"Well—" He teetered a little on his feet and stroked his mustache. "We may have, at that. Miss Purnell is popular and she can make a lot of trouble for us if she wants to. Being very fond of Wade, she's likely to do all that she can."

"Would she really have so much influence?" Helen asked, carefully guarding her tongue.

He laughed softly as though amused at the thought.

"Influence? Evidently you don't realize what a good looking girl means in a frontier town like this. She's part sister, part mother, sweetheart and a breath from Heaven to every man in Crawling Water. On that account, with one exception, I've had to import every last one of my men. The exception is Tug Bailey, who's beyond hope where women are concerned. To all the rest, Dorothy Purnell is 'Wade's girl,' and they wouldn't fight against her, or him, for all the money in Wyoming."

He was watching her keenly as he spoke, and was gratified to see spots of color spring to her cheeks.

"How interesting!" Helen could make her tone indifferent to the point of languor, but she could not keep the gleam of jealousy out of her eyes. "Gordon is a fortunate man to have such an able ally, isn't he?"

"The finish will decide that, I should say," Moran replied sneeringly. "She may stir up more trouble than all her friends can take care of."

For all of her social schooling, Helen was not proof against the sneer in his words, even though she fully saw through his purpose to wound her. She felt her temper rising, and with it came curiosity to learn how far the relationship between Wade and Dorothy Purnell had really gone. That Moran would exaggerate it, she felt sure, for he had his own ends to gain, but possibly from out of his exaggeration she could glean some truth. Yet she did not want to go so far in her anger as to gratify his malice, and this placed her in something of a dilemma.

"I don't believe that she is 'Wade's girl,' as you call her, at all," she said coldly. "They may be good friends, and if so, I'm glad; but they are nothing more than that. There is no 'understanding' between them."

Moran carelessly waved his hand in the direction of the rain-swept street, illuminated now and then by the lightning.

"Ask any one in Crawling Water."

"That sounds well, but it's impracticable, even if I wanted to do it. I prefer to draw my own conclusions."

The agent drew up a chair with his well hand, and sat down with that easy familiarity that came so natural to him. Helen watched him, lazily impertinent.

"I've been wanting to have a talk with you, Helen," he began, "and this looks like a good chance to me. You've been foolish about Wade. Yes, I know that you're thinking that I've got my own ends to further, which is true enough. I have. I admit it. But what I am going to tell you is true, also. Fortune's been playing into my hand here lately. Now, if you'll be reasonable, you'll probably be happier. Shall I go on?"

"Wild horses couldn't stop you," she answered, amused that he seemed flattered. "But if we were in Washington, I fancy I'd have you shown out."

"We're not in Washington, my dear girl." He wagged his finger at her, in the way her father had, to give emphasis to his words. "That's where you've made your mistake with Wade. We're all just plain men and women out here in the cattle country, and I'm talking its language, not the language of drawing-rooms." He was himself a little surprised at the swift dilation of her pupils, but his words had probed deeper than he knew, reminding her as they did of the truth which she had so fully realized that afternoon. "Wade liked you—loved you, maybe, in Chicago, but this ain't the East. He cares nothing for you here, and he'd never be happy away from here. You know that picture of yourself that you sent to him?" She nodded. "Well, we found it on the floor of his room, covered with dust. He hadn't even troubled to pick it up from where it must have fallen weeks ago."

She looked at him dumbly, unable to keep her lips from twitching. He knew that she believed him, and he was glad; that she had to believe him, because his story bore the impress of truth. It was not something that he could have made up.

"And while your picture was lying there, Wade and this Purnell girl were making goo-goo eyes at each other. Why, it was she that rode out to warn him that we were after Santry." Helen's lips curled. "I can't swear to that, but I heard it and I believe it myself. They must've met on the trail somewhere in the dark, and you can bet he was grateful. I don't imagine that they stopped at a hand-shake. I imagine they kissed, don't you?"

"Oh, I'm tired, worn out," Helen declared, forcing a smile so artificial that it could not deceive him. "Do go, please. I am going upstairs to bed."

"Wait one minute." He put out his injured arm, and, thinking that he reached for her hand, she brushed it aside, accidentally striking his wound.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," she said coldly, as he winced.

"Maybe I've hurt you worse," he persisted, with a tenderness that was intolerable to her, "but, if I have, your wound'll heal just as mine will." He gently pushed her back into her chair as she started to get up.

"Are you making love to me, Race?" Under the ridicule of her tone his face darkened. "If you are, it's insufferable in you."

"Go easy, now," he warned her. "I'll not be made a fool of."

She did not heed his warning. Glad to have him on the rack, where she had been, she laughed at him.

"Haven't you sense enough to know that, for that very reason, I'd refuse to believe anything you might say against Gordon Wade? I know how you hate him. Listen to me. Oh, this is absurd!" She laughed again at the picture he made. "You've pursued me for months with your attentions, although I've done everything but encourage you. Now I want you to know that I shall never again even listen to you. What Gordon is to Dorothy Purnell is for him, and her, and perhaps for me to be interested in, but not for you. Now I'm going to bed. Good night!"

He caught her by the arm as she stood up, but immediately released her, and stepped in front of her instead.

"Hold on," he begged, with a smile that meant wonderful mastery of himself. "I've got feelings, you know. You needn't walk on them. I love you, and I want you. What I want, I usually get. I mean to get you." She looked up at him with heavy-lidded insolence. "I may fail, but if I do, it'll be one more notch in my account against Wade. I know now where to strike him—to hurt."

"You be reasonable, and you'll be happier," she retorted. "May I go?"

"Certainly." He stepped out of her way. "Good night."



CHAPTER XII

DESPERATE MEASURES

If Moran or Helen, early in their conversation, had looked out of the window of the hotel, during one of those vivid lightning flashes, they might have seen a woman stealthily approaching the agent's office across the street. Taking advantage of the deeper shadows and of the darkness between lightning flashes, she stole to the rear of the building, where she found an unlatched window, through which she scrambled with the agility of a boy.

Within, the place was pitch dark, but like one amid familiar surroundings, she crossed the hall and found the room she sought; the office room now of Moran, but formerly occupied by Simon Barsdale. She bent over the big safe, and was twirling the combination knob in her slim, cold fingers, when she was startled by a noise in the hallway outside. With a gasp of fright, she stood motionless, listening acutely, but there was no further sound; reassured, she produced a bit of candle, which she lighted and placed to one side of the safe, so that the flame was shaded from the windows. She was in the act of manipulating the combination again when, her whole body rigid with fear, she stood erect once more, holding her breath and striving for self-control. There was no doubt about the noise this time. Some one had entered the adjoining room.

Hastily snuffing out the candle, she crouched into the darkness of a corner. She never doubted that the newcomer was Race Moran, or that he would almost immediately discover her. She tried to summon enough resolution to bluff things through when the moment of discovery should come.

But, as the seconds slipped by and the lights were not turned on, she began to regain her courage. Perhaps Moran was sitting in the dark of the other room, smoking and thinking, and perhaps she could complete her task without being caught, if she moved swiftly and silently. She bent again over the shining knob, at the same time watching in the direction of the door, which was still closed as she had left it. It was difficult to work the lock in the dark, and, as she became engrossed with her purpose, she ceased temporarily to listen acutely. She had just succeeded in effecting the combination, when something touched her side.

"Don't move!" a voice hissed behind her. "I'll shoot if you do!"

She wanted to cry out, "Please don't shoot!" but her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, which had suddenly gone dry. She had fallen forward against the door of the safe, and was curiously conscious how cold it felt. She was on the point of fainting, when in a rush of relief it dawned upon her that she knew the voice; it was not Moran's.

"Gordon!" she cried joyously, finding the use of her tongue as quickly as she had lost it, and scrambling to her feet. "It's me—Dorothy!"

With an exclamation as joyous as her own and equally surprised, he seized her by the shoulders, peering through the darkness into her face.

"Dorothy! What the...?" A lightning flash revealed them clearly to each other. "I told you not to try this."

"But what are you doing in town?" She clutched his arms, overcome by a fear greater than that for her own safety. "Gordon, Gordon, you must not stay here. There's a warrant out for you—no, no, not for that—for the Jensen shooting. You'll be arrested on sight."

"What?" He stared at her, amazed, and she nodded. "So that's their game now, eh? They've stooped even to that. By God!" He struck a match.

"Be careful," she warned him instantly. "The light—put it out. They'll see it from the street. But, oh, Gordon, why did you come?"

He thrilled at the anxiety in her voice.

"To find out what Moran is hiding here; and you're after the same thing, of course."

"Yes."

Impulsively, he squeezed her fingers, until she could have cried out in pain but for the sweetness of it; there are some agonies which do not hurt. Her throat swelled with joy, her breast heaved, and her eyelids fluttered. She was grateful for the darkness, which hid these outward signs of love from him. She blushed; she could feel the warm tide pulsing in her temples; and she laughed brokenly from sheer happiness.

"You shouldn't have taken such a risk, Dorothy. I told you not to."

"You're taking that risk, Gordon, and more."

"That's different. It's so dark a night, I thought I'd chance it."

"There's not much risk for me," she declared. "I can reach home in five minutes. Isn't it odd, though, that we both should have thought of doing it at exactly the same time. But come, Gordon, we must hurry!"

Now that the safe was open, to remove its contents took only a moment, and they tossed all the papers they found into a corner. Then, when Wade had swung the safe around on its casters, they had a snug shelter behind it, where by shaded candle-light they ran rapidly through their loot. Most of the documents related to land purchases and development, but at the bottom of the pile Wade came upon a bundle of papers and blue-prints, held together by a rubber band, which he stripped off.

"Oh, if we should find nothing, after all," Dorothy whispered, bending with him over the blue-prints. "What are they, Gordon?"

"Maps of my own range, Dorothy!" His tone was tense with excitement, as he leaned nearer to the light. "Well, what do you know about that? By Heaven"—He fairly glared at the sheet before his eyes.—"It's all there!"

"What's all there? What is it?"

"Gold!" He looked at her in the flickering light, like a man gone mad.

"Gold? On your range? Oh, Gordon!"

"Yes; on my range. It's inconceivable, almost; but it seems to be true. See! Look here!" Their heads were almost touching, so that her soft hair caressed his face. "This is a map of the upper valley, and the description says these red crosses indicate the location of gold. One is near the head of Piah Creek, not half a mile from my buildings."

"Oh, Gordon, I am so glad!" Dorothy exclaimed. "How wonderful it all is. You'll be rich, won't you?" She was not too excited to remember that his wealth would probably be shared by another woman, but she was too generous to be any the less glad on that account.

"That remains to be seen," he replied. "It may not prove to amount to much, you know. At any rate, Moran won't get any of it. That's worth a whole lot."

She nodded vehemently.

"I thought it must be something like that, Gordon. They would never have done the things they have without some powerful reason."

"Yes, you were right, Dorothy. You're usually right." He caught her hand and squeezed it again, and in this moment of their triumph together she could not help returning the pressure. "You're a jewel, a brick, a trump—all those things and then some. The sweet...."

"Now, we haven't time for that sort of thing, Mr. Man. We...."

"Must get away while we can, yes," he finished for her. "But just the same I...."

Her cold fingers on his lips stopped him.

"Listen!"

She put out the candle and they crouched down beside the safe. Some one was coming up the stairs, not stealthily this time but boldly, as one who had a right there, whistling softly. Wade could feel the girl's shoulder tremble against his side, as he slipped his revolver out of its holster.

"Don't, Gordon! You—you mustn't shoot, no matter what happens." Her teeth were chattering, for she was far more frightened now than she had been for herself alone. "That's Moran. He mustn't see you here. Remember that warrant. Hide behind the safe. Please!"

"Never!" he muttered grimly. "He'd find us anyhow."

"Yes, yes. Please!" She was almost hysterical in her excitement. "I can bluff him till you can get away. He won't hurt me. If he does you can show yourself. Do it for me, for your friends. Please! Remember, he mustn't know that you've learned his secret."

It was Moran, for they heard him now in conversation with some passer-by in the hallway. Dorothy was grateful for the respite, for it gave them time to throw the loose papers back into the safe and close it. Wade then pushed the safe to its original position, the casters making little noise as they rolled. Then he crouched behind it.

"I don't like this stunt!" he protested; but yielded to her beseeching "Please." She was right, too, he knew. It would be far better if Moran could be kept in ignorance of his visit there.

The office now bore little sign of their invasion of it, and, drawing a deep breath, Dorothy schooled herself to calmness as she awaited Moran, who was walking down the hall toward the entrance to the room. A plan had flashed into her mind by means of which she might save both Wade and herself, if he and her heart would only be quiet. The unruly heart was beating so violently that it shook her thin dress, and that her voice must tremble, she knew.

Moran was almost at the threshold, when Dorothy opened the door for him.

"Good evening, Mr. Moran. Did I startle you?"

"Well, not exactly," he said, striking a match, after an instant's pause. "What are you doing here?"

Passing her, he lighted the large oil lamp, and swept the room with a quick, keen glance. Finding nothing apparently wrong, he turned again to his visitor with a puzzled expression in his face.

"Well?"

"I wanted to see you and I thought you'd be here. The door was unlocked so I just walked in. I've been here only a minute or two." Fortified by another deep breath, drawn while his back was turned, Dorothy found her voice steadier than she expected.

The agent looked at her keenly.

"That's strange," he commented. "I don't know what the door was doing unlocked. I always lock it when I leave."

"You must have forgotten to do so to-night."

"I surely must have, if you found it open."

Half convinced that she was telling the truth, Moran could see but one reason for her evident fright: she was afraid of him. The suggestion of that strengthened the impulse which her beauty stirred in him. If she thought so, why not?

"Say, you're a good-looking kid, all right," he leered. "What did you want to see me for?"

A slight sound from behind the safe, or perhaps she imagined it, caused Dorothy's heart to flutter wildly. She had not anticipated this attitude in Moran, and she instantly realized that it brought a fresh danger into the situation. She knew that Wade would not remain in concealment if the agent insulted her. She must avoid the chance of that, if possible; must get him out of the office so that Gordon might escape.

"This is no place to talk that way," she said bravely. "It isn't a good place for me to be anyway. If people knew I was here, there would be a terrible scandal. I've something important to tell you. Won't you come for a walk?"

"In this rain? Not much," he chuckled. "Come here!" She shook her head and tried to smile. "Well, if you won't, I'll have to go to you." She shrank back from him, as he approached her, with an evil smile. "Say, little one," he went on, "this is a damned funny game of yours, coming here at night. What's the idea, eh?"

"There isn't any, really." She snatched her hands away from him. "I've already tried to explain that I have important news for you; but I won't tell you what it is here."

"Why not? We're dry and cozy here. Go ahead."

"No."

"Oh, come on!" He had driven her to the wall, and now he slipped an arm about her waist and pulled her toward him. "Say, kiss me once, won't you?"

"Hands up, you low-lived hound!"

With an oath, Moran whirled around to find himself staring into the muzzle of Wade's revolver. The ranchman moved his weapon significantly.

"Up!"

As the agent's hands went above his head, Dorothy leaned against the wall for support. She had not made a sound, but she was the color of chalk, and her heart seemed to be trying to jump out of her mouth. She was no whiter than Wade, whose fury had driven every vestige of color from his face and fired his eyes with a murderous light.

"Shall I kill him?" he asked Dorothy, and at the frightful tone of his voice she found the power to shake her head, although her mouth was too dry for speech.

"Take his gun," said Wade sharply and the girl stepped forward.

She reeled toward Moran, who, to do him justice, showed little fear, and pulled his revolver from his hip pocket. She held it out to Wade, who broke it with his free hand by pressing the butt against the top of the safe, and spilled the cartridges on the floor.

"Now you can leave us, Dorothy," he said quietly.

"No. I'll stay, Gordon," she answered.

"Moran," Wade continued evenly, without paying any more attention to her, "the only reason why I shall not kill you is because Miss Purnell does not want your worthless life upon her conscience. A man like you ought to die. You're not fit to live."

"Can I put my hands down?"

"No; keep 'em where they are!" Wade gestured again with the gun. "I wish I had a string on each of your thumbs so I could hoist them higher. I've just been through this safe of yours." The agent started. "I've got those maps of my range in my pocket."

"Much good they'll do you."

"They'll do me more good alive than they will you dead, and you're going to die. So help me God, you are! We'll come together again some day."

"I hope so," Moran declared venomously, and even Dorothy was struck by the courage he showed.

"And then there won't be anybody to be held responsible but me." Wade grinned in a slow, horrible fashion. "It'll rest light on me, I promise you. And another thing. I'm going to leave you trussed up here in this office, like I left your friend the Sheriff a few days ago, and along about morning somebody'll find you and turn you loose. When you get loose, you want to forget that you saw Miss Purnell here to-night. I've meant to have her and her mother leave town for a bit until this mess blows over, but things aren't fixed right for that just now. Instead, I'm going to leave her in the personal care—the personal care, you understand me, of every decent man in Crawling Water. If anything happens to her, you'll toast over a slow fire before you die. Do you get that?"

"She's a good kid," said Moran, with a grin. Nor did he flinch when the weapon in Wade's hand seemed actually to stiffen under the tension of his grasp.

"I guess it's a good thing you stayed, Dorothy," the latter remarked grimly. "This fellow must be tied up. I wonder what we can find to do it with?"

"My cloak?" Dorothy suggested. "It's an old one."

He shook his head.

"It's hard to tear that rain-proof stuff, and besides you'd get wet going home. There's no sense in that. Isn't there something else?"

She blushed a little and turned away for a moment, during which she slipped off her underskirt. Then, as Moran watched her cynically, she tore it into strips. When she had thus made several stout bands, Wade spoke again.

"You take the first throw or two about him," he directed, "and when you have him partly tied you can take my gun and I'll finish the job. Start with his feet, that's right. Now draw it as tight as you can. Put your arms down back of you! Tie them now, Dorothy. That's fine! Here, you take the gun. You know how to use it, if he struggles."

Wade tightened up the linen bands, and kicked forward a straight-backed chair, into which he forced Moran and lashed him fast there, to all of which the agent made no great protest, knowing that to do so would be useless. He grunted and swore a bit under his breath, but that was all. When he was well trussed up, the ranchman made a gag out of what was left of the linen and his own handkerchief and strapped it into his prisoner's mouth with his belt.

When the job was done, and it was a good one, he grinned again in that slow, terrible way. A grin that bore no semblance to human mirth, but was a grimace of combined anger and hatred. Once before, during the fight at the ranch, Bill Santry had seen this expression on his employer's face, but not to the degree that Dorothy now saw it. It frightened her.

"Oh, Gordon, don't, please!" She closed her eyes to shut out the sight. "Come, we must hurry away."

"Good night," Wade said ironically, with a last look at Moran.

He let Dorothy draw him away then, and by the time they reached the street he was his old boyish self again. Aping Moran, he slipped his arm around her waist, but she did not shrink from his embrace, unexpected though it was.

"Say, kid," he laughed mockingly. "Kiss me once, won't you?"



CHAPTER XIII

INTO THE DEPTHS

"Good Lord, Race! What's happened?"

Senator Rexhill, on the next morning, surprised that Moran did not show up at the hotel, had gone in search of him, and was dumbfounded when he entered the office.

Moran, in his desperate efforts to free himself, had upset the chair into which he was tied, and being unable to right it again, had passed most of the night in a position of extreme discomfort. Toward morning, his confinement had become positive agony, and he had inwardly raved at Wade, the gag in his mouth making audible expression impossible, until he was black in the face.

"My God, Race!" the Senator exclaimed, when, having cut the lashings and withdrawn the gag, he saw his agent in a state bordering on collapse, "what has happened to you?" He helped the man to his feet and held him up.

"My throat—dry—whiskey!" Moran gasped, and groaned as he clutched at the desk, from which he slid into a chair, where he sat rubbing his legs, which ached with a thousand pains.

Rexhill found a bottle of whiskey and a glass on a shelf in the closet. He poured out a generous drink of the liquor and handed it to Moran, but the agent could not hold it in his swollen fingers. The Senator picked up the glass, which had not broken in its fall and, refilling it, held it to Moran's lips. It was a stiff drink, and by the time it was repeated, the agent was revived somewhat.

"Now, tell me," urged Rexhill.

Prepared though he was for an outburst of fury, he was amazed at the torrent of blasphemous oaths which Moran uttered. He caught Wade's name, but the rest was mere incoherence, so wildly mouthed and so foul that he began to wonder if torture had unbalanced the man's mind. The expression of Moran's eyes, which had become mere slits in his inflamed and puffy face, showed that for the time he was quite beyond himself. What with his blued skin and distended veins, his puffed lips and slurred speech, he seemed on the brink of an apoplectic seizure. Rexhill watched him anxiously.

"Come, come, man. Brace up," he burst out, at length. "You'll kill yourself, if you go on that way. Be a man."

The words seemed to have their effect, for the agent made a supreme effort at the self-control which was seldom lacking in him. He appeared to seize the reins of self-government and to force himself into a state of unnatural quiet, as one tames a frantic horse.

"The safe!" he muttered hoarsely, scrambling to his feet.

His stiffened legs still refused to function, however, and Rexhill, hastening to the safe, threw open the door. One glance at the disordered interior told him the whole story. Moran watched feverishly as he dragged the crumpled papers out on the floor and pawed through them.

"Gone?"

"Gone!"

They looked at each other, a thin tide of crimson brightening the congestion of Moran's visage, while Rexhill's face went ghastly white. With shaking fingers, the agent poured himself a third drink and tossed it down his throat.

"It was Wade who tied you up?"

Moran nodded.

"Him and that—girl—the Purnell girl." Stirred more by the other's expression of contempt than by the full half pint of whiskey he had imbibed, he crashed his fist down on the desk. "Mind what you say now, because, by God, I'm in no mood to take anything from you. He got the drop on me, you understand. Let it go at that."

"It's gone right enough—all gone." Rexhill groaned. "Why, he only needs to publish those plots to make this a personal fight between us and every property owner in the valley. They'll tar and feather us, if they don't kill us outright. It'll be gold with them—gold. Nothing else will count from now on."

"I'll get back at him yet!" growled Moran.

"You'll...." The Senator threateningly raised his gorilla-like arms, but let them drop helplessly again. "How did they get into the safe? Did you leave it open?"

"Do you think I'm a fool?" Moran fixed his baleful eyes upon his employer, as he leaned heavily, but significantly, across the flat desk. "Say, let's look ahead to to-morrow, not back to last night. Do you hear? I'll do the remembering of last night; you forget it!"

Rexhill tried to subdue him with his own masterful gaze, but somehow the power was lacking. Moran was in a dangerous frame of mind, and past the dominance of his employer. He had but one thought, that of vengeance upon the man who had misused him, to which everything else had for the time being to play second.

"You talk like I let them truss me up for fun," he went on. "I did it because I had to, because I was looking into the muzzle of a six-shooter in the hands of a desperate man; that was why. Do you get me? And I don't need to be reminded of it. No, by Heaven! My throat's as dry yet as a fish-bone, and every muscle in me aches like hell! I'll remember it all right, and he'll pay. Don't you have any worries about that."

Rexhill was sufficiently a captain of men to have had experience of such moods in the past, and he knew the futility of arguing. He carefully chose a cigar from his case, seated himself, and began to smoke.

Moran, apparently soothed by this concession to his temper, and a bit ashamed of himself, watched him for some moments in silence. When at last he spoke, his tone was more conciliatory.

"Have you heard from Washington?" he asked.

"I got a telegram this morning, saying that the matter is under advisement."

"Under advisement!" Moran snorted, in disgust. "That means that they'll get the cavalry here in time to fire a volley over our graves—ashes to ashes and dust to dust. What are you going to do about it?"

Rexhill blew a huge mouthful of fragrant smoke into the air.

"Frankly, Race, I don't think you're in a proper mood to talk."

"You're right." Something in Moran's voice suggested the explosion of a fire-arm, and the Senator looked at him curiously. "I'm through talking. We've both of us talked too damn much, and that's a fact."

"I'll be obliged to you," the Senator remarked, "if you'll remember that you draw a salary from me and that you owe me a certain amount of respect."

Moran laughed raucously.

"Respect! I don't owe you a damn thing, Senator; and what you owe me you won't be able to pay if you sit here much longer waiting for something to turn up. You'll be ruined, that's what you'll be—ruined!" He brought his big hand down on the table with a thump.

"By your own carelessness. Now, look here, Race, I've made allowances for you, because...."

"You don't need to soft soap me, Senator; save that for your office seekers." The agent was fast working himself into another passion. "I've not ruined you, and you know it. A safe's a safe, isn't it? Instead of ruining you, I'm trying to save you. If you go broke, you'll do it yourself with your pap and sentiment. But if I am to pull your chestnuts out of the fire for you, you've got to give me a free hand. I've got to fight fire with fire."

Rexhill wiped his glasses nervously, for despite his assumption of calm, his whole future swung upon the outcome of his Crawling Water venture. If he appeared calm, it was not because he felt so, but because the schooling of a lifetime had taught him that the man who keeps cool usually wins.

"There's nothing to do but go on as we are headed now," he declared. "Wade's discovery of our purpose is most unfortunate"—his voice shook a trifle—"but it can't be helped. In the legal sense, he has added to the list of his crimes, and we have more against him than we ever had. He now has three charges to face—murder, assault, and robbery. It rests with us whether he shall be punished by the courts for any of the three."

The Senator spoke emphatically in the effort to convince himself that his statements were practically true, but he avoided Moran's eyes as he did so. His show of optimism had little substance behind it, because now that his motives were likely to be bared to the public, he was too good a lawyer not to realize how little standing he would have before a jury, in that section at least; of course, Wade must realize this equally well and feel fortified in his own position. Rexhill's chief hope had been that the support of the cavalry from Fort Mackenzie would enable him to control the situation; but here, too, he was threatened by the unexpected hesitation of the authorities at Washington.

Moran, however, was frankly contemptuous of the prospect of help from that source. He had never believed greatly in it, although at the time it was first mentioned his enthusiasm for any plan of action had inspired him with some measure of the Senator's confidence. Now that his lust of revenge made him intolerant of all opposition, he was thoroughly exasperated by the telegram received from Washington, and had no faith in aid from such a quarter.

"What if your cavalry doesn't come?" he demanded.

"Then we must rely upon the Sheriff here to maintain the law that he is sworn to support."

"Bah! He's weakening now. He's not forgetting that he's to spend the rest of his days in this town, after we've gone back East, or perhaps to hell. Who's to look after him, then, if he's got himself in bad with the folks here? Senator"—Moran clumped painfully over to the safe and leaned upon it as he faced his employer—"it isn't cavalry that'll save you, or that old turkey buzzard of a sheriff either. I'm the man to do it, if anybody is, and the only way out is to lay for this man Wade and kidnap him." Rexhill started violently. "Kidnap him, and take him into the mountains, and keep him there with a gun at his head, until he signs a quit-claim. I've located the very spot to hide him in—Coyote Springs. It's practically inaccessible, a natural hiding-place."

Rexhill turned a shade or two paler as he nervously brushed some cigar ashes from his vest and sleeve. He had already gone farther along the road of crime than he felt to be safe, but the way back seemed even more dangerous than the road ahead. The question was no longer one of ethics, but purely of expediency.

"We haven't time to wait on cavalry and courts," Moran went on. "I'm willing to take the risk, if you are. If we don't take it, you know what the result will be. We may make our get-away to the East, or we may stop here for good—under ground. You have little choice either way. If you get out of this country, you'll be down and out. Your name'll be a byword and you'll be flat broke, a joke and an object of contempt the nation over. And it's not only yourself you've got to think of; you've got to consider your wife and daughter, and how they'll stand poverty and disgrace. Against all that you've got a chance, a fighting chance. Are you game enough to take it?"

All that Moran said was true enough, for Rexhill knew that if he failed to secure control of Crawling Water Valley, his back would be broken, both politically and financially. He would not only be stripped of his wealth, but of his credit and the power which stood him in lieu of private honor. He would be disgraced beyond redemption in the eyes of his associates, and in the bosom of his family he would find no solace for public sneers. Failure meant the loss forever of his daughter's respect, which might yet be saved to him through the glamour of success and the reflection of that tolerance which the world is always ready to extend toward the successful.

"You are right," he admitted, "in saying that I have my wife and daughter to consider, and that reminds me. I haven't told you that Helen overheard our conversation about Wade, in my room, the other day." He rapidly explained her indignation and threat of exposure. "I don't mean to say that your suggestion hasn't something to recommend it," he summed up, "but if Wade were to disappear, and she felt that he had been injured, I probably could not restrain her."

The agent leaned across the desk, leeringly.

"Tell her the truth, that I found Wade here in this room with Dorothy Purnell, at night; that they came here for an assignation, because it was the one place in Crawling Water...."

Rexhill got to his feet with an exclamation of disgust.

"Well, say, then, that they came here to rifle the place, but that when I caught them they were spooning. Say anything you like, but make her believe that it was a lovers' meeting. See if she'll care then to save him."

The Senator dropped heavily back into his chair without voicing the protest that had been upon his tongue's end. He was quick to see that, contemptible though the suggestion was, it yet offered him a means whereby to save himself his daughter's respect and affection. The whole danger in that regard lay in her devotion to Wade, which was responsible for her interest in him. If she could be brought to feel that Wade was unworthy, that he had indeed wronged her, her own pride could be trusted to do the rest.

"If I thought that Wade were the man to make her happy," Rexhill puffed heavily, in restraint of his excitement.

"Happy? Him?" Moran's eyes gleamed.

"Or if there was a shred of truth—but to make up such a story out of whole cloth...."

"What's the matter with you, Senator? Why, I thought you were a master of men, a general on the field of battle!" The agent leaned forward again until his hot, whiskey-laden breath fanned the other man's face.

"I'm a father, Race, before I'm anything else in God's world."

"But it's true, Senator. True as I'm speaking. Ask any one in Crawling Water. Everybody knows that Wade and this Purnell girl are mad in love with each other."

"Is that true, Race?"

Rexhill looked searchingly into the inflamed slits which marked the location of the agent's eyes.

"As God is my witness. It's the truth now, whatever he may have thought of Helen before. He's been making a fool of her, Senator. I've tried to make her see it, but she won't. You'll not only be protecting yourself, but you'll do her a service." He paused as Rexhill consulted his watch.

"Helen will be over here in a few minutes. I promised to take a walk with her this morning."

"Are you game?"

"I'll do it, Race." Rexhill spoke solemnly. "We might as well fry for one thing as another." Grimacing, he shook the hand which the other offered him. "When will you start?"

"Now," Moran answered promptly. "I'll take three or four men with me, and we'll hang around Wade's ranch until we get him. He'll probably be nosing around the range trying to locate the gold, and we shouldn't have much trouble. When we've got him safe...." His teeth ground audibly upon each other as he paused abruptly, and the sound seemed to cause the Senator uneasiness.

"By the way, since I've turned near-assassin, you might as well tell me who shot Jensen." Rexhill spoke with a curious effort. "If Wade gets you, instead of you getting Wade, it may be necessary for me to know all the facts."

Moran answered from the window, whither he had stepped to get his hat, which lay on the broad sill.

"It was Tug Bailey, Senator. Here comes Helen now. You needn't tell her that I was tied up all night." He laid Wade's quirt on the desk. "He left that behind him."

Rexhill grunted.

"Yes, I will tell her," he declared sulkily, "and about the Jensen affair, if I've got to be a rascal, you'll be the goat. Give Bailey some money and get him out of town before he tanks up and tells all he knows."

Helen came in, looking very sweet and fresh in a linen suit, and was at first inclined to be sympathetic when she heard of Moran's plight, without knowing the source of it. Before she did know, the odor of liquor on his breath repelled her. He finally departed, not at the bidding of her cool nod, but urged by his lust of revenge, which, even more than the whiskey, had fired his blood.

"Intoxicated, isn't he? How utterly disgusting!"

Her father looked at her admiringly, keenly regretting that he must dispel her love dream. But he took some comfort from the fact that Wade was apparently in love with another woman. The thought of this had been enough to make him seize upon the chance of keeping all her affection for himself.

"He's had a drink or two," he admitted, "but he needed them. He had a hard night. Poor fellow, he was nearly dead when I arrived. Wade handled him very roughly."

Helen looked up in amazement.

"Did Gordon do it? What was he doing here?" The Senator hesitated, and while she waited for his answer she was struck by a sense of humor in what had happened. She laughed softly. "Good for him!"

"We think that he came here to—to see what he could find, partly," Rexhill explained. "That probably was not his only reason. He wasn't alone."

"Oh!" Her tone expressed disappointment that his triumph had not been a single-handed one. "Did they tie him with these?" she asked, picking up one of the crumpled strips of linen, which lay on the floor. Suddenly her face showed surprise. "Why—this is part of a woman's skirt?"

Her father glanced at the strip of linen over his glasses.

"Yes," he nodded. "I believe it is."

"Somebody was here with Race?" Her voice was a blend of attempted confidence and distressing doubt.

"My dear, I have painful news for you...."

"With Gordon?" The question was almost a sob. "Who, father? Dorothy Purnell?"

Helen dropped into a chair, and going to her, the Senator placed his hands on her shoulders. She looked shrunken, years older, with the bloom of youth blighted as frost strikes a flower, but even in the first and worst moments of her grief there was dignity in it. In a measure Race Moran had prepared her for the blow; he, and what she herself had seen of the partisanship between Dorothy and Gordon.

"You must be brave, my dear," her father soothed, "because it is necessary that you should know. Race came upon them here last night, in each other's embrace, I believe, and with the girl's help, Wade got the upper hand."

"Are you sure it was Gordon?" Her cold fingers held to his warm ones as in her childhood days, when she had run to him for protection.

"His quirt is there on the desk."

"But why should they have come here, father—here of all places? Doesn't that seem very improbable to you? That is what I can't understand. Why didn't he go to her house?"

"For fear of arrest, I suppose. Their reason for coming here, you have half expressed, Helen, because it offered them the safest refuge, at that time of night, in Crawling Water. The office has not been used at night since we rented it, and besides Moran has been doubly busy with me at the hotel. But I don't say that was their sole reason for coming here. The safe had been opened, and doubtless their chief motive was robbery."

She sprang to her feet and stood facing him with flaming cheeks, grieved still but aroused to passionate indignation.

"Father, do you stand there and tell me that Gordon Wade has not only been untrue to me, but that he came here at night to steal from you; broke in here like a common thief?" Her breast heaved violently, and in her eyes shone a veritable fury of scorn.

The Senator met her outburst gravely as became a man in his position. He spoke with judicial gravity, which could leave no doubt of his own convictions, while conveying a sense of dignified restraint, tempered with regret.

"He not only did so, my dear, but he succeeded in escaping with documents of the greatest value to us, which, if prematurely published, may work us incalculable harm and subject our motives to the most grievous misconception."

She lifted her head with so fine a gesture of pride that the Senator was thrilled by his own paternity. Before him, in his child, he seemed to see the best of himself, purified and exalted.

"Then, if that is true, you may do with him what you will. I am through."

He knew her too well to doubt that her renunciation of Wade had been torn from the very roots of her nature, but for all that, when she had spoken, she was not above her moment of deep grief.

"My little girl, I know—I know!" Putting his arms around her, he held her while she wept on his shoulder. "But isn't it better to find out these things now, in time, before they have had a chance to really wreck your happiness?"

"Yes, of course." She dried her eyes and managed to smile a little. "I—I'll write to Maxwell to-day and tell him that I'll marry him. That will please mother."

It pleased the Senator, too, for it meant that no matter what happened to him, the women of his family would be provided for. He knew that young Frayne was too much in love to be turned from his purpose by any misfortune that might occur to Helen's father.



CHAPTER XIV

A DASTARD'S BLOW

At about the time when Rexhill was freeing Moran from his bonds, Wade and Santry, with rifles slung across their backs were tramping the banks of Piah Creek. In the rocky canyon, which they finally reached, the placid little stream narrowed into a roaring torrent, which rushed between the steep banks and the huge, water-worn bowlders, with fury uncontrolled.

Neither of the cattlemen greatly feared the coming of a second posse, at least immediately, but for the sake of prudence, they went armed and kept a careful watch. Wade mounted guard while Santry, who in his younger days had prospected in California, squatted over a sandy, rock-rimmed pool and deftly "washed out" a pan of gravel. One glance at the fine, yellow residue in the bottom of the pan decided him. With a triumphant yell that echoed and reechoed through the gorge, he sprang to his feet.

"Whoop-e-e-e! I've struck it!" he shouted excitedly, as Wade ran up to him. "Look there!" The old man held out a small handful of the yellow dust.

Wade drew a long breath.

"Gold! It's true, then!"

"You betcher, and it's the richest pay-dirt I ever met up with. No wonder Moran has been willin' to do murder to get a-holt of this land. You're a rich man, boy; a millionaire, I reckon."

"You mean that we are rich, Bill." The younger man spoke slowly and emphatically. "Whatever comes out of here"—he waved his hand toward the creek—"is one-half yours. I decided on that long ago. Never mind asking me why." He clapped Santry on the back. "It's because we're partners in fact, if not in name. Because you've stuck with me through all the lean years. That's reason enough."

The old plainsman carefully emptied the dust back into the pan before he said anything.

"Have you gone clean crazy?" he finally demanded. "Givin' away a fortune like it was the makin's of a cigareet? If you have, I ain't. This stuff's yourn. I'm not sayin' that I won't take a ounce or two, maybe, of this here dust, for old times' sake, if you offer it to me, but that's all." His wrinkled face twisted into a grin. "You'll be needin' it all one o' these days to pay for your honeymoonin', if I read the signs right. Ain't that so, son?" He laughed softly as Wade flushed. "Shake, boy! Put 'er there! I wish you all the luck that's comin' to any white man, by the great horned toad, I do!"

During the whole of the morning they examined the creek bed and they found signs of the yellow metal almost everywhere. At one point, Wade broke a knob of rock from the face of the cliff, the under surface of which was seamed and streaked with golden veins. Santry could scarcely restrain himself; usually taciturn, he was for once as light-hearted and joyous as a boy. But on the way back to the ranch-house he became serious.

"Say, ain't the bulk of that lode on that forty-acre tract that you took up as a timber claim?" he asked.

"Yes," Wade answered. "That is, I think so. We can run over the lines this afternoon and make sure."

"I reckon we'd better make sure, and if it is, you'll have to lay low until you get your deed. Your homestead rights might be hard to claim now that there's mineral in the ground. Moran'll most likely keep his mouth shut for reasons of his own, and he may not know about your not havin' proved up yet, but some other jasper might get wise."

"I don't think any one around here would contest my right to the land, Bill," Wade replied thoughtfully. "Still, as you say, we'd better be careful. The gold will keep. We haven't heard the last of Moran and his crowd yet, not by a jugful." He chuckled grimly. "I wonder if anybody's cut him loose yet."

"I reckon they have, boy. He'll keep monkeyin' around this territory until he meets up with some feller like me, with a bad temper and a quick gun hand, who'll make him good the same way we useter make good Injuns. Hullo, steady!"

Although they were now in sight of the house and the men hanging about it for the noon-day meal, Santry had not relaxed his caution and his eyes had picked out two moving dots in the distance, which presently developed into galloping horses. He smiled instantly.

"Can't be nobody lookin' for trouble," he observed, and presently his eyes twinkled. "Take a good look, boy. I reckon you know one of 'em, anyhow."

The horses came on rapidly, until upon the foremost of them Wade could see the fluttering skirt of a woman, while the other he recognized as belonging to Lem Trowbridge even before he could clearly make out the rider.

"Tell the cook we'll have company to dinner," Wade called to Santry as he untied a horse from the hitching rack near the barn and rode off to meet the newcomers.

With fine prescience, Trowbridge, when he saw him ride toward them, drew his horse down to a walk, and so was discreetly in the rear when Dorothy and Wade met.

"Mighty glad to see you," he greeted her, "but that goes without saying."

"Thanks," she responded, hoping that he would attribute the heightened color of her cheeks to the exertion of the ride. "We thought we'd ride out to see how you were getting along."

Despite her blush, that had come at the recollection of his kiss the night before, she still looked him straight in the eyes, but with a sweet humility, an attitude of surrender, which he understood and which touched him. There was nothing bold about her look, but an engaging womanliness, which would have appealed to any decent man, even while it stirred his pulse. She wore a wide felt hat, from beneath the brim of which her hair floated, shaken out of its moorings by the jolting of her gallop. A flannel blouse, which was most becoming, and a divided skirt completed a sensible costume, which seemed to Wade more attractive than any he had ever seen in the East. She rode with the straight stirrups of the cattle country, and sat her mount with the grace of a born horsewoman.

"What's happened to Moran?" he asked, waving his hat to Trowbridge, as the latter rode toward them.

"He's out and around again. I saw him this morning. He was an awful sight. You must keep your eyes open, Gordon, really you must. He'll be more dangerous than ever now."

"Oh, I guess we've clipped his claws for a while," he said lightly, unwilling that she should be anxious for his safety, sweet though he found her sympathy to be. "Hello, Lem!"

"Hello, yourself!" They shook hands, the firm handclasp of strong men, and then all three rode on together to the house.

After dinner, the plainness of which meant nothing to such appetites as their out-door living had aroused, they sat on the porch, the men over their cigarettes and Dorothy quite content in the contemplation of the sweetness which her heart had found.

"How are things going on your place, Lem?" asked Wade.

"Badly, Gordon. That's one reason I rode over to see you. Have you heard about the fight on my range? You haven't?"

"I didn't have time last night to tell him," Dorothy interposed.

"A number of my boys got into a shooting affray with some herders," Trowbridge explained. "Two of the boys were hurt and one of the herders, I understand, was badly shot."

"Too bad," Wade commented. "Confound it, Lem, what are these fellows thinking of? They must know that our patience won't last always, and when it breaks we're ten to their one."

"Well,"—Trowbridge deftly flecked his cigarette stub over the porch railing,—"I'm through now, Gordon. I've given my men orders to stand for no more nonsense. I've told them to shoot at the drop of the hat, and I'll stand behind 'em, law or no law. The next time there's trouble, and it's likely to come any hour, I'm going to lead my outfit into a fight that'll be some fight, believe me. And I'm not going to quit until every sheep man in the county is headed East on the run."

"We'll be with you," Wade said heartily. "Tip us the word and we'll be right after you."

Trowbridge nodded.

"I'll take you up on that, Gordon. Not that we need help, you understand, but because it'll be best for us to present a united front in this business. United, we stand; divided, we fall; that's the word, eh?"

Dorothy leaned forward, with an anxious look.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I hope neither one of you will get shot."

Trowbridge made her a bow from his chair.

"We'll try not to," he said mockingly, and she was obliged to join in the general laugh.

"If you feel that you ought to do it, of course you will—fight, I mean," she said, helplessly. "But I think it's dreadful, all the same."

"What has Thomas done about me?" Wade asked. "I understand that he's holding quite a bunch of warrants up his sleeve?"

"I don't think he's done anything, and I don't believe he's anxious to," Trowbridge answered. "He's shown some courage, that fellow, in the past, but I always thought he had a yellow streak in him somewhere. I don't think you need fear him much."

"Well, I'm glad to know that, not that I've been very uneasy, but we've had to keep a pretty close look-out here, and it's doubled us up uncomfortably. I want to go out to my timber claim this afternoon, and but for what you've said, I know Bill would insist on going along. Now I can leave him here to attend to his work."

Dorothy was opposed to the idea and she said so, but her opinion was overridden by the two men. Trowbridge declared that there was absolutely nothing to fear from Sheriff Thomas, at least immediately.

"I'm positive of that," he summed up. "If there was any new move on foot, I'd have heard of it."

"That may be," Dorothy argued, "but you know Senator Rexhill is behind him to urge him on."

"That's another man we ought to run out of this neighborhood," Trowbridge declared. "The only trouble is that the old fox has laid so low that we haven't anything definite on him. We can suspect all we like; but when it comes right down to facts, he has us guessing. We can't prove a thing against him, and he's too big game to flush without powder. Well, we'd better be off."

"Stay a while," Wade urged. "It's early yet. I didn't mean to hurry you when I spoke of going out to the claim. I've got plenty of time."

"I haven't told him about the gold," Dorothy whispered, as he helped her into her saddle. "I thought you might want to keep it quiet for the present."

"Sure, we'll tell him," he said, pressing her hand. "We're all on the same side in this business."

He explained his good fortune to Trowbridge, who was delighted and enthusiastic over the prospect of the vein impinging upon his own range.

"Well, that is some luck, eh?" Trowbridge skillfully managed his horse, which was high-spirited enough to still be sportive in spite of the long ride of the morning. "Every cloud's got a silver lining, as the poet says. And another thing, it shows Rexhill's real motive, don't forget that. Oh, we'll get 'em by and by. Sure thing, we will. Well, so long."

"So long, Lem! Call on us when you want us."

"Good-by!" Dorothy waved to him as the horses sped away in the direction of Crawling Water.

Wade watched them out of sight, and then entered the house to tell Santry that he would not be needed on the afternoon trip to the timber claim. The old man growled a little at the idea of Wade going alone, but he finally gave in.

"I'll take my gun and keep my eye peeled," his employer promised. "If I can't stand off trouble until I get home, or you can get to me, I'll lose my bet. You've got your work to do, Bill. If you're going to nurse me all the time, I'll have to get another foreman to run the crew."

He rode away, then, toward the foothills, confident of his ability to look after himself in case of trouble. There was nothing in the peaceful aspect of the range to suggest an enemy, but he kept his rifle ready and his ears and eyes open. Once he paused abruptly when a rabbit jumped out of a clump of quaking-aspens, a hundred yards ahead, only to chuckle at his own overcaution.

The sun, which was still high, was shining as only a Wyoming sun can shine, from out of a blue-vaulted canopy, flecked with fleecy clouds. Swinging from the tops of the sagebrush, or an occasional cottonwood, yellow-breasted meadowlarks were singing sweetly. At intervals a flock of curlews circled above the rider, uttering their sharp, plaintive cries; then they would drop to the ground and run rapidly to and fro on their frail, stilt-like legs, their long ungainly bills darting from side to side in search of food.

Over the plains, from which Wade now turned, hundreds of red and white cattle, their hides as sleek as velvet, were grazing, singly and in scattered groups, as far as the eye could see. Toward its mouth, the valley was spotted with many fenced alfalfa fields, and traversed by irrigation ditches; while to the right, in the direction in which Wade now rode, rose the timber belt. A fresh, soft breeze, fragrant with the odor of clean, damp earth, rustled the leaves of the cottonwoods, some of which were of enormous size, as the horseman pushed his way farther into the shadow of the mountains.

After a careful scrutiny, which satisfied him that the vicinity harbored no enemies, he dismounted, but still actuated by caution, kept the bridle reins looped over his wrist, as he searched for further evidence of gold. Unlike Santry, the ranchman was not trained in the ways of prospecting, and he began to regret that he had not allowed the foreman to accompany him. He followed what he thought were promising signs deeper into the silence of the tall timber, and finally dropped on his knees to make sure of some outcroppings of quartz near the base of a huge bowlder. He was so crouched when a sudden movement of his horse warned him of danger; but he had not time to arise before a crushing blow on the head, delivered from behind, shook him to the very marrow of his spine. With a low groan, he toppled over onto his face, senseless.

"Have you got him?" Moran peered around the side of the bowlder, and smiled exultantly when he saw Wade's still figure. "Throw him across your saddle," he commanded, "and follow me."



CHAPTER XV

THE FIRST CLEW

"Let's see!" Trowbridge reined in his horse and meditated, when he and Dorothy had covered several miles of their ride back to Crawling Water. "Jensen was shot around here somewhere, wasn't he?"

"I think it was over there." She pointed with her quirt in the direction of a distant clump of jack-pines. "Why?"

"Suppose we ride over and take a look at the spot." He smiled at her little shudder of repugnance. "We haven't any Sherlock Holmes in this country, and maybe we need one. I'll have a try at it. Come on!"

In response to the pressure of his knees, the trained cow-pony whirled toward the jack-pines, and Dorothy followed, laughing at the idea that so ingenuous a man as Lem Trowbridge might possess the analytical gift of the trained detective.

"You!" she said mockingly, when she had caught up with him. "You're as transparent as glass; not that it isn't nice to be that way, but still you are. Besides, the rain we've had must have washed all tracks away."

"No doubt, but we'll have a look anyhow. It won't do any harm. Seriously, though, the ways of criminals have always interested me. I'd rather read a good detective story than any other sort of yarn."

"I shouldn't think that you had any gift that way."

"That's got nothing to do with it," he laughed. "It's always like that. Haven't you noticed how nearly every man thinks he's missed his calling; that if he'd only gone in for something else he'd have been a rattling genius at it? Just to show you! I've got a hand over at the ranch, a fellow named Barry, who can tie down a steer in pretty close to the record. He's a born cowman, if I ever saw one, but do you suppose he thinks that's his line?"

"Doesn't he?" she asked politely. One of the secrets of her popularity lay in her willingness to feed a story along with deft little interjections of interest.

"He does not. Poetry! Shakespeare! That's his 'forty'! At night he gets out a book and reads Hamlet to the rest of the boys. Thinks that if he'd ever hit Broadway with a show, he'd set the town on fire."

When Dorothy laughed heartily, as she now did, the sound of it was worth going miles to hear. There are all shades of temperament and character in laughter, which is the one thing of which we are least self-conscious; hers revealed not only a sense of humor, rare in her sex, but a blithe, happy nature, which made allies at once of those upon whose ears her merriment fell. Trowbridge's eyes sparkled with his appreciation of it.

"Well, maybe he would," she said, finally.

"Maybe I'll make good along with Sherlock Holmes." He winked at her as he slipped from his horse's back, on the edge of a rocky knoll, fronting the jack-pines. "This is the place, I reckon." His quick eyes had caught a dark stain on a flat rock, which the rain had failed to cleanse entirely of the dead herders' blood.

When Dorothy saw it, too, her mirth subsided. To her mind, the thought of death was most horrible, and especially so in the case of a murderous death, such as had befallen the sheep men. Not only was the thing horrible in itself, but still more so in its suggestion of the dangers which threatened her friends.

"Do hurry!" she begged. "There can't be anything here."

"Just a minute or two." Struck by the note of appeal in her voice, so unlike its lilt of the moment before, he added: "Ride on if you want to."

"No," she shuddered. "I'll wait, but please be quick."

It was well for her companion that she did wait, or at least that she was with him for, when he had inspected the immediate vicinity of the shooting, he stepped backward from the top of the knoll into a little, brush-filled hollow, in which lay a rattlesnake. Deeply interested in his search, he did not hear the warning rattle, and Dorothy might not have noticed it either had not her pony raised its head, with a start and a snort. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the snake and called out sharply.

"Look out, behind you, Lem!"

There are men, calling themselves conjurors, who perform prodigies of agility with coins, playing-cards, and other articles of legerdemain, but they are not so quick as was Trowbridge in springing sidewise from the menacing snake. In still quicker movement, the heavy Colt at his side leaped from its holster. The next second the rattle had ceased forever, for the snake's head had been neatly cut from its body.

"Close call! Thanks!" Trowbridge slid his weapon back into its resting place and smiled up at her.

So close, indeed, had the call been that, coming upon the dreadful associations of the spot, Dorothy was unnerved. Her skin turned a sickly white and her lips were trembling, but not more so than were the flanks of the horses, which seemed to be in an agony of fear. When the girl saw Trowbridge pick up a withered stick and coolly explore the recesses of a small hole near which the snake had been coiled, she rebelled.

"I'm not going to stay here another minute," she declared hotly.

"Just a second. There may be another one.... Oh, all right, go on, then," he called out, as she whirled her pony and started off. "I'll catch you. Ride slow!"

He looked after her with a smile of amusement, before renewing his efforts with the stick, holding his bridle reins with one hand so that his horse could not follow hers. To his disappointment there seemed to be nothing in the hole, but his prodding suddenly developed an amazing fact. He was on the point of dropping the stick and mounting his horse, when he noticed a small piece of metal in the leaves and grass at the mouth of the hole. It was an empty cartridge shell.

"By Glory!" he exclaimed, as he examined it. "A clew, or I'm a sinner!"

Swinging into his saddle, he raced after Dorothy, shouting to her as he rode. In her pique, she would not answer his hail, or turn in her saddle; but he was too exultant to care. He was concerned only with overtaking her that he might tell her what he had found.

"For the love of Mike!" he said, when by a liberal use of his spurs he caught up with her. "What do you think this is, a circus?"

"You can keep up, can't you?" she retorted banteringly.

"Sure, I can keep up, all right." He reached out and caught her bridle rein, pulling her pony down to a walk in spite of her protests. "I want to show you something. You can't see it riding like a jockey. Look here!" He handed her the shell. "You see, if I had come when you wanted me to, I wouldn't have found it. That's what's called the detective instinct, I reckon," he added, with a grin. "Guess I'm some little Sherlock, after all."

"Whose is it?" She turned the shell over in her palm a trifle gingerly.

"Look!" He took it from her and pointed out where it had been dented by the firing-pin. "I reckon you wouldn't know, not being up in fire-arms. The hammer that struck this shell didn't hit true; not so far off as to miss fire, you understand, but it ain't in line exactly. That tells me a lot."

"What does it tell you?" She looked up at him quickly.

"Well," he spoke slowly, "there ain't but one gun in Crawling Water that has that peculiarity, that I know of, and that one belongs, or did belong, to Tug Bailey."

She caught at his arm impulsively so that both horses were brought to a standstill.

"Then he shot Jensen, Lem?"

Her voice was tremulous with eagerness, for although she had never doubted Wade or Santry; had never thought for a moment that either man could have committed the crime, or have planned it, she wanted them cleared of the doubt in the eyes of the world. Her disappointment was acute when she saw that Trowbridge did not deem the shell to be convincing proof of Bailey's guilt.

"Don't go too fast now, Dorothy," he cautioned. "This shell proves that Bailey's gun was fired, but it doesn't prove that Bailey's finger pulled the trigger, or that the gun was aimed at Jensen. Bailey might have loaned the rifle to somebody, or he might have fired at a snake, like I did a few minutes ago."

"Oh, he might have done anything, of course. But the shell is some evidence, isn't it? It casts the doubt on Tug Bailey, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does that, all right. It casts it further than him." The cattleman spoke positively. "It's a clew, that's what it is. We've got a clew and we've got a motive, and we didn't have either of them yesterday."

"How do you suppose that shell got where you found it?" she asked, her voice full of hope.

"Bailey must have levered it out of his rifle, after the shooting, and it fell into that hole. You see,"—he could not resist making the triumphant point once more,—"if I hadn't stopped to look for another rattler, I never would have found it. Just that chance—just a little chance like that—throws the biggest criminals. Funny, ain't it?" But she was too preoccupied with the importance of the discovery to dwell on his gifts as a sleuth.

"What can we do about it, Lem?" She gave her pony her head and they began to move slowly. "What ought we to do?"

"I'll find this fellow, Bailey, and wring the truth out of him," he answered grimly; and her eyes sparkled. "If I'm not greatly mistaken, though, he was only the tool."

"Meaning that Moran...."

"And Rexhill," Trowbridge snapped. "They are the men higher up, and the game we're really gunning for. They hired Bailey to shoot Jensen so that the crime might be fastened on to Gordon. I believe that as fully as I'm alive this minute; the point is to prove it."

"Then we've no time to waste," she said, touching her pony with the quirt. "We mustn't loiter here. Suppose Bailey has been sent away?"

The thought of this caused them to urge their tired horses along at speed. Many times during the ride which followed Trowbridge looked admiringly at his companion as she rode on, untiringly, side by side with him. A single man himself, he had come to feel very tenderly toward her, but he had no hope of winning her. She had never been more than good friends with him, and he realized her feeling for Wade, but this knowledge did not make him less keen in his admiration of her.

"Good luck to you, Lem," she said, giving him her hand, as they paused at the head of Crawling Water's main street. "Let me know what you do as soon as you can. I'll be anxious."

He nodded.

"I know about where to find him, if he's in town. Oh, we're slowly getting it on them, Dorothy. We'll be ready to 'call' them pretty soon. Good-by!"

Tug Bailey, however, was not in town, as the cattleman learned at Monte Joe's dance-hall, piled high with tables and chairs and reeking with the stench, left over from the previous night, of whiskey fumes and stale tobacco smoke. Monte Joe professed not to know where the puncher had gone, but as Trowbridge pressed him for information the voice of a woman, as shrill as the squawk of a parrot, floated down from the floor above.

"Wait a minute."

Trowbridge waited and the woman came down to him. He knew her by ill-repute, as did every man in the town, for she was Pansy Madder, one of the dance-hall habitues, good-looking enough by night to the inflamed fancy, but repulsive by day, with her sodden skin and hard eyes.

"You want to know where Tug is?" she demanded.

"Yes, where is he?"

"He's headed for Sheridan, I reckon. If he ain't headed there, he'll strike the railroad at some other point; him and that—Nellie Lewis, that he's skipped with." Her lusterless eyes were fired by the only thing that could fire them: her bitter jealousy.

"You're sure?" Trowbridge persisted, a little doubtfully.

"Sure? Of course, I'm sure. Say,"—she clutched at his arm as he turned away,—"if he's wanted for anything, bring him back here, will you? Promise me that! Let me"—her pale lips were twisted by an ugly smile—"get my hands on him!"

From the dance-hall, Trowbridge hastened to the jail to swear out a warrant for Bailey's arrest and to demand that Sheriff Thomas telegraph to Sheridan and to the two points above and below, Ranchester and Clearmont, to head off the fugitive there. Not knowing how far the Sheriff might be under the dominance of the Rexhill faction, the cattleman was not sure that he could count upon assistance from the official. He meant, if he saw signs of indecision, to do the telegraphing himself and to sign at the bottom of the message the name of every ranch owner in the district. That should be enough to awaken the law along the railroad without help from Thomas, and Trowbridge knew that such action would be backed up by his associates.

He had no trouble on this score, however, for Sheriff Thomas was away on the trail of a horse-thief, and the deputy in charge of the jail was of sturdier character than his chief.

"Will I help you, Lem?" he exclaimed. "Say, will a cat drink milk? You bet I'll help you. Between you and me, I've been so damned ashamed of what's been doing in this here office lately that I'm aching for a chance to square myself. I'll send them wires off immediate."

"I reckon you're due to be the next Sheriff in this county, Steve," Trowbridge responded gratefully. "There's going to be a change here before long."

"That so? Well, I ain't sayin' that I'd refuse, but I ain't doin' this as no favor, either, you understand. I'm doin' it because it's the law, the good old-fashioned, honest to Gawd, s'help me die, law!"

"That's the kind we want here—that, or no kind. So long, Steve!"

With a nod of relief, Trowbridge left the jail, well-satisfied that he had done a good turn for Wade, and pleased with himself for having lived so well up to the standards set by the detectives of popular fiction. Since Bailey had not had time to reach the railroad, his arrest was now almost a certainty, and once he was back in Crawling Water, a bucket of hot tar and a bundle of feathers, with a promise of immunity for himself, would doubtless be sufficient to extract a confession from him which would implicate Rexhill and Moran.

Feeling that he had earned the refreshment of a drink, the cattleman was about to enter the hotel when, to his consternation, he saw tearing madly down the street toward him Bill Santry, on a horse that had evidently been ridden to the very last spurt of endurance. He ran forward at once, for the appearance of the old man in Crawling Water, with a warrant for murder hanging over his head, could only mean that some tragedy had happened at the ranch.

"Hello, Lem!" Santry greeted him. "You're just the man I'm lookin' for."

"What's the trouble?" Trowbridge demanded.

"The boy!" The old plainsman slid from his horse, which could hardly keep its feet, but was scarcely more spent in body than its rider was in nerve. His face was twitching in a way that might have been ludicrous but for its significance. "They've ambushed him, I reckon. I come straight in after you, knowin' that you'd have a cooler head for this here thing than—than I have."

"My God!" The exclamation shot from Trowbridge like the crack of a gun. "How did it happen?"

Santry explained the details, in so far as he knew them, in a few breathless sentences. The old man was clearly almost beside himself with grief and rage, and past the capacity to act intelligently upon his own initiative. He had not been satisfied, he said, to remain behind at the ranch and let Wade go to the timber tract alone, and so after a period of indecision he had followed him. Near the edge of the timber he had come upon Wade's riderless horse, trailing broken bridle reins. He had followed the animal's tracks back to the point of the assault, but there was no sign of Wade, which fact indicated that he had been carried away by those who had overcome him.

"I could see by the tracks that there was a number of 'em; as many as five or six," the old man summed up. "I followed their sign as far as I could, but I lost it at the creek. Then I went back to the house and sent some of the boys out to scout around before I come down here after you."

"Where do you suppose they could have taken him?" Trowbridge asked. "They'd never dare bring him to town."

"Gawd knows, Lem! There's more pockets and drifts up in them hills than there is jack-rabbits. 'Tain't likely the boys'll find any new sign, leastways not in time; not before that —— of a Moran—it was him did it, damn him! I know it was. Lem, for Gawd's sake, what are we goin' to do?"

"The first thing to do, Bill, is to get you out of this town, before Thomas shows up and jumps you."

"I don't keer for myself. I'll shoot the...."

"Luckily, he's away just now," Trowbridge went on, ignoring the interruption. "Come with me!" He led the way into the hotel. "Frank," he said to the red-headed proprietor, "is Moran in town to-day?"

"Nope." The Irishman regarded Santry with interest. "He went out this morning with four or five men."

"Rexhill's here, ain't he?" Trowbridge asked then. "Tell him there's two gentlemen here to see him. Needn't mention any names. He doesn't know me."

When Santry, with the instinct of his breed, hitched his revolver to a more convenient position on his hip, Trowbridge reached out and took it away from him. He dared not trust the old man in his present mood. He intended to question the Senator, to probe him, perhaps to threaten him; but the time had not come to shoot him.

"I'll keep this for you, Bill," he said soothingly, and dropped the weapon into his coat pocket. "I'm going to take you up with me, for the sake of the effect of that face of yours, looking the way it does right now. But I'll do the talking, mind! It won't take long. We're going to act some, too."

Their visit had no visible effect upon Rexhill, however, who was too much master of himself to be caught off his guard in a game which had reached the point of constant surprise. His manner was not conciliatory, for the meeting was frankly hostile, but he did not appear to be perturbed by it. He had not supposed that the extremes he had sanctioned could be carried through without difficulty, and he was prepared to meet any attack that might be offered by the enemy.

"Senator Rexhill," Trowbridge introduced himself, "you've never met me. I'm from the Piah Creek country. My name is Trowbridge."

"Yes," the Senator nodded. "I've heard of you. I know your friend there by sight." He lingered slightly over the word "friend" as he glanced toward Santry, "There's a warrant out for him, I believe."

"Yes. There's a warrant out for one of your—friends, too, Tug Bailey," Trowbridge retorted dryly, hoping that something would eventuate from his repartee; but nothing did. If the news surprised Rexhill, as it must have, he did not show it. "I've just sworn it out," the rancher continued, "but that's not why I'm here. I'm here to tell you that Gordon Wade, whom you know, has been kidnaped."

Santry stifled an exclamation of rage in answer to a quick look from his friend.

"Kidnaped from his own range in broad daylight," the latter went on. "I represent his friends, who mean to find him right away, and it has occurred to me that you may be able to assist us in our search."

"Just why has that idea occurred to you?" Rexhill asked calmly, as though out of mere curiosity. "I'd like to know."

A bit baffled by this attitude of composure, Trowbridge hesitated, for it was not at all what he had expected to combat. If the Senator had flown into a passion, the cattleman would have responded with equal heat; now he was less sure of himself and his ground. It was barely possible, after all, that Tug Bailey had shot Jensen out of personal spite; or, at the worst, had been the tool of Moran alone. One could hardly associate the thought of murder with the very prosperous looking gentleman, who so calmly faced them and twirled his eyeglasses between his fingers.

"Why should that idea have occurred to you?" the Senator asked again. "So far as I am informed, Wade is also liable to arrest for complicity in the Jensen murder; in addition to which he has effected a jail delivery and burglarized my office. It seems to me, if he has been kidnaped as you say, that I am the last person to have any interest in his welfare, or his whereabouts. Why do you come to me?"

This was too much for Santry's self-restraint.

"What's the use of talkin' to him?" he demanded. "If he ain't done it himself, don't we know that Moran done it for him? To hell with talkin'!" He shook a gnarled fist at Rexhill, who paid no attention whatever to him, but deliberately looked in another direction.

"That is why we are here," said Trowbridge, when he had quieted Santry once more. "Because we have good reason to believe that, if these acts do not proceed from you, they do proceed from your agent, and you're responsible for what he does, if I know anything about law. This man Moran has carried things with a high hand in this community, but now he's come to the end of his rope, and he's going to be punished. That means that you'll get yours, too, if he's acted under your orders." The cattleman was getting into his stride now that the first moments of his embarrassment were passed. His voice rang with authority, which the Senator was quick to recognize, although he gave no evidence that he was impressed. "Has Moran been acting for you, that's what we want to know?"

"My dear fellow,"—Rexhill laughed rumblingly,—"if you'll only stop for an instant to think, you'll see how absurd this is."

"A frank answer to a frank question," Trowbridge persisted. "Has he been acting for you? Do you, at this moment, know what has become of Wade, or where he is?"

"That's the stuff!" growled Santry, whose temples were throbbing under the effort he put forth to hold himself within bounds.

"I do not!" the Senator said, bluntly. "And I'll say freely that I would not tell you if I did."

Santry's hands opened and shut convulsively. He was in the act of springing upon Rexhill when Trowbridge seized him.

"You're a liar!" he roared, struggling in his friend's grasp. "Let me at him. By the great horned toad, I'll make him tell!"

"Put that man out of this room!" Rexhill had arisen in all of his ponderous majesty, roused to wrath at last. His pudgy finger shook as he pointed to the door, and his fat face was congested. "I'm not here to be insulted by a jail-bird. Put him out!"

Trowbridge's eyes gleamed exultantly, although he still kept a tight hold on Santry, for this was the sort of thing he had expected to meet. He had not thought that Rexhill would confess complicity in the kidnaping this early in the game; but he had looked for an outburst of anger which would give him the chance he wanted to free his own mind of the hate that was in it. He had wanted the chance to make Rexhill feel that his hour of atonement was close at hand, and getting nearer every minute.

"Easy, now!" he admonished. "We're going, both of us, but we won't be put out. You've said just what I looked for you to say. You've denied knowledge of this thing. I think with Santry here that you're a liar, a God-forsaken liar." He drew closer to the Senator, who seemed about to burst with passion, and held him with a gaze his fury could not daunt. "May Heaven help you, Senator, when we're ready to prove all this against you. If you're in Crawling Water then, we'll ride you to hell on a rail."

"Now," Trowbridge said to Santry, when they were downstairs again, "you get out of town hot-foot. Ride to my place. Take this!" He scribbled a few lines on the back of an envelope. "Give it to my foreman. Tell him to meet me with the boys where the trail divides. We'll find Wade, if we have to trade our beds for lanterns and kill every horse in the valley."

The two men shook hands, and Santry's eyes were fired with a new hope. The old man was grateful for one thing, at least: the time for action had arrived. He had spent his youth on the plains in the days when every man was a law unto himself, and the years had not lessened his spirit.

"I'll be right after you, Bill," Trowbridge concluded. "I'm going first to break the news to Miss Purnell. She'd hear it anyway and be anxious. She'd better get it straight from me."

Lem Trowbridge had seen only one woman faint, but the recollection was indelibly impressed upon his mind. It had happened in his boyhood, at the ranch where he still lived, when a messenger had arrived with word of the death of the elder Trowbridge, whose horse had stepped into a prairie-dog hole and fallen with his rider. The picture of his mother's collapse he could never forget, or his own horrible thought that she, too, had passed away, leaving him parentless. For months afterwards he had awakened at night, crying out that she was dead.

The whole scene recurred to him when he told Dorothy of Wade's disappearance, and saw her face flush and then pale, as his mother's had done. The girl did not actually faint, for she was young and wonderfully strong, but she came so near to it that he was obliged to support her with his arm to keep her on her feet. That was cruel, too, for he loved her. But presently she recovered, and swept from his mind all thought of himself by her piteous appeal to him to go instantly in search of Wade.

"We'll find him, Dorothy, don't you worry," he declared, with an appearance of confidence he was far from feeling. "I came around to tell you myself because I wanted you to know that we are right on the job."

"But how can you find him in all those mountains, Lem? You don't even know which side of the range they've hidden him on."

He reminded her that he had been born in Crawling Water Valley, and that he knew every draw and canyon in the mountains; but in his heart he realized that to search all these places would take half a lifetime. He could only hope that chance, or good fortune, might lead them promptly to the spot they sought.

"Do you think that Senator Rexhill knows where Gordon is?" she asked. "Is he in this, too?"

"I don't know for sure," he answered. "I believe Moran is acting under Rexhill's orders, but I don't know how much Rexhill knows of the details. If I knew that, it would be fairly easy. I'd...." His strong hands gripped the back of a chair until his knuckles showed white under their tan. "I'd choke it out of him!"

"Oh, if there was only something I could do!" Dorothy wailed helplessly. "A woman never can do anything in a crisis but wait!" Her distress was so pitiable to witness that Trowbridge averted his gaze.

"We'll do all that can be done, Dorothy," he assured her. "Trust me for that. Besides—" A thought had just flashed into his head which might relieve her sense of helplessness. "Besides, we're going to need you here in town to keep us informed of what goes on."

"If I learn anything, how can I get word to you?" she asked, her face brightening somewhat. "You'll be up in the hills."

"I'll try to keep a man at the big pine all the time. If you find out anything send word to him."

"Oh, yes, I will, I will. That'll be something anyhow." Her eyes sparkling with tears, she gave him both her hands. "Good-by, Lem!"

"Good-by, Dorothy," he said solemnly, wringing her hands. "I know just how it is. We'll find him for you!"



CHAPTER XVI

TRAPPED

When Wade first opened his eyes, after he had been stricken senseless, he was first conscious of his throbbing head, and on seeking the reason of the pain, was amazed to find his fingers stained with the blood which matted his hair. With an exclamation he struggled to his feet, still too dazed to think clearly, but sufficiently aroused to be startled by the predicament in which he found himself.

He was at the bottom of a rock-walled fissure, about six feet wide by twenty feet in length. There was no way to climb out of this natural prison, for its granite sides, fifteen feet in height, were without crack, projection, or other foothold; indeed, in the light of the afternoon sun, one facade shone smooth as glass. If he should be left there without sustenance, he told himself, he might as well be entombed; then, to his delight, he caught the sound of splashing water. At least, he would not perish of thirst, for at one end of the rocky chamber a tiny stream fell down the face of the cliff, to disappear afterward through a narrow cleft. A draught of the cool water refreshed him somewhat, and when he had bathed his head as well as he could, he sat down on the warm sand to think over the situation.

Now that his brain was clearing he felt sure that his capture was the work of Moran, doubtless planned as a revenge for the events of their last meeting, although what shape this revenge was to take the cattleman could not guess. He feared that he would either be shot or left to starve in this cul-de-sac in the hills. The thought of all that he and his friends had suffered through Moran lashed the ranchman temporarily to fury; but that he soon controlled as well as he could, for he found its only result was to increase the pain in his head, without aiding to solve the problem of escape. The prospect of getting out of his prison seemed remote, for one glance at its precipitate walls had shown him that not even a mountain goat could scale them. Help, if it came at all, must come through Santry, who could be counted on to arouse the countryside. The thought of the state the old man must be in worried Wade; and he was too familiar with the vast number of small canyons and hidden pockets in the mountains to believe that his friends would soon find him. Before help could reach him, undoubtedly Moran would show his hand, in which for the present were all the trumps.

It was characteristic of the cattleman that, with the full realization of his danger, should come a great calm. He had too lively an imagination to be called a man of iron nerve, for that quality of courage is not so often a virtue as a lack of sensitiveness. He who is courageous because he knows no fear is not so brave by half as he who gauges the extent of his peril and rises superior to it. Wade's courage was of the latter sort, an ascendancy of the mind over the flesh. Whenever danger threatened him, his nerves responded to his need with the precision of the taut strings of a perfectly tuned fiddle under a master hand. He had been more nervous, many a time, over the thought of some one of his men riding a dangerous horse or turning a stampede, than he was now that his own life seemed threatened.

Shrugging his broad shoulders, he rolled and smoked a cigarette. The slight exhilaration of the smoke, acting on his weakened condition, together with the slight dizziness still remaining from the blow on his head, was far from conducing to clear thinking, but he forced himself to careful thought. He was less concerned about himself than he was about Santry and Dorothy; particularly Dorothy, for he had now come to appreciate how closely she had come into his life. Her sympathy had been very sweet to him, but he told himself that he would be sorry to have her worry about him now, when there was so little chance of their seeing each other again. He had no great hope of rescue. He expected to die, either by violence or by the slower process of starvation, but in either case he meant to meet his fate like a man.

Of Helen Rexhill, he thought now with a sense of distaste. It was altogether unlikely that she had been privy to her father's depredations, but certainly she countenanced them by her presence in Crawling Water, and she had shown up so poorly in contrast with Dorothy Purnell that Wade could not recall his former tenderness for his early sweetheart. Even if great good fortune should enable him to escape from his prison, the interests of the Rexhill family were too far removed from his own to be ever again bridged by the tie of love, or even of good-feeling. He could not blame the daughter for the misdeeds of her parent, but the old sentiment could never be revived. It was not for Helen that the instinct of self-preservation stirred within him, nor was it in her eyes that he would look for the light of joy over his rescue, if rescue should come.

He smoked several cigarettes, until the waning of his supply of tobacco warned him to economize against future cravings. Realizing that even if his friends were within a stone's throw of him they would not be likely to find him unless he gave some sign of his presence, he got to his feet and, making a trumpet out of his hands, shouted loudly. He repeated this a dozen times, or more, and was about to sink back upon the sand when he heard footsteps approaching on the ground overhead. He had little idea that a friend was responding to his call, but being unarmed he could do no more than crouch against the wall of the cliff while he scanned the opening above him.

Presently there appeared in the opening the head of a Texan, Goat Neale, whom Wade recognized as a member of Moran's crew and a man of some note as a gunfighter.

"How," drawled the Texan, by way of greeting. "Feelin' pretty good?" When the ranchman did not reply, his inquisitor seemed amused. "A funny thing like this here always makes me laff," he remarked. "It sure does me a heap of good to see you all corraled like a fly in a bottle. Mebbe you'd take satisfaction in knowin' that it was me brung you down out yonder in the timber. I was sure mighty glad to take a wallop at you, after the way you all done us up that night at the ranch."

"So I'm indebted to you for this, eh?" Wade spoke casually, as though the matter were a trifling thing. He was wondering if he could bribe Neale to set him free. Unfortunately he had no cash about him, and he concluded that the Texan would not think promises worth while under the circumstances.

"Sure. I reckon you'd like to see the boss? Well, he's comin' right on over. Just now he's eatin' a mess o' bacon and beans and cawfee, over to the camp. My Gawd, that's good cawfee, too. Like to have some, eh?" But Wade refused to play Tantalus to the lure of this temptation and kept silent. "Here he comes now."

"Is he all right?" Wade heard Moran ask, as Neale backed away from the rim of the hole.

"Yep," the Texan answered.

The ranchman instinctively braced himself to meet whatever might befall. It was quite possible, he knew, that Moran had spared him in the timber-belt to torture him here; he did not know whether to expect a bullet or a tongue lashing, but he was resolved to meet his fate courageously and, as far as was humanly possible, stoically. To his surprise, the agent's tone did not reveal a great amount of venom.

"Hello, Wade!" he greeted, as he looked down on his prisoner. "Find your quarters pretty comfortable, eh? It's been a bit of a shock to you, no doubt, but then shocks seem to be in order in Crawling Water Valley just now."

"Moran, I've lived in this country a good many years." Wade spoke with a suavity which would have indicated deadly peril to the other had the two been on anything like equal terms. "I've seen a good many blackguards come and go in that time, but the worst of them was redeemed by more of the spark of manhood than there seems to be in you."

"Is that so?" Moran's face darkened in swift anger, but he restrained himself. "Well, we'll pass up the pleasantries until after our business is done. You and I've got a few old scores to settle and you won't find me backward when the times comes, my boy. It isn't time yet, although maybe the time isn't so very far away. Now, see here." He leaned over the edge of the cliff to display a folded paper and a fountain-pen. "I have here a quit-claim deed to your ranch, fully made out and legally witnessed, needing only your signature to make it valid. Will you sign it?"

Wade started in spite of himself. This idea was so preposterous that it had never occurred to him as the real motive for his capture. He could scarcely believe that so good a lawyer as Senator Rexhill could be blind to the fact that such a paper, secured under duress, would have no validity under the law. He looked up at the agent in amazement.

"I know what you're thinking, of course," Moran went on, with an evil smile. "We're no fools. I've got here, besides the deed, a check made out to you for ten thousand dollars." He held it up. "You'll remember that we made you that offer once before. You turned it down then, but maybe you'll change your mind now. After you indorse the check I'll deposit it to your credit in the local bank."

The cattleman's face fell as he caught the drift of this complication. That ten thousand dollars represented only a small part of the value of his property was true, but many another man had sold property for less than it was worth. If a perfectly good check for ten thousand dollars, bearing his indorsement, were deposited to the credit of his banking account, the fact would go far to offset any charge of duress that he might later bring. To suppose that he had undervalued his holdings would be no more unreasonable than to suppose that a man of Senator Rexhill's prominence would stoop to physical coercion of an adversary. The question would merely be one of personal probity, with the presumption on the Senator's side.

"Once we get a title to the land, a handle to fight with, we sha'n't care what you try to do," Moran explained further. "We can afford to laugh at you." That seemed to Wade to be true. "If you accept my offer now, I will set you free as soon as this check is in the bank, and the settlement of our personal scores can go over to another time. I assure you that I am just as anxious to get at you as you are to get at me, but I've always made it a rule never to mix pleasure and business. You'll have a fair start to get away. On the other hand, if you refuse, you'll be left here without food. Once each day I'll visit you; at other times you'll be left alone, except when Goat may care to entertain himself by baiting you. You'll be perfectly safe here, guard or no guard, believe me."

Moran chuckled ominously, his thoughts divided between professional pride, excited by the thought of successfully completing the work he had come to Crawling Water to do, and exultation at the prospect that his sufferings while gagged the previous night might be atoned for a thousand times if Wade should refuse to sign the quit-claim.