Franklin drove up to the great dugout which made the main building, in front of which the soil had been worn bare and dusty by many hoofs. The Halfway House was now a business enterprise of assured success. Many signs of prosperity appeared to the eye accustomed to the crude simplicity of the frontier. These immigrants from the far-off South, incongruous and unfitted as they had seemed in this harsh new country, had apparently blundered into a material success far beyond that of their average neighbour. The first years, the hardest ones of their struggle, were past, and the problem of existence was solved. In those days one did not always concern himself about problems more intricate and more distant.

Buford met him in the yard, and the two together busied themselves in taking care of the team, the former apologizing that he still had no servant for such work, "I did have a nigger here for a while," he said, "but he turned out no account, and the first I knew he went off for a cow-puncher down the trail. I'm mighty glad to see you again, captain, for it looked as though you had forsaken us. It certainly is a comfort to see a gentleman like yourself once in a while. We meet plenty of cowmen and movers, decent folk enough, but they have a lack, sir, they have a lack. I maintain, sir, that no gentleman can flourish without that intelligent social intercourse with his kind which is as much a part of his livin', sir, as the eatin' of his daily bread. Now, as I was sayin' about General Lee, sir—but perhaps we would better go in and join the ladies. They will be glad to see you, and later on we can resume our discussion of the war. I am willing to admit, sir, that the war is over, but I never did admit, and, sir, I contend yet, that Lee was the greatest general that the world ever saw—far greater than Grant, who was in command of resources infinitely superior. Now, then—"

"Oh, uncle, uncle!" cried a voice behind him. "Have you begun the war over again so soon? You might at least let Mr. Franklin get into the house."

Mary Ellen stood at the door of the dugout, just clear of the front, and upon the second step of the stair, and her hand half shading her eyes. The sun fell upon her brown hair, changing its chestnut to a ruddy bronze, vital and warm, with a look as though it breathed a fragrance of its own. A little vagrant lock blew down at the temple, and Franklin yearned, as he always did when he saw this small truant, to stroke it back into its place. The sun and the open air had kissed pink into the cheek underneath the healthy brown. The curve of the girl's chin was full and firm. Her tall figure had all the grace of a normal being. Her face, sweet and serious, showed the symmetry of perfect and well-balanced faculties. She stood, as natural and as beautiful, as fit and seemly as the antelope upon the hill, as well poised and sure, her head as high and free, her hold upon life apparently as confident. The vision of her standing there caused Franklin to thrill and flush. Unconsciously he drew near to her, too absorbed to notice the one visible token of a possible success; for, as he approached, hat in hand, the girl drew back as though she feared.

There was something not easily to be denied in this tall man, his figure still military in its self-respect of carriage, with the broad shoulders, the compact trunk, the hard jaw, and the straight blue eye of the man of deeds. The loose Western dress, which so illy became any but a manly figure, sat carelessly but well upon him. He looked so fit and manly, so clean of heart, and so direct of purpose as he came on now in this forlorn hope that Mary Ellen felt a shiver of self-distrust. She stepped back, calling on all the familiar spirits of the past. Her heart stopped, resuming at double speed. It seemed as though a thrill of tingling warmth came from somewhere in the air—this time, this day, this hour, this man, so imperative, this new land, this new world into which she had come from that of her earlier years! She was yet so young! Could there be something unknown, some sweetness yet unsounded? Could there be that rest and content which, strive as she might, were still missing from her life? Could there be this—and honour?

Mary Ellen fled, and in her room sat down, staring in a sudden panic. She needed to search out a certain faded picture. It was almost with a sob that she noted the thin shoulders, the unformed jaw, the eye betokening pride rather than vigour, the brow indicative of petulance as much as sternness. Mary Ellen laid the picture to her cheek, saying again and again that she loved it still. Poor girl, she did not yet know that this was but the maternal love of a woman's heart, pitying, tender and remembering, to be sure, but not that love over which the morning stars sang together at the beginning of the world.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE WAY OF A MAID

The Halfway House was an oasis in the desert. To-day it was an oasis and a battle ground. Franklin watched Mary Ellen as she passed quietly about the long, low room, engaged in household duties which she performed deftly as any servant. He compared these rude necessities with the associations amid which he knew this girl had been nurtured, and the thought gave him nothing but dissatisfaction and rebellion. He longed to give her all the aid of his own strength, and to place her again, as he felt he some day might, in something of the old ease and comfort, if not in the same surroundings. Yet, as he bethought himself of the apparent hopelessness of all this, he set his teeth in a mental protest near akin to anger. He shifted in his seat and choked in his throat a sound that was half a groan. Presently he rose, and excusing himself, went out to join Buford at the corral.

"Come," said the latter, "and I'll show you around over our improvements while we are waitin' for a bite to eat. We are goin' to have a great place here some day. Besides our own land, Miss Beauchamp and our servant have a quarter-section each adjoinin' us on the west. If ever this land comes to be worth anything at all, we ought to grow into something worth while."

"Yes," said Franklin, "it will make you rich," and as they walked about he pointed out with Western enthusiasm the merits of the country round-about.

The "bite to eat" was in time duly announced by a loud, sonorous note that arose swelling upon the air. Aunt Lucy appeared at the kitchen door, her fat cheeks distended, blowing a conch as though this were Tidewater over again.

The long table was spread in the large room of general assembly, this room being, as has been mentioned, excavated from the earth, so that, as they sat at table, their heads were perhaps nearly level with the surface of the ground. The short side walls, topped with a heavy earthen roof made of this sort of abode a domicile rude and clumsy enough, but one not lacking in a certain comfort. In the winter it was naturally warm, and in the summer it was cool, the air, caught at either end by the gable of the roof, passing through and affording freshness to the somewhat cellar-like interior. Cut off from the main room were three smaller rooms, including the kitchen, from which Aunt Lucy passed back and forth with massive tread. The table was no polished mahogany, but was built of rough pine boards, and along it stood long benches instead of chairs. For her "white folks" Aunt Lucy spread a cloth at one end of this long table, placing also in order the few pieces of china and silver that had survived a life of vicissitudes.

"I may be poor," said Buford, commenting grimly on the rude appearance of the board, "and I reckon we always will be poor, but when the time comes that I can't have a silver spoon in my coffee, then I want to die."

"Major!" said Mrs. Buford reprovingly from the head of the table, where she sat in state, "I do not like to hear you speak in that way. We are in the hands of the Lord."

"Quite right," said Buford, "and I beg pardon. But, really, this country does bring some changes, and we ourselves surely change with it. No one seems to think of the past out here."

"Don' you b'lieve I don' never think o' the past!" broke in a deep and uninvited voice, much to Mrs. Buford's disquietude. "This yer sho'hly is a lan' o' Sodom an' Tomorrow. Dey ain't a sengle fiahplace in the hull country roun' yer. When I sells mer lan' fer a hundred dollahs, fust thing I'm a-goin' do is to build me a fiahplace an' git me er nice big settle to putt in front o' hit, so'st I kin set mer bread to raise befo' the fiah, like all bread orter be sot. How kin a pusson cook out yet—not to say, cook?"

"That will do, Lucy," said Mrs. Buford.

"We are demoralized," said Mary Ellen hopelessly, "and I resent it. I resent your knowing us or knowing anything about our lives. If you had never heard anything at all about us it mightn't have been so bad. We came out here to get away from every one."

Franklin bit his lip. "Mary Ellen, my child!" cried Mrs. Buford.

"That's hardly fair," said Franklin. "We are all beginners in this land." Yet there was an awkward break in the conversation.

"Providence guides all our ways," said Mrs. Buford, somewhat irrelevantly, and with her customary sigh.

"Amen!" cried a hearty voice from the kitchen. "'Scuse meh!"

"You will oblige me, captain," said Buford as they finally rose from the table, "if you will be so good as to drive Miss Beauchamp over to the claim shanty after a while. I'll just ride along over on horseback. I don't like to put a guest to work, but really I need a little help about that roof. It has fallen in at one corner, and I presume it ought to be repaired, for the sake of Miss Beauchamp's conscience when she goes to the Land Office to prove up."

Franklin assented to this proposition with such eagerness that he blushed as he saw how evident had been his pleasure at this opportunity for a moment's speech alone with the girl who sat so near but yet so unapproachable. "I'll be delighted," said he.

Mary Ellen said nothing. The pink spot in her cheek was plainly deeper. It did not lessen as she stood watching the struggle the two men had in again hitching to the buggy the wild black horse. Seizing the tug with one hand and the singletree with the other, Franklin fairly swept the obdurate beast off its balance as he forced it to its place at the pole. His strength was apparent.

"Are you afraid to ride behind that horse?" asked he.

"I don't think so," she replied simply, and her uncle helped her in, while Franklin steadied the team. Yet how Franklin hated the wild black horse now! All the way across the prairie during the short drive to the shanty the beast gave him plenty to do to keep it inside the harness, and he had no time for a single word. The girl sat silent at his side, looking straight ahead. Franklin felt her arm brush his at the jolting of the vehicle now and then. Her hand, brown and shapely, lay in her lap. As Franklin gathered the slack of the reins, his own hand approaching hers, it seemed to him that an actual emanation, a subtle warmth, stole from her hand to his, an unspoken appeal from some vital source. A vague, delicious sense of happiness came over him. He too fell quite silent. He guided the horses as though he saw neither them nor aught else between him and some far-off horizon. At the shanty he helped her down. Ignorant, he saw not the tale of a bosom heaving, nor read correctly the story of the pink in the cheek. He believed rather the import of a face turned away, and of features set in a mask of repose. There had as yet been no word.

The claim shanty was indeed in some need of repair. One corner of the roof had fallen in, carrying with it a portion of the sod wall that made the inclosure, and spilling a quantity of earth in the bed customarily occupied by Aunt Lucy when she "resided" here in company with her mistress in their innocent process of acquiring one hundred and sixty acres of land apiece by means of a double dwelling place. Upon the opposite side, protected by a screen, Franklin caught sight of a corner of the other bed. There were also upon that side of the shack a little table, a chair, and a dainty looking-glass, with a few other such feminine appurtenances. Two wash-stands, with basins, went far toward completing the remaining furniture. It must be admitted that there was dust upon the table and in the basins. The housekeeper in Mary Ellen apologized as she began to clean them. "We don't sleep here very often," she said.

"And aren't you afraid?" said Franklin.

"Not now. We used to be afraid of the coyotes, though, of course, they can't hurt us. Once uncle killed a rattlesnake in the shanty. It had crawled in at the door. I don't think, though, that you could get Lucy to sleep here alone overnight for all the land out of doors."

In order to make the needed repairs to the roof, it was necessary to lay up again a part of the broken wall, then to hoist the fallen rafters into place prior to covering the whole again with a deep layer of earth. Franklin, standing upon a chair, put his shoulders under the sagging beams and lifted them and their load of disarranged earth up to the proper level on the top of the wall, while Buford built under them with sods. It was no small weight that he upheld. As he stood he caught an upturned telltale glance, a look of sheer feminine admiration for strength, but of this he could not be sure, for it passed fleetly as it came. He saw only the look of unconcern and heard only the conventional word of thanks.

"Now, then, captain," said Buford, "I reckon we can call this shack as good as new again. It ought to last out what little time it will be needed. We might go back to the house now. Mightily obliged to you, sir, for the help."

As Mary Ellen stepped into the buggy for the return home her face had lost its pink. One of the mysterious revulsions of femininity had set in. Suddenly, it seemed to her, she had caught herself upon the brink of disaster. It seemed to her that all her will was going, that in spite of herself she was tottering on toward some fascinating thing which meant her harm. This tall and manly man, she must not yield to this impulse to listen to him! She must not succumb to this wild temptation to put her head upon a broad shoulder and to let it lie there while she wept and rested. To her the temptation meant a personal shame. She resisted it with all her strength. The struggle left her pale and very calm. At last the way of duty was clear. This day should settle it once for all. There must be no renewal of this man's suit. He must go.

It was Mary Ellen's wish to be driven quickly to the house, but she reckoned without the man. With a sudden crunching of the wheels the buggy turned and spun swiftly on, headed directly away from home. "I'll just take you a turn around the hill," said Franklin, "and then we'll go in."

The "hill" was merely a swell of land, broken on its farther side by a series of coulees that headed up to the edge of the eminence. These deep wash-cuts dropped off toward the level of the little depression known as the Sinks of the White Woman River, offering a sharp drop, cut up by alternate knifelike ridges and deep gullies.

"It isn't the way home," said Mary Ellen.

"I can't help it," said Franklin. "You are my prisoner. I am going to take you—to the end of the world."

"It's very noble of you to take me this way!" said the girl with scorn. "What will my people think?"

"Let them think!" exclaimed Franklin desperately. "It's my only chance. Let them think I am offering you myself once more—my love—all of me, and that I mean it now a thousand times more than I ever did before. I can't do without you! It's right for us both. You deserve a better life than this. You, a Beauchamp, of the old Virginia Beauchamps—good God! It breaks my heart!"

"You have answered yourself, sir," said Mary Ellen, her voice not steady as she wished.

"You mean—"

"I am a Beauchamp, of the old Virginia Beauchamps. I live out here on the prairies, far from home, but I am a Beauchamp of old Virginia."

"And then?"

"And the Beauchamps kept their promises, women and men—they always kept them. They always will. While there is one of them left alive, man or woman, that one will keep the Beauchamp promise, whatever that has been."

"I know," said Franklin gently, "I would rely on your word forever. I would risk my life and my honour in your hands. I would believe in you all my life. Can't you do as much for me? There is no stain on my name. I will love you till the end of the world. Child—you don't know—"

"I know this, and you have heard me say it before, Mr. Franklin; my promise was given long ago. You tell me that you can never love any one else."

"How could I, having seen you? I will never degrade your memory by loving any one else. You may at least rely on that."

"Would you expect me ever to love any one else if I had promised to love you?"

"You would not. You would keep your promise. I should trust you with my life."

"Ah, then, you have your answer! You expect me to keep my promises to you, but to no one else. Is that the honourable thing? Now, listen to me, Mr. Franklin. I shall keep my promise as a Beauchamp should—as a Beauchamp shall. I have told you long ago what that promise was. I promised to love, to marry him—Mr. Henry Fairfax—years ago. I promised never to love any one else so long as I lived. He—he's keeping his promise now—back there—in old Virginia, now. How would I be keeping mine—how am I keeping mine, now, even listening to you so long? Take me back; take me home. I'm going to—going to keep my promise, sir! I'm going to keep it!"

Franklin's heart stood cold. "You're going to keep your promise," he said slowly and coldly. "You're going to keep a girl's promise, from which death released you years ago—released you honourably. You were too young then to know what you were doing—-you didn't know what love could mean—yet you are released from that promise. And now, for the sake of a mere sentiment, you are going to ruin my life for me, and you're going to ruin your own life, throw it away, all alone out here, with nothing about you such as you ought to have. And you call that honour?"

"Well, then, call it choice!" said Mary Ellen, with what she took to be a noble lie upon her lips. "It is ended!"

Franklin sat cold and dumb at this, all the world seeming to him to have gone quite blank. He could not at first grasp this sentence in its full effect, it meant so much to him. He shivered, and a sigh broke from him as from one hurt deep and knowing that his hurt is fatal. Yet, after his fashion, he fought mute, struggling for some time before he dared trust his voice or his emotions.

"Very well," he said. "I'll not crawl—not for any woman on earth! It's over. I'm sorry. Dear little woman, I wanted to be your friend. I wanted to take care of you. I wanted to love you and to see if I couldn't make a future for us both."

"My future is done. Leave me. Find some one else to love."

"Thank you. You do indeed value me very high!" he replied, setting his jaws hard together.

"They tell me men love the nearest woman always. I was the only one—"

"Yes, you were the only one," said Franklin slowly, "and you always will be the only one. Good-bye."

It seemed to him he heard a breath, a whisper, a soft word that said "good-bye." It had a tenderness that set a lump in his throat, but it was followed almost at once with a calmer commonplace.

"We must go back," said Mary Ellen. "It is growing dark."

Franklin wheeled the team sharply about toward the house, which was indeed becoming indistinct in the falling twilight. As the vehicle turned about, the crunching of the wheels started a great gray prairie owl, which rose almost beneath the horses' noses and flapped slowly off. The apparition set the wild black horse into a sudden simulation of terror, as though he had never before seen an owl upon the prairies. Rearing and plunging, he tore loose the hook of one of the single-trees, and in a flash stood half free, at right angles now to the vehicle instead of at its front, and struggling to break loose from the neck-yoke. At the moment they were crossing just along the head of one of the coulees, and the struggles of the horse, which was upon the side next to the gully, rapidly dragged his mate down also. In a flash Franklin saw that he could not get the team back upon the rim, and knew that he was confronted with an ugly accident. He chose the only possible course, but handled the situation in the best possible way. With a sharp cut of the whip he drove the attached horse down upon the one that was half free, and started the two off at a wild race down the steep coulee, into what seemed sheer blackness and immediate disaster. The light vehicle bounded up and down and from side to side as the wheels caught the successive inequalities of the rude descent, and at every instant it seemed it must surely be overthrown. Yet the weight of the buggy thrust the pole so strongly forward that it straightened out the free horse by the neck and forced him onward. In some way, stumbling and bounding and lurching, both horses and vehicle kept upright all the way down the steep descent, a thing which to Franklin later seemed fairly miraculous. At the very foot of the pitch the black horse fell, the buggy running full upon him as he lay lashing out. From this confusion, in some way never quite plain to himself, Franklin caught the girl out in his arms, and the next moment was at the head of the struggling horses. And so good had been his training at such matters that it was not without method that he proceeded to quiet the team and to set again in partial order the wreck that had been created in the gear. The end of the damaged singletree he re-enforced with his handkerchief. In time he had the team again in harness, and at the bottom of the coulee, where the ground sloped easily down into the open valley, whence they might emerge at the lower level of the prairie round about. He led the team for a distance down this floor of the coulee, until he could see the better going in the improving light which greeted them as they came out from the gully-like defile. Cursing his ill fortune, and wretched at the thought of the danger and discomfort he had brought upon the very one whom he would most gladly have shielded, Franklin said not a word from the beginning of the mad dash down the coulee until he got the horses again into harness. He did not like to admit to his companion how great had been the actual danger just incurred, though fortunately escaped. The girl was as silent as himself. She had not uttered a cry during the time of greatest risk, though once she laid a hand upon his arm. Franklin was humiliated and ashamed, as a man always is over an accident.

"Oh, it's no good saying I'm sorry," he broke out at last. "It was my fault, letting you ride behind that brute. Thank God, you're not hurt! And I'm only too glad it wasn't worse. I'm always doing some unfortunate, ignoble thing. I want to take care of you and make you happy, and I would begin by putting your very life in danger."

"It wasn't ignoble," said the girl, and again he felt her hand upon his arm. "It was grand. You went straight, and you brought us through. I'm not hurt. I was frightened, but I am not hurt."

"You've pluck," said Franklin. Then, scorning to urge anything further of his suit at this time of her disadvantage, though feeling a strange new sense of nearness to her, now that they had seen this distress in common, he drove home rapidly as he might through the gathering dusk, anxious now only for her comfort. At the house he lifted her from the buggy, and as he did so kissed her cheek. "Dear little woman," he whispered, "good-bye." Again he doubted whether he had heard or not the soft whisper of a faint "Good-bye!"

"But you must come in," she said.

"No, I must go. Make my excuses," he said. "Good-bye!" The horses sprang sharply forward. He was gone.

The roll of the wheels and the rhythmic hoof-beats rapidly lessened to the ear as Franklin drove on into the blackening night. In her own little room Mary Ellen sat, her face where it might have been seen in profile had there been a light or had the distant driver looked round to see. Mary Ellen listened—listened until she could hear hoof and wheel no more. Then she cast herself upon the bed, face downward, and lay motionless and silent. Upon the little dresser lay a faded photograph, fallen forward also upon its face, lying unnoticed and apparently forgot.



CHAPTER XXV

BILL WATSON

The sheriff of Ellisville sat in his office oiling the machinery of the law; which is to say, cleaning his revolver. There was not yet any courthouse. The sheriff was the law. Twelve new mounds on the hillside back of the Cottage Hotel showed how faithfully he had executed his duties as judge and jury since he had taken up his office at the beginning of the "cow boom" of Ellisville. His right hand had found somewhat to do, and he had done it with his might.

Ellisville was near the zenith of its bad eminence. The entire country had gone broad-horn. Money being free, whisky was not less so. The bar of the Cottage was lined perpetually. Wild men from the range rode their horses up the steps and into the bar-room, demanding to be served as they sat in the saddle, as gentlemen should. Glass was too tempting to the six-shooters of these enthusiasts, and the barkeeper begged the question by stowing away the fragments of his mirror and keeping most of his bottles out of sight. More than once he was asked to hold up a bottle of whisky so that some cow-puncher might prove his skill by shooting the neck off from the flask. The bartender was taciturn and at times glum, but his face was the only one at the bar that showed any irritation or sadness. This railroad town was a bright, new thing for the horsemen of the trail—a very joyous thing. No funeral could check their hilarity; no whisky could daunt their throats, long seared with alkali.

It was notorious that after the civil war human life was held very cheap all over America, it having been seen how small a thing is a man, how little missed may be a million men taken bodily from the population. Nowhere was life cheaper than on the frontier, and at no place on that frontier of less value than at this wicked little city. Theft was unknown, nor was murder recognised by that name, always being referred to as a "killing." Of these "killings" there were very many.

The sheriff of Ellisville looked thoughtful as he tested the machinery of the law. He had a warrant for a new bad man who had come up from the Indian nations, and who had celebrated his first day in town by shooting two men who declined to get off the sidewalk, so that he could ride his horse more comfortably there. The sheriff left the warrant on the table, as was his custom, this paper being usually submitted with the corpse at the inquest. The sheriff hummed a tune as he cleaned his revolver. He was the law.

Bill Watson, the sheriff of Ellisville, was a heavily built man, sandy-haired, red-mustached, and solid. His legs were bowed and his carriage awkward. He had thick, clumsy-looking fingers, whose appearance belied their deftness. Bill Watson had gone through the Quantrell raid in his time. It was nothing to him when he was to be killed. Such a man is careful in his shooting, because he is careless of being shot, having therefore a vast advantage over the desperado of two or three victims, who does not yet accept the fact that his own days are numbered. The only trouble in regard to this new bad man from below was that his mental attitude on this point was much the same as that of Sheriff Bill Watson. Therefore the sheriff was extremely careful about the oiling of the cylinder.

The great cattle drive was at its height. Buyers from the territorial ranges of the North and Northwest, now just beginning to open up, bid in market against the men from the markets of the East. Prices advanced rapidly. Men carried thousands of dollars in the pockets of their greasy "chaps." Silver was no longer counted. There were hardware stores which sold guns and harness-shops which sold saddles. There were twoscore saloons which held overflow meetings, accommodating those whom the Cottage bar would not hold. There were three barber-shops, to which went only the very weary. The corral of the Cottage, where the drovers stopped, was large enough to hold two hundred horses, with comfortable space for roping, and the snubbing post was grooved with the wear of many ropes. The central street needed no paving, for it was worn hard as flint. Long rows of cattle chutes lined the railroad yards, whence came continuous din of bellowing, crowding, maddened cattle, handled with ease and a certain exultation by men who had studied nothing but this thing. Horsemen clattered up and down the street day and night—riding, whether drunk or sober, with the incomparable confidence of the greatest horse country the world has ever known. Everywhere was the bustle of a unique commerce, mingled with a colossal joy of life. The smokes from the dugouts and shacks now began to grow still more numerous in the region round about, but there were not many homes, because there were not many women. For this reason men always kill each other very much more gladly and regularly than they do in countries where there are many women, it appearing to them, perhaps, that in a womanless country life is not worth the living. A few "hay ranches," a few fields even of "sod corn," now began to show here and there, index of a time to come, but for the most part this was yet a land of one sex and one occupation. The cattle trade monopolized the scene. The heaps of buffalo bones were now neglected. The long-horned cattle of the white men were coming in to take the place of the curved-horned cattle of the Indians. The curtain of the cattle drama of the West was now rung up full.

The sheriff finished the cleaning of his six-shooter and tossed the oiled rag into the drawer of the table where he kept the warrants. He slipped the heavy weapon into the scabbard at his right leg and saw that the string held the scabbard firmly to his trouser-leg, so that he might draw the gun smoothly and without hindrance from its sheath. He knew that the new bad man wore two guns, each adjusted in a similar manner; but it was always Bill Watson's contention (while he was alive) that a man with one gun was as good as a man with two. Sheriff Watson made no claim to being a two-handed shot. He was a simple, unpretentious man; not a heroic figure as he stood, his weight resting on the sides of his feet, looking out of the window down the long and wind-swept street of Ellisville.

Gradually the gaze of the sheriff focused, becoming occupied with the figure of a horseman whose steady riding seemed to have a purpose other than that of merely showing his joy in living and riding. This rider passed other riders without pausing. He came up the street at a gallop until opposite the office door, where he jerked up his horse sharply and sprang from the saddle. As he came into the room he pulled off his hat and mopped his face as far as he could reach with the corner of his neckerchief.

"Mornin', Bill," he said.

"Mornin', Curly," said the sheriff pleasantly. "Lookin' for a doctor? You're ridin' perty fast."

"Nope," said Curly. "Reckon it's a shade too late fer a doctor."

The sheriff was gravely silent. After a while he said, quietly:"

"Any trouble?"

"Yep. Plenty."

"Who?"

"Why, it's Cal Greathouse. You know Cal. This is his second drive. His cows is down on the Rattlesnake bottoms now. He was camped there two weeks, not fur from my place. Last week he goes off west a ways, a-lookin' fer some winter range that won't be so crowded. He goes alone. Now, to-day his horse comes back, draggin' his lariat. We 'lowed we better come tell you. O' course, they ain't no horse gettin' away f'm Cal Greathouse, not if he's alive."

The sheriff was silent for some time, looking at his visitor straight with his oxlike eyes. "Did Cal have much money with him?" he asked, finally.

"Not so awful much, near's the boys can tell. Mebbe a few hundred, fer spendin' money, like."

"Had he had any furse with ary feller down in there lately?"

"Nope, not that any one knows of. He just done went off over the range, an' fanned out, seems like, without no special reason."

The sheriff again fell into thought, slowly chewing at a splinter. "I'll tell you," he said at length, slowly, "I kain't very well git away right now. You go over an' git Cap Franklin. He's a good man. Pick up somebody else you want to go along with you, an' then you start out on Cal's trail, near as you can git at it. You better take along that d——d Greaser o' yourn, that big Juan, fer he kin run trail like a houn'. You stop at all the outfits you come to, fer say fifty miles. Don't do nothin' more'n ask, an' then go on. If you come to a outfit that hain't seen him, an' then another outfit furder on that has seen him, you remember the one that hain't. If you don't git no track in fifty mile, swing around to the southeast, an' cut the main drive trail an' see if you hear of anything that-away. If you don't git no trace by that, you better come on back in an' tell me, an' then we'll see what to do about it furder."

"All right, Bill," said Curly, rising and taking a chew of tobacco, in which the sheriff joined him. "All right. You got any papers fer us to take along?"

"Papers?" said the sheriff contemptuously. "Papers? Hell!"



CHAPTER XXVI

IKE ANDERSON

Ike Anderson was drunk—calmly, magnificently, satisfactorily drunk. It had taken time, but it was a fact accomplished. The actual state of affairs was best known to Ike Anderson himself, and not obvious to the passer-by. Ike Andersen's gaze might have been hard, but it was direct. His walk was perfectly decorous and straight, his brain perfectly clear, his hand perfectly steady. Only, somewhere deep down in his mind there burned some little, still, blue flame of devilishness, which left Ike Anderson not a human being, but a skilful, logical, and murderous animal.

"This," said Ike Anderson to himself all the time, "this is little Ike Anderson, a little boy, playing. I can see the green fields, the pleasant meadows, the little brook that crossed them. I remember my mother gave me bread and milk for my supper, always. My sister washed my bare feet, when I was a little, little boy." He paused and leaned one hand against a porch post, thinking. "A little, little boy," he repeated to himself.

"No, it isn't," he thought. "It's Ike Anderson, growing up. He's playing tag. The boy tripped him and laughed at him, and Ike Anderson got out his knife." He cast a red eye about him.

"No, it isn't," he thought. "It's Ike Anderson, with the people chasing him. And the shotgun. Ike's growing up faster, growing right along. They all want him, but they don't get him. One, two, three, five, nine, eight, seven—I could count them all once. Ike Anderson. No mother. No sweetheart. No home. Moving, moving. But they never scared him yet—Ike Anderson. . . . I never took any cattle!"

An impulse to walk seized him, and he did so, quietly, steadily, until he met a stranger, a man whose clothing bespoke his residence in another region.

"Good morning, gentle sir," said Ike.

"Good morning, friend," said the other, smiling.

"Gentle sir," said Ike, "just lemme look at your watch a minute, won't you, please?"

Laughingly the stranger complied, suspecting only that his odd accoster might have tarried too long over his cups. Ike took the watch in his hand, looked at it gravely for a moment, then gave it a jerk that broke the chain, and dropped it into his own pocket.

"I like it," said he simply, and passed on. The stranger followed, about to use violence, but caught sight of a white-faced man, who through a window vehemently beckoned him to pause.

Ike Anderson stepped into a saloon and took a straw from a glass standing on the bar, exercising an exact and critical taste in its selection. "I'm very thirsty," he remarked plaintively. Saying which, he shot a hole in a barrel of whisky, inserted the straw, and drank lingeringly.

"Thank you," he said softly, and shot the glass of straws off the counter. "Thank you. Not after me." The whisky ran out over the floor, out of the door, over the path and into the road, but no one raised a voice in rebuke.

The blue flame burned a trifle higher in Ike Anderson's brain. He was growing very much intoxicated, and therefore very quiet and very sober-looking. He did not yell and flourish his revolvers, but walked along decently, engaged in thought. He was a sandy-complexioned man, not over five feet six inches in height. His long front teeth projected very much, giving him a strange look. His chin was not heavy and square, but pointed, and his jaws were narrow. His eye was said by some to have been hazel when he was sober, though others said it was blue, or gray. No one had ever looked into it carefully enough to tell its colour when Ike Anderson was drunk, as he was to-day.

Ike Anderson passed by the front of the Cottage Hotel. A negro boy, who worked about the place, was sweeping idly at the porch door, shuffling lazily about at his employment. Ike paused and looked amiably at him for some moments.

"Good morning, coloured scion," he said pleasantly.

"Mawnin', boss," said the negro, grinning widely.

"Coloured scion," said Ike, "hereafter—to oblige me—would you mind whoopin' it up with yore broom a leetle faster?"

The negro scowled and muttered, and the next moment sprang sprawling forward with a scream. Ike had shot off the heel of his shoe, in the process not sparing all of the foot. The negro went ashy pale, and believed himself mortally hurt, but was restored by the icy tones of his visitor, who said, evenly and calmly:

"Coloured scion, please go over into that far corner and begin to sweep there, and then come on over the rest of the flo'. Now, sweep!"

The negro swept as he had never swept before. Twice a bullet cut the floor at his feet; and at last the stick of the broom was shattered in his hand. "Coloured scion," said Ike Anderson, as though in surprise, "yore broom is damaged. Kneel down and pray for another." The negro knelt and surely prayed.

On all sides swept the wide and empty streets. It was Ike Anderson's town. A red film seemed to his gaze to come over the face of things. He slipped his revolver back into the scabbard and paused again to think. A quiet footstep sounded on the walk behind him, and he wheeled, still puzzled with the red film and the mental problem.

The sheriff stood quietly facing him, with his thumbs resting lightly in his belt. He had not drawn his own revolver. He was chewing a splinter. "Ike," said he, "throw up your hands!"

The nerves of some men act more quickly than those of others, and such men make the most dangerous pistol shots, when they have good digestion and long practice at the rapid drawing of the revolver, an art at that time much cultivated. Ike Anderson's mind and nerves and muscles were always lightning-like in the instantaneous rapidity of their action. The eye could scarce have followed the movement by which the revolver leaped to a level from his right-hand scabbard. He had forgotten, in his moment of study, that with this six-shooter he had fired once at the whisky barrel, once at the glass of straws, once at the negro's heel, twice at the floor, and once at the broomstick. The click on the empty shell was heard clearly at the hotel bar, distinctly ahead of the double report that followed. For, such was the sharpness of this man's mental and muscular action, he had dropped the empty revolver from his right hand and drawn the other with his left hand in time to meet the fire of the sheriff.

The left arm of the sheriff dropped. The whole body of Ike Anderson, shot low through the trunk, as was the sheriff's invariable custom, melted down and sank into a sitting posture, leaning against the edge of the stoop. The sheriff with a leap sprang behind the fallen man, not firing again. Ike Anderson, with a black film now come upon his eyes, raised his revolver and fired once, twice, three times, four times, five times, tapping the space in front of him regularly and carefully with his fire. Then he sank back wearily into the sheriff's arms.

"All right, mammy!" remarked Ike Anderson, somewhat irrelevantly.



CHAPTER XXVII

THE BODY OF THE CRIME

Hour after hour, in the heat of the day or the cool of the evening, the giant Mexican strode on by the side of the two horsemen, sometimes trotting like a dog, more often walking with a shambling, wide-reaching step, tireless as any wild animal. His feet, seamed and parched into the semblance rather of horn than of flesh and bone, were quite bare, though now it was a time of year when the nights at least were very cool and when freezing weather might come at any time. He was clad lightly as ever, in torn cotton garb, and carried no bedding save a narrow strip of native woollen fabric, woven of undyed wool and so loose of texture that one might thrust a finger through at any point of its scant extent. He bore no weapon save the huge knife swinging at his belt. Fastened to the same girdle was a hide bag or pouch, half full of parched corn, rudely pounded. Expressionless, mute, untiring, the colossal figure strode along, like some primordial creature in whom a human soul had not yet found home. Yet, with an intelligence and confidence which was more than human, he ran without hesitation the trail of the unshod horse across this wide, hard plain, where even the eye of the cowboy could rarely discern it. Now and then the print of the hoof might show in the soft earth of some prairie-dog burrow; then perhaps for an hour Juan would walk on, his eye fixed apparently upon some far-off point of the horizon as upon the ground, until finally they would note the same hoof-print again and know again that the instinct of the wild guide had not failed.

The Mexican was running the back trail of the horse of Cal Greathouse, the missing ranchman, and it was very early seen that the horse had not returned over the route taken by Greathouse when he started out. He had gone along the valley of the Smoky River, whereas the course of the loose animal had been along the chord of a wide arc made by the valley of that stream, a course much shorter and easier to traverse, as it evaded a part of that rough country known as the breaks of the Smoky, a series of gullies and "draws" running from the table-land down to the deep little river bed. All along the stream, at ragged intervals, grew scattered clumps of cottonwoods and other trees, so that at a long distance the winding course of the little river could be traced with ease. The afternoon of the first day brought the travellers well within, view of this timber line, but the rough country along the stream was not yet reached when they were forced to quit the trail and make their rough bivouac for the night.

There was a curious feeling of certainty in Franklin's mind, as they again took saddle for the journey, that the end of the quest was not far distant, and that its nature was predetermined. Neither he nor Curly expected to find the ranchman alive, though neither could have given letter and line for this belief. As for Juan, his face was expressionless as ever. On the morning of this second day they began to cross the great ribbon-like pathways of the northern cattle trail, these now and then blending with the paths of the vanished buffalo. The interweaving paths of the cattle trail were flat and dusty, whereas the buffalo trails were cut deep into the hard earth. Already the dust was swept and washed out of these old and unused ways, leaving them as they were to stand for many years afterward, deep furrows marking the accustomed journeyings of a now annihilated race.

All the wild animals of the plains know how to find their way to water, and the deep buffalo paths all met and headed for the water that lay ahead, and which was to be approached by the easiest possible descent from the table-land through the breaks. Along one of these old trails the horse had come up from the valley, and hence it was down this same trail that Juan eventually led the two searchers for the horse's owner. The ponies plunged down the rude path which wound among the ridges and cut banks, and at last emerged upon the flat, narrow valley traversed by the turbid stream, in that land dignified by the name of river. Down to the water the thirsty horses broke eagerly, Juan following, and lying at full length along the bank, where he lapped at the water like a hound.

"Que camina—onde, amigo?" asked Curly in cowboy patois. "Which way?"

The Mexican pointed up the stream with carelessness, and they turned thither as soon as the thirst of all had been appeased. As they resumed the march, now along the level floor of the winding little valley. Franklin was revolving a certain impression in his mind. In the mud at the bank where they had stopped he had seen the imprint of a naked foot—a foot very large and with an upturned toe, widely spreading apart from its fellows, and it seemed to him that this track was not so fresh as the ones he had just seen made before his eyes. Troubled, he said nothing, but gave a start as Curly, without introduction, remarked, as though reading his thoughts:

"Cap, I seen it, too."

"His footprint at the bank?"

"Yep. He's shore been here afore."

Neither man said more, but both grew grave, and both looked unconsciously to their weapons. Their way now led among ragged plum thickets, and occasional tangles of wild grapevines, or such smaller growths as clung close to the water among the larger, ragged cottonwoods that dotted the floor of the valley. The Mexican plunged ahead as confidently as before, and in this tangled going his speed was greater than that of the horses. "Cuidado!" (careful) "Juan," cried Curly warningly, and the latter turned back a face inscrutable as ever.

The party moved up the valley a mile above the old buffalo ford, and now at last there appeared a change in the deportment of the guide. His step quickened. He prattled vaguely to himself. It seemed that something was near. There was a solemnity in the air. Overhead an excited crow crossed and recrossed the thin strip of high blue sky. Above the crow a buzzard swung in slow, repeated circles, though not joined by any of its sombre brotherhood. Mystery, expectation, dread, sat upon this scene. The two men rode with hands upon their pistols and leaning forward to see that which they felt must now be near.

They turned an angle of the valley, and came out upon a little flat among the trees. Toward this open space the Mexican sprang with hoarse, excited cries. The horses plunged back, snorting. Yet in the little glade all Was silence, solitude. Swiftly Franklin and Curly dismounted and made fast their horses, and then followed up the Mexican, their weapons now both drawn.

This glade, now empty, had once held a man, or men. Here was a trodden place where a horse had been tied to a tree. Here was the broken end of a lariat. Here had been a little bivouac, a bed scraped up of the scanty fallen leaves and bunches of taller grass. Here were broken bushes—broken, how? There was the fire, now sunken into a heap of ashes, a long, large, white heap, very large for a cowman's camp fire. And there—

And there was it! There was some Thing. There was the reason of this unspoken warning in the air. There lay the object of their search. In a flash the revolvers covered the cowering figure of the giant, who, prone upon his knees, was now raving, gibbering, praying, calling upon long-forgotten saints to save him from this sight, "O Santa Maria! O Purissima! O Madre de Dios!" he moaned, wringing his hands and shivering as though stricken with an ague. He writhed among the leaves, his eyes fixed only upon that ghastly shape which lay before him.

There, in the ashes of the dead fire, as though embalmed, as though alive, as though lingering to accuse and to convict, lay the body of Greathouse, the missing man. Not merely a charred, incinerated mass, the figure lay in the full appearance of life, a cast of the actual man, moulded with fineness from the white ashes of the fire! Not a feature, not a limb, not a fragment of clothing was left undestroyed; yet none the less here, stretched across the bed of the burned-out fire, with face upturned, with one arm doubled beneath the head and the other with clinched hand outflung, lay the image, the counterpart, nay, the identity of the man they sought! It was a death mask, wrought by the pity of the destroying flames. These winds, this sky, the air, the rain, all had spared and left it here in accusation most terrible, in evidence unparalleled, incredibly yet irresistibly true!

Franklin felt his heart stop as he looked upon this sight, and Curly's face grew pale beneath its tan. They gazed for a moment quietly, then Curly sighed and stepped back. "Keep him covered, Cap," he said, and, going to his horse, he loosened the long lariat.

"Arriba, Juan," he said quietly. "Get up." He kicked at the Mexican with his foot as he lay, and stirred him into action. "Get up, Juan," he repeated, and the giant obeyed meekly as a child. Curly tied his hands behind his back, took away his knife, and bound him fast to a tree. Juan offered no resistance whatever, but looked at Curly with wondering dumb protest in his eyes, as of an animal unjustly punished. Curly turned again to the fire.

"It's him, all right," said he; "that's Cal." Franklin nodded.

Curly picked up a bit of stick and began to stir among the ashes, but as he did so both he and Franklin uttered an exclamation of surprise. By accident he had touched one of the limbs. The stick passed through it, leaving behind but a crumbled, formless heap of ashes. Curly essayed investigation upon the other side of the fire. A touch, and the whole ghastly figure was gone! There remained no trace of what had lain there. The shallow, incrusting shell of the fickle ash broke in and fell, all the thin exterior covering dropping into the cavern which it had inclosed! Before them lay not charred and dismembered remains, but simply a flat table of ashes, midway along it a slightly higher ridge, at which the wind, hitherto not conspiring, now toyed, flicking away items here and there, carrying them, spreading them, returning them unto the dust. Cal Greathouse had made his charge, and left it with the Frontier to cast the reckoning.



CHAPTER XXVIII

THE TRIAL

"Your Honour," said Franklin to the Court, "I appear to defend this man."

The opening sentence of the young advocate might have been uttered in burlesque. To call this a court of justice might have seemed sheer libel. There was not the first suggestion of the dignity and solemnity of the law.

Ellisville had no hall of justice, and the court sat at one place or another, as convenience dictated. This being an important case, and one in which all the populace was interested, Judge Bristol had selected the largest available assembly room, which happened to be the central hall of Sam Poston's livery barn. The judge sat behind a large upturned box, which supported a few battered books. At his right the red-nosed prosecuting attorney shuffled his papers. Along the sides of the open hall-way, through whose open doors at each end the wind passed freely, sat jury and audience, indiscriminately mingled. The prisoner himself, ignorant of the meaning of all this, sat on an upturned tub, unshackled and unguarded. Back of these figures appeared the heads of a double row of horses. The stamp of an uneasy hoof, the steady crunch of jaws upon the hay, with now and then a moist blowing cough from a stall, made up a minor train of intermittent sound. Back of the seated men others were massed, standing in the doorways. Outside the building stood crowds, now and then increased or lessened by those who passed in or out of the room where the court was in session. These interested spectators were for the most part dark, sunburned men, wearing wide hats and narrow boots with spurs. They all were armed. Leaning against the sides of the mangers, or resting a hand upon the shoulders of another, they gazed calmly at the bar of justice. The attitude of Ellisville was one of sardonic calm. As a function, as a show, this trial might go on.

The trial did go on, rapidly, without quibbling, indeed without much regard for the formalities of the law. The jury had been selected before Franklin made his appearance, and he was given to understand that this jury was good enough for him, and was the one before which this prisoner should be tried. A formal motion for the discharge of the prisoner was overruled. Without much delay the prosecuting attorney arose to present his charge.

"Yo' Honah," said the attorney for the State, arising and striking an attitude learned in earlier forensic days—"yo Honah, an' gentlemen, I rise to present to you, an' to push to the ultimate penalty of the law, a case of the most serious, the most heinyus crime, committed by the most desperate and dangerous criminal, that has thus far ever disturbed the peaceful course of ouah quiet little community. There he sets befo' you," he cried, suddenly raising his voice and pointing a forefinger at the prisoner, who sat smiling amiably. "There he sets, the hardened and self-confessed criminal, guilty of the foulest crime upon the calendar of ouah law. A murderer, gentlemen, a murderer with red hands an' with the brand of Cain upon his brow! This man, this fiend, killed ouah fellow-citizen Calvin Greathouse—he brutally murdered him. Not content with murder, he attempted to destroy his body with fiah, seekin' thus to wipe out the record of his crime. But the fiah itself would not destroy the remains of that prince of men, ouah missin' friend an' brother! His corpse cried out, accusin' this guilty man, an' then an' there this hardened wretch fell abjeckly onto his knees an' called on all his heathen saints to save him, to smite him blind, that he might no mo' see, sleepin' or wakin', the image of that murdered man—that murdered man, ouah friend an' brother, ouah citizen an' friend."

The orator knew his audience. He knew the real jury. The shuffling and whispers were his confirmation.

"Yo' Honah," began the accusing voice again, "I see him now. I see this prisoner, this murderer, the central figger of that wild an' awful scene. He falls upon his knees, he wrings his hands, he supplicates high Heaven—that infinite Powah which gave life to each of us as the one most precious gift—he beseeches Providence to breathe back again into that cold clay the divine spark of which his red hand had robbed it. Useless, useless! The dead can not arise. The murdered man can remain to accuse, but he can not arise again in life, He can not again hear the songs of birds. He can not again hear the prattle of his babes. He can not again take a friend by the hand. He can not come to life. The heavens do not open fo' that benef'cent end!

"But, yo' Honah, the heavens will open! They will send down a bolt o' justice. Nay, they would send down upon ouah heads a forked messenger o' wrath it we should fail to administer justice, fail to do that juty intrusted into ouah hands! There sets the man! There he is befo' you! His guilt has been admitted. Answer me, gentlemen, what is ouah juty in this case? Shall we set this incarnate fiend free in the lan' again—shall we let him come clear o' this charge—shall we turn him loose again in ouah midst to murder some other of ouah citizens? Shall we set this man free?" His voice had sunk into a whisper as he spoke the last words, leaning forward and looking into the faces of the jury. Suddenly he straightened up, his clinched hand shaken high above his head.

"No!" he cried. "No! I say to you, ten thousand times no! We are a people quiet an' law-abidin'. We have set ouah hands to the conquest o' this lan'. We have driven out the savages, an' we have erected heah the vine an' fig tree of a new community. We have brought hither ouah flocks an' herds. We shall not allow crime, red-handed an' on-rebuked, to stalk through the quiet streets of ouah law-abidin', moral town! This man shall not go free! Justice, yo' Honah, justice, gentlemen, is what this community asks. An' justice is what it is a-goin' to have. Yo' Honah, an' gentlemen, I yiel' to the statement o' the defence."

Franklin rose and looked calmly about him while the buzzing of comment and the outspoken exclamations of applause yet greeted the speech of the prosecutor. He knew that Curly's thoughtless earlier description of the scene of the arrest would in advance be held as much evidence in the trial as any sworn testimony given in the court. Still, the sentiment of pity was strong in his heart. He resolved to use all he knew of the cunning of the law to save this half-witted savage. He determined to defeat, if possible, the ends of a technical justice, in order to secure a higher and a broader justice, the charity of a divine mercy. As the lawyer, the agent of organized society, he purposed to invoke the law in order to defeat the law in this, the first trial, for this, the first hostage ever given to civilization on the old cattle range. He prayed to see triumph an actual justice and not the old blind spirit of revenge. He realized fully how much was there to overcome as he gazed upon the set faces of the real jury, the crowd of grim spectators. Yet in his soul there sprang so clear a conviction of his duty that he felt all fogs clear away, leaving his intelligence calm, clear, dispassionate, with full understanding of the best means to obtain his end. He knew that argument is the best answer to oratory.

"Your Honour, and gentlemen of the jury," he began, "in defending this man I stand for the law. The representative of the State invokes the law.

"What is that law? Is it violence for violence, hatred for unreasoning hate? Is that the law? Or is the love of justice, the love of fair play, at the heart of the law? What do you say? Is it not right for any man to have a fair chance?

"I yield to no man in my desire to see a better day of law and order in this town. We are two years old in time, but a century old in violence. Is it merely your wish that we add one more grave to the long rows on our hillsides? Is that your wish? Do you want a trial, or do you wish merely an execution? Gentlemen, I tell you this is the most important day in the history of this town. Let us here make our stand for the law. The old ways will no longer serve. We are at the turning of the road. Let us follow the law.

"Now, under the law you must, in order to prove the crime of murder, be able to show the body of the victim; you must show that murder has really been done. You must show a motive, a reason. You must show, or be prepared to show, when required, a mental responsibility on the part of the accused. All these things you must show by the best possible testimony, not by what you think, or what you have heard, but by direct testimony, produced here in this court. You can't ask the accused man to testify against himself. You can't ask me, his counsel, to testify against him. Hence there is left but one witness who can testify directly in this case. There is not one item of remains, not one bone, one rag, one shred of clothing, not one iota of evidence introduced before this honourable court to show that the body of Calvin Greathouse was ever identified or found. There is no corpus delicti. How shall you say that this missing man has been murdered? Think this thing over. Remember, if you hang this man, you can never bring him back to life.

"There must be some motive shown for the supposition of such an act as murder. What motive can be shown here? Certainly not that of robbery. The horse of the missing man came back alone, its lariat dragging, as we shall prove. It had not been ridden since the lariat was broken. You all know, as we shall prove, that this man Juan was never known to ride a horse. We shall prove that he walked sixty miles, to the very spot where the horse had been tied, and that he scorned to touch a horse on his whole journey. He wanted no horse. He stole no horse. That was no motive. There has been no motive shown. Would a criminal lead the officers of the law to the very spot where he had committed his crime? Had this been theft, or murder, would this man have taken any one directly and unhesitatingly to that spot? I ask you this.

"To be subject to the law, as you very well know, a man must be morally responsible. He must know right and wrong. Even the savage Indians admit this principle of justice. They say that the man of unsound mind is touched by the hand of the Great Spirit. Shall we be less merciful than they? Look at this smiling giant before you. He has been touched by the hand of the Almighty. God has punished him enough.

"I shall show to you that when this man was a child he was struck a severe blow upon the head, and that since that time he has never been of sound mind, his brain never recovering from that shock, a blow which actually broke in a portion of his skull. Since that time he has had recurrent times of violent insanity, with alternating spells of what seems a semi-idiocy. This man's mind never grew. In some ways his animal senses are keen to a remarkable degree, but of reason he has little or none. He can not tell you why he does a thing, or what will happen provided that he does thus or so. This I shall prove to you.

"I therefore submit to you, your Honour, and to you, gentlemen of the jury, two distinct lines of defence which do not conflict, and which are therefore valid under the law. We deny that any murder has been committed, that any motive for murder has been shown, that any body of the crime has been produced. And alternatively we submit that the prisoner at the bar is a man of unsound mind and known to be such, not responsible for his acts, and not in any wise amenable to the capital features of the law. I ask you, gentlemen of the jury, you who hold this man's life in your hands, are you going to hang a man for murder when it is not shown a murder has been done? And would you hang a man who is more ignorant than a child of right and wrong? Is that fair play? Gentlemen, we are all here together, and one of us is as good as another. Our ambitions are the same. We stand here together for the best interests of this growing country—this country whose first word has always been fair play. Now, is it your already formed wish to punish this man? I say, no. I say, first give him his chance."

As Franklin ceased and seated himself the silence was again broken by a rising buzz of conversation. This was proving really a very interesting show, this trial. It must go on yet a little further.

"By jinks," said one cow-puncher, "that's right. That fellow Juan is loco, an' you all done knowed that, always."

"He ain't so d——n loco but what he could kill a man, all right," said another,

"Sure. Cal Greathouse was worth sever'l o' this Greaser," remarked another.

"I don't see how you c'n hang him legal," said a judicial voice.

"To h——l with this new-fangled law," growled a rough answer from near the door. "Are we dependin' on this here new way o' takin' care of fellers that kills too many folks? If the Greaser done it, he's guilty, an' that settles it. Hangin's too good for a feller that'll kill a man in camp, an' then try to burn him up."

"That's right!" "Sure!" "That's the talk!" were the many replies greeting this comment.

"Order, order, gentlemen!" called the judge from the bench, pounding on the box before him.

"Call William Haskins," said the prosecuting attorney, standing up, with his hands in his pockets.

"William Haskins, William Haskins, William Haskins! Come into Court!" cried out the clerk from his corner of the store box. No immediate response was made. Some one nudged Curly, who started up.

"Who—me?" he said.

"Is your name William Haskins?" asked the judge.

"Reckon so," said Curly. "My folks used to call me that. I usually go under the road brand o' Curly, though." He took his seat on a stool near the store box, was sworn, with his hat on, and the prosecuting attorney began the examination.

"What is your name?"

"Why, Curly."

"What is your occupation?"

"What?"

"How do you make your living?"

"Punchin' cows. Not that I 'low it's any o' yore d——d business."

"Where do you reside?"

"Where do I live?"

"Yes."

"Well, now, I don't know. My folks lives on the Brazos, an' I've been drivin' two years. Now I taken up a claim on the Smoky, out here. I 'low I'll go North right soon, to Wyoming maybe."

"How old are you?"

"Oh, I don't know; but I 'low about twenty-four or twenty-five, along in there."

"Where were you last Wednesday?"

"What?"

"Were you one of the posse sent out to search for Cal Greathouse?"

"Yep; me and Cap Franklin, there."

"Who else?"

"Why, Juan, there, him. He was trailin' the hoss for us."

"Where did you go?"

"About sixty miles southwest, into the breaks of the Smoky."

"What did you find?"

"We found a old camp. Hoss had been tied there, and broke its lariat. Bushes was broke some, but we didn't see no blood, as I know of."

"Never mind what you didn't see."

"Well, now—"

"Answer my question."

"Now, say, friend, you don't want to get too gay."

"Answer the question, Mr. Haskins," said the Court.

"Well, all right, judge; I'll do it to oblige you. The most we saw was where a fire had been. Looked like a right smart fire. They was plenty o' ashes layin' there."

"Did you see anything in the ashes?"

"What business is it o' yourn?"

"Now, now," said the Court, "you must answer the questions, Mr. Haskins."

"All right, judge," said Curly. "Well, I dunno hardly what we did see any mor'n what I tole all the boys when we first brought Juan in. I tole you all."

"Correct the witness, your Honour," said Franklin.

"Answer only the questions, Mr. Haskins," said the Judge.

"Very well," said the prosecutor; "what did you see? Anything like a man's figure?"

"We object!" said Franklin, but Curly answered: "Well, yes, it did look like a feller a-layin' there. But when we touched it—"

"Never mind. Did the prisoner see this figure?"

"Shore."

"What did he do?"

"Well, he acted plumb loco. He gets down an' hollers. 'Madre de Dios!' he hollers. I 'low he wuz plenty scared."

"Did he look scared?"

"I object," cried Franklin.

"S'tained," said the judge.

"'Ception," said the prosecuting attorney.

"Well, what did the prisoner say or do?"

"Why, he crawls aroun' an' hollers. So we roped him, then. But say—"

"Never mind."

"Well, I was—"

"Never mind. Did you—"

"Shore! I foun' the end o' the lariat tied to a tree."

"But did you—"

"Yes, I tole you! I foun' it tied. End just fits the broke end o' the lariat onto the saddle, when the hoss come back. Them hide ropes ain't no good."

"Never mind—"

"If ever they onct got rotten—"

"Never mind. Was that Greathouse's rope?"

"Maybe so. Now, them hide ropes—"

"Never mind about the hide ropes. I want to know what the prisoner did."

"Well, when we roped him he didn't make no kick."

"Never mind. He saw the figure in the ashes?"

"What do you know about it?—you wasn't there."

"No, but I'm going to make you tell what was there."

"You are, huh? Well, you crack yer whip. I like to see any feller make me tell anything I don't want to tell."

"That's right, Curly," said some one back in the crowd. "No bluff goes."

"Not in a hundred!" said Curly.

"Now, now, now!" began the judge drowsily. The prosecuting attorney counselled of craftiness, at this juncture, foreseeing trouble if he insisted. "Take the witness," he said abruptly.

"Cross-'xamine, d'fence," said the judge, settling back.

"Now, Curly," said Franklin, as he took up the questioning again, "please tell us what Juan did after he saw this supposed figure in the ashes."

"Why, now, Cap, you know that just as well as I do."

"Yes, but I want you to tell these other folks about it."

"Well, of course, Juan acted plenty loco—you know that."

"Very well. Now what, if anything, did you do to this alleged body in the ashes?"

"'Bject! Not cross-examination," cried the State's attorney.

"M' answer," said the judge.

"What did I do to it?" said Curly. "Why, I poked it with a stick."

"What happened?"

"Why, it fell plumb to pieces."

"Did it disappear?"

"Shore it did. Wasn't a thing left."

"Did it look like a man's body, then?"

"No, it just looked like a pile o' ashes."

"Bore no trace or resemblance to a man, then?"

"None whatever."

"You wouldn't have taken it for a body, then?"

"Nope. Course not."

"Was any part of a body left?"

"Nary thing."

"Any boot, hat, or bit of clothing?"

"Not a single thing, fur's I c'd see."

"That's all," said Franklin.

"Re-direct, Mr. Prosecutor?" said the Court. This was Greek to the audience, but they were enjoying the entertainment.

"Pass the re-direct," said the State's attorney confidently.

"Do you wish to recall this witness, Mr. Franklin?" asked the Court.

"Yes, if your Honour please. I want to take up some facts in the earlier life of the prisoner, as bearing upon his present mental condition."

"Very well," said the judge, yawning. "You may wait a while, Mr. Haskins."

"Well, then, Curly," said Franklin, again addressing himself to his witness, "please tell us how long you have known this prisoner."

"Ever since we was kids together. He used to be a mozo on my pap's ranch, over in San Saba County."

"Did you ever know him to receive any injury, any blow about the head?"

"Well, onct ole Hank Swartzman swatted him over the head with a swingletree. Sort o' laid him out, some."

"'Bject!" cried the State's attorney, but the judge yawned "M' go on."

"Did he act strangely after receiving that blow?"

"Why, yes; I reckon you would yerself. He hit him a good lick. It was fer ridin' Hank's favourite mare, an' from that time to now Juan ain't never been on horseback since. That shows he's loco. Any man what walks is loco. Part o' the time, Juan, he's bronco, but all the time he's loco."

"He has spells of violence?"

"Shore. You know that. You seen how he fit that Injun—"

"Oh, keep him to the line," protested the prosecutor.

"We won't take up that just now, Curly," said Franklin.

"Well, this here shorely is the funniest layout I ever did see," said Curly, somewhat injured. "A feller can't say a d——d thing but only jest what you all want him to say. Now, say—"

"Yes, but—" began Franklin, fearing that he might meet trouble with this witness even as the prosecutor had, and seeing the latter smiling behind his hand in recognition of this fact.

"Now, say," insisted Curly, "if you want something they ain't none o' you said a word about yet, I'll tell you something. You see, Juan, he had a sister, and this here Cal Greathouse, he—"

"I object, yo' Honah! I object!" cried the State's attorney, springing to his feet. "This is bringin' the dignity o' the law into ridicule, sah! into ridicule! I object!"

"Er, ah-h-h!" yawned the judge, suddenly sitting up, "'Journ court, Mr. Clerk! We will set to-morrow mornin' at the same place, at nine o'clock.—Mr. Sheriff, take charge of the prisoner.—Where is the sheriff, Mr. Clerk?"

"Please the Court," said the prosecuting attorney, "Sheriff Watson is not here to-day. He is lyin' sick out to his ranch. He was injured, yo' Honah, in arrestin' Ike Anderson, and he has not yet recovered."

"Well, who is in charge of this prisoner?" said the Court. "There ought to be some one to take care of him."

"I reckon I am, Judge," said Curly. "He is sort o' stayin' with me while Bill's under the weather."

"Well, take him in charge, some one, and have him here in the morning."

"All right, judge," said Curly quietly, "I'll take care of him."

He beckoned to Juan, and the giant rose and followed after him, still smiling and pleased at what to him also was a novel show.

It was three o'clock of the afternoon. The thirst of a district Judge had adjourned the district court. Franklin's heart sank. He dreaded the night. The real court, as he admitted to himself, would continue its session that night at the Cottage bar, and perhaps it might not adjourn until a verdict had been rendered.



CHAPTER XXIX

THE VERDICT

There came over the town of Ellisville that night an ominous quiet. But few men appeared on the streets. Nobody talked, or if any one did there was one subject to which no reference was made. A hush had fallen upon all. The sky, dotted with a million blazing stars, looked icy and apart. A glory of moonlight flooded the streets, yet never was moon more cold.

Franklin finished his dinner and sat down alone for a time in the great barren office of the depot hotel where he made his home. The excitement of the trial, suspended at its height, was now followed by reaction, a despondency which it was hard to shake off. Was this, then, the land of his choice? he thought. And what, then, was this human nature of which men sung and wrote? He shook himself together with difficulty.

He went to his room and buckled on his revolver, smiling grimly as he did so at the thought of how intimately all law is related to violence, and how relative to its environment is all law. He went to Battersleigh's room and knocked, entering at the loud invitation of that friend.

"Shure, Ned, me boy," said Battersleigh, "ye've yer side arms on this evenin'. Ye give up the profission of arms with reluctance. Tell me, Ned, what's the campaign fer the evenin'?"

"Well," said Franklin, "I thought I'd step over and sit awhile with Curly this evening. He may be feeling a little lonesome."

"Quite right ye are, me boy," said Battersleigh cheerfully. "Quite right. An' if ye don't mind I'll just jine ye. It's lonesome I am meself the night."

Battersleigh busied himself about his room, and soon appeared arrayed, as was Franklin himself, with a revolver at his belt.

"Shure, Ned, me boy," he said, "an officer an' a gintleman should nivver appear abroad without his side arms. At laste, methinks, not on a night like this." He looked at Franklin calmly, and the latter rose and grasped the hand of the fearless old soldier without a word. The two strolled out together down the street in the direction of the shanty where Curly was keeping his "prisoner."

At this place they saw a few men sitting outside the door, calmly smoking—among these Sam, the liveryman, a merchant by name of Chapman, and a homesteader who was known as One-eyed Pennyman. Inside the house, playing cards with Curly, were four other men. Franklin noticed that they all were armed. They all appeared, from their story, to have just dropped in to pass a little time with Curly. From time to time others dropped in, most of them remaining outside in the moonlight, sitting on their heels along the porch, talking but little, and then mentioning anything but the one subject which was uppermost in every one's mind. Yet, though nothing was said, it might well be seen that this little body of men were of those who had taken the stand for law and order, and who were resolved upon a new day in the history of the town.

It was a battle of the two hotels and what they represented. Over at the great barroom of the Cottage there was at the same time assembled a much larger gathering, composed chiefly of those transient elements which at that time really made up the larger portion of the population of the place—wide-hatted men, with narrow boots and broad belts at which swung heavy, blued revolvers with broad wooden butts—a wild-looking, wild-living body of men, savage in some ways, gentle in others, but for the most part just, according to their creed. The long bar was crowded, and outside the door many men were standing along the wide gallery. They, too, were reticent. All drank whisky, and drank it regularly. Up to ten o'clock the whisky had produced no effect. The assembly was still engaged in deliberation, drinking and thinking, calmly, solemnly.

At ten o'clock a big Texan raised his glass high above his head and smashed it upon the bar.

"Law an' order be damned!" said he. "What kind o' law an' order is it to let a murderin' Greaser like that come clear? Which of us'll be the next he'd kill?"

There was no answer. A sigh, a shiver, a little rustling sound passed over the crowd.

"We always used ter run our business good enough," resumed the Texan. "What need we got o' lawyers now? Didn't this Greaser kill Cal? Crazy? He's just crazy enough to be mean. He's crazy so'st he ain't safe, that's what."

The stir was louder. A cowman motioned, and the barkeeper lined the whole bar with glasses, setting out six bottles of conviction.

"Curly means all right," said one voice. "I know that boy, an' he's all right."

"Shore he's all right!" said the first voice, "an' so's Bill Watson all right. But what's the use?"

"Loco, of course the Greaser's loco," broke in another speaker. "So's a mad dog loco. But about the best thing's to kill it, so'st it's safer to be roun'."

Silence fell upon the crowd. The Texan continued. "We always did," he said.

"Yes," said another voice. "That's right. We always did."

"Curly'll never let him go," said one irrelevantly. "Seems to me we better sen' this Greaser off to the States, put him in a 'sylum, er somethin'."

"Yes," said the tall Texan; "and I like to know ef that ain't a blame sight worse'n hangin' a man?"

"That's so," assented several voices. And indeed to these men, born and bred in the free life of the range, the thought of captivity was more repugnant than the thought of death.

"The lawyer feller, he ain't to blame," said one apologetically. "He made things look right plain. He ain't no fool."

"Well, I don't know as he helt no aidge over ole Claib Benson," said another argumentatively. "Claib puts it mighty powerful."

"Yes, but," said the other eagerly, "Claib means fer hangin' by the Co'te."

"Shore," said a voice. "Now, I'm one o' the jury, but I says in my own min', ef we convict this yer man, we got to hang him right away anyway, 'cause we ain't got no jail, an' we kain't afford no guard to watch him all the time. Now, he'd have to be hung right away, anyhow." This half apologetically.

"What do most o' you fellers on the jury think? Does this here crazy business go with you all?"

"Well, kin savvy," replied the juror judicially. "Some o' the boys think it a leetle tough to hang a feller fer a thing he kain't remember and that he didn't never think was no harm. It don't look like the Greaser'd take any one right to where he would shore be convicted, ef he had of made this here killin'."

"Well," said a conservative soothingly, "let's wait till to-morrer. Let's let the Co'te set another day, anyhow."

"Yes, I reckon that's right; yes, that's so," said others; "we'd better wait till to-morrer."

A brief silence fell upon the gathering, a silence broken only by tinklings or shufflings along the bar. Then, all at once, the sound of an excited voice rose and fell, the cry of some one out upon the gallery in the open air. The silence deepened for one moment, and then there was a surge toward the door.

Far off, over the prairie, there came a little flat, recurrent sound, or series of sounds, as of one patting his fingers softly together. It fell and rose and grew, coming rapidly nearer, until at length there could be distinguished the cracking and popping of the hoofs of running horses. The sound broke into a rattling rumble. There came across the still, keen night a wild, thin, high, shrilling yell, product of many voices.

"It's the Bar O outfit, from the Brazos, coming in," said some one. The crowd pressed out into the air. It opened and melted slightly. The crowd at Curly's shanty increased slightly, silently. Inside, Curly and his friend still played cards. The giant prisoner lay asleep upon the floor, stretched out on his thin native wool mattress, his huge bulk filling half the floor.

The rattle of many hoofs swept up to the door of the Cottage, where the restive, nervous horses were left standing while the men went in, their leader, a stocky, red-mustached man, bearing with him the rope which he had loosened from his saddle. Having drunk, the leader smote upon the bar with a heavy hand.

"Come along, men," he called out, "The quicker we hang that d——d Greaser the better it will be. We done heard there was some sort o' trial goin' on here in town over this. We cowmen ain't goin' to stand no such foolishness. This Greaser killed Cal Greathouse, an' he's got to hang."

He moved toward the door, followed by many silently, by others with steps that lagged. "Well, you see—" began one man.

"To h——l with all that!" said the newcomer, turning upon him fiercely. "We don't need no cowards!"

"No, that ain't it," resumed the first man, "but we got to respeck the Co'te—fust Co'te ever did set here, you see. The fellers, some of 'em, thinks—some o' the jury thinks—that the feller's too crazy fer to hang."

"Crazy be d——d! We're goin' to hang him, an' that settles it. Law an' order kin take care of it afterward."

All the time they were shifting toward the door. Outside the band of cattlemen who had just ridden in, fresh from the trail, and with but a partial knowledge of the arguments that had been advanced in this court, for which they had but small respect at best, settled the immediate question in an instant. As though by concert they swung into saddle and swept off up the street in a body, above the noise of their riding now breaking a careless laugh, now a shrill yell of sheer joyous excitement. They carried with them many waverers. More than a hundred men drew up in front of the frail shelter over which was spread the doubtful aegis of the law.

Fifty men met them. The lights went out in the house in an instant, and in front of the door there swept a dark and silent cordon. The leader of the invaders paused, but went straight forward.

"We want that man!" he said.

There was no answer. The line in front of the door darkened and thickened. Finally the figure of the young lawyer appeared, and he said calmly, sternly:

"You know very well you can't have him."

"We don't know nothin' o' the sort. We want him, an' we're goin' to have him. We don't want no one else, an' we won't make no trouble, but we're goin' to take the Mexican. Git out the road!"

A second figure stood by the side of Franklin, and this man was recognised by the leader. "Aw, now, Curly, what d——d foolishness is this here? Bring him out."

"You know I won't, Jim," said Curly, simply. "We're tryin' him on the square. You ain't the Co'te. I kain't give him to no one but the Co'te."

"We are the Co'te!" came the hot reply. "The Co'te that runs this range fer hoss-thieves an' murderers. Now, see here, Curly, we're all your friends, an' you know it, but that feller has got to hang, an' hang to-night. Git out the way. What's the matter with you?"

"They ain't nothin' the matter with me," said Curly slowly, "'ceptin' I done said I wouldn't give this man up to no man but the Co'te. A lot o' us fellers, here in the settlement, we 'lowed that the law goes here now."

Silence fell for an instant, then from the rear of the party there came pushing and crowding and cries of "Burn the house—drive him out!" There was a rush, but it was met by a silent thickening of the line at the point assailed. Men scuffled with men, swearing and grunting, panting hard. Here and there weapons flashed dully, though as yet no shot was fired. Time and again Franklin raised his voice. "Men, listen to me!" he cried. "We promise you a fair trial—we promise—"

"Shut up!" cried the leader, and cries of "No talking!" came from the crowd. "Give him up, or we'll clean you all out!" cried another voice, angrily. The rushers toward the house grew closer, so that assailants and besiegers were now mingled in a fighting, swearing mass.

"You're no cowman, Curly," cried one voice, bitterly, out of the black shifting sea in front of the house.

"You're a d——d liar!" cried Curly in reply, "whoever says that to me! I'm only a-keepin' of my word. You kain't clean us out. I'll shoot the livin' soul out o' any man that touches that door! This here is the jail, an' I'm the deppity, and, by ——! you'll not have my prisoner!"

"Quite right, me man," said a cool voice at Curly's side, and a hand fell on his shoulder as a tall form loomed up in the crowd. "There's good matayrial in you, me bully. Hould yer position, an' be sure that Batty's with you, at the laste. Fair play's a jule, an' it's fair play we're goin' to have here."

Backed by a crowd of men whose resolution was as firm as their own, these three fell back in front of the door. Franklin felt his heart going fast, and knew that more was asked of him here than had ever been upon the field of battle; yet he was exultant at the discovery that he had no thought of wavering. He knew then that he had been proved. With equal joy he looked upon the face of Curly, frowning underneath the pushed-back hat, and upon that of Battersleigh, keen-looking, eager, as though about to witness some pleasurable, exciting thing. Yet he knew the men in front were as brave as they, and as desperately resolved. In a moment, he reflected, the firing would begin. He saw Curly's hands lying lightly upon the butts of his revolvers. He saw Battersleigh draw his revolver and push with the side of the barrel against the nearest men as though to thrust them back. He himself crowded to the fore, eager, expectant, prepared. One shot, and a score of lives were done, and dark indeed would be this night in Ellisville.

Suddenly the climax came. The door was thrust irresistibly open, not from without, but from within. Stooping, so that his head might clear its top, the enormous figure of Juan, the Mexican, appeared in the opening. He looked out, ignorant of the real reason of this tumult, yet snuffing conflict as does the bear not yet assailed. His face, dull and impassive, was just beginning to light up with suspicion and slow rage.

A roar of anger and excitement rose as the prisoner was seen standing there before them, though outlined only by the dim light of the sky. Every man in the assailing party sprang toward the building. The cries became savage, beastlike. It was no longer human beings who contended over this poor, half-witted being, but brutes, less reasonable than he.

Juan left the door. He swept Franklin and Curly and Battersleigh aside as though they were but babes. It was his purpose to rush out, to strike, to kill. It was the moment of opportunity for the leader of the assailants. The whistle of a rope cut the air, and the noose tightened about the giant's neck with instant grip. There was a surge back upon the rope, a movement which would have been fatal for any other man, which would have been fatal to him, had the men got the rope to a horse as they wished, so that they might drag the victim by violence through the crowd.

But with Juan this act was not final. The noose enraged him, but did not frighten or disable him. As the great bear of the foothills, when roped by the horseman, scorns to attempt escape, but pulls man and horse toward him by main force, so the giant savage who was now thus assailed put forth his strength, and by sheer power of arm drew his would-be captors to him, hand over hand. The noose about his own neck he loosened with one hand. Then he raised his hand and let it fall. The caster of the rope, his collar bone broken and his shoulder blade cracked across, fell in a heap at his feet as the swaying crowd made way. Once again there was silence, one moment of confusion, hesitation. Then came the end.

There came, boring into the silence with horrible distinctness, the sound of one merciful, mysterious shot. The giant straightened up once, a vast black body towering above the black mass about him, and then sank gently, slowly down, as though to curl himself in sleep.

There was a groan, a roar, a swift surging of men, thick, black, like swarming bees. Some bent above the two prone figures. Others caught at the rope, grovelling, snarling.

They were saved the last stage of their disgrace. Into the crowd there pressed the figure of a new-comer, a hatless man, whose face was pale, whose feet were unshod, and who bore one arm helpless in a dirty sling which hung about his neck. Haggard and unkempt, barefooted, half-clad as he had stumbled out of bed at his ranch six miles away, Bill Watson, the sheriff, appeared a figure unheroic enough. With his broken arm hanging useless and jostled by the crowd, he raised his right hand above his head and called out, in a voice weak and halting, but determined:

"Men, go—go home! I command you—in the name—of the law!"



BOOK IV

THE DAY OF THE PLOUGH

CHAPTER XXX

THE END OF THE TRAIL

The Cottage Hotel of Ellisville was, singularly enough, in its palmy days conducted by a woman, and a very good woman she was. It was perhaps an error in judgment which led the husband of this woman to undertake the establishment of a hotel at such a place and such a time, but he hastened to repair his fault by amiably dying. The widow, a large woman, of great kindness of heart and a certain skill in the care of gunshot wounds, fell heiress to the business, carried it on and made a success of it. All these wild range men who came roistering up the Trail loved this large and kind old lady, and she called them all her "boys," watching over the wild brood as a hen does over her chickens. She fed them and comforted them, nursed them and buried them, always new ones coming to take the places of those who were gone. Chief mourner at over threescore funerals, nevertheless was Mother Daly's voice always for peace and decorum; and what good she did may one day be discovered when the spurred and booted dead shall rise.

The family of Mother Daly flourished and helped build the north-bound cattle trail, along which all the hoof marks ran to Ellisville. There was talk of other cow towns, east of Ellisville, west of it, but the clannish conservatism of the drovers held to the town they had chosen and baptized. Thus the family of Mother Daly kept up its numbers, and the Cottage knew no night, even at the time when the wars of the cowmen with the railroad men and the gamblers had somewhat worn away by reason of the advancing of the head of the rails still farther into the Great American Desert.