THE RENEGADE HILLS, by Allan K. Echols

Copyright © 1952 by Allan K. Echols.

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

Jim Webster

Range detective hired by the local cattlemen to find out who was behind the outlaws that terrorized Northern Texas.

Swanson

Big cattleman. Realized the local authorities were helpless to stop the outlaws. Thought Webster’s guns would be better.

Dick Hammond

Young cowboy who worked for Swanson. His six-guns came in handy when Webster needed help badly.

Faulkner

Ran the local freight line. He worried too much about the lives of his men—and Webster got suspicious.

Austin

Weak-willed schemer who worked for Faulkner. Webster used his greediness as a means of getting information on Faulkner.

Flint

Big, burly wagon driver for Faulkner. A knock-down, drag-out fight with Webster gave him cause to seek revenge.

CHAPTER I

Meeting by Night

The big Concord stage had been jerking on its bullhide thorough braces for four solid hours without rest, the yellow wheels sinking into muddy potholes, bumping over the rocks of the half-graded trail, its floor boards bumping against bolsters, and the passengers bouncing on their horsehair seats like popcorn in a skillet.

Jim Webster had eaten a meal of beans and salt pork during the twenty-minute stop early in the morning, and now as the team pulled into Woodbine his body ached as though he had broken a dozen mustangs to the saddle. Spring showers had come and gone intermittently for the last two days, and now after dark, as the driver pulled the stage up in front of the hotel, it was raining hard.

Webster hauled his slicker on in the cramped confines of the stage while the other half dozen passengers piled out and ducked for the hotel, from whose roofed porch sheets of water poured noisily into the running gutter. The driver was already opening up the boot at the rear, and Webster pulled up the collar of his slicker, sloshed back through the mud and picked out his saddle and war-bag and threw them on the hotel porch. It was good to get his feet on solid ground again.

His high-crowned Stetson gave him the appearance of being even taller than his six-foot-two. Though Webster was just short of thirty, he had a strong mature set to his jaw, and the sun had etched crow’s feet around his serious gray eyes. Altogether, with his long face and square jaw, and his appearance of height, his lean build failed to suggest that he had as much weight as he actually carried in his broad, flat shoulders and long, muscular legs.

Jim picked up his warbag and saddle easily, and started toward the hotel door, when he noticed the man standing beside it, smoking and giving him an appraising glance. Trained in quick observance, Webster noted that he was younger than himself, that despite his windburned complexion, he was fair of skin and had a clear pair of blue eyes that seemed to quickly read all that appearances could tell him about Webster.

The younger man swung the screen door open and gave Webster a brief, impersonal smile as he approached, then drifted into the hotel lobby behind him. Webster signed for his room and started up the pine stairway; then something caused him to glance down at the lobby before passing on to the second floor. The young man was standing at the desk, idly looking at the register.

Webster threw his bag and saddle on the floor of his dingy room, hung his slicker over the back of a hickory chair and shucked out of his jacket and shirt, hanging his gunbelt on the bedpost. He had washed and was shaving when he heard a slight squeak behind him, and saw the handle of the door turning as quietly as its rusty mechanism would permit. He took two steps across the room and retrieved his gun as the door came open and the young man from the lobby stepped inside and closed it behind him.

His nerves on edge from the long, uncomfortable stage ride, Webster asked shortly, “Ever try knocking?”

The fair young man looked smilingly at the muzzle of the gun Webster was pointing at him.

“Generally do,” he grinned. “But I didn’t want to attract any attention this time. Webster, aren’t you?”

“Didn’t the register answer that question for you?”

“Tough, riding the stage line in this kind of weather,” the young man observed philosophically. “Gets on your nerves.”

“Is that what you busted in here to tell me, friend?”

“No. Name’s Hammond. Dick Hammond. Range boss of Swanson’s Double H. Now if you’re not Webster, I’ll trot along—”

“All right,” Webster answered. “I’m Webster and you’re Hammond, and what do you want?”

“Go on with your shaving. Then I’ll take you visiting. Swanson’s waiting for you.”

Webster jammed his gun back into the holster, still hanging from its belt on the bedpost.

“I was thinking of getting caught up with my sleep and hiring a horse and riding out first thing in the morning. Is he in a hurry?”

“Not particularly,” Hammond answered, seating himself on the edge of the bed and fishing for the makings. “It’s just that he wanted me to head you off. He doesn’t want you to show up on the ranch. He’s here in town. I’ll take you to him as soon as you’re ready.”

Webster said, “All right. There’s a bottle in the top of my warbag. Pour us a couple of drinks while I finish shaving.”

He turned back to the dresser and picked up his razor. Hammond poured a couple of drinks into two glasses while the razor made a scratching sound over the wiry stubble on Webster’s lathered face.

Webster studied him through the dresser mirror, and concluded that young Hammond was what he purported to be. The young man’s casual ease seemed to be a part of him, a natural self-confidence and a kind of quiet amusement at things in general. Webster felt a little impatient with himself for having been so suspicious of the man, but reminded himself of his mission here, and that there were those here who would be glad of a chance to kill him even before he saw Swanson.

He finished shaving and put on a clean shirt and jacket, then buckled his gunbelt around his waist and tied the tip of the holster down to his leg with its rawhide pigging string. Then he picked up one of the glasses.

Hammond stood up, raised his glass and said, “Luck!” then when they had tossed off the drinks, added. “And you’ll need it, all right.”

“Very well,” said Webster. “Where do we go from here?”

“You wait until I’ve had time to get downstairs and across the street before you come down. Then you’ll see me pass under the lantern of the livery-stable door. You follow me, but not too closely.”

“That bad?”

“It could be. Swanson doesn’t want you seen with anybody connected with Double H.”

Webster shook the water off his yellow oilskin slicker and put it on. Hammond opened the door, looked up and down the dimly lighted hallway and slid out, closing the door behind him.

Then Webster took a jackknife out of his pocket, and opened it. He opened his slicker and ripped a slash through the oilskin just inside the pocket opening. He lifted the gun out of his holster and stuck it in his belt. Then he closed his slicker, rammed his right hand into the slicker pocket, through the rip, and grasped his gun handle.

It worked satisfactorily. He could walk down the street with his hands in his slicker pockets—and with his right hand on the handle of his gun.

After a few minutes he went downstairs and lingered in the shelter of the roofed hotel porch while he let his eyes sweep the muddy street. The rain had settled down to a steady drizzle, the water running off the porch roof in streams that splashed in the gutter. The road was a quagmire, with ruts filled to overflowing. A few doors away, a covered wagon was bogged down hub deep, and the team had been removed and taken away.

Most of the buildings were dark and almost invisible in the steady rain, but here and there lights shone dismally through windows. In front of two of the lighted buildings kerosene torches flickered over the doors, and farther down the street a lantern cast a yellow glow above the wide, black mouth of a livery-stable entrance. It was this entrance that Webster watched until he saw a man stop under the lantern, light a cigarette, and then move on.

Webster recognized Hammond’s black rubber slicker, and followed on down the plank walk, sometimes under an awning, sometimes exposed to the rain. The only other men he had seen on the street were two cowpunchers ducking out of the swing doors of one of the lighted places, running up a few doors and ducking into another. Saloons, both of them.

There was little chance of his being observed, Webster thought, but the caution he had developed in his business made him careful nonetheless, and he walked down the street without keeping his eyes on the man ahead of him. Passing the doors of the saloons, he noted that for such a night, when most everybody would have preferred to stay at home, the places were unusually crowded. For a town giving so little sign of animation, there were a lot of people awake.

Passing the wagonyard beside the livery stable, he saw that there were a dozen or more covered wagons lined up around its fence, and a good many horses and mules in the lot and under the shed beside it. There were still other camp outfits in the vacant lots alongside the wagonyard, where the wooden walk ended. Small as it was, this town seemed crowded, despite the emptiness of the rainswept street.

Jim stepped off the walk and began picking his way through the mud, having little success in avoiding puddles. And then Hammond came up out of the dark and was beside him.

Hammond’s sudden appearance made him grip his gun handle tighter, revealing to him how tense he had grown during the three-day trip into this northern strip of Texas, a section with which he was unfamiliar.

Hammond’s voice was still pleasant. “Sorry about all this mystery, Webster. It’s Swanson’s idea, but he’s right. This is one hell of a place; you can give a man a wrong look, and end up floating a thousand miles down Red River with a bullet hole in your back. There are men who might have killed you before you saw Swanson if they’d even seen you with me. That’s how touchy this dump is.”

“Must be a nervous town,” Webster growled, bowing his head to the rain. “What’s the trouble?”

“It’s only a short way,” Hammond evaded. “Swanson will tell you.”

They turned a corner and kept on past a row of dark houses, and after a hundred yards or so, Hammond took his arm and stopped him at a fenced yard, where he opened a picket gate and went in with Webster following.

The house was as dark as the rest, but at Hammond’s knock, a door opened, letting a little light seep out into the night, and they went in. The woman who had opened the door greeted them pleasantly, nodding to Webster and saying to Hammond, “Hello, Dick. You boys hang your slickers here in the hall. Eric is waiting for you.”

Then she turned a friendly look of curiosity on Webster and smiled as her glance measured him. She was perhaps in her early forties, but had taken care of herself; she was attractive and radiated a warm friendliness.

“Mrs. Halsell, this is Jim Webster,” Hammond said.

Webster took the hand she offered, and she said, “We were waiting for you. It’s a wonderful night out for ducks, isn’t it?”

More puzzled than ever, Webster acknowledged the introduction and followed the woman and Hammond into a larger, better-lighted room. He had only time to approve of its comfortable appearance, when his eyes settled on a man who had risen from a masculine kind of upholstered chair and was knocking the dottle out of his pipe.

Webster’s quick eye swept over a tall man in his fifties. He had thin sandy hair combed straight back and neatly trimmed; he wore a mustache clipped shorter than was generally worn in Texas, and his face was lean and bony, set with steel-blue eyes under bushy, yellow brows. His jaw was made of flat planes and his mouth was trim without being hard. Webster saw strength and responsibility written all over the man, and perhaps some coldness, as he approached.

Hammond said, “Mr. Swanson, this is Jim Webster.”

As they shook hands, Swanson’s mouth relaxed into a pleasant but reserved smile. “Glad to know you, Webster. We’ve been expecting you. Hope I didn’t inconvenience you, rushing you over here like this. You’ve met Mrs. Halsell?”

“Yes.”

The woman had come over and taken a chair near the man’s easy chair, and Webster studied the two of them together. There was at least a close association here, but he would have to wait to find out what it meant. Meantime, sizing Swanson up, he saw a man he judged fully capable of handling his own affairs, and this in itself gave him cause for a wonderment which he kept to himself while he waited for an explanation.

Swanson pointed to a chair with the stem of his pipe, and sat down and began stuffing it again with tobacco as Webster took his seat, each man still taking the measure of the other. Then Swanson opened a box of cigars, which Webster declined and began rolling a cigarette. Young Hammond, with the freedom of a man accustomed to the place, found a chair across the room and pulled it into the circle.

With an abruptness that surprised Webster, Swanson said, “You look like a man who could handle yourself, all right.”

“I’ve managed to stay alive,” Webster admitted, hiding an impatience which was mounting in him. He was not accustomed to doing business in a femininely branded living room full of people.

“That in itself is something,” Swanson said. “If half the stories I’ve heard about you are true.”

“You’d probably be safe in discounting most of them, I imagine,” said Jim.

Swanson said, “I’ll tell you the reason I had Dick meet you like this, rather than waiting until you came to the ranch. I thought that when you heard how things are, you’d prefer it that way yourself. I understand you’re quite a lone wolf and like to play your cards your own way. That’s all right with us if you decided to handle it that way.

“Now here’s our setup; our ranch, the Double H, is on the river about five miles from town at its nearest side. We’ve got five thousand acres of fine grass under fence. Down in your part of Texas five thousand acres is not much land, but up here where the grass is thick, and where the land is fenced and cross-fenced for controlled grazing, a place of that size represents considerable investment. We do some breeding, of course, but we do a big turnover buying and selling. Indian Territory lies just across the river over there, and that is just about as lawless a country right now as you can find anywhere in the United States. Trail herds come up this way, headed for Kansas, and the trailers get cold feet. They haven’t got the money to keep going, or haven’t got the nerve to try to push a herd across Indian Territory, and so they sell to us. Some of them try to make it and lose their herds or their lives, or both. A few make it across the Territory, but it takes so many armed men to guard a herd of cattle going through, that not all of them want to take the chance.

“Well, whatever the reason, we buy quite a bit of stock from trailers. We fatten it up under fence, and we move it up into or through the Territory ourselves. We sell some to Indian Agencies, some to the railroads that are beginning to build down through the Territory, and some we push on to the railhead and ship up to Kansas City or Chicago.

“That is, that is what we used to do. But now we’re having about as poor luck as some of the smaller trailers did. We lose one herd after another. We hire more men, and they get killed. We plan our drives in secret, and start them off in the dead of night, and they hardly get across the river and into the mountains on the other side when a gang hits them and we have a few dead men on our hands and we’ve lost our cattle. It’s getting so that we’re afraid to push a cow across the river any more. So there we are; we can’t do business if we can’t drive our stuff to market, and if we do start it to market it doesn’t get there. There’s your problem. It’s just that simple. I sent for you to hire you to stop it.”

Mrs. Halsell and Hammond had to laugh, and even Webster and Swanson smiled. “Simple enough,” Webster said dryly. “Just stop it. Why hasn’t your law stopped it? You’ve got law here, haven’t you?”

“In a way, yes. We’re the only town in this county; we’ve got maybe five hundred permanent residents who support the town, and so we’ve got such a sheriff as a town of that size can afford. This is a crossing town, and there’s a constant stream of people passing through, the trail herders going and coming, freighters, settlers, and riffraff. For one thing, our sheriff has his hands full just trying to keep these transients from killing each other off. But more important is the fact that he can’t even go after the rustlers.”

“Why not?”

“Red River is two miles from where you’re sitting. It divides Texas from Indian Territory. If our sheriff starts north he will be out of his bailiwick by the time he has ridden that two miles to the river’s edge. From there on it is none of his business. The Federal Government runs Indian Territory; and it is in Washington, more than a thousand miles away. It sends political appointees down to Fort Smith, Arkansas, over two hundred miles away, and those men are the poor relations of politicians in Washington, men who are so ornery that they’d be satisfied with such jobs. Meaning, they’re worthless or crooked, or both. The only law in Indian Territory is a handful of deputy marshals who are no better than the men that they’re supposed to be fighting. And the Territory—this section of it across the river—is a tangled mass of hills as wild as anything you’ve ever seen in your life. Add that up, no law, and full of hiding places that no honest white man has ever laid eyes on. What’s the answer? The answer is that this corner of Indian Territory across the river from us is an outlaw heaven. Every law dodger in the Southwest heads for that country over there as soon as it gets too hot for him elsewhere. And they band together when they need to. I’d bet you could get enough thieves together on one project to steal a herd of ten thousand cattle guarded by a company of U.S. Cavalry, if they set their minds to it. They’ve got to be stamped out, Webster, before it will again be safe for anybody to ship cattle or goods into or through Indian Territory.”

Webster laughed dryly. “And that’s the simple job you’ve asked me to do. Well, I don’t carry a U.S. Marshal’s commission, and I haven’t got an army of my own.”

“Exactly,” Swanson said evenly. “That’s one reason you could possibly make a dent in them. You see, the Federal Government can’t or won’t stop them, and no Texas authority extends up there. There is practically no law there. It’s every man for himself. Now if you were working for me up there, and if you were attacked while protecting my property, you’d be doing what everybody else does in defending yourself and your employer’s property. In the case of responsible people, that would be the end of the matter.”

“Or the end of me.”

“That is the chance you’re hiring out to take, of course.”

“Of course,” Webster agreed. “Well, I don’t know how much I can do for you, but I’ll look around and go to work on it. I might be able to do something, and I might not. I can tell you about that later, after I’ve sized things up.”

“That’s fair enough,” Swanson said. “As I said, I’ve heard about your work. Now, about the pay. What do you usually get for a job like this?”

“That again I can’t tell you,” Webster said. “How many cattle have you lost since conditions have become so bad?”

“Perhaps a thousand head; maybe fifteen hundred.”

“And how many do you usually send on a drive?”

“Anywhere from three hundred to six hundred; whatever the sales prospects are, and whatever we’ve got ready and think safe to start out.”

“In that case,” Webster said, “I’ll have to put the deal this way; if I save you a herd of cattle which you know you would have lost except for me, you will owe me in cash thirty percent of the value of that herd. Whatever future herds my work saves you will be all velvet, of course, and so you can distribute the charge over all the drives you get through safely because of what I’ve done.”

Those terms gave Swanson pause for a moment. Webster saw him do some mental calculating. “About expenses?” Swanson asked cautiously.

“None. I’ll take care of that.”

Webster admired the way the man came to a decision. Swanson said suddenly, “That’s a deal. If you do me any good it will be worth it; if you don’t, it won’t cost me anything. Right?”

“Right. But one more thing. I want a free hand. Does anybody else know about you sending for me?”

“Not a soul except us three.”

“Then I don’t want it to go any further. I will be hanging around town, going about my own business, and I don’t want any of you to recognize me if you bump into me on the street. I’m glad you had this meeting here, Swanson. Will it be all right if I communicate with you through Mrs. Halsell?”

“Of course, Webster. She owns half the Double H. She has as much interest as I have.”

“And one more thing,” Webster answered. “You might hear some things about me that you don’t like. I might have to do things that you don’t understand. I want you to be prepared to hear almost anything.”

Swanson said, “Hum-m” thoughtfully, then said, “All right.”

“And one other thing. I’d like you to get word to a few ranchers whom you can trust. This is what I’d like you to say, and what I’d like you to be careful not to say. I want you to find out from them if they’ll be on call if you need them for some pretty hot work. In short, you’d better try to pick men who have lost something through this territory bunch, and have no love for them. I’d want men who wouldn’t be afraid to pick up their rifles some night and cross the river and make a raid in places where they had no legal right to be. Do you think you can do that?”

“I could get a dozen such responsible men,” Swanson assured him. “Maybe more.”

“Then feel them out; hint that you might call on them suddenly some night. But don’t tell them another thing; don’t tell them about your having sent for me, don’t hint that you’ve got a man working on the case; just don’t talk at all. Is that satisfactory with you?”

“Whatever you say.”

“All right, then. I’ll be dropping in on Mrs. Halsell some time. I’ll give her any message I have for you, and you can leave any word with her that you want to get to me. I won’t go near the Double H for the time being at least. Fair enough?”

Swanson got to his feet and they shook hands on it. Swanson asked him casually, “What do you intend to do first?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Webster answered as casually. “But since the trouble seems to lie across the river, I suppose I’ll rest up overnight, and then ride over there and look around.”

Young Hammond laughed. “You won’t be crossing the river for a week, unless your horse is powered with a steamboat engine. The river is up, it’s a mile-wide torrent of raging floodwater. A catfish couldn’t cross it under its own power.”

“So that’s why there are so many wagons in town.”

“Yeah. And if it quit raining tonight it would still be a week before wagons could cross into the Territory. And in the meantime, the town just has to pull in its neck and let the riffraff stay drunk and fight and tear up the place.”

“In that case,” Webster said, “I’ll just spend my time getting acquainted. You say that a herd or a load of goods can’t be started even secretly from here without being waylaid. That would suggest that those bandits have eyes and ears here in town.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Swanson agreed. “But how to find out where the leak is; that’s the job!”

“Yeah,” Webster answered. “That’s the job. Goodnight, Mrs. Halsell. Goodnight, gents.”

CHAPTER II

Trailtown

Webster was in the entrance hall putting on his slicker when the front door opened suddenly. He glanced up to see a blond girl come rushing in, her dark-plaid mackintosh waterproof coat gleaming with raindrops. She spoke hurriedly as she closed the door behind her, and apparently before she had seen Webster.

“Dad, hurry, will you? It has stopped raining for a moment, and Emory has got the buckboard outside. He wants to get us home and get back to town before it starts again.”

As she was speaking, Webster had got the slicker down over his shoulders, and she saw that it was not her father but a stranger to whom she had spoken. She was abruptly silent, and her cheeks turned pink with embarrassment.

Webster cursed under his breath; the girl was pretty, but he hadn’t wanted to see anybody right now. He saw Swanson coming out of the living room, followed by Hammond, and waited for them to square matters.

Swanson showed his impatience momentarily, and it sounded in the tone of his voice. “I wish you’d waited a few minutes,” he said.

Mrs. Halsell laughed at him and turned to the girl. “You might as well come on in and get acquainted.”

They were back in the living room, and Swanson was tapping his big white teeth with the stem of his pipe. Suddenly he asked, “Is Emory waiting in the rig?”

“Yes, but he’ll get impatient if we don’t hurry.”

“Hell!” Swanson said, and was lost in thought for a moment. The girl gave Webster a brief sweep of a glance and turned her eyes on Mrs. Halsell, recognizing something amiss here.

Webster took the moment to examine her more closely. She had the Scandinavian cast of features that her father had, only in softer lines. Her eyes were blue and her yellow hair was done up under the hood of her mackintosh. There was a frank and humorous, and yet sincere smile that hovered about her mouth, giving her an expression that Webster described to himself as wholesome. She was particularly unaffected for such a beautiful girl.

“Look, Dick,” Swanson said in his sudden decisive way. “Go out there and see that Emory doesn’t come bursting in here. Tell him we’ll be out in a minute. But keep him in that buggy.”

“Right,” Hammond said, and caught up his slicker and went out into the night.

Then Swanson said, “Sonia, I want you to meet Jim Webster. My daughter, Webster.”

Webster made his acknowledgment with a crinkle of amusement at the corners of his mouth, brought by the frank air of mystification on the girl’s face as she offered her hand.

“Listen, Sonia,” her father said. “I’d hoped that you wouldn’t see Webster just yet. I don’t want anybody to know that we even know each other. But now that you’ve seen him, don’t speak to him again if you see him. You don’t know the man; you have never laid eyes on him. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Dad,” she answered gravely. “As clear as river mud. Are you and he going to rob a bank or something?”

“You never can tell,” her father answered shortly. “And you might get hung along with the rest of us, if you don’t remember what I say.”

“But why?”

“That is something that I can’t tell you,” her father answered. “Only this much. He is working for me, but it would cost him his life if some people knew it. He could get a bullet in his back if certain people saw you even look at him on the street. Do you understand that thoroughly?”

“I’m Medusa with the snaky locks,” she said. “I look at a man and he dies.”

“You look at this man and he might die; and I don’t want him to die just yet.”

“Maybe later then,” she smiled, and turned up her nose at her father. “All right, I’ll try to keep my fatal eyes off Mr. Webster until you’re ready for his demise.”

“I wish you’d try being serious sometimes,” her father said impatiently. “You might like such a new experience. All right now, go on out and get into the buggy. And don’t mention a word of this to anybody; not even Emory.”

“All right,” the girl answered. “But it is a terrible burden on my young shoulders to be in on such a dark secret and be unable to tell people how thrilling it is.”

“Get on out of here,” Swanson put on his slicker. He took Mrs. Halsell in his arms and kissed her. “So long,” he said to Webster. Then he went out, closing the door behind him, leaving Webster alone with Mrs. Halsell.

Jim stood with Mrs. Halsell while they heard the buckboard move away. He put his hand on the door. Then he paused a moment.

“This fellow Emory,” he said to the woman. “Who is he? Maybe I’d better know.”

Mrs. Halsell thought the question over a moment, then said, “Emory Dustin. He is a successful young cattle commission man. And he’s in love with Sonia.”

“And how does she feel about him?”

“Why—” the woman paused and gave him a sharp look, then decided to answer. “He is very substantial, and very ambitious, and very good-looking. I rather think she could do worse.”

“Thanks. I wasn’t meddling. I’ll probably be wanting to know something about everybody around here before I’m through.”

She smiled at him and showed him out. “Remember,” she said. “We want to know everything you learn. Just come here after dark whenever you have something to tell us.”

Webster promised, looking at her speculatively. She must have read his thoughts, or have seen the curiosity which he thought he was keeping hidden.

“I think I’d better tell you something else,” Mrs. Halsell said. “Mr. Swanson and I are partners in the ranch. My husband died a little over two years ago, and I sold Mr. Swanson a half interest in the place because I could not manage it myself. He is a widower and I am a widow, and we are partners. We are going to be married this fall. It was because Sonia and I both need him so much that I persuaded him to get somebody to do the job we’ve asked you to do. He has been a rancher in Texas for a long time, and he is not afraid to fight his own battles. He has six bullet wounds in him now, and that is enough for a man of his age. I don’t want him to keep on living the hard life he has had to lead for so long. That is why you have the job of taking the risk.”

“You think quite a bit of him, I take it.”

“He and Sonia and Dick are all I have in the world, and we need him. He is a fine man.”

“I’m sure he is, and a lucky man. Well, I’ll get in touch with you.”

It had quit raining for a while, and Webster tramped through the mud and on the boardwalks until he came back into the business part of town. There were a few men moving from one lighted front saloon to another. He walked slowly along, sorting the things that he had heard, putting them in order in his mind, and speculating on his first move.

And he knew that he did not as yet have a move to make. Back in the house his first thought had been to get a horse and ride over into the Territory and hang around there for a while, milling through the mountains and settlements and seeing what information he could pick up. But the high water had canceled out that idea for the present.

And as he thought of the facts he had been given, it became clearer to him that the clue to the trouble must lie in this town. Somebody here was in touch with the bandits who preyed on the herds and freighters, otherwise there would not be such consistent losses. It did not stand to reason that every herd, every load of freight, that started across the river and lost itself in the vastness of the Territory’s low mountains should by sheer bad luck run into a bunch of bandits and be captured.

This was as good a place to start as any. He had no idea of how he would begin, but, he thought, that was usually the case with him. He was no systematic detective, no enforcement arm of the law, with its rulebooks and codes. He was a man who simply had to find out who was doing what, and try to make them stop.

Simply had to find out and make them stop. He had to laugh wryly at himself.

Jim drifted behind three roughly dressed men until they turned into the swing doors of a saloon with two smoking kerosene flares over the entrance, pushed his way in behind them, and found himself in a crowded barroom.

He felt a small touch of surprise at coming in off an almost deserted street on a stormy night and suddenly finding himself in the middle of a noisy crowd in a brightly lighted saloon.

He stood still a moment, noting the long pine bar at the left, jammed with men showing the mark of teamsters and trailherders on them. To the right, along the walls, were a series of drinking tables, and in the broad middle space there were big round tables with card games going on at all of them. The Red River Bar was a busy place.

Webster sauntered over to a stud game, watched it a while, noted the rough men playing, and passed it up, wandering over to a blackjack game. He was looking, not for any one man, but for something that would tell him what he should be looking for. He didn’t know. He would just have to look until something told him that he was seeing what he ought to see.

He came at last to the far end of the bar, near the rear of the building. It was darker down here, and not so crowded, and he went around to the end of the bar where there was only one man standing, and crooked his finger to the bartender for a drink.

Then the man beside him said, “Got the kinks out of your legs yet?”

He looked around and saw old Jake, the stage driver, spoke to him and had the bartender fill the man’s glass.

“Was a kind of rough ride,” he admitted. “My breeches fit a saddle better than a stage seat.”

“Tell that by lookin’ at you,” the old man grinned. “Not to mention that you had your saddle along with you.”

“You’ve got a keen eye,” Webster said pleasantly. “You ought to see a lot.”

Old Jake was slightly more than five feet of browned skin and bones, tough as a sawlog, and wore a pair of tobacco-stained mustaches big enough for a man twice his size. He had one blue eye that was always watery, and his nose seemed always to need wiping on the sleeve of his hickory shirt.

“I only got one eye, but I see plenty,” he said. He was more than slightly drunk, and seemed to be in a lonely mood. Queer creatures, these old stage drivers. Doing hard, dangerous work for little pay, tough as nails, giving no sympathy and wanting none, they were a breed that always fascinated Webster. He felt disgusted with them and sorry for them at the same time. But he loved to hear them talk. They were built for arguing.

They talked a few minutes, and after a few more drinks of Webster’s whiskey, Jake was deep in the job of recounting the many things he had seen with that one good eye of his.

“Ever watch how a man acts when he’s going to die and don’t know it?” he asked with a hint of philosophical wisdom, in his cracked voice.

“Why,” Webster said thoughtfully, “seems to me that if a man didn’t know he was going to die, then he’d act just about the same way he would if he weren’t going to die. Of course, on the other hand, if he knew he was going to die, then you’d expect him to act somewhat different. Seems like that would be the case, anyway.”

Webster knew how to talk to corral-fence philosophers.

“Well, yes and no,” Jake answered sagely. “But it’s interesting just the same. Now you take a man that’s gonna die but don’t know it, and you know what? He just goes on about doing this and that as if there wasn’t anything in the world going to happen. Strange, ain’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Webster admitted. “I don’t remember that I ever saw a man acting just like that.”

“Well, I’ll show you,” Jake said. He tapped his glass on the bar, and the bartender filled it again, while Webster dropped a coin to pay for it. “See them two men sitting across over there by the wall? Came in on the stage with you.”

Webster recognized a man in a salt and pepper business suit the worse for wear, and another in a black broadcloth suit in a little better state of repair. He had spoken a word or two to them on the stage during the long day, but knew more about them than he cared to admit.

“Yeah, I remember them. What about ’em?”

“Just watch ’em,” Jake said. “Them men’s going to die in the next few days and they don’t know nothing about it. And yet they act just as though they didn’t think anything was going to happen to them. Funny, ain’t it, how men act?”

Webster did not try to straighten Jake’s philosophy out for him, but agreed with him that it was funny. “How long you reckon they’ve got to live?” he asked, his interest picking up to the point where Jake was glad to show off his knowledge.

“Well, just till a little while after the river goes down.”

“Then you’re going to kill them?”

“Me?” Jake widened his eye. “Why no, of course not. Think I’d be telling it if I was?”

“No, reckon you wouldn’t, come to think about it.”

“Of course not. Nobody would.”

“Then how do you know somebody has put the mark on them? You know the hombres that’re going to do it?”

“Why no, of course not. Think I’d tell it if I did?”

“No, reckon you wouldn’t, come to think about it.”

“Of course not.”

“Then maybe you’re wrong. Maybe they’re going to go on and die of old age, just like you and me and everybody else.”

“Don’t be loco,” Jake said scornfully. “You ever hear of a deputy United States Marshal dying of old age in this country? Ever hear of anybody carrying a load of gold through the Territory living to a ripe old age?”

“No, I don’t reckon I did, come to think about it.”

“See,” Jake said triumphantly. “Goes to show I can see more out of this one eye of mine than you young squirts can out of two. I knowed that marshal from a long time back—don’t matter how I happened to know him—and I know the weight of gold when I lift a box of it into the boot of that stage of mine. Not to mention that I know that there ain’t no other kind of men that wears dude clothes like them, that’s going to be traipsing up into them hills across the river. Them two fools is just begging for somebody to put a bullet right where their suspenders cross and take that gold. I never seed the like! And to watch them, you’d never think that they was digging their own graves, would you?”

“Maybe you’re wrong. They might have iron washers in that box, or horseshoes.”

“You loco?” Jake snorted. “What do you think they was escorted down to the stage by two shotgun guards for? To guard a box of washers or horseshoes? Men from the Fort Worth bank. I know. And there’s some kind of payment due the Choctaws; everybody knows about it. That’s what makes it such a damn fool play. Them Indians won’t see hide or hair of that money.”

His interest now at high pitch, Webster took pains not to show it. “Maybe you’re just afraid of ghosts,” he said. “Maybe they’re not government men, and maybe they’re not going up into the Territory.”

“No?” Jake said scornfully. “Friend, you can’t read signs very well, can you? What’d they come in here with Faulkner for if they hadn’t been arranging with him for the trip? Tell me that.”

“Maybe I could if I knew who Faulkner was.”

Jake pointed a dirty finger up the bar. “See that long beanpole up at the far end of the bar, drinking strawberry soda pop? That’s J. B. Faulkner. He’s a trader and commission man. He runs wagon trains up into the Territory, selling his own goods or hauling other people’s, anything there’s a dollar in. He’s what you call a responsible business man; he neither smokes nor drinks nor swears nor chews tobacco. He’s a credit to the tribe, I reckon some folks might say.”

“So you think that pair will go up into the Territory in a Faulkner train, and won’t get there.”

“Probably. Unless Faulkner sends Ike Flint along with him. Ike could take care of them or anybody else, including the cavalry, probably.”

“Ike sounds like somewhat of a man. Who is he?”

“Ike is that big ox drinking with them settlers down in the middle of the bar. He is what you’d call a grizzly bear that has learned to walk on his hind legs and to talk—in a way. He is three men rolled into one; his fists are made of cast iron, and when he walks, the ground shakes. When he speaks, it bursts your ear drums, and when you’re in his way you had better crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after you. Otherwise, he’s as harmless and gentle as a mountain lion with a foot caught in a trap.”

“And he works for Faulkner?”

“He’s Faulkner’s head teamster.”

The idea for which Webster had been keeping his mind open came to him then. It had been developing unknown to him until the last part of it dropped into place. And then he knew what his first step was to be. He played with the idea, weighed his chances of doing anything with it, while he speculated on the form of the man called Ike Flint.

Jake’s description fitted the man very well. Flint was built like an overgrown beer keg with legs, thick through the chest, rounded in the middle so that his arms had to hang somewhat outward when they were beside him, and with legs that seemed too short for him. He had small eyes in a face almost hidden by a dirty red beard, and his voice was deep and arrogant as he talked with the pilgrims who were buying his drinks and listening to his tales of the dangers of the Territory, dangers he was saying that practically nobody but himself had ever lived through.

“Jake,” Webster said with sudden decision, “I never liked a man that thought he was the top man on the totem pole. Do you?”

“Then you wouldn’t like Ike.”

“That’s right, Jake. I do not love Ike.” He unbuckled his gunbelt and handed it to the stage driver. “Here hold this for me. I’m going to ask Ike to shut up. Reckon he’ll do it?”

“You ain’t that crazy, are you?” Jake said, blinking, and looking down at the weapon in his hand. “You’ll need this gun and another one if you’re thinking of telling him to shut up.”

“That, my friend, is a question I’m not sure about. I want to find out where all that noise comes from that pours out of his mouth.”

“You’ll find out what you’re stuffed with,” Jake said mournfully. “He’ll tear you to bits and throw you to the dogs. Then who’ll buy my drinks?”

“I wonder.”

Webster walked up the bar along the backs of the men until he came to the point where Ike Flint was holding forth on his adventures in the Territory, and there he listened a while, measuring Flint’s body size, taking the measure of his strength and of his mind, and of his moral stature.

Flint was talking. “—So those two rannies up there in that mountain hideout pulled their guns on me at the same time. There I was with them guys on each side of me and their guns in my ribs. I says, are you guys kidding, thinking you can take my money away from me? Well this big towheaded one says you’re either stepping outside with us or we’re dragging your dead body out by them whiskers of yours. Suit yourself. So I says, it’s a shame your daddies didn’t teach you no manners. I’m plumb resentful of people that makes remarks about my whiskers. And with that I set my whiskey cup down and grabbed both of them by the hair of the head at the same time as I stepped back. Well, I yanked their heads together so hard they popped like cocoanuts. Knocked ’em both out cold as a cucumber, just bouncing their heads together. Then I picked ’em both up by the shirt collars and threw them out the door. This here man that run the place took one look at them rannies and he says to me, they shore are out like a light. They look like they had been drugged. They was, I tells him. I drug them both out and threw them in the road.”

The pilgrims standing by Flint laughed, and one of them said with a touch of admiration. “You must be a pretty strong man.”

“I ain’t exactly as weak as a day-old colt, if I do say it myself,” Flint admitted. “And I ain’t partial to people making snide remarks about my whiskers.”

Webster squeezed in to the bar beside Flint.

“You seem to admire your own whiskers a little more than the rest of us do.”

Flint saw him for the first time, and was slightly startled by the statement. His small brown eyes snapped while he tried to read the meaning in Webster’s remark. Finally he answered, smelling the possibility of a fight.

“They happen to suit me. Don’t they suit you?”

A silence fell on the room, and then Webster answered.

“Well now, I don’t think they do.”

“And what’s the matter with my whiskers?”

Webster’s hand encircled a glass of beer on the bar before him. “They’re filthy from the lies you’ve strained through them. They need washing.”

He flung the glass of beer in Flint’s face. Flint shook his head with his eyes closed. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his gray flannel shirt, and the frothy beer dripped from his beard.

While he wiped the beer out of his eyes with the heels of his two hands, the crowd, hungering for a fight, became suddenly silent, their eyes moving from Webster to Flint. Knowing Flint, they waited for his bull voice to explode in a roar, and for him to be on Webster. The silence became tight as a fiddlestring.

But Flint was in no hurry. He took his time wiping his eyes. He groped for a red bandanna handkerchief in his hip pocket, and took a long time wiping the beer out of his beard. And during those tense moments, his small brown eyes were on Webster’s face. Then he looked around the room in a kind of measuring glance, and back at Webster, and Webster could see the puzzlement in the man’s mind. Flint was trying to figure out the meaning of this gratuitous attack. It was a new thing to him to have a man insult him, and in his canny mind a suspicion flashed some kind of a signal warning that there was something back of it.

His mind seemed unable to adjust itself to such action, and he blinked at Webster again and again, as though trying to read the meaning behind it.

Finally he asked, “What did you do that for?”

It was as though he hoped Webster would give him some kind of explanation that would resolve his puzzlement.

“Because I didn’t like the damned lies that you’ve been pouring out of that crop of dirty red hair on your face. Isn’t that reason enough?”

“No. There’s some other reason. There’s got to be! A man don’t just come up and yank my whiskers for no reason at all.”

“Like this, you mean?” Webster’s hand shot out, his fingers lacing in the man’s red beard. As he jerked the man’s head forward, the open palm of his free hand slapped the man’s face with a sound like a rifle shot. Flint jerked backward, and Webster suddenly released his whiskers.

Flint’s weight now free, carried over backward out of balance, and he fell on his shoulders in the dirty sawdust covering the floor.

He sat spraddle-legged, bracing himself with one hand, the other rammed into the cuspidor used by the tobacco-chewers at the bar.

He looked down at the brass cuspidor, then up at Webster, and it seemed to take a long moment for him to realize what had happened to him.

Then realization came; his face went black, and that did it.

He picked up the cuspidor and flung it at Webster’s head. Webster ducked and it went crashing into the big back-bar mirror, shattering the glass into a thousand tinkling shards.

Then a noise like thunder came out of Flint’s throat, and he was on his feet rushing at Webster.

CHAPTER III

Knockdown and Drag Out

Webster waited until the last moment, then stepped aside to avoid Flint’s outstretched arms. The crowd had quickly made way from the bar to give them room, and now as Webster stepped aside, Flint came up hard against the bar rail in a dead stop. Before he could turn, Webster’s fist crunched into his ear, spinning him half around.

Flint threw his back against the bar, shook his head and saw Webster within four feet of him. Bracing a foot against the bar, Flint threw himself forward at Webster, arms outflung. Webster sidestepped again, but not before Flint’s hand hooked into the open collar of his shirt.

Caught, Webster felt himself pulled in as Flint’s two arms went around him in a bear hug. Webster threw blows at the man’s head, and Flint buried his face in Webster’s chest, so that Webster’s fists crashed only against the solid bone of his skull, completely ineffectual. The blows hurt his hands worse than they hurt Flint.

Webster twisted in the hold, but Flint’s head was pressing his chest backward while his arms were bringing his middle forward. Flint was cutting off his wind, slowly bending him over backward.

Webster used his feet, back-stepping fast, so that Flint had to follow him up or be pulled down. Backing thus, Webster went into the poker table and knocked it over. The players were already scrambling out of their chairs, and now as the table went over it carried cards and chips and drinking glasses to the floor in a pile as it landed on its edge.

Webster suddenly took his weight off his feet, so that his body went downward, bringing Flint’s body forward over him. Flint would have had his head cracked on the table edge if he hadn’t broken his hold and righted himself.

But Webster was on the floor under him, and Flint lifted his foot to sink a boot in Webster’s face. Webster rolled over and caught the sharp point of the boot on the side of his head, feeling himself knocked dizzy for the moment. He kept rolling, and thus escaped the second kick that Flint delivered.

But now his hands were free, and he caught Flint’s ankle while Flint’s foot was off the floor. He lifted it with a sharp jerk, and Flint landed on his back on the floor. By the time he got to his feet, Webster was already up and brandishing one of the poker players’ chairs.

As Flint came on him, Webster lifted the chair and brought it down over Flint’s head. The man’s thick skull came up through the rungs, so that the legs of the broken chair hung around his neck like a necklace of kindling wood. Flint’s face was bloody and his eyes blinking as he cursed and yanked the chair legs off his neck.

He held one of the legs in his hand after he had got himself free of it, and his eyes went to it and lingered on it lovingly. He hefted it in his hand as a smile came over his face, moving the weapon like a woodsman trying the feel of an axe. Then he turned his gaze to Webster, and the smile on his face broadened.

“Now,” he said. “We’ll see, my friend! We’ll see!”

The saloon crowd had made a wide circle around them, and some of the men had turned about and sat up on the bar for a better view. None of them were saying a word, all of them were breathless with the excitement that gripped the room.

Webster had the chair back in his hand, all that was left of it, except the one leg with a protruding rung, which Flint was swinging like a warclub.

Flint used the hickory chair leg like an axe, swinging it over his head and bringing it down as though to cleave Webster’s skull. Webster caught the blow with the chair back, then dropped it low and sent it into Flint’s ribs, knocking a grunt out of the man.

Flint fell back against the bar, clutching it with one hand while he drew the wind back into his lungs, his head hanging downward and his mouth open full wide.

Webster waited while he had caught his breath. And then Flint again had his back to the bar, raising his chair leg. But instead of hefting it, he threw it suddenly, so that it came at Webster in a spinning motion which he could not dodge.

The chair leg caught Webster on the side of the head with a solid blow that knocked him down, blind, and with a head full of stars. When he opened his eyes he saw Flint coming toward him, and heard Flint growling his words of victory.

Webster rolled over in time to keep Flint from kicking his ribs in. He scrambled back of the overturned table to give himself time to get back to his feet. And when he was erect, Flint was already around the table after him.

Webster had lost his weapon in his fall, and now both men were unarmed again. Flint lost no time in pressing the attack. He lowered his head like a mad bull and charged in, his two arms moving like the drive rods of a locomotive.

His blows hurt. Webster felt them in his body and on his head. They were hard and solid, like the blows of a sledge hammer, sending their messages of pain to his backbone and up to the base of his skull. They made him dizzy; they drove his senses from him. He had his own fists going, but he was conscious of the fact that they were doing little damage.

Flint was one of those animalistic men who are all bone and muscle. The muscle made a covering over his bones to protect him, and his nervous system was such that he felt little pain. Flint had stood all the beating Webster had given him, and had shown little effect from it. He was good for a long time yet, and when he had worn Webster out, he would still be in good enough shape to come in for the kill.

Webster had to do something, for Flint was driving him backward. He backed up against a chair, upsetting it, then dodging in back of it. Flint picked up the chair and crashed it down over Webster’s head, just as Webster had done to him. The blow knocked Webster back against still another chair, and on to the floor.

When Webster came up he had the chair in his hand, and now both of them were armed again and facing each other.

When Flint raised his chair and brought it down, Webster sidestepped it. He knew by now that he could not stand and trade blows with the man. He could not outmatch the man’s strength; his only chance was to outthink him.

When Flint brought his chair slashing downward, Webster dodged it and brought his own chair up. Flint raised his chair to protect himself.

But then Webster did not hit him with a downward blow; instead, he thrust the chair forward, so that its four legs were punching at Flint’s body, and Flint could not watch the four legs at once. Now it was one chair leg that caught him in the teeth, then another of the legs caught him in the neck, and again another one taught him in the middle of the stomach knocking some of the wind out of him.

Chair legs were everywhere in front of Flint, and with the chair thrusting forward in short jabs in front of him, Webster got Flint started backward. Every time Flint brought his own chair downward at Webster’s head, Webster lifted his own chair just long enough to catch the blow on it, and then again those four confusing chair legs were poking at Flint like four lances, each with a life of its own. He lost two teeth in one jab; another hit him under the eye and ripped the flesh clear back to his ear. Blood was trickling out of his nose, running down his whiskers and mixing with the perspiration that matted his proud red beard. One of his eyes was fast swelling shut, and his red lips were now purple and swollen.

Webster was beginning to reach the end of his rope, but he saw how Flint was heaving, and knew that the man was also weakening. He watched the man more closely now, and when he saw Flint’s arms sag for a moment under the weight of the chair he held aloft, Webster suddenly swung his own weapon and knocked Flint’s chair out of his hands. As it sailed across the room into the crowd, he dropped his own chair and flew at Flint, who had backed almost to the pair of swinging doors.

Webster hit Flint’s chest with his shoulder in his onslaught with such force that he drove the man tumbling backward out between the doors, where they both landed on the muddy plank sidewalk Webster pounded the man’s face mercilessly until Flint rolled over and protected his face in his arms. Then Webster got up off him and gave him a chance to get to his feet.

Flint got up slowly, moved his feet several times to get himself in balance, like a day-old colt learning to walk. When he got steadied, he was facing away from Webster, and he turned slowly, looking for him.

As he came around facing Webster and saw him, Webster hit him. He knew that this was about the last good blow that he had left in him, and he put every ounce of his remaining strength in it. That did the trick. It knocked Flint over backward into the gutter of running water, where he floundered as he crawled up into a sitting position. And he sat there with gully water up to his middle, his head bowed and his tongue hanging out, his breath wheezing through his open mouth in short spasmodic gasps.

“Get up,” Webster said.

Flint seemed not to hear him.

Webster stepped out into the water and caught the man by the collar and dragged him out onto the walk.

“Get up,” he repeated.

And still Flint did not move, but sat where Webster had dragged him. If his mind was working, he did not show any evidence of it. The breath coming through his mouth was making regular noises; there were blood and water and mud covering him from the top of his head down, and water was dripping off his beard.

“Get up and fight,” Webster said for the third time.

And still the man did not respond.

“Well,” Webster said. “If you ever want to finish it, look me up.”

Jim pushed through the crowd that had followed them out onto the walk, and found his hat back in the saloon on the floor near the overturned poker table. He went over to the bar and threw a twenty-dollar gold piece down in front of the bartender.

“For the mirror,” he said. “I didn’t break it, but maybe it was my fault.”

Then he heard a voice beside him. “I reckon I was wrong, friend,” Jake said. “You didn’t need the gun, did you?”

He handed Webster his weapon. “And now I’ll buy you a drink for a change.”

“Some other time,” Webster answered, and again pushed his way through the crowd that was now pouring back into the saloon.

He went out through the batwing doors, and Flint was no longer sitting on the sidewalk. He saw two men leading him down the street. He turned and went on to the hotel, and up to his room. He poured a full tumbler of whiskey out of his bottle and drank half of it.

Then he stripped and filled the washbowl and washed himself. One eye was swollen almost shut; there was a long scratch on one side of his face, and there were great blue and purple bruises on his ribs where Flint’s powerful fists had crashed into him. Both his fists were bruised and skinned, and the wound made by the flying chair leg ran along his temple, red and raw. And all his muscles ached as though he had been tied between a pair of wild horses who had tried to pull him apart.

It had been a battle that had taken more out of him than any battle he had remembered ever having, and he was wondering if it would accomplish its purpose.

He drained the whiskey glass and rolled into bed, shoving his pistol under his pillow.

Flint had at least been right on one count; there had been a purpose behind his fight. But whether it had been worth the punishment he had taken, that was a question that wasn’t easily answered.

* * * *

Coming in from the ranch the next morning, Dick Hammond let Eric Swanson and Sonia off at Mrs. Halsell’s, and went on down to the store to pick up some supplies. A few minutes later he stopped off in The Red River Bar for a quick drink. Coming up to the bar at the point where the backbar mirror was broken out, he ask Stoney, the bartender:

“Some of the boys been tossing marshmallows gleefully one at the other?”

“Call ’em marshmallows if you want to, but it was cuspidors, chairs, tables, I dunno, maybe a couple of brick buildings they tossed along with ’em. Boy, if I live to be a hundred I’ll never see another donnybrook like that one. Now I’ve seen everything.”

“Must have been a couple of armies.”

“Yeah. Only each army was incorporated in just one man. Two men—two armies. I never believed that there was that much fight in a living human being.”

“Who tapped whom?”

“Ike Flint and some stranger that just drifted in and didn’t like his looks. I couldn’t rightly say which one of them was who and which one was whom to begin with, but when it was over—would you believe it—the stranger was the big whom, and Ike was just a bundle of nerves and sore places, so to speak.”

“You don’t mean it. I thought Ike was bullet-proof and fist-proof.”

“So did Ike. But it seems that he had miscalculated somewhere. There was an error in his figures, apparently.”

“Who was this giant killer?”

“Ah, now! You have shot your question square into the heart of the mystery of mysteries. Nobody knows who the gent is, nor where he came from, nor where he is going, nor what his name is, nor what made him take a notion that he didn’t like Ike’s looks. He just came, he seen, and he conquered, as one of them old Eyetalian generals once put it so neatly, and then he took off and was swallowed up in the great black mystery of the night. Out of nowhere, into nowhere. A shooting star that didn’t even need a gun to shoot with. Boy, I’m telling you, I never seed the like in my born days.”

“What did this new bear look like? Grizzly or Kodiak?”

“Funny thing, he didn’t look like no camp bully at all. Tall enough, all right, maybe a couple of inches over six feet. But not too much meat on him like Ike’s got. Clean cut, and all. Shaved up, and got one of them open, honest faces like a dollar watch. Wore a Texas creased Stetson, and kinda kept hisself clean. You wouldn’t take him for a lone rider, and you wouldn’t take him for a barroom brawler. That’s the puzzle of it.”

“Maybe Ike egged him on just for the hell of it. He’s got to whip a couple of men before breakfast just to work up an appetite, or else his day is spoiled.”

“No, it wasn’t that. And the guy wasn’t drunk. I gave him about three short whiskeys, and then he takes his gun off and hands it to Jake, the stage driver, and walks up and horns into the party. Ike is blowing off at the mouth as usual to a bunch of settlers, and this stranger picks up Ike’s glass of beer and throws it in his whiskers. I’d just as soon have spit in a lion’s face.”

“Two-gun man, this stranger?”

“No. One gun. Just a plain stag-handled gun, and not even a half-breed holster. I dunno. Ask me, there’s more than meets the eye there. A guy don’t just come in and invite suicide like that when he’s stone sober and ain’t got nothing but a pleasant evening on his mind.”

“Oh, well,” Hammond said with a casualness which he did not feel. “You never can tell in a place like this. There’s men hitting for the hideouts in those mountains across the river with posses ten paces behind them. There’s plain nuts and locoed killers, and just everyday halfwits. You never can tell what’s back of the skin on a man’s face.”

He threw down a coin and sauntered out. Stoney had described Webster clearly enough for him to have no doubt as to who had whipped Flint.

But why? That was the question that puzzled Hammond. Flint was tough; a man had to be tough to drive freight up into the Territory. Flint was a bully, but at the same time he was no outlaw, or anything like that. He drove for J.B. Faulkner, who operated the Star Trading Company, doing business all over the Territory, and Faulkner was in a legitimate line.

On the sidewalk, Hammond cast his eyes toward the hotel up the road a few doors. Webster was probably up in that corner room sleeping off the effects of the fight. And since Webster’s business here was Swanson’s business, it might not be out of turn to drop in on him and find out what it was all about. If Webster had already found out something, then perhaps Swanson should know about it.

Arguing this way, Hammond was on the verge of walking up to the hotel and finding Webster when Webster himself came out of the restaurant not forty feet from where he was standing.

Hammond saw that one of Webster’s eyes was black, and that he had a long scar on the other side of his face. He also saw the swollen knuckles of Webster’s hands as Webster stopped in front of the restaurant and began rolling a cigarette.

Hammond started toward Webster, but he had taken only a couple of steps when Webster looked up. Webster’s gaze landed on Hammond for a moment, and there was no sign of recognition in it. Webster’s eyes went on down the street as he licked his cigarette and put a match to it. Then Webster, still apparently not having seen Hammond, turned his back and walked on down toward the livery stable.

Hammond took one step to follow him, then stopped, his puzzlement growing. Then he grinned sheepishly to himself and turned toward the blackboard. Of course, they weren’t to recognize each other anywhere at any time.

Still, Hammond had formed a liking for Webster on first sight, and that liking still held, although he was puzzled by Webster’s apparently being a saloon brawler.

He untied the horses and got into the rig. It was too much for him; he felt better handling simple ranch jobs. Still and all, it was a thing that Swanson should know about.

Hammond found Swanson, Sonia and Mrs. Halsell having dinner and, after washing up in the kitchen joined them at the table. He had spent several minutes eating quietly when Sonia asked, “What’s the matter you’re so quiet, Dick?”

“I hadn’t noticed it,” he admitted smilingly. He hadn’t intended telling Swanson about Webster in the presence of the others, but they all looked at him as though they knew he had something on his mind.

“It seems that Webster gets around pretty fast,” he said.

“What’s he been doing?” Swanson asked promptly.

“He seems to have made mincemeat out of Ike Flint, and to have torn up The Red River Bar pretty thoroughly in the process. Stoney’s backbar mirror was smashed to pieces with a flying cuspidor, and Stoney has got the splintered pieces of a hickory chair as a war souvenir. Way Stoney tells it, there hasn’t been anything to match it since David and Goliath put on their little shindig a few thousand years ago.”

“What was it about?”

“That’s the funny thing. Stoney says Webster started it out of a clear sky for no reason at all. Doused Ike’s whiskers with beer first, and then tried to pull them out by the roots like a bunch of weeds.”

“I was expecting a man who could keep himself in the background and find out something for me. Instead, I’ve hired a drunken brawler who, instead of keeping himself in the dark, makes a public spectacle out of himself.” Swanson did not hide his disappointment. “Well, I never did think much of a professional gunhand, anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Dick said. “There’s something about Webster that I like. Something about his looks. He’s not a bum, and he looks like a man who knows what he’s doing. And besides, Stoney says that he feels like there was something back of what Webster was doing. He doesn’t know what it is, but Stoney is a pretty good judge of men, and he felt it. Maybe Webster is working on a scheme of some kind.”

“I don’t know what kind of a scheme it could be. He was supposed to stay under cover and find out things. How is he going to keep his movements dark when he goes out the first thing and brands himself as the town bully?”

“I don’t know. He was worn out from his trip. Maybe his nerves were just on edge and he got tired of listening to Ike shoot off his mouth. Anyway, that was the excuse he claimed for starting the fight.”

Swanson ate in silence for a while. “I don’t believe this man is going to be able to do me much good. I think we’d better tell him that we’ve changed our minds. Do that the next time he shows up, will you, Cora?”

Mrs. Halsell was thoughtful. “If I were you, Eric, I wouldn’t be hasty at jumping at conclusions. My brother said he was a good and reliable man, and that he liked to do things his own way. Why don’t we wait a while and see what he’s up to?”

“All right,” Swanson agreed. “But I haven’t been any too sold on this whole idea from the first. If he makes trouble around here we will be to blame in a way.”

CHAPTER IV

High Water

After he had had a late breakfast, Jim Webster stepped out of the restaurant and stopped to roll a cigarette. He saw Dick Hammond look at him and then start toward him. He turned his back on Hammond and walked on down to the livery stable where he found old Jake sitting on a horseshoe keg talking to the liveryman.

Little Jake’s enormous mustaches twitched, and his one eye was very red-rimmed this morning as he inventoried the bruises and cuts on Webster’s face and hands.

“I warned you,” he observed sagely. “You’d have been better off listening to me gab than waltzing with Ike Flint.”

“I don’t know, Jake,” Webster answered. “The scars show more this way, but they’re not as deep. Suppose it’s safe for me to be on the street?”

“Well,” Jake answered, “Little after daylight this morning, Ike came out of his room and knocked three men down that looked at him as he passed them. I’d say his pride is more or less mangled, and will take a lot of healing. He got his horse and rode out of town, probably figuring on hibernating until his natural beauty returns to his face and his natural meanness returns to his soul. After which, was I you, I’d take a look at the scenery down around Mexico or maybe the South Pole. It is right healthy down there, I hear, and maybe Flint wouldn’t find you.”

“You may have something there,” Webster admitted. “But in the meantime I’m kind of in the market for a horse. You reckon they sell that kind of animals around here?”

Nodding at the liveryman beside him, Jake said, “Well now, if you was to talk right nice to Barney here, call him Mister and the like, you might persuade him to let you have a good ten-dollar horse for fifty or sixty dollars. Course, for that price you couldn’t expect an animal with teeth or all four legs or anything like that, but maybe he could fix you up with something that would hold your saddle off the ground. Eh, Barney?”

Barney had one wooden leg, flop ears and a sad face. “Tell you, Webster,” he said. “I’ve got a few hundred-dollar horses that I’ll let go for fifty dollars. I couldn’t let you talk me into taking any more than that for them, though, because I got them cheap. Only cost me eighty, and it wouldn’t be fair to my neighbors if I lost any less than thirty dollars apiece on them, considering the present high price of feed.”

“Well, suppose I buy half of one of them, then if I like him, I’ll come back and take the other half.”

“Fair enough,” Barney answered. “We’ll have a look at them.”

Webster found a short-barreled roan that he liked, brought his saddle down from the hotel and tried him out.

He took the trail down to the river and watched the bankful tide of red rolling water pouring downstream at an angry pace. Here and there trees bobbed and weaved, old deadfalls with many pronged roots bounced in and out of the tumbling water as the swift current carried them along. New oaks and elms, big trees with trunks two feet thick, green leaved, trees that had been growing along some outbank until the rushing water had undercut them, tunneling the dirt out from under their roots and casting them into the stream, big trees, dead trees, living trees, small brush and dead logs, anything the river could grasp in its greedy maw, all these things had been caught up and were being rushed down from somewhere to somewhere else as nature awoke from its winter sleep, and put on a tantrum before settling down to its summer business.

Webster watched the red waters of the angry river for a long while, fascinated as he always was by the energy and power and ceaseless work of nature, and he came to the conclusion that it would be a week at the very least before the water went down and wagons could ford the stream at this point. Even now, had the river been down, the wagons could not have dug through the deep soft red mud of the trails leading to the crossing.

Jim would have to be around town for several days yet, plenty of time to sprout the seeds he had planted in his fight with Ike Flint. He turned and rode back through the mud, stabling his horse at the livery.

“I’ll take both ends of him,” he told Barney. “Give him some oats, so there won’t be too big a gap between ends.”

He paid Barney for the horse and had started out when Barney called him back. “Oh, yeah. Just happened to think. Faulkner wants to see you.”

“Who’s he?”

“Star Trading Company. An upstanding man who would be an inspiration to any young squirt who wanted to live right. Don’t smoke, chew, cuss—”

“I remember now,” Webster answered, “nor spend his money needlessly on chewing gum and popcorn.”

“That’s the huckleberry. Well, keep your nose clean and call him Mister, and maybe he’ll give you a job sweeping floors, and then pretty soon, maybe in forty or fifty years, you can by dint of hard work find yourself rich some day. Provided you’ve got any rich uncles that might leave you the money. You sure won’t get it out of him.”

Webster walked on through the main street and found the Star Trading Company’s big pine warehouse at the far end of the road. Going along, he noted how crowded the street was, now that there was no more rain. Men were moving, congregating in knots and talking, squatting in front of store fronts, waiting for the river to recede. In a vacant space beside the general store half a dozen campers had fires going around their covered wagons, cooking their supper. The place was crowded with men and busy women and romping children—all waiting to head into the unknown and dangerous Territory, hoping against hope that they would live to find a piece of ground to call their own and to settle down into building a home.

The Star Trading Company was a pine building sixty or seventy feet across the front and at least a hundred and fifty feet long. A loading dock ran along one side of it, the height of a wagon bed, and on the dock at intervals were stacks of barbed wire, plow parts painted red, green and yellow, blocks of stock salt, wagon axles and wheels, and other hard goods of use to farmers and ranchers.

A couple of wagons were backed up to the dock and a couple of knots of ranchers and farmers squatted in tight circles on the dock and talked and smoked. A good substantial setup for a new country, and in a good location, here at one of the gateways to the Territory.

Webster walked inside and found more trade goods in a well-stocked general hardware store. An elderly, colorless clerk caught up with him and asked him his needs.

“Faulkner was asking for me.”

“What name?”

“I didn’t give any, and he didn’t ask for me by name, so far as I know. But you can tell him my name is Webster.”

“Wait here,” the clerk said. “I’ll see if he’s busy.”

The clerk knocked timidly on a door at the rear corner of the store, and at a call went in. He came out a moment later and said, “All right. Mr. Faulkner can see you now. Just go in.”

Webster was perhaps fifty feet from the office door, and as he started toward it, a young man came out and closed the door behind him. Webster saw only that he was young and fair complected, and neatly gotten up in range clothes.

The young man had hardly taken a half dozen steps when a voice came through the door. “Oh, Emory, wait a minute. One more thing.”

The young man turned and went into the office again, closing the door behind him.

Webster stopped to wait for them to finish their business, and then the idea that had been trying to come to the surface of his mind broke free. “Emory.” That was the name of the Swanson girl’s friend, the young cattle buyer.

Webster said casually to the clerk, who had gone behind the counter and started arranging a group of horseshoe kegs. “That’s young Dustin, isn’t it?”

The clerk nodded. “Yes. Fine young man. He’s a comer.”

“Looks it,” Webster answered idly.

Then Dustin came out and was swallowed up in the piles of merchandise, while Webster went on into Faulkner’s office.

* * * *

When J.B. Faulkner was forty years old, he was the cashier of a bank in south Texas. He had always been a silent, taciturn man who kept his thoughts to himself. He had a good business head, and he had found no trouble in saying no to one who needed money, no matter how badly it would have hurt a more humane man to have to turn him down. Thus it was that for a while he had been a good bank cashier, so far as the bank was concerned.

Two years later it was discovered that the bank had been looted clear. Faulkner was arrested. The accountants had found a shortage of over forty thousand dollars, enough to break the bank. But they could not find out what Faulkner had done with the money. In his silent way, he had persisted in denying any knowledge of the shortage, and that was all they had ever got out of him.

The bank was broke, and many of its depositors were in actual want because of it, none of which concerned Faulkner. He stood before the judge at the end of the trial and heard him discourse upon the perfidy of a man who would rob his friends and neighbors. The judge called him the blackest scoundrel who had ever stood before his bar. He sentenced J.B. Faulkner to twenty years at hard labor, and regretted that he could not send him to prison for life.

Faulkner heard this, and the eyes in his expressionless face showed not one ray of regret or shame. They were as lifeless as the eyes in the head of a marble statue.

Four years later Faulkner walked out of prison a free man. It had been a simple matter for him; he had merely got in touch with the campaign manager of the man then running for governor. He had had dealings with that man, and he knew all about him. So it was that Faulkner, a prisoner of the state, sent a check for five thousand dollars to the governor’s campaign manager—as a campaign contribution.

A few months later, when the new governor had appointed a new pardon and parole board, Faulkner was set free. His petition said that it was possible that he had not been as diligent in protecting the bank’s funds as he should have been, but that it was an error of omission and not a criminal act. And further, the petition prayed, Faulkner was a sick man, being a victim of tuberculosis, and that he wanted to get out and die a free man rather than as a felon. It was all very touching for, after all, Faulkner was not a common cattle thief or highwayman, but just a respectable man who had somehow unknowingly let money get away from him which he was supposed to be protecting.

Then when he was free, Faulkner had got hold of certain moneys he had deposited here and there in various banks under different names, and had come up to the Red River country and had gone into business. Adding up the five years he spent in jail and prison, forty thousand dollars was not bad pay.

Now J.B. Faulkner was fifty-five years old. His chest was still narrow and in damp weather his bronchial cough persisted. He did not drink because liquor made him sick at his stomach, and he did not smoke because smoke was too strong for his bronchial tubes. He did not gamble because he did not like the risk of parting with a dollar on the turn of a card. And he did not curse because he was so secretive that he could not bear to have anybody know what was going on in his mind.

He now sat behind a littered old pine table which served him as a desk, while his long bony fingers toyed with a writing pen, and while his eyes were studying Webster, who had come in and now stood before him.

Webster returned his gaze, looking at a lean old man who would have been big if there had been any meat on his tall frame. The man was concave, his shoulders stooped forward and his chest was hollow. In his wrinkled gray cotton suit he reminded Webster of a dried and curled-up leaf. The bones of his head were without flesh, giving him a cadaverous appearance, and looking at the sunken, bleak eyes, Webster thought of a long-dead fish. The eyes told nothing; they were curtains behind which the man hid his thoughts.

Webster tired of waiting for an invitation to sit down and found himself a chair, while Faulkner continued to study him. Finally Faulkner gave out a few words from between his tight lips.

“You’re the man who started the fight with Ike Flint last night.” It was a statement, indicating that Faulkner had not satisfied himself about that fight.

“Yes. Flint and I tangled,” Webster admitted.

“Why?”

“I don’t happen to like a man who shoots off his mouth too much.”

Faulkner shook his head, from side to side. “No. That’s not the answer. Try again.”

“That’s what I told him, and he didn’t like it.”

“That’s not enough reason.”

“Then why did I do it?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“What do you want to know for? And why should I tell you even if you had the right to know.”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. You see, Flint works for me. He is a valuable man, and I don’t like to have fellows going around beating up my men. We have troubles enough without riffraff making trouble for them.”

“Are you trying to tell me that you have trouble keeping men from beating Ike Flint up?”

“I didn’t say that. Nobody can beat Ike Flint up. That is, nobody could until you came along.”

“You’re trying to tell me that Ike Flint could take care of himself until I proved that he couldn’t.”

“You’re the only man that he couldn’t handle.”

“And for that reason,” Webster said, “You need him in your business, and you don’t like the idea of me having bested him. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“That’s the sense of it,” Faulkner admitted. “Why did you do it?”

“It strikes me that you ought to be able to see the answer to your own question. You’ve just stated the situation. You need a man who can take care of himself. That man was Flint until I came along. I need a good connection, and so naturally I have to demonstrate that I’m a better man for Flint’s job than Flint is. That’s simple enough to understand, don’t you think?”

Whatever Faulkner thought, it did not show in his eyes as he remained silent for a long moment. Finally he said, “What makes you think that I would give you his job? What good would a beat-up man like you do me?”

“I can do you more good than Flint can, because I am a better man than he is. That is what I set out to prove, and you must have some such idea or you wouldn’t have sent for me.”

Faulkner’s face remained bleak. “That seems a somewhat indirect way to go about asking for work.”

“I wasn’t asking for work. I was just demonstrating what I could do. You saw it and sent for me to offer me work. That’s a fact, is it not?”

“You also jump at conclusions,” Faulkner stated.

“I don’t think I had to jump very far. But if I jumped in the wrong direction, then forget it. I’ll be getting on.”

“You do have one failing,” Faulkner said thoughtfully. “You try to push yourself too hard and too fast. A man can fall on his face that way.”

“I’ve been doing pretty risky work for a long time, and I haven’t fallen on my face but once. Of course, that was a pretty costly fall, but it won’t happen again.”

“And what was that fall?”

“That fall was my private business. And I won’t be falling again. Now what was it you had in mind?”

“I haven’t said I had anything in mind.”

Webster got to his feet. “All right. My mistake. I thought you could use a good man.”

“Sit down,” Faulkner said without excitement. “You’ve got to learn to wear a tighter bit. You’ve got qualities, but you’ve got faults. Now, what kind of work are you used to doing?”

“Anything. I’ve done a bit of this and that. Bossed a wagon train, bossed cattle drives, bossed sawmills, bossed this and that—”

“You seem to have had a lot of experience bossing things. What kind of money are you looking for?”

“I don’t work for board, washing and horse feed. I hire to do work that other men can’t do, and I have to have money that other men can’t earn.”

“How far have you gone to get that kind of money?”

Webster pulled down his shirt collar. “You don’t see any rope burns around my neck, do you? Well, you won’t. Otherwise, I’m a man that likes to have a couple of dollars to rattle together in his pocket.”

“Do you think you can take Flint’s next load up into the Territory, and get there with it?”

Webster looked out the window. “I see some hills over there across the river. They’re green, and they’ve got a trail through them. I take it. I’ve been through green hills before, and I’ve usually come out on the other side. I don’t see why I can’t do the same thing about those hills.”

“You see some hills and they are green,” Faulkner said. “That green is trees. You don’t see what is under the trees.”

“Anything different from what’s under the trees on other hills?”

“Something considerably different. There’s a trail that runs through those hills, but there are eyes among those trees, and back of the eyes there are men with guns. And those men with guns want what we’ve got in our wagons, and so they lay their guns on you and they take what you’ve got, and you lie under the trees and rot, and nobody knows what happens to you. Is that the kind of work that appeals to you?”

“Has Flint made it through there?”

“Yes. But he’s lost a few loads doing it. Do you think you could beat that record?”

“I think that if I ever lost a load, you wouldn’t see me until I’d found that load and the men who got it. I’m not worried about getting through with it. All I want to know is what the job is worth to you.”

“It’s your life, not mine. We’ve had trouble getting through. What would it cost me for you to get through with a wagon of freight?”

“Two hundred dollars—payable when I get back and report that it got through.”

“Mister,” Faulkner said. “You have talked yourself up into pretty big size. And into a job. You’ll be prepared to take a train up to Buckhorn as soon as the river goes down enough for you to get across. Four or live days, maybe a week if we get more rain.”

Webster got to his feet. “You’ve got yourself a man. I’ll see you around.”

“In the meantime,” Faulkner said, “you might as well be earning your money. You go back to my stables and report to Joe Dunn. Tell him I said to put you to work until time to pull out.”

Webster laughed. “I’m afraid you misunderstood me. I didn’t hire out as a stable boy; I hired out as a wagon boss, and that’s what I’ll be. Pick up a boy somewhere to clean the stables. That all right with you?”

Faulkner’s mouth went tight, and he did not answer. Webster added, “I’ll be around, and I’ll take your wagons through the hills. That’s what you wanted me to do, wasn’t it?”

Faulkner wiped his skeletal forehead. “I want somebody to get them through. It seems that nobody in the world can get through those hills. You do, and you won’t have to worry about making money working for me.”

Webster left him then, and had supper down at the restaurant. Later he went into the Red River Bar and had a couple of drinks with Jake, who had not yet started out on his return trip. He passed around through the crowd, leaving his senses open, so that they might absorb anything that could have meaning to him. He hadn’t learned much from Faulkner, but he had got his foot into things here, and that was enough for a start.

He stopped at one of the poker tables and watched the players a moment, then asked, “Open game, gents?”

One of the men nodded, and he pulled out a chair and bought a stack of chips. He was seated opposite young Emory Dustin, and he was giving more of his attention to the smiling blond face across from him than he was to his cards.

In half an hour of ups and downs, he had lost his stack of chips, and got up from the table, knowing things about Emory Dustin that disturbed him. He argued that it was none of his business, but he had been watching Dustin play, watching him make his bets, watching him win and, more importantly, watching him lose.

He knew now that the smile on Dustin’s good-looking young face was a perpetual mask. He was not a man of genuinely good nature as the smile told the world he was, but he had a stark money hunger, a greed that sparked from his eyes on occasion, and an arrogant rage which he did not completely conceal when he lost.

These qualities Dustin kept hidden behind his bland smile, but Webster had spent long years in reading the little signs in men, and he had read these signs in young Dustin, the cattle buyer who was the coming young man in Woodbine, so they said.

The Emory Dustin who was going to marry Sonia Swanson. And Sonia Swanson, from what Webster had seen of her, was a whole-hearted, a warm-hearted and sincere young girl who, if she gave her heart to this man, was laying herself open to certain disillusionment and heartbreak.

Webster strolled away from the game thinking of these things. And then he told himself that the affairs of Sonia Swanson and Emory Dustin were none of his business. He was here to do a job for Swanson, not to advise Swanson’s daughter in affairs of the heart.

But he could not rid himself of the problem; he felt somehow responsible, as though he knew that the girl was on the verge of unknowingly about to drink something poisonous.

CHAPTER V

Across the River

Webster got his horse and rode down toward the river and about the country for the next three days, getting the lay of the land and watching the muddy waters gradually subside. On the morning of the fifth day the stream was no more than a hundred yards wide, and the sun was drying out the hard red sand on the two sides of the stream. In another day the water would be down enough for wagons to cross.

That evening he was drinking at the bar when he found Emory Dustin standing beside him. Young Dustin had a broad, friendly smile and bought him a drink.

“Hear it around that Ike Flint left town. He hasn’t been seen since that fight you boys put on. It was a dinger, I hear.”

“Nothing much,” Webster said casually. “Just another drunken brawl. A man my age should keep his opinions to himself. It’s hard on old bones.”

There was a quick flash of shrewdness in Dustin’s laughing eyes which gave Webster the impression that the man did not accept his story. And apparently he wasn’t satisfied.

“Well, it landed you a job, anyway. I hear you’re taking Ike’s place.”

“News does get around, doesn’t it? I’m a stranger here myself. I hadn’t heard it yet.”

Dustin laughed pleasantly. “Yeah, a town this size is practically all ears. People here can hear your words before you speak ’em.”

“I believe it.”

“I wasn’t trying to meddle,” Dustin said. “You know, Ike was quite a bully around here, and you made plenty of friends when you whittled him down to size.”

“I’ve got an idea he’s still got plenty of fight in him yet.”

“Yeah. But he’ll choose his victims a little more carefully from now on. You know, I was just thinking. I have business up in the Territory once in a while. I’m a cattle dealer, you know.”

“Tell me about it,” Webster said, inwardly perking up. “I hear it’s pretty rowdy up there.”

“Rowdy is a tame word for it,” Dustin said. “I’m not getting ready to tell you how I’ve handled those boys, like Flint did. I’m a gentle soul myself, and if one of those boys tells me to stand up and fork over my money, well, I’d just stand up and fork over my money quicker than hell can scorch a feather. You can always make another dollar; you can’t get your life back.”

“That,” Webster said gravely, “is a parable.”

“It is a truth which I imagine Ike Flint knew pretty well. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to make so many trips, up into that country with merchandise and live to tell the tale of what happened to it.”

“From what Ike was telling the pilgrims, I got the impression that he could drive a herd of hornets from one end of the Territory to the other and never lose a single one.”

“He lost plenty of merchandise, but never his life. And he might be dumb, but I wonder if that fact doesn’t denote wisdom of a sort.”

“I believe,” Webster said thoughtfully, “that you’ve got a point there. Have one on me, and then I’ve got to go and see how the rest of the joints are making out. I haven’t left a dollar with any of them tonight.”

Jim paid for his drink, looked over the house, and went out into the darkness, wondering what was behind Dustin’s talk. It all seemed friendly and idle enough, but there was something hidden behind the casualness of his perpetual grin that didn’t ring true to Webster. A kind of straining for effect, as though he had to consciously keep the smile on his face to mask some deeper emotions.

Webster went on down the street and stopped off at a couple of other saloons and had a drink or so in each, then went out and enwrapped himself in darkness.

He made his way to Faulkner’s darkened warehouse, as Faulkner had directed him earlier in the day, and came around the back way, where he found a covered wagon pulled up at the dock. Faulkner and two men were standing on the dock, their shapes made visible only by the faint starlight.

When Webster joined them, Faulkner said in his husky, flat voice, “Webster, these men will be your passengers. We’re sending only one wagon this trip and, like I told you, it’s already loaded. It’s just merchandise, cotton goods and some hardware. These men have to get up to Buckhorn, and I told them they could ride along with you. They’ve got some business or other up there, though I can’t see why they don’t get horses and saddles and get there quicker. Anyway, take ’em along. This is Mr. Clanton.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Clanton,” Webster said, shaking hands.

“And this is Mr. Nix.”

“Glad to know you, Mr. Nix. Say, aren’t you the gents I rode in on the stage with the other day?”

“Guess we are,” Clanton said gruffly. “Rough ride. Ain’t over it yet.”

“This might be rougher,” Webster said. “I’ve just been talking around, and I learn that the trail over the mountains is rock-ribbed corduroy all the way. You might find that it would have been easier horseback.”

“We’re not too good on horses, and we don’t know the way. From what we hear, that’s no place for a couple of tenderfoots to be wandering around. We brought a couple of rifles along with us, but tell the truth, I’m not much with a rifle myself. Tried to kill a deer once. He was standing still, but he never knew I shot at him.”

“I’m not much better,” added Nix. “I’m just hoping we haven’t got any use for guns.”

“Well,” Webster laughed. “They’ll do to hang over the mantel when you get home. You can tell your grandchildren about your adventures in the wilds of Indian Territory.”

Faulkner coughed. “Better get on,” he said. “You ought to be through the gap before daylight. It’s safer in the open on the other side of the ridge.”

It was a four-horse hookup he had to drive, and Webster climbed into the seat and was unwinding the reins off the brake handle when Faulkner, standing in the darkness of the dock, gave him a parting word of advice.

“Remember, Webster, a man’s life is worth more than a wagon load of calico and plow handles. That’s about all you’ve got in there, and I can’t imagine anybody wanting to take the stuff away from you. But if they do, use your head instead of your gun. I can take the loss of the merchandise, but the life of a good man is something that I can’t replace.”

There it was again. Faulkner was not the type who thought more of a hired hand’s life than he did of a load of merchandise, at least to Webster’s thinking.

With this in mind, he pulled the team away from the dock, and set out toward the river crossing with his two passengers beside him, the hard seat cushioned with a partially filled feed sack of oats for the horses.

Both passengers filled their pipes, and Webster lit a cigarette, and the wagon lumbered on down toward the river without anyone speaking.

Webster was remembering that Jake had told him that these men had brought a heavy satchel which Jake had handled, and had concluded was gold money. Jake was shrewd, and had probably guessed right.

But these men did not place the satchel in the wagon, and Faulkner had assured him that there was nothing in it except calico and plow handles.

If Jake had guessed rightly, the pair had arranged with Faulkner to hide the satchel in one of the pine boxes of cloth, or in one of the flour barrels or other packages or boxes.

That was something to think of.

But there was still another and more important thing to think of, and that was that he knew one of these men well—had known him, in fact, for ten or twelve years. Ben Clanton had been a Texas Ranger then and, so far as Webster knew, Clanton was still a Ranger.

And further, Clanton knew Jim Webster. He knew of his exploits; he knew that Webster’s name was one that had struck terror into many a nest of thieves; go into any thieves’ hangout and mention that Jim Webster was headed this way, and the habitants would fly like a flock of crows at the sign of a man with a shotgun.

Clanton must have known, then, that Webster was here on some kind of affair that would likely end in bloodshed; and Webster knew that Clanton was here on business of some kind; mysterious business from what little he had seen so far.

But Clanton was a Texas officer, and his authority stopped at the near edge of the river. He would have no authority to act as a peace officer up in the Federally ruled Indian Territory.

This puzzled Webster, but he did not expect an answer soon. He would have to keep on acting the stranger to Clanton until and unless Clanton decided otherwise.

He had got this cue from Clanton while they were waiting at the stage station in Fort Worth, where they first came together. It had been a meager signal, but it had been enough, and Webster had acted on it.

It had been this simple: when Webster brought his saddle and his warbag to the stage station at Fort Worth, and had stepped up to the desk to buy a ticket to Woodbine, he stepped into line behind two other men, one of whom was the man Faulkner had introduced as Nix, and the other was Ben Clanton. Webster had been on the verge of speaking to Clanton when the latter looking up saw him—and then looked clear through him, as though peering through a stranger.

That was all the tip that Webster needed, knowing his friend’s business. From there on out, for the two days they were thrown together during the bone-breaking stage ride, they had acted as complete strangers to each other. And during the long wait at Woodbine for the water to recede, they had never once looked directly at each other, nor spoken a word, though on two occasions they had eaten at the same table in the restaurant.

In half an hour Webster reached the river and crossed it through a stream in the middle of the wide sandy bed. The channel was barely fifty feet wide and less than hub deep, its bottom hard-packed red sand. He pulled out on the Territory side of the stream and pushed the lumbering wagon up a gradual incline, following a dim trail through tall grass that was not bent over and mud-caked after its inundation by the floodwaters. Following the trail gradually upward, they finally passed over a rise, came through low ground again and passed into a narrow wooded gravel stream that flowed down out of the hills just before them.

Up until now, Clanton and Nix had spoken only a few casual words about the condition of the river, and the chances of getting bogged down in mud somewhere along the trail.

Now Clanton spoke again, “Webster, how about pulling up and giving the horses a blow? I want to take a walk.”

Webster stopped his team and wrapped the reins around the brake handle while he got down to stretch his legs.

Clanton said, “Let’s take a walk, Nix,” and the two men climbed down over the front wheel and walked up the trail ahead of the wagon. Webster squatted on a boot heel and rolled himself a cigarette, his mind still playing with the idea of trying to gain some knowledge of what Clanton was doing here. For now that he had crossed the river, Clanton was no longer in Texas, and his authority as a Texas Ranger was not valid here.

In a few minutes the men came back, and instead of getting into the wagon, Clanton squatted on his heel beside Webster. Nix joined them.

“I guess,” Clanton said, “it’s about time we chewed the rag a little, Webster. Looks like we might be all trying to ride the same horse.”

“I’m listening,” Webster said.

“Well, first,” Clanton said, “thanks for not recognizing me after I gave you the sign back in Fort Worth.”

Webster chuckled. “Maybe I didn’t want to recognize you. I’ve felt your breath on the back of my neck more than once, and it’s a pretty hot breath.”

“You might stump your toe some day yet,” Clanton answered. “But all I’ve known about you, you don’t have to worry. And I reckon it would kind of put me in a bad spot if I did know all you could tell about yourself.”

Clanton rolled and licked a cigarette and lit it. “I called Nix up the road to tell him about you. He’s the U.S. Marshal for this part of the Territory, and I’m working on a job with him. I’m acting as his deputy now that we’ve crossed the river, not as a Ranger. But we’ve been on this case together because as far as we can make it, the people we’re after work on both sides of the river, while either one of us would be stopped at the river. This way, with him working as my deputy on the Texas side and me working as his deputy on the Territory side, well, we can get around. I was telling him about you, and he says that since I know you, we can thresh this business out and maybe pool what little we’ve all three got.”

“Well, what have you got?”

Clanton laughed. “That’s you, all right. You do the asking; the other fellow gives the answers. What I want to know, is what’s up your sleeve?” Then he added, “Besides a set of pretty sore muscles, if I’m any judge of what you did to that mule skinner.”

“Why, I’m just working as a mule skinner for Faulkner.”

“All right, Webster,” Clanton said impatiently. “So I’ll have to tell you something before you’ll tell me anything. Well, I’ll give you all we’ve got, and if you don’t come through with your part of it. I’ll haunt you till I see you hung.”

“You are supposed to have brought a big payroll or something,” Webster told him. “And you’re not supposed to have it with you now. But you have.”

“Was I? And have I. Where is it?”

“In one of those boxes, I reckon. Outlaw bait.”

“See, Nix? I told you the man was always a jump ahead of anybody. Well, Webster, here it is, what little we’ve got; big wholesalers have been shipping stuff up into the Territory, some of it through Woodbine crossing, some through other crossings. There’s a bunch of law dodgers up in these hills who have been getting fat holding up those trains of merchandise. It’s running into money. Other business men, and even the government, have had cause to ship money up into the Territory, and they’re lucky if it gets through.

“The Texas merchants have appealed to the Rangers, and that’s my angle. They’ve also appealed to the U.S. Marshal’s office in the Territory, and that is why Nix is in on it. And what got you in on it—as if I didn’t know?”

“Then you tell me.”

“Well, you’re hand in glove with the Cattlemen’s Protective Association. You’re not officially their detective, because you’ve got a habit of twisting the law by the tail whenever you’ve got the idea that justice and the law don’t see eye to eye on the disposal of known crooks. I happen to know that your way often saves the state the expense of trials and hangings, and often keeps the law from being cheated by some of the lads who might beat a law case but can’t beat your bullets.

“Anyhow, if you’re up here,” Clanton continued, “it’s because some cattleman is having trouble. And since you hadn’t been in town but a few minutes when one of the men on the Double H ranch got hold of you and took you to meet Eric Swanson at the home of the widow of the man who used to own Double H, I take it you’re working for Swanson.”

“And further, since I know that you’re not a man who fights for the love of getting his shirt torn off his back, you deliberately started that fight with Faulkner’s driver in order to take his job away from him. That meant that, like a good bird dog, you already had your nose to the ground and you thought the scent led up this way.

“Well, since our scents lead in the same direction, maybe we’re on the same trail.”

“You do get around, don’t you?” Webster answered. “You must not have suffered much from that stage ride if you still had the energy to start trailing me the minute I got into town.”

“It’s not a matter of my comfort,” Clanton answered. “It’s part of my business. Where you are, there trouble is. And trouble is my business, too. As I say, maybe we’re on the same scent.”

“I haven’t got one yet,” Webster admitted truthfully. “I’m just smelling around, looking for one.”

“I wonder if you’re telling me the truth. But it wouldn’t do me any good to ask you. You know who Faulkner is, of course?”

“All I know is that he is a trader.”

“And you know how fishy his eyes are. Anyway, I’m going to tell you this, if you don’t know it anyway. Maybe it’s bread cast on the waters; maybe it will do you some good, and maybe do me some good. Did you know that he was a bank absconder who did time in Huntsville penitentiary?”

“No, I didn’t,” Webster admitted truthfully. “But now that you mention it, he looks the part.”

“Well, you’re working for him. Don’t forget that. Now, here’s another thing. Tell him, Nix, about those rumors about that hidden town.”

“Well,” Nix said after taking a moment to shape his words. “You know how rumors are. We’ve been hearing about some hidden town down here in these hills; you know, a regular outlaw town, where the crooks hide out. Of course, there are always stories like that going on, and you usually discount them. But this thievery down here in this corner of the Territory is getting to be pretty big-time stuff. It takes organization, both to pull the deals they accomplish successfully, and to dispose of their loot. There’s a lot of merchandise, money and cattle that are being swallowed up by these hills. They have got to be hidden somewhere, and there has to be some kind of organization to handle it. The stories and the facts have piled up too heavy to be discounted any longer. We’re looking for that hidden town.”

“And how are you figuring on finding it?”

“There are leaks somewhere along the line. People try to get money, merchandise and livestock through secretly, but any big shipment is always spotted and hijacked. We’re taking a shipment of gold through presumably for a Fort Worth bank, to one of its smaller correspondents further up in the open part of the Territory. And we don’t expect to get there with it. We expect to be hijacked, and then we’re going to get on the trail of the men who did it, and find them, and find out where the leak came from. In short, we’re going to break this thing up before we stop.”

Webster said thoughtfully, “You speak with a lot of confidence. I shouldn’t imagine that the hijackers would want any of their victims to live to identify them.”

“There’s the point,” Clanton spoke up. “Nix’s office has been analyzing these robberies, and it’s a funny thing; very few men are killed during them. Only the hotheads who want to put up a fight over their goods or money. Damned fool trick, you can replace your goods, but you’re a long time dead.”

“I’ve had that pointed out to me before,” Webster said. “So you think you’ll be safe enough?”

“Yeah, and we’ve made doubly sure. Those boxes haven’t got bolts of cloth in them; they haven’t got anything in them but the money. We worked out the idea with Faulkner. Here’s what we’re planning to do, and it’s one reason we have to bring you in on our plans. Nix’s dope on most of these robberies is that they take place about halfway down the other side of the pass in the hills. By our rate of speed, we figure that we’ll be there maybe a couple of hours before daylight. I’ve got a feeling that we’ll be met there. So, you’ll be driving, and when we get close there, Nix and I will be in those boxes with our rifles. The hijackers are not in the habit of killing the drivers. They’ll stop you, and they’ll demand the gold, and if there has been a leak, as we think, they’ll want to know where we are. You give them some cock-and-bull story. They’ll start to search the wagon. That’s when we’ll pop up out of those boxes, and before we’re through with them we’ll have wounded some of those boys. We want to get our hands on a couple of them alive, and give them a right stiff interview. We think they can tell us some mighty interesting things.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Webster said, getting to his feet. “At any rate, we’d better get going. It’s your show, but I’ll give you a hand.”

“Just don’t get in a hurry with your gun,” Clanton cautioned him. “We don’t want ’em dead; we want ’em in talking condition. Usually the men you face are not able to tell a man much afterward.”

“I’ll try to restrain myself,” Webster grinned at him.

“Do that,” Clanton said. “Remember, there’s one thing common to these crimes; they don’t seem to want to kill anybody. That points to the fact that there’s one directing mind back of them and that man is smart. He realizes that as long as it’s only goods that are being stolen, there won’t be as much fuss as if a lot of people get killed. So, don’t take chances.”

Webster thought that he’d been hearing a lot about the protection of life in the last few hours, and this set him thinking. There was one thing about the plans of crooks that he had always noticed; the longer a plan worked successfully, the more certain the crooks were to keep on using it. And the longer they used it, the more it was used; the shorter the length of time when something went wrong with it. Nothing was more certain than that things went on without change, and so it followed that the longer a thing had gone on without change, the sooner it was bound to change.

By that reasoning, things ought to be popping around here pretty soon.

“Two more things,” Clanton added. “There’s always chance of a slip-up. We don’t figure on it, naturally, but something could happen to us, since we’re officers, and they might suspect it and prefer to get us out of the way for keeps. We’ll both deputize you. That makes you an officer on either side of the river, in case you need authority. And we’ll show you how this money is marked, in case you ever have any occasion to trace it.”

CHAPTER VI

And Through The Trees

Webster pushed the four-horse team slowly up the rocky mountain trail, their movement indicated only by the grumbling of the wagon wheels and the rattle of harness in the almost complete blackness under the trees. About midnight they reached the ridge and stopped and made coffee over a small fire, which they quickly extinguished after they had finished.

As they worked the wagon down the far side of the mountain, they all became more alert. After an hour or so, Clanton and Nix left the seat and took up their positions in the big square, white-pine, yard-goods boxes in the wagon bed, taking their new rifles with them. They had smaller boxes in the larger ones, on which they could sit in comfort after the lids of the bigger boxes had been dropped over their heads.

After they got settled, Webster started his team again, continuing on down the mountain with his senses alert for the first sign of trouble. He was convinced that it would come, but he had never been over this trail before, and he had no way of knowing when or where or how it would come. All he could do was to ride into it.

The sky to his right—that would be to the east—was streaked with gray when the trouble hit.

Webster had been half dozing when the attackers struck with a suddenness that jerked him up in his seat.

A single rifle shot rang out, and the near lead horse dropped in his tracks, screamed, kicked once and died. Webster jerked on the reins, trying to get them all into one hand and use the hand brake, all at the same time. His hand started for his pistol, but he recalled Clanton’s order, and left his gun pouched.

The other horses piled up as he brought them to a stop, and he had to give his attention to getting them under control. By the time he had them quieted, he was able to do some thinking about himself, and his first thought was of the complete silence after the shot.

It was light enough now for him to see that the trail had been cut through a bank so that on each side of the ruts there was a rise higher than the wagon bed itself, and that the higher ground was thick with trees and brush.

It was from the trees that the voice came, “All right, driver, crawl down, and keep your hands high enough for us to see them.”

The voice came from his right. Webster looked to his left, and measured the distance from his seat to the outbank on that side. He might be able to jump it and dive into the trees, provided the man at the right was not fast enough.

He had just about decided to try for the bank when a man stepped out from behind the tree he was planning to try to reach. The man had a rifle aimed at him, held waist high. He came to the lip of the bank and made a motion with his gun.

“All right, didn’t you hear? Get on down.” He was not the man who had first spoken, for the first voice had come from the other side of the road.

Webster obeyed, thinking that men wouldn’t be here to meet this wagon unless they were sure it was coming, and knew that it contained more than hardware and drygoods.

He was turning this over in his mind when the hidden first voice said, “Joe, get his gun.”

The man who had shown himself hopped off the cliff to the trail below, managing his rifle as he jumped. He lifted Webster’s pistol, and the latter, knowing that he was covered by at least one other gun from the darkness, did not put up a fight.

He was beginning to wonder about Clanton and Nix. Why hadn’t they shown themselves?

After he was disarmed, another man came out from behind his tree on the right of the road, and stood towering over him, sizing up things in the slowly increasing light.

“All right,” he said over his shoulder, “His fangs are pulled.” Then he said to Webster, “Where’s your partners?”

“I haven’t got any partners,” Webster said. “You think this is a moonlight hayride I’m on, or something?”

“Where are those tin stars that came along with you?”

“You’re asking me riddles at this time of day?” Webster answered. “I’m just hauling a load of goods to a store at Buckhorn.”

“I know all about that,” the man said gruffly. “And a little loose change in the form of ten thousand dollars in hard coin. What happened to those men with that money?”

“How would I know?”

The voice of the man hidden in the trees answered with a kind of irritated patience. “Listen, driver, we don’t want to hurt you. We just want those men and that money. Now you want to get back to Woodbine and collect your wages, don’t you? If you do, then start talking. If you don’t we’ll kill you quicker than hell can scorch a feather.”

“I’ll tell you,” Webster said, wondering what Clanton and Nix were waiting for. “I never was the gabbing kind. If you’ve got any idea that I’m hiding any men or money that belongs to you, why don’t you come and look for it?”

“That’s just what we intend to do. You left Woodbine with those men and that money, and it is a cinch that they didn’t stop off to go fishing or something. Joe, crawl up on that wagon and give it the once-over.”

The man in the trail nested his rifle under his arm and climbed up over the hub of the front wheel, placing his foot in the bed of the wagon back of the seat. He had his back to Webster, but without his gun, and with at least one other man covering him, Webster was helpless.

Webster turned his head, keeping his hands high, and swept the ground with his eyes, then turned back to watch the man in the wagon. He stepped back to the first big box and placed his hand on the lid.

“Ain’t nailed down,” he called out to the man in the woods. “Maybe that money is hid in it.”

“Then look and see,” came the order.

The man in the wagon lifted the box lid. And as he did, the lid of the other box came up almost in unison with it. And out of both boxes, rose the figures of Clanton and Nix, with their rifles coming up to their shoulders.

The man in the wagon emitted a yell and lifted his gun. There was a sudden explosion on the bank, and then two more men were out from behind the trees and pouring rifle fire into the wagon. The night bounced with echoes rolling across the hills.

Webster saw Clanton and Nix drop back into the boxes, then before the firing stopped he was in motion. His first jump landed him with one foot on the hub of the wagon, then without a break his second jump landed him up on the bank on the side opposite the riflemen. He landed flat, rolling like a log toward the nearest tree. As the firing resumed suddenly he heard the bullets whining by his ears, but he twisted himself around the big pine, got to his feet and disappeared deeper into the darkness of the woods above the outbank. He heard a few more shots following him on general principles, but they could not see him, and they were simply shooting in the general direction of the sound of his running feet. Probably to scare him and future drivers who would hear his tale.

The darkness became so thick here that he bumped into a clump of elderbushes without seeing them. Stooping, he used his hands to push the bushes apart, and crawled into them, where he had a chance to stop and get his breath. And time to wonder just what had happened. The whole thing had occurred so abruptly in the semidarkness that he had been unable to tell just what had taken place.

Clanton and Nix had not downed the man in the wagon, for he had been still on his feet when Webster escaped. And why had Clanton and Nix dropped back down into the boxes when the shooting started? They had wanted to wound at least one of the robbers, but Webster had not had a chance to see any of them fall. All he had seen were the dim figures and the orange flashes of flame pouring out of their rifle barrels.

He felt guilty at first for running out of the fight; but then he knew that there had been nothing he could have done. The bandits had actually succeeded in getting the drop on him and disarming him. And besides, whether he otherwise would have done it that way or not, he had at least been obeying orders. Faulkner had given him orders not to fight the bandits, and Clanton had told him specifically that he wanted Webster to do nothing, but to let him and Nix handle the affair.

But despite this, Webster was not constituted so that he could run from a fight and then excuse himself for it. He had the feeling now that something had gone wrong with Clanton’s plan.

He heard thumping and some talking, and an occasional yell at the horses, but unarmed against four men, he did not try to get any closer to the wagon to see what was going on. Either Clanton and Nix were dead, or they were going on with their plans in whatever way they could. Right now, he was not in a position to investigate.

Coming out of the bushes and moving around, he came upon the bandits’ horses. His first inclination was to untie them and leave the men afoot, but he quickly gave this up, knowing it was better to let them go and then follow them to their hiding place. He was struck particularly by one horse, a bay-and-white paint with a bay left front leg and right hind leg, and white right front and left hind legs. An unusual marking for even a paint horse.

He left the horses and waited half an hour, by which time he knew the bandits were gone. Then he made his way toward the road, moving from tree to tree.

He went forward slowly and cautiously, lest the bandits might have left a sniper back at the wagon in the hope of his returning. Thus, instead of going directly toward the wagon, he worked his way silently as an Indian from tree to tree until he was convinced that there was nobody around. And not until he had completely searched the surrounding woods did he go back to the wagon.

He had a short battle with himself about his conduct. He had the guilty feeling that he could have found some way to help the officers, but none of his reasoning showed him how that could have been done. They were competent men doing their jobs and taking their own risks. He would have protected them even against their wishes if they had got into hot water, and he could have helped them get out. But having allowed himself to be disarmed at their suggestion, he could only have got himself killed by putting up any resistance.

Webster had ample courage, and this he knew. But he had lived too dangerous a life to act foolhardily, knowing that it would do no good and only bring disaster on himself. He had a job of his own to do, and his first duty was to accomplish that.

With such arguments, he cleared his conscience and went about investigating the wagon. It was light enough to see well now, and as he stepped out onto the ridge of the cut beside the wagon, he saw everything just as he had left it. One of the lead horses was lying dead in its harness and the other three were standing hip-shot, waiting. The goods and the two big white-pine boxes were just as he had left them.

And there was no sign of Clanton and Nix.

What had happened? Had they followed the bandits. Or—

He climbed up over the wagon wheel and lifted the lid of the first box. Ben Clanton lay huddled in a shapeless pile in the bottom of the box, his rifle still in his hand, his black hat cocked crazily over one ear.

Webster knew without looking further that Ben Clanton was dead.

He moved over a step and lifted the lid of the other box and found what he now expected to find, Henry Nix dead in his own hiding place.

He lowered the box lid softly and searched the wagon without any expectation of finding what he was looking for. The canvas satchel of money was not to be found anywhere.

The robbers had known that those two officers were coming through with money. And they had simply killed them and taken it away.

Then the thought struck Webster that they could have killed him just as easily—even more easily. They could have put a bullet through him just as simply and safely as they had shot the lead horse.

Why didn’t they? They had robbed other wagons, trains and herds, but they had never killed unless the victims had foolishly put up a fight.

Had they considered Clanton and Nix as being damned fools who had to be killed—or had they a purpose of their own in destroying them?

Webster stood in the wagon bed beside the two boxes containing the bodies of the officers, and a great wave of bitterness poured over him. Everything seemed disconnected to him, but nonetheless a pattern was shaping up in the back of his mind. He could not get over the idea that all this outlawry was not just a long series of isolated events, but that it all fitted into some carefully planned scheme which had been thought out and organized by some strong and calculating mind. Clanton and Nix had been tackling their ends of the threads that had to be unraveled, and Webster had his own threads on which he was working.

However, the threads all seemed to be parts woven into some much bigger single cord of events.

While Clanton and Nix were about their own business, he still felt that because of this singleness of pattern in the whole trouble, their sacrifice somehow put a moral obligation on him to carry on for them as well as for himself. He was thinking that they were working for the general welfare of the decent people as well as doing their appointed jobs, and that his obligation also expanded wider than his mere agreement to help Swanson.

In short, though Jim Webster was not a man who acknowledged that he had much sympathy or concern with people as a whole, he nevertheless, in spite of his hard surface, did have a strong moral sense of his responsibilities.

He got the shovel out of the tool box, shucked off his jacket, and dug two shallow graves beside the road, up under the pine trees. He removed their wallets and other effects from their pockets, took their badges, and then buried them. He then put rocks over their graves so that the wolves and coyotes could not dig them up.

Going back to the wagon he was struck with a sudden thought; Clanton and Nix had been prepared for this attack, and they certainly had heard the voices of those in command.

Why had they not been able to kill or wound any of the four bandits?

Figuring their positions in the boxes, picturing them rising suddenly together with their rifles at their shoulders, considering that this move would have come as a surprise to the bandits—why hadn’t Nix or Clanton between them managed to have shot at least one of them?

He searched his mind for an answer to this. Speculating thus, he picked up Clanton’s rifle and, with the ejector lever, yanked the shell out of the barrel of the gun, catching it in his hand.

The shell was empty, and the percussion cap showed the dent of the firing pin. Clanton had at least got to fire one shot at the robbers.

Why hadn’t he hit somebody? Any Ranger was a good enough shot to hit a man at short range with a rifle.

Webster ejected the rest of the shells from the gun and counted them. Clanton had fired only once.

He hefted the unfired shells in his hand while he speculated on this. There was something wrong here, and he could not make out what it was. But there was a thought somewhere deep in his mind, trying to force itself to the surface. It was some hardly remembered passing thought that had been unnoticed but was now trying to return to consciousness because of its importance. Webster jiggled the shells in his hand, sitting on the edge of the wagon bed, and tried to find out what it was that was attempting to get his attention.

Then something else came to him and brought a puzzled frown to his face. He looked down at the shells in his hand, and jiggled them again. Then he took one of them and held it between his thumb and forefinger, examining it, feeling it, lifting it.

Then he knew what was wrong with the shell; it didn’t weigh as much as a Winchester shell ought to weigh. It was too light.

He got his pocket knife out and dug the bullet out of the shell, and turned the shell upside down over the palm of his hand.

There was no powder in the shell!

He looked at another of the shells and, to the eye, it seemed like a normal, live shell. But it was light, and when he opened it, it also had no powder.

He quickly dropped the rest of the shells into his pocket and picked up the other gun—Nix’s rifle, and discovered the same trouble with it. He found the half-emptied box of shells which they had brought along and had left handy in the big box, also that the powder had been removed from every shell in the box.

Clanton and Nix had bought their rifles in Woodbine, and they had been given dummy shells with which to fight off the outlaws!

Now Webster knew what the thought was that had been trying to make its way to the surface of his consciousness.

During that brief interchange of rifle fire, he had heard a couple of slight pops that would have been made only by the sound of an exploding percussion cap, feeble sounds lost in the heavier explosions of the live shells.

Clanton and Nix hadn’t had a chance; the cards had been stacked against them, and they had died trying to defend themselves with dummy shells.

In Webster’s books, that was cold-blooded, premeditated murder.

The two officers had not been killed because they resisted the ambushers; they had been marked for death before they left Woodbine! They were law enforcers, and somebody knew it and wanted to get rid of them before they went prying around in these hills. Unknowns had turned their own trap against them and had caught them in it.

Webster came to a sudden decision; whether it was officially his business or not, he was going to get those murderers. Clanton and Nix had taken him into their confidence, and had prepared him against any mishap. Now that it had occurred, he felt it his duty to take up where they left off, adding their job to his own, seeing that their deaths were avenged.

He rummaged through the boxes of groceries until he found a roll of longhorn cheese, and cut off a big chunk of it to take with him. He looked long and speculatively at the wagon and wondered what would happen to the merchandise, reaching the conclusion that somebody would come along and pick it up sooner or later.

And he wanted to know who that somebody would be.

Jim found a can of paint in the hardware goods and pried the lid off. He found a dozen new plow points tied together with strong wire. Taking a twig, he dipped it into the paint, he inverted the plow points, and on the inner, concave sides of them, he painted the number which was on the marshal’s badge that he had taken off Nix before burying him. He painted the badge number on all the plow points, expecting that if they were noticed at all, they would be taken for stock numbers. Thus protected, they were not likely to be seen, and even use of the plow would not erase them, since they were on the underside of the mold-board points.

Those points could be traced if every plow in Indian Territory had to be turned upside down and examined.

Webster now secreted the rifles and the box of dummy shells in the brush where he had been hiding. Then he unharnessed the horses and turned two of them loose, leaving the bridle on the one he intended to use. He had to ride on a quarter of a mile to get out of the cut, but then he returned on the high ground to the point where the bandits had been, and here he picked up their tracks in the earth that was still damp after the rains.

He walked and led his horse until he had followed the men’s footprints to the point where they had hidden their own horses, after which he mounted and had no trouble in the morning light in following their trail. Tracking them a half mile or so through the woods, he followed them out to a narrow deer trail, where they turned to the right and continued along the trail for several miles.

Here, he saw that they had separated and gone different ways. There were four of them, and he was faced with the task of deciding which set of tracks he could most profitably follow.

There was no answer to that, for he knew that they had separated to throw off any possible pursuit, and that they would come together again at some predesignated place. And he was much concerned with its location.

Deciding then that it did not matter which track he followed, he chose the ones that continued along the deer trail, since this seemed to be easier riding. This trail ran along at an even keel across the side of the mountain, neither climbing upward nor dropping down toward the flats below, and he followed it slowly and alertly for two hours.

Thinking over the whole business which lay behind him, he began to feel growing in him a strong hatred of this whole setup. The thing that he was facing now was no longer a simple job of breaking up a systematic plan of cattle thievery, but it had spread into a picture of some giant octopus which under the cover of a cloud of its own making was spreading its tentacles and sucking out the lifeblood of a whole people.

The tentacles, he knew now, were even close to enwrapping such an innocent victim as Sonia Swanson. This thought brought his mind to the girl, and he felt an ache in him as he saw how she was going to be unavoidably dragged into the dirty picture. As he rode, he tried to think of some way of shielding her from the hurt that threatened her, but he saw little chance of protecting her.

He came at last to a point where the woods were broken by open spaces, some of it rock-filled, some of it bare patches of grass, patches of scrub pines growing out of fields of stone, then other grass and rock patches.

It was near the top of a low rise, and it was dismal and deserted country. But nonetheless, this was where the tracks brought him, and he stopped within the protection of the heavier trees and looked out on that broken mass of rock, grass and scrub. The deer trail cut straight through it toward a towering cliff face, before which was a boulder as big as a two-story house.

It was a suspicious and dangerous looking setup to Webster, and his hand instinctively went to the handle of Clanton’s pistol, with which he had replaced his own gun taken by the bandits.

There was no way to get across the open space but to start moving and go across it. Having calculated the danger, and having seen no other way of moving along on the trail, he rode out of the woods with his hand on his gun butt.

A rifle bullet knocked his hat off. The roar of the weapon bounced against the mountain walls, and he tumbled off his horse and led it back into the trees.

CHAPTER VII

Hidden Valley

The second shot came just as Webster got to the protection of the woods and turned around in time to see the rising puff of smoke drifting upward from behind one of the big stones in the open field.

“So that’s it,” he said to himself. “Whatever is ahead is important enough to keep a guard posted. I have found myself something, whether it is too big to handle or not.”

He was talking to himself with words, but his mind was focused on that rock behind which the sniper lay. The sun was high above the house-like boulder, lighting the whole field ahead of him. The near space before him offered him no means of concealment so that he could work his way toward the hidden gunman.

But he had a hankering to interview that gentleman. The way he figured it, anybody who was left out here on such monotonous guard duty must be a man pretty low in the ranks of the thieves, and consequently no mental heavyweight. Webster had an idea that if he could get his hands on the gent, he could find ways of persuading him to talk. Particularly, if he kept the officers’ murder in mind, he would likely be quite impatient with any reluctance on the sniper’s part to do some pretty fast and furious talking.

He backed his horse up a bit deeper into the woods and tied the reins to a tree without ever once taking his eyes off the boulder from which had come the firing.

What was the sniper going to do? One thing was certain, he was going to be wondering the same thing about him. And a man who is wondering what is going to happen next is generally nervous and inquisitive. His curiosity will sooner or later demand satisfaction.

Webster, then, crawled to the edge of the woods and sat down behind a tree with his gun in his hand and his eyes on the rock, and prepared himself mentally to outwait the guard. He had a strong streak of patience, and he knew men well enough to realize that a man who has shot at another man and has not found out the results is likely to have a strong curiosity to know what happened.

Webster settled down to outwait him, not even allowing himself to wonder what the sniper would eventually do. His task was to be sure that he waited him out, and so he kept his mind on that one objective.

He spent his time not with his mind on the man, but on the possibilities of what lay in this vicinity. It was apparent that the man had business here; he hadn’t just ridden here to throw any pursuers off the track. Particularly since the likelihood of pursuit may not have occurred to the bandits.

The bandit stuck it out half an hour. Then he must have decided that he had scared Webster off, for Jim saw him suddenly dart from behind his boulder to another larger one.

Webster raised his pistol then and kept it trained on the edge of the man’s new hiding place.

Then he came out from behind the big rock, riding the horse that had been hidden there. He turned his back in the direction of Webster and headed his horse toward the giant rock which sat before the upright wall of the next peak.

Webster leaned his hat against the bole of the pine tree before him, then placed his pistol against the hat. A pistol is not an accurate weapon at long distance, and its kick upon being fired can throw a man’s aim off far enough to miss a target at the distance the sniper was from him. The hat between the gun and the tree would absorb much of the recoil.

He brought the gun barrel down until he had his sights aligned on the middle of the man’s back in a slow and careful aim. He held the gun true on the rider and, with a bitter recollection of Clanton and Nix flashing across his mind, he squeezed off the trigger slowly and carefully.

His gun barked, and at that instant he saw the man jerk erect in the saddle as though he had been hit in the back with a hammer. His arms spread out as though he were stretching himself, and then his body bent forward, his head dropping down toward the saddle horn as though he were going to sleep.

Then the man swayed sideways and he slipped out of the saddle. One leg went over the seat and made an arc toward the ground. The foot in the near-side stirrup got hung up, and failed to come out of its resting place. Thus he fell to the ground head first, one foot still in his stirrup.

The horse had not stopped his trot, and now that he was dragging a human body, he became panicked. He pranced up and down once or twice, kicked out to dislodge the dragging burden, then broke into a frightened run.

Webster watched the horse, and saw something that made him wonder. The horse dashed around the giant boulder and disappeared from view. Webster waited for it to reappear on the other side, for there could have hardly been more than a narrow passageway between the boulder and the solid face of the cliff. But the horse did not come out the other side.

Webster waited ten minutes, and the horse still did not come out. He had either stopped dead still, or something had swallowed him up. What had happened to the horse when he went behind the boulder? He couldn’t have climbed the sheer face of that cliff, and he hadn’t come out the other side.

That was puzzling, and Webster intended to get the answer to it. He went back and got his horse and, riding gun in hand, he rode out across that open ground and around the big boulder.

Then he knew!

The cliff face was not solid. It was a thick stratum of rock which some prehistoric upheaval had stood on edge, and which later erosion had worn down until it had crumbled at a point behind the big boulder, leaving a gap in it some twenty feet wide.

Now Webster understood about the horse. The giant boulder acted somewhat like a screen hiding a door, for he saw as he rode into the place that the gap in the cliff-like sheet of upended rock actually was a doorway to a vast, green, saucer-shaped valley with a bright lake in the middle of it.

He was gazing at this revelation with awe when he saw a group of horsemen emerge from a small grove inside the big saucer-shaped valley, and come riding toward the entrance.

He understood the significance of this without having to wrack his brain for an answer. The horse had dragged the dead guard back to where these men were, where he had been discovered. And now the horsemen were coming out to find out what had happened.

Webster did not wait to explain to them what had taken place. He turned his horse’s head out of the passageway and lashed him toward the nearest point of protection in the trees.

He had found something; he intended to live long enough to learn what that something was, and he knew well enough that the approaching group was thoroughly opposed to his idea.

Jim had not yet made his way completely across the open field and stone when the troop of horsemen came thundering out of the passageway behind the big rock. As he looked over his shoulder he saw five of them, and they had seen him.

He heard them set up a shout, and the next moment a bullet whined by his head and he heard the blast of a rifle. Several other shots followed in a quick volley, but the shooting of the bandits on racing horses was not accurate, and he reached the trees with bullets whining around his head like hornets.

Webster had little time to think about it, but he realized instantly that he stood no chance to outrun them. He was riding on a work horse, and these men on fast saddle horses could run him down quickly, for the brush and trees were so thick on either side of the deer trail that he would be unable to leave the trail and take to the deeper timber.

On the spur of the moment he made his decision, and slowed his horse down under the limb of one of the giant oaks which were interspersed with the pine and which made a canopy over the trail.

It took only one quick movement for him to lift his legs and get his feet set on the horse’s back. He was standing as the animal passed under the oak.

Jim made one jump with arms raised. His lingers caught onto the overhanging limb, slipped a moment, then caught again and held. The horse kept moving down the trail and, now freed of its rider, set off at a brisk run, fear of the gunfire behind him urging him on.

Hanging from the limb, Webster lifted his legs and swung up into the tree. Moving as fast as he could manage among the stiff limbs, he climbed into higher and higher branches until at last the foliage concealed him from the ground.

The sound of pounding hooves had been growing louder in his ears, and he was hardly settled in his high perch when the four horsemen thudded by single file along the deer trail, and kept going.

Webster breathed a sigh of relief, but he knew that he was far from safe here. Having abandoned his horse so that the men would follow it while he found concealment, he knew that now being afoot in these strange mountains, and right in the mouth of the thieves’ hangout, put him in a tougher spot than he had been up to this moment.

The men would soon run his horse down and find that he had deserted it, and this would tell them that he was still around. He had no idea how many more men there were in that big valley, but of one thing he was completely certain; they would comb the woods for him.

He toyed with the idea that they might decide not to search, but he quickly abandoned it. They must suspect now that he was the driver of the wagon which had been robbed, and they knew that they could not afford to let him live with the knowledge that he had found their hangout. They had a job of capturing and killing to do in order to save their own hides. And the odds were all with them, for they knew this territory, and he was afoot and a stranger here.

He decided that the tree was about as safe as any place he could find, for if he began walking in search of a better hiding place, he would leave his tracks in the mud, to be read as easily as a man could read a signboard. He could only hope that they did not figure out his play and find him before darkness came and gave him a chance to escape. He had spent a strenuous twenty-four hours without sleep, but he was facing a long wait in an uncomfortable position before he had any hope at all of eluding capture.

He had to smile to himself at his position, perched high in the branches of a gnarled old oak tree, and he spent the moments speculating on how an owl managed to get in a little sleep in the daytime in such a place. He decided that the owls probably had a trick of their own for roosting in trees, but that under the circumstances he had better stay awake.

The tree in which he had hidden himself was less than ten feet from the edge of the woods, and by climbing higher to a point where the foliage thinned out, he could look across the clearing and see the rock barring the entrance into the valley.

He was climbing back down to the thicker foliage when he heard the hoofbeats of the returning horsemen. They came along slowly, single file, passing under his tree, and stopping at the edge of the clearing, where they bunched up.

When they began talking, Webster heard one voice that he recognized. He would not soon forget Flint’s gravelly voice, and Flint was speaking as though he were the leader of the little group.

“It’s a cinch he can’t get far without his horse,” Flint was saying. “It’s a long way out of these hills, and he don’t know his way around.”

“Maybe he don’t want to get out right now,” came an opinion.

Flint said, “Chock, are you sure the guy driving the wagon was the one that tangled with me at the saloon?”

“I was looking right at him down the barrel of a rifle, wasn’t I?”

“Yeah, but it was dark.”

“It was breaking day. I got a good look at that hombre, and I’d know him anywhere.”

“It’s a funny thing,” Flint argued. “Faulkner said he was all right. If he was playing ball with us, what he should have done by rights was to take one of the horses and go on back and report the robbery to Faulkner; what could he be smelling around here for?”

“He’s got curiosity or something,” another man added. “Maybe he was one of that marshal’s gang, working under cover.”

“No he wasn’t,” Flint argued. “Faulkner had a man watching him all the time he was in town. He never said a word to the officers, and they didn’t know him. He’s out for what he can get on his own. He could be one of them guys that likes to play a lone hand and horn in on somebody else’s show. That’s what I think about him. He’s too tough to be a law officer. He ain’t got the mark on him, somehow.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“Look here, Chock. You stay right here, this time. Tie your horse up and settle down here in the edge of the trees. If he comes sneaking through again, wait till he gets past you, and get him in the back. Don’t make the mistake Benny did and let him get behind you.”

“This is a kind of rough job,” Chock answered. “Maybe a couple of us better stay.”

“One man’s enough if you’ve got sense enough to do what you ought to do,” Flint grumbled. “If Benny had done that he wouldn’t have got shot in the back. You stay here till dark. I’ll send that new man to relieve you then. And keep your eyes open.”

After a little more talk, the group rode away, leaving only the one man called Chock.

Webster kept perfectly still in his tree, following the man’s actions by sound as he dismounted and brought his horse back into the woods. The man took his horse a few feet distant, then came back and settled down to quietness. He had stopped somewhere almost under Webster, who could not see him, but guessed that fact from the small sounds he made in moving about.

Webster was caught now, for he could hardly make any movement in the tree without revealing sounds of his own. And he was already cramped from having remained so long in his uncomfortable position in the crotch of a branch of the tree.

Jim waited in silence, becoming more uncomfortable as time ticked slowly on. He heard a match scratch down below him, and presently the tantalizing smoke of a cigarette drifted up to him and reminded him of how long it had been since he had eaten or drunk or smoked. It was going to be a tough wait.

But now Webster knew another thing. Since the smoke had drifted upward, the man must be beneath him. He stood it another hour, during which time it became increasingly evident to him that he could not stay motionless in his cramped position until dark. He had to escape now before his legs became so stiff that he would be severely handicapped.

He canvassed all possibilities and rejected most of them. Then he worked a bullet loose out of his cartridge belt and was on the point of tossing it some distance from the tree in order to arouse the watcher’s curiosity. The man would go to see what it was that fell, thus giving him time to get down and face him.

But that would mean shooting, and he did not want to again attract the attention of the bandits in the hidden valley. He would have to find some other way.

Finally he decided on the only means possible for his own purpose. It was risky, for he stood the chance of making a noise that would instantly attract the man’s attention. But he had to risk it.

Webster began lowering one of his feet from the limb he was on toward the limb below it. It was a long stretch, and he had to do it absolutely without sound. He took his time about getting the one foot down and then, belly hooked over his limb, he began letting the second foot down. It took him about five minutes to lower himself to the next limb, but he made it without attracting attention.

He took another long time letting himself down another five feet, a limb at a time, and then he was low enough to see through the foliage below him.

The guard was sitting with his back against the tree, a black hat pulled down over his face, and his rifle across his lap. Webster decided that he was either asleep or almost asleep. He was standing on the limb about ten feet above him, and there were no other limbs below on which to lower himself. He had no choice but to jump the rest of the way.

He took his pistol out of its holster, balanced himself on the limb and let go. He landed with a thud in the man’s lap, falling as he was thrown off balance.

His landing jolted the dozing man into confusion for a moment, and knocked off his hat. And during that time Webster scrambled on his knees beside the man. He cracked him across the head with the barrel of his pistol just as the man’s mouth opened in a yell. The cry died in his throat as Webster’s weapon smashed down over his ear.

Then Jim was on him, and the bandit was fighting desperately for his hand gun. Webster yanked it out of its holster and threw it aside into the brush.

The man whose Indian blood showed in his gleaming black eyes and his reddish skin fought viciously. He was large and thick through the chest, and the blows that he rained on Webster had a sting in them. He was on his back and Webster was over him, but the man was far from out, and he was giving Jim almost as much punishment as he was taking.

When his blows failed to slow Webster up, he changed his tactics, bringing his hands up to claw at Jim’s face. He was going for his eyes with his clawing when Webster saw that he would have to stop things in short order. He buried his face in the protection of the man’s chest and pounded him over the head with his gun barrel until he had beat him into insensibility.

The guard finally went limp and rolled over on his side, losing all interest in the fight. He was out cold, his head and face a mass of bloody scars.

“Sorry, Injun,” Webster said. “That’s for being in bad company. I’ll see you again if you live over this.”

The Indian did not answer. He was unconscious.

Webster caught him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him back off the trail, then found the Indian’s horse and brought him along. He cut a couple of lengths of rope from his lariat and tied him hand and foot, then threw him bodily across his own saddle and led the horse deeper into the woods, farther off the trail.

Satisfied with a large clump of elderbrush and pokeweeds growing rank below a bubbling spring, he took the man off his horse and carried him into the thicket, where he examined the knots on his wrists and feet, and then tied him with his back against the trunk of a large persimmon tree. Then he took his kerchief and made a gag out of it, stuffing it into his mouth and tying it tightly.

Jim examined his handiwork and knew that the man could neither escape nor make any noise to attract any passing friends. Satisfied that he would not be able to do him any damage, he took the man’s horse and went looking for a safer place for himself.

He had decided more firmly than ever now that he was going to have a good look inside that valley. It was like sticking his head into the jaws of a steel bear trap, but he meant to do it as soon as it became dark.

This place was tied up with the crooks in Woodbine, and was therefore of legitimate interest to him. He gave a thought to Clanton and Nix, now dead, and he knew that they would have liked to be here with him on this trip.

He drank at the spring, ate some of his cheese and slept in a safe clump of brush until almost dark when he went back and took up his position alongside the trail, waiting for the man who was to relieve Chock on guard duty.

The man came riding out from behind the big rock a little after dusk and came into the trail. Behind a tree, Webster waited with his gun drawn.

The bandit stopped his horse and dismounted, apparently not very alert. He whistled, apparently a signal for Chock, and then began tying his horse to a tree. He had got the knot made in the reins when Webster stepped out from his concealment and walked toward him, gun aimed at the man’s back.

“Just keep your hands frozen to that tree,” he ordered.

The man looked back over his shoulder, his eyes widening. He kept his hands on the knotted reins while Webster approached and lifted his gun.

“Just be quiet now,” Webster warned him, “and you’ll live to get to be good friends with me yet. Just open your mouth and you’ll join Chock.”

“You killed him?”

“You’ll never find out if you don’t stand hitched. Now just put your hands on your hat while I see if I remember what to do with a rope.”

In fifteen minutes Webster had the man tied and gagged and roped to the same tree that Chock was tied to. Chock had revived somewhat now, and was following Webster’s movements with venomous eyes.

“I’ll tell you boys something,” Webster said. “Things are not always like they sometimes look like they are. You gents and I might turn out to be saddlemates yet. You never know what might happen, do you?”

And, being gagged, neither answered.

Webster laughed at them, and led the last man’s horse on out of the brush. It was dark now, and the hidden valley lay before him, holding a secret it was his job to unfathom.

CHAPTER VIII

Thieves’ Paradise

Webster waited a while longer, then dismounting and leading his horse, he skirted the edge of the open rock field and came at last to the big boulder blocking the entrance to the valley. Here he left the horse and, with pistol in hand, kept to the darkest shadows and worked his way silently along the face of the cliff until he had reached the big stone. The important thing now was to see if another man blocked the mouth of the valley.

He had to cross a space which was exposed enough for the stars to give it a little light, and here the danger point lay. But there was no way to avoid the risk.

Jim moved with sudden swiftness as he crossed the lighted space, and his boot kicked up and rattled a small rock. He clicked the hammer back and lifted his gun, sweeping the darkness before him. But his noisy progress raised no sound of alarm.

He walked on into the mouth of the valley between the portals of the break in the cliff, and still met no resistance. It was evident that the bandits felt that the guard at the path was enough protection.

He went back and got his horse and rode unmolested into the valley. Remembering it from his one quick view of it by daylight, he recalled that the lake lay just about straight forward, in the middle of the great bowl-shaped valley. It had been partially surrounded by small willows and other trees, and there had been a number of cows grazing about it.

To his left, that is, between the lake and the north wall of the bowl, the riders who had discovered him had emerged from a scattered group of trees that seemed to run from the precipitous wall of the valley almost down to the lake. Webster calculated that there must be houses or some kind of shelter for the outlaws hidden in these trees. He wanted to have a good look at some of those cows, and then he wanted to see where the men hung out.

Calculating that they felt secure enough not to have guards milling around the floor of the valley itself, he cut his horse boldly across the grass in the direction of the lake, which he could barely make out by starlight a half mile distant.

As he approached a group of cattle now lying down near the lake, he untied the lariat on the saddle and shook out a loop. As he came nearer, the cattle got to their feet suspiciously. He dabbed his loop over the neck of the nearest one and pulled his horse to a halt. And he gave thanks to the man he had stolen it from for riding an animal that knew how to work cows. The horse took up the slack in the rope and held it, backing off as the angry cow jumped about, fighting the lariat.

Webster was on the ground, following the taut rope down with his hand, and had a horn hold on the cow before she could make out his purpose. He gave her neck one quick twist and threw her on her side, while he examined the two brands he had seen dimly on her shoulder.

The first brand, an old one, was a Double H Connected, made by four uprights and a horizontal bar running from the center of the first straight through to the center of the last one. He had seen a brand somewhat similar once which had been called the Picket Fence. It was a hard brand for a thief to cover, for any overbrand made of straight lines which might be applied would have a suspicious look, and any brand with curved lines could not hide the original straight ones.

But the Double H had not been tampered with. Instead, it had been stamped out with an X iron, a sign of the sale of the animal, and another brand placed below it. The other brand was fresh, the skin still peeling off, and was a simple three-link chain in a straight row. It would have been difficult for that brand to cover any other one.

Webster released the cow and caught up three or four more, finding one more Double H, and a couple of other brands he did not recognize. But they all had their old brands X’d out and the Chain stamped under them.

The story those brands would tell was that various outfits had sold cattle to an outfit using the Chain. That was all the brands would reveal.

But they had told Webster enough for the present. He turned the last cow loose and rode on around the lake, heading toward the woods which he suspected of housing the thieves who had chased him earlier in the day.

At the edge of the woods he dismounted and tied his horse, wanting to explore the area quietly. He judged that the woods did not cover more than five acres, and that was not too much for a man to explore afoot, even in high-heeled boots.

Leaving his horse in the thick darkness under the edge of the trees, he worked his way toward the rim of the valley, quartering the rough five acres of timber back and forth from the point nearest the lake toward the high rim.

He had traversed what he judged to be more than half the patch when he came upon a pole corral having a pole shed at one end. He climbed over the fence and went among the dozen or so horses grazing within, and examined their brands, all of which were strange to him, but which he memorized.

Then he climbed out and made his way on foot toward the valley’s rim. Where there were saddle horses, there had to be men to use them.

He had not gone far before he heard the low sound of music, and he stopped to identify it. Somewhere off ahead of him a fiddle and guitar were doing a bad job of playing an old range song in unison.

He walked more carefully now, darting from shadow to shadow under the trees. And he came upon the first house before he realized it.

Everything was dark here, but he was standing near a small cabin made of pine boards. He saw a tiny crack of L-shaped light, showing around a side and the top of a window which had been covered with some kind of material, perhaps a horse blanket. There were voices in the shack, and as he made his way to the window, he heard the conversation and the sounds of a poker game, the shuffle of cards and the clink of money being thrown onto a table as the game progressed. He judged that there were at least a half dozen men in the game. He went on, finding four or five more of the small one-room shacks, all dark.

And then he came near to the canyon wall and, standing in the darkness under a tree, he studied the thing he saw in the light of the stars. Here was the source of the music.

There was a long store building projecting out from the flat face of the perpendicular rock which walled in the valley, a building which was by far too large for any such small settlement as could be here under the trees. He examined it more closely from a distance, and noted another peculiar thing which held his gaze and aroused his curiosity as he listened to the music.

He could see stars directly above the roof of the building, hanging low enough in the sky so that they would not have been visible to him if the rimrock were as high at this point as it was elsewhere.

He got the impression that the store sat in a notch or opening in the wall of the valley, similar, perhaps, to the one through which he had entered. Making his way out of the trees, he reached the safety of the deeper blackness beside the building and began his explorations.

He learned first that his surmise had been correct; the building actually acted as a kind of closure, some sixty feet wide, to an opening in the rock. He walked along the wall of the building searching for windows, but there seemed to be none, on this side, at least.

He started to go around the near end of the building, but checked himself as he rounded the corner, slipping back quickly. There was a door at this end, and it had been opened while two men came out, revealing the yellow light of lamps inside. The men stood on the porch a few minutes, then went back inside, again revealing the lamplight as they opened the door momentarily.

Webster waited a moment to see that nobody else came out, then crossed in front of the porch and set about examining the other side of the building.

There was a wide lean-to shed on this side, which interested him greatly. The shed was empty, and he stepped into it, concealed now by darkness so complete that he could not see his hand in front of his face.

He set about exploring the shed’s interior by the sense of touch, and was puzzled to find it empty. It ran the whole distance of the particularly long building, and its far end was closed by a large pair of pine board doors, held shut by a wooden bar. He raised the bar noiselessly, shoved one door open slightly and stepped through it.

He was back in the starlight now as he closed the door from the outside, and he looked around, to find himself in a horselot in which a half dozen animals stood.

And this end of the store had an entrance, just as the other end had—except that this end of the store was completely outside the hidden valley, alongside an open space beside the horselot.

Puzzled, Webster saw that the ground under his feet was not grassy, but had been churned up by hooves, indicating that it was a much-used space.

Looking farther around him he saw a few other buildings, and one long shed. He crossed the open space to the shed and found that it covered a small sawmill. There was a large pine log on the carriage beside the saw, and a dull glow was coming from the fire door of the small donkey engine which drove the saw. A pile of logs rested on the skid way beside the carriage, and the odor of fresh pine sawdust floated up from the sawdust pile a few feet down the slope. A stack of new yellow railroad ties told the story of the enterprise here. This was a busy tie camp, but now there wasn’t a light about the place, nor was there one showing from this end of the long store building from which came the music.

It was all dark, and all very puzzling to Jim Webster. He stood and surveyed this queer place, trying to picture in his mind the connection between the tie camp and the hidden valley. No legitimate tie cutter could be unaware of the valley, and to his mind, that store had been built as it had in the crotch of the rim-rock for the deliberate purpose of blocking entrance to the valley.

There were cows in the valley, but there was not room enough at the other entrance for men to have driven them in. Still more important no herd of cows ever came into this valley over that tiny deer trail that he had followed.

Then he got the picture. He had come into this hidden place by the back door, so to speak. This tie camp was the real entrance; it was the only way men could have got a herd of cows in there, or a wagon filled with the lumber to construct the houses.

They could have got in here through the doors of that lean-to through which he came.

It was perfect; it was clever! You drive a herd of cattle or a wagon load of stolen merchandise up the logging road, drive right into a lean-to shed alongside an old store building and—presto—you kept going, and the mountains had swallowed you up. You had disappeared into an almost impregnable fortress.

Why, a couple of men could have held that back door against an army, almost. And a half dozen men could hold this entrance against as many as wanted to try to breach it.

Webster had to admire the mind that had conceived this whole project by having made such clever use of the natural phenomenon of an old extinct volcanic crater.

And he knew of but one mind in this country which he could credit with what it took to conceive such a large and complicated project of this nature.

He went back to the entrance of the lean-to shed beside the building and blocked open one of the doors with a rock. It would be necessary for him to go back through the grove of woods in the valley and get his horse and come out this way, for he had to follow this logging road long enough to know where it led to, so that he could find it again. And he didn’t want to have to stop to open doors if he had to get out in a hurry.

He came out of the valley end of the shed and had made his way as far as the house in the trees where the poker game had been going on when he bumped squarely into one of two men who evidently were leaving the game and heading for the store.

He had collided with the man before he saw him, and the collision brought an ejaculation from the other. “Who’s that?” the man barked suspiciously as he backed away.

“Me,” Webster answered vaguely. “That you, Chock?” He hoped to drown the man’s suspicions.

But a match suddenly flared in the hands of the second man, and its feeble light came upon Webster’s face.

“That wagon driver,” the bandit exclaimed. “Get him.”

Webster struck as the dying match fell out of the man’s hand, making the blackness more deep than it had been. He lashed out toward the first man, using his pistol for a club, hearing the sound of it crack against the bone of his head. He heard the sound of the man’s tangled footsteps as he reeled backward.

Webster spun to shoot at the second, but changed his mind in a momentary thought of caution and, instead, darted forward toward him.

He overran the man, crowding the renegade just as he fired. The orange flash of muzzle flame spurted from the gun in the man’s hand just beside him, and burning powder scorched his face. But the man went down on his back.

And Webster broke into a run while the downed man emptied his gun in a swift fusillade of warning shots.

Webster made the place where his horse was tied, and was mounted and moving as he heard the answering cries of the others joining his attacker. He rode through the trees, encircling the accumulation of outlaws, and came right up to the rear porch of the store. He halted here in the trees watching the light pouring out through the open door until he was satisfied that everybody in the store had gone out into the grove to see what the trouble was.

Then Webster crossed the cleared area around the store, merged into the darkness under the lean-to and rode out of the valley.

At the outer end of the shed, where it opened into the lot where the skid mules and horses were kept, he stopped a moment to think. He did not know this road downward, and his pursuers probably knew it like the palms of their hands. And it was time that he needed, too.

He closed the door of the lean-to, then moved his horse out into the lot and started the skid mules milling. As he got one cornered in front of the door he shot the animal through the head.

The skid mule fell against the door and died there. Webster hazed the mules around again until another one was jammed up against the dead one, and a bullet piled that mule on the first one.

Now there were two thousand pounds or more of dead mules piled against the outside of the only door through which the renegade horsemen could get out of the valley. There was only one way they could remove the mules and open the door. That was for men to come through the store afoot, catch up another of the skid mules, and use the mule and a lariat to drag the dead animals out from in front of the door.

That would take time, time that Webster needed desperately.

Satisfied, he turned his horse down the logging road, to find out where it came from. This road he knew was the artery along which stolen cattle and merchandise found their way to a place where they could be kept until disposed of.

* * * *

At the time Webster was exploring the hidden valley, there was a bridal shower going on in the home of a Wade Miller, whose daughter was to be married shortly. Among the guests were Emory Dustin and Sonia Swanson.

After most of the festivities were over, and the guests were having cake and hot chocolate, Dustin who had just returned from a business trip up into the Territory was retailing the latest news.

“This one is really something for the books,” he said. “I reckon Woodbine has been visited—and made a fool out of—by one of the cleverest crooks that ever honored our town with his presence. And he’s had some pretty stiff competition, so he must really be good.”

“What is it?” they demanded. “What’s the news? A new Robin Hood who steals from the rich and gives to the poor?”

“Nothing like that,” Dustin said. “He steals for himself alone, and he seems to know what he’s doing. Not just a plain man with a gun, like most of them. But a man who can use his noggin. Like the song about Jesse James, he seems to have a hand and a heart and a brain. I don’t know about the heart, but he’s sure done a clever job of using his hands and his brains. That is—it looks that way.”

“Come on, Emory,” one of the men said. “Give us less editorializing and more facts. What’s he done?”

“Well,” Emory said thoughtfully, “I’m just piecing this whole thing together, and I may be wrong. But it strikes me that it makes a pattern, and a very clever one at that. Provided, of course, the man did everything he’s supposed to have done.”

“Well, what’d he do?” they insisted. “Stop theorizing.”

“All right, here’s the story as I piece together the known facts. A few days ago a stranger dropped into town, tall, square-jawed, not bad-looking. You know, clean-cut; you wouldn’t take him for a badman. Well, he hangs around the Red River Bar for a while, then starts a fight with one of Faulkner’s wagon drivers, that big ox by the name of Flint. Flint was the town bully, and nobody ever whipped him. He usually cripples somebody every time he gets drunk.

“Well, the other night, Flint was shooting off his mouth in the saloon, and this new fellow walks over to him, insults him, throws beer into his beard, and starts a fight with him. It was really something to see, hut the point is that this tall fellow actually whipped Flint. And that’s an event in the history of this town, itself.

“Well, Flint rode out of town, ashamed to hold his head up, I reckon. And Faulkner gives this new hombre Flint’s job. When the river went down, this new man drove up into the Territory with a load and a couple of passengers, and that was the last that was seen of him.”

“Where’s the crime there?”

“Here are some of the facts that you can now fit into that picture of what happened. Those two passengers, Faulkner now tells me, were officers, a Texas Ranger and a Territory Marshal, and they were carrying a special load of money up into the Territory for the Government Indian Agencies or something. Anyway, their business was supposed to be real secret. Their money was hid, Faulkner tells me, in a couple of packing crates, and nobody in the world except those two and Faulkner himself knew that they had money with them.

“Well, as I was on my way home from up in Antlers, I came across some people who had found an empty wagon on the mountain trail. It was Faulkner’s wagon, and the men and the money and merchandise and everything else including the driver was gone—were vamos.

“All right, what’s the answer? Don’t you see how clever it was? That hombre knew about that money. He came in on the stage along with the two officers, and he thus had an eye on them all the way up from Fort Worth.

“Now he’s got to figure a way to make sure of getting his hands on that money. He knows that those two men are officers and crack shots, and so he figures it is too risky to try to hold up Ike Flint and the two officers, so he has to think of something else.

“And here’s how clever he was then; he whips Flint, drives him out of town in disgrace, then goes and gets Flint’s job driving that load of money up into the Territory. Ever see anything so clever? Now he’s reduced the odds to two to one against him, and him being the driver sent along with them officers, they ain’t on their guard against him. Just like stealing candy from a baby, and twice as profitable.”

One of the men said, “Did they find the officers’ bodies?”

“No. He wouldn’t want that kind of evidence lying around against him. Naturally he’d hide the proof of his crime.”

“How do they know he did it?” one of the men asked logically. “Maybe some outsider killed all three of them and hid all three bodies. That man could have been a victim, himself.”

“Yes,” Dustin answered reasonably. “He could be. You can’t say for sure that he pulled the job unless you know he’s still alive, and know for sure that somebody else did it. But look at the evidence; why else would the man have done a thing like risking his neck in a fight with Flint if he wasn’t playing for big odds? Why else would he have asked Faulkner for Flint’s job? If some of those mountain renegades killed all three of the men, why did they bother to hide the bodies? Those hombres leave their victims where they fall. No, I may be wrong, but it sure points to that mysterious stranger. And you’ve got to give him credit for one thing, anyway. If that’s the way it was, then he’s sure got a brain in that think box of his.”

“Not the kind of brain I’d admire,” Sonia Swanson said.

“Nor me, neither, my dear,” Dustin answered. “I was just pointing out how far some people will go in planning a piece of crookedness. If they would use half that mental energy in planning some legitimate enterprise, they’d be so much better off.”

After the party broke up, Dustin drove Sonia to Mrs. Halsell’s where she had arranged to spend the night, and Sonia told Mrs. Halsell the story about the robbery. “It’s going all over town,” she added. “And Mr. Faulkner is in bed with a nervous breakdown. He was the one who had helped the officers plan to get through with the money, and he feels very upset that the robbery might cast some reflection on his caution in assisting the men to get through safely. After all, it was his wagon and his driver, and the government might be inclined to hold him responsible.”

Cora Halsell heard this news with a sense of shock. As she fixed a snack of pie and coffee for Sonia and herself, she thought with great depression of the effect this news would have on Eric Swanson. After all, it was at her insistence that Swanson had entered into the scheme to send for Webster, and she knew that Swanson was not entirely convinced that he was doing the right thing in hiring a man who was almost as notorious for his wild and often lawless ways of going about his business as were the thieves and murderers he was after.

It was commonly assumed in this raw country that a peace officer had to be as tough and merciless as the crooks with whom he dealt, and it was a proved fact that men who made their living by the gun were often indifferent as to which side of the fence they were on.

Many a famous outlaw gunman had made himself respectable merely by accepting a law badge, thus earning pay for doing the very thing that came naturally to him, the taking of human life. And many a man had started out wearing a star, had spent so much time in close contact with badmen, and had so got the taste of blood, that he had thrown off his badge and gone all out for outlawry on his own hook.

And still others, such as the notorious Henry Plummer, out in Virginia City, Nevada, who had worn a marshal’s badge, and had used the office and the information the badge brought in directing bands of cutthroats who preyed upon the people the officer was paid to protect.

In short, Cora Halsell thought, there was no simple answer to it. Jim Webster, no matter how many outlaw bands he had wiped out, was either good or bad in his own right, and not because of the work he was supposed to be doing. If he had hired out to help honest ranchers, and had turned that job to his own advantage, or if he had dropped it when tempted to go after quicker gains, that was the way things were here in this wild country, and it could not be helped.

She was saddened, though, and worried. She had liked the looks of Jim Webster—something in him, his strength of character as she read it in his face, the apparent forthrightness in him, and the independence and initiative with which he appeared to take on his job, asking nothing of no man. She was deeply disappointed in him; she felt somehow as if she had been betrayed by a friend whom she trusted.

Moreover she was worried about how this news would affect Eric Swanson. He had been under a terrible strain trying to save his investment and hers, and she had managed to instill some hope in him when she had at last got him to agree to employ Webster. Now that hope would be dashed, and she knew that though Eric would not mention the matter to her, he would not be able to forget the fact that he had got Webster against his better judgment because he wanted to please her.

Now, she felt, the effect of this would be to drive a wedge between them. Swanson would no longer feel the confidence in her judgment that she hoped he would have. He would withdraw into himself with his troubles, become remote from her, instead of being drawn closer to her by their mutual interest in their enterprise.

This was a blow to her hopes for the peace and happiness that she had prayed for, and that she had seen being realized in the fine man that Eric Swanson was.

Sonia, seated across the table from her, looked up from her plate of dried-apple pie with a slice of yellow cheese on it.

“What is the matter, Cora?” she asked with a show of concern. “You look as though you didn’t feel well. You haven’t eaten a bite of pie, and I know you made it for me because you’re just crazy about apple pie. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, honey,” Mrs. Halsell assured her. “I don’t know. Rain and mud always did give me the blues, and it has rained so long, and the mud is so deep that I just get depressed. I’m sorry.”

Sonia started to take another bite of pie, then let her fork drop to the plate and stared at Cora Halsell with wide-eyed puzzlement. “Say,” she said. “That man who was here the other night talking to dad. You remember, Dick said that after he left here he went down to the saloon and whipped the town bully—”

“Sonia!” The words exploded out of Cora Halsell’s mouth. “Please! Remember. Your father asked you never to mention that man not to even remember that you saw him, or to speak to him on the street. Please, Sonia, don’t breathe a word of that; don’t speak of him again, even to your father, even to Dick, or to Emory Dustin—or even to me. Please, Sonia, try to do that for us.”

Cora Halsell had become worked up in her emotions, and Sonia stared at her for a long moment, her puzzlement growing deeper and deeper as the implications of the things said grew on her.

“All right, Cora, I’ll promise, if it will make you feel better. But I wish I knew what was going on here. It doesn’t smell right, somehow, that man being here in the house, and then going out and doing the things he did. I’m a member of the family, and it would seem that I should have a right to know.”

“Later, please, Soma. But now, please remember your promise.”

“All right,” the girl answered, forcing a cheerfulness into her voice that she did not feel. “Let’s forget it, and concentrate on this delicious pie. What do I care about some cowboy who just happened to be passing through. I haven’t any interest in him. But still and all, I—I’m awfully puzzled, Cora. And curious and worried.”

“Everything will be all right. More pie?”

CHAPTER IX

Partnership

Webster rode into Woodbine late the next night and made a circuitous approach toward Mrs. Halsell’s house, taking care not to be seen by anybody. He left his horse tied to a tree at the end of the block and walked the remaining distance. The house was dark when he knocked, but Mrs. Halsell eventually answered through the door in a cautious voice.

“Who is it?”

“Webster, Mrs. Halsell.”

There was a pause before she said, “All right. Wait a moment.” After a few moments she opened the door and he stepped into the darkened house. She said, “I’ve drawn the blinds. Just a minute, and I’ll light a lamp.”

When it was lit and he joined her in the living room he found her in a dressing-gown. She had apparently been sleeping. Now she seemed reserved, and he could not make out the reason why.

Then he got a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror, and the sight of his black stubble of beard and his dirty clothes made him laugh.

“I’ll have to apologize for the way I look,” he said. “But I haven’t had time to get cleaned up.”

That did not break the ice; she still remained wordless as she sat down and nodded him to a chair across from her. She was studying him carefully, as though she had never seen him before. And she seemed to be waiting for him to speak.

“Two or three things brought me here,” Webster said. “In the first place, I believe you mentioned that Miss Swanson was expecting to marry Emory Dustin this fall?”

“Why,” the woman said, and then paused. After a moment, she added, “I’m sure I could not say positively. That is her affair, and I don’t think I’d be at liberty to discuss it. Was it important?”

“Why, yes. I know that this is not what Mr. Swanson hired me for, but I wanted to give you some advice. Don’t let her do it, Mrs. Halsell.”

The woman seemed to be taken aback, and it was quite a while before she answered. It was apparent that she was framing her words carefully. Finally she said. “Miss Swanson is a woman with a will of her own, and I’m sure she knows her own mind.”

That was a vague answer, but Webster caught the drift of it. She was telling him that it was none of his business what Sonia Swanson did. He knew this already, but he had also threshed out this question with himself, and had decided to run the risk of making it his business despite the fact that he would be considered intruding on things which did not concern him.

“I know that she has a mind of her own,” he agreed. “And a good mind, too. But still there are things she cannot see. I have to be blunt, Mrs. Halsell. I know that you admire the young lady as much as I do, and that you wouldn’t want any harm to come to her. I’m trying to tell you that you mustn’t let her marry Emory Dustin.”

“Why?” The question was blunt and there was a trace of anger in her voice. “Do you know anything against Mr. Dustin?”

“I have a lot of ideas about him, but I am not in a position to prove them just yet. But there is one thing I do know; the man is greedy for money. He is too ambitious for his own good. He will bring Miss Swanson only a lot of grief.”

“I think,” Mrs. Halsell said with an air of closing the matter, “that we had better leave it to Miss Swanson to make her own decisions in her personal affairs. Is that what you came to see me about?”

“Very well,” Webster said. “I will not bring that matter up with you again, but you are making a mistake you will regret. I came also to ask if Mr. Swanson has a lawyer.”

“Of course, he has a lawyer.”

“What is his name?”

“I think you ought to ask him that. He will tell you, I’m sure. Do you need a lawyer?”

“Yes. I’d like for Mr. Swanson to get his lawyer and have him here at your house late tomorrow night. And I’d prefer no one else present except the three of us: the lawyer, Mr. Swanson and myself.”

“If it concerns the matter you were supposed to be working on for us,” the woman said, “I’m a financial partner in the ranch, and it was I who was instrumental in hiring you. Of course, if you need a lawyer for yourself—”

Webster had had a growing sense that something was wrong here, and now he felt a definite antagonism in the woman.

“Mrs. Halsell,” he said abruptly. “The last time I was here there was a little more cordial atmosphere than there seems to be now. I’m sorry about disturbing your sleep, if that is the matter, but I was advised to report to you, and I thought this important. Is that the trouble?”

“No, it is not,” Mrs. Halsell answered with a sudden burst of frankness. “There is a story going on about you which I should like you to clear up for me. We sent for you in good faith, expecting you to work for our interests. But we hear that you’ve been more concerned in doing things of your own.”

“Such as what?”

“We hear that you maneuvered your way into a job escorting two men into the Territory with a load of money, and that you killed and robbed them somewhere up in the mountains.”

“Care to give me the details?”

Now the emotion in Cora Halsell caused her to unburden herself of all that Sonia had told her. She pointed out the pattern of action that Dustin had drawn for his listeners from the original fight on to the loss of the wagon.

“And,” she added. “The wagon has already been found, but there was nothing in it. No merchandise. The money was gone, and even the bodies of the two men who, it is rumored, were officers of the law.”

“I see,” Webster said after he had digested this. “And because Dustin was the lad who told this story on me, you suspected that I was trying to cook Dustin’s goose for him as far as Miss Swanson is concerned?”

“That might be a possibility,” the woman pointed out. “After all, if you’re going to deny the charge, you would naturally dislike the man who was spreading it around.”

“I see,” Webster answered in relief. “Well, Mrs. Halsell, I’m glad you were frank with me. I deny the allegation and defy the accuser. Miss Swanson is a lovely young lady but I do not have my heart set on her. She is not for me, and she is not for Emory Dustin.”

“Then you’ve decided whom she really should marry?”

“Of course. Just the same as you have.”

“I?” Mrs. Halsell’s voice was raised in shocked surprise.

“Yes, you, Mrs. Halsell. And you’re right. Dick Hammond is a clean, decent young man. You love Sonia as though she were your daughter. And furthermore, and more important, Dick Hammond loves her. But she is under the spell of Emory Dustin’s personality, and Dick is too decent a lad to try to do anything about it, and you are too decent a woman to try to interfere.”

“Why, Mr. Webster! Please! The very idea! You are meddling with the private affairs of people who are practically strangers to you!”

“Yes, Mrs. Halsell, I guess I am. But I have read the sign, and I can see that I spoke the truth. You know that I did. I’m sorry you don’t believe that I was telling you right when I told you to keep Emory Dustin away from Sonia.”

“Mr. Webster!”

“Tell me, Mrs. Halsell. Dick Hammond means a lot to you, doesn’t he? Could he be your son by a former marriage, say?”

“No, he is not my son. But I sometimes feel as though he were. You see, his parents died while his father was working for Mr. Halsell. Dick was twelve years old then. We took him and raised him. And I do feel toward him as though he were a son. He is a fine boy, and I’m proud of him.”

“I understand now.”

“But as for me interfering in Sonia’s life, I shouldn’t do such a thing. Nor permit others to do it.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to speak of it again to you. Now, here’s what you can tell Swanson. I’ll tell him the details when I see him tomorrow night, this is what happened; I did work my way into a job with Faulkner. I did it as a means of getting into the Territory in a manner that seemed justified. Also I did it because I happened also to recognize the two officers who were going up there, and I knew that they were carrying money. Money attracts thieves, and I thought that if I were along when the thieves smelled that money, I might get a crack at them.

“I got my crack at them, but I missed fire. I was disarmed, and I had to stand helplessly by and watch those two good men murdered, and the money stolen. Believe me, Mrs. Halsell, if there had been a way in the world that I could have stood and fought beside those men I’d have done it. But there wasn’t. All I could do was to follow the thieves after they had killed them, and that I did.

“You can tell Swanson that I followed those thieves and found out where they hide out. You can tell him that I also found some of his cows, and evidence that the hideout is where most of the missing goods and cattle end up while waiting to be resold. Tell him I’ll give him the details tomorrow night. And, of course, caution him not to hint at this to anybody. Anybody, whatsoever! Any questions?”

Mrs. Halsell was thoughtfully quiet for a long moment, and Webster knew that she was fighting a battle with herself, trying to decide whether to believe him or to believe Dustin’s story.

He gave her a chance to think some more. Getting up, he said, “I’ve brought something to the door, which I want you to keep for me until tomorrow, when I will turn it over to Swanson.” He went out the front door and returned with the two rifles he had leaned up against the house upon his arrival. Mrs. Halsell looked at them with nervousness.

“Don’t worry,” Jim assured her. “These guns are loaded, but they won’t shoot. That’s why those two officers died. Let me show you something.”

He stood before her with a half-filled box of 30-30 rifle shells. “These shells were sold to those officers by the man who sold them the guns. You see this code number on the box, 0X34C3PL140Q332593. That long code number gives the complete history of that box of shells, including the part I’m interested in. Some of it is the Lot Number, with which it is possible to trace those shells from the factory to the dealer. There are code numbers in the guns as well, and they, too, can be traced to the man who sold them to the officers.

“Now those shells were tampered with. The powder was taken out of them so that when the officers tried to defend themselves with them, they would not fire. And so the officers died. I want you to hide those shells and guns until I can give them to Swanson so that he can put them in a safe place. They will hang the men who should be hanged, if we need them for that purpose.”

The woman was lost in thought as she took one of the shells out of the box and examined it carefully, weighing it in her hand, and looking closely at the roughened end of the cartridge shell where the lead bullet entered it.

“You are right,” she said. “I’ve used a rifle some.”

“That was all,” Webster said. “I’ll see Swanson here late tomorrow.”

He picked up his hat and started for the door. She was on her feet following him, and she touched his sleeve.

“Mr. Webster,” she said, and there was emotion in her voice. “I hope that you will not hold it against me if I seemed rude this evening. Everything that has happened has upset me terribly. If you only knew how concerned I am for Eric and Sonia, for my whole family’s happiness—”

Webster patted her hand. “Forget it,” he smiled. “You have a family that is well worth worrying about. If I seem to be meddling, it is because I kind of like your people, and want to see them happy. Just the same as you do. Don’t forget, now. Be sure Swanson is here.”

“But,” she said, still clinging to his arm to restrain him. “I hope you don’t think I would do anything that was unfair, just because Dick thinks so much of Sonia.”

He had to laugh. “No. The truth is, you’re leaning over backward so far in your efforts to be fair, that you’re putting her and all of you into a dangerous position. You ought to be spanked, you and Dick, both. Good night, Mrs. Halsell.”

He saw her smile for the first time this evening, and there was something so warm in it, despite her obvious worry, that it made him feel good, despite the bone weariness which consumed him.

“You are worried for fear that I’m going to call Dustin’s hand on that story he is telling about me. Forget it. He has just put two and two together and got twenty-two. I don’t pay any attention to that kind of talk. It’s a habit most everybody has.”

“Thanks,” she said, relieved. “If you’ll stay, I’ll get you some coffee and pie. You must be hungry.”

“I am, but I’m even more tired. If you’ll save that pie, I’ll run along and try to see what it is like to sleep. I’ve about forgotten how it’s done.”

Webster slept the sleep of exhaustion in his hotel room that night and, late the next morning, bathed, shaved and feeling refreshed, he had breakfast and then walked down to Faulkner’s Star Trading Company warehouse.

The mousy old clerk looked at him over his glasses, his jaw dropping as though he had seen a ghost.

“Tell Faulkner I want to see him,” Webster said.

“I’ll see if he is in,” the old man stammered, and turned toward the cubbyhole office at the rear of the building.

On a sudden hunch, Webster said, “Never mind. I’ll see, myself.”

He pushed past the clerk and went back and shoved the office door open. Faulkner looked up from the papers on his desk, and his deathmask of a face did not change expression. He laid his pencil down and leaned back in his chair, his dead-fish eyes not leaving Webster’s face. He did not speak, but sat waiting.

Webster found himself a chair and sat down.

“Well,” he said, “I didn’t make it. I lost your load, and I lost your passengers. Have you already heard about it?”

Faulkner did not answer the question, but countered with one of his own.

“What happened?”

“I was stuck up just before daylight in a cut on the far side of the pass. They killed a lead horse, got the drop on me, and took my gun. There was a little shooting that I couldn’t join in. I managed to get out of it. And when it was over, the two officers were dead, and I was hid in the bushes. When I went back to the wagon, the robbers were gone. I turned the horses loose, took one of them and tried to keep clear of the bandits and get back here with my head still on my shoulders. I milled around a little before I found my way back. And here I am. I guess I don’t collect for my trip.”

“You weren’t as good as you thought you were, were you?”

“It looks like that might be the case,” Webster admitted. “Still, a man can’t do a lot of fighting without a gun.”

“A man that loses his gun up there is mighty careless with his life.”

“I found that out,” Webster agreed. “At any rate. I at least came out alive, and there are those who haven’t done that.”

“That’s true. I don’t particularly like to lose a load of merchandise, and I certainly don’t like the idea of men being killed when they ride as passengers on my wagons. But more important to me, I don’t like my own men killed. Lives are more precious than merchandise.”

“Well, your merchandise is gone, and that’s that,” Webster said. “I made the deal that you didn’t pay me if I didn’t get through. I didn’t, and so you don’t owe me anything, and I suppose I haven’t got a job. Maybe I should have left Flint where he was.”

“No,” Faulkner said coldly. “Flint was a braggart and a bully. I don’t care to have such men in my employ, and I wouldn’t have had him if there had been anybody to take his place. You came along, and so he is gone.”

Faulkner spun his swivel chair around half a turn and twisted the dial of a black iron safe. He brought a small black box out of the safe and from it he counted ten pieces of gold, stacking them on his desk. Then he replaced the box and closed the safe, spinning the dial.

“There is your money,” he said. “You will hear it around that I am so stingy that I still have the first dollar I ever earned. That is not so. It happens that I do not dissipate, because of bad health, and I think it is foolish to gamble, but I pay well for honest, conscientious work. You did your part, even though you were unlucky. There is your money. Just stay around where I can find you, and I’ll send for you when I want you to drive another load.”

“Well,” Webster said in a voice of surprised pleasure. “You are a more generous man than I’d heard you were.”

“Stay with me and you will get your share of money,” the man answered. “I will send for you when I need you.”

Webster went out and moved idly about the street of the town, noting that since the river had gone down, more than half of the people he had first seen here were gone.

The camp wagons were missing from the vacant places near the wagon yard and the general store, and few of the people on the street wore the trailherder’s garb. Woodbine was settled down to a spell of quiet which would last perhaps until the next big trailherd came through and stopped off while its men hit the highspots and quenched their thirst for liquor and noise and fights before jumping off into the trip across the Territory in hopes of making the railhead in Kansas if they weren’t killed by renegades before they got there.

The faces he now saw were getting to be familiar to him, for these were folks who lived and worked hereabouts, and he had seen them frequently during the week he had waited around for the river to go down.

And they must have recognized him, too, for he began to notice that when he passed he would see their faces change expression. This puzzled him for a moment. Then he remembered the story that was circulating about him. These people had got to know him by sight and by reputation after his fight with Flint. Then they had heard the story of his supposed robbing and killing the officers. And now they were seeing him parading the street with as much abandon as if he hadn’t been a murdering highwayman whom anybody had a right and a duty to kill.

It began to strike him as amusing that these people would look at him in surprise, and then in confusion. With his notoriety because of the fight, they had begun nodding or speaking to him when he passed. Now, having got accustomed to speaking to him, and later having heard that he was a thief and a killer, they were embarrassed. They didn’t know whether to keep on talking to him or not; they didn’t want to be caught being friendly with a brazen robber whose hands were still bloody from killing a couple of peace officers, but because he was such a bad man, they were afraid to snub him.

Webster watched the confusion on their faces, and inwardly he was laughing at them, as he deliberately made it a point to speak pleasantly to them. And occasionally when one of them showed a little more than average embarrassment, he would deliberately stop the man and speak a couple of friendly words with him.

There was little enough amusement in Jim Webster’s life, and he had to get most of it out of laughing at the petty postures and pretenses of shallow men.

He went leisurely into the Red River saloon and found a place at the comfortably empty bar. Stoney set out a full bottle, remembering the brand he had drunk on that night. There was a gold toothed grin on his face as he pushed Webster’s coin back to him.

“See you’ve got that mirror replaced pretty quickly,” Webster said in a friendly tone.

“Yeah. I reckon I owe you the drinks for a while,” he grinned. “That busted mirror was an attraction that made money for me for a couple of days. Everybody was telling everybody else about the fight, and they all had to come down and have a few drinks and look at the broken mirror and the cuspidor. See it? I had it washed out and set up there like a prizefight trophy. Lot of fun you started around here, mister.”

“Glad to be able to break the monotony for the boys. Gets dull when people are packed around a camp with nothing to do but argue.”

“Reckon it ain’t been dull for you since, from what I hear.”

This was the hint that Webster had been fishing for. He had figured it all out. If he were silent about what had happened, people would believe Dustin’s yarn, and his own reticence would convict him in their minds. But if he handled it like he had handled it with Faulkner, if he just brushed over the truth, leaving out the most important part, he stood a chance to make friends here. The best thing was to talk frankly and openly—up to a point.

“Yeah, it has been a little rocky since I left,” he admitted, “I damned near got caught in a hailstorm.”

“Hail? It didn’t hail here.”

“It did over the mountain. There was a hail of 30-30 bullets flying around my head like hornets. I took to the tall grass without wasting more than an hour and a half.”

Stoney laughed. “I was just wondering how you made out. What actually happened? You hear this and that; everybody guessing; nobody knowing anything for sure.”

Webster repeated about what he told Faulkner, admitting his own part in ducking out after his gun had been lifted, and admitting that he had wandered around the mountains a while before he had found his way home.

“There are a lot of mountains to get lost in,” Stoney said sympathetically. “Me, I’d just as leave get lost in a desert. At least on a desert you can see which way the danger is coming from. Up there—” he shook his head from side to side. “Me, I don’t want no part of them woods. There’s booger behind every bush.”

They talked of this and that, and had a few drinks. Two others came in and had a couple of drinks. They looked queerly at Webster through the backbar mirror, and then turned away. Stoney got on the job as host, relaying Webster’s story. The men seemed to be weighing it, then they cautiously edged into the conversation. And gradually in this way, Webster had them in a friendly mood.

Cloyd Martin, to whom Dustin had introduced Jim the night he left town, came in, and after a couple of rounds, they got a poker game started. They played half an hour or so, then another man joined them, and a little later Emory Dustin came in.

Webster watched him out of the corner of his eye while Dustin drank at the bar and talked a while with Stoney. He saw Dustin’s eyes studying him through the backbar mirror for a while. Then Emory came over to the poker table and pulled out a chair.

He laid some bills and silver down on the table and asked for a hand. He looked up and said, “Howdy, Webster.”

Webster said, “Howdy,” and went on playing his hand of cards.

A quietness built up a little, and the men around, knowing why that was so, were embarrassed and nervous, and consequently didn’t talk, and this built the quiet and the tension up still more.

They played a few rounds, and Webster was thinking less about the tension than he was about a scheme that was forming in his mind. These men at the table all knew the story that Dustin had told about him. Dustin had taken a few facts and formed them into a case against Webster, on the strength of which he had branded Jim a thief.

Why had he done this? Webster wondered about it, though he thought he knew the answer. But the answer to that was not the important thing in his mind now. The men at the table were prepared to see—no doubt expected to see—Webster call Dustin’s hand. But Webster had no desire to do it. He wanted to use the incident for an entirely different purpose.

He deliberately let the suspense develop. He watched it, and by his silence and by his tense, alert attitude, he deliberately cultivated it. He knew that Dustin sensed it, too, for Dustin did not tighten up like the rest of them, but became more playful, more casual and carefree in his talk and his playing. Dustin was trying to cover up his own growing uncertainty of what Jim had in mind.

Webster let it ride that way for half an hour, while he deliberately increased the stakes in the game until they were playing for big money. Webster played carefully, watching his chances to hook Dustin, almost carelessly passing up his chances to win from any of the others. It became so apparent that it was itself a silent taunt. The other men noticed, and Dustin himself could hardly keep from realizing that every time he made a bet Webster rode him to the limit, taunting him in a casual friendly voice that both men knew was merely a mask for a deliberate and serious attack.

Webster now had most of Dustin’s stack of money in front of him. He had been reading Dustin’s face, and he had seen the hunger there. Dustin had the gambling fever; he did not play coldly and mathematically, but was driven by a greed to win. He played to feed his egotism, and now added to that was his urge to beat the man whom he knew was silently taunting him by focusing his bets against him.

When Webster saw that Dustin’s nerves were keyed up as high as it was safe for him to go, he changed his tactics suddenly. He said softly to Dustin. “You shouldn’t have done that, Dustin.”

“Done what?” Dustin’s question was almost explosive.

“Said what you did about me.”

Dustin eyed him with suspicious sharpness. “Listen, friend. I didn’t do any more than anybody else did. Everybody watched you and so when that business happened, they figured that you had been making a play. All right; we were wrong. I was wrong, like the rest of them. That suit you?”

“Sure. I know how it was. Still, I can’t get over one thing. I’ve always heard that a man who talked about another man behind his back was a coward. But somehow you don’t strike me as being a coward. I don’t understand it.”

“I told you, didn’t I?” Dustin’s voice was a few notes higher than it had been before. “I told you I was wrong. What do you want to do, work me over like you did Flint?”

“No. Did you expect me to do that?”

“Well, you weigh half again as much as I do. I thought you might intend to try it.”

“And what would you do if I did?”

“Look, Webster,” Dustin said. “If I haven’t said enough to satisfy you, then crawl my frame. I’m not afraid of you if that’s what you’re trying to find out. And I’ll be fair with you; I haven’t the slightest intention of letting you mop up any barroom floor with me. If you’re not satisfied with less than a fight, then we’ll step outside and let you try your luck with bullets. Say the word and I’ll call you quicker than hell can scorch a feather.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Webster said soothingly. “But that wasn’t what I had in mind, either. Like I say, I figured that you had plenty of nerve.”

“I’ve got enough to protect myself with.”

“Yeah. I know. But you know it’s a funny thing. This business of getting sore at each other and blasting away with guns. It ain’t smart. Let me tell you something. I’ve got a friend who got shanghaied on a boat down on the Barbary Coast in San Francisco. This boat took him to China, and there he killed the mate who wouldn’t let him go ashore, and escaped. He hung out in China quite a while, got mixed up with some of them bandit chiefs or whatever they call them, and fought in some of them rice wars. Got around and saw a lot before he got back to his home range. “Quite an experience for a cowpoke. Well, you know how them bandit chiefs fought a lot of their battles?”

“No, I haven’t been what you would call a close student of Chinese bandit warfare.”

“You should study it. It makes sense. Take these two bandit armies facing each other now. Instead of going out and blasting each other’s guts out, they used sense. These two opposing generals would meet somewhere on the battlefield in a tent, and have a lot of tea and liquor and eating stuff brought in. Then they’d bring out their maps of the battlefield, and they’d lay the maps on the table, and they’d start their battle. The first general, he’d say, well your men are here at this spot on the map. So, I’d naturally put my men here on this hill overlooking you, and I’d do so and so. Then the other general would say, yeah, but that was a trap I had for you. When you did that, I’d do this, that or the other. Well, they’d go on like that, fighting their war there on the maps like a couple of men playing chess, and finally one of them would get the other one cornered, and the other one couldn’t think up a way to get out of the trap. So he lost the war. They’d have their drinks, and the losing general would get out of the country, and everybody would go home, and the winning general was in command of the situation. And nobody got hurt. Now ain’t that a more sensible way for a couple of men to settle a difference?”

“That is very interesting,” Dustin said. “But what are you getting at? We are a long way from China.”

“Oh, nothing. I reckon it took some courage for the losing general to admit he was licked and walk out without firing a shot. Anyway, I kind of like that way of fighting. That’s why I was just experimenting. I was trying to see how long you was going to keep on playing head-on poker with me.”

Dustin looked at Webster suspiciously. Webster dealt the cards and kept on with the game. And now the men around the table knew that Webster had dared Dustin to keep on playing against him. Webster’s taunt had became an open challenge.

The game went on now with most of the rest of the men dropping out at the first sign that Webster was after Dustin on a hand. Webster and Dustin played head-on most of the hands, Webster playing coldly and methodically, taunting Dustin with soft jibes at which Dustin could not openly take offense, but which were making him boil inside. Dustin was keeping a smiling, indifferent face, but he was pink around the ears, and frequently the anger and cupidity showed in a fleeting look in his eyes.

Webster methodically took his money, mercilessly made him dig more and more out of his pockets. The saloon was gradually filling up, and customers had their drinks and came and stood behind the table, so that now they were three or four deep in a big circle around the players. The house was tense; word spread all over town, and the crowd grew in the saloon.

The crowd and Webster’s soft nagging remarks had Dustin in a position where he could not drop out. Finally he used up all his silver and his bills, and he was in the middle of a big pot.

He looked at his hole card after Webster had made a hundred-dollar bet on an exposed deuce, and then he unbuttoned his shirt, and then unbuttoned the flap on a chamois money belt around his waist and brought out a handful of gold pieces.

He threw five twenty-dollar pieces into the pot, calling Webster’s bet, and lost the hand to Webster’s flush. Now he brought out a big stack of gold, and tried to win by forcing the bets higher and higher. Webster dropped out except when he had the percentage, never once succumbing to the temptation to plunge.

It took him half an hour to take the thousand dollars in gold which Dustin had dug out of the belt, and now Dustin was out of cash. He got up from the table.

“That’s all I’ve got with me,” he said with a strained smile. “You won it, and before you try to make something out of it, you won it fair, so far as I know. And I’m no more afraid of your poker playing then I am of your fists and your guns. I’ll be back looking for you, and loaded next time.”

Webster gathered up his winnings. “I’ll be waiting. Beats doing it with guns, don’t it?” he grinned. Then shouting to Stoney. “See what the boys want. I’m buying.”

He had won more than money in this game.

CHAPTER X

Report of Progress

It was dark now, and Webster was again in Mrs. Halsell’s living room. Swanson was there with Asa Cromwell, an elderly, erect lawyer who wore small glasses and an air of reserved suspicion, as though he assumed that the world was guilty until proved innocent. Swanson himself was more reserved than usual, and seemed to lack the friendliness he had displayed toward Webster at their first meeting.

Except for Mrs. Halsell’s renewed display of cordiality, Webster had the feeling that he was on trial.

After the introductions, Swanson, who was seated in the easy chair in the corner that seemed to be reserved for him, spoke to Webster about the matter that must have been uppermost in his mind.

“I don’t know exactly how to say this, Webster,” he began hesitantly, “but Mrs. Halsell was telling me that you were somewhat concerned by the company that my daughter keeps. I haven’t found any objections to her friends, and—”

Webster interrupted him quickly. “I understand what you mean. I have told Mrs. Halsell that I would say no more about the matter. I suppose it could be called meddling, though I meant well. At any rate, I apologize to you. I won’t intrude on your private affairs again.”

“I don’t think that I’m a particularly bad judge of people,” Swanson continued, as though he could not relinquish his pique at Webster, “and it is my opinion that Emory is a particularly smart and up-and-coming young man. Mr. Cromwell gets the same impression.”

“I’ve apologized,” Webster said. “Are you ready to proceed with my report?”

“Yes,” Swanson answered. “What have you learned?”

“Let me put it this way,” Webster returned. He opened his wallet and extracted two pages torn from a small notebook, and laid them on the round table in the center of the room. “It happens that since coming here, I’ve been deputized both by an Indian Territory Marshal and a Texas Ranger. Both those men are now dead, as I will explain, but I consider it my duty to transmit a record of the case I was working on with them to their superiors. Since I expect to take a step in which there is some risk of my not succeeding, I want to make an affidavit of the things that have happened so far. That is why I asked you to bring a lawyer, and pens and paper. If Mr. Cromwell and Mrs. Halsell will each take down my deposition in writing, it will serve as my report to date to both the Rangers and the Marshal’s office, and at the same time you will hear it and it will be my report to you. Is that satisfactory?”

“I see nothing wrong with it. But how does it come that you were deputized—”

“That will come out in its proper place in the deposition. There is one point on which I will have to obtain a promise from both of you. This matter is not closed, and any leak in the information I have to report would wreck the whole case. I have to ask all three of you to give me your words that you will not act on, or discuss, anything I have to say until such time as I release you from that promise. Is that agreeable?”

Cromwell cleared his throat and looked at Webster over his iron-rimmed glasses. “As I understand it, your recent—shall we say—adventure involved a robbery and two murders. Now if you give us the facts about the robbery and the murders, and we do not take them to the authorities, that would put us in the position of withholding information about a crime. A crime must be reported to the proper authorities—”

“Yes, sir,” Webster answered, impatient at the man’s hairsplitting. Pointing to the papers on the table, he said, “There is my authority. I am for the time being an officer of the law, so you have no responsibility on that score. I am also working on this case, and it is not necessary for an officer to reveal his findings until he has completed them. If he had to publish everything he found out the minute he learned it, the crooks would be warned. No officer would ever catch a crook. Isn’t that true?”

Cromwell gave this matter some thought and then agreed.

“The next thing, I want one copy of this deposition placed in safe keeping in a lock box in your local bank while I am gone. Will you do that, Mr. Cromwell?”

“Yes.”

“And I have certain evidence. Mrs. Halsell has perhaps already shown you the rifles and the shells that were tampered with?”

“Yes, she has,” Swanson said. “It is hard to believe. But, there are the shells to prove your statements.”

“And the guns,” Webster reminded him. “There’s a code number on the bottom of the barrel, hidden by the wooden forearm. You can take the barrel off the stock and read numbers that will eventually lead you to the man who sold them. All right, then. Are we ready to begin?”

Mrs. Halsell and the lawyer sat at the round table in the center of the room. She adjusted the Aladdin kerosene lamp so that it shone down on their two stacks of paper.

“You may begin,” the lawyer said stiffly.

Webster named the date, then started his dictating: “I, James M. Webster, do hereby solemnly swear and affirm that the ensuing statements are true and correct, and are made upon my own voluntary act and deed.…”

He then started recounting his movements from the time he had recognized Ben Clanton in the stage station at Fort Worth. He covered the fact that he had not spoken to the two officers until after he had by design managed to get the job of driving Faulkner’s team. He then recounted the talks between himself and Clanton and Nix.

“We discussed our purposes,” Webster continued, “and reached the conclusion that since our objectives were likely to coincide, we should at least be prepared to help one another. Knowing the risk they were taking in their expectation of being robbed and then following the robbers, they each deputized me, thus enabling me to act as an officer if needed either on the Texas or Territory side of the river.

“They advised me that they had cautioned J.B. Faulkner to particular secrecy and, further, that they had bought rifles and a box of ammunition from him, not wishing to be conspicuous by having brought their own rifles. These rifles and the shells sold the officers by J.B. Faulkner are in the custody of Eric Swanson.

“They further advised me that the money which they expected to have stolen had been originally supplied by the Marshal’s office, and consisted of twenty-dollar gold pieces which had been marked in the following manner.

“The gold pieces, commonly known as Double-eagles, bear the imprint of a woman holding a torch and a branch of some kind.”

Here, Webster took a Double-eagle out of his pocket and examined it.

“Surrounding the woman,” he continued, looking at the coin, “and near the edge of the coin, there is a row of very small stars. Near the woman’s feet, to the right, as you look at the coin, is the date the coin was issued. The Marshal’s office had mutilated one of the stars on each coin by carefully cutting off the top one of the five points of the star representing the final number in the year stamped on the coin. That is to say, if the year number ended in seven, as in 1877, then counting from the first star at the beginning of the row on the left, you would count seven stars, and find that the point of the seventh star had been cut off. Or if the date were 1873, then the point of the third star would be missing, and so on.

“Thus the ten thousand dollars which they carried was composed of five hundred coins so marked. This would make it easy for banks to identify this stolen money, and could lead eventually to tracking it back to the people who stole it.

“This money was stolen in the robbery which took place as follows.…”

Webster then described the robbery and his actions at the time the peace officers were killed.

“While the robbers were at work looting the wagon,” he continued, “I moved cautiously through the darkness and found their horses which they had hidden somewhat off the trail. Among those horses was a bay-and-white paint horse having a bay left foreleg and a bay right hind leg, the other legs being white. The man directing the robbery kept in concealment but, in giving his orders, he used an expression that I had heard a man use before, and have since heard the same man use. His order was, ‘Come out of that wagon or we’ll kill you quicker than hell can scorch a feather.’”

Swanson jumped to his feet. “That won’t do,” he said angrily. “You are deliberately pointing a finger of suspicion at Emory Dustin. I’ve already told you that I have full confidence in that young man. You admit that you didn’t see the robber, and yet you are trying to throw suspicion on an innocent person. You can’t put that in there at all. Not at all.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Swanson,” Webster said. “But you are wrong. I am not pointing suspicion at anybody. I am making a statement of facts, and I am making it for the Texas Rangers and for the office of the United States Marshal. Remember, I am their deputy, and this is an official report. I have to put that in whether you like it or not.”

Swanson paced the length of the room and back, his hands behind him, then he sat down in his chair, either angrily or under the stress of some other emotion. When it was apparent that he was not going to continue his objections, Webster went on.

He related the steps he had taken in burying the officers and following the bandits. Then after he had described the hidden valley and the cattle wearing Swanson’s and other brands, and his escape from the place, he produced two pieces of paper with rough sketches on them.

“I want you to attach one of these sketches to my deposition. It will show the location of the hidden valley, in case I won’t be here to lead others to it.”

“Why won’t you be here?” Swanson asked suspiciously. “Are you running out on us?”

“First you think I’m a thief that has already run out on you. Now you’re becoming angry because you think I might run out on you. Which way do you want me to feel that you think?”

“Then why won’t you be here?”

“I might run into a bullet before I’m through,” Webster said matter-of-factly. “Clanton and Nix did. Now, shall we go on?”

They got settled to writing as he again started, dictating the facts of his return and report to Faulkner, and of his later playing a game of poker with Emory Dustin.

“J.B. Faulkner paid me two hundred dollars in gold for the trip,” he dictated.

He laid a few of the twenty-dollar gold pieces on the table. “The Double-eagles which he paid me had the markings on them which are described above.

“I later got into a poker game with one Emory Dustin and, forcing him into playing for high stakes, won all his money, which had the missing stars mentioned above.”

There was a long, oppressive silence when Webster had finished, while the full realization of the meaning of his statements took time to sink into the consciousness of those present. Webster broke it by asking Mrs. Halsell for the guns and shells he had left with her.

She went silently and got them and laid them on the table in the center of the room. Webster took his pocket knife and unscrewed the stock from the barrel of each rifle, and they copied down the numbers from the underside of the barrels, and when they had done this, they also entered the stock number from the shell box.

Webster took a paper bag out of his pocket, and laid it on the table. “That contains the thousand dollars in marked gold that I won from Dustin, except for a couple of the coins I am keeping. It is the property of the Marshal’s office.” He laid another stack of coins beside it. “This is the money Faulkner paid me with,” he said. “It also belongs to the government.”

Then he turned to Swanson, “I’ve already had your promise to keep these things safely for me in a lock box in the bank. All except the rifles, of course, which won’t go in the box. You can hide them wherever you think they will be safe.”

The old lawyer had been lost in a brooding silence for a long while, and now he spoke. “I’m afraid that we cannot keep this secret. It is our duty to turn this evidence over to the proper authorities.”

Webster’s voice was harsh. “I’ve explained things to you, that I am the proper authority. I got your promise to cooperate. And I can promise you that you’re not going to come close to turning that stuff over to anyone. If your words were no good, then I will take my evidence and make other arrangements. I’m still an officer of the law, working on a case.”

Swanson was sitting slumped in his chair, his face hidden by one hand over his forehead. Webster saw the deep lines around the man’s mouth, and felt sorry for him.

Swanson said, as though he were fighting a battle with himself, “that is not proof that it was Dustin. There could be other paint horses that would fit the description. You did not see the man. You only heard his voice, and heard him use an expression that Dustin happens to use. Anybody could have used that expression. You can’t convict a man without giving him a fair trial. You’ve got to see him do something.”

“You’re right,” Webster admitted. “I haven’t seen Dustin do a thing. You don’t have to believe a thing about him: maybe I couldn’t prove a thing I say. It is only my word against his. But you owe it to yourself to suspend your own judgment in his favor just as I have to suspend judgment against him. It won’t be for long.”

“Why? How could you ever reach a final decision about him?”

“I will have a final decision pretty soon,” Webster assured him. “That is why I want to leave this stuff with you. I might have some trouble getting it.”

“How are you going to prove your suspicions?”

“I am going to join that holdup gang.”

There was another long silence. Again Webster deliberately broke it up. “Mr. Cromwell, have you decided yet whether you will go on with your bargain to protect my evidence for me, or must I make other arrangements?”

“I don’t know just what to do.”

“You are not a free agent,” Webster said shortly. “You were brought here at my request by Mr. Swanson. You are his agent, and here on his business. If you can’t transact his business for him the way he wants it done, he should know that. If you propose to take matters in your own hands and interfere with the duties of an officer of the law, you should say so.”

He turned to Swanson. “What do you want your lawyer to do in your behalf, cooperate with me, or have me take my evidence and take care of my own business?”

Swanson squared his shoulders and stood up. There were tight lines in his face, but his jaw had suddenly become square, his lips tight.

“I have been trying all the while to figure out how you could tell a story like you have just told us, and expect us to eventually act on it if it weren’t true. If I could see any way in the world that you would profit by such a yarn, or see how you could tell it and back it up if it weren’t true, then I wouldn’t believe a word of it. It is against my feelings to believe it but, Webster, I have no other choice. I hate to do it, but I have to believe you. And so, of course, I will cooperate with you.”

“Whatever you say, Eric,” Cromwell echoed. “You can assume that I will hold this in confidence, Webster, though it goes against the grain.”

Webster nodded ironically. “Thank you very much.”

Swanson came halfway across the room. “Webster, in the light of these facts, I owe you an apology. You can understand what my personal feelings were in the matter. It might have been that it was the dread of what this news will do to my daughter that made me find it hard to believe. I don’t have to tell you, that now that you have convinced me, you have shown me that you were entirely justified in doing what you could to see that an innocent girl did not come to harm. So, I’d like to offer you my apology, and my thanks.”

Swanson offered his hand and Webster shook hands with him. He felt relieved to know that he had succeeded in showing Eric Swanson the light about Dustin, but he felt a touch of sadness when he realized that the girl would not be able to escape the pain of the disillusionment that had to come. If he could have spared her that, he would have done so.

“Webster,” Swanson said, showing signs of new life and determination. “We’ve got to do something about this. Whatever you have in mind, just let me know and I will get busy on it. What are your plans?”

Webster took one of the two sketch maps he had made. Taking a pencil, he made a small cross on it near the hidden valley.

“As I said, I’m going to join that gang, if possible. In any event, I’m going to have to be out there to build up my case. I’d like you to lend me Dick Hammond for a while.”

“I thought it was agreed that we weren’t to be known as cooperating with each other.”

“We won’t be. This is what I want Dick to do. First, tell him to quit shaving. Let his beard grow, and get into the oldest clothes he can find. Hermit, eccentric kind of stuff. The beard and old clothes will help keep him from being recognized, if there’s any danger of that, which I doubt.

“Let him take a packmule and some grub, and work his way to that spot on the map. He’ll find an old abandoned shack there, which he will know by an old axe blade which must have been stuck into the pine tree in front of the door twenty years ago. It is half grown over.

“The shack is off the trail, and beside a stream. He’ll get bored waiting for me, so he’d better take a couple of fishhooks and lines along to kill time with. Tell him to go there and just wait. My idea is that I might have to get in touch with you at some time or another when I can’t make the trip myself. But that shack is close to the mouth of that hidden valley, and I can make my way down to it and give him a message for you, and get back to the valley, if that is called for. Anyway, I’d like you to have him there.”

“He’ll be there.”

“And have you started getting in touch with neighbors you can trust? In case I need you and a group of your friends in a hurry, I’d like to know that you’ve already made arrangements to round them up and come a-running.”

“I’ve talked guardedly to a couple of them,” Swanson reported. “Practically everybody around here is ready to do his part in breaking this thing up.”

“Good enough. That’s all for me here now, I believe.”

“Tell me,” the lawyer asked in his squeaky and reserved voice. “Just how are you going to manage to work your way into that gang? If you created all the havoc you did when you visited them before, I should think that they would not welcome you with open arms.”

“I’m sure they won’t,” Webster laughed. “But I’m equally sure that I’m not going to let a little thing like that stop me.”

“Then how would you start working your way into such a gang? The question is merely academic, of course. I’m not thinking of working my way into any such group.”

“Well, now,” Webster said. “Through long experience, I have found that there is an art in doing that, just as there is an art in working your way into anything else, such as a safe, or an exclusive club. My own art has been perfected and refined on the theory that all men have respect for their own professions. You as a lawyer, sir, I should venture to guess, have certain respect for noted judges. Is that right?”

“That is correct. I quite naturally respect the professional competence of a man who has achieved such an honor as a judgeship.”

“That is my point,” Webster answered gravely. “I daresay you would welcome the company of a man so eminent in your own profession?”

“Why naturally. We would have much in common.”

“You have made my point for me, sir. I should imagine that even skunks look up to their more proficient brothers. You see, I intend to become associated with thieves and crooks. I naturally expect to gain their respect by proving to them that I am a better crook, and a more cold-blooded thief than they are. Simple, don’t you think?”

The lawyer coughed, suspecting that he had been ribbed. But being a man devoid of a sense of humor, he did not see nor interpret Mrs. Halsell’s sudden exit to the kitchen with her shoulders shaking and her apron up to her mouth.

CHAPTER XI

Webster Makes A Deal

It was the middle of the following afternoon before Webster, waiting in the Red River Bar, saw Emory Dustin ride up on his bay-and-white paint gelding and come in. Webster joined him at the bar, and they had a couple of drinks.

“How about giving me a chance to get my money back?” Dustin asked. “I’ve got plenty of ammunition this time.” He rattled a handful of gold pieces in his pocket.

“I’ll give you a chance to make some real money,” Webster answered meaningfully.

Dustin looked at him sharply over his glass. “What kind of money?”

“Real money. The kind that you have to carry in a wheelbarrow.”

Dustin laughed. “That doesn’t sound so good. It sounds like it might be tainted money.”

“’Tis tainted. ’Taint yours and ’taint mine, but ’taint hard to get.”

Dustin laughed and shook his head. “Nope. I’m just a hard working young fellow that’s trying to get along. My neck somehow never feels comfortable when it is confined. I never even button my collar. I wouldn’t be at ease at all with a hangnoose around my neck. You’d better include me out.”

“Well, it’s not that bad,” Webster assured him. “It’s just that a fellow ought to take advantage of opportunity when it comes his way. An up-and-coming young man like you should jump at the chance to turn a couple of honest dollars in cows.”

“Honest dollars, yes. Tainted dollars, no.”

“How’d you like to go into business for yourself, in partnership with me?” Webster persisted gently. “Half interest in a big business?”

Dustin arched his brows. “You’ve got a big business?”

“I can put my hands on one, and it would be yours and mine. No other partners. Big business, too. Lots of angles to it.”

“Where is this business?”

“Up in the Territory mostly.”

“Whose is it?”

“Faulkner’s.”

“No. I never did like that man, and I don’t want any business dealings with him.”

“I think,” Webster said, “that I can show you a new angle on that. It might make you change your mind. Come over here to the booth while I show you something.”

“I’m telling you, I’m not interested. Nothing shady, and nothing that has anything to do with Faulkner.”

“Wait till you see this,” Webster went on, ignoring Dustin’s refusal.

He took the bottle and glasses and walked over to the booth at the wall across from the bar, and sat down. Dustin was right along with him.

He poured two drinks, shoved Dustin’s over to him, then took his copy of the deposition out of his pocket and, opening it, spread it in front of Dustin.

“Read it, Dustin, and you’ll see what I mean.”

Dustin downed his drink and began reading, while Webster rolled a cigarette and watched his face. Dustin’s eyes sharpened and he licked his lips as he read into the long statement. Then the breath was whistling through his nose, his nostrils were expanding and contracting sharply, and the hand on his whiskey glass was white over the knuckles.

Webster sat silent before him, watching the play of emotion on his face as he read through the document that could hang him.

When Dustin had gone through the paper, he started rubbing his chin constantly with one hand while his eyes wandered back and forth along the floor, never coming up to meet Webster’s.

Webster spoke gently to him. “Take a look at some of those gold pieces you were rattling in your pocket a while ago.”

Almost in a daze, it seemed, Dustin extracted one of the coins from his pocket and dropped it on the table before him as though it were contaminated. He turned it around gingerly with the point of his finger until the figure of the woman on it was right side up to him so that he could read the date on it.

Then he stared long at the coin, fascinated, like a bird returning the hypnotic gaze of the snake that would swallow it.

Webster said, “The Federal Government takes a rather critical attitude toward people who steal its money and kill its officers. I hear that that judge over in Fort Smith always sentences all prisoners to death because he gets fifty dollars extra for doing his own hanging. As to the Texas Rangers, well, they are not any too fond of the boys who kill off their men.”

Dustin’s face went white except for pink spots over his cheek bones. Still he did not look up at Webster, but kept his eyes on the floor.

“One other thought,” Webster continued in the purring voice he had adopted. “I’ll take this paper back, if you’re through reading it.”

He folded the deposition and returned it to his pocket. “What I was going to say,” he continued, “was this! I imagine that if I had a proposition like that put to me, the first thing I would do would be to start figuring how I could get the other guy out somewhere and kill him and get hold of that paper and destroy it. You couldn’t blame a fellow for that, of course. So I’m not holding it against you. I want to be friends. But I reckon I ought to tell you this, so you won’t be acting without having full information on which to make your decisions. This is a duplicate. The other copy, along with the guns and ammunition, and the officers’ badges, and the like, have been turned over to other parties for safekeeping. I am a man who likes to provide for his own safety. I’m always looking ahead, so I made the necessary arrangements so that if I didn’t check in with the parties who are holding the other copy and the various things, they were to mail all those things to the U. S. Marshal’s office up in the Territory. Just a precaution, you understand, so there would be others helping look after my welfare. As you see, that little piece of forethought makes it mighty important to you and Faulkner to see that I stay alive. Not a bad idea, don’t you think?”

Dustin’s hands were clenched into fists on the table when he looked up, and his face was strained with an expression Webster could not read completely.

“Just who the hell are you, and what are you trying to get at?” Dustin’s voice was inclined to rise to a high pitch.

Webster made a quieting gesture with his hand. “Just like I told you, I’m a man who likes to make a few dollars when he sees the chance. There’s a chance here. A good one. I thought you might like to come in on it.”

“What’s the trick? Are you a Ranger trying to make me admit something? Or a Federal Marshal out of your bailiwick?”

“Neither one! I came here on my own. I just bumped into that Faulkner business by accident. But now that I’m in it, I’m going to make it pay off.”

“How?”

“How?” Webster repeated. “Man, haven’t you got any imagination at all? Or ambition? What’s the sense in cutting Faulkner in on a big slice of this? That’s a perfect setup, and if we do the work, we ought to get the big share. Just you and me, say.”

“And what about Faulkner?”

“You mean you can’t handle him?”

“I haven’t even admitted that I know him. I don’t admit a thing that you’ve got written down there.”

“Of course not. But here’s a thing that I know about you that you don’t realize that I know. You like a dollar as well as the next man. I know Faulkner well enough to feel that he’s not giving you any too big a cut in this deal. Maybe out of that ten thousand, he took half, and gave you another half. And out of your half, you took probably a couple of thousand, and split the rest with the boys out there in the valley.”

“I wouldn’t know what valley you are talking about.”

“Have it your way,” Webster said patiently. “In that case, I’ll have to go to Faulkner by myself. And if I do that, I take over the whole layout. I don’t play penny-ante. I’m out for something worth while. You can come along and take a share in it. Or if you don’t, then I’ll throw you to the wolves. That thousand dollars in gold I won off you last night will hang you higher than a kite, and the judge will get an extra fifty of it for doing the job. That’ll get you out of my way.”

“Maybe you’ll do that. Maybe you won’t.”

“Maybe you’ll kill me, and have the duplicate of that paper mailed to the Federal Government?” Webster mocked gently. “You’re not that dumb, Dustin. Now, do you want to go and talk to Faulkner with me—or do I go and talk to him myself, and for myself?”

“Suppose I just sit and watch you do it. Then I’ve got you where the hair is short, just like you think you’ve got me now.”

“Sure,” Webster agreed. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. And when I know a man has got me where the hair is short, I’ve got to get him out of my hair before he can do me any damage. Haven’t I? Just like you were thinking about doing to me. See how it goes?”

Dustin eyed Webster with frank amazement. “You’re a coldblooded skunk, ain’t you?”

“Tell me, Dustin, how far would I go if I weren’t? Where could I get moving in on Faulkner if I couldn’t beat him at his own game?”

Dustin did not answer that. He poured another drink and tossed it down with a trembling hand.

After he had thought a while, he asked, “What’s your idea?”

“I’ve got a million of them. You’ll hear them when you and I have that little talk with Faulkner. We can use him in our business for a while. Let him go on thinking he is running the show. When we get all we want out of him, we’ll throw him to the dogs. No use in carrying excess baggage. Travel light and you travel faster. Right?”

Dustin shook his head in silent amazement.

“Suppose I don’t go along with you on this?”

“You will! You’d rather live and get a slice of it than to be outside—with those officers. I’m not worried about you running around footloose and tongue free, and knowing what you know about the setup I’ll be running.”

“You’ll be running?”

“I’ll be running. Don’t fool yourself, Dustin.”

Dustin studied his glass, his mind’s working showing on his face. Then he got his features composed, and managed a smile in which there was a spark of triumph which he could not entirely conceal.

“Nope, Webster. I don’t think I’ll buy in on your deal. Just forget it.”

“Suit yourself,” Webster shrugged. “But remember what you were telling me about that tender neck of yours.”

“I’m not worried about my neck. You see, you didn’t hide the fish hook deep enough. You’re not thinking of turning me over to the law, because you were involved in that robbery as deep as I was. You’ve got part of that gold now. Try and tell a jury that you won it from me in a poker game. The jury would laugh your neck into a noose if you told a yarn like that. You pulled that little fandango with Flint just to get your own chance to rob that wagon. You were the boy who engineered that deal, and everybody in town saw you do it. No, Webster, you play a pretty good game of poker; that was a very good bluff, but I’m calling it and raising you. In fact, I’m telling you to get out of town. Now! In a hurry! Because, if you don’t, I’m going to take you and turn you over to the law for that robbery. Personally, I don’t know a thing about it except what I’ve heard from you. All right, you can go now. And better luck next time.”

Webster shrugged and got to his feet. “All right,” he said. “If that’s the way you want it, I’ll go.”

“You’d better.”

“There’s just one detail to be covered first,” Webster added in what appeared to be an afterthought. “You see, just like the paper says, I was a deputized officer at the time of the robbery, and was along with the other two officers guarding the gold. I’m still a deputized officer, if my memory serves me right. So, I’m going, just as you suggest. But I’m arresting you for murder and robbery, and taking you along with me. And let me warn you, if you resist arrest, I’ll have to use whatever means I find necessary to take you—dead or alive. What’ll it be? Make up your mind. I’m in a hurry, like you told me to be.”

Having stood up, he was standing over Dustin, and his right hand was on his gun. Dustin sat with his whiskey glass in his right hand, and he had too much sense to even consider moving that hand down in an effort to get to his weapon.

Dustin’s face turned a little gray, and the triumph faded out of him, leaving him petulant.

“First you’re going to take over this business, and forget that you’re a marshal. Next, you remember that you’re a deputy, and you get filled with a righteous sense of duty and are going to cart me off to the calaboose. Why don’t you make up your mind? Can’t you remember whether you are a crook or a peace officer?”

Webster smiled at him. “Dustin, a man in my business has to learn to control his memory, so he can remember the right things at the right time. You are coming along with me to Faulkner, or you are going to be taken out of here feet first for resisting arrest. It makes no difference to me whether I have to shoot you here or farther up the road. If I have to do it sooner or later, I might just as well do it now and get it over, while I’ve got this fresh robbery case against you.”

“You haven’t got a case against me.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about in a court of law. I’m getting a little tired of all this jawing. Are you coming with me or do you want to find out what I’ll do?”

Dustin got up reluctantly and went with Webster to the bar to pay his bill.

“Where you fellows going?” Stoney grinned. “Fishing? You had your heads together there like you was framing up to catch every catfish in the country.”

“Yeah,” Webster answered, picking up his change. “We’re going to catch the big speckled fish.”

As they walked toward Faulkner’s warehouse, they passed Dick Hammond driving Sonia Swanson into town in a buck-board. Sonia waved at Dustin, and spoke a word to Dick. Hammond stopped the team and Dustin went out to the buggy and had a few words with her. Hammond kept his eyes to the front, and Webster waited on the sidewalk, not having been recognized nor spoken to by either one of them.

As Webster stood waiting for Dustin, he studied the boy and the girl in the buggy. They were a finely matched pair, and their interests already lay close together. He compared the clean and frank young Hammond with Dustin, who was talking to the girl, and to whom she had given her trust, and one of the spells of bitterness which often afflicted him came upon him. Reflecting on the injustices which, with so little reason, seemed to descend upon people he reached the dead-end which he always reached. He never could understand the unfairness of it, and the thought angered him. He kicked a stone out into the gutter, and rolled a cigarette with taut fingers.

These little scenes in which he saw the seeds of unhappiness so unfairly planted always took him back to his own youth. His father and mother who had worked hard to build a home for themselves, and for him and his younger sister, had suddenly been caught between the millstones of two land-hungry ranchers. Unimportant as he was, and alone, Webster’s father had not had a chance. He had merely been a small obstacle brushed aside by the first of the two men who rolled over his place. He had tried to protect himself, and had been killed, just in passing, just an incidental casualty in the big war. But when it was over, and the one man had control of all the land, and there was peace there, the tragic effect continued to pile up, and the man who had caused it did not even know about it—or care.

Webster’s mother, toilworn and sick, and with two young children to support, did not last long. She died of overwork and starvation, and that was a result of the greed of two men who never heard of her, and would not have been interested. His sister had taken a job as a domestic in a house in town, and that had destroyed the pride of a free person. She had tried to escape from her menial position; she fell in love with a good-looking young gambler with black wavy hair and she went away with him.

Webster did not know where she was, but he knew that somewhere she was still paying dearly for something that had happened which had not concerned her at all.

It was this seemingly meaningless injustice and others like it, which embittered him at times. And at other times, because he had no blood ties of his own, it drove him to have a sentimental interest in the relationships of other people, as though someway, by taking an interest in them, he were creating a family of his own which he could cherish and protect.

That was the way he had felt about Sonia Swanson and Dick Hammond, the way he felt about them now. And watching Dustin, he had a strong urge to take that warped young creature and stamp him into the earth. It was people like him—and like Faulkner—who cost the innocent and decent folks so much in anguish and in the fruits of their toil.

It was this thought that hardened him against the Faulkners and the Dustins, which made it possible for him to deal with them with the same merciless cruelty that they inflicted on their victims.

He did it with a cold and calculated intensity, and it was the fact that he must wait and rip this whole sore out of this country that kept him from stepping out to the buggy and straightening out Sonia Swanson’s ideas about Dustin at this moment.

Webster had a long and treacherous road ahead of him before he could bring about the showdown. A tall man with sadness touching his rugged face, he forced the feeling of loneliness out of his consciousness by concentrating on his hatred of the kind of men he had to fight.

CHAPTER XII

Business Arrangement

A few minutes later Webster and Dustin walked into Faulkner’s warehouse and started toward the office. The mousy old clerk stepped in front of them and gave them a timid smile.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Faulkner is busy right now.”

Webster shoved the man aside roughly. “Is he, for a fact?” he said, and continued on toward the office without breaking his stride. He pushed the door open and Dustin followed him in and closed the door behind him.

Faulkner sat behind his desk and looked up at them with no change of expression on his dead-man’s face. Webster looked on past him and saw Ike Flint standing at the window.

He could almost see Flint roach up his fur like an angry cat. He gave the whiskered man a brief smile and then turned back to Faulkner.

“I’ve got something to talk over with you,” he said. Then he looked significantly at Flint. “In private.”

“I’m busy right now,” Faulkner said, his hands toying with a writing pen on his desk. “Come back after I’m finished.”

“This can’t wait. Get him out so we can talk,” Webster said, nodding toward Flint.

Flint looked inquiringly at Faulkner for a sign, and Faulkner made no sign.

“All right, if you want him to stay around, it’s okay by me—for the present.” Webster took his deposition out of his pocket, unfolded it carefully and laid it on Faulkner’s desk. “I’ve just shown this to Dustin, and he has read it through and agreed that the facts are stated correctly—”

“I didn’t do any such a damned thing,” Dustin interposed. “I read it, and said that there wasn’t a thing to it.”

“All right,” Webster said soothingly. “I thought I’d sold you on the idea. I’ll finish that job later, as soon as you’re convinced that Faulkner is going to agree with me. Read it, Faulkner, and then we’ll talk a little business.”

Faulkner’s glazed eyes went to the paper reluctantly and with no show of interest. Suddenly they became glued to the paper, and then there was no sound in the room except the buzzing of a horsefly trying to get out through the glass windowpane over Faulkner’s head.

After a long, silent interval, Faulkner shoved the paper back across the desk, and looked up at Webster.

“Well,” he said. “What?”

Dustin interposed again. “I told him he didn’t have a thing there that could do us any harm or him any good. It’s not worth the paper it is written on.”

Faulkner seemed not to hear him, but had his eyes on Webster.

“Well?” he repeated.

“A partnership,” Webster said coldly.

“In what?”

Webster nodded toward the paper. “In that.”

“I don’t know a thing about that,” Faulkner said. “It only tells me one thing. That you’ve got hold of some grandiose idea which you’ve built out of nothing. You couldn’t make a judge even hear that story, much less make a jury believe it.”

Webster sighed wearily, and shrugged. “Oh, well. If you’ve got to have pictures drawn for you like Dustin did, I guess I’ll have to do it all over again.”

He turned and looked at Flint. “Get out of here,” he snapped. “I’ve got business to talk and I don’t want you around.”

Flint again glanced at Faulkner and got no cue.

Webster’s voice jumped at him again. “Get out, damn it, or I’ll drag your carcass out. Git!”

Flint tried to stare him down, but his gaze finally wavered before Webster’s eyes. He looked at the floor, and then he crossed the room and went out.

Before he slammed the door, he turned and looked back. “Mister,” he said. “You’re trying to walk in mighty big boots around here. I don’t think you’ll be able to wear ’em very long.”

“I’ll walk in any boots I choose to wear. Beat it! Vamos!”

Flint slammed the door with a loud bang and stamped off through the warehouse.

Webster turned back to Faulkner, and now his voice was commanding, sharp, and held a touch of anger and impatience. “All right,” he said. “You say I haven’t got a case against you here. That’s what Dustin said. Maybe I haven’t got enough to convince a judge. But I’m not a judge, and I’m not a jury. I tried you and found you guilty, and that’s enough for my purposes.

“I could act on those two commissions from the dead officers, and take you to jail myself. Maybe you wouldn’t be convicted, but it would tear up your playhouse. Or since you claim it’s not your game, then I could go out there and break it up myself, lone-handed. Or for that matter, I could take it over. As you say, it’s not yours, so you wouldn’t care if I took it over. Would you, Faulkner?” Faulkner merely sat frozen-faced and toyed with his pen, saying nothing.

“But,” Webster continued, “I don’t want to do that. It’s too good a thing. I can come in on it and make us all money. You could even cut me in for a share, and still get more out of it then you’re getting now.”

“How?”

“Because I’m a good business man. I know how to get all there is to be got out of a thing, and I’m not afraid to do it. I could have a look around your setup and show you a dozen ways to make more out of it. I’ve never failed yet, and I’ve played in a lot of these shindigs.”

“And just how would you take it over?”

“How?” Webster repeated. “That’s simple. As Flint was probably in here to report to you, I’ve already visited the place. You and he were probably figuring just where you were going to lay the trap to kill me, but I’ll save you the trouble by telling you that you’re not going to kill me. In the first place, I can take care of myself, and in the second place, you’d lose money even if you did kill me. As a matter of fact, you’d lose even more than that. I believe I forgot to tell you that the paper on your desk is a duplicate of another one which is now in a safe place, along with the rifles and dummy shells you fixed up for Clanton and Nix, along with the serial numbers of the guns and shell box, and the marked gold pieces. That stuff is to be turned over to the proper authorities if anything happens to me. Dustin understands that already.

“So, even if you don’t own a piece of that valley out there, you’ve only got to kill me to put yourself in a position where you’ll have to prove in court that you don’t. Either way, it would ruin your business. Why don’t you quit trying to act like Dustin did. I’m moving in on you, and the sooner you come out from behind the brush, the sooner we’ll start cashing in. And with less trouble. Or do you want to go on and waste a good thing by letting me break it up for you?”

“Why would you want to break it up if you didn’t get in?”

“That would be just to teach you that you should have let me in without making trouble when I propositioned you. I take it seriously when people don’t see things my way. After that, I could organize it for myself.”

Dustin made his last try. “I think he’s just a lot of wind. I don’t think he’s half as tough as he thinks he is, nor a quarter as smart.”

Faulkner lifted the pen and threw it like a dart into the desk top, where it stuck upright. He watched while it quivered. Then he said, “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Emory. This man is smart, and he is as hard as he says he is. He might not make us as much extra money as he says he can, but then he could ruin us altogether, as he points out. Yes, I suppose we’ve got a new partner. I only hope he’s as smart working with us as he was in working against us.”

Dustin did not hide his surprise at seeing Faulkner capitulate so easily. Webster laughed at him. “Don’t get the impression, Dustin, that Faulkner has wilted as much as he seems to have. He’s just buying time while he tries to figure out what to do. If I show him something he might let me go along with him; if I don’t, then he can still make it cost me for sticking my snout into his trough. That’s fair enough, though. It’s all I need; the rest is up to me.”

“And what?” Faulkner asked, “are your expert services going to cost us?”

“That is a fair question,” Webster answered reasonably. “We will divide our profits along these lines; you and I and Dustin each take a fourth. The other fourth will be divided among the men we have working for us. Simple enough, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so, if you’ve settled it that way in your mind. What are you going to do first?”

“First, I’m naturally going to have to look over the whole setup and see where I can make improvements. You know, make short cuts, see that we’re getting all the profit that the traffic will bear. There are usually all kinds of ways that money can be saved and made when you bump into a loosely organized business. I’ll tighten things up all along the line, cut out waste, improve efficiency, and the like.”

“I suppose, then, you’ll be starting out at the ranch?”

“Right. I’ll take Dustin and go out there right away. He can show me the ropes.”

“There is one little item you’ve forgotten,” Faulkner said. “We use a bunch of men. They are a pretty independent lot, and in the light of their background, it takes somewhat of a man to keep them in line. They will not forget you killed one of their friends. And there’s Flint. You might not be able to handle them.”

“If I can’t, then I haven’t got a job, have I?” Webster grinned at him. “But I wouldn’t let that worry me if I were you because, on the other hand, if I can whip the boys into line, then you know you’ve tied up with a good man.”

Faulkner was not one who would admit to anybody that he knew the time of day, and he did not make any comment on Webster’s argument, other than to say, “We’ll see, I suppose.”

“All right,” Webster said. “It’s a deal. Now, one other thing. About that gold which you perhaps don’t care to admit that you’ve got stowed away in that safe. You’ll be wanting to get rid of that in a hurry. If you want to get out from under, I don’t mind taking it in on my share of the settlements we’ll be making. I’m not afraid of handling it, no matter how hot it is. At a discount, of course.”

Faulkner’s bleak gaze rested on Webster a little longer than usual before it went back to the pen he was toying with.

“You seem pretty sure of yourself,” he observed.

“That’s my stock in trade,” Webster said. “If you’re going into something, why fool around? Know what you’re doing, then do it. If you’re not sure, don’t start it. Why waste time?”

He turned to Dustin. “Let’s get moving. When you waste time you’re wasting dollars.”

At the door he turned and said, “When you get through instructing Ike Flint on how to get rid of me, send him on out to the ranch, will you, Faulkner? I’ll be needing him.”

As he walked back to town with Dustin, he said, “we’ve got Faulkner where we want him,” then after a pause he added, “as long as we need him, of course. Which won’t be too long.”

Dustin looked at Webster with opened eyes. “You mean you don’t intend to go along with the deal you made?”

“Oh, yes,” Webster answered casually. “But just until we get things lined up so that we can take them into our own hands. After that, why donate him part of the profits when we can get along without him?”

Dustin exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be damned! I thought I’d seen some pretty cold-blooded calculators, but you’re about the double-crossingest iceberg I ever ran into. How do you do it? Don’t you ever meet anybody halfway?”

“This is my philosophy,” Webster answered coolly. “When you do a thing, do it right or not at all. If you’re going to be a crook, then be a crook with everything you’ve got. A crook is a man who makes a business of thievery and murder, and the double-cross is one of his most important tools. Well, if you’re going to do a job right, then you’ve got to use your tools for all they’re worth. Otherwise you’re a poor workman, and I hate a man who can’t or won’t do his job right.”

Dustin walked on in silence for a while, thinking. Then he said, “According to what you tell me, you’d double-cross a partner as quick as you would double-cross anybody else. You’re going to double-cross Faulkner, and steal his share of the business. What’s to keep you from doing the same thing to me?”

“Nothing, in principle. But there’s another sound common business policy that protects you, as things stand now. When you start climbing up the ladder, you can’t do it by stepping on the necks of the men you need. You’ve got to give them the breaks and carry them along up with you if you are going to get any help in doing what you’ve got to do. That is just good business. I need you, so I couldn’t throw you to the dogs and still get your help, could I? That would be foolish, and I’m not foolish. So you are sitting pretty. The fact that I can’t get along without you protects you. We can get along without Faulkner, so he hasn’t got any protection. See how it works.”

Dustin brightened up. “You’ve figured just about all the angles haven’t you?”

“That’s what a man has got to do in this business.”

“Then maybe you’ve figured this one; there are a couple of dead officers out there. Somebody will have to notify the authorities sooner or later. By rights you should do it, since they deputized you. And maybe they left word with Faulkner to notify their headquarters if something happened to them. Faulkner might do it to save his own skin, and throw you to the wolves.”

“Maybe I should do it. Perhaps I will in due time. But maybe I’ll forget to do it for a while. And even if I did, it takes time for word to get to their headquarters. Maybe Faulkner should do it. Certainly he’s thinking of how he can do it and save his own hide and throw the whole thing in my lap. But, if he does it, he knows I can spoil this setup of his, even if he succeeded in hanging me. He is more likely to do nothing at all, and if he’s ever asked why he didn’t report the killings, he’s safe, of course, in saying that he presumed that I—their deputy—did it, and that it wasn’t up to him to do it. Word of the killings will eventually get to the proper authorities, but it will take time. And right now time is what we need to get organized properly.”

“The authorities won’t be happy about not being notified,” Dustin grinned.

“Of course not, but don’t let that worry you. The mills of justice grind very slowly, and they do not grind as fine a grist as people like to think. Lots of whole grains pass between and around their stones, and are never cracked. There’s a thousand ways of escaping the millstones of justice. Ask any rich man.”

They had a couple of drinks and separated, agreeing to start to the hidden ranch before daylight in the morning.

Webster left Dustin, wondering just how much he had accomplished with him and with Faulkner. Actually, he was more sure of where he stood with Faulkner than he was about Dustin. Faulkner was a deep thinker and planner. He was nothing but a malevolent brain hidden behind the facade of an expressionless face. He had accepted Webster too easily, and his acceptance was in a sense no acceptance at all. It merely meant that Faulkner would let Webster stay around under foot, watching him until he decided what to do about him. That Faulkner would even have thought seriously of letting Webster cut in on him, as Webster had done, Jim knew was out of the question. Faulkner would have instantly known that Webster was too ambitious and energetic to be allowed into the organization over which he undoubtedly held an iron fist.

Webster knew that he was walking into the lion’s cage as far as Faulkner was concerned. But about Dustin, he wasn’t sure yet. Dustin’s acceptance could be a matter of stalling for time, of going along with his ideas merely for the purpose of showing him and his game to Faulkner, and then riding along with Webster until Jim was caught in any hole Faulkner might dig for him.

Or again, Dustin might have a big ambition of his own, and be letting Webster come in, so that he could encourage Webster to do the actual business of ridding the bunch of Faulkner’s, and then later dispose of Webster.

Or Dustin might even be just what his surface actions would indicate, Faulkner’s field man who was willing to go along with a stronger man who could take the show away from Faulkner and run it himself.

But of one thing, Webster was sure. He had deliberately planted in both men the idea that he talked big and hard. Both would lose no time in putting him up against a situation in which he would have to prove himself or pay the price for shooting off his mouth too loudly.

And this—or any of the possibilities which would stir things up—was what he wanted. Webster would have to skate on some mighty thin ice in any event, and he had an idea that he was on the verge of again twisting the law by the tail a little in the interest of a larger justice.

But these were the usual conditions when Jim Webster set out to do a job; he considered them mere occupational hazards.

He went up to his room and got a good night’s sleep, knowing it might be a long time before he got another chance to rest.

CHAPTER XIII

Webster Goes Into Business

Webster rode out with Dustin the next morning, arriving at the hidden ranch a little before noon. They came in by the back way, where the man named Chock was guarding the back entrance.

Chock’s eyes were swollen and his dark face was marked with signs of his fight with Webster. When he saw who it was with Dustin, he could not conceal his hatred.

Dustin laughed at him. “This hombre that you tangled with yesterday is your new boss,” he said. “He was coming up here looking for me when you boys tried to keep him out. After this, let him in. He might not like you trying to hold him out again.”

Chock growled, “Why didn’t he say something, then? How did we know who he was?”

“You did right,” Webster answered. “Don’t ever let anybody in that you don’t know, unless you want to decorate the limb of a tree. I won’t hold it against you for not allowing me in yesterday.”

Webster and Dustin rode on into the valley side by side, and as they went along, they discussed the cattle grazing around in the deep grass.

“How many head have you got here?” Webster asked.

“Somewhere around seven and eight hundred.”

“What are you keeping them for? Why don’t you turn them into cash?”

Dustin seemed to be in a high good humor. “This is your first lesson,” he grinned. “Here’s the way it is. We’ve got men working for us; pickup men, and I’m not talking about a rodeo pickup man. We’ve got connections with people here and there who like to turn an honest penny picking up a few of their neighbors’ cattle. We buy them cheap whenever they get in touch with us. Then we pick up plenty of stuff on our own hook. But you can’t always get rid of it as fast as it comes in. We’ve got a whole string of connections that we sell to, railroad construction camps, stores, Indian Agents, and the like. They can use only so much stuff at a time, so we have to hold it until they can use it or sell it.”

“How much do you figure to make on that stuff, holding it like this?”

Dustin showed his surprise. “Well, here’s the setup; the stuff we buy we give ten dollars a head for it. What we steal doesn’t cost us anything, of course. Cows sell for thirty dollars a head in the legitimate market. We sell this cattle for twenty with no questions asked, of course. That gives the Indian Agents a chance to make ten dollars by billing the government the full thirty dollars for them, and the same was with the purchasing agents for the railroads and other construction jobs. The storekeepers, of course, butcher it and make ten dollars more on the beef than they would on honest beef. We play it this way; give everybody a little money and they’ll all work with you.”

“And you don’t get too much for yourself,” Webster commented dryly.

Again Dustin looked at him, then waved his hand out across the valley. “Seven or eight hundred head at ten dollars a head is seven or eight thousand. The stock we didn’t pay for brings us still more profit, of course. That’s the kind of money you’re going to have to beat if you’re going to show us more than we are making now. Think you can beat it?”

“I probably can,” Webster answered easily.

“How?”

“I’ll tell you later. Now, how about this merchandise? Who buys it, and for how much?”

They were approaching the store building in the trees as Dustin explained. “Most of that didn’t cost us anything, of course. None of it except that which Faulkner sends out as a blind, and loses to himself, so to speak. We’ve got a regular list of stores down in this corner of the Territory that will buy it up for fifty percent discount. Of course, Faulkner knows the price of all that merchandise, and so does the storekeeper, so we don’t have any trouble there.”

“You’ve got a list of the storekeepers, and a list of the prices of all that stuff?”

“Sure. If Faulkner is anything, he is a careful storekeeper. He comes out and takes inventory, and we have to make duplicate bills of everything we sell. Those duplicates are checked with a running inventory by his bookkeeper.”

“You mean he lets a bookkeeper in on all this business? Bookkeepers have mouths; they can talk. You know?”

“Not this one. See that little gray mouse of a man at Faulkner’s? He’s the bookkeeper. Used to be bookkeeper for Faulkner in a bank or something, and went to prison for letting money stick to his hands. Faulkner has got him over a barrel. His tongue just ain’t, on a deal like this, because he’s in on it.”

They came to the storeroom and dismounted, and Dustin led Webster through the back room, the room from which he had heard the music coming on the night he was there. He saw now what this part of the place was.

It was a kind of social hall and barroom combined. There was a short pine bar at one corner, with a few whiskey bottles sitting on a shelf behind it. There were several tables and chairs, and poker chips and cards, and in one corner he saw a fiddle case and guitar case.

Now there were no more than a half dozen men in it—and three women. They all looked at him with suspicious glances as he followed Dustin through the room, and on through a door to a storeroom.

At the door Dustin turned and spoke to one of the men. “Joe, get all the boys in here, will you? I’ve got something to tell them. We’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

Then Dustin closed the door behind him, and he and Webster went through the store. It was stuffed with merchandise of every description. Cases of hardware, saddles and leather harness, horse collars, kegs of nails and horseshoes, boxes whose tops had been ripped off to reveal contents of hammers and carpenters’ tools of all kinds. There were bales of bedding, blankets and quilts, mattresses and bedsteads, cookstoves beating stoves, and kitchen utensils.

And a pile of new plow points!

This was the stuff pioneers needed, typical goods that would be pouring up into the Territory in the wagons of traders. Stuff that the thieves could resell anywhere.

“Why have you got so much of this lying around for?” Webster asked.

“Same answer as the question about the cows. You can’t unload too much of it at a time on the stores that buy from us. You’ve got to give them time to sell it before you give them more.”

“Why?”

Dustin looked puzzled. “Well, the stores don’t want to buy too much ahead. So we can’t sell it as fast as we get it. Why did you ask a question like that?”

“I was just wondering.”

“About what?”

“About why you let this stuff lie around when you can be converting it into money.”

“I told you why. You think you could convert it into money any faster than we do?”

“Sure. It’s stuff, isn’t it? Then it could be sold if you know how to do it.”

“Do you?”

“Sure.”

“All right, how about us seeing you do it?”

“That’s just what I’m here for.”

“When?”

“Starting tomorrow. If your boys are here, suppose we go and meet them.”

They went back into the room which seemed to have been provided as a community recreation center. Now the men had gathered from the various cabins, and were sitting around on the benches and hickory chairs. There were three or four frowzy camp girls with them, clinging to their men of the moment, and they all watched Dustin and Webster with frankly curious looks.

Dustin wore his perpetual smile, but Webster sensed that there was a kind of secret and nervous amusement in it now, as though the man were getting ready to play some kind of trick.

“Boys,” Dustin said, “This is your new boss. Have a good look at him, and from now on, do just what he tells you to do. He’s full of cockleburrs and hard to curry, and he don’t like to take no for an answer. He says he’s going to make us all rich. He’s going to show us how you really ought to run a deal like this. So, he’s the big he-wolf from now on. His name is Jim Webster, and it’s now all his show. Take it, Webster.”

It was evident now what Dustin had been thinking; he was throwing Webster to the boys with a bad reputation, making him sound like a boastful windbag, thus putting him at a disadvantage from the beginning.

Webster knew that Dustin’s move would be successful; the men would take an instant dislike to a man who had built himself up as tough and boastful, and this, apparently, was Dustin’s way of fighting for his own leadership—putting Webster in such a light that he could not get the mastery of the gang.

Webster looked the bandits over one by one, giving each a long appraising stare. He saw Ike Flint back in a corner, trying to be inconspicuous. At the near corner he recognized the second guard he had overcome on the night of his explorations; the man still wore the marks of the fight on his face. He stood at the bar toying with a tin cup of whiskey, and avoided Webster’s gaze.

“I’ll tell you about what Dustin was saying,” he said to the whole room. “I’m in on this party to get what I can out of it. I reckon you men are in it for the same reason. I’ve been around a little, and I’ve picked up a couple of bits of information that might possibly have some truth in them. One of them is that money doesn’t grow on trees; the other is that there hardly ever seems to be more than twenty-four and a fraction hours a day here in this country. Since you’ve got to make money instead of picking it off of trees, and since you’ve only got so much time every day to do it in, I’m one of those guys that likes to use that time getting what I want. There’s another thing I heard that might have some truth it in. A fellow told me once that a straight line was the nearest distance between two points. Right or wrong, I kind of liked that idea, so I’ve got in the habit of going after what I want in a straight line. Saves time; know what I mean?

“So there it is; I’m running this shindig from now till I’m not running it any more. And if there’s anybody that don’t want to go along with what I tell him to do, it’s time to make a straight line up to me and speak his piece. Once we get moving, I won’t be having any time for arguments.”

A deep silence fell over the room at Webster’s challenge. And after a moment Jim saw the man at the bar turn his swollen face toward him, set his tin cup down and approach.

“This is the guy they call Snake-eyes,” Dustin said. “He seems to want a word with you.”

Webster knew by the increased silence in the room that the crowd was prepared for something; they knew Snake-eyes, and they must have anticipated that something was coming up. It was this sudden tense expectancy that alerted Webster.

The man stopped six or eight feet from Webster and stood poised with his fists on his hips, a few inches above the pair of guns he was wearing. Snake-eyes was a lean man of average height, with a droopy, stained yellow mustache and slate eyes that seemed filmed over, so that you read only sadness—or maybe it was malevolence in them. One of the eyebrows was so puffed out that the eye was hardly visible.

“What’s on your mind, mister?” Webster asked.

“Ever see me before?”

“Yeah, sure. You were one of the boys who were trying to keep me out of here the other night. You shouldn’t have done it.”

“You didn’t wait to explain yourself. You just jumped me. Fell out of a tree on top of me.”

“Yeah. While you were asleep. You were put out there to see that nobody got through. Do you know what you were doing? You were risking the lives of every man in this room by going to sleep. In the army they shoot men for going to sleep on guard duty. A whole army could have come in here and killed off every man in here—just because you laid down on your job.”

While he talked to the man, he was trying to sense what effect his own speech had on the rest of them. Snake-eyes had stuck his neck out by bringing up the subject, and Webster had instantly seized on it to prove to the rest of them that he knew what he was doing, and could think faster than the rest of them. He was trying also to turn the tide of sympathy from Snake-eyes to himself by showing the rest of them how he had jeopardized their own safety.

And still further, he was baiting Snake-eyes, trying to make him lose that stolid, impassive, secretive attitude and reveal what he had in his mind.

Snake-eyes licked his lips and shuffled his feet, and the latter movement was not lost on Webster. He shuffled his own feet slightly.

“I was saying,” Snake-eyes said softly, “that you jumped me from behind.”

“Not from behind; from above.”

“Yeah. What’s the difference? I don’t like men to jump me from behind. See my face?”

“Yeah,” Webster answered shortly. “It ought to teach you never to go to sleep on guard duty. Some of your friends might take a notion to mark up more than your face for flirting with their safety like that.”

Snake-eyes was adamant; he was a man of a single purpose. He was new here, having gained admission to the group by reason of his reputation as a lightning-fast and icicle-cold gunman. He was the executioner, now doing a personal job.

“I don’t like my face marked up like this.”

“Is that a fact?” returned Webster, giving a surprised lift to his eyebrows. “You should have told me.”

“I’m telling you now. We don’t like to get roughed up. Me, nor nobody else. Flint don’t like it, either. Look at Flint’s face. See him?”

Snake-eyes pointed across the room toward where Flint was sitting, behind Webster and to his left. “You see what Flint’s going to do about it, don’t you?”

Webster turned his gaze slowly in Flint’s direction—and jerked it back instantly, his hand whipping out his gun. The weapon exploded before Snake-eyes got his sneak draw half completed.

Snake-eyes bowed his head gently, his arms hung lax at his sides as his weapons dribbled on the floor. Then his knees bent and he dropped into a prayerful position for a moment before he fell over on his side with Webster’s bullet square through his heart.

One of the camp women screamed, gray smoke floated in a thin layer shoulder high in the air, billowing gently like a wispy blanket. A man’s cough sounded explosively in the silence. The sunshine slanting through the window on the form of Snake-eyes sleeping on his side on the dirty floor, and Webster backed up against the wall and met the combined gaze of the stunned men who comprised his outlaw crew.

“Anybody else? You’ll have to come up with a slicker trick than that.”

There was no answer.

Dustin grinned at Webster. “It looks like you’re the top dog, all right. The man shouldn’t have been so touchy about his beauty.”

Webster was wondering; the thought had occurred to him at the beginning of the trouble that Snake-eyes might not have started this business altogether because of the whipping he had taken. There was something fishy about the whole thing, to his way of thinking. Dustin’s secret amusement, Flint sitting back there in the corner like a buzzard waiting for a calf to die, and—the thought struck him with sudden warning—the fact that Dustin did nothing to stop the fight.

Dustin had been warned that if Webster died, the evidence which Jim had gathered against him and Faulkner would be brought out into the open; Webster had even pointed out to Dustin that his own neck would be in jeopardy if he—Webster—died.

Then why had Dustin ignored that warning, and permitted the fight to go on?

Webster filed this in the back of his mind for further thought, and turned his attention back to the group which sat silently in the big pine room, waiting for his next move.

“How many men have you got, altogether?” he asked Dustin.

“About sixteen—that is, fifteen, now that Snake-eyes is no longer of much use to us. And there are six more in the sawmill crew.”

“Are they in on this business?”

“They know about it, and we get a little help from them when we need it. They are there for a blind, but a profitable one. Leave that to Faulkner. Selling ties and bridge timber makes him money legitimately, but the important thing is the contacts we make with contractors through that business.”

“How many wagons and teams can you round up?”

“Maybe six or eight.”

“All right,” Webster said to the whole room. “Let’s get going. Here’s what we’re going to do; I want all wagons pulled up to the warehouse; load up every bit of that merchandise. I want all those cattle rounded up and ready to go. We’re pulling out of here during the night. That won’t give you much time to get ready, but we can make it. I want everything out of here and down on the prairie by daylight.”

That order caused a buzz in the place. Dustin looked at him blankly for a moment, then asked, “What’s the hurry?”

“What did I tell you a while ago?” Webster returned. “That stuff is merchandise and we’re going out and exchange it for spending money. Like I told you, you can’t make money loafing around.”

“But I told you that you can’t sell it any faster than the buyers can use it.”

“That’s what you think,” Webster said. “You and Faulkner wanted to see how I do business, now you’re going to see just that.”

One of the men came up and joined them, and Dustin said, “This is Merle Tate. He’s a kind of strawboss, same as Flint.”

“That reminds me,” Webster said. He called to Flint. “Ike, you and the man sitting next to you come up here and get Snake-eyes and take him out and bury him.”

Flint did not move, but answered across the room. “Let the stinker rot. He’d have got us killed, sleeping on the job. He don’t deserve burying.”

Webster raised his voice for the first time. It had command in it; it was filled with anger and warning. “I said for you and that other man to do this burying job. Snake-eyes might have been a mighty poor man, but he was human, and a human deserves a burial. And if I still haven’t convinced you that I’m running this show, you’ll get a burial yourself. You want to find out?”

There was a long silence while Flint lost his battle with Webster. His face filled with hatred, he got up from his chair and said to the other man, “Come on, Tige.”

Webster turned back to Dustin and the strawboss. “Get all that merchandise loaded into the wagons, and get the cattle ready to go. I want all hands armed, and all of them along. We might need them. Now, Merle, what was on your mind?”

“I’m not refusing to go along with what you say, but here’s what I’m thinking. Six or eight stolen wagons of stolen merchandise, and seven or eight hundred stolen cows makes a mighty big parade. Don’t you think somebody might get wise to us? As a matter of fact, how could they keep from it?”

“He’s got a point there,” Dustin said.

“Yeah,” Webster said. “That’s the kind of thinking that has been going on around here all along. It’s changed now. How’s this for a piece of reasoning; don’t you realize that people have known for a long time that these hills were full of thieves? And don’t you know that they are afraid of the men out of these hills? Of course the people we do business with know we’re thieves. But they’ve known that all along. And who do you think is going to ride up to a troop of sixteen or seventeen armed outlaws and call them thieves? How many stray deputies would tackle us if they wanted to do something about it? And what chance would a posse have against us? Are we as good fighters as a bunch of farmers and ranchers and storekeepers, or are we afraid of them?”

Dustin shook his head in wonderment. “By God, Webster, where does this thing end? Are you going to keep on getting more and more brazen until we all stretch a rope?”

Webster laughed at him. “People like us usually do end up above the crowd, don’t we? Either on a gallows or the limb of a tree. What’s the matter? Did you think thievery didn’t have any element of chance in it when you decided on your career?”

Dustin slapped the wall angrily. “Aw, go to hell. I’ll face as much lead as you do, any time, night or day.”

“Then stop squawking, and show me the list of all your regular customers. Merle, get the men moving.”

The men weren’t sure whether they wanted to move or not. Webster watched them argue with Merle Tate as he went among them. Then he slapped the wall loudly, and shouted.

“God damn it, I told you men to get going! Now move, or I’ll move you!”

They moved. Reluctantly. But they moved.

CHAPTER XIV

Forced Sale

It was near midnight, and a new sickle moon hung over the mountains. In and around the grove which concealed the hidden settlement high in the mountains there was a continuous state of confusion. The cattle were being tight-herded near the concealed sawmill entrance. A small group of cursing men were finishing the job of loading the wagons in the light of a few kerosene lanterns, each wagon being run through the lean-to shed and out into the open space around the sawmill, where the drivers sat in their seats and waited nervously for the big parade to get moving.

The bandits were tense under their quiet sullenness, for none of them had ever seen or imagined an enterprise like this before in their long experience in the profession of thievery. Not having been informed of Webster’s plan in detail, they were almost unanimous in considering it both a waste of time and dangerous. Some were even inclined to believe that it was an elaborately staged plan against themselves. But, remembering Snake-eyes, none of them felt inclined to face Webster and voice his objections.

They knew about Flint’s fight with Webster. They had seen the new boss handle Snake-eyes, and they were convinced that they had a leader who knew what he wanted and had the guts to get it. They had worked all the afternoon and half the night under the whiplash of his tongue, and they had seen that he was a man who got things done.

Even the women were grumbling. Girls who had chosen a life of idleness, picking up their living from men who were pleased to feed and clothe them, they had, by virtue of having no competition, reigned practically as queens here in the high valley ranch.

But they had awakened to a new fact in their lives a little before sundown. The four women had been sitting in the recreation room, drinking and talking while the men were working furiously to get the drive started.

Webster had come in and looked them over. “What do you women intend to do?” he asked sharply.

Bessie was the largest and most aggressive of them. She was Merle Tate’s girl and, by virtue of his position, the ruler of the feminine side. She looked at him with arrogant contempt.

“Why, I suppose we’ll manage to get along until everybody gets back. That is, provided you’ve left us enough food.”

“And what do you plan to do while everybody is gone?”

“Nothing.”

“Your plans are changed. There’s work for everybody around here, and you can get busy now.” He picked the whiskey bottle up off their table and re-corked it. “All of you get out there to the cookshack and fix up some supper and a carrying lunch for the men. And make lots of it; they’ll be hungry.”

Bessie laughed in his face. “Cook supper for that bunch of gray-backs? Why, mister, I don’t even cook for my man; he cooks for me.”

The other girls giggled at the way Bessie had taken the new boss down a peg.

“Maybe you never learned how to cook,” Webster said softly. “Maybe Tate has to do the cooking in order to get something fit to eat.”

“What are you talking about?” the woman flared. “I can cook better than any old clodhopper’s hag that ever came down the pike.”

“Good!” Webster said gently. And then his voice shot out like a whiplash. “Then get down there to the cookshack and start doing it! You women are going with this load, and you’re doing the cooking and dishwashing. And if you don’t keep the ball rolling on the job I’ll kick every one of you out of camp and let you walk to the nearest settlement. Now get moving! You’ve got one hour to fill that table with steak and biscuits and coffee. Get out of here!”

Bessie tried to glare him down and, for her pains, she and the other girls learned that the new boss of the ranch was the boss.

Now at midnight the door to the lean-to was opened and the new moon saw a procession of seven wagons pull up to the shed from the valley entrance, pass through its darkened interior, and head down the sawmill road in the direction of the broad expanse of flatland which spread as far north as the settlement of McAlester.

Following the rumbling wagons came the cattle which funneled through the passageway and out onto the road, where they fell in behind the wagons and started their winding, bellowing trek downhill.

Webster sat his horse alongside Dustin and watched until they were all out, when Dustin got down and shut the doorway behind them, thus closing again the hidden entrance to the hideout.

Now for a while Webster and Dustin were busy, riding up and down the thin line of wagons and cattle, placing the flank and drag riders, pushing the stock back into line as some of it would make a break for the timber, getting the drive settled down for the long pull.

Webster was everywhere, pushing his horse through the dust that the stock was churning up, keeping the wagons moving up front, keeping the riders properly spaced, arguing with this one and that one, threatening, bullying.

The road was cut through a deep forest of pines and oaks, so narrow that the tops of the trees made a canopy overhead which shut out most of the feeble light of the moon and stars. In the confusion of the drive, the darkness and dust, nobody knew where the next man was.

Webster worked his way to the rear of the procession, and when it crossed a small creek half an hour after leaving the hideout, he was behind the last cow. Gradually the darkness swallowed up the drag man at the rear.

Webster turned his horse off the trail, following the stream downhill to his right for a few hundred yards until he came to a small clearing. He dismounted in the trees, lifted his handgun as a precaution, and approached the cabin sitting in the middle of the clearing.

At the open doorway—there was no door—he called softly.

The answer came not from the inside, but from behind a tree, and Dick Hammond emerged, pistol in his hand.

“You awake, Dick?”

“How could a man sleep with a parade like that passing his door?” Hammond answered. “What’s going on? Is hell moving to a new location?”

They sat down on a couple of stumps, and Webster told Hammond the whole story up to the minute. He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it across to Hammond.

“I want you to take that and give it to Swanson. It’s a little sketch of the ground down where we are going, and a list of all the customers Faulkner and Dustin have been selling the stolen goods to—contractors, general stores and the like. Every one of those customers knows he is buying stolen goods, and is making a profit on it.”

“Why don’t you just go and pick them up?”

“Because I couldn’t prove a thing. They could just deny it. I’m going to get some evidence that will stick in court if we have to use it. Tell Swanson that’s why I’m going to be out selling that stolen stuff. And tell him to protect that list of names. In case I don’t get to finish my job, he can pass it on to the next one who tackles it.”

“What else?”

“Here’s one for you,” Webster said. “How good a detective are you?”

“I might find a cow tick on an animal that had been grazing in an infested area, but I doubt if I could call myself much of an investigator. Why?”

“Here’s something I want you or Swanson to investigate. I can’t tell you how to do it. Maybe Swanson will have some ideas. And I can’t even tell you what to look for; perhaps it’s nothing at all. But again, maybe it means everything to Swanson. But this is it; I think the rats are slipping in and eating our cheese.”

“What do you mean?”

“Swanson told you what was in the affidavit I made, I suppose?”

“Yeah.”

“Understand this carefully now. Like I told you, I showed my copy of that to both Dustin and Faulkner in order to force my way into their organization. But I pointed out to them that there was a duplicate in safe hands, along with the guns and the shells that were tampered with. I made a point of telling them that if anything happened to me, that evidence would be placed in the hands of the proper authorities. That way, I was sure that they wouldn’t try to stop me with a bullet. But—I think Faulkner tried to have me finished, anyway. I believe that he sent Flint out with orders for this Snake-eyes hombre to start a fight and kill me. That’s only a hunch, understand, but I don’t believe that if that hombre was going to kill me for beating him up he would have taken that chance. I think Faulkner had it done that way in order to counteract any impression I had made on Dustin and the gang.”

“Well, what are you getting at, and what do I do?”

“This is the point—and it’s only a hunch, as I said. Faulkner would not have taken that risk unless he either had got his hands on that evidence, or knew that he could get his hands on it. He wouldn’t have had me killed if he thought there was any danger of that duplicate coming to light. And if that’s so, then somebody told him where that duplicate was, or maybe even gave it to him.”

Hammond laughed dryly, “And so you want me to go and ask Mr. Faulkner to please give us back our evidence against him. Just like that.”

“No, I don’t know what to tell you to do. You tell Swanson, and let him try to figure out where the leak is if he can. He was going to turn that paper over to Cromwell who was going to put it in a safety deposit box in the bank. Tell him to get after that paper and get it back into his own hands and see that it is really safe with him, and with nobody else. We may be too late. Faulkner may know every move I’ve made and plan to make. If he does, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

“And, of course, it may be something else entirely that’s in Faulkner’s mind,” Hammond reminded him.

“Sure! But you’ve got to figure every angle when you’re dealing with him. Otherwise we might all wake up and find ourselves lying dead behind a bush. You and Swanson find out what you can, and you come back and wait. I’ll return in a few days, and either way, whether Faulkner is way ahead of me, or I’m ahead of him, something is going to pop pretty soon.”

Webster had rather expected young Hammond to be excited and eager to go, but he sat on his stump in an attitude of dejection. He seemed lost in thought, and it occurred to Webster now that the young man hadn’t been as alert as usual all through the talk.

“What’s on your mind?” Jim asked.

Hammond got to his feet and threw his cigarette down and stepped on it angrily. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

“Yes there is, and I know what it is, and if you want to know, I think you’re a damned fool.”

“What do you mean by that?” Hammond asked suspiciously.

“You know damned well what I mean. All right, maybe I’m talking when I ought to be listening, but I’m going to tell you something for your own good. You know all about what Dustin is now, and you’ve known right along that he was trying to get Sonia Swanson to marry him. You might even have suspected that he had a crooked streak in him.

“But what do you do? You sit back and worry like a lovesick pup. You think you’re doing the decent thing by not going out and shooting the pants off Dustin the minute you found out about him. You want to, and you don’t want to.”

“You talk like you’ve been reading my mind, or something. I ought to run that rat down and empty a gun into him.”

“But you know that if you do, Sonia will hold it against you. In short, you’ll be damned if you do, and be damned if you don’t.”

“Webster, maybe I oughtn’t to be talking to you about this, but I’ve got to say it. Sure, I’m in love with Sonia. I’ve been crazy about her from the first minute I saw her. As a matter of fact, I think so much of her that I’d be willing to kill Dustin just to keep him from making her unhappy. But she’s the kind that if I killed him, it would always stand between us. She’d never really know just what type of a skunk he was, and she’d believe that I killed him to get her. That means, if I have to kill him to save her, then I can’t go to her and tell her how I feel about her.”

“That’s a load for a man to carry,” Webster admitted. He slapped Hammond on the shoulder encouragingly. “But don’t let it get you down. Her dad knows now what Dustin is, and he thinks enough of her to see that he doesn’t get her. And one more thing—I don’t want Dustin killed right now. I need him in my business. He’s the lad I’m depending on to lead me to everybody tied up in this crooked business.”

“I know,” Hammond admitted. “That’s what makes it so tough; standing by and watching that smirking snot fooling her.”

“Well, keep your breeches on,” Webster warned him. “I’ve got to go catch up with my army before they miss me.”

* * * *

It was late afternoon before the thieves’ caravan reached its first stop at a settlement called Big Brushy, where there was a general store and a few houses, and the headquarters camp of a contractor who was building a road for the government. Besides the shabby local houses, there was a tent town of considerable size down by the creek, near the point where the contractor was throwing a bridge up over Brushy Creek.

While the men held the cattle out on the prairie beside the town, Webster had one of the wagons driven up to the dock of the store, and he and Dustin went in, bringing Ike Flint and a group along with them.

The proprietor was a slovenly man with his shirt sleeves rolled up, revealing his dirty undershirt. A week’s stubble of black beard covered his flabby red face, and he sniffed continuously from snuff, which he used in his nose.

“We’ve got some good merchandise for you, Lansky,” Dustin said. “Come out to the wagon and look it over.”

Lansky followed them out to the wagon dock, and Dustin began naming off the stuff in the boxes and bundles. Then after looking it over, Lansky crawfished backward out from under the tarp wagonsheet, and stood on the dock.

“I can use some of them pick handles and axe handles and the like,” he said. “And maybe a half dozen bolts of that calico. But that’s all. Trade ain’t too good right now.”

Dustin signaled to four of his riders who had followed the wagon. “Unload Lansky’s stuff for him,” he said. Then he said to Lansky, “Come on inside while the boys are unloading for you. I want some tobacco and things.”

In the store, Dustin read off a list of groceries, and when they were stacked in boxes for him to take with him, Dustin, Lansky and Webster went back out onto the dock.

The whole wagon of merchandise had been unloaded. Lansky looked puzzled, then shook his head. “I didn’t want all that stuff,” he objected. “Can’t use it. Might as well load it back.”

Dustin smiled at him. “Lansky, I want you to meet Jim Webster. He’s in charge now, and I was just following instructions. He will explain things to you.”

Webster leaned against the store wall, smoking. Flint moved casually here and there, and ended standing beside Lansky. Then Webster did his explaining.

“It’s this way, Lansky. We’ve got too much merchandise in stock, and we’ve got to get rid of it. So, you boys that we’ve been doing business with have got to help us. This is your share. Dustin will make out your bill.”

“No,” Lansky said. “Ain’t a chance. I don’t mind taking what I need from you boys, but I ain’t going to load up just because you have got too much on hand. Not a chance. No!”

“Well, now,” Webster said easily. “You ought to think it over. We’ve decided that this is your share. You’ll have to take it.”

“No! No! I’m not thinking of it!”

“Then you’ll have to change your mind. You see, you’ve been buying stolen property, so actually you’re involved in this thievery just as deep as we are. That means they can throw you in prison so far that it would take a dollar’s worth of postage to send you a post card. Ever think of it that way?”

“Looky here,” Lansky roared. “You ain’t fixing to pull no shenanigan on me. Not a bit of it! Get that damned stuff off my dock, and get your wagon away from here.”

Webster sighed wearily. “All right, Ike, try to make him see the light.”

Ike Flint’s fist shot out and caught Lansky on the jaw. Lansky sailed over backward off the dock, landed in the dirt and rolled over once. Ike jumped off the dock, lifted Lansky by his undershirt collar and slapped his face a half dozen resounding blows, ending up with a loud crack across the ear.

“Now get up there on that dock and start doing business like you ought to!” Flint growled. “Get up there, I said,” he added, emphasizing his command with another blow.

Lansky half-crawled and was half-thrown onto the dock by Flint.

“Now,” Webster said, “If you’re ready to talk sense, you should see things our way. You’re a partner with a bunch of thieves, and you’ve been trying to let your partners down. That is not nice, and we don’t love you when you let us down. Now your share of the work is to take this merchandise and pay for it, and to sell it out. Now are you ready for me to start making out your bill?”

“Hell, no! Nobody ain’t doing this to me—”

“Give him another installment, Ike!” Webster said calmly. “A little stronger.”

Flint’s fist caught Lansky on the cheekbone this time, but he knocked him along the dock so he would not have to lift him again.

Lansky lay on his back and saw that Flint was about to kick his ribs in. “All right,” he yelled. “I’ll take the goods. Don’t kick me! Don’t kick a man when he’s down.”

“Now that’s more like a partner,” Webster said. “Dustin, get out your bill book and write it out as we call off the stuff. And use that new price list. Lansky, things have gone up a little since you bought your last bill of goods.”

“Here, what are you trying to do to me?” Lansky complained. “First I have to take the goods. Then the price goes up. I could buy it legitimate.”

“That’s right,” Webster assured him. “You never can tell what a bunch of thieves will do, can you? You shouldn’t have got into this kind of a deal if you didn’t like it. But now that you’re in, you’re taking orders from me from now on. You’ll buy what we tell you to, and you’ll pay the price we charge. And if you want to get balky about it, we’ve got enough men along to see that you don’t back down on your business partners. Now be getting your money ready.”

Flint started to lead the man into his store when Webster stopped him. “Just a minute,” he said, reaching into the wagon. “I almost forgot. Here is a plow point that belongs with your quota of goods.”

He added the plow point to the pile of merchandise after first turning it over and copying the number off the underside of the moldboard—the number he had copied off the Marshal’s badge.

“Now dig up that money,” he said. “I want to finish my business with that contractor down on the creek before night.”

As Webster and Dustin came out of the store with the money, Dustin shook his head. “My, my! Wouldn’t that kill you? I thought I knew something about selling livestock and merchandise. It just goes to show; you learn something every day, don’t you?”

“You do, for a fact,” Webster answered. “And sometimes it does kill you. But what does it matter? You’ve got to die someday, haven’t you?”

“That, now, is something I haven’t given my mind to. There’s no fun in it.”

“No, but there’s a lesson in it, when you come to think about it.”

Dustin laughed. “I’m not much of a student.”

“No,” Webster answered thoughtfully. “I guess you’re not.”

They mounted and got their drive of wagons and cattle headed out toward the contractor’s camp on the creek. This man, spending government money for food and supplies for his workmen, had cut many corners by doing business with Dustin, which savings would have gone to the government if he had not charged the government full price for what he bought, and pocketed the difference.

The contractor was a good prospect for a lot of meat and merchandise.

CHAPTER XV

Inside Emory Dustin

Emory Dustin was faced with the problem of life or death.

And, student or not, he had got a tip from Webster’s veiled hint.

From childhood, Emory Dustin had been a complicated person. The combination of external events and his own complex nature and good mind had so involved him that during those many times when he had sudden flashes of curiosity about what he really was, what he really wanted, and what he really was going to do, he had to abandon the problems as too difficult for him, and follow whichever of his contradictory trends was strongest at the moment. Now he felt that he could not avoid the present problem, difficult as it was. A man could die for that neglect.

He had been born on a ranch in south Texas that was neither poor nor rich, while his neighbors were either very poor or very rich. His father was a self-righteous and hard-working rancher whose wife had died when Emory was born, and who with the aid of a Mexican woman housekeeper had tried to raise Emory to be nice and respectable, strong and courageous. Although the father did not know it himself, his interpretation of a boy being nice and courageous meant that Emory should fear him and the harness strap he wielded freely when the boy did wrong, but should be fearless and honest in his relations with everybody else.

Having a backside which was sensitive to the strap, a pride that was allergic to his father’s righteous bullying, and a mind that was shrewd and active, Emory was quick to learn his father’s strength and his weaknesses, and to exploit them to his own advantage. As long as his father had his own self-righteous way, and as long as Emory looked up to him as a pillar of morality and strength, and showed that he admired the old man, he could get anything he wanted from him. He learned to show broken-heartedness instead of anger when he didn’t get his way, and his dad was too convinced of his own perfection to allow himself the admission that he was mistreating his own child. So, when he suspected that Emory was silently suffering for the old man’s hardness, the old man would prove that he was not hard by giving Emory what he wanted.

Thus Emory Dustin learned at a very young age what most boys learn about life from their fathers, that the strongest man is always right, and that if you show him that you agree with him, you can go on and think what you please, and prey on the vanity that always accompanies self-righteousness.

He soon learned that the old Mexican woman who raised him despised his father and felt sorry for him, and he quickly learned to use this knowledge. Since the motherly housekeeper dreaded to see the boy whipped, she would not report his disobedience to the father, so Emory did just about as he pleased. By being nice to her, he kept her on his side.

It was that knowledge which had been responsible for the growth of Dustin’s cheerful and easy-going manner, which he always wore like a mask, hiding his self-seeking greediness, his rages at its frustration, and particularly the gnawing fear which ate at his vitals, and for which he cursed his father. His smile had brought dividends, but it had also cost him any genuine self-respect he might have had. And because of his knowledge of the duplicity behind it, he continuously blamed his father for his own sense of hypocrisy. He knew he was afraid, and he knew that he had developed a philosophy of ruthlessness in himself purely as a defense against his acknowledged cowardice.

This ruthlessness had crystallized behind his mask of casual ease at the time of his father’s death when Emory was fifteen. The old man had been crippled for several years and, on his death, Emory found himself out on his own with the ranch gone and nothing to do but make a living for himself. Having long since learned the art of getting out of work, he was too young, inexperienced and irresponsible to get a job as a regular cowboy, and had ended up as a hired hand for an unscrupulous cattle-buyer. Having to work for a crook was a great wound to his pride, but it was an education as well. And Emory was one who was quick to learn.

He galled under this work for a couple of years, while his own pride built up proportionately to offset the humiliation of having to do an honest day’s work for a crook, and this fired his urge for independence.

Having learned some of the tricks of the trade, he used them against his boss until he got enough money to go out on his own. He would have gone his way quietly, except for the fact that the boss interfered. It had come about when the boss who by the nature of his calling trusted nobody, had finally decided that he could trust Emory to drive a herd of hot cattle to a nearby construction company boss who regularly bought the stuff with no questions asked, paying in cash, so as not to leave any records of the tricky and profitable transaction. The boss had decided that Emory was trustworthy when he himself was in bed with a broken leg at a time when he got a tip that his herd was going to be looked over by the inspectors. Forced to get it out of his hands in short order, and being unable to go along with it to collect the money, he had formed a sudden faith in Emory’s honesty, and sent him along to sell the cattle and bring back the money. It was the only thing he could do.

Emory sold the cattle, pocketed the money, and kept going, knowing that the boss couldn’t very well voice any open objections to this re-theft of stolen cattle. Thus Emory Dustin, by use of his own self-admired intelligence, launched himself into the cattle-buying business.

He had gained independence.

And he had done well, keeping his independence until his own greed led him to the gambling tables. That was when he eventually woke up taking orders from J.B. Faulkner, who had more experience in that sort of thing than Emory had, and was more coldblooded in his business dealings. Faulkner was not acting as a crook to salve an injured pride in a doubtful independence, but purely for the vindictive purpose of acquiring money and power over those who were so much better off than he in looks, health, self-respect, and in the simple joys of living. Faulkner fought them with an aggressive and icy vindictiveness which left no room for even his own emotional satisfaction. Thus Emory Dustin found himself for the second time in his life under the domination of a man more powerful than himself.

He had made money working under Faulkner, and lost it at poker, and at the same time his self-respect had sunk to still lower levels, intensifying his conflict with himself. Knowing himself to have a high intelligence, he considered that he deserved the things that decent men had. He had a strong urge for respectability while hating those who had the respectability which he knew he could never have.

He had to satisfy himself with the symbols of respectability instead of the real thing, and Swanson and his daughter stood for the things he despised and wanted at the same time.

So it was that while he made love to Sonia Swanson, while he wanted to be married to her in order to establish his own respect ability, he still did not think of her except in the light of his own desires. She stood for the things he wanted, and he wanted her, but he gave little thought to how she felt about him. His egotism convinced him that she should be glad of the attentions of a young man of his personality and energy, so that his interest came not through any regard for her, but was for the purpose of showing her his own qualifications, and convincing her thus that she would be lucky to place her future in his hands. He had gone along since he had known her, firm in the conviction that when he was ready to ask her to marry him she would jump at the chance.

And yet, up to now, the lurking fear in him had held him back from asking her to marry him. He knew that living a double life as he did, she would soon find it out and despise him for it, and his pride was such that he could not tolerate the thought of a decent person’s contempt. Thus again the conflict in him left him paralyzed against action; he wanted her and he was afraid to have her find out what kind of a man he was. And again, he wanted to live a life of integrity, but he knew that there were too many conflicting factors in himself to permit that. His hatreds and his fears were so great that they had to be kept hidden behind a mask, and the need to wear a mask gave him a sense of his own inferiority, which in turn was in constant conflict with his egotism.

Emory Dustin, in short, knew that his life was so entangled that it was hopeless to expect to ever get it untangled, and he knew that he was even afraid to try to do it.

And the advent of Webster had served only to throw him into a greater turmoil. He admired Webster’s cold-blooded callousness and the sharp mind which made Jim a leader, but at the same time he despised Webster for being a crook, and he hated and feared him because he was a better crook than himself.

Dustin had been the boss at the ranch, second only to Faulkner, and this had fed his pride. But Jim had come along, and he knew that Webster was a better man for the job, and knew that he had displaced him. And this knowledge fed the fires of his hatred, but his fear of Webster made it necessary for him to hide his hatred and fear from the man. More entanglements were thus thrust upon him, and this in turn gave rise to a new fear—the fear of the whole situation. He knew that things were going too fast for him; they were out from under his control, and his common sense warned him that he was in grave danger. His house of cards could tumble at any moment and, with that event, he would die; perhaps at the end of a rope, or with a bullet in him. The possibility of this disgrace and extinction fed his fear to the point of inner panic.

Webster and the crew had been on the road for more than a week now; all the cattle and merchandise, including the wagons it had been hauled in, had been sold, and now the group was in Boggy Depot, a stage stop on the Territory trail about thirty miles south of McAlester, with money in their pockets and a burning desire to let off a little steam.

The stage station was a cross between a hotel, saloon, general store and bawdy house, and the few inhabitants who lived in pine board shacks around the depot, Indians and a few nondescript whites, made their living one way or another off the people passing through on the stage or in settlers’ caravans and cattle drives.

They had ridden into Boggy the night before, and the boys had settled down to a bit of serious drinking with the women who had come along with them and with the half dozen white, near-white, and Indian women who hung around the bar at times when the crossing had visitors.

Now on the following morning when most of the men were nursing headaches and wondering what had happened to the money Webster had dished out among them, Webster himself was sitting at the breakfast table in another part of the rambling building, talking to a man who had dropped off a stage and was looking for a horse to take him down to Texas.

Webster had known the man in Texas, a cowboy who had worked for the Cattlemen’s Protective Association for a while.

When they recognized each other at breakfast, the man, Hoot Ballew, said, “What are you doing up here, Webster?”

“Just been selling some beef,” Webster admitted. “How’d you get lost this far from Santone?”

“Just been looking over the ground. Heard about it being a stockman’s heaven, and all that and wanted to see for myself.”

“Well, is it?”

“Good land. All it’s cracked up to be. But I’m getting too old to have to sit on my doorstep with a rifle on my lap just to keep my roof over my head. I’ll take it back down where I came from, where it’s a little more civilized.”

“It is pretty rough for a bit of heaven,” Webster admitted. “But that will be taken care of in due time. Are you in any hurry to get back where you came from?”

Ballew eyed him sharply, then grinned. “Watch out, now. I know you. Where there’s Webster there’s gunsmoke. I can smell it in your hair. Nope, don’t even offer me any kind of a proposition. I told you, there’s something about the smell of gunsmoke that turns my stomach, and something about the sound of a gun that makes me jump. I’m not your boy.”

“Who offered you a job?” Webster countered. “I just thought you might like to make expenses in an easy way that didn’t have any risk to it at all. You could probably do everything you have to do sitting in a rocking chair, and have fun and get money for it besides. If I told you what it was, I bet you’d jump at the chance to do it for nothing, just for the fun of it.”

“No, you don’t! Don’t even say another word! I don’t want it, and I don’t even want to hear about it. I told you I was now walking the path of peace. I don’t want a rocking chair in heaven; I want one under my own sycamore tree. Don’t even tell me what you’ve got in mind.”

“All right,” Webster agreed. “I won’t say another word. I just realized how much fun you’d have and thought you’d like to get a good laugh out of watching things. But I won’t even bother telling you what it was. Then you won’t know what you missed.”

“What would I be missing?”

“Nothing. Just—aw, forget it.”

“Forget what? Don’t be like that; telling a man just enough to get his curiosity aroused, and then stopping. That ain’t nice, is it?”

“Well, you’re an old lawdog, in a manner of speaking, and you know how crooks act. I thought you’d like to watch and see how they act when they know they’re watched. It would be instructive, and you might get a laugh out of it.”

“Well, what? Go on and tell me. Don’t be hinting around. Say what it is that you’re talking about.”

“Well, this is it. I’ve been on a loop with a bunch of cattle for Indian agencies and contractors and the like, and I’ve got a pretty tough crew and foreman. I’m carrying about twenty-two thousand dollars in cash, and those rannies’ tongues hang out a mile while they think about it.”

“Aw—there’s the fishhook. You need a gun-guard.”

“No! If I can’t take care of myself I deserve to lose it. You don’t even have to carry a gun.”

“What do you mean? I’d just as soon go around without my pants as without my gun in this heathen country. Anyway, what about it?”

“This is the setup; I’m leaving the men here to kick up for another night or two, but I’m starting out with that money about noon, just as soon as my foreman gets on his feet after his brawl last night. He’s going along with me. This guy looks all right on the surface, but he’s got snakes inside him. He’s hungry for a dollar, and that twenty-two thousand is a fortune to him. I’d gamble my last dime that he’s figuring right now on when and where he’s going to kill me and take it. Now here’s what I want you to do; you’re heading for Woodbine anyway. I can furnish you with a horse. You’re to come along, and you’re to hint that you’re on some kind of a big law case up here. Don’t say what it is, nor who you’re tied up with, but act like a dumb officer, one that hints too much. Just convey the impression that you’re suspicious of everybody.

“That’s on the trip down; give this guy—Dustin is his name—the uncomfortable feeling that you might be interested in him. I’ll get him aside and hint that I have the same feeling.

“Then when you get to Woodbine, don’t catch the first stage out. Hang around, acting mysteriously. Wherever you see Dustin, give him a pleasant greeting, but also make him feel that you’ve got your eyes on him. Let him catch you trailing him, maybe. Anyway, build it up till he gets nervous. That’s all you’ve got to do. I’ll pay you for it, and you’ll have some fun watching him. Later, if you like the game, say so, and maybe I’ll let you in on something else. But you’re tired of chasing crooks, Ballew, so it probably isn’t fun to you anymore.”

“You—I knew it. I told you all the time that you had something up your sleeve. You can’t fool me, Webster. And I told you I ain’t going to get the seat of my breeches punctured with any more lead.”

“Then you don’t want to come along with us and see how this fellow Dustin acts. Well, forget that I mentioned it.”

“Oh, I’ll go along with you, all right. And I’ll hang out in Woodbine a while for you, but after that, don’t count me in on the kill. I told you—”

* * * *

Emory Dustin was in an upstairs room of the station lying on an old iron bed, his brain fumed with Indian whiskey and his body wrecked with the emotional tension that comes to a fearful man facing the crossroads.

He had been thinking of his position during the whole trip, and the more he thought about it the more impossible it seemed that he could work out any solution which would solve his problem here. Things had come to a head; he could not go on as things now stood.

He knew that he was not man enough to wrestle leadership away from Webster. Now he could not even run out on the deal and settle down somewhere as a respectable citizen, an idea that he had toyed with from time to time, but action on which he had always postponed in the hope of having enough money to go straight. He was at the end of his rope.

Webster had kept careful count of the money they had taken in for the stolen stock, and had promptly given him his fourth of it as they got it. Then he promptly won it back from Emory in their nightly poker game.

Now Webster was downstairs with all the money except the quarter of the proceeds which he had dished out to the men. There must be over twenty thousand dollars, Dustin estimated, and the thought of that money kept preying on his mind. With that loot, he could run out on the whole affair, go somewhere else and start life anew. He could even marry Sonia Swanson, and take her along with him.

It would hurt a man’s pride to run but, after all, a man lives over a thing like that, but he can’t live over the effect of a well-placed bullet. And Webster was a man who knew how to place his bullets.

Dustin thought of the inevitable thing that stood between him and the money. Webster had to be killed. But his personality was so strong, he had such a commanding presence, that the thought of killing him was enough to make Dustin shake as though he had a chill.

But it had to be done; it was either Webster or himself, and he had no trouble making his choice in that matter. With Webster dead, and with the money in his own possession, he would have practically everything he wanted; money, Sonia Swanson, and freedom from the domination of Faulkner.

And, he argued, it would be easy. They were letting the men stay here another day before returning to the ranch, and Webster and he were going on to Woodbine alone. They would sleep out one night. Webster couldn’t stay awake every minute of the time. And it would only take a moment to lift a gun and kill a sleeping man. Then with Webster out of the way, he could go and explain to Faulkner that hijackers had waylaid and robbed them, killing Webster when he put up a fight. Then a word with Sonia, and they would elope and go to south Texas, or Mexico, or possibly make the trek out to California.

Seizing on the idea, Dustin built his dream up into a fabulous cattle empire in the Far West, with a few gold mines discovered on his land, with Sonia the stately mistress of his pretentious castle, and with a half dozen other pretty girls spotted strategically here and there awaiting his pleasure.

All as the result of lifting a small handgun a few inches and pulling a trigger, less than a half minute’s work. Easy as falling off a horse, and not half as dangerous. No witnesses, nobody to know or care what had happened.

The only difficulty was—Webster, himself. Even sleeping, Webster was a dangerous man. He might wake up!

Dustin was building his cattle empire when he recalled with a chilling suddenness that Webster had prepared himself against just such a contingency. The duplicate of Webster’s incriminating deposition, along with the guns and shells involved in the killing of the two officers, were in other hands, so that they would come to light if Webster died. Webster had pointed out that it was to Faulkner’s and Emory’s interest to keep him alive, so that the evidence would not fall into the hands of the law.

This situation chilled Emory for a moment, and he gave his best thinking to find a way to circumvent the possibility of running afoul of the law. Then he got it; he could say that Webster had not been killed, but had followed the outlaws, and would not be back until he had run them down and got the money back. This would give him—Emory—time to get safely away. Then, once he had disappeared, and safely hidden somewhere in California under an assumed name—then, as a matter of fact, he hoped that the evidence would come out—and hang Faulkner!

Good enough! The job would give him a few bad moments, but he had to do it. And after that—freedom, and money, and Sonia Swanson!

He dreamed for a while, and just before noon he dressed and went downstairs to get ready to go. Webster was at the table, eating beans and bull meat with another man.

“Emory,” Webster said when Dustin had joined them, “I want you to meet Hoot Ballew. He’s going down to Woodbine, so I lent him a horse, and he’ll go along. Be company for us.”

Dustin felt a burning rage come over him. He wanted no witnesses to his killing of Webster, but he kept a smile on his face as he acknowledged the introduction. “Glad to have you along,” he grinned. “Webster ain’t any too much fun on a business trip, and it would be nice to have a civilized man to talk to for a change. This your part of the country?”

“No. I was just up looking around. Glad to get out of it.”

Ballew got up and went to pay his bill, and Webster waited until he got out of hearing, then spoke to Dustin in a low voice.

“Watch this hombre,” he said. “He’s not what he’s claiming to be.”

“How do you know?” Dustin asked, his already nervous state increasing.

“He claims that he was just looking for a piece to settle up here. But I happen to know who he is.”

“Who is he?”

“Didn’t you ever hear of Hoot Ballew? He and a man by the name of Gibson are the star detectives of the Cattlemen’s Protective Association. They’re dynamic, too. Always work together, and I don’t suppose they ever failed to break a case in their lives.

“What do you reckon he’s doing here?” Dustin asked.

“I don’t know, but you can bet he’s doing something. And that Gibson is not far behind him. They’re regular Siamese twins. They keep track of each other that way.”

“You don’t suppose they’re looking in on us, do you?”

“That’s what I don’t know, but we’ve got to play it safe. Just don’t talk too much, and keep on pumping him. See if he talks vaguely, see if he contradicts himself in some of the things he says.”

“I wish he wasn’t coming along.”

“You’re wrong again. It’s better to have him under your nose so you can watch him while he’s watching you, isn’t it?”

“You sure think of all the angles,” Dustin had to admit.

“One other thing,” Webster cautioned him. “When we get to Woodbine, we’d better not hightail it straight to Faulkner’s. If this hombre is tailing us, that would be a dead giveaway.”

“What’ll we do?”

“We’ll separate. I’ll try to draw the guy off to come along with me. And if I do, you beat it to Faulkner and report. Everything, including this hombre. Tell him I’m tolling the guy away from him, and that I’ll see him later.”

“About that money!”

“Don’t be a fool. Faulkner won’t want that kind of evidence in his safe. Tell him I’ll hide it until this hombre blows on out of sight. Then see if he’s got anything on his mind, and I’ll meet you at the saloon. All right?”

“I reckon that’s best,” Dustin admitted.

Despite his smile, Dustin was sick inside. With an officer along, and another trailing him, he couldn’t take a chance on killing Webster. His plans were shot; his dream of the big stake went fading.

There was nothing left for him now but to get out of the country while he could. Things were getting too hot, and he had no intention of sticking around until his own shirttail was on fire. He had to get Sonia to elope with him, and go farther west and make a new start somewhere.

“Look, Webster,” he said. “You’ve cleaned me flat in those poker games, and I’ve got an important debt due when I get back. How’s chances of you lending me a thousand dollars till we sell some more stuff? I’ll pay you back then.”

Knowing how cold-blooded Webster could be, he was surprised when Webster answered. “Sure!”

Webster opened his money belt and counted out gold pieces. The gold had come from the robbery in which the two officers had been killed. Dustin’s eyes went to Webster in a kind of sickish fear, but Webster kept on counting. The man had a mind like a well-oiled machine.

“You can pass this money if I can,” Webster said. “You were the one who stole it! You’d better dig up a ramrod somewhere to stiffen your backbone. You’re getting flimsy, and I don’t like flimsy people.”

CHAPTER XVI

Hell Starts Popping

Leaving Boggy Depot at noon, the three men rode until night, slept at a creek, and rode all the next day, reaching Woodbine after dark. Dustin had been nervous and quiet, and the man named Ballew had been talkative in an evasive sort of way.

Dustin gradually became convinced that the man was on the trail of something hot, and the hottest thing he could think of was the setup he was in. He had abandoned the idea of killing and robbing Webster, and now his hope was to check in with Faulkner in order to keep him from being suspicious, then go to Sonia and persuade her to leave with him. He was in a hurry to put Woodbine behind him.

The three men rode into the livery stable at Woodbine and left their horses. Ballew asked the way to the hotel, and left them.

“You follow him,” Webster told Dustin, “and see that he doesn’t double back and trail me. I’m going to hide this money. We don’t want to be caught with it on us. I’ll see you later.”

Dustin was glad to be away from Webster, having his own affairs to take care of. He made his way down to Faulkner’s warehouse, hoping to catch him there. But the warehouse was closed and dark, and he came back to the hotel where Faulkner made his home, and inquired at the desk.

“He’s out of town on business,” the clerk told him. “Went away suddenly a couple of nights ago. Didn’t say when he would be back.”

“You don’t know where he went?”

“Nobody knows anything that personal about Faulkner,” the clerk grinned.

Dustin went out and had supper at a restaurant while he thought over his next move. Faulkner’s absence might give him the break that he needed to get out of town safely. After he had eaten, he went to his own room at the hotel, picked up some clean clothes, and went down to the barbershop for a bath and a shave, and spruce up before going to see Sonia.

As he came out of the barbershop, Dustin ran into the old bookkeeper who worked for Faulkner. The man appeared nervous and wanted to talk to him.

“What’s on your mind, Lester?” he asked, as he stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Old Lester, gray and hollow, looked anxiously up and down the almost deserted street. “You’d better walk down a-ways and I’ll follow you. It’s important.”

Dustin went down the street, and came presently to a dark place beside an old blacksmith shop, where the ancient bookkeeper joined him.

“What’s up?” Dustin asked. His own nerves had been tightening up for the last few days, and the old man’s actions sent a premonition of trouble through him.

“Where’ve you been?” the old man asked.

Faulkner’s associates were accustomed to treating the mousy clerk with contempt, and Dustin snapped, “What does it matter to you?”

“Nothing to me,” Lester answered quickly; “but Mr. Faulkner is mighty put out that you haven’t shown up before. He needed you, and he sent a man out to the ranch. The man said that you and this new man, Webster, and all the stock and everything had vanished. Faulkner was mad.”

“Sure we were vanished,” Dustin said. “We couldn’t let that stuff lie around there like that. We took it out and sold it. What did Faulkner want?”

“Maybe you haven’t heard. Do you know who this Jim Webster is?”

“I know a lot about him. He’s a mighty tough hombre, and a smart one.”

“Do you know who he’s working for?”

“Sure. He’s working for Jim Webster, and nobody else. Right now he’s working along with me and Faulkner, but he’s not fooling me. He’s working for himself, and himself alone.”

“Oh, no, he’s not working for himself alone. He’s working for Eric Swanson.”

Lester stopped, allowing his important announcement to sink in.

Dustin snapped, “What?” Then after a minute, he added, “You’re crazy! He’s as crooked as a snake.”

Lester was enjoying his hour of importance, and he said, “That is what you think! That was what Faulkner thought. But now we know different.”

“What do you know? Don’t talk in riddles. Say what’s on your mind.”

Something inside Dustin was boiling; a feeling that the world was crumbling around him keyed his nerves up to the breaking point.

“You know that Asa Cromwell owes Faulkner a lot of money. Well, maybe you didn’t know that. Hardly anybody knew it except them and myself. Well, Cromwell had some information that he thought Faulkner would pay well for, and so he and Faulkner made a deal. He told Faulkner what he knew. And it was terrible—absolutely terrible.”

“What was it? Get on with your story.”

“Well, it seems that this Webster is a professional trouble buster from down in Texas, who Swanson sent for to find out what was happening to his cattle and all the other stuff that has been missing around these parts. This Webster’s way of doing it was to work his way into Faulkner’s confidence, to join up with us by proving to Faulkner that he was tougher than anybody else Faulkner had working for him. He has reported every move he made to Swanson. Swanson has an affidavit, the guns those officers were killed with, and everything. The affidavit tells—”

“I know what the affidavit tells,” Dustin snapped. “He showed it to me. But how do you know Swanson has the other copy now?”

“Swanson hasn’t got it now. Cromwell was supposed to put it into a safety deposit box in the bank for Swanson but, instead, he just put some blank papers in the envelope and sealed them. He gave the real affidavit to Faulkner to cancel his debt.”

Dustin studied this piece of news, and the possibilities it offered gave him a new hope. The danger that the duplicate affidavit might come to light if Webster died no longer existed. Webster could be killed, his own copy of the affidavit removed from his person, and that would destroy every scrap of evidence against him and Faulkner.

And he would again be the boss of the ranch.

The only thing standing against him and Faulkner would be the rifles and the dummy shells.

“That affidavit mentioned a couple of rifles and some shells,” he said to the old man. “Do you know what happened to them?”

“Cromwell said that Swanson had them hidden at the home of Mrs. Halsell. That’s where Swanson and Webster met to talk things over. For one thing, Faulkner wanted you to get those guns. He told me that if you showed up, you was to get them.”

“How does he think I can get them?”

“That’s up to you, he said. You’re sweet on that Swanson girl, and you visit at Mrs. Halsell’s. He said for you to get those guns.”

“Hell, I can’t just go in and rob the house.”

“He said you’d better get them; he didn’t care how you got them, but that you had to get them.”

“Why don’t he get them? He’s the one that sold them, and he’s the one they’ll hang.”

“He’s got other business right now.”

“What?”

“Something else be blames you for. Swanson got orders from the commission men in Kansas City, I reckon, for a lot of stock. He made up a shipment of five hundred head, and started driving them up to the railroad at McAlester. Faulkner wanted those cattle, and there wasn’t any of you boys around to take them. He had to get another crew, and he had to go out and boss the job himself. He’s as mad as a hornet.”

“Who’s he having get them for him?”

“Cloyd Martin and his crew. Who else could he round up to do the job. And Martin tried to back out; too dangerous. But Faulkner forced him to do it. Had too much on him. They’re going to drive them to the ranch. They ought to have got through with the job by now. And Faulkner wants you up there as soon as you get those guns back.”

“I never heard of him spreading himself so.”

“He had to. Things are so hot, he had to take things in his own hands. There’s too much to do; get rid of Webster, get those rifles and ammunition back, get back that stock—I suppose Webster engineered the selling of that stock, didn’t he?”

Dustin said, “Yeah. It was his idea.”

“So I suppose he kept all the money?”

Now Dustin saw why Webster had made excuses to keep the money, and to hide it. Webster had never intended to turn it over to Faulkner. And in that case—Dustin knew then where that money was. Webster had been using Mrs. Halsell’s house for headquarters. That was where he would be taking the money for safekeeping.

Now Dustin got rid of the old bookkeeper. “All right,” he said. “I’ll get busy. If Faulkner comes back looking for me, tell him that I’ll fix everything up. I’ll get the guns, and I’ll probably get a chance to take care of Webster as well. I’ll see you later.”

Dustin left the old bookkeeper and walked back toward town with his mind in a turmoil. He was at the crossroads now, and he had to make a quick choice.

He could follow Faulkner’s orders and perhaps they could get things straightened out, retrieve the incriminating guns and shells and get the money back to be divided between them, and pick up where he left off when Webster appeared on the scene.

Or he could go to Mrs. Halsell’s and get that money and keep it all for himself. It would cost him the girl, but here was the chance he had been looking for. He could get out of the country with all that money, and leave Faulkner here to face the music.

He stopped off at the saloon and poured four stiff drinks down in rapid succession. Then he tightened up his belt and walked down toward Mrs. Halsell’s.

* * * *

When Dustin left Webster at the livery stable on their arrival in Woodbine, Jim Webster took his pair of saddlebags off his saddle and struck out afoot. He disappeared into a clump of brush in a vacant lot and waited long enough to be sure that he was not being followed. Then he emerged and made his way through the darkness to Mrs. Halsell’s house, and knocked.

When she admitted him he saw the look of surprise on her face, and when that look had subsided, it was replaced by a look of worry as she quickly closed the door behind him and took him into the living room. He sensed trouble, for she was a woman of cheerful disposition.

He dropped his saddlebags on the center table and laid his hat beside them. She had seated herself, and now she nodded to a chair, waiting for him to speak.

“Mrs. Halsell,” Jim said. “I’ve been liquidating the thieves’ loot. Some of the cattle belonged to Swanson, and I’ve got a list of all the brands and the number of cattle of each brand that I found up there. As to the merchandise, it is listed, but there’s no way to identify ownership of it. We also have the signatures of the men who were buying it, signed right on bills for the goods itself.

“The money for the stock and merchandise is in those saddlebags. I’d like to turn it over to Swanson for safekeeping. And I suppose the next step now is to round up the men. I asked Swanson to get me some men when I needed them, and I’ll be needing them now.”

Mrs. Halsell asked, “You haven’t seen anybody, Dick or Eric?”

“No. I just got in.” He sensed her agitation. “Something happened?”

“A great deal,” she smiled ruefully. “You sent Dick in to get Eric to find out about your affidavit.”

“Yes.”

“You will not be happy at what Eric found out, or the result of your having made it.”

“What happened?”

“Eric went to Cromwell and asked to get the affidavit back, as you suggested. Cromwell hemmed and hawed until Eric became suspicious and demanded it. Cromwell made more excuses, and so Eric took him by the collar and led him to the bank and made him produce the envelope.

“Mr. Webster, there was nothing but blank papers in the envelope which Asa Cromwell deposited in the bank. Eric was never so surprised in his life as when he found out that Mr. Cromwell was crooked.”

“What did he do?”

“He took Mr. Cromwell back to his own office, and locked the door, and he roughed Cromwell up until the old lawyer cried like a baby, and blurted out the whole story. He had been deeply in debt to Faulkner, and Faulkner had made him do a lot of unlawful legal work for him—whatever that is—and he wanted to get out of Faulkner’s clutches. He knew that he had Faulkner in a bad spot, so he used that paper to settle his debt. He gave it to Faulkner.”

Webster thought this over. “That explains it,” he said vaguely.

“Explains what?”

“Faulkner tried to have me killed, I believe. And I was wondering if he’d have done that unless he knew that my affidavit wouldn’t come to light. I’m glad I sent Dick to check up on that. Where is he now?”

“He’s with Eric.”

“And where are they?”

“You’d better let me tell you what else happened. Eric had to get some cattle to Kansas City to fill a contract, and he had to take a chance driving them up to the railhead at McAlester. This, and his learning about Cromwell’s betrayal, came at about the same time, you understand. He had just got the cattle started out in charge of his range boss, when he discovered the Cromwell business. He realized that Faulkner had regained the upper hand, and he became worried.

“He got to making inquiries, and learned that Faulkner had suddenly left town. Having learned from Dick that you and Emory had taken the crew away from that hideout ranch, he suspected that Faulkner knew this also, and was rounding up another crew to make an attack on him. He had always had his suspicions that a man named Cloyd Martin who ranches down on the river wasn’t honest. He kept too large a crew of tough men for the size of his herd. So he went visiting, and Cloyd Martin wasn’t at home either. Martin and his whole crew were gone.

“By then Eric was convinced that Faulkner had taken Martin and his crew and gone out to waylay that herd of cattle. So Eric got together all the men he could trust, and he’s out now trying to find out what if anything has happened to his herd. Dick is with him.”

Webster turned this over in his mind, visualizing the tragic possibilities in the situation. “How many men did Swanson have with him?” he asked.

“He said he had about six who would go. Not counting himself and Dick, of course.”

“They wouldn’t stand much of a chance,” Webster speculated, but he did not say this aloud to the woman.

“I’ll go along and give them a hand,” he said. “I was going to leave this money here, but if Faulkner knows about things, then I’d better take it somewhere else. And those guns. He might try to get his hands on them.”

“Eric put the guns in a safe place as soon as he saw that it might be dangerous for me if they were left here.”

Webster was wondering where he could leave the money, when they both heard the front gate slam and footsteps on the stone walk.

Mrs. Halsell showed her concern, glancing around the room quickly.

“Come in here,” she said, moving toward the door to the kitchen.

Webster picked up his hat and saddlebags and moved into the dark kitchen, and closed the door behind him. As he groped for a chair and sat down, he heard Mrs. Halsell going to the front door, and then heard voices. He recognized Emory Dustin’s voice as he spoke to Mrs. Halsell, and then Sonia Swanson’s voice.

“I met Emory on my way from Miller’s,” Sonia explained. “He came along. He said he had something important to talk over with you.”

“What is it, Emory?” Mrs. Halsell asked.

“This embarrasses me,” Dustin said. “But I don’t know how to say it except just to state the facts. You see, Faulkner runs a trading post up in the Territory, handling merchandise and cattle. I am interested in the project with him. Now it seems that this fellow Webster, who has been creating so much excitement since he showed up in these parts, managed to get into Faulkner’s confidence, and worked his way into helping manage the business up there. As I told Sonia once before, I felt that the man was crooked. Well, this is what he did, and I am in a position to know for certain this time that he did it. He managed by a clever scheme to steal every cow and every piece of merchandise that we had. Wiped us out, clean as a whistle.

“His scheme was fantastic. You wouldn’t have believed it if it hadn’t actually happened. He posed as some kind of law officer after a bunch of crooks, and I understand that he roped a number of people into believing it. He even went so far as to manufacture a lot of fake evidence against several respectable citizens. He even fooled Asa Cromwell, a very astute lawyer, for a while. But Cromwell got suspicious of him and checked on him down in south Texas. The man is an extraordinary person. Seems to delight in hoodwinking a whole community or something.

“At any rate, he sold out all our merchandise and our livestock, and he came back here with the money. I understand that he managed to pull the wool over Eric’s eyes, and yours. I heard that he’d even become so bold that he was using your house as his headquarters.”

“Who was telling you that?” Mrs. Halsell asked.

“I got it indirectly from Asa Cromwell, himself.”

“Indirectly from the man himself,” Mrs. Halsell repeated. “Does that make sense, Emory? Did you get it indirectly, or from the man himself?”

“Well, I got it from the man who heard him explaining things.”

“Who was that?”

“Pardon me, Mrs. Halsell, but I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Then what did you want to see me about?”

“I wanted to ask you to cooperate with us in catching Jim Webster. First, I’d like to pick up that fake evidence, those guns and so forth. Then, I’m sure he must have left the money with you for safekeeping. I know, of course, that you don’t want to be helping a crook rob your friends.”

“No,” Mrs. Halsell answered slowly. “I certainly don’t want to be helping a crook rob my friends. What do you want me to do?”

“I’d like you to give me those guns so that I can destroy them, and I’d like you to give me the money that he gave you to keep.”

“I have no guns here,” Mrs. Halsell said.

“Well, that’s not important,” Dustin said. “But the money is; part of it is mine, the rest Faulkner’s. I’m sure you won’t want to keep stolen money from its rightful owners.”

“Of course not, Emory. But I have no stolen money.”

“Do you mean to say that Webster did not leave any money in your keeping?”

“Why, yes. I mean to say exactly that. Are you doubting my word?”

Emory Dustin was silent for a moment, then turned on his best smile. “I don’t like to doubt the word of a lady,” he said, “but I believe that Webster has fooled you so completely that you’re trying to be loyal to a trust. So, with no offense, I don’t believe you.”

“In that case,” Mrs. Halsell said coldly. “You may leave.”

“I can’t leave without that money, Mrs. Halsell.” Dustin’s voice was a little higher, more edged. “I know Webster brought it here, and I know that he wouldn’t have been wandering around with it later.”

“I suggested that you get out of here, Emory. You’ve said enough.”

“I am sorry, but I am not going without that money.”

“And how are you going to get it?”

“I’ll get it if I have to tear this house apart.”

The girl had been silent all the while, spellbound by what she was hearing. Now she cried out, “Emory, have you lost your mind entirely?”

“I’ve lost over twenty thousand dollars,” Dustin said sharply. “It’s in this house, and I’m going to get it.”

“I wonder if you’d try it if a man were here,” Mrs. Halsell said calmly.

“I’d get that money if a regiment were here.”

“If Webster were here?”

“I wish he were here, the dirty thief!”

Mrs. Halsell turned her head slightly.

“Mr. Webster,” she called. “There’s a man here who wants to see you!”

Webster came out of the darkened kitchen and closed the door behind him, backing up against it.

“All right, Dustin,” he said quietly. “I guess this is it. I gave you money to leave the country. You should have done it. Now get your hands up.”

Dustin’s eyes widened. Two pink spots burned on his cheeks, and then his face became a livid mask of frustration and hatred. He looked around as though seeking a means of escape, but there was none. Then he turned back toward Webster, and there was frantic haste in the way he slapped his gun out of its holster.

Webster shot him through the heart, and he fell head first on the white handwoven rag rug.

Sonia Swanson screamed and dropped into her father’s chair, and put her hands over her face while her shoulders shook with her sobs.

Mrs. Halsell stood by the center table, the light from the lamp shining on the face of a kind woman who was trying to fight back her natural sympathy for a man she knew to be completely bad. Dustin’s whole nature had shown on his face for that brief moment before he died.

Webster was quick to speak. “I’ll take you and Sonia wherever you want to go,” he offered.

“We’d better go to Doctor Benson’s. He can look after Emory.”

Webster crossed the room and stood over the girl. He laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The girl gathered herself together and looked up at him. “It’s not what you think,” she said. “I never did intend to marry Emory. At first I thought he was nice, but I gradually learned that he could think only of himself.”

“I didn’t know, and I don’t think anybody else knew. You were still seeing him.”

“Until I made Dad tell me about him. He didn’t want to do it, but I knew something terrible was going on, and I made him do it. Why didn’t somebody tell me before? Cora, why didn’t you tell me what he was? Why didn’t Dad tell me? Why didn’t Dick tell me? What am I? Didn’t I mean anything to any of you?”

Mrs. Halsell was over across the room now, trying to soothe her. “We didn’t tell you because we thought you were old enough to know your own mind,” she explained.

Webster said, “Mrs. Halsell, you’ve been called a liar once tonight. Probably for the first time in your life. Now I’m going to have to do it again.”

“Sonia, Old Jim Webster is always meddling in other people’s business. I’ve meddled in yours before, so once more won’t hurt. I think the reason you kept on going with Dustin after you saw through him was this; I’ve got a hunch you think a lot more of Dick than you let on, and there’s an old idea floating around that the way to make a man propose is to make him think he is going to lose you to another man. Ever hear of that?”

Now the girl lifted her face out of her hands, and it was pink back to her ears. She looked as though he had caught her cheating at cards.

“And,” Webster went on relentlessly, “these people love you. Dick loves you, and they all know it. And Dick loves you so much that he felt that if it took Dustin to make you happy, then he wanted you to have him. He thought more of your happiness than he did of his own, and that is a kind of love that doesn’t grow on every bleeding-heart bush. And Mrs. Halsell is the kind of person who wouldn’t do a mean thing just to steer you away from the man she thought you wanted and toward Dick, as much as she thought of you both. That’s the works, girl, and you should be proud of such people.”

The girl looked at him seriously, then squared her shoulders. “I don’t know who you are, Jim Webster. I haven’t seen you very often, and I don’t know how you learn so much. But thanks a lot, just the same.” She got to her feet, and there was a spring in her step.

“Are you ready to go, Cora?”

CHAPTER XVII

High Valley Gun Thunder

J.B. Faulkner was a man who had always been ruled by vindictiveness. To him life was a battle of man against man, and the smartest and most ruthless was the one who won.

He had a deep-seated sense of his own inferiority because of his poor physique and background, and he spent his life compensating for this with an insatiable craving for power and money. Money meant power, and with power he could control other men, he could be indifferent to them, and thus in a sense he could drown his own sense of being less than they.

He was a smart man, and thus he recognized and had contempt for his own weaknesses. But this self-contempt was too much for a man to stand, and he unconsciously projected it outward, where it expressed itself in an unadmitted envy and an admitted hatred. He hated men like Swanson, who seemed to get some joy out of living. He hated everybody who seemed to have a healthy sense of moral values, and he vented his spleen on them for being what he could not be. And in order to hide his own knowledge of his inferiority, he had developed such an arrogant pride that he became venomous at the thought that anybody could get the better of him.

Thus when he learned that Webster and Swanson were working together to crush him, his rage was so great that it made him physically ill. For the first time he discarded his rule of making others pull his chestnuts out of the fire. Instead, he was driven to go out himself and bring his wrath down on the heads of those who had so nearly destroyed him.

He had had little difficulty in rounding up Cloyd Martin and his men. Having been buying stolen stock from them regularly, it was a simple matter to make them help him, partly through blackmail and partly through promises.

Then, realizing that Webster, Dustin and the whole crew might sell his stock and keep on going, he brought up a new idea.

“How about you running that high ranch?” he had asked Martin. “You could do a lot better for yourself and the boys.”

“What about Dustin and that new man?”

“They’re no good. They’re both crooks. They’d steal from me as quick as they would from somebody else.”

“That’s a shame, I hate a crook,” Martin answered, enjoying the prospect of moving into Dustin’s job. “Maybe we can get together on it.”

“If they do come back, they’ll probably put up a fight,” Faulkner cautioned him cagily. “You’ll have to shoot your way into the job, maybe.”

“Don’t worry about me holding what I get my hands on.”

So they had agreed. They had moved over mountains, and on the morning of the second day, just before daylight, they had found Swanson’s herd camped on a flat prairie beside a creek. They descended on it and drove the regular hands off without firing a half dozen shots.

And now they had the herd back in the deserted valley ranch, and Faulkner was sitting in the empty storeroom, watching Martin’s men drinking some of the whiskey that had been left there.

“What do we do now?” Martin asked. “When do we get out and sell these cattle? Maybe we ought to drive them on down to some of those customers of yours.”

“I’m going to wait here. We have some business to settle first.”

“What kind of business?”

“The business of teaching that crew that they made a mistake in driving that stuff away and selling it.”

“They probably won’t show up here again.”

“Yes, they will be here. They took cooking utensils, but they left a good stock of food here. That means they will be back.”

“And what do we do when they do show up?”

“We get rid of them. You wanted to take over with your men, didn’t you?”

Martin digested this news. “That sounds pretty cold-blooded to me.”

“That is right. You cannot run a business like this any other way. If you intend to handle this end, then you’ll have to show me that you can do it my way. Is that all right with you?”

“Yes, if you say so. The idea just hit me a little sudden, so to speak.”

“That is the way we will hit them when they show up. Sudden, so to speak.”

“Have you any idea of when they might show up?”

“I’ve got it figured out approximately. I have a notion that they took the goods and sold it around to my regular customers. Allowing that to be the case, and if they take a couple of days off to throw their money away on liquor and women, they should be likely to show up any time after tomorrow or next day. We will wait for them.”

“They could slip up on us.”

“Put a man down the trail about a quarter of a mile. Have him relieved every four hours.”

* * * *

Jim Webster had left Woodbine immediately after seeing Mrs. Halsell and Sonia to the doctor’s, and had again taken the trail across the river and over the mountains. It was the next day before he came upon Swanson and Dick Hammond and his party.

There were now fifteen men with Swanson, who had trailed and found his trail crew making their way back home with one wounded man, the only one who had suffered from the raid on the herd. And having confirmed his suspicions that the stolen herd was being headed back to the high ranch, Swanson was on his way there when Webster encountered him.

He and Webster had a talk, in which Webster reported his own actions. He watched Dick Hammond when he reported Dustin’s last acts, but Hammond kept a straight face, revealing nothing of his feelings.

Then Webster, Hammond and Swanson sat down apart from the rest of the crew, and Webster outlined his plan to Swanson, convinced that if Swanson went on to the place as he had planned, he would run into a trap.

As a result of the conversation, the party headed up into the mountains, and pitched a dry camp at the old shack where Hammond had been hiding out. Webster left them and was gone the rest of the night and part of the day.

It was the evening of the day following, that one of the men who had been stationed at the road came back to the shack to report the sound of approaching horses.

Webster got his horse and rode out to the lane and met the approaching horsemen. Merle Tate and Ike Flint were in the lead, and it was to them that Webster spoke.

“Are you boys sober enough to do a little fighting?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Flint grunted. “That storekeeper ran out of likker before we was through. Why?”

“You’re going to have to burn a little powder if you want to sleep in your own bunks tonight.”

“How come?” Tate asked.

“There seems to have been a reorganization since we left. Brother Faulkner has decided that he could get along better without us, and he’s moved a new crew in, with orders to burn us down if we try to get back home. Personally, I don’t care to be fired like that.”

“Who’s up there?”

“Fellow by the name of Cloyd Martin and his gang. They’re all set to blast us off the face of the earth when we try to get back in.”

“What are they doing there?”

“They’ve got a big herd of cattle in there. Must have taken them while we were gone. That’s a lot of stock to let those hombres have without a fight. What we ought to do is to go and burn those boys out and take the cattle for ourselves.”

“Now that’s the most sensible thing I ever heard you say,” Flint opined eagerly. “I don’t like nobody horning in on my job, either.”

“That’s what I thought,” Webster said. “And from now on out, I don’t think we need Faulkner any more than he thinks he needs us.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking for a long time,” Tate said. He turned to the boys who had pulled their horses up close. “How about the rest of you? Do we tuck in our tails and turn back?”

“I’m not turning back,” one of them said. “I’ve got used to that place. All the home I’ve got.”

Another man said, “Faulkner can’t take a man’s livelihood away from him. It ain’t right.” The rest were in agreement.

“Then you boys go on and make it right. I’ll take the back trail, and keep any of them from running out the back door.

After the men got going, Webster returned to his group at the hidden shack, and reported his success.

“We’ll give them a little start on us,” he said. “Then we’ll pull in behind them and see what happens.”

* * * *

Cloyd Martin did not like the uncertainty of this waiting. Faulkner had insisted that they stay put, and they had now spent two restless days and nights with the tension growing momentarily as the time got shorter.

They didn’t know anything; they didn’t know whether the old crew would come back or not, or whether they would be able to spring a trap on them if they did come. The men grew nervous, and drank too much, and quarreled among themselves. Martin moved about restlessly between the store and the corrals, and out on the road, where he could look downhill, but could see nothing except the trees swallowing up the trail.

Faulkner kept more or less to himself, his injured pride feeding the fires of his hatred of Dustin and Webster, and of the rest of the world. He gave an occasional order in his flat voice, and the malignancy in his eyes made the men more jumpy.

Going out into a light where you knew what the odds were and could either shape them to your advantage or pass up the fight, that was one thing. But sitting and waiting for a group to come along so you could slaughter them—or be slaughtered—that was another thing. The men didn’t like it. Martin did not relish it either, and he had difficulty in keeping them in line.

It was night now, and Faulkner had called them all in from the various shacks among the trees, and kept them bunched up in the big storeroom.

“I have an idea they’ll be along tonight,” he told Martin, as they sat at one of the tables in the store. “As soon as the guard hears them coming and lets us know, we will go out into the trees and wait until the bunch of them come in. We’ll open the lean-to gate, and they’ll start riding in. Have some of your men out behind the sawmill shed. Then as they ride into the lean-to, we’ll have them cut off front and back. I don’t want even one of them to get away.”

Martin shook his head. “Like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“No, it is simply the practical way to do it. Why do a thing halfway when you can do it the right way easier?”

A man came into the doorway leading from the trail, and looked around. Another came in behind him. One of them was Merle Tate, the other was Ike Flint.

Flint said, “Howdy, Faulkner,” and then whipped out his gun and fired.

Faulkner fell sideways out of his chair as the bullet pinged into the wall behind him. He saw Tate’s gun come up, and between Tate and Flint, more of the old crew were pouring into the door. Somebody, it could have been Martin, shot out the hanging lamp, plunging the whole room into darkness.

And then the room became a confusion of shuffling feet, shouting men, and the deafening explosion of shells in a confined space. The air was pungent with burned smoke, and gunflame blossomed here and there like giant deadly fireflies in the darkness.

Faulkner drew his gun and shot toward the outer door; a volley of fresh fire came from that direction, another came from outside the window, accompanied by the dancing explosions of guns and the crashing of window glass.

He heard the advancing feet of the attackers, spread out and coming toward them as they threw a withering fire toward Martin’s men. He crawled away from the table he had overturned, and dragged it with him toward a wall, where he pulled it along as a kind of breastworks as he lay as low as he could. The thought came to him then—in that mad confusion—that men did foolish things for the sake of living a little longer. Things like expecting a tabletop to stop a bullet.

Faulkner started crawling along the wall then, and pushed his way on hands and knees toward the bar in the corner. Passing behind it, he found the door leading to the merchandise room, and reached up to open it.

He was afraid to get onto his knees and reach for the door knob with all the crashing of chairs and tables and the shouts and the firing, and the whining bullets about him. He cowered there for a long moment, and he now realized that in spite of all he had done to convince himself that he was afraid of nothing, there was a deep-seated fear in him that was now forcing itself to the surface. It was a kind of helpless terror, a new experience for him.

He heard the impact of bullets on human bodies; he heard men grunt, and shriek out their last death cries. Panic seized him. A man worked his way to the bar in the darkness and was trying to cower behind its scant protection. The man bumped against Faulkner. Faulkner cursed and hit him over the head with his own gunbutt, and shoved him back out of the way, so that he would have more room for himself.

Now, in his panic, he got to his feet and found the handle of the door. He passed through it into the empty merchandise room, where he leaned against the wall and tried to recover his wits.

He thought of the man who had been on guard, the man who should have warned them of the approach of the old crew. He must have been ambushed. Which meant that even while he was laying his trap for his old crew, they had known what to expect, and had come prepared to wipe the intruders out instead.

Then there had been leaks in his plans; for his trouble, he had managed to set half his men against the other half. They were wiping one another out, and no matter which group won, he would have very few men left under his orders.

It was disaster, it was a dirty trick that Dustin or Webster had played on him when they had turned on him with the old crew. He had spoken casually to Martin about the butchery of the old crew, and the significance of the idea had been only a superficial thought to him. Now in the middle of a savage slaughter turned against himself, he was shaken to the very roots of his being. He could hear men shouting and dying, and he was not entirely out of it himself. He, a man who had never sweated, was now sweating, and his muscles were so tense that there was physical pain in his lungs and a cramping in his legs. J.B. Faulkner was now tasting fruits he had heretofore sent other men to gather. And his only thought was that he could not stomach it, that he had to get away.

He knew that his leadership was destroyed here; he had turned his men against one another, and he was running out on the fight himself. Nobody would take orders from him again.

Well, he had prepared for this day, though he had not expected it to come. All he had to do was to get back to Woodbine, gather up a fortune in Government bonds, a small package, and move on to new and safe territory.

He started to make his way out the front of the building, guiding his movements by the sound of the battle in the other room. He heard the feet and voices of the men on the outside who had the building surrounded, and he heard the men inside.

He came along the wall to a side window, and covered by the sound of battle, he smashed the glass with the barrel of his gun.

He stuck his head out, and then pulled it in again quickly.

More horsemen were coming up. Who could they be?

He waited until they had rounded the front of the building and were dismounting. Then he crawled out the window, letting himself down in the dark shadows beside the building. He was free of the death trap. Some of his courage returned to him.

He paused here while he noted the movements of the new arrivals, locating them by the sound of their feet. They had dismounted and were encircling the building.

After he had judged that they were all away from their horses, he tightened his grip on his gun and circled the store front, keeping to the darkest patches of shadow. He made it this way to a saddle horse, and untied the animal just as a new burst of fire came from the new arrivals. They were pouring lead into the building with no regard for which group of fighters they hit.

Then Faulkner knew! He had sense enough to know the whole bitter truth. Webster—he supposed it was the man who, he now knew, had engineered the whole coup—Webster had outsmarted him.

He knew without having the evidence that Webster had turned his first crew on his second one, thus making them kill themselves off, thus dividing them against themselves and reducing their numbers. And finally, even as they were destroying one another, Webster was sending in a posse to clean up those who survived.

He saw the whole business in a flash from beginning to end. He did not need to know all the details to realize that Webster had come in at Swanson’s request and had wiped him out. That was the sum total of the whole matter; that was all that counted. Webster had destroyed Faulkner.

The gunfire behind him was deafening as he mounted the horse. Somebody had set fire to the building in three or four places along the outer walls, and now the red flames were licking upward. Men were shouting and dying, and the air quivered with the rattle of pistols and rifles.

That was the end of Faulkner’s handiwork; that was the funeral pyre of his vindictive hostility toward a world of better men than himself. He turned his back on it, and headed the horse away from the burning sawmill shed.

Then a figure loomed out of the shadows of the trees, and he recognized the voice of Jim Webster.

“Pull up, Faulkner. We’re not through with you yet.”

Faulkner was riding with his gun in his hand, and now his fury was boundless. He did not speak, but lifted his weapon and spurred the animal directly at the man who was now blocking his path, as he had blocked it ever since coming to Woodbine.

He held his gun well forward as he pulled the trigger one time after another at the figure which loomed up before him, as though to reach him the quicker with his lead. His rage was now in complete mastery; his fears had been drowned in it. His vindictiveness was in full control, and it drove him full tilt at his tormentor.

He saw Webster weave in the saddle, and grab onto the horn. And still he triggered the wavering gun in Webster’s direction. He saw Webster’s hat sail off his head, and still he came on.

And then he felt the stunning blow of something kick him in the chest. It was just one blow, but it was as if a mountain had fallen on him and benumbed his body and his senses. He felt himself falling off his horse, and he could do nothing to right himself. He was swimming in a sea of blackness which engulfed him, and swallowed up feeling, swallowed up hatred and pride, swallowed up the very consciousness of life itself…

J.B. Faulkner was dead when his body hit the ground. One of his feet was caught in the stirrup, and the panicky horse reared and turned, and ran insanely toward the burning lean-to shed, disappearing into its flaming red cavern….

* * * *

Jim Webster had lost consciousness on the road where he had sat his horse and shot it out with Faulkner. And when he again knew he was alive, he was lying in a bed in one of Mrs. Halsell’s rooms. And Dick Hammond, covered with an assortment of bandages, was lying in another, while Sonia sat beside him, feeding him soup with a spoon.

There were quite a number of people in Mrs. Halsell’s, it seemed. And soon, after the doctor had punched Webster around a little more, some of them came in. Swanson and the traveler Webster had picked up, Hoot Ballew.

They talked a little while about the fight, and Swanson said it was all over now except to settle with Webster, and to keep him quiet until the superficial scalp wound healed.

“I’ll tell you one thing you can do for me,” Webster told Swanson. “If you could manage some way to get word to the Rangers, we ought to turn this whole business over to them. After all, one of their men was killed, along with a U.S. Marshal, and so that brings the officials into the picture. And by the way, I owe Ballew something for giving me a hand in flushing Dustin out of the bush.”

Swanson laughed. “I guess we can take care of all that without leaving the room. Ballew tells me that he is now a Ranger, and that he was up here covering Clanton in the first place. Seems Ballew and Clanton were partners. Ballew’s old partner had succumbed to the virus of matrimony, having got strict orders from his new wife to give up the ways of a peace officer if he expected any peace at home. So Ballew is ready to take over where you left off. Leaving you free to accept an offer of partnership in my business, if I can persuade you to join up with me.”

Webster’s eyes went across the room to Hammond and Sonia, and he did not need to be further informed that their situation was well in hand.

“You’d better take it easy,” he told the girl. “You might end up having to spoon-feed that fellow for quite a while. It could get to be a habit.”

She smiled at him. “Well, it was your idea. I took care to make sure that I would be doing just that. I had to catch him crippled up, so that he couldn’t escape, but I’ve got him lassoed now. We’re going to make it a double hitch when Dad and Cora get married. And you, of course, are going to be best man for the whole tribe of us.”

Jim Webster shook his head. This was the kind of thing that brought sadness to him. It hurt him too deeply when he saw the happiness that was for those around him; it made him too conscious of what life had failed to give him; it was a deep, melancholy pain that he did not like to arouse.

“No,” he said. “No to all offers. As much as I would like to, I’ve got a job waiting for me as soon as I can get going. I’ve got some meddling to do down on the Sabine River. But if Mrs. Halsell would offer me a piece of that famous apple pie of hers, and a glass of milk, I doubt if I’d have the stamina to refuse, being in such a weakened condition.”