CHAPTER XI.

DID HE DARE?

Childress had chosen to search the east side of the butte because he thought that the avenue of escape most likely to be followed by the heartless skinner, whether he be an Indian, as Flame seemed confident, or one of the white renegades who infested the timber region south of the international line. He wasted no time seeking a hoof-print trail, but kept Silver at speed, using his eyes for an intensive search ahead and to either side. There was no reward while he skimmed the prairie, but he pushed on regardless of the fact that he must have crossed the boundary. So incensed was he over the outrage and so intent on bringing the perpetrator back to the Gallegher girl that he was willing for once to write his own extradition ticket.

Almost had he given up hope when, through a rift in the scraggly forest, he saw a mounted figure ahead of him. Silver always had speed in reserve and now was called upon to expend it. They were gaining rapidly when chance or caution caused the quarry to turn in his saddle. Proof of guilt came whistling back in a rifle bullet so hastily fired that it did no harm. At the distance, the sergeant could not tell whether his assailant was red or white, but that no longer mattered. The silver horse was urged to greater speed and at no small risk, for the going had become rocky and was anything but a race track.

Noisily his horse rounded a bend in the trail and just in time to show the man ahead spring from his saddle and disappear into the thick cover of trail-side brush. Marking with his eye the spot of digression, Childress pushed on to it and pulled his own mount.

The growth he found there—a patch of vicious-looking devil's-clubs—would have convinced him that something was wrong even if no warning shot had been fired. No sane man, unless pressed for concealment, would submit himself to such a crown and robe of thorns. A branch slashed from the outermost stalk told the sergeant two more things: He had not mistaken the point of disappearance, and his quarry, so anxious to avoid inspection, was equipped either with an ax or a skinning knife, probably the latter, in view of that horror back on the ranch.

He glanced at the abandoned cayuse, a scrawny, flea-bitten gray, who stood a few yards down the trail, cropping contentedly at some brush that evidently was not thorned. Its saddle was a cheap one and its cantle carried no pack. The skinner must have found some way of disposing of the hide farther back on the trail after the pursuit was under way.

Several dangers presented themselves in connection with the situation. A shot from ambush was the likeliest one, but that was dismissed with a shrug. The possibility of his passing the other in some brushy hiding place and of the man's backtracking to his mount was another. But Childress decided to take the chance. Dismounting, he fastened the reins to the pommel of the saddle. The well trained Silver would wait, he knew, a reasonable time for his master's return and if, for any cause, the master did not come back would return to the Open A. It was no country for the beast to be hampered with the dropped rein of an ordinary alighting. Slipping his "blazer"—a short-handled, sharp-bitted instrument—from its loop on his riding leather, he plunged into the jungle-like patch.

The fact that an energetic wood-chopper had just passed made the sergeant's progress somewhat easier, but did not render him immune from the inflictions of the small thorns, barbed and poisonous. The spreading leaves of the woody stem had a way of concealing all sorts of viciousness, then forcing it upon him in many a wound. He was ready to agree with the popular verdict that the jaggers were "the very devil" when they got into one's skin. But he did not compliment them by the thought that they could stop him, and at last hacked his way through, but only into another difficulty.

The thorny cover behind, a precipitous, thickly brushed ascent of the ridge began. Higher than his head was the undergrowth, despite the rock-strewn surface. No longer had a trail been left by the quarry, but that Childress was not going amiss in attempting the ridge was proved to him by certain sounds which drifted back—the smashing of rotten logs as they broke under the fleeing man's weight, the rattle of rocks dislodged by his feet, and once the sound of a fall, as of a heavy body tripped and thrown.

So evident were the causes of these noises that the sergeant knew he had gained ground in the first lap of the chase. Probably his quarry had halted after cutting into the devil's-clubs in the hope that, not having seen his actual dismounting, the other would ride past. Childress' noisy entrance must have started him on further flight.

Soon there came encouragement in another glimpse of the pursued—just a hunched up back in a checker-board shirt under one of the black felt hats so generally worn in the region. No sight of features was possible, no estimate as to height or the color of hair beneath the slouched headgear. Although Childress had been fired upon and was thus absolved from that never-fire-first rule of the Mounted, he did not care to chance a shot on suspicion.

The encouragement of this glimpse was soon spoiled by the discovery that he, as pursuer, was in a crisscrossed windfall, while the pursued had gained a deer run which quartered to the crest of the ridge. As the unknown, now called an enemy, disappeared over the comparatively easy course he had won, rage possessed Childress—the lust to overtake and overcome at any cost to himself.

For several minutes he disregarded the saner advices of his woodcraft, and "fought brush," slipping, sliding, butting into it, crawling on all fours. A fall that shook him to the marrow reduced him to calmer methods. With comparative deliberation, he began picking his way out of the seemingly impregnable, wind-made fortification. In time he, too, gained the deer run.

No one was in sight when he reached the crest and paused for a moment to recover breath lost on the laborious ascent. But the hobnailed boots of the fugitive had left their trace in the loose shale. Evidently the man ahead had decided that the ridge, after all, was an unsatisfactory refuge and at once had undertaken the down path on the south side, where a series of ledges gave upon a thickly timbered area of normal level.

This particular region was strange to Childress, and he did not like the looks of this descent, but decided that where another had gone he could follow. A jump landed him on the first ledge below, almost in his quarry's boot tracks, and he raced across to a second brink. Upon a ledge still further down, he could see that this jump also had been negotiated with safety, and he went over with like success.

The extent of the drop to the third ledge might have halted him had he been permitted any choice in the matter, but, as he stood estimating the distance, decision was taken out of his hands. The shelf edge crumbled beneath his feet. Before he could realize what had happened, he was painfully trying to arise from another flat some thirty feet below.

Throwing off the shock of the impact, satisfying himself that no bones were broken, he gained his feet and stared about. The tops of Douglas firs, growing straight from the normal forest level, were on a line with the rock shelf upon which he stood, indicating that a really formidable precipice had been reached, one of a height too problematical for the most foolhardy jumper. Hope that the man in the checkerboard flannel must be somewhere on the ledge started Childress' search without delay.

But again disappointment was his portion. Although there could be no doubt that the fugitive had landed there, as attested by the disturbed shale, no sign of him could be found upon the ledge—one of less extent than the others and, with the exception of a lone hemlock, absolutely devoid of cover. In some way the other must have made this last leap.

Guarding against a second precipitation without consent, Childress flattened himself upon the rock and crawled to the edge. Peering over, his eyes soon solved the mystery of the disappearance.

Upon the rocks full fifty feet below lay a ladder improvised by the nailing of slats upon a slender cut-tree. By means of this the unknown doubtless had descended with ease and safety; then shut off further pursuit by throwing down the cliff's scaling device.

Although the sergeant could see no one below, his deductions were corroborated by a burst of laughter—raucous in its defiance, almost demoniacal—which cut the air upward from the forest cover. Having met defeat before, Childress had thought himself schooled to it, but this taunt was a heavy drain upon his sincerity. There seemed, however, no counter irritant. The height was too great for another jump; the sheer wall offered no hold for fingers and toes by which he might lower himself. Having done his best, he would have to give up the chase, ascend the series of ledges, and get back to his horse by way of the deer run. Just possibly he could discover where the culprit—of whose guilt he no longer had any doubt—had thrown the down-to-mud-line hide and have that much to carry back to Flame Gallegher.

This decided he drew back from the brink, regained his feet, and looked about for the easiest start. It was several minutes before he realized that he was caught in a trap. Although shrubs to furnish climbing holds had grown on the ledges higher up, this one, which he first must scale, was as bald as an eagle. Not until he had searched the flinty surface at close range for crevices and projections and tried out to futility the cutting of steps with his ax, did he appreciate his recent temerity.

The more he studied the situation, the more serious it looked. He would not be missed at the Gallegher Ranch. Even if Flame cared to mention their chance meeting and his aid with the bogged-down cow, she doubtless would consider his failure to return as proof that the general suspicion against him was well founded. Silver, he believed, would be able to find his way back to the Open A, but might be hours doing it. The arrival of the horse, riderless, would alarm Mahaffy, but how would the constable know where to look for his missing chief?

Scarcely could he reassure himself by thinking that the human fox, in the timber below, would do anything in the way of directing a rescue party. Doubtless, he soon would be on his way to recover his cayuse and the discarded loot. Even Silver might be in danger, although the sergeant had hope that the sagacious animal would effectively resist being taken in by a stranger.

Childress measured with his eyes the distance to the nearest treetop, calculating the chance of a leap into its branches and the uncertainty of being able to hold on. This he decided was too dubious for attempt, except as a last resort, driven by hunger and thirst. The lone hemlock next became the object of his conjecture, but proved too short by several feet to give access to the ledge above. He expended three shots from his revolver in broadcasting for help, but not so much in hope of answer as that he should leave nothing undone.

There came response, however, from some forest cover. A bullet clipped past his ear and flattened against the rock wall behind him. A second shot went just over his head. His triumphant enemy evidently was willing to shoot him off the shelf. Before stepping back out of range, he emptied his gun hit-miss into the brush below. He was tempted to risk the running jump toward the nearest treetop, but in time he checked himself, not yet ready to risk the hundredth chance. There must be some safer way down. His eyes lifted to the cerulean panoply overhead, then eased down to the line of the granite floor and swept the feathery tops of green. They sought inspiration and they found it. With sure strokes of his ax he attacked the lone hemlock.

The trapped sergeant's "big idea" was one which required the preliminary of labor. His eyes were trained to accuracy and he trusted their measurement of the space between the top of the sturdy Scotch conifer and the trunk of the rock-rooted young hemlock. Attacking with his short-handled ax, he soon had the chips flying, with a pause now and then to calculate the exact direction of the tree's drop. His chief anxiety was not over his ability as an axman, but as to whether the umbrellalike branches of the fir would afford lodgment sufficiently strong to support the combined weight of the hemlock and himself.

With the small crackle of a bunch of penny firecrackers, the tree soon broke away from its stump. His ax-aim proved true. But to the sergeant the seconds seemed minutes during that period in which it was decided whether the falling tree would remain in the embrace of its half-sister of the pine family or would veer to one side for a plunge to the rocks below, there to mock him. A gasp of relief escaped his lips when, quivering throughout its length, it settled definitely into the very crotch for which he had aimed.

No time did he waste testing its strength and security. Either it would hold or it would not—either he would escape the trap into which the bog skinner had led him or meet his end in a plunge without cost or ceremony. As always before in his grown-up life, when the issue demanded he dared.

CHAPTER XII.

BY SINGLE STRAND.

After anchoring the severed trunk of the hemlock upon the shelf with such bowlders as he could move, to prevent, if possible, its turning, Sergeant Childress sat down on the brink, his legs dangling. He gripped the hemlock tightly, then lowered his body overside. That end of the tree, at least, supported his weight. With six-inch reaches, he began to move out from the ledge.

He dared not hurry; nor could he ease his progress by wriggling—the hold upon the fir of the hemlock was too uncertain. His body hung as a dead weight, the strain upon his arms, hands, and fingers increasing with every slow move.

One stout, out-flung branch, depending from the lower trunkside, soon impeded his progress; indeed, threatened the success of his venture. Fear of dislodging the frailer end of his support prohibited his trying to swing his body around it.

In an almost insupportable pause he decided on a way. With Jack Childress, thus far, there always had been a way.

Linking his left elbow around the diminishing hemlock to relieve his tortured fingers and the more surely support his weight, he slipped the blazer from his belt and performed an amputation upon the limb. Having difficulty in returning the ax to its sheath, he dropped it. The clank of its fall upon the rocks sent a shiver through his racked frame.

Reminded thus of the alternative fate, he returned to his hand-over-hand performance, receiving in the effort an unexpected scalp wound from the stump of the branch he had removed.

The remaining yards entailed mental and physical torture, for his bridge began to bend. But at last he felt the needles of the fir brush his face; soon his body pressed gratefully in among the branches. One last reach, and he gained hold upon the main trunk. The ordeal was ended.

As down a shaky flight of stairs, he descended the older tree and with caution other than for his footing. Although it was highly probable that the skinner was by now far away and going farther, the fact was not established. Having overcome so many teeth of the trap, he did not wish to be caught by a last one. Seeing and hearing nothing, however, he took the short jump to the ground from the lowest branch.

For several minutes he lay upon a bed of fir needles at the foot of the tree which had formed his stairway, listening for sound of his quarry. Scarcely did he expect to hear any such, but he was taking no chances. Judging from the fact that no shots had been fired at him while he was overhanding the hemlock, during every moment of which ordeal he had presented a fair target, it was reasonable to assume that the unknown, red or white, was on his way.

A stranger to the region, Childress was at loss which way to turn for the easiest crossing of the ridge. They had crossed from north to south, so his choice must lay to east or west. As a matter of fact, he had no choice, at least nothing tangible on which to base one. He tossed a coin, heads west, tails east, and followed its dictation away from the sun that was sinking discouragingly low in the west.

As he traveled along the base of the ridge, thrown up by some prehistoric convulsion of nature and remindful of a scar, his tread was soft as any Indian's. His eyes were ever watchful for sign of the enemy, but his mind was elsewhere.

His thoughts were most of all upon the Gallegher girl of colorful wonder. What a spirited nymph of the ranch she was! Probably she had found no one either suspicious or alarming on the course he had sent her, and by now she was riding homeward. He was glad that she had not come with him, for she probably would have insisted on entering the brush and climbing the ridge. What could he have done with her had she followed him down to that trap of a ledge? How could he have brought her to safety on the forest floor? Supple as she was and undoubtedly strong from her life in the open, it was incredible that she could have overhanded on the hemlock bridge. And had he crossed to safety, leaving her on the ledge? While one man could throw down the improvised tree-trunk ladder, only a Sampson, singly, could have replaced it.

Presently he began to wonder at himself that he thought so much about her. That he had kept her out of trouble, as was his duty both as a man and a "Mountie" should have been sufficient. What was the use of speculating on the might-have-beens? Was it possible that—— He laughed at himself. Of course it wasn't possible that a hard-boiled sergeant of the Royal had developed a sentimental interest in a ranch or any other sort of girl.

Then he came to a gap in the ridge and upon a clearly blazed trail to the other side. He speeded his pace, one that was tireless from long mushing practice behind the dog teams of the Frozen North. An hour before the sun went out he was back at the starting point, where he found Silver and the skinner's cayuse on terms of grazing amity. Evidently his quarry had not cared to return even for his horse, perhaps fearing that his pursuer had a rear guard.

Mounting the silver beast, but leaving the flea-bitten cayuse with reins dropped, in the hope of inviting its rider's return, Childress rode slowly over the immediate back trail. His search trail-side for the torture-taken hide was eventually rewarded. He found it in a gunny sack where the pursued had tossed it into a clump of alders. He rode back toward the outlaw's deserted mount.

Night was falling rapidly and what to do became something of a problem. Even if the cayuse would lead at the end of a rope, the strange back trail would prove a problem. It would be midnight before he could hope to reach the Lazy G home ranch, even could he find it in the dark. An arrival at such time must cause a commotion that would not further his purpose of getting an exact grasp of the Fire Weed rustling situation. Moreover, and quite important, there was still the chance that the skinner would regain his nerve and return for the abandoned cayuse.

Changing the hiding place of the sacked hide, he led Silver back to within gun range of the grazing clump that the ugly cayuse seemed to fancy. There he found a cover for both his beast and himself, determined on a night's vigil and a daylight ride to the Gallegher ranch in case nothing developed.

There were a couple of emergency rations in his saddle bag, and he made quite a meal under the circumstances of a camp fire's inadvisability. There was a bare fragment of moon that night, not enough to see with any accuracy. But he knew the keenness of Silver's ears, and that he could depend upon them. If any human approached, the horse would give warning, by snort or by tug upon the rope by which he attached the horse to himself.

"Nothing like a real horse for an alarm clock," he murmured sleepily. "Hope that Flame had sense enough to ride home whatsoever!"

He was more tired than he had realized before throwing himself down upon his improvised couch of brush. Every muscle of his body from gun-belt up ached from the strain of that hemlock crossing. After covering himself with the slicker, carried rolled on the cantle of his saddle, he soon slept.

Next morning, after a night of no alarms, he remembered that he had dreamed. Most unusual for him to remember dreams! These that now came to mind were mixed—of a flame girl and a siren widow. He was not exactly clear about them. He could not be sure just where they had taken him and he possessed no dream-book for their interpretation. But the fact that he had dreamed at all was troubling. He must needs watch his step.

Childress decided that the skinner did not mean to return, either for his cayuse or his cruel booty. He would take both to Galleghers and let the old ranchman do with them as he thought best. They should serve as something of an introduction for his uninvited visit.

Without difficulty he caught the small horse which seemed willing enough to come along. Packing with him the sack-covered hide was a different matter. The blood scent, so distasteful to animals, had grown stronger over night. But finally he succeeded in calming the beasts, and they were off for his destination of yesterday.

Once packed the cayuse led easily enough and good progress was made after they got beyond the "rough." They had passed the scene of yesterday's bovine tragedy, when he saw three horsemen ride out of a draw some distance ahead and quarter in his direction. Without increasing his speed, he held his course, knowing that unless the trio changed their direction they would meet within half a mile. Considering the compass point from which they appeared, it was reasonable to suppose that they were Lazy G riders. While they likely would be curious and ask questions, they scarcely would make trouble for a stranger headed toward their home ranch in the full light of a brilliant prairie morning.

As he neared the point of convergence it did not surprise him to hear a loud whoop from the ranchmen. Nor was he alarmed when they separated, urging their horses into a run, and drove up on either side of him, their ropes swirling in long loops, which hung just clear of the ground. This was not an unusual performance when a group of punchers met a stranger riding alone over their own range. Nine times out of ten the demonstration meant nothing but the outlet of excess spirit. He laughed to himself when he thought of the chance they had of frightening him.

Yet the next moment two of the loops spread and hissed out in twin circles, curving above the punchers' heads. One fell with the swoop of a hawk down over Childress' shoulders. The other whipped over Silver's head, and settled around the beast's arched neck. In a flash both ropes came taut with a jerk that almost pulled the sergeant from his saddle, and nearly overbalanced his horse.

For the first time in years Jack Childress was genuinely surprised; he was also indignant, but as yet not alarmed. These horse wranglers had gone further than was usual in the rough play of the range, but he had no idea that they would follow up their advantage. At the moment he did not think of the warning that Flame had carried to his little ranch in the cup of Open A—that the Gallegher gang were going to get him. He expected that any moment the pressure which held the ropes taut would cease, and that they would ride up, grinning at his discomfiture, and insolently demand his tribute to their roping accuracy.

He strained his powerful arms against the clutch which bound them to his sides, but the jerk had come just at the right moment to pinion him securely. He could get no leverage against the rope, and was helpless.

Silver, excited by the undreamed of indignity of being roped when he already carried a rider, began to plunge, but quieted down at a word from the man in the saddle.

Childress called out angrily to the punchers, getting a derisive laugh for his trouble. Once more he realized the potency of the uniform of the Royal and the handicap of operating in mufti. This outrage never would have been thought of had he worn the scarlet. He tried to reach his revolver, but his fingers would not carry to its butt, and his arm was powerless to lend any assistance. By a single strand he was held. Bitterly he condemned in his mind the confidence which had led him into this sisal trap.

Then began a performance which at first he did not understand. The wrangler whose rope was around his body began to ride a wide circle, while the one who had caught the stallion held hard. In no time there was a second circle of rope around his body.

It came to him that they meant to make him prisoner by winding him up in the rope. To checkmate this he endeavored to make his horse wheel with the circle of the puncher, but the second rope interfered and he only succeeded in delaying the winding operation. Meantime the third puncher was busying himself capturing the led cayuse which had broken away in the excitement.

In spite of his extremity, he was forced to admire the skill of his captors. More artistic handling of sixty-foot ropes he had never seen. Not for an instant was the original grip around his arms and body loosened, and rapidly the circlets increased in number until he would be bound up like a mummy. Finally he gave up the struggle against the strands, and ceased his effort to throw off the successive loops.

"Got yuh nice and clean and gentle this time, hawse thief," was the greeting of the puncher who handled the body rope, as he made the final circle.

"You seem to have me this time," returned the sergeant, swallowing his rage.

"Yea-bo," chortled the second puncher, who had dismounted to permit the circling and who still held the silver horse. "It'll be the last time on this here range."

"Nice little weapon this," remarked the mounted puncher, whipping Childress' revolver from its holster. He broke the weapon, emptying the cartridges onto the prairie floor. Then he returned the "empty" to its holster, and busied himself tying the helpless non-com to pommel and stirrups.

"What is the meaning of this outrage?" Childress demanded.

"This ain't no outrage; it's a party, ain't it, Roper?" advised the dismounted wrangler. "Didn't yuh get yuhr invite? Anyway yuh come along pretty enough an' just at the right time to save us going over into the cup after yuh."

The two settled back into their saddles to await the return of their companion, who was having trouble, not only with the outlaw's cayuse, but also with his own mount, which Childress recognized as one of the famous Black Hawks, a breed in which Sam Gallegher specialized. The two men who stood guard over him were typical punchers, one a ruddy-cheeked youth, the other a grizzled veteran wearing a drooping mustache which he worried when his fingers were not otherwise engaged. They were not so well mounted as the third of the party, which led the captive to believe that this third was either range boss or foreman. He awaited the leader's return with patience, and he held no further converse with the frolicsome pair.

Even to a natural-born optimist, one who had come through a needle's-eye of danger many a time because of undaunted hopefulness, the situation was far from cheerful. He did not fear for his life. Lynching, even of suspected horse thieves, long since ceased to be an outdoor sport of the Canadian ranges. About the worst that would happen to him was the indignity of being dragged into the Gallegher home ranch "all wound 'round" with a puncher's string. But that would be a little bit of too much, he thought, when he considered Flame Gallegher on hand to view his humiliation. Just why he cared so much, when, whatever befell, would be in the line of duty, he hated to admit. But he did care, and the Flame of Fire Weed, whose smile started with a reappearing dimple, was the reason. Again he cautioned himself to "watch his step."

CHAPTER XIII.

IN PUNISHMENT GULCH.

"Smiling Dick" Murdock, range boss on the Gallegher ranch, was not looking up to his sobriquet when he rode back to the group with a reluctant cayuse in tow. Childress noted a handsome man of about his own age and weight, although probably a trifle shorter when out of the saddle. He was dark, almost to a point of swarthiness, but his frown was not unbecoming.

"Lucky morning for us, boys," he said to his punchers. "We've got the White Horse King and got him with the goods two ways from the ace."

"Two ways?" asked the florid horseman, called Rust by his stirrup brother.

Murdock nodded. "The cayuse is one of that bunch they ran off last fall. They've tried brand-blotting, but you can still trace the mark of the Lazy G. And the other count is a hide stripped from one of Miss Flame's steers. The brute's not beyond a bog-skinning job, judging by the size and shape of the evidence."

"What we going to do with him?" asked Roper. "There's rope and to spare for a nice little four-in-hand necktie."

The foreman swung in his saddle for a searching inspection of the prairie. Because of the rolling nature of the region the visibility was not great, but as far as the eye could cover they were alone. He turned to the captive.

"You've got a powerful nerve, hombre, riding this range in daylight, leading a stolen hawse, packed with a butchered hide. Don't you think we're ever on the job, looking after our own? What you got to say for yourself?"

"Nothing until this rope trick is unwound and you take me before your owner. I'll talk to him, one ranchman to another. I was headed for the Lazy G home ranch when you stopped me."

The sergeant's calm speech seemed greatly to amuse Roper and Rust. Smiling Dick's facial muscles were too engaged in a sneer even to trace a smile.

"Having pulled wool on the daughter, you think you can do the same on the old man," he said with heat. "If ever you see Sam Gallegher, which I doubt, you'll find him a different proposition."

So they knew at the home ranch that Flame had seen and talked with him. That much was easily deduced from Murdock's outburst, which seemed tinctured with jealousy. But which of their meetings had she discussed—the one in the railroad land office at Strathconna or that memorable occasion when she had visited so briefly the Open A? That she had said nothing of their experience on the range the previous day seemed likely, else the foreman would not have made so much of the hide which the led horse was carrying.

"I'll take my chances with any honest man," returned Childress shortly.

"You're going to take chances with three and that in short order," snapped Murdock, and he turned to his companions, "Let's get down into Friday Gulch, where there's small chance of our being disturbed. Flame will be riding somewhere and we don't want her to be stumbling into the party. We'll give him a regular trial—settle the whole thing without any fuss or feathers."

Rust nodded approvingly. "Yuh be judge, Dick; I'll be jury, and Roper the cheerful executioner. Lead on!"

Short as it was, the ride across and down into the gulch fringed with cottonwoods was not a pleasant one for the sergeant. He did not doubt that the foreman already had in mind a punishment—one probably that would be humiliating rather than life-taking, and one that would leave the perpetrators comparatively safe from penalty. His keen mind went over every possibility of escape, and found none that would answer. He was hopelessly bound, his revolver was empty and his mount under rope. As a last resort he might declare himself and his mission, threatening them with the wrath of the Scarlet. But scarcely would they believe him under the circumstances, even if they found the black badge of the Mounted which he carried in a secret pocket. If they gave him the slightest chance, he would lay into them and inflict as much damage as he could. But if there was no opening, he felt sure he could endure the punishment without a whimper. In that belief lay his chief consolation. They never would have the fun of hearing him plead for mercy.

"Get him out of the saddle, boys, and put hobbles on him," ordered Murdock, when they had reached the bottom of the small canyon which nature had cut into the hillside at a sharp right angle. "We'll hold this court in style."

Childress felt that the time had arrived for protest and warning. Had he been making an arrest in his official capacity he would have been required to offer caution that whatever was said might be used against the prisoner. If these three persisted, he one day would be called upon to proceed against them. His calmness was icy when he began; his entire manner should have served as a warning.

"You're making a sorry mistake, men. I'm as honest as any of you. Never stole a horse nor lifted a hide in my life. I own a small ranch in this region, as I guess you've heard. I'm raising and breaking some horses on my own. Yesterday I decided to ride over and make the acquaintance of the Lazy G outfit. I came upon a bogged-down steer that just had been skinned alive. I fired a mercy shot and took up the trail. Lost my man in the rough of a ridge the other side of the line. Got his horse and the hide, though, and was bringing them in when came this uncalled for attack by ropes. All I ask is that you take me to your home ranch and let Gallegher decide. Otherwise——"

"Can the talk," cut in Murdock. "The old man's too damned merciful in his old age. He won't have any stock left unless we curb this rustling. You're going to haye some he-men decide your case and I'll bet when the verdict's in you'll keep to the States where you belong."

Childress had made no mention of the fact that Flame Gallegher had been with him when he put the bogged steer out of its misery or that she had undertaken one angle of the pursuit where the trail had seemed to fork. It was evident that she had said nothing at home about meeting him, a silence for which she doubtless had excellent reasons of her own. He would respect that silence, come what might.

The three Lazy G riders drew off a bit for consultation, leaving him, thoroughly trussed, seated on a fallen log. They were not beyond earshot, although their conversation did not seem to be intended for him.

At first, the two punchers were for employing old-time methods: a lynching and be done with it, "the way they manage hawse thieves over in Montana where he's from," as Roper put it.

But this the foreman vetoed as too drastic, too likely to bring unnecessary trouble upon themselves and to the ranch in case they were found out.

"Suppose we give him twenty or thirty lashes, carry him to the border and set him on foot?" This brilliant idea came from Rust who seemed to have a Nero-like enjoyment of the prospective situation. "The cayuse belongs to us and we can empound the stallion for trespassing. With all his nerve, boggin' in broad-day, the big gent won't come back this way if yuh let me play the quirt."

Evidently Murdock had more sense of responsibility than the two punchers. This had begun to work, blunting somewhat the jealousy aroused in his breast by the interest expressed in the stranger by his employer's daughter. He felt that they had caught the rider of the silver horse red-handed; yet the captive's calmness was disturbing. Besides there was no telling how Flame, long the object of his adoration, might look upon the affair. Suppose he took Childress to the home ranch and the plausable scoundrel lied himself out of their ropes. The situation would be worse than before. If only they had a confession made before the three of them and so convincing that Gallegher would turn him over to the authorities despite pleas from any source whatsoever!

"You two hobble the talk for a minute," he said to Roper and Rusty. "I've had an idea."

"Heavenly horizon, Dick!" cried Roper. "Don't let her bite yuh."

"Iders are hell on adnoids, my old ma always said," added Rusty.

Evidently the pair feared that the "party" was slipping. Whatever happened the responsibility scarcely would be theirs and both were of the sort who count the frolic before the cost. They knew loyalty, these riders of the Fire Weed, better than did many city employees; but from the very nature of their work ahorse, with its constant dangers, its exposure to all sorts of weather, its broken bones and near-death hemorrhages in the "busting" end of their game, they were somewhat hardened and keen for any diverting excitement.

Smiling Dick Murdock strolled across to Childress, whose clean-shaved lips—service habit—set tightly, rather than curled over the three-to-one odds.

"One or two small raids we might have stood for, Silver," the foreman began. "But when you come into our own range and start to build a ranch house, as if you hoped or intended to live in our midst, it's too much. A rustler's shack in the Fire Weed! That's something that can't be stood. And already you're presuming on a few acres bought from the railroad company, a fragment we all overlooked until it was too late!

"We've talked it all over, and the verdict is plum' against you. Punishment has got to be inflicted for violating the law of the range. But we're humane gents, we are, and willing to be some merciful. If you care to sign a confession that you are a rustler and a skinner of bogged cows and let the three of us witness it, we'll let you off some. What about it, rustler?"

For a moment Childress seemed to be considering the proposition. A confession of the sort demanded would probably save him much humiliation, but it would end his activities in the region and leave the mystery of the Fire Weed robbers unsolved. Any document he might sign under the circumstances would bring no penalty to him. The commissioner at Ottawa would see to that. But never had he yielded in the face of danger, and he was not ready to do so now.

"I'll sign nothing under duress!" he answered decisively.

"You'll think duress a hell of a more serious proposition before we're through," said Murdock quietly, and returned to his men.

"Yore ider didn't seem to be no good," said Rust, as the troubled foreman neared the punchers.

Roper was grinning. "But I gave birth to one of my own while yuh was gone. Why not brand the son of a butcher as if he was a maverick? A horseshoe on the forehead with the Lazy G inside! I've got a running iron."

"Whoah, boy! There is an ider," congratulated Rust. "Once he gets that burned into his classic brow he'll keep out of the province or I don't know who's what."

Childress heard every word. He hated to think what some artist in live-stock pyrotechnics might do to him in his present defenceless condition. It was evident that foreman Murdock controlled the situation; he watched the handsome stockman closely.

For a time—several minutes, although they seemed longer—Murdock considered. Then: "Build a fire, boys. That's the best idea yet. I'll take the responsibility."

The preliminaries were brief. Roper went to his horse and from somewhere about the saddle produced an iron resembling a poker. It was a tool of the range long outlawed in the United States because of the service it performed for brand-blotting rustlers of both horse and cattle stock. On most ranches the punchers whose duty it is to brand the strays which have escaped the round-up carry an iron that plants the entire brand at one pressure, embosses it, as it were, in the hair with the least possible pain and disfigurement to the animal.

Rust seemed to take diabolical glee in building a small fire of the driest twigs he could find. So expert was he at this that Childress' suspicion was aroused. Doubtless both Rust and Roper had been brand-blotters in their time. But small service did suspicion do him in the present emergency.

Horrible to think of was the punishment which Murdock, as foreman and obvious chief of the trio, seemed to have accepted. That they would not burn him deep enough to endanger his life he felt certain. There was some doubt in their suspicions or they would have shot him down at sight. But to go through life with a horseshoe scar on his forehead, even though later he brought prison punishment to all concerned in the operation, seemed insupportable. The certain pain of the branding did not trouble him so much. In the service he had suffered as much as a man can suffer and live to remember in his nightmares. The resultant trace of a bullet wound would not have been so bad; he had several tucked around his exceedingly vital body and at least one leaden slug bedded down where surgeons of the Royal did not care to probe for it. But a brand! He remembered the Scarlet letter of the old Puritans and the crime brands which certain nations of Europe put upon particular criminals. The situation was insupportable; yet he would not weaken—he'd be damned if he would.

Preparations went on apace, with him watching every move. As if nothing more important than the frying of morning bacon had been on the bill, he heard Roper give Rust a "call" for not building a hot enough fire and making so much smoke about it that some of the Silver Horse gang might get wise and take a pot shot at them. Rust flared at the aspersion and told Roper to go "plum'" to where it was "hotter," on the theory that he was going there anyway.

While they were quarreling, the sergeant called to Murdock. The eagerness with which the foreman responded possibly indicated that the foreman was losing his nerve and his desire for the particular punishment which the box canyon was to cloak. An average man would have taken a tip from this alacrity, made the confession under demand and denied it when again able to fight his own battles. But Sergt. Jack Childress was not an average man. Never had he compromised, and he was not ready to do so now. They could burn him if they dared, but they could not make him weaken and they could not force him to give up his quest in the Fire Weed.

"Mind lighting my pipe for me while they're heating the iron?" he asked, as casually as he might have asked for a match in the Strathconna Club. "The pipe's in my breast pocket and it don't need to be filled."

Dick Murdock took a startled backward step. The nerve of the man! And he was not thinking of nerve in the derisive sense. He had that same sort of nerve, to a degree; but he doubted if it would have carried him through such an impossible situation as that in which the horse thief—and he honestly believed the rider of the silver beast to be one—now found himself.

"Don't you ever weaken?" he asked.

"Why weaken, when there's nothing to be weak about?"

"We're going to brand you."

"That don't kill, and even if it did, death's only an experiment into something no one knows anything about."

"You're not afraid?"

Childress laughed at him heartily. "Of death or of pain; neither. I've near suffered both; never died and always came back to pay up those who had caused the pain."

"Good Lord, I'd hate to play poker with you." This sort of sprung from Murdock's lips without his intent.

"Maybe you will—some day, Murdock; but it won't be when you deal all the cards and look into my hand while my shuffling fingers are crippled. Anyway, light my pipe, if you don't mind."

Murdock got the pipe from the breast pocket of the sergeant's trail coat, a non-uniform one he had purchased in Ottawa against the time of casting the uniform behind him.

"Have some of my tobacco, even if you are a pest."

"No, thank you. By the time they get through with that branding iron I'll be cussin' you so hard that you'll wonder why you ever were born. The core of the pipe will be enough for me."

Murdock seemed troubled; took off his soft brimmed Stetson and combed his black hair with his fingers.

"I don't make you, stranger," he said slowly, as if his thoughts troubled him. "I've put up a hawse thief in my day—two of 'em. But they never——"

"They never were horse thieves the two you led the lynching party on, and you know it. Do you think you're ever going to get away from that? Do you think that I'm the only one who is coming up here after you? And the others won't come alone or be roped—roped!"

"Now, I'll sure have to get you!" Murdock was white about the lips and blue about the nose, as men get when suddenly confronted with a past they had thought forgotten.

"Now's your chance," said Childress.

"If you'd left Flame alone——" began the foreman.

"Here come the boys, tell them to put the brand as neatly as they can. Long as these ropes are about me, I've as much chance as that bogged steer——"

"Don't call yourself names," inserted Murdock.

Then interruption came from the two cheerful punchers who had the iron red hot. There was a moment of fortune for Childress, because Rust and Roper were scrapping among themselves. The question was which one could do the best and most artistic job upon the forehead of the captive.

Before this matter of artistry was settled, the clatter of a speeding horse struck their startled ears. All turned to look down the gulch as a mounted figure came into view. There were muttered exclamations from the Lazy G trio when they recognized the rider as Flame Gallegher.

She pulled up her horse at the edge of the group, and for a moment gazed about her with an incredulous expression.

"What is the meaning of this, Dick Murdock?" she at last demanded, a note of authority in her voice.

"We're just having a little fun with this here hawse thief," mumbled Murdock lamely.

"A little fun?" she repeated scornfully. "That man is tied up as though he were a criminal and that running iron is all aglow. What were you going to do with it?"

"It's a branding party, Flame," said the handsome foreman. "Caught the white-hawse king with the goods at last."

She flared angrily. "Then it's over before it begins or three Lazy G's look for other jobs. Even if he was all you say, you'd have no right to take the law into your own hands. Rust, if you have any respect for your rope, untie Mr. Childress instantly! If you don't I'll cut it into so many calf-size lengths you'll never get it together again."

CHAPTER XIV.

HIS BIGGEST DEBT.

There was some grumbling on the part of the punchers, but their feeling for Bernice Gallegher, popularly known as Flame, was akin to worship. To them her word was law. Moreover, Rust had the old-time puncher's regard for his "string." The sheep look was surely on his face as he threw down the red-hot running iron and helped Roper unwind the prisoner.

Childress had said nothing throughout this providential interruption. At first the shock of the unexpected deliverance was too much for him. Then, feeling at a loss for suitable words before an audience, he let his eyes speak for him.

As the last coil was loosened he arose and spent a few vigorous moments exercising life back into his numbed arms. His powerful hands opened and shut as though itching to lay hold of one of his tormentors. The punchers edged away in apprehension; the foreman stood his ground, shifting weight from boot to boot like some school boy awaiting teacher's punishment.

The sergeant then took out his revolver, and with expert movements filled the cylinder with cartridges from his belt. They had caught him napping once. He was determined that it never should happen again and he would take no chances on any overruling of the woman's verdict.

He looked up to find Flame smiling at him, and again realized the fullness of her auburn-crowned beauty. And that first day in Strathconna he had pronounced her "none too pretty!" Oh, well, second sight was often best! To-day every freckle looked a beauty mark.

"You'll hardly need that—now," she smiled, with a gesture toward the gun.

So far not a word had been said about their meeting on the range the previous day, the salvage of the bogged cow and their forked lines of pursuit after the heartless skinner of the unfortunate steer. Childress was determined to say nothing, whatever Flame's interest in keeping the meeting a secret. If anything was said, she would have to do the talking.

The charge he had flung at Murdock was not sheer bluff, but based on something he had learned over in Montana when preparing for his entry into the province as a rancher. The expression of the Lazy G foreman had told him much that probably would be of use later on. There had been a double lynching over in the Bitter Root and the guilt of at least one of the victims later had been found exceedingly doubtful. That crime, of course, was entirely beyond the jurisdiction of the Mounted, but the "mistake" probably accounted for the presence of Murdock on the Lazy G and would be something to look into when he threw off the rôle of ranchman and donned the uniform of the service that is feared even as it is respected.

"If you knew the evidence we had against this rustler, Flame," began Murdock, his manner tense over the sudden change in a situation which he had thought entirely under his control, "you'd show less feeling for——"

"And if you knew what I knew," the girl cut in, "you'd have escorted Mr. Childress to the home ranch instead of tricking him into this box canyon and trying to put a brand on him. Let me tell you one or two things that happened yesterday. He came riding across the range from his own ranch to ours. He found me trying to snag one of my cows out of a bog where the fool bossy had sanded herself in. My misdirected efforts would have hung the cow in a minute or two if our neighbor"—she accented this for the benefit of the trio and to the glad surprise of the sergeant—"hadn't happened along. He waded into the bog and used his own hands as a shovel. Then he pushed and I pulled until we had her out. She'll probably be a total loss, but at least she'll pass out more naturally. Then a pair of buzzards attracted us and we came upon that poor steer—hided alive."

"We found the hide on this rustler's cayuse," inserted Murdock.

"He's not a rustler," flared Flame. "We both went after the brute who did that skinning—one on either side of the ridge that cuts in from the States. I rode to the line seeing nothing suspicious, then went home. Mr. Childress evidently got everything but his man. I'll bet he was headed for our ranch house when you scatter-brained roughnecks fell on him."

"Ain't this one hell of a mess?" muttered Rust to Roper as he coiled his string.

"You'll think you're in one hell of a mess for sure if you make any more mistakes," declared the girl. "Now take yourselves down to the lower ranch and see if you can't find some honest-to-goodness trouble." She turned to Childress. "I wish you would ride back with me; father's at home and I'd like you two real men to meet."

There was something of a groan from the handsome foreman, and she threw him a reproving look. Then she mounted and the two were off, Childress again leading the cayuse that had been stolen. They were well into the open, the regal Silver and her well-groomed bay mare jogging in friendly fashion side by side on the trail to the home ranch, before he spoke.

"I can't seem to think of words with which to thank you, Miss Gallegher," he said with feeling.

"Suppose you don't try," she returned. "And while we're by ourselves out here in the wide-open suppose you call me 'Flame.' All my friends do and after all we've been through I rather reckon we're friends."

In this proposal she was as ingenuous as a child and it hit him hard—mostly around the heart. With uncalled for caution, he tried to keep from showing how pleased he was.

"I will if you'll swap, Flame of Fire Weed," he offered and wondered at his nerve in proposing a bargain to such as she.

"Swap—swap what?" she asked.

"Easy names—you call me Jack when we're alone."

"That day up in Strathconna, when you beat me to the section you now call the Open A, I was prepared to hate you and help the boys make life in the Fire Weed country miserable. But I've sort of changed 'round, haven't I, Jack. I think you have a way with women, Mr. Jack."

"You certain have with me—men," he returned quickly. "Your arrival to-day was an unexpected deliverance, and the source of it beyond my wildest dreams. I'm going to make something out of that narrow escape, though. The threatened branding has given me an idea. Can you keep a secret, Flame?"

"What woman can't?" she taunted.

"Have you any idea how they meant to brand me—I mean with what ensignia?"

She shook her head.

"The artist was inspired to decorate my forehead with a horseshoe surrounding a Lazy G. Neat idea, wasn't it?"

The girl flushed with indignation over the outrage which these men of the Gallegher outfit had contemplated. "I'm ashamed of them. You'd been branded as a horse thief for life, whether you are——"

"Whether guilty or not," he completed for her, playing his whimsical grin.

"I wasn't going to say that," she protested, but it was evident that a dwindling possibility of his guilt still lingered in her mind. "Come, what is the secret you want me to keep? What is the idea that you got from the interrupted branding?"

"We won't call it a secret," he said, "but a surprise for you—if the idea works out."

Flame did not answer at once. Her horse evidently needed all her attention, though the beast seemed to be behaving. He looked closely to see if she was pouting, but could identify no such expression. When she spoke again it was upon an unrelated subject and she kept the conversation thus until they made the home corrals.

There they found a puncher sitting straddle the top rail, braiding a horsehair rope—one that would serve as a saddle ornament on his trips to town, rather than as a practical implement of the range. He took charge of the captured cayuse and the retrieved hide, while Flame and the sergeant unsaddled their mounts and stabled them. Then they walked toward the larger of a cluster of log cabins, looking out upon a small lake which evidently had determined the location of the home ranch.

"Reckon we'll find dad out on the front porch," said the girl as they proceeded. "He's laid up with a bad leg, which isn't hurt as much as his pride. An outlaw caught him napping the other day and he hasn't been saddle-fit since. If he isn't exactly friendly, first off, blame it on his injured feelings. He's not as young as he once was, but he still wonders how that horse ever managed to throw him, and wondering, he grumbles and growls."

Childress had no difficulty in identifying the three buildings of the group—one as cook-shack; the second, a bunk-house for the men; the third and most pretentious, the home of the owner and of Flame. Together they rounded the corner of the latter structure, although they might have gone through to the front porch, the doors standing open for a spring airing. Possibly, he thought, she did not care for the responsibility of asking a suspect, even one she had saved from disfigurement, to enter the Gallegher "mansion" until the head of the house had passed upon him. But once around the corner, the young woman stopped short. Standing out front with reins dropped were two saddle horses.

"Company!" came from her lips in exclamatory whisper.

At first glance Childress recognized one of the beasts. "The widow from Rafter A," he remarked and received a sharp, enquiring look for his display of knowledge.

"She never has frightened me," declared Flame. "Come on."

As a matter of fact, they already had been seen and retreat would have been impossible, even if the girl had desired to avoid a meeting with her stunning neighbor and to hide the presence of that other neighbor who was under suspicion.

Upon the porch, one on either side of the long, lean, dark-visaged ranchman, sat Ethel Andress and her ranch manager, Fitzrapp. The latter rose instantly on seeing the daughter of the house and waited to be introduced. He quite ignored Childress. Sam Gallegher growled and did not leave his easy chair.

"This is Mrs. Andress of the Rafter and her manager, Fitzrapp," he said to Flame. "We've been discussing this damnable rustling situation."

"You don't need to introduce us," said the widow in a detached sort of way. "We've met before."

"Yes, we've met—the Lady Fair and the Gallegher Brat," returned Flame pleasantly enough. "I'm pleased to meet you, Mr. Fitzrapp. Not often we have two distinguished callers at one and the same time. To-day we have three. Permit me to introduce Mr. Childress, of the Open A—Fire Weed's newest and smallest ranch."

Fitzrapp was making his best bow to the young woman of the ranch; the widow's expression clearly was one of amusement. So far as social experience was concerned, she was somewhat in command of the situation.

"No need of introducing me to Mr. Childress," she trilled. "He saved my life the very first time he set eyes on me and in spite of all my protests."

"I thought those protests to be cries for help," put in the sergeant, never to be entirely "cut down," regardless of the situation.

"Yes—yes," mumbled Fitzrapp, twisting his silken mustache. "Most unfortunate—that break of yours on the Whitefoot reservation. Shouldn't have made it, old top."

Sam Gallegher seemed puzzled about much of this exchange, knowing nothing of the events that lay behind.

To Childress the two women presented a striking contrast as they stood facing each other, the outer advantage to her in the "latest" of city-made habits. Yet there was a certain calm, like that of the prairie's sweep, in the red-head that should have cheered the crusty parent. The fact that she rose superior to the drawbacks of a range upbringing—held up her head, in fact, as though the wrapped braids about it were a crown of red gold—lifted her above the class so often in error derisively called "ranch bred."

Probably Ethel Andress did not mean to be patronizing—indeed her smile and graceful advance seemed essentially friendly—but even before she spoke directly to Flame there was something in her manner which Childress did not approve.

"We've just been discussing with your father," she began, "the advisability of asking the Royal Mounted to send some specials down here to put an end to this running our horse stock across the line to disappear in the American market. At just the right moment you ride in from somewhere with the only other ranchman in the Fire Weed country." She favored Flame with one of her most exclusive smiles. "It would seem possible that we could make the appeal to Ottawa unanimous, if your friend——"

Flame was quick, as always. "I'm sure we can count on Mr. Childress to join in any unified action," she said. "He just rode in with one of our horses that was stolen last Fall and packed on it was the mud-line hide of one of my steers. You're for sending for the Mounted, aren't you, Jack—Mr. Childress?"