Jack leaned heavily on the table. His head sank. His voice dropped almost to a whisper.

Allen slapped him on the back to cheer him up. Philosophically he announced: "Well, it's got to be as it is. You'll mebbe never hear from him again. You mustn't never tell her. I ain't a-goin' to say nothin' about it—her happiness means everything to me."

Jack grasped his hand in silent thankfulness.

The two men walked slowly out of the room to the corral.

As Echo galloped across the prairie in the glorious morning air, the sunshine, the lowing of the cattle on the hills, and the songs of the birds in the trees along the Sweetwater had banished all depressing thoughts, and her mind dwelt on her love for Jack and the pleasantness of the lines in which her life had fallen.

Only one small cloud had appeared on the horizon. Jack had not shared with her his confidences in the business of the ranch. He told her he did not want to worry her with such cares. True, there were times when he was deeply abstracted; but in her presence his moroseness vanished quickly. Carefully as he had tried to hide his secret, she had, with a woman's intuition, seen beneath the surface of things and realized that something was lacking to complete her happiness.

As Echo turned toward home a song sprang to her lips. Polly spied her far down the trail.

"Boys, she's coming," she shouted to the men, who were at the bunk-house awaiting Mrs. Payson's return. As they passed the corral they called to Jack and Allen to join them in the living-room to prepare for the surprise for Echo.

The party quickly reassembled.

"Good land!" shouted Allen, "get something to cover the pianny with!"

The punchers rushed in confusion about the room in a vain search.

"Ain't there a plagued thing we can cover the pianny with?" cried the demoralized Allen, renewing his appeal.

Polly came to the rescue of the helpless men by plucking a Navajo blanket from the couch. Tossing one end of it to Show Low, she motioned to him to help hold it up before the instrument like a curtain.

"Stand in front of it, everybody," ordered Mrs. Allen, who had left her cake-baking and hurried in from the kitchen. "Polly, spread your skirts—you, too, Jim."

Allen ran in front of the piano, holding out an imaginary dress in imitation of Polly. "Which I ain't got none," he cried.

Parenthesis jumped in front of the piano-stool, trying vainly to hide it with his legs.

"Parenthesis, put your legs together," Mrs. Allen cried.

"I can't, ma'am," wailed the unfortunate puncher. He fell on his knees before the stool, spreading out his waistcoat for a screen.

Mrs. Allen helped him out with her skirts.

"Steady, everybody!" shouted Jack.

"Here she is!" yelled Sage-brush, as the door opened and the astonished Echo faced those she loved and liked.

Echo made a pretty picture framed in the doorway. She wore her riding-habit of olive-green—from the hem of which peeped her soft boots. Her hat, broad, picturesque, typical of the Southwest, had slipped backward, forming a background for her pretty face. An amused smile played about the corners of her mouth.

"Well, what is it?" she smiled inquiringly.

The group looked at her sheepishly. No one wanted to answer her question.

"What's the matter?" she resumed. "You're herded up like a bunch of cows in a norther."

Sage-brush began gravely to explain. He got only as far as: "This yere bein' a birthday," when Echo interrupted him: "Oh! then it's a birthday-party?"

Once stopped, Sage-brush could not get started again. He cleared his throat with more emphasis than politeness; striking the attitude of an orator, with one hand upraised and the other on his hip, he hemmed and hawed until beads of perspiration trickled down his temples.

Again he nerved himself for the ordeal.

"Mebbe," he gasped.

Then he opened and closed his mouth, froglike, several times, taking long, gulping breaths. At last, looking helplessly about him, he shouted: "Oh, shucks! you tell her, Jack." He pushed him toward Echo. Jack rested his hand on the table and began: "We've a surprise for you—that is, the boys have—"

"What is it?" asked Echo eagerly.

"You've got to call it blind," broke in Sage-brush.

"Guess it," cried Fresno.

"A pony-cart," hazarded Echo.

"Shucks! no," said Show Low at the idea of presenting Echo with anything on wheels.

Echo then guessed: "Sewing-machine."

Sage-brush encouraged her, "That's something like it—go on—go on."

"Well, then, it's a—"

Sage-brush grew more excited. He raised and lowered himself on his toes, backing toward the piano. "Go it, you're gettin' there," he shouted.

"It's a—"

Again she hesitated, to be helped on by Sage-brush with the assurance: "She'll do it—fire away—it's a—"

"A—"

"Go on."

Sage-brush in his enthusiasm backed too far into the blanket screen. His spurs became entangled. To save himself from a fall, he threw out his hand behind him. They struck the polished cover of the instrument, slid off, and Sage-brush sat down on the keys with an unmistakable crash.

"A piano!" cried Echo exultantly.

"Who done that?" demanded Show Low angrily.

Parenthesis, from his place on the floor, looked at the mischief-maker in disgust. "Sage-brush!" he shouted.

"Givin' the hull thing away," snarled Fresno.

Show Low could contain himself no longer. Going up to Sage-brush, he shook his fist in his face, saying: "You're the limit. You ought to be herdin' sheep."

The victim of the accident humbly replied: "I couldn't help it."

Mrs. Allen smoothed out the differences by declaring: "What's the difference, she wouldn't have guessed, not in a million years—stand away and let her see it."

Fresno swept them all aside with the blanket.

"Oh, isn't it beautiful, beautiful!" cried Echo.

"Who—what—where—" she stammered, glancing from one to the other, her eyes finally resting on Jack.

"Not guilty," he cried. "You'll have to thank the boys for this."

With happy tears welling up in her eyes, Echo said: "I do thank them, I do—I do—I can't tell how delighted I am. I can't say how much this means to me—I thank you—I say it once, but I feel it a thousand times." She seized each of the boys by the hand and shook it heartily.

"Would you like to have another selection?" asked Fresno, relieving the tension of the situation.

"No!" shouted the punchers unanimously. Fresno looked very much crestfallen, since he considered that he had made a deep impression by his first effort.

"Mrs. Payson's goin' to hit us out a tune," announced Sage-brush.

Echo seated herself at the piano. Jack leaned against the instrument, gazing fondly into her eyes, as she raised her face radiant with happiness. Allen had taken possession of the best rocking-chair. Mrs. Allen sat at the table, and the boys ranged themselves about the room. Their faces reflected gratification. They watched Echo expectantly.

Echo played the opening bars of "The Old Folks at Home." Before she sang Fresno, holding up his right index-finger, remarked to no one in particular: "I washed that finger."

The singing deeply affected her little audience. Echo had a sweet, natural voice. She threw her whole soul into the old ballad. She was so happy she felt like singing, not lively airs, but songs about home. Her new home had become so dear to her at that moment.

Mrs. Allen as usual began to cry. Polly soon followed her example. There were tears even in the of some of the punchers, although they blinked vigorously to keep them back.

When she repeated the chorus, Sage-brush said to Fresno: "Ain't that great?"

That worthy, however, with the jealousy of an artist, and to hide his own deeply moved sensibilities, replied: "That ain't so much."

Jack had become completely absorbed in the music. He and Echo were oblivious to surroundings. His arm had slipped about his wife's waist, and she gazed fondly into his face. Sage-brush was the first to notice their attitude. On his calling the attention of the boys to their happiness, these quietly tiptoed from the room. Polly signaled to Mrs. Allen, and followed the boys. Josephine awoke Jim as if from a dream and led him slowly out, leaving the young couple in an earthly paradise of married love.

When Echo finished, she turned in surprise to find themselves alone.

"Was it as bad as that?" she naively asked Jack.

"What?"

"Why, they've all left us."

Jack laughed softly. "So they have—I forgot they were here," he said, looking fondly down at his wife.

Echo began to play quietly another ballad. "I've always wanted a piano," she said.

"You'd found one here waiting, if I'd only known it," he chided.

"You've given me so much already," she murmured. "I've been a big expense to you."

Jack again slipped his arm about her waist and kissed her. "There ain't any limit on my love," he declared. "I want you to be happy—"

"Don't you think I am," laughed Echo. "I'm the happiest woman on earth, Jack, and it's all you. I want to be more than a wife to you, I want to be a helpmate—but you won't let me."

A wistful expression crept over Echo's countenance.

"Who says so?" he demanded playfully, as if he would punish any man who dared make such an accusation.

Echo turned on the stool and took his hand. "I know it," she said, with emphasis. "You've been worried about something for days and days—don't tell me you haven't."

Jack opened his lips as if to contradict her. "We women learn to look beneath the surface; what is it, Jack?" she continued.

Jack loosened his wife's handclasp and walked over to the table.

"Nothing—what should I have to worry about?" He spoke carelessly.

"The mortgage?" suggested Echo.

"I paid that off last week," explained Jack.

Echo felt deeply hurt that this news should have been kept from her by her husband.

"You did, and never told me?" she chided. "Where did you get the money?" she inquired.

"Why, I—" Jack halted. He could not frame an excuse at once, nor invent a new lie to cover his old sin. Deeper and deeper he was getting into the mire of deception.

Echo had arisen from the seat. "It was over three thousand dollars, wasn't it?" she insisted.

"Something like that," answered Jack noncommittally.

"Well, where did you get it?" demanded his wife.

"An old debt—a friend of mine—I loaned him the money a long time ago and he paid it back—that's all."

Jack took a drink of water from the olla to hide his confusion.

"Who was it?" persisted Echo.

"You wouldn't know if I told you. Now just stop talking business."

"It isn't fair," declared Echo. "You share all the good things of life with me, and I want to share some of your business worries. I want to stand my share of the bad."

Jack saw he must humor her. "When the bad comes I'll tell you," he assured her, patting her hand.

"You stand between me and the world. You're like a great big mountain, standing guard over a little tree in the valley, keeping the cold north wind from treating it too roughly." She sighed contentedly. "But the mountain does it all."

Jack looked down tenderly at his little wife. Her love for him moved him deeply.

"Not at all," he said to her. "The little tree grows green and beautiful. It casts a welcome shade about it, and the heart of the mountain is made glad to its rocky core to know that the safety of that little tree is in its keeping."

Taking her in his arms, he kissed her again and again.

"Kissing again," shouted Polly from the doorway. "Say, will you two never settle down to business? There's Bud Lane and a bunch of others just into the corral—maybe they want you, Jack."

Jack excused himself. As he stepped out on the piazza he asked Polly: "Shall I send Bud in?"

"Let him come in if he wants to. I'm not sending for him." Polly spitefully turned up her nose at him. Jack laughed as he closed the door.

Echo reseated herself at the piano, fingering the keys.

"How are you getting on with Bud?" she asked the younger girl.

"We don't get on a little bit," she snapped. "Bud never seems to collect much revenue an' we just keep trottin' slow like—wish I was married and had a home of my own."

"Aren't you happy with father and mother?"

Polly glanced at Echo with a smile. "Lord, yes," she replied, "in a way, but I'm only a poor relation—your ma was my ma's cousin or something like that."

Echo laughed. "Nonsense," she retorted. "Nonsense—you're my dear sister, and the only daughter that's at the old home now."

"But I want a home of my own, like this," said Polly.

"Then you'd better shake Bud and give Slim a chance."

Polly was too disgusted to answer at once. "Slim Hoover, shucks! Slim doesn't care for girls—he's afraid of 'em," she said at length. "I like Bud, with all his orneriness," she declared.

"Why doesn't he come to see you more often?"

"I don't know, maybe it's because he's never forgiven you for marryin' Jack."

"Why should he mind that?" she asked, startled.

"Well, you know," she answered between stitches, drawing the needle through the cloth with angry little jerks, "Bud, he never quite believed Dick was dead."

Echo rose hastily. The vague, haunting half-thoughts of weeks were crystallized on the instant. She felt as if Dick was trying to speak to her from out of the great beyond. With a shudder she into a chair at the table opposite Polly.

"Don't," she said, her voice scarcely above a whisper, "I can't bear to hear him spoken of. I dreamed of him the other night—a dreadful dream."

Polly was delighted with this new mystery. It was all so romantic.

"Did you? let's hear it."

With unseeing eyes Echo gazed straight ahead rebuilding from her dream fabric a tragedy of the desert, in which the two men who had played so great a part in her life were the actors.

"It seems," she told, "that I was in the desert, such a vast, terrible desert, where the little dust devils eddied and swirled, and the merciless sun beat down until it shriveled up every growing thing."

Polly nodded her head sagely.

"That's the way the desert looks—and no water."

Echo paid no heed to the interruption. Her face became wan and haggard, as in her mind's eye she saw the weary waste of waterless land quiver and swim under the merciless sun. Not a tree, not a blade of grass, not a sign of life broke the monotony of crumbling cliffs and pinnacled rocks. Onward and ever onward stretched yellow ridges and alkali-whitened ravines, blinding the eye and parching the throat.

"Then I saw a man staggering toward me," she continued; "his face was white and drawn, his lips cracked and parched—now and then he would stumble and fall, and lie there on his face in the hot sand, digging into it with his bony fingers seeking for water."

Echo shut her eyes as if to blot out the picture. Its reality almost overpowered her.

"Suddenly he raised his eyes to mine," she resumed, after a pause. "It was Dick."

In her excitement she had arisen, stretching out her arms as if to ward off an apparition.

"He tried to call me. I saw his lips move, framing my name. Dragging himself to his feet, he came toward me with his arms outstretched. Then another form appeared between us fighting to keep him back. They fought there under the burning sun in the hot dust of the desert until at last one was crushed to earth. The victor raised his face to mine, and—it was Jack."

Echo buried her face in her hands. Dry sobs shook her bosom. Awe-stricken, Polly gazed at the over-wrought wife.

"PFEW!" she laughed, to shake off her fright. "That was a sure enough nightmare. If I'd a dream like that I'd wake up the whole house yapping like a coyote."

As the commonplace ever intrudes upon the unusual, so a knock on the door relieved the tension of the situation. It was Slim. He did not wait for an invitation to enter, but, opening the door, asked: "Can I come in?"

"Sure, come in," cried Polly, glad to find any excuse to shake off the depression of Echo's dream.

"Howdy, Mrs. Payson, just come over to see Jack," was the jolly Sheriff's greeting.

"He's down at the corral," she informed him.

Mrs. Allen hurried in from the kitchen at this moment, calling: "Echo, come here, and look at this yere cake. It looks as if it had been sot upon."

Echo closed the lid of the piano and called her mother's attention to the presence of Slim Hoover.

"How d'ye do, Slim Hoover?—you might have left some of that dust outside."

The Sheriff was greatly embarrassed by her chiding. In his ride from Florence to the Sweetwater, the alkali and sand stirred up by the hoofs of the horses had settled on his hat and waistcoat so freely that his clothing had assumed a neutral, gray tone above which his sun-tanned face and red hair loomed like the moon in a fog. Josephine's scolding drove him to brush his shoulders with his hat, raising a cloud of dust about his head.

"Stop it!" Mrs. Allen shouted shrilly. "Slim Hoover, if your brains was dynamite you couldn't blow the top of your head off."

Polly was greatly amused by Slim's encounter with the cleanly Mrs. Allen. Slim stood with open mouth, watching Mrs. Allen flounce out of the room after Polly, who was trying in vain to suppress her laughter. Turning to the girl, he said: "Ain't seen you in some time."

Slim was thankful that the girl was seated at the table with her back to him. Somehow or other he found he could speak to her more freely when she was not looking at him.

"That so?" she challenged. "Come to the birthday?"

"Not regular," he answered.

Polly glanced at him over her shoulder. It was too much for Slim. He turned away to hide his embarrassment. Partly recovering from his bashfulness, he coughed, preparatory to speaking. But Polly had vanished. As one looks sheepishly for the magician's disappearing coin, so Slim gazed at floor and ceiling as if the girl might pop up anywhere. Spying an empty chair behind him, he sank into it gingerly and awkwardly.

Meantime Polly returned with a broom and began sweeping out the evidences of Slim's visit. She spoke again:

"Get them hold-ups yet that killed 'Ole Man' Terrill?" she asked.

"Not yet. But we had a new shootin' over'n our town yesterday."

Slim was doing his best to make conversation. Polly did not help him out very freely.

"That so?" was her reply.

"Spotted Taylor shot two Chinamen."

Polly's curiosity was aroused.

"What for?" she asked, stopping her sweeping for a moment.

"Just to give the new graveyard a start," Slim chuckled.

Polly joined in his merriment.

"Spotted Taylor was always a public-spirited citizen," was her comment.

"He sure was," assented Slim.

"Get up there. I want to sweep under that chair." Polly brushed Slim's feet with the broom vigorously. With an elaborate "Excuse me," Slim arose, but re-seated himself in another chair directly in the pathway of Polly's broom.

"Get out of there, too," she cried.

"Shucks, there ain't any room for me nowhere," he muttered disgustedly.

"You shouldn't take up so much of it."

Slim attempted to take a seat on the small gilt chair which was Jack's wedding-present to Echo.

Polly caught sight of him in time. "Look out," she shouted. "That chair wasn't built for a full-grown man like you."

Slim nervously replaced the chair before a writing-desk. Polly wielded her broom about the feet of the Sheriff, who danced clumsily about, trying to avoid her.

"You're just trying to sweep me out of here," he complained.

"Well, if you will bring dust in with you, you must expect to be swept out," Polly replied, with a show of spirit.

Polly was shaking the mat vigorously at the door when Slim said:

"I see they buried Poker Bill this mornin'."

"Is HE dead?" It was the first Polly had heard of the passing away of one of the characters of the Territory. She had expressed her surprise in the of an interrogation, emphasizing the "he," a colloquialism of the Southwest.

Slim, however, had chosen to ignore the manner of speech, and with a grin answered: "Ye-es, that's why they buried him."

Polly laughed in spite of herself. "What did he die of?" she asked.

As Slim was about to take a drink at the olla, he failed to hear her.

"Eh?" he grunted.

"What did he die of?" she repeated.

"Five aces," was the sober reply of the Sheriff, before he drained the gourd.

Polly put the broom back of the door, and was rearranging the articles on the table, before Slim could muster up enough courage to speak on the topic which was always uppermost in his mind when in her presence.

"Say, Miss Polly," he began.

"If you've anything to say to me, Slim Hoover, just say it—I can't be bothered to-day—all the fixin's and things," saucily advised the girl.

"Well, what I want to say is—" began the Sheriff.

At this moment Bud Lane, laboring under heavy excitement, burst open the door.

"Say, Slim, you're wanted down at the corral," he cried, paying no heed to Polly.

"Shucks!" exclaimed the disappointed Sheriff. "What's the row?"

"I don't know—Buck McKee—he's there with some of the Lazy K outfit. They want to see you."

Slim threw himself out the door with the mild expletive: "Darn the luck!"

Bud turned quickly to Polly. "Did Jack pay off the mortgage last week?" he almost shouted at the girl.

Polly stamped her foot in anger at what seemed to her to be a totally irrelevant question to the love-making she expected: "How do I know?" she angrily replied. "If that is all you came to see me for, you can go and ask him. It makes me so dog-gone mad!"

Polly, with flushed face and knitted brow, left the bewildered Bud standing in the center of the room, asking himself what it was all about.

The sound of the voices of disputing men floated in from the corral. Bud heard them, and comprehended its significance.

"It's all up with me," he cried, in mortal terror. "Buck McKee has stirred up the suspicion against Jack Payson. Jack paid off his mortgage, and they wanted to know where he raised the money. Well, Jack can tell. If he can't, I'll confess the whole business. I won't let him suffer for me. Buck sha'n't let an innocent man hang for what we've done."

The sound of footsteps on the piazza and the opening of the door drove Bud to take refuge in an adjoining room, where he could overhear all that was happening. He closed the door as the cow-punchers entered with Slim at their head.



CHAPTER XI

Accusation and Confession

Buck McKee had not been idle in the days following the slaying of 'Ole Man' Terrill. Having learned that Slim and his posse had discovered only the fact that the murderer had ridden a pacing horse to the ford, McKee took full advantage of this fact. In the cow-camps, the barrooms, and at the railroad-station he hinted, at first, that a certain person every one knew could tell a lot more about the death of the old man than he cared to have known. After a few days he began to bring the name of Payson into the conversation. His gossip became rumor, and then common report. When it became known that Jack had paid off the mortgage on his ranch, Buck came out with the accusation that Payson was the murderer. Finding that he was listened to, Buck made the direct charge that Payson had killed the station-agent, and with the proceeds of the robbery was paying off his old debts.

Gathering his own men about him, and being joined by the idle hangers-on, which are to be found about every town, Buck lead his party to the ranch on the Sweetwater to accuse Jack, and so throw off, in advance, any suspicions which might attach to himself.

Fortunately, Slim happened to be at Jack's ranch at the time. When he entered the corral he found Jack's accusers and defenders rapidly nearing a battle.

Jack was taking the charges coolly enough, as he did not know what support McKee had manufactured to uphold the charges he made. Slim informed McKee he would listen to what he had to say, and if afterward he thought Jack guilty, he would place him under arrest. For all concerned it would be better to go into the house. The Sweetwater boys surrounded Jack as they followed Slim into the living-room. Lining up in opposing groups, Slim stood in the center to serve as judge and jury, with Buck and Jack at his right and left hand.

Inside the door Jack said: "Keep as quiet as you can, boys. I don't want to alarm my wife. Now what is it?"

The punchers hushed their discussion of the charge, and listened attentively to what the men most interested had to say.

"Well, darn it all," apologized the Sheriff to Jack, "it's all darn fool business, anyway. Buck here he started it."

Jack smiled sarcastically, and, glancing at McKee, remarked: "Buck McKee's started a good many things in his day—"

Buck began to bluster. He could not face Jack fairly. Already placed on the defense, when he had considered he would be the accuser, McKee took refuge in the plea of being wronged by false suspicion.

"I ain't goin'," he whined, "to have folks suspicion me of any such doin's as the killin' of 'Ole Man' Terrill. I got a witness to prove I wasn't in twenty miles of the place."

"Who's your witness?" asked Slim, in his most judicial tones.

"Bud Lane—me an' him rode over to the weddin' together—from the Lazy K, an' I was put out as not fittin' to be there, an' by that very man there that did the killin'."

The punchers had to grin, in spite of the seriousness of the occasion. Buck appeared to be deeply hurt at the unceremonious way he had been left out at the feast.

"What makes you point to me as the man?" asked Jack quietly.

"You was late gettin' to your own weddin'."

Fresno could not repress his feelings any longer. He started angrily toward McKee, but Jack and Sage-brush held him back. The others were about to follow his lead, when Slim motioned them back with the caution: "Keep out of this, boys!"

"I was late," explained Jack, "but I told you I rode around to the station to get a wedding-present I ordered for my wife—"

Jim interrupted him to substantiate the statement. Pointing to a chair, he said: "That's so. There it is, too—that there chair."

The Sweetwater outfit nodded in acquiescence, but the others looked incredulous.

Buck sneered at the defense which Jack made. "Nobody saw you over that way, did they?"

"I saw Terrill. It must have been just before he was killed. I didn't meet anybody else." Jack showed no trace of temper under the inquisition.

"Of course you saw him before he was killed—about a minute. Mebbe you didn't plug him the next minute with a .44."

The charge roused Sage-brush's fighting blood. Drawing his gun, he attempted to get a fair shot at the accuser. Fresno and Show Low grabbed him by the arms, holding him back. The foreman shouted: "There'll be some one plugged right now if you-all make another break like that."

Slim waved his hands over his head, driving the men backward, as if he were shooing away a flock of chickens.

"Easy now—easy," he drawled. "There ain't a-goin' to be nothin' doin' here, 'cept law an' justice."

Buck laughed sneeringly at the wavering of his men. He would have to do something to put more heart into them and regain the ground he had lost by his single-handed conduct of the case.

"There ain't, eh?" he asked contemptuously. "Well, it's lucky I brought some of my own outfit with me."

"Mebbe you'll need them if you get too careless with your talk," answered the unruffled Sheriff.

Turning to Jack, Slim said: "This fool thing can be settled with one word from you."

The young ranchman listened to the Sheriff earnestly. He wished to clear himself forever of all suspicion. He did not want Echo ever to hear that there was a false impression abroad that she was the wife of a slayer. "What is it?" he asked simply.

"Why, you paid off a mortgage of an even three thousan' dollars last week, didn't you?"

"Yes, what has that to do with it?" he asked.

Buck broke in at this point. Here was the strongest card that he had in his hand, and the Sheriff had played it to McKee's advantage.

"Plenty," Buck shouted. "Old Terrill was shot and killed and robbed, an' the man who did it got just three thousan' dollars."

"An' you mean to say that the boss here—" began Sage-brush, in his anger making a rush at McKee. He was held back, but the disturbance attracted Echo and Mrs. Allen from the kitchen. Echo hurried to her husband's side. He slipped his arm about her waist, and together they faced his accuser.

"All you got to say is where did you get that money," cried Buck, who had seen Dick Lane pay it to Payson, and conjectured that Payson did not dare to reveal the fact of this payment, with all the disclosure it implied.

"Why, it was paid to me by—" Then Jack stopped. He could not tell who gave him the money without revealing to Echo the return of Dick. The whole miserable lie would then come out. Echo noticed Jack's hesitancy.

"What is it—what's the matter?" she asked, in frightened tones.

"Nothing, nothing," he answered lightly, to lessen her terror.

"Hats off, everybody," commanded Slim, in deference to the presence of Echo.

"Who are these men—what's wrong?" pleaded Echo.

Buck bowed to the trembling woman, who had thrown her arms about her husband's neck.

"Nothin'," he exclaimed. "Only we want to know where your husband got the money to pay off the mortgage on this ranch."

The request seemed a very simple one to Echo. All the talk of harming Jack, the high words, the threats, could be silenced easily by her hero. Smiling into his eyes, Echo said: "Tell them, Jack."

"I can't," he faltered.

"It was paid to him by a friend," bravely began Echo. "A friend to whom he lent it some time ago."

Buck interrupted her explanation. "Then let him tell his friend's name, and where we can find him." Turning to Jack, he bullied: "Come on—what's his name?"

Jack closed his eyes to shut out the sight of his wife. In his agony he clenched his fists, until his nails sank into the flesh. "I can't tell you that," he cried, in misery.

"Of course he can't," sneered Buck, smiling evilly in his triumph.

"He can't account for himself on the night of the weddin'; he rides a pacin' horse—rode on that night; he gets three thousan' dollars paid him, and he can't tell who paid it; what's the verdict?" Buck did not wait for an answer. Raising his voice, he shouted: "Guilty."

"Damn you," bellowed Sage-brush, lunging toward him, only to be held in restraint by his associates.

"Jack! Jack! what have you to say?" begged Echo.

"Nothing," was his only answer.

"Tell him he lies!" cried Sage-brush. "Jack, we all know you—you're as white a man as ever lived, an' they ain't one of this outfit that ain't ready to die for you right now—"

"You bet!" chorused his men.

"He ain't goin' to get off like that," declared Buck. Looking confidently at his own followers, he said: "The Lazy K can take care of him."

Buck's men moved closer to him, preparing to draw their guns, if need be, and open fire on Jack's defenders.

"Look out, boss!" warned Sage-brush, at the hostile movement of Buck and his punchers.

"Hold on!" drawled the Sheriff, who, as the danger grew more real, became more deliberate in his movements. "They ain't goin' to be nothin' done here unless it's done in the law—you all know me, boys—I'm the sheriff—this man's my prisoner." Pointing to Jack, he added: "There ain't nobody goin' to take him from me—an' live."

Buck saw Jack slipping from his clutches. "You're not goin' to be bluffed by one man, are you, boys?"

"No," his punchers answered in unison, crowding toward Jack, who held up his hand and cried: "Stop! I want a fair deal, and I'll get it."

"I'll settle this thing all right. All I ask is a few words alone with my wife."

Jack clasped Echo to his breast as he begged this boon from the men who sought his life.

"No!" blustered Buck.

"Yes," ordered Slim quietly but emphatically. "Payson—you'll give me your word you won't try to escape?"

"Yes," agreed Jack.

"His word don't go with us," shouted Buck.

Slim laid his hand on the butt of his revolver, ready to draw, if necessary, to enforce his command. Buck saw the movement, and shouted to him: "Keep your hand away from that gun, Sheriff. You know I am quick on the draw." He significantly fingered his holster as he spoke.

"So I've heard tell," agreed Slim, hastily withdrawing his hand from his revolver.

Slim appeared to agree to the surrender of Jack to Buck and his punchers, permitting them to deal with him as they saw fit. He fumbled in his left-hand waistcoat pocket, pulling out a bag of tobacco and a package of rice paper. Ostentatiously he began to roll a cigarette. Then, with the quickness of a cat, his left hand was plunged in the inside right-hand pocket of his waistcoat. Grasping a revolver by the muzzle he deftly jerked it upward, and seized the handle in its flight. He covered Buck McKee before that worthy realized what had happened. With his right hand Slim pulled the weapon which swung at his hip, and aimed it at the other boys of the Lazy K. The guns moved up and down the line, backed by the Sheriff's usually mild blue eyes, coldly steady now at the call to battle.

"I'll give you a lesson in pullin' guns, though," he declared, his voice as steady as his hands. "Don't move, Buck," he warned, as McKee wavered. "Nor any others of you. I'm playin' this hand alone. Buck McKee, you've been flirtin' with a tombstone for some time. Hands up, gents," he ordered, raising the pistols significantly.

"I said GENTS," he repeated, when Buck McKee did not obey him with alacrity. The balked leader of the Lazy K outfit reluctantly held his hands aloft.

"Sage-brush!" called Slim.

"Here," answered the foreman, covering a man with his revolver.

"Parenthesis!" summoned the Sheriff.

"Here," the man of the bowlegs replied, as he drew his gun.

"Me, too," cried Fresno, while Show Low came to the front with "An' likewise here."

When the Lazy K outfit was thoroughly under subjection, Slim stepped forward and said: "Now, gentlemen, if you please. You see, this yere's my party an' I regalate it my way. Jack here gave his word to stay and face this thing out. He's a-goin' to do it. I'm responsible for him—Sage-brush, you will collect at the door sech articles of hardware as these gentlemen has in their belts—I deputize you. Gents, as you walk out the do', you will deposit yo' weapons with Mr. Sage-brush Charley—the same to be returned to you when the court sees fit and proper."

"You ain't goin' to let him—" Buck did not finish the sentence, for Slim, thoroughly aroused, shouted: "Buck McKee, if you say another word, I'm goin' to kill you. Gents, there's the door—your hosses are in the corral—get."

Preceded by some of the Sweetwater boys, the Lazy K outfit filed out, Sage-brush taking their guns as they passed him. Fresno and Parenthesis brought up the rear.

"He needn't think he'll escape. We're bound to have him," declared Buck.

"Are you goin'?" demanded Slim, his voice full of menace.

"Can't you see me?" sneered Buck.

Sage-brush relieved him of his gun as he passed, handing it to Fresno. Buck paused in the doorway long enough to lament: "Talk of hospitality. I never get in but what I am put out."

Slim watched McKee from the window until he disappeared through the gate of the corral. Then walking down to Jack, he took him by the hand.

"It'll be all right in an hour—thank you, boys," Payson assured them.

"We all know you are the whitest man on the Sweetwater," assured Sage-brush, speaking for the punchers, as they left Jack a prisoner with Slim.

Speaking in a low tone, Jim asked Jack: "Where did you get that money?"

"Don't you know?" he asked, in surprise.

"From—"

Jack nodded his head.

"I'll wait for you in the other room," said Slim.

"Maw, Polly, we all better leave 'em alone."

As the woman and the girl left the room, the old ranchman paused at the doorway, leading to the kitchen, to advise his son-in-law earnestly: "I 'low you better tell her; it's best."

The two young people were left alone in the room in which they had passed so many happy hours to face a crisis in their lives. The day which had begun sunnily was to end in darkest clouds. The awful accusation was incredible to Echo. Her faith in her husband was not shaken. Jack, she felt, could explain. But, no matter what the outcome might be, she would be loyal to the man she loved. On this point she was wholly confident. Had she not pledged her faith at the marriage altar?

"Jack?" a volume of questions was in the word. Taking her hands in his and looking searchingly in her eyes, he said:

"Before I tell you what's been on my mind these many weeks—I want to hold you in my arms and hear you say: 'Jack, I believe in you.'"

Echo put her arms about his neck and, nestling close to his breast, declared: "I do believe in you—no matter what circumstances may be against you. No matter if all the world calls you guilty—I believe in you, and love you."

Jack seated himself at the table, and drew his wife down beside him. Putting his arms about her as she knelt before him, he murmured: "You're a wife—a wife of the West, as fair as its skies and as steadfast as its hills—and I—I'm not worthy—"

"Not worthy—you haven't—it isn't—" gasped Echo, starting back from him, thinking that Jack was about to confess that under some strange stress of circumstances he had slain the express-agent.

"No, it isn't that," hastily answered Jack, with a shudder at the idea. "I've lied to you," he simply confessed.

"Lied to me—you?" cried Echo, in dismay.

"I've been a living lie for months," relentlessly continued Jack, nerving himself for the ordeal through which he would have to pass.

"Jack," wailed Echo, shrinking from him on her knees, covering her face with her hands.

"It's about Dick."

Echo started. Again Dick Lane had arisen as from out the grave.

"What of him?" she asked, rising to her feet and moving away from him.

"He is alive."

Jack did not dare look at his wife. He sat with his face white and pinched with anguish.

The young wife groaned in her agony. The blow had fallen. Dick alive, and she now the wife of another man? What of her promise? What must he think of her?

"I didn't know it until after we were engaged," pursued Jack; "six months. It was the day I questioned you about whether you would keep your promise to Dick if he returned. I wanted to tell you then, but the telling meant that I should lose you. He wrote to me from Mexico, where he had been in the hospital. He was coming home—he enclosed this letter to you."

Jack drew from his pocket the letter which Dick enclosed in the one which he had sent Jack, telling of his proposed return.

She took the missive mechanically, and opened it slowly.

"I wanted to be square with him—but I loved you," pleaded Jack. "I loved you better than life, than honor—I couldn't lose you, and so—"

His words fell on unheeding ears. She was not listening to his pleadings. Her thoughts dwelt on Dick Lane, and what he must think of her. She had taken refuge at the piano, on which she bowed her head within her arms.

Slowly she arose, crushing the letter in her hand. In a low, stunned voice she cried: "You lied to me."

Jack buried his face in his hands. "Yes," he confessed. "He came the night we were married. I met him in the garden. He paid that money he had borrowed from me when he went away."

Horror-struck, Echo turned to him. "He was there that night?" she gasped. "Oh, Jack. You knew, and you never told me. I had given my word to marry him—you, knowing that, have done this thing to me?" Her deep emotion showed itself in her voice. The more Jack told her the worse became her plight.

"I loved you." Jack was defending himself now, fighting for his love.

"Did Dick believe I knew he was living?" continued the girl mercilessly.

"He must have done so."

"Jack! Jack!" sobbed Echo, tears streaming down her face.

"What could I do? I was almost mad with fear of losing you. I was tempted to kill him then and there. I left your father to guard the door—to keep him out until after the ceremony."

Jack could scarcely control his voice. The sight of Echo's suffering unmanned him.

"My father, too," wailed Echo.

"He thought only of your happiness," Jack claimed.

"What of my promise—my promise to marry Dick? Where is he?" moaned the girl.

"He's gone back to the desert."

Over her swept the memory of the terrible dream. Dick dying of thirst in the desert, calling for her; crushed to the earth by Jack after battling the awful silence. She moved to the middle of the room, as if following the summons.

"The desert, my dream," she whispered, in awe.

"He is gone out of our lives forever," cried Jack, facing her with arms outstretched.

"And you let him go away in the belief that I knew him to be living?" accused the wife.

"What will not a man do to keep the woman he loves? Dick Lane has gone from our lives, he will never return," argued Jack.

"He must," screamed Echo. "There is a crime charged against you—he must return to prove your story as to the money—He must know through your own lips the lie that separated us."

"You love him—you love him." Jack kept repeating the words, aghast at the knowledge that Echo seemed to be forcing upon him.

"Bring him back to me." Firmly she spoke.

Jack gazed at her in fear. Chokingly he cried again: "You love him!"

"I don't know. All I know is that he has suffered, is suffering now, through your treachery; bring him back to me, that I may stand face to face with him, and say: 'I have not lied to you, I have not betrayed your trust.'"

"You love him," he repeated.

"Find him—bring him back."

Jack was helpless, speechless. Echo's attitude overpowered him.

The wife staggered again to the piano, slowly sinking to the seat. She had turned her back on him. This action hurt him more than any word she had spoken. Her face was buried in her hands. Deep sobs shook her shoulders.

Jack followed her, to take her again in his arms, but she made no sign of forgiveness. Turning, he strode to the rack, and took down his hat and cartridge-belt. Picking up his rifle, he firmly declared: "I will go. I'll search the plains, the mountains, and the deserts to find this man. I will offer my life, if it will serve to place the life you love beside you. Good-bye."

The sound of the closing of the door roused Echo to a full realization of what she had done. She had driven the one man she really loved out of her life; sent him forth to wander over the face of the earth in search of Dick Lane, for whom she no longer cared. She must bring her husband back. She must know that he alone had her heart in his keeping.

"No, no, Jack—come back!" she called. "I love you, and you alone—come back! come back!"

Before she could throw open the door and summon him back to happiness and trust, Bud, who had heard the full confession from the room in which he had taken refuge when he thought Buck would throw the blame on Jack, caught her by the arm.

"Stop!" he commanded.

"Bud Lane!" exclaimed Echo, "you have heard—"

"I've heard—my brother—he is alive!"

Bud spoke rapidly. His belief was confirmed. He would have full revenge for what his brother had suffered at Payson's hands.

To Echo's plea of "Don't stop me!" he shouted: "No!" and caught the young wife, and pulled her back from the doorway. Echo struggled to free herself, but the young man was too strong.

"He had ruined Dick's life, stolen from him the woman he loved," he hissed in her ear.

"Jack! Jack!" was her only answer.

"No, he sha'n't come back—let him go as he let my brother go, out of your life forever."

"I can't—I can't. I love him!"

Throwing Bud off, she ran to the door. Bud pulled his revolver, and cried: "If he enters that door I'll kill him."

Outside Echo heard Jack inquiring: "Echo! Echo! you called me?"

Echo laid her hand on the knob to open the door, when she heard the click of the pistol's hammer as Bud raised it.

With a prayer in her eyes, she looked at the young man. He was obdurate. Nothing could move him.

Turning, she shrieked: "No, I did not call. Go! in God's name, go!"

"Good-bye!" was Jack's farewell. The rapid beat of horse's hoofs told of his mounting and riding away.

"Gone. Oh, Bud, Bud, what have you done?"

"I should have killed him," was Bud's answer, a gazed after the retreating form galloping down trail.

Mrs. Allen, hearing Echo's calls, hastened in from the kitchen. She found her daughter sobbing at the table. "What is the matter, child?"

Then, turning to Bud, she fiercely demanded of him: "What have you been saying to her?"

"Nothin'," he replied, as he left the house.

"Oh, mother, mother!" wailed Echo. "Jack—I have sent him away."

"Sent him away," repeated the startled Mrs. Allen.

"Yes," assured Echo.

"You don't mean to say he is guilty—you don't mean—"

"No, no!" interrupted Echo. "Oh, I never thought of that—he must come back—call Dad, call Slim."

Echo had forgotten Jack's promise to Slim. He, too, in his period of stress had overlooked the fact that he was a suspected murderer. Now he had fled. He must be brought back to clear his good name.

Mrs. Allen called her husband and the Sheriff into the room.

"What's the row?" shouted the Sheriff.

"Jack's gone," cried Mrs. Allen.

In amazement the two men could only repeat the news, "Gone!"

"Gone where?" crisply demanded the Sheriff.

"Don't stand there starin'; do something," scolded Mrs. Allen.

"He gave me his word to stay and face this thing out," shouted the bewildered Slim.

"It's all my fault. I sent him away." Echo seized Slim's hand as she spoke.

"You sent him away?"

She fell on her knees before him. Lifting her hands as in prayer, she implored: "I never thought of his promise to you. He never thought of it. Go find him—bring him back to me!"

"Bring him back?" howled the excited Sheriff, his eyes bulging, his cheeks swelling, his red hair bristling, and his voice ringing in its highest key. "Bring him back? You just bet I will. That's why I'm sheriff of Pinal County."

Slim whirled out of the door as if propelled by a gigantic blast. Echo fell fainting at her mother's feet.



CHAPTER XII

The Land of Dead Things

Forth to the land of dead things, through the cities that are forgotten, fared Dick Lane. Tricked by his friend, with the woman he loved lost to him, he wandered onward.

Automatically he took up again his quest for buried treasure. That which in the flush of youthful enthusiasm and roseate prospects of life and love had seized him as a passion was now a settled habit. And fortunately so, for it kept him from going mad. He had no thought of gain—only the achievement of a purpose, a monomania.

With this impulse was conjoined a more volitional motive—he wished to revenge himself upon the Apaches, and chiefly upon the renegade McKee, whom he supposed still to be with them. Somehow he blamed him, rather than Jack Payson, as being the chief cause of his miseries. "If he had not stolen the buried gold, I would have returned in time," he muttered. "He is at the bottom of all this. As I walked away from Jack in the garden, I felt as if it was McKee that was following me with his black, snaky eyes."

Accordingly, Dick directed his way to a region reputed to be both rich in buried treasure and infested by hostile Indians.

The fable of the Quivira, the golden city marked now by the ruins of the Piro pueblo of Tabiri, south of the salt-deposits of the Manzano, is still potent in Arizona and New Mexico to lure the treasure-seeker. Three hundred and fifty years ago it inspired a march across the plains that dwarfs the famous march of the Greeks to the sea. It led to the exploration of the Southwest and California before the Anglo-Saxon settlers had penetrated half a hundred miles from the Atlantic coast. The cities are forgotten to-day. The tribe which gave it a name proved to be utter barbarians, eaters of raw meat, clad only in skins, without gold, knowing nothing of the arts; Teton nomads, wandering through Kansas. Yet each decade since witnesses a revival of a wonderful story of the buried treasures of the Grand Quivira.

The myth originated in New Mexico in 1540. Antonio de Mendoza was the viceroy of New Spain. Having practically conquered the New World, the adventurers who formed his court, having no fighting to do with common enemies, began to hack each other. Opportunely for the viceroy, Fra Marcos discovered New Mexico and Arizona. Gathering the doughty swordsmen together, Mendoza turned them over to the brilliant soldier and explorer, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, with strict orders to get them as far from the viceroy as he could, and then lose them.

Coronado and his band were the first to see the Grand Canon of the Colorado. In the latter weeks of 1540 they were in the town of Tiguex. As they were less welcome than the modern tourists, who are now preyed upon where these preyed, the natives sent them on to the pueblo of the Pecos. Mendoza had sent Coronado into New Mexico on the strength of the trimmings of the myth of the "Seven Cities of Cibola." The fabled cities of gold proved to be peaceful settlements. Coronado attempted to lose his cut-throats by having them settle in the country. A plains Indian, captive among the Pecos, changed his plans, and led him to undertake his wonderful march. The Pecos wished to get rid of the guests, so they concocted a marvelous story of buried treasures, and made the poor captive father it. To the gold-chasers the captive was known as "The Turk," his head being shaven and adorned only with a scalp-lock, a custom noticeable because of its variance from that of the long-haired Pueblos.

"The Turk" told of a tribe of plainsmen who had a great store of the yellow substance. They were called the Quivira. He would lead them to the ancient Rockefellers. Coronado put him at the head of his band, and followed him eastward over the plains. For months they plodded after him, the Indian trying to lose Coronado, and that valiant warrior endeavoring to obey orders to "shake" his band. About the middle of what is now the Indian Territory, Coronado began to suspect that "The Turk" was selling him a gold brick instead of a bonanza. Landmarks began to look strangely alike. "The Turk," as he afterward confessed, was leading them in a circle. Coronado sent the most of his band back to the Mexican border, retaining about thirty followers. With the help of heated bayonets and sundry proddings, he then impressed upon "The Turk" that it was about time for him to find the Quiviras, or prepare to go to the happy hunting-grounds of his ancestors. After many hardships, "The Turk" located the tribe they were seeking near the present site of Kansas City. All that Coronado found in the way of metal was a bit of copper worn by a war-chief. Not only was the bubble burst, but the bursting was so feeble that Coronado was disgusted. He beheaded the guide with his own hands as a small measure of vengeance. With his followers he retraced his weary road to Tiguex. The lesson lasted for half a century, when the myth, brighter, more alluring than ever, arose and led others on to thirsty deaths in the bad lands and deserts of the Southwest.

It was to the modern version that Lane had succumbed. From the Sweetwater he roved to the south of Albuquerque, where the narrow valley of the Rio Grande is rimmed on the east by an arid plateau twenty miles wide; and this is, in turn, walled in by a long cordillera. Through the passes, over the summit, Lane climbed, descending through the pineries, park-like in their grandeur and immensity, to the bare, brown plains which stretch eastward to the rising sun. In the midst of the desert lies a chain of salines, accursed lakes of Tigua folk-lore. Beyond them the plain melts and rebuilds itself in the shimmering sun.

To the south and southeast spectral peaks tower to the clouds. Northward the blue shadows of the Sante Fe fall upon the pine-clad foot-hills.

Along the lower slopes of the Manzano are the ruins of the ancient pueblos. Abo and Cuarac are mounds of fallen buildings and desert-blown sand. Solemn in their grandeur, they dominate the lonely landscape in a land of adobe shacks.

Thirty miles from Cuarac, to the southeast, lies Tabiri, the "Grand Quivira." Huddled on the projecting slopes of the rounded ridges, access to it is a weary, dreary march. The nearest water is forty miles away. Toiling through sand ankle-deep, the traveler plods across the edge of the plains, through troughlike valleys, and up the wooded slope of the Mesa de los Jumanos. A mile to the south a whale-back ridge springs from the valley, nosing northward.

No sound breaks the stillness of the day. From the higher ridges the eye falls upon the pallid ghost of the city. Blotches of juniper relieve the monotony of the brown, lifeless grass. Grays fade into leaden hues, to be absorbed in the ashy, indeterminate colors of the sun-soaked plains. No fitter setting for a superstition could be found. Once a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, the topography of ridge gave it an unusual shape. Ruins of three four-story terrace houses face one another across narrow alleys. Six circular cisterns yawn amid mounds of fallen walls. At the center of the southerly blocks towers a gray quadrangular wall, the last of a large building. At the western terminus of the village, where the slope falls away to the valley, is a gigantic ruin. Its walls are thirty feet high and six feet thick. The roof has fallen, and the topmost layers of the bluish-gray limestone are ragged and time-worn.

The building had a frontage of two hundred and two feet, and its greatest depth was one hundred thirty-one feet. Flat-faced prisms, firmly laid in adobe mortar, are placed at irregular intervals in the walls.

The northern part of the ruin is one great cross-shaped room, thirty-eight feet wide and one hundred and thirty-one feet long. A gate fifteen feet wide and eleven feet high opens to the eastward. A mighty timber forms an arch supporting fifteen feet of solid masonry.

South of this is a great chamber cut up into smaller rooms, with long halls, with walls twenty feet in height. In one of the rooms is a fireplace, and over the doorways are carved wood lintels. An entrance from the south is given through a spacious antechamber. The rafters, hauled fifteen miles, must have weighed a ton.

Here lies the Colchis of the modern Argonaut. At first the Mexican pried through the debris-choked rooms, or feebly tunneled under the walls. With the coming of the white races and the drill, holes have been sunk into the original bed-rock. To the simple stories of the natives, fable-bearers have added maps, dying confessions, and discovered ciphers.

This ruin, which has caused so many heart-breaks and disappointments, are but the fragments of an old mission founded by Francisco de Atevedo in 1628. Tabiri was to be the central mission of Abo and Cuarac. The absence of water leads the modern explorer to believe that when the town was deserted the spring was killed. The gentle fathers who built the church supervised the construction of a water-works. On a higher ride are three crudely made reservoirs, with ditches leading to the village. The Piros had no animals save a few sheep, and the water supply was needed only for domestic uses, as the precipitation furnished moisture for small crops of beans and corn.

All these towns were wiped out by the Apaches, the red plague of the desert. First they attacked the outlying forts of the Salines, once supposed to be well-watered, teeming with game, and fruitful. Tradition again takes the place of unrecorded history, and tells that the sweet waters were turned to salt, in punishment of the wife of one of the dwellers in the city, who proved faithless. In 1675 the last vestige of aboriginal life was wiped out. For a century the Apaches held undisputed control of the country; then the Mexican pioneer crept in. His children are now scattered over the border. The American ranchman and gold-seeker followed, twisting the stories of a Christian conquest into strange tales of the seekers of buried treasures.

Through this land Dick had wandered, finding his search but a rainbow quest. But he kept on by dull inertia, wandering westward to Tularosa, then down to Fort Grant, and toward the Lava Beds of southwestern Arizona. In all that arid land there was nothing so withered as his soul.

Jack, well mounted, with a pack-mule carrying supplies, had picked up Dick's trail, after it left Tularosa, from a scout out of Fort Grant.

Slim Hoover headed for Fort Grant in his search for Jack. Although the ranchman had only a brief start of him, Slim lost the track at the river ford. Knowing Dick had gone into the desert, Jack headed eastward, while Slim, supposing that Jack was breaking for the border to escape into a foreign country turned southward.

From the scout who had met Jack and Dick, the Sheriff learned that the two men were headed for the Lava Beds, which were occupied by hostile Apaches.

Detachments of the 3d Cavalry were stationed at the fort, with Colonel Hardie in command of the famous F troop, a band of Indian fighters never equaled. In turn, they chased Cochise, Victoria, and Geronimo with their Apache warriors up and down and across the Rio Grande. Hard pressed, each chieftain, in turn, would flee with his band first to the Lava Beds, and then across the border into Mexico, where the United States soldiers could not follow. Hardie fooled Victoria, however. Texas rangers had met the Apache chief in an engagement on the banks of the Rio Grande. Only eight Americans returned from the encounter. Hardie took up his pursuit, and followed Victoria across the river. The Indians had relaxed their vigilance, not expecting pursuit and despising the Mexican Rurales. Troop F caught them off guard in the mountains. The fight was one to extermination. Victoria and his entire band were slain.

This was the troop which was awaiting orders to go after the Apaches.

Colonel Hardie told Slim that the Indians were bound to head for the Lava Beds. If the men for whom he was looking were in the desert, the troops would find them more quickly than Slim and his posse.

Slim waited at Fort Grant for orders, writing back to Sage-brush, telling him of his plans.

Fort Grant followed the usual plan of all frontier posts. A row of officers' houses faced the parade-grounds. Directly opposite were the cavalry barracks fort. On one side of the quadrangle were the stables, and the fourth line consisted of the quartermaster's buildings and the post-trader's store. Small ranchmen had gathered near the fort for protection, and because of the desire of the white man for company. In days of peace garrison life was monotonous. But the Apaches needed constant watching.

As a soldier, the Apache was cruel and cowardly. He always fought dismounted, never making an attack unless at his own advantage. As infantryman he was unequalled. Veteran army officers adopted the Apache tactics, and installed in the army the plan of mounted infantry; soldiers who move on horseback but fight on foot detailing one man of every four to guard the horses. Methods similar to those used by the Apaches were put into use by the Boers in the South African War.

Indeed, the scouting of these Dutch farmers possessed many of the characteristics of the Apaches. So, too, the Japanese soldiers hid from the Russians with the aid of artificial foliage in the same way that an Indian would creep up on his victim by tying a bush to the upper part of his body and crawling toward him on his knees and elbows.

Mounted on wiry ponies inured to hardships, to picking up a living on the scanty herbage of the plains, riding without saddles, and carrying no equipment, the Indians had little trouble in avoiding the soldiers. Leaving the reservation, the Apaches would commit some outrage, and then, swinging on the arc of a great circle, would be back to camp and settled long before the soldiers could overtake them. Hampered by orders from the War Department, which, in turn, was molested by the sentimental friends of the Indians, soldiers never succeeded in taming the Apache Crook cut off communications and thrashed them so thoroughly in these same Lava Beds that they never recovered.

In Slim's absence, Buck McKee and his gang had taken possession of Pinal County. Rustlers and bad men were coming in from Texas and the Strip. Slim's election for another term was by no means certain. He did not know this, but if he had, it would not have made any difference to him. He was after Jack, and, at any cost, would bring him back to face trial. The rogues of Pinal County seized upon the flight of Jack as a good excuse to down Slim. The Sheriff was more eager to find Jack and learn from him that Buck's charge was false than to take him prisoner. He knew the accusation would not stand full investigation.

Slowly the hours passed until the order for "boots and saddles" was sounded, and the troops trotted out of the fort gate. Scouts soon picked up their trail, but that was different from finding the Indians. Oft-times the troopers would ride into a hastily abandoned camp with the ashes still warm, but never a sight of a warrior could be had. Over broad mesas, down narrow mountain trails, and up canons so deep that the sun never fully penetrated them, the soldiers followed the renegades.

For a day the trail was lost. Then it was picked up by the print of a pony's hoof beside a water-hole. But always the line of flight led toward an Apache spring in the Lava Beds.

Slim and his posse took their commands from the officers of the pursuers. The cow-punchers gave them much assistance as scouts, knowing the country, through which the Indians fled. Keeping in touch with the main command, they rode ahead to protect it from any surprise. The chief Indian scout got so far ahead at one time in the chase that he was not seen for two days. Once, by lying flat on his belly, shading his eyes with his hands, and gazing intently at a mountainside so far ahead that the soldiers could scarcely discern it, he declared he had seen the fugitives climb the trail. The feat seemed impossible, until the second morning after, when the scout pointed out to the colonel the pony-tracks up the mountainside. The Apache scouts kept track of the soldiers' movements, communicating with the main body with blanket-signals and smoke columns.

The sign-language of the Indians of the South is an interesting field of study. On the occasion of a raid like the one described, the warriors who were to participate would gather at one point and construct a mound, with as many stones in it as there were warriors. Then they would scatter into small bands. When any band returned to the mound, after losing a fight and the others were not there, the leader would take from the mound as many stones as he had lost warriors. Thus, the other bands, on returning, could tell just how many men had fallen.

In the arid regions of the West, water-signs are quite frequent. They usually consist of a grouping of stones, with a longer triangular stone in the center, its apex pointing in the direction where the water is to be found. In some cases the water is so far from the trail that four or five of these signs must be followed up before the water is found.

Only the Indian and the mule can smell water. This accomplishment enabled the fleeing Apaches to take every advantage of the pursuing troopers, who must travel from spring to spring along known trails.

In the long, weary chase men and horses began to fail rapidly. Short rations quickly became slow starvation fare. Hardie fed his men and horses on mesquit bean, a plant heretofore considered poisonous. For water he was forced to depend upon the cactus, draining the fluid secreted at the heart of the plant.

With faces blistered by the sun and caked with alkali, blue shirts faded to a purple tinge, and trousers and accouterments covered with a gray, powdery dust, the soldiers rode on silently and determinedly. Hour after hour the troop flung itself across the plains and into the heart of the Lava Beds, each day cutting down the Apache lead.



CHAPTER XIII

The Atonement

False dawn in the Lava Beds of Arizona. The faint tinge on the eastern horizon fades, and the stars shine the more brilliantly in the brief, darkest hour before the true daybreak. An icy wind sweeps down canons and over mesas, stinging the marrow of the wayfarer's bones. In the heavens, the innumerable stars burn steadily in crystal coldness. Shadows lie in Stygian blackness at foot of rock and valley. Soft and clear the lights of night swathe the uplands. An awesome silence hangs over the desert. Hushed and humbled by the immensity of space, one expects to hear the rush of worlds through the universe. At times the bosom swells with a wild desire to sing and shout in the glory of pure living.

The day comes quickly; the sun, leaping edge of the world, floods mesa and canon, withering, sparing no living thing, lavishing reds and purples, blues and violets upon canon walls and wind-sculptured rocks. But a remorseful glare, blinding, sight-destroying, is thrown back from the sand and alkali of the desert. Shriveled sage-brush and shrunken cactus bravely fight for life.

A narrow pathway leads from the mesa down the canon's wall, twisting and doubling on itself to Apache Spring. The trail then moves southward between towering cliffs, a lane through which is caught a far-distant glimpse of the mountains. Little whirlwinds of dust spring up, ever and anon, twirling wildly across the sandy wastes. The air suffocates, like the breath of a furnace. Ever the pitiless sun searches and scorches, as conscience sears and stings a stricken soul.

Down the narrow trail, past the spring, ride in single file the Apaches, slowly, on tired horses, for the pursuing soldiers have given them no halting space. Naked, save for a breech-clout, with a narrow red band of dyed buckskin about his forehead, in which sticks a feather, each rides silent, grim, cruel, a hideous human reptile, as native to the desert as is the Gila monster. The horse is saddleless. For a bridle, the warrior uses a piece of grass rope twisted about the pony's lower jaw. His legs droop laxly by the horse's sides. In his right hand he grasps his rifle, resting the butt on the knee. The only sound to break the stillness of the day is the rattle of stones, slipping and sliding down the pathway when loosened by hoofs of the ponies.

Creeping down the canon wall, they cross the bottom, pass the spring, and disappear at a turn in the canon walls. Nature and Indian meet and merge in a world of torture and despair.

Dick had fared badly in the Lava Beds. One spring after the other he found dry. His horse fell from exhaustion and thirst; he ended the sufferings of his pack-mule with a revolver-bullet.

Dick staggered on afoot across the desert, hoping to find water at Apache Spring. His blue shirt was torn and faded to a dingy purple. Hat and shoulders were gray with alkali dust. Contact with the rocks and cactus had rent trousers and leggings. His shoes, cut by sharply pointed stones, and with thread rotted by the dust of the deserts, were worn to shreds. Unshaven and unshorn, with sunken cheeks and eyes bright with the delirium of thirst, he dragged his weary way across the desert. He reached Apache Spring shortly after the passage of the Indians, but craving for water was so great that he did not observe their trail.

Reeling toward the spring, he cast aside his hat and flung down his rifle in his eagerness to drink. Throwing himself on his face before the hollow in the rock from which the water trickled, he first saw that the waters had dried up. With his bony fingers he dug into the dry sand, crying aloud in despair. Stiffly he arose and blundered blindly to a rock, upon which he sank in his weakness.

"Another day like this and I'll give up the fight," he moaned. "Apache Spring dry—the first time in years; Little Squaw Spring, nothing but dust and alkali; it is twenty miles to Clearwater Spring—twenty miles—if I can make it."

Dick trembled with weakness. His swollen tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. His lips were cracked and blackened. Bits of foam flickered about the corners of his mouth. The glare blinded his eyes, which were half-closed. At times fever-waves swept over him; again he shuddered with cold.

Sounds of falling waters filled his ears. The sighing of the wind through the canon walls suggested the trickling of fountains. Rivers flowed before his eyes through green meadows, only to fade into the desert as he gazed.

"What a land! what a land! It is the abode of the god of thirst! He tempts men into his valley with the lure of gold, and saps the life-blood from their bodies—drop by drop. Drop by drop I hear it falling. No, it is water I hear! There it is! How cool it looks!"

Dick rose and staggered toward the cliff. In his delirium of thirst he saw streams of water gush down the mountainside. Holding out his arms, he cried: "Saved, saved!"

His hands fell limply by his sides as the illusion faded. He then doubled them into fists, and shook them at the cliff in a last defiance of despair. "You sha'n't drive me mad!"

He seized his empty canteen, pressing it to his lips.

"No, I drained that two days ago—or was it three?" he whispered in panic, as he threw it aside.

Picking up his gun, he falteringly attempted the ascent. "I won't give up—I won't," he shouted huskily. "I've fought the desert before and conquered. I'll conquer again—I'll—"

His will-power ebbed with his failing strength. Blindness fell upon him. Oblivion swept over him. He sank, dying of thirst, in the sands of the desert.

As the buzzard finds the dead, so an Apache crept upon Dick as he lay prostrate. But as the Indian aimed, he heard footsteps from a draw. He saw a man approaching the spring. Silently he fled behind the rocks.

It was Jack. He had entered the Lava Beds from the east, closely following the man for whom he had searched for so many weary months. Others of the Apaches had marked him already. Knowing he would go to the spring, they waited warily to learn if he were alone. The band had scattered to surround him at the water-hole.

Jack's horse and burro, which he had left at the head of the canon, were already in the Indians' possession. With him he carried his rifle and a Colt revolver. A canteen of water was slung over his shoulder. The desert had placed its stamp upon him, turning his clothes to gray. The tan of his face was deepened. Lines about the eyes and mouth showed how much he had suffered physically and mentally in his search for the man he believed was his successful rival in love. Reaching the spring, he looked about cautiously before he laid down his Winchester. He tugged at the butt of his revolver to make certain that it could be pulled quickly from the holster. Taking off his hat, he knelt to drink. He smiled, and confidently tapped his canteen when he found the spring dry. He was raising his canteen to his lips when he spied Dick's body.

Jumping behind a rock, he pulled his revolver, covering the insensible man. It might be a trap. He scanned the trail, the cliff, the canon. Hearing and seeing nothing, he slipped his revolver into his holster and hurried to Dick's side. At first he did not recognize him. The desert and thirst had wrought many changes in his friend's face.

When recognition came, he threw his arms about the prostrate form, crying: "Dick, at last, at last!"

His voice was broken with emotion. The search had been so long, so weary, and the ending so sudden. He had found Dick, but it looked as if he came too late.

Gathering Dick up in his arms, he raised him until his head rested on his knees. Forcing open his mouth, he poured a little water down his throat.

Then with a moistened handkerchief he wetted temples and wrists. Slowly Dick struggled back to life.

"Water—water—it's water!" he gasped, struggling for more of the precious fluid.

"Easy," cautioned Jack. "Only a little now—more when you're stronger."

"Who is it?" cried Dick. Not waiting for Jack to enlighten him, he continued: "No matter—you came in time. I couldn't have held out any longer. All the springs are dry—I figured on reaching Clearwater."

Jack helped Dick to his feet. Taking his stricken friend's right arm, he drew it across his shoulders. With his left arm about his waist, Jack led him to a seat upon a convenient rock.

"I came by Clearwater yesterday," explained Jack. "It is nothing but mud and alkali."

"My horse dropped three days ago. I had to shoot the pack-mule. I—" Dick opened his eyes under the ministrations of Jack. Gazing upward into his face, he shouted joyfully:

"Why—it's Jack—Jack Payson."

"Didn't you know me, Dick?" asked Jack sympathetically.

"Not at first—my eyes went to the bad out yonder in the glare."

The effort had been too much for Dick. He sat weakly over Jack's knees. Jack turned him partly on his back, and let more water trickle down his throat.

Dick clutched madly at the canteen, but Jack drew it back out of his reach. With his handkerchief he moistened lips and neck. When Dick's strength returned, Jack helped him to sit up.

"I've been hunting you for months," he told him.

"Hunting for me?" echoed Dick.

"Yes," answered Jack. "I traced you through the Lost Cities, then to Cooney, then up in the Tularosas. At Fort Grant they put me on the right trail."

As the clouds break, revealing the blue of the heavens, so Dick's memory came back to him. He shrank from the man at his side.

"Well?" he asked, as he stared at his betrayer.

Jack gazed fixedly ahead. He dared not look in the face of him he had wronged so bitterly.

"She wants you," he said, in a voice void of all emotion.

"Who wants me?" asked Dick, after a pause.

"Echo."

"Your wife?" gritted Dick. He fingered his gun as he spoke.

Huskily Jack replied: "Yes."

Bitter thoughts filled the mind of one; the other had schooled himself to make atonement. For the wrong he had done, Jack was ready to offer his life. He had endured the full measure of his sufferings. The hour of his delivery was at hand. Hard as it was to die in the midglory of manhood, it was easier to end it all here and now, than to live unloved by Echo, hated by Dick, despised by himself.

"She sent me to find you. 'Bring him back to me.' That's what she said," Jack cried, in his agony.

"Your wife—she said that?" faltered Dick.

Fiercely in his torture Jack answered: "Yes—my wife—my wife said it. 'Bring him back to me.'"

"Back?" Dick paused. "Back to what?" he asked himself. "She's your wife, isn't she?" he demanded.

"That's what the law says," answered Jack.

With the thought of the evening in the garden when he heard Jack and Echo pronounced man and wife surging over him, Dick murmured: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

"That's what the Book says," answered Jack. "But when hands alone are joined and hearts are asunder, it can't go on record as the work of God."

Dick bowed his head in his hands. "I don't understand."

Stubbornly Jack pursued his message to Dick. "She doesn't love me. I thought I had won her, but she married me with your image in her heart. She married me, yet all the while you were the man she loved—you—you—and in the end I found it out."

Jack's voice sank almost into a whisper as he finished his revelation to Dick, who raised his head and cried: "And yet she broke her faith with me—"

Jack arose in his misery. His task was harder than he expected. Dick was forcing him to tell all without concealing even the smallest trifle of his shame.

"She thought—you were dead. I never told her otherwise. I lied to her—I lied to her."

"She never knew?" asked Dick joyfully. "The letter—?"

"I never gave it to her," answered Jack simply.

Dick leaped to his feet, pulling his revolver from his holster. "And I thought her false to her trust!" He aimed his gun at Payson's heart. "I ought to kill you for this!"

Jack spread out his arms and calmly replied: "I'm ready."

Dick dropped his gun and slipped it into the holster with a gesture of despair. "But it's too late now, too late!"

In his eagerness to tell Dick the way he had solved the problem, Jack spoke nervously and quickly. "No, it isn't too late. There's one way out of this—one way in which I can atone for the wrong I've done you both, and I stand ready to make that atonement. It is your right to kill me, but it is better that you go back to her without my blood on your hands—"

"Go—back—to her?" questioned Dick, as the meaning of the phrase slowly dawned upon him.

"Yes," said Jack, holding out his hands. "Go back with clean hands to Echo Allen. It is you she loves. There's my horse up yonder. Beyond, there're the pack-mule loaded with water and grub. Plenty of water. We'll just change places, that's all. You take them and go back to her and I'll stay here."

Dick walked toward the spring, but, a spell of weakness came over him and he almost sank to the ground. Jack caught him and held him up.

"It would be justice," muttered Dick, as if apologizing for his acceptance of Jack's renunciation.

Leaning over his shoulder, Jack said: "Sure, that's it, justice. Just tell her I tried to work it out according to my lights—ask her to—forgive, to forgive, that's all."

Jack took off his canteen and threw the strap around Dick's neck. As Lane weakly staggered toward the mouth of the canon, where the horse had been staked out, Jack halted him with a request:

"There's another thing; I left home under a cloud. Buck McKee charged me with holding up and killing 'Ole Man' Terrill for three thousand dollars. Tell Slim Hoover how you paid me just that sum of money."

"I will, and I'll fix the murder where it belongs, and then fix the real murderer."

Jack stepped to Lane's side and, holding out his hand, said: "Thank you. I don't allow you can forgive me?"

"I don't know that I could," coldly answered Dick.

"You'd better be going."

Again Dick started for the horse, but a new thought came to him. Pausing, he said. "She can't marry again until—"

"Well?" asked Jack; his voice was full of sinister meaning, and he fingered his gun as he spoke.

Dick realized at once that Jack's plan was to end his life in the desert with a revolver-shot.

"You mean to—" he shuddered.

Jack drew his gun. "Do you want me to do it here and now?" he cried.

Staggering over to him the weakened man grappled with his old friend, trying to disarm him. "No, no, you sha'n't!" he shouted, as Jack shook him free.

"Why not?" demanded Jack. "Go. There's my horse—he's yours—go! When you get to the head of the canon, you'll hear and know—know that she is free and I have made atonement."

"Why should I hesitate?" argued Dick with himself. "I wanted to die. I came here in the desert to make an end of it all, but when I met death face to face, the old spirit of battle came over me, and fought it back, step by step. Now—now you come and offer me more than life—you offer to restore to me all that made life dear, all that you have stolen from me by treachery and fraud. Why should I hesitate? She is mine, mine in heart, mine by all the ties of love—mine by all its vows—I will go back, I will take your place and leave you here—here in this land of dead things, to make your peace with God!"

Beads of sweat broke out on Jack's forehead as he listened. He bit his lips until they bled. Clenching his fingers until the nails sank into the palms of his hands, he cried warningly in his agony: "I wouldn't say no more, if I was you. Go—for God's sake, go!"

Dick slowly moved toward the mouth of the canon, still hesitating.

From the hillside a rifle-shot rang out. The ball struck Dick in the leg. He fell, and lay motionless.

Pulling his revolver, Jack stooped and ran under the overhanging ledge, peering about to see where the shot had come from. He raised his gun to fire, when a volley of rifle-shots rang through the canon, the bullets kicking up little spurts of dust about him and chipping edges off the rocks. Jack dropped on his knees and crept to his rifle, clipping his revolver back into his holster.

Crouching behind a rock with his rifle to his shoulder, he waited for the attackers to show themselves.

Experience on the plains taught them that the fight would be a slow one, unless the Apaches sought only to divert attention for the time being to cover their flight southward. After the one shot, which struck Dick, and the volley directed at Jack, not a rifle had been fired. Peering over the boulder, Jack could see nothing.

The Lava Beds danced before his eyes in the swelter of the glaring sunshine. Far off the snow-capped mountains mockingly reared their peaks into the intense blue of the heavens. Since the attackers were covered with alkali-dust from the long ride, a color which would merge into the desert floor when a man lay prone, detection of any movement was doubly difficult. Behind any rock and in any clump of sage-brush might lie an assailant.

Dick had fallen near the spring. He struggled back to consciousness, to find his left leg numb and useless. When the ball struck him he felt only a sharp pinch. His fainting was caused by a shock to his weakened body, but not from fear or pain. With the return to his senses came a horrible, burning thirst, and a horrible sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He lay breathing heavily until he got a grip on himself. Then he tore the bandanna handkerchief from his neck and bound up the wound, winding the bandage as tightly as his strength permitted to check the blood-flow.

"What is it?" asked Jack, over his shoulder.

"Indians—the 'Paches are out. I'm hit," gasped Dick. He crawled painfully and slowly to Jack's side, dragging his leg after him. He pulled with him his rifle, which he picked up as he passed from the spot where it had fallen in his first wild rush for water.

"The soldiers told me at Fort Grant about the 'Paches being out," Jack whispered hoarsely. "I thought they'd crossed the border into Mexico."

Seeing a spasm of pain sweep over Dick's face, he asked: "Are you hurt bad?"

"I don't know. My left leg is numb."

Both men spoke scarcely above a whisper, fearing to betray their positions by the sound of their voices. Dick lay on his back gathering strength to ward off with rifle and revolver the rush which would come sooner or later.

Jack caught the sound of a falling stone. Peering cautiously over the rock, he saw an Indian creep up a draw toward them. Throwing his rifle to his shoulder, he took quick aim and fired. The Apache jumped to his feet, ran a few steps forward, and fell sprawling. A convulsive shudder shook him, and he lay still.

"I got him!" cried Jack exultantly, as he saw the result of the shot.

But the exposure of his head and shoulders above their barricade had drawn forth more shots from other members of the band.

The bullets struck near the two men, showing that the Apaches had the range.

Dick's wound was bleeding freely, but the shock of the blow had passed away, and his strength returned. Drawing his revolver, he crept closer to Jack, crying: "I can shoot some."

"I reckon you haven't more than a flesh-wound," encouraged Jack. "Can you crawl to the horse?"

"I think I can," answered Dick.

"Then go. Take the trail home. I'll keep these fellows busy while you get away."

The Apaches were showing themselves more as they darted from rock to rock, drawing closer to the entrapped men down the boulder-strewn draws or ravines leading into the canon. An Apache had crawled to the head of a draw, and crossed the butte into a second ravine, which led to the trail down the cliffside. On his belly he had wormed his way up the pathway until he overlooked the rear of the defensive position the two men occupied. Screened by a hedge he awaited a favorable shot.

Jack again cautiously raised his head and peered over the barricade. Still not an enemy was in sight. As the Apaches had ceased to fire, he knew they were gathering for another simultaneous rush. The purpose of these dashes was twofold: While one or two men might be killed in the advance, the whole party was nearer the object of attack at the finish, and the defenders were demoralized by the hopelessness of all resistance. For the silent rising of naked, paint-daubed Indians from out of the ground, the quick closing in of the cordon, similar to the turn of a lariat around a snubbing-post when a pony weakens for a moment, is calculated to shake the nerves of the strongest of Indian-fighters.

In the breathing-space which the Apaches had given them Jack, who had resigned himself to die, took a new grip on life. His dream of atonement had worked out better than he had planned. Selling his life bravely fighting in a good cause was far, far better than ending it by his own hand. It was a man's death. Fate had befriended him in the end.

Reaching his hand out to Dick, he touched his shoulder, rousing him from a stupor into which he was sinking.

"Quick, Dick, they're coming closer. Go," he ordered. "Don't be a fool, only one of us can escape. One of us alone. Let it be you, Dick, go back to her, back to home and happiness."

Dick struggled to a sitting posture, offering a fair target for the Indian hidden behind the ledge on the cliff trail. The Apache took full advantage and fired, but missed. Dick returned the shot with his revolver before the warrior could sink back behind the rock. The Apache lurched forward in his death-blindness, with the last convulsive obedience of the muscles ere the will flees. Then his legs crumpled up beneath him and he toppled forward off the ledge. His breech-clout caught in a rocky projection, causing the body to hang headlong against the side of the cliff. His rifle fell from his nerveless hands, clattering and breaking on the rocks below.

The sight served as a tonic to Dick. His success braced his strength and will. The old battle-spirit surged over him. Only with an effort did he suppress the desire to laugh and shout. He would have left Jack to fight it out alone but a minute before, but the one shot drove all such ideas from his mind.

"No. I'll be damned if I'll go!" he shouted. "I'll stay and fight with you," and, seizing his rifle joined Jack in stopping a rush of the Apaches.

"We stopped them that time," Jack cried, with satisfaction. In the lull he again urged his comrade to escape to the horse and return to Echo. "Take the horse," he insisted. "Go while there's a chance."

"No," shouted Dick determinedly. It was as much his fight as Jack's now.

Jack thought more for Echo in that moment than he did for himself. Here was the man she loved. He must go back to her. The woman's happiness depended upon it. But Jack realized that while he was alive, Dick would stay. One supreme sacrifice was necessary.

"Go," he cried, "or I'll stand up and let 'em get me."

"No, we can hold them off," begged Dick, firing as he spoke.

Jack's hour had struck. It was all so supremely simple. There were no waving flags, no cheering comrades. He was only one of two men in the desert, dirty, grimy, and sweaty; his mouth dry and parched, his eyes stinging from powder-fumes, his hands numb from the effects of rapid firing. His mind worked automatically; he seemed to be only an onlooker. The man who first fought off the Apaches and who was now to offer himself as a sacrifice was only one of two Jack Paysons, a replica of his conscious self.

Swiftly Jack Payson arose and faced the Indians.

"Good-bye!" he cried to his comrade.

Dick struggled to his feet and threw himself on Jack to force him down behind the barricade. For a moment both men were in full view of the Apaches. A volley crashed up and across the canon. Both men fell locked in each other's arms, then lay still.

The Indians awaited the result of the shots. The strange actions of the men might be only a ruse. Silence would mean they were victorious.

Both Jack and Dick had been struck. Jack was the first to recover. Reviving, he struggled out of the clasp of his unconscious comrade. "He's hit bad," he said to himself, "and so am I. I'll fight it out to the last, and if they charge they won't get us alive."

Dick groaned and opened his eyes.

"I'm hit hard," he whispered, "you'd better go."

Jack was on his hands and knees crawling toward his rifle when his comrade spoke.

"Listen," he replied. "We're both fixed to stay now, so lie close. I'll hold 'em off as long as I can, but if they rush, save one shot for yourself—you understand?"

"Yes, not alive!" answered Dick weakly, his voice thin and his face ashen white with pain.

Jack reached the boulder, and with an effort raised himself and peered over the edge.

"They're getting ready. Will you take my hand now?" he asked, as he held it out to Dick.

"I sure will," his wounded comrade cried, grasping it with all the strength he possessed.

Jack smiled in his happiness. He felt he had made his peace with all men and at last was ready to meet death with a clear conscience.

"It looks like the end. But we'll fight for it."

The shrill war-whoops of the Indians, the first sound they had made in the fight, showed they felt confident of overcoming the men in the next rush.

Jack and Dick had abandoned the rifles and were now fighting the Indians off with their revolvers as they closed in on them.

Hardie had halted the night before at Clearwater Spring. Finding it but mud and alkali, he had merely rested his men and horses for a few hours, and then pushed on for Apache Spring, where he hoped to strike water. The troop rode through the early morning hours, full of grit, and keen to overtake the Apaches, traces of whose flight were becoming more evident every mile. All weariness had vanished. Even the horses felt there was something in the air and answered the bugle-call with fresh vigor and go.

A scout first heard the firing at the spring. He did not wait to investigate, knowing he could do nothing alone. The volleys, the difference in the reports of the rifles, proved to him that one party was firing Springfields and the other Winchesters. He knew that the Apaches were being held off. Galloping back to the troop, he reported the fight to its commander.

The bugles sounded. The horses were forced into a gallop. With clashing accouterments and jingling spurs and bits, they dashed across the mesa to the head of the trail. Here they met Slim Hoover and his posse coming from an opposite direction.