Читать книгу The "Wild West" Collection - William MacLeod Raine - Страница 2

But the cowpuncher had no intention of letting her regain so fully control of her emotions. Experience of more than one young woman had taught him that scruples were likely to assert themselves after reflection, and he purposed giving her no time for that to-day.

He did not count in vain upon the intimacy of companionship forced upon them by the circumstances, nor upon the skill with which he knew how to make the most of his manifold attractions. His rle was that of the comrade, gay with good spirits and warm with friendliness, solicitous of her needs, but not oppressively so. If her glimpse of him at breakfast had given the girl a vague alarm, she laughed her fears away later before his open good humor.

There had been a time when he had been a part of that big world "back in the States," peopled so generously by her unfettered imagination. He knew how to talk, and entertainingly, of books and people, of events and places he had known. She had not knowledge enough of life to doubt his stories, nor did she resent it that he spoke of this her native section with the slighting manner of one who patronized it with his presence. Though she loved passionately her Arizona, she guessed its crudeness, and her fancy magnified the wonders of that southern civilization from which it was so far cut off.

Farnum had left his horse for the girl, and after breakfast the cowpuncher saddled the broncos and brought them up. Melissy had washed the dishes, filled his canteen, and packed the saddle bags. Soon they were off, climbing slowly the trail that led up the caon wall. She saw the carcass of a dead sheep lying on the rocks half way down the cliff, and had spoken of it before she could stop herself.

"What is that? Isn't it----?"

"Looks to me like a boulder," lied her escort unblushingly. There was no use, he judged, in recalling unpleasant memories.

Nor did she long remember. The dry, exhilarating sunshine and the sting of gentle, wide-swept breezes, the pleasure of swift motion and the ring of that exultingly boyish voice beside her, combined to call the youth in her to rejoice. Firm in the saddle she rode, as graceful a picture of piquant girlhood as could be conceived, thrilling to the silent voices of the desert. They traveled in a sunlit sea of space, under a sky of blue, in which tenuous cloud lakes floated. Once they came on a small bunch of hill cattle which went flying like deer into the covert of a draw. A rattlesnake above a prairie dog's hole slid into the mesquit. A swift watched them from the top of a smooth rock, motionless so long as they could see. She loved it all, this immense, deserted world of space filled with its multitudinous dwellers.

They unsaddled at Dead Cow Creek, hobbled the ponies, and ate supper. Norris seemed in no hurry to resaddle. He lay stretched carelessly at full length, his eyes upon her with veiled admiration. She sat upright, her gaze on the sunset with its splashes of topaz and crimson and saffron, watching the tints soften and mellow as dusk fell. Every minute now brought its swift quota of changing beauty. A violet haze enveloped the purple mountains, and in the crotch of the hills swam a lake of indigo. The raw, untempered glare of the sun was giving place to a limitless pour of silvery moonlight.

Her eyes were full of the soft loveliness of the hour when she turned them upon her companion. He answered promptly her unspoken question.

"You bet it is! A night for the gods--or for lovers."

He said it in a murmur, his eyes full on hers, and his look wrenched her from her mood. The mask of comradeship was gone. He looked at her hungrily, as might a lover to whom all spiritual heights were denied.

Her sooty lashes fell before this sinister spirit she had evoked, but were raised instantly at the sound of him drawing his body toward her. Inevitably there was a good deal of the young animal in her superbly healthy body. She had been close to nature all day, the riotous passion of spring flowing free in her as in the warm earth herself. But the magic of the mystic hills had lifted her beyond the merely personal. Some sense of grossness in him for the first time seared across her brain. She started up, and her face told him she had taken alarm.

"We must be going," she cried.

He got to his feet. "No hurry, sweetheart."

The look in his face startled her. It was new to her in her experience of men. Never before had she met elemental lust.

"You're near enough," she cautioned sharply.

He cursed softly his maladroitness.

"I was nearer last night, honey," he reminded her.

"Last night isn't to-night."

He hesitated. Should he rush her defenses, bury her protests in kisses? Or should he talk her out of this harsh mood? Last night she had been his. There were moments during the day when she had responded to him as a musical instrument does to skilled fingers. But for the moment his power over her was gone. And he was impatient of delay.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked roughly.

"We'll start at once."

"No."

"Yes."

Frightened though she was, her gaze held steadily to his. It was the same instinct in her that makes one look a dangerous wild beast straight in the eye.

"What's got into you?" he demanded sullenly.

"I'm going home."

"After a while."

"Now."

"I reckon not just yet. It's my say-so."

"Don't you dare stop me."

The passion in him warred with prudence. He temporized. "Why, honey! I'm the man that loves you."

She would not see his outstretched hands.

"Then saddle my horse."

"By God, no! You're going to listen to me."

His anger ripped out unexpectedly, even to him. Whatever fear she felt, the girl crushed down. He must not know her heart was drowned in terror.

"I'll listen after we've started."

He cursed her fickleness. "What's ailin' you, girl? I ain't a man to be put off this way."

"Don't forget you're in Arizona," she warned.

He understood what she meant. In the ranch country no man could with impunity insult a woman.

Standing defiantly before him, her pliant form very straight, the underlying blood beating softly under the golden brown of her cheeks, one of the thick braids of her heavy, blue-black hair falling across the breast that rose and fell a little fast, she was no less than a challenge of Nature to him. He looked into a mobile face as daring and as passionate as his own, warm with the life of innocent youth, and the dark blood mantled his face.

"Saddle the horses," she commanded.

"When I get good and ready."

"Now."

"No, ma'am. We're going to have a talk first."

She walked across to the place where her pony grazed, slipped on the bridle, and brought the animal back to the saddle. Norris watched her fitting the blankets and tightening the cinch without a word, his face growing blacker every moment. Before she could start he strode forward and caught the rein.

"I've got something to say to you," he told her rudely. "You're not going now. So that's all about it."

Her lips tightened. "Let go of my horse."

"We'll talk first."

"Do you think you can force me to stay here?"

"You're going to hear what I've got to say."

"You bully!"

"I'll tell what I know--Miss Hold-up."

"Tell it!" she cried.

He laughed harshly, his narrowed eyes watching her closely. "If you throw me down now, I'll ce'tainly tell it. Be reasonable, girl."

"Let go my rein!"

"I've had enough of this. Tumble off that horse, or I'll pull you off."

Her dark eyes flashed scorn of him. "You coward! Do you think I'm afraid of you? Stand back!"

The man looked long at her, his teeth set; then caught at her strong little wrist. With a quick wrench she freed it, her eyes glowing like live coals.

"You dare!" she panted.

Her quirt rose and fell, the lash burning his wrist like a band of fire. With a furious oath he dropped his hand from the rein. Like a flash she was off, had dug her heels home, and was galloping into the moonlight recklessly as fast as she could send forward her pony. Stark terror had her by the throat. The fear of him flooded her whole being. Not till the drumming hoofs had carried her far did other emotions move her.

She was furious with him, and with herself for having been imposed upon by him. His beauty, his grace, his debonair manner--they were all hateful to her now. She had thought him a god among men, and he was of common clay. It was her vanity that was wounded, not her heart. She scourged herself because she had been so easily deceived, because she had let herself become a victim of his good looks and his impudence. For that she had let him kiss her--yes, and had returned his kiss--she was heartily contemptuous of herself. Always she had held herself with an instinctive pride, but in her passion of abandonment the tears confessed now that this pride had been humbled to the dust.

This gusty weather of the spirit, now of chastened pride and now of bitter anger, carried her even through the group of live-oaks which looked down upon the silent houses of the ranch, lying in a sea of splendid moon-beat. She was so much less confident of herself than usual that she made up her mind to tell her father the whole story of the hold-up and of what this man had threatened.

This resolution comforted her, and it was with something approaching calmness that she rode past the corral fence and swung from the saddle in front of the house.

CHAPTER X

JACK GOES TO THE HEAD OF THE CLASS

She trailed the bridle reins, went up the porch steps, and drew off her gauntlets. Her hand was outstretched to open the door when her gaze fell upon a large bill tacked to the wall. Swiftly she read it through, and, having read it, remained in suspended motion. For the first time she fully realized the danger and the penalty that confronted her.

ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS Will Be Paid By Thomas L. Morse

For the arrest and conviction of each of the men who were implicated in the robbery of the Fort Allison stage on April twenty-seventh last. A further reward of $1000 will be paid for the recovery of the bullion stolen.

This was what she read, and her eye was running over it a second time when she heard the jingle of a spur approaching.

"We're red-hot after them, you see, Miss Lee," a mocking voice drawled. "If you want to round up a thousand plunks, all you've got to do is to tell me who Mr. Hold-up is."

He laughed quietly, as if it were a joke, but the girl answered with a flush. "Is that all?"

"That's all."

"If I knew, do you suppose I would tell for five thousand--or ten thousand?"

For some reason this seemed to give him sardonic amusement. "No, I don't suppose you would."

"You'll have to catch him yourself if you want him. I'm not in that business, Mr. Flatray."

"I am. Sorry you don't like the business, Miss Lee." He added dryly: "But then you always were hard to please. You weren't satisfied when I was a rustler."

Her eyes swept him with a look, whether of reproach or contempt he was not sure. But the hard derision of his gaze did not soften. Mentally as well as physically he was a product of the sun and the wind, as tough and unyielding as a greasewood sapling. For a friend he would go the limit, and he could not forgive her that she had distrusted him.

"But mebbe you'd prefer it if I was rustling stages," he went on, looking straight at her.

"What do you mean?" she asked breathlessly.

"I want to have a talk with you."

"What about?"

"Suppose we step around to the side of the house. We'll be freer from interruption there."

He led the way, taking her consent for granted. With him he carried a chair for her from the porch.

"If you'll be as brief as possible, Mr. Flatray. I've been in the desert two days and want to change my clothes."

"I'll not detain you. It's about this gold robbery."

"Yes."

She could not take her eyes from him. Something told her that he knew her secret, or part of it. Her heart was fluttering like a caged thrush.

"Shall we begin at the beginning?"

"If you like."

"Or in the middle, say."

"If only you'll begin anywhere," she said impatiently.

"How will this do for a beginning, then? 'One thousand dollars will be paid by Thomas L. Morse for the arrest and conviction of each of the men who were implicated in the robbery of the Fort Allison stage on April twenty-seventh last.'"

She was shaken, there was no denying it. He could see the ebb of blood from her cheeks, the sudden stiffening of the slender figure.

She did not speak until she had control of her voice. "Dear me! What has all that to do with me?"

"A good deal, I'm afraid. You know how much, better than I do."

"Perhaps I'm stupid. You'll have to be a great deal clearer before I can understand you."

"I've noticed that it's a lot easier to understand what you want to than what you don't want to."

Sharply a thought smote her. "Have you seen Phil Norris lately?"

"No, I haven't. Do you think it likely that he would confess?"

"Confess?" she faltered.

"I see I'll have to start at the beginning, after all. It's pretty hard to say just where that is. It might be when Morse got hold of your father's claim, or another fellow might say it was when the Boone-Bellamy feud began, and that is a mighty long time ago."

"The Boone-Bellamy feud," echoed the girl.

"Yes. The real name of our friend Norris is Dunc Boone."

"He's no friend of mine." She flamed it out with such intensity that he was surprised.

"Glad to hear it. I can tell you, then, that he's a bad lot. He was driven out of Arkansas after a suspected murder. It was a killing from ambush. They couldn't quite hang it on him, but he lit a shuck to save his skin from lynchers. At that time he was a boy. Couldn't have been more than seventeen."

"Who did he kill?"

"One of the Bellamy faction. The real name of T. L. Morse is----"

"--Richard Bellamy."

"How do you know that?" he asked in surprise.

"I've known it since the first day I met him."

"Known that he was wanted for murder in Arkansas?"

"Yes."

"And you protected him?"

"I had a reason." She did not explain that her reason was Jack Flatray, between whom and the consequences of his rustling she had stood.

He pondered that a moment. "Well, Morse, or Bellamy, told me all about it. Now that Boone has recognized him, the game is up. He's ready to go back and stand trial if he must. I've communicated with the authorities in Arkansas and I'll hear from them in a day or two."

"What has this to do with the hold-up?"

"That's right, the hold-up. Well, this fellow Boone got your father to drinking, and then sprung it on him to rob the stage when the bullion was being shipped. Somehow Boone had got inside information about when this was to be. He had been nosing around up at the mine, and may have overheard something. O' course we know what your father would have done if he hadn't been drinking. He's straight as a string, even if he does go off like powder. But when a man's making a blue blotter of himself, things don't look the same to him. Anyhow he went in."

"He didn't. I can prove he didn't," burst from Melissy's lips.

"Be glad to hear your proof later. He ce'tainly planned the hold-up. Jim Budd overheard him."

"Did Jim tell you that?"

"Don't blame him for that. He didn't mean to tell, but I wound him up so he couldn't get away from it. I'll show you later why he couldn't."

"I'm sure you must have been very busy, spying and everything," she told him bitterly.

"I've kept moving. But to get back to the point. Your father and Boone were on the ground where the stage was robbed _either at the time or right after_. Their tracks were all over there. Then they got on their horses and rode up the lateral."

"But they couldn't. The ditch was full," broke from the girl.

"You're right it was. You must be some observing to know when that ditch is full and empty to an hour. I reckon you've got an almanac of tides," he said ironically.

She bit her lip with chagrin. "I just happened to notice."

"Some folks _are_ more noticing than others. But you're surely right. They came up the ditch one on each side. Now, why one on each side, do you reckon?"

Melissy hid the dread that was flooding her heart. "I'm sure I don't know. You know everything else. I suppose you do that, too, if they really did."

"They had their reasons, but we won't go into that now. First off when they reach the house they take a bunch of sheep down to the ditch to water them. Now, why?"

"Why, unless because they needed water?"

"We'll let that go into the discard too just now. Let's suppose your father and Boone dumped the gold box down into the creek somewhere after they had robbed the stage. Suppose they had a partner up at the head-gates. When the signal is given down comes the water, and the box is covered by it. Mebbe that night they take it away and bury it somewhere else."

The girl began to breathe again. He knew a good deal, but he was still off the track in the main points.

"And who is this partner up at the canal? Have you got him located too?"

"I might guess."

"Well?"--impatiently.

"A young lady hailing from this _hacienda_ was out gathering flowers all mo'ning. She was in her runabout. The tracks led straight from here to the head-gates. I followed them through the sands. There's a little break in one of the rubber tires. You'll find that break mark every eight feet or so in the sand wash."

"I opened the head-gates, then, did I?"

"It looks that way, doesn't it?"

"At a signal from father?"

"I reckon."

"And that's all the evidence you've got against him and me?" she demanded, still outwardly scornful, but very much afraid at heart.

"Oh, no, that ain't all, Miss Lee. Somebody locked the Chink in during this play. He's still wondering why."

"He dreamed it. Very likely he had been rolling a pill."

"Did I dream this too?" From his coat pocket he drew the piece of black shirting she had used as a mask. "I found it in the room where your father put me up that first night I stayed here. It was your brother Dick's room, and this came from the pocket of a shirt hanging in the closet. Now, who do you reckon put it there?"

For the first time in her life she knew what it was to feel faint. She tried to speak, but the words would not come from her parched throat. How could he be so hard and cruel, this man who had once been her best friend? How could he stand there so like a machine in his relentlessness?

"We--we used to--to play at hold-up when he was a boy," she gasped.

He shook his head. "No, I reckon that won't go. You see, I've found the piece this was torn from, _and I found it in your father's coat_. I went into his room on tiptoe that same hour. The coat was on the bed. He had gone downstairs for a minute and left it there. Likely he hadn't found a good chance to burn it yet." Taking the two pieces, he fitted them together and held them up. "They match exactly, you see. Did your father used to play with you too when he was a boy?"

He asked this with what seemed to her tortured soul like silken cruelty. She had no answer, none at least that would avail. Desperately she snatched at a straw.

"All this isn't proof. It's mere surmise. Some one's tracks were found by you. How do you know they were father's?"

"I've got that cinched too. I took his boots and measured them."

"Then where's the gold, if he took it? It must be somewhere. Where is it?"

"Now I'm going up to the head of the class, ma'am. The gold--why, that's a dead easy one. _Near as I can make out, I'm sitting on it right now._"

She gave a startled little cry that died in her throat.

"Yes, it's ce'tainly a valuable wash-stand. Chippendale furniture ain't in it with this kind. I reckon the king of England's is ace high against a straight flush when it bucks up against yours."

Melissy threw up her cards. "How did you find out?" she asked hoarsely.

The deputy forced her to commit herself more definitely. "Find out what?"

"Where I put the box."

"I'll go back and answer some of those other questions first. I might as well own up that I knew all the time your father didn't hold up the stage."

"You did?"

"He's no fool. He wouldn't leave his tracks all over the place where he had just held up a stage. He might jest as well have left a signed note saying he had done it. No, that didn't look like Champ Lee to me. It seemed more likely he'd arrived after the show than before. It wouldn't be like him, either, to go plowing up the side of the ditch, with his partner on the other side, making a trail that a blind man could follow in the night. Soon as I knew Lee and Boone made those tracks, I had it cinched that they were following the lateral to see where the robber was going. They had come to the same conclusion I had, that there wasn't any way of escape _except by that empty lateral_, _assuming it had been empty_. The only point was to find out where the hold-up left the lateral. That's why they rode one on each side of it. They weren't missing any bets, you see."

"And that's why they drove the sheep down to water--to hide the wheel-tracks. I couldn't understand that."

"I must 'a' been right on their heels, for they were jest getting the trotters out of the corral when I reached the place where your rig left the water. 'Course I fell back into the brush and circled around so as to hit the store in front."

"But if dad knew all the time, I don't see--surely, he wouldn't have come right after me and made plain the way I escaped."

"That's the point. He didn't know. I reckon he was sort of guessing around in the dark, plumb puzzled; couldn't find the switch at all at first. Then it come to him, and he thought of the sheep to blind the trail. If I'd been half a hour later he would have got away with it too. No, if he had guessed that you were in the hold-up, him and Boone would have hiked right out on a false trail and led us into the Galiuros. Having no notion of it at first, he trails you down."

"And the gold--how did you find that?"

"I knew it was either right around the place or else you had taken it on with you when you went to the head-gates and buried it up there somewhere. Next day I followed your tracks and couldn't find any place where you might have left it. I knew how clever you were by the way you planned your getaway. Struck me as mighty likely that you had left it lying around in plain view somewhere. If you had dumped it out of the box into a sack, the box must be somewhere. You hadn't had time to burn it before the stage got back. I drifted back to your kindling pile, where all the old boxes from the store are lying. I happened to notice a brass tack in one near the end; then the marks of the tack heads where they had pressed against the wood. I figured you might have substituted one box for another, and inside of ten minutes I stumbled against your wash-stand and didn't budge it. Then I didn't have to look any further."

"I've been trying to get a chance to move it and haven't ever found one. You were always coming around the corner on me," she explained.

"Sorry I incommoded you," he laughed. "But it's too heavy for a lady to lift alone, anyhow. I don't see how you managed it this far."

"I'm pretty strong," she said quietly.

She had no hope of escape from the net of evidence in which he had entangled her. It was characteristic of her that she would not stoop to tricks to stir his pity. Deep in her heart she knew now that she had wronged him when she had suspected him of being a rustler. He _could_ not be. It was not in the man's character. But she would ask no mercy of him. All her pride rose to meet his. She would show him how game she could be. What she had sown she would reap. Nor would it have been any use to beseech him to spare her. He was a hard man, she told herself. Not even a fool could have read any weakness in the quiet gray eyes that looked so steadily into hers. In his voice and movements there was a certain deliberation, but this had nothing to do with indecision of character. He would do his duty as he saw it, regardless of whom it might affect.

Melissy stood before him in the unconscious attitude of distinction she often fell into when she was moved, head thrown back so as to bare the rounded throat column, brown little hands folded in front of her, erectly graceful in all her slender lines.

"What are you going to do with me?" she asked.

His stone-cold eyes met hers steadily. "It ain't my say-so. I'm going to put it up to Bellamy. I don't know what he'll do."

But, cold as his manner was, the heart of the man leaped to her courage. He saw her worn out, pathetically fearful, but she could face him with that still little smile of hers. He longed to take her in his arms, to tell her it would be all right--all right.

"There's one thing that troubles me. I don't know how father will take this. You know how quick-tempered he is. I'm afraid he'll shoot somebody or do something rash when he finds out. You must let me be alone with him when I tell him."

He nodded. "I been thinking of that myself. It ain't going to do him any good to make a gun-play. I have a notion mebbe this thing will unravel itself if we give it time. It will only make things worse for him to go off half-cocked."

"How do you mean it may unravel itself?" she asked.

"Bellamy is a whole lot better man than folks give him credit for being. I expect he won't be hard on you when he knows why you did it."

"And why did I do it?" she asked quietly.

"Sho! I know why you did it. Jim Budd told you what he had heard, and you figured you could save your father from doing it. You meant to give the money back, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I can't prove that either in court or to Mr. Bellamy."

"You don't need to prove it to me. If you say so, that's enough," he said in his unenthusiastic voice.

"But you're not judge and jury, and you're certainly not Mr. Bellamy."

"Scrape Arizona with a fine-tooth comb and you couldn't get a jury to convict when it's up against the facts in this case."

At this she brightened. "Thank you, Mr. Flatray." And navely she added with a little laugh: "Are you ready to put the handcuffs on me yet?"

He looked with a smile at her outstretched hands. "They wouldn't stay on."

"Don't you carry them in sizes to fit all criminals?"

"I'll have to put you on parole."

"I'll break it and climb out the window. Then I'll run off with this."

She indicated the box of treasure.

"I need that wash-stand in my room. I'm going to take it up there to-night," he said.

"This _isn't_ a very good safety deposit vault," she answered, and, nodding a careless good-night, she walked away in her slow-limbed, graceful Southern fashion.

She had carried it off to the last without breaking down, but, once in her own room, the girl's face showed haggard in the moonlight. It was one thing to jest about it with him; it was another to face the facts as they stood. She was in the power of her father's enemy, the man whose proffer of friendship they had rejected with scorn. Her pride cried out that she could not endure mercy from him even if he wished to extend it. Surely there must be some other way out than the humiliation of begging him not to prosecute. She could see none but one, and that was infinitely worse. Yet she knew it would be her father's first impulsive instinct to seek to fight her out of her trouble, the more because it was through him that it had fallen upon her. At all hazards she must prevent this.

CHAPTER XI

A CONVERSATION

Not five minutes after Melissy had left the deputy sheriff, another rider galloped up the road. Jack, returning from his room, where he had left the box of gold locked up, waited on the porch to see who this might be.

The horseman proved to be the man Norris, or Boone, and in a thoroughly bad temper, as Jack soon found out.

"Have you see anything of 'Lissie Lee?" he demanded immediately.

"Miss Lee has just left me. She has gone to her room," answered Flatray quietly.

"Well, I want to see her," said the other hoarsely.

"I reckon you better postpone it to to-morrow. She's some played out and needs sleep."

"Well, I'm going to see her now."

Jack turned, still all gentleness, and called to Jim Budd, who was in the store.

"Oh, Jim! Run upstairs and knock on Miss Melissy's door and tell her Mr. Norris is down here. Ask if she will see him to-night."

"You're making a heap of formality out of this, Mr. Buttinsky," sneered the cowpuncher.

Jack made no answer, unless it were one to whistle gently and look out into the night as if he were alone.

"No, seh. She doan' wan' tuh see him to-night," announced Jim upon his return.

"That seems to settle it, Mr. Norris," said Jack pleasantly.

"Not by a hell of a sight. I've got something to say to her, and I'm going to say it."

"To-morrow," amended the officer.

"I said to-night."

"But your say doesn't go here against hers. I reckon you'll wait."

"Not so's you could notice it." The cowpuncher took a step forward toward the stairway, but Flatray was there before him.

"Get out of the way, you. I don't stand for any butting-in," the cowboy blustered.

"Don't be a goat, Norris. She's tired, and she says she don't want to see you. That's enough, ain't it?"

Norris leaped back with an oath to draw his gun, but Jack had the quickest draw in Arizona. The puncher found himself looking into the business end of a revolver.

"Better change your mind, seh," suggested the officer amiably. "I take it you've been drinking and you're some excited. If you were in condition to _savez_ the situation, you'd understand that the young lady doesn't care to see you now. Do you need a church to fall on you before you can take a hint?"

"I reckon if you knew all about her, you wouldn't be so anxious to stand up for her," Norris said darkly.

"I expect we cayn't any of us stand the great white light on all our acts; but if any one can, it's that little girl upstairs."

"What would you say if I told you that she's liable to go to Yuma if I lift my hand?"

"I'd say I was from Missouri and needed showing."

"Put up that gun, come outside with me, and if I take a notion I'll show you all right."

Jack laughed as his gun disappeared. "I'd be willing to bet high that there are a good many citizens around here haided straighter for Yuma than Miss Melissy."

Without answering, Norris led the way out and stopped only when his arm rested on the fence of the corral.

"Nobody can hear us now," he said brusquely, and the ranger got a whiff of his hot whisky breath. "You've put it up to me to make good. All right, I'll do it. That little girl in there, as you call her, is the bad man who held up the Fort Allison stage."

The officer laughed tolerantly as he lit a cigarette.

"I hear you say it, Norris."

"I didn't expect you to believe it right away, but it's a fact just the same."

Flatray climbed to the fence and rested his feet on a rail. "Fire ahead. I'm listenin'."

"The first men on the ground after that hold-up were me and Lee. We covered the situation thorough and got hold of some points right away."

"That's right funny too. When I asked you if you'd been down there you both denied it," commented the officer.

"We were protecting the girl. Mind you, we didn't know who had done it then, but we had reasons to think the person had just come from this ranch."

"What reasons?" briefly demanded Flatray.

"We don't need to go into them. We had them, anyhow. Then I lit on a foot-print right on the edge of the ditch that no man ever made. We didn't know what to make of it, but we wiped it out and followed the ditch, one on each side. We'd figured that was the way he had gone. You see, though water was running in the ditch now, it hadn't been half an hour before."

"You don't say!"

"There wasn't a sign of anybody leaving the ditch till we got to the ranch; then we saw tracks going straight to the house."

"So you got a bunch of sheep and drove them down there to muss things up some."

Norris looked sharply at him. "You got there while we were driving them back. Well, that's right. We had to help her out."

"You're helping her out now, ain't you?" Jack asked dryly.

"That's my business. I've got my own reasons, Mr. Deputy. All you got to do is arrest her."

"Just as soon as you give me the evidence, seh."

"Haven't I given it to you? She was seen to drive away from the house in her rig. She left footprints down there. She came back up the ditch and then rode right up to the head-gates and turned on the water. Jim Little saw her cutting across country from the head-gates hell-to-split."

"Far as I can make out, all the evidence you've given me ain't against her, but against you. She was out drivin' when it happened, you say, and you expect me to arrest her for it. It ain't against the law to go driving, seh. And as for that ditch fairy tale, on your own say-so you wiped out all chance to prove the story."

"Then you won't arrest her?"

"If you'll furnish the evidence, seh."

"I tell you we know she did it. Her father knows it."

"Is it worryin' his conscience? Did he ask you to lay an information against her?" asked the officer sarcastically.

"That isn't the point."

"You're right. Here's the point." Not by the faintest motion of the body had the officer's indolence been lifted, but the quiet ring of his voice showed it was gone. "You and Lee were overheard planning that robbery the day after you were seen hanging around the 'Monte Cristo.' You started out to hold up the stage. It was held up. By your own story you were the first men on the ground after the robbery. I tracked you straight from there here along the ditch. I found a black mask in Lee's coat. A dozen people saw you on that fool sheep-drive of yours. And to sum up, I found the stolen gold right here where you must have hidden it."

"You found the gold? Where?"

"That ain't the point either, seh. The point is that I've got you where I want you, Mr. Norris, alias Mr. Boone. You're wound up in a net you cayn't get away from. You're wanted back East, and you're wanted here. I'm onto your little game, sir. Think I don't know you've been trying to manufacture evidence against me as a rustler? Think I ain't wise to your whole record? You're arrested for robbing the Fort Allison stage."

Norris, standing close in front of him, shot his right hand out and knocked the officer backward from the fence. Before the latter could get on his feet again the cowpuncher was scudding through the night. He reached his horse, flung himself on, and galloped away. Harmlessly a bullet or two zipped after him as he disappeared.

The deputy climbed over the fence again and laughed softly to himself. "You did that right well, Jack. He'll always think he did that by his lone, never will know you was a partner in that escape. It's a fact, though, I could have railroaded him through on the evidence, but not without including the old man. No, there wasn't any way for it but that grandstand escape of Mr. Boone's."

Still smiling, he dusted himself, put up his revolver, and returned to the house.

CHAPTER XII

THE TENDERFOOT MAKES A PROPOSITION

Melissy waited in dread expectancy to see what would happen. Of quick, warm sympathies, always ready to bear with courage her own and others' burdens, she had none of that passive endurance which age and experience bring. She was keyed to the heroism of an occasion, but not yet to that which life lays as a daily burden upon many without dramatic emphasis.

All next day nothing took place. On the succeeding one her father returned with the news that the "Monte Cristo" contest had been continued to another term of court. Otherwise nothing unusual occurred. It was after mail time that she stepped to the porch for a breath of fresh air and noticed that the reward placard had been taken down.

"Who did that?" she asked of Alan McKinstra, who was sitting on the steps, reading a newspaper and munching an apple.

"Jack Flatray took it down. He said the offer of a reward had been withdrawn."

"When did he do that?"

"About an hour ago. Just before he rode off."

"Rode off! Where did he go?"

"Heard him say he was going to Mesa. He told your father that when he settled the bill."

"He's gone for good, then?"

"That's the way I took it. Say, Melissy, Farnum says Jack told him the gold had been found and turned back to Morse. Is that right?"

"How should I know?"

"Well, it looks blamed funny they could get the bullion back without getting the hold-up."

"Maybe they'll get him yet," she consoled him.

"I wish I could get a crack at him," the boy murmured vengefully.

"You had one chance at him, didn't you?"

"Jos spoiled it. Honest, I wasn't going to lie down, 'Lissie."

Again the days followed each other uneventfully. Bellamy himself never came for his mail now, but sent one of the boys from the mine for it. Melissy wondered whether he despised her so much he did not ever want to see her again. Somehow she did not like to think this. Perhaps it might be delicacy on his part. He was going to drop the whole thing magnanimously and did not want to put upon her the obligation of thanking him by presenting himself to her eyes.

But though he never appeared in person, he had never been so much in her mind. She could not rid herself of a growing sympathy and admiration for this man who was holding his own against many. A story which was being whispered about reached her ears and increased this. A bunch of his sheep had been found poisoned on their feeding ground, and certain cattle interests were suspected of having done the dastardly thing.

When she could stand the silence no longer Melissy called up Jack Flatray on the telephone at Mesa.

"You caught me just in time. I'm leaving for Phoenix to-night," he told her. "What can I do for you, Miss Lee?"

"I want to know what's being done about that Fort Allison stage hold-up."

"The money has been recovered."

"I know that, but--what about the--the criminals?"

"They made their getaway all right."

"Aren't you looking for them?"

"No."

"Did Mr. Morse want you to drop it?"

"Yes. He was very urgent about it."

"Does he know who the criminals are?"

"Yes."

"And isn't going to prosecute?"

"So he told me."

"What did Mr. Morse say when you made your report?"

"Said, 'Thank you.'"

"Oh, yes, but--you know what I mean."

"Not being a mind-reader----"

"About the suspect. Did he say anything?"

"Said he had private reasons for not pushing the case. I didn't ask him what they were."

This was all she could get out of him. It was less than she had hoped. Still, it was something. She knew definitely what Bellamy had done. Wherefore she sat down to write him a note of thanks. It took her an hour and eight sheets of paper before she could complete it to her satisfaction. Even then the result was not what she wanted. She wished she knew how he felt about it, so that she could temper it to the right degree of warmth or coolness. Since she did not know, she erred on the side of stiffness and made her message formal.

"Mr. Thomas L. Morse, "Monte Cristo Mine.

"Dear Sir:

"Father and I feel that we ought to thank you for your considerate forbearance in a certain matter you know of. Believe me, sir, we are grateful.

"Very respectfully, "Melissy Lee."

She could not, however, keep herself from one touch of sympathy, and as a postscript she navely added:

"I'm sorry about the sheep."

Before mailing it she carried this letter to her father. Neither of them had ever referred to the other about what each knew of the affair of the robbery. More than once it had been on the tip of Champ Lee's tongue to speak of it, but it was not in his nature to talk out what he felt, and with a sigh he had given it up. Now Melissy came straight to the point.

"I've been writing a letter to Mr. Morse, dad, thanking him for not having me arrested."

Lee shot at her a glance of quick alarm.

"Does he know about it, honey?"

"Yes. Jack Flatray found out the whole thing and told him. He was very insistent on dropping it, Mr. Flatray says."

"You say Jack found out all about it, honey?" repeated Lee in surprise.

He was seated in a big chair on the porch, and she nestled on one arm of it, rumpled his gray hair as she had always done since she had been a little girl, kissed him, and plunged into her story.

He heard her to the end without a word, but she noticed that he gripped the chair hard. When she had finished he swept her into his arms and broke down over her, calling her the pet names of her childhood.

"Honey-bird ... Dad's little honey-bird ... I'm that ashamed of myse'f. 'Twas the whisky did it, lambie. Long as I live I'll nevah touch it again. I'll sweah that befo' God. All week you been packin' the troubles I heaped on you, precious, and afteh you-all saved me from being a criminal...."

So he went on, spending his tempestuous love in endearments and caresses, and so together they afterward talked it out and agreed to send the letter she had written.

But Lee was not satisfied with her atonement. He could not rest to let it go at that, without expressing his own part in it to Bellamy. Next day he rode up to the mine, and found its owner in workman's slops just stepping from the cage. If Bellamy were surprised to see him, no sign of it reached his face.

"If you'll wait a minute till I get these things off, I'll walk up to the cabin with you, Mr. Lee," he said.

"I reckon you got my daughter's letter," said Lee abruptly as he strode up the mountainside with his host.

"Yes, I got it an hour ago."

"I be'n and studied it out, Mr. Morse. I couldn't let it go at that, and so I reckoned I'd jog along up hyer and tell you the whole story."

"That's as you please, Mr. Lee. I'm quite satisfied as it is."

The rancher went on as if he had not heard. "'Course I be'n holding a grudge at you evah since you took up this hyer claim. I expect that rankles with me most of the time, and when I take to drinking seems to me that mine still belongs to me. Well, I heerd tell of that shipment you was making, and I sets out to git it, for it ce'tainly did seem to belong to me. Understand, I wasn't drunk, but had be'n settin' pretty steady to the bottle for several days. Melissy finds it out, no matter how, and undertakes to keep me out of trouble. She's that full of sand, she nevah once thought of the danger or the consequences. Anyhow, she meant to git the bullion back to you afteh the thing had blown over."

"I haven't doubted that a moment since I knew she did it," said Bellamy quietly.

"Glad to hear it. I be'n misjudgin' you, seh, but you're a white man afteh all. Well, you know the rest of the story: how she held up the stage, how Jack drapped in befo' our tracks were covered, how smart he worked the whole thing out, and how my little gyurl confessed to him to save me."

"Yes, I know all that."

"What kind of a figure do I make in this? First off, I act like a durn fool, and she has to step in to save me. Then I let her tote the worry of it around while I ride off to Mesa. When Jack runs me down, she takes the blame again. To finish up with, she writes you a letter of thanks, jes' as if the whole fault was hers."

The old soldier selected a smooth rock and splashed it with tobacco juice before he continued with rising indignation against himself.

"I'm a fine father for a gyurl like that, ain't I? Up to date I always had an idee I was some sort of a man, but dad gum it! I cayn't see it hyer. To think of me lettin' my little gyurl stand the consequences of my meanness. No, Mr. Morse, that's one too much for Champ Lee. He's nevah going to touch another drop of whisky long as he lives."

"Glad to hear it. That's a square amend to make, one she will appreciate."

"So I took a _pasear_ up hyer to explain this, and to thank you for yore kindness. Fac' is, Mr. Morse, it would have jest about killed me if anything had happened to my little 'Lissie. I want to say that if you had a-be'n her brother you couldn't 'a' be'n more decent."

"There was nothing else to do. It happens that I am in her debt. She saved my life once. Besides, I understood the motives for her action when she broke the law, and I honored them with all my heart. Flatray felt just as I did about it. So would any right-thinking man."

"Well, you cayn't keep me from sayin' again that you're a white man, seh," the other said with a laugh behind which the emotion of tears lay near.

"That offer of a compromise is still open, Mr. Lee."

The Southerner shook his grizzled head. "No, I reckon not, Mr. Morse. Understand, I got nothin' against you. The feud is wiped out, and I'll make you no mo' trouble. But it's yore mine, and I don't feel like taking charity. I got enough anyhow."

"It wouldn't be charity. I've always felt as if you had a moral claim on an interest in the 'Monte Cristo.' If you won't take this yourself, why not let me make out the papers to Miss Lee? You would feel then that she was comfortably fixed, no matter what happened to you."

"Well, I'll lay it befo' her. Anyhow, we're much obliged to you, Mr. Morse. I'll tell you what, seh," he added as an after-thought. "You come down and talk it over with 'Lissie. If you can make her see it that way, good enough."

When Champ Lee turned his bronco's head homeward he was more at peace with the world than he had been for a long time. He felt that he would be able to look his little girl in the face again. For the first time in a week he felt at one with creation. He rode into the ranch plaza humming "Dixie."

On the day following that of Lee's call, the mine-owner saddled his mare and took the trail to the half-way house. It was not until after the stage had come and gone that he found the chance for a word with Melissy alone.

"Your father submitted my proposition, did he?" Bellamy said by way of introducing the subject.

"Let's take a walk on it. I haven't been out of the house to-day," she answered with the boyish downrightness sometimes uppermost in her.

Calling Jim, she left him in charge of the store, caught up a Mexican sombrero, and led the way up the trail to a grove of live-oaks perched on a bluff above. Below them stretched the plain, fold on fold to the blue horizon edge. Close at hand clumps of cactus, thickets of mesquit, together with the huddled adobe buildings of the ranch, made up the details of a scene possible only in the sunburnt territory. The palpitating heat quivered above the hot brown sand. No life stirred in the valley except a circling buzzard high in the sky, and the tiny moving speck with its wake of dust each knew to be the stage that had left the station an hour before.

Melissy, unconscious of the charming picture she made, stood upon a rock and looked down on it all.

"I suppose," she said at last slowly, "that most people would think this pretty desolate. But it's a part of me. It's all I know." She broke off and smiled at him. "I had a chance to be civilized. Dad wanted to send me East to school, but I couldn't leave him."

"Where were you thinking of going?"

"To Denver."

Her conception of the East amused him. It was about as accurate as a New Yorker's of the West.

"I'm glad you didn't. It would have spoiled you and sent you back just like every other young lady the schools grind out."

She turned curiously toward him. "Am I not like other girls?"

It was on his tongue tip to tell her that she was gloriously different from most girls he had known, but discretion sealed his lips. Instead, he told her of life in the city and what it means to society women, its emptiness and unsatisfaction.

His condemnation was not proof positive to her. "I'd like to go there for myself some time and see. And anyhow it must be nice to have all the money you want with which to travel," she said.

This gave him his opening. "It makes one independent. I think that's the best thing wealth can give--a sort of spaciousness." He waited perceptibly before he added: "I hope you have decided to be my partner in the mine."

"I've decided not to."

"I'm sorry. But why?"

"It's your mine. It isn't ours."

"That's nonsense. I always in my heart, recognized a moral claim you have. Besides, the case isn't finished yet. Perhaps your father may win his contest. I'm all for settling out of court."

"You know we won't win."

"I don't."

She gave him applause from her dark eyes. "That's very fair of you, but Dad and I can't do it."

"Then you still have a grudge at me," he smiled.

"Not the least little bit of a one."

"I shan't take no for an answer, then. I'll order the papers made out whether you want me to or not." Without giving her a chance to speak, he passed to another topic: "I've decided to go out of the sheep business."

"I'm so glad!" she cried.

"Those aren't my feelings," he answered ruefully. "I hate to quit under fire."

"Of course you do, but your friends will know why you do it."

"Why do I do it?"

"Because you know it's right. The cattlemen had the range first. Their living is tied up in cattle, and your sheep are ruining the feed for them. Yesterday when I was out riding I counted the bones of eight dead cows."

He nodded gravely. "Yes, in this country sheep are death to cows. I hate to be a quitter, but I hate worse to take the bread out of the mouths of a dozen families. Two days ago I had an offer for my whole bunch, and to-morrow I'm going to take the first instalment over the pass and drive them down to the railroad."

"But you'll have to cross the dead line to get over the pass," she said quickly; for all Cattleland knew that a guard had been watching his herds to see they did not cross the pass.

"Yes. I'm going to send Alan with a letter to Farnum. I don't think there will be any opposition to my crossing it when my object is understood," he smiled.

Melissy watched him ride away, strong and rugged and ungraceful, from the head to the heel of him a man. Life had gone hard with him. She wondered whether that were the reason her heart went out to him so warmly.

As she moved about her work that day and the next little snatches of song broke from her, bubbling forth like laughter, born of the quiet happiness within, for which she could give no reason.

After the stage had gone she saddled her pony and rode toward the head of the pass. In an hour or two now the sheep would be pouring across the divide, and she wanted to get a photograph of them as they emerged from the pass. She was following an old cattle trail which ran into the main path just this side of the pass, and she was close to the junction when the sound of voices stopped her. Some instinct made her wait and listen.

The speakers were in a dip of the trail just ahead of her, and the voice of the first she recognized as belonging to the man Boone. The tone of it was jubilantly cruel.

"No, sir. You don't move a step of the way, not a step, Mr. Alan McKinstra. I've got him right where I want him, and I don't care if you talk till the cows come home."

Alan's voice rang out indignantly, "It's murder then--just plain, low-down murder. If you hold me here and let Morse fall into a death trap without warning him, you're as responsible as if you shot him yourself."

"All right. Suits me down to the ground. We'll let it go at that. I'm responsible. If you want the truth flat and plain, I don't mind telling you that I wouldn't be satisfied if I wasn't responsible. I'm evening up some little things with Mr. Morse to-day."

Melissy needed to hear no more to understand the situation, but if she had, the next words of Boone would have cleared it up.

"When I met up with you and happened on the news that you was taking a message to Farnum, and when I got onto the fact that Morse, as you call him, was moving his sheep across the dead line, _relying on you having got his letter to the cattlemen to make it safe_, it seemed luck too good to be true. All I had to do was to persuade you to stay right here with me, and Mr. Morse would walk into the pass and be wiped out. You get the beauty of it, my friend, don't you? _I'm_ responsible, but it will be Farnum and his friends that will bear the blame. There ain't but one flaw in the whole thing: Morse will never know that it's me that killed him."

"You devil!" cried the boy, with impotent passion.

"I've waited ten years for this day, and it's come at last. Don't you think for a moment I'm going to weaken. No, sir! You'll sit there with my gun poked in your face just as you've sat for six hours. It's my say-so to-day, sir," Boone retorted, malevolence riding triumph in his voice.

Melissy's first impulse was to confront the man, her next to slip away without being discovered and then give the alarm.

"Yes, sir," continued the cowpuncher; "I scored on Mr. Morse two or three nights ago, when I played hell with one of his sheep camps, and to-day I finish up with him. His sheep have been watched for weeks, and at the first move it's all up with him and them. Farnum's vaqueros will pay my debt in full. Just as soon as I'm right sure of it I'll be jogging along to Dead Man's Cache, and you can go order the coffin for your boss."

The venom of the man was something to wonder at. It filled the listening girl with sick apprehension. She had not known that such hatred could live in the world.

Quietly she led her pony back, mounted, and made a wide detour until she struck the trail above. Already she could hear the distant bleat of sheep which told her that the herd was entering the pass. Recklessly she urged her pony forward, galloping into the saddle between the peaks without regard to the roughness of the boulder-strewn path. A voice from above hailed her with a startled shout as she flew past. Again, a shot rang out, the bullet whistling close to her ear. But nothing could stop her till she reached the man she meant to save.

And so it happened that Richard Bellamy, walking at the head of his herd, saw a horse gallop wildly round a bend almost into his bleating flock. The rider dragged the bronco to a halt and slipped to the ground. She stood there ashen-hued, clinging to the saddle-horn and swaying slightly.

"I'm in time.... Thank God!... Thank God!" her parched lips murmured.

"Miss Lee! You here?" he cried.

They looked at each other, the man and the girl, while the wild fear in her heart began to still. The dust of the drive was thick on his boots, his clothes, his face, but the soil of travel could not obscure the power of his carriage, the strong lines of his shoulders, the set of his broad, flat back, any more than it could tarnish her rarity, the sweetness of blood in her that under his gaze beat faintly into her dusky cheeks. The still force of him somehow carried reassurance to her. Such virility of manhood could not be marked for extinction.

She panted out her story, and his eyes never left her.

"You have risked your life to save mine and my herders," he said very quietly.

"You must go back," she replied irrelevantly.

"I can't. The entrance is guarded."

This startled her. "Then--what shall we do?"

"You must ride forward at once. Tell the vaqueros that I am moving my sheep only to take them to the railroad. Explain to them how Alan is detained with the message I sent Farnum. In a few minutes we shall follow with the sheep."

"And if they don't believe that you are going out of the sheep business--what then?"

"I shall have to take my chance of that."

She seemed about to speak, but changed her mind, nodded, swung to the saddle, and rode forward. After a few minutes Bellamy followed slowly. He was unarmed, not having doubted that his letter to the cattleman would make his journey safe. That he should have waited for an answer was now plain, but the contract called for an immediate delivery of the sheep, as he had carefully explained in his note to Farnum.

Presently he heard again the clatter of a horse's hoofs in the loose shale and saw Melissy returning.

"Well?" he asked as she drew up.

"I've told them. I think they believe me, but I'm going through the gorge with you."

He looked up quickly to protest, but did not. He knew that her thought was that her presence beside him would protect him from attack. The rough chivalry of Arizona takes its hat off to a woman, and Melissy Lee was a favorite of the whole countryside.

So together they passed into the gulch, Bellamy walking by the side of her horse. Neither of them spoke. At their heels was the soft rustle of many thousands of padding feet.

Once there came to them the sound of cheering, and they looked up to see a group of vaqueros waving their hats and shouting down. Melissy shook her handkerchief and laughed happily at them. It was a day to be remembered by these riders.

They emerged into a roll of hill-tops upon which the setting sun had cast a weird afterglow of radiance in which the whole world burned. The cactus, the stunted shrubbery, the painted rocks, seemed all afire with some magic light that had touched their commonness to a new wonder.

A sound came to them from below. A man, rifle in hand and leading a horse, was stealthily crossing the trail to disappear among the large boulders beyond.

Melissy did not speak, scarce dared to draw breath, for the man beneath them was Boone. There was something furtive and lupine about him that suggested the wild beast stalking its kill. No doubt he had become impatient to see the end of his foe and had ridden forward. He had almost crossed the path before he looked up and caught sight of them standing together in the fireglow of the sunset.

Abruptly he came to a standstill.

"By God! you slipped through, did you?" he said in a low voice of concentrated bitterness.

Bellamy did not answer, but he separated himself from the girl by a step or two. He knew quite well what was coming, and he looked down quietly with steady eyes upon his foe.

From far below there came the faint sound of a horse breaking its way through brush. Boone paused to listen, but his eye never wandered from the bareheaded, motionless figure silhouetted against the skyline in the ruddy evening glow. He had shifted his rifle so that it lay in both hands, ready for immediate action.

Melissy, horror-stricken, had sat silent, but now she found her voice.

"He is unarmed!" she cried to the cowpuncher.

He made no answer. Another sound in the brush, close at hand, was distracting his attention, though not his gaze.

Just as he whipped up his rifle Melissy sprang forward. She heard the sound of the explosion fill the draw, saw Bellamy clutch at the air and slowly sink to the ground. Before the echoes had died away she had flung herself toward the inert body.

The outlaw took a step or two forward, as if to make sure of his work, but at the sound of running footsteps he changed his mind, swung to the saddle and disappeared among the rocks.

An instant later Bob Farnum burst into view.

"What's up?" he demanded.

Melissy looked up. Her face was perfectly ashen. "Phil Norris ... he shot Mr. Morse."

Farnum stepped forward. "Hurt badly, Mr. Morse?"

The wounded man grinned faintly. "Scared worse, I reckon. He got me in the fleshy part of the left arm."

CHAPTER XIII

OLD ACQUAINTANCES

"You wanted to see me?"

The voice had the soft, slow intonation of the South, and it held some quality that haunted the memory. Or so Melissy thought afterward, but that may have been because of its owner's appeal to sympathy.

"If you are Miss Yarnell."

"Ferne Yarnell is my name."

"Mr. Bellamy asked me to call on you. He sent this letter of introduction."

A faint wave of color beat into the cheek of the stranger. "You know Mr. Bellamy then?"

"Yes. He would have been here to meet you, but he met with an accident yesterday."

"An accident!" There was a quick flash of alarm in the lifted face.

"He told me to tell you that it was not serious. He was shot in the arm."

"Shot. By whom?" She was ashen to the lips.

"By a man called Duncan Boone."

"I know him. He is a dangerous man."

"Yes," Melissy nodded. "I don't think we know how very dangerous he is. We have all been deceived in him till recently."

"Does he live here?"

"Yes. The strange thing is that he and Mr. Bellamy had never met in this country until a few days ago. There used to be some kind of a feud between the families. But you must know more about that than I do."

"Yes. My family is involved in the feud. Mr. Bellamy is a distant cousin of mine."

"So he told me."

"Have you known him long?"

Melissy thought that there was a little more than curiosity in the quick look the young woman flung at her.

"I met him when he first came here. He was lost on the desert and I found him. After that we became very unfriendly. He jumped a mining claim belonging to my father. But we've made it up and agreed to be friends."

"He wrote about the young lady who saved his life."

Melissy smiled. "Did he say that I was a cattle and a stage rustler?"

"He said nothing that was not good."

"I'm much obliged to him," the Western girl answered breezily. "And now do tell me, Miss Yarnell, that you and your people have made up your mind to stay permanently."

"Father is still looking the ground over. He has almost decided to buy a store here. Yet he has been in the town only a day. So you see he must like it."

Outside the open second story window of the hotel Melissy heard a voice that sounded familiar. She moved toward the window alcove, and at the same time a quick step was heard in the hall. Someone opened the door of the parlor and stood on the threshold. It was the man called Boone.

Melissy, from the window, glanced round. Her first impulse was to speak; her second to remain silent. For the Arkansan was not looking at her. His mocking ribald gaze was upon Ferne Yarnell.

That young woman looked up from the letter of introduction she was reading and a startled expression swept into her face.

"Dunc Boone," she cried.

The man doffed his hat with elaborate politeness. "Right glad to meet up with you again, Miss Ferne. You was in short dresses when I saw you last. My, but you've grown pretty. Was it because you heard I was in Arizona that you came here?"

She rose, rejecting in every line of her erect figure his impudent geniality, his insolent pretense of friendliness.

"My brother is in the hotel. If he learns you are here there will be trouble."

A wicked malice lay in his smiling eyes. "Trouble for him or for me?" he inquired silkily.

His lash flicked her on the raw. Hal Yarnell was a boy of nineteen. This man had a long record as a gunfighter to prove him a desperate man. Moreover, he knew how hopelessly heart sick she was of the feud that for many years had taken its toll of blood.

"Haven't you done us enough harm, you and yours? Go away. Leave us alone. That's all I ask of you."

He came in and closed the door. "But you see it ain't all I ask of you, Ferne Yarnell. I always did ask all I could get of a girl as pretty as you."

"Will you leave me, sir?"

"When I'm through."

"Now."

"No, I reckon not," he drawled between half shuttered eyes.

She moved toward the door, but he was there before her. With a turn of his wrist he had locked it.

"This interview quits at my say-so, honey. Think after so many years of absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder you're going to trample over me like I was a kid? Guess again."

"Unlock that door," she ordered.

"When I get good and ready. We'll have our talk out first."

Her eyes blazed. She was white as paper though she faced him steadily. But her heart wavered. She dared not call out for fear her brother might hear and come to her assistance. This she must forestall at all costs.

A heel clicked in the alcove. For the first time Norris, or Boone as the Southern girl had called him, became aware of a third party in the room. Melissy was leaning out of the window. She called down to a man standing on the street.

"Jack, come up here quick. I want you."

Boone took a step forward. "You here, 'Lissie Lee?"

She laughed scornfully. "Yes, I'm here. An unexpected pleasure, isn't it?"

"Do you know Ferne Yarnell?" he asked, for once taken aback.

"It looks as if I do."

His quick furtive eye fell upon an envelope on the floor. He picked it up. Upon it was written, "Miss Ferne Yarnell," and in the corner, "Introducing Miss Lee."

A muscle twitched in his face. When he looked up there was an expression of devilish malignity on it.

"Mr. Bellamy's handwriting, looks like." He turned to the Arizona girl. "Then I didn't put the fellow out of business."

"No, you coward."

The angry color crept to the roots of his hair. "Better luck next time."

The door knob rattled. Someone outside was trying to get in. Those inside the room paid no obvious attention to him. The venomous face of the cattle detective held the women fascinated.

"When Dick Bellamy ambushed Shep he made a hell of a bad play of it. My old mammy used to say that the Boones were born wolves. I can see where she was right. The man that killed my brother gets his one of these days and don't you forget it. You just stick around. We're due to shoot this thing out, him and me," the man continued, his deep-socketed eyes burning from the grim handsome face.

"Open the door," ordered a voice from the hall, shaking the knob violently.

"You don't know he killed your brother. Someone else may have done it. And it may have been done in self defence," the Arkansas girl said to Boone in a voice so low and reluctant that it appeared the words were wrung from her by torture.

"Think I'm a buzzard head? Why for did he run away? Why did he jump for the sandhills soon as the word came to arrest him?" He snapped together his straight, thin-lipped mouth, much as a trap closes on its prey.

A heavy weight hurtled against the door and shook it to the hinges. Melissy had been edging to the right. Now with a twist of her lissom body she had slipped past the furious man and turned the key.

Jack Flatray came into the room. His glance swept the young women and fastened on the man. In the crossed eyes of the two was the thrust of rapiers, the grinding of steel on steel, that deadly searching for weakness in the other that duelists employ.

The deputy spoke in a low soft drawl. "Mornin', Boone. Holding an executive session, are you?"

The lids of the detective narrowed to slits. From the first there had been no pretense of friendship between these two. There are men who have only to look once at each other to know they will be foes. It had been that way with them. Causes of antagonism had arisen quickly enough. Both dominant personalities, they had waged silent unspoken warfare for the leadership of the range. Later over the favor of Melissy Lee this had grown more intense, still without having ever been put into words. Now they were face to face, masks off.

"Why yes, until you butted in, Mr. Sheriff."

"This isn't my busy day. I thought I'd just drop in to the meeting."

"You've made a mistake. We're not holding a cattle rustlers' convention."

"There are so many ladies present I can't hear you, but maybe if you said it outside I could," the deputy suggested gently, a gleam of steely anger in his eyes.

"Say it anywhere to oblige a friend," sneered Boone.

From the moment of meeting neither man had lowered his gaze by the fraction of an inch. Red tragedy was in the air. Melissy knew it. The girl from Arkansas guessed as much. Yet neither of them knew how to avert the calamity that appeared impending. One factor alone saved the situation for the moment. Flatray had not yet heard of the shooting of Bellamy. Had he known he would have arrested Boone on the spot and the latter would have drawn and fought it out.

Into the room sauntered Lee. "Hello, 'Lissie. Been looking for you an hour, honey. Mornin', Norris. Howdy, Jack! Dad burn yore ornery hide, I ain't see you long enough for a good talk in a coon's age."

Melissy seized on her father joyfully as an interposition of Providence. "Father, this is Miss Yarnell, the young lady I told you about."

The ranchman buried her little hand in his big paw. "Right glad to meet up with you, Miss Yarnell. How do you like Arizona by this time? I reckon Melissy has introduced you to her friends. No? Make you acquainted with Mr. Flatray. Shake hands with Mr. Norris, Miss Yarnell. Where are you, Norris?"

The owner of the Bar Double G swung round, to discover for the first time that harmony was not present. Boone stood back with a sullen vindictive expression on his face.

"Why, what's up, boys?" the rancher asked, his glance passing from one to another.

"You ain't in this, Lee," Boone informed him. Then, to Flatray: "See you later."

The deputy nodded carelessly. "Any time you like."

The lank old Confederate took a step forward to call Boone back, but Melissy caught him by the sleeve.

"Let him go," she whispered emphatically.

"I know my boss," returned Lee with a laugh.

"If you're quite through with me, Miss Lee, I'll not intrude longer," Flatray said.

"But I'm not," spoke Melissy quickly.

She did not intend to let him get away to settle his quarrel with Boone.

"I'm rather busy," he suggested.

"Your business will have to wait," she came back decisively.

Lee laughed and clapped Jack on the shoulder. "Might as well know your boss too, boy."

Melissy flushed with a flash of temper. "I'm nothing of the kind, dad."

"Sho! A joke's a joke, girl. That's twice hand-runnin' I get a call-down. You're mighty high-heeled to-day, 'pears like."

Jack smiled grimly. He understood some things that were hidden from Lee.

CHAPTER XIV

CONCERNING THE BOONE-BELLAMY-YARNELL FEUD

The story that Ferne Yarnell told them in the parlor of the hotel had its beginnings far back in the days before the great war. They had been neighbors, these three families, had settled side by side in this new land of Arkansas, had hunted and feasted together in amity. In an hour had arisen the rift between them that was to widen to a chasm into which much blood had since been spilt. It began with a quarrel between hotheaded young men. Forty years later it was still running its blind wasteful course.

Even before the war the Boones had begun to go down hill rapidly. Cad Boone, dissipated and unprincipled, had found even the lax discipline of the Confederate army too rigid and had joined the guerrillas, that band of hangers-on which respected neither flag and developed a cruelty that was appalling. Falling into the hands of Captain Ransom Yarnell, he had been tried by drumhead courtmartial and executed within twenty four hours of his capture.

The boast of the Boones was that they never forgot an injury. They might wait many years for the chance, but in the end they paid their debts. Twenty years after the war Sugden Boone shot down Colonel Yarnell as he was hitching his horse in front of the courthouse at Nemo. Next Christmas eve a brother of the murdered man--Captain Tom, as his old troopers still called him--met old Sugden in the postoffice and a revolver duel followed. From it Captain Tom emerged with a bullet in his arm. Sugden was carried out of the store feet first to a house of mourning.

The Boones took their time. Another decade passed. Old Richard Bellamy, father of the young man, was shot through the uncurtained window of his living rooms while reading the paper one night. Though related to the Yarnells, he had never taken any part in the feud beyond that of expressing his opinion freely. The general opinion was that he had been killed by Dunc Boone, but there was no conclusive evidence to back it. Three weeks later another one of the same faction met his fate. Captain Tom was ambushed while riding from his plantation to town and left dead on the road. Dunc Boone had been seen lurking near the spot, and immediately after the killing he was met by two hunters as he was slipping through the underbrush for the swamps. There was no direct evidence against the young man, but Captain Tom had been the most popular man in the county. Reckless though he was, Duncan Boone had been forced to leave the country by the intensity of the popular feeling against him.

Again the feud had slumbered. It was understood that the Yarnells and the Bellamys were ready to drop it. Only one of the opposite faction remained on the ground, a twin brother of Duncan. Shep Boone was a drunken ne'er-do-well, but since he now stood alone nothing more than empty threats was expected of him. He spent his time idly with a set of gambling loafers, but he lacked the quality of active malice so pronounced in Dunc.

A small part of the old plantation, heavily mortgaged, still belonged to Shep and was rented by him to a tenant, Jess Munro. He announced one day that he was going to collect the rent due him. Having been drinking heavily, he was in an abusive frame of mind. As it chanced he met young Hal Yarnell, just going into the office of his kinsman Dick Bellamy, with whom he was about to arrange the details of a hunting trip they were starting upon. Shep emptied his spleen on the boy, harking back to the old feud and threatening vengeance at their next meeting. The boy was white with rage, but he shut his teeth and passed upstairs without saying a word.

The body of Shep Boone was found next day by Munro among the blackberry bushes at the fence corner of his own place. No less than four witnesses had seen young Yarnell pass that way with a rifle in his hand about the same time that Shep was riding out from town. They had heard a shot, but had thought little of it. Munro had been hoeing cotton in the field and had seen the lad as he passed. Later he had heard excited voices, and presently a shot. Other circumstantial evidence wound a net around the boy. He was arrested. Before the coroner held an inquest a new development startled the community. Dick Bellamy fled on a night train, leaving a note to the coroner exonerating Hal. In it he practically admitted the crime, pleading self defence.

This was the story that Ferne Yarnell told in the parlor of the Palace Hotel to Jack Flatray and the Lees.

Melissy spoke first. "Did Mr. Bellamy kill the man to keep your brother from being killed?"

"I don't know. It must have been that. It's all so horrible."

The deputy's eyes gleamed. "Think of it another way, Miss Yarnell. Bellamy was up against it. Your brother is only a boy. He took his place. A friend couldn't have done more for another."

The color beat into the face of the Arkansas girl as she looked at him. "No. He sacrificed his career for him. He did a thing he must have hated to do."

"He's sure some man," Flatray pronounced.

A young man, slight, quick of step, and erect as a willow sapling, walked into the room. He looked from one to another with clear level eyes. Miss Ferne introduced him as her brother.

A thought crossed the mind of the deputy. Perhaps this boy had killed his enemy after all and Bellamy had shouldered the blame for him. If the mine owner were in love with Ferne Yarnell this was a hypothesis more than possible. In either case he acquitted the slayer of blame. In his pocket was a letter from the sheriff at Nemo, Arkansas, stating that his county was well rid of Shep Boone and that the universal opinion was that neither Bellamy nor young Yarnell had been to blame for the outcome of the difficulty. Unless there came to him an active demand for the return of Bellamy he intended to let sleeping dogs lie.

No such demand came. Within a month the mystery was cleared. The renter Munro delivered himself to the sheriff at Nemo, admitting that he had killed Shep Boone in self defence. The dead man had been drinking and was exceedingly quarrelsome. He had abused his tenant and at last drawn on him. Whereupon Munro had shot him down. At first afraid of what might happen to him, he had stood aside and let the blame be shouldered upon young Yarnell. But later his conscience had forced him to a confession. It is enough here to say that he was later tried and acquitted, thus closing the chapter of the wastrel's tragic death.

The day after the news of Munro's confession reached Arizona Richard Bellamy called upon Flatray to invite him to his wedding. As soon as his name was clear he had asked Ferne Yarnell to marry him.

PART II

DEAD MAN'S CACHE

CHAPTER I

KIDNAPPED

As a lake ripples beneath a summer breeze, so Mesa was stirred from its usual languor by the visit of Simon West. For the little Arizona town was dreaming dreams. Its imagination had been aroused; and it saw itself no longer a sleepy cow camp in the unfeatured desert, but a metropolis, in touch with twentieth-century life.

The great Simon West, pirate of finance, empire builder, molder of the destinies of the mighty Southwestern Pacific system, was to touch the adobe village with his transforming wand and make of it a hive of industry. Rumors flew thick and fast.

Mesa was to be the junction for the new spur that would run to the big Lincoln dam. The town would be a division point; the machine shops of the system would be located there. Its future, if still a trifle vague, was potentially immense. Thus, with cheerful optimism, did local opinion interpret the visit of the great man.

Whatever Simon West may have thought of Mesa and its prospects, he kept behind his thin, close-shut lips. He was a dry, gray little man of fifty-five, with sharp, twinkling eyes that saw everything and told nothing. Certainly he wore none of the visible signs of greatness, yet at his nod Wall Street trembled. He had done more to change the map of industrial America than any other man, alive or dead. Wherefore, big Beauchamp Lee, mayor of Mesa, and the citizens on the reception committee did their very best to impress him with the future of the country, as they motored out to the dam.

"Most promising spot on earth. Beats California a city block on oranges and citrons. Ever see an Arizona peach, Mr. West? It skins the world," the big cattleman ran on easily.

The financier's eye took in the girl sitting beside the chauffeur in the front seat, and he nodded assent.

Melissy Lee bloomed. She was vivid as a wild poppy on the hillsides past which they went flashing. But she had, too, a daintiness, a delicacy of coloring and contour, that suggested the fruit named by her father.

"You bet we raise the best here," that simple gentleman bragged patriotically. "All we need is water, and the Lincoln dam assures us of plenty. Yes, sir! It certainly promises to be an Eden."

West unlocked his lips long enough to say: "Any country can promise. I'm looking for one that will perform."

"You're seeing it right now, seh," the mayor assured him, and launched into fluent statistics.

West heard, saw the thing stripped of its enthusiasm, and made no comment either for or against. He had plenty of imagination, or he could never have accomplished the things he had done. However, before any proposition appealed to him he had to see money in the deal. Whether he saw it in this particular instance, nobody knew; and only one person had the courage to ask him point-blank what his intentions were. This was Melissy.

Luncheon was served in the pleasant filtered sunlight, almost under the shadow of the great dam.

On the way out Melissy had sat as demure and dovelike as it was possible for her to be. But now she showed herself to be another creature.

Two or three young men hovered about her; notable among them was a young fellow of not many words, good-humored, strong, with a look of power about him which the railroad king appreciated. Jack Flatray they called him. He was the newly-elected sheriff of the county.

The great man watched the girl without appearing to do so. He was rather at a loss to account for the exotic, flamelike beauty into which she had suddenly sparkled; but he was inclined to attribute it to the arrival of Flatray.

Melissy sat on a flat rock beside West, swinging her foot occasionally with the sheer active joy of life, the while she munched sandwiches and pickles. The young men bantered her and each other, and she flashed back retorts which gave them alternately deep delight at the discomfiture of some other. Toward the close of luncheon, she turned her tilted chin from Flatray, as punishment for some audacity of his, and beamed upon the railroad magnate.

"It's very good of you to notice me at last," he said, with his dry smile.

"I was afraid of you," she confided cheerfully.

"Am I so awesome?"

"It's your reputation, you know. You're quite a dragon. I'm told you gobble a new railroad every morning for breakfast."

"'Lissie," her father warned.

"Let her alone," the great man laughed. "Miss Lee is going to give me the privilege of hearing the truth about myself."

"But I'm asking. I don't know what the truth is," she protested.

"Well, what you think is the truth."

"It doesn't matter what we think about you. The important thing to know is what you think about us."

"Am I to tell you what I think of you--with all these young men here?" he countered.

She was excited by her own impudence. The pink had spilled over her creamy cheeks. She flashed a look of pretended disdain at her young men. Nevertheless, she made laughing protest.

"It's not me, but Mesa, that counts," she answered ungrammatically. "Tell me that you're going to help us set orchards blossoming in these deserts, and we'll all love you."

"You offer an inducement, Miss Lee. Come--let us walk up to the Point and see this wonderful country of yours."

She clapped her hands. "Oh, let's! I'm tired of boys, anyhow. They know nothing but nonsense." She made a laughing moue at Flatray, and turned to join the railroad builder.

The young sheriff arose and trailed to his pony. "My marching orders, I reckon."

They walked up the hill together, the great man and the untutored girl. He still carried himself with the lightness of the spare, wiry man who has never felt his age. As for her, she moved as one on springs, her slender, willowy figure beautiful in motion.

"You're loyal to Mesa. Born and brought up there?" West asked Melissy.

"No. I was brought up on the Bar Double G ranch. Father sold it not long since. We're interested in the Monte Cristo mine, and it has done so well that we moved to town," she explained.

At the first bend in the mountain road Jack had turned in his saddle to look at her as she climbed the steep. A quarter of a mile farther up there was another curve, which swept the trail within sight of the summit. Here Flatray pulled up and got out his field glasses. Leisurely the man and the maid came into sight from the timber on the shoulder of the hill, and topped the last ascent. Jack could discern Melissy gesturing here and there as she explained the lay of the land.

Something else caught and held his glasses. Four riders had emerged from a little gulch of dense aspens which ran up the Point toward the summit. One of these had with him a led horse.

"Now, I wonder what that means?" the sheriff mused aloud.

He was not left long in doubt. The four men rode swiftly, straight toward the man and the girl above. One of them swung from the saddle and stepped forward. He spoke to West, who appeared to make urgent protest. The dismounted rider answered. Melissy began to run. Very faintly there came to Flatray her startled cry. Simultaneously he caught the flash of the sun on bright steel. The leader of the four had drawn a revolver and was covering West with it. Instantly the girl stopped running. Plainly the life of the railroad president had been threatened unless she stopped.

The man behind the weapon swept a gesture in the direction of the led horse. Reluctantly West moved toward it, still protesting. He swung to the saddle, and four of the horses broke into a canter. Only the man with the drawn revolver remained on the ground with Melissy. He scabbarded his gun, took a step or two toward her, and made explanations. The girl stamped her foot, and half turned from him.

He laughed, stepped still closer to her, and spoke again. Melissy, with tilted chin, seemed to be unaware that he existed. Another step brought him to her side. Once more he spoke. No stone wall could have given him less recognition. Then Jack let out a sudden fierce imprecation, and gave his pony the spur. For the man had bent forward swiftly, had kissed the girl on the lips once--twice--three times, had swept his hat off in a low, mocking bow, and had flung himself on his horse, and galloped off.

Pebbles and shale went flying from the horse's hoofs as the sheriff tore down the trail toward Melissy. He cut off at an angle and dashed through cactus and over rain-washed gullies at breakneck speed, pounding up the stiff slope to the summit. He dragged his pony to a halt, and leaped off at the same instant.

Melissy came to him with flashing eyes. "Why didn't you get here sooner?" she panted, as if she had been running; for the blind rage was strong in her.

His anger burst out to meet hers. "I wish I had!" he cried, with a furious oath.

"He insulted me. He laughed at me, and taunted me--and kissed me!"

Jack nodded. "I saw. If I had only had my rifle with me! Who was he?"

"He wore a mask. But I knew him. It was Dunc Boone."

"With the Roaring Fork gang?"

"I don't know. Is he one of them?"

"I've been thinking so for years."

"They must have known about our picnic. But what do they want with Mr. West?"

"He's one of the world's richest men."

"But he doesn't carry his money with him."

"He carries his life."

"They must mean to hold him for a ransom. Is that it?"

"You've guessed it. That's the play." Jack considered, his eyes on the far-away hills. When he spoke again it was with sharp decision. "Hit the trail back to town with your motor. Don't lose a minute on the way. Send a dispatch to Bucky O'Connor. You'd ought to get him at Douglas. If not, some of his rangers will know where to reach him. Keep the wires hot till you're in touch with him. Better sign my name. I've been writing him about this outfit. This job is cut out for Bucky, and we've got to get him on it."

"And what are _you_ going to do?"

"I can't do much--I'm not armed. First time I've been caught that way since I've been sheriff. Came out to-day for a picnic and left my gun at home. But if they're the Roaring Fork outfit, they'll pass through the Elkhorn Caon, heading for Dead Man's Cache. I'm going to cut around Old Baldy and try to beat them to it. Maybe I can recognize some of them."

"But if they see you?"

"I ain't aiming to let them see me."

"Still, they may."

His quiet eyes met hers steadily. "Yes, they may."

They were friends again, though he had never fully forgiven her doubt of him. It might be on the cards that some day she would be more to him than a friend. Understanding perfectly the danger of what he proposed, she yet made no protest. The man who would storm her heart must be one who would go the limit, for her standards were those of the outdoor West. She, too, was "game" to the core; and she had never liked him better than she did at this moment. A man must be a man, and take his fighting chance.

"All right, Jack."

Not for years before had she called him by his first name. His heart leaped, but he did not let even his look tell what he was feeling.

"I reckon I'll cut right down from here, Melissy. Better not lose any time getting to town. So-long!" And with that he had swung to the saddle and was off.

Melissy ran swiftly down to the picnic party and cried out her news. It fell upon them like a bolt out of a June sky. Some exclaimed and wondered and deplored; but she was proud to see that her father took instant command, without an unnecessary word.

"They've caught us in swimming, boys! We've got to burn the wind back to town for our guns. Dick, you ride around by the Powder Horn and gather up the boys on the ranch. Get Swain to swing around to the south and comb the lower gulches of the Roaring Fork. Tell him to get in touch with me soon as he can. I'll come through by Elkhorn."

Lee helped his daughter into the machine, and took his place beside her.

"Hit the high spots, Jim. I've got an engagement in the hills that won't wait, prior to which I've got to get back to town immediate," he told the chauffeur cheerfully; for he was beginning to enjoy himself as in the old days, when he had been the hard-riding sheriff of a border county which took the premium for bad men.

The motor car leaped forward, fell into its pace, and began to hum its song of the road as it ate up swiftly the miles that lay between the dam and Mesa.

CHAPTER II

A CAPTURE

Flatray swung around Old Baldy through the sparse timber that edged its roots. He knew this country well; for he had run cattle here, and combed the draws and ridges on the annual spring and fall round-ups.

There was no trail to follow. Often the lay of the land forced him to a detour; for it was rough with washes, with matted cactus, and with a thick growth of netted mesquite and underbrush. But true as the needle of a compass, he turned back always to the direction he was following. He had the instinct for direction, sharpened almost to infallibility by the experience his work had given him.

So, hour after hour, he swung forward, pushing his horse over the ground in a sort of running walk, common to the plains. Sunset found him climbing from the foothills into the mountains beyond. Starlight came upon him in a saddle between the peaks, still plodding up by winding paths to the higher altitudes that make the ridge of the continent's backbone.

The moon was up long before he struck a gulch spur that led to Elkhorn Caon. Whether he would be in time or not--assuming that he had guessed aright as to the destination of the outlaws--he could not tell. It would be, at best, a near thing. For, though he had come more directly, they had followed a trail which made the going much faster. Fast as the cow pony could pick its way along the rock-strewn gulch, he descended, eye and ear alert to detect the presence of another human being in this waste of boulders, of moonlit, flickering shadows, of dark awesome peaks.

His quick ear caught the faintest of sounds. He slipped from the saddle and stole swiftly forward to the point where the gulch joined the main caon. Voices drifted to him--the sound of careless laughter, wafted by the light night wind. He had missed the outlaws by scarce a hundred yards. There was nothing for it but to follow cautiously. As he was turning to go back for his horse the moon emerged from behind a cloud and flooded the caon with a cold, silvery light. It showed Jack a man and a horse standing scarce twenty yards from him. The man had his back to him. He had dismounted, and was tightening the cinches of his saddle.

Flatray experienced a pang of disappointment. He was unarmed. His second thought sent him flying noiselessly back to his horse. Deftly he unloosed the rope which always hung coiled below the saddle horn. On tiptoe he ran back to the gulch mouth, bearing to the right, so as to come directly opposite the man he wanted. As he ran he arranged the lariat to his satisfaction, freeing the loop and making sure that the coil was not bound. Very cautiously he crept forward, taking advantage for cover of a boulder which rose from the bed of the gulch.

The man had finished tightening the girth. His foot rose to the stirrup. He swung up from the ground, and his right leg swept across the flank of the pony. It did not reach the stirrup; for, even as he rose, Jack's lariat snaked forward and dropped over his head to his breast. It tightened sharply and dragged him back, pinioning his arms to his side. Before he could shake one of them free to reach the revolver in his chaps, he was lying on his back, with Flatray astride of him. The cattleman's left hand closed tightly upon his windpipe, while the right searched for and found the weapon in the holster of the prostrate man.

Not until the steel rim of it pressed against the teeth of the man beneath him did Jack's fingers loosen. "Make a sound, and you're a dead man."

The other choked and gurgled. He was not yet able to cry out, even had he any intention of so doing. But defiant eyes glared into those of the man who had unhorsed and captured him.

"Where are your pals bound for?" Flatray demanded.

He got no answer in words, but sullen eyes flung out an obstinate refusal to give away his associates.

"I reckon you're one of the Roaring Fork outfit," Jack suggested.

"You know so darn much I'll leave you to guess the rest," growled the prisoner.

"The first thing I'll guess is that, if anything happens to Simon West, you'll hang for it, my friend."

"You'll have to prove some things first."

Flatray's hand slid into the man's coat pocket, and drew forth a piece of black cloth that had been used as a mask.

"Here's exhibit A, to begin with."

The man on the ground suddenly gave an upward heave, grasped at the weapon, and let out a yell for help that echoed back from the cliff, while the cattleman let the butt of the revolver crash heavily down upon his face. The heavy gun came down three times before the struggling outlaw would subside, and then not before blood streamed from ugly gashes into his eyes.

"I've had enough, damn you!" the fellow muttered sullenly. "What do you want with me?"

"You'll go along with me. Let out another sound, and I'll bump you off. Get a move on you."

Jack got to his feet and dragged up his prisoner. The man was a heavy-set, bowlegged fellow of about forty, hard-faced, and shifty-eyed--a frontier miscreant, unless every line of the tough, leathery countenance told a falsehood. But he had made his experiment and failed. He knew what manner of man his captor was, and he had no mind for another lesson from him. He slouched to his horse, under propulsion of the revolver, and led the animal into the gulch.

Both mounted, Jack keeping the captive covered every moment of the time; and they began to retrace the way by which the young cattleman had just come.

After they had ridden about a quarter of a mile Flatray made a readjustment of the rope. He let the loop lie loosely about the neck of the outlaw, the other end of it being tied to the horn of his own saddle. Also, he tied the hands of the man in such a way that, though they were free to handle the bridle rein, he could not raise them from the saddle as high as his neck.

"If you make any sudden moves, you'll be committing suicide. If you yell out, it will amount to about the same thing. It's up to you to be good, looks like."

The man cursed softly. He knew that the least attempt to escape or to attract the attention of his confederates would mean his undoing. Something about this young man's cold eye and iron jaw told him that he would not hesitate to shoot, if necessary.

Voices came to them from the caon. Flatray guessed that a reconnaissance of the gulch would be made, and prepared himself for it by deflecting his course from the bed of the _arroyo_ at a point where the walls fell back to form a little valley. A little grove of aspens covered densely the shoulder of a hillock some fifty yards back, and here he took his stand. He dismounted, and made his prisoner do the same.

"Sit down," he ordered crisply.

"What for?"

"To keep me from blowing the top of your head off," answered Jack quietly.

Without further discussion, the man sat down. His captor stood behind him, one hand on the shoulder of his prisoner, his eyes watching the point of the gulch at which the enemy would appear.

Two mounted men showed presently in silhouette. Almost opposite the grove they drew up.

"Mighty queer what has become of Hank," one of them said. "But I don't reckon there's any use looking any farther. You don't figure he's aiming to throw us down--do you, Buck?"

"Nope. He'll stick, Hank will. But it sure looks darned strange. Here's him a-ridin' along with us, and suddenly he's missin'. We hear a yell, and go back to look for him. Nothin' doin'. You don't allow the devil could have come for him sudden--do you, Jeff?"

It was said with a laugh, defiantly, but none the less Jack read uneasiness in the manner of the man. It seemed to him that both were eager to turn back. Giant boulders, carved to grotesque and ghostly shapes by a million years' wind and water, reared themselves aloft and threw shadows in the moonlight. The wind, caught in the gulch, rose and fell in unearthly, sibilant sounds. If ever fiends from below walk the earth, this time and place was a fitting one for them. Jack curved a hand around his mouth, and emitted a strange, mournful, low cry, which might have been the scream of a lost soul.

Jeff clutched at the arm of his companion. "Did you hear that, Buck?"

"What--what do you reckon it was, Jeff?"

Again Jack let his cry curdle the night.

The outlaws took counsel of their terror. They were hardy, desperate men, afraid of nothing mortal under the sun. But the dormant superstition in them rose to their throats. Fearfully they wheeled and gave their horses the spur. Flatray could hear them crashing through the brush.

He listened while the rapid hoofbeats died away, until even the echoes fell silent. "We'll be moving," he announced to his prisoner.

For a couple of hours they followed substantially the same way that Jack had taken, descending gradually toward the foothills and the plains. The stars went out, and the moon slid behind banked clouds, so that the darkness grew with the passing hours. At length Flatray had to call a halt.

"We'll camp here till morning," he announced when they reached a grassy park.

The horses were hobbled, and the men sat down opposite each other in the darkness. Presently the prisoner relaxed and fell asleep. But there was no sleep for his captor. The cattleman leaned against the trunk of a cottonwood and smoked his pipe. The night grew chill, but he dared not light a fire. At last the first streaks of gray dawn lightened the sky. A quarter of an hour later he shook his captive from slumber.

"Time to hit the trail."

The outlaw murmured sleepily, "How's that, Dunc? Twenty-five thousand apiece!"

"Wake up! We've got to vamose out of here."

Slowly the fellow shook the sleep from his brain. He looked at Flatray sullenly, without answering. But he climbed into the saddle which Jack had cinched for him. Dogged and wolfish as he was, the man knew his master, and was cowed.

CHAPTER III

THE TABLES TURNED

From the local eastbound a man swung to the station platform at Mesa. He was a dark, slim, little man, wiry and supple, with restless black eyes which pierced one like bullets.

The depot loungers made him a focus of inquiring looks. But, in spite of his careless ease, a shrewd observer would have read anxiety in his bearing. It was as if behind the veil of his indifference there rested a perpetual vigilance. The wariness of a beast of prey lay close to the surface.

"Mornin', gentlemen," he drawled, sweeping the group with his eyes.

"Mornin'," responded one of the loafers.

"I presume some of you gentlemen can direct me to the house of Mayor Lee."

"The mayor ain't to home," volunteered a lank, unshaven native in butternut jeans and boots.

"I think it was his house I inquired for," suggested the stranger.

"Fust house off the square on the yon side of the postoffice--a big two-story brick, with a gallery and po'ches all round it."

Having thanked his informant, the stranger passed down the street. The curious saw him pass in at the mayor's gate and knock at the door. It opened presently, and disclosed a flash of white, which they knew to be the skirt of a girl.

"I reckon that's Miss 'Lissie," the others were informed by the unshaven one. "She's let him in and shet the door."

Inevitably there followed speculation as to who the arrival might be. That his coming had something to do with the affair of the West kidnapping, all were disposed to agree; but just what it might have to do with it, none of them could do more than guess. If they could have heard what passed between Melissy and the stranger, their curiosity would have been gratified.

"Good mornin', miss. Is Mayor Lee at home?"

"No--he isn't. He hasn't got back yet. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Two rows of even white teeth flashed in a smile. "I thought maybe there was something I could do for you. You are Miss Lee, I take it?"

"Yes. But I don't quite understand--unless you have news."

"I have no news--yet."

"You mean----" Her eager glance swept over him. The brown eyes, which had been full of questioning, flashed to understanding. "You are not Lieutenant O'Connor?"

"Am I not?" he smiled.

"I mean--are you?"

"At your service, Miss Lee."

She had heard for years of this lieutenant of rangers, who was the terror of all Arizona "bad men." Her father, Jack Flatray, the range riders whom she knew--game men all--hailed Bucky O'Connor as a wonder. For coolness under fire, for acumen, for sheer, unflawed nerve, and for his skill in that deadly game he played of hunting down desperadoes, they called him chief ungrudgingly. He was a daredevil, who had taken his life in his hands a hundred times. Yet always he came through smiling, and brought back with him the man he went after. The whisper ran that he bore a charmed life, so many had been his hairbreadth escapes.

"Come in," the girl invited. "Father said, if you came, I was to keep you here until he got back or sent a messenger for you. He's hunting for the criminals in the Roaring Fork country. Of course, he didn't know when you would get here. At the time he left we hadn't been able to catch you on the wire. I signed Mr. Flatray's name at his suggestion, because he was in correspondence with you once about the Roaring Fork outlaws. He is out in the hills, too. He started half an hour after the kidnappers. But he isn't armed. I'm troubled about him."

Again the young man's white-toothed smile flashed. "You'd better be. Anybody that goes hunting Black MacQueen unarmed ought to be right well insured."

She nodded, a shadow in her eyes. "Yes--but he would go. He doesn't mean them to see him, if he can help it."

"Black sees a heap he isn't expected to see. He has got eyes all over the hills, and they see by night as well as by day."

"Yes--I know he has spies everywhere; and he has the hill people terrorized, they say. You think this is his work?"

"It's a big thing--the kind of job he likes to tackle. Who else would dare do such a thing?"

"That's what father thinks. If he had stolen the President of the United States, it wouldn't have stirred up a bigger fuss. Newspaper men and detectives are hurrying here from all directions. They are sure to catch him."

"Are they?"

She noticed a curious, derisive contempt in the man's voice, and laid it to his vanity. "I don't mean that _they_ are. I mean that _you_ are sure to get him," she hastened to add. "Father thinks you are wonderful."

"I'm much obliged to him," said the man, with almost a sneer.

He seemed to have so good an opinion of himself that he was above praise even. Melissy was coming to the decision that she did not like him--which was disappointing, since she had expected to like him immensely.

"I didn't look for you till night. You wired you would be on number seven," she said. "I understood that was the earliest you could get here."

His explanation of the change was brief, and invited no further discussion. "I found I could make an earlier train."

"I'm glad you could. Father says it is always well to start on the trail while it is fresh."

"Have you ever seen this MacQueen, Miss Lee?" he asked.

"Not unless he was there when Mr. West was kidnapped."

"Did you know any of the men?"

She hesitated. "I thought one was Duncan Boone."

"What made you think so?"

"He was the leader, I think, moved the way he does." Her anger flashed for an instant. "And acted like him--detestably."

"Was he violent to West? Injure him?"

"No--he didn't do him any physical injury that I saw. I wasn't thinking about Mr. West."

"Surely he didn't lay hands on _you_!"

She looked up, in time to see the flicker of amusement sponged from his face. It stirred vague anger in her. "He was insolent and ungentlemanly."

"As how?"

"It doesn't matter how." Her manner specifically declined to particularize.

"Would you recognize him again if you met him? Describe him, if you can."

"Yes. I used to know him well--before he became known as an outlaw," she added after a perceptible hesitation. "There's something ravenous about him."

"You mean that he is fierce and bloodthirsty?"

"No--I don't mean that; though, for that matter, I don't think he would stick at anything. What I mean is that he is pantherine in his movements--more lithe and supple than most men are."

"Is he a big man?"

"No--medium size, and dark."

"There were four of them, you say?"

"Yes. Jack saw them, too, but at a distance."

"He reached you after they were out of sight?"

"They had been gone about five minutes when I saw him--five or ten. I couldn't be sure."

"Boone offered no personal indignity to you?"

"Why are you so sure?" she flashed.

"The story is that he is quite the ladies' man."

Melissy laughed scornfully.

At his request, she went over again the story of the abduction, telling everything save the matter of the ravished kisses. This she kept to herself. She did not quite know why, except that there was something she did not like about this Bucky O'Connor. He had a trick of narrowing his eyes and gloating over her, as a cat gloats over its expected kill.

However, his confidence impressed her. Cocksure he was, and before long she knew him boastful; but competence sat on him, none the less. She thought she could see why he was held to be the most deadly bloodhound on a trail that even Arizona could produce. That he was fearless she did not need to be told, any more than she needed a certificate that on occasion he could be merciless. On the other hand, he fitted very badly with the character of the young lieutenant of rangers, as Jack Flatray had sketched it for her. Her friend's description of his hero had been enthusiastic. She decided that the young cattleman was a bad judge of men--though, of course, he had never actually met O'Connor.

"I reckon I'll not wait for your father's report, Miss Lee. I work independent of other men. That is how I get the wonderful results I do."

His conceit nettled her; also, it stung her filial loyalty. "My father was the best sheriff this county ever had," she said stiffly.

He smiled satirically. "Still, I reckon I'll handle this my own way--unless your father's daughter wants to go partners with me in it."

She gave him a look intended to crush his impudence. "No, thank you."

He ate a breakfast which she had the cook prepare hurriedly for him, and departed on the horse for which she had telephoned to the nearest livery stable. Melissy was a singularly fearless girl; yet she watched him go with a decided relief, for which she could not account. He rode, she observed, like a centaur--flat-backed, firm in the saddle with the easy negligence of a plainsman. He turned as he started, and waved a hand debonairly at her.

"If I have any luck, I'll bring back one of the Roaring Fork bunch with me--a present for a good girl, Miss Melissy."

She turned on her heel and went inside. Anger pulsed fiercely through her. He laughed at her, made fun of her, and yet called her by her first name. How dared he treat her so! Worst of all, she read admiration bold and unveiled in the eyes that mocked her.

Half an hour later Flatray, riding toward town with his prisoner in front of him, heard a sudden sharp summons to throw up his hands. A man had risen from behind a boulder, and held him covered steadily.

Jack looked at the fellow without complying. He needed no second glance to tell him that this man was not one to be trifled with. "Who are you?" he demanded quietly.

"Never mind who I am. Reach for the sky."

The captured outlaw had given a little whoop, and was now loosening the rope from his neck. "You're the goods, Cap! I knew the boys would pull it off for me, but I didn't reckon on it so durn soon."

"Shut up!" ordered the man behind the gun, without moving his eyes from Flatray.

"I'm a clam," retorted the other.

"I'm waiting for those hands to go up; but I'll not wait long, seh."

Jack's hands went up reluctantly. "You've got the call," he admitted.

They led him a couple of hundred yards from the trail and tied him hand and foot. Before they left him the outlaw whom he had captured evened his score. Three times he struck Flatray on the head with the butt of his revolver. He was lying on the ground bleeding and senseless when they rode away toward the hills.

Jack came to himself with a blinding headache. It was some time before he realized what had happened. As soon as he did he set about freeing himself. This was a matter of a few minutes. With the handkerchief that was around his neck he tied up his wounds. Fortunately his hair was very thick and this had saved him from a fractured skull. Dizzily he got to his feet, found his horse, and started toward Mesa.

Not many people were on the streets when the sheriff passed through the suburbs of the little town, for it was about the breakfast hour. One stout old negro mammy stopped to stare in surprise at his bloody head.

"Laws a mussy, Mistah Flatray, what they done be'n a-doin' to you-all?" she asked.

The sheriff hardly saw her. He was chewing the bitter cud of defeat and was absorbed in his thoughts. He was still young enough to have counted on the effect upon Melissy of his return to town with one of the abductors as his prisoner.

It happened that she was on the porch watering her flower boxes when he passed the house.

"Jack!" she cried, and on the heels of her exclamation: "What's the matter with you? Been hurt?"

A gray pallor had pushed through the tan of her cheeks. She knew her heart was beating fast.

"Bumped into a piece of bad luck," he grinned, and told her briefly what had occurred.

She took him into the house and washed his head for him. After she saw how serious the cuts were she insisted on sending for a doctor. When his wounds were dressed she fed him and made him lie down and sleep on her father's bed.

The sun was sliding down the heavens to a crotch in the hills before he joined her again. She was in front of the house clipping her roses.

"Is the invalid better?" she asked him.

"He's a false alarm. But he did have a mighty thumping headache that has gone now."

"I've been wondering why you didn't meet Lieutenant O'Connor. He must have taken the road you came in on."

The young man's eyes lit. "Is Bucky here already?"

"He was. He's gone. I was greatly disappointed in him. He's not half the man you think he is."

"Oh, but he is. Everybody says so."

"I never saw a more conceited man, or a more hateful one. There's something about him--oh, I don't know. But he isn't good. I'm sure of that."

"His reputation isn't of that kind. They say he's devoted to his wife and kids."

"His wife and children." Melissy recalled the smoldering admiration in his bold eyes. She laughed shortly. "That finishes him with me. He's married, is he? Well, I know the kind of husband he is."

Jack flashed a quick look at her. He guessed what she meant. But this did not square at all with what his friends had told him of O'Connor.

"Did he ask for me?"

"No. He said he preferred to play a lone hand. His manner was unpleasant all the time. He knows it all. I could see that."

"Anyhow, he's a crackerjack in his line. Have you heard from your father since he set out?"

"Not yet."

"Well, I'm going to start to-night with a posse for the Cache. If O'Connor comes back, tell him I'll follow the Roaring Fork."

"You'll not go this time without a gun, Jack," she said with a ghost of a smile.

"No. I want to make good this trip."

"You did splendidly before. Not one man in a hundred would have done so well."

"I'm a wonder," he admitted with a grin.

"But you will take care of yourself--not be foolish."

"I don't aim to take up residence in Boot Hill cemetery if I can help it."

"Boone and his men are dangerous characters. They are playing for high stakes. They would snuff your life out as quick as they would wink. Don't forget that."

"You don't want me to lie down before Dunc Boone, do you?"

"No-o. Only don't be reckless. I told father the same."

Her dear concern for him went to Jack's head, but he steadied himself before he answered. "I've got one real good reason for not being reckless. I'll tell you what it is some day."

Her shy, alarmed eyes fled his at once. She began an account of how her father had gathered his posse and where she thought he must have gone.

After dinner Jack went downtown. Melissy did some household tasks and presently moved out to the cool porch. She was just thinking about going back in when a barefoot boy ran past and whistled. From the next house a second youngster emerged.

"That you, Jimmie?"

"Betcherlife. Say, 've you heard about the sheriff?"

"Who? Jack Flatray! Course I have. The Roaring Fork outfit ambushed him, beat him up, and made him hit the trail for town."

"Aw! That ain't news. He's started back after them again. Left jes' a little while ago. I saw him go--him 'n' Farnum 'n' Charley Hymer 'n' Hal Yarnell 'n' Mr. Bellamy."

"Bet they git 'em."

"Bet they don't."

"Aw, course they'll git 'em, Tom."

The other youngster assumed an air of mystery. He swelled his chest and strutted a step or two nearer. Urbane condescension oozed from him.

"Say, Jimmie. C'n you keep a secret?"

"Sure. Course I can."

"Won't ever snitch?"

"Cross my heart."

"Well, then--I'm Black MacQueen, the captain of the Roaring Fork bad men."

"You!" Incredulity stared from Jimmie's bulging eyes.

"You betcher. I'm him, here in disguise as a kid."

The magnificent boldness of this claim stole Jimmie's breath for an instant. He was two years younger than his friend, but he did not quite know whether to applaud or to jeer. Before he could make up his mind a light laugh rippled to them from behind the vines on the Lee porch.

The disguised outlaw and his friend were startled. Both fled swiftly, with all the pretense of desperate necessity young conspirators love to assume.

Melissy went into the house and the laughter died from her lips. She knew that either her father's posse or that of Jack Flatray would come into touch with the outlaws eventually. When the clash came there would be a desperate battle. Men would be killed. She prayed it might not be one of those for whom she cared most.

CHAPTER IV

THE REAL BUCKY AND THE FALSE

Number seven was churning its way furiously through brown Arizona. The day had been hot, with a palpitating heat which shimmered over the desert waste. Defiantly the sun had gone down beyond the horizon, a great ball of fire, leaving behind a brilliant splash of bold colors. Now this, too, had disappeared. Velvet night had transformed the land. Over the distant mountains had settled a smoke-blue film, which left them vague and indefinite.

Only three passengers rode in the Pullman car. One was a commercial traveler, busy making up his weekly statement to the firm. Another was a Boston lady, in gold-rimmed glasses and a costume that helped the general effect of frigidity. The third looked out of the open window at the distant hills. He was a slender young fellow, tanned almost to a coffee brown, with eyes of Irish blue which sometimes bubbled with fun and sometimes were hard as chisel steel. Wide-shouldered and lean-flanked he was, with well-packed muscles, which rippled like those of a tiger.

At Chiquita the train stopped, but took up again almost instantly its chant of the rail. Meanwhile, a man had swung himself to the platform of the smoker. He passed through that car, the two day coaches, and on to the sleeper; his keen, restless eyes inspected every passenger in the course of his transit. Opposite the young man in the Pullman he stopped.

"May I ask if you are Lieutenant O'Connor?"

"My name, seh."

The young man in the seat had slewed his head around sharply, and made answer with a crisp, businesslike directness.

The new-comer smiled. "I'll have to introduce myself, lieutenant. My name is Flatray. I've come to meet you."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Flatray. I hope that together we can work this thing out right. MacQueen has gathered a bunch that ought to be cleaned out, and I reckon now's the time to do it. I've been reading about him for a year. I've got a notion he's about the ablest thing in bad men this Territory has seen for a good many years."

Flatray sat down on the seat opposite O'Connor. A smile flicked across his face, and vanished. "I'm of that opinion myself, lieutenant."

"Tell me all about this affair of the West kidnapping," the ranger suggested.

The other man told the story while O'Connor listened, alert to catch every point of the narrative.

The face of the lieutenant of rangers was a boyish one--eager, genial, and frank; yet, none the less, strength lay in the close-gripped jaw and in the steady, watchful eye. His lithe, tense body was like a coiled spring; and that, too, though he seemed to be very much at ease.

With every sentence that the other spoke, O'Connor was judging Flatray, appraising him for a fine specimen of a hard-bitten breed--a vigilant frontiersman, competent to the finger tips. Yet he was conscious that, in spite of the man's graceful ease and friendly smile, he did not like Flatray. He would not ask for a better man beside him in a tight pinch; but he could not deny that something sinister which breathed from his sardonic, devil-may-care face.

"So that's how the land lies," the sheriff concluded. "My deputies have got the pass to the south blocked; Lee is closing in through Elkhorn; and Fox, with a strong posse, is combing the hills beyond Dead Man's Cache. There's only one way out for him, and that is over Powderhorn Pass. Word has just reached us that MacQueen is moving in that direction. He is evidently figuring to slip out over the hills during the night. I've arranged for us to be met at Barker's Tank by a couple of the boys, with horses. We'll drop off the train quietly when it slows up to water, so that none of his spies can get word of our movements to him. By hard riding we'd ought to reach Powderhorn in time to head him off."

The ranger asked incisive questions, had the topography of the country explained to him with much detail, and decided at last that Flatray was right. If MacQueen were trying to slip out, they might trap him at the pass; if not, by closing it they would put the cork in the bottle that held him.

"We'll try it, seh. Y'u know this country better than I do, and I'll give y'u a free hand. Unless there's a slip up in your calculations, you'd ought to be right."

"Good enough, lieutenant. I'm betting on those plans myself," the other answered promptly, and added, as he looked out into the night: "By that notch in the hills, we'd ought to be close to the tank now. She's slowing up. I reckon we can slip out to the vestibule, and get off at the far side of the track without being noticed much."

This they found easy enough. Five minutes later number seven was steaming away into the distant desert. Flatray gave a sharp, shrill whistle; and from behind some sand dunes emerged two men and four horses.

"Anything new?" asked the sheriff as they came nearer.

"Not a thing, cap," answered one of them.

"Boys, shake hands with the famous Lieutenant O'Connor," said Flatray, with a sneer hid by the darkness. "Lieutenant, let me make you acquainted with Jeff Jackson and Buck Lane."

"Much obliged to meet you," grinned Buck as he shook hands.

They mounted and rode toward the notch in the hills that had been pointed out to the ranger. The moon was up; and a cold, silvery light flooded the plain. Seen in this setting, the great, painted desert held more of mystery, of beauty, and less of the dead monotony that glared endlessly from arid, barren reaches. The sky of stars stretched infinitely far, and added to the effect of magnitude.

The miles slipped behind them as they moved forward, hour after hour, their horses holding to the running walk that is the peculiar gait of the cow country. They rode in silence, with the loose seat and straight back of the vaquero. Except the ranger, all were dressed for riding--Flatray in corduroys and half-knee laced boots; his men in overalls, chaps, flannel shirts, and the broad-brimmed sombrero of the Southwest. All four were young men; but there was an odd difference in the expressions of their faces.

Jackson and Lane had the hard-lined faces, with something grim and stony in them, of men who ride far and hard with their lives in their hands. The others were of a higher type. Flatray's dark eyes were keen, bold, and restless. One might have guessed him a man of temperament, capable of any extremes of conduct--often the victim of his own ungovernable whims and passions. Just as he looked a picture of all the passions of youth run to seed, so the ranger seemed to show them in flower. There was something fine and strong and gallant in his debonair manner. His warm smile went out to a world that pleased him mightily.

They rode steadily, untired and untiring. The light of dawn began to flicker from one notched summit to another. Out of the sandy waste they came to a water hole, paused for a drink, and passed on. For the delay of half an hour might mean the escape of their prey.

They came into the country of crumbling mesas and painted cliffs, of hillsides where greasewood and giant cactus struggled from the parched earth. This they traversed until they came to plateaus, terminating in foothills, crevassed by gorges deep and narrow. The caons grew steeper, rock ridges more frequent. Gradually the going became more difficult.

Trails they seldom followed. Washes, with sides like walls, confronted them. The ponies dropped down and clambered up again like mountain goats. Gradually they were ascending into the upper country, which led to the wild stretches where the outlaws lurked. In these watersheds were heavy pine forests, rising from the gulches along the shoulders of the peaks.

A maze of caons, hopelessly lost in the hill tangle into which they had plunged, led deviously to a twisting pass, through which they defiled, to drop into a vista of rolling waves of forest-clad hills. Among these wound countless hidden gulches, known only to those who rode from out them on nefarious night errands.

The ranger noted every landmark, and catalogued in his mind's map every gorge and peak; from what he saw, he guessed much of which he could not be sure. It would be hard to say when his suspicions first became aroused. But as they rode, without stopping, through what he knew must be Powderhorn Pass, as the men about him quietly grouped themselves so as to cut off any escape he might attempt, as they dropped farther and farther into the meshes of that forest-crowned net which he knew to be the Roaring Fork country, he did not need to be told he was in the power of MacQueen's gang.

Yet he gave no sign of what he knew. As daylight came, so that they could see each other distinctly, his face showed no shadow of doubt. It was his cue to be a simple victim of credulity, and he played it to the finish.

Without warning, through a narrow gulch which might have been sought in vain for ten years by a stranger, they passed into the rim of a bowl-shaped valley. Timber covered it from edge to edge, but over to the left a keen eye could see a thinning of the foliage. Toward this they went, following the sidehill and gradually dipping down through heavy underbrush. Before him the officer of rangers saw daylight, and presently a corral, low roofs, and grazing horses.

"Looks like some one lives here," he remarked amiably.

They were already riding into the open. In front of one of the log cabins the man who had called himself Flatray swung from his saddle.

"Better 'light, lieutenant," he suggested carelessly. "We'll eat breakfast here."

"Don't care if we do. I could eat a leather mail sack, I'm that hungry," the ranger answered, as he, too, descended.

His guide was looking at him with an expression of open, malevolent triumph. He could scarce keep it back long enough to get the effect he wanted.

"Yes, we'll eat breakfast here--and dinner, and supper, and breakfast to-morrow, and then about two more breakfasts."

"I reckon we'll be too busy to sit around here," laughed his prisoner.

The other ignored his comment. "And after that, it ain't likely you'll do much more eating."

"I don't quite get the point of that joke."

"You'll get it soon enough! You'd _savez_ it now, if you weren't a muttonhead. As it is, I'll have to explain it. Do you remember capturing Tony Chaves two years ago, lieutenant?"

The ranger nodded, with surprise in his round, innocent eyes.

"What happened to him?" demanded the other. A child could have seen that he was ridden by a leering, savage triumph.

"Killed trying to escape four days later."

"Who killed him?"

"I did. It was necessary. I regretted it."

A sudden spasm of cruelty swept over the face of the man confronting him. "Tony was my partner."

"Your partner?"

"That's right. I've been wanting to say 'How d'ye do?' ever since, Lieutenant O'Connor. I'm right glad to meet you."

"But--I don't understand." He did, however.

"It'll soak through, by and by. Chew on this: You've got just ninety-six hours to live--exactly as long as Tony lived after you caught him! You'll be killed trying to escape. It will be necessary, just as you say it was with him; but I reckon I'll not do any regretting to speak of."

"You would murder me?"

"Well, I ain't particular about the word I use." MacQueen leaned against the side of his horse, his arm thrown across its neck, and laughed in slow maliciousness. "Execute is the word I use, though--if you want to know."

He had made no motion toward his weapon, nor had O'Connor; but the latter knew without looking that he was covered vigilantly by both of the other men.

"And who are you?" the ranger asked, though he was quite sure of the answer.

"Men call me Black MacQueen," drawled the other.

"MacQueen! But you said----"

"That I was Flatray. Yep--I lied."

O'Connor appeared to grope with this in amazement.

"One has to stretch the truth sometimes in my profession," went on the outlaw smoothly. "It may interest you to know that yesterday I passed as Lieutenant O'Connor. When I was O'Connor I arrested Flatray; and now that I am Flatray I have arrested O'Connor. Turn about is fair play, you know."

"Interesting, if true," O'Connor retorted easily.

"You can bank on its truth, my friend."

"And you're actually going to kill me in cold blood."

The black eyes narrowed. "Just as I would a dog," said the outlaw, with savage emphasis.

"I don't believe it. I've done you no harm."

MacQueen glanced at him contemptuously. The famous Bucky O'Connor looked about as competent as a boy in the pimply age.

"I thought you had better sense. Do you think I would have brought you to Dead Man's Cache if I had intended you to go away alive? I'm afraid, Lieutenant Bucky O'Connor, that you're a much overrated man. Your reputation sure would have blown up, if you had lived. You ought to thank me for preserving it."

"Preserving it--how?"

"By bumping you off before you've lost it."

"Sho! You wouldn't do that," the ranger murmured ineffectively.

"We'll see. Jeff, I put him in your charge. Search him, and take him to Hank's cabin. I hold you responsible for him. Bring me any papers you find on him. When I find time, I'll drop around and see that you're keeping him safe."

Bucky was searched, and his weapons and papers removed. After being handcuffed, he was chained to a heavy staple, which had been driven into one of the log walls. He was left alone, and the door was locked; but he could hear Jeff moving about outside.

With the closing of the door the vacuous look slipped from his face like a mask. The loose-lipped, lost-dog expression was gone. He looked once more alert, competent, fit for the emergency. It had been his cue to let his adversary underestimate him. During the long night ride he had had chances to escape, had he desired to do so. But this had been the last thing he wanted.

The outlaws had chosen to take him to their fastness in the hills. He would back himself to use the knowledge they were thrusting upon him, to bring about their undoing. Only one factor in the case had come upon him as a surprise. He had not reckoned that they would have a personal grudge against him. And this was a factor that might upset all his calculations.

It meant that he was playing against time, with the chances of the game all against him. He had forty-eight hours in which to escape--and he was handcuffed, chained, locked up, and guarded. Truly, the outlook was not radiant.

CHAPTER V

A PHOTOGRAPH

On the third morning Beauchamp Lee returned to Mesa--unshaven, dusty, and fagged with hard riding. He brought with him a handbill which he had picked up in the street. Melissy hung over him and ministered to his needs. While he was eating breakfast he talked.

"No luck yet, honey. He's hiding in some pocket of the hills, I reckon; and likely there he'll stay till the hunt is past. They don't make them any slicker than Dunc, dad gum his ugly hide!"

"What is that paper?" his daughter asked.

Lee curbed a disposition toward bad language, as he viewed it with disgust. "This here is bulletin number one, girl. It's the cheekiest, most impudent thing I ever saw. MacQueen serves notice to all the people of this county to keep out of this fight. Also, he mentions me and Jack Flatray by name--warning us that, if we sit in the game, hell will be popping for us."

"What will you do?"

"Do? I'll get back to my boys fast as horseflesh will get me there, once I've had a talk with that beef buyer from Kansas City I made an appointment to see before this thing broke loose. You don't allow I'm going to let any rustler dictate to me what I'll do and what I won't--do you?"

"Where do you reckon he had this printed?" she asked.

"I don't reckon, I know. Late last night a masked man woke up Jim Snell. You know, he sleeps in a room at the back of the printing office. Well, this fellow made him dress, set up this bill, and run off five hundred copies while he stood over him. I'll swan I never heard of such cheek!"

Melissy told what she had to tell--after which her father shaved, took a bath, and went out to meet the buyer from Kansas City. His business kept him until noon. After dinner Melissy's saddle horse was brought around, and she joined her father to ride back with him for a few miles.

About three o'clock she kissed him good-bye, and turned homeward. After she had passed the point where the Silver Creek trail ran into the road she heard the sound of a galloping horse behind. A rider was coming along the trail toward town. He gained on her rapidly, and presently a voice hailed her gayly:

"The top o' the mornin' to you, Miss 'Lissie."

She drew up to wait for him. "My name is still Miss Lee," she told him mildly, by way of correction.

"I'm glad it is, but we can change it in three minutes at any time, my dear," he laughed.

She had been prepared to be more friendly toward him, but at this she froze again.

"Did you leave Mrs. O'Connor and the children well?" she asked pointedly, looking directly at him.

His smile vanished, and he stared at her in a very strange fashion. She had taken the wind completely out of his sails. It had not occurred to him that O'Connor might be a married man. Nor did he know but that it might be a trick to catch him. He did the only thing he could do--made answer in an ironic fashion, which might mean anything or nothing.

"Very well, thank you."

She saw at once that the topic did not allure him, and pushed home her advantage. "You must miss Mrs. O'Connor when you are away on duty."

"Must I?"

"And the children, too. By the way, what are their names?"

"You're getting up a right smart interest in my family, all of a sudden," he countered.

"One can't talk about the weather all the time."

He boldly decided to slay the illusion of domesticity. "If you want to know, I have neither wife nor children."

"But I've heard about them all," she retorted.

"You have heard of Mrs. O'Connor, no doubt; but she happens to be the wife of a cousin of mine."

The look which she flashed at him held more than doubt.

"You don't believe me?" he continued. "I give you my word that I'm not married."

They had left the road, and were following a short cut which wound down toward Tonti, in and out among the great boulders. The town, dwarfed to microscopic size by distance, looked, in the glare of the sunlight, as if it were made of white chalk. Along the narrow trail they went singly, Melissy leading the way.

She made no answer, but at the first opportunity he forced his horse to a level with hers.

"Well--you heard what I said," he challenged.

"The subject is of no importance to me," she said.

"It's important to me. I'm not going to have you doing me an injustice. I tell you I'm not married. You've got to believe me."

Her mind was again alive with suspicions. Jack had told her Bucky O'Connor was married, and he must have known what he was talking about.

"I don't know whether you are married or not. I am of the opinion that Lieutenant O'Connor has a wife and three children. More than once I have been told so," she answered.

"You seem to know a heap about the gentleman."

"I know what I know."

"More than I do, perhaps," he suggested.

Her eyes dilated. He could see suspicion take hold of her.

"Perhaps," she answered quietly.

"Does that mean you think I'm not Bucky O'Connor?" He had pushed his pony forward so as to cut off her advance, and both had halted for the moment.

She looked at him with level, fearless eyes. "I don't know who you are."

"But you think I'm not Lieutenant O'Connor of the rangers?"

"I don't know whether you are or not."

"There is nothing like making sure. Just look over this letter, please."

She did so. It was from the governor of the Territory to the ranger officer. While he was very complimentary as to past services, the governor made it plain that he thought O'Connor must at all hazards succeed in securing the release of Simon West. This would be necessary for the good name of the Territory. Otherwise, a widespread report would go out that Arizona was a lawless place in which to live.

Melissy folded the letter and handed it back. "I beg your pardon, Lieutenant O'Connor. I see that I was wrong."

"Forget it, my dear. We all make mistakes." He had that curious mocking smile which so often hovered about his lips. She felt as though he were deriding her--as though his words held some hidden irony which she could not understand.

"The governor seems very anxious to have you succeed. It will be a black eye for Arizona if this band of outlaws is not apprehended. You don't think, do you, that they will do Mr. West any harm, if their price is not paid? They would never dare."

He took this up almost as though he resented it. "They would dare anything. I reckon you'll have to get up early in the mornin' to find a gamer man than Black MacQueen."

"I wouldn't call it game to hurt an old man whom he has in his power. But you mustn't let it come to that. You must save him. Are you making any progress? Have you run down any of the band? And while I think of it--have you seen to-day's paper?"

"No--why?"

"The biggest story on the front page is about the West case. It seems that this MacQueen wired to Chicago to Mr. Lucas, president of one of the lines on the Southwestern system, that they would release Mr. West for three hundred thousand dollars in gold. He told him a letter had been mailed to the agent at Mesa, telling under just what conditions the money was to be turned over; and he ended with a threat that, if steps were taken to capture the gang, or if the money were not handed over at the specified time, Mr. West would disappear forever."

"Did the paper say whether the money would be turned over?"

"It said that Mr. Lucas was going to get into touch with the outlaws at once, to effect the release of his chief."

A gleam of triumph flashed in the eyes of the man. "That's sure the best way."

"It won't help your reputation, will it?" she asked. "Won't people say that you failed on this case?"

He laughed softly, as if at some hidden source of mirth. "I shouldn't wonder if they did say that Bucky O'Connor hadn't made good this time. They'll figure he tried to ride herd on a job too big for him."

Her surprised eye brooded over this, too. Here he was defending the outlaw chief, and rejoicing at his own downfall. There seemed to be no end to the contradictions in this man. She was to run across another tangled thread of the puzzle a few minutes later.

She had dismounted to let him tighten the saddle cinch. Owing to the heat, he had been carrying his coat in front of him. He tossed it on a boulder by the side of the trail, in such a way that the inside pocket hung down. From it slid some papers and a photograph. Melissy looked down at the picture, then instantly stooped and picked it up. For it was a photograph of a very charming woman and three children, and across the bottom of it was written a line.

"To Bucky, from his loving wife and children."

The girl handed it to the man without a word, and looked him full in the face.

"Bowled out, by ginger!" he said, with a light laugh.

But as she continued to look at him--a man of promise, who had plainly traveled far on the road to ruin--the conviction grew on her that the sweet-faced woman in the photograph was no loving wife of his. He was a man who might easily take a woman's fancy, but not one to hold her love for years through the stress of life. Moreover, Bucky O'Connor held the respect of all men. She had heard him spoken of, and always with a meed of affection that is given to few men. Whoever this graceless scamp was, he was not the lieutenant of rangers.

The words slipped out before she could stop them: "You're not Lieutenant O'Connor at all."

"Playing on that string again, are you?" he jeered.

"I'm sure of it this time."

"Since you know who I'm not, perhaps you can tell me, too, who I am."

In that instant before she spoke, while her steady eyes rested on him, she put together many things which had puzzled her. All of them pointed to one conclusion. Even now her courage did not fail her. She put it into words quietly:

"You are that villain Black MacQueen."

He stared at her in surprise. "By God, girl--you're right. I'm MacQueen, though I don't know how you guessed it."

"I don't know how I kept from guessing it so long. I can see it, now, as plain as day, in all that you have done."

After that they measured strength silently with their eyes. If the situation had clarified itself, with the added knowledge of the girl had come new problems. Let her return to Mesa, and he could no longer pose as O'Connor; and it was just the audacity of this double play that delighted him. He was the most reckless man on earth; he loved to take chances. He wanted to fool the officers to his heart's content, and then jeer at them afterward. Hitherto everything had come his way.

But if this girl should go home, he could not show his face at Mesa; and the spice of the thing would be gone. He was greatly taken with her beauty, her daring, and the charm of high spirits which radiated from her. Again and again he had found himself drawn back to her. He was not in love with her in any legitimate sense; but he knew now that, if he could see her no more, life would be a savorless thing, at least until his fancy had spent itself. Moreover, her presence at Dead Man's Cache would be a safeguard. With her in his power, Lee and Flatray, the most persistent of his hunters, would not dare to move against the outlaws.

Inclination and interest worked together. He decided to take her back with him to the country of hidden pockets and gulches. There, in time, he would win her love--so his vanity insisted. After that they would slip away from the scene of his crimes, and go back to the world from which he had years since vanished.

The dream grew on him. It got hold of his imagination. For a moment he saw himself as the man he had been meant for--the man he might have been, if he had been able to subdue his evil nature. He saw himself respected, a power in the community, going down to a serene old age, with this woman and their children by his side. Then he laughed derisively, and brushed aside the vision.

"Why didn't the real Lieutenant O'Connor arrive to expose you?" she asked.

"The real Bucky is handcuffed and guarded at Dead Man's Cache. I don't think he's enjoying himself to-day."

"You're getting quite a collection of prisoners. You'll be starting a penitentiary on your own account soon," she told him sharply.

"That's right. And I'm taking another one back with me to-night."

"Who is he?"

"It's a lady this time--Miss Melissy Lee."

His words shook her. An icy hand seemed to clamp upon her heart. The blood ebbed even from her lips, but her brave eyes never faltered from his.

"So you war on women, too!"

He gave her his most ironic bow. "I don't war on you, my dear. You shall have half of my kingdom, if you ask it--and all my heart."

"I can't use either," she told him quietly. "But I'm only a girl. If you have a spark of manliness in you, surely you won't take me a prisoner among those wild, bad men of yours."

"Those wild, bad men of mine are lambs when I give the word. They wouldn't lift a hand against you. And there is a woman there--the mother of one of my boys, who was shot. We'll have you chaperoned for fair."

"And if I say I won't go?"

"You'll go if I strap you to your saddle."

It was characteristic of Melissy that she made no further resistance. The sudden, wolfish gleam in his eyes had told her that he meant what he said. It was like her, too, that she made no outcry; that she did not shed tears or plead with him. A gallant spirit inhabited that slim, girlish body; and she yielded to the inevitable with quiet dignity. This surprised him greatly, and stung his reluctant admiration. At the same time, it set her apart from him and hedged her with spiritual barriers. Her body might ride with him into captivity; she was still captain of her soul.

"You're a game one," he told her, as he helped her to the saddle.

She did not answer, but looked straightforward between her horse's ears, without seeing him, waiting for him to give the word to start.

CHAPTER VI

IN DEAD MAN'S CACHE

Not since the start of their journey had Melissy broken silence, save to answer, in few words as possible, the questions put to her by the outlaw. Yet her silence had not been sullenness. It had been the barrier which she had set up between them--one which he could not break down short of actual roughness.

Of this she could not accuse him. Indeed, he had been thoughtful of her comfort. At sunset they had stopped by a spring, and he had shared with her such food as he had. Moreover, he had insisted that she should rest for a while before they took up the last stretch of the way.

It was midnight now, and they had been traveling for many hours over rough mountain trails. There was more strength than one would look for in so slender a figure, yet Melissy was drooping with fatigue.

"It's not far now. We'll be there in a few minutes," MacQueen promised her.

They were ascending a narrow trail which ran along the sidehill through the timber. Presently they topped the summit, and the ground fell away from their feet to a bowl-shaped valley, over which the silvery moonshine played so that the basin seemed to swim in a magic sea of light.

"Welcome to the Cache," he said to her.

She was surprised out of her silence. "Dead Man's Cache?"

"It has been called that."

"Why?"

She knew, but she wanted to see if he would tell a story which showed so plainly his own ruthlessness.

He hesitated, but only for a moment.

"There was a man named Havens. He had a reputation as a bad man, and I reckon he deserved it--if brand blotting, mail rustling, and shooting citizens are the credentials to win that title. Hard pressed on account of some deviltry, he drifted into this country, and was made welcome by those living here. The best we had was his. He was fed, outfitted, and kept safe from the law that was looking for him.

"You would figure he was under big obligations to the men that did this for him--wouldn't you? But he was born skunk. When his chance came he offered to betray these men to the law, in exchange for a pardon for his own sneaking hide. The letter was found, and it was proved he wrote it. What ought those men to have done to him, Miss 'Lissie?"

"I don't know." She shuddered.

"There's got to be law, even in a place like this. We make our own laws, and the men that stay here have got to abide by them. Our law said this man must die. He died."

She did not ask him how. The story went that the outlaws whom the wretched man had tried to sell let him escape on purpose--that, just as he thought he was free of them, their mocking laughter came to him from the rocks all around. He was completely surrounded. They had merely let him run into a trap. He escaped again, wandered without food for days, and again discovered that they had been watching him all the time. Turn whichever way he would, their rifles warned him back. He stumbled on, growing weaker and weaker. They would neither capture him nor let him go.

For nearly a week the cruel game went on. Frequently he heard their voices in the hills about him. Sometimes he would call out to them pitifully to put him out of his misery. Only their horrible laughter answered. When he had reached the limit of endurance he lay down and died.

And the man who had engineered that heartless revenge was riding beside her. He had been ready to tell her the whole story, if she had asked for it, and equally ready to justify it. Nothing could have shown her more plainly the character of the villain into whose hands she had fallen.

They descended into the valley, winding in and out until they came suddenly upon ranch houses and a corral in a cleared space.

A man came out of the shadows into the moonlight to meet them. Instantly Melissy recognized his walk. It was Boone.

"Oh, it's you," MacQueen said coldly. "Any of the rest of the boys up?"

"No."

Not a dozen words had passed between them, but the girl sensed hostility. She was not surprised. Dunc Boone was not the man to take second place in any company of riff-raff, nor was MacQueen one likely to yield the supremacy he had fought to gain.

The latter swung from the saddle and lifted Melissy from hers. As her feet struck the ground her face for the first time came full into the moonlight.

Boone stifled a startled oath.

"Melissy Lee!" Like a swiftly reined horse he swung around upon his chief. "What devil's work is this?"

"My business, Dunc!" the other retorted in suave insult.

"By God, no! I make it mine. This young lady's a friend of mine--or used to be. _Sabe_?"

"I _sabe_ you'd better not try to sit in at this game, my friend."

Boone swung abruptly upon Melissy. "How come you here, girl? Tell me!"

And in three sentences she explained.

"What's your play? Whyfor did you bring her?" the Arkansan demanded of MacQueen.

The latter stood balanced on his heels with his feet wide apart. There was a scornful grin on his face, but his eyes were fixed warily on the other man.

"What was I to do with her, Mr. Buttinski? She found out who I was. Could I send her home? If I did how was I to fix it so I could go to Mesa when it's necessary till we get this ransom business arranged?"

"All right. But you understand she's a friend of mine. I'll not have her hurt."

"Oh, go to the devil! I'm not in the habit of hurting young ladies."

MacQueen swung on his heel insolently and knocked on the door of a cabin near.

"Don't forget that I'm here when you need me," Boone told Melissy in a low voice.

"I'll not forget," the girl made answer in a murmur.

The wrinkled face of a Mexican woman appeared presently at a window. MacQueen jabbered a sentence or two in her language. She looked at Melissy and answered.

The girl had not lived in Southern Arizona for twenty years without having a working knowledge of Spanish. Wherefore, she knew that her captor had ordered his own room prepared for her.

While they waited for this to be made ready MacQueen hummed a snatch of a popular song. It happened to be a love ditty. Boone ground his teeth and glared at him, which appeared to amuse the other ruffian immensely.

"Don't stay up on our account," MacQueen suggested presently with a malicious laugh. "We're not needing a chaperone any to speak of."

The Mexican woman announced that the bedroom was ready and MacQueen escorted Melissy to the door of the room. He stood aside with mock gallantry to let her pass.

"Have to lock you in," he apologized airily. "Not that it would do you any good to escape. We'd have you again inside of twenty-four hours. This bit of the hills takes a heap of knowing. But we don't want you running away. You're too tired. So I lock the door and lie down on the porch under your window. _Adios, seorita._"

Melissy heard the key turn in the lock, and was grateful for the respite given her by the night. She was glad, too, that Boone was here. She knew him for a villain, but she hoped he would stand between her and MacQueen if the latter proved unruly in his attentions. Her guess was that Boone was jealous of the other--of his authority with the gang to which they both belonged, and now of his relationship to her. Out of this division might come hope for her.

So tired was she that, in spite of her alarms, sleep took her almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. When she awakened the sun was shining in at her window above the curtain strung across its lower half.

Some one was knocking at the door. When she asked who was there, in a voice which could not conceal its tremors, the answer came in feminine tones:

"'Tis I--Rosario Chaves."

The Mexican woman was not communicative, nor did she appear to be sympathetic. The plight of this girl might have moved even an unresponsive heart, but Rosario showed a stolid face to her distress. What had to be said, she said. For the rest, she declined conversation absolutely.

Breakfast was served Melissy in her room, after which Rosario led her outdoors. The woman gave her to understand that she might walk about the cleared space, but must not pass into the woods beyond. To point the need of obedience, Rosario seated herself on the porch, and began doing some drawn work upon which she was engaged.

Melissy walked toward the corral, but did not reach it. An old hag was seated in a chair beside one of the log cabins. From the color of her skin the girl judged her to be an Indian squaw. She wore moccasins, a dirty and shapeless one-piece dress, and a big sunbonnet, in which her head was buried.

Sitting on the floor of the porch, about fifteen feet from her, was a hard-faced customer, with stony eyes like those of a snake. He was sewing on a bridle that had given way. Melissy noticed that from the pocket of his chaps the butt of a revolver peeped. She judged it to be the custom in Dead Man's Cache to go garnished with weapons.