The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

The first line of the article stated that Slade, the cattle king, had been released. There was insufficient proof to convict on any count. She felt a curious little shiver of fear for Harris with Slade once more at large. The article retold the old tale of the fight and portrayed Slade, on his release, viewing the range which he had once controlled and finding a squatter family on every available ranch site.

She had a flash of sympathy for Slade as she thought his sensations must have been similar to her own when she had looked upon the ruins of the Three Bar. But this was blotted out by the knowledge that he had only met the same treatment he had handed to so many others; that he had dropped into the trap he had built for her. She found no real sympathy for Slade,—only fear for Harris since Slade was freed. The old sense of responsibility for her brand had been worn too long to be shed at will. She knew that now.

"I suppose you'll be surprised to hear that I'm going back," she said.

Her father's old friend smiled across at her and puffed his pipe.

"Surprised!" he said. "Why, I've known all along you'd be going back before long. I could have told you that when you stepped off the train."

He left her alone with Deane when the younger man arrived. She plunged into her subject at once.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But I'm going home. I'm not cut out for this—not for long at one time. In ten days they'll be rounding up the calves and I'll have to be there. I want to smell the round-up fire and slip my twine on a Three Bar calf; to throw my leg across a horse and ride, and feel the wind tearing past. I'm longing to watch the boys topping off bad ones in the big corral and jerking Three Bar steers. It will always be like that with me. So this is good-by."

Four days later, in the early evening, the stage pulled into Coldriver with a single passenger. The boys were in from a hundred miles around for one last spree before round-up time. As the stage rolled down the single street the festivities were in full swing. From one lighted doorway came the blare of a mechanical piano accompanied by the scrape of feet; the sound of drunken voices raised in song issued from the next; the shrill laughter of a dance-hall girl, the purr of the ivory ball and the soft clatter of chips, the ponies drowsing at the hitch rails the full length of the street, the pealing yelp of some over-enthusiastic citizen whose night it was to howl; all these were evidences of the wide difference between her present surroundings and those of the last eight months. She gazed eagerly out of the stage window. It was good to get back.

Both the driver and the shotgun guard who rode beside him were new men on the job since she had left and neither of them knew the identity of their passenger. As the stage neared the rambling log hotel where she would put up for the night a compact group of riders swung down the street. Her heart seemed to stop as she recognized the big paint-horse at their head. She had not fully realized how much she longed to see Cal Harris. As they swept past she recognized man after man in the light that streamed from the doorways and dimly illuminated the wide street.

Instead of dismounting in a group they suddenly split up, as if at a given signal, scattering the length of the block and dismounting singly. There was something purposeful in this act and a vague apprehension superseded the rush of gladness she had experienced with the first unexpected view of the Three Bar crew. Men who stood on the board sidewalks turned hastily inside the open doors as they glimpsed the riders, spreading the news that the Three Bar had come to town. The driver pulled up in front of the one hotel.