Mavericks

PUNISHMENT

The cattleman strode into the bunk house, where young Sanderson sat sulkily on a bed under the persuasion of Curly's rifle.

"Have this boy's horse saddled and brought around, Curly."

"You're the doctor," answered the cowboy promptly, and forthwith vanished outdoors to obey instructions.

Phil looked sullenly at his captor, and waited for him to begin. One of his hands was under the pillow of the cot upon which he sat. His fingers circled the butt of a revolver he had found there, where one of the riders had chanced to leave it that morning.

"I'm going to turn you loose to go home to the hills," Weaver told him.

"And my sister?"

"She stays here."

"Then so do I."

"That's up to you. There's no law against camping on the plains—that is, out of range of the Twin Star."

"What are you going to do with her?" the boy demanded ominously.

"If you ask no questions, I'll tell you no lies."

"You'll let her go home with me—that's what you'll do," cried Phil.

"I reckon not. You've got a license to feel lucky you're going yourself."

"By God, I say you shall!"

The cattleman's eyes took on their stony, snake-like look. His hand did not move by so much as an inch toward the scabbarded revolver at his side.

"All right. Come a-shooting. I see you've got a gun under that pillow."

The weapon leaped into sight. "You're right I have! I'll drill you full of holes as soon as wink."

Weaver laughed contemptuously. "Begin pumping, son."

"I'm going to take my sister home with me. You'll give orders to your men to that effect."

"Guess again."

"I tell you I'll shoot your hide full of holes if you don't!" cried the excited boy.

"Oh, no, you won't."

Buck Weaver was flirting with death, and he knew it. The very breath of it fanned his cheek. During that moment he lived gloriously; for he was a man who revelled in his sensations. He laughed into the very muzzle of the six-shooter that covered him.

"Quit your play acting, boy," he jeered.

"I give you one more chance before I blow out your brains."

The cattleman put his unwounded hand into his trousers pocket and lounged forward, thrusting his smiling face against the cold rim of the blue barrel.

"I reckon you'll scatter proper what few brains I've got."

With a curse, the boy flung the weapon down on the bed. He could not possibly kill a man so willing as this. To draw guns with him, and chance the issue, would have suited young Sanderson exactly. But this way would be no less than murder.

"You devil!" he cried, with a boyish sob.

Weaver picked up the revolver, and examined it. "Mighty careless of Ned to leave it lying around this way," he commented absently, as if unaware of the other's rage. "You never can tell when a gun is going to get into the wrong hands."

"What are you letting me go for? You've got a reason. What is it?" Phil demanded.

Weaver looked at him through narrowed, daredevil eyes. "The ransom price has been paid," he explained.

"Paid! Who paid it?"

"Miss Phyllis Sanderson."

"Phyllis?" repeated the boy incredulously. "But she had no money."

"Did I say she paid it in money?"

"What do you mean?"

"She asked me to set you free. I named my price, and she agreed."

"What was your price?" the boy asked hoarsely.

"A kiss."

At that, Phil struck him full in the sardonic, mocking face. Blood crimsoned the lips that had been crushed against the strong, white teeth.

"Again," said Weaver.

The brown fist went back and shot forward like a piston rod. This time it left an ugly gash over the cheek bone.

"Much obliged. Once more."

The young man balanced himself carefully, and struck hard and true between the eyes.

A third, a fourth, and a fifth time Phil lashed out at the disfigured, grinning face.

"Let's make it an even half dozen," the cattleman suggested.

But Phil had had enough of it. This was too much like butchery. His passion had spent itself. He struck, but with no force behind the blow.

Weaver went to the washstand, dashed some water on his face, and pressed a towel against the raw wounds. He flung the red-soaked towel aside just as Curly cantered up on Sanderson's horse. The cow-puncher stared at his boss in amazement, opened his lips to speak, and thought better of it. He looked at Phil, whose knuckles were badly barked and bleeding.

Curly had seen his master marked up before, but on such occasions the other man was a sight for the gods to wonder at. Now Weaver was the spectacle, and the other was untouched. In view of Buck's reputation as a rough-and-tumble fighter, this seemed no less than a miracle. Curly departed with the wonder unexplained, for Weaver dismissed him with a nod.

"Like to see your sister before you go?" the cattleman asked curtly of Phil, over his shoulder.

"Yes."

Buck led the way across the plaza to the house, and clapped his hands in the hall. Josephine answered the summons.

"Tell Miss Sanderson that her brother would like to see her."

The woman vanished up the stairway, and the two men waited in silence. Presently Phyllis stood in the door. Her eyes ignored Weaver, and were only for her brother. Her first glance told her that all was well so far as he was concerned, even though it also let her know that the boy was anxious.

"Phil!" she breathed.

"So you bought my freedom for me, did you?" the boy said, his voice trembling.

Phyllis answered in the clearest of low voices. "Yes. Did he tell you?"

"You oughtn't to have done it. I'll have no such bargains made. Understand that!" cried her brother, emotion in his high tones.

"I couldn't help it, Phil. I did it for the best. You don't know."

"I know that you're to keep out of this. I'll fight my own battles. In our family the girls don't sell kisses. Remember that."

Phyl hung her head. She felt herself disgraced, but she knew that she would do it again in like circumstances.

Weaver broke in roughly: "You young fool! She's worth a dozen of you, who haven't sense enough to sabe her kind."

The girl glanced at him involuntarily. At sight of his swollen and beaten face, she started. Her gaze clung to him, eyes wild and fluttering with apprehension.

"I've been taking a massage treatment," he explained.

Phyllis looked at her brother, then back at the ranchman. The thing was beyond comprehension. Ten minutes ago, this ferocious Hercules had left her, sound and unscratched. Now he returned with a face beaten and almost beyond recognition from bloodstains.

"What—what is it?" The appeal was to her brother.

"He let me beat him," Phil explained.

"Let you beat him! Why?"

"I don't know."

What the boy said was true, yet it was something less than the truth. He was dimly aware that this man knew himself to have violated the code, and that he had submitted to punishment because of the violation.

"Tell me," Phyllis commanded.

Phil told her in three sentences. She looked at Weaver with eyes that saw him in a new light. He still sneered, but behind the mask she got for the first time a glimpse of another man. Only dimly she divined him; but what she visioned was half devil and half hero, capable of things great as well as of deeds despicable.

"I'm not going to leave you here in this house," young Sanderson told her. "I'll not go. If you stay, I stay."

She shook her head. "No, Phil—you must go. I'm all right here—as safe as I would be at home. You know, he has a right to send me to prison if he wants to. I suppose he is holding me as a hostage against our friends in the hills."

The boy accepted her decree under protest. He did not know what else to do. Decision comes only with age, and he could hit on no policy that would answer. Reluctantly he gave way.

"If you so much as touch her, you'll die for it," he gulped at Weaver, in a sudden boyish passion. "We'll shoot you down like a dog."

"Or a coyote," suggested Buck, with a swift glance at Phyllis. "It seems to be a family habit. I'm much obliged to you."

Phyl was in her brother's arms, frankly in tears.

It was all very well to tell him to go; it was quite another thing to let him go without a good cry at losing him.

"Just say the word, and I'll see it out with you, sis," he told her.

"No, no! I want you to go. I wouldn't have you stay. Tell the boys it's all right, and don't let them do anything rash."

Sanderson clenched his teeth, and looked at Weaver. "Oh, they'll do nothing rash. Now they know you're here, they won't do a thing but sit down and be happy, I expect."

The twins whispered together for a minute, then the boy kissed her, put her from him suddenly, and strode away. From the door he called back two words at the cattleman.

"Don't forget."

With that, he was gone. Yet a moment, and they heard the clatter of his horse's hoofs.

"Why did you tell him?" Phyllis asked. "It will only anger them. Now they will seek vengeance on you."

The man shrugged his shoulders. "Search me. Perhaps I wanted to prove to myself that a man may be a mean bully, and not all coyote. Perhaps I wanted to get under his hide. Who knows?"

She knew, in part. He had treated her abominably, and wanted blindly to pay for it in the first way that came to his mind. Half savage as he sometimes was, that way had been to stand up to personal punishment, to invite retaliation from his enemies.

"You must have your face looked to. Shall I call Josephine?"

"No," he answered harshly.

"I think I will. We can help it, I'm sure."

That "we" saved the day. He let her call the Mexican woman, and order warm water, towels, dressings, and adhesive plaster. It seemed to him more than a fancy that there was healing in the cool, soft fingers which washed his face and adjusted the bandages. His eyes, usually so hard, held now the dumb hunger one sees in those of a faithful dog. They searched hers for something which he knew he would never find in them.

INTO THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY

A man lay on the top of Flat Rock, stretched at supple ease. By his side was a carbine; in his hand a pair of field glasses. These last had been trained upon Twin Star Ranch for some time, but were now focused upon a pair of approaching riders. At the edge of the young willow grove the two dismounted and came forward leisurely.

"Looks like the mountains are coming to Mahomet this trip," the watcher told himself.

One figure was that of a girl—a brown, light-stepping nymph, upon whom the checkered sunlight filtered through the leaves. The other was a finely built man, strong as an ox, but with the sap of youth still in his blood and the spring of it in his step, in spite of his nearly twoscore years. He stopped at the foot of Flat Rock, and turned to his companion.

"I've been wondering why you went riding with me yesterday and again to-day, Miss Phyllis. I reckon I've hit on the reason."

"I like to ride."

"Yes, but I expect you don't like to ride with me so awful much."

"Yet you see I do," answered the girl with her swift, shy smile.

"And the reason is that you know I would be riding, anyway. You don't want any of your people from the hills to use me as a mark. With you along, they couldn't do it."

"My people don't shoot from ambush," she told him hotly. It was easy to send her gallant spirit out in quick defense of her kindred.

He looked at his arm, still resting in a sling, and smiled significantly.

She colored. "That was an impulse," she told him.

"And you're guarding me from any more family impulses like it." He grinned. "Not that it flatters me so much, either. I've got a notion tucked in the back of my head that you're watching me like a hen does her one chick, for their sake and not for mine. Right guess, I'll bet a dollar. How about it, Miss Sanderson?"

"Yes," she admitted. "At least, most for them."

"You'd like to call the chase off for the sake of the hunters, and not for the sake of the coyote."

"I wish you wouldn't throw that word up to me. I oughtn't to have said that. Please!"

"All right—I won't. It isn't your saying it, but thinking it, that hurts."

"I don't think it."

"You think I'm entirely to blame in this trouble with your people. Don't dodge. You know you think I'm a bully."

"I think you're very arbitrary," she replied, flushing.

"Same thing, I reckon. Maybe I am. Did you ever hear my side of the story?"

"No. I'll listen, if you will tell me."

Weaver shook his head. "No—I guess that wouldn't be playing fair. You're on the other side of the fence. That's where you belong. Come to that, I'm no white-winged angel, anyhow. All that's said of me—most of it, at least—I sure enough deserve."

"I wonder," she mused, smiling at him.

Scarcely a week before, she had been so immature that even callow Tom Dixon had seemed experienced beside her. Now she was a young woman in bloom, instinctively sure of herself, even without experience to guide her. Though he had never said so, she knew quite well that this berserk of the plains had begun to love her with all the strength of his untamed heart. She would have been less than human had it not pleased her, even though, at the same time, it terrified her.

Buck swept his hand around the horizon. "Ask anybody. They'll all give me the same certificate of character. And I reckon they ain't so far out, either," he added grimly.

"Perhaps they are all right, and yet all wrong too."

He looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"Maybe they don't see the other side of you" said Phyllis gently.

"How do you know there's another side?"

"I don't know how, but I do."

"I reckon it must be a right puny one."

"It has a good deal to fight against, hasn't it?"

"You're right it has. There's a devil in me that gets up on its hind legs and strangles what little good it finds. But it certainly beats me how you know so much that goes on inside a sweep like me."

"You forget. I'm not very good myself. You know my temper runs away with me, too."

"You blessed lamb!" she heard him say under his breath; and the way he said it made the exclamation half a groan.

For her naive confession emphasized the gulf between them. Yet it pleased him mightily that she linked herself with him as a fellow wrongdoer.

"I suppose you've been wondering why your people have made no attempt to rescue you," he said presently; for he saw her eyes were turned toward the hills beyond which lay her home.

"I'm glad they haven't, because it must have made trouble; but I am surprised," she confessed.

"They have tried it—twice," he told her. "First time was Saturday morning, just before daylight. We trapped them as they were coming through the Box Cañon. I knew they would come down that way, because it was the nearest; so I was ready for them."

"And what happened?" Her dilated eyes were like those of a stricken doe.

"Nothing that time. I let them see I had them caught. They couldn't go forward or back. They laid down their arms, and took the back trail. There was no other way to escape being massacred."

"And the second time?"

Buck hesitated. "There was shooting that time. It was last night. My riders outnumbered them and had cover. We drove them back."

"Anybody hurt?" cried Phyllis.

"One of them fell. But he got up and ran limping to his horse, I figured he wasn't hurt badly."

"Was he—could you tell—" She leaned against the rock wall for support.

"No—I didn't know him. He was a young fellow. But you may be sure he wasn't hit mortally. I know, because I shot him myself."

"You!" She drew back in a sudden sick horror of him.

"Why not?" he answered doggedly. "They were shooting at me—aiming to kill, too. I shot low on purpose, when I might have killed him."

"Oh, I must go home—I must go home!" she moaned.

"I've got the sheriff's orders to hold you pending an investigation. What harm does it do you to stay here a while?" he asked doggedly.

"Don't you see? When my father hears of it he will be furious. I made Phil promise not to tell him. But he'll hear when he comes back. And then—there will be trouble. He'll drag me from you, or he'll die trying. He's that kind of man."

A pebble rolled down the face of the wall against which she leaned. Weaver looked up quickly—to find himself covered by a carbine.

"Hands up, seh! No—don't reach for a gun."

"So it's you, Mr. Keller! Homesteading up there, I presume?"

"In a way of speaking. You remember I asked you a question."

"And I told you to go to Halifax."

"Well, I came back to answer the question myself. You're going to turn the young lady loose."

"If you say so." Weaver's voice carried an inflection of sarcasm.

"That's what I say. Miss Sanderson, will you kindly unbuckle that belt and round up the weapons of war? Good enough! I'll drift down that way now myself."

Keller lowered himself from Flat Rock, keeping his prisoner covered as carefully as he could the while. But, though Keller came down the steep bluff with infinite pains, the rough going offered a chance of escape to one so reckless as Weaver, of which he made not the least attempt to avail himself. Instead, he smiled cynically and waited with his hand in the air, as bidden. Keller, coming forward with both eyes on his prisoner, slipped on a loose boulder that rolled beneath his foot, stumbled, and fell, almost at the feet of the cattleman. He got up as swiftly as a cat. Weaver and his derisive grin were in exactly the same position.

Keller lowered his carbine instantly. This plainly was no case for the coercion of arms.

"We'll cut out the gun play," he said. "Better rest the hand that's reaching for the sky. I expect hostilities are over."

"You certainly had me scared stiff," Weaver mocked.

From the first roll of the pebble that had announced the presence of a third party, Phyl had experienced surprise after surprise. She had expected to see one of the Seven Mile boys or her brother instead of Keller—had looked with a quaking heart for the cattleman to fling back the swift challenge of a bullet. His tame surrender had amazed her, especially when Keller's fall had given him a chance to seize the carbine. His drawling, sarcastic badinage pointed to the same conclusion. Evidently he had no desire to resist. Behind this must be some purpose which she could not fathom.

"Elected yourself chaperon of the young lady, have you, Mr. Keller?" Buck asked pleasantly.

The young man smiled at the girl before he answered. "You've been losing too much time on the job, Mr. Weaver. Subject to her approval, I got a notion I'd take her back home."

"Best place for her," assented Weaver promptly. "I've been thinking for a day or two that she ought to get back to those school kids of hers. But I'm going to take her there myself."

"Yourself!" Phyllis spoke up in quick surprise.

"Why not?" The cattleman smiled.

"Do you mean with your band of thugs?"

"No, ma'am. You and I will be enough."

The suggestion was of a piece with his usual audacity. The girl knew that he would be quite capable of riding with her into the hills, where he had a score of bitter, passionate enemies, and of affronting them, if the notion should come into his head, even in their stronghold. Within twenty-four hours he had shot one of them; yet he would go among them with his jaunty, mocking smile and that hateful confidence of his.

"You would not be safe. They might kill you."

"Would that gratify you?"

"Yes!" she cried passionately.

He bowed. "Anything to give pleasure to a lady."

"No—you can't go! I won't go with you. I wouldn't be responsible for what might happen."

"What might happen—another family impulse?"

"You know as well as I do—after what you've done. And there's bad blood between you already. Besides, you are so reckless, so intemperate in what you say and do."

"All right. If you won't go with me, I'll go alone," he said.

She appealed to Keller to support her, but the latter shook his head.

"No use. A wilful man must have his way. If he says he's going, I reckon he'll go. But whyfor should I be euchred out of my ride. Let me go along to keep the peace."

Her eyes thanked him. "If you are sure you can spare the time."

"Don't incommode yourself, if you're in a hurry. We won't miss you." Weaver's cold stare more than hinted that three would be a crowd.

The younger man ignored him cheerfully. "Time to burn, Miss Sanderson."

"You don't want to let that spring plowing suffer," the cattleman suggested ironically.

"That's so. Glad you mentioned it. I'll try to pick up some one to do it at the store," returned the optimist.

"Seems to me there are a pair of us, Mr. Keller, who may not be welcome at Seven Mile. Last time you were down there, weren't you the guest of some willing lads who were arranging a little party for you?"

"Mr. Weaver," reproached Phyllis, flushing.

But the reference did not embarrass the nester in the least. He laughed hardily, meeting his rival eye to eye. "The boys did have notions, but I expect maybe they have got over them."

"Nothing like being hopeful. Now I'd back my show against yours every day in the week."

The girl handed his revolver back to Weaver, after first asking a question of the homesteader with her eyes.

"Oh, I get my hardware back, do I?" Buck grinned.

Keller brought his horse round from back of Flat Rock, where it had been picketed. They started at once, cutting across the plain to a flat butte, which thrust itself out from the hills into the valley. Two hours of steady travel brought them to the butte, behind which lay Seven Mile ranch.

At the first glimpse of the roofs shining in the golden sunlight Phyllis gave a cry of delight.

"Home again. I wonder whether Father's here."

"I wonder," echoed Weaver grimly.

"That little fellow riding into the corral is one of my scholars," she told them.

"One of the fourteen that loves you, Miss Going-On-Eighteen. My, there'll be joy in Israel over the lost that is found. I reckon by to-morrow you'll be teaching the young idea how to shoot." He glanced down at his bandaged arm with a malicious grin.

Phyllis looked at him without speaking. It was Keller who made application of the remark.

"There are others here beside her pupils. Some of them are right quick and straight on the shoot, Mr. Weaver. Now you've seen Miss Sanderson home, there's still time to make your getaway without trouble. How about hitting the trail while travelling is good, seh?"

"What's the matter with you taking your own advice, Keller?"

"I don't figure the need is pressing in my case. Different with you."

"I told you I would back my chances against yours. Well, I'm standing pat on that."

"The road will be open to me to-morrow. I wonder will it be open to you then."

"My friend, who elected you guardeen to Buck Weaver?" drawled the big man carelessly.

"I wish you would go," Phyllis pleaded, plainly troubled over his obstinacy.

"Me, I always hated to disoblige a lady," Buck admitted.

"Then go," she cried eagerly.

"But I hate still more to go back on my word. So I'll stay."

There was nothing more to be said. They rode forward to the ranch. 'Rastus, at the stables, raised a shout and broke for the store on the run.

"Hyer's Miss Phyl done come home."

At his call light-stepping dusty men poured from the building like seeds from a squeezed orange. There was a rush for the girl. She was lifted from her saddle and carried in triumph to the porch. Jim Sanderson came running from the cellar in the rear and buried her in his arms.

She broke down and began to cry a little. "Oh, Dad—Dad, I'm so glad to be home."

The old Confederate veteran was close to tears himself.

"Honey, I jes' got back from town. Phil, he done wrong not letting me know. I come pretty nigh giving that boy the bud. Wait till I meet up with Buck Weaver. It's him or me for suah this time."

"No, Dad, no! You must let me explain. I've been quite safe, and it's all over now. Everything is all right."

"Is it?" Sanderson laughed harshly.

"The sheriff telephoned him to keep me, but you see he brought me home."

"Brought you home?" The sheepman's black eyes lifted quickly and met those of his enemy.

"So you're there, Buck Weaver. I reckon you and I will settle accounts."

Phil and Tom Dixon had quietly circled round so as to cut off Weaver's retreat in case he attempted one.

"He's got the rustler with him," Tom Dixon cried quickly.

"Goddlemighty, so he has. We'll make a clean sweep," the Southerner cried, his eyes blazing.

"Then you'll destroy the man who was ready to give his life for mine," his daughter said quietly.

"What's that? How's that, Phyllie?"

"It's a long story. I want you to hear it all. But not here."

Her voice fell. A sudden memory had come to her of one thing at least that she could not tell even to him—the story of that moment when she had lain in the arms of the nester with his heart beating against her breast.

The old man caught her by the shoulder, holding her at arm's length, while the deep eyes under his shaggy, grizzled brows pierced her.

"What have you got to tell me, gyurl? Out with it!"

But on the heels of his imperative demand came reassurance. A tide of color poured into her face, but her eyes met his quietly. They let him understand, more certainly than words, that all was well with his ewe lamb. Putting her gently to one side, he strode toward his enemy.

"What are you doing here, Buck Weaver?"

The cattleman swept the circle of lowering faces, and laughed contemptuously. "A man might think I wasn't welcome if he didn't know better."

"Oh, you're welcome—I reckon nobody on earth is more welcome right now," retorted Sanderson grimly. "We were starting right out after you, seh. But seeing you're here it saves trouble. Better 'light, you and your friend, both."

The declining sun flashed on three weapons that already covered the cattleman. He looked easily from one to another, without the least concern, and swung lightly from his horse.

"Much obliged. Glad to accept your hospitality. But about this young man here—he's not exactly a friend of mine—a mere pick-up acquaintance, in fact. You mustn't accept him on my say-so. Of course, you know I'm all right, but I can't guarantee him," Buck drawled, with magnificent effrontery.

Phyllis spoke up unexpectedly. "I can."

Keller looked at her gratefully. It was not that he cared so much for the certificate of character as for the friendly spirit that prompted it. "That's right kind of you," he nodded.

"We haven't heard yet what you are doing here, Buck Weaver," old Jim Sanderson said, holding the cattleman with a hard and hostile eye. "And after you've explained that, there are a few other things to make clear."

"Such as——" suggested the plainsman.

"Such as keeping my daughter a captive and insulting her while she was in your house," the father retorted promptly.

"I held her captive because it was my right. She admitted shooting me. Would you expect me to turn her loose, and thank her right politely for it? I want to tell you that some folks would be right grateful because I didn't send her to the penitentiary."

"You couldn't send her there. No jury in Arizona would convict—even if she were guilty," Tom Dixon broke out.

"That's a frozen fact about the Arizona jury," the cattleman agreed, with a swift, careless look at the boy. "Just the same, I had a license to hold her. About the insult—well, I've got nothing to say. Nothing except this, that I wouldn't be wearing these decorations"—he touched the scars on his face—"if I didn't agree with you that nobody but a sweep would have done it."

"Everybody unanimous on that point, I reckon," said Jim Yeager promptly.

Phyllis had been speaking to her father in a low voice. The old man listened with no great patience, but finally nodded a concession to her importunity.

"We'll waive the matter of the insult just now. How about that boy you shot up? Looks like you're a fool to come drilling in here, with him still lying there on his bed."

"He took his fighting chance. You ain't kicking because I played out the game the way you-all started to play it? If you are, I'll have to say I might have expected a sheep herder to look at it that way," Weaver retorted insolently.

The old man took a grip on his rising wrath. "No—we're not kicking, any more than you've got a right to kick when we settle accounts with you."

"As we're liable to do right shortly, now we've got you," said Dixon, vindictively.

"All right—go ahead with the indictment," Weaver acquiesced quietly, ignoring the boy.

"Keep still, Tom," Sanderson ordered, and went on with his grievance. "You try to run this valley as if you were God Almighty. By your way of it, a man has to come with hat in hand to ask you if he may take up land here. The United States says we may homestead, but Buck Weaver says we shan't. Uncle Sam says we may lease land to run sheep. Buck Weaver has another notion of it. We're to take orders from him. If we don't he clubs our sheep and drives off our cattle."

"Cattle were here first," retorted Weaver. "The range is overstocked, and they've got a prior right. Nesters in the hills here are making money by rustling Twin Star calves. That's another thing."

"Some of them. You'll not find any rustled calves with the Seven Mile brand on them. And we don't recognize any prior right. We came here legally. We intend to stay. Every time your riders club a bunch of our sheep, we'll even up on Twin Star cattle. You take my daughter captive; I hold you prisoner."

"You'll be in luck if you get away from here with a whole skin," broke out Phil. "You came here to please yourself, but you'll stay to please us."

"So?" Buck smiled urbanely. He was staying because he wanted to, though they never guessed it.

"Unbuckle his gun belt, Tom," ordered the old man.

"Save you the trouble." Weaver unbuckled the belt and tossed it, revolver and all, to Yeager.

"Now, Mr. Weaver, we'll adjourn to the house."

"Anything to oblige."

"What about Mr. Keller?" Phyllis asked, in a low voice, of her father.

The old man's keen, hard eyes surveyed the stranger. "Who is he? What do you know about him?"

As shortly as she could, she told what she knew of Keller, and how he had rescued her from captivity.

Her father strode forward and shook hands with the young man.

"Make yourself at home, seh. We'll be glad to have you stay with us as long as you can. What you have done for my daughter puts us everlastingly in your debt."

"Not worth mentioning. And, to be fair, I think Weaver was going to bring her home, anyhow."

"The way the story reached me, he didn't mention it until you had the drop on him," answered Sanderson dryly.

"That's right," nodded the cattleman ironically, from the porch. "You're the curly-haired hero, Keller, and I'm the red-headed villain of this play. You want to beware of the miscreant, Miss Sanderson, or he'll sure do you a meanness."

Tom Dixon eyed him frostily. "I expect you'll not do her any meanness, Buck Weaver. From now on, you'll go one way and she'll go another. You'll be strangers."

"You don't say!" Buck answered, looking him over derisively, as he passed into the house. "You're crowing loud for your size. And don't you bet heavy on that proposition, my friend."

TOM DIXON

With whoops and a waving of caps boys burst out of one door, while girls came out of the opposite one more demurely, but with the piping of gay soprano voices. For school was out, and young America free of restraint for eighteen hours at least. Resilient youth, like a coiled spring that has been loosed, was off with a bound. Horses were saddled or put to harness. The teacher came to the door, hand in hand with six-year-olds, who clung to her with fond good-bys before they climbed into the waiting buggies. The last straggler disappeared behind the dip in the road.

The girl teacher turned from waving her fare-wells—to meet the eyes of a young man fastened upon her. Light-blue eyes they were, set in a good-looking, boyish face, that had somehow an effect of petulancy. It was not a strong face, yet it was no weaker than nine out of ten that one meets daily.

"Got rid of your kiddies, Phyl?" the young man asked, with an air of cheerful confidence that seemed to be assumed to cover a doubt.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "They have just gone—all but little Jimmie Tryon. He rides home with me."

"Hang it! We never seem to be alone any more since you came back," complained the man.

"Why should we?" asked the young woman, her gaze apparently as frank and direct as that of a boy.

But he understood it for a challenge. "You didn't use to talk that way. You used to be glad enough to see me alone," he flung out.

"Did I? One outgrows childish follies, I suppose," she answered quietly.

"What's the matter with you?" he cried angrily. "It's been this way ever since——"

He broke off.

A faint, scornful smile touched her lips. "Ever since when, Tom?"

"You know when well enough. Ever since I shot Buck Weaver."

"And left me to pay forfeit," she suggested quickly, and as quickly broke off. "Hadn't we better talk of something else? I've tried to avoid this. Must we thrash it out?"

"You can't throw me over like that, after what's been between us. I reckon you pretend to have forgotten that I used to keep company with you."

A flush of annoyance glowed through the tan of her cheeks, but her eyes refused to yield to his. "Nonsense! Don't talk foolishness, Tom. We were just children."

"Do you mean that everything's all off between us?"

"We made a mistake. Let us be good friends and forget it, Tom," she pleaded.

"What's the use of talking that way, Phyl?" He swung from the saddle, and came toward her eagerly. "I love you—always have since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. We're going to be married one of these days."

She held up a hand to keep him back. "No—we're not. I know now that you're not the right man for me, and I'm not the right girl for you."

"I'm the best judge of that," he retorted.

She shook her head with certainty. It seemed a lifetime since this boy had kissed her at the dance and she had run, tingling, from his embrace. She felt now old enough in experience to be his mother.

"No, Tom—let us both forget it. Go back to your other girls, and let me be just a friend."

"I haven't any other girls," he answered sullenly. "And I won't be put off like that. You've got to tell me what has come between us. I've got a right to know, and I'm going to know."

"Yes, you have a right—but don't press it. Just let it go at this: I didn't know my own mind then, and I do now."

"It's something about the shooting of Buck Weaver," he growled uneasily.

She was silent.

"Well?" he demanded. "Out with it!"

"I couldn't marry a man I don't respect from the bottom of my heart," she told him gently.

"That's a dig at me, I reckon. Why don't you respect me? Is it because I shot Weaver?"

"You shot him from ambush."

"I didn't!" he protested angrily. "You know that ain't so, Phyl. I saw him riding down there, as big as coffee, and I let him have it. I wasn't lying in wait for him at all. It just came over me all of a heap to shoot, and I shot before——"

"I understand that. But you shouldn't have shot without giving warning, even if it was right to shoot at all—which, of course, it wasn't."

"Well, say I did wrong. Can't you forgive a fellow for making a mistake?"

"It isn't a question of forgiveness, Tom. Somehow it goes deeper than that. I can't tell you just what I mean."

"Haven't I told you I'm sorry?" he demanded, with boyish impatience.

"Being sorry isn't enough. If you can't see it then I can't explain."

"You're sore at me because I left you," he muttered, and for very shame his eyes could not meet hers.

"No—I'm not sore at you, as you call it. I haven't the least resentment. But there's no use in trying to hide the truth. Since you ask for it, you shall have it. I don't want to be unkind, but I couldn't possibly marry you after that."

The young man looked sulkily across the valley, his lips trembling with vexation and the shame of knowing that this girl had been a witness of that scene when he had fled like a scared rabbit and left her to bear the brunt of what he had done.

"You told me to go, and now you blame me for doing what you said," he complained bitterly.

She realized the weakness of his defense—that he had saved himself at the expense of the girl he claimed to love, simply because she had offered herself as a sacrifice in his place. She thought of another man, who, at the risk of his life, had held back the half dozen pursuers just to give a better chance to a girl he had not known a week. She thought of the cattleman who had ridden gayly into this valley of enemies, because he loved her, and was willing to face any punishment for the wrong he had done her. Her brother, too, pointed the same moral. He had defied the enemy, though he had been in his power. Not one of them would have done what Tom Dixon, in his panic terror, had allowed himself to do. But they were men, all of them—men of that stark courage that clings to self-respect rather than to life. This youth had met the acid test, and had failed in the assay. She had no anger toward him—only a kindly pity, and a touch of contempt which she could not help.

"No—I don't blame you, Tom," she told him, very kindly. "But I can't marry you. I couldn't if you explained till Christmas. That is final. Now let us be friends."

She held out her hand. He looked at it through the tears of mortification that were in his eyes, dashed it aside with an oath, swung to the saddle, and galloped down the road.

Phyllis gave a wistful sigh. Tears filmed her eyes. He was her first lover, had given her apples and candy hearts when he was in the third grade and she learning her A, B, C. So she felt a heartache to see him go like this. Their friendship was shattered, too. Nor had she experience enough to know that this could not have endured, save as a form, after the wrench he had given it. Yet she knew him well enough now to be sure that it was his vanity and self-esteem that were hurt, and not his love. He would soon find consolation among the other ranch girls, upon whom he had been used to lavish his attentions at intervals when she was not handy to receive them.

"Was Tom Dixon mean to you, teacher?"

Little five-year-old Jimmie Tryon was standing before her, feet apart, fists knotted, and brow furrowed. She swooped upon her champion and snatched him up for a kiss.

"Nobody has been mean to teacher, Jimmie, you dear little kiddikins," she cried. "It's all right, honey. Tom thinks it isn't, but before long he'll know it is."

"Who'll tell him?" Jimmie wanted to know anxiously.

"Some nice girl, little curiosity box. I don't know who yet, but it will be one of two or three I could name," she laughed.

She harnessed the horse and hitched it to the trap in which Jimmie and she came to school. But before she had gathered up the reins to start, another young man strolled upon the scene.

This one was walking and carried a rifle.

At sight of him a glow began to burn through her dark cheeks. They had not been alone together before since that moment when the stress of their emotion had swept them to a meeting of warm lips and warm bodies that had startled her by the electric pulsing of her blood.

Her eyes could not hold to his. Shame dragged the lashes down.

With him it was not shame. The male in him rode triumphant because he had moved a girl to the deeps of her nature. But something in him, some saving sense of embarrassment, of reverence for the purity and innocence he sensed in her, made him shrink from pressing the victory. His mind cast about for a commonplace with which to meet her.

He held up as a trophy of his prowess two cottontails. "Who says I can't shoot?" he wanted to know boisterously.

"Where did you buy them?" she scoffed, faintly trying for sauciness.

"That's a fine reward for honest virtue, after I tramped five miles to get them for your supper," protested Keller.

She recovered her composure quickly, as women will.

"If they are for my supper, we'll have to ask him to ride home with us—won't we, Jimmie? It would never do to have them reach the ranch too late," she said, making room for Keller in the seat beside her.

It was after she had driven several hundred yards that he said, with a smile: "I met a young man on horseback as I was coming up. He went by me like a streak of light. Looked like he found this a right mournful world. You had ought to scatter sunshine and not gloom, Miss Phyllis."

"Am I scattering gloom?" she asked demurely.

"Not right now," he laughed. "But looks like you have been."

She flicked a fly from the flank of her horse before she answered: "Some people are so noticing."

"It was hanging right heavy on him. Had the look of a man who had lost his last friend," the young man observed meditatively.

"Dear me! How pathetic!"

"Yes—he sure looked like he'd rejoice to plug another cattleman. I 'most arranged to send for Buck Weaver again," said Keller calmly.

Phyllis turned on him eyes brilliant with amazement. "What's that you say?"

"I said he looked some like he'd admire to go gunning again."

"Yes, but you said too——"

"Sho! I've been using my eyes and ears. I never did find that story of yours easy to swallow. When I discovered from your brother that you was riding with Tom Dixon the day Buck was shot, and when I found out from 'Rastus that the gun that did the shooting was Dixon's, I surely smelt a mouse. Come to mill the thing out, I knew you led Buck's boys off on a blind trail, while the real coyote hunted cover."

"He isn't a coyote," she objected.

Larrabie thought of the youth with a faint smile of scorn. He knew how to respect an out-and-out villain; but there was no bottom to a man who would shoot from cover without warning, and then leave a girl to bear the blame of his wrongdoing. "No—I reckon coyote is too big a name for him," he admitted.

"Buck Weaver ruined his father and drove him from his homestead. It was natural he should feel a grudge."

"That's all right, too. We're talking about the way he settled it. How come you to let him do it?"

"I was riding about twenty yards behind him. Suddenly I saw his gun go up, and stopped. I thought it might be an antelope. As soon as he had fired, he turned and told me he had shot Weaver. The poor boy was crazy with fear, now that he had done it. I took his gun and made him hide in the big rocks, while I cut across toward the cañon. The men saw me, and gave chase."

"They fired at you. Thank God, none of them hit you," said Keller, with emphasis.

Her swift gaze appreciated the deep feeling that welled from him. "Of course they did not know I was a woman. All they could see was that somebody was riding through the chaparral."

"Jimmie, what do you think of a girl game enough to take so big a chance to save a friend? Deserves a Carnegie medal, don't you reckon?" Keller put the question to the third passenger, using him humorously as a vent to his feelings.

Phyllis did not look at him, nor he at her. "And what do you think of a man game enough to take the same chance to save a girl who was not even a friend?" the girl asked of little Jimmie, as lightly as she could.

"Wasn't she? Well, if my friends will save my life every time I need them to, like this enemy did, I'll be satisfied with them a-plenty."

"He stood by her, too," she answered, trying to keep the matter impersonal.

"Perhaps he wanted to make her his friend," Larrabie suggested.

"There is no perhaps about his success," she said quietly, her gaze just beyond the ears of her horse. The young man dared now to look at her—a child of the sun despite her duskiness. Eagerly he awaited the deep, lustrous eyes that would presently sweep round upon him, big and dark and sparkling. When she turned her head, they were full of that new womanly dignity that yet did not obscure the shy innocence.

"Look!" Jimmie Tryon pointed suddenly to the figure of a man disappearing from the road into the mesquite two hundred yards in front of them.

"That's odd. I reckon you'd better wait here, and let me investigate a few," suggested Keller.

"Be careful," she said anxiously.

"It's all right. Don't worry," the young man assured her.

He got down from the trap and dived into the underbrush, rifle in hand. The two in the buggy waited a long time. No sound came to them from the cactus-covered waste to indicate what was happening. When Phyllis' watch told her that he had been gone ten minutes, a cheerful hail came from the road in front.

"All right. Come on."

But it was far from all right. Keller had with him an old Mexican herder, called Manuel Quito—a man in the employ of her father. A bandanna was tied round his shoulder, and it was soaked with bloodstains. He told his story with many shrugs and much excited gesticulation. He and Jesus Menendez had been herding on Lone Pine when riders of the Twin Star outfit had descended upon them and attacked the sheep. He and Menendez had elected to fight, and Jesus had been shot down; he himself had barely escaped with his life—and that not without a wound. The cow-punchers had followed him, and continued to fire at him, but he had succeeded in escaping. Yes—he felt sure that Menendez was dead. Even if he had not been dead at first, they would have killed him.

Keller consulted Miss Sanderson silently. He knew that she was thinking the thought that was in his own mind. It would never do to let this story reach her father and her brother, while Buck Weaver was still in their power. Inflamed as they already were against him, they would surely do in hot blood that which they would repent later. Somehow, Keller and she must hold back the news until they could contrive a way to free the cattleman.

"Best leave Manuel at the Tryon place till morning. They will look out for him as well as you can. That will give us twelve hours to work before they hear what has happened."

"But what about poor Jesus, lying out there alone?"

"We'll get Bob Tryon to drive out. But you needn't worry about Jesus. If they found him still living, the Twin Star boys will attend to him just as kindly as we could. Cowboys have tender hearts, even though they go off at half cock."

They did as Keller had suggested, and left the old Mexican under the care of Mrs. Tryon, having pledged the family to a reluctant silence until morning. Manuel's wound was not a bad one, and there seemed to be no reason why he should not do well.

It was difficult to decide upon a plan for the release of Weaver. He was confined in an old log cabin and watched continually by some one of the riders; but a tentative plan was accepted, subject to revision if a better chance of escape should occur. The success of this depended upon the possibility of Keller drawing off the guard by a diversion, while Phyllis slipped in and freed the prisoner.

The outlook was not roseate, but nothing better occurred to them. One thing was sure—if Buck Weaver was not out of the hands of his enemies before the news of this last outrage of his cowboys reached them, his chance of life was not worth even an odds-on bet. For the hot blood of the South raced through the veins of the sheepmen. They would strike first and think about it afterward. And without doubt that first swift blow would be a deadly one.