Chapter XVII

Howard Holds the Gulch

'Look at the mysterious gentleman!' said Helen, laughing, as her father returned to them upon the hotel porch. Longstreet observed that she appeared to be in the best of spirits. 'Look at the light in his eye! Can't you just tell that he thinks he has a secret? Papa,' and she squeezed his arm, 'won't you ever learn that with that face of yours you couldn't hide what you are thinking to save your life?'

For the second time that day Longstreet winked slyly at Howard. His laughter, as gay as Helen's, bubbled up straight from his soul.

'Helen,' he said as soberly as he might, 'I am afraid that we shall have to leave you to your own devices for an hour or so. Mr. Howard and I have a little business together.'

'Oh,' said Helen. She studied her father's face gravely, then turned toward Alan. She knew all along that her father was planning some sort of birthday surprise for her, and now she could not but wonder what it was that had called the cattleman in to Longstreet's aid. For the thought of the two men really having business together struck her as quite absurd.

'I have been dying to be alone,' she said quickly. 'There is an ice-cream shop across the street, and it's so much more comfortable on a day like this not to have a man along counting the dishes you order. Good-bye, business men,' and rather than be the one deserted she left them and ran across the street, vanishing within the inviting door.

'I have already arranged the matter of filing on my claim,' said Longstreet, turning triumphantly to Howard. 'I saw Bates, George Harkness's assistant, and he has undertaken to do everything immediately.'

'I know Bates. He's a good man, better for your work than Harkness even.' He spoke without a great amount of interest in the subject, and there was something of downright wistfulness in his look which had followed Helen across the street.

They walked a short block in silence. Longstreet, glancing at his companion and noting his abstraction, was glad that there were no questions to answer. After all, it was going to be very simple to keep Mrs. Murray's name out of the whole matter. When they came to the corner and he asked 'Which way?' Howard actually started.

'Guess I was wool-gathering,' he grunted sheepishly. 'We go back this way.'

They retraced their steps half the way, crossed the quiet street and turned in at a hardware store. Howard led the way to the tiny office at the front, whose open windows looked out on the street. A ruddy-faced man in shirt sleeves sat with his hands clasped behind his head, his eyes thoughtful. Seeing his callers, he jumped to his feet.

'Put her there, Al, old boy,' he called in a big, booming, good-natured voice like a young bull's. 'Watched you go by and wondered if you weren't coming in. Haven't seen you since old Buck was a calf. Where you been keeping yourself?' His big smile widened. 'Courtot hasn't got you hiding out, has he?'

'So you've heard that Courtot stuff, too? Pony, this is a friend of mine; Mr. Longstreet, Pony Lee.' While they shook hands Howard added: 'Lee here knows more about practical mining than any other foot-loose stranger this side the Alleghanies.'

'Draw it mild, Al,' laughed Lee. 'Glad to know you, Longstreet. Think I've heard of you.'

He indicated chairs and the three sat down. Longstreet, looking curiously at the man, noted that whereas he was florid and jolly and gave the impression at first almost of joviality, upon closer scrutiny that which was most pronounced about him was the keen glint of his probing grey eyes. He came to learn later that Pony Lee had the reputation of being both a good fellow and a fighting man.

'Longstreet wants to spin you a little yarn.' said Howard. 'And if you will see him through, I imagine he's going to have a job open for you.'

'Mine, of course?' suggested Lee.

'Yes.'

'Have a cigar,' invited Lee. He produced a box from a desk drawer. 'See if I can guess where it is. Other side of Big Run?'

Howard nodded.

'Who found it?'

'I did,' answered Longstreet. 'Yesterday.'

'Last Ridge country, then. H'm.' He rolled his cigar in his mouth idly. Then he sat bolt upright and leaned forward. 'How many people have you told about it already? A dozen?'

It was little less than accusation, and Longstreet flushed. He was opening his lips to answer stiffly when Howard spoke for him.

'He is keeping it to himself. He has told no one but me.'

Lee sank back in his chair, and when he spoke again it was in a careless, off-hand manner.

'Half an hour ago I saw Monte Devine. He came tearing down the street, hell-bent-for-election. Down at the saloon on the corner he picked up two men you know, Al. One of them was Jake Bettins and the other was Ed True. The three hit the pike at a regular two-forty clip for the Big Run road. Those birds don't go chasing around on a day like this just to get sunburn, do they?'

Howard frowned. 'Monte Devine?' he muttered, staring at Lee. But Lee, instead of taking the trouble to give the necessary assurance again, turned his eyes upon Longstreet.

'Filed on your claim yet?' he demanded.

'Yes,' retorted Longstreet, feeling inexplicably ill at ease and shifting in his chair. 'Immediately.'

'That's good,' grunted Lee. 'But I would be squatting on my diggings with a shot-gun under my arm. Al, here, can tell you a few things about Monte Devine and his crowd.'

'Next to Lee,' said Howard, 'Devine knows the mining game from hackamore to hoof. And he's a treacherous hound and a Jim Courtot man.'

'You said it, boy,' grunted Pony Lee. 'He's all of that. And he's no nickel shooter, either. If the game ain't big, he won't chip in.'

'But,' continued Howard, 'I guess you've doped it up wrong, Pony. Chances are they've got something else up their sleeves. They couldn't possibly have dropped on to Longstreet's find.'

For a full minute Lee's eyes bored into Longstreet's. Then he spoke dryly:

'As long's the desert wind blows, word of a strike will go with it. Maybe I have got the wrong end of it.' He shrugged loosely. 'I've done that sort of thing now and then. But I got one more thing to spill. Sanchia Murray's in town. Or she was a little while ago.'

Again he fixed his shrewd eyes upon Longstreet's tell-tale face, which slowly reddened. Pony Lee grunted and at last lighted his cigar. Howard, with a look of sheer amazement, stared at Helen's father.

'You didn't tell Sanchia?' he gasped.

They got their answer in a perfect silence. Lee laughed somewhere deep down in his throat. Howard simply sat and stared. Then suddenly he sprang to his feet and grasped Longstreet by both shoulders, jerking him up out of his chair.

'Tell me about it,' he commanded sternly. 'What did you tell her?'

'Everything,' returned the bewildered college man. 'Why shouldn't I? She promised not to say anything.'

Howard groaned.

'Oh, hell!' he muttered and turned away. But he came back and explained quietly. 'She's as crooked as a dog's hind leg; she's running neck and neck, fifty-fifty, with Jim Courtot and Monte Devine on all kinds of deals—Come on. We've got to burn the earth getting back to Big Run. We'll beat 'em to it yet.'

'Wait a minute, Al,' called Lee softly. 'Let's get all the dope first. You say, Mr. Longstreet, that you filed on your claim all right?'

Longstreet began to flounder and half-way through his recital bogged down helplessly. He had met Sanchia Murray, had gone with her to the Montezuma House, had seen Mr. Bates there——

'What sort of a looking gent is this Mr. Bates?' quizzed Pony Lee sharply.

'A short man, dark, black moustaches——'

Again Howard groaned. Lee merely smiled.

'Recognize the picture, Al? She steered him right into Monte to fix his papers! Well, by God!'

His expression was one of pure admiration. In his mind Sanchia Murray had risen to undreamed of heights—heights of impudence, but none the less daring. He could see the coup in all of its brilliance. But not so Howard.

'We saw her leave a letter at the hotel in Big Run!' he cried out. He was half-way to the door. 'She had the hunch then. By now Courtot and Devine and the rest are in the saddles, if they are not, some of them, already squatting on the job at Last Ridge! I'm on my way. Pony, come alive. Chase over to the court-house; take Longstreet with you and file on the claim if it isn't too late.'

As his last words came back to them he was out on the street and running. He knew within himself that it was too late. They would find that Sanchia or one of her crowd had already visited Harkness's office. Well, that was one thing; the other was to take possession. His boots clattered loudly upon the echoing board sidewalk and men came out to look after him.

He came to his horse in front of the hotel, snatched the tie-rope loose and went up into the saddle without bothering about the spurs hanging over the horn. His horse plunged under him and in another moment horse and rider were racing, even as Sanchia Murray's white mare had carried her, out toward Big Run.

He came as close to killing a horse that day as he had ever come in his life. His face grew sterner as he flung the barren miles behind him and higher and higher surged the bitterness in his heart. If Longstreet had found gold, and he believed that he had, it would have meant so much to Helen. He had seen how she did without little things; he had felt that she was just exactly the finest girl in all of the world; it had seemed to him only the right and logical thing that she should own a gold mine. And now it was to go to Jim Courtot and Sanchia Murray. Sanchia instead of Helen! At the moment he felt that he could have choked the lying heart out of the woman's soft white throat. As for Jim Courtot, already he and Howard hated each other as perforce two men of their two types must come to do. Here again was ample cause for fresh hatred; he drove his horse on furiously, anxious to come upon Courtot, thanking God in his heart that he could look to his enemy for scant words and a quick gun. There come to men at times situations when the only solution is to be found in shooting a way out. Now, more than ever before in his life, was Alan Howard ready for this direct method.

Arrived in Big Run he rode straight on until he came to Tony Moraga's. Here, if anywhere in the settlement, he could hope to find his man. A glance showed him one horse only at the rack, a lean sorrel that he recognized. It was Yellow Barbee's favourite mount, and it struck him that if there were further hard riding to be done, here was the horse to satisfy any man. He threw himself from the saddle, left his own horse balancing upon its trembling legs, and stepped into the saloon.

Moraga was dozing behind his bar. Yellow Barbee sat slumped over a table, his lean, grimy fingers twisting an empty glass. No one else was in the room.

'Courtot been here?' demanded Howard of Moraga.

Moraga shook his head. Howard glanced toward Barbee. The boy's face was sullen, his eyes clouded. He glowered at Moraga and, turning his morose eyes upon Howard, snapped out:

'Moraga lies. Jim was here a little while ago. He's just beat it with a lot of his rotten crowd, Monte Devine and Bettins and True. They're up to something crooked.'

'I forgot.' Moraga laughed greasily. 'Jim was in the back room there talking to Sanchia! Nice girl, no?' he taunted Barbee.

'I'll kill you some day, Moraga,' cursed Barbee thickly.

Howard turned back to the door.

'I want your horse, Barbee,' he said quickly. 'All right?'

'Go to it,' Barbee flashed out. 'And if you ain't man enough to get Jim Courtot pretty damn soon, I am!'

'Keep your shirt on, kid,' Howard told him coolly. 'And keep your hands off. And for God's sake, stop letting that woman make a fool of you.'

Barbee cursed in his throat and with burning eyes watched the swing doors snap after the departing cattleman. Howard, his anger standing higher and hotter, threw himself to the back of Barbee's roan and left Big Run riding furiously from the jump. He knew the horse; it could stand the pace across the few miles and there was no time to lose. There was scant enough likelihood as matters were of his coming to Last Ridge before Courtot's crowd. But the men might have failed to change to fresh horses; in that case his chance was worth something. And, always, until a game be played out, it is anybody's game.

As he rode out toward the Last Ridge trail his one thought was of Jim Courtot. Little by little he lost sight of other matters. He had fought with Jim Courtot before now; he had seen the spit of the gambler's gun twice, he had knocked him down. Courtot had hunted him, he had gone more than half-way to meet the man. And yet that which had occurred just now had happened again and again before; he came seeking Courtot, and Courtot had just gone. It began almost to seem that Courtot was fleeing him, that he had no stomach for a face-to-face meeting; that what he wanted was to step out unexpectedly from a corner, to shoot from the dark. This long-drawn-out, fruitless seeking baffled and angered. It was time, he thought, high time that he and Jim Courtot shot their way out of an unendurable mess. At every swinging stride of Barbee's roan he grew but the more impatient for the end of the ride and the face of Jim Courtot.

The broad sun flattened against the low hills and sank out of sight. Dusk came and thickened and the stars began to flare out. Against the darkening skyline before him the Last Ridge country reared itself sombrely. A little breeze went dancing and shivering through the dry mesquite and greasewood. His horse stumbled and slowed down. They had come to the first of the rocky ground. He should be at the mouth of Dry Gulch in half an hour. And there he would find the men he had followed; they had beat him to it, for not a glimpse of them had he had. They were, then, first on the ground. That was something, he conceded. But it was not everything.

At last he dismounted and tied his horse to a bush. About him were thick shadows, before him the tall bulwark of the uplands. His feet were in a trail that he knew. He went on up, as silently, as swiftly as he could. Presently he stood on the edge of the same flat on which the Longstreets had made their camp, though a good half-mile to the east of the canvas shack. A wide black void across the plateau was Dry Gulch. Upon its nearer bank, not a hundred yards from him, a dry wood fire blazed brightly; he must have seen it long ago except that a shoulder of the mountain had hidden it. It burned fiercely, thrusting its flames high, sending its sparks skyward. In its flickering circle of light he saw dark objects which he knew must be the forms of men. He did not count them, merely prayed within his heart that Courtot was among them, and came on. He heard the men talking. He did not listen for words, since words did not matter now. He hearkened for a certain voice.

The voices broke off and a man stood up. When he was within a score of paces of the fire Howard stopped. The man's thick squat form was clearly outlined. Unmistakably this was Monte Devine. There were two or three other forms squatting; it was impossible to distinguish a crouching man from a boulder.

'That you, Monte?' called Howard.

'Good guess,' came Monte's heavy, insolent voice. 'You've got one on me, though, pardner.'

'Courtot here?' demanded Howard.

Monte Devine laughed then.

'Hello, Al,' he returned lightly. 'You and Jim sure play a great little game of tag, don't you?'

'He isn't here, then?'

'Left an hour ago. There's just me and Bettins and True on the job. Come on in and make yourself at home.'

Howard came on slowly. Monte might be telling the truth, and then again lying came easy to him. Every dark blot was searched out suspiciously by Howard's frowning eyes. Again, having read what was in Howard's mind, Monte laughed.

'He ain't here, Al,' he insisted. 'You and him will have to make a date if you ever get together.'

The two other men rose from the ground and stood a little aside. No doubt they were True and Bettins; still neither had spoken and in this uncertain light either might be Courtot.

'Hello, True,' said Howard shortly. True's voice answered him. 'Hello, Bettins,' he said, and it was Bettin's voice replying.

'Where did Jim go?' he asked.

'Search me,' retorted Monte Devine. Then, a hint of a jeer in his voice, 'Going to stay out there in the dark all night? 'Fraid Jim'll be hiding out waiting to pot you?'

The other men laughed.

'That's his sort of play,' muttered Alan coolly.

He took his time to look about. Little by little the mystery shrouding this and that object dissolved and showed him a rock or a bush. He heard a snapping bit of brush off to the right and wheeled toward it. It was a horse moving. He circled the fire and went to it. Beyond were two other horses, only three in all. Then he shrugged his shoulders and jammed his revolver angrily into its holster and came back to the figures by the fire.

'Longstreet is a friend of mine,' he said shortly. 'I am going to see him through, Monte.'

'Who's Longstreet?' demanded Monte.

'I guess you know. He's the man who found gold up here yesterday. He's the man Sanchia Murray brought to you at the Montezuma House. He owns these diggings that you and Jim Courtot and your crowd are trying to jump to-night. Better think it over and jump somewhere else, Monte.'

Monte Devine appeared to be meditating. Howard's angry thoughts were racing. Rage baffled was but baffled again. There seemed nothing concrete that he could lay his hands on; again Jim Courtot had come and gone. To drive the men off the land, even could he succeed in doing it would so far as he could see be barren of any desired result. There was a law in the country, and that law would see the man through who had properly filed on his claim. And yet, for all that, his blood grew hot at the thought of all of this riff-raff of Jim Courtot squatting here upon that which by right was Helen's.

'I reckon we'll stay and see it through,' said Monte at last.

Howard turned and strode away. True laughed. But Howard had seen something showing whitely just yonder in the black void of Dry Gulch. There was the spot where Longstreet's claim lay. He went down into the gulch and to the thing that he had seen dimly. It was a stake and a bit of white paper thrust into the split, and showed him that the three men had not mistaken the spot. Here, at last, was something concrete upon which a man, hot with his anger, could lay his hands. He wrenched it away and hurled it far from him. He saw another stake and another and these like the first he snatched up and pitched wrathfully as far as he could throw them.

'That's something, if it isn't much,' he muttered to himself.

The others had held back, watching him. He could hear them speaking quickly among themselves, Bettins and True angrily. Monte's voice was low and steady. But it was Monte who came on first.

'Hold on there a minute,' called Howard sharply. 'I'm not asking any company down here. Here I am going to stick until morning. By that time, or I miss my guess, this neck of the woods will be full of people who have heard that something's doing here. There'll be a handful of your crowd, but there'll be twice as many square-shooters. You'll stand back with the crowd and take your chance with what is left after Longstreet gets his, or you'll play crooked and take another chance, that of a long rope and a quick drop. Think it over, boys.'

'Better clean out while you can, Al,' said Monte. His own voice had sharpened. 'We're coming down to put them stakes back.'

Howard withdrew half a dozen steps into the deeper shadows of the gulch.

'Come ahead when you're ready,' he retorted. 'I can see you fine up there against the skyline. Start it going any time, Monte.'

His was the position of a man in desperate need for action and with little enough scope for his desire. But he had the hope that Longstreet and Pony Lee might possibly have been the first at the court-house; were that to prove to be the case and were he on the ground when they came in the morning, he would in the end have prevented a tangle and the long delay and intricate trouble of dispossessing Courtot's agents. Further, his mood was one in which he would have been glad to have Monte 'start it going.'

Monte and his companions spoke quietly among themselves a second time. Then, with never another word to him, they withdrew and disappeared. An immense silence shut down about him. He knew that they had not gone far and that they would be heard from before long. For they were not the men to let go so easily. But Monte Devine, plainly the brains of the crowd, was a cool hand who played as safe a game as circumstances allowed.

He sat down with his back to a fallen boulder. He was thinking that perhaps they were waiting for the dawn; by daylight they would have all the best of it and might close in on him from three sides. But when the night wind blowing up the gulch brought him the smell of dead leaves burning, when he saw a quick tongue of flame on one bank and then another, like a reflection in a mirror, on the other bank, he understood. It was like a Monte Devine play. Presently the dry grass would be burning all along the draw; the flames would sweep by him and in their light he would stand forth as in the light of day. Then, if there were a single rifle among the three men, he would have not so much as a chance to fight. Even if they had nothing but revolvers, the odds were all on their side.

And it was like Jim Courtot's play, too, to clear out and leave his agents to deal with the man he hated. All in the world that Courtot ever wanted was to win; the means were nothing. If his enemy went down by another man's bullet than his own, so much the better for Jim Courtot, who had always enough to answer for as it was.

'This belongs to Helen Longstreet,' Howard told himself steadily. 'I am going to hold it for her if it's in the cards.'

He withdrew a little further. Then, with a sudden inspiration, he clambered silently up the sloping bank. The men who had lighted the fires would have circled about to come upon him from the other side. He was right. As he thrust his head above the top of the bank he saw two figures running in the direction that he had judged they would take. He pulled himself up. A loosened rock rolled noisily into the gulch. They heard it and stopped. He knew when they saw him and knew who they were as he heard them call to each other. They were Ed True and Monte Devine. And Ed True, as he called, whipped out his revolver and fired.

'He's on this side, Bettins,' called Monte loudly. 'Take your time.'

He had not fired nor had Howard. Ed True, however, lacked the cool nerve and emptied his revolver. Monte cursed him for a fool.

'You couldn't hit a barn that far off in this light,' he shouted. 'Take your time, can't you?'

Howard's lips tightened. That was Monte Devine for you. Steady and cool as a rock.

'We've got the best of you, Al,' called Monte warningly. 'Better crawl out while you got the chance.'

'Go to hell!' Howard told him succinctly. And knowing that the man had been right when he had said you couldn't hit a barn at that distance and in that light, he came forward suddenly. For in a little the burning grass would be behind him and outlined against it the target of his body would be a mark for anybody to hit.

Suddenly, having reloaded, True fired again. But he was not so hurried now. He fired once and waited. This time the bullet had not flown so far afield as the first shots; Howard heard its shrill cleaving of the air. He saw that Monte was moving to one side. Again he understood the man's intention. Monte planned to put him between two fires. Howard jerked up his own gun.

The two explosions came simultaneously, his and Monte's. There was a brief silence. Plainly no bullet had yet found its mark. True fired again. His bullet whined by and Howard realized that the man was coming closer every time. He turned a little and, 'taking his time,' as Monte was doing, answered True's fire. There was a little squeal of pain from True, a grunt of satisfaction from Howard, a second shot from Monte. Howard saw that True had spun about and fallen. He saw, further, that Monte had come a step nearer and had stopped. In a little Bettins would be to reckon with. It was still close enough for a chance hit, too far for absolute accuracy. Walking slowly, realizing that he had but four shots left and that those gone he would never be given time to reload, Howard came half a dozen paces toward Monte before he stopped. He heard True's groaning curse; a spat of flame from where the man lay showed him that he was still to be counted on. But his shooting would be apt to be wild and he must be forgotten until Devine was dealt with.

He was near enough to make out the gesture as Monte raised his arm. And he was ready. Howard fired first; he saw the flare and heard the report of Monte's gun and knew that he had missed. But Monte had not missed. There was a searing pain across Howard's outer left arm, near the shoulder. The pain came and was gone, like the flash of the gun; remained only a mounting rage in Howard's brain. Three shots left and three men still to fight. A shot for each man and none to waste, or the tale would be told for Alan Howard. And there would be occasion for Jim Courtot's jeering laugh tomorrow.

Before the smoke had cleared from Monte's gun Howard leaped closer, and at this close range fired. He saw Monte reel back. He knew that Ed True was still shooting, but he did not care. Monte was stumbling, saving himself from falling, straightening again, lifting his gun. But before the swaying figure could answer the call of the cool brain directing it, Howard sprang in upon him and struck with his clubbed revolver. And Monte Devine, his finger crooking to the trigger as the blow fell, went down heavily from the impact of the gun-barrel against his head. Ed True emptied his cylinder and cursed and began filling it again.

Howard stood a moment over Monte Devine. Then he took up the fallen revolver in his left hand and turned to True.

'Chuck your gun to me, Ed,' he commanded sternly, 'or I'll get you right next time.'

True damned him violently. Then he groaned, and a moment later there was the sound of his revolver hurled from him, clattering among the stones. Howard took it up, shoved it into his pocket and turned toward the gulch. While he sought for a sight of Bettins he hastily filled the empty chambers of his own weapon.

Now only he realized how brief a time had elapsed since Ed True's first shot. The grass fire was blazing, but had crept up the draw only a few feet. And Bettins had not yet had the time to come from the other side, down into the gulch and up on this side. He saw Bettins; the man was standing still staring toward his fallen companions. The fire leaped higher, its light danced out in widening circles, touching at last the spot where Howard stood, where Ed True and Monte Devine lay.

'Well, Bettins?' called Howard abruptly.

'What about you? Are you coming over?'

Bettins was silent a moment. The light flickered on the gun in his hand. Presently he raised his voice to inquire anxiously:

'Hurt much, Monte? And you, True?'

No answer from Monte. True shrieked at him: 'Come, over and plug him, Bettins. For God's sake, plug the damn cowman.'

Still Bettins hesitated.

'Monte dead?' he demanded.

'How the hell do I know?' complained True.

'Come, plug him, Bettins.'

This time Bettins' reply was lost in a sudden shout of voices rising from the lower end of the flat. The vague forms of several horsemen appeared; there came the thunderous beat of flying hoofs. Howard's lips grew tight-pressed. True lifted himself on his elbow.

'It's Jim coming back!' he called triumphantly.

'This way, Jim!'

But the answering shout, closer now, was unmistakably the voice of Yellow Barbee. And with him rode half a dozen men and, among them a girl.

Chapter XVIII

A Town is Born

The fire, spreading and burning brightly now, shone on the faces making a ring about Alan Howard and the two men lying on the ground. With Yellow Barbee had come John Carr, Longstreet and Helen, and two of the Desert Valley men, Chuck Evans and Dave Terril. They looked swiftly from Howard to the two men whom he had shot, then curiously at Howard again.

'Jim Courtot, Al?' asked Carr, for Monte Devine's face was in shadow.

Howard shook his head.

'No such luck, John,' he said briefly. 'Just Monte Devine and Ed True. Bettins is over yonder; he didn't mix in.'

'I hope,' said Longstreet nervously, 'that you haven't started any trouble on my account.'

'No trouble at all,' said Howard dryly. Yellow Barbee laughed and went to look at Devine. Ed True was still cursing where he had propped himself up with his back to a rock.

'This is apt to be bad business, Al.' It was John Carr speaking heavily, his voice unusually blunt and harsh. 'I saw Pony Lee, and he told me that Longstreet here hasn't a leg to stand on. Devine filed on the claim; he and his men got here ahead of us; neither Miss Helen nor I nor any one but you can go into court and swear that Longstreet ever so much as said that he had made a find. I was hoping we would get here before you started anything.'

Howard looked at his friend in amazement. He knew that the discovery was Longstreet's by right; to his way of thinking the simplest thing in the world was to hold and to fight for the property of his friends. He would have said that John Carr would have done the same thing were Carr in his boots. He had taken another man's quarrel upon his own shoulders to-night, and asked no questions; he had plunged into a fight against odds and had gotten away with it and no help asked; the fighting heat was still in his blood, and it seemed to him that his old friend John Carr was finding fault with him.

They had all dismounted by now. Longstreet had slid to the ground, let go his horse's reins and was fidgeting up and down, back and forth, in an access of nervous excitement. Now he began talking quickly, failing to understand in the least what effect his rushing words would have on the man who had taken up his fight.

'The thing is of no consequence, not the least in the world. Come, let them have it. It is only a gold mine, and haven't I told you all the time that for me there is no difficulty in locating gold? I am sorry all of this has happened. They're here first; they have filed on it; let them have it.'

Howard's face no longer showed amazement. In the flickering light his mouth was hard and bitter, set in the implacable lines of stern resentment. Between Carr and Longstreet they made it seem that he had merely made a fool of himself. Well, maybe he had. He shrugged his shoulders and turned away.

'I know you did it for me,' Longstreet began, having a glimpse of the bitterness in Alan's heart.

'And you mustn't think——'

Howard wheeled on him.

'I didn't do it for you.' he snapped irritably. 'I tried the only way I knew to help save the mine for Helen. We'd do it yet if you weren't a pack of damned rabbits.'

He pushed by and laid his hand on the mane of the horse Dave Terril rode.

'Give me your horse, Dave,' he said quietly. 'I'm on my way home. You'll find Barbee's down under the cliff.'

Dave Terril was quick to obey. But before his spurred boot-heel had struck the turf Helen had came running through the men about Howard, her two hands out, her voice thrilling and vibrant as she cried:

'There is only one man among you, one real man, and that is Alan Howard! He was not wrong; he was right! And no matter what happens to the gold, I had rather have a man like Alan Howard do a thing like that for me than have all of the gold in the mountains!'

Her excitement, too, ran high, her words came tripping over one another, heedless and extravagant. But Howard suddenly glowed, and when she put her hands out to him he took them both and squeezed them hard.

'Why, God bless you, you're a brick!' he cried warmly. 'And, in spite of the rest of 'em, I'm glad I did make a fool of myself!'

From his wounded arm a trickle of blood had run down to his hand. Helen cried out as she saw the smear across the sleeve of his shirt.

'He's hurt!' she exclaimed.

He laughed at her.

'It would be worth it if I were,' he told her gently. 'But I'm not.' He slipped his foot into the stirrup. 'Dave,' he said over his shoulder, 'you and Chuck had better look at Monte. I don't know how bad his hurt is. Do what ever you can for him. If I'm wanted, I'm at the ranch.'

But Helen, carried out of herself by the excitement of the moment and unconscious that she was clinging to him, pleaded with him not to go yet.

'Wait until we decide what we are going to do,' she told him earnestly. 'Won't you, please?'

'You bet I will!' he answered, his voice ringing with his eagerness to do anything she might ask of him. 'If you want me to stay, here I stick.'

He dropped the reins and with her at his side turned back to the others. Already two men were kneeling beside Monte Devine. Chuck Evans, who had got there first, looked up and announced:

'He's come to, Al. He looks sick, but he ain't hurt much, I'd say for a guess. Not for a tough gent like him. How about it, Monte?'

Monte growled something indistinct, but when at the end of it he demanded a drink of whisky his voice was both clear and steady. Chuck laughed. Thereafter those who knew most of such matters looked over both Monte's and Ed True's injuries and gave what first-aid they could. It was Chuck's lively opinion that both gents were due for a little quiet spell at a hospital, but that they'd be getting in trouble again inside a month or so.

'You can't kill them kind,' he concluded lightly. 'Not so easy.'

They called to Bettins, but he held back upon the far side of the gulch and finally withdrew and disappeared. Then Longstreet, who had been restless but quiet-tongued for ten minutes, exclaimed quickly:

'We must get these two men over to our camp right away, where we can have better light, and put them into bed until a physician can be summoned. Think of the horrible situation which would arise if they died!' He shuddered. Then he turned to Howard and extended his hand. His voice shook slightly as he said hurriedly: 'Old chap, don't think that I don't appreciate what you have attempted for us; it was quite the most amazingly splendid thing I ever heard of! But now, with matters as they stand, there is nothing for us to do but withdraw. Let them have the mine; it is blood-stained and ill-starred. I wouldn't have a thing to do with it if they returned it to me.'

'But, papa,' cried Helen hotly, 'just think! They have stolen it from us, they have tried to murder——'

'My dear,' cut in Longstreet sternly, 'I trust that you will say nothing further about it. I have made up my mind; I am a man of the world and an older and cooler mind than you. Leave this to me.'

Howard heard her deep breath, slowly drawn, slowly expelled, and saw her face looking white and tense; he knew that her teeth were set, that her heart was filled with rebellion. But she made no answer, knowing the futility of mere words to move her father in his present mood. Instead, she turned away from him and looked out across the gulch along both banks of which the fires were now raging. Nor did she turn again while Monte and True were placed in the saddles which were to carry them to the camp.

'A moment, Mr. Longstreet,' said Howard, as they were starting. 'Am I to understand that you absolutely refuse to make a fight for your own rights?'

'In this particular instance, absolutely!' said Longstreet emphatically.

'Then,' pursued Howard, 'I have a suggestion to make. We are all friends here: suppose that each one of us stakes out a claim just adjoining the ones you have lost. Certainly they might have some value.'

But Longstreet shook his head impatiently.

'I am through with the whole mess,' he declared, waving his hands. 'I won't have a thing to do with it, and I won't allow Helen to touch it. Further, the other claims would have no value in my eyes; the spot that has been stolen from me is the only spot in the gulch that I would give a dollar for. Come on, Helen.'

'We'll follow you,' said Helen quietly.

The others moved away. John Carr, who had not spoken since his first words, stood hesitatingly looking at the two figures silhouetted against the fire. Then he too moved away, going with the others and in silence.

'Tell me about it,' said Helen. She dropped down and sat with her chin in her hands, her eyes moody upon the rushing flames. 'Just what happened.'

He sat by her and told her. His heart was still filled with his bitterness and his voice told the fact. Presently she withdrew her gaze from the gulch and turned it upon him; she had never seen him so relentlessly stern. Almost he frightened her. Then she noticed again the stain upon his shoulder and this time insisted upon helping him make a bandage. With his knife she slit the shirt sleeve; together they got a handkerchief bound about the wound. It was not deep nor was it in any way dangerous, but Helen winced and paled before the job was done. Then their eyes met and clung together and for a little while they were silent, and gradually the colour came back into the girl's cheeks.

'Are you tired?' he asked presently. 'Or hungry? If not, and you care to sit here with me for an hour or two, maybe a little more, I can promise to show you a sight you will never forget.'

'What is it?' she asked curiously, wondering if he meant a moonrise over the far desert mountains.

'It is the birth of a mining camp. For there will be one here before morning.'

'Surely not so soon? Who will know?'

'Who?' he grunted disgustedly. 'Everybody! Down in San Ramon Pony Lee knows; at the court-house it is known. Men give tips to their friends. Courtot's crowd knows. Out here my men know; Carr and Barbee know. Already there are a hundred men, maybe several times a hundred, who know. And you may be sure that already they are coming like a train of ants. Once gold has been uncovered the secret is out. Pony Lee swears the desert winds carry the news.'

Howard was entirely correct in his surmise, saving in the time he judged they must wait. Less than an hour had passed and the grass fire was still spreading with a fierce crackling sound and myriad sparks, when the vanguard of the gold-seekers came. Helen and Howard heard horses' hoofs, rattling stones, impatient voices, and withdrew a hundred yards from the gulch and into the shadows of a ring of boulders.

With the first came Bettins. His voice was the loudest, coming now and then distinctly; he employed the name of Howard and cursed it; he said something about his 'pals' Devine and True. A man to whom he was talking laughed at him. Thereafter half a dozen forms swarmed down into the gulch; the fire on either side of them was dying out along the gulch's edge; they cursed its heat when it offended them, took advantage of its light at all times, and more like ants than ever appeared to be running back and forth foolishly and aimlessly. But, apparently, Bettins got his stakes and his friends' back and the men with whom he had returned hastily staked out their own claims, all feverishly and by crude guesswork. There was perhaps not a man among them who knew the first thing about mining. Helen watched them in sheer fascination. Down there half in light, half in shadow, darting this way and that, they were like little gnomes playing some wild game of their own.

'They act like madmen,' she whispered. 'They run about as if everything had to be done in a minute.'

'Between them the crowd down there don't own, I'd say, fifty dollars. Each one is figuring that he has his chance to be a millionaire to-morrow. And they know that more men are coming. That's the way men think when they're in the gold rush. Look, there come some more!'

This time there were three men. They broke into a run when they heard voices; perhaps they had hoped to be first. Down into the bed of the gulch they plunged; one of them slipped and rolled and cursed; men laughed, and with the laughter dying in their throats broke off to yell a warning to some one to keep his feet off a claim already staked out. Within an hour after the return of Bettins there were a score of men on the spot; again and again rose sharp words as every man, alert to protect his own interests, was ready for a quarrel. They dragged stones to mark their boundaries; they cut and hammered stakes, they left their chosen sites now and then and altered their first judgments and restaked somewhere else. They swarmed up the banks of the gulch on both sides, they hastened back and forth, they staked everywhere. As the time passed more and more came plunging into the orgy of gold until at last the night was never quiet. Harsh words passed and once blows were struck and a man went down and lay still. Another time there was the report of a gun and a boom of many voices commanding order and that quarrels be taken to a safe distance and out of the way of busy men.

'It's dreadful,' whispered Helen. 'They're like wild animals.'

'It's just the gold fever,' he returned. 'Poor devils! they are drunk with their visions.'

But Helen wondered if they were capable of visions. Down in the shadow-filled sink they were to her imagination like so many swine plunging into a monster trough. When Alan suggested, 'We've seen, and now maybe we had better be going,' she rose without a word or backward glance and went with him. But Howard, looking over his shoulder, saw still other men coming. He himself began to wonder whence they had come: by now, it seemed to him, both Big Run and San Ramon must have emptied themselves like bags of wheat slashed with a knife.

They walked swiftly until the din of the gold-seekers was lost to their ears. Then slowly they strolled on, silence enwrapping them, Helen's eyes wandering away to the glory of the stars, Howard's contented with the girl's face. After a while Helen, feeling the intentness of his look, turned toward him with a strange little smile which came and went fleetingly. She stopped a moment, still looking at him.

'Your country has done something to me,' she said thoughtfully, 'even though I have been out here only a few weeks. For one thing, when I first came I thought that I knew all about men and that they were pretty much all alike. I am finding out that they are not at all alike and that I don't understand them.'

'No, they are not all alike, and some men are hard to make out, I suppose,' he said when she paused.

'Men are more violent than I thought men were nowadays,' she added. 'They are stronger; they are fiercer. I used to think that a girl was a wretched little coward to be afraid of any man. Now I would be afraid of many of them I have seen in this land that you like to call your country.'

He understood that in her brain had formed a vision of his fight with Devine and Ed True, and that, blurring that image, she was still seeing the picture of the dark forms rushing down into the gulch. She began to move on again, and he went at her side making no reply and communing with his own thoughts. She did not stop again until they came close to the canvas-walled cabin and saw the light shining wanly through and the shadows of the men inside. Then she lifted her face so that it was clear to him in the starlight and said to him slowly:

'I am going in and see if I can help with the wounded men now. I should have gone at first, I suppose. Maybe there is something I can do. You wouldn't want them to die, would you?'

'No,' he returned, 'I would not want them to die.'

In the silence which followed he could see that she was seeking to read his face and that she was very, very thoughtful.

'Tell me something,' she said abruptly. 'If one of them were Jim Courtot—would you want him to die?'

At the mention of Courtot's name she made out a quick hardening of his mouth; she even saw, or fancied, an angry gathering of his brows. To-night's work was largely the work of Jim Courtot, and because of it Dry Gulch, which might have poured great heaps of gold at Helen's feet, was being wrangled over by a hundred men. He thought of that and he thought of other things, of how Courtot had fired on him from the dark long ago, of how Courtot was hunting him after Courtot's own tenacious fashion.

'Why do you ask that?' he demanded sharply.

She did not reply. Instead she turned from him and looked at the stars. And then she withdrew her eyes and turned them toward the light gleaming palely through the walls of canvas. But at last she lifted her face again to Howard.

'I'll go in now. And maybe I am tired after all. It has been a day, hasn't it? And please know that I felt that you did the right thing to-night, and that I don't know another man who would have been man enough to do it. Good night.'

'Good night,' he said, and watched her as she went into the house.



Chapter XIX

Sanchia Persistent

Thus, upon the barren flanks of Dry Gulch, a town was born. Mothered by the stubborn desert that appears sterile and is not, it was a sprawling, ungainly, ill-begotten thing. In the night it came; in the dawn it grew; during the first day it assumed lustiness and an insolence that was its birthright. And, like any welcome child, there was a name awaiting it. Men laughed as the unceremonious christening was performed. A half-drunken vagabond from no one knew where had staked out his claim and drained his bottle. 'Here's lookin' at Sanchia's Town!' he cried out, and smashed his bottle against a rock.

It appeared that every one had heard the tale of Longstreet's discovery and of Sanchia Murray's manoeuvre. They made high fun of Longstreet and declared that Sanchia was a cool one. The mere fact that she was a woman enlisted their sympathies in an affair wherein they had no interest. They were doomed to second choice and deemed it as well for Sanchia to have had first as any one. When a narrow-headed individual remarked that he had heard that the widow was getting nothing out of it, but that Courtot and his crowd had cheated her, they hooted and jeered at him until he withdrew wondering at their insane attitude. It was generally taken for granted that Sanchia Murray knew what she was about. If she chose to hunt in couple with Jim Courtot, that was her business.

A town is something more than a group of men encamped. It connotes many social facilities; first among which comes the store and, in certain parts of the world, the saloon. Sanchia's Town was, upon the first day, a town in these essentials. Shortly after dawn a string of three six-horse teams crawled across the lowlands and, by a circuitous way, to the camp. One wagon was heaped with bits of second-hand lumber and a jumbled assortment of old tents and strips of canvas. In it, also, were hammers, saws and nails. The two other wagons were filled with boxes and bags—and kegs. There were two men to each team. Arrived they gave immediate evidence that their employer had chosen well. One of them, a crooked-eyed carpenter named Emberlee, directed, hammer in hand. Before noon he had caused to grow up an architectural monstrosity, hideous but sturdy. It was without floor, but it had walls; wide gaps were doors and windows, but there was a canvas roof.

While his five companions brought their parcels into the place, Emberlee climbed aloft and nailed up a big board upon which his own hand, as the wagon had jostled along, had painted a sign. It spelled: JIM COURTOT'S HOUSE. Then he descended and began a hurried grouping of certain articles upon shelves and in corners. By the time the camp was ready for a noon meal the word had flown about that at Jim Courtot's House one could get food, water and a widely-known substitute for whisky. Meantime Tony Moraga had come: he stood behind a bar hastily made of two planks set on packing cases and sold a tin cup of water for twenty-five cents, a glass of liquor for fifty. There were calls for both. Emberlee, plainly a jack-of-all-trades, began displaying his wares. He offered dried meats, tinned goods, crackers, cheese and other comestibles at several times desert prices. And he, too, chinked many a silver dollar and minted gold piece into his cash-box, because when men rush to gold diggings they are not likely to go empty-handed. Shortly after noon the three wagons returned to Big Run for more supplies.

Obviously, though already Jim Courtot had departed from Dry Gulch when Alan Howard came upon his agents, he was no less active than they with rich gains in sight. It is to be doubted if the man slept at all during the first three days and nights. He had made his own list of foods and tobaccos and alcohols; he had selected men for his work. Down in San Juan men said: 'Jim Courtot is playing his luck again.' For though information was garbled long before it reached the mission town, yet always it was understood that Jim Courtot was playing to win heavily—he and Sanchia Murray.

Those hours which, in Sanchia's Town, had been given over to frenzy and the fury of feverish endeavour, had dragged by wearily and anxiously for the inmates of Longstreet's half-mile-distant cabin. For both Monte Devine and Ed True the night was one of bitter rage and pain. Longstreet was gentle with them, bringing them water, asking them often of their wants; Helen ministered to them silently, a strange new look in her eyes. Often she went to the door and stood looking off into the moonlit night, across the rolling hills and down into the wide sweep of Desert Valley. Carr remained with them all night. It was as well to be on hand, he suggested, if anything happened. He seemed scarcely conscious of the presence of the two wounded men; tilted back in his chair, smoking one cigar after another, he scarcely for an instant lost sight of Helen.

In the morning early there was the sound of hoofs and then men's voices. It was Carr who went to the door.

'It is Bettins and a couple of other men,' he said over his shoulder. 'Come for Devine and True, I guess.' And still without turning, he demanded, 'Ready to go, Monte?'

'Damn right,' said Monte.

Between Carr and Longstreet, Monte shambled to the door. Here he was turned over to his friends, who got him into his saddle. Then, assisted as Monte had been, and cursing at every step, Ed True passed through the door. The men outside accepted the two wounded men with only a few low words; in another moment the five horses were carrying their riders slowly toward Sanchia's Town. Carr returning saw the whisk of Helen's skirt as she disappeared within the little room partitioned off at the rear and knew that she had gone to fling herself down upon her bed. He looked after her as though he still half hoped she were coming back if only to say a belated 'good night.' Then he and Longstreet made coffee and drank it perfunctorily. After breakfast Carr left, saying that he would ride over to have a look at the new camp, and would drop in again some time during the afternoon.

'If I am not making a nuisance of myself,' he said as Longstreet followed him to the door, 'I should like to see what I can of you during the next few days. And of Miss Helen,' he added with utter frankness and clear meaning. 'I have business which will call me back East before long.'

'Come as often as you can, my dear fellow,' invited Longstreet. But his eyes had wandered toward the mining site which should have been his, and his mind seemed to be less than half busied with Carr's words. Carr, turning in the saddle, narrowed his eyes upon the university man's face and, thinking that he had caught his thought, said bluntly:

'It's an infernal shame. It's all yours by right, and——'

'Oh,' cried Longstreet grandly, 'I'm not worrying about a little diggings like that! Let them have it! Next time I'll show them a real mine.'

'Well, I wish you luck,' rejoined Carr. But there was no great conviction in his tone, since in his mind there was little expectation that lightning was going to strike twice in the same place. However, the caution came to his lips involuntarily: 'If there is a next time, I'd be mighty careful whom I told about it. It will pay you to look out for that Murray woman.'

Longstreet's face was puzzled and troubled.

'It does begin to look as though she gave me the—the double cross, doesn't it?' he said as though he were afraid he must believe the worst of Sanchia Murray despite his wish in the matter.

'It certainly does,' grunted Carr. 'She's absolutely no good. Everybody knows it. Fight shy of her. Well, so long.'

'So long,' repeated Longstreet absently.

Carr rode away. Longstreet's eyes, following the galloping horse, were still puzzled. 'I'm learning a thing or two,' he told himself soberly as he went back into the cabin. Many times he nodded his head thoughtfully. 'I've lived too long in another sort of world; now I am coming to grips with real life, real men and women. There's a new set of rules to grasp. Well,' and he straightened his thin body and a flickering smile played over his lips, 'I can learn. As Barbee says of stud poker: "You've got to set tight and keep your trap shut and your eye peeled."'

Helen slept soundly all morning. Longstreet dozed, studied the maps he had made during the last week and pottered. At noon they lunched together, neither having a great deal to say. Helen regarded her father more than ever as a baby who ought to be scolded and lessoned; still, like any doting mother, she found excuses for him and told herself that he had been amply punished for his indiscretion. She, too, opined that he had learned a lesson. Consequently she coddled him to such an extent that Longstreet remarked the fact and began to wonder just what Helen wanted now; no doubt she was going to ask something of him and was preparing the way after the approved and time-honoured custom.

But the day wore on with never a favour asked. In the drowsy afternoon Helen coaxed her father into her room and dropped the shades and ordered him to sleep, telling him that he looked like a ghost of his former rugged beauty. Then she sank down listlessly upon the doorstep, brooding, her eyes wandering through the green fields of Desert Valley. Her musings were disturbed by the clatter of shod hoofs across the rugged plateau; she looked up quickly, her eyes brightening. Then she saw that it was John Carr returning, and into her look there came an expression much resembling that which had been so much to-day in her father's—one of uncertainty.

Carr staked out his horse before he came to her. Then he sat down on a box near the doorstep and studied her gravely before he spoke. Helen smiled.

'You are thinking unpleasant things about some one,' she stated quickly. 'Has the world turned into a terribly serious place all of a sudden?'

There was little levity in Carr's make-up at any time; just now his speech was as sober as his look.

'I am thinking about you and your father, to begin with,' he replied gravely. 'I have been over yonder all day.' He swept out an impatient arm toward Dry Gulch. 'They call it Sanchia's Town. And it is a town already. I saw Nate Kemble there; he's the big man of the Quigley Mines, and you see how long it has taken him to get on the spot. Your father evidently made no mistake in his location. There's gold there, all right!'

Helen waited expectantly for him to go on. For certainly the fact that her father had been able to find gold was no cause for Carr's frowning eyes.

'My blood has been boiling all day,' Carr blurted out angrily. 'Longstreet should be a rich man to-day and he has gained nothing. I saw Nate Kemble pay one man ten thousand dollars for his claim; Kemble wouldn't pay that if the thing were not worth a great deal more. Kemble doesn't make many mistakes. Your father stumbled on to the place and then he couldn't hold it. When do you think he will make another discovery? And, if his lucky star should lead him aright again, is he the man to cash in on his luck? Don't you see, Helen, that James Edward Longstreet in this man's land is a fish out of water?'

'I understand what you mean,' Helen nodded slowly. Again her look wandered through the fields stretching out far below. 'And you are right. I didn't want papa to come in the first place; now, as you say, he is only wasting time.' She smiled a little tenderly. 'He is just a dear old babe in the woods,' she concluded softly.

Carr's approval of her mounted swiftly to admiration. They lowered their voices and spoke at length of the professor and of what should be done for him. They agreed perfectly that, while he was an unusually fine technical man and an able instructor in matters of geological theorizing, he was not the man to wander with a prospector's pick across these rugged lands.

'Even grant the extremely unlikely,' concluded Carr hastily as they heard the subject of their discussion moving about in the cabin, 'and admit that he may chance upon a second strike. What then? Why, Sanchia and Devine and Courtot and a crowd of hangers-on have their eyes on him. They'd oust him again with not the shadow of a doubt or a second's hesitation.'

Helen nodded and they went in together.

Carr stayed on to supper. Longstreet looked rested from his nap, bright and eager and as usual interested in everything in the world. Carr had bought a new hat yesterday; Longstreet tried it on and approved of it extravagantly. He asked what it cost and jingled his few coins, admitting ruefully that he'd have to wait until he uncovered his 'real mine.' Just the same, he proclaimed brightly, clothes did help make the man, and inside a year when he was decked out entirely to his own liking and a tenderfoot saw him, there would be no suspecting that Longstreet was not a Westerner born and bred. He put the hat away and sat down with them at the table. As he mentioned in such a matter-of-fact way his intention of tarrying a year, Carr and Helen glanced at each other significantly. And Carr after his direct fashion opened his campaign.

'There are other things than gold mines, and you were not made for this country,' he said. 'What would you say to going back East if I showed you the chance there to clean up more money than you'll ever see out here? I have been thinking about you, and I know the place where you'll fit in.'

This was all news to Helen, and her look showed her eager interest. Longstreet smiled and shook his head.

'That's kind of you,' he said warmly. 'But I like it out here.'

'But, papa,' cried Helen, 'surely you should hear Mr. Carr's proposition! It is not merely kind of him; it is wonderful if he can help us that way, and it is wise.'

'No,' said Longstreet. 'Carr won't think me ungrateful. I told them in the East that there was nothing simpler than the fact that a man like me, knowing what I know, can discover gold in vast quantities. First, it is universally conceded that the auriferous deposits remaining untouched are vastly in excess of those already found and worked. Second, all of my life I have made a profound study of geognosy and geotectonic geology. Now, it is not only the money; money I count as a rather questionable gift, anyway. But it is my own reputation. What I have said I could do, I will do.' And though his words came with his engaging smile, he seemed as firmly set in his determination as a rock hardened in cement.

Helen, who knew her father, sighed and turned from him to Carr. Then her eyes wandered through the open door, across the flat lands and down to the distant hills of Desert Valley.

'I should not speak as I am going to speak,' Carr was saying, 'if matters were not exactly as they are. To begin with, I take it that I have been accepted as a friend. Hence you will forgive me if I appear to presume and will know that I have no love of interfering in another man's personal affairs. Then, I must say what I have to say now: in a few days I am leaving you. I've got to go to New York.'

'Oh,' said Helen. 'I am sorry.'

'You are kind to me,' he acknowledged gravely. 'And I am sorry to go. Unless you and your father will consent to come also. Now, I am going to have my say—and, Mr. Longstreet, I hope you will forgive me if I am assuming a privilege which is not mine. I take it that you have no great amount of ready cash. Further, that your income has been that of most college men, who are all underpaid—say, three or four or five thousand a year. I have talked with Nate Kemble about you. His concern is a tremendously big affair with head offices in New York. Kemble is a friend of mine: I own stock in his company: he will acknowledge, quite as I am prepared to acknowledge, that there is a place for an expert of your type in the company. And the place will pay you, from the jump, ten thousand dollars.'

Helen fairly gasped. Despite her father's talk of the extravagant sums he meant to wrest from the bowels of the earth, she had never dreamed of so princely an income for them. Longstreet, however, merely shook a smiling head.

'You're a real friend, John,' he said. 'But here we stick. And, when you come down to dollars and cents, I'll eat your new hat for you if I can't make ten times your ten thousand in the first year.'

Before such amazing confidence Carr stalled. But he did not give up; it wasn't his habit of thought to relinquish anything which he had undertaken. Still for a little he was silent, studying his man. Again Helen was staring out through the open door.

'Some one is coming,' she announced. Then, her tone quickening, 'It is Mr. Howard; I knew he would be riding over before night. I know his horse,' she explained hastily, flushing a trifle under Carr's eyes which told her that he was surprised that she could tell who it was at such a distance. 'It is the horse he rode the first time we ever saw him. There is some one with him. It looks like——'

She did not say whom it looked like. Carr and Longstreet looked out. The second rider was a woman; her horse was not Sanchia Murray's white mare, but none the less they all knew that with Alan Howard came Sanchia. Carr's heavy brows gathered blackly. The flush died out of Helen's face and her lips tightened. Longstreet sprang up and went to the door.

'If it is Mrs. Murray,' he called back, something like triumph in his excited voice, 'and if she is coming here—why, then maybe there was a mistake after all.'

'She is not coming here!' cried Helen hotly. 'Papa, I will not have that woman in the house. After the way she has cheated you, fooled you, lied to you——'

'Come, come, my dear,' chided Longstreet. 'No one must be judged and condemned unheard. And remember that she is coming with Mr. Howard.'

Helen looked hopelessly at Carr. There were times when she utterly despaired of her father. But she could find comfort in the thought that if that Sanchia woman sought to perpetrate any more of her villainy and deceit, she was going to stand at her father's side through all of it. Meantime the two riders came on swiftly. As they drew up at the door Helen saw that Howard looked worried and ill at ease and that Sanchia Murray's eyes were red as though with copious weeping. Whereas Helen sniffed audibly.

'The horrid cat,' she said.

Sanchia began pouring out a torrent of confused words which Howard's curt speech interrupted. As he lifted his hat his eyes were for Helen alone: she flashed him a scornful look and turned away from him. Then he turned to Longstreet.

'Mr. Longstreet,' he said sharply, 'I want you to know my position in this matter. As I was starting Mrs. Murray came to the ranch. I was naturally astonished when she said that she was on her way to see you. I had thought, from what has happened, that you would be the last man in the world whom she would care to meet. She said, however, that she must speak with you and that she hoped she could do something to right matters. When she asked for a fresh horse I loaned her one. That,' he concluded harshly, 'is all that I have to do with Sanchia Murray and all that I want to do with her. The rest is up to you.'

The spite in Sanchia's quick sidelong look was for Howard alone.

'Alan is rather hard on me, I think,' she said quite simply as she turned her eyes upon the three at the cabin door. 'Especially,' and again she gave him that look for him alone, 'after what has been between us. But I must not think of that now. Oh, Mr. Longstreet, if you only knew how this thing has nearly killed me——'

She broke off, hiding her face in her hands, her body swaying in the saddle as though surely she would fall. Longstreet looked concerned.

'Get down and come in,' he exclaimed. 'You are utterly exhausted. Helen, my dear, a cup of coffee, quick. This poor lady looks as though she hadn't slept or rested or eaten since we saw her last.'

'How could I eat or rest or sleep?' cried Sanchia brokenly. 'After all that has happened? Oh, I wish I were dead!'

Helen did not budge for the coffee. Her eyes were blazing. Sanchia slid down from the saddle and came to the door. Longstreet hastened to her side and the two went in together. Helen, without looking toward Howard, followed, determined that she would hear whatever it was that Sanchia Murray had to say.

'Come in, Howard,' Longstreet remembered to say. 'We're having supper. Both you and Mrs. Murray will eat with us.'

Sanchia bathed her eyes and they all sat down. When Howard looked toward Helen she ignored him. Outside Carr had demanded, 'What in hell's name made you bring that woman here?' and Alan had rejoined, 'I couldn't stop her coming, could I?' And now the two had nothing to say to each other. Longstreet, nervous and impatient for whatever explanations were coming, fidgeted constantly until Sanchia began speaking.

'When I learned what had happened,' she said, 'I thought at first that I could not live to endure it. I could have shrieked; I could have killed myself. To think that I had been the cause of it all. Oh, it was hideous! But then I knew that I must live and that I must seek somehow to make reparation. All of my life, as long as I live, I shall hope and try and work to undo what I have done.'

She was watching them all through her handkerchief, which she was using to dab her eyes; of Longstreet she never for an instant lost sight. She saw the eagerness in his eyes and knew that it was an eagerness to believe in her. She saw Helen's anger and contempt; she saw Carr's black looks; she saw, too, how Howard kept his eyes always on Helen's face, and she read what was so easy to read in them. It was her business, her chief affair in life just now, to keep her two eyes wide open; hence she saw, too, the look which Helen had flashed at the cattleman. And while she observed all of this she was speaking rapidly, almost incoherently, as though her one concern lay in the tragic error she had made. Had she been less than a very clever woman who had long lived, and lived well, by her wits, she must have found the situation too much for her. But no one of her hearers, excepting possibly the one chiefly interested, failed to do Sanchia Murray justice for her cleverness. As it was, she did not fear the outcome from the outset.

She told how she had been so overjoyed at Longstreet's news; how, for that dear child Helen's sake, she had rejoiced; how she had for a little felt less lonely in sharing a secret meant for a wonderful birthday surprise; how she had yearned to help in this glowing hour of happiness. She had tried to help Mr. Longstreet with Mr. Harkness at the court-house; she had learned that he was out of town; she had been told that his assistant was at the Montezuma House. In spite of her abhorrence of going to such a place she had gone, carried away by the high tide of excitement. And there she had been tricked into introducing Mr. Longstreet to no less a terrible creature than Monte Devine. She hastened to add that she told Mr. Longstreet that she did not know this man; he would bear her out in this; she too had been tricked. But she would never, never forgive herself.

'Nor,' said Helen's voice coldly, 'will I ever forgive you. Nor am I the fool to believe all these tales. Maybe you can make a fool of my father, but——'

'Helen, Helen,' expostulated Longstreet sternly, 'you are being hasty. At times like this one should seek to be kind and just.'

Again Helen's sniff was audible and eloquent.

'Do you mean,' she demanded, 'that you believe all of this nonsense?'

'I mean, my dear, that one should be deliberate. Mrs. Murray has made an explanation, she is plainly sick with grief at what has occurred. She has ridden straight to us. What more could one do? When you are older, my dear, and have seen more of life you will know that the world sometimes makes terrible mistakes.'

'You are so great-hearted!' sobbed Sanchia. 'So wonderful! There is not another man in the world who would be even tolerant at a time like this. And to think that it is you—you whom I have hurt.' Her sobs overcame her.

Helen flung herself angrily to her feet.

'Papa,' she cried, 'can't you see, can't you understand that this woman is determined to make a fool of you again? Hasn't she done it once already? Oh, are you going to be just a little baby in her hands?'

Sanchia lowered her handkerchief for a swift glance at Helen and then at the other faces in the room. The sternness on Howard's and Carr's faces did not greatly concern her, for she saw written across Longstreet's countenance just about what she had counted on. And Helen's words had simply succeeded in drawing his indignation toward his daughter. Hence, wisely, Sanchia was content to be silent for a spell. Matters seemed to be going well enough left alone.

Helen had meant to run out of doors, to close her ears to this maddening discussion. She felt that it was either that or deliberately slap Sanchia Murray's face. Now, however, she sat down again, deciding with a degree of acumen that Sanchia would prefer nothing to a tete-a-tete with Longstreet.

'After all,' said Helen more quietly and with a look which was hard as it flashed across Sanchia's face to Howard's and then on, 'threshing all this over is valueless. Forgive her, father,' she went on contemptuously, 'if either of you will feel better for it, and don't detain her. We are going back East in a few days, anyway.'

Howard stared at her wonderingly as Carr nodded his approval of the speech. But Longstreet spoke with considerable emphasis.

'Aren't you rather premature in your announcement, my dear? I am not going back East at all.'

There might have been no discussion of the matter had he ended there. But seeing the various expressions called by his words to the faces about the table, he added the challenge:

'Why should I go? Haven't I already demonstrated that I know what I am doing? Isn't this the place for me?'

Helen answered him first and energetically. He should go, she cried hotly, because he had demonstrated nothing at all save that he was a lamb in a den of wolves. He was a university man and not a mountaineer or desert Indian; he knew books and he did not know men; it was his duty to himself and to his daughter to return home. The girl's colour deepened and grew hot with her rapid speech, and Sanchia, sitting back, watching and listening, lost never a word. Before Longstreet could shape a reply John Carr added his voice to Helen's plea. He said all that he had said once before to-day; he elaborated his argument, which to him appeared unanswerable. When he had done, always speaking quietly, he turned to Howard.

'Don't you think I am right, Al?' he asked.

'No!' replied Howard emphatically. 'I don't. Mr. Longstreet does know his business. He has located one mine in this short time. It was not chance; it was science. There is more gold left in these hills. Give him time and a free swing, and he'll find it.'

Carr appeared amazed.

'I can't imagine what makes you talk like that, Al,' he said shortly. 'It's rather a serious thing with the Longstreets which way they move now. You are deliberately encouraging him to buck a game which he ought to leave to another type of man.'

'Deliberately is the right word,' said Howard. 'And I can't quite understand what makes you seek to discourage him and pack him off to the East again.'

Carr was silent. Sanchia's eyes, very bright, grew brighter with a keen look of understanding. Very innocently she spoke.

'Are you thinking of going East, too, Mr. Carr?' she asked.

'Yes,' snapped Carr. 'I am. What of it?'

'Oh, nothing,' said Sanchia. But she laughed. Then as Longstreet was opening his mouth to make his own statement, she cut in, turning to him, speaking directly to him, in some subtle way giving the impression that she was quite oblivious of anyone but of him and herself.

'You mustn't go,' she said softly. She studied his face and then put a light hand on his arm. Helen stiffened. 'How shall I say all that I feel here?' She gave an effective gesture as she pressed the other hand against her own bosom. 'You have come into a land of nothing but ignorance and into it you have brought the brain of a scholar. You said, "I will find gold," and they laughed at you—and you found it! It was not chance; Alan was right. It was the act of a man who knew. This land has many kinds of men, Mr. Longstreet. It has no other man like you. It needs you. You must stay!'

'Oh,' said Helen. It was scarcely more than a gasp, and yet it bespoke profound disgust. The woman was insufferable. Here, upon the top of her treachery, was most palpable flattery. Surely her father would not fail to see now the woman's true character; surely he must baulk at such talk as this. But he was beaming again as though the clouds of a storm had passed and the sunlight were streaming upon him; he rubbed his hands together and spoke cheerfully.

'Sanchia is right; Alan is right. These two understand me. I shall show to the world that they have not misjudged me. I know my own limitations. I am no superman. I have made blunders in my time. But I do know my own work, and I am the only man here who does! In a way Sanchia is right when she says that this country needs me. It does. And I need it. We are going to stay, my dear.'

Sanchia flashed Helen a look of triumph; her eyes, passing on to Howard, held briefly a sparkle of malice.

'Alan and I are very grateful to have your approval,' she said sweetly. 'Aren't we, Alan?' and again her look was for Helen and was triumphant.

Helen pushed her plate away and for a second time rose abruptly.

'I'll choke if I stay in here,' she said. And, with breast heaving, she went to the door and out into the fading afternoon. Sanchia's glance followed her and then returned placidly to the men.

'The dear child is high-strung, and Heaven knows she has been through enough to upset anyone,' she said condoningly. Then, 'Mr. Carr and you, Alan, don't seem to be hungry any more. I would like a word with Mr. Longstreet, and if you two went out to Helen perhaps you might soothe her. Remember she is only a child after all.'

Glad of the excuse to be gone, both men rose. As they went out they saw how Sanchia was already leaning toward Longstreet, how her hand had again found its way to his arm. Then they lost sight of her and saw Helen standing upon the cliff edge looking off to the lowlands of the south. In silence they joined her.

'I don't know whether I love this country or hate it most,' Helen said without withdrawing her troubled eyes from the expanse of Desert Valley. The sun was down, the distances were veiled in tender shades, pale greens of the meadowlands, dusky greys of the hills. 'If it were only all like that; if there were only the glorious valley and the peace of it instead of this hideous life up here!'

It was in Alan Howard's heart to cry out to her, 'Come down into the peace of it; it is all mine. Come down to live there with me.' It may have been in John Carr's heart to whisper: 'It is mine until the last cent is paid on it; if you love it so, there may still be the way to get it back for you.' But neither man spoke his thought. The three stood close together, the girl with troubled eyes standing between the two friends, and all of their eyes searched into the mystery of the coming dusk.

From the cabin came the sound of a laugh. It was Longstreet's, and it was like a pleased child's.



Chapter XX

Two Friends and a Girl

Howard and Carr rode down into the darkening valley side by side. The silence of the coming dusk was no deeper than that silence which had crept about them while the three stood upon the cliff's edge. Longstreet's laugh had whipped up the colour into Helen's cheeks and had lighted a battle fire in her eyes. She had whisked away from them and gone straight back to the cabin, meaning to save her father from his own artlessness and from the snare of a designing widow. She had remembered to call out a breathless 'Good-night' without turning her head. They had taken their dismissal together, understanding Helen's tortured mood. Each man grave and taciturn, like two automatons they buckled on their spurs, mounted and reined toward the trail.

Then Howard had said merely: 'Come down to the ranch-house, John. I want to talk with you.' And Carr had nodded and acquiesced. Thereafter they were silent again for a long time.

The coming of night is a time of vague veilings, of grotesque transformations, of remoulding and steeping in new dyes. Matter-of-fact objects, clear-cut during the day, assume fantastic shapes; a bush may appear a crouching mountain cat; a rock may masquerade as a mastodon. This is an hour of uncertainties. And doubtings and questionings and uncertainties were other shadow shapes thronging the demesnes of two men's souls. Silence and dim dusk without, dim dusk and silence within.

Once Howard, the lighter spirited of the two, sought to laugh the constraint away.

'Something seems to have come over us, John,' he said. But as he spoke he knew that what he should have said was that something had come between them. Further, he knew that Carr would have amended his words thus in his own mind and that that was why he did not reply. He recalled vividly how they three had stood on the cliff, he on Helen's left, John on her right. He and John were friends; in the desert lands friendship is sacred. Further, it is mighty, stalwart, godly, and all but indomitable. They had shared together, fought together. One friend would do to the uttermost for the other, would die for him. He would rush into the other's fight, asking no questions, and if he went down the chill of coming death would be warmed by the glow of conscious sacrifice. The friendship of Howard and Carr had stood the many tests of time. But only now had the supreme test come. Until to-day, either of them in the generousness of his spirit would have stepped gladly aside for the other. But now? A girl is not a cup of water that one man, dying of thirst, may say of her to his friend: 'Take her.' Their friendship was not changed; simply it was no longer the greatest thing in life. The love of a man for a man, though it be strengthened by ten thousand ties, is less than the love of a man for his chosen mate, though to the other eyes and minds that love may be inexplicable. Set any Damon and Pythias upon an isolated desert island, then into their lives bring the soft eyes of a girl, and inevitably the day will dawn when those eyes will look upon the death of a friendship. This knowledge had at last become a part of the understandings of Alan Howard and John Carr.

'You are going East, John?' asked Howard when at length his spirit sought a second time to shake off the oppression of the hour.

Even these words came with something of an effort. He tried to speak naturally. But behind his words were troops of confused thoughts; Carr was going East, and had said nothing to him; if Carr left, what then of Helen? Carr had tried to persuade the Longstreets to go with him.

And to Carr the query sounded more careless, more lightly casual than Howard had intended. His own thoughts were quick to respond though his reply came after a noticeable hesitation. Alan did not appear to care whether he went away or remained; he had not asked if this were to be a brief absence or an indefinite sojourn.

'Yes,' Carr's answer at last was short and blunt; 'I have business there.'

Carr thought that if Alan were interested he would ask naturally, as one friend had always asked the other, to know more. Howard thought that if Carr cared to speak of his own personal affairs he would do so. Hence, while both waited, neither spoke. Perhaps both were hurt. Certainly the constraint between them thickened and deepened in step with the engulfing night; they could not see each other's faces, they could not glimpse each other's souls. Both were baffled and into the temper of each came a growing irritation. One thing alone they appeared to have in common—the desire to come to the end of the ride. Their spurs dipped and they raced along wordlessly.

When Howard dismounted at the home corrals and began unsaddling, Carr rode on to the house.

'You're going to stay all night, John,' Howard called after him. 'Put your horse in the barn.'

But Carr swung down at the yard gate and tied his horse there.

'Can't this time,' he said. 'I'll have to ride on, Al.'

Thus each made his pretence, less to his friend than to himself, that everything was all right. They sought to be natural and failed, and knew that they had failed. Carr waited for Howard, smoking at the gate; Howard hastened up to the house and went in. He struck a match, lighted the table lamp and filled the pipe lying beside it. Carr tossed his hat to the table and sat down. Their eyes roved about the familiar room. Here were countless traces of both men; Carr had lived here, Howard lived here now. Helen had been here, and she too had left something to mark her passing. They both saw it. It was only a bluebird's feather, but Alan had set it in a place of conspicuousness just above the fireplace. Even into a room which had been home to each, which they had held must always be home to both, something of Helen came like a little ghost.

'You'll have use for some money about now,' said Howard abruptly. He drew out the table drawer; inside were scraps of paper, a fountain-pen, a cheque-book and some old stubs. 'Time's up for a payment, too. I sold a pretty fair string the other day.'

'I could use a little cash,' Carr admitted carelessly. 'I've got in pretty deep with the Quigley mining outfit. I made Longstreet a proposition—I am a trifle short, I guess,' he concluded lamely.

'I see,' responded Howard, whereas he saw nothing at all very clearly. He busied himself with his pen, shook it savagely, opened his cheque-book. 'Ten thousand this trip, wasn't it?'

Carr hesitated.

'I had figured on twelve five,' he said. 'Wasn't that the amount due now?'

Howard hunted through the back of the drawer and finally found a little memorandum book. He turned through the pages upon which he had scribbled notes of purchases of cattle and horses and of ranch equipment, passed on to a tabulation of his men's wages, and finally stopped at a page devoted to his agreement with his friend.

'Here you are,' he said when he had found it. 'Ten thousand, due on the eleventh of the month. I'm pretty near a week late on it, John,' he smiled.

Carr however had his own note-book with him; readily he found his own entry.

'I've set it down here as twelve thousand five hundred,' he said quietly. 'You remember we talked over a couple of methods of payment, Al. But,' and he snapped the rubber band about his book and dropped it into his pocket, 'what's the odds? Let it go at ten.'

'No,' said Howard. 'Not if you've counted on more.' A flush ran up into his face and his eyes were inscrutable. He was conscious of being in the absurd mood to note trifles; John had come with his memoranda, John had meant to ask him for the money. 'I'd just as lief pay twenty-five hundred extra now as at any time.' And with lowered head and sputtering pen he wrote the cheque.

'I don't want to inconvenience you, Al,' Carr accepted the cheque with certain reluctance. 'Sure it's all right?'

'Sure,' said Howard emphatically. He tossed the pen and book into the drawer. Now the awkwardness of the silence upon them was more marked than ever before. Carr tarried only a few minutes, during which both men were ill at ease. Only an expressionless 'So long!' passed between them when he got up to go. They might see each other again before Carr went East; they might not. Howard went back to his chair at the table, staring moodily at the bluebird feather.

Nothing of the instinct of a clerk had ever filtered into the habits of Alan Howard. His system of books was simple. He set down in one place the amounts which came in; in another place those expended. He added and subtracted. He deposited his money in the bank and checked it out. He must bank more when the last was gone. That was about all. It was seldom that he knew just how far his assets were above his liabilities or below. But to-night he knew that he had strained his account. He had counted on paying ten thousand and had paid twelve thousand five hundred. He turned first to his cheque-book, which had not been balanced for a couple of months. No adept at figures he spilled much ink, scratched out many calculations and went through them again, grew hot and exasperated and finally before he got anywhere was in a mood to damn everything that came under his hand. It was midnight when he had assembled upon one sheet of paper an approximately truthful statement of his financial condition. And then he sat back limply and lifted his eyebrows and whistled.

Within something less than thirty days he must take up a note which Pony Lee held for a thousand dollars; Pony would want the money and had said as much when he had advanced it. Then there were the calves, due within the week, from French Valley; Tony Vaca was rushing them, was selling at a very low figure and would want his money on the nail. Well, he must have it. That was another seven hundred dollars. There was another note held by Engle, down in San Juan. The banker might extend it; he might not. It was for fifteen hundred dollars, and would fall due within sixty days. On top of this were the running expenses: the ranch was working full-handed, the men would want their wages a week from Saturday: this was Tuesday. He turned to their accounts; three or four of them had not drawn down last month. They would all want their money when next pay-day came. He estimated the amount. In the neighbourhood of seven hundred dollars. He totalled all of these forthcoming payments. The aggregate was close to four thousand dollars. And his cheque-book, balanced to date, indicated that he had overdrawn to make the payment to Carr. He could have paid the ten thousand and have had something over two thousand in cold cash to run on; now he had not enough in the San Juan bank to make his own cheque good.

'If Carr had only been satisfied with the ten thousand,' he muttered. 'Or if he had given me warning ahead that he wanted the extra twenty-five hundred. Now what?'

None of these issues were clouded, and in due time he decided upon all points. He gave up all thought of bed, made himself a pot of coffee and sat up all night, devoting himself to details. The cheque he had given Carr must be honoured; hence he must ride to-morrow to San Juan to see Engle, the banker. He was only a few hundred dollars short there and Engle would help him to balance the account. The fifteen hundred he owed the bank on his personal note could no doubt be extended if necessary. There remained the money for the calves, the thousand due Pony Lee and another thousand to pay his men and for such necessities as would arise. All of this he would talk over with Engle. It might be that the bank would take a mortgage on his equity in Desert Valley and advance a considerable sum on it.

But he must not forget that the present crisis was not all to be considered. Another year would bring the time of another payment to Carr. In the meantime the ranch must be operated, it must be made to pay. He had already planned on asking extensions from Engle; but it did not enter his thought now to ask John Carr to wait.

'I've got my work cut out for me,' said Howard grimly. 'I've got to work like hell, that's all. I've got to carve down expenses, fire men I can manage without, be on the job all the time to buy in stock cheap wherever it can be got and unload for a quick turnover and some ready cash. I've got to go in for more hay and wheat another season; the price is up and going higher. And real soon, the chances are, I've got to sell some more cows.'

Before dawn he was at the men's bunk-house. He woke Chuck Evans and told him to hurry into his clothes and come up to the house. When Chuck came the two men sat down at the table, pencil and paper in Howard's hand, Chuck's eyes keen upon his employer's set face.

'I'm right down to cases, Chuck,' said Howard bluntly. 'I am in up to my neck, and that's all there is to it. As soon as I get through with you I am off to San Juan to see if there is any real money left in the world. I'll be back as soon as I can. But you get busy while I'm gone. First thing, here are five men you will have to give their time. Tell them why; tell them there's always a job open for them here when I've got the cash for pay-day. Then you and what's left will get your necks into your collars and go to it, long hours and hard work until we pull out. Get the boys out this morning for another round-up. Bring in every hoof and tail that will size up for a decent sale. If you can get time, ride down to San Ramon and see if there's a chance to sell a string of mules to the road gang. That's about all this time; look for me back in two or three days.'

'All right, Al,' said Evans. 'So long.' He went to the door and paused. He wanted to say something and didn't know just what to say or how to say it. So he coughed and said again, 'Well, so long, Al,' and went out.

In the first flush of the dawn Howard rode away toward San Juan. He turned in the saddle and looked back toward the Last Ridge country. He fancied that he could make out the Longstreet cabin even when he knew that his lover's desire was tricking his sense. He thought of Helen; she would be sleeping now. He would not see her for several days. He thought of John Carr; Carr would see her every day until he was forced to go East. Carr had not confided in him when he expected to leave. His eyes left the uplands lingeringly and wandered across the sweeping fields of Desert Valley. He straightened in the saddle and his lungs filled and expanded. The valley was his, his to work for, to struggle and plan for, to make over as he would have it—to hold for Helen. For Helen loved it no less than he loved it. And he loved Helen.