For the first sweeping glance of the Ranger showed him a tragedy. The valley was filled with Indians. Apparently as yet they did not know that any white men were in the neighborhood, for the smoke was beginning to rise from morning fires. In a little pocket, just off from the camp, their ponies were herded. At the opposite side were a dozen ox-wagons grouped together in a circle to form a corral. The tongue of the nearest wagon was propped up by a yoke, and across it was the naked body of a man who had been crucified and tortured. The other drivers of the freight outfit were nowhere in sight. Either they were lying dead behind the wagons, or they had escaped on horseback.

The Ranger drew back at once from the bluff. He knew that probably he had been seen by the Indian lookouts; if he and his party were going to get away, it must be done quickly. He ran down the hill to his companions.

"Indians—Kiowas—hundreds of them," he explained. "They've captured a freight outfit and killed the drivers. We'll cross the river below their camp if we can." As he spoke, he was busy unlocking the handcuffs of the prisoner. To Dinsmore he gave a revolver.

It seemed to Ridley that his heart was pumping water. Death with torture was the punishment given captives by the plains Indians. He knew he must be ghastly white, but he said nothing.

The three men rode out of the ravine to the river. Already they could hear the yelling of the Kiowas a few hundred yards above. A moment later they caught sight of the savages pouring down the bank. Those in front were on foot. Others farther back, on the round-bellied Indian ponies, were galloping to catch up.

Half a mile farther down, there was a break in the river-bank which offered a better chance for crossing. The stream there broadened, cut in two by a little island. The three riders gained on their pursuers. Bullets whistled past them, but they did not stop to exchange shots. When they reached the place Jack had chosen to cross, they were four or five hundred yards ahead of the leading Indians.

They splashed into the water. Here it was shallow, but along the edge of the island the current was running swift. The Kiowas, following the fugitives down the bank, kept up a scattering fire. The bullets struck the water on all sides of the three moving targets. Arthur was on the right, closest to the Indians. A little ahead of him was Dinsmore. Farther over, the Ranger's horse was already breasting the deep water.

Roberts heard young Ridley cry: "He's hit!"

The Ranger turned his head. His prisoner was sagging in the saddle. Arthur was riding beside the wounded man and trying to support him.

Jack drew up his horse, holding it strongly against the current, until the others were abreast of him.

"We've got to swim for it," he called across to Ridley. "I'll get him if he slips out of the saddle before we reach shore."

The horses swam side by side. Roberts encouraged Dinsmore, riding knee to knee with him. "Just a little way now. Stick it out.... We're right close to the bank.... Grab the horn tight."

As Dinsmore slid into the water Jack caught him by the hair of the head. The swift water, racing fast round the shoulder of the island, tugged mightily at him. But the body of the Ranger's horse was a barrier to keep the unconscious man from being swept downstream, and the fingers of the rider clung to the thick black hair like steel clamps.

They reached shallow water. The Ranger swung from the saddle and carried Dinsmore up through the thicket that edged the bank. The horses clambered up without guidance, and Ridley drove them into the big rocks, where they would be better protected from the shots of the Indians.

The Ranger chose the best cover available near the head of the island and put the wounded man down gently on the ground. Already the Kiowas were halfway across the river. Jack counted twenty of them on horseback in the water.

"Can you shoot?" he asked his companion.

Ridley was behind a rock around which bushes grew thick. "B-better than I could." He was shaking with excitement.

"You can't miss 'em. We've got 'em right this time."

Jack fired. An Indian plunged headfirst into the water like a stone from a sling. A moment later his body could be seen swirling in the swift current. A second shot shook the death scream from the throat of another brave.

Twice Arthur missed.

"You've got buck-fever. Try for the horses," suggested the Texan. A moment later he gave a little whoop of encouragement. The naked shining body of a Kiowa had collapsed on the bare back of a pony. Ridley at last had scored.

Instantly the nervousness of the Easterner disappeared. His shooting had not the deadly accuracy of Roberts, but he was a good marksman, and at this close-range work his forty-five-seventy did clean work.

The Texan did not miss a shot. He picked the leaders and took his time. A third, a fourth, and a fifth brave went sliding from the backs of the swimming ponies.

The Kiowas broke under the deadly fire. Those not yet in the deep water turned and made for the shore from which they had come. The others gave with the current and drifted past the island, their bodies hanging from the far side of the ponies.

The whites on the island shot at the horses. More than one redskin, unable to get out of the current after his pony had been shot, floated down the river for miles before the body was found by his tribe.

"We got either nine or ten," said the Ranger. "They'll never try another attack from that bank. Probably they'll surround the island to starve us."

He put down his rifle and opened the shirt of the wounded man. Dinsmore had been shot in the back, above the heart. Jack washed out the wound and bound it up as best he could. The outlaw might live, or he might not—assuming that the party would escape from the savages.

Jack knew that this was an assumption not likely to be fulfilled. His guess was that there were four or five hundred of the Kiowas. They would immediately post a line of guards on both sides of the river. There was a chance that a man on a fast horse might make a get-away if he left at once. He proposed to Ridley that he try this.

"Will you go too?" asked Arthur.

The Ranger shook his head. "Got to stay with my prisoner."

"I'll stay too."

"If you were to make it, you could send me help."

"Think I could get away?"

The Westerner pointed to two Indians who were swimming the river below out of rifle-shot. "I doubt it. You might fight yore way through, but they'd likely get you."

"I'll stick it out here, then."

In his heart Arthur knew that he was not staying to face the danger with the Texan. When once he had got over his panic, he had fought coolly enough under the eye of his companion, but he lacked the stark courage to face the chances of that long ride alone for help.

"I reckon it's too late, anyhow," agreed Roberts. He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a toss-up, either way. But we'll sure send a few to their happy hunting-grounds before we take our long journey."

"You think—" Arthur let his fear-filled eyes finish the question.

The Ranger smiled wryly. "Yore guess is as good as mine. I'll say this: I've been in tight holes before an' came through O. K. I'll back my luck to stand up this time too."

Arthur looked into the brown face of this spare, clear-eyed youth and felt that he would give his hopes of heaven for such gameness. They had not one chance in ten thousand to escape, but the sheer nerve of the boy held him as cool and easy as though he were sauntering down the main street at Clarendon.



CHAPTER XXI

TEX TAKES A LONG WALK

Except for desultory firing the Kiowas left the islanders alone for the rest of the day. The fever of the wounded man mounted. Most of the time he was out of his head, and in tossing to and fro was continually disturbing the cold-water bandages applied by the Texan.

As soon as night had fallen, Roberts put a proposition to his companion. "One of us has got to go for help. Take yore choice, Ridley. Will you go or stay?"

The Easterner felt as though his heart had been drenched in ice-water. "Can't we wait until some one comes?" he asked timidly.

"Who's likely to come? You got any friends on the way? I haven't. There's another thing: the stage will be along to-morrow. We've got to get warnin' to it that the Kiowas are on the warpath. If we don't—well, you know what happened to the freight outfit."

"If one of us goes, how can he get away?"

"I've thought of that. It will be dark for an hour before the moon gets up. The one that goes will have to drop off the bank an' swim down with the current for a quarter of a mile or so, then get to the shore, crawl across the prairie till he's clear of the sentries, an' make a bee-line for Tascosa."

"I couldn't find my way in the dark," faltered Arthur.

Jack nodded. "I doubt if you could. I'm elected, then."

"Why—why can't we both go?"

"We couldn't take Dinsmore fifty yards. He's too sick a man."

"He's going to die anyhow. If I stay, we'll both die—horribly. It's every man for himself now."

Jack shook his head. "If you feel that way, you go an' I'll stay."

"I—I can't go alone." He pushed his plea one step farther. "He's a criminal—a murderer. He'd kill you if he could, and he's already betrayed me. There's no call for us to wait for certain death on his account."

The Ranger spoke gently. "None for you, but he's in my hands. I'll see it out. Mebbe you can get through the lines. Crawl through the grass. Keep yore nerve an' lie low if you hear 'em comin'. Once you're through, you'll be all right."

"I tell you I can't go alone. If it has to be that one goes and one stays, then I'll stay."

"That's how it has to be. It's about an even break, I reckon. They're liable to get me if I go. They're liable to get you if you stay. Then again, they're liable to get neither of us if I can get through."

"What if they rush me?"

"Don't lose yore head. You can stand 'em off. They'll never make as strong an attack as they did this mo'nin'. If they make any real rush, it will likely be just before daybreak. Indians don't do business at night."

Jack made his preparations swiftly. He took off his boots and tied them to his belt. His hat he left behind.

"How will I know whether you get through the sentries?" asked Ridley.

"If you hear any shootin', you'll know I probably didn't. But I'm sure figurin' on gettin' through. Don't you forget for a minute that every hour brings help nearer. So long, old man. Best of luck!"

The Ranger grinned cheerfully at the other boy as he crept into the brush at the edge of the water. Presently Arthur heard a faint plop and knew that the Texan had begun his journey.

The swift current carried the swimmer downstream rapidly. He used his arms just enough to keep himself up, and let the power of the water do the rest. As a small boy he had lived on the Brazos. He knew the tricks of the expert, so that he was able now to swim with only his nose showing. For it was certain that the Indians had set watchers on the river to guard against an escape.

The island vanished behind him. Now and then he caught from one bank or the other the glow of camp-fires. Once he was sure he heard the beating of a tom-tom.

And once he gave himself up for lost. The rapid current had swept him close to the right bank. Across his vision flashed a picture of a brave armed with bow and arrow standing above him on the shore. He dived instantly. When he came up for air, only a bit of his red topknot showed. The swimmer heard the twang of an arrow and dived a second time. He was in the deep shadows of overhanging brush when he shook the water out of his eyes next time. For a dozen seconds he drew his breath in fear. But there came no shout of warning to other watchers, no shot or outcry to shatter the stillness. He guessed that the Kiowa had taken him for a log drifting downstream and had aimed wantonly to test his accuracy.

Several hundred yards below the island Jack caught at a bush projecting into the water. He swung close to the bank and very cautiously drew himself out of the river.

He listened. Except for the sound of the rushing water the night was still. Very carefully he wormed his way forward into the prairie. His progress was slow, for he had to make sure of each foot of his advance. Under cover of a mesquite-bush he put on his water-soaked boots. He crept fifty yards—one hundred. To his right a camp-fire was burning. It seemed to him once or twice that he heard voices.

An old trail worn nearly a foot deep by buffaloes served his need. In this trench he was partly hidden and could make better progress. He traveled on all fours, still alert in every sense for danger.

Suddenly he sank full length into the trench. On the other side of a cactus-bush two Indians were squatting. They sat and talked.

The heart of the Ranger sank. At any moment they might discover his presence, or they might sit there the whole night and hold him prisoner in his ditch.

For an hour he lay there, wondering each moment whether the ticking of his watch might not betray him. Then, in a leisurely way, the sentries got up and sauntered toward the river. The moon was up now, and he could see their naked bodies shining in the light.

The two Kiowas stopped a moment on the bank and talked before they separated. One moved up the river; the other turned and came back directly toward Roberts. The Ranger lay in the buffalo-trail hoping that in the darkness he might escape observation. He was helpless. Even if he had brought a gun with him he dared not shoot, for if the alarm were given he would be driven out of cover in a few minutes.

The brave came forward to the very edge of the wallow. His moccasin touched the body of the prostrate man. Some slight shift of his attitude precipitated the crisis. He turned to listen to some sound, and his foot pressed upon the leg of the Ranger.

There was an instant volcanic upheaval. The Indian, startled, leaped back. Jack was upon him like a wildcat. They struggled, their bodies so close that the Kiowa could not use his rifle. The Texan had a double advantage, that of surprise and of a more muscular body. Moreover, the redskin made the mistake of trying to cling to his gun. He was flung down to the ground hard, the white man on top of him.

Jack became aware that the Indian was going to shout, and knew that if he did all was lost. His strong, brown fingers closed on the throat of the brave. There was a wild thrashing of limbs in a struggle to escape. The grip tightened, cut off a gurgle of escaping air. The naked arms and legs jerked more feebly....

When Roberts crept away into the darkness he carried with him the knife of the Kiowa. The rifle would only have hampered him, since he had to travel fast and light.

With every yard gained now he was nearer safety. He knew he was leaving the camp behind. Presently he rose to his feet and traveled faster. For the safety of the two on the island depended upon the speed with which he covered the distance between him and Tascosa.

The plainsman seldom walks. His high-heeled boots would be torture on a long tramp. When he wants to reach a place, he rides on horseback. Jack had not walked five miles at a time within a dozen years. Now his long legs reached for the ground in a steady stride that ate up the leagues. He guided his course by the stars until he struck the river far above the camp. Once he stopped for a drink, but the thought of Ridley on the island drove his tired limbs on. Heel and toe, heel and toe, the steady march continued, till the Ranger, lithe and strong though the wind and sun and outdoor life had made him, was ready to drop with fatigue. His feet, pushed forward in the boots by the height of the heels, burned as with fire from the pain of outraged flesh rubbing against stiff leather.

But it was not in him to quit. He set his teeth in his exhaustion and ploughed on up the trail. At last he saw the far, faint lights of Tascosa. The last mile or two were interminable, but he walked into the Bird Cage just as the clock on the wall was striking three.

The music had started for a dance. A girl in a spangled dress ran up to him.

"Come on. Let's dance," she cried; then stopped and looked at him in surprise: "What's the matter with you?"

The Ranger climbed up on the bar and beat upon it with the heel of his boot. The dancers stopped in their tracks as the music died.

"The Kiowas are on the warpath. They've got two white men trapped on the big island below the bend. Gather all the horses, guns, and men you can. We start in twenty minutes."

Cowboys left their partners standing in the middle of the floor. The musicians dropped their bows and fiddles. Bar-tenders left unfilled the orders they had just taken. For Indians in their war-paint were a fact always very near to the frontiersman, and whatever faults the Southwest may have had in those days, its warm heart answered instantly the call for help.

The dancers scattered in all directions to get ready. A gong, beaten by the owner of the Bird Cage, rang out stridently into the quiet night to rally sleeping citizens. Children, wakened by the clamor, began to wail. Dogs barked. Excited men flung out questions and hurried away without waiting for answers.

But out of the confusion came swift action. Each man looked to his own ammunition, weapons, horse. Women hurriedly put up lunches and packed saddlebags with supplies. In an incredibly short time a company of fifty riders had gathered in front of the Bird Cage.

With the Ranger at their head, they went out of town at a fast trot. If there had been anybody there to notice it, he would have seen that the clock on the wall at the Bird Cage registered the time as twenty-seven minutes past three.



CHAPTER XXII

THE TEST

When Ridley heard the faint plop of the Ranger's body as it dropped into the water, his heart died under the fifth rib. He was alone—alone with a wounded man in his care, and five hundred fiends ravenous for his blood. For a moment the temptation was strong in him to follow Roberts into the water. Why should he stay to let these devils torture him? Dinsmore had betrayed him, to the ruination of his life. He owed the fellow nothing but ill-will. And the man was a triple-notch murderer. It would be a good riddance to the country if he should be killed.

But the arguments of the young fellow did not convince him. He had showed the white feather once on impulse, without a chance to reason out the thing. But if he deserted this wounded man now he would be a yellow coyote—and he knew it. There was something in him stronger than fear that took him back to the helpless outlaw babbling disjointed ravings.

He bathed the man's fevered body with cold water from the river and changed the bandages on the wound. He listened, in an agony of apprehension, for the sound of a shot. None came, but this did not bring certainty that the Ranger had escaped. He had left behind all his arms, and it was quite possible that they had captured him without first wounding him.

Arthur reasoned with himself about his terror. Of what use was it? Why fear, since he had to face the danger anyhow? But when he thought of the morning and what it would bring forth he was sick with the dread he could not crush.

The hours lagged endlessly. He had his watch out a thousand times trying to read its face. Occasionally he crept around the island to make sure the Kiowas were not trying to surprise him. Hope began to grow in him as the night grew old, and this alternated with terror; for he knew that with the coming of dawn, the redskins would begin an attack.

His mind followed the Ranger on his journey. By this time he must surely be halfway to Tascosa if he had escaped the Kiowas.... Now he might have reached the cottonwood clump beyond Big Ford.... Perhaps he might jump up a camp outfit with horses. If so, that would cut down the time needed to reach town.

Five o'clock by Ridley's watch! He made another circuit of his little island, and at the head of it stopped to peer into the lessening darkness. A log, traveling down the river from some point near its headwaters in New Mexico, was drifting toward the island. His attention was arrested by the way it traveled. A log in a stream follows the line of least resistance. It floats in such a way as to offer the smallest surface to the force of the current. But this log was going down at a right angle to the bank instead of parallel to it. Was it being propelled by the current alone, or by some living power behind it?

Ridley posted himself behind a cottonwood, his repeater ready for action. In another moment he would know, because if the log was adrift in the river, it would miss the point of the island and keep on its way.

Straight to the point of land the log came. There it stuck against the nose of the island. A head followed by a naked body drew itself from behind the log and climbed across it to the bank above. A second head and body appeared, a third and a fourth.

Ridley's fear was gone. He had a job to do, and he went at it in a workmanlike manner. His first shot dropped the brave on the bank. His second missed, his third went hissing up the river. But the fourth caught full in the throat one of the Kiowas on the log. The painted warrior shot headfirst into the water and dropped as though he had been a stone. Before Arthur could fire again, the passengers astride the dead tree dived into the stream. Slowly the log swung around and was sucked into the current. Here and there a feathered head bobbed up. The boy fired at them from a sense of duty, but he did not flatter himself that he had scored another hit.

But the immediate danger of being rushed was past. Ridley circled the island again to make sure that the attack at the head had not been a feint to cover one in the rear.

During the night Arthur had not been idle. Behind a large rock he had scooped out a small cave in which he and the wounded man might lie protected. Now the Indians, in the full light of day, were spraying the spot with bullets. Fortunately they were notoriously poor shots, and their guns were the worst ever made. For hours the fusillade continued. Occasionally the defender answered with a shot or two to discourage any further attempt at storming his position.

The most welcome sound in Ridley's life was a scattering volley of shots that came from back of the Kiowa camp. There was a sudden rush for horses by the braves and the scurry of pounding hoofs as they fled across the prairie. A moment later came the whoop of the cowboys in the rescue party.

Arthur, in an ecstasy of relief, ran to the edge of the water and waved his hat. Across the river came in answer the "Yip-yip, yippy-yip-yip" of the line-riders in the company. Several of them plunged into the stream and swam their horses across to the island. Among these were Jumbo Wilkins and Tex Roberts.

"I see you done held the fort, son," said the fat man. "Fine and dandy! How's Dinsmore?"

"Quieter. He slept a good deal in the night. How are we going to get him across the river?"

The Ranger joined them. He nodded a friendly greeting at Ridley.

"Our luck held up all right. I see you been doin' some fancy shootin'."

Arthur looked at him. The eyes of the Easterner were full of timid doubt. What did this game Texan think of him who had proposed to leave a wounded man to his fate? The Ranger beamed a kindly comradeship, but the other young fellow wondered what was passing in the back of his mind.

They held a committee on ways and means about Dinsmore.

"We can't stay here—got to get him to town where he can be fixed up," Jumbo said.

"We'll take him over to the other bank and send for a buckboard," decided Jack.

The wounded man was carried to the head of the island, and strapped to the back of a horse. Jumbo, Roberts, and Ridley guided the horse into the current and helped it fight through to the shallow water beyond.

Twenty-four hours later Dinsmore was in bed in Tascosa. Dr. Bridgman said, with the usual qualification about complications, that the man probably would get well. The bullet had not punctured his lungs.



CHAPTER XXIII

A SHY YOUNG MAN DINES

Ramona met Arthur Ridley face to face just outside of the post-office.

"You dandy boy!" she cried, and held out both hands to him. Her eyes were shining. The gifts of friendship and admiration were in them.

He could not find a word to say. A lump rose in his throat and choked him.

"It was just fine of you—fine!" she told him. "I was so glad to hear that a friend of mine did it. You are still my friend, aren't you?"

"If you'll let me be," he said humbly. "But—I haven't done anything to deserve it."

"Everybody's praising you because you stayed with that Dinsmore man and saved his life at the risk of your own—after he had treated you so mean too. I'm so proud of you."

"You needn't be," he answered bluntly. "I wanted to slip away and leave him. I—I proposed it to Jack Roberts. But he wouldn't have it. He laid the law down. One of us had to go, one stay. I hadn't the nerve to go, so I stayed."

"I don't believe it—not for a minute," came her quick, indignant response. "And if you did—what of it? It isn't what we want to do that counts. It's what we really do!"

He shook his head wistfully. He would have liked to believe her, but he felt there was no credit due him.

"I fought because I had to if I was going to save my own skin. I haven't told any one else this, but I can't have you thinking me game when I know I'm not."

"Was it to save yourself you flung yourself down in front of father and let that awful man Dinsmore shoot at you?" she demanded, eyes flashing.

"A fellow can't stand by and see some one murdered without lifting a hand. I didn't have time to get frightened that time."

"Well, all I've got to say is that you're the biggest goose I ever saw, Art Ridley. Here you've done two fine things and you go around trying to show what a big coward you are."

He smiled gravely. "I'm not advertising it. I told you because—"

"—Because you're afraid I'll think too well of you."

"Because I want you to know me as I am."

"Then if I'm to know you as you are I'll have to get a chance to see what you really are. Dad and Auntie and I will expect you to supper to-morrow night."

"Thank you. I'll be there."

Casually she enlarged her invitation. "I don't suppose you'll see that very shy young man, Mr. Roberts."

"I might."

"Then, will you ask him to come too? I'm going to find out whether you acted as scared as you say you did."

"Jack knows how scared I was, but he won't tell. Sure I'll get word to him."

He did. At precisely six o'clock the two young men appeared at the home of Clint Wadley's sister. The Ranger was a very self-conscious guest. It was the first time he had dined with ladies at their home since he had lost his own mother ten years earlier. He did not know what to do with his hands and feet. The same would have been true of his hat if Ramona had not solved that problem by taking it from him. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He felt a good deal warmer than the actual temperature of the room demanded.

But Ramona noticed from the background that as soon as she and her aunt retired from the scene his embarrassment vanished. This slim, brown young man was quite at his ease with Clint Wadley, much more so than young Ridley. He was essentially a man's man, and his young hostess liked him none the less for that.

She made a chance to talk with him alone after supper. They were standing in the parlor near the window. Ramona pressed the end of her little finger against a hole in the pane.

"I wonder if you'd like me to sing 'Swanee River' for you, Mr. Roberts?" she asked.

He did not mind being teased. By this time he had regained his confidence. He had discovered that she would not bite even though she might laugh at him in a friendly way.

"You sing it fine," he said.

"I wasn't singing it for you the other time, but for Mr.—what's-his-name, Gurley?"

"I couldn't very well have you keep shoutin' out, 'I'm a girl,' so I figured—?"

"I know what you figured, sir. You wanted to take all the chances that were taken. Father says it was the quickest-witted thing he ever knew." She shot another dart at him, to his confusion. "Do you like my voice?"

"Well, ma'am, I—"

"You don't have to tell any stories. I see you don't."

Jack took heart. "If you're fishin' for a compliment—"

"What a tactful thing to tell a girl," she said, smiling.

"—I'll tell you that I never heard you sing better."

"Or worse, for that matter," she added; and with one of her swift changes of mood switched the topic of conversation. "How do you like Art Ridley?"

"He'll do to take along."

"That's not the way he talks. He says he—he wanted to run away from the island and leave that man Dinsmore, but you wouldn't let him." Her eyes met his very directly.

"He's a great lad for imaginin' things. I never want to see any one hold up his end better."

"You mean that he didn't say he wanted to leave Dinsmore?"

With her gaze searching him so steadily, it had to be an out-and-out lie to serve. Jack lied competently. "Not a word."

Her little finger tapped the hole in the pane gently while she reflected. "He told me—"

"That boy's still worryin' about losin' that money for Mr. Wadley, don't you reckon? He's got it tucked in his mind that a game man never would have been robbed. So he's decided he must be yellow. Nothin' to it a-tall. No quitter ever would have stood off those Kiowas like he did."

"That's what I think." She turned to the Ranger again, nodding agreement. "You've relieved my mind. I shouldn't like to think that—"

She let her sentence trail out to nothing. Jack Roberts guessed its conclusion. She wouldn't like to think that the man she loved was not game.



CHAPTER XXIV

TEX BORROWS A BLACKSNAKE

Dinsmore recovered from his wound and was held prisoner by Captain Ellison for a month after he was well. Then the ranger captain dismissed the man with a warning.

"Skedaddle, you damn jayhawker," was his cavalier farewell. "But listen. If ever I get the deadwood on you an' yore outfit, I'll sure put you through. You know me, Dinsmore. I went through the war. For two years I took the hides off'n 'em.[5] I'm one of the lads that knocked the bark off this country. An' I've got the best bunch of man-hunters you ever did see. I'm not braggin'. I'm tellin' you that my boys will make you look like a plugged nickel if you don't get shet of yore meanness. They're a hell-poppin' bunch of jim-dandies, an' don't you ever forget it."

Homer Dinsmore spat tobacco-juice on the floor by way of expressing his contempt. "Hell!" he sneered. "We were doin' business in this neck of the woods before ever you come, an' we'll be here after you've gone."

The Ranger Captain gave a little shrug to his shoulders. "Some folks ain't got any more sense than that hog rootin' under the pecan tree, Dinsmore. I've seen this country when you could swap a buffalo-bull hide for a box of cartridges or a plug o' tobacco. You cayn't do it now, can you? I had thirty wagons full of bales of hides at old Fort Griffin two years ago. Now I couldn't fill one with the best of luck. In five years the buffaloes will be gone absolutely—mebbe in less time. The Indians are goin' with the buffaloes-an' the bad-men are a-goin' to travel the same trail. Inside of three years they'll sure be hard to find outside of jails. But you got to go yore own way. You're hard to curry, an' you wear 'em low. Suits me if it does you. We'll plant you with yore boots on, one of these days."

Dinsmore swaggered from the jail and presently rode out of town to join his companions. Three days later an acquaintance stopped Jack Roberts on the street.

"Seen Cap Ellison this mo'nin'? He was down at the shippin'-pen an' wanted to see you. The old man's hot as a ginger-mill about somethin'."

The Ranger strolled down toward the cattle-yards. On the way he met Arthur Ridley. They had come to be pretty good friends in the past month. The standards of the Texan were undergoing revision. He had been brought up in an outdoor school which taught that the rock-bottom factor of a man's character is gameness. Without it nothing else counted. This was as vital for a man as virtue for a woman. But it had begun to reach him that pluck is largely a matter of training. Arthur had lived soft, and his nerve, like his muscles, needed toughening. Were his gayety, his loyalty, his fundamental decency, the affectionate sweetness of his disposition, to count for nothing? He had a dozen advantages that Jack had not, and the cowboy admired him even though he was not hard as a rock.

"Have you spoken to Captain Ellison yet?" asked Ridley eagerly.

"Says he's thinkin' about it, Art. There's goin' to be a vacancy on the force soon. My notion is that you'll get the appointment."

It was a part of Ridley's charm for the Texan that he would not give up to his timidity. The young fellow meant to fight it out to a finish. That was one of the reasons why he wanted to join the Rangers, to be put in places that would force him to go through to a fighting finish. He had one other reason. Arthur wanted to settle a score with the Dinsmores.

Captain Ellison was listening to the complaint of a drover.

"I aim to drive a clean herd, Cap, but you know how it is yore own self. I start to drive in the spring when the hair's long an' the brand's hard to read. By the time I get here, the old hair is fallin' out an' the brand is plain. But what's a fellow to do? I cayn't drop those off-brands by the way, can I? The inspector—"

"That's all right, Steel. The inspector knows you're on the level. Hello, Jack! I been lookin' for you."

The Captain drew his man to one side. "Steve Gurley's in town. He came as a spokesman for the Dinsmores an' went to see Clint Wadley. The damn scoundrel served notice on Clint that the gang had written evidence which tied Ford up with their deviltry. He said if Clint didn't call me off so's I'd let 'em alone, they would disgrace his son's memory. Of course Wadley is all broke up about it. But he's no quitter. He knows I'm goin' through, an' he wouldn't expect me not to do the work I'm paid for."

"Do you want me to arrest Gurley?"

"Wouldn't do any good. No; just keep tabs on the coyote till he leaves town. He ought to be black-snaked, but that's not our business, I reckon."

Ridley walked back with the Ranger toward the main street of the town. From round a corner there came to them a strident voice.

"You stay right here, missy, till I'm through. I'm tellin' you about yore high-heeled brother. See? He was a rustler. That's what he was—a low-down thief and brand-blotter."

"Let me pass. I won't listen to you." The clear young voice was expressive of both indignation and fear.

"Not a step till I'm through tellin' you. Me, I'm Steve Gurley, the curly-haired terror of the Panhandle. When I talk, you listen. Un'erstand?"

The speech of the man was thick with drink. He had spent the night at the Bird Cage and was now on his way to the corral for his horse.

"You take Miss Ramona home. I'll tend to Gurley," said Roberts curtly to his friend. Into his eyes had come a cold rage Arthur had never before seen there.

At sight of them the bully's brutal insolence vanished. He tried to pass on his way, but the Ranger stopped him.

"Just a moment, Gurley. You're goin' with me," said Jack, ominously quiet.

White and shaken, 'Mona bit her lip to keep from weeping. She flashed one look of gratitude at her father's former line-rider, and with a little sob of relief took Ridley's offered arm.

"You got a warrant for me?" bluffed the outlaw.

At short range there is no weapon more deadly than the human eye. Jack Roberts looked at the bully and said: "Give me yore gun."

Steve Gurley shot his slant look at the Ranger, considered possibilities—and did as he was told.

"Now right about face and back-track uptown," ordered the officer.

At McGuffey's store Jack stopped his prisoner. A dozen punchers and cattlemen were hanging about. Among them was Jumbo Wilkins. He had a blacksnake whip in his hand and was teasing a pup with it. The Ranger handed over to Jumbo his guns and borrowed the whip.

Gurley backed off in a sudden alarm. "Don't you touch me! Don't you dass touch me! I'll cut yore heart out if you do."

The lash whistled through the air and wound itself cruelly round the legs of the bully. The man gave a yell of rage and pain. He lunged forward to close with Roberts, and met a driving left that caught him between the eyes and flung him back. Before he could recover the Ranger had him by the collar at arm's length and the torture of the whip was maddening him. He cursed, struggled, raved, threatened, begged for mercy. He tried to fling himself to the ground. He wept tears of agony. But there was no escape from the deadly blacksnake that was cutting his flesh to ribbons.

Roberts, sick at the thing he had been doing, flung the shrieking man aside and leaned up against the wall of the store.

Jumbo came across to him and offered his friend a drink.

"You'll feel better if you take a swallow of old forty-rod," he promised.

The younger man shook his head. "Much obliged, old-timer. I'm all right now. It was a kind of sickenin' job, but I had to do it or kill him."

"What was it all about?" asked Jumbo eagerly. The fat line-rider was a good deal of a gossip and loved to know the inside of every story.

Jack cast about for a reason. "He—he said I had red hair."

"Well, you old son of a mule-skinner, what's the matter with that? You have, ain't you?" demanded the amazed Wilkins.

"Mebbe I have, but he can't tell me so."

That was all the satisfaction the public ever got. It did a good deal of guessing, however, and none of it came near the truth.

[Footnote 5: To "take the hides off'n 'em" was the expressive phraseology in which the buffalo-hunter described his business.]



CHAPTER XXV

"THEY'RE RUNNIN' ME OUTA TOWN"

Jumbo Wilkins came wheezing into the Sunset Trail corral, where Jack Roberts was mending a broken bridle. "'Lo, Tex. Looks like you're gittin' popular, son. Folks a-comin' in fifty miles for to have a little talk with you."

The eyes of the Ranger grew intelligent. He knew Jumbo's habit of mind. The big line-rider always made the most of any news he might have.

"Friends of mine?" asked Jack casually.

"Well, mebbe friends ain't just the word. Say acquaintances. You know 'em well enough to shoot at and to blacksnake 'em, but not well enough to drink with."

"Did they say they wanted to see me?"

"A nod is as good as a wink to a blind bronc. They said they'd come to make you hard to find."

The Ranger hammered down a rivet carefully. "Many of 'em?"

"Two this trip. One of 'em used to think yore topknot was red. I dunno what he thinks now."

"And the other?"

"Carries the brand of Overstreet."

"Where are these anxious citizens, Jumbo?"

"Last I saw of 'em they were at the Bird Cage lappin' up another of the same. They've got business with Clint Wadley, too, they said."

Jack guessed that business was blackmail. It occurred to him that since these visitors had come to town to see him, he had better gratify their desire promptly. Perhaps after they had talked with him they might not have time to do their business with Wadley.

As Jumbo waddled uptown beside him, Roberts arranged the details of his little plan. They separated at the corner of the street a block from the Bird Cage. Wilkins had offered to lend a hand, but his friend defined the limit of the help he might give.

"You come in, shake hands with me, an' ask that question. Then you're through. Understand, Jumbo?"

"Sure. But I want to tell you again Overstreet is no false-alarm bad-man. He'll fight at the drop of the hat. That's his reputation, anyhow—wears 'em low an' comes a-shootin'."

"I'll watch out for him. An' I'll look for you in about three minutes."

"Me, I'll be there, son, and I wish you the best of luck."

Gurley was at the bar facing the door when the Ranger walked into the Bird Cage. He had been just ready to gulp down another drink, but as his eyes fell on this youth who came forward with an elastic step the heart died within him. It had been easy while the liquor was in his brain to brag of what he meant to do. It was quite another thing to face in battle this brown, competent youth who could hit silver dollars in the air with a revolver.

His companion read in Gurley's sallow face the dismay that had attacked him. Overstreet turned and faced the newcomer. The outlaw was a short, heavy-set man with remarkably long arms. He had come from Trinidad, Colorado, and brought with him the reputation of a killer. His eyes looked hard at the red-haired youngster, but he made no comment.

Jack spoke to the bartender. He looked at neither of the bad-men, but he was very coolly and alertly on guard.

"Joe, I left my blacksnake at home," he said. "Have you got one handy?"

"Some guys are lucky, Steve," jeered Overstreet, taking his cue from the Ranger. "Because you fell over a box and this fellow beat you up while you was down, he thinks he's a regular go-getter. He looks to me like a counterfeit four-bit piece, if anybody asks you."

Jumbo Wilkins puffed into the place and accepted the Ranger's invitation to take a drink.

"What makes you so gaunted, Jack? You look right peaked," he commented as they waited for their drinks.

"Scared stiff, Jumbo. I hear two wild an' woolly bad-men are after me. One is a tall, lopsided, cock-eyed rooster, an' the other is a hammered-down sawed-off runt. They sure have got me good an' scared. I've been runnin' ever since I heard they were in town."

Gurley gulped down his drink and turned toward the door hastily. "Come, let's go, Overstreet. I got to see a man."

The Texan and the Coloradoan looked at each other with steel-cold eyes. They measured each other in deadly silence, and while one might have counted twenty the shadow of death hovered over the room. Then Overstreet made his choice. The bragging had all been done by Gurley. He could save his face without putting up a fight.

"Funny how some folks are all blown up by a little luck," he sneered, and he followed his friend to the street.

"You got 'em buffaloed sure, Jack. Tell me how you do it," demanded Jumbo with a fat grin.

"I'm the law, Jumbo."

"Go tell that to the Mexicans, son. What do you reckon a killer like Overstreet cares for the law? He figured you might down him before he could gun you—didn't want to risk an even break with you."

The Ranger poured his untasted liquor into the spittoon and settled the bill. "Think I'll drop around to the Silver Dollar an' see if my birds have lit again."

At the Silver Dollar Jack found his friend the ex-Confederate doing business with another cattleman.

"I'd call that a sorry-lookin' lot, Winters," he was saying. "I know a jackpot bunch of cows when I see 'em. They look to me like they been fed on short grass an' shin-oak." His face lighted at sight of the Ranger. "Hello, brindle-haid! Didn't know you was in town."

The quick eye of the officer had swept over the place and found the two men he wanted sitting inconspicuously at a small table.

"I'm not here for long, Sam. Two genuwine blown-in-the-bottle bad-men are after my scalp. They're runnin' me outa town. Seen anything of 'em? They belong to the Dinsmore outfit."

The old soldier looked at him with a sudden startled expression. He knew well what men were sitting against the wall a few steps from him. This was talk that might have to be backed by a six-shooter. Bullets were likely to be flying soon.

"You don't look to me like you're hittin' yore heels very fast to make a get-away, Jack," he said dryly.

"I'm sure on the jump. They're no bully-puss kind of men, but sure enough terrors from the chaparral. If I never get out o' town, ship my saddle in a gunny-sack to my brother at Dallas."

"Makin' yore will, are you?" inquired Joe Johnston's former trooper.

The red-haired man grinned. "I got to make arrangements. They came here to get me. Two of 'em—bad-men with blood in their eyes." He hummed, with jaunty insolence:

"He's a killer and a hater! He's the great annihilator! He's a terror of the boundless prai-ree.

"That goes double. I'm certainly one anxious citizen. Don't you let 'em hurt me, Sam."

There was a movement at the table where the two men were sitting. One of them had slid from his chair and was moving toward the back door.

The Ranger pretended to catch sight of him for the first time. "Hello, Gurley! What's yore hurry? Got to see another man, have you?"

The rustler did not wait to answer. He vanished through the door and fled down the alley in the direction of the corral. Overstreet could do as he pleased, but he intended to slap a saddle on his horse and make tracks for the cap-rock country.

Overstreet himself was not precisely comfortable in his mind, but he did not intend to let a smooth-faced boy run him out of the gambling-house before a dozen witnesses. If he had to fight, he would fight. But in his heart he cursed Gurley for a yellow-backed braggart. The fellow had got him into this and then turned tail. The man from Colorado wished devoutly that Pete Dinsmore were beside him.

"You're talkin' at me, young fellow. Listen: I ain't lookin' for any trouble with you—none a-tall. But I'm not Steve Gurley. Where I come from, folks grow man-size. Don't lean on me too hard. I'm liable to decrease the census of red-haired guys."

Overstreet rose and glared at him, but at the same time one hand was reaching for his hat.

"You leavin' town too, Mr. Overstreet?" inquired the Ranger.

"What's it to you? I'll go when I'm ready."

"'We shall meet, but we shall miss you—there will be one vacant chair,'" murmured the young officer, misquoting a song of the day. "Seems like there's nothin' to this life but meetin' an' partin'. Here you are one minute, an' in a quarter of an hour you're hittin' the high spots tryin' to catch up with friend Steve."

"Who said so? I'll go when I'm good an' ready," reiterated the bad-man.

"Well, yore bronc needs a gallop to take the kinks out of his legs. Give my regards to the Dinsmores an' tell 'em that Tascosa is no sort of place for shorthorns or tinhorns."

"Better come an' give them regards yore own self."

"Mebbe I will, one of these glad mo'nin's. So long, Mr. Overstreet. Much obliged to you an' Steve for not massacreein' me."

The ironic thanks of the Ranger were lost, for the killer from Colorado was already swaggering out of the front door.

The old Confederate gave a whoop of delight. "I never did see yore match, you doggoned old scalawag. You'd better go up into Mexico and make Billy the Kid[6] eat out of yore hand. This tame country is no place for you, Jack."

Roberts made his usual patient explanation. "It's the law. They can't buck the whole Lone Star State. If he shot me, a whole passel of Rangers would be on his back pretty soon. So he hits the trail instead." He turned to Ridley, who had just come into the Silver Dollar. "Art, will you keep cases on Overstreet an' see whether he leaves town right away?"

A quarter of an hour later Ridley was back with information.

"Overstreet's left town—lit out after Gurley."

The old Rebel grinned. "He won't catch him this side of the cap-rock."

[Footnote 6: Billy The Kid was the most notorious outlaw of the day. He is said to have killed twenty-one men before Sheriff Pat Garrett killed him at the age of twenty-one years.]



CHAPTER XXVI

FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Mr. Peter Dinsmore was of both an impulsive and obstinate disposition. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. Somewhere he had heard that if a man desired his business well done, he must do it himself. Gurley had proved a poor messenger. Peter would call upon Clint Wadley in person and arrange an armistice.

He had another and a more urgent reason for getting to town promptly. A jumping toothache had kept him awake all night. After he reached Tascosa, Dinsmore was annoyed to find that Dr. Bridgman had ridden down the river to look after the fractured leg of a mule-skinner.

"Isn't there any one else in this condemned burg can pull teeth?" he demanded irritably of the bartender at the Bird Cage.

"There certainly is. Buttermilk Brown is a sure-enough dentist. He had to take to bull-whackin' for to make a livin', but I reckon he's not forgot how. You'll probably find him sleepin' off a hang-over at the Four-Bit Corral."

This prophecy proved true, but Dinsmore was not one to let trifles turn him aside. He led the reluctant ex-dentist to a water-trough and soused his head under the pump.

"Is that a-plenty?" he asked presently, desisting from his exercise with the pump-handle.

Buttermilk sputtered a half-drowned assent. His nerves were still jumpy, and his head was not clear, but he had had enough cold water. Heroic treatment of this sort was not necessary to fit him for pulling a tooth.

They adjourned to the room where Buttermilk had stored his professional tools. Dinsmore indicated the back tooth that had to come out. The dentist peered at it, inserted his forceps and set to work. The tooth came out hard, but at last he exhibited its long prongs to the tortured victim.

"We get results," said Buttermilk proudly.

"How much?" asked Pete.

It happened that the dentist did not know his patient. He put a price of five dollars on the job. Dinsmore paid it and walked with Buttermilk to the nearest saloon for a drink.

Pete needed a little bracer. The jumping pain still pounded like a piledriver at his jaw. While the bartender was handing him a glass and a bottle, Dinsmore caressed tenderly the aching emptiness and made a horrible discovery. Buttermilk Brown had pulled the wrong tooth.

Considering his temperament, Pete showed remarkable self-restraint. He did not slay Buttermilk violently and instantly. Instead he led him back to the room of torture.

"You pulled the wrong tooth, you drunken wreck," he said in effect, but in much more emphatic words. "Now yank out the right one, and if you make another mistake—"

He did not finish the threat, but it is possible that Buttermilk understood. The dentist removed with difficulty the diseased molar.

"Well, we're through now," he said cheerfully. "I don't know as I ought to charge you for that last one. I'll leave that to you to say."

"We're not quite through," corrected the patient. "I'm goin' to teach you to play monkey-shines with Pete Dinsmore's teeth." He laid a large revolver on the table and picked up the forceps. "Take that chair, you bowlegged, knock-kneed, run-down runt."

Buttermilk protested in vain. He begged the bad-man for mercy with tears in his eyes.

"I'm goin' to do Scripture to you, and then some," explained Dinsmore. "It says in the Bible a tooth for a tooth, but I aim to pay good measure."

The amateur dentist pulled four teeth and played no favorites. A molar, a bicuspid, a canine, and an incisor were laid in succession on the table.

Buttermilk Brown wept with rage and pain.

"Four times five is twenty. Dig up twenty dollars for professional services," said Pete.

His tearful patient paid the fee. This was the most painful, violent, and high-handed episode of Buttermilk's young life. Never in Shelbyville, Indiana, from which town he had migrated hopefully westward with his diploma, had such outrages been heard of.

The instruments of Providence are sometimes strange ones. Nobody would have picked Pete Dinsmore for a reformer, but he changed the course of one young dentist's life. Buttermilk fled from the Southwest in horror, took the pledge eagerly, returned to Shelbyville and married the belle of the town. He became a specialist in bridge-work, of which he carried a golden example in his own mouth. His wife has always understood that Dr. Brown—nobody ever called him Buttermilk in his portly, prosperous Indiana days—lost his teeth trying to save a child from a runaway. Be that as it may, there is no record that he ever again pulled the wrong tooth for a patient.

Having completed his deed of justice, Dinsmore in high good humor with himself set out to call on Clint Wadley. He had made an inoffensive human being suffer, and that is always something to a man's credit. If he could not do any better, Pete would bully a horse, but he naturally preferred humans. They were more sensitive to pain.



CHAPTER XXVII

CLINT FREES HIS MIND

Wadley was sitting on the porch with Ramona. He was still a semi-invalid, and when he exercised too much his daughter scolded him like the little mother she was.

"Keep me here much longer, an' I'll turn into a regular old gossip in breeches," he complained. "I'll be Jumbo Wilkins Number Two, like as not."

"Is Jumbo a specialist in gossip?" asked Ramona. She liked to get her father at reminiscences. It helped to pass time that hung heavy on his hands.

"Is he? Girl, he could talk a hind leg off'n a buckskin mule, Jumbo could." He stopped to chuckle. "Oncet, when we were drivin' a bunch of yearlin's on the Brazos, one of the boys picked up an old skull. Prob'ly some poor fellow killed by the Indians. Anyhow, that night when Jumbo was wound up good, one of the lads pretended to discover that skull an' brought it into the camp-fire light. Some one had wrote on it: 'Talked to death by Jumbo Wilkins.'"

'Mona rather missed the point. She was watching a man slouching down the road toward them. He was heavy-set and unwieldy, and he wore a wrinkled suit of butternut jeans.

The eyes of the cattleman chilled. "You go into the house, 'Mona. That fellow's Pete Dinsmore. I don't want you to meet him."

"Don't you, Dad?" The heart of the girl fluttered at sight of this man who had nearly killed her father, but it was not fear but anger that burned in her eyes. "I'm going to sit right here. What does he want? He's not coming—to make trouble, is he?"

"No. We've got business to settle. You run along in."

"I know what your business is. It's—about Ford."

He looked at her in surprised dismay. "Who told you that, honey?"

"I'll tell you about that after he's gone. I want to stay, Dad, to show him that I know all about it, and that we're not going to let him carry out any blackmailing scheme against us."

Dinsmore nodded grouchily as he came up the walk to the house. Wadley did not ask him to sit down, and since there were no unoccupied chairs the rustler remained standing.

"I got to have a talk with you, Clint," the outlaw said. "Send yore girl into the house."

"She'll listen to anything you have to say, Dinsmore. Get through with it soon as you can, an' hit the trail," said the cattleman curtly.

The other man flushed darkly. "You talk mighty biggity these days. I remember when you wasn't nothin' but a busted line-rider."

"Mebbeso. And before that I was a soldier in the army while you was doin' guerrilla jayhawkin'."

"Go ahead. Say anything you've a mind to, Clint. I'll make you pay before I'm through with you," answered the bad-man venomously.

"You will if you can; I know that. You're a bad lot, Dinsmore, you an' yore whole outfit. I'm glad Ellison an' his Rangers are goin' to clear you out of the country. A sure-enough good riddance, if any one asks me."

The cattleman looked hard at him. He too had been a fighting man, but it was not his reputation for gameness that restrained the ruffian. Wadley was a notch too high for him. He could kill another bad-man or some drunken loafer and get away with it. But he had seen the sentiment of the country when his brother had wounded the cattleman. It would not do to go too far. Times were changing in the Panhandle. Henceforth lawlessness would have to travel by night and work under cover. With the coming of the Rangers, men who favored law were more outspoken. Dinsmore noticed that they deferred less to him, partly, no doubt, because of what that fool boy Roberts had done without having yet had to pay for it.

"That's what I've come to see you about, Wadley. I'm not lookin' for trouble, but I never ran away from it in my life. No livin' man can lay on me without hell poppin'. You know it."

"Is that what you came to tell me, Dinsmore?" asked the owner of the A T O, his mouth set grim and hard.

There was an ugly look on the face of the outlaw, a cold glitter of anger in his deep-set eyes. "I hear you set the world an' all by that girl of yours there. Better send her in, Wadley. I'm loaded with straight talk."

The girl leaned forward in the chair. She looked at him with a flash of disdainful eyes in which was a touch of feminine ferocity. But she let her father answer the man.

"Go on," said the old Texan. "Onload what you've got to say, an' then pull yore freight."

"Suits me, Clint. I'm here to make a bargain with you. Call Ellison off. Make him let me an' my friends alone. If you don't, we're goin' to talk—about yore boy Ford." The man's upper lip lifted in a grin. He looked first at the father, then at the daughter.

There was a tightening of the soft, round throat, but she met his look without wincing. The pallor of her face lent accent to the contemptuous loathing of the slender girl.

"What are you goin' to say—that you murdered him, shot him down from behind?" demanded Wadley.

"That's a lie, Clint. You know who killed him—an' why he did it. Ford couldn't let the girls alone. I warned him as a friend, but he was hell-bent on havin' his own way."

The voice of the cattleman trembled. "Some day—I'm goin' to hunt you down like a wolf for what you did to my boy."

A lump jumped to Ramona's throat. She slipped her little hand into the big one of her father, and with it went all her sympathy and all her love.

"You're 'way off, Wadley. The boy was our friend. Why should we shoot him?" asked the man from the chaparral.

"Because he interfered with you when you robbed my messenger."

The startled eyes of the outlaw jumped to meet those of the cattleman. For a fraction of a second he was caught off his guard. Then the film of wary craftiness covered them again.

"That's plumb foolishness, Clint. The Mexican—what's his name?—killed Ford because he was jealous, an' if it hadn't been for you, he'd 'a' paid for it long ago. But that ain't what I came to talk about. I'm here to tell you that I've got evidence to prove that Ford was a rustler an' a hold-up. If it comes to a showdown, we're goin' to tell what we know. Mebbe you want folks to know what kind of a brother yore girl had. That's up to you."

Wadley exploded in a sudden fury of passion. "I'll make no bargain with the murderer of my boy. Get out of here, you damned yellow wolf. I don't want any truck with you at all till I get a chance to stomp you down like I would a rattler."

The bad-man bared his fangs. For one moment of horror Ramona thought he was going to strike like the reptile to which her father had compared him. He glared at the cattleman, the impulse strong in him to kill and be done with it. But the other side of him—the caution that had made it possible for him to survive so long in a world of violent men—held his hand until the blood-lust passed from his brain.

"You've said a-plenty," he snarled thickly. "Me, I've made my last offer to you. It's war between me 'n' you from now on."

He turned away and went slouching down the path to the road.

The two on the porch watched him out of sight. The girl had slipped inside her father's arm and was sobbing softly on his shoulder.

"There, honeybug, now don't you—don't you," Clint comforted. "He cayn't do us any harm. Ellison's hot on his trail. I'll give him six months, an' then he's through. Don't you fret, sweetheart. Daddy will look out for you all right."

"I—I wasn't thinking about me," she whispered.

Both of them were thinking of the dead boy and the threat to blacken his memory, but neither of them confessed it to the other. Wadley cast about for something to divert her mind and found it in an unanswered question of his own.

"You was goin' to tell me how come you to know what he wanted to talk with me about," the father reminded her.

"You remember that day when Arthur Ridley brought me home?"

He nodded assent.

"One of the Dinsmore gang—the one they call Steve Gurley—met me on the street. He was drunk, an' he stopped me to tell me about—Ford. I tried to pass, an' he wouldn't let me. He frightened me. Then Arthur an' Mr. Roberts came round the corner. Arthur came home with me, an'—you know what happened in front of McGuffey's store."

The face of the girl had flushed a sudden scarlet. Her father stared at her in an amazement that gave way to understanding. Through his veins there crashed a wave of emotion. If he had held any secret grudge against Tex Roberts, it vanished forever that moment. This was the kind of son he would have liked to have himself.

"By ginger, that was what he beat Gurley up for! Nobody knows why, an' Roberts kept the real reason under his hat. He's a prince, Jack Roberts is. I did that boy a wrong, 'Mona, an' guessed it all the time, just because he had a mixup with Ford. He wasn't to blame for that, anyhow, I've been told."

Ramona felt herself unaccountably trembling. There was a queer little lump in her throat, but she knew it was born of gladness.

"He's been good to me," she said, and told of the experience with the traveling salesman on the stage.

Clint Wadley laughed. "I never saw that boy's beat. He's got everything a fellow needs to win. I can tell you one thing; he's goin' to get a chance to run the A T O for me before he's forty-eight hours older. He'll be a good buy, no matter what salary he sticks me for."

'Mona became aware that she was going to break down—and "make a little fool of herself," as she would have put it.

"I forgot to water my canary," she announced abruptly.

The girl jumped up, ran into the house and to her room. But if the canary was suffering from thirst, it remained neglected. Ramona's telltale face was buried in a pillow. She was not quite ready yet to look into her own eyes and read the message they told.



CHAPTER XXVIII

ON A COLD TRAIL

"Dog it, Jack, we got to go after the Dinsmores," said Ellison, pounding the table with his fist. "I've just had a letter from the old man wantin' to know why we don't get results. It's not the Ranger policy to wait for outlaws to come to us. We go after 'em."

Tex smiled cheerfully. "Suits me fine. What are your instructions, Captain? Want me to arrest Homer Dinsmore again?"

"What would I do with him if you got him?" snapped the old-timer.

"You could turn him loose again," suggested Roberts, not entirely without sarcasm.

"If you boys were worth the powder to blow you-all up—!" exploded the veteran.

"Instead of bein' a jackpot bunch of triflin' no-account scalawags," murmured Jack.

"—You'd hustle out an' get evidence against 'em."

"Sounds reasonable." The Ranger lifted his heels to the seat of a second chair and rolled him a cigarette.

"You'd find out where they're hidin' the cattle they rustle."

"Are you givin' me an assignment, Captain?"

"You done said it, son. There's a bunch of rustled stock up in the rocks somewheres. You know it. Question is, can you find the cache?"

"I can try."

"Wasn't it you told me once about bumpin' into a rustler doin' business whilst you was ridin' the line?"

"At the mouth of Box Canon—yes."

"Well, wha's the matter with you scoutin' up Box Canon an' seein' what you find?"

"They're roostin' up there somewheres. I'll bet a hat on that."

"How many boys you want with you?"

Jack considered. "One. I'll take Ridley if you don't mind."

"He's a tenderfoot," suggested Ellison doubtfully. "Won't be of any help to you a-tall in cutting sign. If you leave him he's liable to get lost. Better take Moser, hadn't you?"

"Rather have Ridley. He doesn't claim to know it all. Besides, we've got to break him in sometime."

"Suits me if he does you. It's yore party."

"We'll start in the mo'nin'."

"The sooner the quicker," agreed the Captain. "I want the old man to know we're not spendin' our time settin' around a office. He's got no call to crawl my hump when you boys are doin' the best you can. Well, go to it, son. See if you-all can get evidence that will stand up so's we can collect that bunch of hawss-thieves."

Before daybreak the two Rangers were on their way. They drove a pack-horse, their supplies loaded on a sawbuck saddle with kyacks. Jack had been brought up in the Panhandle. He knew this country as a seventh-grade teacher does her geography. Therefore he cut across the desert to the cap-rock, thence to Dry Creek, and so by sunset to Box Canon. At the mouth of the gulch they slept under the stars. As soon as they had cooked their coffee and bacon Roberts stamped out the fire.

"We don't want to advertise we're here. I'm some particular about my health. I'd hate to get dry-gulched[7] on this job," said Jack.

"Would the Dinsmores shoot us if they found us?" asked Ridley, searching with his head for the softest spot in his saddle for a pillow.

"Would a calf milk its mother? They're sore as a toad at me, an' I expect that goes for any other Ranger too. Homer might give us an even break because we stayed with him on the island, but I'd hate to bet my head on that."

"If we get any evidence against them they can't afford to let us go," agreed Arthur.

"An' if they jump us up, how're they goin' to know how much we've seen? There's one safe way, an' they would ce'tainly take it."

"Dead men tell no tales, it's said."

"Some of 'em do an' some don't. I never met up with a proverb yet that wasn't 'way off about half the time. For instance, that one you quoted. Rutherford Wadley's body told me considerable. It said that he'd been killed on the bluff above an' flung down; that he'd been shot by a rifle in the hands of a man standin' about a hundred an' fifty yards away; that he'd been taken by surprise an' probably robbed."

"It wouldn't have told me all that."

"Not till you learn to read sign closer than you do. An outdoor education is like a school-book one. You can't learn it in a day or a week or a year."

"You're no Methuselah. There's still hope for me."

"Lots o' hope. It's mostly keepin' yore eyes open an' yore brain workin'. I'm still only in the A B C class, but a fellow learns somethin' every day if he's that kind."

"If it's a matter of brains, why do Indians make the best trailers? You wouldn't say their brains are as good as a white man's, would you?"

"No; an' I'd say there's nothin' on earth an Indian can do as well as a white man, given the same chance to learn it. Indians know the outdoors because they have to know it to live. The desert's no prodigal mother. Her sons have to rustle right smart to keep their tummies satisfied. If the 'Paches and the Kiowas didn't know how to cut sign an' read it, how to hunt an' fish an' follow a trail, they'd all be in their happy huntin' grounds long ago. They're what old Nature has made 'em. But I'll tell you this. When a white man gives his mind to it he understands the life of the plains better than any Indian does. His brains are better, an' he goes back an' looks for causes. The best trailers in the world are whites, not redskins."

"I didn't know that," Arthur said.

"Ask any old-timer if it ain't so."

They were eating breakfast when the light on the horizon announced a new day on the way. Already this light was saturating the atmosphere and dissolving shadows. The vegetation of the plains, the wave rolls of the land, the distant horizon line, became more distinct. By the time the sun pushed into sight the Rangers were in the saddle.

Roberts led through the polecat brush to the summit of a little mesa which overlooked the gulch. Along the edge of the ravine he rode, preferring the bluff to the sandy wash below because the ground was less likely to tell the Dinsmores a story of two travelers riding up Box Canon. At the head of the gorge a faint trail dipped to the left. Painted on a rock was a sign that Jack had seen before.

THIS IS PETE DINSMORE'S ROAD— TAKE ANOTHER.

He grinned reminiscently. "I did last time. I took the back trail under orders."

"Whose orders?" asked Ridley.

"Pete's, I reckon."

"If there's a story goes with that grin—" suggested Arthur.

"No story a-tall. I caught a fellow brandin' a calf below the canon. He waved me around. Some curious to see who the guy was that didn't want to say 'How?' to me, I followed him into Box."

That seemed to be the end of the yarn. At any rate, Jack stopped.

"Well, did you find out who he was?"

"No, but I found this sign, an' above it a rifle slantin' down at me, an' back of the rifle a masked face. The fellow that owned the face advised me about my health."

"What about it?"

"Why, that this rough country wasn't suited to my disposition, temperament, an' general proclivities. So I p'inted back to where I had come from."

"And you never satisfied your curiosity about who the rustler was?"

"Didn't I?" drawled Jack.

"Did you?"

"Mebbe I did. I'm not tellin' that yarn—not to-day."

The country was rougher and hillier. The trail they had been following died away in the hills, but they crossed and recrossed others, made by buffaloes, antelopes, and coyotes driven by the spur of their needs in the years that had passed. Countless generations of desert life had come and gone before even the Indians drifted in to live on the buffalo.

"Why is it that there's more warfare on the desert than there is back East? The cactus has spines. The rattlesnake, the centipede, the Gila monster, the tarantula, all carry poison. Even the toad has a horn. Everywhere it is a fight to survive. The vegetation, as well as the animal life, fights all the time against drought. It's a regular hell on earth," Arthur concluded.

Jack eased himself in the saddle. "Looks kinda like Nature made the desert an' grinned at life, much as to say, 'I defy you to live there,' don't it? Sure there's warfare, but I reckon there's always war between different forms of life. If there wasn't, the world would be rank with all sorts of things crowdin' each other. The war would have to come then after all. Me, I like it. I like the way life came back with an answer to the challenge. It equipped itself with spines an' stings an' horns an' tough hides because it had to have 'em. It developed pores an' stomachs that could get along without much water. Who wants to live in a land where you don't have to rustle for a livin'?"

"You belong to the West. You're of it," Ridley said. "If you'd seen the fine grasslands of the East, the beautiful, well-kept farms and the fat stock, you'd understand what I mean. A fellow gets homesick for them."

Roberts nodded. "I've seen 'em an' I understand. Oncet I went back East an' spent three months there. I couldn't stand it. I got sick for the whinin' of a rope, wanted to hump over the hills after cows' tails. The nice little farms an' the nice little people with their nice little ways kinda cramped me. I reckon in this ol' world it's every one to his own taste." His eye swept the landscape. "Looks like there's water down there. If so, we'll fall off for a spell an' rest the hawsses."

[Footnote 7: A man is said to be "dry-gulched" when he mysteriously disappears,—killed by his enemies and buried under a pile of rocks.]



CHAPTER XXIX

BURNT BRANDS

At the end of the third day of scouting Jack came back to camp late, but jubilant.

"I've found what we're lookin' for, Art. I drifted across a ridge an' looked down into a draw this evenin'. A fellow was ridin' herd on a bunch of cows. They looked to me like a jackpot lot, but I couldn't be sure at that distance. I'm gonna find out what brands they carry."

"How?"

"The only way I know is to get close enough to see."

"Can you do that without being noticed?"

"Mebbe I can. The fellow watchin' the herd ain't expectin' visitors. Probably he loafs on the job some of the time. I'm gamblin' he does."

Roberts unloaded from the saddle the hindquarters of a black-tail deer he had shot just before sunset. He cut off a couple of steaks for supper and Ridley raked together the coals of the fire.

"Throw these into a fry-pan, Art, while I picket old Ten-Penny," said Jack. "I'm sure hungry enough to eat a mail sack. I lay up there in the brush 'most two hours an' that fellow's cookin' drifted to me till I was about ready to march down an' hold him up for it."

"What's the programme?" asked Arthur later, as they lay on their tarpaulins smoking postprandial cigarettes.

"I'll watch for a chance, then slip down an' see what's what. I want to know who the man is an' what brand the stock are carryin'. That's all. If it works out right mebbe we'll gather in the man an' drive the herd back to town."

"Then I go along, do I?"

"Yes, but probably you stay back in the brush till I signal for you to come down. We'll see how the thing works out."

Ridley lay awake for hours beneath a million stars, unable to get his alert nerves quiet enough for sleep. The crisis of his adventure was near and his active imagination was already dramatizing it vividly. He envied his friend, who had dropped into restful slumber the moment his head touched the saddle. He knew that Roberts was not insensitive. He, too, had a lively fancy, but it was relegated to the place of servant rather than master.

In the small hours Arthur fell into troubled sleep and before his eyes were fully shut—as it seemed to the drowsy man—he was roused by his companion pulling the blankets from under him. Ridley sat up. The soft sounds of the desert night had died away, the less subdued ones of day showed that another life was astir.

"Time to get up, Sleepy Haid. Breakfast is ready. Come an' get it," called Jack.

They packed their supplies on the extra horse and saddled their mounts. The day was still young when they struck across the plains to the north. The way they took was a circuitous one, for Roberts was following the draws and valleys as far as possible in order to escape observation.

The sun was high in the heavens when he drew up in the rim-rock.

"We'll 'light here an' picket the broncs," he said.

This done, both men examined their rifles and revolvers carefully to guard against any hitch in the mechanism. Then, still following the low country, they worked forward cautiously for another half-mile.

Jack fell back to give the other Ranger final instructions. "There's a clump of cactus on the summit. We'll lie back o' there. You stay right there when I go forward. If I get the breaks I'll wave you on later. If I don't get 'em you may have to come a-shootin' to help me."

They crept up an incline, wriggling forward on their stomachs the last few yards to the shelter of the cactus on the crest. Before them lay a little valley. On the cactus-covered slope opposite a herd of cattle was grazing. No guard was in sight.

For two hours they lay there silently, watching intently.

"I'll slip down right now an' take a look at the brands," said Jack.

"Hadn't I better come too?"

"You stick right where you're at, Art. I might need a friend under cover to do some fancy shootin' for me if the Dinsmores arrived unexpected."

There was no cover on the near slope. Jack made no attempt to conceal himself, but strode swiftly down into the valley. Goosequills ran up and down his spine, for he did not know at what moment a bullet might come singing down at him.

He reached the outgrazers of the herd and identified the A T O brand on half a dozen cows. The brand had been changed by an adroit touch or two of a running-iron. Probably the cattle were being held here until the hair had grown again enough to conceal the fact of a recent burn.

The Ranger circled the herd, moving toward the brow of the land swell. He made the most of the cactus, but there was an emptiness about the pit of his stomach. If some one happened to be watching him, a single shot would make an end of Tex Roberts. His scalp prickled and drew tight, as though some unseen hand were dragging at it.

From one clump to another he slipped, every sense keyed to alertness. The rifle in his hand, resting easily against the right hip, could be lifted instantly.

At the top of the rise the Ranger waited behind a prickly pear to search the landscape. It rolled away in long low waves to the horizon. A mile or more away, to the left, a faint, thin film of smoke hung lazily in the air. This meant a camp. The rustlers, to play safe, had located it not too near the grazing herd. It was a place, no doubt, where water was handy and from which the outlaws, if caught by surprise, could make a safe and swift retreat to the rim-rock.

Again, in a wide circuit in order not to meet anybody who might be riding from the camp to the herd, the Ranger moved forward warily. The smoke trickle was his guide and his destination.

He took his time. He was in no hurry. Speed was the least part of his programme. Far more important was secrecy. With that patience which the frontiersman has learned from the Indian he followed a tortuous course through the brush.

His trained eye told him the best direction for approach, the side from which he could get nearest to the camp with the least risk of being seen. Through the curly mesquite he crawled, hiding behind the short bushlike clumps until he had chosen the next line of advance. At last, screened by a Spanish bayonet, he commanded a view of the camp.

So far as he could tell it was deserted. Camp equipment lay scattered about. A frying-pan, a coffee-pot, tin cups and plates, had been dropped here and there. The coals of the fire still smouldered and gave forth a wisp of smoke. Fifty yards away a horse was picketed. It was an easy guess that the campers had not gone permanently, but were away from home for a few hours.

Where were they? Recalling the horses he and his companion had left picketed not far away, Jack felt a momentary qualm. If the Dinsmores should happen to stumble on them the situation would be an awkward one. The hunters would become the hunted. Deprived of their horses and supplies, the Rangers would be at a decided disadvantage. The only option left them would be to come to close quarters with the rustlers or to limp back home discouraged and discredited. Roberts preferred not to have his hand forced. He wanted to wait on opportunity and see what it brought him.

He moved forward to the camp and made a swift examination of it. Several men had slept here last night and four had eaten breakfast a few hours since. He could find no extra supplies, which confirmed his opinion that this was only a temporary camp of a night or two. A heavy buzzing of flies in a buffalo wallow not far away drew his steps. The swarm covered a saddle of deer from which enough for a meal had been slashed before it was thrown away.

The Ranger moved nothing. He left no signs other than his tracks to show that a stranger had been at the camp. As soon as he had inspected it he withdrew.

He had decided that the first thing to do was to join Ridley, make sure of their horses, and leave his companion in charge of them. Afterward he could return alone and watch the rustlers.

Since he knew that the rustlers were away from their camp, the Ranger did not feel the need of taking such elaborate precautions against discovery during the return journey. He made a wide circuit, but his long, easy stride carried him swiftly over the ground. Swinging round the valley in which the herd was grazing, he came up from the rear to the brush-covered summit where he had left Ridley.

Arthur had gone. He was nowhere in sight. Nor was there any sign to show where he had gone.

It was possible that some alarm might have sent him back to look after the horses. Jack ran down the incline to the little draw where the animals had been picketed. The broncos were safe, but Ridley was not with them.



CHAPTER XXX

ROGUES DISAGREE

With a heart that pounded queerly Arthur watched his friend cross the valley and work his way to the ridge beyond. Even after Jack had disappeared, he waited, nerves jumpy, for the crack of a rifle to carry news of death in the mesquite.

No tidings of tragedy came. The minutes fulfilled the hour. The many small sounds of the desert were shattered by no report. At last, drowsing in the warmth of the sunlit land, the Ranger's eyes closed, opened, and shut again. He nodded, fell asleep.

When he awakened it was with a shock of dread. His heart died. Four men were watching him. Two of them had him covered with revolvers. A third was just removing noiselessly his rifle and six-shooter from reach of his hand.

He jumped to his feet. The consternation in his eyes showed how completely he had been caught napping.

One of the men—a long, lank, cross-eyed fellow—laughed mockingly, and the sound of his mirth was evil.

"Whatta you doin' here?" demanded one whom he recognized as Pete Dinsmore.

For a moment the Ranger's mind was a blank. He could not make it serve his needs. Words were out of reach of his tongue. Then, "I'm lost," he stammered.

"Are you alone?"

"Yes." Out of his confusion one idea stood up imperatively. He must not betray Jack.

"Where's yore hawss?"

"It—it got away from me."

"When?"

"Last night." It seemed to him that he could keep just one jump ahead of this dominant man's menacing questions.

"Howcome that?"

"I shot a prairie-hen, and when I got down to get it—I don't know—my horse got frightened and jerked away. I tried to catch it. The brute wouldn't let me. Then night came."

"What were you doin' so far from town?" cut in one of the two who were covering him. He was a short, heavy-set man.

"That's right, Dave. Looks funny to me." Gurley seemed fairly to ooze malice. "Just happened to drift here to this herd, I reckon. It sure was yore unlucky day."

Arthur looked from one to another despairingly. He found no hope anywhere, not even in the expressionless face of Homer Dinsmore, who as yet had not spoken a word. There came over the boy what he afterward described as a "gone" feeling. It was the sensation, intensified many times, felt when an elevator drops from under one in swift descent.