A couple of hours of silent travel brought them to the ranger's cabin, and there he ordered a dismount.

As the coffee was boiling he lectured them briefly. "You fellows are not entirely to blame," he remarked, philosophically. "You've been educated to think a game warden a joke and Uncle Sam a long way off. But things have changed a bit. The law of the State has made me game warden, and I'm going to show you how it works. It's my duty to see that you go down the road—and down you go!"

Edwards, the guide, was plainly very uneasy, and made several attempts to reach Cavanagh's private ear, and at last succeeded. "I've been fooled into this," he urged. "I was hard up and a stranger in the country, and this young fellow hired me to guide him across the range. I didn't shoot a thing. I swear I didn't. If you'll let me off, I'll hit the trail to the West and never look back. For God's sake, don't take me down the road! Let me off."

"I can't do that," replied Cavanagh; but his tone was kindlier, for he perceived that the old fellow was thin, hollow-chested, and poorly clad. "You knew you were breaking the laws, didn't you?"

This the culprit admitted. "But I was working for Sam Gregg, and when Joe asked me to go show him the trail, I didn't expect to get cinched for killing game. I didn't fire a shot—now that's the God's truth."

"Nevertheless," retorted Ross, "you were packing the head, and I must count you in the game."

Edwards fell silent then, but something in his look deepened the ranger's pity. His eyes were large and dark, and his face so emaciated that he seemed fit only for a sanitarium.

The trip to the Fork (timed to the gait of a lazy pack-horse) was a tedious eight hours' march, and it was nearly seven o'clock when they arrived at the outskirts of the village. There had been very few words spoken by Cavanagh, and those which the prisoners uttered were not calculated to cheer the way. Joe blamed his guide for their mishap. "You should have known how far the sound of our guns would carry," he said.

As they were nearing the village he called out: "See here, Cavanagh, there's no use taking me through town under arrest. I'll cough up all we got right now. How much is the damage?"

"I can't receive your fine," replied Ross, "and, besides, you took your chances when you shot that sheep. You lost out, and I'm not going to let you off. This poaching must stop. You go right along with your guide."

Again Edwards drew near, and pled in a low voice: "See here, Mr. Ranger, I have special reasons why I don't want to go into this town under arrest. I wish you'd let me explain."

There was deep emotion in his voice, but Ross was firm. "I'm sorry for you," he said, "but my duty requires me to take you before a magistrate—"

"But you don't know my case," he replied, with bitter intensity. "I'm out 'on parole.' I can't afford to be arrested in this way. Don't you see?"

Ross looked at him closely. "Are you telling me the truth?"

"Would you have mercy on me if I were?"

"I should be sorry for you, but I couldn't let you go."

"You won't believe me, but it's the God Almighty's truth: I didn't know Joe intended to kill that sheep. He asked me to show him over the pass. I had no intention of killing anything. I wish to God you would let me go!" His voice was tense with pleading.

"How about this, Gregg?" called Ross. "Your guide insists he had no hand in killing the ram?"

"He fired first, and I fired and finished him," retorted Gregg.

"'Twas the other way," declared Edwards. "The beast was crippled and escaping—I killed him with my revolver. I didn't want to see him go off and die—"

"I guess that settles it," said Cavanagh, decisively. "You take your medicine with Joe. If the justice wants to let you off easy, I can't help it, but to turn you loose now would mean disloyalty to the service. Climb back into your saddle."

Edwards turned away with shaking hands and unsteady step. "All right," he said, "I'll meet it." He came back to say: "There's no need of your saying anything about what I've told you."

"No, you are a stranger to me. I know nothing of your life except that I found you with Joe, with this pack on your horse."

"Much obliged," said he, with a touch of bitter humor.

To the casual observer in a town of this character there was nothing specially noticeable in three horsemen driving a pack-horse, but to those whose eyes were keen the true relationship of the ranger to his captives was instantly apparent, and when they alighted at Judge Higley's office a bunch of eager observers quickly collected.

"Hello Joe, what luck?" called Ballard.

"Our luck was a little too good—we caught a game warden," replied the young scapegrace.

The ranger was chagrined to find the office of the justice closed for the day, and, turning to his captives, said: "I'm hungry, and I've no doubt you are. I'm going to take you into Mike Halsey's saloon for supper, but remember you are my prisoners." And to the little old remittance man, Sifton, who caught his eye, he explained his need of a justice and the town marshal.

"I'll try to find the judge," replied Sifton, with ready good-will, and at a sign from the ranger, Gregg and his herder entered the saloon.

In fifteen minutes the town was rumbling with the news. Under Ballard's devilry, all the latent hatred of the ranger and all the concealed opposition to the Forest Service came to the surface like the scum on a pot of broth. The saloons and eating-houses boiled with indignant protest. "What business is it of Ross Cavanagh's?" they demanded. "What call has he to interfere? He's not a game warden."

"Yes he is. All these rangers are game wardens," corrected another.

"No, they're not. They have to be commissioned by the Governor."

"Well, he's been commissioned; he's warden all right."

"I don't believe it. Anyhow, he's too fresh. He needs to have a halt. Let's do him. Let's bluff him out."

Lee Virginia was in the kitchen superintending the service when one of the waiters came in, breathless with excitement. "Ross Cavanagh has shot Joe Gregg for killing sheep!"

Lee faced her with blanched face. "Who told you so?"

"They're all talking about it out there. Gee! but they're hot. Some of 'em want to lynch him."

Lee hurried out into the dining-room, which was crowded with men and voicing deep excitement. Anger was in the air—a stormy rage, perceptible as a hot blast; and as she passed one table after another she heard ugly phrases applied to Cavanagh.

A half-dozen men were standing before the counter talking with Lize, but Lee pushed in to inquire with white, inquiring face: "What is it all about? What has happened?"

"Nothing much," Lize replied, contemptuously, "but you'd think a horse had been stole. Ross has nipped Joe Gregg and one of his herders for killing mountain-sheep."

"Do you mean he shot them?"

"Yes; he took their heads."

Lee stood aghast. "What do you mean? Whose heads?"

Lize laughed. "The sheeps' heads. Oh, don't be scared, no one is hurt yet!"

The girl flushed with confusion as the men roared over her blunder. "One of the girls told me Mr. Cavanagh had killed a man," she explained. "Where is he?"

Lize betrayed annoyance. "They say he's taking supper at Mike Halsey's, though why he didn't come here I don't see. What's he going to do?" she asked. "Won't the marshal take the men off his hands?"

"Not without warrant from Higley, and Higley is out of town. Ross'll have to hold 'em till Higley gets back, or else take 'em over to Chauvenet," Lize snorted. "Old Higley! Yes, he's been known to disappear before when there was some real work to be done."

The girl looked about her with a sharpening realization of the fact that all these men were squarely opposed to the ranger, and rather glad to know that his guardianship of the poachers was to be rendered troublesome. She could hear on all sides bitter curses openly directed against him. How little of real manliness could be detected in these grinning or malignant faces! Ill-formed, half-developed, bestial most of them, while others, though weakly good-humored, were ready to go with whatever current of strong passion blew upon them. Over against such creatures Ross Cavanagh stood off in heroic contrast—a man with work to do, and doing it like a patriot.

She went back to her own task with a vague sense of alarm. "Certainly they will not dare to interfere with an officer in the discharge of his duties," she thought. She was eager to see him, and the thought that he might be obliged to ride away to Chauvenet without a word to her gave her a deeper feeling of annoyance and unrest. That he was in any real danger she could not believe.

It was disheartening to Cavanagh to see how some of the most influential citizens contrived to give encouragement to the riotous element of the town. A wink, a gesture, a careless word to the proper messenger, conveyed to the saloon rounders an assurance of sympathy which inflamed their resentment to the murderous point.

The truth is, this little village, sixty miles from the railway, still retained in its dives and shanties the lingering miasma of the old-time free-range barbarism. It trailed a dark history on its legal side as well as on its openly violent side, for it had been one of the centres of the Rustler's War, and one of the chief points of attack on the part of the cattle-barons. It was still a rendezvous for desperate and shameless characters—a place of derelicts, survivals of the days of deep drinking, furious riding, and ready gun-play.

True, its famous desperadoes were now either dead or distantly occupied; but the mantle of violence, the tradition of lawlessness, had fallen to the seedy old cow-punchers and to the raw and vulgar youths from the ill-conditioned homes of the middle West. The air of the reckless old-time range still clung rancidly in the low groggeries, as a deadly gas hangs about the lower levels of a mine. It was confessedly one of the worst communities in the State.

"Let's run the sonovagun!" was the suggestion of several of Gregg's friends.

The fact that the ranger was a commissioned officer of the law, and that the ram's head had been found on the poacher's pack, made very little difference to these irresponsible instigators to assault. It was wonderful how highly that loafing young rascal, Joe Gregg, was prized at the moment. "It's an outrage that the son of a leading citizen should be held up in this way by one of the forestry Cossacks," declared one of the merchants.

The discussion which took place over the bars of the town was at the riot-heat by nine o'clock, and soon after ten a crowd of howling, whooping bad boys, and disreputable ranch-hands was parading the walks, breathing out vile threats against the ranger.

Accustomed to men of this type, Cavanagh watched them come and go at Halsey's bar with calculating eyes. "There will be no trouble for an hour or two, but meanwhile what is to be done? Higley is not to be found, and the town marshal is also 'out of town.'" To Halsey he said: "I am acting, as you know, under both Federal and State authority, and I call upon you as a law-abiding citizen to aid me in holding these men prisoners. I shall camp right here till morning, or until the magistrate or the marshal relieves me of my culprits."

Halsey was himself a sportsman—a genuine lover of hunting and a fairly consistent upholder of the game laws; but perceiving that the whole town had apparently lined up in opposition to the ranger, he lost courage. His consent was half-hearted, and he edged away toward the front window of his bar-room, nervously seeking to be neutral—"to carry water on both shoulders," as the phrase goes.

The talk grew less jocular as the drinks took effect, and Neill Ballard, separating himself from the crowd, came forward, calling loudly: "Come out o' there, Joe! Youse a hell of a sport! Come out and have a drink!"

His words conveyed less of battle than his tone. He was, in fact, urging a revolt, and Cavanagh knew it.

Gregg rose as if to comply. The ranger stopped him. "Keep your seat," said he. And to Ballard he warningly remarked: "And you keep away from my prisoners."

"Do you own this saloon?" retorted the fellow, truculently. "I reckon Halsey's customers have some rights. What are you doing here, anyway? This is no jail."

"Halsey has given me the privilege of holding my prisoners here till the justice is found. It isn't my fault that the town is without judge or jail." He was weakened by the knowledge that Halsey had only half-consented to aid justice; but his pride was roused, and he was determined upon carrying his arrest to its legitimate end. "I'm going to see that these men are punished if I have to carry them to Sulphur City," he added.

"Smash the lights!" shouted some one at the back.

Here was the first real note of war, and Ross cried out sharply: "If a man lifts a hand toward the light I'll cut it off!"

There was a stealthy movement in the crowd, and leaping upon the counter a reckless cub reached for the lamp.

Cavanagh's revolver shattered the globe in the fellow's very palm. "Get down from there!" he commanded.

The crowd surged back against the front door, several drawn weapons shining in their hands. Some of the faces were a-grin, others were thrust forward like the heads of snakes, their eyes glittering with hate.

It is an appalling moment to a man of discernment when he looks into the faces of his fellows and hears only the laugh of the wolf, the hiss of the snake, the snarl of the tiger. At the moment Cavanagh despised with a measureless contempt the entire commonwealth and its long-established school of violence; but fixing his thought on his far-away chief, he lost all fear. His voice was perfectly calm as he said: "I am wearing the uniform of the Federal service, and the man that interferes with me will feel the vengeance of the Federal arm. You can get me, but I'll get some of you at the same time, and the department will get the rest."

The mob had not found its leader. It hesitated and blustered but did not strike, and eventually edged out of the door and disappeared; but the silence which followed its retreat was more alarming to the ranger than its presence. Some slyer mischief was in these minds. He feared that they were about to cut the electric-light wires, and so plunge him into darkness, and to prepare for that emergency he called upon the bartender (Halsey having vanished) for a lamp or a lantern.

The fellow sullenly set about this task, and Ross, turning to Gregg, said: "If you've any influence with this mob, you'd better use it to keep them out of mischief, for I'm on this job to the bitter end, and somebody's going to be hurt."

Gregg, who seemed quite detached from the action and rather delighted with it, replied: "I have no influence. They don't care a hang about me; they have it in for you, that's all."

Edwards remained silent, with his hat drawn low over his eyes. It was evident that he was anxious to avoid being seen and quite willing to keep out of the conflict; but with no handcuffs and the back door of the saloon unguarded, Ross was aware that his guard must be incessant and alertly vigilant. "Where are the law-abiding citizens of the town?" he asked of Sifton, who remained in the saloon.

The dry little whisp of manhood had some spark of life in him, for he said: "In their beds, the cowardly hounds!"

"They must know that this gang of hobos is threatening me."

"Certainly they do; but they don't intend to endanger their precious hides. They would be well pleased to have you disabled."

It was incredible! Low as his estimate of the Fork had been, Cavanagh could not believe that it would sit quietly by and see an officer of the State defeated in his duty. "Such a thing could not happen under the English flag," he said, and at the moment his adopted country seemed a miserable makeshift. Only the thought of Redfield and the chief nerved him for the long vigil. "The chief will understand if it comes up to him," he said.

Lize Wetherford came hurrying in, looking as though she had just risen from her bed. She was clothed in a long red robe, her grizzled hair was loose, her feet were bare, and she carried a huge old-fashioned revolver in her hand. Her mouth was stern.

Stopping abruptly as she caught sight of Ross standing in the middle of the floor unhurt, she exclaimed: "There you are! Are you all right?"

"As a trivet," he replied.

She let her gun-hand relax. "What was the shooting?"

"A little bluff on my part."

"Anybody hurt?"

"No."

She was much relieved. "I was afraid they'd got you. I came as quick as I could. I was abed. That fool doctor threw a chill into me, and I've been going to roost early according to orders. I didn't hear your gun, but Lee did, and she came to tell me. They're hell-roaring down the street yet. Don't let 'em get behind you. If I was any good I'd stay and help. Where's Mike?" She addressed the tender at the bar.

"I don't know. Gone home, I guess."

"Sneaked, has he?"

"So far as I know the only law-upholding citizen in the place, barring yourself, is Sifton," said Ross, indicating the Englishman, who stood as if cold, pressing his hands together to hide their trembling.

Lize perceived the irony of this. "Two Britishers and two women! Well, by God, this is a fine old town! What you going to do—hold your men here all night?"

"I don't see any other way. Halsey turned the place over to me—but—" He looked about him suspiciously.

"Bring 'em into my place. Lee has had new locks put on our doors; they'll help some."

"I don't like to do that, Mrs. Wetherford," he replied, with greater respect than he had ever shown her before. "They may attack me there."

"All the better; I'll be on hand to help—but they're less likely to boil in on you through a locked door."

"But your daughter? It will alarm her."

"She'll be in the other house, and, besides, she'd feel easier if you are in my place. She's all wrought up by the attack on you."

Ross turned to his prisoners. "Follow Mrs. Wetherford and—eyes front!"

"You needn't worry about me," said Joe, "I won't run."

"I don't intend to give you a chance," replied Ross.

Edwards seemed to have lost in both courage and physical stature; he slouched along with shuffling step, his head bent and his face pale. Ross was now profoundly sorry for him, so utterly craven and broken was his look.



VIII

THE SECOND ATTACK

Lee was waiting on the porch of the hotel, tense with excitement, straining her ears and eyes to see what was taking place.

The night had started with a small sickle of moon, but this had dropped below the range, leaving the street dark, save where the lights from the windows of the all-night eating-houses and saloons lay out upon the walk, and, while she stood peering out, the sound of rancorous howling and shrill whooping came to her ears with such suggestion of ferocity that she shivered.

Every good and honorable trait seemed lost out of her neighbors. She saw the whole country but as a refuge for criminals, ungovernable youths, and unsexed women—a wilderness of those who had no regard for any code of morals which interfered with their own desires. Her memories of the past freshened as she listened. In such wise she had shuddered, as a child, while troops of celebrating cowboys rode up and down the streets. In such wise, too, the better (and more timid) element of the town had put out their lights and retired, leaving their drunken helots and the marshal to fight it out in vague tumult.

A few of the hotel guests had gone to bed, but the women were up, excited and nervous, starting at every fresh outburst of whooping, knowing that their sons or husbands were out in the street "to see the fun," and that they might meet trouble.

At last Lee discerned her mother returning from Halsey's, followed by three men. Withdrawing from the little porch whereon she had been standing, she reentered the house to meet her mother in the hall. "Where is Mr. Cavanagh?" she asked.

"Out in the dining-room. You see, Mike Halsey is no kind o' use. He vamoosed and left Ross down there alone, with his two prisoners and the lights likely to be turned out on him. So I offered the caffy as a calaboose. They are sure in for a long and tedious night."

Lee was alarmed at her mother's appearance. "You must go to bed. You look ghastly."

"I reckon I'd better lie down for a little while, but I can't sleep. Ross may need me. There isn't a man to help him but me, and that loafer Ballard is full of gall. He's got it in for Ross, and will make trouble if he can."

"What can we do?"

"Shoot!" replied Lize, with dry brevity. "I wouldn't mind a chance to plug some of the sweet citizens of this town. I owe them one or two."

With this sentence in her ears, Lee Virginia went to her bed, but not to slumber. Her utter inability either to control her mother's action or to influence that of the mob added to her uneasiness.

The singing, shouting, trampling of the crowd went on, and once a group of men halted just outside her window, and she heard Neill Ballard noisily, drunkenly arguing as to the most effective method of taking the prisoners. His utterances, so profane and foul, came to her like echoes from out an inferno. The voices were all at the moment like the hissing of serpents, the snarling of tigers. How dared creatures of this vile type use words of contempt against Ross Cavanagh?

"Come on, boys!" urged Ballard, his voice filled with reckless determination. "Let's run him."

As they passed, the girl sprang up and went to her mother's room to warn her of the threatened attack.

Lize was already awake and calmly loading a second revolver by the light of the electric bulb.

"What are you doing?" the girl asked, her blood chilling at sight of the weapon.

"Hell's to pay out there, and I'm going to help pay it." A jarring blow was heard. "Hear that! They're breaking in—" She started to leave the room.

Lee stopped her. "Where are you going?"

"To help Ross. Here!" She thrust the handle of a smaller weapon into Lee's hand. "Ed Wetherford's girl ought to be able to take care of herself. Come on!"

With a most unheroic horror benumbing her limbs, Lee followed her mother through the hall. The sound of shouts and the trampling of feet could be heard, and she came out into the restaurant just in time to photograph upon her brain a scene whose significance was at once apparent. On a chair between his two prisoners, and confronting Ballard at the head of a crowd of frenzied villains, stood the ranger, a gleaming weapon in his hand, a look of resolution on his face.

What he had said, or what he intended to do, she did not learn, for her mother rushed at the invaders with the mad bravery of a she-bear. "Get out of here!" she snarled, thrusting her revolver into the very mouth of the leader.

They all fell back in astonishment and fear.

Ross leaped to her side. "Leave them to me!" he said. "I'll clear the room."

"Not on your life! This is my house. I have the right to smash the fools." And she beat them over the heads with her pistol-barrel.

Recognizing that she was minded to kill, they retreated over the threshold, and Ross, drawing the door close behind them, turned to find Lee Virginia confronting Edwards, who had attempted to escape into the kitchen. The girl's face was white, but the eye of her revolver stared straight and true into her prisoner's face.

With a bound Ross seized him and flung him against the wall. "Get back there!" he shouted. "You must take your medicine with your boss."

The old fellow hurriedly replaced his ragged hat, and, folding his arms, sank back into his chair with bowed head, while Lize turned upon Joe Gregg. "What the devil did you go into this kind of deal for? You knew what the game laws was, didn't you? Your old dad is all for State regulation, and here you are breaking a State law. Why don't you stand up for the code like a sport?"

Joe, who had been boasting of the smiles he had drawn from Lee, did not relish this tongue-lashing from her mother, but, assuming a careless air, he said, "I'm all out of smokes; get me a box, that's a good old soul."

Lize regarded him with the expression of one nonplussed. "You impudent little cub!" she exclaimed. "What you need is a booting!"

The ranger addressed himself to Lee. "I want to thank you for a very opportune intervention. I didn't know you could handle a gun so neatly."

She flushed with pleasure. "Oh yes, I can shoot. My father taught me when I was only six years old."

As she spoke, Ross caught the man Edwards studying them with furtive glance, but, upon being observed, he resumed his crouching attitude, which concealed his face beneath the rim of his weather-worn hat. It was evident that he was afraid of being recognized. He had the slinking air of the convict, and his form, so despairing in its lax lines, appealed to Lee with even greater poignancy than his face. "I'm sorry," she said to him, "but it was my duty to help Mr. Cavanagh."

He glanced up with a quick sidewise slant. "That's all right, miss; I should have had sense enough to keep out of this business." He spoke with difficulty, and his voice was hoarse with emotion.

Lize turned to Lee. "The Doc said 'no liquor,' but I guess here's where I draw one—I feel faint."

Ross hurried to her side, while young Gregg tendered a handsome flask. "Here's something."

Lize put it away. "Not from you. Just reach under my desk, Ross; you'll find some brandy there. That's it," she called, as he produced a bottle. Clutching it eagerly, she added: "They say it's poison, but it's my meat to-night."

She was, in truth, very pale, and her hands were trembling in a weakness that went to her daughter's heart. Lee admired her bravery, her manlike readiness of action, but her words, her manner (now that the stress of the battle was over), hurt and shamed her. Little remained of the woman in Lize, and the old sheep-herder eyed her with furtive curiosity.

"I was afraid you'd shoot," Lize explained to Ross, "and I didn't want you to muss up your hands on the dirty loafers. I had the right to kill; they were trespassers, and I'd 'a' done it, too."

"I don't think they intended to actually assault me," he said, "but it's a bit discouraging to find the town so indifferent over both the breaking of the laws and the doings of a drunken mob. I'm afraid the most of them are a long way from law-abiding people yet."

Joe, who did not like the position in which he stood as respecting Lee, here made an offer of aid. "I don't suppose my word is any good now, but if you'll let me do it I'll go out and round up Judge Higley. I think I know where he is."

To this Lize objected. "You can't do that, Ross; you better hold the fort right here till morning."

Lee was rather sorry, too, for young Gregg, who bore his buffeting with the imperturbable face of the heroes of his class. He had gone into this enterprise with much the same spirit in which he had stolen gates and misplaced signs during his brief college career, and he was now disposed (in the presence of a pretty girl) to carry it out with undiminished impudence. "It only means a fine, anyway," he assured himself.

Cavanagh did not trust Gregg, either, and as this was the first time he had been called upon to arrest men for killing game out of season, he could not afford to fail of any precaution. Tired and sleepy as he was, he must remain on guard. "But you and your daughter must go to bed at once," he urged.

Lize, under the spur of her dram, talked on with bitter boldness. "I'm going to get out o' this town as soon as I can sell. I won't live in it a minute longer than I have to. It used to have men into it; now they're only hobos. It's neither the old time nor the new; it's just a betwixt and between, with a lot o' young cubs like Joe Gregg pretendin' to be tough. I never thought I'd be sighin' for horse-cars, but these rowdy chumps like Neill Ballard give me a pain. Not one of 'em has sand enough to pull a gun in the open, but they'd plug you from a dark alley or fire out of a crowd. It was different in the old days. I've seen men walk out into that street, face each other, and open fire quiet as molasses. But now it's all talk and blow. The men have all grown old or got out."

To this Gregg listened with expressionless visage, his eyes dreamily fixed on Lee's face; but his companion, the old herder, seemed to palpitate with shame and fear. And Ross had the feeling at the moment that in this ragged, unkempt old hobo was the skeleton of one of the old-time heroes. He was wasted with drink and worn by wind and rain, but he was very far from being commonplace. "Here they come again!" called Lize, as the hurry of feet along the walk threatened another attack. Ross Cavanagh again drew his revolver and stood at guard, and Lize recovering her own weapon took a place by his side.

With the strength of a bear the new assailant shook the bolted door. "Let me in!" he roared.

"Go to hell!" replied Lize, calmly.

"It's dad!" called young Gregg. "Go away, you chump."

"Let me in or I'll smash this door!" retorted Gregg.

"You smash that door, old Bullfrog," announced Lize, "and I'll carry one of your lungs away. I know your howl—it don't scare me. I've stood off one whole mob to-night, and I reckon I'm good for you. If you want to get in here you hunt up the judge of this town and the constable."

After a pause Sam called, "Are you there, son?"

"You bet he is," responded Lize, "and here he'll stay."

Joe added: "And you'd better take the lady's advice, pop. She has the drop on you."

The old rancher muttered a fierce curse while Ross explained the situation. "I'm as eager to get rid of these culprits as any one can be, but they must be taken by proper authority. Bring a writ from the magistrate and you may have them and welcome."

Gregg went away without further word, and Lize said: "He'll find Higley if he's in town; and he is in town, for I saw him this afternoon. He's hiding out to save himself trouble."

Lee Virginia, with an understanding of what the ranger had endured, asked: "Can't I get you something to eat? Would you like some coffee?"

"I would, indeed," he answered, and his tone pleased her.

She hurried away to get it while Cavanagh disposed his prisoners behind a couple of tables in the corner. "I guess you're in for a night of it," he remarked, grimly. "So make yourselves as comfortable as you can. Perhaps your experience may be a discouragement to others of your kind."

Lee returned soon with a pot of fresh coffee and some sandwiches, the sight of which roused young Gregg to impudent remark. "Well, notice that! And we're left out!" But Edwards shrank into the shadow, as if the light hurt him.

Ross thanked Lee formally, but there was more than gratitude in his glance, and she turned away to hide her face from other eyes. Strange place it was for the blooming of love's roses, but they were in her cheeks as she faced her mother; and Lize, with fresh acknowledgment of her beauty, broke out again: "Well, this settles it. I'm going to get out of this town, dearie. I'm done. This ends the cattle country for me. I don't know how I've put up with these yapps all these years. I've been robbed and insulted and spit upon just long enough. I won't have you dragged into this mess. I ought to have turned you back the day you landed here."

The old man in the corner was listening, straining his attention in order to catch every word she uttered, and Ross again caught a gleam in his eyes which puzzled him. Before he had time to turn his wonder over in his mind they all caught the sound of feet along the walk, but this time the sound was sedate and regular, like the movement of police.

Both prisoners rose to their feet as Cavanagh again stood alert. The feet halted; a sharp rap sounded on the door.

"Who's there?" demanded Lize.

"The law!" replied a wheezy voice. "Open in the name of the law!"

"It's old Higley," announced Lize. "Open the door, Ross."

"Come in, Law," she called, ironically, as the justice appeared. "You look kind of mice-eaten, but you're all the law this blame town can sport. Come in and do your duty."

Higley (a tall man, with a rusty brown beard, very much on his dignity) entered the room, followed by a short, bullet-headed citizen in a rumpled blue suit with a big star on his breast. Behind on the sidewalk Ballard and a dozen of his gang could be seen. Sam Gregg, the moving cause of this resurrection of law and order, followed the constable, bursting out big curses upon his son. "You fool," he began, "I warned you not to monkey with them sheep. You—"

Higley had the grace to stop that. "Let up on the cuss-words, Sam; there are ladies present," said he, nodding toward Lee. Then he opened upon Cavanagh. "Well, sir, what's all this row? What's your charge against these men?"

"Killing mountain sheep. I caught them with the head of a big ram upon their pack."

"Make him show his commission," shouted Gregg. "He's never been commissioned. He's no game warden."

Higley hemmed. "I—ah—Oh, his authority is all right, Sam; I've seen it. If he can prove that these men killed the sheep, we'll have to act."

Cavanagh briefly related how he had captured the men on the trail. "The head of the ram is at the livery barn with my horse."

"How about that?" asked Higley, turning to Joe.

"I guess that's right," replied the insolent youth. "We killed the sheep all right."

Higley was in a corner. He didn't like to offend Gregg, and yet the case was plain. He met the issue blandly. "Marshal, take these men into custody!" Then to Ross: "We'll relieve you of their care, Mr. Cavanagh. You may appear to-morrow at nine."

It was a farcical ending to a very arduous thirty-six-hour campaign, and Ross, feeling like a man who, having rolled a huge stone to the top of a hill, has been ordered to drop it, said, "I insist on the maximum penalty of the law, Justice Higley, especially for this man!" He indicated Joe Gregg.

"No more sneaking, Higley," added Lize, uttering her distrust in blunt phrase. "You put these men through or I'll make you trouble."

Higley turned, and with unsteady solemnity saluted. "Fear not my government, madam," said he, and so made exit.

After the door had closed behind them, Cavanagh bitterly complained. "I've delivered my prisoners over into the hands of their friends. I feel like a fool. What assurance have I that they will ever be punished?"

"You have Higley's word," retorted Lize, with ironic inflection. "He'll fine 'em as much as ten dollars apiece, and confiscate the head, which is worth fifty."

"No matter what happens now, you've done your duty," added Lee Virginia, with intent to comfort him.

Lize, now that the stress of the battle was over, fell a-tremble. "I reckon I'll have to go to bed," she admitted. "I'm all in. This night service is wearing."

Ross was alarmed at the sudden droop of her head. "Lean on me," he said, "it's my turn to be useful."

She apologized. "I can't stand what I could once," she confessed, as he aided her into the hotel part of the building. "It's my nerve—seem's like it's all gone. I go to pieces like a sick girl."

She did, indeed, resemble the wreck of a woman as she lay out upon her bed, her hands twitching, her eyes closed, and Ross was profoundly alarmed. "You need the doctor," he urged. "Let me bring him."

"No," she said, huskily, but with decision, "I'm only tired—I'll be all right soon. Send the people away; tell 'em to go to bed."

For half an hour Cavanagh remained in the room waiting to see if the doctor's services would be required, but at the end of that time, as she had apparently fallen asleep, he rose and tiptoed out into the hall.

Lee followed, and they faced each other in such intimacy as the shipwrecked feel after the rescue. The house was still astir with the feet of those to whom the noises of the night had been a terror or a lure, and their presence, so far from being a comfort, a protection, filled the girl's heart with fear and disgust. The ranger explained the outcome of the turmoil, and sent the excited folk to their beds with the assurance that all was quiet and that their landlady was asleep.

When they were quite alone Lee said: "You must not go out into the streets to-night."

"There's no danger. These hoodlums would not dare to attack me."

"Nevertheless, you shall not go!" she declared. "Wait a moment," she commanded, and reentered her mother's room.

As he stood there at Lize Wetherford's door, and his mind went back over her brave deed, which had gone far to atone for her vulgarity, his respect for her deepened. Her resolute insistence upon law showed a complete change of front. "There is more good in her than I thought," he admitted, and it gave him pleasure, for it made Lee Virginia's character just that much more dependable. He thrilled with a new and wistful tenderness as the girl opened the door and stepped out, close beside him.

"Her breathing is quieter," she whispered. "I think she's going to sleep. It's been a terrible night! You must be horribly tired. I will find you some place to sleep."

"It has been a strenuous campaign," he admitted. "I've been practically without sleep for three nights, but that's all in my job. I won't mind if Higley will 'soak' those fellows properly."

She looked troubled. "I don't know what to do about a bed for you; everything is taken—except the couch in the front room."

"Don't trouble, I beg of you. I can pitch down anywhere. I'm used to hard beds. I must be up early to-morrow, anyway."

"Please don't go till after breakfast," she smiled, wanly, "I may need you."

He understood. "What did the doctor say?"

"He said mother was in a very low state of vitality and that she must be very careful, which was easy enough to say. But how can I get her to rest and to diet? You have seen how little she cares for the doctor's orders. He told her not to touch alcohol."

"She is more like a man than a woman," he answered.

She led the way into the small sitting-room which lay at the front of the house, and directly opposite the door of her own room. It was filled with shabby parlor furniture, and in one corner stood a worn couch. "I'm sorry, but I can offer nothing better," she said. "Every bed is taken, but I have plenty of blankets."

There was something delightfully suggestive in being thus waited upon by a young and handsome woman, and the ranger submitted to it with the awkward grace of one unaccustomed to feminine care. The knowledge that the girl was beneath him in birth, and that she was considered to be (in a sense) the lovely flower of a corrupt stock, made the manifest innocency of her voice and eyes the more appealing. He watched her moving about the room with eyes in which a furtive flame glowed.

"This seems a long way from that dinner at Redfield's, doesn't it?" he remarked, as she turned from spreading the blankets on the couch.

"It is another world," she responded, and her face took on a musing gravity.

Then they faced each other in silence, each filled with the same delicious sense of weakness, of danger, reluctant to say good-night, longing for the closer touch which dawning love demanded, and yet—something in the girl defended her, defeated him.

"You must call me if I can be of any help," he repeated, and his voice was tremulous with feeling.

"I will do so," she answered.

Still they did not part. His voice was very tender as he said, "I don't like to see you exposed to such experiences."

"I was not afraid—only for you a little," she answered.

"The Redfields like you. Eleanor told me she would gladly help you. Why do you stay here?"

"I cannot leave my mother."

"I'm not so sure of your duty in that regard. She got on without you for ten years. You have a right to consider yourself. You don't belong here."

"Neither do you," she retorted.

"Oh yes, I do—at least, the case is different with me; my work is here. It hurts me to think of going back to the hills, leaving you here in the midst of these wolves."

He was talking now in the low, throbbing utterance of a man carried out of himself. "It angers me to think that the worst of these loafers, these drunken beasts, can glare at you—can speak to you. They have no right to breathe the same air with one like you."

She did not smile at this; his voice, his eyes were filled with the gravity of the lover whose passion is not humorous. Against his training, his judgment, he was being drawn into closer and closer union with this daughter of violence, and he added: "You may not see me in the morning."

"You must not go without seeing my mother. You must have your breakfast with us. It hurt us to think you didn't come to us for supper."

Her words meant little, but the look in her eyes, the music in her voice, made him shiver. He stammered: "I—I must return to my duties to-morrow. I should go back to-night."

"You mustn't do that. You can't do that. You are to appear before the judge."

He smiled. "That is true. I'd forgotten that."

Radiant with relief, she extended her hand. "Good-night, then. You must sleep."

He took her hand and drew her toward him, then perceiving both wonder and fear in her eyes, he conquered himself. "Good-night," he repeated, dropping her hand, but his voice was husky with its passion.

Tired as he was, the ranger could not compose himself to sleep. The memory of the girl's sweet face, the look of half-surrender in her eyes, the knowledge that she loved him, and that she was lying but a few yards from him, made slumber impossible. At the moment she seemed altogether admirable, entirely worthy to be won.



IX

THE OLD SHEEP-HERDER

The ranger was awakened in the first faint dawn by the passing of the girl's light feet as she went across the hall to her mother's room, and a moment later he heard the low murmur of her voice. Throwing off his blankets and making such scant toilet as he needed, he stepped into the hall and waited for her to return.

Soon she came toward him, a smile of confidence and pleasure on her lips.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Quite comfortable."

"And you?" His voice was very tender.

"I am a little tired," she acknowledged. "I didn't sleep very well."

"You didn't sleep at all," he declared, regretfully.

"Oh yes, I did," she replied, brightly.

She appeared a little pale but by no means worn. Indeed, her face had taken on new charm with its confession of feminine weakness, its expression of trust in him.

These two ardent souls confronted each other in absorbed silence with keener perception, with new daring, with new intimacy, till he recalled himself with effort. "You must let me help you if there's anything I can do. Remember, I'm your big brother."

"I remember," she answered, smilingly, "and I'm going out to see what my big brother is to have for breakfast."

Cavanagh found the street empty, silent, and utterly commonplace. And as he walked past Halsey's saloon the tumult of the night seemed born of a vision in disordered sleep—and yet it had happened! From these reeking little dens a score of foul tatterdemalions had issued, charged with malicious fury. Each of these shacks seemed the lurking-place of a species of malevolent insect whose sting was out for every comer.

The rotting sidewalks, the tiny shops, with their dusty fly-specked windows, the groggeries, from whose open doors a noisome vapor streamed, poisoning the morning air—all these typed the old-time West as Redfield and his farmstead typed the new.

"Once I would have laughed at this town," he said; "but now it is disgusting—something to be wiped out as one expunges an obscene mark upon a public wall."

As for the attack upon himself, terrifying as it had seemed to Lee Virginia, it was in reality only another lively episode in the history of the town, another disagreeable duty in the life of a ranger. It was all a part of his job.

He went forth to his duties with a deepened conviction of the essential lawlessness of the State and of America in general; for this spirit of mob law was to be found in some form throughout the land. He was disgusted, but not beaten. His resolution to carry out the terms of his contract with the Government remained unshaken.

He carried with him, also, a final disturbing glimpse of Eliza Wetherford's girl that did indeed threaten his peace of mind. There was an involuntary appeal, a wistful depth, to her glance which awakened in him an indignant pity, and also blew into flame something not so creditable—something which smoldered beneath his conscious will. He perceived in her a spirit of yielding which was difficult to resist. He understood, much more clearly than at his first meeting with her, how impossible it was for her to remain in this country (where law was a joke and women a ribald jest) without being corrupted. She had not escaped her heritage of passion, and her glances, innocent as they were, roused, even in him, something lawless.

As he climbed the long hill he grappled deeply with this new and inexplicable weakness. He had always been a decent fellow as respects women, and had maintained the same regard for the moral code that he instinctively bore toward the laws of his adopted country. He could not, therefore, regard this girl (low as her parentage seemed) in the light of license; for (he thought) whatever of evil may have been planted deep in her nature by her ill-assorted father and mother, she is at the moment sweet and fine, and the man who would awaken her other self should be accursed.

In this mood, too, he acknowledged the loneliness of his life for the first time, and rode his silent way up the trail like one in a dream. He went over his life story in detail, wondering if he had not made a mistake in leaving England, in taking out his American citizenship. He considered again, very seriously, the question of going back to live on the estate of his mother, and once more decided that its revenue was too small. To return to it meant an acceptance of the restricted life of an English farmer, and, worst of all, an acquiescence in the social despotism which he had come to feel and to hate.

The English empire to him was falling apart. Its supremacy was already threatened by Germany, whereas the future of the States appealed to his imagination. Here the problems of popular government and of industry were to be worked out on the grandest scale. The West inspired him. "Some day each of these great ranges will be a national forest, and each of these canons will contain its lake, its reservoir." There was something fine in this vision of man's conquest of nature. "Surely in this development there is a place for me," he said.

Start at any place he pleased, his mind circled and came back to Lee Virginia. He reproached himself for not having remained one more day to help her. She was in the midst of a most bleak and difficult pass, and whether she came through or not depended on something not derived from either her father or her mother. The test of her character was being made.

"Happily the father is dead, and his exploits fading to a dim legend; but the mother may live for years to dishearten and corrupt. It is foolish of the girl to stay, and yet to have her go would leave me and the whole valley poorer."

He perceived in her a symbol. "She is the new West just as the mother represents the old, and the law of inheritance holds in her as it holds in the State. She is a mixture of good and evil, of liberty and license. She must still draw forward, for a time, the dead weight of her past, just as the West must bear with and gradually slough off its violent moods."

His pony plodded slowly, and the afternoon was half-spent before he came in sight of the long, low log-cabin which was the only home he possessed in all America. For the first time since he built it, the station seemed lonely and disheartening. "Would any woman, for love of me, come to such a hearthstone?" he asked himself. "And if she consented to do so, could I be so selfish as to exact such sacrifice? No, the forest ranger in these attitudes must be young and heart-free; otherwise his life would be miserably solitary."

He unsaddled his horse and went about his duties with a leaden pall over his spirit, a fierce turmoil in his brain. He was no longer single-hearted in his allegiance to the forest. He could not banish that appealing girlish face, that trusting gaze. Lee Virginia needed him as he needed her; and yet—and yet—the people's lands demanded his care, his social prejudices forbade his marriage.

He was just dishing out his rude supper when the feet of a horse on the log bridge announced a visitor.

With a feeling of pleasure as well as relief, he rose to greet the stranger. "Any visitor is welcome this night," he said.

The horseman proved to be his former prisoner, the old man Edwards, who slipped from his saddle with the never-failing grace of the cow-man, and came slowly toward the cabin. He smiled wearily as he said: "I'm on your trail, Mr. Ranger, but I bear no malice. You were doing your duty. Can you tell me how far it is to Ambro's camp?"

There was something forlorn in the man's attitude, and Cavanagh's heart softened. "Turn your horse into the corral and come to supper," he commanded, with Western bluntness; "we'll talk about all that later."

Edwards accepted his hospitality without hesitation, and when he had disposed of his mount and made himself ready for the meal, he came in and took a seat at the table in silence, while the ranger served him and waited for his explanation.

"I'm going up to take Ambro's place," he began, after a few minutes of silent eating. "Know where his camp is?"

"I do," replied Ross, to whom the stranger now appeared in pathetic guise. "Any man of his age consenting to herd sheep is surely hard hit by the rough hand of the world," he reasoned, and the closer he studied his visitor the plainlier he felt his ungoverned past. His chest was hollow, his eyes unnaturally large, and his hands thin, but he still displayed faint lines of the beauty and power he had once gloried in. His clothing was worn and poor, and Ross said: "You'll need plenty of bedding up there."

"Is it high?"

"About eleven thousand feet."

"Jehosaphat! How will I stand that kind of air? Still, it may be it's what I need. I've been living down in the low country for ten years, and I'm a little bit hide-bound."

"Lung trouble?"

"Oh no; old age, I reckon."

"You're not old—not more than fifty-five."

"I'm no colt," he admitted; "and, besides, I've lived pretty swift."

In this was the hint of a confession, but Cavanagh did not care to have him proceed further in that line. "I suppose Gregg paid your fine?"

"Yes."

"In any other town in the State you'd have gone down the line."

He roused himself. "See here, Mr. Ranger, you've no warrant to believe me, but I told you the God's truth. Young Gregg got me to ride into the range and show him the trail. I didn't intend to get mixed up with a game warden. I've had all the confinement I need."

"Well, it's a closed incident now," interposed Ross; "we won't reopen it. Make yourself at home."

The stranger, hungry as he was, ate with unexpected gentility, and, as the hot coffee sent its cheerful glow through his body, he asked, with livening interest, a good many questions about the ranger and the Forest Service. "You fellers have to be all-round men. The cowboys think you have a snap, but I guess you earn your money."

"A man that builds trail, lays bridges, burns brush, fights fire, rides the round-up, and covers seventy-five miles of trail every week on eighty dollars per month, and feeds himself and his horses, isn't what I would call enjoying a soft snap."

"What do you do it for?"

"God knows! I've been asking myself that question all day to-day."

"This playin' game warden has some outs, too. That was a wild crowd last night. The town is the same old hell-hole it was when I knew it years ago. Fine girl of Lize Wetherford's. She blocked me all right." He smiled wanly. "I certainly was on my way to the green timber when she put the bars up."

Ross made no comment, and the other went on, in a tone of reminiscent sadness. "Lize has changed terribly. I used to know her when she was a girl. Judas Priest! but she could ride and shoot in those days!" His eyes kindled with the memory of her. "She could back a horse to beat any woman that ever crossed the range, but I didn't expect to see her have such a skein of silk as that girl. She sure looks the queen to me."

Cavanagh did not greatly relish this line of conversation, but the pause enabled him to say: "Miss Wetherford is not much Western; she got her training in the East. She's been with an aunt ever since her father's death."

"He's dead, is he?"

"So far as anybody knows, he is."

"Well, he's no loss. I knew him, too. He was all kinds of a fool; let a few slick ones seduce him with fizz-water and oysters on the half-shell—that's the kind of a weak sister he was. He got on the wrong side of the rustler line-up—you know all about that, I reckon? Fierce old days, those. We didn't know anything about forest rangers or game wardens in them days."

The stranger's tone was now that of a man quite certain of himself. He had become less furtive under the influence of the food and fire.

Ross defended Wetherford for Virginia's sake. "He wasn't altogether to blame, as I see it. He was the Western type in full flower, that's all. He had to go like the Indian and the buffalo. And these hobos like Ballard and Gregg will go next."

Edwards sank back into his chair. "I reckon that's right," he agreed, and made offer to help clear away the supper dishes.

"No, you're tired," replied Ross; "rest and smoke. I'll soon be done."

The poacher each moment seemed less of the hardened criminal, and more and more of the man prematurely aged by sickness and dissipation, and gradually the ranger lost all feeling of resentment.

As he sat down beside the fire, Edwards said: "Them Wetherford women think a whole lot of you. 'Pears like they'd both fight for you. Are you sweet on the girl?"

"Now, see here, old man," Ross retorted, sharply, "you want to do a lot of thinking before you comment on Miss Wetherford. I won't stand for any nasty clack."

Edwards meekly answered: "I wasn't going to say anything out of the way. I was fixin' for to praise her."

"All the same, I don't intend to discuss her with you," was Cavanagh's curt answer.

The herder fell back into silence while the ranger prepared his bunk for the night. The fact that he transferred some of the blankets from his own bed to that of his visitor did not escape Edwards's keen eyes, and with grateful intent he said:

"I can give you a tip, Mr. Ranger," said he, breaking out of a silence. "The triangle outfit is holding more cattle on the forest than their permits call for."

"How do you know?"

"I heard one of the boys braggin' about it."

"Much obliged," responded Ross. "I'll look into it."

Edwards went on: "Furthermore, they're fixing for another sheep-kill over there, too; all the sheepmen are armed. That's why I left the country. I don't want to run any more chances of being shot up. I've had enough of trouble; I can't afford to be hobnobbing with judges and juries."

"When does your parole end?" asked Ross.

Edwards forced a grin. "I was handing you one when I said that," he declared, weakly. "I was workin' up sympathy. I'm not out on parole; I'm just a broken-down old cow-puncher herdin' sheep in order to keep clear of the liquor belt."

This seemed reasonable, and the ranger remarked, by way of dropping the subject: "I've nothing to say further than this—obey the rules of the forest, and you won't get into any further trouble with me. And as for being shot up by the cow-men, you'll not be disturbed on any national forest. There never has been a single herder shot nor a sheep destroyed on this forest."

"I'm mighty glad to hear that," replied Edwards, with sincere relief. "I've had my share of shooting up and shooting down. All I ask now is quiet and the society of sheep. I take a kind of pleasure in protecting the fool brutes. It's about all I'm good for."

He did, indeed, look like a man in the final year of life as he spoke. "Better turn in," he said, in kindlier tone; "I'm an early riser."

The old fellow rose stiffly, and, laying aside his boots and trousers, rolled into his bunk and was asleep in three minutes.

Cavanagh himself was very tired, and went to bed soon after, to sleep dreamlessly till daylight. He sprang from his bed, and after a plunge in the stream set about breakfast; while Edwards rose from his bunk, groaning and sighing, and went forth to wrangle the horses, rubbing his hands and shivering as he met the keen edge of the mountain wind. When he returned, breakfast was ready, and again he expressed his gratitude.

"Haven't you any slicker?" asked Cavanagh. "It looks like rain."

"No, I'm run down pretty low," he replied. "The truth is, Mr. Ranger, I blew in all my wages at roulette last week."

Ross brought out a canvas coat, well worn but serviceable. "Take this along with you. It's likely to storm before we reach the sheep-camp. And you don't look very strong. You must take care of yourself."

Edwards was visibly moved by this kindness. "Sure you can spare it?"

"Certain sure; I've another," returned the ranger, curtly.

It was hardly more than sunrise as they mounted their ponies and started on their trail, which led sharply upward after they left the canon. The wind was strong and stinging cold. Over the high peaks the gray-black vapor was rushing, and farther away a huge dome of cloud was advancing like an army in action. It was all in the day's work of the ranger, but the plainsman behind him turned timorous eyes toward the sky. "It looks owly," he repeated. "I didn't know I was going so high—Gregg didn't say the camp was so near timber-line."

"You've cut out a lonesome job for yourself," Ross assured him, "and if you can find anything else to do you'd better give this up and go back."

"I'm used to being lonesome," the stranger said, "but I can't stand the cold and the wet as I used to. I never was a mountaineer."

Taking pity on the shivering man, Cavanagh turned off the trail into a sheltered nook behind some twisted pine-trees. "How do you expect to take care of your sheep a thousand feet higher than this?" he demanded as they entered the still place, where the sun shone warm.

"That's what I'm asking myself," replied Edwards. He slipped from his horse and crouched close to the rock. "My blood is mostly ditch-water, seems like. The wind blows right through me."

"How do you happen to be reduced to herding sheep? You look like a man who has seen better days."

Edwards, chafing his thin fingers to warm them, made reluctant answer: "It's a long story, Mr. Ranger, and it concerns a whole lot of other people—some of them decent folks—so I'd rather not go into it."

"John Barleycorn was involved, I reckon."

"Sure thing—he's generally always in it."

"You'd better take my gloves—it's likely to snow in half an hour. Go ahead—I'm a younger man than you are."

The other made a decent show of resistance, but finally accepted the offer, saying: "You certainly are white to me. I want to apologize for making that attempt to sneak away that night—I had a powerful good reason for not staying any longer."

Ross smiled a little. "You showed bad judgment—as it turned out."

"I sure did. That girl can shoot. Her gun was steady as a door-knob. She filled the door. Where did she learn to hold a gun like that?"

"Her father taught her, so she said."

"She wouldn't remember me—an old cuss like me—but I've seen her with Wetherford when she was a kidlet. I never thought she'd grow up into such a 'queen.' She's a wonder."

Strange to say, Ross no longer objected to the old man's words of admiration; on the contrary, he encouraged him to talk on.

"Her courage is greater than you know. When she came to that hotel it was a place of dirt and vermin. She has transformed it. She's now engaged on the reformation of her mother."

"Lize was straight when I knew her," remarked the other, in the tone of one who wishes to defend a memory. "Straight as a die."

"In certain ways she's straight now, but she's been hard pushed at times, and has traded in liquor to help out—then she's naturally a slattern."

"She didn't used to be," asserted Edwards; "she was a mighty handsome woman when I used to see her riding around with Ed."

"She's down at the heel now, quite like the town."

"She looked sick to me. You shouldn't be too hard on a sick woman, but she ought to send her girl away or get out. As you say, the Fork is no kind of a place for such a girl. If I had a son, a fine young feller like that girl is, do you suppose I'd let him load himself up with an old soak like me? No, sir; Lize has no right to spoil that girl's life. I'm nothing but a ham-strung old cow-puncher, but I've too much pride to saddle my pack on the shoulders of my son the way Lize seems to be doin' with that girl."

He spoke with a good deal of feeling, and the ranger studied him with deepening interest. He had taken on dignity in the heat of his protest, and in his eyes blazed something that was both manly and admirable.

Cavanagh took his turn at defending Lize. "As a matter of fact, she tried to send her daughter away, but Lee refuses to go, insisting that it is her duty to remain. In spite of her bad blood the girl is surprisingly true and sweet. She makes me wonder whether there is as much in heredity as we think."

"Her blood ain't so bad. Wetherford was a fool and a daredevil, but he came of good Virginia stock—so I've heard."

"Well, whatever was good in both sire and dame this girl seems to have mysteriously gathered to herself."

The old man looked at him with a bright sidelong glance. "You are a little sweet on the girl, eh?"

Ross began to regret his confidence. "She's making a good fight, and I feel like helping her."

"And she rather likes being helped by you. I could see that when she brought the coffee to you. She likes to stand close—"

Ross cut him short. "We'll not discuss her any further."

"I don't mean any harm, Mr. Ranger; we hobos have a whole lot of time to gossip, and I'm old enough to like a nice girl in a fatherly way. I reckon the whole valley rides in to see her, just the way you do."

Cavanagh winced. "You can't very well hide a handsome woman in a cattle country."

Edwards smiled again, sadly. "Not in my day you couldn't. Why, a girl like that would 'a' been worth a thousand head o' steers. I've seen a man come in with a span of mules and three ordinary female daughters, and without cinching a saddle to a pony accumulate five thousand cattle." Then he grew grave again. "Don't happen to have a picture of the girl, do you?"

"If I did, would I show it to you?"

"You might. You might even give it to me."

Cavanagh looked at the man as if he were dreaming. "You must be crazy."

"Oh no, I'm not. Sheep-herders do go twisted, but I'm not in the business long enough for that. I'm just a bit nutty about that girl."

He paused a moment. "So if you have a picture, I wish you'd show it to me."

"I haven't any."

"Is that right?"

"That's right. I've only seen her two or three times, and she isn't the kind that distributes her favors."

"So it seems. And yet you're just the kind of figure to catch a girl's eye. She likes you—I could see that, but you've got a good opinion of yourself. You're an educated man—do you intend to marry her?"

"See here, Mr. Sheep-herder, you better ride on up to your camp," and Ross turned to mount his horse.

"Wait a minute," called the other man, and his voice surprised the ranger with a note of authority. "I was terribly taken with that girl, and I owe you a whole lot; but I've got to know one thing. I can see you're full of her, and jealous as a bear of any other suitor. Now I want to know whether you intend to marry her or whether you're just playing with her?"

Ross was angry now. "What I intend to do is none of your business."

The other man was suddenly ablaze with passion. His form had lost its stoop. His voice was firm. "I merely want to say that if you play the goat with that girl, I'll kill you!"

Ross stared at him quite convinced that he had gone entirely mad. "That's mighty chivalrous of you, Mr. Sheep-herder," he replied, cuttingly; "but I'm at a loss to understand this sudden indignation on your part."

"You needn't be—I'm her father!"

Cavanagh fairly reeled before this retort. His head rang as if he had been struck with a club. He perceived the truth of the man's words instantly. He gasped: "Good God, man! are you Ed Wetherford?"

The answer was quick. "That's who I am!" Then his voice changed. "But I don't want the women to know I'm alive—I didn't intend to let anybody know it. My fool temper has played hell with me again"—then his voice grew firmer—"all the same, I mean it. If you or any man tries to abuse her, I'll kill him! I've loaded her up with trouble, as you say, but I'm going to do what I can to protect her—now that I'm in the county again."

Ross, confused by this new complication in the life of the girl he was beginning to love, stared at his companion in dismay. Was it not enough that Virginia's mother should be a slattern and a termagant? At last he spoke: "Where have you been all these years?"

"In the Texas 'pen.' I served nine years there."

"What for?"

"Shooting a man. It was a case of self-defence, but his family had more money and influence than I did, so I went down the road. As soon as I was out I started north—just the way a dog will point toward home. I didn't intend to come here, but some way I couldn't keep away. I shied round the outskirts of the Fork, picking up jobs of sheep-herding just to have time to turn things over. I know what you're thinking about—you're saying to yourself, 'Well, here's a nice father-in-law?' Well, now, I don't know anything about your people, but the Wetherfords are as good as anybody. If I hadn't come out into this cursed country, where even the women go shootin' wild, I would have been in Congress; but being hot-headed, I must mix in. I'm not excusing myself, you understand; I'm not a desirable addition to any man's collection of friends, but I can promise you this—no one but yourself shall ever know who I am. At the same time, you can't deceive my girl without my being named in the funeral that will follow."

It was a singular place for such an exchange of confidences. Wetherford stood with his back against his pony, his face flushed, his eyes bright as though part of his youth had returned to him, while the ranger, slender, erect, and powerful, faced him with sombre glance. Overhead the detached clouds swept swift as eagles, casting shadows cold as winter, and in the dwarfed century-old trees the wind breathed a sad monody. Occasionally the sun shone warm and golden upon the group, and then it seemed spring, and the far-off plain a misty sea.

At last Cavanagh said: "You are only a distant and romantic figure to Lee—a part of the dead past. She remembers you as a bold rider and a wondrously brave and chivalrous father."

"Does she?" he asked, eagerly.

"Yes, and she loves to talk of you. She knows the town's folk despise your memory, but that she lays to prejudice."

"She must never know. You must promise never to tell her."

"I promise that," Cavanagh said, and Edwards went on:

"If I could bring something to her—prove to her I'm still a man—it might do to tell her, but I'm a branded man now, and an old man, and there's no hope for me. I worked in one of the machine-shops down there, and it took the life out of me. Then, too, I left a bad name here in the Fork—I know that. Those big cattle-men fooled me into taking their side of the war. I staked everything I had on them, and then they railroaded me out of the county. So, you see, I'm double-crossed, no matter where I turn."

Every word he uttered made more apparent to Cavanagh that Lee Virginia would derive nothing but pain and disheartenment from a knowledge that her father lived. "She must be spared this added burden of shameful inheritance," he decided.

The other man seemed to understand something of the ranger's indignant pity, for he repeated: "I want you to swear not to let Lee know I'm alive, no matter what comes; she must not be saddled with my record. Let her go on thinking well of me. Give me your word!" He held out an insistent palm.

Ross yielded his hand, and in spite of himself his tenderness for the broken man deepened. The sky was darkening to the west, and with a glance upward he said: "I reckon we'd better make your camp soon or you'll be chilled to the bone."

They mounted hastily and rode away, each feeling that his relationship to the other had completely changed. Wetherford marvelled over the evident culture and refinement of the ranger. "He's none too good for her, no matter who he is," he said.

Upon leaving timber-line they entered upon a wide and sterile slope high on the rocky breast of the great peak, whose splintered crest lorded the range. Snow-fields lay all about, and a few hundred feet higher up the canons were filled with ice. It was a savage and tempest-swept spot in which to pitch a tent, but there among the rocks shivered the minute canvas home of the shepherd, and close beside it, guarded by a lone dog, and lying like a thick-spread flock of rimy bowlders (almost unnoticeable in their silent immobility) huddled the sheep.

"There's your house," shouted Ross to Wetherford.

The older man, with white face of dismay, looked about him, unable to make reply.

The walls of the frail teepee, flapping in the breeze, appeared hardly larger than a kerchief caught upon a bush, and the disheartened collie seemed nervously apprehensive of its being utterly swept away. The great peaks were now hid by the rain, and little could be seen but wet rocks, twisted junipers, and the trickling gray streams of icy water. The eastern landscape was naked, alpine, splendid yet appalling, and the voices of the sheep added to the dreary message of the scene.

"Hello there!" shouted Ross, wondering at the absence of human life about the camp. "Hello the house!"

Receiving no answer to his hail, he turned to Wetherford. "Looks like Joe has pulled out and left the collie to 'tend the flock. He's been kind o' seedy for some days."

Dismounting, he approached the tent. The collie, who knew him, seemed to understand his errand, for he leaped upon him as if to kiss his cheek. Ross put him down gently. "You're almost too glad to see me, old fellow. I wonder how long you've been left here alone?"

Thereupon he opened the tied flap, but started back with instant perception of something wrong, for there, on his pile of ragged quilts, lay the Basque herder, with flushed face and rolling eyes, crazed with fever and entirely helpless. "You'd better not come in here, Wetherford," Ross warned. "Joe is here, horribly sick, and I'm afraid it's something contagious. It may be smallpox."

Wetherford recoiled a step. "Smallpox! What makes you think that?"

"Well, these Basques have been having it over in their settlement, and, besides, it smells like it." He listened a moment. "I'm afraid Joe's in for it. He's crazy with it. But he's a human being, and we can't let him die here alone. You rustle some wood for the stove, and I'll see what I can do for him."

Wetherford was old and wasted and thin-blooded, but he had never been a coward, and in his heart there still burned a small flame of his youthful, reckless, generous daring. Pushing Cavanagh one side, he said, with firm decision: "You keep out o' there. I'm the one to play nurse. This is my job."

"Nonsense; I am younger and stronger than you."

"Get away!" shouted the older man. "Gregg hired me to do this work, and it don't matter whether I live or die; but you've got something to do in the world. My girl needs you, and she don't need me, so get out o' here and stay out. Go bring me that wood, and I'll go in and see what's the matter."

Cavanagh looked him in the face an instant. "Very well," said he, "I'll do as you say. There's no use of our both taking chances."

It was beginning to rain, and the tent was dark and desolate, but as the fire in the little stove commenced to snarl, and the smoke to pour out of the pipe, the small domicile took on cheer. Wetherford knew how to care for the sick, and in the shelter of the canvas wall developed unforeseen vigor and decision. It was amazing to Cavanagh to witness his change of manner.

Soon a pan of water was steaming, and some hot stones were at the sufferer's feet, and when Wetherford appeared at the door of the tent his face was almost happy. "Kill a sheep. There isn't a thing but a heel of bacon and a little flour in the place."

As the ranger went about his outside duties he had time to take into full account the tragic significance of the situation. He was not afraid of death, but the menace of sickness under such surroundings made his blood run cold. It is such moments as these that the wilderness appalls. Twenty miles of most difficult trail lay between his own cabin and this spot. To carry the sick man on his horse would not only be painful to the sufferer but dangerous to the rescuer, for if the Basque were really ill of smallpox contagion would surely follow. On the other hand, to leave him to die here unaided seemed inhuman, impossible.

"There is only one thing to do," he called to Wetherford, "and that is for me to ride back to the station and bring up some extra bedding and my own tent, and so camp down beside you."

"All right; but remember I've established a quarantine. I'll crack your head if you break over the line an inch."

There was no longer any feeling of reaching up or reaching down between the two men—they were equals. Wetherford, altogether admirable, seemed to have regained his manhood as he stood in the door of the tent confronting the ranger. "This Basque ain't much of a find, but, as you say, he's human, and we can't let him lie here and die, I'll stay with him till you can find a doctor or till he dies."

"I take off my hat to you," responded Cavanagh. "You are a man."



X

THE SMOKE OF THE BURNING

The reader will observe that the forest ranger's job is that of a man and a patriot, and such a ranger was Cavanagh, notwithstanding his foreign birth. He could ride all day in the saddle and fight fire all night. While not a trained forester, he was naturally a reader, and thoroughly understood the theories of the department. As a practical ranger he stood half-way between the cowboy (who was at first the only available material) and the trained expert who is being educated to follow him.

He was loyal with the loyalty of a soldier, and his hero was the colonel of the Rough-riders, under whom he had campaigned. The second of his admirations was the Chief Forester of the department.

The most of us are getting so thin-skinned, so dependent upon steam-heat and goloshes, that the actions of a man like this riding forth upon his trail at all hours of the day and night self-sufficing and serene, seem like the doings of an epic, and so indeed they are.

On the physical side the plainsman, the cowboy, the poacher, are all admirable, but Cavanagh went far beyond their physical hardihood. He dreamed, as he rode, of his responsibilities. The care of the poor Basque shepherd he had accepted as a matter of routine without Wetherford's revelation of himself, which complicated an exceedingly pitiful case. He could not forget that it was Lee Virginia's father who stood in danger of contracting the deadly disease, and as he imagined him dying far up there on that bleak slope, his heart pinched with the tragedy of the old man's life. In such wise the days of the ranger were smouldering to this end.

On the backward trail he turned aside to stamp out a smoking log beside a deserted camp-fire, and again he made a detour into a lovely little park to visit a fisherman and to warn him of the danger of fire. He was the forest guardian, alert to every sign, and yet all the time he was being drawn on toward his temptation. Why not resign and go East, taking the girl with him? "After all, the life up here is a lonely and hard one, in no sense a vocation for an ambitious man. Suppose I am promoted to Forest Supervisor? That only means a little more salary and life in a small city rather than here. District Supervisor would be better, but can I hope to secure such a position?"

Up to this month he had taken the matter of his promotion easily; it was something to come along in the natural course of things. "There is no haste; I can wait." Now haste seemed imperative. "I am no longer so young as I was," he admitted.

Once back at his cabin he laid aside his less tangible problems, and set himself to cooking some food to take back with him to the peak. He brought in his pack-horse, and burdened him with camp outfit and utensils, and extra clothing. He filled his pockets with such medicines as he possessed, and so at last, just as night was falling, he started back over his difficult trail.

The sky was black as the roof of a cavern, for the stars were hid by a roof of cloud which hung just above his head, and the ranger was obliged to feel his way through the first quarter of his journey. The world grew lighter after he left the canon and entered the dead timber of the glacial valley, but even in the open the going was wearisome and the horses proceeded with sullen caution.

"The Basque is a poor, worthless little peasant, but he is a human being, and to leave him to die up there would be monstrous," he insisted, as the horses stumbled upward over the rocks of a vast lateral moraine toward the summit, blinded by the clouds through which they were forced to pass. He was dismounted now and picking his way with a small lantern, whose feeble ray (like that of a firefly) illuminated for a small space the dripping rocks; all else was tangible yellow mist which possessed a sulphurous odor and clung to everything it touched. The wind had died out entirely, and the mountain-side was as silent as the moon.

Foot by foot he struggled up the slope, hoping each moment to break through this blanket of vapor into the clear air. He knew from many previous experiences that the open sky existed a little way above, that this was but a roof.

At last he parted the layer of mist and burst into the moonlit heights above. He drew a deep breath of awe as he turned and looked about him. Overhead the sky was sparkling with innumerable stars, and the crescent moon was shining like burnished silver, while level with his breast rolled a limitless, silent, and mystical ocean of cloud which broke against the dark peaks in soundless surf, and spread away to the east in ever-widening shimmer. All the lesser hills were covered; only the lords of the range towered above the flood in sullen and unmoved majesty.

For a long time Cavanagh stood beside his weary horses, filling his soul with the beauty of this world, so familiar yet so transformed. He wished for his love; she would feel and know and rejoice with him. It was such experiences as these that made him content with his work. For the ranger Nature plays her profoundest dramas—sometimes with the rush of winds, the crash of thunder; sometimes like this, in silence so deep that the act of breathing seems a harsh, discordant note.

Slowly the mystic waters fell away, sinking with slightly rolling action into the valleys, and out of the wool-white waves sudden sharp dark forms upthrust like strange masters of the deep. Towers took shape and islands upheaved, crowned with dark fortresses. To the west a vast and inky-black Gibraltar magically appeared. Soon the sea was but a prodigious river flowing within the high walls of an ancient glacier, a ghost of the icy stream that once ground its slow way between these iron cliffs.

With a shudder of awe the ranger turned from the intolerable beauty of this combination of night, cloud, and mountain-crest, and resumed his climb. Such scenes, by their majesty, their swift impermanency, their colossal and heedless haste, made his heart ache with indefinable regret. Again and again he looked back, longing for some power which would enable him to record and reproduce for the eyes of his love some part of this stupendous and noiseless epic. He was no longer content to enjoy Nature's splendors alone.

On the cold and silent side of the great divide the faint light of the shepherd's teepee shone, and with a returning sense of his duty to his fellows on the roof of the continent, Cavanagh pushed onward.

Wetherford met him at the door, no longer the poor old tramp, but a priest, one who has devoted himself to Christ's service.

"How is he?" asked the ranger.

"Delirious," replied the herder. "I've had to hold him to his bed. I'm glad you've come. It's lonesome up here. Don't come too near. Set your tent down there by the trees. I can't have you infected. Keep clear of me and this camp."

"I've got some food and some extra clothing for you."

"Put 'em down here, and in the morning drive these sheep away. That noise disturbs the dago, and I don't like it myself; they sound lonesome and helpless. That dog took 'em away for a while, but brought 'em back again; poor devil, he don't know what to think of it all."

Ross did as Wetherford commanded him to do, and withdrew a little way down the slope; and without putting up his tent, rolled himself in his blankets and went to sleep.

The sun rose gloriously. With mountain fickleness the wind blew gently from the east, the air was precisely like late March, and the short and tender grass, the small flowers in the sheltered corners of the rocks, and the multitudinous bleatings of the lambs were all in keeping. It was spring in the world and it was spring in the heart of the ranger, in spite of all his perplexities. The Basque would recover, the heroic ex-convict would not be stricken, and all would be well. Of such resiliency is the heart of youth.

His first duty was to feed the faithful collie, and to send him forth with the flock. His next was to build a fire and cook some breakfast for Wetherford, and as he put it down beside the tent door he heard the wild pleading of the Basque, who was struggling with his nurse—doubtless in the belief that he was being kept a prisoner. Only a few words like "go home" and "sheep" were intelligible to either the nurse or the ranger.

"Keep quiet now—quiet, boy! It's all right. I'm here to take care of you," Wetherford repeated, endlessly.

Cavanagh waited till a silence came; then called, softly: "Here's your breakfast, Wetherford."

"Move away," retorted the man within. "Keep your distance."

Ross walked away a little space and Wetherford came to the door. "The dago is sure sick, there's no two ways about that. How far is it to the nearest doctor?"

"I could reach one by 'phone from the Kettle Ranch, about twenty miles below here."

"If he don't get better to-day I reckon we'll have to have a doctor." He looked so white and old that Cavanagh said: