There was a deep gash on the upper part of the forehead. If the cross-bar of the chair had not broken, the skull might have been injured. The impact of the blow had stunned him, and it might be many minutes before his senses returned.

As the crowd closed around Dan, a black body leaped among them, snarling hideously. They sprang back with a yell from the rush of this green-eyed fury; but Black Bart made no effort to attack them. He sat crouching before the prostrate body, licking the deathly white face, and growling horribly, and then stood over his fallen master and stared about the circle. Those who had seen a lone wolf make its stand against a pack of dogs recognized the attitude. Then without a sound, as swiftly as he had entered the room, he leaped through the door and darted off up the road. Satan, for the first time deserted by this wolfish companion, turned a high head and neighed after him, but he raced on.

The men returned to their work over Dan's body, cursing softly. There was a hair-raising unearthliness about the sudden coming and departure of Black Bart. Jim Silent and his comrades waited no longer, but took to their saddles and galloped down the road.

Within a few moments the crowd at Morgan's place began to thin out. Evening was coming on, and most of them had far to ride. They might have lingered until midnight, but this peculiar accident damped their spirits. Probably not a hundred words were spoken from the moment Silent struck Dan to the time when the last of the cattlemen took to the saddle. They avoided each other's eyes as if in shame. In a short time only Morgan remained working over Dan.

In the house of old Joe Cumberland his daughter sat fingering the keys of the only piano within many miles. The evening gloom deepened as she played with upward face and reminiscent eyes. The tune was uncertain, weird—for she was trying to recall one of those nameless airs which Dan whistled as he rode through the hills. There came a patter of swift, light footfalls in the hall, and then a heavy scratching at the door.

"Down, Bart!" she called, and went to admit him to the room.

The moment she turned the handle the door burst open and Bart fell in against her. She cried out at sight of the gleaming teeth and eyes, but he fawned about her feet, alternately whining and snarling.

"What is it, boy?" she asked, gathering her skirts close about her ankles and stepping back, for she never was without some fear of this black monster. "What do you want, Bart?"

For reply he stood stock still, raised his nose, and emitted a long wail, a mournful, a ghastly sound, with a broken-hearted quaver at the end. Kate Cumberland shrank back still farther until the wall blocked her retreat. Black Bart had never acted like this before. He followed her with a green light in his eyes, which shone phosphorescent and distinct through the growing shadows. And most terrible of all was the sound which came deep in his throat as if his brute nature was struggling to speak human words. She felt a great impulse to cry out for help, but checked herself. He was still crouching about her feet. Obviously he meant no harm to her.

He turned and ran towards the door, stopped, looked back to her, and made a sound which was nearer to the bark of a dog than anything he had ever uttered. She made a step after him. He whined with delight and moved closer to the door. Now she stopped again. He whirled and ran back, caught her dress in his teeth, and again made for the door, tugging her after him.

At last she understood and followed him. When she went towards the corral to get her horse, he planted himself in front of her and snarled so furiously that she gave up her purpose. She was beginning to be more and more afraid. A childish thought came to her that perhaps this brute was attempting to lure her away from the house, as she had seen coyotes lure dogs, and then turn his teeth against her. Nevertheless she followed. Something in the animal's eagerness moved her deeply. When he led her out to the road he released her dress and trotted ahead a short distance, looking back and whining, as if to beg her to go faster. For the first time the thought of Dan came into her mind. Black Bart was leading her down the road towards Morgan's place. What if something had happened to Dan?

She caught a breath of sharp terror and broke into a run. Bart yelped his pleasure. Yet a cold horror rose in her heart as she hurried. Had her father after all been right? What power had Dan, if he needed her, to communicate with this mute beast and send him to her? As she ran she wished for the day, the warm, clear sun—for these growing shadows of evening bred a thousand ghostly thoughts. Black Bart was running backwards and forwards before her as if he half entreated and half threatened her.

Her heart died within her as she came in sight of Morgan's place. There was only one horse before it, and that was the black stallion. Why had the others gone so soon? Breathless, she reached the door of the saloon. It was very dim within. She could make out only formless shades at first. Black Bart slid noiselessly across the floor. She followed him with her eyes, and now she saw a figure stretched straight out on the floor while another man kneeled at his side. She ran forward with a cry.

Morgan rose, stammering. She pushed him aside and dropped beside Dan. A broad white bandage circled his head. His face was almost as pale as the cloth. Her touches went everywhere over that cold face, and she moaned little syllables that had no meaning. He lived, but it seemed to her that she had found him at the legended gates of death.

"Miss Kate!" said Morgan desperately.

"You murderer!"

"You don't think that I did that?"

"It happened in your place—you had given Dad your word!"

Still she did not turn her head.

"Won't you hear me explain? He's jest in a sort of a trance. He'll wake up feelin' all right. Don't try to move him tonight. I'll go out an' put his hoss up in the shed. In the mornin' he'll be as good as new. Miss Kate, won't you listen to me?"

She turned reluctantly towards him. Perhaps he was right and Dan would waken from his swoon as if from a healthful sleep.

"It was that big feller with them straight eyes that done it," began Morgan.

"The one who was sneering at Dan?"

"Yes."

"Weren't there enough boys here to string him up?"

"He had three friends with him. It would of taken a hundred men to lay hands on one of those four. They were all bad ones. I'm goin' to tell you how it was, because I'm leavin' in a few minutes and ridin' south, an' I want to clear my trail before I start. This was the way it happened—"

His back was turned to the dim light which fell through the door. She could barely make out the movement of his lips. All the rest of his face was lost in shadow. As he spoke she sometimes lost his meaning and the stir of his lips became a nameless gibbering. The grey gloom settled more deeply round the room and over her heart while he talked. He explained how the difference had risen between the tall stranger and Whistling Dan. How Dan had been insulted time and again and borne it with a sort of childish stupidity. How finally the blow had been struck. How Dan had crouched on the floor, laughing, and how a yellow light gathered in his eyes.

At that, her mind went blank. When her thoughts returned she stood alone in the room. The clatter of Morgan's galloping horse died swiftly away down the road. She turned to Dan. Black Bart was crouched at watch beside him. She kneeled again—lowered her head—heard the faint but steady breathing. He seemed infinitely young—infinitely weak and helpless. The whiteness of the bandage stared up at her like an eye through the deepening gloom. All the mother in her nature came to her eyes in tears.



CHAPTER VIII

RED WRITING

He stirred.

"Dan—dear!"

"My head," he muttered, "it sort of aches, Kate, as if—"

He was silent and she knew that he remembered.

"You're all right now, honey. I've come here to take care of you—I won't leave you. Poor Dan!"

"How did you know?" he asked, the words trailing.

"Black Bart came for me."

"Good ol' Bart!"

The great wolf slunk closer, and licked the outstretched hand.

"Why, Kate, I'm on the floor and it's dark. Am I still in Morgan's place? Yes, I begin to see clearer."

He made an effort to rise, but she pressed him back.

"If you try to move right away you may get a fever. I'm going back to the house, and I'll bring you down some blankets. Morgan says you shouldn't attempt to move for several hours. He says you've lost a great deal of blood and that you mustn't make any effort or ride a horse till tomorrow."

Dan relaxed with a sigh.

"Kate."

"Yes, honey."

Her hand travelled lightly as blown snow across his forehead. He caught it and pressed the coolness against his cheek.

"I feel as if I'd sort of been through a fire. I seem to be still seein' red."

"Dan, it makes me feel as if I never knew you! Now you must forget all that has happened. Promise me you will!"

He was silent for a moment and then he sighed again.

"Maybe I can, Kate. Which I feel, though, as if there was somethin' inside me writ—writ in red letters—I got to try to read the writin' before I can talk much."

She barely heard him. Her hand was still against his face. A deep awe and content was creeping through her, so that she began to smile and was glad that the dark covered her face. She felt abashed before him for the first time in her life, and there was a singular sense of shame. It was as if some door in her inner heart had opened so that Dan was at liberty to look down into her soul. There was terror in this feeling, but there was also gladness.

"Kate."

"Yes—honey!"

"What were you hummin'?"

She started.

"I didn't know I was humming, Dan."

"You were, all right. It sounded sort of familiar, but I couldn't figger out where I heard it."

"I know now. It's one of your own tunes."

Now she felt a tremor so strong that she feared he would notice it.

"I must go back to the house, Dan. Maybe Dad has returned. If he has, perhaps he can arrange to have you carried back tonight."

"I don't want to think of movin', Kate. I feel mighty comfortable. I'm forgettin' all about that ache in my head. Ain't that queer? Why, Kate, what in the world are you laughin' about?"

"I don't know, Dan. I'm just happy!"

"Kate."

"Yes?"

"I like you pretty much."

"I'm so glad!"

"You an' Black Bart, an' Satan—"

"Oh!" Her tone changed.

"Why are you tryin' to take your hand away, Kate?"

"Don't you care for me any more than for your horse—and your dog?"

He drew a long breath, puzzled.

"It's some different, I figger."

"Tell me!"

"If Black Bart died—"

The wolf-dog whined, hearing his name.

"Good ol' Bart! Well, if Black Bart died maybe I'd some day have another dog I'd like almost as much."

"Yes."

"An' if Satan died—even Satan!—maybe I could sometime like another hoss pretty well—if he was a pile like Satan! But if you was to die—it'd be different, a considerable pile different."

"Why?"

His pauses to consider these questions were maddening.

"I don't know," he muttered at last.

Once more she was thankful for the dark to hide her smile.

"Maybe you know the reason, Kate?"

Her laughter was rich music. His hold on her hand relaxed. He was thinking of a new theme. When he laughed in turn it startled her. She had never heard that laugh before.

"What is it, Dan?"

"He was pretty big, Kate. He was bigger'n almost any man I ever seen! It was kind of funny. After he hit me I was almost glad. I didn't hate him—"

"Dear Dan!"

"I didn't hate him—I jest nacherally wanted to kill him—and wantin' to do that made me glad. Isn't that funny, Kate?"

He spoke of it as a chance traveller might point out a striking feature of the landscape to a companion.

"Dan, if you really care for me you must drop the thought of him."

His hand slipped away.

"How can I do that? That writin' I was tellin' you about—"

"Yes?"

"It's about him!"

"Ah!"

"When he hit me the first time—"

"I won't hear you tell of it!"

"The blood come down my chin—jest a little trickle of it. It was warm, Kate. That was what made me hot all through."

Her hands fell limp, cold, lifeless.

"It's as clear as the print in a book. I've got to finish him. That's the only way I can forget the taste of my own blood."

"Dan, listen to me!"

He laughed again, in the new way. She remembered that her father had dreaded the very thing that had come to Dan—this first taste of his own powers—this first taste (she shuddered) of blood!

"Dan, you've told me that you like me. You have to make a choice now, between pursuing this man, and me."

"You don't understand," he explained carefully. "I got to follow him. I can't help it no more'n Black Bart can help howlin' when he sees the moon."

He fell silent, listening. Far across the hills came the plaintive wail of a coyote—that shrill bodiless sound. Kate trembled.

"Dan!"

Outside, Satan whinnied softly like a call. She leaned and her lips touched his. He thrust her away almost roughly.

"They's blood on my lips, Kate! I can't kiss you till they're clean."

He turned his head.

"You must listen to me, Dan!"

"Kate, would you talk to the wind?"

"Yes, if I loved the wind!"

He turned his head.

She pleaded: "Here are my hands to cover your eyes and shut out the thoughts of this man you hate. Here are my lips, dear, to tell you that I love you unless this thirst for killing carries you away from me. Stay with me! Give me your heart to keep gentle!"

He said nothing, but even through the dark she was aware of a struggle in his face, and then, through the gloom, she began to see his eyes more clearly. They seemed to be illuminated by a light from within—they changed—there was a hint of yellow in the brown. And she spoke again, blindly, passionately.

"Give me your promise! It is so easy to do. One little word will make you safe. It will save you from yourself."

Still he answered nothing. Black Bart came and crouched at his head and stared at her fixedly.

"Speak to me!"

Only the yellow light answered her. Cold fear fought in her heart, but love still struggled against it.

"For the last time—for God's sake, Dan!"

Still that silence. She rose, shaking and weak. The changeless eyes followed her. Only fear remained now. She backed towards the door, slowly, then faster, and faster. At the threshold she whirled and plunged into the night.

Up the road she raced. Once she stumbled and fell to her knees. She cried out and glanced behind her, breathing again when she saw that nothing followed. At the house she made no pause, though she heard the voice of her father singing. She could not tell him. He should be the last in all the world to know. She went to her room and huddled into bed.

Presently a knock came at her door, and her father's voice asked if she were ill. She pleaded that she had a bad headache and wished to be alone. He asked if she had seen Dan. By a great effort she managed to reply that Dan had ridden to a neighbouring ranch. Her father left the door without further question. Afterwards she heard him in the distance singing his favourite mournful ballads. It doubled her sense of woe and brought home the clinging fear. She felt that if she could weep she might live, but otherwise her heart would burst. And after hours and hours of that torture which burns the name of "woman" in the soul of a girl, the tears came. The roosters announced the dawn before she slept.

Late the next morning old Joe Cumberland knocked again at her door. He was beginning to fear that this illness might be serious. Moreover, he had a definite purpose in rousing her.

"Yes?" she called, after the second knock.

"Look out your window, honey, down to Morgan's place. You remember I said I was goin' to clean up the landscape?"

The mention of Morgan's place cleared the sleep from Kate's mind and it brought back the horror of the night before. Shivering she slipped from her bed and went to the window. Morgan's place was a mass of towering flames!

She grasped the window-sill and stared again. It could not be. It must be merely another part of the nightmare, and no reality. Her father's voice, high with exultation, came dimly to her ears, but what she saw was Dan as he had laid there the night before, hurt, helpless, too weak to move!

"There's the end of it," Joe Cumberland was saying complacently outside her door. "There ain't goin' to be even a shadow of the saloon left nor nothin' that's in it. I jest travelled down there this mornin' and touched a match to it!"

Still she stared without moving, without making a sound. She was seeing Dan as he must have wakened from a swoonlike sleep with the smell of smoke and the heat of rising flames around him. She saw him struggle, and fail to reach his feet. She almost heard him cry out—a sound drowned easily by the roar of the fire, and the crackling of the wood. She saw him drag himself with his hands across the floor, only to be beaten back by a solid wall of flame. Black Bart crouched beside him and would not leave his doomed master. Fascinated by the raging fire the black stallion Satan would break from the shed and rush into the flames!—and so the inseparable three must have perished together!

"Why don't you speak, Kate?" called her father.

"Dan!" she screamed, and pitched forward to the floor.



CHAPTER IX

THE PHANTOM RIDER

In the daytime the willows along the wide, level river bottom seemed an unnatural growth, for they made a streak of yellow-green across the mountain-desert when all other verdure withered and died. After nightfall they became still more dreary. Even when the air was calm there was apt to be a sound as of wind, for the tenuous, trailing branches brushed lightly together, making a guarded whispering like ghosts.

In a small clearing among these willows sat Silent and his companions. A fifth member had just arrived at this rendezvous, answered the quiet greeting with a wave of his hand, and was now busy caring for his horse. Bill Kilduff, who had a natural inclination and talent for cookery, raked up the deft dying coals of the fire over which he had cooked the supper, and set about preparing bacon and coffee for the newcomer. The latter came forward, and squatted close to the cook, watching the process with a careful eye. He made a sharp contrast with the rest of the group. From one side his profile showed the face of a good-natured boy, but when he turned his head the flicker of the firelight ran down a scar which gleamed in a jagged semi-circle from his right eyebrow to the corner of his mouth. This whole side of his countenance was drawn by the cut, the mouth stretching to a perpetual grimace. When he spoke it was as if he were attempting secrecy. The rest of the men waited in patience until he finished eating. Then Silent asked: "What news, Jordan?"

Jordan kept his regretful eyes a moment longer on his empty coffee cup.

"There ain't a pile to tell," he answered at last. "I suppose you heard about what happened to the chap you beat up at Morgan's place the other day?"

"Who knows that I beat him up?" asked Silent sharply.

"Nobody," said Jordan, "but when I heard the description of the man that hit Whistling Dan with the chair, I knew it was Jim Silent."

"What about Barry?" asked Haines, but Jordan still kept his eyes upon the chief.

"They was sayin' pretty general," he went on, "that you needed that chair, Jim. Is that right?"

The other three glanced covertly to each other. Silent's hand bunched into a great fist.

"He went loco. I had to slam him. Was he hurt bad?"

"The cut on his head wasn't much, but he was left lyin' in the saloon that night, an' the next mornin' old Joe Cumberland, not knowin' that Whistlin' Dan was in there, come down an' touched a match to the old joint. She went up in smoke an' took Dan along."

No one spoke for a moment. Then Silent cried out: "Then what was that whistlin' I've heard down the road behind us?"

Bill Kilduff broke into rolling bass laughter, and Hal Purvis chimed in with a squeaking tenor.

"We told you all along, Jim," said Purvis, as soon as he could control his voice, "that there wasn't any whistlin' behind us. We know you got powerful good hearin', Jim, but we all figger you been makin' somethin' out of nothin'. Am I right, boys?"

"You sure are," said Kilduff, "I ain't heard a thing."

Silent rolled his eyes angrily from face to face.

"I'm kind of sorry the lad got his in the fire. I was hopin' maybe we'd meet agin. There's nothin' I'd rather do than be alone five minutes with Whistlin' Dan."

His eyes dared any one to smile. The men merely exchanged glances. When he turned away they grinned broadly. Hal Purvis turned and caught Bill Kilduff by the shoulder.

"Bill," he said excitedly, "if Whistlin' Dan is dead there ain't any master for that dog!"

"What about him?" growled Kilduff.

"I'd like to try my hand with him," said Purvis, and he moistened his tight lips. "Did you see the black devil when he snarled at me in front of Morgan's place?"

"He sure didn't look too pleasant."

"Right. Maybe if I had him on a chain I could change his manners some, eh?"

"How?"

"A whip every day, damn him—a whip every time he showed his teeth at me. No eats till he whined and licked my hand."

"He'd die first. I know that kind of a dog—or a wolf."

"Maybe he'd die. Anyway I'd like to try my hand with him. Bill, I'm goin' to get hold of him some of these days if I have to ride a hundred miles an' swim a river!"

Kilduff grunted.

"Let the damn wolf be. You c'n have him, I say. What I'm thinkin' about is the hoss. Hal, do you remember the way he settled to his stride when he lighted out after Red Pete?"

Purvis shrugged his shoulders.

"You're a fool, Bill. Which no man but Barry could ever ride that hoss. I seen it in his eye. He'd cash in buckin'. He'd fight you like a man."

Kilduff sighed. A great yearning was in his eyes.

"Hal," he said softly, "they's some men go around for years an' huntin' for a girl whose picture is in their bean, cached away somewhere. When they see her they jest nacherally goes nutty. Hal, I don't give a damn for women folk, but I've travelled around a long time with a picture of a hoss in my brain, an' Satan is the hoss."

He closed his eyes.

"I c'n see him now. I c'n see them shoulders—an' that head—an', my God! them eyes—them fire eatin' eyes! Hal, if a man was to win the heart of that hoss he'd lay down his life for you—he'd run himself plumb to death! I won't never sleep tight till I get the feel of them satin sides of his between my knees."

Lee Haines heard them speak, but he said nothing. His heart also leaped when he heard of Whistling Dan's death, but he thought neither of the horse nor the dog. He was seeing the yellow hair and the blue eyes of Kate Cumberland. He approached Jordan and took a place beside him.

"Tell me some more about it, Terry," he asked.

"Some more about what?"

"About Whistling Dan's death—about the burning of the saloon," said Haines.

"What the hell! Are you still thinkin' about that?"

"I certainly am."

"Then I'll trade you news," said Terry Jordan, lowering his voice so that it would not reach the suspicious ear of Jim Silent. "I'll tell you about the burnin' if you'll tell me something about Barry's fight with Silent!"

"It's a trade," answered Haines.

"All right. Seems old Joe Cumberland had a hunch to clean up the landscape—old fool! so he jest up in the mornin' an' without sayin' a word to any one he downs to the saloon and touches a match to it. When he come back to his house he tells his girl, Kate, what he done. With that she lets out a holler an' drops in a faint."

Haines muttered.

"What's the matter?" asked Terry, a little anxiously.

"Nothin," said Haines. "She fainted, eh? Well, good!"

"Yep. She fainted an' when she come to, she told Cumberland that Dan was in the saloon, an' probably too weak to get out of the fire. They started for the place on the run. When they got there all they found was a pile of red hot coals. So everyone figures that he went up in the flames. That's all I know. Now what about the fight?"

Lee Haines sat with fixed eyes.

"There isn't much to say about the fight," he said at last.

"The hell there isn't," scoffed Terry Jordan. "From what I heard, this Whistling Dan simply cut loose and raised the devil more general than a dozen mavericks corralled with a bunch of yearlings."

"Cutting loose is right," said Haines. "It wasn't a pleasant thing to watch. One moment he was about as dangerous as an eighteen-year-old girl. The next second he was like a panther that's tasted blood. That's all there was to it, Terry. After the first blow, he was all over the chief. You know Silent's a bad man with his hands?"

"I guess we all know that," said Jordan, with a significant smile.

"Well," said Haines, "he was like a baby in the hands of Barry. I don't like to talk about it—none of us do. It makes the flesh creep."

There was a loud crackling among the underbrush several hundred yards away. It drew closer and louder.

"Start up your works agin, will you, Bill?" called Silent. "Here comes Shorty Rhinehart, an' he's overdue."

In a moment Shorty swung from his horse and joined the group. He gained his nickname from his excessive length, being taller by an inch or two than Jim Silent himself, but what he gained in height he lost in width. Even his face was monstrously long, and marked with such sad lines that the favourite name of "Shorty" was affectionately varied to "Sour-face" or "Calamity." Silent went to him at once.

"You seen Hardy?" he asked.

"I sure did," said Rhinehart, "an' it's the last time I'll make that trip to him, you can lay to that."

"Did he give you the dope?"

"No."

"What do you mean?"

"I jest want you to know that this here's my last trip to Elkhead—on any business."

"Why?"

"I passed three marshals on the street, an' I knew them all. They was my friends, formerly. One of them was—"

"What did they do?"

"I waved my hand to them, glad an' familiar. They jest grunted. One of them, he looked up an' down the street, an' seein' that no one was in sight, he come up to me an' without shakin' hands he says: 'I'm some surprised to see you in Elkhead, Shorty.' 'Why,' says I, 'the town's all right, ain't it?' 'It's all right,' he says, 'but you'd find it a pile more healthier out on the range.'"

"What in hell did he mean by that?" growled Silent.

"He simply meant that they're beginnin' to think a lot more about us than they used to. We've been pullin' too many jobs the last six months."

"You've said all that before, Shorty. I'm runnin' this gang. Tell me about Hardy."

"I'm comin' to that. I went into the Wells Fargo office down by the railroad, an' the clerk sent me back to find Hardy in the back room, where he generally is. When he seen me he changed colour. I'd jest popped my head through the door an' sung out: 'Hello, Hardy, how's the boy?' He jumped up from the desk an' sung out so's his clerk in the outside room could hear: 'How are you, lad?' an' he pulled me quick into the room an' locked the door behind me.

"'Now what in hell have you come to Elkhead for?' says he.

"'For a drink' says I, never battin' an eye.

"'You've come a damn long ways,' says he.

"'Sure,' says I, 'that's one reason I'm so dry. Will you liquor, pal?'

"He looked like he needed a drink, all right. He begun loosening his shirt collar.

"'Thanks, but I ain't drinkin', says he. 'Look here, Shorty, are you loco to come ridin' into Elkhead this way?'

"'I'm jest beginnin' to think maybe I am,' says I.

"'Shorty,' he says in a whisper, 'they're beginnin' to get wise to the whole gang—includin' me.'

"'Take a brace,' says I. 'They ain't got a thing on you, Hardy.'

"'That don't keep 'em from thinkin' a hell of a pile,' says he, 'an' I tell you, Shorty, I'm jest about through with the whole works. It ain't worth it—not if there was a million in it. Everybody is gettin' wise to Silent, an' the rest of you. Pretty soon hell's goin' to bust loose.'

"'You've been sayin' that for two years,' says I.

"He stopped an' looked at me sort of thoughtful an' pityin'. Then he steps up close to me an' whispers in that voice: 'D'you know who's on Silent's trail now? Eh?'

"'No, an' I don't give a damn,' says I, free an' careless.

"'Tex Calder!' says he."

Silent started violently, and his hand moved instinctively to his six-gun.

"Did he say Tex Calder?"

"He said no less," answered Shorty Rhinehart, and waited to see his news take effect. Silent stood with head bowed, scowling.

"Tex Calder's a fool," he said at last. "He ought to know better'n to take to my trail."

"He's fast with his gun," suggested Shorty.

"Don't I know that?" said Silent. "If Alvarez, an' Bradley, an' Hunter, an' God knows how many more could come up out of their graves, they'd tell jest how quick he is with a six-gun. But I'm the one man on the range that's faster."

Shorty was eloquently mute.

"I ain't askin' you to take my word for it," said Jim Silent. "Now that he's after me, I'm glad of it. It had to come some day. The mountains ain't big enough for both of us to go rangin' forever. We had to lock horns some day. An' I say, God help Tex Calder!"

He turned abruptly to the rest of the men.

"Boys, I got somethin' to tell you that Shorty jest heard. Tex Calder is after us."

There came a fluent outburst of cursing.

Silent went on: "I know jest how slick Calder is. I'm bettin' on my draw to be jest the necessary half a hair quicker. He may die shootin'. I don't lay no bets that I c'n nail him before he gets his iron out of its leather, but I say he'll be shootin' blind when he dies. Is there any one takin' that bet?"

His eyes challenged them one after another. Their glances travelled past Silent as if they were telling over and over to themselves the stories of those many men to whom Tex Calder had played the part of Fate. The leader turned back to Shorty Rhinehart.

"Now tell me what he had to say about the coin."

"Hardy says the shipment's delayed. He don't know how long."

"How'd it come to be delayed?"

"He figures that Wells Fargo got a hunch that Silent was layin' for the train that was to carry it."

"Will he let us know when it does come through?"

"I asked him, an' he jest hedged. He's quitting on us cold."

"I was a fool to send you, Shorty. I'm goin' myself, an' if Hardy don't come through to me—"

He broke off and announced to the rest of his gang that he intended to make the journey to Elkhead. He told Haines, who in such cases usually acted as lieutenant, to take charge of the camp. Then he saddled his roan.

In the very act of pulling up the cinch of his saddle, Silent stopped short, turned, and raised a hand for quiet. The rest were instantly still. Hal Purvis leaned his weazened face towards the ground. In this manner it was sometimes possible to detect far-off sounds which to one erect would be inaudible. In a moment, however, he straightened up, shaking his head.

"What is it?" whispered Haines.

"Shut up," muttered Silent, and the words were formed by the motion of his lips rather than through any sound. "That damned whistling again."

Every face changed. At a rustling in a near-by willow, Terry Jordan started and then cursed softly to himself. That broke the spell.

"It's the whisperin' of the willows," said Purvis.

"You lie," said Silent hoarsely. "I hear the sound growing closer."

"Barry is dead," said Haines.

Silent whipped out his revolver—and then shoved it back into the holster.

"Stand by me, boys," he pleaded. "It's his ghost come to haunt me! You can't hear it, because he ain't come for you."

They stared at him with a fascinated horror.

"How do you know it's him?" asked Shorty Rhinehart.

"There ain't no sound in the whole world like it. It's a sort of cross between the singing of a bird an' the wailin' of the wind. It's the ghost of Whistlin' Dan."

The tall roan raised his head and whinnied softly. It was an unearthly effect—as if the animal heard the sound which was inaudible to all but his master. It changed big Jim Silent into a quavering coward. Here were five practised fighters who feared nothing between heaven and hell, but what could they avail him against a bodiless spirit? The whistling stopped. He breathed again, but only for a moment.

It began again, and this time much louder and nearer. Surely the others must hear it now, or else it was certainly a ghost. The men sat with dilated eyes for an instant, and then Hal Purvis cried, "I heard it, chief! If it's a ghost, it's hauntin' me too!"

Silent cursed loudly in his relief.

"It ain't a ghost. It's Whistlin' Dan himself. An' Terry Jordan has been carryin' us lies! What in hell do you mean by it?"

"I ain't been carryin' you lies," said Jordan, hotly. "I told you what I heard. I didn't never say that there was any one seen his dead body!"

The whistling began to die out. A babble of conjecture and exclamation broke out, but Jim Silent, still sickly white around the mouth, swung up into the saddle.

"That Whistlin' Dan I'm leavin' to you, Haines," he called. "I've had his blood onct, an' if I meet him agin there's goin' to be another notch filed into my shootin' iron."



CHAPTER X

THE STRENGTH OF WOMEN

He rode swiftly into the dark of the willows, and the lack of noise told that he was picking his way carefully among the bended branches.

"It seems to me," said Terry Jordan, "which I'm not suggestin' anything—but it seems to me that the chief was in a considerable hurry to leave the camp."

"He was," said Hal Purvis, "an' if you seen that play in Morgan's place you wouldn't be wonderin' why. If I was the chief I'd do the same."

"Me speakin' personal," remarked Shorty Rhinehart, "I ain't layin' out to be no man-eater like the chief, but I ain't seen the man that'd make me take to the timbers that way. I don't noways expect there is such a man!"

"Shorty," said Haines calmly, "we all knows that you're quite a man, but you and Terry are the only ones of us who are surprised that Silent slid away. The rest of us who saw this Whistling Dan in action aren't a bit inclined to wonder. Suppose you were to meet a black panther down here in the willows?"

"I wouldn't give a damn if I had my Winchester with me."

"All right, Terry, but suppose the panther," broke in Hal Purvis, "could sling shootin' irons as well as you could—maybe that'd make you partic'ler pleased."

"It ain't possible," said Terry.

"Sure it ain't," grinned Purvis amiably, "an' this Barry ain't possible, either. Where you going, Lee?"

Haines turned from his task of saddling his mount.

"Private matter. Kilduff, you take my place while I'm gone. I may be back tomorrow night. The chief isn't apt to return so soon."

A few moments later Haines galloped out of the willows and headed across the hills towards old Joe Cumberland's ranch. He was remembering his promise to Kate, to keep Dan out of danger. He had failed from that promise once, but that did not mean that he had forgotten. He looked up to the yellow-bright mountain stars, and they were like the eyes of good women smiling down upon him. He guessed that she loved Barry and if he could bring her to Whistling Dan she might have strength enough to take the latter from Silent's trail. The lone rider knew well enough that to bring Dan and Kate together was to surrender his own shadowy hopes, but the golden eyes of the sky encouraged him. So he followed his impulse.

Haines could never walk that middle path which turns neither to the right nor the left, neither up nor down. He went through life with a free-swinging stride, and as the result of it he had crossed the rights of others. He might have lived a lawful life, for all his instincts were gentle. But an accident placed him in the shadow of the law. He waited for his legal trial, but when it came and false witness placed him behind the bars, the revolt came. Two days after his confinement, he broke away from his prison and went to the wilds. There he found Jim Silent, and the mountain-desert found another to add to its list of great outlaws.

Morning came as he drew close to the house, and now his reminiscences were cut short, for at a turn of the road he came upon Kate galloping swiftly over the hills. He drew his horse to a halt and raised his hand. She followed suit. They sat staring. If she had remembered his broken promise and started to reproach, he could have found answer, but her eyes were big with sorrow alone. He put out his hand without a word. She hesitated over it, her eyes questioning him mutely, and then with the ghost of a smile she touched his fingers.

"I want to explain," he said huskily.

"What?"

"You remember I gave you my word that no harm would come to Barry?"

"No man could have helped him."

"You don't hold it against me?"

A gust of wind moaned around them. She waved her arm towards the surrounding hills and her laugh blended with the sound of the wind, it was so faint. He watched her with a curious pang. She seemed among women what that morning was to the coming day—fresh, cool, aloof. It was hard to speak the words which would banish the sorrow from her eyes and make them brilliant with hope and shut him away from her thoughts with a barrier higher than mountains, and broader than seas.

"I have brought you news," he said at last, reluctantly.

She did not change.

"About Dan Barry."

Ay, she changed swiftly enough at that! He could not meet the fear and question of her glance. He looked away and saw the red rim of the sun pushing up above the hills. And colour poured up the throat of Kate Cumberland, up even to her forehead beneath the blowing golden hair.

Haines jerked his sombrero lower on his head. A curse tumbled up to his lips and he had to set his teeth to keep it back.

"But I have heard his whistle."

Her lips moved but made no sound.

"Five other men heard him."

She cried out as if he had hurt her, but the hurt was happiness. He knew it and winced, for she was wonderfully beautiful.

"In the willows of the river bottom, a good twenty miles south," he said at last, "and I will show you the way, if you wish."

He watched her eyes grow large with doubt.

"Can you trust me?" he asked. "I failed you once. Can you trust me now?"

Her hand went out to him.

"With all my heart," she said. "Let us start!"

"I've given my horse a hard ride. He must have some rest."

She moaned softly in her impatience, and then: "We'll go back to the house and you can stable your horse there until you're ready to start. Dad will go with us."

"Your father cannot go," he said shortly.

"Cannot?"

"Let's start back for the ranch," he said, "and I'll tell you something about it as we go."

As they turned their horses he went on: "In order that you may reach Whistling Dan, you'll have to meet first a number of men who are camping down there in the willows."

He stopped. It became desperately difficult for him to go on.

"I am one of those men," he said, "and another of them is the one whom Whistling Dan is following."

She caught her breath and turned abruptly on him.

"What are you, Mr. Lee?"

Very slowly he forced his eyes up to meet her gaze.

"In that camp," he answered indirectly, "your father wouldn't be safe!"

It was out at last!

"Then you are—"

"Your friend."

"Forgive me. You are my friend!"

"The man whom Dan is following," he went on, "is the leader. If he gives the command four practised fighters pit themselves against Barry."

"It is murder!"

"You can prevent it," he said. "They know Barry is on the trail, but I think they will do nothing unless he forces them into trouble. And he will force them unless you stop him. No other human being could take him off that trail."

"I know! I know!" she muttered. "But I have already tried, and he will not listen to me!"

"But he will listen to you," insisted Haines, "when you tell him that he will be fighting not one man, but six."

"And if he doesn't listen to me?"

Haines shrugged his shoulders.

"Can't you promise that these men will not fight with him?"

"I cannot."

"But I shall plead with them myself."

He turned to her in alarm.

"No, you must not let them dream you know who they are," he warned, "for otherwise—"

Again that significant shrug of the shoulders.

He explained: "These men are in such danger that they dare not take chances. You are a woman, but if they feel that you suspect them you will no longer be a woman in their eyes."

"Then what must I do?"

"I shall ride ahead of you when we come to the willows, after I have pointed out the position of our camp. About an hour after I have arrived, for they must not know that I have brought you, you will ride down towards the camp. When you come to it I will make sure that it is I who will bring you in. You must pretend that you have simply blundered upon our fire. Whatever you do, never ask a question while you are there—and I'll be your warrant that you will come off safely. Will you try?"

He attempted no further persuasion and contented himself with merely meeting the wistful challenge of her eyes.

"I will," she said at last, and then turning her glance away she repeated softly, "I will."

He knew that she was already rehearsing what she must say to Whistling Dan.

"You are not afraid?"

She smiled.

"Do you really trust me as far as this?"

With level-eyed tenderness that took his breath, she answered: "An absolute trust, Mr. Lee."

"My name," he said in a strange voice, "is Lee Haines."

Of one accord they stopped their horses and their hands met.



CHAPTER XI

SILENT BLUFFS

The coming of the railroad had changed Elkhead from a mere crossing of the ways to a rather important cattle shipping point. Once a year it became a bustling town whose two streets thronged with cattlemen with pockets burdened with gold which fairly burned its way out to the open air. At other times Elkhead dropped back into a leaden-eyed sleep.

The most important citizen was Lee Hardy, the Wells Fargo agent. Office jobs are hard to find in the mountain-desert, and those who hold them win respect. The owner of a swivel-chair is more lordly than the possessor of five thousand "doggies." Lee Hardy had such a swivel-chair. Moreover, since large shipments of cash were often directed by Wells Fargo to Elkhead, Hardy's position was really more significant than the size of the village suggested. As a crowning stamp upon his dignity he had a clerk who handled the ordinary routine of work in the front room, while Hardy set himself up in state in a little rear office whose walls were decorated by two brilliant calendars and the coloured photograph of a blond beauty advertising a toilet soap.

To this sanctuary he retreated during the heat of the day, while in the morning and evening he loitered on the small porch, chatting with passers-by. Except in the hottest part of the year he affected a soft white collar with a permanent bow tie. The leanness of his features, and his crooked neck with the prominent Adam's apple which stirred when he spoke, suggested a Yankee ancestry, but the faded blue eyes, pathetically misted, could only be found in the mountain-desert.

One morning into the inner sanctum of this dignitary stepped a man built in rectangles, a square face, square, ponderous shoulders, and even square-tipped fingers. Into the smiling haze of Hardy's face his own keen black eye sparkled like an electric lantern flashed into a dark room. He was dressed in the cowboy's costume, but there was no Western languor in his make-up. Everything about him was clear cut and precise. He had a habit of clicking his teeth as he finished a sentence. In a word, when he appeared in the doorway Lee Hardy woke up, and before the stranger had spoken a dozen words the agent was leaning forward to be sure that he would not miss a syllable.

"You're Lee Hardy, aren't you?" said he, and his eyes gave the impression of a smile, though his lips did not stir after speaking.

"I am," said the agent.

"Then you're the man I want to see. If you don't mind—"

He closed the door, pulled a chair against it, and then sat down, and folded his arms. Very obviously he meant business. Hardy switched his position in his chair, sitting a little more to the right, so that the edge of the seat would not obstruct the movement of his hand towards the holster on his right thigh.

"Well," he said good naturedly, "I'm waitin'."

"Good," said the stranger, "I won't keep you here any longer than is necessary. In the first place my name is Tex Calder."

Hardy changed as if a slight layer of dust had been sifted over his face. He stretched out his hand.

"It's great to see you, Calder," he said, "of course I've heard about you. Everyone has. Here! I'll send over to the saloon for some red-eye. Are you dry?"

He rose, but Calder waved him back to the swivel-chair.

"Not dry a bit," he said cheerily. "Not five minutes ago I had a drink of—water."

"All right," said Hardy, and settled back into his chair.

"Hardy, there's been crooked work around here."

"What in hell—"

"Get your hand away from that gun, friend."

"What the devil's the meaning of all this?"

"That's very well done," said Calder. "But this isn't the stage. Are we going to talk business like friends?"

"I've got nothing agin you," said Hardy testily, and his eyes followed Calder's right hand as if fascinated. "What do you want to say? I'll listen. I'm not very busy."

"That's exactly it," smiled Tex Calder, "I want you to get busier."

"Thanks."

"In the first place I'll be straight with you. Wells Fargo hasn't sent me here."

"Who has?"

"My conscience."

"I don't get your drift."

Through a moment of pause Calder's eyes searched the face of Hardy.

"You've been pretty flush for some time."

"I ain't been starvin'."

"There are several easy ways for you to pick up extra money."

"Yes?"

"For instance, you know all about the Wells Fargo money shipments, and there are men around here who'd pay big for what you could tell them."

The prominent Adam's apple rose and fell in Hardy's throat.

"You're quite a joker, ain't you Calder? Who, for instance?"

"Jim Silent."

"This is like a story in a book," grinned Hardy. "Go on. I suppose I've been takin' Silent's money?"

The answer came like the click of a cocked revolver.

"You have!"

"By God, Calder—"

"Steady! I have some promising evidence, partner. Would you like to hear part of it?"

"This country has its share of the world's greatest liars," said Hardy, "I don't care what you've heard."

"That saves my time. Understand me straight. I can slap you into a lock-up, if I want to, and then bring in that evidence. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to use you as a trap and through you get some of the worst of the lone riders."

"There's nothin' like puttin' your hand on the table."

"No, there isn't. I'll tell you what you're to do."

"Thanks."

The marshal drove straight on.

"I've got four good men in this town. Two of them will always be hanging around your office. Maybe you can get a job for them here, eh? I'll pay the salaries. You simply tip them off when your visitors are riders the government wants, see? You don't have to lift a hand. You just go to the door as the visitor leaves, and if he's all right you say: 'So long, we'll be meeting again before long.' But if he's a man I want, you say 'Good-bye.' That's all. My boys will see that it is good-bye."

"Go on," said the agent, "and tell the rest of the story. It starts well."

"Doesn't it?" agreed Calder, "and the way it concludes is with you reaching over and shaking hands with me and saying 'yes'!"

He leaned forward. The twinkle was gone from his eyes and he extended his hand to Hardy. The latter reached out with an impulsive gesture, wrung the proffered hand, and then slipping back into his chair broke into hysterical laughter.

"The real laugh," said Calder, watching his man narrowly, "will be on the long riders."

"Tex," said the agent. "I guess you have the dope. I won't say anything except that I'm glad as hell to be out of the rotten business at last. Once started I couldn't stop. I did one 'favour' for these devils, and after that they had me in their power. I haven't slept for months as I'm going to sleep tonight!"

He wiped his face with an agitated hand.

"A week ago," he went on, "I knew you were detailed on this work. I've been sweating ever since. Now that you've come—why, I'm glad of it!"

A faint sneer touched Calder's mouth and was gone.

"You're a wise man," he said. "Have you seen much of Jim Silent lately?"

Hardy hesitated. The role of informer was new.

"Not directly."

Calder nodded.

"Now put me right if I go off the track. The way I understand it, Jim Silent has about twenty gun fighters and long riders working in gangs under him and combining for big jobs."

"That's about it."

"The inside circle consists of Silent; Lee Haines, a man who went wrong because the law did him wrong; Hal Purvis, a cunning devil; and Bill Kilduff, a born fighter who loves blood for its own sake."

"Right."

"Here's something more. For Jim Silent, dead or alive, the government will pay ten thousand dollars. For each of the other three it pays five thousand. The notices aren't out yet, but they will be in a few days. Hardy, if you help me bag these men, you'll get fifty per cent of the profits. Are you on?"

The hesitancy of Hardy changed to downright enthusiasm.

"Easy money, Tex. I'm your man, hand and glove."

"Don't get optimistic. This game isn't played yet, and unless I make the biggest mistake of my life we'll be guessing again before we land Silent. I've trailed some fast gunmen in my day, and I have an idea that Silent will be the hardest of the lot; but if you play your end of the game we may land him. I have a tip that he's lying out in the country near Elkhead. I'm riding out alone to get track of him. As I go out I'll tell my men that you're O.K. for this business."

He hesitated a moment with his hand on the door knob.

"Just one thing more, Hardy. I heard a queer tale this morning about a fight in a saloon run by a man named Morgan. Do you know anything about it?"

"No."

"I was told of a fellow who chipped four dollars thrown into the air at twenty yards."

"That's a lie."

"The man who talked to me had a nicked dollar to prove his yarn."

"The devil he did!"

"And after the shooting this chap got into a fight with a tall man twice his size and fairly mopped up the floor with him. They say it wasn't a nice thing to watch. He is a frail man, but when the fight started he turned into a tiger."

"Wish I'd seen it."

"The tall man tallies to a hair with my description of Silent."

"You're wrong. I know what Silent can do with his hands. No one could beat him up. What's the name of the other?"

"Barry. Whistling Dan Barry."

Calder hesitated.

"Right or wrong, I'd like to have this Barry with me. So long."

He was gone as he had come, with a nod and a flash of the keen, black eyes. Lee Hardy stared at the door for some moments, and then went outside. The warm light of the sun had never been more welcome to him. Under that cheering influence he began to feel that with Tex Calder behind him he could safely defy the world.

His confidence received a shock that afternoon when a heavy step crossed the outside room, and his door opening without a preliminary knock, he looked up into the solemn eyes of Jim Silent. The outlaw shook his head when Hardy offered him a chair.

"What's the main idea of them two new men out in your front room, Lee?" he asked.

"Two cowpunchers that was down on their luck. I got to stand in with the boys now and then."

"I s'pose so. Shorty Rhinehart in here to see you, Lee?"

"Yep."

"You told him that the town was gettin' pretty hot."

"It is."

"You said you had no dope on when that delayed shipment was comin' through?"

Hardy made lightning calculations. A half truth would be the best way out.

"I've just got the word you want. It come this morning."

Silent's expression changed and he leaned a little closer.

"It's the nineteenth. Train number 89. Savvy? Seven o'clock at Elkhead!"

"How much? Same bunch of coin?"

"Fifty thousand!"

"That's ten more."

"Yep. A new shipment rolled in with the old one. No objections?"

Silent grinned.

"Any other news, Lee?"

"Shorty told you about Tex Calder?"

"He did. Seen him around here?"

The slightest fraction of a second in hesitation.

"No."

"Was that the straight dope you give Shorty?"

"Straighter'n hell. They're beginnin' to talk, but I guess I was jest sort of panicky when I talked with Shorty."

"This Tex Calder——"

"What about him?" This with a trace of suspicion.

"He's got a long record."

"So've you, Jim."

Once more that wolflike grin which had no mirth.

"So long, Lee. I'll be on the job. Lay to that."

He turned towards the door. Hardy followed him. A moment more, in a single word, and the job would be done. Five thousand dollars for a single word! It warmed the very heart of Lee Hardy.

Silent, as he moved away, seemed singularly thoughtful. He hesitated a moment with bowed head at the door—then whirled and shoved a six-gun under the nose of Hardy. The latter leaped back with his arms thrust above his head, straining at his hands to get them higher.

"My God, Jim!"

"You're a low-down, lyin' hound!"

Hardy's tongue clove to the roof of his mouth.

"Damn you, d'you hear me?"

"Yes! For God's sake, Jim, don't shoot!"

"Your life ain't worth a dime!"

"Give me one more chance an' I'll play square!"

A swift change came over the face of Silent, and then Hardy went hot with terror and anger. The long rider had known nothing. The gun play had been a mere bluff, but he had played into the hands of Silent, and now his life was truly worth nothing.

"You poor fool," went on Silent, his voice purring with controlled rage. "You damn blind fool! D'you think you could double cross me an' get by with it?"

"Give me a chance, Jim. One more chance, one more chance!"

Even in his terror he remembered to keep his voice low lest those in the front room should hear.

"Out with it, if you love livin'!"

"I—I can't talk while you got that gun on me!"

Silent not only lowered his gun, but actually returned it to the holster. Nothing could more clearly indicate his contempt, and Hardy, in spite of his fear, crimsoned with shame.

"It was Tex Calder," he said at last.

Silent started a little and his eyes narrowed again.

"What of him?"

"He came here a while ago an' tried to make a deal with me."

"An' made it!" said Silent ominously.

No gun pointed at him this time, but Hardy jerked his hands once more above his head and cowered against the wall.

"So help me God he didn't, Jim."

"Get your hands down."

He lowered his hands slowly.

"I told him I didn't know nothin' about you."

"What about that train? What about that shipment?"

"It's jest the way I told you, except that it's on the eighteenth instead of the nineteenth."

"I'm goin' to believe you. If you double cross me I'll have your hide. Maybe they'll get me, but there'll be enough of my boys left to get you. You can lay to that. How much did they offer you, Lee? How much am I worth to the little old U.S.A.?"

"I—I—it wasn't the money. I was afraid to stick with my game any longer."

The long rider had already turned towards the door, making no effort to keep his face to the agent. The latter, flushing again, moved his hand towards his hip, but stopped the movement. The last threat of Silent carried a deep conviction with it. He knew that the faith of lone riders to each other was an inviolable bond. Accordingly he followed at the heels of the other man into the outside room.

"So long, old timer," he called, slapping Silent on the shoulder, "I'll be seein' you agin before long."

Calder's men looked up with curious eyes. Hardy watched Silent swing onto his horse and gallop down the street. Then he went hurriedly back to his office. Once inside he dropped into the big swivel-chair, buried his face in his arms, and wept like a child.



CHAPTER XII

PARTNERS

Dust powdered his hat and clothes as Tex Calder trotted his horse north across the hills. His face was a sickly grey, and his black hair might have been an eighteenth century wig, so thoroughly was it disguised. It had been a long ride. Many a long mile wound back behind him, and still the cattle pony, with hanging head, stuck to its task. Now he was drawing out on a highland, and below him stretched the light yellow-green of the willows of the bottom land. He halted his pony and swung a leg over the horn of his saddle. Then he rolled a cigarette, and while he inhaled it in long puffs he scanned the trees narrowly. Miles across, and stretching east and west farther than his eye could reach, extended the willows. Somewhere in that wilderness was the gang of Jim Silent. An army corps might have been easily concealed there.

If he was not utterly discouraged in the beginning of his search, it was merely because the rangers of the hills and plains are taught patience almost as soon as they learn to ride a horse. He surveyed the yellow-green forest calmly. In the west the low hanging sun turned crimson and bulged at the sides into a clumsy elipse. He started down the slope at the same dog-trot which the pony had kept up all day. Just before he reached the skirts of the trees he brought his horse to a sudden halt and threw back his head. It seemed to him that he heard a faint whistling.

He could not be sure. It was so far off and unlike any whistling he had ever heard before, that he half guessed it to be the movement of a breeze through the willows, but the wind was hardly strong enough to make this sound. For a full five minutes he listened without moving his horse. Then came the thing for which he waited, a phrase of melody undoubtedly from human lips.

What puzzled him most was the nature of the music. As he rode closer to the trees it grew clearer. It was unlike any song he had ever heard. It was a strange improvisation with a touch of both melancholy and savage exultation running through it. Calder found himself nodding in sympathy with the irregular rhythm.

It grew so clear at last that he marked with some accuracy the direction from which it came. If this was Silent's camp, it must be strongly guarded, and he should approach the place more cautiously than he could possibly do on a horse. Accordingly he dismounted, threw the reins over the pony's head, and started on through the willows. The whistling became louder and louder. He moved stealthily from tree to tree, for he had not the least idea when he would run across a guard. The whistling ceased, but the marshal was now so near that he could follow the original direction without much trouble. In a few moments he might distinguish the sound of voices. If there were two or three men in the camp he might be able to surprise them and make his arrest. If the outlaws were many, at least he could lie low near the camp and perhaps learn the plans of the gang. He worked his way forward more and more carefully. At one place he thought a shadowy figure slipped through the brush a short distance away. He poised his gun, but lowered it again after a moment's thought. It must have been a stir of shadows. No human being could move so swiftly or so noiselessly.

Nevertheless the sight gave him such a start that he proceeded with even greater caution. He was crouched close to the ground. Every inch of it he scanned carefully before he set down a foot, fearful of the cracking of a fallen twig. Like most men when they hunt, he began to feel that something followed him. He tried to argue the thought out of his brain, but it persisted, and grew stronger. Half a dozen times he whirled suddenly with his revolver poised. At last he heard a stamp which could come from nothing but the hoof of a horse. The sound dispelled his fears. In another moment he would be in sight of the camp.

"Do you figger you'll find it?" asked a quiet voice behind him.

He turned and looked into the steady muzzle of a Colt. Behind that revolver was a thin, handsome face with a lock of jet black hair falling over the forehead. Calder knew men, and now he felt a strange absence of any desire to attempt a gun-play.

"I was just taking a stroll through the willows," he said, with a mighty attempt at carelessness.

"Oh," said the other. "It appeared to me you was sort of huntin' for something. You was headed straight for my hoss."

Calder strove to find some way out. He could not. There was no waver in the hand that held that black gun. The brown eyes were decidedly discouraging to any attempt at a surprise. He felt helpless for the first time in his career.

"Go over to him, Bart," said the gentle voice of the stranger. "Stand fast!"

The last two words, directed to Calder came, with a metallic hardness, for the marshal started as a great black dog slipped from behind a tree and slunk towards him. This was the shadow which moved more swiftly and noiselessly than a human being.

"Keep back that damned wolf," he said desperately.

"He ain't goin' to hurt you," said the calm voice. "Jest toss your gun to the ground."

There was nothing else for it. Calder dropped his weapon with the butt towards Whistling Dan.

"Bring it here, Bart," said the latter.

The big animal lowered his head, still keeping his green eyes upon Calder, took up the revolver in his white fangs, and glided back to his master.

"Jest turn your back to me, an' keep your hands clear of your body," said Dan.

Calder obeyed, sweating with shame. He felt a hand pat his pockets lightly in search for a hidden weapon, and then, with his head slightly turned, he sensed the fact that Dan was dropping his revolver into its holster. He whirled and drove his clenched fist straight at Dan's face.

What happened then he would never forget to the end of his life. Calder's weapon still hung in Dan's right hand, but the latter made no effort to use it. He dropped the gun, and as Calder's right arm shot out, it was caught at the wrist, and jerked down with a force that jarred his whole body.

"Down, Bart!" shouted Dan. The great wolf checked in the midst of his leap and dropped, whining with eagerness, at Calder's feet. At the same time the marshal's left hand was seized and whipped across his body. He wrenched away with all his force. He might as well have struggled with steel manacles. He was helpless, staring into eyes which now glinted with a yellow light that sent a cold wave tingling through his blood.

The yellow gleam died; his hands were loosed; but he made no move to spring at Dan's throat. Chill horror had taken the place of his shame, and the wolf-dog still whined at his feet with lips grinned back from the long white teeth.

"Who in the name of God are you?" he gasped, and even as he spoke the truth came to him—the whistling—the panther-like speed of hand—"Whistling Dan Barry."

The other frowned.

"If you didn't know my name why were you trailin' me?"

"I wasn't after you," said Calder.

"You was crawlin' along like that jest for fun? Friend, I figger to know you. You been sent out by the tall man to lay for me."

"What tall man?" asked Calder, his wits groping.

"The one that swung the chair in Morgan's place," said Dan. "Now you're goin' to take me to your camp. I got something to say to him."

"By the Lord!" cried the marshal, "you're trailing Silent."

Dan watched him narrowly. It was hard to accuse those keen black eyes of deceit.

"I'm trailin' the man who sent you out after me," he asserted with a little less assurance.

Calder tore open the front of his shirt and pushed back one side of it. Pinned there next to his skin was his marshal's badge.

He said: "My name's Tex Calder."

It was a word to conjure with up and down the vast expanse of the mountain-desert. Dan smiled, and the change of expression made him seem ten years younger.

"Git down, Bart. Stand behind me!" The dog obeyed sullenly. "I've heard a pile of men talk about you, Tex Calder." Their hands and their eyes met. There was a mutual respect in the glances. "An' I'm a pile sorry for this."

He picked up the gun from the ground and extended it butt first to the marshal, who restored it slowly to the holster. It was the first time it had ever been forced from his grasp.

"Who was it you talked about a while ago?" asked Dan.

"Jim Silent."

Dan instinctively dropped his hand back to his revolver.

"The tall man?"

"The one you fought with in Morgan's place."

The unpleasant gleam returned to Dan's eyes.

"I thought there was only one reason why he should die, but now I see there's a heap of 'em."

Calder was all business.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"About a day."

"Have you seen anything of Silent here among the willows?"

"No."

"Do you think he's still here?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I dunno. I'll stay here till I find him among the trees or he breaks away into the open."

"How'll you know when he leaves the willows?"

Whistling Dan was puzzled.

"I dunno," he answered. "Somethin' will tell me when he gets far away from me—he an' his men."

"It's an inner sense, eh? Like the smell of the bloodhound?" said Calder, but his eyes were strangely serious.

"This day's about done," he went on. "Have you any objections to me camping with you here?"

Not a cowpuncher within five hundred miles but would be glad of such redoubted company. They went back to Calder's horse.

"We can start for my clearing," said Dan. "Bart'll bring the hoss. Fetch him in."

The wolf took the dangling bridle reins and led on the cowpony. Calder observed his performance with starting eyes, but he was averse to asking questions. In a few moments they came out on a small open space. The ground was covered with a quantity of dried bunch grass which a glorious black stallion was cropping. Now he tossed up his head so that some of his long mane fell forward between his ears and at sight of Calder his ears dropped back and his eyes blazed, but when Dan stepped from the willows the ears came forward again with a whinny of greeting. Calder watched the beautiful animal with all the enthusiasm of an expert horseman. Satan was untethered; the saddle and bridle lay in a corner of the clearing; evidently the horse was a pet and would not leave its master. He spoke gently and stepped forward to caress the velvet shining neck, but Satan snorted and started away, trembling with excitement.

"How can you keep such a wild fellow as this without hobbling him?" asked Calder.

"He ain't wild," said Dan.

"Why, he won't let me put a hand on him."

"Yes, he will. Steady, Satan!"

The stallion stood motionless with the veritable fires of hell in his eyes as Calder approached. The latter stopped.

"Not for me," he said. "I'd rather rub the moustache of the lion in the zoo than touch that black devil!"

Bart at that moment led in the cowpony and Calder started to remove the saddle. He had scarcely done so and hobbled his horse when he was startled by a tremendous snarling and snorting. He turned to see the stallion plunging hither and thither, striking with his fore-hooves, while around him, darting in and out under the driving feet, sprang the great black wolf, his teeth clashing like steel on steel. In another moment they might sink in the throat of the horse! Calder, with an exclamation of horror, whipped out his revolver, but checked himself at the very instant of firing. The master of the two animals stood with arms folded, actually smiling upon the fight!

"For God's sake!" cried the marshal. "Shoot the damned wolf, man, or he'll have your horse by the throat!"

"Leave 'em be," said Dan, without turning his head. "Satan an' Black Bart ain't got any other dogs an' hosses to run around with. They's jest playing a little by way of exercise."

Calder stood agape before what seemed the incarnate fury of the pair. Then he noticed that those snapping fangs, however close they came, always missed the flesh of the stallion, and the driving hoofs never actually endangered the leaping wolf.

"Stop 'em!" he cried at last. "It makes me nervous to watch that sort of play. It isn't natural!"

"All right," said Dan. "Stop it, boys."

He had not raised his voice, but they ceased their wild gambols instantly, the stallion, with head thrown high and arched tail and heaving sides, while the wolf, with lolling red tongue, strolled calmly towards his master.

The latter paid no further attention to them, but set about kindling a small fire over which to cook supper. Calder joined him. The marshal's mind was too full for speech, but now and again he turned a long glance of wonder upon the stallion or Black Bart. In the same silence they sat under the last light of the sunset and ate their supper. Calder, with head bent, pondered over the man of mystery and his two tamed animals. Tamed? Not one of the three was tamed, the man least of all.

He saw Dan pause from his eating to stare with wide, vacant eyes among the trees. The wolf-dog approached, looked up in his master's face, whined softly, and getting no response went back to his place and lay down, his eyes never moving from Dan. Still he stared among the trees. The gloom deepened, and he smiled faintly. He began to whistle, a low, melancholy strain so soft that it blended with the growing hush of the night. Calder listened, wholly overawed. That weird music seemed an interpretation of the vast spaces of the mountains, of the pitiless desert, of the limitless silences, and the whistler was an understanding part of the whole.

He became aware of a black shadow behind the musician. It was Satan, who rested his nose on the shoulder of the master. Without ceasing his whistling Dan raised a hand, touched the small muzzle, and Satan went at once to a side of the clearing and lay down. It was almost as if the two had said good-night! Calder could stand it no longer.

"Dan, I've got to talk to you," he began.

The whistling ceased; the wide brown eyes turned to him.

"Fire away—partner."

Ay, they had eaten together by the same fire—they had watched the coming of the night—they had shaken hands in friendship—they were partners. He knew deep in his heart that no human being could ever be the actual comrade of this man. This lord of the voiceless desert needed no human companionship; yet as the marshal glanced from the black shadow of Satan to the gleaming eyes of Bart, and then to the visionary face of Barry, he felt that he had been admitted by Whistling Dan into the mysterious company. The thought stirred him deeply. It was as if he had made an alliance with the wandering wind. Why he had been accepted he could not dream, but he had heard the word "partner" and he knew it was meant. After all, stranger things than this happen in the mountain-desert, where man is greater and convention less. A single word has been known to estrange lifelong comrades; a single evening beside a camp-fire has changed foes to partners. Calder drew his mind back to business with a great effort.

"There's one thing you don't know about Jim Silent. A reward of ten thousand dollars lies on his head. The notices aren't posted yet."

Whistling Dan shrugged his shoulders.

"I ain't after money," he answered.

Calder frowned. He did not appreciate a bluff.

"Look here," he said, "if we kill him, because no power on earth will take him alive—we'll split the money."

"If you lay a hand on him," said Dan, without emotion, "we won't be friends no longer, I figger."

Calder stared.

"If you don't want to get him," he said, "why in God's name are you trailing him this way?"

Dan touched his lips. "He hit me with his fist."

He paused, and spoke again with a drawling voice that gave his words an uncanny effect.

"My blood went down from my mouth to my chin. I tasted it. Till I get him there ain't no way of me forgettin' him."

His eyes lighted with that ominous gleam.

"That's why no other man c'n put a hand on him. He's laid out all for me. Understand?"

The ring of the question echoed for a moment through Calder's mind.

"I certainly do," he said with profound conviction, "and I'll never forget it." He decided on a change of tactics. "But there are other men with Jim Silent and those men will fight to keep you from getting to him."

"I'm sorry for 'em," said Dan gently. "I ain't got nothin' agin any one except the big man."

Calder took a long breath.

"Don't you see," he explained carefully, "if you shoot one of these men you are simply a murderer who must be apprehended by the law and punished."

"It makes it bad for me, doesn't it?" said Dan. "An' I hope I won't have to hurt more'n one or two of 'em. You see,"—he leaned forward seriously towards Calder—"I'd only shoot for their arms or their legs. I wouldn't spoil them altogether."

Calder threw up his hands in despair. Black Bart snarled at the gesture.

"I can't listen no more," said Dan. "I got to start explorin' the willows pretty soon."

"In the dark?" exclaimed Calder.

"Sure. Black Bart'll go with me. The dark don't bother him."

"I'll go along."

"I'd rather be alone. I might meet him."

"Any way you want," said Calder, "but first hear my plan—it doesn't take long to tell it."

The darkness thickened around them while he talked. The fire died out—the night swallowed up their figures.



CHAPTER XIII

THE LONE RIDERS ENTERTAIN

When Lee Haines rode into Silent's camp that evening no questions were asked. Questions were not popular among the long riders. He did not know more than the names of half the men who sat around the smoky fire. They were eager to forget the past, and the only allusions to former times came in chance phrases which they let fall at rare intervals. When they told an anecdote they erased all names by instinct. They would begin: "I heard about a feller over to the Circle Y outfit that was once ridin'—" etc. As a rule they themselves were "that feller over to the Circle Y outfit." Accordingly only a few grunts greeted Haines and yet he was far and away the most popular man in the group. Even solemn-eyed Jim Silent was partial to the handsome fellow.

"Heard the whistling today?" he asked.

Purvis shook his head and Terry Jordan allowed "as how it was most uncommon fortunate that this Barry feller didn't start his noise." After this Haines ate his supper in silence, his ear ready to catch the first sound of Kate's horse as it crashed through the willows and shrubs. Nevertheless it was Shorty Rhinehart who sprang to his feet first.

"They's a hoss there comin' among the willows!" he announced.

"Maybe it's Silent," remarked Haines casually.

"The chief don't make no such a noise. He picks his goin'," answered Hal Purvis.

The sound was quite audible now.

"They's been some crooked work," said Rhinehart excitedly. "Somebody's tipped off the marshals about where we're lyin'."

"All right," said Haines quietly, "you and I will investigate."

They started through the willows. Rhinehart was cursing beneath his breath.

"Don't be too fast with your six-gun," warned Haines.

"I'd rather be too early than too late."

"Maybe it isn't a marshal. If a man were looking for us he'd be a fool to come smashing along like that."

He had scarcely spoken when Kate came into view.

"A girl, by God!" said Rhinehart, with mingled relief and disgust.

"Sure thing," agreed Haines.

"Let's beat it back to the camp."

"Not a hope. She's headed straight for the camp. We'll take her in and tell her we're a bunch from the Y Circle X outfit headed north. She'll never know the difference."

"Good idea," said Rhinehart, and he added with a chuckle, "it's been nigh three months since I've talked to a piece of calico."

"Hey, there!" called Haines, and he stepped out with Rhinehart before her horse.

"Oh!" cried Kate, reining up her horse sharply. "Who are you?"

"A beaut!" muttered Rhinehart in devout admiration.

"We're from the Y Circle X outfit," said Haines glibly, "camping over here for the night. Are you lost, lady?"

"I guess I am. I thought I could get across the willows before the night fell. I'm trying to find a man who rode in this direction."

"Come on into the camp," said Haines easily. "Maybe some of the boys can put you on his track. What sort of a looking fellow is he?"

"Rides a black horse and whistles a good deal. His name is Barry. They call him Whistling Dan."

"By God!" whispered Rhinehart in the ear of Haines.

"Shut up!" answered Haines in the same tone. "Are you afraid of a girl?"

"I've trailed him south this far," went on Kate, "and a few miles away from here I lost track of him. I think he may have gone on across the willows."

"Haven't seen him," said Rhinehart amiably. "But come on to the camp, lady. Maybe one of the boys has spotted him on the way. What's your name?"

"Kate Cumberland," she answered.

He removed his hat with a broad grin and reached up a hand to her.

"I'm most certainly glad to meet you, an' my name's Shorty. This here is Lee. Want to come along with us?"

"Thank you. I'm a little worried."

"'S all right. Don't get worried. We'll show you the way out. Just follow us."

They started back through the willows, Kate following half a dozen yards behind.

"Listen here, Shorty," said Haines in a cautious voice. "You heard her name?"

"Sure."

"Well, that's the daughter of the man that raised Whistling Dan. I saw her at Morgan's place. She's probably been tipped off that he's following Silent, but she has no idea who we are."

"Sure she hasn't. She's a great looker, eh, Lee?"

"She'll do, I guess. Now get this: The girl is after Whistling Dan, and if she meets him she'll persuade him to come back to her father's place. She'll take him off our trail, and I guess none of us'll be sorry to know that he's gone, eh?"

"I begin to follow you, Lee. You've always had the head!"

"All right. Now we'll get Purvis to tell the girl that he's heard a peculiar whistling around here this evening. We'll advise her to stick around and go out when she hears the whistling again. That way she'll meet him and head him off, savvy?"

"Right," said Rhinehart.

"Then beat it ahead as fast as you can and wise up the boys."

"That's me—specially about their bein' Y Circle X fellers, eh?"

He chuckled and made ahead as fast as his long legs could carry him. Haines dropped back beside Kate.

"Everything goes finely," he assured her. "I told Rhinehart what to do. He's gone ahead to the camp. Now all you have to do is to keep your head. One of the boys will tell you that we've heard some whistling near the camp this evening. Then I'll ask you to stay around for a while in case the whistling should sound again, do you see? Remember, never ask a question!"

It was even more simple than Haines had hoped. Silent's men suspected nothing. After all, Kate's deception was a small affair, and her frankness, her laughter, and her beauty carried all before her.

The long riders became quickly familiar with her, but through their rough talk, the Westerners' reverence for a woman ran like a thread of gold over a dark cloth. Her fear lessened and almost passed away while she listened to their talk and watched their faces. The kindly human nature which had lain unexpressed in most of them for months together burst out torrent-like and flooded about her with a sense of security and power. These were conquerors of men, fighters by instinct and habit, but here they sat laughing and chattering with a helpless girl, and not a one of them but would have cut the others' throats rather than see her come to harm. The roughness of their past and the dread of their future they laid aside like an ugly cloak while they showed her what lies in the worst man's heart—a certain awe of woman. Their manners underwent a sudden change. Polite words, rusted by long disuse, were resurrected in her honour. Tremendous phrases came labouring forth. There was a general though covert rearranging of bandanas, and an interchange of self-conscious glances. Haines alone seemed impervious to her charm.

The red died slowly along the west. There was no light save the flicker of the fire, which played on Kate's smile and the rich gold of her hair, or caught out of the dark one of the lean, hard faces which circled her. Now and then it fell on the ghastly grin of Terry Jordan and Kate had to clench her hand to keep up her nerve.

It was deep night when Jim Silent rode into the clearing. Shorty Rhinehart and Hal Purvis went to him quickly to explain the presence of the girl and the fact that they were all members of the Y Circle X outfit. He responded with nods while his gloomy eyes held fast on Kate. When they presented him as the boss, Jim, he replied to her good-natured greeting in a voice that was half grunt and half growl.



CHAPTER XIV

DELILAH

Haines muttered at Kate's ear: "This is the man. Now keep up your courage."

"He doesn't like this," went on Haines in the same muffled voice, "but when he understands just why you're here I think he'll be as glad as any of us."

Silent beckoned to him and he went to the chief.

"What about the girl?" asked the big fellow curtly.

"Didn't Rhinehart tell you?"

"Rhinehart's a fool and so are the rest of them. Have you gone loco too, Haines, to let a girl come here?"

"Where's the harm?"

"Why, damn it, she's marked every man here."

"I let her in because she is trying to get hold of Whistling Dan."

"Which no fool girl c'n take that feller off the trail. Nothin' but lead can do that."

"I tell you," said Haines, "the boy's in love with her. I watched them at Morgan's place. She can twist him around her finger."

A faint light broke the gloom of Silent's face.

"Yaller hair an' blue eyes. They c'n do a lot. Maybe you're right. What's that?" His voice had gone suddenly husky.

A russet moon pushed slowly up through the trees. Its uncertain light fell across the clearing. For the first time the thick pale smoke of the fire was visible, rising straight up until it cleared the tops of the willows, and then caught into swift, jagging lines as the soft wind struck it. A coyote wailed from the distant hills, and before his complaint was done another sound came through the hushing of the willows, a melancholy whistling, thin with distance.

"We'll see if that's the man you want," suggested Haines.

"I'll go along," said Shorty Rhinehart.

"And me too," said a third. The whole group would have accompanied them, but the heavy voice of Jim Silent cut in: "You'll stay here, all of you except the girl and Lee."

They turned back, muttering, and Kate followed Haines into the willows.

"Well?" growled Bill Kilduff.

"What I want to know—" broke in Terry Jordan.

"Go to hell with your questions," said Silent, "but until you go there you'll do what I say, understand?"

"Look here, Jim," said Hal Purvis, "are you a king an' we jest your slaves, maybe?"

"You're goin' it a pile too hard," said Shorty Rhinehart.

Every one of these speeches came sharply out while they glared at Jim Silent. Hands were beginning to fall to the hip and fingers were curving stiffly as if for the draw. Silent leaned his broad shoulders against the side of his roan and folded his arms. His eyes went round the circle slowly, lingering an instant on each face. Under that cold stare they grew uneasy. To Shorty Rhinehart it became necessary to push back his hat and scratch his forehead. Terry Jordan found a mysterious business with his bandana. Every one of them had occasion to raise his hand from the neighbourhood of his six-shooter. Silent smiled.

"A fine, hard crew you are," he said sarcastically at last. "A great bunch of long riders, lettin' a slip of a yaller-haired girl make fools of you. You over there—you, Shorty Rhinehart, you'd cut the throat of a man that looked crosswise at the Cumberland girl, wouldn't you? An' you, Purvis, you're aching to get at me, ain't you? An' you're still thinkin' of them blue eyes, Jordan?"

Before any one could speak he poured in another volley between wind and water: "One slip of a girl can make fools out of five long riders? No, you ain't long riders. All you c'n handle is hobby hosses!"

"What do you want us to do?" growled swarthy Bill Kilduff.

"Keep your face shut while I'm talkin', that's what I want you to do!"

There was a devil of rage in his eyes. His folded arms tugged at each other, and if they got free there would be gun play. The four men shrank, and he was satisfied.

"Now I'll tell you what we're goin' to do," he went on. "We're goin' out after Haines an' the girl. If they come up with this Whistlin' Dan we're goin' to surround him an' fill him full of lead, while they're talkin'."

"Not for a million dollars!" burst in Hal Purvis.

"Not in a thousan' years!" echoed Terry Jordan.

Silent turned his watchful eyes from one to the other. They were ready to fight now, and he sensed it at once.

"Why?" he asked calmly.

"It ain't playin' square with the girl," announced Rhinehart.

"Purvis," said Silent, for he knew that the opposition centred in the figure of the venomous little gun fighter; "if you seen a mad dog that was runnin' straight at you, would you be kep' from shootin' it because a pretty girl hollered out an' asked you not to?"

Their eyes shifted rapidly from one to another, seeking a way out, and finding none.

"An' is there any difference between this hero Whistlin' Dan an' a mad dog?"

Still they were mute.

"I tell you, boys, we got a better chance of dodgin' lightnin' an' puttin' a bloodhound off our trail than we have of gettin' rid of this Whistlin' Dan. An' when he catches up with us—well, all I'm askin' is that you remember what he done to them four dollars before they hit the dust?"

"The chief's right," growled Kilduff, staring down at the ground. "It's Whistlin' Dan or us. The mountains ain't big enough to hold him an' us!"

* * * * *

Before Whistling Dan the great wolf glided among the trees. For a full hour they had wandered through the willows in this manner, and Dan had made up his mind to surrender the search when Bart, returning from one of his noiseless detours, sprang out before his master and whined softly. Dan turned, loosening his revolver in the holster, and followed Bart through the soft gloom of the tree shadows and the moonlight. His step was almost as silent as that of the slinking animal which went before. At last the wolf stopped and raised his head. Almost instantly Dan saw a man and a woman approaching through the willows. The moonlight dropped across her face. He recognized Kate, with Lee Haines walking a pace before her.

"Stand where you are," he said.

Haines leaped to one side, his revolver flashing in his hand. Dan stepped out before them while Black Bart slunk close beside him, snarling softly.

He seemed totally regardless of the gun in Haines's hand. His manner was that of a conqueror who had the outlaw at his mercy.

"You," he said, "walk over there to the side of the clearing."

"Dan!" cried Kate, as she went to him with extended arms.

He stopped her with a gesture, his eyes upon Haines, who had moved away.

"Watch him, Bart," said Dan.

The black wolf ran to Haines and crouched snarling at his feet. The outlaw restored his revolver to his holster and stood with his arms folded, his back turned. Dan looked to Kate. At the meeting of their eyes she shrank a little. She had expected a difficult task in persuading him, but not this hard aloofness. She felt suddenly as if she were a stranger to him.

"How do you come here—with him?"

"He is my friend!"

"You sure pick a queer place to go walkin' with him."

"Hush, Dan! He brought me here to find you!"

"He brought you here?"

"Don't you understand?"

"When I want a friend like him, I'll go huntin' for him myself; an' I'll pack a gun with me!"

That flickering yellow light played behind Dan's eyes.

"I looked into his face—an' he stared the other way."

She made a little imploring gesture, but his hand remained on his hips, and there was no softening of his voice.

"What fetched you here?"

Every word was like a hand that pushed her farther away.

"Are you dumb, Kate? What fetched you here?"

"I have come to bring you home, Dan."

"I'm home now."

"What do you mean?"

"There's the roof of my house," he jerked his hand towards the sky, "the mountain passes are my doors—an' the earth is my floor."

"No! no! We are waiting for you at the ranch."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Dan, this wild trail has no end."

"Maybe, but I know that feller can show me the way to Jim Silent, an' now——"

He turned towards Haines as he spoke, but here a low, venomous snarl from Black Bart checked his words. Kate saw him stiffen—his lips parted to a faint smile—his head tilted back a little as if he listened intently, though she could hear nothing. She was not a yard from him, and yet she felt a thousand miles away. His head turned full upon her, and she would never forget the yellow light of his eyes.

"Dan!" she cried, but her voice was no louder than a whisper.

"Delilah!" he said, and leaped back into the shade of the willows.

Even as he sprang she saw the flash of the moonlight on his drawn revolver, and fire spat from it twice, answered by a yell of pain, the clang of a bullet on metal, and half a dozen shots from the woods behind her.

That word "Delilah!" rang in her brain to the exclusion of all the world. Vaguely she heard voices shouting—she turned a little and saw Haines facing her with his revolver in his hand, but prevented from moving by the wolf who crouched snarling at his feet. The order of his master kept him there even after that master was gone. Now men ran out into the clearing. A keen whistle sounded far off among the willows, and the wolf leaped away from his prisoner and into the shadows on the trail of Dan.

* * * * *

Tex Calder prided himself on being a light sleeper. Years spent in constant danger enabled him to keep his sense of hearing alert even when he slept. He had never been surprised. It was his boast that he never would be. Therefore when a hand dropped lightly on his shoulder he started erect from his blankets with a curse and grasped his revolver. A strong grip on his wrist paralysed his fingers. Whistling Dan leaned above him.

"Wake up," said the latter.

"What the devil—" breathed the marshal. "You travel like a cloud shadow, Dan. You make no sound."

"Wake up and talk to me."

"I'm awake all right. What's happened?"

There was a moment of silence while Dan seemed to be trying for speech.

Black Bart, at the other side of the clearing, pointed his nose at the yellow moon and wailed. He was very close, but the sound was so controlled that it seemed to come at a great distance from some wild spirit wandering between earth and heaven.

Instead of speaking Dan jumped to his feet and commenced pacing up and down, up and down, a rapid, tireless stride; at his heels the wolf slunk, with lowered head and tail. The strange fellow was in some great trouble, Calder could see, and it stirred him mightily to know that the wild man had turned to him for help. Yet he would ask no questions.

When in doubt the cattleman rolls a cigarette, and that was what Calder did. He smoked and waited. At last the inevitable came.

"How old are you, Tex?"

"Forty-four."

"That's a good deal. You ought to know something."

"Maybe."

"About women?"

"Ah!" said Calder.

"Bronchos is cut out chiefly after one pattern," went on Dan.

"They's chiefly jest meanness. Are women the same—jest cut after one pattern?"

"What pattern, Dan?"

"The pattern of Delilah! They ain't no trust to be put in 'em?"

"A good many of us have found that out."

"I thought one woman was different from the rest."

"We all think that. Woman in particular is divine; woman in general is—hell!"

"Ay, but this one—" He stopped and set his teeth.

"What has she done?"

"She—" he hesitated, and when he spoke again his voice did not tremble; there was a deep hurt and wonder in it: "She double-crossed me!"

"When? Do you mean to say you've met a woman tonight out here among the willows?—Where—how——"

"Tex——!"

"Ay, Dan."

"It's—it's hell!"

"It is now. But you'll forget her! The mountains, the desert, and above all, time—they'll cure you, my boy."

"Not in a whole century, Tex."

Calder waited curiously for the explanation. It came.

"Jest to think of her is like hearing music. Oh, God, Tex, what c'n I do to fight agin this here cold feelin' at my heart?"

Dan slipped down beside the marshal and the latter dropped a sympathetic hand over the lean, brown fingers. They returned the pressure with a bone-crushing grip.

"Fight, Dan! It will make you forget her."

"Her skin is softer'n satin, Tex."

"Ay, but you'll never touch it again, Dan."

"Her eyes are deeper'n a pool at night an' her hair is all gold like ripe corn."

"You'll never look into her eyes again, Dan, and you'll never touch the gold of that hair."

"God!"

The word was hardly more than a whisper, but it brought Black Bart leaping to his feet.

Dan spoke again: "Tex, I'm thankin' you for listenin' to me; I wanted to talk. Bein' silent was burnin' me up. There's one thing more."

"Fire it out, lad."

"This evenin' I told you I hated no man but Jim Silent."

"Yes."

"An' now they's another of his gang. Sometime—when she's standin' by—I'm goin' to take him by the throat till he don't breathe no more. Then I'll throw him down in front of her an' ask her if she c'n kiss the life back into his lips!"

Calder was actually shaking with excitement, but he was wise enough not to speak.

"Tex!"

"Ay, lad."

"But when I've choked his damned life away——"

"Yes?"

"Ay, lad."

"There'll be five more that seen her shamin' me. Tex—all hell is bustin' loose inside me!"

For a moment Calder watched, but that stare of cold hate mastered him. He turned his head.



CHAPTER XV

THE CROSS ROADS

As Black Bart raced away in answer to Dan's whistle, Kate recovered herself from the daze in which she stood and with a sob ran towards the willows, calling the name of Dan, but Silent sprang after her, and caught her by the arm. She cried out and struggled vainly in his grip.

"Don't follow him, boys!" called Silent. "He's a dog that can bite while he runs. Stand quiet, girl!"

Lee Haines caught him by the shoulder and jerked Silent around. His hand held the butt of his revolver, and his whole arm trembled with eagerness for the draw.

"Take your hand from her, Jim!" he said.

Silent met his eye with the same glare and while his left hand still held Kate by both her wrists his right dropped to his gun.

"Not when you tell me, Lee!"

"Damn you, I say let her go!"

"By God, Haines, I stand for too much from you!"

And still they did not draw, because each of them knew that if the crisis came it would mean death to them both. Bill Kilduff jumped between them and thrust them back.

He cried, "Ain't we got enough trouble without roundin' up work at home? Terry Jordan is shot through the arm."

Kate tugged at the restraining hand of Silent, not in an attempt to escape, but in order to get closer to Haines.

"Was this your friendship?" she said, her voice shaking with hate and sorrow, "to bring me here as a lure for Whistling Dan? Listen to me, all of you! He's escaped you now, and he'll come again. Remember him, for he shan't forget you!"

"You hear her?" said Silent to Haines.

"Is this what you want me to turn loose?"

"Silent," said Haines, "it isn't the girl alone you've double crossed. You've crooked me, and you'll pay me for it sooner or later!"

"Day or night, winter or summer, I'm willing to meet you an' fight it out. Rhinehart and Purvis, take this girl back to the clearing!"

They approached, Purvis still staring at the hand from which only a moment before his gun had been knocked by the shot of Whistling Dan. It was a thing which he could not understand—he had not yet lost a most uncomfortable sense of awe. Haines made no objection when they went off, with Kate walking between them. He knew, now that his blind anger had left him, that it was folly to draw on a fight while the rest of Silent's men stood around them.

"An' the rest of you go back to the clearin'. I got somethin' to talk over with Lee," said Silent.

The others obeyed without question, and the leader turned back to his lieutenant. For a moment longer they remained staring at each other. Then Silent moved slowly forward with outstretched hand.

"Lee," he said quietly, "I'm owin' you an apology an' I'm man enough to make it."

"I can't take your hand, Jim."

Silent hesitated.

"I guess you got cause to be mad, Lee," he said. "Maybe I played too quick a hand. I didn't think about double crossin' you. I only seen a way to get Whistlin' Dan out of our path, an' I took it without rememberin' that you was the safeguard to the girl."

Haines eyed his chief narrowly.

"I wish to God I could read your mind," he said at last, "but I'll take your word that you did it without thinking."

His hand slowly met Silent's.

"An' what about the girl now, Lee?"

"I'll send her back to her father's ranch. It will be easy to put her on the right way."

"Don't you see no reason why you can't do that?"

"Are you playing with me?"

"I'm talkin' to you as I'd talk to myself. If she's loose she'll describe us all an' set the whole range on our trail."

Haines stared.

Silent went on: "If we can't turn her loose, they's only one thing left—an' that's to take her with us wherever we go."

"On your honour, do you see no other way out?"

"Do you?"

"She may promise not to speak of it."

"There ain't no way of changin' the spots of a leopard, Lee, an' there ain't no way of keepin' a woman's tongue still."

"How can we take a girl with us."

"It ain't goin' to be for long. After we pull the job that comes on the eighteenth, we'll blow farther south an' then we'll let her go."