The riddle of Three-Way Creek

“I ’VE got to get Jim right away.”

Blanche had just stepped on to the verandah, and the startled Larry Manford leapt out of his chair. He had been dozing prior to his final evening round of the bunk-houses, and had failed to observe her approach.

Blanche had hurried up from the barn, where her horse had already been stabled, and urgency was the keynote of her greeting. Larry recognised the situation in a flash. But he gave no sign. He dragged his chair, so deep and capacious, so inviting, farther back into the shade, shook up the cushions, and stood smiling indicating it.

“You’ve had enough, Blanche,” he said solicitously. “Come and sit right here and tell me about it. Jim’s away.”

But Blanche made no move to avail herself of his invitation. She remained where she was, regarding the freckled face and flaming head of the man she intended to marry. “Where is he? Dan’s?”

Larry nodded.

“Surely.”

“He didn’t say a word to me.”

“He didn’t know.”

“Tell me, Larry. You’re a most provoking creature.”

“Not while you’re standing, Blanche.” The man laughed to hide his concern. “You’re all in. You’ve had a long day. You’re just tired to death. Sit; and I’ll talk all you want.”

Blanche took the proffered chair and spread herself out in it, while Larry propped himself against a verandah post the better to observe the face he was never tired of gazing upon. He bit off the end of a cigar and lit it.

“Shall I talk first?” he inquired, with that smiling calm of which he was a master under any provocation.

“Of course. I want Jim—in a hurry.”

Blanche understood the red-headed creature. His smile had no power to deceive her. She knew there was something unusual lying behind his bald inquiry. And more than likely there was something unpleasant. She thankfully rested herself. She was hot and saddle-weary. She was yearning to change out of the riding-suit she was wearing.

“We got an ‘express’ from Dan,” Larry began quietly. “The boy got in right after you’d started for the Marton farm. There’s things doing between his place and this valley. It looks like there’s some sort of bunch chasing up the trail we pass our cattle over. There’s folk getting around looking for things that don’t concern ’em.” He shrugged. “We didn’t get the details. Only an ‘express’ asking Jim to go right along over. The boy who brought it didn’t know more than Dan was getting worried because folk were nosing around.”

He laughed, and his laugh was calculated to allay Blanche’s possible alarm.

“It was one of his crazy neche brothers-in-law. Jim set out right away,” he added.

“Did he go by the Gateway?”

Larry shook his head.

“Passed out south, over the cattle-trail. It’s out of the way, but he reckoned it best so.”

Blanche looked out down the valley in the direction indicated. She was thinking rapidly.

Larry, watching her, realised the seriousness of her preoccupation. He interpreted the slight pucker of her brows unerringly. He knew she was more, much more than saddle-weary, and wondered what news he had yet to obtain from her. He felt that events were crowding rather rapidly and something unpleasantly. He felt that something of that which he had always foreseen was disturbing the peace which he had never failed to regard as artificial. He had things of his own still to tell, and he wondered if he were justified in imparting them. Finally he decided he was. Blanche was no silly girl. She was keen, unusually quick, and full of an immense courage.

“There’s a flutter in the dovecotes down there,” he laughed, with a jerk of the head in the direction of the ranch buildings. “The boys are worried to death. You know, Blanche, I’m not really bright, and I’ve no sort of gift looking through stone walls and things. Still, I guess I can see most all the way if there’s nothing in between. The thing that beats me is the sort of wireless these crooks seem to know about, and use. Will you tell me how it is the boys have got wise there’s someone chasing up their hiding-hole?” He shook his head. “It beats me. That ‘express’ came straight up to this house. He only spoke to Jim and me. And Jim rode straight back with him. He didn’t have a chance to spread the gospel to a soul. But the boys know there’s trouble around, and they’re restless, and worried to death, and talking ugly—some of them. One guy figgered to me they were a bunch of rats in an elegant proposition of a trap. One or two are guessing half the Police are knocking at our doors. I had a bunch come to me at dinner-time. They wanted to know the thing we were doing, and what we knew. They talked getting out, and I surely told them they could beat it just as fast as hell would let ’em if they fancied it. We weren’t holding them, and only handed them shelter. We sent two of them off south, across the border. And when the others saw them go they weakened right away, and remained. I showed them, in passing those boys out, we were holding dead to our contract. But I’ll surely be glad to have Jim along back, and get his story.”

As the man talked, the knitting of Blanche’s brow smoothed out, and the old familiar smile returned to her eyes. It deepened and culminated in a low laugh. But the laugh passed at once, and Larry saw the shadow of trouble lying behind it.

“Then Jim won’t get back till to-morrow,” she said. “He can’t make the double journey in the day. What is it by the cattle-trail? Sixty miles?”

Larry shook his head, and replied without removing the cigar from his mouth.

“Fifty, I guess. Maybe if he reckons there’s need, and he rode in the night, he could make back about breakfast to-morrow. Beelzebub would do it without a worry. But I don’t figger he’ll be along till to-morrow evening.”

“Which way will he come? The cattle-trail again?”

“No. He expressly told me he’d come by the Gateway. He reckons no one could locate us that way. He guesses there isn’t a police boy, or anyone else, who could read the riddle of Three-Way Creek, or a soul but those who know it who would attempt the tunnel of the gorge. And I guess he’s right.”

Blanche sighed.

“I’m glad. The cattle-trail’s our weakness,” she said. Then she started up in her chair, and her eyes warned her lover that he was about to hear her worst news.

She gazed at him for some moments. His calm amused the girl. But it irritated her as well.

“You’re the most outrageous creature, Larry,” she cried at last. “Do you know the way I feel? Why, you set me crazy to get you by your two big, foolish shoulders and shake you up into a hurry. I’m going to tell you the reason I want Jim. And it’s a reason that ought to set you worried to death. But it won’t. I’m going to tell you that that boy Andrew McFardell Jim encountered awhile back is Molly Marton’s beau. Does that fix you? No. I’m going to tell you that ever since he located Jim, and recognised him, he’s lit right out from his homestead—sold it up—and taken to the trail. Well? Does that set you in a hurry? No. It doesn’t. Do you know what the sense of that is? It’s easy to me, anyway. Andy McFardell hasn’t shown up in three months, and now Dan’s worried someone’s trailing the hills around his place. Someone’s hit on the connection between Dan’s place and Jim. And I only need one guess who that is.”

Outwardly Larry’s display was of frank admiration. Of anxiety there was never a sign.

“I’d never have thought that way, Blanche,” he said, with an appreciative smile. “Sure. That’s Dan’s trouble right enough. And, come to think of it, I guess Jim must have thought that way, too. I remember when that boy told us Dan’s worry, and said there were ‘folks’ getting around, Jim shook his head. He said, ‘No, only one.’ But I don’t see you need Jim in such a hurry.”

Blanche stood up. She smiled into his face, and laid her hands upon his shoulders.

“I do, Larry,” she said. “And I’m going to ride out to-morrow morning to meet him. You wouldn’t see it my way. Jim’s not your brother.”

In a moment the man’s cigar was flung from his mouth, and his arms caught up the slim figure.

“Sure he’s not,” he cried, holding her close to him. “But you’re Jim’s sister.”

And somehow the argument seemed to satisfy them both.