understood a horse less, but she saw it, and knowing Calumet's innate savagery, his primal stubbornness, his passions, the naked soul of the man, she began to feel that the black was waging a hopeless struggle. He could never win unless some accident happened.

And they were very near her when it seemed that an accident did happen.

The black, his tongue now hanging out, the foam that issued from his mouth flecked with blood; his sides in a lather; his flanks moist and torn from the cruel spur-points: seemed to be losing his cunning and to be trusting entirely to his strength and yielding to his rage. She could hear his breath coming shrilly as he tore past her; the whites of his eyes white no longer, but red with the murder lust. It seemed to her that he must divine that defeat was imminent, and in a transport of despair he was determined to stake all on a last reckless move.

As he flashed past her she looked at Calumet also. His face was pale; there was a splotch of blood on his lips which told of an internal hemorrhage brought on by the terrific jarring that he had received, but in his eyes was an expression of unalterable resolve; the grim, cold, immutable calm of purpose. Oh, he would win, she knew. Nothing but death could defeat him. That was his nature—his character. There was no alternative. He saw none, would admit none. He found time, as he went past her, to grin at her, and the grin, though a trifle wan, contained much of its old mockery and contempt of her judgment of him.

The black raced on for a hundred yards, and what ensued might have been an accident, or it might have been the deliberate result of the black's latest trick. He came to a sudden stop, rose on his hind legs and threw himself backward, toppling, rigid, upon his back to the ground.

As he rose for the fall Calumet slipped out of the saddle and leaped sideways to escape being crushed. He succeeded in this effort, but as he leaped the spur on his right heel caught in the hollow of the black's hip near the flank, the foot refused to come free, it caught, jammed, and Calumet fell heavily beside the horse, luckily a little to one side, so that the black lay prone beside him.

Betty's scream was sharp and shrill. But no one heard it—at least Kelton seemed not to hear, for he was watching Calumet, his eyes wide, his face white; nor did Calumet seem to hear, for he was sitting on the ground, trying to work his foot out of the stirrup. Twice, as he worked with the foot, Betty saw the black strike at him with its hoofs, and once a hoof missed his head by the narrowest of margins.

But the foot was free at last, and Calumet rose. He still held the reins in his hands, and now, as he got to his feet, he jerked out the quirt that he wore at his waist and lashed the black, vigorously, savagely.

The beast rose, snorting with rage and pain, still unsubdued. His hind legs had not yet straightened when Calumet was again in the saddle. The black screamed, with a voice almost human in its shrillness, and leaped despairingly forward, shaking its head from side to side as Calumet drove the spurs deep into its sides. It ran another hundred yards, half-heartedly, the spring gone out of its stride; then wheeled and came back, bucking doggedly, clumsily, to a point within fifty feet of where Betty sat on Blackleg. Then, as it bucked again, it came down with its forelegs unjointed, and rolled over on its side, with Calumet's right leg beneath it.

The black was tired and lay with its neck outstretched on the ground, breathing heavily, its sides heaving. Calumet also, was not averse to a rest and had straightened and lay, an arm under his head, waiting.

Betty smiled, for though he appeared to be in a position which might result in a crushed leg or foot, she knew that he was in no danger, because the heavy ox-bow stirrup afforded protection for his foot, while the wide seat of the saddle kept the upper part of his leg from injury. She had seen the cowboys roll under their horses in this manner many times, deliberately—it saved them the strenuous work of alighting and remounting. They had done it, too, for the opportunity it afforded them to rest and to hurl impolite verbiage at their horses.

But Calumet was silent. She rode a little closer to him, to look at him, and when his eyes met hers; she saw that his spirit was in no way touched; that his job of subduing the black was not yet finished and that he purposed to finish it.

"We're goin' in a minute," he said to her, his voice a little husky. "I'd thank you to bring my hat. I don't reckon you'll be able to keep up with us, but I reckon you'll excuse me for runnin' away from you."

He had scarcely finished speaking before the black struggled to rise. Calumet helped him by keeping a loose rein and lifting his own body. And when the black swung over and got to its feet, Calumet settled firmly into the saddle and instantly jammed his spurs home into its flanks. The black reared, snorted, came down and began to run desperately across the level, desiring nothing so much now as to do the bidding of the will which he had discovered to be superior to his own.

Betty watched in silence as horse and rider went over the level, traveling in a dust cloud, and when they began to fade she turned to Kelton. The latter was crestfallen, glum.

"Shucks," he said; "if I'd have thought he'd break the black devil he wouldn't have got him for twice fifty dollars. He's sure a slick, don't-give-a-damn buster."

Betty smiled mysteriously and went to look for Calumet's hat. Then, riding Blackleg and leading the other horse, she went toward the Lazy Y.

It was dusk when she arrived, to be greeted by Dade and Bob. She saw the black horse in the corral and she knew that Calumet had won the victory, for the black's head dropped dejectedly and she had never seen an animal that seemed less spirited. It did not surprise her to find that Calumet looked tired, and when she came down stairs from changing her dress and got supper for them all, she did not mention the incident of the breaking of the black. Nor would he talk, though she was intensely curious as to the motive which had prompted him to make her a present of Blackleg. Was it an indication that he was feeling more friendly to her, or had he merely grown tired of Blackleg?

The answer came to her late that night, after Calumet had retired. Betty and Dade were in the kitchen; Malcolm and Bob were in the sitting-room. Betty had taken Dade into her confidence and had related to him the happenings of the day—so far as she could without acquainting him with the state of her feelings toward Calumet.

"So he can ride some?" commented Dade, after she had told him about the black. "I reckon he'd bust that horse or break his neck. But he was in bad shape when he rode in—almost fell out of the saddle, an' staggered scandalous when he walked. All in. Didn't make a whimper, though. Clear grit. He grinned at me when he turned the black into the corral.

"'Does that cayuse look busted?' he said.

"I allowed he had that appearance, an' he laughed.

"'I've give Betty Blackleg,' he said. 'I've got tired of him.'"

Betty's disappointment showed in her eyes; she had suspected that Calumet had had another reason. She had hoped—

"I reckon, though, that that wasn't his real reason," continued Dade; "he wasn't showin' all of his hand there."

"What makes you think that?" asked Betty, trying not to blush.

"Well," said Dade, "I was walkin' round the stable a while ago, just nosin' around without any purpose, an' walkin' slow. When I got to the corner, not makin' any noise, I saw Calumet standin' in front of the stable door, talkin'. There was nobody around him—nothin' but Blackleg, an' so I reckon he was talkin' to Blackleg. Sure enough he was. He puts his head up against Blackleg's head, an' he said, soft an' low, kinda:

"'Blackleg,' he said; 'I've give you away. I hated like poison to do it, but I reckon Betty'll look a heap better on you than she does on that skate she rode today. Damn that black devil!' he said, 'I wouldn't have took the job of breakin' him for any other woman in the world.'

"I come away then," concluded Dade; "for somehow I didn't want him to know there was anybody around to hear him."

Betty got up quickly and went out on the porch. She stood there, looking out into the darkness for a long, long time, and presently Dade grew tired of waiting for her and went to his room.

CHAPTER XIX

A TRAGEDY IN THE TIMBER GROVE

The black was undoubtedly broken. His subsequent actions proved that. He did not become docile by any means, but he was tractable, which is to say that he did as he was bidden with a minimum of urging; he was intelligent, divining, and learned quickly. Also, he respected his conqueror. If Dade or Malcolm came near him he gave unmistakable evidence of hostility; he even shied at sight of Betty, who was his most sincere admirer, for had not his coming to the Lazy Y been attended with a sentiment not the less satisfying because concealed?

But the black suffered Calumet's advances, his authority, his autocratic commands, with a patience that indicated that his subjugation was to be complete and lasting.

When, toward the middle of the week, Kelton's men—two bepistoled, capable punchers—drove the cattle comprising the Lazy Y purchase into the valley, Calumet immediately set to work to train the black to observe the various niceties of the etiquette of cow-punching. He soon learned, that when the rope whistled past his ears he was to watch its progress, and if its loop encircled a neck or a leg he was to brace himself for the inevitable shock. If the loop failed—which it rarely did—he discovered that he was to note at which particular steer it had been hurled, and was to follow that steer's progress, no matter where it went, until the rope went true. He discovered that it was imperative for him to stand without moving when his master trailed the reins over his head; he early learned that the bit was a terrible instrument of torture, and that it were better to answer to the pressure of Calumet's knee than to be subjected to the pain it caused him.

He was taught these things, and many more, while the work of rebranding the Diamond K cattle went forward.

This work was no sinecure. Dade and Malcolm, and even Bob, assisted in it—Malcolm and Bob attending to the heating of the branding irons while Calumet roped the steers and dragged them to the fire where Dade pressed the white-hot irons to their hips. But the work was done finally, and the cattle turned out into the valley.

On the night that saw the finish of the branding, Calumet, Dade, and Malcolm retired early. Betty and Bob remained in the kitchen for some time, but finally they, too, went to bed.

At one second before midnight Calumet was sleeping soundly—as soundly as it is possible for a man to sleep who has been working out of doors and is physically tired. At exactly midnight he was wide awake, lying on his back, looking with unblinking eyes at the ceiling, all his senses aroused and alert, his nerves and muscles at a tension.

He did not know what had awakened him, though he was convinced that it had been something strange and unusual. It had happened to him before; several times when cattle had stampeded; once when a Mexican freighter at a cow camp had rose in the night to slip his knife into a puncher with whom he had had trouble during the day. Incidentally, except for Calumet, the Mexican would have made his escape. It had happened to him again when a band of horse thieves had attempted to run off some stock; it had never happened unless something unusual was going on. And so he was certain that something unusual was going on now, and he lay still, looking around him, to make sure that what was happening was not happening in his room. He turned his head and looked at Dade. That young man was breathing heavily and regularly. He turned toward the door of the room. The door was closed. A flood of moonlight entered the window; objects in the room were clearly distinguishable, and nothing seemed wrong here. But something was wrong—he was certain of that. And so he got carefully out of bed and looked out of the window, listening, peering intently in all directions within the limits of his vision. No sound greeted his ears, no moving object caught his gaze. But he was not satisfied.

He put on his clothes, buckled his cartridge belt around his waist, took his six-shooter from beneath his pillow, and stuck it into the holster, and in his stockinged feet opened the door of the room and stepped out into the hall. He was of the opinion that something had gone wrong with the horses, and he intended to make the rounds of the stable and corrals to satisfy his curiosity. Strangely, he did not think of the possibility of Betty meeting Taggart again, until he had reached the bottom of the stairs. Even then he was half-way across the dining-room, stepping carefully and noiselessly for fear he might awaken someone, when he glanced back with a sudden suspicion, toward the door of the office. As in that other time there shone a streak of light through the crevice between the bottom of the door and the threshold.

He stood still, his muscles contracting, his lips curling, a black, jealous anger in his heart. Taggart was there again.

But he would not escape this time. He would take care to make no noise which would scare him away. He listened at the door, but he heard no voices. They were in there, though, he could distinguish slight movements. He left the door and stole softly up the stairs to his room, getting his boots and carrying them in his hand. As before, he intended putting them on at the kitchen door. But Bob's dog would not betray him this time, for since the other accident he had contrived to persuade Bob to keep the dog outside at night. Nor would there occur any other accident—he would take care of that. And so it took him a long time to descend the stairs and make his way to the kitchen door. Once outside, he drew on his boots and stole silently and swiftly to the front door of the house.

To his astonishment, when he arrived at the door, there was no light, no sound to indicate that anybody was in the room. He tried the door—it was barred. He stepped to the window. If there was a light within it would show through the cracks and holes in the shade, for the latter was old and well worn.

But no light appeared. If there was anyone inside they must have heard him in spite of his carefulness, and had put out the light. He cursed. He could not watch both the back and the front door, but he could watch the outside of the house, could go a little distance away from it and thus see anybody who would leave it.

He walked away toward the timber clump, looking around him. As his gaze swept the wood near the river he caught a glimpse of a horse and rider as they passed through a clearing and went slowly away from him.

They had tricked him again! Probably by this time Betty was in her room, laughing at him. Taggart was laughing, too, no doubt. The thought maddened him. He cursed bitterly as he ran to the stable. He was inside in a flash, saddling Blackleg, jamming a bit into his mouth. He would follow Taggart to the Arrow, to hell—anywhere, but he would catch him. Blackleg could do it; he would make him do it, if he killed him in the end.

In three minutes Blackleg shot out of the stable door—a flash in the night. The swift turn that was required of him he made on his hind legs, and then, with a plunge and a snort of delight, he was away over the level toward the wood.

Calumet guided Blackleg toward the spot where he had seen the rider, certain that he could not have gone far during the interval that had elapsed, but when he reached the spot there was no sign of a horse and rider in any direction.

For an instant only Calumet halted Blackleg, and then he spurred him down the river trail. One mile, two, three, he rode at a breakneck pace, and then suddenly he was out of the timber and facing a plain that stretched into an interminable distance. The trail lay straight and clear; there was no sign of a horse and rider on it. Taggart had not come in this direction, though in this direction lay the Arrow.

He wheeled Blackleg and, with glowering eyes and straightened lips, rode him back the way he had come, halting often and peering into shadows. By the time he arrived at the spot where he had first seen the horse and rider he had become convinced that Taggart had secreted himself until he had passed him and had then ridden over the back trail, later to return to the Arrow by a circuitous route.

Calumet determined to cut across the country and intercept him, and he drove the spurs into Blackleg and raced him through the wood. His trail took him into a section which led to the slope which the horses drawing the wagon had taken on the night of the ambush. He was tearing through this when he broke through the edge of a clearing about a quarter of a mile from the ranchhouse. At about the center of the clearing Blackleg came to a jarring, dizzying stop, rearing high on his hind legs. When he came down he whinnied and backed, and, peering over his shoulder to see what had frightened him, Calumet saw the body of a man lying at the edge of a mesquite clump.

With his six-shooter in hand, Calumet dismounted and walked to the man. The latter was prone in the dust, on his face, and as Calumet leaned over him the better to peer into his face—for he thought the man might be Taggart—he heard a groan escape his lips. Sheathing his weapon, Calumet turned the man over on his back. Another groan escaped him; his eyes opened, though they closed again immediately. It was not Taggart.

"Got me," he said. He groaned again.

"Who got you?" Calumet bent over to catch the reply. None came; the man had lost consciousness.

Calumet stood up and looked around. He could see nothing of the rider for whom he was searching. He could not leave this wounded man to pursue his search for Taggart; there might be something he could do for the man.

But he left the man's side for an instant while he looked around him. Some dense undergrowth rose on his right, black shadows surrounding it, and he walked along its edge, his forty-five in hand, trying to peer into it. He saw nothing, heard nothing. Then, catching another groan from the man, he returned to him. The man's eyes were open; they gleamed brightly and wildly.

"Got me," he said as he saw Calumet.

"Who got you?" repeated Calumet.

"Telza."

"Telza?" Calumet bent over him again; the name sounded foreign. "Talk sense," he said shortly; "who's Telza?"

"A Toltec Indian," said the man. "He's been hangin' around here—for a month. Around the Arrow, too. Mebbe two months. Nobody knows. He's like a shadow. Now you see him an' now you don't," he added with a grim attempt at a joke. "Taggart's had me trailin' him, lookin' for a diagram he's got."

"Diagram of what?" demanded Calumet. His interest was intense. A Toltec! Telza was of the race from whom his father and Taggart had stolen the idol. He leaned closer to the man.

"Are Telza an' Taggart friends?" he asked.

"Friends!" The man's weak laugh was full of scorn. "Taggart's stringin' him. Telza's lookin' for an idol—all gold an' diamonds, an' such. Worth thousands. Taggart set Telza on Betty Clayton." The man choked; his breath came thickly; red stained his lips. "Hell!" he said, "what you chinnin' me for? Get that damned toad-sticker out of me, can't you. It's in my side, near the back—I can't reach it."

Calumet felt where the man indicated, and his hand struck the handle of a knife. It had a large, queerly-shaped handle and a long, thin blade like a stiletto. It had been driven into the man's left side just under the fleshy part of the shoulder, and it was plain that its point had found a vital spot—probably through the lung and near the heart, for the man was limp and helpless, his breath coughed in his throat, and it was certain that he had not many minutes to live. Calumet carefully withdrew the weapon, and the man settled back with a sigh of relief.

"You're Marston, ain't you?" he said, slowly and painfully, gasping with every breath. "I've heard the Taggart's talk about you. Old Tom's developed a yellow streak in his old age an' he's leavin' all his dirty work to Neal. Neal's got a yellow streak, too, for that matter, but he's young an' ain't got no sense. I reckon I'm goin' somewhere now, an' so I can say what I like. Taggart ain't no friend of mine—neither of them. They've played me dirt—more than once. My name's Al Sharp. You know that Tom Taggart was as deep in that idol business as your dad was. He told me. But he's got Telza soft-soaped into thinkin' that Betty Clayton's folks snaked it from Telza's people. Taggart's got evidence that your dad planted the idol around here somewheres—seems to know that your dad drawed a diagram of the place an' left it with Betty. He set Telza to huntin' for it. Telza got it tonight—it was hid somewhere. I was with him—waitin' for him. If he got the diagram I was to knife him and take it away from him. Taggart an' his dad is somewhere around here—I was to meet them down the river a piece. Telza double-crossed me; tried to sneak over here an' hunt the idol himself. I found him—he had the diagram. I tried to get it from him—he stuck his toad-sticker in me, … the little copper-skinned devil. He—" He hesitated and choked, raising himself as though to get a long breath. But a dark flood again stained his lips, he strangled and stretched out limply.

Calumet turned him over on his back and covered his face with a handkerchief. Then he stood up, looking around at the edge of the clearing. Ten feet in front of him, curled around the edge of a bit of sagebrush, was a dirty white object. He walked over, kicked the sagebrush violently, that a concealed rattler might not spring on him, and took up the object. It was a piece of paper about six inches square, and in the dim moonlight Calumet could see that it contained writing of some sort and a crude sketch. He looked closer at it, saw a spot marked "Idol is here," and then folded it quickly and placed it, crumpled into a ball, into a pocket of his trousers.

He was now certain that Taggart had been merely deceiving Betty; there had been no other significance to his visits. The visits were merely part of a plan to get possession of the idol. While he had been talking to Betty in the office tonight Telza had stolen the diagram.

There was more than triumph in Calumet's eyes as he turned his pony—there was joy and savage exultation. The idol was his; he would get the money, too. After that he would drive Betty and all of them—

But would he? A curious indecision mingled with his other emotions at this thought. His face grew serious. Lately he was developing a vacillating will; whenever he meditated any action with regard to Betty he had an inclination to defer it. He postponed a decision now; he would think it over again. Before he made up his mind on that question he wanted to enjoy her discomfiture and confusion over the loss of the diagram.

He had lost all thought of pursuing Taggart. Sharp had said that Taggart was somewhere in the vicinity, but it was just possible that Sharp had been so deeply engaged with Telza about the time Taggart had made his escape that he had not seen him. There was time for him to settle with Taggart.

He took up the bridle rein, wheeled, placed one foot into the stirrup, intending to mount, when he became aware of a shadow looming near him. He pulled the foot out of the stirrup, dropped the reins with the same movement, and turned in a flash.

Neal Taggart, sitting on a horse at the edge of the clearing, not over twenty feet from him, was looking at him from behind the muzzle of a six-shooter. At a trifling distance from Taggart was another man, also bestride a horse. A rifle was at this man's shoulder; his cheek was nuzzling its stock, and Calumet saw that the weapon was aimed at his chest.

He rapidly noted the positions of the two, estimated the distance, decided that the risk of resistance was too great, and slowly raised his hands above his head.

"Surprise party, eh?" he said. "Well," he added in a self-accusing voice, "I reckon I was dreamin' some."

Neal Taggart dismounted, moving quickly aside so that the man with the rifle had an unobstructed view of Calumet. He went close to the latter.

"So it's you, eh?" he said. "We saw you tearin' up an' down the river trail, when we was back in the timber a piece. Racin' your fool head off. Nothin' in sight. Saw you come in here ten minutes ago. What you doin' here?"

"Exercisin'," said Calumet; "takin' my midnight constitutional." He looked at the man with the rifle.

The latter was hatless. Long gray hair, unkempt, touched his shoulders; a white beard, scraggly, dirty, hid all of his face except the beak-like, awry nose. Beady, viciously glowing eyes gleamed out of the grotesque mask.

"Who's your friend?" questioned Calumet, with a derisive grin. "If I was a sheep-man now, I'd try an' find time, next shearin'—"

"My father," growled Neal.

"Excuse me," said Calumet with a short laugh, though his eyes shone with a sudden hardness; "I thought it was a—"

"You're Calumet Marston, I reckon," interrupted the bearded man. "You're an impertinent pup, like your father was. Get his guns!" he commanded gruffly.

Neal hesitated and then took a step toward Calumet. The latter crouched, his eyes narrowing to glittering pin points. In his attitude was a threat, a menace, of volcanic, destroying action. Neal stopped a step off, uncertain.

Calumet's lips sneered. "Take my guns, eh?" he said. "Reach out an' grab them. But say your prayers before you do—you an' that sufferin' monolith with the underbrush scattered all over his mug. Come an' take them!" He jeered as he saw Neal Taggart's face whiten. "Hell!" he added as he saw the elder Taggart make a negative motion toward his son, "you ain't got no clear thoughts just at this minute, eh?"

"We ain't aimin' to force trouble," growled the older man. "We're just curious, that's what. Also, there's a chance that we can settle this thing peaceable. We want to palaver. If you'll give your word that there won't be no gun-play until after the peace meetin' is over, you can take your hands down."

"No shootin' goes right now," agreed Calumet. "But after this peace meetin'—"

"We ought to come to terms," said Taggart, placing his rifle in the saddle holster as Calumet's hands came down. "There hadn't ought to be any bad blood between us. Me an' your dad was a heap friendly until we had a fallin' out over that she-devil which he lived with—Ezela." There was an insincere grin on his face.

It was plain to Calumet that the elder Taggart had some ulterior motive in suggesting a peace conference. He noted that while Taggart talked his eyes kept roving around the clearing as though in search of something. That something, Calumet divined, was Sharp and Telza. He suspected that Calumet had seen Telza and Sharp, or one of them, enter the clearing, and had followed them. Neal had said that they had seen Calumet when he had been racing up and down the river trail; they had suspected he had been after Sharp or Telza, and had followed him. No doubt they were afflicted with a great curiosity. They were playing for time in order to discover his errand.

"I reckon we'll get along without mushin'," suggested Calumet. "What terms are you talkin' about?"

Taggart climbed down from his pony and stood beside it.

"Half-an'-half on the idol," he said. "That's square, ain't it?" He looked at Calumet with the beginning of a bland smile, which instantly faded and turned into a grimace of fear as he found himself looking into the gaping muzzles of Calumet's pistols, which had appeared with magic ease and quickness.

"I'm runnin' a little surprise party of my own," declared Calumet. "Was you thinkin' I was fool enough to go to gassin' with you, trustin' that you wouldn't take your chance to perforate me? You've got another guess comin'."

The disappointed gleam in Taggart's eyes showed that such had been his intention. "There wasn't to be no shootin' until after we'd held our peace meetin'," he complained.

"Correct," said Calumet. "But the peace meetin' is now over. Get your sky-hooks clawin' at the clouds!" he warned coldly as Neal hesitated. When both had raised their hands above their heads he deftly plucked their weapons from their holsters. Then, alert and watchful, he drew the elder Taggart's rifle from its sling on the saddle and threw it a dozen feet away.

"Now just step over to that bunch of mesquite," he ordered; "there's somethin' there that I want to show you."

In obedience to his command they went forward. Both came to a halt when around the edge of the mesquite clump they saw the dead body of Sharp, with the handkerchief over his face. Neither recognized the man until Calumet drew the handkerchief away, and then both started back.

"Know him, eh?" said Calumet, watching them narrowly. "Well, he done his duty—done what you wanted him to do. But your man, Telza, double-crossed him—knifed him." He took up the rapier-like blade that he had drawn from Sharp's side and held it before their eyes. Again they started, and Calumet laughed.

"Know the knife, too!" he jeered. "An' after what you've done you've got the nerve to ask me to divvy with you."

The elder Taggart was the first to recover his composure.

"Telza?" he said. "Why, I reckon you've got me; there ain't no one of that name—"

But Calumet was close to him, his eyes blazing. "Shut your dirty mouth, or I'll tear you apart!" he threatened. "You're a liar, an' you know it. Sharp told me about you settin' the Toltec on Betty. I know the rest. I know you tried to make a monkey out of my dad, you damned old ossified scarecrow! If you open your trap again, I'll just naturally pulverize you! I reckon that's all I've got to say to you."

He walked over to Neal, and the latter shrank from the bitter malignance of his gaze.

"Can you tell me why I ain't lettin' daylight through you?" he said as he shoved the muzzle of his six-shooter deep into Neal's stomach, holding it there with savage steadiness as he leaned forward and looked into the other's eyes. "It's because I ain't a sneak an' a murderer. I ain't ambushin' nobody. I've done some killin' in my time, but I ain't never plugged no man who didn't have the same chance I had. I'm givin' you a chance."

He drew out one of the weapons he had taken from the two men, holding it by the muzzle and thrusting it under Neal's nose. The terrible, suppressed rage in his eyes caused a shiver to run over Neal, his face turned a dull white, his eyes stared fearfully. He made no move to grasp the weapon.

"I ain't fightin'," he said with trembling lips.

Calumet reversed the gun and stepped back, laughing harshly, without mirth.

"Of course you ain't fightin'," he said. "That's the reason it's goin' to be hard for me to kill you. I'd feel like a cur if I was to perforate you now—you or your scarecrow dad. But I'm tellin' you this: You've sneaked around the Lazy Y for the last time. I'm layin' for you after this, an' if I ketch you maverickin' around here again I'll perforate you so plenty that it'll make you dizzy. That's all. Get out of here before I change my mind!"

Shrinking from his awe-inspiring wrath, they retreated from him, watching him fearfully as they backed toward their horses. They had almost reached them when Calumet's voice brought them to a halt.

His lips were wreathed in a cold grin, his eyes alight with a satanic humor. But the rage had gone from his voice; it was mocking, derisive.

"Goin' to ride?" he said. "Oh, don't! Them horses look dead tired. Leave them here; they need a rest. Besides, a man can't do any thinkin' to amount to anything when he's forkin' a horse, an' I reckon you two coyotes will be doin' a heap of thinkin' on your way back to the Arrow."

"Good Lord!" said the elder Taggart; "you don't mean that? Why, it's fifteen miles to the Arrow!"

"Shucks," said Calumet; "so it is! An' it's after midnight, too. But you wouldn't want them poor, respectable critters to be gallivantin' around at this time of the night, when they ought to be in bed dreamin' of the horse-heaven which they're goin' to one of these days when the Taggarts don't own them any more. You can send a man over after them when you get back, an' if they want to go home, why, I'll let them." His voice changed again; it rang with a menacing command.

"Walkin' is good!" he said; "get goin'! You've got three minutes to get to that bend in the trail over by the crick. It's about half a mile. I'm turnin' my back. If I see you when I turn around I'm workin' that rifle there."

There was a silence which might have lasted a second. Only this small space of time was required by the Taggarts to convince them that Calumet was in deadly earnest. Then, with Neal leading, they began to run toward the bend in the trail.

Shortly Calumet turned. The Taggarts had almost reached the bend, and while he watched they vanished behind it.

Calumet picked up the rifle which he had taken from the elder Taggart, mounted his horse, and drove the Taggart animals into the corral. He decided that he would keep them there for an hour or so, to give the Taggarts time to get well on their way toward the Arrow. Had he turned them loose immediately they no doubt would have overtaken their masters before the latter had gone very far.

Remounting, Calumet rode to the bend in the trail. He carried Taggart's rifle. About a mile out on the plain that stretched away toward the Arrow he saw the two men. They seemed to be walking rapidly.

Calumet returned to the ranchhouse, got a pick and shovel, and went back to the timber clump. An hour later he was again at the corral. He led the Taggart horses out, took them to the bend in the trail, and turned them loose, for he anticipated that the Taggarts would make a complaint to the sheriff about them, and if they were found in the Lazy Y corral trouble would be sure to result.

He watched them until they were well on their way toward the Arrow, and then he returned to the ranchhouse and went to bed. No one had heard him, he told himself with a grin as he stretched out on the bed beside Dade to sleep the hour that would elapse before daylight.

CHAPTER XX

BETTY TALKS FRANKLY

Betty, however, had not been asleep. After seeking her room she had heard the rapid beat of hoofs, and, looking out of her window, she had seen Calumet when he had raced from the ranchhouse in search of Taggart. Still watching at the window, she had seen him returning; saw him disappear into the timber clump.

Some time later she had observed the Taggarts emerge and run as though their lives depended on haste. She watched Calumet as he rode by her window to take the two horses to the corral, stared at him with fascinated eyes, holding her breath with horror as he walked from the ranchhouse to the timber clump with the pick and shovel on his shoulder; stood at the window with a great fear gripping her until he came back, still carrying the pick and shovel; watched him as he released the Taggart horses, drove them to the bend in the trail, and returned to the house. His movements had been stealthy, but she heard him when he came into the house and mounted the stairs. Then she heard him no more.

But a great dread was upon her. What meant that journey to the timber clump with the pick and shovel, and what had been done there during the hour that he had remained there? The idol she knew, was buried in a clearing in the timber clump; she did not know just where, for she had looked at the diagram only once, when Calumet's father had shown it to her. She had a superstitious dread of the idol and would not, under any circumstances, have examined the diagram again. But she did not connect Calumet's visit to the timber clump with the diagram, for the latter was concealed in a safe place, under a board in the closet that led off her room; she had looked at it only once since Calumet had returned, and that only hastily, to make sure that it was still there, and she was certain that Calumet had no knowledge of its whereabouts.

Could Calumet have— She pressed her hands tightly over her breast at this thought. She did not want to think that! But he had a violent temper, and there were those men in Lazette, Denver and the other man, whom he had— She shuddered. That must be the explanation for his strange actions. But still she had heard no shot, and there was a chance that the diagram—

Tremblingly she made her way to the closet and removed the loose board. A tin box met her eyes, the box in which she had placed the diagram, and she lifted the box out, her fingers shaking as she fumbled at the fastening and raised the lid.

The box was empty.

For a long time she sat there looking at it, anger and resentment fighting within her for the mastery.

Of course, the idol really belonged to Calumet; she would have given it to him in time, but that thought did not lessen her resentment against him. Somehow, though, she was conscious of a feeling of gratefulness that his visit to the timber clump had no significance beyond the recovery of the idol, and, despite his offense against her privacy, she began after a while to view the matter with greater calm. And though she did not close her eyes during the remainder of the night, lying on her back in bed and wondering how he had discovered the hiding place of the diagram, she came downstairs shortly after daylight and proceeded calmly about her duties.

She managed, though, to be near the kitchen door when Calumet came down, and, without appearing to do so, she watched his face closely as he prepared himself for breakfast. But without result. If he had gained possession of the idol his face did not betray him. But once during the meal she looked up unexpectedly, to see him looking at her with amused, speculative eyes. Then she knew he was gloating over her.

With an appearance of grave concern, and not a little well-simulated excitement, she approached him during the morning where he was working at the corral fence. She was determined to discover the truth.

"I have some bad news for you," she said.

"Shucks," he returned, with a grin that almost disarmed her; "you don't say!"

"Yes," she continued. "When your father left his other papers with me he also left a diagram of a place in the timber clump where the idol is hidden. Some time yesterday the diagram was stolen."

"You don't say?" he said.

His voice had not been convincing enough; there had been a note of mockery in it, and she knew he was guilty of the theft.

She looked at him fairly. "You took it," she accused.

"I didn't take it," he denied, returning her gaze. "But I've got it. What are you goin' to do about it?"

"Nothing," she replied. "But do you think that was a gentleman's action—to enter my room, to search it—even for something that belonged to you?"

"No gentleman took it," he grinned; "therefore it couldn't have been me. I told you I had it; I didn't take it."

"Who did, then?"

"Do you know Telza?"

"Telza?"

"Toltec," he said; "a Toltec from Yucatan. He got it yesterday—last night—while you was gassin' to your friend, Neal Taggart."

She started, recollection filling her eyes. "A Toltec!" she said in an awed voice. "I have heard that they are fanatics where their religion is concerned; your father told me that his—that woman—Ezela—told him. She said that the tribe would never give up the search for the idol. He laughed at her; he laughed at me when he told me about it." She drew a deep breath. "And so one of them has come," she said. "I thought I heard a noise upstairs last night," she added. "It must have been then."

"An'," he jeered, "you was so busy about that time that you couldn't go to investigate. That's how you guarded it—how you filled your trust."

She gazed fixedly at him and his gaze dropped. "You are determined to continue your insults," she said coldly.

He reddened. "I reckon you deserve them," he said sneeringly. "Taggart's makin' a fool of you. I heard him palaverin' to you last night. I followed him, but lost him. Then I got into the clearin' in the timber. I run into a man named Al Sharp, who'd been knifed by the Toltec. Him an' the Toltec had been detailed by Taggart to get the diagram. Sharp said Taggart knowed my dad had drawed one. Telza got it last night while you was talkin' to Taggart. Frame-up. Sharp tried to take it away from Telza, an' Telza knifed him. Sharp's dead. I buried him last night. Telza dropped the diagram. I got it. I reckon Telza has sloped. Then I met Taggart an' his dad. They reckoned they didn't like my company overmuch an' they walked home. Didn't even wait to take their horses."

She drew a breath which sounded strangely like relief.

"Well," she said; "it was fortunate that you happened to be there to get the idol."

"Yes," he drawled, with a suspicious grin; "I reckon you feel a whole lot like congratulatin' me."

"I do," she said. "Of course you were not to have the idol just yet, but it is better for you to have it before the time than that the Taggarts should get hold of it."

"Do you know where the idol is hid?" he asked.

She told him no, that she had never consulted the diagram.

"I reckon," he said, looking into her steady eyes, "that you're tellin' the truth. In that case it will be safe where it is, for a while. I'll be lookin' it up when I get hold of the money."

Her chin raised triumphantly. "You will not get that so easily," she said. "But," she added, interestedly, "now that you know where the idol is, why don't you get it and convert it into cash?"

He reddened and eyed her with a decidedly crestfallen air. "I ain't so much stuck on monkeyin' with them religious things," he admitted.

Again a doubt arose in his mind concerning her relations with Neal Taggart. The fact that she had not divulged the hiding place of the idol to him was proof that if he had been trying to deceive her he had not succeeded. This thought filled him with a sudden elation.

"Lately," he said, "it begins to look as though you was gettin' some sense. You're gettin' reasonable. I reckon you'll be a bang-up girl, give you time."

Her lips curled, but there was a flash of something in her eyes that he could not analyze. But he was sure that it wasn't anger or disapproval. Neither was it scorn. It seemed to him that it might have been mockery, mingled with satisfaction. Certainly there was mockery in her voice when she answered him.

"Indeed!" she said. "I presume I am to take that as a compliment?"

"But you will be a fool if you cotton up to Neal Taggart," he continued, paying no attention to her question. "I know men. Taggart's a no good fourflusher, an' no woman can be anything if she takes up with him."

She looked at him with a dazzling smile. In the smile were those qualities that he had noticed during his other conversations with her when he had accused her of meeting Taggart secretly—mirth, tempered with doubt. Also, just now there was enjoyment.

"I feel flattered to think that you are taking that much interest in me," she said. "But when I am in need of someone to lay down rules of conduct for me I shall let you know. At present I feel quite competent to take care of myself. But if you are very much worried, I don't mind telling you that I have not 'cottoned up' to Neal Taggart."

"What you meetin' him for, then?" he asked suspiciously.

"I have not met Neal Taggart since the day you made him apologize to me," she said slowly.

"Who are you meetin', then?" he demanded.

She looked straight at him. "I cannot answer that," she said.

His lips curled with disbelief, and her cheeks flushed a little.

"Can't you trust anybody?" she said.

"Why," she continued as he kept silent, "don't you think that if I had intended, as you said once before, to cheat you, to take anything that belongs to you, that I could have done so long ago? I had the diagram; I could have kept the idol, the money, the ranch. What could you have done; what could you do now? Don't you think it is about time for you to realize that you are hurting no one but yourself by harboring such black, dismal thoughts. Nobody is trying to cheat you—except probably the Taggarts. Everybody here is trying their best to be friendly to you, trying to aid in making those reforms which your father mentioned. Dade likes you; Bob loves you. And even my grandfather said the other day that you are not a bad fellow. You have been making progress, more than I expected you to make. But you must make more."

The mirth had died out of her eyes; she was deeply in earnest. Calumet could see that, and the knowledge kept him silent, hushed the half-formed sarcastic replies that were on his lips, made his suspicions seem brutal, preposterous, ridiculous. There was much feeling in her voice; he was astonished and awed at the change in her; he had not seen her like this before. Her reserve was gone, the disdain with it; there was naked sincerity in her glowing eyes, in her words, in her manner. He watched her, fascinated, as she continued:

"I think you can see now that if I had wanted to be dishonest you could not have stopped me. My honesty proven, what must have been my motive in staying here to take your insults, to submit to your boorishness? I will tell you; you may believe me or not, as you please. I was grateful to your father. I gave him my promise. He wanted me to make a man of you.

"When you first came here, and I saw what a burden I had assumed, I was afraid. But I saw that you did not intend to take advantage of me; that you weren't like a good many men—brutes who prey on unprotected women; that only your temper was wanton. And instead of fearing you I began to pity you. I saw promise in you; you had manly impulses, but you hadn't had your chance. I had faith in you. To a certain extent you have justified that faith. You have shown flashes of goodness of heart; you have exhibited generous, manly sympathies—to everybody but me. But I do not care [there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes and a queer tightening of the lips that gave the lie to this declaration] how you treat me. I intend to keep my promise to your father, no matter what you do. But I want to make you understand that I am not the kind of woman you take me to be—that I am not being made a fool of by Neal Taggart—or by any man!"

Calumet did not reply; the effect of this passionate defense of herself on him was deep and poignant, and words would not come to his lips. Truth had spoken to him—he knew it. At a stroke she had subdued him, humbled him. It was as though a light had suddenly been turned on him, showing him the mean, despicable side of him, contrasting it with the little good which had come into being—good which had been placed there, fostered, and cultivated into promise. Then the light had been as suddenly turned off, leaving him with a gnawing, impotent longing to be what she wanted him to be. Involuntarily, he took his hat off to her and bowed respectfully. Then he reached a swift hand into an inner pocket of his vest and withdrew it, holding out a paper to her. She took it and looked wonderingly at it. It was the diagram of the clearing in the timber clump showing where the idol was buried.

Her face paled, for she knew that his action in restoring the diagram to her was his tribute to her honesty, an evidence of his trust in her, despite his uttered suspicions. Also, it was his surrender.

She looked up, intending to thank him. He was walking away, and did not look around at her call.

CHAPTER XXI

HIS FATHER'S FRIEND

Betty did not see Calumet again that day, and only at mealtime on the day following. He had nothing to say to her at these times, though it was plain from the expression on his face when she covertly looked at him that he was thinking deeply. She hoped this were true; it was a good sign. On the morning of the third day he saddled the black horse and rode away, telling Bob, who happened to be near him when he departed, that he was going to Lazette.

It was fully two hours after supper when he returned. Malcolm, Dade, and Bob had gone to bed. In the kitchen, sitting beside the table, on which was a spotlessly clean tablecloth, with dishes set for one—she had saved Calumet's supper, and it was steaming in the warming-closet of the stove—Betty sat. She was mending Bob's stockings, and thinking of her life during the past few months—and Calumet. And when she heard the black come into the ranchhouse yard—she knew the black's gait already—she trembled a little, put aside her mending, and went to the window.

The moon threw a white light in the yard, and she saw Calumet dismount. When he did not turn the black into the corral, hitching him, instead, to one of the rails, without even removing the saddle, she suspected that something unusual had happened.

She was certain of it when she heard Calumet cross the porch with a rapid step, and if in her certainty there had been the slightest doubt, it disappeared when he opened the kitchen door.

He looked tired; he had evidently ridden hard, for the alkali dust was thick on his clothing; he was breathing fast, his eyes were burning with some deep emotion, his lips were grim and hard.

He closed the door and stood with his back against it, looking at her. Something had wrought a wonderful change in him. He was not the Calumet she had known—brutal, vicious, domineering, sneering; though he was laboring under some great excitement, suppressing it, so that to an eye less keen than hers it might have seemed that he had been undergoing some great physical exertion and was just recovering from it. It seemed to her that he had found himself; that that regeneration for which she had hoped had come—had taken place between the time he had left that morning and now.

She did not know that it had been a mighty struggle of three days' duration; that the transformation had been a slow, tortuous thing to him. She only knew that a great change had come over him; that, in spite of the evident strain which was upon him, there was something gentle, respectful, considerate, in his face, back of Its exterior hardness—a slumbering, triumphant something that made an instant appeal to her, lighting her eyes, coloring her face, making her heart beat with an unaccountable gladness.

"Oh," she said; "what has happened to you?"

"Nothin'," he answered, with a grave smile. "That is, nothin'—yet. Except that I've found out what a fool I've been. But I've found it out too late."

"No," she said, reaching the quick conclusion that he meant it was too late for him to complete his reformation; "it is never too late."

"I think I know what you mean," he answered. "But you've got it wrong. It's somethin' else. I've got to get out of here—got to hit the breeze out of the country. The sheriff is after me."

She took a step backward. "What for?" she asked breathlessly.

"For killin' Al Sharp."

"Al Sharp!" she exclaimed, staring at him in amazement. "Why, you told me that an Indian named Telza killed him!"

"That's what Sharp told me. The Taggarts claim I done it. They've swore out a warrant. I got wind of it an' I'm gettin' out. There's no use tryin' to fight the law in a case like this."

"But you didn't kill him!" she cried, stiffening defiantly. "You said you didn't, and I know you wouldn't lie. They can't prove that you did it!"

He laughed. "You're the only one that would believe me. Do you reckon I could prove that I didn't do it? There's two against one. The evidence is against me. The Taggarts found me in the clearing with Sharp. I had the knife. No one else was around. I buried Sharp. The Taggarts will swear against me. Where's my chance?"

She was silent, and he laughed again. "They've got me, I reckon—the Taggarts have. I fancied I was secure. I didn't think they'd try to pull off anything like this. Shows how much dependence a man can put in anything. They don't look like they had sense enough to think of such a thing."

He stepped away from the door and went to the table, looking down at the dishes she had set out for him, then at her, with a regretful smile which brought a quick pang to her.

"Shucks," he said, more to himself than to her; "if this had happened three months ago I'd have been plumb amused, an' I'd have had a heap of fun with somebody before it could be got over with. Somehow, it don't seem to be so damned funny now.

"It's your fault, too," he went on, regarding her with a direct, level gaze. "Not that you got me into this mix-up, you understand—you're not to blame for a thing—but it's your fault that it don't seem funny to me. You've made me see things different."

"I am so sorry," she said, standing pale and rigid before him.

"Sorry that I'm seein' things different?" he said. "No?" at her quick, reproachful negative. "Well, then, sorry that this had to happen. Well, I'm sorry, too. You see," he added, the color reaching his face, "it struck me while I was ridin' over here that I wasn't goin' to be exactly tickled over leavin'. It's been seemin' like home to me for—well, for a longer time than I would have admitted three days ago, when I had that talk with you. Or, rather," he corrected, with a smile, "when you had that talk with me. There's a difference, ain't there? Anyways, there's a lot of things that I wouldn't have admitted three days ago. But I've got sense now—I've got a new viewpoint. An' somehow, what I'm goin' to tell you don't seem to come hard. Because it's the truth, I reckon. I've knowed it right along, but kept holdin' it back.

"Dade had me sized up right. He said I was a false alarm; that I'd been thinkin' of myself too much; that I'd forgot that there was other people in the world. He was right; I'd forgot that other people had feelings. But if he hadn't told me that them was your views I'd have salivated him. But I couldn't blame him for repeatin' things you'd said, because about that time I'd begun to do some thinkin' myself.

"In the first place, I found that I wasn't a whole lot proud of myself for guzzlin' your grandad, but I'd made a mistake an' I wasn't goin' to give you a chance to crow over me. I expect there's a lot of people do that, but they're on the wrong trail—it don't bring no peace to a man's mind. Then, I thought you was like all the rest of the women I'd known, an' when I found out that you wasn't, I thought you had the swelled head an' I figgered to take you down a peg. When I couldn't do that it made me sore. It made me feel some cheap when you showed me you trusted me, with me treatin' you like I did; but if it's any satisfaction to you, I'm tellin' you that all the time I was treatin' you mean I felt like kickin' myself.

"I reckon that's all. Don't get the idea that I'm doin' any mushin'. It's just the plain truth, an' I've had to tell you. That's why I came over here—I wanted to square things with you before I leave. I reckon if I'd stay here you'd never know how I feel about it."

She was staring at the floor, her face crimson, an emotion of deep gratitude and satisfaction filling her, though mingled with it was a queer sensation of regret. Her judgment of him had been vindicated; she had known all along that this moment would come, but, now that it had come, it was not as she had pictured it—there was discord where there should be harmony; something was lacking to make the situation perfect—he was going away.

She stood nervously tapping the floor with the toe of her shoe, hardly hearing his last words, almost forgetting that he was in the room until she saw his hand extended toward her. Then she looked up at him. There was a grave smile on his face.

"I reckon you'll shake hands with me," he said, "just to show that you ain't holdin' much against me. Well, that right," he said when she hesitated; "I don't deserve it."

Her hand went out; he looked at it, with a start, and then seized it quickly in both of his, squeezed it hard, his eyes aflame. He dropped it as quickly, and turned to the door, saying: "You're a brave little girl."

She stood silent until his hands were on the fastenings of the door.

"Wait!" she said. She attempted to smile, but some emotion stiffened her lips, stifling it. "You haven't had your supper," she said; "won't you eat if I get it ready?"

"No time," he said. "The law don't advertise its movements, as a usual thing, an' Toban's liable to be here any minute. An'," he added, a glint of the old hardness in his eyes, "I ain't lettin' him take me. It's only twenty miles to the line, an' the way I'm intendin' to travel I'll be over it before Toban can ketch me. I don't want him to ketch me—he was a friend of my dad's, an' puttin' him out of business wouldn't help me none."

"Will you be safe, then?" she asked fearfully.

"I reckon. But I won't be stoppin' at the line. I'm through here; there's nothin' here to hold me. I reckon I'll never come back this way. Shucks!" he added, leaving the door and coming back a little way into the room; "I expect I'm excited. I come near forgettin'. It's about the idol an' the money an' the ranch. I don't want any of them. They're yours. You've earned them an' you deserve them. Go to Las Vegas an' petition the court to turn the property over to you; tell the judge I flunked on the specifications."

"I don't want your property," she said in a strange voice.

"You've got to take it," he returned, with a quick look at her. "Here"—he drew a piece of paper and a short pencil from an inside pocket of his vest, and, walking to the table, wrote quickly, giving her the paper.

"I herewith renounce all claim to my father's property," it read; "I refuse the conditions of the will."

It was signed with his name. While he stood watching her, she tore the paper to small bits, scattering them on the floor.

"I think," she said, regarding him fixedly, "that you are not exactly chivalrous in leaving me this way; that you are more concerned over your own safety than over mine. What do you suppose will happen when the Taggarts discover that you have gone and that I am here alone?"

His eyes glinted with hatred. "The Taggarts," he laughed. "Did you think I was going to let them off so easy? I'm charged with one murder, ain't I? Well, after tonight there won't be any Taggarts to bother anybody."

"You mean to—" Her eyes widened with horror.

"I reckon," he said. "Did you think I was runnin' away without squarin' things with them?" There was a threat of death in his cold laugh.

While she stood with clenched hands, evidently moved by the threat in his manner and words, he said "So-long," shortly, and swung the door open.

She followed three or four steps, again calling upon him to "wait." He turned in the doorway and went slowly back to her. She was nervous, breathless, and he looked wonderingly at her.

"Wait just a minute," she said; "I have something to give you."

She darted into the sitting-room; he could hear her running up the stairs. She was gone a long time, so long a time that he grew impatient and paced the floor with long, hasty strides. He was certain that it was fully five minutes before she reappeared, and then her manner was more nervous than ever.

"You act," he said suspiciously, "as though you wanted to keep me here."

"No, no," she denied breathlessly, her eyes bright and her cheeks aflame. "How can you think that? I have brought you some money; you will need it." She had a leather bag in her hands, and she seized it by the bottom and turned out its contents—a score or more of twenty-dollar gold pieces.

"Take them," she said as he hesitated. And, not waiting for him to act, she began to gather them up. She was nervous, though, and dropped many of them several times, so that he felt that time would have been gained if she had not touched them. He returned them to the bag, with her help, and placed the bag in a pocket of his trousers. Then once more he said good-by to her.

This time, however, she stood between him and the door, and when he tried to step around her she changed her position so as to be always in front of him.

"Tell me where you are going?" she said.

"What do you want to know for?" he demanded.

"Just because," she said; "because I want to know."

His eyes lighted with a deep fire as he looked at her. She was very close to him; he felt her warm breath; saw her bosom heave rapidly, and a strange intoxication seized him.

"Shall I tell you?" he said, with sudden hoarseness, as though asking himself the question. He grasped her by the shoulders and looked closely at her, his eyes boring, probing, as though searching for some evidence of duplicity in hers. For an instant his gaze held. Then he laughed, softly, self-accusingly.

"I thought you was stringin' me—just for a minute," he said. "But you're true blue, an' I'll tell you. I'm goin' first to the Arrow to hand the Taggarts their pass-out checks. Then I'm hittin' the breeze to Durango. If you ever want me, send for me there, an' I'll come back to you, sheriff or no sheriff."

She put out a hand to detain him, but he seized it and pressed it to her side, the other with it. Then his arms went around her shoulders, she was crushed against him, and his lips met hers.

Then she was suddenly released, and he was at the door.

"Good-by," he said as he stood in the opening, the glare of light from the lamp showing his face, pale, the eyes illumined with a fire that she had never seen in them; "I'm sorry it has to end this way—I was hopin' for somethin' different. You've made me almost a man."

Then the door closed and he was gone. She stood by the table for a few minutes, holding tightly to it for support, her eyes wide from excitement.

"Oh," she said, "if I could only have kept him here a few minutes longer!"

She walked to the door and stood in the opening, shading her eyes with her hands. He had not been gone long, but already he was riding the river trail; she saw him outlined in the moonlight, leaning a little forward in the saddle, the black running with a long, swift, sure stride. She watched them until a bend in the trail shut them from view, and then with a sob she bowed her head in her arms.

CHAPTER XXII

NEAL TAGGART VISITS

When a little later Betty heard hoof-beats in the ranchhouse yard—the sounds of a horseman making a leisurely approach—she left the door and went out upon the porch.

She knew who the horseman was; she had seen him from the window of her room when she had gone upstairs to get the money for Calumet. More than once she had seen the sheriff coming over the hill—the same hill upon which Calumet and Neal Taggart had fought their duel—and she recognized the familiar figure. On his previous visits to the ranchhouse, however, Toban had left his horse in the timber clump near the house. She was not surprised, though, to hear him coming into the ranchhouse yard tonight, for his errand now was different.

Toban had evidently intended to hitch his pony to the corral fence, for it was toward it that he was directing the animal, when he caught sight of Betty on the porch and rode up beside her.

"What's up?" he inquired, leaning over in the saddle and peering closely at her; "you look flustered. Where's Marston?"

"Gone," she told him.

He straightened. "Gone where?" he demanded.

"Away—forever," she said weakly. "He heard you were after him for—for killing that man Sharp—and he left."

Toban cursed. "So he got wind of it, did he? The Taggarts must have gassed about it. Marston told you, did he? Why didn't you keep him here? He didn't kill Sharp!"

"I know it," she said; "he told me he didn't, and I believed him. He said you had a warrant for his arrest; that you were coming for him, and I was afraid that if you met him out on the range somewhere there would be shooting. I knew if I could keep him here until you came you would be able to fix it up some way—to prove his innocence. I was so glad, when I ran upstairs to get some money for him and looked out of the window. For you were coming. But he wouldn't stay."

Toban dismounted and stood in front of her, his eyes probing into hers. "I've got evidence that he didn't kill Sharp," he said; "I saw the whole deal. But I reckon," he added, a subtle gleam in his eyes, "that it's just as well that he's gone—he was a heap of trouble while he was here, anyway, wasn't he?"

"No," she said quickly, defiantly; "he—" She broke off and looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh," she said with a quavering laugh; "you are poking fun at me. You liked him, too; you told me you did!"

"I reckon I like him," said Toban, his lips grimming; "I like him well enough not to let him pull his freight on account of the Taggarts. Why, damn it!" he added explosively; "I was his father's friend, an' I ain't seein' him lose everything he's got here when he's innocent. Which way did he go?"

There was a wild hope in her eyes; she was breathing fast. "Oh," she said; "are you going after him? He went to the Arrow—first. He told me he was going to kill the Taggarts. Then he is going to get out of the Territory. Oh, Toban, catch him—please! I—"

Toban laughed. "I ain't been blind, girl," he said; "the talks I've had with you in old Marston's office have wised me up to how things stand between you an' him. I'll ketch him, don't worry about that. That black horse of his is some horse, but he ain't got nothin' on my old dust-thrower, an' I reckon that in fifteen miles—"

He was climbing into the saddle while talking, and at his last word he gave the spurs to his horse, a strong, clean-limbed bay, and was away in a cloud of dust.

Betty watched him, her hands clasped over her breast, her body rigid and tense, her eyes straining, until she saw him vanish around the bend in the trail; and then for a long time she stood on the porch, scanning the distant horizon, in the hope that she might again see Toban and be assured that nothing had happened to him. And when at last she saw a speck moving swiftly along a distant rise, she murmured a prayer and went into the house.

When she closed the kitchen door and stood against it, looking around the room, she was afflicted with a depressing sense of loss, and she realized fully how Calumet had grown into her life, and what it would mean to her if she lost him. He had been mean, cruel, and vicious, but he had awakened at last to a sense of his shortcomings; he was like a boy who had had no training, who had grown wild and ungovernable, but who, before it had become too late, had awakened to the futility, the absurdity, the falseness of it all, and was determined to begin anew. And she felt—as she had felt all along—even when she had seen him at his worst—that she must mother him, must help him to build up a new structure of self, must lift him, must give him what the world had so far denied him—his chance. And she sat at the table and leaned her head in her arms and prayed that Toban might overtake him before he reached the Arrow. For she did not want him to come back to her with the stain of their blood on his hands.

She was startled while sitting at the table, for she heard a sound from the sitting-room, and she got up to investigate. But it was only Bob, who, hearing the sounds made by Toban and herself, had come to investigate. She urged him to return to his room and to bed, and kissed him when he started up the stairs, so warmly that he looked at her in surprise.

She returned to the kitchen, sitting at the table and watching the clock. A half hour had elapsed since Toban's departure when she heard the faint beat of hoofs in the distance, and with wildly beating heart got up and went out on the porch.

For a moment she could not determine the direction from which the sounds came, but presently she saw a rider approaching from the direction of the river, and she stepped down from the porch and advanced to meet him. She feared at first that it was Toban returning alone, and she halted and stood with clenched hands, but as the rider came closer she saw it was not Toban but an entire stranger. She retreated to the porch and watched his approach.

He was a cowboy and he rode up to the edge of the porch confidently, calling to her when he came close enough to make himself heard.

"My name's Miller," he said, taking his hat off and showing her the face of a man of thirty—"Harvey Miller. Me an' my side-kicker was drivin' a bunch of Three Bar beeves to Lazette an' we was fools enough to run afoul of that quicksand at Double Fork, about five miles down the crick. We've bogged down about forty head an' I've come for help. You got any men around here?"

"Oh," she said; "how careless you were! Didn't you know the quicksand was there?"

"I ain't been runnin' this range a whole lot," said the puncher uneasily; "but I reckon even then I ought to be able to nose out a quicksand. But I didn't, an' there's forty beeves that's goin' to cow-heaven pretty soon if somethin' ain't done. If you've got any men around here which could give us a lift, we'd be pleased to thank you."

"Of course," she said. "Wait!"

She went into the house and to the stairs where she called to Dade and Malcolm, and presently, rubbing their eyes, the two came down. They were eager to assist the puncher in his trouble and without delay they caught up the two horses that Calumet had bought soon after his coming to the ranch, saddled and bridled them and rode out of the yard.

The unfortunate puncher did not wait for them. When they had announced their intention of helping him, he had told them that he would ride on ahead to help his partner, leaving them to follow as soon as they could.

"I reckon you know where it is," was his parting word to them. "Double Fork. I reckon I'll know it again when I see it," he added, grimly joking.

Betty watched Dade and Malcolm as they rode away. From the porch she could follow their movements until they traveled about a mile of the distance toward Double Fork. She saw them vanish into the wood, and when she could see them no longer she turned and went into the house.

She went to the chair in which she had previously been sitting, resting her arms on the table, but she was too nervous, too excited, to sit and she presently got up and stood, looking anxiously at the face of the clock on a shelf in a corner.

Toban had been gone a full hour, and she wondered if by this time he had overtaken Calumet, or whether Calumet was racing ahead of him on his way to execute vengeance upon the Taggarts. She was praying mutely that Toban might overtake him before this could happen when she heard a slight sound behind her and turned swiftly to see Neal Taggart standing in the doorway, grinning at her.

The room darkened before her eyes as she swayed weakly and caught at the table to support herself, and when she finally regained control of herself she forced herself to stand erect. There was a great fear in her heart, but she fought it down and faced Taggart with some semblance of dignity and composure.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded; "what do you want?"

Taggart's face wore an evil smile. Before answering her he fastened the door behind him, left it and went to the sitting-room door, peered quickly into the room and swung the door shut, barring it. Betty stood beside the table, watching him with a sort of fascination, a little color now in her face, though she lacked the power to speak or to interfere with Taggart's movements.

When he had barred the sitting-room door he came and stood beside the table, and there was a repulsive, insulting leer on his face as he looked down at her.

"Do you know what I came here for?" he said.

"No," she answered.

He reached out suddenly and grasped her hands, pulling her roughly over to him. She gave a startled cry and then stood silent before him, slender and white, a subdued little figure dwarfed by his huge bulk, seemingly helpless.

"I'll tell you," he said, the strange hoarseness of deep passion in his voice. "Me an' my dad are leavin' the country tonight. We sold the Arrow today, an' by this time tomorrow we'll be among the missin' in this section of the country. But there's some things to be done before we pull our freight. You think you've been damned slick about the idol—you an' that mule-kickin' shorthorn, Calumet Marston! But we've fooled you," he continued with a short, ugly laugh; "fooled you clean! Mebbe you know this, an' mebbe you don't. But I'm tellin' you. We set Telza, the Toltec, an' Sharp to get the diagram of the place where the idol is. They didn't get it because the clearin' ain't dug up any. Telza knifed Sharp an' he's sloped, likely figgerin' that this country ain't healthy for him any more. You've got the diagram an' I want it. I'm goin' to get it if I have to kill you to get it! Understand!

"You've got no chance," he sneered, as she looked around the room furtively, hopelessly. "We framed up a murder charge on Calumet and we've been in the timber since dark waitin' for the sheriff to come an' get him. We saw him hit the breeze toward the Arrow, an' we saw the sheriff go after him. Neither of them can be back here for hours yet, an' when they do get back I'll have done what I've set out to do."

He laughed again, harshly, triumphantly. "Dade an' Malcolm bothered me a bit until I thought of sendin' Harvey Miller here with that fairy tale about the forty beeves bogged down in Double Fork, but I reckon now—"

She gasped, comprehending the trap he had set for her, and his grip on her hands tightened.

"Dade an' Malcolm can't get back for an hour yet," he gloated, "an' by that time we'll be miles away." His voice changed from mockery to savage determination. "I want that diagram, an' I want it right now, or I'll tear you to pieces. Do you understand? I'll beat you up so's your own mother wouldn't know you." His grip tightened on her arms, they were twisted until she screamed with agony.

In this extremity her thoughts went to Calumet; she remembered vividly what he had said about the idol when she had asked him why he did not get it and convert it into cash. "I ain't so much stuck on monkeyin' with them religious things," he had said. And she was certain that if Calumet knew of her danger he would not have had her hesitate an instant in relinquishing the diagram to Taggart.

The idol had brought him nothing but evil, anyway, and she was certain that Calumet would not mourn its loss, even if Taggart were to be the gainer by it, if its possession were to entail punishment, death, perhaps, to her.

"Wait!" she cried as Taggart gave her arms an extra vicious twitch; "you may have it!"

He released her with a greedy, satisfied grin and stood crouching and alert while she turned her back to him and fumbled in her bodice, where she had kept the diagram since the discovery of its former hiding place by Telza.

She turned presently and gave him the paper, and he seized it eagerly and examined it, gloating over it.

"That's it," he said; "that's the clearing!"

She was holding her arms, where he had squeezed them, her face flushed with rage at the indignity he had offered her. She stood rigid, defiant.

"If that is all you came for, you may go," she said; "go instantly!"

He jammed the paper into his pocket and grinned at her.

"It ain't all," he said. "I owe you somethin' for the way you've treated me. I'm goin' to pay it. You've been too much of a lady to talk to me, but you'll live here with that—"

He reached suddenly out and seized her hands again, attempting to throw an arm around her. She evaded the arm and wrenched herself free, slipping past him and darting to the other side of the table. He stood opposite her, his hands on the table as he leaned toward her, grinning at her, brutally and bestially, and pausing so as to prolong his enjoyment of her predicament.

"I'll get you, damn you!" he said; "I've got the time and you can't get out." He seized the kerosene lamp on the table and walking backward, placed it on a shelf at the side of the wall near the stove. Then with a chuckle of satisfaction and mockery he again went to the table seizing its edge in his hands and shoving it against her so that she was forced to retreat from its advance.

She divined instantly that he intended to force her against one of the walls and thus corner her, and she opposed her strength to his, pushing with all her power against the table in an effort to retard its advance.

It was to no purpose, for he was a strong man and his passions were aroused, and in spite of her brave struggle the table continued to move and she to retreat before it.

"Oh!" she said, in a panic of fear and dread, her face flushed, her eyes wide and bright, her breath coming in great panting sobs; "Oh! you beast! You beast!"

He did not answer. His eyes were burning with a wanton fire, they glowed with the fierce, fell purpose of animal desire; he breathed shrilly, rapidly, gaspingly, though the strength that he had been compelled to use to overmatch hers had not been great.

She did not succeed in retarding the advance of the table, but she did succeed in directing its course a little, so that instead of backing her against the wall, as he no doubt intended to do, she brought up finally against the stove in the corner.

There was a fire in the stove—she had kept it going to keep Calumet's supper warm—and when she felt her body against it she reached around and secured a flat iron. The handle burned her hand, but she lifted it and hurled it with all her force at his head. He dodged, laughing derisively. She seized another and threw it, and this he dodged also. She was reaching for the teakettle when he shoved the table aside and lunged at her, and she dropped the kettle with a scream of horror and slipped around the stove to the wall near the sitting-room door, reaching the latter and trying frantically to unbar it.

She heard Bob's voice on the other side of the door; he was calling, "Betty! Betty!" in shrill, scared accents, and when Taggart leaped at her, seizing her by the shoulders as she worked with the fastenings of the door, she screamed to Bob to get the rifle from Malcolm's room, directing him to go out the front way, go around to the kitchen and shoot Taggart through one of the windows.

How long she struggled with Taggart there by the door she did not know. It might have been an hour or merely a minute. But she fought him, clawing at his face with her hands, biting him, kicking him. And she remembered that he was getting the better of her, that his breath was in her face and that he was dragging her toward the lamp on the shelf, evidently intending to extinguish it—that he had almost reached it, was, indeed, reaching a hand out to grasp it, when there came a flash from the window, the crash of breaking glass, and the roar of an exploding firearm.

She also remembered thinking that Bob had taken a desperate chance in shooting at Taggart when she was so close to him, and she had a vivid recollection of Taggart releasing her and staggering back without uttering a sound. She caught a glimpse of his face as he sank to the floor; there was a gaping hole in his forehead and his eyes were set and staring with an expression of awful horror and astonishment. Then the kitchen darkened, she felt the floor rising to meet her, and she knew no more.

CHAPTER XXIII

FOR THE ALTARS OF HIS TRIBE

The first sound that Betty heard when consciousness began to return to her was a loud pounding at the kitchen door.

She had fallen to the floor just beneath the shelf on which the lamp sat, and she raised herself on an elbow and looked around. At first she did not remember what had happened, and then she saw Taggart, lying face upward on the floor near her, the frightful hole in his forehead, and she shuddered as recollection in a sickening flood came to her. Bob, dear Bob, had not failed her.

She got up, trembling a little, breathing a prayer of thankfulness, shrinking from the Thing that lay on the floor at her feet with its horror-stricken eyes staring straight up at the ceiling, making her way to the kitchen door, for the pounding had grown louder and more insistent, and she could hear a voice calling hoarsely to her.

But it did not seem to be Bob's voice; it was deeper and more resonant, and vibrated clearly, strongly, and with passion. It was strangely familiar, though, and she shook a little with a nameless anxiety and anticipation as she fumbled at the fastenings of the door and swung it open.

It was not Bob, but Calumet, who stepped in. One of his heavy pistols was in his right hand; with the left he had helped her to swing the door open, and he stood, for the first brief instant following his entrance, his arms extended, gazing sharply at Taggart. Then, quickly, apparently satisfied that he need have no concern for his enemy, he turned to Betty, placed both hands on her shoulders—the heavy pistol in his right resting on her—she felt the warmth of the barrel as it touched the thin material of her dress and knew then that it had been he who had fired the shot that had been the undoing of her assailant—and holding her away from him a little peered searchingly at her.