Mavericks

THE ESCAPE

For the sixth time since the three-quarters, Phyllis looked at her watch by the light of a full moon, which shone through the window of her bedroom. The hands indicated five minutes to one.

In her stocking feet she stole out of the room, downstairs, and along the porch to the heavy shadows cast by the cucumber vines that screened one end of it. Here she waited, heart in mouth and pulse beating like a trip hammer.

Presently came the mournful hoot of an owl from the live oaks over in the pasture. Softly her clear, melodious voice flung back the signal. Again the minutes drummed eternally in silence.

But when at last this was shattered, it was with a crash to wake the dead. The girl marvelled that one man could fire so rapidly, and so often. The night seemed to crackle with rifle and revolver shots. To judge from the sound, there might be a company engaged.

The expected happened. The door of the cabin, in which lay the prisoner and Tom Dixon, was flung open. A dark form filled the doorway, and the moonlight gleamed on the shining barrel of a rifle. For an instant Tom stood so, trying to locate the source of the firing. He disappeared into the cabin, then reappeared. The door was closed and locked. Taking what cover he could find, Tom slipped over the fence, and into the mesquite on the other side of the road.

Phyllis darted forward like a flame. Her trembling fingers fitted a key to the lock of the cabin. Opening the door, she slipped in and closed it behind her.

"Where are you?" her young voice breathed.

"Over here by the fireplace. What is it all about, Miss Sanderson?"

She groped her way to him. "Never mind now. We've got to hurry. Are you tied?"

"Yes—hands and feet."

A beam of light through the window showed the flash of a knife. With a few hacks of the blade, she had freed him. He was about to rise when the door opened and a head was thrust in.

"What's the row, Tom?"

Weaver growled an answer. "He isn't here. Pulled out when the firing began. I wish you'd tell me what it is all about."

But the head was already withdrawn, and its owner scudding toward the fray. Phyllis rose from the foot of the cot, where she had crouched.

"Come!" she told the cattleman imperiously, and led the way from the cabin in a hurried flight for the porch shadows.

They had scarcely reached these when another half-clad figure emerged from the house, rifle in hand, and plunged across the road into the cacti. He, too, headed for the scene of the now intermittent shooting.

"Now!" cried Phyllis, and gave her hand to the man huddled beside her.

She led him into the dark house, up the stairs, and into her room. He would have prolonged the sweet intimacy of that minute had it been in his power; but, once inside the chamber, she withdrew her fingers.

"Stay here till I come back," she ordered. "I must show myself, so as not to arouse suspicion."

"But tell me—what does it mean?" demanded Buck.

"It means we're trying to save your life. Whatever happens, don't leave this room or let yourself be seen at the window. If you do, we're lost."

With that she was gone, flying down the stairs to show herself as an apparition of terror to learn what was wrong.

She heard the returning warriors as they reached the door of the log cabin. They had thrashed through the live-oak grove and found nothing, and were now hurrying back to the prison house, full of suspicions.

"He's gone!" she heard Phil cry from within. Came then the sound of excited voices, and presently the shaft of light from a kerosene lamp. Feet trampled in the cabin. Phyllis heard the cot being kicked over. This moment she chose for her entrance.

"What in the world is the matter?" she asked innocently, from the doorway.

"He's got away—we've been tricked!" Tom told her furiously.

"But—how?"

"Never mind, Phyl. Go back to your room. There may be trouble yet. By God, there will be if we find him, or his friends!" her father swore.

Another figure blocked the doorway. This time it was Keller, hatless and coatless, as if he had come quickly from a hurried waking. He, too, fired blandly the inevitable: "What's the trouble?"

"Nothing—except that we are a bunch of first-class locoed fools," snapped Tom. "We've lost our prisoner—that's what's the matter."

Larrabie came in and looked inquiringly from one to another. "I thought you kept him guarded."

"We did, but they drew Tom off on a false trail," explained Phil.

"I notice they worked the rest of us, too," retorted his father tartly.

"I heard the shooting," Keller said innocently. His eyes drifted to a meeting with those of Phyllis. His telegraphed a question, and hers answered that the prisoner was safe so far.

"A dead man could have heard it," suggested Phil, not without sarcasm. "Sounded like a battle—and when we got there not a soul could be found. Beats me how they got away so slick."

Annoyance, disappointment, disgust were in the air. Keller remained to be properly sympathetic, while Phyllis slipped back to her room, as she had been told to do.

She found Weaver sitting by the window looking out. He turned his head quickly when she entered.

"Now, if you'll kindly tell me what's doing, I'll not die of curiosity," he began.

"It's all your wicked men," she told him bluntly. "They have killed one of our herders and wounded another. Mr. Keller and I met the wounded man as he was coming back to the ranch. We stopped him and took him to a neighbor's. If they had known, my people would have revenged themselves on you. They are hot-blooded men, quick to strike. I was afraid—we were both afraid of what they would do. So we planned your escape. Mr. Keller slipped into the chaparral, and feigned an attack upon the ranch, to draw the boys off. I had got the other key to the cabin from the nail above father's bed. When Tom left, I came to you. That is all."

"But what am I to do here?"

"They will scour the valley and watch the pass. If we had let you go, the chances are they would have caught you again."

"And if they had caught me, you think they would have killed me?"

"Doesn't the Bible say that he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword? Are you a god, that you should kill when you please and expect to escape the law that has been written?"

"You say I deserve death, yet you save my life."

"I don't want blood on the hands of my people."

"Personally, then, I don't count in the matter," said Weaver, with his old sneer.

She had saved him, but her anger was hot against the slayers of poor Jesus Menendez. "Why should you count? I am no judge of how great a punishment you deserve; but my father and my brother shall not inflict it, if I can help. They must not carry the curse of Cain on them."

"But Cain killed a brother," he jeered. "I am not a brother, but a wolfish Amalekite. Come—the harvest is ripe. Send me forth to the reapers."

He arose as if to go; but she was at the door before him, arms extended to block the way.

"No, no, no! Are you mad? I tell you they will kill you to-morrow, when the news comes."

"The judgment of the Lord upon the wicked," he answered, with his derisive smile.

"You do nothing but mock—at your own death, at that of others. But you shan't go. I've saved you. Your life belongs to me," she cried, a little wildly.

"If you put it that way——"

"You know what I mean," she broke in fiercely. "Don't dare to pretend to misunderstand me. I've saved you from my people. You shan't go back to them out of spite or dare-deviltry."

"Just as you say."

"I should think you'd be ashamed to be so trivial: You seem to think all our lives are planned for your amusement."

"I wish yours were planned——" He pulled himself up short. "You're right, Miss Sanderson, I'm acting like a schoolboy. I'll put myself in your hands. Whatever you want me to do, I'll do."

"I want you to stay here until they come back from searching for you. You may have to spend all day in this room. Nobody will come here, and you will be quite safe. When night comes again, we'll arrange a chance for you to get away."

"But I'll be driving you out," he protested.

"I'm going to sleep with Anna—the daughter of our housekeeper, Mrs. Allan. She'll suppose me nervous on account of the shooting. Lock the door. I'll give three taps when I want to come in. If anybody else knocks, don't answer. You may sleep without fear."

"Just a moment." He flung up a hand to detain her, then poured out in a low voice part of the feeling pent up in him. "Don't think I haven't the decency to appreciate this. I don't care why you do it. The point is that you have saved my life. I can't begin to tell you what I think of this. You'll surely have to take my thanks for granted till I get a chance to prove them."

She nodded, her eyes grown suddenly shy. "That's all right, then." And with that she left him to himself.

Buck Weaver could not sleep for the thoughts that crowded upon him; but they were not of his danger, great as that still was. The joy of her, and of the thing she had done, flooded him. He might pretend to cynicism to hide his deep pleasure in it; none the less, he was moved profoundly.

The night wore itself away, but before morning had broken he saw her again. She came with her three light taps, and he opened the door to find her in the passage with a tray of food.

"I didn't dare cook you any coffee. There's nothing hot—just what happened to be in the pantry. Mrs. Allan won't miss it, because the boys are always foraging at all hours. She'll think one of them got hungry. Of course, I couldn't wait till morning," she explained, as she put the tray on the table.

Weaver experienced anew the stress of humility and emotion. He caught up her little hand and crushed it with a passion of tenderness in his great fist. She looked at him in the old, startled, shy way; then snatched her hand from him, and, with a wildly beating heart, scudded along the passage and down the back stairs.

He sank into a chair, with a groan. What use? This creature, fine as silk, the heiress of all that youth had to offer in daintiness and charm, was not—could not be for such as he. He had gone too far on the road to hell, ever to find such a heaven open to him.

How long he sat so, he did not know. Probably, not long, but gray morning was sweeping back the curtain of darkness when he came from his absorption with a start. Somebody had tapped thrice for admittance.

He arose and unlocked the door. A young woman stood outside the threshold, peering into the semi-darkness toward him.

"Is it you, Phyl?" she asked.

The cattleman said nothing. On the spur of the moment, he could not think of the fitting speech. The eyes of his visitor, becoming accustomed to the dim light, saw before her the outline of a man. She let out a startled little scream that ended in a laugh of apology.

"It's Phil, isn't it?"

There was no way out of it. "No—it's not Phil. Come in, ma'am, and I'll explain," said Buck Weaver.

Instead, she turned and ran headlong, along the passage, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. Here she came face to face with her young mistress.

"What's the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost."

"I have! At least, I've seen a man in your room."

"In my room? What were you doing there?" demanded Phyllis sharply.

"Looking for you. I wakened and found you gone. I thought—oh, I don't know what I thought."

Phyllis knew perfectly how it had come about. Anna Allan was a very curiosity box and a born gossip. She had to have her little pug nose in everybody's business.

"So you think you saw somebody in my room?" her mistress said quietly.

"I don't think. I saw him."

"Saw whom? Phil, or was it Father?" suggested the other, with a hint of gentle scorn.

"No—he was a stranger. I think it was Mr. Weaver, but I'm not sure."

"Nonsense, Anna! Don't be foolish. What would he be doing there? I'll go and see myself. You stay here."

She went, and returned presently. "It must have been one of the boys. I wouldn't say anything about it, Anna. No use stirring up bogeys now, when everybody is excited over the escape of that man."

"All right, ma'am. But I saw somebody, just the same," the girl maintained obstinately.

"No doubt it was Phil. He was up to see me."

Anna said no more then; but she took occasion later to find out from Phil, without letting him know that she was pumping him, that he had been searching the hills until after six o'clock. One by one she eliminated every man in the house as a possibility. In the end, she could not doubt her eyes and her ears. Her young mistress had lied to her to save the man in her room.

A MISTAKE

At breakfast, a ranchman brought in the news of the attack upon the sheep camp, and by means of it set fire to a powder magazine. The Sandersons went ramping mad for the moment. They saw red; and if they could have laid hands on their enemy, they would undoubtedly have made an end of him.

Phyllis, seeing the fury of their passion, trembled for the safety of the man upstairs. He might be discovered at any moment. Yet she must go to school as if nothing were the matter, and leave him to whatever fate might have in store.

When the time came for her to go, she could hardly bring herself to leave.

She was in her room, putting in the few minutes she usually spent there, rearranging her hair and giving the last few touches to her toilet after the breakfast.

"I hate to go," she confessed to Weaver. "Promise me you'll not make a sound or open the door to anybody while I'm away."

"I promise," he told her.

She was very greatly troubled, and could not help showing it. Her face was wan and drawn, all the youthful life stricken out of it.

"It will be all right," he reassured her. "I'll sit here and read, without making a sound. Nothing will happen. You'll see."

"Oh, I hope not—I hope not!" she cried in a whisper. "You will be careful, won't you?"

"I sure will. A hen with one chick won't be a circumstance to me."

Larrabie Keller had hitched her horse and brought it round to the front door. She leaned toward him after she had gathered the reins.

"You'll not go far away, will you? And if anything happens——"

"But it won't. Why should it?"

"Anna knows. She blundered upon him."

"Will she keep it quiet?"

"I think so, but she's a born gossip. Don't leave her alone with the boys."

"All right," he nodded.

"I feel as if I ought to stay at home," the young teacher said piteously, hoping that he would encourage her to do so.

He shook his head. "No—you've got to go, to divert suspicion. It will be all right here. I'll keep both eyes open. Don't forget that I'm going to be on the job all day."

"You're so good!"

"After I've been around you a while. It's catching." He tucked in the dust robe, without looking at her.

But she looked at him, as she started, with that swift, shy glance of hers, and felt the pink tint her cheeks beneath the tan. He was much in her thoughts, this slender brown man with the look of quiet competence and strength. Ever since that night in the kitchen, he had impressed himself upon her imagination. She had fallen into the way of comparing him with Tom Dixon, with her own brother, with Buck Weaver—and never to his disadvantage.

He talked with a drawl. He walked and rode with an air of languid ease. But the man himself, behind the indolence that sat upon him so gracefully, was like a coiled spring. Sometimes she could see this force in his eyes, when for the moment some thought eclipsed the gay good humor of them. Winsome he was. He had already won her father, even as he had won her. But the touch of affection in his manner never suggested weakness.

From the porch Tom Dixon watched her departure sullenly. Since he could not have her, he let himself grow jealous of the man who perhaps could. And because he was what he was—a small man, full of vanity and conceit—he must needs make parade of himself with another girl in the role of conquering squire. Larrabie smiled as the young fellow went off for a walk in obviously confidential talk with Anna Allan, but he learned soon that it was no smiling matter.

Half an hour later, the girl came flying back along the trail the two had taken. Catching sight of Keller, she ran across to him, plainly quivering with excitement and fluttering with fears.

"Oh, Mr. Keller—I've done it now! I didn't think——I thought—"

"Take it easy," soothed the young man, with one of his winning smiles. "Now, what is it you have done?" Already his eyes had picked out Dixon returning, not quite so impetuously, along the trail.

"I told him about the man in Phyllis' room."

Larrabie's eyes narrowed and grew steely. "Yes?"

"I told him—I don't know why, but I never could keep a secret. I made him promise not to tell. But he is going to tell the boys. There he comes now. And I told Phyllis I wouldn't tell!" Anna began to cry, miserably aware that she had made a mess of things.

"I just begged him not to tell—and he had promised. But he says it's his duty, and he's going to do it. Oh, Mr. Keller—if Mr. Weaver is there they will hurt him, and I'll be to blame."

"Yes, you will be," he told her bluntly. "But we may save him yet—if you can go about your business and keep your mouth shut."

"Oh, I will—I will," she promised eagerly. "I'll not say a word—not to anybody."

"See that you don't. Now, run along home. I'm going to have a quiet little talk with that young man. Maybe I can persuade him to change his mind," he said grimly.

"Please—if you could. I don't want to start any trouble."

Larrabie grinned, without taking his eyes from the man coming down the trail. It was usually some good-natured idiot, with a predisposition to gabbling, that made most of the trouble in the world.

"Well, you be a good girl and padlock your tongue. If you do, I'll fix it up with Tom," he promised.

He sauntered forward toward the path. Dixon, full of his news, was hurrying to the ranch. He was eager to tell it to the Sandersons, because he wanted to reinstate himself in their good graces. For, though neither of them knew he had fired the shot that wounded Weaver, he had observed a distinct coolness toward him for his desertion of Phyllis in her time of need. It had been all very well for him to explain that he had thought it best to hurry home to get help. The fact remained that he had run away and left her alone.

Now he was for pushing past Keller with a curt nod, but the latter stopped him with a lift of the hand.

"What's your sweat?"

"Want to see me, do you?"

Keller nodded easily.

"All right. Unload your mind. I can't give you but a minute."

"Press of business on to-day?"

"It's my business."

"I'm going to make it mine."

"What do you mean?" came the quick, suspicious retort.

"Let's walk back up the trail and talk it over."

"No."

"Yes."

Their eyes clashed, and those of the stronger man won.

"We can talk it over here," Dixon said sullenly.

"We can, but we won't."

"I don't know as I want to go back up the trail."

"Come." Larrabie let a hand fall on the shoulder of the other man—a brown, strong hand that showed no more uncertainty than the steady eyes.

Dixon cursed peevishly, but after a moment he turned to go back. He did not know why he went, except that there was something compelling about this man. Besides, he told himself, his news would keep for half an hour without spoiling. They walked nearly a quarter of a mile before he stopped.

"Now get busy, Mr. Keller. I've got no time to monkey," he stormed, attempting to regain what he had lost by his concession.

"Sho! You've got all day. This rush notion is the great failing of the American people. We hadn't ought to go through life on the lope—no, sir! We need to take the rest cure for that habit," Larrabie mused aloud, seating himself on a flat boulder between Tom and the ranch.

Dixon let out an oath. "Did you bring me here to tell me that durn foolishness?"

"Not only to tell you. I figured we would try out the rest cure, you and me. We'll get close to nature out here in the sunshine, and not do a thing but rest till the cows come home," Keller explained easily. His voice was indolent, his manner amiable; but there was a wariness in his eyes that showed him prepared for any move.

So it happened that when Dixon made the expected dash into the chaparral Keller nailed him in a dozen strides.

"Let me alone! Let me go!" cried Tom furiously. "You've got no business to keep me here."

"I'm doing it for pleasure, say."

The other tried to break away, but Larrabie had caught his arm and twisted it in such a way that he could not move without great pain. Impotently he writhed and cursed. Meanwhile his captor relieved him of his revolver, and, with a sudden turn, dropped him to the ground and stepped back.

"What's eating you, Keller? Have you gone plumb crazy? Gimme back that gun and let me go," the young fellow screamed.

"You don't need the gun right now. Maybe, if you had it, you might take a notion to plug me the way you did Buck Weaver."

"What—what's that?" Then, in angry suspicion: "I suppose Phyllis told you that lie."

He had not finished speaking before he regretted it. The look in the face of the other told him that he had gone too far and would have to pay for it.

"Stand up, Tom Dixon! You've got to take a thrashing for that. There's been one coming to you ever since you ran away and left a girl to stand the gaff for you. Now it's due."

"I don't want to fight," Tom whined. "I reckon I oughtn't to have said that, but you drove me to it. I'll apologize——"

"You'll apologize after your thrashing, not before. Stand up and take it."

Dixon got to his feet very reluctantly. He was a larger man than his opponent by twenty pounds—a husky, well-built fellow; but he was entirely without the fighting edge. He knew himself already a beaten man, and he cowered in spirit before his lithe antagonist, even while he took off his coat and squared himself for the attack. For he knew, as did anybody who looked at him carefully, that Keller was a game man from the marrow out.

Men who knew him said of Larrabie Keller that he could whip his weight in wild cats. Get him started, and he was a small cyclone in action. But now he went at his man deliberately, with hard, straight, punishing blows.

Dixon fought back wildly, desperately, but could not land. He could see nothing but that face with the chilled-steel eyes, but when he lashed out it was never there. Again and again, through the openings he left, came a right or a left like a pile driver, with the weight of one hundred and sixty pounds of muscle and bone back of it. He tried to clinch, and was shaken off by body blows. At last he went down from an uppercut, and stayed down, breathing heavily, a badly thrashed man.

"For God's sake, let me alone! I've had enough," he groaned.

"Sure of that?"

"You've pretty near killed me."

Larrabie laughed grimly. "You didn't get half enough. I'll listen to that apology now, my friend."

With many sighs, the prostrate man came through with it haltingly. "I didn't mean—I hadn't ought to have said——"

Keller interrupted the tearful voice. "That'll be enough. You will know better, next time, how to speak respectfully of a lady. While we're on the subject, I don't mind telling you that nobody told me. I'm not a fool, and I put two and two together. That's all. I'm not her brother. It wasn't my business to punish you because you played the coyote. But when you said she lied to me, that's another matter."

For very shame, trampled in the dust as he had been, Tom could not leave the subject alone. Besides, he had to make sure that the story would be kept secret.

"The way of it was like this: After I shot Buck Weaver, we saw they would kill me if I was caught; so we figured I had better hunt cover. 'Course I knew they wouldn't hurt a girl any," he got out sullenly.

"You don't have to explain it to me," answered the other coldly.

"You ain't expecting to tell the boys about me shooting Buck, are you?" Dixon asked presently, hating himself for it. But he was afraid of Phil and his father. They had told him plainly what they thought of him for leaving the girl in the lurch. If they should discover that he had done the shooting and left her to stand the blame for it, they would do more than talk.

"I certainly ought to tell them. Likely they may want to see you about it, and hear the particulars."

"There ain't any need of them knowing. If Phyl had wanted them to know, she could have told them," said Tom sulkily. He had got carefully to his feet, and was nursing his face with a handkerchief.

"We'll go and break our news together," suggested the other cheerfully. "You tell them you think Weaver is in her room, and I'll tell them my little spiel."

"There's no need telling them about me shooting Weaver, far as I can see. I'd rather they didn't know."

"For that matter, there's no need telling them your notions about where Buck is right now."

Tom said nothing, but his dogged look told Larrabie that he was not persuaded.

"I tell you what we'll do," said Keller, then: "We'll unload on them both stories, or we won't tell them either. Which shall it be?"

Dixon understood that an ultimatum was being served on him. For, though his former foe was smiling, the smile was a frosty one.

"Just as you say. I reckon it's your call," he acquiesced sourly.

"No—I'm going to leave it to you," grinned Larrabie.

The man he had thrashed looked as if he would like to kill him. "We'll close-herd both stories, then."

"Good enough! Don't let me keep you any longer, if you're in a hurry. Now we've had our little talk, I'm satisfied."

But Dixon was not satisfied. He was stiff and sore physically, but mentally he was worse. He had played a poor part, and must still do so. If he went down to the ranch with his face in that condition, he could not hope to escape observation. His vanity cried aloud against submitting to the comment to which he would be subjected. The whole story of the thrashing would be bound to come out.

"I can't go down looking like this," he growled.

"Do you have to go down?"

"Have to get my horse, don't I?"

"I'll bring it to you."

"And say nothing about—what has happened?"

"I don't care to talk of it any more than you do. I'll be a clam."

"All right—I'll wait here." Tom sat down on a boulder and chewed tobacco, his head sunk in his clenched palms.

Keller walked down the trail to the ranch. He was glad to go in place of Dixon; for he felt that the young man was unstable and could not be depended upon not to fall into a rage, and, in a passionate impulse, tell all he knew. He saddled the horse, explaining casually to the wrangler that he had lost a bet with Tom, by the terms of which he had to come down and saddle the latter's mount.

He swung to the back of the pony and cantered up the trail. But before he had gone a hundred yards, he was off again, examining the hoofmarks the animal left in the sand. The left hind mark differed from the others in that the detail was blurred and showed nothing but a single flat stamp.

This seemed to interest Keller greatly. He picked up the corresponding foot of the cow pony, and found the cause of the irregularity to be a deformity or swelling in the ball of the foot, which apparently was now its normal condition. The young man whistled softly to himself, swung again to the saddle, and continued on his way.

The owner of the horse had his back turned and did not hear him coming as he padded up the soft trail. The man was testing in his hand something that clicked.

Larrabie swung quietly to the ground, and waited. His eyes were like tempered steel.

"Here's your horse," he said. Before the other man moved, he drawled: "I reckon I'd better tell you I'm armed, too. Don't be hasty."

Dixon turned his swollen face to him in a childish fury. He had picked up, and was holding in his hand, the revolver Larrabie had taken from him and later thrown down. "Damn you, what do you mean? It's my own gun, ain't it? Mean to say I'm a murderer?"

"I happen to know you have impulses that way. I thought I'd check this one, to save you trouble."

He was standing carelessly with his right hand resting on the mane of the pony; he had not even taken the precaution of lowering it to his side, where the weapon might be supposed to lie.

For an instant Tom thought of taking a chance. The odds would be with him, since he had the revolver ready to his fingers. But before that indomitable ease his courage ebbed. He had not the stark fighting nerve to pit himself against such a man as this.

"I don't know as I said anything about shooting. Looks like you're trying to fasten another row on me," the craven said bitterly.

"I'm content if you are; and as far as I'm concerned, this thing is between us two. It won't go any further."

Keller stood aside and watched Dixon mount. The hillman took his spleen out on the horse, finding that the safest vent for his anger. He jerked its head angrily, cursed it, and drove in the spurs cruelly. With a leap, the cow pony was off. In fifty strides it reached the top of the hill and disappeared.

Keller laughed grimly, and spoke aloud to himself, after the manner of one who lives much alone.

"There's a nice young man—yellow clear through. Queer thing she could ever have fancied him. But I don't know, either. He's a right good looker, and has lots of cheek; that goes a long way with girls. Likely he was mighty careful before her. And he'd not been brought up against the acid test, then."

His roving eyes took in with disgust the stains of tobacco juice plastered all over the clean surface of the rocks.

"I'll bet a doughnut she never knew he chewed. Didn't know it myself till now. Well, a man lives and learns. Buck Weaver told me he came on a dead cow of his just after the rustlers had left. Fire still smoldering. Tobacco stains still wet on the rocks. And one of the horses had a hind hoof that left a blurred trail. Surely looks like Mr. Tom Dixon is headed for the pen mighty fast."

He turned and strolled back to the house, smiling to himself.

A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

Breakfast finished, Weaver cast about for some diversion to help him pass the time.

This room, alone of those he had seen in the house, seemed to reflect something of the teacher's dainty personality. There were some framed prints on the walls—cheap, but, on the whole, well selected. The rugs were in subdued brown tints that matched well the pretty wall paper. To the cattleman, it was pathetic that the girl had done so much with such frugal means to her hand. For plainly her meagre efforts were circumscribed by the purse limitation.

Ranging over the few books in the stand, he selected a volume of verse by Markham, and, turning the leaves aimlessly, chanced on "A Satyr Song."

"Knows what he's talking about—some poet, that fellow," Buck cried aloud to himself, for it seemed to him that the Californian had put into words his own feeling. He read on avidly, from one poem to another, lost in his discovery.

It was perhaps an hour later that he came back to a realization of a gnawing desire. He wanted a pipe, and the need was an insistent one. It was of no use to argue with himself. He surely had to have one smoke. Longingly he fingered his pipe, filled it casually with the loose tobacco in his coat pocket, and balanced the pros and cons in his mind. From behind the window curtain he examined the plaza.

"Not a soul in sight. Don't believe there's a man about the place. No risk at all, looks to me."

With that, he swept the match to a flame, and lit the pipe. He sat close to the open window, so that the smoke could drift out without his being seen.

The experiment brought no disaster. He finished his smoke undisturbed, and went back to reading.

The hours dragged slowly past. Noon came and went; mid-afternoon was upon him. His watch showed a few minutes past four when he decided on another smoke. From the corner of his pocket he raked the loose tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, and pressed it down. Presently he was again puffing in pleasant serenity.

Suddenly there came a blinding flash and a roar.

Buck started to his feet in amazement, the stem of the pipe still in his mouth, the bowl shattered into a hundred bits. His first thought was that he had been the target for a sharpshooter. There was a neat hole through the framework of the window case, showing where the bullet had plowed. But an investigation left him in the air; for the direction of the bullet hole was such that, if anybody from outside had fired it, he must have been up in a balloon.

The explanation came to him like a flash. In raking the tobacco into his pipe with his fingers, he must have pressed into the bowl a stray cartridge left some time in the pocket. This had gone off after the heat had reached the powder.

By the time he had reached this conclusion some one came running along the passage and tried the locked door. After some rattling at the knob, the footsteps retreated. Buck could hear excited voices.

"Coming back in force, I'll bet," he told himself, with a dubious grin.

The fat was surely in the fire now.

Footsteps made themselves heard again, this time in numbers. The door was tried cautiously. A voice demanded admittance sharply.

Buck opened the door and gazed at the intruders in mild surprise. Old Sanderson and Phil were there, together with Slim and a cow-puncher known as Cuffs. All of them were armed.

"Want to come in, gentlemen?" Weaver asked.

"So you're here, are you?" spoke up Phil.

"That's right. I'm here, sure enough."

"How long you been here?"

"Been hanging round the place ever since my escape. You kept so close a watch I couldn't make my getaway. Some time the other side of noon I drifted in here, figuring some of you would drive me from cover by accident during the day if I stayed out in the chaparral. This room looked handy, so I made myself right at home and locked the door. I hate to shoot up a lady's boudoir, but looks like that's what I've done."

"You durn fool! Who were you shooting at?" Phil asked contemptuously.

But his father stepped forward, and with a certain austere dignity, more menacing than threats, took the words out of the mouth of his son.

"I think I'll negotiate this, Phil."

Buck explained the accident amiably, and relieved himself of the imputation of idiocy. "Serves a man right for smoking without permission in a lady's room," he admitted humorously.

A man came up the stairway two steps at a time, panting as if he had been running. It was Keller.

That the cattleman must have been discovered, he knew even before he saw him grinning round on a circle of armed foes. Weaver nodded recognition, and Larrabie understood it to mean also thanks for what he had done for him last night.

"We'll talk this over downstairs," old Sanderson announced grimly.

They went down into the big hall with the open fireplace, and the old sheepman waved his hand toward a chair.

"Thanks. Think I'll take it standing," said Buck, an elbow on the mantel.

He understood fully his precarious situation; he knew that these men had already condemned him to death. The quiet repression they imposed on themselves told him as much. But his gaze passed calmly from one to another, without the least shrinking. All of them save Keller and Phil were unusually tall men—as tall, almost, as he; but in breadth of shoulder and depth of chest he dwarfed them. They were grim, hard men, but not one so grim and iron as he when he chose.

"Your life is forfeit, Buck Weaver," Sanderson said, without delay.

"Made up your mind, have you?"

"Your own riders made it up for us when they murdered poor Jesus Menendez."

"A bad break, that—and me a prisoner here. Some of the boys had been out on the range a week. I reckon they didn't know I was the rat in your trap."

"So much the worse for you."

"Looks like," Weaver nodded. Then he added, almost carelessly: "I expect there wouldn't be any use mentioning the law to you? It's here to punish the man that shot Menendez."

"Not a bit of use. You own the sheriff and half the juries in this county. Besides, we've got the man right here that is responsible for the killing of poor Jesus."

"Oh! If you look at it that way, of course——"

"That's the way to look at it I don't blame your riders any more than I blame the guns they fired. You did that killing."

"Even though I was locked up on your ranch, more than twenty miles away."

"That makes no difference."

"Seems to me it makes some," suggested Keller, speaking for the first time. "His riders may have acted contrary to orders. He surely did not give any specific orders in this case."

"His actions for months past have been orders enough," said Cuffs.

"You'd better investigate before you take action," Larrabie urged.

"We've done all the investigating we're going to do. This man has set himself up like a czar. I'm not going through the list of it all, but he has more than reached the limit months ago. He's passed it now. He's got to die, by gum," the old sheepman said, his eyes like frozen stars.

"We all have to do that. Just when does my time come?" Weaver asked.

"Now," cried Sanderson, with a bitter oath.

Phil swallowed hard. He had grown white beneath the tan. The thing they were about to do seemed awful to him.

"Good God! You're not going to murder him, are you?" protested Larrabie.

"He murdered poor Jesus Menendez, didn't he?"

"You mean you're going to shoot him down in cold blood?"

"What's the matter with hanging?" Slim asked brutally.

"No," spoke up Keller quickly.

The old man nodded agreement. "No—they didn't hang Menendez."

"Your sheep herder died—if he died at all, and we have no proof of it—with a gun in his hands," Larrabie said.

"That's right," admitted Phil quickly. "That's right. We got to give him a chance."

"What sort of a chance would you like to give him?" Sanderson asked of the boy.

"Let him fight for his life. Give him a gun, and me one. We'll settle this for good and all."

The eyes of the old Confederate gleamed, though he negatived the idea promptly.

"That wouldn't be a square deal, Phil. He's our prisoner, and he has killed one of our men. It wouldn't be right for one of us to meet him on even terms."

"Give me a gun, and I'll meet all of you!" cried Weaver, eyes gleaming.

"By God, you're on! That's a sporting proposition," Sanderson retorted promptly. "Lets us out, too. I don't fancy killing in cold blood, myself. Of course we'll get you, but you'll have a run for your money first, by gum."

"Maybe you'll get me, and maybe you won't. Is this little vendetta to be settled with revolvers, or rifles?"

"Make it rifles," Phil suggested quickly.

There was always a chance that, if the battle were fought at long range, the cattleman might reach the hill cañons in safety.

Keller was helpless. He lived in a man's world, where each one fought for his own head and took his own fighting chance. Weaver had proposed an adjustment of the difficulty, and his enemies had accepted his offer. Even if the Sandersons would have tolerated further interference, the cattleman would not.

Moreover Keller's hands were tied as to taking sides. He could not fight by the side of the owner of the Twin Star Ranch against the father and brother of Phyllis. There was only one thing to do, and that offered little hope. He slipped quietly from the room and from the house, swung to the back of a horse he found saddled in the place and galloped wildly down the road toward the schoolhouse.

Phyllis had much influence over her father. If she could reach the scene in time, she might prevent the duel.

His pony went up and down the hills as in a moving-picture play.

Meanwhile terms of battle were arranged at once, without haggling on either side. Weaver was to have a repeating Winchester and a belt full of cartridges, the others such weapons as they chose. The duel was to start with two hundred and fifty yards separating the combatants, but this distance could be increased or diminished at will. Such cover as was to be found might be used.

"Whatever's right suits me," the cattleman said. "I can't say more than that you are doing handsomely by me. I reckon I'll make that declaration to some of your help, if you don't mind."

The horse wrangler and the Mexican waiter were sent for, and to them the owner of the place explained what was about to occur. Their eyes stuck out, and their chins dropped, but neither of the two had anything to say.

"We're telling you boys so you may know it's all right. I proposed this thing. If I'm shot, nobody is to blame but myself. Understand?" Weaver drove the idea home.

The wrangler got out an automatic "Sure," and Manuel an amazed "Si, senor," upon which they were promptly retired from the scene.

Having prepared and tested their weapons, the parties to the difficulty repaired to the pasture.

"I'd like to try out this gun, if you don't mind. It's a new proposition to me," the cattleman said.

"Go to it," nodded Slim, seating himself tailor-fashion on the ground and rolling a cigarette. He was a black, bilious-tempered fellow, but this particular kind of gameness appealed to him.

Weaver glanced around, threw the rifle to his shoulder, and fired immediately. A chicken, one hundred and fifty yards away, fell over.

"Accidents will happen," suggested Slim.

"That accident happened through the neck, you'll find," Weaver retorted calmly.

"Betcher."

Buck dropped another rooster.

"You ain't happy unless you're killing something of ours," Slim grinned. "Well, if you're satisfied with your gun, we'll go ahead and see how good you are on humans."

They measured the distance, and Sanderson called: "Are you ready?"

"I reckon," came back the answer.

The father gave the signal—the explosion of a revolver. Even as it flashed, Buck doubled up like a jack rabbit and leaped for the shelter of a live oak, some thirty yards distant. Four rifles spoke almost at the same instant, so that between the first and the last not a second intervened. One of them cracked a second time. But the runner did not stop until he reached the tree and dropped behind its spreading roots.

"Hunt cover, boys!" the father gave orders. "Don't any of you expose yourself. We'll have to outflank him, but we'll take our time about it."

He got this out in staccato jerks, the last part of it not until all were for the moment safe. The strange thing was that Weaver had not fired once as they scurried for shelter, even though Phil's foot had caught in a root and held him prisoner for an instant while he freed it. But as they began circling round him carefully, he fired—first at one of them and then at another. His shooting was close, but not one of them was hit. Recalling the incident of the chickens, this seemed odd. In Slim's phrasing, he did not seem to be so good on "humans."

Behind his live oak, Buck was so well protected that only a chance shot could reach him before his enemies should outflank him. How long that would have taken nobody ever found out; for an intervention occurred in the form of a flying Diana, on horseback, taking the low fence like a huntress.

It was Phyllis, hatless, her hair flying loose—a picture long to be remembered. Straight as an arrow she rode for Weaver, flung herself from the saddle, and ran forward to him, waving her handkerchief as a signal to her people to cease firing.

"Thank God, I'm in time!" she cried, her voice deep with feeling. Then, womanlike, she leaned against the tree, and gave way to the emotion that had been pent within her.

Buck patted her shoulders with awkward tenderness.

"Don't you! Don't you!" he implored.

Her collapse lasted only a short time. She dried her tears, and stilled her sobs. "I must see my father," she said.

The old man was already hurrying forward, and as he ran he called to his boys not to shoot. Phyl would not move a single step of the way to meet him, lest they take advantage of her absence to keep up the firing.

"How under heaven did you get here?" Buck asked her.

"Mr. Keller came to meet me. I took his horse, and he is bringing the buggy. I heard firing, so I cut straight across," she explained.

"You shouldn't have come. You might have been hit."

She wrung her hands in distress. "It's terrible—terrible! Why will you do such things—you and them?" she finished, forgetting the careful grammar that becomes a schoolmarm.

Buck might have told her—but he did not—that he had carefully avoided hitting any of her people; that he had determined not to do so even if he should pay for his forbearance with his life. What he did say was an apologetic explanation, which explained nothing.

"We were settling a difference of opinion in the old Arizona way, Miss Phyl."

"In what way? By murdering my father?" she asked sharply.

"He's covering ground right lively for a dead one," Buck said dryly.

"I'm speaking of your intentions. You can't deny you would have done it."

"Anyhow, I haven't denied it."

Sanderson, almost breathless, reached them, caught the girl by the shoulders, and shook her angrily.

"What do you mean by it? What are you doing here? Goddlemighty, girl! Are you stark mad?"

"No, but I think all you people are."

"You'll march home to your room, and stay there till I come."

"No, father."'

"Yes, I say!"

"I must see you—alone."

"You can see me afterward. We'll do no talking till this business is finished."

"Why do you talk so? It won't be finished—it can't," she moaned.

"We'll attend to this without your help, my girl."

"You don't understand." Her voice fell to the lowest murmur. "He came here for me."

"For you-all?"

"Oh, don't you see? He brought me back here because he—cared for me." A tide of shame flushed her cheeks. Surely no girl had ever been so cruelly circumstanced that she must tell such things before a lover, who had not declared himself explicitly.

"Cared for you? As a wolf does for a lamb!"

"At first, maybe—but not afterward. Don't you see he was sorry? Everything shows that."

"And to show that he was sorry, he had poor Jesus Menendez killed!"

"No—he didn't know about that till I told him."

"Till you told him?"

"Yes. When I freed him and took him to my room."

"So you freed him—and took him to your room?" She had never heard her father speak in such a voice, so full at once of anger and incredulous horror.

"Don't look at me like that, father! Don't you see—can't you see——Oh, why are you so cruel to me?" She buried her face in her forearm against the rock.

Her father caught her arm so savagely that a spasm of pain shot through her. "None of that! Give me the truth. Now—this instant!"

Anger at his injustice welled up in her. "You've had the truth. I knew of the attack on the sheep camp—heard of it on the way home from school, from Manuel. Do you think I've lived with you eighteen years for nothing? I knew what you would do, and I tried to save you from yourself. There was no place where he would be safe but in my room. I took him there, and slept with Anna. I did right. I would do it again."

"Slept with Anna, did you?"

She felt again that furious tide of blood sweep into her face. "Yes. From the time of the shooting."

"Goddlemighty, gyurl, I wisht you'd keep out of my business."

"And let you do murder?"

"Why did you save him? Because you love him?" demanded Sanderson fiercely.

"Because I love you. But you're too blind to see it."

"And him—do you love him? Answer me!"

"No!" she flamed. "But if I did, I would be loving a man. He wouldn't take odds of five to one against an enemy."

Her father's great black eyes chiselled into hers. "Are you lying to me, girl?"

Weaver spoke out quietly. "I expect I can answer that, Mr. Sanderson. Your daughter has given me to understand that I'm about as mean a thing as God ever made."

But Phyl was beyond caution now. Her resentment against her father, for that he had forced her to drag out the secret things of her heart and speak of them in the presence of the man concerned, boiled into words—quick, eager, full of passion.

"I take it all back then—every word of it!" she cried. "You are braver, kinder, more generous to me than my own people—more chivalrous. You would have gone to your death without telling them that I took you to my room. But my own father, who has known me all my life, insults me grossly."

"I was wrong," Sanderson admitted uneasily.

Keller climbed the pasture fence, and came running up at the same time as Phil and Slim.

"Menendez is alive!" he cried. "He is at the Twin Star Ranch. The boys there are taking care of him, and the doctor says he will pull through."

"Who told you?"

"Bob Tryon. I met him not five minutes ago. He is on his way here."

This put a new face on things. If Menendez were still alive, Weaver could be held to await developments. Moreover, since the sheep herder was a prisoner at the Twin Star Ranch, retaliation would follow any measures taken against the cattleman.

Phyllis gave a glad little cry. "Then it's all right now."

Weaver's face crinkled to a leathery grin. "Mighty unfortunate—ain't it, boys? Puts a kind of a kink in our plans for the little entertainment we were figuring on pulling off. But maybe you've a notion of still going on with it."

"If we don't, it won't be on your account, seh, I don't reckon," Sanderson answered reluctantly.

But though he would not admit it, the old man was beginning to admire this big fellow, who could afford to miss his enemies on purpose even in the midst of a deadly duel. He was coming to a grudging sense of quality in Weaver. The cattleman might be many things that were evil, but undeniably he possessed also those qualities which on the frontier count for more than civilized virtues. He was game to the core. And he knew how to keep his mouth shut at the right time, no matter what it was going to cost him. On the whole Buck Weaver would stand the acid test, the old soldier was coming to think. And because he did not want to believe any good of his enemy, old Jim Sanderson, when he was alone in the corral with the horses or on a hillside driving his sheep, would shake his gnarled fist impotently and swear fluently until his surcharged feelings were relieved.