Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

GUNSIGHT PASS

HOW OIL CAME TO THE CATTLE COUNTRY AND BROUGHT A NEW WEST

BY WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE

AUTHOR OF THE BIG-TOWN ROUND-UP, A MAN FOUR SQUARE, THE YUKON TRAIL, ETC.

1921

TO JAMES H. LANGLEY

WHO LIVED MANY OF THESE PAGES IN THE DAYS OF HIS HOT-BLOODED YOUTH

CONTENTS

I. "CROOKED AS A DOG'S HIND LAIG"

II. THE RACE

III. DAVE RIDES ON HIS SPURS

IV. THE PAINT HOSS DISAPPEARS

V. SUPPER AT DELMONICO'S INTERRUPTED

VI. BY WAY OF A WINDOW

VII. BOB HART TAKES A HAND

VIII. THE D BAR LAZY R BOYS MEET AN ANGEL

IX. GUNSIGHT PASS

X. THE CATTLE TRAIN

XI. THE NIGHT CLERK GETS BUSY PRONTO

XII. THE LAW PUZZLES DAVE

XIII. FOR MURDER

XIV. TEN YEARS

XV. IN DENVER

XVI. DAVE MEETS TWO FRIENDS AND A FOE

XVII. OIL

XVIII. DOBLE PAYS A VISIT

XIX. AN INVOLUNTARY BATH

XX. THE LITTLE MOTHER FREES HER MIND

XXI. THE HOLD-UP

XXII. NUMBER THREE COMES IN

XXIII. THE GUSHER

XXIV. SHORTY

XXV. MILLER TALKS

XXVI. DAVE ACCEPTS AN INVITATION

XXVII. AT THE JACKPOT

XXVIII. DAVE MEETS A FINANCIER

XXIX. THREE IN CONSULTATION

XXX. ON THE FLYER

XXXI. TWO ON THE HILLTOPS

XXXII. DAVE BECOMES AN OFFICE MAN

XXXIII. ON THE DODGE

XXXIV. A PLEASANT EVENING

XXXV. FIRE IN THE CHAPARRAL

XXXVI. FIGHTING FIRE

XXXVII. SHORTY ASK A QUESTION

XXXVIII. DUG DOBLE RIDES INTO THE HILLS

XXXIX. THE TUNNEL

XL. A MESSAGE

XLI. HANK BRINGS BAD NEWS

XLII. SHORTY IS AWAKENED

XLIII. JUAN OTERO IS CONSCRIPTED

XLIV. THE BULLDOG BARKS

XLV. JOYCE MAKES PIES

GUNSIGHT PASS

CHAPTER I

"CROOKED AS A DOG'S HIND LAIG"

It was a land of splintered peaks, of deep, dry gorges, of barren mesas burnt by the suns of a million torrid summers. The normal condition of it was warfare. Life here had to protect itself with a tough, callous rind, to attack with a swift, deadly sting. Only the fit survived.

But moonlight had magically touched the hot, wrinkled earth with a fairy godmother's wand. It was bathed in a weird, mysterious beauty. Into the crotches of the hills lakes of wondrous color had been poured at sunset. The crests had flamed with crowns of glory, the cañons become deep pools of blue and purple shadow. Blurred by kindly darkness, the gaunt ridges had softened to pastels of violet and bony mountains to splendid sentinels keeping watch over a gulf of starlit space.

Around the camp-fire the drivers of the trail herd squatted on their heels or lay sprawled at indolent ease. The glow of the leaping flames from the twisted mesquite lit their lean faces, tanned to bronzed health by the beat of an untempered sun and the sweep of parched winds. Most of them were still young, scarcely out of their boyhood; a few had reached maturity. But all were products of the desert. The high-heeled boots, the leather chaps, the kerchiefs knotted round the neck, were worn at its insistence. Upon every line of their features, every shade of their thought, it had stamped its brand indelibly.

The talk was frank and elemental. It had the crisp crackle that goes with free, unfettered youth. In a parlor some of it would have been offensive, but under the stars of the open desert it was as natural as the life itself. They spoke of the spring rains, of the Crawford-Steelman feud, of how they meant to turn Malapi upside down in their frolic when they reached town. They "rode" each other with jokes that were familiar old friends. Their horse play was rough but good-natured.

Out of the soft shadows of the summer night a boy moved from the remuda toward the camp-fire. He was a lean, sandy-haired young fellow, his figure still lank and unfilled. In another year his shoulders would be broader, his frame would take on twenty pounds. As he sat down on the wagon tongue at the edge of the firelit circle the stringiness of his appearance became more noticeable.

A young man waved a hand toward him by way of introduction. "Gents of the D Bar Lazy R outfit, we now have with us roostin' on the wagon tongue Mr. David Sanders, formerly of Arizona, just returned from makin' love to his paint hoss. Mr. Sanders will make oration on the why, wherefore, and how-come-it of Chiquito's superiority to all other equines whatever."

The youth on the wagon tongue smiled. His blue eyes were gentle and friendly. From his pocket he had taken a knife and was sharpening it on one of his dawn-at-the-heel-boots.

"I'd like right well to make love to that pinto my own se'f, Bob," commented a weather-beaten puncher. "Any old time Dave wants to saw him off onto me at sixty dollars I'm here to do business."

"You're sure an easy mark, Buck," grunted a large fat man leaning against a wheel. His white, expressionless face and soft hands differentiated him from the tough range-riders. He did not belong with the outfit, but had joined it the day before with George Doble, a half-brother of the trail foreman, to travel with it as far as Malapi. In the Southwest he was known as Ad Miller. The two men had brought with them in addition to their own mounts a led pack-horse.

Doble backed up his partner. "Sure are, Buck. I can get cowponies for ten and fifteen dollars--all I want of 'em," he said, and contrived by the lift of his lip to make the remark offensive.

"Not ponies like Chiquito," ventured Sanders amiably.

"That so?" jeered Doble.

He looked at David out of a sly and shifty eye. He had only one. The other had been gouged out years ago in a drunken fracas.

"You couldn't get Chiquito for a hundred dollars. Not for sale," the owner of the horse said, a little stiffly.

Miller's fat paunch shook with laughter. "I reckon not--at that price. I'd give all of fohty for him."

"Different here," replied Doble. "What has this pinto got that makes him worth over thirty?"

"He's some bronc," explained Bob Hart. "Got a bagful of tricks, a nice disposition, and sure can burn the wind."

"Yore friend must be valuin' them parlor tricks at ten dollars apiece," murmured Miller. "He'd ought to put him in a show and not keep him to chase cow tails with."

"At that, I've seen circus hosses that weren't one two three with Chiquito. He'll shake hands and play dead and dance to a mouth-organ and come a-runnin' when Dave whistles."

"You don't say." The voice of the fat man was heavy with sarcasm. "And on top of all that edjucation he can run too."

The temper of Sanders began to take an edge. He saw no reason why these strangers should run on him, to use the phrase of the country. "I don't claim my pinto's a racer, but he can travel."

"Hmp!" grunted Miller skeptically.

"I'm here to say he can," boasted the owner, stung by the manner of the other.

"Don't look to me like no racer," Doble dissented. "Why, I'd be 'most willin' to bet that pack-horse of ours, Whiskey Bill, can beat him."

Buck Byington snorted. "Pack-horse, eh?" The old puncher's brain was alive with suspicions. On account of the lameness of his horse he had returned to camp in the middle of the day and had discovered the two newcomers trying out the speed of the pinto. He wondered now if this precious pair of crooks had been getting a line on the pony for future use. It occurred to him that Dave was being engineered into a bet.

The chill, hard eyes of Miller met his. "That's what he said, Buck--our pack-horse."

For just an instant the old range-rider hesitated, then shrugged his shoulders. It was none of his business. He was a cautious man, not looking for trouble. Moreover, the law of the range is that every man must play his own hand. So he dropped the matter with a grunt that expressed complete understanding and derision.

Bob Hart helped things along. "Jokin' aside, what's the matter with a race? We'll be on the Salt Flats to-morrow. I've got ten bucks says the pinto can beat yore Whiskey Bill."

"Go you once," answered Doble after a moment's apparent consideration. "Bein' as I'm drug into this I'll be a dead-game sport. I got fifty dollars more to back the pack-horse. How about it, Sanders? You got the sand to cover that? Or are you plumb scared of my broomtail?"

"Betcha a month's pay--thirty-five dollars. Give you an order on the boss if I lose," retorted Dave. He had not meant to bet, but he could not stand this fellow's insolent manner.

"That order good, Dug?" asked Doble of his half-brother.

The foreman nodded. He was a large leather-faced man in the late thirties. His reputation in the cattle country was that of a man ill to cross. Dug Doble was a good cowman--none better. Outside of that his known virtues were negligible, except for the primal one of gameness.

"Might as well lose a few bucks myself, seeing as Whiskey Bill belongs to me," said Miller with his wheezy laugh. "Who wants to take a whirl, boys?"

Inside of three minutes he had placed a hundred dollars. The terms of the race were arranged and the money put in the hands of the foreman.

"Each man to ride his own caballo," suggested Hart slyly.

This brought a laugh. The idea of Ad Miller's two hundred and fifty pounds in the seat of a jockey made for hilarity.

"I reckon George will have to ride the broomtail. We don't aim to break its back," replied Miller genially.

His partner was a short man with a spare, wiry body. Few men trusted him after a glance at the mutilated face. The thin, hard lips gave warning that he had sold himself to evil. The low forehead, above which the hair was plastered flat in an arc, advertised low mentality.

An hour later Buck Byington drew Sanders aside.

"Dave, you're a chuckle-haided rabbit. If ever I seen tinhorn sports them two is such. They're collectin' a livin' off'n suckers. Didn't you sabe that come-on stuff? Their pack-horse is a ringer. They tried him out this evenin', but I noticed they ran under a blanket. Both of 'em are crooked as a dog's hind laig."

"Maybeso," admitted the young man. "But Chiquito never went back on me yet. These fellows may be overplayin' their hand, don't you reckon?"

"Not a chanct. That tumblebug Miller is one fishy proposition, and his sidekick Doble--say, he's the kind of bird that shoots you in the stomach while he's shakin' hands with you. They're about as warm-hearted as a loan shark when he's turnin' on the screws--and about as impulsive. Me, I aim to button up my pocket when them guys are around."

Dave returned to the fire. The two visitors were sitting side by side, and the leaping flames set fantastic shadows of them moving. One of these, rooted where Miller sat, was like a bloated spider watching its victim. The other, dwarfed and prehensile, might in its uncanny silhouette have been an imp of darkness from the nether regions.

Most of the riders had already rolled up in their blankets and fallen asleep. To a reduced circle Miller was telling the story of how his pack-horse won its name.

"... so I noticed he was actin' kinda funny and I seen four pin-pricks in his nose. O' course I hunted for Mr. Rattler and killed him, then give Bill a pint of whiskey. It ce'tainly paralyzed him proper. He got salivated as a mule whacker on a spree. His nose swelled up till it was big as a barrel--never did get down to normal again. Since which the ol' plug has been Whiskey Bill."

This reminiscence did not greatly entertain Dave. He found his blankets, rolled up in them, and promptly fell asleep. For once he dreamed, and his dreams were not pleasant. He thought that he was caught in a net woven by a horribly fat spider which watched him try in vain to break the web that tightened on his arms and legs. Desperately he struggled to escape while the monster grinned at him maliciously, and the harder he fought the more securely was he enmeshed.

CHAPTER II

THE RACE

The coyotes were barking when the cook's triangle brought Dave from his blankets. The objects about him were still mysterious in the pre-dawn darkness. The shouting of the wranglers and the bells of the remuda came musically as from a great distance. Hart joined his friend and the two young men walked out to the remuda together. Each rider had on the previous night belled the mount he wanted, for he knew that in the morning it would be too dark to distinguish one bronco from another. The animals were rim-milling, going round and round in a circle to escape the lariat.

Dave rode in close and waited, rope ready, his ears attuned to the sound of his own bell. A horse rushed jingling past. The rope snaked out, fell true, tightened over the neck of the cowpony, brought up the animal short. Instantly it surrendered, making no further, attempt to escape. The roper made a half-hitch round the nose of the bronco, swung to its back, and cantered back to camp.

In the gray dawn near details were becoming visible. The mountains began to hover on the edge of the young world. The wind was blowing across half a continent.

Sanders saddled, then rode out upon the mesa. He whistled sharply. There came an answering nicker, and presently out of the darkness a pony trotted. The pinto was a sleek and glossy little fellow, beautiful in action and gentle as a kitten.

The young fellow took the well-shaped head in his arms, fondled the soft, dainty nose that nuzzled in his pocket for sugar, fed Chiquito a half-handful of the delicacy in his open palm, and put the pony through the repertoire of tricks he had taught his pet.

"You wanta shake a leg to-day, old fellow, and throw dust in that tinhorn's face," he murmured to his four-footed friend, gentling it with little pats of love and admiration. "Adios, Chiquito. I know you won't throw off on yore old pal. So long, old pie-eater."

Across the mesa Dave galloped back, swung from the saddle, and made a bee-line for breakfast. The other men were already busy at this important business. From the tail of the chuck wagon he took a tin cup and a tin plate. He helped himself to coffee, soda biscuits, and a strip of steak just forked from a large kettle of boiling lard. Presently more coffee, more biscuits, and more steak went the way of the first helping. The hard-riding life of the desert stimulates a healthy appetite.

The punchers of the D Bar Lazy R were moving a large herd to a new range. It was made up of several lots bought from smaller outfits that had gone out of business under the pressure of falling prices, short grass, and the activity of rustlers. The cattle had been loose-bedded in a gulch close at hand, the upper end of which was sealed by an impassable cliff. Many such cañons in the wilder part of the mountains, fenced across the face to serve as a corral, had been used by rustlers as caches into which to drift their stolen stock. This one had no doubt more than once played such a part in days past.

Expertly the riders threw the cattle back to the mesa and moved them forward. Among the bunch one could find the T Anchor brand, the Circle Cross, the Diamond Tail, and the X-Z, scattered among the cows burned with the D Bar Lazy R, which was the original brand of the owner, Emerson Crawford.

The sun rose and filled the sky. In a heavy cloud of dust the cattle trailed steadily toward the distant hills.

Near noon Buck, passing Dave where he rode as drag driver in the wake of the herd, shouted a greeting at the young man. "Tur'ble hot. I'm spittin' cotton."

Dave nodded. His eyes were red and sore from the alkali dust, his throat dry as a lime kiln. "You done, said it, Buck. Hotter 'n hell or Yuma."

"Dug says for us to throw off at Seven-Mile Hole."

"I won't make no holler at that."

The herd leaders, reading the signs of a spring close at hand, quickened the pace. With necks outstretched, bawling loudly, they hurried forward. Forty-eight hours ago they had last satisfied their thirst. Usually Doble watered each noon, but the desert yesterday had been dry as Sahara. Only such moisture was available as could be found in black grama and needle grass.

The point of the herd swung in toward the cottonwoods that straggled down from the draw. For hours the riders were kept busy moving forward the cattle that had been watered and holding back the pressure of thirsty animals.

Again the outfit took the desert trail. Heat waves played on the sand. Vegetation grew scant except for patches of cholla and mesquite, a sand-cherry bush here and there, occasionally a clump of shining poison ivy.

Sunset brought them to the Salt Flats. The foreman gave orders to throw off and make camp.

A course was chosen for the race. From a selected point the horses were to run to a clump of mesquite, round it, and return to the starting-place. Dug Doble was chosen both starter and judge.

Dave watched Whiskey Bill with the trained eyes of a horseman. The animal was an ugly brute as to the head. Its eyes were set too close, and the shape of the nose was deformed from the effects of the rattlesnake's sting. But in legs and body it had the fine lines of a racer. The horse was built for speed. The cowpuncher's heart sank. His bronco was fast, willing, and very intelligent, but the little range pony had not been designed to show its heels to a near-thoroughbred.

"Are you ready?" Doble asked of the two men in the saddles.

His brother said, "Let 'er go!" Sanders nodded. The revolver barked.

Chiquito was off like a flash of light, found its stride instantly. The training of a cowpony makes for alertness, for immediate response. Before it had covered seventy-five yards the pinto was three lengths to the good. Dave, flying toward the halfway post, heard his friend Hart's triumphant "Yip yip yippy yip!" coming to him on the wind.

He leaned forward, patting his horse on the shoulder, murmuring words of encouragement into its ear. But he knew, without turning round, that the racer galloping at his heels was drawing closer. Its long shadow thrown in front of it by the westering sun, reached to Dave's stirrups, crept to Chiquito's head, moved farther toward the other shadow plunging wildly eastward. Foot by foot the distance between the horses lessened to two lengths, to one, to half a length. The ugly head of the racer came abreast of the cowpuncher. With sickening certainty the range-rider knew that his Chiquito was doing the best that was in it. Whiskey Bill was a faster horse.

Simultaneously he became aware of two things. The bay was no longer gaining. The halfway mark was just ahead. The cowpuncher knew exactly how to make the turn with the least possible loss of speed and ground. Too often, in headlong pursuit of a wild hill steer, he had whirled as on a dollar, to leave him any doubt now. Scarce slackening speed, he swept the pinto round the clump of mesquite and was off for home.

Dave was halfway back before he was sure that the thud of Whiskey Bill's hoofs was almost at his heels. He called on the cowpony for a last spurt. The plucky little horse answered the call, gathered itself for the home stretch, for a moment held its advantage. Again Bob Hart's yell drifted to Sanders.

Then he knew that the bay was running side by side with Chiquito, was slowly creeping to the front. The two horses raced down the stretch together, Whiskey Bill half a length in the lead and gaining at every stride. Daylight showed between them when they crossed the line. Chiquito had been outrun by a speedier horse.

CHAPTER III

DAVE RIDES ON HIS SPURS

Hart came up to his friend grinning. "Well, you old horn-toad, we got no kick comin'. Chiquito run a mighty pretty race. Only trouble was his laigs wasn't long enough."

The owner of the pony nodded, a lump in his throat. He was not thinking about his thirty-five dollars, but about the futile race into which he had allowed his little beauty to be trapped. Dave would not be twenty-one till coming grass, and it still hurt his boyish pride to think that his favorite had been beaten.

Another lank range-rider drifted up. "Same here, Dave. I'll kiss my twenty bucks good-bye cheerful. You 'n' the li'l hoss run the best race, at that. Chiquito started like a bullet out of a gun, and say, boys! how he did swing round on the turn."

"Much obliged, Steve. I reckon he sure done his best," said Sanders gratefully.

The voice of George Doble cut in, openly and offensively jubilant. "Me, I'd ruther show the way at the finish than at the start. You're more liable to collect the mazuma. I'll tell you now that broomtail never had a chance to beat Whiskey Bill."

"Yore hoss can run, seh," admitted Dave.

"I _know_ it, but you don't. He didn't have to take the kinks out of his legs to beat that plug."

"You get our money," said Hart quietly. "Ain't that enough without rubbin' it in?"

"Sure I get yore money--easy money, at that," boasted Doble. "Got any more you want to put up on the circus bronc?"

Steve Russell voiced his sentiments curtly. "You make me good and tired, Doble. There's only one thing I hate more'n a poor loser--and that's a poor winner. As for putting my money on the pinto, I'll just say this: I'll bet my li'l' pile he can beat yore bay twenty miles, a hundred miles, or five hundred."

"Not any, thanks. Whiskey Bill is a racer, not a mule team," Miller said, laughing.

Steve loosened the center-fire cinch of his pony's saddle. He noted that there was no real geniality in the fat man's mirth. It was a surface thing designed to convey an effect of good-fellowship. Back of it lay the chill implacability of the professional gambler.

The usual give-and-take of gay repartee was missing at supper that night. Since they were of the happy-go-lucky, outdoor West it did not greatly distress the D Bar Lazy R riders to lose part of their pay checks. Even if it had, their spirits would have been unimpaired, for it is written in their code that a man must take his punishment without whining. What hurt was that they had been tricked, led like lambs to the killing. None of them doubted now that the pack-horse of the gamblers was a "ringer." These men had deliberately crossed the path of the trail outfit in order to take from the vaqueros their money.

The punchers were sulky. Instead of a fair race they had been up against an open-and-shut proposition, as Russell phrased it. The jeers of Doble did not improve their tempers. The man was temperamentally mean-hearted. He could not let his victims alone.

"They say one's born every minute, Ad. Dawged if I don't believe it," he sneered.

Miller was not saying much himself, but his fat stomach shook at this sally. If his partner could goad the boys into more betting he was quite willing to divide the profits.

Audibly Hart yawned and murmured his sentiments aloud. "I'm liable to tell these birds what I think of 'em, Steve, if they don't spend quite some time layin' off'n us."

"Don't tell us out loud. We might hear you," advised Doble insolently.

"In regards to that, I'd sure worry if you did."

Dave was at that moment returning to his place with a cup of hot coffee. By some perverse trick of fate his glance fell on Doble's sinister face of malignant triumph. His self-control snapped, and in an instant the whole course of his life was deflected from the path it would otherwise have taken. With a flip he tossed up the tin cup so that the hot coffee soused the crook.

"Goddlemighty!" screamed Doble, leaping to his feet. He reached for his forty-five, just as Sanders closed with him. The range-rider's revolver, like that of most of his fellows, was in a blanket roll in the wagon.

Miller, with surprising agility for a fat man, got to his feet and launched himself at the puncher. Dave flung the smaller of his opponents back against Steve, who was sitting tailor fashion beside him. The gunman tottered and fell over Russell, who lost no time in pinning his hands to the ground while Hart deftly removed the revolver from his pocket.

Swinging round to face Miller, Dave saw at once that the big man had chosen not to draw his gun. In spite of his fat the gambler was a rough-and-tumble fighter of parts. The extra weight had come in recent years, but underneath it lay roped muscles and heavy bones. Men often remarked that they had never seen a fat man who could handle himself like Ad Miller. The two clinched. Dave had the under hold and tried to trip his bulkier foe. The other side-stepped, circling round. He got one hand under the boy's chin and drove it up and back, flinging the range-rider a dozen yards.

Instantly Dave plunged at him. He had to get at close quarters, for he could not tell when Miller would change his mind and elect to fight with a gun. The man had chosen a hand-to-hand tussle, Dave knew, because he was sure he could beat so stringy an opponent as himself. Once he got the grip on him that he wanted the big gambler would crush him by sheer strength. So, though the youngster had to get close, he dared not clinch. His judgment was that his best bet was his fists.

He jabbed at the big white face, ducked, and jabbed again. Now he was in the shine of the moon; now he was in darkness. A red streak came out on the white face opposite, and he knew he had drawn blood. Miller roared like a bull and flailed away at him. More than one heavy blow jarred him, sent a bolt of pain shooting through him. The only thing he saw was that shining face. He pecked away at it with swift jabs, taking what punishment he must and dodging the rest.

Miller was furious. He had intended to clean up this bantam in about a minute. He rushed again, broke through Dave's defense, and closed with him. His great arms crushed into the ribs of his lean opponent. As they swung round and round, Dave gasped for breath. He twisted and squirmed, trying to escape that deadly hug. Somehow he succeeded in tripping his huge foe.

They went down locked together, Dave underneath. The puncher knew that if he had room Miller would hammer his face to a pulp. He drew himself close to the barrel body, arms and legs wound tight like hoops.

Miller gave a yell of pain. Instinctively Dave moved his legs higher and clamped them tighter. The yell rose again, became a scream of agony.

"Lemme loose!" shrieked the man on top. "My Gawd, you're killin' me!"

Dave had not the least idea what was disturbing Miller's peace of mind, but whatever it was moved to his advantage. He clamped tighter, working his heels into another secure position. The big man bellowed with pain. "Take him off! Take him off!" he implored in shrill crescendo.

"What's all this?" demanded an imperious voice.

Miller was torn howling from the arms and legs that bound him and Dave found himself jerked roughly to his feet. The big raw-boned foreman was glaring at him above his large hook nose. The trail boss had been out at the remuda with the jingler when the trouble began. He had arrived in time to rescue his fat friend.

"What's eatin' you, Sanders?" he demanded curtly.

"He jumped George!" yelped Miller.

Breathing hard, Dave faced his foe warily. He was in a better strategic position than he had been, for he had pulled the revolver of the fat man from its holster just as they were dragged apart. It was in his right hand now, pressed close to his hip, ready for instant use if need be. He could see without looking that Doble was still struggling ineffectively in the grip of Russell.

"Dave stumbled and spilt some coffee on George; then George he tried to gun him. Miller mixed in then," explained Hart.

The foreman glared. "None of this stuff while you're on the trail with my outfit. Get that, Sanders? I won't have it."

"Dave he couldn't hardly he'p hisse'f," Buck Byington broke in. "They was runnin' on him considerable, Dug."

"I ain't askin' for excuses. I'm tellin' you boys what's what," retorted the road boss. "Sanders, give him his gun."

The cowpuncher took a step backward. He had no intention of handing a loaded gun to Miller while the gambler was in his present frame of mind. That might be equivalent to suicide. He broke the revolver, turned the cylinder, and shook out the cartridges. The empty weapon he tossed on the ground.

"He ripped me with his spurs," Miller said sullenly. "That's howcome I had to turn him loose."

Dave looked down at the man's legs. His trousers were torn to shreds. Blood trickled down the lacerated calves where the spurs had roweled the flesh cruelly. No wonder Miller had suddenly lost interest in the fight. The vaquero thanked his lucky stars that he had not taken off his spurs and left them with the saddle.

The first thing that Dave did was to strike straight for the wagon where his roll of bedding was. He untied the rope, flung open the blankets, and took from inside the forty-five he carried to shoot rattlesnakes. This he shoved down between his shirt and trousers where it would be handy for use in case of need. His roll he brought back with him as a justification for the trip to the wagon. He had no intention of starting anything. All he wanted was not to be caught at a disadvantage a second time.

Miller and the two Dobles were standing a little way apart talking together in low tones. The fat man, his foot on the spoke of a wagon wheel, was tying up one of his bleeding calves with a bandanna handkerchief. Dave gathered that his contribution to the conversation consisted mainly of fervent and almost tearful profanity.

The brothers appeared to be debating some point with heat. George insisted, and the foreman gave up with a lift of his big shoulders.

"Have it yore own way. I hate to have you leave us after I tell you there'll be no more trouble, but if that's how you feel about it I got nothin' to say. What I want understood is this"--Dug Doble raised his voice for all to hear--"that I'm boss of this outfit and won't stand for any rough stuff. If the boys, or any one of 'em, can't lose their money without bellyachin', they can get their time pronto."

The two gamblers packed their race-horse, saddled, and rode away without a word to any of the range-riders. The men round the fire gave no sign that they knew the confidence men were on the map until after they had gone. Then tongues began to wag, the foreman having gone to the edge of the camp with them.

"Well, my feelin's ain't hurt one li'l' bit because they won't play with us no more," Steve Russell said, smiling broadly.

"Can you blame that fat guy for not wantin' to play with Dave here?" asked Hart, and he beamed at the memory of what he had seen. "Son, you ce'tainly gave him one surprise party when yore rowels dug in."

"Wonder to me he didn't stampede the cows, way he hollered," grinned a third. "I don't grudge him my ten plunks. Not none. Dave he give me my money's worth that last round."

"I had a little luck," admitted Dave modestly.

"Betcha," agreed Steve. "I was just startin' over to haul the fat guy off Dave when he began bleatin' for us to come help him turn loose the bear. I kinda took my time then."

"Onct I went to a play called 'All's Well That Ends Well,'" said Byington reminiscently. "At the Tabor Grand the-á-ter, in Denver."

"Did it tell how a freckled cow-punch rode a fat tinhorn on his spurs?" asked Hart.

"Bet he wears stovepipes on his laigs next time he mixes it with Dave," suggested one coffee-brown youth. "Well, looks like the show's over for to-night. I'm gonna roll in." Motion carried unanimously.

CHAPTER IV

THE PAINT HOSS DISAPPEARS

Wakened by the gong, Dave lay luxuriously in the warmth of his blankets. It was not for several moments that he remembered the fight or the circumstances leading to it. The grin that lit his boyish face at thought of its unexpected conclusion was a fleeting one, for he discovered that it hurt his face to smile. Briskly he rose, and grunted "Ouch!" His sides were sore from the rib squeezing of Miller's powerful arms.

Byington walked out to the remuda with him. "How's the man-tamer this glad mo'nin'?" he asked of Dave.

"Fine and dandy, old lizard."

"You sure got the deadwood on him when yore spurs got into action. A man's like a watermelon. You cayn't tell how good he is till you thump him. Miller is right biggity, and they say he's sudden death with a gun. But when it come down to cases he hadn't the guts to go through and stand the gaff."

"He's been livin' soft too long, don't you reckon?"

"No, sir. He just didn't have the sand in his craw to hang on and finish you off whilst you was rippin' up his laigs."

Dave roped his mount and rode out to meet Chiquito. The pinto was an aristocrat in his way. He preferred to choose his company, was a little disdainful of the cowpony that had no accomplishments. Usually he grazed a short distance from the remuda, together with one of Bob Hart's string. The two ponies had been brought up in the same bunch.

This morning Dave's whistle brought no nicker of joy, no thud of hoofs galloping out of the darkness to him. He rode deeper into the desert. No answer came to his calls. At a canter he cut across the plain to the wrangler. That young man had seen nothing of Chiquito since the evening before, but this was not at all unusual.

The cowpuncher returned to camp for breakfast and got permission of the foreman to look for the missing horses.

Beyond the flats was a country creased with draws and dry arroyos. From one to another of these Dave went without finding a trace of the animals. All day he pushed through cactus and mesquite heavy with gray dust. In the late afternoon he gave up for the time and struck back to the flats. It was possible that the lost broncos had rejoined the remuda of their own accord or had been found by some of the riders gathering up strays.

Dave struck the herd trail and followed it toward the new camp. A horseman came out of the golden west of the sunset to meet him. For a long time he saw the figure rising and falling in the saddle, the pony moving in the even fox-trot of the cattle country.

The man was Bob Hart.

"Found 'em?" shouted Dave when he was close enough to be heard.

"No, and we won't--not this side of Malapi. Those scalawags didn't make camp last night. They kep' travelin'. If you ask me, they're movin' yet, and they've got our broncs with 'em."

This had already occurred to Dave as a possibility. "Any proof?" he asked quietly.

"A-plenty. I been ridin' on the point all day. Three-four times we cut trail of five horses. Two of the five are bein' ridden. My Four-Bits hoss has got a broken front hoof. So has one of the five."

"Movin' fast, are they?"

"You're damn whistlin'. They're hivin' off for parts unknown. Malapi first off, looks like. They got friends there."

"Steelman and his outfit will protect them while they hunt cover and make a getaway. Miller mentioned Denver before the race--said he was figurin' on goin' there. Maybe--"

"He was probably lyin'. You can't tell. Point is, we've got to get busy. My notion is we'd better make a bee-line for Malapi right away," proposed Bob.

"We'll travel all night. No use wastin' any more time."

Dug Doble received their decision sourly. "It don't tickle me a heap to be left short-handed because you two boys have got an excuse to get to town quicker."

Hart looked him straight in the eye. "Call it an excuse if you want to. We're after a pair of shorthorn crooks that stole our horses."

The foreman flushed angrily. "Don't come bellyachin' to me about yore broomtails. I ain't got 'em."

"We know who's got 'em," said Dave evenly. "What we want is a wage check so as we can cash it at Malapi."

"You don't get it," returned the big foreman bluntly. "We pay off when we reach the end of the drive."

"I notice you paid yore brother and Miller when we gave an order for it," Hart retorted with heat.

"A different proposition. They hadn't signed up for this drive like you boys did. You'll get what's comin' to you when I pay off the others. You'll not get it before."

The two riders retired sulkily. They felt it was not fair, but on the trail the foreman is an autocrat. From the other riders they borrowed a few dollars and gave in exchange orders on their pay checks.

Within an hour they were on the road. Fresh horses had been roped from the remuda and were carrying them at an even Spanish jog-trot through the night. The stars came out, clear and steady above a ghostly world at sleep. The desert was a place of mystery, of vast space peopled by strange and misty shapes.

The plain stretched vaguely before them. Far away was the thin outline of the range which enclosed the valley. The riders held their course by means of that trained sixth sense of direction their occupation had developed.

They spoke little. Once a coyote howled dismally from the edge of the mesa. For the most part there was no sound except the chuffing of the horses' movements and the occasional ring of a hoof on the baked ground.

The gray dawn, sifting into the sky, found them still traveling. The mountains came closer, grew more definite. The desert flamed again, dry, lifeless, torrid beneath a sky of turquoise. Dust eddies whirled in inverted cones, wind devils playing in spirals across the sand. Tablelands, mesas, wide plains, desolate lava stretches. Each in turn was traversed by these lean, grim, bronzed riders.

They reached the foothills and left behind the desert shimmering in the dancing heat. In a deep gorge, where the hill creases gave them shade, the punchers threw off the trail, unsaddled, hobbled their horses, and stole a few hours' sleep.

In the late afternoon they rode back to the trail through a draw, the ponies wading fetlock deep in yellow, red, blue, and purple flowers. The mountains across the valley looked in the dry heat as though made of _papier-mâché_. Closer at hand the undulations of sand hills stretched toward the pass for which they were making.

A mule deer started out of a dry wash and fled into the sunset light. The long, stratified faces of rock escarpments caught the glow of the sliding sun and became battlemented towers of ancient story.

The riders climbed steadily now, no longer engulfed in the ground swell of land waves. They breathed an air like wine, strong, pure, bracing. Presently their way led them into a hill pocket, which ran into a gorge of piñons stretching toward Gunsight Pass.

The stars were out again when they looked down from the other side of the pass upon the lights of Malapi.

CHAPTER V

SUPPER AT DELMONICO'S INTERRUPTED

The two D Bar Lazy R punchers ate supper at Delmonico's. The restaurant was owned by Wong Chung. A Cantonese celestial did the cooking and another waited on table. The price of a meal was twenty-five cents, regardless of what one ordered.

Hop Lee, the waiter, grinned at the frolicsome youths with the serenity of a world-old wisdom.

"Bleef steak, plork chop, lamb chop, hlam'neggs, clorn bleef hash, Splanish stew," he chanted, reciting the bill of fare.

"Yes," murmured Bob.

The waiter said his piece again.

"Listens good to me," agreed Dave. "Lead it to us."

"You takee two--bleef steak and hlam'neggs, mebbe," suggested Hop helpfully.

"Tha's right. Two orders of everything on the me-an-you, Charlie."

Hop did not argue with them. He never argued with a customer. If they stormed at him he took refuge in a suddenly acquired lack of understanding of English. If they called him Charlie or John or One Lung, he accepted the name cheerfully and laid it to a racial mental deficiency of the 'melicans. Now he decided to make a selection himself.

"Vely well. Bleef steak and hlam'neggs."

"Fried potatoes done brown, John."

"Flied plotatoes. Tea or cloffee?"

"Coffee," decided Dave for both of them. "Warm mine."

"And custard pie," added Bob. "Made from this year's crop."

"Aigs sunny side up," directed his friend.

"Fry mine one on one side and one on the other," Hart continued facetiously.

"Vely well." Hop Lee's impassive face betrayed no perplexity as he departed. In the course of a season he waited on hundreds of wild men from the hills, drunk and sober.

Dave helped himself to bread from a plate stacked high with thick slices. He buttered it and began to eat. Hart did the same. At Delmonico's nobody ever waited till the meal was served. Just about to attack a second slice, Dave stopped to stare at his companion. Hart was looking past his shoulder with alert intentness. Dave turned his head. Two men, leaving the restaurant, were paying the cashier.

"They just stepped outa that booth to the right," whispered Bob.

The men were George Doble and a cowpuncher known as Shorty, a broad, heavy-set little man who worked for Bradley Steelman, owner of the Rocking Horse Ranch, what time he was not engaged on nefarious business of his own. He was wearing a Chihuahua hat and leather chaps with silver conchas.

At this moment Hop Lee arrived with dinner.

Dave sighed as he grinned at his friend. "I need that supper in my system. I sure do, but I reckon I don't get it."

"You do not, old lizard," agreed Hart. "I'll say Doble's the most inconsiderate guy I ever did trail. Why couldn't he 'a' showed up a half-hour later, dad gum his ornery hide?"

They paid their bill and passed into the street. Immediately the sound of a clear, high voice arrested their attention. It vibrated indignation and dread.

"What have you done with my father?" came sharply to them on the wings of the soft night wind.

A young woman was speaking. She was in a buggy and was talking to two men on the sidewalk--the two men who had preceded the range-riders out of the restaurant.

"Why, Miss, we ain't done a thing to him--nothin' a-tall." The man Shorty was speaking, and in a tone of honeyed conciliation. It was quite plain he did not want a scene on the street.

"That's a lie." The voice of the girl broke for an instant to a sob. "Do you think I don't know you're Brad Steelman's handy man, that you do his meanness for him when he snaps his fingers?"

"You sure do click yore heels mighty loud, Miss." Dave caught in that soft answer the purr of malice. He remembered now hearing from Buck Byington that years ago Emerson Crawford had rounded up evidence to send Shorty to the penitentiary for rebranding through a blanket. "I reckon you come by it honest. Em always acted like he was God Almighty."

"Where is he? What's become of him?" she cried.

"Is yore paw missin'? I'm right sorry to hear that," the cowpuncher countered with suave irony. He was eager to be gone. His glance followed Doble, who was moving slowly down the street.

The girl's face, white and shining in the moonlight, leaned out of the buggy toward the retreating vaquero. "Don't you dare hurt my father! Don't you dare!" she warned. The words choked in her tense throat.

Shorty continued to back away. "You're excited, Miss. You go home an' think it over reasonable. You'll be sorry you talked this away to me," he said with unctuous virtue. Then, swiftly, he turned and went straddling down the walk, his spurs jingling music as he moved.

Quickly Dave gave directions to his friend. "Duck back into the restaurant, Bob. Get a pocketful of dry rice from the Chink. Trail those birds to their nest and find where they roost. Then stick around like a burr. Scatter rice behind you, and I'll drift along later. First off, I got to stay and talk with Miss Joyce. And, say, take along a rope. Might need it."

A moment later Hart was in the restaurant commandeering rice and Sanders was lifting his dusty hat to the young woman in the buggy.

"If I can he'p you any, Miss Joyce," he said.

Beneath dark and delicate brows she frowned at him. "Who are you?"

"Dave Sanders my name is. I reckon you never heard tell of me. I punch cows for yore father."

Her luminous, hazel-brown eyes steadied in his, read the honesty of his simple, boyish heart.

"You heard what I said to that man?"

"Part of it."

"Well, it's true. I know it is, but I can't prove it."

Hart, moving swiftly down the street, waved a hand at his friend as he passed. Without turning his attention from Joyce Crawford, Dave acknowledged the signal.

"How do you know it?"

"Steelman's men have been watching our house. They were hanging around at different times day before yesterday. This man Shorty was one."

"Any special reason for the feud to break out right now?"

"Father was going to prove up on a claim this week--the one that takes in the Tularosa water-holes. You know the trouble they've had about it--how they kept breaking our fences to water their sheep and cattle. Don't you think maybe they're trying to keep him from proving up?"

"Maybeso. When did you see him last?"

Her lip trembled. "Night before last. After supper he started for the Cattleman's Club, but he never got there."

"Sure he wasn't called out to one of the ranches unexpected?"

"I sent out to make sure. He hasn't been seen there."

"Looks like some of Brad Steelman's smooth work," admitted Dave. "If he could work yore father to sign a relinquishment--"

Fire flickered in her eye. "He'd ought to know Dad better."

"Tha's right too. But Brad needs them water-holes in his business bad. Without 'em he loses the whole Round Top range. He might take a crack at turning the screws on yore father."

"You don't think--?" She stopped, to fight back a sob that filled her soft throat.

Dave was not sure what he thought, but he answered cheerfully and instantly. "No, I don't reckon they've dry-gulched him or anything. Emerson Crawford is one sure-enough husky citizen. He couldn't either be shot or rough-housed in town without some one hearin' the noise. What's more, it wouldn't be their play to injure him, but to force a relinquishment."

"That's true. You believe that, don't you?" Joyce cried eagerly.

"Sure I do." And Dave discovered that his argument or his hopes had for the moment convinced him. "Now the question is, what's to be done?"

"Yes," she admitted, and the tremor of the lips told him that she depended upon him to work out the problem. His heart swelled with glad pride at the thought.

"That man who jus' passed is my friend," he told her. "He's trailin' that duck Shorty. Like as not we'll find out what's stirrin'."

"I'll go with you," the girl said, vivid lips parted in anticipation.

"No, you go home. This is a man's job. Soon as I find out anything I'll let you know."

"You'll come, no matter what time o' night it is," she pleaded.

"Yes," he promised.

Her firm little hand rested a moment in his brown palm. "I'm depending on you," she murmured in a whisper lifted to a low wail by a stress of emotion.

CHAPTER VI

BY WAY OF A WINDOW

The trail of rice led down Mission Street, turned at Junipero, crossed into an alley, and trickled along a dusty road to the outskirts of the frontier town.

The responsibility Joyce had put upon him uplifted Dave. He had followed the horse-race gamblers to town on a purely selfish undertaking. But he had been caught in a cross-current of fate and was being swept into dangerous waters for the sake of another.

Doble and Miller were small fish in the swirl of this more desperate venture. He knew Brad Steelman by sight and by reputation. The man's coffee-brown, hatchet face, his restless, black eyes, the high, narrow shoulders, the slope of nose and chin, combined somehow to give him the look of a wily and predacious wolf. The boy had never met any one who so impressed him with a sense of ruthless rapacity. He was audacious and deadly in attack, but always he covered his tracks cunningly. Suspected of many crimes, he had been proved guilty of none. It was a safe bet that now he had a line of retreat worked out in case his plans went awry.

A soft, low whistle stayed his feet. From behind a greasewood bush Bob rose and beckoned him. Dave tiptoed to him. Both of them crouched behind cover while they whispered.

"The 'dobe house over to the right," said Bob. "I been up and tried to look in, but they got curtains drawn. I would've like to 've seen how many gents are present. Nothin' doin'. It's a strictly private party."

Dave told him what he had learned from the daughter of Emerson Crawford.

"Might make a gather of boys and raid the joint," suggested Hart.

"Bad medicine, Bob. Our work's got to be smoother than that. How do we know they got the old man a prisoner there? What excuse we got for attacktin' a peaceable house? A friend of mine's brother onct got shot up makin' a similar mistake. Maybe Crawford's there. Maybe he ain't. Say he is. All right. There's some gun-play back and forth like as not. A b'ilin' of men pour outa the place. We go in and find the old man with a bullet right spang through his forehead. Well, ain't that too bad! In the rookus his own punchers must 'a' gunned him accidental. How would that story listen in court?"

"It wouldn't listen good to me. Howcome Crawford to be a prisoner there, I'd want to know."

"Sure you would, and Steelman would have witnesses a-plenty to swear the old man had just drapped in to see if they couldn't talk things over and make a settlement of their troubles."

"All right. What's yore programme, then?" asked Bob.

"Darned if I know. Say we scout the ground over first."

They made a wide circuit and approached the house from the rear, worming their way through the Indian grass toward the back door. Dave crept forward and tried the door. It was locked. The window was latched and the blind lowered. He drew back and rejoined his companion.

"No chance there," he whispered.

"How about the roof?" asked Hart.

It was an eight-roomed house. From the roof two dormers jutted. No light issued from either of them.

Dave's eyes lit.

"What's the matter with takin' a whirl at it?" his partner continued. "You're tophand with a rope."

"Suits me fine."

The young puncher arranged the coils carefully and whirled the loop around his head to get the feel of the throw. It would not do to miss the first cast and let the rope fall dragging down the roof. Some one might hear and come out to investigate.

The rope snaked forward and up, settled gracefully over the chimney, and tightened round it close to the shingles.

"Good enough. Now me for the climb," murmured Hart.

"Don't pull yore picket-pin, Bob. Me first."

"All right. We ain't no time to debate. Shag up, old scout."

Dave slipped off his high-heeled boots and went up hand over hand, using his feet against the rough adobe walls to help in the ascent. When he came to the eaves he threw a leg up and clambered to the roof. In another moment he was huddled against the chimney waiting for his companion.

As soon as Hart had joined him he pulled up the rope and wound it round the chimney.

"You stay here while I see what's doin'," Dave proposed.

"I never did see such a fellow for hoggin' all the fun," objected Bob. "Ain't you goin' to leave me trail along?"

"Got to play a lone hand till we find out where we're at, Bob. Doubles the chances of being bumped into if we both go."

"Then you roost on the roof and lemme look the range over for the old man."

"Didn't Miss Joyce tell me to find her paw? What's eatin' you, pard?"

"You pore plugged nickel!" derided Hart. "Think she picked you special for this job, do you?"

"Be reasonable, Bob," pleaded Dave.

His friend gave way. "Cut yore stick, then. Holler for me when I'm wanted."

Dave moved down the roof to the nearest dormer. The house, he judged, had originally belonged to a well-to-do Mexican family and had later been rebuilt upon American ideas. The thick adobe walls had come down from the earlier owners, but the roof had been put on as a substitute for the flat one of its first incarnation.

The range-rider was wearing plain shiny leather chaps with a gun in an open holster tied at the bottom to facilitate quick action. He drew out the revolver, tested it noiselessly, and restored it carefully to its place. If he needed the six-shooter at all, he would need it badly and suddenly.

Gingerly he tested the window of the dormer, working at it from the side so that his body would not be visible to anybody who happened to be watching from within. Apparently it was latched. He crept across the roof to the other dormer.

It was a casement window, and at the touch of the hand it gave way. The heart of the cowpuncher beat fast with excitement. In the shadowy darkness of that room death might be lurking, its hand already outstretched toward him. He peered in, accustoming his eyes to the blackness. A prickling of the skin ran over him. The tiny cold feet of mice pattered up and down his spine. For he knew that, though he could not yet make out the objects inside the room, his face must be like a framed portrait to anybody there.

He made out presently that it was a bedroom with sloping ceiling. A bunk with blankets thrown back just as the sleeper had left them filled one side of the chamber. There were two chairs, a washstand, a six-inch by ten looking-glass, and a chromo or two on the wall. A sawed-off shotgun was standing in a corner. Here and there were scattered soiled clothing and stained boots. The door was ajar, but nobody was in the room.

Dave eased himself over the sill and waited for a moment while he listened, the revolver in his hand. It seemed to him that he could hear a faint murmur of voices, but he was not sure. He moved across the bare plank floor, slid through the door, and again stopped to take stock of his surroundings.

He was at the head of a stairway which ran down to the first floor and lost itself in the darkness of the hall. Leaning over the banister, he listened intently for any sign of life below. He was sure now that he heard the sound of low voices behind a closed door.

The cowpuncher hesitated. Should he stop to explore the upper story? Or should he go down at once and try to find out what those voices might tell him? It might be that time was of the essence of his contract to discover what had become of Emerson Crawford. He decided to look for his information on the first floor.

Never before had Dave noticed that stairs creaked and groaned so loudly beneath the pressure of a soft footstep. They seemed to shout his approach, though he took every step with elaborate precautions. A door slammed somewhere, and his heart jumped at the sound of it. He did not hide the truth from himself. If Steelman or his men found him here looking for Crawford he would never leave the house alive. His foot left the last tread and found the uncarpeted floor. He crept, hand outstretched, toward the door behind which he heard men talking. As he moved forward his stomach muscles tightened. At any moment some one might come out of the room and walk into him.

He put his eye to the keyhole, and through it saw a narrow segment of the room. Ad Miller was sitting a-straddle a chair, his elbows on the back. Another man, one not visible to the cowpuncher, was announcing a decision and giving an order.

"Hook up the horses, Shorty. He's got his neck bowed and he won't sign. All right. I'll get the durn fool up in the hills and show him whether he will or won't."

"I could 'a' told you he had sand in his craw." Shorty was speaking. He too was beyond the range of Dave's vision. "Em Crawford won't sign unless he's a mind to."

"Take my advice, Brad. Collect the kid, an' you'll sure have Em hogtied. He sets the world an' all by her. Y'betcha he'll talk turkey then," predicted Miller.

"Are we fightin' kids?" the squat puncher wanted to know.

"Did I ask your advice, Shorty?" inquired Steelman acidly.

The range-rider grumbled an indistinct answer. Dave did not make out the words, and his interest in the conversation abruptly ceased.

For from upstairs there came the sudden sounds of trampling feet, of bodies thrashing to and fro in conflict. A revolver shot barked its sinister menace.

Dave rose to go. At the same time the door in front of him was jerked open. He pushed his forty-five into Miller's fat ribs.

"What's yore hurry? Stick up yore hands--stick 'em up!"

The boy was backing along the passage as he spoke. He reached the newel post in that second while Miller was being flung aside by an eruption of men from the room. Like a frightened rabbit Dave leaped for the stairs, taking them three at a time. Halfway up he collided with a man flying down. They came together with the heavy impact of fast-moving bodies. The two collapsed and rolled down, one over the other.

Sanders rose like a rubber ball. The other man lay still. He had been put out cold. Dave's head had struck him in the solar plexus and knocked the breath out of him. The young cowpuncher found himself the active center of a cyclone. His own revolver was gone. He grappled with a man, seizing him by the wrist to prevent the use of a long-barreled Colt's. The trigger fell, a bullet flying through the ceiling.

Other men pressed about him, trying to reach him with their fists and to strike him with their weapons. Their high heels crushed cruelly the flesh of his stockinged feet. The darkness befriended Dave. In the massed mêlée they dared not shoot for fear of hitting the wrong mark. Nor could they always be sure which shifting figure was the enemy.

Dave clung close to the man he had seized, using him as a shield against the others. The pack swayed down the hall into the wedge of light thrown by the lamp in the room.

Across the head of the man next him Shorty reached and raised his arm. Dave saw the blue barrel of the revolver sweeping down, but could not free a hand to protect himself. A jagged pain shot through his head. The power went out of his legs. He sagged at the hinges of his knees. He stumbled and went down. Heavy boots kicked at him where he lay. It seemed to him that bolts of lightning were zigzagging through him.

The pain ceased and he floated away into a sea of space.

CHAPTER VII

BOB HART TAKES A HAND

Bob Hart waited till his friend had disappeared into the house before he moved.

"Thought he'd run it over me, so I'd roost here on the roof, did he? Well, I'm after the ol' horn-toad full jump," the puncher murmured, a gay grin on his good-looking face.

He, too, examined his gun before he followed Dave through the dormer window and passed into the frowsy bedchamber. None of the details of it escaped his cool, keen gaze, least of all the sawed-off shotgun in the corner.

"That scatter gun might come handy. Reckon I'll move it so's I'll know just where it's at when I need it," he said to himself, and carried the gun to the bed, where he covered it with a quilt.

At the top of the stairs Bob also hesitated before passing down. Why not be sure of his line of communications with the roof before going too far? He did not want to be in such a hurry that his retreat would be cut off.

With as little noise as possible Bob explored the upper story. The first room in which he found himself was empty of all furniture except a pair of broken-backed chairs. One casual glance was enough here.

He was about to try a second door when some one spoke. He recognized the voice. It belonged to the man who wrote his pay checks, and it came from an adjoining room.

"Always knew you was crooked as a dog's hind laigs Doble. Never liked you a lick in the road. I'll say this. Some day I'll certainly hang yore hide up to dry for yore treachery."

"No use to get on the peck, Em. It don't do you no good to make me sore. Maybe you'll need a friend before you're shet of Brad."

"It relieves my mind some to tell you what a yellow coyote you are," explained the cattleman. "You got about as much sand as a brush rabbit and I'd trust you as far as I would a rattler, you damned sidewinder."

Bob tried the door. The knob turned in his hand and the door slowly opened inward.

The rattle of the latch brought George Doble's sly, shifty eye round. He was expecting to see one of his friends from below. A stare of blank astonishment gave way to a leaping flicker of fear. The crook jumped to his feet, tugging at his gun. Before he could fire, the range-rider had closed with him.

The plunging attack drove Doble back against the table, a flimsy, round-topped affair which gave way beneath this assault upon it. The two men went down in the wreck. Doble squirmed away like a cat, but before he could turn to use his revolver Bob was on him again. The puncher caught his right arm, in time and in no more than time. The deflected bullet pinged through a looking-glass on a dresser near the foot of the bed.

"Go to it, son! Grab the gun and bust his haid wide open!" an excited voice encouraged Hart.

But Doble clung to his weapon as a lost cow does to a 'dobe water-hole in the desert. Bob got a grip on his arm and twisted till he screamed with pain. He did a head spin and escaped. One hundred and sixty pounds of steel-muscled cowpuncher landed on his midriff and the six-shooter went clattering away to a far corner of the room.

Bob dived for the revolver, Doble for the door. A moment, and Hart had the gun. But whereas there had been three in the room there were now but two.

A voice from the bed spoke in curt command. "Cut me loose." Bob had heard that voice on more than one round-up. It was that of Emerson Crawford.

The range-rider's sharp knife cut the ropes that tied the hands and feet of his employer. He worked in the dark and it took time.

"Who are you? Howcome you here?" demanded the cattleman.

"I'm Bob Hart. It's quite a story. Miss Joyce sent me and Dave Sanders," answered the young man, still busy with the ropes.

From below came the sound of a shot, the shuffling of many feet.

"Must be him downstairs."

"I reckon. They's a muley gun in the hall."

Crawford stretched his cramped muscles, flexing and reflexing his arms and legs. "Get it, son. We'll drift down and sit in."

When Bob returned he found the big cattleman examining Doble's revolver. He broke the shotgun to make sure it was loaded.

Then, "We'll travel," he said coolly.

The battle sounds below had died away. From the landing they looked down into the hall and saw a bar of light that came through a partly open door. Voices were lifted in excitement.

"One of Em Crawford's riders," some one was saying. "A whole passel of 'em must be round the place."

Came the thud of a boot on something soft. "Put the damn spy outa business, I say," broke in another angrily.

Hart's gorge rose. "Tha's Miller," he whispered to his chief. "He's kickin' Dave now he's down 'cause Dave whaled him good."

Softly the two men padded down the stair treads and moved along the passage.

"Who's that?" demanded Shorty, thrusting his head into the hall. "Stay right there or I'll shoot."

"Oh, no, you won't," answered the cattleman evenly. "I'm comin' into that room to have a settlement. There'll be no shootin'--unless I do it."

His step did not falter. He moved forward, brushed Shorty aside, and strode into the midst of his enemies.

Dave lay on the floor. His hair was clotted with blood and a thin stream of it dripped from his head. The men grouped round his body had their eyes focused on the man who had just pushed his way in. All of them were armed, but not one of them made a move to attack.

For there is something about a strong man unafraid more potent than a company of troopers. Such a man was Emerson Crawford now. His life might be hanging in the balance of his enemies' fears, but he gave no sign of uncertainty. His steady gray eyes swept the circle, rested on each worried face, and fastened on Brad Steelman.

The two had been enemies for years, rivals for control of the range and for leadership in the community. Before that, as young men, they had been candidates for the hand of the girl that the better one had won. The sheepman was shrewd and cunning, but he had no such force of character as Crawford. At the bottom of his heart, though he seethed with hatred, he quailed before that level gaze. Did his foe have the house surrounded with his range-riders? Did he mean to make him pay with his life for the thing he had done?

Steelman laughed uneasily. An option lay before him. He could fight or he could throw up the hand he had dealt himself from a stacked deck. If he let his enemy walk away scot free, some day he would probably have to pay Crawford with interest. His choice was a characteristic one.

"Well, I reckon you've kinda upset my plans, Em. 'Course I was a-coddin' you. I didn't aim to hurt you none, though I'd 'a' liked to have talked you outa the water-holes."

The big cattleman ignored this absolutely. "Have a team hitched right away. Shorty will 'tend to that. Bob, tie up yore friend's haid with a handkerchief."

Without an instant's hesitation Hart thrust his revolver back into its holster. He was willing to trust Crawford to dominate this group of lawless foes, every one of whom held some deep grudge against him. One he had sent to the penitentiary. Another he had actually kicked out of his employ. A third was in his debt for many injuries received. Almost any of them would have shot him in the back on a dark night, but none had the cold nerve to meet him in the open. For even in a land which bred men there were few to match Emerson Crawford.

Shorty looked at Steelman. "I'm waitin', Brad," he said.

The sheepman nodded sullenly. "You done heard your orders, Shorty."

The ex-convict reached for his steeple hat, thrust his revolver back into its holster, and went jingling from the room. He looked insolently at Crawford as he passed.

"Different here. If it was my say-so I'd go through."

Hart administered first aid to his friend. "I'm servin' notice, Miller, that some day I'll bust you wide and handsome for this," he said, looking straight at the fat gambler. "You have give Dave a raw deal, and you'll not get away with it."

"I pack a gun. Come a-shootin' when you're ready," retorted Miller.

"Tha's liable to be right soon, you damn horsethief. We've rid 'most a hundred miles to have a li'l' talk with you and yore pardner there."

"Shoutin' about that race yet, are you? If I wasn't a better loser than you--"

"Don't bluff, Miller. You know why we trailed you."

Doble edged into the talk. He was still short of wind, but to his thick wits a denial seemed necessary. "We ain't got yore broncs."

"Who mentioned our broncs?" Hart demanded, swiftly.

"Called Ad a horsethief, didn't you?"

"So he is. You, too. You've got our ponies. Not in yore vest pockets, but hid out in the brush somewheres. I'm servin' notice right now that Dave and me have come to collect."

Dave opened his eyes upon a world which danced hazily before him. He had a splitting headache.

"Wha's the matter?" he asked.

"You had a run-in with a bunch of sheep wranglers," Bob told him. "They're going to be plumb sorry they got gay."

Presently Shorty returned. "That team's hooked up," he told the world at large.

"You'll drive us, Steelman," announced Crawford.

"Me!" screamed the leader of the other faction. "You got the most nerve I ever did see."

"Sure. Drive him home, Brad," advised Shorty with bitter sarcasm. "Black his boots. Wait on him good. Step lively when yore new boss whistles." He cackled with splenetic laughter.

"I dunno as I need to drive you home," Steelman said slowly, feeling his way to a decision. "You know the way better'n I do."

The eyes of the two leaders met.

"You'll drive," the cattleman repeated steadily.

The weak spot in Steelman's leadership was that he was personally not game. Crawford had a pungent personality. He was dynamic, strong, master of himself in any emergency. The sheepman's will melted before his insistence. He dared not face a showdown.

"Oh, well, what's it matter? We can talk things over on the way. Me, I'm not lookin' for trouble none," he said, his small black eyes moving restlessly to watch the effect of this on his men.

Bob helped his partner out of the house and into the surrey. The cattleman took the seat beside Steelman, across his knees the sawed-off shotgun. He had brought his enemy along for two reasons. One was to weaken his prestige with his own men. The other was to prevent them from shooting at the rig as they drove away.

Steelman drove in silence. His heart was filled with surging hatred. During that ride was born a determination to have nothing less than the life of his enemy when the time should be ripe.

At the door of his house Crawford dismissed him contemptuously. "Get out."

The man with the reins spoke softly, venomously, from a dry throat. "One o' these days you'll crawl on your hands and knees to me for this."

He whipped up the team and rattled away furiously into the night.

CHAPTER VIII

THE D BAR LAZY R BOYS MEET AN ANGEL

Joyce came flying to her father's arms. The white lace of a nightgown showed beneath the dressing-robe she had hurriedly donned. A plait of dark hair hung across her shoulder far below the waist. She threw herself at Crawford with a moaning little sob.

"Oh Dad ... Dad ... Dad!" she cried, and her slender arms went round his neck.

"'T's all right, sweetheart. Yore old dad's not even powder-burnt. You been worryin' a heap, I reckon." His voice was full of rough tenderness.

She began to cry.

He patted her shoulder and caressed her dark head drawing it close to his shoulder. "Now--now--now sweetheart, don't you cry. It's all right, li'l' honey bug."

"You're not ... hurt," she begged through her tears.

"Not none. Never was huskier. But I got a boy out here that's beat up some. Come in, Dave--and you, Bob. They're good boys, Joy. I want you to meet 'em both."

The girl had thought her father alone. She flung one startled glance into the night, clutched the dressing-gown closer round her throat, and fled her barefoot way into the darkness of the house. To the boys, hanging back awkwardly at the gate, the slim child-woman was a vision wonderful. Their starved eyes found in her white loveliness a glimpse of heaven.

Her father laughed. "Joy ain't dressed for callers. Come in, boys."

He lit a lamp and drew Dave to a lounge. "Lemme look at yore haid, son. Bob, you hot-foot it for Doc Green."

"It's nothin' a-tall to make a fuss about," Dave apologized. "Only a love tap, compliments of Shorty, and some kicks in the slats, kindness of Mr. Miller."

In spite of his debonair manner Dave still had a bad headache and was so sore around the body that he could scarcely move without groaning. He kept his teeth clamped on the pain because he had been brought up in the outdoor code of the West which demands of a man that he grin and stand the gaff.

While the doctor was attending to his injuries, Dave caught sight once or twice of Joyce at the door, clad now in a summer frock of white with a blue sash. She was busy supplying, in a brisk, competent way, the demands of the doctor for hot and cold water and clean linen.

Meanwhile Crawford told his story. "I was right close to the club when Doble met me. He pulled a story of how his brother Dug had had trouble with Steelman and got shot up. I swallowed it hook, bait, and sinker. Soon as I got into the house they swarmed over me like bees. I didn't even get my six-gun out. Brad wanted me to sign a relinquishment. I told him where he could head in at."

"What would have happened if the boys hadn't dropped along?" asked Dr. Green as he repacked his medicine case.

The cattleman looked at him, and his eyes were hard and bleak. "Why, Doc, yore guess is as good as mine." he said.

"Mine is, you'd have been among the missing, Em. Well, I'm leaving a sleeping-powder for the patient in case he needs it in an hour or two. In the morning I'll drop round again," the doctor said.

He did, and found Dave much improved. The clean outdoors of the rough-riding West builds blood that is red. A city man might have kept his bed a week, but Dave was up and ready to say good-bye within forty-eight hours. He was still a bit under par, a trifle washed-out, but he wanted to take the road in pursuit of Miller and Doble, who had again decamped in a hurry with the two horses they had stolen.

"They had the broncs hid up Frio Cañon way, I reckon," explained Hart. "But they didn't take no chances. When they left that 'dobe house they lit a-runnin' and clumb for the high hills on the jump. And they didn't leave no address neither. We'll be followin' a cold trail. We're not liable to find them after they hole up in some mountain pocket."

"Might. Never can tell. Le's take a whirl at it anyhow," urged Dave.

"Hate to give up yore paint hoss, don't you?" said Bob with his friendly grin. "Ain't blamin' you none whatever, I'd sleep on those fellows' trail if Chiquito was mine. What say we outfit in the mornin' and pull our freights? Maybeso we'll meet up with the thieves at that. Yo no se (I don't know)."

When Joyce was in the room where Dave lay on the lounge, the young man never looked at her, but he saw nobody else. Brought up in a saddle on the range, he had never before met a girl like her. It was not only that she was beautiful and fragrant as apple-blossoms, a mystery of maidenhood whose presence awed his simple soul. It was not only that she seemed so delicately precious, a princess of the blood royal set apart by reason of her buoyant grace, the soft rustle of her skirts, the fine texture of the satiny skin. What took him by the throat was her goodness. She was enshrined in his heart as a young saint. He would have thought it sacrilege to think of her as a wide-awake young woman subject to all the vanities of her sex. And he could have cited evidence. The sweetness of her affection for rough Em Crawford, the dear, maternal tenderness with which she ruled her three-year-old brother Keith, motherless since the week of his birth, the kindness of the luminous brown eyes to the uncouth stranger thrown upon her hospitality: Dave treasured them all as signs of angelic grace, and they played upon his heartstrings disturbingly.

Joyce brought Keith in to say good-bye to Dave and his friend before they left. The little fellow ran across the room to his new pal, who had busied himself weaving horsehair playthings for the youngster.

"You turn back and make me a bwidle, Dave," he cried.

"I'll sure come or else send you one," the cowpuncher promised, rising to meet Joyce.

She carried her slender figure across the room with perfect ease and rhythm, head beautifully poised, young seventeen as self-possessed as thirty. As much could not be said for her guests. They were all legs and gangling arms, red ears and dusty boots.

"Yes, we all want you to come back," she said with a charming smile. "I think you saved Father's life. We can't tell you how much we owe you. Can we, Keith?"

"Nope. When will you send the bwidle?" he demanded.

"Soon," the restored patient said to the boy, and to her: "That wasn't nothin' a-tall. From where I come from we always been use to standin' by our boss."

He shifted awkwardly to the other foot, flushing to the hair while he buried her soft little hand in his big freckled one. The girl showed no shyness. Seventeen is sometimes so much older than twenty.

"Tha's what us D Bar Lazy R boys are ridin' with yore paw's outfit for, Miss--to be handy when he needs us," Bob added in his turn. "We're sure tickled we got a chanct to go to Brad Steelman's party. I'm ce'tainly glad to 'a' met you, Miss Joyce." He ducked his head and scraped back a foot in what was meant to be a bow.

Emerson Crawford sauntered in, big and bluff and easy-going. "Hittin' the trail, boys? Good enough. Hope you find the thieves. If you do, play yore cards close. They're treacherous devils. Don't take no chances with 'em. I left an order at the store for you to draw on me for another pair of boots in place of those you lost in the brush, Dave. Get a good pair, son. They're on me. Well, so long. Luck, boys. I'll look for you-all back with the D Bar Lazy R when you've finished this job."

The punchers rode away without looking back, but many times in the days that followed their hearts turned to that roof which had given the word home a new meaning to them both.

CHAPTER IX

GUNSIGHT PASS

The pursuit took the riders across a wide, undulating plain above which danced the dry heat of the desert. Lizards sunned themselves on flat rocks. A rattlesnake slid toward the cover of a prickly pear. The bleached bones of a cow shone white beside the trail.

The throats of the cowpunchers filled with alkali dust and their eyes grew red and sore from it. Magnificent mirages unfolded themselves: lakes cool and limpid, stretching to the horizon, with inviting forests in the distance; an oasis of lush green fields that covered miles; mesquite distorted to the size of giant trees and cattle transformed into dinosaurs. The great gray desert took on freakish shapes of erosion. Always, hour after hour beneath a copper sky, they rode in palpitating heat through sand drifts, among the salt bushes and the creosote, into cowbacked hills beyond which the stark mountains rose.

Out of the fiery furnace of the plain they came in late afternoon to the uplands, plunging into a land of deep gorges and great chasms. Here manzanita grew and liveoaks flourished. They sent a whitetail buck crashing through the brush into a cañon.

When night fell they built a fire of niggerheads and after they had eaten found its glow grateful. For they were well up in the hills now and the night air was sharp.

In the sandy desert they had followed easily the trail of the thieves, but as they had got into the hills the tracks had become fainter and fewer. The young men discussed this while they lay in their blankets in a water-gutted gulch not too near the fire they had built.

"Like huntin' for a needle in a haystack," said Bob. "Their trail's done petered out. They might be in any one of a hundred pockets right close, or they may have bore 'way off to the right. All they got to do is hole up and not build any fires."

"Fat chance we got," admitted Dave. "Unless they build a fire like we done. Say, I'd a heap rather be sleepin' here than by that niggerhead blaze to-night. They might creep up and try to gun us."

Before they had been in the saddle an hour next day the trail of the thieves was lost. The pursuers spent till sunset trying to pick it up again. The third day was wasted in aimless drifting among the defiles of the mountains.

"No use, Bob," said his friend while they were cooking supper. "They've made their getaway. Might as well drift back to Malapi, don't you reckon?"

"Looks like. We're only wastin' our time here."

Long before day broke they started.

The cañons below were filled with mist as they rode down out of the mountains toward the crystal dawn that already flooded the plain. The court-house clock at Malapi said the time was midnight when the dust-covered men and horses drew into the town.

The tired men slept till noon. At the Delmonico Restaurant they found Buck Byington and Steve Russell. The trail herd had been driven in an hour before.

"How's old Alkali?" asked Dave of his friend Buck, thumping him on the back.

"Jes' tolable," answered the old-timer equably, making great play with knife and fork. "A man or a hawss don't either one amount to much after they onct been stove up. Since that bronc piled me at Willow Creek I been mighty stiff, you might say."

"Dug's payin' off to-day, boys," Russell told them. "You'll find him round to the Boston Emporium."

The foreman settled first with Hart, after which he, turned to the page in his pocket notebook that held the account of Sanders.

"You've drew one month's pay. That leaves you three months, less the week you've fooled away after the pinto."

"C'rect," admitted Dave.

"I'll dock you seven and a half for that. Three times thirty's ninety. Take seven and a half from that leaves eighty-two fifty."

"Hold on!" objected Dave. "My pay's thirty-five a month."

"First I knew of it," said the foreman, eyes bleak and harsh. "Thirty's what you're gettin'."

"I came in as top hand at thirty-five."

"You did not," denied Doble flatly.

The young man flushed. "You can't run that on me, Dug. I'll not stand for it."

"Eighty-two fifty is what you get," answered the other dogmatically. "You can take it or go to hell."

He began to sort out a number of small checks with which to pay the puncher. At that time the currency of the country consisted largely of cattlemen's checks which passed from hand to hand till they were grimy with dirt. Often these were not cashed for months later.

"We'll see what the old man says about that," retorted Dave hotly. It was in his mind to say that he did not intend to be robbed by both the Doble brothers, but he wisely repressed the impulse. Dug would as soon fight as eat, and the young rider knew he would not have a chance in the world against him.

"All right," sneered the foreman. "Run with yore tale of grief to Crawford. Tell him I been pickin' on you. I hear you've got to be quite a pet of his."

This brought Dave up with a short turn. He could not take advantage of the service he had done the owner of the D Bar Lazy R to ask him to interfere in his behalf with the foreman. Doble might be cynically defrauding him of part of what was due him in wages. Dave would have to fight that out with him for himself. The worst of it was that he had no redress. Unless he appealed to the cattleman he would have to accept what the foreman offered.

Moreover, his pride was touched. He was young enough to be sensitive on the subject of his ability to look out for himself.

"I'm no pet of anybody," he flung out. "Gimme that money. It ain't a square deal, but I reckon I can stand it."

"I reckon you'll have to. It's neck meat or nothin'," grunted the foreman.

Doble counted him out eighty dollars in cattlemen's checks and paid him two-fifty in cash. While Dave signed a receipt the hook-nosed foreman, broad shoulders thrown back and thumbs hitched in the arm-holes of his vest, sat at ease in a tilted chair and grinned maliciously at his victim. He was "puttin' somethin' over on him," and he wanted Dave to know it. Dug had no affection for his half-brother, but he resented the fact that Sanders publicly and openly despised him as a crook. He took it as a personal reflection on himself.

Still smouldering with anger at this high-handed proceeding, Dave went down to the Longhorn Corral and saddled his horse. He had promised Byington to help water the herd.

This done, he rode back to town, hitched the horse back of a barber shop, and went in for a shave. Presently he was stretched in a chair, his boots thrown across the foot rest in front of him.

The barber lathered his face and murmured gossip in his ear. "George Doble and Miller claim they're goin' to Denver to run some skin game at a street fair. They're sure slick guys."

Dave offered no comment.

"You notice they didn't steal any of Em Crawford's stock. No, sirree! They knew better. Hopped away with broncs belongin' to you boys because they knew it'd be safe."

"Picked easy marks, did they?" asked the puncher sardonically.

The man with the razor tilted the chin of his customer and began to scrape. "Well, o'course you're only boys. They took advantage of that and done you a meanness."

Dug Doble came into the shop, very grim about the mouth. He stopped to look down sarcastically at the new boots Sanders was wearing.

"I see you've bought you a new pair of boots," he said in a heavy, domineering voice.

Dave waited without answering, his eyes meeting steadily those of the foreman.

The big fellow laid a paper on the breast of the cowpuncher. "Here's a bill for a pair of boots you charged to the old man's account--eighteen dollars. I got it just now at the store. You'll dig up."

It was the custom for riders who came to town to have the supplies they needed charged to their employers against wages due them. Doble took it for granted that Sanders had done this, which was contrary to the orders he had given his outfit. He did not know the young man had lost his boots while rescuing Crawford and had been authorized by him to get another pair in place of them.

Nor did Dave intend to tell him. Here was a chance to even the score against the foreman. Already he had a plan simmering in his mind that would take him out of this part of the country for a time. He could no longer work for Doble without friction, and he had business of his own to attend to. The way to solve the immediate difficulty flashed through his brain instantly, every detail clear.

It was scarcely a moment before he drawled an answer. "I'll 'tend to it soon as I'm out of the chair."

"I gave orders for none of you fellows to charge goods to the old man," said Doble harshly.

"Did you?" Dave's voice was light and careless.

"You can go hunt a job somewheres else. You're through with me."

"I'll hate to part with you."

"Don't get heavy, young fellow."

"No," answered Dave with mock meekness.

Doble sat down in a chair to wait. He had no intention of leaving until Dave had settled.

After the barber had finished with him the puncher stepped across to a looking-glass and adjusted carefully the silk handkerchief worn knotted loosely round the throat.

"Get a move on you!" urged the foreman. His patience, of which he never had a large supply to draw from, was nearly exhausted. "I'm not goin' to spend all day on this."

"I'm ready."

Dave followed Doble out of the shop. Apparently he did not hear the gentle reminder of the barber, who was forced to come to the door and repeat his question.

"Want that shave charged?"

"Oh! Clean forgot." Sanders turned back, feeling in his pocket for change.

He pushed past the barber into the shop, slapped a quarter down on the cigar-case, and ran out through the back door. A moment later he pulled the slip-knot of his bridle from the hitching-bar, swung to the saddle and spurred his horse to a gallop. In a cloud of dust he swept round the building to the road and waved a hand derisively toward Doble.

"See you later!" he shouted.

The foreman wasted no breath in futile rage. He strode to the nearest hitching-post and flung himself astride leather. The horse's hoofs pounded down the road in pursuit.

Sanders was riding the same bronco he had used to follow the horsethieves. It had been under a saddle most of the time for a week and was far from fresh. Before he had gone a mile he knew that the foreman would catch up with him.

He was riding for Gunsight Pass. It was necessary to get there before Doble reached him. Otherwise he would have to surrender or fight, and neither of these fitted in with his plans.

Once he had heard Emerson Crawford give a piece of advice to a hotheaded and unwise puncher. "Never call for a gun-play on a bluff, son. There's no easier way to commit suicide than to pull a six-shooter you ain't willin' to use." Dug Doble was what Byington called "bull-haided." He had forced a situation which could not be met without a showdown. This meant that the young range-rider would either have to take a thrashing or draw his forty-five and use it. Neither of these alternatives seemed worth while in view of the small stakes at issue. Because he was not ready to kill or be killed, Dave was flying for the hills.

The fugitive had to use his quirt to get there in time. The steepness of the road made heavy going. As he neared the summit the grade grew worse. The bronco labored heavily in its stride as its feet reached for the road ahead.

But here Dave had the advantage. Doble was a much heavier man than he, and his mount took the shoulder of the ridge slower. By the time the foreman showed in silhouette against the skyline at the entrance to the pass the younger man had disappeared.

The D Bar Lazy R foreman found out at once what had become of him. A crisp voice gave clear directions.

"That'll be far enough. Stop right where you're at or you'll notice trouble pop. And don't reach for yore gun unless you want to hear the band begin to play a funeral piece."

The words came, it seemed to Doble, out of the air. He looked up. Two great boulders lay edge to edge beside the path. Through a narrow rift the blue nose of a forty-five protruded. Back of it glittered a pair of steady, steely eyes.

The foreman did not at all like the look of things. Sanders was a good shot. From where he lay, almost entirely protected, all he had to do was to pick his opponent off at his leisure. If his hand were forced he would do it. And the law would let him go scot free, since Doble was a fighting man and had been seen to start in pursuit of the boy.

"Come outa there and shell out that eighteen dollars," demanded Doble.

"Nothin' doin', Dug."

"Don't run on the rope with me, young fellow. You'll sure be huntin' trouble."

"What's the use o' beefin'? I've got the deadwood on you. Better hit the dust back to town and explain to the boys how yore bronc went lame," advised Dave.

"Come down and I'll wallop the tar outa you."

"Much obliged. I'm right comfortable here."

"I've a mind to come up and dig you out."

"Please yoreself, Dug. We'll find out then which one of us goes to hell."

The foreman cursed, fluently, expertly, passionately. Not in a long time had he had the turn called on him so adroitly. He promised Dave sudden death in various forms whenever he could lay hands upon him.

"You're sure doin' yoreself proud, Dug," the young man told him evenly. "I'll write the boys how you spilled language so thorough."

"If I could only lay my hands on you!" the raw-boned cattleman stormed.

"I'll bet you'd massacree me proper," admitted Dave quite cheerfully.

Suddenly Doble gave up. He wheeled his horse and began to descend the steep slope. Steadily he jogged on to town, not once turning to look back. His soul was filled with chagrin and fury at the defeat this stripling had given him. He was ready to pick a quarrel with the first man who asked him a question about what had taken place at the pass.

Nobody asked a question. Men looked at him, read the menace of his sullen, angry face, and side-stepped his rage. They did not need to be told that his ride had been a failure. His manner advertised it. Whatever had taken place had not redounded to the glory of Dug Doble.

Later in the day the foreman met the owner of the D Bar Lazy R brand to make a detailed statement of the cost of the drive. He took peculiar pleasure in mentioning one item.

"That young scalawag Sanders beat you outa eighteen dollars," he said with a sneer of triumph.

Doble had heard the story of what Dave and Bob had done for Crawford and of how the wounded boy had been taken to the cattleman's home and nursed there. It pleased him now to score off what he chose to think was the soft-headedness of his chief.

The cattleman showed interest. "That so, Dug? Sorry. I took a fancy to that boy. What did he do?"

"You know how vaqueros are always comin' in and chargin' goods against the boss. I give out the word they was to quit it. Sanders he gets a pair of eighteen-dollar boots, then jumps the town before I find out about it."

Crawford started to speak, but Doble finished his story.

"I took out after him, but my bronc went lame from a stone in its hoof. You'll never see that eighteen plunks, Em. It don't do to pet cowhands."

"Too bad you took all that trouble, Dug," the old cattleman began mildly. "The fact is--"

"Trouble. Say, I'd ride to Tombstone to get a crack at that young smart Aleck. I told him what I'd do to him if I ever got my fists on him."

"So you _did_ catch up with him."

Dug drew back sulkily within himself. He did not intend to tell all he knew about the Gunsight Pass episode. "I didn't say _when_ I told him."

"Tha's so. You didn't. Well, I'm right sorry you took so blamed much trouble to find him. Funny, though, he didn't tell you I gave him the boots."

"You--what?" The foreman snapped the question out with angry incredulity.

The ranchman took the cigar from his mouth and leaned back easily. He was smiling now frankly.

"Why, yes. I told him to buy the boots and have 'em charged to my account. And the blamed little rooster never told you, eh?"

Doble choked for words with which to express himself. He glared at his employer as though Crawford had actually insulted him.

In an easy, conversational tone the cattleman continued, but now there was a touch of frost in his eyes.

"It was thisaway, Dug. When he and Bob knocked Steelman's plans hell west and crooked after that yellow skunk George Doble betrayed me to Brad, the boy lost his boots in the brush. 'Course I said to get another pair at the store and charge 'em to me. I reckon he was havin' some fun joshin' you."

The foreman was furious. He sputtered with the rage that boiled inside him. But some instinct warned him that unless he wanted to break with Crawford completely he must restrain his impulse to rip loose.

"All right," he mumbled. "If you told him to get 'em, 'nough said."

CHAPTER X

THE CATTLE TRAIN

Dave stood on the fence of one of the shipping pens at the Albuquerque stockyards and used a prod-pole to guide the bawling cattle below. The Fifty-Four Quarter Circle was loading a train of beef steers and cows for Denver. Just how he was going to manage it Dave did not know, but he intended to be aboard that freight when it pulled out for the mile-high town in Colorado.

He had reached Albuquerque by a strange and devious route of zigzags and back-trackings. His weary bronco he had long since sold for ten dollars at a cow town where he had sacked his saddle to be held at a livery stable until sent for. By blind baggage he had ridden a night and part of a day. For a hundred miles he had actually paid his fare. The next leg of the journey had been more exciting. He had elected to travel by freight. For many hours he and a husky brakeman had held different opinions about this. Dave had been chased from the rods into an empty and out of the box car to the roof. He had been ditched half a dozen times during the night, but each time he had managed to hook on before the train had gathered headway. The brakeman enlisted the rest of the crew in the hunt, with the result that the range-rider found himself stranded on the desert ten miles from a station. He walked the ties in his high-heeled boots, and before he reached the yards his feet were sending messages of pain at every step. Reluctantly he bought a ticket to Albuquerque. Here he had picked up a temporary job ten minutes after his arrival.

A raw-boned inspector kept tally at the chute while the cattle passed up into the car.

"Fifteen, sixteen--prod 'em up, you Arizona--seventeen, eighteen--jab that whiteface along--nineteen--hustle 'em in."

The air was heavy with the dust raised by the milling cattle. Calves stretched their necks and blatted for their mothers, which kept up in turn a steady bawling for their strayed offspring. They were conscious that something unusual was in progress, something that threatened their security and comfort, and they resented it in the only way they knew.

Car after car was jammed full of the frightened creatures as the men moved from pen to pen, threw open and shut the big gates, and hustled the stock up the chutes. Dave had begun work at six in the morning. A glance at his watch showed him that it was now ten o'clock.

A middle-aged man in wrinkled corduroys and a pinched-in white hat drove up to the fence. "How're they coming, Sam?" he asked of the foreman in charge.

"We'd ought to be movin' by noon, Mr. West."

"Fine. I've decided to send Garrison in charge. He can pick one of the boys to take along. We can't right well spare any of 'em now. If I knew where to find a good man--"

The lean Arizona-born youth slid from the fence on his prod-pole and stepped forward till he stood beside the buckboard of the cattleman.

"I'm the man you're lookin' for, Mr. West."

The owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle brand looked him over with keen eyes around which nets of little wrinkles spread.

"What man?" he asked.

"The one to help Mr. Garrison take the cattle to Denver."

"Recommend yoreself, can you?" asked West with a hint of humor.

"Yes, sir."

"Who are you?"

"Dave Sanders--from Arizona, first off."

"Been punchin' long?"

"Since I was a kid. Worked for the D Bar Lazy R last."

"Ever go on a cattle train?"

"Twice--to Kansas City."

"Hmp!" That grunt told Dave just what the difficulty was. It said, "I don't know you. Why should I trust you to help take a trainload of my cattle through?"

"You can wire to Mr. Crawford at Malapi and ask him about me," the young fellow suggested.

"How long you ride for him?"

"Three years comin' grass."

"How do I knew you you're the man you say you are?"

"One of yore boys knows me--Bud Holway."

West grunted again. He knew Emerson Crawford well. He was a level-headed cowman and his word was as good as his bond. If Em said this young man was trustworthy, the shipper was willing to take a chance on him. The honest eye, the open face, the straightforward manner of the youth recommended his ability and integrity. The shipper was badly in need of a man. He made up his mind to wire.

"Let you know later," he said, and for the moment dropped Dave out of the conversation.

But before noon he sent for him.

"I've heard from Crawford," he said, and mentioned terms.

"Whatever's fair," agreed Dave.

An hour later he was in the caboose of a cattle train rolling eastward. He was second in command of a shipment consigned to the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company. Most of them were shipped by the West Cattle Company. An odd car was a jackpot bunch of pickups composed of various brands. All the cars were packed to the door, as was the custom of those days.

After the train had settled down to the chant of the rails Garrison sent Dave on a tour of the cars. The young man reported all well and returned to the caboose. The train crew was playing poker for small stakes. Garrison had joined them. For a time Dave watched, then read a four-day-old newspaper through to the last advertisement. The hum of the wheels made him drowsy. He stretched out comfortably on the seat with his coat for a pillow.

When he awoke it was beginning to get dark. Garrison had left the caboose, evidently to have a look at the stock. Dave ate some crackers and cheese, climbed to the roof, and with a lantern hanging on his arm moved forward.

Already a few of the calves, yielding to the pressure in the heavily laden cars, had tried to escape it by lying down. With his prod Dave drove back the nearest animal. Then he used the nail in the pole to twist the tails of the calves and force them to their feet. In those days of crowded cars almost the most important thing in transit was to keep the cattle on their legs to prevent any from being trampled and smothered to death.

As the night grew older both men were busier. With their lanterns and prod-poles they went from car to car relieving the pressure wherever it was greatest. The weaker animals began to give way, worn out by the heavy lurching and the jam of heavy bodies against them. They had to be defended against their own weakness.

Dave was crossing from the top of one car to another when he heard his name called. He knew the voice belonged to Garrison and he listened to make sure from which car it came. Presently he heard it a second time and localized the sound as just below him. He entered the car by the end door near the roof.

"Hello! Call me?" he asked.

"Yep. I done fell and bust my laig. Can you get me outa here?"

"Bad, is it?"

"Broken."

"I'll get some of the train hands. Will you be all right till I get back?" the young man asked.

"I reckon. Hop along lively. I'm right in the jam here."

The conductor stopped the train. With the help of the crew Dave got Garrison back to the caboose. There was no doubt that the leg was broken. It was decided to put the injured man off at the next station, send him back by the up train, and wire West that Dave would see the cattle got through all right. This was done.

Dave got no more sleep that night. He had never been busier in his life. Before morning broke half the calves were unable to keep their feet. The only thing to do was to reload.

He went to the conductor and asked for a siding. The man running the train was annoyed, but he did not say so. He played for time.

"All right. We'll come to one after a while and I'll put you on it," he promised.

Half an hour later the train rumbled merrily past a siding without stopping. Dave walked back along the roof to the caboose.

"We've just passed a siding," he told the trainman.

"Couldn't stop there. A freight behind us has orders to take that to let the Limited pass," he said glibly.

Dave suspected he was lying, but he could not prove it. He asked where the next siding was.

"A little ways down," said a brakeman.

The puncher saw his left eyelid droop in a wink to the conductor. He knew now that they were "stalling" for time. The end of their run lay only thirty miles away. They had no intention of losing two or three hours' time while the cattle were reloaded. After the train reached the division point another conductor and crew would have to wrestle with the problem.

Young Sanders felt keenly his inexperience. They were taking advantage of him because he was a boy. He did not know what to do. He had a right to insist on a siding, but it was not his business to decide which one.

The train rolled past another siding and into the yards of the division town. At once Dave hurried to the station. The conductor about to take charge of the train was talking with the one just leaving. The range-rider saw them look at him and laugh as he approached. His blood began to warm.

"I want you to run this train onto a siding," he said at once.

"You the train dispatcher?" asked the new man satirically.

"You know who I am. I'll say right now that the cattle on this train are suffering. Some won't last another hour. I'm goin' to reload."

"Are you? I guess not. This train's going out soon as we've changed engines, and that'll be in about seven minutes."

"I'll not go with it."

"Suit yourself," said the officer jauntily, and turned away to talk with the other man.

Dave walked to the dispatcher's office. The cowpuncher stated his case.

"Fix that up with the train conductor," said the dispatcher. "He can have a siding whenever he wants it."

"But he won't gimme one."

"Not my business."

"Whose business is it?"

The dispatcher got busy over his charts. Dave became aware that he was going to get no satisfaction here.

He tramped back to the platform.

"All aboard," sang out the conductor.

Dave, not knowing what else to do, swung on to the caboose as it passed. He sat down on the steps and put his brains at work. There must be a way out, if he could only find what it was. The next station was fifteen miles down the line. Before the train stopped there Dave knew exactly what he meant to do. He wrote out two messages. One was to the division superintendent. The other was to Henry B. West.

He had swung from the steps of the caboose and was in the station before the conductor.

"I want to send two telegrams," he told the agent. "Here they are all ready. Rush 'em through. I want an answer here to the one to the superintendent."

The wire to the railroad official read:

Conductor freight number 17 refuses me siding to reload stock in my charge. Cattle down and dying. Serve notice herewith I put responsibility for all loss on railroad. Will leave cars in charge of train crew.

DAVID SANDERS

_Representing West Cattle Company_

The other message was just as direct.

Conductor refuses me siding to reload. Cattle suffering and dying. Have wired division superintendent. Will refuse responsibility and leave train unless siding given me.

DAVE SANDERS

The conductor caught the eye of the agent.

"I'll send the wires when I get time," said the latter to the cowboy.

"You'll send 'em now--right now," announced Dave.

"Say, are you the president of the road?" bristled the agent.

"You'll lose yore job within forty-eight hours if you don't send them telegrams _now_. I'll see to that personal." Dave leaned forward and looked at him steadily.

The conductor spoke to the agent, nodding his head insolently toward Dave. "Young-man-heap-swelled-head," he introduced him.

But the agent had had a scare. It was his job at stake, not the conductor's. He sat down sulkily and sent the messages.

The conductor read his orders and walked to the door. "Number 17 leaving. All aboard," he called back insolently.

"I'm stayin' here till I hear from the superintendent," answered Dave flatly. "You leave an' you've got them cattle to look out for. They'll be in yore care."

The conductor swaggered out and gave the signal to go. The train drew out from the station and disappeared around a curve in the track. Five minutes later it backed in again. The conductor was furious.

"Get aboard here, you hayseed, if you're goin' to ride with me!" he yelled.

Dave was sitting on the platform whittling a stick. His back was comfortably resting against a truck. Apparently he had not heard.

The conductor strode up to him and looked down at the lank boy. "Say, are you comin' or ain't you?" he shouted, as though he had been fifty yards away instead of four feet.

"Talkin' to me?" Dave looked up with amiable surprise. "Why, no, not if you're in a hurry. I'm waitin' to hear from the superintendent."

"If you think any boob can come along and hold my train up till I lose my right of way you've got another guess comin'. I ain't goin' to be sidetracked by every train on the division."

"That's the company's business, not mine. I'm interested only in my cattle."

The conductor had a reputation as a bully. He had intended to override this young fellow by weight of age, authority, and personality. That he had failed filled him with rage.

"Say, for half a cent I'd kick you into the middle of next week," he said, between clamped teeth.

The cowpuncher's steel-blue eyes met his steadily. "Do you reckon that would be quite safe?" he asked mildly.

That was a question the conductor had been asking himself. He did not know. A good many cowboys carried six-shooters tucked away on their ample persons. It was very likely this one had not set out on his long journey without one.

"You're more obstinate than a Missouri mule," the railroad man exploded. "I don't have to put up with you, and I won't!"

"No?"

The agent came out from the station waving two slips of paper. "Heard from the super," he called.

One wire was addressed to Dave, the other to the conductor. Dave read:

Am instructing conductor to put you on siding and place train crew under your orders to reload.

Beneath was the signature of the superintendent.

The conductor flushed purple as he read the orders sent by his superior.

"Well," he stormed at Dave. "What do you want? Spit it out!"

"Run me on the siding. I'm gonna take the calves out of the cars and tie 'em on the feed-racks above."

"How're you goin' to get 'em up?"

"Elbow grease."

"If you think I'll turn my crew into freight elevators because some fool cattleman didn't know how to load right--"

"Maybe you've got a kick comin'. I'll not say you haven't. But this is an emergency. I'm willin' to pay good money for the time they help me." Dave made no reference to the telegram in his hand. He was giving the conductor a chance to save his face.

"Oh, well, that's different. I'll put it up to the boys."

Three hours later the wheels were once more moving eastward. Dave had had the calves roped down to the feed-racks above the cars.

CHAPTER XI

THE NIGHT CLERK GETS BUSY PRONTO

The stars were out long before Dave's train drew into the suburbs of Denver. It crawled interminably through squalid residence sections, warehouses, and small manufactories, coming to a halt at last in a wilderness of tracks on the border of a small, narrow stream flowing sluggishly between wide banks cut in the clay.

Dave swung down from the caboose and looked round in the dim light for the stockyards engine that was to pick up his cars and run them to the unloading pens. He moved forward through the mud, searching the semi-darkness for the switch engine. It was nowhere to be seen.

He returned to the caboose. The conductor and brakemen were just leaving.

"My engine's not here. Some one must 'a' slipped up on his job, looks like. Where are the stockyards?" Sanders asked.

The conductor was a small, middle-aged man who made it his business to get along with everybody he could. He had distinctly refused to pick up his predecessor's quarrel with Dave. Now he stopped and scratched his head.

"Too bad. Can't you go uptown and 'phone out to the stockyards? Or if you want to take a street-car out there you'll have time to hop one at Stout Street. Last one goes about midnight."

In those days the telephone was not a universal necessity. Dave had never used one and did not know how to get his connection. He spent several minutes ringing up, shouting at the operator, and trying to understand what she told him. He did not shout at the girl because he was annoyed. His idea was that he would have to speak loud to have his voice carry. At last he gave up, hot and perspiring from the mental exertion.

Outside the drug-store he just had time to catch the last stockyards car. His watch told him that it was two minutes past twelve.

He stepped forty-five minutes later into an office in which sat two men with their feet on a desk. The one in his shirt-sleeves was a smug, baldish young man with clothes cut in the latest mode. He was rather heavy-set and looked flabby. The other man appeared to be a visitor.

"This the office of the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company?" asked Dave.

The clerk looked the raw Arizonan over from head to foot and back again. The judgment that he passed was indicated by the tone of his voice.

"Name's on the door, ain't it?" he asked superciliously.

"You in charge here?"

The clerk was amused, or at least took the trouble to seem so. "You might think so, mightn't you?"

"Are you in charge?" asked Dave evenly.

"Maybeso. What you want?"

"I asked you if you was runnin' this office."

"Hell, yes! What're your eyes for?"

The clerk's visitor sniggered.

"I've got a train of cattle on the edge of town," explained Dave. "The stockyards engine didn't show up."

"Consigned to us?"

"To the Denver Terminal Stockyards Company."

"Name of shipper?"

"West Cattle Company and Henry B. West."

"All right. I'll take care of 'em." The clerk turned back to his friend. His manner dismissed the cowpuncher. "And she says to me, 'I'd love to go with you, Mr. Edmonds; you dance like an angel.' Then I says--"

"When?" interrupted Dave calmly, but those who knew him might have guessed his voice was a little too gentle.

"I says, 'You're some little kidder,' and--"

"When?"

The man who danced like an angel turned halfway round, and looked at the cowboy over his shoulder. He was irritated.

"When what?" he snapped.

"When you goin' to onload my stock?"

"In the morning."

"No, sir. You'll have it done right now. That stock has been more'n two days without water."

"I'm not responsible for that."

"No, but you'll be responsible if the train ain't onloaded now," said Dave.

"It won't hurt 'em to wait till morning."

"That's where you're wrong. They're sufferin'. All of 'em are alive now, but they won't all be by mo'nin' if they ain't 'tended to."

"Guess I'll take a chance on that, since you say it's my responsibility," replied the clerk impudently.

"Not none," announced the man from Arizona. "You'll get busy pronto."

"Say, is this my business or yours?"

"Mine and yours both."

"I guess I can run it. If I need any help from you I'll ask for it. Watch me worry about your old cows. I have guys coming in here every day with hurry-up tales about how their cattle won't live unless I get a wiggle on me. I notice they all are able to take a little nourishment next day all right, all right."

Dave caught at the gate of the railing which was between him and the night clerk. He could not find the combination to open it and therefore vaulted over. He caught the clerk back of the neck by the collar and jounced him up and down hard in his chair.

"You're asleep," he explained. "I got to waken you up before you can sabe plain talk."

The clerk looked up out of a white, frightened face. "Say, don't do that. I got heart trouble," he said in a voice dry as a whisper.

"What about that onloadin' proposition?" asked the Arizonan.

"I'll see to it right away."

Presently the clerk, with a lantern in his hand, was going across to the railroad tracks in front of Dave. He had quite got over the idea that this lank youth was a safe person to make sport of.

They found the switch crew in the engine of the cab playing seven-up.

"Got a job for you. Train of cattle out at the junction," the clerk said, swinging up to the cab.

The men finished the hand and settled up, but within a few minutes the engine was running out to the freight train.

Day was breaking before Dave tumbled into bed. He had left a call with the clerk to be wakened at noon. When the bell rang, it seemed to him that he had not been asleep five minutes.

After he had eaten at the stockyards hotel he went out to have a look at his stock. He found that on the whole the cattle had stood the trip well. While he was still inspecting them a voice boomed at him a question.

"Well, young fellow, are you satisfied with all the trouble you've made me?"

He turned, to see standing before him the owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle brand. The boy's surprise fairly leaped from his eyes.

"Didn't expect to see me here, I reckon," the cattleman went on. "Well, I hopped a train soon as I got yore first wire. Spill yore story, young man."

Dave told his tale, while the ranchman listened in grim silence. When Sanders had finished, the owner of the stock brought a heavy hand down on his shoulder approvingly.

"You can ship cattle for me long as you've a mind to, boy. You fought for that stock like as if it had been yore own. You'll do to take along."

Dave flushed with boyish pleasure. He had not known whether the cattleman would approve what he had done, and after the long strain of the trip this endorsement of his actions was more to him than food or drink.

"They say I'm kinda stubborn. I didn't aim to lie down and let those guys run one over me," he said.

"Yore stubbornness is money in my pocket. Do you want to go back and ride for the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle?"

"Maybe, after a while, Mr. West. I got business in Denver for a few days."

The cattleman smiled. "Most of my boys have when they hit town, I notice."

"Mine ain't that kind. I reckon it's some more stubbornness," explained Dave.

"All right. When you've finished that business I can use you."

If Dave could have looked into the future he would have known that the days would stretch into months and the months to years before his face would turn toward ranch life again.

CHAPTER XII

THE LAW PUZZLES DAVE

Dave knew he was stubborn. Not many men would have come on such a wild-goose chase to Denver in the hope of getting back a favorite horse worth so little in actual cash. But he meant to move to his end intelligently.

If Miller and Doble were in the city they would be hanging out at some saloon or gambling-house. Once or twice Dave dropped in to Chuck Weaver's place, where the sporting men from all over the continent inevitably drifted when in Denver. But he had little expectation of finding the men he wanted there. These two rats of the underworld would not attempt to fleece keen-eyed professionals. They would prey on the unsophisticated.

His knowledge of their habits took him to that part of town below Lawrence Street. While he chatted with his foot on the rail, a glass of beer in front of him, he made inconspicuous inquiries of bartenders. It did not take him long to strike the trail.

"Two fellows I knew in the cattle country said they were comin' to Denver. Wonder if they did. One of 'em's a big fat guy name o' Miller--kinda rolls when he walks. Other's small and has a glass eye. Called himself George Doble when I knew him."

"Come in here 'most every day--both of 'em. Waitin' for the Festival of Mountain and Plain to open up. Got some kinda concession. They look to yours truly like--"

The bartender pulled himself up short and began polishing the top of the bar vigorously. He was a gossipy soul, and more than once his tongue had got him into trouble.

"You was sayin'--" suggested the cowboy.

"--that they're good spenders, as the fellow says," amended the bartender, to be on the safe side.

"When I usta know 'em they had a mighty cute little trick pony--name was Chiquito, seems to me. Ever hear 'em mention it?"

"They was fussin' about that horse to-day. Seems they got an offer for him and Doble wants to sell. Miller he says no."

"Yes?"

"I'll tell 'em a friend asked for 'em. What name?"

"Yes, do. Jim Smith."

"The fat old gobbler's liable to drop in any time now."

This seemed a good reason to Mr. Jim Smith, _alias_ David Sanders, for dropping out. He did not care to have Miller know just yet who the kind friend was that had inquired for him.

But just as he was turning away a word held him for a moment. The discretion of the man in the apron was not quite proof against his habit of talk.

"They been quarrelin' a good deal together. I expect the combination is about ready to bust up," he whispered confidentially.

"Quarrelin'? What about?"

"Oh, I dunno. They act like they're sore as a boil at each other. Honest, I thought they was goin' to mix it yesterday. I breezed up wit' a bottle an' they kinda cooled off."

"Doble drunk?"

"Nope. Fact is, they'd trimmed a Greeley boob and was rowin' about the split. Miller he claimed Doble held out on him. I'll bet he did too."

Dave did not care how much they quarreled or how soon they parted after he had got back his horse. Until that time he preferred that they would give him only one trail to follow instead of two.

The cowpuncher made it his business to loaf on Larimer Street for the rest of the day. His beat was between Fifteenth and Sixteenth Streets, usually on the other side of the road from the Klondike Saloon.

About four o'clock his patience was rewarded. Miller came rolling along in a sort of sailor fashion characteristic of him. Dave had just time to dive into a pawnbroker's shop unnoticed.

A black-haired, black-eyed salesman came forward to wait on him. The puncher cast an eye helplessly about him. It fell on a suitcase.

"How much?" he asked.

"Seven dollars. Dirt sheap, my frient."

"Got any telescope grips?"

The salesman produced one. Dave bought it because he did not know how to escape without.

He carried it with him while he lounged up and down the sidewalk waiting for Miller to come out of the Klondike. When the fat gambler reappeared, the range-rider fell in behind him unobserved and followed uptown past the Tabor Opera House as far as California Street. Here they swung to the left to Fourteenth, where Miller disappeared into a rooming-house.

The amateur detective turned back toward the business section. On the way he dropped guiltily the telescope grip into a delivery wagon standing in front of a grocery. He had no use for it, and he had already come to feel it a white elephant on his hands.

With the aid of a city directory Dave located the livery stables within walking distance of the house where Miller was staying. Inspired perhaps by the nickel detective stories he had read, the cowboy bought a pair of blue goggles and a "store" collar. In this last, substituted for the handkerchief he usually wore loosely round his throat, the sleuth nearly strangled himself for lack of air. His inquiries at such stables as he found brought no satisfaction. Neither Miller nor the pinto had been seen at any of them.

Later in the evening he met Henry B. West at the St. James Hotel.

"How's that business of yore's gettin' along, boy?" asked the cattleman with a smile.

"Don' know yet. Say, Mr. West, if I find a hawss that's been stole from me, how can I get it back?"

"Some one steal a hawss from you?"

Dave told his story. West listened to a finish.

"I know a lawyer here. We'll ask him what to do," the ranchman said.

They found the lawyer at the Athletic Club. West stated the case.

"Your remedy is to replevin. If they fight, you'll have to bring witnesses to prove ownership."

"Bring witnesses from Malapi! Why, I can't do that," said Dave, staggered. "I ain't got the money. Why can't I just take the hawss? It's mine."

"The law doesn't know it's yours."

Dave left much depressed. Of course the thieves would go to a lawyer, and of course he would tell them to fight. The law was a darned queer thing. It made the recovery of his property so costly that the crooks who stole it could laugh at him.

"Looks like the law's made to protect scalawags instead of honest folks," Dave told West.

"I don't reckon it is, but it acts that way sometimes," admitted the cattleman. "You can see yoreself it wouldn't do for the law to say a fellow could get property from another man by just sayin' it was his. Sorry, Sanders. After all, a bronc's only a bronc. I'll give you yore pick of two hundred if you come back with me to the ranch."

"Much obliged, seh. Maybe I will later."

The cowpuncher walked the streets while he thought it over. He had no intention whatever of giving up Chiquito if he could find the horse. So far as the law went he was in a blind alley. He was tied hand and foot. That possession was nine points before the courts he had heard before.

The way to recover flashed to his brain like a wave of light. He must get possession. All he had to do was to steal his own horse and make for the hills. If the thieves found him later--and the chances were that they would not even attempt pursuit if he let them know who he was--he would force them to the expense of going to law for Chiquito. What was sauce for the goose must be for the gander too.

Dave's tramp had carried him across the Platte into North Denver. On his way back he passed a corral close to the railroad tracks. He turned in to look over the horses.

The first one his eyes fell on was Chiquito.

CHAPTER XIII

FOR MURDER

Dave whistled. The pony pricked up its ears, looked round, and came straight to him. The young man laid his face against the soft, silky nose, fondled it, whispered endearments to his pet. He put the bronco through its tricks for the benefit of the corral attendant.

"Well, I'll be doggoned," that youth commented. "The little pinto sure is a wonder. Acts like he knows you mighty well."

"Ought to. I trained him. Had him before Miller got him."

"Bet you hated to sell him."

"You _know_ it." Dave moved forward to his end, the intention to get possession of the horse. He spoke in a voice easy and casual. "Saw Miller a while ago. They're talkin' about sellin' the paint hawss, him and his pardner Doble. I'm to saddle up and show what Chiquito can do."

"Say, that's a good notion. If I was a buyer I'd pay ten bucks more after you'd put him through that circus stuff."

"Which is Miller's saddle?" When it was pointed out to him, Dave examined it and pretended to disapprove. "Too heavy. Lend me a lighter one, can't you?"

"Sure. Here's three or four. Help yourself."

The wrangler moved into the stable to attend to his work.

Dave cinched, swung to the saddle, and rode to the gate of the corral. Two men were coming in, and by the sound of their voices were quarreling. They stepped aside to let him pass, one on each side of the gate, so that it was necessary to ride between them.

They recognized the pinto at the same moment Dave did them. On the heels of that recognition came another.

Doble ripped out an oath and a shout of warning. "It's Sanders!"

A gun flashed as the pony jumped to a gallop. The silent night grew noisy with shots, voices, the clatter of hoofs. Twice Dave fired answers to the challenges which leaped out of the darkness at him. He raced across the bridge spanning the Platte and for a moment drew up on the other side to listen for sounds which might tell him whether he would be pursued. One last solitary revolver shot disturbed the stillness.

The rider grinned. "Think he'd know better than to shoot at me this far."

He broke his revolver, extracted the empty shells, and dropped them to the street. Then he rode up the long hill toward Highlands, passed through that suburb of the city, and went along the dark and dusty road to the shadows of the Rockies silhouetted in the night sky.

His flight had no definite objective except to put as much distance between himself and Denver as possible. He knew nothing about the geography of Colorado, except that a large part of the Rocky Mountains and a delectable city called Denver lived there. His train trip to it had told him that one of its neighbors was New Mexico, which was in turn adjacent to Arizona. Therefore he meant to get to New Mexico as quickly as Chiquito could quite comfortably travel.

Unfortunately Dave was going west instead of south. Every step of the pony was carrying him nearer the roof of the continent, nearer the passes of the front range which lead, by divers valleys and higher mountains beyond, to the snowclad regions of eternal white.

Up in this altitude it was too cold to camp out without a fire and blankets.

"I reckon we'll keep goin', old pal," the young man told his horse. "I've noticed roads mostly lead somewheres."

Day broke over valleys of swirling mist far below the rider. The sun rose and dried the moisture. Dave looked down on a town scattered up and down a gulch.

He met an ore team and asked the driver what town it was. The man looked curiously at him.

"Why, it's Idaho Springs," he said. "Where you come from?"

Dave eased himself in the saddle. "From the Southwest."

"You're quite a ways from home. I reckon your hills ain't so uncurried down there, are they?"

The cowpuncher looked over the mountains. He was among the summits, aglow in the amber light of day with the many blended colors of wild flowers. "We got some down there, too, that don't fit a lady's boodwar. Say, if I keep movin' where'll this road take me?"

The man with the ore team gave information. It struck Dave that he had run into a blind alley.

"If you're after a job, I reckon you can find one at some of the mines. They're needin' hands," the teamster added.

Perhaps this was the best immediate solution of the problem. The puncher nodded farewell and rode down into the town.

He left Chiquito at a livery barn, after having personally fed and watered the pinto, and went himself to a hotel. Here he registered, not under his own name, ate breakfast, and lay down for a few hours' sleep. When he awakened he wrote a note with the stub of a pencil to Bob Hart. It read:

Well, Bob, I done got Chiquito back though it sure looked like I wasn't going to but you never can tell and as old Buck Byington says its a hell of a long road without no bend in it and which you can bet your boots the old alkali is right at that. Well I found the little pie-eater in Denver O K but so gaunt he wont hardly throw a shadow and what can you expect of scalawags like Miller and Doble who don't know how to treat a horse. Well I run Chiquito off right under their noses and we had a little gun play and made my getaway and I reckon I will stay a spell and work here. Well good luck to all the boys till I see them again in the sweet by and by.

Dave

P.S. Get this money order cashed old-timer and pay the boys what I borrowed when we hit the trail after Miller and Doble. I lit out to sudden to settle. Five to Steve and five to Buck. Well so long.

Dave

The puncher went to the post-office, got a money order, and mailed the letter, after which he returned to the hotel. He intended to eat dinner and then look for work.

Three or four men were standing on the steps of the hotel talking with the proprietor. Dave was quite close before the Boniface saw him.

"That's him," the hotel-keeper said in an excited whisper.

A brown-faced man without a coat turned quickly and looked at Sanders. He wore a belt with cartridges and a revolver.

"What's your name?" he demanded.

Dave knew at once this man was an officer of the law. He knew, too, the futility of trying to escape under the pseudonym he had written on the register.

"Sanders--Dave Sanders."

"I want you."

"So? Who are you?"

"Sheriff of the county."

"Whadjawant me for?"

"Murder."

Dave gasped. His heart beat fast with a prescience of impending disaster. "Murder," he repeated dully.

"You're charged with the murder of George Doble last night in Denver."

The boy stared at him with horror-stricken eyes. "Doble? My God, did I kill him?" He clutched at a porch post to steady himself. The hills were sliding queerly up into the sky.

CHAPTER XIV

TEN YEARS

All the way back to Denver, while the train ran down through the narrow, crooked cañon, Dave's mind dwelt in a penumbra of horror. It was impossible he could have killed Doble, he kept telling himself. He had fired back into the night without aim. He had not even tried to hit the men who were shooting at him. It must be some ghastly joke.

None the less he knew by the dull ache in his heart that this awful thing had fastened on him and that he would have to pay the penalty. He had killed a man, snuffed out his life wantonly as a result of taking the law into his own hands. The knowledge of what he had done shook him to the soul.

It remained with him, in the background of his mind, up to and through his trial. What shook his nerve was the fact that he had taken a life, not the certainty of the punishment that must follow.

West called to see him at the jail, and to the cattleman Dave told the story exactly as it had happened. The owner of the Fifty-Four Quarter Circle walked up and down the cell rumpling his hair.

"Boy, why didn't you let on to me what you was figurin' on pullin' off? I knew you was some bull-haided, but I thought you had a lick o' sense left."

"Wisht I had," said Dave miserably.

"Well, what's done's done. No use cryin' over the bust-up. We'd better fix up whatever's left from the smash. First off, we'll get a lawyer, I reckon."

"I gotta li'l' money left--twenty-six dollars," spoke up Dave timidly. "Maybe that's all he'll want."

West smiled at this babe in the woods. "It'll last as long as a snowball in you-know-where if he's like some lawyers I've met up with."

It did not take the lawyer whom West engaged long to decide on the line the defense must take. "We'll show that Miller and Doble were crooks and that they had wronged Sanders. That will count a lot with a jury," he told West. "We'll admit the killing and claim self-defense."

The day before the trial Dave was sitting in his cell cheerlessly reading a newspaper when visitors were announced. At sight of Emerson Crawford and Bob Hart he choked in his throat. Tears brimmed in his eyes. Nobody could have been kinder to him than West had been, but these were home folks. He had known them many years. Their kindness in coming melted his heart.

He gripped their hands, but found himself unable to say anything in answer to their greetings. He was afraid to trust his voice, and he was ashamed of his emotion.

"The boys are for you strong, Dave. We all figure you done right. Steve he says he wouldn't worry none if you'd got Miller too," Bob breezed on.

"Tha's no way to talk, son," reproved Crawford. "It's bad enough right as it is without you boys wantin' it any worse. But don't you get downhearted, Dave. We're allowin' to stand by you to a finish. It ain't as if you'd got a good man. Doble was a mean-hearted scoundrel if ever I met up with one. He's no loss to society. We're goin' to show the jury that too."

They did. By the time Crawford, Hart, and a pair of victims who had been trapped by the sharpers had testified about Miller and Doble, these worthies had no shred of reputation left with the jury. It was shown that they had robbed the defendant of the horse he had trained and that he had gone to a lawyer and found no legal redress within his means.

But Dave was unable to prove self-defense. Miller stuck doggedly to his story. The cowpuncher had fired the first shot. He had continued to fire, though he must have seen Doble sink to the ground immediately. Moreover, the testimony of the doctor showed that the fatal shot had taken effect at close range.

Just prior to this time there had been an unusual number of killings in Denver. The newspapers had stirred up a public sentiment for stricter enforcement of law. They had claimed that both judges and juries were too easy on the gunmen who committed these crimes. Now they asked if this cowboy killer was going to be allowed to escape. Dave was tried when this wave of feeling was at its height and he was a victim of it.

The jury found him guilty of murder in the second degree. The judge sentenced him to ten years in the penitentiary.

When Bob Hart came to say good-bye before Dave was removed to Cañon City, the young range-rider almost broke down. He was greatly distressed at the misfortune that had befallen his friend.

"We're gonna stay with this, Dave. You know Crawford. He goes through when he starts. Soon as there's a chance we'll hit the Governor for a pardon. It's a damn shame, old pal. Tha's what it is."

Dave nodded. A lump in his throat interfered with speech.

"The ol' man lent me money to buy Chiquito, and I'm gonna keep the pinto till you get out. That'll help pay yore lawyer," continued Bob. "One thing more. You're not the only one that's liable to be sent up. Miller's on the way back to Malapi. If he don't get a term for hawss-stealin', I'm a liar. We got a dead open-and-shut case against him."

The guard who was to take Dave to the penitentiary bustled in cheerfully. "All right, boys. If you're ready we'll be movin' down to the depot."

The friends shook hands again.

CHAPTER XV

IN DENVER

The warden handed him a ticket back to Denver, and with it a stereotyped little lecture of platitudes.

"Your future lies before you to be made or marred by yourself, Sanders. You owe it to the Governor who has granted this parole and to the good friends who have worked so hard for it that you be honest and industrious and temperate. If you do this the world will in time forget your past mistakes and give you the right hand of fellowship, as I do now."

The paroled man took the fat hand proffered him because he knew the warden was a sincere humanitarian. He meant exactly what he said. Perhaps he could not help the touch of condescension. But patronage, no matter how kindly meant, was one thing this tall, straight convict would not stand. He was quite civil, but the hard, cynical eyes made the warden uncomfortable. Once or twice before he had known prisoners like this, quiet, silent men who were never insolent, but whose eyes told him that the iron had seared their souls.

The voice of the warden dropped briskly to business. "Seen the bookkeeper? Everything all right, I suppose."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Well, wish you luck."

"Thanks."

The convict turned away, grave, unsmiling.

The prison officer's eyes followed him a little wistfully. His function, as he understood it, was to win these men back to fitness for service to the society which had shut them up for their misdeeds. They were not wild beasts. They were human beings who had made a misstep. Sometimes he had been able to influence men strongly, but he felt that it had not been true of this puncher from the cow country.

Sanders walked slowly out of the office and through the door in the wall that led back to life. He was free. To-morrow was his. All the to-morrows of all the years of his life were waiting for him. But the fact stirred in him no emotion. As he stood in the dry Colorado sunshine his heart was quite dead.

In the earlier days of his imprisonment it had not been so. He had dreamed often of this hour. At night, in the darkness of his cell, imagination had projected picture after picture of it, vivid, colorful, set to music. But his parole had come too late. The years had taken their toll of him. The shadow of the prison had left its chill, had done something to him that had made him a different David Sanders from the boy who had entered. He wondered if he would ever learn to laugh again, if he would ever run to meet life eagerly as that other David Sanders had a thousand years ago.

He followed the road down to the little station and took a through train that came puffing out of the Royal Gorge on its way to the plains. Through the crowd at the Denver depot he passed into the city, moving up Seventeenth Street without definite aim or purpose. His parole had come unexpectedly, so that none of his friends could meet him even if they had wanted to do so. He was glad of this. He preferred to be alone, especially during these first days of freedom. It was his intention to go back to Malapi, to the country he knew and loved, but he wished to pick up a job in the city for a month or two until he had settled into a frame of mind in which liberty had become a habit.

Early next morning he began his search for work. It carried him to a lumber yard adjoining the railroad yards.

"We need a night watchman," the superintendent said. "Where'd you work last?"

"At Cañon City."

The lumberman looked at him quickly, a question in his glance.

"Yes," Dave went on doggedly. "In the penitentiary."

A moment's awkward embarrassment ensued.

"What were you in for?"

"Killing a man."

"Too bad. I'm afraid--"

"He had stolen my horse and I was trying to get it back. I had no intention of hitting him when I fired."

"I'd take you in a minute so far as I'm concerned personally, but our board of directors--afraid they wouldn't like it. That's one trouble in working for a corporation."

Sanders turned away. The superintendent hesitated, then called after him.

"If you're up against it and need a dollar--"

"Thanks. I don't. I'm looking for work, not charity," the applicant said stiffly.

Wherever he went it was the same. As soon as he mentioned the prison, doors of opportunity closed to him. Nobody wanted to employ a man tarred with that pitch. It did not matter why he had gone, under what provocation he had erred. The thing that damned him was that he had been there. It was a taint, a corrosion.

He could have picked up a job easily enough if he had been willing to lie about his past. But he had made up his mind to tell the truth. In the long run he could not conceal it. Better start with the slate clean.

When he got a job it was to unload cars of fruit for a commission house. A man was wanted in a hurry and the employer did not ask any questions. At the end of an hour he was satisfied.

"Fellow hustles peaches like he'd been at it all his life," the commission man told his partner.

A few days later came the question that Sanders had been expecting. "Where'd you work before you came to us?"

"At the penitentiary."

"A guard?" asked the merchant, taken aback.

"No. I was a convict." The big lithe man in overalls spoke quietly, his eyes meeting those of the Market Street man with unwavering steadiness.

"What was the trouble?"

Dave explained. The merchant made no comment, but when he paid off the men Saturday night he said with careful casualness, "Sorry, Sanders. The work will be slack next week. I'll have to lay you off."

The man from Cañon City understood. He looked for another place, was rebuffed a dozen times, and at last was given work by an employer who had vision enough to know the truth that the bad men do not all go to prison and that some who go may be better than those who do not.

In this place Sanders lasted three weeks. He was doing concrete work on a viaduct job for a contractor employed by the city.

This time it was a fellow-workman who learned of the Arizonan's record. A letter from Emerson Crawford, forwarded by the warden of the penitentiary, dropped out of Dave's coat pocket where it hung across a plank.

The man who picked it up read the letter before returning it to the pocket. He began at once to whisper the news. The subject was discussed back and forth among the men on the quiet. Sanders guessed they had discovered who he was, but he waited for them to move. His years in prison had given him at least the strength of patience. He could bide his time.

They went to the contractor. He reasoned with them.

"Does his work all right, doesn't he? Treats you all civilly. Doesn't force himself on you. I don't see any harm in him."

"We ain't workin' with no jail bird," announced the spokesman.

"He told me the story and I've looked it up since. Talked with the lawyer that defended him. He says the man Sanders killed was a bad lot and had stolen his horse from him. Sanders was trying to get it back. He claimed self-defense, but couldn't prove it."

"Don't make no difference. The jury said he was guilty, didn't it?"

"Suppose he was. We've got to give him a chance when he comes out, haven't we?"

Some of the men began to weaken. They were not cruel, but they were children of impulse, easily led by those who had force enough to push to the front.

"I won't mix cement with no convict," the self-appointed leader announced flatly. "That goes."

The contractor met him eye to eye. "You don't have to, Reynolds. You can get your time."

"Meanin' that you keep him on the job and let me go?"

"That's it exactly. Long as he does his work well I'll not ask him to quit."

A shadow darkened the doorway of the temporary office. The Arizonan stepped in with his easy, swinging stride, a lithe, straight-backed Hermes showing strength of character back of every movement.

"I'm leaving to-day, Mr. Shields." His voice carried the quiet power of reserve force.

"Not because I want you to, Sanders."

"Because I'm not going to stay and make you trouble."

"I don't think it will come to that. I'm talking it over with the boys now. Your work stands up. I've no criticism."

"I'll not stay now, Mr. Shields. Since they've complained to you I'd better go."

The ex-convict looked around, the eyes in his sardonic face hard and bitter. If he could have read the thoughts of the men it would have been different. Most of them were ashamed of their protest. They would have liked to have drawn back, but they did not know how to say so. Therefore they stood awkwardly silent. Afterward, when it was too late, they talked it over freely enough and blamed each other.

From one job to another Dave drifted. His stubborn pride, due in part to a native honesty that would not let him live under false pretenses, in part to a bitterness that had become dogged defiance, kept him out of good places and forced him to do heavy, unskilled labor that brought the poorest pay.

Yet he saved money, bought himself good, cheap clothes, and found energy to attend night school where he studied stationary and mechanical engineering. He lived wholly within himself, his mental reactions tinged with morose scorn. He found little comfort either in himself or in the external world, in spite of the fact that he had determined with all his stubborn will to get ahead.

The library he patronized a good deal, but he gave no time to general literature. His reading was of a highly specialized nature. He studied everything that he could find about the oil fields of America.

The stigma of his disgrace continued to raise its head. One of the concrete workers was married to the sister of the woman from whom he rented his room. The quiet, upstanding man who never complained or asked any privileges had been a favorite of hers, but she was a timid, conventional soul. Visions of her roomers departing in a flock when they found out about the man in the second floor back began to haunt her dreams. Perhaps he might rob them all at night. In a moment of nerve tension, summoning all her courage, she asked the killer from the cattle country if he would mind leaving.

He smiled grimly and began to pack. For several days he had seen it coming. When he left, the expressman took his trunk to the station. The ticket which Sanders bought showed Malapi as his destination.

CHAPTER XVI

DAVE MEETS TWO FRIENDS AND A FOE

In the early morning Dave turned to rest his cramped limbs. He was in a day coach, and his sleep through the night had been broken. The light coming from the window woke him. He looked out on the opalescent dawn of the desert, and his blood quickened at sight of the enchanted mesa. To him came that joyous thrill of one who comes home to his own after years of exile.

Presently he saw the silvery sheen of the mesquite when the sun is streaming westward. Dust eddies whirled across the barranca. The prickly pear and the palo verde flashed past, green splashes against a background of drab. The pudgy creosote, the buffalo grass, the undulation of sand hills were an old story, but to-day his eyes devoured them hungrily. The wonderful effect of space and light, the cloud skeins drawn out as by some invisible hand, the brown ribbon of road that wandered over the hill: they brought to him an emotion poignant and surprising.

The train slid into a narrow valley bounded by hills freakishly eroded to fantastic shapes. Piñon trees fled to the rear. A sheep corral fenced with brush and twisted roots, in which were long, shallow feed troughs and flat-roofed sheds, leaped out of nowhere, was for a few moments, and vanished like a scene in a moving picture. A dim, gray mass of color on a hillside was agitated like a sea wave. It was a flock of sheep moving toward the corral. For an instant Dave caught a glimpse of a dog circling the huddled pack; then dog and sheep were out of sight together.

The pictures stirred memories of the acrid smoke of hill camp-fires, of nights under a tarp with the rain beating down on him, and still others of a road herd bawling for water, of winter camps when the ropes were frozen stiff and the snow slid from trees in small avalanches.

At the junction he took the stage for Malapi. Already he could see that he was going into a new world, one altogether different from that he had last seen here. These men were not cattlemen. They talked the vocabulary of oil. They had the shrewd, keen look of the driller and the wildcatter. They were full of nervous energy that oozed out in constant conversation.

"Jackpot Number Three lost a string o' tools yesterday. While they're fishin', Steelman'll be drillin' hell-a-mile. You got to sit up all night to beat that Coal Oil Johnny," one wrinkled little man said.

A big man in boots laced over corduroy trousers nodded. "He's smooth as a pump plunger, and he sure has luck. He can buy up a dry hole any old time and it'll be a gusher in a week. He'll bust Em Crawford high and dry before he finishes with him. Em had ought to 'a' stuck to cattle. That's one game he knows from hoof to hide."

"Sure. Em's got no business in oil. Say, do you know when they're expectin' Shiloh Number Two in?"

"She's into the sand now, but still dry as a cork leg. That's liable to put a crimp in Em's bank roll, don't you reckon?"

"Yep. Old Man Hard Luck's campin' on his trail sure enough. The banks'll be shakin' their heads at his paper soon."

The stage had stopped to take on a mailsack. Now it started again, and the rest of the talk was lost to Dave. But he had heard enough to guess that the old feud between Crawford and Steelman had taken on a new phase, one in which his friend was likely to get the worst of it.

At Malapi Dave descended from the stage into a town he hardly knew. It had the same wide main street, but the business section extended five blocks instead of one. Everywhere oil dominated the place. Hotels, restaurants, and hardware stores jostled saloons and gambling-houses. Tents had been set up in vacant lots beside frame buildings, and in them stores, rooming-houses, and lunch-counters were doing business. Everybody was in a hurry. The street was filled with men who had to sleep with one eye open lest they miss the news of some new discovery.

The town was having growing-pains. One contractor was putting down sidewalks in the same street where another laid sewer pipe and a third put in telephone poles. A branch line of a trans-continental railroad was moving across the desert to tap the new oil field. Houses rose overnight. Mule teams jingled in and out freighting supplies to Malapi and from there to the fields. On all sides were rustle, energy, and optimism, signs of the new West in the making.

Up the street a team of half-broken broncos came on the gallop, weaving among the traffic with a certainty that showed a skilled pair of hands at the reins. From the buckboard stepped lightly a straight-backed, well-muscled young fellow. He let out a moment later a surprised shout of welcome and fell upon Sanders with two brown fists.

"Dave! Where in Mexico you been, old alkali? We been lookin' for you everywhere."

"In Denver, Bob."

Sanders spoke quietly. His eyes went straight into those of Bob Hart to see what was written there. He found only a glad and joyous welcome, neither embarrassment nor any sign of shame.

"But why didn't you write and let us know?" Bob grew mildly profane in his warmth. He was as easy as though his friend had come back from a week in the hills on a deer hunt. "We didn't know when the Governor was goin' to act. Or we'd 'a' been right at the gate, me or Em Crawford one. Whyn't you answer our letters, you darned old scalawag? Dawggone, but I'm glad to see you."

Dave's heart warmed to this fine loyalty. He knew that both Hart and Crawford had worked in season and out of season for a parole or a pardon. But it's one thing to appear before a pardon board for a convict in whom you are interested and quite another to welcome him to your heart when he stands before you. Bob would do to tie to, Sanders told himself with a rush of gratitude. None of this feeling showed in his dry voice.

"Thanks, Bob."

Hart knew already that Dave had come back a changed man. He had gone in a boy, wild, turbulent, untamed. He had come out tempered by the fires of experience and discipline. The steel-gray eyes were no longer frank and gentle. They judged warily and inscrutably. He talked little and mostly in monosyllables. It was a safe guess that he was master of his impulses. In his manner was a cold reticence entirely foreign to the Dave Sanders his friend had known and frolicked with. Bob felt in him a quality of dangerous strength as hard and cold as hammered iron.

"Where's yore trunk? I'll take it right up to my shack," Hart said.

"I've rented a room."

"Well, you can onrent it. You're stayin' with me."

"No, Bob. I reckon I won't do that. I'll live alone awhile."

"No, sir. What do you take me for? We'll load yore things up on the buckboard."

Dave shook his head. "I'm much obliged, but I'd rather not yet. Got to feel out my way while I learn the range here."

To this Bob did not consent without a stiff protest, but Sanders was inflexible.

"All right. Suit yoreself. You always was stubborn as a Missouri mule," Hart said with a grin. "Anyhow, you'll eat supper with me. Le's go to the Delmonico for ol' times' sake. We'll see if Hop Lee knows you. I'll bet he does."

Hart had come in to see a contractor about building a derrick for a well. "I got to see him now, Dave. Go along with me," he urged.

"No, see you later. Want to get my trunk from the depot."

They arranged an hour of meeting at the restaurant.

In front of the post-office Bob met Joyce Crawford. The young woman had fulfilled the promise of her girlhood. As she moved down the street, tall and slender, there was a light, joyous freedom in her step. So Ellen Terry walked in her resilient prime.

"Miss Joyce, he's here," Bob said.

"Who--Dave?"

She and her father and Bob had more than once met as a committee of three to discuss the interests of Sanders both before and since his release. The week after he left Cañon City letters of thanks had reached both Hart and Crawford, but these had given no address. Their letters to him had remained unanswered nor had a detective agency been able to find him.

"Yes, ma'am, Dave! He's right here in town. Met him half an hour ago."

"I'm glad. How does he look?"

"He's grown older, a heap older. And he's different. You know what an easy-goin' kid he was, always friendly and happy as a half-grown pup. Well, he ain't thataway now. Looks like he never would laugh again real cheerful. I don't reckon he ever will. He's done got the prison brand on him for good. I couldn't see my old Dave in him a-tall. He's hard as nails--and bitter."

The brown eyes softened. "He would be, of course. How could he help it?"

"And he kinda holds you off. He's been hurt bad and ain't takin' no chances whatever, don't you reckon?"

"Do you mean he's broken?"

"Not a bit. He's strong, and he looks at you straight and hard. But they've crushed all the kid outa him. He was a mighty nice boy, Dave was. I hate to lose him."

"When can I see him?" she asked.

Bob looked at his watch. "I got an appointment to meet him at Delmonico's right now. Maybe I can get him to come up to the house afterward."

Joyce was a young woman who made swift decisions. "I'll go with you now," she said.

Sanders was standing in front of the restaurant, but he was faced in the other direction. His flat, muscular back was rigid. In his attitude was a certain tenseness, as though his body was a bundle of steel springs ready to be released.

Bob's eye traveled swiftly past him to a fat man rolling up the street on the opposite sidewalk. "It's Ad Miller, back from the pen. I heard he got out this week," he told the girl in a low voice.

Joyce Crawford felt the blood ebb from her face. It was as though her heart had been drenched with ice water. What was going to take place between these men? Were they armed? Would the gambler recognize his old enemy?

She knew that each was responsible for the other's prison sentence. Sanders had followed the thieves to Denver and found them with his horse. The fat crook had lied Dave into the penitentiary by swearing that the boy had fired the first shots. Now they were meeting for the first time since.

Miller had been drinking. The stiff precision of his gait showed that. For a moment it seemed that he would pass without noticing the man across the road. Then, by some twist of chance, he decided to take the sidewalk on the other side. The sign of the Delmonico had caught his eye and he remembered that he was hungry.

He took one step--and stopped. He had recognized Sanders. His eyes narrowed. The head on his short, red neck was thrust forward.

"Goddlemighty!" he screamed, and next moment was plucking a revolver from under his left armpit.

Bob caught Joyce and swept her behind him, covering her with his body as best he could. At the same time Sanders plunged forward, arrow-straight and swift. The revolver cracked. It spat fire a second time, a third. The tiger-man, head low, his whole splendid body vibrant with energy, hurled himself across the road as though he had been flung from a catapult. A streak of fire ripped through his shoulder. Another shot boomed almost simultaneously. He thudded hard into the fat paunch of the gunman. They went down together.

The fingers of Dave's left hand closed on the fat wrist of the gambler. His other hand tore the revolver away from the slack grasp. The gun rose and fell. Miller went into unconsciousness without even a groan. The corrugated butt of the gun had crashed down on his forehead.

Dizzily Sanders rose. He leaned against a telephone pole for support. The haze cleared to show him the white, anxious face of a young woman.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

Dave looked at Joyce, wondering at her presence here. "He's the one that's hurt," he answered quietly.

"I thought--I was afraid--" Her voice died away. She felt her knees grow weak. To her this man had appeared to be plunging straight to death.

No excitement in him reached the surface. His remarkably steady eyes still held their grim, hard tenseness, but otherwise his self-control was perfect. He was absolutely imperturbable.

"He was shootin' wild. Sorry you were here, Miss Crawford." His eyes swept the gathering crowd. "You'd better go, don't you reckon?"

"Yes.... You come too, please." The girl's voice broke.

"Don't worry. It's all over." He turned to the crowd. "He began shootin 'at me. I was unarmed. He shot four times before I got to him."

"Tha's right. I saw it from up street," a stranger volunteered. "Where do you take out yore insurance, friend? I'd like to get some of the same."

"I'll be in town here if I'm wanted," Dave announced before he came back to where Bob and Joyce were standing. "Now we'll move, Miss Crawford."

At the second street corner he stopped, evidently intending to go no farther. "I'll say good-bye, for this time. I'll want to see Mr. Crawford right soon. How is little Keith comin' on?"

She had mentioned that the boy frequently spoke of him.

"Can you come up to see Father to-night? Or he'll go to your room if you'd rather."

"Maybe to-morrow--"

"He'll be anxious to see you. I want you and Bob to come to dinner Sunday."

"Don't hardly think I'll be here Sunday. My plans aren't settled. Thank you just the same, Miss Crawford."

She took his words as a direct rebuff. There was a little lump in her throat that she had to get rid of before she spoke again.

"Sorry. Perhaps some other time." Joyce gave him her hand. "I'm mighty glad to have seen you again, Mr. Sanders."

He bowed. "Thank you."

After she had gone, Dave turned swiftly to his friend. "Where's the nearest doctor's office? Miller got me in the shoulder."

CHAPTER XVII

OIL

"I'll take off my hat to Dave," said Hart warmly. "He's chain lightnin'. I never did see anything like the way he took that street in two jumps. And game? Did you ever hear tell of an unarmed man chargin' a guy with a gun spittin' at him?"

"I always knew he had sand in his craw. What does Doc Green say?" asked Crawford, lighting a corncob pipe.

"Says nothin' to worry about. A flesh wound in the shoulder. Ought to heal up in a few days."

Miss Joyce speaking, with an indignant tremor of the voice: "It was the most cowardly thing I ever saw. He was unarmed, and he hadn't lifted a finger when that ruffian began to shoot. I was sure he would be ... killed."

"He'll take a heap o' killin', that boy," her father reassured. "In a way it's a good thing this happened now. His enemies have showed their hand. They tried to gun him, before witnesses, while he was unarmed. Whatever happens now, Dave's got public sentiment on his side. I'm always glad to have my enemy declare himself. Then I can take measures."

"What measures can Dave take?" asked Joyce.

A faint, grim smile flitted across the old cattleman's face. "Well, one measure he'll take pronto will be a good six-shooter on his hip. One I'll take will be to send Miller back to the pen, where he belongs, soon as I can get court action. He's out on parole, like Dave is. All the State has got to do is to reach out and haul him back again."

"If it can find him," added Bob dryly. "I'll bet it can't. He's headed for the hills or the border right now."

Crawford rose. "Well, I'll run down with you to his room and see the boy, Bob. Wisht he would come up and stay with us. Maybe he will."

To the cattleman Dave made light of his wound. He would be all right in a few days, he said. It was only a scratch.

"Tha's good, son," Crawford answered. "Well, now, what are you aimin' to do? I got a job for you on the ranch if tha's what you want. Or I can use you in the oil business. It's for you to say which."

"Oil," said Dave without a moment of hesitation. "I want to learn that business from the ground up. I've been reading all I could get on the subject."

"Good enough, but don't you go to playin' geology too strong, Dave. Oil is where it's at. The formation don't amount to a damn. You'll find it where you find it."

"Mr. Crawford ain't strong for the scientific sharps since a college professor got him to drill a nice straight hole on Round Top plumb halfway to China," drawled Bob with a grin.

"I suppose it's a gamble," agreed Sanders.

"Worse'n the cattle market, and no livin' man can guess that," said the owner of the D Bar Lazy R dogmatically. "Bob, you better put Dave with the crew of that wildcat you're spuddin' in, don't you reckon?"

"I'll put him on afternoon tower in place of that fellow Scott. I've been intendin' to fire him soon as I could get a good man."

"Much obliged to you both. Hope you've found that good man," said Sanders.

"We have. Ain't either of us worryin' about that." With a quizzical smile Crawford raised a point that was in his mind. "Say, son, you talk a heap more like a book than you used to. You didn't slip one over on us and go to college, did you?"

"I went to school in the penitentiary," Dave said.

He had been immured in a place of furtive, obscene whisperings, but he had found there not only vice. There was the chance of an education. He had accepted it at first because he dared not let himself be idle in his spare time. That way lay degeneration and the loss of his manhood. He had studied under competent instructors English, mathematics, the Spanish grammar, and mechanical drawing, as well as surveying and stationary engineering. He had read some of the world's best literature. He had waded through a good many histories. If his education in books was lopsided, it was in some respects more thorough than that of many a college boy.

Dave did not explain all this. He let his simple statement of fact stand without enlarging on it. His life of late years had tended to make him reticent.

"Heard from Burns yet about that fishin' job on Jackpot Number Three?" Bob asked Crawford.

"Only that he thinks he hooked the tools and lost 'em again. Wisht you'd run out in the mo'nin', son, and see what's doin'. I got to go out to the ranch."

"I'll drive out to-night and take Dave with me if he feels up to it. Then we'll know the foreman keeps humpin'."

"Fine and dandy." The cattleman turned to Sanders. "But I reckon you better stay right here and rest up. Time enough for you to go to work when yore shoulder's all right."

"Won't hurt me a bit to drive out with Bob. This thing's going to keep me awake anyhow. I'd rather be outdoors."

They drove out in the buckboard behind the half-broken colts. The young broncos went out of town to a flying start. They raced across the plain as hard as they could tear, the light rig swaying behind them as the wheels hit the high spots. Not till they had worn out their first wild energy was conversation possible.

Bob told of his change of occupation.

"Started dressin' tools on a wildcat test for Crawford two years ago when he first begun to plunge in oil. Built derricks for a while. Ran a drill. Dug sump holes. Shot a coupla wells. Went in with a fellow on a star rig as pardner. Went busted and took Crawford's offer to be handy man for him. Tha's about all, except that I own stock in two-three dead ones and some that ain't come to life yet."

The road was full of chuck holes and very dusty, both faults due to the heavy travel that went over it day and night. They were in the oil field now and gaunt derricks tapered to the sky to right and left of them. Occasionally Dave could hear the kick of an engine or could see a big beam pumping.

"I suppose most of the D Bar Lazy R boys have got into oil some," suggested Sanders.

"Every man, woman, and kid around is in oil neck deep," Bob answered. "Malapi's gone oil crazy. Folks are tradin' and speculatin' in stock and royalty rights that never could amount to a hill o' beans. Slick promoters are gettin' rich. I've known photographers to fake gushers in their dark-rooms. The country's full of abandoned wells of busted companies. Oil is a big man's game. It takes capital to operate. I'll bet it ain't onct in a dozen times an investor gets a square run for his white alley, at that."

"There are crooks in every game."

"Sure, but oil's so darned temptin' to a crook. All the suckers are shovin' money at a promoter. They don't ask his capitalization or investigate his field. Lots o' promoters would hate like Sam Hill to strike oil. If they did they'd have to take care of it. That's a lot of trouble. They can make more organizin' a new company and rakin' in money from new investors."

Bob swung the team from the main road and put it at a long rise.

"There ain't nothin' easier than to drop money into a hole in the ground and call it an oil well," he went on. "Even if the proposition is absolutely on the level, the chances are all against the investor. It's a fifty-to-one shot. Tools are lost, the casin' collapses, the cable breaks, money gives out, shootin' is badly done, water filters in, or oil ain't there in payin' quantities. In a coupla years you can buy a deskful of no-good stock for a dollar Mex."

"Then why is everybody in it?"

"We've all been bit by this get-rich-quick bug. If you hit it right in oil you can wear all the diamonds you've a mind to. That's part of it, but it ain't all. The West always did like to take a chance, I reckon. Well, this is gamblin' on a big scale and it gets into a fellow's blood. We're all crazy, but we'd hate to be cured."

The driver stopped at the location of Jackpot Number Three and invited his friend to get out.

"Make yoreself to home, Dave. I reckon you ain't sorry that fool team has quit joltin' yore shoulder."

Sanders was not, but he did not say so. He could stand the pain of his wound easily enough, but there was enough of it to remind him pretty constantly that he had been in a fight.

The fishing for the string of lost tools was going on by lamplight. With a good deal of interest Dave examined the big hooks that had been sent down in an unsuccessful attempt to draw out the drill. It was a slow business and a not very interesting one. The tools seemed as hard to hook as a wily old trout. Presently Sanders wandered to the bunkhouse and sat down on the front step. He thought perhaps he had not been wise to come out with Hart. His shoulder throbbed a good deal.

After a time Bob joined him. Faintly there came to them the sound of an engine thumping.

"Steelman's outfit," said Hart gloomily. "His li'l' old engine goes right on kickin' all the darned time. If he gets to oil first we lose. Man who makes first discovery on a claim wins out in this country."

"How's that? Didn't you locate properly?"

"Had no time to do the assessment work after we located. Dug a sump hole, maybe. Brad jumps in when the field here began to look up. Company that shows oil first will sure win out."

"How deep has he drilled?"

"We're a li'l' deeper--not much. Both must be close to the sands. We were showin' driller's smut when we lost our string." Bob reached into his hip pocket and drew out "the makings." He rolled his cigarette and lit it. "I reckon Steelman's a millionaire now--on paper, anyhow. He was about busted when he got busy in oil. He was lucky right off, and he's crooked as a dawg's hind laig--don't care how he gets his, so he gets it. He sure trimmed the suckers a-plenty."

"He and Crawford are still unfriendly," Dave suggested, the inflection of his voice making the statement a question.

"Onfriendly!" drawled Bob, leaning back against the step and letting a smoke ring curl up. "Well, tha's a good, nice parlor word. Yes, I reckon you could call them onfriendly." Presently he went on, in explanation: "Brad's goin' to put Crawford down and out if it can be done by hook or crook. He's a big man in the country now. We haven't been lucky, like he has. Besides, the ol' man's company's on the square. This business ain't like cows. It takes big money to swing. You make or break mighty sudden."

"Yes."

"And Steelman won't stick at a thing. Wouldn't trust him or any one of his crowd any further than I could sling a bull by the tail. He'd blow Crawford and me sky high if he thought he could get away with it."

Sanders nodded agreement. He hadn't a doubt of it.

With a thumb jerk toward the beating engine, Bob took up again his story. "Got a bunch of thugs over there right now ready for business if necessary. Imported plug-uglies and genuwine blown-in-the-bottle home talent. Shorty's still one of the gang, and our old friend Dug Doble is boss of the rodeo. I'm lookin' for trouble if we win out and get to oil first."

"You think they'll attack."

A gay light of cool recklessness danced in the eyes of the young oilman. "I've a kinda notion they'll drap over and pay us a visit one o' these nights, say in the dark of the moon. If they do--well, we certainly aim to welcome them proper."

CHAPTER XVIII

DOBLE PAYS A VISIT

"Hello, the Jackpot!"

Out of the night the call came to the men at the bunkhouse.

Bob looked at his companion and grinned. "Seems to me I recognize that melojious voice."

A man stepped from the gloom with masterful, arrogant strides.

"'Lo, Hart," he said. "Can you lend me a reamer?"

Bob knew he had come to spy out the land and not to borrow tools.

"Don't seem to me we've hardly got any reamers to spare, Dug," drawled the young man sitting on the porch floor. "What's the trouble? Got a kink in yore casin'?"

"Not so you could notice it, but you never can tell when you're goin' to run into bad luck, can you?" He sat down on the porch and took a cigar from his vest pocket. "What with losin' tools and one thing an' 'nother, this oil game sure is hell. By the way, how's yore fishin' job comin' on?"

"Fine, Dug. We ain't hooked our big fish yet, but we're hopeful."

Dave was sitting in the shadow. Doble nodded carelessly to him without recognition. It was characteristic of his audacity that Dug had walked over impudently to spy out the camp of the enemy. Bob knew why he had come, and he knew that Bob knew. Yet both ignored the fact that he was not welcome.

"I've known fellows angle a right long time for a trout and not catch him," said Doble, stretching his long legs comfortably.

"Yes," agreed Bob. "Wish I could hire you to throw a monkey wrench in that engine over there. Its chuggin' keeps me awake."

"I'll bet it does. Well, young fellow, you can't hire me or anybody else to stop it," retorted Doble, an edge to his voice.

"Well, I just mentioned it," murmured Hart. "I don't aim to rile yore feelin's. We'll talk of somethin' else.... Hope you enjoyed that reunion this week with yore old friend, absent far, but dear to memory ever."

"Referrin' to?" demanded Doble with sharp hostility.

"Why, Ad Miller, Dug."

"Is he a friend of mine?"

"Ain't he?"

"Not that I ever heard tell of."

"Glad of that. You won't miss him now he's lit out."

"Oh, he's lit out, has he?"

"A li'l bird whispered to me he had."

"When?"

"This evenin', I understand."

"Where'd he go?"

"He didn't leave any address. Called away on sudden business."

"Did he mention the business?"

"Not to me." Bob turned to his friend. "Did he say anything to you about that, Dave?"

In the silence one might have heard a watch tick, Doble leaned forward, his body rigid, danger written large in his burning eyes and clenched fist.

"So you're back," he said at last in a low, harsh voice.

"I'm back."

"It would 'a' pleased me if they had put a rope round yore neck, Mr. Convict."

Dave made no comment. Nobody could have guessed from his stillness how fierce was the blood pressure at his temples.

"It's a difference of opinion makes horse-races, Dug," said Bob lightly.

The big ex-foreman rose snarling. "For half a cent I'd gun you here and now like you did George."

Sanders looked at him steadily, his hands hanging loosely by his sides.

"I wouldn't try that, Dug," warned Hart. "Dave ain't armed, but I am. My hand's on my six-shooter right this minute. Don't make a mistake."

The ex-foreman glared at him. Doble was a strong, reckless devil of a fellow who feared neither God nor man. A primeval savagery burned in his blood, but like most "bad" men he had that vein of caution in his make-up which seeks to find its victim at disadvantage. He knew Hart too well to doubt his word. One cannot ride the range with a man year in, year out, without knowing whether the iron is in his arteries.

"Declarin' yoreself in on this, are you?" he demanded ominously, showing his teeth.

"I've always been in on it, Dug. Took a hand at the first deal, the day of the race. If you're lookin' for trouble with Dave, you'll find it goes double."

"Not able to play his own hand, eh?"

"Not when you've got a six-shooter and he hasn't. Not after he has just been wounded by another gunman he cleaned up with his bare hands. You and yore friends are lookin' for things too easy."

"Easy, hell! I'll fight you and him both, with or without guns. Any time. Any place."

Doble backed away till his figure grew vague in the darkness. Came the crack of a revolver. A bullet tore a splinter from the wall of the shack in front of which Dave was standing. A jeering laugh floated to the two men, carried on the light night breeze.

Bob whipped out his revolver, but he did not fire. He and his friend slipped quietly to the far end of the house and found shelter round the corner.

"Ain't that like Dug, the damned double-crosser?" whispered Bob. "I reckon he didn't try awful hard to hit you. Just sent his compliments kinda casual to show good-will."

"I reckon he didn't try very hard to miss me either," said Dave dryly. "The bullet came within a foot of my head."

"He's one bad citizen, if you ask me," admitted Hart, without reluctance. "Know how he came to break with the old man? He had the nerve to start beauin' Miss Joyce. She wouldn't have it a minute. He stayed right with it--tried to ride over her. Crawford took a hand and kicked him out. Since then Dug has been one bitter enemy of the old man."

"Then Crawford had better look out. If Doble isn't a killer, I've never met one."

"I've got a fool notion that he ain't aimin' to kill him; that maybe he wants to help Steelman bust him so as he can turn the screws on him and get Miss Joyce. Dug must 'a' been makin' money fast in Brad's company. He's on the inside."

Dave made no comment.

"I expect you was some surprised when I told Dug who was roostin' on the step so clost to him," Hart went on. "Well, I had a reason. He was due to find it out anyhow in about a minute, so I thought I'd let him know we wasn't tryin' to keep him from knowin' who his neighbor was; also that I was good and ready for him if he got red-haided like Miller done."

"I understood, Bob," said his friend quietly.

CHAPTER XIX

AN INVOLUNTARY BATH

Jackpot Number Three hooked its tools the second day after Sanders's visit to that location. A few hours later its engine was thumping merrily and the cable rising and falling monotonously in the casing. On the afternoon of the third day Bob Hart rode up to the wildcat well where Dave was building a sump hole with a gang of Mexicans.

He drew Sanders to one side. "Trouble to-night, Dave, looks like. At Jackpot Number Three. We're in a layer of soft shale just above the oil-bearin' sand. Soon we'll know where we're at. Word has reached me that Doble means to rush the night tower and wreck the engine."

"You'll stand his crowd off?"

"You're whistlin'."

"Sure your information is right?"

"It's c'rect." Bob added, after a momentary hesitation: "We got a spy in his camp."

Sanders did not ask whether the affair was to be a pitched battle. He waited, sure that Bob would tell him when he was ready. That young man came to the subject indirectly.

"How's yore shoulder, Dave?"

"Doesn't trouble me any unless something is slammed against it."

"Interfere with you usin' a six-shooter?"

"No."

"Like to take a ride with me over to the Jackpot?"

"Yes."

"Good enough. I want you to look the ground over with me. Looks now as if it would come to fireworks. But we don't want any Fourth-of-July stuff if we can help it. Can we? That's the point."

At the Jackpot the friends walked over the ground together. Back of the location and to the west of it an arroyo ran from a cañon above.

"Follow it down and it'll take you right into the location where Steelman is drillin'," explained Bob. "Dug's gonna lead his gang up the arroyo to the mesquite here, sneak down on us, and take our camp with a rush. At least, that's what he aims to do. You can't always tell, as the fellow says."

"What's up above?"

"A dam. Steelman owns the ground up there. He's got several acres of water backed up there for irrigation purposes."

"Let's go up and look it over."

Bob showed a mild surprise. "Why, yes, if you want to take some exercise. This is my busy day, but--"

Sanders ignored the hint. He led the way up a stiff trail that took them to the mouth of the cañon. Across the face of this a dam stretched. They climbed to the top of it. The water rose to within about six feet from the rim of the curved wall.

"Some view," commented Bob with a grin, looking across the plains that spread fanlike from the mouth of the gorge. "But I ain't much interested in scenery to-day somehow."

"When were you expectin' to shoot the well, Bob?"

"Some time to-morrow. Don't know just when. Why?"

"Got the nitro here yet?"

"Brought it up this mo'nin' myself."

"How much?"

"Twelve quarts."

"Any dynamite in camp?"

"Yes. A dozen sticks, maybe."

"And three gallons of nitro, you say."

"Yep."

"That's enough to do the job," Sanders said, as though talking aloud to himself.

"Yep. Tha's what we usually use."

"I'm speaking of another job. Let's get down from here. We might be seen."

"They couldn't hit us from the Steelman location. Too far," said Bob. "And I don't reckon any one would try to do that."

"No, but they might get to wondering what we're doing up here."

"I'm wonderin' that myself," drawled Hart. "Most generally when I take a pasear it's on the back of a bronc. I ain't one of them that believes the good Lord made human laigs to be walked on, not so long as any broomtails are left to straddle."

Screened by the heavy mesquite below, Sanders unfolded his proposed plan of operations. Bob listened, and as Dave talked there came into Hart's eyes dancing imps of deviltry. He gave a subdued whoop of delight, slapped his dusty white hat on his thigh, and vented his enthusiasm in murmurs of admiring profanity.

"It may not work out," suggested his friend. "But if your information is correct and they come up the arroyo--"

"It's c'rect enough. Lemme ask you a question. If you was attacktin' us, wouldn't you come that way?"

"Yes."

"Sure. It's the logical way. Dug figures to capture our camp without firin' a shot. And he'd 'a' done it, too, if we hadn't had warnin'."

Sanders frowned, his mind busy over the plan. "It ought to work, unless something upsets it," he said.

"Sure it'll work. You darned old fox, I never did see yore beat. Say, if we pull this off right, Dug's gonna pretty near be laughed outa the county."

"Keep it quiet. Only three of us need to know it. You stay at the well to keep Doble's gang back if we slip up. I'll give the signal, and the third man will fire the fuse."

"Buck Byington will be here pretty soon. I'll get him to set off the Fourth-of-July celebration. He's a regular clam--won't ever say a word about this."

"When you hear her go off, you'd better bring the men down on the jump."

Byington came up the road half an hour later at a cowpuncher's jog-trot. He slid from the saddle and came forward chewing tobacco. His impassive, leathery face expressed no emotion whatever. Carelessly and casually he shook hands. "How, Dave?"

"How, Buck?" answered Sanders.

The old puncher had always liked Dave Sanders. The boy had begun work on the range as a protégé of his. He had taught him how to read sign and how to throw a rope. They had ridden out a blizzard together, and the old-timer had cared for him like a father. The boy had repaid him with a warm, ingenuous affection, an engaging sweetness of outward respect. A certain fineness in the eager face had lingered as an inheritance from his clean youth. No playful pup could have been more friendly. Now Buck shook hands with a grim-faced man, one a thousand years old in bitter experience. The eyes let no warmth escape. In the younger man's consciousness rose the memory of a hundred kindnesses flowing from Buck to him. Yet he could not let himself go. It was as though the prison chill had encased his heart in ice which held his impulses fast.

After dusk had fallen they made their preparations. The three men slipped away from the bunkhouse into the chaparral. Bob carried a bulging gunnysack, Dave a lantern, a pick, a drill, and a hammer. None of them talked till they had reached the entrance to the cañon.

"We'd better get busy before it's too dark," Bob said. "We picked this spot, Buck. Suit you?"

Byington had been a hard-rock Colorado miner in his youth. He examined the dam and came back to the place chosen. After taking off his coat he picked up the hammer. "Le's start. The sooner the quicker."

Dave soaked the gunnysack in water and folded it over the top of the drill to deaden the sound. Buck wielded the hammer and Bob held the drill.

After it grew dark they worked by the light of the lantern. Dave and Bob relieved Buck at the hammer. They drilled two holes, put in the dynamite charges, tamped them down, and filled in again the holes. The nitroglycerine, too, was prepared and set for explosion.

Hart straightened stiffly and looked at his watch. "Time to move back to camp, Dave. Business may get brisk soon now. Maybe Dug may get in a hurry and start things earlier than he intended."

"Don't miss my signal, Buck. Two shots, one right after another," said Dave.

"I'll promise you to send back two shots a heap louder. You sure won't miss 'em," answered Buck with a grin.

The younger men left him at the dam and went back down the trail to their camp.

"No report yet from the lads watchin' the arroyo. I expect Dug's waitin' till he thinks we're all asleep except the night tower," whispered the man who had been left in charge by Hart.

"Dave, you better relieve the boys at the arroyo," suggested Bob. "Fireworks soon now, I expect."

Sanders crept through the heavy chaparral to the liveoaks above the arroyo, snaking his way among cactus and mesquite over the sand. A watcher jumped up at his approach. Dave raised his hand and moved it above his head from right to left. The guard disappeared in the darkness toward the Jackpot. Presently his companion followed him. Dave was left alone.

It seemed to him that the multitudinous small voices of the night had never been more active. A faint trickle of water came up from the bed of the stream. He knew this was caused by leakage from the reservoir in the gulch. A tiny rustle stirred the dry grass close to his hand. His peering into the thick brush did not avail to tell him what form of animal life was palpitating there. Far away a mocking-bird throbbed out a note or two, grew quiet, and again became tunefully clamorous. A night owl hooted. The sound of a soft footfall rolling a pebble brought him to taut alertness. Eyes and ears became automatic detectives keyed to finest service.

A twig snapped in the arroyo. Indistinctly movements of blurred masses were visible. The figure of a man detached itself from the gloom and crept along the sandy wash. A second and a third took shape. The dry bed became filled with vague motion. Sanders waited no longer. He crawled back from the lip of the ravine a dozen yards, drew his revolver, and fired twice.

His guess had been that the attacking party, startled at the shots, would hesitate and draw together for a whispered conference. This was exactly what occurred.

An explosion tore to shreds the stillness of the night. Before the first had died away a second one boomed out. Dave heard a shower of falling rock and concrete. He heard, too, a roar growing every moment in volume. It swept down the walled gorge like a railroad train making up lost time.

Sanders stepped forward. The gully, lately a wash of dry sand and baked adobe, was full of a fury of rushing water. Above the noise of it he caught the echo of a despairing scream. Swiftly he ran, dodging among the catclaw and the prickly pear like a half-back carrying the ball through a broken field. His objective was the place where the arroyo opened to a draw. At this precise spot Steelman had located his derrick.

The tower no longer tapered gauntly to the sky. The rush of waters released from the dam had swept it from its foundation, torn apart the timbers, and scattered them far and wide. With it had gone the wheel, dragging from the casing the cable. The string of tools, jerked from their socket, probably lay at the bottom of the well two thousand feet down.

Dave heard a groan. He moved toward the sound. A man lay on a sand hummock, washed up by the tide.

"Badly hurt?" asked Dave.

"I've been drowned intirely, swallowed by a flood and knocked galley-west for Sunday. I don't know yit am I dead or not. Mither o' Moses, phwat was it hit us?"

"The dam must have broke."

"Was the Mississippi corked up in the dom cañon?"

Bob bore down upon the scene at the head of the Jackpot contingent. He gave a whoop at sight of the wrecked derrick and engine. "Kindlin' wood and junk," was his verdict. "Where's Dug and his gang?"

Dave relieved the half-drowned man of his revolver. "Here's one. The rest must be either in the arroyo or out in the draw."

"Scatter, boys, and find 'em. Look out for them if they're hurt. Collect their hardware first off."

The water by this time had subsided. Released from the walls of the arroyo, it had spread over the desert. The supply in the reservoir was probably exhausted, for the stream no longer poured down in a torrent. Instead, it came in jets, weakly and with spent energy.

Hart called. "Come here and meet an old friend, Dave."

Sanders made his way, ankle deep in water, to the spot from which that irrepressibly gay voice had come. He was still carrying the revolver he had taken from the Irishman.

"Meet Shorty, Dave. Don't mind his not risin' to shake. He's just been wrastlin' with a waterspout and he's some wore out."

The squat puncher glared at his tormentor. "I done bust my laig," he said at last sullenly.

He was wet to the skin. His lank, black hair fell in front of his tough, unshaven face. One hand nursed the lacerated leg. The other was hooked by the thumb into the band of his trousers.

"That worries us a heap, Shorty," answered Hart callously. "I'd say you got it comin' to you."

The hand hitched in the trouser band moved slightly. Bob, aware too late of the man's intention, reached for his six-shooter. Something flew past him straight and hard.

Shorty threw up his hands with a yelp and collapsed. He had been struck in the head by a heavy revolver.

"Some throwin', Dave. Much obliged," said Hart. "We'll disarm this bird and pack him back to the derrick." They did. Shorty almost wept with rage and pain and impotent malice. He cursed steadily and fluently. He might as well have saved his breath, for his captors paid not the least attention to his spleen.

Weak as a drowned rat, Doble came limping out of the ravine. He sat down on a timber, very sick at the stomach from too much water swallowed in haste. After he had relieved himself, he looked up wanly and recognized Hart, who was searching him for a hidden six-shooter.

"Must 'a' lost yore forty-five whilst you was in swimmin', Dug. Was the water good this evenin'? I'll bet you and yore lads pulled off a lot o' fancy stunts when the water come down from Lodore or wherever they had it corralled." Dancing imps of mischief lit the eyes of the ex-cowpuncher. "Well, I'll bet the boys in town get a great laugh at yore comedy stuff. You ce'tainly did a good turn. Oh, you've sure earned yore laugh."

If hatred could have killed with a look Bob would have been a dead man. "You blew up the dam," charged Doble.

"Me! Why, it ain't my dam. Didn't Brad give you orders to open the sluices to make you a swimmin' hole?"

The searchers began to straggle in, bringing with them a sadly drenched and battered lot of gunmen. Not one but looked as though he had been through the wars. An inventory of wounds showed a sprained ankle, a broken shoulder blade, a cut head, and various other minor wounds. Nearly every member of Doble's army was exceedingly nauseated. The men sat down or leaned up against the wreckage of the plant and drooped wretchedly. There was not an ounce of fight left in any of them.

"They must 'a' blew the dam up. Them shots we heard!" one ventured without spirit.

"Who blew it up?" demanded one of the Jackpot men belligerently. "If you say we did, you're a liar."

He was speaking the truth so far as he knew. The man who had been through the waters did not take up the challenge. Officers in the army say that men will not fight on an empty stomach, and his was very empty.

"I'll remember this, Hart," Doble said, and his face was a thing ill to look upon. The lips were drawn back so that his big teeth were bared like tusks. The eyes were yellow with malignity.

"Y'betcha! The boys'll look after that, Dug," retorted Bob lightly. "Every time you hook yore heel over the bar rail at the Gusher, you'll know they're laughin' at you up their sleeves. Sure, you'll remember it."

"Some day I'll make yore whole damned outfit sorry for this," the big hook-nosed man threatened blackly. "No livin' man can laugh at me and get away with it."

"I'm laughin' at you, Dug. We all are. Wish you could see yoreself as we see you. A little water takes a lot o' tuck outa some men who are feelin' real biggity."

Byington, at this moment, sauntered into the assembly. He looked around in simulated surprise. "Must be bath night over at you-all's camp, Dug. You look kinda drookid yore own self, as you might say."

Doble swore savagely. He pointed with a shaking finger at Sanders, who was standing silently in the background. "Tha's the man who's responsible for this. Think I don't know? That jail bird! That convict! That killer!" His voice trembled with fury. "You'd never a-thought of it in a thousand years, Hart. Nor you, Buck, you old fathead. Wait. Tha's what I say. Wait. It'll be me or him one day. Soon, too."

The paroled man said nothing, but no words could have been more effective than the silence of this lean, powerful man with the close-clamped jaw whose hard eyes watched his enemy so steadily. He gave out an impression of great vitality and reserve force. Even these hired thugs, dull and unimaginative though they were, understood that he was dangerous beyond most fighting men. A laugh snapped the tension. The Jackpot engineer pointed to a figure emerging from the arroyo. The man who came dejectedly into view was large and fat and dripping. He was weeping curses and trying to pick cactus burrs from his anatomy. Dismal groans punctuated his profanity.

"It stranded me right on top of a big prickly pear," he complained. "I like never to 'a' got off, and a million spines are stickin' into me."

Bob whooped. "Look who's among us. If it ain't our old friend Ad Miller, the human pincushion. Seein' as he drapped in, we'll collect him right now and find out if the sheriff ain't lookin' for him to take a trip on the choo-choo cars."

The fat convict looked to Doble in vain for help. His friend was staring at the ground sourly in a huge disgust at life and all that it contained. Miller limped painfully to the Jackpot in front of Hart. Two days later he took the train back to the penitentiary. Emerson Crawford made it a point to see to that.

CHAPTER XX

THE LITTLE MOTHER FREES HER MIND

If some one had made Emerson Crawford a present of a carload of Herefords he could not have been more pleased than he was at the result of the Jackpot crew's night adventure with the Steelman forces. The news came to him at an opportune moment, for he had just been served notice by the president of the Malapi First National Bank that Crawford must prepare to meet at once a call note for $10,000. A few hours earlier in the day the cattleman had heard it rumored that Steelman had just bought a controlling interest in the bank. He did not need a lawyer to tell him that the second fact was responsible for the first. In fact the banker, personally friendly to Crawford, had as good as told him so.

Bob rode in with the story of the fracas in time to cheer the drooping spirits of his employer. Emerson walked up and down the parlor waving his cigar while Joyce laughed at him.

"Dawggone my skin, if that don't beat my time! I'm settin' aside five thousand shares in the Jackpot for Dave Sanders right now. Smartest trick ever I did see." The justice of the Jackpot's vengeance on its rival and the completeness of it came home to him as he strode the carpet. "He not only saves my property without havin' to fight for it--and that was a blamed good play itself, for I don't want you boys shootin' up anybody even in self-defense--but he disarms Brad's plug-uglies, humiliates them, makes them plumb sick of the job, and at the same time wipes out Steelman's location lock, stock, and barrel. I'll make that ten thousand shares, by gum! That boy's sure some stemwinder."

"He uses his haid," admitted Bob admiringly.

"I'd give my best pup to have been there," said the cattleman regretfully.

"It was some show," drawled the younger man. "Drowned rats was what they reminded me of. Couldn't get a rise out of any of 'em except Dug. That man's dangerous, if you ask me. He's crazy mad at all of us, but most at Dave."

"Will he hurt him?" asked Joyce quickly.

"Can't tell. He'll try. That's a cinch."

The dark brown eyes of the girl brooded. "That's not fair. We can't let him run into more danger for us, Dad. He's had enough trouble already. We must do something. Can't you send him to the Spring Valley Ranch?"

"Meanin' Dug Doble?" asked Bob.

She flashed a look of half-smiling, half-tender reproach at him. "You know who I mean, Bob. And I'm not going to have him put in danger on our account," she added with naïve dogmatism.

"Joy's right. She's sure right," admitted Crawford.

"Maybeso." Hart fell into his humorous drawl. "How do you aim to get him to Spring Valley? You goin' to have him hawg-tied and shipped as freight?"

"I'll talk to him. I'll tell him he must go." Her resolute little face was aglow and eager. "It's time Malapi was civilized. We mustn't give these bad men provocation. It's better to avoid them."

"Yes," admitted Bob dryly. "Well, you tell all that to Dave. Maybe he's the kind o' lad that will pack up and light out because he's afraid of Dug Doble and his outfit. Then again maybe he ain't."

Crawford shook his head. He was a game man himself. He would go through when the call came, and he knew quite well that Sanders would do the same. Nor would any specious plea sidetrack him. At the same time there was substantial justice in the contention of his daughter. Dave had no business getting mixed up in this row. The fact that he was an ex-convict would be in itself a damning thing in case the courts ever had to pass upon the feud's results. The conviction on the records against him would make a second conviction very much easier.

"You're right, Bob. Dave won't let Dug's crowd run him out. But you keep an eye on him. Don't let him go out alone nights. See he packs a gun."

"Packs a gun!" Joyce was sitting in a rocking-chair under the glow of the lamp. She was darning one of Keith's stockings, and to the young man watching her--so wholly winsome girl, so much tender but business-like little mother--she was the last word in the desirability of woman. "That's the very way to find trouble, Dad. He's been doing his best to keep out of it. He can't, if he stays here. So he must go away, that's all there is to it."

Her father laughed. "Ain't it scandalous the way she bosses us all around, Bob?"

The face of the girl sparkled to a humorous challenge. "Well, some one has got to boss you-all boys, Dad. If you'd do as I say you wouldn't have any trouble with that old Steelman or his gunmen."

"We wouldn't have any oil wells either, would we, honey?"

"They're not worth having if you and Dave Sanders and Bob have to live in danger all the time," she flashed.

"Glad you look at it that way, Joy," Emerson retorted with a rueful smile. "Fact is, we ain't goin' to have any more oil wells than a jackrabbit pretty soon. I'm at the end of my rope right now. The First National promised me another loan on the Arizona ranch, but Brad has got a-holt of it and he's called in my last loan. I'm not quittin'. I'll put up a fight yet, but unless things break for me I'm about done."

"Oh, Dad!" Her impulse of sympathy carried Joyce straight to him. Soft, rounded arms went round his neck with impassioned tenderness. "I didn't dream it was as bad as that. You've been worrying all this time and you never let me know."

He stroked her hair fondly. "You're the blamedest little mother ever I did see--always was. Now don't you fret. It'll work out somehow. Things do."

CHAPTER XXI

THE HOLD-UP

To Sanders, working on afternoon tower at Jackpot Number Three, the lean, tanned driller in charge of operations was wise with an uncanny knowledge the newcomer could not fathom. For eight hours at a stretch he stood on the platform and watched a greasy cable go slipping into the earth. Every quiver of it, every motion of the big walking-beam, every kick of the engine, told him what was taking place down that narrow pipe two thousand feet below the surface. He knew when the tools were in clay and had become gummed up. He could tell just when the drill had cut into hard rock at an acute angle and was running out of the perpendicular to follow the softer stratum. His judgment appeared infallible as to whether he ought to send down a reamer to straighten the kink. All Dave knew was that a string of tools far underground was jerking up and down monotonously.

This spelt romance to Jed Burns, superintendent of operations, though he would never have admitted it. He was a bachelor; always would be one. Hard-working, hard-drinking, at odd times a plunging gambler, he lived for nothing but oil and the atmosphere of oil fields. From one boom to another he drifted, as inevitably as the gamblers, grafters, and organizers of "fake" companies. Several times he had made fortunes, but it was impossible for him to stay rich. He was always ready to back a drilling proposition that looked promising, and no independent speculator can continue to wildcat without going broke.

He was sifting sand through his fingers when Dave came on tower the day after the flood. To Bob Hart, present as Crawford's personal representative, he expressed an opinion.

"Right soon now or never. Sand tastes, feels, looks, and smells like oil. But you can't ever be sure. An oil prospect is like a woman. She will or she won't, you never can tell which. Then, if she does, she's liable to change her mind."

Dave sniffed the pleasing, pungent odor of the crude oil sands. His friend had told him that Crawford's fate hung in the balance. Unless oil flowed very soon in paying quantities he was a ruined man. The control of the Jackpot properties would probably pass into the hands of Steelman. The cattleman would even lose the ranches which had been the substantial basis of his earlier prosperity.

Everybody working on the Jackpot felt the excitement as the drill began to sink into the oil-bearing sands. Most of the men owned stock in the company. Moreover, they were getting a bonus for their services and had been promised an extra one if Number Three struck oil in paying quantities before Steelman's crew did. Even to an outsider there is a fascination in an oil well. It is as absorbing to the drillers as a girl's mind is to her hopeful lover. Dave found it impossible to escape the contagion of this. Moreover, he had ten thousand shares in the Jackpot, stock turned over to him out of the treasury supply by the board of directors in recognition of services which they did not care to specify in the resolution which authorized the transfer. At first he had refused to accept this, but Bob Hart had put the matter to him in such a light that he changed his mind.

"The oil business pays big for expert advice, no matter whether it's legal or technical. What you did was worth fifty times what the board voted you. If we make a big strike you've saved the company. If we don't the stock's not worth a plugged nickel anyhow. You've earned what we voted you. Hang on to it, Dave."

Dave had thanked the board and put the stock in his pocket. Now he felt himself drawn into the drama represented by the thumping engine which continued day and night.

After his shift was over, he rode to town with Bob behind his team of wild broncos.

"Got to look for an engineer for the night tower," Hart explained as he drew up in front of the Gusher Saloon. "Come in with me. It's some gambling-hell, if you ask me."

The place hummed with the turbulent life that drifts to every wild frontier on the boom. Faro dealers from the Klondike, poker dealers from Nome, roulette croupiers from Leadville, were all here to reap the rich harvest to be made from investors, field workers, and operators. Smooth grafters with stock in worthless companies for sale circulated in and out with blue-prints and whispered inside information. The men who were ranged in front of the bar, behind which half a dozen attendants in white aprons busily waited on their wants, usually talked oil and nothing but oil. To-day they had another theme. The same subject engrossed the groups scattered here and there throughout the large hall.

In the rear of the room were the faro layouts, the roulette wheels, and the poker players. Around each of these the shifting crowd surged. Mexicans, Chinese, and even Indians brushed shoulders with white men of many sorts and conditions. The white-faced professional gambler was in evidence, winning the money of big brown men in miner's boots and corduroys. The betting was wild and extravagant, for the spirit of the speculator had carried away the cool judgment of most of these men. They had seen a barber become a millionaire in a day because the company in which he had plunged had struck a gusher. They had seen the same man borrow five dollars three months later to carry him over until he got a job. Riches were pouring out of the ground for the gambler who would take a chance. Thrift was a much-discredited virtue in Malapi. The one unforgivable vice was to be "a piker."

Bob found his man at a faro table. While the cards were being shuffled, he engaged him to come out next evening to the Jackpot properties. As soon as the dealer began to slide the cards out of the case the attention of the engineer went back to his bets.

While Dave was standing close to the wall, ready to leave as soon as Bob returned to him, he caught sight of an old acquaintance. Steve Russell was playing stud poker at a table a few feet from him. The cowpuncher looked up and waved his hand.

"See you in a minute, Dave," he called, and as soon as the pot had been won he said to the man shuffling the cards, "Deal me out this hand."

He rose, stepped across to Sanders, and shook hands with a strong grip. "You darned old son-of-a-gun! I'm sure glad to see you. Heard you was back. Say, you've ce'tainly been goin' some. Suits me. I never did like either Dug or Miller a whole lot. Dug's one sure-enough bad man and Miller's a tinhorn would-be. What you did to both of 'em was a-plenty. But keep yore eye peeled, old-timer. Miller's where he belongs again, but Dug's still on the range, and you can bet he's seein' red these days. He'll gun you if he gets half a chance."

"Yes," said Dave evenly.

"You don't figure to let yoreself get caught again without a six-shooter." Steve put the statement with the rising inflection.

"No."

"Tha's right. Don't let him get the drop on you. He's sudden death with a gun."

Bob joined them. After a moment's conversation Russell drew them to a corner of the room that for the moment was almost deserted.

"Say, you heard the news, Bob?"

"I can tell you that better after I know what it is," returned Hart with a grin.

"The stage was held up at Cottonwood Bend and robbed of seventeen thousand dollars. The driver was killed."

"When?"

"This mo'nin'. They tried to keep it quiet, but it leaked out."

"Whose money was it?"

"Brad Steelman's pay roll and a shipment of gold for the bank."

"Any idea who did it?"

Steve showed embarrassment. "Why, no, _I_ ain't, if that's what you mean."

"Well, anybody else?"

"Tha's what I wanta tell you. Two men were in the job. They're whisperin' that Em Crawford was one."

"Crawford! Some of Steelman's fine work in that rumor, I'll bet. He's crazy if he thinks he can get away with that. Tha's plumb foolish talk. What evidence does he claim?" demanded Hart.

"Em deposited ten thousand with the First National to pay off a note he owed the bank. Rode into town right straight to the bank two hours after the stage got in. Then, too, seems one of the hold-ups called the other one Crawford."

"A plant," said Dave promptly.

"Looks like." Bob's voice was rich with sarcasm. "I don't reckon the other one rose up on his hind laigs and said, 'I'm Bob Hart,' did he?"

"They claim the second man was Dave here."

"Hmp! What time d'you say this hold-up took place?"

"Must 'a' been about eleven."

"Lets Dave out. He was fifteen miles away, and we can prove it by at least six witnesses."

"Good. I reckon Em can put in an alibi too."

"I'll bet he can." Hart promised this with conviction.

"Trouble is they say they've got witnesses to show Em was travelin' toward the Bend half an hour before the hold-up. Art Johnson and Clem Purdy met him while they was on their way to town."

"Was Crawford alone?"

"He was then. Yep."

"Any one might'a' been there. You might. I might. That don't prove a thing."

"Hell, I know Em Crawford's not mixed up in any hold-up, let alone a damned cowardly murder. You don't need to tell _me_ that. Point is that evidence is pilin' up. Where did Em get the ten thousand to pay the bank? Two days ago he was tryin' to increase the loan the First National had made him."

Dave spoke. "I don't know where he got it, but unless he's a born fool--and nobody ever claimed that of Crawford--he wouldn't take the money straight to the bank after he had held up the stage and killed the driver. That's a strong point in his favor."

"If he can show where he got the ten thousand," amended Russell. "And of course he can."

"And where he spent that two hours after the hold-up before he came to town. That'll have to be explained too," said Bob.

"Oh, Em he'll be able to explain that all right," decided Steve cheerfully.

"Where is Crawford now?" asked Dave. "He hasn't been arrested, has he?"

"Not yet. But he's bein' watched. Soon as he showed up at the bank the sheriff asked to look at his six-shooter. Two cartridges had been fired. One of the passengers on the stage told me two shots was fired from a six-gun by the boss hold-up. The second one killed old Tim Harrigan."

"Did they accuse Crawford of the killing?"

"Not directly. He was asked to explain. I ain't heard what his story was."

"We'd better go to his house and talk with him," suggested Hart. "Maybe he can give as good an alibi as you, Dave."

"You and I will go straight there," decided Sanders. "Steve, get three saddle horses. We'll ride out to the Bend and see what we can learn on the ground."

"I'll cash my chips, get the broncs, and meet you lads at Crawford's," said Russell promptly.

CHAPTER XXII

NUMBER THREE COMES IN

Joyce opened the door to the knock of the young men. At sight of them her face lit.

"Oh, I'm so glad you've come!" she cried, tears in her voice. She caught her hands together in a convulsive little gesture. "Isn't it dreadful? I've been afraid all the time that something awful would happen--and now it has."

"Don't you worry, Miss Joyce," Bob told her cheerfully. "We ain't gonna let anything happen to yore paw. We aim to get busy right away and run this thing down. Looks like a frame-up. If it is, you betcha we'll get at the truth."

"Will you? Can you?" She turned to Dave in appeal, eyes starlike in a face that was a white and shining oval in the semi-darkness.

"We'll try," he said simply.

Something in the way he said it, in the quiet reticence of his promise, sent courage flowing to her heart. She had called on him once before, and he had answered splendidly and recklessly.

"Where's Mr. Crawford?" asked Bob.

"He's in the sitting-room. Come right in."

Her father was sitting in a big chair, one leg thrown carelessly over the arm. He was smoking a cigar composedly.

"Come in, boys," he called. "Reckon you've heard that I'm a stage rustler and a murderer."

Joyce cried out at this, the wide, mobile mouth trembling.

"Just now. At the Gusher," said Bob. "They didn't arrest you?"

"Not yet. They're watchin' the house. Sit down, and I'll tell it to you."

He had gone out to see a homesteader about doing some work for him. On the way he had met Johnson and Purdy near the Bend, just before he had turned up a draw leading to the place in the hills owned by the man whom he wanted to see. Two hours had been spent riding to the little valley where the nester had built his corrals and his log house, and when Crawford arrived neither he nor his wife was at home. He returned to the road, without having met a soul since he had left it, and from there jogged on back to town. On the way he had fired twice at a rattlesnake.

"You never reached the Bend, then, at all," said Dave.

"No, but I cayn't prove I didn't." The old cattleman looked at the end of his cigar thoughtfully. "Nor I cayn't prove I went out to Dick Grein's place in that three-four hours not accounted for."

"Anyhow, you can show where you got the ten thousand dollars you paid the bank," said Bob hopefully.

A moment of silence; then Crawford spoke. "No, son, I cayn't tell that either."

Faint and breathless with suspense, Joyce looked at her father with dilated eyes. "Why not?"

"Because the money was loaned me on those conditions."

"But--but--don't you see, Dad?--if you don't tell that--"

"They'll think I'm guilty. Well, I reckon they'll have to think it, Joy." The steady gray eyes looked straight into the brown ones of the girl. "I've been in this county boy and man for 'most fifty years. Any one that's willin' to think me a cold-blooded murderer at this date, why, he's welcome to hold any opinion he pleases. I don't give a damn what he thinks."

"But we've got to prove--"

"No, we haven't. They've got to do the proving. The law holds me innocent till I'm found guilty."

"But you don't aim to keep still and let a lot of miscreants blacken yore good name!" suggested Hart.

"You bet I don't, Bob. But I reckon I'll not break my word to a friend either, especially under the circumstances this money was loaned."

"He'll release you when he understands," cried Joyce.

"Don't bank on that, honey," Crawford said slowly.

"You ain't to mention this. I'm tellin' you three private. He cayn't come out and tell that he let me have the money. Understand? You don't any of you know a thing about how I come by that ten thousand. I've refused to answer questions about that money. That's my business."

"Oh, but, Dad, you can't do that. You'll have to give an explanation. You'll have to--"

"The best explanation I can give, Joy, is to find out who held up the stage and killed Tim Harrigan. It's the only one that will satisfy me. It's the only one that will satisfy my friends."

"That's true," said Sanders.

"Steve Russell is bringin' hawsses," said Bob. "We'll ride out to the Bend to-night and be ready for business there at the first streak of light. Must be some trail left by the hold-ups."

Crawford shook his head. "Probably not. Applegate had a posse out there right away. You know Applegate. He'd blunder if he had a chance. His boys have milled all over the place and destroyed any trail that was left."

"We'll go out anyhow--Dave and Steve and I. Won't do any harm. We're liable to discover something, don't you reckon?"

"Maybeso. Who's that knockin' on the door, Joy?"

Some one was rapping on the front door imperatively. The girl opened it, to let into the hall a man in greasy overalls.

"Where's Mr. Crawford?" he demanded excitedly.

"Here. In the sitting-room. What's wrong?"

"Wrong! Not a thing!" He talked as he followed Joyce to the door of the room. "Except that Number Three's come in the biggest gusher ever I see. She's knocked the whole superstructure galley-west an' she's rip-r'arin' to beat the Dutch."

Emerson Crawford leaped to his feet, for once visibly excited. "What?" he demanded. "Wha's that?"

"Jus' like I say. The oil's a-spoutin' up a hundred feet like a fan. Before mornin' the sump holes will be full and she'll be runnin' all over the prairie."

"Burns sent you?"

"Yep. Says for you to get men and teams and scrapers and gunnysacks and heavy timbers out there right away. Many as you can send."

Crawford turned to Bob, his face aglow. "Yore job, Bob. Spread the news. Rustle up everybody you can get. Arrange with the railroad grade contractor to let us have all his men, teams, and scrapers till we get her hogtied and harnessed. Big wages and we'll feed the whole outfit free. Hire anybody you can find. Buy a coupla hundred shovels and send 'em out to Number Three. Get Robinson to move his tent-restaurant out there."

Hart nodded. "What about this job at the Bend?" he asked in a low voice.

"Dave and I'll attend to that. You hump on the Jackpot job. Sons, we're rich, all three of us. Point is to keep from losin' that crude on the prairie. Keep three shifts goin' till she's under control."

"We can't do anything at the Bend till morning," said Dave. "We'd better put the night in helping Bob."

"Sure. We've got to get all Malapi busy. A dozen business men have got to come down and open up their stores so's we can get supplies," agreed Emerson.

Joyce, her face flushed and eager, broke in. "Ring the fire bell. That's the quickest way."

"Sure enough. You got a haid on yore shoulders. Dave, you attend to that. Bob, hit the dust for the big saloons and gather men. I'll see O'Connor about the railroad outfit; then I'll come down to the fire-house and talk to the crowd. We'll wake this old town up to-night, sons."

"What about me?" asked the messenger.

"You go back and tell Jed to hold the fort till Hart and his material arrives."

Outside, they met Russell riding down the road, two saddled horses following. With a word of explanation they helped themselves to his mounts while he stared after them in surprise.

"I'll be dawggoned if they-all ain't three gents in a hurry," he murmured to the breezes of the night. "Well, seein' as I been held up, I reckon I'll have to walk back while the hawss-thieves ride."

Five minutes later the fire-bell clanged out its call to Malapi. From roadside tent and gambling-hall, from houses and camp-fires, men and women poured into the streets. For Malapi was a shell-town, tightly packed and inflammable, likely to go up in smoke whenever a fire should get beyond control of the volunteer company. Almost in less time than it takes to tell it, the square was packed with hundreds of lightly clad people and other hundreds just emerging from the night life of the place.

The clangor of the bell died away, but the firemen did not run out the hose and bucket cart. The man tugging the rope had told them why he was summoning the citizens.

"Some one's got to go out and explain to the crowd," said the fire chief to Dave. "If you know about this strike you'll have to tell the boys."

"Crawford said he'd talk," answered Sanders.

"He ain't here. It's up to you. Go ahead. Just tell 'em why you rang the bell."

Dave found himself pushed forward to the steps of the court-house a few yards away. He had never before attempted to speak in public, and he had a queer, dry tightening of the throat. But as soon as he began to talk the words he wanted came easily enough.

"Jackpot Number Three has come in a big gusher," he said, lifting his voice so that it would carry to the edge of the crowd.

Hundreds of men in the crowd owned stock in the Jackpot properties. At Dave's words a roar went up into the night. Men shouted, danced, or merely smiled, according to their temperament. Presently the thirst for news dominated the enthusiasm. Gradually the uproar was stilled.

Again Dave's voice rang out clear as the bell he had been tolling. "The report is that it's one of the biggest strikes ever known in the State. The derrick has been knocked to pieces and the oil's shooting into the air a hundred feet."

A second great shout drowned his words. This was an oil crowd. It dreamed oil, talked oil, thought oil, prayed for oil. A stranger in the town was likely to feel at first that the place was oil mad. What else can be said of a town with derricks built through its front porches and even the graveyard leased to a drilling company?

"The sump holes are filling," went on Sanders. "Soon the oil will the running to waste on the prairie. We need men, teams, tools, wagons, hundreds of slickers, tents, beds, grub. The wages will be one-fifty a day more than the run of wages in the camp until the emergency has been met, and Emerson Crawford will board all the volunteers who come out to dig."

The speaker was lost again, this time in a buzz of voices of excited men. But out of the hubbub Dave's shout became heard.

"All owners of teams and tools, all dealers in hardware and groceries, are asked to step to the right-hand side of the crowd for a talk with Mr. Crawford. Men willing to work till the gusher is under control, please meet Bob Hart in front of the fire-house. I'll see any cooks and restaurant-men alive to a chance to make money fast. Right here at the steps."

"Good medicine, son," boomed Emerson Crawford, slapping him on the shoulder. "Didn't know you was an orator, but you sure got this crowd goin'. Bob here yet?"

"Yes. I saw him a minute ago in the crowd. Sorry I had to make promises for you, but the fire chief wouldn't let me keep the crowd waiting. Some one had to talk."

"Suits me. I'll run you for Congress one o' these days." Then, "I'll send the grocery-men over to you. Tell them to get the grub out to-night. If the restaurant-men don't buy it I'll run my own chuck wagon outfit. See you later, Dave."

For the next twenty-four hours there was no night in Malapi. Streets were filled with shoutings, hurried footfalls, the creaking of wagons, and the thud of galloping horses. Stores were lit up and filled with buyers. For once the Gusher and the Oil Pool and other resorts held small attraction for the crowds. The town was moving out to see the big new discovery that was to revolutionize its fortunes with the opening of a new and tremendously rich field. Every ancient rig available was pressed into service to haul men or supplies out to the Jackpot location. Scarcely a minute passed, after the time that the first team took the road, without a loaded wagon, packed to the sideboards, moving along the dusty road into the darkness of the desert.

Three travelers on horseback rode in the opposite direction. Their destination was Cottonwood Bend. Two of them were Emerson Crawford and David Sanders. The third was an oil prospector who had been a passenger on the stage when it was robbed.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE GUSHER

Jackpot number three had come in with a roar that shook the earth for half a mile. Deep below the surface there was a hiss and a crackle, the shock of rending strata giving way to the pressure of the oil pool. From long experience as a driller, Jed Burns knew what was coming. He swept his crew back from the platform, and none too soon to escape disaster. They were still flying across the prairie when the crown box catapulted into the sky and the whole drilling superstructure toppled over. Rocks, clay, and sand were hurled into the air, to come down in a shower that bombarded everything within a radius of several hundred yards.

The landscape next moment was drenched in black petroleum. The fine particles of it filled the air, sprayed the cactus and the greasewood. Rivulets of the viscid stuff began to gather in depressions and to flow in gathering volume, as tributaries joined the stream, into the sump holes prepared for it. The pungent odor of crude oil, as well as the touch and the taste of it, penetrated the atmosphere.

Burns counted noses and discovered that none of his crew had been injured by falling rocks or beams. He knew that his men could not possibly cope with this geyser on a spree. It was a big strike, the biggest in the history of the district, and to control the flow of the gusher would necessitate tremendous efforts on a wholesale plan.

One of his men he sent in to Malapi on horseback with a hurry-up call to Emerson Crawford, president of the company, for tools, machinery, men, and teams. The others he put to salvaging the engine and accessories and to throwing up an earth dike around the sump hole as a barrier against the escaping crude. All through the night he fought impotently against this giant that had burst loose from its prison two thousand feet below the surface of the earth.

With the first faint streaks of day men came galloping across the desert to the Jackpot. They came at first on horseback, singly, and later by twos and threes. A buckboard appeared on the horizon, the driver leaning forward as he urged on his team.

"Hart," decided the driller, "and comin' hell-for-leather."

Other teams followed, buggies, surreys, light wagons, farm wagons, and at last heavily laden lumber wagons. Business in Malapi was "shot to pieces," as one merchant expressed it. Everybody who could possibly get away was out to see the big gusher.

There was an immediate stampede to make locations in the territory adjacent. The wildcatter flourished. Companies were formed in ten minutes and the stock subscribed for in half an hour. From the bootblack at the hotel to the banker, everybody wanted stock in every company drilling within a reasonable distance of Jackpot Number Three. Many legitimate incorporations appeared on the books of the Secretary of State, and along with these were scores of frauds intended only to gull the small investor and separate him from his money. Saloons and gambling-houses, which did business with such childlike candor and stridency, became offices for the sale and exchange of stock. The boom at Malapi got its second wind. Workmen, investors, capitalists, and crooks poured in to take advantage of the inflation brought about by the new strike in a hitherto unknown field. For the fame of Jackpot Number Three had spread wide. The production guesses ranged all the way from ten to fifty thousand barrels a day, most of which was still going to waste on the desert.

For Burns and Hart had not yet gained control over the flow, though an army of men in overalls and slickers fought the gusher night and day. The flow never ceased for a moment. The well steadily spouted a stream of black liquid into the air from the subterranean chamber into which the underground lake poured.

The attack had two objectives. The first was to check the outrush of oil. The second was to save the wealth emerging from the mouth of the well and streaming over the lip of the reservoir to the sandy desert.

A crew of men, divided into three shifts, worked with pick, shovel, and scraper to dig a second and a third sump hole. The dirt from the excavation was dumped at the edge of the working to build a dam for the fluid. Sacks filled with wet sand reinforced this dirt.

Meanwhile the oil boiled up in the lake and flowed over its edges in streams. As soon as the second reservoir was ready the tarry stuff was siphoned into it from the original sump hole. By the time this was full a third pool was finished, and into it the overflow was diverted. But in spite of the great effort made to save the product of the gusher, the sands absorbed many thousands of dollars' worth of petroleum.

This end of the work was under the direction of Bob Hart. For ten days he did not take off his clothes. When he slept it was in cat naps, an hour snatched now and again from the fight with the rising tide of wealth that threatened to engulf its owners. He was unshaven, unbathed, his clothes slimy with tar and grease. He ate on the job--coffee, beans, bacon, cornbread, whatever the cooks' flunkies brought him--and did not know what he was eating. Gaunt and dominating, with crisp decision and yet unfailing good-humor, he bossed the gangs under him and led them into the fight, holding them at it till flesh and blood revolted with weariness. Of such stuff is the true outdoor Westerner made. He may drop in his tracks from exhaustion after the emergency has been met, but so long as the call for action lasts he will stick to the finish.

At the other end Jed Burns commanded. One after another he tried all the devices he had known to succeed in capping or checking other gushers. The flow was so continuous and powerful that none of these were effective. Some wells flow in jets. They hurl out oil, die down like a geyser, and presently have another hemorrhage. Jackpot Number Three did not pulse as a cut artery does. Its output was steady as the flow of water in a pipe. The heavy timbers with which he tried to stop up the outlet were hurled aside like straws. He could not check the flow long enough to get control.

On the evening of the tenth day Burns put in the cork. He made elaborate preparations in advance and assigned his force to the posts where they were to work. A string of eight-inch pipe sixty feet long was slid forward and derricked over the stream. Above this a large number of steel rails, borrowed from the incoming road, were lashed to the pipe to prevent it from snapping. The pipe had been fitted with valves of various sizes. After it had been fastened to the well's casing, these were gradually reduced to check the flow without causing a blowout in the pipe line.

Six hours later a metropolitan newspaper carried the headline:

BIG GUSHER HARNESSED; AFTER WILD RAMPAGE

Jackpot No. 3 at Malapi Tamed Long Battle Ended

CHAPTER XXIV

SHORTY

It was a surprise to Dave to discover that the horse Steve had got for him was his own old favorite Chiquito. The pinto knew him. He tested this by putting him through some of his old tricks. The horse refused to dance or play dead, but at the word of command his right foreleg came up to shake hands. He nuzzled his silky nose against the coat of his master just as in the days of old.

Crawford rode a bay, larger than a bronco. The oil prospector was astride a rangy roan. He was no horseman, but as a perpetual-motion conversationalist the old wildcatter broke records. He was a short barrel of a man, with small eyes set close together, and he made a figure of fun perched high up in the saddle. But he permitted no difficulties of travel to interfere with his monologue.

"The boss hold-up wasn't no glad-hand artist," he explained. "He was a sure-enough sulky devil, though o'course we couldn't see his face behind the mask. Blue mask it was, made outa a bandanna handkerchief. Well, rightaway I knew somethin' was liable to pop, for old Harrigan, scared to death, kep' a-goin' just the same. Maybe he hadn't sense enough to stop, as the fellow says. Maybe he didn't want to. Bang-bang! I reckon Tim was dead before he hit the ground. They lined us up, but they didn't take a thing except the gold and one Chicago fellow's watch. Then they cut the harness and p'int for the hills."

"How do you know they made for the hills?" asked Dave.

"Well, they naturally would. Anyhow, they lit out round the Bend. I hadn't lost 'em none, and I wasn't lookin' to see where they went. Not in this year of our Lord. I'm right careless at times, but not enough so to make inquiries of road agents when they're red from killin'. I been told I got no terminal facilities of speech, but it's a fact I didn't chirp from start to finish of the hold-up. I was plumb reticent."

Light sifted into the sky. The riders saw the colors change in a desert dawn. The hilltops below them were veiled in a silver-blue mist. Far away Malapi rose out of the caldron, its cheapness for once touched to a moment of beauty and significance. In that glorified sunrise it might have been a jeweled city of dreams.

The prospector's words flowed on. Crystal dawns might come and go, succeeding mist scarfs of rose and lilac, but a great poet has said that speech is silver.

"No, sir. When a man has got the drop on me I don't aim to argue with him. Not none. Tim Harrigan had notions. Different here. I've done some rough-housin'. When a guy puts up his dukes I'm there. Onct down in Sonora I slammed a fellow so hard he woke up among strangers. Fact. I don't make claims, but up at Carbondale they say I'm some rip-snorter when I get goin' good. I'm quiet. I don't go around with a chip on my shoulder. It's the quiet boys you want to look out for. Am I right?"

Crawford gave a little snort of laughter and covered it hastily with a cough.

"You know it," went on the quiet man who was a rip-snorter when he got going. "In regards to that, I'll say my observation is that when you meet a small man with a steady gray eye it don't do a bit of harm to spend a lot of time leavin' him alone. He may be good-natured, but he won't stand no devilin', take it from me."

The small man with the gray eye eased himself in the saddle and moistened his tongue for a fresh start. "But I'm not one o' these foolhardy idiots who have to have wooden suits made for 'em because they don't know when to stay mum. You cattlemen have lived a quiet life in the hills, but I've been right where the tough ones crowd for years. I'll tell you there's a time to talk and a time to keep still, as the old sayin' is."

"Yes," agreed Crawford.

"Another thing. I got an instinct that tells me when folks are interested in what I say. I've seen talkers that went right on borin' people and never caught on. They'd talk yore arm off without gettin' wise to it that you'd had a-plenty. That kind of talker ain't fit for nothin' but to wrangle Mary's little lamb 'way off from every human bein'."

In front of the riders a group of cottonwoods lifted their branches at a sharp bend in the road. Just before they reached this turn a bridge crossed a dry irrigating lateral.

"After Harrigan had been shot I came to the ditch for some water, but she was dry as a whistle. Ever notice how things are that way? A fellow wants water; none there. It's rainin' rivers; the ditch is runnin' strong. There's a sermon for a preacher," said the prospector.

The cattleman nodded to Dave. "I noticed she was dry when I crossed higher up on my way out. But she was full up with water when I saw her after I had been up to Dick Grein's."

"Funny," commented Sanders. "Nobody would want water to irrigate at this season. Who turned the water in? And why?"

"Beats me," answered Crawford. "But it don't worry me any. I've got troubles of my own."

They reached the cottonwoods, and the oil prospector pointed out to them just where the stage had been when the bandits first appeared. He showed them the bushes from behind which the robbers had stepped, the place occupied by the passengers after they had been lined up, and the course taken by the hold-ups after the robbery.

The road ran up a long, slow incline to the Bend, which was the crest of the hill. Beyond it the wheel tracks went down again with a sharp dip. The stage had been stopped just beyond the crest, just at the beginning of the down grade.

"The coach must have just started to move downhill when the robbers jumped out from the bushes," suggested Dave.

"Sure enough. That's probably howcome Tim to make a mistake. He figured he could give the horses the whip and make a getaway. The hold-up saw that. He had to shoot to kill or lose the gold. Bein' as he was a cold-blooded killer he shot." There were pinpoints of light in Emerson Crawford's eyes. He knew now the kind of man they were hunting. He was an assassin of a deadly type, not a wild cowboy who had fired in excitement because his nerves had betrayed him.

"Yes. Tim knew what he was doing. He took a chance the hold-ups wouldn't shoot to kill. Most of 'em won't. That was his mistake. If he'd seen the face behind that mask he would have known better," said Dave.

Crawford quartered over the ground. "Just like I thought, Dave. Applegate and his posse have been here and stomped out any tracks the robbers left. No way of tellin' which of all these footprints belonged to them. Likely none of 'em. If I didn't know better I'd think some one had been givin' a dance here, the way the ground is cut up."

They made a wide circle to try to pick up the trail wanted, and again a still larger one. Both of these attempts failed.

"Looks to me like they flew away," the cattleman said at last. "Horses have got hoofs and hoofs make tracks. I see plenty of these, but I don't find any place where the animals waited while this thing was bein' pulled off."

"The sheriff's posse has milled over the whole ground so thoroughly we can't be sure. But there's a point in what you say. Maybe they left their horses farther up the hill and walked back to them," Dave hazarded.

"No-o, son. This job was planned careful. Now the hold-ups didn't know whether they'd have to make a quick getaway or not. They would have their horses handy, but out of sight."

"Why not in the dry ditch back of the cotton woods?" asked Dave with a flash of light.

Crawford stared at him, but at last shook his head, "I reckon not. In the sand and clay there the hoofs would show too plain."

"What if the hold-ups knew the ditch was going to be filled before the pursuit got started?"

"You mean--?"

"I mean they might have arranged to have the water turned into the lateral to wipe out their tracks."

"I'll be dawged if you ain't on a warm trail, son," murmured Crawford. "And if they knew that, why wouldn't they ride either up or down the ditch and leave no tracks a-tall?"

"They would--for a way, anyhow. Up or down, which?"

"Down, so as to reach Malapi and get into the Gusher before word came of the hold-up," guessed Crawford.

"Up, because in the hills there's less chance of being seen," differed Dave. "Crooks like them can fix up an alibi when they need one. They had to get away unseen, in a hurry, and to get rid of the gold soon in case they should be seen."

"You've rung the bell, son. Up it is. It's an instinct of an outlaw to make for the hills where he can hole up when in trouble."

The prospector had been out of the conversation long enough.

"Depends who did this," he said. "If they come from the town, they'd want to get back there in a hurry. If not, they'd steer clear of folks. Onct, when I was in Oklahoma, a nigger went into a house and shot a white man he claimed owed him money. He made his getaway, looked like, and the whole town hunted for him for fifty miles. They found him two days later in the cellar of the man he had killed."

"Well, you can go look in Tim Harrigan's cellar if you've a mind to. Dave and I are goin' up the ditch," said the old cattleman, smiling.

"I'll tag along, seein' as I've been drug in this far. All I'll say is that when we get to the bottom of this, we'll find it was done by fellows you'd never suspect. I know human nature. My guess is no drunken cowboy pulled this off. No, sir. I'd look higher for the men."

"How about Parson Brown and the school superintendent?" asked Crawford.

"You can laugh. All right. Wait and see. Somehow I don't make mistakes. I'm lucky that way. Use my judgment, I reckon. Anyhow, I always guess right on presidential elections and prize fights. You got to know men, in my line of business. I study 'em. Hardly ever peg 'em wrong. Fellow said to me one day, 'How's it come, Thomas, you most always call the turn?' I give him an answer in one word--psycho-ology."

The trailers scanned closely the edge of the irrigation ditch. Here, too, they failed to get results. There were tracks enough close to the lateral, but apparently none of them led down into the bed of it. The outlaws no doubt had carefully obliterated their tracks at this place in order to give no starting-point for the pursuit.

"I'll go up on the left-hand side, you take the right, Dave," said Crawford. "We've got to find where they left the ditch."

The prospector took the sandy bed of the dry canal as his path. He chose it for two reasons. There was less brush to obstruct his progress, and he could reach the ears of both his auditors better as he burbled his comments on affairs in general and the wisdom of Mr. Thomas in particular.

The ditch was climbing into the hills, zigzagging up draws in order to find the most even grade. The three men traveled slowly, for Sanders and Crawford had to read sign on every foot of the way.

"Chances are they didn't leave the ditch till they heard the water comin'," the cattleman said. "These fellows knew their business, and they were playin' safe."

Dave pulled up. He went down on his knees and studied the ground, then jumped down into the ditch and examined the bank.

"Here's where they got out," he announced.

Thomas pressed forward. With one outstretched hand the young man held him back.

"Just a minute. I want Mr. Crawford to see this before it's touched."

The old cattleman examined the side of the canal. The clay showed where a sharp hoof had reached for a footing, missed, and pawed down the bank. Higher up was the faint mark of a shoe on the loose rubble at the edge.

"Looks like," he assented.

Study of the ground above showed the trail of two horses striking off at a right angle from the ditch toward the mouth of a box cañon about a mile distant. The horses were both larger than broncos. One of them was shod. One of the front shoes, badly worn, was broken and part of it gone on the left side. The riders were taking no pains apparently to hide their course. No doubt they relied on the full ditch to blot out pursuit.

The trail led through the cañon, over a divide beyond, and down into a small grassy valley.

At the summit Crawford gave strict orders. "No talkin', Mr. Thomas. This is serious business now. We're in enemy country and have got to soft-foot it."

The foothills were bristling with chaparral. Behind any scrub oak or cedar, under cover of an aspen thicket or even of a clump of gray sage, an enemy with murder in his heart might be lurking. Here an ambush was much more likely than in the sun-scorched plain they had left.

The three men left the footpath where it dipped down into the park and followed the rim to the left, passing through a heavy growth of manzanita to a bare hill dotted with scrubby sage, at the other side of which was a small gulch of aspens straggling down into the valley. Back of these a log cabin squatted on the slope. One had to be almost upon it before it could be seen. Its back door looked down upon the entrance t