Doom Canyon

 Extracted from Complete Story magazine, 25 January 1925, pp. 03-76. Heading illustration omitted. A novella.

In the rocky fastness of “Lobo” and his gang.

Doom Canyon

A Complete Novel

by Joseph Montague*
Author of “The Flower of Fate,” etc.

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“LOBO” SMITH, COLD, CRUEL, RULED DOOM CANYON AND THREE CORNERS WITH A STERN HAND. WHEN JIM GARDNER BUCKED SMITH—HE PAID. BUT, WITH THE INFLUX OF THE CATTLEMEN, CAME OTHERS MORE FORMIDABLE—MORE CAPABLE OF MEETING SMITH'S ATTACK. AMONG THEM WAS STRONG. …

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CHAPTER I.

DAWN, coming up beyond the Pecos, shone fairly on the wall of the range, turning the bare stone rosy, tingeing the trees bronze, bathing the plain in a vermillion wash, gilding the silver sage and lacy mesquite, touching the lonely, savage landscape with mystery. But the cleft of Doom Cañon showed dark and forbidding as a dead man's wound, a purple-black gash in the first tier of the cliffs that mounted in a broken mesa high against the sky.

Sheer were the walls of the cañon, seamed and pitted and worn but unscalable from the floor of the gorge where the sun never rested, or from the weather-bitten, eroded rims that leaned toward each other. North and south ran Doom Cañon, with twisting turns here and there, a corridor of grimness, of almost legendary horror.

Here, so runs the story, the fierce Apaches herded the more peaceful mesa dwellers, penning them for slaughter, leaving them scalped and mutilated, to furnish food for the sneaking coyotes and the greedy buzzards. Long years afterward prospectors, seeking gold, ventured into the gloomy recesses, climbing the masses of lava that blocked the entrance so that one seemed to descend into the gorge, and found a rushing, mysterious stream that gushed out of a cavern at the end of the great ravine, boiled along its length and, roaring and white with foam, rushed beneath the lava and disappeared again.

Esqueleto Creek they called it, for its banks were strewn with moldering, scattered teeth-gnawed skeletons. They brought no gold from Doom Cañon—they did not search for any—but emerged on to the plain, glad to be in the light and warmth of day again. Twice a day the sun bathes a part of each great wall, that is stained in fantastic hues with mineral solutions, that drips with oozing water and is patterned with lichens and weird fungus growths that look like cabalistic messages inscribed upon the cliffs. The stars shine down and are sometimes caught in glittering points upon the stream that comes boiling and roaring out of the resounding cavern and hurls itself darkly under the entrance ledges, but its inky, snaky coils never greet the warm kiss of the sun or the colder caress of the moon. It might be the Styx itself, and the cañon the lower court to Hades, or the fabled sacred river of Kublai Khan that ran:

"Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.

No Indian ever entered there or came near the place. Even the reckless Apache, wandering from his reservation with his hand against that of all men, responsible for the massacre that named the gorge as the place of doom, gave it a wide berth.

It was marked for tragedy, a hall of death that Nature herself proclaimed taboo. Towering above Doom Cañon, boldly carved from the main mass of the great mesa by the wind, the rain, the frost and snow, stood Skull Knob, a semidetached bulk of white limestone. There were cavities in it where bushes grew and there was a ledge with stunted piñon and cedar upon it that gave to it eye sockets, nose and grinning jaws, even when the sun flared directly upon it.

And, always over the cañon, where surely few living things must stir or live, the buzzards hovered as if in memory of the great feast that was, perhaps, well within the recollection of those same ill-omened birds that, hour by hour, kept vigil, planing against the air currents in unceasing and apparently, profitless patrol.

Here was a desolate land where as yet the law had not come, a wild land where the renegades of three nations, the red man, the brown and the white, prowled and robbed and harried the hardy pioneers and prospectors who adventured in the half-desert region lying between the Rio Grande and the Pecos, carrying on a lawless traffic across the border. Doom Cañon, and its mesa formed part of the Organ Mountains in the Three Corners where Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico meet. It was a land of mirage and cactus, of yucca, greasewood and sage, of the puma, coyote, wolf and bear, of the tarantula, the Gila monster and the rattlesnake, the buzzard and the crow. It was a land of mirage and underground rivers, of the marvelous Seven Lost Cities of Cibola, of silver and gold, of thirst and torture, of hope and despair and death.

Yet there were grassy plains and fertile places and the rich surface of the land bid against what treasures might lie under it for the favor of the hardy pioneer, the cattleman, the rancher. Out on the plain, that looked so level and yet held valleys, prairies, and gullies, was the settlement of Laguna, twelve miles from Doom Cañon. It was naturally located beside what was almost a miracle—a fresh-water lake fed seemingly by springs, a lake that never failed in this country where the sun would evaporate a six-inch puddle in half that many hours; a deep lake of water that was hard but, compared to most of the alkaline surface basins, was as ginger ale to the Harlem River.

Clear Lake, it was called, and the town Laguna. The Apaches called it, for some reason, the Lake of the Dead. There were trout in it and other fish, and some day, when the railroad came down to parallel the valley of the Rio Grande, the lake would furnish the main incentive for a tourist resort. At present the collection of false-front shacks and adobes, of Mexican jacals, of saloons, dance halls, gambling rooms—the three usually combined in one—one or two general stores, two blacksmiths, sheds and corrals, was the first and last resort of all the scattering population—except the Apaches, not popular and supposed to be on their reservations, of the respectable few and the riffraff many. Ranchers and rustlers, gamblers and smugglers rubbed elbows at bar and game, danced with the same women in rough-and-ready fellowship that was ever hair-triggered.

Men wore guns, not for ornament but for use. The only ones who did not were the bartenders who were considered as neutral necessities under any and all conditions—these and Laguna's one undertaker, whose dead were furnished him.

Such the Three Corners. A place that might well be called the land that God forgot and with the devil's own nook in it—at Doom Cañon.

Men came to live in the cañon. How many none were sure, nor did they know all their names. Nor how they lived. It was not deemed a wise thing even in Three Corners to discuss the men of Doom Cañon. They might come to hear of it, for there were many who curried favor with them, or perhaps were in their pay. And they had harsh ways of settling scores.

Yet every man in Laguna believed that each of that band was not merely lawless but outlawed, that the nucleus had gradually been augmented by desperate men who fled from the results of some wild deed. They were a hard-bitten, swaggering, hard-drinking and swift-shooting lot and, when they came to Laguna, flinging gold on the counters and the layouts as if the pieces were copper cents, the night was theirs. Bullies some of them—cowards none, so far as physical fear was concerned. The girls dreaded their arrival. There were tales of favorites among them being carried off against their will. Tales of women who entered Doom Cañon and did not leave it; yet were no longer living, because they were no longer attractive. They were wild, unauthenticated tales, born in whispers among the girls themselves. Girls came and went in the Three Corners, even as men did, without heralding and without regrets or investigation. Human life was valued lightly where Nature set scores of traps for the taking of it. Love was laughed at.

The leader of the Doom Cañon men was the one the Mexican girls—and some of the men—called “El Lobo,” because of his cloudy, yellow eyes that made them silver when he turned them on them. They were the orbs of a caged wild beast, when the brute is at ease and looks toward but not at you; eyes that show no soul, that can light up under the stress of passion as if they were glass lenses for the devil's own lantern. Then the amber irises would clear and, as the eyes narrowed, you saw a glitter as of gun metal, the suggestion of a flame from hell. And if, said the girls—crossing themselves—he should chance to open them wide and look at you, you could sometimes see down through them as if they were windows of yellow glass, and there was the evil soul of the man mocking you.

Some of the breeds called him “El Halcon,” because of his hawklike, nose that curved out like the beak of a bird of prey—rapacious, gluttonous. Curved out and down a little, over lips that were narrow and cruel—what you could see of them for the mustaches—and the great black beard that served him in place of collar or necktie or neckerchief, laying on his chest in its silkiness, so well groomed it was apparently the man's one personal vanity, mingling with the shaggy hair that masked his chest, as it did his massive arms, and the powerful hands to their very finger nails.

A shirt of blue flannel, open at the breast, that looked as if he could not find one spacious enough for his wide shoulders and his great barrel of a chest. Trousers of dark stuff thrust into boots, belt and cartridge belt of black leather about lean hips, 'black leather holsters tied down low with latigo strips, black-butted guns of blue metal that matched the high lights in his beard and the hair he let grow long. Black somrebro, black temper when crossed and a black heart. He gave the name of Smith—Sam Smith—mockingly, as if to challenge you to say he lied and it was evident very early that he neither feared man nor devil.

He was a man who could hold all his emotions under control while his yellow eyes blazed with the deviltry he repressed until the moment he considered it best to unleash it. Many emotions were doubtless missing in him altogether and his followers were men after his own kidney, of his own stamp—a godless, reckless crowd.

As Three Corners was the land of no man, equally was it the land of no man's business. What one might do another might not inquire into—unless it personally concerned him and his affairs—without breaking the unwritten laws which were the only laws of the strange etiquette of the community. Collectively, Smith and his men ruled the roost. They were united, the rest were not, and therein lay the difference. The fact that they had chosen to live in Doom Cañon enhanced their mastery over the superstitious and uneducated, and most Laguna and of Three Corners consisted of either one or the other.

Every little while El Lobo and his pack would come riding into town to sling their chinking gold pieces free and wide, to insist upon making drunk every one within the cantina they visited or closing its doors to all but themselves. They were a source of revenue to Laguna and what they caused of annoyance was considered well offset by the profits to those who secured them.

There burst one night into the Tent, most popular of the cantinas, a man whose haggard face was stamped with grief and hate in the lines marked where the sweat had trailed down his face powdered with alkali. His staggering pony collapsed as he left the saddle. The man entered the room like a spent runner, his final effort so exhausting him that, as he turned, not to the bar but facing the big room with his back against it, he would have slid, like his pony, to the floor, but for the strong arm of a kindly rancher flung about him, holding him up. The man gabbled, making strange noises, his features distorted.

“Give him a snorter,” said the rancher. “Here, pardner, git this inside of ye an' then spill yore yarn.”

It was clear to all the room that something out of the ordinary had happened. There was that in the man's dramatic entrance, in his appearance, that told them that here was something more exciting even than the faro and poker they were playing. The fiery stuff trickled down the man's throat, the glass held there by the rancher who still supported him. A spasm twisted his face and he stood upright, as if summoning all his powers. Then, for the first time, some of those in the room recognized him as Gardner, a cowman lately settled in the Three Corners, famous in a degree because of the good-looking wife he had brought with him. Women who were both good looking and good were rarities.

“She's gone, boys! They've took her—those devils have took her! An' if there's a man here with the heart an' courage of a louse, he'll come with me to git her back. It—it may not be too late,” he faltered and then his voice mounted again to a harsh cry for vengeance. “If it is—if they've hurt a hair of her, I'll rip their black hearts out. I'll—I'll—ain't none of ye goin' to line up? Ain't none of ye human?” His last words gabbled toward incoherence, and his eyes showed glints of vacancy, grief, and despair. The furious exertions he had evidently been through, seemed to have partially crazed him.

“It was all set,” he muttered, as if to himself, while the nearest crowded him to listen, and some of those farther away turned back to their games, believing the man more or less mad; swerving aside the crowd that pushed in from the dance hall, headed by the curious girls who, swifter of intuition than the men, had already connected up the affair with trouble to Gardner's wife. Some of them, after their kind, secretly rejoiced at the misfortune that had come upon a virtuous woman.

“It was all set,” went on Gardner though it was plain that he no longer saw nor talked to any audience. “We come into town three days ago for some stuff from the store. She sittin' up beside me, pritty an' proud. She said she'd come down here with me. She said she wasn't afraid of a rough country, with me to take care of her. A prime job I did. I might have known when that black-bearded devil set his yeller eyes on her what he was thinkin' of. Follered us into the store, he did, an' kep' his eyes on her. Not thet I noticed it, busy with spendin' my money, but she did an' she told me about it afterward! 'It give me the creeps,' she said, after we got home. She wouldn't tell me until we did, knowin' my temper. 'He almost made me afraid, Jim,' she said, an' me holdin' her close in my arms an' talkin' big—like the pore damn fool I was.

“What happened? A hell of a racket in the middle of last night and me out, with her, plucky like she was, holdin' the lantern fo' me till I find the fence down an' half my stock gone. Cut wire it was. She wouldn't have me go out after them thet night. She wouldn't be left alone an' she couldn't come along. She was afraid an' so I stayed home to comfort her. Cattle didn't count along of her.

“Why she knowed right then an' wouldn't tell me; she was feared of 'Blackbeard' Smith' with them wolf's eyes of his, feared I'd go up agin' 'em for insultin' of her an' she'd be left alone for ever, with me shot. Damn them! Damn them, I say.”

Two of the younger girls broke into sobs, and a young man pushed his way into the front of the listeners, his eyes shining like points of steel, his tanned features set grimly.

“Go on, pardner,” he said. “What happened then?”

The haggard man lifted his eyes and they seemed to focus on the speaker with some faint light of hope.

“What happened then? I went out this mornin' to look fo' the cattle. The sign was plain. They'd been driven fast an' far. I didn't pick 'em up till an hour after noon in a live-oak ravine way beyond Doom Cañon, eatin', contented enough, with water an' grass. No one's driyin' off cattle thet way, pardner, not rustlers, jest to put 'em where they'd sure to be found.”

“I'm ridin' right with you, pardner,” said the younger man. “They wouldn't.”

“It was sundown time I get 'em back. Dark when I reach the house. No light thar. I was feelin' pritty perky, count I'd got the steers back, but thet brought me up all standin'. No light set for me, or in the kitchen where she used to work an' sing. I never come nigh the house but what I heard her singin' like a lark.

“Pardner, I knowed somethin' was wrong. It got me in the stummick, an' like a hand had gripped my heart. Thet's the way it gits ye when you love a woman right,

“She was gone. Plumb gone, pardner!” He spoke now as if he knew of but one listener, the grim-faced young rider. “Thar'd been a struggle. Thar was flour scattered about an' the tins on the flo'. She'd been makin' a cake fo' me—fo' me, pardner—an' they took her. Must have sneaked in on her an' she thought it was me. I used to sneak in sometimes an' put my hands over her eyes, jest to hear her say, 'It's you, Jim. You can't fool me.'

“Heavens, pardner, she ain't ever goin' to fool me again!” He broke off in a hoarse sob, pitiful to hear. Now all the room was quiet again, the click of chips had ceased, the bar stood idle and the musicians had come from their stand. The plain, unvarnished tale of human love and tragedy had gripped them.

“Go on pardner,” said the rider. “You read the sign?”

“It was dark—no moon. Jest the stars an' my lantern. I could see whar some one had carried her to the fence, right by the break I'd mended befo' I left in the mornin'. Then the devils had follered the trail of the steers. All mixed up it was. I never found it again. It ain't to be found. It left no sign on thet malpais but it leads to Doom Cañon. Thet's whar it leads, an' I'm lookin' fo' some men to go thar with me. If not, I'll go alone.”

“You ain't goin' alone, pardner,” said the other. “Not while I got a hawss an' a couple of guns. You eat anything sence breakfast?”

“Eat? What would I want to eat fo'?”

“You killed yore hawss, pardner. You're nigh done up yoreself. You got to eat. I'll loan you my second-string caballo but you want strength to fork it. You eat an' we'll git us a li'le posse together in the meantime.”

Gardner lurched forward, reeled, realizing his weakness. He caught at the other's forearm.

“You'll stay with me, pardner?”

“Of course. I ain't the only one. You go git somethin' in yore belly. You can't make war talk on an empty one.”

Gardner suffered himself to be led to the lunch counter that was a regular feature of the place and sat up on a stool before frijoles and coffee. The other, giving assurance that he was only going to get some men together, walked back through the dance hall to the big room and sensed immediately a neutral, if not a hostile attitude.

Ramon, owner of the Tent, was talking with his pardner, Sprague, who ran the games and provided the funds for the “bank,” a man whose light-blue eyes were so pale as to be almost colorless; cleanly shaven, shrewd of face.

“I didn't get your name, stranger,” he said suavely. “I take it you air a stranger in Laguna?”

“My name's Strong. I got here two days ago from Socorro. Thought thar might be a chance out here fo' a man who had three hawsses an' could ride 'em.”

“And a couple of guns,” said Sprague, glancing at the heavy Colt the other sported. “I reckon you could fit in.” Strong had vouchsafed considerable information for a newcomer to the Three Corners. “Only, you want to get acquainted a bit befo' you throw in too sudden. We're all mighty sorry fo' Gardner. He had a mighty sweet woman. But he ain't got no proof against the Doom Cañon outfit and you want to go easy when you buck them. They ain't rustlers, to begin with. Lobo Smith's got an eye for a pretty woman, so have all the rest of us, but that ain't sayin' we're runnin' off with her.

'This territory's a bit raw yet, I grant you, but there's small sense in trying to pull a half-cocked trigger. What's he got but a notion in his head and him half crazy? Just the same, chargin' a man with runnin' off with yo' wife is a thing a man ain't goin' to always take as a joke. Lobo Smith and his outfit ain't what you'd call easy jesters. If Gardner goes off to Doom Cañon—he can't get in, to begin with—an' making cracks that Lobo stole his wife he'll get into trouble, pronto an' plenty. Also them that goes with him. Gardner's all upset an' he's runnin' off at the head. Most likely it was Apaches. They've been gettin' out of hand of late.”

”If it was Injuns—even if they'd taken her off, which ain't likely—they'd have burned the shack an' they would sure have run off the rest of the stock.”

”Thet don't make it Smith. Use yore judgment, Strong.”

It was good advice, suavely enough delivered, but Strong sensed that the general sentiment backed Sprague's talk. They had been moved by Gardner's tale, more by his manner of telling it, perhaps, than by the story itself. They had listened to it largely as spectators might look and listen to something shown on a stage, without personal or real interest. And, when it came to the mention of the men of Doom Cañon all sympathy had seemed to vanish. Strong was young, halfway between his twenties and his thirties, but he had been reared in a hard school. He saw clearly enough that there was, as yet, no proof, and yet Gardner's tale had rung so true to his ears that he had developed a strenuous hunch it was correct, even to its suspicion concerning the perpetrators.

He had felt also a certain intolerance against Lobo Smith and his men, said to be living in this narrow cañon that was declared in the same breath to be unlivable, its floor largely occupied, even in times of drought, by Esqueleto Creek. The whole damned community, he told himself, cringed before the Doom Cañon gang. Still, there was no proof, so far. When he had aligned himself with Gardner he had expected to hear some more positive evidence. It was worse than foolish to ride up to the cañon at nightfall and try to force a passage which, all agreed, was well nigh impossible on a doubtful charge, a doubtful errand.

He stood there for a moment undecided, feeling that his sympathies had carried him a bit too far and too hastily, vexed at himself for lack of judgment yet secretly riding the hunch that told him that Gardner had spoken truly—and that this smooth-spoken gambler knew it—or suspected it.

Then Gardner came back from the lunch counter, where the beans had turned to ashes in his mouth, though he had swallowed a cup of coffee. That, or the telling of his tale, and the support of Strong, the prospect of more help, had given him a spurt of strength.

”Well,” he demanded, ”who's comin' along with me? What's wrong with 'em, pardner?” he continued to Strong. “Ain't they men? Air they jest a pack of lousy coyotes?”

His eyes glittered. The ultimate source of his energy was beyond doubt the supercharging of his tissues by the passions that had dispossessed his reason, imbued him with the one idea.

“They claim you ain't got no definite proof this Lobo Smith had anything to do with it,” said Strong slowly. ”You couldn't read sign to-night but I reckon we might do somethin' with it by daylight. I'm pritty fair at trailin' myself.”

“Daylight! If the woman you love—yore wife—was taken from you, overnight—would you wait till daylight? I tell you I know who done it. She read it in his eyes—lust an' the will to feed it. The eyes of a beast, she called 'em!”

Back of his high-pitched accusation there came the sound of galloping horses, a small troop coming fast with their hoofs thudding into the soft soil of the street. Then the clatter of men's feet on the wooden sidewalk, the clink of spurs, a loud laugh that provoked others. Gardner stood stock-still, his speech leaving him as he leaned a little forward at the hips, his nostrils spreading like those of a hound that catches the scent, his glittering eyes fixed.

All glances turned towards the door as it was flung open and Lobo Smith strode in with some twenty of his men crowding behind him, jesting and laughing. Smith's amber eyes swept the room, instantly focused on the figure of Gardner, his chin low on his great chest, as he gazed keenly at the shorter man, pressing down the glossy growth of black beard that lay there, catching the high lights from the oil lamps with their reflecting shades. Just for the fraction of a second the tableau held, then dissolved into action.

With a screaming oath Gardner drew his gun and fired as Sprague struck up his arm, chopping at the elbow almost in one motion. Lobo Smith's eyes turned to yellow flame as fire flashed from his six-guns and the roar of the discharge filled the room. From both hands he sent the unerring messengers of death. Gardner went staggering from the shock of successive bullets, spun about and fell like a length of chain with the last one in his back, two others already in his heart and one through his brain. The first had killed him, the rest had been fired too quickly for his lifeless body to fall before they struck it.

The reek of the powder smoke was sharp in their nostrils as they gazed from Smith, who stood with a grin on his lips that showed his white teeth flashing between beard and mustache, and a laugh of deviltry in his eyes, to Gardner, face down on the floor, his gun tossed away from him, blood beginning to trickle out down the slants of the worn planking. The thing that held them most was the diabolical but silent revelry of Smith, as if the taking of life was the rarest jest he could have perpetrated. It was true that he had received provocation, that he was justified on the face of it in sheer self-defense, but there was something inhuman about it, in the concentrated fire from two guns, the satanic mask of his face.

Strong's hands had shot down instinctively to the butts of his own weapons. Self-defense or not, he felt, as he saw Lobo Smith for the first time, that here was a murderer, a potential criminal who was a menace to honest men and decent women. Strong fingers gripped at his elbows long enough for reason to rule over primitive emotion. It was the friendly rancher who had kept Gardner from falling when he first came in, who had bought him the drink. Smith's eyes rested for a moment on Strong, baleful, the mirth erased from his face, leaving it bleak as the back of a blizzard.

“What's the idee of the shootin'?” he asked as his men clustered about him, hostile-eyed, curiously inactive, poised for trouble; while Ramon swiftly crossed himself and silently mumbled a blend of invocations and imprecations. Sprague spoke up. Strong fancied he saw a swift glance of understanding pass between him and Smith.

“Gardner's wife was stolen this evenin', somewheres round dark,” he said. “He got a notion you're responsible fo' the trick. We were tryin' to tell him he was crazy when you came in.”

Smith gave a short laugh.

“Crazy enough, I reckon. Put a hole through my hat. If it hadn't been fo' you, Sprague, I'd be where he is. Stole his woman? I'll say this about it. She was mighty easy to look at. But, if I stole a pritty woman around sundown, I'd be mighty apt to be keepin' her company, not running around town.”

There was a general laugh at this. Strong felt no inclination to join. He had seen sudden death before, many times, but there flashed across his mind the suggestion that if Lobo Smith had done this thing, had let his lust run away with his discretion and realized that he might well have gone too far, even for his overlord control of Three Corners, in the violation of ranch honor, he could have done no cleverer thing than come to town in this fashion, to make the ribald answer he had just pronounced—and to kill the husband.

He spoke up, facing Smith, whose lambent gaze had returned to him. Strong's thumbs were hooked lightly in his belt now, they had never strayed far from his gun butts. He heard the friendly whisper of the rancher but paid no attention to its warning to “stay out of this deal.”

“The man's dead,” he said. “Thet eases his worry but it don't help his wife none. Gardner was aimin' to git some men to try an' foller her up, an I was helpin' him. So fur we didn't git many offers. You interested at all?”

Steel-gray eyes and yellow ones met and their glances fenced for hushed moments without advantage. Then Lobo Smith showed his teeth again in his mockery of a smile.

“No, stranger, I ain't. You tryin' to take up Gardner's quarrel with me?” His right hand stroked his beard as he spoke, the tone smooth but deep, and the downward movement bringing his fingers almost within touch of the right-hand gun of the two he had restored to their holsters as swiftly as they had flashed out, once the four shots had been fired. Here was a challenge. The flames that played in Smith's eyes seemed to bring out a colder light in those of the younger man.

“I might, if I thought thar was a good reason fo' it,” he answered quietly.

Men held their breath, sure of impending tragedy. They began to shuffle back, treading on each others' toes, especially those behind Strong. He was conscious of one man standing ground beside him. And he was equally conscious of the silent, watchful gang behind Smith, tensely alert, hands poised. If Smith had put four bullets into Gardner, Strong felt that he might expect to be riddled from half a dozen guns if he even twitched his fingers towards his guns. He would get in a shot first—two perhaps—for his draw was as swift as Lobo Smith's, he told himself. But that would be all. He was standing on the brink of a self-dug grave into which he would fall without sympathy, a victim of “horning-in,” as a verdict. But, within him, there had flamed up a mounting hatred for the man he faced. It showed in his eyes and he knew it. It was the searing, dispising hatred of manhood for inhumanity, acid on false metal. He saw an uneasiness in the gaze of Smith though it did not blench.

“I'll tell you what I'll do, stranger,” said Lobo Smith while his hand stayed at the end of his glossy beard, “you cut sign on her trail an', damn me, if I don't help you go git her. Couldn't say fairer 'n thet, I reckon, after her husband took a shot at me!” He looked round at the crowd that rose to the roar of laughter from the men of Doom Cañon.

“I'll be somewhere's around town till breakfast,” went on Smith. “I reckon I crossed my luck here for to-night,” he added, looking down at the dead man. “We'll try it some other place, boys. I didn't git yore name, stranger.”

“It's Strong—Sam Strong.”

“Good name. I'll say this much fo' you, Strong. You've got yore nerve with yo' and it suits yore name. If you ever git up agin' it fo' a job, you come over to th' cañon. I might find room fo' you. Adios, Caballeros. Buenos noches.”

The men from Doom Cañon left the cantina, dividing their company so as to let Smith pass through first. There was again the sound of their booted feet and tinkling spurs, the creak of leather, the jingle of chains and the sound of galloping.

In the Tent men began to cash in their chips. The cappers alone kept playing. In the other end of it the musicians played but the girls were without partners. Two men picked up the body of Gardner, another mopped at the floor with cloths and water but, despite his efforts, there were stains on the floor, dyeing the boards—a hoodoo on the luck, even as Lobo Smith had said. Ramon fussed about, trying to hold the clients; Sprague cursed under his breath. The customers filed to the bar and drank deeply but without jollity and began to pass out, wondering why Smith had left without punishing the temerity of Strong. Some fancied that Strong had called the bluff of Smith's courage and hinted as much, but they were promptly laughed at.

“Any time Lobo talks smooth, he's thinkin' rough,” said one. “No, sir. First place this Strong's hands is plumb close an' handy to his guns. Closer than Smith could git with strokin' his beard. If his whiskers was two inches longer Strong would be mighty weak right this minute. Main thing is Smith was out to gamble. Killin' Gardner was forced on him an' it sp'iled his luck. You can't play across spilled blood an' expect to win when you've done the spillin' Any one'll tell you thet. He'll gamble jest the same, seein' he come inter town to do it. If he killed Strong it would copper all his bets sure. As it is his luck may swing back at midnight. Lacks a few minutes of thet now. Come on, let's go see whar' him an' his gang drifted in.”

“But he as good as asked this Strong to jine his gang. He ain't never done thet afore. None of us ever knew where his recruits come from—or when.”

“Hell! He said fo' him to come over to the cañon some time an' he might find room fo' him. He didn't say what in. Might be a hole in the ground!”

As the room emptied there came a whisper close to Sam Strong's ear, in a girl's voice, pregnant with warning.

“Don't go out alone!”

He turned swiftly to see the figure of the partner he had been dancing with, earlier in the evening, disappearing into the back room. He shrugged his shoulders. It was good advice but he did not quite see how he could carry it out very well. He was a stranger. He might go out with several others but they would promptly scatter at the first sign of trouble. He was a marked man from now on in Three Corners. It had not needed the whisper of the well-meaning girl—she was a nice little kid, who had not yet got as hardened, as her companions—to undeceive him as to Lobo Smith's ultimate intentions toward him.

In their conflict of glances he knew that, while he had not beaten down the other's guard, he had passed it once and made him wince. It would not be for given. As for the little dancer, he had treated her decently and not as if she should be considered common property, and she had responded accordingly. Doubtless she knew Smith's methods. Probably there would be a couple of that hard-bitten, swaggering gang out side to pick a quarrel with him or even kill him without excuse, save for such as they might make up if they were asked for one.

His two horses were in a corral shed up the street, close to the fonda where he slept and took his meals. To walk there with safety he would have to take the middle of the street or risk a sidewalk. Both were dangerous on a dark night like this, with enemies abroad. On the sidewalk he would be exposed to the ambush of the dozens of narrow ways between the shacks. In the street the space beneath the sidewalk offered fine cover for an assassin.

The rancher tapped him on the shoulder.

“Did I hear you say you were lookin' for a job, you an' yore two hawsses?”

“You sure did. An' my two guns.”

“I'm needin' a hand. An' you strike me as the sort to take along. You got a hawss outside?”

“No, I walked. Mine's down to the corral next to Vierra's fonda.”

“So's mine. You stayin' thar?”

“Yep.”

“Better ride out with me to my ranch to-night an' we'll talk things over. My name's Bramley. No brands registered yet in this neck of the woods but I call my outfit Bar B an' I'm brandin' thet way. I've taken up a section an' thar's fair feed on it, an' water. All the open range in the world next door. Hands are scarce down here. If you want to take up the section next to mine we could make some dicker, I reckon. I'm doin' well but I'm short on help. Them I do get extry, don't stay. This is a restless pais, close to the border. Folks hate to work steady. Better come along fo' the night anyway, an' talk it over.”

“It sounds good to me,” said Strong. “But I'm figgerin' they're li'ble to take a pot shot at me outside fo' presumin' to speak to Don Lobo Blackbeard. They might include you in the compliment.”

“I reckon not. I'll tell you why later.”

They reached the fonda unmolested, saddled up and rode away out of town over the silent plain, past the lake and along the course of the swift stream that was its only outlet. Strong left his second-string hors$ to be called for later.

“I figger it this way,” said Bramley. “If they do you in they'd either have to do the same with me or leave me as witness. Letting alone what we might do to them, Smith is smart enough to figger thet, if he killed you in my company, he'd be gittin' in deeper than he cares to right off the reel. This pais is gettin' settled, slow but sure. The cattlemen air comin' in. Cattle air cheap. Alfalfy grows fine where thar's water. Leave yore young stock on the range till they're close to sellin' age, bring in 'em fo' solid feed an' then drive to Santa Fe an' ship. Won't be long befo' the railroad'll be down here to join up Santa Fe an' El Paso, thet's a cinch. Thar'li be good prices for furnishin' beef to the railroad while it's buildin'. Thar's talk of two lines, one of 'em crossin' the Pecos at Santa Rosa. It'll give those of us who are down here a good start. Fenced land is better than range, so long as the Injuns air li'ble to go raidin', an' they will till the government, gits in an' licks 'em good an' hard an' makes a good Injun out of old Geronimo.

“Now, figger on. Cattlemen air solid citizens an' they stand fo' law an' order. Lobo Smith knows thet as fast as we do. I don't know what game he makes his money in—contrabandista of some sort, I'll wager—but I'm bettin' it ain't lawful. The funny thing of it is no one ever sees 'em leavin' Doom Cañon or goin' into it, 'cept they're on the way to Laguna or from it. An' the old-timers say only toads an' Gila monsters could live in that, anyway. Damp an' so narrer you can't turn yore hawss most places.

“He shot Gardner to-night after Gardner fired at him——”

“He didn't have to shoot him,” put in Strong. “Gardner missed because he never had a chance to hit. Thar was a dozen ready to grab him or do what Sprague did the minute Lobo come in at the door. Sprague hit him back of his arm so hard it paralyzed him an' he could jest hold his gun—couldn't lift it. Why, Lobo grinned befo' he fired back. Plumb murder, I call it. I don't say he expected to find Gardner thar, but I'll say it was a prize play fo' him to put Gardner out of the way—an' he made it.”

“Twenty to testify Gardner tried to kill him. An' no one to testify to. The law ain't down this fur yet. But it's comin'.' You think Lobo got Gardner's woman an', comin' in to-night was a grand-stand play in case we cattlemen should git sore. Thar's nigh enough of us to make it hot fo' Lobo if we did an' he knows it. I don't know but what I agree with you but you got to have some proof to line any one up—jest as Sprague says—an' Heaven knows I ain't got any use for thet card flipper. He's too slick at his own game. Stands in with Lobo because he wins thet gang's money. He was plumb mad when Lobo went out on him to-night.

“Lobo's done nothing you kin pin to him thet's outside the law or public opinion. If the law gits after him it'll be the Federal government, to my mind. Public opinion's on his side because most of 'em air his sort in Three Corners. Our sort is driftin' in an' he'll go too far some day. There's lots of things blamed to the Apaches thet he knows somethin' about, to my mind. Lots of things happened thet folks figger he did, mebbe, but he's a good spender with his gang an' thet's what counts between the Pecos an' the Rio Grande these days. The border's a reg'lar magnet fo' every one who thinks he wants to be a bad man or who's done somethin' thet makes the line handy fo' him to be close to.”

Strong liked Bramley—liked the way he talked. Bramley had restrained him from acting rashly in the cantina, but it was Bramley who had stood beside him when the rest edged away. He was a Texan, with mustaches like a longhorn steer of his native State. He had come north into New Mexico, seeing the chance to buy Texas cattle cheap from the improvident Mexican rancheros who thought little more of the wild-ranging brutes than they did of the prairie dogs on their wide holdings. The water, the range and soil was better near Laguna, and it was that much nearer market. Moreover, the published survey routes of the oncoming railroads, making a grand junction of El Paso and thence running on west to California, gave almost as great an opportunity to a few enterprising American cattlemen to make a fortune as did the building of the Union Pacific.

Bramley was shrewd, older than Strong by some ten years, shrewd enough to see business openings where the younger man had not yet visualized them, older in experience. He was practically offering Strong a chance at a partnership when he spoke of the latter's taking up the next section to his own. Strong had no herd and little capital but he would have his chance to buy in the start of a herd, and he was duly obliged to Bramley for the opening.

“Lobo Smith ain't apt to bother us much,” Bramley went on. “Not as long as we don't cross his trail, an' we ain't likely to do thet 'cept in Laguna. We got to go in once in a while fo' supplies, but the Doom Cañon crowd air owls fo' daylight. I stayed over to-night hopin' to git me a hand an' I'm plumb glad I run across you. You an' me air goin' to be all-fired busy from now on. I got a chance to sell some agency beef fo' the new reservation. We round up the 'Paches from murderin' an' raidin' an' then they're wards of the nation. Feed 'em free fo' mo' devilment. Anyway, I'm goin' to take a chance on goin' inter Texas an' buyin' up a couple of hundred head. We'll have to cut 'em out ourselves an' hire a few Mexicans to bring 'em up with us. I've got a man I kin leave to run Bar B with the Mexican hands I have to git along with an', even if the agency deal fails through, we kin use the stock. It'll be a gamble an', if you've got any spare dinero an' want to git in on it, I'm agreeable. If we sell to the reservation that'll mo'n treble yore capital an' give you a good show. Mebbe we kin figger out some so't of a mutual deal right along.”

“You don't know much about me, Bramley,” said Strong. “I sure appreciate the chance to throw in. I've got a li'le over five hundred dollars. I won some of it last night. I started to lose to-night an' quit. But it ain't many who'd offer to let me in the way you have.”

“If you was me, Strong, tryin' to make a go of it down here, an' backed up fo' the lack of a man you kin leave in charge of things, you'd jump the same way I did. Thar ain't many white men down here, pardner—derned few squar' shooters. You kin ride, an' I reckon you kin shoot if needs be. Anyway you showed yourself willin' to-night. I told myself you'd do to take along when I saw you come out an' take up with pore Gardner.

“Here's whar we make a short cut. Crick curves here but swings round on my land. Goes through yore section too.”

“What's goin' to happen to Gardner's stock?” asked Strong. “It belongs to his wife while she's livin'. Reckon he's got some relatives. Soon as it's known he's dead some one's goin' to rustle all thet's loose. Likely he's got some hawsses up thet'll need waterin'. Thar's his stuff in the house. If she comes back——”

“She ain't the sort thet comes back, Strong. I've talked with her once or twice. A fine woman, the right kind. Right back of her man, helpin' an' lovin' him. She didn't go willin' an' she won't stay willin'. But we got to do somethin' about his belongings. Thar ain't no law here to' settle those things unless we go to Santa Fe. We cattlemen have had a meetin' or two to sort of organize into an association fo' mutual protection. If we took charge of his stock an' goods as a body I reckon no one would question our right. I'll have a talk with the others and take up this Gardner's killin' at the same time. Don't know as we kin do anything, under the circumstances, but it won't do no harm fo' folks—includin' Lobo Smith an' his gang—to know we're standin' together. Some day Lobo'll let his rope trail too fur.”

“I've got a hunch thet I'll have a rumpus with him, some day,” said Strong thoughtfully. “I don't take to hatin' a man on first sight as a rule. I aim to be pacific unless I'm fussed with. But thet cuss makes the ha'r lift on the back of my neck. He affects me the same way a rattler does, or a centipede. I jest know he's wrong an' I ain't sure but what he ain't yeller, if you got him cornered. His kind an' Gila monsters makes me wonder why they git created.”

The ranch house of the Bar B was a long adobe building, tiled for roof, with a rough veranda, the windows shuttered but unglazed, the furnishings crude; but it was comfortable enough for busy bachelors of the range. There was a great fireplace where logs burned welcome in the chilly nights after sun down, and he had a jewel of a cook in the shape of an old Mexican woman, even if her dishes were highly seasoned. Two of her sons were employed as hands, with two more of the same type, and an elderly Texan who acted as foreman when Bramley was away.

Hurley was his name, and he was a grizzled old-timer with a limp from a leg broken by a wild mustang and never properly set. Slow and none too quick mentally, pestered with rheumatism that discounted his usefulness, Strong guessed that the old-timer had been brought up from Texas largely for ancient friendship's sake—which proved to be the case.

“He's got one prime qualification,” said Bramley. “He kin shoot the hind laig off'n a fly at thirty paces. His hand is still good. Most of his rheumatism is in his bad laig. His eyes ain't none too good fer distances, but I'm damned if powder smoke don't seem to cl'ar 'em!”

The cattle were true Texan stock, wide of horn, wild of eye and disposition—big rangy brutes that were untamed as bison. But they were beef, and the Mexican riders handled them well enough, riding like centaurs.

“We'll git us some thoroughbred sires, soon as we kin afford it, pardner,” Bramley declared.

The “we” sounded good to Strong. He said so. He was no longer a free rider, he was a cattleman, a member of the small association, with a stake in the country and a chance to become wealthy at no very distant date. There was much to be done on the ranch, much to be spent. Their capital was limited, as was their help. It was a life filled with risks and dangers but it was a life for which both of them were fitted, and they enjoyed it.

Filing for a quarter section had to be done at Socorro, where there was a government agent at regular times, and it was agreed that Strong should go there at the first opportunity. Also, when they had brought up their stock from Texas, Bramley proposed that he should go to Escondida to interview the Indian agent about the beef contract. Bramley spoke Spanish better than he did and could better control the hands, actually through old Maria, mother of two of them and aunt to the others, ruling them with a rod of iron but, of course, unable to superintend ranch affairs outside the house.

And Hurley, cramped with an attack of his rheumatism, was ever too slow and unable to furnish the unremitting superintendence that the short-handedness necessitated.

“Maria's a jewel,” said Bramley. “I don't trust every greaser, by a long shot, but she's faithful as an old dog an' he's got them buffaloed. They got to account to her fo' ev'ry time they take a drink of mescal or throw a pair of dice. We ain't so worse off, pardner. We'll make out. Couple of jacks now, mebbe, but we'll pair up as cattle kings by the time they run trains into Laguna.”

Five days later Bramley rode into town for supplies, giving Strong a chance to run the ranch. He came back early, bringing Strong's other horse, his face grave.

“They found Gardner's wife, Sam,” he said. It was “Sam” and “Hen” between them now. “She's goin' to be buried beside him. The cattlemen air goin' to attend in a body to-morrow. The thing's a plumb puzzle to me. They found her body floatin' in Lago Claro. Some says she must have committed suicide. They think she come back an' heard he was dead an' drowned herse'f. But thar ain't no one claims to have seen her an' Doc Williams 'lows she has been dead all of three or four days. Mebbe the springs thet feeds the lake kept her down. It seems funny all through an' the most curious thing is her body is bruised all over, nigh to a jelly, pore gal—head to foot. But the doc claims she was drowned first. It's a mystery to me.”

And a mystery it remained for many days.

CHAPTER II.

Strong and Bramley went on the trail ten days later. They pooled their money and found they could spare twelve hundred dollars in all. For this Bramley expected to buy two hundred head and a bunch of cow ponies for the outfit. These mustangs could be purchased in Texas for ten dollars a head and sold at double the price at Laguna, the difference paying for expenses. They took along the two sons of Maria and managed to hire two more Mexicans through her help. She rounded up another junior relative to drive the chuck-and-bedding wagon and to act as cook.

Fortunately the Indian contract did not insist upon steers, and what they needed most on the ranch was cows. The profits on the venture would provide many things that were needed if they got the contract and they proposed to buy a thoroughbred herd sire as a commencement of their endeavor to better their grade of cattle. If the contract fell through they would still have the cows for increase. Each rider took along five ponies, since they could not afford to buy all they would need to round up and handle their purchases.

The roping and branding would have to be done in the open, in a wild country thick with brush, with mesquite and cactus. An hour of this work after the round-up exhausted the toughest mount. All went armed. There was imminent and almost constant danger from raids; Mexican rustlers tempted by the chance to capture a herd on trail with the outfit of the herders; Indians who cared nothing for the cattle but much for scalps, the chance to torture and maim and the possession of the firearms and ammunition of their prisoners, besides their ponies and saddles.

Their destination reached on Comanche Creek, they were not long dickering for the stock from the ranch-owner who did not know within hundreds how many cattle he owned. Five dollars a head was the price agreed upon, with the loan of half a dozen vaqueros to round them up, to be paid a dollar a day by the buyers for their services.

It was heartbreaking work for man and horse under the hot sun, crashing through thorny thickets that surrounded the water holes where they were surest to find the cows bunched or pick up their sign. Often the wild cows, worked into a frenzy, charged, almost as quick of hoof as the ponies. Every panting steer, once roped and thrown, had to be hog-tied and the road brand burned on its flank lest they stampede and stray on the way home or got mixed up with larger herds. Nightfall found them wet with sweat that they dried by the blazing fires, devouring fresh beef with the appetites of giants, rolling in weary and stiff, to turn out before dawn.

It was not a large contract but the two extra men they brought were not used to the work and, though they were born riders and threw a rope well enough, they developed a fear of the crazy, lunging cattle after one had been thrown, his pony gored and escape only made by crawling into a cactus thicket at which even the maddened cow balked. The badly needled man quit and demanded his time. The native vaqueros did none of the roping, evidently considering their help an imposition on their leisure, galloping much and accomplishing little.

One man had to stand watch nightly over the remuda. They had a hundred and fifty cattle at the close of the second day. Bramley bribed two of the local riders to do herding at night though Strong suggested that he and Bramley split the watch,

“Nothin' doin', pardner. We got to clean up to-morrow. These five greasers Martinez loaned us are loafin' on the job. They ain't workin' fo' nothing but the peso a day we give 'em. They're stringin' us along. If we knew the country half as well as they do we'd have had the whole bunch by noon to-day. An' we can't git along without 'em. We'll git us a night's rest an' hop to it in the mornin'.”

Strong woke with the stars and moon shining brightly, though there was a hint of paling in the sky. It was cold, and he hurried to get dressed, pulling on the boots he had taken to bed with him to keep them supple. The young Mexican had the fire going bravely and the scent of coffee and fried steaks was welcome in the air.

The stray herd, that had reclined during the latter part of the night, woke and commenced to bawl and bellow, the two vaqueros seated motionless in their saddles, wrapped in their serapes. By the time he and Bramley were dressed the soda biscuits were ready and they squatted on their heels close to the blaze, filling their eager stomachs. Two men relieved the night herd. A band of yapping coyotes saluted the swiftly lightening sky and then, as they got their ropes, the day was born.

The rider brought up the remuda and drove them into a rough corral where they started to circle as each man, with loop trailing, walked toward his choice and deftly flipped the noose over its head at the first chance the wise mustang gave him.

Mounted, the ponies squealing and pitching at the outset, they rode for the water hole near which they hoped to find enough cows to fill the order. Meantime the already captured herd was held.

The steers knew the reason for the drive and, as the riders neared the water hole and they caught sight of them, little bands would start off, with their tails curled stiffly, on a lope that was only a little slower than a horse carrying a rider.

The ground was uneven and the chase followed over barrancos and down ravines and gullies at breakneck speed. The riders loose in their saddles, yelled to get the cattle started and to keep them going, the ponies entering into the spirit of the race, tearing along with ears cocked and eyes protruding, dodging as the quarry dodged, whirling off at right angles through the mesquite that often masked the treacherous gullies, sliding down them and scrambling up again on the far side like cats.

Slowly they ringed a bunch, bringing them to the open where they could get their lariats into play, the sturdy mustangs set as the cow raced to the limit of the rope and came crashing to earth. The wise mustangs strained against it while the rider raced up and hog tied, then ran to the nearest fire where he had left his iron in the hot ashes, coming back with it sending off blue smoke as it cooled in the air and, at last, pressing it to the heaving flank while the branded brute bellowed protest.

Once branded and finding themselves near their fellows, the cattle bunched as if shocked into temporary submission, allowing themselves to be kept together, even beginning to graze on grama grass after the first shock wore off.

By three in the afternoon the last fifty were being pushed slowly toward the main herd. That end of the task seemed well ended. To-morrow they would take the trail. But Bramley seemed anxious, glancing at the sky that had become overcast. Strong noticed the direction of his gaze.

“Fraid of a norther?” he asked.

“Looks to me like thar might be one brewin'. Smells like it too.” Bramley sniffed the air. The cattle were sniffing too. He rode over and talked with the local vaqueros who were smoking cigarettes, waiting for their pay, having counted the herd, sitting with their knees cocked over the horns of their saddles. Bramley came back to Strong with his brows creased.

“Can't bribe 'em to stay overnight,” he said. “They've got their dinero. It ain't much but it's a lot to them. They don't git more'n ten pesos a month reg'lar. They're set fo' monte an' mescal. Claim thar won't be no storm but I'm Texas bred, same as they are, an' I don't like the looks of things. I reckon the lazy skunks air hopin' we'll have a stampede an' the work to do all over agen.

“We can't hold 'em though, their contract's up an' they've made up their stubborn minds to clear out, dern 'em. A lazy greaser—an' thet's their general nature—when they ain't got a strong-minded female like Maria to handle 'em is the mos' shif'less thing on two laigs, or four. There they go, damn 'em. I hope every last one of 'em wakes up with his head baked an' his pockets empty. I hope they git so derned drunk they all fall into a prickly-pear thicket, like Lopez did, an' can't find no one to take the needles out. I kin feel thet norther in my bones, same as Hurley does the rheumatiz.”

The hours passed and, though the air grew cold early and there were some mutterings of thunder over the distant, slate-colored hills, no storm appeared. They had water and good feed where they were camped, and Bramley hoped for a good night's recovery for cattle and horses after the exhausting chase. But the cold increased before the sun went down murkily, a glaring ball of crimson shrouded in dull-purple haze, and he shook his head.

“The cows know it,” he said as they ate supper and rolled their cigarettes. “Look at 'em. Bellies full but they won't chew their cuds or lie down. It's all hands to-night, boys, cook an' all. Cook'll wrangle the remuda.”

Night came on, cold and pitchy dark with the stars obscured. The herd was uneasy, never all of them down at once, and the little band of five rode around the mass, crooning to them, the vaqueros in Spanish and Strong and Bramley chatting the “Cowboy's Lullaby.”

“Last night as I lay on the prairie
An' looked at the stars in the sky,
I wondered if ever a cowboy
Could win to that sweet by and by.

“Roll on, roll on,
Roll on, li'le doggies, roll on, roll on.
Roll on, roll on, roll on, li'le dogies, roll on.”

Unmistakably it soothed the herd. One after another the uneasy ones ceased lowing and lay down.

Suddenly the northern sky was split open with a livid flare and almost immediately a clap of thunder came with the sound of a salvo of great guns, booming away into the distance. Again and again the lightning stabbed the black clouds with its javelins, and the crash of exploding vacuums followed.

The terrified brutes rose awkwardly, shivering, watching with lowered heads for the fast-coming flashes that revealed their tossing horns, their bulging eyes.

Bramley and Strong passed the word to keep on riding, steadily round and round, and to keep singing. Once let one of the cows break through the cordon and the rest would follow for twenty, thirty, even forty miles over the broken country, unless the leaders were headed off. Many of them would surely be killed by falls, others would stray in separate bunches split up in the inky darkness.

Then the storm broke in all its fury. A flare of levin revealed lowering clouds discharging the tremendous downpour that looked like steel rods rather than water, lashing the cattle to a wild frenzy. The next flash showed their hides streaming, like sea beasts, reflecting back the lightning while the deafening thunder crashed immediately overhead, and a great bolt of fire came sizzling apparently, striking but a few rods away with an effect of an exploding mine. Their mouths seemed suddenly filled with vinegar, the air appeared to be broomed away leaving them gasping, and the wise mustangs lost their nerve and fought to get their heads down and bolt.

Cattle and riders were one plunging mass for a few delirious moments. Then the herd divided, the leaders racing away at headlong speed with Strong and one of the vaqueros from the ranch after part of them, and Bramley with the other hand and the extra after the rest. What luck the young cocinero—little more than a boy—was having with the remuda, they dared not think.

Strong saw a spurt of fire, and heard the crack of a gun faintly before the thunder drowned it out. Bramley was shooting to try and check his section of the stampede. It was as futile as flinging firecrackers before a charge of mullah-mad Arabs. The wind had followed the rain that it had driven before it and came with a rushing sound as of trains in a tunnel, changing the stinging slant of the downpour.

Flash upon flash lighted up the racing brutes, their horns clashing, crowding each other, their hoofs flinging up the sodden earth, charging through dense thickets, plunging down gullies headlong, bellowing or lurching on with their tongues lolling.

Strong was on one side of his bunch—about half the herd as near as he could judge in that wild flurry—racing to catch up with the leaders, to turn them. The vaquero he saw across the surging waves of maddened cows with horned heads for crests. His pony flew, extended at full gallop. There was no need yet for quirt or spurs. He was gaining, little by little. At the last he would have to take the desperate chance of heading them, of being charged, if he did not gauge the speed and distance to a second, to inches. If the pony set its foot in a hole, slipped on the wet earth, he would be trodden into bloody pulp. He knew that chance, but the exhilaration of the chase was on him, heightened by the danger, the tremendous speed, the bunching of his pony's muscles as it tucked up and flung out its steely legs beneath him.

He seemed charged with the fury of the storm itself, keyed to superhuman performance with the glare and crash, the rush of the wind and the lash of the rain, the dull pounding of the galloping cattle.

He lost all sense of direction, of where Bramley was. He only knew that he was gaining, foot by foot, with the leaders, slashing at them with his quirt, that might as well have been a straw.

They burst out of the brush that tore at his leather chaparajos, battered his stirrups, clawed at his mount. A glare, and he saw ahead of them a wide arroyo, dry an hour before, now with a surging torrent in its bed. The treacherous soil gave way and only quick effort held him in the saddle as his pony, legs trapped in the sticky mud, slid helpless. The next burst of light saw the nearest cow somersaulting, pitching down into the water, the end shut off by darkness.

They were in the flood. It was up to his girths and the bottom was mud. All about him the frantic cattle surged, threatening to gore or crush him in that frightful Stygian darkness, with the hissing rain, the bellowing cows and the harsh shout of the wind, the rush of the water. They were half afloat and half mired.

A second bolt came leaping down from the turmoil of the bulging clouds. It struck fairly among the herd that had begun to scatter, unable to find footing on the farther slope, floundering along the bottom of the arroyo. Strong tingled from head to foot; he felt his mount shudder and heard it groan as it staggered. But they were not struck. Three cows were down, the rest scrambling over them, leaping in the morass, as more lightning displayed them, and showed the vaquero still on the bank they had left, a figure leaping out of the darkness, gone in a second.

Swift as the apparition showed and disappeared Strong had seen the pointing hand, caught his meaning. If he could keep the herd going, along the arroyo to its end they could turn them. His own pony was nearly spent by this last disaster, but so were the cattle.

And, though the rain beat down still and the water was rising, he fancied that the storm was passing. Surely the thunder claps were farther off, longer intervals between them and the lightning. If only the arroyo was not too long, if they could reach its end before the torrent gained depth and strength enough to sweep them away. The instinct of the herd kept it pressing on upstream, luckily, for the played-out pony could do little but keep its own footing.

The vaquero had galloped ahead. He would reach the head of the arroyo first and be ready to turn the leaders. The tingling in Strong's limbs and body died down, his head no longer buzzed. How many miles they had come he could not guess but, if the fury of the gale abated, the two of them would have no more trouble with the exhausted cows—once they got them on the level.

The thunder was diminishing, passing to the south. The lightning came fitfully. It showed the sides of the gully narrowing in. Now they were on rising ground and he had to urge the flagging beasts on as best he could with shouts and shots as they breasted the deceitful pitch. He glimpsed the front of the herd leveling out, his helper swinging his rope at them. They toiled on through the sucking mud, hock-deep, on and up, to stand wearily, lowing plaintively, the frenzy out of them, forlorn, willing, subdued.

The cold bit at him but the rain slowing, turned to a drizzle and was gone. The wind went with it. A star peeped through a rift. There was still wind overhead, chasing the wrack. There came more stars, whole constellations, the Big Dipper clear and bright. He had his general direction now and they pushed gradually along over the sloppy soil, through dripping thickets until, at last, he saw the spark of a fire and pledged himself to liberally reward the cocinero who had managed to keep dry wood. It grew into a leaping flame. Presently they, saw the tilt of the wagon that held the light of the fire. The cook hallooed cheerily, the remuda was safe, the corral had held them.

What of Bramley? Sodden, stiff, Strong changed to a fresh mount and loped off. He guessed at the way the rest of the herd had gone and made for the highest ground, where he halted, hoping for sight or sound of them. The night had cleared crisp and fair with the air sweet with the scent of herbs, with all trace of the gale gone save for the moisture, and the sound of storm waters running in the barrancos. Strong shouted, waiting anxiously, then called again in a long ululating cry. It came faintly back as if it were an echo, but there were no hills near enough for that. Bramley was coming in.

Strong touched spurs to the mustang's flanks and the pony leaped eagerly along. Soon he saw the loom of the herd, slowly advancing, the three riders, safe and sound, flanking it.

“I lost one little bunch of four or five, I reckon," said Bramley, “but they kin go plumb to hell fo' all I care. I'm in or out, take yore choice. Save yourn?"

“All but three. Lightnin' got 'em. Nigh got me. They kin go to hell, too. Reckon they have. They must have been crisped up some. Smelled like it. The kid's makin' coffee, Hen. Remuda's all thar. We owe thet cocinero five pesos."

“You'll ruin him. He deserves it though. Corfee! Nothin' ever sounded so good."

“You wait till you taste it,” said Strong, and the two men grinned at each other in the starlight, worn almost to their last shred of endurance but cheerfully conscious of hard work well done. They had lost perhaps five per cent of their herd but the rest were safe and they rolled in to sleep and watch in turn over the tired-out cows, almost too weary to graze, lying down: throughout the night. They gave them the next day to rest and then broke camp, abandoning the corral and riding north again.

It was no pleasure jaunt. There were long stretches of barren, ashen, alkaline desert land without a drop of water for forty miles through which to drive their cows, unaccustomed even to horses, restless at being away from their home with its sufficient feed and reliable water holes—perverse brutes ever ready to break loose, calling for constant watchfulness, for coaxing over the arid leagues.

“We'll make it a thousand head next time, pardner,” Bramley prophesied. “We been lucky, so fur.”

They had, Strong reflected, in more ways than one. They were on the old Texas Trail now and might fairly expect a raid from hostile Indians or Mexican robbers, at any time. But they saw no dust along the trail but their own and now they were nearing the line. Beyond lay the faintly blue peaks of the Sacramento Mountains.

“I reckon they're gittin' the greasers an' 'Paches whipped into line a bit,” said Bramley, biting off a corner of his chewing plug. “Took the military to do it an' the job ain't finished by a dern sight. We're goin' through between spasms, likely.

“We got a good bunch of cows, Sam. A few days of good feed an' steady water'll upholster 'em in fine shape. Thet's whar bein' able to git 'em at short range counts. They don't lose an awful lot the first few days on trail. Call it eight pesos apiece they stand us in, countin' loss an' expenses. We'll git close to thirty-two—mebbe only thirty. Four hundred per cent. I call thet finance, pardner. Vanderbilt couldn't do no better.”

“I'd like to see Vanderbilt chasin' them stampedin' cows,” said Strong. “I saw a picter of him one time, in a plug hat an' side whiskers. Reckon he'd think we was wild animals, likely.”

Bramley laughed but checked his mirth.

“See them buzzards?” he asked. “What d'ye suppose made 'em fly up so sudden out o' thet draw? Dropped down to eat suthin' an' they're flyin' too free an' fancy to have filled up any. Coyotes, mebbe?”

The character of the country had changed for the better. They were on a table-land where the grass grew high with here and there groves of live oaks, here and there little, smooth-sided ravines that held running water and were top-timbered with willows. It was out of one of these that the buzzards had suddenly lifted. Strong watched the birds soaring as their set wings met the air current. They did not reach any great height and they continued to sail in great ovals, banking on the turns, as if they were reluctant to leave the spot.

“Wouldn't be coyotes,” said Strong. “They eat second table to them birds. 'Tain't likely it'd be a wolf out so fur from the hills. I don't like the looks of it, Bramley. We've been too blamed lucky on this trip, seems to me. We ain't even seen any sign. If thar's a bunch thar layin' fo' us they'll smell a mouse if we switch off. Trail runs straight fo' the pass. We're kind of short-handed. No tellin' how them greasers of ours'll fight, is thar?”

Bramley shook his head.

“They ain't been tried out none, to my knowledge. May bolt fo' it. If they fight they'll likely jest waste lead. Switchin' won't help us none, as you say. They'll come out to run off the herd yellin'. You're likely right, pardner. What's yore scheme?”

“Move right along. They'll think we ain't noticed the buzzards particular. We ain't goin' to give 'em the cattle, I take it?”

“Not while I kin twitch a trigger.”

“It's always been my motter,” said Strong, “when I figger thar's sure goin' to be a fight—to start it. You reduce odds thet a way, likely. You said you thought mebbe I could use my guns, Hen. I don't like to run off at the head about my own performances but I wouldn't be surprised but what I could team up with Bill Hurley. It comes natural to me an' I've practiced considerable. They'll figger on surprisin' us. Let's surprise them.

“Let the cows graze along way they're doin'. I'll drop down into the next gully. Ought to be one by them trees. The grass is long and I'll snake through toward the head of the draw. You keep driftin' along with the herd. They got a lookout, sure, but it ain't likely they'll guess what I'm doin'. They'll figger I'm out of line of sight back of the trees. My pony'll stand in the gully. When they start to come out on us, I'll cut loose. I aim to discourage 'em some. It'll be funny if I don't cut down the odds. You kin handle yore end of it. They won't be lookin' fo' a flank fire.”

“If they cut you off from yore pony they'll shoot you up plenty.”

“I ain't takin' any mo' chances than you air. It's a good plan, ain't it? I got my stake in them cows, Hen, an' I figger on playin' the bet to the limit. The vaqueros ain't noticed anything. No sense in tellin' 'em. Mebbe they'll fight, at thet. Maria would flay 'em alive if they showed up without you. I got a hunch I kin call the turn on who's in thet draw.”

“You figgerin' on Lobo Smith?”

“I savvy he ain't exactly friendly toward me, or you either, seein' you've took me in as pardner. I don't reckon he'll be along, either. If he is I'm hopin' he gives me a chance at him. But we didn't make no secret of our goin' after cows. If he sent some of his gang down here to do us in an' they got away with it, it'd likely be charged up to greasers, or Injuns. By the time the buzzards got through with us you couldn't tell was we scalped or skinned. So long, Hen, here's whar I leave you. Drift on slowlike.”

Bramley shook his head as the other loped off. It was a good plan but a desperate one. But they were in a desperate case anyway if Strong's idea about the buzzards was correct and, as he watched the birds still swinging above the draw, he became convinced that his partner had made a right deduction.

“I said he'd do to take along,” he muttered as he examined his guns, seeing that they worked easily in their sheaths and that the cylinders swung smoothly. He knew the vaqueros were more or less prepared for a surprise. The possibility had been discussed. They each had a gun, and the cocinero, Juan, had a rifle in the chuck wagon, handy to his seat. How they would act in an emergency was doubtful but it would be folly to warn them, he considered, anyway until the last moment.

The draw was half a mile away. The cattle moved slowly, cropping the sweet grass. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky and nothing seemed more peaceable than the prospect, save for the four carrion birds wheeling, reluctant to leave their disturbed meal. They made him think of the birds that were said to always hover over Doom Mountain. A whimsy struck him that they might be the same ones. The distance was little for their flights.

In a few moments he might be fighting for his property and his life—for the latter only if Lobo had a hand in this ambuscade. They would not care about the cattle, only to eliminate the outfit—to leave no witnesses. But he was cool to meet the emergency, to do the best he could to defend himself and his herd. So was Strong. Both were game to the core. He saw Strong canter down into a gully halfway to the draw and then, though he watched carefully, he saw no more of him.

Sluggishly, they moved. The chuck wagon was in the rear, catching up after clearing their last camp. The horses were in a lazy walk. Bramley, calculating all chances, figured the wagon would be even with the tail of the herd by the time they reached the mouth of the draw. He had more confidence in the little cocinero's courage than his aim, remembering how he had held the remuda, and kept the fire going, on the night of the stampede. The others had acted well enough but it was a different matter, facing flying bullets.

They had no interest in the outfit outside of their wages. If they were assured that Lobo's men were waiting for them they might fight, knowing that none would be spared. But he could not certify that to them. After all there might be no one at all. What they would do for faithfulness he had no means of judging; he had never put them to the test in such a hazard. If old Maria was here she would make them fight. Her scornful comments were better than a general's commands upon occasion. He wished Hurley was along. They could have put up a fight from the wagon—unless the raiders had rifles. That was not very likely.

The cattle seemed to crawl. Now they were opposite the gully into which Strong had disappeared. He could still see nothing of the pony, no movement of the grass through which Strong must have snaked or be still crawling. He had little doubt but what they had been under observation but now they would be lying low, satisfied that their quarry was coming on, content to wait until the herd leaders passed before they moved. The vaqueros were on the outskirts of the herd which was not very widely spread, finding rich feed without need to stray from the trail.

Strong wriggled through the long grass like an Indian, pausing to see that his guns stayed in their holsters, then gliding on up the slope between the stems. Now and then he raised his head cautiously to mark progress. There were some low bushes clumped at a spot that should command the draw and this he made his objective. His face was set, his eyes steely.

There could be no doubt of the character of the men once he caught sight of them. Their attitudes would instantly determine that. He was sure by now that they were not Apaches. Indians would not have alarmed the buzzards, but avoided them. By this time, with the herd as close as it was, they would be out in the open, whooping and shooting as they circled with only their heels showing on their ponies' backs, firing under their necks with one elbow looped in the knotted manes.

If they were greasers he believed that his fire would effectually rout them, grimly conscious as he was of the accuracy of his aim. If men from Doom Cañon? He reached the screen of bushes, glanced toward where the leading cows were almost parallel with him, took out his guns and swiftly looked them over, set some cartridges for reloads in front of him. inched through the leafy boughs and looked down into the draw.

There were eight horsemen bunched there. White men, all of them. He could tell that by the way the}r sat their horses though he looked down on the top of their sombreros. One was a little ahead of the rest, leaning forward in his saddle, his left hand stretched out with the palm back, holding the rest. Men and mounts were all still.

Occasionally the ears of a pony twitched against the flies, or a flank quivered, or one pawed the soft bottom dirt of the gully. All were tense, ready to drive in spur, draw their guns and go galloping out of the draw on the unsuspecting caravan, yelling and sending lead at the drovers. A murderous ambuscade, bent upon killing, having all the odds on their side, not counting the element of surprise—a dastardly lot of villains planning cold-blooded butchery. It was nothing less. With their superior numbers and the unexpectedness with which they expected to swoop out of concealment and fire the first telling shots, there was slight risk to them and Strong's gorge rose at the sight of them. Yet he could not bring himself to shoot them down in similar fashion.

To him it seemed sure that they were Lobo's men, if only from the fact that there were no other white men banded together in such fashion who would attempt a crime like this. But it was only seemingly certain. Outside of Lobo himself, unmistakable with his yellow eyes, his hawk nose and his black beard, he had no very certain or individual vision of any of those who had stood back of him in the cantina that night. He had been too intent watching Lobo to particularize. Yet he hoped that he might recognize some of them—one would be enough to identify the gang. More than all, he trusted that the man ahead would be Lobo.

The bank beneath him was steep, almost too steep for horsemen to tackle.

Farther up, the draw widened, shallowed, curved a little. They could get up there, get back of him, cut him off from his pony—if they thought of it, or if he could not stop them.

They were farther off than he would have liked for the range of his guns. His rifle was in the wagon and he infinitely preferred his Colt for the quick work that must be ahead of him. They had rifles too, all sheathed, depending on their six-guns also for the clean-up.

He could see the mouth of the draw, fifteen yards or so ahead of where the leader stood. Bushes partly masked it but he could see two longhorns come up even, turn inquisitively as if they thought of sampling the feed in the draw, sight the horsemen, toss their heads and drift on. There was a gathering up of reins, a general drawing of guns, double-handed. The leader put his head on his left shoulder, grimaced in warning that they should hold for yet a few more seconds. He had no beard. It was not Lobo.

Strong felt disappointment, but here was the time for action. They had their guns in their hands, their intention was not to be mistaken. He looked for a pebble but found none, picking up instead a cartridge and pitching it with sure aim at the leader. He tossed it underhanded and the brass of it shone twinkling in a beam of sun before it struck, lighting fairly in the leader's lap before it bounced off the saddle, plain to see, a challenge.

Instantly two of them, who had seen the gleam of the falling object, wheeled their mounts and fired at the top of the bank, guessing an enemy back of the bushes. The leader swore and, calling on those nearest, raced out of the draw, knowing that the shots had spoiled the surprise but still keen to get the jump if he could.

Strong stood up. He could shoot better with free swing for his guns, he told himself, but there was something else in his clean manhood that he did not analyze that prompted him to fight standing. There were only two against him. They could readily not get closer though one actually set his horse at the bank and then went reeling from the saddle.

The other man saw a brief vision of a lean six-footer in worn leather chaps, in faded blue shirt and ancient but serviceable sombrero, standing against the sky. Unshaven jaws were tight clamped and bossed with muscle, lips slightly pursed, nostrils wide and eyes puckered, gleaming like strips of polished steel between the narrowed lids. He had a gun in either hand, spurting pale flame, ejecting leaden missiles.

Perhaps ten shots were fired in that swift duel of two to one. It takes nerve to fire straight in the face of whining bullets. Strong had it. His deliberate act of standing up in the face of their shooting upset them a little.

One bullet whipped through the wide brim of his hat so close to a hit that it nicked the rim of his ear. The rest missed. And the two men fired no more. One went down with a .45 slug plowing down from its entry at the base of his throat, where his clavicle joined the top of his breastbone, smashing both, tearing through to his heart.

The other got, what science terms the tuberosity of his humerus—the bulbous spread of the bone of the upper arm—shattered and the flesh of it ripped wide open, blood spouting from the wound and he sick from the shock. A second bullet struck him in the fleshy part of his thigh and went through to slightly wound his horse that promptly bucked him off. The third hit him in mid-air, more by luck than actual aim, perhaps, and he fell with a bullet in his brain.

Strong did not cease firing and he got a third man in the shoulder, at long range, as he followed the leader. He fell forward on his horse's neck but recovered as he kept on out of the draw. The rest were clean out of range and he ran along the top of the draw to where he could hear the rattle of the six-guns. The cattle had broken, some galloping ahead and some turning backward, alarmed by the firing but not seriously so. Within a short distance they started grazing again. The raiders had not wanted them—only the drovers.

Strong had brought down the odds practically to even—as far as numbers went. He saw that all the vaqueros were fighting—at least they were firing. A bullet from the little cocinero's rifle came singing out of the wagon and plopped into the dirt not far from his feet. He saw Bramley with both guns in play and two men after him, one riding straight for the wagon, mocking the cook's inefficient marksmanship.

Strong had whistled for his pony as he ran and the wise roan came racing up out of the gully. It had not halted before Strong was in the saddle and charging down to help Bramley. There was a quick exchange of shots between him and the nearest—it was the leader on his pintado—a bullet struck him like the blow of a mallet, glancing off a rib, another got him in the left forearm. The man could shoot, but Strong shot better. The leader crumpled, drooping forward, sidewise, like bag of meal that was rapidly emptying, slumped out of the saddle, his belly riven by a slug.

Strong galloped on, wheeling to overtake the man making fan the wagon. His left gun had flown out of his fingers with the stroke of the bullet but he had his right, the roan answered to his knees. Then he saw Bramley's horse rear. He knew that trick to disconcert an opponent's aim. But the pony fell over backward, shot in its breast.

There was his partner caught by one leg, struggling to get clear, temporarily defenseless, with the raider shooting at him. Strong clutched his reins with his left hand, finding strength enough to bring the roan about though the blood spurted from his wound and pain racked him to the elbow. The raider saw him coming, set rowels blood-deep into his own pony and rode back for the shelter of the draw, shouting for the rest to follow.

The leader was down, another wounded, two more had never come out of the draw at all. The surprise had been spoiled by Strong. The vaqueros were standing their ground. A lucky bullet from the little cocinero had got home in the haunch of the horse of the man making for the wagon, laming him before the rider was in pistol range.

The leader's riderless horse was already in flight. The situation was too hot for them and they followed it with the vaqueros shouting and shooting after them. Strong, with a face grim as death, sent two shots after the man who had got Bramley. The first missed clean as the pony bucked under the strenuous roweling, the second sent the raider's hat flying as he ducked in his saddle, head close to mane.

Then, as Strong passed Bramley, lying in his blood, riddled, he saw his partner's arm move feebly, heard his name called.

“Sam—Sam!”

Bramley was going fast, clinging to life without consciousness of what was passing, calling out subconsciously to his partner in the instructive knowledge that he was dying. All was blurred in his failing brain. As for Strong, all else paled in the bitterness of seeing the man who had given him friendship and partnership go down. He was filled with rage, with determination to avenge but he could not neglect that call that might be the last appeal. There was the chance too that he might save Bramley, that his wounds might not be mortal though he saw the bright blood welling from him. To leave him might destroy him if that flow could be checked. And the raiders were in full flight with the vaqueros flinging lead after them that sped, if it could not check, their retreat.

He set aside his revenge. He knew that man. His face was stamped indelibly on his memory. Some day he would meet him again. And then——

He slid from his saddle and knelt beside Bramley whose bronzed face had turned gray as the vitality drained out of him gray with anguish, also. He had been shot three times, twice through the chest, once at the base of his throat. Bubbles of blood came from his lips, and his shirt was soaked with it. His strength was almost spent, his heart barely beating, his lungs in collapse.

“Hen!” said Strong. “Pardner!”

Bramley's weary lids opened, his eyes stared, hard as glass, then a flick of recognition came into them as Strong, lifting his head, wiped away the blood.

“Got—me—Sam. Gimme—drink.”

There was a handy canteen on the saddle of a dead pony. Bramley tried to swallow, choked, coughed crimson.

“No—good—pardner!” It was only a whisper now and Strong bent to hear it. “Home—in table—drawer. Had a hunch, I guess. Tell Maria I said—stay. You—you——”

The whisper died away in a hoarse rattle that lost itself in gushing blood. His jaw fell, and Strong laid him down, his eyes like glass again, staring up to where the four foul birds wheeled—wheeled, circling gradually lower.

The wagon was up with them now, the little cocinero leaning from the seat his face twisted with grief.

“Dead?” he asked.

Sam stood up. “Yes. Dead.” Then he saw the buzzards and his grim face set like cement. The vaqueros came galloping back, vainglorious.

“They run like jack rabbit!” they announced. “But they got damn fine cavallos! Go like hell. Two inside dead. One here. Señor, the boss—he is hurt bad?”

Juan told them in swift Spanish what had happened. They swore oaths of vengeance. Strong stopped them, the bleak mask of his face compelling them to silence, to obedience.

“We've got to bury him, deep,” he said. “So's those buzzards or the coyotes don't git to him. Git the herd together an' take it on home to the ranch. I don't reckon you'll be bothered none. We've had our share this trip.”

“Yes, señor. An' these others?”

“Leave them for the buzzards, let the birds have fresh meat. You know any of 'em?”

They shook their heads.

“Mebbe we see them before, señor, but we cannot say,” said one of them and the others corroborated his negation. Strong looked blackly at them. They might be inhibited by the dread of Lobo. He wasn't.

“It don't matter,” he said. “I'm goin' to trail the rest of 'em an' find out where they come from. Git yore tools out of the wagon an' dig thet grave first.”

“Señor Strong, you weel bleed yourself seek, if thet is not tend' to.”

Strong nodded, washed off his wound and bound it up.

The bullet had gone clean through, drilling the flesh and missing the bone. It would heal before long. The rib scrape was nothing. Then he did the best he could to compose the body of his partner for burial, wondering at what he had meant by his last sentences about the table, about his hunch. He saw the grave prepared, saw Bramley's once stalwart figure, limp in its poncho shroud, laid for its last rest, covered over, cairned under rocks for protection. Then he mounted the roan, his second gun recovered, both reloaded, the spare cartridges retrieved from the brink of the draw,

“I'll see you at the ranch,” he said. “Be thar soon as you are, likely. I don't expect to run in with thet lot—now. I aim to find out some about 'em first.”

He rode off, with the Mexicans watching him before they started to collect the herd again. They were of no mind to disobey him. There was a quality of determination about him that influenced them as much as the fear of Maria.

“Friends,” said Juan, “his face is as if it was carved out of rock. Pedro, did you recognize any of them?”

Pedro shrugged his shoulders and started to roll a cigarette.

“Quién sabe?” he answered with the Mexican noncommittal shrug, adding: “Am I a fool?”

For, though they were afraid of Strong, the fear of Lobo was deeper founded. Their national characteristics prompted them to keep out of a quarrel they did not consider intrinsically their own.

They had come triumphantly out of the raid. They had much to talk about when they got back but they would talk discreetly, even among their own people. This time they had fought to save their own lives. It would be different back in Laguna, where Lobo Smith was king. If they told Strong they recognized any one, he might want them to join him in a bid for vengeance that would surely end in disaster, or he might want them to swear to identification which would be just as bad.

There was no law between the Rio Grande and the Pecos except the law of the bullet. It was much wiser to shrug the shoulders and to say, “Quién sabe?”

They took what was worth while from the three bodies, got the herd together and then they started the slow drive. After a while Juan called to them from the wagon as it followed a curve in the trail toward the distant pass.

“The buzzards. They have descended.”

CHAPTER III.

Strong rode on, his face like flint. The raiders had a long start, but he did not expect to overtake them, to even let them know he was on their trail.

One-handed as he was they might well overcome him. It was practically a certainty that they would. He wanted to make sure. If he could follow their sign to Doom Cañon then all his belief would crystallize into proof that could not be ignored. He had still to show that Lobo was the director of the raid but he let that rest. The man who had killed Bramley as he lay held under his horse—he would kill him as surely as the sun was in the heavens. And he meant to bring the rest to justice, whether the law had anything to do with it or not.

He sensed the temper of the association. Bramley had been a favorite among the cattlemen. If he could bring them proof that the raiders were from Doom Cañon, something might be done. He would organize them, clean out the foul brood. Lobo he held responsible and he hoped to see him through powder smoke, after he had killed the other. Perhaps they might invoke the law, stir up public sentiment, purge the Three Corners. He did not care what the method, how far-reaching the result. He was going to see that the murderers of his partner chewed lead of his sending. That was immutable.

But it hung upon his trailing them. And that seemed simple enough to Strong. Others might be stopped by rim rock and malpais but he was not. There was always something to be found if a man was keen enough.

Back of his mind was the fixed thought that Lobo was the man ultimately responsible. The one who had killed Bramley must suffer but it might as well have been any of the others. They had gone out under orders—from Lobo. Those orders had been to ambush, surprise and kill—from Lobo.

From now on his life held but the one inflexible purpose—to connect the raid with Doom Cañon and then to turn their own tactics upon the scoundrels who lived there. They were cowards. None but a coward at heart would have planned such a thing, none but cowards would have carried it out—none but cowards would have quit as they did the moment the shooting proved too fast for them. They had killed Bramley, wounded Strong. The vaqueros charged but they would not have stood against similar tactics.

If Lobo and his men were ever up against a strong combination, Strong believed that they would quit.

They were a power yet. He would have to go shrewdly about his self-appointed task. There had always been a stamp of recklessness on Strong's features, just as his talk usually was savored with a jest, often with a light-hearted song. All that was changed. It was as if his face had been dipped in acid. It had aged and lined. The sparkle had gone out of his eyes and been replaced by a steady light, a spot that any one would know presaged steady, grim purpose. Bitterness flooded out all his light-heartedness, bitterness and sorrow for the man he had learned to love in their short acquaintance, as only men can love, deeper than friendship, enduring even after death.

The roan noticed the difference. Strong's voice was crisp and cold and stern. He did not talk to his mount as he usually did when they were alone, but rode silent save for a few syllables of command.

The trail was as easy to follow at first for Strong as the green line on a subway passage to a commuter. It did not make directly toward the main pass between the two ranges, Huecos and Cornudas, but that did not trouble him. Sooner or later it would swerve that way.

To the west was the Rio Grande, beyond the Huecos, with El Paso not far away. But he did not believe they were bound for El Paso. The eastern spurs of the Huecos and mounting mesa-lands toward which he was rapidly advancing, eating up mile after mile on a trot, had plenty of rim rock over which they could travel and which would leave no hoof trace. Then he would have to go more slowly. After dark it was probable that he would have to make a dry camp and wait till daylight to pick up the almost invisible sign.

He was too late to try and cut in ahead of them and wait for them as they entered Doom Cañon. While such procedure might not sufficiently establish proof, it would inevitably lead to a fight. He knew by now that there were always lookouts at the mouth of the cañon, that it was guarded a little way inside its mouth by a fence too heavy for wire cutters to demolish, moored in sockets in the solid rock in which anchors were fixed in molten lead, the fence entered by a securely padlocked gate. The lookouts could command approach by day, but by night he could not be sure of his men. And he meant to be sure.

The weather was fair. It showed no indications of anything that would disturb the sign he would be looking for.

At noon he watered the roan, gave it a chance to crop sweet grass in the little mountain stream and managed, despite his arm, to cut some for its later meal. Then he redressed the wound. It had reddened a little and swollen and it hurt prodigiously as he exposed it to the blistering sun before he plunged it and held it in the ice-cold water, plastered it with chewed tobacco at entrance and exit of the bullet and bound it up again. In a pinch he could use that arm. Maria was a marvel at simples—poor Bramley had told him—she had herbal ointments that would swiftly heal a wound. His scuffed rib had stuck to his shirt but he ignored that.

The trail told him several things. The horse the cocinero had hit bled badly and went dead lame. They caught another, probably the mount of the leader or the first man Strong had got in the draw, and they had killed the wounded one. It was a buckskin with a dozen brands on its hide. Small proof there and a lot of delay and trouble to skin and take along the hide, Strong decided. They had either taken the saddle or had buried it. But saddles, unless their owners' names were carved or stamped in them were not always good, evidence.

He thought and considered wisely, coldly, as he rode. There would be indignation over Bramley's death which would inevitably die down. The ranchers were all short-handed, overworked. Indisputable evidence would have to be submitted to them and they would have to be worked on personally before they would undertake the hazardous job of cleaning up Lobo and his men, with most of the local population against them. Some of them were slow to action, cautious, suspicious, hard to wean from their own affairs to enter others that might be far from profitable to them personally. They would even, some of them, wonder whether Strong did not color things to back his plea.

The vaqueros—Maria or no Maria—would never go beyond their timid denials. It was not an easy task to which he had set himself, after all. But he had years to work it out in and he must be careful not to limit that time by rashness. With him dead, no one would avenge Bramley, lying there stiffening under his cairn, unbathed, his clothes glued with his blood, the poncho about him all that there was between him and the dirt while the coyotes sniffed overhead and scratched until their pads were raw in their endeavor to dig down. They couldn't do that. He had made the pile too heavy.

He came across a place where the raiders, taking each at first his own line, had come together, had halted, perhaps discussed going back. It would not be the easiest thing, Strong imagined, for them to return to Doom Cañon with news of failure. With three dead and another hurt, Lobo would not be likely to accord them too welcome a reception though their losses were their best excuse. And even Lobo could not go too far with men who might give out the mysteries of why they lived in that seemingly uninhabitable place, why they fenced it off and how they got the gold they spent so freely.

So they seemed to have argued and gone on. Their horses had cropped some grass, had been watered. One man had lain down and there was trace of blood there on the grass. It was the one he had shot in the shoulder as he was going out of the draw, Strong reflected with hard satisfaction. The jolting of his galloping pony kept the wound bleeding. If he dropped behind he might give him an inquisition that would yield results. He was in no humor to spare such a captive.

That luck was not with him. Before sunset he hit the malpais and, from then on, he had to slow down. He had to find some indisputable sign, since the rock showed scant trace, though here and there he found a weathered fragment that had scaled off under the shod hoofs. It was all ancient lava here and even Strong, save by deduction, could not be sure how freshly it had been broken. But there were other things, his own judgment of the way horsemen would follow contours—a burned end of a match, the stub end of a cigarette.

Once, after he had cast about for almost half an hour, with the sun sinking fast toward the Huecos peaks, he picked up sign by finding a few grains of tobacco that had been spilled or wind-blown from a half-rolled cigarette or open bag. That was the first time he was actually bothered about the trail. It had not followed the natural path that would have been chosen over that terrane by experienced riders or by horses left loose-reined.

He would himself have allowed his roan to pick its own footing. Why they should choose a defile between the spurs instead of a better trail direct to the pass puzzled him. He was sure now that they did not intend to go west to El Paso. They had gone well beyond any pass and the saw-toothed divide that now lay on his left, sharply outlined in rich indigo against the golden sunset, could not be negotiated either afoot or in the saddle. He felt sure, by his acquired mountain knowledge, that the trough in which he had found the tobacco would not long continue.

Ahead was the jumbled breakdown of the great mesa at the end of the Huecos Range, a great jutting from the main mass of the mountain chain. To the north of this Doom Cañon opened. Its southern extremity—he could see it clearly enough in the rare atmosphere though he knew it was at least twenty miles away, was a series of high cliffs and shallow terraces towering up in pyramidal fashion.

Nor could he be sure whether this tobacco had not been spilled by the wounded man who had separated from his companions, or perhaps been left behind by them and bidden to take a roundabout way for precaution's sake, since he could no longer keep up their pace.

He cast back to the last sign he had cut, found it and resigned himself to make the camp he had expected. He gave the roan the grass he had cut for it and most of the contents of his canteen, using his punched-in sombrero crown as a bucket. For himself he munched some cold soda biscuits he had taken from the wagon and finished the water. He could have done with a good jolt of whisky, he told himself, as he pulled out an ancient pipe—better to smoke after dark without a fire than cigarettes—filled it and puffed away, the roan daintily finishing its grass and resignedly making the most of it.

Strong was stiff and sore and his arm throbbed painfully but he did not feel like sleep though he needed it. There was nothing but rock in the defile and the finding of a comfortable bed was impossible. He grudged the hours until daylight. At last, inaction becoming unbearable, he decided to try and find a way to a ledge he had noticed before it became dark.

The starlight was bright enough to help him and he went carefully, coming out at last on a considerable eminence, hoping to see the light of a fire that would assure him he was on the right track. One wounded man in a country where wood was as scarce as this one, where it would have to be climbed for, would not have bothered to build a fire so close to home. But there was no spark and he made his way back again to where the roan nickered softly in welcome and reproach at having been left alone.

What ease he could find on the inhospitable floor he exploited though it was very cold and he had no covering but the damp saddle blanket. The chill got into his arm and it pulsed like a toothache. He got some sleep, waking by pressure on his wound, and then he saw the sky beginning to gray and saddled up, riding on again to where he had found the tobacco grains.

The defile broke up into a maze of ravines. They forked like the sticks of a fan.

He searched the one that seemed to turn back toward the pass, more and more fearful that the jumble of lava hills he was now among was impenetrable ahead, as far as leading to any definite spot was concerned. It was an ancient flow, weathered down by the ages, split and crevassed by more recent upheaval, a jumble of blind entries. It might have been traversed by the shortest route by some one initiated into its eccentricities—but to what end, Strong asked himself. He had ridden to the south of the mesa with Bramley after some strays and he felt sure that it all led into the tumbled breakdown of that table-land.

He drew blank in the first ravine and in two more. Then he found the ashes of an old fire that had been wind-whirled into a crevice with some charred fragments—those and a small brass button, no larger than a medium-sized bead. He held it, frowning, for he had never seen a button like that before. It looked like a woman's article. Perhaps it was a keepsake or a trophy lost from a man's pocket, pulled out with a handkerchief. He could make nothing of it. It was tarnished and he believed it had been there for a long time.

He rode ahead to come to other forking ways that opened up and delayed him. The sun beat down, and he got feverish for lack of water, faint for lack of nourishment, while the roan plodded on between the heat-reflecting rocks wearily. It was definitely established, unless some passage suddenly appeared leading to the north and east, that the raiders were not making for the pass at all. There must be some other twisting way they knew. There had to be. Men and horses had passed here, not once, but often.

As he gradually worked out of the lava hills into others that were not so flinty, where cactus grew occasionally, he found, close to the only practical trail, horsehairs caught in the spiny growth where the ponies had flicked their tails. And these were not all from the same horses, but were of various colors.

He had followed the trail truly enough. They were a long way ahead of him now but the mesa was looming up, and around the foot of it a creek came out of the cliff, tumbling down in a streaming cascade and then running in a ravine that had for its northern wall the mesa itself, cut through the breakdown or perhaps merely following the easiest outlet through an earthquake split that had torn loose the original southern face of the mesa.

In that ravine he and Bramley had found their strays. On the mesa side there was no footing but, on the closest bank, there was some soil, some grass and a narrow beach of pebbles. They would have to leave their sign there and—if the trail led down to it, as it must—there was the explanation of how they could get round to Doom Cañon without going through the pass.

They figured, even if they were not immediately followed, that it was no use to leave plain sign along the obvious route that might link them up with the cañon. Probably they were following out Lobo's orders. It was simple enough, now that he had shuttled his way through the tumbled hills.

And, at last, he found himself riding down toward the creek over a precipitous but practical route. He found more match ends, the torn-off edge of a brown cigarette paper. He was nearing the goal and he forgot his pain and weakness. Here was water for him and the thirsty roan with grass for the game pony. And the sign could no longer be covered, so he had to ride with his eyes on the ground continually.

The roan drinking carefully, wise enough to know how much to take of that icy flow. It was welcome to Strong. His bandage was dry as an old bone and he found a pool and lay down, letting the water gurgle against his inflamed arm after he had contented his parched throat.

The gap through which he had descended to the ravine was higher up than he and Bramley had come after the cattle and, even from a short distance, no one would have suspected any such exit. Even when one faced it, it did not look practical. At the end of the gorge the cascade streamed down the closing cliff like an old man's wispy beard and a cool breeze came down the ravine. The roan cropped eagerly at the scanty grass. There was driftwood that must have been brought down from the heights and there were storm-water marks at various elevations.

There was sign in plenty, hoofmarks in the shingle on the margin of the water where the horses had entered, probably to drink after the thirsty trip. Displaced pebbles and broken turf were there also. But the riders seemed never to have come out again. He had come to the end of the trail. And it did not lead to Doom Cañon.

It took him a long time to come to that conclusion but there seemed no other. They could not have ridden downstream to skirt the mesa to Doom Cañon for it was blocked here and there by great boulders, fallen masses from the cliffs above, by stretches of rapids and, in one place, by a cataract with a deep pool below it which they could never have negotiated. The beach itself showed no sign. He waded across the hardly fordable creek to the cliff opposite the hoofmarks and found no landing place, only a vertical wall.

The last of the light came by the time he had searched all the beach that ended completely a short way above the last of the sign. He rode down toward the pass again in the twilight, just enough of it left for him to see that the herd had not yet passed, but he decided not to wait for it. He needed food and a bed. The disappointment had brought back his fever and a temperature was mounting, so he began to get lightheaded, to ask himself whether he had not misread the sign after all?

It was after midnight when he reached the Bar B. Bramley's dog rushed out in impetuous alarm that changed to greeting and changed again to a howl. Strong turned the roan into the corral, gave it hay and a measure of grain—for he had ridden slowly—and bent slow and weary steps toward the house.

Bramley's death was heavy on him. Perhaps, he told himself, if he had not gone into the draw it might have been avoided. His vitality was low. A light suddenly showed and Maria appeared at the door. The dog was howling again.

“Señor,” she said in her broken English, “there is trouble. Perro has howl all last night and all day he lie an' watch—watch weeth head on paws. This night he howl some more. Where is Señor Bramley? You do not speak—an' you are wounded! Where is he? He is dead?”

Strong nodded, started to enter and staggered against the wall. The stout and sturdy old woman caught at him, steadied him.

“Lobo has done this thing. I say yes. Señor, you are seek. Maria weel make you well an' then we weel avenge. You do not know what Señor Bramley do for Maria. Some day I weel tell you that. Now, I look at that wound! An' I feex you something to eat.”

CHAPTER IV.

It was afternoon when Strong came back to consciousness the next day. The doughty Maria had evidently put something into the broth she had given him that had made him sleep soundly. He could not remember going to bed. There was salve on his wound under a clean bandage and his rib was plastered. The old woman had tended him like a child.

His fever had left him and he felt vigorous, clear-headed. Against Maria's desire he got up and dressed and ate some breakfast. Before he had finished the meal, invigorated by the strong coffee, the vaqueros arrived, bringing the herd. They had had no more adventures, but he heard them talking volubly in Spanish with Maria after they had turned the herd into a fenced-in pasture through which the creek ran.

Strong was relieved. He would not have to go through it all with Maria. He kept himself from dwelling on the details. The death of Bramley seemed like a dull weight that lay on his heart. He remembered the table and looked in the drawer. There was a folded paper there, torn from a ruled letter pad, addressed to himself. He remembered now that Bramley had sat up late the night before they started. His eyes misted as they read the scrawl that was Bramley's last will and testament.

In case anything should happen to me on this trip I leave all my share in the Bar B—ranch, stock, and tools and what money there is on hand—to my partner Sam Strong, who now has a half interest in it. I do this of my free will, being in sound mind, because he is my friend and partner.

Henry Bramley.

Witnessed by Maria Valdez.

It was properly dated and without doubt a valid document. He had been more thoughtful than Strong. There was a scrap of paper pinned to the sheet.

Dear Partner Sam: I've got a sort of hunch we may run into something this trip. So I'm fixing things. There ain't anybody else belongs to me, but look out for Marla as long as she lives. Also Bill Hurley and Perro. He was all the real pal I had before you come along,Hen.

Bramley had known enough not to mention Maria in the document that she witnessed. Strong read it through again and folded it up, putting it away in his wallet. He decided to tell Maria about it. How to probate it as a will he did not know and he did not feel keen about doing it—not yet.

There was a broken-down lawyer in Laguna who might advise him—a hard-drinking, disappointed man whose main practice of his profession consisted in making speeches upon every occasion for oratory and some that were not. There was a story back of him and Strong imagined he had been disbarred. But his advice was good and, when he was neither too sober nor too drunk, he had his redeeming qualities. One of these, to Strong, was his unqualified condemnation of Lobo Smith whom he denounced as an unmitigated scoundrel.

Curiously enough, Lobo did not seem to resent this but found more sport in getting Clayborne drunk—for the lawyer could not resist an invitation from any one when alcohol got its grip on him and dulled his pride—then goading him into declamatory invective.

But that could rest. There were other matters more vital. He had been so supremely confident of his ability to trail that he had made one mistake in his rage against the raiders. That was to have left the three bodies to the buzzards and, after them, the coyotes. They would be beyond recognition. It had seemed to him like a fitting vengeance at the time but in it he had destroyed his chance of identifying them with Lobo's men. And he had failed to trace them by trailing, failed utterly.

He meant to go back to the ravine again and try to solve the puzzle, but he feared he could not do so. He had gone over the ground too thoroughly and there was no solution. In some way Lobo had been too clever for him.

But he resolved to call a meeting of the association, which should be done in any event. He would show them Bramley's will and the note, strive to urge them to some action though now, without proof, only suspicion, he knew his efforts were destined for failure.

The ranch affairs had to be attended to. There was the beef contract. He had to carry on. Bramley would wish it. Strong was conscious of feeling older, of deeper sentiments than he had believed himself capable of. It almost seemed as if Bramley was about the ranch, liable to appear at any moment. The ranch house was primed with tokens of him. Perro, coming in to sit mournfully by Strong, or following him about the ranch, no longer full of life, barking, helping to herd the cattle, was a constant reminder, staying close to him, day and night, as if aware of the mutual loss they had suffered.

The meeting of the association turned out as he had expected. There was grief shown and fitting sentiments expressed but all spoke of the folly of attempting to prove anything against Lobo. They passed resolutions of regret, offered help, advised him that in their opinion no one would disturb his full tenancy and promised him support if it was needed, but they plainly discounted his story of trailing the sign. They evidently considered that he had run across disconnected traces and that the signs by the river were those left by some one seeking strays, as he had done, signs that, because they happened to be on higher ground, had been left when a freshet—a frequent occurrence—had wiped out others. The next time Strong had visited the ravine there had been a rise in the stream and all trail was missing.

And Lobo was away. He did not visit Laguna, nor any of his men. Such absences on his part were periodical, sometimes lasting two and three weeks. When he was in Three Corners nothing kept him away from Laguna longer than three or four nights and, on his return from his excursions, he would invariably ride in full force, and hold carousal, flinging gold about—always gold coins, tens and twenties. Some few men were always left to guard the cañon fence.

These few who had ventured to explore were always warned before they reached the barrier, a voice from an unseen guard giving caution and, if it was not promptly heeded, a rifle bullet would come humming from some spot high up the cliff, unbetrayed by smoke from the high-powered charge, its source confused by the volleying echoes the report aroused. For Strong to attempt to force a way would be suicide.

Maria was stanch, nodding her old head until her triple chins worked like the bellows of an accordion, using her Mexican proverbs.

“Make haste slowlee, señor,” she would say. “He who walk slow go sure. To walk to Sevilla, ees a long way. But I am a woman. Thees men of Lobo they have their girls in the cantinas. Weeth them they quarrel, and of them they tire. Then, perhaps, the women tell what they know. What there is I shall learn an' spin together, weave like Navajo blanket. Then we see the pattern.”

She told him how Bramley had found her in a miserable hovel, ill from nursing her husband who had died, how he had helped her, how he had got her two sons out of trouble by giving them money, traveling to Santa Fe where they had been arrested for a larceny charge, breaking and entering an empty house with some other lads, foolish with mescal. How he had brought her to the ranch after he had got some one to nurse her back to health, given her money for necessities, even for masses for her husband's soul.

“Now, since I cannot work for heem until I die, I shall help to avenge heem. I have sworn eet, señor, an' I have made my sons swear weeth me. Did they not fight weeth Señor Bramley? They have tell me they were afraid but they shoot. They do not run. An' they shall fight again.”

Juan, the plucky little cocinero, stayed on the ranch. He had proven himself and he also vowed to help revenge Strong. Hurley turned stolid ill his grief, moody, spending his spare time cleaning and polishing his guns. Once he called to Juan to bring him some onions and spoke to Strong to watch.

Juan tossed them in the air on request and Hurley's guns sprang from their holsters and barked. He fired right and left at will and each bullet smashed an onion as they rose and fell in rapid succession.

“So,” he said to Strong. “I am an old dog. I am lame, I ain't fit for much an', when this damned rheumatics grabs me I ain't fit fo' nothin' but to feed to the hawgs when it comes to girtin' around. The boys have been tellin' me you kin throw lead whar it belongs. I'm showin' you thet I can shoot some, so's when you git the chance agin' them murderin' dogs thet done in Hen, you'll let me be along.

“Leastwise, you won't think me jest a cripple. Hen's toted me an' paid me wages when most men would leave me to lean up agin' a hitchin' rail, hopin' some one with a skinful would come along an' buy me a drink so's I could git a chance at the free lunch.”

“I know how you feel agin' the cuss thet shot Hen. You reckon he's yore meat. Thet's all right. But it ain't too likely you're goin' to run into him all alone an' made to order fo' you. Thet kind runs in a pack. I've had my innings in my time an' I kin come close to tellin' what a man feels by the look of his eyes an' the way his face is fixed. You're set to git out after thet Lobo pack soon's they come back an' you bin git a chance to be sure they done it. You an' me know it was them but we got to prove it.

“Maria'll help on thet. She's a woman—and an old one. Wiser than any man when it comes to wormin' secrets. Some of those fellers'll give hisse'f away sooner or later. Mo' bad men tripped up on a skirt than any other way. Yes, suh. Those cantina gals air nigh all greasers an' you kin bet yo' last cartridge thet Maria's got her plans sot an' workin'.

“Hombre shoots another feller down or pulls some crooked deal he thinks is smart an', sooner or later, he'll brag about it. When he's cold sober he may not be so derned proud of it but when he's het up with licker he figgers it's somethin' to be proud about an' he tells the gal he happens to be stuck on, jest to show her what a wonder he is.

“You, Maria an' me, we'll round 'em up. It's all I got to live for, to look at thet crowd through smoke. I'm plumb willin' to go out with my guns hot, long as I kin take one or two of thet outfit along with me to hell an' brand 'em thar for what they stands fer. I've allus reckoned thar would be grades in hell. They won't stand for a coward, even down thar. No, suh, they'll put 'em whar it blisters most. Maria's the same in her woman's way. Perro, too. He don't know jest what's happened, but if he did, he'd pass out to git his teeth clamped in the throat of the man who done it.

“I'm workin' my jaws like a windmill in a gale. You think likely it's all wind. Here's an old cuss, says, you, thet kin shoot some, if he happens to be on the spot, an' the way he's busted up with rheumatics the odds is a hundred to one agin' his bein' within ten mile of the right place at the right time. Like the cannon my dad told me was left behind at Vicksburg. Mighty fine artillery but plumb useless where it was.

“But I showed you I kin shoot an' I'm tellin' you now I'm goin' into trainin'. Maria's allus been after me to try thet lot of hot springs over in the malpais beyond Dry Crick. She says the Injuns hev used 'em for ages to cure 'em when the git cold, or stiff. Even the bears wander down from the mountains when the git old and rheumatic an' waller round in 'em. I took all thet with a grain of salt—mebbe two.

“But I go take a look-see one day, an' I come back. You could smell them springs forty miles off with the wind right, like all the rotten aigs in the world had been brung together an' busted. I come back an' I says to Maria, 'I wouldn't try thet if it cured hams,' I says. But it was sure powerful. Now see here what I been readin'. Come with a batch of stuff in thet last dozen of pain killer I got from Santa Fe.

“Advertisin' junk, but it tells about what marvelous cures they're makin' of 'flammatory rheumatism in Europe, also Californy, with hot-mud packs. All these here steamin' peat-bogs air controlled by 'millionaire corporations,' says the pamphlet. Only those with a bank roll long as here to the mint an' back, kin afford to go thar. So this concern offers a chemical composition thet's an exact copy of the mud. You make a puddin' of it an' smear it over yourself while it's steamin' hot an' it does the trick same as the real article.

“Mebbe yes an' mebbe not. It's artificial an' it can't work like the natural stuff. Don't stand to reason. But thar's a spring of this mud stuff bubblin' up over to these Dry Crick mineral an' sulphur springs—looks like a lot of black porridge in a lava pot, blisters oozin' up an' breakin'. Jest the sort of thing you'd figger was a foretaste of hell.

“If I was a preacher, I'd take my flock out an' preach to 'em right round thet place, 'stead of in church. Make 'em taste thet sulphur water an' tell 'em thar was hell with the lights out an' how they'd have to waller round in mud like that for a million years if they didn't line up an' sign the book.

“Yes, suh. If any one told me I'd go voluntary an' willin' an' squat in thet porridge pot like a toad in a puddle, I'd have cracked him one for insinuatin' I'm crazy.

“But I'm goin' to try her out, Strong. I'm askin' you now for a chance to ride over a couple times a week to see how she works. I'm goin' to lower me into thet bowl o' muck an', while I'm thar, as long as my hide'll stand it, with my nose stuffed so I won't keel over with the smell of it, I'm goin' to pray. I'm goin' to pray for a miracle, so's I kin fork a hawss ag'in without bein' lifted into it, so's I kin move around without sweatin' blood every time I beat a crawl. I don't expect to grow out my laig so it mates up with the other; I don't ask fer it to be permanent. Jest so's you'll give me a chance when you go to clean up thet outfit.”

Strong did not crack a smile. It was the first time he had ever felt like laughing since he had come back to the Bar B, but Hurley's very earnestness made his talk more ludicrous in a way.

“I've heard about the mud packs,” Strong said. “You hop to 'em, Bill, an' stew all you want. An' I'm tellin' you right now thet I wouldn't want anything better than you alongside of me workin' yore artillery when I git lined up agin' the Lobo pack.”

“Hell, I'll be thar! I'm testin' this peat stuff, till I git slick—or bust.”

“Go over any time you feel like it,” said Strong. And forgot the matter.

On the advice of some of the older men of the association he took the will into Laguna to see Clayborne, scarcely hoping to find him in condition to talk. Clayborne sobering up was apt to be worse than Clayborne drunk. To his amazement the lawyer was not merely free from taint or effect of alcohol, but he was clean shaven, clean collared, and his shoes were polished, a combination never before achieved by him in the memory of Laguna, He had no office but the lobby of the hotel, with its dingy writing room for a private sanctum, and there he took Strong.

He must once have been an impressive-looking man, Strong fancied, looking at the lawyer's wide brow, his well-shaped nose and square jaw. He did not look like a man who would be easily downed by liquor or any other cause. But the tremulous hands, the watery eyes with the sagging skin beneath, showed a battle lost. Yet he held himself with real dignity as he spoke of Bramley's death.

“You know who caused it?” he asked.

“I have no direct proof,” Strong answered, “only my suspicions.” He did not think it necessary to go over the whole affair, but briefly said that he suspected the Lobo pack, a little fearful that the lawyer would launch off into one of his violent tirades. But he made no direct comment.

“Strong, you see me sober, sir—entirely sober—for the first time. You have not been in Laguna long, but you have heard about me. The prize drunkard of Three Corners, the jester, the butt of the cantinas. There are sometimes reasons why a man loses grip of himself. I speak without excuse. We will dismiss that plea. But now, if there is any manhood left in me, I aim to foster it. Doubtless I shall fall, but I need not fail. A man is not always beaten because he is down.

“Either I must do this or sink below the semblance of humanity. I have seen a vision of myself, sir; senile, feeble, old, in the last stage, the final scene of life's eventful history; stripped of everything, whining for gruel to suck between my toothless jaws, an object beyond man's sympathy, that most miserable of beings, an ancient human being who has forfeited his manhood.

“What gives me this urge? Because, even here in Laguna, the bottom of the cup where the dregs gather, there is a wholesome stirring. Men like you and your late partner, cattlemen and ranchers, are leavening the stagnant life with honorable activity. The inevitable tide sets in, rising, rising.

“Men will breast the flood and swim with it to the highlands of prosperity. Others will slink away, be swept by its cleansing current or flung up on the beach in worthless flotsam and jetsam. The railroads are pushing forward. And, for me, once more comes the knock of Opportunity. The law is coming to Laguna. There must be some one to represent it here, to conduct its course after the heralds have withdrawn.

“That one shall be myself, sir. Nicholas Clayborne, of Boston, sir—of Back Bay, Boston. Once a counselor—still, by the grace of Heaven, a man. I shall once more uphold the law. I have taken steps toward it, and, when the law comes to Laguna, sir, the baying, bullying pack of Lobo Smith goes!”

There was a similarity, Strong could not help observing, between this rhetorical outburst of Clayborne with its almost pitiful determination to re-establish himself, and the declaration of Hurley to make his physical self over again for a set purpose.

He wondered whether there was any real reason for the lawyer's declaration that the law was coming and that the law would be directed against Lobo. If some word of his mysterious doings had reached the high places and offended justice meant to strike. Clayborne proved evasive, and Strong at last believed that much of his talk was merely through his usual spigot of the desire to exhibit his oratory. He hoped so. Lobo and the man who had shot Bramley were, as Hurley had put it, “his meat;” he did not want the law to cheat his personal revenge.

The talk turned to the will.

“I can have this probated for you,” said Clayborne. “A very human document that contains the essentials of a testament. You may rely upon me to attend to it.” He sat with his trembling hands on the arms of his chair, his watery eyes blinking, and drew himself up.

“I may tell you this, Mr. Strong, lest you hesitate to give me the first item of legal business that has been entrusted to me for many a day, to be the first client of Nicholas Clayborne, that I have been approached by one who is in a position of trust and authority, who has placed in me a confidence, sir, that I would rather die than forfeit. My enemies—or, let us say, those who are not my friends—have brought him tales, doubtless, but he is a judge of men, sir, necessary in his profession.

“He has honored me with his trust, and I shall show him that it is not misplaced. I may say, sir, that I never abused the interests of a client. I may have temporized, even neglected them, but never to the extent of loss. When I became, in the course of an unfortunate appetite, unable to look out for clients, I ceased to practice my profession,”

Strong was sorry for the man, and there was something about his frank exposition that was not altogether pitiful. There were sparks of fire in the ash heap yet that might be blown to flame.

“Shucks,” he said. “I was hatin' to bother you with it, thet's all. I'll be mighty obliged if you'd look after it fo' me. Here it is an' if thet ain't enough for the fees, let me know.”

Clayborne took the twenty-dollar bill and his face flushed.

“Mr. Strong, sir,” he said as he rose and offered his hand. “I have spoken thus freely to you because you have not seen as much of my conduct as others in Laguna, though doubtless you have heard much. You are the first man to trust me with money—as a loan, a gift, or a payment—for many months. I thank you, sir, as a gentleman to a gentleman.”

“That's all right, jedge,” said Strong, embarrassed, gripping the flabby hand. “You'll have a seegar, seein' you're not drinkin'?”

“I shall be glad to. Glad to. I would rather it were purchased elsewhere than at the bar. There is an aroma there that disturbs my mental equilibrium. It creates an appetite that is—er—painful to control.”

“Sure. They sell 'em in the office.”

Clayborne wrestled with the cigar lighter, and Strong felt in his vest pocket for a match, finding none, but encountering the brass button he had placed there for safety. Maria had said that she knew of none like it. He showed it to Clayborne.

The attorney rolled it about in the palm of his hand, poked at it with one wavering forefinger, shook his head.

“H'm! Now that indicates something to me. I've seen such buttons before. Where, I am not certain. My memory is rusty. It does not respond. Lack of exercise. May I ask where you found it?”

Strong walked out of possible hearing of loungers. He did not see how the button was going to materially aid him, but it was a clew, nevertheless, and he treated it as such.

“I trailed those raiders quite a ways that day, jedge. As far as the ravine thet ends the big mesa. An' I picked this up along thet trail, among the lava hills. I never guessed thar was a way through them hills, an', if I hadn't been follerin' sign, I'd never have found it in fifty years. Looks like they go through thet way sometimes on their trips, like the one they're on now, mebbe.”

“You mean Lobo?”

“Yep.”

“Ah! Strong, there's a man in town, connected with the railroad, I understand. I'd like you to meet him. I'd like to show him this button and get his opinion on it. He's a man who's traveled a great deal. I value his judgment highly. If you're not in a hurry.”

Strong was waiting for supplies to be put up at the store, and he had time to spare. He guessed easily enough that this railroad man was the one Clayborne had meant when he talked of having certain confidences reposed in him by one in authority. He wondered what the railroad man was after in Laguna. Probably looking quietly around for a depot-and-yards site. That meant the workmen would soon begin to lay the rails. It meant supplies, beef. It would do him no harm to meet the man, to humor Clayborne. It might lead to later contracts.

Time had not lessened Strong's determination to avenge his partner, but he found that work dulled the sharp edge of the grief that cut into his vitality and efficiency. He was due to meet the Indian agent in a few days at Escondida. It looked as if prosperity was coming halfway to meet him and Bramley, the man who had started the ranch, could not share it. It was all going to Strong, the rover. But his saddle itch was cured now. Bramley was still in spirit a half owner of the Bar B. Strong was going to make a success of it for his sleeping partner, sleeping under the cairn of stones beside the Texas cattle trail.

They found Edmonds practicing pool shots in the room behind the bar. It was empty, save for the railroad man and the bartender, lounging in the doorway, admiring the play. Strong noticed Clayborne's uneasiness as the smell of liquor floated out from the barroom. So, it seemed, did Edmonds, for he laid down his cue and immediately suggested an adjournment.

“Have you got those papers ready, Mr. Clayborne?” he asked, with a ready tact that mollified the bartender, unable to understand why the meeting of three “gents” should not lead immediately to a “licker-up.”

They went back into the reading room, where the flies droned and wooden-bladed ceiling fans driven by springs rustled ancient newspapers.

“Mr. Strong, one of my clients. Mr. Edmonds. Mr. Strong is a cattleman. Mr. Edmonds representing certain railroad interests.”

The two looked at one another. Strong saw a stocky man in blue serge, with a quiet voice, an unassuming manner, nothing especial of feature save a pair of keen blue eyes that seemed to say to Strong that Edmonds had already heard all about him. He said so, frankly, the next minute.

“I have heard of your recent trouble, Mr. Strong,” he said simply. “Naturally it's talked of. It is a pity it happened through lack of authority and the toleration of a certain type of so-called citizens. I'm sorry. I've known a personal loss like that myself. I can appreciate your feelings.”

It was well said, and the handshake was firm and cordial. Strong began to take a liking to this unaffected Mr. Edmonds, to think that there was more to the man than his outward appearance at first suggested.

“Clayborne suggested I should show you this,” he said. “I found it while I was back trailin' the hombres thet tried to ambush us.”

It seemed to him that there was a sudden flash in Edmonds' eyes before he finally lowered them for a close examination of the button. There was nothing out of the way in their expression when he spoke. For a moment Strong wondered whether he had made a mistake in exhibiting this clew. He prided himself on being something of a judge of men, to the extent that, when he received a distinctly favorable impression, as he had with Edmonds, he had never yet known it to be contradicted. If Lobo's outfit learned that he had found a brass button on the trails south of the mesa that they had certainly used more than once, what might it mean to them? Clayborne seemed to sense his dilemma.

“I am not at liberty to state the exact official connections of Mr. Edmonds,” he said, “but I can assure you, Mr. Strong, as my client, that he is entirely to be trusted, and in sympathy with my own opinions—and ours—concerning the outfit of Lobo Smith and his rascally associates.

“I am sure of it,” Strong answered. “It just struck me thet I ought to go easy, mebbe, on showin' this button round. I ain't shown it to but three people, all told, but I was merely thinkin' generally. I kin read sign an' foller trail an' handle the cattle business, but I don't aim to set up as a detective sharp.”

“You're quite right, Strong,” said Edmonds earnestly. “I would suggest your not showing this button any more than you have to. It's a small thing, but it might mean much. I've seen buttons like this before, and I think I can place where, without much difficulty. I would not care to be positive at this moment. It is my opinion that this may lead to the clearing up of the secret surrounding Smith's sources of income and his mysterious trips. If so, it will probably mean the disposal of his outfit where they will not disturb the peace of Laguna, or any other place, for a long while to come.

“If you could see your way to letting me have this button, I am in a position to forward it to where certain investigations are already in hand. It is an important thing in the railroad transportation of passengers and freight, especially in the West, that the type of men like Lobo is eliminated. That is public service. They seem to be just the sort to hold up a train and this back road or trail of theirs should be an asset in their plans.

“I lost their trail in the ravine,” said Strong. “Mebbe the sign was washed away by a freshet. It was, later, when I went back. Thet way keeps 'em clear of the pass comin' up from the south. They could rob trains near El Paso an' jump east into the Hueeos an' so home. I reckon they figger the lava an' malpais blinds their trail.

“But, if they worked north or direct east from Doom Cañon, they'd have to leave plain sign almost up to their gate No one ever sees 'em go out or come back, but thet's because the cañon's a way off an' thar's no holdin's nigh it. Also, few of 'em ever comes out befo' dark, I reckon. May go back by daylight after they've had a session in Laguna, but no one trails 'em. It wouldn't be healthy.

“Now I'll talk man talk to you, Mr. Edmonds. I'm anxious to have Lobo cleaned out, jest as the railroad is. But Lobo planned thet ambush thet killed my pardner. I want him fo' thet, an' I want the man thet did the shootin'. The law ain't come here yet, an' I want to git thet thing settled outside the law—my way. If thet button's goin' to cut me out of my chance I'll keep it or chuck it away first. I want to see those men over the sight of my six-gun.”

Strong spoke without emotion, and the eyes of Edmonds rested on him interestedly. Then he nodded.

“I can respect your feelings,” he said. “I gather you're looking for proof that Lobo was mixed up in the killing, and that the man who did it is one of his gang?”

“In a general way, yes. Yes, so far as Lobo is concerned. As fo' the other hombre, I'm carryin' a photograph of him right back of my eyes. I don't need no proof fo' him.”

“Except to clear yourself, in case of trouble,” said Clayborne.

“I'll hire you fo' thet.”

“I take the case, sir,” said Clayborne solemnly.

“My point is,” continued Edmonds, “that I doubt very much whether this button, which is tarnished and has evidently been exposed to the weather for some time before the date of your finding it, can possibly have any direct connection with connecting Lobo with the shooting. I do think it may lead to serious charges against them. You would not wish to appear as a hindrance to law and order? It is your duty as a citizen to do anything that may enhance the peace and quiet of your community without regard to your own private vengeance. Isn't that so?”

“Reckon so.” Strong spoke doggedly.

“On the other hand, I do not imagine that Lobo will tamely submit to arrest. I understand Doom Cañon is well protected. I think I can guarantee that you will be notified—as I shall be—of any action, and there should certainly be no difficulty in arranging for you to be of the posse that will proceed against him.”

“I'd ruther act independent,” said Strong. “In a posse you're actin' under orders. You got to go whar they put you. Might give me orders not to shoot or somethin'. Jest you see I'm notified, Mr. Edmonds, an' if I ain't pulled somethin' off befo' then, on my own account, I'll be on han' to do the best I kin. Thar's the button, if it is a button.”

“It answers that general purpose, I'm sure,” said Edmonds, “although it may have another name. Could you give me an idea of the way this trail ran through the lava cliffs?”

Strong pursed up his mouth. It began to look as if the law was coming to Laguna too soon to suit him, as if it might take things out of his own hands. Railroads, he knew, had detective systems of their own. Edmonds, as an official, would be naturally interested in all branches of the service. Holdups, especially where two roads were making for the same junction point—El Paso—from the East, might seriously damage the reputation of the line attacked, prohibit profits. He meant to be orderly, and he believed he was.

“I kin give you a general idea,” he said. “Thar ain't no maps of thet territory an', of course, I kin only line out from whar I cut in. I mean by thet their trail might go quite a ways farther south, might swing west down to the Rio Grande an' over to Mexico.”

Edmonds nodded. Strong pulled toward him ink, pen, and an odd sheet of paper, and made a rough sketch.

“Here's Comanche Crick,” he said, “where we got the cattle. Runs into the Pecos. Here's our route north over Topah Crick, swingin' west, south of Sierra Diablo, over toward Round Mountain, up over the Sierra Prieta. Here's the Guadalupe Mountains due east, beyond Salt Basin. The regular pass lies between Huecos an' Cornudas. The raiders went plumb west toward the lower end of the Huecos. It ain't really the Huecos, which ends proper with the big mesa whar Doom Cañon is. It's what we call a breakdown whar the mesa wall has give way, an' then a lot of these lava hills.

“When they struck these hills they worked north, an' I follered. But it was sure a track to break a snake's back. Here's the crick thet runs round the base of the mesa whar the trail ended when they rode into the water. I couldn't find whar they come out. The crick, risin', might have washed thet off the slate. A ravine opens above the pass in mo' or less broken country. Once thar, they could easy keep out of sight plumb to the cañon.”

Edmonds took the rough but serviceable sketch and studied it. Then he put it into his pocket and shook hands again with Strong.

“You may feel that we've tried to cajole you out of what you consider your right to punish the men who killed your partner, Mr. Strong. As I said before, I can appreciate your feelings. Where there is no law, justice must find its own agents as it invariably does. Feuds are often started that way. But, if the law comes, you will not obstruct it?”

“I'm always on the side of justice an' I'll help the law all I kin,” said Strong and left for the store.

“Railroad or no railroad,” he told himself, “they ain't goin' to beat me out, of my show to even things up. Bramley would feel the same way.”

Vaguely he regretted giving over the button. In another way he did not. The law was all right, but it was coming too late for Bramley.

He loaded up the wagon and drove through the town. On the sidewalk he saw Sprague, the gambler, and Ramon, joint owners of the Tent cantina. The look they gave him was not friendly. Strong wondered if they had any further interest in Lobo and his men, outside of the money they spent with them and lost over the tables. Perhaps they had not been back since the night that Gardner was shot, on the gambler's superstition that fresh-spilled blood brought bad luck. That would account for the sour looks of the two partners.

Farther on he passed two cantina girls. One nodded to him and the other one checked her greeting. Strong pulled off his sombrero in salute. To him a woman was always a woman, whatever her status in or out of society. And this was the girl he had danced with, the one who had warned him not to go out alone. A nice kid he had thought her at the time, not too hardened as yet by the life she followed.

He drove on. He felt terribly lonely these days. Loneliness obsessed him so that he thought continually about it, and the fact that he had lost interest in all things, driving himself to the routine of the ranch only because he thought he was doing what Bramley would have had him do. He was not aware that he was brooding until he was almost becoming morbid, but old Maria did.

There was scant satisfaction, she complained, in cooking for a man who did not know what he was eating, but sat looking into space without caring what fork or spoon conveyed to his mouth.

“You should get marree,” she told him bluntly. Strong shook his head.

“That's all right,” countered Maria. “You shake the head. Jus' the same, I pray to Heaven to send you the right girl. Pretty soon she come along, then you wake up.”

“I'm in no humor for gals, Maria,” he said.

“That's no matter. When the right one she come, she sweep you off yo' feet. That humor change queek. I hope she come soon. Señor Bramley, he would not weesh to see you all the same skeletons.”

This she said to Strong, on his return from town, while she checked up what she had asked him to bring.

She was exercised also about Hurley, who had departed for the sulphur springs and had not returned as expected. Maria was afraid he had been overcome by the fumes or that his horse had got away from him. She had meant to dispatch one of the vaqueros, but they were still away, riding the range herd, turned out, while the cows Strong hoped to sell for the reservation-beef issue fattened in home pastures.

“I'll go,” said Strong, got out the roan, and loped off.

It was not very far to the springs, and they advertised themselves long before one arrived by the fumes of sulphuretted hydrogen and the sulphur deposits about their rims. There were seven or eight water holes of various types—not all sulphur—including an immature geyser that bombed intermittently. Strong did not know the location of the mud bath, but he saw Hurley's pony standing disconsolately between two bubbling and malodorous basins, and then he saw the mass of heaving, steaming peat.

There was no sign of Hurley, and he thought that the heat might have affected the old man's heart, and that he might have choked to death, swallowed up in the messy stuff, on the surface of which great bubbles slowly formed and burst, for all the world like a giant's portion of porridge.

As he gazed anxiously he heard a yell and, riding round a mound of crusty, siliceous stuff, he saw a steaming pool of green water and, in it, seated on a rock, but submerged to the neck, was Bill Hurley. His long mustache was limp and his face the color of a ripe tomato.

“You trainin' fo' the circus as a tame seal?” Strong demanded.

“Seal be damned!” said Hurley, rising naked, his gaunt form scarlet with his immersion, first in the mud and now in the hot spring. Strong could not control his mirth. For the first time since he had come up from Texas he broke into laughter, and it did him a world of good to find that he could do so.

“Laugh yore fool self into a fit an' fall off yore cayuse,” said Hurley, wading gingerly out of the pool toward his clothes. He said it savagely, but he said it with a grin. “Listen, boss; if you'd been twinged up the way I've been fo' eight years an' got rid of it, you'd stay in thet pool till you plumb dissolved. Hell's bells! I'm like a kid with the toothache after he's been to the dentist! Only mine was a damn sight worse than toothache. Look at me. I don't say I'm cured, but it's a miracle, jest the same. I ain't got a mite of pain no mo' an' I'm limber as a young cottontail.”

He capered, trying a pigeon wing, with a lopsided result on account of his short leg. He cracked his fingers and pranced like a Navajo buck at a sun dance. Strong looked on with amazement, as well as he could for the tears running down his face, rocking in his saddle while he held his sides and the roan snorted.

“Cottontail!” he shouted at last. “You look mo' like a skinned jack rabbit. Ain't you got no sense of decency? Want to stampede my hawss? You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

“Waal, I ain't. I bet if my laigs was even I could give you a hundred yards in a mile an' beat you.”

He put his clothes on with a running comment of delight.

“First time I've stood on one laig an' put my pants on this a way for nigh ten years,” he said. “Usually I have to lie in my bunk an' draw 'em on, with a cuss fo' every shift. Lookit! I kin wrastle my shirt on like I was a kid, I kin sit down an' bend over an' pull on my boots like I was human, 'stead of a creaky back-numbered goat. Boss, the pain jest melted right out of me when I was in thet mud. Took me nigh an hour to make up my mind to git into the mess. Took me more'n thet to scrape off with a flat stone after I come out an' then I finished in thet hot water. I feel great. I could whip any grizzly b'ar thet wanted to dispute thet cure with me. Whoop, for Maria! Two whoops an' a whizzer fo' thet pamphlet!

“Thar's a fortune thar, boss. Two of 'em. Course I ain't cured by a long shot, but gimme a sweat in thet peat once a week an' I'll run hurdle races. You watch me fork thet hawss.”

“Maria figgered you was cooked,” said Strong. “So did I till I saw you squattin' thar like a crimson grasshopper.”

“I'll show Maria how to dance the tarantula waltz to-night.”

It was astounding how the medicinal mud had relieved him, and the effect remained for the next few days. Strong left for Encinada with Hurley a different man, many times as useful, and almost as renewed as if he had discovered Ponce de Leon's fabled fountain of youth.

CHAPTER V.

Strong left well ahead of the day that the Indian agent had said he would be at the little town, riding first to Socorro to file on his quarter section. He intended to give Hurley a share in the ranch, to let the vaqueros in on the profits, together with Maria. The cattle business in this section should soon make them all comparatively well off, if not rich. He still had in mind a talk with Edmonds about a beef contract, but he judged the time a little premature at present. The reservation deal might be profitably renewed.

Lobo was still absent, he learned, as he rode through Laguna on his way north, calling on Clayborne, who had sent the will off for probate. Edmonds also was out of town. Clayborne did not say where. Strong learned something about him from the man from whom he bought grain to carry on the trip.

“He's a good mixer, thet railroad chap,” said the other. “Don't say a heap, but he fits in an' he plays a dern good game of poker. I'm figgerin' on sellin' him a depot site. Laguna's goin' to boom, Strong, jest as soon as they start layin' steel, an' don't you forgit it. Say, there's a party ridin' north you might take along—cow waddie. Jest as well to have company. They say the 'Paches ain't takin' kindly to the reservation. Sojers busy roundin' 'em up every little while.”

It was good advice, and Strong looked up the puncher. If the man had quit his job he had hopes of persuading him to sign on with the Bar B. It turned out that he had a sister in Socorro and wanted to visit her for a spell, not having seen her for three years. But he promised Strong to work for him later, and the two rode together without sight of hostiles. From Socorro Strong rode down to Encinada alone, arriving a day ahead of the stage by taking trails rather than the road.

It was a hazardous trip if the Apaches were actually off reservation, but he saw nothing of them. The railroad would soon change the country, develop it. The Three Corners would soon be no longer outlaw land. It would be a long while before it was overcrowded, and that suited Strong. He did not hanker after too much civilization. Long before the dirt farmers started to encroach on the open range he would have made his pile, he figured, but even then he would not want to sit idle. He would be a cattleman all his days.

If he married—he supposed he would some day—it would have to be a girl whose spirit matched with his. There were not many of them in Three Corners. There had been Gardner's wife, whom he had never known. She seemed to have been the sort, by all accounts. Not so the cow waddie's sister at Socorro, who had entertained him royally enough, but who weighed two hundred pounds and was square as an Oregon-packed apple out of the corner of the box—a good sort, but not Strong's ideal of a helpmate. Not the kind who, according to Maria, would sweep him off his feet when she arrived.

There was a persistent rumor at Encinada that the Apaches were out, and that the cavalry were trying to round them up. The fact that Strong had seen no sign did not discount the report. It was the general opinion that they would haunt the road and perhaps molest the stage. When the latter became overdue—two hours, then four—premonition crystallized into certainty. Strong led a party, armed with rifles as well as their six-guns, to go out and meet it. It would be a strange stroke of fate if the Indians should massacre the agent appointed to look after their interests.

In that region all things were possible. The fierce Apaches did not take kindly to confinement and regulations, any more than wild bison to a fenced enclosure. The Indian agent, Larned, had the great excitement of his life, and immediately realized the serious nature of his duties.

They met the stage six miles out of Encinada, coming along with four horses instead of six, and one of them limping. There were arrows sticking in the coach, a passenger beside the driver had his arm bandaged. The driver himself was loud in his declamations.

“Here I go,” he said, “actin' relief for Bob Somers, because Bob's got a bile on the back of his neck, an' I have to run into this. One swing an' a wheeler plumb ruined. Then devils shot 'em full of arrers as a porkypine has quills an' I had to drive the pore devils at thet till they dropped. If I hadn't had this gent on the box an' two more fightin' passengers inside, we men would be splayed out on the stage wheels roastin' over slow ashes an' the li'le leddy—waal, it's plumb lucky for us those yeller-legged cavalry showed up when they did, I'm tellin' you.

“You've got a woman aboard?” asked Strong.

“Use yore eyes, pardner, like the rest of yore outfit. We've got a young leddy with the voice of a thrush an' the looks of an angel, who fit like three wild cats rolled in one. Thar's one passenger inside—three all told, inside fares—who toted a rifle, but he jest natcherully got seasick or somethin' when he heerd them 'Paches whoopin'. It ain't no love song at thet. Anyway, he gits so nervous he don't know one end of his weepon from the other.

“What does the gal do but grab it an' start shootin' out of the right-hand winder while the remainin' gent does the same on the left. An' the gal's the best shot of the two. Brought down one red devil nice as you ever see. Got him through the laig an' busted up the internals of his hawss same time.

“While I was tryin' to make the change with the hawsses this gent alongside of me gits his through the forearm. The gal keeps on a firin', cool as an iced cucumber—saves my life, you bet.

“Jest as it looked like it was wet clouds an' harps, with the red devils ridin' so thar wa'n't nothin' to shoot at but the hawss, circlin' in an' gittin' ready to rush, I thought I heard Gabriel's horn. It couldn't have sounded sweeter, an' it was almost my resurrection. I could feel my scalp liftin' when thet heavenly bugle blowed an' I saw them cavalry streakin' it.

“Off goes the 'Paches, knowin' they was wrong. Up comes the lieutenant, sweet as pie. Kin he help us, and kin we proceed under our own power? I reckon we kin an' he goes off after the troop, reluctant, on account of the gal.

“She never turned a ha'r. Usually they faint after it's all over. 'Stead of thet she cossets the gent who lost his nerve—railroad man by the name of Foster, he told me. This gent beside me is sellin' hams an' sichlike, an' he kin git my order for his brand any time. He ain't so much on shootin', but he's long on sand. So's the third inside fare. He fired as if he knowed how to handle a rifle, but he didn't hold ahead enough, I reckon.

“Mebbe”—the driver sank his voice to a harsh whisper—“mebbe he didn't want to kill 'em. He's the Indian agent. It's a prime joke on him, the way it lays. Him feedin' them Indians, showin' the squaws how to use a cook stove an' wipin' off the snoots of the papooses, teachin' the bucks their sums, an' comin' close to havin' the wards of the country make a fricassee out of him. He ain't seen the joke yit.

“It's a joke on me, too, first time I drive this line—an' the last. I ain't hankerin' for post-mortem notoriety none. You ain't got a drop of licker with you, have you? No? Then I'll git along toward the stop. It's dry work handlin' the ribbons with both hands full of crazy hawsses an' no chance to fire back at the devils thet's makin' a game out of who kin hit you first. They streaked one clean through my hat.”

He started up his horses, and Strong dropped back. He thought it best to leave the Indian agent alone for a while, until his ruffled dignity should subside somewhat. He felt a mild interest in the railroad man. It wasn't Edmonds, he was sure of that. Edmonds would have fought. But this one probably represented the other road. The two would be making a race of it to El Paso, and there were profitable contracts in the air.

As for the girl, she sounded interesting, but he discounted the driver's glowing description of her charms. She was likely the leather-faced wife of some old-timer who had handled a rifle many times before, used to going out to get her own deer when they needed meat, rather than bother to ask her husband to butcher a calf. Plucky enough.

He loped on without looking at the occupants of the coach, about which the rest of the escort buzzed. But, when the stage drew up at the Encinada road house, Strong gasped at sight of the girl who lightly jumped down and stood interestedly gazing about her.

It was the girl. Maria had been right. Strong's heart thumped hard and he felt the blood rushing to his head, leaving him a trifle dizzy, pounding in his finger tips.

She was in dark-blue gingham with a traveling cape of gray above it. She wore a cap with a frill like a cut-down sunbonnet, fitting closely to her well-shaped head, a stray lock or two of hair escaping in tendrils yellow as corn, golden as a sunset. Eyes that were almost purple, a nose straight, save just at the tip, where it tilted ever so slightly—adorably; a mouth like some kind of rare flower, softly scarlet, curving.

Swept off his feet—that was the expression. He stood there gawking like a fool, he fancied, unknowing the impression his six feet of lean straightness made, with the serious brown face beneath the wide sombrero, a man that no woman could look at without knowledge that here was a provider and protector, one who could be both grave and tender, a man still young, but who had been tempered by experience.

The girl looked up, and their glances met. She grew slowly a rosy red, and Strong gasped again. He wanted to talk to her, to meet her, but he felt infinitely awkward, conscious that he had been rude. He doffed his sombrero and walked away, busying himself with the cinch of his saddle until she had gone in, piqued at his attitude a little, but with the glow that had shown on her face growing deeper.

The Indian agent came to him, still upset by his experience, determined to see the new reservation better handled. They fell into talk, and the agent reiterated the statements about the girl's pluck. He did not mention her name, but said that she was booked for Laguna, a scrap of information that Strong was duly grateful for.

"I'm sorry for this railroad chap, Simpson,” said the agent. “He's the purchasing agent for the P. & S. W. If it ever gets out that he funked it, he'll have a hard time living it down. Seems he's got heart trouble, an' the shock brought on an attack. It wasn't faked. Do what you can for him, Bramley; it won't hurt you any to help let him down easy. They'll be buying beef before long. What sort of a proposition can you offer me?”

The mention of his partner's name came as a shock. He had imagined that Bramley knew the agent personally, but it appeared that the acquaintance came through a mutual friend who had recommended Bramley as a man to be relied upon. Strong was forced to explain. The agent was all commiseration.

“Ive got a shack here,” he said. “I haven't seen it yet, but it was all arranged for me. I shall use it as my office temporarily. It's furnished, I believe, and there's even a cook. I've got cigars and a bottle of good liquor with me. Come over there with me, Strong, and we'll talk this contract over. As a matter of fact, it isn't strictly a contract. There isn't time to get out bids for this first issue.

“Orders are to placate the tribesmen—I feel more like flaying them—and a beef issue is the first thing on the program. Washington says to treat them with all consideration. Not the consideration they deserve but under all circumstances. The colonel at the post is likely to get hell if he fires at one of them to-day. If he should kill one, they'd retire him. I wish, Strong, there had been some of our estimable committeemen who handle Indian affairs inside that coach to-day.

“Think of what they might have done to that glorious girl. Strong, she's not married. Coming out to live with a married sister, I understand, on a ranch near Laguna. If you don't grab her—you're not married, I hope?—you're next door to being an idiot.”

Strong let that go by. He didn't want to discuss such an intimate matter as marriage with her. It seemed impossible. She was infinitely dainty, beautiful. He was a coarse cow waddie, once removed by luck to be a ranch owner. Still, she had handled the rifle and hit her mark. She was of the West.

“She told me she was brought in Colorado,” went on the agent. “She knows how to ride, shoot, fish, hunt, and rope a steer. Strong, if I was single and twenty years younger, I'd go after her myself. Here's to her health, suh. Brave as she is beautiful. Back in Kentucky, where I hail from, she'd be the toast of the State. A heroine, as modest as a violet and as sweet as a rose.”

The agent had more than one bottle, and he was a convivial type, fond of following to the end his own lines of talk. It ended with Strong staying the the night with him, with business put off until the morning.

Then Strong got his order for two hundred head at thirty-five dollars a head, seven thousand dollars, of which over five thousand was profit, but which had been dearly paid for just the same. It would have set Bramley and he on their feet, he thought. For him alone it was more than sufficient capital to launch out on a big scale. And he knew that he had the agent's favor in the future.

But the glory of it all was tarnished. He had little satisfaction in the transaction now. That he was on the high road to fortune was certain. Maria, Hurley, and the vaqueros would profit by it, but Strong had no one to share it with. Unless—he thought of the girl—and the agent jested, accusing him of his actual thought, and he reddened.

“If she don't take you,” said the other, genial at the evening's end, mellowed by liquor and the satisfaction of having had an excellent listener to all he thought of the faults of the country and his own improvements thereon, “she don't know a man when she sees one. You get in with these railroads, sell 'em beef, and you'll be rich in five years. You've got something to offer a girl, suh. An' that counts with the best of 'em. Strong, I wish I was standing in your boots.”

When Strong turned in he was wondering if he could stand a chance. He resolved to try it.

The stage had gone on early in the morning, long before he could get the agent to let him go, settling the terms of the delivery and payment. Strong did not know whether he was relieved or not. He had debated whether or not he should go back in the stage, and had given up that idea from sheer shyness. But he resolved to meet her. If she was going on a ranch, that would be easy. He found himself building golden dreams as he finally started out early that afternoon.

The Apaches had been rounded up, the railroad man, whose name turned out to be Thompson, had stayed over at Encinada to recover, and the agent had introduced Strong to him. The man was upset, and Strong managed to put him at ease. Altogether it had been a great trip.

He could short-cut to the ranch by avoiding Laguna but he decided that he had some errands there—chewing tobacco for Hurley, for one thing. He would see if Clayborne had heard anything about the will and also find out what Edmonds knew about Thompson, if Edmonds was back. Clayborne had said that the latter expected to return by now.

And all the time Strong knew that his real reason for not going directly to the Bar B was the hope that he would see the girl again or at least learn her name and find out to what ranch she had gone. It was amazing, the difference just seeing one particular girl made to a man. Significant, he told himself, that this must be the one for him, if he was man enough to win her. The change in everything was inconceivable, as if he had been in darkness all this time and the light had suddenly been turned on.

Even his determination to avenge Bramley had been relegated to the immediate background—not shelved, not forgotten, but no longer assuming supreme, entire importance. There were other things now in life. And all because of the glimpse of a girl, one glance of her eyes. It was magic—that was the only word for it. Not many girls had such power. Not many girls were like her—none.

CHAPTER VI.

It was close to sunset when he arrived. He did not really expect to see her. She would be out on her brother's ranch, or her brother-in-law's, whichever it was. He tried to figure which rancher was likely to have such a sister, which rancher's wife, and gave it up. But he meant to cultivate the stage driver and find out what he could about it.

Up till now Strong had neither been woman-shy or woman-crazy. Now he was in earnest. This perhaps was a form of madness since he did not seem able to reason about it, but he was sincere.

The stage did not leave again until the next day, and he found the driver at the hotel in all the reflected glory of having been attacked by Apaches, recounting his tale for the fortieth time to an admiring audience, bringing gifts, while the Jehu added artistic touches with fictional license. The drummer, who had sat with him on the box, had succumbed to the numerous rounds of drinks in which he had been practically forced to partake, but the driver had absorbed all of them without much more harm than stimulus to his imagination. His breath exhaled alcohol as perfume comes from an uncorked scent bottle, his pockets bristled with cigars, his speech was a trifle blurry but it flowed on like a river and Strong realized that he would probably not have to ask any questions.

“This railroad hombre's got a bad valve in his pump,” said the driver. “He's got no right to be out in a ha'r-raisin' section like this. The first whoop makes his heart turn over an' git all clogged up, and leaves him weak as a kitten. The Injin agent, he's all riled up at the cheek of them wards of his not recognizin' the fact he's aboard an' he pumps a ca'tridge inter the breech. The ham drummer we put to bed a li'le while ago, he takes my guns—me bein' some busy with handling them hawsses, believe me, arrers makin' a pin cushion out of 'em'—an' he blazes away.

“An' then the li'le lady—God bless her!—face like an angel, voice like a wild clarino; like a medder lark. She takes the railroader's gun an' she lets go out of the right-hand winder. She kin shoot some, I'm tellin' you. It ain't easy to hit an Injin streakin' it on a painted mustang an' only hittin' the high spots. But she's cool as ice in' Greenland. An' she gits one of 'em right in the laig. C'uldn't have done it better myself.

“Do you know what she says when I congratulates her about it afterward? She says it was thrillin' an' wonderful. 'Wasn't you afraid,' I asks her? 'What fer?' says she. 'Thet wouldn't have got us nothin'.' Beat thet? The stage comp'ny ought to give her a gold medal studded with diamonds.”

“What's her name?” asked some one.

The stage driver scratched his head.

“Somethin' like Hansen, or Nansen—anyway it's on the waybill. I know her first name is Lucy, 'cause thet was what the feller called her who drove up in the rig an' stopped the stage seven miles out of Laguna. He was foreman for her brother-in-law, he said. She told me she expected some one to meet her but I reckon she thought it would be in Laguna. She seemed some surprised, but the feller told her they was savin' miles an' time, an' her folks was anxious to see her. Said her sister was kind of poorly an' her brother-in-law was lookin' out for her. Thet started her off, quick. Last I seen of her was a cloud of dust, an' her leanin' out to wave back at me. Say, they could cut my laig off if I thought she'd nurse me—both of 'em. You should have seen her eyes when she heard her sister was sick. It was some different from the way they snapped when the Injuns was playin' tag with us.”

“What was her brother-in-law's name?” More than one asked that, fired by the driver's eulogy which had been more than confirmed previously by the drummer.

“I'm derned if I know,” he acknowledged, and saw his stock decline. “She didn't mention it, an' the feller thet drove up, he didn't say. Jes' says to her, 'Is this Lucy?' like folks do out here, not meanin' to be familiar, I reckon. She says 'Yes,' an' soon's he says her sister's sick, out she clumb.”

There was a discussion of various ranches to which she might have gone. It was evident that Lucy Hansen, if that was her name, had aroused interest sufficient to insure her almost a public reception when first she came to town. It was evident, also, that Strong was not the only one who would have made some excuse to drift out to her brother-in-law's ranch beforehand if they could have located it.

In one way he was not too vexed at the driver's lack of memory. He left the little crowd in the lobby and went down the street to a restaurant and in to supper. There a man came over to his table. It was Laguna's postmaster, a somewhat shiftless incumbent who had never been able to grasp the idea that his position did not officially entitle him to inquire into the nature of the mail he handled.

“You're handlin' Gardner's affairs, ain't you, Strong?” he asked.

“I'm looking out for his interests.” That was another matter he had decided to take up with Clayborne, now that the attorney showed permanent sign of redemption. “Why?”

“Letter come for Mrs. Gardner—marked 'Important.' It's got no return address on it. In a ordinary course I'd have to send it back as a dead letter, but it might mean somethin' could be attended to best by you, seein' you're representin' their int'rests, as you put it. I see you go inter the hotel an' I put it in my pocket, figgerin' I'd give it to you. Here 'tis. I reckon if you give me a receipt for it as Gardner's agent it'll be all right. I suppose a dead man kin have an agent.

“I ain't got time to read all the stuff they shoot in to me to go through. I'm runnin' the regulations by common sense. I ain't stuck on the job anyway. There ain't much in it, an' nobody else wants it. I'm just hangin' on till the railroads git here an' then I suppose they'll want to run me out of it an' give it to some dude politician.

“It come by the stage. Not this one—last week. Thought you might come in an' I'd see you but they tell me you've been away. Here's the receipt. Ain't you goin' to open it?” he asked disappointedly, as Strong signed for the letter and put it in his pocket.

“I'll open it with Lawyer Clayborne,” he said. “I reckon mebbe it's the right thing to give me this but I'd ruther open it when he's present. Or not open it at all if he says not.”

“Huh! Tell me he's makin' out to git along without licker. He can't. All peaked up now. A man who's drunk as much as he has, and as long, has got to depend on it. Won't be able to digest 'thout it. An' I reckon a postmaster ought to know as much about the rights of his office as any half-reformed lawyer thet's forgot how to practice. He's ten years behind the law.”

“Jest the same he's the only lawyer we got in town.” Strong grinned at the offended postmaster and mollified him. He had a smile that had more than once served him. Since he had laughed at Hurley in the mud pool he had been able to grin again.

“Lobo Smith's back again,” went on the postmaster. “They come into town last night, closed the doors down to the tent an' raised high hell. I'll bet they sure do stir up devilment when they shut themselves in thet way,” he said enviously. “They say they throw eagles an' double eagles round like it was grain for the chickens. Them cantina gals is the chickens all right,” he added with a wink, “an' Ramon an' Sprague do their share of scratchin'.”

All signs of the grin had faded from Strong's face. Things closed in once more about a grim purpose. If he had come back last night he might have met the man who killed Bramley. He would probably have come in with the rest of the lawless crew, confident in their numbers. But, whether the doors of the Tent had been locked on them or not, Strong knew that he would have got that man if he had been sure he was inside.

He would have broken in and held them all up while he singled him out and then he would have given him a chance at the draw. Lobo himself might have meddled. If he did, so much the better. Lobo's draw was like a lightning flash, his aim deadly, but something in Strong's soul assured him that, when it came to a show-down between them, he would get his man. He might not go unscathed—and even through the tense desire that now mastered him once again, bound him to the one resolve—he knew that he wanted to live. The face of the girl, as she had looked at him outside the Encinada road house, flashed between him and the vision of death he had once contemplated with serenity.

He had been able to analyze the look she gave him after he regarded it through a perspective glass of memory, unfilmed by his own temporary sense of having been rude. It had not been one of anger. It was not wrath at his staring that had made her turn rose color beneath her bonnet. It had been almost as if she had seen in him something of what he had seen in her, a startled, pleased surprise at finding some one who was different from the rest of the world. Strong was not conceited and he had come to this conclusion after due allowances.

Lobo was in Three Corners! Strong finished his meal in silence after the postmaster left to join the lobby group, still listening to the stage driver outdo Hank Monk, and then he went to find Clayborne with his face once more set hard.

His roan was outside the hotel. As Strong walked up the street a Mexican who had just ridden into town and had hitched his pinto next to Strong's mount, followed him,

Clayborne had an office now, a modest back room to a general store. It was not yet dark and he found the lawyer seated by the open window, vigorously chewing tobacco.

“I find it helps to allay certain cravings,” he told Strong as he cut himself a fresh morsel. “How have things been going with you? I hear the stage got attacked by Apaches. Railroads will stop all that sort of thing. Edmonds should have been on that stage but he told me he might take a private rig if certain matters became urgent.” He cocked an eyebrow at Strong and went on. “The will has not been probated yet. It takes time. The machinery of the law has a great many cogs. What can I do for you?”

Strong showed him the letter and retailed the postmaster's decision for giving it to him.

“Ah!” said Clayborne. “You are not a lawful agent; you have no power of attorney. Your looking out for Gardner's interests is based upon the law of kindness, for which we can find no legal authority. I do not think that you have the slightest right to receive this letter.

“That ass of a Taylor should know that, the moment that two-cent stamp is placed upon the envelope and it is committed to the mails, it becomes inviolate under the regulations of the Federal government. And, while the law has not yet come to Laguna in the general sense of that word, the Federal law reaches over all the territory of this United States, as many have found out to their sorrow and more will. The Federal government acknowledges no lawlessness when it chooses to exercise its functions.”

Once more he cocked his eyebrow at Strong as if he reserved some secret in which the latter and the Federal government might be involved. This time Strong noticed it.

“Meanin' thet I have let myself in fo' a term in the penitentiary?” he asked.

“Hardly that, sir. Taylor is the more guilty party. I do not imagine that either of you will be called to account. Circumstances alter cases. Even Justice sometimes slips her blindfold and regards with an orb beaming with humanity those brought before her bar. Have you ever advertised for relatives of Mr. and Mrs. Gardner?”

“I never thought of it,” Strong replied. “I was meanin' to ask you to take the thing over. Thar's quite a few assets in the way of stock, an' thar's the ranch. We cattlemen have keen takin' turns lookin' out fo' the stock but we never got around to action. I reckon they left thet to me, an' now I'm puttin' it up to you.”

“Very good, sir. It shall be attended to. Who's this?” he asked of the young Mexican who knocked and came in without being invited, ignoring the lawyer, his eyes only for Strong.

It was Miguel, the younger son of Maria, a lithe, handsome figure in his vaquero's costume. He spoke fairly good English and, as he illuminated it with illustrative gestures, his speech was more comprehensive, more dramatic than the ordinary. He took off his high-crowned hat and addressed himself directly to Strong, his eyes flashing as he talked, though it did not seem at first as if he had much to impart.

“Maria, she tell me to come to Laguna, señor,” he said, “since she did not know whether first you come here or to the rancho an' you say you return this evening. If you go first to the rancho then Maria, she tell you what we find out. Perhaps eet it not verree much but she want you to know firs' that Lobo is return, an' then there is some other theeng I fin' out—about the ravine.” He flashed a glance toward Clayborne that showed at once his suspicion of any listener, and the question to Strong whether he should go on.

Strong nodded. He said assuringly, “Go ahead.” The blood stirred in him quickly. His intuition, his hunch, was working. The ravine could mean but one thing, the place where he had lost the trail of the raiders. But he knew that he would have to let Miguel tell things his own way or he might get twisted and leave out something important, even forget it, for the time being.

“Last night, señor, Lobo comes to town. They go to the Tent, where they pay much money to Ramon an' he lock the door and keep every one out. They dreenk, they gamble, they dance, they do what they please.” Miguel's expressive face showed sulkiness as he said this. It was clear that for some reason he did not approve of the unlimited license allowed to Lobo and his pack, by Ramon. His dark eyes shot fire and his fists clenched.

“Ramon Jamarillo is a dog! So long as he get the gol' he do not care what happen to those girl he have to work for heem. Señor, there ees one girl there who say she know you, that you are Caballero to her. She like you verree much. Her name is Josefa. One time she tell you not to go outside alone. You remember! The night Señor Gardner was killed, the night you first come to Bar B with Señor Bramley?”

Strong nodded. That seemed a long time ago. He felt more strongly than ever that Maria, working in her own wise ways, had uncovered some of the pattern she had spoken of, and that in that warp his own fate was interwoven.

“Josefa—her othaire name is Montez, señor—she has perhap' not always been what you call good girl, but maybe she cannot help herself. Si? For Ramon Jamarillo is a great rascal. Eet does not matter. I love her an' she love me. Maria she has seen her an' she say all right, after she talk long time weeth Josefa. Eet make me happy. Si? I hope that you weel let her come to the rancho, in time. But firs' she mus' leave that cantina. Ramon, he have her always in his debt. An' Rudd, who ees one of Lobo's band, he ees verree much fond of Josefa.

“She tell my mother that, an' Maria she tell her to make Rudd dreenk plenty to mak' gran' fool of heem, to mak' heem talk.

“Las' night, Rudd get drunk. He dance all the time weeth Josefa, he mak' love to her an' she mak' fool of heem for now she is betroth' to me an' she would keel herself before she would not be true, señor. For I mak' her my wife.

“He beg her to come weeth him to live in Doom Cañon. She say no, she weel not go to such place weeth all those rough men an' he tell her she weel not be alone. Then he laugh an' weel not tell her why except that eet ees one beeg joke. She tease heem an' he tell her part of that joke. He say Lobo ees to send heem thees morning to fool a señorita on the Socorro stage——”

“What?” Strong sprang to his feet and Miguel stopped dead at the terrible sound of his voice, the look in his face. “Go on, pronto,” he ordered and his tone was like the grating of steel blades.

“Lobo, he know thees señorita ees to come on the stage because he have a letter that he find an' Rudd ees to stop the stage out of town an' tell the girl he ees come to meet her. Then he weel take her to the cañon an' eef she ees as pretty as her sister, El Lobo weel take her. Eef she is not so pretty then perhaps the men weel throw dice for her.

“But Rudd—he ees verree drunk now, señor, an' he does not see that Josefa look at heem as eef he were a rattlesnake. Eef she had a knife she say she theenk she mus' have keel heem. But the place ees all full of Lobo's men, who would keel her too. But she ees smart. She theenk of me, an' of what Maria ask her to fin' out, so she laugh, she talk an' try find out some more. Also, she mean to see me so I can tell that señorita on the stage to be verree careful she know the man who want to take her.

“But she cannot do that. Ramon he weel not let the girl leave the cantina. They sleep there always an' there is an old woman who lock them in. I theenk this woman, she suspec' something. Perhaps Ramon tell her to be extra careful because he see Rudd talk so much to Josefa. She make Josefa sleep weeth her, an' the ol' woman she sleep like the watchdog, weeth one eye open, so Josefa cannot come to the rancho unteel late thees afternoon. She ees there now, señor. I do not want her to go back. An' the stage has come in. That young señorita——”

“They've taken her,” said Strong. “Go on, boy, what more do you know? Quick.”

“Onlee thees: Rudd tell Josefa that she need not be afraid he weel want the señorita eef she does not please El Lobo, that he love onlee Josefa an' weel give her anything eef she weel come to the cañon. An' then he ees so drunk he start to laugh at the joke again an' she get that from heem too. Señor, the señorita on the stage ees the sister of the Señora Gardner who ees come to stay weeth her, who does not know she ees dead.”

“Hell! Clayborne, where's that letter? We've got to open it!” He snatched the letter from the desk and read it swiftly in the fading light.

“She says she is coming on the date that she set in her last letter, not having heard to the contrary, that she does not know whether this letter will reach here ahead of her or not, but for them to please be sure to meet her. Good Heavens, Clayborne, think of it! I saw this girl, at Encinada. They've got her in that wolves' den, but I'll get her out if I have to blast the walls down!”

“You can't do it alone, man,” said Clayborne. “You won't have to. So it was Lobo who took Gardner's wife. He found that first letter from this sister of hers—she probably carried it in her gown, like women do. That don't matter. He got it, the devil. He murdered that woman and shot her husband down and now the brute thinks to have the other. They won't stand for that, even in Laguna. Come on up to the hotel!”

“There's no time to lose in making speeches, Clayborne. I tell you I've met that girl. I love her——”

“Confound it, Strong, don't be a fool. All the more reason not to go alone. You couldn't begin to get through that fence they've got there. They'd shoot you down like a dog. We've got to get plenty of men. We'll have to blast our way in, perhaps, but you can't do it by yourself.”

“Señor——” began Miguel. Strong swept him aside.

“Come on then,” he cried to Clayborne. “If you ever talked in your life to win, talk to them now. Come on to the hotel, first.”

But they found the lobby almost deserted. Laguna was beginning to start its night's entertainment. The twilight was sifting down fast, and lights were beginning to show all over town.

“Most of them will be at the Tent,” said Clayborne. “There's a fandango on there to-night.”

They found the place crowded, early as it was, with the customers taking their after-dinner drinks. It was a sober enough lot at that moment, tough citizens, many of them, but with a sprinkling of cattlemen and ranchers. The gambling layouts had not started up and the crowd was idling the time away until the fandango should commence—a device of Ramon's to fill his place with spenders.

Miguel entered with them. There was a shout at sight of Clayborne that hushed a little when they saw Strong's bleak face beside that of the attorney. The jibes at what they thought the lawyer's fall from his good resolutions died down. The sense of something unusual leavened through them and they gathered about Clayborne as he strode across the room to a table and mounted to its tap by a chair, Strong beside him, Miguel close by. Sprague was not present. It was early for him. He was not interested in fandangos but the uneasy countenance of Ramon appeared, pressing through.

“What ees thees?” he demanded and subsided as Strong shoved the barrel of a gun into his ribs, bidding him keep still. The crowd was silent, expectant.

“Men of Laguna,” said Clayborne. “On this floor, not so long ago, a man was shot down. The stain of his blood is still there, in the boards. You will say he was killed fairly.

“He fired at the man he believed had abducted his wife.

“The dead body of his wife, bruised beyond belief, was found in Lago Claro not long afterward. There are not many men here who did not attend the funeral. Some went perhaps because of curiosity, yet all because they had a feeling, however dim, of sorrow in their hearts for this woman, cut off in the ripeness of womanhood.

“She had a sister, a young, beautiful and brave girl whose exploits have this day been upon the tongues of all of you. This girl wrote to Mary Gardner that she was coming here to live with her.

“She had made her arrangements, she set the date of her arrival. This letter was close to the person of Mary Gardner. The fiend who abducted her, who violated the sacred rights of wifehood, obtained that letter. He determined to possess the sister.

“This morning he did so, sending a man to stop the Socorro stage, to greet the girl by her first name, to proclaim himself the foreman of the Gardner ranch, to beguile her through her affections by telling her that her sister was ill—knowing that sister lay moldering in her grave, next to the husband who was killed, there in the midst of you. Killed, you say, by fair play, but I say foully and deliberately murdered by the brute who had killed the wife.

“If you have memory of your mothers, of girls you held pure, if you have a drop of manhood in your veins, I call on you to rescue this girl from the fate that met her sister, to take her to-night from the debauched brute whom Satan himself would deny as kin, to wipe out the pack of Lobo, to arm, and storm Doom Cañon. If not, you are guilty of black cowardice. You are lower than the skulking brutes that strip the bones of the dead.”

He had held them, gripped them with the power of his invective, the denouncing eloquence of his voice. He was no longer the town drunkard but a whipper-in of their manhood, what of it was left. Yet at the mention of Lobo most of them held back while some pressed forward, a dozen, not more, ranchers and cattlemen, coming through the press to stand by Strong, beside the sweating Ramon, whose face was a sickly tan.

Others had come in, standing by the door. Among them was Sprague. He came forward.

“What are you raving about?” he demanded without any of his usual suavity. “What are you wasting your time listening to that old soak for? Calls himself a lawyer—maybe he was one before he got disbarred—and brings charges like that with the other man absent. You can bet your last dollar he wouldn't be chirping his head off if Lobo was on hand, and he won't chirp any more when Lobo hears about it. Why, you lush, you've tossed off a thousand drinks Lobo's paid for and now you try to start something like this. Where are your proofs of this guff?”

Clayborne started to speak but, following Sprague's lead, they began to hoot and jeer at him. Only the ranchmen remained silent. Strong's guns came out.

“You give him a chance to finish his talk,” he called above the gibing cries, “or some of you will quit talking right now. And that goes for you, Sprague, first of the lot.”

They saw his silent allies, his guns, slowly, steadily moving in arcs that menaced them all. They saw that the man himself was holding his control by a strenuous effort, that some stress was on him that made him dangerous as a coiled rattler and, little by little, they quieted.

“I've got the proof,” said Clayborne. “I'll give you enough now. And there's plenty more.” For a moment his eyes roved over the crowd. His face lightened as he surveyed the group that had just come in.

“Here's one man I want,” he said. “Here's my main witness, gentlemen—the man that drove the stage in. Now we'll give you your proof.”

He spoke quietly, but in a tone of utter conviction. Not yet had he used any of his usual oratory. He had talked to them straight, knowing the value of time. Now, much of his former dignity had come back to him. His mien had the assurance of a successful counselor, sure of his case. The stage driver stepped forward.

“I just come in,” he said. “I don't know what this is all about.”

“So much the better. An unprejudiced witness. Your name, sir?”

“Seth Larkin.”

“Tell us what the man was like who stopped your stage this morning and told Miss Lucy that he was foreman of the Gardner Ranch.”

“Why, he was a sort of tall chap, well as I could jedge, lookin' down on him like I did from the box. He was a bit bald, had a straw-colored mustache, trimmed kind o' short, and a powder mark on his right cheek up by the eye. What's the idea?”

“He said he was foreman of the Gardner Ranch and that Miss Lucy's sister was sick and her brother-in-law, Mr. Gardner, was staying with her?”

“He sure did. Anything wrong?”

“And every man in this room knows that Gardner and his wife are in their grave together, that there never was a foreman to the outfit. As for this man I, myself do not recognize him. He is probably a newer recruit of Lobo's. But I will venture my own life on the assertion that his name is Rudd and that there are plenty here who know him as a member of Lobo's gang of ruffians, abductors and murderers. You know him, Sprague, lie as you may. You know him, Ramon."

There were more murmurs now, but still reluctance.

Strong's voice rang out once more.

“You keep yore hands whar they are, Sprague, or I'll drill you between the eyes.”

There was no doubt of that threat, of the willingness that backed it. Strong's eyes were flashing like bright steel in the sun. This Rudd, with the powder mark, the stubby, straw-colored mustache, the partly bald head, was not merely the man who had carried off the girl he knew was the only one in all the world for him, but the man who had killed Bramley. Comparatively a new comer, there were doubtless many of Lobo's men he had never seen, who had not been with him the night Gardner was killed, but Rudd was one of the outfit and Lobo was indisputably linked with the raid, with the death of Gardner's wife.

“Lobo is a fiend!” cried Clayborne. “Are you going to let him turn this place into a hell or are you game to send him to the one where he belongs? I'm giving you your chance, men. I'm not begging you," he added and his voice changed to a note of domination, the voice of one who no longer pleaded but ordered.

But none stepped forward to join the little company by the side of Strong save the stage driver.

“Why, you pack of lousy coyotes,” the driver said, “you bums, thet gal's little finger is worth all yore miserable hides an' the muck they hold together. She fit agin' the 'Paches yestiddy. Likely saved my life an' others an' you stand thar like you was made of straw. I had a notion thar was somethin' wrong this mornin', but she seemed to think it was all right, goin' off to her sick sister. I'd have twisted thet Rudd's neck off at the roots if I'd guessed the least part of what he was up to. I'll do it yet. I'm with you, old-timer,” he said to Strong. “If thar's any more here with the guts of wood ticks, they'll jine in.”

“You can't git into the cañon, no way,” demurred a voice.

“Hell! You kin try,” said the driver, and the sarcasm in his voice had the rasp of a file.

“Come on,” cried Strong. “We can't wait, boys. You know what happened to Mrs. Gardner.” His voice was hoarse, the whites of his eyes bloodshot, his fingers twitched on the triggers as if he expected opposition and would welcome it. But it was not forthcoming. Aside from any other consideration, the rest were afraid, sure that they could not force the cañon, sure that those who went would be killed and that Lobo would have bloody vengeance on the rest who might be suspected of sympathy. They would not stop Strong—they feared him—but they would not follow.

“We'll wait just a minute, Strong. It won't delay the result.”

Strong faced Edmonds who had come forward from the door, standing now by the side of Sprague.

“This is my affair—not a railroad matter,” Strong declared. “Let us get out of that door, or——”

“I am a United States marshal,” said Edmonds coolly, and there was such an air of efficient authority about him that Strong was momentarily checked, staring at him in surprise. “I'm after Lobo Smith for other matters than these, but he'll stand trial for them. We've been watching him for some time. It was you, Strong, who gave me the clew with that button you picked up on the back trail. It is the kind Chinese use to fasten their blouses with. It was the link we needed.

“Lobo has been smuggling Chinese across the Mexican border at a thousand dollars a head—gold money.

“If you stir, Sprague, I'll put a bullet through you. That goes for you too, Ramon. You've been helping them distribute the chinks after they got them here. You've got some in your cellar now. You are both under arrest. Get them, boys.”

Two of the men who had come with him snapped handcuffs on the two owners of the cantina and marched them behind the bar for temporary keeping.

“So I'm here to get Lobo Smith,” Edmond's went on. “I've got eight men with me. I could swear every one of you in for deputies, if I wanted cowards. As Mr. Clayborne says, you've got a chance to volunteer. If we can't get through to the cañon with what force we can muster, I have authority to use the United States cavalry. I have sent a messenger to the post already. They will be here before midnight.

“You boast, some of you, that the law hasn't come to Laguna. You're wrong. Uncle Sam is on the job right now and, where the Federal law once comes, the civil law will follow.

“Under the circumstances, I am not going to wait for the cavalry. I am going to get into that cañon if I have to blow it apart with dynamite. It interests me a little right now to know how many of you are plain skunks. When I find out, I may be still more interested. The law has come to Laguna.”

He eyed them severely and they shifted uneasily, shuffling on their feet, wondering what he might know of their own especial crimes.

“Strong, here's your chance to help get Lobo.”

“I'm after Rudd first,” said Strong. “After we get Miss Lucy. For Heaven's sake, Edmonds, don't let's talk any mo'. Think of what may be happenin' to her.”

The tide had turned. There were those who slunk off, behind more who pressed forward. Edmonds called for arms, ammunition, for dynamite and lanterns, crisply organizing those who hurried to rally round the supreme authority. The law had come to Laguna. Three Corners was due for a sweeping and the first cleansing was to be in Doom Cañon. Many who were uncertain of their own standing were eager now in the hope of later immunities.

Strong ran into the street to get his horse. He acknowledged the wisdom of using this massed posse, the necessity of it, but he burned for a surety of personal vengeance. Now it had been taken from him, unless he could fight his way through to Rudd—Rudd first—and then Lobo. They would fight and, whatever they might decide themselves, he vowed they should not be taken alive, Federal government or not.

Miguel ran beside him toward the hotel.

“Señor,” he pleaded. “Señor, you would not listen before. I have not told you all. There ees a back way out of the cañon to the ravine.”

“The ravine!” Strong stopped.

Down the street men were pouring out of the cantina, mounting, racing off for rifles, opening up a store for dynamite, for tools and lanterns.

“What's that you say?” asked Strong and his voice cleared with a new hope. “A back way to the gorge?” He had not been deceived after all. The raiders he had tracked had not come out of the water. In some way they had entered through the cliff.

“Si, señor. What eet ees, I do not know. Rudd was verree drunk when he tell Josefa that so all their gold came to them. He did not talk of Chinamen but——”

“All right. Git on your hawss. We'll go to the ranch!”

There was dynamite there, used for blasting post holes. He would find the entrance and break through with Hurley—thanks to the steaming mud—with Miguel and his brother and the cook, Juan. Josefa was there at the ranch, afraid to return to the cantina. She might know more than Miguel could tell. They would get through while the rest stormed the cañon gate, rescue Lucy, find Rudd and Lobo, attacking in the rear.

“Ride, like hell!” he called to Miguel. And the two went tearing down the main street through the assembling posse, out past the lake where Mrs. Gardner's body had been found, out to the plain with pounding hoofs, manes and tails streaming in the wind of their own going. It was full night now, stars glittering, a moon slowly rising. The ravine at the back of the mesa ran east and west. The moon would light it; if not, there were lanterns. They would light a roaring fire from driftwood—he could carry some kerosene to start it and for torches.

Somehow, they would get through the cliff.

Strong was sure of that. The wind was cold to his face as the horses raced, belly to ground, and the blood was cool in his veins. At last he would even scores and now he was to fight for the girl, for her dead kin, as well as for Bramley. To win her and to hold her. Only he sent up a brief prayer that he might get there in time.

A dog barked. Perro! There were the lights of the ranch. Strong shouted, fired his revolver in the air and a figure came hurrying to the ranch gate. They thundered through. Off saddle at the porch, they went into the room where the girl Josefa and Maria started up as Strong strode in. Hurley limped in from the next room, his wrinkled face filled with expectant inquiry, his eyes shining.

“Git yore guns an' saddle up, Bill,” cried Strong. “Here's where you git yore chance fo' shootin' straight. I need you. We've got 'em. They've stolen Gardner's sister-in-law. The U.S. marshal is out after the outfit for smugglin' chinks. Cavalry's comin', but we'll git 'em from the back. Kin you ride?”

“Kin a frog hop? I been waitin' fo' you to show up. Hell's bells! boy, I'm with ye, cartridges to coffins. I went out to the mud hole again yestiddy an' I'm limber as a pine sapling.“ He hurried off to the corral, and Strong turned to question Josefa more closely.

CHAPTER VII.

The moonlight sent a slowly widening belt of silver along the top of the western wall of the gorge when they entered it. The stream was still high from recent rains, and it was so dark on the floor of the ravine that they were forced to pick their way along the narrow beach at what seemed to Strong's alarm and impatience a snail's pace, though the wise ponies did their best, with eyes far better than their masters' in the night.

Josefa had not been able to tell him more about the nature, of the back way that led out from the mesa and through which Lobo convoyed his Chinese in from beyond the Mexican line. It was no wonder he could fling his gold across the cantina bars and gaming tables with such an inexhaustible supply of the smuggled Orientals willing to pay high so that, in the forbidden country, they could make in a few years' effort the fortune denied them in their own land after the toil of a lifetime.

Once safely in the mesa's recesses, they would be taken after dark to Ramon's, when Lobo had bought the cantina out for the night, thence to be passed on as occasion offered, dispatched by the “underground” throughout the country, relayed through Chinese laundries in the settlements, helped and hidden out by the Chinese cooks on various ranches until they drifted at last into the great cities, merged in the web of Chinatown until the time came when they were ready to go back home without hindrance under false papers, easily enough obtained.

The Exclusion Act was a farce while holes like these were kept open. It was small wonder that the government was keen to plug them when they were found and to punish the principals.

But the Chinese did not cause Strong any concern, save that it had been his finding of the brass button that had once fastened the blouse loop of a coolie that had tipped off the source of Lobo's wealth and led to the assembling of forces that would ultimately eliminate Lobo's rascally pack and bring law and order to Laguna. He cared only to make his way through the cliff before the posse had broken down the fence and forced their entrance.

Strong rode in an agony of mind whenever he thought of what might be happening—what might have happened—to the girl, an agony that dulled his brain while it flooded it with hot, swift-moving blood and brought a red mist before his eyes. The sweat broke out on his forehead, and he clenched his fists until his nails dug into his horny palms. To have seen the one girl in all the world, alighting from the coach, filled with gayety and animation, looking at him with the blush that told of the mysterious affinity that had been established on sight between them, even as the electric spark bridges the gap between the nodes.

To have seen her thus, to imagine her getting into the buckboard with the hypocritical Rudd, chosen by Lobo because he was not likely to be known to driver or passengers, seated beside that killer, thief and criminal, asking questions about the ranch, her sister's welfare. And then the agony of entering the gloomy cañon—only to find that she was trapped—with Lobo's leering face appraising her as he stroked his black beard and his amber eyes.

Such things capped at his reason and his manhood. They threatened to unnerve him so that he could not even shoot straight—once they got through.

For the first time a doubt assailed him of that possibility. He gazed at the wall across the rushing creek, with the web of moonlight, slowly—all too slowly—widening, reaching down in tardy certainty, while he strove to recall how it had appeared opposite to where he had lost the hoof prints, had waded the stream. There was hardly any verdure on those steep heights, only a few shrubs here and there.

He remembered the face of the rock as he had examined it, looking for some ledge up which horses might travel. It revived itself now before his mind's eye, ribbed and seamed here and there, plain as the side of a building and almost as sheer, visible to his insight as an actual photograph. The course of the whole ravine was imaged in his brain. He knew the landmarks as they passed them though this was night and he had surveyed it by day.

They had passed the pool and the cataract. Ahead the ravine curved, narrowed, widened out again and curved once more to where they would see the ghostly wisp of the waterfall streaming down. Then, on their left, masked by projecting juts of rock, the stony trail he had come down. He would not miss that. How about the way in to the mesa?

They had dynamite with them, and pine which, steeped in kerosene, would act as flares to enable them to examine the face of the mesa wall or to start a ramping fire for the same purpose. They had passed plenty of driftwood, logs brought plunging down from the heights in the winter storms, stripped of bark, bleached, showing in the dark like the flayed bodies of dead beasts. Use of the explosive must be a last resort for fear it might warn those within.

He figured that he should have a good hour before the posse could reach the cañon. That would take Lobo's forces to the front at the first alarm. They would leave the girl—she might yet be unharmed.

The beach widened, the horses quickened their pace automatically. They sensed well enough the urge that communicated itself to them through the sympathy between them and their masters. Hurley brought his mount up even with the roan. Next came Maria's two boys with Juan, the cook, bringing up the rear. A forlorn hope it might have seemed, five only, but the same spirit animated all of them, save that it burned more strongly within Strong, lighted by the flame of the love that had come to him so suddenly and so imperiously.

Yet he knew that Hurley could hold no more of determination, and he did not doubt that the loyalty of the boys and the doughty little cook would prove valiant enough. For Miguel, there was his Josefa, for his brother, the pride or scorn of Maria, for Juan, his already established reputation in the fight against the raiders. And, in Hurley, there was the memory of years of steady friendship from Bramley to him, a cripple, barely able to earn his keep.

Hurley wore a grin in the darkness that was more happy than grim. He was going gleefully to help discharge the debt he had set against himself, going once more into the action that had been so long denied him, reviving once more the old turbulent times when Bill Hurley had been the cock of all the ranchos, an old cock, whose crow was rusty from disuse but whose spurs were ready for action.

He rode without ache or pain. What the mud had not purged away, excitement did. His right hand rested on the butt of his six-gun and occasionally he patted it. Old fire eater that he was, he loved the thrill of the encounter, the chance of the draw, the prize of penalty of the aim, the game for life and death with bullets for dice. He could still shoot and he was well satisfied with this adventure, even if it turned out to be his last, even if he went down with the smoke fading from his gun muzzles as the last breath went up out of his body. He would not lie there alone, he told himself.

“I reckon that mesa is reg'lar honey-combed,” he said to Strong in a low voice that the place seemed to call for. “Some of 'em is. I've gone through a heap of caves, mostly washouts, in the Mogollon. Some places they was open to the sky, rifts from earthquake, likely, reg'lar little valleys. I'll bet, now, thet Lobo found some sech openin' through thet cave they say the crick comes out of. Mebbe cliff dwellings. Them Pueblos knowed the inside of the mesa like a rat knows the run of a Swiss cheese.”

“They claim thar was a hull tribe massacred in Doom Cañon one time. Thet's how it got its name. I've been thinkin' about thet,” said Strong. “Looks like as if thar was any back way out, them Injuns would have escaped.”

“Not necessary,” returned Hurley and his words brought comfort to Strong. Doubt, assailing him, had brought up the position they would be in if they failed to find a way after all, if Rudd's drunken talk had been only babble and brag or if Josefa had misunderstood his thickening speech. By the time they had exhausted all their efforts in vain and, giving it up, had reached the Doom Cañon entrance again, the issue would be over,

“They might have got massacred all right an' then the water opened up a rift workin' through the soft soil between the rock. Mesas air built thet a way, like so much plum puddin', with the rocks fo' plums.

“It's thet way in the Mogollon. Lots of caves, you see, thet get gradually connected up by the water. Suthin' happened thet a way, likely, between the time them Injuns was massacred an' the time Lobo goes round lookin' for a likely place to run his chinks. With a back door, thet would be perfect, an' the big fence an' gate an' all across the entrance to Doom Cañon would make you think sure thet was the only way in or out.

“We're likely to meet them backin' up if we don't work our passage quick. If Uncle Sam once gits goin', them cavalry sojers'll stay with the job till it's ended. Likely they'll tote a field piece along. I wish thet moon would rise a li'le earlier. Sure moves slow, don't it, when you're watchin'?”

Strong did not answer. He was watching for landmarks in the dark, wondering what they should look for in the cliff. It might be a door of wood or steel, painted and perhaps sanded over so as to look like the native rock. That seemed like a romance of fiction. Let such an entrance fit ever so closely, he did not believe that he would have missed it on his previous inspection.

But there must be some way——

The water actually washed against the northern cliff. The Chinese coolies might be brought on foot through the mountains but he doubted it. And this meant that the entrance must either be close to normal creek level for the horses to cross its threshold, or there must be some landing ledge, some practical trail leading to it. And he was quite sure there was nothing of that sort.

If there was a door it would open from within. There would have to be some one on hand to open it on call, some means of communication from the ravine that would summon the doorkeeper and, perhaps, a guard.

The problem grew as he neared the twisting way by which he had descended into the gorge. At last they came to the bend where they could see the filmy scarf of the waterfall and hear its rush above the chatter of the creek. Presently Strong stopped, held up a hand. The four gathered round him.

“Here was where I came down,” he said to Hurley. “It don't look much like a trail, does it? But here she was, with the sign leadin' into the crick. I rode across to see if thar was any way out on the other side but thar ain't. Now we'll go look fo' some sign of a door. Might be made some queer shape so's to fit in a natural fissure, or they may have squared the natural openin' off. It might be a man-made tunnel, but I doubt it. One thing's a sure cinch: if it ain't close to the water's edge, thar's got to be a trail leadin' to it. Git them torches goin' an' each grab one. Anything you see looks like it might be the place, holler out.”

Now the night was lighted by the flaring torches flinging a ruddy light on the cliff, reflected in the swift water like streaks of blood. They crossed the stream in the saddle, holding the kerosene-soaked wood high, examining every foot of wall from water line to as high as they could throw the glare. They searched for sign of ledge or trail, downstream as far as the creek bed could be waded and then up, where the boulders were not so large and the going easier. And they searched in a silence, save for the creek, the fall, the crackle of the torches, that momentarily seemed to close in about them in the lonely gorge.

“It sure beats me,” said Hurley at last. “I reckon thet fella Rudd must have been stringin' yore gal, Miguel. If they git beyond thet cliff I figger they've got to fly or else they're like the chap in the story I read when I was a kid, who come to the robber's cave an' says 'sesame,' or somethin' like thet, an' the rock rolled open an' in he goes to pick di'monds off the trees. Hell!”

He summoned the last note of exasperated invective into the exclamation of acknowledged defeat. Strong was still in the water, riding upstream. If there was a way in, there was just one place left to look for it, though so far it had not occurred to him as a logical one. Desperation suggested it but, as he splashed through against the current, finding the going quite easy until at last the roan was actually walking on sand, it seemed more possible and hope, that had nearly failed him, began to filter back again.

He had, in the beginning, supposed, quite naturally, that the raiders, once they entered the gorge, would follow the creek down and then swing north along the mesa wall to the home cañon. He now realized that he might well have been obsessed by that idea, contradicted though it seemed to be by the nature of the lower waters and the lack of sign on the sand. He had gone as far up the gorge as the beach permitted, and he had ridden up the bed of the creek, examining the opposite cliff, almost as far as he had come to-night.

Just ahead was the basin into which the fall emptied, foaming and bubbling, undoubtedly deep with the age-long pounding of the high cascade, its sides sheer rock about which the eddies circled darkly, untouched by the gleam of his torch. To examine it would have seemed folly at any other time save this crisis when it looked as if his hunch was to be a lamentable failure, as if his impetuosity had defeated itself.

The pool was roughly circular. At its head was the cliff down which rushed the fall from mysterious sources that only the eagle and the buzzard knew—a never failing supply.

At its foot was a smooth-lipped outlet between low ledges where the creek commenced, coming out with oily smoothness in one surging wave. It was all streaked with foam and dark with suggestion of slippery sides tunneling down to the bottom. Man and horse, or man alone, once in that whirling pool, would be, one could imagine, like a rat in a bucket. But there were places where the surface was fairly smooth, where the flow seemed, by reason of some inaquality of the lining, to lack force. So to the right of the pool, Strong fancied.

The roan did not like the place. It was like a pit, damp and smelling of water and lichens, of decay and things primeval. If a horse has memory, something might well have stirred there to revive ancient days when its ancestor came to that pool to drink and some frightful monster arose and dragged it down. At last it refused to go closer to the margin, to the break where the black water slipped through. Yet its footing was still good—surprisingly so.

Strong rode back to the end of the beach where the rest stood about a fire they had kindled which flung their shadows grotesquely about. He took a fresh torch and kindled it, dismounted, selecting a long branch from the drift they had brought together for their fire.

“Have you found somethin'?” asked Hurley half-heartedly.

“Not yet. But thar's sure one funny thing. The bottom of thet crick is all-fired level up thar close to the pool. My hawss don't like it, but it's mostly on account of all thet water tumblin' down in front of him an' the pool looks bad. I ain't so dead sure it is. I'm goin' to find out.”

They watched him as he waded the icy water—thigh-deep, waist-deep, up around his ribs. He had taken off cartridge belt and guns, and he went on, slowly emerging again as he neared the pool. It looked as if he was mounting a ramp and, beneath his feet, the rock felt foreign to the surrounding formations—almost artificial. Then he was on the edge, less than ankle-deep beside the smooth-lipped notch where the main flow came through.

They saw him holding the torch at various angles, probing with his pole. Then, gingerly stepping down into the pool itself, proceeding more boldly, close to the right-hand wall and with the water no higher than his calves at any time, he went partly through and barely behind the showering spray of the fall itself and disappeared!

CHAPTER VIII.

The boast of Lobo that he feared nothing on this earth and believed in nothing concerning the next was, in the main, true. His conscience, whatever there may have been of it at birth, had been warped and atrophied, its voice set aside for the louder call of his lusts and appetites, which he indulged to their top bent.

Being a man of great strength, of fierce quickness of action, of undoubted courage when compared with his associates, he soon became a sort of leader among them and in that commonwealth of criminals, gathered together in Three Corners, went to the greatest possible depths of villainy to create a constant envy and admiration of his prowess as the biggest and most daring miscreant of them all. He made a sort of frolic of his wickedness, stimulating his own evil instincts to think up such revels as might make him the terror of the countryside and inspire his own followers with the idea that he was the only real devil existent.

“We can make a better hell than the one they rant about, any day,” he said. “And a better heaven, for that matter.”

There was within him, however, the undying nucleus of a soul that still distinguished right from wrong, however feeble its promptings had become, however he smothered its with debauchery. It took the form of superstition, of various premonitions that certain things would bring him bad luck, though he did not recognize such misfortune as only another form of punishment that threatened his continued misdeeds.

His powerful frame had withstood all the orgies, public and private, that he continually devised and carried out, but he had reactions from them that he did not attribute to that cause. Despite himself, carousals palled upon him, women no longer intrigued him, the flinging of his gold on bars and layouts, and the fawning of others, half servile, half mocking when they cheated him—as he knew they did—soured him.

From a purposeful bully, deliberately overtopping and overmastering his men by bursts of fury, he grew moody and irritable. Small things caused great friction, he lost sleep, magnified all setbacks and losses, and found that liquor no longer gave him the roaring reactions that once led him into excesses which even the most casehardened of his pack talked of in whispers.

Only one man had he met who had made his own glance falter, and that was Strong, the cowboy, who had become the partner of Bramley after the death of Gardner, who had stood and outfaced him when Lobo's own guns were drawn. The thought that he had backed down from a second killing that night came upon him in a sort of blind fury when he could not sleep, sodden though the rest were with liquor.

It was this that had caused him to send the raid out after Strong and Bramley. The latter had been killed, but the former had not only escaped, but had shot down three of his own men and put the rest to rout. His rage over the account given him had left the other members of that ambuscade a trifle sullen.

From the night of the killing of Gardner, Lobo believed that things had gone wrong with him. It was bad luck, he told himself, to shed blood in the place where you were going to gamble, but he had done no better elsewhere that night. Superstition hinted that it was bad luck to kill the husband of the woman he had taken by force and who had killed herself.

Ghosts and spirits he laughed at, but sometimes, of late, the laugh rang hollow even in his own ears. He began to have visions of a woman's figure in clothes tightly molded to her body by the torrent in which she swirled, with her eyes glassy and wide open, fixed upon him, not with reproach, or even threat, but with an awful stare that penetrated his own closed eyelids. Nor could he be always certain whether he saw this phantom when asleep or awake. Sometimes, he felt certain that he was wide awake and watched it fading away until nothing was left but the staring eyes, blankly accusing.

Beyond doubt he drank enough to bring on a species of delirium, but it always assumed the same form, and he drank deeper to banish it from the sleep that was never sound, from which he often started with face dripping in a clammy sweat, his nerves disordered. At times his hand shook slightly, and he suspected that others noticed it, that they talked about him as of a man whose luck had forsaken him.

He lost big amounts to Sprague and others, the ambuscade had resulted in disaster, this last run of Chinese had been only half successful, and his Mexican colleagues had warned him that it must be discontinued for a time, that there were indications of spies, that they might find it more profitable to make arrangements for a better crossing. Infuriated, he had threatened them, and they had shrugged their shoulders. The Chinese were landed in the Gulf of California on Mexican soil. Their alliance was absolutely necessary to him while they could get along without Lobo. There were other borderers who could act with them.

Without funds, he felt his hold slipping on his men, but he hated to strike out elsewhere. Doom Cañon, with its haunted reputation, with its almost impregnable entrance, the exit back of the waterfall, the open, parklike space beyond the cave whence the creek issued, was almost impossible to duplicate. To leave was to acknowledge defeat, as he saw it, and his pride would not permit.

He had sworn to get rid of Strong after this last run, and after one other deed had been carried out, through which he hoped by blacker villainies to blot out the visions of the drowned woman with her staring eyes, whirling through the coil of seething waters. His men he still dominated, could still steep in liquor with promises of greater loot.

There was the letter that the dead woman had carried in her gown, together with a silver print of the writer, the likeness of a young girl whose face conveyed an almost startling impression of innocence coupled with vitality. It was the somewhat crude result of an itinerant photographer's camera, but even the operator's lack of artistry and the cheap process could not rob the subject of its charm.

It was a constant irritant to Lobo. It spurred him to outdo crime with further evil, and to-night his plans had succeeded: he had the girl, the sister of Gardner's wife, in his power. At least he could work his will upon her.

If he had known how she was regarded by Strong, if he had guessed how she, even in this hour of peril and despair, remembered the stalwart man whose glance had met and mingled with hers, he would not have forborne to carry out his vicious determinations. Nor did he dream that Strong had tracked his raiders to the ravine, had found the tarnished brass button of a coolie's blouse, was even now with Hurley and the three Mexicans coming on through fissured passages while a United States marshal and a posse rode hard to the cañon's mouth and, at the post, “boots and saddles” was sounding.

He considered himself still omnipotent, save for the one hardly acknowledged crevice in the black armor of his villainy, pierced but by one type of weapon—the hardy look of Strong, the staring eyes of the drowned woman, and now the serene fearlessness of the glance of the girl who stood before him as he lolled, stroking his glossy beard, in the chair of the shack he had built for his own quarters in the inner, hidden glade, the existence of which Hurley, with his knowledge of the mysteries of the great Mogollon mesa, had suspected in this lesser, water-swept formation.

He had threatened her with the loss of all she held dearest, he had taunted her with the fact that her sister was dead, her brother-in-law in the same grave and still, though the agony and sorrow of the shock showed in her drawn face and pallid lips, her glance was unfaltering.

She was not afraid. The beast in him was held back, for all its promptings, by her lack of fear.

She told him so, and her low voice was steady.

“You can do horrible things to me,” she said, “because you are stronger, because you are evil, but your sin cannot prosper, any more than the night can keep away the sun. I am not afraid of you. There is a hell for men like you, and I think you are very close to it.” Her eyes, so like those of the drowned woman, made his own flicker—even as Strong's had made them.

“I'll make you flinch,” he said. “I'll make you beg for mercy.”

“You cannot make me beg. All you can do is to kill me—unless I can kill myself!” His eyes flinched again, as if the eyeballs twitched. He could feel the pupils contracting. Why did she say she would kill herself? The other one had done that, and he could not get rid of her.

“You can burn wood,” she said, “but the smoke goes up—to Heaven.”

He laughed at that with an effort—it was an effort—at derision, and drank to the bottom of the glass of whisky he had beside him. It had no more effect than water. It did not even warm him, and he felt cold.

“Heaven? When you get thar you tell 'em about me.”

“They know already. Just as they know your punishment. You are only a coward!”

The scorn, the desperate scorn in her voice, for her body was beginning to fail her—as she summoned all its forces to support her will, stung him. There was a boisterous shout of laughter outside where his men were gambling round a blazing fire.

“They're playin' for gold out thar,” he said. “I'll give 'em a better stake to gamble for. You!”

He swept her into his arms, his beard, reeking of tobacco and whisky fumes, for all its luster, blinding, half smothering her as he strode out into the night, shouting to his men.

CHAPTER IX.

Hurley, the two boys, and Juan surrounded Strong as he came back to the strip of beach and remounted, telling them to keep close in his wake.

“I'll lead the roan through first,” he said. “Then I can ride, and the others will follow. There is a ledge runs round the rim of the basin. It may have been natural, to start with, but it looks to me as if they'd built it up more level. Easy goin' once you git a hawss so it'll take it. You'd hardly guess it was thar to look at the pool, but it is, and thar's a cave back of the fall with a passage leadin' out of it. We'll have to use the torches for a ways, but I reckon we'll see whar we kin put them out befo' they glimpse 'em. We've found the back door, boys. We may have to make the last of it on foot. We kin shoot better thet a way an' the hawsses might nicker if thar's any others nigh whar we come out inter their hideout.

“Miguel, an' you Pedro, an' Juan, don't chuck away yore lead. Squeeze yore triggers an' the guns won't throw up or sidewise. Aim befo' you loose, an' aim low. A body's a dern sight better target than a head.”

“Thet's the talk,” endorsed Hurley. His whispering voice was like the growl of an old dog, unleashed on a strong scent. “Count yore shots an' try to be nigh cover for reloadin'. An empty gun's a pore weapon when the other man's loaded, but you don't want to fergit they're goin' to run out of shells same as you do. If we rush 'em, an' I reckon thet's your idee, Strong, they'll be rattled some an' shoot fast. The faster they shoot the mo' li'ble they air to miss. If you don't aim, you're jest givin' away cartridges.”

“Don't shoot till Hurley an' me start,” warned Strong. “Now then, wait till I coax the roan round the edge of the pool an' ride him back. He'll be steady once he savvies he's got his footin'. Thar's an eddy thar, but it don't amount to much.”

The roan went through safely, led by its bridle, returning confidently, while the other horses watched and, though they snorted a little, trailed the leader back behind the fall. They had brought all their torches with them, but used only one at a time, Strong bearing it, in the lead.

The fissure was shaped like an A some ten feet high, and, all along the way, smoke blurs showed its constant use, besides ends of charred wood, hoof-prints in the soft soil of the floor that sloped upward and then down again, the way winding by sharp turns, gradually descending well below the surface of the creek. Once they came to where three openings showed, and Strong dismounted to make sure of the right turn.

“I reckon they use mules for the chinks,” he said. “Most of the sign is mules' shoe. They're surer-footed an' quieter, mostly, for this work. It's the last time chinks'll come through here,” he added grimly. “What's wrong, Pedro?”

The Mexican had uttered an exclamation and crossed himself. He had made a light and looked into one of the confusing passages.

“There is a skeleton, señor,” he said.

“Some one Lobo disciplined, I reckon,” said Strong. “Mebbe a sick chink. If you're goin' to be feared of dead men, you better go back, son.”

“No, I'm not afraid, señor, but a skeleton, eet ees bad luck.”

“Bad luck for Lobo. Come on.”

Still they descended, and now the walls dripped moisture, and they could hear the running of hidden streams.

They came to a pit that filled the passageway and forced them to drift down a series of perilous ledges like rough steps to a trail that hugged the damp wall and bordered a black pool whose surface was broken by gurgling, gasping bubbles. The sound was fearfully distorted in the inclosed place. A chill wind blew through the cavern, and there was the fluttering of wings.

For better discipline, Hurley now brought up the rear, with the superstitious Mexicans ahead of him. Miguel whispered with chattering teeth and awe-struck voice.

“Thees ees hell itself. Señor, surely there are devils here! Men I do not fear, but devils——”

“I don't see 'em. Come on.”

“But, señor, the wings!”

“Bats. Want to go back?”

“Heaven forbeed, señor. I stay weeth you.”

They passed through a chain of connecting caves. The coolies must have arrived at their destination in a state of stupor at the strange surroundings through which they passed. Miguel's suggestion of purgatory was well taken. They crossed places where weird formations on the walls looked, in the flickering, gusty light of the torch, like strange monsters gazing down or crouching, ready to leap upon them.

Always the cold draft of air flickered and always there was the noise of hidden water, now back of the oozing walls, now overhead, or beneath their feet. They passed bats hanging like grapes from the ceiling. They rode through several hundred feet of guano deposits, so old that they were like ashes under their feet, though they still gave out a stale stench of ammonia that brought the water to their eyes.

Once, they skirted a great jut of rock and, again, they came to two upthrusts like domes. Their lofty tops were corrugated so that they resembled mammoth stems of asparagus, one of them lofting up to the high roof, both surrounded with glittering stalagmites.

There was one vast chamber with a flinty floor where the hoofs rang and reechoed through the pillars of pendant stalactites, reaching down to meet corresponding forms reared from the constant siliceous flow that made the slender pendants gleam like crystals, or icicles, where they caught the light of the torch and sent it back prismatically reflected, until it seemed as if they were indeed in Aladdin's garden of jewels, while the clang of the hoofs was changed to music, as if a giant had softly struck his tuning fork.

Some formations were shaped like elephants' ears, others like the spread wings of enormous birds, like sponges, like toadstools—many of them snowy white, flashing like moonstones. Even the desperate need for haste and the grim nature of their mission could not stay their admiration, though they passed in silence—the Mexicans in awe.

Down, ever down, they descended, and it became steadily colder. It seemed as if they had been hours on the way. Finally, they came to where a gorge opened left and right, the torch incapable of piercing the height of it, its depth a frightful abyss crossed by an unrailed bridge of planks over which the horses passed cautiously. On the far side Hurley's mount dislodged a fragment, and it went down through the gloom, descending silently into the gulf, to disappear in silence.

A sharp ascent commenced along a narrow corridor. There was a difference in the air current. It blew more strongly. It was no longer musty like the wind from a crypt, but had a tang of open air, of grasses, a faint taint of wood smoke. Again, they came to cross galleries that Strong had to explore to determine which one to take, and so, climbing fast, they arrived at a vast amphitheater and, looking upward, saw a star. It was a great shaft from the very top of the mesa.

Their direction had been steadily north and east, leading always toward the cañon. Fresh tracks showed them their path through a tunnel where they had to crouch low, and it was difficult to handle the torch. The current became a draft of wind that was sweet and pure, and it was clear that they were coming to the open, clear that the Lobo pack did not live in caves as they had fancied.

Strong passed the torch back to Hurley, who dropped it behind in the trail where its light served them for a while. The tunnel opened out into a vaulted room with a pool, a great arch beyond, and, through the arch, the glimmer of a fire.

They held swift debate. Their torches were all gone. To return the way they had come would be difficult, if not impossible. If the attack on the cañon gate materialized soon, the situation would be altered. By themselves they could not hope to wipe out the whole crowd with odds of eight to one, hardly to hold them off. The girl must be rescued, and the disposal of her raised a problem,, with scant time to solve it.

They could hear ribald laughter, the booming of a deep voice and shouts of loud acclaim. Strong slipped from his saddle and went forward to reconnoiter.

He looked out through the arch upon a glen walled in by stupendous cliffs that rose far to the rim of the mesa. High up was a field of deep purple studded by stars, not yet reached by the moon, though in the east her coming radiance could be distinguished. A fall came tumbling down a thousand feet, and from it there ran a torrent that seemed to disappear beneath an archway at the other end like the one under which he stood, doubtless the cave from which Skeleton Creek issued into the cañon.

There were trees growing here and there in little groves or standing apart—bushes and rock masses that must have fallen from the cliffs long since, vine-clad now. Along one cliff there showed the dim bulk of several cabins with lights in the windows of one or two of them.

His quick eyes took it all in before it centered on the group that had gathered about a great fire. They seemed to be standing about a flat stone or rude table. On it he thought he saw a gleam of light fabric that caught the firelight, but was motionless. A swift stirring in his veins announced that this was Lucy.

The deep voice boomed out again, clear above the muffled roar of the fall. A chorus of “Huzzas!” followed the end of the speech.

Strong's decision was made. His heart told him that this was the girl he loved, and that she was in deadly peril. The words of Miguel rang in his ears as he raced back to his horse.

“If she did not suit Lobo,” Rudd had confided to Josefa in his drunken boasting, “he would let the men throw dice for her.”

This incredible thing was happening.

“Come on,” he said hoarsely. “Out with your guns. Scatter the devils.”

They came out on a run that changed into a gallop, a charge, increasing in speed at every stride. The Mexicans had one gun apiece. Strong and Hurley rode with one in each hand, poised, muzzle upward, guiding their horses with their knees, though once they sighted the fire and the men about it the wise ponies needed no more, knowing their objective, fired with the spirit of their masters, dodging between the blocks of stone, racing over the dense turf that carpeted their footfalls so that the eager pack did not hear them, did not heed them until after they entered the zone of the firelight.

Fast as he had come, Strong looked about him for some place to make a stand if he could not drive them. He had not been able to locate their horses. They would scatter them, save those they stretched on the grass, but the foe would rally, fight desperately.

Now the men surged together, hilarious. The booming voice had stopped. It had belonged to Lobo, without a doubt, and Strong tried to distinguish him, but failed as they came sweeping on. He could see the girl upon the table where Lobo had placed her like a slave in a market place. And she saw them—saw Strong. He was sure of that.

He saw her raise her head that had drooped, for all her bravery, at the sight of the ruffians dicing for the prize their leader had, for some strange reason, spurned. She stood erect, one hand to her breast as if to still the fluttering pulse of hope that might betray her.

On they came, the foe intent upon the cast of dice.

A roar went up, a shout of exultation.

“Double six! Match thet, one of ye!”

It was Rudd, his baldness shining in the glow, his stubby yellow mustache clear—even the powder blotch. He reached for the girl and was pulled aside by others who had not yet cast. He fought with them, flung them off, and, facing the flying horsemen, stared dumb at the sight of Strong, leaning slightly forward in the saddle, with the roan's head outstretched on a snaky neck, teeth bared, nostrils wide. The light shone on the gun barrels, revealed what might be the van of a squadron, charging down.

The girl called in a glad cry and, from one side, there came the loud bellow of warning from Lobo, who, unarmed, turned and ran toward the cabins.

He was trapped, caught in his own den, the only place where he ever let his hands be beyond grasping distance of his weapons. He had no gun, and Strong, with blazing eyes that flashed crimson in the fire, was coming like a thunderbolt. Neck and neck raced the gray of Hurley, the old puncher's weathered face grim as granite.

Rudd managed an inarticulate cry, his hand dropping to his holster. His gun came out, lifted, as the pack turned, snarling, to face the little cavalcade that seemed to have risen out of the very ground.

There came a streak of fire from Strong's right-hand gun, then spurts of flame in rapid succession from the rest.

Rudd leaped high in the air, twisting, crashing down with a bullet scoring just above the powder blotch, searing through bone and brain, tearing loose the back of his skull, as the roan leaped his prostrate body. With one gun holstered, Strong swept the girl from the table into the saddle before him, and wheeled the roan through the yelping, disconcerted mob that fired wildly as the excitement-maddened horses plunged and the shots went home.

The Mexicans shouted as they rode, welded to their saddles, riding down their men and firing at close quarters, trampling others as they fled and stumbled.

There was the sharp crack of a rifle and Strong's hat flew. Lobo had gained a weapon, and only the great leaps of the roan had spoiled his aim. His deep voice roared out orders, and the pack retreated, seeking cover in the shrubbery and back of the rocks, making for the cabins and, Strong guessed, the corral. As far as he knew, they were unscathed on their side, but the rifle cracked again, and a bullet struck the neck of the roan high up, close to the roots of its name. It shrieked and plunged, and he wheeled again to seek the safety of the group of rocks he had marked as he came out. Alone he would have charged Lobo in a duel to the death, but the girl, clinging to him, with the wonderful pressure of her arms about him, her face close to his, her breath upon his face, must be taken out of danger.

In turn, he called to his own men and gathered them, going back toward the archway, but discarding that in favor of the stone ramparts that would form a bulwark for them while they could still deal death.

Now Lobo came tearing out on a great black stallion that neighed as it galloped, other riders back of him, rifles and pistols blazing at the invaders, bent on the annihilation of the audacious little troop whose numbers they now saw, who had left twice their number on the ground, dead or writhing in final agonies.

The rocks Strong had chosen were roughly assembled in the shape of a diamond, with one angle open, through which they rode into a hollow space that held the five horses with barely room for their riders to stand beside them on account of the smaller rocks inside the great boulders. These would serve for platforms on which to stand while they held off the outlaws with their fire.

If they had gone to the arch they might have put the girl out of the line of fire behind one of the walls, but they must have been themselves exposed, and a desperate charge might well have carried through from sheer weight of odds. Now, in the knowledge that Lobo did not hold, that, before long, there must come a challenge from the end of the cañon, they were well located for a defense that should be sufficient.

Lobo undoubtedly chuckled, sure that they had made a fatal slip. He could even, if he liked, draw off his men to rifle distance and leave the invaders penned in their rocky fort to broil in the sun, perish for lack of food and water, slowly capitulate. Something of that sort drifted through Lobo's mind, but he dismissed it for a more immediate reprisal. He had both man and girl here now. He linked them together in a flash of intuition, backed by the cry she had given when she saw Strong, a cry that held more of gladness than relief.

Now he could glut his deviltry by playing off one against the other, unless he had to kill Strong. That would be a pity, for he had no mind to give him an easy death. But he was shrewd enough to know that, unless he forced the issue, he would lose ground with his men. His supposedly impregnable retreat had been entered, and he could only suppose treachery. He already suspected Rudd of talking too much when he was drunk, and he had accused him of it, only to be indignantly given a denial which had strengthened his conviction rather than weakened it.

Rudd was dead, and he was glad of it. Rudd had started the beginnings of what might grow into a revolt when Lobo had tongue-lashed him after his return from the ambuscade without killing Strong. The main insurgent was disposed of, but he would have to wipe out this setback of invasion, recover the girl and his own prestige.

He recognized the shrewdness with which Strong had chosen what Lobo believed could be at the best only a temporary refuge, and he gave orders for his men to gallop about the place to draw the fire of the defenders, while two of them, expert hunters of beasts and men, clambered up the cliff to where they could command the inclosure with a plunging fire. Both were sharpshooters. The moon was due over the mesa rim within a few minutes now. It would be shining down on the in closure by the time they gained their vantage point, and he gave them strict orders to kill off all but the girl and Strong.

“I saw five of them,” he said. “Wait till they show, and you ought to clean off two the first shot. Git the other white man first. The greasers'll quit. You two air allus boastin' about shootin' out a buck's eye at a quarter of a mile. Let's see what you kin do now.”

“You needn't worry none,” said one of the men. “Jake an' me ain't done no boastin' we ain't backed up with the venison. Them hawsses'll nigh fill up the space inside those rocks, but I reckon the men'll be takin' cracks at you. They'll tuck the gal in on the ground. If either of us git a good chance, what's the matter with lettin' thet Strong fella have it in the laig?”

“So long as you don't kill him.”

“We won't. Jake'll work along the ledge some so we'll git 'em from two angles.”

It suited Lobo and he said so, getting his men together and explaining to them what he had in mind. “Soon's 'Butch' an' Jake git goin', we'll rush the dump. We'll git Strong an' let him watch the proceedin's. Rudd was high throw, wasn't he? Waal, he's lost out. You kin start the game all over. Now then, herd 'em. Hit 'em if you kin, but don't any of you plug Strong 'less you kin help it.”

CHAPTER X.

Strong slid from the saddle after the girl dismounted, and, without thought, they were in each other's arms, welded by an impulse stronger than their wills, though these consented. And there was more to it than the mere bodily contact that sent the blood surging through both of them, caused their lips to meet in their first embrace as naturally as mates should meet. The swift, warm caress told Strong that the girl realized that he had come for her, told him that she had wanted him to come, that, to each other, each was the chosen one, bound by ties that mocked conventions.

Yet at the very outset she opposed him when he would have made her stay down with the horses while the men clambered to where they could see and shoot between the vine-screened crevices of the close-standing rocks.

“Give me a gun—one of those rifles,” she said. “I can shoot—and hit.”

He compromised by letting her take the rifle from Hurley's sheath to guard the gap by which they had come in. He had her now. He had rescued her from a horrible fate. She was his by force of arms, by the instinct that had made him seek the way through the mesa wall, find it back of the waterfall—his by the fervor of her lips, the beat of her quick heart against his own. And he meant to hold her.

They were swept off their feet—both of them. Maria was right. It was thus that love should come, love that was lasting and worth while. His blood was still quick with the desire to meet Lobo, to shoot it out with him, to see him fall under his own hand, but, for the present, he must hold the little refuge they had found.

With the touch of the girl's lips still lingering on his own, he might almost have been content with Rudd dead, but for the fact that Lobo had shot down Gardner cold-bloodedly after Sprague had numbed the latter's arm, had killed him, knowing that he had destroyed his home, had stolen his wife. Strong held no doubt of that for all the mystery of Mary Gardner's body being found in the lake. And, since he had come through the heart of the mesa and heard the running waters surging, falling, he had a glimmering of the solution of that mystery.

Lobo might not be held for murder, lacking actual proofs. On the charge of smuggling, he might be sent for years to the penitentiary, a punishment far from sufficient in Strong's conception. The man was a monster of evil. Worst of all, he had deliberately given over the girl Strong loved—and who loved him, for Strong knew she had sealed herself to him with the kiss—to his men if they could recapture her. Only Lobo's death could wipe that out. He was worse than Rudd, who had already paid the penalty. A clean bullet was too good for Lobo. A dog's death was his desert.

Strong could not see the two marksmen making their way afoot, under cover, toward the wall that the moon would leave in shadow, but he saw the growing radiance of the planet and rejoiced to note it lifting its silver disk. It made better shooting, and he set reloads out beside him as he watched, crouching, peering between two great stones, standing on a smaller fragment.

Then came the pounding of hoofs. Lobo had assembled his men under cover. Now they swept out from between boulders, Lobo leading on the black, heading a single file of horsemen, crouching low in their saddles, racing round and round the little fortress in Indian attack.

The moon lifted, full and serene, shedding placid light on the little glen where guns were barking and where already men lay stark, staring up at her dead world with sightless eyes. The heavy Colts vomited red flame, and the bullets went humming, spatting against stone, ripping through shrubbery, now and then thudding home.

Hurley and Strong standing, half exposed, sent their missiles more successfully at the greater targets of man and horse. Once Strong got the black in the flank with a snap shot, but did not cripple it. Then he brought down a horse with a bullet in its head, and the next shot snuffed out life in its rider, spilled on the ground. He had no mercy. Hurley accounted for another, though the range was extreme for all but experts.

Strong wondered why they kept so far away. The shooting was all in favor of the defenders, standing, though they had but flying targets. A splinter of lead glanced from the rock below him and cut his forehead. The blood flowed into his eyes and he wiped it away.

He heard the crack of the girl's rifle and feared that her fire might draw a fatal reprisal. But she was of his own spirit, and he gloried in her pluck, after all she must have gone through.

Hurley called across to him.

“She's brought down one of 'em. Damn 'em! Why don't they come in? They're all of seven to one. Hell!”

A spot of fire had bloomed on the cliff. A bullet had plowed through the back muscles of his left shoulder. Another hummed by Strong like an angry wasp. Only his instinctive turn toward Hurley had saved him. They were firing from the cliff. Then Miguel flung up his arms, his gun hurtling out, its metal flashing in the moonlight as he fell among the plunging horses.

Strong shouted to them: “Down! Git close under the rocks. They've got snipers on the cliff!”

He leaped to the ground, calling to the horses, half falling as Juan lurched against him and dropped, shot through the chest.

They gathered at the gap, prepared for a rush, safe from the plunging fire, but with forty per cent of their little force gone, and Hurley wounded. Miguel lay on his face, the girl bending over him.

“Water! Water! For the love of Heaven, water!” he begged.

And Hurley, his shirt soaked with blood from his lacerated shoulder, cursed, not for himself, but for Miguel, as he realized that they had brought no canteens, had not thought of them. He leaned against a boulder on his left side, his left gun at his hip, his right in free play, commanding, with Strong, the entrance.

From the dark wall of the cliff another flower of fire bloomed in the night, and the bullet came whining down to strike Pedro's horse. There was only room for two of them in the gap itself, and now the circling horsemen had stopped that method, and were gathering somewhere for a rush.

Strong spoke to the girl, bidding her be careful, for the marksmen, seeing no more human marks, were bent on killing the horses. Pedro's mount was down, cramping the scant quarters where Miguel begged for water and Juan breathed with the air whistling through his chest.

Lucy had set her rifle against a rock and Strong took it, saw that a shell was in the breech, and waited for that next scarlet efflorescence to show itself, estimating the distance with eyes used to night ranges. The shot came, with a scream from Hurley's gray. Mingling with the echoes that were flung back from the walls came the roar of the sharpshooters. Strong had guessed that the man was probably finding little more than standing room on that steep cliff, and he aimed below the flash. There was a cry, a hurtling figure crashing down—and one sharpshooter silenced.

Then Pedro came to him, his voice harsh with rage for his brother and for Juan.

“Señor, if they charge. Look, we have thees.”

It was a stick of the dynamite they had brought along to blast the way into the mesa. Pedro had capped it and attached a short fuse, slicing that and setting in it the head of a match.

He said: “Eef they charge, we blow them all to hell!”

“Give it to me,” Strong said. He took the explosive, rolled a cigarette swiftly, and lighted it, wondering why no rush took place. And, while he smoked, he watched the cliff. But no more shots came from there. Jake, the nerve out of him at that marvelous aim, dizzy on the narrow way that was little more than a few inches of outcrop, seeing Butch whirl down to a smashing finish, had lost his stomach for that end of it.

To fire again meant another bullet coming up unerringly. He had no cover. He could not move fast. His shot would expose him to a fusillade that, with a man like the one who had killed Butch at the trigger, meant that shot after shot would come, and one would surely find him. It might not kill, but it would send him down, and he had heard the death cry of Butch torn from his throat as he fell.

There they were, blobs of shadow in the shadow of the nearest brush, dismounted, gathering for a rush. Strong turned his head, drawing on his cigarette, careful that the glow should not be seen. He had forgotten the dynamite until Pedro brought it. Now there was the risk that Lobo might have some and, reminded, toss a stick into them in turn. It was common enough on ranches, used for blasting post holes in the rock. Whether Lobo had any was a possibility that must not be overlooked. A half stick would annihilate them all. Lobo might want to get the girl unscathed, but if Strong used the stuff with its frightful havoc he would not consider her in his rage.

“We'll shoot it out,” he said, and put the stick away into a crevice. “Here they come, Hurley. Soon's we're shot out, Pedro, you come up, while we reload. We've got to stop 'em. Too many of 'em.”

“Thar'll be less,” growled Hurley. “Let 'em come, damn their black souls!”

The blobs of shadow suddenly lengthened with men back of them, leaping on, firing as they came. The lead tore through the gap, but Pedro had backed the roan and the two unhurt horses—the roan's wound was only a scratch-out of the line of fire behind the protecting wings of rock, across from Lucy and the wounded Miguel and Juan.

It was a murderous fire, though much of it went astray in the headlong sprint, and it wilted, died away, with the attackers dodging for refuge from the deadly aim that met them, checked them, flung them back, with Lobo's voice railing at them. Four sprawled in the moonlight, throwing scant shadows now. Strong's guns were empty, as were Hurley's, and they stepped back to fill their chambers again, to let Pedro keep up the fire and stop the rally that Lobo tried to bring about, guessing that here was his best chance.

Strong saw Pedro glide forward and then another figure. Lucy, with Miguel's gun! He caught at her arm to check her, and there came a scattering volley from the bushes which the retreating outlaws had reached. She fell back into his arms. She was bare-headed and, in the moment that her slackening body passed through a moonbeam, he saw her golden hair dabbled with blood.

He believed that he himself had pulled her into the line of fire and a groan came from him as he let her down, despair crazing him. She was gone, and there was nothing left for him but to hunt them down, to kill until death sent him to join her whom he had failed to keep.

“Look out for her, Hurley,” he cried. “She's dead, but, by Heaven, I'll make 'em pay! Don't let any of 'em get by to touch her.”

“Not while I'm crookin' a finger. We'll hold 'em off.”

Hurley knew how Strong felt, knew that he wanted to ride amuck among them. And, if this was to be his own finish, he wished no better. His wound was stiffening, his left arm almost useless, but he had reloaded, and he stood, half supported by the rock, ready to go out through the smoke. Pedro was beside him, stern to avenge his brother and Juan as Strong, on the back of the roan, came past them, his guns refilled.

His bullets raked the bushes, and the attackers ran, scuttling, like so many rabbits, for their mounts.

There came a distant shout—louder, closer—as two horsemen raced from the far side of the glen, giving the alarm.

Back of them, muffled, the patter of guns, the dull roar of high explosive. The posse had arrived at last. They were blasting the fence down, driving in the guard.

Strong sent the roan hurdling over the brush, firing, but not at random. His brain had never worked faster or more clearly. His mad rage was a cold one now, concentrated to take toll, to make every bullet tell, and to save his fire for Lobo.

He saw his man at last among a scurry of mounting men. If he saw Strong he gave no sign, standing high in his stirrups, calling to his men, realizing that the net was closing in about him. The great black flew into the lead. Those who followed screened him from Strong, who, raking the roan as it had never been spurred before, pursued the pack that rushed to repel the law clamoring at the cañon entrance, already past the fence, galloping after the fleeing guard, two of whom had already suffered justice.

Strong followed, through the arch where the clacking of the hoofs was his only guide for a while, until he saw the light gleam on the torrent that surged through the cave and rushed turbulent down the cañon bed. He had gained a little, had flung one or two shots in front of him, but the one thought left to him now was to break through to Lobo. Whose bullet had struck down Lucy, had shattered his own dream, he did not know. Lobo he held responsible, and, if the law was charging to capture Lobo, then he would cheat the law.

The cañon rang with the discharge of six-guns. The posse filled the narrow way beside the stream, the mass of them looking like an army. The gorge widened and now they came on abreast, their fusillade spraying wide.

Men went plunging from their saddles. Horses screamed and fought. And Lobo, knowing the game was lost, wrenched the great stallion round and pounded his cursing way through the ruck of his own men who strove to follow him, seeking the last hope of the caves.

The big black, wounded in the flank, wild with rage, shouldered the rest aside, tearing and snapping at them, while Lobo swore at those who, in the wild confusion, blocked his escape, striking at them with his gun, shooting down one man who cursed back and clutched at him.

Only at this hour did the full moon come near the floor of Doom Cañon. Now its light reached the faces of the men as if a calcium had been turned upon the tragic scene, while their bodies and their mounts were shrouded in the dusk.

Facing him, barring the way, was Strong. Lobo saw his set face, his blazing eyes, and his own flinched while the stallion, braver than his master, hurled himself at the lighter roan. There was a crash as two shots blended. The roan went down, Strong with him, a bullet in his shoulder. And the black, riderless, went clattering through the cavern to the glen.

Lobo crashed to the ground, shot through the throat, half choking, his head striking the rock, and rolling, half senseless, clawing to find no hold on the slippery edge of Skeleton Creek. He slid into the flood that gripped him, dragged him down, swept him along, reviving enough with the shock of the cold water to thrash helplessly as the coils of water wrapped themselves about him, and the blood, flowing from mouth and nose, mingled with its resistless tide.

As he swept on, sucked under, and then flung half out as if in sport, the fight turned to a flight and a chase. Once his eyes saw the sky, and then he was dragged beneath the ledge of lava where the creek foamed and raged in its tunnel, flung against the sides, the top, the quickly ebbing life bruised out of him. With him, to the last flicker of his brain, rode the phantom of a woman whose staring, acusing eyes seemed filled with gratitude as the corpse of her abductor, her husband's murderer, rolled on down through the subterranean conduit, mile after mile, to be flung up later, as hers had been, in its unsuspected outlet, Lago Claro.

Strong, half rising, saw Lobo roll into the creek, saw his clutching hand thrust out and disappear, to show no more. The roan was on its feet again, standing over him, and he climbed into the saddle, suddenly spent, riding slowly through the cavern where the pursuit had passed, back to the glen that held for him only the end of his swift passion, its brief response.

He saw the posse herding the broken-up outlaws who, cut off, disheartened, surrendered to save their lives. He saw the little rocky fortress, with Hurley seated on the ground, his head sunk on his chest, weak from loss of blood. He slid out of the saddle with a groan. To go inside——

“Señor, she lives! Her heart beat. But breeng water.”

Unbelieving still, he knelt beside her, sought her wound in the hair that was wet and sticky, found it—a shallow gouge.

The night that had been pitchy dark suddenly lightened, with the moon glorious.

“I theenk, señor, mebbe the bullet not heet her. Onlee a piece of rock ees knock' off.”

“Go get water, Pedro. See if you can find some one to look after the others. I'll attend to her.”

Edmonds came, coolly triumphant.

“Let me see what I can do, Strong,” he said. “We've cleaned up. Only Lobo got clear, it seems.”

“I shot him from his horse and the creek drowned him. Look after the men, Edmonds; I'm afraid they're hurt bad.”

“Who's this?”

Then Edmonds saw it was a girl who lay with her head in Strong's lap. Her eyes were open, but she did not see the marshal. She saw only Strong.

“She was struck by a splinter,” said Strong. “I'm looking out for her.”

“You're hurt yourself?”

“That'll hold over.”

Edmonds turned to where Pedro was striving to revive Miguel. Juan was past help. The plucky little cocinero had gone over the range.

Hurley came out on the porch where Maria sat stringing red peppers. He limped as ever, and his arm was in a sling to ease his healing shoulder.

“I ain't had an ache or pain since I got all thet bad blood out of me,” he said. “Reckon most of the rheumatiz went with it. I'm goin' over to the mud-hole to-morrer to take a waller an' make sure.

“If you don't mind, I'll set out here with you. Outside of Pedro, the ranch is jest a reg'lar nest of love birds. Danged if I won't be glad when the four of 'em git married an' settle down.”

“You ever in love?” Maria asked.

“So long ago I have forgotten it. Why?”

“There ees some sort of love that never what you call settle down. Mebbe my Miguel an' Josefa are that way. I hope so. An' Señor Strong an' his señorita, who shall be his señora nex' week, I, Maria, who have seen much love, tell you, señor, those two hav' that kin' of love.”

Hurley shifted his quid.

“Mebbe you're right,” he grunted. “Me, ever since I sat in thet mud, I believe in miracles.”

On the side porch, Miguel was telling Josef much the same thing that Maria had just pronounced.

In the orchard, side by side in a hammock that had been swung in the shade, Lucy and Strong did not exchange assurances. They knew.

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 Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the 
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