"Good-evening," recognised the Yankee laconically. He hitched along his chair until a space was clear at his elbow. "Draw up and fall to, stranger. Bring the gentleman a chair, Pete."

In silence the Mexican obeyed, and in equal silence returned to his work.

Appetites are keen on the prairie, and not until the meal was complete was there further conversation. Then after, one by one, the cowmen had filed out of doors, the host produced two corn-cob pipes from a shelf on the wall and tendered one across the littered table.

"Smoke?" he again invited laconically.

The visitor fumbled in the pockets of his coat and drew out a couple of cigars.

"Better have one of these instead," he suggested.

Hawkins accepted in silence, and thereafter—for cigars were a rarity on the frontier—puffed half the length of the weed in wordless content. The Mexican went impassively about his work, cleared the table and washed the dishes methodically. The labour complete, he rolled a cigarette swiftly and, followed by a vanishing trail of blue, disappeared likewise out of doors. Then, and not until then, the visitor introduced himself.

"My name's Manning, Bob Manning," he said. "I run the store over at the Centre."

The host scrutinised his guest, deliberately, reminiscently

"I thought there was something familiar about you," he commented at last. "I haven't seen you for twenty years; but I remember you now. You're one of the bunch who was with Bill Landor that time he picked up the two kids."

It was the guest's turn to make critical inspection.

"You wouldn't remember me," explained the rancher. "I came in while you were gone, and only saw you the day you returned." The reminiscent look reappeared. "I used to know Landor pretty well when we were on the other side of the river, before the country settled up; but when we came over here we got too far apart and lost track of each other."

The visitor smoked a full minute in meditative silence. At last he glanced up.

"You knew he was dead, didn't you?"

"Yes. And the two youngsters grew up and got married and—" Hawkins laughed peculiarly—"made a fizzle of it."

"Knew them personally, did you?" queried Manning.

"No. I haven't seen the young folks for ten years, and I haven't even heard anything of them for six months now." He twirled the cigar with his fingers in the self-consciousness of unaccustomed gossip. "The girl went East with Landor's nephew, Craig, afterward, I understood."

"Yes."

Hawkins puffed at the cigar fiercely; then blew an avenue in the cloud of smoke obscuring his companion's face.

"I'm not usually so confoundedly curious," he apologised, "but, knowing the circumstances, I've often wondered how the affair ended. Did they hit it off well together?"

Manning settled farther back in his chair. One of his gnarled old hands fastened of a sudden upon the arm tightly.

"While the money lasted, yes."

"Money! Did they sell the ranch?"

"Mortgaged it, Craig did, until he couldn't get another cent."

"And then—"

"It's the old story."

"They went to pieces?"

"Craig left her—for another woman." The clawlike hands closed tighter and tighter. "He never really cared for Bess. He couldn't. It seems he was supporting the other woman all the time."

Hawkins sat chewing the stump of the cigar in silence. In a lean-to the cowboys were going to bed. Muffled by the intervening wall came the mocking sound of their intermittent laughter.

"And then what?" asked the rancher at last.

"Bess came back."

"Alone?"

Manning had sunk deeper and deeper into his seat. His face was concealed by the straggling grey beard, but beneath his shaggy brows his old eyes were blazing.

"Yes, she was alone," he said.

The cigar had gone dead in Hawkins's lips, and he lit it jerkily. The blaze of the match illumined a face that was not pleasant to look upon.

"And Craig himself," he suggested, "where is he?"

"He's back at the ranch by this time. He went through town yesterday, just before I left, with a man who wants to buy."

The rancher looked at the other meaningly.

"Back at the ranch—with the Indian?"

Equally directly Manning returned the look.

"Evidently you didn't hear all the story," he said. "The Indian is not there."

"No?" swiftly. "Where is he?"

Manning's free hand, his distorted hand, caught at the table before him.

"That's what I came to ask you," he returned equally swiftly. "He came here, to work for you, six months ago, when he left Bess. Do you mean to tell me you don't know where he is gone?"

Face to face the two men sat staring at each other. The sounds from the lean-to had ceased. In the silence they could hear each other breathing. For perhaps a minute they sat so; while bit by bit on the rancher's face incredulity merged into belief, and belief into understanding perfect.

"Know where he is? Of course I do—now." He leaned back in his chair. "To think that I never suspicioned who he was all the time he was here, or even when he left. I'm an ass, an ass!"

He did not now. "Tell me where he is, if you know."

"About twelve miles from here, unless he's changed camp in the last week." The rancher looked at the other understandingly. "He worked for me until about a month ago. Then he left and started away alone. We never got a word out of him while he was here, not even his name." Of a sudden came realisation complete, and his great bony fist crashed on the board. "I'm dull as a post, but I begin to understand at last, and I'm with you absolutely. I'll take you there to-night, it won't be a two-hour drive. I'll hitch up right now if you're ready."

For the first time in the last tense minutes Manning relaxed. The hand on the chair arm loosened its grip.

"I'm glad you know where he is," he said unemotionally. "I don't think we'll go to-night, though." He fumbled in his pocket and produced two fresh cigars. One he slid across the table to the other man and lit its mate carefully. "I don't think we'd better both go anyway. In the morning you can fit me out with a fresh team, if you will. I crowded things a bit on the way up."

For a moment the rancher sat staring at his guest blankly, unbelievingly; then for the second time came understanding.

"Perhaps after all you're right," he acquiesced. "It's only eighty miles, and there's plenty of time."

Beneath the craggy brows the blaze still glowed undimmed in the old storekeeper's deep-set eyes.

"Yes, there's plenty of time—after How Landor knows," he said.

* * * * *

In the midst of the prairie wilderness Providence had placed a tiny dawdling creek. At a point where the creek wandered through a spot a shade lower than the surrounding country, man, a man, had builded a dam. In the fulness of time the accumulated water had formed a fair-sized pond that glittered and shimmered in the sunlight, until from a little altitude it could be seen for miles. To this pond, for open water was very, very scarce on the prairie in September, came water fowl from near and afar; from no man knew where. As steel filings respond to a magnet, they came, and as inevitably; stragglingly, suspiciously by day, in flocks that grew to be a perfect cloud by night. A tent that had once been white, but that was now weather-stained and darkened by smoke, was pitched near at hand; but they minded it not. An evil-looking mouse-coloured cayuse grazed likewise, hard by; but for them a broncho had no terror. A rough blind, ingeniously fashioned from weeds and grasses, stood at the water's edge; yet again even of this they were unsuspicious. Now and anon, at long intervals, something happened, something startlingly sudden, bewilderingly loud; and in blind terror they would take wing and vanish temporarily, like smoke. But this something never pursued them, never repeated itself the same day, and invariably after a time they came back, to take up anew, with the confidence of children, the careless thread of their life where it had been interrupted.

Thus it had been for days past. Thus it was of a certain morning in late September. Though it was ten of the clock, they were still there: sleepy brown mallards, glossy-winged teal, long-necked shovellers, greyish speckled widgeon: these and others less common, representatives of all the native tribe. Happy as nature the common mother intended, as irresponsibly idle, they dawdled here and there, back and forth while time drifted swiftly by; and unknown to them, concealed from view within the blind, a dark-skinned man lay watching.

Since before daylight, ere they were yet awake, he had been there. On soundless moccasined feet he had come. Motionless as an inanimate thing, he had remained. Not two rods away the flock were feeding. More than once the water they carelessly spattered had fallen upon him; but he did not stir. He had no gun or weapon of any kind. Though they were within stone's throw, he had not brought even a rock. Unbelievable to an Anglo-Saxon sportsman, he merely lay there observing them. With that object he had come; for this purpose he remained. A long dark statue, he peered through the woven grasses steadily, admiringly; with an instinctive companionship, a mute forbearance, that was haunting in its revelation. Lonely as death itself were the surrounding unbroken prairies. Lonely as a desert of sand, their absolute isolation. Lonely beyond comparison, beyond the suggestion of language, was that silent human in their midst this autumn day.

How long he would have remained there so, idly watching, no one could have told; the man himself could not have told; for at last, interrupting, awakening, a new actor appeared. Answering, with a great quacking and beating of webbed feet, the flock sprang a-wing; and almost before the shower of water drops they scattered in their wake had ceased, a road waggon, with a greybearded old man on the seat, drew up beside the tent.

Then, for the first time in hours, the Indian arose and stretched himself. Still in silence he came back to where the newcomer was waiting.

They exchanged the conventionalities, and thereafter the white man sat eyeing the other peculiarly, analytically.

"Well, where's your game?" he queried at last. "There seemed to be enough around when I came."

The Indian smiled; the smile of one accustomed to being misunderstood.

"I wasn't hunting," he said. "I was merely watching."

A moment longer Manning continued the inspection; then with an effort he dismounted.

"I was over to see Hawkins yesterday on business," he digressed abruptly, "and he said you were out here somewhere, so I thought before I went back I'd look you up." The man was not accustomed to dissimulation, and the explanation halted lamely. "If you don't mind I'll go inside and smoke a bit."

In silence the Indian led the way to the tent and buttoned back the flap. There was but one chair and he indicated it impassively.

"I'm very glad to see you," he said then simply.

Manning lit a pipe clumsily with his crippled hand, and thereafter drew on it deliberately until the contents of the bowl were aglow. Even then, however, he did not speak. That which had been on his mind trembled now at the tip of his tongue. The one for whose ear the information was intended was waiting, listening; yet he delayed. With the suddenness of a revelation, in those last minutes, there had come to the old storekeeper an appreciation of the other he had never felt before. The message of the artificial pond and the harmless watcher at its edge had begun the alteration. A glimpse of the barren interior of the tent, with a pathetic little group of valueless trinkets arranged with infinite care on a tiny folding table, added its testimony. The sight of the man himself, standing erect in the doorway, gazing immovably out over the sunlit earth, looking and waiting, but asking no question, completed the impression. He had known this repressed human long and, as he fancied, well; but now of a sudden he realised that in fact he had not known him at all. Fearless unquestionably he had found him to be. That in a measure he was civilised, he had taken for granted; but more than this, that he was an individual among individuals, that beneath that emotionless exterior there lay a subtle, indescribable something inadequately termed soul, with the supercilious superiority of the white he had ignored. Before he had been merely a puppet: the play actor of an inferior, conquered race. Injustice, horrible, unforgivable injustice, with this being one of the injured, had been done in the white man's sight; and instinctively he had come to him as the agent of Providence calculated to mete out retribution. That an irresponsible, relentless savage lurked beneath the thin veneer of alien civilisation he had taken for granted, and builded thereon. Now with disconcerting finality he realised the thing he was doing. It was not a mere agent of divine punishment he was calling to action; but a fellow human being, an equal, with whose affairs he was arbitrarily meddling. Whatever the motive that had inspired his coming, however justifiable in itself, his interference, as a mere spectator, was under the circumstances unjustified and an impertinence. This he realised with startling suddenness; and swift in its wake came a new point of view, a readjustment absolute in his attitude. Under its influence the dissimulation of a moment ago vanished. From out of concealment he came fair into the open. What he knew he would reveal—if the other wished; but it was for the Indian to request, not him to proffer. With the decision he aroused. In the interval his pipe had gone dead and he lit it afresh suggestively.

"I lied to you a bit ago, How," he confessed abruptly. "It was not Hawkins I came to see at all, but you."

The dark statue did not turn, showed no sign of surprise.

"I thought so," it said simply.

Puff, puff went the white man's pipe, until even though it was daylight, the glow lit up his face.

"You did me a service once," he continued at last, "a big service—and I've not forgotten. I'll go now, or stay, as you wish."

Still the Indian stood in the doorway looking out into the careless, smiling infinite.

"I understand. You have something to tell me, something you think I should know."

The old man thumbed the ashes in the pipe bowl absently.

"I repeat, it is for you to choose."

Silence fell; a lapse so long that, old man as he was, Manning felt his heart beat more swiftly in anticipation. Then at last the Indian moved. Deliberately, noiselessly he turned. Equally deliberately he drew a robe opposite his visitor and, still very erect, sat down on the ground—his long fingers locked across his knees.

"I choose to listen," he said. "Tell me, please."

For the second time, because he needs must be doing something, the white man filled his pipe. The hand that held the tobacco pouch shook a bit now involuntarily, and a tiny puff of the brown flakes fell scattering outside the bowl onto his knee.

"About a month ago"—the speaker cleared his throat raspingly—"on August 16th it was, to be exact, there was a funeral in town. It started from the C-C ranch house and ended in the same lot with Mary Landor. It wasn't much of a funeral, either. Besides myself and Mrs. Burton no one was there." Again the voice halted; and following there came the sharp crackling of a match, and the quick puff, puff of an habitual smoker. "It was the funeral of a child: a child half Indian, half white."

Again the story paused; but the steady smoking continued.

"Go on, please," requested a voice.

"Early yesterday morning"—again the narrator halted perforce, to clear his throat—"just before I left three men went through town on their way to the same ranch. One was the owner, another a lawyer, the third a man who wished to buy. They were in a hurry. They only stopped to water their team and to visit Red Jennings's place. They are at the ranch house closing the bargain now."

"Yes," repeated the voice, "I'm listening."

The speaker did not respond at once. With the trick of the very aged when they relax, in the past minutes he seemed to have contracted physically, to have shrunk, as it were, within himself. The nervousness and uncertainty of a moment ago had passed now absolutely. The deep-set eyes of him were of a sudden glowing ominously as they had done when telling the same tale to Rancher Hawkins the night before; but that was all. His voluntary offering was given; more than this must come by request.

"I have nothing more to say—unless you wish," he repeated in the old formula.

For a second time silence fell; to be broken again by the crackling of a match in the white man's hand. Following, as though prompted by the sound, came a question.

"Why,"—the Indian did not stir, but his eyes had shifted until they looked immovably into those of his companion,—"why, please, was not the mother of the child at least at the funeral?"

"Because she could not come," impassively. "The baby was less than two days old."

"She had been back, though, back at the ranch, for some time?"

"Yes. Several weeks."

"She returned alone?"

"Yes."

"And to stay?"

Swifter and more swiftly came the questions. Even yet no muscle of the inquisitor's body stirred; but in the black eyes a light new to the other man, ominous in its belated appearance, was kindling.

"Yes," answered Manning.

"She, Bess, had left her husband?"

"No, Craig had left her."

Suddenly, instinctively, the impersonal had been dropped; but neither man noticed the change.

"There was a reason?"

"Yes," baldly. "Another woman."

The locked fingers across the Indian's knee were growing white; white as the sunlight without.

"And now he has returned, you say, to sell the ranch, her ranch?"

"It is her ranch no more. It is his."

"She, Bess, gave it to him after all that had happened, all that he had done? You mean to tell me this?"

Abruptly, instinctively, for the end was very close at hand, the white man got to his feet, stood so silent.

"Tell me." The Indian was likewise erect, his dark face standing clear against the white background of the tent wall. "Did Bess do this thing?"

"No," said a voice. "It came to him in another way."

"Another way!" swiftly. "Another way!" repeated. "Another way!" for the third time; and then a halt. For that moment realisation had come. "There could be but one other way!"

Swiftly, instinctively, the white man turned about, until the face opposite was hid. Hardened frontiersman as he was, prepared for the moment as he had thought himself, he could not watch longer. To do so was sacrilege unqualified. In his youth the man had been a hunter of big game. Of a sudden now, horribly distinct, he had a vision of the expression in the eyes of a great moose, mortally wounded, when at the end he himself had drawn the knife. Under its influence he halted, waiting, postponing the inevitable.

"There could be but one other way," repeated the voice slowly, repressedly. "Tell me, please. Let me know all. Am I not right?"

To hesitate longer was needless cruelty; and in infinite pity, the blow fell.

"Yes, How," said Manning gently, "Bess is dead."



CHAPTER XIX

IN SIGHT OF GOD ALONE

An hour had passed. Manning had gone; and on the horizon to the east whither he had taken his way not even a dot now indicated his former presence. Even the close-fed grass whereon the wheels of the old road waggon had temporarily blazed a trail had returned normally erect. Suddenly, as a rain cloud forms over the parched earth, the storm had gathered and broken; and passed on as though it had not been. All about smiled the sunshine; sarcastic, isolate as though it had seen nothing, heard nothing. On the surface of the pond the ducks, again returned, swam and splashed and dawdled in their endless holiday. The eternal breeze of the prairie noontime, drifting leisurely by, sang its old, old song of abandon and of peace. Not in the merest detail had nature, the serene, altered; not by the minutest trifle had she deviated from her customary course. Man alone it is who changes to conform with the passing mood. Man alone it was amid this primitive setting who had altered now.

For How Landor, the Indian, was no longer idle or dreaming. Instead, his every action was that of one with a definite purpose. Yet even then he did not hurry. At first he seemed merely to be going about the ordinary routine of his life. Methodically he kindled a fire and prepared himself a generous meal. Deliberately, fair in the sunshine, he ate. Then for the first time an observer who knew him well would have detected the unusual. Contrary to all precedent the dishes were not washed or even touched. Instead, the meal complete, he went swiftly toward the tent and disappeared inside.

For minutes he remained within, moving about from place to place; and when he again returned it was to do a peculiar thing indeed. In his arms were several articles of clothing rolled into a bulky bundle. Without a halt he made his way back to the place where he had eaten. The fire which he had builded had burned low ere this; and, standing there beside it, he scraped away the ashes with the toe of his moccasined foot until the glowing embers beneath came to view. The bundle he carried had opened with the action, revealing clearly the various articles of which it was composed. Outside was an old army-blue greatcoat; within a battered felt hat and a pair of moccasins, wholly unused. A moment the Indian stood looking at them meditatively, intensely; then gently as though they were a lost child he was returning to its mother's arms he laid them fair upon the glowing coals. Wool is slow to catch ablaze and for the moment they lay there black against the brown earth; then of a sudden, like the first lifting of an Indian signal smoke, a tiny column of blue went trailing upward. Second by second it grew until with a muffled explosion the whole was ablaze. Before the man had merely stood watching; now deliberately as before, yet as unhesitatingly, he returned to the tent.

This time he was gone longer; and when he returned it was with an armful of books—and something more. The fire was crackling merrily now, and volume by volume his load disappeared. Then for the first time he hesitated. There was still something to destroy, something which he had gathered in the old felt hat from off his own head; yet he hesitated. Greedy as a hungry animal deprived of its due the fire at his feet kept sending out spurts of flame like longing tentacles toward him; yet he delayed. Like the sulky thing it was, it had at last drawn back into passive waiting, when of a sudden, without a single glance, the man laid this last sacrifice, as he had done the first, gently down. But this time he did not watch the end. Swiftly, his bare black head glistening in the sunlight, he started away toward the now expectant broncho; and back of him the pathetic little gathering of useless trinkets, bearing indelibly the mark of a woman's handiwork, a woman's trust, mingled with the ashes of the things which had gone before.

Long ere the fire had burned itself out, the wicked-looking cayuse following a bridle's length at his heels, he was back; waiting impatiently for the flame to die. No frontiersman, in a land where prairie fires spread as the breath of scandal, ever leaves fire alive when out of his sight; and to this instinct the Indian was true. Minute after minute he waited; until the flame vanished and in its stead there lay a mass of blazing coals. Then with a practical hand he banked the whole with a layer of earth until, look where one would, not a dot of red was visible. The act was the last, the culmination of preparation. At its end, with a single spoken command, the pony was alongside; his head high in the air, his tiny ears flattened back in anticipation. Well he knew what was in store, what was expected. No need was there of a second command nor the touch of a bridle rein. Almost ere the taking of the single leap that put the rider in his seat the little beast was away, his wide-spread nostrils breathing deep of the prairie air, the patter of his tiny hoofs a continuous song upon the close-cropped sod. As two human beings living side by side grow to know each other, so this dumb menial had grown to know his master. With a certainty attributed to the dog alone he had learned to recognise the mood of the hour. He did so now; and as time passed and the miles flowed monotonously beneath his galloping feet the relentless determination of the man himself was repeated in that undeviating pace.

Thus the journey southward was begun. Thus through the dragging hours of the September afternoon it continued. Many a time before the little beast had followed the trail from sun to sun. As well as the rider knew his own endurance he knew the possibilities of his mount, knew that now he would not fail. He did not attempt to quicken the pace, nor did he check it. He spoke no word. The earth was dry as tinder in the annual drouth of fall, and as time passed on the dust the pony raised collected upon the man's clothes and upon his bare head; but apparently he noticed it not. Shade by shade the mouse-coloured hair of the broncho grew darker from sweat, moistened until the man's hand on the diminutive beast's neck grew wet; but of this likewise he was unconscious. Silent as fate, as nature the immovable, he sat his place; his lithe body conforming involuntarily to the motion, to the play of muscles beneath his legs; yet as unconsciously as one breathes in sleep. Not until the sun was red in the west, until of its own accord the broncho had drawn up at the first bit of water they had met on the way—a shallow marshy pond—did he move. Then, while the pony drank and drank his fill, the man washed his face and hands, and more from instinct than volition, shook the dust from his clothing.

For a half hour thereafter the rider did not mount. Side by side the man and the beast moved ahead at a walk; but ever moved and ever southward. Darkness fell swiftly. There was no moon; but the sky was clear as it had been during the day, and the man needed no guide but the stars to show him the way. As he moved the hand of the Indian remained on the broncho's neck; and bit by bit as the time passed he felt the moist hair grow stiff and dry. Then, and not until then, came the final move, the beginning of the last relay. As when they had started, with one motion, apparently without an effort, he was once more in his seat; and again as at first, equally understandingly, equally willingly, that instant the broncho sprang into a lope. Relentlessly, silent as before, a ghostly animate shadow, the two forged ahead into the night and the solitude.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, for the second time within the year, the C-C ranch had changed hands. All day long Craig and the prospective buyer had driven about the place. One by one the cowboys had given testimony of the fraction of the herd intrusted to their care. At first resignedly complaisant, as the hours drifted by Craig had grown cumulatively impatient at the inevitably dragging inventory. Nothing but necessity absolute in the shape of an imminent foreclosure had brought him back to this land at all. Delay had followed delay until at last immediate action was imperative. Then, having agreed to come personally, he was in a fever of haste to have the deal complete and to be away. Since they had left the railroad and crossed the river the mood had been upon him. The team that had brought them out could not move fast enough. The preceding night, shortened by liquor as it had been, nevertheless dragged interminably. Strive as he might to combat the impression, to ignore it, this land had of a sudden become to him a land of terror. Every object which met his eye called forth a recollection. Every minute that passed whispered a menace. In a measure it had been so a half year ago ere he had tempted fate. Now, with the knowledge of what had occurred in that time staring him in the face, the impression augmented immeasurably, haunted him like a ghostly presence. Not for a minute since his return had he been alone. Not for an instant had he been without a revolver at hand. All the previous night, despite the grumbling protest of the overseer with whom he had bunked, a lamp had burned beside the bed; yet even then he could not sleep. Whether or no he felt contrition for the past, this man, he could not have told, he never paused to consider. All he knew was that he had a deathly fear of this silent waste and of a certain human who dwelt somewhere therein. Repugnant as consideration of the return had been, it was as nothing compared with the reality. Had he realised in advance what the actual experience of his coming would mean, even the consideration of money, badly as he needed it, could not have bought his presence. Now that he was here he must needs see the transaction through; he could not well do otherwise; but as the afternoon drew to a close and the necessity of tarrying a second night became assured, the premonition of retribution, that had before lowered merely as a possibility, loomed into the proportions of certainty. Then it was that in abandon he began to drink; not at stated intervals, as had been his habit, but frequently, all but continuously, until even his tolerant companions had exchanged glances of understanding.

To all things, however, there is an end, and at last the deal was complete. Within the stuffy living-room, hazy now with tobacco smoke, by the uncertain light of a sputtering kerosene lamp Craig had accomplished a sprawling signature and received in return a check on a Chicago bank. It was already late, and very soon the new owner, with a significant look at a half-drained flask by the other's hand, and a curt "Good-night," had departed for bed. Immediately following, with a thinly veiled apology, the lawyer had likewise excused himself, and Craig and his one-time overseer were alone. For five minutes thereafter the two men sat so in silence; then, at last, despite his muddled brain, the former realised that the big Irishman was observing him with a concentration that was significant. Ever short of temper, the man's nerves were stretched to the jangling point this night, and the look irritated him. Responsive, he scowled prodigiously.

"Well," he queried impatiently, "what is it?"

No answer; only, if possible, the look became more analytic than before.

"What's on your mind?" repeated Craig. "You make me nervous staring that way. Speak up if you've got anything to say. Don't you like my selling and putting you out of a job?"

"No, it's not that," refuted the Hibernian. "There are plenty of other places I can get. I could stay right here for that matter if I wanted to—but I don't. I wouldn't live in this house any longer if my pay were doubled." As he spoke he had looked away. Now of a sudden his glance returned. "I meant to quit anyway, whether you sold or not."

"Why so?" queried Craig, and unconsciously the scowl was repeated. "You seemed glad enough to come."

"I was—then," shortly.

"And why not now? Talk up, if you've any grievance. Don't sit there like a chimpanzee, hugging it."

"You know why well enough," ignored the other. He passed a knotty hand through his shock of red whiskers absently. "I've expected the devil or worse here every night these last weeks."

Craig tried to laugh; but the effort resulted in failure.

"God," he satirised, "who'd ever imagined you were the superstitious sort! Weren't you ever in a place where anyone died before?"

"I never was where a woman and her child were murdered," deliberately.

Quick as thought Craig's red face whitened.

"Damn you, O'Reilly," he challenged, "you're free with your tongue." He checked himself. "I don't wish to quarrel with you to-night, though," he conciliated.

"Nor I with you," returned the other impassively. "I was merely telling you the truth. Besides, it's none of my affair; and even if it were, I'm thinking you'll pay for it dear enough before you're through."

Craig straightened in his seat; but not as before in attitude supercilious.

"What the deuce do you mean, O'Reilly? You keep suggesting things, but that is all. Talk plain if you know anything."

"I don't know anything," impassively; "unless it is that I wouldn't be in your shoes if I got a dollar for every cent you've made out of this cursed business."

Bit by bit Craig's face whitened. If anything the air of conciliation augmented.

"You think circumstances weren't to blame?" he queried. "That, in other words, I've brought things about as they are deliberately?"

"I don't think anything. I know what you've done—and what you've got to answer for."

Instinctively, almost with a shudder, Craig glanced about him.

The shade of the single window was up, and of a sudden he arose unsteadily and drew it over the blackness outside with a jerk.

"You're beastly hard on me," he commented, "but let that pass. It's probably the last time we'll ever see each other, and we may as well part friends." He was back in his place again with the flask before him, and with a propitiatory motion he extended the liquor toward the other man. "Come, let's forget it," he insinuated. "Have a drink with me."

"Not a drop."

"Not if I requested it?"

"Not if you got down on your knees and begged."

"All right." The hand was withdrawn with a nervous little laugh. "I'll have to spoil it all myself, then."

The Irishman watched in silence while the other gulped down swallow after swallow. The hand of the drinker trembled uncontrollably, and a tiny red stream trickled down the unshaven chin to the starched linen beneath.

"If you'll take a word of advice," commented the spectator at last, "you'll cut that—for the time being at least." He hesitated; then went on reluctantly. "I've been in your pay and I'll try to be square with you. If you've got an atom of presentiment you'll realise that this is no place for you to get into the shape you're getting." Again he halted, and again with an effort he gave the warning direct. "If I were you I wouldn't be at this ranch a second longer than it took me to leave; not as long as I had a broncho or a leg or a crutch to go on."

Slowly and more slowly came the words. Then followed silence, with the two men staring each other face to face. Breaking it, the overseer arose.

"I've said more than I intended already," he added, "and now I wash my hands of you. Do as you please. I'm going to bed."

Preventing, of a sudden sobered, Craig was likewise on his feet.

"In common decency, even if you're no friend of mine, don't go, O'Reilly," he pleaded. He had no thought of superiority now, no thought of malice; only of companionship and of protection. "I know what you mean. I'm no fool, and what you suggest is exactly what's been driving me insane these last two days. I'm going in the morning, as soon as it's daylight; the team is all ordered; but to-night, now—" instinctively he glanced at the window where recollection pictured the darkness without—"I haven't nerve to face it now. I'd go plumb mad out there alone."

The Irishman shrugged in silence and attempted to pass.

"Please don't go," repeated Craig swiftly. "I know I'm acting like a child, but this cursed country's to blame. Stay with me this last night. I couldn't sleep, and it's madness to be alone. See me through this and I swear you'll not regret it. I swear it!"

Just for a second O'Reilly paused; then of a sudden his face flamed red through his untrimmed beard.

"To hell with your money!" he blazed. "I wouldn't lift my finger for you if How Landor were to come this second." He checked himself and took a step forward meaningly. "Besides, I couldn't help you any if I would. God himself couldn't protect you now unless He performed a miracle. Out of my way. I tell you I'm done with you."

Craig had not stirred. He did not now; and of a sudden the overseer turned to pass around. As he did so for the first time he faced the single window that looked north toward the second ranch house: the house which How Landor had builded to receive his bride. The curtain was still down, but to the Irishman's quick eye there rested upon it now a dull glow that was not a reflection of the light within. A second after he noticed the man halted, looking at it, speculating as to its meaning. Then of a sudden he realised; and in two steps he was across the room and simultaneously the obscuring shade shot up with a crash. Instantly following, startlingly unexpected, the red glow without sprang through the glass and filled the room.

"Fire!" announced the observer involuntarily to the sleepers above. "The other ranch house is afire!" Then, as they were slow in awakening, the cry was repeated more loudly: "Fire! Fire!"

* * * * *

A conflagration is the universal contagion, the one excitement that never palls. Forth into the night, forgetful of his companion, forgetful of all save the interest of the moment, rushed O'Reilly. Half dressed, hatless, working with buttons as they went, Parker, the new owner, and Mead, the lawyer, descended the rickety stairs like an avalanche and without pausing to more than look followed running in his wake. The unused ranch house was dry as cardboard and was burning fiercely. Though there was still no moon and the overseer had several minutes the start, against the light they could see his running figure distinctly. Standing in the living-room as they rushed through, white faced, hesitant, was Clayton Craig; but though he had spoken to them—they both recalled that fact afterward—neither had paused to listen or to answer. That he would not follow never occurred to them until minutes thereafter. Not until, panting, struggling for breath after the unusual effort, they had covered the intervening mile, and the heat of the already diminishing fire was on their faces, did they think of him at all. Even then it was not the first thought which occurred; for the moment they arrived O'Reilly, who was waiting, turned, facing them excitedly.

"Do you see that?" he queried, pointing to a black band that surrounded the building in a complete circle.

Parker nodded understandingly; but Mead, who was city bred, looked mystified. "What is it?" he returned.

"A firebreak," explained the Irishman. "Someone didn't want the blaze to spread and scattered earth clear around the place, with a spade." Leaning over he picked up a clod and thumbed it significantly. "It hasn't been done a half hour. The dirt isn't even dry."

Brief as the time had been, already the frail walls were settling to embers. There was nothing to do; and standing there the three men looked understandingly into each other's faces. The same thought stood clear on all; for all alike knew every detail of the story.

"The Indian, How Landor," suggested Mead adequately.

"Yes," corroborated Parker, "and I'm glad of it. I'm not squeamish, but the Lord knows I'd never have used the place myself."

Of a sudden, O'Reilly, who had turned and was staring into the blaze, faced about. That second he had remembered.

"Where's Craig?" he queried swiftly, glancing back the way they had come. "Didn't he follow?"

Until that moment none of the three had thought of the other man. Now they realised that they were alone. But even then two of the trio did not understand.

"Evidently he didn't start," said Mead. "He couldn't have missed the light if he did."

"I remember now he was standing by the door when we left," added Parker.

"Standing by the door, was he?" took up the Irishman swiftly. "As there's a Heaven and a Hell he's not standing there now, I'll wager!"

Again face to face, as when they had first caught sight of that meaning black band, the three spectators there beneath the stars stood staring at each other. It was O'Reilly again who broke the silence.

"Don't you people understand yet what this all means, what's happened?" he interrogated unbelievingly.

"It means there's been an incendiary here; I guess there's no doubt about that," said Mead.

"Yes," blurted O'Reilly, "and that incendiary's How Landor, and he's been here within the half hour; and Craig's been alone back there in the ranch house." He paused for breath. "Can't you see now? At last the Indian has found out!"

For the fraction of a minute, while understanding came home, not a man stirred. Then of a sudden Parker turned swiftly and started back into the night.

"By the Eternal," he corroborated, "I believe you're right. We can't get there a second too quick."

"Too quick!" caught up the Irishman for the last time. "We couldn't get there quick enough if we had wings. It's all over before this, take my word for it."

* * * * *

And it was. Though the men ran every step of the mile back they were too late. As O'Reilly had anticipated, the ranch house was empty, deserted. Similarly the stables hard by. Likewise the adjoining tool shed. Though they searched every nook, until a mouse could not have escaped detection, they found not a trace of him for whom they looked, nor a clue to his disappearance. Though they shouted his name until they were hoarse not an answer came back from the surrounding darkness. Within the ranch house itself, or upon the dooryard without, there was no sign of a struggle or of aught unusual. The living-room was precisely as it had been at that last moment when O'Reilly had left. Craig's cap and topcoat were on a chair as he had thrown them down. At the stable every horse was within its own stall: every piece of saddlery was intact. While the three men were looking, attracted by the blaze, the distant cowboys one by one began drifting in; and when they had heard the tale joined in the search. All through the night, in ever-widening circles, lanterns, like giant fireflies, played around the premises until they covered a radius of a half mile; but ever the report was the same. With the coming of morning not the home force alone but men from distant ranches appeared. The reflection of fire on the sky reaches far indeed on the prairie, and ere the sun shone again a goodly company was assembled. Then it was that the real search began and a swarm of riders scoured the country for miles and miles. And once more, from all, the testimony was as before. There was not a clue to the disappearance, nor the semblance of a clue. As out of the darkness of night surrounding, a great horned owl swoops down upon its prey, and as mysteriously disappears, so the Indian had come and gone; and satisfied at last, irresistibly awed as well into an unwonted quiet, one by one, as they had arrived, the ranchers dispersed—and the search was over.

And to this day that disappearance remains a mystery unsurmountable. One morning a week later, after Mead and O'Reilly had gone, when the new master of the ranch arose it was to find a wicked-looking mouse-coloured cayuse standing motionless by the stable door. Upon him was neither saddle nor bridle nor mark of any kind. Somewhere out on that limitless waste he had been released, and, true to an unerring homing instinct, he had returned; but from where no man could do more than speculate. He could not speak, and his rider was seen no more. Somewhere out there amid that same solitude a thing of mystery had come to pass; but what it was only Nature and Nature's God, who alone were witness, could ever know.

THE END