The men rushed him. He fought them back with clean hard blows. Jerry bored in like a wild bull. Clay caught him off his balance, using a short arm jolt which had back of it all that twenty-three years of clean outdoors Arizona could give. The gangster hit the pavement hard.

He got up furious and charged again. The Arizonan, busy with the other man, tried to sidestep. An uppercut jarred him to the heel. In that instant of time before his knees began to sag beneath him his brain flashed the news that Durand had struck him on the chin with brass knucks. He crumpled up and went down, still alive to what was going on, but unable to move in his own defense. Weakly he tried to protect his face and sides from the kicks of a heavy boot. Then he floated balloon-like in space and vanished into unconsciousness.



CHAPTER VIII

"THE BEST SINGLE-BARRELED SPORT IVER I MET"

Clay drifted back to a world in which the machinery of his body creaked. He turned his head, and a racking pain shot down his neck. He moved a leg, and every muscle in it ached. From head to foot he was sore.

Voices somewhere in space, detached from any personal ownership, floated vaguely to him. Presently these resolved themselves into words and sentences.

"We're not to make a pinch, Tim. That's the word he gave me before he left. This is wan av Jerry's private little wars and he don't want a judge askin' a lot of unnicessary questions, y' understand."

"Mother av Moses, if this he-man from Hell's Hinges hadn't the luck av the Irish, there'd be questions a-plenty asked. He'd be ready for the morgue this blissed minute. Jerry's a murderin' divvle. When I breeze in I find him croakin' this lad proper and he acts like a crazy man when I stand him and Gorilla Dave off till yuh come a-runnin'. At that they may have given the bye more than he can carry. Maybe it'll be roses and a nice black carriage for him yet."

The other policeman, a sergeant—by this time the voices had localized themselves in persons—laughed with reluctant admiration.

"Him! He's got siven lives like a cat. Take a look at the Sea Siren, Tim. 'T is kindling the lad has made of the place. The man that runs the dump put up a poor mouth, but I told him and the nuts that crowded round squawkin' for an arrest that if they hollered the police would close the place and pull the whole bunch for disorderly conduct. They melted away, believe me." He added, with an access of interest, "Yuh've heard the byes tell the story of the rube that tied up the Swede janitor on the Drive into a knot with his own hose. This'll be the same lad, I'm thinkin'."

The other nodded. He was bending over Clay and sprinkling water on his face. "He'll be black and blue ivery inch of him, but his eyelids are flickering. Jerry's an ill man to cross, I've heard tell. Yuh'd think this lad had had enough. But Jerry's still red-eyed about him and swears they can't both live in the same town. You'll remember likely how Durand did for Paddy Kelly? It was before my time."

"Yuh're a chump copper, Tim Muldoon, else yuh'd know we don't talk about that in the open street. Jerry has long ears," the older man warned, lowering his voice.

Clay opened his eyes, flexed his arm muscles, and groaned. He caressed tenderly his aching ribs.

"Some wreck," he gasped weakly. "They didn't do a thing to me—outside of beatin' me up—and stompin' on me—and runnin' a steam roller—over the dear departed."

"Whose fault will that be? Don't yuh know better than to start a fight with a rigiment?" demanded the sergeant of police severely.

"That wasn't a fight. It was a waltz." The faint, unconquered smile of brown Arizona, broke through the blood and bruises of the face. "The fight began when Jerry Durand and his friend rushed me—and it ended when Jerry landed on me with brass knucks. After that I was a football." The words came in gasps. Every breath was drawn in pain.

"We'd ought to pinch yuh," the sergeant said by way of reprimand. "Think yuh can come to New York and pull your small-town stuff on us? We'll show youse. If yuh wasn't alfalfa green I'd give yuh a ride."

"You mean if Durand hadn't whispered in yore ear. I'll call that bluff, sheriff. Take me to yore calaboose. I've got one or two things to tell the judge about this guy Durand."

The officer dropped his grumbling complaint to a whisper. "Whisht, bye. Take a straight tip from a man that knows. Beat it out of town. Get where the long arm of—of a friend of ours—can't reach yuh. Yuh may be a straight guy, but that won't help yuh. Yuh'll be framed the same as if yuh was a greengoods man or a gopher or a porch-climber. He's a revingeful inemy if ever there was wan."

"You mean that Durand—"

"I'm not namin' names," the officer interrupted doggedly. "I'm tellin' yuh somethin' for your good. Take it or leave it."

"Thanks, I'll leave it. This is a free country, and no man livin' can drive me away," answered Clay promptly. "Ouch, I'm sore. Give me a lift, sergeant."

They helped the cowpuncher to his feet. He took a limping step or two. Every move was torture to his outraged flesh.

"Can you get me a taxi? That is, if you're sure you don't want me in yore calaboose," the range-rider said, leaning against the wall.

"We'll let yuh go this time."

"Much obliged—to Mr. Jerry Durand. Tell him for me that maybe I'll meet up with him again sometime—and hand him my thanks personal for this first-class wallopin'." From the bruised, bleeding face there beamed again the smile indomitable, the grin still gay and winning. Physically he had been badly beaten, but in spirit he was still the man on horseback.

Presently he eased himself into a taxi as comfortably as he could. "Home, James," he said jauntily.

"Where?" asked the driver.

"The nearest hospital," explained Clay. "I'm goin' to let the doctors worry over me for a while. Much obliged to both of you gentlemen. I always did like the Irish. Friend Jerry is an exception."

The officers watched the cab disappear. The sergeant spoke the comment that was in the mind of them both.

"He's the best single-barreled sport that iver I met in this man's town. Not a whimper out of the guy and him mauled to a pulp. Game as they come. Did youse see that spark o' the divvle in his eye, and him not fit to crawl into the cab?"

"Did I see it? I did that. If iver they meet man to man, him and Jerry, it'll be wan grand little fight."

"Jerry's the best rough-and-tumble fighter on the island."

"Wan av the best. I wouldn't put him first till after him and this guy had met alone in a locked room. S'long, Mike."

"S'long, Tim. No report on this rough-house, mind yuh."

"Sure, Mike."



CHAPTER IX

BEATRICE UP STAGE

If you vision Clay as a man of battles and violent deaths you don't see him as he saw himself. He was a peaceful citizen from the law-abiding West. It was not until he had been flung into the whirlpool of New York that violent and melodramatic mishaps befell this innocent. The Wild East had trapped him into weird adventure foreign to his nature.

This was the version of himself that he conceived to be true and the one he tried to interpret to Bee Whitford when he emerged from the hospital after two days of seclusion and presented himself before her.

It was characteristic of Beatrice that when she looked at his battered face she asked no questions and made no exclamations. After the first startled glance one might have thought from her expression that he habitually wore one black eye, one swollen lip, one cauliflower ear, and a strip of gauze across his check.

The dark-lashed eyes lifted from him to take on a business-like directness. She rang for the man.

"Have the runabout brought round at once, Stevens. I'll drive myself," she gave orders.

With the light ease that looked silken strong she swept the car into the Park. Neither she nor Clay talked. Both of them knew that an explanation of his appearance was due her and in the meantime neither cared to fence with small talk. He watched without appearing to do so the slender girl in white at the wheel. Her motions delighted him. There was a very winning charm in the softly curving contours of her face, in that flowerlike and precious quality in her personality which lay back of her boyish comradeship.

She drew up to look at some pond lilies, and they talked about them for a moment, after which her direct eyes questioned him frankly.

He painted with a light brush the picture of his adventure into Bohemia. The details he filled in whimsically, in the picturesque phraseology of the West. Up stage on his canvas was the figure of the poet in velveteens. That Son of the Stars he did full justice. Jerry Durand and Kitty Mason were accessories sketched casually.

Even while her face bubbled with mirth at his story of the improvised tango that had wrecked the Sea Siren, the quick young eyes of the girl were taking in the compelling devil-may-care charm of Lindsay. Battered though he was, the splendid vigor of the man still showed in a certain tigerish litheness that sore, stiff muscles could not conceal. No young Greek god's head could have risen more superbly from the brick-tanned column of his neck than did this bronzed one.

"I gather that Mr. Lindsay of Arizona was among those present," Beatrice said, smiling.

"I was givin' the dance," he agreed, and his gay eyes met hers.

Since she was a woman, one phase of his story needed expansion for Miss Whitford. She made her comment carelessly while she adjusted the mileage on the speedometer.

"Queer you happened to meet some one you knew down there. You did say you knew the girl, didn't you?"

"We were on the same train out of Denver. I got acquainted with her."

Miss Whitford asked no more questions. But Clay could not quite let the matter stand so. He wanted her to justify him in her mind for what he had done. Before he knew it he had told her the story of Kitty Mason and Durand.

Nor did this draw any criticism of approval or the reverse.

"I couldn't let him hypnotize that little girl from the country, could I?" he asked.

"I suppose not." Her whole face began to bubble with laughter in the way he liked so well. "But you'll be a busy knight errant if you undertake to right the wrongs of every girl you meet in New York." A dimple flashed near the corner of her mouth. "Of course she's pretty."

"Well, yes. She is right pretty."

"Describe her to me."

He made a lame attempt. Out of his tangled sentences she picked on some fragments. ". . . blooms like a cherokee rose . . . soft like a kitten."

"I'm glad she's so charming. That excuses any indiscretion," the girl said with a gleam of friendly malice. "There's no fun in rescuing the plain ones, is there?"

"They don't most usually need so much rescuin'," Clay admitted.

"Don't you think it possible that you rescued her out of a job?"

The young man nodded his head ruefully. "That's exactly what I did. After all her trouble gettin' one I've thrown her out again. I'm a sure-enough fathead."

"You've been down to find out?" she asked with a sidelong tilt of her quick eyes.

"Yes. I went down this mawnin' with Tim Muldoon. He's a policeman I met down there. Miss Kitty hasn't been seen since that night. We went out to the Pirate's Den, the Purple Pup, Grace Godwin's Garret, and all the places where she used to sell cigarettes. None of them have seen anything of her."

"So that really your championship hasn't been so great a help to her after all, has it?"

"No."

"And I suppose it ruined the business of the man that owns the Sea Siren."

"I don't reckon so. I've settled for the furniture. And Muldoon says when it gets goin' again the Sea Siren will do a big business on account of the fracas. It's Kitty I'm worried about."

"She's a kind of cuddly little girl who needs the protection of some nice man, you say?"

"That's right."

The eyes of Miss Whitford were unfathomable. "Fluffy and—kind of helpless."

"Yes."

"I wouldn't worry about her if I were you. She'll land on her feet," the girl said lightly.

Her voice had not lost its sweet cadences, but Clay sensed in it something that was almost a touch of cool contempt. He felt vaguely that he must have blundered in describing Kitty. Evidently Miss Whitford did not see her quite as she was.

The young woman pressed the starter button. "We must be going home. I have an engagement to go riding with Mr. Bromfield."

The man beside the girl kept his smile working and concealed the little stab of jealousy that dirked him. Colin Whitford had confided to Lindsay that his daughter was practically engaged to Clarendon Bromfield and that he did not like the man. The range-rider did not like him either, but he tried loyally to kill his distrust of the clubman. If Beatrice loved him there must be good in the fellow. Clay meant to be a good loser anyhow.

There had been moments when the range-rider's heart had quickened with a wild, insurgent hope. One of these had been on a morning when they were riding in the Park, knee to knee, in the dawn of a new clean world. It had come to him with a sudden clamor of the blood that in the eternal rightness of things such mornings ought to be theirs till the youth in them was quenched in sober age. He had looked into the eyes of this slim young Diana, and he had throbbed to the certainty that she too in that moment of tangled glances knew a sweet confusion of the blood. In her cheeks there had been a quick flame of flying color. Their talk had fallen from them, and they had ridden in a shy, exquisite silence from which she had escaped by putting her horse to a canter.

But in the sober sense of sanity Clay knew that this wonderful thing was not going to happen to him. He was not going to be given her happiness to hold in the hollow of his hand. Bee Whitford was a modern young woman, practical-minded, with a proper sense of the values that the world esteems. Clarendon Bromfield was a catch even in New York. He was rich, of a good family, assured social position, good-looking, and manifestly in love with her. Like gravitates to like the land over. Miracles no longer happen in this workaday world. She would marry the man a hundred other girls would have given all they had to win, and perhaps in the long years ahead she might look back with a little sigh for the wild colt of the desert who had shared some perfect moments with her once upon a time.

Bromfield, too, had no doubt that Bee meant to marry him. He was in love with her as far as he could be with anybody except himself. His heart was crusted with selfishness. He had lived for himself only and he meant to continue so to live. But he had burned out his first youth. He was coming to the years when dissipation was beginning to take its toll of him. And as he looked into the future it seemed to him an eminently desirable thing that the fresh, eager beauty of this girl should belong to him, that her devotion should stand as a shield between him and that middle age with which he was already skirmishing. He wanted her—the youth, the buoyant life, the gay, glad comradeship of her—and he had always been lucky in getting what he desired. That was the use of having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

But though Clarendon Bromfield had no doubt of the issue of his suit, the friendship of Beatrice for this fellow from Arizona stabbed his vanity. It hurt his class pride and his personal self-esteem that she should take pleasure in the man's society. Bee never had been well broken to harness. He set his thin lips tight and resolved that he would stand no nonsense of this sort after they were married. If she wanted to flirt it would have to be with some one in their own set.

The clubman was too wise to voice his objections now except by an occasional slur. But he found it necessary sometimes to put a curb on his temper. The thing was outrageous—damnably bad form. Sometimes it seemed to him that the girl was gratuitously irritating him by flaunting this bounder in his face. He could not understand it in her. She ought to know that this man did not belong to her world—could not by any chance be a part of it.

Beatrice could not understand herself. She knew that she was behaving rather indiscreetly, though she did not fathom the cause of the restlessness that drove her to Clay Lindsay. The truth is that she was longing for an escape from the empty life she was leading, had been seeking one for years without knowing it. Her existence was losing its savor, and she was still so young and eager and keen to live. Surely this round of social frivolities, the chatter of these silly women and smug tailor-made men, could not be all there was to life. She must have been made for something better than that.

And when she was with Clay she knew she had been. He gave her a vision of life through eyes that had known open, wide spaces, clean, wholesome, and sun-kissed. He stood on his own feet and did his own thinking. Simply, with both hands, he took hold of problems and examined them stripped of all trimmings. The man was elemental, but he was keen and broad-gauged. He knew the value of the things he had missed. She was increasingly surprised to discover how wide his information was. It amazed her one day to learn that he had read William James and understood his philosophy much better than she did.

There was in her mind no intention whatever of letting herself do anything so foolish as to marry him. But there were moments when the thought of it had a dreadful fascination for her. She did not invite such thoughts to remain with her.

For she meant to accept Clarendon Bromfield in her own good time and make her social position in New York absolutely secure. She had been in the fringes too long not to appreciate a chance to get into the social Holy of Holies.



CHAPTER X

JOHNNIE SEES THE POSTMASTER

A bow-legged little man in a cheap, wrinkled suit with a silk kerchief knotted loosely round his neck stopped in front of a window where a girl was selling stamps.

"I wantta see the postmaster."

"Corrid'y'right. Takel'vatorthir'doorleft," she said, just as though it were two words.

The freckle-faced little fellow opened wider his skim-milk eyes and his weak mouth. "Come again, ma'am, please."

"Corrid'y'right. Takel'vatorthir'doorleft," she repeated. "Next."

The inquirer knew as much as he did before, but he lacked the courage to ask for an English translation. A woman behind was prodding him between the shoulder-blades with the sharp edge of a package wrapped for mailing. He shuffled away from the window and wandered helplessly, swept up by the tide of hurrying people that flowed continuously into the building and ebbed out of it. From this he was tossed into a backwater that brought him to another window.

"I wantta see the postmaster of this burg," he announced again with a plaintive whine.

"What about?" asked the man back of the grating.

"Important business, amigo. Where's he at?"

The man directed him to a door upon which was printed the legend, "Superintendent of Complaints." Inside, a man was dictating a letter to a stenographer. The bow-legged man in the wrinkled suit waited awkwardly until the letter was finished, twirling in his hands a white, broad-rimmed hat with pinched-in crown. He was chewing tobacco. He wondered whether it would be "etiquette" to squirt the juice into a waste-paper basket standing conveniently near.

"Well, sir! What can I do for you?" the man behind the big desk snapped.

"I wantta see the postmaster."

"What about?"

"I got important business with him."

"Who are you?"

"Me, I'm Johnnie Green of the B-in-a-Box Ranch. I just drapped in from Arizona and I wantta see the postmaster."

"Suppose you tell your troubles to me."

Johnnie changed his weight to the other foot. "No, suh, I allow to see the postmaster himself personal."

"He's busy," explained the official. "He can't possibly see anybody without knowing his business."

"Tha's all right. I've lost my pal. I wantta see—"

The Superintendent of Complaints cut into his parrot-like repetition. "Yes, you mentioned that. But the postmaster doesn't know where he is, does he?"

"He might tell me where his mail goes, as the old sayin' is."

"When did you lose your friend?"

"I ain't heard from him since he come to New York. So bein' as I got a chanct to go from Tucson with a jackpot trainload of cows to Denver, I kinda made up my mind to come on here the rest of the way and look him up. I'm afraid some one's done him dirt."

"Do you know where he's staying?"

"No, suh, I don't."

The Superintendent of Complaints tapped with his fingers on the desk. Then he smiled. The postmaster was fond of a joke. Why not let this odd little freak from the West have an interview with him?

Twenty minutes later Johnnie was telling his story to the postmaster of the City of New York. He had written three times to Clay Lindsay and had received no answer. So he had come to look for him.

"And seein' as I was here, thinks I to myself thinks I it costs nothin' Mex to go to the postmaster and ask where Clay's at," explained Johnnie with his wistful, ingratiating, give-me-a-bone smile. "Thinks I, it cayn't be but a little ways down to the office."

"Is your friend like you?" asked the postmaster, interested in spite of himself.

"No, suh." Johnnie, alias the Runt, began to beam. "He's a sure-enough go-getter, Clay is, every jump of the road. I'd follow his dust any day of the week. You don't never need to think he's any shorthorn cattleman, for he ain't. He's the livest proposition that ever come out of Graham County. You can ce'tainly gamble on that."

The postmaster touched a button. A clerk appeared, received orders, and disappeared.

Johnnie, now on the subject of his hero, continued to harp on his points. "You're damn whistlin' Clay ain't like me. He's the best hawss-buster in Arizona. The bronco never was built that can pile him, nor the man that can lick him. Clay's no bad hombre, you understand, but there can't nobody run it over him. That's whatever. All I'm afraid of is some one's gave him a raw deal. He's the best blamed old son-of-a-gun I ever did meet up with."

The clerk presently returned with three letters addressed to Clay Lindsay, General Delivery, New York. The postmaster handed them to the little cowpuncher.

"Evidently he never called for them," he said.

Johnnie's chin fell. He looked a picture of helpless woe. "They're the letters I set down an' wrote him my own se'f. Something has sure happened to that boy, looks like," he bemoaned.

"We'll try Police Headquarters. Maybe we can get a line on your friend," the postmaster said, reaching for the telephone. "But you must remember New York is a big place. It's not like your Arizona ranch. The city has nearly eight million inhabitants."

"I sure found that out already, Mr. Postmaster. Met every last one of 'em this mo'nin', I'll bet. Never did see so many humans millin' around. I'll say they're thick as cattle at a round-up."

"Then you'll understand that when one man gets lost it isn't always possible to find him."

"Why not? We got some steers down in my country—about as many as you got men in this here town of yourn. Tha's what we ride the range for, so's not to lose 'em. We've traced a B-in-a-Box steer clear from Tucson to Denver, done it more'n onct or twice too. I notice you got a big bunch of man-punchers in uniform here. Ain't it their business to rustle up strays?"

"The police," said the postmaster, amused. "That is part of their business. We'll pass the buck to them anyhow."

After some delay and repeated explanations of who he was, the postmaster got at the other end of the wire his friend the commissioner. Their conversation was brief. When the postmaster hung up he rang for a stenographer and dictated a letter of introduction. This he handed to Johnnie, with explicit instructions.

"Go to Police Headquarters, Center Street, and take this note to Captain Luke Byrne. He'll see that the matter is investigated for you."

Johnnie was profuse, but somewhat incoherent in his thanks. "Much obliged to meet you, Mr. Postmaster. An'—an' if you ever hit the trail for God's Country I'll sure—I'll sure—Us boys at the B-in-a-Box we'd be right glad to—to meet up with you. Tha's right, as the old sayin' is. We sure would. Any ol' time."

The cowpuncher's hat was traveling in a circle propelled by red, freckled hands. The official cut short Johnnie's embarrassment.

"Do you know the way to Police Headquarters?"

"I reckon I can find it. Is it fur?" The man from Arizona looked down at the high-heeled boots in which his tortured feet had clumped over the pavements of the metropolis all morning.

"I'll send you in a taxi." The postmaster was thinking that this babe in the woods of civilization never would be able to find his way alone.

As the driver swept the car in and out among the traffic of the narrow streets Johnnie clung to the top of the door fearfully. Every moment he expected a smash. His heart was in his throat. The tumult, the rush of business, the intersecting cross-town traffic, the hub-bub of the great city, dazed his slow brain. The hurricane deck of a bronco had no terrors for him, but this wild charge through the humming trenches shook his nerve.

"I come mighty nigh askin' you would you just as lief drive slower," he said with a grin to the chauffeur as he descended to the safety of the sidewalk. "I ain't awful hardy, an' I sure was plumb scared."

A sergeant took Johnnie in tow and delivered him at length to the office waiting-room of Captain Anderson, head of the Bureau of Missing Persons. The Runt, surveying the numbers in the waiting-room and those passing in and out, was ready to revise his opinion about the possible difficulty of the job. He judged that half the population of New York must be missing.

After a time the captain's secretary notified Johnnie that it was his turn. As soon as he was admitted the puncher began his little piece without waiting for any preliminaries.

"Say, Captain, I want you to find my friend Clay Lindsay. He—"

"Just a moment," interrupted the captain. "Who are you? Don't think I got your name."

Johnnie remembered the note of introduction and his name at the same time. He gave both to the big man who spent his busy days and often part of the nights looking for the lost, strayed, and stolen among New York's millions.

The captain's eyes swept over the note. "Sit down, Mr. Green, and let's get at your trouble."

As soon as it permeated Johnnie's consciousness that he was Mr. Green he occupied precariously the front three inches of a chair. His ever-ready friend the cow-boy hat began to revolve.

"This note says that you're looking for a man named Clay Lindsay who came to New York several months ago. Have you or has anybody else heard from him in that time?"

"We got a letter right after he got here. He ain't writ since."

"Perhaps he's dead. We'd better look up the morgue records."

"Morgue!" The Runt grew excited instantly. "That place where you keep folks that get drowned or bumped off? Say, Captain, I'm here to tell you Clay was the livest man in Arizona, which is the same as sayin' anywheres. Cowpunchers don't take naturally to morgues. No, sir. Clay ain't in no morgue. Like as not he's helped fill this yere morgue if any crooks tried their rough stuff on him. Don't get me wrong, Cap. Clay is the squarest he-man ever God made. All I'm sayin' is—"

The captain interrupted. He asked sharp, incisive questions and got busy. Presently he reached for a 'phone, got in touch with a sergeant at the police desk in the upper corridor, and sent an attendant with Johnnie to the Police Department.

The Irish sympathies of the sergeant were aroused by the naive honesty of the little man. He sent for another sergeant, had card records brought, consulted a couple of patrolmen, and then turned to Johnnie.

"We've met your friend all right," he said with a grin. "He's wan heluva lad. Fits the description to a T. There can't be but one like him here." And he went on to tell the story of the adventure of the janitor and the hose and that of its sequel, the resale of the fifty-five-dollar suit to I. Bernstein, who had reported his troubles to the police.

The washed-out eyes of the puncher lit up. "That's him. That's sure him. If the' was two of him they'd ce'tainly be a hell-poppin' team. Clay he's the best-natured fellow you ever did see, but there can't nobody run a whizzer on him, y' betcha. Tell me where he's at?"

"We don't know. We can show you the place where he tied the janitor, but that's the best we can do." The captain hesitated. "If you find him, give him a straight tip from me. Tell him to buy a ticket for Arizona and take the train for home. This town is no healthy place for him."

"Because he hogtied a Swede," snorted Johnnie indignantly.

"No. He's got into more serious trouble than that. Your friend has made an enemy—a powerful one. He'll understand if you tell him."

"Who is this here enemy?"

"Never mind. He hit up too fast a pace."

"You can't tell me a thing against Clay—not a thing," protested Johnnie hotly. "He'll sure do to take along, Clay will. There can't any guy knock him to me if he does wear a uniform."

"I'm not saying a thing against him," replied the officer impatiently. "I'm giving him a friendly tip to beat it, if you see him. Now I'm going to send you up-town with a plain-clothes man. He'll show you where your friend made his New York debut. That's all we can do for you."

An hour later the little cowpuncher was gazing wistfully at the hitching-post. His face was twisted pathetically to a question mark. It was as though he thought he could conjure from the post the secret of Clay's disappearance. Where had he gone from here? And where was he now?

In the course of the next two days the Runt came back to that post many times as a starting-point for weary, high-heeled tramps through streets within a circuit of a mile. He could not have explained why he did so. Perhaps it was because this was the only spot in the city that held for him any tangible relationship to Clay. Some one claimed to have seen him vanish into one of these houses. Perhaps he might come back again. It was a very tenuous hope, but it was the only one Johnnie had. He clumped over the pavements till his feet ached in protest.

His patience was rewarded. On the second day, while he was gazing blankly at the post a groom brought two horses to the curb in front of the house opposite. One of the horses had a real cowboy's saddle. Johnnie's eyes gleamed. This was like a breath of honest-to-God Arizona. The door opened, and out of it came a man and a slim young woman. Both of them were dressed for riding, she in the latest togs of the town, he in a well-cut sack suit and high tan boots.

Johnnie threw up his hat and gave a yell. "You blamed old horn-toad! Might 'a' knowed you was all right! Might 'a' knowed you wouldn't bite off more'n you could chew! Oh, you Arizona!"

Clay gave one surprised look—and met him in the middle of the street. The little cowpuncher did a war dance of joy while he clung to his friend's hand. Tears brimmed into his faded eyes.

"Hi yi yi, doggone yore old hide, if it ain't you big as coffee, Clay. Thinks I to myse'f, who is that pilgrim? And, by gum, it's old hell-a-mile jes' a-hittin' his heels. Where you been at, you old skeezicks?"

"How are you, Johnnie? And what are you doin' here?"

The Runt was the kind of person who tells how he is when any one asks him. He had no imagination, so he stuck to the middle of the road for fear he might get lost.

"I'm jes' tol'able, Clay. I got a kinda misery in my laigs from trompin' these hyer streets. My feet are plumb burnin' up. You didn't answer my letters, so I come to see if you was all right."

"You old scalawag. You came to paint the town red."

Johnnie, highly delighted at this charge, protested. "Honest I didn't, Clay. I wasn't feelin' so tur'ble peart. Seemed like the boys picked on me after you left. So I jes' up and come."

If Clay was not delighted to have his little Fidus Achates on his hands he gave no sign of it. He led him across the road and introduced him to Miss Whitford.

Clay blessed her for her kindness to this squat, snub-nosed adherent of his whose lonely heart had driven him two thousand miles to find his friend. It would have been very easy to slight him, but Beatrice had no thought of this. The loyalty of the little man touched her greatly. Her hand went out instantly. A smile softened her eyes and dimpled her cheeks.

"I'm very glad to meet any friend of Mr. Lindsay. Father and I will want to hear all about Arizona after you two have had your visit out. We'll postpone the ride till this afternoon. That will be better, I think."

Clay agreed. He grudged the loss of his hour with her, but under the circumstances it had to be. For a moment he and Beatrice stood arranging the time for their proposed ride. Then, with a cool little nod that included them both, she turned and ran lightly up the steps into the house.

"Some sure-enough queen," murmured Johnnie in naive admiration, staring after her with open mouth.

Clay smiled. He had an opinion of his own on that point.



CHAPTER XI

JOHNNIE GREEN—MATCH-MAKER

Johnnie Green gave an upward jerk to the frying-pan and caught the flapjack deftly as it descended.

"Fust and last call for breakfast in the dining-cyar. Come and get it, old-timer," he sang out to Clay.

That young man emerged from his bedroom glowing. He was one or two shades of tan lighter than when he had reached the city, but the paint of Arizona's untempered sun still distinguished him from the native-born, if there are any such among the inhabitants of upper New York.

"You're one sure-enough cook," he drawled to his satellite. "Some girl will ce'tainly have a good wife when she gets you. I expect I'd better set one of these suffragette ladies on yore trail."

"Don't you, Clay," blushed Johnnie. "I ain't no ladies' man. They make me take to the tall timber when I see 'em comin'."

"That ain't hardly fair to them, and you the best flapjack artist in Graham County."

"Sho! I don't make no claims, old sock. Mebbe I'm handy with a fry-pan, mebbe I ain't. Likely you're jest partial to my flapjacks," the little man said in order to have his modest suggestion refuted.

"They suit me, Johnnie." And Clay reached for the maple syrup. "Best flapjacks ever made in this town."

The Runt beamed all over. If he had really been a puppy he would have wagged his tail. Since he couldn't do that he took it out in grinning. Any word of praise from Clay made the world a sunshiny one for him.

"This here place ain't Arizona, but o' course we got to make the best of it. You know I can cook when I got the fixin's," he agreed.

The two men were batching it. They had a little apartment in the Bronx and Johnnie looked after it for his friend. One of Johnnie's vices—according to the standard of the B-in-a-Box boys—was that he was as neat as an old maid. He liked to hang around a mess-wagon and cook doughnuts and pies. His talent came in handy now, for Clay was no housekeeper.

After the breakfast things were cleared away Johnnie fared forth to a certain house adjoining Riverside Drive, where he earned ten dollars a week as outdoors man. His business was to do odd jobs about the place. He cut and watered the lawn. He made small repairs. Beatrice had a rose garden, and under her direction he dug, watered, and fertilized.

Incidentally, the snub-nosed little puncher with the unfinished features adored his young mistress in the dumb, uncritical fashion a schoolboy does a Ty Cobb or an Eddie Collins. For him the queen could do no wrong. He spent hours mornings and evenings at their rooms telling Clay about her. She was certainly the finest little lady he ever had seen. In his heart he had hopes that Clay would fall in love with and marry her. She was the only girl in the world that deserved his paragon. But her actions worried him. Sometimes he wondered if she really understood what a catch Clay was.

He tried to tell her his notions on the subject the morning Clay praised his flapjacks.

She was among the rose-bushes, gloved and hatted, clipping American Beauties for the dining-room, a dainty but very self-reliant little personality.

"Miss Beatrice, I been thinkin' about you and Clay," he told her, leaning on his spade.

"What have you been thinking about us?" the girl asked, snipping off a big rose.

She liked Johnnie and listened often with amusement to his point of view. It was so different from that of anybody else she had ever met. Perhaps this was why she encouraged him to talk. There may have been another reason. The favorite theme of his conversation interested her.

"How you're the best-lookin' couple that a man would see anywheres."

Into her clear cheeks the color flowed. "If I thought nonsense like that I wouldn't say it," she said quietly. "We're not a couple. He's a man. I'm a woman. I like him and want to stay friends with him if you'll let me."

"Sure. I know that, but—" Johnnie groped helplessly to try to explain what he had meant. "Clay he likes you a heap," he finished inadequately.

The eyes of the girl began to dance. There was no use taking offense at this simple soul. After all he was not a servant, but a loyal follower whose brain was not quite up to the job of coping with the knotty problem of bringing two of his friends together in matrimony. "Does he? I'm sure I'm gratified," she murmured, busy with her scissors among the roses.

"Yep. I never knowed Clay to look at a girl before. He sure thinks a heap of you."

She gave a queer little bubbling laugh. "You're flattering me."

"Honest, I ain't." Johnnie whispered a secret across the rose-bushes. "Say, if you work it right I believe you can get him."

The girl sparkled. Here was a new slant on matrimonial desirability. Clearly the view of the little cow-puncher was that Clay had only to crook his fingers to summon any girl in the world that he desired.

"Do you think so—with so many attractive girls in New York?" she pleaded.

"He don't pay no 'tention to them. Honest, I believe you can if you don't spill the beans."

"What would you advise me to do?" she dimpled.

"Sho! I dunno." He shyly unburdened himself of the warning he had been leading up to. "But I'd tie a can to that dude fellow that hangs around—the Bromfield guy. O' course I know he ain't one two three with you while Clay's on earth, but I don't reckon I'd take any chances, as the old sayin' is. No, ma'am, I'd ce'tainly lose him pronto. Clay might get sore. Better get shet of the dude."

Miss Whitford bit her lip to keep from exploding in a sudden gale of mirth. But the sight of her self-appointed chaperon set her off into peals of laughter in spite of herself. Every time she looked at Johnnie she went off into renewed chirrups. He was so homely and so deadly earnest. The little waif was staring at her in perplexed surprise, mouth open and chin fallen. He could see no occasion for gayety at his suggestion. There was nothing subtle about the Runt. In his social code wealth did not figure. A forty-dollar-a-month bronco buster was free to offer advice to the daughter of a millionaire about her matrimonial prospects if it seemed best.

And just now it seemed to Johnnie decidedly best. He scratched his tow head, for he had mulled the whole thing over and decided reluctantly to do his duty by the girl. So far as he could make out, Beatrice Whitford played no favorites in her little court of admirers. Clay Lindsay and Clarendon Bromfield were with her more than any of the others. If she inclined to either of the two, Johnnie could see no evidence of it. She was gay and frank with both, a jolly comrade for a ride, a dinner dance, or a theater party.

This was what troubled Johnnie. Of course she must be in love with Clay and want to marry him, since she was a normal human being. But if she continued to play with Bromfield the Westerner might punish her by sheering off. That was the reason why the Runt was doing his conscientious duty this fine morning.

"Clay ain't one o' the common run of cowpunchers, ma'am. You bet you, by jollies, he ain't. Clay he owns a half-interest in the B-in-a-Box. O' course it ain't what he's got, but what he is that counts. He's the best darned pilgrim ever I did see."

"He's all right, Johnnie," the girl admitted with an odd little smile. "Do you want me to tell him that I'll be glad to drop our family friends to meet his approval? I don't suppose he asked you to speak to me about it, did he?"

The little range-rider missed the irony of this. "No, ma'am, I jest butted in. Mebbe I hadn't ought to of spoke."

The frank eyes of the girl met his fairly. A patch of heightened color glowed in her soft cheeks. "That would have been better, Johnnie. But since you have introduced the subject, I'll tell you that Mr. Lindsay and I are friends. Neither of us has the slightest intention of being anything more. You may not understand such things."

"No'm," he admitted humbly. "I reckon I'm a plumb idjit."

His attitude was so dejected that she relented.

"You needn't feel badly, Johnnie. There's no harm done—if you don't say anything about it to Mr. Lindsay. But I don't think you were intended for a match-maker. That takes quite a little finesse, doesn't it?"

The word "finesse" was not in Johnnie's dictionary, but he acquiesced in her verdict.

"I reckon, ma'am, you're right."



CHAPTER XII

CLAY READS AN AD AND ANSWERS IT

Clay was waiting for lunch at a rotisserie on Sixth Avenue, and in order to lose no time—of which he had more just now than he knew what to do with—was meanwhile reading a newspaper propped against a water-bottle. From the personal column there popped out at him three lines that caught his attention:

If this meets the eye of C. L. of Arizona please write me. Box M-21, The Herald. Am in trouble. KITTY M.

He read it again. There could be no doubt in the world. It was addressed to him, and from Kitty. While he ate his one half spring chicken Clay milled the situation over in his mind. She had been on the lookout for him, just as he had been searching for her. By good luck her shot at a venture had reached him. He remembered now that on the bus he had casually mentioned to her that he usually read the "Herald."

After he had eaten, Clay walked down Broadway and left a note at the office of the "Herald" for Kitty.

The thought of her was in his mind all day. He had worried a good deal over her disappearance. It was not alone that he felt responsible for the loss of her place as cigarette girl. One disturbing phase of the situation was that Jerry Durand must have seen her. What more likely than that he had arranged to have her spirited away? Lindsay had read that hundreds of girls disappeared every year in the city. If they ever came to the surface again it was as dwellers in that underworld in the current of which they had been caught.

Jerry was a known man in New York. It had been easy for Clay to find out the location of his saloon and the hotel where he lived. The cattleman had done some quiet sleuthing, but he had found no trace of Kitty. Now he knew that she had turned to him in her need and cried for help.

That she was in trouble did not surprise him. The girl was born for it as naturally as the sparks fly upward. She was a provocation to those who prey. In her face there was a disturbing quality quite apart from her prettiness. Back of the innocence lay some hint of slumberous passion. Kitty was one of those girls who have the misfortune to stir the imaginations of men without the ability to keep them at arm's length. Just what her present difficulty was Clay did not know, but he was quite sure it had to do with a man. Already he had decided to rescue her. He had promised to be her friend. It never occurred to him to stand back when she called.

He had an engagement that afternoon to walk with Beatrice Whitford. She was almost the only girl in her set who knew how to walk and had the energy for it. In her movement there was the fluent, untamed grace that expressed a soul not yet stunted by the claims of convention. The golden little head was carried buoyantly. In her step was the rhythm of perfect ease. The supple resilience of her was another expression of the spiritual quality that spoke in the vivid face.

Clay, watching her as she moved, thought of a paragraph from Mark Twain's "Eve's Diary":

She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is color mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadow on the mountains, the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the waste of space. . . .

But the thing that tantalized him about her and filled him with despair was that, though one moment she might be the first woman in the birthday of the world filled with the primitive emotions of the explorer, the next she was a cool, Paris-gowned-and-shod young modern, about as competent to meet emergencies as anything yet devised by heaven and a battling race.

They crossed to Morningside Park and moved through it to the northern end where the remains of Fort Laight, built to protect the approach to the city during the War of 1812, can still be seen and traced.

Beatrice had read the story of the earthworks. In the midst of the telling of it she stopped to turn upon him with swift accusation, "You're not listening."

"That's right, I wasn't," he admitted.

"Have you heard something about your cigarette girl?"

Clay was amazed at the accuracy of her center shot.

"Yes." He showed her the newspaper.

She read. The golden head nodded triumphantly. "I told you she could look out for herself. You see when she had lost you she knew enough to advertise."

Was there or was there not a faint note of malice in the girl's voice? Clay did not know. But it would have neither surprised nor displeased him. He had long since discovered that his imperious little friend was far from an angel.

At his rooms he found a note awaiting him.

Come to-night after eleven. I am locked in the west rear room of the second story. Climb up over the back porch. Don't make any noise. The window will be unbolted. A friend is mailing this. For God's sake, don't fail me.

The note was signed "Kitty." Below were given the house and street number. Clay studied the letter a long time—the wording of it, the formation of the letters, the spirit that had actuated the writer. It was written upon a sheet of cheap lined paper torn from a pad. The envelope was one of those sold at the post-office already stamped.

Was the note genuine? Or did it lead to a trap? He could not tell. It might be a plant or it might be a wail of real distress. There was only one way to find out unless he went to the police. That way was to go through with the adventure. The police! Clay went back to the thought of them several times. The truth was that he had put himself out of court there. He was in bad with the bluecoats and would probably be arrested if he showed up at headquarters.

He decided to play a lone hand except for such help as Johnnie could give him.

Clay took a downtown car and rode to the cross-street mentioned in the letter for a preliminary tour of investigation. The street designated was one of plain brownstone fronts with iron-grilled doors. The blank faces of the houses invited no confidence. It struck him that there was something sinister about the neighborhood, but perhaps the thought was born of the fear. Number 121 had windows barred with ornamental grilles. This might be to keep burglars out. It would serve equally well to keep prisoners in.

At the nearest grocery store Clay made inquiries. He was looking, he said, for James K. Sanger. He did not know the exact address. Could the grocery man help him run down his party? How about the folks living at Number 121?

"Don't know 'em. They've been in only for a few days. They don't trade here."

Clay tried the telephone, but Information could tell him only that there was no 'phone at 121.

On the whole Clay inclined to think that the letter was not a forgery. In his frank, outdoor code there was no reason why Durand should hate him enough to go to such trouble to trap him. The fellow had more than squared accounts when he had beaten him up outside the Sea Siren. Why should he want to do anything more to him? But he had had two warnings that the ex-prize-fighter was not through with him—both of them from members of the police force, one direct from the sergeant who had helped rescue him, the other by way of the Runt from headquarters. When he recalled the savage hatred of that flat, pallid face he did not feel so sure of immunity. Clay had known men in the West, wolf-hearted killers steeped in a horrible lust for revenge, who never forgot or forgave an injury—until their enemy had paid the price in full. Jerry Durand might be one of this stamp. He was a man of a bad reputation, one about whom evil murmurs passed in secret. Not many years ago he had been tried for the murder of one Paddy Kelly, a rival gangsman in his neighborhood, and had been acquitted on the ground of self-defense. But there had been a good deal of talk about evidence framed in his behalf. Later he had been arrested for graft, but the case somehow had never been acted upon by the district attorney's office. The whisper was that his pull had saved him from trial.

The cattleman did not linger in that street lined with houses of sinister faces. He did not care to call attention to his presence by staying too long. Besides, he had some arrangements to make for the night at his rooms.

These were simple and few. He oiled and loaded his revolver carefully, leaving the hammer on the one chamber left empty to prevent accidents after the custom of all careful gunmen. He changed into the wrinkled suit he had worn when he reached the city, and substituted for his shoes a pair of felt-soled gymnasium ones.

The bow-legged little puncher watched his friend, just as a faithful dog does his master. He asked no questions. In good time he knew he would be told all it was necessary for him to know.

As they rode from the Bronx, Clay outlined the situation and told his plans so far as he had any.

"So I'm goin' to take a whirl at it, Johnnie. Mebbe they're lyin' low up in that house to get me. Mebbe the note's the real thing. You can search me which it is. The only way to find out is to go through with the thing. Yore job is to stick around in front of the hacienda and wait for me. If I don't show up inside of thirty minutes, get the police busy right away breakin' into the place. Do you get me, Johnnie?"

"Lemme go with you into the house, Clay," the little man pleaded.

"No, this is a one-man job. If the note is straight goods I've got to work on the Q.T. Do exactly as I say. That's how you can help me best."

"What's the matter with me goin' into the house instead o' you? It don't make no difference much if they do gun me. I'm jest the common run of the pen. But you—you're graded stock," argued the Runt.

"Nothin' doin', old-timer. This is my job, and I don't reckon I'll let anybody else tackle it. Much obliged, just the same. You're one sure-enough white man, Johnnie."

The little fellow knew that the matter was settled. Clay had decided and what he said was final. But Johnnie worried about it all the way. At the last moment, when they separated at the street corner, he added one last word.

"Don't you be too venturesome, son. If them guys got you it sure would break me all up."

Clay smiled cheerfully. "They're not goin' to get me, Johnnie. Don't forget to remember not to forget yore part. Keep under cover for thirty minutes; then if I haven't shown up, holler yore head off for the cops."

They were passing an alley as Clay finished speaking. He slipped into its friendly darkness and was presently lost to sight. It ran into an inner court which was the center of tortuous passages. The cattleman stopped to get his bearings, selected the likeliest exit, and brought up in the shelter of a small porch. This, he felt sure, must be the rear of the house he wanted.

A strip of lattice-work ran up the side of the entrance. Very carefully, testing every slat with his weight before trusting himself to it, he climbed up and edged forward noiselessly upon the roof. On hands and knees he crawled to the window and tried to peer in.

The blind was down, but he could see that the room was dark. What danger lurked behind the drawn blind he could not guess, but after a moment, to make sure that the revolver beneath his belt was ready for instant use, he put his hand gently on the sash.

His motions were soundless as the fall of snowflakes. The window moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, under the pressure of his hands. It gave not the faintest creak of warning. His fingers found the old-fashioned roller blind and traveled down it to the bottom. With the faintest of clicks he released the spring and guided the blind upward.

Warily he lifted one leg into the room. His head followed, then the rest of his body. He waited, every nerve tensed.

There came to him a sound that sent cold finger-tips laying a tattoo up and down his spine. It was the intake of some one's cautious breathing.

His hand crept to the butt of the revolver. He crouched, poised for either attack or retreat.

A bath of light flooded the room and swallowed the darkness. Instantly Clay's revolver leaped to the air.



CHAPTER XIII

A LATE EVENING CALL

A young woman in an open-neck nightgown sat up in bed, a cascade of black hair fallen over her white shoulders. Eyes like jet beads were fastened on him. In them he read indignation struggling with fear.

"Say, what are you anyhow—a moll buzzer? If you're a porch-climber out for the props you've sure come to the wrong dump. I got nothin' but bum rocks."

This was Greek to Clay. He did not know that she had asked him if he were a man who robs women, and that she had told him he could get no diamonds there since hers were false.

The Arizonan guessed at once that he was not in the room mentioned in the letter. He slipped his revolver back into its place between shirt and trousers.

"Is this house number 121?" he asked.

"No, it's 123. What of it?"

"It's the wrong house. I'm ce'tainly one chump."

The black eyes lit with sardonic mockery. The young woman knew already that she had nothing to fear from this brown-faced man. His face was not that of a thug. It carried its own letter of recommendation written on it. Instinctively she felt that he had not come to rob. A lively curiosity began to move in her.

"Say, do I look like one of them born-every-minute kind?" she asked easily. "Go ahead and spring that old one on me about how you got tanked at the club and come in at the window on account o' your wife havin' a temper somethin' fierce."

"No, I—I was lookin' for some one else. I'm awful sorry I scared you. I'd eat dirt if it would do any good, but it won't. I'm just a plumb idiot. I reckon I'll be pushin' on my reins." He turned toward the window.

"Stop right there where you're at," she ordered sharply. "Take a step to that window and I'll holler for a harness bull like a Bowery bride gettin' a wallopin' from friend husband. I gotta have an explanation. And who told you I was scared? Forget that stuff. Take it from Annie that she ain't the kind that scares."

The girl sat up in bed, fingers laced around the knees beneath the blanket. There was an insouciance about her he did not understand. She did not impress him in the least as a wanton, but if he read that pert little face aright she was a good deal less embarrassed than he.

"I came to see some one else, but I got in the wrong house," he explained again lamely.

"That's twice I heard both them interestin' facts. Who is this goil you was comin' through a window to see in the middle o' the night. And what's that gat for if it ain't to croak some other guy? You oughtta be ashamed of yourself for not pullin' a better wheeze than that on me."

Clay blushed. In spite of the slangy impudence that dropped from the pretty red lips the girl was slim and looked virginal.

"You're 'way off. I wasn't callin' on her to—" He stuck hopelessly.

"Whadya know about that?" she came back with obvious sarcasm. "You soitainly give me a pain. I'll say you weren't callin' to arrange no Sunday School picnic. Listen. Look at that wall a minute, will you?"

When he turned again at her order she was sitting on the side of the bed wrapped in a kimono, her feet in bedroom slippers. He saw now that she was a slender-limbed slip of a girl. The lean forearm, which showed bare to the elbow when she raised it to draw the kimono closer round her, told Clay that she was none too well nourished.

"I'll listen now to your fairy tale, Mr. Gumshoe Guy, but I wantta wise you that I'm hep to men. Doncha try to string me," she advised.

Clay did not. It had occurred to him that she might give him information of value. There was something friendly and kindly about the humorous little mouth which parroted worldly wisdom so sagely and the jargon of criminals so readily. He told her the story of Kitty Mason. He could see by the girl's eyes that she had jumped to the conclusion that he was in love with Kitty. He did not attempt to disturb that conviction. It might enlist her sympathy.

"Honest, Annie, I believe this guy's on the level," the young woman said aloud as though to herself. "If he ain't, he's sure a swell mouthpiece. He don't look to me like no flat-worker—not with that mug of his. But you never can tell."

"I'm not, Miss. My story's true." Eyes clear as the Arizona sky in a face brown as the Arizona desert looked straight at her.

Annie Millikan had never seen a man like this before, so clean and straight and good to look at. From childhood she had been brought up on the fringe of that underworld the atmosphere of which is miasmic. She was impressed in spite of herself.

"Say, why don't you go into the movies and be one of these here screen ideals? You'd knock 'em dead," she advised flippantly, crossing her bare ankles.

Clay laughed. He liked the insolent little twist to her mouth. She made one strong appeal to him. This bit of a girl, so slim that he could break her in his hands, was game to the core. He recognized it as a quality of kinship.

"This is my busy night. When I've got more time I'll think of it. Right now—"

She took the subject out of his mouth. "Listen, how do you know the girl ain't a badger-worker?"

"You'll have to set 'em up on the other alley, Miss," the Westerner said. "I don't get yore meanin'."

"Couldn't she 'a' made this date to shake you down? Blackmail stuff."

"No chance. She's not that kind."

"Mebbe you're right. I meet so many hop-nuts and dips and con guys and gun-molls that I get to thinkin' there's no decent folks left," she said with a touch of weariness.

"Why don't you pull yore picket-pin and travel to a new range?" he asked. "They're no kind of people for you to be knowin'. Get out to God's country where men are white and poor folks get half a chance."

The girl shrugged her shoulders. "Little old New York is my beat. It's the biggest puddle in the world and I'll do my kickin' here." Abruptly she switched the talk back to his affairs. "You wantta go slow when you tackle Jerry Durand. I can tell you one thing. He's in this business up to the neck. I seen his shadow Gorilla Dave comin' outa the house next door twice to-day."

"Seen anything of the girl?"

"Nope. But she may be there. Honest, you're up against a tough game. There's no use rappin' to the bulls. They'd tip Jerry off and the girl wouldn't be there when they pulled the house."

"Then I must work this alone."

"Why don't you lay down on it?" she asked, her frank eyes searching his. "You soitainly will if you've got good sense."

"I'm goin' through."

Her black eyes warmed. "Say, I'll bet you're some guy when you get started. Hop to it and I hope you get Jerry good."

"I don't want Jerry. He's too tough for me. Once I had so much of him I took sick and went to the hospital. It's the girl I want."

"Say, listen! I got a hunch mebbe it's a bum steer, but you can't be sure till you try it. Why don't you get in through the roof instead o' the window?"

"Can I get in that way?"

"Surest thing you know—if the trapdoor ain't latched. Say, stick around outside my room half a sec, will you?"

The cattleman waited in the darkness of the passage. If his enemies were trying to ambush him in the house next door the girl's plan might save him. He would have a chance at least to get them unexpectedly in the rear.

It could have been scarcely more than two minutes later that the young woman joined him.

Her small hand slipped into his to guide him. They padded softly along the corridor till they came to a flight of stairs running up. The girl led the way, taking the treads without noise in her stockinged feet. Clay followed with the utmost caution.

Again her hand found his in the darkness of the landing. She took him toward the rear to a ladder which ended at a dormer half-door leading to the roof. Clay fumbled with his fingers, found a hook, unfastened it, and pushed open the trap. He looked up into a starlit night and a moment later stepped out upon the roof. Presently the slim figure of the girl stood beside him.

They moved across to a low wall, climbed it and came to the dormer door of the next house. Clay knelt and lifted it an inch or two very slowly. He lowered it again and rose.

"I'm a heap obliged to you, Miss," he said in a low voice. "You're a game little gentleman."

She nodded. "My name is Annie Millikan."

"Mine is Clay Lindsay. I want to come and thank you proper some day."

"I take tickets at Heath's Palace of Wonders two blocks down," she whispered.

"You'll sure sell me a ticket one of these days," Clay promised.

"Look out for yourself. Don't let 'em get you. Give 'em a chance, and that gang would croak you sure."

"I'll be around to buy that ticket. Good-night, Miss Annie. Don't you worry about me."

"You will be careful, won't you?"

"I never threw down on myself yet."

The girl's flippancy broke out again. "Say, lemme know when the weddin' is and I'll send you a salad bowl," she flashed at him saucily as he turned to go.

Clay was already busy with the door.



CHAPTER XIV

STARRING AS A SECOND-STORY MAN

Darkness engulfed Clay as he closed the trapdoor overhead. His exploring feet found each tread of the ladder with the utmost caution. Near the foot of it he stopped to listen for any sound that might serve to guide him. None came. The passage was as noiseless as it was dark.

Again he had that sense of cold finger-tips making a keyboard of his spine. An impulse rose in him to clamber up the ladder to the safety of the open-skyed roof. He was a son of the wide outdoors. It went against his gorge to be blotted out of life in this trap like some foul rodent.

But he trod down the panic and set his will to carry on. He crept forward along the passage. Every step or two he stopped to listen, nerves keyed to an acute tension.

A flight of stairs brought him to what he knew must be the second floor. To him there floated a murmur of sounds. They came vague and indistinct through a closed door. The room of the voices was on the left-hand side of the corridor.

He soft-footed it closer, reached the door, and dropped noiselessly to a knee. A key was in the lock on the outside. With infinite precaution against rattling he turned it, slid it out, and dropped it in his coat pocket. His eye fastened to the opening.

Three men were sitting round a table. They were making a bluff at playing cards, but their attention was focused on a door that evidently led into another room. Two automatic revolvers were on the table close to the hands of their owners. A blackjack lay in front of the third man. Clay recognized him as Gorilla Dave. The other two were strangers to him.

They were waiting. Sometimes they talked in low voices. For the most part they were silent, their eyes on the door of the trap that had been baited for a man Clay knew and was much interested in. Something evil in the watchfulness of the three chilled momentarily his veins. These fellows were the gunmen of New York he had read about—paid assassins whose business it was to frame innocent men for the penitentiary or kill them in cold blood. They were of the underworld, without conscience and without honor. As he looked at them through the keyhole, the watcher was reminded by their restless patience of mountain wolves lying in wait for their kill. Gorilla Dave sat stolidly in his chair, but the other two got up from time to time and paced the room silently, always with an eye to the door of the other room.

Then things began to happen. A soft step sounded in the corridor behind the man at the keyhole. He had not time to crawl away nor even to rise before a man stumbled against him.

Clay had one big advantage over his opponent. He had been given an instant of warning. His right arm went up around the neck of his foe and tightened there. His left hand turned the doorknob. Next moment the two men crashed into the room together, the Westerner rising to his feet as they came, with the body of the other lying across his back from hip to shoulder.

Gorilla Dave leaped to his feet. The other two gunmen, caught at disadvantage a few feet from the table, dived for their automatics. They were too late. Clay swung his body downward from the waist with a quick, strong jerk. The man on his back shot heels over head as though he had been hurled from a catapult, crashed face up on the table, and dragged it over with him in his forward plunge to the wall.

Before any one else could move or speak, Lindsay's gun was out.

"Easy now." His voice was a gentle drawl that carried a menace. "Lemme be boss of the rodeo a while. No, Gorilla, I wouldn't play with that club if I was you. I'm sure hell-a-mile on this gun stuff. Drop it!" The last two words came sharp and crisp, for the big thug had telegraphed an unintentional warning of his purpose to dive at the man behind the thirty-eight.

Gorilla Dave was thick-headed, but he was open to persuasion. Eyes hard as diamonds bored into his, searched him, dominated him. The barrel of the revolver did not waver a hair-breadth. His fingers opened and the blackjack dropped from his hand to the floor.

"For the love o' Mike, who is this guy?" demanded one of the other men.

"I'm the fifth member of our little party," explained Clay.

"Wot t'ell do youse mean? And what's the big idea in most killin' the chief?"

The man who had been flung across the table turned over and groaned. Clay would have known that face among a thousand. It belonged to Jerry Durand.

"I came in at the wrong door and without announcin' myself," said the cattleman, almost lazily, the unhurried indolence of his manner not shaken. "You see I wanted to be on time so as not to keep you waitin'. I'm Clay Lindsay."

The more talkative of the gunmen from the East Side flashed one look at the two automatics lying on the floor beside the overturned table. They might as well have been in Brazil for all the good they were to him.

"For the love o' Mike," he repeated again helplessly. "You're the—the—"

"—the hick that was to have been framed for house-breaking. Yes, I'm him," admitted Clay idiomatically. "How long had you figured I was to get on the Island? Or was it yore intention to stop my clock for good?"

"Say, how did youse get into de house?" demanded big Dave.

"Move over to the other side of the room, Gorilla, and join yore two friends," suggested the master of ceremonies. "And don't make any mistake. If you do you won't have time to be sorry for it. I'll ce'tainly shoot to kill."

The big-shouldered thug shuffled over. Clay stepped sideways, watching the three gunmen every foot of the way, kicked the automatics into the open, and took possession of them. He felt safer with the revolvers in his coat pocket, for they had been within reach of Durand, and that member of the party was showing signs of a return to active interest in the proceedings.

"When I get you right I'll croak you. By God, I will," swore the gang leader savagely, nursing his battered head. "No big stiff from the bushes can run anything over on me."

"I believe you," retorted Clay easily. "That is, I believe you're tellin' me yore intentions straight. There's no news in that to write home about. But you'd better make that if instead of when. This is three cracks you've had at me and I'm still a right healthy rube."

"Don't bank on fool luck any more. I'll get you sure," cried Durand sourly.

The gorge of the Arizonan rose. "Mebbeso. You're a dirty dog, Jerry Durand. From the beginning you were a rotten fighter—in the ring and out of it. You and yore strong-arm men! Do you think I'm afraid of you because you surround yoreself with dips and yeggmen and hop-nuts, all scum of the gutter and filth of the earth? Where I come from men fight clean and out in the open. They'd stomp you out like a rattlesnake."

Clay moved back to the door and looked around from one to another, a scorching contempt in his eyes. "Rats—that's what you are, vermin that feed on offal. You haven't got an honest fight in you. All you can do is skulk behind cover to take a man when he ain't lookin'."

He whipped open the door, stepped out, closed it, and took the key from his pocket. A moment, and he had turned the lock.

From within there came a rush that shook the panels. Clay was already busy searching for Kitty. He tore open door after door, calling her loudly by name. Even in the darkness he could see that the rooms were empty of furniture.

There was a crash of splintering panels, the sound of a bursting lock. Almost as though it were an echo of it came a heavy pounding upon the street door. Clay guessed that the thirty minutes were up and that the Runt was bringing the police. He dived back into one of the empty rooms just in time to miss a rush of men pouring along the passage to the stairs.

Cut off from the street, Clay took to the roof again. It would not do for him to be caught in the house by the police. He climbed the ladder, pushed his way through the trapdoor opening, and breathed deeply of the night air.

But he had no time to lose. Already he could hear the trampling of feet up the stairs to the second story.

Lightly he vaulted the wall and came to the roof door leading down to number 123. He found it latched.

The eaves of the roof projected so far that he could not from there get a hold on the window casings below. He made a vain circuit of the roof, then passed to the next house.

Again he was out of luck. The tenants had made safe the entrance against prowlers of the night. He knew that at any moment now the police might appear in pursuit of him. There was no time to lose.

He crossed to the last house in the block—and found himself barred out. As he rose from his knees he heard the voices of men clambering through the scuttle to the roof. At the same time he saw that which brought him to instant action. It was a rope clothes-line which ran from post to post, angling from one corner of the building to another and back to the opposite one.

No man in Manhattan's millions knew the value of a rope or could handle one more expertly than this cattleman. His knife was open before he had reached the nearest post. One strong slash of the blade severed it. In six long strides he was at the second post unwinding the line. He used his knife a second time at the third post.

Through the darkness he could see the dim forms of men stopping to examine the scuttle. Then voices came dear to him in the still night.

"If he reached the roof we've got him."

"Unless he found an open trap," a second answered.

With deft motions Clay worked swiftly. He was fastening the rope to the chimney of the house. Every instant he expected to hear a voice raised in excited discovery of him crouched in the shadows. But his fingers were as sure and as steady as though he had minutes before him instead of seconds.

"There's the guy—over by the chimney."

Clay threw the slack of the line from the roof. He had no time to test the strength of the rope nor its length. As the police rushed him he slid over the edge and began to lower himself hand under hand.

Would they cut the rope? Or would they take pot shots at him. He would know soon enough.

The wide eaves protected him. A man would have to hang out from the wall above the ledge to see him.

Clay's eyes were on the gutter above while he jerked his way down a foot at a time. A face and part of a body swung out into sight.

"We've got yuh. Come back or I'll shoot," a voice called down.

A revolver showed against the black sky.

The man from Arizona did not answer and did not stop. He knew that shooting from above is an art that few men have acquired.

A bullet sang past his ear just as he swung in and crouched on the window-sill. Another one hit the bricks close to his head.

The firing stopped. A pair of uniformed legs appeared dangling from the eaves. A body and a head followed these. They began to descend jerkily.

Clay took a turn at the gun-play. He fired his revolver into the air. The spasmodic jerking of the blue legs abruptly ceased.

"He's got a gun!" the man in the air called up to those above.

The fact was obvious. It could not be denied.

"Yuh'd better give up quietly. We're bound to get yuh," an officer shouted from the roof by way of parley.

The cattleman did not answer except by the smashing of glass. He had forced his way into two houses within the past hour. He was now busy breaking into a third. The window had not yielded to pressure. Therefore he was knocking out the glass with the butt of his revolver.

He crawled through the opening just as some one sat up in bed with a frightened exclamation.

"Who—is—s—s—s it?" a masculine voice asked, teeth chattering.

Clay had no time to gratify idle curiosity. He ran through the room, reached the head of the stairs, and went down on the banister to the first floor. He fled back to the rear of the house and stole out by the kitchen door.

The darkness of the alley swallowed him, but he could still hear the shouts of the men on thereof and answering ones from new arrivals below.

Five minutes later he was on board a street car. He was not at all particular as to its destination. He wanted to be anywhere but here. This neighborhood was getting entirely too active for him.



CHAPTER XV

THE GANGMAN SEES RED

Exactly thirty minutes after Clay had left him to break into the house, Johnnie lifted his voice in a loud wail for the police. He had read somewhere that one can never find an officer when he is wanted, but the Bull-of-Bashan roar of the cowpuncher brought them running from all directions.

Out of the confused explanations of the range-rider the first policeman to reach him got two lucid statements.

"They're white-slavin' a straight girl. This busher says his pal went in to rescue her half an hour ago and hasn't showed up since," he told his mates.

With Johnnie bringing up the rear they made a noisy attack on the front door of Number 121. Almost immediately it was opened from the inside. Four men had come down the stairs in a headlong rush to cut off the escape of one who had outwitted and taunted them.

Those who wanted to get in and those who wanted to get out all tried to talk at once, but as soon as the police recognized Jerry Durand they gave him the floor.

"We're after a flat-worker," explained the ex-pugilist. "He must be tryin' for a roof getaway." He turned and led the joint forces back up the stairs.

Thugs and officers surged up after him, carrying with them in their rush the Runt. He presently found himself on the roof with those engaged in a man-hunt for his friend. When Clay shattered the window and disappeared inside after his escape from the roof, Johnnie gave a deep sigh of relief. This gun-play got on his nerves, since Lindsay was the target of it.

The bandy-legged range-rider was still trailing along with the party ten minutes later when its scattered members drew together in tacit admission that the hunted man had escaped.

"Did youse get a look at his mug, Mr. Durand?" asked one of the officers. "It's likely we've got it down at headquarters in the gall'ry."

Durand had already made up his mind on that point.

"We didn't see his face in the light, Pete. No, I wouldn't know him again."

His plug-uglies took their cue from him. So did the officers. If Durand did not want a pinch there would, of course, not be one.

The gang leader was in a vile temper. If this story reached the newspapers all New York would be laughing at him. He could appeal to the police, have Clay Lindsay arrested, and get him sent up for a term on the charge of burglary. But he could not do it without the whole tale coming out. One thing Jerry Durand could not stand was ridicule. His vanity was one of his outstanding qualities, and he did not want it widely known that the boob he had intended to trap had turned the tables on him, manhandled him, jeered at him, and locked him in a room with his three henchmen.

Johnnie Green chose this malapropos moment for reminding the officers of the reason for the coming to the house.

"What about the young lady?" he asked solicitously.

Durand wheeled on him, looked him over with an insolent, malevolent eye, and jerked a thumb in his direction. "Who is this guy?"

"He's the fellow tipped us off his pal was inside," answered one of the patrolmen. He spoke in a whisper close to the ear of Jerry. "Likely he knows more than he lets on. Shall I make a pinch?"

The eyes of the gang leader narrowed. "So he's a friend of this second-story bird, is he?"

"Y'betcha!" chirped up Johnnie, "and I'm plumb tickled to take his dust too. Now about this yere young lady—"

Jerry caught him hard on the side of the jaw with a short arm jolt. The range-rider hit the pavement hard. Slowly he got to his feet nursing his cheek.

"What yuh do that for, doggone it?" he demanded resentfully. "Me, I wasn't lookin' for no trouble. Me, I—"

Durand leaped at him across the sidewalk. His strong fingers closed on the throat of the bow-legged puncher. He shook him as a lion does his kill. The rage of the pugilist found a vent in punishing the friend of the man he hated. Johnnie grew black in the face. His knees sagged and his lips foamed.

The officers pried Jerry loose from his victim with the greatest difficulty. He tried furiously to get at him, lunging from the men who were holding his arms.

The puncher sank helplessly against the wall.

"He's got all he can carry, Mr. Durand," one of the bluecoats said soothingly. "You don't wantta croak the little guy."

The ex-prize-fighter returned to sanity. "Says I'm white-slavin' a girl, does he? I'll learn him to lie about me," he growled.

Johnnie strangled and sputtered, fighting for breath to relieve his tortured lungs.

"Gimme the word, an' I'll run him in for a drunk," the policeman suggested out of the corner of a whispering mouth.

Jerry shook his head. "Nope. Let him go, Pete."

The policeman walked up to the Runt and caught him roughly by the arm. "Move along outa here. I'd ought to pinch you, but I'm not gonna do it this time. See? You beat it!"

Durand turned to one of his followers. "Tail that fellow. Find out where he's stayin' and report."

Helplessly Johnnie went staggering down the street. He did not understand why he had been treated so. His outraged soul protested at such injustice, but the instinct of self-preservation carried him out of the danger zone without argument about it. Even as he wobbled away he was looking with unwavering faith to his friend to right his wrongs. Clay would fix this fellow Durand for what he had done to him. Before Clay got through with him the bully would wish he had never lifted a hand to him.



CHAPTER XVI

A FACE IN THE NIGHT

Clay did his best under the handicap of a lack of entente between him and the authorities to search New York for Kitty. He used the personal columns of the newspapers. He got in touch with taxicab drivers, ticket-sellers, postmen, and station guards. So far as possible he even employed the police through the medium of Johnnie. The East Side water-front and the cheap lodging-houses of that part of the city he combed with especial care. All the time he knew that in such a maze as Manhattan it would be a miracle if he found her.

But miracles are made possible by miracle-workers. The Westerner was a sixty-horse-power dynamo of energy. He felt responsible for Kitty and he gave himself with single-minded devotion to the job of discovering her.

His rides and walks with Beatrice were rare events now because he was so keen on the business of looking for his Colorado protegee. He gave them up reluctantly. Every time they went out together into the open Miss Whitford became more discontented with the hothouse existence she was living. He felt there was just a chance that if he were constant enough, he might sweep her off her feet into that deeper current of life that lay beyond the social shallows. But he had to sacrifice this chance. He was not going to let Kitty's young soul be ship-wrecked if he could help it, and he had an intuition that she was not wise enough nor strong enough to keep off the rocks alone.

A part of his distress lay in the coolness of his imperious young friend who lived on the Drive. Beatrice resented his divided allegiance, though her own was very much in that condition. Clay and she had from the first been good comrades. No man had ever so deeply responded to her need of friendship. All sorts of things he understood without explanations. A day with him was one that brought the deep content of happiness. That, no doubt, she explained to herself, was because he was such a contrast to the men of cramped lives she knew. He was a splendid tonic, but of course one did not take tonics except occasionally.

Yet though Beatrice intended to remain heart-whole, she wanted to be the one woman in Clay's life until she released him. It hurt her vanity, and perhaps something deeper than her vanity, that such a girl as she conceived Kitty Mason to be should have first claim on the time she had come to consider her own. She made it plain to him, in the wordless way expert young women have at command, that she did not mean to share with him such odd hours as he chose to ask for. He had to come when she wanted him or not at all. Without the name of Kitty having been mentioned, he was given to understand that if he wished to remain in the good graces of Beatrice Whitford he must put the cigarette girl out of his mind.

For all his good nature Clay was the last man in the world to accept dictation of this sort. He would go through with anything he started, and especially where it was a plain call of duty. Beatrice might like it or not as she pleased. He would make his own decisions as to his conduct.

He did.

Bee was furious at him. She told herself that there was either a weak streak in him or a low one, else he would not be so obsessed by the disappearance of this flirtatious little fool who had tried to entrap him. But she did not believe it. A glance at this brown-faced man was sufficient evidence that he trod with dynamic force the way of the strong. A look into his clear eyes was certificate enough of his decency.

When Clay met Kitty at last it was quite by chance. As it happened Beatrice was present at the time.

He had been giving a box party at the Empire. The gay little group was gathered under the awning outside the foyer while the limousine that was to take them to Shanley's for supper was being called. Colin Whitford, looking out into the rain that pelted down, uttered an exclamatory "By Jove!"

Clay turned to him inquiringly.

"A woman was looking out of that doorway at us," he said. "If she's not in deep water I'm a bad guesser. I thought for a moment she knew me or some one of us. She started to reach out her hands and then shrank back."

"Young or old?" asked the cattleman.

"Young—a girl."

"Which door?"

"The third."

"Excuse me." The host was off in an instant, almost on the run.

But the woman had gone, swallowed in the semi-darkness of a side street. Clay followed.

Beatrice turned to her father, eyebrows lifted. There was a moment's awkward silence.

"Mr. Lindsay will be back presently," Whitford said. "We'll get in and wait for him out of the way a little farther up the street."

When Clay rejoined them he was without his overcoat. He stood in the heavy rain beside the car, a figure of supple grace even in his evening clothes, and talked in a low voice with Beatrice's father. The mining man nodded agreement and Lindsay turned to the others.

"I'm called away," he explained aloud. "Mr. Whitford has kindly promised to play host in my place. I'm right sorry to leave, but it's urgent."

His grave smile asked Beatrice to be charitable in her findings. The eyes she gave him were coldly hostile. She, too, had caught a glimpse of the haggard face in the shadows and she hardened her will against him. The bottom of his heart went out as he turned away. He knew Beatrice did not and would not understand.

The girl was waiting where Clay had left her, crouched against a basement milliner's door under the shelter of the steps. She was wearing the overcoat he had flung around her. In its pallid despair her face was pitiable.

A waterproofed policeman glanced suspiciously at them as he sloshed along the sidewalk in the splashing rain.

"I—I've looked for you everywhere," moaned the girl. "It's been—awful."

"I know, but it's goin' to be all right now, Kitty," he comforted. "You're goin' home with me to-night. To-morrow we'll talk it all over."

He tucked an arm under hers and led her along the wet, shining street to a taxicab. She crouched in a corner of the cab, her body shaken with sobs.

The young man moved closer and put a strong arm around her shoulders. "Don't you worry, Kitty. Yore big brother is on the job now."

"I—I wanted to—to kill myself," she faltered. "I tried to—in the river—and—it was so black—I couldn't." The girl shivered with cold. She had been exposed to the night rain for hours without a coat.

He knew her story now in its essentials as well as he did later when she wept it out to him in confession. And because she was who she was, born to lean on a stronger will, he acquitted her of blame.

They swung into Broadway and passed taxis and limousines filled with gay parties just out of the theaters. Young women in rich furs, wrapped from the cruelty of life by the caste system in which wealth had encased them, exchanged badinage with sleek, well-dressed men. A ripple of care-free laughter floated to him across the gulf that separated this girl from them. By the cluster lights of Broadway he could see how cruelly life had mauled her soft youth. The bloom of her was gone, all the brave pride and joy of girlhood. It would probably never wholly return.

He saw as in a vision the infinite procession of her hopeless sisters who had traveled the road from which he was rescuing her, saw them first as sweet and merry children bubbling with joy, and again, after the world had misused them for its pleasure, haggard and tawdry, with dragging steps trailing toward the oblivion that awaited them. He wondered if life must always be so terribly wasted, made a bruised and broken thing instead of the fine, brave adventure for which it was meant.



CHAPTER XVII

JOHNNIE MAKES A JOKE

As Kitty stepped from the cab she was trembling violently.

"Don't you be frightened, li'l' pardner. You've come home. There won't anybody hurt you here."

The soft drawl of Clay's voice carried inexpressible comfort. So too did the pressure of his strong hand on her arm. She knew not only that he was a man to trust, but that so far as could be he would take her troubles on his broad shoulders. Tears brimmed over her soft eyes.

The Arizonan ran her up to his floor in the automatic elevator.

"I've got a friend from home stayin' with me. He's the best-hearted fellow you ever saw. You'll sure like him," he told her without stress as he fitted his key to the lock.

He felt her shrink beneath his coat, but it was too late to draw back now. In another moment Lindsay was introducing her casually to the embarrassed and astonished joint proprietor of the apartment.

The Runt was coatless and in his stockinged-feet. He had been playing a doleful ditty on a mouth-organ. Caught so unexpectedly, he blushed a beautiful brick red to his neck.