The idea intrigued him at once. They might be, and no doubt were, guarding every obscure cellar window, every skylight. To trick them was impossible, but it was always possible to bluff any man—even John Mark and his followers.

Straight across the street marched Ronicky Doone and up the steps of the opposite house and rang the bell—not a timid ring, but two sharp pressures, such as would announce a man in a hurry, a brisk man who did not wish to be delayed.

He took only one precaution, pulling his hat down so that the black shadow of the brim would fall like a robber's mask across the upper part of his face. Then he waited, as a man both hurried and certain, turning a little away from the door, at an angle which still more effectually concealed him, while he tapped impatiently with one foot.

Presently the door opened, after he made certain that someone had looked out at him from the side window. How much had they seen? How much had they guessed as to the identity of this night visitor? The softness of the opening of the door and the whisper of the wind, as it rushed into the hall beyond, were like a hiss of threatening secrecy. And then, from the shadow of that meager opening a voice was saying: "Who's there?"

The very caution, however, reassured Ronicky Doone. Had they suspected that it was he they would either have kept the door definitely closed, or else they would have flung it open and boldly invited him in.

"I want to see Harry Morgan—quick!" he said and stepped close to the door.

At his bold approach the door was closed like the winking of an eye, until it was barely an inch ajar.

"Keep back!" came the warning through this small opening. "Keep clear, bo!"

"Damnation!" exclaimed Ronicky. "What's the idea? I want Harry, I tell you."

"Harry ain't here."

"Just hand me that piece of paper over there, and I'll write out the message," said Ronicky, pointing to the little table just beyond the doorman. The latter turned with a growl, and the moment he was halfway around Ronicky Doone sprang in. His right arm fastened around the head of the unlucky warder and, passing down to his throat, crushed it in a strangle hold. His other hand, darting out in strong precision, caught the right arm of the warder at the wrist and jerked it back between his shoulders. In an instant he was effectively gagged and bound by those two movements, and Ronicky Doone, pausing for an instant to make sure of himself, heard footsteps in the hall above.

It was too late to do what he had hoped, yet he must take his prize out of the way. For that purpose he half carried, half dragged his victim through the doorway and into the adjoining room. There he deposited him on the floor, as near death as life. Relaxing his hold on the man's throat, he whipped out his Colt and tucked the cold muzzle under the chin of the other.

"Now don't stir," he said; "don't whisper, don't move a muscle. Partner, I'm Ronicky Doone. Now talk quick. Where's Ruth Tolliver?"

"Upstairs."

"In her room?"

"Yes."

Ronicky started to rise, then, for there had been a slight fraction of a second's pause before the victim answered, he changed his mind. "I ought to smash your head open for that lie," he said at a random guess. "Tell me straight, now, where's Ruth Tolliver?"

"How can I tell, if she ain't in her room?"

"Look," said Ronicky Doone, "if anyone comes into the hall before you've told me where the girl is, you're dead, partner. That's straight, now talk."

"She's with Mark."

"And where's he?"

"He'd kill me if I tell."

"Not if I find him before he finds you. His killing days are ended! Where's Mark and the girl? Has he run off with her?"

"Yes."

"They're married?" asked Ronicky, feeling that it might be a wild-goose chase after all.

"I dunno."

"But where are they?"

"Heaven help me, then! Ill tell you."

He began to whisper swiftly, incoherently, his voice shaking almost to silence, as he reached the heart of his narrative.



Chapter Twenty-six

Hills and Sea

The summerhouse lay in a valley between two hills; resting on the lawn before it Ruth Tolliver lay with her head pillowed back between her hands, and the broad brim of her straw that flopped down to shade her eyes. She could look up on either side to the sweep of grass, with the wind twinkling in it—grass that rolled smoothly up to the gentle blue sky beyond. On the one hand it was very near to her, that film of blue, but to her right the narrow, bright heads of a young poplar grove pushed up beyond the hilltop, and that made the sky fall back an immeasurable distance. Not very much variety in that landscape, but there was an infinite variety in the changes of the open-air silence. Overtones, all of them—but what a range!

If she found that what was immediately overhead and beside her was too bland, if she wearied of that lovely drift of clouds across the sky, then she had only to raise herself upon one elbow and look down to the broad, white band of the earth, and the startling blue of the ocean beyond. She was a little way up among the hills, to be sure, but, in spite of her elevation, when she looked out toward the horizon it seemed that the sea was hollowed like a great bowl—that the horizon wave was apt at any moment to roll in upon the beach and overwhelm her among the hills.

Not a very great excitement for such a girl as Ruth Tolliver, to be sure. Particularly when the faint crease between her eyes told of a perpetual worry and a strain under which she was now living. She was trying to lose herself in forgetfulness, in this open, drowsy climate.

Behind her a leisurely step came down one of the garden paths. It brought her to attention at once. A shadow passed across her face, and instantly she was sitting up, alert and excited.

John Mark sat down cross-legged beside her, a very changed John Mark, indeed. He wore white trousers and low white shoes, with a sack coat of blue—a cool-looking man even on this sultry day. The cane, which he insisted upon at all times, he had planted between his knees to help in the process of lowering himself to the ground. Now he hooked the head over his shoulder, pushed back his hat and smiled at the girl.

"Everything is finished," he said calmly. "How well you look, Ruth—that hair of yours against the green grass. Everything is finished; the license and the clergyman will arrive here within the hour."

She shrugged her shoulders. As a rule she tried at least to be politely acquiescent, but now and then something in her revolted. But John Mark was an artist in choosing remarks and moments which should not be noticed. Apparently her silence made not even a ripple on the calm surface of his assurance.

He had been so perfectly diplomatic, indeed, during the whole affair, that she had come to respect and fear him more than ever. Even in that sudden midnight departure from the house in Beekman Place, in that unaccountable panic which made him decide to flee from the vicinity of Ronicky Doone—even in that critical moment he had made sure that there was a proper chaperon with them. During all her years with him he had always taken meticulous care that she should be above the slightest breath of suspicion—a strange thing when the work to which he had assigned her was considered.

"Well," he asked, "now that you've seen, how do you like it? If you wish, we'll move today after the ceremony. It's only a temporary halting place, or it can be a more or less permanent home, just as you please."

It rather amused her to listen to this deprecatory manner of speech. Of course she could direct him in small matters, but in such a thing as the choice of a residence she knew that in the end he would absolutely have his own way.

"I don't know," she said. "I like silence just now. I'll stay here as long as you're contented."

He pressed her hand very lightly; it was the only time he had caressed her since they left New York, and his hand left hers instantly.

"Of course," he explained, "I'm glad to be at a distance for a time—a place to which we can't be followed."

"By Ronicky Doone?" Her question had sprung impulsively to her lips.

"Exactly." From the first he had been amazingly frank in confessing his fear of the Westerner. "Who else in the world would I care about for an instant? Where no other has ever crossed me once successfully, he has done so twice. That, you know, makes me begin to feel that my fate is wrapped up in the young devil."

He shuddered at the thought, as if a cold wind had struck him.

"I think you need not worry about him," said the girl faintly. "I suppose by this time he is in such a condition that he will never worry another soul in the world."

The other turned and looked at her for a long, grave moment.

"You think he attempted to break into the house?"

"And didn't you expect the same thing? Why else did you leave New York?"

"I confess that was my idea, but I think no harm has come to him. The chances are nine out of ten, at least, that he has not been badly hurt."

She turned away, her hands clenched hard.

"Oh my honor," he insisted with some emotion. "I gave directions that, if he made an attack, he was not to be harmed more than necessary to disarm him."

"Knowing that to disarm him would mean to kill him."

"Not at all. After all he is not such a terrible fellow as that—not at all, my dear. A blow, a shot might have dropped him. But, unless it were followed by a second, he would not be killed. Single shots and single blows rarely kill, you know."

She nodded more hopefully, and then her eyes turned with a wide question upon her companion.

He answered it at once with the utmost frankness.

"You wonder why I gave such orders when I dread Doone—when I so dread Doone—when I so heartily want him out of my way forever? I'll tell you. If Doone were killed there would be a shadow between us at once. Not that I believe you love him—no, that cannot be. He may have touched your heart, but he cannot have convinced your head, and you are equal parts of brain and soul, my dear. Therefore you cannot love him."

She controlled the faintest of smiles at the surety of his analysis. He could never escape from an old conclusion that the girl must be in large part his own product—he could never keep from attributing to her his own motives.

"But just suppose," she said, "that Ronicky Doone broke into your house, forced one of your men to tell him where we are, and then followed us at once. He would be about due to arrive now. What if all that happened?"

He smiled at her. "If all that happened, you are quite right; he would be about due to arrive. I suppose, being a Westerner, that the first thing he would do in the village would be to hire a horse to take him out here, and he would come galloping yonder, where you see that white road tossing over the hills."

"And what if he does come?" she asked.

"Then," said John Mark very gravely, "he will indeed be in serious danger. It will be the third time that he has threatened me. And the third time—"

"You've prepared even for his coming here?" she asked, the thought tightening the muscles of her throat.

"When you have such a man as Ronicky Doone on your hands," he confessed, "you have to be ready for anything. Yes, I have prepared. If he comes he'll come by the straightest route, certain that we don't expect him. He'll run blindly into the trap. Yonder—you see where the two hills almost close over the road—yonder is Shorty Kruger behind the rocks, waiting and watching. A very good gunman is Shorty. Know him?"

"Yes," she said, shuddering. "Of course I know him."

"But even suppose that the he passes Kruger—down there in the hollow, where the road bends in toward us, you can see Lefty himself. I wired him to come, and there he is."

"Lefty?" asked the girl, aghast.

"Lefty himself," said John Mark. "You see how much I respect Ronicky Doone's fighting properties? Yes, Lefty himself, the great, the infallible Lefty!"

She turned her back on the white road which led from the village and faced the sea.

"If we are down here long enough," he said, "I'll have a little wharf built inside that cove. You see? Then we can bring up a motor boat and anchor it in there. Do you know much about boats?"

"Almost nothing."

"That's true, but we'll correct it. Between you and me, if I had to choose between a boat and a horse I don't know which I should—"

Two sharp detonations cut off his words. While he raised a startled hand for silence they remained staring at one another, and the long, faint echoes rolled across the hills.

"A revolver shot first, far off," he said, "and then a rifle shot. That metallic clang always means a rifle shot."

He turned, and she turned with him. Covering their eyes from the white light of the sun they peered at the distant road, where, as he had pointed out, the two hills leaned together and left a narrow footing between.

"The miracle has happened," said John Mark in a perfectly sober voice. "It is Ronicky Doone!"



Chapter Twenty-seven

The Last Stand

At the same instant she saw what his keener eye had discerned the moment before. A small trail of dust was blowing down the road, just below the place where the two hills leaned together. Under it was the dimly discernible, dust-veiled form of a horseman riding at full speed.

"Fate is against me," said John Mark in his quiet way. "Why should this dare-devil be destined to hunt me? I can gain nothing by his death but your hate. And, if he succeeds in breaking through Lefty, as he has broken through Kruger, even then he shall win nothing. I swear it!"

As he spoke he looked at her in gloomy resolution, but the girl was on fire—fear and joy were fighting in her face. In her ecstasy she was clinging to the man beside her.

"Think of it—think of it!" she exclaimed. "He has done what I said he would do. Ah, I read his mind! Ronicky Doone, Ronicky Doone, was there ever your like under the wide, wide sky? He's brushed Kruger out of his way—"

"Not entirely," said John Mark calmly, "not entirely, you see?"

As he spoke they heard again the unmistakable sound of a rifle shot, and then another and another, ringing from the place where the two hills leaned over the road.

"It's Kruger," declared John Mark calmly. "That chivalrous idiot, Doone, apparently shot him down and didn't wait to finish him. Very clever work on his part, but very sloppy. However, he seems to have wounded Kruger so badly that my gunman can't hit his mark."

For Ronicky Doone, if it were indeed he, was still galloping down the road, more and more clearly discernible, while the rifle firing behind him ceased.

"Of course that firing will be the alarm for Lefty," went on John Mark, seeming to enjoy the spectacle before him, as if it were a thing from which he was entirely detached. "And Lefty can make his choice. Kruger was his pal. If he wants to revenge the fall of Kruger he may shoot from behind a tree. If not, he'll shoot from the open, and it will be an even fight."

The terror of it all, the whole realization, sprang up in the girl. In a moment she was crying: "Stop him, John—for Heaven's sake, find a way to stop him."

"There is only one power that can turn the trick, I'm afraid," answered John Mark. "That power is Lefty."

"If he shoots Lefty he'll come straight toward us on his way to the house, and if he sees you—"

"If he sees me he'll shoot me, of course," declared Mark.

She stared at him. "John," she said, "I know you're brave, but you won't try to face him?"

"I'm fairly expert with a gun." He added: "But it's good of you to be concerned about me."

"I am concerned, more than concerned, John. A woman has premonitions, and I tell you I know, as well as I know I'm standing here, that if you face Ronicky Doone you'll go down."

"You're right," replied Mark. "I fear that I have been too much of a specialist, so I shall not face Doone."

"Then start for the house—and hurry!"

"Run away and leave you here?"

The dust cloud and the figure of the rider in it were sweeping rapidly down on the grove in the hollow, where Lefty waited. And the girl was torn between three emotions: Joy at the coming of the adventurer, fear for him, terror at the thought of his meeting with Mark.

"It would be murder, John! I'll go with you if you'll start now!"

"No," he said quietly, "I won't run. Besides it is impossible for him to take you from me."

"Impossible?" she asked. "What do you mean?"

"When the time comes you'll see! Now he's nearly there—watch!"

The rider was in full view now, driving his horse at a stretching gallop. There was no doubt about the identity of the man. They could not make out his face, of course, at that distance, but something in the careless dash of his seat in the saddle, something about the slender, erect body cried out almost in words that this was Ronicky Doone. A moment later the first treetops of the grove brushed across him, and he was lost from view.

The girl buried her face in her hands, then she looked up. By this time he must have reached Lefty, and yet there was no sound of shooting. Had Lefty found discretion the better part of valor and let him go by unhindered? But, in that case, the swift gallop of the horse would have borne the rider through the grove by this time.

"What's happened?" she asked of John Mark. "What can have happened down there?"

"A very simple story," said Mark. "Lefty, as I feared, has been more chivalrous than wise. He has stepped out into the road and ordered Ronicky to stop, and Ronicky has stopped. Now he is sitting in his saddle, looking down to Lefty, and they are holding a parley—very like two knights of the old days, exchanging compliments before they try to cut each other's throats."

But, even as he spoke, there was the sound of a gun exploding, and then a silence.

"One shot—one revolver shot," said John Mark in his deadly calm voice. "It is as I said. They drew at a signal, and one of them proved far the faster. It was a dead shot, for only one was needed to end the battle. One of them is standing, the other lies dead under the shadow of that grove, my dear. Which is it?"

"Which is it?" asked the girl in a whisper. Then she threw up her hands with a joyous cry: "Ronicky Doone! Ronicky, Ronicky Doone!"

A horseman was breaking into view through the grove, and now he rode out into full view below them—unmistakably Ronicky Doone! Even at that distance he heard the cry, and, throwing up his hand with a shout that tingled faintly up to them, he spurred straight up the slope toward them. Ruth Tolliver started forward, but a hand closed over her wrist with a biting grip and brought her to a sudden halt. She turned to find John Mark, an automatic hanging loosely in his other hand.

His calm had gone, and in his dead-white face the eyes were rolling and gleaming, and his set lips trembled. "You were right," he said, "I cannot face him. Not that I fear death, but there would be a thousand damnations in it if I died knowing that he would have you after my eyes were closed. I told you he could not take you—not living, my dear. Dead he may have us both."

"John!" said the girl, staring and bewildered. "In the name of pity, John, in the name of all the goodness you have showed me, don't do it."

He laughed wildly. "I am about to lose the one thing on earth I have ever cared for, and still I can smile. I am about to die by my own hand, and still I can smile. For the last time, will you stand up like your old brave self?"

"Mercy!" she cried. "In Heaven's name—"

"Then have it as you are!" he said, and she saw the sun flash on the steel, and he raised the gun.

She closed her eyes—waited—heard the distant drumming of hoofs on the turf of the hillside. Then she caught the report of a gun.

But it was strangely far away, that sound. She thought at first that the bullet must have numbed, as it struck her. Presently a shooting pain would pass through her body—then death.

Opening her bewildered eyes she beheld John Mark staggering, the automatic lying on the ground, his hands clutching at his breast. Then glancing to one side she saw the form of Ronicky Doone riding as fast as spur would urge his horse, the long Colt balanced in his hand. That, then, was the shot she had heard—a long-range chance shot when he saw what was happening on top of the hill.

So swift was Doone's coming that, by the time she had reached her feet again, he was beside her, and they leaned over John Mark together. As they did so Mark's eyes opened, then they closed again, as if with pain. When he looked again his sight was clear.

"As I expected," he said dryly, "I see your faces together—both together, and actually wasting sympathy on me? Tush, tush! So rich in happiness that you can waste time on me?"

"John," said the girl on her knees and weeping beside him, "you know that I have always cared for you, but as a brother, John, and not—"

"Really," he said calmly, "you are wasting emotion. I am not going to die, and I wish you would put a bandage around me and send for some of the men at the house to carry me up there. That bullet of yours—by Harry, a very pretty snap shot—just raked across my breast, as far as I can make out. Perhaps it broke a bone or two, but that's all. Yes, I am to have the pleasure of living."

His smile was ghastly thing, and, growing suddenly weak, as if for the first time in his life he allowed his indomitable spirit to relax, his head fell to one side, and he lay in a limp faint.



Chapter Twenty-eight

Hope Deferred

Time in six months brought the year to the early spring, that time when even the mountain desert forgets its sternness for a month or two. Six months had not made Bill Gregg rich from his mine, but it had convinced him, on the contrary, that a man with a wife must have a sure income, even if it be a small one.

He squatted on a small piece of land, gathered a little herd, and, having thrown up a four-room shack, he and Caroline lived as happily as king and queen. Not that domains were very large, but, from their hut on the hill, they could look over a fine sweep of country, which did not all belong to them, to be sure, but which they constantly promised themselves should one day be theirs.

It was the dull period of the afternoon, the quiet, waiting period which comes between three or four o'clock and the sunset, and Bill and his wife sat in the shadow of the mighty silver spruce before their door. The great tree was really more of a home for them than the roof they had built to sleep under.

Presently Caroline stood up and pointed. "She's coming," she said, and, looking down the hillside, she smiled in anticipation.

The rider below them, winding up the trail, looked up and waved, then urged her horse to a full gallop for the short remnant of the distance before her. It was Ruth Tolliver who swung down from the saddle, laughing and joyous from the ride.

A strangely changed Ruth she was. She had turned to a brown beauty in the wind and the sun of the West, a more buoyant and more graceful beauty. She had accepted none of the offers of John Mark, but, leaving her old life entirely behind her, as Ronicky Doone had suggested, she went West to make her own living. With Caroline and Bill Gregg she had found a home, and her work was teaching the valley school, half a dozen miles away.

"Any mail?" asked Bill, for she passed the distant group of mail boxes on her way to the school.

At that the face of the girl darkened. "One letter," she said, "and I want you to read it aloud, Caroline. Then we'll all put our heads together and see if we can make out what it means." She handed the letter to Caroline, who shook it out. "It's from Ronicky," she exclaimed.

"It's from Ronicky," said Ruth Tolliver gravely, so gravely that the other two raised their heads and cast silent glances at her.

Caroline read aloud: "Dear Ruth, I figure that I'm overdue back at Bill's place by about a month—"

"By two months," corrected Ruth soberly.

"And I've got to apologize to them and you for being so late. Matter of fact I started right pronto to get back on time, but something turned up. You see, I went broke."

Caroline dropped the letter with an exclamation. "Do you think he's gone back to gambling, Ruth?"

"No," said the girl. "He gave me his promise never to play for money again, and a promise from Ronicky Doone is as good as minted gold."

"It sure is," agreed Bill Gregg.

Caroline went on with the letter: "I went broke because Pete Darnely was in a terrible hole, having fallen out with his old man, and Pete needed a lift. Which of course I gave him pronto, Pete being a fine gent."

There was an exclamation of impatience from Ruth Tolliver.

"Isn't that like Ronicky? Isn't that typical?"

"I'm afraid it is," said the other girl with a touch of sadness. "Dear old Ronicky, but such a wild man!"

She continued in the reading: "But I've got a scheme on now by which I'll sure get a stake and come back, and then you and me can get married, as soon as you feel like saying the word. The scheme is to find a lost mine—"

"A lost mine!" shouted Bill Gregg, his practical miner's mind revolting at this idea. "My guns, is Ronicky plumb nutty? That's all he's got to do—just find a 'lost mine?' Well, if that ain't plenty, may I never see a yearling ag'in!"

"Find a lost mine," went on Caroline, her voice trembling between tears and laughter, "and sink a new shaft, a couple of hundred feet to find where the old vein—"

"Sink a shaft a couple of hundred feet!" said Bill Gregg. "And him broke! Where'll he get the money to sink the shaft?"

"When we begin to take out the pay dirt," went on Caroline, "I'll either come or send for you and—"

"Hush up!" said Bill Gregg softly.

Caroline looked up and saw the tears streaming down the face of Ruth Tolliver. "I'm so sorry, poor dear!" she whispered, going to the other girl. But Ruth Tolliver shook her head.

"I'm only crying," she said, "because it's so delightfully and beautifully and terribly like Ronicky to write such a letter and tell of such plans. He's given away a lot of money to help some spendthrift, and now he's gone to get more money by finding a lost mine!' But do you see what it means, Caroline? It means that he doesn't love me—really!"

"Don't love you?" asked Bill Gregg. "Then he's a plumb fool. Why—"

"Hush, Bill," put in Caroline. "You mustn't say that," she added to Ruth. "Of course you have reason to be sad about it and angry, too."

"Sad, perhaps, but not angry," said Ruth Tolliver. "How could I ever be really angry with Ronicky? Hasn't he given me a chance to live a clean life? Hasn't he given me this big free open West to live in? And what would I be without Ronicky? What would have happened to me in New York? Oh, no, not angry. But I've simply waked up, Caroline. I see now that Ronicky never cared particularly about me. He was simply in love with the danger of my position. As a matter of fact I don't think he ever told me in so many words that he loved me. I simply took it for granted because he did such things for me as even a man in love would not have done. After the danger and uniqueness were gone Ronicky simply lost interest."

"Don't say such things!" exclaimed Caroline.

"It's true," said Ruth steadily. "If he really wanted to come here—well, did you ever hear of anything Ronicky wanted that he didn't get?"

"Except money," suggested Bill Gregg. "Well, he even gets that, but most generally he gives it away pretty pronto."

"He'd come like a bullet from a gun if he really wanted me," said Ruth. "No, the only way I can bring Ronicky is to surround myself with new dangers, terrible dangers, make myself a lost cause again. Then Ronicky would come laughing and singing, eager as ever. Oh, I think I know him!"

"And what are you going to do?" asked Caroline.

"The only thing I can do," said the other girl. "I'm going to wait."

* * * * *

Far, far north two horsemen came at that same moment to a splitting of the trail they rode. The elder, bearded man, pointed ahead.

"That's the roundabout way," he said, "but it's sure the only safe way. We'll travel there, Ronicky, eh?"

Ronicky Doone lifted his head, and his bay mare lifted her head at the same instant. The two were strangely in touch with one another.

"I dunno," he said, "I ain't heard of anybody taking the short cut for years—not since the big slide in the canyon. But I got a feeling I'd sort of like to try it. Save a lot of time and give us a lot of fun."

"Unless it breaks our necks."

"Sure," said Ronicky, "but you don't enjoy having your neck safe and sound, unless you take a chance of breaking it, once in a while."

THE END