"We'll let him pull the trap," broke in Stetson grimly.

Of a sudden above the confusion there sounded a snarl, almost like the cry of an animal. Surprised, for the moment silenced, the men turned in the direction whence it had come.

"Rankin!" It was Mick Kennedy who spoke, but it was Mick transformed. "Rankin!" The great veins of the bartender's neck swelled; the red face congested until it became all but purple. "No! We won't go near him! He'd put a stop to the whole thing. What we want is men, not cowards!"

A moment only the silence lasted. "All right," agreed Stetson. "Have another, boys! We'll drop Rankin!"

Anew, louder than before, broke forth the confusion. The games of a short time ago were forgotten. A heap of coin lay on the shelf behind the bar where Mick, the banker, had placed it; but winner and loser alike ignored its existence. The savage, ever so near the surface of these rough frontiersmen, had taken complete possession of them. Drop Rankin—forget civilization—ignore the slow practices of law and order!

"Come on!" someone yelled. "We're enough to do the business. To the river!"

Instantly the crowd burst through the single front door. Momentarily there followed a lull, while in the half darkness each rider found his mount. Then sounded an "All ready!" from cowboy Buck, first in motion, a straining of leather, a swish of quirts, a grunting of ponies as the spurs dug into their flanks, a rush of leaping feet, a wild medley of yells, and westward across the prairie, beneath the stars, there passed a swiftly moving black shadow that grew momentarily lighter, and back from which came a patter, patter, patter, that grew softer and softer; until at last over the old saloon and its companion store fell silence absolute.

It was 10:28 when they left Kennedy's place. It was 12:36 when, without having for a moment stopped their long swinging gallop, they pulled up at the "Lone Buffalo" ranch, twenty-five miles away, and the last ranch before they reached the river. The house was dark and silent as the grave at their approach; but it did not remain so long. The display of fireworks with which they illumined the night would have done credit to an Independence Day celebration. The yells which accompanied it were hair-raising as the shrieks from a band of maniacs. Instantly lights began to burn, and the proprietor himself, Grey—a long Southerner with an imperial—came rushing to the door, a revolver in either hand.

But the visitors had not waited for him. With one impulse they had ridden straight into the horse corral, had thrown off saddles and bridles from their steaming mounts, and, every man for himself, had chosen afresh from the ranch herd. Passing out in single-file through the gate, they came upon Grey; but still they did not stop. The one word "rustler" was sufficient password, and not five minutes from the time they arrived they were again on the way, headed straight southwest for their long ride to the river.

Hour after hour they forged ahead. The mustangs had long since puffed themselves into their second wind, and, falling instinctively into their steady swinging lope, they moved ahead like machines. The country grew more and more rolling, even hilly. From between the tufts of buffalo grass now and then protruded the white face of a rock. Over one such, all but concealed in the darkness, Grover's horse stumbled, and with a groan, the rancher beneath, fell flat to earth. By a seeming miracle the man arose, but the horse did not, and an examination showed the jagged edge of a fractured bone protruding through the hide at the shoulder. There was but one thing to do. A revolver spoke its message of relief, a hastily-cast lot fell to McFadden, and without a word he faced his own mount back the way they had come, assisted Grover to a place behind him, turned to wish the others good luck, and found himself already too late. Where a minute ago they had been standing there was now but vacancy. The night and the rolling ground had swallowed the avengers up as completely as though they had never existed; and the Scotchman rode slowly back.

It was yet dark, but the eastern sky was reddening, when they reached the chain of bluffs bordering the great river. They had made their plans before, so that now without hesitating they split as though upon the edge of a mighty wedge, half to the right, half to the left, each division separating again into its individual members, until the whole, like two giant hands whereof the cowboys, half a mile apart from each other, were the fingers, moved forward until the end finger all but touched the river itself.

Still there was no pause. The details had been worked out to a nicety. They had bent far to the south, miles farther than any man aiming at the Wyoming border would have gone, and now, having arrived at the barrier, they wheeled north again. It was getting daylight, and cowboy Pete,—in our simile the left little finger,—first to catch sight of the surface of the stream, waved in triumph to the nearest rider on his right.

"We've got him, sure!" he yelled. "She's open in spots"; and though the others could not hear, they understood the meaning, and the message went on down the line.

On, on, more swiftly now, at a stiff gallop, for it was day, the riders advanced. As they moved, first one rider and then another would disappear, as a depression in the uneven country temporarily swallowed them up—but only to reappear again over a prominent rise, still galloping on. They watched each other closely now, searching the surrounding country. They were nearing a region where they might expect action at any moment,—the remains of a camp-fire, a clue to him they sought,—for it was on a line directly west of the Big B ranch.

And they were not to be disappointed. Observing closely, Stetson, who was nearest to Pete, saw the latter suddenly draw up his horse and come to a full stop. At last the end had arrived—at last; and the rancher turned to motion to his right. Only a moment the action took, but when he shifted back he saw a sight which, stolid gambler as he was, sent a thrill through his nerves, a mumbling curse to his lips. Coming toward him, crazy-scared, bounding like an antelope, mane flying, stirrups flapping, was the pony Pete had ridden, but now riderless. Of the cowboy himself there was not a sign. Stetson had not heard a sound or caught a motion. Nevertheless, he understood. Somewhere near, just to the west, lay death, death in ambush; but he did not hesitate. Whatever his faults, the man was no coward. A revolver in either hand, the reins in his teeth, he spurred straight for the river.

It took him but a minute to cover the distance—a minute until, almost by the rivers bank, he saw ahead on the brown earth the sprawling form of a dead man. With a jerk he drew up alongside, and, the muzzles of big revolvers following his eye, sent swiftly about him a sweeping glance. Of a sudden, three hundred yards out, seemingly from the surface of the river itself, he caught a tiny rising puff of smoke, heard simultaneously a sound he knew so well,—the dull spattering impact of a bullet,—realized that the pony beneath him was sinking, felt the shock as his own body came to earth, and heard just over his head the singing passage of a rifle-ball.

Unconscious profanity flowed from the rancher's lips in a stream; but meanwhile his brain worked swiftly, and, freeing himself, he crawled back hand over hand until a wave in the ground covered the river from view; then springing to his feet he ran toward the others, approaching now as fast as spurs would bring them, waving, shouting a warning as he went. Within a minute they were all together listening to his story. Within another, the rifles from off their saddles in their hands, the ponies left in charge of lank Bob Hoyt, the eight others now remaining moved back as Stetson had come: at first upright, then, crawling, hand over hand until, peeping over the intervening ridge, they saw lying before them the mingled ice patches and open running water of the low-lying Missouri. Beside them at their left, very near, was the body of Pete; but after a first glance and an added invective no man for the present gave attention. He was dead, dead in his tracks, and their affair was not with such, but with the quick.

At first they could see nothing which explained the mystery of death, only the forbidding face of the great river; then gradually to one after another there appeared tell-tale marks which linked together into clues.

"Ain't that a hoss-carcass?" It was cowboy Buck who spoke. "Look, a hundred yards out, down stream."

Gilbert's swift glance caught the indicated object.

"Yes, and another beyond—farther down—amongst that ice-pack! Do you see?"

"Where?" Mick Kennedy trained his one eye like a fieldpiece upon the locality suggested. "Where? Yes! I see them now—both of them. Blair's own horse, if he had one, is probably in there too, somewhere."

Meanwhile Stetson had been scrutinizing the spot on the river's face from which had come the puff of smoke.

"Say, boys!" a ring as near excitement as was possible to one of his temperament was in his voice. "Ain't that an island, that brown patch out there, pretty well over to the other side? I believe it is."

The others followed his glance. Near the farther bank was a long low-lying object, like a jam of broken ice-cakes, between which and them the open water was flowing. At first they thought it was ice; then under longer observation they knew better. They had seen too many other formations of the kind in this shifting treacherous stream to be long deceived. A flat sandy island it was, sure enough; and what they thought was ice was driftwood.

Almost simultaneously from the eight there burst forth an exclamation, a rumbling curse of comprehension. They understood it all now as plainly as though their own eyes had seen the tragedy. Blair had reached the river and, despite its rotten ice, had tried to cross. One by one the horses had broken through, had been abandoned to their fate. He alone, somehow, had managed to reach this sandy island, and he was there now, intrenched behind the driftwood, waiting and watching.

In the brain of every cowboy there formed an unuttered curse. Their impotence to go farther, to mete out retribution to this murderer of their companion, came over them in a blind wave of fury. The sun, now well above the horizon, shone warmly down upon them. They were in the midst of an infrequent Winter thaw. The full current of the river was between them and the desperado. It might be days, a week, before ice would again form; yet, connecting the island with the western bank, it was even now in place. Blair had but to wait until cover of night, and depart in peace—on foot, to be sure, but in the course of days a man could travel far afoot. Doubtless he realized all this. Doubtless he was laughing at them now. The curses redoubled.

Stetson had been taking off his coat. He now draped it about his rifle-stock, and placed his sombrero on top. "All ready, boys," he cautioned, and raised it slowly into view.

Instantly from the centre of the driftwood heap there arose a tracing of blue smoke. Simultaneously, irregular in outline as though punched by a dull instrument, a jagged hole appeared in the felt of the hat.

As instantly, eight rifles on the bank began to play. The crackling of their reports was like infantry, the sliding click of the ejecting mechanism as continuous and regular as the stamp-stamp of many presses. The smoke rose over their heads in a blue cloud. Far out on the river, under impact of the bullets, splinters of the rotted driftwood leaped high into the air. Now and then the open water in front splashed into spray as a ball went amiss. Not until the rifle magazines were empty did they cease, and then only to reload. Again and once again they repeated the onslaught, until it would seem no object the size of a human being upon the place where they aimed could by any possibility remain alive. Then, and not until then, did silence return, did the dummy upon Stetson's rifle again raise its head.

But this time there was no response. They waited a minute, two minutes—tried the ruse again, and it was as before. Had they really hit the man out there, as they hoped, or was he, conscious of a trick, merely lying low? Who could tell? The uncertainty, the inaction, goaded all that was reckless in cowboy Buck's nature, and he sprang to his feet.

"I'm going out there if I have to walk on the bottom of the river!" he blazed.

Instantly Stetson's hands were on his legs, pulling him, prostrate.

"Down, you fool!" he growled. "At the bottom of the river is where you'd be quick enough." The speaker turned to the others. "One of us is done for already. There's no use for the rest to risk our lives without a show. We've either potted Blair or we haven't. There's nothing more to be done now, anyway. We may as well go back."

For a moment there was a murmur of dissent, but it was short-lived. One and all realized that what the rancher said was true. For the present at least, nature was against them, on the side of the outlaw; and to combat nature was useless. Another time—yes, there would surely be another time; and grim faces grew grimmer at the thought. Another time it would be different.

"Yes, we may as well go." It was Mick Kennedy who spoke. "We can't stay here long, that's sure." He tossed his rifle over to Stetson. "Carry that, will you?" and rising, regardless of danger, he walked over to cowboy Pete, took the dead body in his arms, without a glance behind him, stalked back to where the horses were waiting, laid his burden almost tenderly across the shoulder of his own mustang, and mounted behind. Coming up, the others, likewise in silence, got into their saddles, not as at starting, with one bound, but heavily, by aid of stirrups. Still in silence, Mick leading, the legs of dead Pete dangling at the pony's shoulder, they faced east, and started moving slowly along the backward trail.



CHAPTER XIII

A SHOT IN THE DARK

Winter, long delayed, came at last in earnest. On the morning of the seventeenth of January—the ranchers did not soon forget the date—a warm snow, soft with moisture, drove tumbling in from the east. All the morning it came, thicker and thicker, until on the level, several inches had fallen; then, so rapidly that one could almost discern the change, the temperature began lowering, the wind shifting from the east to the north, from north to west, and steadily rising. The surface of the snow froze to ice, the snowflakes turned to sleet, and went bounding and grinding, forming drifts but to disperse again, journeying aimlessly on, cutting viciously at the chance animal who came in their path like a myriad of tiny knives.

All that day the force of the Box R ranch labored in the increasing storm to get the home herds safely behind the shelter of the corral. It was impossible for cattle long to face such a storm; but with this very emergency in mind, Rankin had always in Winter kept the scattered bunches to the north and west, and under these conditions the feat was accomplished by dusk, and the half-frozen cowboys tumbled into their bunks, to fall asleep almost before they assumed the horizontal. The other ranchers wondered why it was that Rankin was so prosperous and why his herd seldom diminished in Winter. Had they been observant, they could have learned one reason that day.

All the following night the storm moaned and raged, and the cold became more and more intense. It came in through the walls of houses and through bunk coverings, and bit at one like a living thing. Nothing could stop it, nothing unprotected could withstand it. In the great corral behind the windbreak, the cattle, all headed east, were jammed together for warmth, a conglomerate mass of brown heads and bodies from which projected a wilderness of horns.

The next morning broke with a clear sky but with the thermometer marking many degrees below zero. Out of doors, when the sun had arisen, the light was dazzling. As far as eye could reach not a spot of brown relieved the white. The layer of frozen snow lay like a vast carpet stretched tight from horizon to horizon. Although it was only snow, yet so far as the herds of the ranchers were concerned it might have been a protecting armor of steel. Well did the tired cowboys, stiff from the previous day's struggle, know what was before them, when at daylight Graham routed them out. Food the helpless multitude must have. If they could not find it for themselves it must be found for them; and in stolid disapproval the men ate a hasty breakfast by the light of a kerosene lamp and went forth to the inevitable.

Rankin and Ben and Graham were already astir, and under their supervision the campaign was rapidly begun. For a few days the stock must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle stockade—a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range for the future.

The device which the big man had evolved for this purpose, and had used on previous similar occasions, was a simple triangular snow-plough several feet in width, with guiding handles behind. Comparatively narrow as was the ribbon path cleared by this appliance, its length was only limited by the endurance of the horses and the driver, and in the course of the day many an acre could be uncovered. Half an hour after sunrise, the eight outfits thus equipped were lined up side by side and headed due northwest to a range which had been but little pastured.

For five miles straight as a taut line they went, leaving behind them eight brown stripes alternating with bands of white between. Then back and forth, back and forth, for the distance of another mile they vibrated until it was noon, when eight more connecting brown ribbons were stretched beside their predecessors back to the ranch-house. In the afternoon the labor was repeated, until by night the clearing, a gigantic mottled fan with an abnormally long handle, lay in vivid contrast against the surrounding white.

The second day was the same, except that but seven bands stretched out behind the moving squad. Rankin, game as he was, could scarcely put one foot ahead of the other, and in consequence, changing his tactics, he mounted the old buckboard and departed on a tour of inspection toward the north range. He was late in returning, and, as usual, very taciturn; but after supper, as he and Ben were smoking in friendly silence by the kitchen fire, he turned to the younger man.

"Someone stayed at the north range last night," he announced abruptly. "He slept there and had a fire."

Ben showed no surprise. "I thought so, probably," he replied. "Late this afternoon I ran across a trail leading in from the west along our clearing, and headed that way. It was one lone chain of footprints."

Rankin shivered, and replenished the fire. His long drive had chilled him through and through.

"I suppose you have an idea who made that trail?" he said.

Though each knew that the other had heard the details of Pete's death, neither had mentioned the incident. To do so had seemed superfluous. Now, however, each realized the thought in the other's mind, and chose not to avoid it.

"Yes," answered Ben, simply. "I suppose it was made by Tom Blair."

Never before had Rankin heard Benjamin Blair speak that name. He stretched back heavily in his chair and lit his pipe afresh.

"Ben," he said, "I'm getting old. I never began to realize the fact until this Winter; but I sha'n't last many more years." Puff, puff went two twin clouds of smoke toward the ceiling. "Civilization has some advantages over the frontier, and this is one of them: it's kinder to the old."

Never before had Rankin spoken in this way, and the other understood the strength of his conviction.

"You work too hard," he said soberly, though he felt the inadequacy of the trite remark. "It's unnecessary. I wish you wouldn't do it."

Rankin threw an outward motion with his powerful hand. "Yes, I know; but when I quit moving I want to die. I know I could get a steam-heated back room in a quiet street of a sleepy town somewhere and coddle myself into a good many years yet; but it isn't worth the price. I love this big free life too well ever to leave it. Most of the people one meets here are rough, but in time that will all change. It's changing now; and meantime nature compensates for everything."

There was a moment's silence, and then, as though there had been no digression, Rankin went back to the former subject. "Yes," he said slowly, "I think you're right about those being Tom Blair's tracks." He turned and faced the younger man squarely. "If it is, Ben, it means he's been frozen out from his hiding-place, wherever that is, and he's crazy desperate. He'd do anything now. He wouldn't ever come back here otherwise."

Ben Blair's blue eyes tightened until the lashes were all but parallel.

"Yes," Rankin repeated, "he's crazy desperate to come here at all—especially so now." A pause, but the eyes did not shift. "God knows I'm sorry he ever came back. I was glad we found that trail too late to follow it to-day; but it's only postponing the end. I believe he'll be here at the ranch to-night. He's got to get a horse—he's got to do something right away; and I'm going to watch. If he don't come I'll take up the old trail in the morning."

Once more the pause, more intense than words. "He can't escape again, unless—unless he gets me first—He must be desperate crazy."

Rankin arose heavily and knocked the ashes out of his pipe preparatory to bed.

"There are a lot of things I might say now, Ben, but I won't say them. We're not living in a land of law. We haven't someone always at hand to shift our responsibility onto. In self-protection, we've got to take justice more or less into our own hands. One thing I will say, though, and I hope you'll never forget it. Think twice before you ever take the life of another human being, Ben; think twice. Be sure your reasons are mighty good—and then think again. Don't ever act in hot blood, or as long as you live you'll know remorse." The speaker paused and his breath came fast. Something more—who knew how much?—trembled on the end of his tongue. He roused himself with an effort and turned toward his bunk. "Good-night, Ben. I trust you as I'd trust my own son."

The younger man watched the departing figure and felt the irony of the separation that keeps us silent even when we wish to be nearest and most helpful to our friends and makes our words a mockery.

"Thank you, sir, I shall not forget. Good-night," he said.

When a few minutes later the young man sauntered out to the barns, everything was peaceful as usual. From the horse-stalls came the steady monotonous grind of the animals at feed. In the cattle-yards was heard the sleepy breathing of the multitude of cattle. Perfect contentment and oblivion was the keynote of the place, and the watcher looked at the lethargic mass thoughtfully. He had always responded instinctively to the moods of dumb animals. He did so now. The passive trustfulness of the great herd affected him deeply. Twice he made the circuit of the buildings, but finding nothing amiss returned to his place. The sound of the horses feeding had long since ceased. The sleepy murmur of the cattle was lower and more regular. In the increasing coldness the vapor of their breath, even though the night was dark and moonless, arose in an indistinct cloud, like the smoke of smouldering camp-fires over the tents of a sleeping army. For two days the man had been doing the heaviest kind of work. Gradually, amid much opening and closing of eyelids, consciousness lapsed into semi-consciousness, and he dozed.

Suddenly—whether it was an hour or a minute afterwards, he did not know—he awoke and sat up listening. Some sound had caught and held his sub-conscious attention. He waited a moment, intent, scarcely breathing, and then sprang swiftly to his feet. The sound now came definitely from the sheds at the left. It was the deep chesty groan of a horse in pain.

Once upon his feet, Ben Blair ran toward the barn, not cautiously but precipitately. He had not grown to maturity amid animals without learning something of their language; but even if such had been the case, he could scarcely have mistaken that sound. Mortal pain and mortal terror vibrated in those tones. No human being could have cried for help more distinctly. The frozen snow squeaked under the rancher's feet as he ran. "Stop there!" he shouted. "Stop there!" and throwing open the nearest door, unmindful of danger, he dashed into the interior darkness.

The barn was eighty odd feet in length, and as Ben swung open the door at the east corner there was a flash of fire from the extreme west end, and a bullet splintered the wood just back of his head. His precipitate entry had been his salvation. He groped his way ahead, the groans of the horses in his ears—for now he detected more than one voice. A growing realization of what he would find was in his mind, and then a dark form shot through the west door, and he was alone. Impulse told him to follow, but the sound of pain and struggle kept him back. He struck a match, held it like a torch above him, moved ahead, stopped. The flame burned down the dry pine until it reached his fingers, blackened them, went out; but he did not stir. He had expected the thing he saw, expected it at the first cry he heard; yet infinitely more horrible than a picture of imagination was the reality. He did not light another match, he did not wish to see. To hear was bad enough—to hear and to know. He started for the door; and behind him three great horses, hopelessly maimed and crippled, struggled to rise, and failing, groaned anew.

It seemed Ben's fate this night to be just too late for service. Before he reached the exit there sounded, spattering and intermittent, like the first popping kernels of corn in a pan, a succession of pistol-shots from the ranch-house. There was no answer, and as he stepped out into the air the sound ceased. As he did so, the kitchen of the house sprang alight from a lamp within. There was a moment of apparent inactivity, and then, the door swinging open, fair against the lighted background, shading his eyes to look into the outer darkness, stood Rankin. Instantly a wave of premonition flooded the watching Benjamin.

"Go back!" he shouted. "Go back! Back, quick!" and careless of personal danger, he started running for the ranch-house as before he had raced for the barn.

The warning might as well have been ungiven. Almost before the last words were spoken there came from the darkness at Ben's right the sound he had been expecting—a single vicious rifle report; and as though a mighty invisible weight were crushing him down, Rankin sank to the floor.

Then for the first time in his history Ben Blair lost self-control. Quick as thought he changed his course from the house to the direction from which the shot had come. The great veins of his throat swelled until it seemed he could scarcely breathe. Curses, horrible, blighting curses, combinations of malediction which had never even in thought entered his mind before, rolled from his lips. His brain seemed afire. But one idea possessed him—to lay hands upon this intruding being who had in cold blood done that fiendish deed in the barn, and now had shot his best friend on earth. The rage of primitive man who knew not steel or gunpowder was his; the ferocity of the great monkey, the aborigine's predecessor, whose means of offence were teeth and nails. Straight ahead the man rushed, seeming not to run, but fairly to bound, turned suddenly the angle at the corner of the machinery shed, stumbled over a snow-plough drawn up carelessly by one of the men, fell, regained his feet, and heard in his ears the thundering hoof-beats of a horse urged away at full speed.

For a moment Ben Blair stood as he had risen, gazing westward where the other had departed, but seeing nothing, not even a shadow. Clouds had formed over the sky, and the night was of intense darkness. To attempt to follow a trail now was waste of time; and gradually, as he stood there, the unevolved fury of the man transformed. His tongue became silent; not a human being had heard the outburst. The physical paroxysm relaxed. As he returned to the ranch-house no observer would have detected in him other than the usual matter-of-fact rancher; yet beneath that calm was a purpose infinitely more terrible than the animal blaze of a few minutes before, a tenacity more relentless than a tiger on the trail of its quarry, than an Indian stalking his enemy; a formulated purpose which could patiently wait, but eventually and inevitably would grind its object to powder.

Meanwhile, back at the scene of the tragedy, there had been feverish action. Many of the cowboys were already about the barns, and lanterns gleamed in the horse corral. Within the house, in the nearest bunk where they had laid him, stretched the proprietor of the ranch. About him were grouped Grannis, Graham, and Ma Graham. The latter was weeping hysterically—her head buried in her big checked apron, the great mass of her body vibrating with the effort. As Ben approached, her husband glanced up. Upon his face was the dull unreasoning indecision of a steer which had lost its leader; an animal passivity which awaited command.

"Rankin's dead," he announced dully. "He's hit here." A withered hand indicated a spot on the left breast. "He went quick."

Grannis said nothing, and walking up Ben Blair stopped beside the bunk. He took a long look at the kindly heavy face of the only man he had ever called friend; but not a feature of his own face relaxed, not a muscle quivered. Grannis watched him fixedly, almost with fascination. Gray-haired gambler and man of fortune that he was, he realized as Graham could never do the emotions which so often lie just back of the locked countenance of a human being; realized it, and with the grim carelessness of a frontiersman admired it.

Of a sudden there was a grinding of frosty snow in the outer yard, a confused medley of human voices, a snorting of horses; and, turning, Ben went to the door. One glance told him the meaning of the cluster of cowboys. He walked out toward them deliberately.

"Boys," he said steadily, "put up your horses. You couldn't find a mountain in the darkness to-night." A pause. "Besides," slowly, "this is my affair. Put them up and go to bed."

For a moment there was silence. The hearers could scarcely believe their ears.

"You mean we're to let him go?" queried a hesitating voice at last.

Blair folded up the broad brim of his hat and looked from face to face as it was revealed by the uncertain light from the window.

"I mean what I said," he repeated evenly. "I'll attend to this matter myself."

For a moment again there was silence, but only for a moment.

"No you won't!" blazed a voice suddenly. "Rankin was the whitest man that ever owned a brand. Just because the kyote that shot him lived with your mother won't save him. I'm going—and now."

Quicker than a cat, so swiftly that the other cowboys scarcely realized what was happening, the long gaunt Benjamin was at the speaker's side. With a leap he had him by the throat, had dragged him from the back of the horse, and held him at arm's length.

"Freeman,"—the voice was neither raised nor lowered, but steady as the drip of falling water,—"Freeman, you know better than that, and you know you know better." The grip of the long left hand on the throat tightened. The fingers of the right locked. "Say so—quick!"

Face to face, looking fair into each other's eyes, stood the two men, while the spectators watched breathlessly as they would have done at a climax in a play. It was a case of will against will, elemental man against his brother.

"I'm waiting," suggested Blair, and even in the dim light Freeman saw the blue eyes beneath the long lashes darken. Instinctively the victim's hand went to his hip and lingered there; but he could no more have withdrawn the weapon which he felt there than he could have struck his own mother. He started to speak; but his lips were dry, and he moistened them with his tongue.

"Yes, I know better," he admitted low.

Ben Blair dropped his hand and turned to the spectators. "Men," he said slowly and distinctly, "for the present at least I'm master of this ranch, and when I give an order I expect to be obeyed." Again his eye went from face to face fearlessly, dominantly. "Does any other man doubt me?"

Not a voice broke the stillness of the night. Only the restless movement of the impatient mustangs answered.

"Very well, then, you heard what I said. Go to bed, and to-morrow go on with your work as usual. Grannis will be in charge while I'm gone," and without a backward glance the long figure returned to the ranch-house.

The weazened foreman and the tall adventurer had been watching him impassively from the doorway. In silence they made room for him to pass.

"Grannis," he asked directly, "have those horses been taken care of?"

"No, sir."

"See to it at once then."

"Yes, sir."

The blue eyes rested for a moment on the other's face.

"You heard who I said would be in charge while I'm away?"

"Yes, sir," again.

Ben moved over to the bunk opposite to that in which lay the dead man and took off his hat and coat.

"Graham!"

The foreman came close, stood at attention.

"Keep awake and call me before daylight, will you?"

"I will."

"And, Graham!"

"Yes."

"I may be gone several days. You and Ma attend to the—burial. Dig the grave out under the big maple." A pause. "I think," steadily, "he would have liked it there."

The foreman nodded silently.

Benjamin Blair dropped into the bunk, drew the blankets over him and closed his eyes. As he did so, from the direction of the barn there came a succession of pistol shots—one, two, three. Then again silence fell.



CHAPTER XIV

THE INEXORABLE TRAIL

Once more, westward across the prairie country, there moved a tall and sinewy youth astride a vicious looking buckskin. This time, however, it was very early in the morning. The rider moved slowly, his eyes on the ground. His outfit was more elaborate than on the former journey. A heavy blanket and a light camp kit were strapped behind his saddle, and so attached that they could be quickly transferred to his back. A big rifle was stretched across his right knee and the saddle-horn. At either hip rode a great holster. The air, despite the cloudiness, was bitter cold; and he wore a heavy sheepskin coat with the wool turned in, and long gauntlets reaching half-way to his elbows. A broad leather belt held the heavy coat in place, and attached to it was a thin sheath from which protruded the stout handle of a hunting-knife. He also wore another belt, fitted with many loops, each holding a gleaming little brass cylinder. No one seeing the man this morning could have made the mistake of considering him, as before, on a journey to see a lady.

Slowly day advanced. The east resolved itself from flaming red into the neutral tint of the remainder of the sky. The sun shone through the clouds, dissipated them, was obscured, and shone again. The something which the man had been watching so intently gradually grew clearer. It was the trail of another horse—a galloping horse. It was easy to follow, and the rider looked about him. After a few miles, when the mustang had warmed to his second wind, a gauntleted hand dropped to the yellow neck and stroked it gently.

"Let 'em out a bit, Buck," said a voice, "let 'em out!" and with a flick of the dainty ears, almost as if he understood, the little beast fell into the steady swinging lope which was his natural gait, and which he could follow if need be without a break from sun to sun.

On they went, the trail they were following unwinding like a great tape steadily before them, the crunch of the frozen snow in their ears, tiny particles of it flying to the side and behind like spray. But, bravely as they were going, the horse ahead which had unwound that band of tracks had moved more swiftly. Not within inches did the best efforts of the buckskin approach those giant strides. It had been a desperate rider who had urged such a pace; and the grim face of the tall youth grew grimmer at the thought.

Not another sound than of their own making did they hear. Not an object uncovered of white did they see, until, thirteen miles out, they passed near the deserted Baker ranch; but the trail did not stop, nor did they, and ere long it faded again from view. The course was dipping well to the north now, and Ben realized that not again on his journey would he pass in sight of a human habitation.

All that mortal day the buckskin pounded monotonously ahead. The sun rose to the meridian, gazed warmly down upon them, softened the surface of the frozen snow until the crunch sounded mellower, and slowly descended to their left. The dainty ears of the pony, as the day waned, flattened close to his head. Foam gathered beneath the saddle and between the animal's legs; but doggedly relentless as his rider, he forged ahead. Much in common had these two beings; more closely than ever was their comradery cemented that day. Many times, with the same motion as at first, the man had leaned over and patted that muscular neck, dark and soiled now with perspiration. "Good old Buck," he said as to a fellow, "good old Buck!" and each time the set ears had flicked intelligently in response.

It was nearing sunset when they came in sight of the hills bordering the river, and the last mile Ben drew the buckskin to a walk. The chain of hoof-tracks had changed much since the morning. The buckskin could equal the strides of the other now, and the follower was content. The evenings were very short at this season of the year, and they would not attempt to go farther to-night. At the margin of the stream Ben rode along until he found a spot where the full strength of the current ate into the bank. There on the thinner ice he hammered with the butt of his heavy rifle until he broke a hole; then, the dumb one first, the two friends drank their fill. After that, side by side, they walked back until in the shelter of a high knoll the man found a space of perhaps half an acre where the grass, thick and unpastured, was practically bare of snow. Here he removed saddle and bridle, and without lariat or hobble—for they knew each other now, these two—he turned the pony loose to graze. He himself, with the kit and blanket and a handful of dead wood, went to the hill-top, where he could see for miles around, built a tiny fire, an Indian's fire, made a can of strong black coffee, and ate of the jerked beef he had brought. Later, he cleared a spot the size of a man's grave, and with grass and the blanket built a shallow nest, in which he stretched himself, his elbow on the earth, his face in his hand, thinking, thinking.

The night came on. As the eastern sky had done in the morning, so now the west crimsoned gloriously, became the color of blood, then gradually shaded back until it was neutral again, and the stars from a few scattering dots increased in numbers and filled the dome as scattered sand-grains cover a floor. Darkness came, and with it the slight wind of the day died down until the air was perfectly still. The cold, which had retreated for a time, returned, augmented. As though it were a live thing moving about, its coming could be heard in the almost indistinguishable crackling of the snow-crust. As beneath a crushing weight, the ice of the great river boomed and crackled from its touch.

Wide-eyed but impassive, the man watched and listened. Scarcely a muscle of his body moved. Not once, as the hours slipped by, did he drowse; not for an instant was he off his guard. With the first trace of morning in the east, he was astir. As on the night before, he made his Indian's fire, ate his handful of beef, and drank of the strong black coffee. The pony, sleepy as a child, was aroused and saddled. The ice which had frozen during the night over their drinking-hole was broken. Then, both man and horse stiff and sore from the exposure and the previous exertion, the trail was taken up anew.

For five miles, until both were warmed to their work, the man and beast trotted along side by side. "Now, Buck, old boy!" said Ben, and mounting, they were off in earnest. At first the trail they were following was that of a horse that walked; but later it stretched out into the old long-strided gallop, and the pursuer read the tale of quirt and spur which had forced the change.

Three hours out, thirty odd miles from the river as the rider calculated the distance, he came to the first break in the seemingly endless trail of hoofprints he was following. A heap of snow scraped aside and two brown spots on the earth told the story of where the pursued man and horse had paused to rest and sleep. No water was near. Neither the human nor the beast had strayed from the direct line; they had merely halted and dropped almost within their tracks. Just beyond was the spot where the man had remounted, where the flight began anew; and again a tale lay written on the surface of the snow. The prints of the horse's feet were now unsteady and irregular. Within a few rods there was on the right a red splash of blood; then others, a drop at a time. Very hard it had been to put life into the beast at starting; deep the rowels of the great spur had been dug. Ben Blair lightly touched the neck of his buckskin and gave the word to go.

"They were only thirty miles ahead last night, Buck, old chap," he said, "and very tired. We'll gain on them fast to-day."

But though they gained—the record of the tracks told that—they did not gain fast. Notwithstanding he still galloped doggedly ahead, the gallant little buckskin was plainly weakening. The eternal pounding through the snow was eating up his strength, and though his spirit was indomitable the end of his endurance was in sight. No longer would the dainty ears respond to a touch on the neck. With head lowered he moved forward like a machine. While the sun was yet above the horizon, the lope diminished to a trot, the trot to a walk—a game walk, but only a walk.

Then, for the second time that day, Ben dismounted. Silently he removed saddle and bridle, transferred the blanket and kit to his own back, and then, the rifle under his arm, stopped a moment by the pony's side and laid the dainty muzzle against his face.

"Buck, old boy," he said, "you've done mighty well—but I can beat you now. Maybe some day we'll meet again. I hope we shall. Anyway, we're better for having known each other. Good-bye."

A moment longer his face lay so, as his hand would have lain in a friend's hand at parting; then, with a last pat to the silken nose, he started on ahead.

At first the man walked steadily; then, warming to the work, he broke into the swinging jog-trot of the frontiersman, the hunter who travels afoot. Many Indians the youth had known in his day, and from them he had learned much; one thing was that in walking or running to step straight-footed instead of partially sideways, as the white man plants his sole, was to gain inches at every motion, besides making it easier to retrace his steps should he wish to do so. This habit had become a part of him, and now the marks of his own trail were like the alternately broken line which represents a railroad on a map.

As long as he could see to read from the white page of the snow-blanket, Ben Blair jogged ahead. Hot anger, that he could not repress, was with him constantly now, for the trail before him was very fresh, and, distinct beside it, more and more frequent were the red marks of an animal's suffering. He knew what horse it was the other had stolen. It was "Lady," one of Scotty's prize thoroughbred mares, the one Florence had ridden so many times. Often during those last hours the man wondered at the endurance of the mare. None but a thoroughbred would have stood up this long; and even she, if she ever stopped,—but the man ahead doubtless knew this also, for he would not let her stop, not so long as life remained and spur and quirt had power to torture.

Thus night came on, folding within its concealing arms alike the hunter and the pursued. Ben did not build a fire this night. First of all, though during the day at different times he had been able to see the bordering trees of the White River at his left and the Bad River at his right, the trail hung to the comparatively level land of the great divide between, and not a scrap of wood was within miles. Again, although he did not actually know, he could not believe he was far behind, and he would run no risk of giving a warning sign to eyes which must be watching the backward trail. The fierce hunger of a healthy animal was his; but his supply of beef was limited, and he ate a meagre allowance, washing it down with a draught of river water from his canteen. Rolled up in the blanket, through which the stinging cold pierced as though it were gossamer, shivering, beating his hands and feet to prevent their stiffening, longing for protecting fur like a wolf or a buffalo, keeping constant watch about him as does a great prairie owl, the interminably long hours of his second night dragged by.

"The beginning of the end," he soliloquized, when once more it was light enough so that standing he could see the earth at his feet. Well he knew that ere this the other horse was eliminated from the chase—that it was now man against man. God! how his joints ached when he stretched them!—how his muscles pained at the slightest motion! He ground his teeth when he first began to walk, and hobbled like a rheumatic cripple; but within a half-hour tenacity had won, and the relentless jog-trot of the interrupted line was measuring off the miles anew.

The chase was nearing an end. Long ere noon, in the distance toward which he was heading, Blair detected a brown dot against the white. Steadily, as he advanced, it resolved itself into the thing he had expected, and stood revealed before him, the centre of a horribly legible page, the last page in the biography of a noble horse. Let us pass it by: Ben did, looking the other way. But a new and terrible vitality possessed him. His weariness left him, as pain passes under an opiate. He did not pause to eat, to drink. Tireless as a waterfall, watchful as a hawk, he jogged on, on, a mile—two miles—five—came to a rise in the great roll of the lands—stopped, his heart suddenly pounding the walls of his chest. Before him, not half a mile away, moving slowly westward, was the diminutive black shape of a man travelling afoot!

Instantly the primal hunting instinct of the Anglo-Saxon awoke in the lank Benjamin. The incomparable fascination which makes man-hunting the sport supreme of all ages gripped him tight. The stealthy cunning of a savage became on the moment his. A plan of ambush, one which could scarcely fail, flashed into his mind. The trail of the divide narrowing now, stretched for miles and miles straight before them. That black figure would scarcely leave it. The pursuer had but to make a great detour, get far in advance, find a point of concealment, and wait.

Swift as thought was action. Back on his trail until he was out of sight went Ben Blair; then, turning to his right, he made straight for the concealing bed of Bad River. Once there, he turned west again, following the winding course of the stream toward its source. Faster than ever he moved, the pat-pat of his feet on the deadening snow drowning the sound of the great breaths he drew into his lungs and sent whistling out again through his nostrils. As with the horse, the sweat oozed at every pore. Collecting on his brow and face, it dripped slowly from his great chin. Dampening, his clothes clung binding-tight to his body; but he never noticed. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor behind him; but, like a sprinter approaching the wire, only straight ahead.

Under him the miles flowed past like water. Five, ten, a dozen he covered; then of a sudden he turned again to the south, quitting his shelter of the river-bed. For a time the country was very rough, but he scarcely slackened his pace. Once he fell through the crust of a drift, and went down nearly to his neck; but he crowded his way through by sheer strength, emerging a powdered figure from the snow which clung to his damp clothes. The sun was down now, and he knew darkness would come very quickly and he must reach the divide, the probable trail, before it fell, and there select his point of waiting.

As he moved on, he saw some miles ahead that which decided him. A low chain of hills, stretching to the north and south, crossed the great divide as a fallen log spans a path. In these hills, appreciable even at this distance, there was a dip, an almost level pass. A small diversity it was on the face of nature, but to a weary man, fleeing afoot, seen in the distance it would irresistibly appeal. Almost as certain as though he saw the black figure already heading for it, the hunter felt it would be utilized. Anyway, he would take the chance; and with a last spurt of speed he put himself fairly in its way. To clear a narrow strip of ground the length of his body, and build around it like a breastwork a border of snow, was the work of but a few minutes; then, wrapped in his blanket, too deadly tired to even attempt to eat, he dropped behind the cover like a log. At first the rest was that of Paradise; but swiftly came the reaction, the chill. To lie there in his present condition meant but one thing, that never would he arise again; and with an effort the man got to his feet and started walking. It was dark again now, and the sky was becoming rapidly overcast. Within an hour it began to snow, a steady big-flaked snow that fairly filled the air and lay where it fell. The night grew slightly warmer, and, rolling in the blanket once more, Ben lay down; but the warning chill soon had him again upon his feet, walking back and forth in the one beaten path.

Very long the two previous nights had been. Interminable seemed this third. As long as the sun or moon or stars were shining, the man never felt completely alone; but in this utter darkness the hours seemed like days. The steadily falling snowflakes added to the impression of loneliness and isolation. They were like the falling clods of earth in a grave: something crowding between him and life, burying and suffocating him where he stood. Try as he might, the man could not shake off the weird impression, and at last he ceased the effort. Grimly stolid, he lit his pipe, and, his damp clothing having dried at last, cleared a fresh spot and lay down, the horrible loneliness still tugging at his heart.

Finally, after an eternity of waiting, the morning came. With it the storm ceased and the sun shone brightly. Behind the barricade, Ben Blair ate the last of his beef and drank the few remaining swallows of water from his canteen. His muscles were stiff from the inaction, and, not wishing to show himself, he kicked vigorously into space as he lay. At intervals he made inspection of the east, looking out over the glitter of white; but not a living thing was in sight. An hour he watched, two hours, while the sun, beating down obliquely, warmed him back into activity; then of a sudden his eyes became fixed, the grip upon his rifle tightened. Far to the southeast, something dark against the snow was moving,—was coming toward him.

Rapidly the figure approached, while lower behind the barricade dropped the body of Benjamin Blair. The sun was in his eyes, so that as yet he could not make out whether it was man or beast. Not until the object was within three hundred yards, until it passed by to the north, did Ben make out that it was a great gray wolf headed straight for the bed of Bad River.

Again two hours of unbroken monotony passed. The sun had almost reached the meridian, and the man behind the barricade had all but decided he must have miscalculated somehow, when in the dim distance as before there appeared a tiny dark object, but this time directly from the east. For five minutes Ben watched it fixedly, his hand shading his eyes; then, slowly as moves the second-hand of a great clock, a change indescribable came over his face. No need was there now to ask whether it was a human being that was approaching. There was no mistaking that slow, swinging man-motion. At last the moment was approaching for which the youth had been striving so madly for the last few days, the moment he had for years been conscious would some day come. It would soon be his; and with the thought his teeth set firmer, and a fierce joy tugged at his heart.

Five minutes, ten minutes dragged by; yet no observer, however close, could have seen a muscle stir in the long body of the waiting man. Like a great panther cat he lay there, the blue eyes peering just over the surface of the ambush. Not ten paces away could an observer have told the tip of that motionless sombrero from the protruding top of a boulder. Gradually the approaching figure grew more distinct. A red handkerchief showed clearly about the man's neck. Then a slight limp in the left leg intruded itself, and a droop of the shoulders that spoke weariness. He was very near by this time, so near that the black beard which covered his face became discernible, likewise the bizarre breadth of the Mexican belt above the baggy chaperejos. The crunch of the snow-crust marked his every foot-fall.

And still Ben Blair had not stirred. Slowly, as the other had approached, the big blue eyes had darkened until they seemed almost brown. Involuntarily the massive chin had moved forward; but that was all. On the surface he was as calm as a lake on a windless night; but beneath,—God! what a tempest was raging! Each one of those minutes he waited so impassively marked the rush of a year's memories. Human hate, primal instinct all but uncontrollable, throbbed in his accelerated pulse-beats. Like the continuous shifting scenes in a panorama, the incidents of his life in which this man had played a part appeared mockingly before his mind's eye. Plainly, as though in his physical ear, he heard the shuffle of an uncertain hand upon a latch; he saw a figure with bloodshot eyes lurch into a rude floorless room, saw it approach a bunk whereon lay a sick woman, his mother; heard the swift passage of angry words, words which had branded themselves into his memory forever. Once more he was on all fours, scurrying for his life toward the dark opening of a protecting kennel. As plainly as though the memory were of yesterday, he gazed into the blazing mouth of a furnace, felt its scorching breath on his cheek. Swiftly the changing scenes danced before his eyes. A rifle-shot, real almost as though he could smell the burning powder, sounded in his brain. Within the circle of light from a kerosene lamp a great figure sank in a heap to a ranch house floor. Against a background of unbroken white a trail of red blotches ended in the mutely pathetic figure of a prostrate dying horse—a noble thoroughbred. What varied horrors seethed in the watcher's brain, crowded each other, recurred and again recurred! How the long sinewy fingers itched to clutch that throat above the red neckerchief! He could see the man's face now, as, ignorant of danger so close, he was passing by fifty feet to the left, looking to neither side, doggedly heading toward the pass. With the first motion since the figure had appeared, the hand of the watcher tightened on the rifle, raised it until its black muzzle peeped over the elevation of snow. A pair of steady blue eyes gazed down the long barrel, brought the sights in line with a spot between the shoulders and the waist of the unsuspecting man, the trigger-finger tightened, almost—

A preventing something, something not primal in the youth, gripped him, held him for a second motionless. To kill a man from an ambush, even such a one as this without giving him a chance—no, he could not quite do that. But to take him by the throat with his bare hands, and then slowly, slowly—

As noiselessly as the rifle had raised, it dropped again. The muscles of the long legs tightened as do those of a sprinter awaiting the starting pistol. Then over the barricade, straight as a tiger leaps, shot a tall youth with steel-blue eyes, hatless, free of hand, straight for that listless, moving figure; the scattered snow flying to either side, the impact of the bounding feet breaking the previous stillness. Tom Blair, the outlaw, could not but hear the rush. Instinctively he turned, and in the fleeting second of that first glance Ben could see the face above the beard-line blanch. As one might feel should the Angel of Death appear suddenly before him, Tom Blair must have felt then. As though fallen from the sky, this avenging demon was upon him. He had not time to draw a revolver, a knife; barely to swing the rifle in his hand upward to strike, to brace himself a little for the oncoming rush.

With a crash the two bodies came together. Simultaneously the rifle descended, but for all its effectiveness it might have been a dead weed-stalk in the hands of a child. It was not a time for artificial weapons, but only for nature's own; a war of gripping, strangling hands, of tooth and nail. Nearly of a size were the two men. Both alike were hardened of muscle; both realized the battle was for life or death. For a moment they remained upright, clutching, parrying for an advantage; then, locked each with each, they went to the ground. Beneath and about them the fresh snow flew, filling their eyes, their mouths. Squirming, straining, over and over they rolled; first the beardless man on top, then the bearded. The sound of their straining breath was continuous, the ripping of coarse cloth an occasional interruption; but from the first, a spectator could not but have foreseen the end. The elder man was fighting in self-defence: the younger, he of the massive protruding jaw—a jaw now so prominent as to be a positive disfigurement—in unappeasable ferocity. Against him in that hour a very giant could not have held his own. Merely a glimpse of his face inspired terror. Again and again as they struggled his hand had clutched at the other's throat, but only to have his hold broken. At last, however, his adversary was weakening under the strain. Blind terror began to grip Tom Blair. At first a mere suggestion, then a horrible certainty, possessed him as to the identity of the relentless being who opposed him. Again the other's hand, like the creeping tentacle of an octopus, sought his throat, would not be stayed. He struggled with all his might against it, until it seemed the blood-vessels of his neck would burst, but still the hold tightened. He clutched at the long fingers desperately, bit at them, felt his breath coming hard. Freeing his own hand, he smashed with his fist again and again into that long thin face so near his own, knew that another tentacle had joined with the first, felt the impossibility of drawing air into his lungs, realized that consciousness was deserting him, saw the sun over him like a mocking face—then knew no more.



CHAPTER XV

IN THE GRIP OF THE LAW

How long Tom Blair was unconscious he did not know. When he awoke he could scarcely believe his own senses; and he looked about him dazedly. The sun was shining down as brightly as before. The snow was as white. He had for some reason been spared, after all, and hope arose in his breast. He began to look around him. Not two rods away, his face clearly in sight, his eyes closed, dead asleep, lay the figure of the man who had waylaid him. For a moment he looked at the figure steadily; then, in distinct animal cunning, the lids of the close-set eyes tightened. Stealthily, almost holding his breath, he started to rise, then fell back with a jerk. For the first time he realized that he was bound hand and foot, so he could scarcely stir. He struggled, at first cautiously, then desperately, to be free; but the straps which bound him, those which had held his own blanket, only cut the deeper; and he gave it up. Flat on his back he lay watching the sleeper, his anger increasing. Again his eyes tightened.

"Wake up, curse you!" he yelled suddenly.

No answer, only the steady rise and fall of the sleeper's chest.

"Wake up, I say!" repeated the voice, in a tone to raise the dead.

This time there was response—of action. Slowly Ben Blair roused, and got up. A moment he looked about him; then, tearing a strip off his blanket, he walked over, and, against the other's protests and promises of silence, forced open the bearded lips, as though giving a horse the bit, and tied a gag full in the cursing mouth. Without a word or a superfluous look he returned and lay down. Another minute, and the regular breathing showed he was again asleep.

During all the warmth of that day Ben Blair slept on, as a child sleeps, as sleep the very aged; and although the bearded man had freed himself from the gag at last, he did not again make a sound. Too miserable himself to sleep, he lay staring at the other. Gradually through the haze of impotent anger a realization of his position came to him. He could not avoid the issue. To be sure, he was still alive; but what of the future? A host of possibilities flashed into his mind, but in every one there faced him a single termination. By no process of reasoning could he escape the inevitable end; and despite the chilliness of the air a sweat broke out over him. Contrition for what he had done he could not feel—long ago he had passed even the possibility of that; but fear, deadly and absorbing fear, had him in its clutch. The passing of the years, years full of lawlessness and violence, had left him the same man whom bartender "Mick" had terrorized in the long ago; and for the first time in his wretched life, personal death—not of another but of himself—looked at him with steady eyes, and he could not return the gaze. All he could do was to wait, and think—and thoughts were madness. Again and again, knowing what the result would be, but seeking merely a diversion, he struggled at the straps until he was breathless; but relentless as time one picture kept recurring to his brain. In it was a rope, a stout rope, dangling from something he could not distinctly recognize; but what he could see, and see plainly, was a figure of a man, a bearded man—himself—at its end. The body swayed back and forth as he had once seen that of a "rustler" whom a group of cowboys had left hanging to the scraggly branch of a scrub-oak; as a pendulum marks time, measuring the velocity of the prairie wind.

With each recurrence of the vision the perspiration broke out over the man anew, the sunburned forehead paled. This was what it was coming to; he could not escape it. If ever purpose was unmistakably written on a human face, it had been on the face of the man who lay sleeping so near, the man who had trailed him like a tiger and caught him when he thought he was safe. From another, there might still be hope; but from this one, Jennie Blair's son—The vision of a woman lying white and motionless on the coarse blankets of a bunk, of a small boy with wonderfully clear blue eyes pounding harmlessly at the legs of the man looking down; the sound of a childish voice, accusing, menacing, ringing out over all, "You've killed her! You've killed her!"—this like a chasm stood between them, and could never be crossed. Clasped together, the long nervous fingers, a gentleman's fingers still, twined and gripped each other. No, there was no hope. Better that the hands he had felt about his throat in the morning had done their work. He shut his eyes. A hot wave of anger, anger against himself, swept all other thoughts before it. Why, having gotten safely away, having successfully hidden himself, had he ever returned? Why, having in the depths of his nest in the middle of the island escaped once, had a paltry desire for revenge against the man he fancied had led the attack sent him back? What satisfaction was it, if in taking the life of the other man it cost him his own? Fool that he had been to imagine he could escape where no one had ever escaped before! Fool! Fool! Thus dragged by the long hours of the afternoon.

With the coming of the chill of evening, Ben Blair awoke and rubbed his eyes. A moment later he arose, and, walking over to his captive, looked down at him, steadily, peculiarly. So long as he could, Tom Blair returned the gaze; but at last his eyes fell. A voice sounded in his ears, a voice speaking low and clearly.

"You're a human being," it said. "Physically, I'm of your species, modelled from the same clay." A long pause. "I wonder if anywhere in my make-up there's a streak of such as you!" Again a moment of silence, in which the elder man felt the blue eyes of the younger piercing him through and through. "If I thought there was a trace, or the suggestion of a trace, before God, I'd kill you and myself, and I'd do it now!" The speaker scanned the prostrate figure from head to foot, and back again. "And do it now," he repeated.

Silence fell; and in it, though he dared not look, coward Tom Blair fancied he heard a movement, imagined the other man about to put the threat into execution.

"No, no!" he pleaded. "People are different—different as day and night. You belong to your mother's kind, and she was good and pure." Every trace of the man's nerve was gone. But one instinct was active—to placate this relentless being, his captor. He fairly grovelled. "I swear she was pure. I swear it!"

Without speaking a word, Ben turned. Going back to his snow-blind, he packed his blanket and camp kit swiftly and strapped them to his shoulders. Returning, he gathered the things he had found upon the other's person—the rifle, the revolvers, the sheath-knife—into a pile; then deliberately, one against the other, he broke them until they were useless. Only the blanket he preserved, tossing it down by the side of the prostrate figure.

"Tom Blair," he said, no indication now that he had ever been nearer to the other than a stranger, "Tom Blair, I've got a few things to say to you, and if you're wise you'll listen carefully, for I sha'n't repeat them. You're going with me, and you're going free; but if you try to escape, or cause me trouble, as sure as I'm alive this minute I'll strip off every stitch of clothing you wear and leave you where I catch you though the snow be up to your waist."

Slowly he reached over and untied first the feet then the hands. "Get up," he ordered.

Tom Blair arose, stretched himself stiffly.

"Take that," Ben indicated the blanket, "and go ahead straight for the river."

The bearded man obeyed. To have secured his freedom he could not have done otherwise.

For ten minutes they moved ahead, only the crunching snow breaking the stillness.

"Trot!" said Ben.

"I can't."

"Trot!" There was no misunderstanding the tone.

In single file they jogged ahead, reached the river, and descended to the level surface of its bed.

"Keep to the middle, and go straight ahead."

On they went—jog, jog, jog.

Of a sudden from under cover of the bank a frightened cottontail sprang forth and started running. Instantly there was the report of a big revolver, and Tom jumped as though he felt the bullet in his back. Again the report sounded, and this time the rabbit rolled over and over in the snow.

Without stopping, Ben picked up the still struggling game and slipped a couple of fresh cartridges into the empty revolver chambers. The banks were lined with burrows and tracks, and within five minutes a second cottontail met the fate of the first.

"Come back!" called Ben to the man ahead.

Again Tom obeyed. He would have gone barefoot in the snow without a question now.

"Can you make a fire?"

"Yes."

"Do it, then. I left the matches in your pocket."

On opposite sides of the fire, from long forked sticks of green ash, they broiled strips of the meat which Ben dressed and cut. Likewise fronting each other, they ate in silence. Darkness was falling, and the glow from the embers lit their faces like those of two friends camping after a day's hunt. Had it not all been such deadly earnest, the scene would have been farce-comedy. Suddenly Tom Blair raised his eyes.

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

Ben said nothing.

The question was not repeated, but another trembled on the speaker's lips. At last it found words.

"When you had me down I—I thought you had done for me. Why did you—let me up?"

A pause followed. Then Ben's blue eyes raised and met the other's.

"You'd really like to know?"

"Yes."

Another moment of hesitation, but the youth's eyes did not move. "Very well, I'll tell you." More to himself than to the other he was speaking. His voice softened unconsciously. "A girl saved you that time, Tom Blair, a girl you never saw. You haven't any idea what it means, but I love that girl, and I could never look her in the face again with blood on my hands, even such blood as yours. That's the reason."

For a moment Tom Blair was silent; then into his brain there flashed a suggestion, and he grasped at it as a drowning man at a straw.

"Wouldn't it be blood on your hands just the same if you take me back where we're headed, back to Mick Kennedy and—"

With a single motion, swift as though raised by a spring, Ben was upon his feet.

"Pick up your blanket!"

"But—"

"Silence!" The big square jaw shot forward like the piston of an engine. "Not another word of that, now or ever. Not another word!"

For a second the other paused doggedly, then taking up his load he moved ahead into the shadow.

Hour after hour they advanced, alternately walking and trotting, following the winding bed of the stream. Darkness fell, until they could not see each other's faces, until they were merely two black passing shadows; but the figure behind was relentless. Stimulating, compelling, he forced himself close. Ever and anon they could hear the frightened dash of a rabbit away from their path. More than once a snow-owl fluttered over their heads; but they took no notice. Twice the man in advance stumbled and fell; but though Ben paused he spoke no word. Like a soldier of the ranks on secret forced march, ignorant of his destination, given only conjecture as to what the morrow would bring forth, Tom Blair panted ahead.

With the coming of daylight Ben slowed to a walk, and looked about in quest of breakfast. Game was plentiful along the shelter of the stream, and before they had advanced a half-mile farther he saw ahead a flock of grouse roosting in the diverging branches of a cottonwood tree. At two hundred yards, selecting those on the lowest branches, he dropped half a dozen, one after the other, with the rifle; and still the remainder of the flock did not fly. Very different were they from the open-land prairie chicken, whom a mere sound will send a-wing.

As on the night before, they broiled each what he wished, and, carefully cleaning the others, Ben packed them with his kit. Then, stolid as an Indian, he cleared a spot of earth, and wrapping himself in his blanket lay down full in the sunshine, smoking his pipe impassively. Taking the cue, Tom Blair likewise curled up like a dog near at hand.

Slowly and more slowly came the puffs of smoke from the captor's pipe; at last they ceased entirely. The lids of the youth's eyes closed, his breath came deep and regular. Beneath the blanket a muscle here and there twitched involuntarily, as in one who is very weary and asleep.

An hour passed, an hour without a sound; then, looking closely, a spectator could have seen one of Tom Blair's eyes open and close furtively. Again it opened, and its mate as well—to remain so. For a minute, two minutes, they studied the companion face uncertainly, suspiciously, then savagely. Another minute, and the body had risen to hands and knees. Still Ben did not stir, still the great expanse of his chest rose and fell. Tom Blair was satisfied. Hand over hand, feeling his way like a cat, he advanced toward the prostrate figure. Despite his caution, the crust of the snow crackled once beneath his touch, and he paused, a soundless curse forming upon his lips; but the warning passed unheeded, and, bolder than before, he padded on.

Eight feet he gained, then ten. His color heightened, the repressed arteries throbbed above the gaudy neckerchief, the skulking animal intensified in the tightened muscles of the temples. As many feet again; but a few more minutes—then liberty and life. The better to guard his movements, his gaze fell. Out and down went his right hand, then his left, as his lithe body slid forward. Again he glanced up, paused—and on the instant every muscle of his tense body went suddenly lax. Instead of the closed eyes and sleeping face he had expected, two steady eyes were giving him back look for look. There had not been a motion; the face was yet that of a sleeper; the chest still rose and fell steadily; but the eyes!

Tom Blair's teeth ground each other like those of a dog with rabies. The suggestion of froth came to his lips.

"Curse you!" he cried. "Curse you forever!"

A moment they lay so, a moment wherein the last vestige of hope left the mind of the captive; but in it Ben Blair spoke no word. Maddening, immeasurably worse than denunciation, was that relentless silence. It was uncanny; and the bearded man felt the hairs of his head rising as the mane of a dog or a wolf lifts at a sound it does not understand.

"Say something," he pleaded desperately. "Shoot me, kill me, do anything—but don't look at me like that!" and, fairly writhing, he crawled back to his blanket and buried his head in its depths.

With the coming of evening coolness, Ben again made preparation for the journey. Neither of the men made reference to the incidents of the day, but on Tom Blair's face there was a new expression, like that of a criminal on his passage from the cell to the hangman's trap. If the younger man saw it, he gave no sign; and as on the night before, they jogged ahead. Before daylight broke, the comparatively smooth bed of Bad River merged into the irregular surface of the Missouri. Then they halted. Why they stopped there, Tom Blair could not at the time tell; but with the coming of daylight he understood. Where he had crossed and Ben had followed there was not now a single track, but many—a score at least. At the margin of the stream, where the cavalcade had stopped, the snow was tramped hard as a stockade; and in the centre of the beaten place, distinct against the white, was a dark spot where a great camp-fire had been built. At the river the party had stopped. Obviously, there the last snow had obliterated the trail, and, seeing that they had turned back, Tom Blair gave a sigh of relief. Whatever the future had in store for him, it could reveal nothing so fearful as a meeting with those whom intuition told him had made up that party.

But his relief was short-lived. Again, after they had breakfasted from the grouse in the pack, Ben ordered the onward march, along the bank of the great river. As they moved ahead, a realization of their destination at last came to the captive, and for the first time he balked.

"Do what you wish with me," he cried. "I'll not go a step farther."

They were perhaps a mile down the river. The bordering hills enclosed them like an arena.

"Very well." Ben Blair spoke as though the occurrence were one of every-day repetition. "Give me your clothes!"

Tom's face settled stubbornly.

"You'll have to take them."

The youth's hand sought his hip, and a bullet spat at the snow within three inches of the other's feet. There was a meaning pause. Slowly the bravado left the other's face.

"Don't keep me waiting!" urged Ben.

Slowly, very slowly, off came the captive's coat and vest. Despite his efforts, the hands which loosened the buttons trembled uncontrollably. Following the vest came the shirt, then a shoe, and the sock beneath. His foot touched the snow. For the first time a faint realization of the thing he was choosing came to him. The vicious bite of the frost upon the bare skin was not a possibility of the future, but a condition of the immediate now; and he weakened. But in the moment of his indecision, the wave of stubbornness and of blinding hate again flooded him, and a rush of hot curses left his lips.

For a moment, the last time in their lives, the two men eyed each other fairly. Indescribable hate was written upon one face; the other was as blank as the surrounding snow. Its very immobility chilled Tom Blair and cowed him into silence. Without a word he replaced shoe and coat and took up his blanket. An advancing step sounded behind him, and, understanding, he moved ahead. After a while the foot-fall again gained upon him, and once more the walk merged into the interminable jog-jog of the back-trail.

It was morning when the two began that last relay. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived amid the outskirts of the scattered prairie terminus which was their destination. Within ten minutes thereafter the two had separated. The older man, in charge of a lank, unshaven frontiersman, chiefly noticeable from a quid of tobacco which swelled one cheek like an abscess, and a nickle-plated star which he wore on the lapel of his coat, was headed for the pretentious white painted building known as the court-house. The younger, catching sight of a wind-twisted sign lettered "Hotel," made for it as though sighting the promised land. In the office, as he passed through, was a crowd of men entirely too large to have gathered by chance in a frontier hostelry, who eyed him peculiarly; but he took no notice, and five minutes later, upon the bedraggled bed of the unplastered upper room that the landlord gave him, without even his boots removed, he was deep in the realm of oblivion.

Some time later—he had no idea of the hour save that all was dark—he was awakened by a confusion of voices in the room below, a slamming of doors, a thumping of great boots upon the bare floor. Scarcely remembering his whereabouts, he rolled from his bed and thrust his head out of the narrow window. Here and there about the town were scattered lights—some stationary, others, which he took to be lanterns, moving. On the street beneath his window two men went by on a run. Half way up the block, before the well-lighted front of a saloon, a motley crowd was shifting back and forth, restless as ants in a hill, the murmur of their voices sounding menacing as the distant hum of swarming bees. All at once from out the door there burst fair into the crowd a heavy man with great shoulders and a bull neck. About him, even in the uncertain light, there seemed to the watcher something very familiar. What he said, Ben could not understand; but he turned his head this way and that, and his motions were unmistakable. The crowd made way before him as sheep before a dog, and closing behind followed steadily in his wake. Gradually as the leader advanced the mass gained momentum. At first the pace had been a slow walk. In the space of seconds it became a swift one, then a run, with a wild scramble by those in the rear to gain front place. The frozen ground rumbled under their rushing feet. The direction of their movement, at first uncertain, became definite. It was a direct line for the centrally located court-house; and, no longer doubtful of their purpose, Ben left the window, fairly tumbled downstairs, and rushed through the now deserted office into the equally deserted street.

The court-house square was but two blocks away; but the mob had a good lead, and when the youth arrived he found the space within the surrounding chain fence fairly covered. Where the people could all have come from struck him even at that moment as a mystery. Certainly all told the town could not in itself have mustered half the number. Elbowing his way among them, however, he began soon to understand. Here and there among the mass he caught sight of familiar faces,—Russell of the Circle R Ranch, Stetson of the "XI," each taking no part, but with hats slouched low over their eyes watching every movement of the drama. Passing around a jam he could not press through, Ben felt a detaining hand upon his arm, and turning, he was face to face with Grannis. The grip of the overseer tightened.

"I've been looking for you, Blair," he said, "I know what you've been trying to do, but most of the crowd don't and won't. They're ugly. You'd better keep back."

For answer Ben eyed the cowboy squarely.

"I thought I left you in charge of the ranch," he said evenly.

The weather-stained face of the foreman reddened in the shifting lantern light, but the eyes did not drop.

"I have been. I just got here." A dignity which well became him spoke in the steady voice. "I had a reason for coming."

Ben released his gaze.

"The others are here too?"

"No, they're all at the ranch. Graham and I attended to that."

"I just saw Russell and Stetson. They couldn't possibly have got here to-day from home. Has—has this been planned?"

Grannis nodded. "Yes. Kennedy and his gang have been watching here and at the ranch for days. They thought you'd show up at one place or the other. The whole country is out. There are lots of strangers here, from ranches I never heard of before. Seems as though everybody knew Rankin and heard of his being shot. You'd better let them have it their way. It'll amount to the same in the end, and death itself couldn't stop them now."

He took a step forward; for Ben, understanding all, had at last moved on.

"Blair!" he called after him, again extending a detaining hand. His voice took on a new note—intimate, personal, a tone of which no one would have thought it capable. "Blair, listen to me! Stop!"

But he might as well have spoken to the swiftly flowing water beneath the ice of the great river. Of a sudden, from out a passage leading into the cell-room of the court-house basement, a black swarm of men had emerged, bearing by sheer animal force a struggling object in their midst. The silence of those who waited, the lull before the storm, on the instant ended. A very Babel of voices took its place. By common consent, as though drawn by centripetal force, actors and spectators crowded together until they were a solid block of humanity. Caught in the midst, Grannis and Ben alike could for a moment but move with the mass. So fierce was the crush that their very breath seemed imprisoned in their lungs.

Like molten metal the crowd began to flow—to the right, in the direction of the railroad track. With each passing moment the confusion was, if possible, greater than before. Here and there a cowboy, unable to control his excess of feeling, emptied his revolver into the air. Once Ben heard the wailing yelp of a dog caught under foot of the mass. To his left, a little man with a white collar, obviously a mere spectator, pleaded loudly to be released from the pressure. Adding to the confusion, the bell on the town-hall began ringing furiously.

On they went, a hundred yards, two hundred, reached the railroad track, stopped. In the midst of the leaders, looming over their heads, was a whitened telegraph pole. Of a sudden a lariat shot up over the painted cross-arm, and dropped, the two ends dangling free; and, understanding it all, the spectators again became silent. Everything moved like clockwork. From somewhere in the darkness a bare-backed pony was produced and brought directly under the dangling rope. Astride him a dark-bearded figure with hands tied behind his back was placed and firmly held. Swiftly a running noose, fashioned from the ends of the lariat, was slipped over the captive's neck. A man grasped the bit of the mustang. Before him, the crowd began to give way. The great bull-necked leader—Mick Kennedy, every one now saw it was—held up his hand for silence, and turned to the helpless figure astride the pony.

"Tom Blair!" he said,—and such was now the silence that a whisper would have been audible,—"Tom Blair, have you anything you wish to say?"

The dark shape took no notice. Apparently it did not hear.

Mick Kennedy hesitated. Upon his lips a repetition of the question was forming—but it got no farther. In the midst of the mass of spectators there was a sudden tumult, a scattering from one spot as from a lighted bomb.

"Make way!" demanded an insistent voice. "Let me through!" And for a moment, forgetting the other interest, the spectators turned to this newer one.

At first they could distinguish nothing perfectly; then amidst the confusion they made out the form of a long-armed, long-faced youth, his head lowered, his shoulder before him like a wedge, crowding his way to the fore.

"Make room there!" he repeated. "Make room!" and again into the crowd, like a snow-plough into a drift, he penetrated until his momentum was exhausted, then paused for a fresh plunge.

But before him a pathway was forming. Seemingly the thing was impossible, but the trick of a spoken name was sufficient.

"It's Ben Blair!" someone had announced, and others had loudly taken up the cry. "It's Ben Blair! Let him through!"

Along the pathway thus cleared the youth made his way and approached the centre of activity. Previously the drama had moved swiftly,—so swiftly that the spectators could merely watch developments, but under the interruption it halted. The man at the pony's bridle—cowboy Buck it was—paused, uncertain what to do, doubtful of the intent of the long-faced man who so suddenly had come beside him. Not so Mick Kennedy. Well he knew what was in store, and reaching over he gave the pony a resounding slap on the flank.

"Let him go, Buck!" he commanded of the cowboy. "Hurry!"

But already he was too late. With a grip like a trap, Ben's hand was likewise on the rein, holding the little beast, despite his struggles, fairly in his tracks. Ben's head turned, met the bartender's Cyclopean eye squarely, and held it with a look this bulldozer of men had never before received in all his checkered career.

"Mick Kennedy," he said quietly, "another move like that, and in five minutes you'll be hanging from the other side."

For the fraction of a second there was a pause; but, short as it was, the Irishman felt the sweat start. "The day of such as you has passed, Mick Kennedy."

There was no time for more. As bystanders gather around a street fight, the grim cowmen had closed in from all sides. On the outskirts men mounted each other's shoulders the better to see. Of a sudden, from behind, Ben felt himself grasped by a multitude of hands. Angry voices sounded in his ears.

"String him up too if he interferes!" suggested one.

"That's the talk!" echoed a third. "Swing him, too!"

The lust of blood was upon the crowd, crying to be satisfied. But they had reckoned wrongly, and were soon to learn their error. Every atom of the long youth's fighting blood was raised to boiling pitch. On the instant, the all but superhuman strength at which we marvel in the insane was his. Like flails, his doubled fists shot out in every direction, meeting resistance at each blow. By the dim light he caught the answering glint on sheath knives, but he took no notice. His hat had come off, and his abundant brown hair shook about his shoulders. His blue eyes blazed. A figure of war incarnate he stood, and a vacant circle which no one cared to cross formed about him. One long hand, with fingers outstretched, was raised above his head. The brilliant eyes searched the surrounding sea of faces for those he knew; as one by one he found them, lingered, conquered. Silence fell intense.

"Men! Gentlemen!" The words went out like pistol-shots reaching every acute ear. "Listen to me. I've a right to speak. Stop a moment, all of you, and think. This is the twentieth century, not the first. We're in America, free America. Think, I say, think! Don't act blindly! Think! This man is guilty. We all know it. He's caught red-handed. But he can't escape. Remember this, men, and think! As you value your own self-respect, as you honor the country you live in, don't be savages, don't do this deed you contemplate, this thing you've started doing. Let the law take its course!"

The speaker paused for breath, and, as though fascinated by his audacity or something else, friend and enemy remained motionless and waiting. Well fitting the drama was its setting: the darkness of night broken by the flickering lanterns; on the pony the huddled helpless figure with a running noose about its neck; the row upon row of rugged faces, of gleaming eyes!

"Ranchers, stockmen!" rushed on the insistent voice, "you know responsibility; it's to you I'm talking. A principle is at stake here,—the principle of law or of lawlessness. One of these—you know which—has run this range too long; it's gripping us at this moment. Before we can be free we must call it halt. Let's do it now; don't wait for the next time or the next, but now, now!" Once more he paused, his eyes for the last time making the circle swiftly, his hand in the air, palm forward. "For law, the law of J. L. Rankin, instead of Judge Lynch!" he challenged. "For civilization instead of savagery—not to-morrow but now, now! Help me to uphold the law!"

So swiftly that the spectators scarcely realized what he was doing, he stepped over to the limp figure upon the pony, loosed the noose from around the neck, and lifted him to the ground.

"Sheriff Ralston!" he called; "come and take your prisoner! Russell! Stetson! Grannis!" designating each by name, "every man who values life, help me now!"

The cry was the trumpet for action. Instantly every one was in motion. Again arose the Babel of voices,—voices cursing, arguing, encouraging. The circle of malevolent faces which had surrounded the youth would not longer be stayed, closed hotly in. He felt the press of their bodies against his, their breath in his face. With an effort, marking his place, the extended right hand went up once more into the air. The slogan again sprang to his tongue.

"For the law of J. L. Rankin, men! The law of—"

The sentence died on his lips. Suddenly, something lightning-like, scorching hot, caught him beneath his right shoulder-blade. Before his eyes the faces, the lighted lanterns, faded into darkness. A sound like falling waters roared in his ears.



CHAPTER XVI

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

When Ben Blair again woke to consciousness the sunlight was pouring upon him steadily. He was in a strange bed in a strange room; and he looked about him perplexedly. Amid the unfamiliarity his eye caught an object he recognized,—the broad angular back of a man. Memory slowly adjusted itself.

"Grannis—"

The back reversed, showing a rather surprised face.

"Where am I, Grannis?"

The foreman came over to the bed. "In the hotel. In the bridal chamber, they informed me, to be exact."

Ben did not smile. Memory was clear now. "What happened after they—got me last night?"

Grannis's face showed distinct animation. "A lot of things—and mighty fast. You missed the best part." Of a sudden he paused and looked at his charge doubtfully. "But I forgot. You're not to talk: the doctor said so."

Ben made a grimace. "But I can listen, can't I?"

"I suppose so," still doubtfully.

"Well—"

Grannis hearkened equivocally. No one was about, likely to overhear him disobeying instructions, and the temptation was strong.

"You know McFadden?" he queried suddenly.

Blair nodded.

"Well, say, that Scotchman is a tiger. He got to the front somehow when you called for reinforcements, and when you went down he was Johnny-on-the-spot taking your place. Some of the rest of us got in there pretty soon, and for a bit things was lively. It was rather close range for gun-work, but knives were as thick as frogs after a shower." With a sudden movement Grannis slipped up the sleeve of his left arm, showing a bandage through which the blood had soaked and dried. "All of us got scratched some. One fellow of the opposition—Mick Kennedy—met with an accident."

"Serious?"

"Rather. We planted him after things had quieted down."

For a moment the two men looked at each other steadily, and the subject was dropped.

"Well," suggested Blair once more.

"That's all, I guess—except that Ralston has the prisoner." A grim reminiscent smile came to the speaker's lips. "That is, he's got him if the floors of the cells here are paved good and thick. Last time I saw T. Blair he was fairly shaking post-holes into the ground with his feet."

Ben tried to shift in bed, but with the movement a sudden pain made him grit his teeth to keep from uttering a groan. For the first time he thought of himself.

"How much am I hurt, Grannis?" he queried directly.

The foreman busied himself doing nothing about the room. "You?" cheerfully. "Oh, you're all right."

Ben looked at the other narrowly. "Nothing to bother about, I judge?"

"No, certainly not."

Beneath the bedclothes the long body lifted, but despite anything it could do the face went pale.

"Very well, I guess I'll get up then."

Instantly Grannis was beside him, motioning him back, genuine concern upon his face.

"No, please don't. Not yet."

"But if I'm not hurt much—"

Grannis fingered his forelock in obvious discomfort.

"Well, between you and me, it's this way. They ripped a seam for you—so far," he indicated, "and it's open yet."

Turning his free left arm, Ben touched the bandage at his side, and the hand came back moist and red. Now that it occurred to him, he was ridiculously weak.

"I see. I'm liable to rip it more," he commented slowly.

The other nodded. "Yes; don't talk. I ought to have stopped you before this."

"Grannis!" There was no escaping the blue eyes this time. "Honestly, now, am I liable to be—done for, or not?"

The foreman became instantly serious. "Honest, if you keep quiet you're all right. Doc said so not an hour ago. At first he thought different, that you'd never wake up; you bled like a pig with its throat cut; but this is what he told me when he left. 'Keep him quiet. It may take a month for that gap to heal, but if you're careful he'll pull through.'" Again the look of concern, and this time of contrition as well. "I ought to be ashamed of myself for letting you talk at all; but this is straight. Now don't say any more."

This time Ben obeyed. He couldn't well do otherwise. He had suddenly grown weak and drowsy, and almost before Grannis was through speaking he was again asleep.

The doctor was right about the time of healing. During the remainder of that month and well into the next, despite his restless protests, Ben Blair was a prisoner in that dull little room; and through it all Grannis remained with him.

"You don't have to stay with me unless you like," Ben had said more than once; but each time Grannis had displayed his own wound, at first openly, at last, carefully concealed by bandages, whimsically.

"Got to take good care of this arm of mine," he explained. "Blood poisoning's liable to set in at any minute, and that's something awful, they tell me."

The invalid made no comment.

* * * * *

It was the evening following the afternoon of Blair's return to the Box R ranch. In the cosey kitchen, around the new range which Rankin had imported the previous Fall, sat three people,—Grannis, Graham, and Ma Graham. The two men were smoking steadily and silently. The woman, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes glued to the floor, was breathing loudly with the difficulty of the very corpulent. Of a sudden, interrupting, the door connecting with the room adjoining opened and Ben Blair appeared.

"Grannis," he requested, "come here a moment, please."

In silence Blair closed the door behind them, motioned his companion to a seat, and took another opposite him. He was very quiet, even for his taciturn self; and, glancing at a heap of papers on a nearby table, Grannis understood. For a long minute the two men eyed each other silently. Not without result had they lived the events of the last months together. It was the younger man who first spoke.

"Grannis," he said impassively, "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want an honest answer. Whatever you may think it leads to must cut no figure. Will you give it?"

Equally impassively the elder man nodded, "Yes."

Blair selected a paper from the litter, and looked at it steadily. "What I want to know is this: have I, has anyone, no matter what the incentive may be, the right to make known after another's death things which during that person's life were carefully concealed?"

The steady gaze shifted to his companion, held there compellingly. "In other words, is a tragedy any less a tragedy, any more public property, because the actors are dead? Answer me honest, Grannis."

Impassively as before the overseer shook his head. "No, I think not," he said. "Let the dead past bury its dead."