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"This bein' a bad man is shorely a tough job, fer sooner er later they's bound to come a leetle bit badder man who's honin' to shoot off the tie."—Joe Breedlove.

At false dawn Tom Lilly was away from Powder, heading south toward the Buttes. By sunrise he had crossed the railroad tracks and penetrated a land that boasted neither house nor windmill nor fence. It was strictly cattle country and for the greater part of the morning he traveled across it, marching directly upon the high bluffs and then paralleling them until the road swung sharply upward and passed through a gap into a kind of elevated valley. This, Lilly had discovered from the maps, was Jim's Pass and the only entrance to Pilgrim Valley from the west. He turned his horse up the side of the gap and stopped on a commanding point What he saw caused him to whistle softly and build a cigarette in deep meditation.

The valley, ringed on three sides by the Buttes and merging into a pine forest far to the south, was a self-contained, almost inaccessible land. No such thing as a fence was needed and since it was a great deal higher than the country outside and below the Buttes it drew more moisture and was visited with a cooler air. The buffalo grass, just turning yellow, covered the valley in a solid mat as far as his eyes could reach. It was an astonishing contrast to the dead area stretching west and north. No wonder Jim Breck, the octopus, wanted to keep out interlopers. The sight of it explained a great many things to Tom Lilly and as his eyes wandered out upon the plain below him he recalled stray gossip he had pumped from the reticent roustabout.

That road, for instance, which drifted away before it reached Jim's Pass and vanished into the desert. He had learned that it led to the 3Cross, an outfit owned by an Englishman called Stubbins. Stubbins, the roustabout had cautiously implied, ruled the country outside of Pilgrim Valley and had even tried to penetrate the JIB domain. But old Jim Breck had fought him to a standstill, using the heavy-handed methods common to the country. Ever since they had dwelt side by side in an uneasy attitude of peace; just two gents, the roustabout had indicated, trying to cut each other's throat and alike only in the manner they hazed unwelcome newcomers out of the country.

Lilly pinched out his cigarette and threw it away, turning down into the valley. Five miles farther on he reached a small trail that darted from the road toward the pine forest and this he followed for something like an hour when of a sudden he dipped over a ridge and came upon a shanty nestling between three or four young cottonwoods. The soil had been broken around the house and corn was coming up; a piece of fence had been built and a plow stood idle in the yard. Tom slid from the horse, took his sack of supplies and pushed through the door.

Typical bachelor's quarters. The dead Hamby had spent very little time in housekeeping. A long row of nails stretched around the walls from which hung most everything capable of being suspended. A pine table, a bunk, a chair, and a stove well filled the place. All there was of food stood on the table and Lilly saw at a glance that the nestcr had allowed himself to get very low before venturing to town. The man must have understood his danger and put off the trip as long as possible. The thought revived Lilly's sulphurous anger and on sight of a riflc hanging above the doorway he walked over and took it down, sliding the bolt thoughtfully.

"Well, old fellow, I sure can't help you any, but I can show this JIB crew a few things about land rights."

That reminded him he meant to pay a visit. So, after watering his horse from the spring at the rear of the shanty and eating a can of cold beans, he swung up and rode east. Somewhere beyond the grassy ridges was the JIB home quarters. What he meant to do was state his intentions to the so-called octopus and withdraw. After that it was a case of listening for the thunder to roll across the sky.

He smiled grimly at the thought of turning nester. Twenty-four hours before he would have taken the idea in great and unbelieving humor. Why, he hardly ever turned around unless on the back of a horse. And as for struggling behind the handles of a plow—"Joe Breedlove shore would laugh," he murmured, closing his eyes against the glare of the day. "Oh, I know I'm hot-headed. It's been proved plenty times enough. But, by the Lord, that shootin' would make a wooden Indian cuss. If this ain't a free land it's high time somebody changed things."

And as he was thus plunged deep in a study he crossed a ridge and saw the many buildings of the JIB ranch stretched before him. The place took him back forty years to the time of the Indian wars. Once upon a time there had been a stockade stretched around the place, an occasional mark of which still was visible. Within this stockade they had built the dozen or so houses in the shape of a square, with the main house sitting in the middle of the great yard thus formed. All were built of logs and the center house, a single storied structure sixty feet long, had elbows built at each corner with rifle embrasures cut through; atop a sod roof a cupola likewise hewn of logs commanded all angles of the yard. A porch ran the length of the place, upon which at intervals opened heavy oak doors.

Men moved slowly about. Dust rose out of a remote corral and a horse sunfished upward through the haze with a man weaving perilously in the saddle. At another corner several Indians seemed busy around a fire. As Lilly drew rein before the main house he was hailed by a rumbling voice.

"Sit an' light."

Tom had to look around a pine pillar to see the man, and at once knew him to be the redoubtable Jim Breck. He was sprawled in a chair, his massive body overflowing it—a body that even with the accumulated layers of fat displayed something of the tremendous muscles that once must have stretched across the shoulders. The head was square and seemed hewn out of so much granite, each feature chiseled roughly and generously. The Octopus, someone had called him. Well, it was a good nickname. Even so Lilly was not prepared exactly for the rest of the picture. Here was an old man, a sick man; one who sat very still and listened to the sound of his own heart as it labored toward the end of its journey. A gray, dust-like pallor was on the face and the lips were almost colorless; a strange and depressing spectacle of a mighty frame going to pieces. Still, there was fire in those grim eyes. It flashed out now, fitfully.

"Come out o' the sun, young man. We'll eat shortly."

At this moment an ancient, skinny Indian slipped around the corner of the house and reached for Lilly's reins.

"No, I don't believe I will, thanks. It ain't right to traffic on a man's hospitality. I take it yore Jim Breck. Such bein' the case I don't reckon I could eat comfortable at your table."

One mighty shoulder rose and fell. "Knew somethin' was itchin' you when I saw you comin' over the rise. Say it, younker."

"I'm settlin' on the three-sixty over at the spring. I aim to stay, notwithstandin' yore foreman. Just wanted to declare myself."

Jim Breck sat motionless, his eyes exploring Lilly. After a long interval he answered almost gently. "The fightin' kind, ain't you? Somethin's roused yore sense o' justice. But it's too late, Red. They's a nester on that place now. A fellow by the name o' Hamby."

Tom shook his head. "Yore foolin' me, Mister Breck. You ought to know better."

"What's that?" asked Breck with an increase of energy.

"Yore foreman bullied him into a fight. Shot him dead." Lilly was unable to keep the anger from his words. "About as dirty a piece o' work as I've seen in my time. Don't you draw the line at anything?"

"So," muttered Breck. His chin fell forward and he fumbled in his pocket for a cigar. He looked wistfully at it, then with a defiant gesture put it in his mouth. "So that's got you excited. Hornin' in on another party's misfortune. 'Tain't a safe game, son. But yore kind don't care about playin' safe. Reckon you've got me gauged as a hop toad, eh?"

"Yore reputation is on public record," said Tom.

"Well, that's so," murmured Breck in a gentle voice. "But I was raised in a hard school. Had to fight my way. Don't this ranch look like it was built to stand siege? If you observe them logs you'll see bullet marks a-plenty."

"That ain't no answer for shootin' a nester."

Fire gleamed in the eyes again. "Mebbee 'tain't. When a man gets to the end o' the road an' looks back he sees plenty things different than he used to. Well, I like yore spunk. I could shorely use a fighter on this ranch. Want a job?"

"No," said Lilly. "I'm obliged, but that's not my politics. The world ain't goin' to be large enough for Trono an' me, let alone a ranch. Anyhow, I'm camped off yonder an' I wanted to let you know."

"Pleased to know a man's real feelin's," agreed Breck. He started to add something, but was interrupted. A door opened and a woman's voice broke in. "Dad, are you disobeying the doctor? You give me that cigar."

"Damn the pill peddler," muttered Breck, irritably. "If I got to die, I got to die. But I'm goin' to have a leetle fun."

Lilly turned in the saddle and without knowing just why, removed his hat. She was a girl of perhaps eighteen or twenty; a sturdy supple figure dressed in riding clothes. In the shadow of the porch her eyes glowed and there was a rose-pink color on her cheeks. She took the cigar from her father in a quick, defensive movement "You won't help yourself, so I must treat you like a baby." Then she saw Lilly and a smile flashed out. Her black eyes passed from man to man and the quick, open-handed hospitality of the West prompted her to speak to the newcomer. "Won't you stop for dinner?"

"I'm han'somely pleased," said Lilly, "but I've got to get back to my place."

"You live near here?" she asked, puzzled.

"Yes'm. I'm taking up the homestead by the spring."

He saw friendliness vanish and resentment spring up.

Old Jim Breck's chuckle followed him away from the place and far along the road home.

"Spitfire," he murmured. "She's got every bit of her daddy's temper. But, by Godfrey, she's pretty! Now look what I'm into."

The rest of the journey was made in heavy silence. This meeting had greatly puzzled him. If Breck were so heavy-handed, why hadn't the man challenged him on the spot? Instead he'd been offered a job. Was the Octopus the kind that spoke softly and struck in the dark? This affair was getting complicated and that was a fact. There was only one thing he could depend on for a certainty—Theed Trono's outright enmity.

Back on the porch, Jill Breck spoke her mind. "He certainly has got his nerve riding deliberately over here to tell us that. Did he mean, Dad, he was going in with Hamby?"

"Hamby died," answered Breck, staring into the bright yard. "The lad's goin' to take over the homestead."

Jill fell silent for a moment. She was a loyal girl with an immense pride for everything concerning the JIB. Nor was it her fault that she did not know the seamier side of her father's affairs. She had always thought that every acre within the valley was owned in fee simple and she could never understand why nesters dared to trespass. She had asked her father about this once, but the reply had been so vague and technical that it only served to strengthen her belief that her father was, in a kindly way, trying to shield the lawless nesters. For she had never seen other than kindness in her father. What he had been in his younger days she never knew, and was never told. The stories of the range wars came down to her as so much legend and whatever the trouble occurring between JIB and 3Cross in later years, it was carefully kept from her, just as it was kept from the outside world.

"Well, I'm sorry the man died. He was old and goodness knows how he made a living, but he shouldn't have come on our land. And I don't see why you allow this red-headed cowpuncher to defy you like he did. I'll bet he's a Stubbins' man. A nester doesn't wear clothes like that, or ride like that."

"Uhuh. Jill, you go see about the grub."

When she had disappeared inside, Breck spoke to the Indian who had held Lilly's horse. "Pattipaws, you git Trono for me. Tell him I want him."

The Indian was away on the run, leaving Breck a morose, silent figure. "Seems there's a lot o' things passin' on hereabouts I don't have wind of lately. Trono's forcin' my hand. Well, I allus knew what sort of man he was. If he's tryin' to out-nigger me, it's my own fault."

Trono rolled around the corner of the house, a surly indifferent man built in the same mold as his boss. Breck, eyeing the foreman, concluded that was the reason he had kept the foreman so long. Here was the image of himself as he had been in earlier days—huge and tireless, without compunction, a hard driver. If Trono, in addition, had the handicap of being without loyalty and was a dirty fighter in his rages, Breck had shut his eyes. Trono had accomplished the necessary and unmentionable JIB chores; that was the service he had required. But now Trono was assuming too much; he was becoming intractable.

"Well?" muttered the foreman.

Breck closed his great fists. "Who told you to kill Hamby?"

Trono smiled. "How d'yuh know?"

"Don't trim with me, you yellow-belly!" cried Breck. "Ain't I told you to leave Hamby alone?"

"Well, that's all the good it did yuh. If yore goin' to call names, I'll call a few myself. Yore gettin' chicken-hearted. Losin' yore grip. I tried to use peaceable means on that nester, but he was pigheaded, so I killed him. Since when've you changed idees on that subject? Wa'n't long ago when you sent me out with a gun fer those fellas."

The gray color swept down into Breck's collar and his hand pressed at his heart. "The world ain't the same to an old man, Theed. Was a time when the whole valley wasn't elbow room enough. Well, I'm more peaceable now to'rds neighbors. Y'see, about all the land I'll be needin' is a strip six feet by three."

Trono ripped out a short and ugly word. "I killed Hamby fer my own personal satisfaction like I used to do certain jobs fer you. An' I'll kill any other gent tha tries to squat on that spring."

"You got my orders on that, Trono," said Breck, speaking in a dead level tone. "Mean to disobey me?"

Trono was grinning. It was the same tight, malevolent grin Lilly had witnessed the night before in Jake Miner's place; the man was riding his victory high and wide. "Who's talkin' about obedience? I'm a free man, Breck."

Breck leaned forward, one trembling forefinger tapping the arm of his chair. "Listen, Theed. Nobody ever crossed me yet an' got away with it. Which applies to you. Yore my foreman. I picked you outen trouble an' I give you a job when other folks wanted to tie you to a limb. Now, boy, don't try any rannies or I'll bust you. I'll bust you, hear? You do my orders an' you do 'em on the jump. What's more, keep away from the spring. They's a new man there and he's welcome to the place. I suspect he's more'n a match fer you, at that."

Trono's features suffused with a purplish red. "That redhead eh? So he come tellin' you tales. I give him twenty-four hours to pull out an' by Godfrey he'd better take the warnin'!"

"You got my orders, Trono!"

"To hell with you, Breck. I'll do as I please. You start a fight with me an' I'm apt to show you a few surprises on this yere ranch. Think that over!"

He wheeled off toward the bunkhouse. Breck saw him stop, whisper something to one of the hands and jerk a thumb toward the porch, nodding his head derisively. The old man relaxed in his chair, breathing hard. A grinding pain ran from his neck down his left arm and a old sweat covered him from head to foot. Of a sudden he was very weak and the world grew dim and distant. He seemed to be apart from his body—watching himself die. Well, he had a few regrets. He had lived his share of years, lived them up to the hilt and had all the fun any man could have wished. A few things, perhaps, he would like to have the power of undoing. But life wasn't that way; once a man played his hand there was no recalling it.

No, it wasn't for himself, but for his girl that he worried. Trono had the upper hand now, and Trono was a disloyal, self- seeking dog. Why hadn't he considered this long ago when he could have crushed the man with his fist? What would happen to the place after he died? Jill was a hard-headed little kid with a world of spunk, but she couldn't run a cattle ranch without help and she couldn't buck Trono if he was of a mind to make trouble. And the foreman meant to make trouble; the man's last warning indicated as much. There were a dozen ways in which a ranch could be stripped, mined and made unbearable for the girl. Breck gripped his hands together, feeling the sweat roll down his sleeves. This helplessness was something new, something terrible.

"I'm of a mind to kill him, by the Lord!" He groaned, and he thought of getting his gun and calling Trono back. Shoot him cold. Once he would have had no scruples, but the stomach was out of him now, just as the foreman had said.

The day grew dimmer and the sunshine turned to shadow. In the dim borderland which is passed by man but once he found himself thinking of Tom Lilly. There was a fighting heart and an honest face. He had seen men like that before. He had ruined men like that before. Ruined them and laughed. But there was no laughter in him now. "Jill," he muttered, "Jill! You send for the pill peddler. And bring Pattipaws to me. I've got one more shot in the barrel yet."

Tom Lilly ate his supper, rolled a cigarette and sat in the doorway watching the sun go down over the Buttes. With the lengthening shadows came a breeze that soughed through the cottonwoods and lulled him to a lazy, dreaming peace. There were plenty of things to think about, but for a time he let his fancy roll where it pleased. It was a mighty queer feeling, this, of being perched high above the heat of the desert and watching the world turn around from his own doorstep. Of course, it wasn't really his yet, but it would be. He meant to camp. The rolling stone had found a mighty fine place to grow a little moss.

"Joe Breedlove would shore laugh," he murmured. Tom Lilly a nester. Well, worse things had happened. Clerking in a store, for example, or doing roustabout's work in a stable. And this land suited him right down to the grass roots. He ran his eyes along the unfinished fence with a professional interest and he began to calculate the amount of hand labor that lay before him. There was plenty of it—but there was plenty of time, too. First and foremost, he would be busy with the JIB and its efforts to remove him from the valley.

So he sat until it was quite dark. Then he rose and lugged his saddle to a ridge a hundred yards left of the house and returned for his pony. It wouldn't do to sleep in the shack this night. Unless he was greatly mistaken there would be visitors along to see him. He picketed the buckskin in a hollow and rolled himself in a blanket, staring upward at the inky sky. It was very strange, this feeling of restfulness that took hold. Most usually he was always wanting to go on, always wanting to see the land beyond the ridge. He chuckled. "I'll have to tell Joe about this."

He wondered how much the girl knew of her father's affairs. By George, but she was a pretty one, and with her little head plumb full of fight! Those black eyes had changed powerfully quick from friendliness to resentment when he announced himself. "I wonder if she understands what her daddy and that Trono person have been up—"

The question was pushed to the back of his mind. The ground was telegraphing him the beat of many hoofs coming rapidly across the swelling valley floor. He rolled from his blanket and touched the butt of his gun; the rumbling grew louder and presently a party swept over the ridge and toward his house. He heard them stop and made out the murmur of voice. A match flared and by it he saw the dim blur of a face. According to the noise of the horses there must have been a half dozen in the party and they appeared to be waiting. A horse blubbered softly and a stray word floated over the still air. "Late."

This was interesting. Lilly gathered himself and crept down the side of the ridge until he made out the faint outline of men and beasts. In a few moments he heard the rumbling of another rider and he stopped, plastering himself to the ground. The newcomer spurred out of the east and reined in with a jingling of gear. A heavy, grumbling voice that was quite familiar to him floated across the black gulf of space. "Hey, Stubbins, this is a hell of a place to stop. They's that red-head around here. He's took up Hamby's claim."

A ripping, explosive oath. Men dropped out of their saddles and circled around the house. A match flared again and by it Lilly saw someone move in and out the door of the shanty. "Well," announced a voice, "He ain't here now. Guess he got cold feet an' departed. Whyn't you let me know this before, Trono?"

"Wasn't able to get away. Been a lot o' thunder raised at the rancho."

"Old man gettin' ticklish, eh?"

"I told him where to head in," muttered Trono. He was in the saddle again, moving toward Lilly's position. "And I give this red-head twenty-four hours to vamoose, but he's plumb bull-faced an' won't scare. Can't have him puttin' his long nose into our affairs, Stubbins."

"Well, if he meddles he'll get badly scorched," replied the Englishman. "No great worry about that. You're always issuin' some sort of a challenge, me lad. Better salve yourself. And I wouldn't cross old Jim. He's a tough fellow. Easy does it."

"Pussyfoot," snorted Trono. He was within ten feet of Lilly, turning from side to side in his saddle. "That don't get you nowhere."

"Sometimes it does," countered the Englishman. "The trouble with you, me lad, is that you fail to understand when a soft word will do the work of a hard one. I have no scruples about violence, you mind. But I'd rather take the easy path than the hard one. There is trouble enough in this country without creating more. Well, let's haze these brutes out of the timber before daylight. Onward."

The party drifted around the shack and were lost in the rising ground to the south. Lilly rose and returned to his blanket, piercing together diverse bits of information. Trono was a JIB man and Stubbins ran the 3Cross. Why all this fraternizing when the two outfits were in a state of armed truce? The answer was simple enough. Trono was knifing his boss. This night party was making a raid on JIB stock; they meant to break the old Octopus who was no longer able to fight for himself. Lilly shook his head in disgust. "I'd as lief sleep with a skunk as have any business with Trono. The doggone doublecrosser! If he ain't even loyal to his own outfit he ain't fit to be shot." Perhaps old Jim Breck was unscrupulous, but it was plain dirty to knife a man when he was down. And so he drifted off to a light slumber, mildly sympathizing with the man he had not long before defied.

He had trained himself to wake at the slightest sound. Yet when he did wake it was at no sound, but rather from a sense of danger close by. Even before his eyes opened the nerves at the back of his neck sent a chilly warning through him and he groped for his gun, rolling swiftly aside from his blanket. Gray dawn had come and at his very feet, crouched, was the skinny Indian buck who had held his reins the day before, Pattipaws. The Indian had crept within five feet of Lilly without betraying himself and now as he saw Lilly rising up in self-defense he held out a hand, palm to the front, and the inscrutable copper-colored visage moved from side to side. "Pattipaws a frien'. You come with me. Boss he want to see you now."

Lilly studied the Indian with mild indignation. "You shore had me in a hole, Smoke Face. First time I was ever trapped like that."

"Indian way," said Pattipaws briefly. His faded, murky eyes played across Lilly's face for a long while. He put out his hand. "We frien's. Come."

Lilly saddled and swung up. The Indian trotted over the ridge and reappeared on a flea-bitten paint pony, riding bareback. Together they galloped eastward toward the ranch. Rose dawn suffused the sky and the light, cold air carried the heavy aromatic smell of the sage. Lilly bent toward Pattipaws. "This a peace talk, Smoke Face, or are we raisin' the hatchet?"

"Plenty peace, plenty trouble," said Pattipaws, his moccasined heels banging at the paint pony's flanks. "Boss, he dyin'."

And when they reached the ranch and entered the house Lilly found old Jim Breck lying in bed, the massive face turned to the color of old ivory. But there was still a gleam in the heavy eyes; when he saw Lilly he smiled in a grim sort of way at his daughter and an elderly man who bent over him. "I'm playin' my last card," he muttered and for a moment was silent, collecting his energy. Short, clipped words issued from his strangely immobile lips.

"Red, you come to this country lookin' fer trouble. Well, you're goin' to get it. I'm passin' out. You take my cards from now on. I'm makin' you foreman on the spot. Ain't time to tell you what to do, or what to watch for. But—you'll have to fight Trono. He's bent on bustin' the JIB. Act as if this place belonged to you. Jill understands. Take care of the kid. You promise?"

The elderly man, who appeared to be a doctor, leaned over to mark Breck's flagging pulse and shook his head in warning. Lilly, plunged in a profound and wondering study, saw the girl fasten a sharp glance on him that had all the effect of a blow. Then she dismissed him with a pressure of her lips and turned toward her father, her hands tightly clenched and her whole body rigid. "Father, what is it you are doing?"

"Yeah," assented Lilly. "You don't know me."

"I've seen yore kind afore," muttered Breck. "Know you right down to the ground. I'm bankin' on you, Red. It's a go!"

"It's a go," said Lilly in a gentle voice. "But there'll have to be a showdown with Trono. You don't know half o' what he's up to."

"I can guess," replied Breck, grimly. His chest filled and swelled under the bed covers. "Damnation I'd like to be strong fer five minutes. I'd break him with my two hands!"

"That," broke in the doctor, "is no way to leave the earth. You'd better get a little charity in your system, Jim. You'll need it."

"I ain't no hypocrite," said Breck. "A man can't change himself in the last five minutes." His face turned toward Pattipaws who stood silently in the background. Of a sudden the room was filled with a guttural droning of the Bannock dialect, at the end of which the Indian stepped between Lilly and the girl, laying his hands on both and in turn tapping his own heart. Gratitude crept over Breck's face—a strange emotion for that heavy, granite countenance. "He'll stick when all the rest are gone," said the old man, pointing toward the Indian. "I fought this buck's tribe forty years ago. Made friends with 'em and quartered 'em on the ranch. They'll be leavin' now, but Pattipaws said he'd stick. He knows a few things that may be helpful when the shootin' starts. Now, Jill girl, I don't want you to feel harsh to'rds yore paw fer what he's told you in the last couple hours. When a man plays with a deck that's been marked by crooks, he's got to do the best he can. Doc, gimme a cigar."

But the cigar was of no earthly use to him. He died before it touched his mouth. Pattipaws turned sharply and darted out; in a moment there was a long subdued wailing from the Indian quarters and when Lilly left the room he saw the Bannocks filing slowly away toward the pine forest, their travois raising dust in the fresh morning air. One by one the cowhands began to collect in front of the porch, staring at Lilly in the manner of men not pleased by what they saw. The Octopus had departed and with him went the iron discipline surrounding his name. Trouble brewed, even as the doctor emerged and spoke briefly. "He's on his way, boys. Said he wanted to be buried before noon. You know what to do."