"I had three intimates among them—a tall, clean-limbed fellow with the bluest and steadiest eyes I ever saw in a man, who called himself 'Nebraska'; a rangy Texan named Quint Taylor, who maintained that manual labor was a curse and quoted the Scriptures to prove it; and Tom Taggart. Tom and I were thick. I liked him, and he'd done things for me that seemed to prove that he thought a lot of me. He didn't like it a little bit when I married your mother—her name was Mary Lannon, and I'd got acquainted with her while riding for a few months for her father, who owned a ranch near Eagle Pass, close to the Rio Grande. She was white, boy, and so were her folks, and you can be proud of her. And if she had lived you could be proud of me—she'd have kept on making me a man.

"Taggart didn't like the idea of me getting hooked up. He didn't want to break up the old associations. He and the others hung around for a year, waiting for something to turn up, and when your mother died it wasn't long before I was back with them. I left you in care of Jane Connor—her husband, Dave, owned the Diamond Dot ranch, which adjoined mine.

"During the year the boys had been knocking around without me they'd fallen in with an Indian from Yucatan, from the tribe called the Toltecs. This Indian called himself Queza—he'd been exiled because he was too lazy to work. The boys got him drunk one night, and he blabbed everything he knew about his tribe—how rich it was; how they'd discovered a diamond mine, and that gold was so common that they used it to make household ornaments. His story got the boys excited and they pumped him dry. They found out where his tribe lived, how to get there, and all that.

"Queza told them that the diamonds wouldn't be hard to get, that there were altar idols and ornaments in a big cave which was hollowed out of the face of a rock cliff, and that there was a bridge over to it, and that the cave wasn't guarded because the tribe had a superstitious fear of the priests who had charge of the idols and things, and that the people didn't care for gold and diamonds, anyway, because they were so common.

"The boys had got all this out of Queza about a month before I sold out and joined them, and they'd rustled some money somewhere, and had everything fixed up to go to Yucatan to bring home some of that gold and diamonds. They wanted me to go along. I was in that frame of mind in which I didn't care much about what happened to me, and they didn't have to argue long. We dropped down the Rio Grande to a little place on the Gulf coast near where Brownsville is now. We bought a little boat from a fisherman—she wasn't more than thirty feet long and didn't look like she could stand much weather; but Nebraska, who'd told us that he'd done a little sailing on the California coast when he was a lot younger than he was then, said she'd stand anything we was likely to get in the Gulf. So we stocked her with provisions and water to last a month or so, and Nebraska pointed her nose toward Yucatan.

"I didn't think then what a rank job it was that we were going to do, but it won't do me any harm in your eyes to say that after we'd got started and I began to realize what it all meant, I was ashamed. I felt like a sneak and a coward all through the deal, but I couldn't back out after I'd started, and so I went through with it.

"We run into a spell of bad weather and had to hug the coast mighty close, and it was two weeks before we pulled into Campeche Bay, on the northwest coast of Yucatan. We worked the boat about half a mile up a little creek four or five miles south of Campeche, and worked half a day hiding her, so that she'd be there when we got back. Then, taking what grub was left, we struck out for the interior. It won't be any use telling you about that journey—you couldn't imagine, and I couldn't begin to tell you, what a miserable, slow, tortuous affair it was. It gets hot in New Mexico, but we got a taste of hell in that Yucatan jungle. That country wasn't built for a white man.

"So I'm not going to try to tell you about the trip. We were tough and eager, and we stuck it out, traveling mostly by night, setting our course by the stars, about which I knew something. But we were a week going a hundred miles, and we were beginning to get into that frame of mind where we were noticing one another's faults and getting not a bit backward in talking about them, when one night at dusk we got a glimpse of the place we were looking for.

"Queza had called the place a town, and maybe that name fits it as well as another. It made me dizzy to look at it. We'd been climbing the slope of a mountain all afternoon—traveling in the daytime now, because we were getting near the end of our journey—Nebraska in the lead, the rest trailing him. We saw Nebraska stop and duck back into some brush. Then we all sneaked up to him and got our first look at the town.

"It looked to me as though the place had been made to hide in. The mountain dropped away below us, straight down about a hundred feet, a smooth rock wall. Another wall of rock joined it on the right, making a big L. There was a level that began at the two walls and extended both ways for probably half a mile, until it met the slope of the other side of the mountain. It was nothing but two shoulders, joined, on the top of the mountain.

"Just below us there was a break in the level—a wide gash about fifty feet across, so deep that we couldn't see the bottom. There was a ledge on our side about three or four feet wide, and a bridge stretched from it across the canyon. We decided that the bridge was the one Queza had told the boys about—it led to the cave where the treasure was kept. We laid there for an hour, watching. The buildings were all huddled together—a lot of flat, brown adobe houses. We could see the natives moving down among them, but none of us noticed anything unusual going on until Taggart calls our attention.

"'Did you notice?' he said.

"'Notice what?' we all answered.

"'That they're all women down there—I ain't seen a man!'

"That was a fact. There didn't seem to be a man anywhere about. We talked it over and concluded that we'd got there at a most advantageous time. We decided that the men were away, on a hunt, most probably, and after we'd watched a while longer we decided that we'd sneak down some way and go after the treasure about midnight. We figured they'd all be sleeping about that time. After dark they lit fires and sat around them.

"We watched until about eleven—until we saw that nearly all the fires had gone out—and then we sneaked down the slope of the mountain. We didn't make any noise; we were silent and slippery as ghosts as we made our way through the timber on the slope. It was slow work, though; the woods were full of tangled vines and prickly bushes, and we got clawed up considerable and had all we could do to keep from cussing out loud when a thorn or something would rip a cheek open. It was blacker than any night I've ever seen before or since; we couldn't see a foot ahead, and the sounds we heard in the woods didn't make us feel any too comfortable, for all we'd got used to living in the open. We knew, of course, that the sounds came from birds and bats and moths and such, but when a man is out on a job like that his nerves are not what they are at other times—every sound seems unusual and magnified. I didn't like so much silence from the village down below us—it seemed too quiet; and it appeared to me that the noises we heard in the woods were most too continuous to be caused by only us four. We went in single file, one man almost touching the other, to be sure we'd all stay together. I'd hear a bird go whizzing away at a distance, and it appeared to me that there was no call for it to light out with us two or three hundred feet away from it; and then there were queer noises which I couldn't just place as coming from birds. I don't know why I noticed these things, but I did, just the same, though I didn't say anything to the other boys, because they'd probably thought I was losing my nerve. And, besides, there wasn't time to talk.

"It took us more than an hour to reach the level where the village was, and it was long after midnight when we, keeping in the shadow of the cliff, started toward the bridge over the canyon, which led to the cave where we thought we'd find the treasure.

"We'd got pretty near the bridge, Taggart and me in the lead, Nebraska and Taylor stringing along behind, when I heard a sudden scuffling and looked around. It wasn't so dark on the level as it had been in the woods, and I saw a dozen dark figures grouped around Nebraska and Taylor. The dark figures were all about us, and more were coming from the huts, all yelling like devils. And they were men, too; they'd been hiding in the huts; they'd discovered us the day before and suspected what we came for. I found that out later.

"Well, for a few minutes there was plenty of excitement. Taylor and Nebraska had got pretty well behind us, and the Toltecs had cut them off. Taggart showed yellow. I started back to help Nebraska and Taylor, who had their knives out—I could see them shining—when Taggart grabbed me.

"'Let's run for the bridge, you fool!' he said. 'It's every man for himself now!'

"While I was scuffling with Taggart, trying to get away from him and get back to the boys, a figure detached itself from the bunch around them and came flying toward us. It was a woman, I could see that in an instant. Taggart saw her coming, too; he must have known it was a woman, but he pulled out his knife, and when she came close enough to us he drove at her with it. He missed her because I shoved him away. He fell, and, while he was on the ground, the woman—or girl, because she wasn't more than eighteen or nineteen—grabbed me by the arm and jabbered to me in Spanish, of which I'd learned a little.

"'They're going to kill all of you!' she said. 'They've been watching you for two days. They left me to watch you yesterday. I don't want them to kill you—I like you! Come!'

"She pulled at me, trying to drag me toward the bridge. I didn't have any objections to her liking me as much as she pleased, for she was a beauty—I found that out afterward, of course; but though I couldn't see her face very well just them, I liked her voice and knew she must be good to look at. But I didn't like the idea of leaving the other boys, and told her so.

"'You'll all be killed, anyway,' she said, all excited. 'They might as well die now as later. They'll kill you, too, if you go back!'

"That was logic, all right, but I'd have gone back anyway if I hadn't heard Nebraska and Taylor working their guns just then. The Toltecs broke and scattered—some of them. Three or four of them couldn't after the boys began to shoot. Soon as the Toltecs broke away a little, Nebraska and Taylor made for where we stood. I saw them coming and told the girl to lead us. The three of us—the girl, Taggart, and me—got to the bridge, which was a light, flimsy, narrow affair made of two long, straight saplings lashed together with vines, with a couple of strips of bark for a bottom—and crossed it. Then we stood on the ledge in front of the mouth of the cave, watching Nebraska and Taylor. They were coming for all they were worth, shooting as they ran and keeping the bunch of Toltecs at a respectable distance, though the Toltecs were running parallel with them, trying to bring them down with arrows.

"Nebraska and Taylor made the bridge. They had got about half way over when a dozen or so of the Toltecs threw themselves at the end of the bridge which rested on the village side of the canyon, grabbed hold of it, and pulled it off the ledge on our side. I yelled to the boys and jumped for the end of the bridge. But I was too late. The bridge balanced for an instant, and then the end on which the boys were standing started to sink. Nebraska saw what was coming, off and jumped for the ledge on which we were standing. He missed it by five feet. There wasn't a sound from his lips as he shot down into the awful blackness of the canyon. I got sick and dizzy, but not so sick that I couldn't see what was happening to Taylor. Taylor didn't jump for the ledge. He turned like a cat and grabbed a rail of the bridge, trying to climb back to the level. He'd have made it, too, but the Toltecs wouldn't let him. They jabbed at him with their spears and arrows and threw knives at him. One of the knives struck him in the shoulder, and when I heard him scream I pulled my guns and began to shoot across the canyon. I hadn't thought of it before; there are times when a man's brain refuses to work like he'd like to have it. But the Toltecs didn't mind the shooting a little bit.

"Three or four of them got hit and backed away from the edge of the canyon, but there were enough others to do what they were trying to do, and they did it. I stood there, helpless, and saw them shove Taylor off the bridge with their spears. When he finally let go and went turning over and over down into the black hole, my whole insides fanned up into my throat. That sensation has never left me; I wake up nights seeing Taylor as he let go of the bridge, watching him sink, tumbling over and over into that black gash, and I get sick and dizzy just as I did that night.

"But just then I didn't have much of a chance to be sick long. While I was standing there wondering what to do I saw a Toltec priest come out of the cave. He had a spear in his hand and was sneaking up on Taggart—who stood there almost fainting from fright. There was murder in the priest's eyes; I saw it and bent my gun on him. The trigger snapped on dead cartridges, and I yanked out my knife. I'd have been too late, at that. But the girl saw the priest, and she dodged behind him and gave him a shove. He pitched out and went head first down into the canyon.

"The Toltecs on the other side were watching, and they saw the priest go. Until now they hadn't shot at us, probably afraid of hitting the girl, but when they saw her push the priest over the edge of the canyon they saw that her sympathies were with us, and they let drive at us with their arrows. We were all slightly wounded—not enough to mention—and we got back into the cave where their arrows couldn't reach us. Three or four times the Toltecs tried to swing the bridge back into position, but they couldn't make it because there was no one on our side to help them, and Taggart and me made things mighty unpleasant for them with our sixes. They finally went away and held a council of war, which seemed to leave them undecided. They evidently hadn't figured on the girl turning traitor. If she hadn't they'd have got me and Taggart in short order.

"We'd got where the treasure was, all right, but it was a mighty bad outlook for us. We were kind of anxious about the bridge, being afraid the Toltecs would get it back into place; but the girl, who called herself Ezela, showed us that getting the bridge back wasn't possible without help from our side. She said that the priest she'd dumped down into the canyon was the only one with the tribe at the time; the others had gone to a distant village. She said, too, that there was a secret passage from the cave; she'd discovered it, and no one but her and the priests knew anything about it, but that the Toltecs would send runners for the priests and we'd have to get out before they came, or they'd lay for us at the outlet.

"Well, we hustled. We felt bad about Nebraska and Taylor, and were determined not to leave without some of the treasure, and after Ezela showed us where it was I kept her busy talking while Taggart got about as much as he could carry. Ezela offered no objections; on the other hand, when Taggart came back she told me to get some of the treasure too. Taggart hadn't taken enough to miss; there were millions of dollars' worth of gold and diamonds in the room, where they'd raised a kind of an altar, and I had my choice.

"I took some of the gold, but what attracted me—not because it was pretty, but because I saw in a minute that it was valuable—was a hideous image about six inches high. I had had an idea all along that Queza had been lying about the diamonds, but when I saw the image I knew he'd told the truth. There were about a hundred diamonds on the image, stuck all around it, the image itself being gold. The diamonds ran from a carat to seven or eight carats, and there was no question about them being the real thing. I stuck the thing into a hip pocket, figuring that with the few other ornaments I had I would have plenty to carry. Then I went back to where Ezela and Taggart were waiting for me.

"Ezela led us through a long, narrow passage, down some steps to another passage, and pretty soon we were sneaking along this and I began to get a whiff of fresh air. In a little while we found ourselves on a narrow ledge in the canyon, about thirty or forty feet below the level where the bridge had been, and it was so dark down there that we couldn't see one another.

"Ezela whispered to us to follow her, and to be careful. We had to be careful, and after what had happened, crawling along that ledge wasn't the most cheerful job in the world. It would have been a ticklish thing to do in the daytime, but at night it was a thousand times worse. I kept thinking about poor Taylor and Nebraska, and there were times when I felt that I just had to yell and jump out into the black hole around us. Taggart showed it worse than me. It took us an hour to traverse that ledge. We'd strike a short turn where there wouldn't be more than six or eight inches of ledge between us and eternity, and we couldn't see a thing—I've thought since that maybe it was a good thing we couldn't. But we could feel the width of the ledge with our feet, and there were times when my legs shook under me like I had the ague. Taggart was pretty near collapse all the time. He kept mumbling to himself, making queer little throaty noises and grabbing at me. Two or three times I had to turn and talk to him, or he'd have let go all holds and jumped.

"We finally made solid ground, and it was a full hour before me or Taggart could get up after we'd sat down, we were that tuckered out. The girl didn't seem to mind it a bit; she told me she'd discovered the secret passage that way. She'd been nosing around the mountain one day and had crept along the edge, finding that it led to the treasure cave.

"There wasn't any time lost by us in getting away from that place. Ezela told us there wasn't any use hoping that Nebraska and Taylor were alive, because the canyon was over a thousand feet deep and there was a roaring river at the bottom. I don't like to think of that fall.

"Taggart objected to Ezela going with us, but I couldn't think of letting her stay to be punished by her tribe for what she'd done—they'd have burned her, sure, she said. Besides, I may as well tell the truth, I'd got to liking Ezela a good bit by this time. She was good to look at, and she'd been hanging around me, telling me that she wanted to go with us, and that she'd done what she had for my sake, because she liked me. All that sort of stuff plays on a man's vanity when it comes from a pretty girl, and it didn't take me long to decide that I was in love with her and that, aside from humane reasons, I ought to take her with me. So I took her.

"We reached the boat after a week of heart-breaking travel, and we hadn't got over two miles out in the bay when we saw that we hadn't left any too soon. A hundred or so Toltecs were on the beach, doing a war dance and waving their spears at us. We had a pretty close call of it for grub, but we made a little town on the gulf and stocked up, and then we headed for the mouth of the Rio Grande. We camped one night a week later on United States soil, and that night while I was asleep Taggart tried to knife me. I'd showed Taggart the diamond image one day while Ezela was asleep in the boat, and he'd got greedy for it. Ezela screamed when she saw him getting close to me with the knife, and I woke in time to grab him before he got a chance to get the knife into me. He finally broke away, leaving all the treasure he'd brought except a little that he had in his pockets—he'd had a bundle of it strapped to his belt besides that—and I didn't see him again for four years.

"I took Ezela up the Pecos to the Connors', where I'd left you, bought a wagon and horses and a few things—bedding and grub and such stuff—and lit out for New Mexico. I figured that I had enough of the kind of friends I'd been keeping, and I didn't want to be ridiculed for tying up to an Indian girl—white folks don't like to see that. I came here and took up this land, figuring that I wouldn't be disturbed. I'd been here four years when Taggart came. I'd sold some of the treasure, but, for some reason which I've never been able to figure out, I kept the idol. I think I was afraid to try to sell it on account of the big diamonds in it.

"I gave Taggart the treasure he'd left behind the night he tried to knife me, but he wasn't satisfied; he wanted more, wanted me to sell the Toltec image and split with him. Of course I wouldn't do that because of the way he'd acted, and he swore to get it some day.

"He took up some land about fifteen miles down the river, and he's stayed there ever since. I've been afraid to go anywhere with the idol for fear he'd waylay me and get it. One day while I was away somewhere he came here and told Ezela about me having the idol. From that time on I led a life of hell. Ezela turned on me. She said I'd desecrated the altars of her tribe, and she kept harping to me about it until I got so I couldn't bear the sight of her.

"I discovered soon after we came here that I had been mistaken in thinking I had loved her—what I had thought was love was merely gratitude. My gratitude didn't last, of course, with her hounding me continually about the idol. Finally I discovered that she and Taggart were plotting against me. Of course, Taggart was after the image himself. He didn't care anything about her religious scruples, but he made her believe he sympathized with her, and made a fool of her. I tried to kill Taggart the day I found that out, but he got away, and after that he never traveled alone and I didn't get another chance. I ordered Ezela away, but she said she wouldn't go until she got the image. Many times I debated the idea of putting her out of the way, but there was always the knowledge in my mind that she had saved my life, and I hadn't the heart to do it.

"You know how we lived. My life was constantly in danger, and I became hardened, suspicious, brutal. You got the whole accumulation. Taggart and Ezela bribed my men to watch me. I had to discharge them. After Ezela died I thought Taggart would leave me alone. But he didn't—he wanted the image. One day he and his boy Neal came over and ambushed me. They shot me in the shoulder. I was in the house, defending myself as best I could, when Malcolm Clayton came. By this time Betty has told you the rest and you know just what you can expect from the Taggarts.

"That is the whole history of the Toltec idol. I am not proud of my part in the affair, but Tom Taggart must never have the idol. Remember that! I don't want him to have it! Neither do I want you to have it, or the money I leave, unless you can show that you forgive me. As I have said, I don't take your word for it—you must prove it.

"I know you are coming home, and I wish I could live to see you. But I know I won't. Don't be too hard on me. Your father,

"JAMES MARSTON."



CHAPTER IX

RESPONSIBILITY

For a long time after he had completed the reading of the letter, Calumet was silent, staring straight ahead of him. The information contained in the account of his father's adventures was soothing—the termagant who had presided over his boyhood destinies had not been his real mother, and his father had left him a score to settle. He already hated the Taggarts, not particularly because they were his father's enemies, but rather because Tom Taggart had been a traitor. He felt a contempt for him. He himself was mean and vicious—he knew that. But he had never betrayed a friend. It was better to have no friend than to have one and betray him. He looked around to see that Betty was still apparently absorbed in her book.

"Do you know what is in this letter?" he said.

She laid the book in her lap and nodded affirmatively.

"You opened it, I suppose?" he sneered.

"No," she returned, unmoved. "Your father read it to me."

"Kind of him, wasn't it? What do you think of it?"

"What I think isn't important. What do you think of it?"

"Nosey, eh?" he jeered. "If it won't inconvenience you any, I'll keep what I think of it to myself. But it's plain to me now that when you caught me tryin' to guzzle your granddad you thought I belonged to the Taggart bunch. You told me I'd have to try again—or somethin' like that. I reckon you thought I was after the idol?"

"Yes."

"Then the Taggarts have tried to get it since you've been here?"

"Many times."

"But you left the front door open the night I came," insinuated Calumet, his eyes glowing subtly. "That looks like you was invitin' someone to come in an' get the idol."

"We never bother much about barring the doors. Besides, I don't remember to have told you that the idol is in the house," she smiled.

He looked at her with a baffled sneer. "Foxy, ain't you?" He folded the letter and placed it into a pocket, she watching him silently. Her gaze fell on the injured arm; she saw the angry red streaks spreading from beneath the crude bandage and she got up, laying her book down and regarding him with determined eyes.

"Please come out into the kitchen with me," she said; "I am going to take care of your arm."

He looked up at her with a glance of cold mockery. "When did you get my permission to take care of it? It don't need any carin' for. An' if it did, I reckon to be able to do my own doctorin'."

She looked at him steadily and something in her gaze made him feel uncomfortable.

"Don't be silly," she said. She turned and went out into the kitchen. He could hear her working over the stove. He saw her cross the room with a tea kettle, fill it with water from a pail, return and place the kettle on the stove. He was determined that he would not allow her to dress the wound, but when ten minutes later she appeared in the kitchen door and told him she was ready, he got up and went reluctantly out.

She washed the arm, bathing the wound with a solution of water and some medicine which she poured from a bottle, and then bandaged it with some white cloth. Neither said anything until after she had delicately tied a string around the bandage to keep it in place, and then she stepped back and regarded her work with satisfaction.

"There," she said; "doesn't that feel better?"

"Some," he returned, grudgingly. He stood up and watched her while she spread a cloth partly over the table and placed some dishes and food upon it. He was hungry, and the sight of the food made him feel suddenly ravenous. He watched her covertly, noting her matter-of-fact movements. It was as though she had not the slightest idea that he would refuse to eat, and he felt certain that he could not refuse. She was making him feel uncomfortable again; that epithet, "silly," rankled in him and he did not want to hear her apply it to him again. But he would have risked it had she looked at him. She did not look at him. When she had finally arranged everything to suit her taste she turned her back and walked to the door of the dining-room.

"There is your supper," she said quietly. "I have fixed up your room for you—the room you occupied before you left home. I am going to leave the light burning in the dining-room—you might want to read your letter again. Blow the light out when you go to bed. Good night."

He grumbled an incoherent reply, turning his back to her. Her calm, unruffled acceptance of his incivility filled him with a cold resentment.

"What did you say?" she demanded of him from the door.

He turned sullenly. The light mockery in her voice stung him, shamed him—her eyes, dancing with mischief, held his.

"Good night," he said shortly.

"Good night," she said again. She laughed and vanished.

For an instant Calumet stood, scowling at the vacant doorway. Then he turned and went over to the table in the kitchen, looking down at the food and the dishes. She had compelled him to be civil. He gripped one end of the table cloth, and for an instant it seemed as though he meditated dumping dishes and food upon the floor. Then he grinned, grimly amused, and sat in the chair before the table, taking up knife and fork.

Early as he arose the next morning, he found that Betty had been before him. He saw her standing on the rear porch when he went out to care for his horse, and she smiled and called a greeting to him, which he answered soberly.

For some reason which he could not explain he felt a little reluctance toward going into the kitchen for breakfast this morning. Yet he did go, though he waited outside until Betty came to the door and called him. He was pretending to be busy at his saddle, though he knew this was a pretext to cover his submission to her. He did not move toward the house until she vanished within it.

He was quiet during the meal, wondering at the change that had come over him, for he felt a strange resignation. He told himself that it was gratitude for her action in caring for his injured arm, and yet he watched her narrowly for any sign that would tell him that she was aware of his thoughts and was enjoying him. But he was able to determine nothing from her face, for though she smiled often there was nothing in her face at which he could take offense. She devoted much of her time and attention to Bob. And Bob talked to Calumet. There was something about the boy that attracted Calumet, and before the meal ended they were conversing companionably. But toward the conclusion of the meal, when in answer to something Bob said to him he smiled at the boy, he saw Betty looking at him with a glance of mingled astonishment and pleasure, he sobered and ceased talking. He didn't want to do anything to please Betty.

He was saddling Blackleg after breakfast, intending to go down the river a short distance, when he became aware that Betty was standing near him. Without a word she handed him a bulky envelope with his name written on it. He took it, tore open an end, and a piece of paper, enclosing several bills, slipped out. He shot a quick glance at Betty; she was looking at him unconcernedly. He counted the bills; there were ten one hundred dollar gold certificates.

"What's this for?" he demanded.

"Read the letter," she directed.

He unfolded the paper. It read:

"MY DEAR SON: The money in this envelope is to be used by you in buying material to be used to repair the ranchhouse. I have prepared an itemized list of the necessary materials, which Betty will give you. Your acceptance of the task imposed on you will indicate that you intend to fulfill my wishes. It will also mean that you seriously contemplate an attempt at reform. The fact that you receive this money shows that you are already making progress, for you would never get it if Betty thought you didn't deserve it, or were not worthy of a trial. I congratulate you.

"YOUR FATHER."

"Got it all framed up on me, eh?" said Calumet. "So you think I've made progress, an' that I'm goin' to do what you want me to do?"

"Your progress hasn't been startling," she said dryly. "But you have progressed. At least, you have shown some inclination to listen to reason. Here is the itemized list which your father speaks of." She passed over another paper, which Calumet scanned slowly and carefully. His gaze became fixed on the total at the bottom of the column of figures.

"It amounts to nine hundred and sixty dollars," he said, looking at her, a disgusted expression on his face. "Looks like the old fool was mighty careless with his money. Couldn't he have put down another item to cover that forty dollars?"

"I believe that margin was left purposely to take care of a possible advance in prices over those with which your father was familiar at the time he made out the list," she answered, smiling in appreciation of his perturbation.

"That's keepin' cases pretty close, ain't it?" he said. "Suppose I'd blow the whole business?"

"That would show that you could not be trusted. Your father left instructions which provide for that contingency."

"What are they?"

"I am not to tell."

"Clever, ain't it?" he said, looking at her with displeased, hostile eyes. She met his gaze with a calm half-smile which had in it that irritating quality of advantage that he had noticed before.

"I am glad you think it clever," she returned.

"It was your idea, I reckon?"

"I believe I did suggest it to your father. He was somewhat at a loss to know how to deal with you. He told me that he had some doubts about the scheme working; he said you would take it and 'blow' it in, as you said you might, but I disagreed with him. I was convinced that you would do the right thing."

"You had a lot of faith in me, didn't you?" he said, incredulously. "You believed in a man you'd never seen."

"Your father had a picture of you," she said, looking straight at him. "It was taken when you were fifteen, just before you left the ranch. It showed a boy with a cynical face and brooding, challenging eyes. But in spite of all that I thought I detected signs of promise in the face. I was certain that if you were managed right you could be reformed."

"You were certain," he said significantly. "What do you think now?"

"I haven't altered my opinion." Her gaze was steady and challenging. "Of course," she added, blushing faintly; "I believe I was a little surprised when you came and I saw that you had grown to be a man. You see, I had looked at your picture so often that I rather expected to see a boy when you came. I had forgotten those thirteen years. But it has been said that a man is merely a grown-up boy and there is much truth in that. Despite your gruff ways, your big voice, and your contemptible way of treating people, you are very much a boy. But I am still convinced that you are all right at heart. I think everybody is, and the good could be brought forward if someone would take enough interest in the subject."

"Then you take an interest in me?" said Calumet, grinning scornfully.

"Yes," she said frankly; "to the extent of wondering whether or not time will vindicate my judgment."

"Then you think I won't blow this coin?" he said, tapping the bills.

"I think you will spend it for the articles on the list I have given you."

He looked at her and she was certain there was indecision in the glance.

"Well," he said abruptly, turning from her; "mebbe I will an' mebbe I won't. But whatever I do with it will be done to suit myself. It won't be done to please you."

He mounted his pony and rode to the far end of the ranchhouse yard. When he turned in the saddle it was with the conviction that Betty would be standing there watching him. Somehow, he wished she would. But she was walking toward the ranchhouse, her back to him, and he made a grimace of disappointment as he urged his pony out into the valley.



CHAPTER X

NEW ACQUAINTANCES

Calumet had been in no hurry, though maintaining its steady chop-trot for most of the distance, Blackleg had set him down in Lazette in a little over two hours.

Something had happened to Calumet. He had carefully considered the phenomenon all the way over from the Lazy Y; he considered it now as he sat sideways in the saddle before the rough board front of the Red Dog Saloon. Betty had faith in him. That was the phenomenon—the unheard of miracle. No one else had ever had faith in him, and so it was a new experience and one that must be thoroughly pondered if he was to enjoy it. And that he was enjoying it was apparent. Though he faced the Red Dog Saloon he did not see it. He kept seeing Betty as she looked after she had given him the money. "I know you will do the right thing," she had said, or something very like that. It made no difference what her words had been. What she meant was that she had faith in him. And her eyes had said that she expected him to justify that faith.

But would he? He didn't know. For the first time in his life he was afflicted with indecision over the possession of money. In the old days—the Durango days—which now seemed to be far behind him, the thousand dollars in his pocket would have served to finance a brief holiday of license and drinking and reckless play with gambling devices. But now it was different—something within him had called—or was calling—a halt. He told himself that it was because he had a curiosity to follow this strange, freakish plan of Betty's to the end.

Some other emotion was calling just as strongly for him to do with the money as he had always done with money. And so indecision afflicted him. Humor likewise. He rarely felt in this mood. Not for years had he felt like laughing. Was he the Calumet Marston who, a week before, had set out on his homeward journey filled with bitterness—looking for trouble? Had he been at the Lazy Y a day or a year? It was a day—two days—but it seemed more like the longer time. At least the time had wrought a change in him. It was ludicrous, farcical. In spite of his treatment of Betty she had faith in him! Wasn't that just like a woman? There was nothing logical in her. She had taken him on trust. The whole business was in the nature of a comedy and suddenly yielding to his feelings he straightened in the saddle and laughed uproariously.

He did not laugh long, and when he sobered down and with an effort brought his mind back to the present, he became aware of the Red Dog, saw a young cowpuncher seated on the board sidewalk in front of the building, his back resting against it, laughing in sympathy with him.

Calumet was disconcerted for a moment. His eyes narrowed truculently. But then, as the oddness of the situation struck him he laughed again. But this time as he laughed he took stock of the young cowpuncher, who was again laughing with him.

The puncher was young—very young; not more than twenty-one or two. There was a week's growth of beard on his face. A saddle reposed by his side. In spite of his laughter something about him spoke eloquently of trouble. Calumet felt a sudden interest in him. Any man who could laugh when the world was not doing well with him must be made of good stuff. But Calumet's interest was cynical and it brought a sneer to his lips as he ceased laughing and sat loosely in the saddle regarding the puncher.

"I reckon you ain't got no objections to tellin' me what you're laughin' at?" he said coldly.

"Mebbe you'd put me wise to the same thing," said the other. "I'm settin' here, puttin' in a heap of my time tryin' to figger out who got the most of the six months' wages which I had with me when I struck town yesterday—an' not makin' a hell of a lot of progress—when you mosey up here an' begin to laugh your fool head off. At nothin', so far's I can see. Well, that's what I was laughin' at. Ketch my drift?"

"Meanin' that I'm nothin', I reckon?"

"Meanin' that you was laughin' at it," said the puncher with a deprecatory smile. "I ain't lookin' for trouble—I'm it!"

Calumet's eyes twinkled. This was a very discerning young man. "Cleaned out, I reckon," he said. "You look old enough to sabe that playin' with a buzz saw is mild amusement compared with buckin' a gambler's game."

"Got singed yourself, I reckon," said the puncher wearily. "You know the signs. Well, you've hit it. They'd have got my saddle, too, only—only they didn't seem to want it. There's still charity in the world, after all—some guys don't want everything. So I'm considerin' the saddle a gift. It's likely, though, that they thought that if they left me the saddle I'd go right out an' rustle me another job an' earn some more coin an' come back an' hand that over, too. But they've got me wrong. Your little Dade Hallowell has swore off. He ain't never goin' to get the idea again that he's a simon-pure, dyed-in-the-wool card sharp."

"Another job? Then you're disconnected at present?"

"I'm free as the water. Ugh!" he shivered. "I couldn't even wash my face in it this mornin'. Water's a weak sister after last night." His expression changed. "I reckon you're in clover, though. Any man which can laugh to hisself as you was laughin', certainly ain't botherin' his head about much."

This quick turn of the conversation brought Calumet's thoughts back to Betty. "Looks is deceivin'," he said. "I've got a heap of burden on my mind. I've got a thousand dollars which is botherin' me considerable."

The puncher sat erect, his eyes bulging.

"You've got a thousand!" he said "Oh, Lordy! An' you're botherin' about it?"

"It ain't none of your business, of course," said Calumet. "An' I reckon I'm tellin' you about it so's you'll feel mean about losin' your own. But mebbe not. Mebbe I'm tellin' you about it because I've got somethin' else in mind. When I first seen you I was filled clear to the top with doubt. If you had my thousand what would you do with it?"

"Meanin' that if I had your thousand an' was in your place?"

"I reckon."

"That would depend," said the puncher, cautiously. "If I'd robbed a man, or held up a stage coach, or busted a bank, I'd be burnin' the breeze out of the country. But if I'd earned it honest I'd blow myself proper, beginnin' by settin' 'em up to a fool guy which had give all his coin to some card sharps yesterday."

"None of them things fill the bill," said Calumet. "This thousand was give to me by a woman. I'm to buy things with it—horses, wagon, lumber, hardware, an' such truck."

"Shucks," said the puncher, disappointedly. Over his face settled a glum expression. "Then you ain't got no right to spend it—for anything but what she told you about. You'd be worse'n a thief to squander that money."

Calumet looked keenly at him. "I reckon you're more'n half right. You've settled a thing in my mind. If you're hangin' around here when I get through buyin' them things I'll be settin' them up to you. If I've got anything left." He abruptly broke off and urged his pony about, leaving the puncher to look after him speculatively.

Two hours later he returned, driving two horses which were hitched to a wagon of the "prairie-schooner" variety. The wagon was loaded with lumber and sundry kegs, boxes and packages. Calumet's pony trailed it.

The puncher was still where Calumet had left him—apparently he had not moved. But when he saw Calumet halt the horses in front of him and jump out of the wagon he got to his feet. He met Calumet's gaze with a sober, interested smile.

"That wagon of yours is speakin' mighty loud of work," he said. "Back in Texas I used to be counted uncommon clever with a saw an' hammer. If you can rassle them two statements around to look them in the face you can see what I'm drivin' at."

"What do you think you are worth to a man who ain't got no authority to do any hirin'?" said Calumet.

"Ain't you the boss?" said Dade, disappointedly.

"The boss is a woman. If you're wantin' to work you can come along. You'll have to take your chance. Otherwise—"

"I'll go you," said the puncher. He threw his saddle into the wagon. "You said somethin' about a drink," he added, "if you had anything left. I'm hopin'—"

Calumet hesitated.

"Just one," said Dade. "Mebbe two. Not more than three—or four. If your ranch is far—"

"Twenty miles."

"About two, then," suggested Dade. "You wouldn't feel satisfied to know that it was here an' you left it."

"Well, then, get a move on you," growled Calumet. He followed Dade into the Red Dog.

It was quiet in the barroom. Three men sat at a table near the center of the room, laughing and talking. They looked up with casual interest as Dade and Calumet entered, favored them with quick, appraising glances, and then resumed their talk and laughter. Behind the bar the proprietor waited, indolently watching.

"I'll take red-eye," said Dade; "the same that made me think I was a sure enough gambler last night. Did you ever notice," he added, turning to Calumet, who was filling his glass, "what a heap of confidence whisky will give a man? Take me, last night. Things was lookin' rosy. Them gamblers looked like plumb easy pickin'. The more whisky I drank the easier they looked, until—"

"Have another drink," invited the proprietor, for it was at one of his tables that Dade had played. His smile was bland and his manner suave and smooth. He shoved a bottle toward Dade. At the same time he looked with interest upon Calumet.

"Stranger here, I reckon?" he said. "I seen you loadin' a heap of stuff into your wagon. What's your ranch?"

"The Lazy Y."

The proprietor started and peered closer at Calumet. "That's old Marston's place, ain't it?" To Calumet's slow nod, he continued: "Betty Clayton's runnin' it now. They say old Marston was the meanest old coyote that ever—"

Calumet's gaze was level and direct, and the proprietor shrank under its cold malignance. Calumet leaned forward. "You're talkin' to the old coyote's son right now," he said. "An' you can speak right out loud in meetin' an' say that you was gassin' through your hat!"

The proprietor paled, then reddened. "I'm beggin' your pardon," he said. "I reckon—you see—there's been talk—"

"Sure," said Calumet. He smiled. It was the smile of reluctant tolerance. "Just talk," he added. "But it won't be healthy talk—hereafter."

"Have another drink," invited the proprietor, and he pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped the sudden perspiration from his forehead. Then he retreated to the far end of the bar, from whence he tried to appear unconcerned.

Dade finished his drink and set the glass down. But he was visibly excited.

"Betty Clayton," he said, looking sharply at Calumet. "Has she got a granddad named Malcolm Clayton, an' a brother Bob?"

"That's her." Calumet returned Dade's sharp glance. "What's eatin' you? Know her? Know Bob? Know Malcolm?"

"Know them!" said Dade. "Why, man, they was neighbors of mine in Texas!"

Calumet's eyes narrowed. A pulse of some strong emotion was revealed in his face, but it was instantly subdued. "That's joyful news—for you. So you know her? It's likely she'll be glad to see you."

Dade was mystified by his tone. "I reckon I ain't gettin' this thing just right," he said. "You told me Betty was runnin' the ranch, an' you tell this man that you're the son of the man that owns it. I don't see—"

Calumet smiled saturninely. "Take another drink," he advised. He shoved the bottle toward Dade. "This is your fourth. Then we'll be hittin' the breeze to the Lazy Y. Betty'll be lonesome without me." He laughed raucously, filled his glass and drank its contents. Then he turned from the bar and walked toward the door. Half way to it, Dade following him, he halted, for the voice of a man who sat at a table reached him.

"Aw, Taggart," it said loudly, "you're crowdin' the ante a little, ain't you?" The speaker laughed. "They tell me that Betty Clayton ain't no man's fool. An' here you say—" The rest of it was drowned in a laugh that followed, the other two men joining the speaker.

"Stuck on me, I tell you!" said another voice, and Calumet, half turned toward the table, saw the speaker's face. It was the face of an egotist—the vain, sensuous visage of a man in whom the animal instincts predominated—the face of the rider that Calumet had seen on the hill in the valley on the day of his return—the face of the man who had shot at him. The man was good-looking in a coarse, vulgar way, and dissipated, gross, self-sufficient. Calumet's eyes narrowed with dislike as he looked at him. There was interest in his glance, too, for this was his father's enemy—his enemy. But after the first look his face became inscrutable. He turned to see Dade standing beside him. Dade was rigid, pale; his body was in a half-crouch and there was an expression of cold malignance on his face. Quickly Calumet placed both hands on the young man's shoulders and shoved him back against the bar, thrusting his own body between him and Taggart.

"Easy there," he warned in a whisper. "He's my meat."

Dade caught the mirthless smile on his lips and looked at him curiously, his attitude still belligerent.

"He's talkin' about Betty, the damned skunk!" he objected. His voice was a low, throaty whisper and it did not carry to the table where the three men sat.

"He was sure talkin' about her," said Calumet inexpressively. "An' I'll admit that any man who talks that way about a woman is what you've called him. But it's my funeral," he added, his voice suddenly cold and hard, "an' you ain't buttin' in, whatever happens. Buy yourself another drink," he suggested; "you look flustered. I'm havin' a talk with Taggart."

He left Dade standing at the bar looking at him wonderingly, and made his way slowly to the table where Taggart sat. Taggart was drinking when Calumet reached his side, and Dade stood tense, awaiting the expected clash.

But none came. Calumet's grin as he nodded to Taggart was almost friendly, and his voice was soft, even—almost gentle.

"I heard one of these man call you Taggart," he said. "I reckon you're from the Arrow?"

Taggart leaned back in his chair and insolently surveyed his questioner. What he saw in Calumet's face made his own pale a little.

"I'm Taggart," he said shortly—"Neal Taggart. What you wantin' of me?"

Calumet smiled. "Nothin' much," he said. "I thought mebbe you'd like to know me. We're neighbors, you know. I'm Marston—Calumet Marston, of the Lazy Y."

The color receded entirely from Taggart's face, leaving it with a queer pallor. He abruptly shoved back his chair and stood, his eyes alert and fearful as his right hand stole slowly toward the butt of the pistol at his hip. Calumet's right hand did not seem to move, but before Taggart could get his weapon free of its holster he saw the sombre muzzle of a forty-five frowning at him from Calumet's hip and he quickly drew his own hand away—empty.

"Shucks," Calumet's voice came slowly into the silence that had fallen—slowly and softly and with apparently genuine deprecation. "If I'd known that you was goin' to get that excited I'd have broke the news different. I don't know what you're gettin' at, trying to drag your gun out that way. I was hopin' we'd be friends. We ought to, you know, bein' neighbors."

"Friends?" Taggart stepped back a pace and looked at Calumet incredulously, his eyes searching for signs of insincerity. He saw no such signs, for if Calumet had emotion at this minute it was too deep to be uncovered with a glance. But he knew from Taggart's perturbation that the latter knew him to be the man he had shot at that day in the valley.

Obviously, he had not then had any suspicion as to his identity—his surprise showed that he had not. And his half-fearful, puzzled looks at Calumet indicated to the latter that he was wondering whether Calumet recognized him as the man who had done the shooting.

Calumet's smile was cordial, inviting, even slightly ingratiating, and watching him closely Taggart was convinced that he was not recognized. Also he was certain that Calumet could not have learned anything of the trouble between their parents. Yet Betty knew, and if Betty hadn't told him there must be something between them—dislike or greed on Betty's part—and a smile appeared on his face as he remembered that he had heard his father say that Calumet had been vicious and unmanageable in his youth. He must be at odds with Betty.

And Betty—well, a shyster lawyer in Las Vegas had told Taggart something about a will which old Marston had made, in which Betty had been named as beneficiary of the property in case Calumet failed to agree to certain specifications, and Taggart was ready to believe that Betty would not hesitate to bring about an open clash with Calumet in order to gain control of the ranch. This thought filled Taggart with a savage exultation. He and his father had made very little progress in their past attacks on the Lazy Y, and if it were possible to set Calumet against Betty there might come an opportunity to drive a wedge which would make an opening—the opening they had long sought for. At all events he would have considered himself a fool if he failed to take advantage of this opportunity to ingratiate himself into the good nature of this man.

"Well, that's right, I reckon," he said. "There ain't no reason that I know of why we shouldn't be friends. I'm right glad to see you." He stuck out his right hand, but it appeared that Calumet did not notice it, for he laughed as he replaced the pistol in its holster.

"Same here," he said. "If you're passin' the Lazy Y any time, drop in an' visit. I'm fixin' her up a few—enough so's I can live in the old shack."

Taggart had noted with a lowering frown Calumet's omission of the proffered handshake, but the cordial good nature of the smile on the latter's face was unmistakable, and he grinned in reply.

"I'll sure do that," he said.

"I'll be right glad to have you," said Calumet. "Come tomorrow—in the afternoon—any time."

"You reckonin' on bein' the boss now?" questioned Taggart.

Some emotion flickered Calumet's eyelashes. "You've said somethin'," he returned; "nobody's runnin' me." He turned and walked to Dade, who had been watching him with wrath and astonishment.

"Drinkin'?" suggested Taggart. "Have a drink, old man," he said, with celluloid good fellowship.

Calumet turned with a grin. "Me an' my friend has got to the end of our capacity," he said. "He's workin' for me an I ain't settin' him a bad example. The next time, if you're in the humor, I'll be glad to drink all you can buy." He waved a hand behind him, with the other he was pushing Dade before him toward the door. "So-long," he said, as he and Dade went out.

Taggart laughed as he turned to his companions, who had said nothing during the conversation.

"Friends!" he said; "he's green an' due for a shock!"

Either Taggart or the proprietor had made a mistake in their estimate of Calumet. For at the instant Taggart had sneered at Calumet to his friends, the bartender, who had come in while Taggart and Calumet had been talking, leaned over to listen to the proprietor.

"In Taggart's place," said the proprietor, "I'd be mighty careful of that man. Friend, eh? Well, mebbe. But you noticed that he didn't offer to shake hands with Taggart. An' he wouldn't drink. Reached his capacity! He had four in here. Sober as a judge! Did you notice his eyes? They fair made me shiver when he looked at me when I was talkin' about his old man. I'm goin' to be damn careful about my palaver after this. Friend! Well, if I wasn't his friend I'd be damn careful not to rile him!"

Outside Dade halted, white hot with rage.

"I reckon I ain't got no job with you, you white-livered—"

The muzzle of Calumet's forty-five, magically produced, it seemed, so quickly did it show in his hand, was making an icy ring against Dade's throat, and the words, the epithet for which he had hesitated, remained unspoken. Metallic, venomous and filled with a threat of death came Calumet's voice.

"You sufferin' fool!" he said, the words writhing through his lips, his eyes blazing. "It's my game, do you hear? An' if you gas another word about it I'll tear you apart!"

"He was blackguardin' Betty," objected Dade, his face ashen, but his spirit still undaunted. "He was blackguardin' her an' you made friends with him. I'd have salivated him if I'd thought you wasn't goin' to. I'm goin' back there now an'—"

Calumet stepped back a pace and cocked his six-shooter. "I reckon I can't make you understand that it's my game," he said coldly. "Walk backwards when you go in," he directed; "I don't want to plug you in the back."

Dade started and looked intently at Calumet. "You mean that it ain't ended between you an' him?" he demanded.

"Some people would have tumbled to that long ago," jeered Calumet. "But kids—kids take longer to sabe a thing. I'm glad you're over it," he added. He sheathed his pistol. "I reckon we'll be goin'," he said. "Betty'll begin to believe I'm lost."

Dade followed him to the wagon, meekly enough now that he had received unmistakable proof that Taggart was Calumet's "game," and shortly afterward the wagon pulled out of Lazette and struck the trail toward the Lazy Y.



CHAPTER XI

PROGRESS

Calumet had some thoughts on the subject but they were all inchoate and unsatisfying. He got only one conclusion out of them—that for some mysterious reason he had surrendered to Betty and was going to work to repair the ranchhouse.

On the morning following his visit to Lazette he sat on a piece of heavy timber which he and Dade had lifted a few minutes before to some saw-horses preparatory to framing. Armed with a scratch awl and a square Dade was at the other end of the timber, his hat shoved back from his forehead while he ran his fingers through his hair as though pondering some weighty problem. Watching him, Calumet suffered a recurrence of that vague disquiet which had moved him the night before when he had listened to the cordial greeting which Betty had given the young man. Old friendship had been between the two and somehow it had disturbed Calumet. He did not know why. He didn't like Betty, but at the same time every smile that she had given Dade the night before had caused some strange emotion to grip him. And he liked Dade, too. He couldn't understand that, either.

He had never been friendly with any man. But something about Dade appealed to him; he felt tolerant toward him, was mildly interested in him. He thought it was because Dade was boyish and impulsive. Whatever it was, he knew of its existence. It was not a deep feeling; it was like the emotion that moves a large animal to permit a smaller one to remain near it—a grudging tolerance which may develop into sincere friendship or at a flash turn into a furious hatred. And so Dade's security depended entirely upon how he conducted himself. If he kept out of Calumet's way, all well and good. But if he interfered with him, if, for instance, he became too friendly with Betty, there would come an end to Calumet's tolerance.

And so there was a glint of speculative distrust in Calumet's eyes as he sat and watched Dade ponder. Calumet was in no good humor. He felt like baiting Dade.

"What you clawin' your head that way for?" he suddenly demanded as Dade continued to puzzle over his problem.

Dade grinned. "I'm goin' to halve these sills together. But I'm wantin' to make sure that the halves will be made reverse, so's they'll fit. An' I don't seem to be able to fix it clear in my mind."

"You was braggin' some on bein' a carpenter."

"I reckon I wasn't doin' no braggin'," denied Dade, reddening a little.

Calumet fixed a hostile eye on him. "Braggin' goes," he said shortly. "If you'd said you was a barber, now, no one would expect you to fit any sills together. But when you say you've done carpenter work that makes it different. You ought to sabe sills."

Dade laid his square and scratch awl down on the piece of timber and deliberately seated himself on the saw-horse beside it. He looked defiantly at Calumet. A change had come over him from the day before—the slight deference in his manner had become succeeded by something unyielding and hard.

"Let's get on an understandin'," he said. "You can't go to pickin' on me." And he looked fairly into Calumet's eyes over the length of the timber.

"I'm gassin' to suit myself," said Calumet; "if that don't size up right to you you can pull your freight."

"You're a false alarm," said Dade bluntly; "you drive me plumb weary."

Before his voice had died away Calumet's hand had flashed to his pistol butt. Why he did not draw the weapon was a mystery known only to himself. It might have been because Dade had not moved. Calumet's lips had tensed over his teeth in a savage snarl; they still held the snarl when he spoke.

"You'll swallow that," he said. "Do you sabe my idea?"

"Nary swallow," declared Dade. "False alarm goes. I've got you sized up right."

Calumet's six-shooter came out. His eyes, blazing with a wanton fire, met Dade's and held them. The youngster's lips whitened, but his eyes did not waver. Death twitched at Calumet's finger. There was a long silence. And then Dade spoke.

"Usin' it?" he said.

Into Calumet's blazing eyes came a slow glint of doubt, of reluctant admiration. His lashes flickered, the blaze died down, he squinted, a cold, amused smile succeeded the snarl. He laughed shortly, looked at the pistol, and then slowly jammed it back into the holster.

"You're too good to lose," he said. "I'm savin' you for another time."

"Thanks," said Dade dryly, though the ashen face of him showed how well he realized his narrow escape. "I reckon we understand each other now. I can see by the way you yanked out your gun just now and by the way you got the drop on Taggart yesterday, that you're some on the shoot. But I ain't none scared of you. An' now I'm tellin' you why I said you're a false alarm. I was talkin' to Betty last night. She's read up a bit, an' I'm parrotin' what she said about you because it's what I think, too. Your cosmos is all ego. That's what Betty said. Brought down to cases, what that means is that you've got a bad case of swelled head. So far as you're concerned there's only one person in the world. That's you. Nobody else counts. You've been thinkin' about yourself so much that you can't find time to think about anybody else. There's other people in the world as good as you—better. Betty's one of them. She's a good girl an' you an' me'll hitch all right as long as you don't go to bullyin' her. I reckon that's all."

"Meanin' that you'll let me hang around as long as I'm good," sneered Calumet in a dangerously soft voice. He was trying to work himself into a rage, but the effort was futile. Something in Dade's quiet, matter-of-fact voice had a dulling, cooling effect on him. Besides, he knew that an attack on Dade would be resented by Betty, and he felt a strange reluctance toward further antagonizing her. "You Texas folks are sure clever at workin' your jaws," he sneered, when Dade did not answer. "But I reckon that lets you out. When I'm lookin' for advice from women an' kids mebbe I'll call on you an' Betty, but if I don't you'll understand that I'm followin' my own trail. You've got away with one call because—well, because I was fool enough to let you. Mebbe another time I won't feel so foolish."

There were few words spoken between them during the following hours of the morning, though several times Dade caught Calumet watching him with a puzzled, amused smile in which there was a sort of slumbering ferocity. By the middle of the morning the front of the ranchhouse had been raised with the assistance of jacks, the old rotted sills taken out and new ones substituted. About an hour before noon, while Calumet, in woolen shirt and overalls, his face dirty, his hair tousled, and his temper none too good, was wedging the sill tight against the studding above it, he became aware of Betty standing near him. She nodded toward the sill.

"That makes an improvement already," she said.

"Ye-es?" he said, with an irritating drawl.

There was a silence; she stood, regarding his back, a faint smile on her face.

"I want to compliment you on your judgment of horses," she persisted, in an attempt to make him talk; "the ones you bought are fine."

Calumet drove a wedge home viciously. But he did not answer.

"I've been checking up your other purchases," she went on; "and I find that you followed the list I gave you faithfully."

He turned and looked up. "Look here," he said; "I got what you wanted, didn't I? There's no use of gettin' mush headed about it. I'd have blowed the money just as quick, if I'd wanted to."

"But you didn't."

"Because you didn't want me to, I reckon?" he sneered.

"No. Because you wanted to be fair."

He had not known what sort of an answer he had expected from her, but the one he got embarrassed him. He felt a reluctant pleasure over the knowledge that she had faith in him, but mingling with this was a rage against himself over his surrender. When she turned from him and walked over to Dade, speaking to him in a low voice, he could not have told which affected him most, his rage against himself or his disappointment over her abrupt leave-taking. She irritated him, but somehow he got a certain pleasure out of that irritation—which was a wholly unsatisfying and mystifying paradox. He covertly watched Dade during her talk with him and discovered that he did not like the way the young man looked at her; he was entirely too familiar even if he was a friend of the family. He saw, too, that Betty seemed to be an entirely different person when talking to Dade. For one thing she seemed natural, which she didn't seem when talking to him. Until he saw her talking with Dade he had been able to see nothing in her manner but restraint and stiff formality, but figuratively, when in Dade's presence she seemed to melt—she was gracious, smiling, cordial.

Betty's attitude toward him during the noon meal puzzled him much. Some subtle change had come over her. Several times he surprised her looking at him, and at these times he was certain there was approval in her glances, though perhaps the approval was mingled with something else—speculation, he thought.

But whatever it was, he had not seen it before. Had he known that Dade had told her about the incident of the Red Dog Saloon he would have understood, for she was wondering—as Dade had wondered—why he had pretended to make friends with Taggart, why he had asked the Arrow man to visit the Lazy Y that afternoon.

After dinner Calumet went out again to his work, apparently carefree and unconcerned, if we are to omit those thoughts in which Dade and Betty figured, Dade watched him with much curiosity, for the incident of the day before was still vivid in his mind, and if there had been. mystery in Calumet's action in inviting Taggart to the Lazy Y there had been no mystery in the words he had spoken outside the Red Dog Saloon immediately afterward: "It's my game, do you hear?"

But along toward the middle of the afternoon Dade became so interested that he forgot all about Taggart, and was only reminded of him when looking up momentarily he saw Calumet sitting on a pile of timber near the ranchhouse, leaning lazily forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his chin on his hands, gazing speculatively into the afternoon haze. Dade noted that he was looking southward, and he turned and followed his gaze to see, far out in the valley, a horseman approaching.

Dade had turned stealthily and thought his movement had been unobserved by Calumet, and he started when the latter slowly remarked:

"Well, he's comin', after all. I was thinkin' he wouldn't."

"That's him, all right, I reckon," returned Dade. He shot a glance at Calumet's face—it was expressionless.

There was a silence until Taggart reached the low hill in the valley where on the day following his coming to the Lazy Y Calumet had seen Lonesome, before the dog had begun the stalk that had ended in its death. Then Calumet turned to Dade, a derisive light in his eyes.

"Do you reckon Betty will be glad to see him?"

"I don't reckon you done just right in askin' him here after what he said in the Red Dog," returned Dade.

Calumet seemed amused. "Shucks, you're a kid yet," he said. He ignored Dade, giving his attention to Taggart, who was now near the bunkhouse.

Taggart's coming was attended with interest by Malcolm, who, hearing hoofbeats in the ranchhouse yard came to the door of the bunkhouse where he had been doing some small task; by Bob, who hobbled out of the stable door, his eyes wide; and by Betty, who, forewarned of the visit by Dade, had come out upon the porch and had been watching his approach.

Dade was interested also, betraying his interest by covertly eyeing Taggart as he drew his pony to a halt. But apparently Calumet's interest was largely negative, for he did not move from his position, merely glancing at Taggart as the latter halted his pony, grinning mildly at him and speaking to him in a slow drawl.

"Get off your cayuse an' visit," he invited.

Taggart's smile was wide as he dismounted. He did not seem to look at the others particularly, not even deigning a glance at Dade, but his gaze fell on Betty with an insolent boldness that brought a flush to that young lady's face. There was a challenge in the look he gave her. He dismounted and bowed mockingly to her, sweeping his hat from his head with a movement so derisive that it made Dade longingly finger his pistol butt.

Calumet still sat on the pile of lumber. His smile was engaging even if, as it seemed to Dade, it was a trifle shallow. But now Calumet slowly got to his feet. He stood erect, yawned, and stretched himself. Then turning, his back to Taggart, who had come close to him, he looked at Betty, steadily, intently, with a command showing so plainly in his eyes that the girl involuntarily started.

"Betty," he said slowly; "come here."

She went toward him, scarcely knowing why, yet remotely conscious of something in his eyes that warned her that she must not refuse—a cold, sinister gleam that hinted of approaching trouble. She walked to a point near him and stood looking at him wonderingly. And now for the first time since the beginning of their acquaintance she became aware of a quiet indomitability in his character, the existence of which she had suspected all along without having actually sensed it. She saw now why men feared him. In his attitude, outwardly calm, but suggesting in some subtle way the imminence of deadly violence; in his eyes, steady and cold, but with something cruel and bitter and passionate slumbering deep in them; in the set of his head and the thrust of his chin, there was a threat—nay, more—a promise of volcanic action; of ruthless, destroying anger.

Taggart, apparently, saw nothing of these things. He looked again at Betty, his heavy face wreathed in an insolent half-smile. She saw the look and instantly flushed and stiffened. But it appeared that Calumet noticed nothing of her agitation or of Taggart's insulting glance. He stood a little to one side of Taggart, and he spoke slowly and distinctly:

"Taggart," he said; "meet my boss, Betty Clayton." He smiled grimly at the consternation in Betty's face, at the black rage in Dade's.

"I have already had the honor of meeting Mr. Taggart," said Betty coldly. "If that is what you—" She caught a glance from Calumet and subsided.

Taggart was deeply amused; he guffawed loudly.

"That's rich," he said. "Why, man, I've knowed her ever since she's been here. Me an' her's pretty well acquainted. In fact—"

"Well, now; that's odd," cut in Calumet dryly.

"What is?" questioned Taggart quickly, noting his tone.

"That I didn't remember," said Calumet.

"Remember what?" inquired Taggart.

"That I heard you gassin' about Betty to your Red Dog friends. You rattled it off pretty glibly. You ought to remember what you said. I'm wantin' you to repeat it while she's watchin' you. That's why I wanted you to come over here."

"Why—" began Taggart. Then he hesitated, an embarrassed, incredulous light in his shifting eyes. He looked from one to the other, not seeming to entirely comprehend the significance of the command, and then he saw the gleam in Betty's eyes, the derisive enjoyment in Dade's, the implacable glint in Calumet's, knowledge burst upon him in a sudden, sickening flood and his face paled. He looked at Calumet, the look of a trapped animal.

"Get goin'!" said the latter; "we're all waitin'."

Taggart cursed profanely, stepping back a pace and reaching for his pistol. But as in the Red Dog, Calumet was before him. Again his right hand moved with the barely perceptible motion, and his six-shooter was covering Taggart. The latter quickly withdrew his own hand, it was empty. And in response to an abrupt movement of Calumet's hand it went upward, the other following it instantly. Watchful, alert, Calumet stepped forward, plucked Taggart's pistol from its holster, threw it a dozen feet from him, swiftly passed a hand over Taggart's shirt and waistband and then stepped back.

"You've got a minute," he said. "Sixty seconds to decide whether you'd rather die with your boots on or get to talkin'. Take your time, for there won't be any arguin' afterward."

Taggart looked into Calumet's eyes. What he saw there seemed to decide him. "I reckon it's your trick," he said; "I'll talk."

"Get goin'."

"I said I'd made love to her."

A half-sneer wreathed Calumet's face. "I reckon that covers the ground pretty well. You didn't say it that way, but we won't have you repeat the exact words; they ain't fit to hear. The point is, did you tell the truth?"

"No," said Taggart. He did not look at Betty and his face was scarlet.

"So you lied, eh? Lied about a woman! There's only one place for that kind of a man. Crawl an' tell her you're a snake!"

Taggart had partly recovered his composure.

"Guess again," he sneered. "You're buttin' in where—"

Calumet dropped his pistol and took a quick step. With a swish his right hand went forward to Taggart's face, one hundred and eighty pounds of vengeful, malignant muscle behind it. There was the dull, strange sound of impacting bone and flesh. Taggart's head shot backward, he crumpled oddly, his legs wabbled and doubled under him and he sank in his tracks, sprawling on his hands and knees in the sand.

For an instant he remained in this position, then he threw himself forward, groping for the pistol Calumet had dropped. Calumet's booted foot struck his wrist, and with a bellow of rage and pain he got to his feet and rushed headlong at his assailant. Calumet advanced a step to meet him. His right fist shot out again; it caught Taggart fairly in the mouth and he sank down once more. He landed as before, on his hands and knees, and for an instant he stayed in that position, his head hanging between his arms and swaying limply from side to side. Then with an inarticulate grunt he plunged forward and lay face downward in the sand.

Calumet stood watching him. He felt Betty's hand on his arm, laid there restrainingly, but he shook her viciously off, telling her to "mind her own business." Malcolm had come forward; he stood behind Betty. Dade had not moved, though a savage satisfaction had come into his eyes. Bob stood in front of the stable door, trembling from excitement. But besides Betty, none of them attempted to interfere, and there was a queer silence when Taggart finally got to his feet.

He stood for an instant, glaring around at them all, and then his gaze at last centered on Calumet. Calumet silently motioned toward Betty.

In response to the movement, Taggart's lips moved. "I'm apologizin'," he said. He turned to his horse. After he had climbed into the saddle he looked around at Calumet. He sneered through his swollen lips.

"You'll be gettin' what I owe you," he threatened.

"I'm your friend," jeered Calumet. "I've been your friend since the day you tried to bore me with a rifle bullet out there in the valley—the day I come here—after runnin' like a coyote from the daylight. I've got an idea what you was hangin' around for that day—I've got the same idea now. You're tryin' to locate that heathen idol. You're wastin' your time. You're doin' more—you're runnin' a heap of risk. For what you've just got is only a sample of what you'll get if you stray over onto my range again. That goes for the sneakin' thief you call your father, or any of your damned crowd."

He stood, slouching a little, watching Taggart until the latter rode well out into the valley. Then without a word he walked over to the sill upon which he had been working before the arrival of Taggart, seized a hammer, and began to drive wedges wherever they were necessary.

Presently he heard a voice behind him, and he turned to confront Betty.

"I heard what you said to Taggart, of course, about him trying to shoot you. I didn't know that. He deserved punishment for it. But I am sure that part of the punishment you dealt him was administered because of the way he talked about me. If that is so, I wish to thank you."

"You might as well save your breath," he said gruffly; "I didn't do it for you."

She laughed. "Then why didn't you choose another place to call him to account?"

He did not answer, driving another wedge home with an extra vicious blow.

She watched him in silence for an instant, and then, with a laugh which might have meant amusement or something akin to it, she turned and walked to the house.



CHAPTER XII

A PEACE OFFERING

If there was one trait in Betty's character that bothered Calumet more than another, it was her frankness. More than once during the days that followed Neal Taggart's visit Calumet was made to feel the absence of guile in her treatment of him. The glances she gave him were as straightforward and direct as her words, and it became plain to him that with her there were no mental reservations. Her attitude toward him had not changed; she still dealt with him as the school teacher deals with the unruly scholar—with a personal aloofness that promised an ever-widening gulf if he persisted in defying her authority. Calumet got this impression and it grew on him; it was disconcerting, irritating, and he tried hard to shake it off, to no avail.

He had considered carefully the impulse which had moved him to entice Taggart to the Lazy Y, and was convinced that it had been aroused through a desire to take some step to avenge his father. He told himself that if in the action there had been any desire to champion Betty he had not been conscious of it. It angered him to think that she should presume to imagine such a thing. And yet he had felt a throb of emotion when she had thanked him—a reluctant, savage, resentful satisfaction which later changed to amusement. If she believed he had thrashed Taggart in defense of her, let her continue to believe that. It made no difference one way or another. But he would take good care to see that she should have no occasion to thank him again. She did not interfere with the work, which went steadily on. The ranchhouse began to take on a prosperous appearance. Within a week after the beginning of the work the sills were all in, the rotted bottoms of the studding had been replaced, and the outside walls patched up. During the next week the old porches were torn down and new ones built in their places. At the end of the third week the roof had been repaired, and then there were some odds and ends that had to be looked to, so that the fourth week was nearly gone when Dade and Calumet cleared up the debris. It was Dade who, in spite of Calumet's remonstrances, went inside to announce the news to Betty, and she came out with him and looked the work over with a critical, though approving, eye. Calumet was watching her, and when she had concluded her inspection she turned to him with a smile.

"Tomorrow you can go to Lazette and get some paint," she said.

"Want it done up in style, eh?"

"Of course," she returned; "why not?"

"That's it," he growled; "why not? You don't have to do the work."

She laughed. "I should dislike to think you are lazy."

He flushed. "I reckon I ain't none lazy." He could think of nothing else to say. Her voice had a taunt in it; her attack was direct and merciless. She looked at Dade, whose face was red with some emotion, but she spoke to Calumet.

"I don't think you ought to complain about the work," she said. "You were to do it alone, but on my own responsibility I gave you Dade."

"Pitied me, I reckon," he sneered.

"Yes." Her gaze was steady. "I pity you in more ways than one."

"When did you think I needed any pity?" he demanded truculently, angered.

"Oh," she said, in pretended surprise, "you are in one of your moods again! Well, I am not going to quarrel with you." She turned abruptly and entered the house, and Calumet fell to kicking savagely into a hummock with the toe of his boot. As in every clash he had had with her yet, he emerged feeling like a reproved school boy. What made it worse was that he was beginning to feel that there was no justification for his rage against her. As in the present case, he had been the aggressor and deserved all the scorn she had heaped upon him. But the rage was with him, nevertheless, perhaps the more poignant because he felt its impotency. He looked around at Dade. That young man was trying to appear unconscious of the embarrassing predicament of his fellow workman. He endeavored to lighten the load for him.

"She certainly does talk straight to the point," he said. "But I reckon she don't mean more'n half of it."

Calumet shot a malignant look at him. "Who in hell is askin' for your opinion?" he demanded.

The paint, however, was secured, Calumet making the trip to Lazette for it. He returned after dark, and Bob, who was sitting in the kitchen where Betty was washing the dishes, hobbled out to greet him. Bob had been outside only a few minutes when Betty heard his voice, raised joyously. She went to a rear window, but the darkness outside was impenetrable and she could see nothing. Presently, though, she heard Bob's step on the porch, and almost instantly he appeared, holding in his arm a three-month-old puppy of doubtful breed. He radiated delight.

"Calumet brought it!" he said, in answer to Betty's quick interrogation. "He said it was to take the place of Lonesome. I reckon he ain't so bad, after all—is he Betty?"

Betty patted the puppy's head, leaning over so that Bob did not see the strange light in her eyes.

"He's nice," she said.

"Who?" said Bob, quickly—"Calumet?"

Betty rose, her face flushing. "No," she said sharply; "the puppy."