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Eve Leverage came out of the hotel like a boy—swiftly, carelessly, and her lips pursed in the attitude of whistling. Her gray eyes quested along the street with a level expectancy; her tip-tilted nose made a wrinkling gesture against the hot sun. Two gangling punchers who seemed to have collapsed to semi-consciousness on the porch steps gathered themselves together foot by foot and rose before her, muttering, "G'mornin', Miss Eve," in unison. Eve's thoughtful preoccupation vanished before a frank, glinting smile. "Hello, Pete. Hello, Buck. Busy as usual, I see." Then she stopped so abruptly that one of the men threw out his hand, thinking she was about to trip on the steps. Eve never noticed the gesture. Her glance, going on down the street, had reached its mark. David Denver appeared through the crowd and strolled leisurely forward. A coral pink appeared on Eve's cheeks; she looked again at Messrs. Buck Meems and Pete Wango, and she looked into her purse.

"What became of that letter?" she asked these two shiftless sons of the prairie. "I had it in my hands just a moment ago."

The gentlemen flinched, as if accused of stealing it. Wango, having a chew in his mouth, remained stolidly dumb. But Meems was a more versatile man and made a stab at intelligent conversation. "Was it—uh—important, ma'am?"

"You have no idea," said Eve mysteriously. "Now, I've got to find it." She turned to the door, cast a quick look around, and stopped half inside the opening to watch Denver; to her the street, dusty and sprawling and hot, had become suddenly eventful.

David Denver—Black Dave Denver—approached in comfortable idleness. He had his hat tipped back and his face turned toward Cal Steele who walked alongside and told some kind of a story with much gesturing of arm. Denver nodded, the somber gravity of his features lighting up. Rather wistfully the girl wished she knew the kind of a story Cal Steele related, for there were few people who could make Dave Denver smile. Steele, in fact, was almost the only man who had the power of lifting Denver out of those strange and darkly taciturn moods that so often descended upon him.

The two of them stopped. Al Niland came across to join in, and presently Steve Steers emerged from Grogan's Western Star. So the four of them drew together as they inevitably did when in the same neighborhood. Dissimilar in so many respects and sharply varied in personalities, there yet was some common quality that cemented a deep friendship between them. The girl often had wondered about it, and at this moment she puzzled over the problem again. Al Niland was a lawyer who liked to take poor men's cases and fight with an ironical energy. Steve Steers was a roving puncher who, though welcome on any ranch, preferred to ride free and solitary through the hills. Cal Steele owned a small outfit near Dave Denver's D Slash ranch, and of the group this man was the most brilliant, the most volatile, and the most prodigal of his energy and talents. They were all young, and they were all fighters. But the girl, seeking deeper reasons, knew some deeper trait was shared by them. They were restless, nonconforming men; each a strong individualist and without illusions. Dave Denver's streak of clear-sighted grimness could be found likewise in the others.

The girl sighed a little as she saw Denver's smile fade and his bold features settle. The others were grinning amiably at some wild tale told by Steve Steers; but Denver's moment of forgetfulness was past, and he reverted again to the stormy, unsettled side of his nature. The first hot sun of the young year reached nooning and flashed down on the shackling, paint blistered buildings of the town, on the pine false fronts, on the whitewashed 'dobe walls, on the stone turret of the courthouse, on the drawn curtains of the second-story windows. A dinner bell rang. Buck Meems was drawling at his partner.

"'S funny thing, Pete. Ev'body considers Denver a big man. You do, I do, ev'body does. But look at him standin' beside Al Niland, not an inch taller ner a pound heavier. Al ain't more'n five feet eleven, and he don't weigh a hunnerd-seventy on the hocks. See what I mean? Denver ain't rully a big man when yuh git him among others. It's only when he's off by hisself that he looks like a young house movin' down the street. Funny, ain't it, Pete?"

"I could die of laughin'," muttered the drowsing Wango. "Ever have him slap yuh on the back?"

"Nuh."

"Take a try sometime and see if they's anything humorous about that."

Buck Meems was not a man lightly to cast aside an idea. He pursued this one doggedly, his mind almost audibly creaking from the strain of unaccustomed thinking. "Reason he looms so big alone is because we sorter expect him to be big. Git my idee, Pete? I mean big things is done by big men in a big sorter way. Folla me?"

"I'm limpin' after yuh," admitted Pete.

"He's big," insisted Buck Meems, attempting to wring the last drop of significance from his thought, "because even though he ain't actually big nev'less he's big on account o' the big way he does big—"

"Gawd's sake," groaned Wango, "roll over and get it offen yore chest."

Meems, silenced, brooded darkly. "I bet," he finally announced, "that if somebody put a bullet in yore coco it'd rattle like a nickel in a tin cup. Le's eat."

"Why, thanks fer offerin' to pay my dinner," said Wango and rose instantly.

"Who said anything about—" exploded Meems and became conscious of the girl's presence. The two stalked past her into the hotel, and she heard the murmur of their argument floating back. Denver broke away from his friends and sauntered on, at which the rose color on Eve Leverage's cheeks began to deepen. She moved casually across the porch. Denver turned in and met her with a slow lift of his hat. The girl, who knew this man's temper better than he would ever realize, saw the small crinkling furrows of pleasure spring around his eyes, and because of that signal her chin lifted gayly.

"This is a Thursday," he mused in an even, drawling voice, "and what brings you to town during the middle of the week?"

"Dad had business, so I rode along with him. But," and she assumed a mock deference, "if you don't want me in Sundown I shall of course get right in the wagon and drive home."

"Not a good idea," he decided. "You were meant to be right on this spot at this minute to cheer a dull man on a dull day."

"The king speaks," sighed Eve, "and the poor maid trembles in fear. What is your will, my good and great lord?"

He put his head aside and scowled at her. "That," he reflected, "has all the earmarks of a muffled knock. Little girls ought to have more respect for age."

"Oh, my training has all been wrong, Mister Denver. But don't you think it's almost time for you to throw away the notion I'm still a little girl? You've been thinking that for ten years. People do grow."

He studied her with perfect gravity and over so long a period that she began to lose her cool ease of manner. This man could make a mask of his face, and one seldom knew if he were serious or if behind the ruggedly modeled features there lay a soft laugh.

"You might be surprised," he observed finally, "just how often I change my mind about you, Eve."

"Now that's interesting. Tell me more."

"Just like a woman. Do you ever eat?"

"I have been known to."

"Well, you look hungry right now, and I feel charitable."

"I shall eat a great deal and run up a big bill," she warned him. "And you must order a whole jar of pickles for me. I expect that of gentlemen who take me to dine."

"Pickles for a grown lady," agreed Dave Denver solemnly and followed her into the dining room. They took a table in one corner and watched a hungry Sundown citizenry file through the door. Denver's glance roamed across the room, and Eve, experiencing a queer twinge of feeling that was half pride and half jealousy, saw that one of the waitresses had abandoned the big table and was coming over. Somehow this man had the power of creating loyalty. Men spoke to him in passing by, spoke to him with that soft slurring courtesy of equal to equal. His three strong friends sauntered in; but though there was room at the table for them, they only nodded and passed on to another, giving him the privacy he seemed to desire. Colonel Fear Langdell paused a moment, bowed at Eve, and spoke quietly to Dave Denver. "Meeting of the Association at two, Dave." Denver nodded, and Langdell walked away, a thin, straight ramrod of a man, quite conscious of his power. Eve, eating with the unashamed vigor of youth, knew that it was not every man nor many men for whom Fear Langdell would take extra steps; and this thought brought out another. No matter what company Dave Denver was in, and no matter how quietly he sat back, the effect of his presence would be felt as it was in the dining room.

Remembering Buck Meems's talk, she studied Denver candidly. The puncher was right. Denver was not overly large. Her own father was as tall and as heavy. The comparison somehow surprised her, for she had always thought of Denver as being much the bulkier. The difference, she discovered, lay elsewhere—in Denver's big-boned wrists, in his sweep of shoulders, in the unsymmetrical boldness of his face. A scar shaped like a crescent lay on one dark cheek, black hair ran rebelliously along his head, and his eyes sat deep, violet eyes with flecks of other coloring in them. There lay the difference—there was the seat of that power which stamped him so definitely.

"When you get through with the inquest," he drawled, "I'd like to know the verdict."

She caught herself and looked down. "Apparently you read minds, David."

The shadows left his features; humor flashed from his eyes. "No, but I can read little girls' faces."

"Big girl in this case."

"Big girl it is, then." He leaned forward. "Why are you so all-fired anxious to grow up?"

"I have already grown up. I am twenty and as old and wise as I ever shall be. You ought to know that about women."

"Yeah? Where would I be getting my information?"

"I have been told you were rather successful with women," said Eve looking squarely at him. The shot struck him dead on. The deeply set eyes turned stormy and then swiftly cleared.

"Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see," he replied enigmatically. "And that doesn't sound good, coming from you, Eve."

"Oh, fiddlesticks!" exclaimed the girl. "Do you think I am a little dummy wrapped up in five yards of cloth? But I suppose I must be meek or get sent away from the table."

He chuckled. "I reckon you have grown up, for you've learned the trick of drawing a man off the trail. I asked you what was your all-fired hurry to blossom out as a lady. Ain't there grief enough in this world without hurryin' to meet it?"

"I think," said Eve, far more sober than she had been thus far, "I shall not tell you. Someday possibly you may learn for yourself."

"After I get more education?" he countered grimly.

Eve's father, Jake Leverage, came into the dining room and walked over to them. "One o' you two is in bad company," he observed amiably, "but I wouldn't swear which." He sat down and reached for a platter. "Goin' to beef much stuff this spring, Dave?"

"No. Market's too shot. Hold over until later."

"When a man talks that independent I reco'nize he ain't got any mortgages to worry about," grunted Leverage, parting his whiskers.

"I let the bankers do that worryin'," was Denver's dry response. "They seem to thrive and get rich doin' it, so why not let 'em?"

"You allus was a hand to run your own show," agreed Leverage. "But the more immediate question is, have you lost any stock through strange disappearance?"

"Rustlers don't seem to like my beef, Jake."

"Yeah? Well, yore lucky. I don't know what this country's comin' to. Somethin's got to be done to somebody. I ain't mentionin' any names but—"

"Do you happen to know of any names you might mention?"

Leverage looked a little uncomfortable, and Eve watched Denver with a wrinkle of thought on her forehead.

"Folks can do some pretty close guessin'," grunted Leverage. "And when fifteen-twenty people guess the same I'd say there must be a foundation o' fact. You goin' to the Association meetin'?"

"I'll listen in," assented Denver idly.

"There's got to be more'n just listenin' this time. You know as well as I do that this sort of horseplay can't go on. It comes right down to a proposition of who is goin' to run this country, the roughs and the toughs or the ranchers. It is a fine state of affairs when honest men raise beef for crooks to steal. I ain't in business for my health, ner I don't propose to play Santy Claus for Mister—" He checked himself from indiscretion and reddened.

"I see you have a particular gentleman in mind," suggested Denver.

"And his whole damned ring," added Leverage stoutly. "It's up to us to play a little game of root, hawg, or die."

"Takes three things to hang a man," opined Denver. "You've got to catch him, convict him, and find a big enough rope to hold him."

"The second item can be allowed as done right now. A good- sized posse can do the other two. I'll go so far as to furnish the rope myself. But you don't seem totally sold on the idee, Dave. Don't it mean nothin' to you? It had oughta. Yore eatin' pie from the same dish as the rest of us ranchers. It ain't no time to back and fill."

Denver looked at Eve, once more displaying the old temper of somber disbelief. "I believe in playin' my game and lettin' the other man play his. If the time comes when I've got a chore to do against a rustler I'll do it alone without askin' for help. Half of the big cattlemen in this county got their start by means of a quick rope and a careless brandin' iron. Now that these same dudes have got rich and turned honest they send up a tinhorn squawk every time they lose a calf. Let 'em haze their own rustlers instead of puttin' the chore on others."

"Wouldn't you hang a proved rustler?" demanded Leverage.

"I'd have to think about it," was Denver's slow reply. "A man would have to be considerably smaller and meaner than me—which is sayin' considerable—before I'd want to haul him out on a limb."

Leverage shook his head. "Hate to hear you say that. It's worse than a case of some fellow nibblin' a few head here and a few head there. It's organized outlawry we're goin' to have to fight. Root, hawg, or die. We run our business or they run us. I ain't able to get very soft-hearted over a crook under them circumstances."

"I guess I'll have to be pinched before I shout," drawled Denver, eyes following across the dining room. A man came in with a printed broadside and tacked it to the wall; black type announced to Sundown city the following entertainment:

LOLA MONTEREY!

AND THE WESTERN OPERA COMPANY

WILL PRESENT AT OUR OPERA HOUSE

THIS EVENING

AN OLD FAVORITE

CAVALIER OF SPAIN!

LOLA, SUNDOWN'S OWN SINGING BEAUTY,

COMES BACK TO HER BIRTHPLACE

AFTER A TRIUMPHAL TOUR

OF EUROPE TO PLEASE THE FOLKS

OF THE OLD HOMETOWN TONIGHT!

Jake Leverage scanned the notice. "They sure got the country plastered with them notices. I see 'em on every juniper shrub along the road. Been three years since we saw Lola in a play, ain't it, Eve? What's she want to come back to this sun-cooked scope of alkali-crusted land for, anyhow? I got no admiration for foreign places like Yurrup, but if I was a gal with Lola's talents I sure wouldn't waste no time around here. I'd go away and stay away."

Eve tried to catch her father's attention, but he went on blandly. "A great girl. I'm no hand for this fa-so-la music as a rule, but it was a genuine pleasure to sit back in the old Palace and hear her sing. Yes, sir. Well, I reckon you got to go to that, uh, Eve?"

He turned to his daughter and received in full measure the impact of her warning glance. She shook her head slightly, at which the old man muttered under his breath and combed back his mustache to drink the rest of his coffee. Eve's clear face seemed sharp and troubled as she watched Dave Denver. He had turned to the notice and was staring at it, all features caught up in a brooding, stormy expression. For a time he appeared to forget all others in the room, to forget that there were people around who might be interested in observing his reaction to Lola Monterey's name. Eve lowered her eyes to the table, knowing very well how many quick and covert glances were thrown toward Dave Denver. Lola was back, bringing with her a breath of the old story and the old gossip.

Denver squared himself to the table and reached for his cigarette papers. "Yeah," he observed casually, "she always had a fine voice. The outside world was her place."

"Then why should she come back?" Leverage wanted to know and received a kick on his booted leg under the table.

"I couldn't say," mused Denver. "Probably Lola doesn't know herself. That's the way she does things."

"All wimmen's alike," grunted Leverage and scowled on his daughter. His leg hurt.

Outside was the jangle and clatter of the Ysabel Junction stage making the right-angle turn from Prairie Street to Main. By common consent the people in the dining room adjourned dinner and headed for the door. Denver walked behind Leverage and Eve; the girl, never knowing why she should let herself say such a thing, spoke over her shoulder.

"Old times for you, David. Aren't you glad?"

She was instantly sorry, and a little ashamed when she heard Denver's slow answer come gently forward.

"You've convinced me you're no longer a little girl, Eve. I'm not sure I like the change."

"And why?"

"Little girls are more charitable minded than big ones."

They were on the porch. The stages—there were three of them this trip instead of one—veered up to the hotel porch and stopped. Some courteous citizen opened the door of the front coach and lifted his hat. A woman stepped daintily down, and there was a flash of even teeth as she smiled on the crowd. Eve's small fists tightened; she threw a glance behind her, but Dave Denver had disappeared from the porch and was not to be seen. Eve thought Lola Monterey's eyes went through the ranks of the assembled Sundowners with more than passing interest, but if the woman was disappointed she was too accomplished an actress to reveal it. Old man Leverage muttered, "By Jodey, the girl's pretty, Eve. She's got beyond Sundown."

Eve nodded, a small ache in her heart. The tempestuous, flamboyant dance-hall girl of three years ago had returned from her conquests with the veneer of fine manners and proud self- confidence. Her jet-black hair bobbed in the sun, and the slim, pointed face, showing the satin smoothness of Spanish blood, had the stirring dignity of actual beauty. Moving up the steps with the same lithe grace that had brought her out of poverty and mean surroundings, she paused, swung around, and smiled again on Sundown. Soft and husky words fell into the silence with a queer vitality.

"I am home—and glad."

Then she passed into the hotel, the rest of the opera company following after. A traveling salesman, calling heartily to his friends, swept past. And at the end of the procession strolled an extremely tall man with the jaw and the nose and the eye of England. He seemed weary, bored, puzzled. At the door he paused to ask a plaintive question of a bystander, and those nearest him caught the full fragrance of a broad and richly blurred speech freshly blown from Albion's misty shores.

"I say, my friend, one of my bally braces has burst a stitching. Can you direct me to the local haberdashery?"

The crowd was dissolving. Leverage turned on his daughter. "I reckon you'll be wantin' to see the show tonight, uh?"

"I do," said Eve, "but why in the world did you mention it in front of David? It made me feel as small as—"

"Good grief, why?" demanded the astonished Leverage. "It ain't a crime."

"Do you think I want him to believe I was fishing for an invitation? And you shouldn't have mentioned Lola around him, Dad."

Leverage shook his head. "Wimmen beat me. Danged if they don't. Now a kid like you has got to go and join the ranks. Well, we'll stay over then."

"We'll go right home," said Eve, "so I can get into some clothes. Folks don't go to shows in gingham dresses, and there's Mother."

"Imagine that," grinned Leverage. "Well, don't forget that the most important ceremony you been through so far, which was bein' born, didn't call for no clothes at all. And I have et with three Senators and a governor with nothin' better than overalls on which had a red flannel patch in the seat. But you can go home and come back, though Ma won't want to come. I know better'n to argue. Wait till I get Joe Peake to take you in a rig. I got to stay over for the Association meetin'."

Eve smiled at her father and strolled down the street, leaving the porch deserted except for two lackadaisical gentlemen who somehow had witnessed all the recent excitement from the comfortable vantage point of the porch rockers.

"Buck," said Wango, "whut's that brace business which the Englishman was cryin' over?"

"I heard somewhere that those fellas called suspenders braces," replied Meems.

"Hell, ain't that peculiar? And whut's a habadashery, anyhow?"

"Your turn to guess," drawled Meems. "I done my share."

"Well," growled Wango, "he ain't a-gunta git by with no foreign hooch-a-ma-cooch like that around here."

"Lola sure has got pritty," reflected Meems.

"Yeah. Reckon Denver figgers so."

"Shut up," admonished Meems without heat. "Don't drag in dead cats."

"Ain't you a moral son of a gun? Pardon me for chewin' tobacco in yore presence. But what I'm wonderin' is how the stage got through without excitement today. Yuh know, they's supposed to be money in the Wells-Fargo box this trip."

"Don't be mellerdramatic, Wango. Who'd bring money into a joint like Sundown?"

"I heard," said Meems lazily. "Well, mebbe Lou Redmain was asleep at the switch."

Buck Meems rose from the depths of the rocker and stared at his partner with a penetrating eye and said very coldly, "Was I you, Pete, I'd git me some packthread and sew up that four- cornered thing yuh call a mouth."

"Well—"

"Shut up," stated Meems succinctly. "It's too hard to git partners, an' I don't want yuh shot down until I git back what yuh owe me. As for the gent whose name yuh was so careless as to mention out loud—don't do it no more. You don't know him. You never heard of him, see? Let yore betters worry about that business. You and me is humble folks with an itch to keep on breathin'."

"Trouble's comin', nev'less," maintained Wango.

"Comin' hell a-riot," agreed Meems. "That's what the Association is meetin' for. That's why yuh see Dave Denver stalkin' around the streets lookin' about as hard as I ever saw him. But you and me is out of it, see? Or have I got to spell the words?"

"Oh, well," breathed Wango and cast a sidewise glance at his partner. "How about a drink?"

"Thanks for the invite," said Meems, and rose instantly.

"I never said nothin' about an invite—"

"And it was nice of yuh to offer to pay my way," broke in Meems firmly. "Come on."