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Occasionally the women of the district answered the vagrant call of social impulse, and this afternoon a dozen of them were informally gathered together in the shade of the long galleried Leverage porch. The sun, dipping westward, began to desert the emerald ridges but still made a bright yellow glare in the open prairie that rolled away from the foothills into the dazzling distance. It was high time to pack up and go, but the ladies lingered, some reluctant to depart, some waiting for the men folk to come after them.

"Men," stated Mrs. Jim Coldfoot, biting off her thread, "are all the same and none of 'em too good. When I look about Yellow Hill and consider the specimens wearing pants I'm plumb reminded of a rummage counter with all the good cloth already took."

The circle smiled, knowing Mrs. Jim Coldfoot well. Her heart was sound, but her inquisitive mind pried into all things, her ears missed nothing, and her tongue readily dealt in scandal.

"Well," observed a Mrs. Roberts gently, "I dare say some of the poor dears would like to say the same of us."

"They're scared to," observed Mrs. Jim Coldfoot acidly. "All they can do is look humble as pie, and mutter to themselves. Like I've told Coldfoot time and again, if he's got any mutterin' to do for land sakes go behind the woodshed and do it alone. You can't teach 'em anything, you can't get 'em to admit anything. And they'll lie for each other 'sif they belonged to a lodge. Strange to me women can't stick together like that. Men call it honor not to tell on the other fellow. I call it a universal sense of guilt."

"What of it?" Mrs. Casper Flood wanted to know. "Women are free to take men or leave them alone, aren't they?"

"We ain't got that much sense," retorted Mrs. Jim Coldfoot. "I married Coldfoot because he pestered me to death. Sometimes I think he's sorry for it, though heaven knows I'm good to him."

One of the ladies hid her face behind a piece of quilt work and coughed delicately. Deborah Lunt, who had returned from the Sky Peak country, listened wide eyed to this devastatingly frank comment of the older women. Distinctly a pretty girl, she had a manner of drawing her mouth primly together when she was shocked or displeased.

"I believe," said she emphatically, "a woman should not let a man be too familiar. He won't respect her."

Mrs. Jim Coldfoot peered over her glasses with quick interest. "When you and Steve going to get married?"

Debbie flushed. "I don't—that is, the date isn't set yet."

"Don't let him dangle too long or you'll lose him," advised Mrs. Jim.

Debbie's flush deepened. "I wouldn't hold him a minute if he didn't want to marry me. I'm not that kind."

"Ha," contradicted Mrs. Jim. "I've heard lots of 'em say that. It ain't so. All of us sisters fight tooth and toe nail to get a husband. Lessee, you've been engaged six months. No, six months and a half. I recall when I heard the news. Well, that's time enough to let anybody suffer. Ought to have your mind made up by now. No matter how bad you think he is now, he'll be worse when you look at him over the breakfast table with his whiskers in the coffee."

Debbie's deepening flush became scarlet storm signals. "There's nothing bad about him! He's a fine, good man!"

Eve, silent thus far, broke in smoothly. "Debbie, don't let Mrs. Jim fluster you like that. She just loves to disturb us."

"I've got ears and eyes," responded Mrs. Jim tersely. "Anyhow, with Lola Monterey back, I wouldn't trust no man around the corner. I—"

The ladies looked at Mrs. Jim with varying expressions of warning and significance. Mrs. Casper Flood tried to change the subject. "I heard the funniest story about—"

But Mrs. Jim had the bit in her teeth and was not to be stopped. "You can't make nothing out of nothing. Lola's the daughter of a Spanish woman and a white man, which is bad. She learned her trade in a dance hall, and that ain't any help to her. She's been all over the world singing and Lord knows that's nothing to brag about either. I'll admit she's got a way with her, but good looks and nice clothes mean nothing to me even if it does set every man under seventy on his ears."

"I think she is beautiful," said Eve quietly, feeling the united scrutiny of the group.

"Ain't you worried?" challenged Mrs. Jim.

"Over what?" Eve asked innocently.

"Well, goodness sakes," exclaimed Mrs. Jim, "whose man is Dave Denver, anyhow?"

"Now, isn't it queer?—I have forgotten to ask him that."

Approval of this faint rebuke fairly exuded from the other women. But Mrs. Jim didn't know a rebuke from an invitation to dinner. The restless brightness of her glance skittered over Eve's boyish, half smiling countenance. And she plumped out an eager question.

"Would you marry him at the chance?"

Eve laughed outright. "I never answer direct questions on Tuesdays."

Mrs. Jim put away her knitting, seeing Coldfoot approaching with a buggy. "Well," she sighed, "you're a good actor anyhow. Though it ain't any of my business, I'll say I think you're crazy if you're not interested in him. But if you are interested in him there's enough between him and Lola Monterey to cause you many a sleepless night. Girls, I just had an elegant time." She smiled all around and turned to her husband, who waited in subdued silence.

"You're late," said she with some asperity.

"Yes, Mama," agreed Coldfoot and snapped one of his suspenders.

"Don't mumble at me with all that tobacco in your mouth. If you've got to spit, then spit." She climbed vigorously into the buggy and they went swaying out to the road. Mrs. Casper Flood collapsed in her rocker and laughed so hard she almost cried. Mrs. Roberts rose to end her visit. "After a scene like that," she remarked, "I always go home a better woman and cook something special for the men. Nellie, are you riding with me?"

The group broke up. More buggies came down the road to claim the errant housewives. Mrs. Casper Flood stepped to the saddle of a waiting pony and went out of the yard on the gallop; and as the last of them left a man rounded the bend of the ridge, sitting slack and indolent, and pointed for the yard. Eve waved an arm at which Debbie Lunt showed surprise.

"You've got awfully good eyes, Eve. Who is it?"

"Dave."

"Well, no wonder." She wrinkled her pert nose impatiently. "If Steve dawdled along like that when he knew I was waiting for him I most certainly would lecture him."

"Not if Steve were Dave," said Eve softly, "and not if you were me."

Dave cut across the yard and reined in beside the porch. He did not immediately get down, but lifted his hat and studied the two girls quizzically. "Now here is a picture worth travelin' to see," he drawled. "But, hold on, it ain't quite perfect. One of these fair damsels looks like she's too proud to scowl at me and too stubborn to smile. Debbie, I ain't stolen your Stevie boy."

Debbie flushed and tipped her chin defiantly. In her heart she was a little afraid of Denver and a little jealous. The fear, queerly enough, was the fear of a little girl facing a man whose explosive fighting qualities had been talked about in the country for years. Yet it was not altogether that; Debbie always instinctively tried to cover her feelings when his deep and direct and slightly ironic glance rested on her. She felt he was reading her, prying out her intrinsic worth, and finding her lacking. As for the jealousy, she hated the thought that anybody had the power of swaying Steve Steers's loyalty and affection; and she knew Denver had this power.

"You're making fun of me," said she, despising herself for going on the defensive.

"No, sir, not me, Debbie. I never laugh at pretty girls. And where is that human dynamo on wheels—in other words, Mister Stephen Burt Steers?"

"He's supposed to be here now, to take me home," said Debbie with a faint inflection of tartness. Dave looked lazily at Eve and understanding passed between. Eve crooked her finger at him.

"Get down and wait. I see a party coming off the prairie, and Dad's probably in it."

"What makes you think I didn't come to see you instead of your dad?" challenged Dave, stepping to the ground.

"I know you better."

"You don't know me at all," he grumbled and sat on the porch steps. Debbie frowned vainly at the empty road and walked into the house. Dave chuckled, and Eve winked at him. "No," pursued Dave, "you don't know me at all. I may not be so doggone brotherly. Maybe my intentions are honorable."

She had walked to a porch table. Her answer came over her shoulder, cool and skeptical. "I'm sure your intentions are honorable, Dave—whatever they may be and whichever way they may be directed."

"That remark sounds simple," he mused, "but there's a delayed punch in it."

"Never mind. Here's a cup of tea, stone cold but good for thirst, anyhow."

He took it, stirred the sugar absently, and drank. Eve sat down beside him. "I heard this afternoon why the Jessons named the baby after you."

He colored a little, self-contained man as he was. "That fool of a Steve—"

"Don't you know by now," she broke in quietly, "there's very little you do that escapes Yellow Hill? People wonder about you and talk about you—and they always will. I have heard other things concerning you—about Dann and about—well, many things."

"Mrs. Jim Coldfoot must have been here," said he.

"Yes."

"I reckon it's impossible to keep folks from trying to guess what they don't know," he muttered.

"No, Dave. But some of those guesses are kind." She drew a breath and added wistfully, "Mine are."

"It's possible they oughtn't be too kind, Eve. I say that to you—and never another soul—because I figure you ought to know. Don't consider me too bad. Don't consider me too good."

"Whatever you were, I doubt if it could change my opinion of you," said she, and turned from the subject. "There's Dad and some of the boys—and the Englishman."

The party trotted up. Leverage looked enormously grave and disturbed; something had shaken his usual carriage. He got heavily down and turned first to his daughter. "You see that some sort of chuck is put on the table right off, Eve. I've got to go out again. Dave, come over to the sheds with me. I want to speak with you."

They walked away from the house. "I came up to tell you my men have cut out about twenty of your drift," said Denver. "We're not too pressed for help, and if you are short-handed I'll just keep your stuff separate until the country's covered, then shoot it over."

"Thanks," grunted Leverage and stopped, casting a glance back. "Dave, I have feared this for a long while, and now it's come. An open break between them and us, nothin' less. They've called our challenge. They mean to make it a bloody mess. Lorn Rue was killed sometime last night over on the Henry trail, about three miles south of the Wells. We just found him an hour ago."

"He was one of your picked men?"

"He was. Somehow or other they knew he was and laid for him. It just means this—there's a leak already in the vigilantes. It means also that they've got the country so well honeycombed that they catch every move we make. Rue was placed carefully to watch the Wells; he went into the country after dead dark. And still they got him! That bothers me.

"You had him in there to watch what the outlaws were going to do?"

"I wanted to get a good fresh trail to follow," admitted Leverage. "That's their nest. They go from the Wells to rustle, and they come back to the Wells to carouse. It's the right place to begin our attack. But," and Leverage ran a hand over his harried cheeks, "my job is going to be plain useless if I can't keep things secret."

"Find any tracks around him?"

Leverage shook his head. "He was right in the trail. All sorts of old tracks and fresh tracks running up and down. Everything mixed up; no help there."

"He must have run into something," reflected Denver, "and they shot him to keep his mouth shut."

"We scouted the ground all ways from his body and didn't get a smell."

"Sure," replied Denver. "If he got too close to some choice spot of theirs they'd lug his body off a considerable distance and drop it."

"I hadn't considered that," grunted Leverage. "Confound it, I need a good man to go in there and scout."

"Rue was a good man—while he lasted," said Denver moodily. "That's the hell of this vigilante business. Rue dies because he's lookin' for somebody that took somebody else's cattle. He didn't have a dime in the transaction. And the fellows who ought to be fighting their own battles are sittin' down this minute to a good dinner. It ain't right, Jake. Pretty soon everybody will be livin' under gunshot law because the Fees and the Clandrys and the Remingtons are either too afraid or too lazy to take care of their own individual affairs. It's a rotten business!"

"I hate to hear you talk thataway," protested Leverage. "It's a common fight. If these rustlers hit the big ranchers and get away with it they'll hit the little ones."

"The rustlers wouldn't get away with it if these aforesaid big ranchers didn't hang back," retorted Denver.

"I wish you was in this with me," sighed Leverage. "There ain't anybody else who could strike a warm trail like you."

Denver considered it silently, violet eyes bent on the distance. "Rue was a friend of mine. I hate to see him go. It ain't easy for me to consider that there'll be other friends knocked down. And it ain't easy to consider that you yourself may be the next."

"I'm in it and I'll stay in it," responded Leverage doggedly. "I consider it a duty."

"Maybe I would, too, if I was able to satisfy myself as to the exact beginnin' of this vigilante idea," mused Denver.

"Listen," broke in Leverage irritably, "are you tryin' to tell me this whole vigilante business was started to throw a smoke cloud over something crooked? Why, that's crazy. The Association voted it. No single man got it going."

"There's always a beginning to an idea—usually in one man's head," was Denver's thoughtful reply. "And I'd never fight for any idea or any man unless I knew more about the preliminary hocus-pocus. But what's the use of our arguin'? If it wouldn't be violating any oath of secrecy, I wish you'd tell me where you intended to concentrate your investigation."

"I'm going into the Sky Peak country."

Denver leaned forward. "I'll say this to you alone and nobody else. Don't. The rustlers have pulled out of it."

"How do you know?" demanded Leverage.

Denver's face lightened. "Maybe I'm not a good enough citizen to join in a public posse, Jake, but I'm at least good enough to keep my ear on the ground. And for the love of heaven don't ride alone in this country. Never. Daylight or dark."

Leverage shrugged his shoulders, and they turned back to the house. The Englishman sat on the steps twirling his hat. When Leverage went inside Nightingale looked at Denver. "Seems to be a touch of the dismal in the air, which reminds me I need some of that honest advice Cal Steele said you were duly competent to render."

"Shoot," drawled Denver, noting another rider appear on the far curve of the road. "I'm good at spendin' other people's money and time."

"I find," said Nightingale, "I have inherited a crew along with a ranch. Nice playful boys, but they seem to think Englishmen are fair game for all sorts of sporty tricks. I also have—or rather had—a foreman who took a sudden dislike to the idea of workin' under a bloomin' foreigner. Rather a queer egg. He is no longer with me."

"Mean you fired Toughy Pound?" asked Denver.

"Well—yes. But somewhat informally."

Denver chuckled. "It'd be Toughy's style to walk out on you. A hard number."

"He didn't walk out," casually corrected Nightingale. "He limped out. Rather a queer custom you have hereabouts as to discharging people. He stated that he was loath to leave unless bounced three times on the seat of his pants, and wouldn't I kindly attempt to do same."

"And so you did?" queried Denver, grinning broadly.

The Englishman flicked the ashes off his cigarette. "Well, y'know, if that is the custom of the country, it's naturally up to me to oblige. Not so? Therefore, to make the ceremony quite effective and proper, I bounced him four times. Now I need a new foreman. I will cheerfully bend to your suggestions."

Denver studied the approaching rider. "You want a good man, a man that understands the country and the cattle business. You want a fellow able to swing the work of the ranch on his own hook and also able to polish off any scissorbill puncher. Also, and most important, you want a fellow who is proud enough to do his job without unnecessary advice from you."

"Is there such a man?" asked Nightingale. "If so, I'll give him the bloomin' ranch and go fishin'."

"Behold the man," said Denver, pointing to the advancing Steers. "He looks good, and he's better than he looks."

Steve Steers jingled across the yard, casting an apprehensive glance through Leverage's front door.

"You got a job," announced Denver. Steve's countenance expressed dismay. "Shucks, Dave, I just had a job. Where's Debbie?"

"Listen to me, you homely bunchgrass biter," stated Denver firmly, "this is a job. You are now foreman of Mr. Nightingale's Bucket outfit. Your pay is eighty dollars. You run the ranch and everybody that's on it, high, wide, and handsome. No interference. I'm responsible for the suggestion, and, by golly, you've got to sweat!"

"Accept the nomination," said Steve.

"Seems settled," remarked Nightingale calmly and rose to depart. "Now, ah, Steve—should I ask a few questions around my ranch or call on you for an occasional pony to ride, I trust I shan't be considered as intrudin'." With that he galloped off.

Eve and Debbie Lunt came from the house. Debbie went to her waiting mount and was seated in the saddle before the ambling Steve could get around to help her. She looked sweetly at him and with equal sweetness remarked:

"You're a little late, Steve."

"Yeah, Debbie," he muttered.

Together they rode away, Steve looking straight ahead, the girl stiffly erect and silent. Watching them depart, Eve shook her head. "That sounded too much like Mrs. Jim and her husband. Debbie's not wise to carry on so, and Steve's not wise to let her."

"The girl's not bad," reflected Dave, "but she figures she's got to hold the whip on a man to make him mind. One of these days she'll slap him a little too hard."

Eve was surprised at his accurate knowledge of Deborah Lunt and said so. "I'm afraid you know more about women than you ought, Dave. You're staying to supper?"

"Wish I could. But the day's almost gone, and I want to look at a stretch of country before it gets too dark." He got astride his horse, half puzzled, half smiling. "Eve, you're like the drink habit on a man. Seems like I always calm down and forget the grief of a weary world when you're around."

She put an arm around a porch post and lifted her face; some small breath of wind ruffled the curling hair at her temples, and suddenly a foreboding anxiety lay darkly in her eyes. "David, it is none of my business, but you are too strong a man not to have enemies. No matter how aloof you try to keep from the quarrel in Yellow Hill, you will always be in danger. I know how you feel. Dad's told me. And I'm not trying to change your mind. All I say is you never will be able to keep free of trouble—and I wish you would be a little more careful. These last few months I have had a horrible feeling of things about to happen."

"I know," he agreed slowly. "And I hate to see your dad makin' a target out of himself for other people. But remember this, Eve: No matter how much I keep away from this business, I'm always ready to help the Leverage family. If anything should happen to your dad I'd never sleep until I found the man who was responsible for it. I don't agree with the vigilante business, and sometimes I actually can sympathize with these poor fools makin' a living by stealing beef. But there's a line none of them can step over, as far as I'm concerned. If they do, then I'll be ridin'. Not with any committee, but on my own account."

"You don't have to tell me," said she. "I have known it a long time. It's a queer thing to say, but sometimes at night I have the feeling that you are not far away—out in the night somewhere, taking care of us."

He looked sharply at her. "How long have you been thinking that?" was his quick question.

"Oh, for the last three or four nights. Why?"

He shook his head. "Just wondered. See you later." Raising his hat he cantered away. Eve rested against the post and watched him go, with grave attention. Long after, when he reached the high bend of the road and was about to swing from sight, he turned and lifted an arm; and she answered the farewell hail with quick pleasure. As he disappeared the last ray of sun drew away from the hills, and purple twilight shaded the land. She turned inside.

Dave Denver did not go directly home. Instead he paced along the curving road for a few miles and left it to climb a tall ridge adjoining. From the summit he commanded a good view of the cupped-in pockets and the narrow valleys roundabout. Here was a house, there a bunch of cattle, and occasionally a rider questing down some trail. Yet as high up as he was he could not gain a clear sweep of the hills; the broken land formed a thousand dark and isolated patches, and ridges kept cutting in to shield whatever went on yonder.

"Perfect layout for the wild bunch," reflected Denver. "There's spots in this country yet unsurveyed and untouched." Rolling a cigarette he considered Eve Leverage's last remark. The intuitive truth in it had startled him; twice in the last few nights he had made a night patrol around the Leverage section. "Two things," he mused thoughtfully, "I never will understand if I live to be a thousand. First, the whispers that cross this country like light flashes. Second, the way of a woman's mind."

There was but a brief interval of evening left him, and so he brought his mind back to its original thought. To his right, or east, ran the stage road; to his left and nine miles deeper in this cut-up country, lay the Wells. At some point Redmain's renegade riders, driving out of the Sky Peak country, had crossed the highway and headed for the evil shell of a town that was their stronghold. He wanted to find the marks of their path to satisfy his own curiosity and to answer a question slowly forming in his head.

"They were out on a hunt the other evenin'," he murmured. "What did they take home with 'em? I might hit straight for the Dome and look around; but I doubt if they'd return the same way they came. That'd require too much ridin' on the stage road. My guess is they cut over more southerly."

He pushed his horse down the rather steep slope and presently was threading a tortuous trail that undulated from draw to ridge and down into draw again. Rather roughly he paralleled the stage road, curving as it curved, and all the while watching the soft ground beneath. At every mark of travel he stopped to study and reject it, and so pressed on until the waning light warned him. Thereupon he abandoned the patient method and made a swift guess. "If I was leadin' that bunch and on my way to the Wells I'd use the alley of Sweet Creek—providin' I was bashful about bein' seen."

Sweet Creek was on another tangent. He ran down a draw, crossed the succeeding ridge via a meadow-like notch, and veered his course. The tendrils of dusk were curling rapidly through the trees and the ravines were awash with cobalt shadows. The breeze stiffened; far up on the stage road he heard the groaning of brake blocks; then he was confronted with fresh tracks in the yielding earth. He reined in.

The tracks were made by a solitary beef followed by a lone rider; they led out of the west—out of the Wells direction—and seemed headed toward the east. This he considered slowly. His own range was just over the stage road, and from all indications one of his own riders had found a stray and was pushing it back to proper territory. "But who would that be?" Denver asked himself. "All the boys are workin' the Copperhead side today."

He changed his mind about reaching Sweet Creek and pursued the tracks as they went upward, crossed the road, and kept on. A freighter's lantern winked from a hairpin turn of the road above him; a creek purled and gurgled down the hillside. It was dark then, and he had lost all clear sight of the spoor he was tracing, but he kept going and never hesitated until there came a place in the ravine where the trail forked. Dismounting, he struck a match and cupped it to the earth. Rider and cow had turned north; and north was the way to his own D Slash quarters.

"Must be one of the boys," he decided. "But who the devil's been straying away off here? If it ain't that—"

Pungent odors told him he was not far behind the preceding rider. Another mile, and he caught a faint sound in the thickening fog. Reaching a high point, he had the wide mouth of Starlight Canyon looming beside him; and at the head of that long sweeping space were the blinking lights of his house. The sound of advance travel was more distinct; in fact, it seemed to approach him rather than follow ahead. Puzzled, he kept a steady pace, not wishing to draw too swiftly upon one of his own riders. In the darkness D Slash men were apt to be ticklish; he had taught them to be so.

The rider seemed to be having trouble with his stray. The lash of a quirt arrived distinctly, followed by a grunt of anger. Brush cracked; quite without warning, cow and rider were dead ahead. A horse whinnied.

"Who's that?" drawled Denver.

"What the hell—!"

A warning chill pricked at Denver's scalp. He announced his name abruptly and pulled off the trail, then called again: "Who are you?"