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THE mystery and insurmountable nature of Wild Horse Mesa had usurped many a thoughtful hour of Chane Weymer’s lonely desert life in Utah. Every wandering rider had a strange story to tell about this vast tableland. But Chane had never before seen it from so lofty and commanding a height as this to which Toddy Nokin, the Piute, had led him; nor had there ever before been so impelling a fascination as that engendered by the Indian.

For the Piute claimed that it was the last refuge of the great wild stallion, Panquitch, and his band.

Panquitch! He had been chased out of Nevada by wild-horse wranglers, of whom Chane was not the last; Mormons had driven the stallion across Utah, where in the canyoned fastnesses south of the Henry Mountains he had disappeared.

Chane’s gaze left the mesa to fall upon the swarthy lineaments of his companion. Could he place credence in Toddy Nokin? The Piutes loved fine horses and were not given to confiding in white hunters. It occurred to Chane, however, that he had befriended this Indian.

“Toddy—you sure Panquitch—on Wild Horse Mesa?” queried Chane, in his labored mixture of Piute and Navajo.

The Indian had the solemn look of one whose confidence had not been well received.

“How you know?” went on Chane, eagerly.

Toddy Nokin made a slow, sweeping gesture toward the far northern end of Wild Horse Mesa, almost lost in dim purple distance. The motion of arm and hand had a singular character, never seen in gesture save that of an Indian. It suggested deviations of trail, deep canyons to cross, long distance to cover. Then Toddy Nokin spoke in his own tongue, with the simplicity of a chief whose word was beyond doubt. Chane’s interpretation might not have been wholly correct, but it made the blood dance in his veins. Panquitch had been seen to lead his band up over the barren trailless rock benches that led to the towering wall of the unscalable mesa. These wild horses left no tracks. They had not returned. Keen-eyed Piutes had watched the only possible descents over the red benches. Panquitch was on top of the mesa, free with the big-horn sheep and the eagles. The fact wrung profound respect and admiration from Chane Weymer, yet fired him with passionate resolve. For a long time that wild mesa had haunted him. The reason for it, the alluring call of the wandering lofty wall, now seemed easily understood.

“Panquitch, I’ve got track of you at last!” he exclaimed, exultantly.

There awoke in Chane then something of abandon to what he had always longed for—a wild freedom without work or restraint or will other than his own wandering fancies. Indeed, his range life had been rough and hard enough, but up until the last year he had been under obligation to his father and other employers, and always there had been a powerful sense of duty and a love for his younger brother. Chess. These had acted as barriers to his natural instincts. Chess was eighteen now and considered himself very much of a man, so much so that he resented Chane’s guardianship.

“Boy Blue doesn’t need his big brother any more,” soliloquized Chane, half sadly, remembering Chess’s impatience at being watched over. Time, indeed, had passed swiftly. Chess was almost a man. It seemed only a short while since he had been a baby boy, back there in Colorado, where he had been born. Chane reflected on his own age—thirty-four, and on those past years when this beloved brother had been a little child. Those early days in Colorado had been happy ones. The Weymers were a family of close ties. Chane’s father had been a ranchman, cattleman, and horse-dealer. It had been on the prairie slopes of Colorado, under the eastern shadows of the Rockies, that Chane had learned what was now his calling—the hunting of wild horses. In time he sought wilder country—Nevada, Utah—and his brother Chess, true to childish worship, had followed him. There had been a couple of years in which the boy had been amenable; then had come the inevitable breaking out. Not that Chess had been bad, Chane reflected, but just that he wanted to be his own boss. Chane had left him, several weeks ago, back across the rivers and the stony brakes of that Utah wilderness, in the little Mormon town of St. George. Chess had begged to go on this expedition to the Piute country, where Chane had come to buy a bunch of Indian mustangs. Here Chane’s musings and reflections were interrupted by Toddy Nokin, who said he would go down to his camp.

“No want leave daughter alone,” he added, significantly. Chane was reminded that one of the horse-wranglers who had fallen in with him—Manerube by name—was not a man he would care to trust.

The Indian’s moccasined feet padded softly on the rocks. Presently Chane was left to himself, and his gaze and mind returned to the object that had caused him to scale the heights—Wild Horse Mesa.

This early September day had been one of storm, clearing toward late afternoon, leaving cloud pageants in the sky to west and north. At the moment there seemed no promise of color—something which Chane always looked for in the sky. All the northland was obscured in paling clouds, leaden in hue.

Chane was at loss to understand the spell which had fascinated him since his first sight of Wild Horse Mesa. It was as if he had been arrested by a prophetic voice that bade him give heed. He could not grasp the vague intimation as a warning; it was rather a call which urged him to come, to seek, to labor, to find. Chane thought of the wild stallion, Panquitch, and though he thrilled, he could not satisfy himself that pursuit of the great horse wholly accounted for this strange beckoning.

A broken mass of gray storm cloud had lodged against the west end of the mesa, where the precipitous red wall towered above the waved area of wind-worn rock. Apparently the cloud hung there, as if against an obstruction, yet it appeared to change form. Chane gazed as he had a thousand times, in idle or wondering moments, yet there was a subtle difference now, either in the aspect of this mesa or in himself. That made him keen-eyed as an Indian and unusually thoughtful.

But it seemed only a vast landscape, grand because of outline and distance, yet at the moment dull and somber. Still, was it not hiding something? The lower edge of the broken mass of cloud extended far down the wall; in some places the top of the mesa was obscured; above the cloud and all to the west was clear. The sun had gone under the huge dark slope that climbed from the undulating canyon country to the mountain.

The cloud above Wild Horse Mesa broke in the center and spread slowly, while the gray color almost imperceptibly changed. Between the mesa and the mountain slope sank a vast deep notch, through which V-shaped portal the ends of the earth seemed visible. Low down the distant rock surfaces were gold; above them the belt of sky was yellow. Canopying this band of pale sky stretched a roof of cloud, an extension of that canopy enshrouding the mesa, and it had begun to be affected by the sinking sun. At first the influence was gradual; then suddenly occurred swift changes, beautiful and evanescent—white clouds turning to rose, with centers of opal, like a coral shell.

The moment came when Chane saw the west wall of Wild Horse Mesa veiled in lilac haze. He was watching a phenomenon of nature that uplifted him, that indefinably troubled him. The flat roof of the cloud took on a fiery vermilion; the west end of the shroud became a flame; and mesa, sky, mountain slope, and canyon depths seemed transfigured with a glory that was not of earth. It held Chane through its stages of infinite beauty—only a few moments of evanescent power—and then the burning fire changed to the afterglow tones of gold, silver, violet. Last came a single instant when the whole world of rock lay under a mantle of purple. When that faded there spread the encroaching of the shades of twilight.

Chane left his lofty perch and descended rapidly over the smooth rock benches, zigzagging the curved slopes, and at last the cedared ridge above Beaver Canyon. Twilight yielded to night; the babble of the brook broke the desert stillness. Then a bright camp fire shining through darkness changed the vague spell that had come to him upon the heights.

The camp fire lighted up the weird cedar trees and the dark forms of men standing in a half-circle. The scene was natural, one Chane had long been accustomed to, yet just now it struck him singularly. He halted out there in the darkness. Some one of the men was talking, but, owing to the rush of the brook, Chane could not distinguish any words. Several Piutes stood grouped near the fire, wild, picturesque figures, lean, ragged, disheveled, with their high-crowned sombreros.

Chane moved on again, not intentionally walking stealthily, yet approaching quite closely to the camp fire before his boot crunched on a stone. He saw Manerube start and cease his earnest talk to the three men who had been listening intently. They too relaxed their attention. It struck Chane that his abrupt arrival had interrupted a colloquy not intended for his sharing. If he had not been deliberately watching the group he would not have observed how obvious this was. But he had marked the quick change and it roused his suspicions. What were these men up to?

They had all been strangers to him before this visit to the Piute country. Three of them had ridden into his camp one night a few weeks before. They claimed to be wild-horse wranglers on the way across the rivers, and offered their services in exchange for camp rations, of which they were short. Chane had been glad to have them help him collect and run the mustangs he was buying to sell to the Mormons, and he could not find any fault with them. Manerube, however, who had joined them recently, was not a man to inspire Chane’s liking. He had been loud in acclaiming himself the best wild-horse wrangler in Utah; he was over-bearing in manner and he was brutal to horses; and lastly he had made trouble with the Piutes.

Chane strode into the camp fire circle with the thought in mind that he might be moody and unreasonable, but he would keep a sharper eye on these unsolicited comrades.

Manerube had his back to the camp fire. He had a rider’s figure, long, lithe, round of limb. As Chane came up Manerube turned to disclose the sunburnt face of a man under thirty, bold, striking, sardonic. It bore lines not easy to read, and its gleaming light eyes and curling blond mustache seemed to hide much. Manerube claimed to be Mormon. Chane had rather doubted this, though the fellow was well educated and had a peculiar dominating manner.

“Well, how was the little squaw sweetheart tonight?” he drawled at Chane. One of the other men snickered.

Chane had good-naturedly stood a considerable amount of this scarcely veiled badinage. He had not been above being friendly and pleasant to Toddy Nokin’s dusky-eyed daughter—a friendliness Manerube had misconstrued.

“See here, Manerube,” replied Chane, at last out of patience, “Sosie is not my sweetheart.”

Manerube laughed derisively and seemed more than usually antagonistic.

“Bah! You can’t fool a Mormon when it comes to women, white or red,” he said.

“I’ve lived a good deal among Mormons,” returned Chane. “I never noticed they talked insultingly about women.”

Manerube’s eyes wavered for a second, yet something was added to their pale gleam.

“Insult a squaw!” he ejaculated, coarsely. “Say, your bluff don’t work.”

“It’s no bluff. I don’t make bluffs,” replied Chane, deliberately. “Sosie’s nothing to me. And I’m telling you not to hint otherwise.”

“Weymer, I don’t believe you,” returned Manerube.

Chane took a quick long stride toward the other. He rather welcomed this turn to the situation.

“Do you call me a liar?” he demanded.

There was a moment’s silence. The Piutes took note of Chane’s sharp voice. Manerube’s comrades backed away slowly. He made a quick angry gesture that was wholly instinctive. Then he controlled his natural feeling. His face showed sudden restraint, though it remained just as bold.

“If Sosie’s nothing to you, why’d you tell her father to keep her away from me?” demanded Manerube, avoiding Chane’s direct question. “She’s only a squaw, and one white man’s the same as another to her.”

“Sosie likes white men. So do all these Indian girls,” said Chane. “They’re simple, primitive children of the desert. That’s why so many of them are degraded by such men as you, Manerube.”

Manerube evidently held himself under strong control because of some feeling other than fear. The red faded out of his face and his eyes glared in the camp fire light.

“Chane, I heard about you over in Bluff,” he burst out, in scorn. “And now I’m not wondering whether it’s true or not.”

“What’d you hear?” queried Chane, calmly.

“That you’d been a Navajo squaw-man.”

Chane laughed at the absurdity of that and replied: “No, I never married a Navajo. But I’ll tell you what. I’d sooner marry a girl like Sosie and be decent to her, than treat her as you would.”

Manerube eyed Chane guardedly and studiously.

“Well,” he said, finally, “I’ll treat Sosie as I like.”

“Not while you’re in my camp,” flashed Chane. “I didn’t ask your help or your company. I don’t like either. You take your horses and pack, and get out, pronto.”

“I’ll think it over tonight,” replied Manerube.

His impudent assurance irritated Chane more than his insults. Moreover, the intent faces of the three comrades were not lost upon Chane. These men had laughed and joked on a former occasion when Chane had voiced his objection to Manerube’s actions. They were different now. There was something wrong here. It did not need to be voiced aloud that these four men understood one another. At the same time he grasped the subtle fact that they were not unaware of his reputation. Chane’s lone-wolf ways and his championship of Indian maidens, his hard fist and swift gun, forced a respect on the wild-horse ranges of Utah and Nevada.

“Manerube, I reckon you don’t want any advice from me,” declared Chane. “But I’ll tell you—don’t let me run into you with Sosie.”

Chane looked into Manerube’s eyes with the same deliberate intent that had characterized his speech. It was the moment which fixed hatred between him and this self-called Mormon. Chane wanted to read what he had to expect from the man. And his first impression had been right—Manerube was not what he pretended to be and he was dangerous. Sooner or later the issue would be forced. Chane did not care how soon that would come. He had lived a good many years among hard men of the open ranges, and it was not likely that he would be surprised. Nevertheless, as he turned away from the group he watched them out of the tail of his eye. He carried his roll of bedding away from the camp, out under a thick cedar tree, where the night shadow was deep.

Snug in his blankets, he stretched his long limbs and felt grateful that slumber would soon come. But he was too sanguine, for sleep held aloof. Somehow the day had been different from others. It had left him full of resentment toward Manerube and his associates, worried despite his fearlessness. Most significant of all, however, was a sense of dissatisfaction with his life.

If Manerube stayed longer at this camp and persisted in his attentions to the little Piute girl—which things he would almost certainly do—there was going to be trouble. Chane had settled this in his mind before he gave Manerube to understand what would happen. But as a matter of fact Chane did not know exactly what would happen. He had concluded that the man was dangerous, but not out in the open face to face; and Chane decided to force a fight at the slightest opportunity and let Manerube’s response settle how serious it would be.

Then Chane pondered over the other men who had attached themselves to him. Day by day, and especially since the arrival of Manerube, they had grown less welcome in his camp. They called themselves Jim Horn, Hod Slack, and Bud McPherson—names that in this wilderness did not mean anything. Chane was not well acquainted on the south side of the San Juan River, having been there only once before. During that time he had hunted horses among the Navajos. The Piutes did not know these men well, and that in itself was thought-provoking. Horn and Slack had not appeared to exhibit any force of character, but McPherson had showed himself to be a man of tremendous energy and spirit. If he had not been so closed-mouthed about himself, so watchful, and manifestly burdened with secret ponderings, Chane would have liked him. Chane brought all his observation and deduction to bear on the quartet, and came to the conclusion that the most definite thing he could grasp was their attitude of watchful waiting. Waiting for what! It could only be for him to get together all the horses he meant to buy from the Piutes. There was nothing else for them to wait for. Wild-horse hunting had not developed into a profitable business, yet it had sustained a few straggling bands of horse thieves. Chane almost convinced himself that these unwelcome wranglers in his camp belonged to such evil fraternity, and that aroused his resentment to anger. But he must be cautious. He was alone and could not expect help from the few Piutes in the vicinity. It seemed wisest to delay completing his horse deal with the Indians.

“Pretty mess I’m in,” he muttered to himself, disparagingly. “This horse-hunting is no good.” And he reflected that years of it had made him what he was—only a wild-horse wrangler, poor and with no prospects of any profit. Long he had dreamed of a ranch where he could breed great horses, of a home and perhaps a family. Vain, idle dreams! The romance, the thrilling adventure, the constant change of scene and action, characteristic of the hard life of a wild-horse hunter, had called to him in his youth and fastened upon him in his manhood. What else could he do now? He had become a lone hunter, a wanderer of the wild range, and it was not likely that he could settle down to the humdrum toil of a farmer or cattleman.

“I might—if—if——” he whispered, and looked up through the dark foliage of the cedar to the white blinking stars. In the shadow, and in the pale starlight, there seemed to hover a vague sweet face that sometimes haunted his inner vision. Bitterly he shut his eyes. It was a delusion. He was no longer a boy. The best in his life seemed past, gone, useless. What folly to dream of a woman! And suddenly into his mind flashed Manerube’s scathing repetition of gossip spoken in Bluff. Squaw man!

“All because I befriended a Navajo girl—as I’ve done here for Sosie!” he muttered. It galled Chane. Suppose that rumor got to the ears of his father and mother, still living at the old home in Colorado! What would his little brother Chess think? Chane still cherished the family pride. If he had not made anything of his life it had not been because he was not well born, or had lacked home influences and schooling. It shocked him to realize how far he had gone. Few people in that wild country would rightly interpret attention or succor to an Indian girl. Chane had never cared in the least what had been said about him or his ways. He had been blunt in speech and forceful in action toward those brutes who betrayed the simple-hearted, primitive Indian maidens. And these cowards had retaliated by spreading poisonous rumor. What little justice there was in it! He knew deep in his soul how honest and fair he had been. But he had befriended more than one little Indian girl like Sosie, and ridden with them and talked with them, interested, amused, and sometimes in his lonely moods grateful even for their feminine company. Chane could not see how that had been wrong. Yet these Indian girls were only too quick to care for a white man—good or bad. They were little savages of the desert. Chane realized where he had given wrong impression of himself, perhaps to them, certainly to the white men who had run across him among the Indians.

Chane endured a bitter hour of reflection and self-analysis. A morbid resignation seemed about to fix its dark lichen upon his heart. What folly these dreams! How futile to love a horse! Was even the grand Panquitch on Wild Horse Mesa worth the time and toil and pang that it would take to capture him, if such were possible? What hope lay in the future? Why not forget his absurd dreams, his strange belief in the romance that would come to him, his parents and the little brother? Why not drift as the tumbleweed of the desert, where the wind listed? Why not find some solace in little Sosie’s dusky eyes?

But with that thought a revolt stirred in Chane, a fight against the insidious weakness which would make him ashamed of himself. Whatever he had done and however he had failed of the thing people called success, he had remained a man. He clung to the idea. Evil tongues could not hurt him. His life, profitless as it was, still had wonderful charm. He was free, healthy, active; he found that the wild desert meant infinitely more to him than he had known; he had loved a horse, and he could love another. There was always his brother to return to. What did anything else matter? Thus the dark mood was beaten down and conquered.

The cool wind had died away, except for low intermittent moans through the cedars, and the lonely desert silence settled down. The brook murmured faintly and the insects sang their melancholy notes, but these only accentuated the vast dead stillness of the solitude. Chane fell asleep.

He awoke at dawn, when the dark luminous light was changing to gray. The September air held a nipping edge of frost. Chane found that something new, a spirit or strength, had seemed to awaken with him. Not resignation nor bitter dissatisfaction with his lot, but stranger, stronger faith! His life must be what he felt, not the material gain he had once wanted. He lay there until he heard the men round the camp fire and the crack of unshod hoofs on the stones. Then he arose, and pulling on his boots, and taking up his coat, he strode toward the camp. His saddle and packs lay under a cedar. From a pack he lifted his gun-belt, containing a Colt and shells, which he buckled round his waist. This he had not been in the habit of wearing.

Two Piutes had ridden in and sat on their mustangs, waiting to be invited to eat. Three of the men were busy—Slack rolling biscuit dough, Horn coming up with water, and McPherson cutting slices from a haunch of sheep meat. Chane’s quick eye caught sight of Manerube washing down at the brook.

“Say, Weymer, your Injun pards hev rustled in for chineago, as usual,” remarked Slack, dryly.

“So I see. Seems a habit of riders—rustling in on my camp to eat,” replied Chane.

“Wal, them Piutes are pretty white. They’d never let any fellar go hungry,” said Horn.

McPherson looked up at Chane with a curious little gleam in his sharp eyes. He was not so young as his comrades. His face showed experience of wild life in all its phases, and the bronzed lean cheeks, the hard jaw, the lined brow seemed parts of a mask which hid his thought.

“Ahuh! Packin’ your hardware,” he said, with a glance at Chane’s gun.

“Yep. These September days are getting chilly,” replied Chane, with animation.

Slack burst into a loud guffaw and Horn’s dark, still visage wrinkled with a grin.

“What’s eatin’ you, pards?” queried McPherson, with asperity, as he shifted his penetrating gaze to his comrades. “It shore ain’t funny—Weymer struttin’ out hyar, waggin’ a gun.”

“Wal, it was what he said that hit my funny bone,” returned Horn.

“Weymer,” went on McPherson, slowly, “I reckon you ain’t feelin’ none too friendly toward Manerube. An’ I’m sayin’ as I don’t blame you. What he said last night wasn’t easy to swaller. I told him so. He didn’t show up much of a gentleman, seein’ he’s been eatin’ at your camp fire. Wal, I reckon he’s sorry an’ ain’t achin’ to start trouble with you.”

One casual glance at McPherson’s calm face was enough to convince Chane that the man was as deep as the sea. His appearance bore out too well the content of his words. A less keen observer than Chane would have been won to charitableness. But Chane had felt too poignantly and thought too deeply to be deceived by anyone. These men did not mean well by him.

“McPherson, I never look for trouble—except in front of me, and especially behind,” replied Chane, sarcastically. “I just woke up feeling uncomfortable without my gun.”

“Ahuh!” ejaculated the other, soberly, and bent to his task.

Chane reasoned that he had not the slightest fear of these men and wanted them to know it. As long as he kept them face to face they could not shoot him in the back; and if the issue came to an open fight at close range they would suffer as much as he. Men were not quick to draw under such circumstances. As for a fight at long range, Chane would have all the best of that, for he possessed a rifle, which he meant to hide when he did not have it in his hands.

Presently Manerube came up the slope from the brook, wiping his clean-shaven face with a scarf. Chane conceded that the man was a handsome devil, calculated to stir the pulse of a white woman, let alone an Indian girl.

“Good morning, Weymer,” he said, not without effort. “Hope you’ll overlook the way I shot off my mouth last night. I was sore.”

“Sure. Glad to forget it,” replied Chane, cheerfully. Manifestly Manerube had been talked to.

At this juncture Slack called out, “Come an’ git it.”

Whereupon the five men attended to the business of breakfast, a matter of cardinal importance in the desert. They ate in silence until all the food and drink had been consumed.

“Bud, what’re you doing today?” inquired Manerube, as he rose, wiping his mouth.

“Wal, thet depends on the boss of this hyar outfit,” answered McPherson, slowly, and he stared hard at Manerube. But this worthy did not take the hint, if there really was one.

“Weymer, you said once you’d be hitting the trail for the Hole in the Wall,” went on Manerube, “soon as the Piutes rounded up the rest of the mustangs you bought.”

“Why, yes. What’s it to you?” asked Chane, easily.

“You’re going to sell in Wund, so you said. Well, that’s where we’re bound for, and we’ll help you drive through. But let’s rustle along. It’s been raining up at the head of the San Juan. There’ll be high water.”

“The San Juan is up now, so Toddy told me yesterday. I reckon I’ll wait for it to go down,” replied Chane.

“But that might take weeks,” declared Manerube.

“I don’t care how long it takes,” retorted Chane. “You fellows don’t need to wait for me. I’ll take some Piutes. I’d rather have them, anyhow.”

“The hell you say!” burst out Manerube, suddenly flaming.

At that McPherson violently struck Manerube in the chest and thrust him backward.

“See hyar, Bent Manerube,” he said, in voice contrasting with his action, “we ain’t goin’ to have you talk for us. Me an’ Jim an’ Hod are shore glad to wait on Weymer. We’re out of grub, an’ we don’t aim to let you make him sore on us.”

The sullen amaze with which Manerube took this action and speech convinced Chane that he had no authority over these three men, and a break was imminent.