Читать книгу Knights of the Range - Zane Grey - Страница 8

Holly Ripple’s school life in New Orleans, from her ninth to her sixteenth year, had been one of comfort, luxury, restraint, so that when she was launched upon the wildest range on the frontier, soon to become sole mistress of Don Carlos’ Rancho with its great herds of cattle and droves of horses, she most certainly needed the pride and spirit that had been born in her.

Britt had trained her ceaselessly and faithfully during these past years. She cared nothing for cattle, but as she loved horses he had taught her to ride them like an Indian and to know them. She developed a superb physique, strength, skill, endurance, and a daring that had cost her foreman much dismay and anxiety. But Britt could not perform miracles, and the hard life of the range failed to blunt the soft feminine characteristics which had been fostered upon Holly during the impressionable forming time of adolescence. Perhaps the wise Colonel had intended this very thing.

Naturally Holly had seen much rough life on the range. Curious, interested, thrilled by everything, it had not been possible to hold her back. The old caravan trail from Santa Fe to the Mississippi ran across her land. A Mexican village, the inhabitants of which were in her employ, nestled picturesquely below the great ranch-house. A branch post of Horn’s Trading Company was maintained here, where trappers came to sell and red men to buy and trade. Troops of dragoons stopped there on their way to escort caravans. From spring until winter the caravans passed, always camping in the cottonwood grove along the creek. Wagon-trains from Texas made the most of Don Carlos’ Rancho.

In two short years much of western life had unrolled before Holly’s all-absorbing eyes. Half a hundred cowboys had come and gone. Many a wild or drunken cowboy had bit the dust or dug his spurs into the earth on her range. Fighting was the breath of their lives. Holly had seen the beginning or the end of innumerable brawls. She had been known to stop fights. On more than one occasion she had unwittingly ridden upon dark slack forms of men swinging by their necks from trees. She had viewed a brush between soldiers and savages; she had seen stage-coaches roll in with bloody drivers roaring and dead passengers with the living; she had been present that very spring when a cattleman and rustler shot it out fatally on the street of San Marcos.

But the raw terrible spirit of the frontier had never closely touched Holly Ripple until this bright May morning when an outlaw had killed two of his comrades to save her.

Holly rode away from that scene sick to her marrow. She had watched the encounter on her nerve. Every word and every action had been etched indelibly upon her consciousness. Anger at the boldness of these horse-thieves had given place to fury at their leader, and then to fright such as she had never known. If she could have saved the lives of Heaver and Covell by lifting her hand, she would not have done so. The West of her birth welled up in Holly that day. Afterward pride upheld her while she answered to irresistible and incomprehensible impulse in persuading this lone-wolf outlaw to become one of her riders.

Upon facing homeward with Britt, the trenchant thrill of this impulse faded away. And then the ghastly business of what had threatened her, and the blood and death which had followed, resulted in a cold misery in her vitals. Only the interest in the strange man who had saved her kept Holly from reacting to that aftermath as might have one of her tenderfoot schoolmates in New Orleans who used to faint at the sight of blood.

“Holly, you air pale aboot the gills,” spoke up Britt, solicitously, before they had ridden far. “An’ you ain’t settin’ yore saddle like you’d growed there.”

“I’m sick—Cappy. Ride close. . . . But I’ll get over it.”

“Shore you will. Grit yore teeth an’ hang on, Holly.”

“Please don’t scold me—for riding down alone. You were right.”

“Wal, lass, I’ll not scold you now, anyway. But I hope thet will be a lesson to you.”

“It will be. I’ll never be headstrong again. . . . I promised him. Oh, he was ruthless, insulting. But no common sort!”

“Holly, our new hand ’peared to be a lot of things—one of which was chain-lightnin’. My Gawd, but he was quick! . . . Holly, I’ve seen a few of the great Texas gunmen draw. Frayne would have killed any one of them today. Wonder who he is.”

Holly was silent. She did not want to know. Frayne repelled her even more than he fascinated her. What had possessed her to such a rash and inconsidered offer? Did she already regret it? Had gratitude and pity prompted her wholly? At length she turned in her saddle to see if Frayne was coming. No horseman in sight on the grassy plain! She felt relieved. He might not follow. Then hard on this thought stirred a vague and disturbing fear that he might not keep his word. Next instant she championed him with self-accusation. He would not lie. Shame edged into her conflicting emotions. Cold, ruthless, indifferent, insulting outlaw! No man had ever dared to so criticise her. Holly rode on unaware that her sickness was gradually succumbing to stronger sensations.

“Cappy, was I wrong?” she asked, at length.

“How so, lass?”

“To offer him work? . . . To trust him?”

“Wal, thet’s a stumper. Fust off I was scared stiff. But I’m hedgin’, Holly. If Brazos an’ Cherokee an’ the Southards take to Frayne I’d say his acquisitions might turn oot great fer Don Carlos’ Rancho.”

“You wouldn’t be afraid to trust him?”

“It seems onreasonable, but I reckon I wouldn’t,” replied Britt, thoughtfully.

“Is he—coming?” she asked, hurriedly.

Britt glanced back over his shoulder to scan the rolling range. As he did not reply immediately, Holly grew conscious of a blank restless merging of relief and regret.

“There he is, just toppin’ a rise,” answered Britt, at length. “Didn’t see him at fust. We might have knowed thet hombre——”

But Holly did not hear any more of Britt’s drawl. She suddenly grew deaf and dumb to all outside stimuli. Her sickness and conjecture vanished in a rush of startling glad certainty, which as quickly affronted her. Holly, in consternation, and with a sinking of her heart, tried to take refuge in the thought that this had been the most exciting and upsetting day of her life. But an uneasy, unstable sense of weakness remained with her.

“Holly, there’s a caravan in,” spoke up Britt, eagerly, pointing toward the long grove of cottonwoods, above which rose columns of blue smoke. “Fust from Las Animas this spring. Must be Buff Belmet. He’ll have loads of stuff fer us.”

“Yes, indeed, and high time. Let us ride over to greet him,” replied Holly, suddenly animated.

The afternoon sun shone on a natural scene of rangeland that never failed to awe and delight Holly. High on the gray-sloped, green-topped hill blazed the red of the old mansion. She could picture Don Carlos there in the days of the Spaniards, monarch of all he surveyed. It was hers, that indestructible home, vine-covered and weather-stained, a monument to the friendship between Don Carlos and the Indians, and likewise for her father’s day. No enemy had ever darkened that open portal. No man of any degree had ever been turned away from that door. Holly had kept faith with father and grandfather. She prayed that she might still do so in this wilder day yet to come.

Soon the galloping horses reached the zone of cottonwoods, and then the wide clear brook babbling over gravelly bars. In the long half-circle on the other side, the caravan had halted for camp. How the great broad-wheeled, boat-bodied, gray-canvassed prairie-schooners thrilled Holly! They not only represented the forerunners of the western empire, but they seemed to be bridges across the plains to civilization. There were scores of these immense long-tongued wagons. Sturdy oxen were grazing away across the open; rolling mules were lifting the dust in many places; a hundred brace of horses had taken to the grass, while many were being unhitched. A dozen huge fires were burning. Red-shirted men stood out conspicuously among a horde of others, and all were busy as ants. The camp shone with color and hummed with activity. It was a scene of a kind which never palled on Holly.

As Britt and Holly rode up to the first group, several men advanced to greet them. Holly recognized a sturdy, bearded freighter who boomed at Britt, and then the magnificent Buff Belmet, scout and plainsman, a friend of her father’s, and famous across the frontier. At the age of ten he had driven one of these great wagons. He had lost mother, father, brother and childish sweetheart on his first trip across the plains. At twenty he was a leader of caravans and a noted Indian fighter. And now at thirty he had the lined stern face, the piercing half-shut gray eye, the wonderful poise of the frontiersman to whom all had happened except death.

The greetings were as between friends long separated.

“An’ air you still single an’ fancy-free, Miss Holly?” queried the grizzled Jones.

“At least, I’m still single,” replied Holly, with a laugh.

“What’s the matter with these young ranchers an’ rangehands out hyar?”

“Tom, it’s a case of too many to pick from,” drawled Britt. “How many wagons this trip? You shore come heeled.”

“We left Las Animas with thirty-eight,” replied Belmet, “an’ we picked up twenty on the way. Jest as well, otherwise we might had more’n a brush with some Kiowas on the Dry Trail.”

“I seen yore decorations,” replied Britt, pointing to the feathered arrows that stuck out in grim suggestiveness from the wagons. “Look there, Holly.”

“I saw them long ago,” she replied, her eyes dilating.

“How aboot my supplies, Buff?” inquired the foreman.

“Six wagons, Cap. I’ll leave them hyar for your boys to unpack, an’ pick them up on my way back from Santa Fe.”

“Fine. We shore need them. An’ Miss Holly has been frettin’ more aboot——”

“Now, Cappy, don’t betray my vanity,” gayly interrupted Holly. “Even if all my pretty things did come I’ll never be vain again.”

“Wal, Miss Holly, you don’t ’pear your usual bloomin’ self atall,” chimed in Jones.

“No wonder, Tom. She had a scare oot on the range today. An’ believe me, I had one, too,” replied Britt, seriously.

“Friends, I’ve had a scare for every one of these,” said Belmet, putting his finger to the white hairs over his temples.

“Britt, this hyar New Mexico was gettin’ hot last year,” interposed Jones, wagging his head. “Buff will agree with me, I’ll bet. You’re in for hell.”

“I’d rather not give Miss Holly another scare today,” rejoined the scout.

“I’ll tell you aboot it,” said Britt. “You know, Buff, how things happen right oot of a clear sky. This would have been plumb bad but fer a queer deal.” Whereupon Britt briefly told the story without mentioning Frayne’s name.

“Miss Holly, ain’t you ever goin’ to grow up?” queried Jones, reprovingly. “This range ain’t safe fer a girl no more.”

“I fear I discovered that today.”

Belmet shook his eagle head in grave portent. “It’s comin’, Cap. I told Colonel Ripple thet years ago. Too big an’ wild a range. Too many great herds of cattle. In Maxwell’s day beef was cheap. He couldn’t give it away. But this is a new era. The range offers easy pickin’ fer rustlers, an’ good markets. All the bad outfits will flock into New Mexico.”

“I had thet figgered, an’ I’m goin’ to meet the situation with an ootfit of my own.”

“Thet’s the Texas idee, Cap. You’ll give them a run for your beef.”

“Buff, did you ever run into or heah of a fellar whose handle is Frayne—Renn Frayne?”

“Frayne? I know him. Not likely to forget him, either. Cap, I was present in Abilene some years back when Frayne made your Texas gunman, Wess Hardin, take water.”

“No!” ejaculated Britt, incredulously.

“Hard to believe, an’ thet’s why it’s not generally known. But I saw it. Frayne bluffed Hardin. Dared him to draw. An’ would have killed him, too.”

“Wal, I’ll be darned. Who is this Frayne, Buff?”

“I don’t know who he is, but I can tell you what he is.”

“Go ahaid. Miss Holly an’ me air shore interested. It was Frayne who did the shootin’ today.”

“You don’t say? . . . I met Frayne first time after the war. Young fellar, footloose an’ wild, with a hand for guns. He was a cow-puncher. He became one of many hard-shootin’ hombres. I heerd of him often after thet, but never seen him again until thet time in Abilene. Then he was classed with the best of gunmen. An’ you know, you could count them on the fingers of one hand. Let’s see. That was three years ago. After thet he killed Strickland’s foreman, an’ went on the dodge.”

“Crooked?”

“No. It was the other way around, as I heerd. Strickland was a power in Kansas. An’ any one who bucked him had sheriffs an’ jails to reckon with.”

“Like Chisum?”

“I wouldn’t class Chisum with Strickland, except as a hard driver of men.”

“What was yore idee of Frayne?”

“Wal, I reckon some different from thet of most of the youngsters I’ve met along the Old Trail. Most boys of good families didn’t last long. The Englishmen—an’ there was a sight of them—an’ still comin’—petered out pronto. They didn’t adapt themselves. They got snuffed out. But Frayne had the stern stuff of the Texas cowboy. He lasted. An’ I’m glad to hear he done you a service.”

“Is Frayne an ootlaw?”

“I reckon so, back in Kansas. An’ probably Nebraska, Wyomin’, Colorado. But I wouldn’t call him an outlaw here in New Mexico. ’Cause there ain’t any law yet.”

“Wal, last summer we inaugerated what hawse-thieves an’ rustlers fear wuss than a gun—the rope,” declared Britt, forcibly.

“Cap, has it occurred to you thet Frayne would be a whole outfit in himself, if you could hire him?” asked Belmet, thoughtfully. “I reckon you couldn’t, though. Anyway, Miss Holly wouldn’t have a bad hombre like Frayne around the ranch.”

“Wouldn’t I?” rejoined Holly, hiding her nervous embarrassment. “I thought of it first and asked him.”

“Good! You are wakin’ up to the needs of the range,” declared the scout. “It takes bad men to cope with bad men on this frontier.”

“We’ve got him, Buff,” added Britt, with satisfaction. “An’ since I seen you last summer I’ve added Brazos Keene, Cherokee Jack, Tex an’ Max Southard, an’ two or three other tough nuts to our outfit. Now with Frayne it shore beats any bunch I ever heahed of. I’ll be obliged if you’ll spread thet news all along the Old Trail.”

“You bet I will,” replied Belmet, emphatically. “I’ll lay it on thick, too. . . . Miss Holly, I shore feel sorry for you. But it’s the way to tide over this rustler wave.”

“Britt, I know you was a Texas Ranger, an’ a Trail Boss, but can you handle an outfit like thet?” asked the bearded man with Jones.

“It’ll be the job of my life, but I’ll do it.”

“They’ll fight among themselves over Miss Holly,” declared Jones, quizzically.

“Wal, thet’s up to her,” laughed Britt.

“Gentlemen, it may amuse you, but it’s not funny to me,” interposed Holly. “But thank you for the advice—and come up for supper. We shall want to hear the news.”

“Miss Holly!” expostulated Belmet, aghast. “It’s awful good of you. . . . Look at us ragamuffins!”

“Come as you are, Belmet. At six o’clock sharp.”

“Wal, be it upon your bonny head, Miss Holly. . . . I almost forgot to tell you. There’s a man with us who claims to know you. He’s in the Texas crowd. I didn’t get his name. We heerd about him from the women folks in thet train. They gossiped. Handsome rich southerner—suitor of yours when you was in school in Orleans—comin’ to visit you, an’ all thet sort of talk.”

“I have no personal friends or acquaintances in the south,” replied Holly, dubiously.

“Wal, accordin’ to the caravan gossip this gentleman was more’n a personal acquaintance,” went on Belmet. “I didn’t take much stock in it. But rememberin’ how you’re run after by so many adventurers, I reckoned I’d better tell you.”

“Indeed yes. Thank you, Belmet. . . . Come to supper, surely. I must go now.”

When Holly was half-way home Britt caught up with her. “Wal, lass, you look fagged. Rest a couple of hours, an’ throw off all thet’s troublin’ you.”

“I wish I could. Today seems to be a cloud on the horizon.”

“Wal, thet cloud will come an’ go. . . . I see some of the cowboys ridin’ in. An’ there’s our new man pokin’ along. Holly, I’m glad Belmet gave Frayne a better rep than he gave himself.”

“I was glad, too. Still, it was bad enough.”

“Holly, you’re right. An’ at thet Buff had no line on Frayne these last few years. I take it Frayne finally went to the bad. It always happens thet way. But mebbe nothin’ will come of it. The West is awful big an’ in these times you cain’t separate bad from good. We can afford to be charitable.”

“Will you please ask Frayne to supper?”

“I was aboot to give you a hint. Let’s impress him powerful fine fust thing. . . . Shall I set him next to you?”

“By all means. . . . Britt, I’ve worried about Brazos.”

“Wal, you’re wastin’ yore feelin’. Thet boy will be ridin’ in pronto.”

“But Stinger is dead or wounded!”

“So we heahed. In either case Brazos will fetch him in. . . . Now, Holly lass, leave it all to me. If I cain’t pick up Brazos with the glass I’ll send some of the cowboys after him. . . . You go sleep a while an’ forget this mess, an’ then make yoreself prettier than ever before.”

“Cappy!—Why so unusually—pretty?” inquired Holly, curiously, with a smile.

“Wal, thet Frayne was as cold as a daid fish,” declared the Texan, resentfully. “He looked at you once an’ didn’t see you atall. An’ thet was all he looked.”

“Indeed, he was not flattering,” observed Holly, conscious of a quickening of tired pulse. “But he had just shot two of his own comrades.”

“Nothin’ atall to Renn Frayne. I reckoned thet he was a Westerner who had no use fer wimmen. You run into one now an’ then. I don’t recollect you ever bein’ so sweet to any man. An’ the damned hombre not only never seen it but insulted you to boot. It riled me.”

“Cappy, it will be good for us. You have spoiled me,” she rejoined, thoughtfully, and rode on in silence to the corrals.

* * * *

Rest and sleep and the image Holly saw in her mirror gave her back her poise, but did not eliminate from her mind the sombre sense of that day’s catastrophe.

The great dining-room was exactly as it had been in Colonel Ripple’s day, when red men and white men of high and low degree met at his table. Don Carlos’ rich and lavish hand showed in the heavy dark furniture, in the polished stone floor with its worn rugs, in the huge carved stone fireplace, and the stained adobe walls with their old Spanish weapons, the painted frieze, and the huge rough-hewn rafter that centered the ceiling all its length.

Holly’s guests arose at her entrance. Every seat had an occupant except the one of honor to her right.

“Be seated, friends,” said Holly, in the words of her father’s custom. “Eat, drink and be merry.”

Belmet occupied the seat next to the one which Holly had intended for Frayne. His absence affected her as had his affront out on the range, despite the fact that her reason made excuse for the mood of a man who had just shed his fellow-men’s blood. Conchita Velasquez and the Mexican women of Holly’s household sat upon her left. Britt faced her at the end of the long table, and the seats between were occupied by the invited guests and by others who took advantage of the standing Ripple hospitality. Among the rough-garbed, bearded freighters and teamsters a young man, conspicuous because of the difference of his attire, at once caught Holly’s eye. She recognized him, and acknowledged his elaborate bow. Embarrassment, and something of anger, accompanied her recognition. This fair man, whose sharp, cold, handsome features proclaimed him about thirty years old, and whose black frock-coat and gaudy waist-coat and long hair characterized him as a gambler of the period, was no other than Malcolm Lascelles, a Louisianian, whom Holly had met in New Orleans, during the concluding year of her school. It was a shock to see him at her table, recalling her girlish indiscretion.

She had met him by accident, and then, resenting her loneliness and longing for freedom, for adventure, for love, she had been so foolish as to steal out to meet him again and again. Upon learning that Lascelles was a gambler and adventurer, she had regretted her folly and ended the acquaintance. Lascelles had persistently annoyed her with attempts to re-establish himself in her esteem, thereby getting her into disgrace with her teachers. For Holly this had its good side, for the principal wrote to her father, who hastened the advent of her departure for home. Holly had never heard from Lascelles and had almost forgotten the incident. But here he had turned up, at her own table, an older man with whom the years had played havoc, whose hungry eyes betrayed that he had been hunting for her, and intended to make her remember. Holly suffered a moment of dismay. She was to blame for this. Whatever had been in her mind—to imagine she had been in love with this Lascelles?

The supper was served by a troupe of Holly’s Mexican girls in native costume, and it was a bounteous one. The table groaned with savory viands and steaming vegetables and luscious fruits. At the outset the burly members of the caravan were too hungry and too glad to be present for any consistent merriment. But by the time the wine was passed around they made up for their lack.

In the succeeding hour Holly heard all the news from the towns on the Mississippi, from the cattle centers in Kansas, from the camps and posts in the plains, and from the forts. Not the least of this information consisted of reports of Indian attacks on the vanguard of the buffalo hunters, the advance of the railroad, the increase of travel westward, the renewal of soldier escorts for the caravans south from Las Animas, the hold-up of stage-coaches, all of which attested to the spring quickening of activity on the frontier. And the best of it was a marked rise in prices for beef, the increase in markets, owing to the pushing westward of the Santa Fe Railroad.

“Hard times for railroad construction are about over,” said Belmet. “Last December the work crossed the Colorado state line. That was well within the ten years of grace allowed the builders by the land grant. Rails will reach La Junta by 1873, mebbe, and Raton the year after, mebbe.”

“Holly, thet’s great news,” exclaimed Britt. “When the Santa Fe crosses New Mexico we want 75,000 haid of cattle heah.”

“Cap, you can breed them on this wonderful range,” said the scout. “But keepin’ them long enough to sell—thet’ll be the rub!”

When the supper-party broke up Holly was standing with Britt, saying goodbye to Belmet, as Lascelles presented himself. Looked at through more mature eyes, he did not revive even a hint of the old girlish thrill. Still he had a semblance of southern grace.

“Holly Ripple, we meet again,” he said, with gallant bow. “I have long dreamed of this moment. May I present my compliments? You have changed from the girl I knew so well at Madam Brault’s school in New Orleans. From pretty girl to lovely woman!”

Holly did not offer her hand and she met his eyes with level gaze.

“I remember you, Mr. Lascelles,” she said. “Are you not lost, away from the boulevards of Orleans? What are you doing on the frontier?”

“Holly, I have never ceased to search for you,” he returned, boldly. “You alone brought me West.”

“Indeed? I am sorry. You must have over-rated the silly flirtation of a pent-up school girl. You are welcome, of course, at the table of my father. But I have no wish to renew the acquaintance.”

“Holly, I’d like to meet the gentleman,” interposed Britt, in his cool drawl.

“Mr. Lascelles, this is my father’s old trail comrade, and my foreman, Captain Britt.”

Holly moved toward the door with Belmet. “Thet’d shore took the hide off the impudent fellow if it hadn’t been so thick,” observed the scout. Holly went out on the porch with him. The last group of guests were thudding down the path. Stars were shining; the peep of spring frogs came plaintively from the ponds; a cold tang of mountain air made Holly draw her wrap close about her bare shoulders. She bade the plainsman goodnight and went into the living-room, to turn up the lamp. Cedar logs burned ruddily on the hearth. She thought again of Frayne. Presently Britt entered, with his keen eyes gleaming unwontedly.

“Say, Holly Ripple, air you responsible fer that flash gambler showin’ up heah?” he demanded.

“He says so.”

“Has he any hold on you?”

“None whatever.”

“I heahed you tell him. An’ shore I shouldn’t need more. But he ruffled me, lass. I must be gettin’ testy in my old age. . . . Dog-gone-it, I’m the only dad you got!”

“Cappy, you are indeed, and I love you. Don’t waste concern on Mr. Lascelles.”

“Wal, he tried to make oot there was somethin’ between you. Kind of brazen, or thick-haided. I told him he’d had supper at Don Carlos’ Rancho, an’ to slope. All the same if I don’t mistake my figgerin’ men you’ll heah more aboot this kid flirtation.”

“Cappy, you don’t mean this man will take advantage of that indiscretion of mine to—to——”

“I shore do,” returned Britt, as Holly hesitated. “The damn fool thinks you air—or was—sweet on him. Reckon it’s a bluff. He’s an adventurer an’ ’way down on his luck. He fetched his pack up heah, an’ I had to give him a room. Another instance of yore Dad’s famous hospitality to anyone! I cain’t throw him oot.”

“No, indeed. . . . But it might prove annoying. I certainly don’t want to meet him again.”

“Wal, how air you goin’ to avoid it, if he stays heah? Remember thet army officer who bored you half to death?”

“You might try the same remedy,” said Holly, with a little laugh.

“Brazos!—Holly, I must say thet when you air sick of a man you reckoned you liked—wal, you show yore Spanish. It wouldn’t never do to give Brazos a hint aboot this gambler.”

“Did Brazos get back?” asked Holly, quickly.

“Yes, before supper. Mad as a wet hen because he had to pack Stinger on his hawse, an’ walk ten miles. How thet boy hates to walk!”

“Oh—Stinger! Is he——”

“Shot up some, but nothin’ to worry aboot. . . . It happened thet Frayne seen Brazos comin’ an’ packed Stinger in. Frayne said he knowed gun-shot wounds, an’ thet this wasn’t bad if dressed proper. Which he proceeded to do. Done it swift an’ slick, too. I shore get a laugh oot of those cowboys. Brazos said, ‘I’m dawg-tired an’ I don’t care a damn if he croaks. An’ I’m gonna bore Mugg Dillon!’ . . . Then Stinger looks up at Frayne an’ asks, suspicious like, ‘Who’n hell air you, stranger?’ An’ Frayne says easy an’ cool, ‘Renn Frayne’ . . . Thet bunk-house went as quiet as a church. They’d heahed of him. Cowboys air a curious lot. They never fail to talk whenever they meet riders or go any place. An’ they never forget an’ they tell each other. Some of our new boys have rode the Pan Handle. Ride-’em Jackson is from Texas. They’ve heahed of Frayne an’ have talked aboot him, same as of every bad hombre on the range. It worries me.”

“Did you tell Mr. Frayne that I invited him to supper?”

“I shore did, Holly. He just refused, short an’ sweet. I was sort of stumped, an’ told him when you invited people, same as yore Dad before you, an’ Don Carlos before him—why, they just come plumb glad. Then he says: ‘Thank Miss Ripple for me, and tell her I appreciate the honor, but that I do not want to come.’”

“Britt, is Frayne a criminal, with good instincts?”

“No criminal, believe me, in the sense you mean. No low-born man could ever look straight at you like Frayne does. . . . An’ I shore don’t believe he was ashamed to come.”

“Could it have been because he shot his comrades?”

“No. Frayne wouldn’t think no more aboot shootin’ them than jack-rabbits. Holly, you’ll have to swaller it. Heah’s an outlaw you’ve been gracious to. An’ he just plain snubs you. I reckon, though, thet it’d mean nothin’ to you except fer thet absurd old custom of yore Dad’s, an’ one you think every man should kow-tow to.”

“It’s not absurd, Britt,” protested Holly, spiritedly.

“Be reasonable, lass. What could an old Spanish law of hospitality or the pleasure of a great pioneer mean to a man who survives only by eternal vigilance?”

“Survives? I don’t understand you.”

“Renn Frayne is a hunted man. By officers perhaps, but mostly by men who want revenge fer the killin’ of friends or relatives. Or by genuine bad men he has got the best of. Or by the bluff bad hombres or wild cowboys who’d like the fame of killin’ him.”

“Oh!—Frayne is indeed to be pitied,” murmured Holly.

“Look at his hands next time you get a chance. Kept careful as yores, Holly. I’ll bet Frayne never chops wood or digs post-holes. He keeps them hands limber an’ soft so thet he can handle them guns swift as lightnin’.”

“I can excuse his rudeness,” concluded Holly, and bade her foreman goodnight.

* * * *

Holly was at breakfast in her room when she heard a familiar clinking step out upon the path. She was expecting Britt, but this step was quicker and more vibrant than that of the old Texan.

“Mawnin’, Cap,” spoke up a lazy resonant voice. “How’s our Lady of the Rancho?”

“Howdy, Brazos,” returned Britt, who evidently had arrived first. “Haven’t seen her yet this mornin’. She’s late. But yesterday knocked her oot, I dare say.”

“Who’s the flowery-vested caird-sharp I jest met?”

“Name’s Lascelles. From New Orleans. Dropped in heah yesterday with thet wagon-train. Used to know Holly when she was at school. She confessed she’d flirted a little with him before she found oot he was a gambler. An’ he pestered her after thet. It was plain last night thet he meant to take advantage of the early acquaintance.”

“Wal, you don’t say,” drawled Brazos, in a tone that sent little shivers over Holly.

“Yes, I do say,” rejoined Britt, testily. “Dog-gone! We never know what’s goin’ to bob up. Lascelles fetched his pack. An’ I had to give him a room. If he hangs aboot heah it’ll be unpleasant fer Holly.”

“How you know thet?”

“She told him plumb oot thet she had no wish to renew the acquaintance.”

“Ah-huh. Holly can shore tell a fellar. . . . What you gonna do aboot it?”

“Reckon I’ll give Lascelles a hint to leave with the wagon-train.”

“Holly won’t like thet. It ain’t Ripple hospitality.”

“But the four-flusher might set down to live heah. Thet’s happened before.”

“Shore. But if Holly doesn’t like the galoot he wouldn’t be around long.”

“I savvy. You’d set in a little game of cairds with him, huh? An’ then we’d have to plant another stiff back on the hill. Brazos, you’re just plain devil.”

“See heah, boss. Haven’t you forgot thet little confab you had with me when you persuaded me to ride heah?”

“No, Brazos. But I hate to distress Holly. She was game yesterday. All the same thet blood-lettin’ made her sick. . . . Besides, dog-gone-it, I don’t want you to get any wuss name on the range. I like you, Brazos.”

“You don’t say? Nobody’d ever notice it. Wal, there’s some hope of me likin’ you, Cap.”

Holly finished her coffee rather hurriedly, and went through the living-room to the door. Britt was sitting on the porch steps, looking up at his tall companion. Brazos Keene was the youngest, the wildest, the most untamable, yet the most fascinating and lovable of all Holly’s cowboys. His slim, round-limbed rider’s figure lost little from the ragged garb and shiny leather; his smooth tanned face, fresh and clear as a girl’s, clean-cut and regular as a cameo, his half-shut, wild blue eyes and clustering fair hair, all proclaimed his glad youth and irresistible attractiveness, without a hint of his magnificent lawlessness and that he was a combination of fire and ice and steel.

“Howdy, Texans. Come right in,” invited Holly, gayly.

“Mawnin’, Lady,” drawled Brazos, doffing his sombrero.

“How air you, Holly?” asked Britt, rising uncovered.

“My dreams were troubled, but I am fine this morning.”

“Thet’s good. You was so late I . . . Wal, I cain’t waste more time. The wagons air heah, Holly. There’s a whole wagon-load fer you. Jim said ‘Shore we know spring is come!’ . . . Boxes, bags, an’ what not? Where’ll I have the boys pack this stuff?”

“In the patio by my storeroom. Have the boxes opened, Britt.”

“All ready fer you in less’n an hour,” returned Britt, stepping down. “Adios, Holly.” . . . Then he looked at Brazos, as if prompted by an afterthought. “Say, cowboy, rustle along pronto.”

“Aw, boss, I have a report to make,” complained Brazos.

“Wal, cut it short an’ leave oot the smoke,” concluded Britt, curtly.

“Come in, Brazos. I’d rather not see the frocked gentleman who is loitering around.”

“Thet pale-faced gent!—Britt told aboot him,” said Brazos, and following her into the room to her desk he took her hand. “Holly, you never was in love with him?”

“No. I don’t believe I ever imagined that. But I was pining for company—for masculine company, I confess. Then I was mad at my teachers. I met this Lascelles and I was a foolish girl. It was an adventure. I flirted with him—a little.”

“Holly, you never let him kiss you?”

“Gracious no! Nor allowed him to hold my hand as you are doing now. . . . Brazos, promise me you won’t pick a fight with Lascelles.”

His imperturbability lay only on the surface. Holly felt the throb of his sinewy hand and the blue flame of his eyes.

“Promise me,” she repeated, imperiously.

“Why should I, Lady?”

“Because you are more to me than just one of my cowboys.”

“Yore word is the only law I know. . . . Holly, do you care anythin’ aboot me atall?”

“Si, señor,” she replied, smiling, and gently endeavoring to remove her hand.

“When I fust come to this rancho you liked me a heap, Holly. An’ it kept me straight. You rode with me more’n any of yore riders. My land, how jealous they was! An’ I got my hopes up, Holly.”

“Hopes of what, you foolish boy?”

“Wal, thet you’d love me—an’ marry me some day,” he replied, with a soft frankness that touched Holly with contrition.

“Brazos, I do like you a heap. I am proud that I have kept you straight. But I do not love you.”

“Aw! . . . Thet night at the fandango—last summer. You let me kiss you!”

“No, Brazos.”

“But, Lady, you made no fuss. An’ you didn’t run off or—or slap me.”

“Brazos, please be honest. You kissed me, not by force, but by surprise.”

“My Gawd, girls air strange!—Holly, how aboot my puttin’ my arm around you thet night in the buckboard, when I drove you home from San Marcos?”

“Yes, you did. I was very foolish, Brazos—and cold, too.”

“Then it never meant nothin’ atall,” said Brazos, with pathos. “Not even at first?”

“Brazos, I asked you to be honest,” replied Holly, earnestly. “So I can be no less. . . . I never quite understood myself. I did have a—a sweet, romantic feeling for you. I did. But I had had that before. It didn’t last. And I’ve had it since. For that young army officer who came here wounded and we cared for him. It didn’t last, either. I am a fickle jade, Brazos. It must be my Spanish blood. But I do really love you, Brazos—as a sister. And I want you for a brother. I’m a lonely girl.”

“Shore. But I don’t want to be yore brother,” he replied, stubbornly. “I want to be yore husband. You need one, Holly. You’ll never leave Don Carlos’ Rancho. You ought to marry a cowman. Yore Dad would have wanted thet. An’ I’m as good as any of these ridin’ gents an’ better than most. . . . If you’d marry me—you’d come to love me some day. An’ I wouldn’t ask you to be my—my real wife till then. I could take care of you, Holly.”

“Brazos, dear, you do not grasp the situation. I don’t love you that way. I never will. . . . Why you’re not yet nineteen years old. And I am! . . . I feel like your mother. You’re only a boy.”

“Boy!—Holly, I’m as old as Britt, in the ways of the range. An’ this range is yore home. An’ if you can believe me or Tex or Britt or Buff Belmet, it’s gonna get powerful wild pronto. Holly, ain’t a man in the ootfit who wouldn’t give an eye to save you what Frayne saved you. He’s a darn good-lookin’ chap, educated, an’ was somebody once, as anyone could see. Buff Belmet knows the frontier. It’s only fair fer me to admit thet the ootfit took to Frayne. We’re scared of him, shore, but if he only takes to us he’ll be a round peg in a round hole.”

“Brazos, I hope Frayne, and all of them are as loyal and gallant as you,” rejoined Holly, feelingly. “Then I’ll have the outfit Britt has dreamed of. And Don Carlos’ Rancho will be the home for me that Dad prayed it would be.”