E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE FORFEIT

by

RIDGWELL CULLUM

Author of
"The Night Riders," "The Way of The Strong," "The Trail of The Axe,"
Etc.

A. L. Burt Company
Publishers ——— New York
Published by arrangement with George W. Jacobs & Company
Copyright, 1917, by
George W. Jacobs & Company
All rights reserved

CONTENTS

I. AT RAINBOW HILL VALLEY II. CONFLICTING CURRENTS III. TRAILING THE "BLACK TAIL" IV. THE WEAKER VESSEL V. THE HANGING BEE VI. THE RAIDERS RAIDED VII. OUTLAND JUSTICE VIII. JEFF CLOSES THE BOOK IX. FOUR YEARS LATER X. THE POLO CLUB RACES XI. ELVINE VAN BLOOREN XII. THE TEMPERING XIII. THE NEWS XIV. THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR XV. THE HOME-COMING XVI. THE RANCHMAN XVII. THE CALL TO ORRVILLE XVIII. DUG MCFARLANE XIX. THE RETURN HOME XX. AT BUD'S XXI. THE BARRIER XXII. THREATENINGS XXIII. THE HEARTS OF TWO WOMEN XXIV. TO SPRUCE CROSSING XXV. AN EPIC BATTLE XXVI. UNDER THE VEIL XXVII. THE ROUND-UP

THE FORFEIT

CHAPTER I

AT RAINBOW HILL VALLEY

A companionable silence prevailed in the room. At intervals it was broken, but only by the rustle of paper or the striking of a match. The heavy breathing, almost amounting to a snore, of one of the two men, and the inarticulate protests of a laboring "rocker" chair—these things were only a part of it.

The man at the table was deeply immersed in a miniature sea of calculations. His fair brows were drawn in deep concentration. Frequently he was at great pains to relight a pipe which contained nothing but charred remnants of tobacco and a moist, unsmokable mixture which afforded only a somewhat offensive taste and aroma.

The partner in this companionship overflowed an undersized "rocker," which withstood, with supreme heroism, the overwhelming forces of its invader. But its sufferings, under the rhythmic rise and fall imposed upon it, found expression at intervals, although they failed to inspire the least sympathy. The heedless giant's whole attention seemed to be absorbed in the personality and effort of his friend.

Finally the latter raised a pair of deep blue eyes. Following upon a sigh, he thrust his papers aside with a brusque movement of relief. Then he raised a hand to his broad forehead and smoothed his disheveled fair hair, which seemed to have undergone some upheaval as a result of the mental disturbance his efforts had inspired in the brain beneath. The handsome eyes smiled a reassuring smile into the rugged face of his friend.

"Well?" he enquired, without seeming to desire a reply.

"Wal?" echoed the gruff voice of the man in the rocker.

"It's done."

"So—I guessed."

The patient amusement in the twinkling eyes of the man in the rocker was good to see. There was confidence, too, in his regard of the younger man.

"Can we do it—sure?" he enquired, as the other remained silent.

"Without a worry."

"Then dope it out, boy. The easiest thing in the world is handin' out dollars on a right enterprise. I don't know nothin' better—except it is takin' 'em in on the same sort o' play."

Jeffrey Masters smiled more broadly into his friend's good-humored face.

"Five years back, handing out twenty thousand dollars would have given us a nightmare, even on a right proposition," he said. "It isn't that way now. Guess we'll sleep on this thing like new-born babes with our tanks filled right. Nat Williams is out to sell quick, and if we're bright, it's up to us to buy quick. For twenty thousand dollars," he proceeded, referring to his figures, "we get his house, barns, corrals, and all his rolling stock. His growing crops and machinery. The bunch of old cows and calves he's pleased to call his 'herds.' Also three teams of Shire-bred heavy draft horses, and six hundred and forty acres of first-class wheat land and grazing that only needs capital and hustle to set right on top. I don't guess it'll worry us any to hand it all it needs that way. This buy will join up my 'O——' territory with your 'T.T.' grazing, and will turn the combination into one of the finest ranching propositions west of Calthorpe, and one which even Montana needs to be proud of."

He leaned back in his chair with a certain air of satisfaction. But there was just a shade of anxiety, too, in the glance with which he favored his friend. However, he need have felt no misgivings. Bud Tristram had none. He understood the keen business brain underlying his friend's tumbled fair hair. Moreover, Jeff, who was only half the older man's age, was regarded with something like parental affection.

They had fought their way up together from obscure beginnings to their present affluence, as the owners of the "T.T." ranch and the "O——" ranch respectively. They had been partners in all but name. Now they contemplated a definite deed of that nature. It was a consummation which the older man had looked forward to ever since he first lent a hand to his new and youthful neighbor. It was a consummation which Jeffrey, with acute foresight and honest purpose, had set himself to achieve. If the older man regarded him with almost parental affection, that regard was fully reciprocated. The business conference between them had for its purpose their mutual advantage, and both men were perfectly aware of the fact.

But the thought that slightly worried the younger man was the ease, the unconcern of his future partner's attitude. It disquieted him because it increased his responsibility. But long ago he had learned the generous nature of the Great Bud. Long ago he had realized his trusting simplicity. Now he would have preferred a keen cross-examination of his statement. But none was forthcoming, and he was forced to continue in face of the silent acceptance.

"Bud, old friend, I wish I could get you interested in—figures. And I guess they surely are interesting, when you apply them to our own concerns."

But Bud remained unmoved. He stretched himself in an ecstasy of ease, raising his great arms above his grizzled head in profound enjoyment of his bodily comfort.

He shook his head.

"Guess I know a steer. Guess I know grass when I see it. I wouldn't say there's a brand in Montana I ain't familiar with. But figgers—sums—they're hell. An' I don't guess I'm yearning for hell anyway. Figgers is a sort o' paradise to you. You're built that way. Say, I don't calc'late to rob you of a thing—not even paradise. We'll take your figgers as they stand."

Jeffrey Masters shook his head.

"They're right, sure. But it's no sort of way to talk business."

"Business talk always makes me sweat."

It was quite impossible. Jeffrey was growing impatient. A frown settled upon his broad brow, and the man in the rocker watched it with amused eyes.

Quite suddenly the younger man's impatience broke forth into verbal protest.

"Say, you make me mad. Was there ever such a feller looking for sharps to play him? How do you know I'm not out to beat you? Why, I could roll you for every dollar you possess without lying awake five minutes at night. It's not fair, Bud. It's not fair to me—to you—to your little Nan——"

"What's not fair to Nan?"

Bud's twinkling eyes shot round upon the open French window with an alertness scarcely to be expected in a man of such apparent mental indolence. Jeffrey's eyes cleared of their hot impatience as they sought a similar direction. The gaze of both men encountered the picture of a brown-eyed, brown-haired girl of exquisite proportions, standing framed in the open window. She was clad in a riding suit of light material, with a long-skirted coat which obviously concealed the divided skirt beneath. Her long, brown top boots were white with dust of the trail, and her vicious-looking Mexican spurs hung loosely upon her heels. Her eyes were bright with intelligence and good humor, and her pretty oval face smiled out from under the wide brim of an ample prairie hat.

Jeff began to laugh.

"It's your crazy old father, Nan," he cried. "Say, just look at him. Feast your eyes on him. Can you beat it? Here we are right up to our necks in an epoch-making business proposition and he don't concern himself two whoops. Was there ever such a bunch of simple trusting folly as is rolled up in that six feet three of good-hearted honesty? That's what's not fair to—Nan."

The girl came and laid a protecting hand upon the flannel-clad shoulders of her father. Just for a moment her laughing eyes gazed affectionately down upon the recumbent form of the only parent she possessed, and whom she idolized. He was stretched out luxuriously, his great be-chapped legs reaching to the table leg as a support to hold the rocker at a comfortable poise. His shirt sleeves were rolled up displaying a pair of arms like legs of mutton. The beadwork wristlets were held fixed in their position by the distended muscles beneath them. She was proud of him, this father who went through the world trusting human nature, and handling cattle as only an artist in his profession can handle them.

Then her dancing eyes sought the face of Jeffrey Masters. Her smile remained, but a subtle something crept into their depths as she surveyed it. It was the handsome, clean-cut face of a purposeful man. There was a straight-forward directness in the gaze of his blue eyes. It was the face of a man who has no fear, physical or moral. It was almost too uncompromising in its fearlessness.

Nan knew its every line by heart. She had thought of it, dreamed of it, since the time when she had first realized that a woman's life is wholly incomplete without the care of a man upon her hands. Sometimes she had felt that Jeffrey Masters possessed depths which could never be fathomed. Depths of strength, of resource, and all those qualities which make for success. Sometimes she even went further, when her analytical faculties—which she possessed in an unusual degree—were most active. She felt that the possession of all these firm qualities had rather smothered, to an extent, the gentler emotions of the human nature in him. He was strong, passionate, with a conscience of an almost puritanical order, and somehow she felt that a little softening, a little leavening of human weakness would have been all to the good. But this understanding made no difference to her woman's regard, unless it were to strengthen it to a sort of gentle worship such as woman is always ready to yield to strength. It required no effort upon her part to picture this man in the heroic mould of a Spartan warrior.

"'That,'" she replied, with a whimsical smile, "is a man, who most generally seems to fancy his own way of doing things." Then she shook her head as her arm slipped protectingly around the big man's bronzed neck. "I don't guess a woman's argument ever made a man see things different yet. What's he done, Jeff?"

Jeff laughed without humor.

"Done?" he exclaimed. Then, with a shake of the head: "It's not what he's done. Guess it's what he hasn't done, and what he don't seem to figure to do. I'd kind of raised a hope when I saw you in the window. But—well, it was only her father's daughter that came in, I guess."

Then he drew his papers toward him again, and glanced seriously at the figures.

"It's Nat's farm," he explained. "And it's the thing we've been waiting on years. We're getting it fixed right, and your Bud's just about as much help as a deaf mute at a talking bee. I hand him figgers, and—and he smiles, just smiles. I hand him facts, and—he keeps on smiling. It's the kind of smile you most generally see on a dog-tired feller's face when you hand him a funny story. He don't care a cuss anyway. He's figuring to hand Nat ten thousand dollars with no more kick than a government spending public money. He don't kick reasonably or unreasonably, and I'd gamble you a new hat he hasn't a notion what he's getting for it. It makes me feel like a 'hold-up,' and I say it's not fair to me—nor to himself—nor to—you."

Jeff was serious enough. In such affairs it would have been difficult to find him otherwise. Nan understood. These two men had long been her profound study. Her smiling regard remained unchanging while the man was talking. When he ceased she bent over her father in a caressing fashion.

"He'd lose his bet. He surely would, daddy dear, wouldn't he? But we really need to answer, don't we? He'd think we were both fools, else. He wouldn't like it either. Say, daddy, shall—shall I talk?"

Bud chuckled comfortably.

"I'd hate to stop you, Nan."

Nan smiled contentedly, and raised a pair of challenging eyes in the direction of the table.

"My daddy thinks I talk too much," she said. "But I s'pose that's my way—most girls talk when they get the chance—just the same as it's his way talking too little. But neither ways suggest a fool, Jeff. And anyway the only sort of fool you need to worry with is the fool who don't see and act in a way of his own. My daddy's acting in his own way, and I guess it isn't his way, working overtime with the band playing. If you're dead fixed on having a gamble, it's a new hat to a new and less smelly pipe than you're smoking now, that he knows the inside of this deal to the last cent's worth. But what's more, Jeff, he knows you, and knows you couldn't 'hold-up' a Sunday-school kiddie without going and telling its teacher first. And now the mail."

She left her father's side and moved to the table, a very picture of gentle decision and practice.

"Three for you, my daddy," she cried, dropping three letters on his chest, where his shirt gaped just below his neck. Then she turned about. "Only one for you, honest Jeff. Just one, and I've guessed at the writing till I'm sick."

Jeff was smiling up with frank amusement.

"Say, that's great. It's got you beat. Well," he added, as he picked up the letter, "I'll just keep you right on guessing. Where's yours?"

The girl laughed merrily.

"Had mine. I don't guess any right-acting girl would sit easy in the saddle twelve miles without reading her mail. Say——" she paused. The smile had died out of her eyes. Jeff's expression had abruptly changed. He was regarding the address on his envelope with startled seriousness. Then she went on quickly: "Guess I'll wait till you're both through. I'll get right out an' off-saddle. Then for supper."

In the parlor the silence remained unbroken. It became unduly prolonged. Bud finished his mail. Jeff was still reading his. It was not a long letter. He had already read it twice through. Now he again turned back to its beginning.

Bud observed him closely. He saw the knitted brows. The curious set of the man's lips. His absorbed interest. Nor did he interrupt. He contented himself with that patient waiting which betrayed much of the solid strength of his character.

Presently Jeff looked up. But his eyes did not seek his friend. They were turned upon the open window, his gaze wandering out toward the distant hills, which marked the confines of Rainbow Hill Valley.

Still the other refrained from speech. Finally it was Jeff, himself, who broke the silence.

"Bud," he began, without withdrawing his gaze from the scene beyond the window, "it's a letter from Ronald. It's the second word I've had of him in—five years."

Bud nodded.

"The twin."

Jeff's gaze came slowly, thoughtfully back to Bud's face.

"Sure. We're twins."

An unusual softness crept into the eyes of the man at the table.

"I'm kind of wondering, Bud," he went on presently, "wondering if you get all that means—means to me. I don't know." He passed a hand slowly across his brow, as though to brush aside growing perplexities. "I don't seem to get all it means myself. No, I don't. The whole thing's so queer," he went on, with a nervous, restless movement in his chair. "It sort of seems crazy, too." He laughed meaninglessly. Then he suddenly leaned forward with flushed cheeks and hot eyes. "Bud, don't think me crazy, but—well, say, I'm only part of me without Ronny near. Oh, I don't guess that explains. But it's what I feel—and I can't just talk it right. You don't get it? No, of course you don't. I can see it in your eyes. You think I'm right for the foolish-house. Listen. Is it possible—is it ordinary reason that when twins are born, the nature of one normal child can be divided between the two, one having what the other feller lacks? There, that's how I feel about it. It's the way it is with Ronny and me. All that he is not, I am. I haven't one of his better features. Say, Bud, I'm a pretty cold sort of man. I'd have made a fair sort of Puritan if I'd been on earth a century or so ago. I've little enough humor. I don't care for play. I don't care for half the fun most folks see in life. I'd sooner work than eat. And Ronny—well, Ronny isn't just any of those things. He's just a boy, full of every sort of human notion that's opposite to mine. And I'm crazy for him. Say, Bud, I love him better than anything in life. If anything happened to that boy, why, I guess all that's worth while in me would die plumb out."

He paused. Bud's shrewd eyes remained studying the emotion-lit features of this usually unemotional man. He felt he was being admitted to a peep at a soul that was rarely, if ever, bared, and he wondered at the reason. Was it a calculated display, or was it the outlet for an emotion altogether too strong for the man's restraint? He inclined to the former belief.

"Nothin' has happened?" he enquired presently, in his direct fashion.

Jeff laughed without any visible sign of lightness.

"No," he said. Then with a deep sigh. "Thank God nothing has happened. But——"

"Then the trouble——?"

"The trouble? Say, Bud, try to get it all as I see it. It's difficult. The boy's away up trapping and shooting—for a living—somewhere in the Cathills. He's away there living on hard pan, while I'm here steadily traipsing on with you to a big pile. Remember he's my other—half. Do you know how I feel? No, you can't. Say, he's as merry as I am—dour. He's as fond of life, and play, and the good things of the world as I'm indifferent to 'em. He's reckless—he's weak." Suddenly Jeff's eyes lit. A great passion seemed to surge through his whole body. "Bud, I want him here. I want to be always around to help him when he gets bumping into potholes. It's that weakness that sets me crazy when I think. He ain't made for the dreary grind of the life we live. That's why he cut it out when I came here. Well there's no grind for him now, and I want to have him come along and share in with me. That's why I'm talking now. From this moment on we're a great proposition in the ranching world, and I want Ronny to share in with me."

Bud nodded.

"I get it," he said. Then he added: "You're a great feller."

"Great! Cut it out, Bud," Jeff cried sharply. "It's my love for that other half of me that's talking. That merry bit of a—twin."

"An' you're sendin' for him?"

Jeff shrugged, and depression seemed suddenly to descend upon him.

"If I could fix it that way I don't guess I'd have opened my face to hand you all this. But I can't. He's in the Cathills, away a hundred and more miles northwest of us. That's all he says. He don't give a mail address. No, Bud, I'm going to hunt him out. I'm going to find him, and bring him back. I'll find him sure. We're just one mind an' one body, an'," he added thoughtfully, "I don't guess I'll need a detective bureau to locate him. If he was chasin' around the other end of the world I'd find him—sure. You see, he's the other half of me."

Bud nodded in sympathy, but made no verbal reply.

"See, Bud," Jeff went on, a moment later. "The spring round-up's through. We're going to fix this deed right away. When the attorneys have robbed us all they need, and Nat's handed over, there'll be a good month to haying. That month I'm going to spend in the Cathills. I'll be back for the hay."

The other eased himself in his rocker. Then for some moments no sound broke the silence of the room.

"It's been a heavy spring," Bud said at last.

Jeff nodded. His thoughts were away in the Cathills.

"Seems to me," Bud went on. "Work kind o' worries me some these times." He smiled. "Guess the wheels need the dope of leisure. Mebbe I ain't as young as you."

"No."

Jeff's attention was still wandering.

"Guess the Cathills is an a'mighty big piece o' country gropin' around in," Bud went on.

"Sure. A hell of a piece. But—it don't signify."

"No-o," Bud meditated. Then he added: "I was kind o' thinkin'."

"How?"

"Why, mebbe two folks chasin' up a pin in a bunch o' grass is li'ble to halve most o' the chances agin either of 'em jabbin' their hands on the business end of it."

"Two? You mean you're goin' to come along an' help find—Ronny?"

Jeff's eyes were expressing the thanks his lips withheld.

Bud excused himself.

"Them Cathills is plumb full of fur an' things. Say, I ain't handled a gun in weeks."

"Bud, you're——"

The door of the room was abruptly flung open and Jeff's words remained unspoken.

"Supper, folks!"

Nan's smiling eyes glanced from one to the other. She stood in the doorway compelling them. Besides, the memory of Jeff's letter was still with her, and she was anxious to observe its later effect. That which she now beheld was obviously satisfactory, and her smile deepened contentedly.

CHAPTER II

CONFLICTING CURRENTS

They were busy days in Orrville. But business rarely yielded outward display in its citizens. Men talked more. They perhaps moved about more—in their customary leisurely fashion. But any approach to bustle was as foreign to the rule of the township as it would be to a colony of aged snails in a cyclone.

It was the custom of Orrville to rise early and go to bed late. But this by no means implies any excessive activity. On the contrary. These spells of activity lasted just as long as their accomplishment required. In the interim its citizens returned to a slumber little less profound than that which supervened at night after the last roysterer had been ejected, by force, or persuasion, from the salubrious precincts of Ju Penrose's saloon.

Orrville was a ranching township in the northwestern corner of Montana lying roughly some twenty miles west of the foothills of the Cathill Mountains, which, in turn, formed a projecting spur of the main range of the Rockies.

Orrville was the township and Ju Penrose was the pioneer of its commerce. He was a man of keen instincts for commerce of his own especial brand, and rejoiced in a disreputable past. He possessed a thin, hooked nose of some dimensions, which never failed to cut a way for its owner into the shady secrets of his neighbors. He possessed a temper as amiable and mild as a spring lamb when the stream of prosperity and profit flowed his way, and as vitriolic as a she-wolf in winter, when that stream chanced to become diverted into a neighbor's direction.

He was considered a man of some importance in the place. But this was probably the result of the nature of his trade, which, in the eyes of the denizens of the neighborhood, certainly possessed an advantage over such stodgy callings as "dry goods." But besides the all-important thirst-quenching purpose of his establishment, it had become a sort of bureau for large and small transactions of a ranching nature, and a resort where every sort of card game could be freely indulged in, without regard for the limit of the stakes, and had thus gained for itself the subsidiary title amongst its clientele of "Ju's Poker Joint."

At the moment Ju's usually busy tongue was taking a well-earned rest, and his hawk-like visage was shrouded in a deep, contemplative repose. His always bloodshot eyes were speculative as he surveyed the smoke-laden scene from behind his shabby bar. The place was full of drinkers and gamblers. The hour was past midnight. And he was estimating silently the further spending possibilities of his customers, and consequently considering the advisability of closing down.

A group of three ranch hands leaned against the centre of the bar. Their glasses were empty and none of them seemed anxious to command their refilling. They were talking earnestly. And their voices were unusually modulated. Just beyond these a slight, good-looking man in chapps, with a face of particularly refined but somewhat debauched appearance, was obviously interested in their talk, although he took no part in it. On the other side of them, away at the far end of the bar, leaned a solitary, tough-looking drinker, who seemed to take no interest whatever in his surroundings. Every man in the place, the dozen or so occupying the card tables included, was fully armed in the customary fashion prevailing in this distant corner of the ranching world, and it would have needed no second thought to realize that these heavy, loaded weapons were not by any means intended for decorative purposes.

"Wal, anyways they're a long time fixin' things," observed one of the three at the centre of the bar, with a yawn that displayed a double row of gleaming white teeth. "The boss guessed I'd best wait around, so it ain't a heap o' use kickin'. I'll hev to wait till the durned committee's through, if it takes 'em sittin' as long us a hide-bound hen."

"It's allus that-a-way when folks gets on a committee racket, Curly," replied one of his friends with a sympathetic grin.

"That's just how, Dan," agreed the third. "Hot air. That's what it is. This tarnation Vigilance stunt sets folk whisperin' among 'emselves 'bout the hell goin' to be ladled out to all cattle thieves in general. Gives 'em visions of hangin'-bees, an' a sort o' firework display with guns an' things, an' when they hatched out, what's the result? Why, a waste o' hot air, an'—no checkens."

"'T'so, Dan," agreed Curly, with easy decision. "The boss is too near relative of a fancy gentleman for to hand out the sort o' dope rustlers need. If us boys had the job we'd fix things quick. You'd see this bum gang kicking air at the end of a rope 'fore Ju, here, had time to dope out four fingers of rotgut at the expense of the house."

He leered across at the unsmiling face of the saloon-keeper. Ju permitted himself to be drawn.

"Nothin' doin', Curly." A solemn shake of the head set his walrus moustache flapping. Then he drew a cigar from a top vest pocket and bit the end through, brushing his moustache aside to discover a place in which to deposit it in his mouth. "I'd sure hate to dope out any rotgut on you boys. Y'see, I sure got your health at heart. I kind o' love you fellers to death. I'd hate to see you sufferin' at my hands. Guess I was raised Christian."

"Was you?"

Curly's sarcasm achieved the laugh intended, and, as a result of his satisfaction, he flung his last half-dollar on the dingy bar.

"Make that into three drops of liver souse, an' hand us a smile, Ju.
Your face is sure killin' trade."

Ju rolled his cigar across his mouth under the curtain of moustache, lit it, and proceeded to push an uncorked bottle across to his customers.

"Guess it ain't a bad proposition handin' you boys a smile. Smiles allus happen easy on foolish faces. Seein' I ain't deaf I been listenin' to your talk, an' I ain't made up my mind if you're as bright as you're guessin', or if you're the suckers your talk makes you out. Seein' I don't usual take chances, I'll put my dollars on the sucker business. I've stood behind this darned old bar fer ten years, an' I guess for five of 'em I've listened to talk like yours—from fellers like you." He removed the bottle from which the three men had helped themselves to liberal "four fingers," and eyed their glasses askance. "Now, you're worritin' over this lousy Lightfoot gang. So was the others. So's everybody bin fer five years. An' fer five years this same lousy Lightfoot gang has just been helpin' 'emselves to the cattle on the ranches around here—liberal. Same as youse fellers have helped yourselves out o' this bottle. An', durin' that time, I ain't heard tell of one o' them boys who's been spoilin' to hang 'em all doin' a thing. Not a thing, 'cep' it's lap up whisky to keep up a supply o' hot air.

"Wal," he proceeded, in his biting fashion, as he thrust the bottle on the shelf and began wiping glasses with a towel that looked to be decomposing for want of soap, "them lousy rustlers is still running their play in the district jest wher', when, an' how they darn please. See? You, Curly, are kickin' because your boss Dug McFarlane is too much of a gentleman. Wal, if I know a man from a seam-squirrel, I'd sure say Dug's got more savee in his whiskers than you got dirt—which is some. If I got things right, this night's sittin's goin' to put paid to the Lightfoot gang's account. I'd be glad to say the same of one or two scores three bums have lately run up right here."

The offensiveness of his manner left the men quite undisturbed. The place would have been strange to them without it. They accepted it as part of the evening's entertainment. But the allusion to the Vigilance Committee's efforts brought them into attitudes of close attention. It drew the attention, too, of the cattleman with the refined features, and, equally, that of the tough-looking individual at the far end of the bar.

"What are they goin' to do?" demanded Dan urgently.

Ju puffed aggravatingly at his cigar.

"Do?" he echoed at last, gazing distantly at the card players across the room. "Why, what any bunch of savee should ha' done five years ago. Put out a great reward."

Curly snorted in disdain.

"See, I tho't it was to be a big play."

"You allus was bright," sneered Dan. "How's that goin' to fix the
Lightfoot crowd?"

"How?" Ju's contempt always found an outlet in the echo of an opponent's interrogation. "Say, Dan, how old are you? Twenty?"

"That ain't nuthin' to you," the cowpuncher retorted, with a gesture of hot impatience.

"Ain't it? Wal, mebbe it ain't," Ju agreed imperturbably. "But y'see it takes years an' years gettin' the value o' dollars right. I allow ther's folks guesses dollars talks. Wal, I'm guessin' they just holler. Make the wad big enough and ther' ain't nuthin' you can't buy from a wheat binder to a royal princess with a crown o' jools. The only thing you're li'ble to have trouble over is the things Natur' fancies handin' you fer—nix. That an' hoss sense. That's pretty well the world to-day, no matter what the sky-pilots an' Sunday-school ma'ams dope out in their fancy literature. I know. You offer ten thousand dollars for the hangin' of Lightfoot's gang, an', I say right here, there ain't a feller in it from Lightfoot—if there is sech a feller—down, who wouldn't make a grab at that wad by givin' the rest of the crowd away. Makes you think, don't it? Sort o' worries them empty think tanks o' yours."

But Ju's satisfaction received an unexpected shaking.

"Some wind," observed the slim, lonely drinker, in the blandest fashion.

Ju was round on him in a flash, his walrus moustache bristling.

"I'm listening," he said, with a calmness which belied his attitude.

The other set his glass down on the counter with a bump.

"If you're listening," he said, "you have probably understood what I said. You're talking through a fog of cynicism which seems to obscure an otherwise fairly competent intellect. You've plundered so many innocents in your time by purveying an excessive quantity of bluestone disguised under the name of alcohol that your overweening conceit has entirely distorted your perspective till you fancy that your own dregs of human nature constitute the human nature of all the rest of the world, who would entirely resent being classed as your fellows. In a word you need physic, Ju."

The speaker laughed amiably, and his smile revealed the weakness which was pointed by the signs of debauchery in his good-looking face. Ju eyed him steadily. The offense of his words was mitigated by his manner, but Ju resented the laugh which went round the entire room at his expense.

"See here, Bob Whitstone," he began, abandoning his glass wiping and supporting himself on his counter, with his face offensively thrust in his opponent's direction, "I ain't got the langwidge you seem to have lapped up with your mother's milk. I don't guess any sucker paid a thousand dollars a year for my college eddication so I could come out here and grow a couple of old beeves and spend my leisure picklin' my food depot in a low down prairie saloon. Therefor' I'll ask you to excuse me if I talk in a kind o' langwidge the folks about here most gener'ly understan'. Guess you think you know some. Maybe you figger to know it all. Wal, get this. When you get back home jest stand in front of a fi' cent mirror, if you got one in your bum shanty, an' get a peek at your map, an' ask yourself—when you studied it well—if I couldn't buy you, body an' soul, fer two thousand dollars—cash. I'd sure hate slingin' mud at any feller's features, much less yours, who're a good customer to me, but you're comin' the highbrow, an' you got notions of honor still floatin' around in your flabby thinkin' department sech as was handed you by the guys who ran that thousand dollar college. Wal, ef you'll look at yourself honest, an' argue with yourself honest, you'll find them things is sure a shadder of the past which happened somew'eres before you tasted that first dose o' prairie poison which has since become a kind o' habit. It ain't no use in getting riled, Bob, it ain't no use in workin' overtime on that college dictionary o' yours to set me crawlin' around among the spit boxes. Fac's is fac's. Ken you hand me a list o' the things you—you who ain't got two spare cents to push into the mission box, an' who'd willingly sleep in a hog pen if it weren't for a dandy wife who'd got no more sense than to marry you—wouldn't do if I was to hand you out a roll of ten thousand dollars right now—cash? Tcha! You think. I know."

He turned away in a wave of contemptuous disgust. And as he did so a harsh voice from the other end of the bar held him up.

"What about me, Ju?"

The tough-looking prairie man made his demand with a laugh only a shade less harsh than his speaking voice.

Ju stood. His desperate, keen face was coldly still as he regarded the powerful frame of his challenger. Then his retort came swift and poignant.

"You, Sikkem? You'd allus give yourself away. Get me?"

The frigidity of the saloon-keeper's manner was over-powering. The man called Sikkem was unequal in words to such a challenge. A flush slowly dyed his lean cheeks, and an angry depression of the brows suggested something passionate and forceful. Just for a moment many eyes glanced in his direction. The saloon-keeper was steadily regarding him. There was no suggestion of anger in his attitude, merely cat-like watchfulness. Their eyes met. Then the cloud abruptly lifted from Sikkem's brow, and he laughed with unsmiling, black eyes. The saloon-keeper rinsed a glass and unconcernedly began to wipe it.

The incident was allowed to pass. But it was the termination of the discussion, a termination which left Ju victor, not because of the rightness of his views, but because there was no man in Orrville capable of joining issue with him in debate with any hope of success. Action rather than words was the prevailing feature with these people, and, in his way, Ju Penrose was equal, if not superior, not only in debate, but in the very method these people best understood.

A moment later Sikkem took his departure.

* * * * * *

It was well past midnight when the last man turned out of Ju's bar. But the crowd had not yet scattered to their various homes. They were gathered in a small, excited cluster gaping up at a big notice pasted on the weather-boarding of the saloon-keeper's shack. Ju himself was standing in their midst, right in front of the notice, which had been indited in ink, evidently executed with a piece of flat wood. He was holding up a lantern, and every eye was carefully, and in many instances laboriously, studying the text inscribed.

It was a notice of reward. A reward of ten thousand dollars for information leading to the capture of the gang of cattle thieves known as the "Lightfoot gang." And it was signed by Dug McFarlane on behalf of the Orrville Rancher's Vigilance Committee.

"Guess Ju knowed after all," somebody observed, in a confidential tone to his neighbor.

But Ju's ears were as long and sharp as his tongue. He flashed round on the instant, his lantern lowered from the level of the notice board. There was a sort of cold triumph in his manner as his eyes fell upon the speaker.

"Know'd?" he cried sharply. "Ain't 'knowin'' my business? Psha!" His contempt was withering. Then his manner changed back to the triumph which the notice had inspired. "Say, it's a great piece of money. It surely is some bunch. Ten thousand dollars! Gee! His game's up. Lightfoot's as good as kickin' his heels agin the breezes. He's played his hand, an'—lost."

And somehow no one seemed inclined to add to his statement. Nor, which was much more remarkable, contradict it. Now that these men had seen the notice with their own eyes the force of all Ju had so recently contended came home to them. There was not one amongst that little gathering who did not realize the extent of the odds militating against the rustlers. Ten thousand dollars! There was not a man present who did not feel the tremendous power of such a reward.

The gathering melted away slowly, and finally Bob Whitstone was left alone before the gleaming sheet of paper, with Ju standing in his doorway. The lantern was at his feet upon the sill. His hands were thrust in the tops of his shabby trousers. He was regarding the "gentleman" rancher meditatively, and his half burnt cigar glowed under the deep intake of his powerful lungs.

"It's a dandy bunch, Bob, eh?" he demanded presently, in an ironical tone. "Guess I'd come nigh sellin' my own father fer—ten thousand dollars. An' I don't calc'late I'd get nightmare neither." Then he drew a deep breath which suggested regret. "But—it ain't comin' my way. No. Not by a sight." Then, after a watchful pause, he continued: "I'm kind o' figgerin' whose way. Not mine, or—yours. Eh, Bob? We could do with it. Pity, ain't it?"

Bob turned. His eyes sought the face in the shadow of the doorway.

"I'm no descendant of Judas," he said coldly.

"No. But—Judas didn't sell a gang of murdering cattle rustlers. That ain't Judas money."

"Maybe. But it's blood money all the same."

"Mighty bad blood that oughter be spilt."

Bob turned away. His gaze wandered out westward. Then his eyes came slowly back to the man in the door-way.

"You thought I was talking hot air just now—about a man's price. You didn't like it. Well, when I find myself with a price I hope I shan't live to be paid it. That's all."

The man in the doorway shook his head. Then he spoke slowly, deliberately. And somehow much of the sharpness had gone out of his tone, and the hard glitter of his steely eyes had somehow become less pronounced.

"Oh, I guess I got your meanin' right, fer all yer thousand dollar langwidge. Sure, I took you right away. But—it don't signify a cuss anyways. Guess you was born a gentleman, Bob, which I wa'an't. An' because you was born an' raised that-a-way you'd surely like to kep right hold o' the notion that folks ken still act as though they'd been weaned on talk of honor an' sichlike. I sez kep a holt on that notion. Grip it tight, an' don't never let go on it. Grab it same as you would the feller that's yearnin' fer your scalp. If you lose your grip that tow-colored scalp of yours'll be raised sure, an' every penicious breeze that blows 'll get into your think depot and hand you every sort of mental disease ther' ain't physic enough in the world to cure. Guess that's plumb right. It don't cut no ice what I think. A feller like me jest thinks the way life happens to boost him. Y'see, I ain't had no thousand dollar eddication to make me see things any other ways. Life's a mighty tough proposition an' it can't be run on no schedule, an' each feller's got to travel the way he sees with his own two eyes. If he's got the spectacles of a thousand dollar eddication he's an a'mighty lucky feller, an' I'm guessin' they'll help him dodge a whole heap o' muck holes he'd otherwise bury his silly head in. So hang on, boy. Grip them darn fool notions so they ain't got a chance. If you let go—wal, you'll get a full-sized peek into a pretty fancy sort o' hell wher' ther' ain't any sort o' chance o' dopin' your visions out o' sight with Ju Penrose's belly wash. So long."

Ju picked up his lantern and turned back into his bar, closing and securing his door behind him. Then, with keen anticipation and enjoyment, he approached his till and proceeded to count his day's takings.

* * * * * *

Bob Whitstone unhitched his horse from Ju's tying post. He swung himself into the saddle and rode away,—away toward his outland home under the starlit roof of the plains. It was an almost nightly journey with him now, for the saloon habit had caught him in its toils, and was already holding him firmly.

His mood was not easy. He resented Ju Penrose. He resented all men of his type. He knew him for a crook. He believed he possessed no more conscience than any other habitual criminal. But his resentment was the weak echo of an upbringing which had never intended him for such association, and, in spite of it, the man's personality held him, and its strength dominated him.

His way took him out across an almost trackless waste of rich grass-land. Somewhere out there, hidden away at the foot of the Cathills, lay his homestead, and the wife for whom he had abandoned all that his birth had entitled him to. During the past two years he had learned truly all that he had sacrificed for the greatest of all dreams of youth.

But these things, for the moment, were not in his mind. Only Penrose. Ju Penrose, whom he had learned to detest and despise out of the educated mind that was his. The man's final homily was entirely lost upon Bob. Such was his temper that only the gross outrages against the precepts of his youth remained. He only heard the hateful, detestable cynicism, brutally expressed. It was something curious how he only took note of these things, and missed the rough solicitude of Ju's final admonishment. But he was young and weak, and a shadow of bitterness had entered his life, which, at his age, should have found no place in it.

The miles swept away under his horse's hoofs. Already the township, that sparse little oasis of shelter in a desert of grass-land, lay lost behind him in the depths of some hidden trough in the waves of the prairie ocean, The great yellow disc of the moon had cut the horizon and lit his tracks, but its light was still unrevealing and only added charm to the blaze of summer jewels which adorned the soft velvet of the heavens.

He glanced back. But almost instantly his eyes were turned again ahead. The night scene of these plains was too familiar to him to excite interest. To him there were simply miles intervening between him and the slumbers he was seeking. The prairie, for all its beauties, spelt toilful days and bitter disappointment for him. Wherein then should be discovered its charms?

Again his mind settled itself upon the events of the evening. Price? Price? Every man, he had been told, had his price. Every man and woman. He uttered a sound. It might have been a laugh, but it lacked mirth. It startled his alert horse. It almost seemed to startle the quiet night itself. What was his price? All he knew about price was its payment. He had only been called upon to pay. And he had paid! My God, he had paid! All that had been his. All the wealth, the comfort, the luxury and prospects which had been his in his wealthy father's home, had been the price he had paid for the right, which was the right of every man, to choose for himself, and to take to himself and to wife, the woman who seemed to him to be the one creature in the world who could yield him the happiness which alone was worth while.

This talk of a man's price only enraged him the more. He viciously detested Ju Penrose, and all such creatures who walked the world.

Well, the reward was out. Time would show. If it failed to find the Judas he would remind Ju. Oh, yes, he would remind him. He would wait his time for the reminder. He would wait till the saloon was full, and then—then he would open out his batteries. Men were of——

What was that?

He had pulled his horse up with a swift tightening of his hand. Now the beast stood with head erect, and pricked ears firmly thrust forward. Its head was turned southward, and the gush of its distended nostrils warned its rider that his question was shared by a creature whose instincts were even more acute, here, on the prairie, than those of its human master.

Bob bent down in the saddle the better to obtain the silhouette of the sky-line. The sound which had held him came up on the southern night breeze. It was a low murmur, or rumble, and, to his accustomed ears, it suggested the speeding of hoofs over the green clad earth. He waited for many moments, but the sound only increased. There was no doubt left in his mind now. None at all.

He sat up again and glanced swiftly about him. The moonlight had increased, and a silver sheen threw up the surrounding scene into indistinct relief. Beyond, to his right, he detected a small patch of scrub and spruce, and, without a second thought, he made for it.

A minute later he was out of the saddle beside his horse, screened from view of the plains by a belt of bush. He secured his horse and moved to the fringe of his shelter. Here he took up a position facing south, and his view of the plains beyond became uninterrupted.

He knew what was coming. Instinct warned him. Perhaps even it was the wish fathering his belief. He felt it was a certainty that the rustlers were out pursuing their depredations with their customary unchallenged daring. Who, he wondered, was the present victim, and what was the extent of the raid?

He had not long to wait. The sound grew. It lost its distant continuity and became broken into the distinct hoof beats of large numbers. Furthermore, by the sound of it, they would pass right across his front. He had been wise in seeking cover. Had he remained——

But speculation gave way before the interest of movement. Now the silhouette of the sky-line was dancing before his eyes. In the moonlight he could clearly make out the passing of a driven herd. It came on, losing itself in the shadows of a distant trough. Again it appeared. More distinct now. He whistled under his breath. They were coming from the direction of Dug McFarlane's and it was a large herd. They were traveling northwest, which would cut into the hills away to the north of his homestead. They——

But they were almost abreast of him now, and he heard the voices of men urging and cursing. Lower he dropped toward the earth the better to ascertain the numbers. But his estimate was uncertain. There were moments when the herd looked very large. There were moments when it looked less. He felt that a conservative estimate would be one hundred perhaps, and some eight or ten men driving them.

They were gone as they had come, lumbering rapidly, and as they passed northward the southern breeze carried the sound away. It died out quickly, and for minutes longer than was needed he stood listening, listening. Then, at last, he turned back to his horse.

In the two years of his sojourn on the land it was the first time he had witnessed the operation of the Lightfoot gang, and it left a deep impression upon his mind. A great resentment rose up in him. It was the natural temper of a man who is concerned, in however small a degree, in the cattle industry. And his anger urged him to a greater speed for home, and a greater sympathy for the man who was prepared to accept the Judas money offered for the lives of this gang of criminals.

CHAPTER III

TRAILING THE "BLACK TAIL"

The woman started. She threw up her head. Her wide eyes, wonderful and dark, searched the deep aisles of the shaded pine woods about her. Her hair hung loosely in a knot at the nape of her neck, and its intensely dark masses made an exquisite framing for the oval of the handsome face beneath the loose brim of wide prairie hat.

The stillness of these wooded slopes of the Cathills was profound. They possessed something of the solemnity belonging to the parent range of the Rockies beyond. For they were almost primeval. The woman might have belonged to them, her dark beauty so harmonized with its surroundings. Yet for all her coloring, for all the buckskin she wore for upper garment, there was nothing in her nature of the outlands which now claimed her. She was of the cities. She was bred and nurtured in the civilized places. The life about her was another life. It was crude and foreign to her. It claimed her by force of circumstance against every instinct and emotion.

Her searching ceased, and her eyes fixed their steady regard upon a gray-brown object moving amongst the myriad of black stanchions which supported the tousled roof of melancholy green foliage above her. With an almost imperceptible movement one buckskin clad arm reached slowly out toward the small sporting rifle which leaned against an adjacent tree-trunk. Her whole poise was tense and steady. There was in her attitude that hard decision which one associates only with the experienced hunter. There was almost too much decision in a woman so obviously young.

The weapon was drawn toward her. For one brief moment it was laid across her lap upon the paper-covered book she had been reading. Then its butt found its way to a resting place against her soft shoulder. Not for an instant had her gaze been diverted from the moving object. Now, however, her head inclined forward, and her warm cheek was laid against the cool butt. The sights of the weapon were brought up into line. The pressure of her forefinger was increased upon the trigger. There was a sharp report followed by a swift rush of scampering hoofs amongst the brittle pine cones and needles which carpeted the twilit woods. Then, in a flash, all the tense poise gave way to considered but rapid activity.

The woman sprang to her feet. She was tall and straight as a willow. Her rough canvas skirt was divided. Her buckskin shirt was fringed and beaded. She made a picture of active purpose that belied her femininity. In a moment she was in the saddle of the pony which had been dozing a few yards away. Her rifle was slung upon one shoulder, and her paper-covered book was thrust within the fastenings of her shirt. She was hot in pursuit of the small black-tailed deer which her shot had wounded.

Effie bent low in the saddle which she rode astride. Her well-accustomed pony twisted and turned, threading its way almost miraculously through the labyrinth of bald tree-trunks. These pot-hunts, which were of such frequent occurrence, were the recreation which alone made life tolerable to its mistress.

The woman saw only her quarry. For the rest she left the road to her pony. With slack reins she leaned forward, carrying her featherweight over the horn of the saddle. The woods meant nothing to her. The maze of tree-trunks as they sped by conveyed no threat of danger. She was concerned only with the obviously limping beast which was to provide venison for the pot for the next two weeks to come.

Her pony gained nothing upon the wounded deer. But it lost no distance either. The scene changed and changed again. The woods yielded to open grass, and again they merged into scattered scrub, through which it was difficult to track their quarry. Up hill, down dale, over hummock, through hollow. Once more through the dark aisles of aged pine woods. And always northward.

Time had no place in the woman's mind. Excitement, hope, doubt. These occupied her to the full. And above all purpose reigned.

Twice she drew up to within shot. But she refrained. She was herself as breathless as her quarry, and the shot would probably have been wasted. Besides, those pauses of the poor hunted beast carried their own significance to her practised mind. Its limping was sore, and now its stumblings were becoming more and more frequent.

They had passed an open stretch, a mere cup surrounded by sharp-rising, pine-clad hills. They entered woods on the northernmost slope, and began a climb so severe that pursuer and pursued were brought to a sheer scramble. The toil was terrific, but Effie's pony, bred of the tough prairie fibre, clawed up with indomitable courage and endurance. The deer kept its lead by desperate, agonizing effort, and the woman knew that the summit would have exhausted its resources.

On they went, on and up, the pace of both ever slackening. One hundred yards only separated them now, and, with almost every stride, the distance was lessening. The summit was in sight. The pony was blowing hard. Effie urged him, and the vicious Mexican spurs found his flanks. There was no thought of sparing in the girl's mind. If the broncho failed her, then she must finish the chase on foot.

Another fifty yards or so and the deer would have reached the summit. Could she permit it? Dared she risk what lay beyond? If the open pine woods continued she might, but—what lay beyond?

Without further speculation she suddenly flung out of the saddle. Her decision was taken. She dared not risk that summit with her pony now rapidly failing. She must chance her own unsteadiness. The pursuit had been hard and breathless. Well, she must trust to her nerve.

She left her steaming pony and dropped on one knee. With all her mind and will concentrated she drew a deep breath as the rifle was raised to her shoulder. With a stern deliberation she leveled her sights and fired. The spent deer stood, and shook, and then gazed round. There was something dreadful in the appeal of its wistful attitude. For one second the woman closed her eyes. Then they opened, and their beauty was full of resolve. Again the rifle was at her shoulder. Again the sights were leveled. Again the weapon spat out its vicious pellet. This time the weapon was lowered for good, and the movement was inspired by the sight of the deer. It quietly dropped upon its knees and rolled over on its side.

Ten minutes later the body of the deer was securely lashed to the back of the saddle. There was no regret in the heart of the woman as her practised fingers secured the warm body. It was game. Fair game, brought down in open chase, and it would provide welcome change in the monotonous diet of her home. Besides, the spirit of the hunter gripped her soul. It was the only thing which made life endurable in these drab outlands.

At the summit of the hill she breathed a sigh of relief. Her judgment and decision were amply proved. Nor in any uncertain fashion. The woods ceased in a clean cut, such as is so frequently the case where the pine world reigns. And rearing blankly before her gaze stood a dense barrier of low and heavy green bush. It needed small enough imagination to realize the security which lay in its depths for so small a creature as a wounded deer.

For some thoughtful moments Effie gazed upon the barrier. Then she turned and surveyed her dejected pony. Again her decision was taken without hesitation. She stooped and set a pair of hobbles about the tired creature's pasterns, and, leaving him to his own devices, set off to ascertain her whereabouts.

* * * * * *

But her movements were not without feminine curiosity, added to which was the businesslike desire to familiarize herself with every foot of the country within reach of her home. This was a break into new territory. Time was small enough object to her, and, besides, her pony needed time to recuperate from its leg weariness.

It required less than ten minutes, however, to banish every other thought from her mind and absorb it in amazement at her discovery. A brief battle with a dense and obstinate scrub found her standing in the centre of a wide sort of bridle path, scored with a dozen or so cattle tracks crowded with the spurs of driven cattle.

She stood gazing down at the signs everywhere about her in the loose sand, dumbfounded at the sight. She knew there was no homestead or ranch within miles of this region. Was she not bitterly aware that her own home marked the fringe of the cattle world in this direction?

Slowly there grew in the depths of her heart a feeling of apprehension. The stillness, the remoteness, the tremendous solitude, and yet—those tracks.

She stood intent and listening. Her ears were straining for a sound. But only there came to her the whispering breezes rustling the mournful foliage of the pine woods behind her. Her eyes were raised to the walls of scrub lining the roadway. They searched vainly for a sign. There was none. Simply the riot of nature about her, and, at her feet, those tracks.

She moved. Then swiftly she passed across to the western side of the roadway where the westering sun threw ample shadow. All unconsciously it seemed her movements became almost furtive, furtive and rapid. She passed down the bush-lined way, hugging the grassy edges to avoid leaving trace of her footsteps in the sand. Understanding was with her, and that understanding warned her of the jeopardy in which she stood should her presence be advertised.

Thought, speculation and imagination were a-riot in her now. She was proceeding in the direction the broad cloven hoof marks indicated. What—lay beyond?

Many minutes passed. Breathless minutes of pulsing excitement for the woman who knew only monotony and the drudgery of an outland life. No womanish fears could deter her. She believed and hoped she was on the eve of a great discovery, and such was her reckless desire that nothing could deter her.

The aspect of the scrub changed. It became dotted with taller trees. The paler foliage of spruce reared itself, and, here and there, isolated clumps of towering pines threw shadows across her path. Then gaps broke up the continuity, but, even so, the view beyond to her left was cut off by remoter growths. Once or twice she hazarded her way into them in her search for information, but always she returned to the broad track of the footprints of driven cattle.

The pathway rose at a steep incline. It bent away to the right, and, in the distance, it seemed that it must converge upon the sharp cut edge of the great pine woods she had so recently left. With this conclusion came another. The track must terminate abruptly or it must pass back into the great pine bluff.

The end, however, was neither of these things. And it was far nearer than she had suspected. The path twisted back into the huge reverse of an S, and finished abruptly at the sharp edge of a wide deep valley.

It came upon her almost with a shock. The tracks had abruptly swung westward. She rounded the bend, and, in a moment, found herself gazing out over a wide valley from a dizzy height.

Her first feeling was that the drop was sheer, precipitate. Then realization superseded, and she flung herself full length upon the ground and pressed her way into the shelter of an adjacent bush. The path had not ended. It passed over the brink and continued its way zigzagging down the terrific slope to the valley below. It was this, and the sight of a distant spiral of smoke rising from below, which had flung her into the shelter of the friendly bush. Her risk had only been momentary, but even in that moment she had been silhouetted in full view of any chance gaze below.

She drew herself toward the edge of the drop. Just where she had flung herself it was clean and sheer, and the bush overhung. Thus she was left with a full view of the depths below. Her dark eyes dwelt upon the zigzagging path. She followed its downward course to the green plain. She tracked it across to the far side of the valley. Then she drew a sharp breath, and her eyes widened.

The telltale smoke rose from the heart of a woodland bluff, and near by a large herd of cattle was grazing, watched over by three mounted men whose horses were moving slowly over the bright green carpet of grass.

She lay quite still, regardless of all but those moving figures, and the dark green bluff. She was watching and waiting for she knew not what. Her heart was thumping in her bosom, and her breath came rapidly. There was no question in her mind. In a moment her whole life seemed to have changed. The day had dawned to a contemplation of the monotonous round of drudging routine, only to close with a thrill such as she had never dreamed could be hers.

The moments passed; rapid, poignant moments. The sun dipped lower toward the alabaster crests of distant mountain peaks. The peace of the scene suggested nothing of the turbulent thought a-riot behind her wide, dark eyes. What must be done? What could she do—a woman? She felt helpless—so helpless. And yet——

She raised herself upon her elbow and propped her soft cheek upon the palm of her hand. She must think—think. The chance of it all. It was so strange. There lay the secret revealed—the secret which every rancher in the district for years had sought to discover. There was the camp of the Lightfoot gang. She had discovered it, had discovered its approach. Everything—she, a woman.

What could she do with the secret? How could she—— She thought of her husband. But somehow her enthusiasm lessened with the thought. But she needed him. Yes. There was no room for any doubt on that score. He must be roused, and convinced. He most be made to see the importance and significance of her discovery, and they must turn it to——

The crack of a rifle startled her. Almost on the instant the whistling, tearing of a bullet sounded in the bush to the left of her. Her glance was terrified as it turned in the direction. Then, in a moment, she was crouching lower as she searched the valley away over by the bluff.

In an instant her nerves strung tight. A group of men were standing just within its shadow, and the three horsemen, who had been riding round the cattle, were racing directly toward the foot of the pathway leading out of the valley. She must have been seen when she had stood at the opening. And now——

But there was not a second to lose. She sprang to a crouching position under the bush. Another shot rang viciously upon the still air. The bullet tore its way through the bush. This time it was still wider of her hiding place. But already she had begun her retreat—swiftly, and crouching low.

She reached the shelter of the barrier just as another bullet whistled overhead. Then she set off at a run.

And as she ran she calculated the chances. She had a big start, and the horsemen had to face the zigzag climb. If she made no mistakes there was little chance of their discovering her. They could never make that climb before she reached her pony.

She increased her pace. Her nerves were steadying. Strangely her control was wonderful. There was no real fear in her—only tension. Now as she ran down the open way her eyes were alert for every landmark, and her woodcraft was sufficiently practised to stand her in good stead. She recognized each feature in the path until she came to the point where she had first entered it In a moment she was battling her way through the thick bush, and the tension she was laboring under took her through it in a fraction of the time her first traversing had been made. Her pony was standing within ten yards of the spot at which she had left him.

She breathed a great relief. In a moment she had unbuckled the hobbles on his forelegs. Then, with the habit of her life on the plains, she tightened the cinchas of the saddle. Then she replaced the bit in its mouth.

As she swung herself into the saddle the distant plod of hoofs pounding the cattle tracks reached her. For one instant she sat in doubt. Then, with a half-thought fear lest her hard pursuit of the wounded deer had left her tough broncho spent, she swung him about and vanished like a ghost into the gloomy depths of the woods.

CHAPTER IV

THE WEAKER VESSEL

The homestead rested upon the southern slope of a wood-crowned hill, which was merely one of a swarm of hills of lesser or greater magnitude. Westward, away in the distance, the silver sheen of the main mountain range still continued to reflect the rainbow tints of a radiant sunset.

It was a homestead to associate with hands less than 'prentice. There was neither imagination nor very definite purpose in its planning. It rather gave the impression of the driving of sheer necessity than the enthusiasm of effort toward the achievement of a heartily conceived purpose. Furthermore, it bore evident signs of a desire to escape as far as possible the burdens of the life it represented.

The squalid two-roomed house was sunk into the backing to the sloping hill. Its front and sides were of green logs and a mud plaster. Its roof was of a primitive thatch, held secure from winter storms by sapling logs lashed fast across it. The central doorway was filled by a rough-boarded door, and the apertures left for added light were covered with thin cotton material. They were left wide open in summer, and in winter only served to shut out the worst of the driven snows and most of the daylight.

The adjacent barn was of far greater extent, but of considerably less degree. Still, it was sufficiently weather-proof, which was all that could be reasonably hoped for by the toughened creatures, who found shelter beneath its crazy roof. Higher up the slope stood a couple of corrals of sorts. Their position was at the southern extremity of the woodland crown, their placing probably inspired by the adjacency of the material required for their construction.

Below the house stretched a sloping patch of growing wheat, perhaps about thirty acres in extent. This was the real business of the homestead, and, in spite of the crazy fencing of barbed wire about it, it looked to be richly flourishing.

For all the general ineffectiveness of the place, however, it was not without significance. For it gave that human touch which at once breaks up the overpowering sensation which never fails to depress in the silent heart of Nature's immensity. It spoke of courage, too. The reckless courage of early youth, plunging for the first time into independence. Furthermore, it suggested something of the first great sacrifice which the hot tide of love, surging through youthful veins, is prepared to make for the object of its passionate regard. In any case it symbolized the irresistible progress of man's effort when pitted against the passive resistance of Nature's most fiercely rugged frontiers.

A wonderful harmonious peace reigned over the scene which was bathed in the light of a drooping sun. It was the chastened pastoral peace, than which there is no more perfect in the world. Cattle were grazing their way homeward; the cows bearing their burden of laden udders to yield it for the benefit and prosperity of the community; the steers lingering at the banks of the murmuring mountain stream, or standing knee-deep in its waters, their sleek sides sheathed in rolls of fat, only waiting to yield up their humble lives as their contribution to the insatiable demands of the dominant race.

Two or three horses stood adjacent to the doorway of the humble barn, patiently flickering their long, unkempt tails in a vain effort to ward off the attacks of swarming flies. A few chickens moved about drowsily, just outside the hutch which had been contrived for their nightly shelter. While stretched upon the dusty earth, side by side, lay two great rough-coated dogs slumbering their hours of watch and ward away in the shade, with the indifference of creatures whose vain hopes of battle have been all too long deferred.

All of a sudden there came a partial awakening.

Out of the west, down the slope of a neighboring hill came a figure on horseback. It was moving at a rapid gallop. The horses at the barn turned about and raised their heads watchfully. They whinnied at the approach. The two dogs were on their feet startled into alertness, vain hope rising once more in their fierce hearts. The hens cackled fussily at the prospect of their deferred evening meal. The last of the cattle ambled heavily from the water's edge. It was rather like the obscure movement of a mainspring, setting into motion even the remotest wheel of a mechanism.

Effie galloped up to the house. Nothing of the gentle waking her coming had inspired attracted her observation. Her handsome eyes were preoccupied, and their gaze wandered back over the way she had come, searching the distance with the minutest care. Finally she dismounted and off-saddled, turning her pony loose to follow the promptings of its own particular requirements. Then she set about releasing the carcase of the deer upon her saddle, and bore it away to a lean-to shed at the side of the house. Emerging therefrom she picked up her saddle and bridle and took them into the house. Then she took up her stand within the doorway and, once more, narrowly searched the surrounding hills with eyes as eager and doubtful as they were beautiful.

The calm of evening had settled once more upon the place. The peace of it all was superlative. It was peace to which Effie was something more than averse. She dreaded it. For all her two years of life in the meagre home her husband had provided her with, it required all her courage and fortitude to endure it. The hills haunted and oppressed her, and her only hope lay in the active prosecution of her work.

She breathed a profound sigh. There was relief in the expression of her face. The drooping corners of her mouth and the tight compression of her well-formed lips told their own story of her emotions. She had passed through an anxious time, and only now was she beginning to feel reassured.

Yes. All was well, she believed. She had lost her pursuers, thanks to the staunchness of her pony, and her knowledge of the country about her. With another sigh, but this time one of weariness, she left her doorway and moved over to the barn. There was still the dreary round of "chores" to which her life seemed dedicated.

* * * * * *

A solitary horseman sat gazing out through a leafy barrier across the narrow valley of the little mountain stream. His eyes were fixed upon the dejected homestead on the slope of the hill beyond. He was be-chapped, and carried the usual complement of weapons at his waist. His horse was an unusually fine creature, and well up to the burden it was called upon to bear. Nor was that burden a light one, for the man was both massive and muscular.

The watchful eyes were deep set in a mahogany-hued setting. It was a hard face, brutal, and the eyes were narrow and cruel.

For a long time he sat there regarding the homestead. He beheld the graceful form of the woman as she moved swiftly about her work. Judging from his expression, which was by no means pleasant, two emotions were struggling for dominance. For some time doubt held chief place, but slowly it yielded to some more animal emotion. Furthermore temptation was urging him, and more than once he lifted his reins, which became a sign of yielding.

But all these emotions finally passed. It was evident that some even stronger force was really governing him. For, with a sharp ejaculation that conveyed every feeling suggested by disappointment, he swung his horse about and galloped off in a southeasterly direction—toward Orrville.

* * * * * *

It was past midnight. Effie, flushed with an unusual excitement, was gazing up into her husband's face. She was listening almost breathlessly to the story he was telling her. The little living-room, more than half kitchen, was bathed in the yellow light of a small tin kerosene lamp. For the time at least her surroundings, the poverty and drudgery of her life, were forgotten in the absorbing feelings consuming her.

"I tell you, Effie, I was scared—plumb scared when I saw what it was," Bob Whitstone ended up. "Guess we've known long enough the whole blamed countryside is haunted by cattle rustlers, but—that's the first time I've seen 'em, and I guess it's the first time any one's seen 'em at work. Say, I'm not yearning for the experience again."

But Effie had no interest beyond his story. His feelings on the matter of his experience were of no concern whatever at the moment. There were other things in her mind, things of far greater import. She returned to the rocker chair, which was the luxury of their home, and sat down. There was one thing only in Bob's story which mattered to her just now.

"Ten thousand dollars," she murmured. "Ten thousand! It's a—fortune."

Bob moved across to a rough shelf nailed upon the wall and picked up a pipe.

"A bit limited," he observed contemptuously, as poured some tobacco dust into the bowl.

"I was thinking of—ourselves."

The man ceased his operation to gaze swiftly down upon the gently swaying figure in the chair.

"What d'you mean, Effie?" he demanded sharply.

The girl's steady eyes were slowly raised in answer to the challenging tone. They met her husband's without a shadow of hesitation.

"It sounds like a fortune to me, who have not handled a dollar that I could spend without careful thought—for two years," she declared with warmth.

Bob completed the filling of his pipe. He did not answer for a few moments, but occupied himself by lighting it with a reeking sulphur match.

"That's a pretty hard remark," he said at last, emitting heavy clouds of smoke between his words.

"Is it? But—it's just plain facts."

"I s'pose it is."

The girl had permitted her gaze to wander. It passed from her husband's face to the deplorable surroundings which she had almost grown accustomed to, but which now stood out in her mind with an added sense of hopelessness. The lime-wash over the cracked and broken plaster which filled the gaps between the logs of the walls. The miserable furnishing, much of it of purely home manufacture, thrown up into hideous relief by the few tasteful knickknacks which had been wedding presents from her intimate friends and relatives in the east. The earthen floor, beaten hard and kept scrupulously swept by her own hands. The cook-stove in the corner, with its ill-set stovepipe passing out of a hole in the wall which had been crudely covered with tin to keep out the draughts in winter. The drooping ceiling of cotton material, which sagged in great billows under the thatch of the roof. It was all deplorable to a woman who had known the comfort of an almost luxurious girlhood. Into her eyes crept a curious light. It was half resentful, half triumphant. It was wholly absorbed.

"Suppose? There's no supposition," she cried bitterly. "I have had the experience of it all, the grind. Maybe you don't know what it is to a woman, a girl, to find herself cut off suddenly from all the little luxuries she has always been used to. I don't mean extravagances. Just the trifling refinements which count for so much in a young woman's life. The position is possible, so long as the hope remains of their return later, perhaps fourfold. But when that hope no longer exists—I guess there's nothing much else that's worth while."

The man continued to smoke on for some silent moments. Then, as the girl, too, remained silent, he glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes.

"You gave up a good deal for me—for this," he said in gentle protest. "But you did it with your eyes open—I mean, to the true facts of my position. Say, Effie, I didn't hold you up for this thing. I laid every card on the table. My father threatened us both, to our faces, if we persisted in marrying. Well, I guess we persisted, and he—why, he just handed us what he promised—the dollars that bought us this—farm. That was all. It was the last cent he figured to pass our way. You know all that, and you never squealed—then. You knew what was in store. I mean—this." He flung out one arm in a comprehensive gesture. "You guessed you'd grit enough to face it—with me. We hoped to win out." Then he smiled. "Say, I guess I haven't given up a thing—for you, eh? I haven't quit the home of millionaire father where my year's pocket money was more than the income of seventy per cent. of other folks! I, too, did it for this—and you. Won't you stick it for me?"

The man's appeal was spoken in low earnest tones His eyes were gentle. But the girl kept hers studiously turned from his direction, and it was impossible for him to read that which lay behind them.

Again some silent moments passed. The girl was gently rocking herself. At last, however, she drew in her feet in a nervous, purposeful movement, and sat forward.

"Bob," she exclaimed, and now there were earnestness and kindness in the eyes that gazed up at the man, "it's no use for us to talk this way," she cried. "I began it, and I ought to be sorry—real sorry. But I'm not. I wouldn't have acted that way under ordinary circumstances. But it's different now, and it was your own talk made me. You sneered at that ten thousand dollars, which seems to be a fortune to me. Ten thousand dollars!" she breathed. "And we haven't ten dollars between us in this—house. Bob, it makes me mad when I think of it. You don't care. You don't worry. All yon care for is to get away from it all—from me—and spend your time among the boys in Orrville. You've been away ever since dinner to-day, and now it's past midnight. Why? Why, when there's a hundred and one things to do around this wretched shanty? No—you undertake this thing, and then—spend every moment you can steal—yes, that's the word—steal, hanging around Ju Penrose's saloon. I'm left to fix things right here—to do the work which you have undertaken. Then you sneer when I see a fortune in that ten thousand dollars reward."

The girl's swift heat was not without effect. She had not intended to accuse in so straight a fashion. It was the result of long pent-up bitterness, which never needs more than a careless word to hurl into active expression. Bob's mild expression of contempt looked to be about to cost him dear.

A moody look not untouched with some sort of fear had crept into the man's eyes. Now he tried to smooth the threat of storm he saw looming. Furthermore, an uncomfortable feeling of his own guilt was possessing him.

"But what if it can be called a fortune, Effie?" he demanded swiftly.
"It don't concern us. I don't guess it's liable to come our way."

"Why not?"

The girl's challenge came short and sharp, and her beautiful eyes were turned upon him full of cold regard.

The man was startled. He was even shocked.

"How?" he demanded. "I don't get you."

The girl sprang from her chair in a movement of sup-pressed excitement. She came toward him, her eyes shining. A glorious ruddy tint shone through the tanning of her fair cheeks. She was good to look at, and Bob felt the influence of her beauty at that moment just as he had felt it when, for her, he had first flung every worldly consideration to the four winds.

"Will you listen, Bob? Will you listen to me while I tell you all that's been churning around in my head ever since you told me of that reward? You must. You shall. I have lived through a sort of purgatory in these hills for too long not to make my voice heard now—now when there's a chance of making our lives more tolerable. Oh, I've had a day while you've been away. It's been a day such as in my craziest moments I've never even dreamed of. Bob, I've discovered what they've all been trying to discover for years. I've found Lightfoot's camp!"

"And then?"

The girl's enthusiasm left her husband caught in a wave of apprehension. He saw with a growing sense of horror the meaning of that sudden revolt. This was displayed in his manner. Nor was Effie unobservant of it. Nor unresentful.

She shrugged her perfect shoulders with assumed unconcern.

"That reward—those ten thousand dollars are mine—ours—if I choose.
And—I do choose."

There was no mistaking the firmness, the decision in her final words. They came deliberate and hard, and they roused the man to prompt and sharp denial.

"You—do—not."

He was no longer propped against the table. He was no longer gentle. He stood erect and angry, and their regard was eye to eye. But even so there was no disputing the woman's dominance of personality. The man's eyes, for all their anger, conveyed not a tithe of the other's decision. His whole attitude was subjective to the poise of the woman's beautiful head, her erect, sculptured shoulders. Her measuring eyes were full of a fine revolt. There was nothing comparable between them—except their anger.

"Who can stop me? You?"

The scornful challenge rang sharply through the little room. Then a silence fraught with intense moment followed upon its heels.

The man nodded. His movement was followed by Effie's mocking laugh.

Perhaps Bob realized the uselessness, the danger of retaining such an attitude. Perhaps his peculiar nature was unequal to the continuous effort the position called for. In a moment he seemed to shrink before those straight gazing eyes, and the light of purpose behind them. When he finally spoke a curious, almost pleading tone blended with the genuine horror in his words.

"No, no, Effie, you can't—you daren't!" he cried passionately. "Do you know what you're doing? Do you know what that reward means to you—to us? Look at your hands. They're clean, and soft, and white. Say, girl, that's blood money, blood money that'll surely stain them with a crimson you'll never wash off 'em all your life. It's blood money. Man's blood. Human blood. Just the same as runs through our veins. Oh, say, girl, I've no sort of use for rustlers. They're crooks, and maybe murderers. Guess they're everything you can think of, and a sight more. But they're men, and their blood's hot, warm blood the same as yours and mine. And you reckon to chaffer that blood for a price. You're going to sell it—for a price. You're going to do more. Yes. You're going to wreck a woman's conscience for life for those filthy, blood-soaked dollars. The price? Effie, things are mighty hard with us. Maybe they're harder with you than me. But I just can't believe we've dropped so low we can sell the life blood of even a—murderer. I can't believe it. I just can't. That's all. Tell 'em, Effie. Tell 'em all you know and have discovered if you will. Tell 'em in the cause of justice. But barter your soul and conscience for filthy blood money—I—bah! It makes me turn sick to think that way."

But Effie was in no mood to listen to the dictates of squeamish principles from a man who lacked the spirit and power—the will to raise her out of the mire of penury into which he had helped to plunge her. The hours of dreary, hopeless labor; the weeks and months of dismal and grinding poverty had sunk deeply into her soul. No price was too high to pay to escape these things. In a moment her reply was pouring forth in a passionate torrent.

"Blood money?" she cried. "Bob, you're crazier than I'd have thought. Where's the difference? I mean between handin' these folks over to justice for justice sake, and taking the reward the folks who're most to benefit by it are ready to hand out to me? Say, you can't talk that way, Bob. You can't just do it. Aren't the folks who carry out the justice in the land paid for it—from the biggest judge to the fellow who handles the levers of the electric chair? Doesn't the country hand out thousands of dollars every year for the punishment of offenders, whether it's for the shedding of their life blood, or merely their heart's blood in the cruel horrors of a penitentiary? Do you think I'm going to hand out my secret to a bunch of cattlemen for their benefit and profit, and reap no comfort from it for myself in the miserable life I'm condemned to endure? Your scruples are just crazy. They're worse. They're selfish. You'd rather see me drudging all the best moments of my life away, so you can lounge around Ju Penrose's saloon spending dollars you've no right to, than risk your peace of mind on an honest—yes, honest—transaction that's going to give me a little of the comfort that you haven't the grit to help me to yourself."

The girl was carried away with the force of her own purpose and craving. Every word she said was meant from the bottom of her soul. There was not a shadow of yielding. She had no illusions. For two years her heart had been hardening to its present condition, and she would not give up one tittle of the chance that now opened out before her hungry eyes.

Bob was clay in her hands. He was clay in any hands sufficiently dominating. He knew from the moment he had delivered his appeal, and he had heard only the tones of her reply, that it was he who must yield or complete irrevocably the barrier which had been steadily growing up between them. Just for a moment the weakly, obstinate thought had occurred of flinging everything to the winds and of denying her once more with all the force at his command. But the moment passed. It fled before the charm of her presence, and the memory of the loved which he was incapable of shutting out of his heart. He knew he was right, and she was utterly wrong. But he knew, equally well, from her words and attitude, that it was he who must give way, or——

He shook his head with a negative movement which Effie was quick enough to realize meant yielding. She wanted him to yield. It would simplify all her purpose. She desired that he should participate in the transaction.

"You'll regret it, Effie," he said, in his usual easy tones. "You'll regret it so you'll hate to think of this moment all the rest of your life. It's not you talking, my dear, it's just—the experience you've had to go through. Can't you see? You've never been like this before. And it isn't you. Say, I'd give my right hand it you'd quit the whole thing."

But the girl's resolution was unwavering.

"You—still refuse—to countenance it?" she demanded.

Again Bob shook his head. But now he moved away and struck a match to relight his pipe.

"No," he said. Then he slowly puffed out great clouds of smoke. "No, my dear, if you're bent on it." Then he moved to the cook-stove and supported one foot upon it.

"Say—you guess I'm selfish. You guess I haven't acted as I ought to help push our boat along. You reckon I've become a sort of saloon-loafing bum. Guess you sort of think I'm just about the limit. Well, maybe I'm nothing to shriek about. However, I've told you all I feel. I've told you what you're going to feel—later. Meanwhile it's up to me to help you all I know. Tell me the whole thing, and I'll do the business for you. I'll see Dug McFarlane for you, and fix things. But it's on one condition."

"What is it?"

Something of the coldness had passed from the girl's eyes. She was smiling because she had achieved her purpose.

"Why—just this. That I don't touch one single dollar of the price you're to receive for those poor devils' blood. That's all."

Just for a moment a dull flush surged up under the tan of the girl's cheeks, and her eyes sparkled ominously. Then she returned to her rocker with great deliberation.

"You're crazy, Bob," she said frigidly, but without any other display.
"Still—just sit around, and—I'll tell you it all."

And while the man listened to the story of his wife's adventures his mind went back to the scene in Ju Penrose's saloon, and the denial he had flung so heatedly at that philosophic cynic.

CHAPTER V

THE HANGING BEE

Dug McFarlane was a picturesque creature. He was big in height and girth. He was also big in mind. And, which was much more important to the people of the Orrville ranching world, big in purse. He was grizzled and gray, and his eyes beamed out of a setting which was surely made for such beaming; a setting which possessed no sharp angles or disfiguring hollows, but only the healthy tissue of a well-nourished and wholesome-living man in middle life.

As he sat his horse, beside his station foreman, gazing out at the broken line of foothills which marked the approach to the barrier of mountains cutting against the blue, he seemed to display in his bearing something of that dominating personality which few successful men are entirely without. All about them lay the heavy-railed corrals of a distant out-station. Just behind stood the rough shanty, which was the bunkhouse for the cowhands employed in this region. The doctor was still within, tending the grievously injured man who had been so badly wounded in the previous night's raid by the rustlers.

For the time Dug's beaming eyes were shadowed with a concern that was half angry and wholly depressed. They searched the rolling grass-land until the distance was swallowed up by the barrier of hills. He was seeking one reassuring glimpse of the black, hornless herd whose pastures these were. But only disappointment met him on every side. The beautiful, sleek, Aberdeen-Angus herd, which was his joy and pride, had vanished. They had gone, he knew. They had gone the same way that, during the last five years, hundreds of head of his stock had gone. It was the last straw.

"Say, Lew Hank," he said, in a voice of something approaching an emotion he possessed no other means of displaying, "it's beat me bad. It's beat me so bad I don't seem able to think right. We'd a hundred head running on this station. As fine a bunch as ever were bred from the old country's strain. I just feel that mad I could set right in to break things."

Then, after a long pause during which the station foreman waited silent:

"And only last night, while these guys was raising the mischief right here, I was setting around doping out big talk, and raising a mighty big wad for the round-up of the whole darnation gang. Can you beat it? I'm sore. Sore as hell. Say, tell it me again. I don't seem to have it clear."

He passed one great muscular hand across his moist forehead, and the gesture was rather one of helplessness.

Lew Hank regarded him with measuring eyes. He knew him so well. In the ten years and more he had worked for him he had studied his every mood. This phase in the great cattleman's character was something new, something rather startling. Dug's way was usually volcanic. It was hot and fierce for a while, generally to hollowed by a hearty laugh, rather like the passing of a summer storm. But this, in Lew's opinion, was a display of weakness. A sign he neither liked nor respected. The truth was Dug McFarlane had been hit in a direction of which his subordinate had no understanding. That herd of Aberdeen-Angus cattle had been his plaything. His hobby. He had been devoted to it in a way that would have been absurd to any one but a cattleman. Hank decided this unaccustomed weakness must be nipped in the bud.

"Say, boss, it ain't no use in squealin'," he grumbled, in the hard tones of a man who yields to no feelings of sympathy. His weather-stained face was set and ugly in its expression. "Wher's the use in it anyway?" he demanded. "Get a look around. There's miles of territory, an' all of it runs into them blamed hills. I got three boys with me. They're right boys, too. I don't guess there's a thing you or me could tell 'em 'bout their work. Not a thing. Day and night one of 'em's on grazin' guard. Them beasties ain't never left to trail off into the hills. Wal, I guess that's all we ken do—sure. Say, you can't hold up a gang of ten an' more toughs with a single gun in the dead, o' night, 'specially with a hole in your guts same as young Syme's had bored into his. I ain't ast once, nor twice, to hev them beasties run into the corrals o' nights, and fed hay, same as in winter. I've ast it fifty times. It's bin up to you, boss. So I say it's no use in squealin'."

Hank spat over his horse's shoulder, and his thin lips closed with a snap. He was a lean forceful prairieman who possessed, as he would himself have said, no parlor tricks. Dug McFarlane, for all his wealth, for all he had been elected president of the Western Union Cattle Breeders' Association three years in succession, was no more to him than any other employer who paid wages for work loyally performed.

Dug regarded his foreman with close attention. He ignored the man's rough manner. But, nevertheless, it was not without effect.

"And the other boys?"

"Was dead asleep in the bunkhouse—same as me. What 'ud you have?
They ain't sheep dogs."

Dug took no umbrage.

"And they're out on the trail—right now?"

"Sure. Same as we should be, 'stead o' wastin' hot air around here. Say, I guess you're feelin' sore. But I don't guess your feelin's is a circumstance to mine, boss. You ain't bin beat to your face by this lousy gang. I have. An' say, I'm yearnin'—jest gaspin'—to wipe out the score. I don't sort o' care a bit for your loss. That ain't my funeral. But they've beat me plumb out—same as if I was some sucker who ain't never roped an' branded a three-year-old steer since I was pupped. Are you comin' along? They struck out northwest. We got that, an' the boys is follerin' hard on their trail. It'll be better'n squealin' around here."

There could be no doubt about the man's feelings. They were displayed in every word he spoke. In every glance of his fierce eyes. Dug approved him. His manners were nothing. Lew was probably the most capable cattleman in his service.

He was about to follow his foreman who had swung his horse about to set off northward, when he abruptly flung out an arm, pointing.

"That one of your boys—coming in? Maybe——"

Lew screwed up his eyes in the sunlight. His rep came in a moment.

"Maybe—nuthin'. That ain't one of my boys." Then, after a brief, considering pause, in which he narrowly examined the distant horseman's outfit: "Sort o' rec'nize him, too. Likely he's that bum guy with the dandy wife way up on Butte Creek. Whitstone, ain't it? Feller with swell folks way down east, an' who guesses the on'y sort o' farmin' worth a cuss is done in Ju Penrose's saloon. That's him sure," he added, as the man drew nearer. Then he went on musingly. "I guess he's got a lot to dope out. Say, them guys must have passed near by his shanty."

Bob Whitstone reined his pony up with a jerk. He was on a mission that inspired no other emotion than that of repulsion and self-loathing. And these things found reflection in his good-looking face.

He glanced swiftly from one to the other as he confronted the burly rancher and his station foreman. The latter he did not know, nor was he interested in him. The man he had come to see was Dug McFarlane, who claimed from him, as he did from every man in the district, something in the nature of respect.

"Guess you'll remember me, sir," he began, in his easy, refined tones. "My name is Whitstone—Bob Whitstone. You granted me certain grazing rights awhile back. It was some two years ago. Maybe you'll remember. You did it to help me out. Anyway, I came over to see you this morning because—I must. If you can spare half an hour I want to see you privately. It's—important. You've been robbed last night, and—it's about them. The gang, I mean."

His pony was still blowing. Bob had ridden hard. He had first ridden into Orrville, and then followed the rancher out here. He was leaning over in the saddle lounging upon the horn of it. His eyes were gazing curiously, speculatively at the figure of the man who ruled the local cattle industry. He was calculating in his own way what might be the effect of the news he had to impart. What estimate this big man—and Bob knew him to be a big man—would have of him when he had told his news and claimed the—blood money? With each moment he shrank smaller and smaller in his own estimation.

Dug regarded him steadily.

"You've got news of them?"

Bob nodded, and glanced meaningly in the direction of Lew Hank.

"I've seen 'em. But—it's more than that."

The rancher turned quickly upon his foreman.

"Say, just get along into the shack there, and see how the Doc's making with young Syme. I need a talk with Whitstone."

It was not without obvious and resentful reluctance that Lew Hank withdrew. Even his hardihood, however, was unequal to resisting so direct an order from his chief.

The two men watched him out of earshot. Then Dug, with almost precipitate haste, turned back to his visitor.

"Now, sir, I'm ready to hear anything you need to tell me."

But Bob was thinking of Ju Penrose as he had thought of him many times since he had listened and yielded to Effie's appeal. Every man has his price. Bob knew now that he, like the rest, had his price. That price a woman had set for him. Ju was right—hatefully right. Well, he would now refuse to be robbed of one cent of it.

He looked up sharply as the other made his demand.

"You're offering ten thousand dollars reward for the| capture of the
Lightfoot gang, Mr. McFarlane?"

"That's so."

The rancher's regard had deepened. There was a curious light shining in his blue eyes. It was half speculative, half suggestive of growing excitement. It was wholly full of a burning interest.

"Say, I'd just like to know how I stand." Bob laughed that short hard laugh which bears no trace of mirth. "You see, I can put you wise. I can lead you right on to their camp so you can get 'em—while they're sleeping, or any other old way. Oh, yes, I'm ready to play my part right up to the limit. It don't matter a thing. I'm not just here to tell you about things. I'm here to lead you to that camp, and take a hand in the hanging when you get busy. You see, I'm a whole hogger. But I want to know how things stand about that ten thousand dollar reward. Do I get it? If I get shot up does my wife get it? And when it's paid, do you shout about it? Does the gang down Orrville way need to know who it was they forgot to hand the name of Judas to when he was christened? I don't care a cuss on my own account. It's——"

But Dug McFarlane broke in upon the bitter raillery. He had no thought for the man or his feelings, just for one moment it seemed to him that some sort of miracle had happened. And his every thought and feeling was absorbed in it. Here, after five years of vain effort, here, after five years of depredations which had almost threatened the cattle industry in the district with complete crippling, here was a man who could lead them to the raiders' hiding-place, could show them how the hanging they all so cordially desired could be brought about. It was stupendous. It was—yes, it was miraculous.

His first impulse had been to give way to the excitement which stirred him, but he restrained himself.

"Ten thousand dollars will be paid by me to the man, or his nominee, privately, if his information leads to the hanging of this gang. Say, boy, we ain't goin' to split hairs or play any low games on this lay out. I'm a rich man, an' ten thousand dollars ain't a circumstance so we break up this gang. If we only get one of 'em or part of 'em, the man who shows me their hiding-place, and leads me to it, that man—or his wife—gets my ten thousand dollars. You can have it in writing. But my word goes any old time. Now you can get busy and hand me the proposition."

The steady eyes, the emphatic tones of this big, straight-dealing rancher silenced the last doubt in Bob's lesser mind. He was out to do this dirty work with all his might in the interest of the woman who had inspired it. But he had scarcely been prepared for such simple methods as this man displayed. He had felt that it was for him to barter, to scheme, to secure the dollars Effie coveted. A deep sigh escaped him. It may have been relief. It may have been of regret that he must stand before so straight-dealing a personality claiming his thirty pieces of silver.

He passed one hand across his perspiring brow and thrust his prairie hat farther back upon his head. He would have preferred, however, to have drawn it down over his eyes to escape the searching gaze from the honest depths of the other's. Suddenly, with a gesture of impatience, he began to talk rapidly.

"It's no use, Mr. McFarlane, I hate this rotten work," he cried out. "I—I hate it so bad I could just rather bite my tongue out than tell you the things I've got to. It's rotten. I don't know—— Say, you don't know me, and I don't guess you care a curse anyway. But I was brought up in a city and taught to believe things were a deal better than I've lately come to think they are. Psha! These fellers have got to be hanged when and where we get them. But it hurts me bad to think that I've got to take dollars for handing you their lives. Oh, that don't tell you a thing either. You'd say I don't need to take 'em. But I do. I got to take those dollars, if they blister my hands and burn the bones inside 'em. I've got to have 'em, and I'd like to burn 'em, every blazing one. But I've got to have 'em. Say, I'll be paid on the nail when the job's done? If I get shot up the money'll be paid to my wife? Will you give me your word, sir? Your word of honor?"

"My word of honor."

"Say, then come right back with me to my shanty no, best not. We'll ride back to Orrville, and I'll hand you all I know as we go. I can quit you before we reach the township. Then you can hustle the crowd together and I'll be waiting ready at my shack to play my part—the dirty rotten Judas racket."

"Judas betrayed his—Master and Friend. Are these people your friends?
Is Lightfoot your master?"

"Heavens! What d'you take me for—a rustler?"

"Then quit your crazy talk of Judas. Your duty's plumb clear. Your duty's to hand these folks, these bandits, into our hands. The money's a matter of—choice. I'll just hand my man a word or two, and we'll get back Orrville way."

* * * * * *

It was past midnight when Bob took up a position squatting on the sill of his own doorway. Standing close behind him, leaning against the rough casing, Effie looked down upon his huddled figure. Her eyes were alight with a power of suppressed excitement. The blood was surging through her young veins, and every nerve was tense with the strain of waiting, of anticipation.

But her emotions were by no means shared by her husband. For all her beauty and woman's charm she was different, utterly different from him. She had been brought up to the understanding that she would have to make her own way in the world. All her parents had been able to do for her was to see that she was as fully equipped for the adventure of life as their limited means would permit. Those means would die when her chief parent died, and the style in which they had lived left no margin for saving.

So, with cool calculation, Effie had set about her life's effort. Nor had she considered herself unsuccessful in the first spreading of her maiden wings. A millionaire's son! It was a splendid match. It had met with the entire approval of her family.

Then had come disillusionment. A determined opposition from Bob's father. She had been urged to break off the engagement. She even intended to do so. But some how she had miscalculated the nature which her education had been powerless to eradicate. She realized at last when the demands of her campaign made themselves heard, that there was something she had hitherto completely ignored. There was the woman's heart of her. She had most absurdly fallen in love with this first stepping-stone toward the goal of her ambition. It was the absurd uncalculating love of extreme youth. But it was sufficiently impetuous to flout all the reason which her training and upbringing had been calculated to inspire her with.

The rest followed in natural sequence, and now, after two years of married penury, she was ready to seize any straw which chance flung in her way as a means of salving that ambition which she now saw, with more perfectly clear vision, was completely upon the rocks.

Now, in her mind, there were only three matters of concern. Would Dug
McFarlane come? Would they succeed in capturing this Lightfoot gang?
Would she get those ten thousand dollars, which appeared so vast a sum
to eyes only accustomed to dwelling upon cents?

Bob was silent. His whole aspect seemed to have undergone a complete changes. He had returned to her with the story of his interview with Dug McFarlane. He had returned to her with the assurance that he had sold his conscience, his honor, at her bidding, and he hoped she was satisfied. Since then he had wrapped himself in a moody silence which had defied her utmost effort to break down.

The horses stood ready saddled in the barn. Effie was clad in her riding suit. As yet the moon had not risen to reduce the starlit magnificence of the velvet summer night sky. Nor was there any sound to warn them that the hours of suspense were nearly over.

Finally, Effie could endure the silence no longer. Her dark eyes were intently gazing down upon the bowed figure of the man. They were hard with every bitter woman's emotion. She was full of a fierce, hot resentment against the man who could so obstinately resist the spirit of her longing.

"Bob," she cried at last, all restraint completely giving way, "do you know what I could do just now more willingly than anything else in the world? I could thrust out my foot and spurn you with it as you might any surly cur which barred your way. I tell you I'm hot with every feeling of contempt for your crazy attitude. You dare to set yourself and your moral scruples between my welfare and the miserable life you've condemned me to. Your moral scruples. Were there ever such things? Morals? Ju Penrose's saloon day and night—for you. The sluttish drudgery of this wretched place for me. Then you dare to place your conscience before my—comfort."

"Do I?"

The man did not look up. His brooding eyes were on the sky-line to the southeast.

"I've done as you needed. I've arranged everything with the—hangman. You're going to touch those pleasant dollars. What more are you asking me?"

"What more? Yes, you've done these things because I've driven you to them. You? You'd rather see me sitting around here starving, a worn wreck of a woman, than lend a willing hand to bettering our lot. Oh, yes, you've done these things, and—I hate you for the way you've done them."

The man sat up. He shifted his position so that he could gaze up at the splendid creature standing over him.

"You don't hate me worse than I hate myself, Effie," he said with an exasperating lack of emotion. "Say, you feel like kicking me. You feel like treating me like a surly cur. Well, I guess you're welcome. I don't guess there's a thing you can do that way can hurt me worse than you've done already." Then he smiled. And his smile was more maddening to the woman than his words. "Don't worry a thing. You're going to get your dollars if there's anything I can do to help you, and when you've got 'em—why, if the merciful God we've both been brought up to believe in is all we believe Him, I shan't be around to watch you dirtying your hands with them."

Then with a swift, alert movement he raised a warning hand.

"H'sh!"

For some seconds they remained listening. Far away to the southeast a low murmuring note came over the low hills. The girl remained with eyes straining to pierce the starlit monotone. The man rose slowly from his seat. Finally he turned about and faced her, and his eyes smiled into hers.

"The hanging bee," he said.

CHAPTER VI

THE RAIDERS RAIDED

It was the gap where the screen of bush broke off, leaving the barren shoulder overlooking the valley. It was where the hard-beaten, converging cattle-paths hurled themselves over the brink to the wide depths below.

The stillness that prevailed was unbroken by a single night sound. Even the insect life seemed wrapped in a deep hush of somnolence. As yet the night scavengers had not emerged from their hidings to bay the silvery radiance of a moonlit night. The deep hush beneath the myriad of eyes of night was as beautiful as it was treacherous, for it only cloaked hot, stirring passions ready in a moment to break out into warring chaos.

Crouching low under the shelter of the screening bush three figures huddled closely. They were peering across the wide gulf, searching with eyes that only half read what lay before them in the starlight. Their gaze rested upon one definite spot whose shadowy outline was indicated by the outstretched arm of one of the party. It was a deep woodland bluff, leaning, as it seemed, for support against the far wall of the valley's western slope.

After some tense moments the straining eyes beheld the faintest glimmer of artificial light flickering in the depths of its silent heart. So faint was it, at the distance, that, for a while, doubt prevailed. Then conviction supervened as each of the watchers recorded his observation and a sigh of certitude made itself heard. The point of light was held by all. It was dwelt upon. It was the verification needed to convey absolute faith in the woman's tale miraculous.

Perhaps it was the light in some window of a secret abode. Perhaps it was the steady flicker of an unscreened camp-fire. Perhaps, even, it was the beam of some lantern carelessly set down and left alight. Whatever it was it was certainly of human agency, and human agency in these regions had only one interpretation for the minds of those who were watching from the high eastern wall of the valley.

Presently a woman's voice spoke in the hush of suppressed excitement. Her tone was full of an eagerness that hurled her words swiftly upon the still night air.

"That's where I marked them down," she whispered. "There—just there. Right where that light's shining. Somewhere in the heart of that bluff. There was a herd grazing out in front, with three mounted men guarding it. There's no mistake. It's a bee-line right across. And the men who fired up this way came out of those trees. It's steep down these paths. They sort of zigzag their way, but it's a path any horse can make without danger. It just needs care. Once in the valley it's a stretch of sweet-grass without a bluff or a break of any sort. There's no slough either. It's just grass. One big flat of sweet-grass."

There was no reply from her companions. They were engrossed with the object of their straining scrutiny. Presently the woman went on again.

"This is where my work quits," she said. Then she withdrew her gaze and looked up at the dim outline of the big man nearest her. There was just a shade of eagerness in her manner now. "That's Lightfoot's camp, Mr. McFarlane," she assured. "I've done all that's needed. You see, I'm a woman, and I don't guess you need anything more from me. Shall I stop right here, or—get back to home?"

Bob Whitstone was watching his wife closely as she addressed herself to the rancher. He noted her tone, her evident anxiety now, and he understood. A curious repulsion surged through him. In the brief two years of his married life no such sensation had ever possessed him. But he recognized it. It was the breaking point. Effie no longer held place in his affections. He glanced up at McFarlane as his deep tones whispered in the silence.

"Yes, ma'am, get right back to home. There's no need for you to get mussed up with what's goin' to happen. It's man's work, not a woman's. Your husband's got my word. You'll find we aren't forgetful."

Then he drew back under cover, and moved away to where, scattered along the path, well sheltered from view, a large party of dismounted horsemen were awaiting his orders.

Effie turned to her husband.

"You're coming back with me, Bob?" she said, almost pleadingly. "It's a long way to home."

Bob's eyes gazed straight into hers. Even in the darkness Effie felt something of the coldness of his regard.

"Are you scared?" he demanded.

Effie shook her head.

"There's nothing to be scared at. But you've nothing to do with—the rest of it."

"Haven't I?"

"You're not going down there with them?"

There was a curious sharpness in the woman's whispering voice. Bob's cold regard remained unwavering.

"I'm leaving nothing to chance. You've got to get your wages. I'm going to see you get them. Yes, I'm going—down there."

A sudden fierce passion swept through the woman's heart. Hot words in retort surged to her lips. But they remained unuttered. A strong effort of restraint checked them. She turned away coldly, her eyes focussing once more upon the tiny point of light across the hollow.

"Guess you must do as you think," she said, with a shrug. And she remained with her back turned upon the man she was destined never to address again.

Bob moved away and joined the rest of the Vigilantes. They were already in the saddle. Dug McFarlane had given his final orders. In a moment Bob surveyed the scene in the dim light. Then he turned away to his own horse and sprang into the saddle.

McFarlane saw him and rode up.

"You coming along?" he enquired curiously.

"Sure."

"Good boy." Then he drew a deep breath. "Maybe there'll be an empty saddle or two before we've done. But I don't guess that'll need to worry us any. The man who 'passes in' to-night won't have any kick comin'. It's better that way—with your duty done."

"Yes."

The simple monosyllable was strangely expressive, but Dug McFarlane had no understanding of the thought that prompted it. It would have been difficult indeed, even with understanding, to have probed the depths of feeling prompting it. But Whitstone was incapable of seeing the broader aspect of anything pertaining to himself. He saw only as his feelings dictated, without logic or reason of any sort. He was of that nature which leans for support upon prejudices absorbed in early youth. Principles inculcated through early environment and teaching. He was incapable of testing or questioning their verity. Robbed of them he was left floundering. And Effie, the woman whom he had married only out of hot, youthful human regard, had so robbed him.

Effie drew back. She pressed herself close into the bush as the cavalcade sought the path at the edge of the valley. She watched the burly leader vanish over the brink. Then, one by one, twenty-five others passed her in review, and were swallowed up by the depths below. She knew none of them personally, but she knew they were all ranchers and ranchmen of varying degree. She knew that each individual had at some time suffered at the hands of the rustlers. That deep in each heart was the craving for a vengeance which possessed small enough thought of justice in it. These men were Vigilantes. They were so called not from any desire to enforce law and order, but purely for their own self-defense, the defending of self-interests.

They impressed her not from any justice of motive, but from the merciless purpose upon which they were bent.

The last to pass over the brink was her husband, a slight figure, almost puny, amongst these hard prairie folk. Just for one weak moment she was on the point of raising a protesting voice. Just for one moment a womanly softening held her yielding. He was her husband, and memories crowded. But almost as they were born they died. Their place was once more taken by the recollection of the life she had been forced to endure for the sake of her first youthful passion. Her heart hardened. No impulse had driven her to her present actions. They were the result of a craving she was powerless to resist. Her husband must go his way. He must act as he saw fit. For herself she would not forego one tithe of the reward which she believed would help her to that comfort in life for which her soul yearned.

With the passing of the Vigilantes she moved clear of the bush. She would see this out. Home? She had no desire for her home. The night had no terrors for her. Nothing had terror for her, except the failure of these men.

She flung herself upon the ground and lay with wide eyes searching the remoteness of the valley beyond. Her impatience had developed into something almost feverish. She wanted a sign. She wanted assurance. But the world seemed so still, so entirely peaceful.

The moments pursued for her a sluggish course. The jeweled sky was an added regret. She desired light, light that she might witness the whole drama she hoped—yes, hoped—would be played out down there in the valley. A sort of dementia had taken possession of her. She had no thought of the blood to be poured out at her bidding. She thought nothing of the strong lives to be given up in sacrifice for her well-being. She thought only of herself, and all that the success of that night's affairs would mean to her.

But the dragging minutes extending upward of half an hour wore her fever down. And slowly depression replaced her more tense emotions. It all seemed so long in happening that failure began to loom, and to become a certainty.

It was too good to hope. Ten thousand dollars! The amount bulked in her mind. It grew greater and greater in its significance as delay thrust hope further and further from her thought. Again impatience grew, hot, angry impatience, and drove depression out. What were they doing down there? Why did they not surround the bluff? There were enough of them. Look! The light was still shining. It was the camp. Where that light shone the men lay in hiding. Well—it was simple. To her mind there was no need for——

The sound of a rifle shot split the air with significant abruptness. The sound banished the last of her half-angry causing. The moment had come. She raised herself up for no other reason than tense drawn suspense.

A second shot. Then a rattle of musketry which suggested general conflict. She drew a deep breath. Far away in the distance it seemed she heard a sharp cry. It was the final shriek of a human creature in the agony of a mortal wound. Then followed the sound of hoarse voices shouting.

For some moments nothing in the scene changed. The speck of light shone out twinkling and gleaming like some evil eye. For the rest—there remained the deep twilight marked by the myriads of summer stars.

But the cries of men, the trampling of speeding hoofs held her. The breathlessness of the whole thing was upon her now, making it impossible to detach her regard from the main features.

The rattle of rifles had become almost incessant. And a few moments later a blaze of light shot up from the far side of the bluff. It grew, licking up the great, sun-dried, resinous pine wood with paralyzing rapidity. Another great sheet of flame soared upward further away to the right. Then another to the south. A fire trap had been set at the far side of the great bluff, and only the hither side remained open to those seeking shelter within it.

Effie's gaze was fascinated beyond her control. The Vigilantes had planned their coup deliberately and well. The air she was breathing began to reek with the pungent smell of burning. A light smoke haze began to flood the picture. Now she beheld moving figures in the lurid glow which backed the scene. They were horsemen. But whether or not they were the Vigilantes she could not be certain. They were racing across the open, and the crack of their rifles mingled with the spluttering crackle of the conflagration beyond.

Never for one moment did the woman withdraw her gaze. The spell of it all was almost painful. She knew that life and death were at grips down there in that cauldron of conflict. And though at moments shudders passed through her body, they were neither shudders of weakness nor womanish horror. Her only emotion was excitement, and her nerves were ready to respond in physical expression to every vision her eyes communicated to them.

An hour passed thus. The bluff was a furnace, roaring, booming. It lit the valley seemingly from end to end. The night shadows had been swept aside, and the scene lay spread out before her eyes. She saw dismounted riders moving about. She beheld one group; a number of men huddled together, held as though they were prisoners.

At last firing altogether ceased and the straggling horsemen began to reassemble in the vicinity of the chief group. Then, as the raging fire ate its way through to the hither side of the bluff, and turned the final barrier into a wall of fire, the whole party moved away down the valley with obvious signs of haste.

Effie gazed after them with widening eyes while the hot breath of the conflagration fanned her cheeks. She was wondering, speculating, and slowly the significance of their movements began to take hold of her.

At first she had thought that the movement was inspired by the overpowering heat of the forest fire. She had warned herself of the danger. The grass down there. The flying sparks. But almost in the same breath she realized that there was more, far more in that movement. The grass was far too green in the valley to form any real danger and the bluff was sufficiently isolated. No, there was more in it than the danger of fire.

She shivered, although the night air now possessed something of the temperature of a summer noon. All her excitement had passed. She had even forgotten for the time all that the doings of that night meant to her. She was thinking of the deliberate administration of justice as these men understood it. It was crude, deadly, and full of a painful horror, and now, now, in saner moments, she beheld the dawn of emotions which had come all too late. Whither were those men riding? Whither? And then? Ah—she shuddered, and her shudder was full of realization. For well she knew that the men she had seen grouped were living prisoners. Living prisoners. How long would they remain so? What would be their end?

CHAPTER VII

OUTLAND JUSTICE

The noon sun sweltered down through the rank vegetation of the narrow defile. The heat was almost too burdensome to endure. It was moist; it was dank with the reek of decaying matter. The way was a seemingly endless battle against odds. But the travelers were buoyed with the knowledge that it was a short cut, calculated to save them many hours and many miles.

Bud Tristram had pointed the way. Furthermore, he had urged Jeff to accept and endure the tortures and shortcomings which he knew they must face in the heart of this remote gulch.

Nor were his warnings unneeded, for Nature had set up no inconsiderable defenses. Here were swarms of over-grown mosquitoes of a peculiarly vicious type, which covered their horses' flanks in a gray horde, almost obliterating their original colors; and a bleeding mass resulted every time either man raised a hand to the back of his own neck to soothe the fierce irritation of the vicious attacks. Then the way itself. It was a narrow gorge almost completely occupied by the muddy bed and boggy shores of a drying mountain creek.

It was, in Jeff's own words, a "fierce journey." The heat left them drenched in perspiration, and wiltering. The two packhorses fought for their very lives, often hock deep in a sucking mire. While the beasts, who bore the burden of their exacting masters, were driven to battle every inch of the way against a fiercely obstinate rampart of dense grown bush.

Mercifully the gorge was less than three miles in length. A greater distance must have left the nervous equine mind staggered, and helpless, and beaten. As it was nearly three hours of incessant struggle only served to pass the final barrier.

"Phew!"

Jeff Masters drew off his hat as they emerged upon the wide opening of a great valley. Then he flung himself out of the saddle and began to sweep the blood-inflated mosquitoes from his horse's flanks. Bud, with less haste, proceeded to do the same. Finally, both men walked round the weary beasts and examined the security of the packs on the led horses.

Bud pointed down the valley with one outstretched arm.

"We'll make that way," he said, his deep eyes dwelling almost affectionately upon the wide stretch of blue-tinted grass. "Guess we'll take the high land an' camp fer food."

Then he turned back to his horse and remounted. Jeff silently followed his example and they rode on.

For many minutes no word passed between them. Each was busy with his own particular thoughts. The deep look of friendly affection was still in Bud's eyes. Jeff was far less concerned with the wonderful scene slowly unfolding itself as they proceeded than with the purpose of his journey. He knew they had reached the central point from which they were to radiate their search of the labyrinth of hills. His mind was upon the wealth of possibility before them. The difficulties. Bud, for the time at least, was concerned only with that which his eyes beheld, and the memories of other days far, far back when he had possessed no greater responsibility than the quest of adventure, and his own safe delivery from the fruits of his unwisdom.

It was he who first broke the silence between them.

"Gee!" he exclaimed, with that curious note of appreciation which that ejaculation can assume. "It's big. Say, Jeff, it's big an' good to look on. Sort of makes you think, too, don't it? Jest get a peek that way. Them slopes." He indicated the western boundary of the valley rising up, up to great pine-crested heights. "A thousand—two thousand feet. And hills beyond. Big hills, with snows you couldn't melt anyhow. Over there, too." One great hand waved in the direction of the east. "Lesser hills. Lesser woods. But—man, it's fine! Then ahead. Miles an' miles of this queer blue grass which sets fat on cattle inches deep."

His words ceased, but his eyes continued to feast, flooding the simple brain behind them with a joy which no words could describe. Presently he went on:

"Makes you feel A'mighty God's a pretty big feller, don't it? Guess He jest tumbles things around, an' sets up, an' levels down in a way that wouldn't mean a thing to brains like ours—till He's finished it all, and sort of swep' up tidy. Look at them colors, way up there to the west. Queer? Sure. Every sort o' blamed color in a tangle no earthly painter could set out. Ain't it a pictur'? It's jest a sort o' pictur' a painter feller's li'ble to spend most of his wholesome nights dreamin' about. An' when he wakes up, why, I don't guess he kin even think like it, an' he sure ain't a hell of a chance to paint that way anyhow. Say, d'you make it these things are, or is it jest something He sets in us makes us see 'em that way? He's big—He surely is. I'm glad I come along with you, Jeff, boy. Y' see, a feller sort o' sits around home, an' sees the same grass, an' brands the same steers, an' thinks the same thinks. Ther' ain't nothin' he don't know around home. He gets so life don't seem a thing, an' he jest feels he's running things so as he pleases. He sort o' fergets he's jest a part o' the scenery around. He fergets he's set in that scenery by an A'mighty big Hand, same as them all-fired m'squitters we just found, an' kind o' guesses he is that A'mighty Hand." He turned his deeply smiling eyes on his companion. "I don't often take on like this, Jeff," he apologized, "but the sight o' this place makes me want to shout an' get right out an' thank the good God He's seen fit to let me sit around an' live."

But Jeff had no means of simple expression such as Bud. He could never give verbal expression to the emotions locked away in his heart. Those who knew him regarded it as reserve, even hardness. Perhaps it was only that shyness which the strongest characters are often most prone to.

He ignored the older man's quaintly expressed feelings, and fastened upon the opening he had at last received, and which he had been seeking ever since it had become obvious that Bud's knowledge of the great Cathill range was almost phenomenal.

"You know these parts a heap," he observed.

"Know 'em?" Bud laughed in his deep-throated way, which was only another indication of his buoyant mood. "You'd know 'em, boy, if you'd had a father build up a big pelt trading post right in this valley, an' fer sixteen years o' your life you'd ridden, an' shot, an' hunted over this blue grass, and these hills, for nigh a range of fifty mile. Guess I know this territory same as you know the playgrounds o' the college that handed you your knowledge o' figgers. Know it? Say, you could dump me right down anywhere around here for fifty miles an' more, an' I'd travel straight here same as the birds fly." He laughed again. "When you said you'd the notion of huntin' out your brother, who was huntin' these hills, you give me the excuse I'd been yearnin' to find in years. I wanted to see these hills again. I wanted it bad. Guess I was jest crazy fer it. It didn't get me figgerin' long, either, to locate wher' we'd likely find that boy you're lookin' fer. Ther' ain't no better huntin' ground than around this valley. It's sort of untouched since my father died, an' I had to quit it and take to punchin' cattle. Then ther's that post he built. A dandy place, with nigh everything a pelt hunter needs fer his comfort. We're making for that post right now, an' when we make it I'm guessin' we ain't goin' to chase much farther to locate that twin brother of yours."

"But you never——"

Bud shook his great head, and stretched his ungainly legs with his stirrups thrust out wide.

"Sure I didn't tell you these things," he nodded, in simple, almost childlike enjoyment.

"I never—— Say, does Nan know you were—raised here?"

"Surely." Then Bud went on with an amused twinkle in his eyes. "But I guess Nan's like me. It ain't our way worryin' other folks with our troubles. You see, most folks ain't a heap o' time to listen to other folks' troubles. Most everybody's jest yearnin' to tell their own."

"Troubles?" Jeff smiled in his own peculiarly shadowy fashion. "You don't seem to figure this valley's any sort of trouble, nor its associations. But maybe there's a bone or two hidden around you don't figure to show me."

Bud remained silent for some moments. Then he gave way to another of his joyous, deep-throated laughs.

"No, sirree! Ther' ain't no troubles to this valley fer me. None. I got memories I wouldn't sell fer a farm. Them wer' days you didn't find trouble in nothin'. No. It's later on you see things diff'rent. Make good, an' you see troubles wher' there shouldn't be none. You an' me we're guessin' to make a pile o' dollars, so we could set up a palace on 5th Av'noo, New York, if we was yearnin' that-a-way. I don't reckon there's many fellers 'ud find trouble in such a play as that. Wal, I'd be willing enough to turn it all down, an' pitch camp right here among these hills, an' chase pelts for the few dollars needed to keep the wind from rattling my bones—'cep' fer Nan."

"Ah yes—Nan. There's Nan to think of. And Nan's more to you, Bud, than anything else in life. Say, your little girl's a bright jewel. I don't need to say a word about her value, eh? But some day you're going to lose her. And then?"

Bud's eyes came round upon him and for some moments encountered Jeff's steady regard. Then he looked away, and slowly all its simple delight dropped from the strong weather-tanned face, to be replaced by an almost painful dejection. Presently he turned again, and, in a moment, Jeff found an added interest in the wonderful scene that lay ahead of him.

"Nan's a fine, good gal," Bud declared, with simple earnestness. "Guess she's her mother over again—only she's jest Nan. Nan's more to me than all the dollars in creation, boy. Guess you're right. Oh, yes, you're right—sure." The man brushed aside the beads of sweat from his broad forehead. "An' Nan's goin' to do jest as she notions. She's goin' to live around her home as long as she feels that way. When she don't feel that way she's goin' to quit. When she feels like choosin' a man fer herself—why, I'm goin' to do all I know helpin' her that way. But it's goin' to be her choice, boy. An' when that time comes, why, I'll get right down on my knees an' pray A'mighty God he's the feller for her, an' the man I'm hopin' she'll choose, an' that he wants her, same as she wants him."

Then he shook his head and a deep sigh escaped him.

"But I don't know. It don't seem to me reasonable. Y' see, the luck's run all my way so far, an' I don't guess you can keep on dealin' the cards without 'em gettin' right up an' handin' it you plenty—some time."

Jeff had no reply. Something warned him to keep silent. The older man in his earnest simplicity had opened out to him a vista which he felt he had no right to gaze upon.

As they jogged steadily along over the blue-green carpet, and the kaleidoscopic coloring of the distant slopes fell away behind them, his whole mental vision became occupied by the sweet picture of a brown-eyed, brown-haired girl. But he was regarding it without any lover's emotions. Rather was he regarding it as one who calmly appraises a beautiful jewel he does not covet. He was thinking of Nan as he had known her for some five years. From the days of her schoolgirlhood he had watched her develop into a grown woman full of all that was wholesome and winsome. She was her father over again, trustful, simple, fearless, and she was possessed of a whimsical philosophy quite beyond her years. Her beauty was undeniable, her gentle kindliness was no less. But the memory of these things made no stirring within him. Nan was just a loyal little friend whom he loved and was ready to serve as he might love and help a sister, but regard of her broke off at that. So, as he rode, the pictures of her failed to hold him, and, finally, his roving gaze became caught and held by a sudden and striking anachronism in the scene about him.

He claimed Bud's attention with a gesture which roused him from his engrossing thought.

"Fire," he observed.

Bud's gaze became rivetted on the spot.

"Yes, it's fire—sure," he admitted.

It was a long way ahead. Only the trained eyes of prairiemen could have read the sign aright at such a distance. It was a break in the wonderful sea of varying shades of restful green. It was, to them, an ominous dead black patch which broke the sky-line with unmistakable skeleton arms.

It was the only remark upon the subject which passed between them, but as they rode on it occupied something more than a passing attention.

With Jeff his interest was mere curiosity. With Bud it was deeper and more significant. Had the younger man observed him he might have discovered a curious expression almost amounting to pain in the deep eyes which contemplated the blackened limbs where the fire had wrought its havoc.

As they drew nearer it became apparent that the havoc was even greater than they had first supposed. A wide patch of woodland, hundreds of acres in extent, whose upper limits were confined only by the summit of the valley's slope, where it cut the sky-line, had been completely burnt out. Nor was it possible to tell if even that limit was the extent of the disaster.

Bud suddenly reined in his horse as they came abreast of it, and his voice broke with painful sharpness upon the deathly stillness of the world about them.

"It's gone," he cried, with a note of deep distress and grievous disappointment. "It's burnt right out to a shell. Say——"

"What's gone?"

The older man glanced round. Then his troubled eyes sought the charred remains of the splendid pines once more.

"Why—the post." Then he pointed amongst the charred skeletons. "Get a peek right in ther'. See, Jeff. Them walls; them fallen logs. Burnt. Burnt right through to the heart of 'em. That's all that's left of the home that sheltered me for the first sixteen years of my life. Say, I'm sick—sick to death."

Jeff left his packhorse and moved forward amongst the blackened limbs. The reek of burnt wood hung heavily upon the air. He threaded his way carefully toward the charred remains of an extensive abode, now plainly visible amongst the black tree trunks.

It was a wide rambling structure, and, though burnt to cinders, much of its general shape, and the great logs which had formed its walls, still remained to testify to all it had been under the hands of those who had originally wrought there.

Jeff glanced back at the man he had left behind. He had not stirred. He sat in the saddle just gazing at the destruction. That was all. So he turned again to the ruins, and, dismounting, he proceeded on foot to explore.

* * * * * *

They were eyes wide with repulsion and a certain horror that gazed down upon the object at Jeff's feet. It was the rotting, charred remains of a human figure. It was beyond recognition, except in so far as its human identity was concerned. The clothes were gone. The flesh was seared and shriveled. The process of incineration was almost complete.

After a few fascinated moments his eyes searched further along the remains of the old post wall. Another figure lay sprawling on the ground. Near by it a heavy pistol had fallen wide. A rifle, too, lay across the second body.

Every detail was swiftly absorbed by the man's keenly active brain. He stood back from the gutted precincts and gazed speculatively upon the picture. His imagination reconstructed something of what he believed must have occurred in the deep heart of these wrecked woodlands.

What of the fire? How had it been started? Was it the work of an incendiary? Had the heat of the summer sun wrought the mischief? Had the hut itself supplied the trouble? None of these questions offered real enlightenment through the answers he could supply. No. He saw the superheated furnace of the woods blazing, and he saw men struggling with all their might to save themselves, and some of their more precious belongings. The reckless daring of those two, perhaps at the last moment, returning to their shelter on one final journey to save some detail of their home. Then the awful penalty for their temerity. Perhaps overwhelmed by smoke. Death—hideous, appalling death. Death, a thousand times worse than that which, in the routine of their lives, it was their work to mete out to the valuable fur bearers which yielded them a means of existence.

A sudden question, not unaccompanied by fear, swept through his brain. It was a question inspired by the belief that these men were fur hunters. Who—who were they? He drew close up to each body in turn, seeking identity where none was discoverable. A sweat broke upon his temples. There was no sign in them. There was no human semblance except for outline.

"God! If it should be——"

His sentence remained incompleted. A dreadful fear had broken it off. He was gazing down upon the second body, in earnest, horrified contemplation. Then to his amazement he was answered by Bud's familiar voice.

"It ain't the boy we're chasin' up, Jeff," he said, with a deep assurance.

"How d'you know that?"

The demand was incisive, almost rough.

"These folks weren't pelt hunters. Not by a sight. I bin around."

Jeff had turned to the speaker, and a great relief shone in his eyes.

"What—who were they—then?" he asked sharply.

"Maybe it was a ranch—of sorts."

"Of sorts? You mean——?"

"Rustlers. Come right on out of here, an' I'll show you."

With gentle insistence he drew his friend away from the painfully fascinating spectacle which held so difficult a riddle. And presently they were again with their horses, which were grazing unconcernedly upon the sweet blue grass which the valley yielded so generously.

"Well?" There was almost impatience in Jeff's monosyllable.

For answer Bud pointed at a number of rough fences, uneven, crude, makeshift, some distance away.

"See them? Oh, yes, I guess they're corrals sure. But it don't take a feller who's lived all his life among cattle more'n five seconds to locate their meanin'. They're corrals set up in an a'mighty hurry by folks who hate work o' that sort anyway. An' I'd say, Jeff, cattlemen—real cattlemen—don't dump a range down in the heart of the Cathills, not even fer this sweet-grass you can see around, when ther's the prairie jest outside. That is cattlemen who got no sort o' reason fer keepin' quit of the—open plains. Then ther's bin a big drive away north from here. Mebbe they wer' gettin' clear of this fire."

Under the influence of Bud's clear convictions all Jeff's fears vanished. He accepted the other's admittedly better understanding of these things all the more readily that he desired earnestly to dispel the last shadows of his momentary doubt.

"That's so," he agreed. Then he added: "But anyway, our camp's gone."

"Yes. We'll make camp some'ere else. Meanwhiles——"

"Yes?"

"We must follow up the trail."

There was irrevocable decision in the older cattleman's tone. And his words had the effect of startling the other.

"But—I don't see——"

"They're rustlers. Ther's their tracks clear as day. This is their hiding. Wal, I guess there's jest one thing to be done. It's our duty to track 'em down. Our duty to the cattle world, Jeff, boy."

"But what about—Ronald?"

Bud looked him squarely in the eyes.

"We're cattlemen first, Jeff. The other'll come later."

Jeff nodded, but there was a certain reluctance in his manner. His whole heart was set upon the search for his twin brother. He felt that his duty as a cattleman scarcely had the right to claim him at such a time. But the older man's manner made it difficult to protest, and, in deference to him, he felt it would be ungenerous to refuse. After all it only meant perhaps the delay of a day for his own projects.

"Then we'll feed and water right here, Bud," he said resignedly. "We can leave our pack ponies, and ride light. There's five hours of daylight yet."

"Yes, five hours good. Thanks, boy. Don't you worry a thing. We'll make this time good. We're goin' to find your Ronald—if he's anywheres around these Cathills."

* * * * * *

The more concentrated the character, the more sure its power of moral endurance, so the more acute its suffering under adversity. Such penalties lie ambushed for the strong, as though in delight at the immensity of the suffering which can thereby be inflicted.

Such an ambush was awaiting Jeffrey Masters. It came with terrifying suddenness. Bud was on the lead. The great sea of blue grass had been beaten and crushed by the hoofs of a considerable herd. There was no difficulty, and the pace he made was rapid. But, even so, Bud's keen eyes never left the well-defined trail. He was reading it with an understanding which might well have seemed almost superhuman. And as he rode he communicated odd fragments of his reading to the man behind him.

"It's queer," he observed once, when they had covered nearly two miles of the track. "Ther's a great bunch of horsemen been over this. Kind o' seems to me as if ther' was as many horses as steers. They're headin' northeast, too."

Jeff's eyes were as close upon the trail as Bud's, only he read with less understanding.

"They seem leading out of the valley," he said. "Maybe there's another camp way up further."

Suddenly Bud drew rein, his great body lurching forward in the saddle as his horse "propped" itself to a standstill. Jeff's horse followed suit of its own accord.

"What's doing?"

Jeff's demand was accompanied by a keen look into the other's face.

Bud's eyes were wide with speculation.

"They've broke up—hereabouts," he cried. "More'n half the horses have cut out. Say, ther'," he went on pointing away to the right. "That's the way they've took, clear across ther' to the east. The herd's gone on with jest a few boys to handle it. Say——"

"Look!"

A curious suppressed force rang in Jeff's exclamation. He was pointing at a bluff of wide-spreading sturdy trees that grew hard in against the eastern slope of the valley.

Bud followed the direction indicated, and that which he beheld robbed him of all inclination for further speech.

Long silent moments passed. Moments fraught with poignant, stirring emotions. Something painful was slowly creeping into the eyes of both men as they continued to regard this stout cluster of trees.

"Oaks."

The word was muttered.

Jeff vouchsafed no reply, but led the way toward them at a gallop.

They drew up almost in the shadow of the trees, at a point where three hideous things were hanging suspended by rawhide ropes. They were swaying gently, stirred almost imperceptibly under the pressure of the light breeze.

Bud sat stock still upon his horse. For a moment Jeff remained at his side. Then the latter stirred. He pressed his horse forward, urging it closer under the overhanging boughs. The animal moved willingly enough for a few yards. Then panic suddenly beset it. It shied. It reared and plunged. The fierce reminder of the spur was powerless to affect it beyond driving it to even more strenuous rebellion. The terror-stricken creature would not approach another step in the direction of those ominous swinging bodies.

Jeff finally leaped from the saddle and released his horse. It turned to bolt, but Bud reached its hanging reins and secured it. Then he sat still, observing the movements of his companion with strained, intent gaze.

Jeff passed under the great limbs of the tree. He cautiously approached the first of the hanging bodies. It was hideous. There was a bandage drawn tightly over the dead eyes, but its folds were powerless to disguise the rest of the contorted features. The head was tilted over on one side. Its flesh was ghastly, and deep discolorations blotched it from the neck up. The body was clad in the ordinary garb of the prairieman, with the loose waistcoat hanging open over a discolored cotton shirt, and the nether part of it sheathed in dirty moleskin trousers. The ankles were lashed securely together, and the arms firmly pinioned.

For some moments Jeff stared up at the dead man. His blue eyes were quite unsoftening. There was no real pity in him for the fate of a cattle thief. He understood only the justice of it from the point of view of the cattle grower. So his cold eyes gazed up at the horrid spectacle unflinchingly.

After some moments he passed on to the second body. The same conditions prevailed. A colored handkerchief concealed the glazed eyes, and the dropping jaw displayed the blackened cavity beyond the lips.

He moved away to the third. Its back was turned to him, and the bared head displayed a close mass of fair curling hair. In this instance the bandage over the eyes had fallen from its place, and lay lodged against the raw hide rope about the dead man's neck. He moved round quickly. In a moment he was facing the dreadful dead features.

He stood there without a sound. But his eyes had changed from their cold regard to a horror unspeakable. Once his lips parted, and there was an automatic effort to moisten them with a parching tongue. He swallowed with a visible effort. But no other movement came from him.

The moments passed. Hideous, dreadful moments of an agony that was displayed in the drawn lines which had suddenly taken possession of his strong features. It was the face of a man whose soul is seared with the blasting fury of a hell from the sight of which he is powerless to withdraw his terrified gaze. He knew nothing but the agony which smote through his every sense. The world about him, the place, even the hideous swaying remains of a once joyous life that confronted him. He was blind, blind to it all, crushed beneath a burden of agony which left him stupefied. His twin brother Ronald was there before him, a dreadful, dead thing, hanged for a—cattle thief.

* * * * * *

Bud gazed from the dead to the living. His deep eyes were full of an understanding which required no words. There was that about the dead, distorted face which was unmistakable. One look into the dreadful eyes of the living had told him all he needed.

He, too, stood silently contemplating the swaying figure. But it was only for a moment. Then he moved swiftly, actively. As he moved he drew a sheath knife from his belt.

He reached up. The steel of the knife gleamed. The next moment the dead thing was in his arms.

A low fierce cry suddenly broke the silence of those dreadful shades.

"Leave him! Don't dare, or—I'll kill you!"

Bud's head turned, and the muzzle of a gun touched his cheek. The blazing eyes behind it shone like coals of fire as they glared into his.

But the great Bud's purpose was stronger than the madness of the other's agony.

"Put up your gun, Jeff," he said, in a deep gentle voice. "We're jest goin' to hide this poor boy wher' the eyes o' men an' beasts can't see him. We're jest goin' to hide him away wher' mebbe the good God'll watch over him, an' help him, an' surely will forgive him. You ken jest help me, boy, to locate the place, an' when we find it we'll sort o' seal it up, an' you ken hide the key away in your heart so no one'll ever find it. Are you goin' to help, Jeff?"

For answer the gun was abruptly withdrawn. Then Bud saw the stricken man's hand dash across his eyes, and, as it passed, he realized the moisture of tears upon the back of it.

CHAPTER VIII

JEFF CLOSES THE BOOK

Ju Penrose was a mild sort of sun-worshipper. But he confined his regard to the single blessings of light and warmth. Some of his deity's idiosyncrasies were by no means blessings in his estimation. He blamed the sun for the flies. He blamed it that it made necessary the adoption of light cotton shirts, which required frequent washing. He, furthermore, blamed it for the temperature of drinks in summer time, in a place where no ice was procurable. This he regarded as wholly unfair. Then, too, possessing something of an artistic eye, he failed to appreciate the necessity for changing the delicate hues of nature in spring to a monotonous summer tone by the overbearing process of continuing its spring blessing ad nauseam. And as for winter, it was perfectly ridiculous to turn off its "hot" tap when it was most needed. Yes, there were moments when he certainly felt that he could order matters far more pleasantly if he were given a free hand.

Still, just now winter was a long way off. So that did not trouble him greatly as he lounged in his doorway, and reposefully contemplated the ruddy noonday light which was endeavoring to lend picturesqueness to a scene which, he assured himself, was an "everlastin' disgrace an' stain on the lousy pretensions of a museum of bum human intellec's." He was referring to the rest of the buildings which comprised the township, as apart from his own "hotel." The word "saloon" had been struck out of his vocabulary, except for use in scornful depreciation of all other enterprises of a character similar to his own.

Just now he was chewing the cud, and, incidentally, a wad of tobacco, of a partial peace. He felt that the recent break up of the Lightfoot gang, so successfully achieved through the agency of hangings and shootings, should certainly contribute to his advantage. He argued that the long-endured threat against Orrville removed, money should automatically become easier, and, consequently, a considerable vista of his own personal prosperity opened out before his practical imagination.

Yes, Ju was undoubtedly experiencing a certain mild satisfaction. But somehow his ointment was not without taint. He detected a fly in it. And he hated flies—even in ointment.

To understand Ju's feelings clearly one must appreciate the fact that he loved dollars better than anything else in the world. And something he hated with equal fervor was to see their flow diverted into any other channel than that of his own pocket. Ten thousand of these delectable pieces of highly engraved treasure had definitely flowed into some pocket unknown, as a result of the Lightfoot gang episode. The whole transaction he felt was wicked, absolutely wicked. What right had any ten thousand dollars to drift into any unknown pocket? Known, yes. That was legitimate. It always left an enterprising individual the sporting chance of dipping a hand into it. But the other was an outrage against commercialism. Why, if that sort of thing became the general practice, "how," he asked himself, "was an honest trader to live?"

The enquiry was the result of extreme nervous irritation, and he scratched at the roots of his beard in a genuine physical trouble of that nature.

He was so engrossed upon his meditations that he entirely failed to observe some mounted strangers debouch upon the market-place from the western end of the township. Nor was it until they obstructed his view that he awoke to their presence. Then he became aware of two men on two horses, leading two pack ponies.

He scrutinized them narrowly without shifting his position, and, long before they reached him, he decided they were strangers.

They dismounted in silence and without haste. They went round their horses and loosened cinchas. Then they tied the four beasts to the tie-posts in front of the saloon.

They approached the saloon-keeper. The larger of the two surveyed the unmoved Ju with steady eyes. Then he greeted him in deep, easy tones.

"Howdy," he said. "You run this shanty?"

The reflection upon his business house was not lost upon its proprietor.

"Guess I'm boss of this—hotel."

"Ah—hotel." Bud's gaze wandered over the simple structure. It settled for a moment upon a certain display of debris, bottles, cases, kegs, lying tumbled at an angle of the building. Then it came back to Ju's hard face, and, in passing, it swept over the weather-boarding of the structure which was plastered thick with paint to rescue it from the ravages of drip from the shingle roof to which there was no guttering. "Then I guess we'll get a drink."

By a curious movement Ju seemed to fall back from his position and become swallowed up by the cavity behind him. And Bud and his companion moved forward in his wake.

The place was entirely empty of all but the reek of stale tobacco, and the curious, pungent odor of alcohol. The two customers lounged against the shabby bar in that attitude which bespoke saddle weariness. Ju stood ready to carry out their orders, his busy, enquiring mind searching for an indication of the strangers' identity.

"Rye?" he suggested amiably, testing, in his own fashion, their quality.

But these men displayed no enthusiasm.

"Got any lager?" demanded Bud. "A long lager, right off the ice."

"Ice?" There was every sort of emotion in the echo of the word as the saloon-keeper glanced vengefully across at a window through which the sun was pouring. "Guess we don't grow ice around these parts, 'cep' when we don't need it, an' I don't guess the railroad's discovered they hatched Orrville out yet. We got lager in soak, an' lager by the keg, down in a cool celler. Ef these things ain't to your notion I don't guess you need the lager I kep."

"We'll have the bottled stuff in soak. Long."

"Ther's jest one size. Ef that don't suit, guess you best duplicate."

There was no offense in Ju's manner. It was just his cold way of placing facts before his customers, when they were strangers.

He uncorked the bottles and set them beside the long glasses, and waited while Bud poured his out. Then he accepted the price and made change. Jeff silently poured out his and raised it to his lips.

"How, Bud."

"How."

The two men drank and set down their half-emptied glasses.

The sharp ears of the saloon-keeper had caught the name "Bud," and he now stood racking his fertile brains to place it. But the stranger's identity entirely escaped him.

"Been times around here, ain't ther'?" Bud remarked casually.

And Ju promptly seized the opportunity.

"Times? Sure. Say, I guess you don't belong around. Jest passin' thro'?"

Bud nodded. Jeff had moved off toward the window, where he stood gazing out. The saloon-keeper's gaze followed him.

"Why, yes. We're passin' through," returned Bud, without hesitation.
"You see, we belong down south in the 'T.T.' an' 'O——' country."

"That so?" Ju reached a box of cigars and thrust them at the new customer. "Smoke?" he enquired. His generosity was by no means uncalculated.

Bud helped himself, and in response to Ju's "Your friend?" he called across to Jeff at the window. But Jeff shook his head, and the saloon-keeper was given an opportunity of studying his set features, and the premature lines he saw graven upon them. He withdrew the box and turned his attention to the more amenable Bud.

"It's a swell country down your ways," he observed cordially. Then he added, "You ain't been cussed with a gang o' toughs raidin' stock, neither, same as we have fer the last fi' years. But they're out. Oh, yes, they're sure out. Yes, siree, you guessed right. Ther's sure been some play around here. As neat a hangin' as I've see in thirty-five year tryin' to figger out the sort o' sense stewin' in the think tanks o' the crazy guys who live in cities an' make up po'try about grass. Mebbe you've heard all the play?"

Bud shook his head. He drank up his lager, and took the opportunity of glancing over his glass at Jeff's back. Then he set his glass down and ordered another bottle for both of them.

"No," he observed. "I ain't heard much. I heard there's been some hangin'. The Lightfoot gang, eh? Seems to me I've heard talk of 'em down our way. So you boys here got in on 'em?"

Ju set the two fresh bottles on the counter while Bud lit his cigar.

"That's so," he said with appreciation, and propped his folded arms upon the bar. "It sort o' come sudden, too." He smiled faintly. "It come as I said it would right here in this bar. The boys was settin' around sousing, an' pushin' round the cyards, an' the Vigilante Committee was settin' on a pow-wow. I was tellin' 'em ef the folks had the sense of a blind louse they'd dope out a reward, an' make it big. I guessed they'd get the gang quick that way. Y'see, it don't matter who it is, folks is all after dollars—if there's only enough of 'em. Life's jest made up of two sorts o' guys, the fellers with dollars an' them without. Wal, I guess it's a sort o' play goes right on all the time. You just raise hell around till you get 'em, the other fellers raise hell till you ain't. It's a sort o' give and take, though I reckon the taking seems to be the general scheme adopted. That's how it comes Lightfoot an' his gang got a nasty kink in most o' their necks. It's them dollars. Some wise guy around here jest took himself by the neck and squeezed out a present of ten thousand dollars to the feller who'd sell up Lightfoot's good-will an' business. What happened? Why, it took jest about twenty-four hours for the transaction to be put through. Say, ever hear tell of a time when ther' wa'an't some feller waiting ready to grab on to ten thousand dollars? No, sir. You never did. No, nor no one else, 'cep' he spent the whole of his life in the foolish house."

"Some one betrayed 'em—for ten thousand dollars?"

Bud's question came with a sharp edge to it.

"Don't guess 'betray's' the word, mister. It was jest a commercial transaction. You jest need to get a right understanding of them things. When I got something to sell, an' you're yearnin' to dope out the dollars for it—say ten thousand of 'em—why, I don't guess there's anything else to it but a straight business proposition."

"So you netted the ten thousand?" enquired Bud, in his simplest fashion.

"Me? Gee! Say, if them ten thousand dollars had wafted my way I'd have set this city crazy drunk fer a week. No, sir," he added, with a coldly gloomy shake of the head. "That's jest about the pain I'm sufferin' right now. Some mighty slick aleck's helped hisself to them dollars, an' I don't know who—nor does anybody else, 'cep' him who paid 'em."

Bud realized the man's shameless earnestness, but passed it by. He was seeking information. It was what he and Jeff had come for. The manner of this man was coldly callous, and he knew that every word he uttered was a lash applied to the bruised soul of the man by the window. Irresistible sympathy made him turn about.

"Here's your lager, Jeff," he said, in his easiest fashion. He had no desire that Ju should be made aware of the trouble that Jeff was laboring under.

Jeff replied at once. His readiness and even cheerfulness of manner surprised Bud. But it relieved him as well.

"Bully!" he cried, as he came back to the bar. "I was just gettin' a look around at the—city." He turned to Ju with his shadowy smile which almost broke Bud's heart. "Quite a place, eh?"

"Place? Wal, it's got points I allow. So's hell ef you kin look at it right." Ju lit a cigar and hid nearly half of it in his capacious mouth. "I'd say," he went on, with a certain satisfaction, "ther's more mush-headed souses in this lay out to the square yard than I've ever heard tell of in any other city. Ef it wa'an't that way I couldn't see myself wastin' a valuable life lookin' at grass, hearin' talk of grass, smellin' grass, an' durned nigh eatin' grass. I tell you right here it takes me countin' my legs twice a day to keep me from the delusion I got four, an' every time I got to shake my head at some haf soused bum who's needin' credit I'm scared to death my blamed ears'll start right in flappin'. Why, yes, I guess it's some place—if you don't know no other."

Bud was eager to get to the end of the task he had assumed for his friend. He wanted the facts, all the facts as far as they were available, of the terrible enactments in that valley of his early youth.

"An' who antied the price?" he demanded.

"Who? Why, the President of the Western Union Cattle Breeders'
Association—Dug McFarlane."

"And you don't know who—accepted it?"

It was Jeff who put the question, and Bud, looking on, saw the steely gleam that lit the man's eyes as he spoke.

But Ju's amiability was passing. He was getting tired of a subject which dealt with another man's profit. He rolled his cigar across his mouth.

"Here. Guess I best tell you the yarn as we know it. Y'see," he added regretfully, "we ain't learned a heap 'cep' jest the racket of it. Dug set up the reward overnight. Next night twenty-five of the boys rode out with him to the hills. Ther' was some guy with 'em leadin'. But none of the boys come up with him. He rode with Dug. We've all guessed, but I don't reckon we know, or'll ever know. You see, he got shot up they say by Lightfoot himself. However, it don't signify. I got my notions 'bout it, an' anyway I guess they're jest my own. The boys guess it was one of the gang itself. Mebbe it was. Can't rightly say. After they'd located the camp they set out to surround it. It was in a bluff. The scrap started right away, an' there was a deal o' shootin'. One or two o' the boys got shot up bad. Then some one fired the bluff, an' burned 'em right out like a crowd of gophers. After that the scrap came good an' plenty, an' it seems to've lasted nigh an hour. Anyways, they got three of 'em. They shot up several others, an' not more than three got clear away."

"An' what about Lightfoot?" It was Bud who spoke. His voice was changed from its usual deep tone. It was sharp, and almost impatient.

"They got him," said Ju, with a delight so evident that Bud felt like killing him for it. "Oh, yes, they got him, sure. A dandy gent with his blue eyes an' curly, tow hair. They don't guess that's his right name tho'. But it don't signify. He was the boss all right, all right, an' they took him, an' hanged him with the other two, right out of hand. Gee, I'd have give a deal to have seen——"

"We'll have to be pushing on now, Bud."

Jeff spoke with his head bent, examining the face of his gold timepiece. Bud glanced at him. He could see the ghastly hue of the averted features, and his answer came on the instant.

"You git the ponies cinched up, Jeff," he said quickly. "I'll be right with you."

Ju watched Jeff hurry out of the bar. Then his eyes came searchingly back to Bud's grimly set face.

"Kind o' seems in a hurry, don't he?" he demanded, with a curious look in his hard eyes. "Looks sick, too. Say, I didn't git his name right. Mebbe he's traveling around incog.—ain't that the word?"

There was no mistaking the suggestion in the man's half-smiling, half-sneering manner. The ranchman understood it only too well. He understood most of the ways and expressions of the men of the prairie. The hot blood surged under his calm exterior. His gray eyes, so accustomed to smiling, snapped dangerously. But his reply came with the same ease which he had displayed most of the time.

"Wal, I don't guess ther's no myst'ry 'bout either of us, which you kind o' seem you'd like to think. Jeff Masters of the 'O——'s' is well enough known to most folks, who got any sort o' knowledge of these parts. An' ther's quite a few folks around here, including Dug McFarlane, li'ble to remember the name of Bud Tristram, of the 'T.T.'s.' But you're sure right in guessin' he's in a hurry to quit. Ther's some places, an' some folks, it ain't good to see a heap of. Ther's fellers with minds like sinks, an' others with natures like rattlers. Neither of them things is as wholesome as a Sunday-school, I allow. Jeff ain't yearnin' to explore no sinks, human or any other. An' I've generally noticed his favorite pastime is killin' rattlers. So it's jest about the only thing to do—quit this saloon, same as I'm goin' to do. But say, 'fore I go I'd jest like to hand you this. Justice is justice, an' we all need to take our dope when it comes our way. But ther' ain't no right on this blamed earth fer any feller to whoop it up at another feller's misdoin's, an' his ultimate undoin'. An' you kin take it how you fancy when I say only the heart of a louse could feel that-a-way—an' that's about the lowest I know how to hand you."

Bud's eyes were shining dangerously. They were squarely looking into the hard face of the saloon-keeper. Not the movement of an eyelid escaped him. He literally seemed to devour the unwholesome picture confronting him. The aggressive chin beard, the continual mastication of the cigar which protruded from the corner of the mouth. There was deadly fury lurking behind Ju's cruel eyes. But the looked-for physical display was withheld, and Bud finally turned and walked slowly out of the bar.

* * * * * *

It was some minutes since a word had passed between the two men. Jeff had nothing to say, and Bud's sympathy was too deep for words. He was waiting for the younger man to fight his battle to its logical end. He knew, only too well, all that Jeff had suffered since the moment of that gruesome discovery in the Cathills valley. It had been no figure of speech when Jeff had described his twin brother as part of himself. The shock the man had received was, to Bud's mind, as though his heart had been torn asunder. Hanged as a cattle thief! Was there anything more dire, more terrible in the imagination of man than to suddenly find that his well-loved brother, twin body of his own, was a cattle thief, possibly a murderer, and had been hanged by his fellow-men? It was a thought to leave the simple Bud staggered. And for the victim of the shock it might well mean the mental breaking point.

Jeff was fighting out his battle with an almost super-human courage. Bud knew that. It was written in every detail of his attitude. In the straining of his blue eyes, in the deep knitting of his fair strong brows, in the painful lines ploughing deeper and deeper about his mouth, and the set of his strong jaws.

No. There was no thought of breaking in upon the boy's black moments of suffering. He must fight his own battle now, once and for all. When victory had been achieved, then perhaps his sympathy might become helpful. But till then nothing but the necessities of their journey must be allowed to intrude between them.

So they rode over the southern trail. The noontide sun scorched the parching earth with a blistering heat, drinking up the last moisture which the tall prairie grass sought to secrete at its attenuated roots. The world about them was unchanged. Every scene was similar in its characteristics to all that which had become their lives. Yet Bud knew that for one of them, at least, the whole of life, and everything pertaining to it, had been completely and terribly distorted.

But the character of Jeffrey Masters was stronger and fiercer than Bud knew. For all his suffering there was no yielding in him. There had been moments when his soul had cried out in agony. There had been moments when the hideousness of his weak brother's fall had driven him to the verge of madness. But with each yielding to suffering had come a rally of passionate force that would not be overborne, and gradually mastery supervened.

Ten miles out of Orrville on the homeward journey Bud received his first intimation that the battle was waning. It came almost as a shock. They had passed a long stretch of flat grass-land, and were breasting an incline. Jeff, on the lead, had reined his horse down to a walk. In a moment they were riding abreast, with Bud's pack pony in between them. Jeff turned his bloodshot eyes upon his friend, then they turned again to the trail.

"There's nothing now, Bud, but to get ahead with all our plans and schemes," he said. "We must drive ahead without any looking back. There's still things in life, I guess, that's worth while, and I'd say not the least of 'em is—work."

He paused. He had been gazing straight ahead to disguise his effort. Now he turned and looked into the face of his friend, and thrust his hat back on his head.

"It's been tough, Bud. So tough I don't know how I got through. Guess I shouldn't have without you. You see, Bud, you never said a thing, and—and that saved me. Guess I'm sort of tired now. Tired of thinking, tired of—everything. But it's over, and now I sort of feel I've got to get busy, or I'll forget how to play the man. I don't guess I'll ever hope to forget. No, I don't want to forget. I couldn't, just as I couldn't forget that there's some one in the world took ten thousand dollars as the price of Ronny's poor foolish life. Oh, it's pretty bad," he sighed wearily. "But—I've closed the book, Bud, and please God I'll never open it again."

CHAPTER IX

FOUR YEARS LATER

Nan Tristram smiled to herself as she sat in the comfortable rocker before the open French window which gave on to the wide wooden balcony beyond. The view she had was one of considerable charm, for Aston's Hotel was situated facing one end of Maple Avenue, looking straight down its length, which was at once the principal and most beautiful thoroughfare in the picturesque western city of Calthorpe.

But her smile had nothing to do with anything the prospect yielded her. Its beauties were undeniable; she had admitted them to herself many times. But she knew them with that intimacy which robs things of their first absorbing charm. The wide-spreading maple trees, which so softened down the cold beauty of the large stone-fronted residences lining the avenue, were always a source of soothing influence in the excited delight of a visit to this busy and flourishing city. Then the vista of lofty hills beyond the far limits of the town, with their purpling tints, their broken facets, their dimly defined woodland belts, they made such a wonderful backing to the civilized foreground.

Nan Tristram loved the place. For her, full of the dreams of youth, Calthorpe was the hub of all that suggested life and gaiety. It was the one city she knew. It was the holiday resort of the girl born and bred to the arduous, and sometimes monotonous life of the plains.

But it was, in reality, a place of even greater significance. Nan saw it only as it appealed to her ardent fancy. But Calthorpe was a flourishing and buoyant city of "live" people, who were fully aware of its favorable possibilities as the centre of the richest agricultural region in the whole of the State of Montana.

It was overflowing with prosperity. The ranching community, and the rich grain growers for miles around, poured their wealth into it, and sought its light-hearted life for the amusement of their families and themselves. Its social life was the life of the country, and to take part in it needed the qualification of many acres, or much stock, a bank balance that required no careful scrutiny, and a temperament calculated to absorb readily the joy of living.

It was something of this joy of living which was stirring now, lighting the girl's soft brown eyes with that tender whimsical smile which was never very far from them. She was resting after the early excitements of the day. It was her twenty-second birthday, and, in consequence, with so devoted a father, a day of no small importance. She had been warned by that solicitous parent to "go—an' have a sleep, so you don't peter right out when the fun gets good an' plenty." But Nan had no use for sleep just now. She had no use for anything that might rob her of one moment of the delight and excitement of the Calthorpe Cattle Week, as it was called. Therefore she undutifully abandoned herself to a pleasurable review of events whilst waiting for the next act in the day's play to begin.

And what a review it made in her understanding of the life about her. It was four years since her father and Jeff Masters had signed their partnership, and she knew that to-day, on the second day of the week, the triumph of the great "Obar" Ranch, which her father and Jeffrey Masters had so laboriously and patiently built up, was to be completed. Now, even while she sat there gazing from her window at the panorama of life passing up and down the broad expanse of Maple Avenue, the Council of the Western Union Cattle Breeders' Association was sitting for its annual conference and election of officers. And had she not already been confidentially warned that Jeff was to be the forthcoming year's president?

It was the crowning event in the long dreamed dreams of the two men whom she frankly admitted to herself were nearest and dearest to her. Why should she not admit it? Her father? Ah, yes, her father was the most perfect, kindly, sympathetic father that ever lived. And Jeff? A warm thrill swept through her heart and set it beating tumultuously. Jeff was her whole sum and substance of life itself.

Well enough she knew that no other bond than that of friendship existed between them; that no word had ever passed between them which might not have passed in the daily intercourse between brother and sister. But this did not cause her to shrink from the admission. Jeff was her whole horizon in life. There was no detail of her focus which was not occupied by the image of the man whom she regarded as the genius of their fortunes.

There were moments enough when she realized with something akin to dismay that Jeff and she were friends. But her gentle humor always served her at such moments. And there was always the lukewarm consolation that there was no other woman who had even a similar claim. Therefore she hugged her secret to herself, and only gazed upon it in such moments of happy dreaming as the present.

And just now they were happy moments. How could it be otherwise in a girl so healthy, and with such a depth of human feeling and with such a capacity for sheer enjoyment of the simple pleasures which came her way? What an evening yet confronted her in this brief week of holiday from the claims of the green-brown plains of summer. She must be ready at seven o'clock for the reception at the City Hall. She had a new gown for that particular event, which had, amongst others, been bought in New York. It had cost one hundred and thirty dollars, an unthinkable price it had seemed, but dismissed as something too paltry to be considered by the open-handed ranchman whom she claimed as father.

She was to assist Jeff and her father in receiving the guests, who would represent all the heads of their cattle world, and their friends, and their wives, and their daughters. And after that the banquet, which, since the inauguration of the Association, had always taken place, here at Aston's Hotel.

There would be speeches. Jeff would speak, and her father—no, she hoped he wouldn't speak. Her smile deepened. He had such a way of saying just what came into his funny, simple old head, and such a curious vocabulary. Then, after the banquet, the—Ball!

The girl emitted a deep ecstatic sigh. The ball! It was the crowning glory, and—she had a beautiful new gown for each event. It was a ravishing thought. Perhaps a mere man may be forgiven his lack of imagination in his appreciation of such perfect, unutterable delight. But Nan had no cloud to obscure her sun. The labor of dressing afresh, three times in one evening without a maid, except the questionable assistance of a hotel chambermaid, had no terrors for her—none whatever.

Her day-dreaming was interrupted by an immoderate thump on the door. She turned her head at once, her pretty dancing eyes alight with expectancy.

"That you, Dad?" she called.

"Sure, Nan." Then came a fumbling at the door handle.

"You can come right in," the girl cried, without moving from her chair.

The door was thrust open, and the sunburnt face with its shock of curling iron gray hair and whiskers appeared round it. The deep-set eyes surveyed the room, and took on a look of deep concern.

"Say, Nan," he cried, "you'll never git fixed in time. I jest give you the limit of time before I got around. You see, I didn't fancy you not gettin' a good slep."

The girl shook her pretty head and smiled as she observed the careful toilet she felt sure her father had spent the whole afternoon upon. She sprang from her chair and surveyed him critically, with her head judicially poised on one side, and her pretty ripe lips slightly pursed.

"Everything's bully but that bow tie," she declared, after a considering pause. "Just come right here and I'll fix it. Say, Dad, I envy you men. Was there ever a nicer looking suit for men than evening clothes? I'm—kind of proud of my Daddy, with his wide chest and good figure. And that white waistcoat. My, but you don't look as if you'd ever branded a calf in your life. It's only your dear handsome face gives you away, and—and the backs of your hands."

Nan laughed as she retied the tie to her satisfaction, the fashion in which a girl loves to see a bow tied. The man submitted meekly, but with concern for her final remark.

"But I scrubbed 'em both—sore," he declared anxiously.

"I don't mean they're dirty, Daddy," the girl laughed. "Was there ever such a simple, simple soul? It's the wholesome mahogany tan which the wind and the sun have dyed them. Say, there, get a peek at yourself in that glass." She thrust him toward a wall mirror. "It's not girls only who need a mirror, when a man is good to look at, Daddy, is it? Honest? It doesn't make you hate yourself, nor feel foolish. I guess there's men folks who'd have you think that way, but if I know anything they'd hate to be without a mirror when they're fixing themselves for a party where there's to be some nice looking women, and where they're to be something better than just a 'stray' blown in."

Bud laughed at the rapid flow of the girl's banter. But he had by no means forgotten his own concern.

"But, say, Nan, you hain't got time for foolin' around. You surely hain't. It's haf after five, an' we're due at the City Hall seven, sharp. Y'see, you ain't like us fellers who don't need no fixin' to speak of. An' you're helpin' us to receive the folks——"

Nan's delighted laugh rippled through the pleasant room.

"Oh, my Daddy," she cried, with wide, accusing eyes, "you're the best laugh in a month." Then she held up one admonishing finger before her dancing eyes. "Now the truth. What was the minute you started to make yourself—pretty?"

She sat herself upon a table before him with the evident purpose of enjoying to the full the delighted feelings of the moment.

Bud eyed her steadily. He knew he was to be cornered. Nor would it be for the first time. The relation between these two was that of a delightful companionship in which the frequent measuring of wit held no inconsiderable place amidst a deep abiding affection.

"Say—a touch of the north wind around, Nan, eh?" he smiled.

"Never mind the north wind, Daddy," Nan laughed. "Just when? That's what I need to know now."

The man's fingers sought his crisply curling hair.

"No, no," cried Nan, in pretended alarm, "Guess you're going to undo an hour's work that way."

Bud dropped his hand in real dismay.

"Guess I plumb forgot. Wal, say, since you got to know, I'd say it must ha' bin right after din—I mean luncheon. You see, I'd——"

"Ah, say three o'clock." Nan leaned forward, her pretty face supported on the knuckles of her clasped hands, her elbows resting upon her knees. "Oh, Daddy—and you aren't due at the party till seven. Four hours. Four valuable hours sitting around in your dandy new suit of evening clothes. Vanity. Pure vanity. We're all the same, men who don't need—fixing, and women who do. Only you men won't admit it. Women do. They surely do. Any woman's ready to admit she'd rather look nicer than any other woman than be all sorts of a girl other ways. And though they don't ever reckon to admit it, men just feel that way, too. Oh, I guess I know. The boys are just yearning for the girls to think there's nothing but big 'thinks' moving around in their well-greased heads. And they'd hate a girl who got the notion they had time to stand around gawking in a mirror to see their clothes set right, or study the look they're going to pour into the china blue eyes of some tow-headed bundle who knows his bank wad down to the last cent."

She sighed heavily, but her eyes were literally dancing.

"But it's kind of nice that boys act that way," she went on. "It does give a girl a chance to think him all sorts of a god for—a while. Say, if she knew things just as they are, where'd she find that scrap of romance which makes life all sunshine and storm clouds, instead of the monotonous gray it really is?"

She pointed at the snowy bed laden with the precious costumes she must use before the night was out.

"Say, wouldn't it be just awful if every girl knew that the man she'd—marked down for her own, worried around with things like that before every party he was to take her to, same as she does? I guess she'll learn it all later when she marries him, and has two folks to worry for instead of one. But, meanwhile, she just dreams that he's dreaming those 'big thinks' that's going, some time, to set a dreaming world wide awake to the mighty 'thinks' she dreams into her beau's head."

Then she began to laugh, and the infection of it caught her father, who gurgled heavily in chorus.

"Say, wouldn't it be a real circus if a big, strong man had to act the same as us poor women? I mean when we're scheming to stir up a sensation in the hearts of men, and in the envy depot of other girls, when we enter the portals of a swell social gathering. Now Jeff. Say, my Daddy, can you see him sort of mincing across the floor," she cried, springing from her seat and pantomiming across the room, "smiling, and smirking and bowing, this way and that, all done up in fancy bows, and sheeny satins, and—and with combs in his sleek hair to hold it in place, and with a jeweled tiara set on top of it? And then—yes, just a teeny tiny touch of powder on his nose? My word!"

A happy chorus of laughter rang through the room as she returned to her seat, Bud's coming in great unrestrained gusts. They were like two irresponsible children rather than father and daughter.

"Oh, dear. And you, too," laughed Nan. "We can't leave you out of the picture. Being of more mature years I guess you'd sweep in—that's the way—sweep in gowned—at your age you don't dance around in 'frocks'—in something swell, and rich, and of sober hue. Oh, dear, oh, dear. Guess we'd have to match your mahogany face. Wine color, eh? No 'cute little bows for you. Just beads and bugles, whatever they are. But we'd let you play around with some tinted mixing of powder for your nose, or—or we'd sure spoil the picture to death. My, I'd die laughing."

Bud's amusement threatened to burst the white bonds which held his vast neck.

"Oh, quit it, Nan," he cried, with his beaming face rapidly purpling. Then he struggled for seriousness. "I didn't get around to listen to your foolin', child." Then he bestirred himself to a great display of parental admonishment. "Now, see right here, Nan, I'll get back in an hour. Maybe Jeff's fixin' himself the way you said. I can't jest say. But anyways he's the big feller to-night, an' it's up to you to worry out so you can be a credit to him, an' me, an' the 'Obar.'" Then he came across to her and took her affectionately by the shoulders, and gazed down into her face with twinkling, kindly eyes. "Say, you got more to work on than most gals. You sure have, Nan. Yep. Your poor ma was a pictur', an' you're a pictur'. An' I ain't goin' to say which of you had claim for the best framing. Anyway, what you have in your pretty face you owe to the dear woman who never had a chance of the framing you can have. So jest remember it, Nan—and thank her."

Nan's eyes had completely sobered at the mention of her dead mother, whom she scarcely remembered, and earnestness and affection replaced all her mirth.

"Maybe I owe it her," she said, suddenly releasing herself from the heavy hands, and rising from her seat. Then she reached up and slipped her soft arms about the man's neck. "And what do I owe to you? Nothing? Ah, my Daddy, I guess you can shake your funny head till you muss up its contents to an addle. I'll not forget what I owe my momma, and just thank her all I know, but I'm thanking you too—just as hard."

She tiptoed until she was able to kiss him on the cheek. Then her ready smile broke out afresh, and she gently pushed him toward the door.

"Who is it wasting my time? There," she cried, as she opened the door, and her father vanished through it, "get right out, and don't you dare come back for an hour."

The ranchman's laugh echoed down the corridor as he moved away. Then Nan, practical and sober once more, closed the door and rang for the chambermaid.

* * * * * *

Whatever success could be claimed for the men who had founded and built up the "Obar" Ranch, and it was more than considerable, the triumph of that night was in no small measure to the credit of Nan Tristram.

But when it was all over, when the last of the three beautiful gowns had been tucked tenderly away in the drawers which were their temporary home, and Nan was left to the night solitude in which to go over once more in her secret thoughts each keenly vivid detail of the kaleidoscopic play of events as they had swept past her during the evening, they found her soberly wondering if, after all, the anticipated delight had been realized. Was it possible in all that unquestioned success there had been no delight, no real enjoyment at all? It seemed impossible. It was impossible, and she tried to put the thought out of her mind. But it refused to be banished. It returned again—and again, and, in desperation, not untouched with panic, she assured herself that she was tired—very tired, and this silly feeling was the result. Then, too, her humor was summoned, and it warned her of the quantity of ice cream she had devoured at the ball. It told her her digestion had suffered in consequence. And this she thought was a pity, because she loved ice cream.

But humor was swept aside by a far keener emotion. She scorned the idea of indigestion. She had no pain there. But there was pain, a silly ache about her heart which robbed her of all desire for sleep.

She tried to console herself by recalling her father's quaintly expressed admiration of her, when he first beheld her in her new and costly gown. What was it?

"Why, say, Nan, when I look at you I sort o' feel as if two fellers had bin at work fixin' you, a po't an' a painter, Seems as if they'd set their mushy heads together, an' each had doped out what the other couldn't, till ther' ain't a thing left fer the fancy of plain mule-headed sort o' bussocks like me."

Curious as his method of expression had been she had understood and thrilled with delight. But almost at once her thoughts flew on to much later when she was gliding through the dancing crowd at the ball. His eyes had followed her everywhere. But there was a change in their expression. To her it was a complete change. To her the simple approval had been replaced by a gleam of sympathetic concern. But this was after—after the first cloud had settled upon her hope of unalloyed enjoyment. Perhaps the look had not been there at all. Perhaps it was simply her own feelings finding reflection for her where none existed.

She became impatient with herself and grasped at the memory of Jeff's greeting when she had first appeared in the hotel parlor, equipped for the reception.

He had not said much. But that was always Jeff's way. But there had been his quick smile of unusual satisfaction. And the words of greeting had sprung quite spontaneously to his lips.

"Say, Nan, you're—you're just great."

The hesitation in the middle of it had told her even more than his smiling admiration. It was almost like—and she thrilled as she thought it—a gasp for breath.

She strove hard to support herself with these memories, out even as she considered them her mind passed on to the reception, and that stupid ache supervened once more. Instantly her focus narrowed down. There were only two figures in it. The rest merely provided a setting for these two. All the lights, the decorations, the beautiful costumes and smiling faces, these became an indistinct blurr, leaving the image of Mrs. Elvine van Blooren and a man standing vividly out.

What a wonderful, wonderful picture of radiant womanhood Mrs. Van Blooren had made! Even in her trouble Nan was generous. The woman was beautiful in a way that poor Nan had only dreamed of. The Madonna-like features, calm, perfect. The dark hair, superb in the simplicity of its dressing. She remembered that at the first glance it had suggested to her the sheen of a cloudless summer night. And her gown, and her figure. The gown must have cost—ah, Nan could not appraise its cost. She had had insufficient experience. Her own maximum had been reached only now, and the sum seemed to her as paltry as her father had made it appear. The one certainty that remained with her, however, was that the taste displayed in Mrs. Van Blooren's gown had placed it beyond such a thing as mere material value.

And then her heart had seemed to stand still. It appeared that Jeff, who was talking to some other people, and she had become aware of Mrs. Van Blooren's presence at the same moment. For when Nan glanced in his direction he was gazing fixedly at the newcomer with a look in his steady blue eyes which she had never beheld in them before. Oh, yes, there had been no mistaking that look. She knew she was not clever, but she was a woman, and no woman could ever mistake such a look in the eyes of a man.

But worse was to follow. There was a respite for her in the activities of the reception. For Jeff was as busily occupied as she was. Then, too, at the banquet she had ample time to recover from the shock. But the ball came, and they were both released from their duties, and everybody was left free to dance as only the western people love to dance.

It was then that her bitter cup was filled to overflowing. Jeff danced six times with Mrs. Van Blooren. Six times, and one supper extra, while she had to content herself with a miserable two dances with the one man who, to her stood out foremost among all men.

It was during the long hours of that dreary ball that she had encountered her father's curious regard, and now she wondered if he had seen what she had seen. If he had understood as she understood.

Nan wanted to cry. As she lay there on her snowy bed, restless, and wakeful, and troubled, there were certainly moments when her tired eyes filled with tears. But she did not, would not cry. She smiled to herself, and even laughed. She ridiculed herself and made jest of her absurd pretensions. She told herself a hundred times she had no claim upon Jeff. He was free to do as he chose, to dance all night with any Mrs. Van Blooren.

But when, at last, the first beam of daylight penetrated the light material of the window blinds, and slowly flooded the room, it found Nan in a troubled sleep with two great unshed tears slowly welling in the corners of her eyes, and ready to fall heavily and sadly down the perfect moulding of her softly rounded cheeks.

CHAPTER X

THE POLO CLUB RACES

The race-track at Calthorpe was a matter of no small pride to its citizens. Any western city could possess broad and beautiful avenues. Any city might well boast hotels of six, eight, or even ten floors, and express elevators, and things of that sort. A cathedral was not unknown even, and electric surface cars. But a race-track—a recognized race-track—which was included in the official western circuit of race meetings, was certainly a matter for more than ordinary pride.

Such regard was undoubtedly meted out to it, and as a corollary there were prophets in the city who foresaw the later development of a Country Club, with a golf course, and the provision for every other outdoor sport under its luxurious administration. Those who could afford such luxuries pretended to look upon these things as indispensable, and those who couldn't regarded them with simple pride, and lived in the glamour of their reflected glory, and told each other how such things should be administered.

Such developments, however, were for the future. The race-track existed, and, amongst its many other delights, it supplied the cranks with a text for frequent sermons.

It was set in a luxurious woodland dip, well beyond the town limits, and occupied a small flat of rich grass through which a mountain creek wound its ridiculously tortuous course. Thus it was provided with the natural resources demanded by a steeplechase course as well as the "flat."

It was a toy which the wealth of the neighborhood had been poured out upon with no niggard hand, till it found itself possessed of a miniature grand stand, a paddock and loose boxes, for the use of many a pony whose normal days were spent roaming wild upon the plains. Then there was the Polo Club House and ground, where many of the city's social functions were held. The whole thing was as pretentious as money could make it, and in due proportion it was attractive to the minds of those who believed themselves leaders in their social world.

Nan Tristram understood all this and smiled at it, just as she understood that to absent oneself from the Polo Club Races in Cattle Week would be to send in one's resignation from the exclusive social circles to which she belonged, a position quite unthinkable for one who sought only the mild excitements which pertain to early youth.

The noon following the ball, and all the disturbed moments which it inspired, found Nan on the way to the Polo Club Races. Her party was riding, and it was an extensive party. There were some twenty and more saddles. Luncheon had been sent on ahead, catered for by Aston's Hotel at Jeffrey Masters' expense, one of the many social duties which his election to the Presidency of the Western Union Cattle Breeders' Association entitled him to undertake during the Cattle Week.

It was a gay party, mostly made up of young and prosperous ranchmen, and the girls belonging to their little world. Nor among them could have been found any one more brightly debonair and attractive than Nan Tristram.

There was never a sign about her of the disquieting thoughts of overnight. Such things might never have been. Her eyes, so soft and brown, were sparkling with that joy of life which never fails in its attraction even for the most serious mind. She sat her brown mare astride with the easy grace of a born horsewoman. Her equipment lacked no detail in its comparison with that of the other women. Bud's warning on this point had fallen upon willing and attentive ears when he had handed the girl a signed blank check. And the old man had found ample reward for his generosity in the rivalry amongst the men for his "gal's" escort.

The only shadow which fell across his enjoyment had occurred when he beheld Jeff leading the cavalcade at the side of Mrs. Van Blooren. But in Nan's case it seemed to give not the smallest qualm. Her one single purpose seemed to be to obtain a maximum of enjoyment at the side of young Bill Dugdale, a college-bred youth of more than ordinary repute as a prosperous cattleman.

The day was fresh for midsummer. The sky was ruffled with great billowing white summer clouds, and a cool northwest breeze was coming off the mountain tops. The whole world about them was assuming that tawny green of the ripening season, and the trail was sufficiently dusty for its abandonment in favor of the bordering grass. But if midsummer reigned over Nature, Spring, fresh, radiant Spring was in the hearts of those seeking the mild excitement of Calthorpe's race-track.

Nan and young Dugdale laughed and chattered their way in the wake of the several couples ahead. Dugdale's desire to please was more than evident. And Nan was at no time difficult. Just now she seemed to enter into the spirit of everything with a zest which sent the man's hopes soaring skyward.

Once only during the brief ride did the girl give the least sign that her interest lay on anything but her good-looking escort. It was at a moment when Dugdale was pointing out to her the humorous inspiration of his own registered cattle brand.

"You see, 'B.B.' don't sound much of a scream, Miss Tristram," he said, in great seriousness. "I don't guess it's likely to set you falling out of your saddle in one wild hysterical whoop of unrestrained mirth. Course I'm known by it, same as you're known by the 'Obar,' but some of the language the boys fix to my brand 'ud set a Baptist minister hollerin' help. Say, I can't hand you it all. I just can't, that's all. 'Bill's Bughouse' is sort of skimmed milk to pea soup. Then there's 'Bill's Boneyard.' That wouldn't offend any one but my foreman. 'Busy Bee' kind of hands me a credit I don't guess I'm entitled to. But there's others smack of the intelligence of badly raised hogs." Then he laughed. "The truth is, when I first pitched camp on Lime Creek I wasn't as wise to things ranching as a Sunday-school committee. I lived mostly on beans an' bacon, and when the boys fell in at night, why, I don't guess there was much beside beans and bacon to keep 'em from falling into a state of coma on my blankets. It generally fixed them right, and I'm bound to say they never seemed to find they couldn't sit a saddle after it. Yes, and hit the trail for fifty miles, if there was fresh meat at the end of it. I sort of got known around as 'Beans and Bacon.' Then it was abbreviated to B.B. And so when I registered my brand it just seemed natural to set down B.B."

Nan's laugh was very genuine. Dugdale's ingenuous manner always pleased her.

"You hadn't learned prairie hospitality," she said. "You surely were committing a grave offense."

The man was full of pretended penitence.

"I don't guess that needed learning!" he said, with a wry smile. "The boys just handed it to me same as a parson hands a heart-to-heart talk on things you're hatin' to hear about. Oh, I was put wise quick. But when you've got just about ten thousand dollars that's telling you you're all sorts of a fool, and you're yearning for 'em to believe you're a twin brother to Pierpont Morgan, why, you don't feel your hide's made of gossamer, and don't care a cuss if folks start right in to hammer tacks into it for shoe leather."

"And the dollars? You convinced them?" Nan's eyes were full of humor.

"Convinced 'em?" The man's eyes opened wide. "Say, Miss Tristram, it was a mighty big argument. Oh, yes, and I guess there were times when we come near bein' such bad friends that I wanted to hand 'em right on to the nearest saloon-keeper I could find. But in the end I won. Oh, I won. I just told 'em right out what I thought of 'em, and their parents, and their ancestors, and their forthcoming progeny, and—that, seemed to fix things. They got civil then. Sort of raised their hats, and—got busy. You'd be astonished if you saw the way they hatched out—after that. You see," he added whimsically, "there's just about only one way of makin' life act the way you need it. Set your back teeth into the seat of things, and—hang on."

But Nan's reply was slow in coming, and her usually ready laugh was not in evidence. His final remark had brought very near the surface all those feelings and thoughts she had striven so hard to bury where they could no longer offend. It seemed to the man that her eyes had grown unnecessarily serious. But then he did not know that there was any unusual interest for her in the fact that Jeff Masters was escorting Mrs. Van Blooren.

When she did speak it was with her gaze fixed upon the couple ahead.

"Yes, that's it," she said. "Hang on. Hang on with every ounce of courage and strength you've got. And if you've got to go under, why, I guess it's best done with a smile, eh?" Quite abruptly she indicated the woman in front. "I do think she's real beautiful, don't you?"

"Who?" The man had no concern for anybody at that moment but the girl at his side.

"Who? Say, aren't you just foolish. I was thinking of Mrs. Van
Blooren."

The man laughed.

"I surely am," he declared. "And I've won prizes for thought-reading at parlor games, too."

They both laughed. Then Nan went on with a persistence which was quite lost upon the thought-reader.

"Who is she? Mrs. Van Blooren?" she demanded.

"Why, you met her, sure?" Then the man added with some significance:
"She's riding with Jeff Masters."

"Oh, yes. I've met her. I met her last night, and I've seen her many times before." Then she added with a shadow of coldness in her manner: "But she doesn't belong to the cattle folk."

The man's eyes were following the direction of Nan's.

"No-o," he said seriously. "Guess I'm not wise. They say her husband was a rancher—before he acted foolish an' died."

Nan's laugh came readily.

"That's bright. I don't guess he started running cattle—after."

Dugdale chuckled explosively.

"Who's to say?" he cried. Then he went on with enthusiasm: "Say, wouldn't it be bully to think of? Just get a thought of it. Flapping around with elegant store wings, rounding up golden steers trimmed with fancy halos, and with jeweled eyes. Branding calves of silver with flaming irons and turning 'em out to feed on a pasture of purple grass with emeralds and sapphires for blossoms all growing around. And then——"

"Think again. Say, your taste's just—cheap. But we're talking of
Mrs. Van Blooren."

"I'm sorry. Why, I guess she's daughter to the Carruthers's. John D. Carruthers. He was principal at St. Bude's College. Pensioned. Guess it's five years since she handed us boys the G. B. and hooked up with a white-gilled hoodlum from down East. He got around here with a wad he'd raised from his father. Can't say who his father was. Folks guessed he was some millionaire. I don't just know the rights of it. Anyway, he left her well enough fixed. Gee! Fancy a feller acting that way—dying, with a wife like that. Wonder what sort of mush he kept in his thinking depot? I'd say folks with sense have to live on the chances fools can't just kick to death. Anyway, seeing she's started right in to set her wings rustling again I guess some feller with hoss sense'll be getting busy. They'd make a swell couple," he added with a grin. "Jeff's a good-looker."

Nan nodded.

But she made no answer. Had the man been less concerned with his match-making suggestions he must have observed the effect of his careless words. Nan had paled under the pretty tanning of her rounded cheeks. She was hurt, hurt beyond words, and though she could willingly have cried out she was forced to smother her feelings. The panic of the moment passed, however, and, with a great effort, she was able to give her suggestion its proper value. But somehow, for the rest of the ride, it seemed to her that the sun was less bright, the wind even had become chilly, and altogether there was a curious, enervating world-weariness hanging over everything.

By the time they reached the race-track she felt in her simple heart she ought to apologize for having spoiled her escort's ride. But the inclination was only the result of her depression. She even told herself, with a gleam of humor, that if she attempted it she would have to burst into tears.

However, the later excitement of the racing helped to revive Nan's drooping spirits. The scene was irresistible. The atmosphere. The happy buoyant enjoyment on every side could not long be denied whatever the troubles awaiting more sober moments. There were the sleek and glossy horses. There were the brilliant colors of the jockey's silks. There was the babel of excited voices, the shouting as the horses rushed down the picturesque "straight." Then the betting. The lunching. The sun. The blessed sun and gracious woodland slopes shutting in this happy playground of men and women become children again at the touch of pleasure's magic wand. No, for all her anxiety, Nan had no power to withstand the charm and delirium of it all. And, for a while, she flung herself into it with an abandon which matched the most reckless.

Twice she found herself in financial difficulties through reckless betting, and twice the open-handed Bud had to come to her assistance. Each time his comment was characteristic, and Nan laughed at him with the irresponsibility of a child who tastes the delight of gambling for the first time.

"Say, little gal," Bud admonished her, the second time he unrolled his "wad" of bills. "Makin' dollars on a race-track's jest about as easy as makin' ice-cream. Ther's jest one way of doing it. Ast yourself which hoss you're craziest to dope out your money on, an' when you're plumb sure then get right along an' bet on the other feller. Meanwhiles think in dollars an' play in cents."

And Nan's answer reflected her feelings of the moment.

"You can't play in cents, my Daddy, when it's time to play in dollars. You never know when the time's coming along when even cents are denied you."

Then before the worshipping parent could add to his advice the girl darted off with her hands full of outspread bills seeking the pool rooms.

She had seen the horses cantering over to the post for the half-mile dash. It was a race for legitimate cow-ponies and she knew Jeff's "Sassafras" was running in it. She meant to bet on Jeff's horse. It mattered nothing to her what other horses were running. She knew little enough of their claims. She had one thought in life. Anything to do with Jeff Masters, anything of his was good enough for her to gamble on—even with her life. This was the real, all unconscious Nan. It was not in her to give half measure. She had no idea of what she was doing. She had no subtlety or calculation of anything where her love was concerned. She would back Jeff to the limit, and stand or fall by it. It was the simple loyalty and devotion which only a woman can yield.

On her way to the pool room she encountered Jeff himself, and, in the excitement of the moment, clasping her money in both hands, she thrust them out toward him.

"Say, Jeff," she cried, "I'm just crazy. The horses have gone right out to the start now, and—and I'm gasping to put my dollars on Sassafras."

The man's quiet smile was good to see. And Nan warmed under its influence. This was the Jeff she had known so long and loved so well. There was no other woman near to have provoked that smile. It was hers. She felt it was all hers, and her eyes shone up into the depths of blue she so loved.

"Why, Nan, I just hate to disappoint you," he said, in a gentle fashion. "But you'll surely be crazy to back my plug with Tommy Cleveden's 'Jack Rabbit' in the race. It's a cinch for him. It is so."

Nan laughed a glad buoyant laugh.

"Jack Rabbit?" she echoed scornfully. "Why, he points the toe. Guess he'd outrun Sassafras if he kept his feet, but he'll never do it. He'll peck. Then he'll change his stride. No, Jeff. Sassafras goes with me."

The smile in the man's eyes faded out. He hated the thought of Nan losing her money on what he considered a foolish bet. His practical mind could not see under her purpose.

"Say, Nan, just don't you do it," he said persuasively. "We aren't.
We're backing Jack Rabbit for a big roll."

"We?"

"Mrs. Van Blooren and me."

Jeff's manner was quite unconcerned. At that instant he had no thought of anything but to dissuade Nan from throwing her money away uselessly. And Nan. Her eyes never wavered for an instant in their regard. Their warmth of expression remained. Yet it was a cruel blow. Perhaps the cruelest that could have been inflicted at such a moment. Jeff had inflicted it—Jeff of all men.

She smiled up at him. Oh, how she smiled. Her eyes shone like two superb brown diamonds as she forced her money upon him with even greater determination.

"Take it, Jeff. Take it," she cried urgently. "Say, if you never, never do another thing for me—ever. Take it, and, why, I guess every cent of it says Sassafras wins. Sassafras is your pony, Jeff, and I'd back him if he'd only three legs and a fence post." Then just the smallest gleam of the woman peeped through. "Maybe Mrs. Van Blooren's a pretty bright woman. But I guess I'm wise to horses."

Jeff hurried away. There was no time to waste. The horses had already assembled at the start. Nan watched him go with eyes that had lost their last gleam of sunshine. The mask she had set up before the man had completely fallen. Jeff was—was betting for Mrs. Van Blooren! He was betting with her! Maybe even they were pooling their bets! Oh!

For some moments she stood alone where Jeff had left her. Everybody had rushed to the fence of the enclosure, crowding to witness the race. Nan seemed to have forgotten it. It was Bud's voice that finally claimed her, and she tried to pull her scattered faculties together.

She reached Bud's side amongst the crowd, and the old man's shrewd eyes searched her troubled face.

"What's amiss, Nan?" he demanded, in a tone almost brusque.

And the girl responded with a wistful smile.

"Why, Daddy, I've bet all your money on Jeff's Sassafras, and—and I want him to win more than anything—anything in the world."

Bud's reply was lost in the sudden shout that went up. It was the start. Some one made way for Nan, and gently pushed her to a place against the railings. The winning-post was directly in front of her. The full breadth of the track was in her view. She gazed out with eyes that were very near tears. She saw a vista of green and many figures moving beyond the track. She heard the hoarse cries of men, whose desires exceeded their veracity as they shouted the progress of the race. But nothing of what she heard or beheld conveyed anything to her. Her heart was aching once more, and her thoughts were heavily oppressed, and all the joy of the day had suddenly been banished.

Then of a sudden came that greatest of all tonics. That irresistible sensation so powerfully stimulating that no trouble can resist it. The racing horses leaped into her view, and the disjointed shouts welded into one steady roar. Nan was caught in the tide of it all. The blood seemed to rush to her head like full rich wine. She added her light cries to the general tumult.

"Sassafras! Sassafras!" she cried, with eyes blind to all but the indistinct cluster of the straining horses.

Then in her ears rang a cry:

"A hundred dollars Jack Rabbit! A thousand! Jack Rabbit! Jack
Rabbit!"

It was like a douche of cold water. The girl's heart sank. She felt, she knew that Jack Rabbit had won. Then into her ears poured a babel of voices. The roar had died out, and the crowd were waiting for the numbers to go up.

Nan had no further interest. She turned to seek her father. He was there, not far behind her, and she pushed her way toward him. She smiled bravely as she came up, but the pathos of it was lost on Bud. He was craning, and his eyes were on the number board. He did not even see her.

"I'm—I'm sort of tired, Daddy," she began.

But Bud held up his hand. There was a rattle at the number board. Nan understood. She waited. Then it seemed as if the crowd had timed itself for one unanimous shout.

"Sassafras!"

It came with a sort of electric thrill for the girl. In one wild moment all her shadows seemed to clear.

"Sassafras!" she cried.

And her father's deep gray eyes beamed down upon her

"You've sure guessed right, little gal," he said. "An' I—hope it was dollar time."

At that instant Jeff thrust his way through the crowd, and the warmth of his smile flooded the girl's heart with happiness.

"Say, Nan," he cried, holding out his hand with an enthusiasm that was hardly to be expected in one who has lost, "you got us all beat a mile. You surely have. Sassafras. My old Sassafras. Say, who'd 'a' thought it?" Nan's hand remained clasped in his, and she seemed to have no desire to withdraw it. Jeff looked round into Bud's face. "Do you know what she's won? Do you, Nan?" he went on to the girl again.

Nan laughed. It was all she wanted to do.

"Not a notion, Jeff. I handed you all Daddy gave me. How much was it,
Daddy?"

"Five hundred."

Nan's eyes widened in alarm.

"Five hundred? And I bet it all on—Sassafras!"

"And you've won nearly five thousand," cried Jeff, stirred completely out of himself at the girl's success.

"I—I must have been—crazy," she declared, in an awed voice.

Bud laughed, but his eyes were full of a sympathy that had no meaning for the others.

"Not crazy, little Nan. Jest good grit. Guess Jeff didn't see the pool waitin' around for him to pick up. Wal, guess ther's a heap o' folk like him. You played right out for a win, an' you won—by a head."

CHAPTER XI

ELVINE VAN BLOOREN

It was the last day of the Cattle Week. A week which, for at least three people, was fraught with something in the nature of epoch-making events. All that the simple heart of Nan Tristram had looked forward to, yearned for, had been denied her from the first moment she had beheld that unmistakable lightening up of Jeff's eyes on his meeting with Elvine van Blooren. It had been a revelation of dread. Her own secret hopes had been set shaking to their very foundations. And from that moment on, during the rest of the week, brick by brick the whole edifice of them had been set tumbling. By the last day nothing but a pile of debris remained.

Holiday! It had been a good deal less than holiday. She had looked forward to one all too brief succession of days of delight. Jeff, who had been honored by his fellows in the world which was theirs. Jeff, the leader in the great industry which absorbed them all. Jeff, the man by his very temperament marked out for a worldly success only bounded by the limitations of his personal ambitions. She had been so proud of him. She had been so thankful to be allowed to share in his triumphs. She had shared in them, too—up till that meeting with Elvine van Blooren at the reception. After that—ah, well, there had been very little after for Nan.

And the man himself. Four days had sufficed to reduce Jeff's feelings to a condition of love-sickness such as is best associated with extreme youth. Furthermore its hold upon him was deeper, more lasting by reason of the innate strength of his character.

As for Elvine van Blooren it would be less easy to say. Her beauty was of a darkly reticent order. Hers was the face, the eyes, the manner yielding up few secrets. She rarely imparted confidence even to her mother. And a woman who denies her mother rarely yields confidence to any other human creature.

Perhaps in her case, however, she had good reason. Mrs. John D. Carruthers, who possessed a simple erudite professor for a husband, a man who possessed no worldly ambitions of any sort, and who readily accepted his pension from the trustees of St. Bude's College at the earliest date, so that he might devote all his riper years to the prosecution of his passion for classical research, was a painful example of worldliness, and a woman who regarded position and wealth before all things. There was little enough sympathy between mother and daughter. Mrs. John D. Carruthers only saw in Elvine's unusual beauty an asset in her schemes of advancement. While Elvine displayed a cold disregard for the older woman's efforts, and went her own way.

Elvine was strong, even as Jeffrey Masters was strong. But while the man's strength lay in the single purpose of achievement, Elvine looked for the ease and luxury which life could legitimately afford her. Elvine and her mother possessed far too much in common ever to have sympathy for one another.

It was this very attitude which inspired an acrimonious half hour in the somewhat pretentious parlor on Maple Avenue just before Jeff was to pay his farewell call at the close of the Cattle Week.

Elvine was occupied with a small note-book on the| pages of which there were many figures. With a small gold pencil she was working out sums, which, apparently, were solely for her own edification. She communicated nothing to her mother, who covertly glanced over at her from the fancy work she was engaged upon at the far side of the room.

The room was such as might be found in any of the better middle-class houses in a western city. Its furnishing was a trifle ornate. Comfortable chairs predominated, and their woodwork shone with an extreme lustre, or were equally aggressive in their modern fictitious Mission House style. The carpet and rugs were broadly floral and bright. There was altogether a modernity about the character of it which decidedly belonged to the gray-haired showiness of the wife of John Carruthers. For all that, there was nothing absolutely untasteful about Elvine's surroundings. The daughter would never have permitted such a thing. It was only modern, extremely modern. That type of modern which belongs to those homes where money is a careful consideration.

At last Elvine closed her note-book and returned it to the rather large pocketbook which was lying in her lap. Her fine eyes were half smiling, and a faint tinge of color deepened her perfect cheeks. She sighed.

"We didn't do so badly at the races, Momma," she said, more for her own satisfaction than her mother's information. "Guess I've got most all of it in and—I'm satisfied."

"Maybe you are, my dear," came the ungracious response.

Her mother was bending over her work, nor did she trouble to raise her eyes in her daughter's direction.

"That sounds as if somebody else wasn't."

Elvine raised a pair of beautifully rounded arms above her head and rested the back of her neck upon her clasped hands.

The gray head was lifted sharply. A pair of brilliant black eyes shot a disapproving glance across the room. Then the mother continued her work, shaking her head emphatically.

"What's the use of a few dollars? He's going back to his ranch to-morrow, and—nothing's happened."

There was something crude, almost brutal in the manner of it. There was something which on a woman's lips might well have revolted any man. But it was an attitude to which the daughter was used. Besides, it saved her any qualms she might otherwise have had in pursuing her own way under the shelter of her mother's roof.

"I really can't see what you've to complain of, Momma," Elvine laughed, without any display of mirth. "I guess if you wanted to marry a man you'd leave him about as much chance as he'd have with a wildcat." Then her smile died out. "Anyway it doesn't seem to be a matter for other folk to concern themselves with. I'm not a child."

"No. But you're going to throw away the chance of a lifetime if you don't act right now. Why, girl, Jeff Masters is the pick of the whole bunch of cattlemen around this district. He's going to be one of the cattle kings of the country, or I don't guess I know a thing. He's right here to your hand, and as tame as a lap-dog. To-morrow he's off again to the ranch, and that girl of his partner's will have him to herself for a year. Why, you're crazy to let him go. Four years you've lived here since—since——"

"I wish you'd stop worrying, Momma—and," the girl added with unconcealed resentment, "get on with your knitting."

Elvine had risen to her feet. She moved swiftly over to the window which gave on to a wide stoop, the roof of which was supported on well-built rag stone columns. She was more angry than her words admitted. Her fine eyes were sparkling, her delicately penciled brows were slightly knitted.

She made a handsome picture. Her wealth of dark hair was carefully dressed, but with the usual consummate simplicity. Her figure was superb, with all the ripeness of maturity, but without the smallest inclination toward any gross development. She was statuesque, with all the perfect cunning of Nature's art. She was a woman to find favor in any eyes, man's or woman's, and to perform that dual feat was a test which few women could hope to survive.

The mother's reply came sharply and without yielding.

"It's just four years since you came back to home. Five or more since you first married. Anyway, you've sat around here for four years having a good time without a thought of the future. You're spending your money, which didn't amount to——"

The girl flashed round.

"I won't tolerate it. I just won't, Momma," she cried, with an energy which brought the other's eyes swiftly to her face. "You've talked of four years wasted, but you don't say a word of the other year, the fifth. It's taken me all that time to—forget what your judgment might have saved me from. Oh, yes. You know it just as well as I do. Don't blind yourself. I was foolish then, I thought I was in love, and it was the moment when the advice of a woman worth having might have helped me. You urged me in my folly to marry then, the same as you're urging me now. You saw everything you hoped for in that marriage, and you let me plunge myself into a living hell without a single qualm. The result. Oh, I've tried to forget. But I can't I haven't forgotten. I never shall forget. But I've learned. I certainly have. I've learned to think wholly for myself—of myself. I don't need advice now. I don't need a thing. You'll never see things my way, and I don't fancy to see them yours. I shall marry. And when I marry again I promise you I'll marry right, and," she laughed bitterly, "I guess I'll hand you the rake off which you're looking for. But," she went on, with a swift, ruthless candor which stung even the worldly heart of the older woman, "I'll make no experimental practice. I'll marry the man I want to, first because I like him, and second, because he's a right man, and can hand me the life I need. Maybe that's pretty hard sounding, but I tell you, Momma, it's nothing to the hardness that makes you talk the way you do. Anyway, I want you to get it fixed in your mind right now I'm no priceless gem in a jewelry store that you're going to sell at the price you figure. I'll dispose of myself when, and to whom, I choose, and my motives will be my own. Now we'll quit it, once for all. Jeffrey Masters is coming right along down the sidewalk."

The mother's black eyes snapped angrily.

"Very well," she exclaimed sharply. "See to it you make good. Your father's pension isn't even sufficient for two, and your own money is limited. Meanwhile, don't forget the Tristram girl's just as pretty as a picture."

But Elvine's exasperation had passed. There was a slight softening in her eyes as they surveyed the handsome, elaborately dressed gray head and the careful toilet of her unlovely mother. She understood the bitter carping of this disappointed woman. Her spirit soared far beyond the lot of the wife of a pensioned school-teacher. She knew, too, that somewhere, lost in some dim recess of a coldly calculating nature, there was a tiny, glowing spot which burned wholly for her.

There was an unusual softness in her tone when she replied.

"But she needs framing, Momma," she said lightly. "And anyway, a girl who lives more or less on the premises with a man for five years or so, and hasn't married him—well, I guess she never will."

* * * * * *

The whole method of Jeff's life was rapidity of thought and swift execution supported by a perfect genius for clear thinking. It was these characteristics which had lifted him so rapidly in the world of cattle he had made his own. It was these which had shown him the possibilities of the now great Obar Ranch.

It might have been claimed for him that he lacked many of the lovable weaknesses of human nature. It might have been said that he was hard, cold. Yet such was his passionate ambition beneath a cool, deliberate exterior that it would have been foolish to believe that his outward display was the real man. He was perhaps a powerfully controlled fire, but the hot tide ran strong within him, and the right torch at the right moment might easily stir the depths of him and bring their fiery display to the surface.

Bud knew him. Bud understood something of the deep human tide flowing through his strong veins. Once he had seen that tide at the surface, and it had left an impression not easily forgettable. Nan, too, was not without understanding of him. But hers was the understanding of her sex for an idol she had set up in her heart. Her knowledge of his shortcomings and his best characteristics was perhaps the reflection of her feelings for him, feelings which make it possible for a woman to endow any object of her profound regard with the virtues she would have it possess. To her there was nothing of the iron, relentless, purposeful soul about him. He was just "Honest Jeff," as she loved to call him. A creature full of kindly thought for others as well as strong in his own personal attitude toward life.

For himself Jeff knew nothing of the emotions lying dormant within him until some chance happening stirred them from their slumbers and sent them pulsating through his senses. He accepted the tide of life as he found it, and only on his journey, swimming down its many currents, he endeavored by skilful pilotship to avoid the shoals, and seek the beneficent backwaters so that his muscles and courage might be strengthened for the completion of the task he had still before him.

Elvine van Blooren had held the right torch at their first meeting during the Cattle Week. One look into her beautiful eyes had set his soul aflame, as all the years of his life spent in association with Nan Tristram had failed to do. Did she only know it, the first waltz with him at the subsequent ball had completely made her mistress of his destiny.

Again with his rapid, clear-thinking mind he had not only promptly admitted this truth to himself, but he reveled in the enchantment of the thought it inspired. He desired it. He regretted only that fortune had so long denied him the contemplation of such delights. He felt he had never before lived. He had merely existed, something more than a physical and mental machine, something less than a man.

Something of all this stimulated his sensations during that ostensible farewell call upon the woman who had inspired the change. And, as his hungry eyes dwelt upon her great beauty, he became a prey to an impulse that was irresistible. Why should this be a farewell? Why should there ever be a farewell between them? There could be none. Then, to his support came that steady determination which never failed him in crises. There should be no farewell.

He was clad in sober conventional garb. There was only the bronzing upon his fair brow and firm cheeks to suggest the open air life that was his. His slim, powerful figure was full of an ease which caught and held, and pleased Elvine van Blooren's fancy, and awoke in her more material mind something of the dreams which had driven her almost unthinkingly into the arms of her first husband. His fine blue eyes were alight with possibilities which came near to overbalancing the calculations of her mature mind. But, even so, she felt that the ground was so safe under her feet that, even with the background of the past ever in her memory, she could safely indulge her warmth of fancy to its full.

They were alone in the little modern parlor. At another time Jeff must have observed its atmosphere without enthusiasm, just now he welcomed it. It represented the intimate background of a beautiful woman's life. This was the shrine of the goddess whom he had set up for his own worship. Again there was no half measure.

They were talking in that intimate fashion which belongs to the period when a man and a woman have made up their minds that there remains no obstacle to the admission of mutual regard.

"It's just wonderful to have done it all in so short a time," Elvine said in her low even tones.

Jeff had been talking of the Obar Ranch which was more precious to him than a schoolboy's first big achievement in the playing fields. He had been talking of it, not in the spirit of vain glory, but out of the deep affection of a strong heart for the child of his own creation.

"Oh, I guess it would have been wonderful with any other feller for a partner than Bud Tristram," Jeff responded promptly. "As an enterprise, why, I guess it's my thought. As a success, it's Bud's genius for setting cattle prospering. Say, you can't handle a wide proposition right by reckoning up figures and fixing deeds of sale and partnership. I allow you need to do some thinking that way. But when it's all figgered right, why, the real practical man needs to get busy or the figgers aren't worth the ink an' paper you've used to make 'em. Bud's the feller of the Obars. I just sit around and talk wise when he needs talk, which I don't guess is frequent."

Jeff's smile was genuine. There was no false modesty that made him place the credit of the Obar's success at Bud's door. The credit was Bud's. He knew it. And, with frank honesty, was only too ready to admit it, and even advertise it.

Elvine nodded. Her dark eyes were warmly returning his smile.

"I like that," she said simply. And she meant it.

The blood mounted to the man's brow. He felt that he had forced her to make the admission, and regarded his act with some shame.

"Say, don't feel you've got to say that," he said earnestly. "You mustn't just think I'm asking your applause. These are simple facts which I can't deny. I'd like to feel the sun just rises and sets around my work, but if I did I'd be the same sort of fool as those Pharisee fellers in the Bible. Bud's a bully feller, and I'll owe him more than I can ever hand him back just as long as I live."

Elvine was comparing this man's big generosity with her understanding of most of the men she had ever known. She was thinking, too, of days long since passed, and events which even a wide distance of time had not succeeded in rendering mellow.

She sighed. Somehow "Honest Jeff" was hurting her in a way she would never have believed any man could hurt her—now.

"This Bud Tristram's daughter—Nan. She's a pretty creature," Elvine went on, feeling their topic needed changing.

Jeff's smile deepened.

"She's pretty—right through to her soul," came his prompt and earnest response.

Elvine's eyes observed him closely. She laughed in a challenging fashion.

"And she is still her father's daughter?"

Jeff flushed. Her meaning could not be mistaken. His impulse was to speak out of the depth of a strong abiding regard for his friend's "little gal." But he rejected the impulse. Time and his own desires were pressing.

"Oh, I guess she'll marry some fellow some day. Maybe he'll be good enough——"

"And more than likely he won't." Elvine's reply was emphatic. She suddenly sat forward in the deep rocker, and a great earnestness shone in her eyes. "I tell you no woman in this life has a right to be as 'pretty' as you believe her to be," she said with intense bitterness. "If I had my way every girl would be taught to reason for herself on those things in life which make for her well-being. I'd make her think that way before everything else. To me it is the direst cruelty of Providence that we should be left to become the prey of our own emotions, and at the mercy of any man of whatever quality who can sufficiently stir them. Maybe you do not agree to that. But just think of the awful position that every wretched, physically feeble woman stands in in the life about her. I tell you no girl on her own resources has much better than a dog's chance of getting through life without disaster. Our emotions are the most absurdly foolish type it is possible to think of. I guess we can do things with our normal reason which would shame a whole asylum of crazy folk who can't be let run around free. Oh, I'd like to know her better, to tell her, to warn her. I don't guess I've ever done good in the world, but I'd like to. If I could save one of my sex from some of the pitfalls lying around, maybe I'd feel I'd been some use."

"Why not know her better? Say, Nan's no end of a good sort. She'd be real glad."

Jeff's invitation sounded lame, even to himself. But he was struggling under an emotion that made words difficult.

Elvine laughed.

"Would she? I wonder."

Then she hurried on lest her observation should be interpreted.

"And you're going to quit our city to-morrow for your wonderful ranch. I guess the Cattle Week's liable to bore folks who've real work in the world—like you. It's just a week of show, and glitter, and ceremony, all those things which have no real place in the world of things that matter. But there, after all, I wonder what are the things that matter. And do they matter anyway? We have no guide. We're just left to grope around and search for ourselves, and every folk's ideas are different from every other folk's. I'm restless. I sort of feel there's so much to be done in the world—if we only knew how, and what."

The half-bantering manner of the woman did not disguise her earnestness. Jeff shook his head.

"Guess I can't say. Guess none of us can—rightly. But why not come around to the ranch and see things? See if you can worry out an answer. See if you think the work we're doing matters. It certainly does matter to me, to us. But in the world. I don't know. Just now I sort of feel it don't. Just now I'm wondering whether I'll go back there to-morrow. What do you say?"

"I? How can I say?"

Jeff laughed.

"I don't guess there's a thing easier." His eyes were shining as he took in the girl's dark beauty. "Seems to me I'm beginning to wonder about the things that matter myself. It's been a bully week. The sort of week some folks would write about in their secret diary. Guess I don't keep a secret diary—except somewhere right in here." He tapped his breast. "I don't seem to feel I've ever had such a time, or ever will again, unless——"

"Unless?" Elvine was caught in the mood of the moment. This man was exercising a fascination over her which had nothing to do with the calculations she had laid down for the guidance of her sex.

"Why, unless I add another week to it."

"D'you think you could duplicate it then?"

"That just depends on—you."

Elvine rose from her chair and moved toward the window. Jeff, too, left his chair. He stood tall and straight—waiting.

Her back was turned to him.

"It is not for me to say," she replied without turning.

"Why not?"

"Your work—in the world."

"Can wait. There's always—Bud Tristram."

Suddenly Elvine turned about. Her eyes were smiling, and full of a light which had not lived in them for several years. There was not a shadow of calculation in them now.

She held out her hand in token of dismissal.

"We had some fine rides—together," she said.

"My horses are still here."

"And—the dances. They were—very pleasant."

"Maybe they can be danced—again."

"Good-bye," she said, her beautiful hand lingering in his for a moment.

"For the present," Jeff added with decision.

Then he mechanically glanced at his timepiece. His "farewell" call had lasted over two hours. But even so it had been all too short for him.

CHAPTER XII

THE TEMPERING

Bud was packing in his rooms at Aston's Hotel. It was late at night. Late as it was, however, he had only left Nan, engaged at a similar occupation, less than half an hour ago. He had sat talking to her, and watching her with eyes of deep concern while, with infinite care, she bestowed those beautiful gowns which mean so much in a woman's life.

His visit to her had not been one of mere companionship. It had been inspired by a sympathy he had no other means of displaying. He had talked to her; by every means in his power he had endeavored to interest her in reminiscence of the week's doings. She listened patiently, almost submissively, for she understood the promptings of his endeavor. But she was too deeply plunged in her own discouragement to display real interest, and it had required every ounce of courage she possessed to prevent herself falling to weeping.

Nor was Bud at fault for a moment. He recognized the trouble lurking in the sweet brown eyes. And with all his might he pretended not to see. So, when his last effort to cheer had proved unavailing, he took his departure under the excuse of his own packing.

He knew. Of course he knew. Had he not watched the progress of events throughout the week? Had he not seen for himself how Jeff's fancy had been caught? And she was very beautiful, this town-bred woman, beautiful with that healthy, downy complexion which Bud found did not fit with his idea of city "raised" women. He almost felt he hated her, yet he knew he had no right to his antagonism. Jeff was unpledged, he was free. No woman had any claim on him. Not even Nan. Poor Nan. He had hoped to give her seven long days of unalloyed delight. He had only given her seven days of bitter disappointment and disillusion.

He set about his packing with furious zest. In a moment, it seemed, his room was in a state of chaos. And all the while, as he bundled garments together and flung them into his grips, his busy thought went on in the only direction in which it seemed capable of moving just now.

His mind had gone back to the days before their visit to Calthorpe. He remembered the delighted anticipation which Nan had displayed. Her displays of happy affection for himself in the midst of her own great looking forward. The ravishing hours she had spent in choosing patterns of material, and styles of gown. He remembered the bright sparkling eyes shining, it seemed to him, at all times. That wonderful looking forward. Oh, the holiday of it had been nothing. There was only one thing, one thought, which had inspired the child. It was Jeff. It was a week that was to see honor done him, and she—she was to join in honoring him. Jeff was the whole hub about which her happiness revolved.

He was pained. He was angry. And the vision of Elvine van Blooren's dark beauty haunted him. He admitted it—her beauty. And for all his disquiet, his bitter feeling, he found it impossible to blame the man.

Yes, for all his exasperation. For all he regarded Jeff as a "fool man," he was just enough to remember that Nan was his own little daughter, a pretty prairie girl, with nothing of the showy attraction of this city woman. Then Jeff's attitude toward her. It had never been more than the sheerest friendliness. He reflected bitterly, even, that they might have been simply brother and sister. While the dream of his life was some day to be able to pour out the wealth he was storing up into the out-stretched palms of their children.

Well, it was a dream. And now it had come tumbling about his feet, and it almost looked to him as if poor little Nan's heart was to be buried beneath the debris.

He flung his evening suit, which Nan had so much admired, into the gaping jaws of a large leather grip, with a disregard that more than illustrated his feelings. Then he strove to close the grip tucking in the projecting oddments of silk-lined cloth without the least consideration for their well-being. He felt he never wanted to wear such things again, never wanted even to see them. He and Nan belonged to the prairie, not to a city. That was good enough for them. What was the use——?

But his reflections were interrupted by the abrupt appearance of Jeff himself. Bud looked up as the door was unceremoniously thrust open, and his regard was quite unshaken by the depths of his feelings. It displayed a mute question, however.

Jeff began at once.

"I saw the light through your transom, Bud, so I just came right in."

Jeff was a shade paler than usual. There was a look of some doubt in his blue eyes. And his manner hinted at a decision taken. A decision that had not been arrived at without some considerable exercise of mind.

Slowly, as he regarded him, all Bud's bitterness subsided. If Nan were his daughter, this man was almost a son to him.

"Say, old friend, I'm—I'm not going back home with you to-morrow," Jeff went on. He stirred with a suggestion of nervousness, and then flung himself upon the old man's littered-up bed. "I just can't, an' that's a fact. I want to stop around here for a while. I got to."

He paused as though awaiting an answer, but none was forthcoming. Only was there that steady regard from the man beyond the still open grip.

Bud was not thinking of the announcement. Jeff was certainly a "good-looker," and he was beginning to understand something of the attraction he must have for a woman like Elvine van Blooren. He was slim and muscular, with a keen face of decision and strength. Then, was he not on the rising wave which must ever appeal to the maturer mind of a widow, however young? His disappointment rose again and threatened to find expression. But he thrust it aside and struggled to remember only his regard for the man.

"D'you mind?" Jeff's question came nervously.

Did he mind? It was a weak question. Coming from Jeff it sounded foolish. Bud smiled, and his quiet sense of humor saved him from himself.

"Why, if you feel that way I don't guess you need worry a thing, Jeff." Then he added: "Guess Nan an' me'll get right along home. But it don't need to cut no ice. I take it you're askin' me to fix things right at the Obars till you get around. That so?"

Jeff nodded. He was feeling that he was doing something mean, even brutal. He knew that what he contemplated must result in the bitterest disappointment to his old friend. He had well enough known throughout their partnership Bud's yearning desire that he should marry Nan. Well, such a course was unthinkable now. Somehow it had never seemed really possible. He was troubled, grievously troubled, but he was determined now to act in the only honest way. He was determined that Bud should know the truth—at all costs.

"I'd be thankful to you, Bud."

"You don't need to say a word. It's fixed."

For some moments no other word was spoken. There was awkwardness. But it was with Jeff alone. He feared the result of what he must tell.

"You're—packing?" he said presently.

Bud sat himself heavily into a rocker.

"Yep. Lestways I don't guess Nan 'ud call it that way." He raked his curly iron-gray hair with his strong fingers, and gazed ruefully at the chaos.

"Maybe I can help some."

Bud shook his head, and his smile was good.

"Guess one darn fool's enough playin' this game. When're you coming along to—home?"

"Maybe a week."

The reply was prompt.

"An'—you'll bring her along with you?"

The eyes of the two men met. Each was reading the other like an open book.

Jeff shook his head. Somehow there was nothing absurd to him in Bud's suggestion. There was nothing startling even in the probing of his secret with so much directness.

"I haven't asked her—yet."

Then it was that the big heart of the friend, who was almost a father, made itself apparent.

"But you're goin' to, Jeff. An' she's goin' to take you. Say, Jeff, she's one lucky woman."

In a moment the tide of the younger man's feelings was set flowing. In a moment the egoism of the lover made a generous nature forget all else but the passion that absorbed him. In a moment the thought that this man was Nan's father, and that the dearest wish of his life was that he, Jeff, should marry his daughter, was forgotten.

"Lucky? But you got it wrong, Bud," Jeff cried, sitting erect, his face flushed with the passionate stirring of Ills strong heart. "It's I who'll be lucky, if she don't turn me down. Man, I'm not worth the dust on her shoes. I'm not fit to lackey for her. Nor—nor is any other feller. Say, Bud," he went on, leaning impressively forward, his eyes shining with his passion, "I'm just crazy to death for her. And—and I can't just help it. I'd go through hell's flames for her, man, I'd——"

"Say, boy, don't worry that-a-way. Jest marry her instead," Bud broke in with his gentlest smile. "You're all sorts of a boy, Jeff, and I don't figger you got call to talk about the dust of any woman's shoes. But I guess ther's times when it's good fer a man to feel he ain't as big as he's told. Anyways, you get right ahead, and leave me to the Obars. I ain't goin' to fail you now, any more than any other time." Then he rumpled his stubbly hair again, and it was an action that suggested heavy thought. "Say," he went on, a moment later, his eyes looking squarely into the face of the other, "we're hittin' the trail good an' early to-morrow. Guess you best let me say 'good-bye' to Nan for you. That so?"

Jeff nodded. He understood. And somehow the bigness of this man made him almost despise himself.

"Then I guess I'll get right on with my—packin'."

* * * * * *

They were standing on the stoop of Aston's Hotel. In front of them the broad Avenue opened out with its central walk, between an aisle of wide-spreading maple trees bathed in the early morning sun. A spring wagon was already moving away, piled up with baggage. The saddle horses were ready, held by one of the hotel servants. Nan, in her riding costume, was waiting while her father exchanged a few parting words with the hotel manager.

"Guess you're right. It's been a darn good week this year. The best in my memory. I'd say the Conference was a heap better attended, an' the weather's been just great. We got through a deal o' legislation, too. Guess things are goin' to hum, with the Obars at the head of 'em this year. Our big play is to be dealin' with rustlers. We got a hell of a piece o' leeway to make up. Four years ago we guessed we'd got 'em fixed where we wanted 'em. But they hatched out since like a brood o' wolf cubs. So long."

"Mr. Masters is stopping on for a while," the manager observed, with that intimate touch which he always practiced with his more influential customers of the cattle world.

"Why, yes." Bud's eyes were watching Nan as she mounted her pony, carefully held by a solicitous barn-hand. Under other circumstances the man's attention would have afforded him amusement. Just now he was regretting the manager's remark. "Y'see, ther's a deal to fix. Seein' he's president this year, why, I guess it's up to him to kep his ladle busy in the soup."

He moved off the stoop and took his horse from the waiting man. He swung himself into the saddle with an agility which belied his years.

He waved one great hand in response to the manager's deferential bow, and turned his horse away. In a moment Bud and Nan were riding side by side down the wide Avenue.

It was a long time before either attempted to break the silence between them. They had even reached the outskirts of the city before Nan broached the subject from which her father admittedly shrank.

"I'm glad Jeff didn't get up to see us off," she said imply. Then she laughed softly. "Y'see, Daddy, there's times for most things; and 'good-byes' in the early morning are a bit like cold baths in winter."

Bud eyed his daughter with a quick sidelong glance, and then continued his survey of the trail ahead as it lifted over a gentle grassy slope. They were passing the last houses of the town, and ahead lay the tawny fields which made the country one of the greatest pastures in the world.

"Ther'd been no sort o' sense his turning out around sun-up to see us folks off. It ain't goin' to be weeks before he gets back home."

"No."

Nan's smile remained, and Bud, for all his avoidance of it, was aware that was so. It was a smile that cut him to the heart, and yet he was simple man enough to find relief in it.

"There'll be a deal for him to fix before he gets back home," Nan went on.

She spoke in the earnest fashion of deep consideration. Bud glanced round at her again, steadying his powerful horse to permit her pony to push its nose ahead. Her manner had startled him. But he refrained from the folly of replying. He had that in his mind to impart the thought of which nearly broke his heart. But it must be told, and by him. And a passionate desire to lighten the blow made him watch desperately for the best opportunity.

But he was dealing with a nature stronger, deeper, more honest and clear-sighted than he knew. He was dealing with a woman who could sacrifice all to the well-being and happiness of those she loved. With Nan self held a particularly subservient place to every other emotion. And when it did manage to obtrude itself it was her way to fight her battle alone, at a time when no prying eyes were there to witness her sufferings. To the daylight she presented a pair of sweet brown smiling eyes, and lips as full, and ripe, and firm as though no shadow of doubt and unhappiness had ever crossed her path.

She went on rapidly, speaking as though the matter under consideration were fully accepted between them.

"It's queer how things fix themselves the way you don't guess," she said reflectively. "Just one week, and they're changed around in a way that makes you wonder if you aren't dreaming. It's sort of like the Indian summer, isn't it? There's the beautiful light of the full sun on colors that set you 'most crazy with delight. Pictures that make you feel Providence is just the biggest painter ever set brush to canvas. Then, with a shiver of wind from the north, down the leaves tumble, and right on top of 'em comes the snow, and then you're moving around in a sort of crystal fairy web, and wonder when you'll wake up. A week ago Jeff didn't even know her; she wasn't in the world so far as he knew. Now he's going to marry her."

Nan stated the fact without a tremor of voice, without a shadow of hesitation. The sunny smile was entirely without a cloud. Her father stared down at her from his superior height with eyes wide with astonishment and something of alarm.

"Say, did Jeff tell you?" he asked sharply.

Nan shook her head.

"Then how in hell d'you know it all? Say——"

"How d'you know anything that affects you here, Daddy?" the girl retorted, gently indicating her soft rounded bosom with one gauntleted hand.

Then her smile broke out again, and the man's trouble was further increased.

"Y'see, I don't mind saying things to you. You're my Daddy and Momma all rolled into one. And there's sure a heap of you for two," she smiled up at him. "Maybe you don't always say all the things you feel, but it don't keep me guessing long. You'd a heap of terr'ble, terr'ble things on your mind to say to me on this ride. Oh, and they weighed heavy. Your poor worried face had lost all its smile, and your eyes just looked as if you'd been lying awake nights an' nights, an' you'd seen every sort of nightmare ever thought of in the world of dreams. It made me kind of sorry, and I just couldn't wait for you to make that big talk you figgered on."

Bud was gazing far out ahead at the brilliant sky-line where the crests of grass-land cut the line in perfect undulations. Nan's gently drawn sigh was like the stab of a knife in his heart. His feelings at that moment were too deep for words. And so the girl went on in a voice that struck fresh chords of sympathy in the soul of the man who idolized her.

"It seems to me, my Daddy, that we often think things that a great big Someone don't guess are good for us to think. We sort of set up hopes we've no right to. An' when we do, why, we've got to be handed our lessons. Sometimes the lesson is pretty tough, sometimes I don't guess it's a deal worse than a pin-prick. Anyway, lessons aren't joyous things at best, not even pin-pricks. Well, if folks are right they'll just learn their lessons all they can without kicking, and if they get a hunch on, why, I don't figger it's likely to make 'em harder. I've been learning my lesson a whole week now, and, yes, I've got it right. Oh, I've had to work. It hasn't been easy. And somehow, my Daddy, all these lovely, lovely gowns, and the thought of the generous hands that gave them to me, have helped me to learn quicker, and—better."

She paused again. Their horses were ambling leisurely along over the sandy trail. They moved together, side by side, in a closeness of companionship which perhaps symbolized that of their riders.

"I jest don't know what to say, Nan. I surely don't," Bud lumbered at last with a half-bewildered drawing together of his heavy brows. "It don't seem I ken even think right—about it."

Nan gazed up into his big troubled face with the frank eyes that looked wholly untroubled.

"Don't try, my Daddy. Guess I've done all that's necessary that way. Maybe I know just how you're feeling, because I know how I'm feeling. God's been good to me all my years. He's given me a Daddy who's the best in the world. A Daddy who's taught me by his own example how to be strong and fight the little battles I guess it's meant for us to fight. Oh, I won't say it hasn't hurt," she went on, with a catch in her voice. "You see, I loved Jeff. I love him now, and I'll go right on loving him to the end. And it's because I love him I want to help him now—and always. You won't think me a fool girl, my Daddy, will you, but—but—I won't hate Elvine van Blooren. I'm—I'm going to try so hard to like her, and—and anyway, with all my might, I'm going to help them both. D'you guess Jeff would let me get his house ready for—his wife?"

The father's reply came with a violence which he calculated should conceal an emotion which his manhood forbade, but which only helped to reveal it the more surely to the clear eyes of the girl at his side.

"Hell take the bunch—the whole of 'em!" he cried fiercely. Then he added weakly: "You're nigh breakin' my heart all to pieces."

But Nan's smile suddenly became radiant, as she turned her brown eyes away from the spectacle of her father's trouble to the distant horizon ahead.

She shook her head.

"No, my Daddy. I allow it feels that way just now. I've felt that way, too. But it's just God's tempering. And when it's through, why I guess our hearts'll be made of good metal, strong and steady to do the work He'd have us do. And that's just all we can ask, isn't it?"

CHAPTER XIII

THE NEWS

Nan rode up to the veranda of the ranch house and sprang lightly from the saddle. Her pony's flanks were caked with sweat. The days now, as they approached July, were blistering, and the work of the great ranch was heavy for everybody. Nan had constituted herself Jeff's substitute during his absence, and performed his share of the labor with a skill and efficiency which astonished even her father.