The war, with the resultant high price of beef and hides, had made him. Ignorant, old, crabbed, alone, unliked by all who knew him, he was now worth nearly half a million dollars, which did him very little good. For he limped about with a cane and had not mounted a horse for several years. Wretched and old and worn to a wreck—and he longed for youth and something to spend his money for, and a bud of a girl named Rosaline Dimmette, who lived with her parents on a forest homestead in the centre of his summer grazing lands.
Until Gus knew the girl he had put forth every effort to oust the homesteaders. But Dimmette was firmly ensconced and had the Agricultural Department back of him; he was obstinate and a fighter. Then one day Gus Tanburt rode up to make further snarling protest against Dimmette’s use of the water in a certain stream, and for the first time he saw Rosaline—and wanted her. He decided then and there that the eighteen-year-old girl, fresh and feminine and ruddy as mountain mahogany, should be the price of the Dimmettes’ remaining peacefully on their claim. But he knew that he was old and crippled and unacceptable as a husband, and dally growing more so. So the Dimmettes had remained, unhampered by warfare, while Gus Tanburt brooded over his lost youth and vigour and longed for Rosaline.
Then for weeks the papers were full of articles about rejuvenation by the substitution of animal glands in the aged and unambitious. Gus scoffed at it at first, then believed and suffered with longing, then scoffed again. And one day to his rancho came two old acquaintances, Smith Morley and Omar Leach.
Leach, Morley and his wife, after deserting Charmian’s expedition on the desert, had ridden back to Diamond H and tried to get possession of at least one of the automobiles. One or both they meant to sell before the party could overtake them, and with the money flee to Australia, where they might have enough funds remaining to outfit themselves for an opal-prospecting trip into the sandy wastes. But Roger Furlong, owner of Diamond H, knew Leach and Morley of old, and knew nothing good about them. He positively refused to turn over to them the cars of Andy and Dr. Shonto, well knowing that the prospectors could not afford such cars. Furlong had recovered his horses and given the two men the boot, but promised to board Mrs. Morley until such time as he found it convenient to take her to the main line of travel to the nearest city. Obliged to be content with this arrangement, Leach and Morley had set out afoot for Tanburt’s ranch. They would be more welcome there, for in the past they had turned several shady deals—mostly connected with salted mines and unbranded calves—which had helped to lay the groundwork for the fortune that old Gus possessed to-day. Yes, they might be given a grudging welcome at Tanburt Ranch while they were looking about for a way to get out of their present difficulties. And they reached old Gus at a time when the newspapers, which he read with one thick, dirt-calloused finger pointing out the lines, were carrying columns about the rejuvenation of human glands.
And Gus learned that one of the most famous gland specialists in the world was then on the desert, not many miles away. So with bleary eyes watering in eagerness and trembling hands, he offered to reward Leach and Morley handsomely to find Dr. Inman Shonto and bring him to Tanburt Ranch.
“But how can we go about it?” Leach asked Morley when they were alone. “We can’t approach Doctor Shonto after ducking our nuts the way we did. Confound that Shirttail Henry!”
“There’s enough in it,” said Morley, “to make a trial worth while. We need the money, and it’s no time to let our pride stand in the way. Just sneak back and confess we’re crooked, and put it up to Shonto what Gus wants. Tell him there’ll be a big fee, and— Oh, we’ll get by some way! Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof. I can talk better on the spur of the moment than I can after a careful rehearsal.”
“Will Shonto come?”
“That’s a question. He’s got piles of money. He’s stuck on Mrs. Reemy. Chances are he won’t.”
Leach grew thoughtful. “D’ye suppose they’re still out there on the desert? What would they be doing, Smith? By now Shirttail Henry has spilled the beans about the opal claims. Chances are they’re on their way back to Diamond H right now to get their cars.”