GUN LAW ON THE RANGE, by Burt Arthur

Copyright ©1952 by Star Guidance, Inc.

CHAPTER ONE

The lamp was squat and heavy-based and stood solidly in the very middle of the dining-room table in Allie Raines’ ranchhouse, dominating the table like a full-branched shade tree on a grassy field. It cast off a perfect circle of light that reached to the edge of the table, leaving everything outside of it in thin darkness. The light flickered for an instant, and shadows danced over the ceiling and the papered walls. It soon steadied again and burned evenly, and the shadows were whisked away.

Leather-skinned and balding, Allie sat on one side of the table with his shoulders rounded, his body hunched over and his flat chest resting on his folded arms. When he talked and gestured his wife, Mary, a thin, faded and toil-worn figure in a cotton dress, who was standing at his side, noticed his dirt-rimmed fingernails. She frowned and plucked at his shirt sleeve. Apparently he understood because he stopped gesturing and sat back in his chair with his hands in his lap.

Seated across the table from Allie was another man, whose thin lips belied his disarming smile. He was a man who talked readily and persuasively, and who cleverly directed much of what he was saying to Mary Raines, sensing that she would have considerable voice in the formation of her husband’s decision. His business card lay face upward on the checkered tablecloth, and the lamplight shone on it and seemed to raise the printed words above the rest of the card. It read: “Neil Weatherbee, Special Agent, The Kansas and Texas Railroad Company.” There was an address in Kansas City in the lower right-hand corner.

Weatherbee was a man of about forty-five, well-groomed and well-mannered, with a touch of grey at his temples that gave him an air of dignity. His hands were strong looking and cared for, and Mary, still thinking of Allie’s nails, winced inwardly when she saw Weatherbee’s. Instinctively she raised her hands to her head and tucked in a couple of stray strands of hair. She smoothed down the front of her dress, wishing the while she had donned another one, one that might have done a little something for her. She tried to be casual but when she looked up and found the man’s eyes smiling on her, she flushed.

“We-ll,” Weatherbee, said, shifting his gaze back to Allie, “if you’re agreeable, Mr. Raines, I’ll fill out the necessary papers—

“Just a minute now, Mr. Weatherbee,” Allie said. “Don’t go gettin’ ahead o’ yourself.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Weatherbee said quickly.

“I don’t mean I expect to change my mind about sellin’ you those twenty acres the Katy wants,” Allie hastened to explain. “Like I told you, the price seems to be all right. On top o’ that, I c’n use the money. It’s just that I’d kinda like to sleep on it before I go signin’ anything. You know, folks around here ain’t friendly to the idea of havin’ the road comin’ through to the new link.”

“I understand,” Weatherbee acknowledged, hiding his disappointment. “Sleep on it, by all means, Mr. Raines. I’ll drive out again tomorrow morning, and you can sign the papers then.”

“When—when would we get the money?” Mary asked.

“Heck, Mary!” Allie said, turning and looking up at his wife. “The Katy’s a big railroad, an’ big outfits must have their regular ways o’ doing things, and they must take time. More’n likely, once the deal’s been made, Mr. Weatherbee’ll have to send the papers to Kansas City, and when the office there gets around to it, they’ll draw the check and send it on.”

“Oh,” Mary said. Her voice and her expression reflected her disappointment.

“You waited this long for that sewing machine an’ the other things you wanna get,” Allie continued, “another couple o’ weeks oughtn’t make much uva difference. You weren’t expectin’ Mr. Weatherbee to dig down in his pocket an’ come up with a thousand dollars in cash, were you?”

“No,” Mary conceded. “’Course I wasn’t.”

“Since Mrs. Raines is so anxious to get those things she’s set her heart on,” Weatherbee said, and both husband and wife looked at him expectantly “perhaps I can do something to expedite matters. Hurry things along, I mean.”

“You really think you can?” Mary asked eagerly.

Weatherbee smiled deeply. “Yes, I’m quite sure I can,” he answered. Then he added, “Of course, that depends on how soon the papers are signed.”

Mary’s eyes were bright “Well, suppose they were signed tonight?” she pressed him. “How long would it take then?”

“Mary,” Allie said. “You just heard me tell Mr. Weatherbee I’m not signin’ anything tonight, didn’t you?”

“Well, suppose they’re signed tomorrow?”

“I think I can safely promise you almost immediate payment,” Weatherbee replied.

Mary spun around to her husband. “Allie, did you hear that?”

“Yeah, I heard it.”

“Why can’t you sign those silly papers tonight?” she demanded.

“Because we got things to consider first.”

“What kind of things?”

“Things,” Allie replied curtly. He pushed back from the table and got up on his feet. Weatherbee arose, too. “You’ll come by again tomorrow, you said.”

“Yes, probably before noon.”

“I’ll be lookin’ for you.”

The two men shook hands. Weatherbee came around the table. Mary looked disappointed again. She gave Allie a hard look, but he pretended not to notice it. She went slowly to the door. When Weatherbee picked up his hat from a nearby chair, she opened the door and held it wide. Weatherbee came forward. “Good night,” he said politely.

“Good night,” she responded.

She closed the door after him and stood with her back to it. “Doggone it, Mary!” Allie began, sputtering. His face had begun to flush, crimsoning upward from his bronzed throat. “When I said there were things we had to consider before we could close the deal, why’n thunder couldn’t you let it go at that, instead o’ makin’ a fuss about it in front o’ him, huh?”

“There wasn’t any reason why you couldn’t have signed them papers tonight,” she answered with a lift of her head. “You knew I wanted you to, so that should’ve been enough for you. You owe me that much, but it doesn’t seem to matter to you.” He looked hard at her, his head thrust forward a little. “I’ve been a good wife to you, Allie Raines.”

“Who—who says you haven’t?”

“Then when you had the chance to do something for me? Why didn’t you?”

“Aw, look, Mary—

“I’ve slaved and skimped, and I’ve done without, but I see now it doesn’t mean anything to you. Maybe if I’d been the demanding kind, you’d have—”

Allie gestured, stopping her. “I told him to come back tomorrow, didn’t I?” he demanded.

“You could’ve signed the papers tonight, and I’d had something to look forward to.”

“So I’ll sign th’m tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” she retorted.

“Oh, you think I’m gonna change my mind, huh?”

“I know you, Allie Raines. If you don’t do what you set out to do right away, you never do it. You were satisfied with the price he offered you, weren’t you?”

“Sure,” he replied. “But if he’da offered me twice what he did, I still wouldn’t’ve closed the deal tonight. I don’t like bein’ rushed into anything. I like to think th’m over first.”

“I’ll never get those things I’ve dreamed of having. You’ll think about it and think about it, and nothin’ll happen.”

“Mary, what d’you think folks around here will say when they find out we sold some of our land to the railroad?”

“I don’t care what they’ll say! They don’t mean anything to me.”

“They’re our neighbors, and we gotta live with them. We ain’t alone in the world, y’know. You wanna remember that.”

“Neighbors!” she said scornfully. “If they had the chance to get their hands on a thousand dollars, they wouldn’t give us a second thought. They’d grab the money.”

“An’ what about the Association? You know they been dead set against this plan the Katy’s tryin’ to put across.”

“First it’s your neighbors, and now it’s that Association! They ever do anything for us? Except make you pay them five dollars a month dues?”

“I still think I oughta discuss this thing with them.”

“You discussed it with me, and we decided to do what we think’s best for us!” she flung back at him. “Unless you feel their opinion’s more to you than mine is.”

Allie looked at her. He shook his head sadly. “I dunno what’s come over you, Mary,” he said after a moment. “You—you ain’t the same. You’ve gotten hard or something.”

“I just come to my senses! I been a fool all my life and look what it’s gotten me! Well, things’ll be different around here from now on, believe me. I’m going to think about me first, for a change, and if that makes me selfish, that’s too bad. Then I’ll be selfish. But I know one thing. It’ll get me something.”

“When Weatherbee brings the papers, I’ll sign th’m,” Allie said wearily.

“You’re saying that now. How do I know you won’t change your mind overnight?”

“I said I’d sign th’m, didn’t I?”

Mary made no farther comment. There was a minute-long silence, then she moved away from the door. “There are some buns left from this morning,” she said. “Want one, with some coffee?”

There was no answer from Allie.

“There’s some pie left from supper, too,” she went on. “But I thought we’d leave that for Ross when he gets in, and maybe Florrie’ll want a piece with some milk.”

Allie grunted.

“Well?” she demanded. “Do you want a bun and coffee, or don’t you?”

“All right,” he said.

“All right, what?”

“Coffee.”

“Come on then,” she said. “We’ll have it in the kitchen. Don’t want to get the dining room messed up, in case she invites Ben Farrow in.” He looked at her again. “Florrie, I mean,” she snapped.

Allie trudged after her, shaking his head, and followed her through the swinging door that led to the kitchen.

CHAPTER TWO

The town of Charteris lay some seven miles southwestward from the Raines spread. Over the long years that had followed its founding, it had undergone little change. The long, wide street that comprised it was still unpaved, and its sidewalks were still wooden as were the curbings. Of course, the gambling palaces and the dance halls had gone but like most cattle towns, the number of saloons doing business surpassed all the other commercial establishments.

The Charteris Hotel, towering three stories high, was the tallest building in town. It was flanked on one side by the Charteris National Bank, and on the other by the express company office. The latter also housed the telegraph office, and it was reported that the two men who represented their respective companies had not talked to each other save in the line of business for more than ten years.

There were two general stores, Ed Hockmann’s and John Greenough’s, Webber’s Fine Furniture Store, and Celeste’s Modiste Shoppe. Celeste’s was Veronica Murphy’s creation. Veronica, a buxom redhead with sparkling blue eyes and figure that expanded steadily, freely admitted she was intrigued by anything French, hence the name of her shoppe. Then there was Frank Smith’s barber shop, Mrs. Condon’s eatery, which featured home cooking, so called French pastry on Saturday nights, and homemade ice cream. There was also Hy Watts’ drugstore and some other shops, too, smaller and of lesser importance, like John Gulotta’s Shoe and Boot Repair where one could purchase new as well as reconditioned used footwear. There were a couple of vacant stores, too, and the largest of them was being used as a meeting hall by the TCPA the next afternoon when Allie Raines drove into town in his buckboard with a shopping list in one pants pocket and Neil Weatherbee’s bank draft in the other.

Allie pulled up at the curb in front of Greenough’s place and stamped inside. He left Mary’s list with Greenough himself after instructing the proprietor to load the things he wanted in the buckboard. Then he crossed the street and went into the bank where he deposited the Katy’s draft. Jesse Plimpton, the cashier, arched his eyebrows when he saw the check. He gave Allie an odd look, but he made no comment.

Then, with both pieces of business attended to, Allie stalked up the street and poked his head into the meeting hall. There were some twenty men standing about and another six or eight sitting, bent-backed, on the wooden benches.

A big, burly man, Clem Dufour, was rapping on a makeshift table at the far end of the room. “All right, you fellers, all right,” he called. “Let’s get this meeting over with. I got things to do, even if you haven’t.”

The talking died down, and some of the standees seated themselves on the benches. “You know what we’re here for,” Dufour announced.

“Yeah,” a man who was leaning against a side wall called. “To tell the Katy to go to hell.”

Allie sat down on a bench about midway between the table and the door. More men came in, storekeepers with their aprons tied around their middles. Greenough was one of them.

“Then it’s understood an’ agreed that if that Weatherbee comes to see any of us, we throw him out,” Dufour continued. “We don’t want no part o’ him or of the Katy. Right?”

Before anyone could answer, Allie was on his feet, and he was gesturing. “Hold it a minute, Clem,” he called.

Dufour leveled his gaze on him. He had thick, bushy eyebrows, and they came together just above the bridge of his nose. “S’matter?” he wanted to know.

“I’d like to say something.”

“All right,” Dufour said. “Go ’head and say it. Only make it short.”

Allie swept the room with his eyes. Most of the men in the place were younger than he. He had grown up with their fathers, and most of them were dead now. Still they had been his friends. Their sons, he knew, would not attach much importance to anything he had to say. He was an old-timer to them, and because he owned a comparatively small spread, they would not be overly interested in hearing him. Clem Dufour was an old-timer, too, but he was the biggest landowner in the county, hence everyone listened attentively when he had something to say.

Allie cleared his throat. He had no alternative; they had to be told that he had done business with the Katy. For an instant he thought of Mary. He could hear her, and her words rang in his ears. The thought of her made him bitter. She had driven him into the deal with Weatherbee; she should have been the one to tell these men that the Raineses had sold them out.

“Well?” Dufour demanded impatiently. “You gonna stand there all day, or you gonna speak your piece?”

Allie felt his face flush and burn. He did not like Clem Dufour. He was big and gruff and much too authoritative.

“I wanted to say that I think the idea of the new link is worth considering,” he began. The faces that were turned in his direction were hostile. Dufour was scowling. “If the Katy could work out some way o’ building that spur without blockin’ the way to the river, I think it’d be a good idea. It’d be a step in the right direction, progress, and I don’t think anybody oughta stand in the way of progress.”

“Uh-huh,” Dufour said. “That Weatherbee feller been out to see you yet?”

Allie could feel angry eyes boring into him from every side, but he disregarded them and held his gaze on Dufour. “He was out to my place last night,” he replied.

“What’d you tell him?”

Allie was sweating now. “Well, you gotta remember that things are different f’r me than they are for you other fellers,” he said. “My stock c’n reach the river, no matter what the Katy does. All I hafta do is swing ’em around where the Katy’s plannin’ to build, an’ there’s nothing between me and the river.”

“Uh-huh,” Dufour said. The room was hushed now. “What I want to know is, did you do business with Weatherbee?”

Allie drew a deep breath. “I did,” he replied. “I sold him twenty acres for an approach to the new link.”

“Uh-huh,” Dufour said again. “What’d you get for those twenty acres?”

“I got a thousand dollars.”

There was silence for a moment, heavy, oppressive silence. “Without your land the Katy wouldn’t’ve got itself a foothold,” Dufour said. “Right?”

Allie did not answer.

“We’re your friends, your neighbors, but you still sold us out for a lousy thousand bucks!” Dufour went on, his voice thickening. “There are about forty of us, forty families, that is, husbands, wives and kids, about a hundred an’ fifty of us, all told. ’Less we c’n water our stock at the river, we’re done for, ruined. Most of us have spent our lives buildin’ up to what we got now, and now everything we’ve done was done for nothing. The minute the Katy begins building, we’re licked.”

Dufour’s voice rose with his anger as he continued. “If you needed the dough that bad, why didn’t you come to me like a man and ask for it? I’d’ve let you have it. Or if you didn’t want to take it from me, the Association woulda dug it up for you. Instead, you sold us out. All right, Allie. You told us so we know where we stand with you. Now I’m gonna tell you where you stand with us. You don’t. We don’t want no part o’ you. We’re through with you, and so’s the Association. You don’t belong to it any more. So you don’t belong in here. G’wan now. Get out’ve here!”

“Wait a minute!” Allie cried. “If the Association don’t give its c’nsent, the Katy can’t do anything. All they got is my twenty acres, and what can they do with that?”

“That ain’t the point,” Dufour answered. “The point is you sold us out. Now get out’ve here, an’ get out before I throw you out.”

When Allie did not move, Dufour, glowering and tight-lipped, came swinging out from behind the table, and started toward him. That was the signal for others to take a hand in Allie’s ousting. Men rose up on every side of him, and he was grabbed and spun around and pointed toward the open door. His temper flared over his manhandling, and he struggled to free himself. He kicked, and he lashed out blindly with his fists. He was soundly cursed when his wild blows landed.

Another old-timer, one Jerry Hawks, thrust himself into the melee, and when he struck back at Allie, the other men moved away. For a brief moment Allie and Jerry exchanged blows and rocked under them when they landed. The other men made no attempt to interfere, and their cries of encouragement to Hawks indicated their enjoyment of the sight of the two older men belaboring each other. Had it not been for Clem Dufour, there was no telling how long it might have continued. He strode forward, caught Hawks around the waist with a thick arm and slung him away. Hawks fell over a bench.

“Get Raines outta here, I said!” Clem hollered.

Rough and uncompromising hands were again laid on Allie, and he was hustled doorward and pushed out. He was bleeding from cuts and skin scrapes, and his nose looked battered. The men who had ejected him filled the doorway and looked at him scornfully. His hat was tossed out and fell limply at his feet. He stood swaying over it for a full minute before he was able to bend over and pick it up and clap it on his head. Then, with an unconcealed effort, he steadied himself, squared his sloping shoulders, and plodded down the street. Passersby stopped and looked at him with wide, wondering eyes, but he paid no attention to them.

He reached the buckboard, climbed up and settled himself on the driver’s seat, and unwound the reins from around the handbrake. He looked down at the floorboard then he looked behind him. There was no sign of the groceries he had ordered from John Greenough. Someone came striding along the wooden sidewalk and Allie looked up. It was a man with a long white apron that flapped around his ankles a man with a thinning fringe of white hair around a shiny bald head. It was Greenough. He gave Allie a withering stare and walked on.

“My stuff,” Allie wheezed, and the storekeeper stopped and looked hard at him over his rounded shoulder. “Where is it?”

Greenough’s lip curled. “Get it from somebody else!” he answered curtly. “Somebody else who wants your trade. I don’t.”

Allie stared at him blankly. Greenough turned away from him and walked on again. Allie released the handbrake, wheeled and drove up the street. There was a puffiness under his left eye. It bothered him, and he rubbed it. Soon the area around it began to swell. He was nearing the far corner and passing Willie Garver’s market when a piece of half-rotten tomato came sailing through the air, struck him in the face and splattered him. He cursed and pulled back on the reins. Loud, scornful, taunting laughter reached his ringing ears and made them buzz. He whipped up and drove away.

It was some thirty or forty minutes later when he pulled up at the gate in front of his house and climbed down from the buckboard. His left eye was tightly closed now, and his battered nose had swelled to new proportions. He tramped heavily around the house to the rear and went in through the back door.

Mary was rolling out some dough on a floured board on the kitchen table. Straddling a chair a few feet away and watching her quietly as she worked, was a husky, light-haired youth, clad in scuffed boots, work-worn levis and denim shirt. It was Ross, their son, the elder of their two children. Mary and Ross looked up together. A gasp burst from Mary. Ross’ eyes widened. He came bounding to his feet and wheeled around his chair in almost the same unbroken motion.

As Mary came around the table, she wiped her hands on her apron mechanically. “Oh, my God, Allie!”

“What happened, Pop?” Ross asked him, peering hard at him. “And what’s that stuff you got all over you?”

“Tomato,” Allie answered curtly. “Somebody hit me with it when I was drivin’ past Willie Garver’s place.”

Mary, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, came up close to Allie. When she tried to touch him, he pushed her off roughly. “Lemme alone,” he commanded. He started away, stopped and retraced his steps and stood in front of her again. “I told them, and they threw me out’ve the meeting and out’ve the Association. Nobody wants any part of us now. Not even Greenough. He wouldn’t fill your order. Told me to go get the stuff somewhere’s else, from somebody who wants our trade. He don’t want it.”

Allie turned and paced the floor, a thin, quivering figure of a man with a battle-battered face. Again he turned to her. “I told you something like this would happen, didn’t I?” he demanded. “An’ what did you say? You said you didn’t care. Remember? Well, now you’re gonna get a chance to find out whether you do or not, whether you’d rather have that blamed sewin’ machine and the rest o’ the things that money’s gonna get you, or neighbors. Oh, you’re gonna learn a lot o’ things, Mary, but I c’n tell you right now, none o’ th’m’s gonna be nice. You wait and see.”

Allie brushed aside the hand that she put out, and strode out of the room through the swinging door. Ross looked at his mother. She was motionless, her head slightly bent and her shoulders sloping. The color had drained out of her face, leaving it ashen. When she turned it was a heavy, wearied movement. In the same way she managed to reach the chair Ross had vacated so suddenly. She sank down into it. Her eyes closed, and her head bowed.

CHAPTER THREE

It was later that day that Allie, trudging down from the house toward the barn, and Ross, who had just emerged from the barn and who was striding houseward, came together about midway between the two.

“Ma got that stuff ready for me?” Ross asked.

“What stuff?”

“The stuff she wants me to take over to the Trimbles,” the younger man said.

“Dunno,” Allie answered. “Better go ask her.”

“It’s that jelly she put up for Mrs. Trimble.”

“She didn’t say nothin’ about it to me.”

Ross sniffed loudly. “What’s that I smell?” he asked. “What’s it smell like?”

“Like—like vinegar.”

“That’s what it is. Your ma used some of it on my face.”

“Oh!”

“I dunno what it’s supposed to do for me, ’cept stink me up some, but your ma insisted on puttin’ it on me, an’ I hadda let her because I didn’t feel up to arguin’ with her.”

“Uh-huh,” Ross said. “Pop, what are we gonna do?”

“About what?”

“You know. About what happened to you in town.” Ross spoke impatiently.

“I don’t think we oughta do anything about that. Seems to me the thing for us to do is sit tight an’ see what the others do.” Allie did not look at his son. His eyes were fixed on the barn roof.

Ross frowned, evidence that he did not think too highly of the idea. He was young, and youth was impatient. Allie, sensing it, said: “Keep your shirt on, Ross. It’s always a heap smarter to let the other feller make the first move, instead o’ you jumpin’ the gun and doin’ something that might or mightn’t turn out to be the right thing.”

“Yeah, but they made their move, didn’t they? Look what they did to you.”

“They got carried away. I don’t call that a move.”

Ross’ thick shoulders lifted. “You’re the boss, Pop,” he said. “Only I don’t like the idea of sittin’ around and lettin’ somebody make suckers out’ve us.”

“I don’t think anybody’s gonna do that.” The quiet confidence in Allie’s voice was unmistakable.

Ross shrugged again. “All right,” he said. “Now there’s something else that’s bothering me. How come you let Ma talk you into doing something that you knew wasn’t right? If you knew there’d be trouble over our sellin’ those twenty acres to Katy, why’d you go ahead and do it?”

Allie took a moment before he answered. “Son,” he said. “Once in a while a man’s gotta do like his wife wants, even though he don’t agree with her idea. You’ll find that out for y’self when you get married. I knew there’d be trouble when the Association got wind o’ what we’d done, but at the same time I had to do like your ma wanted because gettin’ that money so’s she could buy herself those blamed things she’d been wantin’ all these years had got to mean so much to her. More’n anything else in the world, I guess. So, to keep her happy, leastways to make her happy, I gave in and made the deal.”

“Yeah, but she shoulda known—”

“Women are pretty smart, Ross. Don’t you go thinkin’ they aren’t. That goes double for your ma. But somehow a woman, even the smartest one, don’t see some things the way a man does, and this happened to be one o’ th’m. But don’t you go blamin’ your ma. If you wanna blame anybody, I guess I’m the one who’s responsible when you get right down to things.” Ross was silent now.

“Now don’t you go worryin’, y’hear?” Allie continued. “Things’ll work out. They usually do. They have before, an’ there ain’t no reason why they shouldn’t work out this time, too. You goin’ up to the house?”

“Why? You want me to do something?”

“Nope.”

They parted, Ross following the path up to the house while Allie trudged on to the barn.

Mary Raines was sealing some jars of jelly on the kitchen table when Ross entered the house. “They’re ready for you whenever you are,” she announced, looking up at him.

“I’m ready to go right now,” he answered. He came up to the table. “What’ll I put them in? Got a box or something?”

“A saddlebag ought to be about as good as anything else, I’d imagine,” she said. “Easiest way to carry things when you’re riding a horse, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I suppose. Where’s Florrie keepin’ herself, Ma? I haven’t seen her all day.”

“She’s in her room.”

“S’matter? She sick or something?”

“She’s busy fixing over her dress for tonight.”

“Oh, she going to Wheeler’s barn dance?”

“Yes. You are, too, aren’t you?”

“I dunno yet. Nessie wasn’t sure whether she wanted to go or not. Ma, Florrie know what’s happened?”

“No.”

“Don’t you think she oughta?”

“She’s been so excited thinkin’ about tonight, I decided it could wait. Want to get a saddlebag?”

Ross nodded, turned and went out of the room. He returned in about a minute with a saddlebag slung over his shoulder. Mary took it from him, put the jars in it, strapped it shut and then looked up at him again.

“Don’t ride too fast,” she instructed him. “I don’t want the jars to jounce and break.”

“I’ll get them to the Trimbles, all right. Don’t worry.”

“Tell Mrs. Trimble I hope she’s feeling better.”

“I’ll tell ’er. Look, Ma, what about that stuff you wanted Pop to get you from Greenough’s?”

“What about it?”

“Well, you still want it, don’t you?”

“We can get along on what we have left till Saturday.”

“And then?”

She flushed and averted her eyes. “I thought I’d take the buckboard and drive over to Dalhart and do my marketing there,” she answered lamely.

“Dalhart?” he repeated. “Ma, that’s twenty miles from here. An’ twenty miles back makes it forty miles both ways.”

Her gaze came up again to meet his. There were tiny puffs of crimson in her cheeks. “Ross, I don’t want you to go to town,” she said. “Understand?”

He picked up the saddlebag, hefted it and eased it over his shoulder.

“You heard me, Ross, didn’t you?”

“Sure I heard you, Ma.”

“All right then.”

Ross went out of the house. She followed him to the door, caught it and stopped it when it swung after him. After a moment she heard his bootstep on the path. It was firm and swift, so unlike Allie’s whose step was slow and shuffling and heavy, as though he were always tired.

Mary walked out to the head of the path and stopped there and looked toward the barn. Allie was standing in front of it. A minute passed, and then she heard the thump of hooves on the barn floor, and Ross rode out. He said something over his shoulder, and Allie responded with a wave of his hand as Ross rode away. When he had gone, Mary marched down the path.

Allie was about to go back inside the barn when she hailed him. He halted with one foot over the sill, turned his head and looked in her direction. “Yeah?”

She beckoned, and he hitched up his pants and came tramping up to meet her. “S’matter?” he asked.

“Ross say anything to you about going to town?”

“Y’mean about him going?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head.

“He wanted to know if I didn’t need those things I asked you to get from Greenough,” she went on. “That’s what gave me the idea that he might be thinking of going to town himself.”

“Oh, I see!”

“I told him I didn’t want him to,” she added, looking at her husband sharply. “I hope he minds.”

“I don’t think you got anything to worry about, Mary. Any time he goes over to the Trimbles, he stays put there.”

“I hope he does today, too.”

“When’s he an’ Nessie figgerin’ on gettin’ married?”

“I wouldn’t know. He’s never said anything about it to me.”

“Maybe he’s waitin’ for me to say somethin’ to him. Maybe once I tell him that half the spread’s his, things’ll happen.” There was no response from Mary.

“Heck, that oughta be more’n enough for him an’ Nessie to get married on. We got married on practically nothing, an’ we made a go of it. No reason why they shouldn’t be able to do the same.”

“Maybe just being able to make a go of it ain’t enough for them.” Mary spoke a trifle sharply.

“What do you mean?”

“The young people of today are smarter than we were. That is, the girls are.”

“Oh, I dunno,” he said mildly.

“I do!” she snapped, and he was taken back by the sharpness of her tone. “They ain’t satisfied to start their married lives on a shoestring like their mothers did. They want a lot more.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “Then that must be the answer to it.”

“The answer to what?” she demanded.

“To why there are so blamed many divorces.”

“H’m!” she said, and her lip curled a little.

“Sure,” he went on. “Girls get married today, an’ when they don’t get the things they think they oughta get, even though they never had th’m before, they go get themselves a lawyer and a divorce. Maybe if they didn’t have such high an’ mighty ideas an’ didn’t expect to get things they haven’t got any right to expect, at least right off, they’d be better off. Maybe if they—

“I got things to do,” Mary said curtly, interrupting him.

Allie looked at her strangely. She had never been so short and abrupt with him before. She turned on her heel and went stalking up the path. He watched her, followed her with his eyes, and when she rounded the house and disappeared around the back, he shook his head. Mary was not the same. She had changed. Admittedly he had had something to do with it.

Allie had not realized it before, but somehow in the long years of their married life, he had failed her. The sudden awakening to that fact had come as something of a shock to him since he had always taken it for granted that she had been happy with him. He had learned for the first time the night of Weatherbee’s visit that she had not been happy for a long time and that she was not happy now. That was the trouble with him Mary had cried. He was forever taking things for granted, taking her and everything else for granted when he had no right to. A man who took his wife for granted was just as cruel as if he had beaten her.

Allie had tried to justify her complaint and defend himself at the same time after she had cried herself to sleep and he lay beside her in the darkness awake and disturbed as he had never been before. His thoughts ranged back over the years to the early part of their married life. They had not had much to begin with but they were young and determined. Because money was scarce they had had to do everything on their place themselves. Their labors began at sun-up and ended only when they could do no more. The first year passed and then the second and there were definite signs of progress. Every time he went to town, he recalled, he brought back something for her. Once it was a piece of yard goods, out of which she fashioned a dress for herself. The thoughtfulness that had motivated his gift-giving pleased her, and it made him happy to see her happy. There were other things he had bought for her, oh, many things, even though he could not remember them now.

Then things had happened. First it was Ross. Then a particularly bad dry spell that had cost them a sizeable number of hard-gotten steers, and an especially severe winter with more snow and freezing weather than they had ever known before. That had meant a further loss to them of marketable livestock. For a time there was a steady and unbroken succession of misfortunes and mishaps, with each following the other so closely that there was no respite, no time in which to prepare themselves for the next blow.

The Raineses survived, somehow and went on. Then Florrie came to them, to put a temporary halt to the troubles that had plagued them. Life took on an even fuller meaning, but there were always problems and difficulties to deal with, and progress appeared to have come to a standstill. In the face of weighty matters, Allie admitted he had forgotten the little things with which he had gladdened Mary’s heart in the early days.

Allie had no way of knowing that Mary had not forgotten them. With the passing of the years, she had become less and less communicative, keeping her thoughts more and more to herself. Secretly she was bitter because she resented his taking it for granted that she was happy and satisfied with her hard lot. The bitterness began to build within her. Then it boiled over, burst its bonds and exploded.

Mary got the money from the land sale, every penny of it for herself, because Allie wanted her to have all of it, and the things she had secretly longed for for so many years were assured her. Now it was just a matter of time, a matter of delivery, and the talking machine, the sewing machine, the parlor furniture, everything she had wanted, would be where she could touch it, handle it and delight in it.

She should have been happy then, happier than she had been in a long time, but the explosion had not done what it should have done. The bitterness, even though it had finally been brought to the surface, had been too long in the making to be erased so quickly. It would take time for it to dissolve, Allie realized. Then another disturbing thought came to him. If her bitterness toward him was too deeply rooted, then she might never get over it. There was that for Allie to contend with, that and the trouble with their neighbors that the land sale had produced.

For the moment, though, he was far more concerned with Mary than with anything else. He had had a wife, a good one, too, but she had gone. In her place, in his house, was a strange woman, a woman who looked enough like Mary to be Mary but who was not Mary. This new woman was short, abrupt and sharp-tongued with him and made him feel uncomfortable in her presence. Now, after twenty-six years with Mary, he viewed with misgivings the prospect of having to get used to another woman, the woman Mary had become. He wore a deeply troubled look when he trudged back into the barn.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was evening when Ross Raines rode into town. Except for the dim light that came from the few stores that were still open, and for the corner lampposts which cast off a yellowish haze that stood out bravely against the deepening night, the street was shadowy and dark. Ross had already noticed, and with a curious grimness too, that Garver’s market and Greenough’s store had not closed yet. He quickened his horse’s pace, guided him to the curb and pulled up in front of Garver’s, dismounted and stamped across the walk and went inside. Garver, a thin faced, dour-looking individual in his early fifties, was behind the counter, hunched over a bit and thumbing through a rather badly-worn ledger. He lifted his eyes when he heard Ross’ step. He stiffened and paled a little when he saw the husky youth.

Ross stopped, backed a couple of steps to the door and kicked it shut. Then he came up to the counter. “Y’got ’ny tomatoes?” he asked.

“Yeah—sure.”

“I mean for eating, as well as f’r throwing. Where are they?”

Garver swallowed hard. “Over—over there,” he answered with an effort, nodding toward a basket that stood atop an upended box.

“Are they good?”

Garver nodded again.

Ross sauntered over to the basket He picked out two of the biggest tomatoes, hefted them, one in each hand, and brought them back to the counter.

“Real beefsteak tomatoes, huh?” he said. “A lot better’n the one you threw at Pop.”

Suddenly, before Garver could do anything to protect himself, Ross crushed them full in the storekeeper’s face, mashing them in Garver’s eyes and mouth with his big hands till the pulp ran down Garver’s chin and spattered his shirt and apron. When he was able to twist away from his tormentor, it was only because Ross had finished with him and permitted him to escape. Ross wiped his hands on his levis, wheeled and stalked out.

His horse looked up at him when Ross emerged. When Ross strode down the street, the horse followed him and stopped again when Ross did in front of a man who had just climbed out of a buckboard.

“Evening, Judge Crandall,” Ross said. “C’n I ask you something?”

The man peered hard at him in the night light. “Oh, it’s you, Ross!”

“That’s right, Judge.”

“What is it you want to know?”

“Well, if I go into a store, and I wanna buy something, and I got the dough to pay for it, the storekeeper got ’ny right to refuse to sell it to me?”

“No, Ross, he hasn’t,” was the answer. “But who’s—?”

“That’s all I want to know. Much obliged, Judge.”

When Ross stepped around the buckboard and crossed the street, his horse wheeled after him, plodded along at his heels and stopped again at the curb when Ross mounted it and went into Greenough’s place.

The proprietor was sweeping the floor. He halted his broom almost in midair when Ross entered. Greenough eyed him and frowned. “What d’you want here?” he demanded.

“Wanna buy something,” Ross answered calmly.

“Go buy it somewheres else.”

“Happens I wanna buy it here.”

“I said go buy it somewheres else.”

“I ain’t interested in what you said. Accordin’ to what Judge Crandall just told me, I c’n go into any store I like and buy anything I want, long’s I’ve got the dough to pay for it. Get a sack.”

Greenough did not move. Ross’ eyes glinted. He turned and went swiftly to the door, slammed it shut, turned the key in the lock and came striding back.

“Get a sack,” he repeated.

Greenough glowered. Ross reached for the broom and tore it out of his hands and slung it away. It collided with a barrel, caromed off and fell on the floor, spun around a couple of times and finally stopped.

“Get a sack, I said.”

Greenough turned slowly and trudged away to the shadowy rear. When he returned a moment later, he had a sack in his hands. He tossed it to Ross, who made no attempt to catch it, and it fell to the floor. Ross kicked it and Greenough, glowering again, put up his hands, and caught it. Ross took it from him and put it on the counter.

“Ma’s been gettin’ the same stuff from you every week for years now, so you know what she wants,” he said curtly. “Put the stuff in the sack. Only this time double up on everything. Go on now, an’ quit glowerin’ at me. You don’t scare me none.”

Greenough muttered something under his breath. When Ross took a step toward him, Greenough moved hastily around the counter with the shelves of canned goods behind him. When Ross gestured, Greenough reached around behind him. Can after can went into the sack as Ross watched. The storekeeper suddenly bent down; when he came erect again, he had a gun in his hand. It was big and black, and its muzzle gaped hungrily at the third button on Ross’ shirt.

“Get out’ve here!” Greenough said thickly. “Get out before I—”

Ross’ arm shot out, and his hand caught Greenough’s gun wrist and tightened around it. Slowly and steadily the muzzle lifted till it was pointing ceilingward. When Ross squeezed a little harder, Greenough winced. Ross reached up with his free hand and took the gun out of Greenough’s hand and put it on the counter. The storekeeper was panting a little through his open mouth, and he was sweating freely now, too. His face and forehead were beaded. He flushed under Ross’ steady gaze and finally lowered his eyes. He massaged his right wrist gently.

“Go on with Ma’s order,” Ross said curtly.

Greenough turned again and began to pick things from the shelves and put them in the sack. Ross stood quietly. Presently the sack was filled.

“That everything?” Ross asked.

Greenough grunted.

“Tie it up,” Ross commanded.

“Haven’t got ’ny rope.”

“Go look. You’ll find some.”

Again Greenough trudged away to the rear. When he returned to the counter he had some knotted-together pieces of rope in his hand. He drew the open end of the sack together, looped the rope around it and knotted it, yanked hard on it, and looked up again.

“That’s better,” Ross said dryly. “How much d’you get?”

Greenough, using a stub of a pencil, made a long column of figures on a paper bag, totaled it and added it a second time.

“Comes to eleven dollars even,” he announced flatly.

Ross dug in his pocket. He produced a couple of crumpled bills and a handful of silver. He counted out the required amount, put it on the counter and pocketed the rest of his money.

“Gimme a receipt,” he ordered.

Greenough frowned, but he obeyed. He scribbled his name on the paper bag below the amount. Ross picked up the bag, looked at it, folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. He hitched up his levis, got a grip on the sack and hoisted it up on his shoulder. “You’d better put that gun away,” he said curtly. He shifted the sack a little and marched out.

Ross was riding up the street some minutes later when a bulky figure emerged from some shadows, came out to the curb and stepped down into the gutter, squarely in Ross’ path. Ross recognized him at once. It was the sheriff, old Hig Dimmock.

“Yeah, Sheriff?” he asked as he came up to him.

Dimmock moved to Ross’ side. “Gotta take you in, Ross,” he announced. “Willie Garver says you assaulted him.”

“All right,” Ross answered. “I want Garver locked up, too, for hittin’ Pop with a tomato when he was drivin’ past Garver’s place.”

“Doggone it, Ross!” Dimmock sputtered. “You can’t go ’round takin’ the law into your own hands. Now the next time,” he went on severely, shaking a thick finger at Ross, “you got a complaint against anybody, you come an’ tell me. Y’hear?”

“Yeah, sure, Sheriff,” Ross said. “The next time.”

“I’m lettin’ you go this time, but I won’t the next time. G’wan now.” He stepped back, and Ross rode away.

It was some forty-five minutes later when Ross pulled up at the back door of the Raineses’ house and dismounted. The door opened, and a head was poked out. “That you, Ross?” It was Allie’s voice.

“Yep. It’s me, Pop.”

The door was opened wide, and Allie moved into the doorway, straddling the threshold, silhouetted against the light from the kitchen ceiling lamp. “Kinda late,” he remarked. “You oughtn’ta keep the Trimbles up like this.”

“I didn’t keep ’em up. I left their place four hours ago.”

“Four hours ago?” Allie repeated. “Where you been since then?”

“Oh, ridin’ around mostly. Then I went into town.”

“Thought your Ma told you not to go there?”

Ross did not answer. He came away from his horse and held out something to his father. “Take this, will you, Pop? An’ be careful the way you handle it.”

“What is it?” Allie wanted to know.

“Saddlebag,” Ross told him. “Got Ma’s jars o’ jelly in it.” There was movement behind Allie, and another figure came across the kitchen floor to his side. It was Mary Raines.

“The jelly, Ross,” she said, “why did you bring it back?”

“Didn’t want me to throw it away, did you?”

“Why didn’t you leave it at the Trimbles?”

“They wouldn’t let me. They don’t want anything from us.”

“Oh,” Mary said. She turned away then.

Allie backed and held the door wide for Ross, who tramped in with the sack slung over his shoulder.

“Where’ll I put this, Ma?” Ross asked.

“What—what is it?” Mary asked.

“The stuff you wanted from Greenough. I made him double up on everything.”

Allie closed the door and backed against it and stood quietly watching Ross lower the sack and put it on the table. Ross took off his hat and scaled it away. He dug into his pocket, produced the paper bag showing the cost of his purchases, and put it on the table, too.

“There’s Greenough’s receipt to show he’s been paid,” Ross said. He swung a chair around and straddled it. “Well, looks like the Raineses are on the outside, lookin’ in. Nobody wants any part of us. Even Nessie don’t want ’ny part o’ me. She gave me back my ring.”

Ross held up his hand. A heavy signet ring on the little finger of his left hand held their eyes. He got up from the chair. “Gotta put my horse away,” he said. He started for the door, stopped suddenly and looked at his mother. “Oh, what about Florrie?”

Mary shook her head. “She didn’t go to the dance,” she said. “Ben Farrow didn’t come for her.”

“I know,” Ross said, and Mary looked at him. “I saw him and Ava Stanton when I was on my way to town. They were in Ben’s buckboard. They were all shined up. That’s how I knew he wasn’t takin’ Florrie.”

There was a moment’s heavy silence. “You’ve told Florrie, huh, Ma?” Ross asked shortly.

Mary nodded.

“Gonna be tough on her,” Ross said. “It’s always tough on a girl when everybody she ever knew cuts her dead. Don’t matter so much to a man. He c’n get along by himself when he has to, but it’s tough for a girl to hafta take. What’s Florrie doing, Ma? She gone to bed?”

“No,” Mary answered, avoiding Ross’ eyes. “She’s just sitting in her room at the window.”

“I think maybe I’ll go in and talk to ’er for a minute. Pop, wonder if you’d mind—?”

“I’ll put your horse away,” Allie said.

“Thanks, Pop.”

Allie turned, stepped back from the door, opened it and went out. It latched behind him. They heard the plod of the horse’s hooves on the gravel path as Allie led the animal away to the barn. Then the sound faded out. Ross looked quietly at his mother. Slowly her gaze came up to meet his. There was a flush under her eyes.

“I’m afraid we’ve done somethin we’re gonna have one heckuva time undoing, Ma,” Ross said gravely. There was no response from Mary. He walked to the swinging door with a strange heaviness in his legs. He stopped when he came to it and looked back at his mother over his shoulder. A tiny, boyishly-wistful smile parted his lips. “Oh, we’ll make out all right, I guess. Only it’s gonna seem awfully strange for me come Saturday nights, and I don’t see Nessie any more. I’ve kinda gotten so used to it. It’s always been something to look forward to. Now there ain’t anything any more. Just work and eat and sleep and think.”

CHAPTER FIVE

A huge pile of rocks stood squarely astride the property lines between the Raines spread and the Dufour ranch. Leading up to it and then away from it from the far side was a double strand wire fence that separated the two properties. A horseman appeared, riding slowly and aimlessly along the fence. It was Ross Raines, rather dejected-looking and slouched over. He reined in when he neared the rocks and sat slacked in the saddle. After a bit he climbed down and walked about with his head down, and his scuffing boot toes uprooting and kicking tiny stones whenever any appeared in his path. Belle, Ross’ mare, watched him for a time, then she came plodding up behind him and nuzzled him. He turned and patted her, and she whinnied and rubbed her nose against his shoulder. He pressed her nose with absent-minded affection.

“Hey, you! Raines!”

Ross’ head jerked. Belle backed off a step and looked around. Ross turned in the direction of the voice. Standing on a flat, shelf-like rock that jutted far out from the others, about midway up the pile, was a tall figure, Gene Dufour, Clem’s son. Ross eyed him, wondering the while what Gene was doing up there. When they were children they had played there, but because they had not gotten along too well, each had been ordered to keep to his own side of the rocks. That was a long time ago, however.

“Want you to tell your old man something for me, Raines. Tell him to keep his stock where it belongs. If we catch any comin’ over the rocks onto our place, it’ll be just too bad for him. That’ll be the last he’ll see of it. You tell him that, y’hear?”

Ross did not answer. Anger was swelling inside of him, but he was able to hold it in check. He could listen a while longer, he told himself. Looking up at Gene, it struck him how much alike he and Clem Dufour sounded. Perhaps Clem was a little more gruff. That was because he was older. Gene, with the recklessness of youth, took a more belligerent note. Still the two Dufours sounded a lot alike.

Ross recalled something he had heard his father saying one day when he came into the house. He could almost hear Allie’s voice now. Mary was ironing at the time and Allie, straddling a chair, was watching her work.

“I tell you, Mary, I don’t like that Clem Dufour. Never have, an’ I know I never will. He’s always talkin’ big an’ loud. An’ that kid o’ his, that Gene, he’s cut outta the same cloth. He ain’t dry behind the ears yet, but that don’t stop him from runnin’ off at the mouth. Some of his father’s meanness musta rubbed off on him, ’cause they sound so doggoned much alike. It’s hard to know which one’s doing the talking till you see him. Clem’s bad enough, like I’ve been saying, but when that kid, Gene, is full grown, he’ll be a heap worse’n Clem. All the signs point to it.”

Gene Dufour was as tall as his father, but there the similarity ended. Gene was thin-faced, dark-complected and sharp-featured, while Clem had a thick-bridged nose and full lips set in a heavy, round, low-browed, florid face that became beet-red when Clem lost his temper. Gene and Clem were alike in height, but while Gene was lean and bony almost to the point of being gangling, Clem was burly and solid.

Gene and Ross were about the same age, but because their inability to get along with each other had carried over from their early childhood, they had never become friendly. They greeted each other with a curt, wordless nod when they met in town, but there were many times, too, when they passed each other without any exchange. Ross refused to be awed by the Dufour name. He always waited for Gene to take the initiative when they encountered one another. When Gene greeted him, Ross responded; when Gene averted his eyes, Ross was just as well pleased.

Atop his high perch in the rocks, Gene’s face was darkening a little. It was a sign he was annoyed. “S’matter?” he shrilled. “Why don’t you answer? Didn’t you hear what I was tellin’ you? You deaf as well as dumb?”

Ross declined to be goaded into answering. He would play his little game with Gene, but he would play it the way he wanted. He knew his silence would irritate Gene. When his temper flared and got out of hand, Gene would make the move that Ross wanted him to make. Allie would not have anything about which to find fault with then. Ross would not be responsible for what happened. He could not be charged with having gone out of his way to pick a quarrel with Gene. Dufour would be responsible, and whatever happened to him as a consequence, well, he would have brought it on himself.

Gene came down from the ledge, working his way down from rock to rock, till he came to the lowest one, on the Raines’ side of the pile. There was movement somewhere behind the rocks, and presently a saddled horse came jogging into view. It was Gene’s mount. He came up to the fence, spied Belle and whinnied. Gene turned and gestured and the animal shied and backed away. Gene raised his hands and curled the brim of his hat.

“I hear Ben Farrow’s done with your sister, and he’s takin’ up with Ava Stanton,” he began again shortly. “Ben had her to the Wheeler dance. Then just this mornin’ I heard Ed Trimble tellin’ my father he’d ordered you off his place the other day an’ told you to stay off.”

Ross wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Why’n hell doesn’t your old man get wise to himself?” Gene demanded. “Why doesn’t he sell out? Nobody ’round here wants ’ny part of him, and that goes for the rest o’ you, too.”

Ross decided he had heard enough. “C’mere a minute, Dufour,” he said. “Wanna show you something.”

Gene laughed. “Well, what d’you know. You ain’t deaf after all. You’re only dumb. All right, stupid, what d’you wanna show me that’s so interesting?”

“It’s over here.”

“What is it?”

“S’matter? You afraid to come down off that rock?” Ross smiled meaningly.

“Afraid?” Gene echoed. “Afraid o’ who? You? Don’t make me laugh.” He jumped down, hitched up his levis, and came sauntering across the grass.

There was an exaggerated swagger in Gene’s walk. He halted in front of Ross and stood on slightly spread legs, with his hands on his hips. He was a head taller than Ross.

“Well?” he demanded. “What d’you wanna show me?”

Ross smiled. “I’ll show it to you in a minute,” he answered. “Wanna tell you something first.”

Gene’s lip curled a little. “None of our stock ever goes over those rocks ’cause we don’t graze th’m up here,” Ross said evenly. “An’ even if we did, no steer’d get very far ’cause steers ain’t any good at climbing, but that ain’t what I wanted to tell you.”

“Well, get to it!” Gene commanded. “I ain’t got all day to listen to you. I’ve got things to do.”

“You must’ve changed,” Ross said. “Last time I passed your place, I heard your father givin’ you hell. I heard him say you were no damned good, just lazy an’ full of sass an’ always runnin’ off at the mouth.”

Gene stiffened. “Why, you—!”

“I known you ever since I c’n remember,” Ross went on calmly. “We used to play in those rocks when we were kids, but we didn’t get along ’cause even then you were a big mouth. No, I don’t think you’ve changed any, Gene. What’s more, I don’t think you ever will. You’re the kind that changes in only one way. The older you get, the worse you get.”

Gene had begun to flush under the eyes.

“Ever since I c’n remember, I always wanted to wallop you good,” Ross continued. “Well, looks like I finally come to where I’m gonna get to do it. I’da put it off longer if you hadn’t opened your big mouth to me, and maybe I’da never got to do it. But here we are and on our property. You’re trespassin’, Gene, so the law’s on my side.”

“You—you tricked me!” Gene blurted out “You told me to come down. You wanted to show me something.”

“Did I do that?” Ross asked innocently. “I can’t believe I’d ever do anything like that, ’specially to you, Gene, but I’m afraid you’re gonna have a heckuva time gettin’ the law to believe you. You’re bigger’n I am, so the law won’t think I dragged you over here. The law’ll say you musta come by yourself, so whatever happened to you, you got nobody to blame but yourself. You say I told you I had something I wanted to show you? Can’t think what it could’ve been ’cept these.”

Ross held up his thick-wristed, clenched fists. Gene suddenly twisted away, but Ross was prepared for it. He dove after Gene, flung his arms around him, and the two of them hit the ground with Ross on top of Gene. Ross got up, and Gene, on his hands and knees, stole an over-the-shoulder look at him and suddenly leaped up and ran toward the fence. Again Ross halted him. This time, he tripped him, and Gene fell heavily.

Gene was a little dazed when Ross dragged him to his feet. He lashed out suddenly and caught Ross on the side of the head with a wild, overshot blow that did no damage because Ross pulled away instinctively. Then Ross’ anger exploded. He came rocketing in with a punch that landed wrist-deep in Gene’s stomach, doubling him over. A hard blow that caught Gene on the jaw straightened him up and almost lifted him off his feet. He retreated a little wobbly-legged, and Ross swarmed over him, smashing him in the face and in the body. When Gene rocked, and his legs threatened to buckle under him, Ross grabbed him, steadied him and struck him again.

Ross gave Gene no chance to rally, grabbing him every time it looked as though he were about to fall, and holding him up then, stepping back, he walloped Gene again. He kept after him, practically dogging his every backward step, and battered the hapless Dufour unmercifully, driving him fenceward.

When the two were about a dozen feet from the fence, there was a sudden yell and a sudden swelling rush of hooves. Someone came pounding up, flung himself off his horse and threw his arms around Ross and dragged him away from the tottering Gene, who finally sagged and crumpled up in the grass. Ross did not struggle to free himself from his father’s grip. His anger had spent itself. Allie still clung to him anyway.

“It’s all right, Pop,” Ross told him. “It’s all right. I ain’t gonna hit him again, but I’m doggoned glad you came along when you did. You c’n see for yourself he’s on our side o’ the fence, so that proves I didn’t go after him.”

“You better be gettin’ back to the house,” Allie said, wheezing a little.

Ross did not answer. He twisted out of his father’s grasp. Allie, with a backward glance at Ross, apparently to make sure Ross was not following him, ran to Gene’s side. He dropped down on one knee. Gene groaned, stirred and rolled away from him and struggled up on his elbow. Then with an effort he dragged himself up on his feet. His face was battered and bloodied. He swayed a little, turned himself around and trudged heavily to the fence, squeezed through between the rocks and a fence post. Breathing heavily, he pulled himself up on his horse.

“I’ll get you for that!” he hollered to Ross. “You see if I don’t!” Gene wheeled his mount, lashed him and sent him racing away southward.

Allie shook his head. He turned slowly. Ross was standing at Belle’s head, and the mare was rubbing her nose against his arm.

“I don’t want you to come up here again, Ross,” Allie said.

“Look, Pop—!”

“You heard me,” Allie said. “We got enough on our hands now without lookin’ f’r any more, just remember that. C’mon. We’re goin’ back to the house.”

They mounted their horses and rode away.

“After a while,” Allie said, breaking the silence between them, “I’m goin’ over to see Clem.”

“What for?”

“Maybe if we c’n sit down together an’ talk man-to-man, we c’n get this blamed mess straightened out.”

Ross shrugged. “All right, Pop,” he said. “You’re the boss. But I hope you know what you’re doin’.”

“I figure I’d better try to do something about this before it gets outta hand,” Allie explained.

Ross, looking a little grim-faced, made no comment. Some ten minutes later they came up to the barn, slowed their horses and pulled up just beyond the open doorway. The father looked sharply at his son as they dismounted.

“You’d better not say ’nything about this to your Ma,” Allie said. “Leastways, not just yet, anyway. No point gettin’ her all worked up about things in general before they get a chance to peter out. Y’know?”

“I know.”

“Lemme look at you a minute,” Allie said. His hands on Ross’ shoulders, he probed his son’s face. “No, can’t see anything. Gene had the reach on you but you held him off, huh?”

“He hit me once, but I got outta the way of it, and it just glanced off my head.”

Together the two men started up the path. When it narrowed, Ross slowed his step, and Allie moved ahead of him. Rounding the house at the rear, they saw a slim, brown-haired girl hanging some wash on a long line that was strung between two poles. She looked at them over her shoulder.

The girl was pretty. There was nothing in her face that reminded one of Mary, but anyone could see her resemblance to Allie. She looked at them wonderingly, shuttling her eyes from one to the other. Allie winked at her as he went on to the house, and Ross stopped beside her.

“Ma said something about driving over to Dalhart later on,” he began. “She wants to get some stuff for curtains, I think she said. How ’bout comin’ along with us?”

Florrie thought about it for a moment. Then she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t feel like going anywhere.”

“Aw, come on, Florrie,” he urged. “Do you good to get away from here for a while. What d’you say, huh?”

Florrie turned her full gaze on Ross and looked at him for a long moment. She smiled, wistfully, he thought, and it hurt him to see the expression in her eyes. Anger was welling up inside of him again when he wheeled toward the house. Now he was wishing it had been Clem Dufour instead of Gene whom he had pummeled. It was Clem, he told himself grimly, who should have received the beating. Gene was unimportant, but Clem was responsible for everything that had happened to them.

Ross came up to the back door, opened it and stepped inside. Allie was sitting at the kitchen table, and Mary was just placing a cup of coffee in front of him. Ross forced the grimness out of his face. “When d’you wanna get started for Dalhart, Ma?” he asked with a forced casualness in his voice and manner.

Mary lifted her eyes. “Why, ’most anytime,” she answered. “Any time you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now,” he told her.

“Oh,” Mary said, “well, give me a minute to change my dress and get my coat.”

CHAPTER SIX

Orvie Scott, the Dufour foreman, a grizzled, bandy-legged old-timer, and Luke Cousins, an angular hand of about forty, were just sauntering out of the barn when they heard a swelling drumbeat of hooves. They came to a stop and lifting their eyes, ranged them in the direction of the hoofbeats. Billowing dust preceded the horseman who finally came into view, and the two men peered hard at him. Scott frowned because he could not immediately identify him.

“You reco’nize him, Luke?” he asked.

“Nope,” Cousins answered, squinting. “Not yet, I don’t. But whoever he is, he’s sure runnin’ the legs off his horse.” The horseman came steadily closer, and Luke suddenly said: “Heck, Orvie, it’s the kid, Gene.”

“Gene?” Scott repeated. His droop-ended mouth tightened and thinned into a straight line. “What the hell’s got into him? He oughta know better’n to ride a horse that way.”

Cousins simply said: “He’s in a helluva sweat, all right.”

“When Clem hears about this, he’ll light into Gene an’ really make him sweat. Horses cost money, an’ pushin’ th’m the way Gene’s runnin’ this one is about the best way I know of to ruin him.”

Cousins grunted. “Wonder how he’d like for Clem to make him run the way he’s runnin’ that horse?” Scott asked grumpily.

Dust boiled up and carried in their direction when Gene came whirling around the corral. He pulled his panting mount to a sliding stop in front of them. “Pop around?”

“Nope,” Scott answered curtly. His eyes widened, and his jaws came unhinged and hung for a moment. Luke Cousins was staring at him open-mouthed, too. Gene’s right eye was practically shut, and the flesh around it was badly puffed and discolored. His nose and mouth were red and battered-looking. Scott had his mouth closed, but he forced it open again to speak. “What—what’n blazes happened to you?”

“Yeah,” Cousins said. “You’re a helluva mess, all right, boy.”

Gene bristled. “I was jumped,” he said a little stiffly.

“By who?” Scott demanded.

“Ross Raines,” Gene answered. “When I wasn’t looking.”

“Ross, huh?” Scott mused. “Y’mean to say he did all that to you, an’ him a good six inches shorter’n you?”

“He jumped me, I told you!” Gene flung at him angrily. “Where’s my father?”

“Gone off somewheres,” Scott relied. “You better go in the house an’ fix yourself up, young feller.”

Gene jerked his horse away and rode up to the house, dismounted at the front door and stalked up the steps to the veranda, crossed it and disappeared inside. Scott and Cousins looked at each other an shook their heads.

“Wait’ll Clem gets home an’ gets a look at him,” Luke said.

“Yeah,” Scott added. “I know. There’ll be hell to pay. C’mon, Luke. Let’s go have that coffee.”

The men trudged off toward the bunkhouse. The door had just closed behind them when Gene, carrying a rifle, came out of the house. He stopped and cast a quick look about him. There was no sign now of Scott and Cousins. He went swiftly down the steps to his horse, climbed up on him and rode off. He was a couple hundred yards away when the bunkhouse door opened again, and Luke Cousins’ head was poked out.

“Who was that?” a voice somewhere behind him asked. “Clem?”

“Nope. I kinda think it was Gene.”

“Gene? Where’n hell’s he goin’ this time?”

“Y’got me,” Cousins answered over his shoulder.

“That kid’s been spoilin’ to have somebody push his face in for ’im, and I don’t mind tellin’ you, Luke, I ain’t what you might call unhappy over Ross’ doin’ it. Not that I got ’ny love for the Raineses, you understand. F’r my dough, I think they oughta be run outta the county, but if Ross was the only one with guts enough to give Gene what he’s been spoilin’ for, it’s all right with me. Close the door an’ let’s have our coffee an’ get outta here before Clem gets back.”

Gene Dufour rode eastward for a time, then he swung northeastward. He was angry, even more so now than he had been before. He now listed Orvie Scott and Luke Cousins among those for whom he had developed a dislike. He could not understand why his father kept them on the payroll when there were younger and far abler men available, men who would leap at the chance to ride for the biggest outfit in the county.

Scott had never liked him, Gene told himself; he had never been as respectful of him as he should have been in view of the fact that he, Gene, was Scott’s employer. Well, perhaps he was not really that yet, not while his father was still able to run things. The time was not far off, though, when he would turn to Gene to shoulder some of the responsibility. Then, and Gene’s eyes gleamed with a sudden brightness, then there would be some changes made around the place. Gene would make them. That would be his privilege. Orvie Scott would be the first one he would let go, and then he would fire Luke Cousins. There would be others, too, quite a few of them. When he got finished everyone would know, and respectfully, too, who was the boss. Oh yes, his day would come, and when it did, it would be a day that no one would forget very quickly.

Then Gene’s thoughts switched. He put Scott and Cousins out of his mind. As yet he had not decided what he would do, now that he had armed himself. There was just one thing gnawing at him, and that was revenge. Of course, revenge would have two purposes. The first one was the obvious one. The second was different. It would help him redeem himself in Scott’s eyes. Orvie had been a little sarcastic with him. His words rang in Gene’s reddening ears. “Ross huh? Y’mean to say he did all that to you? An’ him a good six inches shorter’n you?”

Gene’s anger flared higher. He tightened his grip on the rifle. He would have his revenge, all right. He would have it, even if he had to ride right up to the Raineses’ front door and call Ross outside. He would kill Ross, he gritted through his teeth. He would pump him full of lead. He would watch Ross’ body thresh and leap under the impact of each slug he fired into it. When there was no more life in it, it would lay still like a broken weed.

Ross, Gene had related, had jumped him. That was his story, and he would stick to it doggedly. Who would dispute his claim that Ross had attacked him, and without warning? Only Ross’ father, the most heartily-disliked man in the county, and who would believe him? On the other hand, he, Gene, was the son, the only son, too, and the only child of the richest, most influential man in the whole county, and who would dare stand up to Clem and point an accusing finger at Clem’s son?

A few minutes more, and Gene would be at the fence that separated the two ranches. He pulled back on the reins, slowing his horse. When he came to the fence, he would ride along it, Gene decided, and when he found the right spot, he would cut through on to the Raines place. He came up to the fence shortly and followed it eastward after a quick look around him. There was no one about on either side of the fence. His hands were a little sweaty now, and he wiped them on his levis, one at a time, shifting the rifle from his right hand to his left and then back to the right. He topped a grassy rise and pulled up abruptly, so suddenly that the bit cut into his horse’s lip and the animal protested.

A quarter of a mile away and coming toward the fence on the Raineses’ side of it, was a horseman. Gene’s resolve vanished instantly. He was suddenly panicky, but before he could wheel around and run off, an iron hand gripped his own and imprisoned it in a vise. There was no explaining what followed. He moved mechanically, as though someone else was directing him. He climbed down from his horse, and when he gestured, the animal loped away out of sight. Gene shot a quick look at the oncoming horseman. It was Ross.

Gene dropped down instantly in the grass and sprawled out on his belly. He brought up his rifle, put the butt to his shoulder and sighted along the barrel. The horseman, heading straight for the fence, came up to it presently, about a hundred feet from where Gene was hidden. Apparently, Ross knew where there was a cut-through. Gene burrowed deep in the grass, but impatience and excitement made him raise up after a bit for another quick look. The cut-through was a narrow one, and the broken tips of the wire whipped gently back and forth. Ross’ horse eyed them with misgivings, but Ross drove him through. They emerged on the Dufour side of the fence.

Gene, again sighting along the barrel, curled his finger around the trigger. Then he gasped. The rider was not Ross Raines. It was Allie. The iron hand that had gripped Gene’s hand earlier and which had stayed him when panic almost overcame him, held his finger on the trigger. Allie’s horse came plodding up the incline and the rifle, held on them, roared suddenly, shattering the afternoon silence. Allie toppled sideways out of the saddle and fell heavily in the grass.

The iron hand relaxed its grip on Gene. He got up on his knees and peered down the incline. Allie was motionless, a curiously huddled-up figure. His horse looked up, spied Gene and whinnied. There was fright in his voice.

Gene got up on his feet and darted away. His horse came loping up beside him, and Gene stumbled to a breathless stop, climbed up on him, lashed him and sent him pounding away. He did not dare look back. He was frightened, more frightened than he had ever been in his life. His fright seemed to communicate itself to his horse because the animal fairly skimmed over the grass.

Minutes later, incredibly soon, the corral came into view, then the barn, and finally the house loomed up. Gene came dashing around the corral at a full gallop spun toward the house and came up beside a saddled horse that was standing untied near the veranda steps. Gene flung himself off his mount and rifle in hand scrambled up the steps into the house.

“Gene!” It was his father’s voice. He skidded to an awkward stop. He fought for his breath before he answered.

“Y—yeah, Pop?” he managed after a moment.

“Wanna see you a minute. Come in here!”

Gene turned slowly. The color that had flooded his face but a minute before was gone, and now he was almost ashen, save for the places where the red bruises and welts showed through. He came into the open doorway of the little side room that served as Clem Dufour’s office. Clem was sitting at his huge, roll-top desk. He eased back in his chair and lifted his eyes.

“What’s this about you tanglin’ with Ross Raines?” he demanded.

“I’ll tell you about that in a minute, Pop,” Gene said. He was still fighting for his breath. “First I gotta tell you something else.”

Clem frowned. “I’m listening,” he said curtly.

“I—I just killed Allie Raines.”

Clem came bounding to the doorway. His face was flame-red. He drew back his big hand and whacked Gene across the mouth. He stared hard at Gene, stared as though he were fascinated by the blood that spurted from Gene’s battered lips. He reached out suddenly, grabbed Gene by the shirt front and dragged him across the threshold, spun him around and flung him in the chair in which he had been sitting. He wheeled around, strode swiftly to the door, closed it and stood with his back to it and his hand thrust behind him, gripping the door knob so that no one might enter. His full lips were tight, and white arcs and bits of lines formed round his mouth.

“All right,” Clem commanded in a voice that was unfamiliar to Gene. “Talk.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Judge Wesley Crandall, slight of build, balding, about fifty-five and bespectacled, was sitting in his office on the upper floor of the building that housed the bank when the door opened, and a burly figure filled the doorway. Crandall put down the book he was reading, took off his silver-rimmed glasses and looked across the room.

“Oh, Clem!” he said. “Come in.”

Dufour grunted and stepped inside. Behind him were two others, Gene and then Sheriff Hig Dimmock.

The judge got up on his feet. “Well, well!” he said with a smile. “What have we here? Looks like quite a delegation. How are you, Gene? And you, Hig? Sit down. Sit down.”

“Close the door,” Clem commanded, and the sheriff stopped, retraced his heavy steps to the door and closed it. “Sit in the back, Gene.”

There were two curtained windows at the far side of the room, and a deep, leather armchair stood squarely between them. Gene trooped over to it and sat down in it. Clem and Dimmock, the latter with a somewhat envious glance at the armchair, seated themselves in the straight-backed chairs that stood rigidly and uninvitingly in front of Crandall’s desk. The judge sank down again in his own chair, the mate to Gene’s. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?” he asked.

Dimmock averted his eyes. He squirmed back, frowning, trying to make his two hundred and thirty-pound body a little more comfortable in the wooden chair that resented his weight.

“Wes,” Clem began. “You an’ Hig are my best friends. Always have been, too. That goes back a long time.”

Crandall smiled. “About thirty years, I’d say.”

“Uh-huh. Think I was your first client.”

“That’s right, Clem. And you been my client and friend ever since.”

Dufour grunted. “When you an’ Hig ran for office, I was the one who put up the dough you fellers needed for expenses, an’ it was me who went out an’ dug up the votes to get you elected. Right?”

“Right, Clem.”

“Wes, you hear about Allie Raines’ sellin’ a piece o’ his land to the Katy?”

The judge nodded.

“An’ about us kickin’ him out’ve the Association?”

“Yes.”

Clem drew a deep, chest expanding breath. “This afternoon Gene ran into Allie. They had words an’ then a fight. In the middle of it, Gene’s rifle went off, when Allie made a grab for it. The bullet hit Allie plumb center. Killed him.”

Crandall sat back in his chair. He drummed on his desk with the fingers of his right hand. “Suppose,” he said after a moment. “Suppose you tell me everything that happened?”

“Right,” Clem said. “It begins early this afternoon. Gene was ridin’ along the fence. Y’know where those rocks are between the Raines place an’ ours?”

The judge nodded.

“Well, when Gene was a kid, he used to play up there. He climbed up among th’m again this afternoon. Ross Raines was there, too. First thing y’know they had words. Ross was sore. Said it was my doin’ that Allie was kicked out’ve the Association. ’Course Gene wasn’t gonna let him say n’ything against me, an’ he went back at Ross. All uva sudden, Ross came jumpin’ down on him. Gene wasn’t expectin’ it. He got the worst of it. You c’n tell that by lookin’ at him.”

The judge shot a glance at Gene.

“Gene was madder’n hell when he got home,” Clem continued. “He’s only a kid, y’know, so you’ve gotta expect a kid to do wild an’ crazy things, ’specially when he’s got himself a good walloping. He come bustin’ into the house, grabbed his rifle an’ went lookin’ for Ross. That’s when he ran into Allie.”

“Where was that?”

“Now there’s a funny one for you, Wes. Allie was on our side o’ the fence when he came ridin’ up to Gene. How d’you like that?”

Crandall’s eyebrows arched, but he made no comment. “Allie was mad,” Clem related. “He lit into Gene. He cussed both of us out good. Gene took it. He couldn’t go fightin’ with Allie. A kid don’t go tanglin’ with a man who’s old enough to be his—his grandfather. Allie suddenly made a grab for Gene’s rifle. He nearly got it away from him when the damned thing went off. Allie slumped off his horse an’ fell on his face in the grass. Gene came rushin’ back to the house, an’ he told me about it. Orvie an’ me an’ a couple o’ the other boys who were around went out to see about Allie. We found him. He was dead, all right. The bullet’d hit him plumb center. We brought him into town, to Wid Kelsey’s, the undertaker’s, and left him there for Wid to take care of.”

“H’m,” the judge said. “What about Allie’s family? Have they been told?”

“I sent Orvie over to see th’m, but there wasn’t anybody home. So Orvie rode around for a while till he found Allie’s hired hands, Bub Worden, Toby Jackson and that Eddie Morse, an’ he told them.”

“I see.”

“Now, there are two things that stand out in this mess, Wes. The first one is that Allie didn’t have ’ny right to be on our place. He was trespassin’, the way I see it. The second thing is that the shooting was an accident, an’ that Allie was the one responsible for it. If he hadn’ta made a grab for the rifle, it wouldn’t’ve gone off, an’ he’d be alive now instead o’ dead.”

“Is that everything now?” Crandall asked.

“Yep,” Clem said, nodding. “Everything, an’ just the way it all happened. What d’we do, Wes?”

“We’ll come to that presently, Clem,” the judge said. “Gene—”

Gene jerked upright. The color began to drain out of his face.

“Gene, tell me something,” Crandall said. “You didn’t threaten Allie with your rifle, did you?”

“’Course he didn’t,” Clem said.

“I want Gene to answer, Clem.”

Dufour frowned, but he held his tongue. He twisted around in his chair and looked hard at Gene.

“You didn’t threaten Allie, did you, Gene?” the judge asked.

“No, sir,” Gene answered.

Clem’s frown vanished. He looked relieved.

“One thing more, Gene,” Crandall said. “What were you going to do if you caught up with Ross? Shoot him?”

A sheepish smile flitted over Gene’s mouth and parted his lips. “No, sir,” he replied. “Fact is, Judge, by the time I ran into Allie, I wasn’t mad any more. Guess it musta worn off by then. Oh, I admit I was still sore, but I wasn’t planning to shoot ’nybody.”

“You want me to believe that you snatched up your rifle and set out to find Ross when you were still smarting from the beating he’d given you, and that it was simply an angry and impulsive act?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if you had met Ross?”

“Guess I’da forgot about the rifle,” Gene answered without a moment’s hesitation, “an’ gone after him an’ paid him back good—but with my hands, Judge.”

“Clem, I’m releasing Gene in your custody,” Crandall said, leveling his gaze at the elder Dufour. “You can take him home now.”

“Y’mean that’s all?”

“No,” the judge said. “Not quite. The law requires that he appear in court and repeat his story to a jury.”

“Oh!”

“Meanwhile, I’d suggest that he stay at home. Just to avoid things, you know.”

“What kind o’ things? Like runnin’ into Ross?”

“Yes. When he’s due to appear in court, I’ll have Hig tell you.”

“Releasin’ him in my custody means I’m responsible for him. Right?”

“That’s right, Clem. And, incidentally, Gene should be represented by counsel when he goes into court.”

“All right. You’re our lawyer.”

“I’m afraid you don’t understand, Clem. I can’t very well defend him and sit in judgment at the same time, you know.”

“Y’mean it wouldn’t look right?”

There was the barest trace of a smile on Crandall’s face. “I’m afraid it wouldn’t.”

“Who—who’ll I get?”

“Most anyone will do. Get George Berry.”

“All right. What’ll I tell him?”

“Exactly what you told me.”

“Right. Thanks, Wes. Thanks a lot.”

“That’s all right, Clem. Take your boy home, and see that he stays there.”

“He’ll stay there, all right! I’ll see to that,” Clem said grimly. He climbed to his feet. “All right, Hig. You, too, Gene. The judge’s got things to do, an’ we’re keepin’ him from doin’ them. Come on.”

Dimmock struggled to his feet. He trudged to the door, opened it and held it wide. He tramped out after the Dufours, Clem first, then Gene, and followed them down the single flight of stairs.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ed Trimble, a graying, average-sized man, came stamping into the kitchen of his house. Nellie, his wife, was stacking some dishes on the shelves of the wall cupboard. “Land’s sakes!” she exclaimed. “Do you have to walk that heavy? You nearly shook the dishes off the shelves.”

“I c’n go a cup o’ coffee,” he announced, ignoring her censure, “if you got some on.”

“It’s on,” she answered crossly. “Just a minute, and I’ll put a light under it.”

He took off his hat and dropped it in a chair that stood near the door, then he came sauntering forward to the table, pulled out a chair from it and seated himself. He sat back, raised his hands to his head and smoothed back his hair. “Where’s Nessie?” he asked.

“Upstairs.”

“What’s she doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t she help you around here any more?”

“When I need it.”

“S’matter with you today? What’s got your fur up?”

“You!”

“Me? What’d I do?”

“I still think it would’ve been the nice thing to do if we’d gone to Allie’s funeral.”

“Oh, you do, huh?”

“Yes! Not so much on account of Allie himself. He’s dead, so he probably doesn’t know who was there and who wasn’t. But on account of Mary and the children.”

“Well, we didn’t go, so forget it. Besides, I don’t wanna hear any more about it.”

“You’ll hear about it, as long as I want to talk about it!” she flung at him.

He shook his head wearily. “Nellie, how ’bout the coffee?” he asked.

“Want it cold?”

“No, ’course not.”

“Then wait till it gets hot.”

“Oh! Guess I didn’t see you put a light under it.”

“That’s just one of a lot of things you don’t see!”

“Nessie have ’nything to eat today?”

“About the same she did yesterday.”

“Still moonin’ over Ross, huh?”

“What d’you think?”

He hunched forward, resting his elbows on the table. “There’s other boys around. Lots o’ th’m, too, and nice ones. If she’s smart, she’ll forget about Ross an’ get to likin’ somebody else.”

“She doesn’t want to forget about Ross,” Nellie said curtly. She reached into the cupboard for a cup, poured the coffee and brought it to the table. “Go on. Drink it. Drink it while it’s hot.”

“I tell you Jake Farrow told Ben to quit seein’ Florrie Raines?”

“Jake’s an old fool!”

“Understand Ben took Ava Stanton to the Wheeler dance,” Trimble went on.

Nellie had just walked away from the table. She stopped in her tracks and looked hard at him over her shoulder.

“Ava?” she said scornfully. “She’s old enough to be his mother! He’s only a boy, and she’s thirty-five if she’s a day! Trollop! Dropped her marriage name when she came back here to live with her brother Buck and took up her maiden name. You’d think it was a disgrace or something for a woman to be a widow. I’ll bet she gave that husband o’ hers a run for his money. That mighta been what made him die so young. What was his name? You remember it?”

“Wynant. Lee Wynant, I think it was.”

“Well, whatever it was. Y’know something? It’d serve that Ben Farrow right if she wheedled him into marrying her. He ain’t good enough for Florrie Raines. Not even half good enough. I said that before, and I’ll say it again.”

“Look, I’m only tellin’ you what I heard when I was in town yesterday,” Trimble protested. “Nellie, you think maybe I oughta go up an’ kinda talk to Nessie?”

“What about?” she demanded.

“Oh, things.”

“What things?”

“I don’t like to see her actin’ this way.”

“You can thank yourself for that.”

Trimble frowned.

“For your information, Ed Trimble, Nessie don’t think any more of you right now than I do of Jake Farrow. You’re two of a kind, you and Jake, two old fools. You both done enough to your children to make them hate you. I don’t know about Ben, and I don’t care, but I know about Nessie. She’ll never forget it or forgive you. And if it means anything to you, neither will I!”

Trimble was crimson-faced. He pushed back from the table. He got up from his chair, stalked toward the door, caught up his hat, clapped it on his head, and strode out. The door swung wildly behind him and slammed with the full force of the push he gave it. Nellie shook her head.

“Stubborn old fool!” she said. “I could shake him!”

She went swiftly across the room, out of it and up the stairs. A minute later an upper floor door opened. There was a brief, moment-long silence, then it closed.

* * * *

Florrie was standing at the Raines’ kitchen window, staring moodily out into empty space. Ross, grim-looking, was sitting in the middle of the spacious room, straddling a chair as usual. He sat hunched over, his eyes down, fixed on the faded pattern of interlocking circles and squares in the worn oilcloth on the floor. His chin rested on his folded arms, on the rounded top of the chair’s back rest. From time to time he sighed deeply, and his body raised up a bit and promptly slumped down again.

“I just can’t get myself to believe it,” he said, and Florrie turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder.

“To believe what?”

“That yarn about Pop lightin’ into Gene Dufour the way he’s supposed to’ve. Pop wasn’t that kind. I can’t ever remember seein’ him lose his temper.”

“What do you suppose Pop was doing over on the Dufour place, or don’t you believe that either?”

“Oh, he coulda been there, all right,” Ross replied, lifting his eyes to his sister. “Fact is, he told me he was goin’ over to see Clem Dufour, to see if they couldn’t sit down together and talk things over, man-to-man, and put an end to this scrappin’ around. But nobody’ll ever get me to believe the rest o’ that yarn, that Pop went out’ve his way and picked a fight with Gene Dufour. Chances are it was just the other way ’round.”

“You mean that Gene picked a fight with Pop?”

Ross nodded. “There’s only one thing that might’ve happened that could’ve made Pop mad enough to wanna fight. Gene might’ve said something he shouldn’t have. You know the evil tongue he has, and his mean way o’ sayin’ things. Pop might’ve taken offense an’ made a grab for him.”

“I wonder if we’ll ever know what actually happened?”

Ross shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. His eyes glinted. “If I ever get Gene alone somewhere, where he can’t get away from me, I’ll know a lot more about what happened between him and Pop than I heard tell so far. I’ll get the truth out’ve him, all right. I’ll beat it out’ve him.”

Florrie was silent for a moment, then she said: “I saw Ben this morning, when we were driving back from the cemetery.”

“I saw him, too,” Ross told her. “He was coming out’ve the bank when we came along. He looked kinda flustered. Got all red.”

“I pretended I didn’t see him.”

Ross grunted. “Y’think Ma’s all right, Florrie?” he asked. “It’s more than an hour since she went inside.”

“She didn’t get much sleep last night, so if she’s dozed off, it’s the best thing for her.”

Ross shook his head.

“What’s the matter?” Florrie wanted to know.

“Ma,” Ross answered. “She hasn’t said anything, leastways not to me, but I got the feeling she thinks she’s responsible for what happened to Pop.”

Florrie did not comment; she was biting her lip.

“There ain’t ’ny point in her blamin’ herself for anything now.” Ross continued. “It’s too late. Maybe if she hadn’ta pushed Pop into makin’ that deal with the Katy—”

He stopped abruptly and sat up. They looked at each other, listening to the grind of approaching wagon wheels. “Buckboard,” Ross said.

“I wonder who it is?”

Ross did not answer. The sound of the grinding wheels swelled and came steadily closer, then it stopped. Florrie turned and peered out, parting the curtains over the window so that she might have a better view of the outside.

“See anybody?” Ross asked.

“Not yet,” Florrie replied. Then in almost the same breath, she said, “It’s the sheriff.”

Florrie turned away from the window. Ross got up on his feet. He spun his chair around and pushed it in close to the table. There was a heavy, labored step outside along the path, a pause, then a knock on the back door. Ross hitched up his pants. He glanced at his sister as he walked to the door and opened it. Huge old Sheriff Hig Dimmock faced him across the threshold.

“Yeah?” Ross asked.

“Hate to bother you folks at a time like this,” Florrie heard Dimmock say. He was wheezing a little. “But it might be you’ll be interested in hearin’ what I gotta say.”

“All right,” Ross said. “I’m listening.”

“Where’s your ma?”

“What’s she got to do with it?”

“She layin’ down?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you c’n tell her this for me when she gets up,” the sheriff said. Florrie thought he sounded relieved. “Ross, y’think maybe your ma might want to sell out? I got a buyer for the place, if she’s interested in—”

“We ain’t sellin’ out,” Ross said curtly.

“Wait a minute, son,” Dimmock said. “Don’t you think your ma oughta be the one to decide?”

“Who wants to buy the place?”

“That ain’t important. What’s important is that he’ll meet your ma’s price, long as it’s reasonable, an’ add a little something to it so’s she’ll be makin’ a profit on the deal. Now what d’you think?”

“We ain’t interested.”

There was a brief silence. Florrie walked to the table and stood beside it. “All right,” she heard the sheriff say presently. “If that’s the way it is, then there ain’t ’ny point in talkin’ about it. I’ll stop by Clem’s place on the way back to town, and—”

“Oh, so it’s Clem Dufour who wants to buy us out, huh? Got Pop outta the way, an’ now he thinks—”

“Now, hold on a minute, young feller,” Dimmock said sharply. “Clem didn’t do no such thing!”

“When’re they holding the hearing on Gene?”

“Tomorrow. Look, Ross, I’m a heap older’n you, so let me give you some advice. Don’t go lookin’ for trouble. Stay home tomorrow. Y’hear?”

“You an’ Pop were supposed to be friends.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Some friends, all right,” Ross said scornfully. “How come you weren’t around when he was bein’ buried? Get your orders from Clem to stay away?”

“Now look, young feller—”

“No. You look, Sheriff. You’re Clem’s man. Always were, an’ always will be. Clem got you your job, so you do as he says. You weren’t Pop’s friend, and you know it. You made out you were, but Pop knew all along you were only Clem’s friend. I know because I heard him say that. Well, you’re no friend of ours, either. So get outta here, an’ stay away from here. We don’t want no part o’ you any more than we do of the Dufours. Go on. Go back to Clem an’ lick his boots. That’s all you’re fit for.”

Ross stepped back and swung the door. It slammed in Dimmock’s face.

CHAPTER NINE

Three men came trooping out of Hy Watt’s corner drugstore at ten o’clock the following morning. The last one, a stocky individual, was picking his teeth with a matchstick. The men halted on the sidewalk and talked briefly among themselves, but there was no animation to their conversation. The stocky man had little to say, grunting more often than speaking, and continuing to pick his teeth. Their talk ceased altogether when there was a flurry of hoofbeats, and a horseman came clattering up to the head of the street. The rider was Ross Raines. The men lifted their gaze to him, and he stared back stonily, and jogged past them into town.

Down the street, some fifty or sixty feet from the corner, Willie Garver, wearing blue silk sleeve garters, and a soiled-looking apron that came to within an inch of the ground, was standing at the curb emptying a bucket of dirty water into the gutter. He looked up when he heard the beat of hooves. He recognized the approaching rider at once. He flushed and wheeled around hastily, sloshing some of the water over himself, and went swiftly across the walk and into his store. He closed the door behind him.

Still farther down the street, a bulky figure that was Hig Dimmock was idling in front of the bank. He looked up, frowned when he saw Ross and came erect. He trudged out to the curb and beckoned. Ross guided Belle over to him, stopped her and slacked back in the saddle.

“Thought I told you to stay home today,” Dimmock said.

“Come to think of it, you did.”

The sheriff grunted. “Got a gun on you?” he asked.

“It against the law to wear one?”

“Not against the law, no,” Dimmock replied calmly. “Only I don’t want any trouble around here.”

“I’m not wearin’ a gun,” Ross said. “When’s the hearing?”

“It’s been. You’re about an hour an’ a half too late.”

“Somebody musta been in a helluva sweat to hold it and get it over with.”

“Nobody was in a sweat,” Dimmock retorted. “Happens the judge had other things to attend to t’day, so he set it for eight o’clock. It was over about eight-thirty.”

“Short an’ sweet, an’ cut an’ dried, an’ when it was over I suppose Gene got a pat on the back and was turned loose.”

“F’r your information, the judge was satisfied the shooting was accidental, so that was that. But I know you ain’t satisfied. If you were, you’d be turnin’ around and headin’ for home again. Instead you’re gonna hang around here for a while. You got a mad look in your eyes. That c’n mean only one thing: You’re lookin’ for trouble. Wanna tell you something, Ross. You go lookin’ for it, and you’ll find it, all right, maybe a helluva lot more’n you c’n handle. But before you go off half-cocked, remember you got a mother an’ a sister to take care of now. It isn’t just you alone any more. Think o’ them before you do ’nything that’ll hurt them as well as you.”

Ross did not answer. There was movement just inside the bank doorway, and Ross’ eyes came up and leveled. Two men, Judge Crandall and Clem Dufour, with the judge half a step ahead of the burly Clem, emerged, glanced at Ross and walked up the street. Dimmock did not turn. He held his gaze on Ross, watching him alertly. When Ross settled himself again in the saddle, Dimmock breathed easier.

“Now, like I was sayin’ a minute ago, Ross—,” the sheriff began again.

Ross did not wait to hear any more. He jerked Belle away from the curb and rode down the street. Dimmock, frowning, looked after him and shook his head. He turned away slowly after a minute and plodded up the street. He was not aware then that Ross had pulled the mare to a sudden stop. If the sheriff had looked back he would have seen something that would have brought him pounding downstreet again. A tall lean figure had just come out of Frank Smith’s barber shop. It was Gene Dufour. He saw Ross, and he crimsoned, slowed his step and suddenly spun around.

“Gene!”

The younger Dufour halted a little reluctantly and looked back over his shoulder. Ross climbed down from the mare. He stepped up on the sidewalk.

“Wanna see you a minute,” he said.

Gene turned fully then, but he began to retreat toward the barber shop. Ross followed him.

“You stay away from me!” Gene cried.

There was fright in young Dufour’s voice and panic in his movements. He whipped around and fairly catapulted himself through the open doorway and burst into Smith’s place, Ross leaping after him. There were no customers in the two-chair shop. Smith, a mild-mannered, middle-aged man with a grayish fringe of hair surrounding his bald head, and a towel around his neck, was standing in front of a wall mirror, lathering his face. He stared wide-eyed in the mirror and gaped when Gene came dashing through the shop and hurled himself through the half-opened door that led to the back room with Ross in wild pursuit of him.

Smith suddenly found his voice. “Now wait a minute, you fellers!” he sputtered protestingly. “You can’t go bustin’ into—” He did not finish.

There was a crash in the back room. Wide-eyed again, Smith edged up to the door and peered in. The back door that opened upon a small, unfenced yard, swung gently to and fro, creaking a little on its hinges. Sunlight played over the threshold and stabbed the darkness of the room. Getting up slowly from the floor and from a box over which he had fallen, was Ross. Smith came to his side and helped him to his feet.

“You all right?” Smith asked. “Didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

Ross made no reply. He twisted away from Smith and went to the back door. He opened it wider and poked his head out. He withdrew it after a minute and turned around. “Got away,” he said.

“What—what happened?” Smith wanted to know. Then it came to him. “Oh, I get it! On account o’ what happened to your Dad, huh? Sure sorry about that, Ross.”

The barber followed Ross out of the back room. Ross, limping a little and favoring his right leg, went to his horse, climbed up on Belle, wheeled her and rode up the street, grim-faced and bitter.

At noon, when Ross entered the house, Florrie was setting the table and his mother had her back turned, so neither of them noticed his limp. When they finished eating and Florrie and Mary arose and began to clear away the dishes, Ross got up, backed to the door and slipped out.

That afternoon Ross rode the fence, back and forth, from end to end like a sentry, looking for Gene Dufour, but there was no sign of him.

At sundown, when Ross returned for supper, the table was set, and Florrie was standing at the window with her back to it. He limped in, stopped when he saw Florrie’s eyes widen, and he gestured instantly, preventing her from asking the question that came to her lips. Florrie looked troubled, but she did not press the matter. It could wait till later, her expression indicated, till she got him alone. Mary happened to turn around at that moment. She looked from one to the other. Florrie flushed a little under her mother’s probing eyes. “What’s going on between you two?” Mary demanded.

“Why, nothing, Ma!”

“Don’t tell me that,” Mary said angrily. “I’m not blind. I saw the way you were looking at each other.”

“Oh, for goodness sake, Ma!” Florrie protested. “You’re imagining things.”

“There’s something between you two,” Mary insisted, “and since I think I know what it is, maybe we’d better have it out right here and now.”

“Ma, you’re making a to-do out’ve nothing,” Ross said.

“Am I?” Mary retorted. “You’ve taken sides against me because you think it’s my fault that your father’s dead.”

“For Pete’s sake, Ma!” Ross said wearily.

“I felt it the very minute we got back here from Dalhart,” his mother rushed on, “and heard about what happened to your father. Neither of you’s been the same toward me since. There’s been a—a coldness in you toward me.”

“You wanna know what it is, Ma?” Ross asked. “What you think is between us? I’ll tell you. I hurt my leg this morning. I was runnin’, and I fell over somethin’. I didn’t want to worry you about it so I didn’t say anything. When I came in just now Florrie saw me limp, an’ when I thought she was gonna say somethin’, I stopped her. There. That’s the big secret between us. You satisfied now?”

Mary was not satisfied. She was not convinced either. She looked steadily at Ross, then at Florrie, and again at Ross, and they could see the doubt in her eyes.

“You used to come and tell me everything,” she said after a brief silence. “But that’s over with now. It’s been over with since your father’s death. You’ve turned away from me. Both of you have.”

“Ma, please!” Florrie said, and she came across the room to her mother’s side.

When she tried to put her arm around her, Mary pushed her away. “But it’s all right,” Mary said. “If you want to think it’s my fault that your father was killed, it’s all right. And if everyone else wants to think that, it’s all right, too. Let them. I don’t care. I don’t care about anything any more.”

She turned away from them and stalked to the connecting door and pushed it open. She halted astride the threshold and looked back at them over her shoulder. “Neither one o’ you ever has to tell me anything any more,” she said. “I don’t want to know anything. I’m only sorry I haven’t anyone or any place to go. If I did, I’d go in a minute. Then you wouldn’t be bothered with me but I haven’t got anyone, so you’ll have to stand havin’ me around. But I’ll keep out of your way. That’s a promise. Your supper’s on the stove. Florrie can dish it out. I don’t want any.”

She flounced out of the room, and the door swung behind her, thumping back and forth till it slowed and stopped of its own accord. Florrie and Ross looked at each other.

“What’ll we do, Ross?” Florrie asked. Tears were welling up into her eyes. “We can’t let her go on with such ridiculous ideas.”

“No,” Ross said heavily. “Come on. We’ll go after her an’ talk to ’er.”

He took a step toward Florrie and winced, stopped and looked at her and shook his head.

“You stay here,” she instructed him. “I’ll go.”

“All right,” he answered. “See what you can do with her.” The girl went swiftly out of the room. Ross moved about, grimacing with each step he took and grinding his right fist into the palm of his left hand. He stopped and looked in the direction of the connecting door when he heard an approaching step. The door was pushed inward, and Florrie came into the kitchen. She shook her head.

“No luck, huh?”

“She wouldn’t answer when I called to her,” Florrie said.

“Then you shoulda gone right in to her.”

“I couldn’t,” Florrie answered. “She’d locked the door.”

“Oh,” Ross said. “That’s nice.”

Florrie sauntered forward. She stopped when she came up to the table. Together, they drew chairs back from it and seated themselves, Ross with another grimace, as he stretched his legs. Florrie hunched over on her folded arms.

“Ross,” she said after a moment’s silence.

“Yeah?”

“I wonder if we oughtn’t reconsider.”

“Huh? What d’you mean? Reconsider what?”

“Clem Dufour’s offer to buy us out.”

“No!”

“I been thinkin’, Ross. Maybe it would be a good thing for all of us to get away from here,” Florrie went on. “We could get another place and make a fresh start among people who don’t know us.”

“You’d think we’d done something wrong,” he said bitterly.

“We know we haven’t.”

“H’m,” Ross said, frowning.

“You don’t like the idea, do you?”

“Nope.”

She sighed and sat back in her chair. “I didn’t think you would, ’specially after hearing what you said to the sheriff yesterday. I didn’t like it then either.”

“But you do today, huh?”

Her slender shoulders lifted. “Truthfully I don’t know,” she replied. “One day I’m all for it. I’m almost eager to get away from here.”

“And the next?”

She smiled a little wistfully. “I want to stay and fight back,” she said simply.

“We wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves if we quit,” he told her. “Let’s stick to one thing. We’re stayin’ an’ fightin’ back.”

She lifted her eyes to him, and smiled. “All right,” she said.

He leaned over the table and patted her hand. “That’s it,” he said. “Now stick to it.”

CHAPTER TEN

It was evening, a week later, when Ross Raines reappeared in Charteris. It was the first of the month, pay day for the ranch hands. The single men were there with money in their pockets, and the married men with their wives, the latter clutching their pocketbooks. The town was a hubbub of voices and footfalls. It was ablaze with light. Every store was open and crowded with prospective purchasers. There were exchanges of loud-voiced greetings in the street, and here and there, on both sides of it, people came together, stopped and talked. Buckboards, rigs and farm wagons lined the curbs, and the hitch rails were crowded with tied-up horses.

Riding slowly down the street, Ross sought a place for Belle. He found one after a bit, down the street, almost at the far corner. He guided Belle into the spot, dismounted and looped the reins around the rail, gave the mare an affectionate pat on the backside and sauntered off up the street.

Passersby glanced at Ross when he came abreast of them, and some of them, recognizing him, nudged their companions and indicated Ross with a significant nod. He paid no attention to them. Then when he was passing a darkened doorway, a well set-up figure standing in the doorway peered out at him and hissed: “Psst, Ross!”

Ross jerked to a stop. “Yeah?” he asked curtly over his shoulder.

“Wanna see you a minute.”

The shadows veiled the man, but Ross had already recognized his voice. It was Ben Farrow’s. Ross hesitated for a moment, then with deliberate slowness, he came sauntering back, “What d’you want?” he asked gruffly.

Farrow reached out and drew him into the doorway. There were voices beyond them and approaching footsteps. A couple of men came striding along, their boot heels thumping. Ben turned his back so he would not be recognized. Ross’ lip curled, but he checked the sarcastic comment that came to his lips.

“Thought you oughta know this,” Farrow began in a guarded tone. “Gene Dufour’s in town. Got a couple o’ his friends with him. They’re in McKelvey’s saloon, lickerin’ themselves up in fine style.”

“What about it?”

“Gene’s lookin’ for you,” Ben continued. “He’s talkin’ big, like he always done. He’s been tellin’ everybody that you jumped him when he wasn’t expectin’ it.”

“He’s a liar!”

“I know. He’s aimin’ to catch up with you, he says, because he’s gonna beat hell out’ve you when he does.”

“Yeah?”

“Stay away from him, Ross. I know you c’n break him in two, but what good’ll it do, tanglin’ with him? He’s Clem’s son, an’ that puts him in the right no matter what he does. Then there’s Clem again. He won’t be around to see for himself, so he’ll take Gene’s word for it, and even though Gene starts it, you’ll be in the wrong. It’ll give Clem a chance to make things even tougher for you, and they must be tough enough the way they are right now without makin’ th’m any worse.”

“We ain’t complaining,” Ross answered. “We’ll make out.”

“Yeah, sure you will,” Farrow said hastily. “What about Florrie? How is she, Ross? All right?”

“What d’you care how she is?” Ross flung at him. He wheeled away from Ben, out of the doorway and the deep shadows that hung over it, brushing off the restraining hand that Farrow put out, and stalked away.

McKelvey’s place was in the middle of the block. Ross was glowering as he neared it. He came up to it shortly, stiffening as he forced himself to keep walking. Out of the corner of his eye he caught just a glimpse of someone standing just inside the open doorway of the saloon. He was a stride past it when there was a yell that sounded, to him like: “There he is now, Gene! There’s that Raines feller!”

There was immediate response to the cry. There were scurrying, overtaking footsteps behind Ross, and he steeled himself for what was about to happen. He was caught by the arm and permitted himself to be spun around. Blurry faces flashed before his bitter eyes. He swung viciously and blindly, with his full weight behind the blow. It landed flush and explosively in the face nearest him. The man he had hit went over backwards.

That was all Ross saw of his victim because the next moment Ross himself was struck on the side of the head. Wheeling instantly, and blind with rage, he leaped at his attacker. He got a look at this one. It was not Gene Dufour. It was a town youth named Brad Harris. Brad was unprepared for the storm that descended upon him. Ross, swarming over him like an enraged bull, struck him savagely in the face and body, and Harris, rocking under the impact of the pulverizing punches, retreated, wobbly-legged. But there was no escaping Ross’ aroused fury. He leaped upon Harris and battered him with both fists, concentrating his drumming fire on the head, then on the body. Harris tottered brokenly and finally fell under a hail of pile-driving blows.

Stepping back, Ross was suddenly aware of movement toward him from still another direction, and he wheeled at once to meet it. This time his attacker was Gene Dufour. As he closed with Gene, Ross glimpsed wide-eyed and excited faces forming around them. Gene sought to stand Ross off with his long reach. He stabbed at Ross a couple of times with his left, but Ross, catapulting across the sidewalk, broke through Gene’s guard and drummed a painful beat of short, snappy punches on Gene’s ribs and body. Gasping and wheezing, Gene gave way before Ross.

“Stand up to him, Gene!” somebody hollered.

A vicious punch exploded in Gene’s face, stunning him. Another blow, equally devastating, caught him in the stomach, and he gasped and doubled over. A swooshing right caught him on the jaw and straightened him up. A second one lifted him off his feet and dumped him on the sidewalk like a bag of meal. The fight was over. Ross stood over him for a moment, panting and heaving. Then he backed off a bit, and men milled around and came between him and the fallen Gene. Someone moved close to Ross. It was Ben Farrow.

“You all right?” Ben wanted to know.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Ross answered. “Y’see my hat?”

“Here it is,” Ben said, handing it to him. “Got stepped on a couple o’ times, otherwise it’s all right.”

Ross grunted, and put it on his head. He curled the brim with his hands and yanked it down a bit in front.

“Come on,” Ben said. “I’ll ride home a ways with you.”

He took Ross by the arm and started to lead him away, but Ross twisted out of his grasp. “Thanks,” he said curtly, “but I don’t need ’nybody to ride home with me.”

The onlookers who had gathered around Gene suddenly parted and backed off as hastily as though they had been flung back. Gene was on his feet again, standing alone now, half-crouched over, clutching something in his right hand and holding it close to his body.

“Look out, Ross!” Ben yelled. “He’s got a knife!”

Gene crouched a little lower. Night light glinted on the long blade and ran along it. He raised up suddenly and came rocketing over the sidewalk. Ross dove at him, butted him squarely in the stomach, and Gene went sprawling on his backside. Somebody in the crowd snickered. Ross was on his feet again almost at once, but backed off a little. Gene got up slowly. Ross and he circled around, Gene stalking and Ross backtracking warily. Suddenly Gene leaped at him. A murmur ran through the crowd as they came together. Gene’s right wrist was thrust high, straight up over his head. With their free hands, they pummeled each other, Ross grunting as he slugged away at Gene, the latter lashing at Ross in a frenzy. Suddenly they went down together and rolled over a couple of times, their arms and legs threshing wildly. Gene was on top.

Someone yelled, and the crowd moved in a little closer. The end was in sight, and everyone wanted to see it. There was shoving and pushing on the outer fringe as newcomers ran up and tried to shoulder their way through so that they, too, might see what was going on. The solidly-packed front ranks held firm and refused to give way. There was a sudden scream, a piercing, agonizing scream that lifted and carried the length of the street and hung in the night air for the briefest moment. Then it was gone. Ross pushed with both hands, and Gene rolled off him and slumped down beside him on his back. Someone in the front rank of the crowd gasped. A quivering knife handle was jutting out of Gene Dufour’s chest.

Ross struggled to his feet as the crowd, with a concerted rush and a swelling babble of voices, surged forward. There was a general milling about, and more trampling and pushing. A bulky figure broke through the crowd to Gene’s side and bent over him. The man arose again shortly and made his way through wide-eyed onlookers who seemed to be too dazed to move. He halted in front of Ross.

“He’s dead, Ross,” Sheriff Hig Dimmock said simply. “Gotta take you in, boy.”

His thick hand gripped Ross’ shirt sleeve. “Some o’ you fellers take Gene down to Wid Kelsey’s place,” Dimmock instructed over his shoulder. “Tell Wid I’ll be around to see him later on. All right, Ross. Let’s go.”

There was a sizeable crowd on the opposite side of the street, most of it women shoppers. It swelled to more than twice its size when most of the onlookers trooped across the street after Dimmock and Ross.

“What is it?” a dozen voices asked at the same time. “What’s happened?”

A man, who had just stepped up on the sidewalk stopped, and women gathered around him. “Fight,” he answered. He hitched up his levis. “Ross Raines and Clem Dufour’s kid, Gene. Gene got knifed. He’s dead.”

A couple of the women gasped. Others caught their breath in a curious, sucking sound.

“Oh, my goodness!” one woman said when she found her voice. “How awful!”

“Yeah,” the man went on. “Wait’ll Clem hears about it. Gene was his whole life. Clem’ll probably take that Raines kid apart with his bare hands.”

“How perfectly awful!”

“That’s right,” the man said, and he walked off.

Dimmock led Ross to his office, opened the door and pushed Ross in ahead of him. He slammed the door behind him with a backward thrust of his leg. He trudged to the window and drew the blind to its fullest, shutting out the faces of the curious who had followed them across the street, and who had crowded together at the window.

The office was simplicity itself. The walls were whitewashed, however, streaks of yellow showed through the whitewash here and there, indicating the need for a repainting. The furnishings were reduced to the barest essentials, a couple of straight-backed chairs, a corner desk that looked worn and abused, and an armchair, with one armrest, behind the desk. Directly opposite the street door was another that led to the back room.

“Sit down,” Dimmock invited. He made his way around the desk and sank down in the arm chair with a wearied sigh. He looked up, watched Ross seat himself, and when their eyes met, the Sheriff shook his head. “Bad business, this. Couldn’t’ve been worse.”

“I didn’t start the fight,” Ross said bitterly. “Gene and a couple o’ his friends came after me and jumped me.”

“That ain’t the point,” Dimmock said. “I been tellin’ you to stay the hell away from here, leastways for the time being. But no, you weren’t interested in anything I had to say. I’m old, so what do I know, huh? Now you see what’s come of your bein’ so all-fired smart and me so dumb. A killing, and it’s still a killing, no matter who started the fight. And there’ll be hell to pay on account of it. You wait an’ see. Clem Dufour ain’t the kind to let a thing like this go by without him kickin’ up a helluva fuss. He’ll be fit t’be tied.”

“When my father was killed, and Gene claimed it was an accident, that was all right with Clem, wasn’t it? Even though there weren’t any witnesses to prove it by. It was just Gene’s word, and that was that. But now that it’s the other way around, a Dufour got killed instead of a Raines, it’s different, even though there must be more’n fifty people who saw what happened. Why don’t you go ask some o’ th’m? And why didn’t you tell Gene to keep his nose on his ranch, too, not just me?”

The Sheriff was frowning, but he made no attempt to answer.

“Bein’ that it was a Dufour that got killed,” Ross went on angrily, “and even though there are witnesses who c’n swear they saw Gene jump me with a knife, this ain’t gonna be an accidental killing like Pop’s was. This is gonna be murder. Because Clem Dufour who thinks he’s God will want it that way. He’ll say I killed Gene to get square with him on account o’ what happened to Pop, and by the time he gets finished, he’ll have everybody who saw us fightin’ swearing it was me who jumped Gene. Oh, this is quite a set-up Clem’s got himself here. Got one law for the Dufours and another for every else.”

“Don’t be so blamed smart,” Dimmock said angrily. “The law’s the same for everybody.”

“Yeah, sure!” Ross retorted scornfully.

“There’s a bed in the back room,” the sheriff said, nodding at the connecting door. “A cot, that is. G’wan in there, and lay down for a while. It’ll do you good.”

“I don’t wanna lay down! Did you keep Gene here when Pop was plugged?”

“Now look here, young feller—”

“That’s what I meant when I said there was one law for the Dufours and another one for everybody else. You didn’t keep Gene here, not f’r one lousy minute. You didn’t ’cause you didn’t dare. Clem’s your boss, and you’re scared to death of him.”

“You run off at the mouth too much. It’s liable to get you into trouble. Y’know?”

“What am I here for?” Ross demanded.

“I’m holdin’ you till the judge tells me what to do with you.”

“Where’s the judge now?”

“How should I know? He ain’t home, so that means he musta gone off somewhere’s.”

“When do you figure he’ll be back?”

“I wouldn’t know the answer to that either. I ain’t over him. I’m only the sheriff. So bein’ that he’s a judge, he’s over me. That bein’ so, he don’t hafta tell me where he’s going, what for, or when he figures to be back.”

“That’s swell. Supposin’ he never gets back? What happens then? I’ll just sit here and rot?”

“He’s always come back before,” Dimmock answered. “So there ain’t ’ny reason why he shouldn’t come back again this time. So till he gets back, why don’t you do like I said for once, huh? Why don’t you just take it easy?”

Ross scowled. He slumped down in his chair and stretched his legs in front of him. He thought of his mother and of Florrie. It would not do any good for word of his predicament to be sent them. They could not do anything to help him.

There was only one thing to do, Ross was convinced. He would have to wait for the judge to return, then he would see. That was all, then he would see. What would happen after that well, there was not any use in conjecturing. He was thinking the very worst. Maybe there would not be anything to this after all. Knowing Clem Dufour as he did, however, he was afraid to think too optimistically.

“All right,” Ross said, and the sheriff looked hard at him. “If that’s the way it has to be, that’s the way it will be. I’ll just sit tight like you said an’ wait till the judge gets back.” Dimmock looked at him a little oddly, his manner reflecting his surprise at Ross’ change of attitude. He flushed under Ross’ steady gaze. He drew back, opened one of the drawers and took out a batch of papers and put them on the desk in front of him. They were old papers, and he had gone over them so many times before when he had had nothing to do, he knew their contents by heart. He was willing to do anything to avoid Ross’ disturbing and unsettling eyes, even if it meant a boring job.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ben Farrow was among the spectators who had followed Ross and Dimmock across the street, among those, too, who had crowded against the window of the sheriffs office only to have Dimmock draw the blind on them, shutting off their view of the inside. Now, Ben stood alone in the very middle of the sidewalk, frowning thoughtfully. People, talking excitedly, stood about in little groups. Others, with the same air of excitement in their manner and talk, trudged by. Ben was bumped a couple of times, but he disregarded it. He was too busily occupied with his thoughts of the Raineses to take notice of it.

It was only right, Ben told himself, that the Raineses should be informed of Ross’ plight, and without delay, too. Since everyone had turned against them as a result of Allie’s land deal with the Katy, he doubted if anyone would trouble to let them know that Ross had been taken into custody. A passerby, shouldering his way through some people who were blocking the sidewalk, spied Ben and called a greeting to him. Ben responded to it mechanically. He would have to take it upon himself, he had just about decided, to let Florrie and her mother know what had happened.

Ben had left his horse tied up in an alley down the street. He started away and promptly collided with a girl who was coming toward him, and who was skirting a group of people who refused to move.

“Ben!” she said.

“Huh? Oh, h’llo, Nessie!”

The girl was a very pretty girl, but her looks were marred by the worried expression on her face. Her eyes, searching Farrow’s face, reflected deep anxiety.

“I was in Celeste’s,” she related, “trying on a dress when I heard about it. I got out here as quickly as I could, and came up the street to find out if all of what I had heard was true. Is he—is Ross all right?”

Ben nodded.

“Who started the fight? Do you know?”

“It was Gene who started it, him and a couple of his friends, that Brad Harris—”

“I don’t like him.”

“Who does? Anyway, there was Gene and Brad and another one, Danny Goff. They jumped Ross, an’ he gave it to them good. I was there, an’ I saw it, so I know.”

“Go on, Ben, please.”

“Ross laid Danny out cold with one punch,” Ben told her. “He walloped Brad all over the street, and finally he dumped him the same way he did Goff. Then Gene came on, an’ he got a heap more’n he was lookin’ for. When Ross finally knocked him flat, I thought it was all over. It wasn’t though. Gene suddenly popped up again with a knife. I saw it first, an’ I hollered to Ross to watch out.” Ben paused moodily, then went on more slowly.

“They wrestled around some, an’ wound up with Gene on top. But all of a sudden there was a scream and it was over. Ross pushed Gene off him and Gene kinda slumped over on the sidewalk. The knife was stuck in his chest. That’s the story.”

“What a terrible thing!”

“It wasn’t Ross’ fault,” Ben said. “It was Gene’s, and he got what he was lookin’ for.”

“What will happen now?”

Someone bumped them, and Ben, frowning again, took Nessie by the arm and led her away. There was an alley close by, and they halted in the shadowy entrance to it.

“The Raineses oughta be told,” he began again. “The way folks have it in f’r them, I know blamed well nobody’s gonna go out of his way to get word to them.”

“I’ll do it, Ben,” she said instantly.

“You will?”

“Yes, of course I will.”

“I was gonna do it,” he told her. “Got my horse down the street a ways. That’s where I was headin’ when I ran into you. But if you wanna ride out there, I can stick around an’ kinda keep my eye on things.”

“What do you mean?” she asked quickly. “Do you think something may happen?”

He looked at her for a moment. “You know Clem Dufour same as I do, Nessie. He ain’t the kind to let this go as an accident an’ be satisfied with it. He’ll raise a heck of a holler. He’ll claim Ross was out to get Gene on account o’ what happened between Gene and Ross’ father, and you know how loud Clem c’n holler. And who d’you know around here who’s got the guts to stand up to Clem an’ holler him down? Everybody’s scared of him.”

Ben’s voice was grim as he spoke further. “First thing you know, Clem’ll have everybody who saw the fight swearin’ it was Ross who went for Gene with a knife, instead of the other way ’round. Now, if I c’n stay put here and nosey around and kinda listen to what’s bein’ said after Clem gets here, I’ll know what’s in the wind, whether Clem’s gonna raise a stink, like I think he will, or let it go. Understand?”

“Yes. Where’s your horse?”

“Wait a minute now,” he said. “There’s just one thing.”

“What is it?”

“Your folks, Nessie,” Ben answered. “I wouldn’t want you gettin’ into a fuss with them, and one way or another they’re bound to find out it was you who went out to tell the Raineses. I’d sooner ride out there myself, like I was going to.”

“My mother’s in Greenough’s, Ben. If you’ll find her and tell her—

“Oh, I’ll find her, all right, no matter where she is, long as she’s still in town.”

“She’s been very angry with my father since that day he ordered Ross to stay away from our place.”

“You mean it’ll be all right with her when I tell her where you’ve gone?”

“Yes.”

“Come on.”

Together they went down the street, weaving their way in and around groups of people who thronged the sidewalk. Minutes later Ben was leading Nessie by the hand down the alley where he had left his horse. It was gloomily dark, and Nessie could not see anything. Ben finally stopped.

“Better wait here,” he told her.

Ben moved away from her, a shadow that blended with the deeper shadows in the alley. A moment later, she heard his voice, then the answering whinny of a horse and the plod of the horse’s hooves. Then there was a movement toward her, and suddenly Ben was squarely in front of her.

“Here y’re,” Ben said as he reached for her, led her forward, helped her climb up into the saddle and handed her the reins. “All right?” he asked.

She shifted a little before she answered. “Yes,” she said. “I’ll be all right, Ben.”

He moved to the horse’s head and led the animal up the alley and halted him again just inside the entrance to it. “When you get back, I’ll be waiting for you up at the corner,” he told Nessie. “Near Watts’ place.”

“I’ll look for you.”

“Right. Go ahead.”

Ben stepped back, and Nessie rode out to the street, wheeled and clattered away. He sauntered out to the curb and followed with his eyes. He saw her swing wide to avoid a buckboard that was pulling away from the curb, then she quickened the horse’s pace. Other vehicles moved after her, and he lost sight of her. Minutes later, when he was able to see the full length of the street, there was no sign of her. He stepped back from the curb, settled his hat more firmly on his head and walked up the street.

CHAPTER TWELVE

An hour had passed since Nessie Trimble had ridden off. Ben Farrow was standing at the corner outside Watt’s drugstore which had turned out its lights and closed. He shot a look down the long street. Most of the ranch people had departed, and with their going, most of the stores had closed, leaving the street somewhat hushed. As he watched, lights began to dim and go out. He paced the sidewalk for a while. Drumming hoofbeats in the darkness beyond the town’s limits made him spin around and brought him out to the curb.

Ben probed the darkness with his eyes. When shadowy figures on horseback broke out of the enveloping darkness, he ran to meet them. They reined in around him, their horses panting and wheezing a little, proof that they had been ridden at a swift pace. Ben shuttled his gaze from one figure to the next, but he could not distinguish or recognize anyone.

“Nessie?”

“Here, Ben,” she answered, and he turned in the direction of her voice.

“Who you got with you?”

“Mrs. Raines and Florrie,” Nessie told him, and he winced. “The men behind us are their hands.”

Ben shot a look at the one whom he decided was Florrie, and he was glad it was so dark because he felt himself flush.

“Clem get here?” Nessie asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Ben said quickly. “Came into town like a wind, and he’s been actin’ like a wild man ever since. For once, though, old Dimmock stood up to him like a man. He wouldn’t let Clem or anybody else into the office. He said they’d have to see the judge when he gets back. Clem stormed around an’ hollered himself red in the face, but Dimmock stuck to his guns an’ wouldn’t let him in. I heard Clem say he’ll have Ross up on trial first thing tomorrow morning, an’ that he’ll prove Ross went after Gene to kill him. He’ll sure try to do it, too. Just what I told you would happen, Nessie. Remember?”

“Yes,” Nessie said. “I remember. What do you think we ought to do, Ben?”

“Only one thing to do,” a voice that was Mary Raines’ said curtly before Ben could answer. He lifted his eyes to her. “We got to get Ross out’ve Dimmock’s place.”

“And then what?” Ben wanted to know.

“And then?” Mary repeated. “I don’t know. At least we’ll know Ross is alive. I wouldn’t leave him where Clem or his men can get to Ross. No telling what they might decide to do.”

“That’s pretty risky. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do at all,” Ben said.

“Oh, you don’t, do you?” Mary retorted.

“Ma, please!” Florrie said.

“I think we oughta leave things as they are,” Ben said calmly, encouraged by Florrie. “What can Clem do ’cept maybe get people to swear they saw Ross go after Gene? I was there, and I saw what happened, the whole thing, too, and I’m willing to face Clem and swear to what I saw. On the other hand, the judge’s liable to tell Clem it was Gene’s fault right from the beginning and turn Ross loose.”

“Crandall’s Clem’s man,” Mary said a little angrily, “and so’s that good-for-nothin’ sheriff. They’ll do whatever he tells them to. Dimmock’s standing up to Clem tonight doesn’t mean anything. It’s just an act, to make people think Clem ain’t the law in Charteris. But when nobody else is around, and Clem tells Dimmock what he wants done, Dimmock will do it.”

“Do what, Ma?” Florrie asked.

“I don’t know,” Mary answered, her voice beginning to crack with the strain. “Maybe let Clem and his men inside and maybe lynch Ross.”

“I don’t think so,” Ben said. “What I think we oughta do though is get a lawyer for Ross so that when he comes up before the judge, takin’ it for granted Crandall will put him on trial, that Ross’ll get a square deal.”

“I don’t have faith in these people and their trials,” Mary said brokenly.

“We might get George Berry,” Ben said.

“He’s the only lawyer in town,” Nessie said. “Isn’t he? That is, aside from the judge.”

“And the judge is Dufour’s lawyer,” Mary said.

“Well?” Nessie asked. “What’ll we do?”

“I think it’s up to Mrs. Raines to make the decision,” Ben replied. “I’ll do whatever she says.”

“Florrie,” Mary said, turning to her daughter sharply. “What do you think?”

“Well, Ben’s probably right,” Florrie replied. “But I think it’s taking an awful chance with Ross’ life. If anything were to happen to him, we’d never forgive ourselves for having left him in the Sheriff’s hands.”

“There you are,” Mary said. “That’s just the way I feel about it, too.”

“Yes, but how do we go about getting Ross out of the Sheriff’s hands?” Nessie asked. “We can’t just knock on his door and tell him we’ve come for Ross and expect him to hand Ross over to us. Can we?”

Mary snorted. “’Course not!” she snapped. “But if I were a man, I’d find a way to get Ross away from Hig Dimmock.”

“If I had a gun,” Ben said, “I’d know what to do.”

“I got one,” one of the horsemen behind Florrie said. His voice was familiar, and Ben looked at him. It was Bub Worden, a local youth who had once worked for the Farrows, filling in for one of their regular hands who had been injured when his horse kicked him. After leaving the Farrows, Bub, casting about for another job, found one with the Raineses. “Figured one of us oughta have a gun on ’im, just in case. So I took mine along.”

“Mind lendin’ it to me, Bub?” Ben asked.

“How ’bout me trailin’ along with you?”

“Dufour got his whole outfit with him?” another of the horsemen asked.

“No,” Ben said. “Just Orvie Scott and three or four others.”

“What d’you say, Ben?” Worden asked. “Want me to go along with you? You might run into something, y’know.”

“I think I’d better handle this alone,” Ben said. Worden grunted and passed his gun to Florrie who took it and handed it in turn to Ben. “You folks will have to give me a little time.”

“We c’n wait,” Mary said curtly.

“Well, then suppose you kinda back off somewheres away from here? No point lettin’ anybody comin’ into town or leavin’ it seein’ you hangin’ around here.”

He shoved the gun down inside the waistband of his pants. The horses began to back off as he had suggested. Only Florrie’s remained.

“You’ll be careful,” she said. “Won’t you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She nodded and started to back her horse, too. “Thanks, Ben,” she called.

“It’s all right.” Then Florrie withdrew into the shadows beyond him.

Ben turned on his heel and strode away. He halted briefly when he mounted the sidewalk at the corner, and looked down the street. Most of it was steeped in solid darkness. The few stores that were still open had dimmed their lights. Their proprietors were straightening things up and restocking their emptied shelves for the next day’s business. There were some horses bunched together, idling at the curb in front of the Sheriff’s office. Just beyond them, on the sidewalk, were their riders.

Thin rays of lamplight sifted out over the walk through Dimmock’s drawn window blind. Ben turned away. With an assumed casualness about him, he sauntered around the corner. He followed the high wooden fence that walled in Watts’ back yard. He stopped for a moment to cast a quick glance about him, then he wheeled around the fence and made his way along its back wall.

Ben broke into a jog and held his pace to that as he lifted his eyes to the windows of the buildings along the way. Once, when he kicked an empty can that lay unseen in his path, a dog somewhere nearby barked furiously. An annoyed voice, with an even louder bark than the dog’s, protested, silencing the hound. Ben came to the sheriff’s place shortly, recognizing it by the lean-to that housed Dimmock’s horse and his old buckboard. There was a light in the back room, and Ben sidled up to the barred window and peered in.

Ross Raines, grim-faced, was sitting on the edge of a cot. Opposite him was a bed, a white-painted iron bedstead with rumpled bedclothes heaped on it. Ranging his eyes past Ross, Ben noted the closed connecting door. He looked disinterestedly over the other things in the room, to make sure it was all right, then he tapped lightly on the window.

Ross sat upright but motionless. He turned his head slowly. After a moment he arose, cast a look over his shoulder at the connecting door and sauntered toward the window. As he came up to it and stood half-turned so that he could still see the door that led to the office, Ben moved in front of the window. Ross raised it the barest bit “You all right?” Ben whispered.

Ross nodded.

“How ’bout the door?” Ben asked guardedly. “The back one, I mean.”

“Got a big lock on it.”

“Where’s the key? Hangin’ on the wall maybe?”

Ross frowned. “If it was, I wouldn’t be here,” he whispered back a little sharply.

“Dimmock in the office?”

Ross nodded again.

“Alone?”

“He was, up to a minute go.”

“Any chance o’ gettin’ him in here?”

“And then?”

“Take the key away from him.”

Ross looked thoughtful. “I wouldn’t wanna hurt him,” he whispered. “He’s kinda old, y’know.”

“You don’t hafta hurt him,” Ben said quickly. He drew Bub Worden’s gun and passed it through the bars. “Better tie him up an’ gag him so’s we get a head start. All right?”

“Where’ll you be?”

“Up near Watts’ place. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Ross nodded, closed the window and turned away while Ben wheeled and darted around the lean-to and raced up-street along the back yards. He was panting when he rounded the drugstore. He dashed across the street and raced into the darkness. He stumbled to a stop after a bit, seeking the shadowy figures who had taken refuge in the darkness. A horse whinnied gently, and Ben wheeled in the direction of the whinny.

“Ben?” It was Florrie’s voice.

“Yeah!” He skidded to a stop at her side.

“What happened, Ben?” she asked anxiously. “Is it all right? Did you see Ross?”

He fought to get his breath. “Yeah, sure,” he panted. “Saw him and talked to him. We gotta have a horse for him,” he continued. “Only I don’t think he oughta go home. There’ll be a manhunt on for him. Dufour’ll get himself and his men deputized, an’ they’ll go lookin’ for him. The first place they’ll head for will be your place, and if they find Ross there, an’ they get their hands on him, I shouldn’t have to tell you what might happen to him. So I think I’ll take him home with me.” Nessie, who was sitting her horse on the other side of Florrie, moved a little closer to her and leaned over toward Ben.

“Ben,” she said. “Dufour saw that you were in town tonight, didn’t he?”

“Uh-huh,” Ben replied. “I was hangin’ around the sheriff’s office like I told you I was gonna do when Dufour got there.”

“Then he might suspect it was you who helped Ross make his escape, and he’ll search your place,” Nessie went on. “I think Ross would be safest at our place. I don’t think anyone would think of looking for him there.”

“All right,” Ben said. “Then Ross’ll go to your place. You an’ him c’n ride my horse. Then if one o’ Florrie’s boys will let me take his horse—”

“Here y’are, Ben,” someone said beyond them. “You can take mine. I’ll double up with Toby Jackson. That plug o’ his can carry the two of us easy.”

It was the young ranchhand Bub Worden who dismounted and led his horse forward.

“Swell, Bub, and thanks again,” Ben said. He looked up again at Florrie. “You folks’d better get going. You oughta be home, in case somebody comes around lookin’ for Ross. And if they do come around, you don’t know where Ross is. That’s all. Understand? Just take it easy, sit tight and don’t do no worrying. If-there’s anything you oughta know, one of us, Nessie or me, will see to it that you get word. All right?”

“We’re indebted to you, Ben,” Florrie said. She leaned forward and touched his shoulder softly.

“Forget it,” he said. “G’wan now, all o’ you.”

Florrie and her mother rode away into the night. Worden and Jackson on the latter’s horse, and the third man astride his own mount, followed them a moment later. When they had gone, Ben turned to Nessie. “Stay put here and don’t move,” he directed. “I’ll go get Ross.”

Ben dashed off again, disappearing from Nessie’s sight almost at once. Tensed, drawn-out minutes passed, each one slower than the one before it, and Nessie’s fears and misgivings began to mount. Then suddenly there were running steps toward her, and suddenly a panting figure came up to her.

“All right, Nessie.” It was Ross Raines’ voice. “Move a little forward so I c’n swing up behind you.”

Another figure came up, too, wheeled around them and climbed up on Bub Worden’s horse. “You set?” Ben Farrow asked.

“All set,” Ross answered. “How ’bout your gun, Ben? Don’t you wanna take it?”

“You’d better hang on to it,” Ben said. “You might need it.”

“Right!”

“It ain’t mine, anyway. Belongs to Bub Worden.”

“Did he come with Ma and Florrie?”

“Uh-huh. Him an’ Toby Jackson, an’ what’s the name o’ the other feller you’ve got workin’ for your folks?”

“Eddie Morse?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. He was along, too. Now, suppose you an’ Nessie get going.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Me? I’m goin’ home. What d’you think?”

“Will I be seein’ you?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Swell. Thanks, Ben. Thanks a lot.”

“Forget it. G’wan, get goin’, willya?”

Nessie and Ross needed no further urging. They rode away. Ben got down and lengthened the stirrup straps, climbed up again and loped off.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“It sure was swell of you and Ben to do this for me,” Ross said almost in Nessie’s ear as they drummed a steady beat over the darkened road.

“I guess we must’ve wanted to do it.”

“Makes me feel better, knowing I still got some friends. You comfortable, Nessie? You c’n move back if you want to.” She squirmed back a little, and his arms opened to admit her and promptly closed again around her.

“I missed you, Nessie,” he said after a bit. “More’n you’ll ever know.”

“I—I’ve missed you, too.”

His arms tightened. His cheek came against hers. “Hey,” he said. “Your cheek’s wet. You’re crying.”

She sobbed openly then.

“Aw, don’t, honey,” he said softly. “You don’t hafta cry. We’re gonna be all right now.”

“I hope so.”

“We are. I’m telling you.”

He brushed her damp cheek with his lips. “Hey,” he said suddenly. “What about your folks? What are they gonna say to this? ’Bout me holin’ up at your place?”

“Don’t worry about them.”

“All right,” he said. “If you say so.”

“I’ll take care of them,” she said tensely.

He nuzzled her cheek again. “Only I don’t want to see you get into anything with them on account o’ me.”

Nessie found his hand and held it in hers. There were no further words till they pulled up in front of the Trimble barn some thirty minutes later. They looked in the direction of the house. A light was burning in the kitchen. It streamed out over the path that led around the house. Ross climbed down. He held up his arms for Nessie, and she came to him. He held her tight and kissed her before he set her down on the ground.

“What d’you want me to do?” he asked.

“Wait inside for me.”

“Y’mean in the barn? All right.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Take your time. I’m not going anywheres.”

Nessie went swiftly up the path, a slim, shadowy figure that was soon lost from view in the enveloping darkness. Ross heard the back door open shortly and close, and he backed into the barn and stood in the doorway, looking skyward. The sky was suddenly bright. There was a moon overhead and a handful of twinkling stars. The moon turned its face to him, a face that was friendly and sympathetic and smiling.

Nellie Trimble was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her when Nessie entered the house. Nellie lifted her eyes to her daughter as she came up to the table. Nessie looked straight at her mother.

“He’s outside, Ma,” Nessie said.

“Where outside?”

“In the barn.”

“They let him go?”

“No,” Nessie answered. “We were afraid Clem Dufour and his men might decide to take the law in their own hands, so Ben helped him get away.”

“Ben? Ben Farrow? I didn’t think he had the nerve. Guess I’ll have to change my opinion of him.”

“Ma, what’ll we do about Pa?”

“I’ll take care of him,” Nellie Trimble said grimly. “Don’t you worry about him for a minute.”

Nessie bent quickly and kissed her mother’s cheek.

“I suppose they’ll be around looking for him,” Nellie said thoughtfully.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“That’s all right,” Nellie said. “Let them come. I’ll handle them. And if that Clem Dufour is with them, and he dares put a foot in this house, he’ll get a bucket o’ scalding hot water in his face. He likes to holler. That’ll give him a chance to do some real hollering. Now don’t stand there. Go and get that boy.”

“You mean bring him in here?”

“Of course!” Nellie snapped. “That room we fixed up in the attic when we thought your Aunt Mattie was coming to live with us’ll do fine for him. There’s hot coffee on the stove and some biscuits in the bread box, and if you look real hard, you’ll probably find some left-over meat, in case Ross is hungry.”

“You’re an angel, Ma!”

“No, child. Just a mother who was young once herself. You’re in love with Ross, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Ma.”

“Then you’re figurin’ on marrying him, huh?”

Nessie nodded.

“Then your father’d better get used to seeing him around here. I’ll have my coffee, then I’ll go upstairs.”

“Is Pa asleep?”

“If he is, I’ll wake him. I want him to know about Ross right away. Go on now. Go get that boy of yours.”

Nessie turned swiftly and hurried out the back way again—as her mother headed for the stairway leading to the upper floor.

Ed Trimble was asleep when his wife entered their bedroom. He was turned on his side with his face to the papered wall. She made a light in the lamp that stood atop the little table near the bed. “Ed,” she said.

Nellie leaned over her husband and shook him. “Ed,” she said again. She rose, went to the door, closed it and retraced her steps to the bed. “Ed Trimble!”

Ed stirred and slumped over on his back. She shook him vigorously, and he opened his eyes, blinking in the glare of the lamplight. Quickly he put up his hand to shield his eyes from the light. “S’matter?” he asked.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Doggone it, Nellie!” he sputtered. “Y’hafta wake me up out’ve a tight sleep for that? Couldn’t it’ve waited till morning? An’ turn down that blamed light!”

Nellie frowned, got up again, went to the lamp and turned down the light to its very lowest. Slowly she came back to the bed and stood beside it. “Ross Raines is here,” she announced. “He’s going to stay with us for a while.”

“He is, huh?” Trimble retorted. He kicked off the covers. “We’ll see about that!”

Ed started to get out of bed, but Nellie stopped him. He sat back and stared at her.

“You’d better listen to the rest of what I got to say,” she said quietly. “You’d better, ’cause when I’ve finished you can make up your mind, and if you’re still as pig-headed about things as you have been these last couple o’ weeks, Nessie and I are packin’ our things and leavin’ you.”

He frowned. “I’m listening,” he said curtly.

“All right,” Nellie said. “There was a killin’ in town tonight. Clem Dufour’s son, Gene, was killed in a fight with Ross.”

Trimble’s eyes widened. They clung to her face as she related the story of the fatal knife fight.

“Nessie’s in love with Ross,” she went on. “One of these days, when this stupid business is over, they’ll get married. You might as well know that. Anyway, Nessie didn’t tell me why she brought Ross here. She didn’t have to. It was the most natural thing in the world for her to do that. This is her home. This is where her parents are. We always told her that any time she needed advice or help, we’re the ones she’s to come to. Well, she’s done just that, taken us at our word. Her mother will do everything she can for her. I’m not so sure, though, about her father. There was a time when he would’ve stood up against the whole world for his daughter. Lately, though, he’s been too blind and stubborn to realize how he’s been hurtin’ her.”

Trimble flushed and averted his eyes. “How’d Ross get away from Dimmock?” he asked.

“I don’t know. That don’t matter. What I do know is that Ben Farrow helped him.”

“Soon’s they find out Ross got away, they’ll have a posse out after him. Where’s Ross now?”

“Downstairs.”

“Where you figgerin’ on puttin’ him?”

“In the attic.”

“Oh,” he said thoughtfully. “Y’mean in that little room we fixed up f’r my sister Mattie?”

Nellie nodded.

“Well, when that posse gets here, you’d better let me do the talkin’. I’ll get rid o’ th’m.”

“All right, Ed. And thanks.”

His head jerked, and his eyes came up to meet hers. “For what?” he demanded.

“Well, for bein’ so understandin’ and so willin’ to help,” Nellie said awkwardly.

“Didn’t you just say that’s what parents are for, to help their kids when they need it? I don’t see how anyone kin argue with that. Get me my bathrobe, willya, Nellie?”

“Where are you going?”

“Downstairs. If that kid o’ mine needs reassurin’ that her father’s ready to back her up—”

Nellie smiled and turned away. She brought Ed his bathrobe from the corner closet. He was on his feet now, stepping into his slippers. She helped him into his robe, watched him gather it around him and draw the tassled sash tight.

“Say, you got n’ything to eat?” he asked as they turned toward the door. “All uva sudden I’m hungry.”

“I think I can find something for you.”

“Ain’t you gonna have ’nything?”

“No, but I’ll sit with you.” She opened the door and followed him out of the room.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

It was nearly midnight. The Raines place was hushed and plunged in darkness. Moonlight pierced the black of night and glinted briefly on the window panes at the front of the house. A breeze that had whipped about aimlessly stiffened a bit and spun dust, caught up from the deserted corral, then it swept away. In the distance there was the muffled beat of horses’ hooves. The beat became a pounding that swelled as it came closer. Then from out of the darkness came horsemen, shadowy and unrecognizable, four, six, eight, nine of them. They checked their mounts, slowing them to a trot as they neared the barn.

“Awright!” a thick voice yelled as they came abreast of it. The horses were halted and their riders slacked back in their saddles. Some of the horses stood blowing themselves, others pawed the ground impatiently. “Awright, get down.”

The nine men swung down from their horses.

“Hig,” the man with the authoritative voice went on. “You’re comin’ with me ’round the back. Orvie, you take some men an’ cover the front door so he can’t bust out on us. Some o’ you others search the barn. He might be hidin’ in there, thinkin’ we won’t look for ’im anywheres ’cept in the house. Lud, you stay with the horses. All set? Let’s go.”

There was prompt response to the man’s order. As he and the heavier, bulkier and even slower-moving Dimmock started up the path that led around the house to the rear, Orvie Scott and three others trooped up to the front door and took up positions squarely in front of it. When the bandy-legged Scott gestured, two of his men moved to the far side of the door while he and the man with him stepped back and flattened out against the front wall.

A couple of men had tramped into the barn, and now their muffled voices could be heard. Lud Weybright, idling in front of the horses, stood with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt and his eyes focused on the house.

As he listened, there was a brief silence, then there was a loud thumping at the rear. The thumping was repeated when it produced no response. Then a light suddenly flamed somewhere inside the house.

“Come on, open up in there!” Dufour commanded in a voice that beat against the night’s silence.

The light appeared in the kitchen.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“The law!” Dimmock yelled.

“Open up, or we’ll break down the door!” Dufour added.

A bolt was drawn back, and the door was opened. Lamplight played out over the threshold. Dufour and Hig Dimmock pushed into the house, shouldering slippered and wrapper-clad Mary Raines, who was holding the lamp, out of their way. Clem, with the sheriff crowding his heels, collided with a chair that had been drawn out from the table and left standing in the middle of the room. He cursed, caught it up and slung it aside. The sheriff came crowding into him, and Dufour, scowling, shoved him off.

Clem spun around. A holstered gun thumped against his right thigh. “Where is he?” he demanded fiercely.

“Who?” Mary asked calmly.

“Ross!” Dufour hollered.

“What do you want him for?”

Dufour stared at her. “Y’mean you don’t know what he did?” he demanded.

“Oh, I know your boy Gene and some of his friends went after Ross, and that he beat them off, and that Gene wasn’t satisfied, and that he came at Ross with a knife—”

“Yeah, only he got the knife away f’r’m Gene an’ killed him with it!” Dufour roared, his heavy face flame-red. “It was murder, an’ he’ll swing for it!”

“If it had been the other way ’round,” Mary flung back at him, “if Gene had killed Ross, that would’ve been another accident, wouldn’t it, like Allie’s killing was?”

Clem glared at her. “Where is he?” he demanded.

“I don’t know.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Mary’s rounded shoulders lifted. “You can believe it or not,” she said simply. “Whichever you like.”

Clem turned to Dimmock. “You stay here, Hig, and keep an eye on her,” he commanded. “I’m gonna have a look upstairs.”

The sheriff nodded wordlessly. Dufour jerked out his gun and stalked out of the kitchen, the connecting door swinging wildly behind him and thumping back and forth. The dining room was dark, and he collided with the heavy table, then a chair and wheeling away from it, collided with another one, barking his shins again and cursing. He finally emerged into the hallway and groped his way forward to the stairs, mounted them and went up. The landing was dark, too, gloomily dark, and he stood motionlessly for a moment or two, trying to probe the darkness with his eyes. Then with his hands thrust out before him, he groped his way along the landing till he came to a closed door. He tried the knob, but the door did not open. He banged on it with the butt of his gun.

“Open up in there!” he hollered. “Open up! Yhear?” There was no answer. Clem holstered his gun, stepped back and hurled himself at the door. There was a ripping, splintering sound, and the door gave way before him, flew in, and Clem’s momentum carried him into the room.

“You—you swine!” Florrie flung at him. “How dare you?” Something struck the door behind him and fell to the floor, and he halted in his tracks. Another object, this one heavier than the first, came hurtling through the darkness, struck him in the chest, and he cried out involuntarily.

“Get out of my room, you—you—!”

Dufour retreated, but he did not move quickly enough to avoid a third missile, a shoe that was flung across the room. It struck him squarely in the face, dazing him, and he backed out of the room mechanically. The door swung and slammed in his face.

Minutes later he came downstairs again. There was a swelling under his left eye, a discoloration, a cut and a tiny thread-like trickle of blood. Dimmock looked at him, opened his mouth to say something, but he checked himself. Mary had come forward to the table, and now the lamp stood on it. She did not look at Dufour. She had her left hand in her right; she turned it over and looked at her nails.

“He ain’t up there,” Clem announced grumpily. “Doggone it, Hig, if you’da had the sense to search him when you brought him in, you’da found the gun on him, and we wouldn’ta had to go through this.”

“I told you before, Clem,” the Sheriff protested mildly. “He didn’t have a gun on him.”

“Then where’d he get the gun he pulled on you?”

“I dunno,” Dimmock replied.

“Maybe somebody passed it to him,” Dufour suggested.

“I didn’t let ’nybody into the office,” Dimmock said, “so nobody could’ve passed him anything.”

“It coulda been one o’ yours, couldn’t it?”

“I only got one,” the sheriff said, “and I’m wearin’ it.” He tapped the holstered gun on his hip.

“Awright,” Clem said curtly. “Nobody gave it to him, an’ he didn’t take it offa you. He just reached up and picked it outta the air.”

Mary lifted her eyes. They met Dufour’s. He scowled at her. “Lemme give you some advice,” he said. “You get word to that son o’ yours—”

“Thank you,” she said, interrupting him, “but when I want advice, I’ll go to someone who’s qualified to give it. No loudmouth like you.”

Dufour crimsoned, but he controlled himself. “I’m gonna tell you this anyway,” he said.

She shrugged. “If you insist,” she said calmly.

“You tell that son o’ yours he’s gonna hafta stand trial. That’ll be a break for him, that is, if he’s got enough sense in that thick head of his to give himself up. If he don’t and we hafta go lookin’ for him, and we’re bound to catch up with him, it’ll be just too bad for him. Y’hear?”

“When are they going to put you on trial?”

“Me? What’d I do?”

“Oh, you know as well as I do what you did.”

“Supposin’ you tell me.”

“All right,” she said evenly. “You know my Allie wasn’t the kind to pick a fight with anyone, not even with your son. So that story you people spread around that Allie tried to take Gene’s gun away from him, and that he was killed when they wrestled for it and it went off, is a lie. You wanted Allie killed, and that was the way you had it done.”

Dufour strode to the door in his heavy-legged, lumbering way, stopped when he came to it and gave Mary a strange, searching look over his shoulder. “She’s crazy,” he said. “Fact is, I think the whole lot o’ th’m are crazy.”

Dufour stalked out. Hig Dimmock tramped out after him.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The next day dawned and grew into a bright, clear, sunshiny morning. Judge Wesley Crandall and Sheriff Hig Dimmock came together about midway between their offices.

“Mornin’,” Crandall said.

“Mornin’,” Dimmock responded.

“Any word?”

The sheriff shook his head.

“Clem and his men still out after him?” the judge asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Dimmock answered. “I left th’m about two o’clock. I was plain beat. First my backside began hurtin’ me, and then my back started actin’ up. Guess I’m too old for that kind o’ thing. I used to be able to stay in the saddle all night, but I can’t ’ny more. I came on home, and I climbed into bed, an’ that’s all I c’n remember. I was so tuckered out, I didn’t even take off my boots. Just lay down and fell asleep.”

“But Clem kept going, eh?”

“Yeah, sure. An’ the later it got, the madder he got. I tried to get him to call off the hunt till morning, but it wasn’t any use. He hollered a lot, so I quit tryin’ to talk sense into him, turned around and came home. You ever notice how red he gets in the face when he gets mad?”

“Oh, yes!”

“He’s gonna bust a blood vessel some day when he’s hollering, and that’s gonna be the finish of him.”

“Where do you think that Raines boy is, Hig?”

“Dunno, Wes. Mighta cleared out, y’know.”

“I wonder. But Clem, I suppose, will never give up the hunt for him.”

“Nope, not Clem Dufour. He’s got too much Missouri mule in him for that. Stubborn as all get-out. An’ you know something, Wes?”

“Yes?”

“For my dough, Clem oughta shut up about this thing,” the sheriff said.

“He’ll have a hard time proving it was murder.”

“Y’mean unless he brings in a lot of witnesses who’re willin’ to lie about what they saw?”

The judge nodded grimly. “Yes.”

“Uh-huh,” Dimmock said. “I been think in’ about that, an’ I don’t like it. Not one little bit of it.”

“Go on.”

“Too many people’ll hafta be involved in it. Witnesses mostly, and every last one o’ them a liar. Even if Clem wins, an’ Ross is convicted, that won’t be the end of it. Nope, not by a jug full. You wait an’ see, Wes. Somebody’ll talk outta turn one day, an’ that’ll be it for us. There’ll be hell to pay. And everybody mixed up in it, Clem an’ his witnesses, you an’ me, we’ll all wind up behind bars. But that ain’t the only reason why I think Clem oughta let well enough alone.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You mind steppin’ over there with me for a minute, Wes?” Dimmock asked, nodding toward a nearby doorway. “Got something to tell you. Confidential.”

The judge offered no objection and followed Dimmock, and when they were standing together again, the sheriff said: “I been wantin’ to tell you this ever since the day Allie Raines was killed. Only every time I worked up enough courage, something inside o’ me stopped me an’ told me to mind my own business an’ keep my mouth shut.”

Crandall looked at him. “What is it, Hig? Tell me.”

Dimmock drew a deep breath. “All right,” he said. “According to what Gene Dufour claimed, he an’ Allie were wrestlin’ around for Gene’s rifle when it went off, an’ the bullet killed Allie. Right?”

“Right.”

“Somebody was lyin’ about that, Wes. Lyin’ about it like a good feller, too. And I don’t believe f’r a minute it was Clem. We both know he’s loud and noisy, an’ that he hollers more’n he oughta, but I never known him to lie about anything. You ever know him to say something that wasn’t exactly so?”

“No, not that I can recall, Hig.”

“Me neither. So it stands to reason that if it wasn’t Clem who was doin’ the lying that it had to be Gene. Right?”

“Go on, Hig.”

“Now when a feller gets a shot from close up, you’ll always find powder burns on him ’round the spot where the bullet hit him. If Allie was killed the way Gene said he was, there shoulda been burns on him.”

“But there weren’t any?”

“Nope. He was drilled clean through.”

“H’m,” Crandall said, frowning.

“When I heard about it,” the sheriff continued, “I went over to Wid Kelsey’s to have a look at Allie. I always do that when there’s been a killing. Routine, y’know. Wid was kinda busy workin’ on that old Mrs. Stevens who’d died that morning, and he hadn’t gotten around to doin’ much yet on Allie. I found the bullet hole in him, all right. It was a clean shot, like I said before. You know what that means. Wes?”

“I have an idea,” the judge said grimly. “But I think I’d rather have you tell me, Hig.”

“All right. It means that Allie wasn’t shot from close up. He was shot from a distance. Not a heckuva big distance, y’understand. Twenty or thirty feet about. But no more than that.”

“It means far more than that, Hig.”

“I know,” Dimmock said, “and I’m comin’ to it. It means it wasn’t an accident like Gene claimed it was. It was murder. Out-an’-out murder. Gene must’ve been layin’ for Allie, and when he came along, Gene got a bead on him, held his fire till Allie was close enough so’s Gene couldn’t miss him, then he let Allie have it. One shot, an’ that did it.”

“Exactly my thought.”

“Well, there y’are, Wes,” the sheriff said with an empty lift of his hands. “What d’we do?”

“That’s a good question,” Crandall said wryly.

“Actually, there ain’t anything much we can do, bein’ that Gene’s dead.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing. Anyway, I want to think about this.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dimmock said quickly. “Now that I finally got around to tellin’ you about it, I feel better. Relieved, y’know. Like something heavy’s been lifted off my shoulders. I’d a heap rather have you decide what we should do, tell it to Clem or not, whichever you think best, than hafta make the decision myself. I dunno that I’d be up to it. Then too, there’s—”

The Sheriff stopped abruptly. Mechanically he had turned his gaze up the street. A horseman had just wheeled into it, and now he was coming down the street.

“Oho,” Dimmock said. “Now we’ve really got trouble on our hands!”

“What do you mean?”

“Take a look,” the sheriff answered. “That feller ridin’ down the street.”

Judge Crandall turned and looked as directed. “Why, that looks like Ross Raines,” he said after a moment’s study of the approaching horseman.

“It is,” Dimmock said simply, “and that means trouble. Now why’n hell did he hafta show up? Why couldn’t he have stayed put wherever he was holed up? Maybe we mighta got a chance to work on Clem an’ got him to call things even. I don’t think he’ll listen to anything now with Ross back in our hands. Clem’s smelled blood, and he won’t be satisfied till he’s spilled some o’ Ross’. Damnation!”

The Judge followed Dimmock out to the curb. Ross spotted them standing there, and instead of pulling up in front of the Sheriff’s office, he rode on and reined in, in front of them. He nodded gravely to the judge and leveled his eyes at Dimmock. “I come to give myself up, Sheriff,” he announced.

“That’s nice,” Dimmock answered, but he did not sound overly enthusiastic about it. “Where you been since you busted out?”

“That ain’t important. I’m here, an’ that’s all you should be interested in.”

He swung down from Belle’s back. “What’ll I do about her?” he asked.

“We’ll put her in the back,” Dimmock told him. “She’ll be company for that plug o’ mine. Well,” he said, and he looked almost appealingly at Crandall, “long’s you’ve come back, reckon there ain’t anything else to do but take you in. Right, Judge?”

The judge nodded mutely.

“Come on, son,” Dimmock said a little unhappily. “Bring that mare down the alley. No point in us standin’ around out here, y’know.”

Ross looked puzzled. He gave Dimmock a hard, searching look, but the sheriff turned away from him. Ross shot a look at Crandall, but the judge avoided meeting his eyes, and backed off a bit so that Ross could bring Belle up on the sidewalk.

“Comin’ in, Judge?” Dimmock asked, turning to him.

“No, not right now, Sheriff,” Crandall replied. “I have some important papers to go over upstairs, but if you need me—”

Dimmock grunted. Ross, with Belle plodding along at his heels, followed the Sheriff down the alley that led to the lean-to.

Miles away, on the Raines place, Mary was hanging some clothes on the line in back of the house. Florrie was helping her, taking the pieces of wash out of a huge basket that they had placed on top of a box, and handing them to her mother. There were only a few things left in the basket when the sudden, crunching grind of approaching wheels reached them, and Mary, turning for a quick look at her daughter, saw Florrie pale and stiffen a little.

“I don’t think it’s them comin’ back again,” Mary said. “They wouldn’t be ridin’ in a wagon or buckboard, and that’s what’s comin’. So don’t go gettin’ yourself all worked up. Let’s wait and see who it is.”

Mary’s calm words relieved Florrie. She nodded.

“And don’t stop what you’re doin’,” Mary added. “Give me another piece to hang.”

Florrie obeyed. She took another piece, one of Ross’ shirts, from the basket and handed it to her mother who hung it on the line.

“I didn’t do a very good job with this,” Mary said, and she shook her head. “Shoulda used a little more starch.” The woman held out her hand for still another piece. There were hoofbeats and grinding wheels, and a buckboard came up the path, wheeled around the house and came to a stop. Florrie stole a look at the occupants of the buckboard. Her eyes widened when she saw that they were women. Then they were climbing down. Mary, moving more alertly than her daughter, was walking toward them. Nellie Trimble and Mary came together and embraced, and Mary gave Nessie her hand.

“We thought you should know this right away,” Nellie was saying a little breathlessly. “This morning at breakfast, Ross looked kinda strange, like he’d spent the night doing a lot of thinkin’ when he should’ve been sleepin’. Anyway, it didn’t take us long to find out what he’d decided. He’d made up his mind to give himself up.”

“He said he’d rather take his chances with a trial,” Nessie said, “than spend the rest of his life runnin’ and hidin’.”

“I see,” Mary said slowly.

“Ed’s called the Rangers over at Dalhart,” Nellie went on. “He knows that Captain Bonham, and he thinks with the Rangers in town, Clem Dufour’ll watch his step. They won’t kowtow to that big mouth the way others do, and if Clem starts anything he’ll wish he hadn’t. So maybe Ross did the right thing.”

“If only the Rangers didn’t have to come from so far away,” Mary said thoughtfully. “It’ll be hours before they get here, and meanwhile Clem Dufour—”

“Yes,” Nessie said, and she looked troubled. “That’s what’s been worrying me, too. What Dufour’s liable to do before the Rangers get to Charteris.”

Mary wheeled around. “Florrie,” she said. “Hitch up the buckboard. I’m going to town.”

“I’m going with you,” Nessie said. “Maybe we can do something.”

Mary faced her. “There may be trouble,” she said.

“If you’re not afraid, I won’t be,” Nessie answered quietly.

“Know how to handle a rifle?”

“Wait a minute now,” Nellie Trimble said indignantly. “I can outshoot both of you. Don’t think for even a minute you’re going to leave me out of this. I’m going to town, too. I declare!”

“All right,” Mary said with a smile. “We got four rifles. Give me a minute to fix myself up and get the rifles, and we’ll be on our way. Florrie—”

“She went to hitch up the buckboard,” Nessie told her.

“Oh!” Mary said. “Want to come in a minute, and I’ll give you her jacket and you can take it down to her?”

The Trimbles, mother and daughter, followed Mary Raines into the house.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It was nearly the middle of the morning when Clem Dufour and his eight men, as weary looking as their horses, rode into Charteris. They pulled up in front of the Sheriff’s office and dismounted, grimacing as they stepped on the sidewalk. Some of the men stopped and began to rub their cramped legs; others stamped about. There was a rush of feet and a handful of townsmen came running up the street.

A slight, thin-faced, excited-looking man was the first to reach Clem. “He’s inside, Clem!” he panted. “Dimmock’s got him!”

Dufour stared at him. “Huh?” he asked.

“Ross Raines,” the man explained.

Dufour’s eyes gleamed. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Y’say Dimmock caught him?”

“Must be,” was the answer. “You sure don’t think he just came back an’ gave himself up, do you?”

“No,” Clem said curtly. He shouldered the man out of his way, trudged up to the door and banged on it with his fist. He glanced at the window. The blind was still fully drawn.

“Yeah?” a voice that he knew at once was Hig Dimmock’s asked from behind the closed door.

“It’s me, Hig. Clem. Lemme in.”

“Can’t, Clem,” Dimmock answered. “Go up an’ see the Judge, willya?”

Dufour’s face had begun to redden. “I’ll see him later,” he yelled. “You gonna let me in this dump o’ yourn, or do I hafta break down the door?”

Dufour shook the door knob angrily, banged on the door itself again, this time with both fists. Then he stepped back and launched himself at it. He struck it with his thick shoulder, but the door was a sturdy one, and the bolt was equally strong.

They refused to give way to him. He backed off, cursing the door and Dimmock, too. He stopped and stood motionlessly for a moment, glaring at the door. He wheeled around suddenly and retraced his steps to the curb. His men and the townsmen, who had rushed up, were standing together. Their talk had stopped, and they were looking at him in silence.

“Awright,” Dufour said curtly. “Wanna talk to my own men. You others go take a walk f’r yourselves.”

The townsmen moved away, and Dufour’s crew formed around him. “Listen to what I want you fellers to do,” he began. The punchers moved a little closer to him, tightening the circle. “Get up on your horses an’ ride. I want every cattleman in the Association, every last one o’ th’m, to get here as fast as they can. And I want th’m to bring their hands with them, too. Got that?”

Dufour’s eyes swept the circle of faces. Heads nodded in turn.

Orvie Scott eyed him curiously. “You’re up to something, boss,” he said with a twisted grin that exposed his stubby, yellowish teeth. “How ’bout lettin’ us in on it, huh?”

“Later,” Clem answered.

Orvie shrugged. “You’re the boss,” he said with feigned lightness.

“That’s right,” Dufour responded. “An’ don’t you ever forget it either!”

“No chance o’ that ever happenin’,” Scott said, and he laughed hollowly, a covering-up for the flush that had come over his face. “Awright, you fellers. We’ll split up, four westward and four eastward. Cousins, Weybright an’ Morton. You fellers ride westward with me. You other fellers ride eastward. Let’s go.”

There was a concerted movement toward the horses. The men were astride their mounts and rode off. Clem, grim-faced, hitched up his pants, trudged down the street and turned into the side entrance of the bank building. A moment later he was climbing the stairs to Judge Crandall’s office. He did not knock when he came up to Crandall’s door; he simply walked in. The judge was sitting at his desk, studying some legal-looking papers that were spread out in front of him.

“Oh, Clem,” he said, lifting his eyes, “come in.”

“I’m in,” Dufour answered. “What d’you wanna see me about?”

“I suppose you know Ross Raines is in custody again, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“For your sake, Clem, for mine, for Dimmock’s, in fact for everyone’s, I hope you don’t intend to press this matter against the Raines boy.”

“I’m gonna see him swing—if it’s the last think I ever do!”

“You want him convicted, regardless of consequences. Right?”

“I dunno anything about consequences, an’ I don’t wanna know,” Dufour said thickly. His face was beginning to redden. “All I know is that Ross Raines killed my kid, an’ now he’s gonna pay for it.”

“The only way you can possibly hope to get a conviction against him is by the use of perjured testimony and a prejudiced jury.”

“I don’t wanna know about anything. Witnesses, jury, or anything else. All I want is for Ross to swing.”

“Just think about this, Clem. If at any time in the future, the immediate future or the distant future, one of your witnesses or jurors should talk out of turn, you, Hig, everyone involved, will wind up in prison. Isn’t that worth thinking about and considering?”

Dufour was scowling. “You keep talkin’ about one thing, an’ I keep talkin’ about somethin’ else,” he said. “So for the last time, Wes, let me tell you what I want.”

“You want just one thing.”

“That’s right. I wanna see Ross Raines’ neck get stretched.”

“I’m sorry, Clem.”

Dufour looked at him obliquely. “What d’you mean by that?” he demanded.

“You’re forcing me to tell you something I’d rather not tell you.”

Clem gestured. “I’m listening,” he said curtly. “Go on. Talk.”

The Judge sat back in his chair. “Do you really know how Allie Raines met his death?” he asked.

Clem looked surprised. “’Course,” he said. “In a fight with Gene. Allie made a grab for the kid’s rifle. It went off when they were fightin’ for it, and the bullet killed Allie.”

“That’s what Gene claimed.”

Dufour moistened his lips with his tongue, a quick, darting movement of his tongue, or the tip of it. “Watch it now, Wes,” he said. “You an’ me’ve been friends for a long, long time, the best o’ friends too, but I won’t like it if you—

“You mean you’d rather not know the truth. Is that it?”

Clem was glowering. The glint in his eyes became a fierce burning. “You tryin’ to tell me my kid lied to me?” he demanded. “That that wasn’t the way Allie was killed?”

“That’s right, Clem.”

Dufour got up on his feet. He stood in front of the desk, looking hard at Crandall and rubbing his bristly chin with the back of his big hand. “Go on,” he commanded. “Tell me.”

“I’d like to spare you this—

“Tell me, damn you!”

“All right,” the Judge said quietly. “Allie wasn’t killed in a close-up struggle for Gene’s rifle. He was shot from a distance of twenty or thirty feet.”

“Y’know what I think, Wes? I think you’re a goddamned liar. Now what d’you think o’ that?” He wheeled away from the desk and halted again when he came to the door and looked back hard at Crandall. “We’re finished, you an’ me. We ain’t friends any more. Y’hear?”

“If that’s the way you want it, Clem.”

“That’s the way I want it.”

“All right.”

“Now, there’s just one thing more, and it’ll probably be the last thing I’ll ever say to you.”

“I’m listening.”

“Like I said before, if it’s the last thing I ever do, I’m gonna see Ross Raines swing. I won’t let anything or anybody interfere. Understand?”

“Perfectly, Clem.”

Dufour yanked open the door and stormed out.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was Nessie Trimble’s persuasiveness that finally overcame Veronica Murphy’s reluctance to allow the four women to use her parlor window as an observation post. The sight of the rifles they were carrying worried her, just as Mary’s grimness made her wonder if they were not up to something more than they claimed. There was doubt in her eyes, in her expression, too, but Nessie talked fast and wore down Veronica’s resistance.

Celeste’s, Veronica’s dress shop, was located diagonally opposite the sheriff’s office, and her parlor window, directly above the shop, afforded an unobstructed view of Dimmock’s place. Mary, after waving off the others to a nearby sofa, took over the window and a hard chair, settling herself with the announcement that she would do all the watching, and that she would keep them posted on all activities in the street.

Veronica, who led them upstairs, was reluctant to leave them alone. “You sure now, are you, you ain’t plannin’ to shoot anyone from up here?” she asked, looking directly at Mary who appeared to concern her far more than the others.

“Of course not!”

“Well, all right then,” Veronica said. “I’m not lookin’ for any trouble with anyone, ’specially the law.”

Mary’s lip curled a little at the word “law”, but she said nothing. Veronica backed slowly to the doorway and stood in it for another minute. She shook her head and finally went downstairs again.

“See anything, Mary?” Nellie Trimble, who was sitting on one side of Florrie with Nessie on the other side, asked after Veronica’s steps had faded out.

“No,” Mary answered. “Nothing yet.”

She hunched a little forward, resting her folded arms on the window sill. She glanced at the four rifles that were laid across the seat of another straight-backed chair.

“Dufour still around?” Nellie asked.

Mary peered out again. “Yes, he’s still around,” she said a little wearily. “Still pacing up and down in front of the bank. Oh, he just stopped. Now he’s standing at the curb and looking up the street.”

“Still so mad looking?”

“Ain’t he always?” Mary retorted. “If that man’s face ever froze—”

“Think he’s waitin’ for someone?” Nessie asked, interrupting her.

“Looks like it.”

But no one, neither Mary nor anyone else, ventured an opinion as to whom Dufour might be waiting for.

“If that idiot Dimmock would raise his blind for just one minute,” Mary said, “so that I could see inside his place—” Nessie arose and came forward, bent and peered down into the street over Mary’s shoulder. After a moment she came erect again and retraced her steps to the sofa. Her mother and Florrie looked at her, but she simply shook her head and squirmed back between them.

“Oh, the judge just came out,” Mary said. “Dufour saw him, turned his back on him and moved off along the curb.”

“I wonder if that means anything?” Nessie asked.

Mary shrugged and craned her neck. “The judge went into the bank,” she reported.

There was no comment from the others.

“Here come some men!” Mary said. “They’re coming down the street toward Dufour.”

That was the signal for the others to get up from the sofa and come forward. They converged on Mary and gathered around her.

“There’s Jerry Hawks,” Nellie announced. “The one talking to Dufour.”

“Who are those other men with him?” someone asked.

“They work for him,” Nellie answered. “I don’t know all their names. Only that bandy-legged one. Pete Whipple. His wife died last year. Remember?”

There was a drum of hooves somewhere beyond the range of their eyes. It swelled, and Mary finally announced: “Here come some more men.”

“Yes,” Nessie said. “Three, four of them.”

“And there goes Dufour to meet them,” Nellie added.

There were more hoofbeats in the street, and presently another handful of men rode up to join the others.

“Vince Kiley,” Nellie said. “The one on the black horse. He married that Haislip girl.”

“I wish I could hear what Dufour says to each one,” Mary said.

“Look,” Florrie said. “They’re leaving their horses and goin’ up the street.”

“Probably to that big empty store where they usually hold their meetin’s,” Nellie told her.

“Why do you suppose he’s called them together?” Nessie asked.

The two older women looked at each other, but neither of them said anything.

“Do you think it might have anything to do with Ross?” Nessie questioned a little anxiously.

There was no answer.

There were more hoofbeats in the street below, and as they watched, more and more men rode up, a fairly steady parade of them in little bands. They spied the earlier arrivals striding up the street, and they quickened their pace and rode after them. Women with marketing baskets in their hands and storekeepers with long aprons around them appeared in store doorways and followed the horsemen with wondering eyes. Townsmen, who had been standing about idly, trooped after the cattlemen, until every man in the street was heading in the same direction. Nellie Trimble was frowning.

“Wish we knew what that was all about,” she said shortly.

“We will,” Mary said. “And I don’t think we’ll have to wait too long to know, either.”

She got up from her chair and the others looked at her. “All right,” she said quietly. “Good thing we all got coats with us. We’ll put our rifles inside them. No point letting anyone know we’re armed. Leastways, not just yet anyway. Come on.”

“Where—where are we going?” Florrie asked.

“What’d we come here for?” Mary countered.

“To see what we could do for Ross,” her daughter replied.

“That’s right. And now that we know, we’re going to do it.”

Florrie’s expression indicated that she did not understand.

Mary, facing her, frowned. “What d’you suppose Dufour’s called those men together for?” she demanded, her voice rising a bit.

“I—I don’t know,” Florrie faltered.

“Well, I do!” Mary snapped. “I know that Dufour. I met his kind before. Those men are indebted to him, one way or another. Everyone, or most everyone in that fool Association, is. All right, now he’s going to remind each and every one of them of what he’s done for them, and make them do somethin’ in return for him.”

Florrie paled as she suddenly grasped the significance of her mother’s sharply spoken words. “You mean he’s going to ask them to do something to—to Ross?”

“More’n likely to do it with him.”

Florrie caught her breath. “But the law—”

Mary gestured, stopping her. “Clem Dufour’s the law in this town,” she said curtly. “The Sheriff and the Judge are his men, but even with them ready to do whatever he tells them too, he must be afraid to do this alone. He must’ve realized he can’t get Ross convicted—”

“So he’s going to take the law in his own hands,” Nessie said.

“He’s goin’ to talk fifty others into doin’ it with him. Safety in numbers. Understand now?”

“Well, what can we do?” Nessie wanted to know.

“I’m comin’ to it,” Mary told her. “Remember where we left the buckboards?”

“Yes,” Nessie answered promptly. “Up the street.”

“Around the corner,” Mary corrected.

“That’s what I meant.”

“Did you? I wasn’t sure. Anyway, you and Florrie are goin’ downstairs ahead of us. You’ll take three of the rifles with you. I’ll want only one here, just for me to use. Your ma won’t need any. Now when you girls get downstairs, turn and go out the back way, then up along the yards till you come to the buckboards. Be ready to drive off when we come along.”

“But what are you—?”

“We’re wastin’ time here,” Mary interrupted her. “Go on. Get your things and the rifles!”

A minute later the four women were filing down the stairs, with Nessie and Florrie carrying three of the four rifles between them, and leading the way. When they reached the street level, Mary gestured, the girls wheeled to the rear and went out the back way.

Then came Mary, carrying the fourth rifle concealed under her coat which she had slung over her arm. Nellie was at her side, and the two sauntered out of Veronica Murphy’s vestibule, halted for a moment at the curb, glanced up the street and crossed over. Mounting the far sidewalk, they strolled down the street, and suddenly quickening their steps, they turned into an alley that was flanked by two empty stores. They halted briefly when they came up to the back door to the sheriff’s office.

“Sure you want to go on with this, Nellie?” Mary asked.

“Nessie tells me she and Ross expect to get married one o’ these days.”

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“I like the idea, so I’m helping it along by helping you get Ross out’ve here. Where’ll you be?”

“Where Dimmock can’t see me till after he’s opened the door.”

“I’m ready.”

“All right.”

The women moved up to the door. Nellie halted in front of it and squared her shoulders. Mary glided past her and quickly flattened out against the rear wall. Nellie stole a look at her, raised her hand and knocked on the door. There was no response. Nellie rapped a second time.

“Yeah?” a grumpy voice that they knew was Hig Dimmock’s asked. “Who’s out there?”

“It’s me, Mr. Dimmock—Nellie Trimble!”

“Nellie Trimble?” he repeated.

“Yes!”

“What d’you want, and what’s the idea o’comin’ round the back way?”

“I don’t want anyone to see me!”

Mary caught her breath. She wondered what Nellie would say if Dimmock asked her to explain. There was a long silence, then they heard a heavy, lumbering, approaching step. They heard metal scrape against metal, and suddenly the door was opened. The sheriff’s head was poked out.

“Yeah, Mis’ Trimble?”

“Well, it’s this way, Sheriff. I—”

There was sudden movement just beyond Nellie. A coat fluttered to the ground. Nellie was rudely shouldered aside, and Mary, with the rifle gripped in her hands, flashed in front of Dimmock. He stared at her. She pushed against the door, forcing it in. She dug the muzzle of the rifle into his ample stomach. His mouth opened, and his jaw hung.

“Inside,” Mary hissed at him.

Dimmock was too dazed to understand what she wanted of him. She prodded him with the rifle, and he moved mechanically, backing before her a step at a time. A man lay asleep in the cot with his face turned to the wall and pillowed on his folded arms.

“Ross!”

He stirred, sighed deeply, and slumped over on his back.

“Ross!”

He raised his head suddenly and stared at her with heavy-lidded eyes. “Ma!”

Ross was on his feet instantly, looking a little bewildered, but amazingly awake. There was movement in the doorway, and a shadow fell across the threshold. Ross lifted his eyes to it.

“Mrs. Trimble!” he said.

“Tie him up quick,” Mary commanded. “Better gag him, too.”

“What—what’s the idea, Ma?”

“Our friend Dufour’s steamin’ up the cattlemen to somethin’ up the street,” Mary answered in a rush of words. “Less I’m all wrong, I think it’s to a lynching party.”

Ross grabbed Dimmock from behind, spun the hapless man around and slammed him face downward on the cot. He yanked the Sheriffs arms behind him, caught up a shirt from Dimmock’s rumpled bed and used it to lash his arms together. Dimmock’s bandanna was hanging half-out of his back pocket. Ross pulled it out, pushed the Sheriff over on his side, and the bandanna was crumpled into a ball and shoved into his mouth. Then Dimmock was turned over again on his face.

“All right, Ma,” Ross said, straightening up and backing off from Dimmock. His hat was hanging on a nail in the wall next to the cot He snatched it off and clapped it on his head. “Let’s go!”

Ross followed the women out to the yard, stopped and yanked the door shut.

“You go ahead of us, Ross,” Mary directed.

“The girls are waitin’ up the street,” Nellie Trimble said, and before Mary could correct her, she hastily added: “Around the corner.”

Ross started away with them following at his heels, Mary turning at almost every step to look back. They heard voices beyond them in the street, loud voices and a lot of them, too. Ross stopped and shot a look at his mother.

“It’s them,” she said. “Go on now. Run!”

“But what about you two?”

“Don’t worry about us. We’ll be all right. Just you get going!”

Ross hesitated for a moment, then he dashed away. Nellie and Mary heard a heavy-handed knocking on a nearby door. Trotting along together, they looked at each other.

“Y’see?” Mary said. She was beginning to wheeze. “We didn’t get him out o’ there any too soon, did we?”

“No!”

“Another minute or two, and it might’ve been too late!” Mary snorted grimly.

“Open ’er up, Hig!” a voice hollered. It was Clem Dufour’s. “Open ’er up, y’hear?”

There was a long pause, but then the knocking a hammering now, was repeated a couple of times, louder each time than before. Then it stopped.

“For the last time, Hig! You gonna open ’er up or not?” There was still another pause, a brief one, though. “Awright, Hig!” Dufour yelled. “If that’s the way you want it!” Break ’er down, you fellers!”

There was a thump, a splintering, ripping sound from the front of the building. Then there came scurrying bootsteps on a wooden floor. There was a jumble of voices, excited voices, from inside the Sheriffs office. Mary and Nellie were in full flight now, wild, careening flight that carried them to the corner and came stumbling up to the buckboard that was waiting for them, the Trimbles’ buckboard. There was no sign of the other one. There was no need for Mary to ask about it. Nessie who was perched on the driver’s seat moved along it and reached down.

“Give me your hand,” she said to her panting mother, “and I’ll help you up.”

With Mary pushing and Nessie pulling, Nellie Trimble was fairly dragged into the buckboard.

“All right, Mrs. Raines!” Nessie said, leaning down again. “Come on!”

There was a beat of hooves, a swelling pounding in the street beyond them. Mary Raines twisted away from the buckboard, and with her rifle half-raised, ran to the corner. Nessie made a grab for the reins and drove after her. As she reached the corner, Mary was stepping down into the gutter. A strung out band of horsemen with Clem Dufour at their head came dashing up the street. Nessie, pulling back on the reins and halting the team, caught a glimpse of other men standing about farther down the street.

The butt of Mary’s rifle was resting against her shoulder, and the rifle itself was leveled. It climbed a bit higher and stopped again. The horsemen were nearing the corner. There was a yell from Dufour, and his right arm was flung high. The men behind him pulled their horses to a stop.

“Get outta the way!” Dufour yelled to Mary, and he added a thick-armed gesture, a motion toward the sidewalk.

“No!”

“I’m warnin’ you!”

“And I’m warning you, Dufour! If you think I’m afraid to shoot, you come on!”

A horseman at the rear of the band wheeled and guided his mount up to the curb and then up on the sidewalk. The rifle cracked spitefully and the man’s hat was torn off his head and flung behind him. He pulled up instantly and glowered at Mary, but she disregarded him.

“All right, Dufour!” she called tauntingly. “How ’bout you trying it?”

The horseman dismounted, picked up his hat and led his horse down into the gutter. He was red-faced, and he was muttering darkly to himself. He looked at his hat, turned it around and around in his hands. When he spied a hole in the crown, he frowned and poked a finger through it. He glared at Mary who refused to be awed. He clapped the hat on his head, tugged at the brim and yanked it down. He bent and tightened the cinches under his horse’s belly, came erect again, gave his levis a vicious hitching up and swung himself up into the saddle. When Dufour showed no inclination to press the issue with Mary, she lowered the rifle the barest bit.

“Big-mouthed coward!” she said scornfully.

Dufour glowered, but he controlled himself and made no answer.

“You come after my son, and you’ll get more’n you’re looking for,” she went on. “You’ll get a dose of good, hot lead right in that pot belly of yours!”

Dufour held his tongue, and it seemed to anger her even more. “I oughta kill you right now,” she cried. “Just to pay you back for killin’ Allie!”

Clem’s face flamed, and his big body seemed to stiffen.

“And don’t try to tell me you didn’t have anything to do with it!” she screamed. “You put Gene up to doin’ it, and you know it!”

Men came running up the street and skidded to a stop on the sidewalk and looked on with wide eyes. Mary backed then to the buckboard. Nellie Trimble made room for her and she climbed up. Instead of sitting down, however, Mary climbed behind the wide seat and stood in the back of the buckboard, bracing herself against the backrest with her rifle still half-raised and her glinting eyes held on Dufour. “Coward!” she said scornfully again.

Slowly she sank down on the floor and sat, cross-legged. The buckboard moved off shortly and took the eastward road at a quickening pace.

“Guess he couldn’t talk the other cattlemen into what he wanted to do,” Mary said. “So he had to fall back again on his own men.”

Nessie flicked the loose ends of the reins over the horses’ flanks, and they lengthened their stride. Their hooves drummed rhythmically and echoingly. There were hoofbeats behind them, and Mary raised up and peered through the thin dust that billowed up from the horses’ pounding hooves and drifted backward. “Comin’ after us anyway,” she announced. Then, over her shoulder she said: “Nessie.”

“Yes?”

“When we get to our place, pull up and let me down. Then you folks go on, take the cut-off and head for home. Y’hear?” There was no response. There was nothing more said the rest of the way. Nessie kept urging the team on faster, and the horses responded. Still there was no escaping the pursuing hoofbeats that dogged them back to the Raines place.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

When the buckboard came to the Raines’ gate, Nessie slowed the team, but instead of stopping, she wheeled them through, despite Mary’s protests, rolled past the barn and pulled up in front of the house. Nessie jumped down. Someone came out of the house from the rear. It was Ross. He ran to the buckboard.

“They’re comin’, Ross!” Nessie told him quickly. “Your mother held them off, but after we got goin’, they followed us.”

Pounding hoofbeats carried through the air from the direction of the road. Mary and Nellie Trimble climbed down and wheeled around the buckboard, and herding Nessie in front of them, ran up the path. Ross, having taken the rifle from his mother, began to back toward the house.

Ross had reached the head of the path when the first horseman, Clem Dufour, rode through the gateway. The rifle cracked, and a bullet ploughed and spewed dirt ten feet in front of Clem. He pulled up sharply. Other men clattered into view and gathered around Dufour. There was a brief discussion. When it was over, a single horseman, Orvie Scott, detached himself from the others and rode toward the house.

A rifle shot that whined past him and lost itself in flight brought Orvie to an abrupt halt.

“Hold it a minute, Ross!” he yelled. “Wanna talk to you!”

“I don’t wanna talk to you!”

Scott raised his hands and thrust them over his head, nudged his horse with his knees and the animal plodded forward again.

“Told you I didn’t wanna talk to you, didn’t I?” Ross yelled at the advancing man.

Orvie came up to the house and stopped, slacked in the saddle. Ross with his rifle ready came about halfway down the path. Scott grinned at him.

“Don’t ever let ’nybody tell you it’s only the women folks who hafta talk,” he said. “Men can do their share of it too, and I guess I’m the talkingest one ever. When I get the urge to talk, I just gotta, that’s all. Now how ’bout it, Ross?”

Scott shifted himself in the saddle, lowering his hands at the same time, and grimaced.

“Got me the doggonedest an’ sorest backside f’r’m ridin’ around after you,” he said, and he grinned again. “Hafta eat standing up.”

Ross was silent.

“Look, Ross,” Scott began again, but gravely this time. “There are women in the house, your mother, your sister and the Trimbles. The last thing in the world we wanna do is hurt any o’ th’m. Clem’s rough and tough, and nobody knows it better’n I do, but he don’t want any part o’ that”

“Well?”

“So I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Not interested,” Ross said curtly.

Scott looked hurt. “Clem nearly took my head off when I suggested it,” he said, “but I didn’t care, and he finally gave in. Don’t you think you oughta give me a chance to tell you what it is? That’s the least you c’n do after the tongue-lashin’ I got for trying to make things easier for you.”

“I ain’t interested,” Ross repeated. “I don’t trust you any more’n I do Dufour. Now just turn yourself around and get outta here.”

Scott’s shoulders lifted. “Awright,” he said. “If that’s the way—”

“Yep,” Ross said. “That’s the way.”

“I’m disappointed in you,” Orvie went on. “I thought the least you’d do after the bawlin’ out I got—”

The rifle came up threateningly. “Get going,” Ross commanded.

Scott wheeled his mount and rode away. Slowly Ross lowered the rifle. Slowly, too, he began to back up the path. There was movement behind him, a step, and he stopped and shot a quick look over his shoulder. He stared hard. Holding a gun on him about a dozen feet behind him was a tall, thin man, Luke Cousins. He heard a laugh. It was Scott, he told himself bitterly, and the laugh rang in his fears.

“Drop it,” Cousins ordered.

“That dirty louse Scott!” Ross raged. “It was just a trick, keepin’ me talkin’ while you sneaked around up here behind me.”

“Drop it, I said!”

Cousins took a step toward him. A gun roared suddenly and deafeningly, almost dazing Ross. Cousins gasped, staggered and dropped his own gun. He stiffened and pitched forward. Instinctively Ross side-stepped. Cousins fell past him, like a toppled pole, in the path on his face. There was movement in the brush that walled in the yard, and Ross lifted his eyes. Bub Worden, a rifle-armed, well-built youth, and two older men, Toby Jackson and Eddie Morse, emerged from it and came toward him quickly. Worden was the only one of the three hands carrying a rifle. Jackson and Morse wore holstered guns hanging from their belts.

“We spotted that weasel, Cousins, sneakin’ around when we were ridin’ back this way,” Bub related when he came up to Ross. “So we kinda sneaked around after him. Good thing we did, huh?”

Jackson stepped around them and looked down the path and beyond it.

“Hey, we better get inside,” he announced. “They’re gettin’ down from their horses’ an spreadin’ out.”

A bullet that winged by harmlessly over their heads made the men move. They ran to the back door. Ross, the first one to reach it, flung it open and followed the others into the house. A rifle lay on the kitchen table, and Mary and Nellie Trimble, holding rifles in their hands and standing on opposite sides of it, looked up.

“Where are the girls, Ma?” Ross asked at once.

“Downstairs,” Mary replied.

Ross turned to Worden.

“Bub,” he said. “You and Eddie go upstairs an’ cover the front of the house from Ma’s bedroom window. Toby, you an’ me’ll shoot out’ve the parlor windows.”

Worden and Morse left the room at once. Jackson half-drew his gun, stopped and shoved it down in his holster. He picked up the rifle from the table and strode out with it through the connecting door.

“Ma, I’m kinda worried about you an’ Mrs. Trimble,” Ross said. “Watch out f’r yourselves, willya?”

“We’ll be all right.”

“Look, why don’t you go downstairs and stay with the girls, huh? There’s four of us, and we oughta be able to handle this easy. What d’you say, Ma?”

“What was that shooting outside?”

“Oh, just a couple o’ warning shots.”

“It didn’t sound like that to me.”

“Well, one o’ th’m wasn’t exactly a warning. Luke Cousins, one o’ Dufour’s crew, sneaked up behind me. Bub got him.”

“What’s to stop Dufour from sending someone else sneakin’ around up here?” Mary said. “No, I’m staying put. Then if anyone tries anything, I’ll be here to take care of him. I hope it’s Dufour himself who thinks he c’n slip in here. He’ll get the surprise of his worthless life. Nellie—”

“If you’re staying here, Mary Raines, I am, too. I still say I can shoot as well as any man.”

Mary smiled. Ross shook his head and darted out of the room. He found Toby Jackson in the parlor, crouching down at one of the windows.

“Wish that buckboard an’ the horses weren’t out there,” Toby complained. “Somebody ran into the barn, and I couldn’t even get a shot at him on account o’ the buckboard. It was in the way.”

“Where are the others?”

“Dunno. Hafta wait an’ see where they shoot from.”

Ross moved to the other window, eased it open and stole a look outside. The Trimble buckboard blocked his view of the barn doorway.

“Ross!” Jackson said suddenly. “See that feller leanin’ out’ve the loft window?”

Ross twisted around and craned his neck. “Oh, yeah!” he said after a moment. “I see him!”

“It’s Lud Weybright, I think,” Jackson added. “Now if he’ll only stay put there for just one minute so’s I can get a shot at him—”

A rifle cracked suddenly beyond them, and Toby cursed. “Doggone it!” he sputtered. “Just as I got a bead on ’im!”

“Who got him, Bub?”

“’Course! He beat me to it when I was gonna plug that Cousins feller, an’ now he’s done it again. That young squirt’s doggoned thirsty for Dufour blood. He’s still plenty sore about Allie.”

“Don’t worry, somebody else is bound to poke his head out’ve somewhere an’ you’ll get a shot at him.”

“With Worden around an’ him with a clear view of everything? Swell chance!”

“What happened to Weybright?”

“What happened to him?” Jackson repeated. “What d’you think? He’s sprawled out on his belly right smack in front of the barn. He fell like a poled steer. Hey, Ross, how ’bout me goin’ upstairs and sendin’ Eddie down here?”

“Stay where you are. There’ll be plenty happening right here. Dufour won’t hold back for long. He knows he’ll hafta rush the house. That’s the only way he’ll be able to get me. So he’s probably schemin’ up something.”

“I’d sure like to get a shot at him. That’d be worth everything.”

Gunfire flared up suddenly from the direction of the barn, and a window-pane on the upper floor of the house fell in with a shattering crash.

“They’re on to where Bub’s shootin’ from,” Jackson said. “They must know it was him who got Weybright, so they’re gonna pour it into him to see if they c’n get square. Maybe I’m just as well off down here. They’ll start blastin’ away at Bub, and he’ll have a time of it.”

Jackson lapsed into silence then. Ross stole a look at him after a minute or two. Toby had his rifle resting on the window sill while he swept the outside with his eager eyes. When he suddenly raised his rifle and sighted along the barrel, Ross knew he had found a target. The rifle roared, and Jackson sank back on his haunches.

“Got him,” he announced.

“Good for you. Who was it?”

“Dunno for sure,” Jackson answered. “Coulda been either Brooks, or maybe it was that Vance feller. I only got a quick look at him before I drilled him. He was running toward the tool-shed. He won’t run anywheres after this.”

Ross grunted.

“Now I feel better,” Toby said. “Hey, you wanna swap windows for a while? Maybe you c’n get a shot at somebody?” Ross grunted, backed away and crawled to Jackson’s window. Toby worked his way around Ross on his hands and knees to the window at which Ross had been crouching. “This is swell, awright!” he announced. “Can’t see a blamed thing ’cept that lousy buckboard!”

Now gunfire broke out from the direction of the barn, and Ross replied to it, adding to the din. Just as it seemed to taper off, Morse and Worden began shooting, and the din swelled again. Dufour’s crew, most of it apparently having taken refuge in and behind the barn, concentrated its fire on the upper floor.

Another window pane fell in, and bullets splintered the walls. They could hear heavy movement overhead, an indication that pieces of furniture were being moved across the room to provide some sort of barricade for Morse and young Worden. Steady gunfire beat against the air, making it throb, and the house seemed to rock under the pounding hail of bullets. Someone burst into the room, and both Ross and Jackson spun around with their rifles leveled. It was Ben Farrow.

“Ben!” Ross said. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“Came to join the party.”

Farrow came quickly across the room and knelt down at Ross’ window. He had a gun in hand, and rested the barrel on the sill. “I was in town, and I heard what happened,” he related. “So I came out here as fast as I could. I got around the back, and I nearly got plugged. Good thing your Ma recognized me before she let go or I’da been a dead one. Where are they, Ross?”

“Who?”

“Dufour’s outfit.”

“In the barn.”

“Got anybody upstairs?”

“Yeah, sure. Bub Worden and Eddie Morse. Why?”

“Think they can use some help?”

“Forget them, Farrow,” Toby Jackson said. “Here. You c’n take over my window. My knees are kinda stiff from kneeling. I wanna walk around an’ ease th’m a little.”

“Swell,” Ben said. He turned away from Ross and crawled to the other window as Jackson backed off from it and got up on his feet. Ben crouched, shifted himself, and finally twisted around and said: “Hey, I can’t see a blamed thing from here. There’s a buckboard and horses in the way.”

“I know,” Ross answered. “That’s why Toby offered it to you.”

“Why, the son-uva-gun!” Ben said. He turned and looked around the room. “Where is he? Where’d he go?”

“Upstairs, I guess. That’s where he wanted to go before, only I told him to stay put in case Dufour tried to rush the house. He’s afraid Bub and Eddie are having all the fun, and he doesn’t want be left out’ve it. Oho!”

“What is it?”

“Here they come!”

“Outta the barn?”

“Yep!”

There was a sudden rush of hooves from the direction of the road, and Ross, peering out, saw a band of horsemen wheel through the gateway. One of the horsemen surged ahead of the others. Dufour’s men stopped and looked up at him. He whirled past them and came on toward the house at a full gallop. Ross saw the other horsemen come up and rein in around Dufour’s crew.

“Rangers!” Ross yelled. He was on his feet in an instant. He bolted out of the room. He had reached the front door, unlocked it and flung it open when Ed Trimble came panting up to it.

“Nellie and Nessie! They—all right?”

“Yeah, sir, Mr. Trimble! C’mon in!”

Trimble pushed past Ross into the house. Another horseman, a lean, tanned man with a silver star gleaming on his flannel shirt front and a rifle butt jutting out of his saddle boot and a holstered gun thumping against his right thigh, rode up. Ross came out to meet him.

“You Ross Raines?” the man asked.

“Yes. You’re Captain Bonham, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

Ross grinned. “Thought I recognized you,” he said.

“You can put that rifle away, son. You won’t need it.”

“That’s good.”

“Then get your things together, Raines. You’re going into town with me.”

“All right, Captain. If you say so.”

“There’s a matter of a killing that has to be cleared up. Might as well get it over with. Judge Crandall’s ready and waiting for us. So suppose we don’t keep him waiting, huh, son?”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Orvie Scott wiped his flushed, sweated face with the back of his hand as he sank onto his bunk. “Gimme a chance to come to, fellas,” he said. “I’ll let you in on it, but I need a minute to pull myself together.”

“Too bad we had to miss all the fun,” an old, leathery-faced hand said. “It ’pears to me that the boss and you guys saw plenty of action, judgin’ from how tuckered out you all look, ’specially Weybright and Cousins and Giffy Brooks. Poor fellas.”

All the hands who had stayed behind that morning to look after Dufour’s ranch were clustered about Scott and the others who had gone into town with Dufour and later participated in the gun battle. Scott had drunk deeply from a dipper of water that was handed to him, and now he was rolling a cigarette, slowly, carefully. He lit it, drew on it and exhaled a big puff of smoke. Finally, he spoke.

“Well, you know that the boss called a meetin’ of the Association to take care of this Ross Haines. He figured that the men in the Association would act like men when they heard about Ross, and that they would know what they had to do.”

“Whaddya mean, Orvie?” a sandy-haired young fellow cut in. His voice quivered slightly as he added, “You mean—string him up, Orvie?”

Scott whirled sharply towards the youngster. “Yeah, young feller, that’s just what I mean, but those guys didn’t have ’ny more guts ’n you got. They just turned their thumbs down on it! After all the boss done for them, too! Even guys like Jerry Hawks and a coupla others who coulda been convinced backed down when the others backed down. An’ here you are, takin’ the boss’ pay, an’ you’re talkin’ just like those weak-livered—!”

“Lay off the kid, Orvie,” another hand put in. “Just ’cause we work for Dufour don’t say we gotta like everything he does. The kid’s right, the way I see it. I don’t take to lynchin’. To me it stinks to high heaven, an’ I wouldn’t have no part of it, boss or no boss.”

The man paused, looked sharply at the foreman, and then went on, “Why’re you always echoin’ Clem Dufour in every little word that he says, Orvie? You work for your dough. We all do, damn hard, too, and we don’t owe Dufour nothin’.”

“You guys don’t know the boss!” Scott replied angrily. “You’re workin’ here, for him, and you don’t know the first thing about him.” Scott’s eyes wavered, and the fiery look went out of them. He seemed to be carried away for the moment. Then he spoke again, in a calm, quiet voice. “Dufour did me a favor once, a real favor. It was a good many years back. He saved my life, and he almost lost his own while he was doin’ it.”

“Clem Dufour saved your life?” one man exclaimed.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Scott said. “We were out on the desert, an’ we got lost. It was rough goin’, I tell you. I was a young kid, and I would’ve cracked up if the boss hadn’t stuck with me the way he did. It was hell, believe me—ten days of hell. I couldn’t stand goin’ without water, an’ he gave me more than my share. He gave me more of the little bit of food we had than he took for himself, an’ then I took sick, and he still stuck there with me. He could’ve gone on ahead and left me there alone. He stayed there with me, though.

“I’ll never forget what he said then. ‘Orvie,’ he said. ‘What’s ahead don’t look too pretty. If we don’t get help soon, we’ll die a miserable death, but whatever we do we’ll do it together. I ain’t gonna leave you here, fella, so don’t you worry ’bout it. We come this far together, an’ I ain’t quittin’ you now.’ Well, we came through it, just like he said, together. It ain’t important now how we were found, but I guess you c’n understand why I’d do anything for the boss. If it weren’t for Dufour I wouldn’t be sittin’ here now. I’ll never forget that, an’ I told him so. I’ll see Dufour through anything after that!” The men fidgeted uncomfortably while Scott spoke. Some grumbled that Dufour had never done anything for them, and they had no feeling of deep loyalty for him.

The old leathery-faced man spoke up again. “Awright, Orvie, we know how you feel, but tell us what happened.”

“Well,” Scott continued, “when the meetin’ broke up Clem called his own boys around him, those of us who went with him, and we decided we’d go ahead without the others and take care of Raines. But by the time we got to Dimmock’s office, Raines was gone. Somebody got him outta there, or he busted out himself. Dimmock was gagged and tied up, an’ he was no help to us, so we took off after Raines ourselves.”

Scott drew on his cigarette and went on. “We chased him clear over to the Raines place, but they were ready for us, a bunch of them, includin’ the womenfolk; Mary and Florrie, and Nellie and Nessie Trimble. Well, we were shootin’ it out, an’ Weybright and Cousins and Giffy got killed, and then the Rangers came ridin’ in, just when we were set to rush the house. Somebody called them. We don’t know who, but it don’t matter.

“Bonham, he’s the Rangers’ Captain,” Scott said, “took Raines back to jail, and he warned us not to try to touch him. He said Raines would come up before Judge Crandall tomorrow mornin’. Raines would never live till mornin’ if the town was behind us, but you gotta have more than a handful of us guys to buck the Rangers. They’re watchin’ Raines like he was a gold mine.”

“Well, I sure would like to be in town tomorrow when things start poppin’,” a lean, sunburned man said. “I bet the whole county’s gonna pour into Charteris, men, women and children.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Scott answered, “but meanwhile you fellas got work to do, an’ you better get goin’. We can’t sit aroun’ all day, boys. Let’s break it up now. Break it up.” With that, the men took off and left the bunkhouse in twos and threes, discussing, arguing, grumbling.

CHAPTER TWENTY

It was evening, and Clem Dufour was sitting at his desk in his little side room office. The lamp that stood atop the desk burned with a yellowish glare, and Clem reached up and turned it down. There were several account books opened in front of him, and he tried to focus his thoughts on them. It was a vain effort because there was no shunting aside the one thought that occupied him so completely. It was at his insistence that Judge Crandall had postponed Ross Raines’ hearing, put it off till the next morning. Clem had insisted that he had not had enough time to produce his witnesses. He sank back in his chair. The house was so quiet, almost deathly still, it made him feel uneasy.

He sat up and listened when he heard the crunch of approaching wheels and the beat of horses’ hooves. He heard voices shortly, but they were indistinct. He could not make out what was being said. Then there was silence again, and he wondered about it. He finally decided it was not anyone for him. It was probably one of his hands, Stan Morton, he told himself. It was Stan whom he had delegated to make the necessary arrangements with Wid Kelsey for the burial of Lud Weybright, Luke Cousins and Giffy Brooks. Someone had driven Stan home, probably Wid himself. Dufour slumped down again in his chair. He sat upright again almost at once, too, when he heard a step on the veranda. When there was a loud knock on the door, he turned his head and hollered: “Awright! Come on!”

The door opened, and someone came into the house, came through the front hallway. Clem recognized the scuffling step at once. It was Orvie Scott’s. The bandy-legged foreman appeared shortly in the office doorway.

“Yeah?”

“Boss, that Weatherbee feller’s here to see you,” Scott informed him.

Dufour frowned. “Don’t wanna see him,” he said curtly.

“Maybe you oughta, boss,” Orvie said, and hastily added: “He says it hasn’t got anything to do with the Katy. It’s something else he wants to talk to you about.”

“Yeah?” Clem retorted. “Like what?”

“He says it’s something about Ross, and he thinks you might wanna know it. Fact is, he said he thinks you oughta know it.”

“About Ross, huh? An’ that was all he’d tell you?”

“That’s all,” Scott answered. “’Cept that he wouldn’t tell it to anybody but you.”

“Awright,” Dufour said. “I’ll see him.”

“Want me to stick around?” Scott asked. “Y’know, boss. Just in case?”

“Awright, Orvie. Only don’t let him see you.”

“I won’t,” Scott answered. He turned on his heel and trudged off. Dufour heard the door open again, then he heard Scott’s voice. “Awright, Mr. Weatherbee. Boss says you c’n come in.”

“Thank you.”

Dufour was slacked back in his chair when Scott returned, followed by Neil Weatherbee.

“Here’s Mr. Weatherbee, boss,” Orvie announced as he came up to the doorway. He stepped aside and gestured. “Go ’head, Mr. Weatherbee.”

The Katy’s special agent, hat in hand, moved into the doorway. “Good evening Mr. Dufour,” he said.

Clem grunted a response.

They heard the front door open and close. There was a vacant chair standing close by, and Dufour reached for it, spun it around and pushed it forward. “Sit down,” he invited.

“Thank you.” Weatherbee seated himself. He arose again and put his hat on the desk and returned to his chair.

“What d’you wanna see me about?” Clem asked.

Weatherbee glanced at the open door. “May I close it?” Dufour shrugged. Weatherbee arose, stepped to the door and drew it shut, and retraced his steps to his chair.

“I was one of the first on the scene when your son met his death,” he said quietly.

“That so?”

“I saw everything that happened, the very first blow that was struck, and the last.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Dufour, your chances for obtaining a conviction of young Raines are very slim.”

Dufour’s eyes gleamed. “Yeah?”

“Yes. I’m a lawyer, Mr. Dufour, so I think I should be able to view the situation and its possibilities far more authoritatively and objectively than the average layman. I don’t believe you can offer a single witness whose testimony will be acceptable to the court.”

Dufour was scowling and beginning to redden.

“Since I’m a disinterested party, I think you’ll agree with me that if I were to appear in court and take the stand voluntarily, in the interest of justice, you understand, it would be my word and my testimony that the court would accept. Anyone else’s would most certainly be questioned and very likely thrown out as prejudiced.”

“Go on,” Dufour commanded.

“Since we represent opposing factions, you, the cattlemen, and I, the railroad, if I were to testify that I saw young Raines wrest the knife out of your son’s hand and then deliberately plunge it into his breast, what do you think would be the court’s decision?”

“Ross would swing,” Clem said grimly.

“Exactly, Mr. Dufour. The court would have no alternative but to render a decision in strict accordance with my testimony.”

“Uh-huh,” Dufour said.

“Since you and I are on opposite sides of the fence, the wrangle over the spur, no one could possibly have any reason to suspect that I was testifying the way you wanted me to. We’ve never been seen together, and you’ve openly voiced your dislike for me.”

“What are you after, Weatherbee? What d’you expect me to do f’r you in return? Talk the Association into changin’ its mind and give its consent to the new spur you people wanna build? That what you’re after?”

Weatherbee smiled and sat back. “No,” he said simply.

“Then what do you want?”

“I am not here as a representative of the railroad, Mr. Dufour. I’m here solely in my own behalf.”

“Oh, I get it! Then if you’re here for yourself, you want money. Right?”

“Right, Mr. Dufour.”

Clem studied him for a moment. Their eyes met and clung.

“Awright,” Dufour said after a moment’s silence. “How much?”

Weatherbee smiled again. “Ten thousand dollars, Mr. Dufour,” he said calmly.

“That’s a helluva lot o’ money.”

“Not if you really want to see young Raines hang.”

“I want that more’n anything else in the world.”

“Then you’re getting revenge or satisfaction at a bargain price. I don’t mind telling you that I had originally decided to demand far more, twenty-five thousand dollars, as the price for my testimony. However—”

“Yeah? An’ what made you cut your price?”

“Believe it or not, Mr. Dufour, my heart overruled my head. My sympathy to you in your bereavement was responsible for it.”

“You c’n have your dough an hour after I hear the judge pass sentence on Ross. Sentence to be hanged, that is.”

“No thank you, Mr. Dufour.”

“S’matter? You don’t trust me, huh?”

“It isn’t a matter of trust. This is business. I get paid in advance before I make delivery.”

“I never pay for anything before I get it.”

“You will in this case.”

“Supposin’ you testify, an’ Ross gets off anyway?”

“That’s the chance you’ll have to take.”

“I don’t think I’m interested, Weatherbee.”

Weatherbee shrugged and got to his feet. He walked to the desk and picked up his hat. “This proves one thing,” he said, and Clem looked at him. “Never let yourself be swayed by sentiment or sympathy. If I had clung fast to my original price, you’d have been delighted to make a deal with me for ten thousand. I’ll profit by this experience.”

Dufour got up on his feet.

“Good night, Mr. Dufour,” Weatherbee said.

“Wait a minute,” Dufour commanded. “When d’you hafta have the dough?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Weatherbee replied. “One hour before court opens.”

“Court opens at ten.”

“Then I shall expect to have it not later than nine.”

Clem grunted and followed him to the front door. He opened it and held it wide. Weatherbee nodded to him and went out.

It was probably a minute or two after Weatherbee had gone and Dufour had returned to his chair where he sat back, staring off into empty space, that Orvie Scott appeared in the doorway.

“Nice deal, boss,” Scott said, astride the threshold.

Dufour looked at him. “Oh, you heard it, huh?”

“Sure. I heard everything.”

“You’ll take the money to him, Orvie.”

“And then?”

“What d’you mean, and then?”

“I pay him,” Scott said. “But is that all?”

Their eyes met. “No,” Clem said curtly. “That isn’t all.”

Orvie grinned. “That’s what I figured,” he said evenly. “We take back the dough. What d’you think he’ll do once he finishes testifying boss?”

“Hightail it,” Dufour said simply.

“Right. So I go after him when he gets going.”

“You’ll hafta be careful, Orvie.”

“Yeah, sure, boss, but this oughta be easy. If he testifies for you, and he’s found dead later on, you’re in the clear. Nobody in the world’ll figger you had anything to do with it. Everything’ll point to the other side, the Raineses. They did business with him, the only ones who did, but he turned on them, testified against th’m so they got square with him by killin’ him. Open an’ shut, boss, it’s that easy. You win both ways. You get Ross hung, an’ you get your dough back.”

“If everything goes off right.”

“How can it miss? Say, what about those witnesses I lined up? You won’t want ’em now, huh?”

“’Course we want ’em. We aren’t supposed to know Weatherbee’s gonna testify. We go on with the show, just like we planned it, and when Weatherbee testifies and we win, we’ll be surprised and happy. Most of all surprised.”

* * * *

It was bright and clear the next morning, and Charteris was thronged with excited and expectant people drawn to the “show” from the ranches as well as the town itself. They stood about on the narrow sidewalk, talking among themselves. More and more people arrived every minute, coming in wagons, rigs and buckboards and on horseback.

“Biggest crowd I ever seen here,” one man announced, ranging his eyes over the street.

“Biggest show we ever had here,” his companion added. “That’s the answer.”

“Men, women, kids,” the first man said. “Betcha everybody in the county made it to Charteris today.”

“Yeah, guess they did. My wife wasn’t coming. She thought it was awful. Positively indecent, she said, flockin’ in to see a man tried for his life.”

“But she’s here anyway, huh?”

“An’ how she’s here! When I woke up this morning, she was up an’ dressed an’ waitin’ with that look in her eye for me to get a move on. Gave me the rush right through breakfast. I ate so fast it’s stuck inside o’ me. I c’n feel it. Just about halfway down. Can’t push it down, an’ I can’t bring it up. So if in the middle o’ things you see me rushin’ outta court, you’ll know something’s happened to me. Your wife here?”

“’Course! My Minnie wouldn’t miss anything like this for all the dough in the world. Not that she’s interested in the trial one way or another, you understand. She’s here ’cause she thinks it’s everybody’s duty to be on hand when something big takes place. What time’s it gettin’ to be?”

“Oh, just a minute of nine. When are they supposed to open the doors?”

“Nine, I thought I heard somebody say. But there’s no tellin’, with the Rangers runnin’ things.”

“Did you hear what they did last night?”

“Nope. What’d they do?”

“Ordered every saloon in town to close at ten, and then on top o’ that, told them they weren’t to open today till after the show was over. How d’you like that?”

“Hey, that’s kinda high-handed, y’know?”

“I know, and you shoulda heard McKelvey soundin’ off to Bonham this morning. But it didn’t do him any good. Bonham listened, and when he got tired of it, he just upped and walked away. Hey, y’think maybe we oughta go up the street a ways so’s we’ll be nearer the place when the doors open?”

“Yeah, maybe we oughta. Come on.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was eleven-fifteen. The court, sitting in the huge, empty store up the street, had been in session exactly one hour and fifteen minutes. The parade of witnesses, with each man telling the same story, if not in the same words, then in the same substance, continued. Judge Crandall, sitting behind the table toward the rear of the room, looked annoyed. Behind him some six or eight paces, Captain Bonham stood backed against the wall, a long, lean man with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt and his long legs spread to give him balance. To the side of the table, some ten feet away, sat Ross Raines. A Ranger stood directly behind him. There were Rangers at the door, too, one inside and one outside, and still other silver-starred men stood about the place at various points. There was a Bible on the table. Its cover was warm from the pressure of sworn-in witnesses’ hands.

“Next witness,” Crandall droned.

A man, hat in hand, his hair wet and shiny and slicked back, and looking a little flushed and uncomfortable, approached the table and everyone’s eyes focused and held on him as he came up to it. When the judge leveled his gaze at him, he averted his eyes.

“Place your left hand on the Bible,” Crandall instructed curtly. “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

The man crushed his hat under his left arm, placed his left hand on the Bible and raised his right hand.

“I solemnly swear—”

“—I solemnly swear—”

“—to tell the truth, the whole truth—”

“—to tell the truth, the whole truth—”

“—and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

“—and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

The man wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“State your name,” Crandall ordered. “And speak up.”

“Jed Rawlings.”

“Tell the court in your own words what you actually saw of the death of the late Eugene Dufour.”

“Well, Judge,” Rawlings began. “It was this way. I saw a crowd down the street, so I ran over, and I managed to worm my way through till I was in front where I could see everything.”

“Proceed.”

“There were two fellers wrestlin’ around on the sidewalk, and one o’ th’m, the one on top, Ross Raines, had a big, long knife in his hand. The feller he was on top of, Gene Dufour, was tryin’ to fight him off.”

“Go on,” Crandall said wearily.

Rawlings wiped his mouth a second time. “Well, sir,” he continued. “Ross stabbed Gene with the knife, in the belly I think it was or maybe it was a little higher up than that, maybe in the chest. Gene let out a holler and kinda slumped, and Ross pushed him away and got up. It was murder, Judge. Cold-blooded murder, too. I been around some in my time, and I seen things, but this one was just about the doggonedest—

“That will do,” the Judge said, interrupting him. “Your opinions don’t count, just the facts. You’re excused.”

Rawlings turned instantly on his heel and went swiftly up the aisle and out of the place. There was a low hum of voices.

“No more witnesses,” Crandall announced. He took off his glasses and wiped them with his handkerchief.

“If you please, your honor…”

The judge looked up. Neil Weatherbee, a handsome and dignified figure, came down the aisle.

“You have business with this court?” Crandall asked.

“I am here, sir, in the interest of justice.”

“Come forward, please.”

Weatherbee came up to the table.

“You know something of the death of Eugene Dufour?” the judge asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“You witnessed it?”

“I did, sir.”

“Place your left hand—”

Weatherbee’s left hand was already on the Bible, and his right hand was raised.

“You solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do, sir.”

“State your name, please.”

“Neil Weatherbee.”

“Where do you reside?”

“My home is in Kansas City, sir.”

“By whom are you employed?”

“The Katy. The Kansas and—”

“The Katy will suffice, Mr. Weatherbee. What is your work?”

“I’m a special representative for the Katy.”

“Are you acquainted with the defendant, Ross Raines?”

“Only by sight and by name, sir.”

“Are you acquainted with Clem Dufour?”

“By sight and by name, sir. I never had the pleasure of meeting him and talking with him.”

“Will you tell the court, please, in your own words, what you know of the death of Eugene Dufour?”

“I will, sir. I was walking in the street the evening of the fatal fight. I was perhaps a dozen feet from a saloon…”

“Can you identify it by name?”

“Perhaps if I heard it, sir—”

“McKelvey’s?”

“Thank you, your honor. It was McKelvey’s. I recognized the name the moment you mentioned it. I was nearing it when I noticed a young man walking ahead of me. Just then some other young men emerged from the saloon, McKelvey’s, and walked after the first young man. I did not know then that he was Ross Raines. I learned his identity later on. There was an exchange of words, and an exchange of blows, and at once a swelling crowd gathered.”

“Will you proceed, please, Mr. Weatherbee?”

“Young Raines bested two of the young men in admirable fashion, and then, apparently flushed with his successes, he turned upon the third one, Eugene Dufour. I learned his name later on, too, your honor. Young Dufour, it seemed to me, showed no inclination to fight. It seemed to me also that Raines was bent upon fighting with him. He struck Dufour several times, savagely, and Dufour, in what was probably desperation or instinct to fight back when one is hurt, struck back at him. That so enraged Raines that he rushed at Dufour, and I saw a knife gleam in his hand.”

“In whose hand, please?”

“Why, in young Raines’ hand, sir. I’m sorry if I failed to make that point clear.”

“Continue, please.”

“The two young men grappled, Dufour and Raines, the latter seeking to use his knife, the former to prevent it. They fell, with Raines on top. It ended abruptly, the struggle that is, when Raines with a vicious sweep plunged the knife to its fullest into Dufour’s breast. That is the story, sir, of what I saw with my own eyes.”

“Mr. Weatherbee, you have said that you came into this court in the interest of justice. Is that correct?”

“It is, sir.”

“You have no other purpose or motive?”

“I have not, sir,” Weatherbee answered calmly. “I sympathize deeply with both families, the Raines family and the Dufour family. However, justice must be served, and that’s why I’ve taken it upon myself to appear here and make known what actually happened.”

There was a stirring, a movement in the doorway, and two broad-shouldered men entered and came striding down the aisle. Spectators’ eyes followed them to the table. One of the men whipped back his coat and revealed a badge pinned to his vest. His companion halted at Weatherbee’s side and looked hard at him.

“What is it, Marshal?” Crandall asked.

The first man drew some papers from his pocket and handed them to the judge who unfolded them and glanced at them.

“H’m, extradition papers,” he said. There was surprise in his voice. “Signed by the governor.”

“That’s right, Judge. This man, this Weatherbee, is wanted back in Kansas, and that’s where we’re taking him. The charges are right there, Judge, on the second page.”

Crandall turned the first page.

“‘Mishandling, misappropriating and embezzling employer’s funds,’” he read aloud and looked up again. “Well, well, well! Very interesting, indeed. Particularly since they concern a man who seeks to serve the cause of justice.”

“All right, Judge?” the first marshal asked.

“Yes, of course, Marshal,” Crandall answered, folding and returning the papers to him. “Take him away.”

“All right, Weatherbee,” the second law officer said. “Let’s go!”

A hum of voices swept the courtroom. Flanked by the two marshals, and looking suddenly old and haggard, Weatherbee trudged up the aisle, and was led out to the street.

Crandall rapped on the table. “Order, please,” he called.

The hum died out. A man in one of the middle rows of benches was suddenly seized with an attack of coughing. Hard eyes were turned on him. He stopped coughing. He flushed and averted his own eyes.

“The court,” Crandall began, “finds that the deceased, the late Eugene Dufour, met an accidental death. It further finds that the deceased contributed to his death by attacking with a deadly weapon the defendant Ross Raines, and that in a struggle with Raines, the deceased was fatally stabbed. The court finds no reason to hold the defendant for trial and directs that he be released from custody. This hearing is over. The court stands adjourned.”

Clem Dufour and Orvie Scott had been sitting in the last row of spectators. They were the first to reach the street. Clem was grim-faced, his mouth hard and tight, and his eyes were burning.

“Ten thousand bucks shot to hell by a lousy crook,” Scott said as they crossed the street. “And where he’s goin’ those ten thousand bucks ain’t gonna do him a damned bit o’ good. If only those marshals had held off for a while, just long enough for Weatherbee to’ve got outta court and started on his way, things would’ve been different. At least, we’da got the dough back.”

There was no response from Dufour. The two men stepped up on the sidewalk.

“That Crandall, though,” Orvie went on. “He’s the one I don’t get. Your friend, boss. He’s a judge ’cause you an’ your dough made him a judge. That Weatherbee weasel don’t count. He was just out to make himself a fast buck, and who isn’t? But that lousy Crandall. Did you notice, boss, the way he looked at our witnesses when they came up to be sworn in? He was callin’ them liars before they even opened their mouths, callin’ them that with his eyes. He’s the one who’s responsible for this. He’s the one who coulda fixed everything so Raines woulda had to swing, but he didn’t do a damned thing. What I’d like to do to him!”

Dufour stood a little stiffly, mute and with his head thrust forward a bit.

“I tell you, boss, that whole hearing was a joke,” Scott continued. “It was all cut an’ dried. Right from the beginning it had a bad smell. Crandall wasn’t gonna convict Raines, and he didn’t.”

When Dufour turned away from Scott and walked into a nearby alley, Scott followed him. Dufour stopped and motioned him off.

“Wait a minute, boss,” Scott urged, grabbing Dufour’s arm. “Whatever you’re gonna do, I’m gonna do it with you. It’s like you once said to me, ‘We come this far together, an’ I ain’t quittin’ you now I know you’re up to somethin’, an’ I think I know what it is. I c’n help you, an’ you’ll need help. You saved my neck once, and it took guts. You’ve always done right by me, an’ I don’t aim to forget it now when I c’n do somethin’ for you. It’ll kinda be like repayin’ you, an’ it’s somethin’ I always wanted to do.”

Dufour broke his grim silence only long enough to say, “Awright, Scott, c’mon—and have your gun ready.”

Scott had his gun stuck in the waistband of his pants, and his buttoned coat concealed it. He felt for it. It was there, and it brought a glint to his eyes. He backed into the alley and flattened out against a wall.

The courtroom was emptying. People were pouring out of it, spilling out over the sidewalk.

Ross, Captain Bonham and Judge Crandall emerged into the bright sunshine. Then came several women, Mary Raines and Nessie Trimble among them, pushing their way through the crowd to meet Ross. Ross spotted them and waved to them, and Nessie waved back happily. When Ross turned his head for a moment and said something to Crandall, Orvie Scott’s lip curled. When the Judge answered and smiled and patted Ross on the back, Orvie’s eyes burned fiercely. His hand stole inside his coat and curled around the butt of his gun. Slowly he eased it out of his waistband and held it tightly just inside his coat.

“Now, Clem,” he whispered. “Now.”

There was a shot, a sudden shot, as though Dufour had heard him and had acted on his urging, and the echo of it carried to both ends of the street, Orvie, watching with a fierce eagerness, saw Captain Bonham stagger, saw blood spurt and stain the front of his shirt just above his silver star that caught and reflected the sunshine.

Ross, who was nearest Bonham, turned instantly and caught him, and others just beyond them converged upon them in a surging rush and engulfed them and shut them off from Orvie.

Then there was a second shot, and screams and cries filled the air. The crowd in front of the courtroom bolted. Fear-rooted people, unable to move, were trampled and kicked, and some of them were knocked down when others panicked and sought to break way to safety. Orvie had his gun out and raised. He was looking for the Judge. He found him shortly and he leveled his gun. His thin lips whipped back, baring his teeth.

A tall figure whirled up in front of him seemingly out of nowhere, a man with a Ranger’s star on his shirt and a raised gun in his hand. The gun exploded suddenly, almost in Scott’s face, deafening and stunning him. Other men rushed up and joined the tall one.

Thunder, great claps of it, burst upon Scott. Slugs tore into his body and spun him around drunkenly. Bullet-riddled, he swayed on rubbery, buckling legs. His gun slipped from his numbed hand and fell at his feet. A man came up to him and kicked it away.

Others rushed into the alley, filling its narrow confines with the thump of running, booted feet. Orvie was falling. He felt no pain, nothing but the sensation of falling in dark, endless space. He sagged brokenly against the wall and slid down to his knees and huddled there, with his head bowed. Then he sighed, pitched forward on his face and lay still.

Beyond Scott, at the rear of the building, there was a battering. The Rangers were breaking down the door to the vacant building. “All right!” an authoritative voice yelled. “Put your shoulders to it. She’s ready to give. Just once more’ll do it!”

There was a splintering, rending sound, evidence that the back door had been forced, and then came the noise of rushing footsteps inside the building.

The street was cleared. Bonham had been carried into the courtroom, and now a single Ranger appeared in the doorway and stole a quick look upward at the burly figure of Clem Dufour standing on the roof of the vacant building opposite. Clem screamed something, and his right hand jerked upward and he fired. The Ranger sagged in the doorway.

Ross Raines snatched the half-drawn gun from the Ranger’s holster, while others behind them dragged the wounded officer back out of sight. Now Ross, with the Ranger’s gun in his hand, leaped out. Dufour spotted him, yelled and fired. Ross, twisting away, snapped a shot at him in return. Clem staggered, checked and steadied himself and braced himself on his thick, spread legs. Ross, skidding to a stop on the sidewalk, fired a second time. Dufour swayed and stumbled forward to the very edge of the roof. He was motionless for about a moment, and he seemed to stiffen. Then he pitched over the parapet and hurtled earthward.

There was a yell from wide-eyed spectators huddling in the doorways along the street, a yell that lifted and carried in the brisk morning air, a yell that was caught up and repeated. There was a rush, a converging upon the broken body that lay on the sidewalk. A handful of others wheeled around it and panted into the alley where Orvie Scott lay dead in his own seeping blood.

Rangers appeared on the roof from which Dufour had toppled to his death, peered down, then they backed, turned and disappeared from view. The street filled to overflowing with excited people, all of them talking at once and the hum of their voices lifted.

Ross, the lowered gun in his hand, trudged back to the courtroom doorway. “All right,” he said. “You can come out now. It’s all over.”

Mary Raines was the first to step out into the street and the warm sunshine that bathed it “Then we can go home?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure, Ma.”

“Then let’s go now. I think I’ve had more than I can stand.”

Nessie Trimble came out, and the others who had taken refuge in the courtroom followed at her heels. Ross was standing with his left arm around his mother. Nessie came to him, and he held her against him with his right arm.

“Say,” he said suddenly. “I oughta give this gun back to the Ranger.”

“He won’t have any need for it,” Nessie told him, and he looked at her. She read the question in his eyes. “He’s dead.”

“What about Captain Bonham?”

“A shoulder wound.”

“Good. Too bad, though, about the other feller.”

People gathered around Ross and Nessie. There were Ed and Nellie Trimble, Judge Crandall and a host of others. Even Jerry Hawks pushed through to pat Ross on the back.

After a while the couple walked up the street to where Mary had left the buckboard. Nessie turned once, looked back and smiled. Ross, noticing it, asked: “You’re coming home with us, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Ross. I was just looking around to see if Ma and Pa had gone. They’re behind us.”

“Comin’ out with us too?”

“Yes. At least, that’s what I think Ma’s nod meant.”

“She’s swell, Ness, y’know.”

“I know.”

“So’s your father,” he quickly added.

“He gets a little balky at times—”

“Who doesn’t?” he asked with a grin.

“I learned a lot about you this last week or so,” she told him. “Things I didn’t know.”

“Oh-oh, that doesn’t sound so good. Y’got me worried now.”

“You needn’t be, Ross.”

His eyes, anxious and eager, searched her face. “Y’sure, Nes?”

“I’m sure,” she replied.

He grinned again. “Then I feel better,” he said. “But I don’t mind tellin’ you, you had me worried there for a minute.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Then forget it.”

“You aren’t a boy any longer, Ross,” she told him soberly. “You’ve become a man, almost overnight, and I’m awfully glad. You’re going to have responsibilities, and it’ll take a man to shoulder them.”

“They won’t be so much. We’ll make out all right.”

“I’m sure we will.”

She linked her arm through his, and he smiled at her and squeezed her hand.

“That’s my girl,” he said. “Hey, you know something, Ness?”

“What, Ross?”

“I’m hungry. Came over me all of a sudden.”

“I think we’ll be able to do something about that, if you can hold out till we get home.”

“Oh, sure! Say, Ness, what became of Florrie an’ Ben? Thought I saw them once in court, then I kinda lost sight of them.”

“They’ve gone home. I imagine they had a lot to talk about, too, so they drove off by themselves.”

“I get it,” he said. Ross turned to his mother, who was walking on the other side of him. “Ma, you all right?”

“Yes, Ross. I’m all right now.”

“You haven’t said a single word.”

She raised her eyes to him and smiled. “But you and Nessie have,” she answered. “And what you two had to say was far nicer than anything I could have said.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A few days later Ed Trimble drove out to the Raines’ place. He halted his buckboard in front of the house, climbed down and started up the path. He stopped, turned, retraced his steps and went into the barn.

“Ross!” he called. “You in here?”

“Yeah! Up in the loft!”

“Stay there. I’m coming up.”

“Come ahead.”

Ross was waiting at the head of the ladder when Trimble stepped off it.

“Hi,” Ross said, wiping his hands on his levis. “How’s everybody?”

“Fine, Ross, fine. Your ma and Florrie all right?”

“Yeah, sure. You been in town?”

“Yep. That’s why I stopped here. Everybody’s all excited, and I kinda figured you folks would wanna know what was happening too. The Katy’s come through with a nice offer, and the Association has accepted it.”

“Uh-huh. Who’d they elect to fill Dufour’s place?”

Trimble grinned. “Me,” he grinned. “But gettin’ back to the Katy. In return for the Association’s givin’ its consent to the new spur, the Katy’s gonna build a big underpass right smack under its tracks so our stock c’n have a clear path to the river. How’s that sound to you?”

“Sounds good. Oughta satisfy everybody.”

“Everybody’s satisfied, all right. If they’da said that in the first place we could’ve gotten together without any trouble. I guess they just didn’t wanna be bothered with the underpass unless there was no other way.”

“Next meeting’s set for Saturday night, Ross. We’d like it if you’d come and sit in with us. Fact is, son, you belong there, same’s the rest of us. The invite ain’t just from me, y’understand. It’s from everybody. What d’you say?”

“Let me think about it, willya?”

“Sure. There’s still four days to Saturday, y’know. By the way, Ross. Something else I nearly forgot, and believe me, I’da had to go find myself a new home if I’da forgot this. You’re expected for supper tonight.”

There was a rumble of wheels outside and the plod of horses’ hooves. The two men looked at each other.

“What’s that?” Trimble asked.

“Doggoned if I know. Let’s go down and see.”

A big, heavily-laden, four-horse-drawn wagon came lumbering up from the road as Ross and Trimble emerged from the barn.

“Yeah?” Ross called to the driver as the wagon approached. “Who you lookin’ for?”

“Raines,” was the answer. “Mrs. Mary Raines. This is the right place, ain’t it?”

“Yeah, but what’ve you got?”

The wagon braked to a stop in front of the barn.

“Got some big pieces, crated stuff,” the driver answered. “Where d’you want them?”

“Can you wait a minute,” Ross asked, “while I go ask my mother?”

“Sure. Take your time.”

“I think I’ll be goin’ along, Ross,” Trimble said. “Say hello to your ma and Florrie f’r me, willya? Tell your ma, Nellie said she’d ride over tomorrow afternoon to see her.”

“I’ll tell her.”

“An’ don’t forget about supper tonight.”

“I’ll be there, thanks.”

Trimble climbed into the buckboard, wheeled away from the house and drove off.

Mary Raines was sitting at the kitchen table when Ross entered the house. He closed the door quietly behind him. “Ma,” he said.

Slowly she stirred and raised her eyes to him.

“Your stuff’s come,” he told her.

“My stuff?”

“Those things you ordered,” he explained. “Outside in a big wagon. I told the driver to wait while I came in and asked you where you wanted th’m put. In the parlor, huh, Ma?”

“No, Ross,” she answered with a strange heaviness in her voice. “Put them in the barn.”

“In the barn?” he repeated, and he looked surprised.

“Yes. They’re nice things, I know, and once I thought that if I could have them, I’d have everything I could ever want. But I guess I didn’t really want them after all. I suppose that if your father was here to enjoy them with me, I’d feel different about them, but he ain’t here, so I don’t want them.”

“All right, Ma,” he said. “I think I understand. We’ll put them away in the barn. ’Course any time you change your mind about th’m, we’ll bring ’em into the house.”

Ross went out. She heard his steps as he rounded the house and strode along the path, and she sat listening to its music, its firm, swift and purposeful beat. But the slow, scuffing, wearied step that had been Allie’s she would never hear again.

Mary sat hunched over with her hands on the table. If she had not driven him to it, selling those miserable twenty acres of land to the railroad so she could get those things that had once meant so much to her, he would be there with her now. In the rush of angry words that the sale had produced, the blows were struck, and the blood was spilled. Allie was gone, and with him had gone something of her, something that would never return to her.

Mary knew she still had her children, and they would always be about her or close to her. Nessie would come to live at the Raines place when she and Ross were married, and Florrie, married to Ben and living just a few miles away at the Farrow place, would not be very far away. And then, in the course of time, there would be children, Ross’ and Florrie’s. But there would never be anyone to take Allie’s place.

She sat back in her chair. Florrie, who was sewing so industriously in her room, and Ross, would soon be coming in for their midday meal. She sighed and sat upright for a moment and got up on her feet. She straightened the tablecloth. As she crossed the room to the cupboard, tears filled her eyes, a lump arose in her throat, and she was painfully aware of a gnawing emptiness deep down inside of her. When she thought she heard a step on the stairs, she hastily wiped her eyes. She swallowed the lump, but the emptiness remained. It would always be there, she told herself because that was the part of her that had gone with Allie to his grave.