"He said," she went on, her interest seeming chiefly for her bacon and eggs, "that he was returning something to me I had left at the cabin at Harte's place. I couldn't think of anything but your money."

"What was it?"

"A spur rowel. It had been loose for several days, and dropped out in the cabin. He brought it back to me."

From this they passed on to speak of other incidents of the dance and of other people, but the girl saw that her uncle's interest waned with the change of topic. Then, her heart fluttering in spite of her, but her voice steady enough, Winifred said lightly:

"I think I'll go for a little ride after breakfast. My horse needs the exercise, and," she added laughingly, "so do I."

"Good idea," he returned, nodding his approval. But then he asked which way she was riding, and finally volunteered to go with her, assuring her smilingly that he had nothing of importance to do, and adding gravely, that he would feel safer if she were not out alone in this rough country.

So he rode with her and after an hour of swift galloping out toward the mountains, for the most part in silence, they came back to the town. Pollard left her at his own gate and rode back through the street, "to see a man." But he returned almost immediately and for the rest of the day did not leave the house. It was a long day for the girl, filled with restlessness and a sense of being spied upon, of being watched almost every moment by her uncle. And before the day was done, there had come with the other emotions a little thrill of positive, personal fear.

It was midafternoon. The silence here at this far end of the street hung heavy and oppressive. She had gone up and down stairs half a dozen aimless times, eager for something to do. The long hours had been hers for reflection, and after weighing the hundred little incidents of these last few weeks, now there was no faintest shadow of a doubt that Henry Pollard was at least guilty of criminal complicity in a scheme to send an innocent man to the penitentiary if not to the gallows; she was more than half persuaded that Pollard was in some way seeking to shield himself by using Thornton as a scapegoat; she had got to the point where she began to wonder if Henry Pollard and Ben Broderick shared share and share alike both in the profits of these crimes and in their actual commission.

She came down stairs for a book, having at last finished the one in her room, resigned to inactivity for another day, perhaps for two or three days, until her uncle's watch upon her movements was less keen and suspicious. She reflected that if she read something she might coax her thoughts away from considerations which he could not understand in their entirety, and which terrified her when she thought that she did understand.

In her quest she passed down the hall and to Pollard's office at the front of the house. The room was by no means private; she had gone into it many times before; sometimes it was used as a sitting room. She had thought that her uncle was in it, but when she came to the open door she saw that it was empty.

She went to the long table at which Pollard wrote his few letters. Upon one end of it, at the far end from the pen and ink, were some books and old magazines, piled carelessly. Yesterday she had seen here a fairly recent novel the title of which promised her an interesting story. A glance showed her the book, lying open, where Pollard had evidently been reading it. And in the same careless glance she saw something else which sent the blood into her face and made her turn swiftly, apprehensively, toward the door.

There, beside Pollard's chair, was his waste paper basket, filled to overflowing with crumpled papers. And, thrusting upward through the papers, catching her eye because the papers were white and it was another colour, was a long, yellow envelope. An envelope exactly like the one in which Mr. Templeton had put the bank notes she was to carry to her uncle!

Obeying her swift impulse she stepped to the basket and drew the envelope out. It was not only like the one she knew, yellow and cloth lined, but it was the same one! She knew that beyond a hint of doubt. For she remembered how, while sealing the thing for her, Mr. Templeton had laid it down on his table, upon his ink-wet pen, how he had carelessly blotted it. And here was the blot!

She came swiftly around the table. Her back was toward the open door. And....

Henry Pollard was standing behind her, watching her! She did not see him, she could not be sure that she had heard his soft step on the hall carpet, but she knew that he was there. She seemed to sense his presence with the subtle sixth sense.



CHAPTER XXIII

WARNING

She felt her heart beating wildly ... if at that second he had spoken to her she could not have found immediate voice in answer were it to save her life. But further, she knew that if he gave her one second longer she could control herself. For the first time it came upon her in a flash that she had a personal interest in what these men did. They sought to play her for their dupe, their fool; they counted upon making her a sort of innocent accomplice, they dared to count upon her to help them. To make their own positions safe they were dragging her into the dirty mess that they had made.

Her anger steadied her. Her brain had gone hot with it; now it went cool, cold. She was holding the envelope in her hands when Pollard came to the door; now she tossed it back to the basket carelessly and still kept her back to the door. She was humming a little song softly when she picked up the book she had come for and turned with it in her hand as though to leave the room.

But in spite of her second of preparation she started when she saw Henry Pollard's face. She had known that it could look hard and cruel, that it could grow dark and threatening. But she saw now a look in the hard eyes, about the sinister mouth, which sent a spurt of terror up into her heart. Here was a man who could kill, would kill if he were driven to it. She read it in his eyes in that flash of a glance as she might have read it in big printed letters. If he came to believe that there was actual danger to him from her knowledge he would find a way to keep her silent.

"Well?" Pollard said steadily.

He came into the room and closed the door softly behind him. Now there was no tell-tale expression in his tone and all expression had gone out of his eyes.

Even then, though her heart beat quickly and the colour wavered in her cheeks, she managed to look at him steadily and to answer collectedly:

"It looks like I'd been playing Paul Pry, and that you'd caught me, doesn't it?"

She even laughed softly, and went on:

"I came down for a book. Then I noticed this." She picked up the envelope again, holding it out toward him. "You see I recognized it!"

"There are lots of yellow envelopes," he answered colourlessly, his eyes sharp points of light upon hers. "What about it?"

"I am not a lady detective," she smiled back, taking a sudden keen delight in the knowledge that she had taken the right tack, and that she was puzzling Pollard. "But it is quite obvious that you've got your money back! Why didn't you tell me?"

"There are lots of yellow envelopes," he repeated, speaking slowly, and she knew that his brain was as busy as her own. If the moment held danger for her, then it held danger no less for him. "They are common enough. What makes you think that this one..."

"Oh, but I know," she broke in lightly. "You see I remembered Mr. Templeton getting this smudge of ink on it. He called my attention to it, the dear, precise old banker that he is, and wanted to give me a clean one. Did Mr. Thornton get frightened and bring your money back?"

For a moment he did not answer. She knew that he was measuring her with those shrewd eyes of his, looking for a false sign, just the twitch of a muscle to tell him that she was playing a part. And she gave no sign.

"No," he said at last. "Thornton did not bring it back. And even if you were a lady detective you might make a mistake now. I haven't seen a cent of the money."

She lifted her eyebrows in well simulated surprise.

"But the envelope?"

Now he spoke swiftly and she knew that he had made up his mind that she was hiding nothing, that she knew nothing, for there was a note of relief in his words.

"I had his cabin searched last night, while we all were at the dance. It was found there. There was no sign of the money!"

Again she tossed away the envelope as though it no longer had any interest for her.

"A man," she said contemptuously, "who would not destroy a piece of evidence like that, is a fool!"

The matter was dropped there; one would have said it was forgotten by both of them. For the rest of the day Winifred Waverly appeared to be much interested in her book, Pollard seemed busy in his office or upon the street. But the girl realized that the man was taking no chances and that there was going to be little chance of her riding the twenty miles to the Poison Hole without his knowing of it. She let the day go with no thought of making the trip, satisfying herself with the knowledge which she had gleaned from the conversation she had overheard at the schoolhouse, and with the comforting thought that she had ten days yet.

Upon the second day following the dance she saw Broderick and Pollard talking earnestly out under the pear trees. Broderick, at his boots whipping impatiently with his riding whip, did not come to the house as was his custom, but going back to the gate flung himself upon his horse and rode away. That same afternoon he came again, and this time Cole Dalton, the sheriff, was with him. They were met by Pollard at the front door, and for an hour the girl in her room could hear their low voices in the room below her.

The third day came and went and she saw no one but Pollard and Mrs. Riddell. Pollard was unusually silent, and again and again she saw that his eyes were hard, his mouth cruel. She began to forget that he was kin to her; she began to see only that here was a man playing his game with high, very high, stakes, that he was watchful and determined, that he was not the sort to let anything, no matter what, stand between him and the thing he had made up his mind to do. She saw that he was growing nervous and sensed that he was in that frame of mind when men act swiftly and unscrupulously. She took no step about the house that Pollard did not know of it.

The fourth day came, and her own nerves were strained to snapping. If she could only do something! She must do something. But what? If Broderick were the guilty man, and from a score of little things, she knew that he was, then Henry Pollard was no less guilty. If Pollard were a part of the horrible scheme, how about Cole Dalton, the sheriff? She began to think that she saw why the months had gone by and Dalton had made no arrests! If he was one of them, if the man paid by the county to defend the county against outlawry were hand and glove with the outlaws, to whom then could she turn?

But at last, upon the evening of the fourth day, when her spirit was ready for some desperate measure unless fate came to help her, fate did help and young Bud King called. He had spent the day in Hill's Corners upon the quest of any information which might tell him who the man was who had run off his father's cattle. Having learned nothing, and being a wise young man after his fashion, he had determined not to go home entirely profitless, and so came to see Pollard's niece.

She saw him as he rode slowly down the street. In a flash she guessed that he came to see her, divined too that Pollard would give her little opportunity of talking to young King or any other man, alone. She was at her window where she sat so often. Before Bud King's horse had been tied at the gate she had written a hasty note, had thrust it into an envelope, and had scrawled on the outside:

"Please carry this right away to Buck Thornton. Don't let any one see. It is very important."

Then she ran down stairs, slipping the note into the bosom of her dress, hastening to be at the door when the Bar X man knocked lest Henry Pollard turn him away, saying that she was not at home.

As she opened the door, and Bud entered, hat in hand and flushed of face, Pollard came to the door of his office. Winifred, shaking hands warmly, asked King in, and remarking that her uncle was only reading, invited him into the office. Pollard, she knew, had no reason to suspect what she had in mind, and she would give him no reason. Before Bud left she would find a way to give him the note.

The three sat down, and Bud, never letting his wide hat out of his hands, sat twirling it and shifting his boots and looking and talking for the most of the time at Pollard. He was a young man, was Bud; girls had been few in his life, and this calling upon a young woman in broad daylight was a daring if not quite a devilish thing.

Winifred found room here for smiling amusement. Pollard did not want to be bothered with King and showed it so plainly that had King not been so alive to the presence of the girl at whom he looked with the tail of his eye and so nearly oblivious of the presence of the man whom he sat facing, he must have noted it before he had been in the room five minutes. Bud did not care to talk with Pollard, whom he agreed perfectly with Buck Thornton in calling a rattlesnake, and yet he talked rather wildly to him of branding and fence building and stray horses and hold-up men and the weather and last year's politics. And Winifred, for a little, watched both men with mirthful understanding.

But as the minutes slipped by and Pollard gave no sign of leaving the room, as silences fell which were too awkward to go unnoticed and which the girl had to fill, she began to be afraid that Pollard's watchfulness was going to prove too much for her and that she would fail in the plan which had seemed so simple. But she must not fail! Four days of the ten had gone. She must find some way to keep Bud King here until something carried Pollard out of the room if only for a moment, and during that moment she must give the note to King.

She was sure that Pollard did not, could not suspect that she meant to say anything to King, or that she counted on having him carry a message for her. But she knew, too, that Henry Pollard was taking no chances he did not have to take. He was a man to play close to the table.

She had time to determine that she would succeed in this one vital point, time to hope, to fear, to lose hope a dozen times, before her chance came. She heard a step on the walk under the pear trees, Broderick's step, she thought swiftly, despairingly. Usually Pollard kept the front door locked; she had not locked it after she had let Bud King in. Pollard would know it was Broderick and would merely call, "Come in," not even leaving the room for the one necessary moment. Broderick would come in, Bud King would go soon and she would have no chance of doing the thing she had sworn to herself that she would do.

Her one hope was that she had mistaken the step and that it was not Broderick. When the man outside came up the steps, she heard his spurs jingle on the porch and saw that Pollard too was listening intently.

"Come in," called Pollard. "The door's open, Ben."

Why, why hadn't she locked the door? Now there would be two men to watch her, now it would be impossible...

But fresh hope leaped up into her heart, though she could scarce believe her ears when Broderick's voice in answer was like the snarl of a beast, harsh with anger, snapping out his words fiercely:

"Come out here. I want to talk with you outside. And, for God's sake, man, hurry!"

Pollard, too, started. Bud King looked up with wondering eyes from his swinging hat. Pollard, with the briefest sign of hesitation, went out of the room and to the front door.

No sooner had he gone than the girl, her face flushed, her eyes brilliant with the excitement in them, snatched the paper from the bosom of her dress and, tiptoeing to King, forced it into his big hand. Not a word did she speak, not so much as a whisper. But she laid her finger upon her lips, glanced from him toward the door, and tiptoed back to her seat. And Bud King understood in part while he could not understand in full, and thrust the note into his pocket.

When a moment later King rose to go she went with him to the door. She caught a glimpse of Ben Broderick's face, though he hid it from her instantly, whirling about upon his heel; she felt sick and dizzy with a sudden dread of she knew not what. For his face was dead white and horribly drawn with the rage that blazed in his eyes and distorted his mouth, and she saw, standing up in his soul, that thing which one may not look upon and misread: that rage that drives a man to kill. And she saw, too, that a white bandage was tied about his head, under his hat brim, and that the bandage was red with blood.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE GENTLEMAN FROM NEW MEXICO

Thornton returned rather early that night to the ranch cabin. That he came in at all, instead of remaining far out upon the range border as his men were doing, was because tomorrow he planned on riding to Dry Town where he would raise the four thousand five hundred dollars for Henry Pollard, and he wanted to make an early start.

He left his horse at the barn, passed the bunk house and was crossing the little footbridge which spanned Big Little River, going straight to his cabin upon the knoll, when he saw that while the bunk house was dark there shone a light from his cabin window. Wondering who his guest might prove to be he strode up the knoll. The cabin door was open, he could see his lamp burning upon the table, and sitting upon his chair, hands clasped behind head and cigar smoking lazily, was a man he had never seen before.

He came on, still wondering, until his tall form passed through the doorway and stood over the smoker. The man turned a little, watching him as he drew near.

"Howdy, Stranger," Thornton said quietly.

"Mr. Thornton?" smiled the other. "You see I've been making myself at home."

He rose and put out a hand, a small, hard, brown hand which the cowboy accepted carelessly and released marvelling. Its grip was as strong as his own, the muscles like rock.

The man was of medium stature, looking small beside the towering form of his host. He was dressed quietly and well, trousers still preserving the lines left by the tailor's iron, his coat fitting closely about the compact muscular shoulders, his soft shirt white and clean. He was a sandy haired man of forty, perhaps, clean shaven, square jawed, with very bright, very clear brown eyes.

All this Thornton saw at one swift glance. He tossed his hat to the table, pulled another chair toward him, and sat down.

"Glad you made yourself at home," he said then, "Find anything to eat?"

The stranger nodded.

"I've been here three hours, and I was hungry. So I raided the bunk house."

"That's right." He brought out his paper and tobacco, making his cigarette slowly, his eyes alone asking the other his business.

"I want a little talk with you, Mr. Thornton. But maybe I'd better wait until you've eaten?"

"Had my supper an hour ago," Thornton replied. "Made camp with the boys before I came in. Fire away, Stranger."

"All right. First thing, my name's Comstock."

The keen eyes which had measured the cowboy as he came through the door were very bright upon him now. Thornton nodded. The name meant nothing to him.

"Don't get me?" laughed Comstock. "Well, well, it's a shock to vanity, but after all one's fame is a poor crippled bird that doesn't fly far." He paused a moment, then added quietly, as though this other information might help his bird "to fly." "My stamping ground's New Mexico."

Thornton's look showed nothing beyond a faint curiosity; one would have said that he was as little interested in this man's stamping ground as in his name.

"One more try," laughed Comstock easily, "and I'll give up. Two-Hand Billy Comstock.... Aha, I get you now!"

For now Buck Thornton started and his eyes did show interest and a sudden flash of surprise. For fifteen years Two-Hand Billy Comstock, United States Deputy Marshal, had been widely known throughout the great South-west, a man who asked no odds and gave no quarter, one whose name sent as chill a shiver through the hard hearts of the lawless as a sight of the gallows would have done. And this man, small, well dressed, quiet mannered, as dapper as a tailor's dummy....

"If you are Billy Comstock," grunted Thornton, "well, I'm damn' glad to know you, sir!"

"If I am?" grinned Comstock. "And why should I lie to you?"

"I'm not saying that you are lying," returned the cowboy coolly. "But I'm getting in the habit these days of being suspicious, I guess. But if you are that Comstock and want to see me, I'd come mighty close to guessing what you want. But before I do any talking I want to know."

"Sure," Comstock nodded. And then, smiling again "Only, Mr. Thornton, I'm not in the habit of carrying around a trunk full of identifications."

"You don't need them."

Billy Comstock's name he had made himself, and it had carried far. There were few men in half a dozen States in this corner of the country who did not know why he was called "Two-Hand Billy" and how he had earned his right to the nickname. His fame was that of a man who was absolutely fearless, and who carried the law where other men could not or would not carry it. To him had come the dangers, the sharp fights against odds that had seemed overwhelming, and always he had shot his way out with a gun in each hand, and no waste lead.

"I never saw the man who could beat me to my gun," went on Thornton quietly, no boastfulness in his tone, merely the plain statement of a fact. "If you are 'Two-Hand Billy Comstock' you ought to do it."

The two men were sitting loosely in their chairs at opposite sides of the room, the table with the lamp between them. Comstock's hands were again clasped behind his head. Thornton lifted his arms, clasping his own hands behind his head.

Comstock smiled suddenly, brightly, seeming to understand and to be as pleased as a child with anew game.

"I'll count three," said Thornton. "We'll both go for our guns. If I get the drop on you first," with a smile which reflected the other's, "I've a notion to shoot you up for an impostor!"

"If you get the drop on me first," grinned Comstock, "and don't shoot me up, I'll make you a present of the best gun you ever saw."

Thornton counted slowly, with regular intervals between the words. "One," and neither man moved, both sitting in seeming carelessness, their hands behind their heads. "Two," and only their eyes showed that every lax muscle in each body grew taut. "Three," and then they moved, the two men like two pieces of the same machine driven unerringly by the same motive power.

Not the hands alone but the entire bodies, every muscle leaping into action in a swiftness too great, too accurate for it to have been fully appreciated had there been a third man to see. Thornton slipped sideways from his chair, dropping to his knees upon the floor, and his two hands flashed downward. The left hand sped to the opening at the left hip of his chaps, and to the pocket beneath; the right hand into the loose band at his stomach. And the hands seemed not to have disappeared for a fraction of a second when they were flung out in front of him, and two heavy double action revolvers looked squarely into Comstock's smiling face.

Comstock had scarcely seemed to move. He still sat loosely in his chair, its front legs tilted back supported by his heels. But his hands had gone their swift, unerring way to the pockets of his coat, and into the barrels of the revolvers looked the blue steel barrels of two big automatics. And both men knew that, had this been no play, but deadly earnest, there would not have been the tenth of a second between the pistol shots.

"Pretty nearly an even break," laughed Comstock, dropping his guns back into his pockets.

Thornton rose and stood frowning down into the uplifted eyes of his visitor.

"It doesn't take a bullet long to go ten feet," he said a little sternly. "One man doesn't have to get his gun working half an hour before the other fellow." He came around the table and put out his hand. "Shake," he said. "You could have got me. And I guess you're Two-Hand Billy, all right."

Comstock's eyes were bright with frank admiration.

"I don't know so well about getting you," he answered. "I played you to slip out on the other side of your chair. And," with his frank laugh, "I wouldn't care for the job of going out for you, Mr. Thornton."

"Real name, Buck," laughed the cowboy. "And now, let's talk."

"First name, Billy," returned Comstock. "And we'll talk in a minute. First thing though, there's some mail for you!"

Thornton's eyes went the way of Comstock's, and saw a piece of folded notepaper upon the table, held in place by the lamp. He took it up, wondering, and read the few words swiftly. As he read the blood raced up into his face and Comstock smiled.

"I must see you," were the hastily written words. "I have wronged you all along. I haven't time to write, I am afraid to put it on paper. But there is great danger to you. Come tonight. I will be under the pear trees in the front yard, at twelve o'clock.

"WINIFRED WAVERLY."

Thornton whirled about, confronting Comstock.

"Where'd this come from?" he demanded sharply.

"Special delivery," smiled Comstock. "A young fellow, calling himself Bud King from the Bar X, brought it."

"When?"

"About an hour ago. He said he couldn't wait and couldn't take time to look you up, and I told him that I'd see that you got it."

Thornton read the short note again, frowning. This girl, only a few nights ago, had called him a liar, had angered him as thoroughly as she knew how, had sent him from her vowing that he was a fool to have ever thought of her, and that he'd die before he'd be fool to seek again to see the niece of Henry Pollard. And now this note, speaking of having wronged him, telling him that she was afraid to write all that she wanted to tell him, warning him of danger to him, asking him to meet her in Hill's Corners ... at her uncle's house ... at midnight!

He knew nothing of the danger to which she referred, but he did know that for him there was danger in going into Dead Man's Alley even in broad daylight. There came to him a swift suspicion that this note had never been written by the girl whose signature it bore, that it had been dictated by a man who sought to lure him to a spot where it would be an easy matter to put a bullet in him in safe, cowardly fashion. Suppose that he went, that he entered Pollard's place, and at such an hour? Pollard, himself, could kill him, admit the deed and claim that he was but protecting his own premises. Any one of the Bedloe boys could shoot him and who would know?

Another suspicion, allied to this one, came and darkened the frown in his eyes. Was it possible that Winifred Waverly had written it, acting at Pollard's command? that she was but doing the sort of thing he should look to one of Pollard's blood to do?

Comstock, saying nothing further, now seemed entirely engrossed in his cigar. Thornton, the note in his fingers, hesitated. A third time he read the pencilled words. Then he folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket.

"If a man wants to know anything real bad," he said at last, "it's up to him to go and find out, huh, Billy Comstock?"

Comstock, turning his cigar thoughtfully, answered:

"That's right, Buck."

Thornton glanced at his little alarm clock. It was not yet half past eight.

"I've got to be in the Corners by twelve o'clock," he said as he went back to his chair. "I'll ride Comet, though, and can make it handily in two hours. Now, what's the line of talk?"

Comstock's look trailed back to his cigar.

"I'm after a man," he volunteered.

"That's a safe bet. What man?"

"Not poor little Jimmie Clayton," smiled Comstock. "He's only a weak little fool at the worst, and wouldn't be a bad sort if he had somebody around all the time to steer him right."

"Who is he?" retorted Thornton steadily ... remembering.

"He's the man you owe a debt of gratitude to," laughed Comstock. "He put some bullets through you one night down Texas way, found that he'd slipped up and that you'd put your money into a check, and then played safe by nursing you through it! The man who broke jail a month or so ago, and beat it up here to you to see him through. I'm not after him."

"You seem to know a whole lot," answered Thornton noncommittally neither voice nor face nor eye showing a hint of surprise or other emotion. And yet he was thinking swiftly, that if this man spoke the truth he had a score to settle with Jimmie Clayton.

"Oh, it's my business to know a whole lot," resumed Comstock, answering the look in Thornton's eyes. "I just say that I'm not after Jimmie Clayton as I don't want you to think that you'll be giving away anything on a friend. The man I want," and he tilted his chair back a little farther, drew up his carefully creased trousers with thumb and forefinger and crossed one leg over the other, "is a man who got away from me seven years ago. Down in New Mexico."

"Name?" asked Thornton bluntly.

"His name doesn't matter, I guess. He had three during the time that I knew him, and I suppose he's had half a dozen since."

"Before you go any further," interrupted Thornton, "tell me why you came to me at all?"

"Banker Templeton of Dry Town is a friend of mine. We went to school together. He's the man who led me to believe, to hope," he added softly, "that the man I want is working this country now. I told Templeton that I wanted to make a little visit to this neck of the woods. And he gave me your name."

"I see. Now, about your man?"

"I'm going to ask you a string of questions, Thornton. We haven't over much time and any way there wouldn't be any use now in my stopping to explain just what I'm driving at and why I want to know this and that. If you'll just answer what I ask..."

"Fire away."

For a little they smoked on in silence, Two-Hand Billy Comstock's expression suggesting that he was planning precisely the course his inquiries were to take before beginning.

"Let's start in this way!" he said at last. "What men around here do you know real well, well enough to call friends?"

"I've been here only a year," Thornton told him. "I don't know many men here real well. Friends? Outside Bud King and the boys working for me I don't know any I'd call friend."

"Then," placidly suggested, "how about enemies? A man can make a good many enemies in a year and not half try."

"If you'll change that to men I know pretty well and don't like, and who don't like me, I can name a name or two."

"Let's have 'em."

"There's Henry Pollard, to begin with."

"The man you're buying from. First, how old a man is he and what does he look like? Next, what do you know about him?"

Thornton described the man, guessed at his age, and told what he knew of "Rattlesnake" Pollard. Comstock seemed interested in a mild sort of a way, but neither now nor later, as Thornton spoke of other men, did he give any sign of more than mild interest.

"Who are Pollard's friends?" was the next question.

Thornton named Ben Broderick, two other men who do not come into the story, and Cole Dalton, the sheriff. And as he named them, Comstock asked him to give an estimate at their ages, to tell what he knew of them and to give as close a personal description as he could.

Having finished with Pollard and his friends he spoke of the Bedloe boys. And United States Deputy Marshal Comstock listened throughout with the same mild interest, merely asking questions, offering no opinions.

"One last question," he said finally. "If you had a guess who'd you say was the bad man this county wants?"

"If any stock's missing from my range," was the blunt answer, "I'd look up the Bedloe outfit."

Comstock, offering no opinion, smiled and sank into a thoughtful silence.

At half past nine o'clock Thornton got to his feet and took up his hat.

"I'd better be riding," he said, putting out his hand. "Make yourself at home."

But Comstock came to the door with him.

"If you don't mind I'll ride along," he offered carelessly. "I think my trail runs into Dead Man's, too. And by the way, Thornton," he added a little sharply, "my name's just plain Richard Hampton for the present. And my business right now is ... my business!"

Thornton nodded that he understood and together they left the cabin.



CHAPTER XXV

IN THE DARK

It was a pitch black night, the stars hidden by dense drifting clouds, and intensely still. Buck Thornton and Two-Hand Billy Comstock, riding side by side with few words, turned straight out across the fields, the marshal reining his horse close in to that other horse he could scarcely see and leaving to the cowboy the task of finding their way.

They rode slowly until they turned into the level county road and then swifter that they might come into Hill's Corners before it was midnight. When at last the twinkling lights of Dead Man's Alley winked at them Comstock struck a match and looked at his watch.

"Fifteen minutes of twelve," he said. "You're on time. And I guess you can do the rest of your riding alone? So long. I'm apt to drop in on you at the ranch any day."

Comstock had planned to ride straight to the Brown Bear saloon, to invest in a stack of chips, and to spend the evening "seeing the town." And Thornton, understanding that if the note from Winifred Waverly were truthful in all that it said and in all that it suggested, it would be as well if he were not seen tonight, turned out along the outskirts of the village to come to Pollard's house without riding through the main street.

"Easy, Comet, easy," he muttered to his horse, having no desire to come to the appointed place before the appointed hour. "We've got fifteen minutes and then won't have to keep the lady waiting. If she's there, Comet!"

For even yet his suspicions were not all at rest, already he rode with reins and quirt in the grip of his left hand, the right caught in the loose band of his chaps. It lacked but a few minutes of midnight when he entered the dark, silent street in which was Henry Pollard's house.

Here were a few straggling houses with many vacant lots between and no single light to show that any were awake, no gleam from a window to cut through the darkness which was absolute. Thornton drew his horse to the side of the road where the grass had not been worn away by the wheels of wagons and where the animal's footfalls were muffled, hardly to be heard a score of paces away. Twice he stopped, frowning into the gloom about him, seeking to force his eyes to penetrate the impenetrable wall of the dark, straining his ears to catch some little sound through the silence. But there was nothing to see save the black forms of houses and the pear trees in Pollard's yard, shapeless, sinister shadows something darker than the emptiness against which they stood; no sound save his horse's breathing, the faint creak of his own saddle leather, the low jingle of bridle and spur chain.

"Almost too still to be true," he told himself. "But," with a grim tightening of his lips, "too infernally dark for a man to pick me off with a shotgun if he wanted to!"

Fifty yards from Pollard's front gate he stopped his horse, swung down noiselessly from the saddle and tied Comet to a tree standing at the edge of the road; his jingling spurs he removed to hang them over the horn of his saddle. Then he went forward on foot, walking guardedly, his tread upon the grass making no sound to reach his own ears, and came to Pollard's gate.

It was so dark under the pear trees that the obscurity was without detail; he must guess rather than know where the tree trunks were; it was hard to judge if they were ten feet or fifty feet from him. There might be no one here to keep tryst with him, while on the other hand a dozen men might be waiting.

For perhaps two or three minutes he waited, standing motionless at the gate. No faint noise came to him, no hint of a shadow stirring among those other shadows as motionless as they were formless. The night seemed not to breathe, no sound even of rustling branches coming to his ears from the old pear trees.

"It's twelve o'clock, and after," he thought. "If she's coming she ought to be here now."

Still he waited. And then when he knew it must be ten or fifteen minutes after the time Winifred had set, and remembering that she said specifically "under the pear trees," he moved forward suddenly, jerked the gate open and stood in Pollard's yard.

The little noise of the gate whining upon its worn hinges sounded unnaturally loud. His footfall upon the warped board walk which led to the front door snapped through the silence like a pistol shot.

"If there's anybody laying for me here he knows now that I've come," he told himself. And with no hesitation now, yet with no lessening of his watchfulness, he came on swiftly until he stood under the pear trees and within ten feet of the front porch.

It was still about him, intensely still, and black-dark. He stood leaning forward a little, peering into the darkness, listening for a sound, any sound. He knew that it must be half past twelve, that for close upon half an hour he had waited here. Half an hour filled with quick, conflicting thoughts, suggesting a dozen explanations. Was the note really from Miss Waverly? Had she acted in good faith in sending it? What was the danger of which she spoke? Why had she not come, and why had she set an hour like this? Was it a mere hoax?

"If I could only have a smoke," he muttered, "it wouldn't be so bad waiting to see what the play is."

But still he waited, determined not to leave until possessed of the certainty of there being no need of staying longer. Cautiously he approached the house until he could have put out his foot to the first of the steps leading up to the little porch. There he stopped, telling himself that doubtless he was just playing Tom-fool here in his enemy's garden. Less and less did he like the idea of prowling about the place of Henry Pollard at this time of night.

But now at last there was a sound to vibrate against the empty silence in his ears, a little sound which at first he could not analyse and could not locate. He could hardly be sure whether his senses had tricked him or if he actually heard it. It seemed rather that he had felt it. His body grew very tense as he tried to know where it was, what it was. But again the silence was heavier and more oppressive than before.

At last, through the void of the absolute stillness, it came again. Now he knew what it was although not even yet could he be certain whence it came. It was a cautious step ... it might have been a man's step or a woman's. No muscle of his rigid body moved save alone the muscles which turned his eyes to right and left.

At first he thought that there was some one moving toward him from behind, some one who had perhaps just come in through the gate or had been hidden in the straggling shrubbery. And the next instant he knew that the sounds were in front of him, that what he heard was some one walking in the house, tiptoeing cautiously, and yet not silently because the old boards of the floor whined and creaked under the slow tread. Had the night been less still, had his ears been less ready for any sound the faint creak-creak would not have reached him.

"Woman or man?" was his problem. "Winifred Waverly or Henry Pollard?"

There came a second sound and this he recognized; the scraping of dry wood against dry wood, the moving of the bars which the countryside knew that Henry Pollard used as the nightlock upon his doors. Thornton drew back a little, step by step, slowly, silently, and stopped under the pear trees. Now he was ten feet from the first of the front steps, ten feet from the board walk.

When a man must trust everything to his ears for guidance his ears may tell him much. Thornton knew when the bars were down and when the door was opening very slowly. And then, suddenly, he knew that there was a third person out here in the garden close to him, and that this person ... man or woman? ... was moving with as great a slow caution as himself and the other some one in the house. There was the crack of a twig snapping underfoot ... silence ... slow cautious steps again.

The cowboy moved again, a bare two steps now, and stopped, his back against the trunk of the largest of the pear trees, his eyes running back and forth between the door he could not see and the moving some one he could not see at the corner of the house. His widened nostrils had stiffened, as though he would scent out these beings, and his eyes were the alert eyes of an animal in the forest seeking its enemy through the denseness of a black undergrowth.

The door was open, the soft step was at the threshold. The other step at the corner of the house had stopped. In the new silence the cowboy could hear his own deep, regular breathing. He could see nothing, he knew that his body pressed against the tree trunk could not be seen, and his hands were ready. He began to long for a pistol shot, for the spurt of red fire, for anything that would mean certainty and would release the coiled springs of his tense muscles.

But the still minutes dragged by and there was no certainty of anything save that the some one at the door and the some one at the corner of the house at Thornton's right were standing as still, as tense, as himself. A little sense of the grim humour of this game three people were playing in the dark, this Blind Man's Buff which he was waiting to understand, drew his lips into a quick, fleeting smile.

Now at last came the first bit of certainty. The some one at the door moved again, came to the steps and down into the garden, taking the steps slowly, with long pauses between. This some one was a man. Dimly Thornton saw the blur of the form, but more than his eyes his ears told him that this tread, though guarded, was too heavy for a girl like Winifred Waverly.

"Pollard," he told himself swiftly. "Not ten feet away. And if he comes this way ..."

The man at the steps stopped and in the long silence Thornton knew that the two other people playing this grim game with him were listening even as he was, trying to force their eyes to see through the shadows. Then the heavy tread again, and Thornton thought that it was coming nearer. Then a pause, the step once more, and Pollard, if Pollard it were, had turned the other way and keeping close to the house was moving toward the far corner. The steps grew fainter as they drew farther away, and he knew that the man had gone around the corner of the building.

That other person at the other corner of the house, at Thornton's right, had heard and understood, too. The cowboy heard steps there again, quick steps, almost running, soft, quick breathing not a yard away, and bending forward a little, knew that Winifred Waverly had come to keep her tryst with him.

"Miss Waverly?" he whispered softly.

She was at his side, close to him, so close that he could feel the sweep of her skirts against his boots. She, too, had leaned forward, her face lifted up to his, her eyes seeking to make sure who this man was.

"Buck Thornton?" she whispered back.

"Yes. What is it?"

"Here. Quick!" She had thrust a folded paper into his fingers, closing them tightly upon it. "Now, go! Do what I tell you in it. Henry Pollard suspects something; he is looking for me. Go quickly!"

She was already passing him, hastening toward the steps and the front door.

"Wait!" he commanded, his hand hard upon her arm. "I don't understand...."

"For God's sake let me go!" Only a whisper, but he thought he heard a quiver of terror in it, he knew that her arm was trembling violently. "He'd kill me. ... Oh, my God, go!"

"If there is danger for you..."

"There is none if you go now ... if he doesn't find me here. Please, Buck...."

She jerked away from him and went swiftly to the steps. He could hear her every step now so plainly his heart stood still with fear that Pollard must hear, too. He heard her go to the door; she passed on, and so became one with the blot of darkness within the house. Then he drew back, slowly, half regretfully, back toward the gate, stopping for a last time under the trees there. And after a very long time he heard Pollard's steps again. The man had made a tour of his grounds, keeping rather close to the house, and now mounted the steps with no effort at silence, slammed the door and dropped the bars into place. It was as though he had flung them angrily into their sockets. Thornton went out of the yard and to his waiting horse.

"She says to go away, to leave her there alone with Pollard," he muttered dully. "And something's up. She said he'd kill her if he knew that she was talking to me..."

He hesitated, his horse's tie rope in his hand, of half a mind to go back, to force his way into Henry Pollard's house, to demand to know what was wrong, to take the girl away if there were real danger to her. But then the urgent pleading in her voice came back to him, her insistence that he go, that with him gone there would no longer be any danger for her. Slowly, regretfully, he swung into the saddle. He had made up his mind. He would obey her at least in part, he would go where he could read the paper she had given him, and then perhaps he would understand.

"Any way," he said under his breath, "she's a real girl for you."

He rode swiftly the five hundred yards through the dark street which ran as nearly parallel with the main street as two such crooked streets could approximate parallelism, until he was behind the Here's How Saloon. Here he dismounted and, leaving his horse with reins thrown over his head to the ground, strode off toward the side door of the saloon.

Under the window he glanced in swiftly. Chance had it that the cover was off of the little used billiard table and that two men, in shirt-sleeved comfort, were playing. Both men he knew. They were Charley Bedloe and his brother, the Kid.

The Bedloe boys were intent upon their game, the Kid laughing softly at a miscue Charley had made. Charley was chalking his cue angrily and cursing his luck and neither of them glanced toward the window. Thornton, drawing back a little so that he would not be seen did they happen to look his way, unfolded the paper Winifred had given him.

"Watch me play out my string, Charley!" he heard the Kid call banteringly. Then he heard nothing more from the room, nothing to tell him of another man not ten steps from him in the darkness, for his whole mind had been caught by Winifred's first words.

"I have wronged you from the beginning," she had written. "I thought that I had seen you that day on the trail behind me. You denied it. I thought that you were lying to me. While you were out after the horses a man, masked, came into the cabin and robbed me of the five thousand dollars I was taking to Henry Pollard. I thought that it was you! The man was dressed as you were dressed, his grey handkerchief even was like yours. Now I know it was a man named Ben Broderick who robbed me, and that he wanted me to think that it was you.

"Can't you see the whole scheme? Broderick and the men who are with him, have been committing these crimes. And pretty soon, in a few days, in five days I think, they will be ready to make the evidence show that you are the man who has done it all."

There was more; there were several sheets of paper, closely written. Thornton saw the names of Henry Pollard, of Cole Dalton. But he read no further. In one instant the mind which had been so intent upon these things a girl's writing was telling him forgot Winifred Waverly, Henry Pollard, Broderick—everything except that which was happening at his side.

For, while he read, there had been the sharp crack of a revolver, he saw the spit of angry reddish flame almost at his side, and as he saw he dropped to his knee, Winifred's note in his left hand, his right flashing to his own revolver. For his first thought was that a man had crept up behind him, that it was Pollard, that he was shooting at him.

But almost with the flash and the report of the gun he knew that this man was not shooting at him. There came the crash and tinkle of broken glass, one of the small panes of the window beside which Thornton had been reading dropped out, and almost before the falling pieces had ceased to rattle against the bare floor he heard the sound of running footsteps behind him. The man who had fired had made sure with one shot.

Then Thornton heard the Kid cry out, his voice hoarse and inarticulate, and with the cry came a moan from Charley Bedloe. Charley staggered half across the room, his two big hands going automatically to his hips. He had come close to his younger brother, staring at him with wide eyes, and then slipped forward and down, quiet and limp and dead.

Thornton's one first emotion, one so natural to a man who takes his fight in the open, was a boundless rage toward the man who had murdered another man in this cold blooded fashion, taking his grim toll from the darkness and without warning. He whirled about, his own gun blazing in his hand, and as fast as his finger could work the trigger sent six shots after the flying footsteps.

The footsteps were gone. Again the cowboy looked swiftly in at the window. He saw that Charley Bedloe was dead; the Kid, his face contorted, hideously twisted to his blended rage and grief, stood staring about him helplessly. Then, the moment of paralysis gone, the Kid suddenly leaped over his brother's body and ran to the window.

"It's Buck Thornton!" roared the Kid. Both of his big guns were already in his hands. "Take that, you...."

Then Buck Thornton, making most of an unforeseen situation, did a thing that he had never done before in his life, which he never would do again. He turned and ran, stumbling through the darkness into which one leap carried him.

For he knew that the Kid had no shadow of a shred of doubt that he had killed Charley Bedloe, he knew that if he did not run for it, run like a scared rabbit now, why then he'd have to kill the Kid or the Kid would kill him. He had no wish to meet his death for the cowardly act of another man and he had no wish to kill Kid Bedloe because another man had murdered his brother. If there were anything left to him but to run for it, he did not know what it was.

He found his horse, leaped into the saddle and turned out toward the north.

"The Kid sure had his nerve, running right up to the window after Charley dropped," he muttered, with the abrupt beginning of the first bit of admiration he had ever felt for a man whom he had appraised as even lower in the scale than "Rattlesnake" Pollard. "The boy is game! And now he's going to come out after me, and there won't be any talking done and it's going to be Kid Bedloe or me. And," with much certainty, but with a little sigh, half regretful, "the Kid is just a shade slow on the draw. Sure as two and two I've got to kill him. Oh, hell," he concluded disgustedly. "Why did this have to happen? Haven't I got enough on my hands already?"



CHAPTER XXVI

THE FRAME-UP

Thornton returned to his cabin long before the first faint streak of daylight, and not once during the night did he think of sleep. At his little table in the light of his coal-oil lamp he read over and over the hurried words which Winifred Waverly had been driven to put on paper for him. At first his look was merely charged with perplexity; then there came into it incredulity and finally sheer amazement.

"The pack of hounds!" he cried softly when he had done, his fist striking hard upon his table. "The pack of low down, dirty hounds!"

For now, in a flash, he saw and understood beyond the limits to which the girl's vision had gone, grasping explanations denied to her. She had told him everything which she knew or suspected, saying somewhere in her account, "I know now that my first judgment of you, before I was deceived into thinking Ben Broderick you, was right. I know that you are a man and a gentleman. I know that you are 'square.' So now, if you think that you owe me anything for what I am doing for you, I want you to remember that Henry Pollard is my uncle, my dead mother's brother, and to make things no harder for him than he has made them for himself."

With no other reference to her relation to the man, with no further hint of a plea for herself, she went on to tell what she knew of Pollard and Broderick, of their meetings with Dalton whom, she thought, they had completely deceived, of the talk she had overheard that night at the schoolhouse. She said nothing of her own precarious position at Pollard's house. When he finished reading Buck Thornton's eyes were very bright.

"A real woman," he muttered. "A real man's sort of girl! I doped her up right at the first jump, and then I went and insulted her by thinking that she was like 'Rattlesnake' Pollard! Lord, Lordy! What a difference!" And then, very gently, his eyes clouding a little, he muttered over and over, under his breath: "Poor little kid!"

But ever his thoughts came back to the tangle into which day by day he himself had been moving deeper and deeper. He saw how simple the whole matter had been, how seemingly sure of success. Broderick was close enough to him in size and form to make the scheme eminently practicable. It was easy for Broderick to dress himself as Thornton dressed, boots, chaps old and worn, big black hat and grey neck handkerchief. It was simple enough for Broderick, here in this land of cattle and horses, to find a horse that would be a fair match for any horse which Thornton rode. He would allow himself to be seen only at a distance, as upon the day Winifred Waverly had seen him, or indistinctly at night, and when the time came and the arrest was made there would rise up many men to swear to Buck Thornton.... Broderick himself had already said that he had been robbed of a can of gold dust. He would be ready to swear that Thornton had robbed him. Pollard would add his word....

One by one he remembered episodes which until now had meant nothing. Cattle had been stolen from the ranges all about him; no single cow was missing from the Poison Hole. He had thought that this had been because of his own great vigilance, his night-riding over his herds. But what would a jury say? He remembered that the last time he had seen old man King, just a few days ago, when King had remarked drily upon the fact that no cattle were missing from Thornton's range, there had been a swift look of suspicion in the old cattle man's shrewd eyes. Already he was suspected. How many men besides King were ready to believe the worst of Buck Thornton, a man who had been in their midst only a year?

There were many days in the life of Buck Thornton as in the lives of other cattle men hereabouts when he was absolutely alone with his horse, when he rode far out day and night upon some range errand, when, perhaps, he went two or three days together and saw no other man. Thornton remembered suddenly that when he had first heard of the murder of Bill Varney, the stage driver, he had just returned from such a lonely ride, a three days' trip into the mountains to look for new pasture lands. If these men planned to commit these crimes and then to throw the burden upon him, he saw how simple a matter it would be for them to select some such occasion as this when he could not prove an alibi.

"They've come mighty close to getting me," he muttered sternly. "Mighty damned uncomfortably close!"

He saw further. Winifred Waverly had said frankly that she had sworn to the sheriff that she knew it was Buck Thornton who had robbed her. They were managing to hold Cole Dalton off, and they had a reason. What? Perhaps to work their game as long as they dared, to make a last big haul, or to have their chain of evidence welded so strongly link by link that Thornton could not free himself from it and that no faintest breath of suspicion might reach them. Pollard would be in a position to prove that Thornton had paid him this five thousand only to take it back; it would give him a chance to break the contract, to regain possession of the Poison Hole and to keep the other ten thousand dollars already paid in as forfeited....

Why had they chosen him to bear the brunt of their manifold crimes? That, too, was clear to him. With him in the penitentiary or gone to the gallows the whole episode would be closed, the men who had put through the monumental scheme would be in a position to enjoy their boldly acquired profits with no fear of the law so much as searching for them. It was necessary to them that some man suffer for their wrong doing. Now: why Buck Thornton in particular? The reasons were forthcoming, logical and in order: he was a man whom Pollard hated; already Pollard regretted having sold the Poison Hole ranch for twenty thousand dollars; he wanted it back; Thornton happened to be a new man in the country and new men are always open to suspicion; he happened to be close enough to Ben Broderick in size and form and carriage to make the deception easy. And, thought Thornton, there was one other reason:

The undertaking of these men had already grown too big, the work too extensive, for it to be handled by two men alone. They had confederates; that was inevitable. Blackie, the saloon keeper in Dry Town, was one of them, he felt sure. The Bedloe boys, always ready for deeds of wildness and lawlessness, were others. The Bedloe boys hated him as keenly as did Pollard, and they were not the kind to miss an opportunity like this to "break even" with him. It was noteworthy that he had had no trouble with them since he had shot the Kid's revolvers out of his hands at John Smith's place last winter; they had left him entirely unmolested; the three of them who he knew were fearless and hard and vengeful, had not sought in any way to punish him. Here was the reason.

He went back to Winifred Waverly's letter. She had ended by saying,

"I know that Henry Pollard suspects me of knowing more than I have admitted to him; I suppose I did not entirely deceive him about that yellow envelope. He is watching me all the time. That is why I have written this to be ready to give it to you if I get the chance, if I dare not talk with you. Don't try to see me. I am in no danger now, but if you came, if he knew that we were seeing each other.... I don't know."

At last when Thornton got up and went to his door day was breaking. He returned to his table where his lamplight was growing a sickly, pale yellow in the dawn, and holding Winifred's letter over the chimney burned it. He took her other little note from his pocket and let the yellow flame lick it up. Then, grinding the ashes under his heel, he put out the light and went again to the door.

The recent shooting at the Here's How Saloon by some man who had stood almost at the cowboy's elbow, he had for a little forgotten as he pondered on his own personal danger and admitted that the case was going to look bad against him in spite of what he might do. But now, for a moment, he forgot his own predicament to become lost in frowning speculation upon the night's crime.

He knew that men like the Bedloes, hard men living hard lives, have many enemies. There were the men whom they had cheated at cards, and who had cheated them, with whom they had drunk and quarrelled. It was clear to him that any one of a dozen men, bearing a grudge against Charley Bedloe, but afraid to attack in the open any one of these three brothers who fought like tigers and who took up one another's quarrels with no thought of the right and the wrong of it, might have chosen this method.

Yes, this was clear. But one thing was not. The night had passed and neither the Kid nor Ed Bedloe had called to square with him. He did not understand this. For he did not believe that even their affiliation with Broderick and Pollard would have held the Kid and Ed back from their vengeance now. It was patent that the Kid had leaped to the natural conclusion that he had killed Charley Bedloe; he understood the emotion which he had seen depicted in the Kid's twisted face as Charley staggered and fell at his brother's feet. It was a great, blind grief, unutterable, wrathful, terrible, like the unreasoning, tempestuous grief of a wild thing, of a mother bear whose cubs had been shot before her eyes. For the one thing which it seemed God had put into the natures of these men was love, the love which led them to seek no wife, no friend, no confidante outside their own close fraternity. And yet the night had passed and neither the Kid nor Ed had come.

"Something happened to stop them," mused Thornton. "For a few hours only. They'll come. And I'd give a hundred dollars to know who the jasper was that put that bullet into Charley."

He went back into his cabin, put his two guns on the table, threw out the cartridges, and for fifteen minutes oiled and cleaned. Then, with a careful eye to every shell, he loaded them again. When he once more threw his door open and went outside his eyes were a little regretful but very, very hard.

He was inclined to believe that Winifred was mistaken in judging Ben Broderick's to be the brains of this thing. He thought that he saw Pollard's hand directing. Until now he had fully expected to go to Dry Town, to raise the four thousand five hundred dollars with which to make his last payment upon the Poison Hole ranch. Now he more than suspected that this was but a play of Pollard's to get him out of the way while the last crime be perpetrated, to have him out upon one of his lonely rides so that he could prove no alibi, perhaps even to rob him of the four thousand five hundred dollars before he could come with it to Hill's Corners. Now he made up his mind that he was not going to give Pollard this one last chance he wanted. For, he felt convinced, if he did succeed in getting through with the money without a bullet in the back, and if he actually brought it to Pollard the latter would tell him that he had changed his mind, and so the rash act would have been done uselessly. Having no way of holding Pollard to his bargain he had little wish to make the long ride to Dry Town and back.

Thornton for several days had planned to ride out to the borders of his range and see his cowboys, giving them full instructions for work to be done during the week which followed in case he should not be able to give more time to them. Now, with a great deal to think about, he was not averse to a solitary day in the saddle.

Of late he had noted how the cinch of his working saddle was weakening; some of the strands had parted even. He should mend it now, but he had no time to lose, and he did have another saddle, which he did not use twice during the year and which for months now he had not even seen. He had put it out of the way, high up in the loft. He went down to the barn meaning to get it and make the exchange. If he was going to have some hard riding during the coming days it was as well if he used this saddle, the best he had ever seen. Rather too ornate with its profuse silver chasings and carved leather for every day's use, a heavy Mexican affair which he had won in a bronco "busting" competition down in Texas four years ago.

He came up into the loft, half filled with hay, and went to the far end where the saddle had hung upon its peg. It was gone. He stood staring at the peg in surprise. Surely he had left it here, surely he had not removed it. He tried to think when he had seen it last. And he remembered. It had been two or three months ago, and he knew that he had left it here, he even remembered the trouble he had had in drawing it up after him through the small trap door. Now where was it?

His first suspicion was that one of his men had been using it. But he knew that that was impossible. He would have seen it, and moreover one man does not take another man's saddle without saying by your leave.

"The thing is worth three hundred dollars, easy," he muttered. "It would be funny...."

He went to the loose hay heaped at the wall and began to kick it about, half expecting to have his boot strike against the silver tipped horn or the heavy tapaderos. And then at last did the swift, certain suspicion of the truth flash upon him. He came upon a small soap box hidden far under the loose hay. He drew it out, whisking away the straw which half filled it. After the first start of amazement and a swift examination of the contents, he understood.

"A plant!" he cried angrily. "A damned cowardly plant! Lord, Lordy, but they're making a clean job of this!"

Upon the top of the pile, the first thing he took into his hands, was a heavy silver watch. It bore a name, scratched within the case, and the name was that of Jed MacIntosh, the man who, Blackie had told him, had been "cleaned out" in Dry Town. There were two bank notes, one for ten dollars, one for twenty, and both were soiled with dark smears that told of dry blood. There was a little, much worn memorandum book, with many pencil-scribbled entries in it, and upon the fly leaf it bore the name of Seth Powers, the man who had been robbed in Gold Run and who had been found beaten into unconsciousness. There was a small tin can; in the bottom of it some pine pitch, and adhering to the pitch a fine sifting of gold dust. A can, he knew, Ben Broderick would identify as the one of which he had been robbed! There were other articles, two more watches, a revolver, an empty purse, which he could not identify but which he realized keenly would be identified when the time came.

Suppose that the time came now! Suppose that he should hear the sheriff's voice calling upon him, that a posse should come upon him and find him with this box in his possession! What chance would he have?

His face went white with the anger which surged up within him and the desire leaped up, strong and bitter, to get in his two hands the man who had framed him and to choke the treacherous life out of him. Then, suddenly, he was cool again, seeing the present danger and the urgent need of prompt action.

First he made certain that there was no other damning bit of false evidence concealed in the hay or any where in the loft. Then, taking the box under his arm, he went down into the stable. Here again he made careful search, spending an hour in a stubborn search. Then leaving the box in a manger, straw-covered, he went back to the cabin on the top of the knoll. His eyes, running to the four points of the compass, told him that there was no other man within sight.

Taking off his boots and socks he waded out into the middle of Big Little River, carrying a shovel and the box. In the soft, sandy soil he made a hole deep enough to hold the box which he put into it. Swiftly he filled it with stones, placed a big, flat rock over it, saw that there was no sign of his work as the sand and mud drifted in to fill the little hollow, and then went back for his boots. The shovel he put again against the bunk house wall.

When, at last, he had mended his cinch and rode Comet out towards the east and the mountains upon the flank of the Poison Hole, he had made up his mind what he was going to do.

"It's a gamble," he told himself coolly. "But I guess I've got to gamble now. And I'm going to play it heavy."



CHAPTER XXVII

JIMMIE SQUARES HIMSELF

A horseman was riding toward him upon the far bank of the Big Little River where it straightened out beyond the cabin. He recognized the horse and a moment later the rider now waving his hat to him, and knew that it was Two-Hand Billy Comstock returning. He turned and rode slowly to meet the officer.

"Back already, Comstock?" he called carelessly. "What luck?"

"Bully luck," grinned Comstock, replacing his hat and looking as fresh and well groomed as though he were but this minute up from bed and a long sleep. "First let me tell you the news." He slipped his hand into his breast pocket and took out an envelope. "More mail for you, Thornton! You're doing a big correspondence, it seems to me!"

In spite of him a quick flush ran up to Thornton's brow. For his first thought was that Winifred Waverly....

"Wrong guess, Buck," chuckled Comstock, his good humour seemingly flowing from an inexhaustible source. "It's from a man."

"Who?" demanded Thornton sharply, putting out his hand.

Comstock's amusement welled up into open laughter.

"It's a prime joke of the Fates," he cried cheerfully. "Here is William Comstock, United States Deputy Marshal, carrying a message from no less a person than Jimmie Clayton, jail bird, crook and murderer! A man wanted in two states!"

"Clayton!" said Thornton in amazement. "You don't mean to tell me...."

"Oh, he'd never seen me, you know. Nor I him. But then I've seen his picture more than once and I know all about him. He's keeping low but he took a chance on me. I was just a whiskey drummer last night, you know, and happened to let it out that I was riding this way this morning on my way to Dry Town. So Jimmie slipped me the letter! Read it."

Thornton took it, wondering. The envelope was sealed and much soiled where Jimmie Clayton's hand had closed the mucilaged flap. He tore it open and read almost at a glance:

Deere buck come the same place tonight I want to put you wise. Theare is sum danger to you buck. Keap your eyes open on the way. I will be there late tonight.

j.C.

Thornton looked up to see the twinkling eyes of Two-Hand Billy Comstock watching him.

"You had better tell me what he says," said Comstock coolly. "I don't know but that I should have been well within my rights to open it, eh? But I hate to open another man's private mail."

Thornton hesitated.

He must not forget that Comstock was an officer—that even now he was upon a state errand—that it was his duty to bring such men as Jimmie Clayton to justice. He must not forget that Clayton had been a friend to him—or, at least, that he had credited the crook with a feeling of friendship and the care of a friend.

True, Comstock, who seemed to know everything, had said in a matter-of-fact way that it had been Jimmie Clayton who had shot him that night between Juarez and El Paso. But nothing was proven. He had long thought of Clayton as a man to whom he owed a debt of gratitude, and now with the man, hunted as he was, his sympathy naturally went out to him, evil-doer as he knew him to be.

Evidently Comstock read what was passing in the cowboy's mind.

"I'm not asking you to squeal on him, Buck," he said quietly. "Look here, I could have taken him in last night if I had wanted to. I could have got him a week ago if I had wanted him. But I didn't want him—I don't want him now. I'm hunting bigger game."

Still Thornton hesitated, but now his hesitation was brief. He swung his horse around toward the cabin.

"Let's ride back, Comstock," he said shortly. "I want a good long talk with you."

Not another word about the matter did either man say as they unsaddled or as they went up the knoll to the cabin. Not a word until the fragrance of boiling coffee and frying bacon went out to mingle with the freshness of the new day. Then as they sat at table and Comstock began to soak the biscuits Thornton had made in the bacon gravy, they looked at each other, and their eyes were alike grave and equally stern.

"First thing," began Comstock, "let me finish my news. Charley Bedloe was murdered last night."

"I know."

"The devil you do? All right. Then here's something else. His brother, the Kid, they call him, swears that you killed him."

"I know," nodded Thornton as quietly as before.

Comstock made no pretence of hiding his surprise.

"I thought you had left before the shooting happened. I was all over town; no one saw you...."

"Except the Kid. He did. He saw me outside the window through which somebody shot Charley."

Comstock returned his attention to his biscuit and gravy.

"I'm a failure as a news monger," he grunted. "Go on. You tell me."

And Thornton told him. Before he had finished Comstock had pushed back his chair and was letting his coffee go cold. For Thornton had told him not alone of what had happened at the Here's How Saloon last night, but of the work that Broderick and Pollard were doing, of all of his certainties and his suspicions, of the "planted" evidence he had found in the hay loft, of the missing saddle. Only he did not mention the name of a girl, and he remembered that Pollard was her uncle and spared him where he could.

"What a game! By high heaven, what a game!" Comstock pursed his lips into a long whistle. Then he banged his first down upon the table, his eyes grown wonderfully bright and keen, crying softly, "I've got him, I've got him at last, and he's going to pay to the uttermost for all he has done in the last seven years ... and before! Got him—by thunder!"

"Pollard?" asked the cowboy quickly.

"No. Not Pollard."

"Then Broderick?"

"Not Broderick."

"Bedloe?... The Kid?"

"What does his name matter? I'll give him a dozen names when the time comes, and by heaven he's got a crime to pay for for every name he ever wore!"

He grew suddenly silent and sat staring out through the open door at the distant mountains. At last he turned back toward Thornton, his eyes very clear, his expression placid.

"Guess why they are waiting five days more before springing their mine?" he asked abruptly.

"Yes. I figured it out a little while ago, after I found the truck in my loft. In five days it'll be the first of the month. On the first of the month the stage from the Rock Creek Mines will be worth holding up. It carried in ten thousand dollars last month. At times, there has been a lot more. Just as sure as a hen lays eggs, it is due to be robbed on the first; they'll find something here to prove I was the hold up man, and I...."

"And you go over the road for life or take a drop at the end of a rope? And they quit being badmen and buy ranches? That it?"

"That's it. It's a gamble, but...."

"But it's a damned good gamble," laughed Comstock softly. "You ought to be sheriff, Buck."

But Buck, thinking of how blind to all this he had been so long, how not even now would he have his eyes open were it not for a girl, longed with an intense longing for the end of this thing when she might be free to go from the house of a man like Henry Pollard, when he might be free to go to her and...

"How does it happen," he asked suddenly, "that you are not after Jimmie Clayton?"

"When I'm out for a big grizzily," returned Comstock, "I can't waste my time on little brown bears! That's one thing. Another is that Jimmie Clayton never had a chance of getting away. If he lives ten days he'll be nabbed, and he won't live ten days. He's shot to pieces and he's sick on top of it. I told you last night the poor devil is a fool and a tool rather than a real badman. If he's got a chance to die quietly, why let him die outside of jail. It's all one in the end."

Thornton had always felt a sort of pity for Jimmie Clayton; it had always seemed to him that the poor devil was merely one of the weaker vessels that go down the stream of life, borne this way and that by the current that sweeps them on, with little enough chance from the beginning, having come warped and misshapen from the hands of the potter. And now Jimmie was about to die. Well, whether it had been Jimmie Clayton or another who had shot him that night down in Texas, he would heed the entreaty of the letter and go to him for the last time.

So that night, when darkness came, Thornton left Comstock at the cabin and rode out towards the mountains, towards the Poison Hole and the dugout at its side.

It was dark, but not so dark as last night, there being no clouds to blot out the stars. And the moon was slipping upward through the trees upon the mountain top when Thornton came at last to the lake. As before, he was watchful and alert. Clayton was Kid Bedloe's friend, and Clayton had always struck him as a man in whom one could put little faith. It was quite in keeping with what he knew that Jimmie's note had been written at the instigation of Kid Bedloe himself and that he was to be led out here where Kid Bedloe and Ed might be in waiting for him. It was quite possible, even probable. But he thought it more than likely that for once Jimmie Clayton was acting in good faith.

The Jimmie Clayton whom he found alone a little after moonrise was very much as he had found him that other night. The fugitive lay upon the bunk in the darkness of the dugout, and only when he was assured that it was Buck Thornton come to him did he light his stub of candle. As before Thornton entered and closed the door after him to look down on the man with a sharp twinge of pity.

"How're they coming, Jimmie?" he asked gently.

"Can't you see?" replied Clayton with a nervous laugh. "I'm all in, Buck. All in."

If ever a man looked to be "all in" it was poor little Jimmie Clayton. He threw back his coat for Thornton to see. There upon the side was the stain of blood hardly dry upon the shirt. His eyes were hollow, sunken, fever-filled, his cheeks unthinkably drawn, yellow-white and sickly, the hand which fell back weakly from the exertion of opening his coat showed the bones thrust up as though they would pierce the skin.

"You've been shot again?" demanded the cowboy.

Jimmie shook his head.

"The same ol' hole, Buck; Colt forty-five. It won't heal up, it breaks out all the time. I can't sleep with it, I can't eat, I can't set still." He had begun manfully, but now the little whimper came back into his voice, his shaking hand gripped Thornton's arm feebly, and he cried tremulously, "I wisht I was dead, Buck. Hones' to Gawd, I wisht I was dead!"

"Poor little old Jimmie," Thornton muttered just as he had muttered the words once before, gently, pityingly. "Is there anything I can do, Jimmie."

Jimmie drew back his hand and lay still for a little, his eyes seeming unnaturally large as he turned them upwards, filled at once with a sort of defiance and an abject, cringing terror.

"Nothin'," he said a little sullenly. His eyes dropped and ran to the fingers of his hand which were plucking nervously at his coat. He parted his lips as though he would say something else and then closed them tightly; even his eyes shut tight for a moment. Thornton watched him, waiting. It was easy to see that Jimmie Clayton had upon the tip of his tongue something he wished to say, and that he hesitated ... through fear?

"What is it, Jimmie?" Thornton asked after a while.

Jimmie lifted his head quickly, his eyes flew open with a look in them almost of defiance as he blurted out:

"Do you know who shot you ... that time down in Juarez?"

"Was it you, Jimmie?" asked Thornton.

Jimmie's eyes grew larger; all defiance fled from them and the terror came back.

"You ... you think ..." he faltered. "You thought all along...."

"Was it you, Jimmie?"

The voice was soft, the eyes gentle and now a little smile accompanied the words. It was so easy to forget what had happened so long ago, to disregard it when one looked into this man's eyes and saw there the end of the earthly story of a man who had not been a good man because he had never had a chance, who had never really earned his spurs as a Western badman, because he was of too small calibre, who was after all a vessel that had come imperfect from the hands of the potter. Now Jimmie answered, his voice hushed, his eyes wide, his soul filled with wonderment:

"It was ... me, Buck!"

"Well, Jimmie, I'm sorry. But it can't be helped now, can it? And I'll forget it if you will." He looked at the worn, frail form, and knew that Comstock was right and that little Jimmie Clayton was lying in the valley of the shadow of death. So he added, his voice very low and very gentle, "I'll even shake hands if you will, Jimmie."

Jimmie closed his eyes but not quick enough to hide the mistiness which had rushed into them. His breathing was irregular and heavy, its sound being the only sound in the dugout. He did not put out his hand. Finally, his voice steadier than it had been before, he spoke again.

"You've been square with me, Buck. I want to be square with you.... There's a frame-up to get you. Now don't stop me an' I'll talk as fast as I can. It hurts me to talk much." He pressed a thin hand upon his side, paused a moment, and then went on.

"I think Broderick's the man as has been putting over most of the stick-ups around here for quite some time. Him and Pollard in together. I ain't squealin' on a pal when I tell you this, neither," with a little flash of his old defiance. "Broderick's no pal of mine. The dirty cur. He could of got me clear.... He wanted to make 'em give me up, to git the reward.... Their game is to make folks think you been doing these things, and to send you up for 'em."

He stopped to rest, but even now did not look to see what effect his words had upon his hearer.

"I don't know much about it," he went on after a moment. "You can find out. But I do know they stole a saddle of yours, and a horse. They're going to stick up the stage out of Rock Creek Mines next week; there's going to be some shooting, and a horse is going to get killed. That'll be your horse, Buck. An' it'll have your saddle on."

He had told his story. He told nothing of how he knew, and Thornton did not press him, for he guessed swiftly that somehow the telling would implicate Kid Bedloe, who was a pal... and little Jimmie Clayton was not going to squeal on a pal.

Half an hour after he had come to the dugout Thornton left it. For Clayton would not talk further and would not let him stay.

"I got a horse out there," he had said irritably. "I can get along. I'm going to move on in the morning. So long, Buck."

So Thornton went back to his horse, wondering if, when tomorrow came, Jimmie Clayton would not indeed be moving on, moving on like little Jo to the land where men will be given an even break, where they will be "given their chance." His foot was in the stirrup when he heard Clayton's voice calling. He went back into the dugout. The light was out and it was very dark.

"What is it, Jimmie?" he asked.

"I was thinking, Buck," came the halting answer, "that ... if you don't care ... I will shake hands."

Thornton put out his hand a little eagerly and his strong fingers closed tightly upon the thin nervous fingers of Jimmie Clayton. Then he went out without speaking.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE SHOW DOWN

Upon the first day of the month the stage leaving the Rock Creek Mines in the early morning carried a certain long, narrow lock-box carefully bestowed under the seat whereon sat Hap Smith and the guard. Also a single passenger: a swarthy little man with ink-black hair plastered down close upon a low, atavistic forehead and with small ink-black eyes. In Dry Town beyond the mountains, to which he was evidently now returning from the mines, he was known as Blackie, bartender of the Last Chance saloon. This morning he had been abroad as early as the earliest; he seemed to take a bright interest in everything, from the harnessing of the four horses to the taking on of mail bags and boxes. In a moment when Hap Smith, before the mine superintendent's cabin, was rolling a cigarette preparatory to the long drive, Blackie even stepped forward briskly and gave the guard a hand with the long, narrow lock-box.

Keen eyed and watchful as Blackie was he failed to see a man who never lost sight of him or of the stage until it rolled out of the mining camp through the early morning. The man, unusually tall, wearing black shaggy chaps, grey soft shirt and neck-handkerchief and a large black hat, kept the stage in view from around the corner of the wood shed standing back of the superintendent's cabin. Then, swinging up to the back of a rangy granite-coloured roan, he turned into the road.

"We're playing to win this time, Comet," he said softly. "And, as we said all along, Blackie's the capper for their game. Shake a foot, Comet, old boy. Maybe at the end of a hard day's work we'll look in on ... her."

When, an hour later, the stage made its brief stop in Miller's Flat to take on mail bags Blackie was leaning out smoking a cigar and looking about him alertly. A lounger near the post-office door turned to watch in great seeming idleness. His eyes met the bartender's for a second and he nodded casually.

"How's everything?" he asked in the customary inconsequential manner of casual acquaintanceship.

"Fine," said Blackie in a tone of equal casualness. "Couldn't be better."

The stranger slouched on his way, climbed into the saddle of the horse he had left by the door, and rode off.... And Buck Thornton, from the bend in the road where he had halted Comet under a big live oak tree, noted how the horseman rode on his spurs when once he had passed from the sight of the stage driver.

"Taking the Red Canon trail," he marked with satisfaction. "Carrying the word to Broderick and Pollard that there's been no slip-up and that the box is really aboard. And now.... Shake a foot, Comet; here's where we put one over on Blackie."

The man who had passed the time of day with the saloon man had disappeared over a ridge and out of sight; Thornton consequently rode swiftly to overtake the stage. Before the four running horses had drawn the creaking wagon after them a half mile Hap Smith stopped his horses in answer to the shout from behind him and stared over his shoulder wonderingly.

"What the hell ..." he began. And then with a shade of relief in his tone and yet half hesitatingly, the frown still on his face as Thornton rode close up, "It's you, is it? I thought for a minute...."

"That it was Broderick?" laughed Thornton. "You didn't think so, did you, Blackie?"

Blackie drew back and slipped his hand covertly into his coat pocket. Thornton, giving no sign that he had seen, said briefly to Hap Smith:

"You've talked things over with Banker Templeton? And with Comstock?"

"Yes," said Hap Smith, his thick, squat figure growing tense where he sat as though with a sudden nervous bracing within. "Yes."

"And you expected me here? You will give me a free hand?"

"Yes," cried Smith ringingly. "Damn 'em, yes. Go to it, Buck!"

Thornton turned stern eyes upon Blackie.

"I can shoot twelve holes through you before you get your hand out of your pocket," he said crisply. "You damned stool-pigeon! Now, suppose you pull your hand out ... empty! ... and stick it up high above your head. Think it over, Blackie, before you take any fool chances."

His left hand held Comet's reins gathered up close as he spoke; his right rested lightly on the horn of his saddle. Blackie plainly hesitated; a tinge of red warmed his swarthy cheek; his eyes glittered evilly.... Then suddenly he whipped out his hand, a revolver in it....

But Thornton, for all of the handicap, fired first. His own right hand went its swift, sure way to the gun swinging loose in its holster under his left arm pit; he jabbed it forward even as he swung himself to one side in the saddle, and fired. The revolver slipped from Blackie's hand and clattered down to the bed of the wagon while Blackie, crying out chokingly, his face going white with fear, clutched at his shoulder and gave up the fight.

With scant time allowed in their plans to waste on such as Blackie he was made to lie down in the bottom of the wagon, his wrists bound, his wound very rudely bandaged, his body screened from any chance view by the boxes and mail bags and a handkerchief jammed into his mouth. Within ten minutes Hap Smith was clattering on, his and the guard's mouths and eyes grim and hard, and Thornton had again dropped behind, just out of sight around the first bend in the road.

"And now, my boy," muttered Hap Smith to his friend the guard, "keep both eyes peeled and your trigger-finger free. Hell's goin' to pop in considerable less'n no time."

Nor was the stage driver unduly pessimistic. Half an hour after Blackie had gone down among boxes and bags the lumbering vehicle thundered into one of the many deep gorges through which the narrow road wound. Here was a sharp turn and a bit of steep grade to take on the run if the stage were to keep to schedule time. But suddenly and with a curse from Smith and a sharp exclamation from the guard, Hap slammed on his brake. A newly fallen pine tree, three feet thick, lay across the road.

The guard's rifle was ready in his hands; in a flash Hap Smith had dropped his reins so that they were held only by the ring caught over the little hook at the back of the seat and had whipped out his own big ugly revolver. His eyes ran this way and that; in his soul he knew well enough that no mere bit of chance had thrown the obstruction across his way. But never a head nor an arm nor a rifle barrel rewarded his look. Until, suddenly, heralded by a curt shouted command, a man rode out into the open road from the mouth of a canon.

"Don't be a fool, Smith! Take a little look-around first!"

It was a voice eminently cool and steady and insolent. Though his gun rose slowly Hap Smith heeded the note of arrogance and, with a hard finger crooking to the trigger, looked about him again. And this time not in vain. Yonder, from across the top of a boulder, a rifle barrel bore unwaveringly upon the breadth of his chest; ten feet higher up on the mountainside where there was a pile of granite rocks and a handful of scrub brush, a second rifle gave its sinister silent warning; two other guns looked forth from the other side of the road ... in all, at least five armed men....

Hap Smith's eyes went back to the man sitting his horse in the middle of the road, just across the fallen pine tree. A tall, powerfully built man dressed quite as Hap Smith and the guard had been told to expect: black, shaggy chaps, grey shirt and neck-handkerchief; broad black hat; red bandana across his face with wide slits for the eyes. And yet both of the men in the stage stared and were on the verge of uncertainty; had they not been prepared both would have sworn that it was Buck Thornton on Buck Thornton's horse; and later they would, no doubt, have sworn to Buck Thornton's saddle.

Five to two, seemed the odds, with all of the highwaymen saving the one bold figure screened from view and so holding the advantage of position. And yet, for once, the odds were not what they seemed.

For now there came abruptly, and utterly with no sign of warning, the answer to the last big play of Ben Broderick and Henry Pollard and the rest. Into the road out of the same canon from which the masked man on the horse had come now rode two more men, side by side and with a thunderous racket of pounding hoofs beating at rocky soil, their heads up, their faces unhidden, their eyes hard and bright and their right hands lifted a little. Two-Hand Billy Comstock and Buck Thornton, come at the top speed of a swinging gallop to alter the odds and take a hand. And as Thornton's horse's hoofs struck in the dust of the road and the masked rider swung about, startled in the moment of his supreme arrogant confidence, it looked to those who saw as if there came Buck Thornton on one big grey horse racing down upon another Buck Thornton on that big grey's mate. With but a hundred yards between them....