With these words he handed Lamy the note and 96 bounded back up the slope. The screen of cedar bushes closed behind him as Lamy pushed on, looking back, wondering and confused, with heightened color in his face.
It was late that night when Lamy returned to the little ranch house. Frankie had gone to bed, but his sister was waiting up for him with a meal and hot tea ready.
He talked to his sister in a low voice while he ate. When he had finished he read the note for the third time; read it aloud, so his sister could hear.
“Lamy: I meant to take you back and give you up, for I was pretty sore. Then I saw your resemblance to your small brother by the freckles and eyes and I remembered he had said something about you saying some decent things about me. I guess you thought they were nice things, anyway.
“Then I thought maybe you got your ideas about easy money from the stuff you’d heard about me, and I sort of felt kind of responsible. I thought I’d teach you a lesson by flirting with that posse and telling you that killing story to show you what a man is up against in this game. I guess I can’t get away from it because they won’t let me. But you don’t have to start. I was going to give you a good talking to before I let you go, but I hadn’t counted on the little kid in the house. I’m glad he told the truth. He’ll remember that. I gave you back your gun because you hit the nail on the head when you said if I was square I’d give it to you and let you make a run for it.
“I took the money off you so if they got us I could take the blame and let you off. I can take 97 the blame without hurting my reputation, so don’t worry. I’m not doing this so much for your sake as for your kid brother and your sister. I figure you’d sort of caught on when I heard they hadn’t located my horse. That was a good turn. Do me another by getting some sense. There’s plenty of us fellows that’s quite capable to furnish the bad examples.
“Rathburn.”
The girl was crying softly with an arm about her brother’s neck when he finished reading.
“What––what are you going to do, Eddie?” she sobbed.
“I’m goin’ to irrigate!” said Ed Lamy with a new note in his voice. “I’m goin’ to build a sure-enough ranch for us with this piece of paper for a corner stone!”
Dawn was breaking over the mountains, strewing the gleaming peaks with warm rosettes of color. A clear sky, as deep and blue as any sea, arched its canopy above. Virgin stands of pine and fir marched up the steep slopes to fling their banners of green against the snow. Silver ribbons of streams laughed in the welcome sunlight.
In a rock-walled gulch, far above the head of Sunrise Cañon, a fire was burning, its thin smoke streamer riding on a vagrant breeze. Near by lay a dun-colored horse on its side, tied fast. A man was squatting by the blaze.
“I hate to have to do this, old hoss,” the man crooned; “but we’ve got to change the pattern of that CC2 brand if we want to stick together, an’ I reckon we want to stick.”