The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

X

Harris had left the ranch an hour before daylight, his ride occasioned by the reports of several of the men. In the last three days each couple that worked the range had found one or more of the new white-face bulls shot down in their territory. The evidence, as Harris pieced the scraps together, indicated that a lone rider had made a swift raid, riding for forty miles along the foot of the hills in a single day, shooting down every Three Bar bull that crossed his trail. A dozen dead animals marked his course. A few more such raids and the Three Bar calf crop would be extremely short the following spring. The near end of the foray had extended to within ten miles of the home ranch and Harris had gone out to have a look at some of the nearer victims. He located two by the flights of meat-eating birds but range stock had blotted out all possible signs. He rode back to the corrals in the early afternoon and joined Billie and Deane.

"Not a track," he said. "We must expect more or less of that. They'll cut in on us wherever there's a chance."

As Harris left them the girl pointed out a horseman riding up the lane.

"The sheriff," she volunteered, and Deane noted an odd tightening of her lips.

Alden dismounted and accosted Moore and Horne. From their grinning faces she knew that they were deliberately evading whatever questions the sheriff might be asking. Horne's voice reached them.

"Whoever it is seems to be doing a right neat job," he said. "Why not let him keep it up?"

The sheriff came over to Deane and the girl.

"Billie, I expect you can tell me who's doing this killing over in the Breaks," he said.

She was unaccustomed to the easy dissimulation that was second nature to the men of the whole countryside and her eyes fell under the sheriff's steady gaze. Deane was looking into her face and with a shock he realized that she could pronounce the name of the assassin but was deliberately withholding it. She raised her head with a trace of defiance.

"No. I can't tell you," she said.

Deane expected to hear the sheriff's curt demand that she divulge the name of the man he sought. It must be easily apparent to him, as it was to Deane, that she knew. But Alden only dropped a hand on her shoulder and stood looking down at her.

"All right, girl," he said mildly. "I reckon you can't tell. He can't be such a rotten sort; if you refuse to turn him up." He pushed back his hat and smiled at Deane. "We have to humor the womenfolks out here," he explained, as he turned toward the bunk house.

Deane, already at a loss to grasp the mental attitude of the range dwellers, was further mystified by a sheriff who spoke of humoring the ladies in a matter pertaining to a double killing.

"Billie, you know!" he accused; "why wouldn't you tell?"

"Because there's a good chance that he's a friend of mine," she stated simply. "Those men had it coming to them and some way I can't feel any regret."

"But if it was justified he should give himself up and stand trial," he said.

"Then let him do it of his own accord," she said. "I certainly won't." The memory of little Bangs, his adoring gaze fastened on her face, was uppermost in her mind and brought a lump to her throat. "I hope he gets them all."

"Billie, let me take you away from all this," Deane urged again. "Let me give you the things every girl should have—shut all the rough spots out of your path. I want to give you the things every girl needs to round out her life—a home and love and shelter."

Shelter! Slade's words recurred to her: "A soft front lawn to range in."

"This is what I need," she said and waved an arm in a comprehensive sweep. Two hands, recently arrived, were unpacking before the bunk house. A third was shoeing a horse near the blacksmith shop. The mule teams were plowing in the flats. A line of chap-clad men roosted as so many crows on the top bar of the corral, mildly interested in the performance of another who twirled a rope in a series of amazing tricks. "That's what I need; all that," she said. "And you're asking me to give it up."

"But it's not the life for a girl," he insisted.

"You've told me a hundred times that I was different from other girls. But now you're wanting me to be like all the rest. Where would the difference be then?" she asked a little wistfully. "Why can't you go on liking me the way I am, instead of making me over?"

But Carlos Deane could not see. It was his last evening alone with her and after the meal they rode across the hills through the moonlight. In that hour she was very near to doing as he wished. If only he had suggested that she come to him as soon as the Three Bar was once more a prosperous brand; had only pointed out how she could spend months of each year on the old home ranch,—then he might have won his point without waiting. But that is not the way of man toward woman. His plea was that she leave all this behind—for him. And his hold was not quite strong enough to induce her to give up every link of the life she had loved for long years before Carlos Deane had been even a part of it.

"I can't tell you now," she said as they rode back to the corrals. "Not now. It would take something out of me—the vital part—if I had to leave the old Three Bar in the shape it's in today. It's sort of like deserting a crippled child."

The next day her stand was unaltered and in the evening, when the whole Three Bar personnel swung to their saddles and headed for the frolic at Brill's, Deane had been unable to gain her promise. His luggage had been sent ahead in a buckboard, for the dance was to be an all-night affair and he would leave on the morning stage.

There were but few horses at the hitch rails when they reached the post but a dozen voices raised in song drifted faintly to their ears and apprised them of the fact that other arrivals were not far behind. As the Three Bar girl entered at the head of her men she saw Bentley and Carpenter leaning against the bar, well toward the rear of the room.

Within the last week she had heard that Carp, after being let off by Harris, had started up a brand of his own down in Slade's range. Harris's remarks about Slade's mode of acquiring new brands recurred to her,—that he fostered some small outfit for a few seasons, then bought it out. As the men scattered she commented on this to Harris. The Three Bar foreman nodded.

"Likely the same old move," he said. "I've been trying to get a line on Carp. He started off with a bill of sale from Slade for a hundred head of Three Bar rebrands. But it didn't come direct from Slade at that. Morrow engineered the deal. Said he came into the paper for two years' back pay from Slade; last year and the one before—had figured to start up for himself and was to draw his pay in cows. The paper is dated at the time Morrow quit Slade last year. What can we prove wrong with that? Morrow simply sells the paper to Carp. Of course it's a plant. All Carp has to do is to run Slade's Triangle on the hips of any number of Three Bar she-stock. Like I told you, there's no way to check Slade up on the number of our rebrands. If Carp gets caught it's his own hard luck."

A dozen men from the Halfmoon D swarmed in the door. Mrs. McVey, the owner's wife, stationed herself in one corner with the Three Bar girl while the men gravitated to the bar.

"I'll take Deane in tow for a while," Harris said. "And get him acquainted with folks." He led Deane to the bar and gave him scraps of the history of various neighbors as they arrived.

Harper's men came in, the albino standing half a head taller than any other on the floor, and they mingled with the rest as if their records were the most immaculate of the lot. Two of Slade's foremen arrived with their families. The wife of one was lean and bent, worn from years of drudgery. The other was an ample, red-cheeked woman of great self-confidence, her favorite pose that of planting both hands on her hips, elbows outspread, and nodding vigorously to emphasize her speech.

Bart Epperson, a trapper from far back in the hills, had brought his family to the frolic. Mrs. Epperson was a tiny, meek woman who had but little to say. Her two daughters, in their late teens, had glossy black hair, high cheek bones and faint olive tinge of skin which betrayed a trace of Indian ancestry.

Lafe Brandon came at the head of his tribe. Ma Brandon, white-haired and motherly and respected by all, was possessed of a queer past known to the whole community. Forty years before Lafe Brandon had stopped at a sod hut on the Republican and found a girl wife with both eyes discolored from blows of her heavy-handed spouse. Lafe had left the bearded ruffian unconscious, with a broken nose and three fractured ribs, and had ridden off with the girl. Five sons and a daughter had been born to them. Two years before, Kit Brandon, the daughter, had been wed to a merchant in Coldriver. The traveling parson who married them heard of the parents' queer case, learned that Ma Brandon's former mate was long since dead, and spoke earnestly to the pair. Both were willing to do anything which might prove of future benefit to Kit. The conference resulted in the old couple's standing before the parson and having the marriage service performed for them an hour before a like rite was rendered for the daughter.

Harris laughed as he informed Deane of this bit of history.

"They both considered it rather an unnecessary fuss," he said. "And it's rumored that they had their first quarrel of a lifetime on the way home from the service."

Two of the sons were married and living at the home ranch. They came to the dance with the rest of the family. Lou Brandon's wife, Dolly, was a former dance-hall girl of Coldriver, and Al Brandon's better half, Belle, was the daughter of a Utah cowman.

An extra stage-load rolled in from Coldriver and four couples joined the throng.

"Ex-school-teachers," Harris informed. "They marry them so fast that it's hard to keep one on the job instructing the rising generation in the Coldriver school."

Deane shrank from the thought of the Three Bar girl in such a mixture. Someway she seemed many shades finer than the rest.

"It couldn't be otherwise," Harris said, when Deane expressed this thought. "She was raised at the knee of one of the finest women in the world. I remember her mother myself—a little; and I've heard my own mother sing the praises of Elizabeth Warren a thousand times."

The albino interrupted them.

"Cal—how come?" he greeted. The three men conversed in the most casual, friendly fashion, as if there had never been a hint of friction between Harris and Harper in the past.

A great voice rose above the buzz of conversation, filling the big room to the very rafters.

"Choose your pardners for the dance!" Waddles bellowed from the makeshift platform at one end of the room. "Go get your ga-a-als!"

Deane moved across to the Three Bar girl. There was a general rush for the side opposite the bar where the ladies had gathered. Couples squared off for the Virginia reel, the shortage of ladies rectified by a handkerchief tied on the arm of many a chap-clad youth to signify that he was, for the moment, a girl. Waddles picked his guitar; two fiddles broke into "Turkey in the Straw" and the dance was on with Waddles calling the turns.

All through the room they shuffled and bowed, whirled partners, locked elbows and swung, the shriek of fiddles and scrape of feet punctuated by the caller's boom.

"Grab your gals for the grand right an' left!" the big voice wailed. "Swing, rattle and roar!" "Clutch all partners for a once and a half!" "Swing your gals and swing 'em high!" "Prance, scuffle and scrape!"

Slade came in alone as the first dance was ended.

A croupier and lookout, imported from Coldriver for the event, opened Brill's roulette layout in one corner, a game he usually operated himself on the occasions when his patrons chose to try their fortune against the bank. The rattle of chips, the whir of the ivory ball and the professional chant of lookout and croupier sounded between dances.

"Single ought in the green," the croupier droned.

"Single ought in the green," the lookout echoed. "The pea-green shade is the bank's per cent. The house wins and the gamblers lose. Place your bets for another turn."

"She's off," the croupier chanted. "Off again on the giddy whirl. The little ivory ball—she spins!"

"Ten in the black," the croupier called. "Ten in the black," the lookout seconded. "The black pays and the red falls off; the even beats the odd."

The full enjoyment of a novel scene was spoiled for Deane by the sickening realization that the Three Bar girl was part of it, rubbing elbows with the nondescript throng. He looked again at Harper, the rustler chief; at Slade, with his peculiar turtle-like face, Slade the cattle king—the killer. Billie Warren stood between the two Epperson girls whose faces betrayed the taint of Indian blood, an arm about the shoulders of each of them. The sheriff who had said that men must humor womenfolks was leaning against the bar. Deane turned to Harris but found him looking off across the room. He turned his own eyes that way and glimpsed a dark man with an overlong, thin face and a set bleak stare. Morrow had just come in.

Five minutes later Harris stepped out the back door and Deane followed him. At the sound of a footfall behind him Harris whirled on his heel and when he confronted Deane the dim light from the door glinted on something in his hand.

"Sho," Harris deprecated. "I'm getting spooky. I thought it was some one else." He slipped the gun back in its holster. "There's one or two that would like right well to run across me from behind."

"I followed you out to tell you it was decent of you to insist that I stay over a few days," Deane said. "It was a white thing to do, considering that we both want the same thing."

"We both want her to have what's best for her," Harris said. "And I don't know as she could do any better than to take up with you."

"It may sound rather trite—coming after that," Deane said. "But anyway, I'll have to say that I feel the same way about you."

"Then, if we're both right in our estimates, why she can't go very far wrong, either way she turns," Harris said. "So I reckon we're both content."

Harris moved on and motioned Deane to accompany him.

"I thought I glimpsed a man I knew a few minutes back," Harris said. "I'd like right well to have a talk with him."

They wandered completely round the post and looked in the shadows of the outbuildings but could find no trace of life.

"Likely I was mistaken," Harris said at last. "I saw a face just outside the door. He was more or less on my mind—the party I thought it was. Some one else I expect, and he's gone inside."

They returned to the hall. Morrow stood with two Halfmoon D men at the end of the bar. Harris motioned him aside and Morrow withdrew from the others.

"This is pretty far north for you, Morrow," Harris suggested.

"Is there any one restricting my range?" Morrow demanded. "If there is I'd like to know."

"Then I'll tell you," Harris answered. "The road is open—as long as you keep on the road. Any time you stray a foot off the beaten trail you're on the Three Bar range. I don't figure to get gunned up from the brush more than once by the same man. Every Three Bar boy has orders to shoot you down on sight any time you heave in view anywhere within twenty miles of the Three Bar; so I wouldn't stray off the main-traveled road any time you're going through."

Lanky Evans had detached himself from a group and Morrow looked up to find the tall man standing at his shoulder.

"So you hunt in pairs," Morrow remarked.

"And later in packs," Lanky returned. "Why don't you ever come up and visit us? Every time I'm riding north I keep looking back, expecting to see you come cantering up from the south. Harris been commenting about the little dead-line we've drawn on you?"

"What's the object of all this conversation?" Morrow flared. "If you've got anything to say to me why get it over with."

"Nothing special," Evans said. "I just thought maybe I could goad you into being imprudent enough to come up our way—which I'm sure hoping to observe you north of the line and somewhere within a thousand yards."

Evans turned away and Morrow rejoined the two men he had left at the bar. Deane looked about him. Apparently no one had noticed the little by-play.

"Evans didn't exactly mean quite all of that," Harris explained. "Of course if Morrow does come up our way Lanky would prefer to see him first—but he would rather he'd keep away. He staged that little talk as a safeguard for me. If Morrow acquires the idea that several folks are anxious to see him up there, he's apt to be real cautious how he prowls round the Three Bar neighborhood looking for me."

Deane looked again at Morrow and saw that Moore and Horne had drawn him aside from the rest. The two Three Bar men were grinning and Morrow's face was set and scowling.

"The boys must have framed it up among themselves," Harris said. "That's the third pair I've seen conversing with him. It's doubtful whether Morrow is deriving much pleasure out of the dance."

Deane crossed over to Billie. The music started but she shook her head as he would have led her to the floor.

"Sit down. I want to talk with you. Long time no see 'um after to-night," she said. "It'll be daylight soon and I've a long tale to tell."

As the others danced she gave him a dozen messages to impart to various friends.

"Tell Judge Colton that Three Bar stock is rising," she said. "And that as soon as things are all smoothed out, he can expect me for a boarder. I'm going to make him one nice long visit."

Practically all of her time away from the Three Bar had been spent with Judge Colton's family and she was accepted as part of the household. It was there she had met Deane and those others to whom her messages were sent.

Through an opening in the dancing throng Deane suddenly had a clear view of the open rear door—one brief glimpse before the crowd closed once more and shut off his view. He had an idea that he had seen a face, hazy and indistinct, a few feet outside the door. He wondered if it could be the friend for whom Harris had searched.

"Make the visit soon, Billie," he urged. "It's been a long month since we've had you with us. We thought maybe you'd deserted us back there. How soon will this visit start—and how long will it last?"

"It will start as soon as the Three Bar doesn't need me," she said. "And last a long time."

Again a lane opened through the crowd, affording a view of the door. Deane saw the face outside in the night, and a foot or more below if some bright object glinted in the dim light which filtered through. The music ceased and the chant of the roulette croupier began, mingling with the smooth purr of the ivory ball. There came a sudden hush from the vicinity of the rear door, a hush that spread rapidly throughout the room, so swift are the perceptions of a frontier gathering.

Old Rile Foster stood just inside, his gun half-raised before him. Canfield and Lang stood together in the center of the floor, apart from the rest and with no others in line beyond them. Rile tossed a boot heel on to the floor and as it rolled toward the two men he shot Canfield through the chest. Lang's gun crashed almost with his own. Rile's knees sagged under him and he pitched face down on the floor, his arms sprawled out before him.

The surge of the crowd, pressing back out of line, threw the albino on the edge of it, his big form towering alone.

The old man raised his head from the floor and crooked his wrist with the last of his ebbing strength.

"Four for Bangs," he said, and shot Harper between the eyes.